Time for a break

I guess it's time to break the silence from the StringerZoo. I know it's been a while since Janell or I wrote anything. It's been a busy couple of weeks for both of us. Lemme see if I can quickly recap the last week...

You might have noticed that I relaxed the security on my site a couple weeks ago for a few days, then tightened it back up again. Stennis started showing up in the news again, with lots of speculation in the media about the ships proposed schedule. Rather than some snoopy journalist finding my blog (or worse), I once again closed it down to invite's only.

On Thursday, we had a cleansing of the ship. We were infested with 2,600 slimy Polywogs. We woke up at 0530 and gathered up all the 'Wogs for a rite of passage which included some fun and games in the ready room, then crawling them through the hangar bay, up Elevator 3 to the flight deck, then through a maze of tasks and silliness--all the while under a constant rain of salt water from a dozen fire fighting hoses, culminating with a blessing from King Neptune, establishing them all as Trusty Shellbacks. The ironic part of the whole thing was that it was completed about 10 degrees north of the equator. The ceremony technically should be performed south of the equator, as we actually "cross the line". Oh well. I don't make the ship's schedule. Our pseudo-Shellbacks had to wait a couple days to complete their metamorphosis.

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to be on the only flight of this deployment to take off from the ship in the southern hemisphere. For just a couple hours, the ship bumped south of the equator, then turned northeast bound again. We spent much of the flight, bouncing north and south of the equator. Kind of a weird place to be flying. It didn't look any different, but just the thought of flying right along the line was pretty cool. I'm still trying to figure out how that big black line stays in one place on top of the water.

Last Sunday, one of our enlisted aircrewmen was baptised after church. That was awesome to see and be a part of. As I am just about ready to take over Operations, he'll be one of the up and coming young leaders working in my department. We have a great group of Aircrewmen and I'm excited about my new job.

That afternoon, I completed my turn-over of the Maintenance Department (well, almost). The new guy will take care of all new business and is picking most of the pieces I left in the air. The only thing I still need to take care of are a big stack of awards recognizing people for their great work during the deployment. They're waiting for me when I get back on the ship.

That's right! I'm not on the ship. I'm sitting in my room at the Ritz-Carlton in a soon-to-be-disclosed South East Asian city. In a little less than an hour, Clemmence will arrive at the lobby to drive me to the airport to pick up Janell. Her flight arrives around 1am. The ship isn't even here yet. They pull in tomorrow morning. I had the fortune of being selected to fly in early on the COD to help with the logistics of setting up stuff for the Officer's "Admin". That's the rooms that the officers will stay in while we're in port. They are staying at the hotel next door to Janell and I. I intentionally picked a different hotel from the rest of the guys. We needed a little space. The nice thing is, you have to have a room key to use the elevator here, so we won't get any surprise visits. Not that anyone would do that, but it's hard to predict the actions of inebriated aviators.

So that's been my life in a nutshell for the past week. Lots of paperwork, flying, and job discussions. This break is going to be great! I'm sure Janell and I will post occasionally about our adventures here. The girls are staying with Nana, so I know they'll have a great time while Mommy is away. That's all for tonight. Almost time to go...