Leave is pretty good so far. At least no one from work has called yet, of course the time is young it's only been a couple of days. I finally saw Two Towers. It was a kick ass movie. If I were Frodo I would have been pissed off to be so close the end of the journey only to be dragged kicking and screaming in the opposite direction by a moron, like brother like brother. Shouldn't be hard this prince of Gondor. Unlike his brother he didn't have first hand knowledge on the dangers of the ring. He was under the same impression that his brother was at the secret counsel meeting in the first movie. There was a couple of parallels in the movie to christian faith. When Sam continued call golam names and look down upon him Frodo defended him. What Sam couldn't see was how the ring had done to the poor creature. Frodo knew this because how exactly it was since he was under the same stresses even though he didn't wear it. This is the same with life we all suffer weaknesses, but not all the same weaknesses. Those that that do suffer from sexual desires but not from smoking or eating they cannot understand pain of smokers that know that smoking is bad for them but can't quit, or the obese that suffer from the cruel cycle.

Here I am back on duty. I had a good weekend right after I departed the ship on Saturday I jumped on my bike and headed out to where ever I could get to in 30 min. That place turned out to be the Embarcadero. right across the street from the Holiday Inn. I had to go across the street to the Holiday Inn to shake the money tree so I could get something to eat. While I was over there I couldn't help but to dwell on the irony that in a practically short time ago I just won the Mongoose that on that day I was riding for only the second time since I brought it home. Oh well sometimes I'm easily entertained. After I hit the ATM I ate at Anthony's fish groto, and read a little. I'm reading creators, the author of the book escapes me at the moment. I've been trying to get through this book since I reported aboard the Princeton. Actually that's a lie, I first started reading the book when I took humanities at Pasadena City College while I did a stint as a recruiter. I didn't pass the class, I'm not very good at homework, and the teacher had long ago forgot what he was teaching and why. Since then though I've at times would pick up this book and with great determination try to read the book through. Of course that would only last for about a month, after that I would put the book away and pull out a novel instead. It isn't that I think the book is dry or boring, it's just there are a lot of names and number to know. I would just read for awhile but after that I want to know who these people are, or what that word means. So I would put the book down till I can do a little research only to forget about it dragged away from the topic by life. The chapter that I'm making the effort on this time is on the mechanincal clock. Thus far all I've picked up was that at first clocks were huge, like bell tower huge. Instead of the clock traveling the craftsmen would have to travel to the customer. With exception of one clock that was made one Italian city to be rigged in Vienna for the pope. Anyway, just like most other crafts and sciences it was thanks to persecution that clockmaking improved. When the persecution of the protestant church that drove europian clockmaker to Switzerland, and England, and later from england to Italy. This brought people into a tighter competition with each other so for survival sake they had to improve or get out of the biz, in some things evolution does work. It was the persecution of Minorities in europe during W.W. II that brought many a scientist to the U.S. and help bring us into the Nuclear age. Well that was about all I got through before I finished my lunch. As I left I noticed two things, one I failed to beat the rain. It had been falling for a at least a good ten minutes while I was chillin' with a beer. I also noticed that I had left my keys on the ground right next to my brand new bike. All anyone passing by had to do was pick up the keys and voila I'm walking. Right next to the bike was a homeless guy begging for money. I was so happy I gave him what I had in my wallet all seven bucks worth. I don't normally give money, it is much better to give food but I was in a hurry to get back, seeing how now that I body temp had dropped while resting I was freezing. When I gave him the cash you would have thought that I gave hime fifty bucks. I was suppose to go shopping when I got home. The plan was to take a shower, and head on out and Christmas shop. Nope not I, I wasted the rest of the day in front of the tube. It was still rain, it so cold, I'm so tired from duty, whine whine whine. I didn't even get any laundry done.
All the things I wanted to do on Saturday I had to do on Sunday. I didn't get out of the house till about 14:30 because of laundry. I got my christmas list download from Leona, thank god for sisters. I got lot of good stuff, oh yeah I even got stuff most of the people on the also. The best thing I like about Christmas shopping, and also the worst thing about it , is when I shop it's one for you, and one for me, one for this guy and one for me. I saw a multi - remote that would be fun if I can get it to work, It has a touch screen and can be programmed to operate my audio system, television set, and dvd player. I also got another one for mom & dad since they have so many remotes for so many diferent things they have to search for so long for the right remote it would be easier to just keep getting up to change the channel. I also got some software for me, one to help clean the garbage out of my harddrive and another one to help speed up my system so games flow easier. I also splurged for Windows me. I have XP on my laptop now. Me requires 32 megs of ram and XP requires 64 megs, and lastly I originally had Me, but lost the restore disk. So if after the first two my system still hangs up I'll reinstall the ME. I had a talk with the cash register guy while I checked out my goods. He's a Mac fan. Hey Macs are cool, they're fast, user freindly, and less crashes, but most softwore developer program for PC's. Now one COULD go out and get an emulator so one could use PC app's, but a joke written in english is funniest when told in English, just like a joke in arabic loses a little something when told in english. So I off I go to get more presents, A CD for beau, Clothes for Dom', oops the book for Maria is sold out. After the running around I head to Gordon Birsch for a Beer and a steak. Gordon has good beer, and the pot stickers are bad ass, I even liked the steak, but their steak sauce needs alot of work. For a steak sauce it was more of a sweet and sour. No pepper, garlic, or any other kickin' spices. The waitress, Gina, was very helpful and tried hard to be freindly. I didn't leave much of a tip though, I thought it would have been awkward to ask for change for a twenty just so I could peel off a couple of one's. I guess I'll have to eat there again, sigh oh the agony. I'll just have to remember to bring my own stek sauce.

What a beautiful, beautiful duty day. We're having a force protection week, and I have it today and probably tomorrow also. It all started at 07:30, BMC came up to me and said you and Tiffany need to be in the boat right now. It took a little while before we got our game plan down after we got the boat underway. At first we were giving everyone a warning to stand clear of our ship even the Public Work boats. I quickly put a stop to that I let the boat officer know that I would Prosecute ( fancy word for Investigate someone), but I won't tell everyone to stand off. I told him that if we did that in Thailand then it would kind of hard get rid of our sewage. We stood out there till 12:30 looking for "bad guys". We did chase off one Civilian craft though that had strayed outside the channel Since big ship use the channel small boys tend to stray out like this, mush safer that way. After warned the craft off though the port security started running people down that might interfere with the excersize to warn then earlier. When the real "bad guys" showed up they played cat and mouse. First they tried to get us to stray outside the set limits of our jurisdiction. If we were actually moored up at country Orange real bad guys would do this. Make you outside and then try to make you engage. If you do then your screwed, it would be like an invasion or would be once they twisted the hell out of it. Real Rules Of Engagement stuff. Anyway we did venture over the line but I recovered my senses and headed back in despite what the Force Protection Officer was telling me to do. When that didn't work then the bogey made me follow him to the farthest part of my envelope so his buddy could sneak in behind us and attack our ship. When the ship called us to respond we took off but found that the ship already had themselves covered so we headed to find out what bogey was doing. What he was doing was speeding into the slip to attack the other ship in our little detail. So I hightailed it in and we paralelled his course and speed and worned him that he was in a restricted area. While we talked to him I slowly closed the distance between us and I fendered him 180 degrees that bogey was headed out bound. That was when I made a crucial mistake. As soon as he was headed away from a protected unit I was suppose to back down so if he tried to peel off I would be able to cut him off before he could get in close enough to cause any damge. Well I didn't. actually I just finished thinking to myself that I was on the wrong side of this craft. he was on the inside so if I fendered him I would actually be pushing him into the unit I was trying to protect. That was when he broke off and headed into his target. If this were a real bogey I would have made the news in a bad way, I would have been the guy that fumbled and caused all those people to become dead or wounded at some liberty port in Singapore.
After that it was stand by for our reliefs from our partner in this excersize. they came along eventually, about 30 minutes late, in bug clunky Gig. They don't run very fast fast I think their top speed is somewhere around 13 knots. Now that was quick when I first started running boats in 1990 but now days that would be like the cops running down a perp driving a Porche in a dump truck. I know if I had to relieve RHIB in a big clunky I would have been embarassed, I felt sorry for the cowswain. After we parked the RHIB and headed in I was ready for some eats. That was too bad for me. It was disgusting while we were out in the boat the mess decks brought down ten pizza to feed the duty section and the slackers went through it like a bunch half starved dogs. When I got there there were only 4 boxes left and not even a piece of crust left. Need less to say I put on my " Fuck You " face. When they asked for slickers because of the weather coming in I told them I would work on it and sat for another ten minutes going through my e-mail. By the time I actually got them their rain suits the rain had gone. Eventually I'll forget this incident but for now I'm still enraged whenever I talk about it. It showed a lack a leadership by just throwing pizzas out there as if it were slop for pigs with not a one to babysit to ensure everyone on watch was covered.

Yesterday was sweet. After a successful week underway I got to play picket boat on the way into 32nd street. It was just like on the way out but I didn't have a bogey to dance with. That's too bad though, I actually wanted a rematch after the last excersize. Last time we headed out to sea one of the other ship's sent one their boats to play bad guy so we could practice on shouldering techniques. I got a couple of times but couple other times instead of matching turn for turn I kicked the boat into reverse and let him get by. another time I DID match him turn for turn and ended up going head to head with him. Now if this were an actual game of tag with an actual bad guy I could have pulled it off pulling hard over at the last second right into his pivot zone, but for this dance it didn't because he got by. But the second time as picket boat I just checked out other boater as if we were going through the straits of Malaca. The first boat to be Interigated was a sail boat headed out fish. Right when we got alongside the sail boat the ship told us to break off and take station off of the port bow. I tried to keep the turn light before kicking the throttle up but I still left a good bit of wake behind to leave a lasting impression. We had along with us on this little stroll the chief of staff for the battle group. He was a pretty fun guy for a capt. every time we caught air going across the ships wake, take a hard roll while doing high speed turns he was like a kid in a candy store whooping and hollering. As we passed under the Cornado bridge he mention how bad traffic to North Island was so bad that he rode his bicycle in most times. I figured, Okay he must live at Point Loma or somewhere else equally close by. Nope, he rides in from Rancho Benardo. He says it takes him 2 hours to get to work by bike. It takes me two hours to get to the Gas Lamp from from Mission Valley. Of course that should drop off with my new bike, but more on that later.
It took me awhile to get off work after the ship tied up in San Diego. The rest of the division left at about 10:00, but since the holiday period straddles the end of the quarter the work center supervisors have to submit their boards for the next quarter to OP's before we can go home. As usual though I was the last one. I made some changes as we went through inspection after inspection on our way to INSURV. So before I could generate QTR 13 I had to have my edits finalized by the dept. rep.. I asked BMC to ask him, that was the right thing to do. However when I thought that avenue was taking to long I approached him on my own, that was a stupid thing to do. After I talked to him he went and told OP's my dilemma, and OP's being the wonderful sweet boss that he is automatically started acting like I was a liar and a cheat. This man is a knucklehead I could keep his ass out of hot water for his entire career but could I expect a break. NOOOOOO, in the end I just abandoned the the edits and put them in after I generated the new quarter. So after printing up the next QTR I sat after hours with chief Jones going line by line making the corrections that I had in there oringally. I got out there at about 14:30, just in time for a nap and the Christmas party.
I planned on heading out from my house to the party at about 16:30 so even if I hit traffic I could still be there 30 minutes before the party. Of course I didn't count on how tired I usually get after being underway. So when I woke up at 1730 I freaked, I just threw on some clothes that were lying about and took off. Of course the clothes I threw on were the same clothes I had on at work. Though they were still clean and good enough for a casual party they were noticed. actually I only cared a little, I didn't come to the party to socialize. I came to the party because it was $5.00 a plate, which is a pretty good price for dinner. Of course when I saw what they were giving away for the raffle I had another reason to stay. One of the prizes was a soft tail Mongoose mountain bike, so I stayed just for the off chance that my name would be called, just to see who won the bike. It was a long wait I'm telling you, just before the music started they raffled some gifts. After that was an hour of music and then we could finally get to the raffling again. I didn't have a date so the dancing was excruciatetingly long. There is also the minor detail that I really don't like any of the people I work with. By the time the second raffle started I was begging quietly that someone should put an end to my agony and gave away the bike so I could finally go home. The first bike to be given away was a soft tail Mongoose mountain bike, oh joy, oh joy. After the first four numbers I could tell it wasn't going to me, instead it went to WEP's. I was little upset but I don't really pin my hopes on a lottery I was just happy that I didn't have to wait around just to make sure that I didn't have my name called for and wasn't there for the valued prize. So as I was readying myself to leave they announced a second Mongoose to give away. So I waited. I followed along as they read the numbers, and viola I won. I jumped up and ran and danced my way to collect my prize, god has been good to me this year.

Fun, fun, fun, another fun underway period. I'm rotation this time. BM1 woke me up at 0300 to tell me that Vic' had to attend I-div this week so Taylor had to go into rotation. That means I have to fill the gap. It isn't so bad I figure since most of the BMOW's are still having trouble piping calls over the 1mc then if I gaff one from lack of practice then oh well. That in itself takes most of the edge off. I even with all that I still felt a little twinge of nervousness piping chow because chow is such a long call to make.

What a duty day. I didn't get much sleep the night before. I just couldn't go to sleep so spent the rest of the night reading and studying. I did manage to get in about an hour of zzzz's and it did get me through to 20:00. However after that I was beat. Unfortunately at 20:00 I was on watch till 23:45. At about 21:00 I couldn't even keep my eyes open. I brought a deck publication to read on watch because OP's was the CDO. He's already told me once a couple months ago that if I were to read he wants me to read navy stuff. Either way though I didn't get much studying done. I actually read maybe a couple of paragraphs before I started drifting off. After awhile I would stand at the doorway of the Quarterdeck and just drift off. I would wake up just in time to arrest my fall. The funny thing is that I was like this until 15 minutes prior to the end of my watch, after that I was wide awake.
The next day it took forever to get home. I spent till 0900 working on the sides. For some strange reason the zer' 0 ' crew in the wardroom decided that over the weekend we're going to replace all the missing PCMS tiles on the gunwales. 15 of them are missing and they've been missing since August. It took two people all day to clean and prep four spots. Anyway after I left the ship I had trouble finding my car. I guess it was a little bit of the tiredness. I took a nap that lasted from 1300 till 1600, and did my laundry.

Well the week is over and the Princeton has survived another inspection. Just like 3-M inspection we did a lot of preperation covering every detail just to have the inspectors come through and browse our equipment. Of course this is expected, trouble is when the inspector asks to see weight test data, tech drawings, or whatever and the ship can't provide them. That's when the inspector starts looking closer and finding more things wrong that we didn't see coming. The cracks beneath the surface. Of course we did not emerge unscathed. We were missing equipment just like other ships, but most of it we borrowed from other ships on the waterfront. Some thing we were gigged on that were on board just no one knew it. We went out to borrow a dip rope from another ship only to find that the line we wanted was in the Lashing Gear locker. I'm feeling a little giddy like I do after a successful inspection. It's a good feeling when the navy comes to look at my gear and go way knowing what I already knew. Though my equipment is fraught with problems it's still under control. Today I'm enjoying a day off. I was suppose to go to a paintball tournament today but thay left without me because I was a little late, I thought I had to be there at 1030 and the van left at 0830. That's alright though since I have laundry to do and have duty saturday, church Sunday, and we'll be underway Monday. Doesn't leave alot of time to get things done. Times are getting short till deployment, Holiday stand down is coming up week after next. Four weeks and then we'll be underway till deployment. That's a lot of stuff that need doing till then. I have to close out my apartment. I still plan on paying rent, but I don't want to have to worry about my stuff and whether or not anyone has broken into my apartment while I'm gone. I also have think about what do I plan to do with my car while I'm gone. It still runs well, at least most of the time but it is old. It's a '91 corsica, not a very clean running car. I want to buy a hybrid someday as soon as they start selling them at a price that I like.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm in Las Vegas celebrating Thanksgiving. I must make an attempt to log more often, by the time I actually get around to writing most of the sense of moment is gone. But like I was saying I came to Las Vegas to celebrate Thanksgiving. Maria is here with her husband Beau, and her baby Emma. So I've spent time bonding with my great niece, especially tonight. She and Leona went to the store for items to eat with the wines that Leona just received in the mail. It took them an hour to get back, and with mom and Beau at bingo that left me with Emma. So I spent the hour walking around the house with baby Emma on my shoulder singing songs and rubbing her back until she slipped off to sleep. Then I would have to sit down until she woke up and then walk around some more until she started crying. It was mainly trial and error but I eventually figured out the rhythm. If she is chewing on her hand and she won't chew on her pacifier then chances are that she's hungry. After she eats, then the chances are that she is tired. But she won't just go to sleep, NOOOOO one has to walk around again with her ones shoulder until she gets sleepy again. All and all I learned to appreciate Maria's dilemma her well meaning but selfish uncle she can't pawn Emma off on others when she gets tired. Of course I didn't spend all the day babysitting. Maria didn't want to spend the day stuck in the house so neither did anyone else. We went to Hard Rock to take the self tour of their rock museum, which was basically wander around the casino scoping out the different rock and roll memorabilias. My favorite ones were all grouped just outside the garage entrance. All my favorite women, Jewel, and Sheryl Crow. We also hit Ethel M. Chocolate just outside of Las Vegas in Henderson. We took the tour through the factory to see how they made the chocolate and I saw a new hobby. So far the hobbies I've collected have been beer brewing, and biking, I would like to try wine making but that takes a long time. It takes a long time, six months before the first tasting. There is know way I could devote that much time to a craft while on sea duty. I figure with candy making I'll have get use to the bitter taste of cocao. That way, just like coffee and the sour taste of beer, I can pick out the true taste of the cocao. Then I can mix and match until I find the combo that I like. Then I'll be able to make a quality chocolate candy. They also have a water reclamation plant out back that they call the living machine. They use microbes, plants, fish and snails to clean waste water from the plant. They use the water in their cactus garden, and what ever isn't used is returns to municipal water for reclamation. There used to be a relcamation plant of this sort in San Diego but to my understanding nobody wanted the finished product so 95% of the relcaimed water went back to the sea so it was closed down.

Friday and another rope yarn day. Normally we would come in on at 0630 and go home at 1300. But since we pulled in late the day before, not really we were actually off the ship and on lib's by 1930, they let us come in at normal time. I wish I could say a lot was accomplished with 3 working days till INSURV, but I can't. Not enough people to go supervise. leaving new people making stupid mistakes which means more man hours, that we don't have, to correct the mistakes. so much needs doing, EGL's have to be accomplished, there is a new note on the PMS cards that concerns the handling and stowage of HAZMAT that I have to pen and ink onto over a hunred cards. That isn't even the last of it. My prediction is that we're going to get hammered this inspection and it's going to be ugly. But in the end painful as it may be, it's the last pain in the ass till after deployment. Yup after this inspection all that's left is operations and we know we can handle that. Just the same we are spending mad cash to order parts that should be on board. We've tried to get these items on board along time ago but at the time they weren't considered to be all that important. Now though we have a new regime and an inspection team that coming on board that isn't there for training, but just find things that are wrong with our equipment. So now we have a blank check and told to buy, buy, buy. By the time 'pac rolls around we'll be almost brand new.

Been taking the day easy, I have about an hour till I have to leave to catch the van to Seal Beach where the rest of my command is at. I went to dental from 0630 to 0900. I had an appointment for 0700 but I for the life of couldn't me could not remember the doctor's name. There isn't a central appointment center at the 32nd street so one of the dental assistants had to call around to other dept. to see if they had an appt. for someone with a name that resembled mine. While he helped out I had thoughts of having to get back to the ship and telling them how after they gave two days off to accomplish business I missed the business I was suppose to accomplish. But all was well, they couldn't find where my appointment was suppose to be but they gave me the eval I was supose to get. I wore my lanyard to dental, more than a couple of people asked me what was with the rope around my neck. I think that was a good thing and a bad thing. It gave me the opprotunity to explain it, but it was sad because I was on a naval base and they had no idea that a lanyard represented the heritage of the Boatswains mate rate. It holds my pipe which use to be the General announcement system before the days of electricity. It just boggles the mind the amount of Sand Crabs there now are in the United States Navy. The rest of the day was spent riding my bike, cleaning dishes, and the such. Well I've got to pack and shower before I go.

Today was a good day. Lot of stuff happened that I just kept telling myself I have remember to log this in. To begin with I missed an underway period. Well part of it anyways, I had to stay behind so I could make a dental appointment on the 20th. The ship is out for INSURV preps I was suppose to be there for the anchor drop check, and so much more that needs doin' before our final big inspection before deployment. Since I couldn't make it I'll have to catch up with them later on in the week and ride them back to home. I spent my free day just lounging around the house playing videos, gaming, doing laundry all that sort of fun stuff. I also had to help family. It seems that there seems to be some sort of legal trouble that required me to help serve some papers. I was expecting a little bit of trouble. I mean nobody likes receiving an invitation to court. It went a lot smoother than I expected. We went over to his apartment and asked for him, and delivered his papers while I played with his dog. My guesstimation is he didn't up an attitude is that I wasn't a stranger, but I wasn't really involved with the messy situation. Also was the possibility that he was expecting the papers anyway.