Nom de plume: Rivrdog

God Bless the Marine Corps

Thanks to the Armorer of Arrggg!, I was connected with an amazing development in military vehicles, the Expeditionary Fire Support System Prime Mover of the USMC, a product built by General Dynamics.

The EFSS is designed to tow the heavy 120mm towed mortar, and special purpose trailers with it's ammo supply. A Mortar Company would accompany most Expeditionary units put down in the shitholes where the USMC fights. The Marines are heavily invested in the V-22 Osprey, now known to the Corps as the MV-22. That aircraft is restricted to loading rolling stock of a max width of 60" (five feet), which lets out using HumVees, as they are three feet too wide. The old M151 Jeep was about the right size, but didn't have enough grunt for the grunts (and is obsolete), so General Dynamics built them a new one with a vastly-improved chassis with 4-wheel drive AND steering, and CTIS (I hated the central tire-inflation system when I had to work on it and with it), and a decent Navisatar Defense I-4 turbodiesel to move things down the road, a multifuel engine that will burn JP8 jet fuel, too.

Just as I was congratulating the USMC on their choice of a more modest jeep-ly vehicle, I noted that the General Dynamics website mentioned another vehicle in the family, the LSV, the Light Strike Vehicle. Be still, my pounding heart, could this be, could it be...

YESSSSS, it is an assault 4X4:

Having fought in said shitholes for decades, the Marines have encountered what became known as "technicals", light trucks mounted with auto weapons. What better way to fight them than to have your own "technicals"?

The grotesque up-armored HumVees and MRAPs have their place, I'm sure, but for zipping around and still dealing death via Ma Deuce, the LSV looks like a decent deal, AND it gets there at 250KT by MV-22.

Huzzah!

Huzzah! News: I am discharged from the care of the Providence Cardiology Dept, which, having controlled my BP (but never having found out why it spiked), says that I have ZERO Peripheral Artery Disease, and am therefore cleared for UNLIMITED EXERCISE! ! ! !

I will decide which one of you gets to do that exercise. I would have decided by now, but it's been nap time....

That is all. Since it is now Cocktail Hour, a ritual I unfailingly observe with the dignity it requires, I might not get this decision done until Monday.

You will be kept informed.

(This Obama-style Life Management is sooooo easy!)

Huzzah! Trial balance, achieved!

I don't fancy myself a member of the Green Eyeshade Fraternity, and when I downloaded the IRS form 990EZ (can you imagine a tax form in 4 pages, with extra schedules, being designated an "EZ" form?), I was somewhat daunted. I persevered with high-school double-entry accounting principles (What? High schools don't teach that now?), and just now, achieved a trial balance on WillBoat's books that got me to within $49 on a year-long ledger with almost $25K on each side of the books. Of course, depreciation of assets takes up that $49, so I have balanced the books and am ready to file the taxes, on time by May 15.

Do YOUR company books come within 0.02% of balance, done by a book-keeper with no formal accounting training?

/boast/off

Meme time

Meme: What is the last thing you dreamt about before you woke up this morning (noon, night whatever shift you work)?

Me: I was up on a stepladder, peeking in the inspection port of a B-61 nuclear gravity bomb in the bomb bay of the B-52 I was about to go on alert with. I was observing to see that the Yield Selector was set to the correct yield (kilotonnage) for the alert mission. This is an old Cold War dream. I performed that checklist of weapons acceptance so many times that I even remembered the correct response to the Navigator's challenge for the setting from his reading of the checklist. Thank God I never had to actually drop a B-61.

What was YOUR final bit of dreaming before you awoke to face the cruel world today? 

Grandfather kitsch

The kids took a beach trip this past weekend. SIL took some photos, and this one is my favorite. It shows both grandkids playing in the sand. Pic embiggens mit klikken.

It also shows that instinctive Big Sis "look" which I had to suffer for all of MY growing through that stage.

BTW, warm clothing on the beach in Oregon is appropriate for most of the year. Warm days are few as the ocean never gets much above 56 degrees. That is a VERY low surf for this season, though. I could have made Puget Sound on an efficient 22-knot plane in Lofoten Girl, had I the desire (and gas money) to take her North.

wan that Aprile...

...with it's showres soote,

the drouthe of March hath pierced to the roote...

...or so Geoffrey Chaucer said. March droughts are rare here in the PacNorWest, but we've had one this year.

It's 70 in the shade now, so I declare the outdoor BBQ pit open for the season. I had to use some A/C in the truck today, too. A black truck gathers no coolth, some sage once said...

If you're Irish...

...and I'm one-eighth blarney-slinger, raise yourself a toast of Bushmill's (none of that pisswilly Jameson's in THIS house).

I'll have to double back, though, and raise another toast, it will be Beam and Coke, for on this date, 46 years ago, I raised my right hand, took the Oath of Enlistment, and began my USAF career, as an enlisted man, Officer Trainee (OT) in Officer Training School. I got on a plane and flew off to San Antonio, TX to Lackland AFB's Medina Annex, where that school was located, and worked my butt off for the next 89 days, becoming one of the last "90-Day Wonders" on 30 May, 1967. Shortly after my class graduated, the course was lengthened a month, 30 more days to earn those butter-bar insignia of a Second Lieutenant (Ensign for you squids).

So, even though I was to become a commissioned officer, for those 89 days in OTS, I was an enlisted guy. Had I failed the program, I would have been an Airman Basic (E-1) at the point of failure, sent across the road to Boot Camp at Lackland AFB. I passed though, graduating in the bottom third of my class, but I graduated, becoming an O-1. I eventually made O-4 (Major).

Yep, I will celebrate today. Life's a bit bleak around here with the gudwife in DNIMOA status (Duty Not Involving Much of Anything), but I'll have a couple shots anyway, after the Visiting Nurse leaves this afternoon.

Since the Oregon Ducks won the PAC-12 Championship last night in Men's Roundball, I might even watch some "bracketology" to see where they get placed with their automatic berth in the Big Dance. I will have to count the shekels to see if there might be enough to make some modest wagers...

Not dead yet

...but there might have been a moment or two in the last few days that I wanted to be. 

Norovirus is nasty shit. Hits like a ton of bricks, takes the life out of you.

Zofran is my friend, but Zofran has a bite, too: it stabilizes the stomach so you don't feel like upchucking so much, but it loosens up the bowel something fierce. Since the virus bloats you up with gas, you have to pass it, but the medicine's effect is to dull your senses down below the waist, so you can't tell dry gas from wet gas...enuff of that.

Off the Zofran now, for 24 hours, things are returning to normal, even just had a bit of toast and jam, and some applesauce.

Gatorade is my other friend with this disease. I'm getting in a steady amount of Gatorade G2, between 1 and 2 quarts a day.

No, I wasn't on a cruise. We believe that my wife picked up the Norovirus during one of her many doctor visits last week, and norovirus being one of the most transmissible diseases known to man, I naturally got it from her, being her caregiver. She is over her case, I am just getting over mine.

End of Sick Bay Report.

Piling on

When the SGT assigns the PVT a job as latrine orderly, what's the worst that can happen? The PVT still gets to go to chow, still gets time in the bunk, still gets other training, right?

What about when the SGT takes the PVT's shit-shovel away and tells him to use his hands to get the job done?

After more or less negotiating a really rough path, but with some distance to go, I don't get to lean on MY shit-shovel for a break.

I'm now a full-time nurse for the gudwife, who has some vascular issues in one leg, leading to some sort of foot infection (inside the foot) that makes her non-ambulatory (can't walk on it, for those of you from the Eighteenth Street gang who flunked out). We have to fight hard to save the foot and/or leg.

Many fine doctors are attending, but she's not quite bad enough to be hospitalized, so I am the nursing staff and Schloss Rivrdog is the nursing home. I have quite the care plan for her to follow, and it is a 16-hour per day job for me. Schloss Rivrdog of course, was not built to be handicapped-accessible, so the work to enter and leave with her is extreme.

As a political aside, Obamacare rulz are getting in the way also, but since the matter may have to be resolved in court, that's all I'm going to say for now.

Wish me and her some luck, and will some Major tell that @#$^*&^%$# Sergeant to give me my shit-shovel back? I can shovel shit with the best, but scooping shit bare-handed is tough on an old man.

Oh, and fair warning: blogging may be shitty spotty.

 

Light at the end of the tunnel

My tunnel.

On 1-25-13, I first became aware that I had a severe hypertension (high blood pressure) issue going when I almost stroked out right here at Schloss Rivrdog, and the EMTs had to haul my butt to the ER.

Since then, with the help of my doc, I've been trying to regain control over the chronic hypertension, and bring it down with pharma help. That effort has been hit and miss:

• First, the doc advised I double my dosage of Lisinopril, a secondary medicine I was on a small dose of. That made no dent in the raging readings at all. I was still averaging 170/106 or so.
• The doc recommended I change my Propranol to Propranolol Slow Release, but neither the Government nor the vast Kroger Pharmacy chain could find me any.
• Next, I bumped up my own dosage of regular Propranolol by 50%, and that seemed to be having an effect, but the Doc decided my 20+ years on that drug were done, so he ordered MetoToprol.
• I had to wait almost ten days for the MetoToprol to be issued by Express Scripts, the Medicare pharmacy. In the meanwhile, I DID achieve re-control with the regular Propranolol, albeit at near the max dose of 320 mg/day.
• Finally, the MetoToprol arrives, about ten days ago, and I start all over again when I dropped the Propranolol. The blood pressure shot back up to the 170/105 range. After 4 days, the Doc said double the MetoToprol, and I did, but to little discernable effect. I'm damn near an invalid now, afraid to do anything physical because the slightest activity would run my diastolic blood pressure over 105, so I mope around the house, taking a lot of naps and cutting my salt intake to almost zero.
• A week goes by, and finally the numbers start to come down, sort of: I start running the mid 150s over the high 90's, still not acceptable, but getting farther from the danger level. 
• Finally, in the past 24 hours, I've achieved 3 readings in the mid-120s over the mid/high 80's, more or less normal. Looks like the Metotoprol is finally getting the upper hand. I'm hopeful to have at least a week of decent BP before I go see the cardiologist in the first week of March.

Of additional note in this struggle: no cause has been identified for this spike in my previously-controlled BP. At the cardiologist, I will have a high-contrast CAT scan of my heart and it's arteries to see if I've any occlusions that need stenting or bypassing. I wanted to just go get a stress test, but my doc said I was too fragile for one, I needed to demonstrate total medical control of the BP. Meanwhile, DMV tells me I have to prove up my medical suitability to have a CDL by the end of this month, or they will rip off my Class Two rating, so I guess that's history. Driving bus or heavy straight truck to keep body and soul together is no longer an option. I can still operate my M35A2 as a private vehicle, but not as a commercial truck, which it is licensed for. There are some states I couldn't operate the M35 in at all, I'll have to study up on that.

The other thing that I'm sure you've noticed is that I've reduced my blogging presence by about half. This was deliberate in order to relieve the BP crisis. Yes, I do, in fact, get jacked up some when I blog, it's probably why the mind is still clear after all the toil I have put it through. I might have to re-open the bar at BlogStation Alpha, because decent booze is a reliable way to lower BP.

That is all, now you are updated on your blogger's blogging condition.

 

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Rivrdog re-railed and back on schedule!