Nationwide fame and stardom

Well, I'm not going to link to it, because they used my full name for some reason, and said that I was a US Marine, not a merchant mariner, but ABC news did a piece on dealing with submerged vehicles around NY/NJ, and my truck, may it rest in peace, made the news, mostly because I complained to anyone who would listen that there just wasn't a way for me to get from where we're moored to where the truck is parked. If you're a facebook friend, you can check it there. If you're not, you should be.

 At any rate, a reporter read my whining on here, and now I'm a celebrity. Snooki who? She is so last week.
 PaulB. is the new hotness of digital media. If I knew that I was going to be labeled as "US Marine Capt. PaulB," though, I would have tried to parlay that into an admiralty. If you're going to get promoted because no one knows the difference between a marine and a merchant mariner, might as well go for flag rank. "First Sea Lord PaulB" has a plenty pleasant ring to it.


 In the meanwhile, though, there are signs of life in the refining and oil terminal world. Gasoline is starting to flow, and diesel, too, I think. Black oil, however, is not the new hotness, which is part of the problem. Myself and my neighbors here at the dock are sitting on a couple of thousand tons of cold black oil, which is just about solid enough to walk across when it's ambient temp in November. We've got to get somebody to pump screaming hot oil into our tanks to blend with our cold oil so that we can pump it into a shore tank to be reheated, then we can take on some hot oil ourselves to give to thirsty ships and powerplants. The guys behind us, however, are fully loaded with cool oil. If they don't get it out in the next day or two, I have no idea how they'll get the solidified slurry out.

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Yesterdays' post earned me a few boos in my emailbox, too. As explained in the comments section, I probably should have fleshed out my thinking a little. I feel terrible for the people who lost everything this past week, and for their sakes, I'm glad to see FEMA here with the free ice cream machine. It seems to me, though, that there are proportionately more strident and loud people who have merely been INCONVENIENCED by the hurricane, and are unwilling to put scuff marks on their $200 sneakers to walk a little ways to get food, and are just squatting in front of their perfectly sound but powerless residences screaming for a microphone and a forum until their iPhones work. Those are the people that keep folks like me from wanting to do more. I will not help up someone who is perfectly able to help themselves but refuses, and, unfortunately, they're the ones who have the time and desire to get in line and open up their mouths for Mama Bird.gov to vomit free stuff into their voluminous EBT card-lined stomachs.  At any rate, the people sitting in the charred or sand-filled ruins of their homes are being cut out and subsumed by loudmouths who are happily willing to sit in line for 2 hours for the chance to complain on TV how no one is working hard enough to help them. If they were forced to actually work or even walk for 2 hours to get food for their families, they'd be too tired to bitch quite so loudly, and the folks who really need our help might get it.