What I have been doing since 1983 – for those from my past that I am reconnecting with

1983 – Graduated high school and I had a few months off before going into the US Navy. Boot camp in Orlando in July was a mistake – it was HOT and the bugs were HUGE compared to the dwarf bugs I had grown accustomed to in Ohio. After boot camp I went to my first electronics school, basic electricity and electronics. After about 4 months I had completed that training and went moving on up to Great Lakes, Illinois – north of Chicago for 9 months of Electronics school. Once completed I was off to Norfolk Va. For more specialized electronics training. I spent about 4 month’s there learning about an Air Search radar, some navigational systems as well as a main frame computer system called SNAPII. I knew even then that computers would change the world, little did I realize just how much.

I spent from late 84 until early 88 on the USS Stump, (DD-978), a Spruance Class Destroyer - it was a great ship and I learned a lot about life, myself and how to interact with coworkers. The highlight of my time on that Ship, the UNITAS 1985 Cruise. WOW, there were some good times for me on that cruise. We toured around South America showing the flag and then we continued across the pond with a show of flag up the west coast of Africa. I got a tattoo on Copacabana Beach in Rio, WOW now that was a great place. When we were in Africa, Dakar Senegal I think, in what was considered an alcohol related incident I broke my right eardrum. Too much Polar Star beer (I think) out of big gold cans and a quick fall from a high dive into a pool and voila, an alcohol related incident was added to my permanent record. I am laughing as I write this as those were some carefree and CRAZY times, those who were there can testify to that.

I made a lot of friends on that ship, but like any duty station before the internet and social media, ya’ kind of lose track of folks. The only people I kept up with were Mark Eby and Vince Boucher, and it has been in the last 5-7 years that I have lost track of them as well. With the advent of social media, Facebook specifically, I have reconnected with many of my old shipmates from those days when I still drank. Some of them, after friending them, were still the same dirt bags they were back in those days and they were quickly ejected from my list of friends. Some were the same old buddies I remembered. I learned a lot on that ship but I got in trouble there as well -- two Captain’s Masts. Those are non-judicial punishments, for those unacquainted. That is where the Skipper can take some of your pay for a while and take stripes and restrict ya’ to the ship for extended periods of time. One was bullshit charges, dereliction of duty; the other the ship was leaving for 9 days and I decided something else was more important so I did not go. Article 86 and Article 87 were the charges and the Skipper was none too happy with my reasons. Hahahahaha, I always thought he was a prick anyway (it was worth it!).

Once I left the Stump, I transitioned to shore duty in Annapolis MD, the Naval Radio Transmitting facility Annapolis (NRTF). It was a great base, small with only about 50 us of and it was a secret base. We provided one way communication to submarines in the Atlantic, that was all we were allowed to say about that. I was soon off to Vallejo CA for some additional training on a very old piece of gear. Four months later, I was ready to go! New responsibilities and more opportunities to learn about very high power transmitters. Hell we even maintained our own 33kv substation. It was here that I stopped drinking, and I am glad of that. The Skipper of the base was the one who recommended it after finding me passed out buck naked in a pool of my own vomit during a barracks inspection. I knew there was a problem before he pointed it out.

Lucky me, I knew bride since she was stationed on the base as well but we became “better” friends in the months after my drinking stopped. We made a lot of friends there as well, two of them met and married as well. We lost track of them after that though, until Facebook reunited us. They stopped by our place on a trip to Orlando last year. I love those two! Rob and I spearheaded the building of the best volleyball court in the world, right outside the barracks, we played A LOT of volleyball on that court. Bride and I had moved in together, with a zero commitment relationship. We decided that we would hang out together until we stopped having fun. I was so happy that she stayed in Annapolis when she got out and did not make that trip back to TX. The highlight of this tour of duty, meeting Bride.

As my tour was wrapping up there I started making trips down to see the detailers in DC, a short 50 mile ride. They are the ones who assign duty stations to folks and I wanted to get a PreCom Aegis Cruiser really bad. I bought a lot of lunches for the folks down there but I did finally get the USS Gettysburg (CG-64) being built at Bath Iron Works up in Maine. Bride, who was still girlfriend, stayed in Baltimore while I was off to Norfolk for another 8 months of training before heading to Maine. I was to be a communications specialist on the new ship. This was early 1990 and we were just months away from Saddam invading Kuwait. I was watching the movie Lion Heart when the counter attack finally happened. Like a lot of folks, I called the detailer, the guys I had bought lunch for, to get on something that was haze grey and underway to the gulf.

Girlfriend and I were engaged at that point but we had not set a date, it was some years down the road for us, we were in no hurry to legalize our relationship, we loved each other and that was what mattered. When I started trying to get a ship and go, we decided we better get hitched because a girlfriend is not going to get information about her boyfriend but a wife, they can. It was not to be though, too much time invested training me up for the Gettysburg they told me. But we were married and there were some additions to my paycheck to cover housing and others, I can’t remember what all they were but it amounted to about 500 bucks additional money in my check so the marriage thing wasn’t all bad. I had one Mediterranean cruise while I was stationed aboard the Gettysburg. The highlight of that duty station was getting to Naples Italy and taking the trip up to Rome and spending a few days. Sitting in the Sistine Chapel staring at the ceiling for hours – that was moving.

I got out in 1993, when they were paying folks to get out. They had paid me to stay a few years earlier and then, BAM, they paid me to get out so I did. I started a small business doing home repair and remodeling. I had the money, the wife’s approval and I did not want to look back and wish I would have tried so I did it. Almost Anything Handyman Services Inc. was born and it grew over 4 years to a client base that included all the Jacksonville Taco Bell and Wendy’s restaurants and about 1500 residential clients. It was great fun and I really enjoyed it, I learned a lot about home repair and got to purchase a bunch of tools, a hobby gone wild. After 4 years it was getting tough to keep up with all that goes into running a business and I was missing the challenges that electronics offered. I was on the hunt again.

I got a short lived job working for a company that installed and maintained copiers that were just starting to be connected to the networks and I thought that might be interesting. It was, but the ridiculousness of that business soon grew on me and I needed out. I found an ad in the paper for a television engineer. I remember reading the job description thinking, I don’t have that, I am not that and I have none of that, but I remember thinking - damn that looks like a cool job, so I applied. After reading a couple of books on television fundamentals and an interview with a former Navy electronics technician, I was hired. First order of business was to get the transmitter fully operational. It took months and 10’s of thousands of dollars. After that (1998) the station was starting the digital transition and that gave me an advantage, the engineers who were there did not know the digital at all. My training in the Navy covered a lot of digital systems. Those skills, coupled with my own vigorous study program, allowed me to advance pretty quickly with me ending up leading the Engineering, Operations, Traffic and IT departments.

That is a greatly condensed version of what I have been doing since 1983, if you have questions about any specific time or want more stories, or want to share with me stories from any period we may have shared just let me know.