The Movement

It feels good to be moving again. The breeze that we have been missing for the past three months has finally returned and gives out a good moral boost. Let's us know that our relief mission was a success although we had a bit of an extended stay. Last minute qualifacation shoots on the 50 and 25cal guns while we make our trip back north. Still need to drop off our Marine brothers and sisters , and hit our last "B-Line" home. Finally a break for not only us, but the ships company who just returned from their deployment to turn around a month later and make another sacrifice to their family and friends, and come back for more.
So what else is there to do while you wait for the next day to happen??? You copy everyone else's movie selection to your personal computer that you brought with you or had a loved one send you. It's amazing how just 10 years ago we couldn't imagen what anyone would need with a gigabyte worth of data. Now we are moving into terabytes worth. The 350GB worth that I have with me now isn't even a quarter of the movies alone that I can get from other people onboard. And for us, sometimes movies and music is your only recreation other than the gym. Guess it's time for another upgrade. Note to Self - When you go to buy a new computer, anything less than 500GB is not worth the money any more.

The Word

Flight Deck Wash Down!!!! Happens anytime you leave a foreign area.

Oh the LCAC, well, he is taking all the marine gear ashore, then waiting for it to be washed down. This is what happens when we come back from a deployment cycle.

Alright, so it's been five days already, and just about a week left to go. Sitting just outside of Gitmo, Cuba waiting for all of the vehicles to get their washdown done, and then flightdeck washdown tomorrow.

Hope everyone is ok, i'm looking forward to a McDonalds breakfast when we pull in a week from now, and a couple glasses of crown and hottub that night. Funny huh, out of everything I didn't mention the wife or the kids. HELL NO, because they are always the very first and last thing I think about everyday. So I'll have all day to catch up on the last three months of what the kids have done, and all night to catch up what I missed with Lara.

I know it's been five days and I should have plenty to share, but right now I want to watch some more of The Lord of the Rings and get some sleep.

Way Ahead

So we finally took on the last bit of food and supplies today. A great sign for us. Now we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and know what to expect in the next two weeks. Still need to get rid of some supplies the ship has from their recent deployment, get all of our marine vehicles washed down, and then make our trip north to drop of the marine element that we have onboard.
I was going to upload a picture of the boy, but it keeps timing out for a 300kb file. Pretty bad eh?
Counting almost 10 days until I get to be home once again for a while. So completely happy that we can see the end of the road now. They have been talking about it for about the past month, but with nothing on paper it was never put out to us that they had an idea. The higher powers never wanted to give us an assume date to just turn around and say Sorry, we have to stay a bit longer. So I guess that worked out for the better. Hopefully if things go right, I'll be home right before Easter. =D Which of course I'm not a huge holiday person to begin with, but for Eli and Phia I want them to understand the holiday for what it is and let them enjoy it. With all the pictures that Lara has sent me since I left, I can really see how much Eli and Phia have been constantly growing. So far i've missed the first time Eli crawled, and he said his first word "momma". =) All the good things I miss.

From The Top

For the Above Photo's, The first one is me with a few of the folks at the Lifelines Mission in Grand Goave, Haiti. We went and distributed some supplies like shovels, flops, infant diapers, wheel barrels, and some other misc items. And the second is the group photo at the end of the day. About 45 of us all together for the day.

So what's the new word?? Fresh coffee again this morning was a huge plus (and the toilet paper, thanks Dad)!! I was able to go downstairs and download some music. Always a good thing. Amazing that the 179MB file took 45mins to download. Yea, amazing that I get those at the house in about 30secs. What a huge difference out here, but thanks to DeeJay Flapjack and Pressure. Absolutely wicked set you did on the 13th.

Got lucky last week on laundry day and now all of my whites are a very light baby blue =D GO SHIPS LAUNDRY!! I swear the things we have to live with. The white towel I don't care about, but the shirts will have to be replaced =( Hopefully I can spend ten dollars and get two four packs.

Was hoping to add some pictures of my experience on Friday going ashore in Haiti to help out. Seems our MC's are being a little picky of who they want to give the extra photo's to. =( Looks like I'll have to work around it and talk to someone I know. Unbelievable some people I swear.

In the next couple of weeks we will finally start making preparations to get out of here. Still have a few more things to do before we can head north. At the moment I'll see home around the first week of next month. I believe the total estimate is over $234 million and counting, with the 20,000 troops that were initially brought down to Haiti from the US, Canadian, French, Italian, South Korean and Japanese troops are also in Haiti, and European Union to help build temporary shelters. By now Haiti is the small talk of CNN and regular news channels back home. For the most part all of the Naval Ships that were down here have made it safely back home to Norfolk or carried on their duty's to other locations around the globe.

The Way

How many people does it take to make one decision?

I'm going to picnic, who wants to come with me?? (lmao Colin)

O, I'm going to be bringing some French Toast. What will you bring...... And before you know it, people are dumb drunk because they've spent all day trying to decide and thought drinking would be alot easier. These are the types of things I face about when I'll go home. Some one's assistant on the O-I'm High Ladder isn't getting their coffee made right. So what are the realistic idea's here??? You can fly back, you can fly to another ship if they can come down this way, you can hang out for two more weeks and do nothing but play cards and watch movies, O, and you would have to do two more replenishment at sea. Like today for instance, and easy 110 pallets worth of stuff, all done in about two and half hours. Not a hard day really, and the worst part is knowing someone else is doing your laundry for you with some re-vamped sea water.

All the pictures I post are taken from our (MC's), Mass Communication Specialist. The crazy part, lol, I'm posting up the Low-Resolution shots cause it takes too long to load the high-res shots. Good stuff eh? I thought so. Every so often they will get bored and go capture an evolution and put them (most of them) to the ships share drive. Like the one at the top of the post, better known as H-53E Super Stallion, and nicknamed from the squadron that runs them "IRONHORSE". If your in for a long ride, need to haul a couple of 1 ton trucks, maybe a bunch of cargo, or a few baseball teams, here's your cadillac. Monstrous when your standing in front of it, and I know a picture only does so much, but these things are just huge!

Now then, time to get the clothes down in ships laundry and pray for a miracle of dryness.

Have some crown for me! Cheers!!

Things That Change

The hundred man march worth of the working party's we have done for three weeks

You like to break things right, well there's plenty here to share, O BTW, you pick up what you break into smaller pieces.

Alright everyone, don't forget to take your malaria pills, make sure you have water on you at all times, and don't eat anything that isn't american made.. (EPIC FAIL)

Things that change... humm Yea, not our schedule that's for sure.

Music selection though... Sub Focus - Follow The Light YEA YEA!!!!! /JUMP!!

now that's good shit for the masses. Missing alot of DNBRADIO.COM out here is no bueno. Still not a big fan of that. Like right now for instance: Mayhem And Ruffride - United Junglist Union rocking the decks for two hours! Seriously!!! Now that's a mad set. Missing that is like missing breakfast and coffee in the morning.

Alot of the same stuff, NOTHING! haha absolutely nothing. Makes for a long boring day. Still doing alot of random VIP tours here, and I do mean ALOT. I think we've actually started a list somewhere that list every Admiral that has been on board Uss Bataan.. Hell, now for the president to come out and visit, unfortunately for us, we are tired of hearing the same spill every time. Get's kinda old, so instead we go workout for two hours at a time, and hold up the ships store line for an hour. Sounds like a decent thing to do.

Missing some good bandwidth is definitely high on my list.. Trying to upload pictures to the blog, and tune into DNBRADIO chat..... Yea, go drive to walmart, do your shopping list, pick up some Crown, and get back to me. STILL GOING! Grrr.. Ok, so maybe I over exaggerated that just a bit. It is pretty bad though. So I don't know what else to add now, alot of music still on a daily basis's.

let's hope for some better news on Tuesday.

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

I FEEL IT COMING CLOSER

FOLLOW THE

FOLLOW THE

FOLLOW THE LIGHT

Eli on the Floor

More Twiddling

Pictures say wonders. What you see above is what it's like for us to do a replinshment (take on food, ect) while out to sea. This time it's only to take on stores and not fuel at that same time.

Sunday we did a 210 pallet replenishment(above) of food and other misc. items that the ship needed. I know it might not seem like alot, but trust me, when you've got 12 pallets of soda and there are 50-70 cases per pallet, makes for a long day.

Anyway, it just happened that during this replinshment that not one of those 210 pallets went to Haiti. That pretty much sums up what we are currently up to. Now it's all about studying for exams and other qualifications.

So for the past two to three weeks the crew has been almost at a stand still. The first month was the most active and non-stop between doing medivacs, taking food, water, and tents to shore. For about the past two to three weeks we have seen a significant stop in everything. The only thing that has continued is the VIP/DV tours that we have played apart in. Even today we had the Secretary of the Navy come out to Bataan. Of course like every other DV the word still says: Great job on getting out here so fast, I'm so very proud of what you are doing here, and everyone appreciates what you continue to do. To go along with that, we are thankful to have hot showers again, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Although we are all really wondering, what is really going on right now, what is stopping us from leaving, and if we are only doing minor flights during the day then what's the point of burning all this money to stay here? If any of you know a Marine, you know that the worst thing in the world is to have a bored Marine. It's one thing for a Navy guy to get bored, but mix that one Navy guy with about 22-2300 Marines and you have a full house waiting to rock.

... And so the twiddling continues