Putting To Sea

Well, this may be the last post I make for a while, I'm just awaiting travel orders to be approved before heading to my first ship assignment. Nearly my entire training class has left or will be leaving shortly for their first ship assignment. It was almost a let down yesterday afternoon when they were calling people's names that had travel orders and my name wasn't apart of 'em.

At the same time I was glad, since it seemed that it could only mean I was slated to go take my Able Seaman course, but alas that wasn't to be as well. I've been requesting this class since the end of june and my detailer keeps denying all knowledge of me doing so. She's new to the position and I get the impression no one likes her so they're setting her up for failure.

So I may just bite the bullet, do my quick couple months on board the USNS Mercy, one of the ships everyone wants to work on since there isn't much we do but keep the ship operational. Those are for the people who don't like to work, I'd much rather get on an ammo ship or a mixed fuel/ammo ship like Shane or Houston is shipping off for today.

Supposedly it's easier to get training after being assigned to a ship then while sitting around the "pool" but it's another I'll believe it when I see it type of deals. I'm hoping that I can manage to get in the quick 5 days of training and get the USCG going on processing my upgrade paperwork.

On the brighter side, it's been nothing but smiles and grins around the hotel for the past 18 hours. Another sailor tradition, passing along items that it's not worth sending home but would be a serious waste of money if thrown away. While we could give it to the maids, we much rather see another sailor get it. Right now I've got about 2 weeks worth of food given to me and I'm gonna be here for only a few days more I think.

Have a few things to do today, get some stuff mailed home that I'm not taking with me and start looking at a few handy items to pack away and start getting prepaired for the orders that are suppose to be on the way, since I get the feeling that when things start to move it'll go extremely fast.