Boy it is getting hot! For the last 3 or 4 days it’s been just horribly hot. We have air conditioning in the ship, but there are A/C boundaries that need to be kept closed in order to keep it cool, and realistically, they just can’t keep them closed all the time. And then in our office, they took out the pipes that provide the air conditioning for maintenance and we haevn’t gotten back to the regular temp yet. Worst of all is our head, where not only is their no air conditioning, but the heater is permanently blowing hot air. And then you’ve got the blow dryer, and then you’ve got the showers, and it’s horribly hot and humid in there. I’ve had berthing cleanup this week so I have to clean the head for an hour with someone else, and you just get soaked in sweat by the time you’re done.

I got to go out to the fanatil last night, which is the very end of the ship, and watched the sunset. It was very pretty, very calm and peaceful. And, of course, I got some pictures that I just need to upload.

I finally got to do my laundry the other day, on bingo night so I played bingo while I sat in the sauna of a laundry room. I was one away from getting the big jackpot on blackout bingo, but of course I didn’t get anything (except clean underwear…I’m not sure which is the bigger jackpot, the $500 or the clean underwear).

It’s the end of the last week for voting, and we’re swamped. We have about 600 pages to fax off on the lines that you can never get through on. We have tons of erroneous registration cards that we need to call back the people to fix, and are fixing many of them ourselves, and then we still have to go out and register more people. So far we’ve done about 500 in the last 3 days, and I anticipate even more and more people to be showing up at the last minute. I cannot wait for Friday afternoon! We’re going to do something fun to celebrate the end of the voting season.

Looking forward to our next port call, I’ll tell you all about it 3 days after we’ve left. AND I hope to put pictures up tonight or tomorrow!!

I’ve been trying to keep as busy as possible while I’m here because when you’re busy, time flies. I’ve been doing a good job with it, too!

My work schedule gives us breaks from 1200-1400 and from 1700-1900. During my breaks, I eat a meal (I’ve lost 8lbs since I’ve been here already! Oh my!), which is usually the mystery meat of the day, a small portion of carbs (it seems all they have is carbs and they’re very generous with those portions, but I’m just asking for small portions), whatever veggie isn’t rotten, and then a half a grapefruit and a cup of water. I don’t feel like eating so much; a small portion fills me up and keeps me going because I’m so busy that I don’t think about eating or snacking much.

My 2 hours of my break is either sitting at the galley, talking to someone, or going to the Photo Lab and getting qualified to shoot with them. The leading petty officer (LPO) there said that I should try to take some pictures out and about to show them “what I’ve got”. Yesterday was our “steel beach” picnic and I went to town…I gave him a CD of about 75 images, and today I asked him what he thought and he said I outshot some of the photographers there! AND that they’re going to send some of them into Chinfo, which means they could be published on the news.navy.mil website! Wouldn’t that be cool. I’ll post them here as soon as B puts them up on the webpage and I can link to them.

Another thing that’s going to help keep me busy - I’m going to be teaching a 4 or 5 part class on Photoshop! There aren’t many things I’m really good at, but Photoshop is one of them and I thought what better thing can I do than help people learn it while I’m here? I’ve already had several people take it, and if it goes over well, I’ll hold another series of classes while I’m here. I’m also going to see if there’s enough interest in a photo club and we’ll go out in ports to take pictures for a day. It keeps me very busy.

And work keeps me busy, too. Right now we’re down to the wire with voting and I have been helping get people’s votes in before it’s too late. I get a real sense of accomplishment helping them and I’m really encouraged by how many people are coming out to do this. It’s also really cool thinking about the process - here we are out to sea, literally in the middle of nowhere, and we’re still voting and flying off our ballots to be counted with the rest of them. I hope all of you vote!! As we tell the passersby, we defend the right to vote so we might as well do it!

Anyway, I’ll post the pictures when they get up on the internet and I’ll post if they make it to the news.navy.mil website.

The seas haven’t exactly slowed down, but the rest of the stuff from being here has. My boots are finally broken in; the shower has been tolerably warm, even hot sometimes, every day; the seasickness has completely subsided and I am proud to say that I did not throw up ONCE - this was one of my biggest worries since I’m extremely prone to motion sickness. I wouldn’t say I felt good those first few days, and the last day of my sea sickness was accompanied by a nasty headache and after that it hasn’t been a problem. I sleep OK at night, better than the first couple of nights, at least. I am pretty comfortable with getting to most places, though I only know where one bathroom on the entire ship is and that’s a little bit inconvenient.

There are 3 women in my office that are also in my berthing and we get along really well. They are all very nice and have really helped get me in the swing of things. I don’t know what I would have done without them! They keep me positive and we have a lot of fun together.

I’ve had the opportunity to go down to the photo lab and they set me up with a PQS, which is basically a qualifying book. I got some stuff signed off on printing and started on the camera stuff. They use all Nikon, whereas I use Canon so there are some differences that I’m going to need to study up on.

We had a port call in San Diego three days after we left - OPSEC prevents me from saying anything within 3 days and it’s been more than 3 days now so it’s safe. We had a great time, went to an Irish pub, a Starbucks, a Tiki Lounge, and a HOOKA bar!! Now that was some good stuff! I didn’t expect to even smoke anything but man…that was goooood. We took lots of pictures that haven’t been put up yet, and I have other pictures taken of stuff like karaoke in the galley, game night in our office, and some to show you just how crowded things can be here.

Today is a “Steel Beach” picnic - they set up grills and games and stuff on the flight deck and we have 6 hours of fresh air. I haven’t seen daylight since I posted about watching flight ops! I probably wouldn’t see any for a while yet if we didn’t have this picnic today.

The race is on!!! We lost all the channels we had before and now have 3 channels, but they’re smart and put NASCAR on on Sunday. We got late sleepers today which meant we got to sleep in a whole extra hour and didn’t wake up til 7. What a treat!

Anyway, it’s all going well and there just hasn’t been much to write about lately. I get to do laundry today! Yay! It’s an interesting adventure, that’s for sure.

So in NASCAR, they sometimes drive 3 wide in the turns. You think that’s some exciting racing, try being 3 wide in a p-way that is apparently designed for only one person at a time to pass. It amazes me how everyone adapts so quickly to the cramped spaces. Not only do you have this limited amount of room, but you’re also working all the time. So you’ve got people walking up and down the passageways pushing dollies stacked with food, or carrying a printer from one side of the ship to another…which reminds me…I’ve discussed how awkward it is to make it up the ladderwells without anything on me, but try carrying anything and the task gets that much harder. Just a notepad has me tripping up or sliding down, but today I had to pick up a huge printer and make it up 2 ladderwells carrying this big honkin’ thing. You can’t hold the railings to help pull yourself up or stabilize it, and today the ocean’s in motion and it’s a challenge to walk down a flat p-way without bumping into something. But I digress….

So you’ve got people moving, constantly, everyone who needs to be somewhere. It’s a fast pace and you just kind of merge with traffic and hope you’re not going to get run over by someone or something. And think about this – 5,000 people on board, constantly moving and tracking whatever there is throughout the ship. There are always people swabbing (mopping) the decks trying to keep up, but with so many people there’s never time for the floors to dry so it’s a never-ending battle. And yet it’s always getting done.

Every day, everyone cleans. Every department is assigned a public space to maintain and must clean it during “happy hour” (how I wish happy hour meant the ingestible alcohol and not cleaning solution). Every day, 6 of us go to clean, and every day it’s filthy. Every day, we wipe down the walls, sweep the floors, dust high points, and every day it gets dirty and dusty and gross. And there are 6 of us, all cleaning the same space and going over each other’s work for an hour so it’s not like we’re missing things…it just get so dirty so quickly.

Off to hit the shower and then the rack - 2230 already!

Tomorrow I will post a list of Navy terms to help out those who are going bald scratching their heads trying to figure out what I’m talking about.

Yesterday I got the opportunity to go up to what they call “Vulture’s Perch” on the top level of the bridge (the highest point on the ship) to watch flight operations.

Up, and up, and up, and up we went, up 12 ladderwells. Let me remind anyone or inform anyone who might not know me, I am 5′11″ and wear a size 11 shoes, and these ladderwells are made for people under about 5′6″ who wear a size 2 shoes. I have not yet become the graceful swan I just know I have in me, so inevitably every time I go either up OR down a ladderwell, I catch my toe (or heel or knee or shin) on one of the steps and trip. And it seems that the third to the bottom or top step is jinxed for me, because every time I hit that step I trip. I’m sure it’s quite a sight to see for anyone waiting to go the other direction.

So not only am I completely clumsy, but I’m also shamefully unhealthy and get winded getting out of my bed in the morning. 12 flights of ladders is an aerobic workout worthy of taping and selling next to Richard Simmons’ “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”.

But up, and up, and up we went, earplugs in pockets, to watch flight ops. Up, up, up, thinking perhaps I’d be greeted at the top with a ribbon to burst through with a cheering crowd behind it. Instead, I’m greeted with a dirty look that I didn’t make it up faster. But that’s OK. I’m used to it, after all.

We finally made it up and out to the perch. It was warm and humid - a big change from Washington’s cool temperatures, or the equally cool office, or moreso, my 31� berthing. I think it was about 70�. The warm air mixed with the smell of jet fuel was intoxicating. We put in our earplugs and waited, and waited and waited. And then, out of the sky, came an FA-18 Hornet, descending toward our floating runway.

Flying in so quickly, I doubted that it could possibly do what I’ve seen done on the news or Discovery shows. It didn’t slow down at all, and I braced myself for the worst, and at the last second, it caught its tailhook on the wire and came to a sudden stop. The roar of the exhaust was incredible; through the earplugs, it still makes your ears ache.

I watched plane after plane make this incredible landing, in awe of how much preparation, skill and teamwork went into each landing. I watched the people in the green shirts, who were certainly the lowest ranking individuals slouch out to their duty of making sure the wire got back without injuring anyone, and the people in red shirts running across the runway together to get more equipment, and the people in the jets as they landed, and it is just amazing to me that it all goes so smoothly.

I continued to watch, and at one point an FA-18 Superhornet landed - this one, though I didn’t know it was any different at the time, was most definitely different than the rest. When it landed, the roar of the stop was so intense that it cleared my sinuses.

We then got to go to the Admiral’s Bridge (perks of the job!) and watch them catapult the planes. This is another incredible feat of teamwork and skill. These catapults we all feel in the ship, a muffled roar followed by a large “THUMP” as it leaves the (very short) runway. Every day, the closed circuit TV is on in our office and I watch the ops from the inside, but watching it in full color, with the roar of the engines and the smell of the fuel is something I won’t forget.

We went back in, making the equally miserable descent to our office, and I caught my breath and delved back into work. It’s common to have exercises throughout the day and into the night, but you never really hear a real one. Well, as I sat in my seat getting back into the swing of things, the 1MC (speaker) belted out “Medical Emergency, Medical Emergency, this is not an exercise”. My stomach sunk - especially when they said the emergency was on the flight deck. When you hear that, you know it can’t be good.

It turned out a young Airman, an E-2, somehow got his leg run over by one of the planes. Fortunately, he was evacuated as soon as he was stabilized and it has not been fatal, but when something like that happens you continue to worry about infection, and the chance that his leg will not be fixable. It was a jarring reminder of the dangers these people on the flight decks are in every single day.

I hope all is well back in the “real world”, and that you take a moment to think of the young man who is in a hospital somewhere, no doubt away from his family and friends.

I’m adapting well so far. I haven’t had any problems with anything, really. I expected to get a lot more seasick than I have gotten, although the motion sickness pills were used up by yesterday and I didn’t need them yesterday.

I’ve learned the lesson about food on a ship.

The first day for dinner it’s “T bone steak”
The second day for lunch it’s “rolled roast beef”
The second day for dinner it’s called “stuffed peppers”

And that the cauliflower that tastes rotten at lunch tastes rotten at dinner.

Work is definitely keeping me busy, which is great. I found out today that I have another board to do TODAY (I’m used to having several weeks to prepare, now I’m getting several hours). The downtime is nice, too - I work with a lot of really good people that I’m glad I’m stuck with in this office.

Laundry is an issue - you have to sign up for a time slot and do your laundry, one load at a time, during your slot. If you miss your slot, you have to wait several days for another slot. I just want to wash my underwear!!

Well, it didn’t take me long to realize that there are some people here that I hope to never work with again. Well, actually just one, but that “just one” just so happens to be the one in charge of the office. The one who starts her day off yelling at us and telling us what shitbags we are. The one who should practice what she preaches, but doesn’t and then just yells at us more because of it.

Last night’s “personal time” was 5 minutes after taps (10pm). This morning was “sleepers” - usually on Sunday morning you get a few extra hours of sleep. We were up bright and early (and half of today’s shower was actually comfortable! Yay!) while everyone else in our berthing slept and are at work at 7 and it’s eerily quiet in here.

I do have a lot of work to do, though. I was given 2 administrative boards (”You’re fired!”) the first day I was here, which I usually get about 2 weeks to a month in advance. My first was yesterday, and I got eeevvveeerrryyyttthhhiiinnnggg prepared (hundreds of copies, put in binders, tabbed, wrote arguments) and we waited for someone to show up who was LATE and the guy decided to waive the board. Which meant EVERYthing I did was completely wasted.

Today I have another. This one should be fun. It’s for a guy who has been to Captain’s Mast 6 times and has gone to a court-martial for lighting people on fire. This one should be interesting!

Off to work…just another day in paradise!