Alaksa - 'Northern Edge'

Well, we just finished our 3 1/2 week trek to Alaska for Northern Edge - a joint Army, Air Force, Navy excercise. We pulled into a small fishing town called Homer. It actually turned out to be a pretty cool little town, tons of fishermen. I think the population was about 5,000. Alaska was quite a change from Hawaii, water temp dropped to 45 degrees plus a wicked wind chill. It is also daylight in Alaska for about 22 hours out of the day.

A bunch of us sonar techs also decided to grow mustaches for our trek. I was the only one that kept it the entire time, you might notice a strange fuzzy thing above my lip in the pictures.

We did a few things underway: whale watching, helo operations on the flight deck, gun qualifications in the freezing cold and we also got a fly-over by the new F-22 Raptor on the last day of the Air Force excercise. All in all it was a good trip.

En route Hawaii, Pizza Night

Every Saturday underway we have pizza night. The cooks take the night off and one of the departments on the ship invades the galley and makes pizza for dinner. It was Combat Systems making the pizza this night, always with the disco tunes blasting. You would dance like this if you were underway.
We make some pretty serious pizza, way too much cheese and meat. They make some so dangerous they warrant nicknames like "the Heart Attack" and "Cholesterol Attack."

Alaska - "Northern Edge"

On one of the days during the exercise off the coast we heard a huge pod of killer whales on sonar (which is common). We usually wouldn't mind but since we weren't actually in transit anywhere they stopped the ship and we went topside and went whale watching. They were a ways off so the quality isn't that hot.
This is on the foc'sle of the ship, behind the 5" gun. It was about 2am when I took this picture, about as dark as it got.
Hard at work during a sonar exercise.

Alaska

Across the harbor, the far edge of a massive glacier.

Plenty of sea gulls.
Pulling out of Alaska.

Alaska

Homer is a big fishing town, tons of crab fishermen. For those fans of the Discover Channel show 'Deadliest Catch,' here I am in front of a stack of crab pods. One of the boats on the show was pulled into Homer while we were there.
A shot of the harbor from the tiny town. If you look closely you can see the O-Kane moored in the harbor in the distance.
The fishing docks, at 10:30pm.
Fishing docks.

Alaska

Sonar people, on the flight deck as we pull into the harbor.
Gun quals on the flight en route to Alaska. The water was 45 degrees and the wind was blowing upwards of 25 knots, definitely not Hawaii.

Pulling into Homer with the ship's Battle Flag hoisted behind the ensign.

Sonar School - San Diego

Me and few other fellas from the boat got sent to a two-week sonar school in San Diego. I was able to go home for a weekend and see a few of the old homies. I am wearing my only sweater (I live in Hawaii...) all the time because Cali was colder then I ever remember. Good times, here is a shot of Aaron and I.
Me and Allie.
Mum and Dad
Brenden and Brooklyn @ Grandma's.

Back in LA

At Grandma and Grandpa's house. Its such a long trip nowadays.
Erica and Allie, who knows what goes through their heads.
My mom, right after I suprised her. She thought I was in Hawaii and was quite suprised (to say the least) when she saw me in the living room @ home.
Brenden and I.
Fellow sonar tech's Aaron and Eric at a local pastrami joint in San Diego.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn - my mom's foster baby, at home on leave.

See, I could be a father... not for a long, long time.

O'Kane Picnic on the Beach

A few of the fellows and I, grubbing. Nothing beats hamburgers and hot dogs on the beach... plus we got the day off.
A shot of the beach, and yes, it really is this beautiful.

Hawaii Auto Show 2006

I can dream. It just felt so right...

Sonar

We are always looking for something to do in sonar so we took these dumb shots. This is our underwater communication set.
A blurry shot of me, 'Kid Fatho,' making sure our fathometer is working.

Google Earth spots

If you don't have Google Earth I highly advise that you download it, its amazing. You can view locations all around the globe from satellite. You can download the program for free from this link: http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html. If you have it you can look up these spots on by copying the latitude and longitude given and paste it into the SEARCH box in Google Earth.

1. The pier the O'Kane is currently moored to. You can't see it right now because the satellite shot was taken last year. (21 21 09.5 N, 157 56 50.8 W)

2. The barracks that I live in. (21 21 02.6 N, 157 56 17.8 W)

3. The sonar school on Ford Island. We take courses here occasionally.
(21 21 26.5 N, 157 57 44.2 W)

4. Aloha Stadium, home of the Pro Bowl. (21 22 22.02 N, 157 55 47.79 W)

5. The Ship Graveyard. All ships no longer commissioned or used by the Navy are sitting here. They have been stripped down of all usable and classified equipment.
(21 22 50.2 N, 157 59 12.6 W)

Dinner in Italy

All us sonar techs decided to go out and grub at this Italian joint to celebrate the fact that we weren't underway. I didn't realize how much this looks like a double date until now. Unfortunately, its not... just kidding.
Todd (and his wife and son) and Chris, a couple of fellow sonar techs.
Tiffany and Natalie, also sonar techs, with their friends Katia (not sure how to spell it).
Bobby and Valenzuela ('Val') with their wives.

Sailors and Thieves

My camera was stolen from the ship a couple weeks back. That is why there haven't been any recent shots on the site. It has been raining like crazy and we have been underway a lot lately so there hasn't been too much oppurtunity to enjoy the outdoor activities. I'll be getting a new digi here soon so more pics are coming.

Home on Leave - 18FEB thru 23FEB

My family, the best a guy could ask for.
Me and my little sis. She doesn't like to think of her self and my little anymore now that she is graduating high school but she is.
The most important woman in my life - my mom.
My other little sis (Audre). As usual, shoveling some type of food into her mouth.

Home on Leave

My grandparents, in their dining room. One of my favorite places with two of my favorite people.
My cousin Brenden sqeezued between me and my Aunt Lolo.
The whole gang, just before I left. Little Brenden sporting his Navy pride.
Me and my grandma, can't think of a sweeter more caring person.