Собака танцевака

Christmas Party

 Well first off I ain't got no pictures, what a shame.

 I went to a christmas party last night with my squadron, the NWR went all out and held it at a nice hotel right off the beach down in honolulu. There were prizes (Which I didn't win) an open bar (Which I couldn't drink) and a kickin after party that lasted till 4am (Which I wasn't old enough to get into the clubs)
 But I still had fun. Got to mingle with the exact same people that I work with, except they were dressed up and I got to meet their wives, which was nice. Also at one point I got out onto the dance grass and relearned the Macarina with about 18 other shipmates and naval family members. (Surprisingly I remembered how to do it.)
 Unfortunately I cant say that I have two days left next week and I get my winter break, like Rachel. No, we have a change of command soon and the new CO looks very anal about things, not to mention the Wing is still in town for inspections AND on top of that the 13th kicks off the first holiday leave period, which will be leaving us even shorter than we already are and we will be switching to a 3 section 12 on 12 off 12 on 36 off schedule for a few weeks, then on top of that we have a Det coming back in a few weeks, then another one leaves at the turning of the year, and that usually drives people a little mad. Can't wait for January to roll around, I know I'm gonna need a good drink after all of this is over. :D

Past few weeks...

What have I been up to lately? Well lets see retracing my steps...

  I just sat down with a mug of tea (I already feel like I'm plagiarizing one of Rachels blogs) after cleaning up my half of the room and making my bed, before that I woke up.

 

 Yesterday I went to the store and Lemon Lot and saw a beautiful blue 1976 Corvette Stingray with a 350 engine and a 4 speed manual transmission (Only 4% were made with that setup in '76) selling for only $8k.... so low, yet too high....

Friday night I succumbed to the worste possible thing ever. Smoking? No. Drinking? Nope. Hookers? Not even close. One of my shipmates finally pushed me into playing..... World of Warcraft...

But don't worry! That part that always pulls people in is stuff like guilds and social groups. And that wont work on me because I look down on just about everyone there with disgust. (That are SO immature.) Its almost to the point to where everyone is on 'Ignore' and I just go about my happy and merry little way.

But the morning of that friday I called in to USAA to see about a loan for a 1994 white Ford Bronco 4-speed automatic. It got shot down (Not in that it was declined, but they would only go up to $3600, which is a little over $1k short of what I needed.) Oh well, keep on looking, then.

The Thursday before that one of my shipmates kindly drove me to see two cars. A 98 Nissan Pathfinder (which was a clear cut 'No')

The work week before then was short (3 days. WOO!) Which made up for being switched to days last friday and thursday. Over the weekend I went to the mall and got allot of cool stuff. Heres pictures of angry pandas and a chicken.

The thing about last Sunday (Mall trip) was that it was the first time I had gotten out on my own. NOT with any shipmates or anyone at all. It was so... Nice. Probably the best day I've had since I graduated basic.

Hmmm... Well with that note I'm going to wrap this up. Getting tired of writing. Love you all! 

P.S. Sorry for the effed up photo layout. This shits confusing...

Time flys when you're trying to make 8 ton chunk of metal fly...

Well... Dearie me I didn't realize its been over two weeks since I last made a post.

 Life is good right now, had a good past week at work where I finally got back on nights.
 This past week I got to see more of the insidie parts of the SH-60B and was quite impressed with my own maneuverability. Finally started getting some Quals signed off, too. Like my Plane Captain, which is a big one. Why? Because being a Plane Captain puts you at the highest level of responsibility (Spots of authority noninclusive) as a maintainer. It means that you know how to operate all the Ground Support Equipment (GSE), trouble shoot any problem, and most importantly guide an multimillion dollar bird on the ground, as well as clear it for flight and assist the pilots in making those last few crucial adjustments before flight. In terms of malfunctions and mishaps, the Plane Captain is the last person to really see the bird before it leaves the ground, and is the biggest defense against bad shit. The average time someone takes to get their PC Qual is 9 months. Big Navy says it can be done in 6. Easy Riders are recommended to get it done in 3. Including the hours of hands on instruction and numerous test, there is also a board of peers which must be passed to become a PC. Big deal around these parts. The 'Army' doesn't even have PC's from what I hear. (Army Pilot about to take off: "Looks clear to me." *Yanks the collective up*)

 On a closing note: DAMN YOU BLOGGERT! I'm having troubles loading the only two pictures I have to show.

Nights

So I got moved to nights this week, and like my old command; Nights is the shit.

 Night one (Tuesday night) was probably the longest day I've ever worked in my life. Didn't really do to much which is what made it long, plus it was nearly a 14 hour work day.
 Night two is when it started getting fun! It was a 12 and a half out day, but I actually did my job! I attached cowlings, serviced hydraulics, helped put back together an aircraft, applied sealants. Everything I SHOULD be doing in an average work day. I was so happy that day I was helping one of the seaside detachments work on their bird (I'm Det O, the shoreside maint., but soon I should be moved to a Det, since I'm sea)
 IT was actually kind of funny because I had this one cowling on after about half an hour. It attaches to the upper rear tail pylon and has some antenna's which made it heavy, but they were also on short wires so I had to hold up this 30 lb, 4 ft long cowling and secure it in place at the same time. Fun!
 THEN I find out the AE2 who had me put this cowling on was in the wrong. I should of put on the lower rear tail pylon cowling first, because it has three small bolts that go in from the top on a horizontal bracket which was, by this point, being covered up by the upper rear tail pylon cowling. Ain't that something? Well I learned my lesson that day.

 Night three, last night, was..... ugh. From 5 to 10 myself and five other guys did nothing but aircraft moves. FIVE HOURS of moving about half a dozen aircraft. My feet are still tired. Pretty much this was my schedule lase night.
-Aicraft move
-Aircraft wash
-Aicraft move
-Aicraft move
-Aicraft move
-Aicraft move
-Aicraft move
-Aicraft move
-Aicraft move
-Clean up shop
-Left by 2230

 So it was an early night, and that's cool. The two nights before I usually didn't get back into my room untill at least zero three.

 But whats the best part about nights? Its a four day work week. No work tonight. ^_^ (Its more of a balance, since we had two 12+ hr nights this week)

GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.

SO. You want a new update? You want me to tell you how I'm doing? Yet you don't even bother to comment.... tch tch tch... And here I thought y'all weren't listening...

 Okay, so lets see. Friday the CMC took us (The new guys who had never been to a command before (Well, except Rogers, this was his second command, but he sneaked into it)) to Pearl and showed us some sights.
First was an early re-enlistment ceremony at the USS Missouri. It was the guys first Re-up, so it was something special for him so he chose to have it done here. The only person onboard the ship besides the CMC, us new guys, and a few other people from the command was the main tour guide, who showed us the spot on the deck where the Japanese surrendered.
 As you can see to the right I got a good shot of the spot with the USS Arizona Memorial off in the distance, as well as my shipmates walking off in their whites.

 Here is (From left to right) Harmon, Rodgers and Pope standing in front of one of the many murals of the small air museum on Ford Island not to far from the dive tower.
 Possibly my most favorite part of the museum was the floor.... No, seriously. You walk in and there's about 500 or so square feet of tile that looks like a photo copy of Pearl Harbor from Google Earth.
 To be honest I liked it the best because I felt like Godzilla walking on it. ^^

Just a few doodads of pictures...

P-51. I couldn't believe it was flying, I mean, the engines not even on! AND its indoors! GEE-WILLIKERS, MISTER!

One of the pilots here looked like he had dropped his ice cream.

That maintainer is NOT wearing his PPE.

THIS IS MY BIKE. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT BUT THIS IS ONE IS MY OWN...

Hawaii is so cheap on Air Conditioning. Not even the vending machines are chilled. No, MCBH! I do NOT want a 99.9*f Root Beer!

 Okay, prepare your eyes for the most tattered, terrible photo composure ever. 

This is the place where I got to dive. As you can see to my left is my bike and to my right are my fins, snorkel and mask, and I'm wearing my dive shoes and my suavin new green swim trunks. I went out about as far as three times the distance to those rocks (Including the distance to the rocks. So if you took the distance TO the rocks, then continued FROM the rocks mothing OUTWARD then I would of moved TWICE the distance as I did when I went TO the rocks (Sorry, but I had to explain that more to myself than to you.))

Before I took this picture I had a conversation with myself.
"Oh, what? Yea, thats right, I snorkel. Why? Oh, well, its fun, recreational, I get to see some fishies and get in touch with nature and its a great way to stay in shape. What? You want to know how I got here? Well, I took my bike. Its cheap and economical and gets me places, sure I'm limited to distance, but it has its benifits and its really a great way to stay in shape. OH! You meant how did I get to Hawaii? Well I joined the Navy. I was at a cross roads in my life and I knew I had to make a choice so I decided to serve my country. Its very rewarding and gives me allot of hard work and its a great way to stay in shape. What do I do in the navy, you ask? Well I'm an aircraft maintainer. I work on hydraulics and airframes, its a very good experiance since I want to get into aviation and its really a great way to stay in shape. Is it dangerous, you ask? Well theres some hazards such as being run over in an aircraft move, plus the chance of a droop stop giving out and letting the rotor blade come down and decapitate you, plus copper burrillium, but its still a great way to stay in shape. Whats coppoer burrilium? Well its a metal that is known in the state of California to cause cancer, and its a great way to stay in shape. "

Might as well give you something...

Havent uploaded any photos in awhile, since I haven't been able to take many pics, so I guess I'll dwell into my phone and find some old pics to post...

 MacDonald on the left, he was a cool guy. MccClung next, hardly knew him, then the MNormon from Houston; Lemons behind the monitor, then Foster being.... Foster. (He was a good kid, you just had to know how to handle him) Then Bennett.

 Aunt Jerry made me Meat Loaf on leave

 Foster than MacDonald (How did MacDonald manage to avoid every picture?)

 Myself being Me.... EVIL ME. (I'm a good kid, you got got to know how to handle me)

 Gonzalas. This was at A School graduation in P-cola. She came here to Hawaii, too, but she works P3's

 Some punk kid...

 My old room mate from P-cola, Asetre. He was so freakin cool, man. I still talk to him and his g/f who's trying to get her GED right now. Also, this is only half thye picture mirrored.

 Coincidently when I came home on leave I exited the airplane at the exact same gate I went through when going to Great Lakes. Me and the other guys from Houston all sat at this table; Remember when I called you Karen? When it was 3 in the afternoon in Hawaii and you were spending time with Amy? Well I was sitting in the far message chair past the aluminum tree. I had a Banana Split there, it was the last thing I ate as a Civilian.

 Pensacola at Dawn. 

 This is the USS Alabama. This particular shot is from the exact same angle and spot as a motivational poster which hung up in the galley at Basic Training. Uncle David and I went there to see it, it was cool.

 To finish it off, here are a few snapshots of things from home that I miss...