I’m starting to figure out why I’ve been having a difficult time while I’ve been in Rhode Island. I’m doing fine in school, but I haven’t felt like myself for about 4 months now, and I’ve just been generally depressed the entire time. I realized that I’m not acting like myself because…I’m not myself right now.

When I met my wife over a decade ago, I almost immediately ceased being an individual and became part of a couple. She’s always there for me, and she tends to bring out the best in me. I try to play the same role for her, and we have become a composite unit. If you want to hang out with me, you better be prepared to entertain CinC HOUSE as well. We’re a package deal.

Then, once we had kids, we stopped being a couple and became a family. The kids go where we go, and they’ve become a part of us. I stopped defining myself as an individual years ago, and I now think of myself as a husband and father.

To bring this full circle, the reason I haven’t felt right here is that I only brought 25% of myself with me. The father and husband stayed in San Diego while whatever parts are left made the trip by itself. It’s the reason that I’m much more uncomfortable around people than usual. It’s why I go to bed every night feeling like I’ve left something undone and then have a hard time sleeping. When you’re used to have a few people around you bringing out your best, it’s really hard to start doing it yourself. I normally walk around feeling like a hollow projection. It’s like I’m still back in California, but I’m just casting my shadow here.

The bad news is that it’s part of what I do, and this certainly won’t be the last time I have to leave.

The good news is that this portion is nearly over. I will now be graduating in less than 2 months. I’ll then hit the road to meet the wife and kids. It’ll be nice to be whole again.

Today is Military Spouse Appreciation Day. It’s a day to celebrate the awesomeness of the greatest group of individuals in this fine country.

Trust me when I say that it takes an extremely special kind of person to marry someone in the military. The fact that anyone is willing to do it completely blows my mind (although, I’m incredibly grateful that they are).

It’s impossible to describe exactly how much my wife means to me. Nothing that I do would be worth anything without her. I try to do everything in my power to demonstrate how grateful I am to her every single day, but I still don’t come close to capturing how truly amazing she is.

It’s entirely possible that I never would have even graduated college without her. We’ve been together for 11 years this month (married for 9.5 of them). Over that time, she has watched a ship leave a pier more times than I care to remember. She has raised the kids on her own for long stretches of time. I have drug her from duty station to duty station so many times that we sometimes forget what state we were living in when we tell stories from our past.

She’s dealt with incredibly unpredictable schedules (“Hey babe, I have to get underway for a month…tomorrow”) and she’s been there when I was working from sunrise to sunset 7 days a week. Through all of this, she’s never complained, and she’s always been there for me when I thought things were getting too tough.

The amazing thing is that as incredible as she is, there are thousands of men and women around the country doing the exact same thing for their sailor, soldier, marine, or airmen. They are the real strength behind what we do. Trust me when I say that as hard as it is to deploy, it’s a walk in the park compared to what my wife goes through after we throw off all lines.

With all that in mind, take 15 seconds out of your day to spare a thought for the extremely brave men and women who stay home when we have to leave. If you know one of them, just walk over and give them a high five.

Thank you, Baby Doll. I couldn’t do it without you.

As I look back over this site, I realized that I it’s been over a month since I’ve written anything. A MONTH!

This is mostly due to a certain lack of inspiration that comes with being 3,000 miles away from the family. It’s not easy to talk about how much you love seeing your family do awesome things…when you never actually get to see them.

There’s also the fact that my current school isn’t the most inspirational of assignments. It’s great, and I’m learning some very cool and very useful things, but I still spend the majority of my day staring at powerpoints in a dimly lit classroom.

With all that being said, I realize how fortunate I am with everything. I have a solid job that I (mostly) enjoy. I have an amazing wife and 2 super-cute, moderately well-behaved children. Honestly, all things considered, things are pretty good.

I also realize that if you want to practice writing (the original reason for starting this blog), you can’t just sit around and wait for the ideas to hit. Therefore, it’s time to get this thing rolling again.

Anchors Aweigh!

I just had a sleeve of Ritz crackers for dinner.

Most people protect their NCAA brackets like they’re gold. This probably has a little bit to do with the fact that they think they’ve found the perfect combination and don’t want to share it. Mostly, it’s just that it’s such an inexact science, and it’s so easy to end up looking silly if you make your predictions public.

However, as part of my ongoing effort to turn non-sports fans into NCAA Basketball Tournament maestros, I wanted to share my picks with you. I’m not going to go over every single game, but I’ll definitely share the highlights. Feel free to throw any trash talk you want my direction. In about 3 weeks, you can come back, look at this post, and love the fact that almost every single one of my picks is completely….incorrect. Enjoy!

• Biggest Upset Pick: South Dakota State (13) over Michigan (4)
• First #1 seed defeated: Indiana in the 2nd round to North Carolina State
• Lowest seeded team in the Sweet 16: Minnesota (11)
• Lowest seeded team in the Elite 8: North Carolina State (8)
• Final Four Teams: Kansas, Louisville, Miami, Wisconsin
• Championship Game: Kansas over Louisville 72-65

There we go folks! Feel free to send any thoughts, insults, trash talk, or admiration my way. Cheers!

In the military, when you live away from your family for a significant amount of time, they call you a geo-bachelor (the geo is short for geographical…I think). Basically, you are a married man who is suddenly forced to play the bachelor game again except without the dating part (which is a huge relief to me). It’s basically like finding a wounded wolf in the wild, feeding it for 10 years, and taking care of it in every way possible before releasing it into the wild again with a really bewildered look and a craving for homemade lasagna. There’s somewhat of an adjustment period.

Fortunately, I was able to find 2 other guys in the same situation to share a place with so that we could split the rent and basically keep each other in line. Overall, we do ok. For 3 wolves that are used to being taken care of, we’re doing pretty well in the wild. This is not a story about one of those times.

To set the stage, I was the first one up in the morning on Saturday. I prepared my breakfast of Toaster Strudels and Corn Pops (don’t judge me). We didn’t have any spoons in the drawer, but it was fine since we did the dishes the night before. I grabbed one out of the dishwasher and enjoyed the complete breakfast of 12 year olds around the country.

One of my roommates came downstairs and the following conversation ensued.

Me: “Morning”

Roommate: “Good morning”

Roommates goes into kitchen to get his breakfast.

Roommate: “Oh man, it looks like we forgot to run the dishwasher last night.”

Me: “Ummmm….we ran it, right?”

Roommate: “No, we really didn’t.”

Me: “Uh oh.”

Roommate: “What?”

Me: “I just ate my breakfast with a dirty spoon.”

Roommate: “I think I’ll go ahead and start the dishwasher.”

Me: “I think I’ll go ahead and throw up now.”

This was all further compounded by the fact that our other roommate has been pretty sick for the last week. I’m thinking about breaking my leg to see if the game warden will take me back in again.