Women Warriors

This is an article that will appear in the Las Vegas Voice, which features a story from my Mom, about her time as a Captain in the USAF during Vietnam at Clark Air Base in the Philippines.
_____________________________________________________

June 2013     LV Voice             Military Nurses                   Women Warriors

Nursing and the military go back to the dawn of civilization. As soon as society realized that soldiers fight harder and better if they know they will receive medical care, nurses have marched to war with soldiers. In the time of the crusades they were almost entirely part of religious orders. The Catholic Church even had a special order of monks (Knights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem) who provided medical assistance to travelers. These were probably the first military nurses in recorded history. In the U.S. nurses have a long and remarkable history of aiding the military from the Indian Wars to modern day conflicts.

Today we’re going to hear from a retired USAF nurse, Captain Judy Uebbing.  She began her career, along with her husband Don, at Clark Air Base in the Philippine Islands. Clark Air Base was also home to a tribe of aboriginal peoples referred to as Negritos. These aboriginal people had assisted General MacArthur during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. After the Bataan March in which so many Americans perished, General MacArthur guaranteed the Negritos a settlement on Clark Air Base in gratitude for their bravery and warfare skills.

The Negritos had their own culture and government. Since all of them had tuberculosis, when they needed hospitalization, they were placed in Isolation. It was during such a hospitalation of a young Negrito named Manny that Captain Uebbing experienced one of the most challenging and frightening events of her career.  In her own words she describes what happened.

“Captain Uebbing-Captain Uebbing” came the calls in the silence of the 3a.m. hospital corridors. “Help.” I ran to the private room from where the calls originated. There was an empty bed, two frantic corpsmen and a young male patient on the fourth floor ledge. Young Manny was a Negrito, a Phillipine who lived on Clark Air Base grounds with the rest of his tribe. Because he had abdominal pain, he had been admitted to Clark Hospital where I served in the USAF. Oh swell, I thought, another crisis. When Manny woke up in a foreign room in a hospital, he was frightened and homesick for his people. His only way to return, he thought, was to escape by the window. Oh Dear! As I said we were on the fourth floor. My only solution, as I saw it, was to go out on the ledge with Manny and coax him back into his room. I had never been all that crazy about heights but there were no volunteers stepping up to the plate, so out I went. After a few minutes of concealing the abject terror in my voice, and speaking softly and gently, I was able to convince Manny to return to his room. Success!! He chose to sleep on the floor which was fine with me.

I loved serving in the USAF and am proud to be a veteran.”

___________________________________________________

War, raising me, two bouts with cancer... My Mom is one tough broad. 

Hey Mac, Spare a Song?

There's a pithy little platitude that goes something like, "life is what happens while you're making other plans". There is a reason why philosophical tripe like that endures... because it often true.

Take for instance my unplanned reentry into the world of Mac. This happened in a big, big way a few weeks ago when it became clear my company-provided Acer was exhibiting the dreaded death rattle and various associated symptoms of that slow, painful death all PC users will know at one time or another.

"I will not spend more money on another piece of [junk] laptop again", said I, defiantly. I have burnt through all the major brands; Dell, Gateway, Acer, IBM. Am I saying they are all crap? Nope. I am merely saying that I have always preferred Macs, (my first computer ever was an Apple IIGS). I did most of my high school and college work on Mac.

It's a blonde v. brunette thing... you like what you like, who's to say why?

Brunettes, by the way. Not that you asked.

And so a quick flash of the geek signal went out to long time friend and all-time personal tech support person, Greg, who also happens to be an Apple Store employee. Whether a "Genius" or not, he is a literal one when it comes to all things electronica. It was handy having a live-in help desk person in college when that term paper somehow got filed under some elusive folder, or you were facing the dreaded blue screen of death.

I had a PC back then; college is a time for experimentation. I'm not proud of everything I did, but I learned from it and came out a better person.

Post school, it was back to Mac. I had an iMac G4, (the flat screen on the swing arm attached to the snowball base). It was, and still is the most revered appliance I have ever purchased. Now 11-plus years old, it is still in service with Emily's parents. It will soon be replaced because time has passed it by, not because it doesn't work. If we never advanced beyond 2002 technologically, I would have been set forever. All these years without a failure... any failure. It has been spot-on perfect.

Back to present day and a deadline looming for a huge and extremely important project. At least my old Acer kept it all together until about 5 minutes after I needed it to before finally slipping away into the night accompanied by the telltale smell of burning that can only mean one thing. Mort.

Greg set me up with a MacBook Air, which is a literal polar opposite to the old Acer with respect so size, weight and perceived quality. I ordered it on a Monday. I needed it for a Wednesday presentation for that big project. Time was of the essence.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., someone resolved that they needed Emily's nearly identical laptop more than Emily did. They liberated her MacBook. I tracked it but the trail eventually went cold. Hope, and the MacBook were lost.

Greg came through. I picked the new computer up from his house on Tuesday evening. He spent two hours with me hooking me up with all I needed and showing me the finer points of the new OS, which I have limited experience with.

I stayed up much of that night putting my newfound OSX knowledge to good use, creating the presentation that would be live at 10:00 am. the following day. I hope there will be more on that topic soon.

Em got home from D.C. and we ordered her a new computer to replace hers. Luckily insurance, and the venue from which her computer was stolen picked up the tab.

Meanwhile, I was reveling in the the glory of my long-lost iTunes library. It is so nice getting reacquainted with music I haven't heard in years... because I never wanted to hook my iTunes library, (stored on an external hard drive), to a PC. It just felt wrong.

I spent hours, days, months worth of sleepless nights crawling the internet and stealing much of that music back in the day when I first got a cable modem and Napster ruled the world. For a brief few months, porn was the second most popular reason why people logged on to the internet.

Then the feds jumped in an stormed the home of a twelve-year-old girl and took her away at gunpoint in front of her entire neighborhood in broad daylight and the free, unregulated internet peer-to-peer music sharing revolution was essentially over. True story.

And now I have both my music and a big problem. I have a 121 gb of flash memory space (no moving hard drive in this machine!), and it is very nearly full because of said music. Emily's space would soon be, too. A solution must be found!

I bought an iTunes server/mass storage device. So now, I can keep my media libraries on that and we can simply stream them to our computers, freeing up valuable space and providing one library, backed up redundantly on two drives. Did I mention the third drive that will be stored in my fire safe? Oh, and of course it's backed up on the cloud to. If the world ends, my music collection shall remain.

And that music library will continue to grow because I have resolved to divest myself of all physical CDs. I have resisted this for years, because even though I'm pretty savvy, I equate ownership of something with its physical presence. Once all catalogued and backed up, I  shall take my CDs to a second hand music place, sell them for what they are worth and use the funds to buy more used CDs with the intention of adding them to my library, selling them back and repeating the process until diminishing returns catches up to me and there is no more money in trade to be had for new-to-me CDs.

I think this will be more economical than buying albums and songs on iTunes... and it gives me ownership to move the files, something iTunes only allows so many times. Plus, it will give me the chance to engage in the passé, but still wonderful process of going to a music store and flipping through the racks, hoping to find that thing you never knew existed... or had forgotten you couldn't live without for even one more second.

Cost? Too much. It's all too much. But that's never stopped me before and I suspect, coming up on my 38th year that it's just a part of me I'll take to my grave. No point in fighting with fate. You lose every time.

And that sounds a lot like philosophical tripe, you can take to the bank.

Homer's Epic

"I am leaving now" read the text to Emily from me at 5:05pm yesterday. I was leaving from an appointment in Farmington Hills, a northwestern suburb of Detroit. It had been raining most of the afternoon and snow was promised. I decided to make for home 120-ish miles away for a couple reasons. Emily is leaving for a week at the end of this week and I have been traveling a lot. I thought it would be nice to see her at least a little before she leaves. And were I to stay and ride the storm out, I would have to go to a far northeast suburb to my lodgings. Lastly, we were to meet with our attorney to finalize our trust, wills, medical directives and such.

I estimated that it would take me two hours under present conditions during rush hour to get northeast, or about three, maybe three-and-a-half to get home to GR, my wife, my cats, and my bed. Beside, it hadn't started snowing... yet.

It took 15 minutes to get to the highway and once there, I sat still. The once recalcitrant snow now fully and forcefully falling. To pass the time,  I spoke with my attorney, who canceled the meeting I was heading westward to make. I spoke with a co-worker, I spoke with another co-worker. I spoke with Emily. And upon ending that fourth conversation I realized better than an hour had passed and I hadn't traveled the five-and-a-half miles of 696 west.

The roads were very bad and I couldn't help but think that will was going to be one day too late to perform its purpose. The roads were not salted and in spots were sheer ice. No plows or salt trucks were to be found. 40 mph was taking your life into your own hands. I looked down at the speedometer; I was doing 50.

As I headed west into (finally!) thinning traffic, I pushed it a little. Pushing it is what I do. And it was just east of Fowlerville, my confidence hitting the ceiling that I was in the left lane and felt that "oh shit" feeling that you dread when you are driving.

It is almost like floating, but a lot more like being utterly, completely, totally without traction or control. It just so happened the road was curving to the right. I was in the left lane. Next to a pickup who was having the same problem.  We were on sheer, unseen black ice - The dreaded scourge of winter climb highways and secondary roads. Black ice is spoken of by Midwesterners like sea monsters were spoken of by ole timey sailors. With awe, reverence, and unrelenting fear.

I resisted the urge to tap the brakes, instead allowing the car to bounce off the deep snow ruts on each side of the lane to try and slow myself down naturally. Each time, glancing off a little more aggressively, sure I was "going in". I picked my spot in case the pickup or I needed to give.

Thankfully, my 'oh shit' moment ended there and we all stayed on the road headed in the right direction, albeit at a much slower clip. It had already been along drive. I settled in, knowing it was going to be an epic drive.

I hadn't been this intimidated since 1992 when my friend Brian and I sojourned to the D for the car show. It was my first. A wonderful first auto show. The concept Viper, the Concept 1 (Beetle), and many other concepts. This was the era of irrational exuberance in the automotive industry. Nothing speaks to 17 year old boys like irrational exuberance.

The drive home that day way back when was under similar conditions. At the time, I drove a Mustang. Rear-wheel drive, bald tires, no ABS, traction control... no nothing. I was on my own. And I drove home sideways along 96, for literally 100 miles, chain smoking and I'm sure pretending I was having fun. That trip took something closer to five hours, having to go sideways two feet for every five feet forward I went.

There were a couple fun moments. Like while listening to the comedy channel on satellite radio and Bob Newhart's routine entitled "Ben Franklin in Analysis" came on. I didn't much care for the act... not one of Bob's best. But I laughed for the entire five minutes because my radio only displayed "Ben Franklin in Anal". I took a picture. I have proof.

And there was me voice texting Emily my progress. She was worried and I wanted to periodically make sure she knew I was alive. I dictated, "Being passed by semis is disconcerting", which somehow translated and sent as "Being passed by ceramides is disconcerting." Later, we learned ceramides are chains of lipids and hydrocarbons that form amino acids. I imagine it would be disconcerting to be passed by them as well.

Later, Em wrote and asked if I was still going really slow. I let her know I was "In a conga line of traffic. And I can't really have visitors right now. There's no lane." That, of course isn't what I said at all. I said, "I can't really pass right now..." When I expressed in longhand, or long voice as it were "what the f***, it kindly shortened it to WTF for me. Good to know my phone can whip out ceramides and WTF in the same night. That's well-rounded software.

Four hours, seven minutes home, averaging something like 36 miles-per-hour. Epic. Not fun, not cool, not exhilarating, just epic.

Emptying the car, I realized in my haste to get home to my wife, my cats, my bed, I left my bag in the conference room where my last appointment was, 4:07 and a million treacherous miles away. I was crestfallen. Beaten. Done.

And I laughed. Because if you're not laughing, you are crying. And when you cry, people don't much want to be around you.I had driven a long time under some pretty bad circumstances to be around people. I didn't want them to regret my effort.

I took two shots of tequila, hopped into bed with a car magazine and waited until my eyes got heavy enough to guarantee sleep. Tomorrow would mean that I would have to go back and retrieve my bag, feel stupid, waste gas, waste time and worst of all make that epic drive again.

But, that was for tomorrow. Right then, I needed to say goodbye to the epic day and get some much needed rest.

Aunt Polly, I'm Out of Whitewash!

January has afforded me the opportunity to use the snow blower I bought from a former neighbor who was looking to downsize. It's a good one, big, but not too big, powerful enough, easy to maneuver. But there is one fact about using the snow blower that I just can't stand.

No matter which way I aim the "directional discharge chute", the g@dd@mn snow blows right back in my face. It's like I'm being filmed for an episode of "America's Most Annoyed!" a show that surreptitiously films people failing at doing menial tasks.

I hear the neighbors, sitting in their large woolen sweaters, cupping a warm cup of something, looking out the window, snickering. Cackling. Guffawing at the expense of my displeasure. At least I imagine they are doing that, because that tableau jibes with my strongly held view that the universe exists because of, and surrounds only me.

If that were the case, of course the snow would cooperate. Actually, we would have to go much more deeply than that. There would be no snow. Yes, if I could fashion the universe, there would be no cataclysm, there would be no discomfort. There would be no television shows that starred Peter Scolari.

So in spite of my grandiose delusions, I am just a shlub getting "whitewashed" every time I run the snow thrower.

But isn't that life? In alternate universes, a less prosperous me has a backache from hefting snow, because a machine to do the work is an unobtainable decadence. In still another, the machine picks up a piece of decaying blacktop from the driveway and jets it with spectacular force through the next door neighbor's window. I imagine it's possible there is a universe where my cosmic doppelganger is a reedy go-getter who shovels because he, (gulp), WANTS TO!

All this being said and I am still me, living in my reality. Right now my reality is putting the snow clothes back on for the second, (and likely not last), time today and go blow this motherloving snow off my driveway and into my face!

The Car Show That Wasn't, Then Was After All

"I can still go," came the plaintive text from Greg after he read my previous blentry about missing the car show. I had just resigned myself to my fate when that text came through and I began to feel hope all over again.

"Sweet," I said, "I'll come over earlier than planned on Sunday and we can make it for the last day!"

The show was still slammed, deep into the afternoon of the last day of the show. I think that bodes well for the industry and for Detroit in general. I have included here some photos of the new Corvette, which I found particularly fetching. 

The front end run through some filters to accentuate the light reflections.The hood vent, which I found detracting in photos vaguely recalls the shape of the new "Crossed Flags Insignia", which has been the hallmark of Corvette throughout its life, though in many iterations.

The headlights are perfectly sized and highly contoured, like the fenders in which they sit. Those fenders by the way have very complex creases that look expensive to mold in the composite SMC material that makes them up.

Triangular nodes that stick out at the bottom of the front airdam are mandated for pedestrian safety. "Sweep the leg," anyone?

The rear (and most controversial angle) rendered black and white with a some additional clarity added to the "squeem" of light that I captured entirely accidentally while fighting the throng of people, iPhones outstretched all trying to get pictures to add to their blogs.

I want to hate the rear end treatment because it goes against Corvette canon, (Corvettes have had four round or roundel shaped headlights since 1961). 

At first glance, I called it "Cormaro", because it is highly evocative of the current Camaro, which is supposed to be down market from the halo car, Corvette. The Camaro is supposed to aspire to be the Corvette, not the other way around.

I imagine it is to bring the Corvette styling into the fold with other Chevy cars, which are finally, after eons of being designed by committee starting to carry a unified styling theme.Like it or not, it is a Chevrolet rear-end treatment, without a doubt.

In spite of all my ranting, I don't hate it and it is well integrated into the overall design. It makes sense to change form to improve function, rather than doggedly sticking to a played-out esthetic for the sake of tradition. I begrudgingly accept.

An up close detail shot of some of the intricacies of the body shaping. In person, these nuances are much more pronounced. This is by far the most complex Corvette ever in terms of panel shaping and surface detail. Extractor vent seen on rear fender is functional, not fake.

Note the very top of the picture, you can see the white waistband of a teen boy wearing white athletic shorts and a red t-shirt. He was across from us, hands in pocket the whole time, so he ended up in every shot Greg and I took. Later, while cropping and processing the photos, we were inconsolable because he just sticks out in high contrast compared to the rest of the crowd, which tended to collectively be a sort of amorphous grey background. Had we been paying attention, we would have repositioned so this "photobomber" was not a factor. As such, we did not and he is now an integral part of our memories, both real and photographed.


My "Best Looking Concept" car award goes to the Acura NSX. Photos courtesy of Greg Gruley.

Hard to see the stylized flying butress C/D pillar, which stands proud of the greenhouse and doubles as a spoiler, managing the air flow around the back end without resorting to additional appendages. Very classy, efficient and race-car like.

 This car is sculpted tightly. There is not one ounce of fat nor any accoutrement that could be considered superfluous. This car is very evocative of Acura's established design language, except in this case, the execution is brilliant and universally praiseworthy. Not something that can be said for Acura, historically.

Close up view of the front surface treatments. The front and rear of the car are completely cohesive. While many of the elements seen here could never make it to production because of pedestrian safety requirements and some other federal laws, the finished product could still come to market looking not terribly different. That would be a wonderful thing.

 After the show, we dined at a local Detroit legend Traffic Jam and Snug, which I heard of watching "Diners Drive-Ins and Dives" on Food Network. It sports the most unassuming facade, you would never know it is capacious inside, decked out like an old log cabin filled to the rim with chotchkies and memorabiliae from.

Service was good. Dinner was excellent. Greg was very happy with his house-brewed wheat beer and Chicken Marsala, and I with my Delmonico Steak and asparagus.

We got home before the ice started falling from the sky like a plague and split a bottle of Asti left over from the new year. 

Greg and I have known each other for going on 20 years and this is the first time we have gone to the car show, just the two of us. Good people, good show, good food.

Good day!

Poker... I damn near killed her

I played poker last night with a group of guys who have become friends through my friend, Jason. I wouldn't have known any of these guys were it not for that mutual association, but over the past couple years, I suppose I have burrowed enough into their group that I can be considered "one of them."

That means I'm on the low end of the totem pole so to speak, not having been there for years and years of stories and inside jokes. I circumvent that by dominating the conversation and making everything about me. That's how you win friends, right?

Moving on.

I have missed poker several times in a row because of my erratic, (yet somehow at the same time consistent), travel schedule. I was delighted to be able to respond "yes" to this week's game, held last night at Karl's house, our de facto venue.

The long and the short is, I have only finished in the money one time. The rest of the time I have been a loser. One time, I was first out on an Ace-high straight and lost to a  flush that I just didn't see. I lost to Jason, who was also my ride, which meant I was thrust into the enviable and highly esteemed position of "all-time dealer" for the rest of the night. Did I say enviable and esteemed? I meant dreaded and lamentable.

Last night, I tried to outlast Eric, whose pile of chips was about equal to mine. Problem was, my cards went cold a couple hands before his and he outlasted me - By one hand. I missed the money by one hand. And because Karl said so at the beginning of the night, (remember, it's Karl's house, so we kinda let him make up stuff at-will so we have somewhere to play)," 4th is in charge of food next time", I didn't get any money, AND I have more responsibility.

In short, it was kinda like my last 'promotion'. And the one before that, come to think of it. I need a career counselor. 

Moving on.

And because it was Jason's turn to drive, (kinda, but not really since we hadn't discussed it, but we had been switching on and off and it was his turn), and he bugged out at the last minute, I didn't even drink. So there I was. Defeated. Sober. Tired.

But, I couldn't have that much fun at the bar for $20.00.And because it's a friendly game with friendly people in a friendly environment, it doesn't really matter who wins or loses, or who spills what on whom. Someone almost always spills something on someone. What matters is that we have an excuse other than sports to hang out. A lot of these guys golf together in the summer. I avoid golf courses like whores avoid church.

But we have poker. Win, lose or draw, it's always a good time.

The Car Show That Wasn't

There have been more than a few failed attempts at blog posts over the past couple months. I am unhappy about not committing more to consistent posts, but I've always thought if you nice people were going to take the time to read, I may as well be somewhat happy with what I wrote.

And I have just been... drained.

Inherently introverted, the holidays, which now seem like distant echoes of a once familiar song, drain me. On top of that fact, I have also been immersed in a large couple of large projects at work that have stolen my ability to focus on anything else. In short, same old shit I always say when I haven't blogged for awhile.

A little Debby Downer moment, if you please - Life is just not that happy and exciting to write about now. No, it's nothing serious. No, it's nothing that won't be in my rear-view before too long. But right now, its more long sighs and fatigue than it is laughter and manic energy.

Take the car show. Emily loves the car show. Dave loves the car show. Greg humors Emily, Dave and I and is a good sport when we four go to the car show. This is a typically annually ritual, though not strictly annual. Sometimes we can't all go so we don't all go. But surely I go and usually Dave. We are the stallwarts.

Greg has been so busy he forgot about it, Em couldn't work with my travel schedule. That left Dave and I. The staunchest of the car show fans in our world. We made plans to go on Tuesday afternoon, after work. Him, after a long day of doing a job he doesn't love, and me at the end of a long day facing a looming deadline the following morning.

Did I mention the high temperature was 8? Yes. 8. Degrees. Farenheit. That's not a lot of degrees.

Planning to meet at 4:30, I got a text at quarter-of-three from Dave. "How keen are you about the car show?"

I wanted to write back - "Very keen! Keen, keen the car show machine!" Instead, I wrote back what I really felt, "meh."

And because we were both exhausted. And because as Dave so eloquently put it, "I just don't feel like walking five blocks on the coldest day of the year (of course!) only to get norovirus the second I touch the door handle and have to jockey around a million people who are in my way so I can't see all the cars I want but won't ever be able to buy."

It was, without question, an excellent argument, and I was, without question not going to argue against. Besides, not having the chutzpah to argue, Dave is a lawyer... he argues for a living. See: "Lose-Lose Situation".

Historically, it's ALWAYS the coldest day of the year when we go to the car show. I can scarcely recall ever being comfortable, or even safe traveling to and from a car show. Why the industry persists in having a major show in January, in MICHIGAN is beyond any comprehension. The only good thing is even the thieves, bangers, pimps and whores, normally so redolent on Detroit's streets are thinned out significantly during the deepest days of winter.

It's one hard-core crack whore out when it's 8 degrees. I don't mean to be mean or even glib, but you spend enough time around the city of Detroit and you become less moved by the blight, human and otherwise, even while being increasingly aware of it.  

And that about sums it up. A couple guys with a passion for not only cars, but for the industry, the very zeitgeist that is created by the car culture of the Motor City couldn't even see their way to be a little brave, a little patient and a little cold, (ok, a lot cold... it was 8), to go indulge in their great annual ritual.

I managed to sum up everything I wanted to say in one, compact anecdote. See, things really are weird right now.