Silently, we chinked our glasses and put that specific past into thedistant, unspeakable past. Between him and I, the litigation and strainof Andrea?s... bachelorette party would only be a source of jokes andfriendly ribbing. Roger was a good man. He and I could move on.-----000-----?What have you heard of the others?? he asked.All of my old friends? All of my old drinking buddies? All of my own flagfootball teammates? All of my own university classmates??Nothing. Don?t care. Don?t know. I can?t. As we motioned to walk away Dave told him it was well out of our league and we had no intention of buying it but he invited us aboard to have a look anyway.Dave had obviously noticed him brazenly focusing his eyes on my chest and after we had wandered on a few yards, Dave said he felt sure his invitation was based on how prominent my nipples were poking out and said it could be fun and suggested we return and take him up on his offer. I’ve got to say the guy was hot. Probably in his early. I was only trying..."Sensei waved my reassurances away, and soon after that we started warming up for our training.Another item of note was that my learning rate suffered a major setback. Sensei introduced me to the bo (a wooden pole, something like 1.5 inches in diameter and more than 5 feet long). Much of my normally very rapid Aikido learning came from my proximity sensing what Sensei was intending. The hand-to-hand techniques we'd learned in previous lessons were taught with Sensei and me. “Just before this briefing, I posted the duty schedule for this deployment on the Patrol Group Bulletin Board. The Ship Commander wants our platoon to form two groups: a delegation group, and a support group.“Those of you assigned to the support group will wear your Class 2 Utility uniforms. You should not need it, but you will take your standard Dress Uniform with you when you board the shuttle. Make sure your Class 2s are in excellent condition. You will doing the grunt-work once we make.