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When you really get lonely for the sea

For all the old Sailors and Marines out there…

A few suggestions on what to do when you really get lonely for the sea

1. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your spouse whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble “sorry, wrong rack”.
2. Renovate your bathroom; build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the shower head down to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while soaping up.
3. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until your are nauseous
4. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to “high”.
5. Don’t watch TV except movies in the middle of the night. Also, have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.
6. Leave the lawn mower running in your living room six hours a day for proper noise level.
7. Have the paper boy give you a haircut.
8. Once a week blow compressed air up through your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot across and onto your neighbor’s house. Laugh at him when he curses you.
9. Buy a trash compacter and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.
10. Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread, if anything. (optional: canned ravioli or cold soup)
11. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator.
12. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as you can; then run into your yard and break out the garden hose.
13. Once a month take every major appliance completely apart and then put them back together.
14. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to set for 5 hours before drinking. (optional: add a dash of kerosene for taste and the proper oil slick)
15. Invite at least 85 people you don’t really like to come visit for a couple of months.
16. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.
17. Raise the threshold and lower the top sill on your front and back doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass through one of them.
18. Lockwire the lugnuts on your car.
19. When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan while it is baking. Then spread icing really thick on one side to level off the top.
20. Every so often, throw your cat in the swimming pool, shout “Man overboard, ship recovery!”, run into the kitchen and sweep all the pots/pans/dishes off the counter onto the floor, then yell at your spouse for not having the place” stowed for sea”.
21. Put on the headphones from your stereo (don’t plug them in). Go stand in front of the stove; say, to no one in particular, “Stove manned and ready”. Stand there for 3 or 4 hours; say, to no one in particular, “Stove secured”. Roll up the headphone cord and put them away.

The other option is take out a good bottle of Scotch and pull the cruise book off the shelf 🙂

Arlington Wreath Project

Since this is December 7th, I can’t think of a better post to make thank this. USS Arizona, Dec 7, 1941 L.B Curtis, L.C. Curtis, RIP…

New Blog :-)

Go check out Larry Correia’s new Blog…
Larry is well known over at THR and for his company Fuzzy Bunny Guns. This should be an interesting blog if you’re into shooting, B movies and/or Monster movies…

Welcome Larry!

Another GOOD read…

A new blogger who I’m going to follow with a LOT of interest is Expert Witness he has one hellva background 🙂 Go check him out!

Just Peachy!: As A Parent:

Just Peachy!: As A Parent:

You have to go read Babs comments on bringing up children! Kudos to the Lady for a dead on set of comments. Too bad more people don’t believe the same way! Honesty in raising children and exposing them to the world is becoming a thing of the past.

Leaders and Leadership

What is leadership? What does it mean? Who do you consider a leader?

lead·er·ship (lē‘dər-shĭp’) n.

1. The process of leading.

2. Those entities that perform one or more acts of leading.

3. The ability to affect human behavior so as to accomplish a mission designated by the leader.

These three definitions are the generic definition.

1. The position or office of a leader: ascended to the leadership of the party.

2. Capacity or ability to lead: showed strong leadership during her first term in office.

3. A group of leaders: met with the leadership of the nation’s top unions.

4. Guidance; direction: The business prospered under the leadership of the new president.

These four interestingly enough revolve around politics and business.

152,000,000 hits on Google for leadership- in other words LOTS of words on leadership…

I’m going with ‘my’ take on leadership here-

A leader is one who sets the positive example. I think there are three legs professionalism, integrity, and honesty that are the basis for a good leader. The good leader knows when they accept the authority; they also accept the responsibility and the accountability of being a leader.

They may be a janitor or a General, but if they set the example, show the people who work for them that they are not afraid to get their hands dirty, willingly give credit, and shoulder blame when things go wrong; people will cheerfully follow them. These people also will make a decision; they do not hesitate to do what is necessary given any particular situation. They also have no problems admitting they did something wrong.

On the other hand, I do believe the POWER of a position or office makes people think they are leaders, when in reality they are nothing but abusers of power. They are normally the ones who take credit for anything new or important, never make a decision that can be tied to them; shirking the responsibility by pawning failure off on subordinates. Ironically, some of these people go VERY far, because they simply do not care about anything but more power and more prestige. Since these people tend to climb the ladder by jumping organization to organization, the new bosses very seldom find out about the people the climber has abused on the way up or their inability to make decisions.

In the military, Fire/Rescue and Law Enforcement leaders and leadership take on a different perspective. This is because of the potential for life and death situations; including the requirement to make decisions on the fly. Having said this, I will admit I have seen bad leaders in the military and friends have given me many examples of bad leadership in both the Fire Service and Law Enforcement.

Bureaucracies on the other hand, fear real leaders. They want to stay in their little niche, don’t rock the boat, get promoted and never make a decision… I think bureaucracies are perfect examples of the Peter Principal in action. I also think they tend to be very petty, self serving, and will go out of their way to penalize those who push a bureaucrat out of his/her little comfort zone.

Where am I going with this?

Well, I’m getting worried about America- I do not see the younger generation coming up with any real leaders. I see a lot of power hungry people, who will do anything to get more money, play every card they can to advance, and don’t care about how they treat others. When I talk to the young Sailors and Marines I come in contact with, that is a recurring theme… The military is the FIRST time they have ever had responsibility AND accountability.

I also see political correctness stifling leaders. You cannot promote a leader today without checking to see if the right numbers of whatever flavor of HR mandates and/or quotas has been met. If you don’t, you sure as hell will get sued by somebody…

I don’t see John Q. Public standing up and demanding accountability from the current leadership and ANY level… Many of the blogs I read have repeated themes of abusers of this or that system, with no leader stepping forward to make people accountable for their actions.

I’m not even going to get into the lawsuits, ACLU, and the rest of that mess…

We are at war TODAY with terrorism. It is not a country, it is individuals and organizations who flow from country to country. The stated goal is death to America, they will not negotiate, other than to gain time; they will not be ‘redeemed’ by faith; they will not quit until either we are dead or they are…

What I would ask each of you to do is to look at who you believe to be leaders, people YOU would follow, and vote them into office in 2008. Don’t believe the sound bites, really look into the candidates backgrounds and abilities.

If we don’t, I’m really afraid we will see terrorism here on a scale unlike anything the US has ever seen. Believe me, you do NOT want that to happen…

If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this 🙂

ERnursey – A very interesting Blog

ERnursey – An emergency room nurse blog: Strange things found in various places.

I was rolling on the floor at this one! This is another keeper of a blog.

Fair Winds and Following Seas for a shipmate

I just found out a few minutes ago that my “Sea Daddy” from my early P-3 Orion days died almost two years ago.

This reminds me of Matt’s post a couple of days ago over on Better and Better, how we lose touch with our Friends. I really feel badly about this, as Charlie was really one of the good guys…

Leonard Charles “Charlie” “Navy Charlie” Six, 63, died Nov. 20, 2005, at his home in Quakertown, Pa. He is survived by his loving wife of 20 years, Mrs. Six.
He retired in 1988 after 29 years of active duty in the U.S. Navy, which included three tours of duty in Vietnam.

I flew with and learned a TON from Charlie during ’73 to ’76 timframe, including some things that I passed on when I instructed that hopefully kept a few folks alive.

Keep it on centerline Charlie!

HUD View from the COCKPIT during a Space Shuttle Landing

Sigh… This is as close as most of us will ever get…

The thing to keep in mind is there is NO GO AROUND! It’s one shot and one shot only.

Enjoy!