May 27, 2008

GALLERY

9:15 a.m. - Zook, Melendez and Arner leave for Willard airport to begin this trip of a lifetime to land, tour and be launched from an aircraft carrier. After a four-hour plane ride, we were met by David McCleery EO2 and CDR Steve "Cinco" Cincotta, both from the Navy Recruiting District based in St. Louis. Cincotta is the commanding officer of the NRD, but most of his background is in submarines. His last deployment he was the executive officer on a fast-attack sub. One interesting fact, the periscope on a submarine is approximately 68 feet at full mast.

We are staying at the Navy Lodge, which is located on the Coronado Base. The Navy base is set on Coronado Island just south of San Diego and has to be one of the most beautiful locations to be stationed. As we drive through to get to our hotel, the Navy Lodge, you can see that the base itself is quite self-sufficient. The Lodge is just 50 yards from the beach and has a great view San Diego. We drive by a McDonalds and bowling alley. Thursday is "Salsa Night" (too bad we aren't staying that long).

After a nice walk on the beach, we were joined by the rest of the crew and went to dinner together. There we found out that the impetus for this trip stemmed from an attempt to get Coach Zook to fly with the Peoria Blue Angels. In 2004, Zook flew with the Angels in Pensacola and has since found out that there is a Navy policy that states you can only fly once in a lifetime. So CDR Cincotta at that time asked Coach `What would be your second choice?' and here we are with our current trip. Cincotta said in his time in St. Louis (since 2005) he has not taken a Distinguished Visitor group to a carrier, but took this opportunity to gather the group you see below. Here are the seven individuals that will be with us.

Dr. James Thompson, Dean of Engineering, University of Missouri-Columbia
Dr. Richard Blahut, Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Univ. of Illinois
Jeffery McDonnell, Board of Directors for PBS Channel 9 KETC, VP & CCO for J&J Management Services
Scott Page, Videographer for PBS Channel 9 KETC
Anne-Marie Berger, Producer and Director for PBS Channel 9 KETC
Dave Kurland, Senior Director for Community Relations, NBA Chicago Bulls
Samuel Powell, Pastoral Candidate, Concordia Seminary St Louis MO

At dinner tonight, we took time to go around the room and introduce ourselves and tell each other something about ourselves. One of the most impressive people on this trip is our very own, Dr. Richard Blahut, who is Illinois' head of electrical and computer engineering. He has actually designed and developed some of the features on some of the aircraft we will see, notably helicopters. It was difficult for any of us to follow that up. Another fascinating guy is Dr. Jim Thompson from the University of Missouri (I am not holding that against him). Here is another brilliant engineer, who taught us a lot about the current energy crisis in a short amount of time.

Obviously, most of our excitement will take place tomorrow as we depart for training at 08:00 (O eight-hundred hours). Til then ...