Destiny's Child (Mostly just Beyonce, but Kelly was cute too)

First things first, I have been asked for my mailing address onboard the ship. If you would like to send me boxes with large sums of money (preferably cash, it’s hard to cash a check onboard a ship) you can send things to:

ENS Mitchell Britto
USS MOBILE BAY CG 53
FPO AP 96672-1173

On a more serious note, anything that you are all willing to send is greatly appreciated. I thank all of you for taking time out of your day to put some thought into me.

Another thing, the title from now on is going to be the thing that Marty and I miss the most that day.

So I posted in my profile that any questions are welcome and I would respond when I could. I have received several questions or ideas that I could write about that I’m sure some people are interested in (It might be only one person and this person sent me all of the questions). I can’t answer all of these questions in one day, but each day that I post I will answer a question or two as well as add my greatly enjoyable point of view on life.

Question 1:
What does the sky look like in the middle of the ocean on a clear night?

Because of the complete lack of any light around, on a clear night the sky is filled with a countless amount of stars. You can see the milky way grouping, but it is difficult to pick out specific well known star groupings. Big Dipper, O’rien’s Belt, the Seven Sisters (Pleades is it? I don’t know how to spell it) are almost impossible to depict in a group of other lights. It is pretty out and as long as the weather is not too cold or windy I will sometimes go out onto the bridge wing and look up for a bit. What is better is when the moon is close to 100% illumination. It gets exceptionally bright out and the moon seems to be closer than usual.

Question 2:
What is it like when the fog is really thick?

Out on the open ocean it hasn’t gotten especially foggy so far. There were times when we were pulling into port into San Diego that the fog was so thick it was difficult to see the bow of the ship (the front). Its pretty tense to drive a ship where you cannot see what is in front of you, but sometimes you just gotta go, and hope that when people here the loud ship’s whistle that they use some common sense and go away from the increasingly loud noise.

For the Taco Tuesdayer’s, I can absolutely hit Joel’s house with a couple of TLAMs (Tomahawks… big boom missiles). My question is how did you get the coordinates to his house? I checked the coordinates on our voyage management system, and they are actually in or around San Diego.

In this installation of Mitch’s Deployment blog we will be having a special guest. He will probably add something every once and a while to change the perspective. And now… Martin Blomberg:

“Greetings from the high seas… I am sure that some of the readers (assuming that more than one person is reading this) know who I am. For those of you who don’t, I guess I will begin with a quick introduction. I am Mitch’s roommate, about six feet tall, just started growing a beautiful mustache, and I am the one making all of the real decisions for the battle group. We are just a few short days into this deployment and let me tell you things are already getting a little strange out here. For instance, my computer is randomly opening and closing its CD drive as I type this… weird. Oh, and before I go I must once again thank Mike and Diane for being really nice and laughing at my jokes. Until next time, fare winds and following seas.”

Thanks Martin! (He is the one in the picture with me in my profile). We have started a mustache growing competition between a few of the Junior Officers onboard. I rejected the idea at first due to the fact that I can’t grow facial hair very well, but after much needed convincing I came to the conclusion that you gotta find something to entertain you out here. As the mustaches develop pictures are to follow.

I gotta go for now, but I will continue to write as I can. Later!