OK whoever asked this hasn't been reading the blog very thoroughly. The only computers we have access to are government computers and they do not allow downloading. Unfortunately, it may be a while before anyone sees pregnant Karen pictures. We will get them up as soon as we are able. And also, we have very limited telephone access - if you don't hear from us it's not because we aren't thinking about you. We miss everyone! Happy 4th of July ! ! ! !
I have now arrived in Germany and Karen and I are together at Landstuhl. Karen's Storknesting sponsor, Robin Sheehan, has been absolutely incredible! Robin and her husband, Andy, had a previous engagement when I landed, so they actually gave Karen their second car so I didn't have to take a cab. Amazing. I am just getting settled this weekend. We went to The Ramstein O' Club All You Can Eat Brunch today - all you can eat KING CRAB. Not snow crab but King Crab. Karen was in heaven. Ramstein has got it going on. They're selling tickets for Eric Clapton and REM. And on the 4th Gary Sunise (the guy from CSI New York) and his Lt Dan Band will be here playing with fireworks for free!
Karen is now scheduled to be induced on 11 July. So we may get to meet Katie Marie a little early. It may not be easy to get pictures up until later. The computer at the medical center only has internet - no other features I can access and the hard drive is locked up. I'll try the library later. We are doing well and miss everyone.
Hi to Joe, Melissa, Cameron, and Emily in Alaska. And congrats on Joe making Tech Sergeant!
On June 6th Karen will be heading for Ramstein Air Base. She will stay at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center (http://www.landstuhl.healthcare.hqusareur.army.mil/ ) which you see pictured here. Karen's lodging will be a short distance from the medical center. This is the largest military hospital outside the continental United States. It is also the treatment center for wounded military members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. If you go to Google/maps and search "Landstuhl" it will key you into the German village, Landstuhl. Then search "Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and you can actually see the medical center. Lodging is just adjacent and is literally surrounded by woods. Unfortunately, the Incirlik commander, has just decided to change the leave policy and will only let father's take 30 days of leave. We figure that means I can only arrive about three weeks before the due date since it's possible we can be delayed trying to obtain Katie's passport before returning to Turkey. So I probably will flying to Germany around June 28th or July 4th.
Katie is now kicking and moving around a lot. Karen is excited to actually soon get to see the person who has been kicking her. They assigned Karen a "storknesting buddy" and she has offered to show Karen a little sight-seeing if Karen feels up to it. I know Karen is hoping to go to Peris for a meal also. Katie will be quite the world traveler before she is even born.
A lot of people coming and going at my job. Our friends Joe and Melissa Thompson left last week bound for Eilson AFB in Alaska. Canisha Carson showed up here to take Joe's place. When I return from Germany in August, our two officers will be getting ready to turn over their positions. After that's over, we will only have 10 months left!
I did great for my fitness test this year. Last year I weighed 225, measured a 38 inch waist, ran the 1.5 mile in 13:20, maxed out my 1-minute push ups at 42 and did 30-something for my 1-minute sit-ups. That's a barely passing 77 points for a 41-year old. This year, I increased my score 10 points to an 86: weight 209, waist 35, max push-ups at 42, max sit-ups at 47, and the one I am most proud of - I did the 1.5 mile run in 11 minutes and 15 seconds. I have to give all credit to Joe Thompson who motivated us all via the CrossFit program( http://www.crossfit.com/ ). Gotta go - they are closing the library.
I like to check Mike Anderson's Saint Louis media site every now and them. When i was younger there was a time I thought I would work in radio all my life. Although I'm glad it didn't work out that way, I sure had fun working for KIX 104FM from 1987-1990. Mike runs a web site in St. Louis that covers St. Louis media news. I e-mail Mike every now and then. When I e-mailed him from turkey he actually put a small blurb up about me on his web site. I can' figure out how to link to a specific date on his site but his site is: http://stlmedia.net/ and the feature he did on me is on 02-24-1008. He put a photo up of me that I can't copy over - but here is the story:
02-24-08 Got a great weekend email ... from former KIX104 Promotions Assistant Pat Dwyer. Kind of a wild man back then (I remember the altercation he got into with the soon-to-be Mayor of Maplewood over a bumper sticker incident), Pat's become an Air Force success story. He's married, and he and his wife, Karen, are about to become parents in the next few months; Pat will become Master Sergeant Dwyer in the next few days and he's a just a few years away from retiring from an honorable Air Force career as a senior non-commissioned officer. Read about his military time here. On AF retirement, Pat and Karen want to come home to St. Louis and he intends to go into accounting, a degree toward which he's been working while in service. When young Mr. Dwyer left KIX, he left a vacancy that was never adequately filled...he was missed. I'm glad to see that it was clearly the AF's gain. Say hi here.
BABY KATIE NEWS: Karen has now felt Katie "doing something" in there. I ask, "Did you feel her kick or was it movement?" Karen says, "She's doing something!"
Thanks to all the recent e-mails/comments from Jackie Rangen, Gittan Grondahl, Tracy Breece, Jeff Pixler, Mom, Kori Smyth, and probably many I am forgetting. I only have 15 minutes left before my time here is up. Besdies Karen needs to be off for "high tea."
Find me on Facebook. It's a great way to stay connected to all your friends and family everywhere simultaneously. Some of you need to get your pictures on there (Mom, Jan, and Jeff).
I wanted to put this one last photo up before I run out of time. This is most of the 39th medical group Mental health Flight on Christmas Eve at the Dwyer's House. Across the front from left to right, you have: Daniel Williams, Dallas Williams (complete with Home Alone pose), me (Patrick Dwyer), Melissa Thompson, and Cameron Thompson. In the back: Keisha Henry, Emily Thompson, Quinlan Creech, Seanna Creech, Seanna's friend, Casey Creech, Karen Dwyer, Joe Thompson (in gray sweat shirt), Wes Williams, Dasha Williams, Angela Williams, and Alicia Edwards.
So, it looks like we will be able to get more pics onto out Picasa site slowly. But I need help. If anyone knows how to reduce the file size of pics, please let me know. each one of mine is 1-2 MB! I know there is a way to get them smaller. I just don't know how.
Karen and I may be able to find out the sex of the baby on January 29th!
See if you can see the photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/patrickjamesdwyer I did get a few in of our trip to Mersin last week. Check out the picture of the Turkish toilet (they are just holes in the ground).
Don't have a lot of time this week. Just wanted to say hi to Don & Donna, Matthew, and Caroline Haley. Don has been kind enough to print out some of these post and take them over to Papa Kuhns for us. Don, just wanted to let you know to look at the comments as well. looks like my mother is calling Jim to task on that last post.
Hopefully our stuff will be here by mid November we are now hearing.
Marehaba. What a journey! The whole trip is one blur but we certainly experienced a lot on the way and have some great memories. It has been a challenging trip. Karen and I can now truly say, "If we could pull this trip off we can do anything." Just to recap a few of the roadblocks we have overcome along the way:
The positive thing for us is we beat back every one of these obstacles. We truly saw a system, the military PCS or "permanent change of station" suffering from some minor infrastructure collapse, especially in the area of military veterinary services - but we never accepted no for an answer and we won at every single step. Now Karen is here with me in Incirlik, Slinky is with me in Incirlik, and our car is on the way.
It was great to be able to see all our San Diego friends one last time prior to leaving. Brent & Jackie, Brent's brother - Mark, Matt and Enrica, and Karen and I all went to the Padres game on Friday. I think that was the 3rd. Kori and Ryan were also there but sat one section below us. It was sold out as Bonds had a chance at tying Aaron's record. Fantastic game as the Padres came back to tie late and win it with a home run in the 9th or 10th (can't remember). The next day we all met for our last supper at Buca De Bepo in Mira Mesa. Then Karen and I finished packing at Matt and Enrica's. It seemed like it took forever and I think I still had to leave about 30 pounds of stuff at their house as we ran out of room. We finally were on our way to The Radisson at LAX with Matt, Enrica, and Slinky around 6PM. The four of us had a fabulous Last Supper - yes another one, except this one was well into the $200 range...but well worth it. So we went to sleep fat and happy.
Now, I thought about whether I should include this next bit. And Matt, you are not around to ask permission, so I am going to put it in here and hope you don't mind because it was so damn funny. Besides, I will be picking on myself shortly. We shared a room with Matt and Enrica. About 2:30 AM Matt start flinging the covers around. At first I thought he was just hot and was trying to get comfortable. But he kept flipping them all around and was wrestling around - then I saw him reach for the light. The light came on and Matt had this crazed look in his eyes with a sheet draped over his head like an Arab and his fingers pointed in the shape of a gun, like a kid playing cowboys and Indians. He looked at Karen and I and said, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I dreamed were playing paintball."
But I topped Matt the next morning. We found ourselves running slightly behind going to LAX. Then we had a little difficulty finding the terminal and ended up one story above where we needed to be. If you know me, you know I like to be early and I was a little stressed that we might have to now turn around and back track to figure out how to get to the lower level where ticketing was. I could see the ticketing line and it was not short. Then I saw an escalator going down to where we needed to be. Now bear in mind that I had three 60 pound bags on one of those rental, metal baggage carts. It all happened so fast. This is the moment Enrica refers to as "when Patrick lost his mind." But my thinking at the time was that I would have just a narrow enough slant on the escalator that I could balance everything. That didn't happen. All three bags tumbled all the way down the escalator and landed at the bottom. About one second later, I realized when I got to the bottom I would have a 50 pound metal cart with no where to go and people coming behind me. So I lifted the metal cart and threw it over the baggage making a huge crash causing 30 Asians waiting at the bottom to all simultaneously turn their heads and stare for one second. It was like they looked, thought "crazy American", and all looked away again in unison. Luckily a United Airlines employee saw our plight and rushed us to the front of ticketing when she realized we were short on time. Then another roadblock -The United ticketing rep kept saying I had no ticket or reservation despite the fact that I had a ticket reservation and confirmation number in my hand and that I had confirmed at least three times in the past week including the day prior. The rep kept asking us "Who's Julie." She said we wouldn't get on the flight and the flight was sold out. Then she said she found our reservation but she claimed it was for a different day. Then she said she would switch our reservation to the flight we thought we were on. I know, she just said it was sold out right? Then she amazingly got us the exact same seats as were on the original reservation in my hand! Praise the lord! After that, the LA to Baltimore flight went well. The stewardesses never even knew a cat was on the flight. We spent the night in Baltimore and were able to eat at G & M where we had the best crab cake I ever had ( gandmcrabcakes.com ).
Air Mobility Command in Baltimore was an entirely different story. That wouldn't let Slinky fly in the Sherpa bag, said he didn't fit in the hard shell carrier, and made him fly in the cargo hold. He is still recovering from the stress but did well. At our layover in Germany, Karen's boss from Edwards, Tom Burkett met us there just to say hi for the brief half hour we were on the ground. Very nice of him.
So, we have now landed at Incirlik and are staying at temporary lodging with Slinky. We should get a house within three weeks. Right now we walk everywhere. About mile to work, to the dining hall, to The Turkish Inn. We received our temporary gate passes yesterday but haven't made it off base yet. We still need to apply for Karen's residency on Monday.
Updates may be infrequent until we get our computer in October. Thanks to all for e-mailing. Keep it up. We love messages.
This may be the last post for a while. The unaccompanied baggage movers come tomorrow and I will most likely ship the computer. This is a hard move. Less than two years in place and the move itself was completely unexpected. Lancaster is hardly our dream place to live but we are REALLY going to miss our house and back yard. And Slinky will miss it even more. This is what we are leaving behind in our back yard in this land where mosquitos can't grow:
We had a great time staying with Matt and Enrica Malone last weekend. Got to see Brent, Jackie, and Taylor. And also got to see Kori, Ryan, and Owen. We didn't get to Diego until late on Friday but everyone was able to gather and Ryan and Kori's on Saturday evening. Then Matt, Enrica, Karen, and I met the Smith family plus Kori's sister and mother Ryan in La Jolla Sunday afternoon before we drove back late Sunday night. Had a fabulous lunch and some adult beverages at The Tin Fish outside Petco Park on Sunday as well. Matt and Enrica also gave us the coolest good-bye gift. It had a photo album of all our time in San Diego from the beginning that included photos from everyone and one of Matt's custom CDs with San Diego 2001-2005 memories. We will see everyone one last time next week -l actually get to see a Padres game a week from tomorrow before we leave for Turkey. Maybe even see Bonds tie or break the record. Well I was going to post some pics but I realize they are all still loaded on the camera.
I probably won't post for a while but we can access our gmail and blog from any computer so as soon as we can access a computer in Turkey we will return. And remember, we WANT to hear from everyone via the blog and e-mail while we are over there. This will be our link to home, family, and friends. Take care and see you soon.
On a positive note: we get to see Brent & Jackie, Matt & Enrica, and Kori & Ryan in just a few days. Can't wait....
Karen found out on Friday that passports are running way behind. This is very bad news. Karen applied for her no-fee passport on May 25th. That gave us ten weeks to the day of departing Landscatter. We were told that passports were taking a LONG time to get back to applicants but that all the stories we were hearing on the news were about vacation-bound travelers applying for fee passports. We were told it should take about eight weeks. Well on Friday we discovered the lady who processes the passports at Edwards Air Force Base just received back the passports for early April applicants. This affects and complicates so many other issues. Can we get reimbursed for Karen's ticket on the commercial flight from LAX to Baltimore if Karen's passport doesn't come in on time? What about the military flight from Baltimore to Incirlik? Where does Karen live if she can't fly with me?
The Air Force needs to improve it's explanation of the passport process. While it is true that we knew of our assignment to Turkey in mid-April, it's also true that I had to fight with the Air Force for around 45 days to get them to understand I could take Karen with me. We did not receive orders until around 25 May. You have to have orders to apply for the passport. So we applied at our earliest opportunity, which was delayed by about 45 days by the Air Force due to Edwards Outbound Assignments not understanding their own rules and AFIs. And we knew that passports took a long time but we really didn't know it could take months - and no one in the Air Force ever told us that. Luckily, my sister-in-law, Carol Czjakowski, works for a company that takes passport photos and told us, because no one in the Air Force did. Tomorrow we are going to ask Carol about rushed passports and see if it's possible to pay extra to get 'em quick but I think even those take longer than the time we have left. Karen is also going to check with the lady at Edward's that processes passports on Monday and then we just have to adjust to whatever situation presents itself. It's really discouraging when you consider all the difficulties we are encountering just to be able to continue to live together as a husband and wife while we serve our country, yet we have several thousand immigrants a day walk into the USA border every day without any papers whatsoever. But we will adjust and press on.
So on top of all that, my father-in-law, Jim Kuhns, has had some serious medical issues going on. Happily, after a successful out-patient procedure last Monday he appears to have a positive prognosis. follow-up up on Monday.
And some good news to report: Our good friends, Brent and Jackie Rangen, had their first baby. Welcome to Earth, Taylor Lynn Rangen. First Kori and Ryan and now Brent and Jackie. Congrats to everyone. I would post pics of both beautiful babies but that seems a little personal without the mom and dads knowing. So just take my word. Both babies are knockouts and both have wonderful parents and a great life in San Diego to look forward to. We will be seeing both babies soon when we go to San Diego to say our last goodbye for two years.
We are now down to the wire. Only a short time left but we still have to deal with issues involving car storage, car shipment, auto insurance, driver's license, passports, airline tickets, cat transportation, vet issues, vacating and cleaning the house, temporary lodging before we leave Lancaster and when we arrive in Turkey, finding a cat sitter at Incirlik until housing is ready, possibly refinancing the car, getting new military uniforms, preparing for our three separate pick-ups of property, and getting a Turkish mail address - to name just a few things. We still have a few big social events coming up: (1) dinner with the Haley's, (2) Tom and Dave's July 4th party on the 30th, (3) my father-in-law's birthday on 1 July, and (4) getting to San Diego to see Kori & Ryan's baby and Brent & Jackie's baby. Jackie is probably in labor as I write this. But other than these social events, every minute of the day will be preparing for PCS (permanent change of station).
Also thought I would start a long term experiment. I added a page element on the right side towards the bottom called "People I Would Like to Find or Hear From." As I have mentioned before, one of the frustrating things I have found in moving so often is that I have really lost track of people I intended to keep in touch with my entire life - dating all the way back to childhood. And every time I move it seems like I gain a few more people I have lost touch with. In today's Internet age, there is really no reason to loose touch. So I am going to try to reconnect with people and maintain that contact. But I think it would be interesting to take it even a step further. Could I literally reconnect with "everyone" that has been a significant part of my life? I am going to find out. So I am starting with childhood. I am starting with the seven kids I used to play with the most between the ages of 4-10 when we lived at 1975 Keeven Lane in Florissant, Missouri. And I already have one reconnection! Actually the first one, Mike Morford, was kind of easy as we reconnected 2-3 years ago. This is a real case of "small world." Mike Morford, Todd Davis, and Scott Hudson not only played together but our lived in houses all adjacent to each other (a four corner type thing). Well, when I googled Mike Morford a couple years ago while working at The Naval Consolidated Brig at Miramar, I was living in Scripps Ranch in San Diego. We hadn't seen or heard from each other in like 30 years. Ironically, I discovered that Mike's first job out of college was working right in Scripps Ranch about a mile from where I was living. That's a small world. Mike is in northern Cali now but I was fortunate enough to be able to reach him before leaving for Turkey. Mike, I still hope to catch up with you sometime when we return stateside.
So, this blog is still brand new. but I enjoy it and i think it will continue to grow, If you know of any of the people I am searching for, let me know - or let them know. Once I reconnect with these old friendships I will add more names.
In the words of OMB: "Time flies when you're having fun."
First Post. So why am I blogging? Well, I've always considered myself a writer...a frustrated writer without time. And an amatuer historian. Hopefully, I will find this forces me to take the time to write and I will get some enjoyment out of it as well. Plus, as I prepare to move to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, I expect to have a few comments about the adventures Karen and I encounter without violating any DoD rules. This should be a great way to keep track with friends and family we will be missing. As I get ready for my 18th move in 22 years, I'm finding contact with friends and family gets harder every year. So, please, help me change that. Read, comment, e-mail, enjoy...stay in touch.
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