Score ONE Jim!

Admiral Timothy Keating delivered a rousing story at the decommissioning. I was most impressed with my first official admiral. Thennn......




Last year I bought a Cruise book on ebay. It's like a yearbook for a navy ship. It was from the USS Kitty Hawk's 1981 Westpac tour. I forgot about it until yesterday! I looked into it tonight. I thought, what if Admiral Keating was in there, tht would be cool...and look!! Viola!



I managed to win a few other Kitty Hawk things on ebay today, too. One was a challenge coin and another was a postal cover...a postal cover is an envelope that has a stamp cancelled by the ship's post office...well, this was supposed to be among the last ons cancelled by her post office. I am now waiting to obtain patch.

Here are pics of my cruisebook.

Cool, huh? Ebay normlly sells them for bout $200 each...I got mine for considerably less!

Here is Cora and me on our way back from Bremerton aboard the ferry...She is trying NOT to smile and NOT to look at the camera...isn't Cora cute?


In this one, I had assured her it would be complimentary...I think it worked.

Today, I subbed for a kinder class and had a student teacher do the work for me. All in all it was a good day! Then I tried to cut the mats out of the cat and nearly cut the cat off the mat...Still, there wasn't much blood, and I will take him to the vet, so, all is good, right?

A Wonderful Decommissioning, and Museum Ship, Too.

It was a wonderful day!!

You can see how pleased I was! Here, I am looking into the future of Carrier Technology and a time when Kitty will be called to action again!!!

We thoroughly enjoyed the day! It began early, and a good thing it did! We ended up getting there just in time. The ceremony was held on the Hangar deck. Cora was disappointed, as she was looking forward to seeing the 4.5 acres of sorvereign US territory, also called a flight deck. We did get run of the pier and I got some pictures of various other ships there at the Naval Yard. I will post those at my other site, since you readers might not want to see one hundred ship pictures. Should you want to, though, here it is. My parents came, too, and also enjoyed it. My Dad had purchased a very nice Kitty Hawk shirt for me on Thursday, too!

Next we visited the Bremerton Naval Museum. Which was a terrible disappointment! Years ago, it was a wonderful museum full of naval curiosities, from Admiral Dewey's couch to a 15 foot model of the USS Midway! There were mines and torpedoes aplenty. Today, it is run by the US Navy, and it is a piece of shit. There is plenty of room for good exhibits and they have some wonderful cobbles outside surrounding the sail of the USS Parche. They still have the ship's bell of the USS Washington and the USS Bremerton, but little else. It was a wild disappointment. Oh, and nothing mentioned WHY USS Parche was the most decorated submarine EVER! Nothing about secret missions and Cold War intrigue. Nothing. It turns out there is a treasure trove down stairs, but the Navy has only allowed a small amount of that treasure to be viewed by the public. I intend to write a letter to the Navy stating my disappointment that these treasures are not on view, furthering the education of another generation and interest in the navy.

We went to the USS Turner Joy next! THAT was worth the price of admission! Cora and I wer all over the ship and Cora even stood on the bow, declaring her royalty and eminence over the world. I think the exact quote was "I'm king of the world!"

It is a beautifully restored Destroyer! I highly recommend it!!

They had 55 lb projectiles all over the ship. I figured, if you could carry it off the ship it was yours, but Cora told me I could NOT have one... I think she is narrow minded and mean. As it turns out, they were not for you take home...darn it. Would have been perfect on the TV stand.

Shhhhhhhh, Cora could not figure out why I was having troube climbing ladders! No need to tell her of my little souvenir! (Just joking, I'd never do such a thing...although, if anyone has such a paper weight, I am VERY interested in buying![it's an educational item, really!])

Good Bye Kitty!!

We had a wonderful day. We started early, and it was a long, but rewarding day! I will post more later. For some reason Blogger is not allowing me to upload photos, hopefully I can when we get home! I hope everyone is having a similarly good weekend!

Weekend Beckons!!

I had a good day. Dare I say "my" sixth graders greeted me with extreme happiness. I don't know why they like me so much, but I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth ( a saying, I am still unsure of, despite my knowledge of checking a horse's teeth to verify health). Do you know, they asked me to come sub for them, and when I explained I can only sub if their teacher is sick, they asked me to go cough on her! I like those kids. Same goes for the sixth grade teachers, they still appear to like me. I am pretty fond of them, too, though.

Tonight, we have been getting ready for our visit to the Kitty Hawk I had to go to town and get another battery for the dumb camera becuse I can't find the other. I will be darned if I go to such a good spot for photos and have to suffer from battery deadness! I am also downloading the video from the video camera to the hard drive and charging the batteries for that, too!

Oh, MAN! I can't wait to go see some ships! Cora is showing only mild interest...but she's a girl. She did seem to indicate that I could go wherever I want because she knows she is going to be bored anyway. I see that not s a challenge to interest her, but as a free ticket to every military museum I can find!

And there ARE a few over there! There is the USS Turner Joy, The Bremerton Naval Ship Yard Museum, The Keyport Undersea Museum, there is are at least THREE air museums. I think I could keep us busy!

I get to teacher bilingual kinders tomorrow! YAY!!!!

I haven't forgotten my request for pictures of military bases...I am counting on you guys!

Kids Is Kids

Today I taught in the SPED room. I always enjoy the kids and they like me. Further, the Assistants like me because I don't hide behind the desk like other subs. Apparently, SOME subs don't know how to treat kids with special needs. I don't claim to either, but, I DO know the kids are just kids! They are not aliens to be feared! But, because I INTERACT with the kids, the Assistants seem to prefer me as a sub, which does inflate my EGO...a little.

I think I neglected to mention yesterday that the sixth grade teachers were threatening to each get "sick" in sequence so they could keep me with them. A few of them might have also mentioned that they wished that I had applied for the job last year. (I did, but at the time, I thought I was only certified for grades 7-12 and said as much, now I know better[CWU, you suck]) I am frankly amazed tht they like me so much. I am too humble to scream, "THEY LIKE ME!!!! THEY!!!! LIKE!!!!! ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (of course they do.) Still, however understandable their liking of me is, I sometimes wonder how it is they like me. They only see me during lunch and hear about me from the kids...oh, well, I consider it an honor that they like me. I like them just as much, but I like the kids, too.

So, local news agencies expect some snow this weekend. Maybe that'd be fun. I hope the passes clear up by next Friday! I may have to drive around the Columbia Gorge to get to Seattle, but, damn it, I WILL BE AT THAT DECOMMISSIONING!!!!!

FFFF-Sun...or Sol...

Well, it's Friday again! And there is ANOTHER FFFF theme. This time our lovely Diana has offered the theme as SUN. Thank you Diana! We really haven't seen the sun much lately, so I am having to pull from the archives. So, since I have little to say(...I know, rare day, indeed!), I figured I would offer up these little gems.

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This one was taken from our front yard in California. It was a warm Spring day (By Warm, I mean upper sixties, and by Spring, I mean February) and the spiders in the grass had made themselves busy. I saw the sun glinting off their webs and wanted to record it. If you click on the picture you should be able to make some of them out. That shiny mess in the middle of the grass across the road IS ALL spider webs!

The next one is of Mt. Adams. I took it at sunset in December. If you are lucky you might be able to make out the snow blowing off the shoulder of the mountain.

And finally, this is my lovely wife when we were Christmas Tree hunting.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I am one week away from the Kitty Hawk Decommissioning!!! I am sure I will take plenty of pictures and I will be able to bore you with ship pictures for months!

Commissioning, Decommissioning, Make Up Your Mind!

Cora and I slept in. My dad called and said the commissioning of the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77) was on CNN. So, we got up and watched it. A few presidents put in an appearance, and some admirls mde some speaches. It was very interesting to me, but neither Cora nor CNN seemed able to stay focused. Oh, well.

I then put two and two together and it dawned on me why this and the decommissioning were taking place at this time. The GHWB will replace Kitty Hawk as a unit in the Navy. It allows the navy to stick with the 11 carriers alotted them and move the old crew accordingly. For a short time, two weeks, the US has an extra carrier. We used to have 13 Carriers...amazing what the loss of a full-time enemy does.

Cora and I cleaned up. She did the laundry and I did the dishes. I cleaned the kitchen while she paid bills. I was not about to complain, as I despise the bill paying.

We decided to go to town for some groceries and to finally take Grandma her Christmas gift from us. I think she liked the gift card to Borders. We also got lunch at Panda Express. Apparently, Yakima was in desparate need of a Chinese restaraunt...I think we mentioned that earlier last year...because after being open almost a month, it is still packed.

Now, we are back. We neglected to get groceries, but there is always tomorrow. Overall, it was a relaxing day.

I think we have enough beer to last the night and fixings for a simple dinner...what more could we ask? Hmmm, not so sure about the beer...

I will leave you with the Sedona Skyline.

honey, do we have any more beeerrrr????

This Is A Test

This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, this signal would hve been followed by information....blah, blah, blah. Technology.

Cora has discovered her web camera...she is at this moment talking to Kim and Kylee (Hi, you two, you'll have better luck here than with the video thingy, since the sound does not appear to be working right now...) ! I tried to help, but Cora was unappreciative of my efforts. We have, SO FAR seen the whole family! That has been entertaining for me tonight! Ah, the pleasures of learning new technologies!

Today...and yesterday...and tomorrow and Friday I subbed and...err...will sub for music. I have read stories and coordinated playing CDs, done a little dancing, and in general kept the kids entertained. I have not done much other than that these past few days..hence, fewer posts than my usual managerie!

Not much is on TV, and since Fisher Broadcasting won't lower their prices, Dish cannot broadcast one of our local stations. Those bastards took away my NCIS!!!!! And come a month from now, OUR SURVIVOR! I guess we could try the rabbit ears in the back of the receiver...but, I just haven't gotten to the store for a pair, yet.

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The weather here...well, we got TONS of snow in December, plus the REALLY low temperatures, then the last couple days we have had UNSEASONABLY (Bit of an understatement) WARM temperatures. It was in the 50's these past few days(that's more than 10 C for my international readers, right now, at 730PM it is 54 degrees F!). The snow that had piled up and NOT gotten plowed is now either HARD ice or water bent on flooding local streams. Global Warming??? Nahhh...never happened, doesn't exist...

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My plans for late January are to attend the decommissioning of the USS Kitty Hawk. My father got excited when I sent him a link that showed there would be a hangar deck tour on the Thursday before the decommissioning...then the bugger went and got himself RSVPed for it! I am now jealous. I have to work those days.

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There are still technical difficulties in Cora's Computer Land...wish her luck!

***UPDATE: Cora got it going!***

Christmas Comes Early...and Late.

Check this out!



So, this wonderful little gem arrived and I m SOOO excited! I have never been to a decommissioning! The USS Kitty Hawk will be decommission on January 31, 2009. I expect to be there with my wife and parents in tow.


COLD out. We are getting some snow now and I m smoking some more cheese, I hope it turns out as well as my last batch. Supposed to be winter storm nice out...joy.