Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
I’ve posted before about my all-time favorite female singer, Grace Slick. However, I haven’t posted nearly enough of her music on this humble blog, so today seems like a good day to remedy this.
Charest Family on the Web Posts
Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
Winnie and I are back from vacation and back to work this week. We had a short but relaxing vacation spent camping, and kayaking, and attending reunion dinners all last week. The big event was my second Navy reunion with former shipmates of the first submarine I served on, USS Scamp (SSN 588). We also springboarded off this event for some enjoyable extracurricular side adventures.
We ended up with a week of camping and kayaking and reunion dinners with friends and family.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
So tomorrow Winnie and I are headed out on another week-long adventure. This will be a combination camping/kayaking trip, Navy reunion, and family visit all strung together.
Estimated reading time: 22 minutes
Boats have a reputation for being expensive. However, this is not completely true. Boats are very inexpensive to maintain and operate, as long as you don’t put them into the water. Once a boat gets wet, all bets are off and “boat” does in fact become the acronym “Bust Out Another Thousand.”
A few years ago, I made a horrifying discovery that water was seeping inside the wood-cored transom of our family boat “Sea Dragon.” Water and wood do not mix, and this issue required some serious remediation work. So, I’ve spent the past several years drying and waterproofing “Sea Dragon.”
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Today we are once again forced into saying “Goodbye” to a musical legend. Singer, dancer, actress, and author, known as the “Queen of Rock and Roll,” Tina Turner has passed at age 83. She leaves behind a legacy in music as “one of the greatest singers of all time.”
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
I’ve been doing a lot of reflection on my career these past months. Most of this reflection is on the many different people I’ve dealt with over my professional life. And how I’ve learned something from every person I’ve worked with.
Some of the lessons I learned were positive experiences, and I count those people as mentors and role models. Other lessons- not so much. One constantly recurring lesson I remember is how so many people I’ve worked with put effort into making other people look bad.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Winnie is an excellent gardener. Over the years we’ve lived in Northern Virginia, her annual vegetable gardens have become larger and more ambitious. By “ambitious,” I mean she’s been more adventurous with the variety of vegetables she’s tried growing. Sometimes, her experiments don’t do so well. Most of the time they do. So I have frequent opportunities to learn, and taste, another new veggie.
One vegetable Winnie hasn’t tried growing is bamboo shoots. But, no matter, because she’s learned where she can get bamboo shoots in the wild. So hunting wild bamboo has become another annual adventure in fine dining.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
My Navy career was rather unusual as I served on both submarines and surface ships. These were considered “different navies,” with different traditions and duty requirements. In that era, very few sailors ever made a switch between surface and subs. For the most part, the only sub sailors who typically went to the surface fleet were those kicked off subs for disciplinary issues, and who also lost their “Qualified in Submarines” status.
I qualified submarines on USS Scamp, SSN 588. I maintained my submarine qualification status when, years later, I joined the Aegis Cruiser USS Port Royal , CG 73. This dual service gave me an interesting perspective on the different communities that make up our U.S. Navy.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Spring has sprung, and the world is waking up after a long winter’s nap. Leaves are budding on bare tree branches. Brown remnants of last year’s grass is turning green. Bird are happily chirping while temps are climbing back into the no-jackets-needed range.
Meanwhile, I’m here in a doldrum of Springtime lethargy. Seemingly moving with the exuberance of a lowly snail. When the rest of the world is coming alive, why do my feet feel like they’re embedded in concrete-filled buckets?
My Commentary on Loss of The Oceangate Submersible
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Unless you’re lucky enough to avoid news in general, you’re already aware of last month’s global-crisis-level unforced error, in which five people died on a rickety submersible that imploded while diving to visit the wreck of Titanic.
As a former submarine sailor this event strikes pretty close to home. This loss didn’t need to happen. It did happen as a result of unchecked arrogance on the part of the corporate owners and engineers who built the damn thing knowing full well it wasn’t safe. But they did it anyway, for reasons that had no relationship to sound engineering and concern for passenger safety.
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