MAIL CALL!!

YEA! I finally got more email from him. I was starting to get pretty bummed not hearing from him. It kills me though, the (understandable) latency of the email system. In his last email he asks me to please keep him updated, which means he hasn't received many of my emails. I've been writing him every day. I guess he'll get them all at once though and he'll know. They come in waves. He's been writing them but they can't send except when they are close enough to the surface. So, while i haven't heard from him in a while, I received three emails this morning.

He seems to be very busy. And kind of tired. But kickin' butt and getting his quals done. I will share parts of his emails below:

Today is 19-June. I finished my NavWatch qualification card. But now they are putting me out on sticks because that s what my CoB asked them to do. Which is ridiculous since I will probably never stand it on my own boat, and it takes so long to qualify it normally that I wont be actually standing it for them, just doing UIs.... Oh well......

Drills every day are kinda fun. Kinda...... I am getting better and better as we do them. But I keep messing up things that seem little - but they are things that could like... kill me. I got a funny specific one for you...

So, I was in the engine room yesterday, looking at some actuators for the emergency flood control system. I was asking a nuke back there about how the system was organized. So as we were talking about it a couple chiefs came by holding a red flashing light (fire) and a sign indicating it was a drill. At the time I was on watch (as a UI). I kind of forgot about that for a moment. You see, every watch has a particular job for every different casualty and they are different if you are oncoming, off-going or ON watch. So as the guy I was talking to ran to sound the 4MC and call away the fire, I stood there like "Alright, Cool - I will get to watch this evolution without having to be a part of it so I can see what people do." - Certain drills like this one indicate on the sign that it is for ON watch personnel only. I asked myself since I was watching it "What would I be doing right now if I was Navwatch and ON watch?...... Oh shit! I AM on watch!" I then ran to grab a fire extinguisher and ran towards the fire without going into battle dress or grabbing an EAB, not a good move really - the monitors instructed me to get into battle dress, don an EAB and come back, which I did... Anyways - I thought it was a funny situation.

Today we had a big drill, I did better than I have, but still need work on where to go, but I think its normal for not having been on a boat that long. The rest of the crew, for the most part, as far as the senior personnel are pretty damned good at it, it is impressive. [John] just about suffocated someone though cause they were daisy chained his EAB and he unplugged from the air manifold.