Big Box Race Relations and other deep things.

'Tis the day before crew change and so I have arrived to NY and as always it's a gray, foggy, shitty day. Appropriate. I feel... funereal.   Had a great 2 weeks and other than still having a second asshole on the back of my hand courtesy of the cancer fairy and my dermatologist, it was a good 2 weeks. Restful. 

Tomorrow early I retun to the HQ to see how bad the fill-in-crew fucked it up. I heard bad things. 

 But that isn't why I am writing. 

 So I changed my big box store membership from Cosco to BJ's about 5 years ago. Both have stores in Brooklyn, where sadly the HQ is homeported.

 Cosco has more of what I want and is much closer to the office and lay beths... but Cosco Brooklyn is a hell on earth.  Overrun by ultrarude elderly asians, the women especially, as they love to stare at you and yell when you're, God Forbid, eyeing the same selections as them. Waiting politely is not a thing.  To be fair, to a lesser extent the Jewish grandmothers also can be a handful, and they shop in groups, taking great joy in harassing the register clerks and causing delays. 

   BJ's while not as matched to my interest, is further out, close to JFK Airport, and going there means stacking up butts-to-nuts with surly and kinda rude assorted Slavs who also don't jive with waiting politely but do so in a more passive-aggressive manner than the Wrinkled Yellow Menace, and who yell a whole lot less, sharing the Use-Your-Indoor-Voice values I enjoy. 

 Today something was off at the BJ's. Not one shopping cart to be found in the parking garage... and an unusual number of very short very dried up-looking ladies loading things into minivans while slightly less short old men smoked and made gestures and pointed at where the old ladies were to put their bulky shit in the minivan, all without helping.  

 Asia has invaded my Bohunk BJ's. Inside?  Thunderdome Rules. 

 Well, I've been here before. My Cosco days taught me a lot. Male eye contact. Do not slow down and try never to let the cart roll to a full stop or gridlock happens and 5 old prunes will start throwing gang signs and caterwauling a mile a minute in foreign, while staring out from under little hats with unusually long brims. 

The day after the perfect day

 I feel great this morning. 

    The sun's out, I slept in (for me. 7am) late, and I appear to have suffered no negative consequences for having spent an entire day dedicated to flirting with overindulgence of many sorts. 

      Yesterday was a gorgeous hot Florida summer day. I knocked out chores and errands by 10am yesterday, and so just before noon Inappropriately Hot foreign Wife and I loaded up a half-bushel tin with beer, ice, water and soda, opened up the umbrellas that keep me from dying of sun exposure in my own back yard, and jumped in the pool, where we stayed for the next 7 hours. We mostly didn't tune out the world, but conscious that this is my last weekend before what will of necessity be be a big push at work for the remainder of the summer, we avoided serious business, and proceeded to drink, eat (I ordered a big mess of Korean BBQ wings), and swim and be... languid? No, wrong word. We alternated between swimming, floating around and generally enjoying each other's company while maintaining a moderate buzz with the beer. 

   My wife would occasionally come out of the pool to load up on coconut oil and sit out in the sun, and toasted to the gorgeous bronze color, the one that Brazilian morenas (brunettes) are famous for. I mostly managed to stay in the shade, as I already have had skin cancer twice (more on that later) and am a believer now that the horse is well and away out through that barn door.  Still, I got pinked up pretty good, even with sunscreen, because short of wearing a burka, I am going to burn when I'm outside between spring and fall, and I have worked outside pretty much since I was 8. 

      Thing is, we drank a lot of water (and diet soda too, for me) and after the pool day was done, we drank more water and spent the evening mostly on the couch before going to bed around 2300... and so, today, armed with plenty of vitamin D, I'm well rested, and while not sore from the exercise of swimming all day, I'm also not hung over or dehydrated... in fact, I feel pretty good, and yesterday was the first day my hamburgered hand felt ok too, and it's still OK today. 

      The morning after I got home from my last trip, I had an appointment with my dermatologist to get the back of my left hand chewed up and burnt to shit, as I had skin cancer starting in one spot but caught early enough that they didn't need to cut on me, but rather scraped my hand raw and then burn the shit out of a quarter-sized area with a cautery to kill any leftover cancer cells that might have escaped being scraped off. Turns out, if you remove about a sixteenth of an inch of depth of skin and then light it on fire, it hurts more and for longer than simply slicing it and stitching it shut. Who knew?   For the last week my hand has been blown up like a cartoon character and hurt like balls any time that my hand was positioned below my heart. Hydrostatic pressure hurts burns. I've mostly been letting the area dry out and scab over, but cover it when I go out, because it looks like I have a second asshole growing out of the back of my hand and who wants to see that? 

 But, it's healed enough and yesterday it felt ok, finally... and spending the day in the water washed away the scabbing, and there's already mostly nice smooth pink skin underneath. I have a little scabbed area, maybe 20% of the scar, today, but the other 80% appears to be healing well, so when I do go back to work, maybe I won't look like I've been chosen to bear the stigmata. 

 I'm hoping it will look like a bullet wound, and not like someone put out their cigar on my hand. 

______________________________________________

 Now, we got a nice surprise in the form of news from Brazil, too. Construction is  showing some real progress, and the city where our house is located finally approved all the paperwork that wasn't filed as required by the original contractor who embezzled from us, and yesterday the title of the property arrived at our lawyer's office, only 18 months late, so there's a little city at a crossroads in Brazil that has a globetrotting local girl who lives abroad, and her participation trophy husband, with a residence now on the tax rolls there. 

   So, yeah, holy shit I own a house in Brazil. 

The breeze feels good, gravity does not

 Fridays at home are for day drinking and swimming. We've been in the pool for 3 hours and a rack of beers. 

     I got out of the pool a few minutes ago for the first time. Gravity was a stone cold bitch after 3 hours without it. In the pool I am a more buoyant version of my 20-something self; outside? Joint aches, hard stone decking... it was awful. 

 I have a 12-foot umbrella over one corner of the pool to rest under while I scorch in the sun and Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife bronzes herself into Brazilian tan perfection.  

A huge day happened in Brazil for us while we were slapping on sunscreen this afternoon too; more on that later. 

Everyone's being an asshole...

 I missed the last 3 days in the pool on account of a sunburn... what kind of dumbshit with skin cancer gets a sunburn? 

 The kind who lives in Florida in June I guess. Whatever, I swam 3/4 of a mile after 4 shots of whisky and 4 beers and getting the back of my hand hamburgered w/my latest skin cancer removal. 

 Not bad .

Don't Make Me Be The Adult In The Room

I'll admit that I looked the gift horse in the mouth. 

        Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife started her new job yesterday. Losing her last job a few months ago shortly after hsving committed to spending a whole shitpot of money on construction of our house in Brazil, we've been running redlined for some time, and the new job was very welcome. 

    Sadly, many months ago I had rented a little cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains, set for next week. This was to be our only little vacation for 2025, and with the new job, we won't be going. I feel worse for her, really.

 I mean, I'm as pleased as a hen with a new egg simply for being able to go home for 2 weeks straight. It's a bummer we won't get to travel, but I'll be at home and there's whisky there and a pool and my wife and kid. And for some reason, my wife, who is attractive where I am not, seems to enjoy my company. Cry me a river, right?  

We're in our 50's.  She doesn't age much, whereas I am apparently Dorian Gray's picture, aging for both of us. 

Plus, last week my sister, who hasn't been in good health for some time, slipped and fell in the kitchen and broke 2 vertebrae, had a spinal fusion done 2 days later.  So I'll be able to visit her in the rehab as she's hobbling about with her walker. Between her and my wife's last job, April and May were the only 2 months in the past 6-8 months or so where I didn't spend a couple of days in a hospital. I will have time to visit now, be the giant ray of sunshine that I am. 

      Now, my company tacked a cargo on us last minute that will fuck with crew change (as is tradition), which kilt my sleep last night what with the wailing and gnashing of teeth and all, so I was up at 0200, but regardless, in 7-8 hours I should be set ashore, I hope, to make my way to the airport for my complementary bag search and handjob. 

    

We're now 4 days into the high holy month of Gay Ramadan. Working on boats means I don't get bombarded by it. We'll see what happens when I get ashore.  I don't really get into it. I'm holding out for July, which is Sloth month. 

        

Disappointing but not unexpected

 Some crappy news from Brazil.

    The prosecutor's office reported Friday that they decline to indict the builder who ripped me off during construction of our house in Brazil. 

         Persuing criminal charges against the guy was always going to be an uphill battle. As the builder was married to a 3rd cousin (who was also my wife's childhood best friend) much of the rehab work on the house was done without a contract and without a set salary being paid to the builder. 

 And sonufabitch we got suckered. You know that motherfucker picked me up in a Toyota Hilux to bring me to my mother in law's funeral. I paid for that fucking truck, I realize now.  The balls on him.

      The prosecutor's report said that proof of intent to defraud was unlikely to be proven, as the issues at hand could be more easily explained by incompetence, negligence and gross mismanagement of construction, and with no contract to provide a framework for payment and construction milestones, the builder could cite subjective difficulties in construction with minimal evidence. 

 Other countries have weird legal standards. IMO.  

   The upside here is that the report also said that there is ample evidence of mismanagement, negligence, misrepresentstion of credentials and failure to abide by existing agreements and required construction standards to justify a civil suit for damages.  

      Well, it would have been nice to see the shitheel get knocked in the dirt, but more importantly, as we're out over 6 figures worth of cash we worked (and work, as in present tense) insane hours to send, I want some of my money back, and we have good odds of getting it... though whether it can be collected from the SOB is a nother matter. 

         I'm saddened but not surprised by all this. Brazil is not famed as a shining beacon of justice in the world... and by not operating under a contract, I put my dick on the chopping block and can't be too self-righteous that I didn't look whether or not I was being made guest of honor at a very aggressive bris. 

           I did my wailing and gnashing of teeth already and I'm tired of mourning. 

        Now, the NEW project manager is co-organizing with the new architect and does have a contract. The house is enclosed, and waiting on finishing touches- tiling, installation of sinks, cabinets, toilets, counters, lamps and the like. Done in 1/3 of the time that the dickhead original builder took to get half done. 

 The facade is under reconstruction now. The facade looks a lot like a storefront to me, but it's just a visual block. Going through the door just puts you in an enclosed foyer. There is also a gate that opens to the driveway. It looks nothing like a house to me.  As of a few weeks ago it looked like present-day Gaza. 

The yard, outbuildings, pool, outdoor kitchen and mother-in-law apartment (which will be where my wife and I stay, as it's built to be airy and sunny for my claustrophobic ass) are still all in states of  suspended construction. I hope to resume there this fall if I can scrape the money up. 

Pictures eventually.

 Anyhow, 2 more days and a wake-up and I can sit in the pool at home and marinate over it. 

 

Break-in period part 1

 Friday. 

    After today it's 4 days and a wake-up until I can go home. 

   First some pictures from the shipyard last week. 

 The shipyard sits in a small valley along a river. I knew upper state NY was nice in theory, but the pictures don't do justice to the area. It's a lovely region. 

 Just uphill from the dock where the HQ was launched, a section of a new barge was being built upside down. Here it is being turned right side up so the yardbirds can weld the deck on. This section when done will be welded to other sections until the desired size is acheived. 

Other barges of assorted sizes under repairs. 

    My employer's project manager, who works with the shipyard, lent me his personal truck, an F350 diesel Super Duty, to get groceries, fetch parts and supplies, etc. Great dude. 

 The night before we sailed, my employer sent a fill-in guy as my 2nd man. He was there to provide... well, I don't know, moral support? Nice dude, anyhow. He didn't have to actually do anything, and I hadn't asked for or needed him, but I'm not the owner either. 

I had to use a little fish-eye filter to get this shot, but the river the yard is built on is small enough that the HQ is tricky to navigate out to the Hudson River, a few miles away.  I sat midships to snap the photo. 

Walking further forward along the starboard side main deck. 

Our assist tug had also been in the yard, and sailed at the same time. Our assigned tug, not seen here, was pushing us. The company wisely sent a senior tug captain, one of our pool of stand-out great boathandlers. Our assist tug, also operated by an expert, is also the tug my son spent a year on as deckhand. Time pasdes quickly, though. My kid just finished his freshman year of college. 

 The lighthouse marks the junction of the local river with the much larger Hudson river.

 About 15 minutes after we got into the Hudson, it's a matter of just going downriver for 10 hours at speed to get to NY harbor, so I turned the watch over to the fill-in guy, showered and went to bed. 

     I've been sleeping great since I got back to the HQ. But I've also been working hard at doing physical things I don't normally do- crawling and climbing, heaving on shit, turning wrenches while on ladders, team lifting really heavy things with gangs of guys, whatever. After a week of this I was SORE. But good sore, the kind that doesn't feel good but you know is coming from hard work and not a pulled muscle or pinched nerve. 

      We arrived in Brooklyn during the overnight and I slept in (for me at work) until 0530. Didn't feel a thing, dead to the world until my middle-aged bladder said I had about a minute's grace to get to the head.

Anyhow, about a gallon later, I was treated to a lovely sunrise... over the garbage transfer station.  Sigh.  I was in NY city again. 

   The word wasn't done. Alone again after my fill-in guy went elsewhere, I had 5 days to get the HQ ready to get ready for the Coast Guard's 5 year inspection, so we'd be issued a Certificate Of Inspection, the big one all commercial vessels need to go back into service, so the pace couldn't be slacked off. 

Ass: Kicked. State: Happy

 I had a good week.

       I mean, it's still going but it's been a good week. We don't have days off here at HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ. 

        The HQ sailed from the shipyard on Thursday. We were working right up until sailing. When our assist tugs arrived to pull us out, we still had a half dozen shipyard workers aboard grinding and welding the last project, modifying the cradles for our deck cranes. 

  After I got done with the interior work on the house, I worked outside with the shipyard project manager and the yardbirds. What followed were some days of climbing and crawling, turning wrenches and making and checking off lists. I'm going to bed sore and tired every single day, but you know, I've been enjoying it. 

      Bunkering near enough to nonstop has been bad for me mentally. I'm not good at repetitive mindless work and I didn't choose to work on the water to do the same bullshit every day with no pleasure to be had in the process. I think the last 2 months have been very good for me in that regard. I'm doing different things and seeing different places. 

       ...So we're back in Brooklyn now, but the work's not done yet. Before we go back into service next week, the Coast Guard has to come inspect us and give us their blessing for what we've done. And I have to finish putting the HQ back into service, which is mostly a matter of stenciling objects, inspecting safety gear and overseeing a thousand little things.  

    As an example, I had to spend 2 hours yesterday dealing with scupper plugs. All oil tank vessels have deck containment- that is, the perimeter of the decks are ringed with a short steel wall, so that any spilled oil can't go over the side. On the HQ the deck containment is a 10-inch tall steel plate welded to the deck that runs the entire cargo deck.  Rainwater and oil pool if left to accumulate. In theory the  containment should hold thousands and thousands of gallons of oil, keeping it out of the water... but we're damn good at keeping oil in the tanks, so instead the deck containment mostly traps rainwater. We have big rubber plugs to block off about 20 scuppers, drain holes around the perimeter, and they stay in at all times when we're working, being removed to drain water only when needed and only under direct supervision. We're funny about that. 

 Well, yesterday I had to find them all, (they were removed for shipyard) inspect them, replace any with damage or dry rot, and hammer them back in. While doing that I had to make lists of supplies I need, answer phone calls, talk to anf work with our shoreside support, managers, the big boss, give tours to show off the work done, etc. 

      It being a holiday weekend, the staff all bailed out in the afternoon, and I had a couple of blissful quiet hours, stenciling pipelines, running down papers, and dodging the on and off rain. 

     Oh. And my partner B came aboard. His temporary assigned barge is still ongoing, but he was moored down the street and had time to inspect the work done and move some of his things back in. It was mostly just good to see my friend. For the past 15 years we've spent 6 months out of the year together at work 24/7, so not seeing him for 2 months, it took some time to catch up. 

   Today being Saturday on a holiday weekend I have work to do. More stenciling, more inspecting, more log-keeping and today, oil changes on a generator and at some point we'll take on fuel for my own needs too. Since we burn low-sulfur MGO (marine gasoil, a type of very clean diesel oil) same as our tugs, one of my company's tugs will come alongside and we'll take on a chunk of their fuel. Generally the tugs carry 50,000 to 70,000 gallons of fuel so they can spare me some of that. 

      I do plan to wrap up early today, not quite banker's hours but a 9 hour day, and get some hardtack, rum and salt beef (by which I,sadly, mean salad, diet pepsi and chicken breast) as well as some sundry office supplies for work. 

 Back to it. 

 

Man at work

 A couple of busy days later...

      Ok, wow, so there's been a lot going on here in the shipyard. I've been working with my employer's project engineer, the guy in charge of shipyard stuff, and he's one hard working dude. Good guy, too. He's mostly left me to do whst I want to do, which is to get the HQ ready to go back to work, and it being a zoo outside with workers everywhere, I've mostly been inside, painting, scrubbing and the like. 

      I had a good talk with the project manager about how influential living conditions and ergonomics aboard are on attitude and productivity. My company has newer vessels and barges- the HQ just had her 20th birthday and had a 30 year life expectancy when built I believe... the ergonomics of the living quarters are good- better than the newer tank barges, which have larger quarters but terrible ergonomics which make them far less pleasant. For some reason my employer builds tugoats with beautiful accomodations, fine finished wood, plenty of stainless steel, and durable surfaces... it certainly wows new hires and guys who have worked elsewhere... the tankermen, OTOH, get formica, linoleum, OSB plywood and ABS plastic. BUT, as a good sailor knows, a little putty and paint makes a finish what it ain't... and the shipyard manager even let me borrow his gorgeous F350 diesel pickup to hit the hsrdware store for putty and paint. 

  I'm working 7am to 6pm. Taking it easy, lol. Just 11 hours. It's been great to be mostly let to do what I want, since what I want is for my barge to be productive and pleasant to work on, and the shipyard is putting a lot of new pump parts and hydraulics in. Things are looking well. 

 

The Half-Assed Frabjous Day

 It was a good moment, walking onto the HQ for the first time in 2 months yesterday. I have been waiting for the day. 

   Every 5 years, my company (and pretty much everyone else too) pulls all their tugs and barges out of the water for major maintenance. Yesterday morning while I was on my way here, the HQ was launched back in the water and moved to a berth at the shipyard, where work on her internals continues. 

     Yesterday was messy. As I wrote in my last post, I effed the dog and left some stuff at the office by mistske, which I realized an hour after my taxi left New York. We had to turn around, and got into the city during peak rush hour. Fun stuff. My driver, whom I know well, normally looks like a short, chubby and jolly Osama Bin Laden... I'm definitely on his 'bomb him twice' list this week. 

    I got to the shipyard after 2pm.  The yardbirds had already connected shore power, and there were electricians and mechanics up the wazoo in the gen house. The old and underpowered generators are in pieces... but sadly weren't upgraded it seems. 

    The house?   It was bad. Guys had been working on the alarms and upgrading the tank monitoring system in the office, so it was a mess, but also they were uding the head, the toilet, as an outhouse.   Without power and running water, a marine toilet is just a fancy hole to piss and crap in. Which they were doing.  So the entire house smells like a side street in Mumbai. 

    I spent 5 hours cleaning, and they gave me a yard worker to help, which was nice. Jesus, who's a little Mexican bro, and myself, dug in and got the quarters livable. He went home at 4, and by 8pm I had my bunk made and made a BLT for myself.  Most of my cleaning supplies everything not bolted down is gone, stolen by the yardbirds, which is called Cappebar, a nasty but historically traditional practice, but I found a bottle of bleach, a bottle of dish soap and also some sort of cleaning fluid and a box of rags, as well. I tried mixing the bleach and cleaner, as it wasn't a very good cleaner, outside of course in case it turned into foofoo gas, a variant of phosgene, which is good for killing Englishmen in trench warfare but not great at cleaning counters. 

       Today is more of the same. I'm focusing on the house, and unfucking it for my own sake. I've got to hike to town today to hit up the local grocery for more cleaning supplies. Tomorrow and this weekend I will be outside putting stencils on things and getting us compliant with Uncle Sugar's rulebook.   We should be back in service in about 10 days. In the meanwhile, I'm enjoying working alone when the yardbirds aren't here.

    I will say that this area, the Hudson Valley about 100 miles north of NY, is really, really pretty. 

    

I am old and also an idiot

 

Well, today is going like a fart in a car. 

    I'm about an hour north of NY city in a taxi, which I have had to have turned around to bring us back to NY, because amidst the 3 caches of my stuff scattered around the office  that needed to go with me, I forgot about one of them... the one containing my laptop bag and medication, which, sadly I need to stay among the vertical people. 

 So now my 2 1/2 hr drive is going to about double. 

     Fuck. I am slightly more absent-minded than average, I admit, but this is a recent high. 

 Also I'm 51 today. How the hell did I get old? 

   Today started off with promise. I slept like crap, but today's the day I go to the shipyard to rejoin the HQ, which I've been looking forward to. I ruck-humped a bunch of stuff over to the office last night (cache 2) and stowed it in a discreet spot. I already had some supplies and seasonal clothes there (cache 1). This morning I brought the rest of it (cache 3) and plans changed a bit, so I sat around, talked to a few people, unfucked my plans and got in the taxi when he showed up, after packing cache 1 and 2. 

 Headed back to the city now. I'm a bit ashamed of myself but at least I'm not causing cascade effects and fucking things up more. 

Economics is a cruel bitch

 Is 'Ironic Disappointment' a thing?  If it wasn't, it is now. 

       So I have finished my latest side quest, (contract job) which was a short and interesting shallow dive into a form of chaos math that was both cool in that the figgarin' part could be done with a couple of keystrokes, while the part that required me was using the results to apply to a biological question.  

    You know the classic drawing of an atom? 

The orbital paths around the nucleus can be called Probability Fields, because superficially,  we have no idea where the protons and electrons are, precisely, at a given instant relative to each other... we just know where they're more likely to be and less likely to be.

 I know, I know, it's possible to know the subatomic particles' exact positioning, now. It wasn't always thus, and it still isn't unless you got the good gear. So bear with me, I'm being colloquial. 

  So you can use math to find probability fields, when you can't find something or don't know it, but can find out where it's more or less likely to be, which is useful information. 

       So, I got paid to take this math, and build  probability fields of the pathways a neural signal might take to go from A to B in a brain across a series of tracts, pathways and individual neurons.  I did this using a simple computer model made by a collegue, of a clump of nerve cells, as my testing arena.  

   Think of this: an individual neuron dies or one of the connections between it and neighboring neurons is damaged. How does the signal reroute?  What if one good path has been working hard and some neurons are starting to flag, metabolically, attenuating the signal? (This would change it).  Why is the path taken used vs another? 

        My little brainstorming session was one of a dozen or so being contributed... all using tgeir own models, for which I was paid the princely sum of $21/hr, pre-tax, which will translate realistically to about $10/hr.  The primary investigator, a non-tenured part time lecturer in physiology, makes about 50k/ year, working full time. 

   Fuck. Good thing I work on boats.

  Anyhow, I'm back to having one job again. 

    

Happy Mother's Day!

 Well, I can't be there, but my kid took Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife to lunch for Mother's Day, to a nice waterfront cafe that we like. 

     This makes me doubly happy in that this is the first year my wife's dealt with the loss of her own mom on this day and my kid's keeping her occupied.  

I took this pic in Brazil a few months before my MIL passed away.  She was already ill but fighting hard, but on the day I took this pic we hosted over 300 cousins, aunts and uncles for a 3 day party and it was a perfect success of a long weekend. 

   

I'm old (part LV of III)

 Yesterday turned into a bit of a shit show. It was the watch that never ended. 

 So I'm not 100% familiar with this week's barge but I know it a bit now, having been here a week.  My 2nd man left yesterday, and a new one was en route.  I got up at 0430, started my watch at 0530. 

      Got off watch at midnight. Long damn day.  The Shell terminal we were at is in violation of US law, and requires American shipowners to pay a bribe in order for crew to pass through the terminal.

    They disguise it by saying it's a hiring fee for a security contractor to escort crew through the terminal... but there is a specific law that forbids this. 

 My company, rightly, will not pay a bribe, as doing so is, after all, also illegal. 

 And thst's how I had an 18 hour watch. And so, a few hours later, here I am. 

   This is why I carry a case of white Monster energy drinks in my grub bags. 

 Today I'm motivated AF to stsrt the day, as the weather will deteriorate this afternoon. Soonest started, soonest done. 

The week that was

 It's been mellow here.   

    Seriously, the weekend was quiet here aboard my temporarily-assigned berth. They don't work near as much as we do in the bunker fleet. It's been good for my mind and soul. 

 I was almost bored for a time, yesterday. It's been rainy for a few days, so not being able to go outside is a bit tough. I'm trying to start to lift weights regularly in a routine, and, well, yesterday was a rest day I guess, as I didn't want it enough to have a wet ass and the bench and weights are outside.

          Sadly I got word that the skin cancer fairy has visited again and I have to go have a funny spot on the back of my hand blowtorched when I go home in a month. Caught it early, at least, don't even need to be cut on. And that's ok. The biopsy they did last week makes it look like I got an asshole on my hand anyhow. Maybe it will heal less anus-y if she goes to town with a cautery instead of a razor next time. 

    I have another week to go here, for which I am grateful. As of right now, it looks as though I will be on a tugboat next week, as there's no demand for a cranky middle-aged tankerman in NY and the HQ is still in the shipyard for at least the next 3 weeks. 

       So... the house in Brazil is coming along. Construction on the main house is starting to ramp down. Windows and doors are in, tiling, even some paint... done right this time. This week the facade on the front of the property is getting tackled, as it looks straight out of downtown Gaza, present day.

     It's an urban house- that is, it's a walled mini- compound in the business district in the 'old city,' the original part of the city built after the conquistadores rolled in, subdued the indios (my wife's ancestors), introduced Christianity and set up a market at a trade roads crossroad.

 The house is about a 10-12 minute walk from the market, which still stands today, on a residential side street, and most importantly of all, also a 12-minute walk (I checked) from the only pub in Brazil where the owners know me by name. 

       The budget, well, it's out the window courtesy of the trashbag original builder, who, I'm told, will be under indictment later this month. The new construction manager has been proving to be a real gem. She's tight-fisted, has enormous attention to detail, and has been up every vendor and tradesman's ass, sideways, daily. 

     After this latest phase is done, in about 2 weeks, we're between projects, and can take a minute to rebuild the Brazil kitty, which is doing better than expected but which will still be nearly empty next month w/the bodies we've got on retainer. Construction won't restart until June/July I hope, which will be focused on finishing the interior- furnishings, cabinetry, fixtures, appliances, etc. Basically things I don't give a shit about... I want to get moving on the pool, outbuildings and landscaping.  I also want the money to do all that; but if wishes were fishes, etc etc.. Gonna be a bit, lol. 

 Every year I seem to say 'next year I'll slow down.' 

 Maybe next year I'll slow down.  Probably not. 

 

   

 

 

 

Did anything happen while I was away?

 When I am not at work, I don't read the news or engage in shitposting and doomscrolling online. And so only big things make it through my filter of  utter indifference to all things not related to friends and family. It's datin' time with Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, time with our kid, B family members, my friends, and to do chores and relax too. 

 I guess the pope died. Best not to speak ill of the dead. 

  it's been an amazing 2 weeks. We flew to Boston, I got to see one of my neices get hitched, saw family, reconnected, and then mostly tuned the world out and spent 90%+ of my time with my wife. She's not working right now- after almost a year of 80-90 hour weeks, she finally can rest and so we've been welded at the hip since I got off work. 

 Sadly, I returned to work this morning. On the upside I am again not bunkering for the next 2 weeks. I'm on a straight diesel run and in fact ai am at anchor right now, spending the night hopefully quiet tonight. 

 Monday I was hard at it all day- chores and preps, packing my bag, etc. We finally got freed up about 4pm, and spent 3 hours drinking caiperinhas and swimming in the pool. I got just the rught amount of sun exposure to not be dead-body white anymore...but also didn't burn. 

    Yesterday was travel day. It was unexceptional.  

 This morning was the single longest and most arduous bad drag I've ever done, carrying all my clothes, bedding, food, water and soda about 1/4 mile- 5 trips back and forth, between shore and the dock. Got it done, though. Mighta burnt off my blood pressure meds, lol, but it got done. 

     Anyhow, back at it. 

     

Reports from home

 Goddamn, I've lived. 

       I'm at home, doing home things. I attended mh neice's wedding in New Hampshire; it was beautiful and perfect and emotional. How many times can a guy who is NOT comfortable with crying stave off a whole-ass jag? 

 At least 7-8. I absolutely overflowed during the ceremony. But fuck, so did the groom, a 6'6" gorilla of a guy who got outmatched by his wife, who just sandbagged him every time. It was wonderful to see 2 kids deeply in love get hitched. 

 My neice introduced her bf to me before... it was nice to NOT see him at a funeral for once. 

   The wedding was well done. My oldest brother, the family's rock, was absolutely overwhelmed giving away his little girl; but he did so with grace. 

    We flew home a few days ago. Today was my kid's bday. We had a nice day but my sister and nephew, who live 10 mins away, didnt show up. Bit of a fuck you but so be it. I'm glad I flew 1500 miles to be there for my neice and my brother, who both noticed.  

 It's been an emotional time. But a good time. 

Shipping up to Boston

Well It was a good last week to round out a good tour. The Ghetto Sled remains a decidedly uncomfortable vessel and I am happy to see the ass end of it but the light workload made the time pass by well enough. 

 Crew change, though. Fuck. 

 I couldn't find my MMC, my Merchant Mariner's Credential, a passport-type booklet with my master's licence and assorted endorsements. Panic struck. I found it in a jacket pocket I don't ever use while we were in NY rush hour traffic for 2 hours. Weird.  

 The Precheck line at JFK airport security was 45 minutes, so people were extra spicy in the terminal. Not a smile to be found. I had a shot of whisky with powdered eggs and freezer-burnt bacon before going to my gate... which was $55, turns out. Wasn't that a bit of an eff you? 

     After that, though, the sun came out. I had nobody next to me on the plane, my rental car in Boston is a really nice F150, and I drove to the old neighborhood where I grew up. Only a little has changed. My parents' little 900sqft raised ranch house got torn down and a little McMansion put up. All the neighboring houses look the same, but the names on the mailboxes are all different. The old neighbors have all died off. Nobody escapes anno domini. 

 Still, before going back to Boston to pick up Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, I hung out for a bit with a childhood friend, checked into my hotel, and after fetching the Mrs we had a late dinner with the friends who introduced us. 

   Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I met at a wedding. I caught the garter, she caught the bouquet (no shit, 200+ witnesses) and that was that. My wife worked with the bride, who became a close friend, and I grew up with the groom. 

   So it was great to catch up here almost a quarter-century later. We've always stayed in touch but it's not the same when you're not face-to-face. Try telling that to kids today, though. 

      Anyhow, today's a free day before we meet up with my wife's cousin (who is posessed of possibly the most spectacular decolletage on planet earth and very pleasant to look at) and her husband, a fellow American and genuinely good fun dude. 

   There will be high-fives at our mutual good fortune I'm sure. 

 For now though, today is for reminiscing. 

Ummmm....

 I just got called 'big daddy' a few minutes ago by one of our tugboaters.

 I don't know how I feel about that. Damn kids. 

The last of the good times

 Well, it was a good run. 2 weeks of good work at work. But that's over for now. 

        My final week this trip sees me back in NYC, back to bunkering ships aboard a manned bunker barge, in the smallest quarters imaginable.  It's been about 10 years since I've been aboard one of the Ghetto Sleds. 

 The Ghetto Sleds are some elderly trunk deck barges- barges with an elevated maindeck that stands taller (about 5 feet in this case) than the perimeter of the barge, basically leaving a 2 1/2 foot wide walkway around the perimeter. 

   The house on these things is TINY for 2 men. The office/galley is about 8x10, the head is 6ft by 6 feet, and the bunkroom, with 2 beds, is also 6x6.  Luckily I am about 1/8 inch under 6ft tall but anyone taller has to sleep with their knees bent.   

    It's uncomfortable. When you're sleeping, the guy on watch is 3-4 feet away, as is anyone else like deckhands stepping in the house, cargo surveyors, etc.  

     The Ghetto Sleds, there being 4 of them around the east coast, are actually good training platforms.  The cargo pumps, piping and tanks are simply laid out and easy to operate and for some reason, very forgiving if you let a tank run dry and suck a little air into the pumps.  On the HQ you get 3-4 seconds max of sucking air and the pumps lose prime, and repriming can be a bear when it works at all on a near empty tank. On the Ghetto Sleds?  10 seconds. Big difference for a newer guy who is learning the ropes. Plus, the small uncomfortable quarters make one more grateful for the standard somewhat larger quarters found elsewhere in the fleet. 

So here I am.   Next week I get off early, one week early. Innapropriately hot foreign wife is flying up to meet me in Boston to attend a family wedding and do some visiting before we head back home. 

 

A great day makes you think...

 Yesterday was a good day.

   I've been having some of those lately.  I don't think I'd had a nice day at work since last September.  And here I am, several of them now recently. 

     Midway down Long Island Sound, in beautiful calm water, our assist tug broke out of push gear, swung up to the bow and took our tow pennant, and swung us out on a short tow, staying about 600-700 feet ahead of us. 

     It's been YEARS since I was towed. The silence was amazing. I could hear the water running along the hull, with just the drone of our generator in the distance. 

 I must have stayed out there an hour, just communing with the infinite. 

 Today we're in Providence RI, and tonight we'll head back to NY.  Tugboats being built for power not speed it's about a 22hr ride, but it includes a coastal passage with exposure to ocean swells for about 8 hours....and that's where we were last night when I was just falling asleep. Maybe 8 degrees of roll, just perfect. I slept AMAZING and I'm a horrible sleeper.   I never slept well in a heavier swell, but this was perfection. I rose up to being almost awake once or twice, and the swell was comforting AF.

 

 I've really been feeling awful lately. Nonstop work, broken sleep, harassment by shoreside workers wanting my attention at all hours, often repetitive because they don't all talk to each other, not enough time or opportunity to decompress, inability to maintain personal hygeine due to defective, broken or nonfunctional equipment, and increasing demands for work-based minutia that must be addressed in free time. Plus some stresses in my personal life, the fiscal disaster we're trying to unfuck in Brazil... it's adding up.  I'm not depressed or anything, just miserable and I feel like a massive pussy just admitting that. 

 Thank God for my wife. She's keeping me sane, and a good wife makes the unbearable bearable for a little longer.

        

        I've noticed I'm not the only one here. 

        It's not just me. My peers at work are feeling it too, and we're starting to talk about it, because it seems nobody ashore gives a fuck. I've had a young but very capable peer reach out to me twice now, and I don't think he even knew why he was compelled to call me beyond the need to feel unalone.  I'm personally seeing more incidents happening to experienced, senior tankermen, not the low-quality new guys we're being inundated by, but the senior cadre, the guys trying to do the jobs and who can be trusted to do them well. It's distressing to see  mistakes, sometimes severe and even career-ending, made by bewildered men whom I KNOW to not be fuckups. 

      Turns out, there's a name for that.  Situational distress, and while it seems to be common now among peers and shipmates, it was not, up until the workload went through the roof and the work lifestyle went in the toilet. 

      As we work 24/7/365, these things ARE a work-related issue, and something I hope employers will address. My off time while aboard is theoretically NOT my own time. I'm being paid to do a job... but if every day is a sucking hole of misery, something has to give, whether it's me... or me, I guess. 

      There's a great article here on the subject: 

https://gcaptain.com/moving-beyond-mental-health-a-smarter-approach-to-human-risk-in-maritime-operations/

Most maritime incidents don’t happen because of undiagnosed mental health disorders. They occur due to momentary lapses in judgment, exhaustion, and impaired decision-making. The problem isn’t just mental health—it’s the silent accumulation of operational stressors that lead to situational distress: cognitive fatigue, emotional strain, and performance degradation in the moment. These human factors are subtle, dynamic, and often invisible to traditional mental health tools, yet they’re the most common precursors to errors and accidents at sea often resulting in loss of life, environmental impacts, and asset damage or loss.

Situational Distress: The Missing Piece in Maritime Safety

Situational distress is not a clinical condition—it’s a temporary but critical stress response to the working environment. Research suggests that while only a small percentage of seafarers start their careers with clinical depression or anxiety, the demands of life at sea lead to a significant rise in reported psychological distress symptoms over time.

Many cases emerge due to accumulated stressors—like fatigue, unpredictable weather, and high workloads—rather than pre-existing conditions. Unlike depression or anxiety, they don’t require psychiatric treatment, but they do require proactive intervention to prevent it from escalating into chronic fatigue, burnout, or operational errors.

Despite this, most mental health assessments in maritime settings treat distress as an individual issue rather than an operational risk factor. A captain under extreme fatigue might not meet the criteria for clinical depression, but their exhaustion could still impair judgment at a critical moment. A traditional self-reported survey won’t catch this, but behavioral risk assessments can.

Well worth reading.  

Tour de farce continues

 

        Whoo, I am SORE today. 

          I'm back in beautiful Bayonne New Jersey, the French Riviera of New York harbor, this morning. 

     I finished up my last week in Philly yesterday, and it was a damn good week... it reminded me of what my job USED to be like, when I truly liked my job. Interesting jobs, smaller ships, time to do what we needed to do. 

     It was just as busy in Philly as it is here for us, but as there is almost always a slightly longer steam in between load and discharge, it allows you to recharge your batteries in between ops... just 30 minutes more sometimes, and that's enough. And I mean, the weather was fine too, mostly.  I saw bald eagles just 1/2 mile from the company's office.  The most startling thing of all, and it was a minor thing, but the oil terminals are so SILENT there. No scream of pumps, or steam lines hissing, no having to compete with 30+ people on the same radio frequency to talk to the dockman... all good. 

        So, just as the ride last week from NY to Philly was a trial that ended up being ironically humorous, the ride yesterday from Philly to NY was terrible again, but this time not funny in the least. Frightening and infuriating this time. 

     My day started at 4am yesterday, which is close to normal- I got about 3 hours sleep since I was doing an odd watch rotation last week, but so be it.  I got a ride by tug to the company office/HQ, which is a lot larger than the NY office HQ, real estate being what it is in NY.  The philly office has 1/4 mile of dock space, and it was absolutely jammed up for crew change. There was literally no space whatsoever for me to get ashore, but in the middle were 4 tugboats all rafted up side by side, so with my Large Collection of stuff, me being homeless at work with my barge in shipyard, my worldly posessions at work and I did a 4 tugboat bag drag, which is a ballbuster.  Literally. The bulwarks, or gunwales, are 4 feet tall or more, and canted inward, so you end up crushing your nuts as you get a leg over, and with the inward cant, plus the tugs' bumpers (our tugs have a rubber bumper about 12 inches thick surrounding the hull at the waterline), it's 5-6 feet from one bulwark to the other, so passing a heavy seabag, a trash bag of winter clothes, a trashbag of summer clothes, leftover groceries, a bag of frozen meats, my bedroll, my laptop bag... basically 8-9 bags of shit, it's a workout. 

 X4. 

 THEN I climbed up a ladder to get ashore, back and forth with my shit... which I then could drag to the parking lot. 

 If that was tedious to read, I assure you it was tedious to actually do. 

        I got to the Philly office with time to spare, and I got to see some shipmates and had a nice talk. One of them, one of our senior tug captains, was going in the same crew van to NY as me. I even got to see one of my former trainees, now an experienced tankerman down there. It was a good time. 

 But the van ride... there were 5 of us in the van, and our stuff, and it was pretty tight but we fit everything.  The van driver was a tall black guy, hitting his vape pretty hard while we were loading the van. Different company from the one we use in NY. 

   What was in that vape?  I'm guessing the good stuff because the driver was TERRIBLE.   He cut people off, and jerked the wheel, drifted within inches of other vehicles, and got lost repeatedly WITH THE GPS OF HIS PHONE ON!   He kept driving when the GPS told him to turn, missed highway exits, even got off the highway and into an office park before I realized we were fucked up, and when I piped up and said 'Hey, where the fuck are we?' He said 'My bad, I was following the GPS.'   

 No, no you weren't. You were driving while high, and not looking at your phone, and only half-listening to it as well, you fucking retard. 

 Being an idiot AND high is a terrible combimation. 

 After this pretty much all of us yelled out directions, which he sometimes got right.  There was cursing. 

    As we approached NY his high peaked. 

    We were somewhere near Staten Island when the drugs began to truly take hold.  The driver weaved, drove 2mph in traffic with an empty HOV lane next to him (until I gently said 'bro, take that left lane next to you, please'). Then once we got over the Tappan Zee bridge he ran through some red lights until we all chorused 'Red Light!' every time. He then smacked his side mirror off a parked truck's mirror. And missed the turn off to the side street to our office, and was headed for The Battery tunnel entrance until we all got yelling again. 

       I got off that van drained, ennervated and pissed off.

    Oh. And also, the whole ride, rap music and black radio dj's, dissing each other I guess, and saying retsrded shit. He wouldn't turn that off. Imagine 4 hours of those fake court tv shows made a baby with Jerry Springer, plus a bunch of idiots bragging  about themseves in rhyme set to a drum track. For 4 hours. 

    Made me happy to get out of that van.  4 hours for a 2 hour ride.   

     When we were 10 mins from the office, the NY crew scheduler called me and changed my assignment for the week.  I had a pretty good gig lined up, a diesel barge normally left for the fuckups, elderly and lazy, as it has simple jobs and not many of those... but I went instead to the OTHER diesel barge, which works a little more, and better, goes out of town a little. 

   So I had some luck.  I'm on there now. I came aboard at a busy terminal in Bayonne NJ, and 5 seconds after putting my bags down in the house I was at the desk starting the calculations for a 3 part cargo blend, something I'll share at some point... anyhow  I got the figgarin' done and the signoffs signed, put on a poopy suit, (a boilersuit, coveralls, speed suit, whatever you want to call it), and fired up the hydraulics to pick up a cargo hose and swing the crane ashore, got us started and the 1st product loaded before getting relieved by the night guy. 

    By the time I was putting my clothes away, it was after 1800, and I was getting sore AF. I got my stuff stowed, my bunk made up, talked with my wife a little and absolutely DIED to the world for 8 hours. 

     Today? I feel my knees and shoulders. We're waiting on the next tide to sail to a lay berth to sit for the day and let the squally winds die down a bit before we try to catch the tide tonight for the ride through Hell Gate (NY's upper east side and the entrance to  Long Island Sound) and The Race at the other end tomorrow, ultimately  to Providence RI to pump off before riding home to Brooklyn again. 

 Should be fun. But most fun of all I think I can sit my fat aching ass down today for a few hours.

Different but similar

 Wow, a lot happened in terms of my staid boring job of being bottom bitch and chief bottle washer on the water. Unexpected things happened and here I am 4 days later in Philadelphia, where I started for this company and spent my first 2 years. I haven't worked here in a decade or more... and I'm kind of enjoying it 

       Wednesday... was a mess.  It was so bad, the day went from being a miserable experience to funny to fine. Ironically, once I embraced the suck, the suck embraced me. 

     So I have an 0700 taxi arranged to pick me up from the decent Brooklyn hotel we crash at for crew change. We're expected to arrive to work ready to work so the company stows us in a hotel the night before crew change. 

 At 0650 the crew scheduler calls, tells me to cancel my taxi. There's no berth for me, she accidentally double-booked me for a spot that was already filled, and told me to stand by an hour or two. 

       The main driver here is that the HQ is headed for 2 months of shipyard work, where she'll be uncrewed the whole while. I am presently homeless, without a berth. 

     Already caffeinated, I pulled out my book (Nick Cole & Jason Anspaugh's 'Gods and Legionnaires') and sat tight as instructed. About 90 mins later I was told I would be Riding Over as a supernumerary on our biggest pushboat, basically being Johnny On The Spot for a week. 

 I moved my Very Considerable' pile of gear and food, since I'll be living out of my seabag for a while and anything I leave on the HQ will be stolen by the shipyard workers, and put most of it in storage on the tug. I volunteered to do some of the cooking and went to the grocery store with the Able Seaman, who doubles as cook, and we bought 2 weeks worth of groceries, planning out a few meals along the way.  We returned with his car packed with boxes of grub and I joined in in stowing it all. 

      It looked like a fun week. These guys were all friends and all of us, every one, were 50ish and grew up working class in the northeast. I talked more in the 2 hours I was there than I've done in years. We talked about everything gen X'ers talk about. Classic cars, joint pain, guys who we all knew who died, etc.  Good times. 

 And then the southern fleet crew scheduler called me... they needed me in Philadelphia, and could I get in a taxi right now, ASAP? 

    So that's bag drag number 3?  I load my mountain of crap in the taxi, and by then I am in a truly shitty mood and I can feel my pulse in my fingers and my ears, so I KNOW my blood pressure is jacked up.  Just... shitty luck. Seniority counts for nothing where I work, but I knew that. 

 My car driver is an African guy. I've never met him, but a few minutes after we leave he puts on some African gospel music in his home language. And this isn't the classics; no Abide With Me, no Amazing Grace... no, this is modern African synth pop gospel... And it's not pleasant to me.   But he's cheerfully singing along, quietly, and having a nice time, and I'm not going to fuck with a dude wants to commune with his maker. 

 Then, the drumming. 

 Yeah, he started drumming on the steering wheel. And singing. To a guy like me in that moment, absolutely pregnant with the anticipation of a bad time, it was like a knife in my ear. 

      At that point things went from shitty to a little funny. It was just such an ass-chapping morning, so truly trying in terms of little shitty things and being moved around like a fuckin' unwanted kid,  nothing at all truly bad, just mosquito bites to my soul... that it made me laugh a bit... and like that... I was ok. 

   2 hours later I was on a launch boat in Philly, to get to my assignment.   Crew change wasn't actually carried out on the pilot ladder, but the offgoing guy and I had our pre-transfer briefing while passing parcels and bags back and forth up and down a rope from the launch to the barge. 

         Turns out, though,  the other guy on here for the week is my buddy African Eric, who, along with my partner Big E, is in the running for the World's Nicest Man contest.  Eric and I have worked together several times and it's always smooth. He's enormously competent and a very positive person.  So big plus there. 

 And... I haven't worked the Delaware River/Chesapeake Bay area in about a decade I think. Can't remember. I had forgotten that this is a more pleasant environment to work in than NY harbor.  The ports and anchorages are much further apart than those of NY, where the average steam between load and discharge is about 35 mins. Here, it's 2 hours, and can run up to 8 hours.

 Our Philly fleet is having the same issues we do in NY. Too much work, not enough vessels. Still, the longer runs I find very refreshing. 

I watched the birds flying by today, out on deck. I haven't done that in years. 

      I may have not wanted to come here but I am glad I did. I'm still plenty busy, but it's humane here. 

Turnaround

 I got 4 nights at home only. So that sucked. 

   I had some very nice and relaxing moments. Not, perhaps, as many as I wanted or needed but they were there. Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and my son all took some time off so we'd have a few whole days together, which we took advantage of, right up until the halfway point where things went to hell. 

 It was good while it lasted. Another death, and loss of a major contract in my wife's business, which means a financial hit. I'm glad we were all together, anyhow. Mutual comfort, mutual support. 

    All my bitching, I'm still aware that I've had it easier than many. I should be rolling with the punches more than I have been. I think that with shitty outcomes and increasing stress having risen slowly and steadily for a long while, my emotional reserves are being emptied, as things have more been like death by 1000 cuts than any particular major trauma. 

       Well, it's a terrible idea financially. But I'm taking time off starting 3 weeks from now.  Marathon, not sprint. I gotta get my shit together a bit. Tired of being a pill. 

Anyhow, to focus on the positive, I am headed to work, to earn, still vertical, and looking at the grass from the top of the stems, not the roots.    Well enough.

Airport

 So I'm at an airport burger joint, and I'm going home. 

     I'm going home a day late. I was already working a week of OT when I got word I had to attend some refresher training in-house at mh employer's NY offices. 

      Surprisingly, it was a good class. Apparently I needed refresher training, and it was a good way to have an office staffer who HAD to listen to our complaints, and being sailors, we always have many many complaints. 

       So I'm not thrilled to be going home for just 4 days and a wakeup but it is what it is. I'm not going back to the HQ when I get back either; she's headed to the shipyard for her 20-year maintenance cycle. I'll be whoring myself out for the next 2 months. 

    As  for what I've been doing, it's been a struggle. I've been pretty unhappy of late.  Hopefully going home will help. 

 Hell with it. 

Science lesson of the day: popular lies

  'The Amazon rainforest is being clearcut at a dangerous rate." 

  "The Amazon Rain Forest is truly the lungs of planet earth."  

      Both of these are stupid lies, obvious to anyone with a modicum of education in science. 

    The Amazon, through photosynthesis, does affix carbon dioxode and produce oxygen...during the day. 

 At night of course the Amazon CONSUMES massive amounts of oxygen during cellular respiration, which goes on 24/7, unlike photosynthesis, so much of that oxygen made during the day gets used back up, leaving a modest surplus net gain.  If we clearcut the amazon completely, the loss of oxygen cycling would actually  be fairly small.  

    The Amazon produces about 16% of all LAND-BASED oxygen cycling.  But land only makes up about 29% of the earth's surface. So take all that land mass, add up the plant biomass there, and figure out the offsets for deforestation and Reforestation.

     Reforestation is a thing too.

 New England, for example, is being reforested at a shocking rate. Once America's Bread Basket, its' forests are criscrossed with old stone farm walls where wheat fields grew.  If you project ahead at the rate of reforestation in New England, by the year 2550, parking lots will cease to exist. 

   Enter phytoplankton- single-celled plants in the ocean, which covers about 71% of the earth's surface. Phytoplankton are the true lungs of the earth... and phytoplankton are doing great, thank you. 

   The rich green conferva soup of the ocean in the boreal and temperate latitudes, the spaces between arctic/antarctic and the tropics... that green seawater is rich in phytoplankton. In the tropics, where nutrients are tied up in the land, there are still phytoplankton, in more modest but massive numbers. 

       Globally, we have macroalgae- seaweeds. The Sargasso Sea comes to mind. It's growing, btb. Gets stinky when it washes ashore but that's a blessing of nature, just not for our delicate noses.  All that carbon and nutrients waiting to be released in the neotropics where free carbon and free nutrients are a bit scarce. 

   Globally we also have cyanobacteria, the smallest living single-celled plant on earth, often called blue-green algae. Both free in the water column and growing on EVERYTHING wet, even on land too. 

  You know those dark stains on rocky outcrops? Blue-green algae.  And it's an oxygen-making POWERHOUSE.  A conservative guess is that it alone produces HALF of all global oxygen, even before you get to the algae, diatoms and other oxygen-makers in the ocean. 

       So don't buy into the panic.   We're gonna be ok.  I like a clean, less-developed earth for my own quality of life, myself, but the poor ass Brazilian Indios are big fans of  not dying of famine or tropical diseases in their own backyard, so let the poor naked bastards sell off some land and buy some goddam shoes and address the Hierarchy of Needs if they want. 

    Oh, fun exception to the plants sucking down oxygen at night... the pothos plant.  They have oxygen storage capability- they pick up extra during the day and use it at night, but always release a surplus. 

      I really am a font of useless info. 

 But seriously, get a pothos.  They do a good.job of trapping dust and processing some nasty co ntaminants in the air.  We had one on the HQ for over 10 years- it circled the perimeter of the galley twice over, must have been 80+ feet overall.  Killed us when it finally died. The jungle motif was a treat. 

 

Being Eastern European Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry

 No, this isn't about world events, fitle notwithstanding. I mean it IS related though... 

       I finally got part of what I've been looking for, a job that wasn't fucked up. 

    Part of it went right, which is fhe first time in 20 days thst has happened. 

We loaded oil for 2 seperate ships the other day. The oil for first ship I pumped off myself, yesterday, and praise be, it went right and it went smooth.   Finally. 

     Tonight for part 2?   Naw, it's fucked up. Back to normal for what normal has been this tour.

          So tonight we run shorter 'dog' watches, where we cut them short to rotate our schedule. As I'm entering my final week aboard, it's my turn to take the back watch, 6pm to 6am.  

           Tonight's ship is an oil tanker, and the engineer kept calling for pump throttle changes, which is annoying and not normal but also not dangerous, so... so be it.  But then he kept calling for shut downs- not for emergencies but for whatever reason. After the 3rd time I refused to start back up until we had a heart-to-heart, where I noted that in our paperwork package he signed a document saying that he would provide a 10-minute early warning for non-emergency stops and starts.  Aside from safety issues related to that, I told him that my pumps would likely lose prime if we shut down while transferring the last 15% of he oil.  

 Less than 10 mins after our talk, he did it again, and sure enough, my pump lost prime, so now I have a foot of warm oil that will turn cold and solid in that tank, and will take a week or more to get rid of over the next few jobs, fucking with my volumes. 

       So, shit happens and safety first... we all want to keep the oil in the tanks, mine and his,  and while I'm positive this was just an anxious engineer's timidity and unprofessional behavior, I'm not going to bet my career on it. He says shut down, I shut down, and we can unfuck an inconvenience a lot easier than we can an accident.

   Here's the thing, though, and my point, finally. I don't think I have ever heard an Eastern European person apologize.  They're stereotypically very arrogant, at least in my trade. Not all, of course. But many. Most, even... and perhaps that's me. Cognitive bias, bigotry maybe, I dunno. And the language thing; when  speak without use article, modifier or preposition in English, it make sound asshole. 

  But typically when I ask for one of them to do something or not do something, the answer I get is that it is all my fault. 

 Tonight, for example, when I lost prime tonight , Ivan says 'This you problem, no my. You buy this pump. Is bad pump.' 

    I was good about not fussing at him... but not good enough.  My internal monologue was all, 'say nothing. Be professional. Anything you say will not help.' 

 So I said 'Well, you no can get more oil. This you problem, no mine, hoss.' 

 When annoyed, I like calling people 'hoss.'  I don't know when that started.  

 I'm glad I didn't yell, though, or swear.  The way things have been, if I started, I maybe wouldn't stop. Down deep I know it's not worth it. My recent distemper was here long before this trashbag came into my life and of all the pain in the balls people I've dealt with, this guy's merely the most recent. 

 Gotta stay positive. 

   Edit:   Now after the job is done and we are all.fast at a dock to wait for our next loading berth to open up, things are not as bleak.  

    I've been getting some really high quality tugboat deckhands helping us out at arrival and departure. Sadly, these kids are mostly working for 3rd party tugboat companies, but still it's good to see and good for the workplace culture I try to keep on here.  

 My outlook has just been so dark lately. It's beyond being in a brown study. I am downright down, after so many unsatisfying days... and so a bright, friendly and interested hard working Ordinary Seaman on board is a breath of.fresh air. 

     When we sailed away from the tub o' surly bohunks earlier, by the time we cast off the last line, the deckhand had cracked a joke and broken the tension.  An hour later, after we were all fast, I showed him a couple of tricks and good practices with marlinespike seamanship; using the 'handedness' of the lay of the line, stovepiping vs traditional making off of lines, how to ID the snapback and safe zones of any line under tension, just dumb little things thst will make him better and that were taught to my idiot ass long ago... and in doing that I could feel the tension headache slipping away. 

 Still, I'm glad my day's done... for values of done. I get 8 hours free than back at it.  Dog watch days can be long days. 

 

These are my clutching pearls

 I gotta stop uding this blog as my ombudsman/fainting couch/tear-stained dear diary.  Every post lately has been about who/what failed me this time and how I heroically saved the day/bore the burden with masculine stoicism. 

     To stop my bitching, it would be really, really nice if I could have a cargo that loaded and pumped off well, or a day at home where my day didn't end with existential dread or 'Fuck it, I'm too tired to care any more today.' 

    Nothing yet, but I'm trying to find that day. Sure wasn't yesterday and today my day was already ruined by 0435 when I walked into the galley to caffeinate, eat a handful of blood pressure meds and vitamins, and B says to me 'Fuck, man...' 

         Maybe tomorrow. Sorry for all the whining. 

   

Upping my game

 So this morning there's some training to do. 

        For assorted reasons, mostly legit, I have to do some supervisor training for booze and drug, as well as sexual harassment policy awareness.  This seems to be a once every year or two thing. 

  Drunks on boats are pretty common. Adding oil to the mix makes it a big no-no.   Drugs too. And with all the weed legalization going on, it's a huge issue. Guys pissing hot for weed during testing has massively increased in rate and it's still illegal AF for anyone working in transportstion.  

   Honestly that's a mixed bag. We've lost some good young guys with shitty impulse control over that, but we've also lost some absolute fucking idiots and scumbags, too, so I'm cool with testing. 

           The sexual harassment thing is a bit more academic for me. I'm fortunate to have never seen it in person, and I've worked with a few female mariners, most of whom were VERY competent... thst being said, I've also been aware of harassment towards women I HAVEN'T worked with but whom I know somewhat, and not even all that long ago, and it's ALWAYS been absolutely real and unjustifiable.  

     As I wrote above, though, it's a bit academic for me, and there's a story involved.

   About 10-12 years ago, we had a female tugboat deckhand who took the classes and got the endorsement from the Coast Guard to be raised to tankerman and start turning valves with us in the Retard Circus (the tankermen pool). 

    Thing is, this girl was a pretty and young latina, which shouldn't matter but matters. 

         Having no female tankermen at the time, a young and competent girl would be a real feather in my company's cap, so the powers thst be asked B and I to train her. 

 B said Fuck No, on the spot, his exact words being 'No, I'd like to stay married, thanks.' I said something along the lines of 'Yeah, my wife ain't having that. I need to stay married more than I need this job.'  

     What was cool about the issue was that the fleet manager absolutely understood. 

    Sure enough, she was trained elsewhere and later married her trainer. She was a good catch, he was smart to snatch her up. 

        There IS a difference between a tugboat and an oil barge. At times we're isolated and there's only 2 of us on board. At those times we have only each other for mutual support. 

      When I told Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife (who is NOT the jealous type) that we were asked and said no, she responded calmly, texting me a picture of a kitchen knife and the words 'Eu viu seu cortar sua pinto, voce e meu.' (I'll cut your dick off, you are mine). 

   Anyhow, I had already said no, and it's nice to know she was concerned.  

    Now I joke, and of course spending 2 hours watching videos is and answering dumb questions in a test at the end is brutal. You can't speed things up. I don't have attention issues, but my brain works fast. I either know something or I don't.  Making me wait 45 seconds between individual multiple-choice questions means 4-5 seconds of thinky, 40 seconds of no thinky. It's cancer. My mind doesn't work like that when I'm not engaged in drudgery... and this is drudgery. I'm not bragging. I read fast and think fast and not being able to have a reasonable pace is a millstone around my neck. It makes me resent the subject being considered, which is dead nuts opposite to what the goal is. 

       I work really diligently at not working with people. I get annoyed with everyone regardless of sex. I am not bigoted in my hate. So, admire me. 

   As for booze, yeah, I'm really into going home alive and with a job to come back to. If there's a booze-related issue aboard, there's already been a clusterfuck and I resent anyone bringing MORE clusterfucks aboard. We're brimming to the top already.  Making clear that booze and drugs aboard will result in them being thrown over the side while they're still in your corpse's pockets is a fairly simple but effective strategy. 

   Also, for legal reasons, that's a joke. 

 Also also, I don't like strangers aboard, which is an additional safety-enhancing strategy. 

 I had a junkie sternman when I was still a lobsterman.. this was maybe 2004?  Asshole fooled me, right up until him and his trashbag baby mama nodded off at home while giving their baby a bath and killed the poor little bastard.  Ever since, I've had no tolerance for shitheads. I think that's why my go-to emotion is anger when the issue pops up at work. Get fucked up on your own time, you know? 

 

    

A good job

 It took 14 days, but we finally had a cargo that came on smooth and pumped off smooth too. 

     It's been a bear this past tour. The whole no running water thing for 5 days, and on top of thst we've had daily small parcels of oil to move, and of those, more than 1/2 tested out as out of range for one chemical property or another, or the ship orders a blend of oil and then only takes part of it, and so the remainder sits in that tank and solidifies in the cold, giving us a list to one side or another, etc etc etc... anyhow there's been problems every single time. 

   Today, the ship was on time, the crew were nice, hard working and good communicators, and I even had nice deckhands from our tugboats when it was time to go.

        One good job in the books. I pray the momentum will keep it going. 

Water woes, revisited

 This time we went 5 days without running water.  We just got it back, now that it's above freezing, but who knows for how long?  Long enough for me to shower and do laundry, because the inside of the house smells like onions and hot dog water. 

 Don't even feel writing. I am, however, grateful for having a washed ass again. 

weather day

 

  A gust of wind just hit us hard enough to be felt from inside the house.

 

  It’s blowing a gale tonight here on HAWSEPIPER’s Afloat Global HQ/Center for Excellence in Creative Profanity.

 

  It’s been busy. Oil is not flowing like the proverbial wine. The oil is flowing like the urine stream of a middle aged man with prostate issues.

 

 (I don’t have prostate issues. No funny ideas, God, please).

 

  Big E, my partner on here and quite probably The World’s Nicest Man, has been about ready to burn the boats and go ham on the natives, as we’ve been getting oil that is not as advertized- that is to say, after blending on board the HQ, the oil is consistently not coming out according to receipe, which, turns out, is not the fault of the cooks (us). We look like assholes, but if instead of a nice broiler, you’re unknowingly putting a roadkill opossum into the cookpot, there’s not much you can do when your Coq Au Vin tastes like the shag carpet welcome mat in a gas station men’s room.

 

 

  Plus, the weather is... well it’s the Northeast. At Halloween it starts blowing, and it stops around May. Gales 3x a week. I’ve been getting rained on and snowed on and ice-pelleted on for all but one night since I got back aboard and that night I got shit on.

  Fucking seagull.

  No, I bitch, but under the 20lbs of foul weather gear, while staring down at a gauging tape in the cargo tanks, eyes streaming from the volitiles doing to eyes what onions do to eyes but with carcinogenic flavorings, there’s definitely a couple of things bubbling through my mind that are keeping the general misery of being cold wet and tired at bay. My recent very positive biopsy results being chief among them.

  Yeah, it hasn’t been great out, but I am starting to understand Billy D, my high-school English teacher and employer, the guy who bought the lobsterboat I grew up from the old timer who taught me to fish, and who consequently manipulated my schedule in high school so so we could go fishing in the afternoons twice a week after lunch.

 

  Whenever one of his crewmen bitched about the shitty weather in the fall and winter, Bill would always should the same thing. “IT’S A BEAUTIFUL DAY! THIS DAY WILL NEVER COME AGAIN!”

  Bill was a smart man. A good man too, in a way that the world no longer produces often. He passed on a few years ago, and he closed his obituary with those very words.

  As I age I understand him more. The days that suck are still better than the days spent looking at the grass grow from underneath.

  Looking back, I’m more impressed at the things Bill didn’t say. For example, during the fall semesters in college I worked for him on Saturdays, hauling lobster pots with him and one of his high school students, and I’d share my vast wealth of knowledges gained from my experience as a college biology student who traveled a whole 17 miles from where he was born to go to university.

  How the hell Bill didn’t tell me to be quiet and stop acting a fool 3-4 times a day I don’t know. But looking back I value his forebearance. Older, probably-should-be-wiser-by-now me

 is not sure I could have done the same. Nonetheless I eventually figured things out. Better late than never... and I still shoot my mouth off more than I should, but at least I have learned enouigh that at least SOME of what I say isn’t utter bullshit.