December 25

Merry Christmas

I got 3 packages yesterday. None had a phone card in it. The minute I got it I had to open them and throw them into my rack since we were prepping for an inspection (yeah someone did something stupid. Long story). So I don't exactly remember what was in what. I got the kindle and the noise canceling headphones and one with foot powder and insoles (one might have been a generic "any sailor" care package. I didn't really notice.

Either way thank you thank you thank you. I'll try to see if I can find wifi
in....um wherever we're going to put in. Bad idea putting Hunt for
Red October in there lol. There was QM (quartermaster-submarine) in my job choosing sheet along with a few others (like other things, volunteering for sub duty exempts
you from the normal waiting times for a-schools and such). Can't say I'm not
seeing the advantages; shorter deployments (3 months) that aren't much more
frequent than our current operations tempo, working with a tight group of
people (one issue with some in my group who would steal from their own mothers).

Luckily I already applied for the tests and haven't done anything stupid yet. I actually downloaded a bunch of books into my phone on the kindle app and I'm trying to figure out how to put them on the actual kindle. Headphones are a dream. NO PHONE CARDS AHHHH!HH!H!H!H!H. I got the Christmas card with 10 bucks in it, but phone cards are $20 minimum so....i don't know. I do know that I will have cash on the 1st
of Jan since that's when my cash card starts but till then....I'll try to pull
a few favors and see if I can call tonight.

I moved racks. Its hard to explain my berthing because its arranged in
horseshoe around our central lounge area, but its all connected, sort of. The
left and middle are basically one unit while a long hallway kind of segregates
the left from the rest of the berthing and is know as the "burbs" since most
of us are from Crypto, language and specwar drops that got deployed as UNDES'
(and we're all from suburban areas). We all kind of banded together since we
all ended up being friends pretty quick and had a collective desire to get
away from the noisier sections of the berthing. So it's a lot nicer than where
I was racked before.

What else....there's a Christmas party in the hanger bay tonight. Might hang
out for that. I had watch from 0000-0200 in the berthing; a new watch brought
about by the drama from yesterday (still a long story). Suffice to say some
people are idiots and don't think "Hey! Mouthing off the AFL (assistant
First LT our XO and mustang who was a Chief last year) isn't such a good idea
and continuing talking is only digging myself a deeper and deeper whole from
which I can't get out of." Some dude just let his frustrations boil over (and
they were stupid frustrations too like we couldn't go in the bathroom since we
just cleaned it for the aforementioned inspection and he didn't want to walk
20 FREAKING FEET to the one down the hall) and decided instead of properly
addressing it among the chain of command that he would directly bitch to a
superior officer. Dumbass.

Merry Christmas