Archive for the ‘Navy’ Category

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Three kids…arriving

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

As I write this, my in-laws are driving my kids over the Verrazano bridge. To Long Islanders living out in Suffolk County, it’s a moment of “Oh, I’m almost home…but I still have to go through Jamaica, Rockville Center, Baldwin, Freeport, Merrick, Bellmore, Wantaugh, Seaford, Massapequa, Massapequa Park, Amityville, Copague, Lindenhurst, Babylon, and Bay Shore before I get to Islip.”

To a couple of Okies and three kids, two of which have only been out of Hawaii for a few weeks, and all of whom have been traveling for the last three days, it’s “We’re almost there!”

I can’t wait to see my babies again. Then all that’s left is to get Cody out of Hawaii.

In other news, Lara and I spent about 10 minutes walking, 2.5 hours on trains, and a ten minute cab ride to Edison, NJ, to pick up our truck. Then, we drove three hours back. It sucks driving from NJ to LI during rush hour. It sucks driving from NJ to LI in a snowstorm. It sucks a LOT to be driving from NJ to LI in a snowstorm during rush hour.

Speaking of which: When there’s an onramp that’s backed up and you’re in slow-moving traffic, what’s the optimal method of joining the two traffic streams together? Is it:

  1. To allow only the existing highway stream go: everyone else can go fuck themselves
  2. To only allow the oncoming stream to go: everyone else can go fuck themselves
  3. To allow one from each stream to go at a time, creating a smooth “zipper” effect
  4. To try to force yourself into the highway stream when you see someone allow the car in front of you in

I vote for #3. It’s nice when it happens. I do everything I can to allow it to happen.

Unfortunately, being a nice guy usually results in #4 happening, as it did today. I let someone in a small car into my highway stream. Instead of backing off, the guy in the F150 behind him just kept going, I can only assume he was assuming that I’d relent and let him in.

It wasn’t until we were about to either trade paint or have me go into the next lane that I finally hit the brakes and let him in, but not without a flurry of screaming, honking and a few middle fingers. Normally, it would just end there.

I don’t know WHAT this guy was thinking, but he then stops under an overpass and tries to wave me past. I just shoo him on, which after about 20 seconds, he does. However, when we get out from under the overpass, he pulls his truck off to the median and waves me past again. I don’t know what was up there. Maybe he genuinely felt guilty about what happened earlier. Maybe he was trying to cause a problem. I don’t know. But I decided it was probably a good idea to just do as he said. So I blew past him. A minute later, I heard a honk, and he’s next to me, waving his arms and talking. I think he might have even been smiling. All the windows were closed, so I didn’t catch what he said. I really didn’t care either. I was over it. I just kept driving. He then sped ahead never to be seen again.

Thinking back on this, I came to a realization. Neither of us were right. He shouldn’t have tried to wedge in, and I probably should have just let him, in the interest of rush-hour-snowstorm traffic safety.

What happened was two stubbron New Yorkers acted like two stubbron New Yorkers. It’s kind of like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

Posted in Fail, Family, Health, Life, Navy, New York, Traffic | No Comments »

Causes

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Causes by flickr user steveevets

I don’t know when I stopped fighting for causes.

It’s almost as if this aspect of my life has followed the lyrics of Billy Joel’s “Angry Young Man.” I used to be a fiery orator, railing against this and that.

Somewhere along the way I lost my passion.

I lost my drive to be a songwriter. Lost my drive to be a professional web developer. And these are just personal things I gave up on.

In giving up on causes, I also gave up on fighting for things that matter to the people closest to me. As many of you know, Lara has Lupus. It makes her life difficult, to say the least. Today, she was having symptoms of kidney trouble, and it hit me for the first time that she’s sick. I mean, I knew it, in my head, for a long time. Unlike the string of doctors before she got her diagnosis, I never thought she was faking. But I never internalized it. I never really let myself understand exactly what that meant. I never allowed myself to look at her as a sick person.

That was a mistake. By thinking that way, I was doing the exact thing I was trying to avoid. By not admitting to myself that yes, she’s sick, I had unreasonable expectations for her. I expected a clean house, dinner, kids living through the day, etc. Even though I never said how much I expected, I still thought it.

I was wrong to think it. I had no business expecting a perfect sitcom home environment from someone who is physically incapable of providing it.

So I need to channel that frustration into another outlet. Aside from the obvious step of taking up a lot more of the household load. I need a cause.

Lara’s right. I should have been a dog.

Dogs develop psychological problems if not given a proper outlet for their energy. They need a purpose. And so do I.

So I’m going to start fighting Lupus with her. I’m going to let her teach me what I can do to support her and this cause. I’m going to practice my web development so I can throw up websites (good, standards-compliant sites) wherever needed. I’m going to leverage the power of Twitter, not only to network for myself, but to see what I can do for the cause.

Time to become the angry young man again.

Posted in Family, Health, Navy, Pictures | 1 Comment »

Mommy! The navy called me fat! Waaah!

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

Ok, so here’s the update, and one of the the reasons why things are so few and far between:

I’m fat. The Navy knows it. They’re firing me because of it.

I’m not bitter, well, not really. I’m a little miffed that this is such a bullshit way of slimming down the forces (pun intended), but meh. What am I gonna do, right?

So here’s the plan. Tomorrow (Christmas Eve), the movers are coming to get our shit. We’ll then be crashing at our friend Shar’s house for about a week. We’re flying to Oklahoma to visit and drop the kiddies off. A few days later, Lara and I are heading to NY, to my dad’s place. We’ll use that as a base of operations while I look for a job and a place to live.

So, blog posts will be infrequent (or more frequent, depending on mood, frustration level, and internet access), but that’s really not a change now, is it?

The kicker in all this is timing. The CO had to sign the paperwork right before the holidays, didn’t he? This means trying to check out of my command (and big Navy) during a freaking holiday stand down. What a crock.

But all in all, it’s going more smoothly than expected. My separation/radiation health physicals are tomorrow, and that’s all I’m waiting for to finish checking out of the command. I should be on track to finish on the 29th, my last day as a squid.

Why is it that when people get out of the navy, it feels like such a crisis? I mean, I’m not the first person to get out (nods to Sarge, Jenny, Angie, Misha, and Jason). They’re alive and well. Why will it be different for me?

It’s not like I’m not a marketable guy. My resume is pretty well fleshed out. It’s not really tuned to get me a job that I absolutely want (in the IT field), but it’s more than enough to get me a job that pays the bills, and pays them well. So why am I scared?

No idea. But given that the movers are coming tomorrow, I’ve gotta get back to my practice for corporate America: shredding sensitive paperwork.

Posted in Facepalm, Life, Navy | No Comments »

The state of affairs

Friday, November 21st, 2008

Well, here’s whats going on in my life at the moment:

I’m loving World of Warcraft‘s new expansion, and am furiously leveling my brand new Death Knight. I gave my guild leadership back to the original GM since my life is about to get real hectic. See two paragraphs down.

The kids are growing up fast, meaning challenges, fights, and standoffs. I have the I-Win button though. It’s great to be a dad.

I’m getting kicked out of the navy for being tubby. Ah well. It was (not so) fun whle it lasted. Still don’t know *quite* when I’m getting discharged, but I’m guessing within the next 2 months. We’ll be moving back to NY. I miss winter.

Still alive, still here. We write mroe when I have something a little more profound to say.

Posted in Games, Life, Navy | 1 Comment »

Lightbulbs above my head

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

    I’ve finally discovered, after much introspection, reflection, and medication, that much of the dissatisfaction I feel in my life stems form my profession.

It’s not that my job is inherantly bad or anything. Honestly, the Navy hasn’t been bad to me. No more than it has for anyone else, anyway. The bad parts come with the territory: military regulations, deployments, frequent moves, etc.

When I enlisted at 18… wait, let me back up…

I ran away form home at 17 to escape my insane mother (whom I ultimately blame, either for genetics or environment, for my own mental problems). Really, it was for my own mental health. At that point, the only thing I really wanted to be “when I grew up” was a songwriter. I know then (though I’d have never aknowledged it out loud) that that was a long shot (on the order of shooting a free-throw form here to Jupiter). I persisted with this idea as I enilsted in the Navy, as a nuclear electrician.  Honestly, I have no business in nuclear power. I’ll advocate it till the day I die, but I really do not want to be the guy behind it, and it’s not my strong suit.

See, when I enlisted, other than songwriting, I had no direction in life. I mean zero, zip, zilch, nada direction. Some people join becasue they have no choice, or no prospects. Some for the college money. Some to serve their country.

I joined because it was there, and I had nothing better to do.

Fast forward to prototype (the third and last step to becoming a full fledged nuke, just shy of my 2 year mark in the Navy). Lara and I are living together, and oops! Now we’re expecting. Well, my half baked plan of getting out after 6 years goes out the window in lieu of needing money for a family.

So I spend the next 5 years on a ship, hating life. I mean REALLY hating it. The deployments, the shipyards, the training underways… it was horrible. Now don’t get me wrong, the guys on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan have got it tons worse, but this is MY blog, MY life, and MY frame of reference. And in MY movie, MY life sucked.

After that I’m here, in beautiful Hawai’i, doing another job, that I hate for different reasons. Until VERY recently, I didn’t know what those reasons were.

My entire Naval career, I was floating. Coasting. Getting along with nary a thought as to why the hell I was there in the first place. Eight years is a long time to coast.

I have come to realize in the past few weeks that I was MEANT to work with comptuers. Not just to use them, but to build, repair, recover, and teach people how to ustilize them to their fullest potential. I kind of had this notion that I was going to be a freelance web developer, but I have to face facts: I know precisely dick about running a business.

So, after a decade of searching, I know (at least generally) what I want to do with my life. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that until September 2009, at the earliest, I’m not going to have a prayer of doing it.

*Insert the sound of George screaming in his own mind HERE*

I don’t know if it’s because I’m on anti-psychotic drugs, or if I’ve matured to a point where I could realize this, or if God Himself smacked the idea into my head. But I finally get it. I’m not doing what I was meant to. What I enjoy, and what I’m pretty damn good at.

*sigh*

Now I take my pills and go to bed. Tomorrow, I go back to pretending I’m something I’m not.

Posted in Background Information, Life, Navy | No Comments »

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