Streaming my (Buffering...Buffering) Life

Arrived

Well we made it to our final destination and boy howdy let me tell you how beautiful it is to wake up in a smog filled sky surrounded by burning oil platforms. It took a little over a month to get here and now we will be cruising at 2 knots around these platforms for the next 5 months. So this is what fighting for freedom feels like? Amer-i-Can!

Earlier this week I passed my DC test so I am officially sanctioned to fight fires and what not. It’s not really a qualification I want because it means they will most definitely put me on some sort of fire fighting squad which I am not too keen on. Currently my job is stretcher bearer which is basically the most kick ass job you could have for General Quarters. I dispatch to a scene after a casualty is called and then provide first aid if it hasn’t already been provided (which it usually has) and then transport the casualty back to the Battle Dress Station. It’s pretty great, especially compared to what a lot of other people have to do during GQ.

I am still on the mid shift and will be on it for a few more weeks until we get to our next port. I should be using this time to get ESWS signatures but I am mostly just in radio working or goofing off. Hopefully Langston will stay on me about it since we are on the same shift now. Today I am working some whack ass split shift where basically I worked last night then worked till 1500 today then slept for a few hours and now back at work till 0800 tomorrow morning. I know it’s glamorous and as an added bonus, I will look fresh as a daisy after this shift!

I found out that our port visit to Dubai is getting pushed back and we might end up being there on my birthday which would be pretty kick ass. I could definitely enjoy myself in Dubai for my birthday. I always wanted to visit while I was in Italy but never could get anyone to commit to it and it did not seem like a place that I would want to visit alone.

Not being able to spend money is really sucking. I just bought a ton of shirts this week that will probably not arrive until the end of the cruise the way our mail system is working and it’s the first money I have spent since deploying (with the exception of Thailand and that was mostly drinking money) and I am salivating over the iMacs that Apple just introduced yesterday. I can’t wait to get home and order one of the 21” iMacs and a Mac Mini for my media center. Money well saved and spent and even though I just bought a kindle and I love it, the new B&N Nook e-book reader looks amazing and since I must have all gadgets on the face of the earth (even if I have a perfectly good gadget that does the same thing) I will probably be ordering it when I get back.

After a month of being on board, I am no longer the new guy. We just flew in 8 new people today and are getting a few more over the next couple of days. I have started to make a few more acquaintances on board even though I never get out of radio and I am starting to get a little better known on the ship. For better or worse, we’ll have to see. This week I rebuilt the ships internal website which got me in the headlines for a few moments in time which is always nice. Previously the only time I had gotten attention was unwanted because rumors were running rampant that I was messing around with this married girl (Langston) from my division. Those of you who know me well are getting quite amused right now but I seriously got counseled on 3 different occasions about fraternization. It was retarded!

Well this is gonna be a long night. Time to fill my cup to the brim with the sludge that they call coffee.

PS – I just got pics of Thailand. Update coming as soon as I do some filtering =P

Switch

Today is my last full day on day shift, tomorrow I start back on nights. It doesn’t really matter to me what shift I work cause 16 hours is 16 hours no matter how you slice it and when you never leave your workspace you don’t really know if its day or night anyway. The good thing about nights is that it is generally slower then days but in this part of the world there is a lot of exercises at night so it might be picking up a little bit. I like days because there is a lot of stuff going on and the time goes by pretty quick but doesn’t leave much time to do anything else. Nights will allow me time to work on my ESWS as well as some other in rate training.

Today is kind of a crazy day because we are switching all our communication services from one part of the world to another. It’s pretty stressful because nobody wants to drop out and it’s always difficult when trying to deal with multiple people in multiple places trying to get your services transferred over. Things are looking good now but that tends to change minute to minute.

I am supposed to take my Basic DC test today and I feel surprisingly confident and for me that usually means I will bomb it. I am usually so nervous about a test I can barely hold the pencil but usually end up doing ok and with this test I am not feeling anything so I guess I will know how I did in a couple hours. I really do hope that I pass it because if I do it eliminates like 7 PQS’s that I would normally have to do otherwise.

I need coffee this morning.

It’s been a little over a month since we took off and I haven’t done much other than work and sleep. I have a whole hard drive full of TV shows and movies and I haven’t really even touched them. I started watching a BBC show called Beautiful People this week which my best friend Jose introduced me and it’s LOL funny. I was cracking up watching it in my rack this week. I got through a couple episodes and have a couple more left of the 1^st season but other than that I haven’t watched anything. I have read a couple books and just started a new one but usually by the end of the workday my brain is so fried I don’t want to do anything that requires concentration. The one thing I really do miss is sports. We get nothing on board and I mean nothing. I have to read about everything which is a fine supplement if you see the game but it’s not the same as actually seeing the action. My Dolphins beat the J-E-T-S this week on MNF and I didn’t get to see even a highlight from it. Apparently we have the capability but we can’t seem to figure out how to get it working unless we are in port. It’s really making me crazy. No MLB playoffs, No NFL or NCAACF and missing most of the NBA season.

We just got the 10 week notice about our twice annual Physical Readiness Test. I have only worked out a handful of times since checking on board and when I ran a few days ago it felt like my heart was gonna explode! It’s a unique challenge trying to run on a treadmill on a ship that is rocking back and forth because half of the time you are running right up against the front bar and the rest of the time you are struggling to not fall off the back of it. I have 10 weeks to master the treadmill and get my ass in shape for the test. Not looking forward to it. Maybe my weight will start to move. I have been stuck on 174lbs the entire time I have been on the boat even though I have been eating less and less. It’s gotten to the point now that during most meals, I will pick at my food and have a few bites and that is it but no matter how little I eat my weight does not move.

Well I am getting the shakes from lack of caffeine so I need to get my morning fix.

Mad at the World

I know I should start by updating what happened in Thailand and I will but have you ever had a regular day where nothing bad happened but you just get unexplainably angry about nothing? I am so mad right now and feel like breaking shit but I don’t have any real reason to be. I have been manic the last couple days, I hope it passes. I don’t want to freak out on somebody for no reason and I feel like I am at that point. I need some nice soothing music.

Maybe I am feeling this way because I haven’t written in over 10 days and I sort of use this as therapy. Anyway, Thailand was fun and I really enjoyed my time there but it was exhausting and took me like 5 days just to recover because as soon as we pulled out they started working us like dogs. I haven’t had a minute to catch my breath over the last week. If it’s not drills, then it’s more indoc or mountains of messages that have to go out and of course there is always Needle Gunning and sanding the deck and priming it and then painting it but about Thailand….

Thailand is sort of what I imagine Sodom and Gommorah to be like. Pretty much anything you want, and things you didn’t know you wanted can be yours. The place basically boils down to 3 things: Hookers, Alcohol and Haggling. Those are specific to Navy guys. My liberty buddy turned out to be really good. We had a good time and he wasn’t trying to pick up hookers on every corner which was cool. We went out during the day and sightsaw and shopped and then we went out at night and got fucked up but always were responsible enough to be back before we got in trouble.

The shopping in Thailand is crazy and it turns out just wasn’t for me. I really can’t stand haggling and you can’t buy something in Phuket unless you haggle. All the street vendors are from Nepal and they are all hocking counterfeit shit and they jack the prices up 3x what they should be cause they want to haggle. So I ended up buying very little even though it is cheap there. I bought a bag and a pair of board shorts which I needed. I didn’t waste my time with other stuff that I didn’t really need. My liberty buddy on the other hand LOVES to haggle. He thrives off it and it was like watching a master at work. He walked away with a lot of nice stuff on the cheap.

The weather was terrible the entire time. It rained buckets both days we had liberty but it was ok because I didn’t think the beach was that nice anyway. The highlights for me were the elephant riding, the Thai massage I got and of course having a drink or two. I was in desperate need of a massage, my back and this ship and my rack are apparently bitter enemies. Every day that I wake up it feels like I got beat up the night before, so we scoped out a massage place that didn’t look like a front for a sex parlor (which most of them do) and ended up in one down some alley which was a little sketchy but turned out to be ok. The little girl who worked on me was throwing me around like I was a rag doll. She was twisting my body into positions I never knew existed. An hour and 5 whole dollars later I felt like a new man.

I have found out that having duty the day before you pull out is just about the worst thing ever because when you are an IT on board a ship, you have 24 hours of watch on your duty day and you can’t leave your space. Now, that is of course bad enough but when you take that and then tack on another 12 hours of watch for the following work day it really turns you into something special. People saw a whole new side of me that day and I don’t think they are eager to see it again. I am not a very cheery person after being up and pestered for 36 straight hours.

I feel like I have been making some good progress over the last couple days with my qualifications and what not but of course the more I do the more stuff gets assigned to me so it’s a win-lose sort of situation. Today I had my first experience with the Pulper. It’s a machine down in the trash room that takes all our paper that can’t just be thrown away and turns it into pulp. It smells like a paper mill down there and naturally only the IT’s can run the machine so I got voluntold to head up that evolution today. I ended up doing about 40 bags worth of paper and the machine has a tendency to spit back at you so I am covered in pulp today. It’s quite a fetching look.

Today we got issued our Chemical, Biological and Radiological gear which should give you an idea of where we are and where we are headed. The brief that they give you before issuing your gear scares the shit out you and makes you pray to God that you never ever have to use that mask and suit for real.

Well I guess that’s about all I got for now. I am still pissed for no particular reason. I think maybe I will go run and hopefully work some of this out.

Facebook Down

Well we just arrived in Thailand this morning and I don’t know if by coincidence or not but our connection to Facebook has been severed. I am especially distraught because today I have to work and don’t get to leave the space for 24 hours. 24 hours of work without checking Facebook might drive me insane. Actually 24 straight hours of work will probably send me over the edge no matter what distractions I have.

Our Thailand port brief was quite enlightening. There are many many things to do here and most of them are illegal for the military. Not that it will stop some people. I think there must have been 5 slides dealing with prostitution, 3 regarding the availability of drugs and of course one all about Transvestites. (also called ladyboys and katoey)  There were also tidbits about not drinking the water, watching your drinks and how to get around the island. It looks like the dollar still goes a long way here. The rate is about 33 baht for 1 dollar. Maybe I will buy a nice vacation house while I am here.

Tomorrow morning I will get to leave the ship with my liberty buddy, head out to see what Thailand has to offer and see if all the stories are true. I don’t really know what to expect with my liberty buddy because I have never hung out with him off the ship so it should be interesting all around. The plan is to get off the ship around 0900 or so and then take a small craft from the ship to the pier and then head to the hotel to check in and drop our stuff off. We only picked one tour for the 2 days and that is elephant riding which we are set to do tomorrow afternoon. It’s like a 45 minute ride into the rainforest and then some sort of show at the end. I had to do it, I mean how many times in your life can you say you got to ride elephants in Thailand?

After the tour, I think it will pretty much just be drinking and partying the rest of the night. We have nothing planned for Tuesday but I would like to hit up the mall and just cruise around the beach. One thing that is on the top of my list is a massage and just general spa treatment. My body is getting killed on board and my back feels like its 1000 years old. If I get a great massage it will be the highlight of my port visit.

This week is going to be tough. Here is my schedule

Today – 24 Hours of Watch

Monday – Party Party Party

Tuesday – More Partying

Wednesday – 24 Hours of Watch

Thursday – Full day of work after 24 hours of watch

After we leave Thailand we are planning to be out to sea for 40+ days straight with no port visits. 25 days with 1 semi-port visit has been a challenge so I can only imagine what this next stretch will be like. Well I guess I can start thinking about that on Thursday. Until then, Thai me up, Thai me down!

XO comes before CO

So I just unintentionally made a huge ass of myself. I came down for lunch from DC Indoc and was asked to go to the Chiefs Mess and see Senior Chief. He handed me a message and said find the CO and XO. It was a message that had to be looked at and signed before it could be sent out. I searched for the XO first. I checked her stateroom, the ward room all of officer country and I could not find her so I headed to the bridge. I got up there and you could feel the stress lingering in the air because of where we currently are (it’s Top Secret). I was not trying to stick around longer then I had to. The CO was standing right in front of me so after a few minutes I said excuse me sir and he turned around and gave me a death stare and then took the message and looked it over and signed it. As soon as he did I knew I was screwed because the XO should have looked and signed first. I left the bridge knowing exactly what I would be told that I would have to do.

I came down and was told to go find the XO and get her chops even though the CO had already signed. At best it was going to be an uncomfortable situation. I ran back up to the bridge but neither the CO or XO was up there so I headed back down and as luck would have it I ran smack dab into the XO. I gave her the message and she asked what it was. I hadn’t looked at the message or been given any instructions as to what it contained. So I told the truth. She was not thrilled with my answer. She gave me the message back and told me to send my division officer up with the message and an explanation of what the message contained.

My division officer is a woman who looks like she is 12 and I felt bad breaking the news to her. She shook it off but I know it’s probably not going to be a very pleasant conversation for her.

So I learned a few valuable lessons today:

1)       XO comes before CO

2)       Ask questions about what the hell you are being asked to deliver

3)       Read and understand all messages before heading off

Off to get some not very appetizing lunch and back to more fire fighting! Happy Saturday.

Hose Team Training

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Hose Team Training.m4v (4810 KB)

What we really do in the Navy

                       

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What_we_really_do_in_the_Navy.zip (1196 KB)

Swim Call

                       

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Swim_Call.zip (409 KB)

40 Days and 40 Nights

It’s been a crazy past couple of days. The weather has taken a serious turn for the worse. We have been in 15 foot+ seas for a couple days now and it’s really starting to take a toll on the crew. There are multiple typhoons in the area but we are doing our best to avoid them. Surprisingly I haven’t been sea sick, this kind of motion makes me really hungry though. My boss on the other hand is not handling the rough seas quite as well. Yesterday he had to go lay down in his rack during the middle of the day because it just was too much for him. No such relief for the peons. We are just a couple days out from Thailand and I got a liberty buddy. I don’t really know the guy but people say he is fun to hang out with so hopefully it goes well. We are going to ride some elephants and tour the city and have a few adult beverages. I also plan on getting some spa treatment and letting some little Thai girls walk on my back. We got a room at the Millennium resort in Patong Beach so I will be enjoying 2 full days on the island. I am really excited and looking forward to the visit especially since considering this morning I read that after Thailand we won’t be stopping until we reach Bahrain in mid November. 40 days straight out to sea is going to be pretty rough.

Yesterday I had Damage Control indoc which is a combination of classroom and real world scenarios in regards to fighting fires on board. The classroom part was ok, I kept myself awake and interested by taking mad notes during class. I must have written down every word DC3 was saying. Hopefully it works out for me because we have a test over the material and if I pass it, then it will allow me to bypass a whole bunch of other PQS and signatures and what not. In the afternoon we did some hands on training. We basically learned how to put on the fire fighting gear and go “on air” and “off air.” SCBA is a acronym from hell! It stands for Self Contained Breather Apparatus but it’s really a torture device disguised to look like an oxygen tank. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t have had it on for 4 hours while the ship was being tossed like a toy. Today my body feels like it got thrown down a flight of stairs. We have 2 more days of training but hopefully yesterday is the last time I will see SCBA’s for a while.  

It’s definitely easier to meet people during the day and when you get out of radio. I met a couple new people who seem really nice and who I had seen around before but never talked to. I met a couple nice girls who are dating (each other) but I am still trying to make friends with a couple of the guys who I suspect are family.

Well time for quarters and then off to more damage control indoc. Hopefully it’s a little calmer today.

Rusty

It’s a never ending battle out here against the rust. In just 2 weeks of being at sea we are already covered in rust on the outdoor spaces that our shop is in charge of. On Saturdays we have a pretty standard routine out here. We do a TSSE (General Quarters Drill simulating an attack on the ship) and then we have a 4 hour session of Topside Preservation which generally entails needle gunning all the rust and painting over it. I slept horrible last night and during our 2 hour GQ drill I was wishing and hoping it would rain and lo and behold when the time came it was raining!

Naturally the rain didn’t stop the XO from letting us head on out there and work. There is something surreal about standing on the weather decks sweeping water off the ship as it’s continuing to pour down. Nevertheless there I was with a broom in one hand and a green SOS pad in the other. I was ready! The rain eventually let up a little bit and it was actually nice being outside even if I was soaking in it. I scrubbed rust till my hands looked like the SOS pad and of course it didn’t make a bit of difference but this was mostly just busy work anyway, just a show for the brass. I spent the rest of the day down in radio doing this and that but feeling completely useless as usual. I actually did get a really good training session with Senior, now if I could just get some work (non busy) to apply it too.

I am getting to the point with my LPO that I can’t even look at him when he is talking to me. He is getting fired (demoted) for gross incompetence and it’s just too hard to take him seriously. For once in my navy career, a person is actually getting what they deserve instead of being promoted for being a horrible leader. Just goes to show what a kick ass senior chief we have.

Towards the end of our 17 hour day yesterday we were all pretty pissed and talking about ways to improve morale and one of the new IT1’s suggested we do something like Craigslist for the crew. I thought this was a great idea because of how segmented every one on board is. If people use it, it could be a great resource for finding games, movies, selling old stuff you don’t want, and most importantly for me finding a liberty buddy. So I took the idea and ran with it and quickly setup an interface and got it up and running. We showed it to senior chief and he said we needed some basic guidelines about appropriate behavior and moderation of the postings and so we did all that and he liked it and now he is going to take it to the CO for final approval. I hope he likes it and promotes it because I think it could be a really great asset to have on deployment.

Working on Sunday day here is like watching paint dry. There is like 8 people sitting in here and nothing is going on, but instead of giving people some time off we are just sitting here staring into space. At least I have my iPod. There is another steel beach picnic if the weather holds out. I heard we are having pulled pork and burgers! Speaking of the weather, it’s been pretty nice to this point but the last couple days things have been heading south and word is that we are headed in the general direction of a Typhoon near the Philippines. Even the saltiest of sailors on this boat say they don’t want any part of that; 30 feet seas, walking on the walls, throwing up into bags tied to your belt. Such a glamorous life!