Not as bad, but close

I'm feeling a little bit more calmed down the last couple of days. The last post seemed a little dark. I guess it was just post-leave deppression that I normally get after spending time at home and then coming to a place where your appreciation equals the sum of work, hours spent after 1600, and how much ass you kiss.

And I had a whole long post about deployment and details and everything and in one keystroke it was gone. Internet explorer closed and I lost about an hours work. Guess it wasn't supposed to be seen.

Anyways...a List of things that sucked about deployment

1. Being on a ship underway for 78 straight days with the same 250 guys.
2. Not having a day off for 78 days because the CO decides that every sunday he wants to schedule UNREPs and VERTREPs
3. Fried chicken, baked chicken, grilled chicken, dry-ass chicken, chicken salad, chicken ala-king, chicken noodle soup, chicken adobo, chicken nuggets, chicken patties, bar-b-que chicken, chicken ribs, chicken teriyaki, chicken gumbo, chicken stir-fry, chicken stew, chicken ravioli, and that's just for openers. Chicken twenty times a week. Colonel Sanders has nothing on this place.
4. Laundry that comes back soaking wet.
5. Five hundred plus movies in the ship's inventory yet they repeatedly play only about 20 of them.
6. Milk that tastes like it came from a cow with mad cow disease. Milk that has a shelf life greater than that of a nuclear bomb or that would not evaporate if placed on the sun, has to have things in it that are not good for you.
7. People who actually believe that a cigarette filter can take down a helicopter from 300 feet away.
8. People that think that it is okay to sell a completely melted candy bar, stale crackers or flat sodas for full price.
9. The smell of some guy's rack who believe's the shower is an annual requirement.
10. Hot dogs with the word Dingo anywhere on the box should have been rejected immediately.
11. Only putting out butter when there is no bread. When bread is available, all you ever hear is "nobody broke out the butter."
12.Not seeing port for 78 days because the CO wanted to see some "action" that never came. And in sight of land the entire time.
13.Doing 30 knots straight towards port only to stop 5 miles out and have the Helo launched and land to drop someone off.

Now the list of good things about deployment...

1. Nobody Died
2. Sydney
3. Mauritius
4. Hong Kong
5. Making New Friends
6. Getting 2nd Nam
7. Getting Capped to Second Class
8. Not getting shot at

More about recent events later....trying to get you guys caught up....