Routine Slowly Coming Along

Was able to make it to mass Sunday morning (20SEP14) and quite a few people from the last roto attended even the outgoing CO (commanding officer). She's got a good set of pipes on her and can sing good. Although there was no instruments like Qatar we made the best of what we got singing acapella. I've been to dozens and dozens of different churches throughout my life and each priest ahs their own unique style of delivery on their homily some better than others. Today was no different as father's style was more like a baptist preacher from the south changing his tone of voice from soft to at times it felt like shouting. Definitely one of the more unique one's and kept me on my toes, no head bobbing here.

Work at night was fine nothing worth writing about.

Duty day (21SEP14)
After three years of not doing duty because duty is just working in the pharmacy back at NHTP I am once again back in a duty section. Duty usually consists of manning the quarterdeck (entrance of the hospital 24/7 split into different shifts), food run for the hospital, duty driver, and security. Like I mentioned before we're doing more with less so duty is going to be every 3 days instead of 6 from the previous roto. Duty is 24 hours but 12 of those hours you have to stay in the hospital. So after meeting up with the duty section in the morning I helped out with MWR (morale wellness recreation) to sell patches, coffee mugs, t-shirts, and flags fro fundraising. Hopefully someone artistic in our roto can design something nice to represent us.

Not sure if I mentioned this in a previous post or not but about selling flags. One can purchase an American Flag here through us or at that exchange fill out a form and have it flown at the hospital. It is officially flown here at the hospital in country and a certificate is printed and given to you for the day it was flown. You can dedicate it to whoever and have their name written on it and a personal message. The outgoing pharmacist (from Alabama) had one flown in honor of Nick Saban (University of Alabama head coach football) and my current pharmacist had one flown for Jerry Jones. They both did this in hopes of free tickets to a game. Maybe my boy Kobe or Phillip Rivers will appreciate one.

Slept all day till it was time for my duty shift to muster 1900. So my duty shift was only from 2330-0330 but like I mentioned before we have to be in the hospital for that 12 hours in case of any emergency. Naval history lesson: duty didn't use to exist before until the bombing of Pearl Harbor happened. Hung out in the hospital conference room since it has wifi and tv. My duty shift went smoothly at the quarterdeck but I kept playing scenarios in my head watching the hospital cameras from where I was hypothetically playing scenarios of the purge (movie) in my head or people raiding the hospital. Lot's of day dreaming during the watch although I did have my laptop and was watching one of my top 10 favorite movies Almost Famous."

By the time I got off I tried to catch a quick nap. There are different places in the hospital to actually lay on a bed and sleep so found my way there and caught a nap. The last roto has officially left with a few who stuck around to help us transition. Thankful for the Jenkins (the guy I relieved) left me his bike and gun holster so now I am set. Lot's of little tips here and there go a long way as laundry is something we don't have to worry about as we have a laundry bag drop it off at the hospital and it's ready the next day. The tip is to put some powdered laundry detergent in the pocket of your uniforms to get an extra cleanse if your clothes.