Another day of "work"

I don't even know where to begin. Yesterday, and probably the day before, I said I can't believe I get paid for this. Today, that was even more true.

The morning started with me getting a tour of the hangar bay from the photo officer who knows EVERYTHING about the ship. He took us out to the fantail, the back of the ship where you get a tremendous view. Then we went to lunch and after that we were picked up for our tour of the flight deck. The shooter who took us around brought us right up to the line so we could watch the planes up close and feel what is like down there. Simply put, its amazing. I've never seen something so powerful so close. It is humbling and tremendous to think about all the work and all the people who make the aircraft fly. We also saw them land and just like last night, it was incredible. Maybe more than the takeoff, the landing requires such precision.

After the flight deck, we got to go on our helo ride with the Eightballers. They always are in the air if there are flight ops going on. We got some great views of the ship and the ocean. A couple of times they just hovered over the water and the spray caused by the props and the helo itself is pretty impressive. They had our side door open for a while and I kept worrying that my ID cards would fall out but they stayed put. We were in the air for about three hours and I'm guessing that could get a little boring after a while, but I was still really glad I went and amazed at how everyone has a role and one person not doing their job can ruin a mission.

So that's the whole day right? No. The ship has a lot of distinguished visitors and most are people nobody has heard of. Occasionally though you get some famous people. Today, Pete Carrol (USC head football coach) and Matt Leinart (USC alum and QB for Arizona Cardinals) showed up along with a few other USC players. All the sailors were excited and they had a big autograph session. The line was crazy and I was just walking around watching the sunset. When I came back from the fantail, the sailors were playing catch with Carrol and Leinart. Coach saw me walking around and threw me a pass. I caught it and gave a quick pitch to a sailor. Wish I would have actually thrown it back but I didn't want to take away from the sailor's time with the celebs. But as I was walking, coach told me it was a nice catch so that was pretty cool.

If that wasn't enough, then we went up to CATC. I don't know what that stands for, but its basically the guys who take care of the planes in the air while the Air Boss takes care of the planes on the Carrier. They acutally let jus go back in Ops and the Officer-in-charge let me stand next to him while he explained how everything and everyone worked together. It is just awe-inspiring that 19-year-old kids are telling billion dollar aircrafts where to go and what to do...unreal.

Quite a day. This whole trip has been more than I ever could have imagined and it definetly makes me strongly consider trying to take a sea tour. The Judge thinks its better to wait until you are O-4, but we'll see. Obviously working on a ship is a lot different than what our experience has been but I'm definetly more interested. Finally off to bed and I'll COD off tomorrow.