>We’re working on a big inspection on the ship, and have been on lock down the entire week.
I’ll pry be quiet until the start of next week, if we pass, and much later if we don’t. (It’s unlikely we won’t pass. The captain and XO are going NUTS to make sure, because it’s most likely their job and careers if we fail.)
All in all, I’m happy, though.
Ps-“Next week” means “after the 15th” next week, not “week that starts today”.
>Things on the Essex have been a bit hectic, but we’ve been in port for a while and I really should start using this, don’t you suppose?
Of course you do, if you bothered to visit this site. Hi, friends and family!
This might be a bit odd for a while, until I figure out how everything works. Photos to follow, carefully selected to keep the ship safe and me out of trouble.
For anyone new to Blogs, you can post a public reply by clicking on the “comments” link below this post. That will take you to a page with this post and any other replies that have been posted, at at the bottom it will say something like “post a comment.” Click there, click “other,” put in your name and what you want to say and either preview– remember to click “publish!”– and it will be posted to the blog.
Isn’t that nifty?
>
If anyone’s wondering, I still look pretty much like this. (Taken in San Francisco, last year about this time.)
I usually wear my glasses, but contacts are nice when I don’t want to risk breaking the glasses.
>
A shot out the bus window during our Intercultural Relations Indoc training– this is a fairly normal area of the city. I need to get a shot of the mall strip and Nimitz park– I REALLY like this area! 
>
A Temple Dog from a temple actually in Sasebo city.
>
This is on the Mess Decks– from left to right, this is an engineer buddy I work with in the Chiefs’ mess, a computer repairing friend we call the Evil Overlord, and our RP buddy– RP is the enlisted Religious Petty Officer group; they help the Chaplains.
>
OpSec is an all hands responsiblilty!
>I just joined Blogspot so that I could reply to blog posts, but I’ve been considering getting one of these started up to keep in contact with folks. (The prospect of being able to talk my head off had nothing to do with it– *really*!)
The title is from an internet writing group I joined in high school; each of us had characters that we wrote in the context of the story. My favorite character was rather charmingly erratic and earned the nickname of “Headnoises.” When my first half-dozen choices for a blog name didn’t work, I chose “head noises.”
Some would argue that the nickname fits me just fine.
Head Noises 