Monday, November 12, 2007

Mountaineers? In Doha????

Ok…so here I go again. I know I start out most of my posts like this…but it has been crazy busy. I have been pouring over polices all day long reading, retyping, correcting, etc. so when I come home, I do not want to type anymore. Hopefully that will be over soon. Actually, Julie finally sent me the book she has been working on for like 6 months and I am supposed to be reading it…but since it is electronic it is going to have to wait a few more weeks.

So, we had a tussle with these dang radios I am trying to get installed. Actually, I inherited the problem. It was not mine to begin with. Anyway, our Trauma doc…who I like…even though he is from Alabama and is a Tennessee fan… caught me at a meeting and told me the radio was not working (we installed in last week). I knew this, however I was just informed about 10 minutes prior to his rant. I told him I was on it and he kept coming back to this freaking radio crap. I had to basically say “What do you want from me…short of calling the emir himself I am doing everything I can” Moving on…our radio guy showed up after the meeting and we took the radio back to the shop, fixed it and had it back in service in about 30 minutes. It was a simple fuse problem. When putting it back in, the ER director rolls through with our Trauma doc and something came to light. First, that they would be getting very little information from that radio as we are in the stages of training 660 staff to properly use it. This is going on for a few months. Second, the channel was programmed wrong. It was still usable, just incorrect…a programming fix which could be done the next day. This led to an impromptu meeting in his office that included a hurried call to the assistant director of EMS who hurried over, our radio guy, trauma doc, me, and some other guy who is worthless. To make a long story short…he basically wanted us to suspend the entire training that we were doing to teach our entire staff how to use the radio in 3 days. This basically put me, the EMS guy, and our medical director into an uproar. Turns out that with scheduling and instructors, it is not feasible. Also, the funny part is…the Trauma team is supposed to be teaching all of the nurses in the country how to answer the radio…and they haven’t even begun…so who were we going to talk to? Sorry this is kinda jumbled…and I left some stuff out…but now I can remember it later.

We have a new communications guy from Pittsburgh that came to town for a 3 week assessment. I tried to show him around the first week and we went to dinner. After leaving dinner, we were in basically stopped traffic. The guy in front of me took his foot off the brake to inch forward, about 2 seconds later I was rear ended. Very light, no damage. It was by a Qatari. However, you know he was texting or playing with his cell phone and saw the guy in front of me start to move and just assumed that I would ride his ass like everyone else in this country does. Freaking idiots. I am sooo glad there was no damage to either car or injuries.

I did go to a bar last week that made me feel like home. It is called Garvey’s…it is a UK bar and the clientele is mainly white ex-pats. (There has been grumblings of discrimination…trust me…it happens at this bar..) They had a band from the UK that would mumble stuff into the microphone and the crowd would go crazy. It was kinda cool. Had some fish and chips and some beer. Nice change of pace. Not too busy, etc. Anyway…the funny part of it was that I met a girl from West Virginia there. What are the odds? You know me…wearing WVU crap. Anyway, this lady noticed my WVU stuff and came over to chat. She is a school teacher, is from wheeling, and has been here since 1993. Are you kidding me? That is way too long to stay in this town. She did tell me how much the place has grown and how different it is now. It was really cool catching up with someone from WV. Don’t you love the Randomness of Doha? This is truly the new melting pot of the world. I interact daily with people from so many countries. It is not uncommon for a day to go by where I talk with people from 10, 12, even 15 different countries. Crazy…

This is more random. So I have been keeping up with the workouts, exercise, and trying to eat right. One of our Doctor’s wives now has a cardio kickboxing class on Sunday nights. She definitely kicks your ass. Her husband is there too and there is only about 4-6 in the class…so I don’t feel too weird. However, it is a great change from my daily workout routine plus it gets the job done. Also…some other friends at UPMC have starting going to spinning class on Monday nights. I have joined in this as well. It is a different way to ride a bike, but it challenges you and like before is a good change of pace.

So this morning…the power was out. That is easy for me to figure out because my CPAP stops working. (Kinda hard to breathe with a mask on that is no longer giving you air) It sucks when the entire house runs on power. No water pressure (we all have our own pumps), no lights, no TV, etc. Plus today was foggy here. Apparently that happens in the winter. Thick, dense fog…it lifted about the normal time you would expect, but a really sudden change when you are used to looking out every morning for 4 months and see blue skies an bright sunshine.
I am currently getting ready for the WV invasion this weekend. It is going to be fun. Hopefully mom will not get sick when we go dune bashing and Carrie and I do not get arrested for chanting Let’s Go Mountaineers out the window at 3:00 am…we will see! I will talk to you all soon… Cheers!

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