How Days Turn Into Weeks and Weeks Turn Into Months

I doubt, from the few readers I had checking our blog, that there are any of you left reading this. ...Well, perhaps there are one or two, who I subtly set there homepage to our Blog site, and they have yet figured out how to change it back to ESPN or MSN. For those of you willing or unwillingly checking our blog for an update here it is:

After my last blog entry, 2 months ago, life was pretty ordinary. In fact, it was straight boring. Like the weather here, very little changed with our day-to-day routine. Of course, Madison had her moments, but for the most part, I went to work and flew some, while Shelly took care of Madison and worked on her weddings for this summer. In fact, I was just waiting for some humorous or interesting event to happen that I could write about and was struggling. And then, like with most things in life, when it rains it pours. On a Friday afternoon, about a month ago, there was rumor of a detachment standing up for an immediate deployment. By the end of the day, I was pulled aside and told I and four others would be deploying in less than two week for a four month cruise. Most of you do not know, nor care to know, the preparation involved with deploying, and to do it in under two weeks is a whirlwind to say the least. I was at the squadron 12 hours a day, while trying to get the family time in at home before leaving. On top of it, I was looking at going to the Navy's graduate school for my next tour, and many of the programs I was interested in required me to take college Calculus (for my high school AP credit was not good enough). I found one class through the local community college, but since I was not sure if I was going to be here to finish the class, I settled on taking it through Phoenix Online (the completely for-profit institution). So, I went from doing nothing to preparing to deploy and taking Calculus. Fortunately or unfortunately, the ship's flight deck we were to deploy with needed to be resurfaced before a helicopter could land on it, and they were unable to get this done in such a short time. So, after being told we were deploying, we weren't deploying, we were being delayed, back to we were leaving in a couple of days, we ended up not going at all -typical for the Navy.

I am still taking the Calculus class, and for those of you who have never taken a online class before (I haven't before now), I do not recommend taking a math class online. If there is one subject, whose concepts could not be any more complicated and whose authors, by nature, are not good at explaining themselves in writing, it is math. Here is the concept of an online class: buy the book, read the book, and send in the homework. These so called email forums are little more than places to places to prove you are still alive and haven't forgotten about your online obligation. The professor's comments are usually little more than "correct" or "you made an error". I assume if you took a philosophy class or writing class online, you might have some very dynamic and thoughtful interaction with your classmates and professors, but this is not really the case with math, for you either get it or you don't. Fortunately, most aviators (except for me of course) come from very technical backgrounds, including my good friend RJ, who has a masters in Mechanical Engineering. Thus, every week, he can count on tutoring me on that week's lessons. I don't know how the others in the class do it, except I know two of them are also in the Navy, trying to go to graduate school next, and I can only assume they each have there own respective RJs to help them through. I will not say it is not entirely uninteresting, and in fact, tempts me to take more classes after this one, though it will probably be through the local community college and not Phoenix University Online -at least somewhere where there is a professors I can talk to when I have questions.

More importantly, what the math class has meant in relationship to our blog is that every time I am on the computer now, it is to look up some obscure math concept, like implicit differentiation, instead of writing about that weeks happenings.

Two weeks ago, I did go to the International Rugby Seven's tournament, which was held here in SD. My college rugby coach, Paul Kenney, came with a group of guys from the Va/NC area. I also had a friend, Tony Arendt, who is currently stationed in Japan (here is the link to there Blog site thelifeofabakagaijin), in town and also come to the tournament. It was awesome! And will be in SD for the next three years, so for any of you who want to come out next year, you are more then welcomed to crash with us.

Finally, this last weekend, Shelly, Madison, and I went up to Oregon for Shelly's grandparents' 50th Anniversary. It was really nice and 50 years together is incredible (I know Shelly and I sometimes think 5 years together will be incredible). Anyway, congratulations to Jim and Darla, and here are some pictures.

If you are wondering where we are going next, we don't know. We are trying to stay in San Diego, but being in the Navy this is not a garauntee. We will be here through August, so if you want to visit San Diego, this summer is the time.

To recap: I was going to deploy then didn't. I am learning Calculus from a book, which is the equivialent to teaching myself how to fly from a manual. I watched a lot of rugby in one weekend. We still have no idea where we will be stationed next, and Shelly and I witnessed two people make it 50 years without killing each other.