Alligator Blood

While scrolling through my nonprofit's Twitter feed, looking for news stories that relate to my internship organization, I found an article that immediately made my blood run cold.  As in, blood being reptile cold. 
 

By Skeetdeloach at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

 

George Mason University has been conducting a study with the St. Augustine Alligator Farm Zoological Park to determine if there is something in an alligator's blood that makes the reptile immune to bacteria.  The article written by News 13 reported scientist found a bacteria-fighting peptide in alligator blood that help them live in very inhabitable environments while maintaining strong immune systems.  This government-funded study is hoping to use these peptides to create medicine that could be used on the battlefield.

 

Here is where I enter the storyline.  To a certain extent, I can sort of understand cross-species organ transplantations.  In those cases your getting an organ from another mammal, but receiving reptile blood after being injured in combat?  This is where I get extremely iffy.  I'm sure there are still many more years of laboratory testing ahead for this new discovery before field testing would start.  However, this is one veteran that will not be lining up to get her alligator blood transfusion. 





The "Herr Reisen" Bus

My boyfriend will be home in a few days, after being deployed for seven months.  It still surprises me that we've only been dating for three years.  It seems too long.  I think of the day we met often and it doesn't feel like three years have long past.  We met in Navy Combat Training before each of us were deployed to different parts of the Middle East. 

Today, I decided to get my hair cut and colored, so I look half-way presentable when attending his homecoming.  While the stylist painted over my winter revenged hair with some dye, I could not shake the memory of my last mission before returning stateside from our first deployment apart. 

I was in Afghanistan and went to Paktika Province with my command sergeant major to inspect some training facilities.  The trip went well but naturally I still felt on edge traveling because of past attacks reported on the same roads we were on.  Many of the roads were sparsely used except for the occasional bus or cargo truck.  As we drove nearer to Kabul, traffic picked up significantly and I saw something that brought an immediate smile to my face.

Herr Reisen by Elizabeth Thompson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

"Herr Reisen" is a common phrase painted on buses in Kabul.  Throughout my deployment, I saw a few of these buses which always cheered me up because "Reisen" is my boyfriend's last name and means "to travel" in German.  I do not know the details about why there are so many German buses in Afghanistan.  I only know over the last century the two countries have had relatively good relations with each other.  However, each bus I saw gave me a bit of hope that I would one day get to see my boyfriend again.

It's interesting the places your mind wanders to sometimes.  Three years, where does the time go?

I joined the crew to BRING HOME THE ADAMS!

When I decided to check out UNF's Career Fair last year, I did not expect a year later to be sitting at a board meeting with several professionals in Jacksonville who have given the last seven years of their lives to bring a decommissioned destroyer to the Downtown Shipyard property. 

The closest thing to a public relations company at the fair was a marketing firm called Client Focused Media.  I was not expecting to get an internship interview at the fair, nor did I expect to get an independent study with them that turned into a paying part time job.  However, when it can time to finish my internship, I had to find something else. 

Enter The USS Adams Museum.
 

Bring Home The Adams from PRC Digital Media on Vimeo.

So far, it has been a wonderful experience.  I currently manage their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages. 

A few days ago, we emailed out a press release after hitting our first fundraising milestone and I got to tweet out the release to several press I am following on our Twitter page.

Thanks to all our supporters for helping us raise our 1st $10K to BRING HOME THE ADAMS! #ussadams @EUJacksonville http://t.co/idUQfeUZm4
— USS ADAMS Museum (@UAM_JAX) January 30, 2015

The Facebook post I made did exceptionally well and was shared 17 times by followers.

Post by USS Adams Museum.

We still have a long way to go in order to raise $250,000 to cover this year's staff and operating expenses but I am glad to be on the crew.