Month: August 2008

In Recent News – Nagoya, Life.

Posted by DriK – August 27, 2008

Well we are in Nagoya Japan for some more PR related BS that our ship likes to volunteer for. It has been a while since I have had a disappointing port visit, and this now resets the counter.

On the first day, no one was allowed to leave the ship until it was deemed clean for Japanese tourists that were scheduled to come aboard. The whole point of visiting here was to promote the Navy, and that we aren’t all bad. As a phone talker on the bridge for pulling in and out of ports, I get see everything that goes on when we pull in or out and this one had protesters waiting on the pier. Definitely a warm and welcoming arrival to Nagoya.

When we finally got out, the first thing any of us wanted to do was get cash and a chuhai. Apparently, no one had money and the closest bank was eleven train stops away in downtown Nagoya. Fortunately I decided against trading in my yen for baht in Thailand, and had plenty to spot my buddies. We got out there, found a bank teller, pulled what we needed, got our drinks and proceeded to get some grub at a near by Yoshinoya.

Full on food, we went out and wanted to find a bar to relax at and play some pool and darts. We found a place recommended on brochures that were handed out to us on the quarterdeck and it didn’t seem bad. The workers were polite and friendly when we got our table and drinks, drinks being a bit pricey. While we were drinking and playing the locals at pool and darts, one of my buddies noticed they did song requests. He asked one of the guys if they had AC/DC and he replied with “We don’t have your music here.” Shocked and appalled, we immediately hated the place, but because it was too late to find anywhere else, we had no choice but to stay, plus we had a cute waitress.

The next day, I didn’t get up until sometime past ten in the morning. Though the bar we were at was not as friendly as we thought, I still had a lot to drink to temporarily get rid of the thoughts of work and had a slight hangover. None the less, we now had a full day ahead of us for sightseeing and we did as much as we could. Actually, we walked around for hours only to visit the TV towers, but we got a good look of the city from the top. Once again night time rolled around and all we wanted was to get drinks and relax and maybe mingle with the locals. The second night consisted of going into bars that resided on third floors or higher and each time we got a look of shock at our presence. I think I’ve gotten down the places that Americans usually aren’t welcomed. About 90% of the places I have experienced that aren’t US friendly reside in bars that are higher than three floors up. I think they put the places up that high because Americans just want to walk into a bar, and not have to ride up three floors to have a good time. The second night a lot more disappointing than the first, we rolled out early and figured that we could probably get some good sleep before our next day for duty.

We will be back in Yokosuka soon, and I can finally get back to my bed that I have been dying to sleep in since we left Thailand. Once again I am in the state of mind that my life is going no where being in Japan. Some things that are headed my way are moving out of the barracks once again, though just a rumor at this point. It would make sense though because I will be getting paid next month. Also, I still am not under orders and my detailers are no help. We will also be going into the yards soon and I am one of the three that will be moving our LAN over to a barge and making sure it is working properly while we get our upgrade on the boat. As much as I am looking forward to this ship getting a LAN upgrade, I feel that I will get nothing out of it because my transfer date is shortly after the yards period. Maybe I’ll get a NAM, but it will be included in the End of Tour, but when I transfer, all I can say I got out of Japan was a few good ports and a lot of lessons learned. I got a lot of good training, and I will carry it over wherever I go next, but I feel I got it to take the load off other peoples shoulders. I’m sure in the next few days I’ll get a talking to about how I am doing and if things are alright but things deep down I can’t to anyone about it, except just a few friends from home who already know.

Just a few months left and I’ll finally be free of this place.

Plurk

Posted by DriK – August 23, 2008

Since I decided to put the Plurk Widget on my site, I thought that I should blog about it as well. Plurk is a place to put your thoughts down, in under 140 characters, about what is on your mind aka microblogging. Another site known for this is Twitter, but this site was brought to my attention first and thus the better of the two, in my opinion. Though it doesn’t seem like much at first, it really isn’t a bad site to just stream bits of your thoughts here and there.

It’s a pretty good alternative to Myspace where you have a blog, which more than likely none of your friends read. Plus, when you sign up, you can either be a fan and view other peoples “plurks” without them having to see yours. If they view your profile, they will be able to see your plurks, and can decide if they want to be friends. Also, the more active you are, the higher your “Karma” goes which allows you to mess with features like display names and such. What ever your put down will be readable by everyone, unless specified private.

As much as I would like to blog about every little thing that goes on in my head, Plurk is nice to dabble a few thoughts here or there without having to write a whole story about it. But don’t worry, I shall continue to blog away when something sparks my interest and feel others should know about it.

Thailand at last

Posted by DriK – August 18, 2008

Thailand was one of the best port visits I have ever been on. It will never be better than Australia because Thailand is for vacationers and Australia is more of a place to make a living, in my opinion. None the less, it was an awesome port visit and I had a blast.

The area we pulled into was Laem Chabang and isn’t far from Pattaya Beach, which a lot of sailors are familiar with when coming to Thailand. There was a bus that took everyone to the main area of Pattaya and ships are usually anchored out and ride a boat into Pattaya, but we were lucky enough to moor up. The bus ride was about 30 minutes, but left at the top of the hour every hour. So if you missed the bus, you had to wait an hour for the next one to roll out, unless the bus filled up.

The first night was a bit rough because I didn’t get off the boat until sometime after six and didn’t arrive in Pattaya until 8:30. Also I dropped my ID card sometime after I pulled out cash because as we were walking away I noticed it wasn’t in my wallet. I told the guys I was with and freaked a bit cause I thought I’d ruined my time in Thailand. I was able to find it lying on the ground next to the bank teller and continued on with the night. We were able to find a club and dance and impersonate the waitresses by wearing there ID tags. It was a decent first night. More…

DITS

Posted by DriK – August 8, 2008

Every sailor goes through them, and dreads them. The Division In The Spotlight program is an event where the Commanding Officer does an inspection of an entire division from a from cleanliness to properly managed programs like RPPO and mentorship. It’s a time when everyone’s heads are cut off and you are running around trying to find it because a light bulb is out or that corner of the space is cluttered and plugs aren’t safety checked. The biggest portion of DITS is the zone inspection where the CO walks through all of your spaces and tells you what is wrong. My division just went through ours, and for the third time, it was just as painful as the first.

My first DITS with this command was a complete disaster. It was the last one my division had with our current CO before he turned over a few months after. Weeks and days leading up to our DITS consisted of hours of cleaning, chipping, grinding, and painting followed by replacement of items such as light bulbs or missing tempest caps. The biggest hit we probably took was the mulch room. It was pretty much the storage room for all the crap we moved out of Radio and other spaces we owned, and tossed in there to prepare for the zone inspection. What was even worse was that the day of the zone inspection our mulch room was so full of junk it was in no condition to be inspected and at the last second, I was tossing things to the side just to clear a path to walk through because there is a fan intake room inside as well, and is also inspected. The second the CO walked in, all I heard was a yell “Oh Shit!” I couldn’t help but chuckle because I knew what he was yelling about, but my LCPO knew the fate of that room and what the reaction was going to be.

The last DITS we had with our new CO was still not good. Our mulch room was definitely a turn around in that you could see the deck, but there was still junk in there that we’ve collected and haven’t gotten around to tossing. Plus, this was a new CO, but then again a first impression is always remembered and there was no doubt that however we did, the next inspection would have to have improvements or it would seem to him that the division doesn’t care about raising its standards and its material condition is completely unsat. With an unsat material condition, it reduces the ships ability to do it’s job and when that happens, it all falls on the CO and he wasn’t going to have that.

The inspection did go a lot better than the first, and the hits were pretty evenly spread out through our spaces, but none the less as a CO, it is his or her duty to find everything and anything wrong. If a CO goes through a space and says it’s good, then the division in charge gets into a relaxed mode and eventually the ships is unable to complete an INSURV and is declared “Unfit for Operation”.

This DITS, compared to the previous two, weren’t as bad because everyone knew what had to be done. Unlike the first two, we didn’t have to juggle our jobs while trying to get ready. We were able to prioritize our time to cleaning, painting, entering in jobs for work we can’t do ourselves and need outside assistance. In fact, this was the most prepared we have been for a DITS since I’ve been here and was confident in that we were going to make it through without feeling like we didn’t do enough. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case and we got cut at the legs for things we could have taken care of and didn’t. Our spaces were indeed a lot cleaner than before, deckplates and all, but there were some areas that weren’t taken into account because either we couldn’t reach it, or thought we couldn’t reach it and get it cleaned. We took our common sense hits and in the end we knew we didn’t do enough to get a better outcome.

At the end of the inspection, our Divo told us that we did a hell of a job, though we didn’t feel like it. He said that it is the CO’s job to find these hits or else we’ll just toss them to the side, forget about them and will eventually bite us in the ass, but more importantly bite the CO’s ass. He told us that you have to know your inspector, and since officers are around the CO all the time, they have a better idea of what to expect and better understanding of his comments and reactions. One thing he said was that when our CO is really upset with something, he’ll pull either the Divo or LCPO aside and tell them one on one about something that could have been corrected. That didn’t happen once during this inspection, or so I was told, and it made me feel better.

I still believe there was a lot we could have done, but overall the effort our division put in to getting discrepancies corrected was outstanding. I just hope that with what little time I have left, another DITS is unable to be fit into it.

Still No Orders

Posted by DriK – August 2, 2008

I am seriously pissed at the way the Navy is handing where I want to go next.  I have less than 8 months at this command and am in the process of choosing new orders.  The only place I want to go is San Diego, because that is where my family is and the only place I feel comfortable going.  I can’t do another overseas tour because I didn’t apply for COT and did it on purpose because of how shitty the Navy treats those who serve overseas, especially Japan.

Last detailing cycle I put in for a squadron out of North Island; it was the only set of  orders I applied for so if I didn’t get them, I wouldn’t get orders and would have to wait another week to apply and another month to view the results.  I obviously didn’t get the orders and was told by my detailer that San Diego was a hot billet.  He advised me to broaden my range of where I wanted to go and I did.

The next cycle I put down for three ships: USS Bonhomme Richard, USS Gridley, and USS Benfold, one of which is an amphib, and the other two destroyers, all in San Diego.  I figured that it would be almost impossible not to get any of those orders since they are all ships.  Majority of the time those who are looking for orders try to find  orders that are easy as hell, but I decided that I wanted San Diego bad enough that I would put down for nothing but ships.  Would you know that two of them were given to someone else and the last one said NOSELECTED which is a big “fuck you” to my face.

I don’t understand why I am unable to obtain orders to San Diego because I’ve done what they wanted from a first termer.  I am a second class petty officer and I have my ESWS, all on my first tour in the FDNF and before I hit my 3 year mark in the Navy.  If anything, I’ve gone above and beyond the  Navy’s expectations for a first term sailor.  I emailed my detailer already because he didn’t give me any reasons as to why I wasn’t selected for anything again.  I plan to call him up as well to get a verbal response and maybe some advice to get San Diego orders.

Now I have to wait another week to apply again, hoping that something decent pops up.  I also plan to call my detailer to see what I actually have a chance at getting and hope that whatever he says yes to I actually get.  I have a bad feeling that the Navy is trying to force my hand to take an IA tour which I don’t want to do.  I don’t mind heading to the desert, but I want to do it by ship,  not by plane