Hooooooo, doggies. It’s Extraordinary Writ time again in the Northwest. Many of my friends have chided me for giving the chuckleheads at 810 Varmint Lane NW even this long to act on the greenhouse. I sure can’t say I didn’t give them plenty of rope to clothesline themselves with. Knowing so well how they operate, I had the BVA decision in their “constructive possession” a mere eleven days after Judge Vito’s ink was dry. Being aware of how this works, we all know the Director of VR&E, Jack Kammerer,  got the heads up about a day after Vito returned to DC from his Travel Board wanderings back in April of 2015.     

This one is going to be a 45-day poetry in motion Writ. Launch time is Monday morning when the Post Office opens up. I can almost hear the gnashing of teeth now. D-day (delivery day) for all the documents should be about no later than Thursday. Give them a day to open it to check for ricin and it’ll be upstairs on  Call me Bob’s, Leigh’s and Jack’s desks. To be a fly on their walls…

Most importantly, the emails also gave VA numerous chances to invite me in to the magic stakeholder room and brief me. Instead, as we find out, certain people who would prefer to remain nameless sat on this for four long months and stared at it like an indecipherable Rubik’s cube. Following that, it was booted to DC where endless rounds of signatures were affixed as it was passed from soul to soul for concurrence. I do have flies on the wall there telling me that. The last straw was the endless parade of “We’re just waiting for the VA’s Contractor services to get back to us and that should be another 30-45 days.” After you hear that about three times, you have ninety days stacked up with another 30-45 on deck. Thirty days here, thirty days there, the next thing you know your’re talkin’ some serious time here. It sneaks up on you.

To speed this up and impress upon VA my earnestness (again), I utilize my own 45-day method, sometimes referred to as the U. S. Grant option. I refer to Ulysses S. Grant, our esteemed 18th President. Well, ‘esteemed’ if you were a Yankee. For all us poor souls who suffered the War of Northern Aggression, you can understand we’re not quite so enamoured of old Ulysses. But for a piddlin’ $50 bucks, you can cut to the chase and find out anything you want to know. You don’t have to keep calling the 800-827-1000 Prize Redemption line. You don’t have to wait for the phone to ring or spend endless hours with the binoculars watching the mailbox. For that $50 spot, the Court will get a wonderful CBI back in 15 to 30 days and all the fog and mystery will be replaced with “We don’t understand your Honor. We sent that____________ (decision, SOC, GSA Contractor, other) out last week and the petitioner was apprised of whazzup. Why he’s here pestering you has us all here at the OGC in a quandary. Seems it’s much ado about nothing. As far as we know the bulldozer was clearing the pad for that g-house yesterday. So we can shitcan this Extraordinary Writ crap right now and still make Happy Hour. Hear? ”

I like simple. I like the ‘gitterdone’ ethic. Mostly, I like to see them VA OGC fellers blow coffee through their nostrils, drop what their doing and get on the horn to Seattle to ask them what part of RFN they aren’t getting. Think of this. Seattle’s VR&E shop managed to shrink it’s ILP caseload from 41 in 2004 down to 16 in 2014. By now, it’s probably below 7 (including me). So you do understand that inexorable, irritating itch I get when I think that for nine months they’ve all been pulling down six-figure salaries to sit around funning me and about six other deserving naive Veterans.

Granted, we’re not talking grab bars and sock puller-uppers here. No electric can openers or cordless phones for moi. I won the greenhouse in the Crackerjack box of ILP and they’re sitting around like vultures praying I’ll get a case of the vapors and forget it-or die. Sorry. Time’s up. Thirty day letters went out forty days ago and I even threw in a few extra days just to equitably toll it. I warned them in advance that the Ex Writ was coming and they still wanted to play “Who’s gonna blink first?” This will give them about 30-45 days of breathing room before they have to tell the CAVC judge why they’ve been naughty.

Ladies and Gentlemen Vets, it’s time to play Ex Writ Poker again. Here’s the latest salvo:

Ex Writ Redacted

Here’s the email chain referred to in the Writ.

VR-E emails re ILP g-house redacted

The greenhouse bid:

greenhouse + install quote redacted.

And the BVA decision:

http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/view.jsp?FV=http://www.va.gov/vetapp15/Files5/1538123.txt

This going to be more fun than elk hunting from an unmarked Cessna 172  out of season with no bag limit and no restrictions on how many points. In a National Forest. With an M-60.  And the game warden is your BFF.

The sad part is springing it on old Kris out of the blue. He claims he’s always been the neutral scapegoat and merely the bearer of bad tidings. Que sera,  sera Kris. If you work for VA, you get tarred and feathered with them. I’m going to go silent for a week and not pester them. Fact is, I suspect the old landline is going to start ringing pretty soon and the email is going to fill up. We live in the country. Sometimes a storm takes down a few poles and we’re out of communication for daaaaaaays at a time which is plumb unfortunate. VA must be mighty aware of how that phenomenon works, too. Could be my lumbago will start acting up and I’ll take to bed for a spell. Seems they have the same weather problems up north in downtown Seattle judging by the dearth of info being transmitted in a timely manner. The phone service is anticipated to return hereabouts along with Internet in about the next seven days. I have that on good authority from a fly on the wall down at the cable TV company.

I cut bait for nine months. Now I’m gonna go fishing. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that. Just leave a message. Maybe I’ll call.

P.S. If they hand me off to Judge Davis again, I’ll know it’s not a coincidence or an unlucky draw. I had him on CAVC #10-300 and again on CAVC #15-112. One more with Davis and I’m calling Greg Block out on it.

This is the first a series of the new Extraordinary Writ that will soon become #16-2098. The next installment is here 

CAVC #16-2098–WASN’T BORN TO FOLLOW