The Ft. Worth Adventure …

Ft. Worth

So, after leaving Tallahassee at ass o'clock in the morning, I slept most of the way to Atlanta (shock), changed gates, got on a new plane and slept most of the way to Dallas/Ft. Worth. Finding the Marriott shuttle at DFW was entertaining, as it was like 47,000 terminals over and 9 floors down. DFW is pretty high on my list of least favorite airports, though they do have a Bennigan's, which keeps it from being my least favorite. (My least favorite airport is probably Immokalee … mostly because I had to stop there once to throw up as I was flying around Florida pretty hungover, but that's a whole other story. Well, not really ... that's pretty much the whole story … I was on a cross-country flight, I was hungover, I needed to throw-up, Immokalee was close, so I landed, got out of the plane, yakked, got back in the plane, took off, and continued the flight. Good times.)

The Ft. Worth Marriott Hotel and Golf Club is really quite nice. It is across the road from the Texas Motor Speedway, which was hosting a NASCAR race the day I arrived, so traffic was interesting, and hotel guests were even more interesting. It's a pretty cool operation DynCorp has going on there … they rent/lease a good number of the meeting/conference rooms, and a large portion of several floors of the hotel for offices. I imagine it is a mutually beneficial arrangement for DynCorp and Marriott. Other than the race track, there isn't much in the area to warrant a decent hotel. Anywho, we all got our own rooms, didn't have to pay for internet or food, and so the adventure began.

In my deployment class, we had an assistant fire chief, a firefighter, a fire department admin assistant, and me, the dispatcher … or, if we want to use job titles: the FACC Specialist. (FACC is fire alarm communications center … which is a little funny, because my title would lead one to believe there are reporting smoke/fire detection systems in this country. There are not.) Naturally the four of us hung out all week, as fire folk tend to flock together. The A/C (Mike) is from Oklahoma and is in the Air National Guard. He's pretty damn knowledgeable and fun, so bonus. The Firefighter (Jason) is a former Marine from California, who cracks me up endlessly, and the admin assistant (Tonja) is from Indiana and is a math teacher, but her brother works at one of the bases over here, so he talked her into coming to visit for a year. Interestingly enough, Mike, Jason, and I are still together at one base, while Tonja is hanging out with her brother.

The whole DIDC (DynCorp International Deployment Center) experience was interesting. I learned a lot about how things operate where civilians are concerned in a war zone. I learned that the DoD apparently doesn't follow national trends in CPR and first aid, as we were told that CPR was 15 compressions and 2 breaths (and it was … pre-2005). We got a crash course in how to apply a tourniquet, which was entertaining to those of us that have been in the EMS world for a while. We also learned that we don't rinse/clean out wounds before we bandage them, regardless of whether or not we have water and/or saline readily available. Also despite the fact that this place is just TEEMING with bacteria. Let's keep it in the wound, just in case. Both Mike and I gave suggestions on how to improve things for that class. Pretty sure nothing will change, but they can't make me forget my EMT training, so I'll just stick with that.

The most awesome part of the whole experience was getting 5 shots … well, no. The most awesome part of the experience was getting to hang out with Kevin, Lindsay, and Travis, in various combinations. The second most awesome part was getting 5 shots. They made me get a flu shot. I didn't want one. Apparently there is no opt-out option. I was (and still am) a bit annoyed about that. I also had to get a 3^rd Hepatitis A shot. Yeah, I know there are only 2 in that series, but I didn't have a copy of the record that showed I had already had both … I showed I had one, so they decided to give me another one, just so they could document it and show I had 2. Can't remember what the others were: polio, DPT, and something else, I think. Anyway, both of my arms hurt like hell for a couple of days. That was grand.

I definitely enjoyed hanging out with Kevin and Travis and then Kevin and Lindsay. It was nice to see such cool people after not seeing them for a while. In fact, I hadn't seen any of them since Kevin and Lindsay's wedding in May. Just don't let Travis navigate. 'Nuff said. J

We arrived on a Sunday, and got our "deployment" orders on Wednesday evening. Among the things they gave us, including flight info, etc, was a giant vat of doxycycline. 500 pills per person. What's that for, you ask? Malaria. We are supposed to take one a day, starting the day we leave DFW until 30 days after we return to the States at the end of our contract. That's 13 months. The nice folks at the FDA tell you not to take it longer than 4 months at a time. There was no good explanation for taking it 3 times the recommended maximum, so a number of us have chosen to not take our pills. I figure they'll be great for sinus infections. And if mosquitoes get bad (I haven't seen any at all yet), I may take it for a couple of months. But for now, no mosquitoes = no doxycycline intake. But I have them. Just in case!

Another entertaining part of our time in Ft. Worth was mine and Jason's field trip to do laundry. I can't remember the name of the little "town" where the laundry place was, but it was Historical. We threw our laundry in the washers, and took off to explore. Found a building that was built in the 18-somethings and was a saloon, a nice little bookshop that made yummy pumpkin spice lattes, and other assorted things. Then we went back, switched machines (washer to dryer) and walked the other way through Historic Downtown Whatever-it-was-called.

And all that pretty much took us up to the flight to Dubai, which I wrote about already. I know I said I was going to do more than one today, but I misjudged my ability to be annoyed and write at the same time. More about the annoyance part later. Suffice to say, certain companies do not understand how fire departments work.

Oh, and the cell phone number I gave out last time … doesn't work here. Allegedly we have a tower for that service, but it isn't turned on. And I have no way to get the other company's SIM chip where I am. SO unless Roshan turns on their tower, disregard the cell phone thing. Good times.