My Own Odessey

I now write from the United States of America. I’ve been in said place for the past four days, and that in many ways that is how long it is taking for both the jetlag and elation to wear off. Getting to America from The America reminded me a lot of Odysseus and a little story called The Odessey. In now way was this a reference for my excitement about Christopher Nolan’s newest inbound movie.

You see fellow stalwarts of finely crafted stories, I had lived in Japan for 11 years, and that’s how long it took for the Iliad to wrap up. Then it took Odysseus another 10 years to get home. Wouldn’t you know, that’s how long it felt to get back to the motherland. It wasn’t 10 years though, but a new personal record of travel time at 38 hours.

Everything seemed to be going well until the delays began happening. Once the airline found out that they could spark the biggest reaction from their customers by making them stuck at an airport even longer, it became all the rage and American Airlines was there to lead the charge. With my luck, all of my flights were on American Airlines.

One of my stops was in Los Angeles, or LAX. Although stopping in California before the delayed flight to O’Hare was inconvenient, LAX proved to be a pleasant airport. My contempt for travel is still Chicago.

My trans-Pacific flight was 10 hours long, and throughout my entire travel I think I slept maybe an hour at a time, but not more than that. This made for long bouts of staying awake and enduring my fate of being stuck in an economy-sized seat at 41,000 feet in the air. We dodged a storm which only added to our trip distance. I made friends with the people around me and they became my companions. I never seen so many Ohtani jerseys in one place outside of Dodger Stadium.

While in LAX, I bought some food and felt sad that it was $33.50 for a parfait yogurt, chicken wrap, and two bottles of water. Then I felt happy that it was so much because of the exchange rate, and then I remembered I wasn’t in Australia anymore. Then I became sad again. Jacked up airport costs were a thing back in my life.

I’ll take it though. I’m back in Wisconsin. Anything beats the ship, and it reminds me of that Jocko clip talking about BUD/S. So you had to do a few pushups. So I had to sit in an uncomfortable position. It is one of the same. I eventually made it home and have been very busy since touching down.

The first order of action was to get a phone number. Then transfer everything such as my bank account addresses and letting everyone know what my new address was. After that I renewed my driver’s license, established ultility setup, switched my insurance region, and finally the most expensive move, I bought my car. Originally I wanted to be selfish and get a pickup truck, but thought otherwise and will get a Toyota Highlander instead. This will allow Mrs. Rastall to get a car that she wants more than buying a car that she’d “have” to get.

Gold Bond Man

Originally written on July 12th, 2025

There's a story that can't be released from my memory. I was 18 years old and a walk-on for the UW-Green Bay Men's Swimming and Diving team. Each season the team would travel to Florida over winter break to train. If I could describe the training it was like a ship going out into international waters to perform some sketchy shit, far from the governing confines of the NCAA guidelines. No one can hear you scream all the way in Florida it seemed. The training was very difficult and although we were encouraged to "enjoy" Florida, the only things we did was eat, sleep, and swim. That's no island life mantra either, the brakes were beat off us and that's all we did.

I was a freshman and a walk-on at that. To say I had a voice that could be heard was not entirely accurate. More often I was just happy to be there, and wanted to stay quiet, or as quiet as I could be in for fear that I'd be recognized and someone would remember that I really didn't belong there. Sort of stuck between that paradox as a child up past their bedtime. Does one talk to try and engage their father in conversation or do they remain silent hoping they're not spotted? Each practice I felt like Rudy Ruettiger just trying to keep up in a world I didn't truly belong, but felt like I did through shear determination. This meant NEVER being late to practice and consequently, with being paired as the lowest man on the totem pole, had to drive the van from our lodging to the pool.

One morning I was driving, and Coach Jim Merner always rode shotgun. His cottage was in a different location than his swimmers and it was probably better for plausible deniability in case we wanted to do young-person foolery. We listened to what he wanted to on the radio; not like there was any argument because everyone else was asleep in the back. I was indoctrinated to easy listening, jazz radio, and stuff, to me, what old people listened to while alone in the car. Always the radio stations in the mid 80's to 90's frequencies. The reasons why I'm thankful for Jim Merner are endless, but teaching me who Bill Withers was is a personally cherished memory. The other memory to this morning took about 20 years for me to learn its lesson.

Jim gets in the car with an old man grunt and tells me that we need to stop by the pharmacy. When I asked him why, as if I had the right to ask my coach such a question in case it didn't qualify as a valid reason, he didn't hesitate. "I have a bad case of hemorrhoids and need some Preparation H." The way he said it so matter-of-fact kind of jolted me. I didn't think of it at the time as a grown ass man comfortable with his body and speaking to the ways of getting older.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and I now openly advocate the use of Gold Bond powder. I'm a true believer and user and it has gifted me a lot of comfort in situations I would have simply suffered from not knowing any difference. I'm still younger than Jim was at the time of that conversation, but I've entered the unwritten club of beginning to be an old man. I look no further than my daily application of Gold Bond and shamelessly talk about its medicinal wonders. I chuckle to myself when young Sailors give me the same look I undoubtedly gave Jim back then.

My first Blog on this Page…

Oct 6, 2022

Journal Entry #1.

Thank you for finding the Home of the Sconnie Sailor webpage. It has been quite exciting to create something such as a website. Then again, taking paths less traveled has sort of been my thing for about the past decade. The fun part is figuring out how. Whether it be starting my own business, writing my own book, or working toward a graduate degree, being humble enough to look at skills you absolutely suck at and then working towards becoming better has been cause for great stimulation in my life.

It isn’t like I’m lacking in that without my side hustles or passions. I’m a father of three boys, a husband to the same wife my entire marriage, and I’ve been in the Navy since 2008. Echoing Billy Joel, I’m like Davey, still in the Navy, and probably will be for life. Throughout the life of this webpage, I look forward to sharing my life in order to showcase what I am about and how I see the world. Producing quality content that you may find charming, impactful, or insightful is my ultimate goal.

Think of this page as a cube where it has structure, a solid foundation, and is not two-dimensional. This page is a voice from the American Midwest, a United States Sailor, husband, father, friend, creator, comic, and everything in between. I’ll fall short of absolute full disclosure, I’m going to be happy to share my stories, and the lessons from them especially when learned through failure.

I look forward to hearing from you too. Maybe you’ll have a pearl of wisdom, or a nugget to add to the pot. Ever since I read it, I always believed that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

Little Help from My Friends

As my time stationed on the USS AMERICA comes to its inevitable end, I am filled with a few different thoughts. Ultimately I will be happy for the most selfish reasons. Only after I leave will I then have a more likely chance to gain altitude on my literary goals. Perhaps being out at sea forced me to have dreams rather than dwell on the stresses of being haze grey and underway, but it is scary as Hell to also know that I will not have excuses to go out and achieve them.

A lot of that needs some unpacking, and I’m choosing to see this in two different ways. The first is using this website as a tool for an audience to get to know me. Sconnie Sailor was always meant to be a launching pad, and as I grow to hopefully be the same for someone else. The second way is to use this experience to in fact get experience. I’m willing to bet no one we’ve heard of on the Internet was great at what they did the first time they tried it. I’m hyper aware that this site on the date I publish this post is not at full capacity. How could it, I can’t give it the time it deserves. I still wish to retain a kernel of my vision now and do what I can with what I have.

I’m not alone though, I have a fantastic team of people. My entourage may not be as deep as say Vinnie Chase or Floyd Mayweather, but they started somewhere and so will I. This will eventually flush out and I will have the time and resources to really dig into my projects and become the man I know I am, but sacked with other obligations to prove it.

Spoonfuls of Humility

I’m not sure when or where it began, but having mentors in my life was always a normal, accepted, and sought-after practice. There are some people who roam the world who believe they can do it by themselves, who can endure the failures and look to no one except themselves for their successes. I was never one of those people. For everything good that happened in my life, there was someone else there who helped me in some shape.

Most of the time it was solicited, but other times it wasn’t. I consider the latter divine intervention especially. Whether it be a conversation I had that I tucked away for years until it can be applied to a situation or in a moment of crisis what to do, I’ve learned the value of standing on the shoulders of giants.

Or perhaps they aren’t giants at all. Maybe these people are your exact opposite who ground you to being a more centred person. There is the possibility they are charitable when you want to be selfish, or brave when you wish to be scared. They might know which way the air is blowing while you have your head stuck up your ass. No matter what, it takes a healthy amount of humility to reach out to these people. Knowing you’re not perfect is half the battle. How you adjust to those imperfections is where the success comes.

I don’t know anyone who has their own website. Maybe I do know them, but I haven’t asked enough questions, or I just don’t know them well enough. The Internet is a heck of a tool if you know how to manage it, and like any skill, it takes time to master and you can probably count on sucking at it for awhile. So that is where I’m at, looking for mentors to help me grow this idea. I want this to be a business. I want this to show profit. I want this to include everyone I know. I want this to honour my beginnings and pull others up with me.

What’s the formula? I don’t know. Would be interested to listen. If the advice aligns with my values and principles, I’m not the person to shun away a good idea, especially if was free to receive.

Ready to Launch

It’s about 0245 in the morning and I am on duty. Torn between peeking and tweaking this website before I officially publish it, working on mandatory computer-based trainings the Navy is excited to see me complete, managing the wrong end of more than one deadline around the office, and still being able to go home and maintain some resemblance of an adequate father and husband. Where some people may fold, and I’ve certainly thought about it, on a long enough timeline I believe that I will not break. The stress does not always feel good, but in some weird way it’s the kind I like.

That stress gives me purpose. Better writers have written more on it, and how dare I compare my thoughts to theirs, yet the ability to still think while suppressed by life’s demands is one of the greatest markers for success. That’s me talking and not ripped from some quote book either.

Still, finding the time to do all the things you want to do is a tall ask for anyone. When I’m given that time, as you might have read page after page in The Whiskey Journal it is another problem entirely to seize the time and make the most of it. I’m just as guilty as the next guy: my bed is most comfortable the first 30 seconds AFTER my alarm goes off, the YouTube algorithm knows me better than my own family and down that rabbit hole I wander, or I get so wrapped up in doing so much for others I neatly forget to take care of my own maintenance. Maybe some of this sounds familiar. If so, here we are, in the same foxhole, and I’m glad to have met you.

This webpage has taken over a year to launch. I’ve renewed the domain lease already without another person actually seeing it. You could say that’s a sunk cost and I wouldn’t argue. Life got in the way, but like the tortoise I ambled along and we are to this point. It’s very exciting. The work put in by my webmaster, Emily, has been a great working relationship. I hope to find ways to shamelessly insert her own platform onto my own so that everyone can get theirs. Isn’t that what we are all after anyway?

Here I Sit.

Making the Sconnie Sailor get off the ground has been nothing short of a slow burn and labor of love. When you have that pang within your soul, you know what needs to be done, but getting there without a map is interesting if I wanted to be modest about it all.

The vision of this site is to advocate for the literary arts of the American Midwest, and it has taken me more than enough time to define what that means. I know a few things: a) I want to take my friends with me and pay homage to my mentors b) I am not special, know everything, or pretend to have the answers. It’s still a toss-up whether I’m either brave or dumb enough to not let this idea go. This little experiment is c) meant to help give others the same shot I was given.

I’m proud of the Whiskey Journal, and it being the flagship book of this site is very exciting to me. I want to take my friends with me though. I want other writers and artists from the American Midwest to know that there is a safe harbor to port your ship, and this site should be at the top of their list. I’m not a publisher, I’m not an editor, or an agent, or an illustrator, or anything else that takes to create a book become massly available to everyone. I’m a lover of stories and if I can sync two people’s stories to create something special, then I have done my job; then this site has done its job. If I can get two people together in the same room to make something happen, boom.

So what to do? As I write this entry, I am in the Brisbane, Australia library. My Internet connection is strong, website access is unlimited to serve my purposes, and I have lots of time. No one is looking for me and I have nowhere especially to be. I’ve sent The Whiskey Journal to a couple of book competitions, and tried to widen its exposure to other libraries in the Wisconsin area, but time will tell. I’ve been working with a great hire from Fiverr.com to flush out this site design and make everything connected as it should. I had to outsource because I do not have the sort of time required to stand up a website, especially one with such ambitious goals.

Here’s the rub, I’m still an active duty Sailor. I’m in Brisbane because I’m in a liberty port. I have two nights to cram as much as I can before it’s time to come back to the ship. I’m still a father with three children under nine years old. I’m still married to my first wife, and she needs me to listen to her problems too. I’m still working on my next book, but it’s too early to tell what it is or about. I’m torn in a million different directions so to have the ability to hire out some help is a blessing that I do not regret. Especially if I can retain this relationship with this designer and we can continue to grow the site.

Who Am I?

Journal Entry #1.

Thank you for finding the Home of the Sconnie Sailor webpage. It has been quite exciting to create something such as a website. Then again, taking paths less traveled has sort of been my thing for about the past decade. The fun part is figuring out how. Whether it be starting my own business, writing my own book, or working toward a graduate degree, being humble enough to look at skills you absolutely suck at and then working towards becoming better has been cause for great stimulation in my life.

It isn’t like I’m lacking in that without my side hustles or passions. I’m a father of three boys, a husband to the same wife my entire marriage, and I’ve been in the Navy since 2008. Echoing Billy Joel, I’m like Davey, still in the Navy, and probably will be for life. Throughout the life of this webpage, I look forward to sharing my life in order to showcase what I am about and how I see the world. Producing quality content that you may find charming, impactful, or insightful is my ultimate goal.

Think of this page as a cube where it has structure, a solid foundation, and is not two-dimensional. This page is a voice from the American Midwest, a United States Sailor, husband, father, friend, creator, comic, and everything in between. I’ll fall short of absolute full disclosure, I’m going to be happy to share my stories, and the lessons from them especially when learned through failure.

I look forward to hearing from you too. Maybe you’ll have a pearl of wisdom, or a nugget to add to the pot. Ever since I read it, I always believed that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.