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Friday, January 18, 2008

Gone for a while (updated)

I've got to run into the VA in Anchorage this morning.

The VA needs yet another copy of my medical records, which I forgot to make last night and so am now fighting with the copier to get done in time. Also I've got to take a class at the port, harbor security or some such, so I can get a sticker on my driver's license. My wife works there, and it's a requirement for me so that I can visit her at work. The funny thing is that I probably know more about harbor security and marine force protection than the TSA instructor. I spent a considerable chunk of my life doing it. But every port has different requirements, and I'm now officially a civilian, which means I know exactly jackshit. So, yeah, class.

Anyway, I'm gone for most of my morning and early afternoon.

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Update: OK I'm back.

Anybody want to take a guess as to why the VA could not find my military medical records at the Naval Medical Archives in New Orleans?

Did you guess Hurricane Katrina damage? Well, you're wrong.

The originals were still sitting in a box at the 3rd Medical Wing Records Office, on Elmendorf AFB in Alaska - because the people that run the place are a bunch of retards.

My last posting was as Executive Officer of the Navy IO Detachment here in Alaska. We were located on a couple of acres in the back of the base. We didn't answer to anybody on Elemendorf, our boss was somewhere else, rather we just leased some land from the AF. Want to talk bastard stepchildren? Yeah, nothing worse than being Navy on an Air Force installation.

The Air Force was spawned from the Army Air Corps way back in the late 40's and they are the youngest of the services. As such they've always had somewhat of an inferiority complex around the other services which translates into what could charitably be described as a piss poor attitude when it comes to having to take of anybody not wearing AF Blue. The AF provided support for us, if you want to call it that - often that support consisted primarily of studied indifference, except when it came to the base police, they provided tailored personal service - mostly by targeting my personnel with their radar guns and issuing as many traffic citations as possible.

Anyway, long story short. Instead of forwarding my voluminous medical record to it's proper final location in New Orleans, they kindly threw it into a box and stashed it behind a desk in their records department. Which has held up my VA compensation and pension processing for the last four months while everybody in New Orleans has rooted around trying to find it.

I stomped in there today, and demanded that they either find it or produce a record of it having been shipped. They found it. Oops.

Fucktard idiots. Thanks for the support boys. Stellar job, really.

30 comments:

  1. Maybe while you're there you can negotiate a nicely-paying contract to teach the class yourself? Although you'd probably chew up and spit out the TSA bureacracy.

    Your wife commutes from Wasilla to the port? Yikes, that's a lot of car time.

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  2. Uh, no.

    And yes. My wife does make the commute everyday. She doesn't mind, too much. She's finally getting to use her MBA, instead of following me around the globe.

    And now I've really got to go. Back in a bit. Have fun.

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  3. Gosh Nathan, that sounds like a great idea. Of course, I'll just have to particpate in all y'alls blogs, since I haven't really got around to using mine.

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  4. Woooooo! Jim's not here!
    [runs around with scissors in hand]

    (I feel like we've made this joke before, but a good joke needs to be repeated, doesn't it? ;)

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  5. This is the time when you look in the drawers and closets and put your feet up on the furniture and stuff.

    (pokes through closets)

    (pokes through drawers)

    (blushes)

    (closes drawer quickly and turns back on dresser)

    Hey! Let's watch a movie! I'll go make popcorn!

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  6. Huh, Nathan's trolling again without having yet shown up? *blink blink*

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  7. ::pokes through fridge::

    Do you think he'll mind if we drink his beer?

    Michelle, that looks like the wrong movie collection to me. ;)

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  8. We won't drink it all, just the good stuff.

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  9. Hey, the only beer I have is the good stuff. Life's too short to drink shitty beer. Just don't touch the Bushmill's...

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  10. Michel(1)l(2)e, (yup, gottem all),

    I saw your post on my site first before I got up to date on yesterday's thread here.

    and, Tania

    I think we've gotta work the bugs out of that game before we go off half cocked. But, excellent form.

    BTW, everybody be careful looking in the medicine chest. I'd just bet Jim's the kinda guy to fill it with marbles just to embarrass you.

    Jim,

    I'd prefer a Jameson's if you've got it. :-)

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  11. Actually, I do have half a bottle of Jameson's. I poured you a shot, but I drank it, so sorry. After the last two hours I needed it.

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  12. Hrm, I thought mine had pretty good form too - and that was before I'd even gone to Nathan's blog.

    *prods Nathan to Shawn Powers' blog*

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  13. Um, what the hell are we talking about? (pour another shot)

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  14. *prods Jim to Nathan's blog* ;)

    And woah. Your post expanded since I last checked. Sorry to hear about your woes with the medical records. Glad that it's getting straightened out now.

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  15. Jim, after reading your update, I'm going to suggest you have another drink. Yikes.

    I'll be wandering off to Shawn Powers' place now... la da da

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  16. Jim - I second your opinion of the AF. I was an AF fellow in grad school (i.e. they paid my salary plus some for the whole year). The program officers of the AF scientific grants were just that - regular AF officers. So, every 2 years, the O-6 at Wright-Patterson got rotated. The new guy always had a different background, different emphaisis, and the focus of the research grants office would change - every 2 years. But grants are usually contracted for 4 years. Hell of a way to run a railroad.

    The Navy, on the other hand, had permanent civilian program officers with Ph.D.'s, not some wastoid O-6 with a half-remembered MSc education. Even though they paid my way my penultimate year, I much preferred working on Navy and Army grants to AF contracts. Well, actually, I preferred the DARPA gravy train, but those were hard to get.

    I'm glad you finally got the bastards to do their jobs.

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  17. John, oh yeah, if you can get plugged into DARPA money you're golden - and usually you don't have to produce any actual results, just a non-operational prototype and a promise of weaponization at some nebulous future point. Heh heh (I spent a number of years in R&D at the Navy Research Labs).

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  18. Good Grief, I think I surpassed my personal best for number of typos in a single blog post with that update.

    That's what I get for typing fast - and pissed off.

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  19. Um, what the hell are we talking about?

    ::Snort::

    That's even funnier than your tentacle suggestions.

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  20. *TONG*

    I don't think anyone's trolling, I just wanted to use my new sound effect.

    I'm off to visit Nathan...

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  21. This is turning into something out of a Pink Panther movie, everybody chasing everybody else through rooms in the mansion. I've got this vision of some long, dim hallway somewhere in the bowels of the internet, lined with doors on either side - and one at a time people sneaking back and forth looking for the others who appear singly a moment later heading across the hall to a different room. Pink Panther theme playing the background.

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  22. Jim,

    Scoot over and I'll have some Jameson's with you. Bushmills is good, but I like Jameson's just a tad bit more.

    In fact, I'll even supply my own. (Pours own drink)

    Although because I'm a big baby, I drink mine with ginger ale and ice. And with a side of dark chocolate if it's been one of *those* days.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Nathan,

    If you can't keep track of your own game already, you're going to be in big trouble.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Jim,

    I was just having the exact same thought, but mine envisioned a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

    Michelle,

    I have posted my contrition back at my place... and ginger ale and ice in your Jameson's, Blasphemy. ::Mmmm, think I'll pour one myself::

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  25. Blasphemy!

    One does NOT dilute Irish Whiskey. With a single exception - a shot of it may be put into each cup of Irish Coffee in order to achieve a state of drunken alertness. But other than than, NEVER!

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  26. I don't really have much of a choice.

    I'm a super taster. If I don't dilute alcohol it feels like I'm trying to drink paint thinner or something equally unpleasant that burns my mouth. But when it's diluted it tastes what I imagine it tastes like to regular people.

    Which is delicious.

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  27. FYI Jim,

    GF saw your post about her on my blog and noticed it referenced something on yours. She asked me which blog you were and I said, "Alaska...Kreplach...Duh".

    She said, "Oh, he's the action hero. Why didn't you just say so?"

    And no, even though you haven't asked, she's not overawed because of my celebrity connections. Hers beat the crap out of mine.

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  28. I was actually thinking of those old Scooby-Doo cartoons with the long hallway. In those, I think the characters were being carried by each other, as well.

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  29. Nathan, I'm assuming your GF is in the business too?

    And by the way, I'm liking her more and more - Action Hero, coooool

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  30. Yes, she is in the business. That's how we met. We worked on 5 or 6 movies together before we decided it was probably better for the relationship if we stopped doing that. :-)

    ReplyDelete

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