Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jog!!

We're going back tomorrow!

The trip from New Orleans to Memphis on Sunday was quite nice. We drove up in a 2006 Ford 500 that belongs to my daughter and her husband, but that we intend to buy from them. It is pretty snazzy… leather seats, dual heating controls (passenger/driver) 6-CD in-dash changer, wood paneling trim, automatic rearview mirror. It’s a fairly fuel efficient six-cylinder so we made it from NOLA to Memphis on one tank of gas, stopping only once for a snack and to let Maynard to his thing(s). We made it in just under 6 hours, a record for us.

Monday was a pretty rough day. Being here rather than in NOLA means that a lot of the things I’m responsible for seeing through are dependent on actions of others located here who don’t have the same sense of urgency that we who are assigned to the project have. So while we have to worry about schedule slips and such, people we have to coordinate with don’t share our concerns.

Also, Linda has now moved to “EP-MART” (EPMAC has relocated to an abandoned K-Mart building that was rewired for computers when the Army Corps of Engineers was renovating their spaces and had leased the old K-Mart in the interim. The problem here is that EPMAC, like all other Navy commands is obliged to use the NAVY and Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) equipment and network. The new building is not connected to NMCI, and the work arounds to get the NMCI computers connected aren’t working smoothly. Anyway, Linda’s computer has been “on again, off again” so her level of job satisfaction has been leaving something to be desired.

Then, to top it off, we had to leave work early that afternoon. It seems that our friend Gerald, who has been sick for a week now, had gone to the doctor. He was diagnosed as having a severe bowel obstruction and was told to get to an emergency room for surgery. Needless to say, he was NOT very happy. So we went to the hospital to keep him company while he was in the ER. As of this morning (Wednesday) they had given him an enema which was successful in getting him going again, but they kept him for some additional tests to try and see what caused the obstruction. We’re hoping he’ll be released this morning, or at least some time today. He’s in better spirits, which is good. Please keep him in your prayers. You may remember that he had his car broken into only a couple of weeks ago.

To help ease the pain, we went again to Wang’s Chinese Restaurant Monday evening. Dinner was excellent, enhanced by plum wine (2 for me, 1 for Linda) and topped off with yet another surprise dessert of fried bananas! Armand, the young man who prepares these desserts for us always stops by our table to ask how we’re doing and when we’ll be going home. He’s very nice and apparently quite a good cook, as he prepares the special desserts himself. We’re definitely going to miss him and his desserts when we finally return home for good.

Tomorrow we head back to New Orleans (Y-e-s-s-s!!!) to attend the Covington Craft Fair on Friday. Then Saturday is Linda’s birthday, so hopefully we can do some sort of family thing to celebrate. She’s been so great through all this! She really deserves a happy birthday.

Ok. Enough said. I have to get back to work. Happy holidays to all. – Dean