Valentine's Day Fandango

I [Jared] have been a casual jazz-fan since High School when I would do homework while listening to KUER Nighttime Jazz. When we moved to San Antonio, Dave James pointed out that the Riverwalk was the home of Riverwalk Jazz on NPR, a terrific weekly radio program which showcases mainly pre-war jazz. On Friday, Suzie and I met with our friends the Reardons and celebrated an early Valentine's Day in a cozy little jazz club, on the Paseo del Rio, listening to Jim Cullen (pictured below playing the cornet, a.k.a. 'tiny trumpet') and the Jim Cullen Jazz Band. They were unbelievably talented, more so when I told the others that most of what we were hearing was improvisation. When Cullen would decide it was time for the song to end, he'd wave four fingers in the air, signalling that the band was to end after four more measures. They took turns soloing, and Jim even did vocal work! It was a very fun evening, and we left with a couple of autographed albums. Best Friday the 13th ever! Suzie's aunt Lisa came down for a visit, and she and Suzie spent some quality Chick-Bonding time at the most chic shopping mall in SA. They hung out in Saks (as in '5th Avenue'), dodging the folks who insisted on giving them Champagne, when their 'attendant' offered to show them them the most expensive item in the store. He took them to a concealed panel in the wall, and withdrew the ring shown below.
The attendant said that the ring cost $485,000! The center diamond is a 6 karat yellow diamond, with 10 total karats of diamonds in the whole ring. Maybe for our 20th anniversary...

Later, Lisa snapped the picture below in a tender moment at the Cooper household. Nature can be so beautiful.

Derek found a ball point pen, decided that our computer monitor was too boring, so he spiced it up with some of his own original art-work! Luckily, I could still see through the ink well enough to find out how to safely clean it off (isopropol alcohol, of course), and our monitor is now cleaner than ever!

Part of our duties as Air Force psychologists is treating Soldiers and Airmen for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after participating in combat in-theater. Many of the treatments for PTSD involve revisiting the traumatic event in your mind, while processing your emotional reactions and practicing relaxation techniques. Below, I'm training with some new equipment which employs Virtual Reality to better simulate the specific experience that the client had. The goggles present a 3-d interactive environment, coupled with surround-sound headphones. The platform I'm sitting on rumbles with explosions and the engine of the humvee, and the grey box on the table provides smells which might have been present during the trauma (any combination of B.O., exhaust, weapon-fire, building-fire, middle-eastern spices, etc.). The details of the experience are all orchestrated by the therapist. It all seems like really flashy technology, but it also seemed like it would be easy to get lost in the wonder of science, rather than the emotions of the experience. But it gave a positive indication of where the future of treatment lie.

My supervisors at the Clinical Psychology Residency invited us to participate in Convoy Training. Driving Truck is a whole different experience in the military. In the 21st century, most 'combat' consists of roadside bombs and urban ambushes, so the vehicle operators must be trained and flexible tacticians. They are trained to stabilize blast and gun-shot victims, start IVs, and call in air-support and med-evacs. Below, the vehicles circle to form a box after a simulated roadside blast. The box provides cover for the individuals providing triage for the wounded. The only heads you can see are the shouty-screamy sergeants who are there to provide 'combat stress,' direction and observation.

The Clinical Psych Residents playing the part of Third-Country Nationals, or TCNs--basically useless people-baggage who must be protected at all costs, but would contribute nothing in an emergency situation. We had to wear kevlar helmets and 40-lb body armor the entire day (until 9:00 p.m.), I literally had bruises on my shoulders from where the vest hung (as well as bruises on my booty from sitting in the Korea-era 5-ton truck).

Below are some of the young (18-21 year-old) Airmen who are charged with saving the lives of others. This is one of the most dangerous maneuvers (hence the drawn weapons), where they are returning from delivering the wounded to the med-evac. They are in the wide-open, in an area where they have already come under heavy attack.

These guys will be doing the job for real in Iraq next week. Vehicle Operators and Security Forces (military police) make up a significant percentage of a Clinical Psychologist's patients in the Air Force. One more experience that reinforces my belief that this is the most noble population to work with.