Wind

Well.  The wind is still howling in the rigging and it seems as if the pitching and rolling will never end.  Once again, even from my office I can hear the low moan coming from the wires of a boat davit on the starboard side, as well as the rush of wind against the hull.  The midnight deck watch just stumbled in from outside.  He's half-frozen and windblown.  Tough to walk on deck in this shit.  Tough to do anything, really.  Showering was a workout tonight.  This weather even puts the table tennis tournament on hold, much to our dismay.  I think that this will give the crew time to organize some betting on the outcome, however.  I'm not above dropping a Ben Franklin on who I see as the dark horse.
****

Rumors abound concerning the end of job and when we can finally leave this motherfucker of an ocean.  The currently favored rumor of course has us leaving soon.  I wouldn't shed a tear if we left tomorrow.  This place is tough and sitting here watching my coffee mug slide back and forth, I'm ready to head North.
***

We're out of yogurt.

Peace

Reach for the sky!

We're looking straight down the barrel of a Really Big Gun.  I've read about how these puppies go supernova and yep, it's a really big gun with a hair trigger if it's a Wolfe-Rayet.  Fully-loaded and unfortunately, pointed toward us.  That, however is not enough to incentive to start building that underground survival shelter and finally procure that heard of sheep you've been meaning to steal from your neighbor.  We still have to firm up how precise the orientation is and how large the gamma ray burst will be.  Supernovae differ, just like people and bong hits.

Peace until the apocalypse

WTF?

It's like inducting Brett Farve into the Baseball Hall of Fame because he plays football.  No fucking sense...

Shorties

The Death Chic(k) noticed something that may be a bother to some of you who hang out here for the tunes.  Some of the songs in my playlist are only 30 seconds.  Seems that Last.fm has only limited rights to certain songs, or some crap like that, hence the shorties.  I've gone into my list and noticed there are quite a few of those and a whole lot more than have no music, just the song title.  Hopefully, as time goes on they expand their collection, though I must admit it's pretty darn extensive.

***

Still very windy and a little lumpy out here.

Peace

My lake's bigger than your lake!

Why Lake Superior is the Greatest Lake on Earth, and why it kicks your lake's butt…

How big is Lake Superior?

• Largest fresh water lake in the world (by surface area)
• Surface area: 31,820 square miles
• Water volume: 2,900 cubic miles
• Shore length: 2,725 miles
• Maximum length: 350 miles
• Maximum width: 160 miles
• Surface elevation: 609 feet
• Average depth: 482 feet
• Maximum depth: 1,332 feet
• Maximum depth: 723 feet below sea level

There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire land mass of North and South America with a foot of water.

How Lake Superior compares

• Lake Superior is the size of South Carolina
• Lake Superior is larger than 10 states: WV, MD, HI, MA, VT, NH, NJ, CT, DE, and RI
• Lake Superior is larger than the countries of: Czech Republic, Ireland, Latvia, Croatia, Switzerland, Belgium, Rwanda, and dozens of others
• Lake Superior is 33.6% of the entire surface area and 53.5% of the entire volume of all Great Lakes combined
• Lake Superior is 18.7 times greater in surface area than the Great Salt Lake
• Lake Superior is 2.6 times greater in surface area than Lake Baikal, however, Lake Baikal has twice the volume
• At the deepest point Lake Superior would drown the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty and the John Hancock Center (The Sears Tower will still stand 398 feet out the water)

Many people near Lake Champlain consider it to be the "6th Great Lake". Lake Superior is 28 times greater in surface area, and 465 times the water volume than Lake Champlain.

Other Lake Superior facts…

• Gichigami is the Ojibwa word for Lake Superior meaning "big water"
• Many people believe that Lake Superior resembles a wolf's head (facing west)
• The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the last major ship wreck in 1975
• The surface area temperature has risen 4.5 degrees since 1979
• Lake Superior has been described as the most oligotrophic lake in the world
• Over 300 rivers and streams flow into Lake Superior
• Contains ~10% of all the Earth's fresh water
• The average surface temperature is 40 degrees
• 1979 was the last complete freeze over
• Produces some of the greatest lake-effect snowstorms on earth
• ~40 miles north of Munising, MI is the deepest point at 1,332 feet
• Annual reports of waves that are over 30 feet high
• At 10,000 years old it is one of the youngest major features on earth (Lake Baikal in Russia is 25 million years old)
• Features over 60 species of fish

The only item I may disagree with is that I think the coast Guard considered the lake completely frozen over back in the 90's.  I can't remember the year, but it got darn cold, everybody's sewer and water pipes froze and there was a movement to have President Clinton declare the area a Federal Disaster Area, in order to receive federal funds to mitigate the damage.  Thanks to the industrious and johnny-on-the-spot Mr. Bud, I had no such trouble with frozen pipes at H2O Street and was still able to relieve myself of the many beers had that winter, without poking anything sensitive outside...

I found the above bragging rights while trolling for local blogs at: Yooper Steez. Go check em out.  They've got a great site there AND cool things to buy:)

And it DOES kick yer Lake's butt!

Peace.

We don't need no sticky wickets

Despite running far, far away, we finally hit the nasty weather.  Sometime during the afternoon, while I was sleeping, it went from the ship rolling gently to getting slammed and the vessel occasionally trying to slip out from under your feet when the big ones smack the bow, hard. Once again, it was a study in focus and determination to shower while still sleepy. Trying to maintain three points of contact and shampoo your hair at the same time, all while half-asleep is not easy.  At least if you wish to avoid eating the towel rack, or getting up ended into the toilet.  The next 36 hours should prove to be very tiring.  We're pretty far North of the prospect, but the seas there were supposed to be around 30 ft...
***

Yesterday my LP performed in her first ice skating show.  Oh, how I rage at missing these special moments!  She also just lost her first tooth:(  I'm sure to pout over these things for the next week, no matter how hard I try not to.  Fortunately, Mr Bud was kind enough to attend with his camera and sent me ton of pics, which I found when I arrived for shift tonight!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart Mr Bud!!!!  I guess I better post one on here for her to see;)
***

I haven't yet seen the standings of our table tennis tournament, but I suspect that the Asians are dominating the standings from what I've seen so far.  Yesterday, I felt pretty poor after shift and unfortunately, the flu is making rounds of the ship.  Rather than stand in a screaming crowd of rabid, table tennis fans, I retired to watch part of the latest NZ/India cricket match.  Since joining this vessel back in December, I've become somewhat of a fan.  I've got all the rules down and am coming to appreciate the subtleties of the game, like the strategies employed by the 'spinners", as opposed to the bowlers that just bring the heat, and how the wicket breaks up as the match progresses throughout the day.  I still can't tell which batsmen are the ones likely to hit 7 consecutive "sixes" in 2 overs, like the guy last year in the championship test, but I am coming to love the game and am the first guy to cry out when somebody gets "stumped".  Anyway, who couldn't love a game where the fans can come and lay around in the grass, drinking beer all day?  Its a rather sticky wicket since I can't get cricket on the telly at home, though (obligatory English/Aussie/Kiwi sentence inserted).

Hey!  I even know what a sticky wicket is.  It's a term from the days when a pitch (the field) wasn't covered when it rained.  A sticky wicket is when the wicket (where the bowler bowls the ball) gets wet from the rain, then begins to dry out forming a crusty layer on top that allows the ball to bite more when it hits and also spin off, crazily some times, making it a tough wicket to bat on:)  And i think I'll leave you all with that.

Peace.

World Cup

Our table tennis tournament started today.   In an up and down, wild ride and very tense contest, Indonesia handed England his hat in the third and final match of their series, 11-4.  England had just tied the series up in the previous game with nearly the same one-sided score.  I left the venue just as Pakistan and Italy began their first game of the match.  From the warm-up rounds, I predict Pakistan will prevail.  I believe China and Malaysia may also be squaring off later tonight and may just head back down to check out that battle of the titans.  I can tell already that the US hasn't got a prayer...
***
Yesterday we had a fire drill after my shift ended.  We snuffed out a computer fire in the conference room quite handily, with only some minor communication glitches and a few delays due to fire team members having to find alternative routes to the fire stations from heavy smoke in the accommodations.  All in all, a very good exercise.  Mustering up on deck, I realized I hadn't been outside, or seen the sun in many days.  It was good to breathe fresh air and get out from under the harsh glare of artificial lighting.  As a bonus, we were treated to a lovely view of the eastern coast of the south island.  Rolling hills, sea cliffs, planted fields, it was nice to see land!  We're currently cruising North up the coast to avoid rather nasty 9 meter seas....
***
Sat comms are still spotty and I'm not too happy. It's not like there's a lot to do out here and spotty internet/no phones makes it worse.  Fortunately, there are are a few, new diversions such as the table tennis tournament, a presentation on air pressure safety and one on handling and care of sea birds that often land on the ship, injured, or too tired to continue.  We rehabilitate and release them, except for the tasty ones, which we BBQ, or grill.  Just kidding, I'm only making sure you're paying attention.  Yesterday, a pod of killer whales was sighted!  Many of the crew had a nice, long look through binoculars and telephoto lenses.  Unfortunately, I haven't got any of the pics, or I would post one.
***
Well, I suppose that wraps up another addition.  I'm off to eat out of boredom, though I know I'll regret it in about 10 hours, when I hit the gym and have to do an additional 4-5KM to make up for the extra goodies.

Peace.

No pun!

All things considered...maybe it was just time for him to go-WAH!

another day at sea

Due to unknown reasons, we've had  comms blackout for almost 24 hours.  I'm not sure that it won't return at any moment.  It took me 20 minutes to load up my gmail this morning and while comms are good right now, I'm not overly optimistic for the near future.  Operations are also suspended due to extremely bad weather.  We're looking at 10 meter seas for the weekend.  The loss of comms when not working is torture.  There's just nothing to do.  No work, no surfing, no email, no phone calls and no training, because it's all web-based.  Boredom, in the extreme.

Worse, it decreases the options for crew after shift and suddenly you find an extra half-dozen crew crowding into the gym with you.  I was appalled at the number of people we had to cram in there last night.  It didn't affect me, since I was there early and always spend the entire time on the elliptical machine, but it was distracting, watching to see if the guy swinging dumbbells across his waist and then up over his shoulder would cave in the head of the girl hitting the heavy bag behind him, or if the jump rope would catch on the handle of the rowing machine.  Eventually, it did affect me, now that I think of it.  After about 6KM, it was distracting me enough to throw off my breathing.  I did the next 6KM with my eyes closed, imagining I was running on the trails in the area I hunt in the fall.  Not an easy thing to do on a moving ship, working out with your eyes closed!

Anyway, I was also shocked to find people cramming in the sauna with me. I spend many nights in there and in the 3 trips I've been on this ship, nobody has ever joined me.  I've never even found evidence of anyone using it when I'm not around.  Fortunately, one person mentioned using it before I headed in so I was warned instead of offending anyone with my beached-whale nudity.  Normally, I take a sauna au-natural and given the mix of cultures and religions, I would have been sure to offend someone and for such an indiscretion, been subjected to the wrath of some P.C., stuffed suit from one of our onshore cubicle farms.  We have a girl on here who always wears a hijab, the Islamic headscarf.  She walked into the sauna without it and it took me 10 minutes to figure out who she was.  At first, I thought perhaps somehow a helicopter had managed to land in this shitty weather and brought us some new crew, but no, I've sailed and lived with her for 8 weeks and never saw her without that damn scarf.  She looks like a complete stranger!

Stranger still is the guy who's apparently been calling me by the name of another crew member for the last 8 weeks and gone un-noticed by ME.  I'm not sure I believe him, but he called me by the wrong name twice yesterday and when I mentioned it, he acted completely baffled, explaining he'd always called me "Roy" AND the other guy by my name.  I haven't yet seen the other guy today to get his side of things.  I mean, how can all three of us be so clueless for 8 weeks?

Lastly, I had beef ragout, garlic shrimp and oregano and tomato meatballs for breakfast at midnight, tonight.  What a strange diet I have out here...

To the moon, Alice!

Cool Story on Wired

No capsicum for you!

I had a dream in which the ship capsized and rather than escape, we all kept working.  Oh, we complained about having to walk around on the ceiling and how hard it was to secure keyboards and read a monitor upside-down, but we just kept working.  My biggest bitch was trying to take a shower-the shower head, now at the floor, would not squirt water all the way up to my head, making it hard to shampoo.  The cook made a pineapple upside-down cake and we killed him.  With fire axes.

This without ingesting any mind-altering substances.

He was redeemed, in my twisted mind this morning when I found plum-chili pork, chicken satay with pineapple rice, tempura fish and cauliflower with capsicum on the breakfast menu.  Only an idiot real man would break his fast with chilis, satay and capsicum.  He knows me well.  An hour later and I'm still burping up southeast Asia. 
***
Which brings me to note that we are already out of milk and yogurt.  No more until April.  Fresh vegetables will disappear within a week to ten days.  We're far to remote and the seas are far to heavy all the time, to bring a supply ship alongside.  This is a tough place to work.  One of the toughest I've encountered anywhere in the world.  The arctic was bad, but the weather was calmer, most of the time.  Even South of  Tierra Del Feugo ( El Fin del Mundo) isn't as consistently rough.  
***
We're starting a table-tennis tournament onboard.  Most of the Asian crew are walking around with a gleam in their eye if you mention it.  I suspect that I'm about to discover that yet another stereotype is true and they are gonna kick the snot of the rest of us.
***
We had an "incident" with a bird on here just a day or so ago.  Turns out if a sea bird lands anywhere on the ship (even in the middle of operations), you can't touch it. They're all protected species down here-sea birds, that is.  If one lands on something you're working on, you have to step back and let him take it over for as long as he wants.  Talk about squatter's rights.
***

Well, that's about all that's on my mind this morning.  Time for another cuppa joe and to poke my head out on deck and check the weather.

Peace.

Killer break, dude

Anyone out there remember this?  I just fell asleep on it and would rather be surfing one than modeling it...

Falls under cool AND important AND useful

I don't know where I first learned about these, but recently I came across them while classifying galaxies at Galaxy Zoo. Gravitational lensing has been discussed on the forum quite a bit and one kind soul put together images of the 67 recently found, but from COSMOS images.

Anyway, I just wanted to make it a point to tell you that if you're interested at all in space, astronomy, astrophysics and just about every other related topic, but feel like it's mostly over your head, this forum is the place to go. It is populated by a large number of hard-core astronomers, astrophysicists and the like, but also the entire spectrum of humanity. Everyday people from all walks of life, all over the planet. Because of this mix you can read explanations of the amazing wonders of the cosmos, all in layman's terms, or in as much detail as you wish. It's a great place to learn about what's out there and how we're finding it. Oh yes, and you can also participate in some ground-breaking science that's fun to do!! Soon, GZ2 will debut and the world will be a better place for it. I loves me some zoo.

Finally, these everyday people are not only looking at images of distant galaxies, stars, nebulae and assorted other cool phenomenon, they are also discovering things heretofore unseen and unexplained by science. For instance, a little blue blob, noticed by Hanny, one of the everyday folks who love to classify and learn about this great big universe we live in. She posted an image on the forum and asked if anyone knew what it was (as we all do, all the time, in the zoo). Turns out she's discovered something new, unusual and very cool. Scientific papers are being written, time is being sought after on two famous telescopes, including HUBBLE. Can you imagine finding something that leads to investigation with the world's most famous telescope? You can see the little fellow here, in the very first post by Hanny:)

ps. If you've got kids interested in space and their old enough to tell clockwise from counter-clockwise, then get 'em on the zoo. My 6 yr old loves to classify with me (for about 1/2 an hour or until something shiny is noticed...).

Father of the lab rat (among other things)

Bookmarked this the other day.  He seemed like a pretty cool cat, what with the nation's first colony of lab rats and all...

Mars

This isn't a big deal, but it definitely falls under "cool".

Spread the love

I'm not a smart man. I can admit that and still feel good about myself. I can chop firewood, or get from point A to point B without getting too lost. I can cook enough to keep myself alive, if necessary and can even change my own oil, though I rarely do. I can even help out with my children's homework, which is just about the pinnacle of my intelligence and frankly, that's enough to get by in life and enough for me.

I also like to think I'm just smart enough to identify who the really smart people are and try to pay attention to them. Ben Stein happens to be one of those people, at least to me. To me, he epitomizes intelligence tempered with honesty and common sense. He also has a unique oratory and written style that speaks to me. I found his latest NY Times article confirming a few things that have been rattling around in my brain for the past year, as headlines and Democratic politicians in our decidedly capitalist nation have decried the oil companies' recent financial successes as being excessive, evil and something to be stopped before they cause the collapse of the civilized world and the loss of the little bowls of free pennies found next to many cash registers.

Ben (and Big Oil and a free-market society, it seems) are not without their detractors, however. Seeking Alpha's Felix Salmon has a hard-on for Ben and not in the normal "I wish you were my pet sheep" kind of way. He doesn't hesitate to bring the hammer down on my hero and intellectual savior and the unforgivable greed of Big Oil, and I'm sorry, but this just plain old pisses me off. Felix argues for profit caps on a non-monopoly, which goes against everything, economically, we stand for in this country. He also ignores the fact that one must take risks in order to gain profit and Big Oil is the classic, textbook example of big risks translating to big profits for those willing to invest in the the risk. Oddly enough, he separates profits from cost and re-investment and nails XOM's $40 billion as excessive and evil. W.T.F? He really needs to consider a couple of things, in my humble opinion.

First, like any other industry, petroleum is cyclic in nature, but like minerals extraction, is violently cyclic. It is exactly these large profit margins in these heady times that allow the XOM's and Chevrons to survive the deep downturns in their industry, consistently investing in R&D, advancing the world's cutting-edge technologies that make today's exploration and extraction efficient, economic and even possible as the world's remaining reserves are found in deeper water, and more remote and hostile environments found in countries that have less and less love for the good old US of A (and the big, trans-national companies that still look like the USA to them) and are making it more an more costly to do business there.

Second, a publicly-owned entity needs a continual investment by the public and that only comes with trust. Trust built on continued successes (which require high profits allowing a large re-investment in R&D to capture increasingly more dangerous oil) and consistently high profits which guarantee maxim return on one's investment. XOM's not going to be anyone's first investment choice if Felix had his way and capped their profits. I think it's a matter of one's envy creating an illusion of another's greed.

XOM and it's brethren are not Saudi Arabia. They don't possess a sea of oil under their company headquarters, having only to open the valves and rake in $40 billion in profits. They have to spur the development of, or develop themselves, the cutting-edge technologies that many other business' come to rely on as matter of habit. The gains in computer technologies? Driven by the oil industry and everyone benefits, including Felix as he bangs out his article. Engineering, communications, transportation, materials science, the list goes on. It costs a helluva lot of money to drive a technology forward and we ALL benefit from those investments, not just the oil companies.

Big Oil doesn't exist in a vacuum. As Ben points out, XOM's profits feed pensions, funds, retirement accounts, etc. They are also directly tied to thousands of other business and industries. Manufacture of the pumps, pipes, drill rigs, computers, ships, tanker trucks, cranes, refineries, and countless thousands of other items absolutely necessary to coax a single barrel of oil from the depths, ship it to a refinery, refine it and then ship it to where it is finally used in whatever form, be it gasoline in your car's fuel tank, or the plastic of a syringe that saves the life of your child (yes, a not at all subtle reminder of the tired, old argument that your being hypocritical, slamming an industry when it's responsible for so many of the things you use to slam it with). All these things are tied to a healthy and profitable oil industry. The better it does, the better the countless thousands of business and industries that rely on the oil industry as their largest, or only customer. Big Oil is business, spread across the continuum and cannot be singled out, nor capped without cutting everything.

Politicians and journalists who find it necessary to use BIG OIL profits as a convenient and easily digestible scapegoat for the disillusioned have-nots, put me in mind of the bitter man with a funny little mustache who used a people in the same manner, many years ago and while it's nowhere near the same horrific thing, it's still wrong. You can't make someone, or something a scapegoat, blaming them for your own failings and shortcomings without expecting to get called out and taken down, eventually.

Simply Google the price of oil in any other country that's a net importer of oil. We're getting damn cheap oil from the XOM's of the world and should think twice before calling to shoot them in the back. Oh yeah, and our national debt is rapidly approaching a value incomprehensible to the majority of intelligent life in the universe and XOM paid $30 BILLION in taxes in 2007. We all benefit from that, don't we? Taxes paid are not the only figure missing from any of the arguments against big oil profits. I'm not going to look it up, but what percent of net sales do these profits represent? I think you'll find ALL XOM's financial numbers are huge, both positive and negative. Big is BIG any way you slice it, no?

******
On a slightly odd side-note, this month marks the anniversary of my beloved PW going through with her promise to marry me, despite all my obvious shortcomings. I sure wish I had even a small chunk of that $40 billion to buy her all the things she deserves for putting up with my shit and being such a wonderful wife, friend and mother. (especially since I'm half-way around the world and can't even take her out for a non-McDonald's dinner) I love you honey.
******

Anyway, as usual I'm angry and emotional instead of intelligent and rational, but people, that's how I roll and if you don't like it I also own more than one gun. That said, feel free to disagree and criticize.

Peace.

Cheap fuel, or mutant bugs eating away our atmosphere?

This guy's got some laudable goals, but I wonder why he thinks a suicide gene equals security?  As a geneticist, he seems to be forgetting about mutation, which is more than a little disturbing...experimentation like this has the potential to make all of our SF-like fears a frightening reality.  Still, cheap fuel would be nice, eh?

Why, why, why?

You can post images.  You can even post video.  Has anybody noticed that audio has been left out in the cold like and unwanted dog?  I've been plowing through dozens of new artists and hundreds of songs that I've accumulated lately and not yet listened to.  I've deleted a fair bit, but found a few, new artists that I would love to share on here, but alas..."The truth is, I THOUGHT it mattered - I thought that MUSIC mattered. But does it? Bollocks! Not compared to how people matter."  Thanks to Pete Postlethwaite for that, I guess I'll move on...

Um, maybe I won't.  Todays picks (not posted, dammit) would be; Martha Wainwright-Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole and Ball And Chain.  Both, beautifully composed and sung with a sort of sad fury that puts me in mind of an angry Lucinda Williams.  I'm impressed.

Oh, and I just now discovered she is the sister of Rufus Wainwright.  No surprise, given their parentage, that both would be so talented.  She may even be better that Rufus since she doesn't do that thing where he takes forever to push his voice up to the right note on really slow songs-a bit annoying, that.  I'm rambling and I'll stop....

Anyway, Go find Martha somewhere like Last.fm and have a listen.

Peace.

Thoughts on the weather and guns

Who was it who wrote just a few hours ago that we were sailing in good weather?  Couldn't have been me because I know to do so is the kiss of death.  Winds are gale force, waves up to 20 feet, washing over the decks.  Spilt my fucking coffee, everywhere...

********

" to do so is..."  How many two-letter words can one string together and still remain grammatically correct??  I might take a poke at four or five, but to do so is so at the point of being stupid...yeah, I got one more.


********

I've been Google Reader TRolling  (GRTR) over at Murder & Mayhem and stole this from his thoughts on guns:

6. An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

It pretty much sums up my thoughts on gun control and is just about the only thing one needs to say to someone whose in favor of it.  Thanks Dude.

And sometimes things really work as they are supposed to...

Applied for an Aussie work visa, online.  Took me 5 minutes to find the correct site, apply and receive my new visa.  Cost 20 bucks.  That's how things are supposed to work!

Good on ya' mates!!

The customer comes first

As part of our ongoing effort here at AMAIH, we have added yet another feature to the sidebar, somewhere down below all that musical crap.  It's an extension of my Google Chat, which I've gotten PW to finally use, but not Mr. Bud, for some reason.  Why is this Mr. Bud?  Are you still a closet Yahoo! Messenger type?  Well, now you can chat at me from here.  Um, if it works.  Somebody try it out, eh?

Cell phone providers suk

Cellular service providers, as an industry, suck.  They make nothing simple, or economic.  Everything is about pigeon-holing their customers into spending as much as possible, cloaked in shiny package deals that never offer what you need.  Need this?  You can get it for FREE, when you buy this shiny, round thing you don't need and will never use at twice it's cost.  It really frustrates me, especially when the bits that I need-international roaming and long-distance, can only be had over the phone.  Worse, they aren't found on any link in their entire website, you have to use the search function to get to their stand-alone, unlinked pages.  Bastids.  I don't even need to get into what Cingular did to me only a year and a half ago.  They all just suk.

After 3 hours of frustration, I've done as much as I can do online, the rest will have to done over the phone.  Now, I can relax while trying to obtain an aussie work visa, online-yeah right.

********
Other than that, life is grand out here.  Work is progressing smoothly, now.  The weather is better, the food is wonderful (had more toothfish, this time accented with an avocado salsa!!) and I actually slept 4 straight hours yesterday.  Did my laundry and found an old, dog-eared copy of Larry McMurtry's classic western novel, Lonesome Dove.  At 960 pages, it ought to keep me occupied for a few nights.  Life gets so narrow out here, I don't know what I would do without books...

Peace.

Fish and nuts is all I've got

Not much to report from down here.  Same old same old.  We're back at sea and hard at work.  I've spent the last week attempting to work out some technical bugs holding things up and frustratingly, have had little success.  However, I've received word that a work-around has been accepted and that should make my life out here much less stressful, barring any system issues (knock wood).

******
My nuts are still healing and sitting a 12-hr shift is still extremely uncomfortable, but I am bearing up and off the hard drugs.  Another week and I'll be itching to take them out for a test drive.  Who am I kidding?  I'm ready right now, but a damn long way from home.  Uh, that reminds me of the joke about how there's only two kinds of sailors, but never mind...

******
Starting tonight, I'm back on the elliptical machine and the nicotine patch.  I've got to get back in shape after 5 weeks off my feet and smoking?  I only brought a limited amount and there are no smokes onboard.  Quit or quit are my only options...

******
The weather down here is only getting worse.  Every day is cold, windy and rainy.  Very unpleasant!

******
Has anyone ever had Patagonian Toothfish?  Evidently, it is one of the most expensive fish on the market, going for up to $40.00USD per kilo.  We traded a bunch of prawns for some while in port and man, is it good.  Better than any other salt-water fish I've ever had.  Not the best fish, mind you but very similar in taste and texture to walleye, which we call "poor man's lobster" back home and is pound-for-pound the best-eating fish in the world.  Anyway, they're ugly, as you can see, but taste pretty damn fine and would be even better with a bit of sav blanc, you know?

Peace.

Into the blue

Woke up tonight to find we are underway. I believe we got underway
while I was in the sauna, yesterday, but I wasn't paying attention. I
was reveling in thoughts of personal effects, clean clothes, my own
stuff, unpacked like Christmas morning. It had been so long since I
packed my bag, that I had forgotten what I brought for this trip.
Unpacking really did have all the magic of a Christmas morning. I
squealed with joy over things like foot spray and battery chargers,
new socks and my comfy slippers. Three other crew were not so lucky
and sailed without their bags. A total of 8 out of 50 crew had their
bags lost in transit, to begin with. Keep that statistic in your
mind when traveling internationally. It's not just NZ either. Bags
were lost in Europe, the middle east, Asia and mine in LA. It's
common-place and getting worse. The amount of air travel is growing
and more bags are lost every year. If I didn't travel with a laptop
and switch from ship to ship so often (requiring a bit more stuff), I
would only travel with a single, small carry-on.

Off subject, but how many of you follow elections in other countries?
I have been besieged with inquiries on our upcoming election by the
rest of the crew since arriving. The international crew members have
many questions and not surprisingly seem to be more informed on the
candidates and issues than the average American. In the few short days
I've been aboard, I've gained some valuable insight that I don't
believe I would have gotten at home. Watching the foreign news
programs on here, I've noticed they have a much broader view and
everything is discussed in the global sense. It's sort of refreshing,
actually.

To wrap things up; the weather here is bad. We are actually NOT
sailing toward the prospect. We pulled out of the harbor into total
shite and were forced to turn North, away from the prospect. The food
is GREAT, same galley staff as last trip and they rock. Fillet
mignon, miso soup and Thai noodles for breakfast. Work is crap-tons
of problems right from the moment I stepped onboard. I hate having to
re-do things! I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee, sit down, wiggle
around in my clean underwear and read all your blogs. Peace.

--
Козла́ бо́йся спе́реди, коня́ — сза́ди, а лихо́го челове́ка — со всех сторо́н.

* Translation: Beware of the goat from its front side, of the horse -
from its back side, and the evil man - from any side.

FINALLY

I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. I
finally have clean underwear.

You pay, I'll pump

We're just about to move over to the fuel dock and bunker. How would
you like to pull up to the pump, fill'er up and the attendant
says,"that'll be two hundred thousand nine-hundred eighty nine dollars
and twenty-three cents, please."

inside out or back to front?

As is common in this business, shit hit the fan only an hour after my
shift ended. I was forced to put in another 5 and a half hours,
ending my day by talking to an irate Chinese man, calling on his cell
phone from Malaysia, apparently from inside a toilet bowl, from the
sound of it. When I was finally able to drag myself off to bed, I
couldn't sleep from the stress and all the damn hydraulics going for
the cranes and winches. I managed an hour's sleep and crawled out of
that deep, dark hole to find that my luggage was not delivered. Back
to front, or inside out were the only options available this morning.
This will be one of those days (nights) where I curse my choice of
careers about every five minutes. I was really looking forward to
clean underwear.

We're in port until late today and hopefully my bag will show up, or
it's off to the city to shop for some overly expensive clothes after
we move over to the fuel dock and begin bunkering. Hopefully, I can
get someone to take my gangway watch if I need to go shopping. I
really need to get a better attitude this early in the trip, or it's
going to be a long one. Like being able to observe a rainbow, I need
to look at life with the sun at my back and 42 degrees below the rain
shower. Thirty-seven days to go.

Clean underwear on the Horizon

My agent ashore has just informed me that the airlines has located my
bag in Uzbekistan and it should arrive before we sail. Underwear.
Clean underwear. With a side of socks. And a T-shirt.

Back to work

Where to start?

Couldn't sleep Thursday night, both from the pain of my surgery and
the pain of leaving my family, again. I flew out for NZ on Friday.
Still sore, hobbling and drugged. That right there pretty much sets
the stage for only bad things to come.

I managed to make my flight to LA in relatively little discomfort,
despite minimizing my painkillers in order to deal with the inevitable
problems getting ticketed and making my flight to Auckland. I had
first class for that leg and a wider seat helped. A lot.

It went downhill as I left the country. The LA/Auckland flight is
roughly 12 hours, or should I have said a rough 12 hours? I
alternated between sitting as long as I could and walking as much as I
could stand it. I ate roughly 3 weeks of painkillers in 12 hours. I
was drooling and couldn't quite speak coherently by the time we
landed, but I walked off the plane under my own power in Auckland.
Yeah, I was bent at 90 degrees with hand cupping my balls like a 90's
Quasimodo, but I walked off.

I was forced to stand in line at immigration for an hour and a half
and the first thing the agent did was to ask me what was wrong. I was
still drooling and sweating profusely. She made me fully explain what
was wrong and THEN turned red and apologized. Three minutes later I
found out my luggage didn't make it to Auckland with me. It took an
hour to deal with the "lost luggage" assholes and missed my connecting
flight. Caught the next one, but they had to hold the plane while I
ran across the fucking airport in the rain. That's right, the whole
fucking airport, not just a terminal. Outside, in the rain. With an
extra-large, painful sac. If you can imagine that 90's Quasimodo
trying to do an "OJ" through the airport, that was me. I was a
fucking mess for the whole flight and while finally waiting for my
last flight, I think I sat and cried for a while.

The drive from the airport was also kind of rough-a bit bumpy for my
condition. I tried to concentrate on the scenery and noted the
following: The trees were mostly coniferous (we are well below the
45th parallel) with a few palms mixed in. Palm trees and pines??
Also saw some smaller trees that looked to be a cross between a pine
tree and a cactus-they were kind of evil looking. All the vegetation
is wind-blasted and pointing to the dominant, down-wind direction
(looks to be ENE). Homes and businesses look much like their US
counterparts, but they drive a lot of funny-looking little cars here
just like Europe. I think this would be a nice place to live,
especially with the views of the Southern Alps.

By the time I arrived here, I somehow felt better and not only ate,
but took a short walk around town after checking into my hotel and
IM'ing PW to tell her I was alive. I took a good look around this
time, leaving my camera behind, choosing to actually just see things.
What a pleasant, little town, sidewalk cafes, MANY outfitters for the
huge backpacking tourism, Turkish kebab stalls, small Thai
restaurants, an abundance of book stores and music coming from at
least one business on each block. Cobblestone streets and lots of
trees. A fair number of turn-of-the-century buildings and artwork in
the squares and the middle of the roundabouts. It was pleasant enough
to bring me down from the pain and let me almost enjoy the HUGE
painkiller buzz I had carried all the way from LA. I had a good,
old-fashioned Donner kebab with sauce and salad, a coffee taken at a
sidewalk cafe and then slept the sleep of the dead. I dreamed that I
flew around Mars in a bodysuit painted like a hawk, riding the
thermals kicked up at the daylight terminator. Yeah, Oxycontin is
good for dreaming when combined with a healthy overdose of codeine and
Flexaril. Really.

Woke up at 4am and drank 8 cups of coffee to bring me out of my
stupor. First hotel room I've ever had that contained enough coffee
to make 8 cups. Thank the fucking heavens for that, I've still got
enough shit in me to keep me loopy for another week. Anyway, at first
light I walked the city for a while and took in another couple cups of
coffee once the sidewalk cafes opened up. Downed a nice, little
pastry from a small bakery that looked as if it had been in business
back before electricity. We bussed out for the port at 9am and found
the ship quayside dealing with yet another catastrophic incident and a
huge tangle of gear, being pulled apart with cranes, forklifts, most
of the crew and not just a few local blokes who looked like
professional wrestlers, or worse. Big, ugly fuckers with tree-trunk
arms.

Had a couple hours of hand-over with my opposite, got a bite to eat,
stood a gangway watch and called to find out my luggage has not been
found after 24 hours. Put the clothes I've been wearing since Friday
morning (ugh) in the wash with a towel wrapped around me. Going to
knock of early tomorrow morning and head back into town to buy all new
clothes, suitcase, toiletries and whatnot. Fuck.

We'll head back to sea sometime Wednesday, or still Tuesday for you
folks on the other side of the dateline. I miss you PW.

Peace.

She's Baaaack!

DEATH CHIC

Epidemic! and my scrotum, of course

Another drugged up, pain-fogged day lugging around my 14-pound scrotum. I can almost wrap my hand around the left side. I think this means the swelling has begun to go down, but I won't know until it gets small enough to get my hand around it. I never thought to get out a tape measure and record its circumference. Funny how you miss the common-sense things like measuring the size of your scrotum when you're tearing up from the pain and drugged out of your mind.

I've been laying around in bed, doing a lot of reading. I bought Bill Shatner's latest Star Trek novel about the early years when Jim Kirk and Spock first met. Not his best work, but it fills an interesting gap in the Star Trek timeline. Without giving too much away for those few who might read such a book, Spock and Jim meet in a strip club, go to jail and steal the Enterprise. It also explains how they both managed to end up in Starfleet-to get out of jail. It was a whimsical, tale that also manages to fit in nicely with what we know of their personalities and the next 200-odd years of their lives. At the end of the day, it's a good read and must-read for die hard trekkies, anyway.

I also bought new copies of the Red.Green/Blue Mars series. I was reminded of this while recommending some good SF books to Blondie and decided to re-read the series. I'm nearly done with Red mars and it's not quite as good as I remember it, but it will suffice.

I also took it upon myself to introduce LP to the SF/Fantasy genre while I'm house-bound. I decided to begin with Ann Mcaffery's Pern series. I figured LP would like the idea of people riding fire-breathing dragons fighting to save the planet from the terrible space-born thread. Seems I picked a winner-she loves the story and is fascinated by the dragons and their telepathic abilities, which affords the reader a view of their personalities. In less than a week we've finished the first novel, only reading it at bed-time. It's vocabulary is more advanced than I thought it would be and requires a lot of explanations and definitions, but LP seems quite enthralled and I am never happier than when she is curled up under my arm, head on my chest as I read her a good story.

***

Having been to the hospital more times this week than all of last year, I've been asked numerous times if I received a flu shot this year. Standard answer: Never get a flu shot, or the flu. Well, not unlike 43 other states of the union, the flu has come to Michigan and here-my little corner of the UP. Seems that there has been thought about closing the elementary school with something like 1 in 3 kids out sick. The hospital has initiated quarantine rules, limiting who can visit and also has masks and hand sanitizers handed out at the door.

Today, my son drives up and crashes out sick as a dog. I wake up to find him home sick (haven't seen him all week) and PW on the couch, also sick. Both of them ended up driving to the hospital to get tested for the flu. They didn't even bother testing them. He's obviously got the flu and most likely PW too, has it. Both got prescriptions for Tamiflu. My ex called while they were gone to tell me that my oldest daughter might also have it. This is not good. I'm hobbled, been taking anti-biotics for 2 weeks and maybe just now starting to mend and now I'm surrounded by a rather nasty strain of the flu. I'm supposed to fly back to work in six days. Things are not looking good for me to make it work, healthy. I really don't want to take the flu to my ship, either.

***

In other news, there is no other news-all I do is lay around with my balls in a heating pad and take drugs. Boredom...

The Scrotum Chronicles

This morning, PW took me to the hospital for what seems like the hundredth time. Everyone DOES know us by name, now, so it's not my drug-enhanced imagination-we've spent a lot of time there, this week. Everybody in the hospital waved at me as we left. Yesterday, after my last IV, as I was leaning against the wall in the hallway, some stranger walked up, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Hang in there, man". My infected scrotum, the rock star.

The doc seemed foolishly optimistic, but all I can say is the bag has only stopped getting bigger. He gave the bag a friendly squeeze and left us with a couple trial packages of antacid tablets and a pamphlet on infected testicles. I keep looking at the diagrams in the same way some people like to be scared by horror movies.


Anyway, it's hard as a rock and heavy as a common house brick, if not heavier. Feels like things are ripping and tearing what with the mass of my sac and gravity being 32 feet per second squared. In fact, the damn thing's so heavy I feel like I could measure gravity anomalies with it. Who needs a cloud of Sr atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate and observations of Bloch oscillations to measure micro differences in g? You could use my sac and the waves of pain oscillating from it, saving a ton of money on the Strontium and laser beams. Strontium is NOT cheap and inflamed bags must be a dime a dozen, right?


By the way, car rides suck when carrying a boulder in your sac. I'm now back to wearing the post-operative jock strap to keep the damn thing from ripping off and tearing a hole through the floor.

Finally, the only bright spot this week has been the wonderful care PW has bestowed upon me. I'd be lost without her.

Ralph, the evil testicle

My diagnosis of "not infection" turned out to be wrong. My sack is now roughly 8 inches in diameter and still growing.

I've spent the majority of the last 2 days at the hospital and am returning in 3 hours-it's 4:40 am right now. Yesterday, I took another needle in the left nut. I was really missing the sensation after the first one last week, so I was grateful to get even one more. After the needle, he slashed my sack open, again. Not satisfied with the slash he-mind you it makes me queasy to even think about it, now-he grabbed my nuts and squeezed, hard. I didn't vomit so much as choke, gurgle and loose control of all my bodily functions. He told me not to worry about the loss of control-that it was a "normal" reaction. No shit, sherlock.

After more prodding and poking, he decided that an ultrasound would decide whether or not I would have to be hospitalized. I thought crushing my balls pretty much meant I would never walk again, and necessitated a lengthy stay while getting therapy. Surprisingly, he expected me to get up off the floor, clean myself up and waltz down to radiology. Not that he didn't have some small pity for me-he wrote me a scrip for Oyxcontin before I even wiped the bile off my shirt.

Bolstered with the thought of impending narcotic escape, if not bliss, I made my way slowly down to radiology. After no less than three total strangers asking me how my scrotum felt, I'd pretty much lost all my dignity and looked forward to some fine, young intern squirting warm KY on my berries and gently massaging them while I laid back, covered in warm towels. Not unlike a good happy ending in Thailand, no?

No.

Being a geophysicist, and most importantly, specializing in the seismic science, I should have better appreciated the need for good coupling when getting your nuts imaged. No, not that kind of coupling. I mean the better and firmer the contact, the better the sound waves propagate.

Yes. This means the fine young intern doesn't massage so much as bear down on my already tortured testicles. I enjoyed the KY for about 3 seconds before she bore down on my raved scrotum with an intensity that rivaled that of my doctors visegrip-like hand. Gurgled, again.

It was some consolation that while drifting in and out of consciousness, I noticed that she was probably only 20 years old and absolutely mortified by having to spend 30 minutes with her hand on my sack while I squirmed and moaned and cried like a baby. Also, it interesting to learn about the amplitudes and frequency range and ultrasound uses. In theory, with the right processing applied, an ultrasound is capable of resolution measured in millimeters. They can focus the depth of penetration on the fly, which is pretty cool, too. Makes me wonder if there isn't some sort of application there for vibroseis rigs.

Anyway, where was I? She pretty much crushed and mangled my balls, thoroughly completing the job Doc Visegrips started. Then she noted I was bleeding a lot and had gotten blood all over her sonde. I wiped away the tears and hobbled away.

Believe it, or not, I then left the hospital for a quick dentist appointment. Felt like asking him to drill into my eyeball, or kneecap, just for shits and giggles.

Later, the doc determined that I didn't need to be hospitalized for pain control and that I could get my I.V.'s on the fly. I popped down to the lab, sat in a lazyboy for an hour and got a bag of the good shit. I'm heading back this morning for another bag, too.

I like my scrotal region and have become very attached to it. While I can make a few jokes about it cause I'm drugged outta my mind, I really, really hope I'm not going to loose any more of it. Of course YOU guys want to see it, but the Hinden-bag as Travis so aptly named it yesterday, must stay in the hanger, according to PW. Not to leave you totally swinging in the breeze, I have a couple of ultrasounds here for your viewing pleasure:

The first one is the right and still normal at this writing, testicle. Say hello to my testicle, his name is Roy, for reasons only a few would know. This is a full-on shot of him, looking perpendicular to the major axis of the ellipse. You can see what's left of the vas and epididymus and they are faint and normal. A fine looking, right nut. Plenty of character, quick with a joke and always putting in 110% while on the job.

Now meet Ralph, his evil twin. We see him from a slightly end-on view in order to better image the fact that all his hardware is fucked. Also, after getting squeezed, clamped, poked and prodded, you can see he's actually cowering in the corner of my scrotum, weeping. He knows he's close to getting the axe and about as happy as I am at the prospect.

Sorry for the lousy photos, but I'm stoned, in pain and it's earl, early morning. I'm not exactly on my best game, you know? Well, my bag of frozen peas is no longer frozen, so I gotta hobble downstairs for the back up bag of peas and diced carrots. I hate the sharp corners on the carrots, but it's the best I've got.

My balls hurt and of course it's 5am

I woke up at 5am this morning with a horrible ache in my left nut. Hmmm, before I began blogging, I don't think I could have ever imagined typing out such a statement for the whole world to read.

I woke up at 5am this morning with a horrible ache in my left nut.

Well there it is. I'm laying here on the couch, waiting for 8am so I can call the butcher, I mean doctor who slashed, I mean snipped my nuts to ask him why I would wake up a week later in mortal pain. Whatever the case, it can't be good and I'm not fucking amused at this turn of events.

PW was smart enough to immediately get me a couple of hydrocodone pills and the agony has quieted to dull ache-kinda like 3 minutes after a nasty kick in the balls. You know, the point when you can breathe again and you're sure you're not going to puke, but wonder if it would help and are still willing to do ANYTHING to make the pain go away. That's about where I'm at right now.

Gee, what else can I say about my balls to a bunch of people I don't know? Well, there's little or no swelling and no redness, so I kind of doubt it's an infection. It just fucking hurts.

OK, enough about my balls. I'm hobbling downstairs for a smoke.

I just realized that EVERY time I need the services of a doctor, dentist, auto mechanic, prostitute, or furnace repair technician, it's after hours on the weekend, middle of the fucking night, whatever. Why is this? Oh, and I just threw in the prostitute to see if you're paying attention.

The Great White North

We've got a nice blizzard going, venison soaking in orange juice, teriyaki sauce, garlic, onions, cranberries and rosemary. Wine is cracked, LP's playing in the other room, singing to herself. PW and Mr. Bud are on their way here for dinner, vino and microbrews.

LP and I just returned from a very small town north of here, called Calumet. We drove up to a little store that specializes in copper stuff, knick-knacks and the like. We picked up a combination switch/outlet cover that PW's sister and boyfriend (boyfriend sounds wrong for someone whose over 40 dude-pop the question...) had made for us while I was at sea. It's a metal silhouette of a moose and pine trees and I'll pst a picture after we install it:) I think it looks pretty cool.

Right next door is the taffy shop. It's a store filled with barrels of taffy and old-fashioned candies, foods, fudge, candles, coffee, etc. LP loves to take a small basket and walk around the barrels picking out taffy. I like the coffee, especially on a day like this-windy and snowy. Oh, and we bought a huge chunk of fudge for dessert and a gift for my Father-in-Law's cabin, which we'll be at soon and man I can't wait-the place is like peace and relaxation in a bottle. Kind of like a fine Merlot...

Well, time to tidy up the kitchen, fill a glass of wine for PW and get ready to grill up about 15, 2 1/2" venison fillets.

Peace.

All's quiet here :)

Still recovering. Still sore, too-dammit. Pondering a return visit to the butcher to get my bits and bobs checked out. I can't seem to sit up straight, or lift anything heavy without a lot of pain. They look, but don't feel, normal. Sucks.

Had Mr. Bud over for a wonderful venison steak dinner. PW did an awesome job cookin up the grub and I discovered mixing PW's WAY too sweet table wine with a rather astringent Merlot that a friend of Mr. Bud's brewed up ranked as one of the best wines I've ever had. Savored every last drop as I shifted amounts of each, to create every glass, a distinct taste and bouquet. God it was good. Anyway, it was good to connect with Mr. Bud for a while and it was a nice, mellow night.

Yesterday...no, two days ago, PW and I went out and impulse-bought a new ride. It's a GOLD, not champagne (sorry honey), AWD Mercury Mountaineer. I like it for taking only a few minutes to decide on and purchase it. Had to contemplate and research all night long, just to convince myself we made a good deal, but we did. Just doubling the damn mpg over the Expedition we traded in, was a wise move. The best feature is the little jack that I can plug my mp3 player into. No more crappy radio, or CD's-just plug and play all the music I've collected over the years from all over the world:)

Tonight, I just opened a nice, full-bodied Cabernet, after the girls went to bed. Did the dinner dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, which sorely needed it. Wine helps this sort of thing, you know?

Not much else going on here. Trying to just be close to my family as much as possible. In less than a week-oh shit, I guess I can't talk about that just in case the wrong person is reading, but next week I'll blog from a couple new venues for a few days. Then its back home to finish up yet more house repair, remod and then off to the ship, again somewhere between NZ and Antarctica.

Hope all you folks out there are healthy, happy and your days are peaceful and prosperous.

Balls of Steel

Or maybe something a bit softer like lead, or rubber. Whatever, I seem to have made a pretty damn good recovery. Yesterday was pretty much agony, despite not giving birth, or getting ripped from pussy to ass (nod to LL and all mothers, especially PW!). I couldn't walk much and it really, really hurt.

Today? Meh, pretty much a complete recovery. Don't even need a painkiller. I'm sore, but I can walk, even if it looks like I just climbed down from 8 hours on a horse. So, fire 30-40 rounds through the old pistol and I should be shooting blanks. Wonderful.

post operative vino therapy

The deed is done. I'm swollen, bowlegged and in a fair amount of pain. My wonderful PW has fed me chicken soup, asked to see the damage, bought me 3 bottles of wine and handed me a bag of frozen pees.

The vino and peas are my lifelines to consciousness and sanity. It really fucking hurts.

My next door neighbor got a chuckle, seeing me bent over on the porch, having a smoke in my bathrobe, despite single-digit temps. He says tomorrow will be worse-much worse.

The actual surgery was fine. The nurse who assisted brought in her own tunes. Much to my and the doc's surprise, it was a favorite of both of us-Alison Krauss, Now That I've Found You. Good stuff and great music to get your balls snipped by. The needle in the balls? Holy fuck. Yeah, that sums it up-HOLY FUCK!

Well, two Valiums, two codeines and a bottle of wine later and the pain recedes. A little. Mr. bud, you're going to have to wait on picture of the package unless you want to come over and help with the next 2 bottles of vino and take it yourself-too awkward for me to shot it and PW refuses to assist in posting "her" property on the Internets. Funny how she owns the package and I own the pain. Oh yeah, and LL? Fuck that pussy business-this really does hurt like a motherfucker!

The world ends tomorrow

You'd think I got bored sitting around, waiting to have my nuts snipped. Couldn't wait for the pain and misery to begin, so I had some long put-off dentistry done this morning. Fuck that morning cuppa joe-go get a root canal done at 7:30 and start your day off with a bang! What, not enough? OK, rip out a tooth in preparation for a crown, or is it a bridge? I can't remember I'm so giddy from the pain. Oh, glorious pain!

Take an aspirin, or Motrin you say? Well, not only would that defeat the purpose of getting in a little practice pain before the real deal, but you can't take any aspirin, or Motrin before you get your balls chopped off with a meat cleaver. So today was the perfect day for a little dental distress. The only real fun has been chasing LP around with my swollen face. She's scared of it from some reason. Sadly, she's finally off for a delayed start to school and I've got nobody to scare, except the dog and he could give a shit.

I suppose this might be the last post for a bit unless things go well (I am the eternal pessimist and I swear the doc is going to sneeze at just the wrong moment), or I decide to rip a page from Danny and post a shot of my frozen peas-clad crotch (I'm not sure if I want to scare off my last three readers, but it might be a great way to end the blog-"Yo, look at this gaping hole in my sack!")

Our blizzard ended some time last night, but it's still damn cold. I was freezing this morning while clearing off the trucks and warming up PW's truck on my way out. Must have been close to zero, maybe a couple of degrees above. Too damn cold to be out before the sun comes up, preparing to head to the dentist, anyway. Since my face feels like it's been ripped off, I have an excuse not to shovel the driveway, but I suppose I'll have to venture out at some point today, since I still have to buy a cup for the surgery, tomorrow. The doc says you fill it with crushed ice, sort of making like a shrimp cocktail...

Pardon the Dust

Pardon me while I play with the layout and a bunch of Last.fm widgets in the sidebar. I really liked the idea of having my music playing on the site, but as I've always got music playing and the headphones on as soon as I turn on the laptop, all that damn playlist widget does is interrupt me, when I come here. This after I took the time to manually add some 400 songs to it!

Still, I love the idea of exchanging musical tastes and discoveries....how does one find the likes of Solas, Sufjin Stevens and Yann Teirson if someone doesn't tell you, "Hey, solas is the best Celtic out there, Sufjin wrote a tune about John Wayne Gacy Jr. (BLONDIE) and the violin in Yann's 7-PM is mesmerizing."?? Maybe you find it in their little widget...

HOME

I'm shot. Had to work straight through the last four days, but I stepped off that ship, in Christchurch, on time. Crew-x was bit messy for some of the crew, myself included. It's never a good idea to have an open bar at a dinner for a bunch of pirates. Hopefully, the damages were minimal, but I was afraid to look behind the areas the hotel had cordoned off with large tarps the next day. There were some construction workers busy behind the tarps, so at least some of it was structural...

The trip home was, as usual, a bit stressful and involved a few mad dashes through airports, attempting to make flights booked too close together when you have to clear customs, etc. It was especially close in Auckland, where I had to switch terminals, clear customs and buy my way out-they charge 25 NZ dollars to leave the country. I flew first class most of the way and found passable merlot on both the flights to LA and Minnie:) Despite that, I arrived mostly sober and not too worse for wear.

US airlines really treat you like shit when compared to most of their foreign counterparts, but I was thankful they didn't question the amount of wine I drank, just a couple of funny looks.

I've mostly slept on and off since arriving home Thursday night and tomorrow I plan on going outside and clearing the last 6 weeks of snow from my truck and the driveway. I've seen the whole family, now, including my elusive teenagers, my mother-in-law and one sister-in-law. It's damn good to be home.

Peace.

Inclement weather

Due to inclement weather onboard (internal shit storm), blogging will be temporarily suspended until I get some things sorted and step on dry land, next week. Promise an update from shore if my hotel has wireless!

ps. I'd rather another hurricane than this shit.

pps. personal thank you to Travis, Jack, Heidi and Steph for keeping me amused and on an even keel when things here were totally falling apart. You folks didn't know it, but I desperately needed that very entertaining and humorous exchange to keep from going off the deep end, yesterday.

This Pirate is not a plumber

It was bound to happen. I made the mistake of mentioning it should be a quiet cruise up to crew-x. Nope. A multi-person fuck up has left me a rather complicated mess to sort out before crew-x. Instead of putting my feet up and reveling in the fact that I busted my ass the last week getting everything sorted early, I get to beat my head against the bulkhead for the next 5 days. It is amazing that after 10 years out here, people still manage to shit the bed in new and unique ways, then dump their stinking pile of crap in my lap. I'm not the plumber. I'm not supposed to be so people can screw up on purpose because it might be easier to let me fix it than to do their job, dammit.

Any-fucking-way, I'm supposed to get off in 5 days and allegedly at the harbour in Lyttelton, which is good since there's no way in hell the seas will calm down enough to land a chopper, or pull another ship alongside. This harbour has several berths and from the layout I've seen, the most likely quay is number 7. It just happens to have a WEBCAM and if you tune in sometime around midday on the 23rd, you just might get a glimpse of the pirate doing cartwheels down the gangway as he's headed for the nearest pub and a double-shot of ice-cold vodka.

Songs of the known universe

My mind is all over the place tonight. With so many things metaphorically wrapped up and neatly stored away as this trip rapidly comes to a close, everyone's mind wanders and after nearly 6 weeks of talking to only 10 people, topics of conversation tend to drift ALL over the known universe.

Case in point: My shift-x handover began with a discussion of the known universe. Not work. From there, it degraded? into questions of why we have instruments capable of seeing 10 billion years into the past, but nothing that can provide us with high-resolution images of our closest celestial neighbors-the planets in our solar system and our own moon. What's up with that? From there, we touched on music and books on tape, UFOs and the space program. A logical progression, no? Maybe not.

Did you hear recent research suggests super-massive black holes spin at near the speed of light? Given the power spewed by them and the amount of matter they eat, which must spiral in if a black hole is spinning, I wonder if they influence the direction of rotation of spiral galaxies, which we know know have a preferential rotation direction-contrary to the currently accepted mechanics and distribution of galaxies in the observable universe. Could even be the reason spiral galaxies, well, spiral in the first place. Cool stuff:)

Anyway, my thoughts are scattered in all directions. Tonight I found myself chatting online with technicians from Norway, Malaysia and Australia and then PW calls from the States. I'm typing tape formatting, data streams and software to all points of the compass, while talking about getting my nuts snipped and chiropractor appointments with PW. That's extreme multi-tasking and not once did I type something to the engineers about my balls, thankfully.

I've also been doing a little online research on cobra venom protease and it's many uses-fascinating stuff when you figure out what the scientists are actually on about. I can thank the King's glorious tripod and the Queen (whom I can't link, yet...) for that one. Oh, the hobbies one can pick up from the Internets. Found some REALLY interesting stuff on our space program, but won't mention it for fear of looking like a crackpot (too late for that, you say?), other than than to say, I'll be sending it your way, Blondie. Interviews, mission transcripts and a healthy dose of conspiracy theory. (not "the Apollo program was a fake" conspiracy, either)

So, back to last night's conversation. For a promise of a copy of my audio book on the known universe and a bit of my music, I was given some great, new music from all over the planet, by the look of it. I recognized only two artists; Martha Wainwright and Sigur Ros, the latter being from Iceland and a recent favorite of mine, though I have little in my collection. Good times and good tunes. He gets some Joe, The Waifs, Mickey Hart's Mystery Box, Robert Earl Keen Jr, Lucinda Williams and Solas. Oh, and LL? I'm slipping in the tune from Lawless I downloaded way back when;) Lawless is headed to Great Britain, via New Zealand.

Speaking of good times, the latest news is that we may actually crew-x on time and even get most of a day to relax and decompress in NZ. I can only hope. Now, if I could only get word on what ship I'm next headed to and when, but alas, that never happens. For all I know, my next assignment will be Lake Superior, or offshore Cuba.

Finally, I have a strange rash in my right armpit. I wonder if it's from the African deodorant I bought in NZ, or from my headphone cord burning me in the sauna. I wear my mp3 player on my right arm and yes, I wear my headphones in the sauna...

It's all over but the music

Hurricane's over, repair work on the in-sea gear is over, even the paperwork is nearly over. Boredom slowly creeps up as my back is turned...

So, I'm looking at my last.fm profile page and my overall listening habits for 2008 and I see that KISS and Beethoven are slugging it out at number 17! I think in the end Ludvig will pound the demon rockers, but either way, a drunken Dean Martin hasn't a chance to pick himself up from the floor at number 117, even if I do like that Maria song, as well as good, stiff drink now and then...

The other side

Storm's over and we are picking up the pieces, literally. It was intense and fortunately ended after only a little over 24 hours. We recorded sustained winds of over 70 knots, or 88 mph, which is a force 12 on the Beaufort Scale and a category 1 hurricane, to boot.

Though it wasn't named since it's out in the middle of southern nowhere, I am officially chalking up an other hurricane on my list. This one managed to get me, too. After all these years and hurricanes at sea , I finally took a digger. A pair of waves heeled us over pretty good at about 50 degrees and I attempted to vacate my chair as it slid backwards into the desk 15 feet behind me. I stepped on a metal rod that slid out from under my desk and went down on my face. When the ship rolled back, I slid forward into my filing cabinet and drove the little button on my ball cap into the top of my head. Fuck me, it still hurts!

Anyway, we have a lot of damaged equipment to repair and recover from the sea, yet. Ciao.

Not a friendly place

The shit has hit the fan out here. I can't get into details, but the weather has just dealt us a crippling blow and we are thoroughly fucked, but afloat for the time-being. I hate this fucking place. Um, the regularly scheduled blogging may be interrupted for a while...

Regularly scheduled programming

Every once in a while some asshole who shouldn't get under your skin does just that. LL's right, "Fuck em. Drive on."

Driving on, the road is getting bumpy out here, AGAIN. This is one gawd-awful place to work. Winds and seas are increasing, quickly. I suspect it won't be long and we'll be running NE for shelter, again. It's getting difficult to keep my chair at the desk and shit keeps hitting the floor, or banging on the bulkheads.

I did another 13.5KM on the elliptical yesterday after shift, working up several blisters and a sore hip-the latter kept me up till about 7m, a fact I began to bemoan at exactly 10:45pm when my alarm went off. Between the lack of sleep and the rolling ship, I am exhausted and cranky. Breakfast is served in 15 minutes. I hope they've got chili, or something else spicy to wake me up, but I bet it's something like pancakes and a casserole, again. Did i mention we received a small care shipment from our chase boat? We took our jet-powered rescue boat over there and brought back several loads of fruits and vegetables. We've had bowls of cherries in the mess for the last 3 days and boy are they good. Lots of plums, apples and a ton of fruits I am unfamiliar with and have discovered I don't like. Ever had a leeche? They suck.

A Public Service Announcement

Yesterday I get this email that asks me why I bother to blog. Tells me that I should stop, I have nothing to offer anyone, my site is pointless, etc. Apparently I missed the memo directing me to be socially responsible and offer only worthwhile material like a primer on needlepoint, and how-to-clean your fucking piece of shit oil-burning, money sucking bastard of a furnace. Now, I'm a nice guy so I won't hammer on the poor schmuck who took the time to offer me an honest, if somewhat hard-line assessment of my site. What I will do is just point out a few things.

1. This is MY blog and as I read the fine print, I can write whatever I feel.

2. ITS A BLOG.

3. Right at the top of this site are two small clues as to the content and purpose of this site. The title should suggest something to anyone who reads it. I'm not too bright and write here when I have too much time on my hands. Underneath is a short statement that succinctly sums up the site and should alleviate any expectations you might have about worthwhile content. It does not read "SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE WEBSITE WHOSE SOLE PURPOSE IS ENLIGHTENMENT OF THE MASSES AND THE CREATIVE ENGINE DESTINED TO BRING ABOUT WORLD PEACE"

4. You have a "back" button on your browser, dude. It's that green arrow in the upper left corner.

5. I've just spent 2.5 hours cruising animal porn sites, dodgey online lenders, black-market pill vendors and the like. At each stop I looked for an opportunity to register with them and used your email address. Did I say I was a nice guy? I lied.

(this site will now return to it's regularly scheduled programming)

meatballs

Apparently, modern technology is so wonderful that you can make an appointment to have your nuts snipped while 15,000 miles from home, in the middle of the world's most remote ocean. I'm two days from the nearest land, New Zealand, and I'm hanging on the phone with a receptionist, making jokes about how Wednesday is Prince spaghetti AND meatball day because that's the day the urologist from the big city visits our little hospital to snip nuts. Gitche Gitche Ya Ya.

We don't need no stinking poo-poo platter

With the possible exception of a few of PW's more memorable meals, I don't think I've had many food hangovers. Yesterday I was prompted to binge eat to the point that I'm actually ill tonight.

The chef and his staff of highly motivated and brilliant cooks prepared; duck in mint sauce, coconut crusted prawns and mango sauce, paprika pork and mushrooms in char sui with sour cream, steamed bok choy, garlic crusted potatoes and finally, dumplings in butterscotch sauce. I finished my fourth helping and all that was missing was the bucket at my feet, a waitress scrubbing the carpet and Gaston attempting to slip one thin mint past my lips with a knife.

Though it was difficult, I managed to stumble back to my rack and collapse, bloated and moaning. I actually couldn't sleep, or move, I just lay there for hours, threatening to burst through my T-shirt. This when I had grand plans to reach for 15KM on the elliptical after shift. Bastards.

In other news, there is no other news.

Music to my ears?

The wind is freaking howling. Lines and rigging vibrating; a discordant, shrieking symphony that can be heard from all corners of the ship. A line banging against the bulkhead next to my bunk all damn night, an off-beat, base drum accompanying the demented string section, topside.

Our shelter, the NZ coast, no longer offers such as the winds have now shifted to the SW. We're in for 2-3 more days of this, too. Fortunately, the winds have stayed below 50 knots for the most part. Still, I am damn tired of the shitty weather down here. Tired of sitting down to pee, having to keep at least one hand-hold in the shower and stumbling around like a drunken idiot when I drag my sorry ass out of the rack every night.

Typical for an operation such as mine-as soon as I managed to get everything sorted and running smoothly, we've run into a problem with generating something incredibly simple that we've never had a simple solution for in all the years we've been out here doing this type of work-a label. A damn sticky label to slap on our final product. R&D expects us to generate our products with a 50 million dollar computer system and then label said product with a fucking crayon.

While stewing on this issue, the database I run under decided it was full and will not let me continue with this project. Just shut me down, cold. In this area, I know just enough to be dangerous, so I've put in a call for help to our engineers onshore. Waiting............................

In other news, with all the problems for this project sorted (until just now), I'm back in the gym instead of working 16 hr shifts. Despite a long break, I managed to knock out 13.5 KM in only an hour on the elliptical machine, yesterday. I've still got over 100KM to Taunton, but I'm hopeful. The medic says the next challenge involves the number of times you can scale and return from the peak of Mount Everest, using the ship's stairs. Sounds painful.

Finally, in order to come full circle in this post-music:

I was never a big Elvis Costello fan. Actually I was never a fan, at all. I've recently re-discovered Elvis via the ship's digital music collection. I downloaded Very Best of Elvis Costello (Polygram International) and damned if can't stop listening to it, over and over. The guy's an incredible songwriter. Pure genius.

The outskirts of Dodge

We're sort of in the suburbs of Dodge, not quite outta, yet. It's rough, real rough. The towed gear is taking a pounding and it's quite unpleasant onboard. Sleeping was a bit of a bear yesterday, what with all the banging and crashing around in my cabin. Everything is stowed, or tied down, but the loose items in the medicine cabinet and my locker were having a field day. I got up this morning to find my shaving cream and toothpaste having sex in the corner, with the voyeuristic Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap watching the whole affair.

Also woke up tired from the whole staying wedged in the rack thing. We've had swell off the stern quarter and it's rolling us, badly. This doesn't bode well for the bunks orientated in-line with the keel. With a little over 100KM to go before NZ gives us her lee, it's going to be a long night of holding onto the desk while typing. Most of the crew are idle while the operation is shut down. Not me. I've still got to keep my operations humming in this crap. Unfortunately, certain bits of my system react unfavorably to swaying and getting slammed around. Makes for a long night of mothering all the bits and bobs, cajoling them into working and giving them lovin' when they get bent out of shape.

On the bright side of things, I finally have all aspects of my operation up and running smoothly, disregarding the heavy seas. I can finally turn to the paperwork, getting work instructions, handover notes and a final report started, in preparation for getting the hell out of here. This has not been one of my better trips, to say the least. I can only thank my lucky stars that the young trainee they saddled me with has proven to be more than competent and helped to ease the burden whilst shit hit the fan over the holidays and into last week.

Oh, GOOD LORD!! Here comes the damn bubblegum pop crap over the instrument room stereo. Everyone's looking my way to see if I break out the fire axe hangin just outside my door. Other people's fucking kids. I'm going for 3 O'clock tea. Later.

Run for your lives

Yet ANOTHER nasty storm is a brewin'. As bad as the last one and forecast to last four days. We are doing a quick bit o testing for the client, then picking up and getting the fuck outta Dodge.

It goes on the outside

So yesterday I'm eating something called a chicken sausage that resembles a hot dog. I get 3/4 of the way through it and see a little bit of what looks like plastic wrap, sticking out from the uneaten end and I give it a tug. About 3 inches of what appears to be a long, thin plastic bag emerges. It resembles a condom so closely that I simply stood up, showed the cooks, dumped it and left to get back to work. The number of condom jokes flying around the instrument room 28 hours later is killing me.

Even with the best chefs money can buy, cooking out here, you never know what you're going to get when your food is bought by the ton in god only knows what port. dang.

Ornery Bastard

The average age of the crew on here is about 24, maybe slightly younger. Couple that with dozens of Aussies and Kiwis and I find the sense of humor and atmosphere to be quite different from my last operation-a boat full of aging, silver-haired Americans. For instance, on my last operation, if somebody's birthday was discovered to fall during a trip (most were kept close to the vest), you might wish the poor bastard a happy birthday and at most a prankster might quietly slip a bottle of Maalox, or a tube of hemorrhoid cream onto his workstation.

Here, some bright-eyed trainee paints a fucking mural on the notice board outside the mess. Additional assholes put up an electronic card that looks like a car, honks and plays happy birthday whenever ALL the other trainees push the hood every fucking time they pass by it while I'm trying to eat a quiet meal and think of a place, any place, other than this. Oh and one of those goofy looking party hats that resembles one of Madonna's tits back in the 90's. Remember the pointy, leather bustier. Yeah, they expect you to walk around for 12 hours looking like you have Madonna's bustier on your head. We've had several birthdays and the younger people DO wear the damn thing.

I've noticed the music sucks the sweat off a dead skunk, too. A lot of European techno shite and the worst of the worst pop-crap like Brittany Spears (I had to ask someone, "what's this shit?" and now I can finally say I've heard Brittany Spears and hate her music) and the Spice Girls (same story-now I've heard them and they blow). Thank God I've got my headphones. Otherwise, by now I would have spooned somebody's eyes out and had them with afternoon tea. JUST NOW, I swear, just now, Smells like Teen Spirit, by Nirvana came on and I was gonna say that after 3 weeks somebody finally played a tune that hasn't ever been heard at the annual Cream party in Ibiza. (I fucking HATE drum machines and some parents should make like gerbils and eat their young) Anyway, they skipped the Nirvana 10 seconds after it came on. Fucking gerbils.

Is that harsh? I can't wear my headphones right now because I have to keep getting up and change data tapes in another room-thus the rage as I hear the 34th version of exactly the same beat. The day a decent classic rock song debuts in here Iguanas will fall from the trees. Yes, Steph, I've latched on to that phrase and I like it!

So, that's about it from 46 degrees South. It's still windy, with heavy seas, work is a pain in the ass and I'm an ornery bastard.

Do a little dance..

VICTORY!!!! Pardon my Indonesian, but fuck all those pencil-necked computer jockeys in the office who couldn't see past the forest for all of the trees. Higher technology isn't always good, or right. Sometimes you gotta kick it old-school, especially when shit hits the fan. It may be a little premature, yet, but I'm doing a little victory dance on the helideck, despite the weather.

Oooga-Boooga

Beyond frustration

I've gone beyond frustration to that warm, happy place called "I No Longer Give A Shit". I've got half the phd's on the planet working on the issues I'm facing out here and nobody has any answers. Time to kick back and smell the roses, everything that can be done has been done and now we have to wait....and wait.........and wait.

As usual, the weather is much worse than the predicted forecast. We've turned tail and hauled ass behind New Zealand, seeking shelter off the Eastern coast. Even in the lee, it's a bit rough, though. The duration of the storm has also outstripped the forecast and our back-up plan has been extended. Hopefully, soon we will turn for the prospect and get back to business!

With the recent stresses of work, I took to smoking a bit, even while on The Patch. Upon entering the city limits of I No Longer Give A Shit, I stopped again, and am now even using a lower-dose patch. The urge to smoke is gone, along with the urge to repeatedly bang my head against the bulkhead. Now all I have to do is get back in the gym and threaten the cooks with bodily harm if they continue to bake pastries, pies and cookies.

So, It's back to work and daydreaming about days like this:

Frustration

Ugh. Two, 16 hr shifts, separated by a little restless sleep, trying to wedge myself in the rack against heavy seas. The stress level is through the roof out here as we find each problem compounded with another, just when we think the problem is solved. I'm so tense, unexpected noises are making me jump out of my skin and yet I'm guzzling coffee like water, just to stay coherent.

It's times like these that make me question what the fuck I am doing out here. The trips where you don't do your job, but instead fight with failed systems, bad data, incorrect procedures, extremely bad weather and a pissed-off client who's paying you tens of millions of dollars for garbage, seem to take years off your life. I nearly had a stroke this morning when I couldn't get the washing machine to start up. Good Lord, I'm in a bad place right now.

I wish I could snuggle up between PW & LP and sleep for a month, forgetting about this place and this lousy life out here, entirely. I would also give just about anything for a liter or two of distilled potato.

Nonetheless, they've got me trapped. I can't escape for home and there's no distilled potatoes onboard, so I'll carry on. With that, I'll Leave you with a picture of my latest, "ride". It had better ride well through the upcoming storm. The next 24 hrs are forecast to be at least as bad as the storm I "dead" blogged up in the Chukchi Sea, about a year and a half ago, where it nearly sank the damn ship. Good times.

Year of the Rat: A time of renewal

Yesterday, I decided to completely ignore what most of you considered to be a holiday. After a rough, 16-hr day, I decided to recognize and celebrate the Chinese New Year, instead. The year 4706-Year of the Rat, promises to be a better one for me, a year of renewal and prosperity. I'm looking forward to celebrating the new year beginning February 7th, AND I'll be celebrating at home, with my family.

I suppose in keeping with Chinese New Year tradition, we'll light off fireworks and have a ceremony to honor Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and our ancestors. After the "Sacrifice to the Ancestors" ritual, we'll gather around the table for a traditional "weilu", or "surrounding the stove" feast.

In keeping with tradition, we'll have 15 more days of holiday decorations; doors and walls festooned with poetic couplets and hand-written happy wishes to each other for new year. Blooming flowers, bamboo and pine sprigs in vases. Platters of oranges and plum blossoms. All the emblems of a reawakening of nature.

The decorations will stay up for the 15 day celebration, lasting from the first full moon of the year, until the second. It will be a glorious two weeks, honoring in turn, the gods of Heaven and Earth, our ancestors, our In-Laws (Oy! Busia!), and on the fifth day, called "Poo Woo", honoring the God of Wealth(everyone's a capitalist at heart, aren't they?).

Following that are days celebrating friends and family, the farmer's yield, gifts to the Jade God and alternating days of rich and simple, or lean foods. The 14th day is spent in preparation for the Lantern Festival, celebrated on the 15th night.

I look forward to the new year and all it's pomp and circumstance, it's feasts and rituals and the silent moments in between. It should be a glorious and peaceful time for all. I hope PW remembers to get the rice paper for the Lanterns, though...

/Peace, love and prosperity for all of you in the coming new year.