Made and Moved
Yesterday, I got up just before noon1, so I had time to check my inbox before I went on watch. Two messages in general traffic caught my eye:
- POSTING INSTR LS LACQUI2 NE TECH(C) – JR
- RANK CHANGE INSTR LS LACQUI, NE TECH(C)
The first message says that I am being sent to another ship. Unfortunately, I’m going to a ship that’s going to be sailing for a while, with only a few weeks at home between that sail and the one I’m currently on. The next message, however, was far more interesting. “Rank Change Instr” is the official form of saying “promotion”. Yup, I’m moving to a different ship, but at the rank of Master Seaman – two hooks and a maple leaf.
The promotion sort of eased the pain of being away, but not entirely. It will still be painful being away from my family.
I called my wife to tell her the good news/bad news. Let me tell you up front – satellite phones suck ass. Especially when, due to an administrative error somewhere, I only have 6 1/2 minutes of airtime available. Anyway, while dealing with the 1-second time lag3, I was able to tell her about the posting and the promotion. She countered with some good news of her own – we’ve been approved for a larger PMQ. We get an extra bedroom, a basement, and a proper back yard. I can’t complain there
And the timing couldn’t be better – we get it the weekend after I get home from this sail, so I will be there for the move4 and I will get to spend a bit of time there before I sail again.
Not a regular day at the pool
We’re standing around the pool. Twelve grown men and two grown women in full Navy combat dress1, which is our working uniform. Everyone puts on a belt pouch, from which we withdraw and wear a life jacket. Then, two at a time, we jump into the pool fully dressed.
This is part of the sea survival refresher training. Everyone who serves onboard a ship needs to know what to do in the case that the ship sinks. This is, unfortunately, not as unlikely as we would like. After all, I am in a military ship, and therefore a target for enemy action in addition to the standard hazards of being on the water. Therefore, every three years I (and my shipmates) am required to take the refresher training.
Our morning started with an hour and a half of “death by Powerpoint”. Anyone who has sat through a lecture where the instructor reads directly off the slides can probably relate. Fortunately a few videos broke up the tedium – mostly through laughter at the movies showing their ages.
After our lectures, we moved on to the pool. A bag in the corner of the pool deck contains a 20-man life raft for the second half of the practical training.
First, we all don lifebelts. This is basically a wide belt with a fanny pack-like attachment that contains an inflatable life jacket. This is what we would wear if we had an elevated risk of sinking (eg combat or severe damage). We then opened them and put on the jackets themselves. Two at a time we stepped up to the dive platform, inflated our life jackets, and jumped in.
After each of the first two jumps, we swam to the end of the pool and got back out. Then, we did group rescue – form two lines; each line jumps one at a time, then huddles. One person (in my case, it was me) becomes a “casualty” and needs assistance to make it to the other end of the pool.
Next, the instructor pulled out the pool, throws it into the pool, and inflates it. It’s then inverted, and we practice the way to right the raft. Hard enough to do while we were in the pool – I can’t imagine needing to do it in the ocean in rough weather in the middle of the night. A few of us had difficulties, but we all managed to do it. We then all got into the raft, so we could see just how roomy it is2. We had fifteen people in there and it was pretty tight. The raft is designed for twenty. Ouch.
All-in-all it was a good time. We reviewed3 our sea survival procedures, ensuring the maximum chance of survival if the worst happens to our ship.
The worst part of the training? We were finished before noon, so we were required to go back to work for the afternoon
Slightly disappointed
As a birthday present to myself, I pre-ordered Portal 2. The release date has changed multiple times in recent history. A countdown implied to many people (including myself) that Portal would be released at 8 this morning. Instead, it counted down to…another countdown.
I had hoped to play a bit of Portal while I’m stuck on the ship for a duty watch tomorrow. Unfortunately, I will have to wait until sometime next week. Guess I need to find some other entertainment for a long, boring day
Hopefully Sea Training doesn’t decide to make it more interesting.
PGP for the new year
If you have exchanged emails with me, you may have noticed an attachment called “signature.asc” to many of my messages. This is a PGP signature, which basically proves that I wrote the message.
Unfortunately, although I use PGP on all my emails, it is not much good unless my correspondents also use PGP. The reason is simple – if you don’t have PGP, you don’t have the capability to interpret the signature file, meaning the file is just so much extra junk. Also, if you and I both have PGP, emails between us can be encrypted, making them unreadable by third parties.
However, just having the PGP program doesn’t mean that you can prove that the message came from me. Anyone in the world can create a PGP key file with my name and email address attached – that doesn’t make it me. You need to prove that the key is also mine. There is a system called the Web of Trust, which ensures that, even if you have never met a user, there is probably a link between you and them, which can be used to prove the identity of both parties.
The web of trust needs physical links between people, meaning that you need to physically meet and verify users. This is the hard part, and the part that I am looking for help with. Although I am located in Victoria, BC (and will gladly exchange keys with anyone in the area), I am also a member of the Canadian navy. This means that I tend to travel quite a bit. As I reach other countries, I intend to trade keys with local PGP users, if at all possible. Unfortunately, OPSEC prohibits me from posting my travel schedule anywhere public, which means that I can’t announce when I will be in a different location.
If I will be at a location for any extended time, I will announce it on my PGP page; however, most of my visits will be only one or two days, so there won’t be much use of the page updates in most cases. However, I will also announce on my blog when I have arrived in a new location, along with a reminder of my key-signing availability.
If you don’t use PGP, make it one of your New-year resolutions to start. If you do use it, use the new year to expand your key signatures.
Happy New Year.
Santa was good
Christmas has come and gone for another year. Santa was good to our family. My son went through some surgery, and was running around happy that night. I came home the next night, and gave my step-daughter a surprise (she wasn’t expecting me for another couple days). Both of these happened a week before Christmas.
On Christmas morning, like many families, we tore apart the wrapping paper on the boxes under the tree. The kids made out like bandits. The wife and I spent a couple hours unpackaging and assembling toys. Fun was had by all.
My main present was a Sony Reader PRS350. I’d love to say that I made this decision based on extensive review of the alternatives, but honestly it was due to availability – the Canex carries it, allowing me to use the military credit plan. Still, it has so far been worth it (I used it in Halifax before I came home).
Why do I want an E-book reader? I’m in the navy. I spend time away from home, with limited storage space for reading material. Here’s a quick comparison of my methods for carrying reading material:
On the left, Tolkien’s 7-volume Lord of the Rings (including appendices). On the right, my e-book reader containing the same text, as well as the several tech manuals, a few classics, and some newspapers. Two weeks of battery life (easily recharged while I’m working), and approximately 25,000 average-sized books means that I don’t have to worry about how many books I can put in my locker.
How was your tree?
Camera Complications
Christmas is coming. The Fat Man‘s visit is guaranteed to bring smiles to the faces of children everywhere. And smiling children need cameras.
Melissa and I have had a few cameras since we’ve been together; however, they have always been cheap models, very prone to breakage. Add a toddler with a greater reach than we realized, and you no longer have a camera.
After looking at a few cameras at the Canex, we finally settled on the Samsung ST5000. So far, we have no cause to be disappointed.
The size of the camera makes for easy portability, although I am a bit worried about damage to the touch screen; I am tempted to go looking for a camera case, something I haven’t used in a while. Of course, this could also be a reason for my previous cameras’ lack of longevity.
Nothing is perfect, however, and the ST5000 is no exception. I have a few minor gripes, but nothing major. Major features (also listed below) influenced our decision to get this camera.
read more…
Attempting Repairs
We have two laptops at our house – one old, one new. The old one decided to die while I was in Halifax with the new one. It is, of course, out of warranty; further, it has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Support documentation, once available on Toshiba’s website, is either removed or hidden so well that I can’t find it.
Unfortunately, the only way I can currently repair it is using my recovery CD. This CD, however, will not allow me to perform an operating system repair. No, instead either Toshiba or Microsoft (or both) decided that, should my operating system decide to shit the bed, I need to erase my hard drive and start over.
Yup, not only did my OS die; now I have to erase all my data and start from scratch.
Officially.
Instead, I realized – hey, I’m out of warranty! Which means I’m going to perform some surgery, extract my hard drive, and back up any important files to the other computer using an external enclosure. I haven’t decided yet whether I will reinstall Windows on this machine after I have finished, or if I will switch to Ubuntu. Both directions have their appeals; either way, though, it looks like I’ll be starting from scratch to resurrect this machine this Christmas.
Anyone have suggestions for alternate recovery methods? I still need to get an enclosure, so I won’t be doing this for a few days yet.
