Follow-up to "What's it like living on base"

Yesterday, my Uncle (Oom) Ed and Aunt (Tante) Janet arrived at Eglin Air Force Base. Our first real guests. Of course our mothers and brother Rob came, but they didn't actually get treated like guests since we were so busy unpacking. (You need a towel? Here's one. It was wrapping the corningwear but it is relatively clean.) It is wonderful to have them here until Monday especially as JB has to work again today.

I also realized that I never answered some of the questions re: living on a military base from a few days back. Unfortunately, our test results came back and for some dumb reason, that shifted my focus and stuff.

So let's shift back. I also thought this might be a good time to introduce some of my blog visitors to other blog visitors.

So here we go.

The first responder was Tara. Now, this gets confusing because this is not Tara from "Team Nigeria" Tara and the blog: http://www.thatbananaisstillgood.blogspot.com/. This is "Plan B" Tara. I actually have never met plan B Tara which is sort of weird since I feel like I know her. I am also not sure if she pronounces her name like "Team Nigeria" Tara (which is Tar-uh) or if she pronounces it like (Tear-a). That would help distinguish as well. So Tara who will soon be a mom via surrogate. If you haven't checked out her blog, you really need to at: http://toplanb.blogspot.com/. She's going to be a mom anytime now. Okay, so anyways, this is Plan "B" Tara.

Tara said... That master line ROCKS!!!! And the public library is awesome :)

Tara is referring to the "master line" at the grocery store. Folks this truly is one of the coolest things. Everyone gets in one line and then the next person goes to the next available cashier. There's even a little electronic board that flashes the number and says "Next" to tell you where to go. I agree. It's really cool. I actually have not been to the public library yet, but my husband, has, of course.

Sonia was next. Sonia is a friend from Hannah's Prayer, my online infertility support group. She had twins awhile back. Rachel, is now in heaven but Isaac Samuel is doing amazingly well despite coming into the world SEVENTEEN weeks early!!! (23 weeks along!) You can click on her blog HERE.

Sonia said... Hi Wendi,This is Sonia from HP. I dropped in to see how you are doing. You made me want to visit you in Fla! :) Anyway, just wanted to tell you I am praying for you! Sonia

Sonia's awesome!

All right. The next comment is from Lesley. I don't think Lesley needs much of an introduction. Lesley and Dave were JB's classmates at Mayo. (Were? That's weird to say.) They met at Mayo and were married a year later. Here is Lesley's blog if you want to visit her click HERE. I'm trying to get Lesley to convert to Blogger since Xanga is old and I can't figure out how to leave comments.

Lesley said... You have a movie theater? And a gas station? Man! It's like a little town. Or a big town. The size of Rhode Island, huh? Oh, here's a question - what's the population of the base? I'm bad with big numbers, but I'll compare to Rochester (90,000) and Chittagong (3 million) for rough estimates. :)

So, in response, yes, it is definitely like a town. You could truly stay on base for an entire year and not really need to go off. I can't think of anything you would need outside of base that you couldn't get on base. Now, I don't know who would want to live on base and never leave it, but it is possible.

As for our population, we are slightly less than Chittagong. Actually, slightly less than Rochester too. We aren't sure exactly, but we've been told the population living on base is somewhere around 10,000.

Okay, so let's move on. The next comment was from FunkyMonkeyJunk. Her name is actually Andi, and I repeatedly have people ask me how I know her. I actually only know her from online. I believe, actually, she found me. I posted a comment on another blog and she linked from that comment to my blog, and we've been fast friends ever since. You can call her Andi I guess, but I like to call her FunkyMonkey. I am interested to learn where the name: FunkyMonkeyJunk came from? Anyways, she echoed Tara (The Plan B Tara's) comments:

FunkyMonkeyJunk said... Wendi, thanks for the details...so cool to hear about your surroundings! And that one line at the grocery store...super cool. When are regular grocers going to learn how awesome that is?

All right, so then came Rachel. Rachel is Hans' fiancee. Hans is/was one of JB's classmates. Rachel is awesome, however, despite her awesomeness, she has one fault. She does NOT have a blog. Rachel, any thoughts on that? I still can show you a picture of Rachel though from an old post. Click HERE to see who she is. Okay, so here was Rachel's question.

Rachel said...
I think it sounds like a resort! And if John is one of the highest ranks, who does he have to salute? What if you forget to salute? Are you in big trouble?

So Ebby will come on in a bit and answer this as well, but I actually asked JB about this. There is about 10% of the base population that outranks him, and he does have to salute them. I'd have to have him give you the list, but I think it's general, colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors that outrank him. As far as forgetting a salute, truthfully, people don't really handout push-ups. John said that if he wanted to, he could talk to the person and find out why they didn't salute. If they just forgot or weren't paying attention, no big deal, but if it was disrespect, they'd seek out that person's "boss" to deal with it. I don't think John would ever do anything if someone didn't salute quite honestly.

All right, so then, there is Nicole. For a reminder of who Nicole is, click HERE to read a recent post discussing Tara's (Bannana is still good Tar-uh) visit with Nicole.Nicole said...
Hey Wen,I'm kinda, sorta reconnected to the rest of the world now. My apartment complex has computers we can use during business hours. Sound like you are in a very cool place! Hopefully the Johnocracy is prohibited within the boundaries of the base...If you could, send me an email from your email address. I'd like to have it to type you longer notes. nicolestroud@yahoo.com

So I'm thinking Nicole didn't have any questions or comments re: the military. I've emailed her and haven't heard back so ... Nicole ... still waiting. Nicole is a classmate of JB's as well. Or was a classmate. She's at Johns Hopkins now! When she refers to the Johnocracy, she is referring to something John started on our six week Africa tour. Basically, he decided that we were operating in a Johnacracy. This meant that JB held ultimate rule-making capabilities for, well, everything. The funny thing is, we all sort of let him, and willingly fell into the dictatorship without question. He made certain rules that held firm like: "No lamenting over past relationships on this trip" and "Ajit may not sing when he is listening to his IPOD" and other such things.

What makes it even funnier is when we got back, we met Nicole's new leading man (who will, most likely, become her final leading man). His name is Bay. He's one AWESOME guy! JB, in passing, told Bay about the Johnacracy. Bay, in turn, adopted the Bayocracy. Nicole was not too pleased with this. We thought it was hillarious.And then, there is Ebby. If you don't know who Ebby is, well, I'm not sure how you can know me and not know Ebby. I am also not sure how to explain her. Ebby and her husband Ronnie (along with their four kids: English, Veronica, Hunter, and Cole), lived by us in Kentucky. We met at church there. Well, when JB found out he was going to Mayo, Ronnie was graduating from college at the same time. To make a long story short, they decided to move to Minnesota too! (But don't call them stalkers.) It was awesome. They are so awesome to us, and we are just waiting for them to decide to move to Florida!

Ebby Ray said... If they don't salute he could make them drop and give him push ups. My daughter is a lower rank than him in the Air Force and I am hoping that there comes a day when they are both in uniform and she forgets to salute him. It would crack me up if he made her give him 20. The best part is that she would roll her eyes at him and say, "Jooooohhhhnnnnn", which then could result in more push ups. I have to get her out to Eglin sometime soon! :)

So, I'm sure JB could give English push-ups just for the sake of it. But it is true that if they both ran into each other, outside, in uniform, she'd have to salute John. Ha ha for that!

All right, moving on to our last comment from my not-so-twin-looking-sister-Gabbi. Gabbi is my computer wiz sister-in-law. Actually it's more that she can find anything online that I need whenever. She also spots every single mistake I make on my blog without fail. You can check out Gabbi's blog HERE.

Gabbs said... LOL Ebby!!

So, I don't really have a comment about what Gabs said, but I wanted to include her even though her comment was only two lines long.

If you have read this far in this post, congrats, because I'm not sure I followed things myself.

And speaking of base, I wanted to add one more thing. Apparently, at 4:30 every day, they play the National Anthem. At this time, you are supposed to pull your car over, roll down your window, and get out of your car if you are in uniform while the Anthem plays. This was very confusing to me. All of a sudden I am pulling over (since everyone else is) and sitting on the side of the road watching people stand outside their cars. I had NO idea what was going on. I didn't roll down my window (because I didn't know I was supposed to) and so I didn't hear the song. I had no idea what we were doing. I asked JB later, and he explained it. So now I know. Just another lesson re: living on base that I had to learn.