Meeting of the Executive Committee of SFA graduates in the Austin Area

Well, I am finally home from the meeting of the Executive Committee of SFA graduates in the Austin area. The employees of the Red Lobster off 183 ran us out just a few minutes ago. It seems that they had to close the restaurant so they could open it for the next days activities—weird rule but they seemed to know what they were talking about.

Neither Bobby nor I had seen hide nor hair of Jimmy Phipps since graduation from Texas A&M back in 1970. Forty plus years had gone by just like an overnight.

We managed to induct Jimmy onto the Executive Committee prior to starting any discussion on world peace, the state of the union or the solving of hunger throughout the globe—a hard task, but we managed.

Taking seats in the booth we started in on the questioning of Mr. Phipps: where he had been over the last forty years; what he had accomplished; and what his plans were for the future.

Due to the fact that there were two old military types the conversation naturally revolved around the telling of experienced “war stories”—all of which were true I am sure. Have you ever heard a war story that you even had the slightest bit of doubt as to its authenticity?

We allowed Jimmy to tell several prior to the gauntlet being thrown down. During the telling of an adventure he detailed about an event while stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, Jimmy mentioned that there was nothing between the North Pole and Fort Riley—obviously trying to one-up the cold factor on the entire assemblage. His account of the cold was most likely true to anybody having not ventured north of the Lower 48 but I couldn’t let the challenge pass.

At this time in the tales of the past Jimmy did not yet know of my traveling. I took the opportunity to interject that I was between the North Pole and Fort Riley for the four years I spent on my first tour of duty in the Army and had better first hand knowledge of just what the effects of the Hawk could be. In fact, the Hawk checked in with us prior to heading south. Cold? Man, let me tell ya ‘bout Cold..

After this confrontation we moved on to each of us attempting to one-up one another time and again with our best stories concerning: Fort Hood adventures, flights on C-141s, flights on C-130s, mountain adventures, Fort Drum adventures……..

At the end of each inning, Bobby would add his editorial comments and we would move right back to the confrontation.

The process took an hour to get through our salads and two waiters//waitresses before we ordered lunch.

Once in a while, the conversation would move toward the politics of the state, the nation and the world. Each appropriately adding their own two cents (never more) about the current subject prior to moving on to the next somewhat related (not a requirement) war story and extra innings.

Eventually the waiters forced us to order a meal which was pretty much engulfed without the interruption of the current conflict being described by who’s ever turn it was.

Boy! What a time we had.

I want to publicly thank Big Bucks Bobby for picking up the check. By the way, he promised to do so again whenever we meet north of the Colorado River—this is an option I will not soon forget.

By the time they asked us to leave, the restaurant had ran out of both coffee and iced tea—both sweetened and unsweetened. As I was sitting on the inside and both Bobby and Jimmy had outside seats, the lack of non-alcoholic libations was probably a good thing at this time; I know I was beginning to feel the urge.

We resolved to meet again as soon as we all recovered from “war story overload.”

How HOT do you feel now? - 04 Feb 11

Currently outside here in Austin, Texas it is now +38ºF. It feels like +85ºF compared to what we have woke up to the last two or three mornings. I am back into a T shirt and need sun screen.

I remember the feeling well. After you have been down for so long – even in the teens and twenties – when you go back above certain break points; it feels like its down right HOT.

Surviving in the Army in Alaska some time ago, I learned this lesson very well. That +32ºF point is one of those breaks. There are more below that temperature – believe it or not.

Here’s a couple of pix of the kids outside. The initial few are with the temp close to -30ºF and then what they looked like when the temp had climbed to close to 0ºF. Oh yah, I shoveled that sidewalk. You can’t tell very well but the kids are hunting Easter eggs at 0ºF after a week way below that.

We took a walk over to the river just behind our quarters in late January after the temp had us down for a while. This time again it was close to 0ºF after being down around -30ºF for a couple of weeks. That’s the river ice scraped away. Everybody warmed up with the walk and I couldn’t keep their jackets on them.

The kids used our front yard as the neighborhood sled hill. That’s my son in the brown snow suit. It may be hard to tell but that ice you can see in the next pix was actually put on the hill with a garden hose after the kids had prepared it for that event. They could fly for fifty yards or more after the ice application.

Coming back up from the neighborhood of -50ºF, the next break point you hit is around -30ºF. How can -30ºF be warm? That I can’t explain; you just have to take my word for it – it is.

We spent a lot of time at Ft Greely and was fortunate enough to have been visited by a herd of Buffalo just strolling through our bivouac area at -85ºF. About a week later it was close to -50ºF and I had trouble keeping my troops in their field jackets while fueling choppers that didn’t shut down during the task. Have you got any idea how cold it is under a Chinook (CH-47) that doesn’t shut down during refueling? The wind blast is close to 35 – 50 MPH under there.

Below -50ºF and particularly anything below -75ºF to -85ºF; I defy you to be able to tell the difference; at least down to -112ºF, I believe this to be true. I’ve been there and just don’t believe there is a difference.

Outside now the sun is beginning to cover the entire backyard and that +38ºF temp will quickly start heading back down and I won’t be in a T shirt when I take the pups out to play ball in just a little bit – No way!

It’s SAD, just SAD! - 31 Jan 11

As the Middle East continues to erupt in bullets, flames and mobs of thugs roam the streets proving that the world in some areas is still just as backwards as it always has been; we sit in our homes and have a new disorder to consume our worry.

You may have never heard of it. I hadn’t until this very morning – it’s SAD. Yah, that’s right; it’s SAD. That’s SAD as in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I thought it was bad (sad) enough when we just had to worry about cabin fever. Now I find that I can develop a disorder called SAD. I was feeling pretty good up until I heard this on the CBS Early Show. Shoot! They even described what it was, how it effected me and what I could do about it.

The first symptom to watch out for is worry. What, me worry? I don’t worry. There’s far too many others worrying for me to have to take up that mantra. I’ll just leave it to them. So I’ll just move on; looks like I may be able to dodge this after all.

Then they hit me right where I live. Sleep! Come to find out a guy just might be getting too much sleep. I had been working toward the other direction – trying to get more. Now I learn I might need to cut back. Probably will have to stop taking that mid-morning and mid-afternoon nap. I may even have to go back to watching the 10 o’clock news to counteract the early to bed–Franklinism I had been working on. Whoa, getting too much sleep; what’ll they get me for next?

Oh yah, that’s it. They never think I’m getting enough exercise. They always come after you on that exercise gambit; don’t they? I always said: “Never trust anybody named They!” Well, what am I gonna do to get more exercise. I guess I’ll have to fill in some of that sleep time I giving back with some sort of exercise; but what’ll it be? I’m already going on what amounts to a forced march with Little Gus and Little Otis every morning. Those two try to walk me to death every morning of the world. Maybe I’ll take up some of that stationary exercising, it’ll probably help. Of course there’s always those forms of mental exercising; I’m gonna be awake anyway – might as well keep the ole mind in gear.

Finally the gal on the Early Show said that if one has a routine that it would be best to break it up. My routine was pretty full as it was. I moved straight from the bed first thing in the morning to the breakfast table where I consumed a hearty bowl of raisin bran with blue berries and 2% milk. Next I get the wife off to her work; don’t want her to arrive late and get her pay docked. I move quickly to the couch, turn on the Early Show and read the entire newspaper. Before I know it, both pups are nagging me to start that forced march I mentioned earlier.

I get those guys around the block, give them a biscuit, put them into PupLand and go to check my email. Ya gotta keep up with what’s going on around you. Just as soon as email has been handled, I am off to that mid-morning nap. Just as soon as the noon whistle goes off, I am after that bologna and cheese sandwich – man, a full morning. The afternoon is somewhat a repeat of the morning.

So now I am fairly confused. If I substitute some mind exercise for the naps; am I not in just about the same routine I was in before I started getting well (or un-SAD)? How have I helped my situation?

I decided to put some effort into checking further into what I could do. I went to the net. There’s gotta be some good advice out there. As I start with a yahoo homepage, that’s where I began – yahoo health (http://health.yahoo.net/channel/seasonal-affective-disorder-sad.html). I wasn’t sure they helped at all. I sure don’t feel lethargic. I can get me a fresh glass of iced tea at the drop of a hat; just don’t ask me to bend over and retrieve that hat. I don’t feel any social withdrawal; in fact I could use just a slight cutback in my social life. I had already planned on doing just that and increasing my sleep schedule – now I have to chunk that idea.

Wikipedia was my next stop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_affective_disorder). These guys tried to feed me the line that this disorder comes with the change of seasons – what a bunch of bull. If I got it, I got it all year round. I’m not falling for this change of seasons malarkey. This site did mention some (maybe) worthwhile treatments that yahoo hadn’t brought up. I’m gonna look into light therapy, cognitive-behavior therapy and something called ionized-air administration – that’s gotta be good for ya. I’m pretty sure that I’m gonna stay far away from that “carefully timed supplementation of the hormone melatonin” – that just doesn’t sound like me at all.

Just to be sure I hadn’t stumbled on a bunch of quacks on the first two sites, I found another, more classy site – the Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/seasonal-affective-disorder/DS00195). These guys gave me a definition and sent me on my way.

I think I’ll stay with my current self-diagnosis and just try to get me some more sleep and hope the seasons get their act together.