Done Out-Processing!! On to packing

I completed out-processing this morning at 10am!! After jumping through hoops to get through finance, we wrapped everything up fairly quickly. We're about to have lunch with the Stripe staff and then we'll pack up the rest of the afternoon. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!! I am really relieved to put all this behind me.

Going home sooner than I thought - and I won an award!

I have more information regarding my departure from Walter Reed. I ran around today getting paperwork completed so that I can leave soon. Now I’m only waiting for my leave form to be approved so that they can create orders for me – then I’ll be set to go. As it stands right now, my last day of duty will be Friday, March 14th. I begin my 70 days of leave on Saturday, March 15. Holly is flying to DC early next week and we have to do a few admin things together to prepare me for my retirement pay. We’re planning to have some type of get together for our entire group of GCC/DC circle of friends the evening of Friday, March 14. An Evite is forthcoming. We’ll be driving back to Texas on Saturday. My leave will end Friday, May 23 and I’ll be officially medically retired on Saturday, May 24. Right now I’m a little flustered because I thought I’d have more time to say goodbye to people, so I’m trying to see people when I can. Today I had dinner with my friend Erika and then went over to see Buddy & Amanda and their handsome baby boy. At least I have more definite info on the dates – everything is pretty solid from here. I’ll believe it when I have my leave approved and my orders in hand. I’ll keep you updated.

Oh – a quick note… this came out a while ago, but I’m lazy and never posted it. As you know, I photograph for the Stripe newspaper here at Walter Reed on an as needed basis. Basically, I’m considered a freelancer or a stringer. Check it out:

Subject: Journalism competition
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Judging for the annual MEDCOM Journalism Competition and to choose MEDCOM representatives in the Army's Keith L. Ware Award competition was held Friday, Jan. 25 at MEDCOM HQ. Walter Reed Army Medical Center staged a near sweep of the awards, but the Fort Detrick Standard pulled out the win in the category of best Tabloid Newspaper. Individual winners were Walter Reed Stripe editor Bernard S. Little in Feature Writing, Commentary, Sports Writing and Single Photograph; and the Stripe's Kristin Ellis in News Writing and Photojournalism.

Serving as judges for the competition were Jerry Townsend, former chair of the journalism department at San Antonio College; Rich Lamance, print team leader for the Army/Air Force Hometown News Center; and SGM Paul Stevenson, NCOIC at U.S. Army North Public Affairs.

The winners will each receive a certificate from MEDCOM, and will go forward to compete for Keith L. Ware Awards. Also going on to Army will be entries with no MEDCOM competition: The CHPPM Sentinel in Magazine Format Publications; Kristin Ellis in Art/Graphics; SFC Roger J. Mommaerts Jr. of Walter Reed in Photography by a Stringer and COL Paul Little of CHPPM in the broadcast category for Television Information Program.

Thank you to all who participated. Congratulations and good luck to our representatives in the Army contest.

I was happy to hear this news – especially since I didn’t even enter a picture – Bernard picked one and entered it for me. Thanks Bernard and congrats to you and Kristin on your awards! Here’s the picture that won the award and is going up for another one:

Feeling Better

After meeting with a writing expert at the University Writing Center Friday morning, not only am I almost finished with my research paper, but I feel a lot better. She helped me rewrite my thesis to match my research and understand how to expand my qualitative analysis which were my two largest issues. Thursday night I was able to go through the whole document and correct the easy stuff. It wasn't a lot but I didn't want to waste time with her over silly things. It's funny, for a "writing expert" her spelling was awful. I didn't want to correct her out of respect but she finally mentioned her spelling was really bad and she depends on spell check. Reminds me of most accountants and their dependence on a calculator. But she was really nice and helpful. She's a graduate history student from Del Rio or somewhere close to the border. And of course, there was a fire alarm during my appointment so we had to evacuate the building. But while we were standing there waiting to be allowed back in, she & I talked about how she came to be in graduate school (couldn't get a job as a teacher) and her thesis topic (something to do with how home economics in schools affects people as adults and parents), which I thought was very interesting. Although most of my appointment time was lost to the fire alarm, she stayed as late as she could, but what we did get through helped me figure out the remaining questions I had planned to cover with her. I greatly appreciate her help and the fact that the university even has a writing center. More people should take advantage of it. The writing center consultants attend trainings for their position. I think it would be good to attend some trainings like that not just for future graduate school plans but also for work. Any improvement in writing would be beneficial in many areas. I'll look into that after I graduate next year.

But I am happy to be feeling better and not so worried. Now I can catch up on my anthropology reading and study earlier for my final so I can get an even better grade. I'm excited to be able to finally have the time to get to some personal reading also. I've been wanting to read Nehemiah for about two weeks now, but I might have to push it aside to read 1st Corinthians. Austin Stone is starting a new message series tomorrow so I'd like to read ahead a bit to be better prepared. Any Bible reading would be good for me.

Roger is at the 108th Army-Navy game today in Baltimore. Go Army! I hope he has a great time. He deserves it. And I hope he stays warm. It's 41 degrees with 27% humidity which feels like 36 degrees according to weather.com. They were supposed to wear their uniforms and he was concerned because he does not have all the new ACU warm weather gear yet. But they were told yesterday that they could wear civilian clothes and they were getting some kind of jacket. I hope it's not another one of those huge leather Army jackets like he got when he was in the Navy hospital last year. It was way too big for Roger plus it's not really usable here in Texas. And I know this is ungrateful, but it was ugly. It was like a large leather high school letter jacket with really big appliques. I could see it in the inner city, but not in Austin, Texas. I think we may still have it in the tub of winter clothes in our attic or we gave it away to someone. I can't remember.

But he took his camera with him so he will probably get some great pictures and I'll ask him to post some. I don't know if this is also a Stripe assignment for him, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind some great pictures of the WTB (Warrior Transition Brigade) soldiers at the game. I was able to meet all the Stripe staff while I was there during Thanksgiving. They are really nice and care a lot about Roger. I'm glad he had them to lean on during this time and a productive, therapeutic way to spend his time there also. He's learned a lot and of course, his photography bug bite got deeper while he was there. I brought back a whole stack of newspapers with his pictures published in them. Although being separated from him this past seven months was hard at times, it really was a blessing for Roger to get more precise physical and occupational therapy and continued medical care. Plus all the cool things he got to do, people he got to meet and opportunities he would have never received. And it was a blessing for me to be able to concentrate on school this semester since it was a tough one.

Okay, enough sappy stuff. I'm off to run errands I haven't been able to do in weeks and months. I have a list! The best one of course is to return all my library books I used for my research paper. I'm really excited about that. Then I'll drive down the street and pick up some paint color samples for our spare bedroom. I'm really excited about that. I can't wait to paint the samples on the wall to help figure out what color we like best. I want to live with them for a while to see what grows on me. If I can wait for Roger, he'll have a say once he gets home for Christmas leave.

MRI done and Published!

The MRI went fine this afternoon. I spoke to my Rad/Onc, Dr. Duelge, right before and we agreed that he would take a look at the scan tomorrow and if it looks fine, he wouldn’t need to give me a call. I’ll see him on Nov 6 anyway. He’ll only call me if there’s a problem, but we don’t think that will happen. And I’m going to get a copy of the scan tomorrow so I can see for myself.

I covered a story last week involving Miss Utah 2007 and her visit to the hospital to visit injured soldiers. She is an Army combat medic and really wanted to visit with them. We found out today that the story was picked up by the Army News Service and appeared as a press release and on the Army webpage. The article gives all the details about her, so be sure to read it. I wasn’t too sure about the picture because it seemed kind of dark, but I turned off the flash and just used the ambient light in the room. It gave a bit of a dramatic effect and lit up their faces quite nicely. Apparently the paper here sent them several pictures, but they liked the one on the page the best. It’s nice to see my work published elsewhere! Here’s the story: Miss Utah Visits Wounded Warriors.

What? A post from Roger?!?

I know… I take long breaks from the blog. Quick catch up: after several months of adjusting my anti-seizure meds, waiting two weeks, doing a blood test to check the levels, finding out that the level s are too low and increasing the meds and waiting two more weeks… I’m finally at a good level. It is supposed to be between eight and ten, I’m at 8.8. I’m not sure what they are measuring, but I’m glad that I don’t have to add any more pills to my daily regimen. Right now I’m taking a minimum of eleven pills per day. But it’s not too big a deal for me. And my right big toe has stopped twitching, so I know that’s a sign that the meds are working. If I can make it through October without having another seizure, I’ll be able to drive again in November!

The weather here is downright fall like now. Lows were in the 40s this past weekend and highs were in the low 70s. Just like I like it! It will warm into the 80s again, but fall is on its way.

I have been doing quite a bit of work for the newspaper here on post. I covered a pretty big event last week that also got national coverage. I don’t need to explain it because these links do:

The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091400501.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202491.html (click the link under gallery to see great pictures)

WUSA9 (CBS) - Be sure to click the link under related video for a great story:
http://www.wusa9.com/rss/local_article.aspx?storyid=62778

NBC Nightly News (MSNBC) - At the ribbon cutting you can see my flash unit and then my head pops up with my square patch of missing hair -- nice:
http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=9cf4ea65-ae72-49d8-94fa-9d90a64e5d27&f=00&fg=

Stripe - mine!
http://www.dcmilitary.com/stories/091407/stripe_28052.shtml

I have yet to figure out how to post the paper as it appeared with my photos.

I’m going to be going home on leave for a few days in early October. I got a heck of a deal on military leisure airfare on Continental. I don’t usually fly them, but they were darn cheap. It will be nice to be home for a few days and to spend time with Holly and to see my new niece!

I think that’s about it for this post. I do want to share a video that was shared with me that I only saw tonight. It makes a pretty powerful statement at the end. It won’t be some of y’all’s cup of tea, but I liked it.

Pics from Soccer

Tina sent me a link to the photos from last night. Click the photo at left to go to the album. Tina has a blog too - check it out.

I kicked butt at Physical Therapy today! I got there early and worked my butt of for two hours straight. They also had me do some new stuff requiring precision stepping with my right foot and left foot in coordination. It was hard… by brain was tired afterward. :-) I pushed myself today since it is Friday and now I can rest over the weekend.

I saw the newspaper this morning and they used about 20 images that I shot over the last week. It’s pretty awesome… I’ve never seen so many images in their paper. The online version doesn’t contain very many though. I’m happy about it and looking forward to next week’s assignments.

And of course, Holly will be here tomorrow. I’m so excited! I can’t wait to see her and give her a big hug.

Thanks to all of you who have been sending me encouraging emails. The days are easier to get through thanks to you. God bless you!

No Official Results Yet

I stopped in to see my Case Manager today to see if the MRI results were in the computer yet. She looked and part of it was there, but it was not completed or ‘signed’ yet. I’ll check back with her tomorrow afternoon. This morning I had my first assignment with the Stripe, WRAMC’s weekly newspaper. I photographed the dedication of a building here on post to CPL Angelo J. Vaccaro, a soldier and medic who gave his life in the line of duty. This guy is a hero… the kind of guy you want to have in your platoon if you run into action. He did some amazing stuff and saved more than a handful of lives on the battlefield. You can read about some of the amazing things he did in this Stripe article from last week’s edition.

The shoot went very well. I was nervous as hell and it didn’t help that it was just about as hot as hell out there. I knew that the paper was relying on me for their pictures and I didn’t want to let them down, so I think I took too many pictures to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I ended up taking 186 photos in an hour – and I’ll bet they don’t even use some as the reporter there took her camera too. But maybe I’ll make the front page – I’ll let you know. I talked to the reporter later in the day and she was impressed. I’m not one to toot my own horn though, so well see how it turns out. I’m just doing this because I want to be a better photographer and doing this in my spare time will push me to work better as my work will be critiqued. I need that. I’ll post some of the photos next week after the paper comes out – I don’t want to post them before that as a courtesy to the paper. When I got back to my room, my entire uniform was soaked with sweat – yes, it was that hot outside. I had to change into different clothes for Aquatic Physical Therapy, so I had to lay my uniform out to dry. It was a very hot day and tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter and more humid.

Speaking of tomorrow, I am shooting Organization Day on Friday. O-Day, as they call it, is a day where two hours around lunch is set aside for people to have fun. People can bring their kids, there are games, food and fun. I have no idea what to expect… but I know one thing. I’m going casual in some wicking shorts and a t-shirt because I hear everyone else will be casual. I hope I take some decent pictures for them. Oh... and the best part about O-Day? No 0730 formation Friday morning!! I can sleep in.