Good Morning Shipmates!
Thanks for the intro Darrin! It's great to be here and I hope I'll be let out of the bilges to see the movie sometime, what is it? "The Sound of Music," a-g-a-i-n???
Anywho, here's my, "Intro."
My name is Hairball and I'm the eternal, Senior, NQP-Dink, Bilge Dwelling Scum-Bag, Limy Rat, so show me some respect!
As you can tell from my accent, I'm a Limy! It gets worse. I live in St. John’s, Newfoundland which is an island in the North Atlantic off the east coast of Canada and thus, due to time endured here, I'm a Newfie. Note: Just to give you an insight into what that means, we have salt-fish and Black Rum for breakfast. It's a small patch of Heaven on earth, take a peek:
http://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/I joined the Royal Air Force in 1962 in the days when Pontius was a Pilotte, not sure what he flew though. Amongst other things I spent 3 years in South Yemen, I wanted to go to Hong Kong but obviously I had p*ssed someone off in the Orderly Room.
I came to Canada many years ago, was a cop in Toronto (56 Div) amongst other things and now I'm working under contract on a Canadian Navy Base in St. John’s.
I have a passion for diesel boats and rightly believe that the United States Navy Fleet Boats of the Second World War were the best diesel boats EVER made. And so I began to study them.
For a few years I was completing my Cyber-Qualls on Don Gentry’s board and had the honor of having Warshot (Ron Smith) sign me off on Topside, the first sig on your card. Sadly Ron has now gone on, “Eternal Patrol.” He was not only a great submareener, but a good friend.
I had nearly finished getting signed-off when, for personal and family reasons I was unable to finish, but bear in mind that this was no joke and I was putting in many hours of study and you better have it right! In that process and learned a great deal not only about the Balao class boat but about the amazing guys who crewed them.
After I had been studying for about a year or two I was invited to become an Associate Life-Member of the USSVI (Escolar Base) and I am very proud of this.
I hope to both contribute and learn while I'm here. Note: I've been pinged so often that my back pockets are now made of asbestos! So don't be shy.
This is written in a hurry as I'm on watch and (supposed to be) working!
Cheers, Hairball.
