MrFreefall383

Definitely Megyn Kelly on Fox. And though she's not exactly a newswoman, I guess she's in the same ballpark, Stephanie Abrams on The Weather Channel. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Was a fitness freak, now I'm a Coastie. In all seriousness though, I don't work out much anymore. I've dropped my run to a 15-minute haul around the seawall on Rt. 127, haven't been swimming or biking in over a month, and only recently started getting into some lifting. It just seems that nobody here cares whether I stay in shape, and it's tough to kick people in the shins to get time to workout as a non-rate. Once I get qualified in another few days, maybe that will change, but I can't really be sure. Everytime I think things will be working out better, they always get worse. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Confusing. I wanted to really enjoy it, but it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was actually rather frustrating. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Another single guy here. What's my excuse? Too much heartbreak. Tired of getting fucked over. Forced myself to be single for a few years, and since then I haven't had the desire to pursue a relationship. I find myself getting old and lonely now though, so either that will change in the near future, or I'll die alone. Oh yeah, I should edit to include the obvious things. Most things I do are reason to question my sanity, including my choice to join the Coast Guard. And to be honest, that keeps me so busy, it's hard to justify saddling some poor woman with the burden of dealing with that shit. Not to mention I'm shy and never really go out and party, hardly ever drink, and would much prefer working on my car or disappearing in the woods for a few days at a time. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Yeah, then you definitely know how it works. Small update, looks like Hanna decided to be a little whimp, and the only thing that is hitting us is some light breeze and rain. Too bad really, I wanted to go out for some heavy weather ops. But the hurricane season is just entering full swing. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

You should see when we actually have to save someone. We joke about things the average person would go to hell for laughing at. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Thanks! And don't worry, those posts will be back before long. It'll probably take me a week or so to get back into the groove, but you'll see some more posts like that in the very near future. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Yeah, we've set storm conditions here at the station in preps for TS Hanna, we'll see what happens. Most recent predictions I saw before I went off-duty were that this area was going to see up to 45 kt winds, and up to 17 ft seas, which is well within the limits of the 47-ft Motor Lifeboat. If the CO decides to go play around with it to keep his proficiency as a Heavy WX Coxswain, I'm going to beg him to take me along. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

I'm going to be brutally honest. I haven't worked out at all for a month. Off-days are spent doing chores and catching up on life because I can't during the workday. And duty periods... well, I've been doing the job of a Coastie, saving lives, losing sleep and loving it. At least I'm doing the job and not sitting around watching everyone else do it, but operating on so little sleep doesn't leave me much juice for working out. I actually almost fell asleep at the wheel today late morning heading into Boston for some uniform items at the Exchange. That might be my breaking point though, at least I hope it is. I can't be falling asleep at the wheel, and I know I have more energy when I'm working out regularly, so this weekend I'm starting back up no matter what. On the plus side, doing so much SAR work has convinced me that my future is definitely in saving lives. As such, I'm going to ask my Commanding Officer about his experiences being a Surfman, see if I can follow his example. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

We in the Coast Guard just use the National Hurricane Center's tracker. I check it every morning when I'm on watch. I wake up and think, "Damn, I wish a hurricane would make its way up here." We've got self-righting motor lifeboats, and I'd love to flip one over just once to see how quickly it returns to an upright position. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Knock yourself out with a baseball bat, but remember to take those sleeping pills first. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Only owned import, and only owned one. First and only. So far, in almost 5 years of ownership, not a single major thing has gone wrong with this car that I didn't directly cause by my own stupidity. I know people who have had more problems with other imports, and other people who have had problems with domestics. And I know still others who have had few or no problems with domestics. In my personal experience though, and by the numbers, Honda makes the longest lasting cars on the road. And last I checked, Honda isn't a domestic manufacturer. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

That's funny as hell. I wish I had one that good, but this one is fairly mild. I was out having an afternoon drink with a couple fellow Coasties after a long duty weekend, and around here in MA, most restaurants have a certain drink limit. So this young lady in our group orders a few too many for the waitress to feel comfortable with it. The young lady addresses the issue by saying, "We're going to be drinking ALOT." The waitress says, "Not here you won't be." To which our young lady friend says, "OK, so we'll be drinking in moderation all afternoon. That better?" "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

That's the best part of the show. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Yeah, to all those idiots who'd rather do cardio than go have a beer, who's still keepin' it real? I wish I could say I was. SAR season is at its busiest here in Gloucester, and every weekend I've been on recently, we've had at least half a dozen rescue cases. Some have been handled by local harbormasters, some by us, but we always have to get underway, no matter what time of the day or night, up to 30 ft seas and 50 kt winds. Luckily we haven't had it that bad as far as weather, just lots of rain. I've just found that during SAR season, it's damn near impossible to keep a regular workout schedule. I still workout everyday I'm off-duty, but even then it's tough because I just want to catch up on all the sleep I lost. This weekend I got more sleep than usual, but that only amounted to about 12-15 hours total. Two weekends ago was worse, I managed about 10 hours of sleep the entire three days, and in little bits and pieces. Still wouldn't trade it for any job in the world, and I'm still probably going to continue it for another 19 years and 6 months. On a lighter note, I had to retake my PFT, this time for boat crew qualification, and I smoked the pushups, smoked the situps, and ran my 1.5-mile in 9:53. I had informed my command that I wanted to break the 10-minute mark by the end of September, so I'm well ahead of the curve there. Who else has news? "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Negative release from USCG duties. Search and rescue is not for people who enjoy sleep. In fact, if I planned on sleeping more than 5-6 hours every night, then there's no way in hell I would've joined the Coast Guard. Either way, workouts have been falling by the wayside. It bugs me too, because many times there could be a free hour in the day for me to do a run, but someone tells me, "No, you're not supposed to stay in shape, you're supposed to do your job." Aye aye, doing my job now. But when I get back from leave at the end of the week, I'm turning a new leaf. I'm going to be forceful, loud, even bordering on obnoxious. I told the CO I planned on running a triathlon next season, and I wanted to break the 10-minute mark on my 1.5 mile by October, and that's going to happen no matter what. If it means I've got to step on toes to get it done, so be it, I'm tired of sacrificing my health to be the station's bitch. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Haven't worked out much in the last couple weeks. I've run maybe once or twice, done some lifting and ab work, and that's about it. Life here at the station has gone to hell in a handbasket. We've lost a bunch of qualified people to stupid things, so we're short-handed in a big way, and SAR season is in full swing so there's almost never a duty period without half a dozen cases. Needless to say, I've gotten very little sleep lately, and been working so hard I'm surprised I haven't bought the farm yet. But I've got 5 days of leave starting tomorrow afternoon, so I'm going to work out like crazy and come back telling my department head he can kiss my ass if I can't stay in shape. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

My last jump was almost two years ago. Although now that I'm almost qualified here at my job, I should have more time to commit, so I'm picking up my gear from my parents this weekend. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Thank you for the kind words. That's just the job though, and we do it all the time. In fact, one of the cases Friday that I was out supporting was a grounding with 10 people aboard. And the case I quarterbacked on Saturday morning after 20 hours awake was a similar grounding where the guy called another local resource beforehand. Unfortunately we couldn't get to his boat before it sank, so harbormaster yanked him off and picked up his wife and dogs in a dinghy that got lost in the fog. We just played environmental cleanup after the boat went down. By the time I went to sleep after that case, it was 0900 Saturday, and I had been awake for 29 hours straight. Secured 4 hours of sleep, and went right back at it again. Talk about crew fatigue. But everyone around here just deals with it, makes it work. That's why this station has such a good reputation. On other notes, I started working out again tonight. Took my Monday and Tuesday off as actual liberty days to rest and recover. Today I did a 3 mile run and tried to beat my usual time, and did by about 7 seconds. Then I did a bunch of ab work and some lifting, and tomorrow it's more ab work, tons of pushups, and some leg work. Then it's a well-deserved weekend off, and I'll definitely be doing more than my usual share of crazy fitness shit. Biking, swimming, running, lifting, everything I can do, I'll do. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Not much fitness for me lately. This weekend was pretty much the weekend from hell. Bad weather brought over half a dozen search-and-rescue cases, and I got all of 11 hours of sleep the whole weekend. Working out on that little sleep is dangerous and foolish. So I took today off as well, and tomorrow I'm going to get right back into it once I'm better rested. Unfortunately, for the next few months I think this is going to be pretty common. Summer's in full swing, which means idiotic Joe Boater is out there in force making sure I never get enough sleep. No sleep means no workout, so I bet I'm going to be curtailing my fitness habits a little bit in the near future. That's not to say I still won't try my best to make it work, but I can only put out so much effort. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Good job regardless. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Too loose shorts, another few pounds gone? You're a badass now. How much longer till you look like Selma Hayek? "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

That sounds pretty painful. I hate sunburn. I had some the second to last week in Basic Training, and everything I did hurt like a bitch. Imagine moving blister-quick to put everything on with sunburn on your neck, and wearing a 20 lb. rucksack everywhere. That friggin' sucked. Sunburn = evil. This wasn't always such a problem either. Damn ozone depletion. Fucking SUVs. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

Hunger is a strange thing to get around. It feels like you're doing something really unhealthy when you're changing your chow routine. Truth is it's not, but it's the perception that usually counts. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

No harm in having a small snack in between, some raw veggies or something. Ideally, you want to have your meals earlier in the day. For me, the meals are at ideal times, 0630, 1130, and 1700. As long as I can have a small snack in between, I should be more than fine. But at the moment I'm so busy I don't have time for snacks in between. Once things settle down, the snacks will become critical, along with eating just enough at each meal. I used to follow the same general routine. My first meal of the day would be at 7:30, lunch at about 1pm, then dinner anywhere between 6 and 7:30. Small snacks in between, healthy stuff like some light cheese and crackers, veggies, yogurt, things that don't have too much fat or sugar in them. In addition to lots and lots of water, that kept me pretty honest. The water was the key thing though. I'd literally drink at least a gallon per day. That keeps you full better than anything else. "If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche