Half-way there...damn me it's almost over!

I don't know why it always gets like this on vacation...first of all it takes some time to get your "home legs" (see "sea legs"). Once you've acclimated to home though, the trip almost gets worse! It's a funny thing, and a funny contradiction, I don't feel like a prisoner most of the year, in fact I really kind of like where I'm at and what I'm doing. I like where life, fate and God have taken me. I don't hate Saudi Arabia at all, I don't even dislike it...but it sure isn't the west. I must say, and I'd be lying by omission if i didn't, that I love traveling, and I love new things and my Saudi hosts really are great...but considering that you can do as you like here, pray as you like here and live as you like, going back to a restrictive country is...well...sort of counter-intuitive. My second night home I went to a 4th of July carnival, I didn't much enjoy it, but that's beside the point. In attendance at the carnival were Christians, Muslims, Hindu's and I'm sure Atheists. There might very well have been a satanist or two lurking around. American's, Brit's, African's, Indian's, Pakistani's and even a few Saudi engineering students. Nobody cared, everybody just had fun, nobody confronted the people who were together and unmarried, nobody told any of the women to cover their hair. Everybody just kinda lived and let live.

Soon after I got back I headed out to Washington state and headed about 3 hours north of Seattle, up near the Canadian border to attend some remote/austere environment medical training. I'll have more to say about that later, but the following pictures are from that week of training.

Tomorrow morning I'm headed to the "Big Easy", better in my opinion than the "Big Apple", laid back with a Caribbean feel. at this time tomorrow, I'll be knee deep in Zydeco music, seafood and fixings by the pound cooked in what some people call a "low country boil". Might even have some frozen daiquiris while I sit around listening to the friendly banter of the "who-dat" nation discussing the upcoming season. I'm having a great and well needed break, but I can't help but remember that vacation is half-over...damn! Time to get moving and get some miles under me, lots to see and do before I head back to the land of sun and fun.

Sunrise (filtered through paint shop, but only minimally so)

Sundown (filtered through paint shop)

Learning to make thermal wraps to protect patients

Deciding how to tackle the terrain

The proper way to carry a stokes basket in remote areas

I discovered this little waterfall on an early morning hike

Early morning on the lake (run through paint shop)

Suture Class (pig lab)

Learning how to deal with Acute Mountain Sickness and HAPE/HACE

Our group

The trip so far...in pictures!

So as I mentioned earlier, apparently you can "go home again". However, there are some facets that you need to be aware of. #1: Your friends are still your friends, but your acquaintances are gone. You weren't around to nurture those acquaintance-ships, so naturally they faded away. #2: You're on vacation, everybody else is living their life...don't expect to do much on a Monday-Thursday unless you visit people at their place of business. #3: Keep busy, and store up memories, experiences and images for your next year away. For your viewing pleasure, here are some of those images!

Rainstorm as photographed from my front porch!

Old friend of mine at the Fire Department

My old ARFF Truck, I love this monster!

My old ARFF Truck, I love this monster!

Breakfast!

Lunch!

Look at all that BBQ sauce and beer! (MO' Hick BBQ, Cuba Missouri)

Love this place!

SLU campus, St. Louis MO

SLU campus, St. Louis MO

Old St. Louis Architecture

St. Louis University has a beautiful downtown campus, the city views are awesome and the architecture breathtaking. It has the distinction of being the first University West of the Mississippi River, and also the First US University with a campus in Europe.

Flights home

As we taxied to the runway my heart rate finally slowed. I'd been an anxious wreck for the past 6 hours and was beginning to drive myself nuts. Had I packed everything, had I forgotten anything, did I lock the door of my apartment, what was waiting for me at "home", now that Saudi is kinda my "home" more or less, would the plane break down like it did last year, when the hell was my salary going to be deposited, you know the normal stuff!  It seemed to take forever to get through security, waiting for the flight to board was torture, and now, after almost 11 months of working and waiting, we were finally taxiing.

The flight crew was friendly, the pilot sounded fresh and soon we were racing down the runway, 20 minutes later I was enjoying a Heineken as we made our way into the night sky. 6 hours later, we touched down in Amsterdam without incident. 2 hours later I boarded my plane for Detroit which would eventually connect me with St. Louis. My son picked me up at the airport, we got stuck in 4th of July traffic and had a long ride home, but I didn't care. Just seeing the green and smelling the clean, cool air on the way made everything OK.

Apparently, you can go home again. I'm happy to be here.

Academic Year 2013-I'm calling it

In medicine, when a person that we've been working on has died, or has failed to respond to our attempts to revive them, the person in charge makes the statement "I'm calling it", or "I'm calling the code". This signifies to the team members that all resuscitation efforts are about to be ceased, and that if they have any objections-now is the time to voice them. I myself have "called it" many times. And I'm now, officially calling the 2012-2013 academic work year. Stick a fork in it, it's done. Time of death 00:25 July 3rd, 2013.

Actually its really been done for a while, students finished on June 5th, most staff were done with all their paperwork by June 15th, (I was done June 5th) but due to the silliness of things here, nobody could leave until July 2nd...I got the closest flight I could.

It's been a good year, a tough year, a year of big change for me both academically and personally and its over. 20 months in the Kingdom, two academic contracts completed, travel to Egypt, Bahrain and Oman completed. I'm ready to be back in the States. However, a few things have changed, and one in particular that blog readers might be interested in.

Contract: Renewed...this was a source of up and down, back and forth speculation for many months. We finally settled on something that was mutually agreeable. I took a slight cut (something you should never do), and agreed to a two year term and in exchange secured a multiple exit and re-entry visa in my contract, guaranteed, in writing, within two weeks of requesting it. However, the funny part is they never sent it...so I never signed it, so under Saudi Labor Law, the old contract holds...at my old rate of pay, and my old housing allowance. No visa comes with it, but I'm fine with the old salary and the old term. I'm also not exactly being recruited, however I am getting "looked at kindly" by a few other "better" organizations in the Kingdom...So for those of you who like to read, or follow my exploits, or just enjoy my occasional rants, looks like I'll be around a bit longer!

"You Cowardly Americans"

The title is in reference to a comment I read today on a "Salon" article, I don't usually delve this deep into politics here, I have other outlets for that, but I think the significance of the comment bears repeating.

The last time I remember things going right in my country was 2007, I was well employed, well paid, well financed and was buying like crazy. I owned a house and 3 large vehicles, I had everything I needed and more. I had almost everything I wanted. When all hell started breaking loose with the housing bubble, financial scandals and the like, things just rapidly began to...to suck. Mistakes that many of us made suddenly came to light, myself fully included in that. Many of us who considered ourselves "Conservatives" or "Republicans" took an honest look in the mirror and hung our heads in shame. We knew what we'd done, we'd borrowed on margin, overspent, bet on luck and our luck had run out. Sure there was a scandal or two out there, but if we hadn't been stupid with our money, nothing would have ever touched us...at least that's what we told ourselves. Part of the "Conservative" self image comes with a little thing we like to call "personal responsibility", and instead of practicing it, we'd partied our stupid asses off like drunken frat boys on a Vegas vacation. Pools, hot-tubs, oversize houses, golf club memberships, iPod's, iPhones, iPad's, student loans, cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles...you name it, we had it. Our kids didn't work, and we didn't worry about it...there was always money on "the card". I've recently begun to look at that a little differently...the personal responsibility is still there, but it's just that, personal. Personally, I should have had the foresight and the wherewithal to take a look around me and realize just how many people had their hands in my wallet while smiling to my face. But as long as the money didn't run out, I didn't worry about it. Nowadays however, I worry enough for both of us.

I ended up running away screaming from the Republicans (fat old elephants), but stopped short of running into the open arms of the Democrats (braying asses), I looked in the Libertarian (might as well be an anarchist) window for a minute, but that window is something akin to a smoky stained glass design of a hundred splinters. I finally settled on "independent" whatever the hell that means. I think I'm half humanist, half democratic socialist, half I don't know what (Yes, I'm aware that makes me an improper fraction :-) ). So now that my rose colored glasses have been knocked from my face and have shattered on the ground lets take a look at the 2000's with clearer eyesight. Stop me if you've heard this one:

• Enron Scandal
• Arthur Anderson
• WorldCom (Now Verizon!) Collapse and Scandal
• Iraq War (revealed in 2012-13 to be based on complete falsehoods and deliberately doctored information)
• Abu Garib Scandal
• Blackwater
• Halliburton
• Countrywide Scandal (The real beginning of the housing bust) (Oh and you know who had a 0% Countywide loan? Retired US Senator and one time Presidential hopeful Chris Dodd!)
• WAMU collapse and "Golden Parachute" discussion starter!
• Taylor Bean and Whittaker Collapse and raid by the FBI (Who up until last week was negatively affecting my credit report)
• Bernie Madoff
• Bailouts
• Lehman Brothers
• BP Gulf Horizon
• Illegal Home Foreclosures, yes Illegal and inappropriate even, some actually based on race and race alone!
• Benghazi
• Cairo 
• IRS wrongfully targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny
• NSA potentially illegal surveillance
• And today, the thing that started me thinking... 6 Bank of America employees give depositions that they were paid to foreclose on homes, given bonuses to lie to customers, and illegally and inappropriately deny loan modifications link. 

Hmm...who did I forget...Oh yeah, THESE GUYS!

• John Edwards
• Mark Sanford
• Rod Blagojevich
• Elliott Spitzer
• Gary Condit
• Scooter Libby
• Mark Foley
• Jack Abramoff
• Tom Delay
• Bernie Kerik
• Randy Cunningham

All of these events and all of these people have done something either inappropriate or illegal either to you or in your name...in my name...in the name of Freedom and the United States of America! Very few of them are in prison, very few are poor, none are homeless. Here's my problem with that. I actually like my Country, I kinda served her once or twice and I don't think I should have to stand for this crap. However, we never really noticed stuff as long as we had money to burn, and now it seems a little too late to put the proverbial cat back in the bag. Now when you complain, the Usurpers of the system tell you that they're the Americans, and that you, well your just a discontent, a troublemaker, a commie, unpatriotic,  liberal idiot, hippie dreamer, tree hugging slack jawed faggot. The people who stole money from you, took bribes, employed illegal aliens, threw your neighbors out of their homes, passed laws they couldn't follow themselves, killed civilians, illegally monitored you in the name of "National Security" lied to you, lied again, and then lied about the lie. They're calling themselves the real Americans, and unfortunately, were all too damn stupid to notice.

So to that I say 'Merica! Fuck Yeah!

The comment that I paraphrased in the title comes from a commenter on the "Salon" piece about BofA. He states something to the effect that he finds it ironic that the US calls the French cowards, and yet the rest of the world looks at us that way. He ties it in to the demands for "heads to roll, guillotine style" in the BofA scandal. He doesn't tie it in to the wars we fight or the things we do, but rather what gets done to us and in our name, the things we allow. He goes on to say that our Government hasn't said "let them eat cake", but has instead put on a grin and said "yes, yes, you can have it all!" and then turned around, laughing all the way back to their McMansion's while they rob us blind (and I imagine us standing their like a pitiful version of a 21st century Oliver Twist played by Justin Bieber)....then he throws in some "stupid American's" and some LOL's and I suddenly find my hands trembling, and I'm practically blind with rage...but not at the author of the comment.

I don't have any political activist friends, probably a good thing, I don't much care for burn out hipsters or people in "cooky" red hats. My friends are doctors, paramedics, nurses, firefighters, cops, accountants, soldiers, sailors, business owners, professors and the like. They aren't going to like this, not one bit. It's going to feel hostile to them, its going to feel like an attack on their way of life and its not. Rather, its a criticism of the tolerance that we've built up to being screwed over. We fight amongst ourselves for the scraps from the table and look to each other as the problem, maybe were just too stupid to look up. Whatever the cause, try and remember, the more scandals break, the more stupid comments Jeb Bush makes, and the more Sarah Palin comes in and out of the spotlight, the more racial and sexual tension they can stir up, the less anybody focuses on the problem at hand. Were being robbed, spied on, thrown out and laughed at...and were fighting for the privilege, fighting for the idea that right around the corner is our magic ticket to the top. I call "Bullshit" 

I hope the NSA enjoyed reading this, I'll be home on the 3rd of July guys, flying through Detroit and desiring nothing more than a cold beer in my own back yard. I'm not crazy, I'm not a terrorist, I haven't been "radicalized", this isn't a "manifesto", I pay my taxes, live my life, do my job. I've served, my friends and family have served and some of them didn't come home. I have all the right in the world to question the crap being pulled to "keep me safe" and wonder why there are men getting rich driving companies into the ground, why my elected officials abuse perks, take bribes, and why the majority of the people stealing on a million dollar scale are doing less prison time than a kid who robs the 7-11.

*I support a coalition of action against #NSA surveillance. Join me – ask US Congress to stop the NSA's alleged actions: stopwatching.us
* The web is meant to be open and free. Join me in asking US Congress to stop #NSA surveillance: stopwatching.us

Driving in Saudi Part 2 - Crashing

I left home this morning at 8:00 am sharp, I entered the highway at about 8:05. 4 minutes later at 8:09, I was sitting in the middle of the Highway, perpendicular to traffic in a smashed car. 

I headed for work like I do every day, nothing special at all. I entered the freeway and began to try and make my way two lanes to the left, I got as far as the middle and found my progress blocked by one of the large Pakistani style decorative trucks directly in front of me, those trucks are big, colorful and nothing you want to be behind. They are old, slow and its impossible to see past them with their size and the clouds of black smoke that they cough out as they chug down the road. My progress leftward was also blocked by a nice newer looking white BMW. As we moved down the road, the BMW moved in behind me, I assumed, to exit the highway at the upcoming exit, but whatever the cause, it was good news for me! I hit my signal, saw a white Camry in the lane behind where the BMW had come from, and moved into the lane. The next thing I heard was the squeal of tires with locked up breaks, my rear-view showed the flashing head lights of the Camry inches off of my bumper. Apparently this was why the BMW had moved! The Camry had obviously been wanting to get past the BMW, and now was on my bumper, lights flashing away, horn blaring constantly. I accelerated as much as the little car would allow me, quickly getting up to 110 kph. I made it to the front of the large truck and began to move into the right lane. Before I could get over, the Camry made a fast move around me, pulled in front of me by a few feet. And then locked up his breaks, causing his tires to leave marks and white smoke to come from his wheel wells. I locked up my breaks and tried to swerve around him, I didn't succeed. The car went into a full spin as I tried to correct my over-steer, I found myself spinning around the highway, saw the wall, saw the airbag deflating and felt the car lurch to a stop. I sat there stunned, both arms locked out straight, hands on the wheel, waiting for the next impact. But it never came. The clock on the dashboard was glowing 8:09. The radio was now playing the news obnoxiously loud. My cigarette had disappeared. I opened the drivers door and stepped out into my whole new reality.

The white Camry with the dark tint windows was gone. 

Traffic was as usual heavy, now with a small Hyundai (even smaller than normal) blocking the middle lane, it slowed to a crawl. I called my boss and then my mechanic, I made it to the other side of the car and began to direct traffic to opposite sides of the car. Many men stopped and asked if I was OK, I said "aiwa shukran", they said "Alhamdulilah" and drove on. The police arrived about 5 minutes later. They were great, very friendly. They took a minute to survey the scene, make some notes and then we pushed the car off to the side of the road. One of the traffic officers ran over to a construction site nearby and promptly returned with 4 workers, a wheelbarrow full of dirt and brooms to try and cover the oil that had spread into a 4 qt. puddle. I handed over my license and the Car registration. My Mechanic arrived, surveyed the damage, smiled and said "no problem", "no worry". He gave me a ride to work, and went to the police station to finish the paperwork and pick up the report.

I'm not really at fault, but then again it was technically a one car accident, I'm not in any trouble, but I might be on the hook for the totaled car, I don't know yet. My boss and co-workers have told me never mind the cost, it's the cost of walking away from a Road Traffic Accident on the highway in Saudi Arabia with my life. I wish I'd had the wherewithal to take a picture of the mess, you'll just have to imagine a small car with no front end and all of its engine fluids on the highway.  A frustrated and flustered American standing next to it. 

P.S. If anybody can identify the driver of the white Toyota Camry, with the dark windows and no other distinguishing marks, driven by an unknown person of unknown nationality...let me know. :)

Saudi Paramedics

As most of my readers know, I'm an American Expat, here in the Kingdom to train Paramedics. My students are all Saudi, and the first group are preparing to graduate and move onto their internships.

For the most part, were going to be turning lose a great group of guys (and girls, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms, for a whole 'nother blog post). They will begin their internship year in September, check in with us monthly, and be given some pretty intensive on the job training. At the end of the year, they will take their exam with the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties. Upon passing they will be licensed as Paramedics, designated as Specialists and will be the people who respond to your emergency, (God forbid you have one!).

What I wanted to tell you about though, was the great bunch of Saudi Paramedics I've met lately, yes that's right they already exist. Lets break them down and see what they're made of.

Skills: 1st rate, every one of them that I've seen, have first rate skills. Just as good, if not better than any American paramedic.

Language: High quality Arabic and English, fully able to understand and communicate in the two most commonly used languages in the Kingdom.

Years of training: 4-6 years, yes that's right, 4-6 years! They have knowledge sets closer to that of a PA than a Paramedic. Many were initially educated here in the Kingdom and then sent to the US for further training. They've trained at Eastern Kentucky University http://emc.eku.edu/emc-bs-paramedicscience-option University of Maryland Baltimore County http://ehs.umbc.edu/  and others.

Certifications: NREMT-P/NRP, PHTLS, American Heart Association BLS, ACLS, PALS Many also carry the CCEMT-P though I've yet to see one with the elusive and exclusive FP-C, or CC-P. However they also carry multiple optional certs that are industry appropriate.

Where they work: This is where it gets a little funny, if you want to see Saudi Paramedics with the above resumes, chances are you'll have to be dying or very seriously injured. They work on Helicopters with the SRCA and its contract helicopter services (Alpha Star and PHI). They work for the National Guard Hospital, and the Security Forces Hospital. Pretty much, they work exclusively for the government.

In summary, the Saudi Paramedics I've had the pleasure of meeting over the past month have been first rate providers that can take care of a loved one of mine any day. I'm hoping, that the program I've been working with is going to give the Kingdom a lot more of them to go around!