Lumina Come and wrap around me
Lumina Take me through the snow
Eve took a fruit, Eve picked a fruit
Juice ran down her chin
Babies will put things in their mouths
Never heard of sin
Lumina Open like the sea
Lumina Sing me in the dark
Eve had to ask, Eve had to ask
What is wrong with this
Here is the place, now is the time

still really busy right now. had gun 25cal/ 50mm gun shoot at 0630, and didn't get done with that untill about 1100. i had to quickly eat and get ready for my 1130 to 1600 watch at weld deck controll (controll room where our two lcac hover boats are sleeping). then i had mandatory physical training. then i had a little while to relaxe and unwind, before i go up to the bridge to stand under-intstruction watch for lookout and helm (lookout and drive the ship).

it's just another day. i still can't believe that we've only been underway for about 12 days now.
and we past the international date line so it's now thursday for us boxer people.... and at about 8pm....

tomorrow we're having a connected replenashment (ship to ship line transfer of supplies). i'm not really looking forward to it, i'd rather do a refueling replenashment.

we've crossed the international date line, and we had a "ice cream social" for the occasion. we'll have our "crossing the line ceremony" when we cross the line on our return to san dog. we've had rough seas, and monsoons for the past couple days. work, well i've still been keeping myself preoccupied with as much as i can. eating as healthy as i can, even though the ship food hasn't been that great. working out at least 3 times a week, so yes, by the time i return to san dog, my muscles should be toned.
my friends and i were just watching the aviator and we're now watching rat race and ghostbusters 2 on the ShipTV. i haven't had a movie night in a while, so this is very relaxing. i miss everyone, and i wish i was home right now. it's now tuesday for us, at about 11pm, almost bedtime.... but i slept all of sunday (we skipped monday), so i'm not really tired...

underway day 7, and it feels like we've been underway for about 2 months now. it's been quite stressfull for me for the past couple days. and inbetween all this stress, i've been trying to get my enlisted surface warfare pin qualification (showing that i know something about my ship and common core navy - but mostly another award pin to put on yourself). i'm doing this because it's something to do, besides working out at the gym, reading, watching movies during my 5 or so hours of everyday. but this stuff has been helpfull somewhat in releaving my stress. that and my friend's stronge's since of humor (and all the other interior communication personnell)... ok. back to work, i've been skating a little too much now...
oh and it's actually about 9:30 right now... in a couple hours it should be my bedtime, but i've got a lot of training i've got to get done....

we've now begun our descent to our 4 1/2 month westpack deployement. underway sea and anchor was at about 0830, and we didn't leave san dog untill about 0930. i of course still was trying to talk on my cell phone as much as i could, until i wasn't getting any signal. and then we had an underway replenashment refueling - another ship transffering gas and jp5 to our ship.
tomorrow will be another calm work day, except for maybe the gun crew (myself and the others on the 25 and 50 cal machine guns) shooting the 50 cal guns. and the sunday morning from 4 to 7 am, i have a watch for my division - conflag 6 watch, which means i'll be sitting in a small scape in the weild deck to make the lcac's (hover boats) don't catch on fire.
i can't tell yet if this deployement will have more good days than bad, but i hope it will.

it's about 8pm now, and the chaplain is giving his evening prayer on the load speaker. sometimes he gives good speachs, and tonight was somewhat like 'this is our first day of our deployement, and may our future deployement days be blessed.' our last chaplain would sometimes give praise to the small things, like blessing popcorn. i wonder if it was because he was eating the popcorn before he went to give his speach/prayer, or because he couldn't think of anything else to praise.

"Traveled far from my home
Foreign streets paved with stone
Deep in my dreams, Moroccan sand
Now I sail my ship on dry land"
~ tori amos (from 'pirates')

at home right now. mum's parent's and brother came over for some dinner, and 'sideways.' this might be my last days here at my mom's untill september or so. i am quite sad already, and i'm dreading going back to san dog.

we leave in 5 days for this deployement. my 3rd deployement. but i have my golden shellback card, so that way when we do the crossing the line ceriemony again, i'll be the one that gets to pick on the pollywogs (people that haven't done the crossing the equator ceriemony).

"and the season they go round and round
and the painted ponies go up and down
we're captive on the carousel of time
we can't return, we can only look behind
from where we came
and go round and round and round
in the circle game"
~joni mitchell (the circle game)

i'm using my roomate's computer right now. i've got a lot of cleaning to do, as well as packing. i have a sea bag and garment bag that needs to be taken back to the ship, along with other bags of civilian clothes, books, movies, etc etc.

i'm coming back home for saturday and sunday, and there's possibilities, that we'll have either monday or wednesday off work. (so max i will call you today)

there's about 9 days left before we deploy here. i went to the padre's game monday (of which the giants got creamed) and i might go see them again today because their playing dodgers, and it's military night. and then from here till we deploy i'm going to try to see a couple movies at the theatres.

Current mood: cynical

i don't want to but i'm on my way back to san diego tonight. back to the god forsaken ship by tomorrow. and i will be starting another typical boxer (my ship) monday. i don't want to go back. nononononooooo

311 - Amber

Video provided by The Source

we broght two lcu's (WWII boats) into the aft core of the ship today. all day today. the ship is still humming, and we just resenlty got off work. of course there's a few hours of stand-by time, and nap times. and in between i've seen bill and ted's excellent adventure, daredevil, and currently watching blow.
if i was a boatswain mate (BM's), i wouldn't have been bored today, and i would've probably be jumping up for joy every time we had to start the lcu boat operations, like some of the BM's were. and tomorrow morning i have an early start with some mandatory physical training (arobic excersizes for an hour). so goodnight world.

Coughing from the smoke of a black roof chimney
Marching to the beat of a hot roof o'er me
Hey, ho, here we go
We're off to work again
Bells are ringing
We are singing
Joyous in our industry 

I love my job
He loves his job
Pull that lever
Start the engine
Pump the water, build the pressure
Push the piston, press the button
Pump the water, build the pressure
Push the piston, press the button
It's the perfect job

I dont like
I dont like mondays
Tell me why
I dont like mondays
I want to shoot
The whole day down
Down, down, shoot it all down

we're underway right now, and with 1 out of 2 anchors working. this morning we had to take the ship off the port on idile, and have the tug boats turn the boat around so that we could pull the boat back in on it's right side rather than it's left, so that the 1st division deck could do a anchor weight test. that weight test was the out come of when and if we could go underway this week to pick up ammunition. we'll be having a lot of LCAC's (hoover crafts) and LCU's (WWII boats) on our ship, and flight quarters (helicopters coming onboard) from sunrise to sunset. at least the tv's are working right now, so we can watch some intertainment. we'll be very busy this week, as always.

to make matters worse, their doing ballasting operations right now, so there's a really load rrrrrr noise throughtout the ship. that noise get's pretty bad in our sleeping space, so i'm hoping that it'll stop before i go to sleep. if not it'll be my bedtime song...

at the ship right now. it's looking like we'll be on stand-by in the anchor station all day today. a piece of the anchor engineer equiptment is broken right now so we're all waiting to see if it's fixed. if it is, then we have to do a test on the anchor, if it isn't fixed the this 4 day underway this week before our deployement would have to be delayed. and then possibly our deployement date would be delayed, but i doubt that. i just know that we can't go underway without an anchor.

our boats'n warrent officer is here now, and he's saying that the anchor being fixed doesn't look good. so we're still stuck here waiting to see if it we'll be fixed. and then everyone is so bored that they wanted to take a look at my journal site. just another typical duty day.

all this and we have 19 days till deployement.