OCT-C-5
POST-MARATHON, PRE-TEXAS,
IN A WELTER OF ACTIVITY FROM DC
LICENSING BOARD,
TO REI
OF COMPLETION OF WOODS AND HOUSE
ADDITION REMODELING
October 29—30, 2003
What a welter of activity I have just left---and all of it “on me!” The cement trucks have just left, churning up the rain-soaked drive into deep ruts of mud, and knocking down the mailbox on the way out. They have spread several yards of cement on the paving of the spacious garage and the storage room below the filled in and ready for roofing Game Room and Library. The windows subcontractor is carrying in the large picture windows that will stretch floor to 28-foot ceiling in the Great Room, and the Library is finished awaiting the windows which are being installed later today. The carpenters finished the deck on the West side of the Breakfast Room and had put the treated wood floor joists under the East side decking which is being finished with the railings today. The plumbers come later to put the roughed in plumbing for all four bathrooms and the kitchen. And, as I am trying to find a place to put the vehicle that it is not run over—in comes Ernie Shifflett’s Tree Service to pull in the Intimidator and a crew of Guatemalans are spread through the woods tugging on old wet stumps to through them through the chipper in one of the later stages of the woods total cleanup and have sent several climbers up trees with chain saws to drop hanging branches. I had asked them to “stump grind” the big stump at the Breakfast Room which would otherwise interfere with the steps up to the deck, and while they are bringing the machine here anyway to grind the other stump out near the stone walkway, since all the stone are broken up by the heavy equipment that has been dragged over it.
So, as I am
in the middle of orchestrating this I hear the walkie talkie that Jody the
carpenter is carrying squawk and I heard
Glenn’s sick and sad voice, since he has been laid up with gastroenteritis and
he is in bed at home, with his thoracotomy and lung cancer operation due on
Monday November 3. He tells me he is out
of it now, and is turning over to Jody some of the lead carpentry jobs. I had gone through the house on Tuesday with
Dale Kramer, the first time we had been together for several months, as we had
last talked when he was on his way to
Another question, now resolved has to do with the foyer, separated by an arch from the living room that contained air ducts, and whether it was a weight-bearing wall or not was open to inquiry before the thought that it should be eliminated, since it creates a wasted space next to the windows and on the side of the closed over passageway that will now be a walk in pantry. It turns out that this is NOT a weight-bearing structure, so that, at additional cost, it can be removed, and I would ask the help of the designers et al whether that would be suggested. This, and the selection f the door from among many models, and the question of the Korian color wood grain vanities for master bathroom and some appliance selection as well as sign off on kitchen final plans had been phoned and faxed to Virginia, but she was not in a position to do anything about these plans, having removed herself a long way out of the thought process about remodeling and just asked that this be referred to me to “suit yourself.” So, I approved what the designers had suggested, with some trepidation about revisiting these recommendations later for any expensive later revisions. Dale and I will check through Sandy Sheilor, who also called me about a few bathroom and kitchen plans and I left a message on her machine in response—“do it right, and I will see what comes of it.”
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, BEGINS WITH A
BOARD OF LICENSURE HEARING AND ENDS WITH AN ADVENTURE TRAVELOG ON
On rainy
mornings, the commute, which in rush hour times is now getting into multiple hours,
gets even worse, so the combinations of my jet lag of the far side of the
world’s still-operational time zone and the daylight savings time, coupled with
my too-early arrival for the Marine Corps Marathon has meant that it is much
more time efficient for me to go in before the rush—which means getting in to
the office about 6:30 AM which allows me to do the day’s work before anyone
else arrives. After I did the usual
clearing of the emails, I took the Metro to Union Station and walked over in
the rain to the DC Medical Licensing Board with which I have had a quarrel for
over a year, since my license expired on
Why am I sitting here in a disciplinary hearing along with the IV drug pushers and other felons to plea for the license that they have messed up so badly on an administrative level between me and the Board? Bill Matory had each of the Board introduce themselves and then stated to all that we were friends and he did not recall who it was that paid for lunch that last time we were together at the American College of Surgeons, but that he wanted everything open to keep from conflict of interest. I myself said I was surprised to see my friend and respected leader as the chairman of the committee, since I did not know who it was. Then I was given five minutes to answer the questions which centered around the fact that they did not know that I was not in the practice of medicine with or without a license in DC or any other state, and the they did not know that I had tried to renew even three months before the license was due to expire—meaning that they still had not received the packages of material with every one of the forms and checks zeroxed and re-submitted to Ms Antoinette Stokes over six times in a row. They asked how could I have renewed before the expiration date? They did not know that the recommendation is that the renewal take place on-line—which, of course, did not work, so I simply printed out the renewal form and sent it to them in September with the Xeroxed check (I had previously been screwed over by the same contractor so I was not about to take such chances again!) all of which they did not know—despite all of these supportive materials having been included in each of the communications over the past year. Bill Matory said that the Board’s auditors would not let them cash my check for reinstatement without the release for their misconduct, and I said nothing in reply to suggest that I would release them from their own confessed administrative errors for which they had preferred that I pay and then hold them harmless. One of the community members asked if he could get it straight, and said , incredulously “You mean you expect us to believe that you travel around the world helping others at no charge to them, and do this full time in a professional capacity?.” I said to him, “I believe this demonstrates that you did get it straight the first time.”
So, I was dismissed. I do not know the resolution, but I do know that they will still try to get some kind of penalty fee from me, as well as an exoneration of their administrative misconduct on the part of the contractor which they have acknowledged by the firing of Promissor. We will see. (qv)
I came back
to the office, and drank some coffee, and set to work on an editorial that had
been invited by the journal Nutrition over three months ago. I had been carrying the material with the
thought of writing the editorial whenever I got waylaid—as I had been when I
was stranded in India—but when there, I had to work full time on getting myself
out---again on the basis of someone else’s misconduct in issuing me a one-way
ticket, and with my notification to them that they had six weeks to correct
this—and no subsequent action being taken.
This mistake on the part of someone else cost me the stranding in
So, I did it. It is an analysis on the part of Pakistanis who judge their nation of 78 million people to be at risk of nuclear war with India—the only option they would have with an imbalance of armed men across the LOC of a million man army from a nation of well over a billion. So, they wish to “protect” themselves by increasing the iodine in the Pakistani diet. This covert message was the one I dissected out of their paper which I had originally reviewed, and then was invited to write an editorial on the subject of the revisions according to my requirements for their paper. (qv)
I then went
to REI, where I had just got in the door when I was called and in the middle of
the camping section with the overhead pages going off as I was setting up my
slide carrousels on
AND, NOW, TO
TO GO TRICK OR TREATING WITH TWINS!
I had
received another call in the course of my standing on the not yet fully
completed Derwood deck amid the multiple contractors coming and going around me
before I had to run off to BWI to catch the series of American Airlines flights
that have brought me here now to San Antonio.
Immediately upon my arrival here, I had to put away the thoughts that
were troubling me as they have been communicated by someone else without yet
communicating them—so I have written a long letter in advance of my hearing
what I fully expect to happen yet again, with the dissolution of all other
previously reconfirmed commitments and plans, upon which I have launched irreversible
plans toward a future that may not be, at least any time soon or with the dream
intact as previously projected. But here
and now, I have two little boys who are full of verbal greetings for their
Grandpa and are excited about going Trick or Treating with him, and their
immediacy should take over from the concerns of what might still yet come to
be—however modified by interval changes that may disrupt plans for these major
transitions. Welcome to