All the walls are gray

Well, I am living on an aircraft carrier. My lease ran out on my place in Ventura County, and some guy named Stewart who had a camoflauge knapsack and a long red beard came up to me and said rather loudly, "Do you need a place to rest your head at night?" I had been taking a lot of Ambien around that time (I think it was about 2 in the morning, and I was crawling somewhere near the PCH at Morning View), and his voice was really persuasive, so I said, "Yes!" I guess I didn't hear him, or the recruiter, when they told me that I needed to join the Navy and then fly off a floating postage stamp as an occupation to get such lovely shelter (and four roommates!). Why did I walk with Stewart to the recruiting office? And why did he want to take me there so badly? Damn Ambien. Wicked stuff.

Okay, so maybe I made that whole story up. Or maybe I didn't...?

The ship isn't too bad--yet. Overall, the workload is better because people are on all different schedules with flights, preparation, etc. and the ground jobs (of which I have many) are minimized. I'm still waiting on those first cat shots and traps, so I have yet to experience that. (I'm guessing most everyone will stop reading now.) It's a pretty awesome thing to watch, though. It's teamwork at its best!

Running on a treadmill while the ship moves at 20+ knots through the ocean is fun. Except for the almost falling off the treadmill about five times part, at least. The food is pretty good, except for the pancakes that I just had that had the firmness of a frisbee.

So, yes, life is pretty good.

C

N Signing In!

Greetings everyone!

C and I are starting this blog from different coasts . . . East and West. As C departs for his month at sea, I'll be packing for my move to the West Coast. Hooray!

Let me begin my first post to this blog to say just a few things about the wonderful man I share this blog with: The amazing, dynamic, genius, and devastatingly handsome C, who I'm so lucky to have met that fateful day 10 months ago in Washington D.C.'s Adams Morgan. Those of you who know him already can attest to his incredible character, strength, integrity, and love for life. And it's our shared love of this country that inspired us to start this blog, to share with all of you our experiences as we get to know our nation, each other, and ourselves, a bit better.

So, welcome! Since I've lived in Washington longer than anywhere else in my life, my first posts will be dedicated to what I see in the weeks leading to my move. Who knows what I'll see. No gossip though, I promise!

N

Hello to everyone, and first post overall

We're both very new at the blogging thing, so welcome us to the 21st Century whenever you see us. I'll try to answer the one big question from the get go...

Why are the two of us doing this? N and I both want to share our experiences with those whom we care about, and we love involving all of you in our lives. This blog is for our friends and family--not for ourselves. I would say it is a lot easier for us to put our thoughts and experiences on a blog site that you all can view (if you want to) than it is for us to cram forced, mass e-mails down everyone's throats.

To sum up the theme of NiCasey's America, we're very happily in love. Also, we love to have fun, travel together, and experience the world as a team, and we've been lucky enough to share our fun with many of you on numerous occasions. However, both of us have great friends that we haven't seen in a long time, and we were seeking an outlet to let you all know what we are up to in our lives. So this was our solution. I know that I love hearing from my awesome friends on a regular basis, and this blog is meant to prolong our friendships further. So, that said, I'll get on with what's going on...

I'm getting on the boat for a month starting Tuesday morning. It will be the first time taking off and landing on board a carrier, so I'm very, very anxious and very, very nervous as well. However, it is the first part of a long and tenuous work-up cycle that will progress to a full deployment, and it's mainly meant to re-cage everyone's minds to safety issues, so it won't be too stressful overall. Hopefully. Either way, I'll have two nights in San Diego to get the fun out of my system (and maybe a Padres game tomorrow?). That'll be great.

I've been told that N will be updating the site with her inputs tomorrow, so I'll let her give you the lowdown on all of that because she'll certainly describe it better than I will. For those of you who haven't seen the NiCasey team in action, we've been together for 10 months now, and she's a dream come true. We've spent time together in (deep breath, everyone) DC; Norfolk; Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill (the TRIANGLE!); St. Louis; Chicago; Ventura County and LA; Reno/Tahoe; Monterey/Carmel, CA; San Diego; and Omaha. We are hoping to add San Jose slash San Fran to the list in October, and we're always up for a trip to visit any of you. Well, I'm always up for a trip as long as my girl is with me. Being with her makes everything fun.

More to come, and I hope everyone is interested in what we have to say. Welcome aboard.

--C