Thanksgiving/ Black Friday

So the Wednesday before thanksgiving, we had a safety standdown, which is just a meeting with our command going over how to be safe for the holidays, no drinking and driving, dont deep fry turkeys, etc. So afterwards they gave us a thanksgiving dinner. the officers wives cooked all of us enlisted personnel thanksgiving treats. were talking 6 turkeys, and cranberry sauce. all the food was sooooooo good. there was so much of it!! We sat outside at a nice table and just enjoyed our meals together. As we were leaving people were talking about a football game around 130pm. I was def. game, i always loved playing football around thanksgiving. So i went home, took a nap then headed over to the gym. We only had like 6 guys for the first half hour, then a bunch of marines came to challenge us, and we got some more people as well. it was some good ol fashion backyard football. basically the misfits vs the marines, since they were all in matching uniforms, etc. It looked like something from the movie the longest yard. I thought we were going to get crushed. i thought wrong. We ended up doing extremely good against them and won. I got 2 touchdowns and 2 intercpetions, it was awesomeee. Felt good to run around and jump. I was super sore for the next 3 days though lol. WE all felt like old men after, but it was well worth it. NExt day was thanksgiving. I would be going to Pierces house to have some dinner there. I head to walmart expecting to find some apple pie and apple cider. stupid. dno what i was thinking but i grabbed some apple juice and cookies to bring over, even some flowers too. So i went over ther around 2ish, and it was just pierce, A-ball, and botht thier wives. We played a little beer pong, and got dinner ready. Eventually a couple other kids from our squadron came over to eat too. the food was again, really really good. Oh yeah. forgot to mention this but earlier the day before i joined this group online on facebook about NAS lemoore buying/selling/trading. And a guy posted something about an N64 (old school) and the game Zelda: OCarina of time for sale for only 50 bucks. there was no way i was letting this offer down, so i replied to his post, ended up being the first one too! I just got my paycheck too, it this whole paycheck was christmas oriented.... to myself i guess? Then later that morning he posted a PSP for sale fully loaded with thousands of games for only 60 bucks. 110 bucks for both of those? i jumped on that quickly, and told him i was ready alls day and had the money. We ended up meeting at a fresh and easy, i bought the items, some starbucks, and was never happier. Meow i just needed a TV... So thanksgiving night passed, and i talked to clay, he said he wanted to do some black friday shopping for a laptop at the NEX on base. I said i would go with him around 4am the next mornign since it opened at 5. we got there at 4 and the line was already like 30 people deep. I got in line, and luckily starbucks(right nextdoor) was open. So he went in and grabbed some lattes, while i stayed in line. the line ended up more than doubing while he was in there. its always so nice to see a lot of people behind you. So excited. I decided i was going to treat myself to a TV since i needed one for my new room that i was going to get when i became petty officer, and i needed to start living here. So 5 o clock comes rolling around, and immediatly every runs to theelectronics department. its funny, everyones your best friend in line waiting outside, but once the door opens, everyone becomes your enemy. Oh well. We double timed to the electronics, everyone had carriages, but you cant be manuevering very quickly when you had one, not smart on their part. i was looking around for a TV that was on sale. The best deal i could find was a 32" for 227, samsgung too which was a very reliable brand, flat screen. So I grabbed an employee real quick and told him i wanted it. Luckily i grabbed him when i did, cuz ike 10 other people needed his help right after me, but he dealt with me first. so happy. he gave me a card, and told me to pay for it and pick it up out back. So clay was already in line, and i just joined him there, grabbed a HDMI cord for my tablet, and stood patiently for the line to move. People tried cutting us two times. It was amazing the spots they were trying to squeeze in. We asked if we could help them, then they claimed ignorance. All we could do was laugh and kick them to the back of the line. So we bought our items, i was very happy with my purchase. Meow i could play games and watch netflix on a bigger screen!! yay.. So i got back took a nap, and then rearranged my room a little bit, so i could see my own tv better. i like the set up a lot. No flying that weekend, but B-14, clay and i went shopping later that friday as well. I ended up getting a sit down massage, as well as clay, and a t shirt. it was nice. The next day we went to the movies to see catching fire. military discount came down to like 575 price ticket. so we had to get popcorn. It was an alright movie. Just really hate Peetah cuz he cant stick up for himself. Oh well, it was a fun time. Relaxed sunday, got ready for c school.

Two working days before Thanksgiving!!

So clay and i have been pushing for a PC board a lot, he's been stuck in limbo for like a month and a half, me only like a week and a half lol, but i felt bad. So we asked everyday for a PC board. Monday rolls around, and Im heading to C school in a week, I would like PC baord before i head out over there, and i even wanna get promoted too, but it was looking down. Then tuesday comes. Huge day in the books. We get to the line shak to find out that the results for the 3rd class petty officer came out, and everyone was excited and hoping they made it. I already knew i made 3rd class, but i had to wait till eeryone else knew in order to go through indoc with them, and get frocked with them. So the results were in. Clays job rating had a 84% passing rating-pretty good odds he got the promotion, but he was still scared. Ended up getting it. I think he was the only one on days the got it. I was so excited for him. All the crap we talked earlier about us being petty officers finally came through, and thats exactly what we'll be. Jumping way ahead of the game by putting on the crow. So a lot of people were angry or upset that day, but we still had the rest of the day to go, and Clay and i made sure to address each other as petty officer, which was a lot of fun. Rumor had it we were going to board that same day as well. The last chance before thanksgiving to get this. Petty officer indoctrination would be the next week Mon, Tues, Wed. and the frocking (putting on the crow) would be on Wednesday. We were just happy to hear that, since that effected our pay, well at least mine immediatly. Rumor going around was that there was a PC board at 1130am. WE were super excited, the closest we were gettting to going on the board, and we were getting like 5 days off after, so we were very happy no matter what. We shined our boots and reviewed what we needed to and got ready. 11 am comes around and we head up to an office area. We stood by and waited for everyone to show up. They do, everythigns looking great!! An officer talks to clay and tells him to come on in, and it was off to the races. I was just hoping he didnt take long so i got the chance to go in as well. I waited for what seemed like forever. But we knew our stuff to the T. As i waited though, there was a cheif down the hallway a little bit who kept going in and out of a door. It was far enough for him to say something, and i could hear it, but not that i would respond because i didnt want the board room to hear me say something. I was standing at parade rest, looking very professional. I guess when you stand like that, and are alone waiting to enter a room, people automatically think youre in trouble. This cheif ending up saying something along the lines of "uh oh, someones in trouble, whatd you do now?" But as he said that he went in to his room down the hall, again, i didnt want to say anything cuz i didnt want to be loud, so i just shrugged it off. So then he came out and said "dont worry, ive been to a review board a couple of times, and everything turned out fine, youll get over it, and it will all pass." i just nodded my head and smiled cuz there was honestly nothing to say at that point. Throughout this time waiting, i can hear some of the things the higher ups were saying, and i kept quizzing myself, but also second guessing myself. So i just cleared my mind and paced back and forth. Eventually clay came out and pretended he just hit a homerun saying it was very easy. He tried lending me a hand on some hard questions, but couldnt remember anything for the life of him. I said oh well, finally my turn. I get in there- 6 people, 3 enlisted, 3 officers. I had to introduce myself as if i were by the jet and talking to the pilots. Nailed it. Off to a great start. THen my leading petty officer of the line shak was ready to ask me questions. This was the do or die portion of the board. You get asked emergency procedures, and if you dont know them youre done, because whats the point of becoming a plane captian if you dont know what to do in an emergency? When we studied these EP's we always went over them in the same order, it was just fluent the way we said our answers, and it was like robotic. Just so happens he asked these questions in the same order we studied them. I nailed every single aspect of every single emergency procedure that was thrown at me. Verbatim from the book, and any questions they had about them, i had the answer. It was looking up, and i felt more confident than ever. After he got done asking me the questions, i knew i had won my board over. Just two more enlisted, and 3 more officers, and i can leave. I knew the two enlisted would be a lot harder than the last 3 officers, it was an uphill climb, but i could see the top. Next person was cheif. Asked a lot of questions about the boat, in which i just came from, and i answered most of his questions unknowlingly, and he was very impressed with the knowledge that i threw at him. Next was Quality assurance, or my old Leading petty officer. He was also a mechanic, so i thought it would be tough. But he saw how well i did with the first two, and was very impressed. It ended up going smoothly as well, and i answered questions to the best of my ability, which most of the time ended up being right, i knew my way to the answers. After that was done, i knew it was over. The officers just had some motherhood advice to give me, and that was about it. I left the room, came back and shook everyones hand. I had finally made PC. NO getting that smile off my face. Plane captain and Petty officer the same time as my best friend out here. We were unstoppable. Only way was up now.

Take offs and landings

So that weekend, i had flying lessons saturday and sunday. Granted i havent even reviewed anything about flying within the past like 3 weeks, being on the boat and all, i felt unprepared for this flight, so i got there a little early and read over some stuff on the traffic pattern and landing an airplane. I eventually went up and talked to my flight instructor, and i immediatly went to go preflight the plane since Matt had a full day ahead of himself, there wasnt much time for discussion. So i preflighted the plane, and low and behold my plane had too muchc fuel in it for us to take off in. If the plane weighs too much, then it is not good for flight, and we cant fly. Once we figured that out, it was said that we wouldnt have enough time to do the lesson what we wanted to do, so we just hung out and talked about the boat for a little bit, which was fun. But i told him i would get there a lot earlier on sunday to get us ready to go. Which i did. Sunday rolls around and we are in the plane quickly. We take off, and head over to an uncontrolled airport, one that does not have a control tower. We took off and landed like 5 times, and just practiced that the whole time. It was a little nerve racking, but by the end i think i was getting the hang of it. besides the next 2 lessons are working on landing still. Then my solo, is coming up fairly soon, exciting! I left the day with a little more confidence and wind beneath my wings LOL. So flying was going good. Ill get my private pilots license someday lol.

Cloud 9

Well well well. We meet again. Finally got time to sit down and do some writing since i have soooo much time off meow. AKA i had my first day at C school today. BUT lets not rush in to things, got a lot of catching up to do. BIG things to talk about here- we'll start with going flying last weekend, then how i became a Plane Captain, then third class petty officer of the navy, to Thanksgiving weekend, to black friday, to c school. But everything is coming out better than i hoped for. Everything has fallen into place, and I;m extremely happy with the outcome. So lets proceed. I went back to work after the 96 hour liberty, back on day check, boy has it felt good to be on dry land. Just had an easy 4 day week that week working, hanging out. Been spending a lot of time with clay lately, and weve actually become pretty close. Were basically the same age/rank, and we got to this command at the same time. and were both ready to become PC. So as we still were trainees hanging out in the cage, it didnt bother us at alls because we were having a lot of fun- seemed like too much fun at work for what it was worth. Oh well, whatever makes you happy, and as long as everything that needs to get done gets done, safely. Which, after a week of Plane Captain board hoaxes, we decided to both launch some jets, so we didnt forget how to do it, since we were in limbo at that time. Just so happened that our jets were right next to each other. So we got our jets ready, and had our PC's with us, watching over us, so we decided to make things interesting, and see who could launch their jet the fastest, taking all precautions and safety protocols first of course. So it was a friendly bet, i mean everyone is always trying to be the first one off the line, it just so happen that our jets were next to each other. his pilots got to his jet first, and mine came late behind, it was already looking somewhat dim to my advantage. Anyway, he start up his engines, then it was my turn like 2 minutes later. Went through the motions, except his needed to be serviced with hydraulic fluid, which could take anywhere from like 30 seconds to 3 minutes. I ended up pulling ahead at this point, and all up until the final checkers were looking over the jet, they noticed something a little off on the tail hook, so they just tightened it up a little bit, but it took a good (what i thought 5 minutes) but it was like a minute, making clay catch up to me. Luckily everything went smooth for me after that, and clays pilot barely looked at him the whole time. Then, after you know it, my chalks were out, and the jet pulled out of its parking spot. Right after mine pulled out, clays jet was ready to go. Solid win on my part. Not to mention, my hand movements were crisp, and everything i did was perfect. It was probably my best launch ever, everyhting went very well. And when i was talking to a higher up on the boat, something really clicked in my brain. The job of a PC is to ensure that everything on the ground is safe and clear so the pilots can do their job properly. I am the eyes and ears making this jet go do its mission it needs to do- so these officers(pilots) HAVE to listen to what i say, and if i think something is unsafe, they HAVE to listen to me, and it feels good to have that power. Even if i think the smallest thing is unsafe, i need to stop the process and have it checked out, that is my responsibility as a plane captain, and if the pilots complain, so be it, but worst comes to worst i could have saved someones life, or even theirs. By knowing i hold all this power, its like ihave full control of the jet and everyone around it, and people have to listen to me. Gives me more confidence, and able to do my job better when i know what im doing, and that i can wave off a launch at any point if i deem necessary. Next.

96 hour liberty

So we got back friday afternoon, i got in my jeep and was just a very happy person. So happy. still remembered how to drive! had cell phone service, etc. I went back took a shower and unpacked my backpack. I decided to treat myself to some chinese food, but my debit card got declined. I guess my new debit card came in the mail while i was gone which shut down my temp card. A lil frustrating, but i would go to the bank the next day and fix it. Went to sleep that night in my own bed, very comfortable. Next morning i wake up, go to fix my card, get some chow at the galley. Get a hair cut, i was beignning to feel like my normal self again, it was nice. Clay and Jackson wanted to go to the casino that night, so i said why not. Had a little extra money, and wanted to get out and have a good time. We got a hotel room, and drank a little bit, then went downstairs and gambled. Did pretty well on roulette, then i wanted to play some poker, and ended up losing 100 bucks there, then called it quits. I had a fun night. Relaxed the rest of the next day. And here it is monday, going back to work on tuesday. Woke up sick this morning, so i went out and bought some nyquil/day quil, and humidifier, i love those things for some reason. And lemoore air is very dry, so i thought why not. So i got that thing going, i took a bath, read my book, and have been working on this blog for quite a while. Ima text Matt (flight instructor) sometime this week, when i feel better to see if i can start flying next weekend again. Everyone who took the 3rd class exam should find out by thanksgiving whhether they made it or not, and i will get promoted with them. But im still going to ask my chief how its looking for my promotion everyday until it happens, the 6th month mark was yesterday, so i should be 3rd class by now. Hopefully my next paycheck BETTER reflect my payraise, and I will be getting an extra 100 dollars a month cuz i wont be paying my MGI bill anymore. WOW already a year in the navy, that was quick. SO things to look forward to- hope there is a PC board in the next week or two. C school starts December 2nd. E-4 promotion should be within the next two weeks. Thanksgiving is next week, unless ticket prices go down, i will be staying in cali for that. And Christmas leave will be taken December 24th-January 2nd. So nowwww, hopefully my next blog ill be a PC and third class. We shall see.

Underway

I sleep in until the next day, awaken by a man overboard procedure, in which everyone has to muster with their division. I followed all of my night check crew up the stairs, through hallways, still had no idea where i was going and to our compoartment, where we sat and waited for the test to be over. It took like 40 minutes for everyone to muster up. Terrible, terrible time. Oh well, back to bed it was for me. I slept till i had to go to work. But i was awoken by what i thought was a huge pipe burst, and leaking water everywhere. No, it was just a jet landing on the ship 2 floors above. Scared the living daylight out of me. Anyway, got ready for work, and followed some guys up again. We immediatly got ready, float coats on, cranials on, to relieve daycheck. It was nice to see all my buds, and i already missed my day check crew. In order to be up on the flight deck alone, you needed a qualification, i didnt have one yet, so i had to be up there with a person who was qualified. My buddy got assigned to a jet, and i got assigned to him. During this time our pilots needed Carrier Qualifications, which was just landing, catching the wire, and then taking off again. They would do this like 10 times for each jet. THey would come back in between times, and refuel, which is were we came in to play. The jet needed 6 chains in order to be secured when fueling. So we each just stood around with 3 chains on our shoulders just waiting for these jets to come back, and since they were taking off and landing all the time, we had to be ready at a moments notice to go chain the jet down, but most of the time we would just stand around aimlessly with chains on our shoulders waiting for our jet. By this time it was very dark out. The jets would fly from like 11am-11pm. So we were up on the flight deck from 530pm until like midnight holding chains. BUT since the flightdeck is such a small space, we had to stand in a cluster, and there were so many jets everywhere taxiing around, and where we were standing, one of the only safe places, was the hottest place to stand. Constantly getting blasted by jet exhaust. I saw people get blown like 20 feet at the worst, but on some cold nights, boy was it nice to get a wave of jet exhaust your way. So we are just hanging out on the flight deck looking like a chicken with its heads cut off. There are all the colors of the rainbow up there, to designate what peoples jobs are. Plane Captains are brown jerseys, and we have a 1P on our cranial, which now i know signifies that we have all the 100's jets, people with 2P on their cranial have all the 200's jets, and so on. So the first time i had to put chains on, i couldnt see a dang thing, barely even my hand in front of me. I was freaking out, and you had to do it at a fast pace. I was trying my hardest but just couldnt find a padeye to hook the chain into. I was hardcore stressing out. After i finally found one for which seemed like hours, i took a step back, and took a couple deep breathes. It seemed like everything i had ever learned had just flown out the window. I felt useless. It was dark out, we were totally surrounded by water. Once again stranger in a strange place. I need to stop doing this to myself. It took a couple days to get used to this kind of stuff. But after about 5 days of doing that straight, the Carrier quals were over, and they went back to just regular flying. I found out the worst part was over, even though i never new we were in the worst part, boy did it feel good to know it was going to get easier. During those beginning days, i was still having trouble finding my way around the ship. I hit my head multiple times, i fell down stairs twice, and i tripped over a tow bar up on deck, cut my leg pretty bad. I also tripped over a couple chains too. Its so much tougher when it is really dark out. Once the flight schedule was done for the day though, it was a pretty easy rest of the night. We usually went to eat around midnight or 1am. The only things that needed to be done was a washjob if we needed it (every 7 days on the ship), fuel samples, 14 chains put on each jet, and daily inspections. So time went by pretty fast during the flight schedule, and then slowed down a little towards the later part of the night. Let me remind you that when we are out at sea it is 12 hours on, 12 hours off, no weekends. This stuff is hard work, especially night check, def. harder than day check, im guessing thats why i was the chosen one to go to nights, cuz i could handle it? i dno. Anyway, after stressing hard those first couple of days, we had a no fly day, and just a wash job. These washjobs never made me more angry than anything. We had to ask permission, and use fresh water to wash the jet with, and it was extremely dark out, so it was hard to see. Then, after the washjob was complete, we had to vaccuum all the water out of the padeyes, which took honestly like 3-4 hours just to suck all the water out. Had to keep the flight deck clean, i dno why the sun couldnt have just evaporated the water, but we had to make it so it was like spotless and no more water. Washjobs on the boat were absolutely terrible. And we had to tape down the jet, but the tape wouldnt even stick because it was too cold out. Some of the positive things about the washjob was just looking up at the stars, you were sure to catch like 5 shooting stars on a good night. But they were just so frequent, and you could see so many stars, it was nice. Other jobs we would have to do at night were brake ride- for when they moved a jet, someone had to be up in the cockpit to release/put the brakes on if need be. This evolution could take anywhere from 5 minutes to 4 hours. Depending on where they needed to move the jet, and what priority the jet was, which was annoying as well. Same with fueling. But what was really sweet was most of the lower jobs that we would do on land were done by people on the boat, whose specific job was their rate. Blue shirts- chocked and chained the jet down. Yellow shirts- move director (directed where the jet would be moved to). Purple shirts- Fuelies (we only had to supervise them fueling the jet, we really didnt have to do anything. These people were "ships company" meaning wherever the ship went, they went. AKA they were most always out at sea, which i thought really stunk. Granted i signed up with my recruiter to be a ABH, or aircraft handler (Yellow shirt-move director.) Boy am i glad i got switched out of that rate. There sole purpose is to move jets around on a ship. They sure make it sound different at the recruiter station. Their main weapon of choice is a whistle. I am so glad i got rolled in with my rate of working on engines. They look at Plane Captains like we are amazing, and they are always helping us out, its nice. So anyway, once the no fly day was over, we had a regular schedule planned out, and things starting repeating over and over again, same thing different day, but i was feeling a lot more comfortable and started doing stuff on my own. We would get off work at 530am, go get some breakfast, and then i would shower and pass out until i would have to go to work again. Pretty Monotonous routine, but it worked. Met some new friends on night check too which was nice. The food was not as bad as people were saying it would be, i mean yeah we had a lot of pasta every now and then, but it still was pretty good. Had some meatloaf some nights, chicken parm, and they even had cranberry sauce some nights, i was very excited. They also had chocolate milk. The rack i was sleeping in was just my height, i could barely striaghten out, but i made it work. The bathrooms/showers were not bad at all, cept they had one temperature- scorching hot. So i had to wash my body in waves in order to not get burnt. But the routine continued on. Then with about one week left, i get the confidence to do my final qual for my Plane Captain. I had to do a daily inspection with a Quality Assurance Representative, on a jet. I was very nervous, and it was hanging over me for like 2 weeks now, i just wanted to get it done. So one night, after everything was done, we had like 3 hours left, I called up QA just to see if anyone was there that could watch me. Just so happen that there was, and he would be on his way to the shop in 10 minutes. I felt sick to my stomach, cuz i didnt think it would actually happen. So started asking everyone questions, got my tool belt on, tirepressure gauge, and fuel sample kit. He came to our shop, and i brought everything up, including the daily booklet you are suppose to go by step by step. I ended up tossing the book to the side after the first 5 minutes, and just went with it. I named off the nomenclature, and new literally everything there was to know about the daily. I dont know how i remembered all of it, but i passed with flying colors. Except the fact that i brought the wash kit up, instead of the fuel sample kit, which got a good laugh. But i am still amazed on how much i really did know. I was ready for my PC board. Now Clay, a buddy of mine that checked in a couple days before me, had already done all of this and was just waiting on his PC board, but he was waiting for like a month and a half by now. I think they were waiting for me cuz they like to have multiple people go to board at a time. But whenever someone says something about a board, its usually just a rumor, or crying wolf. There were 2 potential boards on the ship, but those just got washed away. Hopefully something comes soon, before i go to C school. Overall, the boat went by pretty fast, i started to get used to the monotnous routine, and days were starting to fly by. I cant believe its already mid november. They had internet and email, on the boat, so it wasnt that bad with missing friends and family. But there were many things that i take for granted everyday that i am so thankful for now. Just being on dry land and in lemoore makes me extremely happy. The ship rocked a ton, and you could feel it. Food always ready, and at your fingertips, my jeep, my phone to talk to people, internet, sleep, clean laundry. It makes me appreciate this place a lot more, and i look forward to going back to 10 hour work days, and being on land.

San Diego, CA

Well well well. It's Monday November 18th,2013. boy has the time flown. Got back from the boat det on friday, so so happy to be back on land. I now understand why so many people do not like going to the boat. So let's get down to it. Packed my seabag pretty full. I also had a backpack as a carryon. That was stuffed pretty thick too. So i get on the plane, middle seat, of course, and I pass out for the whole plane ride, like a total of an hour. Wake up in San diego. Get off the plane, and shuttled on to a bus. 10 minute bus ride right up to where the USS Ronald Reagan was ported. I am getting very excited. Since i already had my bag on me i was able to go right to the ship. I climbed up some stairs, requested permission to board the ship, and i was on. Hangar Bay level, 3 hangar bays, with 4 sliding doors that you could see out of, it was just a huge open space to walk around, and store jets in. The jets were not here yet though. So i was looking around, lost as could be, looking for anyone to help me out. Luckily i find Pierce walking around, and he escorts me into our berthing two floors up. I get there, where clay already reserved my rack with a lock. It was a berthing of like 200 people. 3 bunk beds, and 6 to a cube. I got top rack cuz i was the tallest. I didnt have my sea bag yet, so i just unpacked what i had in my backpack. I was very excited for this new adventure. I unpacked, and then headed topside to help out. There i saw all of my buddies from VFA-2. We were on the flight deck at this point. Cranes hoisting in huge boxes of stuff we packed. We had to unload it alls and get it set up. That lasted for like 3-4 hours. One of the boxes had all of our seabags in them, so i grabbed that and went downstairs to unpack. Mind you, these stairs were very steep, easy to slip on, and every hatch you went through you head to duck your head and lift your feet. It wasnt tall people friendly. Once on the flight deck though, the ship seemed smaller than i expected. Everything seemed a lot better than i originally expected anyway, because all these other people talked down how bad their other experience with another ship was, so i literally expected the worst, and this didnt seem half as bad. So our shop was one deck below the flight deck, so it was very easy to get to. Once we had that set up, our LPO (leading petty officer) called our cheif to tell him, and he said we were good to go for liberty, just had to check back in by midnight at our maintainance office. I ran out of there, changed into civilian clothes, and ran off the ship. It was like 6pm by this time, and I talked to my buddy bresnahan from bootcamp about meeting up. He picked me up in like ten minutes, and we were off to get drinks. It was so good to see him!! We caught up, and ended up going to a bar called Mcfaddens. I guess i was there before when i went down to san diego to visit dave briski. It was a lot less crowded than before, since it was a tuesday night, and it was early in the day. $2 Dos equis, and we were having a great time. The bartender started making conversation with us, and we were talking to her as well. she even bought us like two shots each, it was pretty sweet. Anyway so we stayed there the whole night, and ended with a nice burger to sober up, and get back on the ship. Bresnahan had to call his roommate to come pick us up and drop me off lol. We had a great time. I stumbled back to the ship, and somehow, i have no idea how, checked in at our office. I honestly dont remember how i remembered how to get there, the ship was a huge maze, and there were doors everywhere. I checked in, then went and curled up in my rack. Didnt have to work till night check the next day, which was at 530pm. It was going to be a nice hibernation.

Upcoming Boat Det!!

So here it is, Saturday Oct. 26th. 3 days before we are going to the USS Ronald Reagan in San Diego, CA. I'll start a little earlier from the previous weeks. We had a PRT last week i think it was? had to do like 27 push ups, 37 sit-ups and run a mile and a half in 1330. Needless to say i absolutely knocked it outta the park. Ended up getting 1059 on my outdoor track run, which i thought was pretty good. Tied with Mitch. But after finishing strong on the last 100meters or so i felt like absolute crap. wanted to throw up, and my head was pounding. Should probably run more, but I was still at the front of the pack. My stage flight ended up getting cancelled like 2 weeks in a row cuz the flight instructor was sick. This kind of stunk because i was constantly studying for a long time, and it just kept getting cancelled. I was nervous during the week for the events of the weekend, and they just were getting post-poned. I knew this was a big deal and wanted to just get it over and done with. I finally was able to do it last saturday. I went in the morning to meet Matt and do a practice flight of what we were going to go over in our Stage check. Stage check is done with a different flight instructor so it is not biased. So we went up, did some stalls, slow flight, turns around a road/point, and i wasnt feeling very confident at all the whole time. Maybe it was because i hadnt flown in like two weeks? I had a pit in my stomach and felt like evrything was going wrong. We landed, and i expressed my feelings on how nervous i was for this stage check. Matt said not to worry and that ill be fine. I met the other flight instructor and we basically just made small talk about our lives, and flying, the navy, etc. I was trying to get comfortable and (hopefully) take his mind off the fact that he was judging me in all aspects of flying the aircraft. If i could distract him with questions, maybe he wouldnt be paying attention to my airspeed lol. So we got in the airplane, and i did all the steps needed to get us started. My taxiing down the taxiway was on point, my confidence was soaring, and i was planning towards what i was going to do next in my head. Radio calls- perfect, fluent and read back everything, the stars were seeming to align. We took off and climbed at a great rate, and it ended up being a busy day, so we had to maneuver our way into the practice area. Once we got there we headed up to 4000 ft, where i maintained and held that altitude with skill and precision. We did some turns, and stalls, everything was slow and steady, but perfect in everyway, After every event that took place, i was so proud of myself, and it actually felt like i was controlling the aircraft, and making it do what i wanted to do. It cracked the biggest smile on my face, and reminded me how much i really do love flying. Everything was going right. Then we took the plane down to like 1100 feet, and did some S turns along a road, which my bank and altitude were perfect once again. With everything going right, i was just waiting for something to go wrong. Luckily he said we were done, and to head back to the airport. So i headed that way, and he took the flight controls. Best feeling in the world. I knew i nailed it. So since all the traffic cleared later that afternoon, we were the only ones on radar. He decided to take us in for a short approach, which we basically nose dived into the runway, leveled out and did a wheelie for like 10 seconds, it was very very cool. Once we landed i parked the craft and went up stairs with a huge smile on my face. I passed my test, and made my flight instructor happy as well. We can move on meow. Next up (tomorrow) we will be practicing flying in the traffic pattern, and doing take-offs and landings. Should be a fun time, and my solo should be coming up sooner rather than later. Plane Captain- So these passed two weeks ive been working extremely hard to get the plane captain qual. I passed all the tests, i did a QA launch, which is just showing a supervisor that i know how to launch a jet, and then i went over some emergency procedures as well. Nailed all of that, and now i just have to go over nomenclature of the aircraft with a supervisor, and go to a review board with like chiefs and officers to see if they think im ready to become a PC. I tried to review the nomenclature all this week, but we didnt have anytime. THe supervisor just told me that we will definatly just do it on the boat. So im excited, and maybe they will have a PC board soon, so ill be able to get that qual. Boat det.- heading to San diego on tuesday, got an 11am flight to the boat. guess were going to be unpacking alls day and setting up shop and our racks/bunks. I'm actually really excited for this. Since last time they cried wolf and we never ended up going. But i mean the same hting can still happen. THey cancelled last boat det when the truck with alls the sea bags left the hangar bay. So anything is possible, but im really pulling for this one. Just tryna get my sea legs! lol its only like 17 days. So if we get done ealry on tuesday, they are giving us until midnight tuesday night to go play in san diego. My best friend from bootcamp just so happened to be stationed there, so ima go visit him, maybe get a couple of beers and just have a good time. Im very excited. After that we pull out on wednesday and set sail. I have no idea were we are going but I'm excited to see how life on the boat is. Suppose to be 12 hours of work on, then 12 off. which is roughly like 13 on, 11 off. Ima try to get some sleep. But i do hear you lose weight too cuz no one has time to really eat all 3 meals a day, and the food isnt the greatest. Gonna be a real experience builder. A lot of people in a small confined space. Im super tall too so ill probs hit my head a lot. which hurts so much when i do. i have in the passed before, and it hurts real bad for a lil bit. But im excited. My supervisor told me i'll probably be going to nights on the boat cuz they need more help, and they trust me with the responsibility more than other people, cuz nights is a lot harder (cuz there is no sun lol) So not only is the flight deck dangerous, but you cant see much, so goodluck. These days are going to go by extremely fast and they said we wont be able to keep track of time. Im all for that. I’ll be getting 2 paychecks while im gone too, and have most of it saved up cuz I wont be spending anything on the boat. So ill probs use that money for Christmas shopping  But right when we get back, they should ( ihope) give us a 96 hour liberty call, and then the weekend after that is thanksgiving, hopefully another 96 hour liberty call, and by then it will be December. Upcoming events- So everyone who took the advancement exam will be getting their results back before thanksgiving. These are the people I am waiting for in order to get my promotion. Once they find out who is getting a promotion, they will hold a ceremony and frock those individuals. That’s were I fall into play. Cept ill start getting paid extra immediately. I also did some research and I guess I wont be eligible for the E5 exam, until after I have been and E4 for a year. Yeah, im already looking ahead to bigger and better things, but time restrictions, it makes sense though. Something to study for, but ill enjoy the time as an E4 while it lasts. December- the 2nd of December I will be going to C school. Transferring commands to a local one right next to the barracks to learn more about jet engines/etc. I will be in this class for about a month and a half. Only because they are giving us a palm period of dec. 20th- jan 6th. Which is a wicked long time off. But ill take 10 of those days and go home to my humble abode, and enjoy some time with family and friends. Im very excited. So I better be an E4 by the time I get to this new command- cuz I worked for it, did alls the right paperwork, etc. I have no doubts that I wont get it. I did everything right. The only down part of going to C school, which may or may not be a down part, but Jan 10th VFA-2 is suppose to go to Florida for a little bit, and when they go there they got a lotttttt of money per day. My C school would be ending later than the day they would leave, so I would transfer back over to that command and everyone would be gone. Then it would be like another vacation of doing nothing for like 3 weeks. Cuz C school is soooo easy, every says enjoy it cuz you don’t have to do any work. I plan on it. I’ll be going flying every weekend, and doing a lot of fun stuff I hope. So yeah, kinda getting a little glimpse into the future here. It looks promising, fun, and exciting. I cant wait to go to the boat- itll be like 3 weeks. But Im def. going to blog after that to tell yall what it was like. Hopefully I survive lol. No but I will. Keep this head on a swivel and just keep doing what im doing. Things to look forward to next blog (I hope)- That I will be plane captain, had a fun time on cruise, having a nice 96 hour liberty, a good thanksgiving, and looking forward to my c school in hopes that I already bought my plane ticket home for Christmas. But other than that everything is going well. Still meeting lots of new people, starting to actually hang out with people. Been doing a lot of reading, and just enjoying life. Got a lot of good things going for me here. Lets see where it takes me eh?

Going through the motions

Well then, almost another month gone by and not another post. hmmm. Happy October I guess? I thought i had a bunch of stuff to write about, but i dont really think i do. Started back on days- which is nice. I enjoy coming home while the sun is still out, and heck im even starting to go to the gym meow. I wake up and get breakfast made to order in the morning. Its so nice waking up and knowing ill be having an omlet before work. Ive really been enjoying my breakfast lately. Ive been flying at least once a weekend, sometimes twice, doing multiple ground lessons, etc. Stuff is so much fun. Love learning all that stuff and flying is so much fun. So far we've done some basic manuevers like turning and we even did some stalls in the airplane, which is when the pitch is so high up, and there is not enough forward motion that the plane cant go forward any longer, so it dips down. Its kinda like your own personal rollercoaster, pretty cool. And im feeling a lot more comfortable in the airplane too. I got my first "stage check" this coming saturday, which is kinda like my first test to see where im at in flying. It should go rather smoothly since im getting more and more comfortable in the airplane. Im doing really well at correcting my mistakes right away and maintaining the right altitude or pitch when needed. I even get to take off, and i landed for the first time last weekend. Its fairly easier than i remember, its like the plane does everything itself. Speaking of which- last saturday i woke up early to go get some breakfast before flying. Well i thought i would explore the dunkin donuts that was in my phone about a half hour away from fresno (where i fly). So i follow my GPS, and im thinking to myself that this cant be true, theres no way there is a dunkin donuts here and no one talks about it. So im following, following and i take a right, then another right, and meow im in the middle of a neighborhood with 500 ft to go. Just as i expected, no dunks. I was so mad, but i didnt give up hope yet, i thought i would call them up to see if they moved. I called them up, told them i was near a jack in the box and hopef they would give me directions from there. They said i was about a half hour away, and gave me their address. I hang up the phone and the caller ID says Texas. I enter the address, it brings me to texas. So i guess i was a couple states off from my dunkin donuts. I then proceeded to get a breakfast sandwich and a coffee from starbucks, my #2. Not really anything else going on though. this life is beginning to stablize a little bit, and i know what to expect meow. Ive been launching jets quite a lot cuz- practice makes perfect. In order to make PC, you have to get a bunch of signatures, take 3 tests, do a walkaround of the jet with a Quality Assurance Representative, and go to a board and tell them what you know. A lot of people have become PC in the past 2 weeks, and the all said it was a very easy process. But were running out of trainees meow, so i finished off my signatures, and i took 1 out of the 3 tests already, got a 96. Wasnt really that hard at alls. My 3rd class promotion will be coming up in a month. Cant wait for that. I may be a trainee now, but most of the PCs are the same rank as everyone else, they just have that qual, and it makes them seem like they are better than 95% of the navy. But 3rd class petty officer, thats a different story. The tides will soon change, and favor me. I'll be in charge then. They gon' learn today. But yeah ima try to get PC by Christmas, that would be nice to go home to. There are two 12 days of leave "palm periods" were people can take leave. Mine will be for like the 18th to the 25th of december. Fly home to l town, spend the weekend there, then drive down to South Carolina for Christmas with the full family. It should be nice, since i missed out on last christmas LOL bootcamp probs. Upcoming detachments- we got a det to the boat for like a month at the end of october, but with the government shutting down and alls, i dno where in the heck we would get money from, but id like to see if we actually go on the det. A month on the boat, 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Sounds like fun right? probably not, but i do want the experience. Then, they are already talking about another detatchment to Key west at the end of january for a couple weeks. I would love to go to that. 85% of the command is going, and the per diem is like 75 bucks a day. Save all that money, maybe party a night or two, but its still a lot of money. So thats where my future outlook is to right meow. Det, promotion, christmas, det. I figure it would take me another 4 months to get my private pilots license, if everything goes smoothly (straight). thats not counting in for detachments or leave or anything. Its exciting though, and i dont mind that it might take a while, cuz im only doing it on weekends, whats the rush? im having fun right? Miss home every meow and then, but ill see them every couple of months. I also have C school, and TAD (temporary assigned duty) to look forward to. C school is just 2 months of learning more about engines, and is a skate in the park from what i hear. and TAD is a month of coming in late- getting off early- mopping a floor every now and then. And on days all we do is flight schedule. We dont really have time to do washjobs, which is nice. But its gives us time to work on quals and everything. Also saving a lot of money too because I now eat breakfast lunch and dinner at the galley. But yeah, i think thats about it. Still thinking about a def. job in aviation, but who knows, i got another 4 years to go. and anything can change. But other than that we're good here over on the west coast. Got monday off. I know this was an unorganized mess, but i just felt i needed to check in. Heck this might be the last blog until after i go to the boat for a month. IF we go to the boat. Still wanna get my sea legs.

Upcoming events lol- Mid Sept.

Ok, so half the command is in Fallon, Nevada. I am going to days this week, and rumor has it will be staying on days, cuz we are getting a new LPO, bascially a boss, so i can maybe live a somewhat regular sleep schedule?! I dno. But its funny cuz Mich really wanted to go to days, and i heard he was, and got a little upset that i wasnt going too cuz i work really well with him, but then he took me aside and told me that i was also coming to days as well. I was really excited to hear that. So Mon-Fri 630am-330pm. I got 2 doctor appointments this week, so it should make the days go by faster lol. I get to put my paperwork in for my accelerated advancement this week, so i can get that started and hoipefully have no hiccups getting that promotion- which will tremendously help with my private pilots license. We have Physical Fitness test coming up in a month, and theyre doing weigh ins this week i think? If you are over your BMI, you have to go to early morning FEP- which is just working out in the morning before work to get back in shape. Im about 10 pounds over my limit, but i think it will be good, get me outta bed, back in shape, and i HAVE to go to this, so its nto like i can hit snooze, like i usually do. Get me in shape for our test in a month. We have a boat det schedule for the end of October- i heard it could be anywhere from 10 days to 4 weeks. But we all remember what happened to the last boat det right?!?! lol. But i think it would be so cool to go to the boat for a month, i at least want a taste of this hell i hear. bring it on, ya know? downside is that i would have to suspened some of my lessons of my flying lessons, but he understands since its the government, and theres nothing they can do about it, and he used to be navy- so he knows. But im going to try and do like 2 ground lessons and 1 flight lesson every saturday and sunday if i can. that will work out nicely since i cant really do it during the week. But i would love to spend my time flying on the weekends. why not right?! proactive. I would love to get my private pilots license by the end of the year at least. Then i could visit jared, and it would be a whole lot easier, take him for a spin. Visit Dave in LA, take him for a spin, have a fun time. These are all future goals though, they seem realistic in my mind at least. I dno about colorado flying though, cuz it is the mile high state. and flying in mountains is a whole new animal. But yeah, i wouldnt mind using the MGI bill towards my instrument rating, and commercial rating eventually, maybe get outta the navy and start a career as a pilot? i dno, that would be pretty cool. Way in the future though. WAYYYY in the future. step by step, lets get the privot pilots license first lol. But yeah really just focusing on me lately, and learning new stuff for the navy, and extra cirricular activities, kinda faded out with Alyson, and its kinda of long distance. So i guess i just work on whats in front of me, and better myself, and everything else will fall into place? Sounds good to me. Im happy, i got stuff to look forward to every weekend, got my jeep out here, racking up the bills in gas money lol. Buddy of mine was talking about bungee jumping within the next month, wouldnt mind getting on board that train, ive always wanted to do that, scary though. But yeah, one foot in front of the other. Ill try not to wait another month and a half to update this. lol

Fallon det/ First flight

So the next week was going by, and half the command was getting ready to go to Nevada to do some practice exercises, i wasnt invited cuz i was a 21+ trainee, and they didnt want people getting hammered every night there, so they chose the under 21 trainees. Worked 6 days that week. Had to go in on friday (this past friday) for like 3 hours, then i went to fresno to do paper work and meet my flight instructor. Two days before this, i decided to do my 2nd launch with Mich. I was a little nervous still, but it was a lot easier than the first one already. I missed like 2 hand signals, so im slowely improving. I'm also getting a little irritable, cuz im going through the phases of a trainee, they call it, When you get frustrated at the other trainees cuz they hang around and dont do crap, when everyone knows what we have to do, and when to get it done. Kinda gotta like hold their hand. and theyve been here longer than me!!! ahhh, ill get promoted soon enough. So after we launch a jet, the next day we get a review paper from the pilots, on how well they think we did, contstructive criticism, etc. So i was washing a jet and i heard they came in. I was pumped to see how i did. I read the review and got a little down. At the end of the review, it said " will evolve into a mediocre Plane Captain." I felt like it was a slap in the face, and everyone seemed stunned when they read it. Mich even seemed baffled as to what it said cuz he thought i did great. Half hour later, everyone tells me Mich wrote the whole thing, and they had a good laugh about it. I totally believed the whole thing. I never got a review though, they dont write them all the time i guess. So where was i? Friday i go in and meet my flight instructor Matt. PRetty easy going laid back guy. Was in the navy for 4 years, and got pretty high up, but wanted to get out. So we have that in common, and talk a lot about that, and how everything relates to the jets we work on. It worked out great, and im already getting back into the swing of things. I bought two books earlier (the first time i went) so i could start studying and reading the texts books again. very exciting. We scheduled 2 ground lessons and 1 flight lesson for this morning. So i guess were up to speed meow? ACtually no, we're not. Friday when i came in for the 3 hours- only half of our command is here meow, so i will be on days for the next week. there will only be one shift. but my buddy pierce who was in the line shack with me before, who taught me a great deal of stuff as well, had to come launch a jet for us cuz we didnt have enough PC's (one PC for every jet, and we had 5 jets flying to Nevada that day) So he got transferred to the shop, and i havent seen him in a hot minute, so i was excited to see him, and he asked if i wanted to launch for him, i said heck yes. Best launch yet, only missed one thing, and it was a pretty awesome launch. Everything went smooth, i felt more confident, it was great. He invited me to his place with a bunch of other guys for some beer drinking escapades, so i went there friday night, and had a good time with everyone. Great people. So then i got back on saturday and hung out and did nothing all day, then studied for my flight today. Got to fresno round 9am. Ready to go. We Went in and i got a bunch of books, etc. we went over 2 lessons, took two hours, but i knew basically everything he was teaching me, which was nice. Then it was time to fly. I was used to flying the Cessna 172's. Which have 4 seats. Meow im doing the Piper- which is 2 seats. Even smaller. Its a tin can that floats in the air, but it gave me the chills getting back at it again. We walked around the aircraft, did some checklists and were taxiing down the runway. he let me do some stuff, but this was just an intro flight- he let me do some turns and flying. but he did most of it. took off, landed, such a great feeling going up that high, and being able to land in that tin can. Makes me so excited. A little overwhelming with everything that was going on in the cockpit, but im SO ready to learn how to do everything. Im excited. But the awesome thing was that when we took off, we went up to 3500 FT, and had to stay there for a little bit cuz an F18 was flying past as at 4000 feet. So im sitting there in a little Piper, and i see a jet, the type that i work on everyday, go speeding past us. It was amaizng to be up in the air with them. So cool, soo soo cool. Other than that im ready to learn some more, and have a lesson next weekend. next post will be about up coming events.

First launch/ flying lessons

So the next week, first week in september ended up being a huge week for me. hmmm seem to be noticing a pattern. But lets rewind a little bit here. Still on the night shift, having a good time with all of them. making a lot of friends, starting to take control, and still am a hard worker. i got 2 months until (if everything goes right) i get promoted on the spot. Looking forward to that. So now that all those quals are done. time to work on the PC. And the only way to do that was start studying, which im really good at. So i started studying, and my buddy Mich who taught me basically everythign about everything wanted me to launch for him one day. So i got the guts to do it one day. That flight got cancelled. I was so upset- launching is a big step by the way, its like 20 minutes of hand signals to the pilots telling them what to do, etc. I was losing sleep over this stuff, and dreaming of the hand signals. So the next day i knew what i had to do, launch. We had 5 jets going up, and they ALL got cancelled again. I was starting the think it wasnt meant to be. But i didnt give up. 3rd times a charm. Launched the crap outta that jet. I was so nervous i was shaking, my knees are a little bad, and we have to bend down for some of the launch, so i almost lost my balance a couple of times, but i made it through. Forgot like 4 steps, but Mich was right behind me the whole time, so he helped me out, and the pilot new i was new. Said i did very good for my first time, and have huge potential. lets hope. that was nice. So after i got that first launch of my chest, i was excited about life, and i knew it only got easier from there. It felt so good. Such a relief. a lot of fun too. So that made my week, and i decided to lay low for the rest of the week, cuz i felt accomplished. On another note. I have recently been talkint to my parents about takign flying lessons again. I went to daniel webster college my frist year of college, went to become a pilot, got like halfway throught the private pilot program, transferred to UNH, had the best years of my life, tried getting a real job after college, wasnt doing it for me, joined the navy on a whim, got a random rate to work on jet engines. 9 months later im launching and recoerving jets on a naval air base, coming full circle with this whole flying thing. I dno, the more i think about it the more i think that i wasnt meant to sit still, i feel like i constantly need change in my life- good or bad, but i think im addicted to adrenaline rushes, and love the excitement of learning new things. I absolutely love reading, writing, and learning. I hate getting into a routine, and having no excitedment in my life. Always constantly looking for something new. So that friday, night check has it off- i went to the flying club here on base. Just wanted to crunch some numbers with the guy. They are only open MWF 10am-2pm. not great hours. it was a run down shack on the side of the airport, asking 12 grand to get the private pilots license. I thought this would be the end all be all best deal- cuz comon, its on base. They dont even let you use the MGI bill towards it, i thought you could, cuz its a class and a license- nope. ONly on instrument ratings, and commercial pilot license. So i thought to look elsewhere, just for kicks and giggles. Called my dad up told him the price, and that i was still looking. Found a place in fresno 35-45 minutes away charging 8500. I drove my butt up there and talked with the guy. Nice airport, nice building, books everywhere, starter guides, classrooms, professional pilots on duty, etc. Told them my situation, and they even told me that most Lemoore navy guys go to them. So i was so relieved, and immeidalty called my Dad to tell him the news. He was just as excited as i was, and i had a huge smile on my face. Told him I really wanted to do this, and would start a payment plan, etc. Both my parents were on my side, and excited for my new adventure. I asked them what i needed to do, and i just needed to get a third class physical, and get my passport here so i can start. Got the physical the next week, and my parents overnighted my passport. Things were falling together. The place called me back with an instructor that could start that weekend. I was super pumped.

Back ro reality- with a jeep, and Dave?

So, that weekend, i chilled hardcore, organized my life. My closet, took the doors of my jeep. Ready to go back to work on sunday. Excited to see everyone. Ended up being a pretty hard week- yet a very productive week. Finished my basic 4 quals that i needed to get done before I start on my Plane Captain. That felt so good to get out of the way. I nailed it right in the beginning, aced the tests, etc. Just gotta get signed off meow. That next weekend came, had a new book, just wanted to hang out and save money from my road trip again, so i did nothing and had a great time doing. I slept a lottttt that week and weekend. Afraid i was going back into my hibernation stages again, but i couldnt let that happen. So the next week goes by, and i made plans with the one and only - Dave Briski. We had a 4 day weekend that weekend (Labor day weekend) woohoo! time to let my hair down lol. Friday came along, no duty that weekend. Woke up aroudn noon, and headed to LA. 3 hour drive, PSHHHH that was nothing compared to what i had been doing. So i got there, needed to get gas, so i was making a turn, and who drives by with their head out the window screaming my name? Dave. gosh it was so good to see him. I got gas and a thirty rack and went to his place. We hugged, caught up, ready for a great weekend. We started drinking, he made some steak, and vege's. pretty good dave. reminisced on old times. So we started drinking, couple of his friends came over, great great people. Then, typical frick move, got extremely tired and ended up going to sleep on an air mattress. They went out- and i woke up 14 hours later the next day. I was tired? I was a lil upset with myself, but was happy i had another night to redeem myself. So we got some breakfast, and waited for his buddy to come over, then we went to san diego to visit his other buddy. Another long drive, but i was a pssenger this time, which was nice. We get to his buddies place and immediatly go to the beach. Ughh such a nice beach, with huge waves. So much fun to play in. Played a little catch with the football, body surfed, all the fun stuff. Got some KFC and got ready to go out for the night. Daves first friend doesnt drink, so he is always the DD everywhere, which is very conveniant. So we pregamed, and then went out on the town. Went into like 5 bars it seemed like. Saw a buddy from bootcamp which was pretty cool, and just had a really fun night. Went back to the kid in san deigos place and crashed there. Woke up, and went back to daves house. Passed out for a couple hours, and then i drove home on sunday to lemoore to rest up that night, and monday night, which was really nice.

ROAD TRIPPPPPPPPPP

Ahhhhh, the road trip. Wake up early monday morning, bitter sweet. leaving home, but bring ol betsy with me- and paps lol. We head out around 7 i think. Our first stop- Niagra Falls. only a 7 hour drive, how hard could it be?!?! Paps and i switched off like 4 hour intervals the whole time- those were some long intervals. So we made it to Niagra falls just fine- a little cloudy/rainy, but we did what we went to do, see the falls. You need your passport to go on the canadian side meow, so we got a view from America, which i thought was plenty enough. after being there for like an hour, we were on the road again to illinois i believe. I could be totally wrong. but i think we stopped somewhere around there. Didnt seem like we made it very far- at all, according to the map. Got a hotel- military discount is amazingly generous to us. Love hotel beds for some reason, even though theyre probably gross, theyre just so comfy. We traveled like 15 hours the first day? well into 11pm at night. Got up early the next day, got some dunks- while we still could. Then we traveled, and only stopped for gas. the only other major check points we wanted to hit were Jared in Colorado, and Vegas baby, vegas. So we traveled down from illinois and ended up stopping on the boarder of kansas? Gosh im to lazy to check a map, but it sounds right. These places were in the middle of no where. Im talking wind mill farms, huge wind mills. everywhere. seemed something out of a sci-fi movie. We stopped at hooters for dinner, buff chix was alright- good not great. retired early that night-paps was feeling a lil under the weather, and we needed to plan it so we could see jared. bout 8 hours away from him at this second hotel. Next day, wake up early head to colorado, end up meeting up with jared for dinner-530ish(time was on our side, we kept gaining hours as we went along lol) We went out to a nice, very nice, steak place. I got a filet with bleu cheese and bason, and baked potatoe, oh my, im salivating just thinking about it. washed it down with a blue moon and orange wedge. It was truly amazing. Meow jared just drove across country as well, so it was nice to see his new place, which was amazing, and colorado seems like a great place, he seems very happy. all around great move on his part. look forward to hooking up with him again in the future since we're close(r) than we were. Maybe meet in vegas. lol. So after we dropped jared off, and had another 2 hours to go to get to VALE(sp?) that looks right. A little cold in the mountains- high up in elevation, but an absolute beautiful town. A skiers paradise if you will. Reminds me of the movie Out Cold. I would retire there in a heart beat. very rich town. We stayed at a marriot, which was absolutely beautiful. Indoor hot tub and pool. Strutted our stuff down to the hot tub, and relaxed before going to sleep that night. Woke up to a beautiful view, cold crisp air. oh man, amazing. then we were 8, or 10 hours away from vegas. we hit the road, ended up in the humid air of las vegas. felt like we were walking through a sauna, and we had no airconditioning, cuz- well, jeep doesnt have a/c, its a jeep thing. jeep wave. mmmm. Anyway. drove down the vegas strip, and parked at the stratosphere hotel. umm i think it was 30 bucks a night? yes please. got tickets to see david copperfield that night at 9, but it was only like 6 at this time. so i did what anyone else would do in vegas- jumped off the hotel, lol. Its called the skyjump. Its a controlled freefall from 888 feet up i think it is? but i got to the top, and i was extremely scared, ughhh just taking the first step was all i had to do, but it was HARD. totes worth it in the end. Paps was at the bottom calling me crazy. Then i needed an alcoholic beverage to soothe my nerves, cuz they were firing on alls cylinders. Stopped and got a burger at a joint that had spraying mists everywhere. Creative, and cool! def got a vodka sprite lol. Then we headed to David Copperfield. Amazing show, seems like a great guy, and his tricks were unbelievable. He made a car appear on stage out of no where, and a motorcylce. Its rediculous, honestly have no idea how he did it, and i used to be BIG on magic tricks. Nope, no idea. So after the amazing show, we headed back to our hotel room. Paps was ready to hit the hay- about midnight by meow? I was ready to go gamble!! took a whopping 60 bucks out, big spendaaaa. Went down to the roulette table, lol marc. played that for a little, made a lot of friends on the table- free drinks. then i decided to try my luck at blackjack. It was me and this one other dude, i still had no idea when to hit, or stay, so he helped me out a little but, and the cards were HOTTTT. we both were up a crap ton- had like over a hundred bucks in front of me, feeling good. So thats when you start tipping the dealer, and tipping the waitress lol. Needless to say we got a new dealer, and i lost all my money. No fairy tail ended, just the harsh reality. Went back up to the room around 2 am and passed out. Woke up hungover the next day, ready for our last 6 hour leg of the drive to be over with. Paps drove first lol. drove through pretty much nothing, and finally ended up in Lemoore. I never thought i would be excited to be there, but boy was i. Had my jeep. We unpack the whole thing, put the bikini top on, man does it look good. I go check in on the OPS side- showed my Dad the jets. I was explaining everything about them, and i realized i knew a lot more about them than i thought i did, which made me happy. After that we headed to fresno, his flight left at like 6am the next morning, so we got a hotel there. I dropped him off at the airport the next morning, then went back to the hotel and passed out till 11, when i had to check out lol. Road Trip complete. Happy i did it.

Leave Aug 8th-16th

Whoops. Kinda waited a month and a half to enter a new blog post. Better late than never i guess right?!? So I know it might not be as detailed as you want it to be, but my memory has been faded, and i might skip over a couple things, but ill try my best to remember them. My leave started at midnight on the 8th of august. I had all my stuff packed and ready to go home. Anderson let me use her car that morning to park at the airport, because she was becoming a legal citizen in fresno anyway, and would just pick up her car on the way home. So it worked out perfectly. Got settled at the Fresno airport- 3hours early might i add. I was a little excited to get home lol. boarded that flight, landed in LA, boarded that flight- a 5 hour flight home nonstop to boston, where my parents would be picking me up. I sleep for most of the way home, but never stand up once the whole ride. I got a window seat luckily, but i hate bothering people to get up, so i just sucked it up. Got into boston around 8, rents bought me a buff chix calzone, which was off da hookkkkk. Thanks Mom and Dad!!! Funny thing about our conversation, is that when i was telling them about work, etc. I swore (f bomb) right in front of them, so naturally. I never swear in front of my parents, but i guess i have a sailors mouth meow. So i got home around like 930ish? And bowen was texting me, so i thought i would swing up and say hello to him real quick- mind you its a thursday, so he had work the next morning, and a family's dog's aunts wedding, or somthing that he had to go to. He's got the largest extended family i know. So i saw him for a couple hours, then drove back to l town where i passed out in cloud, respectfully. The next day, i woke up, and got some delish jay house with molly, yib, and troy. Great food, and great company to say the least- so nice to see them. It was also plouring cats and dogs, which i loved, and proceeded to walk slowely through. Oh and it was great to be driving the jeep-although i would later on bite my tongue because i had to drive it for 5 days across the US. Friday afternoon Alyson came over, we went to dinner with my rents at the 99, then we went to dennys for some late night breakfast. Which was delish. Went home and passed out. Next morning we wake up and get some dunks, oh man have i missed dunks- and that afternoon, Alyson was back on her way up to Maineski. At this time i decided to drive up to portsmouth again to see marcus ceralius, allen allerson, and andy dufrane. we ended up going to pooplex, and going out to the bars at UNH. Quite a fun time, dont remember much though LOL! woke up the next morning and allen lost his phone for probably like 2 hours. Marc and i sat and enjoyed rest our calves on a nice sofa as allen paced the pooplex. After this- now sunday, already flying by- i was already up in the portsmouth area- bout a half hour from ogunquit. And there was one person i didnt see yet. The giraffe named thomas. went up there a lil hung over, talked with his rents about life and then had a little one on one time with thomas out to lunch. it was fantastic. We ate at the rose cove, and even had time to stop by the rooneys to say hello. I dropped thomas off and went home to pack my things for this cross country trip with papa bear.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Welp, it's august 1st here in Cali. Just hit my 23rd birthday. Kinda sounds weird to even say?! Oh well. Just been hanging in there, having a pretty easy couple of weeks here on the line shack. I'm talking like super easy- getting out like 2-3 hours early every night. But when we do work we work hard. Been doing a lot of studying lately too cuz we have a lot of free time on our hands. Which reminds me, word on the street is we are not going to get deployed until early/mid 2015. Thats like 2 fricken years!!! ughhh. But next year we will be going on a RIMPAC, which is just a bunch of navys getting together and having a fun time. We will probably cruise out to Hawaii, maybe Australia, and just hang out for like 3-5 months. I dno, guess ill just enjoy this time on land for meow. Been doing pretty good lately on my quals- out of the 4 quals i need before i can become a Plane Captain (which is what everyone is striving for), I got 2 done, and im like 7/8 done another one, and like 5/6 done another one. Then i can start studying a crap ton for my end all be all of the line shak, which will be a Plane Captain. And i'm like really really good at studying, so dont try me. its like not even fair. So Quals are getting done, been a lil stressful, but i'm happy with the path im going, and the rate im going actually. One week until i go on leave by the way!!! Holy smokes, probably gonne be the best leave ever. I honestly cannot wait. And to have my jeep out here? what could be better than that? I can do stuff on my own terms. And sometimes i just love going for a nice cruise every meow and then, especailly during the night, and i love my jeep so much. no top. Speaking of- my rentals told me they got me a bikini top for the jeep, its just a top for the driver/passeneger. Since it doesnt rain here, ill probably always have it on, just in case. But it will just be nice to have ya dig? I also picked up a really good book the other week. Called the MazeRunner. Read the back of the book and immediatly fell in love. Basically a bunch of kids stuck in a real life maze, and they have to try and get out- theres more to it than that though. I finished it in like 3 days. This was a long book. 3 days. I come to the end of the book, and i found out there is 2 more in the series AND a prequel. Like holy crap, i cant wait to get those new books and read them, they are that good. Once im hooked on a book i just cant put it down lol. So anyway- jobs good, finding myself smiling a lot more- which is good. Just trying to live it up the best i can, and all these kids are basically my age, so its like hanging out with a bunch of friends and working with them. Everyone always jokes and likes to have a good time. Its not too bad at all. Meeting a lot of people, and picking and choosing my battles wisely. Things are really working out here with this new career path, i secretly am beginning to enjoy it- just wait till i get my jeep out here... right?!?! And my good mood could also be attributed to Alyson as well. And maybe the fact that things are going really well with her, and i'll be seeing her very soon? Basically on cloud 9 right now.Oh and its my birthday. But yeah, this night check is working out really well too. Lots of people like bring in food just for kicks and giggles, its wierd. I leave and come back and theres pizza, meatball subs on the table. I dont ask questions, i just dig in. Anyway, finally get paid after like 3 weeks today, so ill put a chunk aside for when i go home, cuz i estimated my gas total to be like 800 bucks LOL. My jeep seems to be better than your average jeep on gas though, least i tend to think so. Maybe put it in neutral going down hills chris?!?! lol. ssf. Dave Garside called me today, he swore in today going for a green beret. Very nice to hear from him, and it gets me excited that he is as excited and nervous as i was when i was in his spot. Brings back that knot in my stomach. But anyway. Tonight at work, we had no flights going out, so we did some more studying/etc. And at the end of the night 6 people were chosen to stay back and help out with a jet. They jet just had some work done to it, and we needed to test out its high power abilities- meaning afterburner. We brought it to a special spot, and tied it down with this massive chain. then We let the maintainers go to work, they were in the cockpit and were testing the power. This is at like 1AM mind you, so the afterburner is gonna burn bright blue. So im like 15 feet from the jet, and its doing its normai power, then BAM a bright stream of blue shoots out the end of the jet, and the nose jerks down as it tries to go forward, but it got stopped by the chain. Incredible sight- all while your whole body is just rumbling from this noise. They did this for like 5 minutes, and it was a pretty cool thing to experience. Especially to spend my 23rd birthday. I just pretended the afterburners were my candles LOL. My buddy got a pretty cool couple pics of it that will be on facebook, ill def make sure you see them. So that was my night. Road trip is coming up quick. Talked to Paps, said we'll swing by Niagra falls real quick, then head on down to Colorado to visit Jared, hey Jared!!! cuz he lives there meow, wierd. Then shoot out to vegas for like 2 days. See some shows, and i wanted to try the freefall thing they have from that tall skyscraper. Maybe even try to convince father to do it too. Then come back to Cali, with un jeep. But just the feeling of it going to happen- the anticipation- is the best feeling in the world. I just hope time doesnt fly by when i get home, but soon enough ill be writing a blog about how my time at home was. UGhh Its crazy how days go by slow here, but the weeks go by so fast. Its actaully a little frightening. Everybodys working for the weekend lol. Takeaway points- work is good, having fun with friends, keeping in touch with friends/family, got my eye on a pretty cool girl, future looks bright.

Ask and you shall receive

Woke up to a voicemail, from an unknown number. Only voicemails I like are from Alyson, or when Tom butt dials me and cant shut his car alarm off. I listen to the voicemail, granted i already know somethings wrong- voicemails are never good ESPECIALLY from unknown numbers. Basically someone yelling at me cuz i wasnt at the check in process for my new command ( C school )- its right down the road for me. I jump up and start making some phone calls, what the heck is this? When i checked in, i knew i had a C school that i had to go to ( C school is a secondary schooling that people go to, to learn about specific aircrafts, mine being the F/A-18 super hornet, did i sound cool there?) and i asked literally every person when i would be going to school, i even showed them in my orders the dates that i was suppose to attend. What did they say? They said dont listen to your orders, those are never correct, the navy will decide when you go to c school, they will let us know and we will let you know. So i immediately put that on the back burner. Didnt even think about it, thinking my command would give me some kind of heads up. Nope. Wake up to a phone call saying im late for school. Oh. okay.And im working night check, so instead of sleeping in, i gotta go run around like a chicken with its head cut off. I get my finest uniform on, cuz i heard they are pretty harsh at the schooling, cuz they deal with mostly new people, coming from A school. Pshh ive been in the fleet for a month and a half- i know everything. So i go over to check in, talk to the guy. Walk in, theyve been waiting for me. This is never good. Everything in the navy youre suppose to be early- i was like 2 hours and a day late. Ignorance is bliss. Talked to the guy- very nice, told him everything. He prepared me by telling me ill be like a ping pong ball today, got a lot of catching up to do. ruh roh. here we go again. Told me to go check out of my command (have to take a bus mind you) and then come back and check in to my new command. Gonne be a long day. I think about everything, like im switching commands, aka everything from my previous command is invalid, and this will be my new command until august 20th.... umm 12 days after when i was suppose to have leave? you gotta be kidding me. At that point my life came crushing down, wasnt going on leave, wasnt gonna see Alyson, no jeep, no road trip, no nothing. I went to my old command via bus, and when i got there, everyone was scrambling getting my paperwork together. They knew something was wrong and working their butts off to get me out of that command. So it took like 2 seconds to leave that command, and i was back on the bus back to my new command. Went to go check in, but the lady was at lunch. Which, at this exact moment was a huge blessing in disguise. wow did not see that one at all. Since she was at lunch, i had to come back at 2:40 to check in before class (night class 330pm-10pm). So frustrated Steven sluggishly walked back to his barracks, thinking of ways to change what was going on. I called American Airlines to try and refund my ticket. HAAAA good one. You paid 300 dollars for the ticket, we are going to take 200 of those dollars, and give you a 100 dollar credit. shucks i bought it like a day ago, give me a break. I expressed my anger with my Mother, and we started brainstorming about how to get my jeep out here, if i should buy a new one, just a lot of things that i didnt even want to think about, cuz i thought i had this all planned out, and i hate when plans take a turn for the worst. I told her i would see what the first day of class was like, and then we can discuss further details. It was about 1:40 pm here (4:40 EST lol) so Alyson called me on her way home from work, and i told her everything, and it was just a horrible day. She simply just said that i should tell someone my situation, and ask them if there is anything that could be done. I'm thinking long shot, but shes right, whats the worst that could happen? everything that already did. I head over to the guy to check in to the command. He says we were gonna wait for another girl to get here so we can go check in together. He continues his everyday tasks leaving me sitting in front of his desk. I say to him, "Can i ask you a question sir?" He politely said yes. And i told him everything. How my old command promised me leave, how i already bought my ticket, had planned everything, Father got work off, etc, heck i almost broke down talking to him. He looked at me disgusted, not that i was disgusting, but like what did these people from the other command tell this kid? They really messed up. He's sighed for a while and then told me options- class comes first, but this is a unique case, you only get one day off from missing classes, still didnt seem like i was getting anywhere. I was trying my best to reason with him, like yeah, maybe ill just take that weekend off and go home for a weekend, and hang out? pshh still doesnt get my jeep out here. He could see that i was trying to meet him halfway, but it wasnt working. He's like yeah know what? let me send you over to my buddy, he's a retired master chief (top of the top enlisted). I was like okay, let me go plead my case to someone whose retired and probably already hates my guts. I went over, told him my whole situation, told him everything. He straight up told me class comes first and that i am part of this command now, then i KNEW there was more. He said 'BUT' at the end of that sentence. Still holding on to this sliver of hope. He said let me talk to your old master chief at your prior command. He said worst case scenario is that i would be dropped from class, and wouldnt have it until next year (february) and i would stay with my other command until then. I was slowely coming out of my shell, i was like really? He said the phones were down, and that they would get the information for tomorrow. Thats all i could ask for. There was still hope. So the other guy brings me and the girl to check in at the new place, it goes swiftly and promptly, and we head on to class. We walk in to class and there were 2 teachers already in there, called me mr popular because my name was already being thrown around at the higher ranks and everywhere in the building. I didnt know what to say and took a seat. The moment my cheeks hit that seat, the retired senior chief came in to the class room and said Frick, get your @$$ out here, youre no longer in this class. My smile grew like a bijillion times, and i even told the guy how happy he made me. hahaha it was such a turn of events. This all happened within like 20 minutes of me telling them my situation, to me getting kicked out of class. Talk about an emotional roller coaster eh? I ran back to the check in place, told them to cancel and was heading to my old command to work a regular night. At this point in the day, the bus schedule was getting sparse, and i needed to get to work. Who do i see walking out of the barracks? Anderson, i asked her if she could give me a ride to work, and she thankfully said yes. I grabbed my stuff and went to work. I arrived at work, and boy let me tell you, i have never missed a group of people so much. It was so great to see all of them, and be back in my comfort zone, knowing everything was going back to the way it was. Even though i was a little tired and cranky- people could tell (whoops, gimme a break ive been running aroudn alls day). So i worked for like 2 hours, and everyone was telling me that i shouldnt have even come to work cuz of their mess up, and ive been running around all day. So Arce could see me frustration and he told me to just ask our supervisor if i could go home early. So i did just that- asked him if i could go home early- like 9 or 10pm i was hoping for. He said yes, and then he said just go home now. Freedom at 6pm. Walked off the line, and waited at the bus stop for my buddy Hopson to pick me up. Easy day, no?

Two situations in which just asking changed my life. Small or large, it meant a lot to me. Prob go to bed meow. rough day LOL

Shootin' some bball outside the school

So, up-to-date meow. Talking in the first person. Fresh. Like fresh cookies out of the oven. but let me rewind and talk about basketball yesterday real quick, cuz it makes me feel good about myself. Get to Physical training a little late, but finish warming up with the squadron. then everyone parts ways- people play soccer, basketball, dodgeball or just run around the track. I was going to play basketball. So everyone gathered around. doing full court. Their were captains, and they were picking teams-  listen this is where it gets good. 5 on 5, and there were like 25 people there. that means 4 on each team ( subtracting the captain from each team) leaves me 8 chances out of 23 to get picked right? hope im doing this right. so each team picks a person. Then I see a cheif and First class petty officer ( 3 and 4 pay grades above me) pointing at me. I was staring off into space cuz i knew like 1 person there. I was the 3rd person picked. granted i was the tallest one there, they must have biased me with my height, so they picked me, and asked if i was good when i ran over to them. I couldnt say no, so i said heck ya! gimme the rock right bowen? Got me going, especially to see like 15 people walk off the court cuz our teams had to play. Take that recess basketball. Youd be so proud Mom. Anyway, we played, i worked my butt off, and play a fantastic game, im like really good, and only getting better. Its super weird, but im lovin it. We ended up going 3-0 for the day, and then i had to get home to shower and go to work. I was so sore. Pretty sure my hip and neck were dislocated, but figured i could sleep it off. Hurt a little at work, but just walked it off, head held high. Came home showered, and passed out. Luckily i woke with just a little pain in my neck. Little did i know this day was going to get much worst. Wayoooooooooooooooooo you have to read the next blog meow.

Review Board/ Leave granted

heyoooooo new week!! fresh out of the 14th of july. smack dab in the middle of the month. That monday i got called unexpectedly- in midst of eating my pb and j (extra j of course, concord grape). Sat down with an officer, and my supervisor to go over how i was doing so far. Fantastic. Everything looked great, and the future was looking great too. My supervisor said that he remembers the first day i came in to the shop, i was looking for something to do, some way to help out (LOL so me). I hate just sitting around and not doing anything, especially if i could help dontcha know. Kind of painful just hanging out and literally doing nothing. uggghhh pffft. So after my head hit the clouds on that subject, i spoke with my supervisor to see how my leave was coming along so i could go home. He said it was out of his hands meow, and that i should go check with someone else. So i marched right upstairs and asked the guy in charge. he had 5 pieces of paper in his hand. Mine was the last one... Approved!!! bam homerun im coming  home. 10 days of leave, leaving on a thursday, driving back on like monday, getting to cali in like 5 or 6 days. perfect. I can start planning my life. No one could wipe that smile off my face. I told everyone and their mother i got these days off. Told Alyson we were gonna hang out erryday i was home, and she willingfully approved, thank goodness. Even hoping she gets that friday off from work, so we get an extra day together!! Anyway, that night i went home and bought my airline ticket. One way all the way into boston, felt good to finally buy it. only 3 hundo bee tee dubs. what a bargain. granted i got a middle seat for the 5 hour flight from LA to boston... YOLO. So its been like cloud 9 already, such a great day, told my pops, he started his process, and i can finally have my jeep out here. Life is good. Easy workload too.

First boat detachment!!! Or so you thought.

The dates were of July 8th through 12th. That week everyone was bustin their butts on the line shack. We were flying a lot, and working really harding, washing jets, just getting ready for our 10 day cruise. It was a rough week, but mannn was it worth it, gonna be a lot of fun on the boat, even though everyone speaks poorly of it, but i was excited for a new experience. So friday comes around, i wake up from a nice sleep to a phone call- boat dets been cancelled. They claimed that our boat had some issues with it, and it wasnt departing, yet another squadron went on the same deployment, and they were already on the boat, heading out to sea. So then the grapevine  produces that we didnt have enough money to go on the boat det. Which makes total sense. Cuz our squadron doesnt have anyyyyy money what so ever. more money more problems though right?!?! omg right?!? I mean its not a bad thing for us though cuz our work schedule is a joke. same thing every day, every night. Like i said in our previous blog, we dont even know what is going to happen tomorrow, its rediculous. We just hold on tight and see where this trip is gonna take us. Lil frustrating cuz we cant really plan anything. But hopefully we hear something soon. No aircraft carrier for this guy :/ They said there is a rain date at the end of august... we'll see about that navy lol.

The letter

So while all of this navy nonsense is going on I've been talking to this chica named Alyson. Shes from the middleofnowhere, Maine. Hi Alyson. We were kinda seeing each other before i was sent off to boot camp, in which i abruptly ended things with her, on extremely bad terms. (i'm sorry) but she is a pretty neat person. I couldnt stop thinking about her throughout all this time after i signed this contract. We talked every meow and then, but it would just be like a hey, or a ho. Ho hey. Needless to say, there was something i needed to do. So I wrote a letter one day- thoughts, feelings, apologies all on paper and sent it her way. Took like 4 days to get to maine, but then again it is in canada. But we started talking on the phone throughout this time, in which i thoroughly enjoyed. Im usually not a phone person, but cant get enough of it lately. So we started talking a lot more, and it was amazing. I question the navy sometimes and what the heck im doing in it, but i feel like there is a bigger picture. One that i may not be able to see yet. It's been helping me work on myself, and better myself, so i can be a better person around people. cuz it always starts with you and radiates out. and ive found a lot of interesting things about myself by doing all of this adventuring. It feels good and right, like im just building a better me. Heart to heart time here- when i was younger, ill admit it, i was a very obese child, didnt have many friends. Wasnt until high school when i started thriving on friendships and held on to them- the good ones with all my might. And by doing this, it didnt make any room for anyone else in my life. Me, not ever having the love and comfort of friends, wanted to keep these friends and never lose them, even if that meant leaving some girl i liked over. And i'm pretty sure this pattern continued over the years. But the turning point for me was the fact that i have a such good relationship with my friends, that ill know theyll always be there for me no matter what, and (sorry chris) i can always make new friends, cuz i just love talking to people and getting to know everyone. By joining the navy, i literally let go of everything, everyone that i have and just peaced out. I think it was a journey to find myself, and yeah it may have been a little bit ugly, i think im beginning to understand. I have learned that i can live a weekend, or two without my friends. I have to, i have no choice at all. Yeah it was rough the first couple weeks here in cali, heck, even bootcamp. But when people go through the same experiences as you, thats when you bond and become friends. Now i have a ton of friends here in cali, and am well liked. it feels great.
Well, dont think ive ever written that down before, but i think i hit the nail on the head on that one. Anyway, now that ive discovered these things about myself, i can focus clearly- on what really matters, like Alyson. Things seem to be looking really nice on the road ahead, so we shall see what the future holds. Hopefully these words dont come back to bite me in the butt. but i said it, so there. #rushitloveit

4th of July Weekend

Hokay. So 4th of July weekend. I had watch that night into the morning hours, so i was running off of like 3 hours of sleep for the camping adventure, but luckily got some starbucks before we headed out to the lake. We had a cooler, tent, sleeping bags, food that could last us like 2 weeks. Seriously we ate pretty well that weekend. But we were en route by nooner to the campsite. It was on a natural forest reservation area. We get there and check in super quick since im awesome at reserving things. The lady asked us if we wanted a lake view or a site by the bathrooms. pshhh lake view. So we got to our site, and it was overlooking the lake, and absolutely just wonderful. Came with a firepit, picnic table, place to put our tent, and a water fountain. What more could you possibly ask for?!?! and the bathrooms were a minute walk up a hill. Things were looking good. So we set up camp there, and went to the store like 15 minutes away to get some firewood, ice and beer. came back, set up the tent, and went swimming!! It was so peaceful, and the water was wicked warm. Too warm for some people in fact. Talk about crazy. youre crazy. So we hung out by the water for a little bit, then eventually went back to make some kebabs with like steak peppers onions mushrooms, man this was like really good. all over the fire too. tastyyyy. Then we just hung aroound the fire the rest of the night, and made some smores. Smore of what? When it was time to go to bed it was 100 degrees out. and the tent made it feel like 150 degrees (Fahrenheit lol) So it was rough trying to get to sleep. Eventually, brace yourself, I grabbed a clean sock from my bag, filled it with ice and just put it on my forehead. ended up falling to sleep real quick after that. Good day. Next day was early to rise, specially with the sun coming in, not like we had walls or AC lol. got up and made some breakfast. Another fantastic meal. Soooo good. Then down to the beach!! Went down to the beach and put my towel down to get muh tan on. It was kind of a secluded spot, so it was nice, not many people. So i ended up passing out on my towel, drooling and alls. And i wake up to some voice saying "should we go to the left or to the right of him?" that him being me. And it was just a couple of asian-americans coming to enjoy, the same beach, as us. My tube was right beside me by the way. I lay back down, and 2 seconds later, there were 45 kids running around me screaming, yelling splashing around, heck they had squirt guns. and me still laying down was getting drenched by the second. I jump up grab my stuff, cept my tube cuz that was already being used, and i moved to a more rocky area of the beach. i sat up and counted every single one of them. had to get this number, cuz it was unbelievable. so then i was a lil angry so Anderson and I went back to the campsite, and decided to get out of nature for a little bit. lol. its tough roughin it in this heat. We ended up taking the car to starbucks in fresno, a good 30 minutes a way. charged my phone a little bit and grabbed a coffee. Threw that coffee out, and went up and got another one.... little did i know that if you stayed in starbucks, they gave you free refills for 50 cents just for like ice coffee. my mind was totally blown. i was super excited. loved every second of it. We returned back to the campsite later and all those people were still there, so we moved to a new beach and just read some books and hung out. Had some dinner that night and got some good rest, saw a couple shooting stars too. a lot cooler this night than the previous. Woke up the next morning, said we had enough, and even though we had one more night, we needed to get outta there. So we packed up our stuff and got the heck outta there. Good weekend.

Side notes: I started growing a mustache at this point, which was phenomenal, cuz i could grow a good one after a long weekend. Mother gave us sparklers too, which were fun, but kinda got old after the 6th one lol sorry Mom!!  

4th of July- Fast Forward

Holyyyy Smokes!! Where do i begin?!?!?! I guess the reasoning behind my blogging less, is: working on night shifts, using my tablet instead of my regular computer, maybe cuz im more busier than usual? wow. Wierd how things have changed!! Okay, so ill try to remember what has happened in the past weeks, bear with me lol. Umm i moved out of my old roommates room? I dno if i told yall that but here we go!! He got promoted to E4, and once you hit E4 you can live by yourself, and if the barracks are full you can live off base and collect BAH, which is money the navy gives you for housing. Another benefit to getting promoted quicker! So after moving out of ARCE's room, thats his name, i moved into BOWIE's room. Same exact setup, cept the ventilation system leads down to a kid with a drum set who likes to practice around 2pm, lol. time to get up anyway!! So bowie and i got moved to night check, where i am the lowest of the low in rank wise. aka the newest person on night check aka i do evvvv verrrr rayyyy thangggg. which i dont mind, these weeks have already passed by so quickly and im hardly sitting on my butt inside. Im constantly moving, doing stuff to help the time go by quicker so we can get out and get home on time or even early!! So things have been going pretty well. Hung around the other weekend, and didnt really do much cuz i had to work that weekend. But last weekend Anderson and I planned a trip to the lake we passed on the way to the Sequoia National Park. We invited people, and ARCE and BOWIE actually said yes, so they came along!! We actually had a pretty fun time. We bought some adult beverages, and some floaties. We just hung out on the river all day (it led into the lake), and drank and became merry. So it was a really fun time, finally clicking with people around here, and making some pretty good friends. They see that i am a hard worker, and i dont complain about anything, i just do it. Thats the way things work around here, and you dont want to be known as the complainer, cuz then you get more work assigned to you. But i tell ya, i work my butt off some nights, and im happy to know it doesnt go unnoticed. Slowely gaining respect around here, i hope. Speaking of, last tuesday we had command PT, where we would all meet at the gym and work out together. Well i usually go and sign the paper and then do my own workout, but i heard people play basketball all the time there. Yes, i get nervous, but doggonit i wanted to play really bad, hadnt played in like a month and a half. So i ran back and grabbed my ankle braces lol. Always gotta have my ankle braces. Surprisingly no one said anything about them. I waited for the next game to begin, and got put on a team, i didnt know a couple kids, but they were in my squadron and ive seen them around, so i just introduced myself-outside of work. We balled hard for 2 straight games. And let me tell you, i have never played that great of basketball in my life. I was getting every rebound, and putting up rediculous shots, and giving amazing assists, the stars were aligned, or maybe its just cuz ive been working out like crazy, i dno. But considering i was the only caucasian there lol, i was doing really well. Would say it was a stepping stone in gaining respect from my co workers, cuz they thought i was really good. I walked away proud that daym which made for a great night, and better relationships with my coworkers. everything was beginning to click.
So the nights would come and the nights would go, We would be getting out around 1am, and i would set an alarm for like 9am, get up, go to the gym, head to starbucks (i order the same thing everyday at the same time, trying to become a regular, but its not working :/) and then come back and take a nap till i have to go to work. Still working on getting some qualifications, and doing well on that. We had a change of command, which basically means we got a new boss. They had a ceremony in the hangar bay, with a pig roast, and chicken and everything, it was so good. They also did a fly by really low to the ground to simulate the transfer of power, it was pretty cool to witness, then once his jet landed, it got sprayed by the fire trucks, LOL you guys!!!! So you. But in other news, we are going on a training mission on like the 10th of July on the carrier to get experience for next year when we deploy. Itll only be like 10 days on the ship, but still, some good training excercises. And i cant wait to experience the ship either! that things gotta be like wickedddd huge!! Anyway, we had a 3 star admiral come in and talk to us about our $$$ problems. We are aiming for going on deployment sometime next year, thats all he could tell us, we dont know much of anything, and cant plan much out cuz we barely have any money. Heck the barracks cant even support air conditioning when the outside temp reaches over 100 degrees, and then the showers stay cold from time to time. Whatever, doesnt really bother me much, builds experience right? maybe ill write that on my resume, perfect.
Other good things are happening as well! Put my request in to leave and go home for a little bit in mid august. Surprisingly it is going very well so far. filled out the paperwork, and all the signatures are working their way up the chain of command. Its amazing how painless and quick the process is going, makes me very excited. So i get to go to the aircraft carrier for a little bit, come back for a week, then leave like a week later, get my jeep out here, and just kick it. umm, sounds perfect to me.
Anyways, Im pretty set on accepting my early promotion, my best friend Tom called the other day (thanks for reading Thomas, althought i could really use a back crack- maybe when i come back? lol) And we were just chit chatting on the phone, and i was telling him about my scenario, cuz he obvs read my blog about it. And he agrees with me that i need to do what is right for me, and i cant be thinking about what my friends are going to be doing, and where they will be by then. It is my life, and i need to do what is best for me, so he is 100% on my side for it, which made me pretty excited. Good to catch up with him, long time no talk on the phone. Probs just see him soon anyway lol.
Heck i got so cocky to the point i even asked about OCS- officer candidate school. Since my GPA wasnt good enough to apply to be an officer before, Its a lot easier once i have already been in, to apply to go to that boot camp. Once news got around that i was doing that in my shop, everyone started making jokes about me having a degree. Never thought i would get made fun of for having one of those lol. But hey why not put it to good use right? So i spoke with my supervisor about it, and he immediatly became super pumped, which in turn made me more pumped. He immediatly got on it, and could see that i was doing my research part of it, so he would do his. Got me an appointment with an officer, but it had to be postponed till after all this settles down with the holidays, and the boat detatchment. But i mean, it is just going alls so fast. The pay for officers too- its outta this world compared to enlisted, and you would get more respect, and bootcamp alls over again- lol which i think would be a lot of fun!!! I know what to expect, and can help others with the experience i already have. Easy ways of getting an application through would be to have a wide array of options for what program (job) i would want to do, which im perfectly fine with. Probably just end up being a paper pusher anyway, making bank. We shall see were this adventure takes me though.
As of right meow: just hanging out, getting ready for the 4th of july celebrations. Anderson and I are going to a lake up north, like an hour away. Got a campsite for 3 nights, rented a tent, probably just hang out, go fishing and relax. Get away to nature for a little bit ya know? Im quite excited about it. Good things are coming, and they are coming quick. Who knows when the next time ill be able to blog. lol. Im excited though. lets do this.