Aloha Dump

My first liberty port ended on Monday, June 13 and we departed Brisbane, Australia with mixed emotions: sad because we were leaving, but happy because one month of our deployment had gone by. It was a fun stay despite the fact that 2 of my days there were spent on the boat for duty. But even the duty days were all right and gave everyone time to recuperate. We were moored at a grain pier and had to do a berth shift on Friday to make way for a ship that was due to get loaded out. There was some debate as to whether we would stay another few days or just get underway. Everyone was hoping to stay of course, and it all worked out good in the end. The piers we stayed at were a major international stopping point for tankers and other large ships to off and on-load their wares. These ships were so big and they just dwarfed our little submarine as they drove by. On my first duty day I saw a 900-foot tanker moor in front of us at about midnight, offload some containers, and get underway at 4 a....

G'day from Brisbane Australia! It took us a hwile to get here but we finally made it. Just wanted to drop a quick line and let everyone know what I am up to but will have more time to make a more detailed entry later.

The first long underway at my new command has come and gone but the 6-month deployment looms on the horizon. It has been an interesting experience being back on sea duty after being gone for 3 years and so much has changed, especially the security requirements after September 11. It doesn't really affect us at sea but inport it is both a blessing and a curse. The major watches on the boat are all armed and ready to go at the pull of a trigger, and after my pathetic passing of the gun shoot last month I hope I am never on watch when the insurgent horde decides to take the pier. The downside to all these loaded weapons is the extra set of rules and procedures that the Navy places on even the simplest of tasks, like turning over the weapon to your relief. Oh well, a bit of inconvenience for the chance to blow someone’s head off in the drop of a dime is worth the trade off. The underway was plagued with material problems which made life even worse than the normal situation of being...

So after an extremely nasty underway for our last certification before deployment I decided to take a week off and fly back to my homestate of Arkansas to see some family. It is depressing to find myself getting pissed here in AR at the very same things that annoy me in Hawaii. I guess retarded people are everywhere (no surprise there) but I was hoping to get away from all the ridiculousness at least for a while. I read in the local paper (Log Cabin Democrat, 5/12/05, Rural Schools Get Poor Marks, pg. 1B) about how southern schools suck as far as standardized test scores- my home state ranked 7th on the suck list. Coincidentally, I was just talking about the school systems in HI and AR yesterday with my family. The only thing Hawaii schools have going for them is that at least they aren't Mississippi who continually ranks as having the shittiest schools in the U.S. The ironic thing about this edition is that there is an article about the once thought to be extinct ivory billed woo...

I am ashamed of myself, really, for not giving this extended congratulatory handshake to my good friend Saucy Sauce who had a little baby boy not too long ago. My busy schedule has even prevented me from seeing him to give him a baby gift or something. Anyway, Saucy, you know I'm happy for you brother. As a father of 3 boys I can safely say you will have your hands full.

The Kokua Concert last night was freakin awesome. For those of you not hip to the Hawaiian language "kokua" means cooperation and is at the end of every public service announcement- "Please Kokua". What, you don't know the Hawaiian word for please? I have been waiting to see Jack Johnson for a while but his concerts usually sell out pretty fast. G Love was there and that was a bonus since I have been waiting to see him as well for about 3 years now. I got turned onto these two artists by a friend of mine when I started teaching myself to play guitar. Their music is fun to play and it isn't that hard, although G Love does have some riffs and harmonica playing that is out of my league. Jackson Brown was also there as well as a few local guys that put me to sleep with their slow-ass style of music. I love the slack key guitar playing but dude, play that slow shit during the daylight hours. Besides the fact that there was so much weed floating around we were get...

This is the 3rd time I've tried to make a post and due to technical difficulties I have had to restart my computer and lose my half written posts. I was going to just skip it but then I would terribly disappoint both of my readers. Nothing like a fire to bring the boat in early; today is a boat holiday so I finally get 2 days off in a row! My only duty-free weekend since February was flushed when we found out we have to support another boat's inspection. This almost makes up for it. Despite the retarded watch rotation this last underway it was pretty mild. A few drill sets, some training, nothing too bad. Our usual underway watches are 6 hours on and 12 hours off- we basically run on 18-hour days. Last underway we were in what is affectionately referred to as "Vulcan Death Watches", named after the Star Trek Vulcans who had an unusually high tolerance for pain. These watch rotations go like this: 4,4,4,6 and 6. They suck and do nothing but cycle the crew but for some ...

Darn, Anna Nichole Smith has cancelled a trip to Canada with some PETA assholes to protest seal hunting. Read about it here Evidently the sealers are getting more and more violent and PETA could not guarantee the blonde bimbo's safety. Too bad, she could use a good clubbing herself. Although I don't wear seal fur, or any other fur for that matter, it isn't because of a moral issue I have, it just looks stupid. It is kind of a social status thing for me, kind of like how the locals out here in Hawaii see how high they can lift their trucks. Although equally as retarded of a practice, at least the trucks are used for something practical, or could be used for some kind of off roading. Fur wearing is lame. And so is Anna Nichole Smith.

So we pulled in today a little earlier than expected. I guess when the periscope leaks during the deep dive it is time to get that pesky problem fixed. Of course the C.O. took almost 2 days to pull in but we are in nonetheless. I might feel a little better about it if he hadn't decided to get underway while Sonar was down, knowing that it was down before we left. To put this in perspective, would you get into your car wearing a blindfold and go to work? We stayed on the surface for 15 extra hours while me and my techs got the system working again. I forgot how much fun this sea duty shit is. I don't think the junior guys who had no place to sleep for 30 hours because the torpedo men had to move a whole room of weapons around shared my enthusiasm. Squadron riders took pictures of guys sleeping in spaces with makeshift racks because they had nowhere else to sleep. A Chief took pity on a guy and let him sleep in his rack. This would be like a first line manager in a civilian job l...

A fire on the submarine is probably the most feared casualty and it is this premise on which I based my prank. After a previous night's dinner of boat food and with 3 guys in Sonar, I cut loose a silent but violent fart that had been brewing for a while. As it escaped its dark prison I said with a straight but concerned face, "Does anybody smell smoke?" Everyone started taking deep breaths to overcome the blanketing smell of "the boat" and see if they too could smell smoke. Everyone of them got a full nose full of my ass. They have so much to learn.

Conversations have a funny way of evolving into crude bodily functions here at my new command and I am having a blast meeting my fellow crewmembers. I have duty today, for you civilians that means I have to stay onboard this boat for 24 hours, and a smokepit conversation got me cracking up. I was telling these guys about my colon blow pills that I take and how they make my farts smell like a stockyard in the summertime. One of the guys, let's call him Fred, told a story about his uncle who would eat this concoction of milk, cucumbers, vinegar, salt and pepper, and some other things that you normally wouldn't think go together with each other. So, Fred asks his uncle why the hell he's eating that nasty stuff and his uncle says, "I got court tomorrow." So this guy eats a foul mixture of a witch's brew so that he can fumigate a court room with his ass. I love this place. UPDATE ON DOGHOUSE: When I came in for duty today the doghouse had been fished out of the dri...

My first duty day was full of suprises. Promptly after turnover there is the following announcement on the General Announcing Circuit, the 1MC: "Man overboard!" I'm thinking that this is a drill to test the duty section's response time. Wrong. The ship's duty officer had fallen off the port side of boat when he stepped off the non-skid. A civilian worker was there when he fell off and immediatley fished him out using a firehose as a line. Hey, at least he had the forethought to do that much. The duty officer was relieved to change out of his wet clothes but not before another officer ran topside with the camera from the ship's office and rattled off a few shots. About 3 hours later the cover to the weapons shipping hatch, AKA the doghouse, blew off the hatch when a gust of wind lifted it up and over the hatch. The ironic part is that the doghouse had just been untied and rotated. Whoops, guess they should have tied it back down? Evidently, this is the 4th man ...