lookin good

Here is a picture of a while back when my buddy Eric got married..

The ol girl

Took a picture while I was walking around on the small finger pier next to our ship.. looks a lot bigger when your on the water level

Ward Lake

Here are a couple pictures of ward lake. We go up here pretty much every nice day we have and build campfires and play horse shoes. Its a pretty nice place

Zip Video

Zip Line

So yesterday morning me and some of the crew went on a zip line tour off in the mountains, it was one of the coolest things ive ever done. Almost 200 feet up in the air zipping 800 feet at 30 miles per hour, it was nuts!! Here are some pictures of our little expedition!

Saturday morning..

I suppose having watch from 4 am till 9am isnt so bad sometimes, this morning was probably one of the most clear mornings I have seen, and the colors of the sun comming up actually made this place looks awesome as apposed to all the clouds and rain we normally get. The forcast for the next few days looks awesome, 50s and Sunny!!! Today I am going to be going on a zip line tour through the mountain tree tops, sounds exciting i know! Someone told me you hand about 200 feet above the ground and your doing like 40 mph on this thin piece of cable! I will try to get as many good photos as possible and I will post them on here, then sunday is another paintball day and i'll try to get some pics from that.
As for this past week not much happened, I got a new pair of boots that I am currently trying to break in, but they seem to be breaking me in instead. We also just finished up laying down new non-skid and painting the deck on the back of the boat. Our little circus tent was about to bite the dust so we just took it down before the wind did. The decks look pretty good if I do say so myself! Well that is it for now, everyone have a good weekend.. And keep an eye out for some pictures here tonight or tomorrow!

- Tom

Quarterdeck madness

I dont remember where in my contract it said I would be a receptionist, but I guess it did somewhere. Today was my first quarterdeck watch by myself, which was interesting, pretty much all you do is answer the phones, take messages, and page people over the com system... One would think this is easy, but getting 3 phone calls at once, having a Master Cheif standing outside your window, and making a page over the com at one time is absolute chaos.. Enough of that though, im still alive.. Just another duty day in the life of a Coastie, nothing really new going on, I get late sleepers tomorrow because I have the midnight shift today(so thats cool), then tomorrow I have to go over to industrial and sand blast a bunch of things for our fantail project. Excting exciting.. I did however purchase my first gun, its a Glock 9mm.. A buddy of mine gave me a deal on it and its a niice gun. Now hopefully I wont be to worried about bears when im walking around out in the mountains. Well I suppose thats all for now, im just gonna finish up my watch out here till 330am and then pass out again. Untill next time.. take care

tom

On the other hand...

1000 dollars aproximatly in 7 days is a lot of money in such a short time to spend. I suppose I could always continue to build up my leave time for later on down the road when I may really need it. Hopefully sooner than later I will be leaving for the airman program for 4 months and then on my way to North Carolina for school, that is just a short drive away compared to Alaska.. So on one hand I would really like to come see friends and family, but on the other hand is isnt very economical and I could wait till im stationed closer to home... Let me know what yall think

- Tom

Midwest here I come! (hopefully)

Well I am putting in a request to take leave from July3rd untill July 9th! I will have to send the paper work up through the command and im not sure how fast that takes (things go slow around here) but hopefully it will be cool and I will use up all the 7 days of vacation time I have saved up and visit for a little while. If it all works out I am planning flying to Chicago the night of the 3rd (because it was 200 dollars cheaper than going to Indy) and visiting there friday the 4th and then comming to Indiana Saturday afternoon the 5th and visiting threw tuesday the 8th. I would have to be drove back up to Chicago to catch a flight back here though, but I saw a flight that leaves at 330 pm on Wed the 9th (that would be perfect and we wouldnt have to go up to chicago the night before), but whatever I get I get.

Hope this all works out, I dont have a whole lot of leave saved up so far, but I suppose this is better than nothing!

- Tom

My fellow Deckies

Some pics of me and my boys...

deck work

We had to beat the deck with hammers the whole day... it was actually kind of fun (for a while)
And that tarp that goes over the whole back of the boat, we had to cut and sew it all together to make it fit, lets just say it took a while

Been a few days

Well I havent quite kept this thing up to date the past few days due to the fact that I've felt like crap, but things are getting better now. Couple days ago we started work on the fantail of our ship (fantail = back outside part of the boat) the decks (decks = floors) are starting to look a little rusty so we hammerd and chiseld up all the old paint and non skid material up and now we have to start grinding and sanding it down to bare steel (power tools rock). Its looking pretty good, probably the most work I have done since I have been here though, but I like it.

Yesterday I went in for my preliminary flight physical and had a bunch of tests taken, I hate tests... Blood tests, eye tests, hearing, Ekg's, its not my thing. Today I have to go to the hospital and get a chest X-ray and then wait for all my results to come back, after all of this stuff comes back I get to go on a 3 day trip to Sitka Alaska to be checked out by some certified flight doctor who is going to decide if I can go Aviation electronics technician or not. And for those who I havent told yet, that is the rate I am going to be going. I will pretty much be working on helicopters and then when we get called out on a search and rescue call I will go and serve as a aircrew member however needed (navigation, EMT, etc) Well I have typed wayy to much and its time to go do another walk through of the ship. I will try to post some pictures of us tearing up the decks later tonight.. Take care

Tom