"Jezuz Doc!"

It seems to be happening to everyone.

You come home from work (actually you're probably doing it at work). You log on to Facebook and find one of those nice little friend requests. Who could it be?

"Holy shit!"

It's the ol' blast from the past. That's where you experience the phenomenon of having known someone very well and then drifted. Lots of time and space have come between you two. Then you reconnect.

Whammo! Here it comes!

You either think of how you remember this person or are slammed with something you've long forgotten. It might even be the person themselves you've forgotten. But you're back in touch now and you have Facebook to thank for it.



That's just the beginning. Wait till you start to check in w/ some of these folks you might as well have known in a former life. Each of you has specific memories of each other. Sharing those memories and how we viewed them when they occurred and and how we feel about them now is really cool, but definitely not new. What is new is how often it's happening to people like me - and there are apparently a lot of us.

A recent MediaPost.com story cites more than 250 million Facebook user accounts. What are the chances this phenomenon will not only increasingly occur, but change how we interact with people we know or knew over our lifespans?

Here's my take. The reconnect phenomenon will happen on a regularly common basis over the next few years. Then it will peak and increasingly become less common. There will be fewer people we knew and more we know. I'm not sure beyond that, but I'm intrigued to see it develop over time. That means far fewer people will be wondering, "whatever happened to (insert disconnected person here)?"

The internet can easily be tagged the most prolific invention of our generation. I truly believe that is in no small way part of the Facebook Effect.

Stepping Out Into the World

Just about everyone who reads this blog, all you more than 50 unique visitors, gets out and about the web.

Hell, you're all probably on Facebook and even link to this blog because of it. Some of you Twitter and even fewer of you walk the rope with your own websites and blogs.


Many of you know I now work for Seattle-based PR firm Hayter Communications. One of my responsibilities there is to generate media contact lists. It's an absolutely tedious, but incredibly interesting task - especially when you start to explore the sites of interest to my clients.

Today was like taking my first walk out in my neighborhood - even though I've lived there for more than a decade.

I'm talking about sites like Modern Drunkard Magazine Online. Believe it or not, this is actually a top-20 market magazine and site. That basically means a lot of people regularly read, and most likely, enjoy it in some capacity. Jump on there and tie one on or think about tying one on or reminisce about your best (and worst) times tying one on. Pass it on to someone else who likes (or dislikes) tying one on.

Then there's the ethnic sites - Asian, African American, Norwegian, Jewish, etc... The list goes on. There are even sites that revolve around the art of sex and the art of weaponry. There's a high-end market for everything, including many online magazines for the more "affluent" members of our society.

I highly recommend jumping on Technorati and searching out a blog w/ your interest. Subscribe! Use your Burner or Google Reader for RSS feeds and get your geek on! There's a lot of information out there. Just go take a walk around your neighborhood.

Thanks for the Dreams Facebook

It's gone - gone from my dreams and gone in reality.

But the memories and people from USS Sacramento live on. For me lately, it's been in the form of old shipmates searching me out on Facebook. At this point, it wouldn't surprise me to get a call, email or friend request from anyone I ever met from any point in time. Lots of you are likely experiencing something similar.


Call it globalization or whatever you will. I call it pretty freakin' cool.

And all the recent incredibly mind-boggling changes in my life mixed with this Facebook globalization phenomenon to open a time capsule of memories in my mind. The capsule's content is emptied out while I sleep.

Last night's dream was about my time living in Ruskin, Florida circa 1989-90. I was 9/10 years old and in 4th and 5th grade. It was filled with the ups and downs of any childhood. Last night I met people whose names I'd forgotten more than 20 years ago. This morning I remember a name - Starr. How does that happen?

Many people would be petrified or bothered by these dreams as I was at first. But, much like the Facebook globalization phenomenon, I'm fascinated by it.

As for the USS Sacramento dreams - I believe they're done. Three nights ago we ran drills on her. The entire old crew was manning the ship through the most intense series of GQ drills I could imagine - from refueling while firing all weapons to heavy seas and fighting real fires in the main space. Everyone was very well aware we were putting the ship to rest soon and trained it accordingly by capsizing to see if it could recover - which it did. Then we ran it into the pier to show the crew what a collision would be like.

My most vivid memory of the dream is hanging on to a receiving station on the 02 level while the ship violently rolled before capsizing. I don't know why that stood out so strong to me.

Lastly, we saved the ship and sailed herbadly beaten and nearly sunken body off into the sunset on her way to the scrap yard in Texas. Everyone on the entire ship was just happy we could all do what we thought we could do - all while being so proud of our ship. We celebrated a bitter sweet goodbye.

In reality, the Navy sold her to a ship yard in Texas, where yard birds finally took the torch to her in late 2007. A local photographer snapped this photo of the Sac moored up behind her sister ship USS Camden (AOE 2).

Craigslist: Free Brilliant Writing

Today was exceptionally slow. Then it came to a stop while interwebbing away during my glorious work study at Worksource Grays Harbor.

I ran across this wonderfully articulated piece in the most unlikely place - craigslist.org. It was in the "Best of Craigslist" section, which I highly recommend you check out. But check out this one first.




Here's a little intro to the piece. Click anywhere in the text to read the rest.

An Apology To Veterans and Seniors

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Date: 2009-07-11, 8:29AM PDT

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I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to two groups of Americans: our military veterans, and all senior citizens who are members of the World War II era, also known as The Greatest Generation. I want to apologize for myself and my generation not doing our part to be more like you. You sacrificed, took risks, did without, and delayed gratification of one sort or another for a cause greater than yourselves.

My generation and the rest of the American population has been rather cowardly ...

Check Out This Gem!

Here's a little gem from my first trip to Thailand - circa 1999. I was nine months fresh out of boot camp and one year out of high school.















Not sure how obvious it is - but I'm wasted beyond belief in this photo on the liberty boat back to my ship. I was one of the hundreds from my ship in the same shape.

This is what I spent both my first and second trips doing in Thailand. I was 19 years old and behaving accordingly. That had nothing to do w/ cultural enrichment, taking pictures or doing anything to better myself or the place I was at. The above photo is all the evidence I have from those trips.

It was my goal to do things differently this time.

Mission accomplished.

Perspective Change

I'm having the most incredibly creative and vivid dreams every night. This strikes me as odd because normally I either don't remember my dream or am blown away by how real or scary the dream was.

But these dreams are neither. They aren't limited to anything - a talking bull who really thinks I (and all humans) would have a better relationship with cows if we didn't think they were so stupid. How about the multiple ones ranging from living in suburban New Jersey or Florida to rural New York or Sierra Mountains and even some at-sea living. And the people are, with no consistency, people I've met from anywhere in my entire life to people I've either never met or cannot remember. None of these dreams have much to do with anything current either.

The oddest thing about any of this is how I'm not afraid or disturbed by the dreams as they're happening. There have been many pretty gnarly graphic dreams about gory traffic accidents and such, but I'm reasonably cool as can I be.

Even when I wake up, which was many times each night during the heat wave, I fall back asleep and got another one every time.

And when I wake in the morning for the last time, the only thing grabbing my attention is the clarity and my rational approach to each dream.

This all started in Thailand. Kind of makes sense. It was as prolific of an experience as any I've had in my life in so many ways. Read back if you need proof. Let's not forget a lot of memories from a lot of people were resurrected just by being there. Those dreams in Thailand weren't that surprising - but now I'm not really sure.

I have a great theory about this. Now, I'm far from qualified to be certain about this - it's just a hypothesis w/out professional input on the situation.

My mind, more specifically subconscious, has been like a piggy bank over my life. Every memory I don't hold onto goes into it somewhere. After about 30 years, it's starting to fill up. Actually it might be full. Kind of feels that way.

Anywho, it's time to take everything out and start sorting it. Or maybe it's like dirty laundry and my brain just finally needs some new underwear. Time to start going through the dirty laundry.

Well let's say you turn your piggy bank or laundry chute upside down and want stuff to come out. Stuff's been piling up in there for decades and now it's pretty compacted. You have to do something pretty drastic to get things flowing. But once it breaks - it all comes rushing out.

And that's what's happening to me every night and I'm catching bits and pieces of the more interesting coins or laundry pieces as they fall out of the chute. Well now it's flowing fast and lots is coming out.

All in all, it's a good thing. Because we can all stand to clean up our own dirty laundry piles. Just how much dirty laundry (or money) could be in here?

Take it on the Chin

There's something to be said for picking your battles. It's an art - and a particularly painful one.

The fundamental idea behind this for me is achieving my goals w/out making it more difficult than it has to be. Picking your battles is a very simple idea, but a very difficult action. It requires you to trade long-term drama for a short ass kicking. Just when it's done pummeling your pride, it's time to start on your confidence and finally your mindset. And that's where your inner strength has to come through.

The idea is to take the hit right on the chin - effectively defying your life-long training to avoid this kind of stuff. I've seen this work for a lot of people so I'm trying it.

Here's how it's supposed to go - you let the person spend their energy trying to beat you down while you start looking beyond them. You walk right by them once they're out of energy. This is the point where you hope all your preparation and training comes through. It's a new and different approach for me.

After all, wasn't it Einstein who said doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity?