Need...coffee....braaaaiiiiiinnnnssssssss

I'm up an hour earlier than I meant to be, no thanks to me not adjusting my clock for all the danged time zones we keep crossing. Eh well, gives me time to make some coffee. So, listening to Archers of Loaf, brewing some coffee, and looking at good news to see if there's anything worth reading about...apparently not. Honestly,I could not give two shits about the royal couple. Now there's all the opinion articles on the poor(now rich) girl's wedding dress. I seem to remember that the news had more coverage on that event than the earthquakes/tsunami in Japan when it was breaking news. Anger.

I will be posting some pictures soon of Andrew and my own's experience of Hawaii. I have to wait until I receive my laptop power cable in the mail that my darling wife is sending me. Yes....I forgot the very object that power my computer, I like to think I had a lot on my mind when I was packing for 6 month's worth of underway time.

I miss my girls, I miss kissing my wife on the cheek every morning before I leave for work. I miss watching Shelby trying to holding my massive Nerf gun than stand a good three heads taller than her and saying "got you, daddy!". I'm never leaving them behind ever again. Of course I can't say never, but I'll never have to leave them for 6 months at a time.

~chase

Hi, my name is Bill Murray. Welcome to Groundhog Day.

So, almost a half month into this little deployment. Try as I might, I can't make the days pass any faster. Although a good sign is showing itself, the days are starting to blur together. Three days can pass at a time before I realise how much time is passing. So yeah, welcome to my world, Groundhog Day as it were. Trying to keep myself sane and balance, though I really have a lack of motivation as depression has started to set in a little. I can tell through my interactions with people, I don't feel like excercising or doing much more than standing watch and sleeping.

I think it hit me just the other day when I was writing a hand-written letter to my daughter just how much we as people has lost in communication when we've done nothing but enhance communication in the past 15 years! Yes, we write emails and texts, all the while cutting back on everything else. Hell, I ran into someone before I left that said they would rather text a person than call them anymore.

In my opinion, the hand-written word hold higher value now more than ever. When's the last time you received a written letter, cards don't count...an honest written-out letter. I love my aunt Glennie, but sometimes she can drive my father to the drink, hah! She recently had sent my daughter a Cabbage Patch doll in the mail that was lost in delivery. In an inquiry to the location of said doll, she hand-wrote a letter to the residence of our address pleading a safe return of said way-ward child. I'm not always old-fashioned, but dammit, some things like good handwriting and grammar should come back.

I'm rambling now and sounding like a crotchety old man. *sigh* When did I get old?

Changes in attitudes, changes in latitudes...literally

Changes in Latitudes; It's been a few days since we've left Hawaii. It was the very first time that I had ever been, there was so much that I wanted to see...the Arizona Memorial, the Might Mo, the submarine museum, the punchbowl crater. What I actually accomplished out of all that: none.

What I was able to actually do was go an impromptu car trip across the island with Andrew and took some extraordinary pictures of the most scenic island I've ever seen. Pictures to follow. I had no regrets, hell, he even treated me to a couple bottle of Sierra Nevada Torpedoes at the end of the night. Twas a good evening, so I can't even complain that I missed the main sights.

Changes in attitudes; Something I've noticed lately, and call me a hipocrite if you must, but more and more some country music speaks more powerfully to me than it did before. Namely the Zac Brown Band on "The Foundation" record. Maybe I'm just missing some of the simple things I used to take for granted about living in the mountains. But it also seems like as soon as I left that area I starting missing it. So, maybe it's just my fickle being afterall.

On another note, I finally got around to calling one of the eletrician's mates to come take a look at our lights in my office space. It longer looks like an alley where homeless folks would reside. Although, if you ever just look into the array room to see us SPY techs watching TV or playing games, it would definately look like we were desistitute(sp?). All of us just laying where there is a bit of cushion, like rags...huddling for warmth from the cold handsof the A/C that keeps our space just under a comfortable temperature of 35 degrees...

I miss my girls something terrible. Laura tells me that Shelby says "Goodnight, I love you!" to my image on the DVD of bedtime stories that I made her before I left. I cried a little when she told me that, a happy kind of cry though.

~chase

Scrawled on a book with a broken spine.

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die."


-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Devil and the Good Lord (1951) act 1
French author & existentialist philosopher (1905 - 1980)

It was only a matter of time

I've had some supervisors in the past that made me want to stay Navy all the way until retirement, those supervisors (read: Chiefs) would fight for their people in a very vocal way.

This isn't the Navy circa 1942. A sailor isn't expected to start a fight in a bar, if he/she wants to make themselves better and admits that they have a problem with alcohol they are forever branded an alcoholic and troublemaker.

These days, even though the steady pay, insurance, living arrangements, and world experience is wonderful and slendid...I just don't think I can deal with the underway time and military heirarchy anymore than my obligation insists.

Yes, I know that folks rotate out and that things are only temporary. But the fact of the matter is that I have to deal with it now, while underway and stressed out already. Yes, people will leave this command and go to others but who's to say that someone even worse will replace him. They don't screen personalities when picking orders.

Wallowing through narcisism and facades, seems like this is all I've experienced in 6 years of Navy. Yeah, i know in the grand scheme it's really not that long for military, so don't burn me. They tell me that if I stay in and make Chief one day that I could make the change by being a better Chief. Who's to say that I wouldn't become a victim of that cycle and turn out the same way? I'm not giving it the chance, I don't want to become that kind of person. Even if I am the "good Chief that would fight for my people", that the people under me would look up to, I would only be a bucket of hot water in a cold ocean.

Also, folks that refer to people as "warm bodies" really gets under my skin.

Step 1: Insert soul into blender.

Step 2: Press "Puree"

The days are starting to blend together, which is an excellent thing while underway. One only stands watches and is not concerned about trivial matters...like food...or sleep. The hours will seem to slip away as you slip into routine, this is not a bad thing unless you have a kind of deadline.

I don't believe I've let everything set it, though the other night I had this terrible feeling in the back of my mind. It was a fear that I only felt last in boot camp. I suppose it was something along the lines of going into the unknown, but like boot camp, I just kept the idea that once this is all said and done that I would never have to be separated from my family again. That after this I would be leaving the Navy life behind me for, hopefully, better things.

It's a happy thought I keep in my pocket until depression from separation sets in finally. After that point, it should be downhill. On one hand, yes, I have to be away from everything for a while. But on the other hand, this will be my last deployment ever...it feels like senior year of high school or something to that nature.

Well, it's incredibly late after working on paperwork. I need to try and sleep, shouldn't be too hard at this point.

Listening to: Peter Gabriel "So"

Sending the Zen,
~chase

Dear Diary,

Today I "Rick Roll'ed" the ship. It was of epic biblical awesomeness. It's only day three. How can I top that?

Things I just remembered that I do underway:

1. When no one is looking I dance to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", ala On The Rocks a capela group.

2. Listen to more country music than is good for me...for anyone.

3. Even though I am a straight male I tell many, many men that I would sleep with them for money...or to trade deck watches.

4. Speak in a different language. Ex; Hey Scotty, I'm running down to the head in berthing and will stopping at the scuttlebutt to fill my camelback. Need anything from the geedunk machine? Also, we need to take a look at the DPD because it looks like we have a phase alignment issue, could see something do do with the CFA reverse power problem. TWT...

5. Every movie on SITE TV is a true story that I would rather live in for an hour and a half.

6. A whiteboard is a primary means of communication through the watches.

7. The blue lights in combat are the best cure for insomnia, I don't care how much caffine one has. the deathly pale blue lights in CIC will consume your soul and life.

That being said...

8. A coffee machine in your workspace is on par to being in jail but being able to make your own toilet wine.

9. I'm pretty sure the Justin Timberlake bobble head standing beside said coffee maker in workspace follows me with it's eyes and plans to kill me if I nod off while working on paperwork by the computer. Send help.

10. Days no longer matter, only hours...That you coordinate different events within.

Man the rails? No thanks, I'm trying to quit.

Well, it is the first day of deployment...yeah, it sucks already.

We've just pulled from the harbor and come from manning the rails, in fact, I'm still in my dress whites as I'm typing. Mostly because I know berthing will be full if I try to do down to change now. Saying goodbye is hard to do regardless of how you do it. Shelby was so upset when we arrived to the pier that she got sick. It was tough to send Laura and Shelby on their way off the ship.

I have fears of leaving my family alone for so long, just as any person would. But those fears become all-so-real when the pier team take the brow from the quarterdeck, and the only way to come on and off the ship is ripped away both physically and metaphorically.

In the middle of all the sadness of departing is a glimmer of happiness, knowing that you're finally starting a deployment that has been hovering over the heads of everyone onboard the ship...Finally starting that countdown clock that will, eventually, end.

Homecoming will be incredible.
~chase