Why am I joining the Royal Fleet Auxilary?

Hey,

Good question. What possesses a man to leave “normal” society for a majority of the year, continuously, in light of a life on the open sea’s.

I am joining the RFA as an Deck Officer, and for me, it is the ideal career. Never have I felt something being more right for me, even more so than my previous, now reserve, aspiration of becoming a Police Officer. For me, it represents a chance to expand my horizons in every sense of the word, and work in a team dedicated to supporting an integral part of the nation’s international defence, the Royal Navy

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary provides full time, comprehensive logistical support for the Royal Navy, and all interests of the British Isles and Overseas aid. If it’s delivering food, medical supplies, equipment etc or undertaking Replenishment at Sea, or ship repair, the RFA is there 24/7 365 to do the job. The RFA are prepared and expected to move into war zones and supply support for all vessels under it’s wing.

Let me outline the raw, personal “material” benefits of such a endeavour, of which are not even the reasons for me joining:
- Get paid to train, and receive recognised and esteemed qualification in your specialisation.
– After training expect £23k starting salary rising to £45-55k realistically depending on your Rank/Grade (most achieve the top end within a life service) but could go up to £75k p/a should you be suitable to become a Captain.
- No living costs for 8+ months of a year
- If you choose, excellent future prospects outside of Naval service
- Travel and see the world, have opportunities most others will not have.
- Epic pension
- Have an excellent lifestyle and extremely board perspective.
- 90 days paid leave after a voyage, then off for the next one.

With all this in mind- why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, it’s because it takes a certain type of person and personality to appreciate life at Sea. I have had the fortunate chance to have sailed, by wind alone, from Liverpool to Norway – a two week voyage – on board the Stavros S Niarchos. I experienced life at sea in what I would consider first rate conditions – no pillows round the edges and no pussy footing around the reality. We (60 completely inexperienced youngsters from around Liverpool who had never met before) were trained quickly, 2 days, and pitted against 100 other boats in the Tallships Races 2008, starting from our home town, to Malloy in Norway. We manned the helm, we climbed the masts to the top and operated the sails, we cleaned the ship, we cleaned the heads, we painted the bow, we manned the helm – we operated as a crew of a vessel, and we were not considered newbies once we left that port.

At sea, you are compelled and required to work together, the ship you sail on becomes a small and strong community no matter how large – there is a sense of complete belonging and utter requirement wherever you happen to fit in. You rely on eachother, and you each are responsible for eachother. To be part of that kind of community, the way our society was before it shattered in it’s modern trend – is a privilege now.

And then there is the personal side of the experience. At sea, I had never felt more content than I did then – the feeling of looking out at a clear and serene seascape, the sun setting in it’s indistinguishable hues in the backdrop. The knowledge that all you needed was the surface you stood on, and the connection you drew from both the ship and the crew – a positive, codependent relationship. At port, the opportunity to explore a new culture, a new city – hell if it’s that familiar just a new bar. It’s all there, and you’re among friends all the way. No commute to work, no bullshit (no space for that on a ship) and a constant sense of achievement.

And so I embark, on the voyage of life.
A real life

Stephen

New Banner for the site

Hey all,

Fixed up a new banner for the site, the current CSS style-sheet I’m using doesn’t support a banner on the site – I’m working on a bespoke style-sheet for the blog – however that will take some time.

Anyway, I can use the banner as a forum signature for now ^ ^.

Shall be publishing a post soon.

Stephen

Two-Thousand 9

Two-Thousand 9

Yes it’s back again (echo, echo, echo) -

I’ve decided to revive the blog, in the process of creating a new banner. It’s still a “general interest” blog, though it will no doubt lean toward a political and/or philosophical epithet. That said, I’m going to re-release some noteworthy posts from the old blog just to get the ball rolling (Scroll down for these entries).

Hope you enjoy.

The Name:
Nineteen Eighty Four, is a prolific dystopian novel, a genre of which I am very fond of, published by George Orwell in 1949. If you haven’t, you should read it really, though the blog isn’t much to do with the book – it’s key concepts are used as a framework for this blog.

The Blog:
It’s not on anything too specific, I just enjoy writing a lot – mostly political and philosophical but you may find posts on computers or current events.

One of the reasons I write is: Throughout our lives (certainly the current generation) we are conditioned to be money making machines. From cradle to grave – Whole nation’s “invest” in all of us. If we succeed in earning the generated amount conceived by society we “succeed”, if not – we “fail”. We are made, to be successful humans.

It disturbs me, the grotesque emphasis on earning “potential”. The only base aspiration for the young people of today. So we all want a nice socially acceptable car, house – even family. Within the “ideals” of our pre-rendered conceptions, we are as a society, a species – quickly loosing a large piece of our humanity.

Writing is how I express myself most eloquently and uninhibited.

And so I write, for my sanity.
Stephen

Setting up a Dual Boot System (Fedora + Vista)

ARCHIVE ENTRY
Hey everyone,
For linux novices, dual booting might seem complicated but setting up Dual booting with Linux Fedora and Windows Vista is easy! Today I uninstalled the 32 bit version of Fedora 10 and installed the 64 bit version – here’s what I had to do:

1. Do a  fresh install of Windows Vista, Set the partition size to the entire Hard Drive.
2. Fire up the Live CD and run the installation program when you log in.
3. Set the root password, and other system settings.
4. Tell the installer to resize sda1 and click next, I used a 6:4 ratio – that would be about 360GB to Windows Vista and 240GB to Fedora. But you know what sizes you want, just keep a note of the exact number of MB you set the partition to. Click next.
5. Now I encountered a problem here, I think it may have been a glitch in the installer. It started to resize the partition but was taking way longer than it needed. I waited an hour, but it just wasn’t going anywhere. If you encounter a similar problem, do what I did. I stopped the installation and rebooted the computer. Windows automatically did a scan disk but found no issues. When you get into windows again, check the properties of your hard drive. I found that mine had been actually been resized. If yours is the same, reboot and put the live CD in.
6. Do all the same again, start the installation and set the system settings.
7. When prompted by how much you want to resize sda1, use the same number as the first time. The installer should resize the partition pretty much instantly and begin to install Fedora.
8. Once Fedora is installed, you’re done. Reboot the system and remove the live CD. During the boot, GRUB (A kind of boot manager which allows you to choose which partition you want to use when you power up the system) will show up on screen asking to press a key if you if you want to boot a partition other than the default (sda3, Fedora).

And that’s all there is to it! Having a dual boot system is fantastic because you can take the full control and general usefulness of Linux and the Compatibility (and unfortunately, gaming performance) of Windows all on the same machine.

Stephen