MrFreefall383

Good job on the huge burn. You're a badass. Last week was horseshit for me, I was coming off having tweaked my knee on a long run with Senior Chief Wyco. Ran Friday for the first time in a week after the injury, and didn't have any pain for a mile and a half, so today I ran my usual 10k for the first time in almost two weeks. No pain at whatsoever, barely out of breath till the last 1/8 mile, and I ran it almost two minutes quicker than my last time, at 51min 57sec. I'm smoking the shit out of the 10k so in a few weeks when I run my first 10k charity event two days after my birthday, I'll smoke that one too. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Gotta love sea stories. I can't wait for the hawser storage story, that should be fun! I can see it going all sorts of bad places even without FUBAR'd Wx. I don't have any stories quite that exciting having only been at a single heavy weather station before A-School, but there are some little interesting ones in there, like our 47 almost taking an unplanned trip into Gloucester Harbor after the #1 line snapped a cleat off the pier and took a section of the pier with it. I happened to be wandering down there to do some cleaning in the forward bilge in that boat, and I can't remember ever running so fast from the 47 pier to the comms center. And after we finally got it tied off, the CO ordered us to tie up to the 110-ft Grand Isle in the South Channel for the night. And guess who he picked as the non-rated 47 crewman to stay overnight with the boat? Yours truly. That was fun. Then there was the time we had to pick up a 40-ft fishing boat 15nm offshore in the Stellwagen Bank and Wx was projected as being 4-6 ft with 15-20kts of wind, and that's what it was for the trip out. The trip back it jumped to 30kts and 8-10 ft. 6-man crew with two coxswains, two FN, my lonely SN ass, and an MK3 as our engineer, and we had a 50% seasickness rate. One of the FN got sick first because he was a pansy, the MK3 followed him while on tow watch, and I fought it so hard and lost it just over halfway back to Gloucester Harbor. Needless to say, Joe Fisherman found it very amusing, and I wouldn't blame him in the least, though I do blame him for not checking to make sure his electrical system wasn't going to shit the bed on him in 5-10 ft seas and 30 knots of wind. Dumbass. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Ah, the good old 180's. I know a few people from my first station and instructors I have now who were stationed on 180's and absolutely loved them. The 225's are amazing in their own right, but those 180's had a very good reputation. As for the Spar, she's had a long history, with the first Spar being put into service sometime in the early 1940's. The current one, the 225 I'm being assigned to, was put to sea at the end of 2000 if I remember correctly, commissioned in early 2001. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Vacation time is going to be sacred, that's for damn sure. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Update on the situation. We got our picks today, and I chose Kodiak. Probably a three year assignment, during which I will be pulling buoys out of the water regularly, doing some law enforcement, hopping around the Aleutian Islands, maybe getting a few weeks in Hawaii, and a few weeks near the North Pole, but we'll see about that. The numbers really worked out in my favor. Despite my impression that several people were doing far better than I was, I ended up being ranked third in the class, or at least third out of the 37 who had to choose new assignments. I never expected that in a million years. I figured I was probably at about 8. Hell of a situation too, because our school chief pre-announced me as "one of our favorites here." If that ain't an ego boost having the school chief call you his favorite in front of your entire class, I don't know what is. I'm humble enough to take it in stride and just keep on kicking ass, but I'm sure a lot of people were pissed off by that. Honestly though, fuck 'em. I earned that shit, I didn't sit on my ass hoping for the best. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Fuck you? That's always possible, but it might not go over well. As for the knee, I didn't feel any real pain this morning, even when we double-timed it to the gym, so I warned my advisor that I might stop if it started hurting again, he said he wasn't too worried about me passing the run given my 9:47 on the 1.5 mile last time. So I started running at a nice easy pace, no pain, so I pushed it up a little to get with a guy who needed to pass the run this time having failed twice. Pushed him pretty hard, and he passed, and I completed the run without any significant pain. I'm a little sore right now because I walked around quite a bit after PT this morning, but a little rest and recovery tomorrow and I'll be good to go. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Update to my knee status. It felt noticeably better today, no real pain to speak of, but I also didn't try to do anything more than walk. I'm only feeling a little soreness this evening because I was on my feet all day doing plotting exercises. Tomorrow I'm going to try to opt out of the run if I know I won't be able to complete it, and stay in recovery mode unless I have good reason not to. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Yeah, I've got a PT eval coming up Friday. If it's still hurting tomorrow night, I'm going to go to sick call Friday morning and get it looked at. No fucking around with this, but hopefully a little R&R and stretching gets it back to normal. It was feeling a bit better today, only a little pain if I landed real hard on my right foot. Tomorrow will be the telling point. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

In bad shape here. After doing another Psycho Wyco run through the battefields here in Yorktown, I think the offroad portion screwed up my knee. I've been having a sharp pain in my right leg just to the inside lower edge of my knee cap, and it just hasn't gotten much better. I'm trying to walk only as much as is necessary, and not running until I know it's better, but this could mean bad news if it doesn't heal quick. With a 10k coming up at the end of this month, I can't afford a long injury now. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

No, it really doesn't play a part in my decision, but a close friend brought up the same point. It's an interesting factoid for sure. And as for skydiving, it turns out ferry rides to and from Kodiak are not only expensive, but very time-consuming. And flights are damn near out of the question with how pricey they are. My only hope is a military flight out of Kodiak airstation that's going in the general direction of a car rental office near a good DZ, and that's slim to no chance. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

I love seeing this kind of shit. All the things that nobody plans to see on an aerial map, you can easily find. My parents' house on Google Maps is shown when we were doing some major renovation throughout the entire house, there's one of the contractor's vans and a huge dumpster in our driveway. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Yeah, those JOs are bad from what I hear. Always getting into a mess of shit because they think they know how to operate boats. Never submit to the Dark Side. Warrants are... OK.... Our CO/OIC at Station Gloucester was a warrant before I left for A-School, and he was a total asshat. Great Boatswain's Mate, hell of a Surfman I'm sure, but he had as much time on cutters as I did. As such, he changed his mind more than his underwear. Royal pain in the ass. I was even warned about him as I was leaving boot camp by the Master Chief. He referred to the BOSN2 as "squirrelly," which meant nothing at the time. Rest assured I know the meaning of the word now. As for boot, I'll give you the 14 weeks, I still think it should've been longer, and we carried around the M1's, not the light little M16's. I loved piece IT with those damn things. 9.5 - 11 pounds of pure motivation not to fuck up. Some had all their parts installed, some didn't. I got one that happened to be fully assembled. Lucky me. Now they've put in an obstacle course and fucking pugel sticks. I wouldn't have even trusted some of my shipmates with a pencil, let alone a fucking pugel stick. That's some dangerous shit. But yes, we did sniper position regularly in the Munro Q'deck until Senior Chief Wong got tired of staring at us. And he was an HS, he never got tired of staring at us. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Thanx, you owe me a keyboard. This one now has half-chewed bagel all over it! OCS was in Yorktown back in the day, same place I went for MK class-A & class-C outboard motor. I call it like I see it. Keyboards are acceptable casualties in the war against mediocrity and boredom. And officers are great fun to make fun of. What other use do they serve? "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

That's a very good selling point, thank you. If I see a better argument for Oregon, I'll consider that, but right now I'm leaning toward Alaska. Putting skydiving and auto racing off for a few years is a small sacrifice to pay for a more successful career. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Yeah, it is one hell of a problem. Which would you rather visit, Astoria or Kodiak? To address gonzo's suggestion, I've thought about doing as our Nav Rules instructor taught us for when we can't fathom what the answer to a multiple choice question is. Hold out your four fingers joined, thumb tucked into your palm. Slam your fingers together onto the table in front of you or other flat surface, and whichever finger hurt the longest was the right answer. To Quade, it does seem rather strange to be a deck worker in some of the coldest weather known to man. Strange indeed. But I vastly prefer cold to warm weather. Warm weather means Joe Boater out there engaging in stupidity. The warm air blocks the synapses from firing, thus encouraging pure insanity, and the Coast Guard always has to go save the idiots. Cold weather means hard work, and less stupidity... usually. And yes, I believe I'd enjoy the hell out of it. I may never want to leave. DavidB, yes, oddly enough there is a school to become deck slime. It's called OCS. I'm going to be honest here though, our instructors are simply the best. They know their shit backward and forward, which is a great benefit to us. I've learned so much here about the job, and even more about myself, this has to be the best choice I could make for my career. To answer your question about what is wrong with kids these days, plenty. I'm just shy of turning 26. Two birthdays in a row in USCG Training Centers, amazing. I'm one of the only guys who really wants cold weather. Most people here are on average 5 years younger than me. These kids just want to be in the warm sun all day, getting cancer and drinking mojitos. They can take their fucking mojitos. When I'm an XPO of a station a number of years from now, I'll know I earned every benefit I'll have through hard work, sacrifice, and dedication to the mission. I'll live the rest of my career out in relative peace while still working my ass off toward improving the Coast Guard, then retire comfortably as long as I don't have more than one kid draining the life out of me. Semper Paratus -Dave "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Tack one on the board for Astoria, nearest DZ to Kodiak is in Anchorage, a few hours away. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

I don't feel that farther north is better, I know farther north is better, because there's a substantial amount of evidence to state that. I've heard some very good things about both Kodiak and Astoria, despite the occasional bad things about both. Astoria is absolutely gorgeous, and Kodiak is claimed to be one of those places you never want to leave. Our school chief here actually said that he went to Alaska years ago despite his wife's protest of it, she hated it, left for SoCal, and next time he was due for reassignment, she made sure he took Alaska again, because she missed it. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

So here's the deal with a pickle on the side. I'm with the Coast Guard, will have been in a year as of the end of next week. I'm in A-School to become a Boatswain's Mate, and things are going fucking awesome. We just got our list of open billets, and I'm going to go insane before I figure out which one I want. There are a high number of very good assignments, many I could safely say I want, but only two which really tickle my pickle. Here comes the tough part. I came in here fully intending to snag a buoy tender out of school if at all possible. Well, a bunch came up, and since I vastly prefer cold weather, a few struck my eye immediately. Initially an earlier list came out a week too early, and the best choice I saw on there was a 225-ft buoy tender out of Astoria, OR, probably one of the better locations to be assigned in the Coast Guard. Second choice would have been a similar boat in Homer, AK, still not bad at all, but not exactly Astoria. The official list came out today with a brand new assignment, the same type of boat in Kodiak, AK, arguably the best place to be assigned anywhere in the Coast Guard. I'm in position to take either one ahead of just about anybody, so I've got the choice between the two best places to be assigned in the Coast Guard. What the fuck do I do? "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Took tonight off for the first time in over a week, and tomorrow we're going for an off-base run with Psycho Wyco. I figured I'd let myself recover, because it's going to be at least a 7 mile run. The last run with the sadistic Senior Chief was 6.8, and with a thinned out group because of unplanned circumstances, the suspicion is that he'll bump it up to over 7 this time, just how much farther is up for debate. Either way I'm keeping up with the Wolf Pack this time instead of running back to pull slackers out of the woods. On other notes, I've been slowly trying out new pairs of running shoes. Tried New Balance 1224's, liked them a lot, but the support was lacking. Exchanged for a pair of Mizuno Wave Nirvana 5's, and they're amazing. Maybe half a size smaller, and they'd be perfect. And on a better note, I registered for my first 10k. Takes place on the 28th of March, 2 days after my 26th birthday. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Heck yeah it is! I'm going to float it to the rest of the class. If I can get just 4 more people to participate, that's $150 extra that goes toward cancer research and treatment. The more we can get going from here, the better we'll be. And I'm going to see if I can solicit friends back home to donate to the organization to support my run. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Glad it's back, I was wondering where it ever went. Since starting Boatswain's Mate A-School just about a month ago, I've become gung-ho about fitness all over again. The simple reason for it is that we've had to do regular mandated workouts here, in addition to the fact that we got stuck with Psycho Wyco as one of our primary instructors. He's a retired Senior Chief and Surfman, one of the best boat drivers in the Coast Guard. He's also a sadistic fuck in terms of fitness. He pushes most of us harder than we've ever been pushed, myself included. Last Tuesday, despite fighting off the flu, he took two BM classes for an off-base run. The larger group, those who weren't in quite as good shape, stuck with Chief Meacham, the Asst. School Chief and finished about 3 miles. The rest of us, affectionately called the "Wolfpack," stayed tight on Senior Chief and completed about 6.8 miles. I would have completed with the rest of the group, but I had to run back a few times because some guys thought they could keep up and couldn't. One was just a fat fart, and the other ended up pinching a nerve in his knee and was on a crutch and a knee brace for almost a week. At least he tried. But all in all, I probably ran about 7.2 miles with the trips to the back. Today I ran the same route, and completed it with a brand new pair of running shoes in just a whisker over an hour. Here's the kicker. My goal was always to do some form of charitable fitness, whether marathons, triathlons, or whatever I could do. As it turns out, the store where I bought my new shoes is advertising a huge 10k in Richmond, VA at the end of March, two days after my 26th birthday. I'm not on duty that weekend, so that's going to be my first event. Proceeds go to fighting cancer, so I can say I'm giving back for what I've been so lucky to get in life. Never let it be said that Coast Guard Boatswain's Mates aren't givers. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

kbordson made some good points there. For many years now I've been of the opinion that everything happens for a reason. I firmly believe that's the case, and if things don't work out, it still happened for a reason. I failed out of flight school for a reason. I didn't have my head in the game. I got a degree in Political Science because of it, and spent a semester in Washington working a block away from the White House, among the best experiences of my life. I couldn't seem to land a job in the civilian world because my degree was almost useless and I had no marketable skills. It happened for a reason. Because of it I decided fuck it all and joined the Coast Guard. Best decision I ever made with my life, I couldn't be happier. It all worked out this way because I was meant to be a Coastie. I truly enjoy what I do, have pride in it, and the only thing missing now is a wife and kids. But if that doesn't happen, it's because I was meant for bigger things. I try not to let life's consequences get to me. Everything happens because it was meant to happen that way. So here's my prediction. This didn't work out because you were meant for something better. Maybe it's not obvious right now what that is, but this is one of those lightly veiled chances to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and come back into the game swinging for the fences. It's either that or it's the beginning of your slide into personal chaos. I don't know though, I'd like to think it's the other way around. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Fuck that, I just joined the military. It's worked out so far. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Realized just a few minutes ago that I haven't been on here in a while, I'm sure at least one of you wondered if I was dead. Luckily enough, no, I'm not dead. Just been busy busting my ass at work. Fitness just wasn't part of life at USCG Station Gloucester because our command just didn't give a flying purple fuck. On my off days though, I became a 6 mile runner and was doing ab work and pushups regularly. On a better note, I got into A-School much sooner than expected. I decided not to become a rescue swimmer, and instead opted to become a Boatswain's Mate. Reasons were simple enough. First, I wanted a career after the Coast Guard, and being a rescue swimmer doesn't do that for me. Second, I wanted a position of leadership, and still being a rescue swimmer doesn't do that for me. Third, I don't want to spend my career doing something quite that crazy. Driving boats is at least mildly less crazy. Short version is that I'm on leave until the beginning of this weekend, report to Yorktown, VA on the 25th and start class the next day. Finish on the 17th of April as a Petty Officer Third Class. Not exactly how I expected things to work, but that's life, and I'm not stepping down from the challenge. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Good news on the job front. I qualified first time as a 47-ft MLB crewman, so things are going to start settling down here in the very near future. I think I lost about half of whatever patience and kindness I had left in my heart from all the bullshit I had to deal with getting to this point, but at least I've still got a heart. It might be a black one before long, but maybe it'll hold off at least until I find someone stubborn enough to marry me. Oh yeah, as for fitness, still not able to spare the time, and with a bunch of new rookies coming up the pipe as MLB crewmen, I've got to spend my time training them now. I'm going to force myself to take time for fitness, but not sure how much. Just as I suspected, work is more important. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche