This Is What I Think.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

"to show you how it all began"

As with all my artificial and symbolic memories, that fact I remember something similar as the quote below means something important. I can specifically “remember” a day at the office when I said that to a co-worker. I said I was “the talent.” I worked for a company with the initials MPCSI where I was the Senior Systems Engineer. I can “remember” asking the President, who I had once worked with on the USS Wainwright CG-28 where we were both guided-missile fire control computer technicians, why they chose the name MP as part of the company name. He said something about how he wanted to create the impression that we were Military Police standing guard over their computers. I thought that was stupid and I told him so.

Memorable quotes for
Groundhog Day (1993)

...
[to Rita about Phil]
Larry: Did he actually refer to himself as "the talent"?


This part really blew me away. I have written several times in my journal about how the USS Taylor FFG-50 almost lost its anchor one day when we were making a port visit. We had a three day port visit to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands and there wasn’t a pier to moor to so we had to connect the anchor chain to a buoy in the harbor and then take small boats into the town. We had to disconnect the anchor from the chain and then feed the chain out through the bulwark at the point of the ship where other people in a boat would connect the chain to the buoy. I was standing at the very point of the ship with a chain hook as several us of would pull the chain a few inches at a time until enough the weight of the chain would cause it to start running through the bulwark. The problem occurred when the sailor assigned to the clamp that would stop the chain from free-falling had put the pin for the clamp on the wrong side of the clamp. Ironically, I had trained that sailor in that role and I can specifically remember telling him to always put to the pin on the forward side of the clamp. He apparently didn’t pay attention to the detail and when the chain started running out, the vibration, combined with gravity, caused the pin to slip out and no one noticed it. When the chain was supposed to stop because of the clamp, the clamp flew apart because the safety pin was out and the chain completely ran out. I was standing there in the corner of the bulwark, as illustrated, watching the chain running to me, thinking the clamp would stop it. I had a lot of confidence in that clamp because it had formerly been my responsibility to hit it with the sledgehammer when the order to drop the anchor was given. This time though, just before it reached the limit and was supposed to stop the chain, I knew something was wrong. I might have noticed at that distance that the pin had fallen out but I don’t know. How do I really know anything I know from these symbolic and artificial memories? In an instant the chain was running to me and it was whipping back and forth across the deck as it approached. I was in a corner and the people weren’t moving fast enough to get out of my way without knocking them down so my options were limited. The chain would have taken off my ankles but I jumped up on the bulwark, taking note of the long drop to the ocean a few inches away, as I ran along a narrow t-weld while the anchor chain slammed the sides of the bulwark a few inches below my feet.

The entire length of the chain went out through the bulwark, Fortunately, we were prepared and had a small stainless steel cable connected to the anchor chain. The paint was chipped up in a few places and there was a few scrapes from the steel cable, but at least we still had a connection to the anchor chain. It took a lot of work, but eventually, we got it pulled back into the ship, reconnected, and then we went back to work on mooring to the buoy for our port visit.

In my symbolic and artificial memory of that port visit, I didn’t meet any girl there and I specifically “remember” that I was quite bored while there. The reality is probably much different and I wouldn’t be surprised if my wife and I went there on some vacation that we remember dearly. She is the anchor to my real life.

Memorable quotes for
Groundhog Day (1993)
...
Phil: I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over...



It was definitely at the island St. Croix. Perhaps Frederiksted, and I think that is correct, but I wonder about Christiansted. I didn't have any fun there and I thought it was a boring port visit, especially considering all the work it took to get to the anchorage.

Saint Croix is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States. It is the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands, being 28 by 7 miles (45 by 11 km). However, the territory's capital, Charlotte Amalie, is located on Saint Thomas.



My feelings for my wife are the essence of why "Picard" and "Kirk" couldn't stay in the "Nexus" in the 1994 "Star Trek: Generations" movie. There is more I want to articulate on that subject, but I can't find the words. The memories of us together and our past is important, but the most important is the reality of the present with her. Every second we are apart is a tremendous loss to me. I wonder if she still wears my blue flannel pajamas when she sleeps. I miss my wife beyond tolerance.


In a dream just before I woke up, I was standing in line for a movie. I can remember something about looking at some 10-cent coins in my hand. I was there for the early showing of the movie, but something is confusing about that. I'm not sure if I was there to see the movie, or I just found myself in line for the movie. Then John Travolta was there because I think he owned the theatre. I feel as though I knew him but I couldn't actually remember that I knew him. I think it was before I saw him but after he saw me that he called out to me. I walked over to where he was and he was asking me questions about who I was. He knew who I was but he wanted to see if I knew who I was. I told him I recognize that Thomas Ray might be my real name. He asked my middle name and I told him Allyn and then I spelled it for him as he asked. I can't remember what happened after that. There are thoughts about my wife just before I woke up but I am not sure if that was part of the dream or if I was just thinking of how I miss her. It could be that Travolta was telling me that she missed me.



JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Re: Journal May 25, 2006, Supplemental

And birds go flying at the speed of sound,
to show you how it all began.
Birds came flying from the underground,
if you could see it then you'd understand?

It was after a special operation that I was swimming in the ocean. My memory tells me that I had no role in the operation, other than I was there. There are these other thoughts, thought, of me floating in the ocean by myself, having completed my mission, hoping that someone would find me.

After I moved into that first apartment in Greenville, a friend made a big deal about me jumping into the pool one day with my clothes on. I associate a song from The Doors with that memory: Riders on the storm.

When I was living in the duplex on Wexford in Taylors, driving my fancy red RX-7, I was seeing this 19 year that worked at the bank with the initials R.B., although I am sure she doesn't exist. I need to stop referring to Julia Roberts as I am crazingly beginning to believe I did know her and cared about her, but yet, I don't know, I just want to figure who I used to be.



JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Re: Finally

Wed, 5/10/06 2:45 PM

the worst time is seeing the plane flying over and waiting..........




USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy. She holds a place in history due to the notorious circumstances of her loss, which was the worst single at-sea loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy. After delivering the first atomic bomb to be used in combat to the United States air base at Tinian Island on 26 July 1945, she was in the Philippine Sea when attacked at 00:14 on 30 July 1945 by a Japanese submarine. Most of the crew was lost to shark attacks, as they floated helplessly for several days, waiting for assistance. Indianapolis was the second to last US Navy ship sunk by enemy action in World War II (The submarine USS Bullhead was attacked by Japanese aircraft with depth charges and sunk on 6 August 1945).

This was a secret mission, so there was no notice sent to the port of destination or CINCPAC about their ETA (estimated time of arrival), as was the usual naval procedure for normal missions. Thus, with no ETA they were never reported late at the arrival port. The subsequent delay of the rescue mission led to the loss of hundreds of sailors. About 300 of the 1,196 men on board died in the attack. The rest of the crew, nearly 900 men, floated in the water without lifeboats until the rescue was completed four days later. Only 321 crew came out of the water alive, though 317 ultimately lived. They suffered from lack of food and water, exposure to the elements, severe desquamation, and shark attacks.





Pink Floyd - Paranoid Eyes Lyrics

button your lip don't let the shield slip
take a fresh grip on your bullet proof mask
and if they try to break down your disguise with their questions
you can hide hide hide
behind paranoid eyes
you put on your brave face and slip over the road for a jar
fixing your grin as you casually lean on the bar
laughing too loud at the rest of the world
with the boys in the crowd
you hide hide hide
behind petrified eyes
you believed in their stories of fame fortune and glory
now you're lost in a haze of alchohol soft middle age
the pie in the sky turned out to be miles too high
and you hide hide hide
behind brown and mild eyes