Just Another Silly Ordinary Night…
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Loading ...So the next few posts might be a little confusing …
Yes, I am in Newport, RI and at Navy OCS. And no, I don’t have access to my blog to write new posts. But here’s one anyway! It is a few days before OCS and I’m scheduling a few posts to be published throughout my stay at OCS. I have written at least one post each month on my blog for a few years now and I’d like to keep that up as long as possible.
So today is August 1st, 2010 and I reported to OCS this morning. Let the adventure begin.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Today is Thursday. Sunday morning I report to Navy OCS. I don’t have my official orders yet.
Eh… the wait for my official orders is frustrating, nerve racking, and uneventful all at the same time. While my processor, who my orders get sent to me through, is doing her best to get me my orders, she tells me that whether I have them or not, I am required to report Sunday morning, otherwise I am UA.
I continue to have this nagging feeling, though, that when my orders do arrive, they aren’t going to have report on August 1st written on them, but instead, a later date. I guess we’ll find out on Sunday morning!
Melissa and I left Cincinnati last Monday morning and spent a day driving to Washington DC. We then spent a day quickly seeing as much of everything we could in DC since Melissa has never been there before. It was kind of a fly-by sightseeing tour of DC. We saw all the major monuments/memorials, but didn’t really stop or spend too much time at any one of them. One exception, however, was Arlington Cemetery. We spent the morning until noon there.
Our first night in DC we stayed at the Navy Lodge on Bolling Air Force Base. The Navy housing looked very nice there and the view across the water to Ronald Reagen Washington National Airport at sunset, phenomenal. Both Melissa and I really liked that base. The second night we were suppose to stay in the Navy Lodge again, but due to some construction they had going on, they put us in a Quality Inn over near Andrews Air Force Base. And maybe I’m biased cause the Quality Inn had free WiFi … but the Quality Inn definitely trumped the Navy Lodge.
We then spent the next day (yesterday) driving from Washington DC to Boston. This was the day of driving where we really felt the lack of A/C in our car. A few sweaty hours in traffic later, though, we made it to Boston. I love Boston. My brother and sister-in-law live in a city called Waltham, and it is very pretty. Melissa and I went out for a jog this morning around the city while it was raining, lots of fun. Last night we went and saw Inception at a local/smaller movie theater. The movie was AWESOME and I think I spent most the night last night dreaming about it (which was a nice change from dreaming about OCS, haha).
So we have the day today in Boston, not sure what to do yet, something inside most likely with the rain. Then driving to Newport, Rhode Island tomorrow where we will spend the day, meet up with some people in my class and stay the night at the Navy Lodge there. Melissa flies home on Saturday and I report Sunday morning.
YIKES!
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. The level of nervousness is the fluctuating part, however. At times I’m not worried about it at all. Bring it on, let’s get this party … errr… started. But other times I am pretty much terrified, hah. Thousands of kids have gone through this program before me, many of them just like me, I’m sure. One week at a time, one day at a time, one meal at a time, and 12 weeks will be up before I know it.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Over the past few months as I have accepted an offer in the US Navy, gotten married, and graduated college among other events, I have stated many times over to family and friends, “life changes quickly!”
I have no real complaints about change. In fact I welcome it. If every day were the same as the day before, it would not be a happy life for me. I like and welcome change.
Today, I was up at my parent’s house cleaning out my old bedroom which they are converting into a nursery for future (starting August (not mine)) grandchildren. And of course I got all those nostalgic feelings while looking through old school projects, ribbons from the “Olympics” in elementary school, or some random object that I remember so many details about its inception.
A few of the items such as some favorite elementary school projects, awards, and yearbooks made it into a box that has a space in my parent’s basement, but a lot of the items I uncovered did get tossed. If I had no memory of working on whatever item I was contemplating the fate of, it was gone. Time to move on.
I’ve done no research in the area, but I wonder if there are other animals beyond humans that are nostalgic. I believe I once heard that elephants visit the grave sites of family when on journeys. But what really is the huge deal about keeping random items from the past?
When working at Apple, they refused to celebrate any anniversaries. Their vision was set on the future, not on that past! Or at least that’s the story I heard.
And now working for the Navy (even though I have little to no actual experience) there is tradition in every minute of every day, it seems.
Finding a middle ground of knowing who you are and where you’ve been in equal importance to where you are going seems more like the optimum combination.
I love new adventures and am looking forward greatly to the Navy, but I have to say, for the first time ever, my heart was a little saddened at the thought of really moving on from the city of Cincinnati. I knew Cupertino, California for Apple was temporary, but the Navy is a little more substantial than a 6 month co-op.
Melissa had a number of days off work this past week which we coined “adventure week”. We started off by going to the dog park, then on a hot air balloon ride, and the next day we went horse back riding and skydiving, and the next day we drove up to Columbus where we went scuba diving and camped that night. What a week!!!! I know every week wouldn’t be like that if I weren’t going into the Navy, but that week sums up a lot of the difficult emotions that will most likely be abundant when I head to OCS in August. Missing spending and enjoying time with my wife.
Three months will be quick enough, though! Enjoying the time I have now and looking forward to the time I have coming up in the future.
Cheers to that!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Continuing on my military/Navy booklist, I just finished reading John McCain’s “Faith Of My Fathers.” It took me a little while to get into the book as when I first started reading it. I was in the process of moving and getting married. But now that things have gotten back to more of a routine, the pages of the book flew by.
For those that don’t know, John McCain, yes the Republican presidential nominee of 2008 comes from a high and mighty lineage of top brass in the Navy. Both his father and grandfather were admirals and John McCain, in his time, was an advancing Naval Officer, himself. In his time as a Naval Aviator, John McCain was shot down and captured as a POW in Vietnam where he remained for a number of years. The majority of this book is recollections of his time in captivity.
The beginning of the book, however, does take time to tell the story of his grandfather and father in their Naval careers. It is called “Faith Of My Fathers” after all.
One major aspect of this book that I really enjoyed was the personality and intimacy that was communicated throughout its pages. You really felt like you were sitting next to a vet, just listening to him tell you his story. Through all the good times and bad, there is a level of blatant honesty that is surprising of an autobiography from such a well known person. Many times throughout the book I found myself wondering if the events that were unfolding truly happened the way that they were being told. Such unbelievable events and actions taken by not only the author but also by others and only told through the author are littered throughout the book.
While reading, I had many of the same thoughts as while reading, Lone Survivor. ”Is the author exaggerating or leaving out bits of information to make himself look better?” That’s a tough thought to get over when reading autobiographies. This autobiography (or even non-fiction at that) phase that I’ve been going through lately is completely different than my major interest in fiction prior. I have not previously had much experience with the urge to question the author and his story as I have had in these books. In fiction, it is just a story, the author has the freedom to move the story how he or she pleases. But these autobiographies are about true American heroes that have lived during and through some truly unbelievable moments in time.
John McCain, however, tells his story well.
There is a bit of repeat in his story and a whole lot of jumping around in the chronological timeline that gets to be a bit annoying. But it feels as though the stories are following a train of thought. He isn’t just recounting everything that happened, but telling the story as well.
After finishing the book, I thought for a bit about my feelings towards John McCain before reading the book and now my feelings towards the man after reading the book. In the end, I decided that the feelings were no different. I have always respected the man for who he is and his accomplishments, but hearing in detail, from his voice, the story of his youth and years in the military, doesn’t lead me, in any regards, to admire or despise the man. I feel more educated about his story and I admire his ability and determination to tell the story. In the end I just feel better acquainted to him as a person. More than just a political figure, I now know a little bit about the person behind the campaign. In the book he discusses at times, regrets from years past and struggles that he had both in and out of the military. Overall, the book glorifies his human aspects more than him as an American hero.
This book is not about politics and only makes mention of politics a handful of times. This book is really just about an American family put in extraordinary circumstances. Go pick up a copy, you won’t regret it.
ps. happy 300th post 
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Today, Melissa and I finally got back out to StartSkydiving.com where we made our first jump of 2010. I could not believe it had been nearly 9 months since my last jump! Both of us had made 17 jumps, which isn’t enough for a license, but done with all the classroom material. So we needed a refresher jump with an instructor before we could go back to jumping on our own.
That’s all fine and dandy, both of us liked the idea of having a little coaching and reminders on emergency procedures and altitudes before throwing ourselves out of a perfectly good airplane anyways.
We waited around the drop zone for a bit and finally it was our turn to get geared up and head out to the plane. On our way out, some of the jumpers that were just getting back in told us that it was just starting to rain a little bit at the higher altitudes. Huh, well that’ll be interesting!
Interesting is quite the understatement of the day… OUCH!!!!!!
If you think about this from a numbers standpoint, when raindrops hit your head when you are standing on the ground, they don’t hurt, they aren’t traveling very quickly. According to this site, a raindrop falls at about 22 mph, give or take a little depending on the size of the raindrop. Well when I fall from the sky, I’m traveling somewhere between 120 mph and 130 mph. You see where this is going? Do a little subtraction and there we go … raindrops hitting me in the face at about 100 mph!
And if this wasn’t enough, after we get back on the ground someone comes back from the computer saying, “Hey guess what! At 7,000 feet it was freezing rain!” So little ice pellets hitting us at 100 mph. And even then, when we weren’t being bombarded by a torrential … uppour … of ice pellets, the raindrops we were hitting were from the opposite direction they normally hit people. They typically have this nice round shape that plops nice on your head. But the top of a raindrop is all sharp and pointy. And that unfortunately is the side that hits you in the face at 100 mph when you are skydiving.
Once we got down on the ground we all had a good laugh about the jump, complained about our aches and pain and the such, but all secretly enjoyed having another story to add to our repertoire.
Now we nurse our wounds. Melissa was the worst off I saw, little tiny welts all over her neck and cheeks. There were even a few spots on her chin that it looks like rain broke skin on. I have a 3 day beard which hides most of my welts, but I have a few spots on my hands and face that the rain broke skin.
I know, it sounds like I’m complaining. But I think that jump was just so funny. Sure it felt like thousands of needles were giving amateur acupuncture to our faces and hands on the way through the dive flow and it definitely hurt.
But I was back up in the sky … and that is all that matters to me
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