To Whom It May Concern

The Pensacola Experience

Before the trip I had planned everything out, except one thing, my accommodations. Naval Air Station Pensacola has a really nice housing facility called Bachelor Officer Quarters available to military personnel, but it’s normally so booked up that the only available way to get a room without orders is on a ‘walk in’ basis the day of your visit. $17 dollars a night sure as hell beats trying to bid for any available room in the surrounding area for $100 or more (workers in town to clean up and rebuild after the recent hurricane had snapped up all the cheaper rooms). So I walked in to see if any rooms were available, and thankfully there was a wonderful lady working there who heard my story about visiting my wife, and how I was going to be deployed, and she let me have all 7 days I was going to be there.

That was AWESOME, because the BOQ was within easy walking distance of both belly’s classroom and her barracks, and the eating facilities on base. The mess hall was actually pretty good, and for $1.90 breakfasts and $2.50 lunches, even Taco Bell can’t touch it. I never did find out how much dinners were there, we always ate off base for dinner.

The temperatures in Nebraska have been insanely hot for pretty much the past month. This is good for one particular reason, because of what the weather is like constantly in Pensacola. Omaha doesn’t have nearly the humidity that Florida has, but the blasting heat in the afternoon is actually worse temperature wise in Omaha. However, it’s debatable as to whether or not that is worse than the humidity in Pensacola.

In Nebraska, you can expect a pretty decent break from the heat in the early morning hours, usually about 70 degrees or so. Not so in Florida though. Unless there is a storm or cold front, the temperature in the morning is going to be about 85 with drenching humidity. I ran most mornings I was there, and the humidity was unreal. One lap around the training area was 1.5 miles, and by the time I would get about one lap around, my shirt would be soaked with sweat. I alternated 2 laps and 3 laps daily, if for no other reason than to make up for the really bad eating habits I had while visiting NAS.

We visited the Pensacola Beach twice. The Gulf of Mexico is rather salty, I don’t know if that qualifies me for swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, but it is the first time I’ve ever swam in a body of water that big. At 2 years old my parents dipped me in the Pacific, but I certainly don’t remember that. We took a whole host of photos at the beach, of which belly has the majority of them.

They certainly have some interesting places to eat along the beach. Of course the resounding theme of the area is ‘seafood’ and here’s me, a rabid red meat lover. I feel kind of bad as I look back on it, but the only seafood I had the week I was there was the crab dip with chips at Crabs restaurant. The waitresses all had shirts that said “WE HAVE CRABS” on them, I found that to be really funny. I’ve had friends telling me now that I should have gotten them one of those shirts, well, sorry, too much was going on to think about that : ) . Oddly enough, we ate Mexican food more than anything else, they had a really great Mexican restaurant there, except for one thing. An all you can eat buffet is not ‘order all you want as we spend 30 minutes making each thing you order before it gets to you’, that was irritating, but other than that the place was delicious.

We also went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I had to ask myself this while we were watching the movie, well, had to ask myself TWO questions really. First, why in the hell is it colder than a meat locker in this movie theater, and second, why is Willy Wonka’s character modeled after Michael Jackson? Don’t believe me? Well, go see the movie, I can give you many reasons why this is true.

Both are incredibly reclusive and live in unrealistic surroundings, Willy in the chocolate factory, Michael at Neverland. Both have real difficulty relating to adults. Both have completely inept abilities when picking out clothing to wear. Both try to entice children into liking them. Both talk with a squeaky weird voice and make silly comments that make no sense or put them in a really bad light. If you haven’t seen it, don’t go to the theater, however, it’s worth renting I think. The musical stuff is pretty funny, but the movie overall is sort of lacking in terms of plot.

Belly and I got a lot done in a short period of time. Name change completed, went to her bank to get both of us on the account, helped her study for a really hard test. All in all it was a really wonderful week. She spent every night with me in the BOQ except for one. Technically I don’t think she was supposed to be spending the night with me, but I almost wondered if her leadership knew about it but also knew our situation (my being shipped out for 15 months) and let it slide, especially considering that she finished so high in her class performance wise.

So basically we had a mini honeymoon, with periods of classwork for belly. We had so much fun. Oh, and I got a laptop at the Best Buy, because I’m rather devoid of hardware knowledge and she knows a LOT about it. I hope my two weeks leave midtour will be this nice, I can’t wait to see her again.



Current Lyrical Ramblings


When I find out all the reasons
Maybe I'll find another way, find another day
With all the changing seasons of my life
Maybe I'll get it right next time

Estranged – Guns N’ Roses