BBBRRRIIIIIIIINNNNGGG!!!!!!!

That's how a stereotypical alarm clock sounds.

Last Saturday, ours sounded like "drip, drip." I awoke to the sound (and feeling) of water dripping onto my pillow. Turns out I had forgotten to replace our Security System after having removed it for the fuel cruise... and, of course, it rained. So instead of planning ahead and putting the plastic back up on one of the nice sunny days we had the week before, I was left to stand on the edge of the boat in the freezing cold rain. Not what I really wanted to do at 8am Saturday morning, especially since we wanted to sleep in, because the night before was the Submarine Officer's Birthday Ball.

We were trying to sleep in after getting all dressed up and partying with a bunch of nerds through the night. That's right, Submarine Officers are nerds, and I'm one of them so I can say that. Some of us are lucky nerds, though, because we got to bring gorgeous dates with us to the ball.



Me and my Sweetie!!

And here are some of my nerd buddies (they are lucky too, but not as lucky as me)


Look at all the nerds!

It was a lot of fun. It was our last Submarine Ball on active duty. We drank and danced, and listened to speeches and toasted everyone under the sun. There were a bunch of formalities, and then a bunch of silliness, including a centerpiece competition. And by centerpiece, I don't mean floral arrangement. Some of the centerpieces were full working models of submarines with water flowing freely around them. We tried to win the "most poorly executed idea" prize with our submarine that transforms (poorly) into an Officer, but we couldn't even manage that. It had moving arms, a bottle of a rum for a body, and a working propeller that blew bubbles. I think we would've won if we'd been able to show the judges all the "cool" features, but we were at the bar when the judges came by. Ah well, perhaps we'll win when we come back as reservists.

See... we're nerds.

-Tom