Sayonara, Farewell, Amen, Chunky Peanut Butter
(and yes, I really did use that as the title for an email)

'Cause there's no time for fussing or fighting, my friend
But baby, I'm amazed at the hate that you can send
And you... painted my entire world
But I... don't have the turpentine to clean what you have soiled
And I won't forget it
-- Bad Religion, "You"

There's damned few phrases that are more exciting and terrifying than "Last email from the George Washington". I'll freely admit that my time on board Kitty Hawk drastically colored my view of 7th Fleet. The only time GW got the lockdown while I was there was for Fast Cruise, our dress rehearsal for underway we do coming out of every yard period. And after the hell of packing up two gym lockers full of stuff, as four years is far too long to homestead on ships, I was ready for a restful flight home.

As most of the 8 people in the world who read this know, things hardly ever go that smooth for me. First leg: Tokyo to LA. 9 and a half hours, with a little girl about 18 months old and five rows ahead of me, crying loud enough to be heard by most everybody in the cabin approximately every half-hour. We get off, make it through customs ok in time for the second leg: LA to Dallas. Flight's delayed about a half hour, ok, difficult but not impossible to make the connection, provided the flight leaves at the new time. At about 1:40 PM -- five minutes after the original departure time, kiddies -- they finally let people off the plane as it was being hoteled to us from another flight. Which means they have to spend time cleaning it and getting it ready for us.

You ever see those memetic pictures of the poorly drawn guy going "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--"? That was me right then because I was guaranteed to miss my connecting flight over this stupid shit. At length, I get put on a new connecting flight to San Antonio and arrive about 2 hours after the original arrival time.

Next hellacious experience: buying a car.