You’re free to post your links…

Last seen about 2100, heading for my stateroom at the end of the second 8 hours of the day behind me.

Step in, close the door (it’s been open since just before breakfast), walk over and turn on the idiot box mounted on the aft bulkhead to see what’s playing on the two channels. Settle on one of them. Bend down, retrieve the plastic bottle of squeeze cheese (courtesy of mother-in-law’s care packages) from the small refrigerator. Grab bag of toastitos, reduced to generally more smaller pieces than large due to handling in shipment, but, a little bit of “the World” in my hands.

Park in the chair at my desk, rest my feet on the surface, just inside the stateroom door and begin to consume the chips garnished with cheese. Watch the movie semi-mindlessly, while still considering what there is left to get done. After a sufficient amount of my snack to slow down for a few minutes, sit properly and begin to sift through the mail and other items in the in box. Read, think, consider, jot a few things on the AW-SHOOT list by hand (will enter them first thing in the morning), and clear the box. File action stuff in the notebook (supporting “linked” information for the tickler), or the desk drawer folders. A few hours of this and it’s taken care of for the night.

About 2300, retrieve the data from star sightings from earlier in the evening. “Reduce” the info by hand (means doing lots of math) until the sighting angle and distance towards or away along that line. Repeat until all 5 or 6 stars are figured. Get out the plotting paper and plot the assumed position, then the lines of position and the distances as computed. Early on, this was then “scratch my head time to figure out what I’d use as the “fix.” Later on, my use of the sextant became more precise and the answer to the point was much easier to determine. “Growl” the Bridge and ask the Quartermaster of the Watch to get me the position from closest to the star time fix. Plot the Ship’s position from other means (electronic usually) and determine how far off I was in my navigation efforts.

By now, it’s right about midnight. The watch has turned over (2345) and the 00-04 (Midwatch) personnel should all be on station. Get up and head by Radio (port side, enroute the Bridge), grab any new traffic, scan the space for anything that seems to be out of the ordinary. Head to the Bridge, then down to CIC, then down and aft to Central Control Station (CCS). Wander about the aft end of the ship below deck in the red lit spaces, then head back to my stateroom, assured it’s just another routine night.

About 0100, climb into the rack. The day is done.

Maybe that wasn’t very exciting, but it was a day in the life of an FFG-7 XO’s day on a deployment to the Middle East when there were no wars going on in the neighborhood.

Stumbling about in the link forest I came across an article discussing blogging and Federal law.

So…from Aviva Directory here are the twelve points discussed in “Blog Law”:

• Whether to Disclose Paid Posts
• Is Deep Linking Legal?
• The Legal Use of Images and Thumbnails
• Laws that Protect You From Stolen Content
• Domain Name Trademark Issues
• Handling Private Data About Your Readers
• Who Owns User-Developed Content and Can You Delete It
• The Duty to Monitor Your Blog Comments, and Liability
• Basic Tax Law Issues in Blogging
• Limited Liability Laws and Incorporating
• Spam Laws and Which Unsolicited Emails are Legal
• Are Bloggers Protected from Journalism Shield Laws?

I’ll have to take the time to read it closely. It certainly looks comprehensive and I strongly recommend you put down what you’re reading and get over there to see how Federal law may work for, or against you. In the meantime, I’d recommend we spread the word….

There was always a delicate balance, sometimes unspoken, between “ETs” (Electronic Technicians) and “users,” which came in all sorts of types: Officers, operations specialists, radiomen comprised most of that category. On a number of occasions, when something wasn’t performing to the expectations of the user, it was not caused by a malfunctioning of the equipment, but rather than from a misunderstanding of the function, or that the operator in question had wrong, leading to the often made remarks, in a derogatory manner, and sprinkled with “salty” language, about some dumb user. And, as luck would have it, once in a while a very frustrated, but knowledgeable petty officer found themselves making not so delicate responses to the tidal wave of derision heaped upon them when a mere mis-positioning of a switch may have been the only problem.I began my Naval career supervising a shop full of ETs, in addition to the OSs, I was the nexus, in good times and bad in the interaction of those two groups, and also the “screen” from the stuff coming down from above when RADAR and radio systems weren’t cutting it at any given moment. I appreciate it all the more because of those 18 months.

With that explanation, the new ET logo makes so much more sense, doesn’t it?