Wow! It reads like you guys had a nice stint at the country club! I humbly bow before my more cerebral brethren. I am in awe of your intelect, but Damn jealous of your spare time while in the pipeline. I was told I passed the NFQT by one point. I believe that showed up in NPS, as I was on S-30 or 35. I always put in more than that, and needed to. I did end up with a 3.015. Hey, every digit counts when you worked that hard for it!
I attended NPS in Orlando (8302). I remember fondly the chow hall, Preschool and real school, and the Quad. Occasionally, I'd hike it to the gate to meet the domino's guy. Oh yeah, there was a Navy Exchange and I heard there was a lake.............
I do recall some guys (probably ET's) talking about the Orange Blossom Trail, but I never got there.
One fond memory was of one of my teachers. My HTFF teacher was MMCS Dennis. This guy was one of the nicest guys a rock would ever luck into meeting. He didn't talk down to you if you were trying, and just didn't get it. He had ways of explaing things that just made it all make sense. He had every problem memorized - EVERY ONE! When someone would say "I had difficulty with homework problem # 17", without the aid of notes, he'd start in "that was where we had a sea water inlet temperature of 43 degrees, and we were trying to determine the change in Tave caused by swatting a mosquito in ERLL"......... and away he would go, explaining the entire problem from memory. That was my best class with something like a 3.6 avg. For a math teacher, we had a miserable excuse of a teacher who just happened to be about three days out of college himself. I saw that look in his eyes when we first met, and I saw my nuclear career (all 3 months of it) flash before my eyes. It was the same look as my childhood best friend (who was getting his PhD at MIT at the time) always had in his eyes. He knew orders of magnitude more than anyone else, but couldn't explain how to pour piss out of a boot with the directions written on the heel! I was glad a 2.5 got me past math!
Some years later, I saw the HTFF instructor again as a squadron officer up in Trident North area. He'd traded in his stared-anchor for a pair of LT bars, and was still a good guy, and the best Damn teacher I've ever come across.
Sorry, no good girlie or booze stories - didn't have the intellect to have the time. Still, NPS was a great memory though.
BTW, Our section leader who had a really good average in NPS failed out when we got to Ptype. Nuke school was too easy for him, and he didn't know how to work when he had to.
One more memory. After qualifying MO at Ptype, I called my girlfriend and asked her to marry me. Yeah, I know - how romantic. It's been a while now, so some of you young bucks can feel free to use that slick move AFTER you graduate. In June, we'll celebrate 25 years!
All things considered, it was pretty cool stuff.