I've got an appointment with the Career Planner in two days. I've now got less than one year left on my contract, which means I need to decide what I want to do next.

I'm currently pondering two options. One is to go Reserve, and join VMGR-452, a C-130 squadron that flies from upstate New York. While a drilling reservist, I could easily attend college at any of the SUNY schools, and finish up getting my degree.

I could also reenlist for a new four-year term. I'd receive a bonus of $22,500, which equates to a $5625 per year raise over Sergeant's pay, which isn't bad anyway. I could ask for a specific unit, probably the same C-130s. Those guys don't tend to deply much, so I might be able to finish my degree in the evenings.

Complicating this, I could also just extend in Okinawa for a year, receive a smaller bonus, but kick the whole decision downstream a year.

There's no point reuppping unless I want to go career, but I'm considering that. As a careerist, to get promoted into the staff ranks, you normally have to take a "B Billet", a job that's not too popular. I'm not cut out for drill instructor duty. That leaves recruiting, and Marine Security Guard. MSG are the folks that protect American embassies all over the world. It's hard work, but intriguing. Recruiting is thankless work, but I strongly suspect I'd be good at it. However, being a recruiter plays hell on a Marine's physical fitness, which is already not my strong suit.

In fact, that's one of the things I'm pondering over. I need to get a higher PFT score. One of the squadon's gunnies took me aside about a week ago and let me know that if I ever run a 250+ PFT, there'll be a meritorious promotion board called, with me already in mind. Problem is, I've been pulling 175-190 PFTs ever sence I got to the fleet. If I recall, my highest ever PFT was 224, back in the schoolhouse, when I was doing two hours of brutal PT five days a week. 250 aside, if I want to make it to gunny, I've got to get up to a 200+ PFT consistently.

In short, I've got a lot on my mind.

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I think I owe Poseidon an apology. We pulled out from port today, to brilliant and warm sunshine. The kind of weather we'd been missing ashore. I got my camera to photograph some of the buttes in the distance. Jungle on the coastline, desert inland, that's Australia.

I finished taking photos, and started talking with LCpl T_, who also has the photo bug. While chatting, I was looking idly into the water... when a pod of dolphins surfaced for air! They weren't playing or leaping, but they were only perhaps 200 meters away.

I took some photos, until they dived and did not return. Went back to the shop, and duty called. We had to move all the aircraft on the flight deck. For each aircraft, we undo 20 chains, let the ship's Aviation Bosun's Mates tow it to the new position, then put the 20 chains back on. This gets tedious quickly.

Suddenly there were cries from the starboard catwalk. A whale surfaced no more than thirty meters off the side, so close we could see the scars and barnacles. It blew twice, and dove again.

So, Posidon: I apologize for criticizing your realm. While the scenery leaves something to be desired, your subjects were most welcoming today.

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What is nice about port calls, is that everyone goes ashore. So when I choose not too, the boat's practically empty. I can sit in the shop and put my music on the speakers without people complaining about my strange taste. I don't know why they don't like Cibo Matto, Moxy Fruvous, Arrogant Worms, Pogues, and Soul Coughing in a shuffle. Kids these days, they've got no taste for eclecticism.

Anyway, it looks like I'm again not going ashore, as most everyone else has already gone, and I'd need a libo buddy. This is the pattern for me for most ports. I go ashore one day, and spend the others catching up on sleep on board. I'd like to spend more time at cultural sites and museums and the like, but most of my compadres are interested only in drinking, so we compromise. I drag them to a cultural site, then they drag me to a bar. That's why I'm taking some leave in the summer to go off by myself to mainland Japan and see some sights.

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Yesterday, I went ashore for liberty in Brisbane, Australia. The rain had stopped, although it was cool and cloudy all day. In conversation with a shopkeeper, I learned that the rain was desperatly needed. The region is in the worst drought recorded in the last 120 years; it's only June, but the city reservoirs are at 18% capacity. Severe water restrictions are in place, and the decorative fountains are dry. But I get ahead of myself.

Three of us signed out together, just after 9 AM. A one-hour bus ride took us from our ship, moored at the grain pier near the ocean, all the way to the city center. We strolled around the Queen Street Mall for a while, a pedestrial shopping district in the middle of the city's financial district. We had lunch at a food court. I had sushi, to the amusement of my companions; why would you sail from Japan, to eat sushi in Australia? But it was locally styled sushi, stuff that one would never see in Japan. I had several maki (rolls): ginger beef, tuna salad, salmon, and beef teriyaki. Quite nice.

After lunch we wandered the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, which serves as a downtown park. It's origins are interesting; it started as a produce garden for the penal colony, then was converted to a researching botanical garden to test imported plants for Australian suitability.

Many birds and some lizards lived there, along with the plants. The birds were used to humans, and clearly expected handouts, despite signs forbidding feeding them. I guess the birds don't read the signs. I took lots of photos, as did one of my companions. Thus there are a few photos of me taking photos; I'll see if I can get ahold of them from him.

After the refreshing stroll in the park all afternoon, we found a local steakhouse and tucked in. The place was what I'd call "Wild West Style", except that it was Australian history, not American. The salad was much better than I expect from that kind of restraunt in the US; it had at least a half-dozen types of greens, none of them iceburg lettuce. For a main course, I had a steak cooked medium rare, with sausage, meatballs, veggies, and a baked potato. In another difference with the American experience, the steak actually was medium rare. I put away about 1500 kcal, and threw in the towel with plenty of meat left.

After a bit more wandering the city, we went to the Conrad Treasury Casino, a facinating place. It's a modern gambling casino, built inside what was originally the Brisbane Treasury Building, a four story monster of italianate neoclassicism. The place used to hold most of the Queensland goverment, but was sold off and remodelled. Wandering among the gambling tables and the slot machines, I was downright pained by not knowing what all the spaces had been used for originally. I love old buildings, and while I'm glad it wasn't just torn down, it still seemed like a fall in circumstance for such a great place.

For the record, I didn't do any gambling. I considered the poker tables for a while, but the low limit one that I could afford, cost too much per hand for me to want to play there.

As the evening went on, we left the casino and meandered back towards our bus stop. My companions were considering the club scene, but we decided that they'd be packed with Marines and sailors on a Thursday night, and it would be better to conserve energy for Friday.

So we stopped in an internet cafe to check our civilian email accounts for a few minutes. We stopped at a couple of musicans busking in different styles, caught our bus back to the ship, and I went to bed.

I slept about ten hours, and when I got up, I declined to go out again today, instead going back to the rack for a nap. While walking to the shop to write this, I discovered that today is bright and sunny, and much better suited to tourism and photography then yesterday was. Pity, that.

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This morning I arose on four hours of sleep to give my presentation to all the officers. I had made some mental modifications, as pilots have somewhat different concerns then the mechs I'd talked to earlier; officers arn't up there turning wrenches, but they do have ultimate responsibility for the safety of the aircraft and people on it, and they poke around during preflight inspections.

My classes for the maintainers were in the hanger bay, and I could point out the features I was discussing on the aircraft around us. Today's talk was in the ready room. I had considered making a Powerpoint with pictures, but Marines get exposed to too much Powerpoint already. I was hoping I could describe the systems well enough that the pilots could visualize them.

My choice to skip Powerpoint was wise, as my presentation was preceded by one from the Intel Officer. He did have a computer presentation, and it was excellent. Every other slide was a joke, and it was only just over a dozen slides. It was as good a one as I would have liked to make, except that I didn't have the time to make it.

So I stood up in the front and did it with words alone. (My opener: "Gentlemen, I prepared a Powerpoint of my own for this brief. It has fifty-six slides, each with disolves, sound effects, and animations. Then I discovered it causes cancer in labratory rats.") I buzzed through the talk in about fifteen minutes, and concluded to a round of applause. Afterward, I was told by several of the officers that it was the best brief they'd ever received from an enlisted, which is high praise. It helps that I was just condensing down the lecture I'd given many times two days prior, so all the jokes had been focus-group tested.

This afternoon we made port, and liberty call sounded two hours ago. I'm still on the ship, because I'm feeling rather run-down. A couple of days of no sleep are bad for me. Plus, while I guess I'm a good public speaker by Corps standards, I've been stressed about it.

We're in Brisbane, Australia, which I'm told is the third-largest city on the continent. It's raining, and it's going to keep raining all week. That won't stop me from going out on town, but it means I may not get any photos out of it. We were going to "man the rails" (stand along the edge of the ship while we pulled in), but that got cancelled due to the inclement weather.

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The classes have been going well. I've been adding and subtracting jokes depending on audience reaction, and I've got the whole thing down quite well by now. I've received some compliments about that, because most Marine Corps classes are dry as dust.

Two classes ago I got a little irritated, I must confess. I was almost done, when the ship called a man overboard drill. So we had to fly off to our shops to muster, then lost a half hour while waiting for the drill to end. Wisely, Gunny P had scheduled a half hour of slippage into the day's schedule, so we'll still get everyone out to chow without missing any classes.

It was actually during my third session that I realized what day it was. I said "Now open your training jackets to Section II, and look for the Follow On NAVOSH training page. Under the "Egress and Explosives" line, put myself as the instructor, and write '03 June 2007' as the date. Wait... June third. That seems familiar. Happy birthday to me."

For desert at dinner tonight they had some nice white cake with strawberry frosting. Mmmm. A delicious birthday cake.

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I've developed quite a few qualifications recently, and that's becoming a problem. For instance, right now I'm the only one in the squadron qualified to give a certain type of safety lecture. Today is a training day, and the powers that be decided that all hands would get that lecture, along with a lot of other stuff. So I'll be spending all day in the hanger deck, giving classes.

Which would be fun, I like teaching. But I have to do this all day long. Normally I work noon to midnight, but today my first class runs at eight and my last at midnight. Investment tip for everyone: buy stock in caffeine producers!

The other problem is that I, too, need all those trainings done and documented. So I either need to get make-up sessions, or have my training jacket pencilwhipped.

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Yesterday evening most of the squadron trooped down to medical for immunizations. The medical staff didn't want our huge line blocking all their doors, so they had us wrap back and forth in a single hallway, Disneyland-style. Just without the scenery. There were probably a hundred enlisted and ten officers, all clutching our medical records.

Standing around like that makes for easy conversations, and there was nothing else to do, so conversation blossomed. Someone asked me what I thought of some new Loch Ness Monster video, and I told them "Whiskey plus tourists equals imaginary monster." Then Cpl Os started bragging about how I was the shop genious, and out of nowhere a gauntlet appeared and hit the ground. "Genious, huh? List the noble gasses!" The officers started popping off questions at me. How many elements in the periodic table, and who invented that table, anyway. What's absolute zero on the Rankin Scale. Who was the first Marine Corps aviator. What's a black hole. Why do black holes shrink over time. Where was the first controlled fission reaction in the US. What's the closest star.

Meanwhile, Os and the other enlisted are hooting and hollering and keeping score, which I think was annoying the officers. Final score ended up something like Enlisted 25, Officers 4, which is pretty one-sided. Especially since the "Enlisted" team consisted of, well, me.

The officers were trying to locate Capt B_, who I'm told is also a trivia nut. Without him, they were overmatched, and finally retreated in defeat. After the immunizations, I headed back up to the shop, and discovered that my gunny had been watching the whole thing from the back and was totally amused. He thought that little scene was incredibly funny, and was gleefully telling everyone that walked into the shop about it. My ego is normally nice and large; right now it's about to pop like a balloon.

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