To infinity and beyond.

Starting this blog in order to keep track of my adventures here in Virginia and to keep my Facebook page more private. A little late on joining the blog scene and I have no experience at all but here it goes, and I hope you enjoy my ranting.

A little bit about myself.

 I grew up in a small town in middle Tennessee where I spent most of my time in the outdoors. I worked on the local area farms and kept myself out of trouble by hiking and camping all over the hills and woods. After high school I began working at a sawmill and logging with a good friend of mine Jordan McDonald. My original plan since I was around 12 was to enlist in the US Navy, but the reality of the end of school along with the end of a relationship I sort of lost sight of my goals.

A New Years celebration.

Finally joining the Navy.
Working in the sawmill industry, and logging is not the adrenaline filled excitement that Ax Men portrays as a reality show. Its alot of hard, monotonous labor and long days for little to no pay. The cost of fuel, blades, and supplies for the sawmill along with the ever fluctuating price of trees made for a big difference in pay checks from week to week. Alot of working outdoors, rain or shine in the mud and sawdust. Having lost our contract with Armstrong wood flooring, and the discomfort of working outdoors in Tennessee's cold wet winters we had about enough. One rainy day Jordan called me to say we were not gonna be working, and we would get some beer and hangout. I started finishing up work around the house, hay the horses and what not and I seen a Navy recruiting car drive by, you know the dark blue ones with the giant Navy across the side. It kind of snapped me back into reality. A Navy recruiter had called for my older brother a few weeks before, and the number was still on the caller ID. So, I called the number and was surprised to find it was the cell phone of the same recruiter that had driven by. I told him to turn around and not 3 days later I was headed to Chicago. Alot of people laugh when I tell them that a rainy day made me join the Navy, but I really do think had the weather been nice, and I went to work I would have just kept on goin down the same road I was on.

Two years in Great Mistakes to complete my initial training and A-school. I reported to my first ship USS James E Williams DDG 95. As a satellite communications technician on the AN/WSC-6(V)9 system my job was to maintain internet and phone capability to the ship.
A few changes happened after my first year, and I was sent to USS Wasp LHD 1 in order to support the ship's INSURV inspection. Caught in a loophole I ended up getting kept on the Wasp where I spent the next 5 years.