Being on the ship, life does not just revolve around doing your regular job.  On top of the day-to-day duties required of you in your office, there are other things here and there that keep you busy - collateral duties.  Easily the most time consuming and demanding of them for me is being on the damage control training team. 

On a ship this size - well, on any ship for that matter, the crew is trained to save the ship.  Disasters like the USS Forrestal, the attack on the USS Cole, and the more recent massive USS George Washington fire are sobering reminders of how important damage control knowledge is for the entire crew.  To train, we run drills among other things. 

When it comes to these drills, the more realistic they are run, the better.  In our last drill, we had a simulated aircraft fire…but since there were no aircraft on board at the time, we had to work our way around that.  For this particular fire, we had a giant screen with a fire projected onto it, along with an audio soundtrack of fire crackling (where did they download that, anyway?  iTunes?) and 4 smoke machines set to full blast.  Considering the space, those puppies did a good job of filling it up with smoke.  Then the lights were all cut off, and the damage control training team (DCTT) had red lights that were waved as the fire simulation.

Multiple teams came in to fight the fire, and it was an impressive sight.  Since we had run this same drill just the night before, I knew what it would look like and I thought it would be great to bring my camera, especially since I knew that the training team would not all be required at all times.  So I snapped pictures throughout the drill.  I upped my ISO to the max (3200) and had my wide-angle lens on so I could catch as much as possible, but that meant that I was shooting at f/4 which, considering how dark it was in there, was ending up with sloooow shutter speeds.  It was a huge challenge to get the pictures, but when the smoke had cleared (ha ha! literally!), I walked away with some great shots.

I was showing the other guys on the team some of the shots as I was taking them because they were long exposures and looked very cool.  This then got to the attention of our fearless DCTT leader who brought it to the attention of the person who was running the drill who brought it to the attention to the executive officer who brought it to the attention to the public affairs officer.  Who brought it to the attention to his media team who showed me how to prepare the photos for publication and then sent out the pictures to Big Navy.

Who published the pictures on navy.mil where the picture ended up as the #1 picture in the Navy for today. 

All in all, 3 of my pictures got published on navy.mil, which is just incredible to me.  I am very proud, and thankful to everyone that was involved in this - as you read, that is a lot of people!  I am at a great place where I have continually gotten support in just about anything I’ve wanted to do…in fact, that’s not just here but pretty much everywhere I’ve gone.  I am truly fortunate to do what I do, and I’m glad to be doing it here, now.

Here are the rest of the photos…

I’m off!  For 8 months…or so.  Off to sail the seas, to work hard, and to hopefully make a few friends and have some great new memories.

In the meantime, enjoy a video of Isak playing my absolute favorite song ever that he’s played…Red Rose Rendevouz, a jazz waltz that is just incredible.  I’m very proud especially since he’s on summer break from lessons and has done this completely on his own.  He has worked very hard to get it put together before I leave and it has left me in tears several times because he plays with such beautiful feeling.

Bingo is MY GAME baby!

Guess who won…TWICE! Alas, once I had to split it 5-ways and ended up with $15 and the other time I had to split it 3 ways and then in half again for a grand total of $65. Snaps for bingo!

The best part, though? I got to call bingo tonight on the closed-circuit TV channel on the boat. So much fun!

Now I can’t wait to get home and go out to dinner with B and the Bro who’s visiting from WI! Why does everyone have to visit while I’m gone?? Perhaps it’s time to change my deoderant…

Happy New Year from the Sigs!  I will certainly try to be better at posting next year!

One thing that the kids have been asking since we got orders to Spain way back in March or so was “Are we going to see snow??” They were so little when we moved away from Iceland - Isak was 3 and Anja was not even 2.  When we lived in Washington from 2002 to 2005, it snowed maybe twice the entire time, and both times it was a forgettable dusting.  And then, of course, 3 years in Spain and there was not a flake to be seen.

So we moved to the Pacific Northwest where it’s mild and rainy year round.  Not cold, not snowy, but mild and rainy.  One would think that in a mild and rainy climate, if the temperature drops to below freezing it would be cold and snowy, yes?  Apparently, if the temperature drops below freezing the clouds have nothing better to do except move to Wisconsin to dump snow there instead.  My kids have been understandably disappointed by the clear blue skies over the last week as the temperature dipped all the way down, according to our thermostat, to 11°.

But this morning I was sleeping in, until I heard a loud yell of, “Kids!  Look out the window!” with an instant response of “It’s ssssssnnnnnoooooooowwwwwwwwiiiiiiiinnnnnnngggggg!!!!!!”

It started out slow at first, just some flurries, but it turned into a winter wonderland of fat, fluffy snowflakes that ended with about an inch and a half of snow.  The kids, however, didn’t know how long it would last so they wasted no time in getting out and enjoying it.

See all those little patches, and the long spoke-y lines?  That’s how much snow it took to make a snowball at this point.  But they did a good job of amassing a small arsenal of them, ready to launch at unsuspecting parents.  Little did they know that I was watching from the upstairs loft.  I love the view from here, especially when it involves sneaky little ones plotting for our demise.

Can you name three unusual things about this picture?

1. Isak is wearing pants.
2. Isak is wearing shoes.
3. Isak voluntarily got himself wet, although he probably didn’t know it when the snow was still frozen.

The kid hates pants, and he hates shoes, but he was dressed so fast in layers of clothes, socks and shoes, and out the door before I even knew what was happening.

Anja, on the other hand, is NEVER one to pass up on an adventure.  The snow brought out the best in her beautiful, energetic personality.  She’s happiest when she’s outside, and today was not only no exception, but her happiness was at a whole new level.  She couldn’t get enough of it.

Who needs a hill to roll down when you have our driveway?  I wish I could figure out how to calculate the slope, but unofficial calculations show it’s The Perfect Slope For Turning Oneself Into a Human Snowball:

She really just couldn’t get enough of it.  No matter that there was barely enough snow to cover the ground, she was GOING to make the most of it.  I love this picture; I can just feel her love for being outside and the excitement of finally being able to make a snow angel.

And then my cover was blown, and the even bigger personality came out…

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any “after” pictures to show how much snow we ended up with, but it was quite a bit!  Probably close to two inches…enough for mini snowmen complete with mini carrot noses (sorry no pictures!)  If it snows overnight and is enough to close down the schools (from what I hear, 4″ is more than enough to shut them down around here…wusses!), they are going to have so much fun tomorrow they won’t ever be able to have this much fun again.

This week I have been in a class to become a Command Financial Specialist - trained to do budgets, give counseling to servicemembers who are in over their heads, and know generally about different ways to save and invest.

The training has been very interesting; we got lucky because the class wasn’t supposed to happen due to low participation.  But because all 4 of us in attendance were from the Lincoln, they decided to go ahead with it anyway.  Because of the small class size, we have gotten a lot of “extended” training - lots of time for questions and answers and straying off topic to discuss things that otherwise we would not have had time to cover if we had a large class.  And the best part?  We generally get out early every day and can spend some time at home researching financial matters.  Like logging into your bank account to find out that your credit card number has been stolen.  Again.  OK, that was B’s catch, he truly is the financial specialist in the family.

It’s been so great going to this class because the facility we’re working out of is 9 minutes away from my front door.  This means I get to get my kids ready for school, I’m there when they get home, we have all afternoon together, I can come home for lunch and make sweet potato fries every day, and I can stop at the Commissary and buy that night’s dinner on my way out of class.  I’m really enjoying this and not looking forward to getting back to that 5 hours of commuting a day.

Anyhow, today is my last day of class and I get a certificate of completion and can go back to work on Monday to preach the value of the Thrift Savings Plan. Preach!  Lucky for me, I took leave on Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday in preparation of Thanksgiving. :)  Can’t wait to make some gobbledy-good turkey!  Or to have the USS Sig Command Poultry Specialist make it for me.

This was my first week working on the ship.  After a month of leave, I was excited to be going to work and get this show on the road.  I had a great week, I have a great crew to work with and I’m excited at the opportunities I’m going to have.  As I said last Sunday to B, I’m finally off to join the Navy.  12 years in and I’m glad I’m finally getting to a ship.  I had a great time when I went on the one deployment,  but it was so short and intense, and then I left so I don’t remember ANYTHING…so now I’m back to square one.

I have a crazy wake up time - 3:55am in order to be out the door by 4:30 in order to catch the ferry at 5.  It’s a 2 hour ferry ride, and while everyone sleeps, I haven’t quite gotten the hang of falling asleep right away yet and only end up sleeping for the last half hour or so.  Today I bought a pillow and blanket to help the cause of me getting more sleep…I am hoping it helps.  Getting an extra hour or two of sleep would be fantastic. 

A couple of observations from my first week at work:

• I am reminded where “curse like a Sailor” comes from
• People on ships are highly motivated by soda
• The Navy’s use of acronyms is ridiculous…even the acronyms have acronyms in them! (SPMIG, anyone?)
• “Finding Nemo” reminds me of the Navy…you network enough and you can get ANYTHING done
• I know more than I ever thought I knew about my job…and I’m excited that I have people to pass that knowledge down to!
• I am going to need more than 24 hours per day to accomplish everything I need to.  And yet - I feel strangely confident that I am going to be just fine.

On a completely unrelated note, but one even more exciting…today we went to the house to sign the last paperwork before closing accepting the house as-is.  Our inspection FINALLY got done yesterday and it is in remarkable condition considering it’s a foreclosure.  There are only a couple minor problems, most of them superficial.  The problem with the water ended up being a $180 part in the master bathroom shower, and we were so frustrated by it not getting done after 2 weeks that we were ready to walk away from the house…over $180.  They wouldn’t let US pay for it, they wouldn’t let the selling realtor pay for it (since it’s bank owned), but no one was coming out and getting it done.  It was a 15 minute fix, and when the ultimatum was thrown down, it got fixed almost immediately.  I had a very fun time making crushed ice today when we went to sign the papers. 

So everything is done…the VA certificate is done, the inspection is done, they have all the documentation they need.  All we do now is wait for the appraisal to be finished and the paperwork to be sent to underwriting, and then…we’ll be homeowners!  I can’t believe it. 

It’s been a very exciting, albeit stressful, last few weeks and I can’t wait to have a place to go to relax after work that doesn’t necessitate walking through a lobby and catching an elevator.