Making $$$$$$$ Department: Rx Author: Kevin Newman Era: 1985 Date: 08/16/05 I was REALLY into bicycling when I had my first trip to Naples (1984-85), so I made up my mind I was going to pick up an Italian racing bike when I was there. I spent a little over 1 million Lire (about $600) for a really nice one with all the good shit on it. When I got back to Norfolk I took it over to Colley Ave Schwinn to show it off to my riding buds. As it turned out I ended up selling it to the owner of the shop for over $3,000.00, and he told me that he would buy as many as I could bring back. Before I got to go back to the Med I got transferred to the TR (M-Div), and as luck would have it was put in charge of divisional supply. Over 7 days in Naples I picked up 10 more bikes, had a couple buds help me bring them back to the ship. I locked them up in one of my vent spaces until we got back to Norfolk and sold 9 of them to Colley Ave Schwinn for a cool $25,000.00 and the last one to a bike shop in Williamsburg for $3,000.00. I figure I made about $22,000 profit on that trip.

Re: Making $$$ Department: Rx Author: Mike Matthys Era: 2005 Date: 08/18/05 That is an amazing story! Think of how much the guys at Colley Ave. were selling them for. Good for you... The guys on the Enterprise board told a story about a guy buying a Persian rug while overseas. He paid about $2,000 for it and it was so big, he had to store it in his rack and sleep with it. When he got back, he was offered $10,000 for it. Not a bad little profit.

Old freinds Department: Engr Author: Jim Diaz Era: 1988 Date: 08/21/05 I've gotten so many laughs out of reading these stories. I remember "Luke the Nuke" as the best Reactor Officer and of course "GOD" as the worst. As I was in Eng. (E-1 Div), I'd have to say Capt. Heaton topped them all. I haven't seen any emails from the E-1 guys but I do remember Joe Scullion and that RE crew. I can't remember the red-headed RE guy who paralleled (?) shore power with the Motor-Generator set but except for the '88 collision that was the loudest noise I heard on Ike. Thanks for the memories.

About the slap Department: Rx Author: Charlie Era: 1983 Date: 08/25/05 Hey Walsh, when CDR Reddoch slapped you, did he leave any kind of residue on you? Usually, he was either digging in his nose or butt. I didn't realize that was what got the old boy shit-canned, as I was up in Safety and missed our less than stellar ORSE performances in the latter half of 1983. That just makes a weird happening even more bizarre. Thanks for the story.

Pier 12 phone booths Department: Rx Author: Charlie Era: 1981 Date: 08/25/05 Any of you present day folks know if the phone booths are still at the end of Pier 12? They served a dual purpose. After a couple of guys got caught pissing in the parking lot (Tim Hallman and Mombo, I think), the phone booths became "Port-a-Johns." Just stand in there with a phone in your ear and take a leak. It sure beat having to wait till you walked down that long pier all drunk and cold, then having to properly come aboard and find the head!

Phone Booths Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1984 Date: 08/25/05 What stands out most in my mind about those phone booths is seeing the base cops pulling up to them periodicaly, hopping out of their car, and checking the coin returns for dimes. That's the caliber of cops we had on that base... bums who would go around scrounging money...

PHONE BOOTHS Department: Engr Author: BT2 Sol The BUll Dupler Era: 1996 Date: 08/25/05 95-01 Phone booths were still there and were still urinals. By then all the doors were broke so if you were talking on them you had to pause everytime a loud vehicle passed. They removed all the payphones on the ship so I would drive down to the sub peirs and use thier phones. The crooked car dealers putting up ads at every phone was what bothered me. Most of the jr sailors in my shop had gotten ripped off by these guys thier first day in town, before anyone could warn them. Legal would not do anything to help us with it, so I took action myself. If I saw them putting ads on every phone I would go right behind the guy and pick them all up. Then destroy the ads infont of him so I knew he could tell what I was doing. This would lead to conflicts in the parking lot(they have reason to call me The Bull). Then I would call the dealer and inform him that his rep. was littering on the naval base and then ask how he got the DOD stickers to get on base. That is when they usualy would hangup.

RIP OFF CAR DEALERS Department: Air Author: ABH1 Era: 1999 Date: 08/29/05 This is for the Bull. I left the IKE in 2001 and you are so right about how they rip the kids off. I was one of the few that would take them back to the car and show them what was wrong with it, not to mention the $10,000 sticker on a 1992 piece of crap. I remember only having my dress blues and this poor kid wanting me to go look at a car. Well, I went and put them on, crawled around under the car pointing out it had been wrecked, it was a stick, (which he didn't know how to drive) and it was missing parts. Well, some how he went back and got it and went UA. The Divison Officer had to get involved with one kid who paid 12,000 for a 1990 Camero with 136,000 miles on it. I have to say the Officers and the First Class tried to look out for the newbies! But then you had the ones that only looked out for themselves.

Car Dealers Department: Engr Author: BT2 "Sol The Bull" Dupler Era: 1998 Date: 08/30/05 We had a guy report to us from bootcamp that had possibly the worst scene with the bastard car dealers. I had duty the day he reported and I was sitting in berthing when he changed into civilian clothes and went to leave. He was dressed like a cowboy and wearing the hat they give you in bootcamp that says NAVY real big on it. I told him that he needed to leave the hat behind because he looked like a giant target. I told him that it may be tempting but whatever he does DO NOT BUY A CAR TONIGHT. I then warned him about the rip-off car dealers. Next day in the shop he tells us he baught a car. It was a 93 escort, this was 2000. He was going to pay $16,000 for it. He said that the speedometer, rear hatch, and passenger side door did not work. I asked him why he bought it then? He said he did not know these things were wrong because the dealer told him it was illegal to test drive cars in Virginia, who had to just buy them. Then he parked in the wrong area and the car got impounded CONT

Car Dealers CONT> Department: Engr Author: BT2 Dupler Era: 2000 Date: 08/30/05 So all of his money was going to this car payment and insurance, he could not afford to eat let alone pay to get the car out of impound. So he calls the dealer and the the dealer does a voluntary repo on the escort and sells him a Blazer for about $20,000. The blazer almost never worked and the one time it did he rammed it into the ass end of a buick. He had no money for a tow truck so then the Blazer was impounded. The Blazer ended up getting repoed also. Another newbie to the shop told him as long as you have checks in your checkbook you have money in the account. So they would go to the exchange and buy a candy bar and write the check for $20 or more. They got busted on that and went to mast. In his case it was the fact that he was stupid more than it was the car dealers, but the fact that they did this to him is bad enough. The biggest problem was when we went to legal they just shrugged their shoulders and said they could do nothing to help. That show JAG is full of crap.