No Nog? You Kidding?

There was almost a crisis in Doha today. Major issue, however thanks to Carol all was alleviated. I was planning on trying to make egg nog this evening. I have been scoping out the ingredients since I got here and I knew where to find everything. I got the “good stuff” last week, other than a change on the type of rum I am good to go. Today I went out to borrow a mixer off a friend and then head to the stores…(you cannot find everything at one store in this country). I went to one and got the whipping crème, plus some other groceries that I needed. However, they were out of eggs…so no worries, I will get them at the next store. Arriving at the second store, there was a sign that said ‘out of eggs’…crap this is getting bad. I got the rest of my supplies, minus the main ingredient, and headed to 2 other stores. NOTHING. THERE IS CURRENTLY A RUN ON EGGS IN QATAR. Are you kidding me? So I called Carol who I knew was going to another area of town to do her grocery shopping, I told her my dilemma and she promised to keep an eye out. About an hour later after I got home there was a knock at the door and there she was with 30 eggs in the carton. She stopped at a few mom & pop stores on her way home and found one that had eggs. Thank Goodness! Whew. She just secured her place on the nog list. So, the cooking will commence this evening.

Oh, small aside…when I came home from the store my kitchen was flooded with water from my dishwasher. (FYI- there is a drain cover in the middle of my kitchen floor, that is where it came from) I immediately called our manager and they got someone here in like 20 minutes. Fastest response time in Doha. He got the drain unclogged and then informed me that he was surprised that it has not happened sooner. Apparently, there was an issues with the concrete guy coming after the plumber while they were building and there is a lot of extra concrete piled up in the drain pipes. There is also speculation that they put too small of drain lines in. They are coming tomorrow to re-route my kitchen drains to the pipe out the rear of my villa instead of the one in the kitchen. Hopefully, no more floods!

So, once again I have a bunch of crap to talk about and I want to make it interesting, but I don’t want to do in depth on all of this. So some of it will be so I remember it later.
We had our Administrative Manager come from Pittsburgh and stay with us 2 weeks. We all had to have a 1 on 1 meeting with her. All I can say is wow. Carol, Connie, and I named her Hypertalker. This girl says so much in such a short period of time. Wow. Plus its very ADDish…she is all over the place with her thoughts and comments. She is definitely a blonde, however. We were talking one day and one of us said it was ‘hump’ day. She stopped the conversation and asked what the heck we were talking about. She did not know if it was a reference to something or a sexual innuendo of some sort. She had no idea that the rest of the world calls the middle of the work week hump day…I didn’t even know how to respond. Luckily, she did calm down a little week 2 and was much more tolerable. If I had to put a reference on it for you all, Imagine hanging out with a slightly less intelligent Marcie (Gore-Clinton-McClintic-Coats-Kerry-Edwards),that provides the same level of work, but on speed and with ADD. Very high energy…
So, our Executive VP of my division came over for a board meeting. They fly over once a quarter for these things. It is hard to believe that they are in town for about 24-48 hours…that is not long enough to even figure out where you are. However, they had a nice lunch for us when they got here and we all got to hang out with them. He informed us all that our division is rapidly expanding. They are looking at opening hospitals in Ireland, Cyrus, Italy, maybe even some more in the Middle East not to mention some things they have going on in the states. He said that great opportunities would be available to good employees in the coming years. The Ireland project is going to need a lot of administrative help, so that excited me. I could probably do Ireland. I never thought I would like international assignments, but if I found one where it is not sunny and 70 degrees everyday and there is stuff to do, I might consider it. Plus I am really starting to look at a Project Manager position (The person on location that runs the project) as an opportunity down the road. Many things to look forward to. I would probably still like the opportunity to fix a certain service in West Virginia, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

On to work. Our medical director who works with our project has recently re-wrote the protocols and now we are doing a full staff protocol rollout. When you have over 700 staff, this takes a few months. They are getting new skills and drugs, and they are also losing some skills and drugs. They did the EMTs first and everything went pretty well. Now he is onto the Paramedic I’s. Those of you that are confused, Paramedic Is are kind of like the US equivalent of an EMT-I. Actually, they are like an EMT-B with more responsibility and not much more training. A dangerous mix. Most of them are Tunisian anesthesia technicians that were supposed to be good at intubation. Through our new random chart audit, we learned that not only can they not intubate, they do not realize when it is out, or what to do to fix it in a timely manner. So, now these guys can only intubate dead people (in cardiac arrest). Everyone else is getting a King airway, which is kind of like a Combitube-basically idiot proof. Well needless to say these boys are irate that they took skills away from them. However, evidence does not lie. They started arguing that they are skilled in this and they should not take this away. We basically got them down to “Our job description says you are a Paramedic I. Paramedic Is do not intubate. If you do want to intubate, you can probably find a job that will let you” (We didn’t actually say that, but we did) They are really mad, cause the EMTs can now do the same skill. Ahh…the joys of consulting. If you have not figured out we are phasing out Paramedic Is. Soon everyone will be trained to an EMT-I level or they will drop to and EMT level if they cannot pass the course. This will really help the system evolve.

I finally found a poker game. I met a guy at a party and he got me into this game. Tournament style hold ‘em every Thursday. It was the most multinational, random game I have ever played. The house was HUGE. There were 4 bedrooms on the first floor. A living room, foyer, a poker room the size of mom and dad’s living and dining room (which included a bar and a bathroom), a pool room, and the kitchen was detached from the house in the maid’s quarters. It was impressive. The hosts were a very nice older Texas couple, that you can say were very Texan. The husband I think works in the oil business, so no wonder why he has such a big house. They have food, alcohol, etc. I brought a bottle of Jack to give and they told me not to bring any more alcohol, to just drink theirs. They would not take any money for food. The kicker is, they do this every week. Great people. Anyway the poker room has a bar, couches all around, 3 tables set up, TV, music, a snack table, very cool. I played with guys and girls from China, Lebanese, Syria, Texas, Arkansas, New York, Maylaysia, and South Africa. 4 of them were Muslim (obviously, not very devout) Very cool group. The guy from Arkansas used to be a Medic in the states in the early 80’s. He was shot while on duty and his wife made him find a new job. So he went to work for a natural gas company and now makes more money than I could probably count doing medical and safety consulting. He has worked all over the world. They play extremely fast. 8 minute blinds, they have a lot of levels, but once you get to a certain level those blinds skyrocket. I was doing well early caught rockets a couple of times and had some big pairs, and hit the flops but could never get any bites. I made a few scores even when I had the nuts some of these boys would pay to the river and then fold…thanks a bunch. Anyway, I came in 5th out of 13 for my first trip not too bad. They usually pay out top 4, but since they only had 13 they paid out top 3. So, either way I was on the wrong side of the money line. Looking forward to playing with them again. I think some of my hesitation was that we were playing so fast and it has been a while since I rounded. Oh well, I get back in the swing of things.

To follow the previous paragraph, what would be better to tell you that the next day after poker I went to church? I did. There is a place here called the Grace Fellowship and I was looking for someplace that had a Christmas Eve service that I could attend. I wanted to check it out beforehand, so I went with a couple that I work with. It was Ok. It was held in a Villa that the group bought and they are trying pretty hard. It was actually pretty packed. They do not have a resident preacher (it’s non-denominational) so when there is not someone in town, people sign up to do certain Sundays. This guy that talked today was OK, but after his message he kept rambling. I saw more than a few people doing the head bob. It would be so much fun for one of the preachers that I know and love to make the trip over for a few weeks…(hint, hint…you know you have a place to stay). The couple that I went with have about a one year old girl and they invited me to lunch afterwards. Well…wow. There were 4 other couples that went to lunch with us and they all had kids ranged 0-4. 4 sets of families, 6 kids. 2 on the way. Me. That was an interesting lunch. The conversation was good and it is really nice to see some of these kids going to church and experiencing that plus, it is nice to see them so well mannered. It was a little of an overload for me, but I did well. I didn’t drop any of the kids that I held or that wanted to sit in my lap, so that is a start. Luckily I have Nick and Porter to thank for that training (well actually just Nick). I still have yet to meet my other boy.

I am getting longwinded, so I will continue this later. Have a great day. HAPPY CHRISTMAS!