Contagion

I first started working in the world of Pandemic planning in about 2007. The person that had been the Bird Flu point of contact left the Agency, and because I was already working Continuity issues, I sort of became the default for the Bird Flu stuff too. It all fits into the "planning for what to do and how to keep operating when bad things happen" folder, right? Sure...

Since that time, I've worked a lot in the realm of bird flu, general biological threats, some swine flu, then finally more general pandemic / bio combined.  I've worked these at an agency level all the way up to the global level. I've studied biological threats and hazards, and learned probably a significant amount more about the science of diseases than I ever wanted to or thought I would, as well as what would happen if certain diseases were weaponized, either via conventional-type weapons, human vectors, introduction into the food or water supplies, and many other possibilities. I've been involved in working groups tasked with looking at the worst case scenario and figuring out how to plan for it.

So I'm pretty sure that all of the above is why, when we decided to watch Contagion the other night, I sat through it and just kind of nodded and agreed with most of what was happening throughout the movie. It was kinda funny, because I pretty much knew what it was about before watching, and had heard that it was very well done and very believable, but boyfriend thought we were going to be watching some sort of horror-fantasy-zombie movie or something, not something that seemed so realistic. I'm not sure he felt much better when I told him that oh, it didn't just seem realistic, it really was pretty much how we planners saw it going for a worst-case scenario. Especially after the swine flu (and bird flu, for that matter) not being as bad as we originally thought it would be.

I think that anyone involved in the pandemic planning or preparedness worlds should absolutely see this movie, because every bit of it, from attribution to tracking to the reaction of the general public to the chaos that is inevitable in such a scenario is dead on, at least as far as what the experts have said would happen. Someone involved in this movie did their homework. If you haven't been around the topic before it might scare the crap out of you, but even so, I highly recommend this movie. And since I obviously spend a ton of time on this blog talking about movies, that should tell you something :)

And... I'm officially sick of this election cycle.

I know, that's some sort of blasphemy for a politics wonk like me, but I seriously have had about enough. Both sides are making things up. Both sides are taking things out of context. Both sides are getting just a bit ridiculous. And then this dumba$$ from Missouri talking about women's bodies being able to "shut it down" and "put up defenses" against getting pregnant by a rapist if its a "legitimate rape" - seriously??? WTF??? Ugh....

The Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation recently conducted a poll of Independent voters, and an article published in today's paper explained it. It made a lot of sense to me. Most people who identify as Independent are much closer to one party or the other. I am generally much closer to Republican than Democrat, although not on social issues. But what tends to separate them from the parties is the complete distaste for the horribleness that is going on between the two parties right now. I knew I wasn't the only one sick of all the attack ads, sick of all of the words taken out of context solely for the purpose of making a political point. Most say that all they really want is a political system that works, with two parties who would cooperate with each other instead of confront each other. ME TOO. But it seems like neither party is listening, all they seem to be concerned about is firing up the base. Um, hey guys, newsflash: your base is going to vote for you no matter what. You really should be focusing on those of us that either haven't made up our minds yet or are leaning towards leaving the "President" section of the ballot blank this year.

In the last 1/3 or so of the article, they talk about a tiny portion of the population that truly is in the middle, and how most of them are just sick of the whole thing and a lot aren't even registered to vote. (I am, for the record.)  The poll shows that most of them favor Republicans on the economy (I tend to as well) and Democrats on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage (as do I). But according to this and many other things I've read / heard recently, people like me make up, as my niece would say, an eensy weensy portion of the population. (She'd say eensy weensy, not the rest.) I thought there were more of us than that. I'm not sure if that should make me feel sad, or better.

Either way, I can't wait until November when all of this will finally stop. Of course, I'm not sure what all the pundits on TV will talk about. But then again, this election cycle started so early that maybe they'll just jump right in to 2016. Awesome...

3 weeks down...

A little update on the paleo transition... Three weeks in, and I'm down 5.5 pounds! Myclothes are fitting better, I have had zero stomach issues, I'm far less hungry, I snack less, and I feel overall really really good.

And best of all, the little switch that's supposed to tell you that you're full so stop eating now, which had been broken in me for a VERY long time, has started working again. And it even works before I'm uncomfortably full!!

I've had a little bit of trouble getting out of some old habits, but so far, I'm really liking this. I won't lie, I've thought about having a big bowl of pasta or a bagel with cream cheese in the morning, especially this weekend when I was staying with friends. Their kid thought I was super weird when I stopped for beef jerky, but I just told her I eat funny :) But then 2 nights ago I had a dream that I ate a big old slice of pepperoni pizza, and it was SO GOOD. But then I started feeling like general ass after eating it. I think that's a good sign!!

In reality, I don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything. The old me, when I cut something out of my diet solely because it was supposed to be bad for me, or because it was too many WW points, or whatever, it was really really hard to keep away from it. Eventually, inevitably, I would cave and have way too much of it. With this, though, I'm realizing how good I feel, and understanding that chances are, if I try to eat that bowl of pasta or that bagel there's a really good chance that I will not feel very well afterwards. I'm going to try it eventually, just to see what happens, but I'm going to plan it out for a Friday night or Saturday morning, when there's nothing else going on, and where I will be able to spend however long it takes to feel better laid out on the bed or the couch in front of the TV. For now, though, I'm liking how I feel, so I see absolutely no reason to do that anytime soon.

Wow!!

My little blog has had a HUGE 24 hours!

When I posted yesterday about The Rock Boat Family and how awesome it is, I had no idea how many people would see it and how many nice things people would have to say about it! Thanks to everyone who read and shared!! The over 300 views that post has received is a record for the nearly 8 years I've been blogging. There is something really cool about so many people, strangers and friends, reading my thoughts that way.

When I was a little girl, I always kept a diary. I started this blog because it just wasn't practical to keep a written diary anymore - I lose things, and I'm not trying to keep it a secret, and I tend to use written journals more for writing song ideas. Most blogs have some sort of a theme, or something in particular that the writers focus on. This one has never been like that for me - I stole borrowed the tag line "these words are my diary screaming out loud" from an Anna Nalick song because it absolutely describes what this is for me. Its just an added bonus when people actually read it and relate to it :)

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, within a couple of hours of things being set up, the Rock Boater in question's payment was made, thanks to a little here and a little there contributed by the community. A professional resume writer in the TRB community offered to help her with her resume free of charge. A LinkedIn group just for Rock Boaters was set up with the aim of Rock Boaters helping each other out in the business / job / professional world. And inquiries have been made into setting up a general Rock Boat Relief Fund for cases like this in the future - primarily by those who tried to call and contribute to the original cabin but by the time they called it was already paid. Did I mention how proud I am of my TRB Family?)

If you don't get it, you don't get it; or Why the Rock Boat is amazing

Sometimes when I tell people about The Rock Boat, and why I love it, and why its my first choice for vacation every year, they look at me like I have 4 heads or something. I guess I'm not explaining it to them well enough, or they don't get it, or something. Maybe this will help.

Yesterday was the last day to cancel a Rock Boat reservation and get a full refund of payments made up to that point - they call it the lineup guarantee, because most people that cancel at that point are people that aren't happy with the lineup so far. Occasionally roommate issues and the like. But usually the people who take advantage are the "I booked on blind faith and I'm not happy with what you've given me to this point, so money back please" types.  But yesterday, on the Rock Boat facebook group, something awesome happened.

A longtime veteran of Rock Boats (she'd only missed the very first one) canceled her reservation because of finances resulting in having lost her job in the spring. A bunch of people were sad, then one person said they'd send out her resume, and by the way they'd be willing to chip in towards her payment. It all catapulted from there. As of this morning, her reservation has been reinstated, and who knows how many people have chipped in to make sure that she makes the payment. I haven't even met her, but we have enough mutual friends that I chipped in as well. I'm pretty sure that with the number of people who have chipped in plus those who haven't, she'll have little if any to pay on her own when all is said and done.

This isn't the first time the TRB family has come through for someone who needed help. One friend mentioned in passing that she was in financial trouble and a few days later had a check in her mailbox from a TRB friend for grocery money. When my teenage sister was having tax issues with her employer, a TRB friend got on the phone with my parents and helped them sort through it. Who could even begin to count the number of couches and guest rooms Rock Boaters have shared with other Rock Boaters when traveling. I can, off the top of my head, name several couples that have met on the Rock Boat and are either now married or engaged. And I'm sure there are many, many more examples out there.

The music is only one part of what keeps me coming back to the Rock Boat year after year. What really does it is the real, true sense of community and family that develops between the people that love the music as much as I do. I've made lifelong friends, have an extended network of support and understanding for my weight loss endeavors, always have a concert buddy, usually have a dinner buddy at least one night in almost any place I've traveled for work, and never have to worry about getting bored on my vacation.

But today's outpouring of support, even by people who aren't even going on this year's boat, just warms my heart. As cliche as it may sound, it honestly makes me feel better about people in general. There is no shortage of love and caring for others out there, but its true that sometimes you just have to look a little harder to find it. The TRB family has it in abundance, and I'm privileged to be a part of what has become more and more of a family to me over the past few years.

And if you still don't get it, you're just never going to! :)

An open letter to all the media outlets (except NBC)

Dear Everyone,

PLEASE stop with the Olympics spoilers!! If the event doesn't air until prime time, don't tweet the results, or post them on your homepage, or run them on the tickler at the bottom of the screen. Its fine to say for results click here - that way I have the option. But I basically can't monitor the news these days without seeing a spoiler from someone - Washington Post homepage, Washington Post Twitter, White House Twitter retweeting Michelle Obama tweeting a spoiler... Just stop with it all please!!!

Thanks.
Love,
Me.

The Chick-Fil-A Conundrum

The other day, a friend posted something on Facebook about the whole situation with Chick-Fil-A and its CEO talking openly about how he supports "traditional" families and is against gay marriage. I responded to her status with the following:

Honestly, though, I'd rather think that I'm supporting some local folks who would other wise be in the unemployment line. Just because the crazy at the top is the way that he is doesn't mean that every single franchise owner and chicken patty fryer is too. I would never donate to CFA, but I won't deny myself my two or three times a year indulgence because of the CEO either.

I then got yelled at by a friend of hers, and replied that if I worried about what causes the CEOs of every company I spend money on supports, I'd be a lot richer than I am today because I'd never be spending any money. She said that there are other places to get chicken. I thought nothing more about it until yesterday when I read Alexandra Petri's column from the Washington Post about this issue. Granted, she's tongue in cheek, but she made some really good points. In particular, the following:

... if a food item’s main selling point is the fact that it benefits some cause, it does not taste very good. You do not make a big fuss over the fact that your granola cookies benefit the rainforest unless people were unlikely to buy the cookies on their own. There is no such thing as a moral sandwich or an immoral sandwich. Sandwiches taste good, or they do not. That is all. Once you start judging sandwiches on criteria other than how good they taste, you wind up in a world full of mediocre sandwiches, and that impoverishes everyone.

This morning I read a column by Dana Milbank, another snarky WaPo opinion writer, who wrote about Mike Huckabee's Support Chick-Fil-A day idea. I found it entertaining, but I also think he's spot on.

I don't eat Chick-Fil-A very often, but I do enjoy it occasionally - let's be honest, they make the best chicken sandwich out there. But I have never been one to jump on board with boycots like many are trying to stage here. I also am not all about the efforts to "buycott." Seriously, if you're that concerned about a few pennies of your $6 chicken sandwich meal going to an anti-gay marriage organization, go donate (ideally more than $6) to your gay rights group of choice. Or, if you really feel strongly about no longer patronizing Chick-Fil-A, you'd better start researching the CEOs of every single company towards which your money goes. And good luck with that.

In The Shadow of Greatness, Part 2

I posted a few days ago about my USNA class's book, In The Shadow of Greatness, that is going to be out on 15 August.  I was lucky enough to be able to purchase an advanced copy, and I couldn't put it down. I started it Monday morning on my way to work, and finished it last night. And I have to say, I am so incredibly proud to be able to call myself a member of the US Naval Academy class of 2002. I also fully understand why my story wasn't chosen to make the print edition of the book. The stories that did make it were all better than mine, no question.

Our class was the first to graduate from the Naval Academy after 9/11, and the first to graduate during a time of war in our lifetime. The stories contained in this book include so many different experiences of my classmates since that May day in 2002. We have the last female F-14 pilot, who shared how she was able to live her dream. We have an explosive ordinance disposal officer who lived in real life what was portrayed in the movie The Hurt Locker. We have someone who took advantage of the Blue to Green program (which I almost did myself) and transitioned to the Army, and then had the responsibility of delivering the casualty notifications to families of his soldiers killed in action. We have the first military member to legally marry after the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. We have a classmate who was commissioned into the Air Force and finally found her calling when she got out. We have four stories written by the mothers of classmates who have died since graduation, one of cancer, two in training accidents, and one (which is written by his mother but in his voice) of our only classmate to have been killed in action. And these are just a few of the examples of the stories contained in the book.

Bottom Line: I very highly recommend this book. And not just because I'm biased.

My story will be included on the book's website along with many others that were submitted but didn't make the print edition. They say the goal publication date for those stories is September 11, 2012. Appropriate, I think. I can't wait to read the rest of them.

All profits from the book will go to the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2002, Inc., a 501(c)(3) (status pending) organization set up exclusively for charitable and education purposes that support education, training, and excellence within the Navy, Marine Corps, and veteran communities. Specific organizations that have been tagged to benefit include The Travis Manion Foundation, The Matt Freeman Project, Run To Honor, the Semper Fi Fund, Mission Continues, and the USMC Scholarship Fund.  It is available for preorder here, here, and here. Also, please go like the book's facebook page.

And now, for something completely different

I've been struggling with my weight my entire adult life. Yup, even in the military. I remember the first time I had to be "roped and choked" to make weight/body fat standards - it was my junior year, and where I had always been just on the edge of the weight limit for my height, I had, for the first time, gone over, and was required to be taped to measure my body fat. I didn't feel fat. I wasn't wearing huge sized clothing. I was working out fairly regularly, and was arguably in better shape than at almost any point in my life. So, as you can imagine, a bit of a complex set in, especially as this was the standard for my entire Naval career. It wasn't until my very last weigh in in the Navy, where I had just lost a significant amount of weight, that I was able to make weight without having to be taped.

Keeping weight down was a lot easier at the Naval Academy, when people were forcing my hand, and even on the ships, where workout gear was readily available and I was moving around a lot. But once I made the move to a desk job, and then to the civilian world, it became much harder. I'm not helped by the fact that some of it is in my genes - both of my parents and all of my adult siblings are constantly struggling with their weight. But even while at Annapolis, I was surrounded by girls and women who were just plain naturally much smaller than me, and who had much more discipline when it came to exercise and working out. Being at USNA was really the first time I remember being truly unhappy with my body.

I joined Weight Watchers for the first time about a year after graduation. The guy I'd been in love with for years was coming home from deployment and I wanted to look good for him. I made my goal, and didn't really think much more of it for several years. I was on ships, I was moving around, and I was in a pretty good spot, I thought.

Fast forward to 2007. I was the heaviest I had ever been at that point, and basically, some jerk on a free dating site I was trying out for shits and grins saw a picture of me and said no offense, but I'm not into fat people. OUCH. But it was the kick I needed. I got back on Weight Watchers, and managed to lose nearly 30 pounds over the next 6 months or so. I managed to plateau at about 20 below the starting number, and stayed there for a little over a year.

When I got out of the Navy, finding a job ended up being far harder than it was supposed to be. I finally did find one, but it wasn't what I wanted, and it was incredibly hard to be successful. It became more and more obvious that if I didn't find a new job, I was going to lose the one I had, but finding a new job was proving impossible. All of that stress, which culminating in finally losing my job and making the decision to move back to the DC area, resulted in me not only gaining back that other 20 pounds, but gaining nearly 20 more on top of that.

Since then, I've been back on Weight Watchers (although not always 100%). I lost about 15, gained about 5 of that back, and have been pretty much stuck. For YEARS I've been hearing about this paleo diet, and I finally started doing some actual research on it. Turns out, its not a diet, but a complete lifestyle change. Its focused on eating whole foods of the sort that our hunter/gatherer ancestors ate - meat, seafood, fruits, vegetables, nuts. It removes dairy, grains, processed foods, added sugar, juice, and most starchy foods. The best part about it is because its not a diet, you don't totally screw yourself if you cheat, or if you just go 80 or 90%. On top of that, everything that I'm reading seems to show that people like me (who struggle with weight, even when calorie counting) do really well on it, because instead of tracking the number of calories taken it it is focusing on the kinds of food, and the types of calories. I decided that I'm going to give it a whirl - people say they feel better, have more energy, and lose weight. It can't hurt - I know all the chemicals and processing can't be good for me.

Has anyone else tried paleo? Have any good recipe / food ideas?

In The Shadow Of Greatness

I've mentioned before thay my USNA class was putting together a book of our experiences. Well, its just about out, and available for preorder now. I hope you'll consider it.

My thoughts so far on The Reagan Diaries

I'm in the middle of reading The Reagan Diaries, a book that is exactly as it sounds: A (slightly) edited compilation of Ronald Reagan's personal diaries from his time as President. And let me tell you what, it's been quite enlightening. Here are a few of my favorite highlights, so far:

- He hated Mondays. Just like the rest of us :)
- He hated having to spend even one day away from Nancy. Every time he had to travel alone or she traveled without him, he commented how lonely it was without her, and how he couldn't wait to be back with her. I think we all hope for love like that.
- He really was as straight laced personally as we were led to believe. The harshest words he ever uses are hell and damn, I mean h--l and d--n. Yup, he didn't even spell them all the way out.
- The political BS that is going on in Congress today is exactly the same as what was going on then, except it appears as though the roles were reversed. Tip O'Neill and the Democrats were blocking debt ceiling raises and tax reform, instead of John Boehner and the Republicans.
- The same world leaders that were causing trouble in the mid-80s (minus the Soviet ones) are causing trouble today, or at least in the recent future. Mubarek, Assad, and Qaddafi are all over those diaries. Oh, and there was just as much confusion as to how to spell Qaddafi back then. Reagan even notes at one point that he usually uses the last version that he saw, so he spells it at least a dozen different ways himself.

A lot of people like to hold Reagan up as a standard bearer, but it seems as though many who do so could learn a thing or two by really looking back at not just Reagan the President or Reagan the Politician, but at Reagan the Man. He writes many times about making compromises with the Democrats to get at least closer to what he wanted, and how important it was to personally get to know and meet with even the biggest of his political adversaries. That seems to be the part that's lost these days.

It's not a light read, and the diary entries are just as he wrote them, so until you get the hang of it (it took me really until about late 1982-early 1983) it can be a little confusing. But I'm really enjoying it, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys politics but needs a break from current events in that arena.

Next up...

I really want to write about the Atlantic column that's been tearing up the interwebs the last week or so. You know, the Why Women Can't Have It All one? I read it, and I read multiple responses to it, but I just can't figure out what I want to say about it. I mean really, what does "having it all" actually mean? I bet it means something entirely different for everyone.  Life is about choices. Everyone, man or woman, should make the choices that are best for their individual situation, and own them. At the same time, nobody should be given grief for their choices. Just because a woman has chosen not to pursue her career all the way to the top does not mean that she lacks ambition. And just because a woman has chosen to forgo marriage and children for her career does not mean she's lonely. Are there some cases where the above are true? Sure. But who is any outside observer to say? The world would be a much better place if we stopped caring so much about other people's lives and used that energy instead to concentrate on our own.

And no, as of now I don't plan on writing any more about the health care law, other than to quote Chief Justice John Roberts in the Court's opinion released yesterday:

We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enactthe challenged provisions. ... Members of this Court are vested with the authority tointerpret the law; we possess neither the expertise northe prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences oftheir political choices.

Basically, it's not on us to decide if its good policy. If you don't like this law, that's not on us, its on your elected representatives. So make sure you vote!!

And I think that pretty much covers the topics I was wanting to write about. Phew!

The Supreme Court Got It Right (also, I'm not talking about what you think I am)

"The Nation well knows that one of the costs of the First Amendment is that it protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace." - Justice Kennedy, writing in the ruling striking down the Stolen Valor Act

This wasn't one of the topics I had been planning on writing about this week, but I am anyway.

Today, hidden among all the craziness of the health care ruling, the Supreme Court also ruled on the Stolen Valor Act of 2005. Basically, the Act made it a misdemeanor to claim military awards that hadn't actually been received, with extra penalties for the Medal of Honor. That's it - all you had to do was SAY you had gotten them. One such person, who had claimed that he got the Medal of Honor, challenged the law's constitutionality under the First Amendment.

The Court ruled that the law is, in fact, unconstitutional because it is so broad. Basically, it says that just saying you got an award is protected speech. The opinion absolutely agrees that its a lie, and that it is a bad thing to do, and that military awards hold a special significance to the American people, and rightly should. But it also acknowledges that this alone is not enough for it to be constitutional. The Court basically says that there's nothing wrong with publicly berating and calling the person out for lying about it, and that's actually how it SHOULD be dealt with.

While it doesn't directly say so, the Court basically says that using such claims for gain, other than just to "puff himself up," is fraud, and fraud is already illegal, and should be. So had the original respondent, who just SAID he had gotten a medal of honor, actually tried to use it to get VA benefits, or a government contract, or some other special treatment, that would be a different situation. But all he did was say it. Whether or not a law is Constitutional is not the same as whether or not we like it. So a better (and constitutional, it seems) option would be to recraft the law so that it says that it is a crime to claim to have been awarded military awards and then uses those awards in an attempt to gain something (money, special treatment, government contracts, VA benefits, or the like). But that's fraud, which is already a crime, right?

I think the Court got this exactly right, and I absolutely agree with the Opinion's statement that allowing this to go on would open up the slippery slope to allowing laws against all sorts of lying. As much as I absolutely hate people that claim something like the Medal of Honor, which so many people had to die to receive and all of them had to do something truly honorable and extraordinary and, dare I say, even heroic, I can't imagine living in a place where a blatant lie, spoken for the sheer, pathetic purpose of making yourself look better, is illegal. That's just not what our country is about, and not what the First Amendment is for. I'm all about publicly humiliating anyone who makes such claims, and I'm all about prosecuting someone who uses such a claim to try to defraud anyone. But just to make himself look better? Nope. That guy will get his, and I'd rather feel sorry for him and let him get a little humiliation than make it illegal.

What are your thoughts? You can read the whole decision here.

From Politics to Foreign Policy, It Seems...

Vladimir Putin is a scary, scary dude.

I already thought he was shady, based on a paper that I wrote on him back in 2007. And I've been kind of fascinated with him since that time, and Russia for a little longer than that after a very interesting class I took in college about politics in the Former Soviet Union. Fast forward to the paper I wrote about Putin for the class I'm just finishing up, and holy crap. I learned a whole lot about that man, enough to have filled up at least another paper, if not two, and unfortunately, most of it wasn't really on topic for what I was writing, so I have to share it somewhere. Luckily for me, I have that outlet here :)

Even before I had decided on the topic for this paper, I had put a new book about Putin on my Kindle Wish List - The Man Without A Face, by Masha Gessen. Gessen is a Russian journalist who had been following / reporting on Putin since his early days as Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin, and as things progressed over the years since then, did a TON of research into his past. Granted, this book is slightly biased, as she makes it clear from the start that she's no fan of Putin. But it turns out, not many people are.

Its pretty common knowledge that Putin started his career as a KGB agent. But what many don't realize is that he was nothing special in the KGB. His career was mostly a disappointment - he didn't get any prime jobs or postings, he didn't rise very high in the ranks, and he wasn't given any extraordinary awards or accolades. He says that before the attempted coup in 1991 he wrote a resignation letter to the KGB. He also says that the KGB lost it, so a year later he wrote another. But that begs the question, how does he know that they lost it? And why wouldn't he have written another one immediately upon finding out that the first had been lost, instead of waiting a whole year? Makes one wonder a little, for sure...

Gessen also makes several linkages between Putin and some very bad things that happened in Russia, to include some bombings of apartment buildings around Russia, the Beslan school shootings, and a whole bunch of meat being stolen from the city of St Petersburg during the early days after the fall of the Soviet Union. Additionally, she implied that Putin has had numerous of his detractors and political enemies killed, unfairly imprisoned, or forced into exile. One of those people in whose death she alleges Putin was involved was his own mentor, Anatoly Sobchak. Basically, she comes to the conclusion that Putin has built the new Russia to revolve around him, and will stop at nothing to ensure that things go his way.

And she's not the only one - it only takes a quick google search to come up with myriad articles that talk about scary things Putin has done - even just in the past few weeks, he's sent helicopters back to Syria and raised fines on protestors in Russia from $90 to $6000, seemingly because most of the protests lately have been against him and his party. Not exactly the actions of the leader of a nation moving closer to democracy, you may be thinking. Exactly.

So here's where I have a hard time. Mitt Romney makes a comment about Russia being a threat to us, and Colin Powell comes out and says that Mitt Romney should know better. Seriously, it seems to me that Colin Powell should know better - he was in the thick of dealing with this guy. We keep wanting to talk about Russia being a friend and strategic partner. But friends don't do things like request that the location of the G8 be changed and then, at the last minute, decide not to come for no good reason. Being partners implies a willingness to work together, yet Putin campaigned on anti-Americanism this time around. And oh by the way, was elected in what many, even his PM before Medvedev, say were corrupt elections in which his opponents were not given equal (or sometimes any) air time, and voters were pressured into voting for Putin. Nothing about this guy screams "friend" or "partner" - if anything, and I'm no real foreign policy expert, but it seems like this just makes sense, we should be keeping Russia close to keep an eye on them. Because Putin has stated, in no uncertain terms, publicly, over and over again, that a strong Russia is his number one priority. Combine that with an ego that does not like to be insulted, and this could be the recipe for a big old mess.

What I can't quite seem to figure out, though, is why we as a country are so insistent on trying to 'reset' relations with Russia and Putin, and so hesitant to say anything else. In my mind, I think it would be a great thing if President Obama had a Prime Minister David moment (If you haven't seen Love Actually, shame on you, but here's a video of the speech anyway, and no, I don't know what language the subtitles are in) and actually laid it out there. But I'm sure there are things that I don't know, and that I don't have need to know, that are keeping that from happening. I just hope they're good, solid reasons. I really do. Because I'm pretty sure that no matter what we may say, whether we call him our best friend or a scary dude we're watching closely, he will still act in whatever way he feels is going to provide the best outcome for himself and for his version of a strong Russia. He's surely not thinking about our feelings.

Next up, more than likely: that Atlantic article about women that's been lighting up the interwebs for the past week or so. Can you tell I've been thinking a lot lately?

Warning: This is a Political Post

I've been a little MIA this month, for a few reasons, and I apologize. Between heading out to visit my nieces (SUCH a great trip), working on a paper for school (only 2 classes left until I'm officially done with my Masters Degree!), and life in general, I just haven't been here much. On top of that, I've been pondering a couple of things that I want to talk about. I think I'm ready for one of them, but we may have multiple posts over the next few days. Let's just call it making up for lost time :)

(And here's the disclaimer: Don't read past here if you don't want to read about politics, because this is my politics post. I promise I will leave it to this post, for now.)

As anyone who's known me for any period of time may know, I'm kind of a politics junkie. I read a lot, and I pay attention, and I've found myself really changing my political views in the past few years. Well, more accurately, I think I've actually been forming my own views instead of just latching on to those of my family and the preponderance of people I surrounded myself with in the military. I very much find myself relating to people like Meghan McCain - I want to maintain my Republican-ness, but I'm finding it harder and harder to do.

Its not that I don't agree with the party on anything. I agree that the deficit is a problem and the current policies are not working. I don't think that raising taxes on the upper class is the right answer, but I also don't think they should get breaks. I'm all for closing loopholes. I have no problem with the capital gains tax rate being lower than the regular income tax rate. I think the continued spending by the current administration is unsustainable, and needs to stop. I think this President uses the words I and me and a little too much for my liking. I love the military, and I take the national security of this country seriously, and I think that the threats of severe cuts to the defense budget would be a huge mistake, especially without true reform of our policies.

However, that's about where it ends for me. I have a very hard time with a party that touts its desire for smaller federal government yet wants the federal government to regulate our social lives. I have a hard time with a party that consistently talks about the importance of every single human life, yet doesn't want to ensure that programs are in place to care for the child that was born to a mother (or parents) who can't care for it. (And yes, I agree that the federal government is not the place for those programs, but I also think that until the infrastructure has been set up for local/state/church/whoever to take care of them, they need to continue in their current state.) I can't get behind a party that continues to say nothing about the birthers, and who refuses to do the research into all of the good Planned Parenthood does before denouncing the whole organization. Or who think its perfectly OK for myriad tax loopholes to keep the extremely rich from paying any income taxes - I see paying their fair share not as raising rates on those folks, but as actually getting them to pay the rates that are currently set for their brackets.

The rhetoric, the blind allegiance to party instead of issues, the continued practice of making things up for the sound bite, often intentionally, because the sound bite will inevitably get more attention than the correction/apology that comes after the damage is done... This is happening on both sides, and frankly, I'm sick of it.

I'm far from happy with the current President, don't get me wrong. But really, was Mitt Romney the best the Republican party could come up with? I read something the other day that said only a very small percentage of probable voters was really and truly undecided at this point. I really do think I fit in that small percentage. I really do feel like I'm part of that truly independent group, that moderate group that apparently can't put up a viable candidate because it takes being extreme on either side to win a primary. So I, and many others like me, find myself in a position where I can't get even mildly excited for this presidential election, because neither choice seems like a very good one. I really do hope for the day that moderation returns to favor, but I wonder what it will take. Will it take huge defeats in this election year? I'm not even sure that those will happen, and if they do, they won't be landslides. This is likely to be a very close election. This country is divided almost right down the middle. Its people like me that will probably make the decision one way or another. Unfortunately, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, I'm having a hard enough time making that call that just staying home on election day is looking like a much less painful idea. But I know that's not the right answer either.

To wrap this up, I don't like being confused! Hopefully between now and election day, something will click that will make the decision for me. I hope its something easy like the Republican VP pick, but somehow I don't think that will be the case.

And... end political rant. :)

I think this makes me old.

As of today, I can officially say that I graduated from college more than 10 years ago.

Holy. Crap.

Yesterday was the 10 year anniversary, if you will, of my USNA graduation. I remember very little about 24 May 2002, to be honest. Just that it meant it was all over, and that was fantastic. I remember lining up on the (now nonexistant) hill waiting to march into the stadium. I remember Ken Neptun's mom Wendy standing at one of the corners as we marched in, telling us to throw our covers up to Ken and making me cry. I remember being grateful I didn't fall in my horribly dress white shoes up and down the ramps to get my degree and shake Dick Cheney's hand. I don't remember any of the speeches. I barely remember throwing my cover. I remember Tara giving me my first salute, and getting my shoulder boards changed out. It's all pretty spotty.

And it was more than ten years ago.

In some ways, those ten years have just flown by. I can't believe its actually been 10 years. But on the other hand, it seems like so long ago. I've done so many things in that 10 years. So many Navy experiences in the first 6 - Paris, Newport, two ships, a deployment, moving to DC, a shore tour that set me up for later. Since getting out, I've moved twice (well, more than twice, but moved cities twice), decided I wanted to stay in the defense world, found a niche, and established myself in it. Personally, I've become an actual adult, had my heart broken a few times, chosen poorly in some things and wonderfully in others, learned a lot about people, become less naive, bought a house, left that house, had a nightmare tenant, been unemployed, gotten two cats, and met the man I plan on spending the rest of my life with.

More than ten years. I can hardly believe it...

More on the nuns...

I was part of an extremely interesting conversation last night at a friend's baby shower, of all places. She and her husband both come from very Catholic families, with nuns on both sides. One of those nuns was present last night, and we started talking about the current situation with the Vatican and the American bishops that I've talked about here before. She is part of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and her work is in the organization that administers all of the Catholic hospitals in the region, which means the whole situation is very close to her. Her insight was refreshing, to be honest, and really reaffirmed my admiration for the Sisters who have devoted their lives, in the name of their Church, to helping those less fortunate.

I came away from that Church with the reminder that no man is infallible, and the Church is more than just the men who lead it. It is the people who comprise it, the God that began it. All of the people like me, who feel like we're leaving the Church, are really being left by those who claim to represent the Church. Sister reminded me of the importance of knowing and understanding the history of our faith, where it came from, and where some of the Church's teachings have come from. I was able to express some of my feelings, and some of the difficulties I've had with the Church in recent years, most specifically the part where I don't go to Church to be told where my politics should be, and how the Church is supposed to be bigger than that.

When she had to get going, Sister expressed that she had enjoyed the conversation, and enjoyed being able to speak her mind a little bit in a safe environment. I appreciate that more than she could know, because I left that conversation with a sense of comfort that I had not felt in a long time. Not because of everything that was going on, but something about the open, honest conversation about faith, hearing some of the best explanations for my own and others' questions about faith that I'd heard, was comforting. I wish the Sisters the best with this "investigation" and hope that the result is what the rest of the world, even non-Catholics, seem to understand. Our nuns are some of the best people out there, and the work that they do is exactly what should be representing the Church.

Cancer is a giant b****.

All I can think about today is how much cancer really, really, really sucks. How in 2012, when we can clone sheep and put all of our music on an inch square electronic device, we still cannot get a handle on this horrible disease. This disease that takes so many forms, and ravages so many people, and ends so many lives far too early, and tears others completely apart. How it doesn't discriminate who it attacks - how it doesn't just stick to the bad people, or the unhealthy people, or the people with the right risk factors. How it can decide that the lungs of an otherwise healthy, non-smoking woman in her late 30s are the perfect place for it to set up shop, and not give any clues that its there until its pretty much too late.

I met Ali a few years ago at a Sister Hazel and Pat McGee show at Wolf Trap. I made a bunch of new friends that night, some that I've become very close to and others that I see now and then but always enjoy. Ali is one of the second half - not someone that I became very close to, but someone that I'm always happy to see, usually out at a show. Nearly two years ago, Ali was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer after going to the doctor for a headache she couldn't get rid of. She knew from the start that it was incurable, but she has fought incredibly hard, and been an inspiration to everyone who knows her. This morning, I woke up to the news that there is nothing more the doctors can do for her, and she's now in hospice care. Basically, she's nearing the end of her fight and the primary objective from here on out is to keep her as comfortable as possible. And that really, really sucks.

I've spoken many times about the music family and community that I'm lucky to be a part of. Not just the Rock Boat family, although that makes up a very large part of it. And when any part of a family hurts, the whole family hurts, or at least it should. Just because Ali and I aren't close doesn't make it any easier to process this news, or make me think about her any less, or make it any easier to focus on anything besides her today. All it does is make me hate cancer more.

Ali, I'm so proud of you for fighting. I'm so proud of how optimistic you've remained through all of this, and how your spirit has shone even through this disease that has broken not just the bodies but the souls of so many. I'm proud to know you, and I thank you for touching my life. I hope that someday, someone will find a cure for this horrible, awful, terrible disease. And I pray for peace and comfort for you now, and that you feel the love being sent your way from so many right now.

New Music: Volume Two by Amy Gerhartz

I mentioned in my post the other day that Amy Gerhartz's new 5 song EP would be available soon, and here it is! Not everywhere yet, but for now, you can buy the digital download here. It will be available soon in hard copy and on iTunes. I highly recommend it, of course :)

Track Listing:
1. Already Yours
2. Take a Chance
3. As A Friend
4. Look To Me
5. Afraid of the Dark

And keep your eyes open for tour dates - if Amy makes it near you, you don't want to miss her!

More on the whole Church thing...

When I blogged about the nuns a few weeks ago, I said I was going to keep an eye on that story, and this is me following up.

I don't always agree with E.J. Dionne, a liberal columnist for the Washington Post, regular contributor to MSNBC, and occasional member of Meet the Press's political round table. I read him and his colleagues regularly, though, because I like to take in all sides of most debates. But the column he wrote yesterday really struck a chord with me. Entitled "I'm Not Quitting The Church," Dionne writes about a full page ad that ran in the Post recently urging liberals to leave the Catholic Church.

Now, first of all, this type of ad absolutely hurts the cause for which this group, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), purports to be trying to advance. It gives the far right ammunition. It defeats its own purpose. While Dionne doesn't come right out and say that, he does make some very salient points about why he will decline that invitation to leave the church. He specificially focuses on a paragraph that he finds particularly offensive. He writes:

My, my. Putting aside the group’s love for unnecessary quotation marks, it was shocking to learn that I’m an “enabler” doing “bad” to women’s rights. But Catholic liberals get used to these kinds of things. Secularists, who never liked Catholicism in the first place, want us to leave the church, but so do Catholic conservatives who want the church all to themselves.

He then spends most of the remainder of his column discussing the issues of women's rights in the church. He talks about some of the work done under Pope John XXIII, who spoke of the "natural dignity" of women and their inherent rights as human beings. Then he moves into the nun part, prefacing it with wishing that both the FFRF and today's bishops would read a little more of Pope John and align a little closer with him. He pretty much asks the same question I asked in my post: "Why in the world would the Vatican, apparently pushed by right-wing American bishops, think it was a good idea to condemn the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main organization of nuns in the United States?" He talks about all the good they've done, and how often Catholics like himself refer to this type of work in their defense of the Church they love, some of the same issues I mentioned in my post, only he's far more articulate about it than I am.

A friend of mine, also a liberal Catholic Democrat, and I were talking about this column yesterday.  She told me that she had recently expressed similar frustrations with a pastor back home, and that he had come back to her with a reminder that the Church on Earth is flawed because men are flawed. I think that's a great thing to remember, for me in particular - just because the Church on Earth isn't really something I can get super excited about these days, that doesn't mean that the big picture is the same thing or even close. Of course, that's probably some sort of blasphemy against infallibility or something, but I'll refer back to the original post where I led off with the fact that I'm not the best Catholic.

Dionne ends his piece with a poignant quote, one that I'll quote to end this post. The Church would do well to listen.

Too many bishops seem in the grip of dark suspicions that our culture is moving at breakneck speed toward a demonic end. Pope John XXIII, by contrast, was more optimistic about the signs of the times. “Distrustful souls see only darkness burdening the face of the earth,” he once said. “We prefer instead to reaffirm all our confidence in our Savior who has not abandoned the world which he redeemed.” The church best answers its critics when it remembers that its mission is to preach hope, not fear.

Some things I get to be proud of

First, just to get it out of the way (and this is not included in the things I got to be proud of)... Anyone who's turned on a TV or picked up a newspaper or been on Facebook in the past few days knows that the conversation has been dominated by conversation about gay marriage. I blogged about my thoughts on this topic back in late 2010, and I don't feel the need to rehash those points again.

Now that that's out of the way, moving on to the REAL topic I wanted to talk about. Anyone who knows me or who has been reading this blog for any period of time knows that I'm a huge music nerd, always have been and probably always will be. I've also always sang, and written off and on for a large majority of my life. I took the "sensible route" and never really pursued singing, which I can't say I completely regret, but I definitely get that slight pang of jealousy when I see someone else on stage and think I should be doing that, and I definitely get a huge rush when I do get the chance to sing on a stage, even if its karaoke. For the most part, though, I'm OK with the fact that most of my singing will be done in my car. I have several friends, some closer than others, who took the giant leap and have pursued their dreams, and I love nothing more than the chance to help them do so and the feeling of pride I feel when they do well. I've two such opportunities this week that I want to share.

First of all, Tony Lucca came in 3rd place on the The Voice this week. I, along with I'd assume a good chunk of 10 year old girls in 1990, had a HUGE crush on Tony when he was on the Mickey Mouse Club, and when I first got to meet him in 2007, I had one of my very few star-struck moments. I've had the pleasure of getting to see Tony play many times since then, and, because he's the type of guy to do so, getting to know him a little bit as a fan as well. So I, along with many of my friends in the Rock Boat family, felt nothing short of huge amounts of pride not only with Tony's amazing run on the show, but also because of the amazing class he showed in dealing with the drama that was Christina Aguilera. If you haven't heard anything of Tony other than what you saw on the Voice, do yourself a favor and go get some of his original music. Its all on iTunes, and I think you can still find his latest album on noisetrade.com for free (with the option of paying what you want).

The other opportunity to be proud this week, while smaller in scale, was HUGE for me. When I met Amy Gerhartz back in 2005, she was playing coffee shops and restaurants in the Norfolk, VA area and working a day job at a music venue just waiting for the right show to convince her bosses to let her be the opening act. That chance came in December that year, when Jason Mraz and Better Than Ezra were playing. I was in the audience that night, and while I had met her once before, I fell in love with her music based on the short set she played. We became fast friends, even though within a few months both of us had moved out of the area - me to DC for the next Navy job, and Amy to New York in pursuit of her dreams. In the past seven years, I've watched Amy do everything she could to get herself out there. I've seen her play in seedy bars, do residencies in swanky NYC restaurants, move to Atlanta in hopes of breaking into the amazing independent scene there, work day jobs she hated to make ends meet, have deals and opportunities dangled in front of her only to have them not work out, but still continue on and grow in every possible way. Last spring, she released a five song EP, with the promise of more to come. The first time I heard those five songs I was in the car with Amy, and I couldn't even express how proud I was of her.

Since she moved to Atlanta, Amy's been able to gain exposure to a wide variety of people who have done pretty well at advancing the careers of independent musicians. That's how she ended up working with her producer, the amazing Brian Fechino, known also to many as a phenomenal guitarist. And I'll take a little bit of credit, although Brian may have had more influence, with getting Amy's name to the folks over at Rock By The Sea - I'd been suggesting her to them for a long time, and this year they booked her for their annual fundraiser festival. I was supposed to go down to Panama City Beach for the event, but between the new job and the trip to see my sister and her family that I have coming up, I just couldn't make it happen. But I got an email halfway through it from one of the organizers telling me that Amy was a hit, so I knew I couldn't wait to hear from her how it had gone.

Turns out, saying that she was a hit was an understatement. Apparently, Ken Block, the lead singer of Sister Hazel, was among many who fell in love with Amy at this event. He had seen her play and heard her music before, but apparently she went to a new level for him at this event. He gave her a shout out from stage during Sister Hazel's show. He led the crowd in getting her to play an encore during her show. Basically, he was her biggest fan, and made sure everyone knew it. Amy sold more merchandise than just about anyone at the event. She gained countless new fans. And all of this is just ahead of the release of the second of her five song EPs.

I am SO INCREDIBLY PROUD of Amy. Words don't even begin to express it. I told her I was going to start living vicariously through her, because only good things can come from here on out. The only way that I can really think of to show how proud I am of her is to tell you all to go buy her music!! The Volume 1 EP is available on itunes or you can order hard copies through her website. Volume 2 is coming soon (should be available for download at all the usual spots on May 15th) but until then you can listen to samples of the songs here or here. And she'll be touring soon, so keep your eyes open for dates in your area. And in general, because I have a feeling Amy's going places.

Where were you?

There's usually at least one major event for which everyone in a generation will remember exactly where they were when it happened, or when they found out it happened. I think for mine, there have been two so far. The first was 9/11, which I've posted about before.  I think the second is the day Osama bin Laden was killed.

It's hard to believe that its already been a year since the person that basically defined so many lives, both personal and professional, since 2001 or before, was found in his compound and taken down by a team of our Navy's finest. I remember exactly where I was when I found out.

It was the last night of the VH1 Best Cruise Ever, put on by the amazing folks at Sixthman, and I was sitting where I spent a lot of time on that cruise, at the blackjack table with my girlfriends. I had been on 4 previous cruises with most of these girls, all Rock Boats, but had somehow never managed to get to know them until this cruise. I was just getting myself back to even when one of our other friends came over and said guys, you won't believe this - we got Osama, and they think we got one of Qaddafi's sons too.

I wasn't really sure what to feel, at first. I was concerned that travelling home the next morning would become difficult due to increased security (luckily, it wasn't too bad). I was worried about retaliatory attacks. My job is to plan for the worst case scenario, so I absolutely immediately go to that. But then, I stopped and realized, holy sh!t, Osama bin Laden is dead. Public Enemy Number One is no longer a threat. Of course, I knew that wasn't the end of the threat of al Qaeda or its sympathizers, but what a huge deal.
A little later that night, after we'd al finished up our blackjack and cashed out, I headed back to my cabin and turned on the news to get the details. I took a picture of the TV with the breaking news alert at the bottom.

For the next few weeks, we all watched and waited to see what would happen. A year later, I think we're still all watching and waiting to see what will happen. And we'll continue to do so, because while the death of its leader was a huge blow to al Qaeda, it wasn't the end. And while they're nowhere close to what they were with him, they sure are trying their best. I was going to have a hard time forgetting that cruise anyway because of the new friends, the amazing music, and the epic sunburn, not to mention the death of Osama.

I'm going green!

I have officially jumped on the green smoothie bandwagon.

I was a skeptic at first. When wheat grass first came out, all I could think was eew, that looks gross. But as I was seeing more and more people putting green things in their smoothies, I got curious. Matt has been saying for ages that we needed a new blender so we could start doing smoothies more often, if for no other reason than to get more fruit and veg into our diets, which is never a bad thing.

Then, last week I came across a green smoothie recipe on skinnytaste.com (which, by the way, is an AWESOME blog full of healthier versions of foods that normally aren't, complete with weight watchers information).  That particular recipe didn't appeal to me because it included a few ingredients that I don't like, but she linked to a different recipe that I immediately wanted to try. So Saturday morning I headed out to Bed Bath and Beyond, armed with the requisite 20% off coupon, and bought a Ninja blender. Then I hit up Giant for the couple of things that I didn't have, and headed home to try out this awesome recipe.

(Of course, it wasn't that easy, because my life never is. I got everything loaded into the blender, and blended for a few seconds. I stopped it to scrape the sides, and the damn thing never turned back on. Go figure, right? So out came the old food processor to finish that one up, and back to Bed Bath and Beyond I went. Luckily, their service is awesome, and it was a fluke, because the new one works perfectly.)

Today was day 3 of the green smoothies, and I'm officially hooked. I haven't made it the same way twice, but they've all been good. The great thing about them is you can't taste the greens! I'm almost through a bag of spinach, and I think I might try kale next.  I also really liked the one with the scoop of peanut butter in it - a little extra protein, and some savor if you don't want it all the way sweet.

And I also have to put in a plug for the Ninja. The model I bought comes with 2 single-serve cups and a single-serve blender blade, so you can make just the right amount and switch the blade out for a drinking lid. Best idea ever, although I did have to add the greens in increments since they take up a whole lot more room before you blend them than after!

Does anyone else do green smoothies? What's your favorite thing to put in them?

My Thoughts on a News Story (No, Not That One)

I am FAR from a good Catholic. I think its been close to 4 years since I've been inside a Church for something other than a wedding. Its not that I don't believe, or anything like that, I just stopped enjoying Church when everytime I went to mass for many years at different churches I felt like I was either being judged or at a political speech, and that's not why I was there. I can't believe that when Jesus tasked Simon Peter with maintaining the Church, the current state of it all is what he was going for.

I've also really become disenchanted with organized religion in general. I look at this campaign season, and the attempts of those especially on the religious right to insert religion into government in exactly the way our founding fathers were trying to prevent. I see fights over issues where the only argument on one side is religion, with no regard to the fact that no single religion has a place in our government. I see schools so paranoid about the religion issue that they're taking the word God out of God Bless the USA. And I'm not dogging one side or the other on this - both extreme sides of this argument tend to be a little much. Do I think that the United States is or should be a completely Christian nation? Absolutely not. Do I think that having a Christmas party at a school goes against that? Hell no.

So that all leads me up to what I really wanted to write about today. Far below the top of the page Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman news, and the Secret Service Scandal, and the Presidential race, I've been following a situation in the news the last few days that has me really bothered, and really kind of confirming why I've been hesitant to go back to the Church. Apparently, the Vatican is none-to-pleased with American nuns because they're not keeping 100% on the exact doctrinal path that has been set for them. And its not even totally about them going against anything, although a couple have spoken publicly about thier disagreement with the Church's position on ordaining women. But apparently its more about the nuns staying quiet on abortion and euthanasia - not going against the church, but not teaching the church's positions either - and the support of the Leadership Council of Women Religious of the Affordable Care Act and the compromise over the whole birth control mess earlier this year.

Now, I haven't had a TON of experience with nuns over the years. I didn't go to Catholic school, and we never went to a Church that had any real presence of nuns in it. Most of my interaction has been limited to a friend's aunt, who I've only met a handful of times, and the nun that runs the school where my uncle has lived for a very long time. And school is not even the right word to describe it - they have a school, but they also have group homes, work programs, and everything else necessary for the mentally handicapped to live their lives as fully as possible. This type of activity is what I've always associated nuns with - charities, hospitals, schools, and other activities that are meant solely to help those less fortunate. And throughout all of the scandals and bad things the Church has dealt with over the years, I can't think of one instance in which the nuns were implicated or where their record was tarnished.

All I can think about right now is these women, who have devoted their lives to a Church that they believe in and love more than anything in this world, and now that Church is effectively turning against them. I can't even imagine how that must feel to them - it has to be similar to your family disowning you, in the sense that both loves, from the Church/God/etc and from the family, are supposed to be unconditional. Except that their relationship with God and the Church is more like the relationship between husband and wife.  I'm sure that's not the first thought of most people in this case - how the nuns must truly be feeling. But I can't get it off of my mind.

Like I said, I could probably be in contention for the World's Worst Catholic award. But I had always retained a little bit of hope. This might just be what drains the last of it out of me. I hope not, but you can bet I'll be watching to see what happens.

Discovery's flight over DC

I am super lucky to have an awesome boss who let me run outside for a few minutes to snap some pictures of the space shuttle discovery (hooked to the back of an airplane and accompanied by a fighter escort) flying over DC. This was perhaps one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It flew right over the Pentagon, then over the river, around the Washington Monument, and back south. I got outside just after it made its first pass, and it made 2 more while I was out there. I took a bunch of pictures, but here are a couple of good ones.  I'll try to post some more tonight when I can more easily access them.

Tis the Season...

... for the Arthritis Walk!

We've all heard of arthritis, probably because one of our parents or grandparents or older relatives or friends has it. What most of us don't know is that there are 100 forms of arthritis, or that nearly 300,000 children live with arthritis pain every day. It's the most common cause of disability and sometimes it's even deadly.

For the past several years, my family has participated in the Arthritis Walk in honor of my younger sister Emily. She's 20 years old now, but she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis just before her 3rd birthday. She's been lucky in that medicine has been good to her - she pole vaulted in high school, is a sophomore in college studying nursing, and is active in her sorority. Many are not so lucky, and the Arthritis Walk is one of, if not the, biggest fundraisers each year to improve research and care for people like Emily.

I'm asking you to help make arthritis unacceptable by making a donation to support the 2012 Arthritis Walk. With every donation, you are helping make a difference in research, community outreach, education, and life-improving programs.

If you can spare a few dollars, I'd really appreciate your donation. This is a cause that couldn't be closer to me and my family, and I'm proud to be able to do something, even if it's something small, to help other children get the opportunities that Emily has had to live a normal, fulfilling life. Please click here to donate. Thank you!

I Miss Tricare.

Yup. I said it. I miss military medical insurance. And that's basically blasphemy, and I don't care.

Was it perfect? Of course not. Sometimes the military doctors (even the civilian ones employed by the military) were not as in tune with my needs as I would have liked. In fact, it took getting out and going to a civilian doctor to get the referral to the sleep doctor that I needed to get my diagnosis for my sleep disorder. Let's face it, though - that could happen anywhere. But that's about the only major gripe I can think of off the top of my head.

I've learned quite a bit in the nearly 4 years since I got out of the Navy when it comes to health care and health insurance that I had never had to deal with during almost 28 years being covered by Tricare and its predecessors. Who knew that a doctor's decision to prescribe a certain medication just isn't good enough for an insurance company, that said insurance company needs to authorize that medication too before they'll cover it? Who knew there was such a thing as a perscription deductible? Who knew that its totally legit for an insurance company to cover absolutley nothing related to allergy treatments until you meet your deductible? This last one is what spurned this whole thing - I went on my insurance page to check on something and found the explanation of benefits for the serum for my allergy shots. While my last insurance covered allergy stuff completely (I just paid an office visit copay for the two visits to the actual doctor), my current plan covers ABSOLUTELY NOTHING until I hit my deductible. Which I won't hit before our plan year restarts in May. The cost to actually get the shots is small - $21/week. But the serum? Turns out that stuff costs $156. And I get to spend that today, because we apparently finished a vial last time. It's worth it to me, because the shots have helped more than any allergy medicine (or cocktail of allergy meds) every has, but HOLY CRAP.

These, among others, are reasons why I have such a hard time with this whole health care debate we're having in this country, and why I was so disappointed when Obamacare didn't include tort reform. Do I think that everyone should be able to access at least bare minimum health care? Absolutely. But there are a few reasons why people can't right now, and those reasons are where the concentration of efforts should be, not forcing people to buy plans. Health care is expensive as hell. From what I understand, this is primarily because doctors and other providers have been forced to buy outrageously expensive malpractice insurance, and pass those costs along to their customers. Also, the only way to get even remotely affordable health insurance is to get it through your employer, provided you're lucky enough to have a job that provides such benefits. Individual insurance policies are expensive, and they can deny coverage for just about any reason. (This is where the pre-existing condition part of the Affordable Care Act comes in - so people like my little sister with arthritis or my friend with epilepsy or my other friend with a heart condition can get insurance.) Yeah, it sucks that the taxpayers have to pay for people to go to the emergency room that don't have insurance. I just don't see this as addressing the issues of WHY they don't have it. But maybe I just don't get it.

But I digress. I challenge all of those people complaining about Tricare to go for a few months on an average "regular" health insurance plan, provided by someone like Aetna or Blue Cross Blue Shield and see if they're still complaining about Tricare. Unless they're in perfect health and rarely use their health care, I'd be willing to bet that they'd breathe a huge sigh of relief when they get back to Tricare. I know I would be, warts and all. At least then I could get the things my doctors have told me I need without having to get additional permission from my insurance company and pay an arm and a leg for it.

The Tax Man Cometh...

Today, a monumental thing is happening. And not in a good way. For the first time in my working life, I owed taxes in 2011. And not just a few bucks - in the (very low, not that it matters) four figures. And I set today as the day for that debit to occur.

Luckily for me, I am in a financial situation where I was just able to suck it up and pay the tax bill. No having to put it on a credit card, or set up a payment plan that would be subject to interest, but off the top of my head, I can think of at least 5 things that money could have gone towards - the new couch, the Visa, the Mastercard, a new flat-iron (I've had the same one for nearly 10 years - its legit!!), and/or my next grad school class.

Instead, I'll just wait for the debit to happen, cry a little, and put a little less than originally planned towards all of the above. And hope that this year, since I just started a new job, my withholdings will be a little bit closer to on the mark!

(Oh, and for those of you who may be curious, Tony did, in fact, get saved by America on The Voice last night. Go Team Rock Boat, and on to the next round!)

It's Official.

I suck at blogging. And at keeping New Year's resolutions. But worse at blogging.

I have been so MIA lately that it's not even funny. I have a semi-good excuse, though. Since the last blog, I've gone on The Rock Boat, moved houses, and moved jobs. That's a lot for 2 months!

But now that I'm settling in to both the job and the house, I really do want to start writing more. Maybe I'll succeed, maybe I won't. But I really do want to try.

First topic for discussion: Christina Aguilera completely dogging Tony Lucca last night on The Voice. Can we say jealous much? Seriously, just because Justin Timberlake is supporting him and not her, she's going to say something like that on TV? She who has Alicia Keys' backup singer on her team, and don't anyone forget it? Sorry Xtina, its not the "celebrity sway" that's going to keep Tony on the show - its the fan base that he's been building for the past 20 years, been taking the time to get to know, and who will support him not only because of the amazing music we've seen him put out over the years (which, by the way, is the furthest thing from one dimensional ever, and you'd know it if you'd listened to any of it) and because of the fact that he is a genuinely good person.

And that's my rant for the day :) Follow Tony on Facebook and Twitter, and watch tonight to see him (hopefully) get saved live on The Voice!

Change, it is a coming

Lots going on in my world...

I got a new job, it looks like we found a new place, and I have a new niece!

The new job will get me doing the part of my job that I like best all the time. I'm pretty excited about the move, and I think it will be good.

The new place isn't set in stone yet, so keep your fingers crossed.

My new baby niece is beautiful. My sister, brother in law, and niece went out to Boston late last week to meet her, and her birth mother relinquished her rights yesterday. She was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, better known as brittle bone disease. My sister, brother in law, and other niece have so much love to give this child, and I know they'll be amazing parents to her. I can't wait to meet her!

So far so good!

OK, here's an update on my list and how I'm doing with it:

Fruit or veg with every meal - Every single meal since I made the list. I'm proud of this!!
Less cluttered - its a process...
Fried food - only once so far
Blog once a week - its been 11 days... but close enough, right?
Write more songs - haven't gotten there yet...
Get rid of clothes - there are two huge bags waiting for goodwill
Reading - I'm plowing through Harry Potter 4 again
Masters - class progresses

Fit into the pink dress - working on it. Back on the weight watchers wagon, and I lost 2.5 pounds last week. This week will probably not be as good, there's been a little cheating (work lunch, breakfast outing, family lunch), but I think I will have at least maintained, not gained. I hope...

Oh, the interrupting thing. I'm definitely much more conscious of it, and I've mostly been doing better, except in this meeting the other day.

Sigh... sometimes, I wish I had the ability to just sit back and let people say completely wrong things that are confusing the people around them. But I just can't. No matter how hard I try, I just can't sit back and let people think something that isn't right, especially when its about something important. I think I upset a guy at work the other day, because I jumped in. Now, in my own defense, there were several times where I jumped in when he said something like "Rebecca will probably say I'm wrong" or "Rebecca keeps reminding me." But sometimes it was because he was just plain wrong.

But I'm working on it. I'm trying SO HARD. I really am. And I think that most of the time I'm doing pretty well. That counts for something, right?

A little story about curveballs

My Naval Academy class, being the first to graduate after 9/11, is publishing a book for our 10 year reunion. I submitted a story that didn't make the final cut, so I decided to share it with you. Without further ado...

Afloat Forward WHAT?

I am a legacy. My mother’s father graduated from the Naval Academy. After he passed away, my grandmother married another Naval Academy graduate. My father graduated in the last all-male class in 1979. My father was a career Naval Officer, so I spent my life around the Navy and the Naval Academy. I went to my first Navy football game on my first birthday. We moved every three years, at least - often, it was much more frequently. I adapted to each new town, each new school, each new set of people. I made new friends, and I managed.

And then I went to the Naval Academy. In fact, I’m the first child of my father’s class to graduate. The irony isn’t lost on anyone, believe me. You’d think, after the childhood I’d lived and the exposure I’d had, I would have known exactly what I was getting into. I sure thought I did. But I was absolutely wrong. Plebe summer, and the ensuing four years at the Naval Academy, made me realize that I would never be fully prepared, but I could do just about anything. This realization and confidence in my own strength and fortitude came in real handy in the summer of 2004.

My ship, an amphibious dock landing ship or LSD, was deployed to the Middle East. An LSD’s primary mission is to transport Marines, their vehicles, and their equipment to a designated location where they will move ashore in an amphibious assault. After training and exercising with our Marines on the East Coast, we ended up dropping our Marines off in Qatar for a mission in Afghanistan. We headed towards our operating box off the coast of Pakistan to wait for them to complete their mission so we could pick them up and head home. The Quartermasters, upon pulling out the navigational charts for the region, realized that it was the exact same operating box that the ship had been assigned to on the previous deployment two years earlier. Everyone was ready for a boring deployment.

But then, on April 24th, 2004, everything changed.  Terrorists had attacked near the Al Basra Oil Terminal (ABOT) in the Northern Arabian Gulf, or NAG, killing several people, including 2 Navy Sailors and one Coast Guard Sailor. Within days, we were headed to Bahrain to pick up a Special Boat Team and two helicopters. This would be the first time an LSD had ever embarked a helicopter detachment - while the class of ship does have a flight deck, it does not have a helicopter hanger. It would also be the first time an LSD had served as an Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB), which is what we were told we would be doing upon arrival. We didn’t really know what this meant, but off we went. Once all of our new embarked personnel and equipment were on board, we headed north towards ABOT and its sister platform, the Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal (KAAOT).

I had only recently earned my Officer of the Deck (OOD) qualification, which allowed me to stand one of the most important watch stations on the ship. The OOD is the watchstander who, in the absence of the Captain, is responsible for the safe navigation and operation of the ship. It is the last major hurdle a junior officer is required to clear prior to sitting in front of a board to earn the Surface Warfare Officer qualification and is described by many as similar to getting a drivers’ license. The requisite time has been spent standing the watch with supervision, and the Captain feels confident in the watchstander’s ability to do the job alone. However, nobody expects a brand new OOD to be one hundred percent confident, and new OODs are highly encouraged to keep asking questions. I felt pretty good about standing my watches in our decent sized box off the coast of Pakistan, but I had only stood a few watches before we were called away to the NAG. Once again, life handed me a situation that far exceeded my preparation.

Standing watch in the NAG got very interesting, very quickly because at that point, it was a pretty tightly wound environment. Along with us, there was another Destroyer from our group and several Coastal Patrol ships (PCs), Minesweepers, and Coast Guard Cutters, along with the lines of merchant oil tankers waiting to fill up and Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Iranian dhows (wooden fishing boats) filled with men trying to make a living. A sunken crane just inside Iranian territorial waters had become a favorite surveillance spot for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and our lookouts were constantly monitoring the movements of the Iranian boats to and from the crane. Tensions between the US and Iran have always been high, and at that point American and Coalition ships were experiencing higher than normal levels of harassment from the Iranians. The fear of another terrorist attack was always present.

Every ship’s captain has a set of Standing Orders, designed to spell out the requirements of the OOD and other key watchstanders. The Orders include times when the OOD must call the Captain, no matter what, to include when another vessel is expected to close within a certain distance of the ship. The Captain quickly figured out that the distances specified in his Standing Orders, should they be maintained in the crowded environment we had entered, would result in his phone ringing off the hook. He adjusted those distances, but, unfortunately, the dhow fishermen still didn’t understand our comfort levels. The fishermen felt much more comfortable with the beefed up military presence in the area. We, however, had no way of knowing if the approaching dhows, whom often did not show up on our radar screens, were filled with harmless fishermen or explosives and a suicide bomber (the method used in the attack on ABOT). Our crew served weapons teams were forced to man the guns several times a day and, in multiple instances, fire warning shots near the dhows who did not heed our warnings to back away. I felt awful for most of the fishermen; even on the rare occasion when they did have working radios on their boats, they likely didn’t understand our warnings. Most of them were just trying to feed their families and make a little bit of money. But the situation necessitated our tendency toward fear, and while we never knew if this would be the time we’d have to actually fire upon one of these dhows, I know I speak for most when I say that we were glad that it never came to that.

The powers that be had divided the areas around ABOT and KAAOT into sectors resembling pie pieces, and assigned the smaller ships to patrol the sectors. Because of our size, we were rarely given an actual sector; instead, we were given an operating box kind of in between the two platforms with the occasional movement to a sector to cover a ship that needed to leave to resupply or refuel. Our small operating box made life even more interesting when we realized what our mission, as the afloat forward staging base, would be: send out our small boats twice a day with meals and supplies for the personnel working on board the platforms (primarily SeaBees and other engineers building living quarters), and launch helicopters, amphibious hovercraft (LCACs), and special boat teams in support of other, often classified even to us, events going on in the region. And oh, by the way, we had to do all of these things, which required certain wind envelopes, sea states, and speeds, in a small operating box, and all at the same time, and while being surrounded by dhows, and while trying not to run over the fishing nets said dhows had laid with no regard to our operating area. All of these tasks had to be monitored, and all of the operational requirements to carry them out met, by the OOD.

With the standard craziness of the NAG and all of our operational requirements, there was rarely a dull moment on watch. Even in the middle of the night there was excitement, quite often in the form of the VHF radio and the infamous “Filipino Monkey.” For years sailors have heard those words on the radio in all parts of the world. Our Filipino Monkey calls were often followed by discussions of bananas and sheep and/or monkeys designed to make fun of the information gathering techniques used by our ships to track ships in the NAG. I seemed to be handling the challenges of being an OOD - feedback from the Captain and some of the more senior officers was good, and my watch team responded well to my leadership. However, I was reminded not to get complacent on more than one occasion, with one event in particular standing out. We had been assigned an actual sector of two pie pieces surrounding ABOT. The radars were not cooperating at such close range to the other ships, and our sector was much smaller than what I was used to. I thought I had plenty of space before I encroached on the sector owned by a Cruiser until I heard the radio call. First, it was their OOD asking my intentions. I stated them, said I was about to turn, and the next thing I heard was their Captain telling me I’d better hurry up, and I’d better tell my Captain that I’d almost t-boned his ship. Needless to say I had not been prepared for this. I quickly turned the ship away from him, and called my Captain, letting him know that I had gotten a little too close for comfort, and he may hear something from the other ship’s Captain.  Luckily, he was understanding, told me to make sure I kept a further distance, and carry on. But my nerves were shot for the rest of the night!

We remained in our box in the NAG for 48 days straight. 45 days qualify for a “beer day,” a Navy tradition in which ships who remain at sea for 45 days without pulling into a port are entitled to 2 beers per of-age crewmember, provided operational conditions allowed and the chain of command approved. The day after our beer day, we were directed to head to Bahrain - our time in the NAG was over, at least for the time being. However, the mission we began continued in the NAG, and more ships were tasked with missions outside of the ones normally given to its class.

My father and my grandfather passed me only two real pieces of advice regarding my Naval career: no matter what, make sure that when you go to bed at night, you can look in the mirror and feel good about what you did that day, and if you stop having fun, find a new job. I made mistakes as an OOD, and I was yelled at plenty of times. I learned that it was OK, even a good thing, to ask questions, especially if I did not fully understand the task I had been given. This was not the first mentally tough situation I had encountered in the Navy, and it wasn’t the last either. But through it all, I never once felt as though I had compromised my own integrity, and I became a stronger person, learned more about myself, and realized that no matter how difficult the situation, I could make it through. My time as a SWO was not fun for me, and when my initial service obligation was up, I chose not to follow in the footsteps of my father and grandfather. However, the lessons I learned, both about life and about myself, made that time worthwhile. If nothing else, I learned that no matter how prepared I may think I am based on past experiences, life has a funny way of throwing curveballs.

Happy New Year!

So 2011 was an alright year. Nothing spectacular, but the first year since 2007 that I was fully employed from January 1st to December 31st with zero breaks. So that definitely puts it on the better than the last few years page. But it wasn't all bad.

This year, I really do want to make some New Year's resolutions that I think I can actually keep. There's the perpetual lose weight, get in better shape, be a better human being, etc. But I want my list to be a little more realistic this year. So here's my list. At the end of the year, I'll come back to this list and see how I did:

1. Eat a fruit or vegetable with every meal. Ideally, actually get 5 servings of fruit/veg per day. This will be especially hard at breakfast for me.

2. Fit into the pink dress I bought a couple years ago and LOVE but have never worn.

3. Try to be less cluttered.

4. Let people finish sentences without interrupting. I'm REALLY bad about this, partially because my mind tends to move a zillion miles an hour.

5. Eat fried food no more than twice a month. I would say never, but that's just not realistic. So I'm going to try to limit it.

6. Blog at least once a week, if not more.

7. Write more songs. Maybe even record one or two of them.

8. Get rid of the clothes that I haven't worn or fit into in years but haven't wanted to get rid of because of sentimental reasons.

9. Read one book per month.

10. Finish my master's degree.

We'll see how it all goes.  I know I can do all of these things, I just have to keep myself focused and make myself do it. Wish me luck, and happy 2012 everyone!