My graduating class, 1201-8, minus the ones we’ve lost. Check out my sweet mustache (on the far left).

Well, it seems like only yesterday and I was graduating Nuclear Field A School, NFAS, and here I am about to graduate Nuclear Power School (assuming I pass the comprehensive exam in two weeks), arguably one of the hardest schools that the military has to offer. I can’t really even explain why this place is hard because it’s something that you would have to live through to really understand. It’s not just the material, the amount of it, and the speed at which you learn it, but the entire experience is meant to kick your ass from the day you get there to the day you graduate. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a few along the way due to different reasons, and probably a few still after the comp exam takes place.

Much like in A School, this six months has been a complete blur. It’s hard to even remember starting the school, let alone what I was doing last week. The amount of stuff we’ve crammed into our heads has been ridiculous and after this I feel like I never want to slam my head full of random information ever again. But, in 6-9 months, I will be working on a live nuclear reactor plant training to go to sea. I’m ready to just do a deployment… but 6-9 months of doing nothing sounds amazing. Speaking of which, there’s a pretty decent chance I could get TAD (temporary assigned duty) to Norfolk, VA or King’s Bay, Georgia. Nothing is decided, but we were told today that if no one voluntarily selects it, every single Sailor will be up being “voluntold” to go. Exciting. Who knows what I’ll actually get. I just want it to be easy, to be honest.

Besides work, I spent this past weekend in Savannah, GA, for the first time since, well, the last update here in March. I got to spend time with Carissa and we hit up a ton of festivals (well, two), and the beach, and in general just relaxed. Nice to get out of Charleston, that’s for sure. The Navy means something there whereas here we just have our awesome Nuke reputation to contend with.

I’m starting to get a little stir crazy at work. I suppose we all are. We’re at each others’ throats one minute and friends the next. It really depends on the mood of the class. Our section leader Buetow just had a baby this morning. He and his wife are going to make awesome parents. Pretty hectic time to come along, but hopefully he’ll have a long graduation hold before having to go away.

May 25th can’t come soon enough. 9 more days of actual work and we’re finished with this place. Or rather, Admiral Rickover is finished with us.

This is how Savannah looks when it's NOT raining.

This weekend I finally managed to tear myself away from work, if only just for a little while. I was fortunate enough to have nearly all my work done on Friday due to a (strangely) open schedule. Right after work, I met up with Kessler and McNaughty for burgers and beer at Sesame Burger, one of my new favorite places to go. Trying to make it a Friday tradition since now every time I go to Breck’s it’s packed full of nukes. Guess I shouldn’t have spread the word. I’ll try to keep this place and Hanahan’s Bar (five dollar pitchers) down the street a secret.

Anyway, Saturday morning I left for Savannah, Georgia. It’s just a short two hour drive south, but it ended up taking me forever because of the downpour. I was actually surprised how much rain could come down. Everyone was driving like the amazing South Carolina drivers they are, which is to say, awful. But, I made it and met up with Carissa for lunch right next to the ocean. I actually didn’t realize there was an ocean around because of the rain. When we were eating, we could hear the sirens going off for a tornado warning, but one never came. Too bad, it would be a good photo op.

Either way, I got to meet her family and hang out with her for a while, which was nice. Good to be away from Charleston for a while and see something new, even if it’s in the rain. I was surprised at the sheer amount of hipster kids in the town (until I learned that they have a big art college, SCAD). You just have got to love that ironic hipster ‘stache that everyone is rocking. Of course, tomorrow starts comp ‘stache, so I’ll be rocking something nasty until May 25th, when we graduate. Actually, I have an interview for OCS tomorrow, finally, so there’s a good chance I’ll shave that to not look really gross for the commander I end up talking to. It brings back some memories of A School where I looked like a pedophile rapist for a few weeks.

Carissa and I at a plantation tour in early December. Check out this really interesting marsh.

Anyway, back to Savannah. I had dinner with Carissa and her family at a place called The Green Truck which serves fancy hipster burgers. Not as good as Sesame Burger, but still one of the better options. The next morning we did brunch at a place called Tortuga’s. When I asked Carissa if we were going to the “turtle place” she thought I was crazy — I guess the Spanish isn’t as obvious to someone from Ohio. After that though, I had to drive back. I was surprised how beautiful the country side was now that it wasn’t raining, but I hated the fact that I was going back to NNPTC. I really would have liked to stayed for a week!

Tomorrow is just another week, although somewhat easy since one of our exams was pushed to Friday to make room for our “E-5 Second Class” promotion exam. The Navy makes us take it, even though there’s no way we’ll be promoted. I think I’ve seen one Second Class walking around here as a student, and he had been on Medical Hold for nearly two years. Definitely trying to make it out of here as fast as possible. In fact, tomorrow marks the start of the second half of Power School; just a second ago it was 1/3 (marked by getting a new schedule card). I’m still hanging in there, doing good on some exams and worse on others — generally better at the raw memorization courses than the applied mathematics. Part of how my mind works, I guess.

Time for bed I guess. This place is pretty much a time machine. It’ll be May before I know it. I hope.

Scott at bottom right and me standing behind him.

I had meant to put this story up ages ago, but I kept forgetting about it. Only recently did someone remind me about it, and I’m glad that they did. Sometime a few years back, my friend, Scott, and me, used to go to Six Flags pretty much every weekend. We had one of those season passes and it was always a great break from college. Or maybe just part of the experience.

Scott and I always did pretty dumb things together from the start. This actually goes way back to middle school where we first met in 6th grade. It was just a fluke that we ended up together, considering we both graduated early, etc. Either way, after one particularly good night doing the college lifestyle, the next morning we decided to go to Six Flag’s Fright Fest. It was still relatively warm and there weren’t too many people yet, so we decided to hit all the good rides first.

Scott wasn’t feeling too great from the night before, and I recall him throwing up a few times on the way there. He decided he should get something on his stomach, and so he bought some popcorn from the vender right after the gate. By the time we made it to the first ride, The Poltergeist, it was obvious he was feeling considerably worse. We looked really out of place next to all the little kids in their Halloween costumes, but we pushed on. I’m not sure why we thought it was a good idea to go on one of the faster rides right off the bat, but we did anyway.

About half way through the ride, I could see Scott’s face and he obviously was not doing well at all. So, by the end, he was fighting with the restraints and I kept screaming at him to not puke on me over and over. He held it in and wormed out of the chair restraint and jumped out out of the ride right as it pulled in. Immediately, he ran over to the edge of the platform and threw up a disgusting mixture of last night and gross leftover popcorn for the day before. I was dying laughing — it’s always good to see a bro in pain, after all.

What we didn’t realize is that immediately below the platform was a little girl exiting the ride. This poor girl was soaked in vomit, covering her princess outfit. We both realized we just ruined some little girl’s princess dreams; she’ll be scarred for life on one of the great’s American holidays. I’m truly sorry, but it was one of the best coincidences in history, and my favorite Six Flag story.

3 years since Australia. This was the happiest time of my life. When I look at these photos I get so happy, then so, so sad.

So, Friday marked the 1/3rd point of Navy Nuclear Power School. As a whole, I’d describe my experience as absolutely awful. I can’t imagine anyone who likes it, but I’m 1/3rd done and that gives me hope. Once I’m at that 2/3rd point it’ll be the home stretch and then it’s just hanging on until the end. On Reddit, I read a lot of the Navy posts about people just enlisting wondering about the Nuke field, and I feel like I should make one giant post to just reference them to. But, honestly, I can just say that it’s hard to deal with. You sit in a chair all day and grind away, trying to memorize things that you have no interest in and that you’ll never use again (a lot like college, but worse).

I think what really gets me is not the material but how we’re engaged by our instructors, who are all ensigns, minus one enlisted guy. There’s such a huge disconnect between enlisted and officer, and I’m not sure why. If you want to engage someone, you need to give respect both ways — it’s a mutual thing. Unfortunately, most of the officers just make us feel like we’re absolutely retarded for not knowing something and treat us like children. I’m a grown up so treat me like one. That’s too much to ask for though.

What really makes me wonder about that whole thing is that I’m trying to make officer — my package is being compiled as you read this. So, when I become an officer, will I instantly turn into that? Or will I just be me? I relate so much more with the enlisted side. I like to have fun, engage with people, and… act more like a person than anything. I don’t think I can switch from being me to that. That said, I  don’t mean to say I don’t want to be a leader. I’d love that opportunity. Part of the whole officer side is not only being a leader, but acting as a mentor. That’s a process that is give and take. Maybe it’s just this command that is like that; I’m really interested to seeing the real Navy. Right now we’re Boy Scouts with a pair of crows on our uniform.

Driving around town. Getting off base is one of my favorite activities.

Now, on the actually exciting part: the Super Bowl. Today I churned out the worst work possible to rush home. Definitely going to make it a party tonight and then see how it turns out when I wake up at 4:30 AM tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to look like a sentient being tomorrow. Planning on doing a little grilling, some drinking, and pretending, for a moment, that Monday doesn’t exist. I can’t wait for Friday already! It’s funny how the weeks just blur by. The more time you put in the building, the faster time warps to Friday. But, it’s hard to stop yourself from going absolutely insane at the same time.

Let’s see, not much else going on. I did my taxes and that was more fun than working. My brother is in the hospital right now. He had his colon removed last week and it was a tough surgery. He’s doing better now, thankfully. Besides that, it’s just the daily grind. Just 16 weeks to go!

Emily and I at a club in Houston. I absolutely miss the stupid fun nights we used to have!

Well, leave was fun. I pretty much had a complete blast, but now it’s been a couple of weeks and I’m right back in the thick of it until May. May cannot come soon enough. Every day I wake up and wonder “What am I doing?” At night, I actually hate going to sleep because the thought of tomorrow sounds so awful and I want to avoid it at all costs. I have progressed to a point in between apathy and just existing.  Now, I know that might sound like a desperate sign of giving up, but I mainly am just trying to coast through to the end of this. Right now, if I failed out of the program and was re-rated, I would be happy. I would, however, be more happy if I made officer. Still working on that process, but as before the Navy, it’s a complicated one.

That said, I’ve been doing pretty overall. My grades are okay and I’m still making enough effort to get by, even if I don’t really care about what I’m learning right now. I really did need that leave to give me a break from this place, and it was everything I could have imagined. I got to see Emily, Lizz, and Logen in Midland; Stephanie, Christian, Jesse, Rob, and my aunt and uncle Cathy and Dennis in San Antonio; Kayla, Brennan, and Andi in Austin; Emily, Jason, Eleina, and Dee Dee in Houston; my relatives and my grandma in Dallas. I almost saw my middle school friend Pierce in Houston as well, but his girlfriend got bit by a rabid animal. That’ll happen. I even almost made it to a New Years Eve party to see Tully and the gang, but I missed that. Heard he broke his arm being hammered. Ouch.

HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE.

This weekend has been a needed relief too. I don’t know how I will string together my sanity to get through Power School, but I’d like to personally thank MLK for having a dream, so that I could sleep in and have a dream myself. I managed to just hang out and have a good time this weekend, not working too much, and seeing a little of the Charleston sights with (my boy) Kapoi. We hit up the USS Yorktown, which I have been wanting to do for a while. Pretty badass. We had planned to see Ft. Sumter but it was way too cold to deal with that ferry ride.

Today was just sleeping in and work, but tomorrow is another fun exam over things I don’t care about. About one or two exams a week every week until I get out of here. The only good thing is that I will have a good amount of padding points wise to scrape by. I already threw the honorman out of the window, so I’ll be shooting for passing. (I’m not just good, I’m good enough.)

I’ll try to keep updating this, but man, I really don’t do anything. I feel like the weeks blur by and it’s all a game about passing time. When you sleep as little as I do now, you’re never really awake and never really asleep.

Jimenez, Pendy, Stemps, and Me

I’ve been home on leave for a few days but I never find time to update this thing like I would have liked to. Since I’ve been here it’s been pretty non-stop trying to see everyone and balance family time as well. I’m just so glad to not be in Charleston.

I finally got to spend some good time with Lizz since we only briefly saw each other last time. As well, I got to meet up with Logen for a few minutes for the first time in such a long time.

I’ve also decided to spend the rest of leave traveling around Texas to see everyone else: Steph and Christian in San Antonio, Brennan in Austin, Emily in Houston, and family in Dallas. Probably a few other stops too. We’ll see!

White Christmas

Today it’s Christmas. I think I actually did good on the gift situation this year, so that made me feel good. I like to give books because I know I can match people’s personalities. Still haven’t done Christmas (we’re doing it later because my brother working and general family logistics). It’s actually a white Christmas, my first ever. Never seen so much snow come from the sky — I’m impressed, and a little grossed out. Cold weather is not my thing.  So happy I brought my peacoat.

Anyway, I am just trying to use my time wisely. So not looking forward to my return. I will be absent from Jan. 2nd until May 25, assuming I can survive that long.

Petty Officer'ed Up

Well, this has been an interesting Thanksgiving. Yesterday, when I was getting my haircut after being yelled out by annoying third class for my hair touching my ears, the barber lady, Stephanie, invited me to her family’s Thanksgiving. It seemed a little strange, but there was no way I’d turn down a homecooked meal. My fears were put to rest as soon as I met her family — an eclectic mixture of people that were pretty awesome to hang out with. The food was fantastic and I actually enjoyed myself the whole time. Good stuff. It’s not home, and it’s not my family, but it was way better than eating frozen turkey at the galley.

Otherwise, things have been pretty good. Kicking it for the most part. I haven’t updated in large part because I’ve put in 140 hours to Skyrim, a super nerdy video game that consumed my soul since it’s release. But I burned myself out so it’s back to trying to get in shape again. The Navy is great for making you not want to work out.

Leave was good. I pretty much did nothing all day every day and it was fantastic. It was 10 days of me ignoring the world, sleeping in, and eating delicious food. (Yes, Kara, I remembered to mention you!) I have leave upcoming two weeks into Power School, meaning I’ll probably do the same, though if I am motivated enough, I’ll tour around Texas and see Emily, Mella, and a few others.

How can I be healthy when I have places that make a sandwich that looks like this?

As for now, we’re standing watches on what it called T-Track, or Transition Track, which basically means I ask if people have cell phones or often just stand there looking like I have a purpose. Lots of cleaning involved too. I’m still not really enjoying the nuclear field, even though I’m good at it. Yesterday I finally got to resubmitting my officer’s package, though it’ll take a while to get it all set up. I figure there’s no harm in trying and seeing what I can do. If I make supply officer, I’d be really happy. Then again, just as before, I’m terrified of OCS, Officer Candidate School, which is run by Marines and probably a lot tougher than bootcamp — and now I’m in pretty bad shape compared to when I first entered. Oh well, if I put my mind to something, I can make it happen. It just might suck in the mean time.

I still have a lot of dreams, and I’m committed to them, so no matter how long it takes, I’ll keep trying. But, until then, I’m just going to continue doing my thing as Third Class Petty Officer. (The phrase “Take it like a third class” is used pretty often around here.)

All in all though, I’m pretty content with things right now. I’ll probably update this before the new year, but we’ll see!

Class 1142A looking like gangstas

Amazingly, we’re almost done with the longest 14 weeks imaginable. In a 9 more days of actual work, we’ll be done with  A School at NNPTC, promoted to Petty Officer Third Class, and given 10 days of leave. It’s hard to think it’s been that long because when you’re working the hours that we do, time blurs together. McGowan, a friend/classmate of mine, likes to think of it in that there are only three days to a week: Monday, Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, and Friday. Everything runs into one really long day and by the time Friday hits, you’re pretty much ready to be done with everything and enjoy your weekend, if you don’t have duty or assignments, which we invariably do.

For me, A school hasn’t been particularly hard. I’ve managed to be the honorman throughout the school (at least, after math), and so I’ve had voluntary hours (“vols”) since nearly the second week of class. Of course, I can’t speak too soon since we still have two more machinery tests and our comp review left — and I really haven’t put much effort into preparing for any of those. Hopefully I won’t need it, but we’ll see. The only real motivation I have to do well on it is to just avoid the hassle of people yelling at me, or ordered hours, or the possibility as using it as a highlight in another officer’s package to see if I can pick up a commission.

We lost a bet with our instructor. The result was the world's creepiest man, aka, the best babysitter ever.

I really would like to switch fields completely if I make officer. It seems like Nukes are generally overworked and completely unhappy with everything. Everyone else I talk to in the Navy loves their jobs, but Nukes all seem pretty disgruntled by the whole experience. That said, I think a lot of that is just the mindset of the military in general: if there’s an outlet, you better be complaining. Right now, my focus is on just getting more money so I’m not barely getting by. Once that improves, I should be much more content. Either way, if I have the opportunity, I’d like to make Public Affairs Officer like I had originally hoped — that’s what I love to do, and that’s what I find fun. I guess it’s ironic I’m complaining at all since I’m performing the best in the class (and higher than honormen in most other classes too). But, the grass is always greener I guess.

That said, a lot of the class has been entertaining because of the dialogs with the instructors and random fleet stories. But, the most entertaining is just how insane we all start to get after being around each other for so long. We tolerate each other pretty well, but we can rage here or there. I know my humor is lost on some people in the class, and a few of us are completely annoyed by each other. But for the most part, we survive just fine. McGowan is a constant source of random stories and past life anecdotes — it’s really about the only thing that you can do to keep from falling asleep or just slamming your head into your desk over and over!

In 9 days of class (which will be the 21st of October), we’ll be completely done with everything and graduating. I can’t wait for the leave, to see my family and friends, but also to just not be here for a while. And when we come back we don’t class up until December 7th, so we have time to work out, hang out (by playing Skyrim non-stop), and explore Charleston — of course, we still have to work, but at least it doesn’t involve nuclear physics for once!

Irene turns dress whites into dress browns

So Hurricane Irene is kind of a joke. At least it is here. The command had been telling us we’d have to evac to Fort Whatever and that we’d be flooded out. We got out early on Friday and it rained for a while and the power went out. But it came back on and by 1600 it had stopped raining completely. Which meant we instantly got dressed and went to Hooters and got drunk and wing fed. After that our hurricane party took us to downtown Charleston. I have no idea how much money we spent (like 100 dollars alone at Market Street Saloon) but we were a force to be reckoned with. More so than Irene at least. Actually, I think we drank a few Irene hurricanes last night…

I think we were both "that guy" last night.

Although I should be studying more, I’m studying less and less and doing fine (at least until Tuesday’s test…). I don’t really mind this place when I’m not doing 18 or 20 hour days, but it’s not the best. The weekend sounds so amazing on Wednesday and by Friday I’m so tired it’s hard for me to muster up much of an effort. That said, we did a fairly good job of getting ridiculous yesterday. Wilson got ridiculously drunk and threw up in his own car, which is awesome. I hope he’s out there cleaning it right now (it’s like 100 degrees and sunny — ouch). And I finally got some pizza that wasn’t from our galley.

Today I’m doing absolutely nothing. And it feels great. Think I should go get groceries at some point. Hrm, yeah, guess I’ll do that.

Doing the Dress Whites. So classy.

Probably the single most entertaining event that happens on base every night is evening colors. Charleston Weapons Station and the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command are full of sailors going to and from work all day, and the pace never really lets up — until about 2000 every night. About this time, everyone is doing their best to get inside to avoid evening colors, which is the lowering of the ensign. It varies from day to day, so it’s always a risk. If you get caught during it, you have to stay there and salute for all of a minute or so, which is apparently the world’s worst torture to endure. The entire base turns into a ghost town and watching people do an awkward walk/run in uniform to escape it will never get old. Ever.

The beer rotameter. Yes, this is a crappy mechanic's joke.

Anyway, things here have been going pretty well. I turned 23 and spent my birthday working. But I did manage to get out off the base for a while. This past weekend though was much more important: I phased up. A school operates on phases, and I was in phase 1 prior to this last weekend. In phase 1, you can’t drink or wear civilian clothes, which was a downer. So I definitely got extremely plastered. That was basically my entire goal. Glad to get that out of my system, but I’ll probably keep it up next weekend to a lesser extent. It’s always good to release a little steam.

I can’t really say I’ve been doing much else besides churning out a ridiculous amount of hours studying nuclear stuff. It’s all pretty uninteresting unless you’re really into boring things. I hear it gets more interesting later on. But, I’ve been doing well on my exams and it’s helped me bump up my average, which means less mandatory hours so I can finally do things like eat dinner or work out. Awesome.

Alright, time for bed — it’s 9 PM!