*** Quoting PATRICK LONG from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***

> PL> I'd say "you poor thing", but somehow I get the
impression you enjoy t
> PL> challenges.
> 
> Not entirely,

PL> Really?

> but I tend to find exciting jobs out of the mundane assignments 
> (like Traino etc).

PL> Oh, that's a fun one.

Yeah.  grumble.  I'm home.  For once a Typoon chased us to home port.  That
is ¨wierd but the odds are ithad to happen eventually!  Yet,
ohmygodI'msrewed...

See, TRAV is in Yokosuka where we get to go for 2 weeks a year.  Major
training ¨Abailability time for schools.  Sasebo has no DC class facility
so if you need ¨firefighting (every 6 years required) or cerification for
your repair lockers, ¨you have to go there.

It was supposed to start Monday...  The moderator is gonna jump on me but I
¨just gotta say it.  'I'm fucked'.  I lost 300 school seats.  I had
Aviation ¨certification folks flying in from San Diego that we tried to
divert to Sasebo ¨but there wasnt time and we dont have the facilities for
some of the classes ¨(LSE, kinda like the dude who waves the helo in on the
flight deck but for ¨safety requires a helo pad on land in a certian
distance and we do not have ¨that here).  Wait, sorry, forgot, thats 350
seats.  Forgot the special set in ¨Atsugi brought in for us.  All my 2M
techs are up for certs and that was part ¨of Atsugi as wel as a grunch of
AIMD things for QA and IMA.  4 repair locker ¨certs 'gone with the wind'.

Found a cute email with a little moving stick figure dude, banging his head
¨into a bulkhead.  'I'm so prepped for TRAV' is the motto I put on it then
¨emailed it to all our Chiefs...

It's a darn good thing i deal well with last second emergency fixes.  In
just 2 ¨hours I had many of these things realigned into the remaining week,
and have a ¨plan of action to make the most possible cost savings out of
what is left.  ¨Just got a 10,000$ augment funding to get the 30 or so
folks we had to leave up ¨there, (never got in close enough to get them
back) flown back down.  I had ¨messages flying to get teams down to Sasebo
(none were able to shift fast ¨enough but we tried and at least got them
enough info to not spend money going ¨to Yoko when we would not be there). 
I identified all lost classes by mission ¨criticality and cost to recover
and have a plan in the works.

Grin, I remember when I was a PO1.  My 'E7' told me I was too 'intense'
because ¨when work was needed, I was all over it to the max I knew how and
would follow ¨every lead until I found a resolution.  He's a retired E7
now.  Nuff said?  He ¨actually dropped my evals down a bit over this trait
and told me that was why.

Now all I have to do is wait for the results to come back (Tuesday) and
have a ¨lineup of the remaining lockers ready to go with a dual plan (12
and 12 from 2 ¨lockers per day if they will let us do 8 of them that way,
or 24 each for 4 and ¨a date for flyaway for the other 5.  I was 1 short
anyways already).  Ok, ¨talking greek to most here but you get the picture.

> CSOOW is 'big' on a CVN.

PL> I can only imagine, having served on a CG.

On a CVN, it is at the same level as EOOW except you TELL the EOOW what to
do ¨in certain battle circumstances and they are also traned that things
are not by ¨rote.  If I call and say I need 'load center 42 on now but
without droppjg load ¨center 36 or 15' they KNOW it's not just fun and
games.  If they have time, ¨they can trace back out what i did, but they
often do not.  Sometimes they have ¨to wheel and deal and tell me they cant
and give me a list, which i break down ¨and feed to the TAO so he can
chose.  (TAO couldnt care less which load ¨centers, they need 'I can give
you this or that and knew you had to have the ¨following so it's in the
works').  CVN's are so complex, it has to be split.  ¨CSOOW isalmost like
alt DC Central in some aspects.  Thats from lessons learned ¨by the way. 
DC guys will happily shut down all cooling water to the weapons ¨systems in
a battle in order to deal with a topside leak instead of just ¨opening a
hatch and letting it fall overside .  Meantime, 'boom' the ship
¨goes down with no weapons.

PL> I was not "allowed" to attempt CSOOW, I was judged
"too essential" to
PL> sonar watches as Sonar Supe.  Wouldn't even allow me to qualify in por
PL> for fear that I'd still get snagged on the underway schedule.  Weird.

Stupid if you ask me!  The only remote point I could see to it, is if they
had ¨so many training, they didnt have room to fit you in as well without
bouncing ¨another out.  Totally not related to an inpot qual.  Stennis had
some 'inport ¨only' CSOOWs.  The worst problem (wasnt major, was easily
solved with just an ¨email each time it happened) was WBC/SL didnt remember
that at anchor, we had ¨to keep a UW qualified CSOOW ondeck at all times. 
At times there were 2 in my ¨section and they'd try to send us both on
Shore Patrol.  Later, it was just me ¨and i couldnt leave the ship.  One or
the other had to be onboard at all times ¨and in emergency, freed up within
10 mins max.  I'd be 'on watch' as CSOOW and ¨at the same time, stand a
deck watch which was fine as long as the WBC ¨understood I was 'Essential'
if we had to get underway due to dragging anchor.

> bit less and not sure for when we will be back.

PL> At your leisure, then.  :)  Take care of yourself out there.

Typhoon for once, drove us home.  .

PL> hey had
> someone (or several) make DP2 so my billet went away.  Funny how I m
> been a fellow 'Gompers Romper' when you were there!

PL> We'd have gotten alot of face time, then.  I was one of two in the ARR
PL> office, and talked to the ADP folks daily.  :)

Hehe I would have been DP2 Pape then.  Bright eyed and bushy tailed and
ready ¨to learn anything I could.  Comes to mind, the hair may be a bit
grey and the ¨moniker has changed but the rest hasnt really.
                                       xxcarol

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