First off, we were captivated with the same slide show from 6 months ago for the holiday safety standdown from the local police department. Yadda yadda yadda, don’t speed on the island, follow traffic signs and don’t use your phone while driving. All good points, even if we have heard them time and time again. After that, things got weird. In an effort to discuss the Navy’s addition of the Alcohol Detection Device (ADD) program, two folks from the command were given beers and food to consume for later testing of the breathalyzer. Then we were treated to a lecture that seemed to go on forever from a “financial counselor” who seemed to have a lot of bad advice. Some coworkers even asked if I was okay, due to the facial contortions I was making at her statements. For someone advising people in financial matters, she didn’t seem to know much, nor have the skill for delivery.

For the next presentation, we learned about how the Navy (and our command) would implement the ADD. At one point in the presentation, a senior officer basically pointed out the inaccuracies of the slide show, and the person responsible for the program had no viable response. Instead, in true Navy fashion, he skipped over the questioning and continued with the slide. If anyone who has been in the Navy for at least a minute, knows that if you have a presentation, you make sure that it is complete. Next up was the ADD testing. Given that the volunteers had consumed beer and food about an hour previously, supposedly they were ready to test the breathalyzer results. The male volunteer tested with a BAC of 0.021, while the female volunteer tested with a BAC of 0.043. The point that they were making is that alcohol affects people differently. Check. However, the reality of the test was that the 210lb male had consumed 2 beers, while the 160lb female had consumed 4 beers. Given that information, the results are what one would expect, not taking into account that alcohol affects people differently. If they wanted to show that, each volunteer would have consumed the same number of beers.

For the last series of presentations, we were treated with a lecture about hazing, a lecture about ORM and finally, a lecture about Summertime safety. I’m not sure what the hell hazing has to do with Summertime fun, but I learned about all the stupid and irresponsible things that people do in the military that are considered “tradition”. To finish up our training, the Executive Officer once again took the stage to summarize everything that was presented in the last 3+ hours and to give his thoughts on each topic. By the time it was all over, no one was paying attention and just wanted to exit as quickly as possible.

Let’s review:

- Responsible Driving Habits: Check. Even if it’s the same one we saw 6 months ago, it’s repetition that counts.

- Responsible Alcohol Use: Check. Unless you count the fact that the example is that two people drinking different amounts of beer will have different BAC counts when tested. The scientist in me screamed out loud at this experiment.

- Financial Counseling: Check. Although I’m not 100% as to how that is affected by the Summer season.

- Hazing: Check. I’ll be sure to stop threatening my kids with swirlies, as those are the only people I tend to haze, and I do so within the bounds of legal parenting.

- Operational Risk Management (ORM): Check. While somewhat applicable to people doing stupid shit over the Summer, not really effective as ORM is sort of a joke.

- Summertime Safety: Check. Even if the entire presentation was read by the audience and consisted of slides that contained more words than the latest edition of Webster’s.

I guess the penance for having a 4 day weekend is having to sit through those 4 hours of hell. I shouldn’t complain, but honestly, we could have covered all of the ‘necessary’ topics and been in and out in less than 90 minutes. That extra time could have been dedicated to our actual mission: teaching students to serve in the fleet. But hey, I need to know about financial matters for the summer, right?

Originally, I had planned to knock out as many classes as possible through taking CLEP exams with Navy College. That idea faded after I completed the first CLEP exam, for English Composition. Even though I scored a 57 on the test, enough to claim credit for the class, I needed a 60 in order to receive 6 credit and fulfill my English requirement for SIU. Given the choice between attempting to cram enough information into my brain in order to pass a CLEP test for credit and taking the class and actually learning the material, I chose the latter of the two. Of course, the cost for taking the classes is significant, but I think actually learning something instead of going off of the collection of knowledge in my head is a better deal. And for some reason, taking the classes makes it easier to get the credit. I just wish it was not as expensive as it is. I take my general classes through Coastline Community College, largely because they are online and I can manage my time better that way than sitting in a class someplace a few hours every night of the week. Coastline offers two 8-week sessions each semester, so for the fall semester I took another 4 classes while I was attending SIU on the weekends. Now if you’ve been keeping track, that’s 24 credits in one semester. When I tell people that, they are incredulous.

Well, for all the work it took me this last semester, I got straight A’s at Coastline and straight A’s at SIU. Yesterday I received a letter in the mail from SIU stating that I was named to the Dean’s List for the Fall Semester. The Spring semester is rapidly approaching for me, with SIU classes starting this weekend and Coastline’s classes starting on the 28th. I decided to take a step further into chaos and try my hand at 3 classes in the first session at Coastline. If I can pull this off, between the two sessions of the Spring semester, I’ll have completed all of my lower level credits, fulfilling the requirements for my degree in 3 semesters. That’s right, I’m planning currently to take 30 credits during the Spring semester. Once I retire, I’ll have more to worry about that taking freshman classes, so I need to get them out of the way. I’m currently scheduled to graduate from SIU in May of 2014 and I’m due to retire from the Navy in March 2014. I’ll be done with all of my classes in December of 2013, just shy of being able to graduate at the end of the year. Then I can set my sights on my next goal: Juris Doctorate.

The next day, out on the hike, I could not have asked for a better shoe. I should have been hesitant about wearing a brand new pair of shoes out hiking, but I was not disappointed in the least. These shoes did better than any other shoe that I’ve worn while hiking. My feet were a little sore on the way down, but I think that’s largely due to the fact that I haven’t been hiking as much this season as I did last year. After this last hike, though, I am sold on the Merrell brand. I’ll just have to scout out the sales when I’m looking for another pair.

After a few hang ups with procuring the materials for the ship, I had less than a week to build the prop and get it installed at the school in preparations for the Fall Festival. It took less time than I had imagined it would. Getting the frame up together was the first step, followed by the sidings. My wife accused me of picking the most labor intensive way of putting the sides together, but it actually not that bad. I used sheets of plywood with 2x3s for the frame and for the sidings I used chopped pieces of 1x3s.

In a blind rush I finished as much as I could by Friday night for install the next morning. Saturday was spent rushing back and forth between the school and the house adding some last minute fixtures. Saturday night was spend working on the ship’s wheel. I was not going to hand make the wheel, rather find something quick and easy. But the video on YouTube detailing how ‘easy’ it would be to make one from scratch, was rolling around in my head, so I decided to start it. Cutting the hub and the outer wheel was the easy, if not tedious, part. I bought some dowels and cut them in half for the handles. Drilling the holes for the dowels, the panels of plywood began to split, mostly from not using the right kind, or enough, glue for the application. Pressing forward I did not want to waste the time already spent on the wheel. I assembled the wheel the best I could, clamped the whole thing together, and filled all of the cracks with Gorilla Glue. Next morning, I cut the handles down and applied a few coats of paint. I used cardboard tubes to assemble the mast and after making the stands for both, was finally finished with the pirate ship.

The Fall Festival is this Friday, and I need to get my costume together in short order. While pirate garb is not my first choice to scare people, it’ll work for kids in grade school, right? Oh, and two of my current classes finish this week, so I need to find time for those finals and get caught up with the other homework that I have been putting off so I could finish this thing.

I attempted to drag myself out of bed at the normal time, but settled for an hour later. There's a TRX class at the gym by the house on Friday mornings that I rarely get to take because normally I would get to work afterwards when there is no parking left on base. It is not the best class, because it only lasts for 30 minutes and only 1/3 of the class is TRX, but something is better than nothing.

Back home for a quick shower and the next stop was for some coffee. I frequent the local Starbucks, which never ceases to amaze me about the volume of people buying coffee. This the begs the question of where is the trouble of the economy everyone cries about if there are so many people buying $5 cups of coffee? I know that it is not like that everyplace in America, but I'll wager that it is in a lot of places. When was the last time anyone reported a Starbucks shuttering a store because of lack of sales?

Last stop of the morning is to the local Kia dealership to get the oil changed on the old Saturn. This place used to be a Saturn dealership but the people and the service here keep me coming back even if the place is filled with Kias. They just spent the better part of the year rebuilding the showroom, and now that it is open, I almost long for the old waiting room that was off the lot in the used car building. There is just too much going on around the new waiting area, and the piped in CCM is as bad as a mosquito buzzing in my ears. I wonder if they would notice if I moved outside to wait…

As fun as it is at first, earning badges for check-ins and becoming mayor of random places other than the local coffee shop was an interesting diversion. There was even a hotly contested Starbucks that I frequent that became a place of war for a few people, myself included. After I first joined, I sought out every badges and honor I could by checking into multiple places in one day, repeat check-ins, etc, to gain that new badge. I even earned the title of Superuser and was able to accomplish minor edits within the system, giving me even more power to improve the system.

Recently, it’s become a chore. Out to run errands? Check into Foursquare. Picking up the kids? Check into Foursquare. Walking past that location that you know you’re close to taking the mayor title? Check into Foursquare. Along with everything else, there have been plenty of naysayers about the service. There’s a website that you can look at check-ins and figure out when people aren’t at home so one could visit their empty house and relieve them of their possessions. Of course there are ways around protecting who sees what, as there are with any online service.

Overall, it’s a game and people, including myself, love to play games. But when the game becomes to much work and not enough reward, it’s no longer any fun. Sure, there are a few places that offer discounts or reward multiple visits for the users, other than bragging about being the imaginary mayor of a place there’s no real benefit. Other than a quick diversion from the normal routine, “Oh, I forgot to check-in…” ‘playing’ Foursquare is just another distraction that I don’t enjoy anymore.

In a time when people are sharing each and every thing they do (Don’t forget your Overshare badge), I’m simply not interested in that stream of consciousness any longer. Twitter is still around and I get plenty of interesting information there, including where people are getting their coffee. But with anything in life, sometimes you have to ask yourself, “If it’s not fun, why are you still doing it?”

There is nothing like the scent of skunk spray. Everyone can smell a skunk from a mile away, but when you get right up on it, the scent can be best described as a mixture of garlic, rotten egg, and burning rubber. It wasn’t until I read that description on the Internet that it made perfect sense to my confused nose. Now that smell is in my house, on my clothes and on nearly everything I touch. I had the pleasure of trying to decontaminate the house and ridding everything else of the smell.

I stopped by Target on the way home this afternoon for some Febreeze products for the interior of the house. I decided on using vinegar on the outside of the house. Once home, I donned a pair of old coveralls, filled the spray bottle with vinegar and began to spray down the affected side of the house. What was most disappointing is that the interior of the house smelled worse than the exterior of the house where the spraying occurred. Once the outside was covered in vinegar, I opened all the windows and doors in the house and turned on the fans in the bedroom to air out the house, while I covered everything fabric in Febreeze to kill the scent.

Currently, the house smells mostly of Febreeze, specifically coming from the NOTICEable plugged into an outlet in my room, where the bulk of the scent was originally. Hopefully what I read on the internet was accurate, that if a skunk discharges all of its spray, then it can take 10 days before it’s able to spray again. And in the meanwhile, the damn thing decides to move to a different location. Because while I don’t want to, I will trap it if I have to, because there’s no other way that I know of to convince the skunk to move without endangering the other animals in the area.

Afterthought: If it smells this bad when you come into contact with a spot that’s been sprayed, I never want to be the target of a skunk’s attack. Ever.

I arrived to Golden Hall extra early, to help with the final setup and to get ready for the evening. I spoke with the venue manager when I arrived and he mentioned that he had been taking calls all day about the availability of tickets. I thought it was ironic that people found his phone number, but were unable to find the website for the event that mentioned when tickets would be on sale. I set to label all of the front row seats following the seating chart that I had designed.

Once that was done, there were a few other things that required my attention, then I took a few minutes to grab some food at the bar next door. We were called back because there some small fires to put out regarding the tables, and then all hell began to break loose. People starting showing up as early as 3:30PM to buy tickets, and we were constantly turning people away until 4:30PM. Once 4:00PM arrived, there was a table setup outside the venue to process tickets and at 4:30PM the doors opened and people showed up en mass. The ticket lines were a bit chaotic at times, but there was some entertainment provided in the form of some protestors with various signs decrying atheists. One sign even read, “Richard Dawkins is the Jerry Springer of Atheism”. I chuckled when I read that one and called out to the protestors how it was a shame that they were wasting their time on a beautiful Friday Afternoon protesting at the event.

Around 6:30PM I secured the box office and let my volunteer force take their seats inside the venue, where the speakers had already started. I split the next two hours between checking inside and standing out by the doors talking with the security from [red shirt]. They were a good group of guys, and I look forward to workign with them in the future.

After the speakers were done, there was some time for questions. There were a few people who wanted to waste Richard Dawkins’ time with theological statements and requests for him to consider his position and come to accept Jesus. Others asked thoughtful questions. I feel sorry for the ones that were there to waste our time, because it’s sad that’s all they had to do that day. Shouldn’t they have been out feeding the homeless or being good christians out in the world? Hell, shouldn’t they have been at church? It was Good Friday after all.

Next came the book signing. Once started, the line began on the left of the stage, and wound around the perimeter of the venue, all the way to the back and then up the right side of the building. It seemed to go on forever. One person sitting in the front area asked if we were going to let the folks in the front row cut the line to get in earlier. When we told him no, he was upset. Hey buddy, you knew there was going to be a book signing, you should have prepared yourself for the line and stood up sooner.

Finally everything was coming to a close and all the folks with tables packed everything up and headed home. From the people I talked to, each enjoyed the event immensely and thanked us for the work we accomplished in putting it together. Then I rushed to grab my things and head out the door, the night’s receipts in my bag.

After getting lost a few times, I arrived in Mission Bay for the private reception for Richard Dawkins and the other speakers that night. I had an opportunity to sit with Richard Dawkins and have him sign two of my books, The God Delusion (first edition) and The Magic of Reality. The latter I asked to have him dedicate it to my daughter Emily.

I’m very pleased with the way everything turned out, and I’m very proud to have been a part of the event and everything that came with it. It was a excellent turnout and made the secular society more apparent for those living in San Diego.