Archive for the 'Navy' Category

The Checklist Manifesto – A hugely important book

February 13th, 2010

Back in 2007 I read a fascinating article called “The Checklist” written by Dr. Atul Gawande in the New Yorker. Atul Gawande is a practicing surgeon, MacArthur Fellow, Rhodes Scholar and professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. The article described how a doctor convinced a group of hospitals [...]


USS Hartford collision

March 22nd, 2009

So my old boat, the USS Hartford, was in a significant collision this week. While transiting (submerged) through the Straits of Hormuz, they ran into the USS New Orleans, an amphibious ship (surface ship that carries Marines). According to reports, about 15 people on the Hartford were hurt, though luckily none were seriously [...]


Panama Canal crossing video

March 17th, 2009

I got a kick out of seeing this video. It’s a timelapse video taken of a cruise ship going through the Panama Canal. The fun bits with locks are at the beginning and end; in the middle there’s quite a large lake that needs to be sailed across.
My old boat (the USS Hartford, [...]


Iraqi art exhibition in New York City – Opens Thursday!

May 21st, 2008

This Thursday, May 22nd a very unique art exhibit will open in New York City. It features art from Iraqi artists, most of whom cannot even be publicly identified for their safety. It was a Navy Lieutenant serving in Iraq that found this art and worked to bring it over to the United [...]


A pair of brass …

April 6th, 2008

So I was reading a little bit about General Petraeus today in the New York Times. I took a quick look at his Wikipedia article and found something very interesting, his wife.
While a cadet at the US Military Academy, aka West Point, he dated the commanding officer’s daughter!!
WOW!!
For a 19/20-year old cadet to date [...]


Career advice when leaving the military – a potential lifeline

March 25th, 2008

I recently traded some interesting e-mails with Charlie O’Donnell, the Founder/CEO of Path101. If you haven’t heard of them now, I wouldn’t be surprised as they’re still very much in their development phase. But I think in the coming few years you certainly will have heard of and experimented with their website.
Path101 aims [...]


Ahh, the good ol’ days

March 8th, 2008

It turns out the Navy’s newest operational submarine (USS Virginia) is going up against my old boat in some war-gaming as they prepare for their first overseas deployment. From The Day:
Last week they were preparing for a war-gaming exercise with the USS Hartford (SSN 768), another Groton-based submarine, in which they planned to fire [...]


A reminder of (submarine) times past…

February 2nd, 2008

I spent three years on the USS Hartford (SSN-768). It was a fantastic experience, though I always talk about it in Dickensian terms…
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…
- A Tale of Two Cities
I recently saw a video that reminded me of some of my more fond memories of [...]