Octonodecembuary

I forgot that Preseident's Day was the official end to Octonodecembuary! What is Octonodecembuary? It's the name I have given for the incredible rush of holidays and birthdays that seems to occur between Halloween and President's Day. You have Halloween, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New years Eve, New year's Day, my wife's birthday, Martin Luther King Day, Valentine's day, and President's Day. We also have at least four close family and friends that have birthdays during Octonodecembuary. It seems like most families have a slew of birthday's during this period as well. Octonodembuary is literally October, November, December, January, and February all rolled into one quick blur.

I first came up with the phrase as a joke about two or three years ago. But I was also serious. Since I work in the mental health field, I actually worked it into holiday stress briefings while I was at Edward's Air Force Base for 2005-2007. Mental Health Flight's always gets tasked to do briefings to remind everyone to watch their stress levels during the holidays - and also the stress levels of those around us. A lot of concern comes from leadership about suicide, stress, and drinking & driving during this time frame. It seems like just when you get the Halloween decorations down, the Thanksgiving decs and planning start. And immediately after Thanksgiving, Christmas decorating starts. Then New Years. Then.....the bills start coming in. But don't forget Valentine's Day is just around the corner. It can be a stressful time just trying to keep up. So I actually inserted a slide into my PowerPoint briefing about "Octonodecembuary" in 2005.

So here it is. I want credit when the term starts getting thrown around.

Some Funny Things In Turkey

Today is Karen's last day working at The Incirlik Library - so I get to post two days in a row. The down side of not having a computer at home is I end up posting long after events happened. We may end up getting Internet but most likely we will continue just posting at the library. The local company charges $80 per month, wants three months up front, and we would have to buy a modem - so it's $300 just to start Internet service. The library will work just fine at those rates.

Today we are looking at a few unusual things about Turkey. Let's start out with the whole idea of copyrights and trademarks. In Turkey - there is no such thing. If there is, it is simply not enforced. That takes us to our first photo. Below we have the store "Disney World" in Adana, Turkey. You can see Karen and our friend Melissa Thompson coming out of the store if you click on the photo and blow it up. Now I don't know if the "XL" means trademark or copyright, but it clearly doesn't matter. I doubt that Disney has anything to do with this store. But the owner wants you to think it does, right? That clearly looks like your typical Disney writing to me. But this was the first Disney store I have ever been in that smelled of cigarettes and actually had people smoking in the store. Oh, did I mention there are not any actual Disney products in the store. You can find Spiderman, The Flintstones, Hana Barbara - but no Disney characters! I see Mickey and Minnie on the front window but they are not in the store anywhere.

But we had fun with the Thompson's looking at all the stuff that isn't actually Disney. Below, Joe and Melissa's son Cameron finds Disney's latest new character - Spiderman!

Everyone has heard about the Turkish toilets - the ones that are simply holes in the ground. The newer restaurants and offices have American style toilets but you still find the old hole in the ground quite frequently. Below is a toilet at a gas station in Mersin:

Below we see an American-style toilet at great restaurant we ate at in Adana with the Thompson's. The Turks definitely have a sense of humor. Each toilet has a photo of a famous woman above the toilet. If you look close you will see that the Sharon Stone is looking down at the male's package. Pretty funny. Luckily there wasn't a Turk in the restroom wondering why I was taking pictures in the bathroom!

And the Turks do celebrate a form of Christmas around New Year's Day. In the below photo you can actually see Santa and a reindeer on display at the mall in Mersin. I only caught the back because I was actually trying to get a photo of the penis-shaped balloons that seem to be all the rage. Karen I laughed every time we saw one at the mall. I'm not sure what they are supposed to be. If you blow this picture up you may be able to see one the kid is carrying.

Karen says hi to everyone. Bye for now!

It's A Girl

Please allow me to introduce Katie Marie Dwyer. We love her:


Click on play button - you may need to click 2x - once you see the word "buffering" appear on the screen it is about to start.

We found out about three weeks ago but I haven't had time to post. It was an interesting experience. First Dr. Tajha (spelling?) at the 39th Medical Group told Karen and I he was 95% sure the baby is female. But he wanted to send us to Adana for a more advanced ultrasound and screening. So we showed up to TriCare about a half hour before the appointment and "Sami" from TriCare drove us Sistems in Adana. At Sistems he took us up to what seemed like a SIP lounge. All the Turks were waiting in the lobby but they took us up to a special private room with a TV and we waited away from the crowd. The other interesting thing was the entire clinic smelled of cigarettes. We couldn't actually see anyone smoking but they clearly were in the offices. This was a clinic not a hospital but still... My coworker who is a longtime resident here, Tom Evans, tells me even in the hospital you sometimes see people smoking despite signs forbidding it - no enforcement. Sistems was very nice and had great equipment. Karen could actually watch everything on a television while I sat beside her and watched on the machine. The doctor at Sistems said they were also "almost positive" the baby is a girl and they saw nothing to worry about. "Looks good," said the doc.

We have also purchased the crib and attached diaper changing stand with a mattress. Buying the crib was a typically funny Turkish experience. You have to remember the Turks run most of the Incirlik Base Exchange (BX). And where we bought the crib they run the entire store. The name of the place we bought the crib is the BXtra because they sell all the large items that don't fit in the BX. So here's how it went:

Patrick and Karen walk in and tell Turkish employee which crib they want. "Do you have some in the back?" asks Patrick.
"Yes Abe. They are in box - we deliver to you on Tuesday."
So Patrick and Karen buy the crib. After we have exchanged money Turkish employee says, "Oh, I am sorry Abe but I realize we don't have any in the back. they are at warehouse and we can't get for a few days. We can deliver the model on the floor?"
"No. We want a new one in the box. Can we just wait?"
"Sure Abe."
Awkward silence as Turkish employee looks at computer screen. "Abe, I am not sure if we have two at warehouse or not. it says two. I think we have two. Can you call Mehmet on Tuesday?"
On Tuesday, Patrick calls Mehmet who says, "Abe, my guy looked at it wrong. We have two on the way but not at the warehouse."
Patrick says, "But you already sold it to me."
"I know Abe. What are we going to do?"
"Well, when will the two new ones get here."
"Maybe two to three weeks Abe. I could also give you the floor model."
"Well we looked at it and there's nothing wrong with it but we won't pay full price for a floor model."
"Abe, I will give you 25% off."
Patrick rushes over to take advantage of the fantastic Turkish bargain. He finds Mehmet. "The crib will be delivered today then."
"Yes Patrick, except we have a problem with the 25% off - we have no money in our register."
"Well, I am going to buy the mattress. Why don't you just give me the mattress."
"I have to be able to show the transaction Abe. We will give you a gift card for the 25% and then you may buy the mattress with the gift card."
"Tamum (OK)," says Patrick.
I was happy that it only took ten minutes for them to figure out how to work the gift card and then I got an even better deal. Those Turks thought they were getting me but I pulled the wool over their eyes. You see, when we were all done I was able to buy the mattress AND still have money left over on the gift card. So they had to hand me a gift card with one cent of credit left on it!
"But Abe we still have one problem left. Can we deliver maybe before the delivery time?
"Well...when?"
"Oh, anytime before the three o'clock time. Maybe one or...NOW?"
"Yeah, I can do that but I don't have a car. You need to give me time to walk home."
"Abe, you can ride with my guys in the truck."
"My wife has the only key and she's at the library."
"Abe, we will drive you to the library and we can get the key and then deliver the crib."
So I hopped in the Turkish van looking like a Turkish worker - crammed three to the front with no seat belts. We got the key from Karen. And that is how Katie received her crib!

We Were Hacked!

Just to let everyone know we are OK and fine. Yesterday, Karen received a call from a friend of hers on base while I was at work. "Are you OK?" the friend asked. "Yeah....you just saw me an hour ago," Karen replied. Turns out, someone accessed our g-mail account around 1-2pm yesterday and sent out an e-mail with the title "It's Over" and a message saying I had had it with the Ar force and couldn't take it any more. Unfortunately, the message went to relatives, friends, friends of family, the incirlik spouses club, Karen's former boss and her current boss. So after Karen got ahold of me and determined that I was in fact still working for the Air Force and earning a paycheck - we then began to try to figure out what happened. I'm fairly certain it wasn't an actual hack but that someone got on the computer I had used the previous night at the library and was able to acces the actual gmail/google page I had accessed the previous night when he or she typed in the google address. We have seen it happen before on a specific computer at the library. Access to deleting history and cookies is disabled on this computer and I had manually shut the computer down thinking it would delete the actual logged on page - but it appears it doesn't. But we want to asssure all friends and relatives that everything is fine. If for some reason we are wrong and you receive and any sort of weird message, please call us and let us know. But i think we have it figured out. I am on the same computer now and it appears that I can now eliminate the problem.

Baby news: we tried to have the sex determined this past week but baby was not cooperating. I was able to see the heartbeat and some arm/hand movement but he or she was facing down from the side and the movement wasn't enough fo the doctor to make a determination. We will try again in about two weeks.

One More Photo From Christmas

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).

PICTURES FROM TURKEY ! ! !

PICTURES! PICTURES! PICTURES! Everyone keeps asking for pictures. Here they are. I finally have put some stuff on a zip drive so I can put a bunch of stuff up. Pay close attention to the end of this post for important info on pictures. The following our in chronological order since our departure from San Diego for Turkey:

To the left. A terrified Slinky hanging in there. I believe this was taken in Los Angeles because I am still using the soft carrier the Air force wouldn't let us use.

When we were finally able to move into Incirlik housing, we still didn't have any of our possessions. Slinky was still a little freaked out about the whole thing. Damn cat kept crawling up inside the bed! We're lucky they didn't charge us as this is part of the "stick furniture" they lend you.

Slinky decided to immerse himself in things that smelled like "our stuff."

Karen with some people from the Med group shopping in Kahramanmaras during our Mt. Nemrut trip. We call it "K-town" and it is famous for its ice cream. Notice how the man on the left is staring. The locals are fascinated by black people and blond hair. We really stood out.

Also, during the Mt. Nemrut trip. We spent the night in Kahta before ascending Nemrut. These kids were playing right under our hotel window. Once they saw I had a camera they wanted to pose. Extremely friendly.

At the top of Mt. Nemrut. this was very early, right after sunrise. The pictures that follow will give you an idea for how high up we are.

We had already been descending for quite a while at this point. Then the road turned to dirt...with no guard rails. Then we came around a corner in our little bus and saw this. It was so scary all we could do was laugh - the guy behind us kept yelling at the driver, "Yavash ! Yavash !" That's Turkish for "slow." Karen was belly-roll laughing You can see the dirt road we we are on down below. The following shot is several more miles down this road after we descended a few thousand feet.

Here we are several thousand feet down. We are actually walking on a trail at this point. That's a tributary to the Euphrates below. See below for explanation of where we are.

I love this picture of Karen at Park Zirve. This was taken during a Ramadon Iftar. Those are Whirling Dervishes behind Karen. I had the Karen set for a slower speed so it couldn't actually keep up with the Dervishes. But the lights and the blur really made the picture.

This is in Adana. That's Karen and my buddy coworker Joe Thompson. We are up on the roof of an apartment Joe is watching for one of our docs that returned to San Francisco to go to school for a year. I think you call the lake Seyhan. This is in the nice area of Adana just down the street from Park Zirve.

Inside the apartment. Does Karen look beautiful or what?

OK, I was hoping to get a bunch of photos into either Picasa (which is part of my Google/g-mail account) or into Photobucket. it was a little more complicated than I thought as the library won't let me install Picasa. So I may get around to it soon. I have figured out that the photos I post on here are viewable at http://picasaweb.google.com/patrickjamesdwyer . But, if I don't post them in a blog there doesn't seem to be a way to add them unless i have the software and the library does not. Stay tuned.

Hockey Is Back !

Wow ! I haven't had that much fun watching a hockey game since I was a kid in the 70s. 71,217 people watching outside. In the snow! With the retro uniforms and hockey's next great one, Sidney Crosby, winning the game in the shootout. It felt like hockey had a vibe it hasn't felt since the 60s expansion from the original six teams to twelve. I hope NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman sticks with the idea of making this an annual event. Sure, it may not snow every year. But for this year, the first year of the NHL's Winter Classic, it was pure magic.

And how about Sidney Crosby? Did you see that assist? Did you see the turning pivot move? Did you see him stick handle three times consecutively in mid-air? Did you see him win the game in the shootout? Crosby is exactly what hockey needs right now.

The NHL has so much opportunity right now to advance its marketing image. If they played their cards right, they could make The Winter Classic "the" New Year's Day event. The fans absolutely loved it. The only thing I would suggest is considering a larger rink strictly for the large venue outdoor games. It may seem a little weird at first, but adding 10-20 feet on all four sides would make for excellent skating and better viewing in a stadium.

I can't wait to get back to America and be close to hockey again. They actually had a rink here in Adana, Turkey , but I guess it didn't last very long. In 2002-2003 I managed to reconnect with the sport I love. I played in pick-up scrimmages on Monday nights and got a job at San Diego Ice Arena where I learned to drive the Zamboni. But, in Lancaster there was no ice rink. And now no ice rink in Turkey either. When karen and I return to America I want to live where the guys have a hockey night on TV and there's a rink with an old timer's league. Perhaps we will have a little hockey player or figure skater in the near future.

So 2008 starts out with a huge BANG for hockey! Did I mention the fans liked the event?

All photos from nhl.com