Back again...

Well we made it through the storm (both the weather and the damages). Now that we are done with the whole storm evasion, we have a new shit storm. The trip up to Cape Canaveral (I can tell you where we were now) was a little rough for all three Cutters. All of them had some damage and "boo-boos". The biggest one was one of our engines. We had turned it off on the way up because of an alarm and it ended up being the best thing we could have done. I can't remember what all is wrong with it, but if it hadn't been secured, we could of had a crankcase explosion and a fire. This would have happened in the shitty weather I mentioned in the last post. No bueno. That would have been an extremely bad day.

Good news is that the factory is going to give us a whole new engine. The technicians kept finding more and more things wrong with it. So our patrols have been put on hold for a while and we will be spending another month at home. They have to get a new engine, make the latest modifications to it, ship it to us, install it, run it and test test test it. So yeah, it's going to be a few weeks.

Another bright side is I can catch up on my work but even better is I can practice more on my guitar! I have actually learned a new little riff. I recorded it for you hear. Now before I put it on here, bare with me cause I seriously just learned it an hour or so ago. I have a tendency to be out of rhythm sometimes so it takes me a bit to learn something like this.

But if you don't like it, kiss my left butt check. Haha

So could you guess what I played?

Also I added a couple new quotes on my Me-isms page.

Ralph...

So we left Miami to avoid the storm. All I can say is we headed North for awhile. Talk about a rough trip. It was 6-8 foot seas off shore. That was the worse trip I have taken for awhile. I was puking almost every other hour. I counted 5 times. Uh. Its been awhile since I have been in seas like that. It wasn't just me that was sick so that made me feel a little better about the situation.

There were quite a few people that were queasy . It didn't help me that I had a cup of nasty coffee before and tried to smoke a cigarette. Yeah, not a good idea. I made it through the day and my watch. The seas were calmer this morning. Now we are moored in a safe, more sheltered area so hopefully the storm will pass quickly and we will have a calmer ride from here on out.

At least I will have a couple days to let my stomach settle and my abs to stop being sore. Then its off to the big blue yonder.

Breaking 100...

So this is my 100th post! I'm shocked I haven't reached it sooner, seeing as though my life has been a whirl wind this year. I guess that the winds have been blowing me in every direction except to the computer. Haha.

ANYWHO... I am so excited for what I got in the mail today! I got my next big adventure!

I have always wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I am mesmerized by people playing acoustic guitar. I love music and the feelings it brings. So I bought one! I'm just glad it came today cause I will be away from home and I didn't want it laying outside my apartment.

I won't be able to play it while I am gone, but I will keep you totally posted on my progress! Wish me luck.

I can't make this shit up....

Well things have been super crazy. So last week I got my guns quals and got underway for a day. This week was RFO (Ready For Operations). This is the last of the evaluations we have to do in order to be operational. Normally it is a three day event. We packed it all in two. Uh! It's hard enough to just do it in 3 days as it is. AND to top it off I had duty the first night so that meant no sleep for the second day. Yay me.

If you hadn't figured it out by now, I am soooooo not a morning person. It's even worse when I am exhausted and then only get 2 hours of sleep. Not cool. Tuesday night I ended up staying on the boat for the simple fact that it was 9:30 pm before I even got my work done. Wednesday morning was the first day of RFO. Here is how it went down:

0700 Be on the boat
0800 RFO shows up
0900 PT Test (run 1.5 miles, push ups & sit ups)
1030 (ish) Gear inspection
1100 (ish) Written test
1200 Lunch (after shower)
1300 Finally start my duty (that's 1:00 pm to you non-military folks)

I was suppose to relieve the watch at 0745 but couldn't because of all the shit I had to do in the morning. Of course that's not even the start of it, but I lost track of time. I was busting my ass all day. I was suppose to be asleep at 4:00 pm but didn't manage to lay down until 7:00 pm. I was up at 11:00 pm to stand my part of the watch until 5:45 the next morning. That was rough. I was so tired. I could barely keep my eyes open.

At 6 I was able to go back to bed. I didn't take a shower or even take my uniform off. I crawled in an passed out. Taking a shower would have decreased my time for sleep as would taking my uniform off (cause I would have to put it right back on). Yeah I know, that's disgusting but seriously, I was exhausted and I knew I would be sweating my ass off in a couple of hours running drills for the rest of the day. So why take a shower just to get all sweaty again in a couple of hours.

I knew I was exhausted by the dream I had. (and just because I had a dream doesn't mean I got a good rest). I will brief you on it, I can't really describe it all just because you kinda have to know the people and be around me to understand it all. That and the exact details aren't needed to understand.

It started off on the boat...go figure. We were out in the ocean getting ready to put someone in tow. The line started to take off in the water and I looked over the side to see what was going on. There was a huge killer whale under our boat. When I say huge I mean larger than our cutter and it's 154 feet. Any way we started to follow it and it led us through some channel with a bunch of trees sunken just below where the boat went. You could see the killer whales swimming through them and just playing around us (kinda like dolphins). I felt that they were just leading us into some kind of trap. We some how got one on board and we were going to let it go when my boss wanted me to go with it to see where it would go. So the next thing I know is that I have my arms wrapped around it's top fin and we go diving through the water. (that part was kinda cool). I some how make it onto an island and my boss radios me and tells "I need you to write this down" Now I am on a stranded island soaking wet with nothing but clothes on an a radio. I told him "Chief I can't" and then he replies again "I NEED YOU TO WRITE THIS DOWN" I finally respond (in a typical me fashion) "I CAN'T FUCKING WRITE ANYTHING DOWN! WHAT THE FUCK AM I TO WRITE ON AND WITH WHAT!"  Haha then the dream went off into another direction. 

Yeah, I was exhausted. Then I had to deal with day 2 of RFO. We did drills at the pier and drills underway. I am struggling to stay awake the whole time. At one point I started to fall asleep on the mess deck and the XO asked if I was ok and started laughing. Nice. I was suppose to drive the small boat and do drills on that but there was a huge discussion on the bridge as to whether or not I should. Now I have had a redbull and a 5 hour energy at this point, and multiple cans of pop. My boss said "NO. She is exhausted and fatigued, I am putting my foot down and saying no she doesn't go." I could have gone but things might not have been pretty. After a few "discussions" with my boss and the XO, CO and the RFO team, it was decided that I didn't need to go and that we won't be penalized for not having all the coxswains go. Whew. I went to my rack and layed down for about 30 minutes.

But things went well. We had our de-brief with the RFO team and they said we did awesome. They haven't seen anybody do as well as we did in just a short amount of time and building everything up from the ground. The test that we took were the highest they had seen in a while (which we didn't study for by they way). There were alot of things we got a perfect score in and only a couple that we didn't get perfect but were still good on. Hell yeah!

Needless to say that I am writing all of this today because I was too exhausted to write anything yesterday evening when I got home. Another great tid bit is that we were suppose to get underway on Monday for our first patrol but because of the storm/hurricane we get to leave on Saturday now. So much for a break. Haha.

Finally I am winning....

So after what seemed like forever...Things are finally starting to go my way. Wednesday I finally passed at the range. I went to just shoot the rifle and worry about the pistol qual later. I had to wait forever to actually shoot. They ended up doing mine at lunch. I shot the rifle and I was one point off from a perfect score. Yup. I blew it away (literally). I said that since I was on a roll, could I shoot the pistol. The guy was like "sure". I qualified on the first go round and got my highest score ever. Wednesday was just my day for winning.

Since the boat was already underway without me, the cutter boat came out to get me. I felt like a VIP. Haha. That night we ran night drills with the boat and I still had my good luck and notched the cutter boat at night with perfection. Man I love days like that.

The only hiccup I had was that I couldn't get out of my parking area that morning. The gate wouldn't open. Thankfully I had gone to bed in a good mood and it carried over to the morning. I ended up getting out by hopping the curbs to get to the next parking area and someone opened that gate for me. Normally it would have pissed me off, but as I was waiting for someone to come out, I put on my MP3 player and Sak Noel's "Loca People" came on. If you haven't heard it you are SOO missing out. Either way it made me laugh.

Thanks to me qualifying at the range, we were able to pass the evaluation we had on Friday. It was winning that lasted the rest of the week. I got the whole weekend off to just relax and recharge. We got another busy week this week but then it's all operational from there. 

Tired of failing...

Just when I start to get things going the way it needs, life throws another wrench in my sprockets. My apartment is finally fixed. It was done the day my parents arrived. Thankfully they were done before they got there. I wasn't home because I had duty. So that made me feel better.

We held our commissioning ceremony done. During which, the lanyard with the Commandant's flag fell. I ran out of the pilothouse to put it back up, only to find that the shackle holding the line broke. I get the flag raised on another halyard and all was good.

The day after the commissioning, we took all the families out on a family cruise. It took 4 cruises to get everyone in. I got to drive the small boat with my step-dad on it. That was great. I finally got to drive a boat and he got to be the passenger. He still won't let me have his boat though. Haha.

So we finally made it back to Miami. Yay. Sorry but that was sarcastic. Things here have been crazy. They put us on the end of the Island so we are being waked out like crazy. Alarms go off all the time because of it. Even the station did it. I called them up and hollered at them. One of the responses I got was "Really? You're a Cutter." Yeah really asshole. We are not a huge 210' that can handle that shit. Well, we can but that's when we are underway. Not when we are tied to a pier and have a brow over. They later apologized and didn't really realize what all happened when they did that.

But what has really gotten me so upset is that fact that I can't pass at the range. Friday when I went I failed on the pistol again. Not really out of the ordinary for me but still sucked. What was weird was that I failed on the rifle. Really!?! The long guns (shotgun and rifle) are my strong points. I have never had any problems with the rifle or shotgun. I did pass the new shotgun course, but you shoot buckshot so it's kinda hard not to pass. But the rifle? Wow.

So I went to day to re-shoot the pistol and rifle. I fail the pistol again and managed to get a round lodged in between my so called safety glasses and right below my eye. The round actually rolled down my eye lid and came to rest right below it. Seriously? Why does this always happen to me? The second big let down was that I failed the rifle AGAIN. Really? Again? I seriously don't know what is going on.

I have to pass the rifle for the evaluation the boat is getting on Friday. They are really relying on me to get this. I need this. It is a part of one of my qualifications that I really enjoy. It's shooting out the engines on boats that run. I started to cry at the range and then again when I told the XO. I really don't know whats going on. I always always always pass the long guns. That's my thing. I grew up with rifles and shotguns, it's what I am really good at.

 XO was surprised too because he knows that's my strong suit. He thinks it just might be because of all the things we got going on and it might be too much pressure on me. Well not really pressure, but I can't really focus because there is so much going on. Which is true. Friday after the range I had a coxswain board which also included a NCV gunner board. I was already so exhausted and worn out from the range I was basically like "Fuck it". That is the first time I went into a board with a "I don't care" attitude. I passed of course, but I probably seemed like a total shitbag. My fellow co-worker was on the board and he did tell them that it means alot to me being a coxswain and I was just mentally and physically exhausted at that point. I'm glad he's got my back. Good looking out.

So I get to go to the range again on Wednesday. I was told just to focus on the rifle and not to worry about shooting the pistol. I'm still good on my qual until the end of the month so I'm still covered for a little bit. They just don't want me to go and shoot and get discouraged because I fail then try to shoot the rifle afterwards. Which is good. I hope I can do better this time. I had the grouping, but was off to the right. Everyone seems to think that the sights were off. I don't know. I just think I was a little off.