As we anchored once again in Apra Harbor inside the friendly confines of Naval Station Guam, I had plans. Well, not big plans like, say, purchasing large chunks of real estate or attempting a hostile takeover of a frigate, but important plans, plans that would make this particular trip to Guam worthwhile, provided all my stars – Sirius, Orion, Britney Spears, etc – were in alignment and my moons were in the seventh house
of pancakes or something.

I will never understand what Nancy Reagan saw in astrology. Judging by how my own plans went awry, my horoscope must read like, well, “How To Fake Your Own Death.” With pictures. Or more accurately, pictures of those who were mostly successful, except for the fake part.

The first plan was for me to acquire a merchant mariner’s card, or Z-card as it is known among hardy seafaring types. While I am not currently required to hold such a card, it would be a handy document to
have, in case I should happen to get hit in the head with a brick, suffer amnesia, and need to remember who I am and the other three or four pieces of picture ID I already carry aren’t enough to convince me.
Hey, it could happen.

Anyway, in order to begin processing for a Z-card at the US Coast Guard station, one must produce a valid birth certificate and, if applicable, a Department of Defense form certifying that you served in the military
and were honorably discharged. I was proud to serve my country in the United States Air Force, and extremely fortunate to leave same four years later with an honorable discharge, which I immediately secured
upon my person as I hurried from the out-processing center. You know, before they changed their minds.

Unfortunately, I don’t normally carry my birth certificate or discharge papers around with me. So I asked Pamela to search the premises of our home in Appomattox in order to locate the necessary documentation.
Deputies were summoned and Boy Scouts enlisted to assist her in searching the stacks of paper scattered throughout the house. Lifelines were attached to belt loops and secured to our front porch so the search
party could find their way back outside. At last, the papers were located and Pamela promptly sent them via Priority Mail.

Three weeks ago. And I am still waiting.

It turns out that nothing right was in the cards for me this trip, and I mean that literally. Besides the mariner’s card, I also made plans to obtain a new identification and access card. Having jumped through all
the necessary hoops to ensure that I was in all the necessary databases, I was assured by the folks at the Personnel Services Department that all I needed to bring were two forms of picture ID in order to obtain my new card. I even made an appointment, which meant I would only have to wait for two or three hours instead of eight, and my request would be processed by someone who could type with more than one finger.

And speaking of one finger, that was exactly what I felt like displaying for all and sundry to see when I was asked for the application form that I had been told I didn’t have to bring (and thus didn’t). The good news
is, I got the identification card. The bad news is that all it is good for is identifying me. In order to obtain a card that will do more than that, I need to produce the application form for processing, which the base folks assured me they would be happy to do first thing Monday morning.

Which is when we will be sailing to Japan.

It’s almost enough to make one look forward to being microchipped. If Big Brother always knows where you are, it cuts down on the paperwork.

Yes, news does indeed travel fast in this age of technology. It’s not like the old days, when events from home were not known until well after the fact. For example, if you try to talk about 9/11 here, you are met with puzzled looks. That is because over here it is known as 11/21.

But the inauguration of our new president was broadcast live over Armed Forces Network Television (Motto: “if ‘Deal or No Deal’ gets canceled we’re not going to have anything to show”). My alarm clock went off at 2:30am so I could watch it, although by the time I was actually able to get out of bed, the First Couple was already on their third ball.

I kid, of course. I watched the whole thing. Much was made of then-President-Elect Obama’s taking the oath on Abraham Lincoln’s bible, but Vice-President-Not-Elected-But-If-The-Other-Guy-Dies-I’m-Da-Man Joe Biden was not to be outdone, taking his oath on Bill Clinton’s autographed first-edition copy of Gay Talese’s “Thy Neighbor’s Wife.” Thus, tradition was served twice.

It turns out that lots of people like to turn out for this sort of thing. The aerial photos made it look like the world’s largest mosh pit. I think I even saw Al Gore body-surfing over the crowd. Or maybe it was just the Met-Life blimp in a cardigan sweater. It was kind of hard to tell from the angle.

There were the pre-inaugural festivities with Aretha Franklin’s stirring version of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” which was only marred by her bad spelling (“L-I-B-E-R-T-E! Find out what it means to me!”) and a stirring classical piece performed – well, only sort of, it turns out – by violinist Itzhak “Isaac” Perlman, cellist Yo Mama, and two other guys whose names I didn’t catch, maybe the surviving Beatles or somebody. Anyway, it was very moving.

Finally, following the classical music performance, somebody woke the President-Elect up and he strolled to the podium where US Supreme Court Chief Justice John “Jon” Roberts told him to raise his right hand – no, your OTHER right hand – and a hush fell over the nation as Barack Hussein Osama bin-Laden Ayatollah Khomeni Adolf Hitler Attila the Hun Sean Hannity Obama took the oath of office.

Homesick Blues – This was followed by a speech that clocked in at around 18 minutes, pretty short by presidential standards. I think Bill Clinton is still giving his, some Secret Service guys had to muscle him off the podium. One of his original attendees had died on the spot, his wasted skeletal frame frozen in time. He appears to have been looking at his watch.

The inaugural parade was a site to behold, all sorts of marching bands from all over the country, but no Santa Claus or Snoopy balloons were to be seen, so all in all, as a parade I thought it kind of sucked.

As it turns out, the Chief Justice got the oath wrong and, instead of being President of the United States, Barack Obama was accidentally sworn in as City Records Clerk of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

They got it right the next day, and Barack Obama left Kalamazoo with only a 34% approval rating but, to be fair and given the short amount of time he was there, he wasn’t able to get much filing done. Let’s hope things work out a little better for him in his new job.

The company employing me is known for its frugality. This was most evident on my most recent trip to the Pacific, when they disallowed an expense voucher for a gas-mask rental when the flight they booked for me from Lynchburg to Detroit had to veer off in Indiana to spray the winter wheat crop, and forget about reimbursement for the hat I lost when we flew under that bridge.

They are also not fond of paying for the services of a port agent. This is understandable, as a $30 cab ride to the Saipan Airport can end up costing ten times that much if the agent calls the cab for you. No discount if you borrow his cellphone and call the cab yourself. It’s the principle of the thing.

Now, in Guam and Saipan, this is not a problem. I pretty much know the lay of the land having been there so many times, so it is little trouble to make hotel reservations and arrange transportation to the launch pier. We know the right hotels and the honest cabdrivers, of which there are none in Guam. So that cuts our work in half right there.

Unfortunately, we got so dependable about it that the company tried to suggest we do the same in European ports. It only took a couple of international incidents to quickly reverse that foolish notion. None of these unfortunate events involved farm animals, daughters of Ministers of Parliament, or a combination of both…at least not to the best of our knowledge. That is our story and we are sticking to it. Suffice to say that we were fortunate that the euro was weak at the time, otherwise the bribes would have ruined us.

Now cometh the challenge of a personnel change in Japan. This can be tricky. As you may or may not know, the primary language in Japan is Japanese which, if attempted by persons unfamiliar with the vocal dexterity needed to speak it, can lead to a dislocated jaw. Especially if you accidentally insult someone with a tenth-degree black belt.

First, forget driving. Not only do the Japanese emulate the British bad habit of driving on the wrong side of the road, the tolls just from Narita Airport to Yokosuka could probably feed a family of four for a
year. Well, perhaps that is an exaggeration, but it sure would buy a heck of a lot of rice, enough to supply you through all of Paris Hilton’s future weddings. Well, OK, maybe that is an exaggeration as
well…

Thanks to a suggestion from a helpful old salt who once prowled these waters with the US Navy, I was able to get online and reserve a spot for the incoming crew member on a shuttle bus that goes from Narita to the Yokosuka base. The catch is that there has to be room on the bus. Contractors can only reserve “space available” seats, meaning that if my operator gets to the shuttle stop and the bus is crammed with anchor-clankers clutching written orders, he is out of luck.

Then he will have to take his chances with the train. If he gets on the right train, then zip, he will be transported to Yokosuka Station, a short cab ride from the base. He could also walk from the station to the base like I did, but I wasn’t lugging 80 pounds of luggage. Heavy suitcases can take a lot of fun out of a brisk evening stroll in Japan in mid-February, especially if they haven’t shoveled the walks.

If he gets on the wrong train, well, let’s hope it doesn’t drop him off in the Hudson River. I’d never hear the end of it.

The other day, Pamela and her good friend Jennifer Ligon were negotiating their way home to Appomattox from Illinois and trying to decide which was the safest route to take once they could find their way out of the snow, no easy task with the huge amounts of crystalline precipitation with which the entire Northern US has been inundated as of late.

While I have fond memories of my Wisconsin childhood, I certainly don’t miss the six months or so of Winter Wonderland. I always figured that the reason so many popular songs were written about winter was so that the composers could hire someone to shovel their driveways while they sat at the piano by a cozy fire, tickling the ivories and producing romantic little ditties about imaginary fluffy white snow while the real wet, gray crap was being piled up into impregnable driveway-blocking bulwarks courtesy of the friendly neighborhood snowplow.

But anyway, Pamela needed weather information and she needed it fast. So she reached for her trusty cell phone – trusty when it can get a signal, that is – and called a number which went through a PBX phone system in San Diego, from which it was speedily and automatically patched through to another PBX system on a lonely cargo ship anchored off the coast of Saipan in the Far West Pacific. In other words, she called me.

From the computer on my desk in the ship’s Secure Communications room, I proceeded to the National Weather Service to check for road conditions in West Virginia. Then, having been informed by me that there was snow in them thar hills, Pamela and Jennifer, the fellow travelers – not that I am suggesting in any way that they were secretly discussing Marxist-Leninist doctrine and listening intently to an audio copy of <em>Das Kapital</em>, but you never know – decided it was probably prudent to continue south and turn east at Kentucky. The weather would be better and they could still organize some coal miners. Oh, listen to me…

Anyway, there they were, driving through Ohio, hundreds of miles from home, and they called me – thousands of miles from home – to get a weather report. Could you imagine King Ferd and Queen Izzy calling up Christopher Columbus on the Nina (or the Pinto or the Santa Claus, whichever one was the flagship) and asking, “I say Chris old lad, could you look up the driving conditions for Barcelona?” They just didn’t do those things back in the day. Probably because they couldn’t, but that is only my theory.

Of course, modern technology cuts both ways. It cost me a trip to Thailand. A good portion of our Navy staff is headed that way in a few days. Now, back in the good old days of World Wars, no staff would even think of leaving without their trusty communications officer, but these days all we have to do is go into our e-mail and message programs, type in a few simple instructions, and it all gets forwarded to them, no muss, no fuss, and no trip to an exotic locale for me. Curses!

On the bright side, having them all gone means no morning meetings so I can sleep in and not shave or bathe. I can lie in my room or sit in my little comm shack and relax, checking my Facebook and Twitter pages as my body ferments and my beard grows to Rasputin-like proportions. By the time the Navy gets back, I will be the Mad Hermit of the Comm Shack. Beware! Unclean! Accompanied by assortments of growling and gnashing of teeth…

So, bon voyage, shipmates! Enjoy your time in Thailand while we rabble remain behind to do your bidding. Bring me back something. Soap, if they have it.

However, this time, some genius – who will go unidentified as he is no longer around to defend himself (and believe me, he’d need to) – decided that the holiday season was a great time for us to come to Guam. Now, this person is a veteran of the Navy, so he should have known that the holiday season is the WORST possible time to try and get things done at a military base. No-one is home!

Oh sure, you got your standby crews ready to defend against a surprise attack…assuming they are sober, which one should never assume, but as far as basic support activities, you have about as much chance of finding a Navy desk-jockey as you would calling a tech support 800 number and getting someone for whom English is a first language. They are not to be found.

You want to call a stranger and hear an actual American voice? Try 976. But you didn’t hear that from me.

Anyway, we got here two days before New Year’s Day, which meant that everyone was either a) recuperating from Christmas, b) stocking up on booze for New Year’s Eve, or c) stocking up on aspirin to help recuperate from New Year’s. So here we are, stuck by this Navy base an $80 cab ride from town, and we STILL can’t get anything done until Monday.

In the meantime, I was busy with all the out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new stuff that always has to be done with the changing of the calendar year. In the military, we actually have two New Year’s days. One is the traditional January 1st, and the other is the previous October 1st, which marks the beginning of the New FISCAL Year. If you ask me, the fiscal year is what some government hack thought up in order to screw things up even more than they already were. Suffice it to say, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams which, seeing as he was a government worker, probably weren’t all that wild. Unless he was Bill Clinton.

But to get back to what I was saying – I am assuming you are still reading this which means either a) you are a glutton for punishment or b) in desperate need of a hobby – the New Year brings with it the prerequisite paperwork and red tape. I had to generate three separate reports just to move five pieces of material from a safe in my vault to another safe in the communications room. The vault and the comm room are separated by a door, Which is always open.

And finally, Monday rolled around and all the Navy office folks were back at work, so I went ashore to get things done. Unfortunately, so did about 2000 other people who had been waiting on them. They generously provided two people to take care of us. After a two-hour wait, I finally gave up and, my hopes and dreams crushed, returned to the ship to try again another day. Of which we only have one more before we sail off again.

I wonder if everybody in Washington DC goes out and gets drunk for Fiscal New Year’s Eve. I would. In fact I think I will. Right now. For New Fiscal Year’s Eve 2010. Nothing like getting an early start.

“Hello, Mrs. General Admiral and I would like to extend our sincerest holiday greetings to all our brave men and women fighting overseas. We know you’d rather be home enjoying the season with your loved ones but, well, YOU CAN’T! There’s a war going on! You trying to get us ALL killed? Quit whining you little pansies! You’re all worthless and weak! Now DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!!!!”

Or something like that.

Let’s face it, holidays are not as much fun for those who have to spend them away from our families, but we’ve kind of come to accept it and make the most of it. To their credit, the ship’s staff does their best to spread the holiday cheer. Their hard work and consideration helps ease the pain somewhat, that and prodigious amounts of alcohol.

Speaking of alcohol, New Year’s Eve is almost upon us. I myself generally make it a practice to stay home on Amateur Night, though I’ve been known to raise a glass to the New Year now and then, but usually around 7pm. At my age, I find it more convenient and less sleep-debilitating to celebrate the coming of the New Year with Europe.

As you can guess, I am not the young hard-charging frat-boy wannabe partier I used to be. Having approached almost fifty years of age and possessing the staying power of a Middle Eastern cease-fire agreement, I have developed an aversion to loud, rowdy, drunken revelers and mammoth orgies awash in alcohol and other various and sundry celebratory substances. One of my recurring nightmares is ending up in a nursing home and being introduced to my new roommate, Keith Richards. Shudder.

For Christmas, I celebrated this year’s holiday the same way I always have. I worked. In the communications business, one is on call 24/7, 365 – this being a leap year, 366 – days a year. But it’s what I do, and I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. I’m not qualified to do anything else. So it is either this or selling microwave burritos and cleaning the slushy machine at the Quik-E-Mart, and they work 24/7 year-round also. What is this 9-to-5 life that everyone talks about?

Of course, perhaps I could pursue my dream of being a professional writer, but after 30 years of unceasing labor, my income from my writing amounts to a grand total of about $300, plus the modern-day cash equivalent of a case of Michelob that I received from a songwriter friend back in 1980 after I published an article in a local newspaper plugging his album. Accepting the beer was probably not very ethical. That’s probably why the New York Times won’t even look at my resume. That’s what I like to tell myself, anyway.

But I digress. The point I am trying to make – that would be a first for me – is that the holidays are only what you make of them. You can spend them either in quiet meditation or a drunken stupor. Actually, you can probably at least give the appearance of doing both, especially if you pass out. But one way or another, you will meditate, even if all it amounts to is holding onto your pounding, aching head the next morning and moaning that oft-used mantra, “Why? WHY?” It still counts.

My wife, Pamela, made the most of my absence by inviting a few likewise unattached friends over for a holiday repast. I was pleased that she was able to celebrate with good friends and lively conversation. I hope there’s some liquor left.

Times are turbulent in Saipan these days, as soon they are scheduled to be “federalized,” which means subject to Federal law. And I mean Federal, as opposed to federal, which I think is a kind of cat…oh wait, I’m thinking of feral, which is actually not a bad description of the kind of laws they have here now.

The government here is so corrupt they make the Illinois statehouse look like Eagle scouts. Although Saipan’s tropical climate means warm weather the whole year ’round, you are always seeing its politicians with hands in pockets to ward off the chill. Problem is, the pockets are not usually their own.

As for the complaints about nepotism in Saipan’s government, well, I will be kind and state that they are all “family men”…if you get my meaning. But I am willing to give the Saipan island fathers the benefit of a doubt. After all, perhaps it is cheaper to have those desk nameplates printed up when all the government employees have the same last name.

Maybe it isn’t really even nepotism. Perhaps it is incest. An island this small has so much inbreeding, they make the royal family look like the DeBolts. (That’s an obscure reference intended as a humorous aside. If you look it up, you will find that it is hilarious. Trust me on this one.)

You can’t swing a dead fruit bat without hitting a relative. This is a proven fact, as swinging dead fruit bats is a national sport and all sorts of cousins are always getting hurt, especially if the bat was just sleeping and wasn’t really dead. Being so rudely awakened tends to make one irritable, and bats are no exception.

Inbreeding would certainly explain whoever is in charge of utilities. The electric power is so bad out here, there are neighborhoods that spend more time in darkness than Estonia in January. (Another obscure reference that you will find hilarious upon further research. Trust me on this one. You’ve got Google, use it!)

One of the ways federalization will affect Saipan is immigration and wage laws. This proud island, once known affectionately by the international business community as “kind of like Vietnam, except with a Costco”, Saipan was known for its thriving garment industry, until the feds got wise and discovered that the “Arts & Crafts” activities at all the island’s daycare centers consisted of making Nikes. Seems the little nippers had no clue how to make a hat out of a newspaper, but could whip out a pair of cross-trainers like nobody’s business.

And the immigration laws won’t make things any easier for the local government either. It’s not like honest local citizens will be clamoring for the vacated jobs in Saipan’s, um, “hospitality” sector, which is currently in the capable hands – so to speak – of various nubile wenches of decidedly non-US origin. Ambitious young ladies with aspirations to higher social rungs don’t marry into powerful island political families just to end up working in “buy me drinky” bars in downtown Garrapan. That’s where most of them met their husbands in the first place.

So it will be interesting to see how it all works out. Saipan’s governor is already hard at work, filing suit against the US government to prevent the federalization from happening, and using island taxpayer funds to pay the lawyers despite the fact that the majority of Saipan’s citizens – that is, those not related to the governor, which is probably a majority, maybe – appear to be in favor of the move.

So, next time you find yourself getting a little riled at your local government (hello, Appomattox County Board of Supervisors!), remember that someone else usually has it worse than you. It’s good to be back in Saipan, despite its faults. Wonder if I could interest them in a waterline? Folks in Appomattox will find that last line hilarious. Trust me on that one.

Earlier this week, your intrepid correspondent made the journey to Tokyo, Japan, the Pearl of the Orient or, as it is also known, Chicago…but only by people who have never been to either place and don’t really pay much attention to detail when looking at pictures of big cities.

I accompanied the Navy staff – to whom I am assigned as their civilian communications czar (I like that word) – for their monthly “mandatory fun” day, which means they have to have fun no matter how miserable it makes them or risk courts-martial. A whole day of frolic and excitement in the big city was carefully plotted and planned, which of course means that nothing ended up as intended. It’s sort of a rule.

But at least we managed to get there, which was an adventure in itself. To get to Tokyo from Yokosuka (where our ship was anchored), one must first learn to navigate the Japan Railways system. The ideal is to grab one of the express lines that stop at as few stations as possible in order to reduce travel time. Naturally, that meant we ended up getting on the train that stopped every 30 seconds or so at every possible destination along the way and a few that weren’t. The stop in Los Angeles should have been a tip-off.

It was tough enough trying to figure out how to buy a ticket from one of the automated ticketing machines. The Japanese are considerate enough to have programmed the machines to provide the option of getting instructions in English, but you still have to decide where you are going and how to get there, no easy task when you take in the fact that Tokyo has hundreds of subway stops and none of them are called “Tokyo.” Well, maybe one is, but I didn’t see it.

Finally a little door popped open between the machines, and in a scene reminiscent of Dorothy’s arrival at the Wizard’s Palace in Oz, a helpful Japanese subway employee popped out like a well-groomed jack-in-the-box and guided us through the process. We didn’t even have to bring him the Wicked Witch’s broom or anything.

Aboard the Non-Non-Stop Non-Express to Shinagawa, where we were to switch trains, we saw lots of scenery. None of it was countryside. The towns all blended together, Yokosuka, Nishi-Oi, Shin-Kawasaki, Kakamura, Kurihama, Tobe. Tobe or not Tobe was not the question (I can’t possibly be the first one to have said that).

We managed to change trains at Shinagawa without incident, and shortly thereafter reached our destination of Shimbasu which, according to people who should know these things, was only a hop, skip and jump from the first place on our agenda, the Tokyo Tower. Turns out it was only a hop, skip and jump if you were a 500-foot lizard named Godzilla, as we trekked a good mile or more to get there, passing several more train stops along the way.

The Tokyo Tower is a gigantic eyesore patterned after the Eiffel Tower, which is in France (another stop on the first train). After paying our 800+ yen, we were packed into elevators like laying hens in a battery cage and lifted to an observatory where we looked out over almost all of Tokyo. I doubt it would be possible to see all of it, even if the smog wasn’t so bad or they could find someone brave enough to go outside and wash the windows.

It is of some interest that many of the Japanese have taken to wearing surgical masks as they wander the streets of Tokyo. Whether this is because of a) the air quality or b) advance preparation because you never know when you might be called upon to do an emergency appendectomy. I didn’t ask.

By this time, the pangs of hunger were reaching gong-like proportions, so it was time to start thinking in terms of lunch. My determination not to play the part of Ugly American had been cast aside by the panic of impending starvation, but I was disheartened to find that there were no golden arches to be seen in our particular section of the city. The only eateries about displayed menus written only in Japanese, accompanied by pictures of food that lost even more in translation than the language.

I ended up dining on gyudon, a dish consisting of beef, carrots, noodles and rice, which didn’t taste bad at all, especially when mixed with the copious amounts of of chili powder I added to it. I ate as much as my admittedly still-budding dexterity with chopsticks would allow, then turned to the miso soup accompanying my entrée. It was so salty I can only assume that miso is a Japanese word meaning “Tokyo Bay in a Bowl.”

Fortunately, this repast was accompanied by plenty of water and hot green tea, both of which I gratefully gulped down to the point that when we finally left the restaurant, I didn’t so much walk as slosh. If I’d been wearing an ankle-length down jacket, I would have looked like a walking waterbed.

After many more blocks and further deterioration of shoe leather, we older folks began to realize that we were in no condition to go hunting for the numerous other places we had planned to visit and, cursing our advanced age and the inherent infirmities thereof, creaked and groaned our way back to the train station to make the return trip to Yokosuka. Next time, I will recommend we rent a fleet of rickshaws. The younger Navy personnel can pull them and count it as part of their physical training which, since it’s mandatory, may as well be fun. Everybody wins.

Almost.

But before I get to that, let me let you in on Japan’s secret to low unemployment: Toll booth attendants. It was a 90-minute bus ride from the airport to the base, but we probably could have made it in half an hour if it wasn’t for the toll booths that are situated every, oh, fifteen feet or so along the route. So much for “free” ways.

It’s a good thing I didn’t try to rent a car and make the trip myself, otherwise I’d have been so broke by the time I got to Sasebo I would have had to have taken a part-time job, probably as a toll booth attendant.

We finally pulled onto the base around a quarter after midnight, much too late for me to catch the 2330 (that’s 11:30pm to you civilians) launch out to the ship. But not to worry! According to the launch schedule that had been e-mailed to me, I knew there was another one scheduled for 0130 (1:30am), so I just set my luggage down on the pier and waited.

And waited. And waited. And…

Before I knew it, it was 0145 and there was no sign of the launch that should have had me halfway out to the ship by then. I wasn’t comfortable. Did I mention that it gets cold in Japan during December? Just like America. Small world.

After a few more minutes of scanning the waters for the launch that was never going to come, I gave up, picked up my bags and walked back to the road, where I flagged down a taxi and asked him to take me to a decent hotel nearby, preferably one without waterbeds and/or hourly rates, if you get my drift.

Then came the inevitable confused exchange between English-only foreigner – me – and a cabdriver whose English was so bad he should have been hacking in New York. After telling him approximately 27 times that I did NOT want to go to the base hotel – I wasn’t sure they would provide accommodations for a mere contractor – he finally said “Holiday Inn hotel?” I told him that would be fine.

Great, I thought to myself, travel thousands of miles to an exotic foreign land and end up staying at a Holiday Inn. Probably has a McDonald’s and a Chuck E. Cheese for Oriental dining at its finest.

But much to my surprise, I guess to him “Holiday Inn” was a generic term (though I was to find out later there actually IS a Holiday Inn in Sasebo), because he took me to the Chisun Hotel in downtown Sasebo. There, for the very reasonable sum of 8200 yen (about $80 American), I was cosseted in a comfortable room complete with king-size bed, a couple of comfortable chairs, cable TV and in-room Internet access. There was even a fridge with one solitary bottle of water, which took me about 2 seconds to gulp down in order to alleviate the dehydration that generally follows 18 hours of flying and food with more salt content than Utah.

The mattress was a bit on the firm side – as the Japanese prefer – but it didn’t take me long to drop off, after first e-mailing Pamela to let her know that a) my plane didn’t crash and b) I wasn’t sleeping on the pier and being nibbled by wharf rats.

I was tempted to sleep in the next day and then stroll around downtown Sasebo, but in the end my sense of responsibility – probably more of a curse than a sense, actually – won the day and I was up by 6 and on the 0730 (7:30am, but you probably knew that) and was on board ship and present for morning quarters when the staff assembled at 0830 (8:30…oh, never mind, if you haven’t gotten it by now you never will).

The USNS 1st Lt Jack Lummus has since departed Sasebo and we are now anchored in Yokosuka. As Tokyo is a mere 1-hour train ride away, plans are afoot for a sojourn to that legendary burg on Wednesday. I hear they have a great Holiday Inn there.

I’m waiting on the free Navy shuttle that will take me to the US Naval Base in Sasebo, where (hopefully) I will catch a launch to the ship. As it will be midnight by the time I get there, my chances are 50-50 at best. Could be I may just have to hole up in a corner until morning. I’m not worried. After all, how big can Japanese rats be? Do you have any idea what they eat over here?

It has been said that if you speak two languages you are bilingual, if you speak more than two languages you are multilingual, and if you only speak one language, you are an American. I’m an American.

But truth be told, travel for the modern-day English-only traveler is really not all that difficult. English is the universal language of airports, and the only time you have to worry about not seeing it is if you are catching a connecting flight in some backwater where you have to wait for the crop dusters to take off first. Or in France.

I flew out of dark, gray rainy Lynchburg at 6:30 Sunday morning, arriving in dark, gray, rainy Atlanta about two hours later. Normally it doesn’t take that long, but we were having trouble finding a parking space. After some determined parking-space vulturing by our pilot, we finally deplaned. In Savannah.

Just kidding. We found a good spot, in Atlanta, right near an entrance. They were able to hook up the long sheltered gate and everything. But that was the easy part, as I now had a 15-hour flight to Seoul, South Korea, to look forward to. Ever been on a plane for 15 hours? It’s kind of like being in church, except the food isn’t as good.

Naturally, I did not go on a 2-day fast in anticipation of the gastronomic delights being served up by the airlines. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and the air marshal is wrestling me to the floor for stalking the cabins and loudly inquiring who is responsible for the rubber carrots and the polyvinyl chloride they are trying to pass off as gravy.

I was very impressed with the on board entertainment, however. Korean Air offers you your own private little video screen and a wide selection of movies, TV shows, games and short subjects to wile away the time. It is almost like having TiVo, except that there weren’t 75 saved reruns of “CSI:Miami” waiting for me to delete them.

I checked out the “Classic Movies” section and saw that one of the selections was “Lawrence of Arabia.” The true story of Col. T.E. Lawrence and his exploits on behalf of Arabian independence during World War I is one of the most fascinating in the annals of history, and the film won a host of major awards and is considered one of the finest of all time. I couldn’t wait to finally watch it.

I can honestly say that I probably have never seen a more boring movie in my entire life. I thought the freaking thing was NEVER going to end, and it became a battle of wills, as if the movie was daring me to hit the STOP on the remote and jab my finger through the touch-screen on the QUIT option and end my suffering once and for all.

However – determined that Peter O’Toole would not get the best of me – I persevered and sat through it until the bitter end. And that still left me with a good 11 more hours to kill. That was spent watching an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” about 150 games of Freecell, and a nap that was all too short.

On the whole, it made me appreciate the trials of such renown travelers as Christopher Columbus, Sir Francis Drake and Captain Kirk a little better. Though I’m sure the USS Enterprise had Freecell.

Heck, I have more adventures sitting at home and Googling, and I am not alone. Folks all over are exploring the Alps, trekking through rain forests, and ogling all the great wonders of the world, both natural and man-made. Unfortunately, they are doing it while shoveling handful after handful of Doritos into their mouths while sitting on their ever-expanding keesters in front of their personal computers.

Why even leave home? You can work from your computer and shop from your computer. With credit-card purchasing and free delivery, we might never have to set eyes on another human being as long as we live. Now, as for who will do the actual WORK…well, there are thousands of Mexicans streaming across the border every day. They are doing most of it now, anyway.

We’ve gotten so soft, we are in danger of ending up evolving into those pasty little Eloi from H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine.” Think about it: someday Morlocks everywhere might be sitting in front of THEIR PCs, shoveling their mouths full with our progeny. Eloitos, they might call them.

Families take their places in front of the television with the Wii or Playstation plugged in and enjoy virtual bowling without the hassle of lifting the heavy ball or wearing shoes that have been who-knows-where, while the kids take about as much time to master games like “Guitar Hero” or “Rock Star” as it would for them to LEARN TO PLAY THE ACTUAL INSTRUMENT…

…So they can grow up to live alone in a sunless apartment while having virtual sex with avatars from all over the world, stopping only to grab the bag of Chinese takeout which was left by the door because they ordered it online and included the tip on the credit card purchase…

Meanwhile, I am in airports around the world and can’t tell you where I am because they ALL LOOK ALIKE, with the same McDonald’s and TGI Fridays and FOX Sports Grills and not a hint of local culture to be seen because space is at a premium and nobody local can afford the rent…

…Or maybe I am driving along the Interstate where, unless I see a mountain or something, I have NO IDEA where I might be because all the interchange travel centers look exactly the same, with the same fast food and gas stations because, hey, same deal as the airports. Space is precious and we can’t have Old Al’s Oil, Lube, 16-foot Stuffed Alligator and Flea Circus or Aunt Franny’s Beanery & Charm School taking up space that a Burger King or a Sheetz would pay three times as much for…

…And thus the Great American Melting Pot – and soon, perhaps, the world – has become not so much a tangy and rich fondue as it has a giant Tupperware bowl of Cheez-Whiz. Perfect for dipping Doritos. Or Eloitos. Just don’t get any on the keyboard or the credit card function might not work and then you will have to actually ANSWER THE DOOR and pay the Chinese food delivery HUMAN BEING in cash.

You will not even notice that he is Mexican.

But getting back to Election Season, as is our tradition, my wife and I went through our usual ritual of trying to sneak off to the polling place without the other, failing miserably of course, then trying to argue each other over to the other side on the trip to Vera and finally canceling out each other’s votes. Perhaps one day we will agree on politics, but what fun would that be?

And such a hotly contested race it was! The network news shows were showing lines of people stretching for dozens of blocks, all waiting to vote. Well, at least that’s what they ended up doing, when they got to the front of the line and realized it WASN’T a Starbucks.

Alarmed at the thought of an hours-long wait, the missus and I hopped in our trusty gas-guzzling SUV that we drive to all the environmental meetings and dashed for the polls. Good thing too, as there was almost a line. If there had been only one voting machine instead of two, who knows how many precious minutes…OK, precious seconds might have been lost?

When we arrived in Vera, sides had already been taken, people were shouting and screaming and waving signs in each others’ faces, and that was only after being asked what kind of donut they wanted from the tray. The exit polls indicated a distinct advantage to the honey glazed, with crullers a distant second followed by the undecideds who just had coffee. The powdered sugars never made it out of the primaries.

For such a Big and Important Election Year, there weren’t exactly a lot of things to actually vote for. There was the President thing, the Senator thing, and the Representative thing and that was pretty much it. I mean, I know that national offices are important and all that, but I don’t really KNOW any of these people. Not personally, anyway. And usually, the fact that they have gotten as high in office as they have gives me reason not to trust them.

Oh sure, it means they can BE bought, but what I want to know is, can they STAY bought? In this economy, one must be very careful about investments, especially in our politicians.

So pardon me if the emphasis on national elections made it all seem kind of impersonal. This election was about people you see on TV giving speeches, not down at Baines’ or Granny Bee’s buying you a slice of pie and advising you not to forget who you got it from if you know what is good for you.

The voting machines in Vera were the new state-of-the-art “touch-screen” computers. Being a high-tech world traveler, I had the distinct advantage of familiarity with the technology, but unfortunately got confused and instead of voting, I accidentally booked an aisle seat with two checked bags and a carry-on.

After a hearty chuckle over my mistake, I immediately took steps to rectify the situation and after only a couple of hours, had finally managed to cast my votes. For whom, I have no idea. Hey, one technological step at a time. I’m still trying to figure out cruise control.

Anyway, after four days and 2500 miles of Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tennessee again and Virginia (thankfully) again, I now only have to think about three more out-of-town stays before I go back to work, when I will be out of town for four months. I always thought that my wife kept lots of pictures of me around because she was a glutton for punishment, but it turns out that she does that so she will remember what I look like so that when I return home, she doesn’t mistake me for a prowler and drill me with a few .40-caliber rounds from her Glock. Which would be unpleasant, at least for me and whoever has to mop up.

Not that I am a stranger in my own home. At least not any stranger than I am anywhere else at any time. Take from that what you will.

November is going to be chock full of miles traveled for this Appomattox Wandering Boy. First there is a weekend trip up to Connecticut to deliver a horse. As I have never been in New England proper before (I don’t believe Philadelphia counts), I am looking forward to seeing the place and poking fun at the locals’ accents.

After two weeks at home, which should be sufficient for me to recover from the injuries inflicted on my by angry New Englanders who took umbrage to my making sport of their vocal inflections, it will be off to Virginia Beach or maybe Chesapeake or Norfolk or one of those places by the ocean for a gala week of work-related training. I look forward to many sleepless nights…not because I am uncomfortable away from home, but because I will no doubt be getting plenty of sleep in the classroom. I hope the hotel has cable, or at least someone in the next room who talks very loudly on the phone about personal matters. That is always kind of fun.

I will get home from that just in time to prepare for another horse-delivery trip, this one to Illinois, and that will coincide with a stay with my family in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. It’s been a while since I have been back to the old homestead – well, as much a homestead as one can make out of a quarter acre – and I’m pretty sure my folks didn’t keep my room the way I left it. I’m hoping they have at least cleaned it a little since then, or at least picked up the dirty underwear. The less said about that, the better. Then again, maybe the underwear has gotten up and left of its own accord…but then, even less should be said about that, I suppose. Ew. Forget I said anything.

Finally, after all the trips are done, I shall return once again to my beloved little patch of red clay paradise in Appomattox County and enjoy the dwindling day or two before I am whisked off once again to the Pacific…somewhere in Korea, I’m guessing.

The next time I come home, I swear I am not leaving. The world can come to me. You want to see me? Come visit. You want a horse? Come and get it. I’m not moving. I will be sitting on my deck or in my garden room with either a cold drink or a hot cup of coffee. No appointment necessary. If I’m feeding the horses, hey, you can wait a few minutes. It won’t kill you.

At least, not as long as you announce yourself before my wife gets out the Glock.