A Navy Hero of a Different Sort: The Act of a True Navy Man (And He Doesn’t Even Need To Go To War)

Current photo of Maki (age 54)
Image taken by Julie White of Maki in current work uniform.

“Most of the time when things were going on, I was in a different place!”  Nathan Maki says with a slight smirk on his face, referring to events like to 1994 Earthquake in Northridge, Calif.  He says, when this “tragic” event happened, he was stationed in San Diego, Calif.

    Now 54 years old, Maki is a retired Petty Officer of the First Class United States Navy as Hull Maintenance Technician One (HT1).   For over 20 years, he been working for Universal Studios Hollywood as a Park Attendant, but he is forever a Navy man.  His naval specialty was in Nondestructive Testing and Quality Control in Division RQ (Repair Quality).

Retired Navy Pride Tradition Service
Figure 1 Image from "Shift Colors", the emblem represents a newsletter sent to retired Navy Men and Women.

He currently lives in Van Nuys, Calif. with his wife, Linda of 16 years and has a total of 11 stepchildren, 33 grandchildren and two great grandchildren, but he says, he has traveled to many different places throughout his naval career.

These places include…

  • Guam,
  • Japan,
  • South Korea,
  • Taiwan,
  • Hong Kong,
  • Singapore,
  • Sidney, Australia,
  • Bali,
  • The Philippines,
  • And Bahrain (located in the Persian Gulf).

With each new destination, all he has to say is, “Each (place) is interesting in its own respect.”

Poster of Uncle Sam pointing to audience
Image from Sonofthesouth shows a poster from around the year 1917 of “Uncle Sam pointing his finger at you (the audience) and saying ‘I want You in the Navy and I want you Now’. The poster, was placed in areas where young men would see it and be inspired to report to the recruiting station.

Maki says his naval career began at the age of 18.  He walked into the recruiters office, mainly due to lack of jobs elsewhere, and said, “I wanna join the Navy.  From there, he went to Boot Camp in San Diego and then trained at a school in San Diego, Calif. as well as San Francisco, Calif. that specialized in Hull Maintenance.   He was than stationed on his first ship in 1976 in Japan.

He now holds several achievements that come with being a Navy Vet.

They include…

  • Humanitarian Service at Sea
  • National Defense
  • 3 Battle E’s (Efficiency)
  • 4 Good Conducts
  • Navy Achievement Medal
  • Navy Unit Commodations to the Ship
  • And finally because of his 12 years of good conduct with no bad marks, Maki can officially wear gold.

After serving for 20 years in the U.S Navy, he says he “still supports the president,” even if he doesn’t always agree with the political decisions. He says, with a smirk, “The Congressmen are the least likely crooks.”  Given what he’s experienced, he says he’s not much into politics and religion.

Texting Extremities- Are We Putting Ourselves In Danger?

Let’s see if we can make our lives safer!

People text, but have we gone too far?  Are we so wrapped up in our conversations that we are missing what is going on in the world?  Texting is becoming the “way of life” as we reported earlier, and it’s so extreme that people have even coined the term, “Textaholics” as defined by Urban dictionary is simply described as one who is addicted to texting regardless of how rude it looks. Similarly, sleep disorders as well as texting while driving have came out in news reports, but could texting incidentally be dangerous?

Roughly 100,000 people living in the U.S use text messaging as a means of communication according to a study done by Cell signs on Verizon Wireless Customers.  Subsequently, the average age of texter is 38, however people from the age of 18 to 54 are found to text most often.

Rise in US text messages- Chart
A study down by cell signs.com shows the rapid increase in Text Message Users in the U.S

Stll, as we reported earlier from Mashable Tech, the average teen driver sends about 3,000 text messages a day.

What’s more is teen drivers admit that they are guilt of texting or emailing while driving.  A study recorded by an Infographics design team shows, while over half of all U.S. states have some form of texting laws in place, nearly 50 percent of drivers between the ages of 16 and 24 still text while behind the wheel.

The affects of what texting while driving can have as opposed to drinking and driving
The Governor’s Highway Safety Association shows the causes that texting while driving can do even when states have laws against it.

Ultimately the study determined that the individual caught texting while driving is 8 percent more likely to be involved in an automobile accident.

A chart from Infographics Showcase, asks the question, “Worried You’re A Phone Addict?”  The truth is for most of us we are addicted.  The chart shows, forty percent never turn their phones off and 83 percent sleep with the device next to them.  Other scenarios included in the chart are the use of phones in quiet places as well as work settings.

So here’s what we can do to improve our safety.

Above all, let’s try to put down the phones a little bit.  There are other ways of communicating.

  1. Visit the person if they are in the area;
  2. Write a letter (Yes, I mean snail mail); and
  3. IChat or Skype them (trust me, it’s a lot more personal than the TXTing. LOL)

MLK Peace and Unity Celebration

 

Residents waited in anticipation of the Kingdom Parade on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012.  Lupe Meraz, a resident of the City of Long Beach, Calif. said, “Except for what they show on TV, we’ve never been in person, so I’m excited.”  According to the Long Beach Official site, this kingdom parade marks the twenty-fourth annual parade.   It began on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and concluded at King Park.

As the parade concluded, a celebration with vendors, food and rides followed, in honor of Dr. King’s life and dedication.  One of the featured areas was Dreamland.  An area that was dedicated to teaching the youth about Dr. King and his legacy.  Lara Turnbull, the project director of Healthy Active Long Beach says, “We’re gonna have a better outcome when we realize that we all need to count on each other, do for each other, take care of each other, be more sustainable in our eating, be more sustainable with the planet and treat each other kindly.”

Additionally, Su Luck Chaturabul, a pharmacy student at the Western University of Health sciences, said,  “Right now there’s a lot of tough times, just the crazy economic times, and I think just having people, the community, come together, especially local areas, come together and just promote being happy and trying to get rid of all the negativity out there, that’s what I think of peace and unity.

The parade also had several classic cars, including the “9-11 Angel Cruiser Series”, a group that consists of racecars created specifically as a 9-11 tribute.  Fueled By The Fallen creator, Kevyn Major Howard said, “About seven years back, watching our news hours we would always see one of our heroes who was killed in the line of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, and I woke up one morning trying to recall the name of the hero who died for my freedom and I couldn’t do it and I was paying attention and I felt perhaps America was feeling a little complacent about it’s honor and respect back to the heroes and I felt with imagination that the best way to get everyone’s attention was to use the platform of the cars because everyone, 2-year-olds to 92 year olds love an automobile.” 

Additionally the celebration included live music, food and carnival rides for the kids.  The parade and celebration was from 10:30 a.m. until 5 p.m.

 

Communication In A Digital Age

Texting is the new wave in communication and is currently practiced throughout the world, especially among teens, as Shane Snow reports on Mashable.  With phones, such as the iPhone 4s, texting is clearly a must, but with all good things, there are positives as well as negatives.

Still, for many people, texting is a way of life.  Los Angeles resident, Roxana Jimenez says, “I text from the time I get up in the morning.  I get a good morning text from my brother, ‘til the time I fall asleep, around one in the morning.”

And then, there are the “textaholics”; People, who average anywhere from 500 to 1000 messages a day.  As reported by International Business Times, the average teenager in the U.S. currently sends or receives nearly 3000 text messages a month.” Edwin Moran of North Hollywood, Calif. says, “Texting is the way to go.”  He goes on to say that it is a cheaper way of communicating, however he doesn’t agree with kids having phones at a certain age, but it should be up to the parent to control the child’s texting habits. He says, “he believes if the child is home, the parent should take the phone away, but when they are out, they should be allowed to text.”

One of the negative results of excessive texting is the idea of sleep texting.  As reported in the Chicago Sun Times, “a small but growing number of cellphone users are reporting that they sometimes sleep text.”  The study by the Pew Research Center said this disorder is mostly found in teens and college students due to the fact that this age group texts more than other age groups.  Jovi Hinojosa, a resident in San Fernando, Calif., says, regarding sleep texting, “That could potentially be embarrassing because if you’re texting that boy or that girl who you have a crush on, saying something like, ‘I wanna marry you’.  They freak out and that could be embarrassing.”

Above all, most people say they text for convenience.  Ninette Amaya, another resident from North Hollywood says she texts mainly her close family at times when she cannot talk on the phone.

Ultimately texting is harmless, but Moran says, the real downside of texting is that by texting instead of talking, there is no real connection with the person.  You can’t see what the person’s reaction is to a joke, for example.  All you have are the words and that’s not good.

 

HHN— Another long night to go

Hey all you, out there in the blogosphere.  It’s been a while, but I’m back, ready to write wrongs and feed information to my faithful viewers of this blog.  As you can see the title of this blog is HHN.  For those that don’t know what HHN is, that is the ever popular Halloween Horror nights and we are nearly half way done with the 21 frightful nights.  As far as I can tell, Halloween Horror nights 2011 is nothing short of a success and we can thank that to our wonderful patrons that come every year for the best in the business.

This year, Universal Studios is pleased to bring the crowd 6 scary mazes based on the best at the business guaranteed to bring the crowd exactly what they want, a scare worth scaring for.  We’ve got Alice Cooper’s Welcome to my nightmare and Hostel’s Hunting season, in addition to a mazed based on the movies like The Thing and the infamous Wolfman with his curse of Talbot Hall.  La Llorona has her own maze this year inspired by Diego Luna’s vision and of course, Rob Zombie is back with his house of a thousand corpses.  Scream has gone to the backlot this year with a different Scream image around every corner as guests navigate through the streets of Whoville, past the psycho house and through the crash site of War of the Worlds.

If you want to know more, you just got to check out Halloween Horror nights and hurry before you miss you chance and Halloween Horror nights disappears for another year.

Truth or dare?

What a inquisitive  game?  Teenagers know it most well.  It’s a game that could be good but at the same time it could go dreadfully wrong.  It could get people in trouble very, very easily.

You ask which is worse, true or dare?

Truth… not even wants or even likes to hear the truth.  You think it’s safe to go with the truth instead of being dared, well, it’s actually more dangerous than you can even consider.

Ever heard the saying, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”  Well, this is false.  Someone can break your leg but the wound will eventually heal, you may not even remember the full pain of the break, but a word, especially a word from someone you care deeply about, that will stick with you for years and years to come.  You’ll remember that one word when you are laying in bed next to someone else or walking down the aisle of a grocery story and you’ll think, (fill in the blank)…

Now a dare, it may seem dangerous but dares don’t last.  Someone could dare you to kiss someone or cut your hair or something else, that’s harmless.  You’ll forget that kiss, the hair will grow back, there’s no emotional damage to dares unless words are spoken.

I love words, but words are so dangerous.  That’s why I’m very careful what I write, but at the same time, words give freedom.  You can write whatever you want and for the most part, people will read it and forget about it in a day, but when you put force behind those words, that’s when the danger happens.  People get hurt and never forget.

I never want to hurt people.  I just want to touch them in a way that makes them think and consider their words before they hurt others.

That’s all I want to do and I can and I hope it will make a difference.

 

 

 

 

 

How I wish I could be here today.

It is much to hot not to be swimming in the water, but Hurricane Harbor is closed for the season.  Why are they closed?  They should’ve stayed open at least until after the end of September.  No, they are only open on weekends.  Bummer.  I only hope next week will be just as hot.  Vacation next weekend and I can actually use my season pass.  Oh well, guess the next best thing is the beach tomorrow.  Put my bathing suit on, drive up to Santa Monica.  Just as good.
This looks so tempting

Sundays: What a day!

Personally, I’ve got to say “I LOVE Sundays”.

My favorite day of the week.

Of course, Sunday is also my most busiest day of the week.  You see, I’m involved with church, my expertise is getting the slides down for service using a program called propresenter.  For those that are not familiar with this software, I urge you to google it.  Take it from me, it’s the best software out there for anyone who does a lot of presentations of any kind.

Propresenter is a program that allows you to easily control music, background, foregrounds as well as slide lyrics.  It is all centered around layering these elements to truly pull off an excellent program.

So anyway, back to my day, and why Sunday is my favorite because it is the most busiest day.  So after church, it is time for work, usually 1 or 2:30 and that’s when the fun begins, I jump into my car and drive out to Universal Studios, get changed into my uniform and get ready to begin my day.  If I’m a lead, it’s even more stressful and fun, I’ve got to let my other leads know I’m there and that’s when the jumping through hurdles begin.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being lead, but I definitely get my exercise with each and every new task they give me.  I’m like a trained seal, jumping for the fish which is my paycheck, while the fans which are my supervisors watch my every move.

What a DAY!

Disney Princess

I’m no princess.  That’s true, but I could not help but admire the disney princesses.  My all time favorite being Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  She is so honest and geniune.  She’s the type of princess that I would be.  She longs for true love and finds it in the most unnatural way.  She cares for all people and animals and hates the ones who are selfish, but it is the most unselfish who she challenges and changes for the good and when all seems lost and the beast is the most weakest, well it is the power of the word love that breaks the spell and transforms the entire kingdom and they live happily ever after.

Belle and the beast
The most perfect princess

It’s the best story line and the most powerful presence that melts hearts and moves people to be the person that they should be.  Beauty and the Beast is a classic that children and adults will be watching for days and weeks and months to come.