Monday, August 24, 2009

Tom Cruise Goes to Norfolk

As my good friend, Tom Cruise pointed out the other day; I was in freakin’ Norfolk, Virginia all last week for work. It freakin’ sucked. So fuckin’ hot, but at least the work was cool. My job is to pretty much to go on big fuckin’ boats and make sure that certain things don’t blow up until we want them to.

“But, Tom, just how big are these huge fuckin’ boats you’re talking about?” I imagine you asking your computer screen in the greatest freakin’ display of ignorance re: the internet since Ted Stevens was a senator. Well, let me give you a comparison, my dear, technically inept reader.

You know the Chrysler Building in fuckin’ Manhattan, third tallest building in New York? Each supercarrier is longer than that fuckin’ building is tall, 250 feet wide, and from top to bottom it’s as tall as a fuckin’ 24 story building. This big freakin’ boat has a crew living in it that’s bigger than the population of fuckin’ Powell, Wyoming. The smallest ship I was on was only 450 feet long, which, by the way is almost half as long as that fuckin’ Chrysler Building is tall. So, yeah, big fuckin’ boats.

So, following is what I did all week, as good as I can remember, anyway.

Sunday:

My boss picks me up at home and drives me and his freakin’ secretary to Norfolk. Fuckin’ weird, right? Four hour drive. It sucked, but the boss tells us more about the ships and stuff, so I guess I learned something, whatever. Checked into the hotel, got my shit together, went to bed.

Monday:

Up at like 5:30, did I mention going to bed after midnight. Yeah, it sucked. Fuckin’ Mickey D’s for breakfast. Got onto the USS Harry S Truman (Supercarrier), made sure that some new equipment would fit in the boat. It did. Wrote down some potential problems, went back to the hotel. Nap. Had Mongolian freakin’ barbeque for dinner, which was new. Not great. I’d rather just eat freakin’ Chinese. Accidentally ordered a porno back at the hotel. Seriously. It was an accident, I hit “order” instead of “back to menu.” Swear to fuckin’ God. I called to cancel it, but they didn’t allow that shit at the front desk, so I watched some of the terrible acting, got bored and watched Night at the Museum instead.

Tuesday:

Slightly later start, but I got to bed earlier, so not as bad. Mickey D’s again. Back on the freakin’ Truman again to help with the planning phases of another weapon system, this time with the group of guys who are designing a missile. I’m sure they were nice guys, but there was this one freakin’ douchebag retired Army Sergeant Major who kept asking such retarded questions. And apparently he get’s confused by the fact that fixing things on the ship is different from fixing broken shit on land. Then we took the whole group to a smaller boat, a destroyer (500 feet long) where the fuckin’ Sergeant Major type got to figure out that some boats have storage restrictions. Imagine that. Ass. Olive Garden for dinner. I know it’s not high quality Italian, but damnit, Olive Garden is still pretty good.

Wednesday:

Didn’t have to leave the hotel until like one, so sat around watching HBO and the Discovery Channel. Went out to one of the amphibious assault ships (830 ft), and took a freakin’ shitload of pictures of an emergency set up for using elevator shafts when the elevator isn’t working. It worked alright. Needs one of the intended pieces of equipment altered and they gotta get rid of those fuckin’ folding ladders for when the ship is underway, but not bad. Stopped at freakin’ Dairy Queen on the way back. Got back to the hotel late.

Thursday:

Checked out at the hotel. Sat outside an armory sweating for a coupla hours while a tech guy scanned the inside. He came up with a full 3D model, like a video game. It was pretty fuckin’ awesome. Got in the car, stopped at Dairy Queen again (food tasted like shit) and came home. I slept the whole freakin’ way.

Monday, again:
I’m most of the way through my day at work, and I’m not still not fuckin’ ready for my normal routine. Fuck.

To answer Tom's Questions:

I am not in the feakin' Navy, I just work for them.

The supercarrier is the only kind of carrier we have, smartass. Every fuckin' carrier that's curently in use by the US is a Nimitz style supercarrier. The fuckin' Enterprise is even bigger than the others. And yeah, it could fit a shit ton of fuckin' busses if it weren't used to haul killer airplanes.

Yeah, the shitter is called the "head," but that's not what makes the Navy look like a bunch of queers, the fuckin' Village People song does that.

Never had the food.

No mermaids, but I got a number from the waitress at Olive Garden.