Getting mail out here always reminds me of that great old Howlin Wolf song,
"Nobody loves me but my mother
And she could be jivin' too."

With those lyrics in mind, I stopped by the mail shack the other day and was surprised to see a stack of letters waiting for me. Huzzah! I thought to myself, they do love me! Heeeee heeee heee I eagerly thumbed through them to see who cared enough to write a letter and wouldn't you know they were all bills. They're always all bills.
This time though one of them was a letter from Juan, a kid I sponsor in Columbia. He wanted to know what I do for a living. I told him I ride on civilian ships and protect their crew from pirates and smugglers.

My baby brother! He's the one with the Matt In The Sandblog.

So I just got off the phone with my detailer and he basically gave me the option of going to Whiting Field Florida or to a base in New Jersey. He also offered me brig duty in Charleston, but screw that, I refuse to make my living out of telling a man to squat and cough.

I told the Chief I wanted to stay overseas or go to California, but he said that it was time for me to come back stateside (as if three years over here is going to kill me) but that they would only move me to the east coast. So now I'm thinking of finishing out my tour here in Bahrain just to save up some cash.

Another bonus to staying here is that I'd get out six months earlier than if I transferred to another command, because of how the length of billets works out.

Decisions decisions decisions.

My friend Dahn is moving in :D
He's been her much longer than I have but has a barracks room instead of a flat because they send him TAD so much. His roomate's a wanker and I have a big old spare bedroom that isn't doing anything, so he's moving some stuff in and making himself at home.

Some things are just to tempting to resist...


In Alexandria, Egypt.

Life on the sea...

I ran today for the fist time in a month and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... I'm back into the swing of things here at the command, so I'm sure there'll be many more chances to practice my run throughout the comming weeks. Not sure yet when I'll be shipping out again, but I have to say that I miss it already.

I get to apply for new orders this month, and that means a whole new set of headaches to deal with. Bahrain is notorious for not letting people go, so I'm gonna be praying that my paperwork goes through smoothly.

So I'm in Crete today and am almost home to Bahrain!!!
I can't wait to get back. I was in my place for such a short time before embarking that I don't even remember my flat number. That's ok though because I have a pretty good idea of which one it is, which means that I'll only have to try two or three doors at the most before I find the right one.

My flight boards in half an hour so I should start heading that way. Stand by for pics and more blogging over the next few days.

I'm back...
Also, my kid brother Matt has a blog now too. .

The schedule was pretty tight for a while, in fact this is the first day off I've had in about a month, but should be loosening up for a few weeks now...

I've got to run but will wright more later,
Ace

To clear up confusion from my last post...

'duty station' is where I'm stationed for work. Currently this is Bahrain.
'Next duty station' means the place I want to work at when I'm done at my current duty station.
I had 2.5 years left when I set foot on Bahrain, so after one year here I'll have one and a half left.
Most billets come in one or two or three year increments. In order to get to my next duty station I will have to choose one year orders and extend for six months or choose two year orders and obliserve (add time to my total overall time in service) for an additional six months in order to fulfill the two year requirement.
originally I did want to stay in Bahrain for the rest of my time in the Navy, but for a number of reasons I've decided to make the most of my remaining active duty time. There are currently four duty stations I'm looking at possibly trying to pick orders to: San Diego, Rhoda Spain, or now this Riverine Group, although I don't know if they'll be up and running soon enough for me to get orders with them before my time is up.
I want orders to San Diego because I hear from everyone who's been there that it's a rough command where you a lot of real cop work and I would actually have a chance to obtain a license through the San Diego P.D. and work with them in a reservist status.
I want orders to Rhoda, Spain because I've never been to Spain and hear it's nice. Also, it's a slower, quite command and I would have a good chance to advance with my schoolwork. Where I currently have little time for academics in Bahrain I would have a lot of time to devote in Rhoda.

Also, I made it the three miles yesterday with only a little bit of trouble.

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Kung Fu Quote Of The Day!!!
"Suck the coffin mushroom now..."
-Unknown

I think I may have found my next duty station.

Also, I have to start running again. :(
I'm in good enough shape that I can do our PRT now without having to worry about it, but the Navy is going to get harder with it's standards pretty soon and I want to be ready when it does. Towards that end everybody I know has been running at least three miles for their PT and although I've been trying to avoiding it, I can feel capitulation right around the corner.

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Kung Fu Quote Of The Day!!!
"You're a bad guy, where's your library card?"
-Unknown

The weather today is awesome! It's only 90 and has such a low humidity that it actually feels like 90!!!
I saw a seashell in this empty lot as I was walking the other day and it struck me as peculiar. I immediately felt a kinship with the thing for we were both obviously foreigners to these sun blasted flats. At any rate I picked it up and brought it home. People here laugh at the though of pocketing anything so worthless as a seashell, but we don't have a whole lot of them where I'm from and I guess you could say it's kind of a novelty.

It looks like I won't be riding a horse any time soon, the weather is just too hot for it right now. Cooler times are just a few months away so I'm holding out hope that a reprieve from this heat is still out there somewhere.

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Kung Fu Quote Of The Day!!!
"Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person."
-Unknown

So I sat in on my first formal counseling session today.
A seaman on my section slept through muster and it was on me to correct the discrepancy. Actually, it was supposed to be on me, but when I notified HT1 (our team leader) that I'd contacted her and she was on her way to muster with us at the office, he decided that he would council her and I would sit in on it. (Since she's a female and he's a male there needed to be a third person in the room to act as an impartial witness for both parties.)

He told me ahead of time that since it was her first time he was just going to "give her the warning" and leave it at that. True to his word he warned the crap out of her. In fact, he warned her so well that if she's late for anything else in the next two months I'll eat my boonie hat.

She really is a good kid, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. At any rate, I've only been with this team for a few days so this gave me an idea now of how he deals with people, and what I can expect from him as far as the overall leadership decision making process.
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Kung Fu Quote Of The Day!!!
"This will be of fine service for you, you bag of the scum. I am sure you will not mind that I remove your manhoods and leave them out on the dessert flour for your aunts to eat."
- Unknown

MA1: "Schaefer! Make sure you see me after guardmount this morning."

that's how my day started.
ok, ok, my day actually started much ealier with a bike ride and weight lifting, but that quote is how my work day officially started.

As it turned out things are good and I was asked to fill in for someone who is on medical leave. It's nice to be thought of, but I informed him that I still had another week before I take the classes that will fully qualify me for the duty they need filled.

He said he'd check into it and call me back.

Some interesting things have been happening to me lately. The appartment I have been waiting on fell through, so now I have to scramble to find something else. That's ok though I'm sure there's something else out there. Also, I may not be on the net as often from now on as my duties have increased and I simply won't have time when I do have access, and won't have access when I do have the time.

Keep smiling,
Ace

I haven't had a lot of free time to post lately as I've been trying to tie up some loose ends. Today was our first day of summer heat. As one contractor put it, summer has finally caught up to us. It isn't the heat so much, (I think it only got up to 105 today)it's the humidity that is on the rise. To date, it's been a dry heat. All that changed today and now we're in for a few months of nastieness.
But I digress...

I picked up a bass the other day for a song, (Ibanez GSR 190) but have to locate an Amp and someone to teach me how to use it. I've fiddled with it a little bit and actually feel like I'm learning something.

Ok, someone else needs this computer so I've got to cut it short.
keep smiling,
Ace

P.S.
Robert the Nazi is dead...

My agent, the landlord and I all came to a mutually beneficial agreement and now my pay won't be jacked up for the next year to come. :D

Also, it's been unusually cool over here the last few days or so and made for great running weather. I was sort of a bum and ran only once, but in my defence the two other times I had planned to were superceded by political protests.
Want to hear the funny part, they weren't even protesting us... Apparently they were mad at the editor of a newspaper, who's shop is right outside the base, for publishing an editorial cartoon of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “manipulating” the results of the recent Iranian elections.

To make a short story long the idea of jogging through an angry mob over here, even if they aren't necessarily angry at me, was more than enough to keep me home for the evening.

I had blueberry pancakes this morning. Not Navy blueberry pancakes either, I'm talking made from scratch with actual berries and everything-they even used real butter and served them with mapleish type syrup-BLUEBERRY PANCAKES!!! There's this place over here called Ricks country cooking, and i've been hearing about it for the past three weeks from everybody. Ok ok, it was a bit expensive, $9 for three six inch cakes and a litre of o.j., but I put some Nina in my discman and savored every expensive bite. They weren't as good as the golden delights my sainted Mums and Pops can produce, but I'd say hands down they come in second.

Also, my agent and I are having issues with my contract. Apparently the landord want's three months rent up front for me to move in. Rent is fairly expensive over here and three months is roughly equivalent to buying a nicely maintained used car. The good news is that I recieve a monthly alotment for the rent, so really I only have to come up with the second and third month in advance and even then there are short term loans I can apply for, the bad part is that for the next year, each month they'll be depositing my alotment and then removing it twice because they forgot that they took it the first time. Suffice it to say taking a loan from your boss/payroll provider/accountant/sole means of financial support is a daunting thing to undertake, and requires a tremendous ammount of trust that no paperwork will get misplaced and nothing will get screwed up.

I graduated today!
I guess all good things must come to an end and so it's time for me to once more join the ranks of productive personell and pull my weight around here. I got to meet my section leader and he seems like a pretty decent sort. I think I'm going to like it out here. Everything is much more high speed low drag and the sense that what we are doing really matters pervades every aspect of life.

My textbooks have arrived! I haven't actually signed up for the classes yet, but since I'm sure they'll approve my chit for school, and since I wasn't sure how long it took to get the books, I send off for them ahead of time.

We spent a lot of time in the sun today working on some training evolutions but had to call it short when people began to show the signs of heat fatigue. I'm not in the greatest shape in the world, but I have managed to run a couple of times per week while out here and I think that helped. As I'm typing this it's 1807 and still 95, but as soon as I'm back at the hotel I want to take a run down along the beach to see if there are any open apartments back up in there.
I think I found the place I want to move into, the problem is that it isn't empty quite yet and won't be for another month or so. That works out ok with the Navy, I don't have to have a permanent home until the begining of August, but I hate to think about waiting that long for the place simply because someone else could still get it before I do and then I'll have two weeks left to start from scratch and find somewhere I love. The place I want is in the same building as my friend from Japan, has two huge bedrooms, a huge kitchen, and two bathrooms, but most importantly of all it comes with a huge private patio overlooking empty sand lots, a whole lot of highrise apartment complexes and about 75 feet of oceanfront. Call me a geek, but I can't wait to do late afternoon homework out there.

In a related story, Grapefruit May Make Women Seem Younger...

Everyone out here speaks english or spanish or some other non-arabic tongue.
I'm trying to learn Arabic and thus far the only people I've found to practice on are the guy's selling five dollar rollexs and nikke shoes.

Still, there's a class that I'm checking into and will probably start attending here in a few weeks that's supposed to teach basic vocabulary and culture. As much as I'm looking forward to that I can't wait to get into my own place.
One more month... one more month... one more month...