My knees hurt

I really think standing for hours on end is taking a toll on my knees. In the last 3 days I've been standing continuously and my knees are killing me. Tomorrow I'll be standing for at least 10 hours straight. This is 10 hours on some steel-toed boots that pretty much lost all of its sole. Any way, today we had our steel beach picnic on the flight deck and it was the first one I actually stuck around for in a long time. I usually just get my food and take it to the Wardroom. Not sure why today was different but it was. The crew caught two fishes on the fantail and they tasted soooo good. Nothing like fresh fish on the grill. I also had some mean ribs to go with it. I thought the tail end of this underway, we would have like no food left but it ended up that we have plenty of good food left. I'm still looking forward to a good meal on Wednesday. Anyone in SD want to join? On another note, it took me 4 days to figure out a quota from "Anchorman" It is a line that Ron Burgandy uses when he warms up for a show... "how now brown cow" and "unique New York". The last line I was looking for was "the human torch was denied a bank loan" I'm glad we figured that one out because it bugged the hell out of me. I got a busy couple days ahead of me...less than 72 hours until I'm back in Cali!

No Sleep for the Weak (Week)

I feel like I haven't rested for the last two days. I'm also looking at the next 96 hours and can't seem to find a good place to get some good sleep. The underway is winding down but the drills have been ramping up. More training means the training officer has a lot of work to do. I got this one last hurdle on this ship and its got me earning my pay for once. Gone were the days of me sitting in my office and kicking it.

I got 5 more watches on the bridge. That equals to about 24 hours of watch. If I could, I'd get the 24 hours over with and not stand another bridge watch for the rest of the underway. My feet are killing me and I'm thinking of paying a visit to Mimi's Spa on El Cajon Blvd when I get back. Haha. I hear the massages there are well worth every penny.

I estimate that it's been a good 3 weeks since I've been on facebook. Good thing my blog on blogger is fed to my fb. Its not like myspace blogs where I can tell if people actually read this stuff. I also just shaved my moustache. That shit was killing my lips. I'm just letting all my other facial hair grow except that. Kind of looks wierd if you ask me. Amish like? We are now on PST. Last night we retarded our clocks. Believe or not, Panama is around the same longitude as the east coast of the US. In total, it takes about 3000 miles to sail from there to San Diego.

This might be the last blog before I get back into port. So see you later.

Slated to go to Right Coast

After months of waiting and wondering, the question of where I'll be at the end of the year has been answered. I'm going to leave SOCAL and move to the DC area. You heard right, I'm leaving San Diego. Kind of bittersweet because I've grown to love this place. Any bets on what I'll say when someone in DC asks, where are you from? Saying Va Beach seems like a normal answer. Saying San Diego would spark an interesting conversation, why did you move? The news has pretty much sank in and I'm ready to look for possible places to live. The most interesting part of the equation is that my brother got a job in Sterling so it would be a great time to be re-united with Manong. First things first, I have to survive another 7 days of being out to sea. The last 3/4 weeks have went so slow. I'm glad it will come to an end shortly. More exciting is flying to GA to see the family. For the San Diego heads, I'll still be in town until SEP/OCT. I'm not sure when they'll move me. The Navy had to cut its budget of sorts because of the new administration (yeah I said it) which means that that there is no money to move me this fiscal year. They will move me as soon as money is available for next fiscal year whenever that is. Which isn't a bad thing because I get to be in SD for that much longer. For everyone in the Metro area drop me a line on some tips on finding a place up there. I'll be working in Carderock, MD (near Bethesda). I'm looking to take the Metro or some sort of public transportation. I also have to buy a whole new wardrobe to account for 4 seasons instead of 2. I have the green light to buy some new snow boarding gear. It's been a while since I blogged because we lost our connectivity after we left Panama. I'm not blogging about Panama because frankly I don't want to talk about it.

Glad to be Back

In Panama. Its been four years since I laid foot on this wonderful country. Coming back I swore to my friends and family that if I ever get the chance to have a bachelor party it would be here. Save those pennies homies, I told you four years ago! The way its looking now, you might be saving for a while. Haha. Any way I had the morning watch this morning before pulling in. My only concern was all the traffic I would run into and I would constantly have the Captain on the bridge. That wasn' t the case this morning. It seemed as if all the traffic had their specific comfort zone around them and everyone was happy with the spacing between all of us. I can't have a ship come too close to mine and for the most part, people stayed away. I couldn't sleep last night for some reason before my watch. I got caught up watching this wierd movie that had the Army National Guard on military base doing some training mission and ended up scaling the moutains to find zombies or a wierd military experiment gone bad. Anyone seen it? It was so bad I couldn't stop watching it. I did flip channels to watch Glory also. It was Denzel at his finest. Even though I don't have duty today I have work to do. Pick up Mids at the airport. There goes my whole afternoon. Hopefully I can get off the ship at a reasonable hour so I can party. Its great that I've been here so many times because I pretty much saw all the sites in Panama and all I really need to do is have some good food and fun. I'm not going to waste my time sightseeing. Me and a couple people ended up keeping our moustache for the port visit. For some reason it looks pretty natural on me. I was hoping for that wierd "Reno 911" look. I just need some aviators I guess. I got two weeks on my moustache and looking to put another 3 weeks of growth on it. It won't last long when I get back to SD so if you get to see it in person, you are one lucky person. Did anyone see the Game 2 Eastern Conf finals? Daym LeBron...what a shot. If you don't know I'd like to see them lose the series. I'm such a hater. =)

A Storm is Brewing

The seas has been flat as hell the last couple days. Surprisingly the forecast say they are getting ridiculously high (16FT!) that is pretty crazy. Methinks people will be in their racks for the majority of the day tomorrow. Good news is that this storm shouldn't last long. I can't really sleep right now even though I have the 22-02 watch. I took my fair share of naps throughout the day so taking another one before watch seems overkill. Good news is that I'm having "cable" hooked up in my room. I got this sweet TV but no connectivity to the sateillite TV. Its not that luxurious, 4 channels (news, sports, tv shows,...) I forgot the 4th channel. Maybe there were 3. We also have 2 movie channels onboard and the perks of being out to sea is we get movies before they go on DVD. If there was a popular movie coming out, we would get it a couple weeks after it opens. I spent the majority of my day working on a plan for the Midshipman we are getting this weekend. I remember when I was a Midshipman on cruise, I was pretty much forgotten and there was no training plan in place. After all that, I still became a SWO. A part of me isn't interested in entertaining the MIDs and making them want to go Surface but its the right thing to do. Just because I didn't have this grand training experience doesn't mean I have to screw the next guy. Its tempting though. I got my shit on lock so these guys should have plenty to do onboard. The weather right now down south is freaking humid. Its feels so east coast. haha. So if anyone is so inclined...hit me up traino@ffg48.navy.mil

First dry weekend in a long time

This is the only way to keep me away from the bars...send me out to sea and keep me there for long periods of time. It'll be that way for a couple more days and I'll be in some foreign country using my High School Spanish skills to get me by. The good thing about being away is all the work that is being done. I'm not stressing as much as I am because everyone has to be onboard and has to get their shit done. I've been cruising by with some somewhat fast internet blazing but can't access the sweet sites that I usually visit. I got three weeks left until I get back to SD. Week one is almost complete and I must say it went by fast. I didn't realize it was Saturday already. On the ship today is hat day. I got this $7 baby blue fishing/old man hat that I'm rocking. It's classy because I bought it at a Seal Beach Liquor store complete with a porn section in the back corner. So shady. I'm growing out my moustache and my hair looks like all sorts of crazy. I kind of let myself go when I'm out to sea and no one really is around to see me. I'll think about taking a pic of my not so hot self. So far the food is tolerable and the bridge watches are good. True story...its the middle of the night and I'm on watch. My old ship wasn't too far from me and I knew they were going to be coming close. I'm trying to anticipate their next move and BAM I get put in an odd situation. The ship turns north towards me (I'm heading west) and I'm forced to come south because there is a restricted area in front of me. We end up driving right at each other and I hail the other ship via radio and come to find out my buddy Ryan. Words were exchanged and we went on our way. Yeah that wasn't that exciting but anything is exciting late on a Friday night in the middle of the ocean.

FB is blocked so I'm back on Blogger

The ship decided to block FB so now I have to be productive at work. It's ok because I've been busy. I spent the last two days in Seal Beach doing an ammo onload so what does that mean? The town of Seal Beach gets an influx of Navy people terrorizing their bars. That's exactly what happend....on a Monday night. Tuesday night was more mellow. I have to be very careful about my posts so I'll stop that there. I'm still in the SOCAL area. I should be on my way by the end of the week. Theres a couple things I have to get done in this month, train the crew for the upcoming training cycle, entertain Midshipman and hopefully they make it safely to Panama, get the Junior Officers qualified because this is their only underway period to do so, and work out. I have yet to hit the gym on the ship but it is the shit. Right now we can't take showers so working out tonight is out of the question. Now that is a whole other story. It stems from the evolution we are doing at the moment. I guess its great that I'm out to sea right now. Mainly because I've been partying like there's no tomorrow for the last couple weeks. That always happens before I leave San Diego for an extended amount of time. I need to save up my money for the Cuban cigars and all the other stuff I intend to purchase in Panama =). Any way hopefully this makes it to my FB account in a reasonable amount of time. Its about 746pm on 13May.