Scariest Environment Imaginable

The month since my last post has not been terribly eventful. That is one of the problems with working in a Civil Law billet. While I am busy and have produced a considerable volume of work product, it is hard to really write about any of it. Pursuant to my duties as the Installation Claims Officer, I did get the "opportunity" to drive three hours north of the base to the absolute middle of nowhere in order to investigate claimed damage from a sonic boom.

Sonic boom investigations were an unexpected facet of my Claims Officer responsibilities. Due to the combination of the Nevada Test Range and all sorts of kick ass supersonic aircraft, Nellis has to deal with a number of sonic boom complaints. When an object passes through the air, it creates a series of pressure waves in front of it and behind it, similar to the bow and stern waves created by a boat. These waves travel at the speed of sound, and as the speed of the object increases, the waves are forced together, or compressed, because they cannot "get out of the way" of each other, eventually merging into a single shock wave at the speed of sound.

While this might look cool, rest assured that it is not. It means me driving all day in a minivan.

Depending on the speed and altitude of the plane, this shock wave can ruin things, like windows...or my day.


I also had my formal six-month feedback session with my SJA. I can now officially report that I am doing well as both an officer and an attorney. That said, it is only going to get tougher and tougher as I get more experience and more responsibility.

What would you say...you do here?

I will be leaving this Tuesday for Travis Air Force Base, located between San Francisco and Sacramento. I will be there for the next two weeks for PRK corrective eye surgery. The "pro" of all of this is that it is at no expense to me. The military covers the costs of the surgery and my time out of the office is considered a TDY, meaning I do not have to burn leave. The "con" is that I am volunteering to have a goddamn laser shot into my eyeballs. I am incredibly anxious about the procedure. I understand this anxiety is largely unfounded but there is no getting around the fact that I am volunteering to have a goddamn laser shot into my eyeballs.

"Melting Raiders of the Ark Nazi" is my worst case scenario.

I have been reading dozens of blogs and forums regarding people who have had the procedure. It seems that the actual surgery is painless, though the whole set up totally freaks me out. Every description I read, no matter how detached and clinical it might be, takes me back to that scene from Armageddon when the NASA personnel describe the conditions Owen Wilson's character can expect on the asteroid. He replies, "Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That's all you gotta say, scariest environment imaginable."

From all accounts, the first three days are the worst, both in terms of visual acuity and pain. Once my eyeballs are in computer screen reading condition, I'll post and let all of you know how the surgery went...assuming my face does not somehow get melted off.