Going home

Glad this trip is coming to a close.  I'm tired from too many 20 hour shifts in a row.  Tired of the teeth-clenching stress that slammed down last month , grabbing me by the back of the neck and worrying me like a hyena on a zebra carcass.  Fuck this noise.

I've got two projects going simultaneously, right now.  Not good.  Way too much shit needing to be stored in way too little grey matter.  LL's little math puzzle the other day, frustrating as it was, was also a nice distraction, even if I do hate maths almost us a much as they hate me.  If I can get my shoreside support and a twitchy client to make some final decisions soon, I might be able to put Colombia behind me forever, or at least for the next six months or so.

The new project I'm also setting up is of a complicated sort.  It involves multiple vessels and some pretty complex geometries and MATH (fuck) puzzles.  I was somewhat horrified to see that the format of just the name of something has gone from a simple alpha-numeric to an alpha-numeric with hexadecimal characters and a modulus hiding in there.  A freaking name, people.  Anyway, it is quite the challenge to set up and I have not been dealing with the stress well, and I need to get the fuck. Outta Dodge.

Yesterday, as I was sipping my first cuppa here in Dodge City, a frantic call came over the radio.  Man overboard.  Seeing a bit of general panic and indecision in the room, I bolted out the door, grabbed some gear and ran to the Fast Rescue Craft.  After about a minute, two more people showed up and as we were preparing to launch, we got the call to stand down.  Turns out the ship that made the call was 20 miles distant-too far for us to be of any real assistance.  They had 3 other vessels close by, so we went back to the radio, to await the outcome.  A few minutes later, a muster roll-call revealed all crew to be safe and the alarm to be false.  Big fucking sigh of relief.  The chances of finding one of us in the water, even on broad daylight are, in fact, very slim, bordering on none.  This was illustrated early last year when one of the crew from one of the ships working with us right now, was lost in broad daylight, surrounded by a fleet of ships.  Rescue craft were even in the water at the time of the incident, the crew member spotted in the water and still he was not recovered.  ever.  So, yesterday was just another reminder that I work in a dangerous and unpredictable environment and that it pays to be vigilant.  I was heartened to see that we repsonded to the radio call, lightening-fast.  I hope if the call is ever for me and not to me, that someone else responds equally fast.  I look forward to crew-x in a few days and God willing, once again, we will all be here to go home.

Peace