Halfaversary: Caution - Contains ushy gushy mushy stuff.

Today is our Halfaversary! That's right, we have been married six months! 

A few weeks ago as I was searching intensely for the perfect halfaversary gift and asking friends and family for suggestions, i kept getting the same response which puzzled me. "It's only six months", they'd say. "You don't need to get him a gift." 

But I do! This is huge! This is momentous! I guess, at least, it is for us. I forget that most around me don't live like this. I forget everything that led up to this. I forget the drama that we've left behind, and somehow forget that we're still living it. But, now, it doesn't seem like it so much. This has become our normal. While everyone else gets to go home and eat dinner with their loved ones, watch TV, go to the gym, do chores, run errands - Together. We can't do that. Yet, for the most part, we are content with it. 

I suppose we've never really had that to begin with, so perhaps we don't have anything to miss. But, also, it's just that we are so happy to have each other that the other stuff can wait for now. It will come.

Don't get me wrong, we are painfully aware of what's missing. We feel it every day. We sit on the web cam content for the moment to "be together". Inevitably, someone will say something sweet or we'll get excited about something that happened that day, and with the urge to reciprocate the emotion we get side railed with the reminder that we're so far apart. "I want to kiss him" I think to myself. "He looks so cute right now". This is marked outwardly with a long sigh behind and semi-fained smile. He asks what's wrong. I say, "Nothing. I just love you." He says "I kissa you!" I "..kissa you too!", and we move on. When we say goodnight and he clicks that button to close the chat window there is always the mixed emotion of sadness and happiness. Sad, for obvious reasons. But happy because all the while I know that the sadness comes from the fact that I miss him so much, which comes from the fact that I love him so much! I know that he loves me that much back. Just that thought makes all the sadness go away, for the time being. 

I know, I still haven't made my point. Here is my point. We know what we've gotten ourselves into. We know it all happened so fast. We know the circumstances that led to all this. And we know that those things don't set up any relationship, much less a marriage for anything good. And not even considering those things, divorce rates in the Navy just happen to be the highest of any branch of the military. Considering everything: the distance, the timeframe, the Navy, everything... we are rock solid. And we love that! No matter how much we stare into a web cam and sorrowfully state "This sucks! I miss you!", we have no regrets, no hesitations, no doubt that we're gonna make it. And quite possibly be better for it. 

This is why I get so excited about 'just six months'. It's not because we made it six months. It's not just because it's one of our first anniversaries of any kind. It's because it's a landmark. It's six months of being married to the most amazing person I could imagine being with. This person who almost left my life forever but fought for me. Who I can look at every day (even if only in a picture) and realize what his being in my life has done for me. How happy he's made me and knowing how happy he is going to make me. It's the fact that through everything that has happened and despite our current living situation, and knowing everything that is to come over the next 4 years and that it's not going to get any easier, we are not only still here, but we are amazing!!! And THAT is worth celebrating!

So, today, is our halfaversary. Happy Halfaversary babe! I love you so much.

squishy

I would just like to say that my wife is my most favorite thing in the world.

YOU FIRED!!!!

Well, where to begin! Basically i messed up setting my alarm clock (100% my own dumb fault) and as a result was 20 minutes late to class. This resulted in me being fired from my class-leader position.

However, my instructor said that he and the chiefs didn't want to do it and might offer it to me again in the future. He repeated that i set the bar for class-leaders very high and he thought i did an outstanding job. Just cant be late. Not even once. I agree.

Anyways! Had 3 exams already. They are not too easy. I have a "mid-term" tomorrow that might be a bit of a challenge. This is by far the hardest class i have ever taken. It tops everything. And the stakes are high, if you fail two tests, you loose your sign-on bonus and will either be kicked out of the navy or kicked out of the submarine force. These guys are not joking. These kids on the fast attack boats have no idea.

Speaking of sign-on bonuses! I got mine! wasn't as much as i thought it would be, damned thing was taxed all to hell. Anyways, I applied 90% of it to my student loans. Today i literally cut my debt in half! And by the way - no more dings on my credit report as of march, that's when the last one goes away. Booyah! It feels good. I paid off two of the three student loans, the one from PCC is gone, as well as the subsidised Stafford loan from Cambridge. So just one left. Its the largest of the three naturally but I'm using dad's snow-ball thing so it will be going away very quickly. I think im gonna let this one pay off through payments though, so that i have some history, but that's not for sure yet. I will of course take advice and do what is best.

I had a very interesting encounter with the self-checkout girl at Walmart today. It was quite funny. Allow me to set the stage... I had to buy some towels and things of the like for my bathroom. My buddy was purchasing some clothes for his deployment this coming week. He forgot his credit card so i gave him mine. This held up the line a little bit since i had to leave my register thingy.

I came back to my register, and i couldn't find the barcode on the towels. I asked the girl for help and she came over and pointed it out to me, then scanned it for me.

Me: "Okay I'm just a dummy."
Her: "Yeah, you are." (sarcasm)

She proceeded to take all my towels and repeat this process.

Me: "Its okay, i can get the rest..."

Her: "No, its fine - I dont trust you."

Me: "Owned....."

Her: "...Movin' all slow for hours! holding up the line!"

Me: "Well.... maybe i just wanted you to come over and help me." ;-)

Her: "Nice approach!"

Me: "I'm sure you'd like to think so."

BOOYAH! ROFL! that was funny as hell, perhaps you had to be there. Anyways, my buddy and i found it quite amusing.

CoW?

So, relatively uneventful past week as Ducky said, i can put out a couple cool things though. Somewhere in us learning about ship's control systems. I got a pretty cool compliment from one of my instructors. He suggested i qualify CoW (Chief of the Watch) because of how much information i could spit out on the topic. This is a compliment in part because it is not possible. In order to stand CoW you have to be much higher ranking. So i thought that was cool.

We got moved to yellow card liberty status, which means i can wear civis again. Always nice, i do so love my shorts.

I wore the "im on a boat" t-shirt out today, got quite a few compliments on that...

Also! I would like to comment that hoodia is AMAZING. Kills my appetite crazy well. I can feel a difference when i do and do not have it. On days that i have it i literally eat about 1/3 what i normally would. Dont worry, Im far from starving. It takes the edge off of cravings really well so even if you get really hungry you arent craving sugar and crap so its easier to eat healthy as well. You have to take a lot of it though, i am taking about 1400-2100mg per day, I havent read that there is any problem with this.

Its hell here, just like i expected. it was 70 degrees today, i was sweating just walking to class which makes me very very angry. and its freakin January. What is it with this place?

Woot!

He's got real internet back. That's all. Just yea! Happy Ducky! :D

I know! I know!

We haven't posted anything in a few days. It's been a pretty eventless few days I guess. Nothing too exciting going on over there. Just class and duty and the usual. There are a couple small things that wouldn't be worth my posting, but would be better served from first hand and more detailed point of view. (Getting invited to hang out with some new guys, and adventures in phone musters, and um.. white card run-ins at walmart: I think it was walmart) Anyway...

Every time I call him he's been watching BSG (Battle Star Galactica, for you non sci-fi geek types) with Tony. Including right now. So don't you worry. He's not being worked too hard. :)

I'm just waiting for him to get his real internet back so we can have our 'sofa sundays'. Which is basically the web cam approximation of chillin' on the couch all day. Right now he has mobile internet on his computer but he's got a 5G limit per month. Streaming video eats that up in a few hours, so we can only do an hour or two at a time.

Well, I think that's really about it. If I think of anything I'll add it to this. Hopefully, he'll give us a more eloquent update, as he usually does, soon.

Apparently I rock.

So, its almost the end of the first week of class. Not much has happened, been learning about IC systems, Control systems and the like. Not bad, not THAT much information yet really. I have been holding my own as class leader, no real errors on my part, save for having left a stack of papers on a table over night.

I had to have a chat with one of my classmates. We all make fun of him a lot, because he is what we call a shitbag. I know that just sounds mean, but thats really all there is to it. There are some people who have no credibility, integrity or real pride in what we do. These people are given the name "shitbag" This particular sailor, (whom i shall just refer to as ETSA Stooge) smuggled classified information out of out schoolhouse at our last base. Not with malicious intent - he wanted to study at home. This is of course still a security violation, so he got caught, lied about how he got it, blamed it on his room mate. The command was nice enough to let him go with writing as essay about espionage and how it has effected the united states. Stooge, being the genius that he is, decided it was a good idea to copy and paste - directly- a wikipedia page on the subject. Senior Chief immediately noticed it and Stooge was a hairs breadth from being kicked out of the navy. For some reason they decided to keep him.

That's a rather long explanation as to why we all give him a hard time - also understand that we as a class got in a lot of trouble for that as well. "One crew, one screw" mentality. Anyways, Stooge has other problems to include random interjections of complete nonsense into conversations that are totally out of his element, SUPREME brown-nosing, and top it all off with zero integrity.

Stooge, this week finally had enough of us making fun of him and flipped out. I pulled him aside, calmed him down and then had a meeting with him last night to talk about why this happens. Long story short, i made a deal with him. I explained that we continue to make fun of him because he always draws negative attention to himself and cannot admit it when he is wrong.

I gave him two simple instructions:
1) Talk less, listen more. I have discovered this makes people like you a lot more.
2) Own-up! Its okay to be wrong, but trying to cover it up makes you look far worse than just being wrong.

Reluctantly, and rather dismissively he agreed to try it for a day. Not to my surprise - it worked. Stooge kept quiet for the most part. I think one comment was said to him all day. At lunch i asked him how it was working for him.

"My idea worked." He said.

.................. this is where i sucked it up and let him think that it was his idea... i guess i don't really care, as long as he gets along. This however tells you a little about his character. *sigh*

Anyways, I explained the situation to my instructor the first time that Stooge flipped out, and let him know that i would handle it so he and/or the chain of command didnt have to. Once I updated him on our meeting and the progress today he said that i was a very good class-leader and that i am setting the bar very high.

--- that felt about as good as master chief complimenting me on my "Darth Vader" shiny boots.

The sucky part is that he informed me i might be replaced as class leader, not for poor performance - but because we have a 3rd class petty officer (ET3) in our class. He will have to assume leadership roles on the boat before I do, since he is one rank higher than myself, So they want to give him the practice. But ET1 assured me that i had been performing very well in my role.

Also! I bumped in to the navigator for my crew today, that's the officer directly in charge of my division on the boat. surprised me, but he remembered my name. I guess i made an impression trying to meet my division early.

Last night i purchased a clip-board, one that opens up and stores stuff. I also bought a white, dry-erase board and super-glued the poo out of it to the back of the clipboard. Now i have a clipboard, in which i store my notebook and it has the board on the back. The whiteboard was recommended to me by the ET class LCPO at Groton. The reason being that in order to earn our dophins -the (ss) designator- we have to learn a lot of schematics and blue-prints, the board lets us practice. Thus far i am the only one i have seen to actually do it. Then again, i cant even start to earn my dolphins until i report to my boat.

I was informed by our class commander (ET1) that i am "that guy". I had to inquire what he had meant by that because to me, "that guy" would be the dude at a party who gets to drunk and pukes on the hot girls in the swimming pool. He informed me that i was a "go-getter, minus the dick-sucking." I guess thats a compliment... setting the bar. I assume he means I'm doing my best without trying to suck up.

"I dont like suck-ups and i can't abide kiss-asses." ~Gene Hackman, Crimson Tide.

I agree with the above statement. I have met a few more people from my boat this week. Including the leave coordinator, a YNSA. That is an excellent person to get in good with. He can choose to forget you went on leave, resulting in you having more leave days saved up for next time. Also met an MT who is apparently a shitbag. Self-proclaimed. He has been on the boat a year and a half, hasnt been out on a deployment (because the boat was getting refueled, it takes several months) and is still a non-qual. I think the only reason he is still on the crew is because they have been in refit - so its harder, but its still possible. A few guys in my division got qualified after their last sea-trial a few months ago. I also met a CS2 on my crew who was very nice, had a decent attitude which is always good.

Anyways! I have been slacking on my duty-section qualifications. I will have to get on those this weekend, probably some late night UIs (under-instruction, where you learn how to stand a watch).

Got to play around in a Ships Control Center today. Simulator wasn't working until my group was done, but it was kinda cool. All real equipment. Im so excited to get out there and kick some ass.

Duck and Cover... get it? Awww

(See, it's cute 'cause it's a ducky, and it's funny 'cause in the Navy a hat is called a 'cover'.) :)

Some Cutes.

Nothing to write about today. So, here are some cute things I found. Enjoy. :)
(From Zazzle.com)

Read this: "Loose lips sink ships" still applies.

>> Original article with full details here
>> More information here

From: "Keep Your Family Safe: Practice Operational Security On Social Media" and other sources.

Today while exploring other blogs and Navy resources I came to learn about OPSEC rules and that they apply to ALL of us. Below is a short list of information that I will not be posting to this blog. If a post is vague, this is why. If you need more information then you already know how to contact me.

Please also follow these guidelines yourself when on other social networking sites, i.e. Facebook, myspace, blogging, email, etc.
For example, as excited as we all may be, do not write, "Hooray, his boat will be returning to XX base on XX date!"

When communicating on social media sites do not post the following information:

- Sailors' Names. This includes your username if you share the same last name as your son or daughter. If you scan in a picture of an article that contains your Sailor’s name, make sure to black it out first. If it is an online Navy article or news article that you are reposting, do not publicly identify the mentioned Sailor as your son or daughter.
- No Sailor addresses, emails, or other contact information.

- Exact deployment dates or return dates. This applies to ships, subs, squadrons and individual augmentees.
- Dates or location of a ship's upcoming ports of call.
- Detailed information about a mission.
- References to trends in crew's morale or an individual's personal problems.
- Details concerning security procedures, response times or tactics.
- Information about equipment readiness.
- Speculations about future operations.

EVEN MORE:
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=50411
Information on the appropriate use of social media within the Navy is available at http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/socialmedia.html. DoD's social media hub has created videos and articles on the best practices for service members and their families when using social networking sites. These can be found at http://socialmedia.defense.gov. Likewise a short presentation by Navy Public Affairs on privacy and safety of personnel participating on line can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/USNavySocialMedia/us-navy-safe-and-effective-use-of-social-media. More information regarding OPSEC can be obtained by Navy command personnel at https://iweb.spawar.navy.mil/depts/d017/.

First day of School

Today will be his first day of actual class at his new base. Up until now he has been in ACU where they basically keep the guys busy cleaning and such while they wait for everyone to get there and for class to start up. This school will take him through about the middle of April at which point he will report to his boat. (That is if his boat is in a place that he can get to it.) I'm sure he will fill us in on all the details of his first day later on. *hint hint Monkey*

Also, that means that this is his first day as acting class leader. Good luck babe! You'll do great!

While he was here...

While he was here we had a chance to go dancing a couple times. Yay! It's been too long! After all, dancing is what brought us together. *nostalgic sigh* :D

Here is a little video of us Salsa dancing on New Years Eve.

About Ohio-class Submarines

Im sure there will be many more questions about how my schedule as far as my boat's deployment goes, so i figure i should tackle that right now. Lets start with a few definitions.

Underway: When the ship is out-to sea, to sum up "deployed"

Blue Crew: One of a SSBN's two, rotating crews. I am ordered to the blue crew.

Gold Crew: The other crew.

Turn-over: When the off-going crew updates and gives the boat to the on-coming crew.

Re-Fit: Some general maintenance performed by the on-coming crew before taking her out to sea.

Dry-dock: Exactly as it sounds. The boat is pulled out of the water for serious maintenance.

Off-crew: The crew that is on shore while the other crew is underway.

____________________________________________________________________

January 1st 2010: Gold Crew takes the USS Alaska underway for a planned 70 days.

March 10th 2010: Gold Crew returns to King's Bay, GA. Upon docking, they begin to turn-over the boat to the Blue Crew, informing them of any changes in the ships systems, or behavior as well as assessing what maintenance is required before the boat goes underway again.

March 13th 2010: Gold Crew has the next 90 days on shore, where they will participate in trainers, exercises and exams that can be performed in on-shore simulators. Gold Crew is now defined as the "Off-crew". Now its time for maintenance and on-ship tests so Blue Crew can get the boat underway again. This process is called re-fit and will take roughly two weeks.

March 31st 2010: Blue Crew takes USS Alaska underway for a scheduled 60 day patrol.

June 1st 2010: USS Alaska returns to port and goes into Dry-dock to repair deranged torpedo tube and periscope. The maintenance is estimated to span 6-months.

____________________________________________________________________

Thats just an example of how it works as far as what i understand. Hopefully for the boat's sake, it stays out of dry-dock. Sometimes boats go into dry dock for maintenance for extreme amounts of time. For instance, the USS San Francisco after hitting a mountain spent roughly 3 years in drydock.

Lets hope that never happens again. Anyways - the process would loop this example for the most part. So there ya go.

------------

>> Learn more about his boat here

Geo-Bachelor's pad

Yesterday they told him that the barracks that have so far been considered temporary will now be his permanent digs. He is what they consider a "geo-bach". Basically, a Bachelor by geography since I don't live there with him. *sigh*  This also means that they consider him to be 'double dipping' in that they pay him BAH (Basic Allowance Housing) while also housing him on base. Because of this he is in 'sub' housing. More or less they mean 'sub-standard' but it's not as bad as that sounds. The barracks there are a little less dorm-like than they were in Groton where he had two other room mates in the same living space. In Kings Bay the standard housing has a common living space for [I think] two people, with private bedrooms off of it with doors, and locks.

Sub housing is more like Groton but I believe he will only have one roomie. Right now he has the room to himself but they told him that someone will show up, some time. That's very Navy of them, right? From what I can see on the web cam the space seems to be a little larger and has a full sized fridge and a microwave that is also a toaster! So, overall a step up, except that when he got there the bathroom was so dirty that he was afraid to shower. Ewww...

He's also being told that next year they may not allow them to double dip and only 4% of the barracks will be for geo-bach's. That means that he will either receive BAH and live off base OR have housing in the barracks. He would no longer be able to live in the Barracks and receive extra money for housing. But, that's next year and it's still just a maybe at this point. A small detail to worry about later.

Oh yeah... the other thing that's different about these barracks... they're co-ed. *raises left eyebrow*
I have no official opinion on this matter at this time. "But don't worry, [his] room mate is a dude."

UPDATE: Ok, so shortly after reading this he took be on a little web cam tour of his room and showed me how things are set up. It's not soo bad with the whole co-ed thing. The rooms actually open up to the outside like apartments or a motel. I guess thats...fine. :)

Sailor Say "YEAH"

As far as rank/rating is concerned, i will give a quick explanation.

Rating Designations:

The first two (sometimes three) letters in something like "ETCM Monkey" are the rating designation. The navy has TONS of rates. I will list the ones that you will hear a lot from me, as they are the rates onboard a submarine.

ET: Electronics Technician (Radio Communications, or Navigation like myself)

FT: Fire Control Technician (these guys target and fire missiles and torpedoes)

STS: Sonar Technician Submarine. This is one of few three letter designations. These guys listen for enemy contacts in the water.

TM: Torpedoes Mate ("trained monkey") Load torpedoes into torpedo tubes and maintain the mechanical end of torpedo firing systems.

MM: Machinist's Mate. Not to poop on them but these guys are basically the hardest working most bad ass plumbers in the world. 80% of a submarine is plumbing. Plumbing is their job.

MT: Missile Technician (Not to be confused with "TM"). These guys maintain both mechanical and electrical systems for Trident I-II nuclear missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

EM: Electrician's Mate. On a submarine these guys are "nukes" (meaning nuclear trained, or work near the reactor or back half of the boat). Note that the following rates also have a "nuke" version aboard the submarine, meaning that they work on the back half, or reactor portion of the boat: ET, MM, EN (Engineman). I may refer to someone as a "nuke" they can be any one of these rates. "Nukes" are not just called that for their job, their training tends to nuke their brain and they all come out like weirdos. -Fo shizzle, strange people.

SK: Store Keeper. They just handle logistics on the boat.

YN: Yeoman. Paper pushers. Handle administrative stuff, and lots of paperwork. If you get in good with these guys, sometimes they forget how much leave you have taken ;-).

CS: Culinary Specialist, or cook. Pretty obvious what these guys do. They also do laundry for the officers.

Rank Designations:
I will start this from bottom to top, Designation, then paygrade.

SR: Seaman Recruit E1
SA: Seaman Apprentice E2
SN: Seaman E3 (my rank)
3: Third Class Petty Officer E4
2: Second Class Petty Officer E5
1: First Class Petty Officer E6
C: Chief E7
CS: Senior Chief (Chief, Senior) E8
CM: Master Chief (Chief, Master) E9


Warfare Designations:
There are a few of these, I wont often mention them, but as a for-instance my MySpace name is ETSN(SU). Now that you know how to figure out what the ETSN part is, i will explain the "(SU)". First off, you have to understand that submariners are considered "special forces". Just like Navy SEALS, or Marine Force Recon (even though either of them could kick my ass). Beacuse of that there are a few of them for submarines, that are not there for any other warfare type. It will all make sense soon. But this is what is referred to as "earning my dolphins" or getting "qualified".

(SU): Submarine Unqualified (This is the only "un-qual" because the submarine qualification is the hardest to earn).
(SS): "Silent Service" or Submarine Warfare qualified. This takes 2-12 months.
(SP): Submarine Previously Qualified, you get this if you are medically unable to serve on a sub.

(SW): Surface Warfare. Surface ship qualification, or "qualified target" as we submariners call them.

(FMF): Fleet Marine Force. These are the navy guys who work with marines on the battlefield. To include HMs (hospital corpsmen, with this designation are field medics).

(AW): Aviation Warfare. These are the guys on the flight decks of aircraft carriers. Or guys who maintain planes on land.

(DV): Diver. This is earned after any of the above qualifications and replaces that qualification on your name. We have these on Submarines as well.

Congratulations!
Now you can put most of these things together. As a for instance you will know that if you see. "ETCS(SS)" that this is an Electroics technician, Senior Chief, Submarine Qualified. Or myself: "ETSN(SU)" Electronics Tech, Seaman, Submarine not-yet-qualified.

I will give you another one!


YN1(FMF): Yeoman, First Class Petty Officer(E6), Fleet Marine Force qualified.

TM2(SP): Torpedo's Mate, Second Class petty Officer(E5), Submarine Previously qualified.

As i said, there are several "Rates" in the navy. So the first two letters might drive you crazy, but now you can look at them and know their rank and qualification.

Sailor say what?

For those among us who don't yet have all those collections of letters in our vocabularies, here is a partial list of acronyms and other definitions to help you out. I'll update this as I figure the rest out. Or, perhaps I'll get him to fill in the blanks for me. :)  Some of these were defined in the post but I'll re list them here, too. As more crop up, I'll add them to this post.

ET: Electronics Technician rating designation

ET1: Electronics Technician 1st Class

ETSR: Electronics Technician Seaman Recruit (E1) 

ET2: Electronics Technician 2nd Class, etc

ETSN: Electronics Technician Seaman (E3)

ETCS: Senior Chief Electronics Technician

CoB: Chief of the Boat

LCPO: Leading Chief Petty Officer

LM1:

ACU: Awaiting Class Unit

TTF: TriTraFac (Trident Training Facility)

Trident: The class of submarine he's on  > Images and info about his boat!

Captain's Mast: non-judicial disciplinary hearing  > More Info

BAH: Basic Allowance Housing 

knap: This is how he chooses to spell 'nap'. Because he likes it better that way. Don't try to correct him on this, it will only cause him to purposely misspell other words. :)

She's so wonderful!

Hehe. So, Katrina being the wonderful woman she is wants me to blog, and i shall oblige! She so cute, i love her to much!

Day 1:

Last few days have been kinda busy. Tony picked me up at the airport late Sunday night, went to a hotel until Monday morning. Met his "sea-dad" (ET2) at 0930. ET2 brought along the person who was his own sea-dad when he was a nub, (also an ET2, we will call him ET2b). I hadn't been able to get in contact with my own - so ET2b was nice enough to help me out and get me a barracks room.

I still had to get off of leave somehow though, so i kept calling my boat, my crew is the "off-crew" right now. My division LCPO (Leading Chief Petty Officer) ETCS instructed me to bring my service record to TriTraFac (Trident Training Facility, or "TTF"). So i brought it there and in a round about way they got me off of leave after filling out this annoying packet of paper-work. Then i pretty much took the rest of the day to unpack.

This is when i bumped into ETSR Will, and ETSN Eric - two blokes from the Alaska Nav Division (the division i report to after school). Will is recently qualified and has been in the navy for about three years, but he is paygrade E1 because he has been to Captain's Mast 4 times. Eric is a non-qual like myself, but he has been out to sea. There will be more about these guys further down.

Day 2:

I mustered with ACU at 0730. Then went and shredded papers for about an hour and a half in what was the most diabolical paper shredder i have ever seen. This thing may take over the world in 2012, and it was sweet papery destruction over and over, until LM1 pulled me out to send me to the ET Class-up, and meet my instructor. This of course lead to just more cleaning since i don't actually start class until Monday.

---Here is how i earned class leader---

I was cleaning the ET Chief's office from 0900 or so to 1600 (lunch was in there and i will explain how i got my division in trouble). But everyone who was in charge of me left between 1300-1400. Nobody told me when to leave or when to come back. So, having been given no instructions, i did what apparently few people do.... Standard navy day ends at about 1600, so i continued cleaning until that time (and apparently did a very good job). Then i went and got a first class petty officer to sign a sticky note saying that i was there until 1600. I also wrote on the sticky note that i would report back in at 0730 unless otherwise directed, and left my phone number so that they could in fact direct me otherwise if needed.

Basically, i did two critical things,

A) Did the right thing, instead of just ducking out when i realized nobody was around.

B) Covered my own ass, with the signature and note.

This impressed the ET department LCPO -ETC- so much that he was bragging about it to the whole building for an hour or so this morning (the third day morning). So, the instructors decided it was so cool that i should be class leader.

---How i got my division in trouble---

So during my lunch break, I bumped into Will and Eric again. I wanted to meet my division so i went with them on my lunch break to meet everybody. My division is HUGE! i think there are at least 15 guys (Tony's boat has 9). They gave me a little hard time about looking like a terrorist, asked me if i liked fairies and what-not. It was all pretty funny to me. But apparently ETCS didn't think so. So after i left, they called me back in because ETCS wanted them all to apologize to me. This was completely not necessary seeing as how they didnt offend me at all, they were in fact much nicer than i had expected. This turned into me having to tell the CoB (Chief of the Boat) everything they said. Then when i was done i had to report back to TTF while ETCS and the CoB chewed out the division. I felt bad.

Day 3

Not so much went on today, finished cleaning chief's office this morning before lunch. Took some of my lunch break to hang out with my division in a trainer. Came back up and basically bull-shitted with a few guys in my class for a while. Then I was informed that i was class leader and they dismissed us for the day. Im super tired though becaise i have been running on 4 hours of sleep for 3 days running. Took about an hour knap (yes this is how i spell it, you can do nothing to change it) today.

Got to see my Qual-card for the boat though. Pretty excited to get out there and kick some ass!

Check out the new gadget!

A countdown clock to let everyone know the next time he'll be coming home! (If it's on 00's then we don't know yet)

I will update it as soon as we know.

**Disclaimer**

Due to the awesome organizational skills of the Navy, countdown days are subject to change at any time. And most likely will. Several times...

Class Leader

Short update.

Via text he just told me he was elected class leader!  He said he is "more or less happy" about that as "The first class leader hardly ever stays the class leader." But, I think it's great. Yay Monkey! I'm proud of you!

First Days in Georgia

Apparently they are having a cold snap and it's like 40 degrees there right now. He said he actually wished he had the coat that goes with his uniform.
It seems he's doing well so far. He's met his division and got off on a good foot with them despite them getting in trouble for hazing him a bit, which he had taken all in good fun. He spent most of yesterday in ACU cleaning officers' desks which he said he received many compliments on. :)

Oh, and apparently though his crew has the boat for 90 days at a time they are not necessarily out to sea for the entire time. It takes a little while for the other crew to hand over the boat and them for them to refit it. So, that's a little less sucky.