Hanging On To Summer As Hard As We Can

It's unusual to be wearing shorts past Colombus Day but here we are hanging on to the last bits of summer before we have to pack them in for the winter. The weather has been awesome since returning to Japan. Yesterday was a softball tournament with the local security forces and fire departments in which my friends from the base security team played in. It couldn't have fallen on a better day as the sun was playing hide and seek through the clouds. The only setback was the chilly breeze that was only bothersome when the sun was behind the clouds.

Today the weather was the same as yesterday and I was able to make it our for a nice run through the shipyards that separate the base from my apartments. After some shopping on base I got back to the house and sat on the balcony and finished a book that I had started on the plane ride back from Hawaii. The view is still spectacular and the little wind that was present was blocked by the apartment. The quietness was welcomed much as it's not normally like this.

I hope it stays like this for a while.

Getting Back in the Routine

Last week was my first back to the clinic. Since I was the only military person stationed at the clinic I had 4 months of paperwork and database work waiting for me. It was even more hectic as CPT Hinton chose to come down this week to get some surgeries done and other appointments. While down here another Military Working Dog died so we had to do another necropsy to find out cause of death. On top of all my secretary had to quit after 8 hard working months because her husband was due to PCS back to the states. To say the least it was a very rough welcome back!!

The softball team took a big blow this summer when 4 of the starting 10 left for various reasons. It was good to get back out on the field and they were sure glad to have me back. We went 4-0 for my first 4 games back, then Friday night we lost a close one to the hottest team right now. We have some guys that don't play as much as the guys we used to have but they have come a long way and are doing very well. I'm coming up on what might be my last month of softball as I'll probably leave for Germany before the next seaon starts.

Last weekend we had a friendship softball tournament with another base team and two local Japanese teams. Both US teams won their games by considerable margins so instead of having two US teams go for the 1st place trophy we just combined teams and played the last game that way. In some weird twist the two Japanese teams beat the American teams by 1 run. We weren't trying that hard at first but didn't have enough in the late innings to tie the game. They came around and started hitting the way we did in the beginning innings.