2003-07-22 - 4:46 p.m.

Fireworks and Aircraft Carriers

It goes without say that a brat (my dad is a Marine) always will feel some level of comfort on a base or ship. For the fourth of July (I know, that was like a month ago) I convinced Redwood to join me and my family on the USS Hornet. The Hornet has a long standing tradition in the USN, and is known for its tour through the Pacific late in the Second World War in addition to picking up Apollo program astronauts.

I've been on an aircraft carrier before, the USS Intrepid (in New York). In fact, I've been on several other ships: a couple of battleships, plenty of submarines, some captured German ship, and a number of transports. Though ships are crowded, one thing I discovered while running around the second deck of the Hornet is that I am sailor sized. (The flight deck is up top, the hanger bay is below it, then you start getting into the interesting parts of the ship like the second deck. Engineering, on the third deck, was closed off. But I could see parts of the torpedo armory.)

I have no problems gliding down the ladders (there really aren't stairs on a ship). Going up is even easier. And I'm the perfect size for the bunks and urinals. Yup, in order to waste no space, the urinals are placed exactly at the height they'd need to be to ... well function as a urinal.

It was kinda funny, but as I was running around, Redwood was trailing behind me hitting his head on just about everything. Well, at least until he realized to just watch out for everything. But he had to walk around slowly, while I only had to watch out for the other kids running around below deck.

After running around ship for hours, we eventually went topside where my family was waiting. We watched several fireworks displays: Oakland, Berkeley, Marin, and San Francisco. Of course it figures that some lunatic in West Oakland would end up setting his warehouse on fire. Yup, fires and riots in West Oakland are kinda normal.

Though San Francisco won the technical award, I'm giving overall best show to Berkeley. Instead of worrying about having a nice fireworks display, their fame to claim is "our firework show is longer than all of the rest of you!" I like that attitude. They started around 8 PM and were still launching things near 11 PM! Granted, it was slow and kinda boring, but I still like how Bay Area cities battle each other.

Now I've seen normal fireworks shows, fireworks from the top of a mountain, and finally from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. WooHoo.

n.p. impressions of winter :: end of a summer

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