Hanging with the NAVY

I got the opportunity to hitch a ride from Hawaii to San Diego on the Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier USS Carl Vincent, the ship has a lot of history, I am pictured above with my buddy Rear Admiral Perez, he is in charge of this Strike Group.  This experience was very interesting, exciting and boring, all at the same time, Sailors are some of the nicest, hardest working folks in the world and it makes me so proud that my BEST Friend is one of them; Lt. Erik D. Schneider, he works in the “Mass Media Department” and helps command all the public relations from the ship, this includes the daily paper, press releases, the on board TV and Radio for the sailors, he has a print shop, and photographers, this crew together keeps everyone up to date and informed, while they are away from home....... 

    I got to eat with the Officers and the Sailors, which eat in two different areas. Officers get dishes, Sailors get trays, quite a different experience with the same menu.. I saw Fighter Jets take off with me being less than 100 feet away, we had a jet do a high speed pass, breaking the sound barrier right in front of us, the weird thing is the Fighter went by, then the sound after a huge BOOM!!!! You really get to know these sailors and what a close relationship they have with one another, this is not easy being away from loved ones, I was only away a week and I am going crazy.......  The days are long, real long, the Captain does his best to keep these guys and gals motivated, I am sure it is a tuff task. a huge city in a tiny tin can, everything is done for a reason and on schedule, there is a wake up call and a time to hit the rack call, the rack is the tiny bed you get to sleep in, if you get to sleep, because your so busy doing your job, 12 to 15 hour days are the norm. the captain preaches, “Situational Awareness” a great message. Basically be aware of whats around you, this message was real important after the greatly dangerous job of doing what they did, because it now makes all of them a target....

Easter, April 24 2011

10:13am         I am watching a documentary on the Civil War on PBS, I notice there is a lot of quotes from many people and a lot of notes written by the Soldiers, it made me think, do people keep journals anymore, is a BLOG a journal, will people of the future be able to read this or will it vanish when the server goes down.........

A Memory

Here is the what the Cabin in Wrightwood CA, looks like today.  My grandmother on my mothers side, MA, used to tell me that this was a weekend get away, but one weekend they stopped going to the low land, as she called it, and this was now home...  There is a couple of things you can never forget about this place in the hills, and that is Pine needles, Pine cones and Ladybugs.... there is plenty of this stuff to go around... As a youngster I did realize my grandparents weren’t rich by any means, and every Thanksgiving it was our job as kids to write a christmas list for Santa... I remember Ma asking what I wanted for Christmas, me being the cleaver kid I was, said “I want gold” thinking she could never get that for me.....  WELL....... Christmas came around and sure enough out witted by a woman as old as her tongue and older than her teeth.... She had went outsie and selected a giant pine cone and painted it Gold...... Yeap out smarted again...... I believe she also gave me some PJ’s she had made, this was a common occurrence around the holidays while we were young....