a house, a house, my kingdom for...

an old brick bungalow that's been a rental property for about 20 years so no one ever bothered fixing anything properly... oh joy.

Yeah, I know I was going to talk about my job on this post, but since I just spent the day working on the house, I thought I'd talk about that for a bit.

So...
Location: we're on the wrong side of tracks, quite literally. If you talk to many people in this town (particularly white middle- and upper-middle class people), they'll say we live in the ghetto. I have been asked by no fewer than three people if I feel safe in my neighborhood. All I can say, is that these people have no idea what a ghetto is. I'd like to drop this whole state into the middle of New York or LA and see how they handle it. So, no, we don't live in a ghetto. It's a mostly working class, working-poor neighborhood with a lot of Latinos. A good number of the houses are rentals, although there are an increasing number of owner occupied. It's not one of the fancy neighborhoods of the east side, but it's generally friendly, safe, and easy to live in. (It was a relief when I walked into the local grocery store and not only were there people there who didn't have white skin, there were people who weren't speaking English!! It was shocking. And a great relief.

Neighborhood: We live on a fairly busy street, but it's right across from a large park (with a skate park right near the house. It's fun to watch the kids during the day). Our neighbors on one side are a very nice couple with two kids and dog (they are LDS, but haven't tried to convert us yet.). On the other side is a hermit we haven't met yet. On the far side of the LDS couple is an older woman who is very friendly as well. Overall, not a bad place. There are active train tracks a block away, but the line is probably going to be closed in a few years and they're going to put in a running/walking path.

The house: It was built in 1912. It's a 2 bed/1 bath brick bungalow, about 1000 sq ft up and 400sq ft in a shelf basement. By local standards, it's a good sized house (especially for being only 2bed/1bath.) When we bought it, we knew it would need work. We just didn't realize how much. First things first, we pulled up the old disgusting carpet in the living room and two bedrooms and found hardwood floors( yay!):



then we looked at the wood and realized there was probably only 1/8" inch above the grove. (boo!) which means you can't refinish the floors. solution? laminate. And why laminate you ask? well, it's cheaper than hardwood by far, you don't kill any old growth forests and it's much easier to install. (see the picture below)

And while we were dealing with the flooring issue, we started prepping the walls for painting. After a little bit of poking around at an area that looked like water damage on the ceiling we discovered...



Which actually wasn't much of a surprise. (Our inspector thought that the popcorn on the ceiling was asbestos). And generally, as long as the asbestos is well contained by paint, it's safe and you don't have to worry about it. The problem was the popcorn texture on the ceiling (and the four layers of paint on the walls) were applied on top of...drum roll...wallpaper. Yes, not only was there asbestos popcorn on our ceiling, it was applied on top of wallpaper. Which, as some of you may know, tends to fall down after it's been there awhile. So back to the drawing board for a solution. The options were varied: a) hire someone to remediate it ($10,000 or so), b) do the remediation ourselves (a huge hassel and not the safest thing in the world), c) paint over it and hope it doesn't actually fall down while we own the house, d) put up false ceilings. We decided to go with (d).



Basically we screwed in 2x4s into the rafters above the ceiling (never backing any screws out so the asbestos only got pushed up into the plaster). And then hung 1/4 plywood on the 2x4s. We figured the plywood was lighter than sheetrock, and we wanted to minimize any possibility of things coming down. The plywood got primed about 4 times and the I got to learn how to do joint taping (which is no fun when you're working over your head.)

So that covers the ceilings and the floors. Next...the walls. There was wallpaper there too. Between four and five layers of it. Underneath four to five layers of paint. So first all the paint had to come off. Then all the wallpaper. What a mess. Wallpaper sucks. If any of you ever put up wallpaper in your house, we might have to permanently end our relationship. :)

So this is one of the rooms after all the wallpaper was off.



Of course, in addition to taking off the wallpaper, there were large sections of damaged plaster.



So after walls, ceilings and floors were done (about three months of work), here are the two bedrooms:

The back bedroom (our room):


The front bedroom (where all of you will be staying if you come visit):


The stack of laminate in the front bedroom was for the living room:



Which may or may not be the subject of the next post.

Love,
J

to corps or not to corps

That is the question.
To suffer the salutes and stupid uniforms of a ridiculous antiquated institution
or to suffer the through the equally ridiculous bureaucracy of regular civil service.

To continue from my last post...

Why the heck am *I* in the corps...

Well, here goes.

1) Is there a moral difference between serving the federal government as a civil service employee or serving as a corps employee? Some would argue yes, some no. In both cases, you are an employee of a hierarchical government institution. In both cases, our dear W is your ultimate boss. In both cases, you work for a government which sticks its nose in all over the world and enjoys oppressing people. So that one is kind of a wash.

2) What about being associated with the military? Well, the corps isn't military, but if you're asking whether I have an issue with the idea of health and public health being associated with a military-type institution, yes I do. This is the biggest thing I have a problem with. We are a organization committed to protecting people's health, not shooting them. Therefore, we shouldn't even be associated with anything remotely militaristic. On the other hand, public health practitioners are all committed to protecting health, and almost all of us are associated with government institutions, which are the institutions that decide who the military is going to shoot at. So is there really a difference? Do people in regular civil service just make themselves feel better 'cause they're two degrees of separation from the people actually wielding the weapons? It seems to me that if you're willing to work for government in any form, you need to be aware of the fact that you are working for an institution that employs force and the threat of force in many forms (military, police, courts, taxation, etc.). Hiding behind the civil service-facade does not change that fact. So I guess the problem I really have is working for government in any form.

(From "And the Band Played On..." a scene between two CDC epidemiologists investigating the early stages of the HIV/AIDS epidemic

"If you hate it so much, why have you spent your entire career working for the government?"
"You know what Willie Sutton said when they asked him why he robbed banks?
'That's where the money is.'
This is where the diseases are.
Bugs. Bugs. Bugs.")

3) What about the goals of the corps compared to the goals of civil service? Well, one of the major goals of the corps is to be a rapidly deployable force of health professionals who are able to respond to health crises and disasters. Personally, I think that's a great idea. We should have a cadre of health professionals who are able/willing to go into disaster areas to provide health and public health services. I would much prefer the corps does it than we rely on military health professionals. (E.g. The corps was one of the major sources of health resources during the Katrina response. Some are still in New Orleans.)

4) So if being corps isn't any different from being civil service morally, why be corps?
Basically, there are a bunch of benefits to going the corps route. More vacation, better pay, easier retirement system. Oh, and I feel like I'm dressing up for Halloween every time I put my uniform on. (Trick or treat!)

5) Do you worry about being sent to Iraq or another area of conflict? Well, yes, but if there were an outbreak and epidemiologists were needed, I would go whether I was corps or civil service. Look, we go into places like Zaire, Angola, Pakistan after the earthquake, and Indonesia after the tsunami whether we're corps or civil service. That's part of what epidemiologists and public health practitioners do.

6) What about the uniform and saluting and stuff? Like I said, the corps, despite having official policies about this stuff, doesn't really adhere to it. Most of my friends and colleagues in public health outrank me (by several grades). I've been around them in uniform and I don't think I've saluted them once. I wear my uniform about once every six months. As for being ordered around, it doesn't really happen. Could that change? Well, yes, but given the composition of corps, it's rather unlikely. (The has been substantial talk recently about making the corps more "military-like." However, despite all the talk about wanting to make uniform wear mandatory and all sorts of other stuff, when DHHS actually announced what was going to happen, all that stuff disappeared. What they are very aware of is that most people in the corps tolerate the BS, but that's it. If they were to make it worse, most would leave and switch to civil service.)

Anyway, those are some of the more common questions I've gotten about why I'm in the corps. I happy to answer others (just leave them in a "comment.") In the meantime, be reassured that my politics have not changed and I haven't started voting Republican. (and if I ever do, someone please shoot me.)

Love all,
J

My job...

So what is my job? That's a pretty darn common question I get from people when I talk to them, so here goes.

Here's what I don't do:
I don't see patients
I don't work in a laboratory
I don't only do "research"
I don't work on Ebola
I'm not in the army (or any other armed forces)
I'm not affiliated with the CIA :)

Here's what I do do:

I sit in an office and run statistical programs
I respond to public health emergencies like Katrina
I develop plans on how public health agencies will respond to and control various diseases (pertussis (aka whooping cough), MRSA (methicillin resistant staph aureus), obesity, depression, etc.)
I study diseases (infectious and otherwise) and try to understand them on a population level (again, no patients here.)
I am a member of the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service.
Hmm...I think I'm going to stop here and explain what the Corps is. (I started out just putting it in as a note, but it began getting very long.)

OK, so what the hell is the commissioned corps? Bear with me here. There are seven uniformed services in the US government; five of those are armed (navy, air force, marines, army, coast guard) and have military missions (aka I'm gonna shoot at people. Isn't it fun.) The other two uniformed services are the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association; they're the ones who fly hurricane tracker planes, run the National Weather Services and other cool stuff like that.) and the Commissioned Corps. (Most people are familiar with the Surgeon General, who is the highest ranking member of the Corps.) The Corps grew out of the Marine Hospital Service which ran quartantine stations and inspected ships; they were in charge of physicals and quartantine on Ellis Island and other major points of entry.

The current mission of the corps is to safeguard the health of the public and has nothing to do with the military. Corps personnel are most commonly found at CDC, NIH, FDA, IHS (Indian Health Service) and other health-related federal agencies. Basically, the Corps is a personnel system at this point. If you want to work at one of the agencies listed above, you can get your job as either regular ol' civil service or as commissioned corps. The corps really doesn't have a separate budget (unlike the armed services) and if you do go corps, your salary and benefits are still paid by the agency you work for. There are advantages and disadvantages to each system.

Here are some of the similarities:
1 You're working for the feds either way
2 You have to take a loyalty oath either way (I swear to uphold and defend the consitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic). There's no way around this one if you want to work for the feds. Everyone has to take it.
3 You day-to-day job is the same
4 You have a lot of paperwork and beauacracy

Some of the differences
Yes, corps personnel have ranks and wear uniforms. Our uniforms look a lot like the navy and most people think we are navy (in fact, most navy personnel don't even know about the corps and think we're navy). As for wearing the uniform, well...I last wore mine in November sometime. People in Altanta have wear theirs more frequently (once a week), but out in the boonies, once every six months is more common.
Yes, I've learned how to salute and what to do when a flag officer drives by in their car and what morning colors is and on and on and on. (Basic Officer Training was 3 days of REALLY boring lectures. Three days is all we get, no boot camp or anything like that.)
We get military benefits (health care, use of the PX/BX, etc.)
We get 4-6 weeks of vacation a year
I can't get a nose piercing.

So what are the differences from the "real" military:
Well, technically we're supposed to salute and have "military disipline." BUT, 90% of us think saluting is a joke and act the same in uniform as we do out of uniform. (The problem is the 10% that do take it sort of seriously. :)
Yeah, we're supposed to take orders, but I haven't yet met an officer that actually gave an order.
We don't get "assigned" anywhere. We have to find our own jobs and so have complete control over where we move to.

So for those of you who know where my politics lie, why am *I* in the corps. It's a complicated answer and I'm still not fully comfortable with it myself. Since this is already a rather long post, I think I'm going to save that for the next topic.

If you're interested in learning about the corps, check out the USPHS website


NEXT TOPIC: Why J is in the corps.
And after that: Epidemiology (not it's not about skin)