On track by leadmark!

(Yes, not very imaginative, I know.. NABS have killed my inner child.)

So, I have passed MARS III. I actually passed last week, but kept trying to find something good to post before I actually posted anything. Sadly, I can't seem to come up with a good post that would sum up everything.

I also don't have any "new" qualifications. Although I'm now competent in navigation and such, I still can't drive a warship. I'm just qualified to go and do MARS IV next year. Yay me. Still, as much as NETP-O is supposed to "take a regular CF officer and make him into a Naval Officer", I feel much more like a naval officer now than I did after NETP-O. I actually have a job that I'm somewhat competent at, after waiting three years to do anything relevant to my career. Humping a rucksack and pretending to man OPs isn't exactly Navy-like. (Ok, American IAs might have a different opinion, but that doesn't count.)

I'm also pretty happy right now. RMC is going to suck this year (all kinds of stuff coming down that will affect me negatively, on top of having an admin position) but I'm finally seeing some light at the end of that tunnel, I'm fairly certain it's not a train, and after I graduate I'll probably get sent on some OJT on a frigate, which means some sea time, which means money and fun.

One guy from my course who had previous time in mentionned that a we go on in our careers, we'll realize that our friends in high school lead just about the same life as they did back then. While we'll be out doing cool stuff like driving around Vancouver Island (or driving off to Hawaii, Hong Kong, and other exotic locales) they'll be smoking pot, drinking beer, watching crappy TV, and they'll still be working at Best Buy. (Of course, one of my high school football teammates is in my class at RMC, but not that many people from high school seem to be doing anything remarkable.) I don't find it hard to believe; just this summer I've done some pretty cool stuff like driving a warship--even though it's just a patrol craft--in some relatively tight situations, and I have friends who went on RIMPAC and other such short deployments for the summer.

Anyway, real life is coming up pretty quickly. I'm ready for it, but it's a bit weird when you realize that in less than a year you'll have a commission and you'll probably be standing on the bridge of a warship out in the middle of the ocean, fighting off the communist hordes.

Okay, maybe not fighting off the communist hordes.

...recommend maintain...

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!

CNN breaking news: Russia has invaded Georgia.

In a move reminiscent of 1980s movie Red Dawn, Russia, presumably with Cuban help, has invaded the US State of Georgia.

...

Wait, they invaded the COUNTRY of Georgia? Oh, right.

...

Ok, on a serious note, why do wars always happen in the summer, when I don't have time to watch the news all the time, and can't keep up to the latest developments? It was hard for me to keep up with the Israel-Lebanon war, and this newest war, between Russia and Georgia, will be nearly impossible for me to keep track of.

From what I gather from CNN and the BBC, all hell is breaking lose. Separatists, Georgian troops, Russian troops... there's a fire going on in the ammo bunker!

More later.

What did we see? We saw the sea.

I posted the astonishing number of posts I managed to write up during sea phase, according to the date they were written on (but not the time--I set it to midnight). I'll post something later--I've been trying to clear my head and have a little R&R this weekend. Enjoy.