Beer Day (or not)

I know, I kind of left it hanging with the end of my last post. Then I wrote nothing yesterday. Between getting behind on some work and and a bit of "funk" that I was going through I just didn't feel much like writing. Sorry. Today's another day. I'll warn you now. This'll be a long one...

Yesterday was "Beer Day". When a US Navy ship is at sea for more than 45 continuous days with no port visit scheduled within the next 5 days, the CO is authorized to provide 2 beers to each member of the crew while still underway. Yesterday was day # 53 and I would likely have to take my shoes off to count the number of days we have left until a port visit, and I'd still run out of digits (or lose count). It's been too long since I've practiced counting that high with Beth.

At 0900, the flight deck was open for everyone to come up, claim their two beers, have a grilled burger or dog, and hang out in the sun for a few hours... a "Steel Beach Picnic". The MWR folks flew in a band from Bahrain, and they played from a stage on the fantail. It was a pretty festive time.

So I heard.

I was up pretty late the night before (as you could tell by the last blog post). I was actually up quite a bit past then (around 4, I think). So, I was fast asleep at 0900. and 1000. and 1100. I finally rolled out around noon, having inadvertently shut off my alarm. I was out of sorts and not real motivated to head up to the flight deck. After my shower, my roommate called from the ready room to warn me that I had about 15 minutes till they cut off the beer line at 1300. That's right... "beer day" ran from 0900 to 1300. Whatever.

I got down to the ready room around 1259. The way they were controlling the "issuing" of beer was through wrist bands. Each person was issued 2 wrist bands, which were put on at the time of issue. If it came off before you got to the "beer issue area" on the flight deck, no beer for you. The "Beer Issue Chief Petty Officer" would cut off your band and hand you a beer. They would let you take both beers at the same time if so desired. But that was it. Two per person. As I walked into the ready room, the ASDO handed me my wrist bands, warning me that I was almost out of time. I just couldn't get excited about standing in a crowd in the sun up on the flight deck drinking beer, especially when it felt like first thing in the morning to me. So, I passed. I did wander up and get to see the "BICPO" cut off the line, much to the consternation of many young guys who had not yet collected their second brew. I wandered around a bit and people watched. It's pretty funny the effect that two beers can have on people after abstaining for a while. Especially smaller people.

The band played an eclectic mix of covers, but they were pretty good. At one point there was a huge crowd moving together, doing what I could only assume was some version of the two step or electric slide or something like that. I obviously don't spend much time in dance clubs or country bars. Or discos. Or anywhere that doesn't welcome children under the age of 10.

I did find a group of Eightballers playing a game the CO brought out from days gone by. It was a bean bag toss game, like you might expect to find in the little kid section of a church carnival. Two boards set up like ramps, facing each other with about 30 feet in between. An 8 inch hole cut in the middle of each 4 by 6 ft board. Each board was painted white, with a big HS-8 logo painted below the hole. The squadron has affectionately named the game "Cornhole" and with a couple of beers in everyone and the fact that they were playing it like horseshoes (a perennial Navy picnic favorite), it turned out to be pretty popular. Those first grade skills keep paying off (throwing bean bags, not drinking beer).

And then at 1400, the music stopped. The grills shut down. People began to disperse and filter back down into the ship. All the poor restricted folks who had been below, missing out on the fun came up to clean up the mess and put everything away. What a cruddy time to be in trouble.

When I got down to the ready room, the fun was continuing. The JO's had set up their XBOX with the overhead projector and stereo system. They were playing Guitar Challenge 2. The inputs for this game are 2 almost-full size mock guitars. The guitars have a collection of buttons in place of frets. The game is played by two players side by side, following prompts to hit the buttons in order along with very loud music, as your character in the game plays his guitar on stage in a concert-like background. The guys had fun trying to be as outrageous as possible with their guitar playing, all the while getting the best score for accuracy on the button pressing. (I know, I know, this reads more like a user guide than a blog that's trying to be dryly humorous. oh well). It definitely entertaining to watch for a while, but the head banger music got to me after a few minutes.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet. No flying (for obvious reasons). A little bit of maintenance. Some paperwork. I never really did recover from my cruddy mood from early in the day. I still haven't figured out what my problem was.

Many people have been in the navy for years and have never seen a beer day. For some, a beer day is the stuff of legend and they don't really believe that they exist. This was my second beer day in as many deployments. And I have yet to drink a beer on a Navy ship.

I was up late again last night. This time, working on a stupid spreadsheet to track my March Madness Bracket points. I spent about 4 hours working with Excel to do what everyone else will do on a single sheet of paper with simple addition in their heads. Not me. If it has to do with numbers, bring on the spreadsheets, the analysis, the useless formulas. It turned out pretty nice. But for some reason, the award re-writes that the XO wanted me to get done were still sitting on the top of the stack when I went to bed around 4:30. The awards got written today. This will be my undoing.

Anyone who knows me will not at all be surprised to hear that I spent four hours fiddling with Excel. They might be surprised to hear that it had anything to do with the NCAA tournament. Have I watch a single regular season game? No. Could I have named a single team in the tournament before two days ago? No. Have I ever cared about NCAA sports (other than Navy)? No. Do I now? Yup. The MWR committee for the squadron is already starting to figure out how to raise money to offset the costs of our squadron Christmas party. (the last thing on my mind!) One of the fundraisers they're doing is a March Madness Bracket pool. Each bracket sheet is $5, and each win in the tournament that matches your bracket sheet gives you points. The later in the tournament, the more points per win. As I'm writing this, 6 of the 1st round games have wrapped up and Stanford is the only team that has disappointed me so far. Should be fun to keep track and see how I do. My picks for wins were almost completely in the dark. I looked at regional rankings only. Personal biases played in on a couple picks, simply based on where a school was located. Otherwise, if there was more than a 5 place difference in their regional ranking, I went with the top ranked team to win. If less than a 5 place difference, I mostly went with the underdog to win. I won't bore you with my picks here in the blog, but let me know and I can email you the sheet if you're curious.

OK, it's late again. I have paperwork that I'm not doing. I need to get to bed at a semi-reasonable hour so I can get up at a semi-reasonable hour and get some evals reviewed and done. Time's running out. OH! Chris & Ann sent me the "Axis & Allies" game and it arrived today! They did a great job of wrapping the game in multiple layers of bubble wrap, and ensconcing it in a sea of foam peanuts. Still, the global shipping industry found a way to jab a corner of the box somehow, and of course it's the corner of the box where the central corner of the game board was located. It's fine, but I'll always have a reminder of how and when I got the game! Thank you so much for sending it! I'm looking forward to the next time we have a break and I can get a game going.