I Know That I'm Wrong...

...about everything I said,
But here it goes again...


Busy, busy, so much gone by and yet - so little to talk about. But I'm sitting here in the USO Internet Cafe (*contains no actual cafe) with nothing to do, it's 6 AM back home and nobody's going to be awake for a while, and I've done my daily k - Sunday is Letter To Wife Day - but I might as well write anyway. Also, this is the last opportunity for a decent internet connection for about a OPSEC, since we won't be coming back here anytime soon and wireless connections in our other two ports of call this deployment are... fickle.

So... hi.

Very little has changed since my last update, really, except to add "more so" to everything I said before. It was hot - now it's more so, as summer inevitably looms. I have, in fact, written a poem about it - a little bit of doggerel I tossed off for my friend Allison, and I'll throw that in at the end of this, just for S&Gs, since that postcard should have reached her by now.

I mentioned that I was losing weight - I've lost more. I'm down from about 310# at the start of this trip, with a definite weigh-in of 308 at one point in the early weeks, to 286 1/2 yesterday when I checked. Losing fat has also come with a gain in muscle - I've been hitting the weights pretty hard - so I've probably lost more than twenty pounds thus far. I've got a long way to go before I fulfill Goal 1, but since we're only halfway through the year and I'm almost halfway there, I figure I'm off to a good start.

We've been working - and now, more so. Our regular captain is on leave, and the temporary captain doesn't have his hangups about offering overtime - so, we've been able to get some extra work in on the evenings, and scuttlebutt says this may be a regular thing soon. Even if it isn't, our operational tempo has been pretty steady, and while I can't talk about our customers in detail (as much as I'd like to gripe about the unprofessionalism and sheer incompetence displayed by a Left Coast MSC T-AKE we recently fueled), I think it's safe to say that situation is unlikely to change.

I've been reading... a lot. Finally got around to reading A Perfect Blood, the latest Hollows novel from Kim Harrison (*contains no actual Hollows... I'm wondering which novel actually had that rundown, magic-infested neighborhood featured prominently in it; it's been a while...) - short review, not the best of the series, not the worst, takes a little while for the main character to get over her whinging and resume arse whupping. I've been managing about a novel every day to every other day, and keeping up with my nonfiction reading, as well. So, that's coming along. I've also been catching up on movies, something I don't watch much when I'm home, and I've made it most of the way through the current run of "Lie To Me" thanks to my generous, loving, adoring wife.

I've been writing... well, this one's a "more or less so," rather than a "more so." We had a week there where I was working twelve hour plus days pretty constantly, so I didn't have much time to keep up with the daily accounts; a lot of days, I don't quite have the motivation (or the willpower, to be honest) to push myself to a thousand words. Some days, like today, I comfortably pass that, but they're far fewer in number. I have managed to come up with not one but three ideas for this year's NaNoWriMo; I played around with the idea of enrolling in Camp NaNoWriMo this month, but decided that I had enough on my plate already without adding in insane deadlines. Besides, the last time I was on this ship (2007), I finished out NaNoWriMo with projectile vomiting and dire rear from hell. I'm not saying the two were related (there was Djibouti involved), but I'd really rather not take the chance...

And that's about it, really. One of the things about life at sea, you fall into a routine; every day is much like the one before is much like the one after, or as I mentioned to a friend who made the mistake of giving me a bellyfull of TGIF optimism, "At sea, every day is Monday." I actually took a half day today, seeing how it's a)Sunday, b) my last opportunity to get some quality internet time for a while (and I'm trying to download Wikipedia to my computer, a Quixotic quest if ever there were one...), and c) my cheat day on my diet... not that that's gone particularly well. Nothing appetizing for lunch, nothing appetizing for dinner, breakfast was barely tolerable... I may head over to the Seaman's Center for a pizza later, but that's about as far (or as much money) as I really wanna spend. One good thing about the coming month; plenty of opportunity to save.

An Ode To Dubai (and the rest of the Burning Lands)

Gray sand, gray sky

The dust flies thick;

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT

Breathe soupy air

And cough and spit

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT

Hammer sun strikes

And we sway and sick

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT

What do you mean,

"Summer's not here yet?!"

HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT

Time is like broken glass...

cuts you down to size
Jagged edge, cuts both ways
I'm a diamond...
...in disguise...

So, at some point in this life or a past one, my brother seems to have irritated a minor water deity. His apartment has been flooded, from one appliance failure or another, no less than three times over the past six months, and each time this happens, I end up taking care of his cats until the problem is remedied.

Now, don't get me wrong - I adore his cats, little hellions that they are, and I don't even mind the 8 AM furry rump against my face wakeup calls. Usually, I end up blindly, blearily, reaching out and hugging them until they go away and let me go back to sleep.

I've tried this on girlfriends in the past, too, but it never seems to work properly.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up - besides the fact that this is a blog, and therefore a reasonably-up-to-date guide to the minutiae of my life - is because when I came downstairs ungodly early this morning, I found that the downstairs toilet had overflowed, leaving my front hallway - already littered with junk mail that I hadn't bothered to pick up for the last, oh, month or so - a minor swamp.

Which leads me to believe that it's the cats, not my brother, laboring under the curse.

Anyway, minor problem soon remedied with a plunger and a mop... for now. Here's hoping my brother gets his floor and plumbing repaired before my water heater decides to go... or my pipes... or, well, anything else.

So, my life continues very much as it has before - we're in port, have been for some time, will be for most of the month. The ship is scheduled for a nearly year long deployment, starting at the end of September; I don't plan on sticking around for it, having put in for a relief date of October 2nd. Whether I'll actually get said relief date is up to the whim of the gods and MSC detailers, neither of whom are very much known for their common sense or rationality; sure, the company could save roughly 2 grand in plane tickets by simply sending my relief over a day or two before the ship deploys, but more likely I'll find myself flying home from Spain or Crete. Hardly the first time I've done so, and what the hell - I like flying.

Robin Williams once said, "Cocaine is God's way of telling you that you make too much money." Me, well, I'm pretty straight edge - not to mention that my job conducts random drug testing. So, instead of narcotics, I blow incredibly stupid amounts of money on toys and hobbies. The latest fascination? Airsoft, a game in which grown men dress up like soldiers and run around the woods shooting each other with plastic BBs. After a failed expedition to Ebay proved the truism "you get what you pay for," my brother and I absconded to our local airsoft store - Poseidon Airsoft Group Armory and picked out our favorites from the, sadly limited after a major blowout sale, selection. Fortunately, everything we wanted was there - James ended up with a Classic Army G36, I picked up a CA M-14 and a pair of KWA M1911 pistols. Everything is incredibly shiny, and I've been forcibly restraining myself from bouncing back and purchasing more - despite the hefty price tags, despite the fact that I haven't yet had a chance to play with the ones I already have, my work schedule as draconian as it is.

I know, somebody should really hold me down and take my credit card away from me.

Twilight Exile continues along, steady enough although progress has been slower than I'd like; it doesn't help that I'm as easily distracted as a ferret in a room full of mirrors, and whenever I embroil myself in a major project I inevitably seem to find other story ideas boiling up out of the back forty of my creative subconscious. I've been giving thought to NaNoWriMo this year as the fall draws closer; for a while there, I was pretty sure I was going to do a Rifts novel, probably focused around a burned out ex-CS Juicer who was dishonorably discharged and forced through detox, but now I'm not so sure. Of course, if previous NaNoWriMos have taught me anything, it's that I'm going to be unsure and waffling about the novel right up to November 1st - and afterwards too, most likely.

I pitched an idea to my friend Brian, involving a shared universe and a common starter scene, as seen from the POVs of everyone's characters - he took to the idea enthusiastically, and that enthusiasm is one of the reasons I'm second guessing my idea to do any sort of genre-fic this year. But hey, the Event itself is still almost sixty days away, and a lot can happen in that time.

Light, I hope I can stay in the area for it this year.

It's an angry sea but there is no doubt...

That the lighthouse will keep shining out
To warn the lonely sailor –
The lightning strikes and the wind cuts cold
Through the sailor's bones, to the sailor's soul
'Till there's nothing left that he can hold
Except the roaring ocean

But I am ready for the storm, yes oh ready I'm
I'm ready for the storm, I'm ready for the storm

So here we are, week two of NaNoWriMo. I've been falling a bit behind lately – I was consistently ahead of schedule the first few days, and then we stopped in Djibouti, Africa, and I got a bit delayed. No chance to write that day; working cargo all day long, quite a bit of pallets to load and not much space on the tiny, dirty pier to load it in; and then went out that night, to see if the town really was as bad as everyone had been saying. It was dirty, stinking, and full of people asking for money or aggressively trying to sell you things, but no worse than Marmaris, Turkey had been – or for that matter Tijuana, Mexico. Just goes to show, no matter where you go… there you are.

That said, I was still rather happy to leave Africa; the humidity, dust, and malaria prophylaxis were hell on me, and I was still fighting a pretty vicious head cold. I’m also not particularly happy to learn that we’re going back. Bah.

But getting back to NaNo, I’m about 14,000 words to the good – still about 2,000 behind schedule, despite taking today off and having little time but to write. Truthfully, I’ve had little to do all week but write – there’s a great picture on my Flickr account of Madb and I getting our wordcount on at flight quarters, helicopter taking off in the background. That pictures is also featured in the NaNoWriMo blog at blog.nanowrimo.org . I’d love to post it in here, but Blogger’s refusing to load for me again, and I’m actually mailing this entry in off from my ship’s e-mail account. I really hope this works properly…

Speaking of e-mail, the Navy finally got around to fulfilling their dire warning of no more commercial e-mail access on government computers; I haven’t been able to access my Gmail, AOL, or even Facebook inboxes for some time now. I have other e-mail to keep in contact with home and friends, but if you’re on Facebook and are tempted to send me a message… write on my wall instead, I’ll be able to read that sometime before December.

Speaking of, still looks like I’ll be home sometime between the first week of December, and the third. This is good… I’m definitely hoping for the first, despite the inconvenience involved in flying home, and despite the fact that getting paid off in Earle would actually pay me better – being overdue for relief nets you $25 per diem for every day overdue, and were I to be paid off in Earle, I’d also get about $300 travel money to get me back to Norfolk, VA. Still, every day on here seems to drag just a little bit longer, wear on my nerves just a little bit further, and make me miss home just that little bit more. It’s time to go.

So, that looks like about all the latest from me; merrily writing away on my novel, out of Africa, soon to go back to. Which, unfortunately, means that I’m going to be taking this freaking malaria pills that much longer… ;_; My dreams, never ‘normal’ even in the best of times, have taken on all kinds of freakiness. I was dreaming about WarMachine last night… well, amongst other things.

Where I stand with Toy Soldier’s War: our hero Chase has just been shot down on the pavement by the cruel alien invaders, after bravely fighting in defense of his school and city. I was originally planning on starting Act 2 with him waking up in his cryogenic tube, but I think instead I’m going to cut to the Lancer squadron he will soon be joining, as a routine day goes ugly for them – and they discover the laboratory Chase is in. After that, we’ll cut to the Ranger squadron that finds Chase, and our Hero in a Bottle… and carry on from there

Ja ne!

I can see the lights in the distance...

...trembling in the dark cloak of night.
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Soul's night...

So, Happy All Hallows, All Saints, All Souls, Samhain, Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, or holiday of choice to you. ^_^

We're back at sea again after a grueling sprint in Jebel Ali; we pulled in Wednesday last for a light load of cargo, planning on pulling out Saturday. Thursday we loaded more than we'd expected, working steadily throughout the day; Thursday night, some shipmates and I went out on the town, hitting various clubs until eventually ending up at a place called the Seaview, known for its live music. The band was decent, not as good as The Rock Spiders (see my entries for November of last year), but they knew how to jam. The bass player was especially good, switching instruments to the lead guitar for an excellent cover of Guns 'N Rose's "Sweet Child of Mine" as the finale. Friday was a lazy day; I'd put in a leave chit, hoping to finally drag Wally off to the indoor ski ramp at the Mall of the Emirates, but unfortunately we were both well burdened with hangovers. Ended up spending the entire day at Elmondo Internet Cafe, a good eight or nine hours stuck in the Wired - I regret nothing. While we were chilling at the cafe, one of our shipmates came by and mentioned that the sailing board had changed - rather than sail Saturday, we were now sailing Sunday, as the USNS Lewis & Clark wasn't going to make it into port.

At first blush, this sounded like an invitation to roll out and drink heavily again that night; but we were both still a bit hungover, and at any rate, I had duty the next day, and I'd been taking too many weekends off lately anyway. So, the next morning I woke up and headed out to work. Good thing, as I was on the cargo POD - doing a BS job, namely netting cargo. Unfortunately, at 6'3" with dirty blonde hair and a copper red beard, I stick out pretty well on deck - so when the bosun assigned all the otherwise unassigned dayworkers to go back and net cargo, the unrep bosun grabbed me out of the crowd to run elevator 6. Running the cargo elevators on deck is a boring, tedious, and pretty undemanding job; the elevator comes up, you flick the switch to 'stop', lower the safety net, and move it out of the way. The forktruck driver loads cargo onto the elevator, the operator replaces the safety net, switches the elevator to 'run', and pushes the button for the destination. Then you sit back and wait until the elevator comes back up, at which point the cycle repeats.

What was supposed to be a fairly light cargo load, a liberty port stop, suddenly turned into a marathon sprint, loading hundreds of pallets of cargo - everything we were originally scheduled for, everything the Lewis & Clark was scheduled for, and a good deal of other items besides. Scuttlebutt whispered that the security situation in the UAE was about to blow up on us, and all American ships were pulling out; discreet inquiries to the mildet, or to the security detachment, were met with a flat "I'm not at liberty to discuss that". Around 7:30 at night, they called deck department fore and aft - we were shifting berths from Shed 66, cargo loading, across the river to Star Energy - fuel loading. I'd been running the elevator all night, with a quick break when our fork truck died to grab some food - one of the steward utilities had ordered pizza. When I came up out of berthing, the bosun stopped me and said that he needed me to remain behind.

Remain behind?

Apparently, several people hadn't made it back to the ship yet - the sailing board had changed while they were out in town, and they weren't aware that the ship was shifting to Star Energy tonight, or leaving early the next morning. So, in case they made it back before we left, the ship was leaving a couple of people behind at Shed 66, along with the ship's agent, and a hired van and driver. I was volunteered as one of the stay-behinds.

It's a peculiarly lonely feeling, watching your ship pull away without you. Sure, the van was right there - and they were only going across the river, at any rate, so it wasn't like I was lost. Shed 66 has hordes of security - Navy MAs, hired Gurkhas, and probably layers of defense I'm not entitled to see - so it's not even like I was anything less than completely safe. Still, a lonely feeling...

Round about midnight, the guard at the gate paged me over his PA, asked me to stand by. Well, I'd been 'standing by' for the last four hours. No skin off my nose. Turns out the ship had called the pier guards, and asked them to send me home. Well, 'send me home' apparently got turned into 'bring me home', 'cause the next thing I know they're escorting me back onto the pier, giving me a safety briefing, taking down my personal information for their records, and slapping a life jacket on me. I rode across the river on one of the Navy security boats, climbed a short ladder up to the pier at Star Energy, and strode down the sandy stretch to the gangway. The watch looked at me, slightly goggle eyed, not expecting anyone to come aboard at half past midnight at a pier with restricted liberty. I shrugged as I walked on.

So, to wrap up a long story - that was my weekend. I slept in, Sunday - Monday and yesterday both have been a long stream of unreps and moving cargo around, and today promises to be more of the same. All well and good, keeping busy makes the time go by - unfortunately, I seem to have picked up one hellacious head cold somewhere, and my foggy sinuses and fuzzy head are making me pretty miserable. It looks like a busy week, more underway replenishments in the offing, culminating with a stopover in Djibouti, Africa, to pick up cargo. I spent last summer in West Africa (Liberia and Ghana); I can't say I was expecting to go back to the continent, but at least it's East Africa, something new, this time. The schedule still seems pretty torn on whether or not we'll be returning to Jebel Ali, or the UAE at all, this deployment, but they still seem pretty firm on our return to the World this December. I have in for the first of the month off, although it looks like my earliest opportunity to leave would actually be sometime later that week, and things aren't really clear as to whether they'll spend the money necessary to fly me home, or merely pay me the (much cheaper) overdue for relief fee upon putting into Earle around the late middle of the month. Either way, I should be home in time for Christmas - I'm keeping my fingers crossed. >_<

Midnight tonight marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, and I am well and truly pumped for it. Finally settled (somewhat) on a title; the tenative working title is going to be "Toy Soldier's War", sticking with the same story I was thinking of for WANI and have spoken of here before. I have plans to either stay up until or wake up at midnight tonight to write; probably not too much, given how sleep has been a fairly elusive partner for me lately, and my dreams have been troubled and disturbed. I don't have nightmares - haven't since I was five years old, and had one so horrible it burned the terror out of my night time excursions since - but I've been known to wake up in the morning with a groggy, "What the hell was that all about?"

But I suppose I've rambled on enough for one entry, and although I'm on the most private computer in our little library, I can still see people peeking over at me as if wondering just how much longer I'm going to monopolize the internet.

Happy Writing to everyone engaging in the great adventure this November. ^_^