Between Random Planets

Bearing Almost Any How

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
~Friedrich Nietzsche

Forgetting your cell phone at home, even for a day, is a dumb thing to do.

I had two days left at work before I shoved off for good.  When I received an emergency phone call at my office (okay so it's a resort and I was covered in oil) from my husband at his office....during a military move....simply walking to the phone is never an option.  I ran in blind panic, hoping it wasn't some insanely bad moving-related news.

He called to deliver one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.  Let's just get this out of the way right now, because he's a saucy little stinker.  The bad news wasn't even bad.....and of course I asked for the bad news first.  Finishing on a positive tone is a family trademark. 

In Rich's line of work, we get used to the non-stop sewing process that requires uniform rank patches to match that season's particular uniform (see As Ye Sew... ).   At this point, I'm pretty sure I can now thread a sewing machine bobbin in my sleep while simultaneously balancing the checkbook.  The bad news he was reporting?  I'd have to dig out the sewing machine from the impending packout and re-do his entire Navy wardrobe with brand new patches.  He had to add that little dramatic pause while I let this news soak in.  All new patches on the entire wardrobe means that he just got promoted.

Congratulations, Petty Officer First Class!  You busted your tail and you you did it in darned near record time. Your friends and family are so overwhelmingly, amazingly proud of you we could just split a seam.

You know -- I might give him the grumpy-face on occasion when patch-sewing time comes around, but really and truly it's nice to be needed. It's also another reminder for my Mom that teaching me to sew (although arduous) was a very, very good thing indeed.

The Last Cruise

"Family Day" on the U.S.S. Reagan landed fortuitously on the weekend of our niece Hannah's 11th birthday.   While it's never fun waking up at 4 a.m. on a Sunday (now we really get to see what a sailor's life is like) it's ultimately worth it after enough coffee and a stark reminder that civilians don't usually have to wake up at this horrific hour on a daily basis.

What follows is a picture gallery of images from a most glorious Sunday.  The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan cruised out of San Diego Harbor with thousands of extra pre-approved family members on board to get a little taste of what life is like for our sailors.  Taste we certainly did.  The command provided breakfast, buffet lunch and a whole variety of in-between snacks to keep us occupied between carrier launches, shipwide tours, mural-painting, air-hockey, Nerf Boxing and even classic video games.  You never really forget how to play Galaga or Donkey Kong.

 

 

Video from our day is below.  In case you're wondering....yes we were definitely that close to every carrier launch and tailhook landing.  Even though it's a week later, my hair is still standing straight up. Enjoy your peek into the world of a Nimitz-class supercarrier, Family Day Style.  If you tilted the Empire State Building on it's side -- that's the approximate distance my hearty spouse had to hustle every single day. 

He's detaching in just days, though....so bruised knees will be his only reminder of those itty-bitty passageways.

Military Years Are Like Dog Years

I realized this after going to a party for our niece Hannah's birthday last night and sharing the news that our movers were officially coming in less than two weeks to pack up all of our belongings, bound for a new state. 

"Didn't you just get here?" was balanced out by another observation where it seemed like we had been here longer.  Just a little over 12 months, but time is truly relative.   A dog's lifespan is only a fraction of a human's which means that a dog ages more quickly in the same amount of time...and military years are definitely like dog years.

Our 8ish-year-old Border Collie (shown here with her bestfriendsforever: my sister-in-law Jo and brother Lance after a recent visit) is holding her age well for a 47 to 52-year-old lady.  Time will warp, however, over these next two weeks while we take down pictures, reconstruct the apartment and our lives into temporary spaces, see as much of our families as possible and try to keep the cat from getting sealed up into a moving box (my own personal nightmare).  Two weeks will seem like 25 minutes.

I'm grateful that my friend Aime suggested in July of 2005 (which would have been 15 military years ago)  that I start a blog to account for all this madness.  Since I feel it's in my own best interest to be as kind to my husband's current command as possible while balancing it with a healthy dose of reality that needs to be printed upon occasion -- there's a lot of reality that remains unwritten.  These pages, however, were always designed more to explore the cultural differences between our homes and less about the time-honored sport of command bashing.  They'll get their share though....in the end no one (or no bureaucratic organization) is exempt from examination.

I do have an upcoming rant about the Condiment Conundrum, though (and my multiple-moving-military friends reading this are already nodding their heads in sad understanding).  You can't clip Chatty Cathy's string on this one, my friends.  More on this later.

Accelerate your life.  When 12 human months just aren't good enough to count as a single year. 

It's Your Call, Mate. Hello?

This video: an oldie but definitely a goodie -- especially effective to remember when dealing with certain intractable bureaucracies.  Our mountain of moving paperwork is finally invading my restful REM state -- last night I dreamed about a blue-shirted Second Class Petty Officer (who looked strangely like our Personal Property Officer in Yokosuka) standing on the ceiling wearing fuzzy bunny slippers while flushing Rich's orders down the toilet.  As the toilet was on the ceiling, I'm assuming it was a dream. 

Don't plan a Pity Party -- this move is actually getting pretty entertaining....more news later.  Enjoy the video.

Going Up The Hard Way

After our recent post about the Red Bull Air races, I got a few private mails about what an aircraft carrier's elevator looks like (big, not designed for human comfort, needs to transport insanely heavy aircraft up a flight of stairs).

Here's the quick video for silly fun and you get an awesome skyline shot of San Diego on one of it's most glorious days for flight:

This "moving inventory" shot from the last deployment gives you a little size perspective on what the downstairs hangar bay looks like when work is actually being done....

More Than Fireworks, But Sparklers Are Nice Too

Liberty, freedom, inalienable rights, equality under the law and a representative government.  All this (and fireworks) are part of the Fourth of July in America.  Like fireworks, some of these concepts don't always shoot straight every time you light 'em (in fact some behave like earthbound duds).  The point is...we keep trying because when they do spark up they're pretty amazing to see.

Here's to the guys and gals who have to be in the office during our nation's Independence Day.  My spouse is on board the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan today but it's only for a brief rotation -- we'll report more on potential San Diego fireworks later. 

The folks we're really sending the big online love to are the ones who are on the job 24/7, braving some scorching sand in a foreign land.  Happy Fourth of July to our hardworking nephew Jason, our great friend Courtney and all the Greyhawks of HMM-161.  Stay safe and stay hydrated, we'll keep the beer chilled 'til you get home.

Another Random Planet

Another branch on another tree on another random planet. 

Last year on this exact day, our tree was in Japan and the branch of service was Navy.  As I peek out of our computer room in overwhelmingly sunny San Diego, we have crispy first-day-of-summer foliage -- and we're still Navy, last I checked.  This is all about to change in five short months.  We just got the official news that we'll be exiting our Southern California orbit and making the headlong spin towards our new Rocky Mountain home at Buckley Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado in December.

In a week that began with Schrodinger's Cat and limitless possibilities (The Sopranos.  I. Just. Can't. Stop.) -- it's the sweetest relief possible when you finally know where your next home is going to be.

Don't worry, So Cal -- we'll never give up our San Diego Padres.  And let me head the "weather thing" off at the pass.  Before I get yet another Southern Californian making poopy faces about the winters in Denver -- we spent one Japanese winter driving everywhere in the snow on the wrong side of the road.  After dodging motorcyclists and flying chunks of snow on a road with street signs that might as well have been written in Martian, I have faith that we can cope. 

Not knowing where were were going or what was in store for us led to some pretty long, insecure months.  I'm taking a little emotional holiday right now to focus on the good stuff.  Snowboarding.  White Christmas.  Denver Broncos. Microbreweries....

There's always the inevitable question of what a Navy guy is doing at an Air Force base -- Rich's branch (Navy) won't change because Buckley AFB is home to every branch of service.  Perhaps with time I can get one of those branches to explain what the giant golf ball is all about.

Garage Doors and the Axis of Evil

The security parking in our apartment building is quite safe. It is so secure, in fact, that it wouldn't let me leave the facility a few days ago.  I sat idling in our car wondering what I had done to deserve House Arrest, which always affords too much time for personal reflection.  This particular idle daydream led me to recall something I read a few months back about the Air Force's First Responder Radio System.

Apparently the radio frequency that most remotely operated garage door openers use is the same frequency the Air Force chose for their new radio system on 125 bases. It's also the same frequency that the Air Force will use to communicate with First Responders during a Homeland Security threat, which caused a "lockdown" of suburban garage doors all over Colorado Springs.  Bad garage door....bad!

There's a strong possibility that Rich's next duty station will be attached to an Air Force base in Denver -- if that becomes a reality maybe I should park outside?  Or maybe just bring a good book and enjoy the lockdown.

Life was so much simpler when we just had The Clapper.

The Study of Pressure and Time

"Geology is the study of pressure and time. Thats all it takes really... pressure, and time." ~Red, The Shawshank Redemption

I don't miss my old routine.  I'm sure that most of the USS Ronald Reagan spouses who are just now reconnecting with their mates don't miss theirs either. 

It was a routine of obsessively checking and re-checking email every five minutes throughout the day, endless internet searches that include googling oddball places around the earth for current ship news, running personal anxiety control checks, and performing our own oil-changes/lawn-mowing/childcare or any other major household chore.  I think the household chore of Rich's that I hate taking over the most is when we receive door-to-door solicitors who somehow manage to squeak through our security building and around my large "No Soliciting" sign.  When Rich gets his hands on those guys, their removal is sheer poetry.

We were lucky enough to get him back the week before the ship landed, via a military "space available" flight that returned from their last port in Hawaii.  This explains my eventual disappearance into the black hole of random, routine-less, overwhelming chaos -- the emotional tornado that usually occurs when there are too many stories to tell and not enough hours in the day to do it all.  I love it.

Finding him was the first order of business, however, and I thank my lucky stars that my sister-in-law Brenda and mother-in-law Barb were part of the welcoming committee.  After meeting up in the beautiful cocktail lounge of nearby Hotel Del Coronado to plan our assault, we found ourselves falling down the rabbit hole of a dark military base with few accurate directions -- driving around (and on) runways.  I find it appropriate that I am married to a sailor as I can now swear like one, and between three brains (and an angel of mercy second-class sailor in a white truck) we managed to find the terminal twenty minutes before Rich's flight arrived.

We all freaked out.  There aren't enough hugs and kisses in the world to give a guy who was missed so much.  None of us had planned to take photos, we just planned to maul Rich with love.  My inadequate cell phone camera will have to do.  When Rich got home, it was Cody's turn to freak out and do the Doggie Dance....she went screaming down the hall and hasn't let him out of her sight since he's been back.

This note goes out to our own seafaring sailor known by many names: Milkbone, Double-D, BigD, Ditto, and D-Dizzle....

Welcome Home!!!!

Radio Free BRP: Wild Eyed Boys

The Boys Are Back in Town.wma

Radio Free BRP's favorite traditional homecoming tune -- no explanation necessary.  If I go under for a little while, don't worry about me.  It just means that I've died and gone to heaven.

"Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven't changed, haven't much to say
But man, I still think them cats are crazy"
     ~ Thin Lizzy:
     The Boys Are Back In Town