Training in Cleveland, OH?

So you really did get to see the world in the Navy? At least... the bars of the world?

I got to see most of BC and Washington State... We were in peace time mode back then.

Yes, I saw the world alright and I saw the insides of A LOT of bars, lol!!

I've been to Iceland, Greenland, Amsterdam, Alaska, Africa, England, Singapore, Bahrain, Australia, Tasmania, Canada and the planet Santa Barbara. I don't count Hawaii 'cause I was raised there and the Continental U.S. not so much because well, I live here, but I've been places here as well. It's not nearly as exotic to say I've been to Nevada as it is to say I drank that nasty Elephant beer in Africa...but you also don't have nasty after tastes to think about...

You went to Nevada... in the Navy? In a boat??? Now that's impressive...

What was impressive was how they convinced me that they weren't kidding about going to Nevada!!

I wanted an AirCraft Carrier, they gave me orders to Nevada!

I worked with ordnance, so Fallon, Nevada (a.k.a. the armpit of the U.S.) has a huge bombing range where the Navy sends it's pilots to learn how to drop bombs on targets and not houses. I loved working around all of the stuff that could go boom. Something about knowing that your day could end badly that motivated me to stay awake. But as far as ships? Nope, there wasn't hardly enough water there to keep a lawn alive, let alone a ship afloat! 3 years in the desert... and you wonder why I'm unstable?

The bad part of Nevada was learning about the guidance flaws in the multi million dollar Phoenix missile that I'd worshiped for 2 years prior. That was downer... but it was pretty... I used to cat nap on them in the magazines. Totally harmless without an arming mechanism.

You rode bombs? Now why does that seem logical to me...

Did you ever get anywhere near Area 51 or is that Air Force?

I was in Nevada and I've been to death valley, but nobody owns up to Area 51. I believe it's in death valley...but who knows...

I don't think any particular branch of the military claims sole proprietary ownership of the mythical place

I know this is an old thread, but did you ever find any training in your area? I am from Pittsburgh and have the same problem. Cleveland is only a couple hours away and I would travel there for training. I heard of some in Columbus but can't find any info...

We have since formed a formal guild in Cleveland and we had Pashur as our inaugural instructor this past June. We were going to join up with the Southern Ohio guild (Columbus) but we just couldn't get the amount of committed interest and a good location/date.

The NEO Guild of greater Cleveland has a jam session every 1st Wednesday of the month...I'm not sure how the Columbus guild does their thing. We always welcome other established painters but we don't train up new painters. We may be getting Mark Reid out here in the next few months but other than a few text messages back and forth, nothing is solid. I will definitely post it here if I can fanagle another instructor.

Robbie Hay - Ohio's finest teacher.

Robbie's a real sweetheart, I have to agree! Margi McGuire is pretty awesome too!