Mission Complete

So yeah, Sandy Eggo, was out there in July and August, went back again in September. Above is the view from my hotel room, pretty nice, neh? Odd thing though, I can see where I work from my room. See the arrow below? That's where USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) and USS Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001) are tied up. The latter is where I've been working over the past few months.

Now don't bother to zoom in (it's all rather pixelated) I did that for you...

The two angular looking things under the bridge? That's the two ships, 1000 is on the left, 1001 is on the right. (Last time I was here they were swapped.) The big flat top, well, bigger than a Zumwalt-class destroyer, that's USS Makin Island (LHD 8), she's having some work done on her flight deck I believe.

So when I get up in the morning, provided the maritime layer (think fog/smog/mist) isn't too thick, I can see whether or not the ship is still there. That is, "Oh yeah, she's still there, guess I gotta go to work.)

This trip was half as long as the last one, the first trip was to exercise the systems in preparation for the testing we did over the past week. From what I could tell, that first three weeks was time (and money) well spent, the past week went great. Sure there were the occasional glitches and "WTFs?" but all in all, things went well.

So well in fact that we finished a day earlier than expected.

I could, in theory, have flown home on Saturday. But, I did not, check your calendars. I decided not to tempt fate. The Missus Herself said, "Good call." So I flew Sunday instead and spent Saturday chillaxing, sittin' on the dock of the bay, watchin' the tide roll away...

Okay, Beans started it, I mean c'mon man, two music posts in a row? Now I have to get home, fire up the computer and listen to all those videos. Sigh, my work is never done...

Just heard that there might be a return engagement out this way come November. But it goes over Thanksgiving...

That I'll have to think about.

Managed to make it to Shakespeare's twice on this trip, to make up for not going on the last trip. Monday night was a team building thing, dinner with the team as it were, with special guest star Tuna.

Thursday night was a meet-up with fellow Lexican BigSoxFan and an old Air Force buddy of mine, Greg, who I hadn't seen since 1978 (for those of you playing at home, that's 43 years ago). As Greg said, "We were airman once, and young."

Yes we were. Gotta say though, Greg has aged far more gracefully than I, must be that SoCal life style. Had a great time chatting with Greg and his wife.

Hadn't seen BigSoxFan in ages either, I think not since the last Lexican Sandy Eggo gathering I went to some years back. He's doing well, fellow New Englander he, not sure how he wound up in Sandy Eggo, but he's been here a while. Good man.

Left Shakespeare's in plenty of time to get back to the hotel and hit the rack before the standard five o'clock start on Friday. Too bad that one of the longest (and slowest) trains I've ever seen was between me and said hotel. Felt like I'd been transported out to the road from Lemoore to Fresno where the miles and miles of nothing gets interrupted by a train track, complete with long slow train to wherever.

But I got a solid four hours of rack time before having to get up and go to work (maritime layer made the ship invisible, I guess that stealth stuff works... Oh, wait). Thank goodness Friday was a short day.

Around the time you're reading this, I'll probably be airborne and winging my way back east.

I'm getting kinda old for this, but hey, I actually live for this kinda thing.

Yeah, I am a little nuts...