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[Oct. 29th, 2009|10:27 pm] |
It's almost Halloween and I haven't a costume. Hmmm...
Seems like I got a lot going on. What are my priorities anyway? |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 28th, 2009|09:14 pm] |
I'm never in front of a computer whenever I get really contemplative about a subject I think would be good to write about. But maybe if I keep typing it'll come back...
I am definitely a victim of overly analyzing social situations. I'll spend much more time thinking than engaging in actual conversation. I still make friends so I don't really care too much about it, except when I'm trying to talk to a girl. The thing is we really shouldn't have to think. We should be relying on common sense and a basic behavioral instinct. It's analogous to messing up something you have down to muscle memory, like swinging a golf club or playing a song on an instrument, by thinking about the movements you're making. This occurs because the skills involved lie outside what you actually understand via cognitive thought. This will also happen when a normally charismatic person fumbles in front of someone they're trying to impress as well, because they're thinking too much about what they're saying and the body language that they're using. Now with some people, this is the case in just normal every day interaction with normal people.
Just like normal muscle memory, common sense has to be learned, and it has to be conditioned. So I guess I should be out forcing myself into conversations instead of being here, on the computer. Then again, if we run all our decision making and interpretations off of our acquired "common sense," this would promote not thinking, ever. And that's my theory about... stuff.
Also my mom finally got a teaching job, and I'm really happy for her.
I'll probably start double posting my lj entries as notes on facebook... starting with this one. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 9th, 2009|03:22 pm] |
Hooray for making civilian friends. And with that...
Little Known Naval History
The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat
vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her
crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to
last six months of sustained operations at sea. She
carried no evaporators (fresh water distillers).
However, let it be noted that according to her log,
"On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from
Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men,
48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot,
11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of
rum."
Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."
Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of
flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.
Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12
November. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and
64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.
On 18 November, she set sail for England.
In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war
and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging
only the rum aboard each.
By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Never-
theless, and though unarmed, she made a night raid up
the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured
a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of
single malt Scotch aboard by dawn.
Then she headed home.
The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February
1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, NO rum,
NO wine, NO whiskey and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water.
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 21st, 2009|10:03 pm] |
I've decided I'm going to be serious about keeping an address book, complete with addresses, numbers, and email addresses.
I don't have all that information on anyone I know. So email me your digits or something at tehgilligan@gmail.com if you'd like me to have that sort of information.
I'm starting Calculus on Monday at Trident Tech Community College. I'm also doing Taekwondo now. Also, I bought a violin. I was given a name of a man for lessons, I just need to contact that individual.
I've become fairly interested in Archaeology, but only the romanticized versions of it as depicted in movies and videogames. I'll do some research and probably get bored after a little bit, but we'll see. I do live in Charleston, SC. I'll look up something local and convince a friend to go explore with me. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 3rd, 2009|10:19 pm] |
I'm working for repair right now. I started today and first thing they give me is a new qual standard. At least this one isn't confidential. It has to do with maintenance mostly. I'm terribly excited about the Planned Maintenance System (PMS) and Operational Risk Management (ORM). The main work area reminds me of The Machinist. It really is a machine shop and it'll be cool to learn to use some of the machinery.
Everyone there is pretty cool. The mechanics there gave Salazar and me a hard time about being ELT's at first by calling us SMAG's (Sometimes Mechanics, Always Gay). Other acronyms I've heard are FNG (Fucking New Guy) and NUB (either Nonuseful Body or New Underway Buddy, depending on who you ask). I honestly prefer to be refered to as a Currently Unqualified Naval Trainee (CUNT). They stopped with that shit within a few minutes of talking to us though. They know we're not dumbasses. We've been through 3 months of Machinist's Mate 'A' School, we've been through 6 months of Nuclear Power School, we've been through the 6 months of Prototype as production students qualifying to operate a nuclear reactor from a mechanic standpoint, and we've been through 3 months of additional training on the same plant to do the same thing but from a chemistry and radiological controls standpoint. Now we're learning the shipyard side of things. So I'm actually getting something good out of being on hold.
The only thing that's bothering is being seperated from my old crew, and the fact that I'm no longer permitted to receive occupational exposure is widening the rift. I'm an Engineering Laboratory Technician for Christ's sake, and they won't let me work with radiological materials or play with chemicals. NR won't let the boat pick up a new ELT staff instructor because we're needed so bad out at sea, but at the same time certain policies won't send me out to sea because I have to wait on the results of my officer package. Go bureaucracy, go.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 29th, 2009|11:30 am] |
It looks like I'm not going to be an instructor. It wasn't that I was denied. It was the command's request to the Overmind in DC for an ELT staff pick-up that was denied. Apparently I'm needed out at sea, which is where I'm not going either way. I just want to do my fucking job and they won't let me. However, I will be on a normal schedule with a lot of free time. Maybe I'll take some classes or get a part time job somewhere. I'll see if I can get a day or two off to come to Florida. I also need to fly up to Chicago one weekend to visit my brother before he moves back to San Diego in November. Maybe I'll go to Arizona and San Diego for Christmas if I end up getting picked up for STA-21, or even if I don't and end up on a boat in San Diego. That'd be pretty sweet... I already miss my old crew.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 26th, 2009|09:51 am] |
I finished with my training as an ELT. It's been decided that I'm going to be an instructor. So I get to teach production students basic radcon and chemistry, and I get to teach and train future ELT's. Sounds like a blast, especially at this command. So I guess I'm stuck in Charleston, SC for another two years unless I get picked for officer, then it's college. I'll know in October.
I'm moving into a TWO storie house. I've never lived in a house with multiple stories. It's exciting. my roomate is going to be an EM2 Taylor but we need to find another roomate to fill the other bedroom. So if you're moving to the Charleston area and don't smoke weed at home, we've got a room for you.
"Hey Gilligan, you're getting staff?"
"Yeah."
"You should move in with me."
"Okay."
I've been getting a lot of friend requests from Christian bands on myspace. I don't know what that's about.
I think I'm going to write anecdotes and poetry on my furniture in discreet places.
I've also been mixing up the words "comely" and "homely" which could lead to disasterous consequences under certain circumstances.
Right now I'm watching ants. They very in size relatively between that of a dog and a horse. I don't think ants have child labor laws. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 11th, 2009|10:23 pm] |
If I were a loans officer...
"I'm calling from capital about your student loans. I just wanted to thank you for paying them. I'm sure it's not always easy, but you are doing great. You should be proud of the life you've made for yourself." |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|01:40 am] |
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Was anybody gonna go to Lallapalooza this year? It might be a possibility for me but I've nobody to go with. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|09:37 pm] |
I was going to try to make a long and eventful post about the long and eventful day I had last Friday. It was going to include pictures and possibly even videos that I took during that day. Then I realized it would take a lot of time and energy, so I didn't.
However, I went to a museum, went to an outdoor shop, bought a Jim Morrison poster, saw a band from Atlanta called The Constellations, had an intriguing and deep conversation at the Apple Store with a Brazilian immigrant who drives a recycling truck, bought a book called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," and went to a book signing for a book called "The Unknown Knowns" by a young gent by the name of Jeffery Rotter. I also bought that book. I'm going to force reading into my schedule.
Work sucks but I've managed to rekindle an interest in math/physics/chemistry type problems. I like problem solving. I remember deriving Hooke's Law for springs in series in AP Physics on the board without knowing it. It was really good feeling at the time only because Mr. Young said he was impressed. He actually told me that. It didn't seem like a big deal at the time but it's actually fairly fundamental throughout mechanical and electrical engineering. Later I was working on what I now know as the chain rule for calculus, but I learned about it before I could make any real individual progress on it. I forgot it though, so maybe I'll try again. However, I think it's kind of sad that I don't know calculus at my age considering my profession.
Despite my gaps in knowledge I've realized how useful my more recent education is, outside of current work, in other industries and as a consumer whore. I hated chemistry in high school because I thought it was superficial, and it was. That's why I failed it. However, now it isn't. Sure, water chemistry isn't as complicated as biochemistry, medicine, or genetics, but it's extremely practical and I know what I'm looking at when I read the ingredients on the side of cleaning supplies. |
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| I gotta say, this guy is really good at that awkward dance. |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|04:51 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | an unmade bed | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  water | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Yeasayer - 2080 | ] |
Considering it's such a localized shot, I was fairly amused at the number of people who just kept coming out of the wood works. Reminds me of breaking a glass graduated cylinder on the boat. If this happens to you, you have to buy every ELT who hears it a soda. Just the hollow ting of it hitting a hard surface would have every SMAG on board there before you could fully recover.
Brings back memories of the Dancing Plague of 1518. It was tragic indeed.
"The outbreak began in July 1518, when a woman, Frau Troffea, began to dance fervently in a street in Strasbourg.[1] This lasted somewhere between four to six days. Within a week, 34 others had joined, and within a month, there were around 400 dancers. Most of these people eventually died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.[1]"
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 11th, 2009|03:36 am] |
This video is happiness.
There might be something else I should say but I don't know what it is, or remember.
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|02:01 pm] |
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I was gonna make a meaningful post but I'm all sorts of messed up. My left eye is scratched up from falling asleep with a ripped contact on and I think I have swine flu. I tried running to see if I could sweat it out or whatever, but it didn't work. I'm too miserable to spill out any philosophical bile today. Be grateful. I wish I could take pictures at work. It's most of my life and I can't share it with anybody. I suppose I could talk about people I work with but it would only be an enjoyable read if there was an accompanied awkward picture to go with it. Not enough people really use lj that much anymore anyway. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 18th, 2009|09:57 pm] |
"When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down, "happy." They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life."
It's sad how society judges people. I think about great minds that would have been lost if individuals had grown up in unfavorable circumstances. Then I think about the potential that has been lost because of this. I wonder how much society would be different, how much more advanced we'd be if say, the Catholic church had been favorable of the sciences, if the Greeks had gotten around to developing steam engines in the B.C.'s, or if Galois hadn't died in a duel when he was 20. These definitely are not new thoughts, but I write about them none of the less.
I went on a two hour run and it hurt. It still hurts. I wasn't planning on it. I'm gonna take a hot shower and snuggle up in my micro fleece blanket on my memory foam mattress and not move. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 14th, 2009|11:30 pm] |
I think that when I'm old I'm gonna feel like I haven't done enough. Like I still have an unpaid debt to society. It won't matter how successful I might become either.
The first time I run after a long hiatus always sucks. The second time though is usually pretty amazing. Still sore from the first run I just kept running. I usually don't run for an hour, even when I was in shape. Every time I started hurting really bad I just kept going until the pain eventually went away. The only reason I really stopped was because I didn't want my legs to be dead tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I doubt I'll keep it up, but we'll see. I'll have to find a way to keep myself motivated.
Lab work and radcon is interesting (but can be very boring). It requires a certain efficiency and skill, because you're dealing with radioactive material. I've never had to be this careful about where my hands are moving, what I'm touching, and with which hand. Also keeping track of tools and the like. You have to have a very neat work area. Oh, and nothing I'm working with glows. I've heard of other radioisotopes "glowing" due to photo interactions between emmitted gammas (high frequency light) and your eyeballs, but I don't have any personal experience with this or any academic source to support this. However there is one instance is where blue light is produced by electrons moving faster than light in certain mediums (like water where light moves slower). It's the same logic behind a sonic boom produced from breaking the sound barrier. The electrons let out electomagnetic waves (light) with which it then interferes with by going faster than. I went on a tangent. Whatever. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 8th, 2009|05:20 pm] |
Under two weeks and over three hundred pages of notes. This is a new level of ridiculousness. Especially after having a four hour exam over it all yesterday. We even took notes on things after the exam that were on the exam. I guess it's safe to say that we're getting pretty used to it though.
They know we can handle it because of what we had to do to get to this point. So they know you're not trying if you aren't keeping up, and they will shaft you if this is the case. However, the line between staff and student is all but faded at this point. They just expect us to do our job. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 4th, 2009|11:02 pm] |
Hey I'm updating this to update it. I had a great time this weekend at the beach, bbq, and pasta party. I'm glad I'm actually doing something with my time off. I'm still on 12 hour work days for now. Hopefully that will change after this here 4 hour exam on Thursday. Radcon and chemistry make for a very dry combination.
I'm nearing completion for my STA-21 package. They don't send it out until July though, and I won't get results in until October. I'm gonna be on hold waiting for while. I really want to get the commissioning. I have a lot of eggs in that basket. Plus I made a deal with this girl at the haircut place that if I walked in 4 years from now with gold bars and a degree in Nuclear Engineering, she'd buy me a shot and beer. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|08:36 pm] |
Leave was amazing. But now I'm back at work. First day feels like I'm not going to have a life for the next couple months and that I'm going to miss out on things that I was hoping to make room for. I'm supposed to return to my old crew in 5 weeks and the scheduling may just be coincidence, but I seem to be getting the worst possible deal for the shift I'm coming on crew for.
The first week back from leave is probably not the best time to be finishing up a personal statement about why I should be selected for a commissioning program. I know I'll get used to the 12 hour work days and the intellectual drain and frustration that goes along with what I'm doing right now, but I want to reach that routine right freakin' now. So excuse me as I numb my social ambitions and let dust collect on all my books and musical instruments. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 13th, 2009|09:16 pm] |
I have yet another graduation coming up on Friday. This one is kinda bullshit though. It's not a school. It's work. It's the same thing I'll be doing at sea. I'm gonna have to qualify and learn a new plant. Except when I qualify on a commissioned boat they're just gonna be like, "It's about damn time, you can now support the watchbill."
Venice is building a 40 MW power plant that produces energy from algae. Iceland has invested a lot into geothermal. Denmark or something is utilizing the oceans' currents. France is seeking a more fundamental solution and in the process expanding humanity's understanding of the universe (CERN). Solar panels, wind turbines, etc. The only real advantage fission has as an alternate energy source is it's strategic convenience, which is why the navy uses it. It's like an outlet vs. a battery. And since I've seen what even minor negligence can do to a person's career in the navy's nuclear program, and knowing the plants' design and operation, I trust them to park 20 of them in the port of a major city.
Went to a friend's house and hour and a half south of here for Easter. I got to help hide Easter Eggs for his little siblings. It was an odd transition from the navy. I had to bite my tongue a lot. I can be professional and then not, but that required something different from me that I'm not used to. Sure, I live in a house with a baby right now, but it's a baby. I need to go to work. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 8th, 2009|06:12 am] |
I've been in the navy 21 months. I am now nuclear qualified. When they said two years, they weren't kidding. And I just had to go put in a package for Engineering Laboratory Technician too. That'll be another three months.
I'll be in Florida for a week following April 17th. I think I'm gonna finish my taxes today. Heh. I'm gonna replace the front two speakers in my car and maybe get a new CD player all together when I get my return.
I saw Knowing. It was interesting. I didn't have very many expectations for it. So better than expected. Plenty of "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" moments. |
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