I'm Just a Girl

Old Dog, New Tricks

2012-01-21T12:43:00.000-08:00

Two off topics notes first:
1. So much for trying to meet my goal of at least one blog post per week. Will have to keep trying.
2. Frank -- no comments on the title of this post. I'm *serious*! I mean it!!

So there's that saying, can't teach an old dog new tricks. And after the last ten days spent in the Lake Tahoe area trying to learn how to snowboard, I'm on the verge of agreeing. But only on the verge...not totally convinced.

My dad taught me to ski when I was about seven. I'm pretty sure he lived in Massachusetts by then, and my sister and I would go to visit him on holidays and during the summer. That first year we went, my sister was off visiting a friend of hers in the area, so Dad and my brother, Jay, went off to the ski slopes. Jay took off to enjoy himself on the slopes, having been skiing many times before. And Dad patiently spent the time corralling me down the slopes, teaching me to snow-plow and then to turn, and finally to race down the run as fast as humanly possible. Being seven, with the kid-innate lack of fear of hurting myself, I picked it up pretty quickly, though I do remember a couple of fairly spectacular falls.

My sister joined us on the slopes the next year and was *disgusted* with me that I already knew what I was doing, and she was stuck on the bunny slope. She hasn't been back to ski since.

About six years ago, I really came to appreciate the skills my dad had instilled in me at such a young age. I went skiing for the first time in probably more than five years, and it was just like riding a bike...I pretty much remembered what I was doing. I mean, the first few runs down the mountain weren't exactly graceful, but I got to the bottom without severe bodily damage and once the rust was knocked off, really enjoyed myself. I've tried to go skiing at least once a year for the past while.

This year, though, I decided to try snowboarding. And I'm not sure why. My frie-bors (friends + neighbors, remember?), Molly and Billy have gone to Tahoe for the last three years, and over the summer, I kinda invited myself along with them. They snowboard, though, and offered to let me borrow their daughter's gear. It all fit, so I said, sure, why not? I'll try it.

I took a lesson the first day, from a very nice guy named Bill at Alpine Meadow (free lift tickets for active duty military). So glad I did. He set me up with my left foot forward. I took a couple of spills during that two hours, but felt like I was on my way to picking it up okay. Over the course of the next couple of days, I took more than a few spills...some of them so spectacular as to be named "yard sales." Ya know, like where my goggles, gloves, board and anything else that can come flying off, end up displayed across the slope like at a yard sale. Ugh, and don't be fooled...that shit *HURTS!!* I'm still not sitting down on a chair properly.

About day three, after ending up going down the hill right foot forward more often than not, Billy changed the bindings on my board so my right foot was forward. It was a little awkward the first run or two down the hill once he switched it, but it quickly became more comfortable. I took another lesson on day four from Phillip at Mt Rose (who I hope does join the CG when this season is over, because I think he'd make a wonderful addition to *any* crew. Smart, enthusiastic, a great teacher...all the things we need in our ranks.). Again, it was useful and I picked up some good tips from him.

I think a couple of things may have made a difference in my comfort level with this new trick though. First, better conditions on the mountain would have meant easier falls and less ice...both of which completely intimidated me after the first day. Unfortunately, we scheduled our trip during Tahoe's worst snow season, like, maybe *ever!* We were on all man-made snow. It started snowing today...two days after we left. Mr Murphy, sir -- so *NOT* funny!

Second, the bindings should have been moved a bit further apart on my board. Both Bill and Phillip impressed upon me the importance of being low and flexible in the knees to make turns successfully (and without those intensely painful abrupt stops). Phillip pointed out that my feet were pretty close together on my board, which meant that I had to work harder to use the board's flexibility to turn and was less stable than if my feet were further apart. I kinda laughed at this a little, after thinking of how many times I reminded guys during crew law enforcement training (especially handcuffing) to have a deep, wide stance to ensure their stability. My favorite learning technique was to walk up alongside them if they were just bending over (instead of squatting with their knees), and gently shove their hip a little to knock them off balance. Made 'em cuss every time.

Third, crash pads. I can't overemphasize the importance of PPE enough. I was extremely grateful for my helmet and goggles. But I really should have gone the extra step, and gotten the crash pads for my backside. Would have saved a *lot* of pain and whining. Next year.

Which makes me wonder, am I seriously gonna try snowboarding again next year? or am I gonna wimp out and go back to skiing? And why? For godsakes, why? I suck at it, which means that there are a lot of crash landings that really hurt. Laughing at myself when my body doesn't respond like my brain says it should only goes so far to assuage the bruised ass, elbows, knees and yes, face...never mind my ego. So why, on god's green earth, would I try it again?

One friend said it's "bc u r n explorer. duh. u have to keep pushing urself; each day try to improve. hard work n determination. (song lyrics...)" (obviously we were texting). Not sure how true that is.

Maybe it's peer pressure. Snowboarders *look* cool. If I snowboard, that means I'm cool too.

Maybe it's 'cause I'm cheap. Free loaned snowboarding gear (even if I don't know how to use it) is better than rented skis.

Maybe, like most things, it's a combination of all those things. Does it count as a commitment to "lifelong learning?"

By the by, and regardless of all the falls, I had a *great!!* time hanging out with Molly and Billy, and Eddie and Lucas, and Jan, Hana, Avis and Dawn. What an awesome group of people to get to hang out with!

But I Don't Wanna Go

2012-01-09T18:23:00.000-08:00

No, I’m not talking about going to the dentist or to school, but yes, I am whining like a five-year-old. I don’t *wanna* leave Hawaii [emphatic foot stomp!]!

Somehow, though, an entire month has flown by, and my departure looms ahead, just tomorrow. I’ve been trying really hard not to think about leaving. The couple times I’ve slipped, I’ve found myself tearing up and can only stop from breaking out in sobs by telling myself that I will NOT ruin what time I have left here being sad about leaving.

I’ve gone away before. This time is different, though. For the first time in the almost ten years that I’ve been on-again, off-again living in Hawaii, I don’t know when I’m coming back. I don’t have any trip scheduled on the horizon, tantalizing me with comforting trade winds and crystal clear water, good friends and a warm welcome home. I know I’ll be back…I just don’t know when, or where I’ll stay.

My house is going up for rent, hopefully to wonderful people who will enjoy the special beauty of this place. But I won’t be able to stay here like I normally would. My gracious neighbors and friends have generously offered the hospitality of their own homes for my future visits, nearly threatening me with bodily harm if I dare to stay in a hotel or vacation rental.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to get stationed back out here. When are the NSCs planned to get homeported in Honolulu? (yes, I know the realistic answer to that...not soon enough) Am I willing to forego an afloat tour just to be stationed back here? (yes, I know the realistic answer to that too...probably not; but maybe, if an afloat career is no longer a viable option, then yes, abso-freakin-lutely!) So I know I'm making my own choices, but knowing that doesn't make the choices any easier.

I think I handled this whole month pretty well though, really through no conscious planning or intuitive understanding of the situation on my part…better to be lucky than good, sometimes. I took my time with packing stuff up, never really stressing or wearing myself out on any one day to get stuff done. Yes, there were a few days where chores delayed my departure for the beach, but it usually rained those afternoons anyway. I could have waited another coupla days to put the big furniture I was leaving behind on Craigslist. But I had no way of knowing that it would only take 15 minutes for people to snap up two couches and two full-sized mattress sets. I should have looked for the title to the car when I first got here, rather than waiting so long that my sister had to spend $45 (!!!) to overnight it to me so I could take it to the DMV to get Mom’s name off to simplify the sale. And the yard free-for-all (instead of a yard sale) was a fabulous way to share memories of Mom with the neighborhood and friends (and get rid of a bunch of *stuff* that was still useful…to someone *else!*).

But on the whole, I had plenty of time to soak my lazy bones in sun-drenched sand and salt water, to meet new friends (even a really great guy who I wish I could have hung out with more…should have called him before Christmas instead of waiting for the day before New Year’s Eve, Silly Girl), to eat wonderful food – omg, the poke at B’s Bar & Grinds…*insane!*, to run and workout on a regular basis, and to share time with friends and neighbors without feeling like I was imposing on them or being left out of any of the fun.

And it’s not like the fun is completely over, either. I’m headed to Lake Tahoe for a week of skiing and snow-boarding (if it every starts to snow there!) with Molly and Billy, frie-bors (friends + neighbors?) from the 'hood. And then to my sister’s for a few days. And then to my Dad’s, meeting my sister there for Dad’s 70th birthday. The party will go on.

But tonight, I’ll go to Haleiwa Joe’s for Aloha Hour, to eat and drink and be merry one last night with the neighbors and friends that I’ve come to love dearly over the past five years before I head to the airport tomorrow. And in the morning, I’ll take the handful of dried leis left by well-loved guests down to Kaiaka Beach Park, and toss them into the ocean. I hope they, each and every one of them, find their return way to shore, so they can guide my path quickly back to this place that feels more like home than anywhere else I’ve been.

Happy New Year, version 2012

2012-01-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

Well, another year down and gone.

There was a block party on the street for New Year's Eve. Uncle Francis, at the end of our street, and Uncle Jack conspired to put a pig in the imu in Francis' yard. They enlisted the help of the neighborhood boys and got the fire going early on Saturday morning. I wasn't awake for that part, so I didn't get any pictures. But I made sure I was on hand for when the pigs came out of the ground.

Uncovering the pit

Off came the coverings first. Then the banana leaves. Then the boys hoisted the pig in its chicken wire cage out onto a near-by table. It was still wrapped with banana and ti leaves, with some hot rocks in the belly cavity.

Ed and Jason and a one-handed Billy (he's got his wrist in a cast) helped with unearthing and prepping the goods. They slid the pig from the chicken wire mesh into a big metal tray. Francis' son added some salt, and then they pulled out all the bones, mostly by grabbing a bone in each hand and digging through the meat to free the other bones.

The meat all went into a new galvanized trash can and then up to Jack's lanai for the meal. Ka'amo'oloa pot lucks are amazing feasts! We have some great cooks on the block and half the fun (ok, well maybe a quarter of the fun...'cause there's *lots* of fun at these things) is finding out who brought what dish. Needless to say, I ate too much. I don't remember what everybody brought, but here are a few highlights:

Molly made an amazing Thai hot sauce for the pork. I think it had cilantro, chilis, garlic, fish sauce, lime, and maybe something else. But it was *hot* and so tasty!

Getting to the good stuff

Laura made scalloped potatoes, Gretchen brought a yummy salad. There were pasta dishes, and soba noodles, mashed potatoes, pies, cookies, chips and so many other goodies.

Ed's sister Jen made fresh Fijian awa. While awa is not the best tasting beverage, it's wonderfully mellow, and I enjoyed a few cups of it.

I made Estate Bread Pudding. Ok, really, I just took all the stuff from the fridge and the freezer that I didn't know what to do with, and stirred it all up. Raisins soaked in rum and a little triple sec, macadamia nuts, pecans, a few cashews, hotdog and hamburger buns left over from Mom's memorial bbq, a airplane size whiskey...all soaked in milk, eggs and butter. I used up so many odds and ends. And the best part was that the end product was even edible!

Dinner!

The gathering wasn't just about the food though. Liam drew out a handball court on the street and the kids (mostly the grown-up kids!) played a few sets of doubles games. Then Jason and Liam went head-to-head in a death match. I don't remember who won :)

Shutting down the street for a game of handball

After the food was all eaten, or at least appetites were somewhat satiated, Laura busted out a case of poprocks. She gave out individual boxes to all the kids and they spent the next 15 minutes slamming the little balls of paper to the ground. It made a wonderful racket. And then the kids spent the next half hour wandering around, looking for the stray rocks that hadn't popped on the first round.

There were bike races, with Molly on a mini kid's bike, and Punky on a grown up bike; dance practice for the kids; and a continuous display of fireworks from the surrounding neighborhoods.

Uncle Jack and Uncle Francis -- masterminds of fun

The awa took its toll on me, though, and I headed home (pathetically) early. That doesn't mean I got to sleep though...those neighborhood fireworks were loud enough that I knew almost to the second when the clock struck midnight. I opened up the bottom window above my bed, and was able to look out and see a pretty impressive show of starbursts and colorful rockets.

The feasting tables - Jay, his son, and Molly

I figured on a quiet New Year's Day and went for an early run. Then about mid-day a friend texted me to see if I wanted to go out on his boat with him. My response: "A boat ride?!? What kind of sailor could I call myself if I turned down an offer like that?"

Auntie Tonya and Uncle Francis...love Francis' hat!!

I was a little surprised at how excited I was at the prospect of getting out on the water. I mean, I do this for a living, right? What's so special about going for a boat ride? But, BUT, I haven't been on a boat for more than a year and a half, and I guess the separation was more deeply felt than I realized. I was out of the house, headed for Hawaii Kai within about ten minutes.

Scott has a 20 foot, aluminum hulled boat pulled up by his condo in Hawaii Kai. We got the cooler in the boat and headed out. It was a beautiful day, kona winds, not much of a swell. I'd never spent much time in that area of the island and wonder why now, because it is so pretty.

We went out around China Walls and it got a little choppy. I brought a bag of pretzels with me, ya know, just in case I started feeling seasick. Scott kept asking me if I was feeling okay. I was feeling *great*! There was just enough of a chop to be a little bumpy and throw a little spray. We saw a couple of whales and a bunch of dolphins. When we headed back to calmer waters, I jumped it to look around at the coral and reef. It was an unexpected and delightful surprise to get to spend my New Year's Day out on the water.

So here's to a brand new year. May it bring you fullness, happiness and all the fun you can stand. If it keeps going like it started, I think it's going to be a fantastic ride!

On the Appearance of Being Bah-Humbug-ish

2011-12-21T17:15:00.000-08:00

I swear it's not me being a big ol' bag of bah-humbug this year. I've never been particularly good about Christmas shopping, always delaying until the last minute, and then floundering with finding good gifts for friends and family. I've had a few good moments of inspiration, when I was able to come up with blindingly fantastic gifts (or at least, I thought they were) that everyone seemed to enjoy. A lot of them had to do with being poor. One year, when I lived on a farm, I made gift bags of goodies from stuff I had grown in the garden...ropes of dried peppers, homemade relish and jam, canned strawberries and syrup. I made rag rugs one year, from the drapes that used to hang in my paternal grandparents' home.

And one year, I came up with the "Treasury of Thoughts." It was sometime in the late 1990's and I found a thrift-store glass dish with four partitioned sections. I picked up some little natural trinkets (seed pods, cool pebbles, sea shells) and placed them in each of the four sections. The accompanying card explained the idea:

"I've given you a Treasury of Thought this year. Each item in the dish represents an individual thought or action. The start-up items in the dish now are labelled as some things I think are good thoughts, actions and/or memories.

My idea for the Treasury of Thoughts is that, as you go through the day, when you have a good thought or do something you're proud of (but that isn't great and grand enough to tell the world about) you can move a "thought" from one compartment to another to personally commemorate that good thing.

This shouldn't be a static collection of "thoughts" though. You can pick up your own things to put in it, or ask friends to collect small things for you throughout their travels.

There are a few guidelines for the Treasury:

1. No "thoughts" can be purchased ones; they all need to be found, free.
2. Don't keep track of what thought you put in what compartment, or in moving particular ones to particular places.
3. Put it somewhere you'll see it at least once a day (preferably more), but that's out of the way of the four-footed furry feline.

I hope all this isn't too goofy, and I wish you lots of prosperity in your Treasury."

It was definitely cheesy, but it was cheap and thoughtful, and my mom kept hers for the rest of her life. Today, I think the best thing about it is that I can cheerfully drop all the thought trinkets in the yard, put the dish in the thrift store pile and compost the card...because the Treasury already served its purpose.

Then there were the years, though, that I just flopped. So sorry, family, for those ridiculous salt cooking blocks a coupla years ago. I don't think anyone has used them yet. Or the fugly swirly pink pastel pottery bowl that I found tucked away in my mom's cupboard. I think the pattern of giving useless crap started when I was very young. For probably the last ten years of my mom's parents' life, I gave my grandmother pretty soaps. They piled up in a basket on the bookshelf in her nursing home room, never used, gathering dust and diffusing their floral scents heavily into the air. But I had to give them *something.* Or so I thought.

This year in particular though, I'm just tired of stuff. I don't want to give people crap. I think it has a lot to do with cleaning out my mom's house and getting it ready to rent. I sent my sister a frantic email earlier in the week. "Can we set up a time to call, and go through stuff? I don't know the provenance of a lot of this stuff and I feel like I'm gonna pitch out the family heirlooms if I try to do it by myself. I found some t-shirts that I made at the Early Learning Center [where I went to *pre-school!!*] (hideous, but just the kind of stuff mom would keep). And some beautiful aprons that look handmade. Sorry I've got such a horrible memory...wish I could do this on my own..." She responded sensibly and with just the kind of practical advice I needed to move past feeling overwhelmed.

Part of my frustration is that Mom had some lovely stuff that meant a lot to her. But I've already got a house full of stuff. My sister already has a house full of stuff. We already decided which pieces of furniture are going to whom. And luckily, I have the space to store stuff at my house in Maryland that does not have an immediate destination. But the other stuff...what to do with the blankets stored in the cedar-lined blanket chest that I remember piled on the bed as a kid? or the pots and pans Mom cooked with for the last 50 years? or the art that she had hanging on the wall from when I was eight, and her granddaughter was four? or that damned fugly pink swirly pastel pottery dish (actually, that one's easy...it's going to the thrift store! But you get the idea)?

Maybe cleaning out the house at Christmas-time wasn't the best idea. I kinda feel like I'm using it as an excuse for being too lazy to give any Christmas gifts this year. The reality is, though, that I'm over *stuff* for the sake of *stuff.* If I find myself inspired by something I see for someone, or have a great idea for making something, or a gift certificate that won't languish unused in the back of someone's junk drawer, I will GLADLY bestow presents on my friends and family. You may find yourself getting your Christmas present in August, though, because when I find something I think you'll like, I don't want to *wait* to give it to you...where's the fun in that?!

Unfortunately this year, I'm just not feeling inspired. My one inspiration is to sponsor any family (Amy, that means you and Ally, too) member that wants to join the Gravy, Wine & Steve team for the Greensboro Rugged Maniac race. It's sometime in April this year. Uncle Heathen and Aunt JB, you're getting race slots whether you want them or not...you're the backbone of the team. Cameron, are you in? Jay, Alex? Does it fit with your schedule?

See, I'd *WAY* rather give stuff like this!

A Molehill of Meant-Tos

2011-12-17T12:41:00.000-08:00

I meant to write a post long before now, maybe one about my family extravaganza Thanksgiving weekend.
I meant to post on Fleet Feet Roanoke's Facebook page about how awesome my new running shoes and pants were to wear during the Hot Chocolate 15k race. My cousins, Robin and Jane, and Robin's husband Blaine were so helpful!
I meant to get more done around the house before I left for nearly six weeks.
I meant to coordinate the work that was done better, so that I didn't have the snafus that happened. Like not being able to install the vapor barrier in the crawl space because it was too wet, and having to reschedule the tilers because the other renovators weren't done in the kitchen yet.
I meant to make some more revisions to my group's Negotiating Conflict workbook before turning it in.
I meant to finish reading Don Kettl's book, The Next Government of the United States, before the last day of class.
I meant to run more than I did...but found myself profoundly lacking in motivation when the temperature dropped below 50 degrees.
I meant to do some amount of Christmas shopping.
I even meant to make some preparations for coming out to Hawaii, like calling movers for quotes and making an appointment with a property manager.

But none of that happened. And the world didn't come to an end. I did manage to get all my papers done, projects turned in and the house cleaned before I left. Some days that's enough.

Program Reviewer Philosophy

2011-11-18T12:00:00.001-08:00

I posted my Command Philosophy a while back. I wrote the first draft of that philosophy almost ten years ago, when I was in Prospective Commanding Officer / Executive Officer (PCO/PXO) School before heading to be XO of WASHINGTON (the school requires both PCOs and PXOs to write one). It got dusted off and updated when I went to MAUI, and again before KISKA. But really those were just refinements, changes to reflect the different operating areas. It gives me some sense of peace that the underlying ideas didn't change...like maybe I really *do* have a coherent philosophy, or set of core sensibilities that help guide me through all types of situations.

Now I'm going into a job for which I feel very ill-prepared, a little overwhelmed and a lot nervous. It's been since I first reported to BOUTWELL that I was facing a new set of responsibilities so far outside of my comfort zone. I feel the need to consider a set of principles, maybe rules of engagement for being a Program Reviewer. Since I'm familiar with the Command Philosophy concept, I'm going to call it my Program Reviewer Philosophy. As I first started thinking about this idea, it felt awkward, like I should have some experience in the job before having the hubris to assume that I knew what I was doing. Then I remembered that, as I wrote my initial Command Philosophy, I didn't know what I was doing then either...I had never been an XO, I just had a general sense of what I was getting myself into, and I wrote it kinda blindly. It worked out okay then.

A Command Philosophy is typically published to the entire crew, posted in main pass, and discussed with officers, chiefs and Department Heads. I've even had supervisors ask me for a copy so they know more about where I'm coming from with leadership decisions. But as of right now, I'm not really sure how broadly I'll share this once I get to the office. From my understanding, there are three general groups of people I'll be working with: my supervisors, my peers and my Program peeps (is that too impertinent?). I guess it depends on my reasons for developing it in the first place. I see this as something that I'll hang prominently on the bulkhead in my cubicle, so that as I sit in front of my computer screen, my eyes will not fail to miss it, and I am constantly reminded of why this is important to me, what my priorities should be and how I should conduct myself even when the pressure is on high. A self-accountability tool, if you will.

My Philosophy

…is that the Coast Guard as an institution is important to me. I joined the Coast Guard to perform great and worthy, heroic and patriotic duties, for the sea stories I get to tell my family and friends, and to do things that not many other people get to do. Those experiences, the people I've worked beside, and the opportunities yet to present themselves make the Coast Guard an organization that I want to fight for.
…is that a job worth doing is worth doing to the best of my ability. At the end of my tour, I intend to look back and be able to honestly tell myself that I faced every task and challenge to the best of my ability. This is the only way the sacrifices I have made will have been worthwhile.

My Guiding Principles

One Team, One Fight: We are all on the same side, even when individual programs are facing budget cuts and high priorities conflict. A deep and abiding respect for all my shipmates will remind me to look beyond any moments of contention and focus on the larger goal of taking care of the Coast Guard.
Innovative Solutions and Systems Thinking: We function in an increasingly complex and networked world. "That's the way we've always done it" begs for a closer look. A passion for understanding expanded scopes of influence and underlying dynamic processes will allow for development of better, more creative options that offer effective long-term solutions instead of unconsidered tinkerings.
Checking the Unengaged Side of the Ship: Just as the XO stands on the unengaged bridge-wing to check for any unanticipated hazards, a constant awareness of the bigger picture into which my small portion fits is necessary to ensure the overall positive contribution of what I am doing. Thorough analysis, based on sound data and process-based logic, is a critical risk mitigation strategy that will enable solid recommendations to percolate through the noise.

Critical Skills

Communication: I must be able to respect my shipmates enough to LISTEN to them and take the time to understand what they are saying to me, rather than hearing what I think they should be telling me. I must also be able to clearly and concisely present my own well-articulated arguments to reduce confusion and not waste anybody's time. Success depends on my ability to take in and disseminate information.
Acceptance of Risk: Times are changing too fast and too dramatically to allow process calcification to paralyze our ability to respond. New ways of doing things will not always work and sometimes my suggestions will fail, but I must have the courage to confidently promote innovation in pursuit of improvement.
Acceptance of Consequences: When my ideas and actions do not stand up to the high standard of effective implementation, I must have enough personal resilience to withstand the fall-out. I protect myself against any cataclysmic negativity by relying on my Guiding Principles.

Questions to Ask...Every Time

Am I focusing my listening on the intended message? Am I saying what I mean to say, as concisely and clearly as possible?
What impact does this option or decision have on:

Crews in the field? Support staff manning the Help Desk?
Organizational ability to execute the mission?
Long-term asset health and resource availability?

Where is my ego in this?

Orders....Or, The Next Challenge

2011-11-08T06:33:00.000-08:00

This transfer season has been more tumultuous than any other I've been through. The only other one that might be even somewhat comparable was when I was leaving HAMILTON. I had successfully screened for command, and asked for nuthin but 110s. I was cocky enough to think that it was just a matter of which one I would get.

It was about a week or ten days before Christmas. Suppo and I had left the boat right when liberty was piped to go shopping for a Christmas wine and cheese party I was hosting. We stopped by the L&L Hawaiian Drive-In just outside the 32nd St Gate of NAVSTA San Diego to get some lunch to sustain us. I ordered the kalbi rib lunch plate (with rice and mac salad). I had grease and teriyaki sauce all over my face and hands when my phone rang. It was a 202 area code...during transfer season, that only means one thing--the detailer.

Breathe, Charlotte, remember to BREATHE.

I (somewhat) calmly wiped my hands so I could answer the phone, chatted with the Assignment Officer/detailer (AO) for a few minutes, long enough for him to tell me I was going to MAUI. I had enough wits remaining about me to thank him for the call. I hung up. And then almost hyperventilated. I don't think I stopped saying omg for about two days. Suppo was very patient with me that afternoon.

This year my e-resume was due mid-August, I think, because I was putting in for a Special Assignment, as a Program Reviewer at CG-821. I duly submitted my wish-list, and then really didn't think much more about it. I knew I was going somewhere at HQ, so why fret about the details (anybody that knows me, knows that is a *flat-out* lie...of course I worried about it!!). All there was to do was wait.

Then the AO called me the first time. I spent a couple of days shaking my head in wonderment that a) he offered the opportunity and b) I turned it down.

Then he called back about a week later (at this point, I was starting to recognize his phone number on caller ID...kinda a weird feeling). He asked me if I was interested in putting in for a high-profile Aide job. Ok, so when the AO calls you *TWICE* to push special assignments, you don't say "no" a second time. I said yes, and started a crazy roller-coaster ride that ended this week with PCS orders for my payback tour.

As the AO explained the process to me, my file would be forwarded to the appropriate office and they would be in touch about an interview if they were interested. He made it sound like the turn-around time was going to be pretty fast. Somehow, I think our definitions of "pretty fast" were slightly divergent. To me, "pretty fast" should mean, I don't know, maybe two or three days. So four days went by, then a week went by, and I still hadn't heard anything. I started telling myself that the office wasn't interested in me, my record wasn't good enough, I should have known better than to expect an interview, the whole thing was so far-fetched anyway. Sadly, I let myself get pretty down about it.

In the interim, the Deputy at CG-82 contacted me, requesting I call him for a phone interview. I phoned him back the next day, and we chatted for about 25 minutes. He asked a little about me, but also spent plenty of time making sure I knew what the Program Reviewer job was all about. He was very forthright about the pressures of the job, lots of responsibility and long hours. He gave me the names of a couple of people currently in the office, and encouraged me to talk with them about what they do.

But then, a couple of Tuesdays ago, I got an email. The subject line read: "Interview for ______ Aide." The first line: "Congratulations..." I called my sister. I called my friend who had been an Aide. I think I might have even shouted it from the rooftops. I could barely contain my excitement.

I actually prepped for this interview. I talked to my friend to get her perspective on being an Aide, about what kinds of questions they might ask, about what kinds of answers might be appropriate. I really appreciate her patience with my ignorance and naivete...I'm not sure it would have occurred to me that my involvement in UCMJ proceedings weren't appropriate and contributory topics of conversation for an interview. And she was honest enough to advise me that I needed to be upfront with the interviewers about the tattoos...an Aide's job is to make sure there are no surprises, so showing up the first day of a high-visibility job with a full sleeve tattoo the bosses didn't know about kinda sets a Girl up for failure. With that in mind, I went into the interview with a somewhat fatalistic attitude of presenting my best effort, to hell with the results.

The interview was last Tuesday. I was nervous! I arranged to use a landline at the School of Public Policy so that I wouldn't have to worry about the call being dropped by my cell carrier. I dressed professionally to give myself some confidence and remind my self to maintain my professional persona (no cussing allowed!). I wrote out key points to questions I thought they might ask so I wouldn't stumble (as much) over my answers. And I wondered how I went from not even knowing I wanted this job to it really, really mattering to me.

The interview was scheduled for 1600. About 20 minutes beforehand, the current Aide called me to tell me they were running behind, some things had come up; would I be able to move the call to 1700? Umm, of course, no problem. And then I (tried to) read some of the articles assigned for class the next day. It was a little anti-climatic. But 1700 finally ticked around on the clock, and I made the call.

I thought the interview went very well. The interview panel asked me some of the questions I thought they might, but then come up with a few others that I wasn't expecting. I was able to put together cogent responses to all of them. One made me nearly choke up: the CAPT asked what my crew would have said my Command Philosophy was. I told them about the BM2 that, as he left MAUI, told me he really appreciated how I stuck to my Philosophy, relating events back and referring to it on a regular basis. Made me miss my crews! And then they asked what was the one single scariest moment I had faced underway--that would have been playing chicken with a 650-foot container ship, speeding 18 knots straight at the oil platforms, and crossing his bow at about 400 yards to try to turn him away from the security zone. The crew responded so fantastically to that situation , and were totally ready to react to the threat if had fully manifested.

At the end of the interview, the panel told me that I should hear something by the end of the next week. Ugh!! I HATE waiting.

Turns out I didn't have to wait nearly that long. When I got home from class the next day, I had an email from the Deputy at CG-82 asking me to call him. I called him first thing the next morning; he told me I was on the short list for Program Reviewer but he wanted to check with me to see if I was still interested and make sure I had the opportunity to talk with someone in the job. We made arrangements for me to visit the office the next day (I was headed to HQ for something else already).

I'm glad I went to visit CG-82. I met both the Deputy and the CAPT. The Deputy talked about how much responsibility the Program Reviewer had, both in terms of the budget and some aspects of policy for their programs. Millions of dollars, the last check to make sure messages are consistent, briefing ADMs going to testify before Congress...very high-powered stuff. Yup, it kinda intimidated me, and I told him that. He looked at me a little quizzically, and asked, weren't you CO of a ship? Yeah, but somehow it just seems different. The consequences of mistakes just seem so much more daunting. But as those words were coming out of my mouth, I realized just how inconsistent they were. As CO, peoples' *lives* are in your hands, millions of dollars of assets and equipment are at stake. What's the difference between the levels of responsibilities again? I guess after two years as CO, that mantle of responsibility finally settled more comfortably on my shoulders.

Later that evening, my phone rang again...202 area code (it's not quite so nerve-wracking now that I live in the DC area, but still gives me pause). It was the AO telling me if I was still interested in the Program Reviewer job, he was ready to pencil me in for it. I asked about the Aide job; he said while the interview panel liked me, there were other candidates they were considering.

Well, hell.

Once again, I had the wherewithal to thank the AO for his call and tell him I was still interested in the Program Reviewer job. And then I started to sulk. Just a little bit, and not for long. But I had already had kind of a crappy day. Frustrations with the dry cleaner (four visits required to get O4 stripes on my Bravo jacket), losing the battle with the weedeater (thankfully there were no injuries involved and I eventually won the war...the next day), not working out or eating particularly well lately...all conspired to put the AO's call in the worst possible light.

After gaining a small margin of perspective with the help of my sister and friends, I came to realize the Aide job would have been a poor fit for me. It *absolutely* would have been super-cool fun -- all the traveling, meeting some of the country's top leadership as well as all the Coasties at so many different units, getting the high-altitude big picture of the Coast Guard; and I would have done a perfectly acceptable job at it. But it just wasn't the right fit. It reminds me a little of my friend Rickey's attitude about campgrounds that didn't allow dogs. He had a *big* dog back in the day, and while it was sometimes frustrating for him to have to drive on down the road past those campgrounds, he always felt that rule probably kept him out of some places he wouldn't have been so welcome anyway. I'm only kinda saying that my tattoos are like Rickey's dog, keeping me out of places I have no reason to be anyway. They're only the physical manifestation of an individualism that I'm not ready to change, or obscure, or censor...but not flaunt or obnoxiously brandish about, either. I see lots of days wearing a woolly-pully in my future. I might even have to get one of the cardigans.

So, my orders are on the board for Program Reviewer at CG-821. I would be *LYING* if I said I wasn't nervous. I'm *very* nervous. Like, "how did I get myself into this mess"-nervous. But that feeling is a little familiar. I remember it from getting orders to HAMILTON as OPS and MAUI as CO, from staring into the face of a new challenge, something unfamiliar, something I haven't done before. I wrote about it when I was on MAUI. The next crop of crews was starting to come in, and one of the new COs went on a familiarization ride with us during post-drydock sea trials:

One of his questions was, how do you integrate into the crew that's already in place, not knowing all of the particulars of the oparea...how do you lead without total confidence in yourself?

The funny thing is, he was actually able to articulate the question. I certainly felt the same way when I was getting ready to take over MAUI, but I wasn't so clear with myself why I was uncomfortable and uncertain. I hemmed and hawed for a moment, but then told him, "Fake it until you make it." It really was an attitude of bravado that got me through those first few weeks of wondering what the hell I was doing and why on earth anyone in a position of power would have ever though I was a good fit for the job. Eventually, I got more comfortable, mostly for two reasons, I think. First, I developed the knowledge the operational area and mission required; I studied tasking messages, did some of the specialty operations, and in general educated myself on what I was doing. Second, I just couldn't sustain the level of hypervigilance I adopted in those first few weeks. I was always on edge, always looking for the next thing that was coming along. I don't think I got complacent, necessarily, but something like it. Maybe I just grew into the leadership role.

I had a brief reminder of those first few days as we were returning from our shake-down trip yesterday. [One of our main diesel engines] failed, just [as we started our approach to the pier]. I took over driving us in. At one point, I looked at the situation and realized that I had absolutely no clue what I was doing...I'm just a wanna-be Farm Girl for god's sake, not some BAMF (as my room-mate calls me) war-fighter. How the *hell* was I gonna get us out of this mess?! I thought about it for a moment, and realized that I had no choice...there was no one else with us that I could turn the mess over to, and expect a better outcome than if I just did it myself, even with my extreeeeeeme discomfort with where we were at. I balled up, and faked it until we made it in.

And then took myself off to my office for a few minutes to physically stop my hands from shaking. But, if you can spare me a moment of egotism, I did an awesome!!! job getting us safely home. It was graceful and it looked good. I really did look like I knew what I was doing.

Ha ha ha ha ha ahahahaaa. That's the funny part!

But isn't that what this life is all about...facing the next challenge, stretching myself to discover if limits exist?

Treasures Unearthed

2011-11-06T06:17:00.000-08:00

The weather-proofing guys are scheduled to come on 2 December. And for some reason (probably because I'm a tightwad), I said I would make sure the spaces were cleaned up and ready for the crew. This means two things, really: I have to remove all the deck boards and roof cardboard lining in the attic and I have to clean out the crawl space. As Drew of DRO Enterprises, the company doing the work, said, the only thing left down there should be dirt and the sump pump.

So last night I resolved that today would be the day I would get down into the crawlspace. I had a plan in mind: coveralls and watch cap to keep the creepy-crawlies out of my hair and clothes, headlamp and hanging work lamp to illuminate all the spooky corners, an old laundry basket to load up rubbish from the far corners of the space, and early in the morning before it got too warm so that all the bugs, spiders, and other heeby-jeeby-making critters were still sluggish and not tempted to mess with me. And gloves.

It was pretty icky. Wet and muddy, cobwebs all in my face. I also realized that the electrical situation down there is downright scary; some wires are extremely corroded--I'm hoping these are not the hot wires. But I'd really like to get an electrician to check it out and clean it up before it all gets sealed in by the weatherproofing guys. Any of my DC-area readers have a recommendation for a good electrician?

Besides the scary electric set up, there were rotten boards, pieces of bricks and cement blocks, rusted pieces of mystery metal, an entire roll of the paper that goes on a roof underneath the asphalt shingles (the top few layers were disintegrated), pipe scraps...and these bottles:

There are four gallon jugs (one with the original cork still in it), a half gallon jug, a quart bottle and then all the other random glass pieces. I particularly like the little spice jar (bottom left) that has it's cork. And the Shaefer's beer can...I know it's not glass, but it was just too classic to put in the garbage. The square bottle (front and center) is pretty cool too.

I'll clean them up over the next few weeks (it's a good project for taking on between reading articles for class). The house was built in 1936, so who knows how long they've been down there. But finding these cool surprises definitely made a gross chore a little more of a treasure hunt.

Shipyard Conflict, Part II

2011-11-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

At the end of the last post, I had just figured out the more specific Goals/Objectives (Q3 in the Circle Chart) to meet the overall goal of getting the ship working again.

"Options: Actions that address the issue:" Q4 in the Circle Chart asks for action steps to address each of the specific goals from Q3. I think I have to reorder the goals for this part to be most effective.

--Scope of the misalignment: Determine the scope of the misalignment

Measure the gaps between the shaft and the bearings with spacers (I know that's not the right term, but I can't remember what the tool was called), performed by shipyard personnel
Measure the gaps with lasers, performed by subcontractor/specialist

What actually happened: We did both, chewing up about three days arguing about whether the shipyard's measurements were accurate enough (shipyard said yes, CG said no), and then arguing about the necessity for the laser measurements. Thankfully the specialist was able to come out the night after the decision was made to hire him.

--Old ship: Make her work again

Attach the shafts and run the ship without further intervention
Attempt to move the engine blocks sufficiently to get the shafts to align; this option would not require the ship to be re-drydocked
Re-drydock the ship and methodically realign the shafts starting where they attach to the engines

What actually happened: Once we knew the scope of the problem, the only acceptable course of action was to re-drydock the ship. It took about two weeks. Most of the work was done at night so that the workers could see the lasers better. MKC and other engineers went to working more of a third shift, starting at about 2200, and staying until about 0300. And then came back in to the office about 1000 to contribute to the day work efforts.

--Poor comms: Improved comms between the CG and contractor

Have a face-to-face meeting to discuss each sides' interests
Ensure work item specifications are clearly written and not missing critical steps
Commit to having all relevant parties (KO, PE, VP and maybe even shipyard President) attend the weekly progress meetings

What actually happened: Well, we had the meeting...remember, that was the one where I lost my composure and yelled at the President. Yeah, that went well. I think the most useful action item here would have been to make sure that everyone that needed to be at the weekly progress meetings were actually there. Lots of times, it was only MKC, me or XO and the shipyard Project Manager at the meeting. That's nothing against the KO or PE, I know they were busy, busy, but the more contentious the issues got, the more important it was to have decision makers in the same room.

--Distrust: Improved working relationship between the ship and contractor

Review contractor's past performance to either substantiate or negate the feeling that the contractor "always" did bad work at a higher cost
Step to their side: try to see things from the other sides' point of view

What actually happened: This was mostly *my* issue. When I was XO on WASHINGTON, we went into drydock in the other shipyard on the island, and I didn't have a good experience there either. I always felt like they were trying to put one over on us, cutting corners and mismanaging work lists which caused us to be delayed getting out by about 10 days. I had heard horror stories from other ships about their experiences also. All of that wrapped up in my head to paint a really bad picture. But when I went back and looked at the lessons learned from all of those availabilities, the data just wasn't there to support that the contractors were "always" late and "always" over cost.

--Poorly written specs: Provide better guidance to contractor

Be particularly careful and specific with the specs for the re-drydocking/re-alignment effort
Submit feedback to SFLC/PBPL on each of the specs we used to improve their spec templates

What actually happened: I think we did both of these.

--Scare resources (both CG and shipyard): Determine best value of contract, both in terms of time and money

Each party commit to responding quickly to the other side's proposals; make resolution of this issue a priority
Mutually agree to goal of fixing the ship for the long term

What actually happened: This is a tough one. I feel like I'm being very partisan with determining action items here, looking only at it from the ship's point of view. In the end, I don't remember how much we paid for the re-alignment fix. It's probably somewhere in the database.

--Crew fatigue: Get the ship working quickly...actually, I think this should be "give the crew some respite"

Maximize time off for crew while ensuring necessary personnel are onboard the ship
Manage the worklists to allow crew to rotate home for a few days
Have a morale day

What actually happened: XO did a great job of getting people back to the Big Island, at least for a couple of days at a time. I think we were all still fed up with Waikiki and the commute, but there was light at the end of the tunnel. I remember worrying about MKC, though, because his worklist wasn't getting any shorter, and he was on that crazy third shift schedule.

--Cause of mis-alignment: Determine responsibility for mis-alignment

Both parties acknowledge their own contribution to the situation

What actually happened: I think the only reason that this particular issue really mattered was to determine who should pay for the required repairs. But, really, both parties were responsible for the mess we were in...the CG's specs (in retrospect) were poorly written because they didn't require alignment measurements taken before the ship went on the blocks; upon realization of the amount of metal that had to be replaced, we didn't address the potential for the ship shifting on the blocks until it was much too late; the shipyard didn't recognize the risk either and didn't think to take steps to mitigate it. So, assigning blame just injects contention back into the situation.

Whew. Five more elements to go.

"Standards of legitimacy: Identify objective standards by issue; may include a fair process:" All the manuals and instructions make this one fairly easy in this case...there's guidance on nearly *everything* in the Coast Guard.
--Old ship: Naval Engineering Manual (NEM) is the easiest one to reference, though there are also CFRs (Code of Federal Regulations) and IMO (International Maritime Organization) requirements for making sure a ship is constructed and maintained safely
--Scope of mis-alignment: industry standards, NEM
--Poorly written specs: also industry standard
--Scare resources: government estimates for cost of work items, contractor estimates, what other contractors charge for same work
--Crew fatigue: Cutter Employment Standards, DAFHP/perstempo standards
--Poor comms: the contract itself specified the standard for weekly progress meetings
--Distrust: previous contractor performance, contractor performance throughout the country
--Cause of mis-alignment: umm, basic theories of physics?

"Alternatives: list alternatives and check 'best alternative to a negotiated agreement' (BATNA):"
--Party #1 / KISKA

Run the ship without repairs -- BAD, BAD, BAD
Let the negotiations run their course and have current contractor make repairs; document, document, document the contractor's performance for consideration in future contract awards
Tug the ship over to the other shipyard on the island and have them make the repairs
Tug the ship back to the CG base in Honolulu, hire own alignment specialist and sue the pants off the shipyard for breach of contract -- This is probably the ship's BATNA, but it's a fairly weak one because the ship's case against the contractor is mostly circumstantial

--Party #2 / Shipyard

Just wait it out...the CG needs their ship back; they'll pay up eventually -- This is probably the contractor's BATNA...and a pretty good one, dag-na-bit!
Sue the government for breach of contract

"Relationship:"

--How is it today? Going in to that meeting, pretty bad - at least from my perspective. I didn't like them, they didn't like me.

--How should it be? At the very least, professional, with some level of respect on both sides.

--What steps can we take to get there, starting today? First, I needed to let go some of my antipathy towards them as contractors in general, and crooks in particular. But they also needed to recognize us as professionals, instead of just a government cash cow who they knew they could squeeze more money out of.

"Communication: Problems and Opportunities:"
--What information is lacking or not sufficiently understood? Initially, the big unknown was the scope of the mis-alignment...how bad was it? Once we answered that, the question was, how long would it take to fix it?

--What information would I like the other party to know? The consequences of running the ship with mis-aligned shafts...I mean, worst case scenario, the shafts vibrate badly enough to ruin the bearings, struts and housings (again, not sure if that's the right term), causing the engine room to flood.

--Am I listening to and hearing what the other party is saying and does s/he understand that I am listening? Nope, not happening. You mean, I'm really supposed to listen that line of crap that we should just put the shafts in and run the ship...*hopefully* it will work?!? He totally lost my attention there, to a fog of frustration, anger and helplessness.

"Commitment: what agreement do I want at this negotiation session and in the long run?"
--Define the agreement sought at the end of this negotiating session (e.g., define issues, establish the process for negotiating an agreement, a detailed list of action items - what parties will or will not do, next meeting date and agenda): If I were doing this exercise before that fateful meeting, I think I would have wanted a definitive plan of action made up of aggressive steps to fix the problem. The most useful thing that could have happened at that meeting would have been agreement on the "cause of mis-alignment" issue--that both parties contributed to the problem, instead of each side posturing that they were faultless, blaming the other side. Jeez, that was *such* a waste of time!

--What are the elements of a long-term agreement? Decision on a work item, including how to fix the alignment, how long it would likely take, and how much it would cost.

--Can the parties perform the terms of the agreement? The shipyard needed a sub-contractor to do the laser alignment and the CG's ability to pay for the repairs was in question, it being the end of the fiscal year and all. But really, there were no other viable options for getting us out of there.

--Does the agreement cover the significant issue? In the end, yes, we came to resolution. But it definitely could have been done more quickly and with less contention.

--How will the parties handle problems as they arise during implementation of the agreement? Having a meeting with all the relevant parties involved. As I recall, once we got started, things went along fairly smoothly.

So, in the end, I've accomplished my goal of understanding the negotiation framework a little better by using a scenario with which I am familiar. I don't think I did an overwhelmingly good job of being non-partisan about my analysis, though. I just can't seem to get a good understanding of the contractor's perspective that makes any sense to me. Is being aware of that blind spot at least a start?

I didn't enter this exercise thinking that I was going to solve contractor/government relations for all times. It's definitely a work in progress, especially out in Hawaii. But the rumors I heard from over the summer make it sound like it's going in the right direction...for the government (maybe not so much for the contractor). Something about accountability and Contractor Deficiency Reports. I don't know. I do know that I am still holding on to a lot of frustration about the time KISKA spent in the shipyard. But that's probably a subject for another post. Or maybe not. Maybe I just need to let it go.

Shipyard Conflict, Part I

2011-10-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

I'm a coupla days overdue for a post. And this post is going to serve double duty as the beginnings of a paper for class. Such a slacker! I'll even be asking for help from the audience on this post: Uncle Heathen and Aunt Jan B, if you could assist with your conflict resolution knowledge; and Frank and Greg (or any other KISKA crew from that summer!), any comments or insights on interactions with the contractors would be much appreciated.

My negotiation of choice, which of course has already been completed, will be the circumstances regarding KISKA's shaft alignment problem at the end of the 2009 drydock availability. My most impressioned memory from that experience is attending a meeting 'long about day three or four of sitting at the pier with a broken ship (over the weekend, I'm pretty sure) where we sat down with the contractors and tried figuring out the way ahead. The company President, VP and Project Manager were there for the shipyard; the Contracting Officer (KO), Port Engineer (PE), myself, my XO and my MKC were all there for the Coast Guard. The KO got the meeting going but the President quickly took over the discussion (note: I distinctly remember him using the two words in quotations), contending that the shafts weren't too badly out of alignment, there was generally some "slop" built into the design of the shafts and bearings, and "hopefully" we'd be fine to go ahead and run the ship the way it was. I nearly came across the table at him. Was he KIDDING? I think my exact words were something like, "'HOPEFULLY?!?' Hopefully is not good enough when you're talking about something that spins at 1500 rpms. This ship is not like your old tug boats and fishing boats; this is a high performance machine, more like a Corvette than a tractor. 'Hopefully' isn't good enough!" The KO, PE and Project Manager all kind of stared at me slack-jawed while MKC and XO sat there smirking. Not my finest moment, but I was *furious!*

So I think there are some good lessons for me to learn from looking at this conflict more closely. The obligatory disclaimers: this is my perspective as I try to use the example as a useful learning tool to explore the negotiation framework and meet the objectives of my class. I will do my best not to cast unwarranted aspersions on any of the parties involved. The beauty of this exercise is that I can look back with the benefit of hindsight. I will do my best to "step back from the conflict," but do reserve the right to make snide asides...wait, that doesn't sound very productive. Will try to limit the partisan commentary. Now, onward ho!

From the syllabus for Managing Conflict, the paper we're supposed to write is described as follows: "Students are to demonstrate mastery of interest-based (principled) negotiation by completing an analysis of a two-party conflict. The paper must use all nine elements and detail the type(s) of conflict strategies present. The paper must demonstrate the capacity to step back from the conflict, analyze the situation from all perspectives and then draw some conclusions. A justification for one’s point of view is not an acceptable analysis. The topic may be a negotiation that has already been completed or one that is still in progress." I'm using Getting to Yes, and Getting Past No as primary references.

The nine elements referenced in the syllabus are: framing the issue, parties and interests, significant issues, options, standards of legitimacy, communication, commitment, alternatives, relationship. There are various tools we've learned to get into each of these elements more thoroughly. Unfortunately I haven't figured out a coherent way to move through the tools so I think I'll just have to bounce around and try to explain as I go.

"Framing the Issue: What is this Negotiation about, both as I see it and as others see it?" I'm going to start by using the Circle Chart (there's a diagram about halfway down this page), which used in an integrative manner (as opposed to a partisan manner) helps to develop a "richness of options," as the professor, Dr Field says. The lower left quadrant of the Circle Chart asks, What is the problem? What are the symptoms? What is the preferred state, or long term vision? In this case, the problem was that, back in August, 2009, KISKA was not operational, despite nearly five months in drydock and close to $2 million spent on repairs. The symptoms were mis-aligned shafts. The preferred state was to have an operational cutter. I think that all the parties would have agreed with those statements, but *only* with those statements because any further interpretation of them is rife with disagreement.

"Parties and Interests: includes all significant parties who are at the table or are not, but will affect the outcome/implementation." Because this paper is about a two-party conflict, the simple list of the parties is KISKA and the contractor. But of course there were other parties involved, including KISKA's crew, Sector Honolulu and their other surface assets, MLCPAC/SFLC-PBPL (because this happened right as the Product Line was being stood up...not that that added to the confusion at all. Nope, not at all.), and the KO I think that's a good enough list to get the point. Now for their interests.

KISKA and her crew: I make the distinction because I think we, the crew as individuals, had many overlapping interests with KISKA, the operational unit, but there were also some interests that were divergent. Operationally, our interest was in getting the ship back to a working status as soon as possible in order to be able to contribute to mission execution and relieve the operational burden on Sector Honolulu's other surface assets. The crew (me included) wanted the ship back together so we could go home. There were concerns about crew fatigue, both with the extra work associated with fixing the shafts, but also the work that was still yet to come because we had a double generator change-out planned immediately following the drydock. KISKA was interested in getting the repairs done correctly to prevent any future problems with the shafts that might affect operational readiness later.

Sector Honolulu and their other surface assets: their major interest was in getting all their surface assets back to an operational status so they could meet their mission requirements...and not have to send anymore messages that put them on the spot for not being able to do certain escorts because they simply didn't have the assets available. But I think they also had a longer-term interest in documenting the paucity of assets to bolster their argument for faster delivery of new assets as the assets come available. Sector Honolulu also shared KISKA's concerns for crew fatigue and personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO) issues. Our Days Away from Homeport (DAFHP) that year were out of control, and required Sector Honolulu to submit a waiver...more paperwork and effort.

MLCPAC/SFLC-PBPL: They're responsible for the long-term functionality and cost of maintenance for the patrol boats, so they had a significant financial interest in the proceedings. But they also answer to the operational commander, so they knew they needed to get the boat back to an operational status as quickly as possible. But they also needed to maintain a good working relationship with the contractor because the chances of them having to work with the contractor again was pretty high...being that there's only two shipyards in Hawaii that work on CG ships. And they had their own internal thing going on with the aforementioned stand up of the Patrol Boat Product Line.

The KO: his interest was in getting the best value for the government's dollar, which balances cost with contractor performance. He wanted good performance at a low cost, as much as possible. But he also needed to be concerned about getting the ship fixed quickly. He was definitely interested in maintaining a good working relationship with the contractor in order to not jeopardize future interactions.

So that's it for the parties whose positions I actually have some insights into. But there's still the contractor's interests left to explore. That's where Choice Charts come in. The Currently Perceived Choice Chart asks a particular question to which the party is saying definitively "NO" and asks what are the pros and cons of that decision. The question I formulated for the contractor was, "shall we make alignment repairs to KISKA under the current scope of work?" If they say "yes" to this question, the negative consequences outweigh the positive consequences for them; if they say "no," the positive consequences outweigh the negative consequences for them.

Currently Perceived Choice Sheet
If they say "yes":
(-) They will lose money, both in terms of paying their employees for the work, the space the ship took up in the yard, and the opportunity costs that preclude them from working on other ships if they're working on KISKA.
(-) They will set a bad precedent for expanding the scope of work
(-) It may appear that they are admitting poor workmanship and (related to the next item)...
(-) It may impugn their reputation as a quality shipyard (snarky comment deleted)
(+) Improves their potential to get more government contracts in the future
(+) It gets KISKA (and by extension, me!) out of their shipyard faster (shoots, I would have thought that would have outweighed *any* other consideration!)

If they say "no":
(+) It allows them to explore more opportunities for gain under continued contract negotiations
(+) There is not precedent set and the original contracted scope of work is preserved
(+) They won't lose as much money
(+) It does not require them to admit any responsibility for poor quality workmanship
(-) They may jeopardize the potential for future government contracts
(-) The ship (and by extension, me!) will be in their shipyard for longer

The second part of the Choice Chart is the Target Balance Sheet, which lists the consequences the party might face if they are offered an alternative plan, Plan X, that is as-yet undetermined but offers terms for which their positive consequences for saying yes outweigh the negative ones. If they say "yes" to this proposal, the positive consequences outweigh the negative consequences; if they say "no", the negative consequences outweigh the positive consequences.

Target Balance Sheet
If they say "yes":
(+) They will be fairly compensated for their work, time and space
(+) They maintain their reputation as a quality shipyard (snarky comment #2 deleted)
(+) They preserve the potential for future government contracts
(+) They maintain the integrity of contract law
(-) They may not get as much money as possible
(-) They may have to admit some culpability for the alignment problems

If they say "no":
(-) They may be sued by the government
(-) They will lose money
(-) They may lose future government contracts
(-) They may be perceived as petulant and uncooperative by other future customers
(+) The may be able to hold out for more money

So based on all this, I'll summarize the contractor's interests as maximizing profit, preserving their reputation as a quality shipyard (snarky comment deleted, again), and maintaining customer relations with the government and other potential customers.

"Significant Issues that must be addressed in this negotiation:" The second quadrant (upper left) of the Circle Chart helps to identify the theoretical underlying causes of the problem, in essence, diagnosing the symptoms. The causes I identified were:
--KISKA was an old ship with lots of deferred maintenance
--There were poor communications between the Coast Guard and the shipyard
--There was a significant amount of distrust towards the contractor by the ship (or maybe that was just me)
--The contract specifications were not specific to the ship's situation (non-MEP'd ship with lots of metal fatigue issues)
--There was disagreement on the cause of the mis-alignment (the shipyard said the shafts weren't aligned when we got there; the CG said all the metal cropped out and replaced caused the ship to settle differently while on the blocks)
--There was disagreement about the scope of the mis-alignment (the shipyard said it wasn't that bad; the CG said it was out of tolerance)
--There were scare CG resources including time (scarcity of other Sector Hono surface assets) and funding (it was the end of the fiscal year...we already had a coupla scares that something or another wasn't getting funded because MLCPAC/SFLC-PBPL was out of money)
--There may also have been resource issues at the shipyard, in terms of space and time
--The crew was *tired* of being in the shipyard, of being away from home, of a two hour commute back to the hotel, of eating meals out in Waikiki restaurants, of having a beautiful ship that didn't work

The Circle Chart third quadrant (upper right) asks for more specific goals and objectives to be assigned to each of the issues; it is a refinement of the preferred vision. Dr Field had us briefly work through the Circle Chart in class as he taught us about it. We worked on our own for a few minutes and then shared what we had with a classmate for feedback and coaching. I was good with the first two quadrants, no problems getting those things verbalized. But somehow moving on to the third quadrant...I just couldn't figure out how to get there. My ship was BROKEN, I wanted it FIXED! How much more *refined* can you get?!? I could refine the statement with a few choice expletives, but I didn't think that was quite the point.

Dr Field then suggested that I break away from the contractor/ship conflict, and use the Circle Chart to explore my own conflict. Quadrant 1 (Q1): problem - I was stuck; symptom - I couldn't figure out how to wrap my head around moving past diagnosing the issue; long-term vision - I wanted to be unstuck. Q2: diagnosis - I have a huge emotional investment in my position as CO; my own frustrations with having a broken ship made it impossible to step far enough away from the issue to be objective. Q3: refined objective - find the emotional detachment necessary to make an unbiased assessment of the situation. Q4 (sorry to jump ahead...I will come back to explain Q4 more fully, but basically it lists options to meet the Q3-specified goals): recognize that the emotional investment exists and acknowledge it for the value it provides me (the ability to be passionate about being a CO, the commitment necessary to do my job through tough times and difficult challenges); admit that that commitment can precipitate blind spots in my world view; allow myself to be mad about the whole damn thing, but then GET *OVER* IT!! and get on with business.

As self-aware as I like to think I am, going through this secondary Circle Chart proved to be what I needed to make sense of my mental block.

The funny thing is, the breakthrough I needed wasn't a substance issue, it was a procedural issue. Q3 asks for an objective to be specified for each issue. I was lumping them all together still, but they have to be broken out individually and "re-goaled." Issue: Specific goal
--Old ship: Make her work again
--Poor comms: Improved comms between the CG and contractor
--Distrust: Improved working relationship between the ship and contractor
--Poorly written specs (actually, I think this really contributed to the poor comms and distrust issues): Better guidance provided to contractor
--Cause of mis-alignment: Determine responsibility for mis-alignment
--Scope of the mis-alignment: Determine scope of the mis-alignment
--Scare resources (both CG and shipyard): Determine best value of contract, both in terms of time and money
--Crew fatigue: Get the ship working quickly

I think I'm going to stop here for now. The paper's not due til mid-November, and I've got some other projects I need to work on. Will try to finish this up within the week.

Expanded Views

2011-10-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

You ever have that experience where, when your brain keys on something, you keep seeing that thing, running into it all over town? That's what's been happening to me this week with systems.

The subject of all the readings in my Federal Acquisitions class this week were on Systems Engineering, including an excellent look at the Coast Guard's Deepwater program as a case study for a system of systems approach to acquisition.

I went to a forum on campus where DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and MD Governor Martin O'Malley spoke about homeland security issues spanning federal, state, local and other partner agency initiatives, like the START (Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism) program at the University of Maryland. Governor O'Malley said that where his generation was told to specialize, ("go into plastics, young man...plastics," was his quote), today we need people who are more generalists, able to look at things and see how they function as a system. Secretary Napolitano used the word "holistic" regarding the approach needed to address homeland security concerns.

I had an energy audit done on my house last week. It's a leaky ol' buggah. My windows leak; there are holes in the drywall that leak; the crawlspace leaks; the attic leaks...but with a systematic approach I can get all those leaks sealed up and improve the energy efficiency of my house. I guess what makes this a systems issue for me was Pascale's description of the current state of my crawlspace. It isn't included OR excluded from the house...it's just kinda haphazardly there. To include it within the house, I could seal it along the outer perimeter; to exclude it from the house, I could seal under the floor and all the "through-hull fittings" (sorry, couldn't help to default to my comfort zone) like the gas, water and sewage pipes. So, I need to make a decision one way or the other, instead of just letting it hang out in undecided limbo.

But, in true system fashion, the crawlspace does not exist in a vacuum (how *could* it, being so leaky?). There's a sump-pump down there, installed well before my tenure in the house, which leads me to believe that there have been water intrusion issues. I may have influenced the amount of water reaching the crawlspace with the installation of rain barrels at each of my downspouts, but I've been reluctant to actually visit the crawlspace to see if there are damp spots. Damn it, it's raining today...would be the perfect opportunity to check it out. Ugh, creepy crawlies, spider webs, dirty paws and knees, here I come. Back in a sec...Ayup, it's wet down there all right. The sump pump is sitting in a low spot in about four inches of water. I don't know what the power source is for the pump, so it will stay idle until I can get an electrician to check it out--some of the wiring looks decidedly suspect. And here's the irony: in the middle of all these grand revelations about systems and systems thinking, I just wish sometimes that things were *simpler!* That it didn't take a weatherizer, general contractor *and* an electrician, never mind a brick mason and a painter to get my house in order. I guess that's not really irony, but just reality about all systems.

I've had two sort of insights with all these systems issues in my face lately. First, I think I may have finally found the usefulness to my current career of my background in agriculture. It's easy to see linkages and relationships, dynamic complexities (in Senge's parlance), in living ecosystems. While I got a great education at Berea College, there were some short-comings in the agriculture curriculum when I was there (that have since been so well corrected that I hesitate to bring up skeletons from 20 years ago). I distinctly remember sitting in one of my classes, probably Plant Science, and being completely horrified at the professor's recommendation that to rectify an over-application of nie-ter-gin (that's nitrogen (N) to the rest of us), all ya had to do was irrigate more...that would send all that extra N on out of your field because N is water-soluble. I think I got asked to leave the class for being disruptive when I asked what about the neighbors' fields down-stream, or the water table that got contaminated with N and produced a bulge of methemoglobinemia (I had to look up the technical name), aka blue baby syndrome, in the local population. Never did think too much of that professor. But even then I understood the interconnectedness of ecosystems. It's fairly comfortable for me too look for the relationships between things and what externalities affect those relationships.

Second, I really like the idea of expanding my view of an issue to see the entire picture. In my Managing Conflict class, one of the barriers to "inventing an abundance of options" is the idea of a fixed pie. More money for you means less for me. I love the example in Getting to Yes:

"Chess looks like a zero-sum game; if one loses, the other wins--until a dog trots by and knocks over the table, spills the beer, and leaves you both worse off than before.

Even apart from a shared interest in averting joint loss, there almost always exists the possibility of joint gain. This may take the form of developing a mutually advantageous relationship, or of satisfying the interests of each side with a creative solution."

But in either case, it requires looking at more than just one's own side of things. You *have* to broaden the scope of the negotiation to include the other side's interests. This expansion often reveals that a) there is much more common ground than originally perceived, and b) creative problem-solving can sometimes help resolve the remaining disparities.

Somehow for me this also dovetails with Senge's feedback concept. "...in systems thinking, feedback is...any reciprocal flow of influence...it is an axiom that every influence is both cause and effect. Nothing is ever influenced in just one direction." Maybe it's an expansion of being able to mentally include more than just linear relationships, of being able to see inter-relations or structures separate from behaviors. "This distinction is important because seeing only individual actions and missing the structure underlying the actions...lies at the root of our powerlessness in complex situations." Guh, there's *something* there, but I'm just not making the connection yet.

Ok, I've beat this drum enough today.

Dis-Articulated Brain Waves

2011-10-05T16:23:00.000-07:00

I'm in my last semester of school, and somehow it seems like the classes I'm taking really support and contribute significantly to the others. And I seem to finally have gotten enough into "school" mode that the workload doesn't feel completely overwhelming. Which means I have time to process what's going on in the readings, make sense of what's said in class, and basically cogitate on how it all fits into the big picture. I even have time to read some of the stuff *I* want to read. I kinda wish it hadn't taken until my last semester to get to that point, but heck, I'm grateful that I've gotten to that point *at all.*

This post feels like it's going to be nebulous until I work through exactly what I want to say...I know there's something there, but I haven't quite figured out what it is yet.

The classes I'm taking this semester are Managing Differences: Resolving Conflict and Negotiating Agreements; Performance Management; and Federal Acquisition: Concept and Management. They all seem to relate to each other. Federal Acquisition requires an understanding of useful performance management measures, especially as more and more government services are provided by contractors. Negotiation/Conflict Resolution is all about making relationships work--finding the best solutions for both sides, which is important in structuring contracts. And Performance Management can provide useful tools to determine if negotiated agreements are functional within the context of today's governance structure.

If I'm not entirely paying attention to the syllabus for a particular week, I find myself struggling to remember which readings are for which class because they overlap so much.

And then I started reading The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, by Peter Senge. It was mentioned in one of my classes last semester, and I took note that it might be worthwhile reading. My uncle saw it written on a list on my fridge and brought me his copy, warning me that he thought it was boring. I've read about four chapters of it so far, and think it's kind of funny how perspective makes all the difference in how we approach things. Uncle Heathen is very much an individualist...he owns his own business, and I think, pretty much always has. He *would* think a treatise on organizational psychology would be dry because he's not had much need or cause to cogitate on how large organizations function (I'm sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth here, Uncle H). I think the book is fascinating. And I see *a lot* of Coast Guard culture articulated in the book: mental models, life-long learning/personal mastery, shared vision...any of that sound familiar to Coastie-readers? I'm actually kinda surprised the book isn't on the Commandant's Recommended Reading List...maybe it is, and I just missed it.

One of the major themes of Performance Management is how the "wicked issues" government faces require a network approach, instead of the traditional bureaucratic/hierarchical approach. There's a great quote from The Fifth Discipline, "the basic meaning of a "learning organization" [is] an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." I just realized that those two sentences make more sense put together in my head than they come across just plunked down next to each other like they are here.

I guess the connection that I see is that we need networks of "learning organizations" to address the wicked problems that plague government and society today. It isn't enough just to have one or two highly functioning pieces and expect the rest of the network to run smoothly based on their contribution. It *could* work that way, I suppose, but it would be a struggle...kind of like when everyone relies on one or two team members to do all the heavy lifting, instead of everyone contributing simultaneously.

Oh, side note: I read an article from Harvard Business Review, "The Discipline of Teams," by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith (it was for Federal Acquisitions). One portion of the article is about the differences between "teams" and "working groups." I took a little umbrage with their distinction between the two. Working groups have: "a strong, clearly focused leader; individual accountability; the group's purpose is the same as the broader organizational mission; individual work products; runs efficient meetings; measures its effectiveness by its influence on others (such as financial performance of the business); discusses, decides and delegates." Teams, on the other hand, have: "shared leadership roles; individual and mutual accountability; specific team purpose that the team itself delivers; collective work products; encourages open-ended discussion and active problem-solving meetings; measures performance directly by assessing collective work products; discusses, decides and does real work together." Jeesh, from that description, I wonder if I *ever* worked with a team...which, of course, I know I have--on MAUI and KISKA if no other places. But some parts of the working group definitely appeal to me more than the chaos of working with their definition of a team.

But back to the learning organization/wicked problem thing--it would just be better if more organizations *were* learning organizations. And maybe that's where the performance management aspect comes in. One of the first articles we read for that class, "Why Measure Performance? Different Purposes Require Different Measures," by Robert Behn, breaks the reasons for doing performance measurement into eight categories: evaluate, budget, control, motivate, promote, celebrate, learn and improve. But Behn emphasizes that the overarching reason is to improve...improve the services, improve the organization, improve well, performance.

I had an absolute brain wave in class just now. The professor had a very simplistic graphic that depicted the way that government currently functions as a network, with federal, state, local, contractors, sub-contractors, non-profits, citizens/clients all interconnected. Somehow that made me flash on the graphic from The Fifth Discipline of systems thinking. So the question that comes to my mind is are "learning organizations" more effective at accomplishing their goals in the new governance network? I'd have to say they are, based on their inherent ability to adapt to changing environments.

A lot of this may seem elementary and obvious to many folks, and I *know* it didn't come out at all coherently. But it's important to me to make sense of it in my own mind, kind of self-discovery, dis-articulation of the wheel, if you will. And boy, is it good to get it all out of my head. There's definitely more there...how performance measures can meaningfully contribute to learning organizations, how learning organizations can help to make sense of governance networks.

I was whining to my sister a couple of days ago that while I really like the Performance Management class, I always walk out of there feeling like an absolute stupidiot. Everybody else seems to be able to take far-flung references and make them make sense during the class discussion. It feels like anything that I contribute is depressingly two-dimensional, with no added analysis or connections. It's my goal for this semester to work on that. To approach readings more analytically, to tie non-obviously related concepts together in a meaningful and insightful way, to maybe even...think original thoughts. I don't think I'm quite there, especially with this post, which is discouragingly scattered. But the seeds are there. Just need me a big bucket of man-u-re, some water and plenny sunlight.

The Planning Fallacy

2011-09-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

We were assigned to read the article, "Intuitive Prediction: Biases and Corrective Procedures," by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky for my Federal Acquisitions class this week (one of seven!! articles, each about 45 pages long...woe is me! Thank goodness for 10 pages of endnotes/references.). Their premise is that forecasting is most often fallacious in two predictable manners: an over-reliance on intuition, rather than regressive analysis; and overconfidence with precision of estimates. Quotes from the article are in italics.

"Our view of forecasting rests on the following notions. First, that most predictions and forecasts contain an irreducible intuitive component. Second, that the intuitive predictions of knowledgeable individuals contain much useful information. Third, that these intuitive judgments are often biased in a predictable manner. Hence, the problem is not whether to accept intuitive predictions at face value or to reject them, but rather how they can be debiased and improved."

Usually as I read stuff, especially conceptual stuff, I try to relate it to something with which I am familiar. The article did a good job of providing understandable examples, but for me, what resonated was trying to predict how long something, particularly engineering-related, will take to repair. When something breaks--and it's inevitable that something *will,* every operational planner knows that there's "real estimate" and "engineering estimate" for repairs.

Real time is what it actually takes to fix whatever is broken, and is never actually known until the piece of equipment is fixed. Engineering time is the EO/EPOs best estimate for how long it's going to take.

"...the element of uncertainty is typically underestimated in risky decisions. The elimination of overconfidence is therefore an important objective in an attempt to improve the quality of the intuitive judgments that serve decision making."

Under extreme duress and lots of nagging on my part, a first-rate, highly skilled, extremely talented EO shared with me his engineering time algorithm: 2*estimated repair time + 20 percent. So if he thought it would actually take an hour to say, fix the fuel leak on the small boat, he'd tell me that the small boat would be FMC in about two and a half hours, give or take. That way he and his engineers looked like rock stars when it was done in an hour and a half, and they still had plenty of time to thwart the annoying gremlin trickery that is inherent to engineering repairs.

Of course, I always tried to reverse engineer his engineering time to get the real time...usually only ended up annoying the hell out of both of us.

"A probability distribution that is conditioned on restrictive assumptions reflects only part of the existing uncertainty regarding the quantity, and is therefore likely to yield too many surprises."

Somehow, though, I was never able to effectively apply the same theory to predicting how long it would take to launch the small boat. Like, *never.* I would always underestimate it, and we'd be late (guaranteed to aggravate me), or overestimate it, and the boat crew would have to haul a mile, usually upswell, to get to the boarding target, arriving thoroughly soaked and more tired than they needed to be (and I always knew it was my fault). I think my "restrictive assumption" was that it would either take 15 minutes to launch the small boat, or 30 minutes (mostly because my brain thinks most easily in quarter-hour increments), when actually it takes, on average, 22 minutes to get the boat in the water and boat crew and boarding team loaded. It's really hard to take the Plan of the Day seriously when it says, "0938 - Set Boat Lowering Detail," for a 1000 arrival time.

"In many problems of prediction and estimation, available information is limited, incomplete, and unreliable. If people derive almost as much confidence from poor data as from good data, they are likely to produce overly narrow confidence intervals when their information is of inferior quality."

I guess my point is that I like what the authors did with the article in trying to break down the nature of uncertainty in planning. I'm poking gentle fun at it because they take it so seriously, and turn it all scientific and statistical. But, in the end, they're right...the important thing about predictions is honestly recognizing where they are weak, and trying, despite ourselves, to compensate for those weaknesses.

Reflection Paper #1

2011-09-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

BACKGROUND: I'm taking a class titled "Managing Differences: Resolving Conflict & Negotiating Agreements." We met for the first time this past Monday, and went through an oil pricing exercise. The class was divided into small groups, and then paired up with another group. Each small group represented an oil-exporting country in direct competition with our partner group for exporting oil to a (third) neighboring country. We had to decide how to price our exported oil based on a given matrix for profits, with the goal of maximizing our country's profits. We couldn't talk with the other group initially, but then after a couple rounds, we were able to attend a "summit" with them.

The first couple of rounds, we were able to maintain prices at their, relatively profitable initial level. When we attended the summit, we negotiated a price increase with the other country that would benefit both of us.

We got *totally* ** PUNKED!** The other group undercut us and made a huge profit for themselves, but *completely* destroyed the future potential for continued friendly relations between the group.

Our homework assignment from the exercise was to write a short paper, reflecting on our reaction to the events. Here's mine:

PAPER: I tend to think that most everyone shares my perspective that the world would be a better place if we could all at least consider others’ needs along with our own. Unfortunately, my experience in the oil pricing exercise definitively illustrated that this is not the case. Our Alban (the other country) counterparts went into the negotiations with a clearly stated objective of luring us into a trusting relationship solely to take eventual advantage of the situation. I was also disappointed that they saw the exercise as a win-lose environment instead of one in which both parties could fully optimize their circumstances. The situation made me feel naïve and upset that my trust was used against my pursuit of a potentially mutually beneficial goal.

For the last 12 years, my professional (and a great deal of my personal) life has been dedicated to being underway on Coast Guard cutters. It has been a very team-oriented existence. Not much happens on a ship that involves a single person; nearly everything requires the significant effort of many people working together. Trust is quickly built…or nothing gets done. The bridge watch has to trust the engine watch to keep machinery running within parameters, and the rest of the crew has to trust the bridge watch to, well, not run into anything and to navigate the ship safely. With this background, trust comes easily to me.

As the Commanding Officer, I worked hard to diligently and conscientiously build trust and camaraderie among my crews through shared missions, clearly communicated expectations and sincere respect of individuals’ talents and abilities. It is a source of personal pride to me that those crews--my guys--trusted me to be their Captain and lead them during difficult and dangerous situations. So, while trust comes easily to me, I also take it very personally.

During the exercise, when our Alban counterparts nefariously lured us into believing that they would also raise their price to $30/barrel in the fourth month, I took it personally that they blatantly lied to us. It meant that I hadn’t done as good a job as I could have communicating the benefits of a long-term commitment to increased prices. It meant that they were only hearing what they wanted to hear, rather than what we were saying. It meant that we didn’t have common goals. It meant that our trust in them was unfounded. It might even have meant that they were bad people.

The major insight I gleaned from this exercise is that other people’s motivations are not my personal burden. As long as I make my best effort to clearly state relevant concerns and opinions, I am not responsible for their independent actions. If their goals are different, it does not make them bad people. Even if they are deceitful, I have no place to either judge them or take on their "salvation" on as my own cause.

There is a balance required between getting so personally involved that I lose my objectivity and am emotionally hurt by people with less honorable intentions and being so detached to not care one way or the other about the outcome. The balance point will likely change with each circumstance. But maintaining an awareness of my tendency towards emotional involvement may help to find that point at which I can be passionately committed to achieving my own objectives, which usually include some consideration of the Other’s situation with the ultimate goal of making the world a better place.

ON ANOTHER NOTE: I got a call from my Assignment Officer today, which is not an insignificant occurrence, especially when I'm waiting (somewhat breathlessly) to find out what office I'll be working in for the next few years. He had a "short-fused" assignment opportunity he wanted to talk to me about.

We talked yesterday; I tried to reiterate to him exactly which office I want to work in (which just happens to be open, and wanting an off-season transfer). He didn't commit to anything, but definitely indicated I was in the running for my top two choices.

This morning he told me he had reviewed my record again last night and thought that I would be a good candidate for a *VERY* high profile, like ridiculously prestigious, assignment within the Executive Branch. Would I consider applying for it?

Um...WOW!! Holy crap!! Lil' ole' me?!? Hunh-uh, you're joking, right? Ok, deep breath, calm down, and...say no.

I thanked him first for deciding that my record of performance indicated that I might be competitive for this particular assignment; it's a huge honor to even be briefly considered for it. He asked me why I said no.

I told him I didn't think I'd be a good fit for it, that there is likely someone much better suited to that kind of highly visible job, and that, truthfully, I just don't have the social skills necessary to be good at a job like that. He thanked me for my honesty, and told me I was still in the running for the jobs I had asked for. We quickly finished our conversation.

I stood at the dining room window for a moment, looking out into my yard, breathing a little shallowly, at the thought that I had just turned down the opportunity probably of a lifetime. I'm still a bit shaken by it. I *know* I wouldn't be good at it. I'm awkward in social situations, prone to saying stupid things, don't think especially quickly on my feet. But...did I really turn it down just because I'm scared of all those things? Or am I scared of being potentially successful and influential far beyond my wildest dreams? Or am I using that as an excuse (lack of advanced social skills) to avoid something I don't want to do?

I like to think that I'm pretty good at taking on challenges, stretching my capabilities, testing myself. But this...I'm just not sure that I *want* to be good at the things I think this job would require. I don't want to be able to know at a glance who is the most powerful person in the room, and the entire pecking order on the way down from there. I don't want to be good at politics. I like the fact that I'm oblivious to a lot of that stuff. I like the fact that I say what's on my mind, with very little self-preservationist-censorship. I like the fact that I'm kinda rough around the edges and not always fit for polite company.

In the end, I think I made the right choice. Someone else *wants* that job, would be better at it, and wouldn't embarrass the Coast Guard just by being called for an interview (as I likely would).

But it's pretty freaking cool that the AO thought, even for a small second, that I might be the right person for that job!

An Indelible Commitment

2011-09-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

I started writing this while I was still officially taking a break from blogging, so it's a little out of order. But still relevant.

9 Aug

I’m getting more artwork done on my right arm today. The plan is to finish out my lower arm so I’ll have a full sleeve. Jimmy McMahon at Jimmy Mack Designs in Haleiwa started the sleeve the summer of 2009, a few weeks after I got back home from Bahrain. I gave him a general idea of what I wanted…something with magnolia blossoms, irises and snap dragons. He filled in the rest, and I’ve gotten endless compliments on how beautiful the tattoo is.

So now I’m going back in and he’s gonna draw down to my wrist. This time I asked him to use the same design concept as the upper arm, but instead of wind lines, I want waves, with some fish and birds peeking out. I have no doubt that it’s going to be gorgeous. (9 Sep update: it's about 80 percent done. I tapped out after four hours on the day I left (fourth sitting). Still have a large stripe of teal/turquoise water to fill in; probably another four or five hours, including touch-ups. Jimmy left it so that it doesn't look totally weird, and you can get a sense of how it will look completed. I'll get it finished when I head back to Hawaii in December after graduation. Pictures to follow upon completion.)

I got my first tattoo when I was 21, a cute little chain of daisies around my upper left arm. Bodean, a big-bellied, bearded biker in Richmond, KY gave it to me. I thought I was pretty bad ass. I think I got it right around the time I graduated from college. It took me two years before my mother saw it. She didn’t approve. After that, I got the thistle on my right foot (quote from the guy in Raleigh, NC who drew it, “that’s the weirdest f'king tattoo I’ve ever given.” I think he might have been exaggerating a little). I got that one after attending a strategic planning conference at my alma mater, Berea College…the small stipend they paid me as a guest speaker covered the cost of the tattoo. And then I got the weird black lines around my daisies just before going to OCS at some random shop in Cherry Point, NC. There’s something about doing something responsible that makes me get tattoos, I guess.

After that I went on about a six year hiatus from getting tattoos…and was able to give blood again on a regular basis.

But then I found myself in another position of responsibility and not a little bit of stress, and I went back to my tattooing ways. One of the warrant officers onboard HAMILTON found an artist in Vasco de Nunez, Panama that we all ended up going to. Jimmy (don’t know what it is about tattoo artists named Jimmy) had been tattooing since he was 14 years old, and by the time we all met him, he had over 40 years’ experience. I started with the slightly absurd skull and trident on the back of my upper right arm, just before going to two months of Tactical Action Officer (TAO) school in Newport, RI. Then I got the first two swallows on my belly, and the last tattoo I got from Panama Jimmy was the Leo sign on my right wrist…figured it was fair warning to anyone who met me.

Being in Bahrain didn’t stop the tattoo plans. MAUI had a tattoo party. We kept three tattoo artists busy for more than eight hours, giving eleven crewmembers tattoos. I got my third swallow…in desert camo colors this time. I’ve got a master plan for all those swallows, but can’t really go forward with it until I’m done with getting underway.

When I got back to the states, KISKA was in drydock…I've told that story here before. But it was a hard time for me, coming home, but not having a home; dealing with the ship and the shipyard; readjusting to stateside operations. I wanted something good going on. And that’s when I met Jimmy Mack. I wanted magnolia blossoms, irises and sweet peas because my grandparents had them in their yard when I was a kid. My grandfather had a *huge* garden, and did some hobby-breeding of roses and irises. And in their front yard was a big, beautiful magnolia tree that I always loved. Being a half-sleeve, that one took quite a while and got me through a good part of my 14-month tour on KISKA, what with healing time and touch ups and such.

Right before my change of command I got another swallow, this time from Jess at Habitat Tattoo in Hilo. A couple of the guys on the boat had gotten work from her that I liked. And I knew I wanted a swallow from the Big Island. Her bird is cheeky and flirty and colorful…right over my heart (so very, very cheesy, I know). But it was tough leaving Hilo. And KISKA.

Now, this summer, I’m back in Waialua, taking care of my terminally ill mom. I love Hawaii, and one of the hardest parts of this whole experience for me is wishing I wasn’t here, having to deal with my mom’s cancer…her incremental decline, the narrowing of her world, her discomfort and inability to do much physically for herself. Let’s just say it sucks, and leave it at that for now. But looking back over my history of tattoos, I realize that I get them when I need something good and quintessentially *me* in my life. I think the thought actually crossed my mind recently, if I get my full sleeve this summer, at least something good will have come out of the time…which is a little more grim and grumpy that my usual attitude. I must have been having a bad day.

Somehow I find myself a little nervous about getting this one done though. It’s kinda a huge commitment and a very visible statement of individuality. The commitment part doesn’t bother me so much. I’ve pretty much gotten used to having tattoos to the point that I don’t even really notice them on my skin anymore. Most people I’ve talked to that have extensive bodywork recognize that level of commitment I’m talking about. It’s a little different than the decision to get that nice, but small piece of artwork that can be easily covered by a t-shirt or long pants…you know, the one on the shoulder, or the tramp stamp, or the ankle tattoo. There’s a time commitment to getting it done, a definite financial commitment, but also, I think a commitment to knowing yourself well enough to go through the process and then live with that decision.

But I’ve also gotten used to being judged by other people because of them. I think the worst experience was at the airport in Bahrain one evening. I had gone to pick up someone probably coming back from Kuwait. But as I was standing there at the gathering spot, an older gentleman in a traditional headscarf took notice of me. He would look at my foot, look at my face, look at my foot and then stare daggers off into the distance. In retrospect, I appreciate his restraint for not being more aggressive or vocal with his denunciation of me. I kinda got the point regardless.

Maybe the commitment I’m nervous about making is the commitment to long-sleeved uniforms. Every day. Year round. Even in summer. I’ve done some preliminary math. I’m good from November 1 to March 31 with the Winter Dress Blue uniform. So it’s really only seven months of the year I have to worry about. And of that seven months, I should be able to wear ODUs (with the sleeves rolled down, of course) about 90 percent of the time, depending on what HQ office I go to. And for that other ten percent, SDBs might be appropriate about five out of ten occasions. If I’m in a meeting in the HQ building where trops are required, there’s always the woolly-pully. In the end, there might be two times a year that I have to wear plain ol’ trops. Umm, personnel inspections, in trops—yeah, kinda nervous about those. Maybe I'll just take leave those days...and make sure I ask for feedback from my supervisor on my professional appearance to ensure s/he is satisfied with my uniform presentation.

Now, all of my tattoos are well within the written Coast Guard regulations on what is allowable…nothing below the wrist, nothing explicit or offensive. I did my homework. I looked at COMDTINST M1020.6F (Uniform Regulations Manual) which says in section 2.A.1, “Appearance in uniform is a key element for how the public perceives the men and women of the Coast Guard, and how the Coast Guard men and women honor their country and the service. Coast Guard personnel are responsible for maintaining their personal appearance and their uniforms to reflect the long and proud history and traditions of the Coast Guard.” If there’s anything that positively influences my decision, it’s that little quote, “long and proud history and traditions of the Coast Guard.” I mean, really, what’s more traditional than sailors getting tattoos?!?

I looked at COMDTINST 1000.1B (Tattoo, Body Marking, Body Piercing and Mutilation Policy), which says in paragraph 4, “The ultimate goal of this instruction is to ensure our workforce presents a sharp, professional military appearance to the public we serve while also allowing individual expression through authorized body art that is consistent with the Coast Guard’s core values.” Check.

And I even reread the Commandant’s Guidance to PY12 Officer Selection Boards and Panels, you know, just to be sure that I wasn’t doing anything to blatantly disregard a focus on professional appearance for officers. It really doesn’t go into appearance much at all; it’s much more focused on performance.

So, am I safe? Do I really think there will be no professional repercussions for having a tattoo that is visible in trops? How much do I care? I guess I care only as much as the tattoo impacts one thing: my ability to be effective at my job. Now in my mind, I’ll do the same job if I’ve got my entire face covered with tattoos or nary a speck of ink on me. I'll give my best effort at any job because that's what I believe in. It's not like the tattoo ink physiologically interacts with my body chemistry to negatively impact my brain capacity. Jimmy and I joked about this...he said, oh wait, I'm using this new ink, it's called Moron Ink (and then we went on to talk about how he mixes his own inks, using a natural preservative as a base so that the inks will last longer if he doesn't use that particular color for a while).

The one thing about tattoos that may impact my ability to do my job is how other people react to them. Hence the long-sleeved uniforms, long-sleeved shirts to and from the office, and long-sleeved shirts during unit-sponsored events including workouts. I don't think that will completely make the tattoo invisible and totally keep coworkers, supervisors and other professional acquaintances from seeing it, but it is a recognition of how tattoos can distract from whatever might be the actual task-at-hand.

Life is...a daring adventure or nothing.

The Hardest Thing

2011-08-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

When My Mother Died

When my mother died,
She was in a little house with doors open
To the sounds of children burbling, and windchimes,
With sunshine colored walls and a bed with leaf-green sheets
That smelled of trade winds.
There were growing things,
And -- really -- a rainbow.

She had homemade tomato soup, and...a popsicle?
Sure, why not a popsicle.
There was a little autumn cat who snored amiably from the closet,
And, it seemed like, not too much pain until the last day.

There were daughters who gave hugs
When they handed her something she wanted.
Sisters together
Until it was done.

There were neighbors, who came right away.

If I could have all this, I think I'd feel like
It would not matter if dying was too slow
Or too fast.

I could live with it.
--Victoria Mundy Bhavsar

My last post was a celebration of and a memorial to my Mom's life. This post is a reflection on the process of her dying. My sister and I agreed that we were not particularly traumatized by Mom's actual passing. We had years to prepare ourselves for it mentally and emotionally. But that passing was not a singular event...it was a long series of events.

And more than most posts, this one is written entirely for me. It's long, boring, has a sad ending with not many points of cheeriness along the way. But somehow, I get the sense that I've got to tell this part of the story. Whether anybody reads it (especially all the way through)...well, that's less important once it's been told.

I came out to Hawaii this summer to help out my Mom. I didn't really explain the situation here at the time because she was such a private person that I knew she'd be royally pissed at me if I publicly announced her condition in this forum. But I'm kinda getting ahead of the story, I think. It really started, for me, on Friday, 13 January, 2006.

That winter had already been a winter of changes. I had sold my house and moved into a new house on Oahu's North Shore, just been back to the East Coast for a whirl-wind visit with family, high school and college friends, and submitted my e-resume asking to short tour from the D14 Command Center to go to any one of three ships (CO on KISKA or ASSATEAGUE (forgetting it was changing homeport to Guam), and for some wild-hair reason, OPS on HAMILTON). The changes weren't over.

Mom called that Friday morning. I think I had just gotten off the night shift at the Command Center that morning, so I must have napped for a little while before the phone rang. She had been to the doctor, and had confirmation that she had cancer. She told me the type of cancer, and I still, to this day, after an entire summer of living with it, can't remember the technical name for it. Some intimidating and evil sounding name that basically translated into a cancer of the fatty and connective tissues in her torso. A type of lipo-sarcoma. She was going in for surgery the following week. After the surgery, the doctors would reevaluate and determine the best course of action, chemo or radiation or both. She asked me not to tell anyone in the family before she got to talk to them, meaning her brother and sister. She had already told my sister, and was calling my brother next. We made arrangements for me to fly out to Virginia the week after her surgery, once she was back home from the hospital to help with her recovery.

Ok, very calm on the phone, able to ask the right questions (even if I choked up a little on some of them), able to think about future plans and what needed to be done next and most immediately. Once we hung up, though, I lost it for a few minutes. My boyfriend Rickey, had overheard enough of my end of the conversation to know that something momentous had happened, but I had to much repeat most of the details, probably more for myself than to actually tell him what was going on. He let me blather on for a few minutes, then cry and be upset for another minute or two, before he got tired of the histrionics, and told me to calm down, just because she had cancer didn't mean she was going to die right away, that she could beat it, that there was nothing I could do right then, that being upset about it wasn't going to help...all that pacifying bullshit that bounced right off the shock of the intrusion of the big C into our lives.

Mom had her surgery. The doctors removed a nine pound tumor from her belly. Let me say that again...a NINE POUND TUMOR!! Jeez, the woman wasn't any bigger than I am. Where the hell did she fit nine pounds of cancer in her gut? I mean, my sister and I each only weight seven pounds and some odd ounces at birth. The growth had swallowed one of her kidneys and had been wrapped so tightly around her spinal cord that the doctors damaged the nerves to her left leg a little bit trying to scrape it all off. Their initial evaluation was that she would have to drink a lot more water with only one kidney left, and she might walk with a limp in her left leg. A few weeks later the more detailed results came back from the CT scan. They hadn't gotten all of the cancerous cells out. Some of the little buggers were still taking refuge in the tissue around her spine.

The chemo wasn't too bad for her. Mom had the constitution of an iron horse, but it did weaken her, made her feel kinda dragged out, and she lost her hair. She must have done the chemo sometime while I was OPS on HAMILTON. I remember going to see her on leave, shopping for a wig with her, and then going to the salon to whack off all my hair (which had been almost down to my hips) to send to Locks of Love in solidarity. When I got back to the ship, more than one person did a double-take at my open stateroom door to see who was using OPS's computer before realizing it was me.

Radiation followed the chemo. She made lots of trips between Blacksburg, where she lived, and Charlottesville, where the doctors at University of Virginia were treating her. But the treatment seemed to work. The cancer wasn't growing anymore...just a few cells sitting there in stasis. She was getting frequent CT scans so the doctors could track any growth. In the meantime, she had learned that the cancer was most likely not hereditary. She was frantic at the thought that it was something she might pass down to us. She also tried to modify her diet to help her body slow the cancer's growth, eliminating meats, caffeine, sugars, alcohol and other highly processed foods. *Tried* being the key-word there...Mom had a powerful sweet tooth.

I'm a little fuzzy on the next sequence of events...She moved to Hawaii in December 2007, retiring from a job that wasn't what she wanted at Virginia Tech, becoming my dependent with plans to care-take my house while I was in Bahrain. Somewhere along in there, I think the cancer started growing again. She became part of a study at City of Hope Hospital, in Los Angeles for an experimental drug. Her participation in the study required occasional trips back to the mainland, which was ok because my sister and her husband lived close by and she could stay with them for those visits. She participated in the study for maybe eight or nine months before she was disqualified because the tumor started growing again, though slowly. That was early 2010.

Mom consulted her doctors, who gave the chemo-radiation combo less than a 20 percent chance of slowing the cancer's growth rate this time. Mom declined further treatment at that point. She didn't want to go through the nastiness of the treatment with such a poor chance of any positive effect. We all (her kids and siblings) supported her decision. There wasn't any other option for us.

Gradually, very gradually, her capabilities declined. When I left the islands late last summer, she was still able to travel by plane, though she was slowing down around the house. When I came back in December, it was getting harder and harder for her to walk. The nerve damage in her left leg was causing problems for her mobility. I remember watching her try to get up from her chair on Christmas morning. I had been nervous for her for a couple of days, thinking she was unsteady on her feet because she couldn't straighten her left leg all the way. She walked hunched over so that both feet would touch the floor. I had been surreptitiously looking at canes on line, thinking if I could find her a nice one, she'd be more likely to use it. But Christmas morning, it all kind of came to a head, and she almost fell. I panicked. Holy shit, it was *CHRISTMAS DAY*...where the HELL was I supposed to get a cane for her so that she could safely walk around her house, to the bathroom, the kitchen, her bedroom?!?

Thank goodness for awesome and handy neighbors. Ash, who lived next door, fashioned her a lovely cane from some scrap wood he had laying around his shop. It wasn't hard for me to ask for his help...but I know it was desperately hard for Mom to acknowledge that she needed the help.

'Long about that time, I started to get really nervous about Mom living by herself. The last few weeks I was in Hawaii, my sister and I talked constantly about what to do. I planned to come back for Spring Break, which would cover two weeks. We reached out to other family members, and with their help, were able to have someone stay with her once I left in January, with very short periods, like two or three days, of her being alone in the house.

And thank goodness, also, for the loving generosity of family. Mom's cousin Carol came and stayed with her for a month before I was able to return in March. Which ended up being perfect timing, because three days before my flight out, Mom fell and broke her leg. Carol was there to help her. What a blessing!

Mom stayed in Tripler Army Medical Center for nearly a month. And then went to a rehab facility for another three weeks. My sister came out soon after I did and was able to stay through until Mom came home. Jay, my brother, flew in from Nairobi to stay for three weeks before Vicki came back. And she stayed until I got here at the end of May. My Aunt Linda, Mom's older sister, came out for a couple of weeks at the end of June, then Vicki came back. We pretty much patchworked our way through the summer. It was stressful, making sure that we always had someone here to help Mom. It got much worse as the summer started to come to an end. I had to leave to go back to school, Vicki was running out of family leave, male relatives were no longer appropriate options for caretakers. Mom would *NOT* entertain the idea of a care facility. Her own parents died after spending 17 years in a nursing home, and I think that significantly influenced her view of care facilities.

When Mom returned home after rehab, she allowed her doctor to engage with a hospice organization. Her doctors had recommended hospice in December, but she was reluctant to call them yet. Hospice is usually prescribed when the doctors think a patient has six months or less to live. Gawd, talk about a harsh reality to have to face about your own mortality, "Yes, please, call in hospice...let's start counting the days." But my sister and I finally convinced her that hospice was more for us, to help us help her than any commentary on how long she had to live. Hospice, once engaged, will stay for as long as the person lives; they don't go away just because someone lives longer than six months. And thank goodness for Islands Hospice. Amazing people, amazing organization, amazing services. In so many ways.

They helped us with getting in-home care givers so that we, her family, could get out of the house. They provided medical supplies. They answered uncomfortable questions about what to expect. They supported us as family-members/care-givers by just being there, knowing they were available to call if we needed help with something. Heather and Olivia were Mom's primary Nurse and CNA, respectively, and they are so very good at what they do. Both so cheerful, bright, capable, caring and fun!

But regardless of how awesome Hospice was, the bold, ugly truth is that the summer sucked; the situation sucked; watching my mother die...sucked. My aunt told me during one of our many deep conversations while she was here that this was likely to be the hardest thing I have to do during my life. My back got up a little when she said that. What did she mean *this* was supposed to be the hardest thing? I've commanded warships, for gawd's sake! How could *this* be harder than that?!

Silly Girl. Of course Aunt Linda was right. Or I hope she's right. I'm not sure I could do anything much harder than taking care of my mother during the last three months of her life. It wasn't that any of the things I had to do were physically demanding, or mentally challenging. But I was emotionally exhausted by having to do the same tedious (and sometimes slightly gross) tasks over and over again, day after day, without knowing when I would not have to watch this person that I loved suffer anymore. Mom didn't like not being able to move around her house without a wheelchair. She didn't like that she couldn't make her own meals. She didn't like that a trip to the commissary turned into a major production. She didn't like that she had to wake us up in the middle of the night if she had to go to the bathroom. Linda (who was absolutely chock full of great words of wisdom) said, you can stand on your left ear if you know how long you have to do it for. That not knowing, that uncertainty of how long the situation would draw out, was one of the things that drained my energy. I'm a planner...how do you plan for something when you don't know how long it's going to last?

One of the lessons I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to learn from this summer is to live in the present. Don't look back too often, dwelling on the past, and don't anticipate the future too much and miss what's going on right now. It was really difficult this summer, though, because well, what do you do when the present is shitty? My default reaction is to change it...do something different. Take positive action to alter the situation so it's not so shitty. I couldn't do that this summer. No going someplace different, no arguing with cancer, no walking out on Mom. I had to recognize that the present is temporary. Good or bad, the present will not be around for long. So enjoy the hell out of it when it's good, and learn to recognize the bad for what it is...not permanent.

I learned plenny about myself this summer too. I don't know why it should be a surprise to me, after grinding my teeth through innumerable small boat details that I thought were taking too long, but I'm impatient. I don't like to not be doing something. It annoyed *the hell* out of me when Mom took five minutes in front of the commissary's tea selection to find something that "would taste good." Or when I asked her a question, a simple question...do you want butter on your toast? and she would take a few moments to answer. Or when it took her an *hour* in the bathroom to get ready for bed.

I also default to cold professionalism when faced with uncomfortable emotional situations. One night my sister went out for the evening. I hadn't helped Mom get ready for bed for a couple of weeks, and told her to just tell me what she needed me to do and I'd do it. She was used to Vicki's seamless assistance and got frustrated at having to tell me how to do everything. Then she started to apologize for having to tell me to redo stuff because it wasn't done correctly. Then I got frustrated at her apologizing, and lost any semblance of personality or bedside manner. Vicki and I talked about it the next day...she told me I was scary then. They didn't want to piss me off because I went all icy. Eek. Mom and I straightened it out. It was a simple lack of clarity on each other's expectations. I was following my training on how to take directions, which I thought I had made clear by my initial "just tell me what to do;" she made it too personal when she started apologizing. She expected me to know what to do.

Which brings up another aspect of this summer that my therapist helped me to recognize. Death doesn't come all at once. There are small deaths along the way before that final breath. And it's not just physical capabilities that are lost. Long before my Mom actually passed away, our ability to meaningfully converse with one another died. Her ability to make important decisions about her care went away before she did. The physical losses were almost easier to deal with--I was still there to make her cocoa for her each morning; but the relationship and control losses were more insidious and difficult to recognize for the tiny deaths they were.

And yes, I sought professional mental help this summer. I'm a little reluctant to broadcast that, but my EAP-referred counselor helped me make it through an extremely difficult time with more grace and less self-inflicted emotional damage than I would have been able to muster without her. I'm not embarrassed to admit that I needed guidance to deal with a situation I'd never faced before. EAP provided a tool...I used it.

I needed a lot of help this summer. And I got it--for which I will always be completely grateful; I don't think I can express how grateful. For Islands Hospice. For neighbors, for friends and boyfriends (exes included), for Mom's church. For the Coast Guard...in many ways. For family. For my sister. And for Mom.

In her life, Mom taught me the strength and confidence that comes from being independent, slightly stubborn and doing as much as I possibly can for myself. In her death, she taught me the absolute necessity of being able to recognize when I need help and the strength and confidence in being able to ask for it.

Karen Planson Mundy, 1943 - 2011

2011-08-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

Karen at age 22, about a month
after she was married

My mother, Karen Planson Mundy, passed away last Friday night, 19 August, 2011, at about 6:30 pm local Hawaii time. She succumbed to cancer that she had been fighting for nearly six years.

I loved my mom, but I didn't always get along with her very well. She used to say we were too much alike, but I think it's more that we were alike in one significant way that colored all our other interactions. She and I both have the stubbornness of a recalcitrant mule. Look up hard-headed in the dictionary, and you'll see both our pictures there, side-by-side.

She raised my sister and me as a single mom from when I was about three on. We saw my Dad during summer vacations and holidays, and he helped out financially, but she managed the day-to-day tasks of caring for two young girls while holding down various jobs and then attending Virginia Tech as a graduate student. One of my early memories is being prepped for school at the gawd-awful early hour of 3:30 am and then wrapped in blankets to sleep in the car while she worked at a local dairy farmer with the morning milking. She got fresh, raw milk as a side perk.

Sister Linda, brother Steven, and Karen
growing up on Long Island, NY, 1947

We had a chicken coop at the first house we lived in after my parents split, in Buchanan, Virginia. With chickens that lived in it so we could have fresh eggs. We always had a clothes line outside of every house we lived in, and we used it. She made her own bread (which I *hated* as a kid because it was dense and weird, and wasn't store-bought like all the other kids' sandwiches). She mowed her own yard. I always liked taking a cold beer out to her on a hot summer day while she cut the grass, mostly because she'd let me take a sip from the top like her own father had let her.

Mom was fiercely independent, never wanted to ask for help. One Christmas, when I was probably about eight or nine, we really didn't have enough money for a Christmas tree. We always put our presents around the "Christmas Castle," a wonderous structure made of empty boxes covered in wrapping paper and stacked together to make a castle. But Mom's friends at church knew her situation, and all pitched in to get us a tree, dropped anonymously on our front door on Christmas Eve. What a great Christmas that was! Oh, and she always played "Santa," handing out the presents one at a time from under the tree. The rule was, the next present could not be opened until the last present handed out was appropriately oohed and aahed over.

Another Christmas, when I was older, in college, I think, she and my sister played a funny little joke on me. They got me a two-part gift, and made me open the less obvious part of it first. I opened this package that was yards and yards of a very nice green plaid material, opened on one side, and backed with a white cotton backing. I had *no idea* what it was supposed to be. They howled with laughter as I tried to guess what it was. It all made much more sense when I opened the second half of the gift...the down comforter. The first part of the gift was the duvet cover.

Karen Mundy, photo taken for
Waialua Community Church, 2009

While we didn't always agree on many things (religion, how to drive a car, ear piercings and tattoos, appropriate friends, gawd, and boyfriends!), I never doubted that she loved me. And that she was (almost embarrassingly, sometimes) proud of my career. I could always ask her for whatever I needed, and as long as she was able, she would always, always, *always* give me what she could.

My sister and I found a box of memorabilia yesterday. She kept EVERY SINGLE letter and card we had ever sent her. And some of the very worst artwork any kids could ever make. I thought she had cleaned out most of that stuff when she moved from Virginia to Hawaii almost four years ago...but nope, there it was.

Thanks, Mom, for all the years of your love, generosity, strength of will and body, and independent spirit. Rest in Peace, as I know you are now.

A Hui Hou

2011-07-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

It is with a good dose of sadness and a full measure of aloha that I have to say "a hui hou" to my blog. For now.

In Hawaiian, "a hui hou" means "until we meet again." So, it's not good-bye. I do think I'll be blogging again within a few months. But for right now, I cannot give the blog the time and attention it needs for it to be what I want. You may have noticed that a lot of the posts have been pretty superficial lately. Or maybe you haven't noticed...but I have. I like to write insightful things, or at least tell good stories, and I haven't been doing either of those things very well with my last few posts.

So, in the meantime, thanks to all my readers for your words of support and encouragement, your wonderful comments and just plain ol' being out there. Check back in a couple months. Hopefully I'll be back to writing again soon.

I can't believe I'm admitting that I can't do it all. Or at least "all" as well as I want to be able to do it.

PBPL Conference Notes

2011-06-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

OMG!! My 100th post! When I sign onto Blogger, it tells me how many posts there are, when the last one was and probably other stuff. I don't usually pay much attention to it, but 100 is kinda a milestone!

But that's not the subject of this post. The Patrol Boat Product Line Program Review is. It was in Norfolk, week before last. No one else much in the office was very thrilled about going, and I can't really say I blame them...nearly 48 hours total in travel time from Hawaii for a three day conference (at least I wasn't travelling from Guam). I don't know *how* long it took ASSATEAGUE's EPO to get to Virginia, but it probably was a really, really long time. Despite the travel time, I was really excited for the opportunity to go. I wanted to hear how the Product Line was doing, what is still left to be done, advocate on behalf of the D14 cutters and well, hang out with a bunch of engineers...'cause that's always fun! Call it as close to getting underway as I'm likely to get for a while.

I won't bore you with all 12 pages of my typed notes from the conference, but there are a few gems that I want to pass on. It's not in chronological order, or anything like that either. Kinda more organized by what piqued my interest (because this *is* the world according to Charlotte).

About midway through the first day, RADM Ronald Rabago, Deputy Commandant for Engineering and Logistics (CG-4) spoke to the group in his role as Chief Naval Engineer. He shared his three priorities as well as some guiding principles. And while I'm always leery of paraphrasing senior leadership for fear of mis-quoting or mis-representing what they say, I offer the following only as *MY INTERPRETATION* of what he said and *MY OPINION* of what he said that I thought was important (can I emphasize that any more?).

His three priorities are: People, Resources and Processes. The people part is pretty standard for CG-speak. Regarding resources: we need to focus on getting the money in the right places, which may require Operational Commanders to make tough choices. But better choices can be made with better information, specifically maintenance cost per operational hour. One of my favorite quotes from all three days was "Without maintained ships, there are no operations" (I wrote that one down, word-for-word). And process is about making sure who does what and how business is conducted is institutionalized and preferably codified. RADM Rabago mentioned that PUB-4 is coming out soon, which will be the capstone document for engineering and logistics, similar to PUB-1 for the CG as a whole.

I found his guiding principles to be extremely heartening. This is an abbreviated list:
-Pride in work: Engineers must take pride in what they do; if they don’t, something is not right and must be fixed.
-Stewardship: This does not just mean how to cut the budget. Stewardship is more a mentality and commitment to leaving the situation/condition/process better than you found it. Good stewardship means that a lot more can be done with limited resources.
-Share the Good News: Make sure the good news of hard work done well makes it up the Chain of Command. It creates value within the community. RADM Rabago wants to personally hear about successes and good, hard work done well.
-Core Values: The core values of honor, respect and devotion to duty apply to day-to-day work. They should be a touchstone for each engineer.
-Loyalty Matters: The field needs to give leadership the benefit of the doubt in some cases. Supervisors reward loyalty with trust. This does not to mean to be silent about concerns, but instead means to support a candid dialogue about issues.
-Community of Naval Engineers: Naval engineers are a special group of people, taking care of ships. They must create an active, participatory community. We don’t know how to do the difficult job of taking care of ships without the community support.
-Ownership: Own your world; accept it, feel responsible for it. Every EO and EPO must take ownership of their ships, and use the PL to leverage the ability to be the best in the fleet.

I especially like the ones about sharing the good news, ownership, stewardship and pride in work.

It seemed like the buzz-phrase from the conference was vocalized best by CAPT Ed Nagle, Surface Forces Logistics Command Industrial Operations Division (SFLC IOD) Chief. He said we are a "data-driven Coast Guard." He was talking about it specifically in regards to a new IT tool that IOD is bringing online to track project management, but it applies to so much of where the Product Line as a whole is going. One of the main drivers for a number of the new processes being implemented by the Product Line (besides better, faster and more efficient service, of course) is to nail down that elusive maintenance cost per operational hour figure...how much does it cost in maintenance to run the ships?

It'll be interesting to see what gets done with that data once it's had enough collection longevity to be useful. The figures will be different for different classes of ship, different missions, different operational hours. How will it be used to make strategic decisions (homeporting changes, maybe?), or operational decisions (when during the year a fisheries patrol gets done?) or even tactical decisions (that acceptable level of risk that ADM Papp has mentioned a few times?)? I read an article for one of my classes last semester that analyzed what sources of information state legislators trust regarding performance measures (Bordeaux, "Integrating Performance Information Into Legislative Budget Process," Public Performance & Management Review, Vol. 31, No. 4, June 2008, pp. 547–569). The author acknowledges that analysis is thin in this area, but states that legislators tend not to give very high value to data presented by the executive agency itself, relying more heavily on information from interest groups and constituents. While the article deals specifically with Georgia State Legislators, I wonder how much of the same theory applies to the federal system as well. Regardless, though, I still think the "data-driven Coast Guard" allows us as an organization to make better decisions on all three of those levels, strategic, operational and tactical.

There was a strong and consistent exhortation by all representatives of the Product Line for supported units (Sector EOs and cutter EPOs) to provide feedback by all the means offered by the processes. Using CG-22 (on SFLC Central's webpage) to document discrepancies noted in any engineering drawings, tech pubs or Maintenance Procedure Cards (MPCs); using Quality Discrepancy Reports (QDRs) and Supply Discrepancy Reports (SDRs) when parts are received by a unit that are the wrong part, the wrong number of parts, or the part doesn't work; using 3rd A-Team meetings to provide feedback to the Program Depot Maintenance Branch on how the availability process worked; doing the leg work of submitting Time Compliance Technical Order (TCTO) suggestions when they've got a good, workable idea that improves the function of the cutter (instead of making "Chief Alts" and not documenting them anywhere); volunteering as a "prime unit" to validate MPCs, TCTOs and tech pub changes; tracking man-hours expended for various maintenance efforts (including wash downs and clean-ups); checking the "Discrepancy Found, Yes/No" box on the MPC. Lots and lots of emphasis placed on the role that the front line Naval Engineers had on improving things for everyone, including the next generation of Naval Engineers.

A couple of relevant quotes:
-"The Product Line makes sure the cutter can finish the marathon (the service life of the cutter); the Sector EO and cutter EPO make sure the cutter can finish the sprint (their two or three year tour).
-"Submitting QDRs and SDRs and CG-22s may not immediately help you and your current world of work, but it improves the processes for the entire system."
-"Things are tough right now. It's like going down I-95 at full speed, and changing all four tires.”

There was a presentation on the Fast Response Cutters (FRCs). I had seen the mock-ups of the ship, but hadn't really paid too much close attention to the specs. OMG! What a great ship it looks like it's gonna be! I hope, maybe, maybe, maybe, if all the stars align and the gods of the sea and assignment process smile down on me, maybe I just might get one. But it's a long shot.

There was a ton more great and useful information presented throughout the three days, but rather than bore you with all those details, I'll just mention one more--Ready for Ops/Safe to Sail (RFO/S2S). I don't know if that's the acronym that is going to be used, or if it's even going to happen, but CG-751 is asking the Product Line to develop a RFO/S2S MPC that must be completed every time before a ship assumes a Bravo status. Basically, from a supply, maintenance and casualty perspective, is the ship safe to get underway? That's not to say, necessarily, that if a cutter doesn't have every last widget they're supposed to have onboard, they wouldn't be able to get underway, since the Sector EO would have maintenance release authority. But in theory, it includes the engineering and maintenance perspective in operational decision making and can be used as a metric to determine prevalence of operational commander waivers and lost operational days. The Product Line would be the entity determining what required what kind of waiver for the ship to get underway. I guess the Small Boat Product Line uses something similar currently, just curious as to how that would translate to the cutter fleet.

It goes back to thoughts I've had before about where a CO's responsibility ends. I see three main players in this situation: the engineers, the operators and the Operational Command. The engineers need time to fix stuff and make sure it's not going to break. The operators (CO mostly, I think) wants to have the resources available to get the tactical mission done (which includes both equipment and personnel in my mind). And the Operational Command needs to know that they can cover all their mission requirements. In the end, I think some formalization of the process could only help alleviate some of the natural tensions among the three.

Placeholder

2011-06-16T14:22:00.000-07:00

Sadly, this post will just be a placeholder. I have a bunch of post ideas that are brewing in my brain, but haven't really taken the time to see any of them through to fruition. Here's a sampling:
--Gremlins...I *really* need to work on a general history, taxonomic classification system and brief exploration of culture of gremlins.
--The Patrol Boat Product Line Program Review just concluded. I took eight pages of notes...surely I have *something* to say about some of the presentations and discussions.
--When did Lieutenants start looking so young? Jeez, I only made LCDR two months ago, and I'm sure not comfortable with people shortening it to "Commander" yet.
--Howling into the wind v. providing useful feedback. This is directly related to PBPL conference thoughts, but can be much more broadly applied.
--The Fast Response Cutter. Also related to the PBPL conference since there was a good review of capabilities and support structure. But I really, really want to serve on one. There's also the broader thought-process about the rest of my career--competing priorities and squishy timelines.
--The gentle tension between engineers and operators, maintenance and mission, OPCON and PBPL. Who should win and why.
--That exploration of CG missions that I mentioned a bit ago.

Got a long plane ride tomorrow and I've got to organize my notes from the conference, so hopefully that will inspire some ponderings for the blog.

Responsibility Deconstructed

2011-06-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

Responsibility is something I've been thinking about for a while, mostly in the context of how it relates to a Commanding Officer's responsibility for her ship and crew, but also as it extends to family and other general circumstances. We use the word so very much but I've never taken the time before to really consider how it deconstructs. What is responsibility, really? What are the elements of responsibility? I don't think I can cover all the intricacies, but what I came up with is this...responsibility is some conglomeration of ownership, agency, accountability and acknowledgement.

Huh, that doesn't help so much.

So, accountability--I used to think that responsibility and accountability were fairly synonymous, at least as the terms are used in CG-speak because they're used in tandem so often. With further consideration, though, I think that accountability is the enforcement arm of responsibility. Responsibility without accountability is pretty wet-noodled, wishy-washy and ripe for abuse. I mean, even if it's personal accountability in the form of integrity, some sort of long arm of the law is necessary to ensure the responsible person does what they say they're going to do and what they're supposed to do.

Acknowledgement--in the form of public acknowledgement of the individual's position of responsibility. *That* person is responsible for *that* thing, and everybody involved with *that* thing knows it. Other, unrelated people can know too, but the people that have some of their own stake in the matter must know. Kinda like why they make us all learn our Chain of Command in boot camp and include it in the IDP. That way there's not a whole bunch of people trying to be responsible for the same thing (too many Chiefs, not enough Indians) or everyone saying "it's not *my* responsibility."

Ownership and Agency--are they really the same thing? I think they're at least pretty closely related. Ownership is the personal recognition that you are responsible for something, while agency is the ability to actually do something about it. I like the description of agency here on Seth Godin's Blog: "Responsibility comes with the capacity to act in the world. If you can decide, if you can act, you have agency."

An example might help clarify each of these areas. Say you're a squirrel. As a squirrel, it's your responsibility to collect acorns. *You* know you have to collect acorns. You have ownership of the act of acorn collection. You own the acorn stash. The acorns are yours.

All the other animals in the forest know you collect the acorns. You fight over the acorns with the crows and the deer and the skunks and the...heck, I don't know what all else, the pigs and the fungus? They all know you want the acorns too, and on some level, they acknowledge your right to (some of) the acorns. Ok, so maybe the squirrel analogy doesn't work for acknowledgement so well. But you get the idea.

If you don't fulfill your responsibility of collecting the acorns...well, you'll starve. That's a pretty straightforward impact of not doing what you're supposed to do = accountability.

And you are able to collect the acorns. No one has caged you up, restricted your movements so you are unable to search out and store the acorns in your desired cache. You didn't have a mishap jumping from tree to tree where you whooops, missed by just a little bit and fell to break your leg on a rock. There is a bounty of acorns...no droughts or floods destroyed the annual acorn crop. You have the agency to collect acorns. (But what if there was a drought or flood, would you still have agency?...we're in a federal budget crisis. Do we still have sufficient agency over our budget? How do these externalities fit into the concept of responsibility?)

So maybe it breaks down like this: you have know you're responsible for the acorn, the world has to know you're responsible for the acorn, you have to have the power to do something about the acorn, and there have to be consequences if you don't do something about the acorn. I know it's a ridiculous and simplistic example, but am I missing anything?

Summer Plans

2011-06-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

I love having choices. Options are *great* in my world. They make planning (which is What I Do) so much easier. And thanks to my wonderful Coast Guard, or at least my fantastically supportive Program Manager and his boss, I had a couple of options this summer.

The entering argument was that I had to be in Hawaii to help out with some family stuff. Well, I guess there was an option there too. I could have chosen not to come out to support my family...but that would have led to a life-time of regret (regrets are a total waste of time) and was quickly discarded as a viable choice. I could have taken leave and just had the whole summer off. Couple of problems with that: 1) that's a whopping lot of leave, 2) I think I would have lost my mind with boredom from not having something constructive to do, and 3) what would I blog about along the way?

So my aforementioned Program Manager and his boss got in touch with a contact at District 14 and asked if they'd be interested in having a warm body, with some experience in the AOR, to work for them this summer. Long story short, I'm doing some time at D14 (dre/drm) as the interim D14 Patrol Boat Manager until the end of July when the PCS fellow gets in, and also working on some projects with the Command Center that haven't gotten a huge amount of attention due to chronic personnel short-falls.

How COOL is THAT!?!

PS - I almost made my post/week this week. I know it's kinda a short one, and it's a day late...but I'm trying.

Transitions

2011-05-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

My sister very kindly pointed out to me that I haven't blogged in a while. She knew the date of my last post. While we were in the car. Driving. No computers around to check the date or anything. So, I guess that means I need to get back to posting. My goal for the summer is about a post a week. I mean I'm not taking classes, I don't have any crazy long class reading list, nothing that should keep me from writing more often. So, now that I've made the pronouncement of a post a week public, I can be held accountable for it.

Maryland's School of Public Policy graduation ceremony was last week. I was so excited when I heard a few weeks ago that ADM Allen was scheduled to be the keynote speaker. The first thing my friends at school asked me when the announcement came out was if I was going to go. Umm...OF COURSE!! Not only to see ADM Allen speak, but also to see my friends walk across the stage. I don't think I've been to a college spring commencement before (I graduated in the winter).

The School's Dean graciously sent out a video link of ADM Allen's address, which I highly recommend watching because it is a truly amazing speech! Black swans, wicked problems, leadership, management and governance, collaboration, conditions for trust, unity of effort, "an analog government operating in a digital world"...I could go on. There were a few familiar concepts I recognized from his All Hands communiques over the course of his tenure as Commandant. Lifelong learning, caring leadership, adapting to a changing world--that kind of stuff. While he talks to the graduates of the School of Public Policy as future leaders and public servants, I took to heart his charge of "creating the art of the possible where none existed before" by using our leadership skills, curiosity (which I think can extend to ingenuity and creativity), tenacity and compassion. It applies to all of us.

Side note: in a conversation with Dean Kettle after the ceremony, he said that very few organizations spend as much time, energy and focus developing their future leaders as the Coast Guard does. That made me feel good.

But my very favorite part of ADM Allen's speech was at the very end, when he charged the graduates with facing their future, "...be insatiably curious. Be life-long learners. And when you inhabit that world in the future, and you're presented with that problem, create the art of the possible where none exists. And walk among giants, and do not feel small." (Emphasis added, because that part gives me goosebumps.)

And then he got a standing ovation.

Cuttermen Association Annual Meeting

2011-05-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday was the Cuttermen Association's inaugural Annual Meeting. It was in Alexandria, just a short Metro (and a little bit of a walk) away. I couldn't *not* go.

Note to self, though: when chatting with your new Program Manager, don't brag about cutting class to attend a very professionally important, but hardly academic meeting. Especially right before trying to talk to him about what office might be open for your upcoming payback tour. He took it pretty well, but definitely grimaced/smirked at me.

And, like most things I write, this post will be my perspective on the meeting and some of the surrounding discussion. It is not endorsed by the Cuttermen Association, nor is it a complete synopsis of what went on. If you're interested in that, I recommend looking to the meeting minutes.

I got there a little late...doors on the Metro train were stuck for about ten minutes at Fort Totten. I think I would have been late anyway. But when I finally strolled in, there were about 45 to 50 people already seated, listening to CDR Mike Cribbs go over the Election Nominations. He finished up and CDR Rusty Dash (my second CO when I was XO on WASHINGTON) took over to "take a fix" on the organization. He went over membership information and trends (562 members as of 5 May 2011!!), the state of the website, what had been accomplished over the last year since forming, what hadn't been accomplished over the last year, and what we hoped to look like this time next year. I must have come in after President, CAPT Brian Perkins introduced and thanked the Surface Navy Association (SNA) for their support and sponsorship, but there was lots of discussion throughout the day about the Cuttermen Association relation with the SNA.

A couple of observations as I settled in: there were LOTS of Academy class rings in the audience. Like probably a solid 40 percent of people were wearing them. And there was only one other Girl in attendance (I actually just now struggled with whether to call her a Girl, woman or female; I went with Girl in the spirit of the blog; hope you don't mind, Chief). MKC Tina Calflin, the Women Afloat Coordinator from EPM, was there. Two other Girls showed up for the pre-lunch address by ADM Papp. But that still means the majority of people there were male officers. And thankfully (though out of sequence), there was some discussion about needing to change that to be more inclusive of both junior enlisted and women.

There's something I have to say about being more inclusive, which really didn't come to me until the Cuttermen's Call later in the afternoon, but it fits here, so I'll go with it. As far as I could tell, there were two Lieutenants in attendance as the most junior officers there (in a statistical oddity, I have worked with them both before), the most junior enlisted person was probably a Chief, and well, me and Chief Calflin represented our gender. I chatted with a great number of people, but only two people I *didn't* know took the time to introduce themselves. With the people that I talked to that I didn't already know, I initiated the conversation...which, even as an O-4 (yay! finally made it), is pretty intimidating when that someone is an O-6, or even O-7 (ret).

So, here's my suggestion on how to be more inclusive of all participants: the senior people, the ones that are scary to talk to sometimes, need to take the initiative and not just talk to their peers. Talk to the junior people, talk to the Girls, talk to people you don't already know. There may have been a lot more of this going on than I actually saw/experienced, but as a (very obvious) minority in the room, I felt like there could have been more of it. And yes, there is something instructive in this for me to keep in my mind as well. I am no longer as junior as I once was. It is now incumbent upon me to make the effort to be inclusive as well.

The most detailed debate was prompted by LT Eric Quigley's review of the Association By-Laws. Some changes are needed to promote efficiency, rules of order and general sensibility. I don't think anything was formally decided (I didn't entirely follow all the procedural stuff), but it was a good discussion of the Association's ideology. Like, what is the real and effective difference between regular and associate members, who can be on the Executive Board, and whether having a permanent or temporary cutterman's pin should make a difference. As I said earlier, look into the minutes of the meeting if you want all the particulars.

After Eric's By-Law session, CWO John Baker (ret) gave an overview of the Association's budget. The main point I wrote down from CWO Baker's presentation was that donations, above regular dues, are tax deductible because the Cuttermen Association is set-up as a not-for-profit organization.

And then the Ancient Gold Mariner, the Coast Guard Commandant, ADM Bob Papp came in for a half-hour session. I took not-so-great notes of his speech, so I don't want to risk misrepresenting anything he talked about. But one thing he said really resonated, especially for me and in the context of the Cuttermen Association. I know that he's taken some heat lately about his use of the terms "shipmates" and "maritime service," that he's being preferential towards the cutter fleet. He made it clear, at least to me, that he uses those terms inclusively and as terms of respect. We are no longer solely a "sea-going service," but a "maritime service" because of all the work that goes on even as cutters cut ties to the shore and sail off to do their mission. As cuttermen, we rely on the efforts of those shipmates on shore, doing their jobs at Command Centers, Small Boat Stations, NESUs, Sector Prevention Departments, Air Stations, in order to accomplish the overall mission of the Coast Guard. Cuttermen have been a part of the organization from the very beginning of the Coast Guard's beginnings (Hamilton's Federalist Paper Number 12 in 1786). And as sailors, we learn certain things about ourselves and others, about how to overcome insurmountable challenges, and that spirit has carried our service through 212 years of...well, service.

And then he went on to answer some questions from the audience about the budget and the future of the icebreaking fleet. Oh, and then, he recognized CDR Rusty Dash's hard work with getting the Cuttermen Association webpage up and functional, and the great effect the webpage had for increasing the Association's membership! Very cool to have the Commandant come in to personally endorse the group's efforts.

Then it was lunchtime. I didn't have any plans for lunch, so kind of attached myself to a group of folks who looked like they knew where they were going. Turned out to be a bunch of crusty old engineers, Master Chiefs and Warrant to Lieutenants (to now Commanders). One of them looked really familiar, but I couldn't place where I knew him from. CDR Steve Tucker and I did a little hull history comparison and realized we were both out in Honolulu at the same time, and attended plenny of XO's Breakfasts together. I think the lunch group's combined sea service was more than twice as long as I've been alive.

I didn't make the post-lunch session with Dr. Robert Browning for his Association History Presentation. I got hung up in the lobby talking to LT Eric Cooper. We sailed together for about a month on MAUI before he transferred off to be a Norwegian Exchange Officer. He asked me, "do you plan on going back afloat?" I kinda looked at him a little squinty-eyed and asked if he was serious. OF COURSE I plan on going back afloat, what kind of question is that?!? But then I realized I didn't have the same fervor when we sailed together a couple of three years ago.

After CDR Cribbs announced the election results (sorry, didn't write down the details), LCDR Shawn Decker talked about the "Status of the Afloat Community (Human Resources and Assignments)" from a distinctly OPM perspective. He's the Junior Afloat Assignment Officer, and I have to admit to being very interested in what he had to say. It was kinda intimidating. First, I hadn't really thought this through, but of course it makes sense, but the afloat community offers command opportunity at every paygrade (after O-1). He talked a little about how we're losing ENS racks onboard ships as we move from the WHECs to the WMSLs, so ENSs are being placed on WPB 110s and the new FRCs as they come out. This does raise an interesting question for me: if we're losing ENS racks on ships both in terms of number of racks per ships (WMSL has less available racks for ENSs than WHEC) and in number of ships (we're only getting 8 WMSLs to replace 12 WHECs), how does that square with the importance the Commandant places on ENSs getting "maritime experience" onboard cutters? Will be interesting to see how that shakes out over the next few years.

Shawn talked about O2 and O3 jobs afloat (CO, XO and OPS), but I admit to not paying overly close attention, or at least not taking any notes on it. And then he said that the WMEC XO slate is one of the most competitive slates there is, primarily because it is the main pipeline to being a major cutter CO. He also mentioned that it was the most diverse slate in AY11, with four minorities and three women assigned as WMEC XOs. He named the women XOs for me later, and they are definitely an *august* group! But again, that's scary, because that's gonna be the slate I'm competing in here in a few years after my payback tour.

Someone asked about how Engineering Officers In Training (EOITs) fared with follow-on afloat assignments, which is always a great question. Shawn said that the best way for EOITs to get second tours afloat is to have documented shiphandling, judgment, leadership and LE experience. He also made the point that the first three qualities are necessary for really *any* continued opportunity afloat.

There was an open forum to wrap things up. A lot of things were discussed, with a call to action to participate on committees by the general membership. Many of the current committees are committees of one or two, and some of them are staffed with the same four or five names over and over. Again...I need to heed my own words and volunteer to step up to serve on a committee.

Cuttermen's Call afterward was fun. I chatted with both Erics (Quigley and Cooper), ranted a little about whales and things (can't believe Quigs told that story! especially combo'd with the ammo box!). I didn't stay too long...had to get home to let the dogs out before they destroyed the laundry room from being cooped up all day. But the Annual Meeting was well worth attending, to see a bunch of shipmates, meet new ones and continue the tradition. I highly encourage participation!

Meaning of Dreams

2011-04-26T05:14:00.000-07:00

I don't necessarily think dreams are portentous or overly meaningful, but they are interesting windows into the inner workers of our subconsciousness. I have the typical dreams: climbing stairs and never getting to the top; finding myself back in high school (or is that a nightmare?), wondering what I need to do to graduate even though I've already got a couple college degrees; having to give a presentation and being clueless about the topic. The ones I like the best are about flying or being able to breathe underwater.

But the other night I had a very vivid dream that made me wonder what the heck is going on in the inner workings of my little pea brain. I wasn't sleeping well (which isn't particularly unusual, just particularly annoying because I had a busy day the next day). And, you know how dreams put together disparate parts or people or places and they seem to make sense within the dreamscape? Well, in this dream, I was doing KISKA's mission, but had my OPS and XO from MAUI. I think we were still wearing desert cammies, and somehow there was a fancy D-FAC mixed in.

But the gist of the dream was that we were being tasked to conduct an escort, and I couldn't get any information on the details about when the escort was, where we were supposed to meet the escort vessel, or even who we were supposed to be escorting, who we were working with...you know all the relevant and enabling details. I tried talking to the command center watchstander, and while she was mostly polite, just would NOT answer my questions. I tried being super specific, I tried getting high and mighty and slightly pissy, I threatened to talk to her supervisor, but in the end, I just could not get the information I wanted. She treated me like I was a bitchy annoyance that was just too stupid to get the job done. Apparently the information had already been passed on to OPS.

So off I went to talk to OPS and XO. OPS and I had a somewhat rocky relationship while we worked together (in reality), so I approached him with that baggage. I tried my questioning routine again. When did we need to get underway? When was liberty going to expire? What did the WQSB look like for the evolution? But mostly, when did we need to get underway?

I started out calmly, with a hint of frustration from my conversation with the watchstander, but clearly asking my questions. I thought. Somehow I ended up *screaming* at them both, trying to get through to them. They just looked at me with a complete lack of interest.

I woke up frustrated, annoyed, feeling like a cat who just had its fur petted the wrong way. And wanting to apologize to all of them. So, MAUI OPS and XO and imaginary-dream watchstander, so very, very, very sorry that I yelled at you, spit flying, hair standing on end, in my dream. I *NEVER* want to be that boss or coworker.

Obviously, there's something going on in my head about communications. Writing it out like this, it sounds more like about being invisible and ignored, but in the dream, it was about not being able to get through to someone. I've been working on a couple papers lately that I'm not really sure what I'm saying in them, so maybe that's it. And working on a presentation on the theory of the coming Singularity that both scares and fascinates me, but that I just can't seem to get my head around.

But I think it just reinforces to me how important I think communications are. The first dozen or so times I saw the model of a message having two parts, the sent message and the received message, I just kind of glazed over it, on to the next portion of the LE training, LAMS training, TQC training, whatever. Somehow this dream brought home the sending/receiving model in a way that hours of classroom discussion never did. What do *I* do that prevents my audience from understanding the importance and relevance of the information they have that I need? What can I do differently to make sure my message is comprehensible and accessible to a wide ranging audience? How do I know when I have a message worth communicating at all?

It's an ongoing process, thinking about and honing my communication skills. But one that is so critical and worth putting the effort into.

And again, so sorry Ceebeemcghee and SDubs, for yelling at you. In my dream or in reality. It didn't help things *at all!!*

Tangents

2011-04-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

I wonder sometimes what this blog is really about. Is it about my Coast Guard career? Is it personal? What are the bounds of what I can or should write about? I know it's not totally professional, and there are some things I will never attempt to address.

As part of a conversation about a lot of different things, a friend (FR) and I recently examined our individual personal relationships to the Coast Guard. The relevant portion went like this:

FR: "I’m somewhat amazed that you enjoy thinking and talking about the CG as much as you do. I’m not casting aspersions on you, I just know that I love NOT talking about the CG, except for minor examples during some of the classes I take. My work this summer will be dealing with clean aquatic energy, something that fascinates me and that I truly think I can be passionate about, at least for a time."

ME: "What you said about me enjoying thinking about the CG so much really made me pause. Harumph. Guess I just need to face up to the fact that I'm a CG nerd. There's a couple of reasons I came up with for our different perspectives on CG interactions while we're at school. First is the nature of our programs. The only way I know how to relate to Big Policy Issues is through the context of the CG. All my classes on budgeting and contracting and all that, I view through what I know and have experienced during my CG tenure as a way to help me understand what is being taught, similar to how you use your DCA experience in your engineering stuff (not even gonna try getting more technical than that, lest I leave you guffawing my ignorance). Second, I have a forum. I still can't believe this blog thing. Crazy how it's made things different for me. And lastly, we came to the CG from very different places. You literally grew up in the organization since that's how your Dad raised you. You've always known it, and have viewed everything you are and do within that context. I came to the CG much later, and found it to be something that really stabilized me, gave me purpose and direction...never mind a living wage paycheck and health insurance. And a bit of stature in my family. (Scarily) my career is something they brag about now. Hell, I say take advantage of being away from it. I think it's great that you'll be working on clean aquatic energy this summer--sounds super innovative and fulfilling. Explore, grow, flourish."

FR: "I guess my comment on you being a CG nerd was more along the lines that I'm surprised bigger issues beyond the CG don't interest you...it may be that they do, you're just cutting teeth with the CG stuff and applying it later to the larger picture? I just have a hard time personally, with my ever expanding big picture view, of getting inspired or excited by CG affairs."

There is a gauntlet thrown down in that last paragraph that I'm still pondering. Contemplating. Gnawing the edges of (to mix metaphors horribly). And I will get back to it during a later post (maybe much later). But I offer the discussion as an introduction to three things that are tangentially associated with my relationship with the Coast Guard.

First, I watched Disney's movie Oceans this weekend. I like movies, but I don't generally have strong feelings about them one way or another (well, besides the Pirates series...can't wait for May 20!). Oceans is different. I actually bought it (usually I figure, why bother...I've seen a movie once, I know what happens, and if I really want to see it again, I can get it from Netflix). Amazing photography. Like mind-blowingly amazing. I never realized just how large those humpback whales were until I saw the size of the photographer in the water next to the whale. The narrative is moving, but not overly emotional and (thank goodness) doesn't anthropomorphize the aquatic wildlife too much.

My favorite scene: I can't decide between a couple...
--the feasting scene towards the beginning when the cormorants are dive bombing a school of sardines, and the sharks are attacking from underneath, and it's like a fierce World War II battle scene.
--the footage of the humpback whales creating a mass of air bubbles to trap and stun fish in Alaskan waters. Half a dozen to a dozen whales all broaching at the same time, snouts come shooting out of the water almost simultaneously with snow-covered mountains and rocky shorelines in the background.
--watching the two ships get the snot kicked out of them in rough water. One is a Navy ship, and the other is some sort of commercial vessel, probably fishing, maybe 250 feet long. Don't know why that series tickles me so much, but it does.
--the leafy sea dragon...I love the graceful fronds this creature sports, and the fact that it just has these leettle-beetty fins to move it around. You really have to look to see its method of propulsion.

Tangent: I like the fact that my organization helps to protect these amazing and wondrous beings.

Second, my foster dogs. I signed up to foster animals through Operation Noble Foster. I'm still holding to the mindset that I don't want to take on full, lifelong responsibility for any more pets until I'm out of the Coast Guard and not getting underway, but I've really missed having a wagging tail and slobbering doggie kisses greet me when I get home. So back in January, I got a call from a lady in the Air National Guard who had two weeks before she was getting sent off for two months of training in preparation for a six-month deployment to Afghanistan. Two weeks to get all your affairs in order to leave for eight months...guh, what a PITA.

So, I am fostering her two Italian greyhounds, Bella and Pepe. She was a little hesitant to pass them off to someone else, I think because they're a little high-maintenance (I say as they're passed out on the couch next to me, snuggled into their blanket). Pepe has a Napoleanic complex...you know, small man's syndrome. He gets a little lippy/growly when he thinks he's being disrespected. But he's eight pounds, so I only take him so seriously.

I don't help the situation with him when I take funny pictures of him like this, so zonked that he's sleeping with his tongue sticking out.

And Bella looks particularly regal in this photo. She's a sweetheart, but is more impish than you'd expect. I'm very glad that I finally got the backyard fence repaired so there is no more sneaking through holes to go exploring the neighborhood. Mostly 'cause she's FAST!! It's fun watching her sprint from one end of the yard to the other at full speed. I just wish she'd stay out of the damn garden beds :0 I think once the plants get a little bigger she'll be less inclined to try to sail over the width of the bed in one leap.

So I get to have my cake and eat it too with fostering. I get temporary pets that I enjoy for a defined period of time, and help out someone who needs to focus on something besides whether their pets are being well taken care of while they're away. I wish I had known about Operation Noble Foster that first tour on BOUTWELL. Would have made things a lot easier for me and my cats. And neighbors.

Tangent: the whole helping out a fellow military-deployable member, while also satisfying my own preference for having pets in the house.

Third: I discovered mud runs, which are basically trail races with a bunch of man-made obstacles mixed in. A while back, my uncle Steve told me me about the Tough Mudder race, and suggested we should roust up a team and train for it. Looked like fun from the pictures, but I thought 10 miles might be a little much to start with. So I found a 5K mud run close by his house that we signed up for.

Uncle Steve, Aunt Jan, Judy and me at the finish line

Weekend before last, four of us ran the Rugged Maniac in Asheboro, NC. I have to give my fellow teammates total props...Jan is the youngest of the three of them, and she's older than me by a couple decades. I thought I was a bad-ass, but they put me to shame! We all finished, tired, dirty and thrilled to have gotten through the barbed-wire mud pits, over the fire jumps, across the plank and down the slide into the mud pool. I felt like a heel for leaving my teammates as they slowed down and started to walk (some of them). They told me to go ahead and run my own race, and I did, but it doesn't mean I felt good about that part of it.

It was SO MUCH FUN!! I wanna do another one, maybe a 10k later this fall before tackling the 10 mile Tough Mudder next year, and maybe a half marathon one after that. I was telling a friend who is also a runner about it, and he said that his running group was getting bored with just running. Ex-ACT-ly! I like to run, but the obstacles provide more of a challenge, and the mud...well, that's just fun.

I did have to laugh at the poor girl in my heat who cut me off, nearly tripping me, to get from the middle of the course where it was really muddy (like suck-your-shoes-off muddy) over to the side where it was drier and a little cleaner. Seriously?!? My philosophy...gonna get dirty, might as well enjoy it, even revel in it!

Tangent: fitness is important in the Coast Guard, and I found something to help me stay fit. Oh, and the team-work aspect of the race was pretty cool, too. Almost had to be Spiderman to get over the seven-foot walls without a leg up from one of the other participants. A lot of people ran in teams.

Maybe I just wrote this post to prove to myself that I am more than just my Coast Guard persona.

The Garden

2011-04-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

I start a lot of projects that I don't always necessarily finish. I never did get my loom set up to weave on almost two years ago when I settled into Hilo. I've still got the bag of Grandpa's ties, but it's been moved out the the backyard shed...I'll get to 'em one day. The shed is a project in and of itself. I've got grand plans for it to be an organized, useful space, with tools in their proper places and maybe even a handy ramp so I can store the Old Man out there during the winter. Right now it's a disaster of about a dozen bags of random stuff that need to go to the thrift store, piles of cardboard and packing paper from the move, garden tools strewn about, and my bicycle right in the middle of it all.

But the shed will hang on for a little bit longer until I can get to organizing it. The garden, however, just *could NOT* wait. Spring is springing, for heaven's sake, and I didn't want to miss my planting window!

Now despite having an advanced degree in horticulture, I haven't ever really had my own garden. Well, I take that back. I had one over ten years ago when I lived in Southwest Virginia, but I was very busy with overworking myself at my poorly paid job, and wasn't able to give it the attention and resources it needed. And I'm kinda intimidated by a garden...I suspect I might have a black thumb, or at least a brown thumb. I highly doubt it's green, or even pond scum brown (that disgusting mix of green and brown that my homemade smoothies so often resemble).

This year, I'm gonna put it to the test, though. I've got a wonderful flat and sunny yard (with too much grass to mow anyway). And the resources (i.e., disposable income) to buy stuff for the garden. So this weekend, I went to work.

I got nine 2x10x8's for three beds (cut one in half for the ends of each bed), a load of (free!!) mulch from the City of Brentwood (just had to load it up myself = good exercise), three cubic yards of topsoil and compost from Denchfield Nursery (delivered for free!!), six types of greens and four herb starts from the Takoma Park Farmer's Market, and *too* many seed packets from Seed Savers Exchange (I can save what I don't plant for next year, right? And I'm gonna split 'em with my sister.).

Friday night saw me outside cutting boards and arranging the beds, cussing a little over stripped out screw heads when I tried to go through knots in the wood. I got two beds built and situated that night before it got too dark to see what I was doing. Underneath the frames is cardboard to keep the grass from coming up through, while still allowing water to drain...that's the theory anyway.

I finished the last frame on Saturday morning. Also on Saturday, the topsoil/compost was delivered. I was super happy that the delivery driver was able to get into the alley out back, maneuver through the tight gate and patient enough to accommodate the dumping truck bed around the dead tree branches that got in his way. He was able to dump the soil about 30 feet away from the beds...just a short jaunt with a handy wheelbarrow. Then started the fun...wheelbarrow load by wheelbarrow load, transferring the soil from the pile into the frames. I got about halfway done with that on Saturday before I just couldn't sling dirt anymore. Oh, and I had a couple of papers to work on too--minor details. You can see the frames about half-full, each with four wheelbarrow loads in them, and the dirt pile top center. Off to the right is the pile of (free!!) mulch.

Sunday morning dawned partly cloudy, with a good chance of rain throughout the day. But I knew if I didn't get the beds done that day, they wouldn't get done for a while due to classes, papers, projects, weekend trips and races. Another four wheelbarrow loads per frame, and I was done with the dirt pile.

Planting was fun. I sectioned each bed into eight squares with some string. And then divided all the greens starts into individual plants. I hope they survive. The roots were so very fragile. But I quickly got them into the bed, and watered everything. I planted collards, arugula (arooooo-gala, Hobbes-style), two kinds of green leaf lettuce, speckled lettuce, red lettuce and cilantro from starts, and swiss chard, sugar snap peas (absolute favorite!!), radishes, spinach and kale from seed.

I've still got nasturtiums, okra, cucumbers, two types of melons, eggplants, green beans, three kinds of peppers, tomatillos and garden huckleberries (couldn't pass up the chance to grow huckleberries) to plant. And blueberries, red and black raspberries and a pawpaw tree to go in the ground also. I think I may be a little ambitious for my first garden.

Oh, and the herb bed. This is right behind the back door, fairly convenient to the kitchen. My rosemary, chives, oregano and mint all survived the winter. And I added some sage, cilantro (can never have too much cilantro), thyme and chamomile.

Everything has survived so far. I mean it's been a day, so that's a good start, right? I watered this morning before class, and when I came home for lunch, things were looking a little droopy, so I watered again. I haven't figured out a good watering system yet. My rain barrels are fantastic storage for runoff from the roof, but the water is gravity-fed coming out. My interim solution (while I wait for creative inspiration) is to take an empty juice bottle (Trader Joe's Orange-Carrot) and punch holes in the top and one air vent in the bottom and refill it by hand from the rain barrel. Working so far.

I guess one of these days I should mow the grass too. Maybe next weekend.

AThird Bit, Slightly Rambly

2011-03-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

I saw this post from the Coast Guard Compass. HAMILTON is the first of any ship I've sailed on to be decommissioned. I'm really, really sad to see HAMILTON and CHASE go. I know it's well past their time, and they've served their country and sailors well. Thank the powers that be that I have the memories I do of my time onboard, the good, the excellent and the bad and ugly. I was OPS onboard HAMILTON from June 2006 until January 2008. Most of these snippets won't make sense, but I'm cataloging them for my own sake.

Having a nasty cold and wanting to sleep in Combat so I wouldn't have to go so far in the middle of the night when the watchstander woke me up with an interesting contact report (I didn't, but Doc was nice enough to send down a cot just in case).

The sun rising over the deck of that Peruvian fishing vessel we chased for two weeks out too far past the Galapagos. The flat tire on the helo that kept them on the deck and unable to search. The 200 bales of cocaine the traffickers had stacked on deck as we came alongside.

"Shiny metal objects." And skull tattoos (not mine). (Well, maybe mine...thanks, MPA, for making sure Jimmy got it straight on my arm).

Watching Sunday evening sunsets on the flight deck while enjoying a rationed root beer. Most other sunsets on the gun deck, chatting with friends, commiserating about being far, far from home. Running the decks, laps and laps and laps around and being very grateful I never stumbled and shredded my knees and hands up on the non-skid.

The *reee-dik-uuu-lous* conversations with TACON.

The tasty fresh water the ship made while underway, and watching the EO get annoyed when we pulled in because it meant his good water would have to be treated once it was mixed with whatever we got from the shoretie. It would always take about four days underway to get back to the good stuff.

Getting backhanded with the Wonder Woman compliment. In front of all the other Department Heads, the XO and the Command Senior Chief. Still stings, that one.

The blueness of the waters in Gulfo Dulce when we came in close enough to pick up some passengers. And the chat about mentoring that happened while the small boat was away.

Four ugly days at the pier in Acajutla, El Salvador. Hot, sticky, and dirty rub marks left all alongside the hull. The late night berth shift to the other side of the pier, tight between two merchant ships.So that we could get gross, dirty rub marks on *both* sides of the ship.

Numerous hands of Bastard while sucking down Otterpops (I think I was Strawberry Short Kook), munching popcorn, and whatever other tasty treats the Wardroom Mess Treasurer supplied.

The peacefulness of Decameron Beach Resort after countless Panama City port calls. Bosn's comment afterwards, "I drank so much pina colada I'll be shitting coconuts for a week."

A helicopter almost out of radio range, two small boats in the water at the edge of radio range, and an LE team on a captured go-fast without running lights all screaming towards each other in the pitch black. Oh, and which way is the Equator? North or South?

And how happy I was that my sister was onboard when I finally lost it at the end of that last, shitty patrol when the mooring line snapped the deckie's leg.

Three days on both MDEs at flank speed...to conserve fuel, of course.

Two Bits and a Rant

2011-03-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Good heavens, if I thought I was slacking before my last post, I'm not sure what to call not posting for nearly three weeks! But, here I am, posting again, even if this post does threaten to be whiny and dejected. Onward though...

First bit: I'm making O4 on April 1st. Which is GREAT!! (Though I do feel just the slightest bit cheated for making it on April Fool's Day. Is that some kind of commentary on my career? Just as a point of reference, I felt the same way when my divorce papers were dated April 1st. *That* likely was a commentary on the circumstances :) ) I posted my happy news on Facebook as "O4 on 04-01-11. Whooooppeeee!!" My aunt commented back, asking what that meant. I explained, saying I'd be promoted. Due to the vagaries of FB and email notifications, I thought she asked the question again (not that she was too "Denise" to get it the first time), and it got me thinking, what *does* it really mean? Ok, so it means more money, which will be great and useful and well-appreciated, even though sometimes I think the Coast Guard already pays me an obscene amount of money.

But beyond the money, I am really grateful that my hard work and perseverance has paid off with a promotion. It's nice to get that recognition of a job well done (or at least done to a satisfactory level). For me, right now, I don't think it means much more beyond that, though. No one at school knows what being an O4 means (beyond a couple of the other military folks in my Private Enterprise/National Security class...which I've already proved to them that I'm a little bit of a PITA know-it-all. Have I said before I feel like I've got an unfair advantage in that class? Eleven years of military experience v. four to five years administrative/work experience like many of the others have...let's just say I have an opinion on most everything--not that that's really an anomaly, but opinion + experience is a powerful combination). And I doubt it will mean much once I get to Headquarters...just another of the multitude of Junior Officers in the building. Maybe after the HQ tour...XO of a bigger boat will be good fun. Couldn't do that without the promotion. More opportunities, different challenges, I guess that's what it really means.

Second bit: just as I've been slacking with the blog, I've been slacking with general correspondence as well. My good friend Rickey sent me an email in the middle of February!! and I haven't gotten back to him yet. He shared this sweet photo of his friend Sammy, chillin' on a beach in Central Cal. Dog's life :)

And an old shipmate sent me an email about a previous post. How cool to hear from him.

And a friend sent me a great message about my last post. I *really* need to get back to him on that. I've been thinking about my response, but haven't quite gotten fingers to keyboard yet. Sorry, friend...I feel like a schmuck for pestering you about your comment, and then procrastinating my own response. Got a million excuses: midterms, readings, excuse-blah, blah, blah, papers to write, excuse-blah, blah, blah, spring break, family emergency, excuse-blah, blah, blah. But just excuses in the end.

And on to the rant! I'm finding that bureaucratic red-tape is all the more galling now that I'm a student of public policy. There was a confluence of three different events that really rained frustration down on my head. None of the three of them would piss me off separately...well, maybe the motorcycle license part would annoy me, but all three of them within the same day just made me mad.

So I knew I needed to get my motorcycle license renewed while I was in Hawaii for spring break this time. My learner's permit had expired the week before, and I really want to be able to keep riding my bike, especially now that spring is coming and the weather is getting better. I tried to find a loaner bike over Christmas break so I could just take the road test and be done with it. But I couldn't find one...friends had bikes, but they were either not registered or on the other side of the island or kinda too big to feel comfortable taking on the road test. Actually the best line was from my mom's pastor--he doesn't loan out his bike, his wife or his guns. All for very good reason :) So, no bike. I knew I was going back to Hawaii for spring break, so I signed up for the Hawaii-sponsored motorcycle safety Basic Riders Course. First minor bit of frustration here: the DOD-sponsored course I took last spring wasn't good enough for the state of Hawaii. Had to take theirs to get the waiver for the road test. But I understand that. The policy is a tool to generate revenue through their continuing education program at the community college. So I took the class over spring break. The next day I went to get my license.

Well, apparently, Hawaii has a rule that if your learner's permit expires, there is a 90-day cooling off period before you can do anything about getting a new license, learner's or permanent. WHAT?!? Are you freaking kidding me? No consideration for the fact that I'm a Hawaii resident on active military duty stationed outside the state. I was supposed to attempt the road test at least once during the year my permit was good in order to get an extension. Never mind that I tried in Hilo and was told, maybe they could do the road test if it wasn't raining. Not raining? In HILO?!?! Are you freaking kidding me?

I asked why they had that rule (poor lady behind the desk, I really tried hard not to take my frustration out on her), and was told so that people didn't just come in and keep renewing their learner's permit. WHAT?!? Are you freaking kidding me? First of all, the learner's permit is not all that great. You can't take passengers and you can't ride after dark. Yeah, I want to put up with both those restrictions for a lengthy period of time, because they're both so convenient. And, and, and...they'd make more money that way anyway. If someone came in to renew their learner's permit for the entire six-year duration of the regular license, the state would make $30 ($5 x 6 years) instead of the $20 they make on the regular license. ARGH!! Really?!? I can't imagine what the real reason is for the policy, but it's gawd-awful annoying.

The second incidence was my fault. Totally. I went into the local library to enjoy a quiet place to read a couple chapters for my Federal Budgeting class. I took my water bottle in and sat down in a reasonably comfy faux leather chair, which just happened to be rather centrally located in the middle of the library. I got the first sip out of my water bottle before I was brusquely told by the stern library security guard (really, a security guard in the LIBRARY?!) that drinking wasn't allowed in the library. I said, rather snottily, it's just water...from your water fountain. She just as snottily pointed out the signs that said no drinking or eating in the library. I put the water bottle away. Water, in a faux leather chair, reading MY BOOK!! Not doing a water dance in their rare books collection. And, and, and...she noisily told a table of four middle school boys to "SSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" about as obnoxiously as humanly possible. I really thought that only happened in the movies.

So the next day I went back, and sat around the corner instead of smack in front of her desk. And safely enjoyed casual sips of water from my water bottle while reading my book. That's why the first incident was my fault...should never have sat where she could see me.

That same afternoon, I went looking for an outlet to plug my phone into while I read since it was low on battery. There was a block of tables around a pillar with outlets that was labled "for laptop use." *ALL* the other outlets in the library had little flap signs over them that said, "Not authorized for use. Use outlets in Laptop designated area." Ugh, seriously?

I recognize the need behind all the policies. But where's the leeway for responsible people? I said it was a rant...I never said it was rational.

Reflections Revisited

2011-03-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

I've been slacking on writing a post for a while, mostly because I've got thoughts from about four different projects roiling around in my head, all tangled up in each other. It's making it hard to make progress on any of them. So I'm going to cheat a little, and recycle another post from when I was in Bahrain. It's interesting to me how my perspective has changed, even over the course of the last year and a half. I'll explain more after the recycled post.

I’m coming to the end of my tour in [what is marketed as the Coast Guard's] most challenging and arduous mission. Let’s just say it hasn't lived up to the hype. The things that I thought were going to be challenging, like tactical decisions, bullets flying down-range, tensely intimate engagements with a particularly volatile and slightly ludicrous enemy, turned out to be non-existent. My failing was in realizing that far too early, and not training or preparing for those things that, while infinitesimally possible, would have been catastrophic because of my lack of fore-thought and preparation.

I never really did buy into this mission, even when I first made the decision to ask for it; never really thought W’s dirty little oil war turned personal vendetta was a good fight. I selfishly came over to challenge myself. What I didn’t realize in not buying in was that I put my self, my guys, my unit and my fellow teams at risk because I wasn’t thinking things through all the way. I did my job as assigned and fairly well, but I didn’t face up to the bigger threat picture and become the professional that I gave lip-service to being. My command philosophy as stated, is something like, “any job doing is worth doing to the best of your ability.” I say the words well, but didn’t do such a great job putting it into practice. I’ve been lazy and complacent.

I keep looking for something that will challenge me, something that will inspire passion in me, something that will make me work hard, stay up late and go to bed exhausted each day, pleased with what I’ve accomplished, and chomping at the bit to get up the next day to do it all over again. I haven’t found it yet. I worry that I never will.

But I had the blinding realization, or at least initial spark of recognition, that maybe the challenge is within myself…and this is definitely a thought process in progress, so bear with me. Does the mission really matter? Or is it that I need to buy in more to my own philosophy, and give more of my ability to whatever I’m doing? I think buying into the mission would give me the motivation to get more involved in the operation, to spend the extra time and energy to become thoroughly familiar with the intricacies and details as well as the big-picture, long-term, organizational-level stuff that actually makes a player into a leader.

I like my job now. I enjoy it, mostly because I’m good at it. I have career goals that I’d like to accomplish. But I don’t love it. I count the time until I can be done with it and move onto something I’d rather do. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not going to be very good at what I want to do…farming is a fairly creative venture; my nature is more regimented.

So one of my take-away lessons from this assignment is to be passionate about what I do. But how do I do that if I don’t believe in it?

I thought of this post when I was watching ADM Papp's State of the Coast Guard address last month. His remarks on qualification versus proficiency struck me as elementally important. And I hung my head a little, acknowledging that I have plenty of room to improve in this area. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the crisis of the moment and dismiss the necessity of continued familiarity, dare I say intimacy, with the details of operational guidance and requirements. That is my goal for my next job, whatever it may be...to know the fundamentals, the background, the foundation of what I'm doing. If it's the budget shop, know the statutory basis for our funding; if it's strategic planning, know the overarching, big-picture guidance. When it's XO, know the PERSMAN. If it's CO, know the CG Regs. And whatever I'm doing next time I'm underway, know the COLREGS, shiphandling theory (beyond "drive the stern of the ship"), and the casualty control and emergency ops manuals to the point that they are much more internalized than they are now. That's my goal for myself.

It makes me laugh a little, that part, "But I don't love it." I'm sure that some of it is that you never know what you've got 'til it's gone. In rereading this old post, I realized what I appreciate so much about my time on KISKA. I found more to believe in than just my own philosophy. In some ways, KISKA helped me to see the bigger picture, the grander challenge. The power of the future, if you will.

For example, on MAUI, all of my crew came from other units; there was no one there straight from boot camp. Within a month of taking over KISKA, I had three guys newly report directly from boot camp slogging through the rigors of drydock. One of them commented on my last post, and I sent him an email back, chiding him lightly for still calling me "Captain." He responded, "...you were my first captain so I will prolly always call you captain unless we're around other people who don't know that story." That is the power of the future.

The discussions that XO and MKC (soon to be CWO--super, major CONGRATS, Greg!!) and I had about Big Coast Guard Issues inspired me to persevere through some pretty boring classes (microeconomics and statistics, blech) so I could get to the more interesting classes I'm taking now. And I'm learning *a ton* that I hope to use to make life better for my shipmates. That's the power of the future.

And the classes I'm taking now are pushing me, stretching my capabilities, giving me the opportunity to think about things that I know are important to the future of the Coast Guard. I'm not even close to pretending that I have any of the answers, but I'm glad to know that I can at least frame the questions. Knowing the question is the easiest place to start for figuring out an answer. And the coolest part of what I've seen in the Coast Guard is our organizational willingness to self-examine in pursuit of a better way of doing things. Our institutionally heuristic nature (Frank--I win...though there is something oxymoronic about an "institutionally heuristic" anything). That is definitely the power of the future.

So, the realization from this post for me...I do love it. The challenges, the people, the demanding tasking, the opportunities, the doors opened, the sights seen, the sea stories told and retold, and the possibilities for a next generation.

PS - The more I think about this power of the future concept, the more I realize that *is* the mission of the Coast Guard, in aggregate. I'll write more on this later, but providing the possibility of the best future is what the Coast Guard is all about...SAR, LE, homeland security, prevention...all of it.

2011-03-01T19:22:00.001-08:00

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The CORE PRIME Applied - Feedback

2011-02-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

My presentation for class went pretty well last week. I got some very useful feedback from last week's post, as well as the discussion in class.

First, from my Mom...there were some things in the post that she didn't quite get:
--"stand up of Surface Forces Logistic Command (SFLC)" What do you mean by "stand up of..."?
SFLC is a department within the newly formed Deputy Commandant for Mission Support (DCMS) that provides support for surface forces (small boats and cutters...as opposed to Aviation Logistics Command (ALC)). SFLC "stood up," or became operational, in fall of 2009, and changed the chain of command for how logistics support, including depot-level maintenance, engineering support (fixing stuff that's broke and making sure stuff doesn't break), parts supplies and technical support, works for small boat stations and cutters. There's a powerpoint presentation here, if you're interested in more details.

--CG-LIMS, AOPS/TMT, CMPLUS, ALMIS Acronyms drive me crazy--what do they stand for?
Well, in this particular case, they're all different IT programs that the CG is using, or plans to use for various logistics, operations, training and maintenance functions. But if you really want to know the specifics:
CG-LIMS: Coast Guard Logistics Information Management System
AOPS/TMT: Abstract of Operations/Training Management Tool
CMPLUS: Configuration Management Plus

ALMIS: Aviation Logistics Management Information System
I admit to sometimes overusing acronyms just because they sound so ridiculous all piled together like worms tangled up in a vermicomposting worm bin.

--The push/pull of the different parts.
This is straight from the STAKE PRIME: "Powerful STAKE conversations must have negative aspects (what to avoid or PUSH away from) and positive aspects (what people desire and want to PULL toward them). "

CAPT Dan Taylor (CG-9443, CG-LIMS Project Manager) very graciously shared with me the results from a survey his office conducted on ALMIS field users (since I don't have CG-Portal access). (And I have to say, that the CG-LIMS project is one of the most open and, dare I say it, transparent ventures I've seen in the Coast Guard (ya' know-in my vast and extensive experience :)); they actively seek out input and feedback from anybody and everybody that has something to say!) But it was interesting to see the range of responses to the training provided and use of the program itself. Some of the ones that spoke most to what I'm looking at include:
--"Make sure the benefits of changing to LIMS is addressed first. Most people do not understand why we are changing ALMIS. I understand, but only because of my past experience." This one is about the importance of the STAKE. And, I think, general resistance to change. If people understand *why* we're changing ALMIS, they have a better chance of buying into the new process...but one of the main points of this Information Policy & Technology class is that there's still a lot more that goes into the process of organizational acceptance.

--"Better suited program for WPB's. WPB Engineers are still required to maintain administrative systems as before, and are now required to maintain ALMIS. WPB's have not been released from maintaining all logs that were supposed to go away once "Modernized". In short, have the policy in place before "Modernizing" WPB's, so the instructor staff can correctly answer WPB questions, I am still waiting for a message releasing the WPB engineering requirements." I'm not entirely sure if this comment addresses two issues, or if it's all about the duplication of effort required by using ALMIS as a stop-gap until CG-LIMS comes online. The second issue could be about training--not sure. But it's definitely the fact that EPOs still have to maintain the same administrative system as before modernization that caught my eye on this one.

--"They are giving training on a program that is not built for cutters! The only good thing about ALMIS is that I now get my parts in a reasonable amount of time." Do we just want our own system to feel important/special? Just kidding :) But this one does bring up the possibility that modernization could end up just being a new way to order/get parts, instead of the holistic logistics program it is intended to be. ("Holistic logistics"--smirk)

--"Avoid the change of acronyms. Small boat stations have different "language" than IT talk. A boat is B-0 (fully operational).. not FMC. A boat being in C (charlie, meaning that it is not operational)...not NMCM." OMG--right?! I hadn't ever thought about this one before, but helos are FMC (fully mission capable) or NMC (not mission capable) and small boats/cutters are A (underway), B (fully operational at the pier) or C (in a maintenance status).

But I got the most troubling/thought-provoking feedback from the discussion in class. I started my presentation with my understanding of the ENVIRONMENT, since that, to me, is the catalyst that started all this discussion of transformation/modernization. I talked about how the Coast Guard's assets are aging and how they had a couple of bad years with financial audits. And then went on to outline how modernization is supposed to help them deal with the dueling demands of Coast Guard's mission creep, aging assets and limited resources. 'Long about here, Chris stopped me to point out my use of pronouns. I was saying "the Coast Guard" and "they" a lot (which is interesting, because in my post, I seem to be much better about using "us" and "our"). But his point was that, without that instinctual buy-in to the change process from the end users, the change was likely to fail.

Feel the kick in the gut...here.

When I talked about the differences in aviation and cutter culture, I made statements like: "Ships and aircraft are different" and "we don't think like they do." Chris stopped me again to ask the class if what I was saying was a FACT, STORY or BELIEF (referencing the PRIME). I readily admitted that they were BELIEFS. But what does that mean? The PRIME says, "When BELIEFS are discussed deliberately and openly, they lose their hold on the group. Once BELIEFS are revealed, the group will naturally engage in a more productive discussion about FACTS and STORIES." And I guess that's what all this mental yoga is about...exploring the BELIEFS, so that I can understand their relationship to the FACTS. STORIES...well, it's all just sea stories until I've got a positive contribution to make.

I went on to discuss the issue of control. How cuttermen are all *about* control; we like to control our parts because we don't trust the system to get our parts to us otherwise...that damn fuel injector bolt that I waited on for nearly five days while being bashed against the state pier in Hilo after the tsunami, came immediately to mind. We like our control because we are judged on our ability to do the mission; if we can't do the mission because we're broke, we're pretty much useless, and the more we're useless, the less we have to put in our OERs (among other reasons for why being broke sucks). While I hesitate to mention OER fodder because I run the risk of sounding like just another self-serving O, OERs are How We Are JUDGED. Our futures depend on them. Our careers depend on them. And while a good leader doesn't lead with thoughts of what to put in hir OER, s/he also doesn't disregard the reality of the OER's importance. Sorry, rant over. But the OER issue is another BELIEF that is pretty pivotal to the discussion.

But the mention of evaluations and rankings in class raised the discussion of competition between units (and COs). Once the system is fully transparent (all the parts that every unit has is visible through the system), why would one operational unit give up one of their parts to another operational unit that is broken and needs that part? Chris didn't like my answer, "that's what shipmates do"...he was a little more cynical, and said, no, they don't give it up, because they know they might need it before they can get a replacement. So they keep it, and develop a second set of books to track what parts they really do have on hand, as opposed to what CG-LIMS says they have.

Second kick in the gut...now. Oof, what a dismal picture. It actually made me feel a little googly in the gut. Nervous and sweaty, a touch nauseous, with the beginnings of a tension headache.

So I had to ask...what can I do to help prevent this apocalyptic future of CG-LIMS? Chris's first recommendation was to change my language...from "they" and "their," to "us" and "ours."

I admit to having some trouble transforming that concept into an actual course of action. I recognize that CG-LIMS is the future...my future, my Coast Guard's future. But it feels a little presumptuous to assume that I have the requisite experience or technical knowledge to really have much useful to contribute to the effort. I spent some time this morning reading over the CG-LIMS wiki, especially the REBOOT Final Report. Mom, if you thought I use too much technical jargon and acronyms, take a look at these, and see if you can get through, I don't know, the Executive Summary without feeling like a complete dolt. I couldn't. But I persevered, and kinda just skimmed over the parts that were tech-speak, or acquisition-speak.

Side note: I'm not sure that there's a more impenetrable language than the combination of IT systems and federal acquisition. Each separately is inscrutable enough...put them together and you've got something as opaque as mud. Thick, post-spring rainstorm mud. But, no rain, no rainbows...and thank goodness we've got people that understand both IT and acquisitions to work through the necessary details.

I guess what I plan to do is to keep exploring these BELIEFS about cutter culture. I don't think that I'm being a LAGGARD (though it is entirely possible), but someone else shared some similar concern on the CG-LIMS wiki here, so there's probably still some room for discussion. There is definitely a good portion of having to TRUST THE UNIVERSE that's at work here for me. But, I'd rather get in trouble for doing something than get in trouble for not doing anything.

The CORE PRIME Applied - Take 1

2011-02-13T12:41:00.000-08:00

I'm scheduled to give a brief presentation in my Information Policy & Technology class on Monday about my personal clarification of how the differences in cultures between the aviation and surface cultures will interact with the whole modernization/CG-LIMS implementation. I'm thinking this will utilize a very rudimentary picture of modernization for two reasons: first, my audience is my classmates, who have limited, if any, background in Coast Guard missions, acronyms, structure, etc.; second, modernization entails *a lot* of different functions, people and processes...i.e, I'm not sure I understand it entirely. Best to keep it basic to what I do understand.

One caveat to make myself feel better: this process is to help me understand the big picture. I'm pretty sure that people *way* smarter than me have already thought this stuff through and incorporated their concerns into the process development. I'm sharing it here because writing this blog helps me to keep a balanced perspective...not overeating at the Piss-in-Your-Cheerios Bar & Grill, or making too many purchases in the Rose-Colored Glasses Store.

The CORE PRIME has five elements: AS IS, TO BE, STAKE, STRATEGY, ENVIRONMENT. Chris told me to work through each one separately.

AS IS: This one is really hard, sort of because it's changing already, with the implementation of some of the modernization projects (stand up of Surface Forces Logistic Command (SFLC) being the most relevant, I think), but also because it's hard to really pin down what makes our current cutter culture what it is. And the more I've thought about it, I've come to the realization that the small boat and aviation communities have more in common than first glance would suggest (which is probably why small boat stations were modernized first...our leadership is pretty smart that way).

Boat crews and air crews are duty crews, assigned to the same unit, but not necessarily the same four, five or six people that always go out together. They don't always drive/fly the same boat/airframe; they "check out" whichever asset they're supposed to use for that day, and then turn it back into the unit inventory when they get done with the mission.The coxswain or mission commander is not typically the unit commanding officer/officer in charge. According to the CG Air Ops manual, the "[Pilot in Command] is responsible for the safe, orderly, efficient and effective performance of the aircraft and aircrew and passengers during the entire mission... " And the coxswain, from CG Regulations, "shall be responsible...for the safety and conduct of the passengers and crew; safe operation and navigation of the boat assigned; and the completion of the sortie or mission(s) assigned or undertaken pursuant to Coast Guard policy and regulations." Emphasis is mine.

Cutters are not that way. From CG Regs again, "the responsibility of the commanding officer [in general, not specific to cutters] for that command is absolute..." There's nothing about limiting the responsibility just for a particular mission, or only for safe execution of the mission; it is *all the time* and for *everything.* Sure, there's the mission execution part, but there's also the personnel and administrative stuff, the maintenance and repairs, public affairs, office upkeep (including paint locker maintenance...so you don't get ferns growing out of it, you know), port call and mission planning, stores and parts and logistics and spend-downs and...you get the idea. I think this translates into a different level of intimacy (if that's the right word) that the CO of a cutter has, than the CO/OIC of an air station/small boat station. The CO of a cutter is there every time the cutter gets underway; if something breaks they're likely to know it. The CO/OIC has to rely more heavily on hir pilots/coxswains to report problems.

Also with cutters, it's always the same crew of 10, 20, 60 or 160 people that get underway on the same platform each and every time (well, with exceptions for the constant juggling that goes along with medical appointments, work-life issues, C-schools, etc.). I think this is one of the *greatest* strengths of the cutter community and is a large part of what being underway is all about...the camaraderie with your shipmates and the ownership of your ship. Ask anyone on MAUI, or who has been on MAUI...it's the best of the six ships in Bahrain...because it's *our* ship. There's a cycle: ownership breeds pride breeds ownership breeds...you get the idea.

But ownership and pride can also lend themselves darkly to egotism and a superiority complex. "We get the MISSION done on *my* ship; we overcome casualties ourselves, no need to involve anyone else..." as the ship gets underway with a dozen pieces of broken equipment and less than 60 percent of preventative maintenance done. It's not so much an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, as, in a worst case scenario, a body-builder getting strung out on 'roids, but still looking buff...useful in the short-term, but devastating in the long run. I think it's that blindness caused by either not feeling like your ship needs help, or thinking that it somehow reflects badly on the ship and command to have stuff break. Maybe it was that way back in the day, that COs were judged inversely to how many CASREPs they had out (more CASREPS = bad captain), but I think those times are changing, thank goodness. The vestiges of it still linger though.

Just as an aside: I wonder if this is the main difference between the surface and aviation cultures. Aviators definitely have their own version of egotism, but I think it resides more internally to them as individuals, rather than being wrapped up in their ship, like it is for cuttermen. As the saying goes, "there are more helicopters in the ocean, than boats in the sky." Maybe aviators realize that the risks that they face flying over the ocean, which their aircraft really don't "land" on very well, obviate the need for sentimentality for their equipment.

TO BE: From the Acquisition Directorate's website, CG-LIMS is supposed to "to improve lifecycle management and standardize practices," "...to improve the transparency and accountability of logistics functions throughout the Coast Guard. CG-LIMS will provide a system-wide management capability for configuration, maintenance, supply chain and technical data." It's a small piece of the larger modernization effort. It will consolidate a lot of disparate programs that are currently in use: AOPS/TMT, CMPLUS, ALMIS, daily boat checks and boat mission records. At least that's what the current system (currently being implemented at small boat stations) does, according to this video on Logistics Transformation.

In my own words, the IT portion of logistics transformation is to provide a single access point for maintaining real-time operational and maintenance requirements and records for the entire chain of command. It will provide operational commanders visibility of asset status and estimated times for repair for vessels that are non-operational. Transparency, transparency, transparency. Everybody with the same information at the same time.

My vision of the TO BE also includes a structure that plays to the strengths of the cutter community: ownership and the dedication and team-effect of cutter crews...positive and negative accountability. We all know what the enforcement arm of accountability looks like (relief for cause, substandard OERs, weak endorsements), but there also needs to be positive reinforcement for proactively pursuing an aggressive maintenance program. I tried to put my crew in for a Meritorious Unit Commendation (MUC) for the six and a half months surrounding KISKA's drydock (since Team Awards now require more than one OPFAC, a MUC seemed the most appropriate). I mean, more than six months of sustained 12 to 15 hour days, usually six days a week, but sometimes seven, in crappy, hot, dusty, smelly conditions, standing more than 2500 hours of fire watch, through numerous extensions of the contract, away from homeport, and then going immediately into a two-week generator change out, where they worked through the weekend to get it done in ten days. Oh, and then smoking!! a Ready For Operations (RFO) evaluation less than six weeks later. Is that really just "doing their job?" The MUC got turned down by the first level review. I'm not whining (too much), just noting what I see as concrete evidence of a cultural obstacle.

What's at STAKE? Push/pull of head, heart and wallet.This one is actually pretty easy for me. Analytically (head), we can not keep doing all of our required missions with our current system and the aging assets we're using (push); modernization will improve the information available for risk-based analysis of mission priorities (pull). Emotionally (heart), we're unnecessarily beating the shit out of our people, making them meet the unrestrained requirements of both operations and maintenance without some good way of balancing the two needs (push); improved analysis of mission priorities will lift some of the weight of tough choices (maintenance v. operations) from the shoulders of overworked people so that they can, I don't know, sleep, spend time with families, pursue educational goals, improve their proficiencies, improve their health...pick one (pull). And financially (wallet), aging assets cost more and more to maintain and operate (push), so that we must be more efficient with allocating scarce budgetary resources to prolong service life (pull).

ENVIRONMENT: There are a couple of external issues that are prompting this discussion within the Coast Guard. First, plain and simple, is the age of our fleet. WHECs (378 foot ships) and 210s (210 foot ships) have been around for more than 40 years; the WPB 110s have been around for 20+ years, when they were designed for a 20 year service life. Let's not talk about the river/construction tender fleet, or the icebreakers. For goodness sakes, even some of the earliest 87 foot patrol boats are closing in on 13 years old.

And, AND our mission set has expanded significantly since 2001. Homeland security missions take a *lot* of time and resources. We're doing way more now than we were ten years ago, with equipment that is now ten years further along.

Second is the federal requirement to improve our accounting system. The Coast Guard suffered through a couple of bad years with financial audits that required some restructuring of how we tracked parts and equipment. I don't know too much about the details of this whole part of the story, so I won't spend much time on it, but we were unable to account for a lot of valuable parts, so there was some reorganization that had to take place to pacify federal bean counters.

STRATEGY: This is the part it's all about, right? I don't have any answers. I still think we're on the right track with modernization...That combined with ADM Papp's commitment to "Steady the Service," I think will move us along tremendously towards our TO BE.

My only recommendation goes back to that part of my own TO BE vision, about positive reinforcement. Is it appropriate to recognize an operational unit's maintenance savvy? Without the mission, there's no need for maintenance; but without maintenance, there's no mission that can be completed. The mission/operations will always take precedence, but I do believe there must be some institutional parity for the hard work that is being done by cutter crews to maintain old ships beyond the current line of "that's your job." I'm a little passionate about this :)

I think that's all for the first stab at this. It was harder than I thought it was going to be. The convoluted nature of the subject definitely contributed to that, but I think the PRIMES process is also supposed to be a collaborative process...it's meant to be a dialogue, not one person's pea-brainstorm.

Deep Blue Sea, Baby, Deep Blue Sea*

2011-02-03T13:04:00.000-08:00

I've started looking at this CORE PRIME thing, which is broken into five essential agreements. The first agreement (at least in the book) is AS IS - what is the current situation? What is our current surface culture? And I guess I gotta really limit this to the cutter culture, because I have no understanding or experience with the small boat community. So current cutter culture (CCC, because everything we do has to have an acronym)? What defines it? What are the good things about it? The bad, the ugly? How do we raise our young in it? Do we revere our heroes and respect our oldsters? What does success mean to us, and what is failure?

For me this speaks directly to an underlying question, one that I've said before I wanted to write about. Why do I do this? I remember when I enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1999, I had the goal of getting stationed at MSO Charleston in West Virginia. I joined to work in marine safety, clean up oil spills and scrub some ducks. Ships? Umm, yeah, I think I knew the Coast Guard had those too. But I wasn't interested. Then I went off to OCS (because being a gate guard and handling lines for 110s and getting yelled at by their Captains for not doing it right (DIP the eye of that line...no, No, NO--not THAT bollard...faster, damn it, the wind's gonna take us) just wasn't cutting it for me). And I still don't know if it's intentional, but at OCS, they had us fill out our dream sheet (it was still a dream sheet in those days) while we were doing the section of instruction on Navigation and Charting.

I hadn't ever done anything like plotting or chart work before, but I've always liked maps...the possibilities they present, the new and different places, the distances in between. So, I got kinda a wild hair, and put a couple of ships on my list of places I'd like to be stationed after OCS. They were very specific ships, in very specific locations (210s in the Pacific Northwest and Texas), that I thought that I might like to see, but all the rest of the jobs were marine safety jobs, quietly ashore. Hahahahaha...that's not quite how the detailer saw it. He saw that I asked for ships. And he gave me a ship...a 378 out of Alameda, CA. I remember billet night very well. I ended the evening crying in the bathroom, wondering what the hell I had just done. And how the hell I could get out of it.

But I didn't get out of it, and made my way, with a certain sense of ragged hopelessness, to BOUTWELL. I hated it. HATED it! I reported in November, on the first day of TSTA (Tailored Ships Training Availability) in San Diego. TSTA is frantic, lots of training packed into a short period of time. I had *no idea* what was going on, no one had time to explain it to me, and I was just taking up space, trying really, really hard not to get in the way. I was overwhelmed with three different, thick qualification packages to work on, and I was assigned as the XO's Assistant to an XO who had the personality of a...ugh, I can't think of a good analogy, but I didn't care for him, and my primary responsibility was the ship's office, which was run by a particularly difficult YNC. I was 3000 miles away from home, no family and few friends around, surrounded by things I didn't understand and overwhelmed by the entire damn situation. It sucked.

My first actual patrol on BOUTWELL was an Alpat (Alaskan patrol), and towards the end, we pulled into Kodiak for a few days. I think I had conned (driven the ship) into or out of port once or twice before during TSTA, but was essentially just parroting what my coach told me to say. I didn't really get what I was saying, what the helm and engine commands meant. But this mooring into Kodiak...something clicked and the light went on. I was still parroting what WEPS (LTJG Blake Stockwell at the time) was saying, but I understood what he was saying, and the orders he was giving to the helm and engine room were making sense in terms of how they controlled the ship's movement. We swung around the south end of Nyman Peninsula, starting to slow our speed, watching the wind and waiting for it to come whipping down the sheer face of Old Womens Mountain and set us too fast down onto the wrong pier. I'm pretty sure we were going to the fuel pier, and Blake guided me through getting the momentum just right to be able to give a short counter-twist of the engines at the very end so that we could give the order "put over all lines." It was AMAZING! OMG, I got it! Now, granted, I had an *excellent* coach, and some of the best environmental conditions possible for Womens Bay. But it was a transformational moment for me, realizing that shiphandling could make sense. It wasn't all candlelight and roses after that; I still had some rough times, but the sea's seduction had definitely begun.

In retrospect, and with the benefit of a couple hundred more moorings under my belt, I've come to realize that shiphandling is about control. Understanding of the effects of the helm and engines gives control over the ship, which can overcome and dominate environmental and situational conditions. Knowing that it's a tight spot, being able to read the wind (with both arms in the air like a touchdown provides much better insights into the subtleties...just saying), accounting for the engine delay with precision to get just as much power as you need *right* then, visualizing the water rushing over the rudders to create a force differential to turn the bow, and then just doing it! Being able to put a couple hundred tons of steel exactly where you want it to go...that's a control freak's dream! Or at least, it works for me. I love being able to drive a ship. I could go on with this part of the story for a while, describing the particulars of some of the significant shiphandling experiences I've had. One engine ops, high winds and surges, steering casualties, sand storms and other low-vis fun, fires and/or alarms...but I know they get boring for most people after a while.

BOUTWELL taking a light beating

And as much as I love the feeling of control that I get from driving a ship, there is a striking irony that much of being underway entails walking the edge of losing control, or having it wrested away by the sea. I've only been to the Bering Sea that first patrol on BOUTWELL, but even then, in the infancy of my introduction to the ocean, I remember noting how the water could go from flat-ass, silver-glassy calm to a towering, raging fury in a very, very short period of time. The only control you get underway is that little bit that you are able to preserve through complete trust in your ship and fellow shipmates.

Mighty MAUI

First about the ship: My ships have always taken on more significance to me than just being a sum of their parts. They are more than all the spaces, the pieces of equipment, the amenities for comfortable living and all the other miscellaneous bits. I remember walking through HAMILTON's main passageway, after having been away from 378s for four years. It smelled the same as BOUTWELL, some odd, distinctive bouquet of Simple Green and diesel exhaust, with hints of JP5, sweat, metal, paint and salt. Never mind those weird, eerie noises in the bos'n hole and paint locker that give new OODs the heebie-jeebies. And I've always found it a little unsettling that the bridge, which is the center of the universe underway, is usually deserted and lonely inport. The engines and generators, the fuel transfer system, the idiosyncrasies of every ship, the awards on the bulkheads, that tear in the mess deck bench cushion, the dent I put in my rack drawer from kicking it too hard once when I was really pissed off, that damn ladder step that I *always* crack my knee on when I'm racing up to the bridge too fast, the scullery deep sink on morale pizza nights...they all make up the greater SHIP that is more than just the ship. Maybe that's why we capitalize a ship's name. It's more than just its letters.

The engineering, the construction, the fact that it all works and stays afloat awes me.

And then there are the people. I won't spend too much time on this one, since I've said a lot about my crews before. But it comes down to it that I like Coasties; they are, on the whole, good, dedicated, smart, funny people. I recently watched a video from USCGC FORWARD that was posted on Coast Guard Digest. Never mind that it's a *great* song for their ship, the pictures of the crew made me smile. OMG, the guy running across the flight deck with Speedos on during steel beach... classically hilarious! Followed by Batman! How do they come up with that stuff?! The guy's attitude at minute 1:41 -- I just get the sense that he loves his job, or at least loves being a .50 cal gunner. The grapes, the blueberries, the baked potato. And whoever came up with the idea to take the inflatable pool underway was a genius. I think the institutionally supported resurgence of the term "shipmate" is a great thing.

Kwar Al Amaya Oil Terminal at sunset

But in the end, it all comes back to the ocean. Her beauty, her grandness, magnificence, power, mercurialness, depths and bounty. When I was on AQUIDNECK for a few weeks while their CO went on R&R, the crew thought I was a little batty because I asked for the 4-8 watch. It's kinda a crappy watch because you've got to get up at the ungodly hour of 3 am, and then still function throughout whatever goes on during the day. But I love the 4-8s... you get to watch sunrise and sunset. When I was on HAMILTON, I tried to make it a point to see as many sunsets as I possibly could around operations (sunrises, well, let's just say sleep and breakfast took precedence there); there were never two the same and it always gave me a chance to pause and ponder the benefits of being at sea for weeks at a time.

Then there's the wildlife found in her depths. It makes me laugh out loud to see dolphins swim alongside the ship and play in the bow wake. Sea turtles. Whales, even though I whine about them from time to time during whale season in the Maui triangle. Birds, photo-luminescence, mahi-mahi, halibut. Two very distinct memories about marine wildlife stick out in my mind: First was on BOUTWELL. I think we were down south, somewhere off the coast of Central America, transiting along. It was dark, probably the 8 to 12s. It must have been fairly soon after 9/11, because I remember thinking maybe it was some kind of threat. But there was this ball of light that came alongside the ship's starboard side, just forward of the bridge. It was probably 30 feet in diameter, moving along beneath the surface. It kept pace with us for a while, and then slipped under the ship and came out on the port side. I called the Captain when it went under us, and she came up to the bridge. Once the ball moved over to the port side, it didn't stay with us for too long, but continued on its track. CAPT Kelley postulated that it was a pod of dolphins or fish that was stirring up the photo-luminescence. But it was so very cool.

The second wildlife incident was on HAMILTON. We were transiting from Oakland back down to San Diego. All in all, that patrol was stupendously crappy. Lots of equipment casualties, people got hurt, people got fired, the patrol was extended, and then we had an unscheduled drydock for which we had to drive by our homeport that was burning from Southern California wildfires. I, at least, was desperately happy to be headed home. My sister and her husband were onboard, along with about a dozen other crew family members that were making the overnight transit with us. It was just before sunset, and we were transiting along the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The water boiled, just boiled with critters. There were birds, whales, porpoises, sea lions, whales, I don't know what all. We transited through the water that teemed with life for about 20 minutes. The ocean itself was flat calm, with a very light swell and no waves, but the animals were jumping and thrashing and tumbling about so much, that the water was far from calm. It was *incredible*!!

Those are certainly not the only two times I've seen amazing wildlife scenes, but they definitely stick out for me.

The stars...how could I forget the stars? The blankets of twinkling lights that spread over the skies from dark horizon to dark horizon.

And then there's that inexplicable mystery that the ocean offers. The ocean will always be there; never the same, but always just what it is. Its possibilities are endless; hope is always just over the horizon. I can't even pretend to ever be as insightful or poetic as others over the years about what the ocean means to sailors. There's just too many good quotes that encapsulate it so much better.

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." -- Isak Dinesen

Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.-- Lord Byron

"When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way.
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small.
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day." --Crosby, Stills & Nash

*Lyrics from Deep Blue Sea, by North Mississippi Allstars

Spring Semester 2011, Part II

2011-01-31T10:18:00.000-08:00

I decided to go with the paper on the Arctic issue. I think it brings up a more interesting question. The base of the OPC question is really just a resource allocation question...if we had enough money to do this, should we? Yes. We don't, so what are our spending priorities?

The Arctic question has the resource allocation aspect, but also has a lot of other dimensions to it. So it might be a harder paper to write, but I'll likely learn more from it.

And, and, AND!!! In my Info Policy and Technology class, I've got the **coolest** assignment! One of the discussions today was about "technology determinism" v. "enactment." The basic premise is that many times technology is used to determine an outcome...changing the technology will change the behavior of the people/institution. Enactment, though, indicates that most organizations have a certain way of doing things, and injection of technology will not substantively change those methods.

So, this sounded to me just like trying to implement ALMIS -> LIMS in surface forces, and the desired shift in attitudes about surface force maintenance decisions as we deal with aging assets. I brought it up in class, and then talked some more with the professor about it during break. (Side note: Chris' take on the Coast Guard, made to the class as a whole after I got done with my little revelation: "the Coast Guard has a disproportionate number of people who 'get it.'" How cool is *that*?! I love it when people outside the organization recognize my shipmates as being particularly smart, hardworking and dedicated, good at what they do and well-deserving of all the good things said about them.)

I mentioned that I wanted to clarify, for myself mostly, but also so I can explain it to other people, what the cultural obstacles are to the desired outcome from the implementation of new technology. As I tried to explain it, the aviation community kinda grew up with an ALMIS-type system, though I'm sure it wasn't called that from the start...but they've always had thorough pre-flight checklists. If anything on those checklists isn't a positive indication for flight, the flight isn't done with that airframe. The surface community is still operating under 200 years plus of maritime tradition of we have to go out, but we don't have to come back. And I know, I KNOW, that does not paint the whole picture and is changing, thank goodness. But it was the easiest (fastest, simplest to understand) way to encapsulate the attitude differences for a non-Coastie crowd. I think the surface culture issue is actually more about the scope of the Commanding Officer's responsibility than the dominance of the mission at least for cutters. And I think small boats have another, different set of complexities, which only makes it more complicated. But I didn't really have time to get into all of that in class.

Chris suggested that I make this my individual project for the class!! That's what I'm so excited about. Sure, sure, there's the whole great thing about getting class credit for doing something that I wanted to do anyway, but I'm more excited about the anticipated feedback, interaction and jeez, general help from him and the class as a whole for making my end product better. If I can explain the jumbled mess in my head about the different cultures for a group of people that don't know much about the Coast Guard, it may help to quiet the background noise and really distill the issue.

So I'll be starting with the CORE PRIME, and making an initial presentation to the class in two or three weeks. Yay!! I like this semester *so much* better than last semester!

Spring Semester 2011

2011-01-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

This was a recent text conversation between me and my sister. She texted me to vent (something about chickens??), and me, not having anything very useful to say, texted back, "Oof, sorry. This might make you laugh, tho...I'm reading the assignment for my federal budgeting class-& enjoying it! How crazy is that!?"

Her response, "You are not well."

I acknowledge the fact that what I am studying this semester is usually viewed as dreadfully boring, complex, unsolvable and generally yucky. BUT, one week into classes, I'm diggin it. I think it's because I feel like it's going to be useful to me. Like, actually useful. Like I may actually use it. Or at least use it to help me understand more of what's going on around me.

I'm taking four classes this semester (no more five class-crap...that was a rough go, especially when it was a) my first semester back in school after 13 years, and b) two of those classes were statistics and microeconomics...blech!). 1) Federal Budgeting and 2) Finance or Public Financial Management (it's listed as both in the course listings) seem like they will overlap fairly significantly. But as much as that annoyed me last semester, I think it will be good in this case. The classes will be approaching the subject from slightly different perspectives, and both the professors bring significant real-world and academic experience to the class. And I guess the reason that I'm enjoying these two classes is that I have a very rudimentary understanding of the subject and I think, I hope, I'll get to use what I learn in them during my HQ tour.

3) Public Policy and Private Enterprise in National Security is taught by Dr. Jacques Gansler, former Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, and explores the role of private enterprise (contractors and other private sector entities) in public policy discussions, particular in this case to national security. I'm going to do my best to go into this class with an open mind, fully cognizant of the fact that my limited experience with contractors has all been bad. Not just bad, but HORRID BAD!! Hopefully the class will help be gain some perspective that not all contractors are robber barons and scoundrels. There are a bunch of military guys in this class from the Air Force, Navy and Marines. I'm the only Coastie. Hope I can hold my own and re*present*. We have three policy memos to write; we get to pick the first topic. So, dutifully, I pondered what I could write about, and sent off this happy little email to my professor this morning:

I have a few ideas for topics for the first memo, and would like some feedback on which you think might be most appropriate. --Arctic maritime domain issues: as Arctic routes become more feasible for commercial shipping traffic during summer months, the US needs to determine what our security interests are in the region, and how we anticipate addressing those issues. --The recent RAND Corporation study assertion that alternative fuels are not feasible for military applications: could be similar to the discussion around HD systems from our first case study, in that military R&D could have huge impacts on civilian use of the technology. --OMB's threat to cut funding for the Coast Guard's Offshore Patrol Cutter (OPC): the CG is in the very preliminary stages of OPC acquisition, but the organization does not have a strong record of acquisition proficiency as demonstrated by delays and cost overruns on the National Security Cutter and Fast Response Cutter programs.(Harsh, I know, but I'm just paraphrasing from a Congressional Research Service report from October 2010 on Deepwater Acquisition Programs)
Any direction you can provide on relevancy to your expectations or need for narrowing the topics would be greatly appreciated.

Dr. Gansler's response:
I wish I could cut them down, but all three are very good and relevant. So I would like you to pick the one you want. Sorry I was not much help. Good luck!

Well, at least I know I'm on the right track. But I really don't know which one to write about. I'll probably go with the OPC one, just because I have a strong, sturdy, really, *really* big soapbox ready to go for that one.

My last class, 4) is Information Policy and Technology. It should be very interesting, if very scary, talking about all the ways that technology is fast out-stripping the policy. The professor is Chris McGoff, DC-based consultant and author of a new book, The Primes. What I've read of it so far is spot on with what I know about change and organizational transformation (which could be put on the head of a pin, but what he says makes sense from a leadership perspective anyway).

One thing I've noticed about this set of classes is that the professors seem inclined to provide more than just the knowledge and skills. They want us to have some of the background theory. Like Chris (yes, that's what he told us to call him) using his book about organizational change for an information policy class; and reading two classic works, Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Elting Morrison's Men, Machines and Modern Times, for the private enterprise/national security class. It took me a little bit to see the logic behind this, especially with the Kuhn and Morrison books. But I think in that case it has to do with impressing upon us the importance of an outside, capitalist perspective that entrepreneurs can bring to stodgy old bureaucracies. But I kinda hope the professors address a little more thoroughly why they're having us read seemingly random stuff for their classes.

Oh, one last thing about this semester. I only have classes two days a week, Mondays and Tuesdays. Mondays are a little long, starting at 9 am (though I am going to try making the 7 am yoga class a regular thing), and ending at 9:30 pm (with a four-hour break in the middle for lunch and a nap). But it was a little odd getting out of class at 4 pm on Tuesday, knowing I was done for the week.

Off to read a couple of chapters from Federal Budgeting Systems.

Review of Books

2011-01-23T15:39:00.000-08:00

Classes start tomorrow. I think I'm ready for it. I've had plenny time off...especially now that I'm back on the frigid east coast. I need something to take my mind off how freaking cold it is outside.

But one of the best things about having time off like I've just had is that I got to read...lots of books of my own choosing. Nothing for school, no required reading, and no pressure. Here's a review of the books:

--Love My Rifle More Than You, by Kayla Williams: Ms Williams was an Army Specialist and spent a deployment in Iraq. She writes very candidly about her experiences spending so much time with a bunch of guys under some pretty stressful circumstances. I found a lot of common ground with what she had to say, mostly with her reactions to being one of very few women surrounded by men and the camaraderie that develops in operational units. The tedium of standing the watch. What it feels like to walk into a D-FAC. I don't think it's the end-all, be-all statement of women in the military, but it is a good, honest portrayal of one woman's experiences.

--Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History, by Kalee Thompson: This is the story of the rescue of 42 of the 47 people onboard F/V ALASKA RANGER in the Bering Sea in March, 2008. The vessel lost a rudder and sank within a few hours, about 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor. The Coast Guard units involved in the rescue include USCGC MUNRO, D17 Command Center, and multiple aircraft from Air Station Kodiak. It was a well-written book, full of accounts from the crew of the fishing vessel as well as responders. And it's always fun to recognize people in books...LT Jimmy Terrell and CAPT Lloyd from MUNRO and Liam Larue from NTSB.

--A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Richard Phillips: I was in Bahrain when the MAERSK ALABAMA was attacked, which I think is the same time zone as Somalia. We were all abuzz about it when it happened, so it was really cool to read the back story. And it was interesting to hear about the life of merchant marines. I've boarded a ton of commercial vessels, but never really took the time to ask about how the ship runs on a daily basis. I also think that piracy is an area that we, the CG, are uniquely positioned to combat...ya know...WPBs, which are a great platform for chasing pirates, that are looking for work in that area of the globe. Anyway, I enjoyed this book for a number of reasons: Mr Phillips talking about the duties of being a Captain, the mental preparations he made for underway trips, and the insights into how the merchant ships run. The casual brutality of the pirates, as well as the deaths, were not part of what I enjoyed, but were definitely integral to the story.

--Third World America, by Arianna Huffington: The first few chapters of this book are ungodly depressing, mostly about how America is falling apart as a country. How the poor are getting poorer while the rich sit in their ivory towers eating gold-plated caviar, how our education and health care systems are in crisis, how our infrastructure is crumbling and desperately needs investment. But Ms Huffington does offer a few niblets of encouragement, practical suggestions that everyday people can take to help shore up the American dream. Mostly bleeding heart liberal spin on the current state of affairs, but not all gloom and doom.

--Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat's Jewelry Box, by Madeleine Albright: I heard Madame Albright speak at the end of last semester. She was on campus for the Sadat Lecture for Peace and spoke about the potential for peace in the Middle East. She was a brilliant speaker, engaging, cogent and well, funny. I enjoyed this book also, with its beautiful pictures of so many different pins. But I really want to read Madame Secretary: A Memoir.

--Uncommon Valor: The Medal of Honor and the Six Warriors Who Earned It in Afghanistan and Iraq, by Dwight Jon Zimmerman and John D. Gresham: What a powerful book. It tells about six servicemen who earned the Medal of Honor, all awarded posthumously. I think it came out before Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta was recognized in November, 2010 with his Medal of Honor. The book also gives a nice history of the medal and its recipients. The most frustrating story was about Joe Foss, a WWII Medal of Honor recipient who traveled with his medal in January, 2002. He was stopped by airport security for "suspicious objects" in his jacket. He missed his flight after being detained and questioned as a possible terrorist suspect for carrying something that looked like a Japanese throwing star. The airport security screeners didn't recognize it...it was his Medal of Honor. The stories about the more recent recipients were powerful stories of men who recognized their duty and unhesitatingly made decisions that were devastating to themselves, but saved the lives of those soldiers and sailors around them.

--The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz: There is controversy about whether this is a true story. Records prove that Slavomir Rawicz was not one of the group that escaped from the Siberian prison camp in 1941. Regardless, it's still a good read about the power of perseverance.

And even though classes start tomorrow, I'm in the middle of two books right now: The Trumpet of Conscience, by Martin Luther King, Jr and Fannie's Last Supper: Re-creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer's 1896 Cookbook, by Chris Kimball. Hopefully I'll get to finish them both before things get too crazy with school work.

Just so you don't think that all I read is hard-core non-fiction, I'll come clean and admit I also read some fiction including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, by Seth Grahame-Smith and The Sleeping Beauty, by Mercedes Lackey.

And of course, there's a few books that I still want to read:
--Mark Twain's Autobiography...He wouldn't let it be published until 100 years after his death...should be good.
--Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand...recommended by a friend.
--Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, by Michael Korda...I heard about it on NPR and it sounds interesting.

Anybody got any other recommendations?

I (Heart) Waialua

2011-01-16T14:15:00.000-08:00

All three (woohoo...I still have three readers!!) respondents said they'd like to see the I <3 Waialua photoessay. Don't know why I couldn't get the <3 in the title, but there ya go.

And really, this is more than just Waialua, 'cause some of the photos are from Haleiwa, too. But they're right next door to each other, easy biking distance, and when I think of Waialua, I can't really separate out Haleiwa in my mind.

I've lived in Waialua on and off since 2002, when I was stationed on USCGC WASHINGTON (WPB 1331) when she was still homeported in Honolulu. I bought my first house there and then sold my first house there. But I bought another one at the same time, and have owned it since 2005. I haven't lived there very much. I got my orders to USCGC HAMILTON (WHEC 715) five months after moving onto Ka'amo'oloa Rd. Which is a damn shame, because it's a really sweet little house, in a wonderful neighborhood. My mom lives there now, so I'm lucky enough to get to visit. Which is what I did for the last month.

This is the road into Waialua, Kaukonahua Rd, also known as Mountain Rd or Snake Rd, because, well, it comes down the mountain, and it's really windy. But I really love that first view you get of the town from the hill, with the ocean in the background. You can usually see from pretty far away what the ocean conditions are like, if it's flat calm or the waves are big or if it's windy white-cap crap.

This is Mt Ka'ala, which is the highest peak on Oahu, and part of the Waianae mountain range dividing the North Shore from the West side. Mt Ka'ala has many moods, sometimes with low-hanging clouds skirting her foothills, and other times crispy clear, like this one.

And this is in the old cane fields right close to my house. The sugar cane mill shut down in 1989, I think (or was it 1986?), and now small scale, local farmers lease the land and grow diversified vegetables and fruits, mostly for sale to Chinatown. I don't know what the structure is in the picture, some sort of old chimney or something.

One day, riding my back from yoga class through the cane haul roads that weave through the area, I came across this sculpture. I have no *idea* who made it or why it's just sitting there behind the ruins of some cane equipment, but I love that it's there, guarded by stalwart Norfolk pines. It's kinda a good reminder to appreciate beauty wherever you see it, not just where you expect to find it.

Sticking with the current scenic theme, this is the view from the road up to Peacock Flats. Which, I guess technically is in Mokuleia, but heck, Waialua, Haleiwa, Mokuleia all blend together for me. Anyway, this is just past mile marker 2.5 I think. The first mile of the trail is pretty flat, and then the rest of the 3.5 mile trail is straight up the foothills of Mt Kaala. The views are beautiful; you can look west towards Kaena Point, or east (like this one) back towards Waialua and Haleiwa.

And then when you get to the top, there's a lovely clearing with picnic tables, and some camping spots. I've never camped up here, but people do. It must be so peaceful and quiet. The clearing is ringed by eucalyptus trees and Norfolk pines, and a conservation group is trying to reestablish some native species as well.

Once the hike up the mountain is done, though, it's time for the beach. This is at Aweoweo Park, or Cement City, and was one of my favorite places to run this last month. I could run the 3.25 miles there, do some push ups, pull ups and sit ups on the jungle gym, take a dip, rinse off, and then run home. And the water in the water fountain is really good. Except when I turned it on full blast and it shot straight up my nose. Phthwwaa.

But Aweoweo is not necessarily the nicest beach around. That would probably by Kaiaka Beach, which technically is in Haleiwa, if anyone's being picky.This is looking west towards Kaena Point. Just around the sandy point in the photo is where the Waialua River meets the ocean. When it rains lots and lots, the river dumps plenny chocolate water into the ocean.

Kaiaka is such a nice spot because, unlike lots of other beaches in the area, it has a nice sandy bottom, instead of coral or rock. The big waves break pretty far out on the outside reef, and usually just send in little ankle-slappers to shore. One main reason I <3 Waialua...this photo below was taken on New Year's Eve day. I love that any day can be a beach day!

And then there's the folks you share the beach with. Mom and I had gone to Kaiaka, just the two of us. So I had to ask the very handsome, in shape gentleman who was hanging out a couple of yards away to take our picture. Darn.

Back at the homestead, Mom found this little, itty-bitty gecko in her room. He's no more than an inch long, and about as thick as a dime. So very cute!

And can you see the two lizards in this photo? There's one each on the center and right-hand rock. There's a native shrub, pohinahina planted by the front steps, that I swear the lizards use as a condo, there's so many of them living in it. But they are very territorial, and I think these two were about to brawl.

And one more, where's the lizard? This one's a pretty good sized one, maybe 5 inches from tip to tail. You can see the yellow/white stripe running all the way down his back. Oh, and that's the pohinahina I just mentioned.

So where are all the people? I save the best for last! Our 'hood is fantabulous. Such wonderfully great people (not even gonna *mention* the exception), in such a beautiful location. This was New Year's Eve. Mom hosted a potluck down at her end of the street, under the driveway tarp. The Adams' brought down a bunch of fireworks and we had a go at them in the street. Our little branch of Ka'amo'oloa Rd is bordered on one side by the Pa'alakai neighborhood and on the other by larger, more homestead-like lots. Who all LOVE fireworks!! We could see full aerials going up in three different directions. So super cool! The noise and light show lasted until about 1 am.

These last two photos are of the same place, different days. The first one is when Molly (center), Marissa (right) and I took a biking booze cruze through Haleiwa. Molly and I picked up Marissa at her house, then pedaled on the bike path to Haleiwa Joe's. We enjoyed some fruity umbrella drinks and some pupus there, then got on our bicycles and trundled off to Luibueno's. Molly had to bail on us to go pick up her husband at the airport, home from Iraq for R&R, but Marissa's friend Michelle joined up with us. Some drinks, chips and salsa at Luibueno's and then we were off to Cholo's. Enroute Cholo's, we passed Bonsai Sushi, and heard live music, so once we were done being treated like tourists at Cholo's, we ended the evening with sake and sushi at Bonzai. So yummy and fun. I learned how to check in to places on Facebook that evening :)

And then the evening I left, we stopped at Haleiwa Joe's again for pupus. In the photo are: my mom, Karen (sorry about the picture, Mom...I don't know if I caught you with your mouth full or what); my cousin Karen (Elizabeth) and her beau, George visiting from West Virginia; Uncle Terry and Auntie Jane; and Travis (who doesn't usually look that much like a vampire) and Marissa (who always takes a great photo!). Along with being my last night there, it was Uncle Terry's birthday. I heard some crazy number over 66 being thrown out there for his age, but I don't believe he's a day older than 55!

One last thing I <3 about Waialua, besides the scenery, the beach, the neighborhood and the people...I <3 the sunlight. It doesn't show up very well in this picture, but it's as close as I could come. I love the way the light falls through the foliage, the sharp edges of the palm fronds' shadows on the grass, and how the golden light accentuates the green leaves and the bright blue sky. It's so crisp and clear. It gives me hope and helps me to breathe.

Mish Mash

2011-01-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog,

I'm so sorry I've neglected you these last few weeks. I could try to use the excuse of holiday chaos, but it's been pretty low key here in Waialua. Or it was once I got that last take-home exam turned in on day two of being here. The only thing I can attribute my lack of attention to you is plain old laziness.You are still very important to me, and I think about you lots and lots, but I just don't know what to write about right now. Grad school, especially between semesters at grad school, does not offer the rich fare of stories and ponderances that shipboard life supports.

I have a few ideas for posts:
--an exploration of solitude versus loneliness. It may turn out to be an exercise in semantics, but I think there really might be something there, even if it is pretty intensely personal.
--why the phrase "structural integrity" is so important to me. I found myself using it in a totally new context just yesterday, and kinda surprised myself with the general applicability for my worldview.
--an "I <3 Waialua" photoessay. Need to take more pictures if I'm gonna do this one.
--the Lazy Girl's post: excerpts from a paper I wrote for my Moral Dimensions class last semester on the ethics of women in combat. Totally cliched, but there were some good points for exploration, especially within the context of how the CG approaches job-related gender concerns.
--Book reviews: I've read a bunch of good books lately (now that I have time to read *and* digest them, instead of just plowing through a reading assignment on to move quickly onto the next one...note to self: five classes with heavy reading loads was too much; totally different mentality from 15 hours a day on the bridge).

So, readers, what do you think? I'll try to get my next post up within a week or ten days. What should I write about?

--Just a Girl

Thanksgiving: My Family

2010-12-19T17:53:00.000-08:00

OMG, how did a whole month pass? I fully intended to post this the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so it had some hope of being timely. But it took me 9 hours to get home from North Carolina, eating up my entire Sunday evening. And then it was two weeks before finals, and I had three memos, a 20-page paper, two finals and a take home to get through. And now it's a month later, and I escaped frigid DC for tropical Waialua, Hawaii. And I *absolutely* am thankful for that!

But this post is about my family. I don't know how the heck they put up with me. For the past ten years, the first question most of them ask me when they talk to me on the phone is, "where are you?" And they don't mean it as in, are you at home or at school or at work or the grocery story or the library? No, it's more like, what continent are you on? Because sometimes I've been in South America, sometimes in Southwest Asia, sometimes on the East Coast of the US and sometimes in Hawaii. It is kinda fun to keep 'em guessing though :)

I'll never forget telling my brother that I had taken the ASVAB in preparation for joining the Coast Guard nearly twelve years ago. He was into his second decade in the Air Force, and I think I didn't talk to him for a year or two when I was a young, thoughtless pissant in high school because I was upset about his participation in the military industrial complex that was such a major stumbling block to the peaceful, sensible, rightful way that the world *should* work. So, needless to say, he was a little bit surprised to hear that I was pursuing a military career ten years later. I think it took him about 30 seconds to pick his lower jaw up off the floor from where it had dropped when he heard I was enlisting. And then he proceeded to give me very useful advice...stay operational. Well, Jay, I did (finally) take some of your advice, and you were SO right! We've had some great conversations since then about the military, leadership, current world news and life in general. Thanks, bro, for sticking it out with me while I pulled my head out of lalaland.

And my brother has a wonderful family who I had the chance to see for a couple of hours Thanksgiving weekend. His wife, Susan, is a great mother to their three kids, homeschooling them and teaching them to be thoughtful people. In Africa. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention...Jay is a bush pilot in Africa for a missionary group, doing lots of medevacs and transporting medicine, people, supplies and probably a chicken or two in his planes all throughout eastern Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan...dangerous places where the runways sometimes have doglegs in the middle of them, guards with AKs and never mind the cows and giraffes blocking the way. So, Susan doesn't necessarily have all the conveniences of a regular suburban housewife. But she does an amazing job, keeping a bountiful garden and making beautiful quilts. Their kids are really sweet, but growing up so very, very fast. Alex is now taller than I am, and is starting to give his dad a run for his money in wrestling matches. Beth is beautiful, and will likely be completely stunning in a few years, never mind smart and talented. She crocheted me the coolest beanie for Christmas...awesome colors and it fits perfectly. And Sam is such a pixie, so impish and curious. I miss seeing them on a regular basis, but know they are growing up in an amazing place that will make them really cool people to get to know when (if) we ever live in close(r) proximity.

My dad and his wife visited on their way through Maryland enroute North Carolina to see my brother and his family the week before Thanksgiving. They were so patient with the kitchen under construction and other idiosyncrasies of my old house. I usually get to see Dad and Sandee on the Coast Guard's dime about every year or two. They live a couple hours from New London, CT, so I get to visit them whenever I go to a C school at the Academy. But I hadn't seen them since I got back from Bahrain, so it was really great to be able to host them for the night. They ran into some traffic and bad advice from their GPS that shortened the visit a little bit, but we got to chat over dinner, and they got to see where I live, for the first time since I left the east coast ten years ago.

Uncle Steve, Aunt Jan, Ally, Amy's mom Susan, and Amy

Thanksgiving itself was a wonderful day...exactly what the day is supposed to be. Tons of good food, a warm, crowded kitchen, great people and a fun time. I road-tripped down to my friend Amy's house in North Carolina to hang with her and her 9-year-old daughter, Ally. Her mom came over, and my Uncle Steve and his partner, Aunt Jan came in from Rockingham County for dinner.

Acrobat Ally and Jan, waiting her turn on the trampoline

Amy and I have been friends for nearly 20 years. I haven't kept in continuous touch with anybody else that I've known for that long, except for other family members, so I feel like I have every right to call her and Ally family. She has been there for me through all my stupid human tricks, ready to laugh at me, with me, for me and around me. We met in a political science class my first year at Berea College. In retrospect, I'm really surprised we never got kicked out of class. We laughed the entire semester...poor professor (he kinda looked like Ichabod Crane, which didn't help at all). And I don't know that the college farm was ever the same after we worked there for a summer. Work briefings took at least ten minutes longer but were so much more enjoyable for everybody because we joked around so much. Best line *EVER*: what happens if you don't wash sheep in cold water with Woolite? Do they look like this? (put palms on either side of your face by your ears and pull backwards so your face stretches tight). We tried to ask our boss that with straight faces, but could only get it about halfway out before we couldn't say any more words through the hilarity. She didn't think it was so funny. And meringue...that stuff kinda hurts coming out the nose. Just saying.

I don't know why Ally puts up with me...I'm kinda mean, pouring cold water over her in the shower after she threw some 'tude at me, and tickling her relentlessly. But she's known me as Crazy Aunt Charley for her whole life, and I hope to be there for her like her mom has been there for me. One of my favorite things about being back on the east coast is being closer to some of the people I love that I haven't seen enough of recently.

Mom always told us that family does anything they can for family. I took it for granted for a long time, but Uncle Steve has done so very, very much for me over the years that it's hard not to be thankful for my family. He put me, my dog and three cats up in his spare room while I looked for a place to live before my first stint in grad school...for two months. He pretty much single-handedly renovated the kitchen in my new house. And he's just a cool guy. We're both the youngest in our generations, and along with my cousin Cameron (also the youngest), we keep the rest of the family on their toes. We're our own flock of black sheep :) Just make sure to wash us in Woolite.

I'm staying with my Mom over Christmas and into the New Year. We've had our difficulties over the years. We're both really stubborn, alike in some ways, and different in ones that make it tough for us to get along sometimes. Well, difficult for me to get along with her sometimes...I admit, I'm not the easiest person to get along with. Too many years in charge I think: I don't like it when things don't go my way. But she's always been proud of me (embarrassingly so sometimes...you know moms). One of Mom and my sister's favorite stories about me is the time we were in the grocery store in Ellicott City, MD, getting some last minute supplies for dinner. Vicki and I were both home from college. The store was crowded, and we were walking in a little bit of a gaggle, politely making way for people and generally being conscious of the fact that we were not the only people in the store trying to finish errands. But there was this snooty woman with her grocery cart that pretty much plowed through us like we were invisible peasants in her own personal kingdom. Well, I don't mind being ignored...but for god's sake, don't disrespect me. I pushed my nose up in the air with my finger (not my middle one...my mom was there for heaven's sake) and snorted like a pig...loudly. The woman looked around, slightly mortified.

I'm glad that Mom's enjoying her retirement. And even though I'm still a punk sometimes, I love her a lot.

I've got a bunch more family members to be thankful for...Aunt Linda and Uncle Adam, cousins Karen, Jennie and Roy and family, Cameron, Nancy and Jim, Robin and Blaine and family, and Jane and Eddie. I don't talk to many of them often, and see them even less. But I know they care about me and support me.

I haven't mentioned my sister yet, though. She's joined conversations on the blog before, usually with insightful words of advice or thoughtful comments from a completely different perspective. The funny thing is that we used to *hate* each other. And that really is not too strong a word. When we were in grade school, and on into high school, I couldn't stand being around her. She was always such a damn goodie-two-shoes. She tattled on me for trying to learn how to spit when I was ten. She was way smarter than me (still is), and just complicated things unbearably. She kept her room neat, made her bed, had better handwriting (still does), didn't throw a fit about going to church, dated nice boys, and didn't wear holey jeans.

Aunt Linda told us both sometime, maybe about 20 years ago, that we'd end up really good friends once we got older. We both thought she was delusional. I was a snotty little punk, out to piss off the world, and Vicki made it clear she was so very, very far superior to me. In every way.

It's amazing the clarity gained from those 20 years. And thank goodness for it. Vicki was the first person I called during that kerfuffle over the Endangered Species Act last fall. And the first person I called when my boyfriend broke up with me. And the first person I called when I found out I was going to take command of a ship...in Bahrain. She edited my college application essay for me. She is always, always willing to listen and offer encouragement. I love the fact that she knew me as a punk kid, and saw me grow out most, but not all, of it. And I am so truly happy that she is happy.

So I am so very, very thankful for my family. All of them.

Thanksgiving; My House

2010-11-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

One of the other students at school asked me how things were going a couple of weeks ago. It was three days after I had popped myself in the lip with a pry bar, putting a hole through and through (does it count as iron intake if you're swallowing your own blood?), trying to get a piece of molding down in the kitchen. My lip was still swollen and hurt, and I was a little embarrassed by the glaring scab on my face. So I made some mention of being busy with kitchen renovations in my new house. He commented disparagingly about owning a house and settling down not being his "bag" so he really couldn't understand what I was talking about. Even though I know he thinks I'm off my rocker, I felt a little sorry for him. Home is a special place.

I'm settling into my new house. Nick-knacks are up on the shelves, and while I haven't hung any pictures yet, I know where they're going to go (need to get more anchors). The china cabinets are finally out of the dining room. Though now I've got unfinished spots on the floor that need to be sanded down and polyurethaned and gaping holes in the baseboards. But I'm slowly filling in the holes in the wall...slowly because it takes some willingness to get dirty to mix up the plaster of paris for patching said holes.

And the kitchen, whoa the kitchen! The kitchen used to have about eight square feet of poorly designed counter space. But with the exceedingly generous help of my uncle, I have a brand new kitchen with just a few more touch ups needed. This weekend we got all but the last cabinet installed...including a microwave! Gotta move a gas line for the stove to get the very last cabinet in (yes, I'll be calling a plumber for that job), granite countertops need to be installed, and a tile backsplash and a coat of paint will finish the job. I'll have more than 30 square feet of counter space!! Whooo hooo! For right now, I don't even *care* that I've got contact paper-covered plywood for counters.

I should also have a working fireplace soon. I don't really want to go into the details of the ordeal that it's been to get it working again, but the chimney company has already sent out three crews, on four different occasions, and I've got at least one more visit from the owner of the company to look forward to before I can enjoy a crackling blaze behind the glass doors of the fireplace.

Every room needs to be painted, the drains for the shower and kitchen sink are slow to the point of frustration, the grass needs mowing (and has for the last two months), I've got at least one outlet that blows a circuit breaker if I use it, about half the windows need some sort of work and probably leak heat like they're open, and I still haven't seen into the crawl space because I can't get the access door open.

But I am thankful for my little house. It's comfortable. I won't say it's home yet, but I think it will be in another couple of months.

I've whined before about how much I've moved around in recent years. I know I'll be here for about four or five years, which is long enough to take my time with the needed improvements. So I'm not really stressed about the totality of the project before me, even if I get frustrated and overwhelmed sometimes by the details of any one portion of the overall task.

I can separate my satisfaction with my current situation into two parts, really. The first is just that I get to be in one place long enough to see more than one turn of the seasons here. I'm a big believer in a Wendell Berry-esque outlook that knowledge of a place is a good thing; knowing when the first leaves bud out on the trees in the yard, or when that particular window starts getting sun exposure, is important. It helps ground us, locate us on the planet, guide us when we're lost and give us perspective on things greater and lesser than our own individual outlook.

The second part is that I just really like the house. It's nothing very special, built in the 1930s and still standing. But with hardwood floors that finished up beautifully; a fireplace painted red; roses and peonies and a grape vine in the yard; radiators in each room; and a sun room that reminds me (very vaguely) of my grandparents' house. I don't know much about the last family that lived here, just that it was an elderly woman that must have passed away because her son was the executor that handled the sale. I've found random school pictures of relatives, maybe, tucked away forgotten in the back corners of closet shelves, and they left the coolest box-full of odds and ends, screws, nails, washers, hooks, pins, cords, just stuff, that have come in super-handy in the midst of so many projects. All the things they left for me was like a generous welcome into their home.

I've got grand plans for a garden and other yard projects, including lining the front walk with blueberry bushes, using the stump out back for growing culinary mushrooms, and pruning the grape vine to increase its productivity. I've already got pansies in the planter under the old Japanese maple in the front yard, rain barrels under each gutter, and a small herb garden outside the back door. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get an outdoor shower put in next summer. And my uncle just brought back my granddad's old push mower (thanks, Jan, for being willing to give it up). So when I do get around to mowing the yard, it'll be with a piece of equipment that's been around for a while and doesn't use anything but my own energy to make it work. I like that. And I'm thankful for it.

Thanksgiving: My Job

2010-11-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

I figured this was an appropriate time to be particularly thankful for my job since this past Thursday was Veterans' Day. I put my uniform on for the first time since 23 Jul, and went to the Brentwood Veterans' Day Celebration that my local little community put on. There's a Veterans' Memorial about three blocks away from my house that the City of Brentwood built a few years ago. About forty people showed up at the ceremony, some coming back in from where they currently live to honor their fathers and brothers who had grown up in Brentwood, and whose names are on the memorial. I talked to a former DC2 who served on the TAMAROA back in the Viet Nam War era. He was proudly wearing a Coast Guard cap, so he was easy to recognize. He was also very proud of his son who is currently a Marine. The ceremony lasted about an hour, and was nicely put on for a community of about 2000 households in a major metropolitan area.

The guest of honor, besides all the politicians that showed up, was a Councilwoman's father. Unfortunately I don't remember his name, but he served in World War II in the 92nd Infantry Division of the US Army. He was a Buffalo Soldier. He talked briefly about growing up in Goldsboro, NC and being in Washington, DC visiting his sister on December 7, 1941. He went home and enlisted in the Army, rather than waiting for his draft number to be called. He was very candid about the racial tensions that dictated the division of the 92nd among three locations for training, and he joked a little about their unit's destination being super-secret, except for the fact that they were all learning Italian. He said, maybe they were going to Ethiopia, since they spoke a little Italian there. But they were in fact deployed to Italy, I think he said in 1942. During his time in the Army, he earned the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, and made it "safely" through the war. He wrapped up his remarks with a powerful message of trust and belief in his country. He said we made it through all those troubled times, reflecting back to the discriminations he faced, and we can see it through these tough economic times as well. Because the United States is such a great nation, made up of great people.

As he was speaking, I was doing some quick math in my head, and realized he was at least 85, and probably closer to 90 years old. The only medal of the four that he proudly wore above his left breast pocket that I recognized was the Purple Heart. I was glad I went to the celebration in my community, but his remarks made it a truly memorable experience.

The next day, I put my uniform on again and set off to CG Headquarters to get weighed-in. I admit, I completely spaced on the fact that I was supposed to do it in October, and ended up getting the nasty-gram from my Program Manager that I needed to come in "as soon as possible" to get it done. Whoops.

It was the first time I've ridden the Metro in uniform. And maybe it's just me, but I felt like people stared a little bit, or at least didn't brush their eyes over me like just another body in the crowd. And maybe it's different for other, bigger people in uniform, but for a 5'2" pip-squeak, that uniform can make me feel more like I'm ten feet tall and bullet proof (to use a favorite Company Commander quote from boot camp). It's hard not to swagger a little when I wear it (I think it might be the steel-toed boots...they require a touch more leg movement so I don't drag my feet 'cause they're kinda heavy). Maybe I'm not only Just a Girl when I'm in uniform. Maybe it reminds me that I'm Just a Girl with sea stories, Just a Girl with shipmates, Just a Girl who's part of something bigger than herself. Just a Girl who can drive a ship. Just a Girl who has battled gremlins. Just a Girl who got pepper-sprayed, can shoot a gun, and knocked a guy on his ass practicing defensive techniques (sorry Cookie, it's just too good a visual image not to use).

I think it was a well-timed reminder that what I'm doing in school is important and will give me more tools to bring back to my service hopefully for the benefit of the Coast Guard. It's hard to remember that sometimes, stuck in statistics or microeconomics.

And, on top of those two experiences, I recently finished reading The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk (Back Bay Books, 2003). My Aunt Linda gave it to me at my Change of Command this summer, and I really enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure the first time I was introduced to The Caine Mutiny was at OCS; but I quickly became more familiar with it since instructors show it at every single CG leadership training I've attended ever since. I always thought that Captain Queegs was the main part of the story, since I've never seen the movie all the way through. The leadership classes always just show the typhoon part, or the strawberry scene. Turns out the story is really about Willie Keith and his growing up.

I felt plenty of sympathy for Willie when he showed up at his ship, not knowing really what was going on, stumbling through figuring out where he belonged and what he was supposed to be doing. And as the realization that dawns on him that Queegs is not the same as his predecessor, Captain De Vriess. One of the truest quotes comes after the verdict has come through on the Court Martial; the current Captain of the CAINE is talking to Willie about the burden of command, "You can't understand command till you've had it. It's the loneliest, most oppressive job in the whole world...You're forever tettering along a tiny path of correct decisions and good luck that meanders through an infinite gloom of possible mistakes." (pg 499) Oh my goodness, how true is that!?

But my favorite parts of the book are at the end, where the last captain of the CAINE is philosophizing about his time aboard:

"[He] experienced the strange sensations of the first days of a new captain: a shrinking of his personal identity, and a stretching of his nerve ends to all the spaces and machinery of his ship. He was less free than before. He developed the apprehensive listening ears of a young mother; the ears listened on in his sleep; he never quite slept, not the way he had before. He had the sense of being reduced from an individual to a sort of brain of a composite animal, the crew and ship combined. The reward for these disturbing sensations came when he walked the decks. Power seemed to flow out of the plates into his body. The respectful demeanor of the officers and crew thrust him into a loneliness he had never known, but it wasn't a frigid loneliness. Through the transparent barrier of manners came the warming unspoken word that his men liked him and believed in him." (pg 520)

And:

"He spent long night hours on the bridge when there was no need of it. The stars and the sea and the ship were slipping from his life...All the patterns fixed in his muscles, like the ability to find the speed indicator buttons in utter blackness, would fade. This very wheelhouse itself, familiar to him as his own body, would soon cease to exist. It was a little death toward which he was steaming." (pg 522)

Exactly!

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I miss being underway. I had a (non-Coast Guard) friend ask me today when I'd be getting back underway. We were talking about my getting a dog. I really want a dog, but I won't get any more pets until I'm out of the Coast Guard, and not deploying anymore. It's not fair to the pets to be shuffled all about when I get underway. I'll foster pets in the meantime, while I'm ashore. But I guess in the course of our conversation, I made it sound like I'd be going back out on a ship sometime in the near future. Imagine my chagrin at having to admit that it was actually going to be about four or five years before I get underway again.

And just so you guys don't think I'm just all about the underway thing...I am thankful for my job for a number of other reasons, many of them financial. The Coast Guard is sending me to school to learn something I probably should have majored in in the first place, back in the day. And I still get my salary. My job allows my mother to take advantage of the numerous and generous benefits of being a military dependent. And eventually I'll put on O4, and have something else to be thankful for. I've been hearing some stories from current CDRs that it took them 22 months to make LCDR from LT. I'm not there yet, but it's looking like it'll be pretty close for me.

And my job has introduced me to a lot of amazing people. One last recent episode: the day I was walking through the Metro in uniform, I happened to separately see two fellow Coasties I had served with previously. Now, it was at L'Enfant Station where the shuttle picks people up from the Metro FFT (for further transport) to the Headquarters Building, so it wasn't totally unusual to have plenny of Coasties wandering around. But, two? In one day? That's kinda cool. One was LT Beau Powers who I haven't seen since I left the D14 Command Center in 2006. We chatted for a few minutes as we walked to our respective trains. He's doing great things in the Command Center world. One more reason to be thankful for my job in the Coast Guard: it's such a small service, you can't help but run into the good people you served with again somewhere.

Thanksgiving: Friends

2010-11-07T15:30:00.000-08:00

I run the risk of being ridiculously cheesy with this next series of posts, but it's my blog...I'll be cheesy if I want to.

As we all know, it's coming up on Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving. I mean, it's All About Food - what's not to love? Turkey, yum; stuffing, used to hate it when I was a kid, but think it's one of the best things about roasted turkey now; mashed potatoes, must have garlic in them; and pies, lots of pies. And cranberries. With walnuts.

Just a few days ago, I was wondering where I was the last couple of Thanksgivings. It's a little thing I do around holidays - think about what's changed since last year and where I was. It's usually kinda a tough little exercise since I move around so much. Last year, KISKA's ombudsman invited everyone over for dinner. Delish! And fun. Year before that...Bahrain, don't remember if we were underway or not.

Holidays are odd underway. Somebody has to stand the watch. Every day. All day. And night. But it's a little sad when it's you standing the watch, hanging out with people you wouldn't necessarily choose to be with on those special days, missing family and the football games and parades and all the little traditions that make holidays something to look forward to. I find this lingering sadness tinged with pride, though. Pride for doing a job that not everyone is willing or able to do, pride for serving in an amazing service for a great nation with a fascinating history, pride for being willing to make sacrifices in order to contribute to a "greater good." I was never so great a patriot before I joined the service and went overseas somehow, but there's more reflection on that than I want to do here. Holidays can suck underway, but I think it's something that helps bond shipmates...you're all suffering together. Though the cooks (and the command) usually try to make sure that "suffering" is tempered with some morale.

Anyway, this post wasn't really supposed to be about holidays underway. It's supposed to be about Thanksgiving. And the cheesy part is that I'm going to write the next few posts on things that I'm thankful for. I've got so much that is going, has gone, and will very likely continue to go well for me that I feel it's somehow necessary to acknowledge that I've got it *really* good.

So, friends...I am thankful for my friends. I don't have a ton of friends, mostly because I'm a pretty introverted person, and I move a lot. I volunteered a few weeks ago at the phone bank for the local public radio station's fund drive, and after the four of us at our table introduced ourselves and talked a little about what we did with our days, one of the women asked me how I dealt with moving around so much? How did I make friends at each new place? Did I already know people here? I hemmed and hawed a little bit because I didn't know how to answer her. Usually I'm so busy with learning my new job that making friends and having a social life is pushed to the side. And I like the people I work with, so it's easy to hang out with them. But one thing about not being able to make friends easily makes me really, really grateful for the ones I *do*have.

Another friend-related anecdote: in Friday's yoga class, the instructor had us do a forearm balance with a partner. It's like a handstand, but with your forearms flat on the deck. I had tried and tried to do these in class on the Big Island and never quite gotten it right. I'd always overpower through kicking up my feet and end up going over the other side, or banging my feet off the wall, if I was using the wall as a support. But this time, with fellow-yogi Jennie supporting one leg while I lifted the other, I was able to find some stability and hang out for a couple minutes. She had a couple of fingers on one of my little toes to remind me that she was there, but wasn't doing anything else to help me.

Naomi, the instructor, gave us the explanation: friends provide that bit of assistance to see us through our weaknesses...just that little bit of extra support and encouragement that we usually need to succeed in a challenge. And they accentuate our strengths.

I immediately thought of my friend Anne. We've got a few things in common, but she's way, way, way smarter than I am and has a lot, A LOT more professional motivation and chance for success (like big picture success) than I do. I truly value her opinion, and have been known to email or text or call her to whine, complain and bitch about whatever triviality has recently vexed me. She always commiserates with just the right amount of sympathy and understanding, and then provides some spot-on insightful recommendation for how to make the most of a bad or frustrating situation.

And she has never complained about my food-nerdiness :) Though she did think I was a little out of my mind to go to all seven grocery stores in the local area looking for different ingredients for a wardroom dinner. Or was it ten stores?

And a shout out to a couple other friends:
Craig, thanks for your patience with listening to my tales of woe when we were all so far away from home. I can't help but remember those card games and smile.

Frank can always, always make me laugh. I usually give him good material to work with ("more work to be done in the kitchen"), but he has a true gift for poking fun at the absurdities that surround us all.

I'm so glad I met Auntie Jane. She's a wonderful woman, so full of love and aloha. I wish so very, very much that her neighborhood was peaceful, and hopes she and husband Terry are able to find the peace and happiness they deserve from being great people and having helped and befriended so many others.

Rickey taught me a lot about myself. He showed me how to slow down and look at things differently.

And Lili is always there for me, even when we don't talk for months and months. We can pick right back up like no time passed at all.

Amy, Vicki, and Steve...I'll deal with you guys in a separate post.

More on Communications

2010-10-27T06:51:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about communication again. Or more specifically about what makes effective communication. I remember from all my training that communication comes in two parts, the message given and the message received. Both parts are important for the message to be effective. There have been a few events recently that reinforced the duality of communications for me.

First, I got back a couple papers from different classes. The first paper was a 7-page introduction on the importance of local food systems as a tool to help combat the many problems created by industrialized agriculture (not Coast Guard-related, I know, but something I'm really interested in). I was nervous about it. I thought I had turned in a piece of crap. I felt like it was rushed, that I really didn't have a clear goal and that I was just scatter-shotting, hoping I got something right. I could have done better with it.

I got an A-. Definitely not the disaster I was expecting. Breathe huge sigh of relief! Sure, it wasn't an A+, but it wasn't a C+ either. The professor's comments: "In the next installments I want to see more sense of [prioritization]. This is well-informed and well-written but the agenda is massive." (Well-written, really? Yay...but I think he was merely impressed that I had proof-read.)

So he totally caught me out that I wasn't sure what I was really writing about. I didn't mean to communicate that, but it apparently came through loud and clear.

The second paper, for the other class, was a 3-page paper on inherently governmental functions. I felt a little better about this one, but wasn't sure if I was really addressing the professor's question. She wanted an analysis of inherently governmental functions, including a comparison between the current and previous administrations' approach and how President Obama's renewed emphasis on inherently governmental functions might be affected by new austerity measures, particularly in DOD. I went off on a tangent of why it is necessary to consider particular governmental functions inherently governmental.

I got an A. But there were *no comments* whatsoever from this professor on the paper. Just the pencil-scribbled "A" at the top of the page...and nothing else! Not very helpful.

Second event: multiple occasions of confusion with a professor's syllabus. She apparently mentioned the first day of class that a group project also required a 3-page analytic paper, but it wasn't on the syllabus. So we turned it in late. And then, another reading assignment was so poorly explained in the syllabus that I didn't even know that I needed to do anything for it. Again, she said she mentioned it the first day of class (which I don't remember), but had not offered a reminder or further explanation.

Now, I know I will complain about anything I can...I'll complain about being treated like a kindergartner and in the next breath complain about being treated like I'm geriatric. I know there's a certain amount of autonomy and self-responsibility incumbent upon graduate students. But I'm NOT a freaking mind-reader!

Note to self: ensure your message is received, even if it requires multiple reminders.

A further irony...the class is a leadership and management class. Maybe she's using reverse psychology on us to teach us about effective communication.

And last, I sent what I thought was a sweet note to a friend expressing appreciation for a particular quality of our recent communications. I contrasted our on-going dialogue with the hectic and disruptive nature of ship-board communications (middle of the night phone calls, sometimes nothing, sometimes critical). What I didn't realize was the potential for him to receive the message that I was calling him boring. *NOT* what I meant!

And the message that he sent back...nothing. Silence on the line. Whoops, I guess he's pissed that I suggested he was dull. Which I didn't! But, in this case, it's all about the message that was received, not the message that was sent.

So I don't really have a summary conclusion about communications. Just further cogitation on the subject.

Transfer Season

2010-10-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

Transfer season is finally over for me. Well, or close enough to call it anyway. Technically, I've still got 70 days left to file a claim on anything that was broken during the move. But I've *got* my stuff, and that's why I'm calling transfer season over. Jeez, it started back in May or something ridiculous like that. And that's only because I knew where I was going next.

I have a deeply rooted love-hate relationship with transfer season. I love the fact that I get to do different jobs, usually switching before I get bored and/or totally burned out. That part of the Coast Guard's transfer policy really enables my short attention span and itinerant nature. I hate the fact that transfer season starts the fall before, when the shopping list comes out, and doesn't end until, well, the following fall, when all the household goods get delivered. I submit an e-resume in October, but don't know where I'm going until February, March or April! That's six months of continual worry and cogitation over where I'm gonna live, how I'm gonna get there, what job I'll be doing, who I'll be working for. I like to plan, and I'll plan even when I don't have any details about what I'm planning for, though it does tend to make me a little crazy.

And yes, I do understand the whole OPM process for officer assignments, having to wait for promotion board results and slating from senior to junior. I know why it is this way, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. One bright spot is that it should get better from a timing perspective as I get more senior. But then there's a balance of limited position availabilities and strenuous competition for the best jobs on ships. Because that's where the best jobs are, of course :)

But the fun only really just starts when the assignment is made. I'm shifting from a personal outlook to a managerial perspective now. On a WPB 110, roughly half the crew transfers every summer, give or take a few non-rated personnel who are waiting on school lists. And it's usually the ones that are qualified at *everything* that go because they've been there two years and have seen and done lots. They know where all the charts are, where all the property is, how to drive the boat, do boardings, fight fires (literally and figuratively), set up P6 pumps, launch the boat, survive a channel crossing, what was done in infinite detail to fix the autopilot that quit working right before the dockside, and a million, zillion other bits of corporate knowledge that makes things run smoothly. And of course, their next unit wants them to report YESTERDAY, because they've been gapping the billet because their guy geobatched to Alaska and took 30 days of leave to spend with his family before going out to the wilderness, and a Second Class Petty Officer has been doing the job of a First Class Petty Officer, and how fast can he get here?

We all try to do the best for our people, but nobody wants to take the hit operationally.

Transfer season is rough on every unit, with qualified people going and unqualified people coming in. It is a balancing act of making sure you've got enough people to get the job done while giving them the time they need to get their lives in order. I mean, it *is* their lives. I still don't think I quite appreciate what it's like to deal with a full-scale transfer, with a family, kids, pets and all the assorted accompaniments. In some ways I've got it pretty easy. Ship the car, pack up and ship the household goods, and go. Well, okay, it was a little more complicated than that, but only because I chose to make it more interesting with the whole cross-country motorcycle trip thing, and buying a house, and doing some renovation work before receiving my furniture. But I was only ever dealing with just me...no negotiations and compromises with a spouse or kids, or gyrations for pets. What a huge mess of stress for a family! And every two or three or four years!

Back to the personal experience. So my household goods were packed up in Hilo on 28 Jul. They were ready to be delivered on 22 September, but I pushed it back by two weeks so I could get the floors refinished in my new house. Totally, completely, 100% worth it...the floors look glorious, and it was so much easier getting them done without all my stuff in the way, never mind the heavy coating of sawdust I avoided getting all over everything. My only real complaint towards the end was that it got chilly for a couple of days right before I got my stuff, and all I had with me for warm clothes was two pairs of jeans and a sweatshirt. I'm too cheap to go buy more stuff, knowing that I've got perfectly good stuff on its way. Ok, so most of my discomfort was due entirely to my own little idiosyncrasies.

My stuff was delivered last Wednesday. Finally! The moving guys showed up just after noon, and were gone by 3:30 (well, they were back by 4:00 to pick up the hand truck which they had forgotten to take with them). Unloading everything went smoothly for the most part. Only a few snafus...like the fact that the box springs for my queen bed didn't fit up the stairwell. Cuss, whine, bitch, moan, still didn't get the springs up the stairs. I'm still working out what I'm gonna do about that.

It's been like Christmas in every box. My toaster oven was packed in its original box, so it was easy to spot. But the packers had taken out the tray and put it in a separate box. Toaster was useless until I found the tray (which I did yesterday...sweet potato fries for lunch today!). I looked in all the boxes labeled "Kitchen - Pots & Pans" for my crock pot, so I could make some vegetable chili to see me through this week. Nope, not in the Kitchen - Pots & Pans boxes; it was in the "Kitchen - Bowls" box. Huh. And I went through the boxes looking for my three-hole punch so I could get my school work organized. I looked in the "Desk Drawers" boxes, and the knick-knack boxes, but found it in the last of twelve boxes of books!

And I know I've been a little manic about it, but I think what takes me the most time is smoothing out all the packing paper so that I can save it. I mean, it's perfectly good paper, with all kinds of useful uses. I saw this bit of gardening advice, to make a lasagna garden, layering paper, compost and leaves or grass clippings in the fall where you want a garden bed. By the spring the bed is ready, all the weeds smothered, and you can plant straight into the lasagna. Brilliant...and a perfect use for packing paper. It'll also make great fire starters for the fire place. And it's good for cleaning glass and mirrors. And I'll never need to worry about packing material for anything I ship to someone, ever again! You get the idea; I can't bear to throw out all that lovely, clean paper, so I spend a lot of time unkrinkle-ing it. Besides, it takes up way too much room all balled up to throw out.

Nothing is broken, only some minor scratches. And my house is starting to come together. Completely off topic, but I *really* like my house. It's just the perfect size, old enough to have character, and my stuff fits and looks good. It feels like home, like some place I will be happy. Sure, it's not perfectly perfect, but then again, neither am I, so we fit.

And lastly, I am So Very Grateful that I don't have to go through another transfer season for another few years.

Tying Up a Cyclone

2010-09-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

I don't usually read the stories that get incessantly emailed to me by military.com, but something about the title of this one caught my eye.

Navy Pulls Patrol Boat Fleet for Damage
September 16, 2010

Virginian-Pilot

The Navy has sidelined its fleet of coastal patrol boats operating out of Bahrain after inspections revealed "significant structural damage," and has limited the operations of five patrol boats homeported at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek.

Chris Johnson, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, said the Navy has ceased operating five Cyclone-class patrol vessels in Bahrain until they can be permanently repaired and restored, a process that may take months.

Inspections of the Little Creek boats are ongoing, and those patrol craft could be pulled from service, too. In the meantime, crews will operate them under certain restrictions.

The lightweight, 169-foot steel-hulled boats were built by Bollinger in the 1990s and expected to serve 15 years. With one exception, all have hit or exceeded that milestone.

Problems discovered in the boats' hulls -- warping and buckling of the steel frame, as well as corrosion in various tanks -- are a cumulative result of hard use and severe operating conditions, Johnson said. The extent of the damage was first discovered this spring, after two of the Little Creek boats, the Hurricane and the Thunderbolt, sustained some damage in a storm off Cape Hatteras in April while en route to Florida.

When engineers looked closer, they found pre-existing hull damage on those boats. A formal inspection process followed, which determined the damage potentially affected all the vessels in the class, including three that were transferred from the Navy to the Coast Guard.

Most of the repairs on the overseas ships will be done by shipyard personnel in Bahrain, Johnson said, although some U.S. specialists might be sent to help. Johnson said the work will take a couple of months, and said it was too soon to estimate how much the repairs will cost.

The 30-person crews of the Bahrain-based boats deploy from Little Creek and typically serve six month tours. The crews rotate, but the Cyclones stay in Bahrain.

Um, where do I start?

I guess I should start by saying that I'm no longer *on* a ship, and am not easily able to keep up with fleet news, not having access to my CG computer profile. Last thing I really heard about the status of the Coast Guard's cutter fleet was that DALLAS and GALLATIN were in drydock for 18 months to repair significant structural damage. And honestly, I haven't heard if they actually made it out. Though reading GALLATIN's mishap about their drydock fire gave me the willies for the remainder of KISKA's time on the blocks. So, anything I say has the high likelihood of being out of date, if not out of touch.

But what does the Navy know that we don't? What is it about their Cyclone-class ships that is so significantly different from our Island-class cutters? I can immediately identify two things that are different, one which should help us, and one which might be worse.

First, and probably grossly simplifying some of the differences, the way the crews are managed between the Cyclones and Island-class ships are different. The Navy crews don't stick with one hull, they rotate between the various ships, serving six months on a ship in the NAG, and then rotating back to the states for 12-18 months (I think that's the right ratio) of training, etc. They remain together as a crew, but switch around on ships. From my perspective, that undermines the development of a sense of pride about their ship that encourages the crew to really care about what happens to the ship, spending those extra hours on maintenance, taking deep pride in doing what's right for the ship, because, hell, they're just gonna turn it over to someone else in a few months and then they won't have to deal with it. Like I said, gross simplification, but still significant.

On the other hand, the CG ships are already older than the Navy ships. Built in the 1990's and expected to serve 15 years, which they've already exceeded--sounds familiar...are we talking about WPBs or PCs? If I remember my dates right, USCGC MAUI (WPB 1304), second oldest currently operational hull in the WPB fleet, was commissioned in 1986. She's 24 years old. She was 23 years old when I served onboard.

I remember one patrol on MAUI, we were supposed to be going into drydock for a regular maintenance period, but because another ship (can't recall if it was WPB or PC) had a more immediate maintenance issue, our drydock was delayed by some number of days days to allow them time to complete repairs. No biggie, the schedule changed *all the time* out there, and we were all pretty used to it. But somewhere along the way, MAUI had picked up a small hole, maybe dime-sized, in the hull just below the exhaust port in the engine room on the starboard side. Below the water line...in the engine room. Nothing about that made me feel good.

The shoreside DCs patched us up, and away we went. I had been pretty diligent about specifying my concerns with the materiel condition of the ship in our daily status report. I felt that as long as the weather stayed good, and we weren't pounding into the seas, we should be able to limp along and just get through the patrol and safely into drydock for more permanent repairs. It was February, so while it wasn't FAC like the summer months in the NAG, we also weren't taking the 24-hour ass-beating we had during the late fall, early winter months. Until our last day in theatre, and a shamal came winding up from the southeast.

Within the span of about four hours, the winds shifted around to the southeast and sped to 35 kts sustained, gusting to 45 kts. Seas built to solid 10-12 footers. Our tasking had us on an upswell, downswell ride on a track about 1.5 miles long. So, 20 minutes of a nice downswell ride, followed by a sketchy, sketchy turn to come about, and then 30 minutes of complete, 100% snot.

We'd been doing this for about 2 hours, when our tasking group came over the radio, and told us to head 14 miles away because they had a report of a Kuwaiti fishing vessel taking on water. I threw down a but, sir, recommending that one of the PCs might just have better sea keeping abilities in current conditions, and OH YEAH...they didn't have a HOLE IN THEIR HULL!!! And by the way, we were only making 7 kts into the swell so it would take us over two hours to get on scene because there was no *way* I was gonna try to speed up in that shit.

Thankfully, the taskers saw the wisdom in that logic, and make arrangements to send a PC. And fortunately, by the time the arrangements were made, another vessel had assisted the fishing vessel.

The weather stayed shamal-ly for the next 12 hours, and it was really weird once the winds did shift. Within 30 minutes, the winds shifted 180 degrees, but stayed up around 35-40 kts. The seas answered the winds, and for about two hours, it was a googly mess out there, as the northwest swell countered the southwest swell. But MAUI made it through, and we sailed safely back to Bahrain and drydock.

I did spend a significant amount of time second-guessing my reaction to the tasking. My operational commander had said the repairs were good enough to send us out to do the job. It's not a comfortable position to say that your ship is not safe enough to go out and potentially save lives. Are the lives of my crew more important than the lives of the unknown fishermen? Was there really a risk of us sinking? I assuaged my discomfort somewhat with the knowledge that there was another unit available and better suited to respond, but what if there hadn't been? Would I have turned down the tasking?

I think in some ways, a ship is more than just the ship. She's a triumvirate of the ship (the steel, the hull, the engines, the bridge), the crew, and the command. None can do without any of the others. And each has to implicitly and utterly without doubt, trust the others. I did not trust my ship in that case. I knew my crew would overcome whatever was thrown at them, but my poor, battered ship with a hole in her skin, she was having a hard time of it. And that undermined my confidence, which in turn undermined my effectiveness as the Captain.

So, is the Navy doing the right thing by tying up the ships? There's definitely an operational impact to what they're doing. I can only imagine what the scramble looks like to overcome the gap in coverage. And at least in the CG, we've got the FRCs on the way to replace the WPBs, so there is a long-term solution in the works.

But it's the meantime that worries me.

Limitations

2010-09-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

I mean my own limitations. I've been trying to get the hard wood floors in my new (to me) house ready for refinishing. I pulled up the carpet, and pulled out as many of the nails and staples as I possibly could, with about 85% success. And the floor in the upstairs hallway, on the stairs and in the living room shone through with great potential (despite all the paint splatters that indicated some joker hadn't used a drop cloth for one of the paint coats). But when I got to the dining room, reality set in. There were two layers of gross old linoleum that had to come up.

Long story short, I'm finally done with getting up the old linoleum, including the glue that held the bottom layer down. The floor in the dining room now shines with that same great potential as the rest of the hard wood floors.

Except for underneath the two built in china cabinets, one on either side of the window. The cabinets were apparently put in some time after the second layer of linoleum, since both layers of linoleum are present underneath said cabinets.

Now, I don't need these cabinets there and I really want to take them out, not only to get at the floor underneath them, but also because taking them out will give me room for my dining room table and my bar in the dining room. There is some analysis behind the need/desire to get them out of the way.

And I'd really like to keep them mostly intact, if possible. They are in good shape, and I could take them to the Habitat Restore for someone else to use.

I tried my hammer. I'm limited on tools right now, not being in receipt of my household goods yet (waiting for the floors to be refinished before taking delivery...should be next weekend for the floors, so maybe two weeks for HHG - YAAY!). So I tried my hammer. I couldn't even get the angle on any of the nails.

I asked Lynn if I could borrow a pry bar, which she graciously supplied, while telling me that she wants to come down and help out on the house, but acknowledging that right now is *really* not a good time with October right around the corner. Totally understand, and think the offer is just so cool.

So this morning, I tried the pry bar. It was far more effective at getting at the support boards inside the cabinet. I took off the molding around the sides and top, so I could see better what I was dealing with. I pried, and I hammered, and I cussed, and I lifted, and I shifted, and I put a couple gouges in the wall trying to get the damn thing loose. There are nails going into the side wall that are huge and don't stick out enough to get an edge under. And they're in the corners, so I'm not sure I could get a good angle on them anyway.

And what I finally realized was that I couldn't.

At least not with my current limitations. If I had a sledge hammer, garrans I could get it out...might not be reusable, but I'd get it out. If I had another person with a little more strength, maybe we could get it out. But me, by myself, with my pry bar, I just can't do it.

What a weird thing to hear myself say.

But this isn't the first this week I've contemplated my own limitations. I'm taking a class called "Moral Dimensions in Public Policy." It's a really interesting class, a little grim at times, talking about just war theory and all the horrible things people do to each other. We're using the book Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, by Jonathon Glover (Yale University Press, 1999). The discussion is interesting, if difficult for me to follow. For you see, I am not a thinker. Sure, I can think, but I rely far more on common sense to get me through the day. Logical thinking, though, not so much. I never did well at geometry proofs and logical reasoning baffles me. I can get a step or two down the path, but then I get all baffled, and go off to look at the leaves on the bushes lining the path. This is why some of my posts bring up thought-provoking topics, but only scratch the surface of them. I know they're good topics, but I don't know what to do with them, how to expand on them thoughtfully.

So this class is gonna be hard for me. We have weekly readings for which we have to summarize a particular point and develop an analytic question based off what was said. Gulp. And we have a 20 page paper to write about the moral dilemma of our choice, exploring the basis and reason behind our position. Gulp. Gulp.

Of all my classes, this is the one that has me worried. It's not statistics or the calculus in microeconomics. It's that I have to think about human nature and reason through an argument.

So, I've decided to go to the professor's office hours next week and ask for help. I'm gonna tell him that what he's asking me to do is very difficult for me, and while I will try as hard as I possibly can, I am not expecting stunning results. Maybe I'm setting myself up for failure by not expecting those stunning results, I don't know.

When I was wrenching on one of the china cabinets this morning, I originally thought this post was going to be about asking for help, and how hard that is for me. Any one of the last two crews I've served with knows well enough what I'm talking about. They all, at one time or another saw me carrying something kinda heavy, or struggling with carrying too much, and offered to help. They were mostly all told, "no thanks, I got it," as I fumbled and strained and tried not to trip over my own two feet. It's just my nature.

I know well enough where it comes from. I learned it from my mother. She is one of the most capable people I know, and I learned it from years and years of seeing her struggle to raise two daughters and keep in touch with her son who lived far away. I was brought up with it, and I cannot deny where it came from, even if I wanted to. Which I don't.

I'm used to being able to do most everything for myself. It reminds me of the back-handed compliment a previous boss threw at me once (unfortunately in front of the other Department Heads and the Command Senior Chief). He said, "Not everyone is Wonder Woman like you." We were talking about physical limitations affecting weapons qualifications. I disagreed with his assertion that some of the small women just couldn't shoot because of their size. Granted, I don't like to shoot the shotgun because being 5'2" on a small frame, I have a hard time fitting the butt of the stock into my shoulder where it should be so I don't knock myself out with the recoil, but I have done it, and well enough to qualify on the weapon. It took hard work, determination, patience and a lot of stubbornness, but I wasn't about to let something like not being able to shoot a damn gun keep me from doing what I wanted to do.

Just for the record, I have no delusions of being Wonder Woman, despite what my former supervisor said. Though I did buy a WW costume that year for Halloween :)

I'm hoping it's a sign of maturity that I'm able to better recognize my limitations, physical and mental. And I do have a back-up plan for getting the cabinets out. I'm gonna ask the guys that come in to refinish the floors if they can help me remove them. But for right now, the cabinets are going to stay right where they are, and remind me every time I look at them that I can't do it all by myself.

Back On The Farm

2010-09-14T05:11:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting the blog. There's a bunch of excuse why, but in the end, they are just all excuses.

Side note: I remember as OPS having an ENS tell me "No excuses, ma'am," after not coming up with a safe flight course for a second time in a row. The first time I thought my head would explode when the ENS asked for a "mulligan." I think I calmly explained that there *were* no "mulligans" allowed in the real world when people's lives and safety were at stake. Ok, maybe not so calmly.

That's what I'm reduced to...telling sea stories about my days underway. Sigh.

But one of the things I've been doing with my time is going back to the farm I worked on when I was in high school and college. Larriland Farm is a 285 acre, pick-your-own fruit and vegetable farm in Howard County, about an hour away from where I live (For those of you in the DC/Baltimore area, I highly recommend a visit...family friendly, beautiful setting, stunningly fresh and tasty fruits and vegetables). I've written before about Lynn Moore, the President of Larriland, and the influence she had on me. So one of the things I was really excited about coming to DC was the opportunity to visit the farm again.

I went the first weekend I got to town. It was either that or rattle around in my empty house and likely go to Target and spend another $150 on stuff I may or may not have needed. On the drive there, I did the math and realized it had been 17 years since I had worked there. 17 years!! I'm not supposed to be that old! I started at the farm a couple months after I turned 14, worked there for six summers and falls straight, took a summer off, and then went back for my last summer when I was 20. I had been back to visit the farm once or twice in the intervening years, but not very frequently.

I rolled up on the Old Man, the noise of the exhaust shattering the early morning stillness that speaks to the essence of every farm I've ever been on, and set about finding a place to park. I wanted to get there in time for the morning brief. I saw Lynn from a distance as I was putting my helmet away, and she gave me a tentative wave as I walked toward her. It wasn't until I was much closer that she realized who it was. She said she couldn't figure out who it was driving around the parking lot, only that she knew she knew me.

We didn't have much time to talk right then. The farm rolls on and opening time was just a few minutes away. I had made it in time for the morning brief.

The morning brief on the farm is when Lynn tells the workers what's available for pick-your-own, what's available in the market, what should be coming up next, discusses any issues (crop failures or disappointments, customer behavior, worker behavior) and assigns duties for the day. The morning brief hasn't changed much in 20 years.

As I stood there listening, it was comforting to hear the same lectures on how to get customers to pick a ripe peach v. a green peach, how they have to lift the leaves of the raspberry brambles up to find the ripe berries underneath, and how corn will always have worms this time of year. And that customers can be frustrating at times, but they are what keep the farm going, so they must treated with respect. A few weeks later, I almost choked with trying not to laugh when Lynn did her signature customer puppet show, where she takes her left hand with her thumb between the first two fingers like a leeetle head, and then slaps it silly with her right hand...just like how you want to do to some customers sometimes when they are just not listening.

Don't get the wrong impression...Larriland is *all about* customer service. Some days it's just easier for the workers than others.

Another thing I realized during the morning brief is that I borrowed a lot of my public speaking mannerisms from Lynn. The broad, expansive hand gestures, the little quirpy (quirky + quip, it wasn't just a typ0) jokes, and the sense of purpose of getting through with the message.

I've had a delightful three weekends working there so far, and am completely looking forward to the madness that is October (hay rides, pumpkin fields, apple cider, straw bale maze, apple fritters, decorative gourds, scary cartoon figures on the pond). Some of the other workers wonder what on earth I'm doing there, though. I had one of the women who work there ask me, "so you're an officer in the Coast Guard, why are you working here?" And technically, I'm not working, I'm volunteering. I get free goodies (all the fruits and veggies I can pick for FREE!!).

I know it baffles the teenagers working there that anyone with a choice would go back, but there is a true sense of peace I find there. They are good people, with a beautiful farm, and delicious produce. After four years of fast-paced, high pressure jobs, going in and packing a 1/4 peck bag of peaches well is restful. I know the farm (or at least I remember the farm), I know Lynn's standards, and I know I can meet those standards without too much effort expended.

Lynn sent me out with her husband, Merle (see, the farm is totally a family affair), to update some signs in a field she didn't want people going into. Merle gave me a refresher tour of the farm, so I could brush off the dust about which fields were which. We got the signs placed where they needed to be, and then headed back to the market. I put the tools away, and filed the signs I took down where I thought they should go according to the labeling system on the bins. Lynn came in a few minutes later, looking for the signs we had taken down. She was ready to look everywhere but where they should be for them, and looked slightly surprised when they were put away, and I could find them quickly. We had a brief talk about expectations; how I knew what her expectations were, but how she had spoiled me by setting my expectations so high for what to expect from workers. It is *so cool* to be able to go back and have these conversations with someone who helped shape me as a manager.

Class is about to start, so I need to finish this up. I'll keep going back to Larriland as long as I'm welcome. Mostly because they're good people there and the farm is beautiful, but also some for that sense of ease, of knowing where I am in the world and that I can contribute to something I think is worthwhile.

First Impressions

2010-08-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

And I thought I wasn't going to have anything Coast Guard-related to write about. Silly Girl.

Like a good new grad student, I went to the Orientation dinner last Wednesday (the "business casual" dress code almost threw me for a loop...I've only got biker chick clothes with me until my house hold goods get here. But luckily, there's a really good thrift store close by: for $10 I went from biker chick to business chic). I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was lots of people standing around, socializing, networking. I didn't know *anybody* and I hate just walking up to someone, "Hi, my name's Charlotte." Anyway, I made it through until people sat down at their respective tables, and the Dean started to speak.

Dean Kettl is Dean of the School of Public Policy, and he started out his welcome by telling us all how great we were, how this was the largest class they've ever had, but how it was also the most competitive class for entry. We, apparently, are the cream of the crop.

But then he asked if any of us knew who Tony Hayward is. A few hands raised here and there, and I knew I had heard the name, but just couldn't place it. Well, Tony Hayward is the former BP CEO who said, at the height of the Gulf oil spill crisis and in concert with his departure from BP, "I just want my life back."

That statement still sounds ridiculous.

But Dean Kettl quickly contrasted Mr Hayward with the individual who is in charge of the federal government's response to the oil spill...you got it, ADM Thad Allen, USCG (retired). Dean Kettl briefly discussed how things started happening after President Obama and ADM Allen sat down with BP execs to get the response effort moving along. He also mentioned some of ADM Allen's background, specifically his assumption of the federal government's response to the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

His main point was that ADM Allen's brilliant leadership was the key to his success; he was able to motivate people, break down overwhelming problems into manageable bits, and generally approach any crisis with an attitude of effectiveness. In Dean Kettl's words, "You throw any problem at [ADM Allen] and he'll solve it."

How cool is *THAT*?!

I mean, in the Coast Guard, we all know ADM Allen is The OG Rock Star, but it was so amazing to hear the same thing from such an unexpected and completely unrelated source. I will selfishly bask in the glow, the associated cache, the credibility and coolness offered by being a part of the same organization as ADM Allen...and, of course, the thousands and thousands of other Coasties that made his Rock Star-ness possible.

The rest of the orientation events proceeded without any other CG-related fanfare. There were plenty of opportunities to meet the other first year Policy students, and some good sessions helpful to getting started with classes. Unfortunately, the one thing they didn't cover is the one thing I wish they would have. I haven't been in a higher education classroom since 1997. A *lot* has changed technologically in the last 13 years. There's this new thing called "Blackboard" which many of the professors use to post syllabi, reading assignments, discussion boards, etc. I fumbled my way through it, but definitely feel like I'm at a disadvantage being somewhat tech-unsavvy. I figured out my smartphone, though, so hopefully I'll be ok.

I'm halfway through the first reading assignment for my first class that starts tomorrow. Interestingly, one of the discussion points is about accountability and how public policy is really a compromise between politics and bureaucracy (crap, I really need to learn how to spell that word without looking it up every time). Bureaucracy is built on the need for accountability. We've got a couple of writing assignments in this class, and I'll probably try to find a way to write about the accountability issue.

One of those other questions I want to explore during school is the relationship between responsibility and accountability. As a CO, I heard and talked lots and lots about responsibility, for my ship, my crew, my mission, and accountability, and initially I thought the concepts were relatively interchangeable. Further consideration leads me to believe however, that accountability is the enforcement side of responsibility. Need to think about it more to be more coherent about it.

So, first impressions are that I'm glad I chose UMD. It's gonna be a great deal of work, but most everyone seems enthusiastic and engaged.

Notes From The Road: Finale

2010-08-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

I made it...4651.3 miles, 14 states, 16 days. It was an amazing trip that I'm so glad I was able to make. I could have done more with it, but I decided somewhere along about day 5 that I was just going to survive it. I wasn't going to try to talk to X-number of people or meet any goals or have any purpose. Except to get there.

Though I would have liked to take pictures of the beautiful places I saw American flags; that would have been kinda cool. Maybe next time.

And I also thought, as I crossed into Indiana, a place I had been before (back in 1993ish, maybe, for a Metallica, Faith No More and Guns-n-Roses concert), that I was glad to be able to ease back into the East coast, rather than being spit out of an airplane, fait accompli. I saw roadside wildflowers that I remembered from 27 summers here; I drove over the hills and into the valleys of the Appalachians; I had amazing biscuits and gravy at a little roadside dinner called Granny's Kitchen somewhere in Indiana.

DC traffic, though...yikes! Send me out to plow through 60 knot winds and big seas, send me out to chase drug runners in the EPAC, even send me out to dance with the dhows, cowboys and dust storms in the NAG, but don't make me ride my motorcycle through DC traffic again for four hours while I try to pick up the house keys and get home. It was the last 50 miles that was by far the scariest of them all.

So now I'm settling into the new house, waiting (impatiently) for my household goods to arrive. And my car. The Old Man is still great transport, just not very practical for trips to the store to get those household essential items or groceries.

Orientation at school starts on Wednesday, and my first class is Tuesday. Every day is a new adventure.

Notes From The Road, Part II

2010-08-16T07:35:00.001-07:00

Aloha from Sleepy Eye, MN...though I apologize for the mixing of regional, umm...dialects. I stopped in Sleepy Eye to use a library computer because I liked the name; sounds cooler than Rochester where I'll be later today. Happened to roll up to the library just as it opened...providence.

It's Day 11 of the trip, I've driven 3269 miles through seven states on too many roads to count. I've managed to stay off Interstates for the most part, though I do have about 175 miles on various I-routes. Because the bike is so loud, and the batteries on my phone really aren't designed for prolonged music-listening without constant recharging, I haven't been listening to music along the way. Just me and my thoughts. I'm not bored with myself yet, but I have found my solitary riding has made me more gregarious when I do stop. I'm more likely to chat with people.

Highlights follow:

--I stopped in Meridian, ID at the Sierra Trading Post outlet. One of my (many) failings as a traveler is a distinct and decided reluctance to go backwards. I *hate* turning around. But I turned around for the STP outlet. I've been shopping from their catalog and online stores for nearly 20 years now, and have always dreamed about being able to visit one of their stores. So when I saw the store from I-84, I went down to the next exit, and flipped a U-ey. It was a cool store, and the only reason I didn't spend nearly $1000 there was that I cannot carry anything more than I already have on the bike. But the real point of this story is that, while I was in the parking lot, I happened to take a close look at my rear tire, and found a nail in it. I have no idea where I picked it up. And I've been pretty diligent with daily safety checks (oil, tire pressure, etc) before I start out for the day, but I consider myself very lucky that I saw that nail at all. And one of the places I passed on my u-turn was the local Harley dealership, High Desert Harley Davidson. It was about 5:05 pm by now, so I was worried that they might not still be open. They were, though they were wrapping it up for the day. Thankfully, the technician agreed to stay a little late, after he heard my sob story about being on the road cross-country, and replace the tire. AND...the warranty that came with the bike covered tire repairs, so the whole thing cost me the $40 I gave the two guys who stayed late. High Desert HD ROCKS! And going backwards might not always be so bad.

--Yellowstone National Park was incredible. And that doesn't really do it justice. I want to go back when I have more than a day to explore; maybe more like a week or a month, maybe a whole year. I saw elk, deer, and bison, including one that was rolling around in the dirt on a hillside dusting himself. The views were gorgeous. I felt like if I saw one more amazing vista, my eyes just might pop out of my head. One day was not enough. However, the one fly in the ointment was my bike. It's loud. Normally, that doesn't bother me at all. It helps keep me safer in traffic, 'cause other drivers hear me coming; it annoys the high-brow people in posh neighborhoods that take themselves *way* too seriously. But in the Park, I regretted all the noise it made. It was like a belch in church...one long 150-mile belch. It seemed sacrilegious to disturb the peace in that wilderness sanctuary. Funny how I don't mind annoying people, but I don't want to bother the wildlife.

--The people I've met have all been incredibly nice, interested and interesting. I met Mr and Mrs Rankin at Aro Restaurant in Sundance, WY. Mr Rankin was wearing a Coast Guard sweatshirt, and not having seen much CG propaganda, I stopped by their table and asked about his relation to the CG. Their son, SN Daniel Rankin is on USCGC KANKAKEE in Memphis, TN, and they are so proud of him. He wants to be an AST. I met Smiley at the Thelma & Louise Restaurant & Bar in Tracy, MN last night...he bought dinner for me. When the waitress told me my tab had been picked up, I almost told her that I'd pay for his dinner in reciprocation, kinda like buying the next round, but then realized that Smiley might not have understood, and possibly have been offended at that new women's lib thing. So I just said thank you instead. And I met a dairy farmer who retired after 47 years milking this morning. He told me about getting kicked so hard by one of his fractious cows that his leg took 10 days before it even bruised up. Everyone has wished me a safe trip...which usually brings to my mind the Helen Keller quote at the top of the blog.

--Peripherally related to meeting nice people, I've been getting random Facebook friend requests; people I have no idea who they are, asking to be my friend. Is this normal? Is it blog-related? I gotta say, I usually "Ignore" them, 'cause otherwise it's a little weird, being friends with someone who is a complete stranger to me. I'm not famous; I don't have fans. If you have submitted a friend request to me on FB, or are gonna, just add a little note to it, saying you read my blog. I guess I need context.

--Bugs...after seeing how many bugs have been splattered on my full-face helmet, I don't know why anyone would ever ride without a helmet. I've taken some hits that knock my head back, even with the helmet on. And my nice, beautiful leather jacket has so much bug guts on it, it squeaks now, and is a little sticky in some places. Guess I should wipe it down.

--And the cosmic comedy for the trip: last post I mentioned stopping by my friend Rickey's place in Big Sur, CA. He lives in a rustic camper about 500 yds from the closest restroom. So the easiest thing to do is to pee in the bushes, which I did that evening. But I forgot that poison oak is rather common in that area, and squatted without looking first. Well, let's just say that I understand how I got a few splotches of poison oak in the obvious spot on my bum, but how on earth did it end up on my belly and arm? All the little bits of it are no more than a baseball in diameter total, but jeez it itches!

I'm sure there was other stuff I meant to write about, things I've been thinking about along the way. Most are just random thoughts, like making sure to tell Mom to take the mango slicer out of the bag of stuff she's going to ship to me because I'm not likely to have as much use for a mango slicer in MD as she is in HI. And a lot of my time is spent thinking that I'm so incredibly lucky to live in this beautiful country, full of wonderful people (as long as we don't get into politics or religion), and with the time and flexibility to travel across it. I still can't believe this is my life sometimes!

Notes From The Road

2010-08-09T10:31:00.001-07:00

It's day 5 of the trip. I'm in Redding, CA trying to get some computer work done. My smart phone is good, but sometimes a full size screen and harddrive is nice. Let me say...Redding, CA has a *super* nice library!

When I left my sister's house outside of LA, I had plans to get to Big Sur that night. Well, not so much. I stayed in Taft, CA, and continued on the next day. The weather has been very changeable, from stupid hot to bone-chilling cold. It's been cold on the coast and in the mornings in the shade in the mountains. I'll put in a shameless plug for Fox Creek Leather, the folks who made my jacket. Once I got all the zippers zipped up right and the liner in, my core stayed well, warmer. But my hands still froze.

Other observances in somewhat random order:

--I dropped my bike. Figured it had to happen sometime, and what better time than when there were friends around to help. I was trying to get it out of its covered parking at Treebones (another shameless plug, for a beautiful yurt camping spot on the Big Sur Coast) and didn't quite make it through the turn. It tipped on me. My friend Rickey and his friend Super Dave helped me get it up right. I think Rickey may have taken advantage of the situation to ride the bike for a second. But he got it back onto solid ground for me, and nothing, besides my oh-s0-fragile pride, was hurt.

--I got stung by a bee on my neck the second day out...Sorry for reposting a bit from Facebook, but I cussed the bee until I realized it wasn't his fault. I'm the one who ran into his butt at 60 mph. It's not like he was flying at 65 mph and ran into me.

--I left the key in the bike last night. I was parked in front of my hotel room in Weaverville, and came out this morning, patted my pockets and couldn't find the darn thing. My neighbor, who was with his wife, was working on his bike out front and told me I had left the keys in the bike last night. Guh! Shit! He very kindly had taken them out of the ignition and put them in the saddle bag so no one would be tempted. He replaced them in the ignition this morning so I could find them again. Ooooh, bikers are so big and mean and scary :)

--I laugh out loud everytime I catch sight of my shadow while riding. I've got two braids (my hair doesn't stay in one braid well enough), and my shadow looks like some crazy biker Pippy Longstockings, with the braids flying out behind me. Haa haha.

--Northern California is a beautiful place. Of course I had always heard that, but it really is amazing. If you'll indulge me in a moment of cosmic consideration, I was riding along in the fog and grey until I reached the Mendicino County line. I had traveled that area before, up to Petaluma and a little beyond...you know, riding down memory lane, especially on Hwy 1. But once I got to an area I hadn't been to yet, the fog cleared away and the sun came out. You think some crazy stuff after about four hours on the bike with no one to keep you company but yourself and the road.

--I renamed my bike. Rickey had asked me if I had named it, and I said yes, The Bitch. But then I decided that was a little too aggressive. I changed her name to Miss Daisy. You know, Driving Miss Daisy. I even drive like a granny :)

Alright, gotta get back on the road. At least to find a laundromat. And then, shooting for Lakeview, Oregon tonight.

"Alright, Let's GAR It"

2010-08-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

I'm officially starting my trip today, leaving from my sister's house outside of Pomona, CA enroute to a friend's place in Big Sur. The bike is all loaded (and looks kinda silly if you ask me...a Nightster was never meant to be a pack horse), I've got a box of stuff that I couldn't fit into my bags to be shipped to me once I get closer, and well, it's now or never. I've got three weeks to get to Maryland.

Before nearly every evolution on KISKA and MAUI, we would always GAR it. Before Special Sea Detail, Small Boat Detail, boardings, flight ops, training and drills, pretty much anything. I always felt like we were tempting fate when we didn't do a GAR, so I was pretty judicious about skipping it.

So what is this GAR thing? I can give you a working-sailor's definition of it, though I know I've heard the background story of how it was developed during at least once TCT (Team Coordination Training) course. GAR stands for Green, Amber, Red and is used as a discussion method for risk analysis. There are seven components:

-Planning: How well is the evolution defined? Does the team know what the final objective is? Does the team know what contingencies they could face, and what their reactions should be?

-Supervision: Is there at least one person with the "big picture" of what's going on that can see that "error chain" before it gets too long? Is "Safety" that person's only responsibility, or are they multi-tasking? Are they distracted with guests, training evaluators/riders, etc?

-Crew Selection: Does the crew know what they're doing? How many are qualified at the task they are performing? Who is breaking in on what position? What's the crew's experience level?

-Crew Fitness: How well rested is everyone? Who had the mid-watch? Has the ride been smooth or rough enough to beat people up? Have the last few days been stupid busy or is everyone pretty sharp still?

-Event/Evolution Complexity: What is the length and severity of risk exposure for the evolution? Is it really risky, but a quick one; or not so risky, but an eight-and-a-half-hour escort, with five of those hours within restricted waters?

-Environment: What are the outside conditions like? Is there lots of traffic? How's visibility? Is it blazing hot, with the risk of dehydration and sunburn, or is it raining and people need their rain gear? How close is shoal water or other hazards to navigation? Is it whale season?

-Equipment: What equipment is broken or in questionable condition? Are we op-testing (operationally testing) something? How critical is that equipment to what we're doing? And don't forget to take into account the bridge equipment...it's not just engineering stuff.

The way I liked to GAR was to have everyone chime in with numbers, from 1 to 10, and if there was an especially high number or concerns about any issue, we'd discuss whatever the concern was as a group. BM2 Bueno always had that "10" in equipment in his pocket if we ever needed it. The numbers are added up once the discussion is over, and based on the sum, you determine your overall risk exposure. 1-25 is in the Green (low risk); 26-48 is in the Amber (moderate risk); 49-70 is in the Red (high risk). Just because something is in the Red doesn't mean we don't do it...we just look for ways to mitigate or reduce the risk; and just because something is in the Green doesn't mean we take things for granted and don't follow procedures.

Most of KISKA's evolutions were usually low Amber, though we did have a few Reds...like coming out of drydock after 5 months with a mostly new crew, or getting underway from Radio Bay with only one functional MDE for the tsunami evacuation, or entering port on one shaft with the other one locked due to a shaft vibration. We still did them, but carefully and with plenty of discussion.

A while back, I think it may have been when ADM Allen came out with the Guardian Ethos message, we were exhorted and encouraged to use GAR in our daily lives to be better shipmates on and off the job. So here's my GAR for this first day:

Planning: 5; I've looked at maps and I've got a decent idea of where I'm going, but I neglected to get anything to post on my tank to give me an easy reference for my next turn...I don't have easy access to an electronic navigation system. And I've thought about alot of different contingencies, and have tried to mitigate them as best I can. I'll be wearing my PPE (personal protective equipment=helmet, leather jacket, boots, gloves, sunglasses, sunscreen). I've op-tested most everything. I took a break-in ride down to visit a friend in Orange County. It was great to see BJ and Laura Miles (Beej is an OCS classmate), and he gave me a great recommendation for the route to Big Sur. I'll be camping at a friend's place tonight, and if I've forgotten some camping equipment, he should be able to help out. My next stop after that is in Alameda with another set of friends, and it'll be good to make sure everything is good before heading out with no certain destination for the day.

Supervision: 4; I've got someone (plenty of someones) who know when to expect me someplace. I'll post on FB when I get where I'm going. If I don't get there, my friend will call out the cavalry to start looking for me.

Crew Selection: 7; Umm, I only learned to ride a motorcycle in February. I feel like I know kinda what I'm doing, but I definitely don't have a lot of experience with it.

Crew Fitness: 4; I've not been sleeping all that well. And it's going to be a hard ride. My gawd, the suspension on that bike is not meant for touring long distances.

Event/Evolution Complexity: 7; today's ride is pretty long and I'm taking a rather circuitous route. And what's the worst that could happen? Well, it's not pretty.

Environment: 4; it may be sunny when I start out, but I was warned by my friend that it's been cold on the coast. Lots of twisty, curvy roads with plenny potholes.

Equipment: 4; the bike is in good shape, but it runs hot. And I've got all my gear on the bike now. I took it out for a quick test ride yesterday with everything on it, and I think it actually handles a little better with the extra weight. But the saddlebags ride a little high and bump the backs of my legs when I've got my feet on the ground; not intrusively so, but enough to know it's there.

If my math is right (always a point of contention), that adds up to 36, mid-Aamber. But that's ok. I've thought things through as best I can, mitigated what risks I can, and am aware of what I need to pay attention to for those things that I can't mitigate. I'd say it's an accurate reflection of my readiness.

Now I've got to get those last few things on the bike, in the bags. It always seems there are one or two things that "oh, I'll just cram that on top." But that has added up to five or six things now and I'm wondering if I actually will be able to fit it all.

One last thing...so many, many thanks to my family and friends for their support and encouragement. I know you guys are worried about me, and for that I'm really sorry to cause you anxiety. But you also are excited for me and see the grand adventure I'm on. A hui hou!

Oh. Emm. Gee.

2010-08-02T15:11:00.000-07:00

I thought I knew what it was like to have things rather hectic, with a million things going on at once.

The last two and a half weeks taught me that I was WronG. With a capital "W." And "G." Now, this post is likely to sound kinda whiny, but it was all so very, very worth it. I just feel a little bad for my friends and family who had to deal with me as a stressed mess.

It all started, oh, I guess when we got back from our last patrol, so the middle of July. I had two and half days of being in Hilo to get things organized before my sister and her husband, Suketu, showed up in the first wave of visitors. They are truly wonderful people, easy to be with, and we had a great time. They got in on Friday evening, after riding the local bus, HeleOn from Kona to Hilo. I picked them up and we went to New Chiang Mai for dinner. On Saturday, we hung around Richardson's Beach Park in Hilo, after a Saturday morning yoga class and visit to the Hilo Farmer's Market. Sunday we visited the Volcano Farmer's Market (yes, Farmer's Markets are a theme for the two weeks), enroute to a snorkel session at Honaunau. It was a longish drive, but totally worth it.

Monday, I had to work. It was the first day of the relief week. Craig had gotten the relief binder on Thursday and had a chance to look at it, so the first day went pretty smoothly. Still pretty low stress at this point.

Tuesday, Craig and I flew to Honolulu to meet people on Sand Island. Still pretty low stress.

I knew Wednesday was likely to be a different story. Mom flew in at 12-noon; Aunt Linda and Uncle Adam flew in at 5 pm, and Uncle Steven and Aunt Jan flew in at 7 pm. Vicki and Suketu were going to pick up Mom, then stop by the office to get directions to the rental/vacation house in Kapoho, then they were going to head out that way to check the place out and call me if there was anything we needed to pick up. I was meeting Linda and Adam at the airport, taking them back to my Hilo house for a quick minute to pack up a few necessities, and then we were going to drive back to the airport to pick up Steve and Jan, and then caravan (I was on my motorcycle) down to the Kapoho house.

Whew!

But it didn't entirely work out like that.

Unbeknownst to me, Mom had a little surprise in store for me. She had made arrangements for my best friend, Amy, and her 9 year-old daughter, Ally, to come out for the COC. I've been after Amy to visit me in Hawaii since 2002, when I first got stationed here. She always had a good excuse (being not too fond of planes, especially when ticket prices were so high). But Mom had worked her Mom-magic, and convinced Amy and Ally to come.

Vicki walked into my office, I handed her the directions to the house, and then she asked me if I could come out to the car for a minute. Sure; I plopped my hat on my head, and strolled out the office door into a crowd of people just standing around. I recognized Mom and Suketu, but these other two blond strangers were so out of context that it took me a couple seconds to figure out that it was Amy and Ally. I'm not quite sure what I said, but I said it in a reeeeaaally high, squeaky voice, a pitch I'm certain none of my crew had ever heard from me before. Thank goodness there were only a few of them in the office at the time. Mom captured my surprise on her camera. Awesome, amazing, great, wonderful surprise.

I got through the rest of the afternoon and got everyone safely out to the house.

Thursday morning we got underway to conduct drills as part of the relief process. Most guests stayed out at the house for a leisurely morning to help overcome the jet lag from North Carolina. But Mom came in with me to take her ride on the ship. I'd been promising to take her out on the ship for, well, since I took command, and this was her last, absolute last opportunity. The weather wasn't great, but it wasn't totally snotty either, so I figured we'd be ok. SN Mike McKinstry's mother and brother were also in town, and they came along also.

We transited out of Radio Bay with XO driving, and we started the drills with an easy Man Overboard. BM2 Neal Bueno did a stellar job driving the ship to recover Oscar, and we deployed SN Ryan Andres as the rescue swimmer to bring Oscar back onboard...mostly becuase I didn't want to suffer through reproachful looks if I hadn't let him get into the water.

Unfortunately by this time, our guests weren't feeling too good, though they all hung in there like champs. So I reconsidered staying underway to conduct all the drills, and decided instead that we could get the same training/relief value doing the drills at the pier as we could underway. We launched and recovered the small boat, ate lunch (well, the crew ate lunch; the guests...not so much), and then headed back to the pier. I had planned to drive the ship to the pier for the last time, but felt bad that no one else had pulled into Radio Bay because I was being greedy. So XO drove us in.

It was only his second time seeing the transit and pier approach to Radio Bay, and he did a good job. I'm sure as he drives that transit more, he will become more and more confident with it. He did say that the backing-up part of it took some getting used to.

We finished up our drills at the pier, and by then Linda and Adam, Steve and Jan were waiting patiently at the office for their tour of the ship. They took lots of pictures (from left to right: Steve, Adam, me and Linda), asked lots of great questions, and were suitably impressed with how cool the ship is.

We all headed back home, after yet another stop at the grocery store.

Friday, whew Friday. I got up early, and headed in to meet my friend and Mom's neighbor, Auntie Jane at Ken's House of Pancakes for breakfast. Thank goodness I did, too, because I didn't get anything else to eat until the reception, around 4:30 that afternoon. Jane flew in for the COC, and so sweetly blogged about it on her own blog.

Fortified with a yummy breakfast, Jane ran me on a few errands that being on the motorcycle made difficult (I didn't think the fondant for the cakes would fare so well in my backpack during the ride from the grocery store to the bakery), and then dropped me off at Coconut Island where preps were already in progress.

Lots of back and forth between the office and the park, stressing over logs that weren't signed yet, and tying up a million details ate up most of the morning. Long about 1:30 pm, I went up to the changing room to put on the dress whites.

And at 2:15 pm (yea, the ceremony was supposed to start at 2:30 pm) I realized we were missing something...and sent 1/C Gookin on a mad dash back to the office for the flags! Yikes!

We started a little late.

One of my favorite parts of the ceremony was giving out lei to the crew. I know it's not totally traditional, but it just seemed like the right way to show my respect and admiration for them.

And the other favorite part of the ceremony was having it at Coconut Island. Since it was a Friday afternoon, there were lots of people in the park, just hanging out.

There were tons of pictures taken. This is one of the best, by far, of me, Mom and Vicki.This one is of the family/friends crew that came from off island/far away. From left to right in the back row: Suketu, Vicki, Uncle Steve, Aunt Jan and Uncle Adam. Front row: Linda, Mom, me, Ally and Amy.And this is of me and the ladies that work Security at the gate at the pier facility. It was sooo cool they could come.

Hanging out by the water with crew and friends.
And at the end of the evening, Ally and I prepared to jump off the rock into the harbor. Ally was brave enough to jump off the middle ledge.
That was Friday.

The rest of the time was a flurry of time spent with family and friends, until the movers showed up on Thursday, and then it was a flurry of minutaie. All I can say is, thank goodness that part of this whole thing is over. Just another reason why transfer season is no fun at all. I meant to write a post on why transfer season is so painful, but I never got to it. I also never got around to the post of KISKA crew's tattoos.

But now I'm in California, prepping for my ride across country. I will likely not be blogging much during the next three weeks...it will depend entirely on the availability of computers, so if I get to an internet cafe or a local public library, I might be able to get an update posted. I will be back to it, though. My daily GAR score for the ride will be on Facebook each morning, though :)