Finally, something has gone right!

     Last week, I got the best news I have received in a very, very long time.  To give you an idea of how momentous this is, you have to understand a few things about how sailors in the Navy get their jobs.  For decades, sailors would call up one person who is called their Detailer.  This person is privy to all of the open positions that person is qualified for throughout the Navy.  They would talk to this person and try to convince him or her to give them the position they wanted.  Two things have to coincide for a sailor to get what he wants: the desire of the sailor and the needs of the Navy.

     As time goes on, and a sailor spends more and more time in the Navy, this window of opportunity gets tighter and tighter.  Eventually, they have gained so much experience and specialized training, that there are only a few positions available.  To get the detailer to give you something completely outside of your normal career path, is like pulling teeth from a lion.  Its like trying to get Atlas to shrug or perhaps unravel the Gordian Knot.  99% of the time, its just not going to happen.

     So, this momentous occasion, this absolutely amazing event that happen... my detailer released me to the special programs detailer, who is putting me into the Navy's Substance Abuse Rehabilitation Program Counselor position on the USS Ronald Reagan.  I have to owe this to my department head, who happens to know my detailer, for facilitating the decision, and a whole lot of it to luck.

     What am I going to be doing, you ask?  Well, in September I will be driving out to California, to the naval station at Point Loma in San Diego.  There, for 10 weeks, I will sit through 7 weeks of didactic training and then spend 3 weeks in clinical rotation learning to be a substance abuse counselor.  Once I have completed the school I will drive north to Bremerton, Washington where I will check in to the USS Ronald Reagan.  For the next year I will serve as the one individual on the ship who counsels people when they have substance abuse issues.  After that first year, I will be able to take an exam, raising myself from intern to a full fledged Navy Alcohol and Drug Counselor.  After spending three years in that position, I will be able to take a second exam which will internationally certify me in 40 states and 14 countries.  After reading up on this program I discovered that many people in this position are highly sought after in the civilian sector, at places like the Betty Ford Clinic.

     I love knowing where I am heading.  I do not like not having a course or a heading, but now that I have this one, I am extremely happy.  So, at least one thing in the last eight months has gone right.

Its got the old book smell...!

     In reinventing myself, I have been pondering doing something I have wanted to do my whole life: collect books.  Not just go down to Barnes & Noble and buy a book, read it and let it sit on the shelf to collect dust.  I mean, no shit, COLLECT books.  We're talking hardcore, first edition hardbacks.  We are talking driving from state to state, digging through used bookstore shelves, searching for that holy grail by a specific author.  We're talking looking up the original printing date to ensure that it is, in fact, a first edition.

     I have always had a love affair with books, so when real people let me down, I've always turned back to books.  My mother said I was reading by the time I was four.  I can remember reading The Thorn Birds at age seven, and then diving into the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings at age 8 & 9.  My mother has always been a reader.  My grandmother, god bless her soul, use to take me to the library every week.  This woman would walk out of the library with two paper grocery bags full of books.  She would read them in a week, then take them back for more.  How did she do this, you might wonder?  She read late in the night until 2-3am.  Then she would get up around 6-7am, clean, do chores and start all over again.  I think she was my inspiration for reading.

     So, my gaming group is not meeting this Saturday.  It is a perfect time to start.  I'll get off work early on Friday.  I get paid this weekend.  Which means, I can tool around Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport and maybe even New Orleans looking what I am going to start collecting.  I think I will right down my favorite authors and begin with them: Stephen King, Dean R. Koontz, Robert R. McCammon, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Robert Jordan, etc. That means I need to make lists of their books, along with the original printing dates for each book so that I can appraise whether I am looking at a first edition or not.  It also means I need to buy a really good bookcase to store them in.  Lot of things to do, only a few days to do them in.

     My life is beginning to goes its own way after everything that happened that last year... I guess that is what needs to happen, as Stevie Nicks sang I need to go my own way...