What’s up?

We are now working in the U.S. Fifth Fleet area of responsibility. This area consists of most of the waters throughout the Middle East: the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the North Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf. The rules here strictly limit the type of information I can send back home. I can write home about day-to-day shipboard life, but I can’t write about the work we’re doing. If you want to hear about what we’re up to, though, you’ve got options. Our units and the commanders we work for put some information on their official Facebook and Twitter accounts.

To get information on Facebook, you can “Like”: Fifth Fleet, Expeditionary Strike Group FIVE, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, USS Makin Island (LHD 8), or Amphibious Squadron FIVE.

Also, Angelina says @11thmeu is a good Twitter account to follow for photos and updates.

Top-10 Reads of 2011

One of my favorite things about the New Year’s season is the banished-words list, which this year includes such overused and obnoxious words as “amazing,” “occupy,” and “ginormous.” I also like reading various favorite-book lists. And because there aren’t enough New Year’s lists on the internet, I am posting my Top-10 Reads of 2011.

At the beginning of 2011, I set a goal on Goodreads to read 100 books from cover to cover. Articles, excerpts from books, and judicial opinions would not count toward the total. I finished the year with a total of 116. From that pool, here are the 10 I most enjoyed.

1. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by Walter Mosley. This is series of short stories about aging ex-con Socrates Fortlowe. There are so many good things to say about this book. Mosley is a master stylist who writes pitch-perfect dialogue. The characterization in this book is particularly good. For whatever reason, when I read Mosley I find myself meditating on honor — his characters never talk about it, but they always make me think about it.

2. A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition by Ernest Hemingway. Another short collection of loosely connected chapters by a master stylist. This is the posthumously published memoir of an old, successful writer looking back on his early years as a young, struggling writer in Paris during the 1920s. I alternated reading chapters of this book with reading sections of In Our Time and The Sun Also Rises — the fiction that young Hemingway was writing back in Paris.

3. The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I finally read this crime classic. Better than the movie.

4. Jurismania: The Madness of American Law by Paul Campos. This is a well-written and persuasively argued tract on why the American legal system requires lawyers to be at least a little bit crazy. There is a lot of good material on the role of “reason” in the law and the role of legal thinking in our society. I will definitely read this book again.

5. Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. A murder mystery that I’ve been meaning to read for awhile. I’m glad I did.

6. The Sherlockian by Graham Moore. It’s like The Da Vinci Code, but instead of paintings I’ve never seen, the murder mystery involves literature I adore.

7. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. This rich, complex novel plays to my bizarre love of conspiracy theories and esoterica. As the characters struggle to hold myriad contradictory conspiracy theories in their heads at once, the book plods relentlessly further until it positively sags under the weight of centuries of mystic tradition. I’m sure I missed hundreds of obscure literary, historical, and religious references in this novel, but I got enough of them to appreciate Eco’s craftsmanship. If I were to ever learn Italian, it would be for the sole purpose of reading Eco in the original language.

8. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe’s style sometimes irks me: it’s repetitive, hyperbolic, and flashy. But in this book he has a fascinating subject and ready-made characters. The movie has been one of my favorites for years, but I’m glad I didn’t read the book until this past year. Now that I actually know some military aviators, I was able to appreciate the book so much more than I would have otherwise.

9. The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll by H.G. Wells. This is a charming, funny novel about an English shopkeeper’s vacation spent bicycling in the countryside. The hapless cyclist peddles from one misadventure to the next until his holiday comes to a bittersweet but inevitable end. This is another one that I will definitely read again.

10. A Bell for Adano by John Hersey. A comic novel about cross-cultural relations and military bureaucracy. At least, I think it was supposed to be comical. For all their absurdity, the sections about military bureaucracy actually rang very true.

Holidays on deployment

My National Geographic atlas lists just two facts about Singapore: it’s an expensive city and it is “renowned” for its internet connectivity. I can confirm that it’s an expensive city, but the internet connectivity was oversold. Over the Christmas week, we had a six-day port visit in Singapore, and I am a little poorer for it. Still, it was great to walk on land after a month at sea. It was great to eat real food after a month of Navy fare. And it was great to drink beer after a month of abstinence.

Singapore was my introduction to traveling in Southeast Asia. It was easy for me to get around because all the signs are in English and almost everyone speaks English (Singapore only gained independence from the British in the mid-twentieth century). It’s a small, urban country that thrives on shipping, finance, and tourism. It’s very clean and very safe. Almost too safe.

Imagine, if you will, a country covered by malls. I mean just covered. Everywhere you go, it’s malls – big, western-style malls with stores like Brooks Brothers and The Gap alongside Asian-style malls where you can haggle over pewter knickknacks and candy from the Philippines. On Christmas Day, the malls were open. Even late at night. There are a lot of wealthy people and tourists in Singapore who keep the culture of shopping alive. I don’t like malls enough to ever live in Singapore, but it was an amazing sight to see. Also, I was able to get a jade pendant, two scarves, and a cute journal for Angelina.

Posing in my hotel room with Duffy and a hippo from Night Safari.

The bread, buns, cakes, and pastries in Singapore were great. There was one bakery chain called “Dough Culture,” which was a good summation of my whole experience in the country. Everything I had from a bakery was great. I also tried plenty of exotic foods. But the weirdest meal I had was at a place called Toast Box. I ordered their Set #1 (it’s a set, not a combo meal), which consists of a cup of highly sweetened coffee, a piece of white toast – covered in peanut butter, cut into squares, and served with toothpicks – and two hot-boiled eggs. Yes, hot-boiled eggs, not hard-boiled – the contents of the eggs are warm and soupy. You crack the eggs into a bowl, mix with soy sauce and drink. I don’t know why that’s supposed to go with peanut-butter toast and sweet coffee, but as the saying goes, “When in Singapore, drink your eggs from a bowl.”

In addition to eating, drinking, and shopping, I also supported the local tourism industry by going to the Singapore Night Safari and Universal Studios Singapore. The Night Safari has 150 nocturnal animals in a lush rainforest setting – it was the most amazing zoo I’ve ever been to. The animals are very active and it’s amazing how close you can get. Universal Studios Singapore was also fun, and it’s currently the only place in the world where you can go on Transformers: The Ride. Transformers reminds me of the new Star Tours ride at Disneyland: it’s a fun 3D flight simulator that uses audio-animatronics to add another layer to the experience. Of everything I did in Singapore, being at a theme park was the thing that made me miss Angelina and Gabby the most. I know they both would have loved it.

It's 50% elephant, 50% Angry Bird, and 100% awesome!

Another thing about Singapore, it was fun to be in a country that is as obsessed with Angry Birds as I am. They were on T-shirts, purses, posters, cakes, dolls, stickers, and more. I remember getting into a cab and seeing Angry Birds plush toys lined up on the dash. The driver and I talked about Angry Birds for most of the ride. It made me wish I still had my iPhone. My favorite Angry Birds sighting, though, was the Angry Birds elephant. You know how a lot of cities have a single type of statue that different artists will paint different ways? In Eugene it’s a duck, in Norfolk it’s a mermaid, in Chicago it’s a cow. And in Singapore, it’s an elephant. Well one artist made his elephant into the red Angry Bird, which is my favorite! Even though it was raining, I had to leave cover and get my picture taken with it.

Final Singapore observation: on the highway, I saw a toddler sitting in the front seat of a car, strapped in with the lap and shoulder belt. Is that just something they do there? It seems weird to see that in a country that has so many strict nanny-state laws on personal conduct. It’s the only example I saw of someone doing something that wouldn’t be allowed in the States.

After Singapore, the ship’s Christmas decorations were put away and it was back to the Groundhog Day experience of being underway, every day the same as the one before. But New Year’s Eve broke up the monotony a little. Some of my shipmates whipped up a cute impromptu party, complete with funny hats, refreshments, sparkling cider, and a silver ball to drop. On New Year’s Day, we had a holiday feast, which I’m still trying to digest. It’s not quite Disneyland with Angelina’s family (which I did last New Year’s), but it’s as close as I’m going to get to fun for awhile, so I’ll take it.

Now a view of the Swissotel from Merlion Park. That tall building in the center is where we had a great lunch and took great pictures.

Merry Christmas

From Singapore, here’s wishing a Merry Christmas to all my friends and family back in the States.

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Mail call

Yesterday we pulled into Singapore for a brief stop to off-load some people and on-load some supplies. The best part of the on-load was the 135 bags of inbound mail that we brought onboard. This was the first mail call of the deployment, and it definitely led to a boost in morale. All over the ship, people had big smiles on their faces as they opened big boxes full of goodies from home. There is now an absurd amount of junk food being passed around the ship.

Angelina and Gabby sent me a great care package with: a paperback copy of “Silence of the Lambs” (yay, I’ve never read it), a miniature cardboard Christmas tree, drawings by Gabby, an origami crane by Angelina, and a nice note. It’s like an early Christmas present, and none of it will rot my teeth, which is good. That was definitely a highlight of the month so far.

For the past five days or so, I have not been very busy. In an earlier post, I wrote about the disconnect between OPTEMPO (the pace of our operations) and ADTEMPO (the amount of paper that I am required to push). The current situation is a great example of that phenomenon. This week we are doing flight operations, landing-craft movements, and supporting various bilateral military exercises with partner countries. But my own workload has dropped from 12-18 hours of work every day to 6-8 hours of work every day. I still have to spend the same 24 hours on the ship, though. I tend to get bored, lonely, and sad when I don’t have a lot of work to do. When I’m busy I feel like there is a point to me being out here, like I’m doing something that matters. I actually feel less stressed when I spend every waking moment on a work-related task because I don’t have time to sit around missing home.

On the bright side, having that free time gives me a chance to catch up on my reading – most of it is work-related, but not all of it. Lately I’ve been on a Hemingway kick. The details of my non-work reading life are on my Goodreads.com profile, if for some reason any of you want to talk books.

Land ho!

Last Saturday, we stopped in Guam for a brief stop for fueling. Nobody went ashore except for line handlers and some people who needed to go to medical. But it was exciting just to see dry land for the first time in nine days, so lots of people came out on the catwalks and weather decks to take a look at the palm trees. We were fascinated by the dry land, as if this green-covered bump sticking out of the water was something worth celebrating. When the fueling was done, we pulled right back out and kept heading west.

Most of my workload for the last week has been giving advice on Law of the Sea (LOS). This is good because LOS is the part of my job that I enjoy the most. Yesterday was a big LOS day for us because we went through the Philippines, making it the first time on this deployment that we were in Transit Passage. Let me explain.

One of the basic LOS principles is that where you are in the world’s oceans determines what you are allowed to do. So you have different transit regimes – Innocent Passage, Transit Passage, High Seas Freedom, and more – depending on where you are in the world. Transit Passage is the regime, or set of rules, that applies when transiting an international strait. Yesterday, passing through the Philippines, we went from High Seas Freedom to Transit Passage, and then back again. Pretty exciting, huh?

But it actually was exciting to see the Philippines. In the morning I went outside and ran laps on the flight deck. It was beautiful: all three ships were steaming in formation, the sun was just starting to come up, and we were surrounded by beautiful islands. After breakfast, I went outside again to take some pictures. In the humidity, I got just as sweaty walking around the ship as I did when I had been running laps.

The other special thing that happened yesterday was the Pearl Harbor remembrance ceremony. On this side of the Date Line, yesterday was December 7 – the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Makin Island had a beautiful ceremony on the hangar deck. The USS Pearl Harbor, which is one of the ships in our group, also had a ceremony onboard. It seemed especially appropriate to have the ceremonies in the middle of the Philippines because of how much Naval history was made in the Philippines in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. There was a lot to reflect on as we continued our transit west, toward the waters where we will write our small part of the Navy’s story.

The view from USS Makin Island as we pull into Guam.

The view from vulture’s row as we pull into Guam.

Me standing on the catwalk as we pull into Guam.

The view from the flight deck as we are briefly moored in Guam.

My first time in transit passage; Philippines in the background.

View of the Philippines from the starboard side of USS Makin Island.

In the background you can see USS Pearl Harbor, steaming in formation with us on December 7, 2011.

Greetings from the future

Standing on the fantail. No Duffy in this picture, he’s up in his rack taking a nap.

Greetings from the future. Yesterday we celebrated Sumonday – half-Sunday, half-Monday – as we crossed the International Date Line. I am now living one day ahead of all my friends and family back in the United States.

Let me tell you about the future. We still have no personal jetpacks and no flying cars, but we do have a black president. Oh, and we really do eat Dippin’ Dots – like, all the time. It’s basically the official food of the future, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everything else is pretty much the same; dogs still chase cats, compasses still point north, and the Navy still loses medical paperwork.

Seriously, though, crossing the Date Line is an important milestone in this deployment because that is the point where operational control of our group shifted from the Commander of the U.S. Third Fleet, head-quartered in San Diego, to the Commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, head-quartered onboard USS Blue Ridge, forward deployed in Yokosuka, Japan. We are now no-kidding deployed, doing real-Navy stuff like showing U.S. presence abroad and cooperating with partner nations to improve regional security. All that good stuff you read about in Navy PR material? We really are out here doing it.

More pictures from Hawaii

I caught a cold yesterday. And today I had to get the smallpox vaccine. But before you start feeling too sorry for me, take a look at these pictures from our port visit to Hawaii and get jealous.

I wonder whose idea it was to put the spear-throwing game next to the Mai Tai bar.

Rocking the Hawaiian shirt and shell necklace at the Paradise Cove Luau. That green wristband means batteries release for Mai Tais.

Standing on “vulture’s row” as the ship leaves Hawaii.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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ADTEMPO & Aloha

The military has a term: OPTEMPO, which is short for operational tempo. A high OPTEMPO means you’re really busy and a low OPTEMPO means you’re really bored. Because we were just sailing to Hawaii for the past week, it’s safe to say that our OPTEMPO was about as low as it could get. But I’m not what the military calls an “operator,” I’m a lawyer. So my busy-ness is disconnected from our OPTEMPO – I can be busy when there are no ops going on and I can be bored when there are ops, it all depends. To describe this phenomenon, I have coined the term ADTEMPO, which is short for administrative tempo. A high ADTEMPO means there is a lot of admin/lawyer work to do and a low ADTEMPO means all the paperwork, emails, and PowerPoint slides are squared away.

The ADTEMPO for the first week of deployment was much higher than I had been expecting. Between helping to write the liberty policy, serving as my command’s liaison for visiting professors from the Naval Postgraduate School, and making sure that the operators have the latest and greatest guidance, I was plenty busy. Add to that the random legal questions that pop up throughout the day, often from unexpected places, and I barely had a moment to breathe. I actually don’t mind having all that work to do – I’d rather be busy than bored. On the ship there’s not much else to do besides work. Also, it was great getting to know the NPS professors and learning from their classes. But, like I said, the high ADTEMPO was a surprise.

The downside to being so busy is that I haven’t been able to write my NaNoWriMo project. The goal is to write 50,000 words by November 30. It’s November 22 and I’m at 13,225. I’ll probably cheat and count this blog entry as part of my total, but that won’t get me to 50,000. It’s disappointing, but life goes on.

Donald, John, Me, Amanda, and Michelle get ready to experience Puka Dogs at the International Marketplace. (Photo by Tom)

Yesterday, we pulled into Pearl Harbor. I had never been to Hawaii before so I was excited when we finally got to leave the ship at 1400. Because Angelina has been to Hawaii before for several military exercises, I asked her about the best things to do on Oahu when you only have a short time to do it. On her list was shaved ice, so I went straight from the pier to a shaved ice stand. Excellent choice. I spent the evening hanging out with shipmates from the staff, most of whom had either been stationed in Hawaii before or had port visits there. It was a lot of fun to eat good food, have a few drinks, and sing karaoke. I got to bed by 11:00 and slept in a real bed at the Ilikai Hotel, which was a treat in itself.

I’m not standing watch in this port, but I am carrying my command-issued JAG phone in case people decide they can’t have fun without causing legal problems. “Why does this taxi have windows? I need to kick them all out!” “I’m so drunk, I need to be in a fight, right now!” “Who does that cop think he is anyway?” You know, that sort of thing. So far, no rings on the JAG phone. That’s good; people are pacing themselves. I’m signed up to go to a luau tonight, so I’m knocking on wood that drunken Sailors don’t ruin the party. But, if duty calls I’ll just have to get my roast-pork fix next year, on the way back from deployment.

As I write this, I’m sitting by the beach with a cup of coffee, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and trying to savor the experience of being on shore. This deployment has already been an adventure, but I wonder if I will still feel that way after four months of turning slow circles in the waters of the Middle East.

Chilling on the balcony of the Ilikai Hotel in Waikiki. You can't see it in this picture, but there are parrots on that shirt.

Also, for Gabby, this is your first Duffy sighting of the deployment! Some of you may know that Angelina and I spend pretty much all our free time and money at Disneyland. I’m not sure why, it just sort of turned out that way. Anyway, Duffy is Mickey Mouse’s teddy bear, a relatively new Disney character. In the “Duffy the Disney Bear” picture book, Mickey has to go on a long sea voyage so Minnie Mouse gives him Duffy to keep him company. On his voyage, Mickey takes pictures of himself with Duffy in exotic places and then sends them back to Minnie Mouse. I don’t expect to spend a lot of time in port during this deployment, but when I do go ashore, the teddy bear is coming with me. I’m thinking about you, Gabby, even though I’m far away. You’re always in my heart. And Duffy says “Aloha” from beautiful Waikiki.

Final observation: I have been counting the number of times I hear “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” playing here. Right now, having been on shore for about 24 hours, the count is at five. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice song – I just didn’t realize it was the state song of Hawaii. Well, that’s it for now. I’m off to score some macaroni salad and Dole Whip.