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 |  Writings about things that have occurred in my life. Not in Chronological Order |
| Things that have happened in my life, good or bad. The entries will not be in Chronological order |
Recognized Unexpectedly During A Meeting Well, I did finish this week's class by noon Friday, and headed home. There were a couple of stops to make along the way too. I needed to get a Lou Malnati's Pizza for a close friend (There are no 'Lous' places anywhere near us), and stop by 'The Fresh Market' for some Chocolate Cherry Kiss coffee. Again, there's not one of those stores anywhere close to me in Bloomington. While I was heading to The Fresh Market, I received a chat notification. No, I don't chat on the internet, at least not much. This was a notification from Google chat. The instructor team at work has set up a series of Chat Rooms in Google chat. Almost every group at work has a similar room, but we have 7-10 of them based on various courses/subject matter. When I could view it, I saw that my immediate supervisor has posted a comment about being in a meeting, or series of meetings. All virtual. All of a sudden, he heard an Engineer mention my name, and stated that he wanted to thank me for helping them set up their Fleetmapping Focus group, and providing training materials so they could review them, and work on their group. He also said I was a good resource for anyone who wanted to ask questions about Fleetmapping... He said some more, but you get the gist of it. I was shocked and surprised! Yes, I had worked with this Engineer briefly, very briefly. I attended a virtual meeting on Fleetmapping, and shared what I'd done with the course last year, as well as sharing my documents on it. It was quite a surprise to have an Engineer mention my name like that, much less heap praise on me, especially since we'd only met (virtually) that one time. I woke the next morning, and my supervisor had sent me a 'High Five'. I get those about once or twice a year, people give them as a way to thank you for your help. The big thing here is, when you receive your fifth High Five, you get a monetary reward. Usually around $1000 or so, this is my third in this go-round. Yes, I've gotten about 13 or so of them in my time at work. I'm not sure how many I've gotten since my last reward, I don't keep track of them. But that little reward is always nice. It's even nicer to be recognized by someone who is essentially a complete stranger. I'm a bit like, "Aww Shucks George, I was just doing my job... " Honest, that's how it is for me. Maybe someday I'll tell y'all about Fleetmapping, and why it's such an important subject. It's not a technical subject really, but before I rewrote the course materials last year, we were delivering that class maybe three times a year, a contractor always doing the delivery. I rewrote it in April 2020, and delivered it seven times between late April and the end of the year, and am scheduled to deliver it nine times this year. Okay, enough bragging. Speaking of Fleetmapping, I will deliver it (virtually of course) the next two weeks.... I'm still thankful to have this great job, thankful for so many things. Most of all, I'm thankful I'm here, alive and kicking. See you all next t me 'round. |
Monsters Under Her (My) Bed Tonight I'm asking the following question. How many of you sleep with your whole body, including arms and legs, on the bed, never letting any part of you dangle over the side? Is it because like me, you're afraid of "Monsters Under Her Bed"  ? I wrote this based on that childhood fear; it's still with me today. I know it's irrational, but hey, it's my fear. I deal with it at least, but yeah, there's no way any part of my body will dangle over the side of my bed.I'd be interested if any of you have this fear and how you handle it if you do. If you don't, what basic fear do you have? What scares the bejesus out of you no matter what? I had another fear as a child, and still do in some ways. I grew up in Albuquerque, and lived in the 'valley' near the river for most of that time. The was (is) a ditch that runs next to the river, it's very shallow, maybe a little over a foot deep in the deepest pools. But at night..... there was no way I would walk along the road near the ditch. I always, ALWAYS, walked on the far side of the road, away from the ditch. Sometimes I ran, not walked. What caused this fear? I have to confess that I'm not sure. It may have been due to seeing the old movie, 'The Creature From The Black Lagoon'. Or maybe I was afraid of La Llorona. Either way, you couldn't pay me enough to walk at night on the side of the road next to the ditch, During the day was fine, heck, I even played in the ditch. We'd catch crawdads, make small boats... have a lot of fun. But come nightfall, that place was off-limits. I think about that time in my life, and laugh. I also know that if I went home to visit friends and family, I'd still walk on the side of the road away from the ditch. I think I was afraid of La Llorona.... I haven't seen that movie, but I know of the legend... <shivers> |
A Day In The Life Of A Submariner I think that by now most of you know I spent 20 years of my life on Submarines. I saw a post in a group I'm a member of on good ol' FB tonight, and thought I'd share a photo with you, and tell you a little about it. First, in the photo, the men are standing up straight, they are not leaning.  A submarine will do this when they first go to sea. There's a couple of reasons for this, the biggest being, is everything stored correctly? The way you do this, is once you're at sea and submerged, go to a deep enough depth, maybe 500 feet. Then the Officer Of The Deck (OOD) will have the Diving Officer, and the Planesmen take the boat to a shallower depth, maybe 200 feet, only to immediately go back to the previous depth. Imagine going up and down a steep hill in your car if you will. Anything not stowed well will come loose and make a loud noise. Better to have it happen here, early on, than happen when you're trying to be quiet. In the photo, the boat is on a down angle of about 20-25 degrees. The crew is standing straight. You see their clothing? That's called a Poopie Suit. It is a one piece outfit that zips up, or down. Yep, just one zipper. Very light weight, fire retardant, you were given 3 to start with, but frequently ended up with 5 or 6. Since your clothes are only washed once a week (you were lucky if they were washed once a week), having 5 or 6 was a luxury. Being so lightweight made them easy to fold and store too. On my second boat, the USS Sargo SSN583, we did angles-n-dangles after leaving port. One of my shipmates thought it would be 'cool' to sit on the deck and slide during the angles. All was well, until the one time... Yep, on down angles, he would end up 'bouncing' off the Torpedo Room watertight door. Well, this one time in band camp, someone stepped out of the Chief's Quarters right near that watertight door. My shipmate saw him and tried to stop his slide, and reached out to grab something. Nothing available. But his hand did find a slightly loose piece of CRES (not sure what the metal was, it was lightweight, a bit like Aluminum), and sliced his palm to the bone as he slid by. I happened to go to the head (restroom for you landlubbers) after the angles-n-dangles. He in there with the Corpsman who watched him as he cleaned his palm with a Betadine solution. Yep, the corpsman was making him clean it himself, and was telling him he couldn't do it because the sight of blood would make him faint...  Later, that same corpsman stitched his palm. Yes, a corpsman did that, submarines do not have a 'doctor' on board, only a hospital corpsman. Ahhh, such was life when I was young! |
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