Streaming my (Buffering...Buffering) Life

General Quarters, General Quarters! All Hands, Man Your Battlestations!

1030 - Today was my first GQ (General Quarters) drill. It happened after my 12 hour watch so I can’t really say I was too excited about it but I don’t know many people that get excited about GQ drills. Being an IT, I was hoping that I wouldn’t have a battle station and that I could just stay in Radio to work on issues in here but that didn’t happen. So, I patiently awaited my battle station assignment and didn’t lobby for any particular position but of the 4 positions that got handed out, I ended up with the best in my opinion. I am Forward BDS (Battle Dress Station) stretcher bearer! Ta-da!! First let me tell you what everybody else got: Lead Nozzleman (Dress out in full firefighter gear including the tank and control the nozzle) Hose team member (Part of a group that holds and controls the hose in full firefighter gear including the tank) Phone Talker (Coordinates with fire teams, the bridge, team leaders and stretcher bearers. It’s not bad but a stressful position) So what does a stretcher bearer do? Well I only dress out in flash gear (gloves and a hood) and when they call casualties, we deploy to the scene and check the victims out, do minor first aid and transport them back to Forward BDS. It’s cake and I am thrilled that I ended up with it.

1145 – Trying to get my 5 hours of sleep before my watch tonight and the ship is doing deck preservation which too make a long story short sounds like a maintenance crew jack hammering a road. Now imagine sleeping directly underneath where that was happening. Serenity Now!

2032 – Saturday Night and I only know its Saturday because my watch tells me so. Everyday out here feels like Tuesday. Tonight is a pretty quiet night like most nights. I started working on my ESWS (Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist) qualification tonight. They had a social on the mess decks where you could get lots of signature plus they had something that resembled ice cream. It’s an extensive qualification that I have 18 months to finish but I hope to get it finished in the next couple of months. It is a multi step process that includes gathering signatures, walkthroughs, a written test and 2 oral boards. It’s intimidating because you have to learn about so many different topics but I am up for the challenge and looking forward to wearing that chest candy.

0630 – Sunday is holiday routine for the ship which means no major drills or exercises today so most people have a pretty relax day. Nightshift gets screwed because this will be the time to sleep for tonight’s watch but hopefully it will at least be quiet today. We have a steel beach picnic scheduled today at 1500. What is it? I have no idea but I think it consists of hanging out on the flight deck and getting some BBQ up in here. Should be fun, since it will be different! Time for some much needed sleep.

Sea Legs

2209 – Today is the first day that I feel even semi-rested since getting on the boat. I am still not a fan of this split shift sleeping where I get a few hours in the AM, get up for drills, then a few hours in the PM but that’s the curse of being on mids. Today we had our first GQ (General Quarters) drill which basically entailed us going up and closing drains and valves and securing the hatches. It was pretty lax and when we were done we came back down to radio. I hope my permanent assignment will be doing that and coming back to radio but it’s possible I might end up in a repair locker which consists of a lot more work and gear.

Tonight seems like it will be another quiet night. I got my paperwork to get qualified for CMS and I am hoping to get some signatures on that before the night is over.

No Dramamine for me today and I seem to be doing ok. I haven’t felt queasy all day/night to this point. My chest and back on the other hand is still killing me but its slightly less painful than it was last night. I went to medical today and they basically said my body is just adjusting to sleeping in my rack and being on board the ship and that my ribs and spine will probably be sore for some time. I still think it’s swine flu though.

I skipped lunch and dinner today to get a couple more hours sleep so I hope they are serving something fresh for midrats tonight. From what I gather, it is usually just leftover lunch and dinner bits.

2256 – Midrats was early tonight because of the time shift to +12 which was fine with me. They had sweet and sour chicken and rice and fried chicken breast. The sweet and sour chicken was just ok but the breast was outstanding with a little hot sauce and blue cheese plus the CS (cook) who was on duty made fried pickles for me and one of the guys I work with. It was awesome! CS’s and IT’s are your best friends underway. Time for Coffee.

0012 – I may very well be drinking the worst cup of coffee of my life. It feels like mud going down my throat and doesn’t taste much better. I guess as long as it keeps me awake, its doing its job. On board the ship we have something called SiteTV which basically just shows movies on 2 different channels on a loop 24 hours a day since we don’t have AFN (Armed Forces Network) on board. In a typical day, I may recognize one movie out of 10-20. Being out of the country for the last 3 years I have missed all kind of new releases. The only thing that stinks about it is that I will totally be into one of the movies (which of course, I don’t know the name of) and then get called away for something and miss the entire plot twist or reveal.

0427 – Trying to buy more uniforms online from the NEX cause you can never have too many coveralls around here and I need a utility jacket because mine is still floating around NCTS Naples and it’s cold as shit in here. Two problems: I don’t know the sizes I need though and I’m too lazy right now to go find out. Guess it will have to wait till tomorrow night.

Midnight Madness

1954 – RAS (Refuel at Sea) complete and we just did emergency breakaway which is a pretty standard procedure to pull away from the other ship. I was down in radio the entire time so I didn’t get to see much but I can sure feel it. We are booking right now. Heavy Rolls! Tonight is gonna be a long night, I tried to get some sleep earlier but my rack is right below the loudspeaker and every time they make an announcement underway they blow a whistle and it’s piercing. So I got some really good sleep in 15 minute spurts which didn’t exactly refresh me the way I hoped. I have watch tonight and maybe some training, we are time shifting tonight which means an extra hour of watch.

2300/2200 – Time shift just occurred. We are officially on Samoan time. It’s a long way from 0645 and there is not a lot I can do because I am not qualified on anything.

2248 – This boat is rocking and my one Dramamine pill for the day is wearing off. I hope I can make it till 0645. Today we have GQ (General Quarters) at 1300 so if I am lucky, I will get 5 or 6 hours sleep. I am not sure how much of that type of schedule I will be able to take. I thought mids would be a good chance to train but so far it is not looking like that.

2312 – So I started reading Kathy Griffin’s new book that just came out last week and OMG it is amazing. I am only a chapter in and already my stomach is hurting from laughing. I can’t wait to get some free time and read some more.

0219 – Over July 4^th weekend, I went to Vegas with my best friend. We had a great time as always, the whole weekend was amazing until the drive home when I ended up rear ending a truck near Riverside, CA. It was a minor fender bender with no damage to the truck and slight-ish damage to my rental. Naturally, I had declined coverage through the rental company because I had coverage with USAA. It turns out that while this is technically true, the denied my claim because of some clause that wasn’t disclosed to me but to the rescue came American Express which I used for the rental. Never leave home without it, indeed! Anyway, Hertz has been anything but convenient in trying to get this situation resolved especially in light of my deployment but after several letters I finally got a response from a live human being who has forwarded me all the correspondence which I can now forward on to AMEX. I hope AMEX covers it but if they don’t it’s only about $450.

0336 – About 3 hours to go if everything goes according to schedule (which it never does.) I was just standing out on the flight deck in the pitch black looking at the stars, listening to the wake from the ship. It’s breathtaking looking up into the heavens. I don’t think I have ever seen so many stars, growing up in the city I never realized how many there were and how bright they are. .

0405 – I am either getting sick or dying today. In the last couple hours, my chest and back have really started aching. It hurts when I breathe deep and I got a cough developing. This is great, we’ve been underway for less than 24 hours and I already got swine flu.

0656 – Waiting to be released so that I can come back in 4 hours. Hurting doesn’t even begin to describe it.

All Aboard

0755 – Well the adventure starts today. We are about 20 minutes away from starting sea and anchor detail as we head out of Pearl Harbor and out into the open sea. On Deployment day, they let the families and friends come on board and take a tour of the ship and say goodbye. It’s pretty nice seeing all the families and friends out there on the pier, but also kind of sad that I got nobody to say bye too.

1038 – Well I missed manning the rails because I got left down in radio but it’s alright, there will be plenty of next times. No sooner did we pull out before things started breaking. Me and Fiorello ending up troubleshooting some systems and setting up a new circuit which was pretty impressive because neither one of us know what we are really doing. We just got our underway watch assignments and I will be on mids (1845 – 0645) which kind of sucks because more stuff is happening during the day and there is more of a chance to learn. Most depressing is that the one guy I know and like (Fiorello) is on days. We are waiting for Senior Chief to come back so the mid people can post and get back to bed. Tonight we have a RAS (Refuel at Sea) which will be pretty interesting since I have never seen one done before. I hope to get some sleep before watch. Will update more tonight.

Psuedo Day Off

0015 – Up to send the C4I report which takes all of 5 minutes. Its no big deal since I didn’t have watch but what pissed me off is that my LPO didn’t even come to berthing till 2345 which means he could have sent the report out when he came back

0545 – Up for Light detail. I flipped the switch (again)

0630 – Duty Section Muster. Got my cleaning assignment and I am off to sweep and swab. That’s the real sailors life.

0717 – Ran down a unusually early morning trouble call for COMMO. It’s a Login problem that pretty much affects everybody on the ship, damn roaming profiles. If we just switched to Mac’s we might have world peace, or at least ship peace!

0720 – Back in the shop and all I can say is THANK THE DEAR SWEET LORD we get no Fox News on deployment. My LPO has douchebag Glenn Beck on TV and its turning my insides black. What a fake asshole. He wants the country to come together? Then get the hell off the air.

0824 – My relief is here. Woohoo! No more Fox news in my life. The rest of the day will be filled with me unpacking boxes and trying to get ready for deployment.

See you on Monday morning when we get underway!

Always Remember

I would be remiss, before starting the tick tock of the days events, if I didn’t reflect on what happened 8 years ago today. I was working in the clubs back then and was never awake for anything that happened in the morning. This day was no different. Somebody close to me, came by my house around 11am to wake me up and tell me what had happened. Naturally I didn’t believe it, so I looked at my phone and saw numerous messages and voicemails. I walked out into the living room to watch the coverage on TV. Everything had already happened and it felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and head simultaneously. I sat down on the couch and didn’t move for the next month it seemed like. It’s so hard to describe that feeling, but it was like being in a dream that you knew was a dream and trying to wake yourself up. As unbelievably sad as I felt, it was amazing to be a witness to the way people came together in the spirit of patriotism over the next several months. It would be nice to have that again without having to go through that kind of experience. It’s kind of fitting that we are deploying very near this anniversary and going to participate in what many ships and sailors have gone through since the days of 9/11. This day is not why I joined the Navy, but it reminds me that I serve with people that have put their lives on the line to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

0857 - Well, after spending hours out on the forecastle (front of the boat) yesterday I was bound to get a little red and I did. I actually got a lot red and I am not a happy camper about it. Guess that’s another thing I need to pack. I hope that today I don’t have to be outside as much. Today I have duty and went to my first duty muster which was pretty lame. I was standing around waiting to be told what to do and I got nothing. I have no watch today which is cool but I do have lights which I hear is basically flipping a switch at sunset. The only thing that sucks about this duty day (other than not being able to leave) is I have duty with my LPO and he is kind of douchey. He reminds me of an LPO I had in Naples. He is always busy, but never seems to get anything accomplished. I really wish I had gotten stuck with someone who actually works, knows what he/she is doing and is willing to teach, so that I could learn something.

1125 – The ship is basically empty, there are a million things happening on base today including Pinning Ceremony for new chiefs, a couple of re-enlistments and of course deployment so people were quick to get out of here. I have been sitting around for a couple hours doing pretty much nothing. Going to chow to get some turkey.

1214 – The rest of the crew has been done for a while and they are chomping at the bit to leave. My LPO is holding them up for no particular reason. It’s been said by one of my shipmates that he lacks the cahoneys to stand up to anybody and this is the reason we end up working such long hours because sometimes he is too scared to ask if the shop can leave. Underway that won’t be a problem since we can’t leave but it will be when we come back next year. I have to stay in the shop with him for at least the next 6 hours. I am beginning to think this Turkey was not such a great idea.

1226 – I just pulled up my pay stub for this half of September and I am severely underpaid for some reason. I started getting BAH (housing allowance) last month but I have a feeling that I lost it this month plus some other things as well. For anyone who is in the military you know that the mid month stub only shows you an amount with no other details. You have to wait till the end of the month to find out what went where. I hope it’s something that can get remedied while I am underway.

1303 – Actually had a trouble call just now to fix a database problem. No real troubleshooting because there was a civilian tech up there who had been given a fix for me to do, but it was still good to get out of the shop and interact with some other people. ESPN is turned on in the shop which is surprising because my LPO supposedly only watches Fox News in the shop so you can make your own judgment based on that fact. That fact alone might cause us to bump heads more than anything on deployment.

1619 – Another fresh water wash down in the books and still not enjoying it. This time they sprayed from the bridge all the way down to the weather decks which was about 5x as much work with only the duty section which equals about 1/8^th of the help we had yesterday. I never knew ships couldn’t get wet. My LPO is having dinner with the wife, so I am stuck in radio missing my dinner. I guess that’s the disadvantage of being the new guy and working with him. It might actually work out with me cause I may get to leave the ship and go to Mcdonalds.

1742 – Was able to grab some dinner at the mess and guess what they had? MORE NUGGETS!!! They also had Chicken Cordon Blue but it was not so amazing. I wonder how long we are planning on hanging out here in the shop tonight. I could use some decent sleep tonight so that I can get up and do clean up in the morning and then get the hell out of here and work on my apartment and get some last minute items for deployment.

1857 – Color and light detail done, I flipped the switch. Going to sleep because I have to be up in 5 hours to send a 5 minute report. Outstanding!

My First Real Day in the Real Navy

My goal is to write as much as possible about this deployment while I am underway. I won’t really have any other way to express myself and I am quite sure this will help with that. Today is my second full day on board and my first real day underway. We are going out to open water to do some exercises but coming back tonight before we leave for our full scale deployment

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September 10, 2009

0819 - I just got back from my first Sea and Anchor detail which is basically the guys who do the line heaving and tying off on the bits. I was on line 2 and things went pretty well. It’s pretty lax actually, like most things in the Navy, you just stand around and wait for some one to tell you what to do. We got the lines heaved up and then put away and manned the rails till we left Pearl. It was ok but not something I would want to do every but I found out I get 2 more chances to change my mind about it.

1100 - The morning has been pretty busy with this and that and thank God I took Dramamine this morning because we hit 25 knots and the ship was rocking pretty good. I hope that I will eventually get used to it and won’t have to take it everyday. The ship itself is doing a lot of testing today and so there are a lot of jobs that you just get picked up for. For instance, I just experienced my first “fresh water wash down” which is essentially running the hose over the entire ship and sweeping the water from every nook and cranny off the ship. It sounds a lot more fun than it really is. Right now they are blasting the 25mm Guns, and if you’ve never heard that then you’ve never heard a loud ass gun before. I heard we are having Reuben sandwiches for lunch today. My friend says that on his ship the galley is horrible (even in port) but so far everything here has been alright. I hope it stays that way.

1211 – Waiting for the lines to go down to eat. The motion of the boat is much more noticeable down here below deck. Not feeling super great but I think most of that is hunger. I just found out that we get no sports on board only movies but I guess that is better than nothing.

1217 – I am in the shop alone which is not a great idea cause I don’t know what the hell is going on if someone comes by or calls plus I am starving and have Sea and Anchor coming up in 45. Ugh!

1400 – Lunch was ok. Had some leftover nuggets from the served lunch yesterday and lasagna plus some banana cake because I felt like pigging out after using all my energy on sea and anchor detail. Regrettably I am getting the itis, (and if you don’t know what the itis is, think thanksgiving afternoon) damn you banana cake! I need to get up and walk around.

1418 – Second sea and anchor detail complete and it’s a whole different beast coming back in versus going out. Plus we crossed paths with the O’Kane going out while we were coming back which was cool. I got a few minutes of rare down time and just sitting down for a minute makes me want to fall asleep. I have so much to do before deployment and about 72 hours to get it all done, but by the time I finally make it home tonight I will probably fall right to sleep. I have a seabag inspection today to make sure I have all my uniform items for deployment. I didn’t really prepare, I just am hoping that everything is in there.

1722 – Well no seabag inspection today and I am finally done with Sea & Anchor detail but its sounding like that may be a permanent extra duty for me and the people that were out there today. After doing it 3x today I wish I never had to do it again but those are the breaks. I think I spent a couple of hours total standing at parade rest today against the rails and my hands are all chewed up from the line. I will be soaking my hands and feet tonight. Tomorrow I have duty which means I work all day and then can’t leave the ship till the following morning plus do anything extra the duty section asks for. It should be interesting to say the least. I am sure I will have lots to say. Tonight I really need to get more boxes unpacked but I am beat and want to sleep. We’ll see which wins the battle!

1731 – I snapped a few pics from the fantail/flight deck/back of the boat today and will post those later. I hope I get to head home soon..

My New Hawaiin Place

                           

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Sitting on the dock of the bay

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I have to admit, that's pretty damn cute