I need to make a confession

I have an couple of addictions that I feel a need to confess about. The first one is tough and only through living life in the Navy has it put a dent in this addiction only slightly. That is wargaming.

Wargaming is an very old hobby going back centuries to when chess came into vouge with the common people. It is also used by militaries and nations around the world to plan/teach tactics, tech military theory, plan a national policy for the future. One of the most famous places that I can think of in the US that really started using wargaming to do all of that was the US Naval War College. Which if I ever have a chance to visit Rhode Island, going to Newport and walking around on the campus would be really cool to me. Anyhow, I digress.

My addiction to war gaming started early on in my life. In one of the schools that I went to for elementary school, had a chess club. If you have ever played chess, then you have wargamed. As it was, the chess club didn't last long, but from there I started to learn more about some of the various games. Everything from the basic "beer and pretzel" games like Risk or Axis & Allies up to some of the more complex ones like  Advance Squad Leader or some of the monster games like "Pacific War" by Victory Games. Being that I was young and couldn't afford much from some of the smaller jobs I had when I was younger. So it always seemed as if I was permenately in hock to my parents for some of the money they loaned me for the games. My very first "true" war game, was a game called "Flat Top" by Avalon Hill.

It was a game set in the South West Pacific from the opening days of World War 2 until the final carrier battle for Guadalcanal. At the time I bought it from a local toy store in town called Ted's Toys, the game set me back about fifty dollars. Going through the rules they had all sorts of different litttle rules from things like replenishment at sea up to how to show storms on the game board. I was ten at the time I bought the game and really had a hard time understanding all of the rules. In stead with a couple friends of mine we used what rules we could understand and then made up the rest as we went along, as well as introducing house rules (like letting the Hornet once a month launch B-25s, I know, but we were history junkie kids). As I got older I picked up a few others here and there. Such the "Fleet" series of games by Victory Games and Gulf Strike. As I hit high school though, most of my wargaming fell off to the wayside as more important things seem to rise up. However, that isn't completely true either. As in my junior high time frame I ran across a computer version of a game called "Harpoon". This was originally published by a company called Three-Sixty Pacific. It was being demostrated at a local computer shop to show what the new VGA graphics board and 500mb hard Drive could do for your computer. In the end I asked for it as either a birthday or Christmas present from my dad. Low and behold that next Christmas I had this game unde the tree. I spent the rest of the holiday using submarines to sneak inside a NATO carrier group to put both missile and torpedo into the side of a American carrier or try and defend Iceland from a WARSAW Pact invasion force using only under armed RAF and USAF units and some small escort forces. That is when the hook for war gaming was made even worse for me. I found that I didn't always need to have some on to lay a game with. Rather I could try and see if I could defeat the AI programming.
Since then that has been the primarly wargaming that I have been playing. Though at times I have thought of trying to get back into beer and board gaming. For a while when I was stationed on USS Neverdock I played a few times of the latest boardgame version of Harpoon with some friends. Usually over a duty day when it was after work and instead of sitting around waiting for some drill or watch to come up. We would sit around in a work space and waste time some some scenario. We did ones from scenarios to understand how the rules worked to just plain silly scenarios that never would have happened except for never. Since then I have slowly started to get back into regular war gaming. At times it is still hard since I haven't run across that many people wear I live who play nor that many clubs at my end of the world.
The other half of my addiction to computer wargaming can easily be put in check at time because of the cost at times from ordering some of the wargames that interest me come  from small online only publishing houses. Put two or three games in thier shopping carts and your looking at 200 dollars by the time shipping and handling is figured in. At times though, that itch starts to scratch the back of my head.

At the end of the day, this little addiction can be fun and at times trying on my life. There have been a few times I have been up till the wee hours of the morning living on tea and classic rock while telling myself just one more turn, and there have been times that I start to get going and get my butt handed to me only to try it differently. Only to realize that I have basically dug a deep hole for myself and need to pick the lesser of two devils to get myself out. At which point I only make a few turns before going on to a couple of my other addictive hobbies.

A fun filled new year

Well dear readers I have been busy the past few months. About two months ago I got married. I have been busy dealing with adjusting to married life and living as a Geo-Bachelor. I also transferred from one VAQ outfit to another VAQ outfit. This time I will be going on a WestPac cruise, or Western Pacific Cruise. Heading to places such as Hawaii, Japan, the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, and hopefully some fun places such as Singapore and Australia. One of the downsides though is that I am working in a work center outside of my normal rating. I also walked into a work center that is afu'd eight ways to Sunday. I have to spend a whole bunch of time trying to figure out how to bring this work center back in line with local instructions and in line with the master program called the CNAFINST 4790.2a. On top of that I have to prep for an inspection coming along in this week. It is really going to be a fun year. Since basically my career is going to be based on how well I am able to bring this one work center around to being what is ruled "On track" or at a minimum "Needs Work" from the various inspectors coming down the pipeline. Some where in there I need to find time to prep a LDO package and a CPO package. Why? Because I will be eligible for taking the CPO exam in Jan of 2010.

On the home front the honeymoon is almost over. Now we are planning on trying to move into a house in the Pacific Northwest Region. Someplace that we both can afford and it isn't a killer commute for either of us. Someplace that is cheap, has a lawn, and various other features. You know the American dream of having a home, picket fence, and hopefully a ton of kids toys out front. What I really want though when we get a house is a dog. I would love to have a Lab. Honestly, how can you not smile coming home to dog that is just so happy to please and is a great family dog, either that or a German Short Hair Pointer. Both of these are fun, happy, family style dogs. However, my significant other wants to have a small dog. Which I am not opposed to. I just haven't grown up with a little dog. Oh well, just one of those things that I will need to work through as life comes along.

As to the rest of the house. I would love to just have a man cave for myself and a few of my hobbies.

Mea Culpa

So on top of trying to help plan a wedding, I was also trying to check out of my current command and plan for a series of inspections that are annual requirements. As I was on a drive around today I realized that I have failed in making the place that I am leaving a better place. So here are my Mea Cuplas for failing.

Since about March of this year I have had in my hot little hands, written orders detailing me from the Happy Zappies and over to another EA-6B outfit up here at the Rock. This outfit is a Western Pacific deploying outfit and they just returned from a deployment this past June. One of the processes to check out is to start handing over programs to another person. One of my programs is a Secret Squirrel program. That is all I can describe and some of you who have been in Naval Aviation or military Aviation know what sort of Secret Squirrel program I am talking about. Anyhow, it isn't anywhere near where I am happy with it being, but I have a little less then three days left at my current command to try and fix it. The guy I am passing this on to
has a decent grip on this program and with only a little less elbow grease then what I have put in can make this work and at least getting it working to the condition that the Big Navy out there while only smack their hands for these little gray areas.
I should of had it a whole lot closer then what it is and will probably spend the rest of this weekend working on massaging my guilt on this part to make this happen. So I failed here
As I mentioned early in this piece we have a series of required annual inspections coming at us. Ones from the Naval Safety Center, then from our type commander, and the final one (which I will be gone for ) is from the Big Navy (CNAF themselves). All of these inspections deal with maintenance related programs. Such things as tool control, Foreign Object Damage Control, Support Equipment Licensing, Training, Technical Directives, and a whole slew of other ones. The overall guidance is from an instruction referred to as the CNAFINST 4790.2A NAMP. In the king's English this is Commander Naval Air Forces Instruction series 4790.2A, titled Naval Aviation Maintenance Program. It is a large binder of about 16 chapters on the basics of how to fix airplanes and what everyone's roles are.
We were inspected by our type commander and found to be so seriously snafu'd that we are going to quit flying just to get the squadron back online and on track. I had always heard of other squadrons and even ships that this has happened to, but never one that I was in. This is the biggest place that I have failed at. Being at that leadership position I should of never let my own work center get to that place. This is the toughest Mea Culpa to swallow and accept. Right now the command that I am at moral is at an all time low. There are a series of folks who are tired of the Navy life and are leaving. Which is their complete right, however they are also bad mouthing the Navy and the command in general. In turn feeding ideas to some of the more impressionable juniors and basically started a death spiral. This is something that I should of put a stop to months, maybe even years ago. Yet, I didn't. Why? I am not completely sure. Part of me feels that what they are speaking is the truth, part of me didn't want to get involved because I was leaving the command myself, and I think the final reason was that I just didn't want to feed their fire of self-consuming hate with leadership.
On top of that some of these people only seem to put in the minimum effort on their own aircraft related maintenance programs. This effort just seem to be enough to keep ahead of the Khaki Mafia and their hit squads. Again I should of stepped up and said something, done something, instead I contributed to it. So out of forty different programs we only had eight of them running according to the book. Nineteen of them were in serious need of review, and the other thirteen were off track. This again is unacceptable. The command is probably going to begin to sacrifice weekends and long hours to pull themselves up. The other thing is that those of us in the first class mess are going to have to start knocking heads with those who can't seem to say anything nice at all about the Navy or the command. Again I have failed and should of helped to push to those who don't want to be part of the solution out.

I have failed as a leader and as a supervisor. The most that I can do is grab a hot shower and collect my thoughts. Attempt to wash these damn spots off my hands and go back in swinging to improve things.

One day and counting

Survived the day. Stood up on the altar in my dress blues with full medals. She was in a gold strapless gown. The day cleared as we went running out to my car and it stay cleared through out the reception. It didn't start to rain until I pulled up to the honeymoon suite at the hotel and we settled in for a long night of fun and excitement as a married couple. Now comes all the fun stuff in the next few days, ID cards, Tricare enrollment, stickers for the car, and signing over half of my paycheck.

Oh and long hours, long deployments, and missed anniversaries. That might be easy though. "Honest, I wish I could be there this year but I will be deployed. So here is your gift a few months early."

Any hints on how to survive please be sure to share.

36 Hours and counting

Well dear readers in 36 hours I will no longer be the swinging single sailor. Rather I will be married and tied down. As per the norm here in the evergreen state, it is raining cats and dogs so some of the outdoors shots in front of the church have been canked. See what will happen the actual day of the event. I know everything is going to go off with out problems. The only problem is to settle the future misses's worries.

Taking it out of mothballs

Dear reader,

Keep watching this space. Hopefully in the next few days I am hoping to take this blog out of mothballs and head back to posting. It is has been a busy two months for me. Planning a wedding (which is only two weeks away), trying to get ready to transfer, dealing with enough inspections that it is getting annoying. I can't wait for things to slow down.


Oh and Byron, I know you can't show up. Just thought I would share the good news with you. That hospitality thing that you southerners are famous for.

Why not just open your wallet, we will take what we want.

So as my good friend Steel Jaw reported this past Friday was his 26th anniversary. I applaud him for it and wish him another twenty six years of happiness and bliss.

Meanwhile I have proposed to the future Mrs Pirate. We have set a date for November 2008 to join in happy matrimony, which should make it easy for me to remember. So now it is settling on the church, reception site, hotel for all the out of town guests, a potential after party place, the rings, dresses, etc. All of which seem to want me to open my wallet up and just dump the cash out till they say stop.

I have already decided that I am going to sport my dress blues with my medals for the ceremony. So I don't need to spend any money on a tuxedo or a suit. I just think it is going to look cool. The most that I am going to have to spend on my uniform is taking it to a cleaner and getting the white pipping around the sleeves and the back flap cleaned up and looking its brightest white. The other thing that I am going to have to do is buy all my medals again, get them mounted and buy a ribbon bar for the awards that I have which don't have a resulting medal. That will suck up some cash out of my wallet. No big worries about that because even though I am a minor war hero, there isn't that much money to get my medals and ribbons mounted.

It seems that the next place that wants to suck money from me is the House of God that I want to have the ceremony to occur in. I was born and raised as a Methodist . For a while though I fell out with following the church and am just coming back to attending services. One of the first things we started to look was a Methodist church in Seattle area (since that is where we decided to have the whole event). A couple of churches we looked at couldn't fit us into their schedule in November. No issue, since we had about ten churches selected. A church we talked to near the U of Washington mentioned that they would do the ceremony for us. Yet when it came to the price list it seemed to be an À la carte style. We could rent the sanctuary for five hundred bones, but to add the padre was an additional hundred dollars, If you want to use your own padre well that will be seventy five dollars, oh you want to use the speaker system that is an additional seventy five dollars, one of our notaries could be on station to sign the paperwork for the state for an additional fifty dollars. At the end of the running list of charges I felt as if should of
been in front of a fast food restaurant counter and being asked if I wanted fries with all that. We found one that offered a package deal it was a cool thousand dollars for the sanctuary, padre, sound system, organist, and the ability to get the paperwork signed for the state. However, as it came time to sign the deal they shut us down do to party politics differences ,can people separate the job I have chosen to do from their disagreement of modern politics? So now we are searching non-denominational Christian Churches for a place to have the event occur.
She decided on a pretty cool reception site located down near a lake which has a nice view of downtown Seattle and has a very artsy antique styling on the inside. The downside is they are charging about six thousand dollars for a four hour block and every hour we go past the allotted block is an additional thousand dollars. I understand from looking around at other places six thousand dollars is a good price, and yet I still feel as if I am being ripped off. Since if I want to add alcohol to the reception I need to procure a separate liquor license then pay for an additional bartender. Some of the other reception sites that I have talked all ready had a liquor license already built in to the package deal. It isn't a big deal for me to have a liquor license since both me and the misses don't drink, having already decided to make it an alcohol free event.
We have now spent time looking at photographers some of them have different rates depending on the time of day or even location. There was one guy who charged more to do it at a park that was across the street from his studio. When cornered it was simply the hassle of lugging some of his equipment out there. I just stood there with my jaw on the floor with the audacity of him charging an additional fifty dollars to lug an extra flash light and camera across the street to a park for engagement photos, then to try and say we would be discounted if he did our wedding as well. We finally signed with a engagement and wedding photographer this weekend.

Overall it has been really frustrating for us to try and stay with in a budget that doesn't thrown us into debt so far that we are paying for the wedding, by the time that our first born is looking at college. Yet it seems that every time I sit there on the phone making arrangements to talk to people and schedule some of these important steps that are involved with properly executing a wedding are driving the budget into funding a small nation's economy level. I think I literal hear the cash registers ring in the background the minute I talk with someone about quotes for services. When the question about why the services are asked about, I then mention for a wedding it appears the quote changes again to standard rate plus whatever they think they can get.
It feels as well when I try to make decisions about some of these services the final thought that is dangled in front of me is the "You want this to be special right? Well you need me!" line. I am so tired of the wedding hustle that I think when I get out of the Navy, I might just start to offer to be a wedding package seller. Sell everything as a pre-packaged deal so that all someone has to do is call me up sign the contract, write one check (or make one credit card swipe), give me the guest list and you can go on to planning the honeymoon, combining the household, etc. Then just just show up on the proper date and time in dress of choice. Who knows, I might be able to rack in buckets of money in this wedding racket by doing this?

Every happen to you?

Have you ever been working hard and then had some one on the outside come in review a project of yours and say basically it is all wrong you need to fix it. Turn to the boss for some help and he tells you, "sorry I am going on vacation". That is what has happened to me this past week.

So this past week I had a courtesy inspection on a program that is pretty important in running my work center. One of those things that Secret Squirrel and my LPO should be doing to make sure runs correctly. This is also one of the programs that if done incorrectly people go to jail, commanders are fired, and in general just isn't a good thing to let fall apart.
The inspector spends about 4 hours going through my program and what happens? Well the program is so far off track it might as well be in Timbuktu for all that it really matters. The biggest thing was that all the paperwork was filed wrong, portions of paperwork was missing, and the inspector was playing around some of the grey area of the instructions on how some of the paperwork was supposed to be worded. In other words, I got stomped on and it hurt a lot.
After the inspection was over I sit down with my LPO just prior to end of the day and explain to him what happened.
Exact words from him were as follows: "That is a shame. Well I am going on leave, you can fix this have a nice day." I was ready to vent on him, but that would of been pretty poor on my part. So it was go home for the day, sit there drank some beer (actually a lot of beer) and wonder how in the world I got myself in this mess. I was not even involved with the program. It use to be one of my multitude of collateral duties prior to a shuffle of collateral duties following some promotions. At the time the program was on track and in decent condition. I was actually the alternate since my LPO was the primary, but I did most of the work on this program since he was swamped with other things.
I have been working very hard at trying to get this back on track, yet the guy who is the alternate right now, wants nothing to do with the program. I don't want to do this to him, but I might just take it back and run with it before I leave the command. Maybe even have it as a billet on my eval for when I transfer.

The harder thing though is a number of the instructions that I need to up date and replace are just daunting. It is one of the thing that I hate with a passion is doing technical writing. The biggest reason being (and I am sure any English teacher can tell by reading these blog posts), my English is pretty poor. So sitting down, trying to craft new instructions from old one, sentence structure, formatting, and other things are killing me! It has felt like I spent all day in front of a computer with electronic copies of the old instructions or re-entering old instructions into the computer to be edited. Sitting there pouring through the big Navy's instructions on how to run this program of mine, then trying to compact 50 pages of information into three paragraphs. I am pulling my hair out. I have come home every not and just felt like I went twelve rounds with heavy weight boxer. I really, really, really hate doing this type of writing. The other hard part is making sure that there are no grey areas and everything is spelled out in Navy legalize. So that an absolute idiot could read this and understand what is supposed to be done with this program.

I almost have this program beaten into submission or at least back to a point where my LPO could take this and put his polish on it. It is just driving me nuts to achieve that level.

I hate new uniforms part two

So a few weeks ago I had expressed my displeasure about spending $70 dollars on the new PT uniforms the Navy has brought out a week ago. Well after wearing them for PT sessions the this past week I hate them even more.
First issue. The shorts. Everyone else out there in the world has complained about them. Basically the liner inside causes chaffing on me and it just sticks to me as I sweat. So it is just annoying all over. I will have to cut those out. The other issue I have with the shorts is just how long it take to wash and dry them. because the liners and pockets are made of some sort of sweat-wicking material I have to wash them in delicate cycle and dry them in the low heat fluff situation. Afterwards hang them up to air dry after that. Which wouldn't be that much of a problem if I had the space to do so.

The shirts are the second issue. I thought I had bought the right size for me (extra-large) and instead I am swimming in the shirt. There is enough material that I cold almost use it as a night shirt. So I went back this past Friday to look at the large and it is so small on me that I have limited movement. This is not going to go as the CNO and MCPON planned, IE looking like people coming off the recruiting poster. The other issue that I have with the shirts is that even though they did a pretty good with removing the sweat off of me and keeping moderately dry in the process, but in the process they became thinner and thinner looking. It was even worst with one of the women that was wear testing one of them If she wasn't wearing a t-shirt under it, that would of lead to all sorts of distractions. So this weekend I did laundry with it and has to wash it delicate in cold water with dry it either by hanging or low heat fluffing (just like the shorts). I do so but pulling out the shirts there appeared to be all sorts of water stains on them so once more through the dryer. Through the cycle again and pulled them out, still had the stains. Yet the these "stains" weren't wet to the touch. Instead what it was is that all three of the shirts that I bought are now burned by my detergent. So there is some more money out of my pocket if I want to replace them.

I said it before and will say it again. These things stink and who ever thought them up needs to be fired.

More debt brought on to myself

So I drive a mid-size pick-up truck. I have had it for about six years and overall it is just over ten years old. I have now hit the point where any major maintenance is equal to or greater then what the blue book value is. So what to do? Well I need to downsize to a more fuel efficient car. The other issues that I need to deal with is I want to pick up a car that the Misses will enjoy to drive (argument avoidance here), something that is fun and sporty, and something that I can afford. So it had been bouncing through car dealerships and fending off the sharks just to try and find something that I am going to enjoy driving to and from work.

The biggest annoyance are the car sales people. Since I live near a military base, the first thing out of their mouths are "Are you in the military?" then the next line is "What is your pay grade?" Most of the time I see their brains bring up the pay chart and finding the monthly paycheck that I get from Uncle Sugar. Then they start to walk me away from my choices over to the more expansive cars. It doesn't matter whether I am at a little town or at a big city, the car salesmen always seem the same.
Even worst is how I have read the reviews and looked online at various cars. But I need to look at one up close and in person to figure out what I like. So it becomes a game of hide and seek. I see if I how long I can hide and look at my choices before one of the sharks come swimming by. My current record is about 30 minutes before one of them came by to engage me.
The final thing I hate about wheeling and dealing for a car is listening to them try and nickle and dime me to death. Those add ins such as clear coating, floor mats, the dealers stickers, you name it they try to add it on. It annoys me because I tell them up front as we start to negotiate the price the only add-ons I want and if I see anything else I am just going to get up from the table and walk away. Yet they do it time and time again. It drives me up the wall.

Style decisions and registration

So this past weekend myself and the future misses were out doing our registration bit for the upcoming wedding. I really don't have a style per say, since primarily I have lived in places where the only style has been haze grey wall paint and battleship grey flooring. The only other living arrangements that I have had besides living under my parents house was at military style barracks. Most of these barracks rooms always seem to have a mandatory motivational poster, a poster that was usually a natural scene common to the region, finally the paint scheme was always white and I always seemed to be in the ones with a tiled floor that were an off shade of yellow because the wax had not been taken up and replaced in years.

Anyhow, I spent the last weekend (and expect this next weekend doing the same) walking around a major department store comparing and trying to discuss about what our respective styles are. The future misses is a light and airy person and most of her house is painted and decorated in that sort of scheme. So we spent the better part of a day walking around the home section of this major US retailer, making discussions about what the good china, the everyday china, bed spreads, and shellfish forks would look like. At the end of the day I think we were both frustrated. Our different views on that day seem to conflict.

So to make it easier on both of us, I have told her to go out on her one after work. Look around write down what she likes and then the next few weekends before the wedding just add it on to the registration after we talk about her choices to decide on something that we like.

I wonder if this is what the future is going to be?

Geeky fan boy moment

I want to get this off my chest right here and right now. I have one geeky fanboy obsession. That is GI Joe. As a child of the 1980's I grew up watching the cartoon and having the action figures. I remember having the huge GI Joe Skystriker and remember seeing the live action ones fly over my head while as a kid in Virginia Beach, Va. It didn't matter to me that those jets I saw flying over my house were US Navy F-14's. In my mind at the time I thought they were just waiting for the likes of Ace to take them up and do battle with. I use to annoy my mother by having huge out battles in the living room with all the different figures, vehicles, and bases. Leaving them out while she tried to clean up prior to having guests over.
I also liked to imagine that some place, some where there really was a special Anti-terrorism force only answerable to the President in charge to protect us from evil terrorist group called Cobra. As per the norm with any childhood obsession though as one grows up it is filter by age and time. So my fun and coolness about GI Joe fell out of favor as other interests took up my time. It wasn't rekindled until I happen to run across a bunch of comic books featuring GI Joe. The obsession was rekindled. Now I hear there is a live action movie in the works and it is supposed to come out next summer some time. I can't wait, hopefully it will come out before I deploy on cruise.

Okay now back to the regularly scheduled programing.

No rest for the weary

So I finally received orders in hand for my next unit. So I am basically going down the flight line for another sea tour, my third since coming into the US Navy in 1998. So now I have all sorts of transfer paperwork to go through prior to leaving the Zappers. The first is getting my medical knocked out and then deciding on when I am going to transfer. So the debate with myself is when I am going to transfer. I have to deal is I am authorized with thirty days of leave. Knowing that though and I have to report no later then the 19th of December means if take the full thirty then I will probably have to pull the double holiday shift when Christmas and the New Year comes up. On the other hand I could just take a couple of weeks off check in early and then try to wheel and deal to get at least the four days around Christmas off. That way I can spend time with the Fiancee and the rest of the family.

I also took some time today before getting home from work to travel and talk to my next unit. With in about a month of checking in to the new unit, they will start work-up cycle to deploy. I get a chance to go on deployment with them in July of next year. There are advantages to this and disadvantages.

• The biggest disadvantage is that I am going to be gone from the future Mrs. Pirate for about 6 months during that cruise.
• The advantage is I should be home again before the major family holidays later that year. Unlike last time where I was gone through the holidays.
• Disadvantage is that even though I am getting married and the stress of trying to combine two households. There are somethings I won't be there to do such as helping to make the decorating decisions and helping to paint a room with whatever paint scheme we have decided on. Discussing on what furniture will go where and other fun single house hold topics such as that.
• Advantage: I need to replace my pick-up truck. Beyond the fact that gas is about five thousand dollars a gallon, it is also hit that point where any repairs I do to it will be the same as the blue book value. I have hit that point where it isn't economical to keep anymore. So I get a new car this summer and will have a larger chunk of the loan pay it off with the cash from deployment.
• Advantage: I don't want to sound like this, but again going on deployment and working hard on saving money. I should also be able to pay back the debt of the upcoming wedding.
• Did I mention the biggest disadvantage was being separated from loved ones?

I guess it is true there is no rest for the weary.

Haze Gray and Underway

Well dear readers as I write this I am in the process of packing up for my grand adventure to help show the flag, become an ambassador, and in general make the world safe for United States of America style democracy. When the big hour of midnight strikes tonight, I won't be out trick or treating; rather I will be on a big white plane flying out to be part of the early detachment on board the carrier my squadron is assigned to. I leave a day earlier then the rest of the main body and am get to meet up with the 18-wheelers that we stuffed everything including the kitchen sink.
So after today the updates to this little bit of the blogsphere will be laid up into preservation. I have a couple of guest authors who will be posting my comments from being on cruise for me. I do appreciate all of you that stop by and drop notes or comments.

Thanks folks.

The housing/mortage crunch and the military

With the collapse of the mortgage market and the stagnation of the housing market around nation, I am left to wonder where and how new buyers are supposed to get into the market. A new buyer such as myself. I live in a little town on the outside of a major regional military base in the Pacific Northwest. The town has seen a boom in population with the latest rounds of BRAC, but it has also seen an boom due to the number of people that want to live in the county. When I first arrived in the area about 5-6 yrs ago prices for the "starter home" were running in the $175K range, which was out of my range. Yet, now they have risen up to $220K and it seems to only get worse. I want to settle down into a house, yet with the collapse of the mortgage market and the rising restrictions to those with little or no credit history has basically closed me out of the market. That is unless I am willing to put myself up to my nose (or beyond) in debt to establish credit history. I am also sure that there is a number of fellow enlisted military members who are in the same situation. They have either lived in the barracks or the ship, the only thing that they have have on their credit is a credit card, cell phone, or car loan. They finally get high enough in the rank structure and are authorized to move ashore and into town. During the process they find out that they are shut out from most banks because of the no/low credit history. Their only way to find a place to live is via a rental, whether that is an apartment or a house. Well there is base housing but that is only for the married folks and that is at a premium right now all over as well. So that is out for us single folks.
Ah Southern but what about the VA? What about the VA you say. Well if I apply for a VA Loan that has to be through a pre-approved bank or loan provided that has been cleared by the Veterans Administration (VA). Also on top of that I can only get so many VA loans with in a certain time period and I still need to be able to pre-qualify for a loan. On top of that all a VA loan is just a guarantee up to a certain limit.
So the only hope for me to even try and get what is now considered to be part of the American dream. The dream of a house of mine own, with two cars in the garage, a bunch of rug rat toys in the front yard and a large dog running around in the back yard is out of reach. That is unless I am willing to start swimming in debt like it appears most lending institutions want the modern American to do.
So what is it going to take to cool the market down or make it easier for the US Military member to get their piece of the American Dream? I don't know off hand, I have my smarts in electronics not economics. I just understand the basics of economics (ie supply and demand, not writing checks I can't cash, etc) and even that seems complex at times (don't get me started on how to compound interest).

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have had to slow down my blogging for a while and am in the process of debating with myself whether I am going to continue blogging. I am getting ready to leave sometime next month for the big deployment. A seven monther or so they tell us, rather I have my money on a seven month plus one. Anyhow, I am in the process of getting my house in order before I leave, my finances, and my social life. Along with working hard to support a flight schedule. There are times one comes home and all I seem able to do is sit down and grab a bite to eat.
I am also debating on whether just putting this whole blog thing on into mothballs for the duration or invite a few close friends to post for me via email. I am not cool enough to be given constant internet connection while haze grey and underway. Heck the USS Newboat limits internet connection to an hour a day for everyone including the skipper of the ship and the battle group commander. I don't know what to do with this. AT times it has been fun to comment and at other times it has been hard to come up with something to write about.

My own September 2001 experiences.

My own experinces on September 11th and the days and weeks following:

Part 1- The inital night that the attacks happened


Part 2- The stress of the next night and trying to get back into working.


Part 3- A short synopis of how we felt watching the news, how the ship tried to keep our moral up and how we felt when we returned the favor to the Taliban.

Seems like only yesterday part 3

As the days progressed following the 11th and 12th we were all glued to the TV's. In my shop we quit watching the all news channel. I think the biggest reason was that a number of us felt burned out from watching the planes hitting again and again. Watching the people run from the towers, and watching people fall, and finally watching all the missing reports. It just was depressing at times. At various times for the next few weeks we would catch the news at shift changes. It was depressing at times to see how the United States main stream media reacted following the President's address to Congress. As we would watch the news, they had reports of how people believed that this attack was an inside job. There was reports from various colleges and town halls that showed some people supporting the build up and the possibility of going to Afghanistan. The rest of the reports were of people protesting and claiming that we deserved to lose over 3000 people. It was sad to see some of those reports.

Even worst was listening to all the different talking heads that were ex-military members claiming how the US was just going to have their butts handed to them. It was going to be a repeat of Vietnam for the pilots and the ground troopers were going to face the same sort of fighting that defeated the Soviets.

We watched the news of the American Red Cross and United Way charities failures on the news. The failures of various other charities in helping those who were injured or were harmed.

We watched one night talk about the Anthrax attacks. That night watching the Postal Clerks on the ship take bags of "To Any Servicemen" letters to the ship's incinerator and they dumped everything including the bags that they keep the letters in were shoved into the incinerators.


That was the worst of it all. The ship tried very hard to keep our minds away from all this news with movies. We watched "Top Gun", "Band of Brothers.", Chuck Norris in "Delta Force", "Red Dawn", "Animal House", "Midway", "Tora, Tora, Tora", "Armageddon". They also ran all sorts of comedies. There was also the race to the world series between the Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks to watch and when we could catch it the opening of both college and pro-football.

We also paid attention to the news as the build up began. One of the shops had a large world map and had converted it from a "Where we had been" tracker to one that showed where most of the forces were going to. At least from what we had heard on the news.

It went to working hard and watching movies that have a obvious pro-USA lean to them. Listening to the Skipper or the Admiral talk about we don't know when we will be home, but that we are doing important things out here. The skipper was big about bringing up previous Enterprise's experiences in combat. Till the day that we heard all four catapults fire off with in rapid succession with each other and then do it again 30 seconds later. The skipper came on and announced that the first strikes to head down town left the deck and were on the way to their targets in Afghanistan. There just seemed to be a big cheer come from the entire ship.

We proceeded to fly strikes into Afghanistan until we were relieved on station by the USS Roosevelt and we arrived back in Norfolk on Veterans day.

Seems like only yesterday part two

One of the things that happened the night of that September, was that the powers to be in charge of the battle group shut down email and Internet browsing. We could receive emails but not sending anything out and the only thing we could browse was the ship's intranet. We still didn't know what was going to happen with us. Rumors were flying hard and fast, the next night at at dinner.
"They are going to start the draft again"
"We are going to be out here for the duration."
"We are not going to be in a port again."
"It was...." and you could insert the name of a known terrorist group or hostile country.
Came into work that night and day shift was glued to the TV like us on nights were. They had accomplished the same thing that we did. Put a minor dent in our backlog of fire control radar gear. I did turn over with the day check supervisor and proceeded over to production control.
"I need 8 hours ago," began the production control Master Chief, "a list of all the major components that you will need to clear all of the exreps off your work loads."
"8 hours ago, then why didn't days do it." someone mouthed off from back of the PC office.
"Because the Washington Naval Yard.."
"I thought it was the Pentagon?"
"It is FUCKING GONE ASSHOLE! LET ME FINISH! ANYONE ELSE HAVE A STUPID COMMENT OR QUESTION?!? GOOD!"
"Now as I was saying, a message just came through where BuAir and AirLant has ordered a 747 from a contract and it is going to be loaded to bear with all of ours and the Chucky V's maintenance department requirements. So I need you all to scrub your workloads and give me an itemized list by MCN, part number, and how many you need. As it stands right now price is no objective. We are tapping into war reserve cash as of right now."
"Oh and I would like them typed please. Some of you all were successful graduates of Va Beach schools and don't know the Kings English nor how to write it. So type up your lists and drop them off in my box here."
I walked back into the shop and passed out the information to each of the benches. So we all started to scrub our sections of the workloads and started to draft our listings.
Our work center chief walked and started to talk to us.
"Any of you have family that live in either Washington DC or in NYC? If so I need a listing of who they might be and how they are related to you."
So in the middle of trying to get work done we started yet another list.
After working through the lists, my list for the people in DC or NYC was mercifully short. I knew a cousin might still had been living in NYC. The other list took a little longer, I had about 2 or 3 million dollars in parts for seven or eight radar systems that were down from our F-14's and F-18s in the air wing.
After turning all of those in we started to get to work. Try and put a number lower priority parts out and back into the supply system. I decided to check my email, because even though I couldn't send anything I could still receive. Might hear something outside of the normal channels form my hook ups.
The first email I got was from a friend of my back at the beach at Ocean-Banana. He asked how things were out here, and then mentioned how everyone including the two training squads were uploading live ordnance. They were also preparing to stand alert 5. He mentioned that it was strange to be standing alert 5 on the beach and that even the general announcing system for the reveille and retreat was being tested to announce shift of the Alert 5 status. He then closed it out about an ex-gf of mine and how she had broken up with one of our friends for yet another friend.
I got two emails from my father. The first told me that I was being turned around and I was thinking that how did he know that when I didn't even know that. At which the bosun's pipe came across with the whistle to announce the skipper was going to pass a word. Instead of announcing that a message from the commanding officer it was going to be a message from the admiral.
"Shipmates of the Enterprise BG, I just received word from 5th Fleet that we are being turned around and going to steam back north to a defined box up near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. What this means for us is that we are going to be part of the response from the attack on our country by these suspected terrorist group Al Qaeda. I am glad to be here with you all and know that you all are going to do your job to the fullest. Admiral out."
Wow is all that I could think about the email and the announcement. It was then that I skipped the rest of the first message from my father and saw that he had posted the CNN website page stating that my ship had been turned around.
The second message reported that all of my clan except for my cousin who was working in NYC had reported in to some other relative. After finishing up reading those two emails I closed everything out and started to get to work on cleaning up my workload. Push out those parts that the air wingers needed. Myself and another second class petty officer started to form a mini-production line. I was working on circuit cards while he worked on the total components. We had about 10 or 12 radar sets and started to cannibalize them all to make working radar sets. By the end of the shift at the end of the second night and first full shift after the attacks we had pushed out seven of those radar sets. As I walked to my berthing I stopped and looked out the elevator door at as the sun rose over the IO and thought to myself if the world was really going to change for the better. Mainly because the last thing I watched on TV before heading home was a news report from the NBC nightly news of people looking to blame the US foreign policy for this horror and not accept that there are just evil people out there.

Seemed like only yesterday

I write this with a heavy heart and with some trepidation. The heavy heart because these are hard memories for me to bring up. Not because I lost anyone I knew only 6yrs ago, but the scariness of knowing that I was safer haze grey and underway then those at home. I also do so with some trepidation because I am not looking for any sort of hero worship or even acclaim. I just feel as though I am finally ready to talk about my own experiences back in September 2001. I came to this from talking with my fellow blogger and friend SteelJaw, he was the one that pushed me to at least jot down what I remember from that day. If you go and check out his blog for this weekend you will read about his experiences inside the Pentagon at the moment American Airlines Flight 77 hit it. I was haze grey and under way on board the USS Enterprise, CVN-65, we had just been relieved from doing Operation Southern Watch in the Persian Gulf by the USS Carl Vinson, CVN-70. We were going to cross the equator hit Cape Town, South Africa and be the first US warship to have visited South Africa in 50 yrs and then hit Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. After which it was going to be home and relaxation in my own bed in my own home.

The big talk as we were getting ready to out chop from 5th Fleet control was about crossing the line. Bringing on Davy Jones, King Neptune and the Royal Family, and then all the shellbacks inducting us lowly pollywogs into the royal realm. I had been debating with myself which set of boots and dungarees I was going to burn up for the crossing the line. The other big thing was just how few shellbacks were on board. In my department alone out of about 800 of us only 80 people were official shellbacks.

I was working a night shift, so my hours were from approximately 1900 (or 7pm for you military types) to about 0700 the next morning. We were in the Indian Ocean and about 12hours ahead of the east coast of the USA. For some reason I woke up early that night. I was up around 1800, normally my alarm clocks ( I use two) wake me up around 1830. It was at that time I heard the following from our commanding officer.

"....so we are going to be setting condition Zebra through out the ship until we know what else is going on. I need all of you to push the TV images you might have seen or might be seeing out of your mind and do your jobs at general quarters. To emphasise again the United States has been attacked and we are going to GQ, we don't know who or what else has been attack, don't know what is going on next, to be honest we don't know much."

I thought to myself as I was slowly waking up that it wasn't drill day, because we just had a drill two days ago. I staggered from the cubicle that I slept in and walked over to our tiny TV lounge. This was located just outside the berthing and it was a tiny little space. On a good day about 12 people could very comfortable in this little space and look at a 36in TV and DVD combo in one corner. Because this little space was under a catapult room and it was very loud, so one of us AT's had rigged up a ghettoized versions of theater sound package using a couple amps and some government issued speakers (about eight of them) so we had some pretty decent sound.

Anyhow, like I said this tiny little space had enough room for 12 people and that at standing room only. We forced about 30 people of the oncoming shift all in there. Someone had turned on AFRTS's all news channel and we were catching a satellite delayed of what was supposed to be the second hour of the "Today" show. Instead we heard one of the NBC news anchors reporting all that was going on live on the "Today" set. Then some one screamed on the TV that it is happening again. At which I saw the second airplane hit the towers.

It seemed to me that time sort of froze and I felt as if I had failed some how in my job.

"I think we are at war." , came from some one in the room and pulled me out of my deep thought cycle.

"You fricking think so!", came from someone else. Before it could descend into a good ol'fashioned stressed filled argument, the general quarters klaxon went off. So those of us still not dressed for work staggered back to our racks and tried to get dressed. There was 4 other night checkers in my cube and with us all there it became a Chinese fire drill as we got dressed. I remember trying to pull over a clean undershirt when my pants started to come up.

"OKAY who is touching my pants!?!" I said pretty loudly

"My bad, I thought those were my pants." someone else said to me.

Another pair of us rolled into each other because they each tried to pull the same dungaree shirt. If this wasn't a serious thing going on it probably would of been funny. I finished up getting dressed and ran down to my repair locker. I was assigned to one fox in the forward hangar bay. Got down there and started to suit up into a fire fighting ensemble and OBA's. We sat around for what seemed like forever sweating while waiting for the other shoe to drop. One of the phone talkers in the locker was reporting what she was hearing on the line. It was strange because all sorts of rumors were running on the lines. Think of that only campfire game of telephone. You know the game don't you readers? Everyone sits around the campfire and someone on one side whispers into another and it goes around to the end. Where the end repeats it out loud to see how it might of changed.

There were rumors such as attacks in other cities besides NYC and DC were going on. There was rumors of a nuclear attack, submarines spotted near the battle group. All sorts of rumors were reported on the lines that night. As the stranger and stranger rumors were coming out, the secured from GQ was passed over the 1MC.

I got changed out of the FFE and OBA and then walked into the shop. We were glued to the TV's. People were watching the all news channel. The funniest thing that was happening that day was how the Navy News Service's "Daily News Update" seemed to be stuck on repeat since all it kept to be reporting that the Pentagon was on fire and had been struck by something and that the WTC towers had been attacked. It seemed about every half and hour the DNU came up and this fine looking JO2 said the same thing and same thing. After sitting around forever watching the news and arguing about what this was all about. One of my guys said that maybe it was that some sort of crew from Senator Condit who was involved with Chandra Levy. They did this to take him out of the news. Another guy brought up maybe it was that Dominican Republic teenager who was kicked out of the little league world series for being too old. We bounced all sorts of strange things off each other as a way to lighten the mood. I don't know how to explain it, but we resorted to this sort of gallows humor as a way to bury our own stress.

Some one noticed that it was around midnight and we should try and get some food from Mid-Rats. The lines for food was unusually short. So after getting food we found a place to sit down. I noticed that it was church like quiet. That was unusual because most of the times on the mess decks of an aircraft carrier it is a pretty noisy affair. People were talking about work, port, or what have you normally. This night it was hushed tones about what was going on. Rumors again were running rampant.

At the end of the meal we walked back to work and started again to sit around the TV and watch the news. Again nothing new. We should of been working on the gear we had. Yet we wanted to see what the news could tell us about what was happening next. It was in between grabbing food and coming back to work that the towers fell. At that point the bitch boxes we had in our shops came alive and the maintenance master chief started to scream at us (actually all of the maintenance department) to get to work pushing gear out. There were priority one repairables to work and we had plenty of time. I just remember the TV becoming background noise at that point and I started to work. It was some time in the morning the day shift came in and relieved us. I debated with myself if I should stay up or just head to bed. It was when I almost stumbled because I was so tired that resolved my debate. I went up the ladder wheel, stripped down to a towel and some shower shoes. Staggered off to the showers and came back to get the rack and fell promtly asleep in my rack.

That was my memories of that day.