Sunday
Jan032010
2010 FTW!
Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 9:20PM
My January goal update is a little late because I was in Virginia visiting my younger bro, Cole, and his wife, Tori. Cole is a watercraft engineer in the Army and he's getting ready to leave for Haiti for six to nine months, so we thought it would be good to hang out with them for New Year's. On Saturday Cole took us on his boat, a LCU (or some acronym like that). He showed us his bunk, the engine room where he works, the ridiculous wall of switches and gauges he monitors, and a bunch of other cool things, like "the tunnel," a long hallway type section where they store supplies like gigantic oil filters.
I brought my spare 20 inch monitor with me because Cole wanted to borrow it while he was away. He showed me the space in his bunk where he planned to mount it and his Xbox so he could play during his downtime. He put off mounting it while I was there so he could set up his Xbox in the other room and play some Codmow2 online with me.
We were playing a special ops match Saturday morning and he picked up a gun and said, "Dude, turn around and look at my guy." I did, and asked him what was so special about it.
"I shot this gun last week, in real life," he said.
Whoa.
It was part of some routine training I think. They had machine guns with grenade launchers attached (I want to say it was an M16, but who knows) and they had to shoot down targets that would pop up at the range, similar to what you have to do in the first level of Call of Duty. Cole said he normally gets pretty good rankings, but when they added the grenade launcher he had to hold the gun differently and he didn't score as well as he would have liked. Maybe it's because he's my little brother, but I found that little exchange to be both awesome, and slightly unsettling.
Overall, it was quite a humbling trip. I'm proud of my little brother (okay, so he's only a year younger than me). I might be able to work from home now (more on that in a bit), but his office blows mine away. And yes I can string a few words together in a pretty sentence, but he knows how to fix an engine on a huge military vessel. Impressive.
Anyways, on to the January goals. Let's review December first.
I brought my spare 20 inch monitor with me because Cole wanted to borrow it while he was away. He showed me the space in his bunk where he planned to mount it and his Xbox so he could play during his downtime. He put off mounting it while I was there so he could set up his Xbox in the other room and play some Codmow2 online with me.
We were playing a special ops match Saturday morning and he picked up a gun and said, "Dude, turn around and look at my guy." I did, and asked him what was so special about it.
"I shot this gun last week, in real life," he said.
Whoa.
It was part of some routine training I think. They had machine guns with grenade launchers attached (I want to say it was an M16, but who knows) and they had to shoot down targets that would pop up at the range, similar to what you have to do in the first level of Call of Duty. Cole said he normally gets pretty good rankings, but when they added the grenade launcher he had to hold the gun differently and he didn't score as well as he would have liked. Maybe it's because he's my little brother, but I found that little exchange to be both awesome, and slightly unsettling.
Overall, it was quite a humbling trip. I'm proud of my little brother (okay, so he's only a year younger than me). I might be able to work from home now (more on that in a bit), but his office blows mine away. And yes I can string a few words together in a pretty sentence, but he knows how to fix an engine on a huge military vessel. Impressive.
Anyways, on to the January goals. Let's review December first.
in Goals, Life update, Work
Goals, Life update, Work
Reader Comments (2)
I have visited many a ship and know what it's like to see something that is so amazing. The games we play are real life for many.
Too bad about your car, but it sounds like things will work out.
Good luck with the new job. I hope that you enjoy it and it's everything you want it to be. I've made sacrifices before, but it's all about balance and making exchanges. I tell myself that eventually it will all even out in the end.
Happy New Year!
Hey Emily, thanks for stopping by. My bro's ship was very cool. I expected it to be much smaller and tighter, like the submarines my dad was on when we were kids. It was actually kind of spacious...for a boat housing 15 plus guys.
The car situation sucks, but the important thing is no one was hurt. Cars are replaceable, people aren't.
After my first day, I'm positive the exchange of pay was worth it. I love my new job, it's fun, challenging and invigorating. I'm very fortunate to have found it. Happy New Year to you too.