Day 1

Today is our first official day of cruise... The first of many days... five months.
We're doing carrier quals for flight ops the first two days, as is usual... but oh so boring. And my right knee in particular already hurts =( Luckily however, I bought a couple sets of Dr. Scholls for-her 16-hour-workdays insoles, and let me tell you that wow there is such a huge difference. My feet hurt, but not nearly as much as they would without them. Thank goodness I got them!

Currently I am sitting at the desk in the ready room standing the ASDO watch. 2400 to 0800. So boring! I'd rather be working on the jets. However, it does give me a good opportunity to update my blog as well as write letters to my friends and family. I've also been tasked with sweeping and mopping the floor. So pretty much just stuff to keep me busy. And as soon as Lopez gets back with tommorow's flight schedule, I' ll set about writing it on the white board here.

I'm working night check which means I arrive in my shop around 1730 and leave around 0630. The days are pretty long, and there's no break, really, until we pull into port. We work monday through sunday. When we pull into port we get three or four days off, but one of those days will most certainly be a duty day. On those days, we can't leave the ship and continue to work the maintenance that has been laid out for us, as well as standing watches.

Well, I'm going to start working on that letter writing....

Sailor, where art thou?

I love Rudyard Kipling... His book, Captains Courageous is what first inspired me to want to become a sailor, at the age of eleven...

I still have that copy, with my sixth-grade handwritten signature on the first page.

This summer, when my squadron, and several other squadrons with whom we work, including CAG, were working in Fallon Nv, I met another sailor about my age who also loves Rudyard Kipling.

He emailed me a poem by said author, and loving it, I now present it to you.



[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


--Rudyard Kipling