RETIRED WARRANT

Yesterday our federation leader resigned from the federation and when into long term vacation mode. As many college students, the game takes away from study time and also having a somewhat normal life. As his time available to play grew less and less, he lost track of the normal goings on in the federation and sometimes would disrupt things a bit, but in the long run he did a very good job while there, and we look forward to his return when he has more time to play.

Last night was ok, a few of us ironed out some misunderstandings and the game went on though I was somewhat tied up in the chat and wasted taking advantage of my turns. We got everyone taken care of and then since all fed business was done for the night I went ahead and went to bed early, even before the 11 PM news comes on.

Just before going to bed last night Skype started giving us difficulties and it was totally down this morning. I forgot how to use trillion and yahoo for voice so Laila and I just used text chat this morning for stuff. I hope Skype will be back up when I get home tonight. If not I will figure out how to get the other stuff running for voice.

I am wondering if it had anything to do with the earthquake in Peru last night because that is about the time Skype started acting strange, or it might be the typhoon going through Manila last night causing problems.

Today at work I almost finished the antenna classroom stuff and will finish it up tomorrow. I also watched Petty Officer Kelly move one of the workstations today. The new antennas we installed are a lot bigger than the old ones and when one set of them were rotated if they were in the wrong position could hit the workstation so he moved it.

Other than that life goes on and I will again be glad when the weekend arrives as I feel a bit beat up this week.

Well I have to say that yesterday afternoon and last night were very entertaining. In the afternoon after the class left for the day Petty Officer Kelly probably the one guy at work I am tightest with, was taking care of a problem which needed to be done with one of our two antenna systems. It consisted of replacing an antenna control cable. When he first took the cannon plug off the cable we didn’t have the proper pin removal tools and so the connector was destroyed, but we had spare connectors so he decided to replace it.

When he first started placing the pins in the cannon plug he used the little plastic pin insertion tools that came with the connector, but the plastic pin tools are junk and they get chewed up fairly easy, and that was what happened. He remembered seeing a high quality tool kit for replacing pins in one of the old classrooms where they are removing equipment and getting ready to install new stuff, so he asked Senior Chief if we could have the kit as they were just going to dispose of all the stuff in the room. Senior of course said yes, so we got the kit and he installed the pins and we test operated the antenna. Everything worked great, and then he had to put the backplane on the connector and dress everything up.

That was where the trouble began. The new connector didn’t come with a new backplane and he assumed since it was the same connector that he could just use the old backplane. Well the two pieces were threaded differently and so all that work was wasted. This morning he went from lab to lab and finally found the right backplane for the connector and then did all the work. Anyway yesterday when eh was trying to get the old backplane to fit Senior Chief and one of the other Chiefs were giving him a hard time and it was really funny watching them get on his case. Everyone knew it was all in fun so no feelings were hurt.

Anyway after that I went home, but on the way I had to get a book of stamps at the post office and they sold me this really gay looking stamp with a heart and love written on it. Well as long as the bills get paid I guess it is all cool.

Then the next order of business was that we were asked by our next door neighbor to cat sit while they are on vacation. Judy has two female cats and this one is a female so no problem, or that’s what I thought. The first thing that happened was the cat attacked Judy and scratched the heck out of her. Then the cat would not move away from the front door so that we could close it. I reached down to pet her and get her settled down and she scratched the heck out of me. I finally got a broom and kind of pushed her away from the door gently and then she went into the down stairs bathroom and would not come out. Judy went ahead and put her cat box and some food and water in there for her and we hope that she will get over being frightened soon.

This morning was interesting. I was starting to teach my favorite area, when all of a sudden it was time to fill out what we call dream sheets so that took up some class time. A dream sheet is what the students fill out to send to the detailer. The detailer uses the dream sheet to assign the students to their first permanent duty station so it is a very big deal for them.

They have to select what is most important to them, Shore Duty, Sea Duty, or Overseas Duty. They will rank these 1, 2, and 3 with the most desired being 1. After that each section gives them three choices for type of duty and three choices for location again prioritized. So we had them fill them out, and then take them home with them to think about where they want to go and discuss it with family and all. Then we will collect them tomorrow and send them off. The students will receive their orders in the first part of October.

After that I taught antennas for a while, but then got word that the class has to go to some safety brief at 11 AM, so I finished up the topic I was teaching and sent them off to the brief. My boss then had a meeting with us during lunch to set up evaluations and iron out leave schedules and all. I already have my evaluations done and we had already agreed that I would carry over the vacation days for the good of the job. After that I did some maintenance on a transceiver and now I will be entering grades next because someone accidentally eraser the grade sheet. And no it was not me. Actually somehow the grades for the last class are showing up with the names from this class. I will just keep a separate file and copy it via zip drive vice doing it on the grade drive. This is not the first time something has happened to the grades data base, so I will just keep mine here and backed up.

Well speaking of that time to get moving on it.

Well this morning I woke up to a shock. It seems the power supply for my DSL modem died over night. It is nothing too bad and I should have it repaired in a matter of minutes tonight so I will be back in business as soon as I get home.

Other than that I am not feeling well today. There has been something spreading around and I think I caught whatever it is. I went to bed somewhat early last night and woke up on time this morning, but since taking my morning shower I feel congested and I have been sweating. I also feel a bit weak. I hope it is not the flu coming on.

Also they are all ready talking about how hot it is supposed to get today so that is not good. Anyway if I continue to feel ill I will try and take off early and go home and take some medicine and all.

I didn’t blog yesterday, not because I didn’t write anything up, but because I was pretty upset with some folks and I blogged about that. I decided to let Laila read it before posting it, and while she said it is right on the money, she also told me to hold off on it, so I will.

Anyway without internet until I get home and I was not able to chat with Laila this morning on line. I tried calling her but the call didn’t go through and then she called me so I let her know what was up.

Well I guess that is about it for now. I have a lot to do both here at work and when I get home.

Wow, Friday is finally here and none too soon. This week has been so busy at work that I have really been jumping. Most of the week has been spent in Lab with has meant installing faults and repairing things that break while they are troubleshooting. Anyway, they are done for today and I finally have a few minutes to rest up a bit before hitting the road for home.

Well to continue my ship stuff the third ship I was assigned to was the USS Vancouver (LPD-2). This was the first ship I was stationed on as an officer and it was a very good tour.

In between Bronstein and Vancouver I had been stationed at Surface Warfare Officers School as the chief in charge of simulator maintenance as well as several collateral duties. One of my collateral duties was command career counselor and one day when I was trying to advertise some of the advancement programs the Executive Officer there told me that he wanted me to apply for the LDO/Warrant Officer. He kept asking me on a daily basis to submit a package so finally to get him off my back I filled out all the forms and got everything together to submit a package.

I never figured anything would become of it because I had not served in any really high profile duty stations, though I always excelled in all my previous assignments. Well the results came out and I found out that I had been selected.

I then had to call the detailer and get a set of orders. All I was offered was ships on the east coast which was not acceptable to me at that time. I did find that I could get the USS Sterrett (CG-31) which was home ported in Subic Bay, Philippines and was due to return to San Diego within six months so I selected that but continued to call the detailer each week to see if something closer to home was available. A few months later I found that the USS Paul F Foster (DD-964) was available and its home port was Long Beach so I selected that one instead. I still continued to call each week and was finally offered the Vancouver.

I attended officer indoctrination is Pensacola, Florida and reported to the Vancouver in March of 1989 about 1 month before deployment. One thing that was very nice about the Vancouver was all the room. My spaces were huge unlike my previous duty stations.

I did two deployments on the Vancouver with the second deployment being part of the amphibious group fighting in operation Desert Storm. Our marines hit the beach at Al Mishab, Saudi Arabia, hung a right and went into Kuwait.

One of the great things about Vancouver was that I was able to knock out all of my qualifications such as Combat Information Center Watch Officer, Officer of the Deck Underway, and Command Duty Officer. I also had probably the best group of ET’s that I have ever worked with while stationed there.

I also had the best Commanding Officer I had ever worked for in the person of Captain Clarence Burke. He had been prior enlisted and had been in the navy for over 40 years. He was really good at getting you to do things for him out of respect and not just because it was your job.

When we got back from desert storm I was contemplating extending on board but they decided to decommission the ship so I called to find where I could go next. I was offered the USS Ranger, USS Cape Cod, and USS Acadia. I flipped a coin and it came up Acadia because I was not going to go to an Aircraft Carrier. I’ll write about the Acadia next time.

All in all I had a great time on the Vancouver, made several long term friends and learned ship handling and leadership from one of the best captains I have ever served for. I still keep in touch with some of the guys from the ship.

Again I will put ships on hold for a little while as I almost crashed my car when I heard this one on the radio this morning so it deserves comment.

In Arizona, I am not sure if it is state or local, grew concerned about the high dropout rate of high school students. They came up with and implemented a program where they will be giving $25 a week to students that attend school and maintain a passing average. What the heck kind of message is this supposed to send? Are we now going to get these kids indoctrinated into the government handout system at a still younger age? This does not teach responsibility at all.

Anyway the callers on the radio were pretty much into the same way I feel and that is that we spoil our children too much. We buy them cars and games and stuff. We give them too much money, and we don’t demand them to take responsibility. I am guilty of it mainly due to the practices of the ex.

When I grew up, if I needed anything after starting Junior High School, I had to work for my own money. That meant that while I was in high school I didn’t have a car and I bought my own clothes. That encouraged me to make sure I was always employed part time and it developed my work ethic and my sense of responsibility.

These days we buy our kids cars, clothes, and the latest in video games. Trying to get them to get out of the house and get a job is like pulling teeth. They do not have that drive and initiative that my generation had in high school. When I was in school everyone had a job be it at a fast food place or yard work or something.

These days kids don’t work, they sit at home and consume. They don’t get their first entry level job until they are in their mid twenties, and that is a sad state of affairs. I don’t know how or when this attitude changed. Maybe it is the liberal schools or the influence of Hollywood, but somehow the majority of a whole generation has gone to hell.

This trend needs to be changed, but I think with the peer pressure and the constant brainwashing in the schools, on television, and in the movies we will lose this fight. It’s a shame when they know who the winner of American Idol is but can not find Iraq on a map of the world. I guess it is all President Bush’s fault though as everything is these days.

Well that is my rant for today.

I was going to blog about my third ship today, but on the way to work listening to the radio something caught my ear that gave me an idea on a subject to blog about. It seems that several college campuses around the state want to ban military recruiters from attending career days and things like that. There is another group that says if they are banned then the schools should lose their federal funds. I agree with the second group.

There is no one forcing these kids to choose a career in the military. Yes recruiters can get aggressive as any salesperson does but you do not join until you sign.

There are a lot of requirements that must be met before you join. Many of the people that protest the recruiters being on campus would not pass the initial requirements. I know as I attended college both during and after my military career. First all applicants must pass a drug test and a placement test. That is the first downfall for many of these youngsters that would try and apply to join as drugs are a problem for this generation. The placement test is where they determine what fields you are best suited for. There is a minimum score that must be met or you will not get in.

You must pass a background investigation to make sure you are not seriously in debt or have outstanding warrants. You must pass a physical to insure that you a physically able to get through basic training safely and that you meet the minimum physical requirements for weight and body fat.

Surprisingly enough many of the people on high school and college campuses would not qualify under today’s standards. And also since the force is an all volunteer force, I don’t know why they are upset.

I joined back in 1974 right after they stopped the draft and went to the all volunteer force. Most of my high school friends thought I was crazy to join, but I did and I see where I am and where they are as far as earnings go and all and I can’t complain. The military gave me lots of opportunities I would not have had as a high school grad and my family did not have the money to send me to college.

I went to college during my career and after my retirement on both tuition assistance and my GI bill. These were some of the benefits that the military provides sort of a payback for the long hours and the many months you spend away from your family.

I now have cheap medical care for the rest of my life, there is a small yearly premium that I pay each year. I also have commissary and exchange privileges for life which helps me keep down my expenses.

When I see hear about these people saying the military only attracts the poor and the disadvantages I have to say they are so wrong. The kids coming into the military are smarter than the average high school and college students. They are more dedicated towards their studies and their advancement than their counterparts on the outside. They are generally more responsible than the counterparts on the outside.

I for example was a straight “A” student in high school and qualified for any program the Navy offered when I took the entrance exams. I was also being considered for an appointment to the Coast Guard academy upon graduation, however my step-father talked me out of it.

One thing that was brought up was the fact that these protesters offer no alternative. They could maybe have the Peace Corps or something like it offer something similar to what the military does, but I would include the drug testing and the background checks.

Our people in the military are the brightest and most highly trained military in the world. They protect the people’s rights to protest against them. They are not war mongers and in fact many do not like war. They do know that sometimes war is required to protect this country. I didn’t like seeing my ship firing missiles in anger, but in today’s world with the terror attacks and all it is much better to fight them there than on the streets of your hometown.

So yes I would love to see all federal money pulled from campus’s that do not support military recruiters. Let their rich liberal staff and alumni pay the bills. Remember, freedom is not free and we have to have the ability to locate young people to replace the retired vets like me.

Yesterday I blogged about my first ship so today I will blog about the second. I served on the White Plains from November 1975 until November of 1978 and then after a brief stop in Orlando, Florida for recruiting school where I was dropped prior to enrollment after breaking my arm in three places and not being able to attend the school I played around at the Recruit Training Command for a while awaiting orders.

I received orders to Great Lakes as an instructor and after a great tour of instructor duty I received orders to the USS Bronstein (FF-1037) homeported in San Diego. I left Great Lakes in February 1982 and attended Petty Officer Leadership and the AN/WSC-3 maintenance course before reporting on board in June, two weeks prior to a Westpac deployment.

When I got there I was not ready for the nightmares to come. I had relieved someone who had been a Ground Control Radar Technician. He was having difficulty making Chief because he had no sea time so he asked the detailer to assign him to a short sea tour and he was assigned to Bronstein during a yard period.

I did not have a chief so I was going to be the one in charge. The first order of business was to try and get through a 3M re-inspection as they had failed the regular inspection. They also failed the re-inspection pulling the whopping score of 35%.

That was just the first of many things that were not up to par when I first got there. The calibration program was in the toilet as they had only 21% of the test equipment calibrated. There was broken equipment all over the place and the first response to any problem was to call for assistance. I only had two “A” school graduate’s one being a Crypto Tech and the other was a loser that was not allowed to touch any equipment.

I went ahead and started trying to get things corrected and after each work day I held classes in the shop to teach the non school grads electronics. I did the best I could during the deployment, keeping things working and when we got back to San Diego after the deployment I was able to get everything straightened out and running right.

When we got ready for the next deployment we passed the 3M inspection with a grade of 98% and the test equipment program was at 97%.

Also I had the best technicians in the destroyer squadron by then. The next deployment was a dream as we hit all the ports in the north like Hong Kong, Manila, and Subic, then we went on a Southpac hitting the Solomon Islands, Australia, New Zealand and several others.

I reenlisted for a school just before departing the ship at the end of my tour and also gained my Enlisted Surface Warfare Qualification just before transferring. I was the first blue shirt to get that qualification on board. Just as I was leaving in August of 1985, I found out that I have made Chief Petty Officer which I put on when I got to ET “C-7″ school on my way to my next duty station Surface Warfare Officer’s School, Pacific in Coronado, Ca.

All in all the tour was hard, but it made me grow as both a leader and a technician. It was my first chance to either excel or fall on my face and I feel I did a good job that set me up for a good future.

Anyway that was ship number 2 and I will blog about ship number three tomorrow.

The weekend is over and another Monday is here. Hopefully it will be a quiet week. I did get back to Stargate Warriors last night and so now hopefully I will be able to convince some of the fed members to start working towards a goal of having us all at about the same PR level to save turns and for better protection.

I have been playing around a bit with the My Space account. It is almost the same as this one here on Blogdrive and I am just going to copy the posts I make here as I am lazy and already maintaining two blogs.

It is easier to post pictures on Blogdrive maybe because I have a premium account. Anyway I actually blogged over the weekend as you can notice. It was fun blogging about Navy stuff again so I was thinking of posting some more ship stuff. I just don’t have the ability to get on the Internet at work to download some pictures. So I will find pictures and post them when I get home.

For the regular readers of my blog some of this may be a repeat, but it will be good for the new folks to catch up with things about me. It will also give me a chance to make my blog a little more interesting I hope.

After I joined the Navy in 1974 they sent me off to boot camp in San Diego and then a few schools in Great Lakes, Illinois. I attended Basic Electronics and Electricity, Electronics’ Technician Class “A” School – Radar, and Interior Communications Technician Class “C” – CCTV Systems schools. I completed all my schools by November 1975 and then left for my first ship, USS White Plains (AFS-4) homeported in Yokosuka, Japan.

I was nervous about going to my first ship and even more nervous knowing it was homeported in another country, but all in all it turned out to be a great duty station and I saw a lot of the world while being stationed there.

I reported as a young ETR3 (Electronics Technician Radar Third Class Petty Officer) and was immediately assigned to the ship’s closed circuit television station as the maintenance man. The system was not fully installed and the ship was in the yards for overhaul so my first task was getting everything put back together.

The White Plains was an underway replenishment ship and was designed to deliver food and whatever else was needed to ships at sea. We spent a lot of time operating out of Yokosuka and Subic Bay, Philippines since that was where we picked up our supplies. We operated in the area bounded by Australia to the south, Guam to the east, Japan in the north, and the Straits of Hormuz in the East, so it was quite a big area. It was also a hard working ship and everyone used to have to take part in loading supplies and working somewhere during our underway replenishments.

I was first assigned to the Cargo Control Office where I kept track of how many pallets were delivered to the customer ships, but was later moved to the bridge where I kept a record of course and speed changes. It sometimes resulted in some pretty long hours of standing during the replenishments but I learned a lot about ship handling and all that came to help me out later in my career.

I had a lot of fun there and it tested my technical knowledge as well as my patience because as a junior petty officer I was assigned to all the various collateral stuff that junior people are assigned to, like compartment PO, Laundry PO, Damage Control PO, and others. I did manage to make ETR2 while I was there and I saw a lot of the world, made some good friends, and gained a lot of experience.

So there you have it, my first ship and a little about myself.

Real quickly one of my friends had something nice happen to him over the weekend. My buddy Petty Officer Kelly was supposed to go to Africa to be part of the UN Peacekeeping forces earlier this year but was excused for medical reasons, nothing major, but it disqualified him. When he received his orders he moved his wife and family to the Bakersfield area so they could be closer to family and has been visiting them on weekends.

Friday on his way to visit he had a blowout on his motorcycle and was helped out by a couple of older motorcycle riders. He had his blowout at night in the Los Angeles area. He was walking the bike to an area where there were tire stores and motorcycle shops when an elderly man, he said 71 years old rode up and asked him what was wrong.

Kelly told him what had happened and the guy got him to a hotel to go to bed for the night. The next morning the guy and another buddy of his helped get the bike towed to the motorcycle shop and got the tire put on. They even paid for the new tire and got him on his way. When he tried to pay them back they just said next time he is in the area they would like a navy ball cap and they thanked him for his service to the country.

I love it when I hear stuff like this after you see the troops humiliated and marginalized by the press. Contrary to the press people do appreciate the sacrifices and all made by our servicemen and women.

Anyway, back to work now.

The other day while driving home from work I spotted this ship down at the Naval Base.

It is the USS San Antonio (LPD-17), the Navy’s newest LPD. It was very noticable as the superstructure looks so much different from this one, USS Vancouver (LPD-2) that I served aboard.

While the first ship of the class has been plagued with problems it could be a pretty cool ship when they work the bugs out.

Wow, Friday is here again and after running the class through the practice receive troubleshooting I may be able to call it an early day today. One could hope anyway. It will already be starting a bit late as we are having the students come in at 8 AM rather than the usual 7:15 AM because the military staff has to PT this morning and will be late. Since I can’t supervise more than 6 students at a time for safety reasons I have to wait for the military guys to get in so I have the additional safety observers.

I did not try and go back to my federation last night. I am still a little worried that if I resign from my temporary home and I can’t join SG again that I will be stuck without a federation or in one that operates at a low PR. A low pr federation would not meet my outpost needs so just to be safe I think I will stay in FV for the full 14 days I was told it will take by the game administrators.

Yesterday two members of FV resigned. One wanted to get back to the higher PR federations that operate in the 12 – 16 B range and the other left because he wants to stay with the first one that left. I guess they are buddies and where one goes the other will follow. I kind of feel bad that the first one left. He said it was because he could not go high to retaliate but he could have done that in either FV or SG. I don’t know why being in a top five fed and hanging out at 16B or so is attractive to these guys. I guess if you have the economy and all you can do it, but it just seems a little boring to me. Then again I don’t really fight much. I look for people to put in and collect my space programs.

I have one heck of a population for a miner and Laila and I after chatting with a few folks might go collective to double our population and the either revert back to miner or another race. My population is over 3B now and if I can get it up to 5 B, I can then start putting planets into agriculture. I can also shop my empire around the fed to get everyone system defense V and space program V (researched at least).

The other day I started a “My Space” account, and I haven’t really done anything with it. I mainly got it so that I could see Judy’s “My Space”. Anyway I guess just so that I have something on it I can start copying stuff from my blog over to it and posting stuff there. I hope I remember my password and all. I also guess I will need to download some pictures and put them on it too. I think there is a way on Blogdrive to automatically update other websites whenever I make a post so I might work on that over the weekend.

I also have just a couple more checks to write and I may have to make a grocery store run. Other than that it is supposed to be pretty hot over the weekend and humid so I guess I will run the electricity bill up by running the air conditioning.

Well I suppose that is it for right now. I have the lab prepared but need to check a few things out and do not need a repeat of yesterday.