Sailor Dad

Looking over the calendar, it would appear that it’s been nearly two months since I bothered to post anything here. It’s not that I don’t really have anything to say. I’ve been to some pretty awesome cities and countries and I’ve seen some things I never thought I’d see, even during a career in the Navy. A lot of it seems empty, since I’d rather be home with my family. Of course that might be a clichéd thing to say, because obviously I’d rather be home than out to sea, who wouldn’t? The few stops we make almost pale in comparison to the amount of time that we spend at sea, packed like sardines into a tin can. It is an experience that cannot be described to the average person. To add to the list of clichés, you had to have been there. Of course a lot of what I experience I wouldn’t wish on many people.

I usually post on Twitter that my days are boring and are the same over and over. Most of the time that is a truth, at least to me. As of recent times, that has changed slightly. Of course due to my location in the world, I cannot talk about a lot of it, because of security restrictions. This of course then takes away from the experience in my opinion. What’s the point of a good story if you can’t share it with your friends? And seeing how a large majority of my friends are back in San Diego my only forms of communication are Email, Twitter and this blog. While great for connecting it makes it hard to get a point across, even about things that I can discuss.

Then there is the fact that through the same outlets I have, I can look into other people’s world and see their lives progressing and doing things. While trying to make the most of my experiences out here, I cannot help to wonder how my life spent at sea will improve other facets of my life. I guess in the most important way, I’ll look to the things in my life with more quality. My friends and my family and the time that I am able to spend with them become a great value. It forces one to think about what’s important when there’s nothing else to think about. It’s as if I’ve lost a sense, like sight or hearing. A lot of things come out with more clarity when thought upon.

Perhaps I will take the time to expound on my adventures. Perhaps this will be just another post that will be the bookend in another two months. Who knows? I may just get off my sorry butt and get back into blogging, one of the only voices I have while out to sea. If you want, drop me a line at thomas.permuy@ddg91.navy.mil. I’d love to hear people in the rest of the world.

I’ve not been here for a few days, because there’s: 1) Nothing that I can find interesting enough to mention or 2) Anything I can actually discuss due to security considerations. Because I wasn’t paying attention to the schedule yesterday I missed the fact that we rolled the clocks back again tonight and so I am up an hour early for my watch. Since it’s the middle of the night here, I hopped onto the internet to try and catch up with things that are happening in San Diego, mostly through my Twitter and Facebook accounts. I noticed that my Facebook account had an unusually large number of photo albums and when I clicked through to check it I realized that Posterous, the website I do most if not all of my status updates and blog posts, screwed up royally in posting the 40 pictures I posted from Oahu to Facebook no less than 6 times. The worst part of it all is that not one album is complete. So now, the next time I get to shore and grab some internet, I’m going to have to set aside time and fix one album and delete the rest.

It might seem like something trivial to complain and post about, but my only real link to the internet is through email. When screw-ups like this happen it shows that I have little to no control over the things that I want to share on the internet with my friends. And after it ends up looking like crap, it’s a little disappointing. I guess if that’s all I really have to complain about, I’m doing alright.

It’s been just over two weeks since I left home for deployment and it doesn’t yet feel like I’m on deployment. It seems more like a shorter underway period where we return after 3-4 weeks and it’s not that big of a deal. Instead I don’t think it will hit until we get further west. I guess the only way to make the time pass is to go through each day as it happens. Hopefully the stops we make for port visits punctuate the time so that it makes the overall trip seem to pass faster.

One problem with stopping our journey briefly to visit ports makes in that I lose my thoughts and can come up with very little because the day to day ‘adventure’ isn’t all that exciting to most people. And while I can’t discuss our next location, I am looking forward to the next stop especially.