2009 (A month into it...)
Ok, it’s February. I last posted in August. Good thing nobody reads this thing.
What happened since August?
Went to the Bristol night race. Great time, learned a few things:
There is more flat RV parking space in Bristol than anywhere else in Virginia or Tennessee.
You can’t get a hotel room within 2 hours of the track unless your last name is Trump.
For what we spend on the hotel (2.5 hours away) gasoline for the round trips and parking for the car, we could have towed the camper, set up, drank all night and still saved money.
Bristol at night ROCKS!!!
Made a new friend on the ship. Actually met her in May on the way back from France. She was out providing training in preparation for the homecoming and since has taken over for one of the guys who was leaving. NASCAR fan so we naturally found something to talk about and have since become close. She’s Heather’s age and on her first ship so I don’t know if I’m just a close friend or a (shipboard) fatherly type. Still it’s cool to have her here and I’m looking forward to getting to know each other better before (and while) we deploy.
Mary and I spend a long weekend together. I couldn’t go to Little Rock this year (work) and we spent the weekend doing projects around her house and going to the Birthday Bash. The Bash is a huge picnic attended by about 500 gay girls. As we pulled up, she says to me “Don’t open my door, don’t hold my hand, and try not to dote on me like you do. I may want to date one of these women some day!” It was interesting to say the least being (I believe) the only straight guy there. (I think there were only 2 other guys there and they were DEFINITELY not straight.) I stayed close to Mary most of the time and we had fun. On the way out I told her that people were talking. When she asked, I told her that I overheard “Mary’s new girlfriend has not tits and a moustache!” She actually had a new girlfriend and did her best to not let on, but eventually it all came out.
So much for August. Oh, yeah… I took the ship back into the shipyard.
September brought Richmond and the Chase. Kyle’s meltdown and Court and I began a weekly text message session that hasn’t skipped a beat. Every Sunday like clockwork, talking NASCAR or football (She’s a Steelers fan, but I still like her in spite of obvious character flaws…)
October was The Invitational followed by Martinsville. My boss basically said I couldn’t take any more leave until after the ship was out of the yard. He left in November.
Jimmie won his 3rd consecutive championship in November and I had a birthday.
December, we went to Tampa for their hash campout. Had a blast! (note to self: make a foam machine!) Mom was watching Jackie’s kids for a week which left me unsupervised. 3 dates with 4 women in one week. My friend Ann came into town (unannounced) and we met for dinner and a couple of beers. Haven’t seen her since ’95; she still looks great. Wednesday night went out with Mary but she wasn’t feeling well so we called it early. Thursday night with Lora. She and Venus broke up (good thing) and she’s found her soul-mate. I’m so happy for her. Venus never thought much of me which was fine as I was never happy with the way she treated Lora. Chris (Lora’s new girl) is an absolute sweetheart. Friday back out with Mary and Danika. They were (still are) officially no longer an item by that point but every time I held Mary’s hand, I could feel the temperature drop 40F and the darts shooting out of D’s eyes went straight through my chest. Mary and I had a great time, I think D hates me now. I don’t understand how she can feel threatened by me, but that’s the impression I was left with.
New Years was fun. We had a small (25) crowd over. No drama, lots of drinking and fun. Most out of the house by the first football game. Our anniversary (26th) came and went quietly as did Mom’s birthday. I sent her to a day-spa for the whole works. She really enjoyed the pampering. I’ll have to remember to set that up for her again.
Got out of the yard on the 13th of Feb, completed sea trials and (officially) the avail on the 14th. Freakin’ V-3 division threw my grill over the side. Talk about a way to totally piss you off first thing in the morning. Fortunately I had already completed the main thing I wanted to do which was write Mary. The first time we started writing last year was on Valentine’s day of all things. Kind of ironic that I wrote then, what with she and Cheri breaking up and frankly it was pure coincidence but still, Saturday was our “anniversary” for lack of a better term. I boiled down our year into a few paragraphs, thanked her for sharing and growing with me. She said it made her day when she read it.
So back to my grill. Needless to say I was fit to be tied. There were a lot of folks who saw a new side to their Chief Engineer that day. Add to the mess, Court was having a bad time and wanted to talk. Add in a few things going south with work and call it a perfect storm. Got C through her issue, or should I say she worked through it. We talked for a bit, but she really pounded it out and got to a satisfactory resolution. (I’m going to build a new grill…) Got off the ship just before 11PM, ran the new boss back to his car (he’s on his first ship and some of these things aren’t all that obvious to him the first time through…) and home by midnight.
Sunday was the race, a new sauce for my chicken wings and that’s about it.
I’d like to say that I’ll be a better poster, but I’ve yet to get there and frankly there’s no reason to believe this dog is going to learn a new trick. We’ll see.
On-On,
Gopher
What happened since August?
Went to the Bristol night race. Great time, learned a few things:
There is more flat RV parking space in Bristol than anywhere else in Virginia or Tennessee.
You can’t get a hotel room within 2 hours of the track unless your last name is Trump.
For what we spend on the hotel (2.5 hours away) gasoline for the round trips and parking for the car, we could have towed the camper, set up, drank all night and still saved money.
Bristol at night ROCKS!!!
Made a new friend on the ship. Actually met her in May on the way back from France. She was out providing training in preparation for the homecoming and since has taken over for one of the guys who was leaving. NASCAR fan so we naturally found something to talk about and have since become close. She’s Heather’s age and on her first ship so I don’t know if I’m just a close friend or a (shipboard) fatherly type. Still it’s cool to have her here and I’m looking forward to getting to know each other better before (and while) we deploy.
Mary and I spend a long weekend together. I couldn’t go to Little Rock this year (work) and we spent the weekend doing projects around her house and going to the Birthday Bash. The Bash is a huge picnic attended by about 500 gay girls. As we pulled up, she says to me “Don’t open my door, don’t hold my hand, and try not to dote on me like you do. I may want to date one of these women some day!” It was interesting to say the least being (I believe) the only straight guy there. (I think there were only 2 other guys there and they were DEFINITELY not straight.) I stayed close to Mary most of the time and we had fun. On the way out I told her that people were talking. When she asked, I told her that I overheard “Mary’s new girlfriend has not tits and a moustache!” She actually had a new girlfriend and did her best to not let on, but eventually it all came out.
So much for August. Oh, yeah… I took the ship back into the shipyard.
September brought Richmond and the Chase. Kyle’s meltdown and Court and I began a weekly text message session that hasn’t skipped a beat. Every Sunday like clockwork, talking NASCAR or football (She’s a Steelers fan, but I still like her in spite of obvious character flaws…)
October was The Invitational followed by Martinsville. My boss basically said I couldn’t take any more leave until after the ship was out of the yard. He left in November.
Jimmie won his 3rd consecutive championship in November and I had a birthday.
December, we went to Tampa for their hash campout. Had a blast! (note to self: make a foam machine!) Mom was watching Jackie’s kids for a week which left me unsupervised. 3 dates with 4 women in one week. My friend Ann came into town (unannounced) and we met for dinner and a couple of beers. Haven’t seen her since ’95; she still looks great. Wednesday night went out with Mary but she wasn’t feeling well so we called it early. Thursday night with Lora. She and Venus broke up (good thing) and she’s found her soul-mate. I’m so happy for her. Venus never thought much of me which was fine as I was never happy with the way she treated Lora. Chris (Lora’s new girl) is an absolute sweetheart. Friday back out with Mary and Danika. They were (still are) officially no longer an item by that point but every time I held Mary’s hand, I could feel the temperature drop 40F and the darts shooting out of D’s eyes went straight through my chest. Mary and I had a great time, I think D hates me now. I don’t understand how she can feel threatened by me, but that’s the impression I was left with.
New Years was fun. We had a small (25) crowd over. No drama, lots of drinking and fun. Most out of the house by the first football game. Our anniversary (26th) came and went quietly as did Mom’s birthday. I sent her to a day-spa for the whole works. She really enjoyed the pampering. I’ll have to remember to set that up for her again.
Got out of the yard on the 13th of Feb, completed sea trials and (officially) the avail on the 14th. Freakin’ V-3 division threw my grill over the side. Talk about a way to totally piss you off first thing in the morning. Fortunately I had already completed the main thing I wanted to do which was write Mary. The first time we started writing last year was on Valentine’s day of all things. Kind of ironic that I wrote then, what with she and Cheri breaking up and frankly it was pure coincidence but still, Saturday was our “anniversary” for lack of a better term. I boiled down our year into a few paragraphs, thanked her for sharing and growing with me. She said it made her day when she read it.
So back to my grill. Needless to say I was fit to be tied. There were a lot of folks who saw a new side to their Chief Engineer that day. Add to the mess, Court was having a bad time and wanted to talk. Add in a few things going south with work and call it a perfect storm. Got C through her issue, or should I say she worked through it. We talked for a bit, but she really pounded it out and got to a satisfactory resolution. (I’m going to build a new grill…) Got off the ship just before 11PM, ran the new boss back to his car (he’s on his first ship and some of these things aren’t all that obvious to him the first time through…) and home by midnight.
Sunday was the race, a new sauce for my chicken wings and that’s about it.
I’d like to say that I’ll be a better poster, but I’ve yet to get there and frankly there’s no reason to believe this dog is going to learn a new trick. We’ll see.
On-On,
Gopher
posted by Gopher at 7:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home