It's what I do. Well, that and fix the TV remote
control.
I think it's why they keep me
around.
We've got a wireless home network, courtesy of
an Apple Airport base station hooked up to my machine. No wires, no muss, no
fuss and everyone gets to share the DSL. Except that every once in a while, for
no apparent reason, the base station itself petulantly ships the bed. It crabs
out, in other words. Goes tips up.
You get the
picture.
This seems only to happen
when I am at sea for some strange reason. Which makes it hard to do anything
about, because you see, once the connection is broken, it's hard for the clan to
get distant support going - no way to email your humble scribe at sea. You
see.
And there's nothing much to do
to fix it - pull the power cord and plug it back in again, and after a few
moment's whirring of the somehow reassuring control lights on the front panel,
the internet is "fixed." But it has to wait for me because that's the way things
are in this house. It's what they do to make me feel wanted. Or needed. I
suppose.
That and the remote
control.
We don't have an
entertainment system so much as an entertainment accretion, each and every piece
of which seems to have been deliberately acquired from different corporations,
product lines and even decades. As though we had somehow felt guilty about
purchasing a Sony television, and felt thereby committed to a Samsung DVD
player, Bose speaker system and Hitachi amplifier. Almost every piece of gear
comes with its own "full featured" remote control. So fully featured in fact
that the imagination falters before standing stunned and amazed at all the
possible combinations of switch positions and settings they are capable of,
either singly or in combination. Getting all the competing remotes to agree with
one another in order to actually manipulate the entertainment system such that
the video channels can be changed with the audio remaining associated requires
the nicest sense of personal diplomacy and technological tact - everything lies
shivering and trembling in the balance. Which somehow gets routinely thrown off
the instant that I am well and truly at sea, usually waiting until the moment
after the internet connection is severed. A remote is indelicately shoved behind
a couch cushion and then promptly sat upon, and all is changed, changed utterly
- a terrible beauty is born.
So after
a brief but impassioned welcome home from all the assorted clan Neptuni, I am
importuned by fingers thrust in several directions to immediately fix the
internet, and heal the breach between the several remotes, with varying degrees
of emphasis depending upon the proclivities of the supplicant.
In moments, all is done, and we are
treated to the sound of tapping keyboards and the French Chef - all is
contentment, sweetness and light. And it's Father's Day weekend, in case the
point is lost on anyone.
So.
Came home yesterday and was greeted
by the Hobbit and the Biscuit of all people, down in Coronado. It was 8th grade
graduation day, and the Biscuit was wearing an actual dress. Which so stretched
my eyes and caused me to exclaim aloud in surprise and confusion that the female
members of my staff were quick to shush! me and tell me not to mention it, not
to say a word, for God's sake not to tease my own daughter, the love of my life
and apple of my eye.
As
if.
The Kat was at the Del Mar fair,
which comes around each year at just about this time, ending on the 4th of July
and still somehow never ceases to amaze. She called later and left a message on
the answering machine, welcoming me home, begging forgiveness for her absence,
averring that I'd understand. She's 11, and that's life in the 21st century.
Saw her today, though. Briefly. They
grow up so fast.
The strike group?
Did great. Hardly needed us around at all. Good eggs, all of them. These were
the heroes of Banda Aceh , and in that time of sore trial and
tribulation, they'd formed a rock solid team - something we couldn't have
predicted back in November, when we'd gone aboard them for en route training.
You see, they'd been "emergency surged" to fill a gap in the Global Naval Force
Positioning Plan (the forward deployed carrier was in the shipyards, and someone
noticed that from that position, getting underway would be... complicated) so
they had to leave home seven months early. And doing so, gentle reader, gave the
collective lot of them a case of the ass. You'd feel the same way too, I reckon.
But it proved we were flexible, by God. Innovative, too. Innovative is good.
This time around, they were over all that, and ready to rumble, God bless 'em,
and keep 'em strong.
Fun to work with
a team at the top of their game.
Ah -
I'd brought my camera along, thinking this would maybe be my last time at sea
after seven consecutive years of sea duty before heading ashore for at least
three years of shore duty. Thought maybe I'd take some happy snaps of airplanes
landing and taking off - all the usual madness. And yet the camera stayed in my
locker, day after day. It was overcast. I was too busy. Maybe tomorrow. Because
if you don't go up to vulture's row, and take pictures of the airplanes landing
and taking off for the last time, then maybe it isn't
over.
But maybe it is
anyway.
So, the last day at sea, and
the air wing has flown off. I step outside to catch the morning breeze and
realize that I have to take this
picture:
Not
realizing until I opened it up at home that I'd caught a dolphin leaping from
the water - you probably can't see it in this image, but it's in the sunlight
reflection on the ocean - just to the left.
This is now my desktop image, just so
you
know.
Well.
There's
more of course, but I need some time to get it all into perspective. Have a
great weekend!
Posted @
07:57 PM
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Posted in
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
