End of days

Things are heating up.  Crew-x is less than 10 days away.   End of trip paperwork is piling up, people freaking out over crew-x logistics, canceled flights, etc.  Good times.  There's also a few minor annoyances such as water condensate dripping from the A/C units, everywhere.  Buckets in doorways, on couches and whatnot. 

***

To top it off, the smell of our diesel fuel is permeating the ship.  We're draining and venting one of the big fuel tanks and there is simply no way to avoid the smell.  Personally, I'm happy with it.  I happen to love the smell of gasoline and diesel.  Yeah, I know it's weird, but when I wake up and smell that fuel, it's like manna from heaven.

****

We've got satellite TV onboard.  I don't watch it, except when I pop in to the proper smoking lounge for a quick smokey treat (usually, I head out on the back deck).  Last night I popped in there and actually flipped through the channels.  We get one news channel.  Al Jazeera.  One movie channel. Sky? I think. One sports channel that shows cricket and football (that shit they play in Europe, not Oklahoma).   And finally, the UK version of Discovery.  Rather slim pickings for the boys. 

*****

I'm glad I'm a reader and not a TV watcher.
Note: Reading A short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.  It is wonderful; packed with science, history, betrayal, murder and a guy who thought he could turn his pee into gold and did, in fact, just that (sort of).  Bill takes his readers on an extraordinary journey to discover and understand everything around us and in my opinion, succedes with style, grace and healthy dollup of irony.  I would consider it a must-read for everyone, but especially Blondie, LL and Mr. Budd.  (Dear Mr. Budd, I would bring it home for you but I took it in the sauna too many times and it fell apart.)

******

However, I do occasionally watch a movie on my laptop and I just watched the European version of The "Professional", called "LEON".  Their version is like 30 minutes longer.  In this one, Mathilda is shown accompanying Leon to meet Big Tony, and on several hits, learning how to kill (double-tap to the chest, not the face) as well as them falling in love.  Not sure the extra time actually adds to the film, but it's still damn good.

*******

That's about it from here.........oh!  Yesterday I saw a bunch of whales.  Mother and calf, plus a few stray bulls.  They looked quite happy and content (for whales) 

Ya'll be cool

Spanked

I'm sure the title of the post will draw some new readers.  Sorry to disappoint, but I was simply spanked by the third engineer in PING-PONG.  Bastardo beat me in two games straight, like 21-3 and 21-5.  The quarterfinals are a whole new level that I just don't exist on.  My bad back did not help, either.
****
Nothing much else happening, here.  Had meetings all morning, then paperwork from the meetings.  Just biding my time till crew-x, which is now in jeopardy (of course) due to some mechanical/ops issues.  Shee-it, it wouldn't be crew-x if it wasn't in danger of being canceled, or delayed.  Even if I do make it, I'm flying into Atlanta and it has a bad record of canceled flights/unable to land bullshit, for me. Would rather be coming into Newark, JFK, Dulles, Miami, Houston, or (please, someday!) direct to Minnie.  Seems the weather is always against me in Atlanta.  C'est La Vie... 

ouch

Spanked 0-2 in the first match of the ping-pong quarterfinals.  The old man is feeling............old.

Escape II

Was able to escape again, today.  Back out in the work boat for more underwater filming.  This time we filmed quite a bit, ass the water clarity was much better due to being much farther South of the Congo mouth.  Didn't see any mermaids, but the weather was right fucking beautiful as my limey buddies would say.

Die another little death

Reading the local paper, online, I see a headline that says a student at my son's university died in a car accident.  Passengers were hospitalized.  My heart stopped as I thought about how I haven't been able to get a response from my son via email, or his cell phone for the past few days.  It took me twenty minutes to choke down my fear and open the article to get the details.  Picked up and replaced the phone, a half-dozen times during those long minutes. 

It is never easy being a parent.  Never.

Comments

Caught this link from a Facebook comment, of all places.  Steph has funny friends!  Go check out the comments for the wolf shirt in the link.  Some of them are priceless.

*NSFW*  Naughty words, kids.

Great Day

Went out in the work boat this afternoon.  It was a bit rough, but we managed to do a little filming with the underwater camera.  It was just good to get off the ship and get some fresh air and sun.  Ended up a little seasick from looking down into the water and the camera monitor while bouncing around, but even puking beats flying a desk, any day.  Hope ya'll have a great day. 

Tomorrow is Middle Pirate's birthday, wish I was home for it.

Next up...one of LP's favorite movies

It may be a bit premature, as nothing is signed, sealed and delivered, but it looks like I'll be working in Madagascar next job:)  It's been a long seven months here off the coast of Angola and well, Madagascar sounds like the perfect place to go and forget all this West African nastiness. For those of you that don't know, a short history on the place:

• 160 million years ago - Madagascar is born as it separates from the African mainland
• 80 million years ago - Madagascar breaks away from India
• Around 2000 years ago - Madagascar settled by Indonesians or people of mixed Indonesian/African descent
• December 1894 - France invades Madagascar and takes the capital Tana on October 1, 1895. France loses only 20 men in battle during the campaign but more than 6,000 to disease
• 2005 The Pirate watches the movie and learns that lemurs come from Madagascar.
• June 26th, The Pirate learns he might work in Madagascar and looks up the capital city in the giant Atlas to find it's called Antananarivo, The city of one-thousand warriors and yells "Fuck me!  That's cool!"
  

Antananarivo, The city of one-thousand warriors takes its name from an episode in Malagasy history. When King Andrianjaka, who had called his people the Merina (That can be translated into highlanders) occupied the twelve sacred hills (Ambohitratrimo, Ambohimanga, Ilafy, Alasora, Antsahadita, Ambohimanambony, Antananarivo, Ambohitrabiby, Namehana, Ambohidrapeto, Ambohijafy, Ambohimandranjaka) upon which Analamanga (where the forest is blue) was built, he had his royal palace and stronghold erected. One thousand warriors were quartered there and he called this city Antananarivo. In those days, the Merinas were divided into three castes : Andriana (nobility), Hova (plebeians), and Andevo (labourers).  Nowadays, Antananarivo's population exceeds one million inhabitants and its urban area has considerably grown. Surrounded by vast plains used for rice cultivation, Antananarivo has a Mediterranean climate due to its geographic position (1,400m above sea level).

*All this Malagasy goodness comes from a plethora of sources across the wide-open plains of the wild and wonderful Internet.

 I'm going to have to watch the movie tonight, I guess.

Not your Facebook

Having a conversation about Facebook and other social networking sites today.  I noted that Facebook has a "friends" section, or list and wondering why they also don't have an "ex-friends" list, or "enemies".  You know, Cameron Pillowbiter has sent you an "Enemies" request, or Jason Jackass an "Eat Shit and Die" request.  Instead of sending your enemy a drink, you could send them a little, steaming pile of shit.  A "hate this" option under every post, that sort of thing.

Perhaps I should just start my own anti-social networking site like Fuckyoubook, or Hatester... 

Given the recent indiscretions of a certain politician who was oh so quick to crucify a certain past president for the same sort behavior, I could even start a special site just for politicians called HypocriteSpace, where they can dump on each other for taking bribes, screwing prostitutes, doing drugs, and whatnot until they get caught doing the same thing.   I bet you'd even get those bogus members, you know?  Prostitutes and lobbyists posing as fellow politicians, trying to get you to add them as friend, just so you'll visit their website and negotiate for a blow job, or a favorable vote on gun control.  You could allow them to form and join groups, just like Facebook; Vote Yourself a Larger Salary, Sell a Seat in Congress, What's Wrong With Breaking Campaign Promises?, High Priced Call Girl Lists For the State and Federal Elected, Proud To Be Corrupt, Great places to Get Away and Cheat on the Wife (The Argentina group won't be very popular) and Who Needs Morals? We were Elected. The possibilities are endless!

I think I'm on to something here...

To journey home

Flights for crew-x are out.  Bastards booked me 24 hours later than the rest of the crew and have me going through Charles Fucking De Gaul!  Worst airport in the world:(

Meat, it's whats for dinner

Wil Wheaton tweetpic:

MEAT LOVERS

Tuna and my bloated head

I know a guy named Tuna, not that it's relevant to anything, other than I am surrounded by tuna.

I watched the tuna schooling around the ship again, today.  They are a brilliant, electric silver-blue that looks fantastic in contrast to the deep blue of the ocean.  There are literally tens of thousands schooled up around the ship, endlessly cruising in a circle around the hull.

I've had this theory about my ability to sleep onboard and what affects it. One of the issues is incline.  NASA uses incline to study the effects of weightlessness.  I've checked the meters that track the pitch, roll and heave of the ship.  I'm sleeping head down at an average of 2-4 degrees.  A hard look at the drink dispenser in the mess confirms this-it has a clear, plastic reservoir that illustrates the pitch, roll and heave nicely, when filled with a colorful juice or whatnot.  Hard science, people.  The juice never lies.

Anyway, I think I need to switch my sleeping direction head to foot and alleviate the blood pooling in my head 4-5 hours/night. That cannot be good, can it?

A dab of politics, pinch of history and a dash of religion

Got this from a Senator John McCain Tweet: Obama's Persian Tutorial
It's a damn good read, no matter your opinions on the subject matter.

From here to there

I love this view. Want to be here...


View Larger Map

instead of here.


View Larger Map

Interesting to note from the undersea formation trending from/to the mouth of the Congo, it seems the origin of the river might be tectonic in nature, somehow.

Old man wakes up feeling like death from simply playing 4 games of table tennis

The old man is being very quiet about his wins last night and hoping that he can think of an excuse to not play any tourney matches today.

I feel so bad I'm putting creamer in my coffee for the first time in 35 years.  No, I don't count Baileys as creamer, thank you very much.

Old man takes four in a row! Kids are stunned...

Pummeled victim number two after a quick smoke. These kids are no match for the fat, old smoker. Took the punk in straight sets 21-9, 21-6.

The Pirate is up 2-0...

Time to retire to the sauna.  Smoked my first opponent in the table tennis tourney in straight sets of 21-10, 21-18.  Rubber match my ass.  He was a 24 yr old Chinese kid who held the paddle like backwards, or upside down?   Everybody said the professionals do that, so I tried the same thing.  It worked *shrugs*


OK, I AM sweating like a pig and wheezing like a steam locomotive, though.  This ping pong is NOT for old people...and only five more opponents to go.

where I'm at today

My thoughts tend toward my children, today.  Wish I could see them. 

Happy fathers day to dads everywhere, especially those serving away from home and their children.

Normalcy is not not normal

I've not had a "normal" trip offshore in a long, long time.  I'd forgotten what they're like and in some sort of twisted alter-reality, I find that I don't like it when I don't have multi-million dollar disasters hanging over my head.  I sort of miss the pressure, damn me for a fool.  I also intensely dislike the paperwork, administration, etc., that I have been able to blow off for so long now.  It all makes you feel like a stuffed suit, dancing for the organ grinder back on the beach.  I am up to my ears in procedures, policies, instructions, lists and reports and it's a little mind-numbing, not to mention borrrr-ring. 

However, it's nice to work less than 18 hr shifts and have the energy and time to work out and sauna.  Today I begin the first round (and last for me-I suk) of the ping-pong tournament.  There's a $100 prize up for grabs, but I suspect that one of the many Asian fellows on here is going to kick the shit out of everybody, unless a certain Frenchman can hold his own.  Me, I'll retire to the sauna and get the results in the morning;)

Bomb goes boom

Saturday in Angola. Good times.  ISPS (international ship & port safety) drill.  This time it was a bomb, hidden somewhere onboard.  Naturally, we have to go find and disable it.  Common sense, right?  I mean, if you know you have a bomb onboard, don't immediately make like a hockey player and get the puck out.  No.  We've all seen bombs in the movies, so get out there and cut the red wire, not the blue one.  It always helps to carry a pair of tweezers and a pair of small snips, btw.  And pay no attention to the increasing tempo of the background music-it will stop suddenly when you cut the wire.

Dressed to kill in bright orange, we scoured the ship and eventually found the bomb.  It was an IED located in the hospital-inhuman bastardo terrorists tried to blow up the freaking hospital.  Well, maybe they actually know the medic and then things begin to make more sense...

Anyway, the medic found and disabled the device, so we could head down to the mess and a snack, while watching a particularly gripping presentation on the new version of the ISPS code.  Like I said, good times.

And how was your day?

Save a fly

This is a fine example of why I think PETA are a bunch of idiots.

A Michigan amusement park to aviod

Visited this place a few years back and had a nice time.  Won't be going back.  Ever.

Beginning of the end

Unpacked the rest of my shit this morning and then promptly selected my flights home.  I LOVE these short trips.

Just went topside to have a smoke and catch some rays.  Leaning on the railing, I noticed we are being shadowed by a rather large school of tuna.  Looks like sashimi for dinner.

Temperature is down.  Only a comfortable 80, or so.  Nice change from Africa hot.

Got my old cabin back this trip.  I've been in 3 others during the last three trips.   Every time I head off to my cabin, I wander down a random companionway, forgetting where I'm sleeping.  I have to stand there and think about it.  Woke up this morning totally disoriented.  At first I didn't know where in the world I was, then as I walked out I thought I was in one of my other cabins and went the wrong way toward the instrument room.  Whoops.

Entered the ship's ping-pong tournament despite not being able to play worth a damn.  Figure I'll give the rest of the crew some entertainment.  I'm nice like that...

Saw some kids back home got busted for trying to smuggle some drugs to an inmate in the local prison camp.  Haven't kids today heard of keistering and keeping your mouth shut?   I guess as a society, we're just not teaching our kids the life skills necessary to make in the world.  Damn sure MY kids would do a better job of it if I get sent up.

miles and miles

Have you ever used Microsoft Project?  How about the online project server crap to share a project interactively with others?  I am trying to complete a setup using both and it is killing me.  Buggy-ass shit with lousy documentation:(

On the bright side I've now added another 10 TB of disk space and a couple of file servers to my system and I LOVE the extra space!   I feel like getting inside that space and dancing a jig:)  Too bad it will be all used up in another couple days...

That Dude asked if I get frequent flier miles.  Yes, many.  On many different programs and airlines.  I haven't bothered to join all programs/airlines because, frankly, after traveling for work I have no fucking desire to go anywhere that requires flying and airports/Montezuma's revenge/hotels/buses/bad food/rickshaws/luggage/trains/helicopters/standing in line/ships/ignorant fucks/sampans/dugout canoes.  Soooo, I collect miles from a few programs that I think PW and the kids might use and that's about it.

I once tried to calculate how many million miles I have flown and it quickly got depressing.  Too damn many is the answer.

I happen to know where the geographic opposite to my home is on the other side of the planet.  I've been pretty damn close to it.  More useless information...

Day 3

Well I'm all settled in on the ship, now.  I've been pretty sick since arriving in Luanda, but felt better this morning when I awoke.  Yesterday was kind of a blur-did very little other than begin training the new guy and attending a fire drill.  Still need to finish unpacking and then dive into work.  My other employee has been taking care of the work and completing an upgrade to our computer system and thankfully, has done a bang-up job.   We had a serious injury yesterday-one of the guys got a huge fishhook embedded in his thumb, requiring the medic to operate to remove it.  That's the price we have to pay for sashimi and I for one, am willing to pay it.  We lost a 4-foot yellow fin tuna, yesterday, too.  Hopefully, that is a sign of the tuna to come!

Back in the saddle

I'm back in my office chair.  You all know the sagas and stories to get here-it was all the same, a lousy 4 1/2 day commute.  Arrived here dead tired and sick. Think I ate some bad shit on one of the flights.

Highlights of the trip. 

Flying from Minnie to London with some lady and her kid next to me.  They ended up; her head on my shoulder, his head in my arm pit, drooling on my lap (him, not her).  They woke up after a few hours (I was half out of it, vegetating in my headphones and could've cared less) and she was mortified.  He decided we were now buddies and kept poking me when I wasn't looking.

Walking in a half-hour circle in London Heathrow, twice.

Trying to sleep on the freezing granite floor in Heathrow, hoping for a quick catnap-NOT.

Getting a business class seat while everyone else from 4 different ships (not just mine) was seated in cattle class.  I razzed them pretty good, but one guy got me back by sneaking in and whacking me on the head every time he got up to pee.  He pees a lot...

Stopping to rap with the Bose kiosk guy in Minnie.  He offered me 200 bucks for my 300 dollar, 5 yr old, broken QC2's.  YES!  Picked up the 350 dollar QC3's for a lousy 150.   Love the on-ear, smaller, lighter, rechargeable next generation phones.  They rock and after about 35 hours of playing, have yet to wear out the supposedly 25 hour battery.

Finding out my buddy got deported from Angola for the wrong stamp in his passport.  I have the same stamp...

Spending only 2 hours in the cage this time around!

Traveling 12,000 miles and 4 1/2 days, only to find out the Wings fucking lost.

Hearing rumors of my next job possibly being Columbia, or Peru-two places I've not yet worked.  Panama Canal, here I come...

Leaving on a jet plane...

It's that day, again.  Crew-x.  Heading back to Angola today.  I've been sick for the last two days and nothing is done.  Soooo, I've got a ton of things to do to get ready for work.  I hate these days:(   I still need to pack, charge batteries, print out the legal docs for Angola as well as handover notes and get my ass over to Mr. Budd's to grab some mp4's and DVD's.  Packing is the worst, though.  Once again, I have to figure out how to pack up my whole life in one, soft bag that weighs less than 7 KG's.

A day in town

Cool and misty today.  Almost raining.   Took LP to school for her last half day, then picked her up for some father/daughter time.  We went shopping, checking out jewelry and canoes, then I got a quick haircut.  After that, we braved the downtown construction to hit the Chinese restaurant.  I had spicy, sesame chicken, she had crab rangoons and satay pork.  Before heading to the chiropractor, we stopped at Pete's so LP could see the great, spiral staircase stringer.  She was duly impressed and wants to see the changes inside, too:)  I got a GREAT adjustment and he noted that my shit was way twisted and tight as a snare drum.  We also bought LP a half dozen chapter books.  Looks like a night's reading for her-she is finishing the first book right now.  Tells me she's on page 62 after less than an hour's reading.  She takes after me and it looks like her reading addiction is going to get expensive.  That's about it.  We're home and it sucks outside so I'm off to do a little crew-x paperwork and maybe take a nap...

Slash and burn

Spent the day slashing and burning the back 40.  Did it all by hand and I am one sore bastard.  PW too, is down for the count.  We are nearly ready for fill dirt, though.  Just need to take out a few stumps and one more day of burning.  Please let me find somebody who wants to dump free fill dirt here...

The end is near...

Sitting in the back yard burning brush.  Just got my flights for the upcoming crew-x.  Gonna miss this place.

Fire pit

Last couple days have been good weather-warm and fairly sunny.  Yesterday, I burned scrap wood and brush in the back of my property for about 6-7 hours, then spent half the night trying to get the coals out.  I was actually out in the back spraying the fire pit with a hose at 2am, in my pj's.  While I was burning in the back yard, my dog was shitting in the dining room.   He's sick.  He's had to go out to crap about 30 times in the last 2 days.  Good dog that he is, he runs over to the neighbors and shits his brains out...

Today I cut up more scrap for the fire pit and wisely kept the dog out with me.  Highlight of the day was a full mug of coffee dumping into my laptop.  I took it apart, wiped it down, shook it out and left it apart for about 10 hours.  Put it back together tonight and it works fine...

Tomorrow? More yard work and maybe I'll take LP out for a bike ride.  Crew-x is looming.

The doors of perception

It was surreal.  A 300 ft hallway with 150 doors in it.  A hallway full of doors.  Only 3 led anywhere.  One at each end went into rooms and one in the middle, led outdoors.  the rest were stacked against the walls of this abnormally long hallway to nowhere, in an old hospital.  My task today was to load these doors into my pickup and take them to a concession stand in a park, stacking them in the backroom.  Each door was custom decorated by someone in the community and generally featured somebody's grandmother.  So I carried doors with old ladies on them all day.  It was slightly more than weird.  A kid from my alma mater and Mr. Budd's oldest boy helped me.  When it was over, this artist lady fed us pizza and pop in the park.  It was just a strange day.

Afterward, we dropped off PW at home and I let LP drive me around in the woods for an hour.  She drives like a maniac, but I suppose if you give a seven yr-old free reign with a two-ton pickup, she's bound to go a little crazy.

The continuing voyages...

Replaced the broken mirror on my pickup, today.  Thank you Mr. Budd-it took me a fair bit to get around to it, but I finally did and I'm glad I waited till it was hot out.  Had to glue the trim piece on.  Also had to pry off the inside door panel and that would've shattered in the cold for sure.

Also managed to haul off all the scrap metal that's accumulated around the yard, including the cast-iron tub, which was one heavy bastard to get into the truck.  Got five bucks for it at the scrap yard.

Tonight my son called and asked if I wanted to watch the new Star Trek movie with him.  I heard it was good, but as a die-hard trekkie I had a few reservations, among them, different actors for the crew and an ingrained fear of continuity loss.  This last bit is unique to Star Trek, in that all good fans know the universe, it's timeline and the fact that any storyline is constrained by what has come before as well as what is yet to come.  In this, I was not disappointed, as JJ Abrams and Co used a classic ST workaround.  The only thing I was a bit dissapointed in was that they left the door open so that a sequal would not be constrained.  However, all in all it was a fast-paced, rollicking good old Star Trek ride and I loved it.  Oh yeah, and the new actors?  Not bad.

Ended the night writing this with a glass of milk and a few, blue oreos.  No milk at sea, you know?

BLC

Slept in today.  Glorious.  Heading out for Spring cleaning in the yard after a couple of bacon, lettuce and cheese sandwiches.  Tons of scrap metal to get rid of, but I happen to have a scrap yard right around the corner:)  Bought a new fitting for pumping up tires.  Opened it up today and found it's a piece of shit and of course made in China.  Fucking HATE Wally World!

Home again

Today is Memorial Day.  It was first enacted to honor Union soldiers fallen in the Civil War.  Formerly known as Decoration Day, it was expanded to include our fallen heroes from all wars, after WWI.  Please say a prayer for them and keep those still serving in your thoughts and prayers as well.

Had a wonderful weekend with LL and the Budd clan.  Waterfalls, music, good food, kids and some much-needed peace.  Even saw a familiar face from 14 years ago.  It was a grand time on the North shore of Lake Superior.  Stopped for fast food on the way home which was a bad move.  LP ended up sick, almost puking.  Both PW and I feel the same.  Oddly enough it was the dog who blew chunks, spewing some pretty foul shit in the mud room.  I managed to not do the same while scooping it up. Guess he had a rough weekend while we were away??

Just now I watched Deadliest Catch where a boat sank, loosing 7 guys.  Kind of knocked me down a peg, reminding me of the choices I've made and a former crew member recently lost at sea.

Still, it's good to be home and we had a weekend to remember.  I'm tired and a bit queasy, but quite happy. Take care, people.

Vacation

Off to the Great North Woods with Mr. Budd and LL and a passel of kids.  Hope ya'll have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Peace

An excellent adjustment

Today PW and I got his and hers adjustments at the Chiropractor.  Awesome.  He twisted me up like a pretzel, crushed my lower back and then knuckled the shit out of my fucked up neck.  I feel pretty damn good and PW reports the same.  PW made a killer roast beast for dinner and I've been watching UFC's Ultimate Knockouts for an hour and half.  Good fight at nine, too!

Also starting to make plans and talk about the upcoming weekend with Mr. Budd and LL.   Oooh, sweet vacation!

Dinner with the boys

Tried to fix our busted washing machine.  Despite this machine being the second time I've had this model and despite fixing it and it's predecessor several times, I could not figure out what was wrong.  Not to be outsmarted, I whipped out washer number three.  Yep, I had a spare washing machine-same make and model. Best to be prepared...

Had the Budd boys over for dinner.  Burgers on the grill, PW's famous tuna slad, corn on  the cob and baked beans.  Pigged out and then took a couple of muscle relaxers for a bad kink in my neck.  I'm fading fast...

Home again, but where's Spring?

So, I'm home.  It's fucking snowing.  Snowing.  I just left Africa and now it's snowing.  I'm not excited.

It is, however, good to be home.  Snuggling with PW and LP, a blazing wood stove, walking in the woods and coffee with Mr. Budd after dropping LP off at school.  I really missed home.  Next weekend it's off to hang in the woods with Mr. Budd, LL and companies.  Going to have to stock up on several bottles of Baileys, again:)

HOME!

Sorry folks.  I made it home two days ago, but I've been a bit under the weather since getting home.  I wrote this along the way:


I've made it to Amsterdam and found a comfortable seat in the Internet lounge, but not logged in-too damned expensive here.

Crew-x was a bit different this time right from the beginning.  We used the jet-powered rescue craft to transfer people from my ship to a waiting supply boat.  It's rigged with container accomadations on the back deck and they have some small comforts for us to while away the hours with; movies, wii and a small billiards table made out of plywood-even the balls are plywood disks and the sticks are old mop handles.  What a glamorous life I lead.  Sleeping in a steel box and playing plywood pool:)

The 24-hr trip into Luanda, Angola was largely uneventful.  I slept a fair bit, though fitfully with 8 other guys tromping in and out, slamming doors, climbing to the top bunks, snoring and breaking wind as us sailors do.  Mostly I read a couple books and paced the back deck, or sat around telling stories in the mess while drinking too much instant coffee.

Arriving in port, in Luanda, they only kept us in the cage for a couple of hours.  It was still long with no tire swing, wheel to run on, nor a water bottle hanging down from the side.

Leaving the cage, we drove through and around Luanda.  I wish I could convey the wreck and ruin I see every time I am there.  It is astounding and horrifying at the same time.  This time, we drove South along the harbor, then around to the East behind the embassy hill.  I saw much of this same scenery on the way in nearly six weeks ago, but it was still fascinating.  Instead of heading straight East up the bluffs toward the airport, we skirted the South end of town to a private guest house, supposedly just a few minutes drive from the airport.

This place was walled off with armed guards and boasted it's own generator, to avoid the frequent and long brownouts that plague the rest of the city.  It was very clean, spartan and quiet.  One of the crew this time was living in Luanda and had a car.  He took a few people down the road to grab a couple hundred bucks worth of beer, olives and something that looked like chips, called "Salty Cracks".  Lots of drunken jokes followed this revelation.  Anyway, about 10 of us sat in the courtyard next to the meat freezer, where the manager/camp counselor let us store the beer and managed to get pretty damn drunk over about 4 hours.  Had a grand time except for the Chief Gunner stealing my shoes, shirt and glasses left on the table when I split to shower.  Just before leaving we were given great tubs of soft rolls, salami and bananas for a quick meal.

While lazily boarding the bus for the airport, I got a call from the shore agent, screaming in a panic that the traffic was bad and we were going to miss our flight out.  Figured him for a git, but rousted the others (running up and down the hallways yelling for the other guys to get a fucking move on, much to the dismay of the manager and other guests).  In less than 10 minutes on the road, we realized he was right.  The seven-minute ride took us 2 agonizing hours, of stop and go, potholes, fender-benders and stalled cars.  It was a nightmare.  Especially drunk.  imagine being drunk on bus where the driver SLAMS on the breaks every 10-30 seconds, for two hours.  I felt like a pool ball and thought for sure I was going to piss myself the last half-hour.

We made the airport and I was the last one on the A-300 bound for Frankfurt.  We barely made it and Immigration was a PAIN IN THE ASS this time.  The only bright spots were running into some guys from one of my old ops, back in the GoM and then managing to slip around the line for the guy with rubber gloves who wants to see if you're keistering any Angolan currency.  I DO NOT LIKE THIS GUY.  Big fingers and a bad attitude...

Flight to Frankfurt sucked.  Food sucked.  No sleep, bad fucking hangover.

We also landed late and I missed my connection to Amsterdam.  Lufthansa re-booked me on a later flight and I re-booked my KLM flights back to the states once I got here to Amsterdam.

So, I bolted into town to take in a little of the local flavor and then caught the express train back here to the airport.  I've got just enough time to close this out, catch a smoke and get to the other terminal and my gate.  Unfortunately, I won't get in till midnight tonight and I've already been up more than 24.  Good times.

Well, I'm just about to land in Minnie.  As usual, Northwest's food and service both leave something to be desired.  US carriers are cheap-ass mother fuckers when compared to the rest of the world-at least in food and service.

I've got 5 hours in Minnie and not a clue as to what I'm going to do.  Maybe the Mall of America?

Minnie was boring, I stayed in the airport, had a meal, read a book and walked a lot.   My flight was delayed an hour d/t mechanical problems and finally, long after midnight, Mr. Bud kindly picked me up and drove me home to PW and LP.  

I've been sick on and off for two days, I think, due to the malaria medicine I have to take, but I refuse to let it take me out.  Looking forward to the weekend!

Bound for home

I'm outta here in less than an hour.  24 hours back to Luanda, then another 24 to get back across the pond and back home.

Peace

Flooding onboard-SAVE MY LAPTOP!

One of the things I never expected to see while sitting at my computer here on the ship was a wave.  You see, I cannot see outside from where I sit.  However, tonight I saw a wave roll past my workstation.  We flooded.  Mind you, we're sitting here with millions of dollars in computer equipment and a wave of water rolled into the room.  For a moment, nobody even moved we were so stunned.  I've ridden out many a hurricane and never once saw water come into the instrument room, but today, in a small rain squall and marginal seas, we took on a shitload of water.  Soooo, we've spent the last 3 hours mopping, wet-vaccing, unplugging pipes, drying off wires and cables, boxes of equipment, etc.  I've said before that if you're out here long enough, nothing really surprises you anymore.  I guess I was wrong.

Robert Plant is not a mixer and Alison Krauss a bowl

Less than 24 to go.  I hope.  No word on my oppo and whether or not he has been deported, etc.

Been a shit trip and I am ready to get the hell outta Dodge.

The only high point was yesterday coming across some new music.  Grabbed a few tidbits like Deep Purple live on the King Biscuit Flour Hour (remember THAT shit?), but I also snagged a real gem that I've been looking for and this ought to make Mr Bud happy- ROBERT PLANT/ALISON KRAUSS-RAISING SAND.  Ooooh, man is it good.  Listening to it right now.  All I need is something to convert it from MA4 (Fucking Itunes) to MP3 so I can add it to my Windows Media Player and not have to use VLC.  VLC is great for movies and while it's better than Apple Quicktime, it's sound quality leaves something to be desired.

Anyway, for anyone living in a cave who hasn't heard this album, or seen the video-you gotta get you some.

Speaking of music, I've discovered my musical taste is either very ecclectic, or very poor.  Yesterday I head down to the mess and grab a bite to eat.  Sitting at a table, I can hear music playing in the galley-the galley staff usually has something cranked up.  I can't hear it well, but the drums are great.  Rockin beat and I spend 10 minutes tapping away to the drums while I chow down.  Finally, I get up and make my way to the galley to dump my plate.  There is no music- only the giant, commercial mixer running and banging away on a metal bowl...

Notice

While I'm having a crap day I thought I'd relate some things posted on my ship's notice board:



1.  Notice: Due to how difficult it is to get off this ship, if you are taking medication, bring enough to last TWO trips.  (hoo boy, does that suck)

2. News article from Angola: Angolan children being eaten by crocodiles...

NOTE:  LL- STOP!    DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!!!!!




















3. News Article from Australia: Eaten Alive!  Mice chew war vet's head. (I really hope you stopped...)

Normally, it's a pretty benign notice board, but now it really catches your eye as you walk by on the way to the mess.  I prefer the old, boring notice board...

In which I don another hat

One of the guys on here is getting off today to attend a course (unlike me who had to stay on two weeks ago!!!!) and I have taken over his job, in addition to mine.  In some things, he answers to me and in others, I answer to him.  I am now thoroughly confused and fighting with myself over all things.  There is the hope that his regular relief will show in two days.  Otherwise I may end up murdering myself over his job, or mine-I'm not quite sure, yet.

Blowing dead monkeys

Shite.

Even after an unexpected, extra two weeks and while facing a possible several MORE weeks out here, I just found out that even if I get off on time, I won't get off on time, but at least a day late, maybe two.  Can you even follow that?   I can't.

Sometimes this business is an almighty pain in the fucking ass. 

And

West Africa blows dead monkeys.

Small town

You know you live in a small town when your local paper's headline is that some guy remodeled his kitchen.

That's not my hometown, but it's close enough to give me a chuckle.  My town is too small to have a paper.  In fact, it's too small to be a town and is actually just a village, so maybe I shouldn't be laughing at them...

Rumors

The rumor mill will grind whatever grist required and as we approach our final days of the trip, it would seem we are that grist.  Word has it that a competitor's ship just attempted a crew-x and half the oncoming crew was deported for a particular situation that OUR oncoming crew also faces.  Trouble on the horizon...

That was the icing on today's cake.  The cake itself was working 9 rather shitty hours before PW, LP and MP called to remind me it was my birthday.  How does one forget things like one's own birthday?

I need to get out of here.

Stowaway! (part 2)

Life goes on, much as it always does out here.  A phone call told me PW, LP and MP have gone off on vacation for the weekend.  No word on what happened to The Pirate Dog, henceforth known as PD.  We continue to watch the swine flu soap opera from afar and are preparing for our oncoming crew by setting out hand sanitizing lotion, so they don't infect us when they arrive.

Today, we had a second stowaway drill.  We were given a second chance to find the little bastard who remained hidden for an hour an half, until we were forced to give up and beg him to come out over the ship's intercom.  This time, we nailed him in eleven minutes.  He was found hiding inside a box in our dry stores.  Didn't stop me from climbing all over the ship, sweating my ass off in the African heat, however.

We officially talked about crew-x.  So far, no word that our opposites are going to make it, or if they will sit home an extra two weeks as we did last month...

Bigger, faster, better

I want one of these for work!!!!

Currently, I utilize (28) dual-core 1.3 GhZ 466  parallel nodes that feed the binary bits and bobs to about 20TB of raid disk

This prick boasts 181,504 AMD Opteron cores in 26,604 nodes and hits a top end of 4 teraflops, or 54 trillion mathematical calculations per second, placing the Oak Ridge (TN) Cray XT among the most powerful open scientific systems in the world.  It's got over 300 Terabytes memory and 10,750 Terabytes disk space. 

It even runs under SuSE Linux and has a cool mural on the blade cabinets...

Holy crap, I am in love.

A pirate's miscellany

The days out here are beginning to drag.  Feeling a little like I have the flu, as well.

High point of the day was a long conversation about coconut plantations, their products and how they are sold in the Philippines.

Asked for some VCO (Virgin Coconut Oil) for my scalp-it gets VERY dry onboard.

Watched part 2 of the old Lonesome Dove mini-series, last night.

Rumours of Alaska in my immediate future are once again surfacing.  Back to where the old, original blog was born........hmmmm.

Had nothing but veggies and water for lunch.  PW would be shocked.  Ate too many olives, though.

Does anyone out there intentionally mis-spell words just to spite spell-checker?  No?  I'm probably just too close to my computers and a little touched in the head.

Conference call coming up so I gotta split.

Later folks

GREEN

We're getting supplied today.  The old supply boat drops back and we rope it in as we keep sailing.  Then, we crane over all the goodies.  Equipment, food, you name it.

At lunch, a fresh salad suddenly popped up on the cold table.  BAM!  We nailed that bastard.   The onions were so bitter that they had to picked out of the salad-totally not edible, bit otherwise, it was freaking awesome to eat real, live green leaves.  It's really hard to get decent food out here off the coast of Angola, let me tell you.

I received some much supplies for my end of this operation and that was nice, too.  Other than that, it has been pretty much business as usual.  12 days to go....

Peace

Fix yer shit

Swine Flu?   Fix that shit before I get home, people!

 I've got massive amounts of AIDS, malaria, cholera and all that shit do deal with here and I really don't need to come home to the freaking swine flu.  And the dang Malarone I already have to take for malaria makes me sleepy and fucks with my appetite.  And the dreams?  Forget it.  Like acid...

So, get on the stick and I mean now!  I want to come home in 2 weeks.

the best it gets

Spent over an an hour online with my oldest daughter.  Trying to install a music widget on her facebook page, chatting back and forth on Google chat.  It wasn't what most would consider quality time, but I'll take what I can get as I float around a few hundred miles off the coast of Africa.

two weeks to go...

Today was supposed to be crew-x for me.  Some of the others left.  I consoled myself with some sashimi for lunch.  It was heavenly.  I used a little more wasabi than usual, as sort of a pick-me-up.  We were supposed to have a stow-away drill today.  A chance at redemption in the form of a second shot at finding the bastard that managed to stay hidden for over an hour until we begged him to come out over the ship's intercom.  However, the drill was cancelled due to work on the in-sea gear.

Boredom has been staved off with small system issues and a bunch of smiling new faces as this mid-trip crew-x completes.  I am, however, slightly homesick and tired of dealing with other things onboard, this trip.

I have no good books to read.

Shipboard daydreams

Friend from the Philippines: "I bought a coconut tree plantation.  I can plant other kinds of trees and harvest their wood."
Me: "Plant pineapple trees.  You can harvest Pina Coladas."


We both daydream for a while....

Celebration time, come on!

No, it's not time for the Commodores.  I celebrated the official word that I have to stay onboard for another two weeks by working nineteen hours straight.  Then, sometime after I finally crawled off to my rack and passed out, my cabin phone rang.  It was one of my people waking me up to solve a problem.  It seems I told them I had a solution but didn't feel like doing it and hung up.  Guess I don't do the middle of the night very well.

Today, we ran into a mess of fishing gear which tangled our shit and ripped some of it off, possibly.  Not a good day, by any measure.

Going nowhere

I'm officially going nowhere.  My relief didn't get his Angolan visa, dammit.  Stuck till next month and it sucks to be me.

I'm not angry, but I sort of wish a few Somali pirates would board, just so I could work the kinks out...

trapped!

Looking grim.  Seems I may be trapped here for another 2 weeks plus.  The final verdict comes within hours and I am not hopeful.  Damn.  Damn.  Damn.

Blizzard?

According to the NWS in Flagstaff, AZ (where else?) the origin of the the word "blizzard" stems from it's use to describe a cannon shot, or volley.  It was first used to describe a snowstorm in the 1870's by an Iowa newspaper.

And there you go.

No blizzards in Africa

I'm missing the great April blizzard of 2009 back home:( 

It's 105 degrees here, still.

At least the sashimi is good.

Chow

Had sashimi tonight.  Yellowfin tuna, pulled out of the sea only 20 minutes prior. Fa-huck me.  Pounds of it.

Also found out that my opposite has not gotten his visa and I may be stuck on here another 2.5 weeks. I'm off to burn off the fish and bad mood with bastard of a workout.  Later.

Can't resist..

Somebody just ended up here by Googling "I just woke up and my balls hurt".  Poor fucker.

NOT before coffee

Chaos has ruled the ship, today.  I got whacked with problems, pre-coffee.  Again.  That pretty much set the tone for the day and put me off my game.

I managed one, or two minor miracles, but not enough to make the day a success.  After about 6 hours, I needed to break the cycle and decided to bring my computer system down.  First, I killed my PC and hauled it off to the tech shack, where I gutted it, cleaned it and reseated the cards and boards.  Then I shut down all my work stations, cleaned the cable runs, desks, floor and re-cabled everything much neater.  Moved my PC from on the floor under my desk, to up on the desk behind the monitor.

That and a shift change broke the spell.  Things are a bit more orderly and back on track.  I've got the speakers wired to my laptop and the tunes rocking, again.

No word on the upcoming crew-x, but I'm hopeful visas, flights, helicopters, ships and whatnot, will all fall into place by the end of the week.   *Fingers crossed*

Oh yeah, I just got an instant message from a guy in South Africa who said he just sent me another 10 terabytes of disk space...Wooo Hooo!

THAT makes my day.

 I wish you all peace, love and harmony.  You know, like a song from the 60's.

Fire drill, cheese sandwich and bad gas

The trip is dragging on, painfully.  It's a blessing that I will (hopefully) be getting off next week. 

Today we had a fire drill.   The fire was forward, over the fuel tanks.  I had to lay out hose across the heli-deck, for one of the fire teams.  It was kind of a yawner, other than a bent flange on the nozzle, making it difficult to connect.  Gave it to the engineer at the debrief.  Then, we watched a couple of videos.  One was a short clip of a huge fucking sperm whale checking out a wellhead, caught on film by an ROV.  Pretty awesome.  The other had something to do with a monkey fucking a basketball.  I love QHSE videos.

This afternoon, I began my handover notes:)

Also this afternoon, I ate a camembert cheese sandwich, in keeping with Obama's call for Americans to embrace their mediocrity and acknowledge the dominance of Europe and the rest of the world.  Tomorrow, I will eat chilis for breakfast, rejoicing in the fact that we bend over backwards for illegal immigrants and inept goverments cowering in fear of drug lords.  Lunch?  Plain rice sprinkled with melamine and lead, celebrating years of impotent trade agreements with China and their 25-year domination of the American market for tainted food, drywall and baby products.  I call it the "Not only the French are Yellow" Diet and it already gives me bad gas, just like that South Beach bullshit.  Ya'll have a nice day, eh?

Porn For Women

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Sarabande

Had one of those days where I just wanted to pack it in and quit this job and this god-awful shitty existence, trapped in a floating prison off the coast of West Africa.  I wanted to run screaming from work and not look back, but I can't run away.  I'm fucking stuck here, even if I quit.  Even if I launched the jet boat and hauled-ass for shore, I would run out of gas long before I reached the coast.  No, I could quit and then spend another week living at work.  Fuck.

I'll sit in the sauna reading a book for an hour and feel somewhat better in the morning, but GODDAMMIT, I just can't get away from it when things get ugly.

In other news I ate some eggplant tonight at dinner.

Bad day

Holy shit what a bad day.  Cannot wait to get off this tub.

crap

Absolute crap day.  Nothing worse than dealing with personnel issues:(

Dang

This morning's email from LL has a link to Bonnaroo and I go check out the artists.  Bad move.  I wanna GO!  A show featuring The Mars Volta, Elvis Costello, Bela Fleck, Lucinda Williams, Robert Earl Keen Jr., Phish, NIN, David Byrne, Al Green, Paul Okenfeld and the great Merle Haggard, and a host of others.  Dang.

Not to be totally disappointed, I realized that I can simply have my own Bonnaroo, here.  It aint live, but it beats a two by four upside the head.

Lucinda Williams is headlining.  She'll be followed by David Byrne and The Mars Volta for the morning show.

/Offforcoffeeb4davidstartsup

Space Junkies of the world rise up

A smorgasbord of space images, from the folks at NASA.  My current favorite is the moon panorama.

Music

So by now you all know I get a bit obsessed with my digital music collection.  I happen to think it's normal when I work and listen to music 12-20 hours a day, seven days a week out here, but whatever.  Last night I completed rating my entire collection: 1,177 artists, 17,688 songs.  Rated every one of those bastards.  I was quite pleased with myself when I hit the rack last night.  Today, I popped up my 5 stars and hit shuffle in Media Player.

It suddenly plays only about 50 of the 4,000-odd 5-star tunes.  It also plays a handful that aren't 5-star.  WTF?   I hate Media Player.

***
For any Yoopers out there:
A guy from lower Michigan instant messaged a Filipino guy working in my office.  I had the Filipino call him a troll:)

Happy Easter

Easter onboard.  Not much fun, really.  It's 105 degrees and NOT spring-like at all.

Last year we awoke to find Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies just outside our cabin doors.  Not sure who pulled that off, but it was hokey and funny and very thoughtful.

This year we awoke to find the toilets weren't working.  We had seafood for lunch and then a fire drill.  For the drill we shook the kinks out of the port and stbd hoses abeam on the boat deck and fired those puppies up, out on the heli-deck.  We had a race to see who could get their hose laid out and charged the fastest.  It was...well, it was better than sitting at my desk looking at numbers and squiggly lines.  The high point for me came when the Chief gunner and three other guys manned the hose and practiced moving.  You have to put one hand on the guy in front of you and call a cadence as you move, so you maintain the right spacing and keep your feet.  I told the Chief they looked like a real ugly boy band.  He threatened me with the hose but I laughed and laughed.

Now, it's back to the grindstone, missing my family and friends.  I hope all of you are home and having a wonderful Easter holiday.  And the picture?  My favorite Easter Sunday, back in 2003 in Tamarack City, when we walked up to Hungarian Falls in the mist and the fog, exploring the woods and waterfalls, jumping in puddles, getting cold and wet and having a blast.

Another PSA

I've been thinking about another Google search that brought someone here-toluene huffing.  I'm not against mind-altering substances in general, but if you're thinking about going down that road I would like to offer up a little personal experience on the subject.  No, I didn't spend my youth sucking on a wet sock inside a paper bag, thank you.  I did, however, have a next-door neighbor who did.  We lived in adjacent apartments and by default, I spent several months breathing the shit whenever I was home and I can say it utterly befuckles the mind.  But I don't wish to speak of my nervous ticks and hallucinations, rather I would just describe what continued huffing did to my neighbor.

Not long after I moved in, he came over to make sure I wasn't with the US Government.  You see, they were beaming microwaves at his head in order to keep him from contacting the mothership, or his home planet.  He dressed like a pirate from the 17th century.  He wore a diving mask lined with tin foil and flippers while driving his motorcycle.  His apartment contained a giant, working communicator.  I mean it lit up, made noises and sparked a lot.  I'm not sure if it would actually communicate with the mothership, but it spoke volumes to me, especially after I'd been home for a few hours, sucking up this guy's toluene fumes.  There were days I was sure it would work, if only the microwaves would stop.

The final thing I would like to relate to those wanna-be huffers is the story of my roommate's birthday.  We drank a lot of beer and smoked a lot of dope, as you should on your birthday.  Oh, and lets not forget the fumes from next door.  Anyway, all this impacted my roommate pretty hard and unbeknownst to him, his appendix was slowly leaking (it later burst).  This got him very sick at about 1am.  He went out on the balcony overlooking the parking lot and puked his guts out. Right into the motorcycle helmet our neighbor had left hanging upside-down over the sissy bar on the back of his chopper.  Filled it.

The next morning I had the distinct pleasure of watching Mr. pirate/alien huffer walk up to his chopper and put on his helmet.  He drove off with puke running down his face, totally unaware, or uncaring of the fact.  Everything else aside, THAT is why you should never, ever huff.

/offtothemothership

The little old sailor that lived in a shoe...

PW and I have often remarked on ugly houses as we are driving and spot a particularly bad one, whether it be the color, or the architecture.  A fellow pirate just sent me this link for ugly ships and  I must confess that I've never really thought of any ship I've been as ugly, but after seeing the ships on the site, I can well imagine that I could think of such.  Imagine my surprise to find the two newest ships in my own fleet shown on the site.  And yes, they are both butt-ugly.  The site admin compares them to shoes.   Designer shoes, but nonetheless, shoes.

PSA

Going through my statcounter page for this blog I see that yesterday, no less than 3 different people googled "layover in Amsterdam how to get to brothel".  It warms my heart to see that this blog is also functioning as a public service, providing information to people in need.  If I wasn't clear a few posts back, it is a simple matter of following the signs for the train and passing through passpport control and customs.  Once you get to the terminal above the trains, there are train schedules posted all over, along with diagrams.  There are also a bunch of kiosks to buy your ticket.  Get the express train direct into Amsterdamn.  It takes about 20 minutes, one way, so you need 40 minutes, plus time for your business, plus another 30 minutes to clear passport control and customs on the way back to your gate.  The train dumps you right there at the red-light/hash bar district.  You have less than 2 blocks to walk to get whatever it is that floats yer boat.  The mind-altering stuff is found on the menus and posted on the walls.  The um, livelier fare can be window-shopped from the sidewalk.  Being married, I wouldn't know anything beyond the window-shopping, but I'm sure ya'll can figure it out for yourselves when you get there.  This has been a public service announcement from the proprietors of Addled Mind and Idle Hands, in connection with The Pirate, who does not ever operate off the coast of Somalia and will not be kidnapping your husbands, sons and brothers for gold.  We will now return to our regular programming.
***

Last night I worked a couple hours late. About 2 hours later I wandered back in to check on something and all hell broke loose.  Ended up having to work another 7 freaking hours.  Feel like crap today.  Still, we are making some progress and the stress level is exponentially lower this trip.
***
The extra hours allowed me to finally complete the rating of my 6,000 new songs.  I now have a kick-ass, 5-star rating playlist that fucking rocks.  I've been listening to it on shuffle today and it like somebody dug around in my head and created the ultimate radio station just for me.  It changes from Metallica's Sandman to Aquarious/Let the Sun Shine In to Billy Preston's Will it Go Round in Circles to Brad Paisely doing Ticks and rounds things out with Crossfade, Linkin Park or maybe the Partridge Family.  It makes me laugh and smile all day:)  If you're curious, or one of the three people (you know who you are) that get up and use this site as a radio station, you can go to my Last.fm page, browse the charts, or check out my library, and play most of my tunes from either one.  The tunes on here are limited and it will take a lot of work to encorporate the newest additions to my personal library.
***
The weather, which has been sort of cloudy, cool, rainy and windy has turned the corner and it is once again AFRICA HOT here.  I'm bugging out early to get some sun and rest.  Ya'll be cool.

Sailors beware

As a sailor, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm superstitious.  Sometimes very much so and never more so than when it comes to crew-x.  So, I wouldn't mention that I'm going to get off the ship very early this trip, but I've already had to tell PW and if I'm to be jinxed, well, I've already done it.  So, yes, I have just worked out the particulars of leaving here VERY early, in as little as two weeks.  I've got a workshop that previously scheduled for early May, long before my next crew-x was moved back to mid-May.  If all goes well, I'll be out of here on or about the 25th of this month, giving me lots o time to get back to the states and make my workshop in Houston.  Plan on taking PW and LP with me, so I was REALLY hoping to make it home and now, it looks like I'll not only make it, but have an extra two weeks and a bit with the family:)

On a totally unrelated note, our honey comes from China and smells like chemicals.  It has a date produced (do the little communist worker bees punch a time clock and have quotas?) and an expiration date (honey does not expire and can, in fact last thousands of years).

Yesterday, we had a discussion about the wii game, all it's little gadgets and how you have to actually MOVE your body to play it.  I noted that I won't be getting one unless they come out with a Wii bed and a line of sex games.

Some things just never change

So what have we learned in 2 millennia???

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should
be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands
should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt.  People must
again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

                                                        ~ Cicero -  55 BC
Evidently nothing...

CMX - MSP - LHR - LIS - LUA

So, I've neglected the blog in favor of a little work and sleep since arriving a few days ago.  How I got here follows, if the title of the post makes no sense...wrote this along the way, last week...

"I'm somewhere 37,000 feet above the African plains.  I've not slept in 48 hours, but am hopeful that I'll find a place to lay my head in Luanda in another 8 hours, or so.

Spent 4 hours in Minnie.  Did the usual, Chinese food, a hunk of gourmet chocolate from the Godiva-type store and a smoke down by the buses between C and G terminals.  Counted 223 laps around the plane while the rest of the cattle slept. 

London Heathrow was old, dirty and smelled bad.  I don't think that the current and massive upgrade it's receiving will be enough.  Some corridors are like caves and while things generally go smoothly there, I sometimes wonder why I hate Paris and Charles De Gaul so much.  At least it doesn't smell.

As I flew into Lison, Portugal I spent some measure of time taking it in through the window.  The city and countryside were beautiful.  The city only lost that apeal in the last 100 feet before touchdown, when a McDonald's flashed past and the spell was broken.  Sorry Lisbon, but you are now no different than Detroit, or Cleveland.

After reaching my connecting gate in Lisbon, I found there was no place to smoke.  Had to sneak backwards along my route until I found immigration and entered the country, proper.  Then, I was able to roam free, smoke and find some wonderful espresso.  Met an old crew mate from another ship when I returned to my gate.  We took off about two hours ago and now the entire plane is sleeping.  I was the only one awake (again) on my last lap around the plane.  Now, I'm finally ploughing through some music that I acquired last trip.  Six thousand songs, spanning 58 years of music, sorted by year.  Not sure how to re-sort it into artist like the rest of my collection:(  Shit, my laptop battery is just about dead-time to switch.
 
****

Well, My other battery was also totally dead.  So much for preparedness at crew-x.  I also neglected to bring my universal power adapter and was unable to charge my batts in the hotel in Luanda.  It took 4 hours of sitting in a small, roped-off area of immigration to clear into the country, despite having a work visa.  Then came 2 hours of sitting on the curb outside the airport, followed by two hours of driving around the ruin of Luanda.  It was only four short years ago that the last bloody revolution ended here and it shows in the raw poverty and bullet-scarred buildings and rubble that is most of this city.  Endless miles of red dirt, shanty towns, hovels, tents and caves.   I ended up alone at a hotel that turned out to be first-class, except for the service.  None of the staff spoke English, making even the simple tasks a study in mime and stick drawings.  Speaking loudly and slowly even though I knew they couldn't understand a word.  The usual responses were things like, "ELVIS!",  "COKE!", and "OBAMA!"...

Anyway, I spent a night of mime and drawings of kokepelli drinking a fucking beer in a rather fine hotel and then the morning, trying to track down somebody in this country that knew what I was supposed to do this morning.  I was eventually picked up by a bus, reunited with a couple of my crew and dropped off at Sonil Base on the docks, where I am once again caged like a fucking animal.  One of the navigators had her universal power adapter and I'm now plugged in as I sit in the cage.  Yes, the cage has outlets.  Some guy who earlier took my passport has returned it along with a small box of food.  I was rewarded with expired yogurt, a bruised apple, a dodgey sort of muffin that smells like ass and a warm, dirty can of Coke Zero.  Damn glad I brought a liter of bottled water.  It will have to get me through the day here in the cage.  Hopefully before dark, the supply boat will show up to ferry me out to the ship-a trip of some 24 hours, if I remember correctly.

So, I pass the time caged like an animal, rating the 6,000 songs, as I've decided that I will never be motivated enough to actually create artist and album directories for that many songs.  Hopefully, some time in the next 24, I'll be aboard my ship.

*****

After four hours I was let out of the cage and driven down the quay to a waiting supply ship.  There I met my opposite and got a 2-minute hand over.  Basically, I was told all my shit is running on autopilot and I had better get my ass out to the ship.  He split and I went in search of a berth.  This supply ship has three, small containers sitting on the open back deck.  Inside each are a series of metal bunk beds, just like prison.  At the end of each 8-bunk cell is a very small head (toilet) and shower.  The shower head is broken off in the one the chief gunner and I commandeered.  Slept for 18 hrs straight and feel human after 10 cups of shitty instant coffee from South Yemen.  I'm in the boat's dayroom watching some asinine movie while charging my spare laptop battery and wishing I was anywhere but here.  The Chief Mate just came in to let us know that we'll be on station in another 3 hours and should begin the personnel transfers an hour after that.  It has been four, long fucking days.  Next stop-a bigger ship...."

at work

Made it to the ship.  I'll post the whole sorry adventure later when I get my laptop hooked up to the satellite.

Delayed!

Best-laid plans and all that rot.  My first flight of the trip was canceled.  Had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to find out.  This after going to sleep at 3 am...

Trying again at 5:30 tonight.  Back to bed...

Shipping out

God willing the creek don't rise, I will be shipping out tomorrow.  I've got flight reservations for 0715 hours, but no visa, yet.  Hancock/Minnie/Chi town/Brussels/Luanda in two days.

Questions, questions

I loathe to write about politics, but occasionally I just can't help but wonder aloud at what I see.

I wonder why the financial sector's bailout comes with strings that now limit bonuses over a million bucks (after the fact), but the auto industry bailout comes with demand of re-structuring, public chastisement by the president, firings, possible loss of benefits, etc? What the fuck is up with that?  Must be that the auto industry didn't contribute enough money to the current government.  Bummer.

I'm dropping my favorite senator an email to ask him just what the fuck is up with that, but feel free to set me straight on this cause I just don't get it. 

Twitter

LL suggested I get Twitter. She also mentioned Christopher Walken's Twitter page and after about 5 minutes, I was hooked. I read a couple pages and man is that guy wicked funny and smart. So I got Twitter and there's a linky thing on my sidebar (of course, there is now a widget for everything). I can twitter from my phone which will be a crew-x bonus, assuming I ever crew-x, again. After 12 years at sea in this business, I have come to expect the unexpected and realize that anything can and invariably DOES happen and nothing much surprises me. OK, the Pope stealing my chopper was a small surprise, but today's eleventh hour reprieve was not. Africa is a different world and things happen on Africa time, NOT your timeline. No visa, no crew-x, no sweat.

We are planning a hike into the woods, despite the heavy snow. The recent thaw and now low temps should make the snow walkable, even in the deep woods. Not sure where we are going to go, or who is coming, but I hope we can agree on somewhere remote and quiet! I need a few hours of nothing but the wind in the trees and the winter birds.

Best laid plans of mice and men...

...often go awry.  Crew-x was canceled, again.  Sure glad I am not the one onboard.  Looks like another half to a full week on dry land.  Yo, ho, ho!

In other news, we bought a new wood stove.  This winter we struggled with a small, Morso parlor stove called The Squirrel.  Mr Budd lent it to us so the price was right, but I had to re-split all of my wood and it ate wood like you would not believe.  Fed that thing at least every hour, had to constantly play with the draft and while it did heat most of the house, it was just too much work and now we're out of wood. 

The new stove, a Lopi Endeavor, is a treat.  At 500 pounds, it was a bit tough to get into place, but it rocks.  Lights easy, burns very well and constant.  It employes re-burner tubes in the top of the firebox and is rated at just over 70% efficient.  The re-burner isn't catalytic, so not worries about replacing ceramic inserts and all that jazz.  Best thing is the glass front door.  LP and the dog love to watch the fire and after watching a very hot fire damped down, I find watching the gasses re-burning looks like a cross between some of my better physcadelic nights as a teen-ager and the burning plasma of an Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscope I once built and fooled around as a side job while in college.  Definitely the thing to watch with an altered mind...
***
I've been watching a lot of CNN lately.  Bernie Maddoff?  Kill him.  People greedy enough to invest in something too good to be true?  Fuck them.  Any politician that says the crap in Mexico is our fault and we should apologize?  Kill them, or send them to the border, the Mexican side.  Our side?  Line it with troops given orders to shoot anything that moves.  Obama?  Me thinks that the halo has finally slipped off and even his devoted followers will see he is, after all, just another lying, spineless politician.  AIG, et al?  Let them fail.  People will suffer, but we are all going to suffer greatly as the eventual impacts of this unbelievably huge and foolish bailout.  Auto industry?  Fuck them.  As with the financial institutions, giving billions to folks that continuously and knowingly fucked up will only make it possible for them to do it again. AIG bonuses make that point better than I ever could.  Everyone on both sides knew it would happen and it did.  The only reason it blew up was that the media decided to tell the public that the public was outraged over them.  I'm glad the media tells us what we are feeling, but I still dislike them for some reason.  The uneployment numbers are ignoring the number of people graduating from college, or high school, trying, but unable to enter the workforce and will not show up in the unemployment benefits statistic because they are ineligible.  People that work for my and any other, multi-national corporation are also ineligible, as those corporations never pay state unemployment tax.  The snowstorm last night felt like a kick in the balls, this morning.  As I get older, more and more things piss me off.  Why?  The previous fact pisses me off...
***
 

Anyhoo, I have to make some plans for an unexpected, extra weekend at home.  Ya'll be cool.

Back to Africa

Because I slipped on the ice today and broke my right, little finger, I of course came home to find out that I'm also heading back to work on Saturday.  Typing is not exactly easy, but I'm a hunt and peck typist, so no worries.  I've got a day to get things in order and get the fuck outta Dodge.  See you cats on the other side!

The Pope took my chopper

I know I have been basically silent the last 3 weeks, but it has been by necessity and perhaps some circumstance. Five weeks of major stress, lack of sleep and a somewhat crappy 21,000-mile commute home just plain kicked my ass.  After arriving home I'm told that I'm grinding my teeth in my sleep, giving me a week of excruciating pain despite eating codeine like peanuts.  But finally, just a couple nights of a bite thingy and I was fixed.  Then, I promptly got whacked by a killer cold/flu I'm just now recovering from.  Been sleeping, or at least laying around in a semi-vegetative state for the whole of my three-week break.  Read a few books, though.

Anyhoo, I WAS supposed to head back to Africa, but the dang Pope decided to fly in this weekend as well.  As you may or may not know it's not exactly fun, or easy to get in, or out of Luanda, even on a good day.  Try it the same weekend as the holiest of holies is in town and your outta luck.  Our usual base at the mouth of the Congo has been shut down for days, already and it looks like the dude in the funny hat has taken my chopper, most likely for a birds-eye of the sunbathers on the beach, or a quick chopper hunt of one, or more of the big five at one of those private big-game ranches.  So, today I was notified that crew-x has been indefinitely postponed.  I am deeply dissappointed.

short break

Nothing blog-worthy going on right now.  A toothache last week and now a sore throat-the beginnings of a cold.  Basically, I've been sleeping a lot.  I lost a lot of sleep during the last trip and arrived back home in pretty bad shape and this break was only to be 3 1/2 weeks long.  In fact, I received my marching orders just yesterday.   Flying back to Angola in 10 short days.  Spending as much of it as I can with the family.

And one for LL...

OK, I'm addicted.  I just had to watch one more jaw-dropping talk.  This one I know LL will love.  It's all about them numbers:)

For Blondie

A very good friend of mine turned me on to TED talks, something I am astounded to say, completely passed me by in recent years.  I cannot thank him enough for the time I've spent on this site.  It is truly an engaging site and my head spins after just a talk, or two.  There are so many brilliant talks on this site that I've just decided not to mention the other three I just viewed and only suggest that if you ponder our fate as a species, have even a glimmer of interest in space, or often find hope in the resilience, determination and courage that is the human spirit, listen to what this man is going to attempt.  While I know that LL and Mr. Bud will love this talk, Blondie, I think you will find more than some cool ideas on the possible future of man in space and I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.  As I wrote my son tonight, what I wouldn't give to be 20 years younger and have something of value to offer this man and take a chance at joining him in his quest.   I give you Bill Stone on TED.

Halfway home

Halfway home. 

I'm sitting in a cafe in Amsterdam, smoking some foul weed or another, and draining espressos as if each were my last.  The day is cool, overcast and threatening rain.  I traveled here in only a T-shirt, so I bought an Amsterdam Athletics hoody.  I look like tourist,and am anything but.  The last 48 hours have been a chaotic blur of mis-adventures and foul-ups of the highest order.  When I leave this place, if one more bum, druggie, or degenerate attempts to part me from my last remaining deutch marks, for a train ticket to Rotterdam, I will strangle them, despite the mellowness induced by this cafe.  Way too many street people here for my refined tastes and delicate sensibilities.  Get a fucking job, people.  This place reminds me of Seattle in the 90's.  Nirvana and homeless teen-agers, everywhere.

Where was I?  No matter...

I began the journey with a mis-step.  Or more to the point, a non-step.  My chopper ride off the ship was canceled and I spent a not-unexpected, extra day and night aboard my ship.  The last five weeks took it's toll and I passed out; a long, black 9 hours the likes of which I've not seen since sometime last year, I should think.  I woke, ate and immediately returned to my slumber.  Woke again, this time with just minutes before my chopper was due to land.  Shit, shower, shave, pack and fire off an email to Mr. Bud in less than 20 minutes.  A feat worth noting as I had to hack off 5 weeks growth of beard.  I really didn't have time to shave but I didn't want to scare the girls when I arrived home.

Choppered off on time, landing in Soyo Base at the mouth of the Congo, in a light rain.  Chaos.  No passports.  Stuck until they arrived on a fixed-wing aircraft an hour later. It was hot and sticky.  Clouds of mosquitoes, or malaria, if you prefer.  I do not.  Prefer malaria, that is.  That reminds me that I need to take another Malarone to ward off the evil malaria that stalks us all here on the West African coast.  With only hours to make my flight out of Luanda, we finally departed the Congo and headed South along the coast, over fertile, green, African plains.  Only the herds of zebras and the occasional pride of lions were missing from the exotic landscape below.

Luanda was chaos of another sort.  No plan, no organization, people milling about, women plodding the street with giant baskets of bananas, piles of large, green leaves, or dozens of eggs, perched on their heads.  What seemed like thousands of people loitering everywhere, some selling wares out of baskets they cradled between their legs as they sat sprawled in the dirt of the road, sidewalks of a sort, or the endless, empty lots adorned with only garbage and piles or refuse.  Women washing clothes by hand in large, copper pots, dogs everywhere.  The smell, at all times, overpowering, hinting of death and rotting flesh.

Luanda airport, yet another form of chaos.  It seemed to have a sort of hidden rhyme and reason that just managed to elude the senses, but always right there on the tip of the tongue, edge of the mind and just under the surface like a shadow seen out of the corner of the eye, disappearing when observed, directly.  We managed the massive queues, security, customs, immigration and the guy with white, rubber gloves.  The one who asks if you have local currency and demands to see your wallet.  It takes all I have to refuse him with his vacant stare and implications of a painful anal probing to follow.  A short test of wills, he flexes his chubby fingers, sighs and nods toward the door.  I run, as if on fire, and finally we all make the bar, in ones and twos, anal virginity intact for this trip.  Reaching a sort of critical mass, we began to order bottles of warm Heineken in armloads of tens and twenties.  We filled the tables and our bellies until it was time to board.

I flew with half the crew to Johannesburg, South Africa.  There, I hung out with the other American on the crew until it was time for me to depart for Amsterdam. We prowled the airport, learning the ins and outs, in prep for stopping here over the next eight months.  We found both smoking lounges, one of them a bar:)  We ate grilled mystery meat sandwiches and mine was to plague me for the next 12,000 miles of airplane toilets.  My buddy stayed, waiting for a flight to Paris.  Poor bastard, Charles De Gaul is the worst fucking airport in the world.

Amsterdam is pleasant, if cold.  Easy to make my way around this place, like an old friend, or a favorite car from the past.  They have added many self-serve kiosks at convenient points all over the airport.  You can accomplish transfers, check-in, get flight/gate updates, upgrade, or change your seat assignment, easily, from these little buggers.  I like 'em.  Anyway, I made my way through passport control to the train station and hopped the express to the city. The red-light district and hash bars are here, just outside the station.  I window-shopped the working girls and made my way to a hash bar I remembered from years ago.  It's warm, comfortable and quiet.  The selection is excellent, the espresso scalding hot, every cup.  I simply while away the hours in smoky silence.

..............

It's time for me to stumble back to the train station and make my way to the airport and my plane to the states.  It will be good to be back on my home turf.  I'm tired of airports masquerading as "old friends" and things not of my culture and country.

I'm back in the airport now, unable to hook up to the w-fi.  My Dutch sucks.  Found a little cafe just outside the casino, that serves a decent latte.  Yes, a casino.  This airport boasts a casino, porn shops, the beehive bar (my undoing on more than once occasion over the years), massage parlors and a small museum.

  I just finished touring the Rijks museum, that is currently celebrating 400 years of trade between the Dutch and Japanese.  The mix of styles, East and West, in the 1800's, is more of a mish-mash than a melding.  19th century, puritan-like motifs in lacquer.  No Van Goghs, more like the Maris brothers do Taiwan.   Reminds me of a plastic replica of a Ming vase, I saw in a pawn shop, years ago.  It doesn't work for me.  There are, however, several period paintings here that have nothing to do with trade, or Japan.  They speak to me, on some level.  In most of the paintings, it is the eyes, for me.  I do not know why, but I do see my daughter's eyes in one painting and I want to go home.

Peace

The end

Made it to the end.  My chopper lands in about 4 hours.  I've just pulled a 30 hour shift and am off for a cat nap before I fly.  See you cats on the other side

Alone

I stumble; my mind unhorsed.  Trampled underfoot the last 24, besieged from all sides, home and work:( 

Today, about a third of the crew left.  They're taking a slow boat to shore.  Tomorrow, I chopper off.  Everyone who works for me has left.  I'm sitting here totally alone.  It's kind of strange and depressing.  Not to mention I have a shit-load of work to do and nobody to delegate to:(  

A kingdom of one and a very ragged one, at that.

Bright side is that in about 24 hours I will cruising over the African plains in a chopper, heading for the nearest watering hole.  Those water buffalo better get the fuck out of my way when I belly up to the bar.

Picked up another 25 GB of music, Mr. Bud.  Not to mention a few flicks.

This morning I ate two tablespoons of instant coffee, right out of the jar.  Breakfast of champions.

Peace

Bite you in the ass

Just when you think you've got it down...a line from some song in my distant past.  I finally felt I was making headway on the most difficult problem I've ever faced at work.  I thought I nearly had it licked.  All the inter-relations, twists and turns.  I collared and muzzled the many-headed dog and was about to chain it to the wall. 

But no, I missed a head, which has just reached around and taken a huge chunk out of my ass, tonight.  The progress from last three weeks of 20+ hour work days is falling down upon my head like a deck of cards.  Every solution, every link in the chain I have built to restrain the beast relied on every other link and they have all failed.

I realized something tonight.  Never in all my years have I been defeated while on the job. I get paid to take a pile of shit and turn it into gold.  I get paid to find and fix problems.   I've been so very lucky in that a solution has always presented itself and in time to pull my ass out of the fire.  Every single time, in the end I've won.  Tonight, I also realized that this time I have been defeated.  The beast has won.  I will leave this ship in four days, defeated, and I don't like the taste it leaves in my mouth.

Disaster, averted

Yesterday, as I sat in the smoking lounge conducting an appraisal with one of my reports, the ship went dark and silent.  I jumped up, looked out a porthole and saw we were slowing.  Loss of power and propulsion!  Not a good thing if you are towing, say, 40 MILES of free-floating gear behind your ship, that just keeps going if you stop.  Had to run through pitch-black companionways to get to my computer system and insure that it survived the switch from ship's power to UPS.  All was well, except for 2 machines that were not actually connected to the UPS.  Surprise!  Anyway, we re-instated power and propulsion, forthwith and motored on ahead.  Everything out back eventually settled down and we kept on keepin on.  In the end, just a bit of adrenaline.  Four more days of this shit.

Stowaway!

Every Saturday we have a drill of some sort.  Today, we had to find and kill a stowaway.  Of course, they picked the smallest , sneakiest son of a gun on the vessel to be the stowaway.  He went off and hid sometime before the drill and NOBODY knew where he hid.  The alarm went of ,we broke into teams and performed a very thorough and organized search of the entire vessel.  Then, we did it again.  And again.  Then, we broke up the teams, disregarded the placard lists we held and began tearing the ship apart to find the little bastard.  Then, we did it again.  And again.  And again.  As it came close to 2 hours of fruitless searching and we began to wonder if he had fallen overboard, the captain was forced to ring the alarm bells, again and plead with him to come out, over the intercom.  We met in the mess for a general meeting and gave him a standing ovation when he finally entered.

It's hard to describe, but the best I can do is to say he hid INSIDE a structural beam of the ship.  Bastard.

Ahhh!

Still here.  Everything out here is chaos and excruciatingly complex.   The most convoluted set of problems I've ever encountered.  Much like trying to win an entire chess match in your head.  Plan every move from opening to end game, based on every possible move your opponent can make.  IF I make this work, it will be a minor miracle, but I suspect that I'm going to have a seizure long before things are solved...eight days to go and I just cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Fire! Not.

Fire alarm was tripped today.  Went off about a dozen times in the space of 5-10 minutes.  Sure glad I wasn't one of the poor fuckers sleeping.  They did not look pleased when they mustered...Me?  I only had to drop my dinner plate and bolt out of the mess.  When I returned everything was cold, but I don't eat much anymore so no great loss.

And the days just drag on and on...

Same old shit out here, currently.  It's hot, about 105 degrees, sunny and calm-same as always in Angola.  I am still doing 18-20 hour days and dead-freaking tired.  Two weeks to go...

Today, we had a muster drill, then took turns at different stations around the ship, training in various aspects of fire-fighting, life-saving, escape and abandoning ship.  Much-needed diversion for me.

Last night I managed a victory in one of the many small battles that make up the war that is my job this trip.  Took me 22 hours sitting in front of a computer to figure it out.  Took a sauna and watched my first movie (Last of The Mohicans) of the trip afterward.  Long, long, long day.  Grabbed a 4 hour cat nap and I am right back at it, but can't get the sandpaper feeling out of my eyes.

I received my flight details today.  I have an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam:)  Schiphol  Airport is one of my favorites.  It has great pubs, porn, great duty-free shops, a casino and if you have more than an hour layover (yes, I do), hash bars and brothels right where you get off the train from the airport.  Always a treat, that Amsterdam...better than Luanda, or Charles de Gaul in Paris, anyway.

Still here.

So, I wasn't sure that I would survive the last few days and thought it might be fitting that my last blog entry would be that my head exploded.

Alas, it seems I am fated to live through this crap.  So, basically, my job is a nightmare.  I and the rest of this ill-fated crew have no experience with what we are trying to do and it is not going well.  Especially for me, because I'm the one who has to fix everything that's not correct.  I deliver the goods.  The goods are not good.

I'm pretty much working until I fall asleep in the job, then sleep for a couple hours, get up and work till I fall asleep on the job, then sleep for a couple hours.....

I don't go outside, I can't eat and when I do get to sleep, I dream of work and the problems I have. We've all had tough times on a job.  I sure have.  But even in the current job market, I am ready to quit.  I feel like I'm getting run over by a cement mixer.  Very slowly.


OK, I'm done whining.  I just thought I'd let you all know why I may or may not be posting for a while.

Peace