So yeah, just in case you didn't know. I'm out in Maine working at my new ship USS Sampson (DDG 102). I would love to tell you the story of how I got out here and what the last week and a half of work have been like, but for the most part it was pretty stressful and boring, so I will save you, and myself the trouble.
Instead I have a little story about how my Birthday turned out pretty sweet.
I had a really busy day at work and didn't really think about my birthday or celebrate it. Birthdays and celebrating them is not very big deal in the Navy. Probably for a lot of reasons.
So when I came back to my BOQ (Bachelor Officer Quarters) room and got a bunch voice mails, messages and calls wishing me a Happy Birthday it was a really nice surprise.
Its hard to think much about how many great friends and family members I have when I am up here in my secluded little bubble in Maine. My life is pretty much eat/sleep/work during the week right now.
So it is always nice to get messages from all of my friends and family wishing me well.
So thank you very much.
(side note: I know some many of you have asked what my job is. The simplest response is I am an officer in the Navy, pretty much anything after that it starts to get really complicated because, as I am learning, this job is very multifaceted.)
I guess I can say I'm 23 now, but other than that not too much has really changed. I will say I don't really feel like I am getting old ( a couple of girls told me when they turned 22 that they felt like they were getting old, What the heck!?), but I am kind of missing being a kid.
I hope to have time to send many of you messages, but I know I will not get to all of you for a little while because I am really swamped with stuff to do out here right now.
I will likely have a new shipboard address soon, but for anyone that would like to contact me the old fashioned way (aka Snail Mail, aka "a lost art", aka USPS) this is my mailing address:
ENS James Last Name
MPDIVO ENG
USS Sampson (DDG 102)
FPO AP 96678-1303
for clarification MP Divo means: Main Propulsion Division Officer, That's my position on the ship.
ENG means: Engineering
For now I will still have my u.washington address readily available to me on occasion, but I should have a shipboard email soon.
PS. For those of you that had questions about logging into Blogger.com , My best recommendation would be to get a gmail email address by going to gmail.com and clicking on register. With a Gmail address you will not only be able to log into blogger.com with ease, but you will also have access to a plethora of great applications, tools, and websites that google makes for it's users. I could go on talking about them for awhile, but I have a lot
things I should be doing.
Hope to talk to you soon.
I'm hitting the rack.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Keep on Moving
Last week Jon, Matt and I moved into our sweet new house about four blocks from Pacific Beach in San Diego. After settling in we spent sometime chilling on the beach, catching up on sleep, and seeing what the PB night life had to offer.
San Diego is a really fun town and from what I got to see of it I am really going to enjoy it. Sadly almost as soon as I got used to it I had to head on. On Monday I left California and flew to Maine where my ship is currently located.
After a long day of flying I arrived in Portland and rode up to Brunswick where the barracks is. My ship is just down the road in Bath. That's where the shipyard she was built in is located. The ship pretty much all ready to go, they just keep her close to the shipyard so that that they can work out any little kinks or problems that may arise.
In a few months we will be departing Maine and going underway to drive down the east coast, through the Panama Canal and on up to San Diego, where she will be homeported.
So for now I get to spend sometime on the east coast while we get ready to go underway.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July so I will have that off I am thinking I may try to make it into Portland.
Then I will check in and start working on Thursday.
San Diego is a really fun town and from what I got to see of it I am really going to enjoy it. Sadly almost as soon as I got used to it I had to head on. On Monday I left California and flew to Maine where my ship is currently located.
After a long day of flying I arrived in Portland and rode up to Brunswick where the barracks is. My ship is just down the road in Bath. That's where the shipyard she was built in is located. The ship pretty much all ready to go, they just keep her close to the shipyard so that that they can work out any little kinks or problems that may arise.
In a few months we will be departing Maine and going underway to drive down the east coast, through the Panama Canal and on up to San Diego, where she will be homeported.
So for now I get to spend sometime on the east coast while we get ready to go underway.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July so I will have that off I am thinking I may try to make it into Portland.
Then I will check in and start working on Thursday.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
And so it begins
Hello everyone,
As many of you know I was recently commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy and have entered into a time in my life filled with adventure, excitement, new challenges, moving and all sorts of other stressful things you don't want to hear about.
I hope to use this blog to keep as many of my friends and relatives up to date on where I am in the world, what I'm doing, and what I will be doing soon.
Some of you know plenty about all that is going on, others I haven't had as much direct contact with and have been so busy I haven't gotten a chance to give you the update. So here's a short summary of what has been happening over the last month or so and what I think will happen in the next few weeks.
Late May: With my commissioning date (8June) rapidly approach the Navy finally decided that they would have me working as a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO), earlier in the year they had thought they might be sending me to flight school to train to be a pilot (something I would have been happy to do but being a SWO was my first choice). So suddenly I was going to be getting to do the job in the Navy I had always wanted to do.
A few days later one of my Lieutenant advisers at the UWNROTC unit emailed me a list of about 8 ships and their home ports for me to select my ship from. There were some great pacific ports on the list and several very nice ships on the list. Pretty much from first sight one of the Ships and home ports stood out as a great opportunity. So I quickly decided on USS Sampson (DDG 102) home ported in San Diego, California.
This is a brand new Destroyer that will be commissioned later this year. Along with the excitement of getting a new ship ready for the jobs it will be called a long to do will come many challenges and interesting opportunities.
Early June
With my ship selected, the Navy cut my orders planned for me to leave UW and start heading for my ship in late June. Before I could even start planning for my move I needed to get my commission first.
My family came in town on about June fourth, on June 6th I attended my graduation ceremony from UW's English Department and the celebrations begun. I guess they actually began about four days before when my roommate and I checked out a projector and started watch movies on our front lawn with our friends. But now for the official celebration.
The big ceremony came that Friday, June 8th, when I was officially commissioned in the United States Navy as an Ensign.
My brother-in-law Scott (a Major in the Army) swore me in that morning in front of Drumheller Fountain on the UW Campus.
Later that day we had the big commissioning ceremony on the UW Quad and along with the rest of my class I was sworn in by the Unit's Captain.
Later in the Ceremony my parents replace my Midshipman shoulder boards with my ENS shoulder boards...
and my brothers replaced my cover...
(I promise you I was really happy for some reason I just didn't show it)
Then I got my first salute from Chief M. who worked in the Admin. office at our unit and helped me a lot throughout my ROTC days.
And so my Naval career begins.
That weekend we had a great BBQ at Magnuson park to celebrate with family and friends.
For about the next week or so I got to relax and recover from all the Grad./commissioning excitement.
Then it was time to start moving and get to work. After several days of furious packing I loaded up my Penske truck and hit the road.
Last Thursday (21Jun) I detached from UW NROTC and set out. Caravaning with my roommate Jon we drove to Yerka California (one classy town by the way).
On Friday we woke up and drove all day to Jon's Parent's home just outside of LA.
It was a long drive but thanks to the Ipod and some entertaining conversation on the tw0-way radios it went pretty quick.
In San Diego I'm going to be living with two of my best friends at UW, Jon and Matt. Both of the guys were in ROTC with me all four years and now I have been fortunate to be stationed with them in SD as well.
Somehow we found this great house on craigslist and on Saturday we went down to look at it. It was about five blocks from Pacific beach and recently remodeled. We knew we had to jump on it quick and so we went ahead and applied for the lease. The landlord quickly figured out we weren't the type of guys that would trash his nice house and soon we were signing the lease. So much sooner than planned we had our new place to live. SWEET!
It looks like we are going to start moving in on Monday.
This post is getting a little long so I am going to go ahead and cut it off now.
I will give everyone the update on my upcoming plan soon.
If you have any questions about all this stuff I just talked about please feel free to ask them in the comments section and I will try to answer them the best I can.
Thank you all so much for your love and support.
As many of you know I was recently commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy and have entered into a time in my life filled with adventure, excitement, new challenges, moving and all sorts of other stressful things you don't want to hear about.
I hope to use this blog to keep as many of my friends and relatives up to date on where I am in the world, what I'm doing, and what I will be doing soon.
Some of you know plenty about all that is going on, others I haven't had as much direct contact with and have been so busy I haven't gotten a chance to give you the update. So here's a short summary of what has been happening over the last month or so and what I think will happen in the next few weeks.
Late May: With my commissioning date (8June) rapidly approach the Navy finally decided that they would have me working as a Surface Warfare Officer (SWO), earlier in the year they had thought they might be sending me to flight school to train to be a pilot (something I would have been happy to do but being a SWO was my first choice). So suddenly I was going to be getting to do the job in the Navy I had always wanted to do.
A few days later one of my Lieutenant advisers at the UWNROTC unit emailed me a list of about 8 ships and their home ports for me to select my ship from. There were some great pacific ports on the list and several very nice ships on the list. Pretty much from first sight one of the Ships and home ports stood out as a great opportunity. So I quickly decided on USS Sampson (DDG 102) home ported in San Diego, California.
This is a brand new Destroyer that will be commissioned later this year. Along with the excitement of getting a new ship ready for the jobs it will be called a long to do will come many challenges and interesting opportunities.
Early June
With my ship selected, the Navy cut my orders planned for me to leave UW and start heading for my ship in late June. Before I could even start planning for my move I needed to get my commission first.
My family came in town on about June fourth, on June 6th I attended my graduation ceremony from UW's English Department and the celebrations begun. I guess they actually began about four days before when my roommate and I checked out a projector and started watch movies on our front lawn with our friends. But now for the official celebration.
The big ceremony came that Friday, June 8th, when I was officially commissioned in the United States Navy as an Ensign.
My brother-in-law Scott (a Major in the Army) swore me in that morning in front of Drumheller Fountain on the UW Campus.
Later that day we had the big commissioning ceremony on the UW Quad and along with the rest of my class I was sworn in by the Unit's Captain.
Later in the Ceremony my parents replace my Midshipman shoulder boards with my ENS shoulder boards...
and my brothers replaced my cover...
(I promise you I was really happy for some reason I just didn't show it)Then I got my first salute from Chief M. who worked in the Admin. office at our unit and helped me a lot throughout my ROTC days.
And so my Naval career begins.That weekend we had a great BBQ at Magnuson park to celebrate with family and friends.
For about the next week or so I got to relax and recover from all the Grad./commissioning excitement.
Then it was time to start moving and get to work. After several days of furious packing I loaded up my Penske truck and hit the road.
Last Thursday (21Jun) I detached from UW NROTC and set out. Caravaning with my roommate Jon we drove to Yerka California (one classy town by the way).
On Friday we woke up and drove all day to Jon's Parent's home just outside of LA.
It was a long drive but thanks to the Ipod and some entertaining conversation on the tw0-way radios it went pretty quick.
In San Diego I'm going to be living with two of my best friends at UW, Jon and Matt. Both of the guys were in ROTC with me all four years and now I have been fortunate to be stationed with them in SD as well.
Somehow we found this great house on craigslist and on Saturday we went down to look at it. It was about five blocks from Pacific beach and recently remodeled. We knew we had to jump on it quick and so we went ahead and applied for the lease. The landlord quickly figured out we weren't the type of guys that would trash his nice house and soon we were signing the lease. So much sooner than planned we had our new place to live. SWEET!
It looks like we are going to start moving in on Monday.
This post is getting a little long so I am going to go ahead and cut it off now.
I will give everyone the update on my upcoming plan soon.
If you have any questions about all this stuff I just talked about please feel free to ask them in the comments section and I will try to answer them the best I can.
Thank you all so much for your love and support.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)