The Transition

One day recently, for no apparent reason, my Microsoft Outlook wouldn't display my calendar. It just kept showing this weird table-format instead of the traditional calendar format.

I spent an agonizingly long time clicking around different buttons and pull-down menus on my computer screen trying to change the display back to my normal calendar. I searched every pull-down menu and option and could NOT figure out WHY it wouldn't display my calendar. A couple of times I considered asking for help from one of the lieutenants, but I kept telling myself, "Self, it CAN'T be this hard."

After about 15 minutes of fruitlessly clicking around on Outlook interspersed with banging my head on the desk miscellaneous phone calls, conversations with other people in the office, and other routine office work, I finally gave in and walked over to the playpen bullpen where all the lieutenants sit. I asked if any of them could help me figure out how to get my Outlook calendar to come up on the screen.

They all sorta looked at me with this disbelieving-smirk facial expression that said, "Is he serious?"

One of the lieutenants took pity on me, came over to my computer, and in about 3 seconds and just as many mouse clicks had my calendar up on the screen. Without saying a word, he quietly went back to his desk.

I felt pretty stupid.

Even so, I was glad the LT was able to fix it quickly, and I was especially glad he didn't say out loud what I'm sure he was thinking in his head.

Another one of the lieutenants wasn't willing to let me off the hook that easy. He came over and congratulated me on making "the transition" to becoming a "senior officer." He explained that as you go up in rank, you lose technical competence and have to ask the LTs to figure out the simple things like Microsoft Outlook.

Niiice.

Military Special Events and Ceremonies in DC

Sorry my blog posting has been light lately. I've been pretty busy planning this weekend's festivities in addition to my normal workload. Friday we had my promotion ceremony at the Navy Museum on Washington Navy Yard and Saturday we had a big wetting down party here at our house, and both events took a lot of planning and coordination and setup.

My wonderful wife and I could not have done it all without the help of our awesome family members who flew in from out of state to assist in the setup and cleanup of both events. Actually, I give myself too much credit. It was really my wonderful wife, dad, stepmom, stepbrother, and mother in law who did all the manual labor and hard work. Both events were a big success due to their efforts. I just sorta went with the flow of things.

You may recall I had a poll on my blog a few weeks ago asking for your opinions where to have the promotion ceremony. Although the Navy Memorial in downtown D.C. won the poll, the Navy Museum wasn't far behind in the votes and I opted for the Navy Museum. My main concern with the Navy Memorial was the outdoor location and the risk of either rain or of extreme heat and humidity in July. As it turns out, it was a very hot and muggy day outside, so I was glad we chose the indoor location (and it was still pretty warm inside the museum).

ES found a nice ring-side seat on a cannon to watch.

ES and YB (who commandeered my old cover)
heading into the reception at the Navy Art
Gallery next door to the Museum

On Saturday we had 50 adults and 17 kids over to our house for a wetting down party. You can read about the history and tradition of the wetting-down in this wikipedia article. Nowadays, there is no set standard for how to do a wetting down, and everyone comes up with their own variation on it. For another recent example, you can see photos on the Navy website of the wetting down on board USS RONALD REAGAN (CVN-76).

In our case, my dad and stepmom brought saltwater from the Pacific Ocean and my mother in law brought saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean. After everyone had a chance to eat dinner at the party last night, I put on my uniform and stood in the backyard for everyone to watch as I had my boys each pour the saltwater on my new collar devices.

YB and ES douse my new collar devices with
saltwater from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Lessons Learned on Planning Special Events in the DC Area:

For anybody else trying to plan a special event (such as a promotion or retirement ceremony), July 31st is a HORRIBLE day for such events (at least in the DC area). EVERYPLACE is booked. One place told me they were reserved back in MARCH for a ceremony on July 31st.

In between calling around different places to have my ceremony, I've been asking the question WHY is July 31st so bad. One rumor / speculation I heard was that a lot of people choose Oct 1st at their retirement date, and if you back up 60 days of terminal leave before the retirement date, that puts the retirement ceremony at... JULY 31ST!!! I don't have any empirical evidence to back this up, and I've been asking around trying to figure out why people would prefer to have a 1 October retirement date. One guy told me it has to do with the High Three retirement pay calculation and staying in until October 1 gives you credit for that year or something like that. Again, I haven't been able to look that up yet.

So the lesson learned is: Make reservations early!

In the course of calling around, I discovered lots of new places I hadn't thought of or known about before. Each time I called a place to find out if they were available on July 31st, after they told me "no, but did you try..." then would recommend another cool place nearby. It led me on sort of a fruitless wild goose chase (because everyplace was booked), but I learned about a lot of places to hold special events.

So if you're looking for a place to have a special event, here are some ideas:

- Navy Museum at Washington Navy Yard (WNY). They only allow one event per day and two events per week. During the event, the museum remains open to the public, but if you've been there, you know they don't get a lot of traffic being on base. In my case, luckily there was a cancellation, so we were able to get in there for our promotion ceremony.
Upside: They have periscopes. :-) Lots of cool Navy history. Indoor and air conditioned.
Downside: They don't allow food or drinks, so you need to find someplace else if you want to have any kind of refreshments or reception.

- USS BARRY (destroyer moored next to the Navy Museum). This is a popular spot for military ceremonies.

- Mordecai Booth's Pub. This pub on WNY is an Irish themed pub.

Aside: It's not all that exciting, but the story of the pub's namesake is in this article about the pub's grand opening. However, I liked the Irish toast they offered on the occasion: "There are good ships, there are wood ships and the ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are the friendships, and may they always be."

- Navy Art Gallery. This is right next door to the Navy Museum. This turned out to be an awesome location for our reception, and I'm very grateful to the staff at the Art Gallery for allowing us to host our event there.

- WNY Catering and Conference Center.

- Admiral Gooding Center (AGC). I didn't know this place existed until someone at the Washington Navy Yard catering and conference center recommended I see if they were available. This is more of a conference center, but it's a feasible location for a reception following a ceremony somewhere else close by (like the Museum where they don't allow food or drinks).

- The Optical Tower. I didn't even know this place existed until someone at the Catering and Conference Center asked me if I had checked their availability. The history of the place is pretty cool (in a geeky sort of way).

- Pentagon Chapel.

- Pentagon Hall of Heroes (2nd floor, just off Corridor 10 at the bottom of the ramps going to the 3rd and 4th floors).

- Pentagon Library and Conference Center. There are over a dozen conference rooms here, and I noted there are promotion ceremonies going on there.

- Pentagon Memorial

- The Navy Memorial (downtown DC next to the National Archives). This is where the Lone Sailor Statue is.

- The Navy and Marine Memorial. Small monument on the Virginia side of the Potomac River near the Pentagon, wedged in between the Mount Vernon Trail and the river. I would have gone to this location for my promotion, but due to the construction going on now, the parking lot is blocked off and it's impossible to drive there. I didn't think everyone would want to walk out there. It's a nice location with a beautiful view of DC though.

Congrats Commander Selectees

Congratulations to all those selected for promotion to the rank of Commander (O-5)! I know several people on the list and have been sending out notes of congratulations on Facebook and email.

I got an email from someone asking for the O-5 selection board results. They are actually available on the Navy Personnel Command website under boards -> active duty officer -> O-5 Line -> FY-10.

Or, to make it simpler, you can click on this link.

So long, farewell, aloha and goodbye

I suspect this will be my last blog post from Hawaii. (At least THIS time around - knock on wood).

It's a little bittersweet. We do look forward to going back to the east coast, but we will miss the friends and cherish the memories we've created here in Hawaii.

Let me backtrack a moment to share a couple of pictures from this week.

Tuesday, we went to our neighbor, Big M's promotion ceremony at the COMPACFLT Boat House. It was a really nicely done ceremony, and we were honored to sit right up front as if we were family.

Blunoz Family in the COMPACFLT Boat House

As I mentioned before, we went to our Cub Scout Pack field day / olympics on Saturday morning, and ES received his patch for completing the Historic Honolulu Hike.

(There is another historic hike you can do over on the Big Island to get another rocker that fills in the gap next to the Honolulu rocker.)

Then we went to the Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park with our awesome neighbors and friends, Big M, B, J & M. One of the water park employees took this picture.

Me and ES on the Waianai Coaster

It's not the best quality picture, especially with all the water washed out in the foreground. Still, I thought it was a pretty cool action shot with us up at an angle on the wall. (You can go to my previous post about the water park to see pics and videos of us going down the slides).

Tonight we had our farewell dinner with our same awesome neighbors. The kids chose the foreign residence of tasty flatbreads. Not what the adults would have chosen for our last dinner on the island, but the kids were kind of emotional and we didn't want to cause any more trauma.

M and ES were two peas in a pod as usual.

YB and J enjoy their pancakes.*
(*This photo is rather UNusual in that they're both sitting quitely and eating.)

We stopped by their house (across the street from our use-ta-house) to use their printer and print out our boarding passes. Both our boys LOVE dogs and wish they could have a dog, but my wife is allergic to dogs. The boys have both loved playing with Copper across the street.

ES giving Copper a hug goodbye.

Farewell Photo

I tried to get them to give each other a hug for the photo like they did for our last best-friends-farewell, but they wouldn't have anything of it.

We've been really blessed to have such wonderful neighbors in each of our duty stations. Each duty station, when the time has come for us to leave, we've had wonderful neighbors to lend us a hand with preparations for moving out. This was no exception. I wish we could be here to help them with their move out here in a few months, because they really bent over backwards to help us with our move. THANK YOU GUYS! I don't know how we would have made it through our movers, check-out inspection, and trip to the airport without you.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to blog while we're on the road, but I'll try to post periodic updates en route to DC.

Chief Results Are Out

The results of the FY09 E-7 Selection Board are published on BUPERS Online. In other words, board eligible individuals can look at BUPERS to see if they were selected, and people with command access like COs, XOs, and COBs can see the results for their command. We had 2 out of 7 eligible guys get selected.

Congratulations to those who made Chief!

Update: The message is out now, too. DTG 011859Z AUG 08. To see the entire list, keep an eye on this website. They will eventually post the message there at the top of the FY-09 where it says FY09 CPO Selectees.

The message is available as a MS Word document for download here. (H/T to Andy)