DOH! I've been in Okinawa for well over a month and I haven't updated... 
Well what have I been up to since I've gotten here you might ask... Well... pretty much the same crap I was doing back at Camp Horno when I was there, only Okinawan style. Ok that's BS the only thing that makes it Okinawan style is the fact that its hotter then hell (more from the humidity then the actual temp). I must admit I thought that it wasn't going to be that difficult being away from my baby Whitewidow. Back before we were married we used to take turns flying up or down between Canada and the US every 3 months or so. I assumed that this would mean that it wouldn't be so bad once I did ship out, I was wrong. Lucky for me we've been able to keep in touch via web cam and MSN messnger every day at lunch for the most part (evening for her). That was until the Sony VAIO I picked up to replace an old Toshiba took a crap. I think that I may have been better off keeping it since I was able to figure out a drivers issue that it was having causing the dreaded blue screen of death to flair up way too often. Now the Toshiba will sit in our guest bedroom as a guest computer (or at least that's the intent). The easiest way to explain what happened to the little pink lappy is that the RAM fried. The Sony rep and I went round and round about it for a bit, he claimed that I must have downloaded something with a virus in it that shit canned the OS, but I insisted that McAfee would have caught it because it checks everything before allowing it access to the system. Long story short it turned out that I was right and he was wrong
Now the business of getting the little pink laptop up and running again has been a bit of a pain in the ass, right now I am running on 1 gig of borrowed RAM from the Sony rep till I can send it out to have the Tokyo division do a full systems analysis of it and re-install new RAM. I guess they take it pretty seriously when a product does something like this over in Japan, I think that in the states it would have been handled a little bit differently. 
Whatever, the laptop is back and I have access to the internet again that's all that matters for now.
What else have I been up to? Well I hopped a military flight out of Okinawa to go to Iwo Jima, a very significant rock in the pacific campaign during WWII. I'm sure that everyone is familiar with this photo...
And I'm sure with the movie that just came out not so long ago the significance of this hotter then hell rock in the middle of nowhere. All I have to say is that if you get a chance to go visit don't go in the summer months, its absolutely miserable. Even after becoming acclimatized to Okinawa's heat and humidity I was almost no match for what Iwo Jima had in store for me. Mt. Suribachi is almost just a pimple on the tiny island being less then 600 feet high on the 8 square mile island, but it kicked many asses that day. We had quite a few heat casualties climbing to the top where the memorial for both US Marines and Japanese soldiers is. I made it, just barely... I had consumed most of my water and was taking breaks every couple 100 feet just to get up to the top. Going back down the mountain was pretty easy, but he hike back to the air field was murder. There is almost no shade on the island, and both the chief I was with and myself were almost out of water. The hike back was mostly up hill, a long slow gradual hill that beat down many Marines and a couple sailors. Kind of strange when it should have been a 3 mile walk in the park, but it wasn't. While I was there I managed to snap a few photos and grab a container of sand. When I look back at the whole ordeal I'm glad that I went, and I'm impressed with myself for not quitting on the climb up or the hike back (with the exception of the last 1/3 mile where I had to care for a heat casualty), I have the blisters to show for it (I never knew that getting a blister under a blister was possible).
Now what? Well that depends on who you ask, and I'm not at liberty to say too much about whats going to be going on for the next few months. What I can say is that I'll be getting on the USS Denver for a little sea time. I know its not going to be like when I was ships company on the USS Cushing, but it will be nice to get back on the sea. I really miss the motion of the ocean, the smell of the salt air and the stars... No one has any idea of what the stars really look like till they go somewhere totally devoid of any unnatural light to view them. The desert is pretty close but there seems to be more and more light pollution every year, on the open sea there isn't any and you can see pretty much anything in the sky. It almost feels like you can reach out and touch things they look that close.
Later this week I've got to take an oral board for my Fleet Marine Force (FMF) certification, anyone that's ever been a corpsman knows how difficult this can be. Essentially its a murder board of peers that grill you on everything in the Marine Corps, history, policy, weapons, vehicles, aircraft, ships, tactics, land navigation etc. I'm not really looking forward to it, but its a requirement so I'm just going to have to do what I've gotta do. I qualified Surface Warfare when I was on the Cushing and the oral board there started at 8 in the morning and went till 4 in the afternoon with a 1 hour lunch break, last FMF board lasted 2 hours... pussies!!
I'll try and update again before we head out on ship on the 20th (or there about).
Well what have I been up to since I've gotten here you might ask... Well... pretty much the same crap I was doing back at Camp Horno when I was there, only Okinawan style. Ok that's BS the only thing that makes it Okinawan style is the fact that its hotter then hell (more from the humidity then the actual temp). I must admit I thought that it wasn't going to be that difficult being away from my baby Whitewidow. Back before we were married we used to take turns flying up or down between Canada and the US every 3 months or so. I assumed that this would mean that it wouldn't be so bad once I did ship out, I was wrong. Lucky for me we've been able to keep in touch via web cam and MSN messnger every day at lunch for the most part (evening for her). That was until the Sony VAIO I picked up to replace an old Toshiba took a crap. I think that I may have been better off keeping it since I was able to figure out a drivers issue that it was having causing the dreaded blue screen of death to flair up way too often. Now the Toshiba will sit in our guest bedroom as a guest computer (or at least that's the intent). The easiest way to explain what happened to the little pink lappy is that the RAM fried. The Sony rep and I went round and round about it for a bit, he claimed that I must have downloaded something with a virus in it that shit canned the OS, but I insisted that McAfee would have caught it because it checks everything before allowing it access to the system. Long story short it turned out that I was right and he was wrong
Now the business of getting the little pink laptop up and running again has been a bit of a pain in the ass, right now I am running on 1 gig of borrowed RAM from the Sony rep till I can send it out to have the Tokyo division do a full systems analysis of it and re-install new RAM. I guess they take it pretty seriously when a product does something like this over in Japan, I think that in the states it would have been handled a little bit differently. Whatever, the laptop is back and I have access to the internet again that's all that matters for now.
What else have I been up to? Well I hopped a military flight out of Okinawa to go to Iwo Jima, a very significant rock in the pacific campaign during WWII. I'm sure that everyone is familiar with this photo...
And I'm sure with the movie that just came out not so long ago the significance of this hotter then hell rock in the middle of nowhere. All I have to say is that if you get a chance to go visit don't go in the summer months, its absolutely miserable. Even after becoming acclimatized to Okinawa's heat and humidity I was almost no match for what Iwo Jima had in store for me. Mt. Suribachi is almost just a pimple on the tiny island being less then 600 feet high on the 8 square mile island, but it kicked many asses that day. We had quite a few heat casualties climbing to the top where the memorial for both US Marines and Japanese soldiers is. I made it, just barely... I had consumed most of my water and was taking breaks every couple 100 feet just to get up to the top. Going back down the mountain was pretty easy, but he hike back to the air field was murder. There is almost no shade on the island, and both the chief I was with and myself were almost out of water. The hike back was mostly up hill, a long slow gradual hill that beat down many Marines and a couple sailors. Kind of strange when it should have been a 3 mile walk in the park, but it wasn't. While I was there I managed to snap a few photos and grab a container of sand. When I look back at the whole ordeal I'm glad that I went, and I'm impressed with myself for not quitting on the climb up or the hike back (with the exception of the last 1/3 mile where I had to care for a heat casualty), I have the blisters to show for it (I never knew that getting a blister under a blister was possible).
Now what? Well that depends on who you ask, and I'm not at liberty to say too much about whats going to be going on for the next few months. What I can say is that I'll be getting on the USS Denver for a little sea time. I know its not going to be like when I was ships company on the USS Cushing, but it will be nice to get back on the sea. I really miss the motion of the ocean, the smell of the salt air and the stars... No one has any idea of what the stars really look like till they go somewhere totally devoid of any unnatural light to view them. The desert is pretty close but there seems to be more and more light pollution every year, on the open sea there isn't any and you can see pretty much anything in the sky. It almost feels like you can reach out and touch things they look that close.
Later this week I've got to take an oral board for my Fleet Marine Force (FMF) certification, anyone that's ever been a corpsman knows how difficult this can be. Essentially its a murder board of peers that grill you on everything in the Marine Corps, history, policy, weapons, vehicles, aircraft, ships, tactics, land navigation etc. I'm not really looking forward to it, but its a requirement so I'm just going to have to do what I've gotta do. I qualified Surface Warfare when I was on the Cushing and the oral board there started at 8 in the morning and went till 4 in the afternoon with a 1 hour lunch break, last FMF board lasted 2 hours... pussies!!
I'll try and update again before we head out on ship on the 20th (or there about).
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Hope the exam goes well, though I'm betting you'll do great.
I keep hoping that I'll get a chance to go out to CA and meet your girl, but I know things are way to busy for us now, and I'm trying to change jobs to one I like (if that's even possible to find).
Take care and heads up. Can't wait for you to get back home.