A day with the Privates

For the first several weeks here I'll be working at the "reception center". It's a big building that all the brand knew recuites go through. They arrive in their PT clothes (classic gray army shirt and black shorts). They're given a number and they start the whole "welcome to boot camp" proceedure. Most of them flew in the night before and have not slept, nor will sleep until the following night.

As they work their way through the recption center they get lots of briefings, shots, hair cuts, dental exams, eye exams, and of course they get their uniforms - after which they get their picture taken. There's probably even more that goes on that I'm not aware of. Oh, and of course they do get yelled at - a lot.

They all seem very scared of their drill sargeants. Their drill sargeants seem scared of the officers (although they aren't sacred of offiers, it just looks that way becuase they respect us). So...when the young Privates see their drill sargeants stand up a little straigher when I walk by, multiply that by 10 and that's how the Privates react.

Anyway, enough about that. It is fun though being the one nice person they get to talk to. I can tell they really appricieat it.

So, for all those eye doctors that may read this (and their actually may be 2 or 3) I'll describe a little bit of what we do in the recpetion center.

From 6:00-8:00am we have sick call. Anybody that is already in training here or even permenently stationed here can come in without an appointment and have us look at them. Most of them just need glasses for whatever reason. We do get a few red eyes (usually contact lens related, which they're not allowed to wear during training), and your usual randome crazy stuff, but like I said, mostly they just need glasses.

From 8:00-11:30 we see the new recruits. They are bought in in groups of 15 or so and a group history is done. Something like, "Does anybody here have a history of eye surgery or eye injury?" etc... All of them are screened by one of our techs. If they can see 20/20 with each unaided, they're done. If they can't, or already know they need/use glasses (or contacts) they move on to see either myself or the other eye doctor. They are only there for a refraction. We use one of those automated phoroptors and as long as they don't have any complaints (which they never do) they spend about 1-2 mintues with us. If they've been wearing contacts we'll take a look at them with the slit lamp as many of them will have some pretty serious CL related corneal issues. And of course we'll take a more indepth look if we can't get them to 20/20 and there's no indication of refractive or strabismic amplyopia.

Lunch is from 11:30 to 12:30. I ride my bike home and eat there.

From 12:30 to 2:00 we have another walk-in clinic time. Most of these patients need to be "updated in Medpros". That just means they've been told that it's been a year since their last eye exam and so they need to stop by and see us. Most of these patients are not dilated unless they have a compaint or condition that warents it. Like the morning patients, most are just refractions.

From 2:00 to 3:00 there are no more patiens. This time is used to go through and electronically sign all the records that the techs put into the computer for the day. It's nice because for each paitent I hardly have to record anything. The biggest thing I would have to record is the glasses prescription and the automated phoroptor I use just prints it out for me. So all I have to right down (on the average patient) is their vision through the manifest, their refractive state, and if I want them to wear them full time or not.

It would be really monotonous over time but for now I really enjoy it. After Thanksgiving I'll be over at the clinic in the hospital. The patients (and eye exams) there are more like your classic full eye exam. At the hospital the hours are 7:30-4:30 with patients scheduled every 40 mintues for full exams and 20 minutes for short exams. At the recpetion center we see between 60 and 400 patients a day.

Here is a picture of an automated phorotpor like the one we use:

Lego's!!

Last week my Mom sent me all my Lego's. I was really excited to get them. I spent several hours on Columbus Day trying to put together some of the sets. I'm glad we saved all the instructions. It takes a long time to build them because I want to use only the exact piece the instructions ask for. Several times I was sure that I'd never find a particular piece only to find it later while looking for another.

I'm going to give one of them to Clark for Christmas. Probably the space ship.

I have a white passenger plane I wanted to make but I can't find the wings. They're pretty big so I'm sure I haven't just overlooked them. Oh well. I guess I'll just make a white passenger missile instead.

Here's the three sets I've made so far:

Picture Tag

Hey Rachel, here's mine:

For an explanation, please see Mrs. Hacking's blog

A day with Clark

Today I went with Clark's class on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. I saw patients from 6:00am-8:00am and Ginger (the other doctor) was nice enough to cover for me so that I could go.

A bunch of other parents and I all followed the kids' bus. It was about 40 minutes away. When we got there I was given 3 other kids to watch besides Clark. They were all really good kids and were easy to watch.

Fist we went through a corn maze:



Then we played while we waited for the next tractor to take us all to the actual pumpkin patch:

The kids loved jumping off this bail of hay!


Can you guess what Clark said after he got a good whiff of the pigs?


While we waited we took a few pictures.
Here is Clark and his class:





Contrary to what Clark's face is telling you, he did have a really good time!

Then the tractor came:


I didn't actually get any pictures of the pumpkin patch itself, but I promise we really did go there.

Here is a picture of Clark and his good friend from down the street with their pumpkins:


More play time:


Lunch time...


...and more play time:


Clark had a good time and I'm glad that he's making some good friends and enjoying school more and more.

Tonight after dinner, Clark, Cal, and I went to the free movie theater here on post. We saw Wall-e. It was pretty good. Clark really liked it (plus one of his friends from school sat next to him) but I think it was too long for Cal.

The Processor Poll Plumate

First of all, thanks for voting!

Second, thanks for nothing! I was hoping to get some good information from my last poll: Which processor is better, AMD, or Intel?

Almost everybody voted: "I don't know" except for two: one said "AMD" and the other "Intel".


It would have been much nicer if a bunch of people had voted "it doesn't matter" or in favor of one of the processors. So, I'm going to assume that it probably doesn't matter for the computer tasks I need.

Maybe I can come up with a more helpful poll for all of us....

A visit to the dentist...or was it?

So this morning I had to go the dentist. That's right had to go. I don't mind poking and prodding eyes, but I'm no fan of tooth torture.

My last visit to the dentist...which was 5 years ago...was not very pleasant; however, I didn't have any cavities. So, today I expected the worst.

In the Army (or at least at this clinic) they just do x-rays and have the dentist look at you and do any work that needs done. Actually having your teeth cleaned is a different appointment. So, after my x-rays were done (and an hour wait) they sat me in a room to wait for the doctor. You would agree why I was momentarily confused when a member of our Memphis Stake presidency came and sat next to me.

Umm...am I being called to the Elder's quorum presidency again??

Nope, Presi...I mean, Doctor Shirley was my dentist today and we had a good visit. Well, as much as a visit as possible when one is looking in your mouth.

It's funny because I didn't even know he was a dentist or that he'd moved, so it was weird to see him. Anyway, the best news of all...I have "beautiful teeth" albeit they're not that strait and "no cavities"!!!! That's strait from the doctor's mouth.

Thanks Mom for all those fluoride chewable vitamins when I was little!

Yum!

Last weekend Ruth made some coffee cake (spice cake). It was sooooo yummy!

Here's a picture of it not long after she made it:

PCS (Army for "Travel Saga")

Saturday:

Got up at 3:30 and took a taxi to the airport.
Flew from San Antonio to Chicago and then on to Raleigh.

Ruth and her dad picked me up at the airport while the kids, mom, and Sheldon stayed with the moving truck at a nearby gas station.

From there we said our good-bye's and I said my hello's with a much needed kiss from Ruth. I took the boys in the truck with me and Ruth had the girls in the van. We had to weigh the truck and van both empty and full since the Army bases their moving pay on the weight moved. Ruth had weighed the truck empty before I got home. We stopped pretty soon to weigh the truck full but the van still had a full tank of gas so we wanted to get rid of some of it before we weighed it.

We stopped in Winston-Salem and visited with our friends from Johnson City - they had moved the same time as us to do a residency. We had a good visit and our kids had a good time.

The weigh station was just past Asheville where we would be heading north to Johnson City. That meant we'd have to backtrack a little but at that point it seemed like the best option. By the time we got there I was just about out of gas. As I pulled into the gas station all the pumps were blocked off. It turns out that the whole town (3-4 gas stations) were completely out of gas. The truck was so low on gas that I didn't dare drive it the 10 miles back to Asheville so after taking everything out of the van so that we could weigh it empty we all piled back in and left the moving truck there. The first gas station we got to was only 5-6 miles away and they had both gas and diesel!! Yeah!! We bought a small fuel container and filled it up with diesel to take back to the truck.

In the end it all worked out and we arrived at Johnson City, albeit a little later than we'd hoped. I think we went to bed around 1:30 that night.

Sunday:

We went to church with our old ward in Johnson City. It was fun to see our old friends. The kids did well in primary and we were on the road by 1:00ish. We drove to Paducah KY where we stayed the night.

Monday:

We slept in a little and took our time getting ready. We were on the road by 10:30 or so. It was fun to see the Arch of St. Louis as we drove through. We arrived at Ft. Leonard Wood around 5:00 that afternoon. We checked into our hotel and then went on base to see if I could "sign in" so that we could stop the old "travel clock".

I guess we got there too late to officially sign in but I found out where I had to be the next morning for an inprocessing brief. So we drove around Ft. L.W. and got a better look at the place.

We stayed in a suite that night since we weren't sure how long we'd be without a place to live. It was pretty nice. It had a little kitchen and Ruth and I had our own bedroom and TV.

I'm glad our traveling is over for the time being.

The last week of OBLC

The last week of OBLC was an optometry-specific set of classes. There were about 10 of us there. We talked about...(drum role please)...Optometry in the Army!! It was pretty good info as there are a lot of different forms and reasons for people coming to the eye doctor.

We also looked at and put together all the equipment that an optometry team would take with them to Iraq. It was actually a lot nicer than I thought it would be. Most of it was exactly what we use in a normal clinic except it's made to all fold up and fit into half a dozen green crates.

Tuesday night we all went out to eat to a weird place. Wednesday for lunch we all went to the WD Deli. It was really yummy. Thursday night we all went to LTC Allen's house for a BBQ. They had a really nice house for entertaining and have recently left the world of DINKs as their first child was born this summer. Her husband, also an LTC, in a radiologist and just got home from Iraq last month. COL Glenesk was also there. He's the optometry consultant for the Army (kind of like the chief optometrst for the Army).

Friday we out-processed and that night Jess, Darin, and I went out to Chachos for dinner. I had a quesadilla. It was super yummy. I also packed that night and got ready TO GO HOME!!!!!!!!!

I have to say that I'm thankful for my roommate Marco. He was a great roommate! We didn't do a whole lot together but he made the whole experience a lot more tolerable.

Here a picture of our optometry group in uniform


Here's me chatting with the COL


Here's a picture of Ina, Jess , Darin, and Jad

Day 41

Today was the first day of our optometry track. We met at 9:00am and went over different forms we'll be using, coding, and the different tests we do based on the reason for soldier being there. For example, those wishing to go to flight school (which tends to be pretty popular) get just about every test in the book, while those who are established and are just fulfilling the requirements for their yearly physicals get only the bare necessities.

We had three different Army O.D.'s talk to us and one of the more seasoned Papa 3's (which is a technician).

We had two other O.D.'s join us today. They are West Point grads and did their OBLC before optometry school. They both graduated from optometry school this spring like the rest of us.

I checked out the last book to the Percy Jackson series and started reading it today. So far it's pretty good. I hope I can finish it before Friday. I've had a hard time finding a library that actually has it on the shelf.

Ruth is putting the kids to bed. I'm just waiting for her to call and then I'll probably start getting ready for bed myself.

Isn't he cute?!


Careful, he bites...

A Picture of a Picture

Here is a picture of my platoon!


Here it is in a couple of zoomed in views:

Our 6th Anniversary!!!

Today is Ruth's and my anniversary! We've been married for 6 wonderful years. I know it's cliche to say, but they've by far been the best six years of my life!

I'm sad that we can't be together today..... and yesterday, and tomorrow, and the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow, etc, etc, etc...

Just five and a half more days and we'll be back together again, only to get in different vehicles and drive out to Missouri. We'll be stopping in Johnson City TN Saturday night and in Paducah KY Sunday night. Monday we'll sign in at Ft. Leonard Wood MO.

Church went well today. 2LT Sobek was able to make it out which was nice. He's a nurse in my platoon. He and his wife will be moving to Hawaii when he's done with OBLC. Darin and Chris (Stoker) were out of town so Jess and I walked to the library where we have our meetings. Either Darin or Chris usually give us a ride.

After church I ate lunch and went back over to the library to turn in / renew some books I had checked out. I stayed for a while and read my scriptures.

Since I've been home Ruth called and we read scriptures and talked for a little while on the phone. When I get done with this I'm going to watch a couple of conference talks from last April.

A Lazy Saturday

This morning I got up and walked (now that my bike is in the mail) to the DFAC to eat breakfast. I had a yummy ham and cheese omelet, with sausage, and a waffle (which wasn't very good). I then walked over to the Px to see if they had any running shoes on sale as mine are as old as my helmet and seem to be bothering my feet. They did have some on "clearance" but they were still too expensive.

I then walked over to the gym to work out. I had a good workout and it wasn't too busy so I was able to use all the equipment I wanted.

I decided after working out to run home. As I went to each of these places this morning I was getting further and further away from my dorm so my run home was quite a lengthy one.

When I got home I ate lunch and watched TV. I didn't really do too much the rest of the day. It was actually pretty nice.

The BYU game wasn't on TV and for some reason my computer wouldn't let me listen to it so I clicked on the "live update" link and read the game play by play. Well, I didn't actually read every single play, but I did try and keep tabs on what was going on. They beat Wyoming 44 - 0. Between last game and this game they now have 103 unanswered points!

I ate dinner a little early so later that night I walked over to Burger King and got a milk shake. There were a couple of good college football games on TV that I kept checking up on.

When Ruth called today she told me that she got a surprise in the mail. It was our wedding book that I had contracted with Ruth Whitemarsh to make for us. I was able to pull the whole thing off without Ruth knowing so she was really surprised and excited to get it yesterday. I had to pat myself on the back because it is really hard for me to surprise her.

Day 40

Today was our graduation!!

This morning we took our test. Nobody in my platoon failed it. After that two of the commanders over our course gave us a little "thanks for coming and go out there and do good" speech.

We then had graduation practice. We went through it several times.

Graduation officially started at 1:00. The main speaker was General Horaho (the main commander over the entire nurse corp). She gave a good speech. By 1:45 it was all over.

After graduation I went to the mail room to get my bike box from them. They were very nice to keep it in their office for me. I found a shady place outside and disassembled my bike and put it in the box. I then carried the box (with the bike in it) about two blocks to the UPS store. They were very helpful and helped me tape it up and get it on it's way. By the way, when I told my roommate this story he said, "why didn't you just role your bike over with an empty box?" Duh! I don't know why I didn't think of that, but that would have been a lot easier.

Also I finally bought a new helmet. I got it on eBay. Ruth said it came in the mail today. My plan was to just through my helmet away instead of packing it all the way out to Missouri; nevertheless, I just couldn't do it. It was my first helmet and have been using it for 14 years straight! That's half my life!! Anyway, I still have it. Maybe when I can actually handle my new helmet in my hands I'll be more empowered to throw my old one away.

When I got home Jess called me and said he wanted to go golfing tomorrow. I said I wanted to go. He called and found out that it would be cheaper if we went today, so we left right away. We rented clubs and a cart, and played 9 holes. It was really fun. We didn't play that well, but we had a good time.

We got done too late to eat at the DFAC so we went to the Burger King that's across the street from our dorms.

Since then I've either been talking to Ruth on the phone or writing this, or watching TV.

Some of the Armyisms I've Learned in 8 Weeks

High Speed = gung-ho, into the whole "Army Thing" (can also say that one is "all Hooah")

To move with a purpose = fast

Double time = faster (also used as an official command to go from marching to running)

Combat speed = even faster (the prior service guys always tell our teachers to do the lecture at combat speed)

Hooah = used as a response to a statement - can mean: O.K., alright, got it, sounds good to me, you bet, etc... Those that have a bad habbit of using this word will also use it at the end of all their sentences in the same way many of us say "you know".

Hooah (hü-ä or who-ah) is a U.S. Army battle cry. It is used^[1] by US Army soldiers "Referring to or meaning anything and everything except no".^[2] The word's etymology is unclear, but one possible origin is that it is based on the acronym HUA, meaning "heard, understood, acknowledged".^[3] Another possible source of the term is as a vernacular corruption of the term "Huzzah" a Battle Cry in use by United States soldiers during the early to middle 19th century and documented by personal and offical memoirs of the American Civil War.

Roger that = got it (we're on it)

Secure your gear = get your stuff

That's a (big) No Go = that's wrong, don't do it

To get smoked = to have a superior punish you (more likely to be physical, like doing tons of push-ups)

To get scuffed up = to have a superior punish you verbally

Squared away = ready to go

The Sand Box = Iraq

There's a slew of acronyms that inevitably get turned into words, in that they are used as nouns, adjectives, and verbs; however, I'll forgo putting those in here to save you a few hours of reading time.

If I think of any more I'll add them.

Day 38

This morning I had to go to the formation before PT (5:00). After everybody got there and they were ready to start they let all of us go that were on that list yesterday - the one about our immunization records not getting put into the computer from the day before.

When we got there they had us wait for about half an hour. At first they thought we were there for immunizations, but they soon found out that most of us had just been immunized. It turns out they didn't know why we were there and based on what we told them they couldn't tell why we were told to come. The guy there said that if we had an accurate print out to not worry about it. He said that most people's info shows up instantly on the web, but there's a certain percentage that doesn't. Evidently somebody that doesn't know that saw that and panicked and had us all report to the clinic at "O"-dark thirty. Oh well, at least we didn't have to go to PT.

The rest of the morning and the early afternoon we had classes. At about 2:00 we had our dress blue inspections. They did it the easy way and just had us put our jackets on so that they could see all the pins, ribbons, etc. and make sure they were on there right.

After that I went home and hung out until dinner. When I went up there to the dining facility there was a bunch of people there from my platoon so it was fun to eat and visit with them.

We got our battalion T-shirts today. Marco designed it but they changed some of the stuff so he was a little annoyed at that. It still looks pretty good though. Tomorrow we get to wear it for our battalion run (basically the whole battalion runs in a large group down the street for about 2 miles, not too bad).

Day 37

Today we had a few classes and then we filled out the paperwork to get our clothing allowance. Somewhere in between all that we had lunch.

They named off about 30 people that have to go back to the clinic to show them our vaccination records from yesterday (they lost some). I was one of those lucky ones, so tomorrow instead of going to PT I'll be taking my paperwork to the clinic to prove I was injected.

Tonight after dinner I went and played football with a bunch of people from my platoon. About 17-18 of us showed up. It was pretty fun.

When I got home I talked to Ruth on the phone and got my dress blue uniform ready for tomorrow. It turns out one of the pins I bought is the wrong one. Not a big deal. If I have time tomorrow I'll go and exchange it. If not, I'll show them the ones I have and where I would have put them.

Day 36

Today we had our platoon picture done. After that we had the morning off until 11:45 at which time we did some of our medical in-processing. Only half our class did it this afternoon. The other half did it early this morning.

First we did dental. Only those going over-seas actually saw the dentist. The rest of us just had x-rays done. I guess we'll get a real dental exam when we go to our duty stations. After that we waited for a long time to get our vaccinations up-to-date, have some blood drawn, read the eye chart, and make sure we had received all the glasses we were supposed to.

It was pretty funny when they gave me the PPD for Tuberculosis. That's when they inject the little but of fluid under you skin on your forearm and re-check it in a couple of days to see if it reacted. Anyway, normally they say something about not scrubbing it too hard or pushing on it. the guys that did mine said "don't scrub it, poke it, or dig it out with a knife." The sad part is that he probably said that because somebody's done it before.

I got done with that at 6:15. Yep, 6 1/2 hours to get my teeth x-rayed, and a little lab work done. But...at least it was "free"!

I found out today that the travel office won't pay for my plane ticket back to Raleigh because technically I'm only supposed to go to Ft. Leonard Wood from here. I told them that I had to go home to get my family and my household goods. They said that I could exchange the ticket to MO for one to NC and that I'd only have to pay the difference ($19) but that I would lose the chance to collect per diem. I hope they give me an appointment with the travel office soon so that we can get some of this figured out.

Chachos

Here's a few pictures I took at Chachos yesterday with my cell phone.

Here's where you order the Mexican food:


To the left there is where you order their yummy pizza:


Here's where we played pool and watched some of BYU/UCLA game:


Here's a couple pictures of their huge play place (these pictures really don't do it justice):