Kyle’s Blog

Another break in the action. It’s looking like the only time I feel like I have enough get up and go to write is after a goodnights sleep on dry land. I guess it’s better that way, or maybe not, I always have a lot to say about what I did here and there, but can’t really say… most of you know how it goes. For the friends that email me, I thank you very much. Usually trying to find an open computer underway is difficult, but it makes reading that one email when I have that 5 minutes of downtime worth every sentence. I don’t find myself missing things back home so much, a few things here and there, but mostly I’m too busy managing my weapons department, standing watch, and doing boardings to let my mind wander with thoughts of home. 

Interesting things said to me the last few weeks:

1. “Guns, did you ever do porn?” From one of my buddies onboard.

2. “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to call you sir, it’s just you sorta have the hair for it.” From a shoreside Coastie.

3. “Oh! El fantasma blanca en la selva sin alma!” Which for the most part means “The white ghost in the jungle without a soul… in regards to me being a black ops DEA agent in Columbia for my next job. The colorful name given to me by both BM1 Kinser and FS2 Martinez.

4. “Screen watching is like masturbation, everyone does it man.” Regarding Halo 3 multiplayer

The patrol was good, even though we’re only out for a not so long period of time, it feels like an eternity simply for the fact that we’re going going going all the time. While the operational tempo makes for a satisfying “end of the patrol feel” it’s definitely taxing on ones body and mind. The highlight of the patrol was a very large 700 to 800 foot motor tanker boarding…

I was doing the deck walk with my shipmate P.J. and the bow was barely visible due to all the dust in the air, and the only thing that broke the silence of the two of us walking the length of the vessel with the eerie shifting of the anchor chain, which was like a large wrench being dropped on metal deck plating. The sound cut through the air and hit us probably about 500 feet away from the bow, which was still in a haze we couldn’t see through. We got to the bow, but found nothing out of the ordinary, and headed back to the stern of the vessel to see that the deck floodlights were on. The lights would usually light of the deck like it was daytime. It was about 6 or 7am and the dust seemed like it wouldn’t let a ray of light get close to illuminating much of anything. Instead the lights gave off a blurry yellowish-gold. P.J. keeping his eyes affixed on what was ahead of us commented that it felt like we were on a different planet, and that the silence was a bit unsettling.  I adjusted the weight of my M4 rifle and recall looking up at the sun, like the lights, trying to penetrate the thick coating of dust all around us. An amazingly illuminate white ball, the sun seemed brighter than I’ve ever seen it in my life. I’d guess the temperature was only about 95 degrees, however with no wind and humidity it was about that time that I realized that every section of my torso that was covered by gear was soaked through with sweat. The sweat that was running off my brow was coming down and stinging my eyes just enough to squint. I made a mental note to myself that a small hand towel would be a good thing to bring the next time, along with a full camelback, and a bottle of water for backup. Welcome to a little taste of the NAG (north arabian gulf).

I must say that it’s not until you’re as far away from the world you know that certain things like missing fourth of July really matters. Ahh four of July, also commonly known as “Get stupid in your backyard with beer, brauts, and overpriced Chinese, fire-spitting, oooos and ahhhhs”. In all seriousness I’ve always really enjoyed America’s holiday, it’s always meant family, friends, and great weather. I hope everyone of you don’t take it for granted, if only for the simple fact that you all have better weather than me. It would probably be frowned upon if we got in the middle of a Bahrain street and started lighting shit on fire with a cooler full of beer, so I task all of you with enjoying yourself today.

First and foremost I must address the fact that I received quite possibly the best “care package” I’ve ever been given in my entire life today upon pulling into Bahrain. CDs, books, magazines, coffee bean grinder, french press, cool photos etc… totally awesome.

More to follow tomorrow, I’m beyond tired and I’ve had 5 beers. 5 beers to me normally wouldn’t stand a chance against my iron liver, but with the busy schedule and our only port call being a completely “dry” country… that will happen… sad.

I hope this acts as a teaser, until a less drunk/constructive blog appears.

and it’s about time.

We’re about ready to leave again for another patrol and I’ve spent all of one day off the ship. Tomorrow I plan to sleep in nice and late, go for a bike ride perhaps, at least workout, and then stand some duty. I had quite a long day today taking on all kinds of ammunition for all different types of weaponry, which ultimantely leads to a lot of heavy lifting. Between shlepping ammo from here to there, figuring out the numbers, and working out on top of all of that… I’m fried. I always feel satisfied with hard work, but the day in day out is wearing on me pretty quickly. It feels like on my best days that I’m operating on 75% of my mental capacity, and I feel frustrated, but continue to put my body and mind on a semi reliable auto pilot if you will.

I’m beginning to assemble a nice gift package for my dear friend Ashley. She has been kind enough to send me all kinds of stuff, from cds, to tasty treats, and it’s about time I reciprocated her actions. The whole process is going a lot slower than I’d like, but I suppose that gives me all the time I need to make the gift special and meaningful.

I hopped into bed last night and even though I’m going to bed around 10 to 10:30 nearly every night I said to myself, “I don’t spend enough time in here.” Of course I refer to my bed, and I certainly plan to address this issue tomorrow by sleeping in as best I can.

Well congratulations to me for surviving a whole month and five days here in the middle east. I’ve been very busy, but I’m already getting the hang of how things are running here. My qualifications onboard are coming along very nicely. I took my oral board and I’m now an inport OOD (officer of the day) which is left in charge of the ship inport while the commanding officer and the crew are off on liberty well deserved. I have a few more watches before I consider myself competent enough to be a full fledged quartermaster of the watch, who is essentially in charge of safe navigation of the ship underway.

The first patrol was fast paced, demanding, and had an absence of good rest. We pulled in just the other day and I was already thrust into the inport watch with only 2 hours of sleep from the night before. I must apologize as I read back into this blog, I’m a bit tired, and scatterbrained. Anyway the patrol proved very very interesting having worked with Iraqi Marines, British Royal Commandos, U.S. and Australian Navy etc. One of the days a certain Aussie vessel offered to do what they call a crossdeck where each ship essentially swaps a few crewmembers for a tour/ meet and greet. I got a really cool patch out of it from the engineering department fellas, hung out for a few hours, exchanged sea stories, and just hung out. Other interesting notes from the patrol:

- Launching flares at boats called dowhs for being where they’re not supposed to be

- Doing quite a few boardings

- Visiting Kuwait

- Seeing places that contribute to you filling up your gas tanks

- Getting bit or stung by some nasty middle eastern wasp, I then judo chopped it and stomped on it.

- Shooting quite a bit of my arsenal onboard

- Having more responsibility than I ever have in the Coast Guard

I can’t think of anymore at this moment, but that’s the gist of it. 

Right now I sit on my new macbook, listening to my new itouch, wondering how the hell did this all happen. I’m very glad that I’m doing what I’m doing. There’s a lot of growing pains going onboard right now with the command, but I’m sticking it through a lot better than the rest of the crew. Quite frankly it’s nothing I haven’t already experienced already, so I’m doing my job of informing the rest of my shipmates that we need to stick together and watch our mouths, deal with these problems constructively, and perform they way we need to perform. 

I’ve been talking to very few people since I’ve been over here. I call Ashley on a regular basis, then my parents, and I shot a call to John Z the other day. I keep trying to reach my friend Matt, but it wasn’t until this morning when I checked my gmail for the first time in a month that I found out he was in in different country as well working for the Coast Guard temporarily. To all my other friends that I haven’t got around to calling, I’m really don’t want to have to validate the reason for not calling, I’m busy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss you.

Oh MacBook so rad

Black and super sleek are you

MacBook my new friend.

There you go! A haiku just for my new laptop which will now forever be known as “MacLappy”. I’ve registered the appropriate programs so I’m able to iChat, which is pretty exciting. I actually have a lappy that can hold a charge, not have the battery fall out, overheat, or just be a general piece of shit. Woo… really happy with my purchase… I’ll be even happier once I get my iTunes library on MacLappy here.

I’m bummed that I can’t really document my travels and what I’m up to here in Bahrain due to opsec and all. Just know that I’m getting a handle on my job and anxious to get this first underway period taken down just to get into the swing of things. I’ve already been here nearly a month… 11 to go right? Easy day.

For my Coast Guard friends… my email remains the same, so email me. I miss everyone already and I’d love to here from all ya’ll. 

I’m tired of this damn laptop. The pace of technology advancement has always annoyed the living hell out of me. If I spend two thousand dollars on a laptop it should last me at least five years. It shouldn’t overheat, it shouldn’t magically turn off, it shouldn’t have a crappy battery power cord that frays within two years, and it shouldn’t have a battery that last all of 10 minutes. So now the research begins! I’m already leaning towards a macbook for a few reasons. I love how compact and energy effecient they are. I love all their fancy features like photo and movie programs that makes editing easy. I especially like the skype feature especially with a built in camera to boot.

We had our change of command today on the boat. The gift from the crew to the departing captain was very impressive. Everything seems to be going a bit better now that I’m nearly caught up on my sleep. My qualification process is moving along nicely, and I’m less stressed about my job. I forget that this whole boat weapons department is ultimantely my responsibility… that is true, but I have another GM on my team to help me as well as the whole shoreside element. Take a deep breath… you’ll be fine I keep saying to myself. With that in mind I’ve decided to take a well earned day off tonight, have a drink or two, and join the rest of the crew in a BBQ. Speaking of the crew, we all seem to be coming together nicely as far as the enlisted folk go. We have a few more guys from the training I went through coming to replace a few others. I’m pretty excited to get all our guys from training here, we work pretty well together. My only hope is that our command doesn’t go south. There’s a lot of nervousness in the air hoping that the officer’s aren’t going to institute workdays instead of leaving it up to the seperate departments to take care of their own buisiness without the “well thought out guidance” of the officers. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it… I’m hoping and praying with the rest of the guys that’s the road everyone is going to take.

I have my re enlistment papers in my backpack right now. Providing I get the signatures I need, which I don’t see why I wouldn’t, I’ll be stuck in the Coast Guard for another four years. I won’t be getting as much money seeing as I didn’t go for 6 years instead of 4. I had a really uneasy feeling about 6 years and I couldn’t explain it… so I just went with the strange gut feel and opted for 4.

That’s about all that’s new to report.

Here we are at the early hours of a Bahrain morning. This is what happens when you stand watch from 6pm to 7am, still not used to the time change… you sleep from Noon to now. I’m warning the reader that this post might be a bit scatterbrained as I feel pretty sluggish from all the sleep.

For everyone who’s anyone who wants to know what Bahrain is like… here’s a look from someone who’s been here less than a week. It’s sandy, very, very sandy. If you imagine a smoggy southern California day (which isn’t hard to do if you’ve ever been there) and times that by two you get Bahrain. Ah! but it is not smog, it’s sand/dust. The whole sand in the air is good and terrible. Terrible because it makes cleaning the weapons onboard the boat a (enter a ton of swearing) pain to clean. Good because I amazingly don’t get burnt by the sun in 100+ degree heat, so I’m already developing a really awesome farmers tan after 5 days of being here. The people here, which are composed of Saudi, Bahraini, Kuwati etc all drive like maniacs and honk their horns way to much. The places we’re staying at are spacious, marble floors, functional A/C, and all the furniture one needs. It sounds like there is a ton of restaurants to visit, places to shop, the grand mosque to visit, a neato sounding water park, and many other activities. The biggest thing is that I learn my job and learn it quick, and I’ve done an amazing job of stressing myself to the point of nausea every time I think about it.

Mission objective: Learn how to document things in logs/paperwork, keep my weapons and equipement free of rust, damage, working, and firing, shooting enough ammo, and not getting relieved of my duties for incompetence.

My travel to the east coast went fairly smooth yesterday. I’m very thankful that I knew the area I’m staying in as I was only a short walk from a lot of decent places to eat. The only snag all day long was after I arrived in Norfolk, I forgot the name of the hotel I made the reservation at. After swearing a bit out loud on the sidewalk outside of the airport I made a few calls to my shipmates on the Baranof.

Having drank quite a bit the night before my plane ride, I enjoyed sleeping most of the way to Atlanta. I was very pleased with the new ‘Outside’ magazine issue. I particularly enjoyed the ‘50 greatest jobs’ one of them working for Smith Optics/sunglasses, which I love, and would love to work for. They also had a decent write up on a very leisurely vacation through Baja California which is one of my dream vacation spots. The people in the article took a rental car, I’d be taking a nice trailbike (Honda XR) and taking my time getting to Cabo San Lucas. Auughh the fishing, hiking, swimmin, beach campin’, Mexican beer drinkin’, Spanish practicing fun!!! Someday… someday.

Thanks to making a good amount of money (and preparing to make a lot more due to where I’m going) I’m itching to buy myself something nice. Here’s my list of things I can and want to be able to afford.

Can afford:

1. Bose ear enclosed head phones

2. ‘I am not there’ The Bob Dylan movie played by multiple actors that came out today.

3. New clothes (and the patience to shop for them)

4. A “Mighty Broo” beer at Alt Platz Brewery (http://www.altplatzbrewing.com/Home_Page.php)

5. A haircut

Things I want to be able to afford

1. New tires and wheels for my truck

2. I’d say new Honda XR, but I’m not sure if I’d use it as much as I’d like

3. A nice hammerless .357 revolver for concealed carry

4. A house in Colorado

5. Season tickets to the St. Louis Blues and a means to see almost every game (aka leer jet)

With that said, I’ll have my mailing address in Bahrain found and posted up here as soon as I can. That will give you guys enough time to start shopping before my birthday in August!

I have to keep reminding myself why I’m going over there, what it’s good for, why I made this decision, and how I know it’s for the best. I’m not nervous about potential danger, just running my own shop and running it well. I’m hoping more than anything it’s like any new set of qualifications you get thrown in front of you. You look through the book of sign offs and you’re already completely overwhelmed, but by the end of it you’re proficient at all those tasks. I just want to get there and get the first patrol over with, so I’m at least somewhat used to normal ops.

My party that Kel and his wife Sarah threw for me was awesome. All my friends showed up including the entire Motherbird (minus John who lives in GA). There’s nothing much else to say on the subject… it was fun!

I saw ‘Iron Man’ with Robert Downey Jr. and that was really good. Downey is hilarious and quick witted as always. ‘Iron Man’ is probably one of the best super hero movies ever made and honestly, there isn’t much competition in that field. The only thing that’s going to overshadow this movie (as far as comics go) is probably going to be ’Dark Knight’ the new Batman movie. Pretty damn excited for Heath Ledger’s debut as the joker as well as Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face.

I’m getting my haircut by my good friend and professional barber Dylan, hanging out, and taking today easy. I hop on a plane for Virginia the next morning dark and early. I’m staying in VA until the 7th (and my phone will be canceled then.

Last night I went down to Costa Mesa to hang out with John, chill out, and watch a movie. Our friend Garrett called who was in the area at the Paul Frank warehouse which was hosting it’s annual dodgeball championship. Along with the dodgeball was a free show from Every Time I Die. ETID is a very fun and talented band to see live, so John and I made our way there. However, thanks to a wonderful event staff they were letting tons of people out of the gated off area, but nobody in who didn’t have a orange wristband. John, as clever as he is just asked a couple who happened to be leaving for their wristbands, tucked the ripped ends into our watches, and we got in no problem. I wish I had prepared for this outing as I would have worn something else besides flip flops to a hardcore show. The set was great, kids were jumping off the stage, the singer was hilarious, and the event staff was overwhelmed. ETID played even as the cops were breaking up the party, with police helicopter overhead and all. I’ve been to some crazy shows in my day (tugging on imaginary suspenders) but I ain’t never been to one that was broken up by a police helicopter with a spotlight… very fun.