Tadaima

Hello all. I'm back home from my adventures in Japan (and the surrounding ocean) safe and sound. Here are a few highlights of the trip.

After a long 10 hour plane ride and a 1-1/2 hour bus ride we arrived in Yokosuka. Luckily is was dinner time when we arrived and I was hungry so being in Japan it was sushi for dinner. Eight of us went out and found a sushi-go-round, where the plates of various sushi travel on a conveyor belt and you just pull off what you would like to eat. After a while we all had a pile of empty plates and full bellies so it was a good evening.

In between meetings we had a bit of free time to explore the city. The people were all really friendly and since the Naval base is here they are all pretty used to Americans and our unusual ways. Lunch was a bit more interesting, no we didn't go to the McDonald's, but to the place right next door. The menu was all in kanji, but there were pictures and I understand those. There's no point to being in a foreign country if you don't try and be a bit adventurous.

Downtown Yokosuka

The next day we packed up and boarded the Ship for a pleasure cruise, umm I mean for work. Even though we planned on working 12-14 hour days there was still going to be a bit of time for some fun.

Me on the Flight Deck before departure.

Being that I am my fathers son, the best part of the trip was hanging out on 'vultures row' and watching flight ops. I probably spent at least 10 hours just watching planes take off and land enjoying the sights and sounds associated with it all.

F-18 landing on the deck.

We got done with all of our testing early. And since the ship wasn't back at the pier yet, there are only a couple of ways to get off, either by helicopter or plane. So we got our names on the list for a COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery) flight. Me and 20 of my new best friends got strapped into the C-2 for the ultimate thrill ride from zero to the end of the deck in 2 seconds. Woowee! what a ride! After being shot off the deck of an aircraft carrier commercial airline flights are pretty boring.

C-2 COD plane

After landing at Atsugi Naval Air Field we had a 1-1/2 hour bus ride up to Narita that went right through downtown Tokyo. I wish there were a couple more days to explore Japan just a bit more, but it was not to be on this trip.

Our last night was spent in Narita (right near the airport) at a pretty swanky hotel. Around the hotel was a really nice japanese garden (hee hee).

Ten days after it started I was back home again and very tired. Was an awesome experience, but would have been better if Ash could have been there as well.

I'll post some more specific accounts of life on and around the ship. Till then.

Sayounara!

The Battle Rages On

A guy that was in my group at work had a sign on his cubical that read “Fight apathy, or don’t”. I always thought it was quite amusing, but as I sit here writing this at 4:30am, I feel a little apathetic. Yes once again I am on the sunset to sunrise schedule (1800-0600). That combined with the fact that there has been absolutely nothing happening and no reason for me to actually be here, but here I am waving the flag in support. It’s only supposed to be 2 more weeks and then hopefully the project will be done and we can head for home. Yeah!

In trying to fill the long quiet hours I’ve been reading talks from the last General Conference and the Church News. I came across this in a talk by President Boyd K. Packer given on November 16, 2008.

“I give you a strong caution. Be wary of the word tolerance. . . . We are not required to tolerate anything that leads to unhappiness. . . . Tolerance is often demanded but seldom returned. Beware of tolerance. It is a very unstable virtue."

Then after reading the talk from President Packer I read a talk from Elder M. Russell Ballard that was given on November 16, 2008 as well.

"It is the battle for the hearts and souls of Heavenly Father's spirit children, pitting us against Lucifer, the Great Deceiver, the father of lies," he said. "As it has always been, this battle is fought on the battleground of moral agency and free will. Regardless of the technology or the political environment of the time, it all still comes down to this: How are you going to choose to exercise your God-given agency? Are you going to choose to follow the Lord, or are you going to choose to follow Satan? It really isn't any more complicated than that. No matter how much we may try to justify or rationalize our choices, it still comes down to choosing good over evil."

Even if we don’t win every battle with the world, at least we can be on the right side.

Another Day in Paradise

It’s another day, or I should say night here in tropical San Diego. Working nights lately has not put me in a blogging mood, so I apologize. This last week I’ve been on the horrible 6pm to 6am shift. Yup, 12 hours sunset to sunrise. Working all night and sleeping for most of the day has put a damper on doing anything besides work. It’s all about work when you’re on TDY, but having free time is nice too. I really can’t complain too much I’ve had several weekends off and working normal swing shift (1430-2300) allows for activities in the morning.

On to a completely unrelated topic now. I read a couple of weeks ago that they published what the code names for our new First Family and Vice President’s Family (would they be the Second Family?) are going to be. Being the simple non-spy that I am, I would think that announcing to the world what your code name is kind of defeats the purpose of having said code name.

PS: If you haven’t stayed up till 2:30 in the morning recently, I wouldn’t recommend it. No good can ever come from being awake at this hour!

Rental Car Roulette

Here in San Diego I get a rental car to get myself to and from work, and other places in my off hours. It’s all pretty sweet, except for every 30 days we need to turn our car in and get another one. We are always booked to get compact cars, but the rental companies generally treat us pretty good and give us bigger cars. So I picked up my third car and it has been a mixed bag so far.

The first one was a Dodge Nitro, an ugly blue boxy SUV thing. For those of you familiar with southern California, having a big vehicle is not necessarily a good thing. The lanes are narrow, and the parking spaces are designed with enough room to park a scooter provided that nobody parks on either side of you. It was made worse by the fact that it had New Mexico license plates. So even though I’m an outsider here, I don’t like to advertise that fact. That and I didn’t like the idea of people thinking that I picked this thing on purpose to drive. So needless to say I was happy to get rid of one and hoped for something better.

Round two was much better, a red Pontiac G6. Decent car, good power, and it had California license plates. Yeah!

On to round three. I was hoping for the Nissan Z that was there, but no luck. Instead it’s a gold Chevy HHR. To make matters worse it has Oklahoma license plates. So once again I’m in an ugly, car and color, vehicle from out of state. It is not a big vehicle, wouldn’t even consider it a small SUV, its more of a large sedan. It is not that high off the ground either, but it has step boards. Huh? Is this in case Jiminy Cricket needs a ride and nobody wants to help him in? Overall not a big fan, maybe if it had some power it would make up for it, but alas no.

It’s only for a month, but who’s counting….

Flat Tires and Owwiee Fingers

Last week as we came back from grocery shopping I noticed that the rear passenger tire on the car was flat. Since we hadn’t driven the car for about a week and a half, it was probably flat for a while. Since there wasn’t anybody parked next to us I decided the put on the spare. Having never used the spare tire on the car, I had bad thoughts that it would be flat as well. Much to my relief the spare was in perfect condition. So I swapped tires and loaded the flat one in the truck. Because of work getting the tire fixed would have to wait till the next morning. Bright and early we headed out to a tire shop to get the flat fixed. The guys at the tire shop were really cool. They pulled the big nail out and patched the hole. After about 1/2 hour we were on our way again with all the tires inflated and all located where they were supposed to be.
Side note: Being in California right now, there is a ballot proposition to (Prop 8) define marriage as between and man and woman only. There are lots of radio and TV commercials for both sides, and it has gotten pretty ugly. I’m all for passing Prop 8, but not being a resident of the state I can’t vote here.
Back to my original story, the tire shop had a yes on Prop 8 sticker on the counter, so I felt good about supporting their business. That and they did a good job on fixing my tire.

In our apartment the electrical box is in the hallway, just out side of our bedroom. I turned off the lights in the living room and was heading toward the bedroom in the dark. Sometimes I’ll run my hand along the wall, just so I don’t run into anything. This time is wasn’t such a good plan. My fingernail caught under the electrical panel door and bent the nail from about half way down all the way back. It hurt a lot, blood oozed out from under the nail. Now that it’s been a couple of day I can touch it without it hurting, so it probably won’t need to be amputated.

Working Tourist

Currently I am working swing shift here in San Diego, so that means the mornings are mine to do as I please before having to head to work. I get to be a working-tourist. There are several things I have learned about people and events I’ve witnessed so here goes:

1) Things that are free rarely are, there is always, or almost always, a catch. Every Tuesday a different museum in Balboa Park is free, whoo hoo! free is good. While there is no monetary cost associated with visiting the museum there is a crowd/people cost. Most of the crowd consists of school age children on a field trip. While I understand it makes sense for schools to save their budgets and allow the kids a meaningful experience it makes things crowded and loud for the rest of us cheap people.

2) Signs and rules apply to everyone else. One of the free museums was the Museum of Photographic Arts. One would think, even without a sign, that taking pictures of the pictures would be frowned upon. Not for certain individuals, click click click. Just makes you want to go and lick their camera lens and then read sign to them.

3) The San Diego Zoo is big. While you can navigate the entire zoo in one day, its better to be able to enjoy it over the course of several months, which is why we have memberships. For those of you lucky enough to be in San Diego the first part of October, the zoo is free on the first Monday. That freeness comes with a cost though …

4) Regardless of where you are there is always a chance that you’ll bump into someone you know, or they’ll bump into you. We saw my brother-in-laws brother and wife (not sure what that makes us, but that’s a quandary for another day), at Disneyland. Its funny how our random paths through life often intersect.

5) Its really only cool to wear Mickey ears at Disneyland. So if you’re one of those Disney dorks out there, sorry. That’s why I’ll only don my mouse ears in the seclusion of my own living room and at Disneyland.

Mr. Fixit

I got to spend the weekend doing something I enjoy, that's right taking things apart. Ashley's sewing machine was not working properly; it was bunching up stitches from the bobbin, and being all sorts of obnoxious. After reading the book for a possible cause (yes I read the manual sometimes), I figured that it hadn't been cleaned or lubricated since she got it, so it was about time.
After I got it all taken apart, with parts and pieces laying all over the table I jokingly said "I hope I can get all this put back together". Ashley didn't find this as amusing as I did.
I got it all back together without a whole lot of trouble, I even used all of the parts (I know it was amazing). So then it was time for testing. Operating the wheel manually the needle went up; it went down and then crunch! The super smart engineer that I am failed to realize that the bobbin wheel slot needed to be aligned to allow the needle to go up and down properly. So I got to not only take it all apart once, but twice, yeah! After some minor adjustment I got it all aligned properly and it seemed to be working. So it was on to testing. With the machine threaded and a spare piece of material at the ready it was time to sew. I'll admit I was a little nervous if it was actually going to work right. It was beautiful, nice even stitches, no problems. Yeah! I am so smart. Ashley was so happy that her sewing machine was working and it didn't have to get thrown out the window, and I got to tinker.