BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1995

BUSH DIARY JANUARY 1995

New Birth Certificate Worksheets:  Alaska has modified their BC worksheets to include a check off section to begin the process of obtaining a SS# for the newborn. The choice is as follows:  A) Yes, State will process number application for newborn.  B) Parents can elect to do it themselves. What!? I can see that going smoothly.

Where is Lita?  About last Wednesday we were laughing about how it was just about time for Lita Miller, who has been gone to PI for the last 13 weeks, to call and say she had some disease and would not be in for another couple of weeks.  Sure enough about 2 pm her husband, Mario, called saying she was having a bad migraine and was thinking of taking her to the hospital.  Thanks for calling, Mario! He also said he was having difficulty booking a flight. Uh huh.

One of the other coders, Jeanne, went to PI, is on leave until Feb 17, so we are down to two coders.  Who do a terrific job of keeping up with a very high amount of foot traffic in the outpatient department.  That is along side the visits to pharmacy that generates a visit as well. Boy do we have job security. Monica has decided that coders can only go on vacation one at a time.  Good plan!

January 10, 1995: Get me to the church on time:  As I was bustling around at work getting ready to meet Tim at the courthouse, Monica stopped me to ask about something and I apologized and said that I was getting married.  She was flustered, "Go get married!".
    So we had a simple civil ceremony performed by Dan Cadra, the magistrate. Mary Kunkel (who I know because her husband works in the lab) and someone named Chris were witnesses. We did the name change thing forms, did some bank business, went about to personnel and PSO for name change stuff and then went to Pepe's for a hamburger.  I surprised everyone the next day at work when I casually dropped the marriage certificate with Jinky who was working registration.
    Speaking of name changes.  The hospital requires such documents as Social security card or Passports in order to change your name on the medical record.  One time a lady came in to get her name changed and only had her Alaska driver's license.  We explained that regulations did not allow using that document.  She became visibly irritated and yelled, "Well what good is this then!?"  "You can legally drive in Alaska". Slammed the door.  I kinda wish the door was a dutch door. Oh, I forgot to mention that the reason we do not use driver's licenses is that they are so easy to forge, y'see.

1-11:  Got my new Alaska driver's license and voter registration taken care of today. Look it me getting all correctly documented.

Jury Duty: I have been summoned to Nome, Alaska for Federal Jury Duty.  What!? I will be reimbursed for the flight and per diem is $138.00 per day.  Jeez, Dad didn't get that for driving to Boise for his Federal jury duty but he did enjoy himself.  He sat on the jury for The Falcon and The Snowman.  It was a northern Idaho case and the movie starred Sean Penn.  I do not remember the details of the case. But Dad was thrilled. So, I am about to be thrilled.

Monica is having trouble adjusting her sleep patterns.  She is exhausted and sleeping 14 hours. I think it is Barrow version of hibernation.  It has been three weeks now and she is adjusting.  I have been gently reminding co-workers to go to Monica for administrative stuff.   We are getting the Medical Record committee back up to snuff.

Telecommunications:  It is not exactly the internet or the information super highway that I keep hearing about, but we can communicate with IHS in Albuquerque via the MailMan system. They have email set up to make contact easier. Our fax line and modem share one line and I occasionally get blown off the line.

UFO's.  Much buzza buzza this week.  Apparently a whole bunch of Barrow folk saw lights out at sea.  There is some thought that they might be seeing the lights of Wainwright as the land curves seaward.  Some people parked at the gravel pit saw dancing lights one night.  Search and Rescue got so many calls they scrambled one helicopter and the lights disappeared at 500 feet up. Weather folk theorize a warm air layer trapped and reflected the lights.  So no UFO landing site then.

Dreams:  I woke from a shopping visiting dream, then a relative dream and finally a church dream.  What a busy brain.

Family troubles, my  brother and wife are getting a divorce.  I put my voice in by writing a letter but it came back wrong address. Oh, well , leave snarling dogs lie.

Boss Troubles.  Monica's husband is having a tough time settling in here.  She kept getting phone calls at work and she did not recognize the area code.  I finally took one of the calls and it turned out to be a sister-in-law. Guy had called his sister all depressed.  Monica booked him in with a counselor.  As a result of this I have added a a question to my interview list.  It will be "How do you think you or a member of your family will be affected by the move to Barrow?"  Yeah something to think about.

I just got back from beautiful downtown Nome Alaska. I was summoned on 1-31. We flew out of Barrow with a whole bunch of North Slope citizens who were also called.  We stopped as usual in Fairbanks but several people did not get back o the plane electing to stay in Fairbanks to get a drink.  Feds might have gotten snarky if the whole plane stayed in Fairbanks. We went to Anchorage and THEN to Nome.  Got situated in a local Inn and court the next morning.  The case was USA vs. Albert Mazzona.  Crime being alleged violation of Fish & Game law in that he illegally sold Polar bear hide, some walrus tusks and some seal parts. His attorney claimed the client thought he was selling the items to a native who turned out to be a special agent of Fish & Game. (Must have been a slow day) I was empaneled at one time and then shortly after I made a joke, I was excused. Note to self, if you want out of jury duty, make a funny. The jury was selected and the rest of us were dismissed.  They had brought people to process checks for us on the spot so we all went home check in hand $820.00 great another trip to the bank. Jury duty daily rate was $40 bucks which I reimbursed the Borough.
    I was surprised to see a Federal Court trial held in Nome and asked how often that happened.  I was told that there has only been three Federal trials in Nome and the last one was sixteen years ago. I am officially in the Federal jury pool for  90 days and I will never had to serve on a Federal jury again.  It was an interesting experience.
    One interesting sight in Juno is dozens of used Christmas trees inserted in the snow on Norton Sound.  I had a five dollar beer at the inn.

Gotta go unpack.  G'night folks.