Hurry up & wait

I keep having total deja vu with the countdown until my due date. No, I've never been knocked up before... But, it is rather similar to the countdown for Lee's deployment. Mostly in length and end date (May 23rd vs. May 19th). I decided to compare the two because... well... I'm really really really sick of working.

The dates
Deployment: went from 10/3/2006 to 5/23/2007 ~ 232 days
Pregnancy: from 9/5/2008 to 5/19/2009 ~ 256 days
Winner ~ Deployment!

Deployment: got extended by a month when we were halfway through.
Pregnancy: they better induce me if I go past my due date by much! Klemme babies are huge enough when they're born on time.
Winner ~ Pregnancy

Emotions
Deployment: total & utter mess most the time.
Pregnancy: besides a new obsession with baskets and a lot of extra anxiety, I'm doing ok!
Winner ~ Pregnancy

Physically
Deployment: lost like 7 lbs!
Pregnancy: gained an unknown (a lot) amount of weight, hip pain, and lots of other unattractive attributes.
Winner ~ Deployment

Deployment: drank a lot of alcohol but did give up beer for Lent.
Pregnancy: no alcohol for over 9 months.
Winner ~ Deployment

Reward
Deployment: husband
Pregnancy: baby
Winner ~ Pregnancy (sorry Lee)

Score
Deployment: 3
Pregnancy: 3
IT'S A TIE!

Sorry Jess

Sorry Jess but the countdown I have on the side of my blog is no longer a countdown to your birthday. Yes, the Navy has delayed Lee getting out. Fortunately, it is only by 1 day (so far). It is still just an annoyance. One of MANY we have endured over the last few years.

However, it probably doesn't rank in the "Top 5 Ways We've Been Boned by the Navy":

5. From April of this year until mid-August, (when Lee gets out) the ship will only be in Norfolk for 5 weekends. (One of which Lee had to work.) That means that Lee and I only get to see each other 4 times in 4.5 months.

4. The Navy not letting Lee get out early because he would miss a pointless trip to Rhode Island. This is basically because the ship's XO (executive officer) wanted to look tough in front of the new captain.

3. Cancelling the ship's port visit to Canada, causing us to eat the cost of 2 plane tickets (for my mom & I) to meet the ship in Canada. Cost: $1,000.

2. Extending Lee's deployment by a month to 8 months, causing us to pay a month of rent down in Norfolk even though neither of us were living there yet. Cost: $1,300.

1. Moving Lee's deployment back a month and lengthening it to 7 months, forcing us to move our wedding from May 5th, 2007 to September 16th, 2006. Yeah, that's 8 months earlier. That was a lil' stressful. Plus, not knowing until he was on his flight home IF he would even make it back for the wedding. Cost: Unknown. Probably years off of my life.

Time for another mini-celebration!

Lee may have flown back to Norfolk today (report of the weekend to come), but we're getting close to him being home FOR GOOD! Today is 60 days!!! Exactly two months!

Seems like not too long ago I was celebrating 80 days. I hope that time continues to fly!

Here is a breakdown of what Lee's days left in the Navy are going to look like:
60 days
40 days will NOT be spent in Norfolk but either out to sea or visiting Maine, Rhode Island, and Mayport, FL.
4 days will be spent back here in Indiana for the 4th of July
1 day of duty
3 days I will be visiting Norfolk in August

That leaves only TWELVE days of him being in Norfolk by himself. His time there is really winding down!

And my days:
60 days
38 days of work
8 days on a trip to Hawaii
1 Willie concert
1 party in the Chicago 'burbs
1 visit from my Grandma
1 Railcats game
3 days in Norfolk
3 days down at the lake for the 4th of July
and 4 other days of nothing.

Double Digits Baby!

100!!!!

We're down to 100 days left until Lee is free from the Navy. Heck, I feel like I'm getting out of the Navy too, it screws up so much of my life. Hurry up 100 days. I usually love summer and want it to last, but not this year.

If you ever wondered what Lee does out at sea...

You get to see Lee a couple times in the video, although it is hard to tell who is who since it is dark out and they are all wearing the same thing. Anyway, at one point they do a close-up of him yelling. Check it out!

How to fix the military - My observations

Last week Clint posted this blog about how to fix the Army. While I know very little about the Army, I now know a lot more than I would like about the Navy. And I have a few opinions of my own on how to improve the military...

1. Run it a little more like a business. There are so many things that the military does that just would not fly in the "real world". A lot of these are necessary for the country to be protected, but many aren't. If you brought the Bob's in from Office Space, they could have a hayday with the military. There are so many inefficiencies and useless jobs in the Navy. Plus, if someone just plain sucks at their job, you can't fire them. Unless they misbehave or somehow get in trouble, you just have to have this useless person sitting around creating more work for others while still soaking up the income and benefits.


2. The salaries: Instead of offering more money for being married & having kids, make everyone's salary a little higher, but even for single vs. married. Offering more money for people to get married is just stupid. And it probably helps out our country's rate of divorce. You tell a horny, immature 18 year old that he can marry that chick he has been dating for 2 weeks and MAKE DOUBLE his salary. What do you think is going to happen? This is a salary, not welfare. (Although often times it feels like welfare.) The military needs higher salaries. How can you expect to retain good soldiers/sailors if they could make 3 times their salary doing the same job out of the Navy. You are relying on patriotism. And at the end of the day, most people realize that they could go work in a gas station and never have to leave their families and make more money than they currently do in the Navy. (Now, some of the officers, I could argue make TOO much. Just because you have a four year degree does not make you qualified to lead.)


3. Only retain the GOOD people: The Navy tries to get pretty much everyone to reenlist. Numbers are great! But, a huge army of idiots isn't. There is a guy on Lee's ship that everyone complains about. He can't handle the most simple tasks. He totally screwed up the paint locker (seriously, the room where they keep the paint). He can't even keep his own finances in shape, Lee and Jay have to do it for him. (He owes $1k on his cell phone and is in debt because he bought ENCYCLOPEDIAS.) Most say that he is so dumb he shouldn't have gotten INTO the Navy in the first place. But, the Navy will allow him to reenlist and keep on sucking at his job. Also, the Navy allows tons of GOOD people to leave the Navy each year. These are people that are already trained and experienced and are leaving for higher salaries or because of poor treatment.


4. The hours: The working hours are either awesome or horrible. For people on the ships and overseas, the hours are terrible. For the people on shore duty, the hours are so easy. Recently, we have been trying to contact the office in charge of moving. Lee has been out to sea pretty much all week every week since Christmas. He has been trying to call the moving office, but finally realized their office closes at 4:30pm everyday and closes at noon on Fridays. Our friend Tom is an officer who just recently got put on shore duty. He works (and I kid you not) about 6 days a month inspecting ships. And he makes close to the same salary as I do. And if you ask almost anyone in the Navy to do their job, they act like it is a severe inconvenience. Lee complains about it on the ship, and I see it in the hospitals and pretty much every office I have spoken with.


5. Keep it simple, stupid: Every task in the Navy has about 5 more steps than it should. Lee and I have been trying to plan our move back to Indiana. Like I said above, Lee hasn't been able to call because of their hours. So, finally, I called. I hate calling because since I am MERELY a wife, I must be a total moron. (I would argue that I am the smart one for NOT being in the military, but whatever.) They have an automated message that tells you what to do and has different options. Basically, I was directed to one website. Then, after that, I was directed to a 2nd website. Then another phone number. Seriously, why do I need to visit 2 websites and call 2 phone numbers just to get one simple question answered?
6. Re-use, Renew, Recycle: Or whatever that saying is. The Navy wastes more money than I care to even think about. For example, many of the tools that they use are Craftsman. Most people know that Craftsman offers a LIFETIME warranty on all their tools. When a tool on the ship breaks, they throw it overboard (don't tell the environmentalists that one) and order a brand new one. Lee once saw them about to throw a broken Craftsman tool overboard and stopped them and asked for it. That night we took it to Sears and they handed us a brand new one for free, no questions asked. Also, sometimes the ship accidentally orders too many of something. Instead of returning them or storing them somewhere until they need them, they give them away first come first serve to the guys on the ship. Even the uniforms are a waste of time & money. The soldiers have dress blues, dress whites, utilities, coveralls, working blues, etc. They receive a stipend for buying uniforms. But, they hardly ever even wear a lot of the uniforms. I have never even seen Lee in his dress blues since his graduation from bootcamp. They only wear the whites while they are pulling in/out of port during the summer months. I am pretty sure they could narrow it down to just a few uniforms and save everyone a lot of money.

I could probably spend another hour writing about some of the stuff I have seen in the Navy, but I need to get back to work. But, this was a good venting session!!

An Anzio Christmas

Last night was Lee's ship's Christmas party. Since I have only been to corporate Christmas parties, I had no idea what to expect. The main differences I saw:

• We had to pay for booze. Now, this is understandable because I can't even imagine what a mess it would be if you provided 400 dudes with an average age of 21 free booze. I am guessing there would be quite a few arrests. The annoying part was that you had to buy drink tickets and then get in line for the bar and get your actual drink. Annoying!


• The clothes. They made the rule that you couldn't wear jeans. Apparently a few people didn't get the memo. There were also people that wore khaki's, but with a sweatshirt. Even one of the ship big wigs was wearing a turtleneck sweater with a blazer over it... Not sure about that one... But, those were the more mild outfits. There was a girl, I kid you not, wearing a belly dancer outfit. There was a white dude that was dressed like some sort of mafia gangster. There was a guy wearing some of the brightest blue pants I have ever seen with blue dress shoes to match. I could have watched all night long.


• They had to BRIBE people to come. Basically, if you showed up to the FREE dinner, you got to take Friday off. Who in their right mind would choose to work on a Friday instead of eating a free meal on Thursday?


• The night started off with three guys bringing in the flags and playing the National Anthem. Then there was a prayer. Then there was a poem-type salute to the POW's & MIA's. This part was kind of cool. There was a small one person table set up at the front. It was left empty to symbolize the fact that the fallen sailors could not be with us there. Is it dusty in here?

(This is a really bad picture of the table for one...)


• The door prizes. Awesome! Of the 5 guys at our table, 3 of them won stuff. (Lee was not one of them. Boo!) The prizes ranged from a free day off work to a 42" flat screen tv. I would have loved to have that... Also, once all the door prizes were gone, people really bailed on the party.
(The losing ticket.)


• At the end of dinner, they turned on rap music and some people started dancing. This was the first time I got to see all ages of black dudes doing the "Soulja Boy" dance. It's pretty hard to describe, but part of the time it looks like they are riding a motorcycle, and everytime they say "Superman" they pretend like they're flying. At this point, the chick in the belly dancer outfit and her man were doing what looked like ballroom dancing. Where am I?

(Anzio's finest.)



• At the end of the night, I drank too much wine and now am at work feeling like crap while Lee sleeps in soundly on his day off. Somehow I feel screwed on this deal!

This picture has the USS Anzio's "Individual Augmentees". Now, I am NOT a big fan of the whole IA program. As a spouse, I am guessing that is no surprise. The IA program basically takes people that joined the Navy and sends them off to Iraq with the Army & Marines. This just seems like false advertising to me. In the real world, I could not get hired to be an actuary, then find out they are making me move to Alaska to be an accountant. I understand that the Army & Marines are short handed over in Iraq. But if this program continues, the Navy will soon be in the same situation. Every time someone reenlists or changes roles in the Navy, they get sent to Iraq for a year in the middle. This just means people aren't going to reenlist. It may cause people to not sign up in the first place.

There is a guy on Lee's ship who just got back from deployment in May. He is now going to Iraq for a year, so he will get home in 2009. Then he will have to go on another deployment with the ship 3 months later. How does that seem fair? He is doing his job in the Navy with an extra YEAR of Army work thrown in the middle. They already spent last Christmas in the Persian Gulf. Now they are spending this year on the ground in Iraq. I appreciate their service and I hope that they all return safely. And hopefully get a Christmas at home sometime in the next 3 years!