Sorry about the time gap! Well I finally had a holiday weekend off for New Year's Eve, with fantastic plans to go to a co-worker's house and celebrate with a huge bash around a bonfire. That plan basically went down the toilet when I caught a heavy duty cold, not good! So basically I went to bed at around 10:00PM sick as a dog, while Shayna stayed up until midnight. Not fun for her at all, I owe her! haha. She didn't mind, and knows what I was going through because I gave her the cold, which she is experiencing now. Overall she is feeling much better. I'm getting everything organized for the next big run, the Reno-Tahoe Odyssey, a 178 mile, 12 man relay race on 3-4 JUN. So far only 3 of the 12 have been training, hopefully more will start soon. It's an interesting race, check out the website sometime. Our team name is going to be "Running With Sharp Objects", kind of fitting for a hospital team. Things are getting busier for Shayna at the gym, the new year's resolutionists have invaded the gym, hopefully she'll pick up some personal training clients soon. Well that's about it, I hope everyone is doing fine and having a great new year so far, take care.
Dave

Great Holiday

Hello! I hope everyone has had a great Christmas, ours was fantastic! First of all we did not make the trip to the mountains the weekend prior to Christmas, heavy snowfall was predicted and everyone didn't want to get stuck up there for a week or so! We ended up going to Shayna's boss's house and had some drinks, overall a good time, nice and relaxing. I was on call Thursday through Sunday over Christmas, there were 6 baby deliveries with no c-sections, praise the Lord! So I was stressed for 4 days, but didn't get called in, great Christmas present. Christmas day was spent over at our General Surgeon's house, he's a great surgeon and a fantastic cook, I think he missed his calling! haha. We had a standing rib roast, homemade rolls, etc., it gave my Grandmother's cooking a run. I got a bunch of Bengals stuff from Shayna, golf balls, tees, wallet, so I'll be ready for next season when they make their run for the Super Bowl! woohoo. New Year's Eve will be spent at a fellow OR Nurse's home. She lives on a farm, so it's bon fire time, takes me back to the good days back in Kentucky, gonna be a blast! I should be adding a picture coming up soon, have to find my camera first. Take care and have a great New Year!
Dave

Break Time

Obviously I haven't put any posts up lately, sorry about that! Nothing much going on, just trying to pre-plan my departure from the Navy. Sounds like it would be an easy task, but nothing in the Navy goes easy, or as planned. The big issue, as always, is staffing. I'm trying to take leave that I have accrued over the past year or two and due to staffing it just doesn't work out. Other that that nothing much going on. Shayna and I will be going to a cabin in the mountains with some of her friends, should make for some good photos, I'll write more when we finish that trip. Take care and I hope everyone's holidays have been and will be great!
Dave

Busy, Busy

It's been a busy weekend. Shayna's dad, Larry, and soon to be step-mom, Karen, came in town to visit. Friday Larry and I started the day with a 4 mile run, came home to shower and then we were off to Hollywood for Shayna's show at the INBC. Shayna had the judging phase at 0900 on Saturday. After that phase we went to eat at a sushi restaurant on Melrose Ave. It sounds glamorous, but in my opinion Hollywood and LA are filled with a lot of people which equals a lot of traffic and bad attitudes. I got a parking ticket for not putting money in the meter, on a weekend. I assumed that Hollywood was like all other states in the country and parking was free on the weekend, wrong! After that we drove to the Hollywood sign and took a picture. The second part of the competition started at 3:30 pm and lasted until 7:30 pm. We hit the road for home and arrived at around 10:30 pm. We woke up at 0745 and took off for the paintball field. The picture above is of Larry, Karen and I in between some of the games. They had a good time and got a lot of exercise along the way. Now we are just relaxing and watching some football, go Bengals tomorrow night. If they lose I have to wear a Steelers scrub hat and post it as my profile picture on Facebook for a week, God I hope they win! Well that's about it for this week. Take care.
Dave

Another one down

A great week. I finally got some leave and took the opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. and compete in the Army 10-miler. What an awesome race. A lot of the Vets that have had various types of amputations and visual impairments also competed, talk about inspiration! I thought a lot about all the work we did in Iraq and Afghanistan and to see them out there competing was incredible. Look up the Army 10-miler website and read some of the stories, they're something else. The time spent in DC also allowed me to see some of my old friends from deployments and also family members. Pictured above is Carl and I, we were in Ramadi, Iraq together for 8 months. What a good friend and extremely smart guy. It was fun to reminisce about the deployment, I guess it was a warm up for when I'm very old, very retired and hanging out at the VFW! Sarah was another person that ran and hung out with us for a while, she and I were deployed to Afghanistan together, another fantastic person. A funny story to follow later. My brother Dan, who I haven't seen in a about a year and a half, and my cousin Dina, who I haven't seen in over 15 years, also were there. Dan participated in his first run in about 10 years and finished great, in the top half of 21,000 runners! Dina smoked the run with a 1 hour 28 minute time. We have all agreed to meet up next year somewhere to run together again, probably the Flying Pig 1/2 Marathon in Cincinnati in May. Now for the story. Myself, Dan and Jack (Dan's friend) decided to scope out a place to eat and watch football after the race, Sarah to join us later. We went to a sports pub first and it was packed, standing room only. The greeter said that the owner also owned the restaurant down the street and it was empty with plenty of televisions with football on. We headed down the street and went into the place. It was empty as advertised and we decided to order some food. The menus came with a naked lady on the front cover, that's when we realized we were sitting in a strip club, the neon lights and low lighting also clued us in! We stayed because we thought that the dancers were off on Sunday for the games, and we had to wait for Sarah. Everything went well until the 4:00 games started, that's when the dancers headed for the stage! We were gentlemen and walked out with Sarah, although the dancer was probably depressed when 3 guys walked out when she started doing her thing on stage! haha. We went to the original restaurant and there was now space for us. We'll be talking about that for a while. That's enough excitement for this entry. Over all a great weekend. Take care.
Dave

It's been a while

Hello,
It's been a while since I've posted. I've spent a majority of the last couple of weeks trying to get my back to feel better, not a fun time! The 'ol back started acting up after a workout at the gym, oddly enough the workout was supposed to be cross-training for running so I could fight off injuries, go figure. After 2 trips to a chiropractor and being treated to a massage by my awesome wife I'm feeling better, now I just have to get back to where I was in my training before the injury. My next race is the Army 10-miler in Washington, D.C. on the 24th of October, I should be ready but I'm pretty certain I won't be breaking any personal time records. Shayna has her second show this weekend and again due to scheduling conflicts I cannot go to cheer her on. She'll do great at the Sacramento show, I'm really proud of her. She also got hired on to work at the gym as a personal trainer, that's fantastic also. I guess I can never get fat now! haha. Work is still work, I'm sure like your jobs, not any different in the Navy. The last year, 350 days to be exact, in the Navy I'm going to try to keep my mouth shut and just get through the days. I have to admit it is getting to be much better since we are gaining a couple of OR nurses, that is a huge relief! I'm just waiting for the inevitable, which is pulling people out of the OR to do administration jobs, again leaving us short-handed! I've been in the Navy too long to believe otherwise. I hope everyone is doing good, things are great here. Take care and I'll have some better entries this weekend. Take care.
Dave

Great Weekend

Hello there! It was a great weekend, nice to blow off some built up steam. As I mentioned in the last post, this weekend was going to be about paintball and golf, I did both. My wife, Shayna, is the best wife on the planet to allow me to do that, she probably enjoys the quiet for the couple of hours that I'm gone! haha. In the above picture you can see everyone looking at me and laughing, I made a smart a#$% comment and they laughed. Imagine me making a comment like that! haha. Golf went really well today, I shot a 102. I would have broke the 100 stroke mark, but I ended up shooting a 10 on a par 5, it destroyed my chances of hitting the goal. Oh well, there are many more days of golf ahead of me, I'll eventually do it!
I want to thank Ms. Mcgovern for including me in her dissertation for her Master's Degree in London. She called me about a month ago and scheduled a phone interview with me about my blog. Specifically the parts when I was writing while deployed in Afghanistan. It was a great paper on how the news differs between "big media" and the information being passed on by "bloggers". Very interesting and well written, I wish her luck.
I've been looking at my hit list of what countries have been reading my entries and noticed that there have been some hits from Puerto Rico. I was stationed at Roosevelt Roads from 1992-1994. Just interested to hear from someone down there to see who you are and what it is like down there now that the base is closed. Drop me a line sometime at ltjgdave2003@yahoo.com. Well I think that's about it for this week. Take care.
Dave

Another Duty Weekend

Hello, well another duty weekend completed! It was a little busier than usual, called in at 1030 pm on Friday night and stayed until 2am Saturday, then called in at 0630am on Sunday until 1000 am or so. At least they were spread apart! While working I was thinking to myself when I'm a civilian I would be making at least $600 or so for coming in for those days, not going to be too bad at all! Have I said lately that I can't wait to retire and start working on a second career? haha. Shayna went to support one of her friends in a figure competition and enjoyed the heck out of La Jolla, CA. She said that it was absolutely beautiful, I'm glad she had the opportunity to go hang out with the girls for a weekend, we all need that every now and then. This upcoming weekend we are having another paintball war on Saturday and then I'm golfing on Sunday morning, hopefully I'll break 100 strokes this time! Well that's about it for this week, I'll write more next week.
Dave

Number 13

Hello, well it was a great weekend! Friday I drove down to Anaheim/Huntington Beach, CA for the Disney 1/2 Marathon. I met one of my good friends, Mike, for the race. It was nice to see him since we ran our first 1/2 Marathon exactly 4 years ago! I was worried checking into the Hilton and my room number was 313, I'm kind of superstitious and thought it was going to be a problem! I don't have any pictures from the race yet, they'll be on the next entry. Shayna didn't come down with me because it would be too much of a downer watching Mike and I happy after the race, she still isn't 100% for running yet, it'll come! We hit the Dodger-Giants game at Dodger Stadium on Friday night. The first picture was funny because that police command vehicle was parked out in front of the entrance to our section of the stadium, we called it the "Ghetto Section"! We sat on wooden benches and ate all the food we could, which was included in the price, so you could imagine the lines and smells by the bathrooms. Honestly I wouldn't have wanted to be in any other section, the people were really a lot of fun and really into the game, great experience. You can see in the second picture I'm wearing a Dodger hat, although I'm a die hard Reds fan. I called the wearing of the Dodger hat a form of life insurance! It worked, I'm alive! There were a couple of Giants fans sitting in front of us that went through absolute hell during the entire game, good on them though for coming out to support their team. The last picture is taken from the parking lot, LA is in the background. Saturday we went golfing at Meadowlark Golf Course in Huntington. Challenging course, beautiful, but it was the longest game of golf known to man, just short of 6 HOURS! It was packed. Mike and I did so bad that we stopped keeping score at hole 13 or so. We met some nice locals there also, great day. Sunday we woke up at 3:30 in the morning to head out to the race, yep 3:30 in the morning. We were lined up and ready to start at 5:15 when the race actually started at 6:00. Great weather, 60s with cloud cover. My personal best for 1/2 marathons is 1hr 43min, I finished this one in 1hr 46min, I felt great the entire race and afterwards. Mike started the race with an Achilles injury and it held him back the entire race, good for him for pushing through though. We went out and had some beers later that night and then laid out on the beach on Monday, where I got an impressive sunburn. Wind, cooler weather and cloud cover is a bad mixture, it was a ninja sunburn, didn't feel it happening at all. I'm really glad to be home with Shayna and am looking forward to the Army 10-miler in DC toward the end of October. My cousin from Pennsylvania and my brother from Florida will be coming to compete, should be a good weekend. Well that's about it for this entry, take care.

Dave

Lemoore or Afghanistan?

As you can see by the picture on the left I was pretty confused this past week. I couldn't figure out if I was in Afghanistan or Lemoore, CA? It was hella hot! Running during the day was definitely out, so I was getting up at 0445 to get a good run in, not good when I ended up staying late at work due to being on duty. Very long days. The strange thing is that today the high is 77 degrees, I was actually able to run at 2pm with no problems at all. Next Sunday is the Disneyland 1/2 marathon, really looking forward to that. My friend Mike is coming out from Virginia. We're going to see the Dodgers vs. the Giants on Friday at the stadium in Anaheim, CA, Saturday we are hitting the links somewhere to play the best golf of our lives (yeah right!), Sunday is the race and then Monday we are going to recover from the run and the hangover! This blog was part of a research project of a person in London. It was cool actually doing a phone interview with her. It's going to be nice to see her finished project, she had some interesting questions. I'll post some excerpts from the paper when I get a copy. Shayna's next competition is on 16 OCT. She'll be doing the bikini competition this time so she can work up to the figure competition again. I can officially say that I'm married to a bikini competitor! woohoo. Well that's about it for this week. I'll be posting the next article late next week due to being out of town. Take care.

Dave

Hello

It's been a good two weeks since the last post. I had the opportunity to be the department head for a week and I really enjoyed the challenge of keeping everything running smoothly, I feel that I did a pretty good job and that's satisfying! Now I'm back to being a regular staff OR nurse and that's a good thing also, nothing to worry about except taking care of the patient and making sure that everything is done safely and efficiently. 404 days left in the Navy as of today, hopefully it continues to fly by, I'm sure it will. Been in touch with Andria our realtor in Jacksonville, FL and it looks like we'll be in great shape when it comes time to buy a house out there, probably around June or so. The prices keep falling on the homes there, it's nice being on the other side of a crappy economy, at least we'll get a fantastic deal on a nice home. 2 weeks until the Disney 1/2 Marathon, I just finished a 10 mile run in 1hr 25min, so I think I'm ready. Not a whole lot of pains to speak of, just the norm, knees and back a little sore nothing major though. It's going to be a really nice weekend. I'm meeting up with an old friend, we both ran our first 1/2 marathon in Virginia Beach back in 2005, I can't believe 5 years have passed already! We are planning on going to the LA Dodger, SF Giants baseball game on Friday the 3rd of September, on Saturday hitting the golf course, Sunday we're running the race and then Monday recovering from the hangover! haha. Shayna is going to stay home, she really doesn't want to be surrounded by a bunch of runners when she is not able to participate herself, it's a bummer for her and I understand. Shayna really enjoyed her first competition experience and is hitting the gym twice as hard now for her next one in November. She looks fantastic! I'm very proud of her and am in awe of the dedication and focus that she possesses. Well that's about it for this post. I'll have a picture of something on the next one. Take care.
Dave

Fun Day

Let me explain the picture! I just finished winning a challenge through Nike+ called the Kandahar Kup and the helmet was the trophy. The sticker on the front of it is the Afghanistan campaign medal. Myself and 3 others that were deployed to Kandahar last year decided to have a race to see who could hit 500 miles first, or who ran the furthest in a year whichever came first. The 500 miles were completed in 9 months, not too bad. You should see the insane challenge I'm in now, same criteria just running with a bunch of insane runners. We started on 11 JUN, two runners are already at around 350 miles leaving the rest of us mere mortals in the dust! I golfed this morning and shot a 109, unfortunately that is my norm. I am going to get a new set of clubs in October, maybe that will do the trick. Shayna is going through one Hell of a week, being the week prior to her competition. She has to eat and drink very little to get the muscles to pop out for the stage on Saturday. I think she will do very well. That's about it for this week. Take care.
Dave

The Worst Drivers

Shayna and I went to Morgan Hill, CA yesterday for her 2 mile open water swim this morning. She did great for her first competition finishing in 1hr 5 min! Fantastic! On the way there and back I was thinking about the State with the worst drivers, from my perspective. I came down to California and Virginia in a tie for first. The closer you get to Los Angeles the further in first place California goes! I just want to say to all the drivers in California, the left lane is for PASSING and the right lane is for SLOW drivers, or ones doing the speed limit. It's really not that hard! Traffic problems in this State would decrease exponentially if people would just follow that simple rule. I'm really proud of Shayna and she looked like she had the "high" that you get from completing a goal. She finished in the middle of the pack of seasoned swimmers which is saying a lot about how she did for her first competition. Nothing much planned for this week and I have duty again next weekend, have I said how much I hate my current work situation lately? haha. It's going to get better in September/October when we gain 2 OR nurses, I can't wait. Well that's about it for this week. Take care.

Dave

Nothing New

I was going to post a picture of what I do during duty, basically just sitting on the couch watching movies and playing video games. Yep, 42 and still addicted to video games! haha. It makes time fly by. I'm sure that Shayna is bored to death when I have duty, which is every other day and every other weekend. It should get better in the September/October time frame, when we get one or two more OR nurses on the watch bill, thank you Lord! We'll have some more pics for you this weekend, Shayna has her 2 mile lake swim competition this weekend, she's fired up for it and I'm sure she'll do fine. Pretty much how I run, run to finish not win! haha. Well that's about it for this week, I'll have a better entry next weekend.
Dave

Sorry Netherlands and Golfing

Well I was rooting for the Dutch in the World Cup finale, the outcome was obviously not in my favor! Sorry guys. The Dutch played a much more physical game than Spain and I like that type of play. There's always next, well no, maybe the year after, well no again, okay there's always 4 years from now! haha. I think the US will take it then! haha.

Finally got to pick up the sticks and hit the fairways yesterday. What a good time. I shot a 106 which is terrible for most players but better than average for me, so overall a good day. Our tee-time was at 0850 and finished around 1230 or so, just when the heat was becoming unbearable. A lot of water and Gatorade kept me from passing out! I rode in the cart with Bob who used to work with us at the hospital before retiring from the Navy, it was nice being able to spend some time with him and catch up. Hopefully I'll be able to go out again soon. Next weekend is another duty weekend so no leaving and then the following weekend we'll be near San Jose for Shayna's swimming competition. It is called the "Catfish Crawl", basically a 2-mile lake swimming race. I'm sure she'll do great, and also post a lot of pics from her adventure. My next race is creeping up, 5 SEP. Can't wait to see my old friends Mike and Herb, should be another good time. Well that's about it for this week. My condolences go out to the Netherlands, keep your heads up!

Dave

One More Year

I can't download any pics right now since our router is down until Thursday, so I'm using the I-phone! Another year down, it is my birthday today (42), who knows how many more to go. By far the past couple of years have been my best and it's all due to Shayna. I'm in the best shape of my life, both physically and mentally! I was speaking with Mary, Shayna's mom, and I told her that I'm so thankful that I joined the Navy and finally married a fantastic wife, it doesn't get any better than that. The upcoming year will be filled with planning for the future. Maybe a child, maybe another deployment, maybe Shayna moving out to Jacksonville, FL early to start work, maybe buying a home early to take advantage of the low prices and interest rates, etc. Needless to say a lot of "maybes"! Through all of the crap I've been through with moving a lot and two, technically three, ex-wives I've learned that everything works out for the best. Shayna and I are really optimistic for the move back to Jax and I have a couple of hook-ups for jobs. Am I worried, of course, but I know that we are going to have a great life out there.
I have started a new running competition with some guys/gals at work and I'm getting my butt kicked! I have completed about 120 miles in the past couple of weeks and I'm still behind around 50 miles! These guys are beasts. My mileage has definitely increased which is going to help me for the upcoming 1/2 marathon in Disney on 5 SEP and the Army 10-miler in OCT in DC, but I am sore, I guess it has to do with celebrating another birthday! Well you take care and keep in touch.
I wanted to ask everyone to keep praying for the troops still deployed, I have several friends that are out there in danger, so keep the prayers coming because they worked for me!

Dave

Run and Shoot

Paintball game again yesterday, still a lot of fun. Maybe I should have been in the infantry instead of medical! I'm sure it's a little different having live rounds being fired at you as opposed to paint. haha. The video below is a little taste of what it's like. I bought a new paintball gun yesterday, it will pay for itself after 10 games or so. The one I purchased is semi-auto and also has the ability to go fully automatic. We had a couple of guys with us yesterday that had fully auto weapons, they looked like the guys from the LA bank robbery years back, just walking slowly and painting everything is sight, pretty impressive. The normal price for the Tippman X7 was $400-$600, I got it for $180 off of Ebay, not a bad deal. Can't wait to play again, everyone had a really good time again.
Running has been a chore the past two weeks. I've completed 91 miles and my legs are feeling it, the left Achilles tendon to be exact. Hopefully I'll be able to get it enough rest to be able to run on Tuesday, we'll see. We started the new running competition and I have been talking sooo much garbage at work that I now have to back it up with many, many miles. I am a very competitive person which makes me want to run more to possibly win the competition, at the same time it is helping me get in great shape for the upcoming 1/2 marathon in Anaheim, CA in September. I believe I'm ready now! haha.
Take care and keep in touch,
Dave

Almost There

Almost there. "There" meaning a couple of things. First of which is posted above, it is a picture of my request for retirement from the Navy, almost there. Some funny person put the "denied" sticky note over the request, actually I thought that it was really funny. The second "almost there" is what I'm going to be saying for the next 400+ miles of running. We started a new running competition called "The Lew Chase" on Nike+, first to 500 miles in a year. Lew is our general surgeon and he is a running machine. We started the challenge this week and I've been almost there, meaning passing Lews total miles, several times but just can't get there. I've completed 51 miles so far this week and Lew is over 60. Of course I was shooting my mouth off on Thursday at work telling him that I was going to pass him by Monday. I ran 13.1 miles yesterday to take the lead, only to wake up this morning to see that I'm 22 miles behind again. I ran 5 more miles this morning and planning on doing a long one again tomorrow, in hopes that I'll be able to at least catch him! The camaraderie that the competition creates is fantastic, also the motivation is increased to run further which is always good for weight loss. This week has basically flown by with all the competitiveness going on at work, next weekend is another round of paintball, hopefully I'll have some good photos from that. Take care.

Dave

Starting A New....

Starting a new running competition this week, it's called "The Lew Chase" on Nike+. We decided to call it that after Dr. Diulus who is a running machine and we'll all be chasing him throughout the duration of the challenge! It should be a lot of fun and increase morale a bit more. Shayna is adding another part to her already extensive training program, she received her Trek bike from her sister and brother-in-law for her birthday. Great bike! She is also going to dabble in a bit of "Skinny Girl Margaritas"! Shayna loves to watch the Real Housewife series, thus the interest in the alcohol! I don't know if she'll like it or not, I'll let you know after the test run, she does not drink at all, should be interesting! haha. That's about it for this week, short entry for a "normal" week. Take care.
Dave

Burnin' it up!

My first attempt at a BBQ for a larger group failed miserably, as you can see by the picture above! The ones that came out that were edible were really good, these little guys unfortunately made it past the edible stage. I had a surprise party/BBQ for Shayna's birthday which is on the 7th. She was caught completely by surprise. She had her comprehensive exam for HR for graduate school and then went swimming afterward which afforded me plenty of time to get the house cleaned up a little, wrap the present, grocery shop and get the people in the house. I knew that it was going to be a little problem with her returning after a stressful test and a 1.5 mile swim, but she was very happy. Shayna had mentioned to me a couple months back that she really liked paintings by Grace Slick (formerly with the band Jefferson Airplane). I bought the painting called "Crossroads", it was number 280 of 300 painted. The reaction I got from her when she opened it was worth all the stress about buying it! All in all it was a fantastic day.

The next two weeks we will be without Jane our PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) nurse and we will definitely feel the pressure. Jane will be sorely missed. Her replacement, Melody, will be working a couple of days each of the coming two weeks and then be on full time. I hope Melody will be able to fill the hole that will be left by Jane's departure. Needless to say, Jane if you are reading this we're going to miss you and have fun in Germany!

Well that about does it. The next big thing we'll be doing is another paintball war on the 26th of this month, should be a blast again.

Take care,
Dave