Regular Watches

 The drama llama has apparently gone off to another field this week. 

        I got my wish. A couple of watches where it was just get up, eat, work, eat, shower, sleep, rinse repeat. 

           Getting shit on from upon a great height is like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer- it just feels so good when you stop.   Nobody died, nobody is in danger of dying, it's just me with a job to do. Put the oil in the hole, take the oil out of the hole and don't spill any. 

     As much as the work/life balance here on the HQ is now something that no longer exists, it was just nice to not be getting bad news for a couple of days. To that end, there hasn't been anything particularly notable happening here aboard, and that's great news, for however long it lasts.  I even have most of the watch off today, for values of 'watch off...' by which I caught up on the assorted logbooks, ordered supplies, changed the oil on one of the generators, restrung the anti-twoblock brake on one of the deck cranes (there's a 100-lb weight under the #1 hook on our crane- if something lifts the weight, the hydraulilcs to the wire drum cut off, so we can't jam the #1 hook into the crane head), changed out a dead light bulb on the Christmas Tree ( a large colorful alarm panel mounted about 20' in the air that lights up if a cargo tank is being overfilled), and cleaned up a couple of oil spots on deck.   Yup.   Good watch off. And it's only 0930!   

At the upper edges of Whelmed

 I'm still not overwhelmed. 

   Oh, I'm whelmed. I'm in reaching distance of overwhelmed now, I think, but I'm not sure. So far I haven't started knocking hats off heads when I am mildly vexed, so there's still time, but I am definitely eyeballing hats. 

     I got ONE watch free of existential dread after getting back to work. One. 

 On my second watch back, a phone call from my doctor. Not something I'm going to get into here but truly serious business. Alarming enough and scary on its' own, but following the nonstop bullshit of the past 6 weeks, I'm starting to feel... something. Oppressed?   

   Well, 'starting' is a lie. I'm kinda bummed out. Life and shit both happen, right?  

     It's the timing more than anything. The financial and legal mess that comes from construction in the 3rd world, a passel of dead loved ones, sick loved ones, struggling loved ones, wife's stressed and burning out at her job, I'm throwing money around like Jack Ashore... and a bunch of other whining complaints. 

 I'm not at wit's end. I'm not even overwhelmed... just... whelmed, Really, really whelmed. 

   I look at blogfriends who are dealing with real shit, serious life-limiting, life-threatening and life-altering things, and I feel silly for feeling like God has been pissing in my cornflakes of late.  I'm OK, truly. But I've never been a guy who tolerates a whole lot of OK. Feast or Famine is more my speed. 

       I am enormously grateful for friends and family, truly. While I was home I participated in an online drinking session with 4 of my childhood friends, a circle of constant companions present for almost my entire life. We video chatted and laughed and drank a little too much for 3-4 hours. It was healthy, it was relaxing. It was exactly what I needed.  

                     Along with that, I had a little time with my own blood family, while we were dealing with my sister's hospitalization and release, and I'm grateful for that too... and my wife, my second self, we didn't have enough time together, but we did have time together. 

 I got people. As is my habit, I don't got a lot of people, but the people I got are the best people. I need to remember that.   And even at work, I have Big E and B, two great friends, as close as brothers, and the mutual support there. 

    So, one more shit sandwich has been added to the platter, and the table is starting to groan. My writing here has been less about cool maritime stuff and more a gay-ass Dear Diary, which is not cool. I'll be OK. 

        Last night, when I was in a serious brown study, I had one of the most productive and professional ships' engineering crew I've ever worked with. The container ship "COLUMBO EXPRESS" deserves all the gambling and hookers (currency for sailors), for being so professional, efficient and easy to work with on a day when I was really feeling sorry for myself. They were on the ball, truly, setting a pace and performance that I have rarely seen equaled, especially in that the transfer was moderately complicated. 

 I wish they could all be like that. 

Lemons, lemonade

 OK, well, the larder is still stocked with shit sandwiches here at my house. 

 Oh, yeah, crew change was today. I am still at my house.   Hurricane Milton is coming to deliver clusterfucks and headaches for all the people in my area, you see. 

        I'm not cool with leaving my wife and kid to ride out the weather on their ownsome, so despite the fact that I have missed waaay too much work this past month, I had to stay here. Thankfully my employer is OK with taking care of family, despite the fact that I KNOW they had to do some major crew shuffling in my area last week even before I took myself out of the roster. 

        Me being, well, me, there wasn't much prepping that had to be done. Pull a few things out of storage, top up the inventory of things that are good to eat and drink if we lose power for a bit, etc etc. About the only thing that I was low on was Jamison, and cheap yet reasonably tasty whisky is essential for mental health. 

   So, yeah, I had so much shit to do around the house for maintenance in my scheduled time off, and my wife's work issues requiring my help, and my sister's hospitalization (she is doing well and starting recovery, and cooked us all an insane spaghetti and meatball dinner the other night with my nephew's help), this time off just sucked ass all up and down the block. And then I had to cancel my flight for crew change, only to have the rebooked flight get canceled and rebooked for Saturday rather than Friday. So I have yet another day I'm missing at work, which is a hit to the wallet I didn't want. 

    But you know... I've been running around like a cat trying to bury a turd under a marble floor, and this unplanned time off?   I'm done with my planned chores, and I have a couple of days off.  That's not a bad thing in most senses. I kind of need the break. I came home to rest and didn't get any after all. So maybe this isn't a bad thing. 

    I'm far enough south that if the hurricane sticks to the predicted path, we should be able to ride it out pretty well. 40-60kt winds, some gusts around 70. We'll probably lose power at some point but so be it. 

   I'm more concerned with the guys in the predicted path. The Tampa area looks to be in for a real fucking.  Guys like BCE, Borepatch, Beans and others are there. Gotta remember to say a prayer for them. 

 

The Beatings will continue until morale improves

 Holy shit, I'm getting my ass kicked. 

    I came home for some rest, simply because I wasn't getting better and recovering from the cold/flu bug I had with me for almost all of September. At home I can eat, drink, be merry and loaf... except none of that has happened. 

It's been shit sandwiches all the way down lately. I am feeling like I got a Kick Me sign taped to my back. 

      So, with the decline and death of my mother-in-law culminating in a near-ruinous trip to Brazil, coupled with the cold/flu that would not go away, I was feeling like the ant in the driveway when he sees a kid with a magnifying glass on a sunny day. 

      I don't talk about Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife's job here because it's a very serious job and this is not a serious blog, but she's an Alzheimer's nurse, and specifically she's self-employed as a care manager for families dealing with a loved one in need of 24/7 care for Alzheimer's or end-stage dementia, who want their parent or spouse to live and die in their own home.  Her particular gifts are boundless empathy and insane organizational skills. Over the years she has attracted like-minded women who make up the care teams that she manages. 

     I'm very proud of her, and as I have said for the last 20 years, she's just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside... unfortunately about 24 hours after I got home this time a medical crisis broke out that was both deeply upsetting and stressful, though thankfully that ended happily enough (for values of happy, anyhow), but which turned the week into a 100-hour workweek for her. This coming just 2 weeks after we buried her mother, the timing sucked, and my own complaint, that of having to impotently watch someone I love suffer, continued, which I personally find distressing. 

    But as I said, things resolved well- everyone lived this time and things even went back to the pre-funeral state, more or less, in our lives.    So a few days ago, after the first day of things going back to normal(ish) my wife calls me, and asks to go out for dinner and a glass or two of wine. 

         At the same time I get the check from dinner, which was good, and more importantly, relaxing for her, I get a call from my brother;  my sister's going out in an ambulance, looks like a heart attack or a stroke. So we got... 3 hours free between crises? Perhaps as many as 4.  

   So that was this past week. . My sister's story is her own, and happily here a few days later, things are improving.  But for me, I'm a bit cooked.  My sister's the kind of person who will apologize for inconveniencing everyone by getting sick.  Since I'm pretty sure she reads this occasionally, I'd feel terrible if she felt guilty that she got sick. 

    Still, I'm about ready for a day without something scaring the crap out of me, or something stressing the shit out of my wife and family here. 

  Oh. 

   

   Guess who's got a little sumpin sumpin coming overhead the day he's supposed to be going back to work? 

        I guess I need to be positive here. Yes, we're apparently going to get hit by a hurricane next week. But on the upside, I'm already home. At least I don't have to find a flight to rush here... 

Home!

 I'm home, all is well. 

 BRB

Almost the whole watch off

With just two days to go on this tour, I finally got a watch to myself. Most of one, anyhow., and even better, the annoying tasks that have to get done before my relief show up are all done too, so I got to have this time to myself. And really... to myself.  Partner B, who has Crohn's disease (now in remission) and hadn't taken a solid dump since the first Obama administration,  got hisself constipated, which is... well not humorous, but surprising... And painful apparently, as finally the floodgates opened and B went to bed as soon as his watch was over, on account of his backdoor looking like the cigarette lighter of a car when you hold it in for 5 minutes and don't let it pop back out. 

     So I have had the HQ to myself most of the night. We're at a lay berth, the real lay berth, where we go when we have more than a few hours between jobs, over by Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

    I'm not feeling sick, either. Oh, I'm a bit congested but I've improved greatly in the past 24 hours. It was nice to sit down to a meal tonight, and not have to eat it one handed while writing or typing with the other for once. All in all, things are better than they were a week ago for sure. And the prospect of going home is uplifting. 

 I got a call from a good friend, the first friend I made when I came to my present job, in fact. He's a rock solid dude, a damn fine tankerman too. He left my employer last year after almost 20 years here, after having been done brown by one of the shoreside staff, and his wife sadly being diagnosed with terminal cancer, and our insurance being fairly well shitty and cheap compared to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which most other maritime companies offer, including the company he moved to, who are famously bad but pay OK and have great insurance which his wife needs...  anyhow, said friend got an offer he couldn't refuse from the highest-paying tug-and-barge company on the East Coast,  (who also have BC/BS).  So he's headed there for his last few years before retirement, which will also enable him to work shorter hitches and have more time and more money for his wife's care.  I'm really happy for him. And while I didn't need the temptation, he promised that he'd make me an offer to whoever recruited him, and fuck me that's tempting.  I don't like blind jumps, though. I don't want to go. Not yet, anyhow. It's not a good time to do laundry in public, but I appreciate the offer for a new job and a new company, but am hopeful that good things are coming. 

Still grinding

 Not much to report, really. We're working every day. I haven't had a watch off since I came aboard about 10 days ago,  not a whole one, anyhow. I had more than half my watch off, 3 days ago, which felt nice. 

 Healthwise, I feel better in terms of my energy level and focus. I am still 100% congested and I believe this is day 21 of me gorging on Dayquil. I can't take Nyquil at work on the off chance that something happens and I need to operate some heavy machinery. I mean, the entire HQ is heavy machinery, a young boy's fever dream of hydraulics, cranes, engines, pumps, piping to climb over, under and around, and ropes of every sort and color. The HQ, if I added a slide, was 7 year old me's dream playground. I guess we need a fireman's pole to get down into the forepeak now to round things out. 

 But yeah, my flat, absurdly high pitched and sadly nasal speaking voice is still worse than normal with my sinuses being full of what feels like cement. 

   It's the weekend, though, and tonight's watch, which was busy from 1730 to 0130 -we're underway to a lay berth where B, the lucky booger, gets to have a watch off when he wakes up, whereas I will get about 3 hours. Still, 3 hours free is nothing to lament, as it's as good as I can expect for now, and It's the end of the watch that will be free, which means I can probably wind down and relax and watch a show or something, maybe read my book.  All good things. 

 We're bucking the tide HARD tonight. I thought we were close to our lay berth in Newark, but we're only making 4 knots, lol. Still only halfway there. Looks like my break will be about 2 hours. Bummer. Better than 1 hour, though, and maybe we'll pick up speed when we leave the Kill Van Kull, which we're presently transiting, and which is a narrow tidal bore at Bergen Point where the Bayonne Bridge is. As the channel widens out after the bridge, perhaps we'll pick up a knot or more. 

           So with the prospect of two weeks at home, the honey-do list is forming up. The list this time is formidable. Lot of mindless labor in there. It's time for the annual pressure washing fest outside, which is a multi-day orgy of being damp for 8-10 hours while hunched over and trying not to get eye damage. This is along with some painting, water sealing, and the usual last minute additions that my wife can think of. 

 I dunno, I'm looking forward to it. I haven't been able to get into the zone around the house in a while. 

channeling Eeyore

    

      I don't like admitting weakness, but I'm  just not feeling it this month. 

          I have a cold or sinus infection that came in the wake of the flu I took with me to Brazil and back. It hit right as I was going back to work last week. 

     So, between hospital bills, funeral expenses and last minute international plane tickets, I had unexpected expenses somewhere north of $35,000 so far this month. Now, my salary is munificent compared to, say, what I was making when I got out of college, but it's a sailor's salary, and 35k is enough to really  take the lead out of my pencil, as it is to anyone. 

  

      The prospect of collecting OT for working overtime for a few weeks, not flying home and back to work, not eating and drinking and engaging in high living (by which I mean buying wood, power tools, paint and such) and putting my helmet on and my head down and starting to get out of the hole that just got dug for us,  well, that's just the start of smart decisons I'll need to make for the next little while. 

             This stupid cold of mine is disheartening, and it won't leave. I've been sick now for several weeks nonstop and I don't seem to be getting better. I'm not sleeping great, which I think is most of the problem. I'm simply run down. 

 So it's probably not the smartest decision I can make financially, but I'm going home next week for a few weeks of downtime. It's my scheduled time off anyhow, and I feel like a bag of smashed assholes,. I've got 9 watches to go, including tonight.    We're steady busy here on the HQ, pretty much doing somthing every watch, but the gap between the last job and this one  is about 8 hours, of which 4 are on my watch, so I get to sit at my desk and catch up on papers, write this post, and shortly, precook tonight's dinner, which is a low-effort meal-  4oz of steak, onions, peppers, pea pods and mushrooms and garlic pan-roasted and wrapped up in a big low-carb wheat tortilla. I throw a 50/50 blend of oyster sauce and hoisin sauce on top to church it up, and it's a decent meal. It'll build a turd for sure. 

        I figure some down time will help. I gotta get my ass up and moving when I get back, might as well rest while I can... and hopefully sometime in the next week this stupid fucking cold will let go. 

Still sick at work, and a visit to My Hole in Brazil

 I'm on my second watch now since returning to work. The flu that I left with last week when we flew to Brazil has come and gone, and in its' wake I caught a hell of a cold. Or maybe it's just a long bug, I dunno but either way it's been a miserable almost 2 weeks of being sick, and I'm not a sickly person normally. I'm pretty tired of feeling like ass. 

         Last night we were bunkering a small chemical tanker, and thankfully they were about the same size a the HQ, so when I was talking to the engineers and crew, they were only maybe 8 feet away so I didn't need to yell, as I have a hellacious sore throat as well and talking hurts. So I was grateful for that. Tonight promised to be busy but the Office People (Long may they complain, long may they Shit Light on the heads of the damned) changed all out plans and in a fortunate turn of events, the next move was pushed back to the 3am tide later tonight, technically tomorrow, at the tail end of my watch. 

        I wish I had felt better last night. the engineering crew on the chemical ship were cool guys and I apologized for not talking more. They were all Poles, and I have always found Polish engineers to be pleasant to work with. There's a reason why they're one of the better regarded castes of engineers I think, between work ethic, personality and skills.  Plus, I'm a huge Jan III Sobieski fanboi, so learning more about him from someone who grew up with a greater knowledge of his history makes me geek out. 

_____________________________

    Since I still feel like hammered shit, I will throw some pictures up from last week's trip to Brazil. Bear in mind that this is a poor city on a high plain in an arid area. It's not beautiful to any but the discerning eye, but it's a place I very much enjoy visiting, mostly for the people, enough so that I'm building a house there, which, last time I wrote about, was mostly a series of pillar foundation holes which the building crew were inordinately proud of, as I wrote in "Please Admire My Hole. "

Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I out for a walk

The Hole is now that building on the right. The tall walls around the yard are 15 feet for privacy and shade. 

The main house, as seen from what will eventually be a 40' pergola running from the main gate. 

The dining room, eventually. 

Part of the purpose of the new house was that it was going to be a place for my mother-in-law to live as well, along with her maid and a nurse. As such, with her gone,  there will have to be some repurposing done I think in order to breathe some life into the place.  Against her will, inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, with all the organizing, planning and help she has given between her mother's care and  coordinating reunions and events to reunite the whole family, has been more or less appointed matriarch-in-exile since she's in the middle of the 5 generations of family among the hundreds of them all and the one person everyone takes a holiday to visit when we're in town.  So it appears that my house, since I had planned to be able to feed 40-50 at a time from just the outdoor kitchen alone, will be a social hub when we're in town... and we're hoping to spend a month or more in town every year after we finish building it. 

    At any rate, it's a more pleasant thing to contemplate at the moment than how shitty I feel with this stupid cold. 

I'm home again, for the day

 Wow, crazy week.  I flew to Brazil on Tuesday, and flew home on Saturday, arriving just now, Sunday morning. My wife and son are dead asleep, as they couldn't sleep on the plane, and we never slept more than 4-5 hours a day the whole time we were in Brazil.  We buried my mother-in-law on Wednesday, and it was an all-day affair, 24 hours, a vigil from sundown on Tuesday to sundown on Wednesday. 

           How to explain? Brazilian funerals, at least the Indio ones, are emotionally exhausting, and cathartic as well, moreso than I've experienced here in the US.  Deeply moving, dignified, beautiful in a way ours are not, in that many more of the old world traditions are still upheld. The traditional diamond-shaped casket, the body completely covered in flowers except for the face and chest, and the whole casket with a gauzy piece of white lace to soften her features.  The interment was done in the family crypt, and she was laid to rest next to the bones of her great-grandmother, and above the bones of her husband, dead these many years. We watched as a mason bricked up and mortared the casket in place, where it will lie for 20 years before being opened and the casket discarded, when her bones will join the pile of bones from her great grandmother.  

 I'm spent. I feel like too little butter scraped over too much bread. I have so much to do and so little time before I have to fly out for work, and I'm jetlagged and having a post-stress reaction I guess. I spent the past 5 days doing my utmost to keep my family safe and supported, and my Brazilian family, all 300+ of them, were there with us the whole time. 

 I guess I will write about it more. I also got to see my new house under construction, hung out with the builder, who is married to one of my wife's cousin's aunts' I think, and got my wife hammered drunk along with another cousin when she struggled with processing everything, which actually turned unto a nice story.  The hangover I woke up with, along with the night I spent talking with her and letting her cry things out and laugh too, were worth the price. 

 Anyhow, I got her in bed about 30 minutes ago, and have hours of shit to do before I can rest yet. 

 What a ride it was. Some great moments, I have never been hugged and kissed and made to feel included this much, ever. The pain was awful, the heartache worse, but as that started giving way to the laughter and the stories and shared memories, I know we did it right, and by me, I mean my wife, who deserves her nap for sure. 

Pictures and some of the better stories to follow. 

Bereavement flight

 

 

  Of all the places I expected NOT to be at 0430 on a Monday, the airport in Newark NJ is certainly one of them. And yet here I am.

 

  My mother-in-law had been ill for several weeks, culminating in a systemic infection and a blockage in her one working kidney. Once I wired pretty much a car’s worth of money to the hospital in Brazil last week, they unblocked the kidney, but found a tumor in her bladder while they were headed uptown, so they removed that as well as the blockage.

  Given the language barrier, a certain hesitation to pin down the attending physician and question him, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I never felt like we really had a solid grasp of what was happening, despite arranging 24 hour care over and above the hospital care, which is a thing in Brazil.  Over the past few days, my MIL’s recovery waxed and waned, though in truth I assumed the infection was under control before they performed surgery on her.  Yesterday when I got up, she was talking about going home in a few days. She started vomiting around 10pm last night, and at midnight I got a text that she had vomited again and was on oxygen, and 10 minutes later, the shitty call that we all dread, after she passed away.

 

  I went through my parents’ deaths a few years ago, and it was painful, even though it was expected.  I knew my Mother-In-Law wasn’t doing well, but I tried buoying up Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, and trying to keep everyone optimistic, and at 8am our time she was going to talk to the hospital and decide whether or not to get a flight to Brazil, as her mom seemed to be rallying the past 2 days. 

 Ugh. I can see just as far through a brick wall as the next guy, but boy howdy I am kicking my own ass for it now.

 

  I got to say goodbye to both of my parents at the end, and it was still awful. My father cheated death so many times that one of my brothers and I both have a weird phobia about calls between around 9:30PM and 6:30AM, which is when we'd always get the notification.  So when the phone rang just a few minutes after midnight, and 10 minutes after my wife said her mom was vomiting and on oxygen, I knew;  of course I knew. Nobody calls with good news after midnight. 

 But my God, when I picked up my phone, the absolute wail of pain was something I’ll remember forever I think, even knowing what was happening. My wife does NOT cry. I have never heard her hysterical before, and if God is kind, I never will again. My heart is absolutely broken for her. In a crisis my wife is an absolute rock. Chokes me up right here, remembering it. 

  Turns out, it’s worse, much much worse, when it’s not you, but your spouse, who loses a parent.

             Like as not I’ll be going to Brazil tomorrow for a week or so. It's the least practical thing I could possibly do, and I absolutely have to.  In talking to my wife an hour ago, she's regained her composure and we talked about telling my kid about his grandmother in a few hours, as he was working overnight at his own job, and we didn't want to blindside him. He talked with his grandmother every other day and my idiot ass talked to him about 8pm last night, saying that he didn't need to worry so much, that she was holding her own. Ugh, he's going to get home 2 hours before my plane lands, and my wife will have to tell him without me there. 

   And why the fuck am I sharing all this? I'm sick myself. I have a flu-like bug, ironically enough. Started about 36 hours ago. Not  covid, turns out, as I checked, but I feel like hammered shit and the runny nose thing just came in as a little fuck you just for me a couple of hours ago. Awesome. 

   I dunno. I'm not myself here. Gotta get my shit together. 

 

First watch back

 I'm back on the HQ now, and those last 2 weeks flew by.    Stepped right in on my first watch to finish topping off a load, and presently I'm just waiting for slack tide for our tugboat to come and move us to a lay berth to wait out our next ship to arrive at a local anchorage. 

          Sunday was probably the most fun I had in my time off. With my kid out for the day, during the afternoon I loaded up a tub of beers, champagne, water and soda, and cued up some music and Inappropriately Hot Foreign wife and I spent the next 6-7 hours in the pool, getting thoroughly soused and crisping up nicely. Well, she did. I had to take hourly breaks to put on SPF 1-million so that I wouldn't burst into flames. 

             It was nice that such hair as I still have hadn't yet been shaved off, which I usually do the day before leaving for work, which leaves me looking more like Lester Lightbulb than Kojak, sadly. 

Insert obscure Boston humor here. 

        Inappropriately Hot Foreign wife tried wearing an American-style bikini (Brazilians preferring less material; think 2 postage stamps, an eyepatch and some shoestring) but found it much too constricting after a second glass of champagne  ("I no like this. Eet feels like I wear a burka or how you say in english, paraqueta? (Parachute))."   Still, while the bikini stayed on, it was nice to be able to get SFW pictures together for once. 

 

To the Brazilian sensibility, these are giant nana thunderpants

      All in all it was a day to put the stresses and mostly unhappy nature of of the events of the past few weeks out of our mind. And not being kids, spending most of the day drinking and swimming (with a 30 min break for wings and ribs, which we ate sitting side by side on the pool stairs), by 8pm she was passed out on the couch and I got to start to watch 'Fallout' which is about the most creative thing I've seen on TV in years. Utterly insane and enjoyable. I gave up by 10pm though, after rehydrating, and scooped her up and carried her upstairs, pretending not to notice that that was a LOT harder to do than it was 5 years ago, last time I tried it. 

       

       Monday I got to meet with a GI doctor to schedule a colonoscopy, which will be my first as a middle-aged guy.  I think I'm going to binge on taco bell and chinese food the night before, though. Why should I be the only one in the room having a miserable experience? So that'll be the next time I go home.    I scheduled it for the day after crew change, because why not? I can be hungry on the plane and drink the explosive nasty ass cleaner when I get home, get the shitty day out of the way. 

 

I'm still not dead

 It's the weekend now, and for Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I, that means we have a few days together. Between construction of the house in Brazil, an upcoming family wedding that we need to fly in for, and a sudden downturn in my mother-in-law's health, I'm throwing money in the air and it ain't coming back down. For this reason, there's more overtime in my future, and Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife is up to around 85-90 hours a week at her own job, so of all the things we are doing, relaxing isn't one of them.  We're really getting our asses kicked.

         The shit with my mother-in-law is still fluid- it's a long story but I can tell already there ain't no happy ending coming this time. The bitterness there is that part of building the new house was to put her in it, since I'm only planning on spending 4-5 weeks a year in the house, and frankly, we really nailed the design when it comes to building a tranquil and fun compound that is ideal for visiting and with everything right there, plus it has been rebuilt with age in mind- no stairs except into storage areas, and no trip hazards, because I already know from experience that my feet at night have radar, and are able to find EVERY obstruction eventually, so that I can fall over them.  That would be nice for my MIL, as she's blind.

       Well, it's mid-afternoon already, and we're doing our best here. I've been doting on Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife every chance I can and every moment together is one that we value. Last night, after cooking, I cracked open a serious bottle of wine that a friend carried back to us from the French countryside, and she drank off the bottle over the evening, pleasantly buzzed, while I consoled myself with a couple of glasses of Maker's Mark. Nothing exciting, and she was too tired to do what usually happens when she has a couple of glasses of wine- run out in the back yard naked and jump in the pool. I mean, I married a South American Indio woman. They spend half their lives naked, which is something I support entirely. But she was all demure and we spent the night on the couch just talking back and forth, mostly me letting her talk, letting out all the pressure from too much work, too much worry and a very ill mom 6,000 miles away. 

Romance-wise, it's been a fantastic 2 weeks. Relaxation-wise, not not at all.  There have been some great moments though. 

woops...

 I'm not dead. 

   I'm at home. 10 weeks at work was enough. 

 I've been home a week already. The days are flying by. 

    back to work next week. For another 10 I think. 

Another week down, another to go

 Hot damn, week 10 begins tomorrow here aboard  HAWSEPIPER's Afloat Global HQ/Dungeon of Dark Delights. 

       Last week? It definitely happened. And by It, I mean the last week.  It was neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat, just a week of Rise and Grind, and other than the heat and humidity, not particularly notable. I'm in the right frame of mind for where I am, no signs of Channel Fever, where guys start getting buggy and need to go home.  As I mentioned in my last post, The Office (Long may they rule, long may they shit light on the heads of the damned) took away B and kept him for an extra week on The Loaner, the punishment barge that nobody will work on board for less than time-and-a-half. B got a massive payout for spending 3 weeks there, God bless and save him from black lung, ringworm, Athlete's Foot, Athlete's Ass, and Athlete's All the Skin Between Foot and Ass... anyhow, B comes home tomorrow, and my latest fill in guy, a new, quiet, competent and thoughtful dude who is a jewel amongst the runny steaming dog turds, when compared to all the other new hires that are infecting our ranks.  Seriously, I like the guy, he has his shit together, and once he gets some more experience under his belt, he'll be an asset, and even now he's already decent as a mariner. 

    So, despite having had a lot of fill in guys, this past week went well, better than expected, and best of all, it's past, and that means just one week to go. B is coming back tomorrow, which means it will be my turn to rotate to take over the night watch, and it being August now, I am happy for it, as I have been baking my balls off for the past 3 weeks. 

       Yesterday we had a surprise visit from the Scupper Police, very unexpected, as another one of them (there being only 3) just did a Health and Safety walkthrough last week when we had the Coast Guard aboard for tea and crumpets the annual inspection and associated clusterfucks.  

         I know all of the Scupper Police to a degree. Of the 3 of them, yesterdays inspector is someone I've worked with, if briefly, and the senior among them, and also a guy who's pretty passionate about improving living and working conditions amongst the crews.  It's funny because the first time I met him when I relieved him down in the Caribbean, I didn't care for him at the time. These days I enjoy talking to him, and of course his walkaround didn't bear any fruit- he's the type of guy who, if he sees something that isn't right, talks to you about it and helps you set it right if possible, which is something that I wish all Office People did. 

     At any rate, the Scupper Police came and went, and we did well. The cargoes we've been getting have been steady and occasionally complex, enough so that I have had to use my head more, which has been nice. 

         And a week from tomorrow, I'll be going home, and that's a fine thing. 

Stay Gold, Ponyboy!

 Well, this has been nice. 

    We had yesterday off, and today off too, so far at least. 

   It being Monday, the Office People (Long may they shit light on the heads of the damned) like to play "Surprise, asshole!" and throw last-minute cargoes and other clusterfucks on us, so I'm not sold on the idea of having a second day off in a row, but we're approaching noon, and a day-and-a-half is pretty nice and pretty rare these days, so I ain't bitchin.'   At any rate, yesterday and today I went for long sunrise walks through Brooklyn around Brooklyn Bridge park and Dumbo, about 5 miles both mornings I guess. It's getting easier on my feet and joints as I lose weight. I no longer waddle.  Today was a trash day, though, so as I walked through part of Brooklyn Heights, I damn near threw up at the putrid garbage and piss smell that some areas were giving off.  Ah well. 

        With the time off, Big E and I got caught up on our maintenance and even ahead a bit on some things as far as stocking shelves and the like. I lose Big E this Wednesday, he's going home for 2 weeks. Normally, B comes back at this point for his month of joy and glory here, but B was working over on The Loaner, and the company offered him a bribe to stay on there for an extra week and suffer, and they're sending me some fill-in guy for a week. I haven't had the best luck with fill-in guys recently, but there's always a chance it'll be one of the old bunkering hands around here, racking up some OT.  Have to see.  

  It's also week 9 for me here since I was home last, which is only possible thanks to the friendship and support of Big E and B, after said fill-in guys and such made me want to make sweet mouth love to a .45. Regardless, Wednesday is halfway day of this 4 week tour on the HQ, which means that I am on the downhill slope, and there's a certain amount of inertia that carries me through at this point. Barring any surprises, I'll be headed home in 2 weeks. Already have my plane tickets sorted. 

   Speaking of plane tickets, yesterday I also bought the fam's tickets to Brazil for our next trip.  I went to a lot of trouble to organize time off over the holidays, made promises signed in blood, auctioned off my precious Seed, all the usual, to get holiday time off... and then I went to book tickets. Holy-O-dogshit, $9000 for round trip tickets!  And not good tickets. Steerage class, the cheapest ones, where you sit with the cattle, and the Irish. So, no, no holiday travel. Instead I will go in January, where tickets were only $3,000. Pretty good deal considering I'm going from Miami to Sao Paolo to the teeny little 2 gate airport in my new home a couple hours' flight back north from Sao Paolo.  The builder promises that our new house there will be finished. I hope so, because paying his ass, springing for a decent hotel for a couple of weeks would be a bear. 

         

On the upside, my prostate is doing well

 It's been a busy few days here on the HQ.    We worked, then we had a day free to prep for our annual Coast Guard inspection, but then the free day was filled with a quick job running a splash of diesel out to a little bitty ship, and that sucked up 18 hours, so we pulled into the company dock about 15 minutes before Uncle Sugar's Sea Scouts showed up, where we were thoroughly probed. 

    We did very well. My employer sent the Scupper Police to go aboard before the Coasties got to us. The Scupper Police are the 3 guys in the company who do health & safety checks, making sure we're sanitary and in compliance with environmental and safety regs. On tank vessels, the scuppers (drains for rainwater and sea spray on deck) have to be in at all times, and opened only to let rain out while you're standing watching the water go overboard.   Leaving the scuppers out is a bad habit that makes perfect sense but not on an oil tanker. It's better to have a a couple hundred tons of water sloshing around on deck (oh, our decks have a raised edge, about 8 inches tall, to contain water or spilled oil) than a couple of gallons of oil going over the side while nobody's looking. Uncle Sugar gets real soggy and hard to light when the water around your boat looks like a frigging pride flag. 

   At any rate, the Scupper Police were welcomed aboard (not really but I can't say no), and we chatted and he looked things over, checked the logbooks and asked some smart questions about things of mutual concern, upcoming issues, and things to watch out for, as well as it being a perfect opportunity for me to complain about Things The Office Isn't Doing The Way I Would Do It, as if the poor guy didn't already have enough on his plate, lol.  Our local Scupper Cop is actually a good shit. One of those guys who on finding an issue, will physically help you solve it rather than run off and Go Tell Daddy. 

    By then, it was time to get Inspected, and there were 6 inspectors aboard, plus two of our own office people.  What followed was a bunch of  looing at things, pulling out the survival suits and testing the water activated lights that hang on them, etc, etc, plus a lightning round of drill questions; what would you do if... etc etc. 

     We did well. The Coast Guard will always find at least ONE thing wrong, to round out their report. They never allow an inspection to have an All Is Well conclusion. So usually, I move an empty cardboard box in front of the emergency escape hatch in the generator room, and eventually one of them will be all "ah HAH!" and we have our one ding on what is usually an otherwise perfect report. 

    I mean, these are the guys who are trying to be sure we don't die of stupidity or terminally cheap owner shenanigans... to make sure we don't end up in the hands of the Search-And-Rescue people. It behooves us to be cooperative. But there are patterns. 

     Anyhow, second annual inspection in a row where they missed the empty box. Instead our ding was a silly one, a missing item that isn't required on the class of vessel that is our HQ, and one that would have been resolved today, the day after the exam, over the phone. 

   The NY Coasties are a funny bunch. Every year, they pressure me to produce a type of logbook that isn't required of us. Every year I point out "We're not required to have that in our vessel class." and every year the answer is "Well, you should have it anyhow."    In no other US port do they ask for this book, and they didn't ask for it here either, up until 3 years ago. And of course it isn't required, but it's an argument every time now. Asking one of the port managers of my company down in Philadelphia, the answer is not just no but "Fuck no. Why make extra work for you, me, and themselves?"   But I guess never the twain shall meet. When people become worshipfull of Flypaper reports inventorying things that are not required, they worship the process and not the operation. 

 I have enough to do. I'm not a fan of wasting my time when there is no benefit to it but stiffening the erection of someone who really really likes reports. 

            So, not for the lack of looking, but we were probed, questioned and drilled, and we were found worthy.  And best of all, we have a full day off today so I got groceries and went for  a long, long walk this morning to spend a little time away from the HQ and smell the garbage water and urine and weed smell that covers 90% of Brooklyn. 

Forces at work

 I've been on the HQ again for a week now, and while the bloom is off the rose, I find myself more open to appreciating the things we have and the things we don't have on here than I did when I was on The Loaner last week. This is because the things that The Loaner has are mostly mold and assorted fungi, filth and poorly-maintained and designed shit on deck, while the things that the Loaner doesn't have (hygienic living conditions, clean water and a safe work environment) remind me that our has/doesn't have matrix is quite heavily weighted in my favor).  My partner B is on there now, but he's having a jolly good time as The Loaner is presently Out Of Service. There's structural welding to be done, and a tank vessel must be Gas Free (contain no explosive vapors in the area or adjacent areas to compartments where welding is occurring, so no cargoes to load. 

     Smaller tank barges are built such that sometimes a point-load  (say a tugboat bumps us a little too hard on the side one night for example, knocking me out of my bunk and all the dishes out of the cabinets in the galley)  will cause a hairline crack in the framing inside the hull. There are multiple reinforced frames in a small area in the double hull of a tank barge, so a single crack won't actually cause trouble at all, but they're inevitable with use, and periodically any cracks will be rewelded by a specially certified welder, generally speaking once every few years. The HQ's I've had have had anywhere from 4 to over 50 cracks found and repaired in the span between 5-year mandatory shipyard visits in their life cycle

     Every time you load or discharge a tank vessel, you deform it temporarily. Steel must bend if it is not to break, and even very heavy steel gets fatigued if you bend it enough times. 

           A ship or tank barge uses a combination of structural forces to combat loading stresses. Like most vessels there is web-frame construction, where frames, ribs, stringers, beams, etc distribute loading stresses. Think of the framing of a traditional wood sailing ship- frames and planks, with heavy beams that run between the frames at various points to connect them- it's not that different from that. Tank vessels also have stressed-skin construction, where some of the load stresses are passed around and through the hull plating too. Think about a sheet of plate steel. It's not that hard to bend it when it's flat, right? Well, try to stretch it like taffy. The steel is going to resist. It's strong in that direction, if you try to yank it laterally. Steel has a grain to it, almost like wood. Bend it in two different planes at once, in a complex curve, and it is going to resist bending in any direction after, unlike flat sheet steel. 

   So, tank vessels are surprisingly strong and supple, too. You can bend the shit out of them.  I mentioned this before when I talked about Happy Bananas and Sad Bananas a few posts ago.    Now, granted, you can break a tank vessel, by loading or discharging it in an extremely stupid way, set up the hull for failure, and stress it beyond what  the steel is capable of doing, but you're going to have a VERY sad banana for quite a while before it finally calls it a day and you have partial Tanker Mitosis happen. 

You made the banana too sad, friend. 

    So, all that stress and strain is well and good when you keep the forces in between the goalposts, within your design stress limits. 

         The next time you see an oceangoing oil tanker, notice the markings on the hull. 

 

     You'll see the Plimsoll line: 

 Oh, those letters are short  for this: 

   Because water density varies a LOT with salinity and temperature, if you were to put the max safe load on a ship, as the ship sits deeper in the water, the final draft of the ship is affected by the salinity and density of the water you're sitting in.  As a quick example, with a  medium sized ship with a max 40,000 ton cargo capacity, you can expect your maximum safe load to put the water's edge on those marks.   The other side of this coin is that you need to have some buoyancy and you WANT to have some freeboard (the height of the deck above water)  to help you preserve your buoyancy. Between fuel, cargo and the ship itself, if a little water gets inside where you don't want it to be, it's really cool and neato if you don't immediately sink. So, if you, say, overload your ship in Santa Catarina in Brazil, a popular port with almost fresh water at most  terminals, you're going to be coming close to impersonating a submarine by the time you get to Copenhagen in February. 

       If you go over your mark and put it underwater, your insurance agent is going to be very happy if you break your ship, because that's your problem now and not his, but that's only if the local Port State Control doesn't see you doing it, at some point because they have every right to stop you and try to save the poor bastards on board who didn't know you were trying to get them killed.  Yes, this is a regularly occurring problem. The marks exists because greed has killed more sailors than storms. 

   Now, ships also have external markers noting where internal bulkheads and reinforced areas are. This is because tugboats will be used to nudge the ship into position at almost every dock it will ever land alongside, and sometimes the tugboat will need to use a LOT of force across a very small area of hull to shove the entire ship sideways through the water.  As a result, ships are either built with special reinforcing at certain areas in the hull, or more likely the builder will just mark where the heavy transverse bulkheads (framing) that connect one side of the ship to the other are. These stronger areas in the hull will be made pretty obvious if someone values their ship and don't want it caved in.  

see if you can spot a good place to put a tugboat to shove you sideways

         Now, smaller oil barges, on the other hand, have a special niche in transportation. They get into smaller places and shallower water, usually, than ships.   The HQ, for example, at 300'x50'  won't exceed 13' of draft, which is about the same draft as the 3000 and 4200hp tugboats that are designed to move us about.  One corollary to this, is that sometimes our tugboat operators have to put us in places that are pretty tight- in the corners and niches where ships won't fit. As a result, sometimes the tugs move us by getting 'in the notch,' in a specially reinforced divot in our stern that fits the tugboat's bow nicely, and from which the tug can push us forward

this is actually much deeper than the HQ's notch, but you get the idea

Or push us "On the hip" 

Or even backwards, which we call, unoriginally enough "Heads to tails"

 All depends on where we're going, how we can fit in the berth, and if we can get our cargo hoses to meet the berth's oil pipelines.  BUT, in all those cases, the tugs have to get their lines made fast to push or tow us in a particular way.  On the hip or heads/tails, the tug has a stern line that runs to us which has to be super tight, tight enough to stretch the tug's bow line by pulling the bow outwards as the stern line gets tighter, until both lines are tight enough that the barge and tug move almost as a single unt, where the tug can shift their rudders over and shove the barge, and the relative positions to each other of the two vessels moves less than a few inches. This puts ENORMOUS force on the sides of the barge where the tug is pressing up against the barge... a point load, in other words. Point loads sometimes cause nearby welded surfaces to pop apart, and with  a sound like a shotgun being fired, a hairline crack will form at a weld somewhere between the outer and inner hull. 

 Shit happens, in other words.  cracked steel bracing and weld failures are designed to be accounted for. They're almost inevitable, and the hull design must be rugged enough to shrug off a bunch of them. 

 So, while I am experiencing nirvana in the form of my first watch completely off in a dog's age, B is sitting while the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) welders are giving some TLC to The Loaner.  B will be back aboard a week from today, in fact, which will also mark the midway point of this tour on the HQ, and the start of week 9 since I've been out here. Oof. 

The end of the exile, and my first Youtube appearance.

 I don't think I have ever appreciated the HQ, including HQ #1, 2 AND 3 as much as I did this past Wednesday. 

       I spent 2 weeks on the rental bunker barge, and I returned 'home' to the HQ  with fresh eyes and a surprisingly uncynical view, here on week 7 of this trip. 

     Lord, the HQ looked good. Gleaming decks in gloss black, the cabinets with gray trim, the clean and wide galley table with proper fiddles for keeping food off the deck... all of it. And my room, with it's homey smell of not mildew and the particular white noise of my fan...   yeah.   

       Anyhow, it was good to see the HQ with fresh eyes. I remember how upset I was when B and I were reassigned here and the existing crew kicked off, with the exception of Big E, who is one of the OG's, having been on this, HQ #3, for over 10 years. 

      Speaking of, HQ #'1, 2, 3 AND this one, #4 are all turning 20 next year. They're at the end of their expected service life. That's a whole post in and of itself. Thanks to good builders, a great naval architect, and an owner who believes in proper maintenance, all 3 of my existing assigned homes here have more life in them and startlingly low metal loss rates in the hull plating, meaning that the hull plates are damn near as thick as they were when launched. Next spring's shipyard will see that remeasured, although I wouldn't be surprised if thickness loss was just  another 1% after the last 5 years. But yeah, another post. 

       When I got back aboard, after putting away my stuff, I just sat and caught up with big E, in the way we normally do, but this time instead of him downloading all the news, gossip and necessary business my way, I shared my experience with the rental barge, and then almost made E throw up when I took off my socks and showed him my raw hamburgered feet.   As I mentioned in the last post, the rental barge had a serious shower pan leak, and standing water was trapped under the tiles on deck, and would seep up above deck when you stepped on the deck tiles.   So we had a neverending supply of stagnant water, constantly refreshed, which smelled like a bible story and formed a conferva soup of animalculae and fungi. 

   Anyhow, that's the story of how I got raging athletes foot all the way from the tips of my toesies to my 'taint. 

       My first night back on the HQ, I had just enough time for a 2 hour nap and then it was time for watch, and I jumped in hard, as we were busy. I was still waxing orgasmic for the seamanlike and well-cared for layout of our equipment and such, and just so happy to be back on a familiar deck that was mine that I didn't even bitch when it started to rain it's ass off. 

        Despite the fact that I've always chosen work that keeps me outdoors, I have a particular hatred for working in the rain. I just hate it. Except for Wednesday night, when the heavens opened, and I gave exactly no shits whatsoever. Me, clumping around in my winter weight Grundens foul weather gear that weighs no shit about 15 lbs in the insane boiling heat. I was sweating so much that it was competition for the rain as to which could get me wetter, and after a time I just hung up the rain gear and got rained on and cooled down. I'm tired of heat syncope and other delights and not being able to piss but a couple of ammonia smelling drops after waking up, despite sucking down 3-5 gallons of water a day. 

   But Wednesday night? I didn't care. I was just buoyed up. And when my watch was ended, I crashed into bed, waking up in the weird position I fell asleep in 7 hours later, with my kindle still on my chest. 

   So here I am on Friday night now, well in the mix, and it's been almost nonstop, with just tonight's 90 minute break between finishing loading and the next tide, when the current slows enough for us to sail. 

  I'm happy, anyhow. 

____________________________________________________

    So my good friend and shipmate Tim, a very talented tugboat captain, has a very popular youtube channel that you should check out. 

      www.youtube.com/@TimBatSea

         Go check him out. Tim's a hellaciously good tugboat handler, and in one of his more recent videos of him rafting up a loaded bunker barge to an empty oil tanker swinging at anchor in high current, you'll hear an annoying voice on his VHF radio, and Tim says nice things about the retarded tankerman stumping around proving that he's much too nice a person, and then you realize that the sexy looking and seamanlike bunker barge is the HQ and the annoying disembodied voice and dumpy tankerman is myself. 

   I truly have a face made for radio and a voice made for silent movies. 

 But seriously, check out Tim's channel. He's a great guy, and the little life lessons he imparts while working his tugboat are always worth listening to. I'm happy that my first appearance on his channel involves a good talk on how being politically polarized should never be a bar to friendship. 

 

One week down.

 Halfway day today here in OT exile.  I am still on the floating shitbox tetanus factory leased barge we're using. It's still awful here. I usually can find one nice thing to say about any boat or barge I work on. Oh, she's old but solid. Yes, it's got problems but she's safe and clean. 

    This place has nothing. But so be it. As I discovered last week, if I dwell on the negatives, I'll just start screaming and possibly not stop.   So far, still got 10 fingers, 10 toes although of course I immediately got   a magnificent case of athlete's foot despite putting enough bleach on the decks to sear my eyes and lungs to well done. 

    In the intervening days, it's been daily work parties to improve sanitary conditions and livability commensurate with the knowledge that I don't have to come back here except on a volunteer basis, and other than the stagnant standing water that seeps up between the deck tiles nonstop (the shower and I suspect the overhead (roof) are not what they could be), it's as clean as soap, scrubbing and ritual bleaching can make it. 

    Honestly, it's not pleasant, and the deck machinery is much of a muchness with the rest of this turd, but I'm getting by.  The OT is nice anyhow, and it's been busy as hell, so I am not being left to marinate in my own shitty mood.  Knowing what I agreed to and why and where I am, a positive attitude is really helping out. I'd be exhausted if I was this much of a ray of fucking sunshine every day though. Sure as shit, I'm burning, if not calories than mental... something, to do this. Spiritual mana?   I dunno. I guess I can do what my nature suggests and just wallow in all the negatives, or I can do what I'm doing one more week and cash the next check with a smile. 

Doing OT on the pride of the fleet/ Please Admire My Hole

  OK, crew change day was yesterday, but as planned, like a fool I did not go home. I am 'working over,' doing some overtime on another bunker barge for 2 weeks and then going back to the HQ for my regular 4 week hitch. Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife, OTOH, is keeping the home front down, and by keeping it down, I mean working 85 hour weeks while I'm away. 

        The barge I'm on? It is the single worst maintained and poorly made vessel I have ever had the extreme misfortune to ever step aboard, without exaggeration. Oh, it won't sink or roll over, it's sound as  a pound in the hull. Same hull as the HQ, in fact and those shipwrights at that yard really knew their shit. No, the hull is fine. Everything else sucks, though, it's an absolute dog to operate and the living quarters are both filthy and a crime against humanity. 

 I can say that because we don't own it. It's a rental. 

 You know what, though? I'm only here for 2 weeks and I can hack it and then make subtle cruel and snide comments to my superiors every time I see them for the rest of the year. 

 I'm a glass half full kind of guy.  

        My shipmate on here (there's just a crew of 2) had what I think might have been a panic attack when he saw what this is. Apparently he was offered this turd as a home, a permanent berth for him, an experienced and reliable tankerman.  I can read faces. I'm not autistic. The poor guy stepped aboard and there it was.

God is not here.

      The poor guy really was deeply upset that he had gotten the equivalent of a box of dogshit in the mail after being told a present was coming. So upset in fact, that it pushed my own cynical loathing through a full rotation, 360 degrees, and I arrived back where I started determined to make the most of it and be of good cheer myself. I'd never suggest to the guy that everything is not so bad, because it is, but I spent 3 hours cleaning the galley after my watch, and another 5 this morning cleaning the working area (there being no galley table, as there is a small table for two that is both the galley table and the office, lol. And all covered with grime, oil residue, mold and filthy stagnant water underfoot on the crumbling galley deck. 

Whatever. It's temporary and I'm getting overtime. I'll survive probably, until the mold gives me black lung. 

__________________________________ 

   On the upside, I got some new pictures of the still-looks-like-present-day-Gaza  construction project on my home in Brazil.  And, as always, I got, for some reason, lot's of pictures of The Hole in the yard. 

           I have no idea why, but the builder is inordinately proud of one in particular of the deep buried columns I had poured before they lay the slab of the annex to the house. I don't know why, but the guy loves to send me updates on this one of 6 footings.  The annex will eventually be 2 stories, but we're just building the first floor now to get it done in time to visit this year or early next. Nonetheless I had them pour the foundations and supports for a much larger, heavier building.  The corner column, however, is in an awkward spot, close to a very tall unfinished wall between my neighbor and I, and there's no easy way to get a small excavator there, the footings for the pool, a separate water fountain and bamboo  garden already having been laid for some reason. So one of the columns is being laid by hand using concrete and rebar and a shovel rather than an excavator and forms.   

 So, in the back yard, as you walk out the back door of the house, there's a covered  outdoor kitchen with gas burners, a large wood burning brick oven with a steel rotisserie unit in it, plus a smoker and sink, cabinets, etc etc all built to entertain 20-30 people easily, and 50+ in a pinch, my wife's close immediate family numbering in the 300's or so.  On the far side of the outdoor kitchen is the annex, a bathroom and bedroom and sitting room, all moderately sized. The annex is where Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife and I will stay, the big house being mostly for her mom and her caregivers (my mother in law is a character. Blind as a bat and something of a black widow), my nephew who's a long-haul trucker in Brazil and will act as caretaker for the property, and my kid and assorted guests, when visiting.  

the annex, once complete. roof of the outdoor kitchen to the right. 

  I have no idea why the builder sends me updates with a description of the work done that week, but the pictures ALWAYS include the current state of The Hole. 

   The Hole must be looked at an admired before the weekly update is complete. Every week. 

Magnificent. Just look at it. 

And a week later

Admire it. Love it. The Hole is Everything.

 And anan

Yeah, you fill that hole. 

  4 weeks. In the meanwhile, construction continues apace, but if I want to see any of it,  I have to ask for the photos of it.  The builder, though, sends me pictures of The Hole on the reg, unasked. He wants me to see it and can't wait for me to see it I think.    

   I know it's the last of the sunk columns, and it had to be dug by hand, but I think it's odd that my updates are more like 

  Builder: "Here you can see the progress we made on the last and hand- laid deep footing, may the angels sing God's praises and I took Golden Hour photos so you could see the glory of the masterly craftsmanship in this blessed magnum opus and also we finished the master bathroom but I'm sure you don't care about that here's another picture of this glorious hole. " 

Me:  OK, looks very good but please send me photos of the master bathroom also when you can. 

Builder.  OK. Here is a picture of the bathroom that I took while looking out the window at the Hole. Enclosed please find a picture of the bathroom as well as 8 more photos of the Hole as seen from the bathroom window. And also one more picture of the Hole. From Space. 

 Me:   The bathroom looks fantastic! Your tile guy does beautiful work. 

 Builder:  yes yes. He's adequate. What did you think of The Hole?   

It's not paranoid if they really are out to get you.

 Now I don't do much social media. I got out of Facebook after one of my nieces blew up at me online over a comment I made over the abortion issue about two years ago.  Now, I am pro-life without exception and without reservation. I'm even anti-death penalty, because nobody with an net worth over a certain amount ever gets to ride the lightning or take a hotshot in the antecubital. Until we have parity between rich and poor when it comes to putting the lights out on assholes, I'm for not giving the government power over life or death.  And this is not to say that I'm opposed to individuals doing what is needed to preserve life and property. Good fences make good neighbors, but as Vlad Tepes showed, Bad Neighbors can make  Good Fences. 

 But yeah, after damn near losing my niece, who I love, believe to be honestly wrong, and do not wish to lose, I deleted my facebook account. Social media is just social masturbation, a shitty substitute for having relationships with people.   I did keep Instagram, though, because it's mostly just pictures and video clips and the algorithm knows what you want. In my case, boobs, guns, and boats, and nothing else. 

     ... or it did. The coprophiliacs at Meta have realized that negative reactions create more clicks than positive. Somewhere along the way Instagram started steering me towards things I don't like, am not interested in, or don't tolerate and don't want. Around 6 months ago, I started seeing videos of people dying, LGBT issues, things for sale, or vapid retarded ugly and wealthy white people with weird colored hair saying the most foul, vile and absolutely stupid shit.  Less boobs, less guns, less boats. But when I did see those things, it was posts that were negative on the subject.  I am a boobs-positive person at my core. And to a lesser extent, I am a gun nut and boat nut too I guess. Either way, Instagram has become an exercese in Doom-Scrolling, where every interaction made me less and less happy. 

     I started saying things that were less polite about the things I was seeing. I started getting my comments deleted as a result. And that's fine. Life is hard enough without me getting my jollies being shitty to some stranger just because they were shitty first.  But it just kept getting worse. More and more egregious shit.  Within 2 minutes, while scrolling the gram doing my morning business  (I like to pump bilges on the seat of ease on waking up, start the day off positive), I would see somebody die or some 16 year old in a $200 shirt go on about why capitalism is bad. 

      I took it too far last month and used many of the new no-no words , any one of which trigger an instant automatic post removal. Using too many of them at once flags your account, turns out. Well, I got creative and used all of them at once (to be fair, on a morning where my morning poop was disappointing, it was raining and the first thing I saw was some fat hideous landwhale singing about how sexually stimulating her abortion was), and my account got deleted about an hour after I got the notice that my post was removed. 

   Well, that was a bummer.  But maybe I had it coming. And it was nice to have a few days where I wasn't doomscrolling and dealing with the overwhelming negativity. 

        2 weeks ago I started a new account on Instagram, and recontacted family. Keeping it light, not engaging in anything political, and going more or less boob-free, too. Nothing risque in the least.  Barely even PG, honest. Within 2 days I got a post saying my account has a 7-day ban for sharing my account with a service that farms likes and subscribers for you.  What the hell is even that? 

 Turns out, shallow terrible garbage people can share their account with foreign companies that bump up your subscribers using thousands of fake accounts so you look more popular. What kind of retarded guttermuppet trashbag even does that? I didn't know it was a thing. 

    Well, there's no way to say "hey, that's wrong, I didn't do that shit." so I took my ban, and a few days ago it passed. By then another dozen or so relatives and coworkers wanted to follow me. Great, now I could say yes. The algorithm can't feed you negative shit if you don't respond to anything, after all.  

 Except the next day, the ban came back for another week. Same reason. 

    I'm pretty sure I'm on a blacklist for thoughtcrime. 

   Well, jokes on them.  Turns out, by remembering to bring my reading glasses with me as soon as I get out of bed, I can read a quick page of whatever book I'm reading while on the Morning Seat.  I tend to read fiction almost exclusively, and I'm not into tragedies, so I'm back to being a big fucking ray of sunshine even before the caffeine hits.  Honest to God, I actually do feel a bit sunnier. I mean, I knew that social media is a cancer on the soul, but this is hard data here.  And when launching the Brown October of a morning, I am more apt to have a positive experience.     'Nuff said. 

Saturday and the Happy Banana

 Well, it's Saturday, God turned the heat on, and we're loaded deep here at the HQ. 

       Today was not looking like a good day. The first heat wave of the season is here in Satan's Anus 

 New York, and the weather is actually more moderate by far at my house in South FL. Sadly, I am not at my house in South FL, I'm here in Sodom New York. 

 The original plan was for back-to-back cargo discharges to two different ships, both getting a modest sup of heavy oil and diesel oil, which would take up my entire day, and given the volumes in question, requiring me to be out on deck broiling in the sun and stop-gauging the tanks for much of that time. 

       It's a funny thing about oil tank vessels. Electronic gauging systems are not that accurate. Not accurate enough, anyhow, in dealing with a high-value commodity like oil.  Oh, we're no paragons of accuracy in the trade, mind; nobody raises an eyebrow at a couple of barrels difference or a few tons here and there. What's 10 grand USD between friends, right?  Fun fact, after completely sucking the tanks dry when I was carrying gasoline or diesel 15 years ago when homeported in Philly,  we used to be able to fill up everyone's vehicles with leftover gasoline from the pipelines and sumps in the tanks. Just siphon it out with a whiz-bang pump (a Wilden pneumatic diaphragm pump).  This ended of course when some greedy shithead started filling up barrels in the back of his truck to take home, and got hisself pulled over carrying explosive hazmat in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel, which frowns upon things that go bang on their property.   I bet that guy is probably just getting off probation now,but for a time it was nice. Whoever happened to be at the dock that day got topped off. The oil left in the pump sumps in the tank and in the pipelines is either written off if it's not something that can be measured, or vacuumed out and removed forcibly by a tank cleaning barge if the next cargo going in that tank is not compatible with the one before.  You can ignore a barrel or two of diesel in 50,000 barrels of gasoline, but you can't ignore a barrel or two of gasoline in 50,000 barrels of diesel. In one case, the engine will run smoother. In the other, the engine will blow up, and has been known to blow ships in half in fact, when gasoline gets in to heavy fuel oil. burnt by the ship's engine. 

      So yeah, tank depth gauging is not accurate enough for what we need, and requires constant recalibration just to be a rough guide. We use multiple redundant systems to be sure we have what we want for oil, but all boils down to the Mark 1 Eyeball being the most accurate arbiter of volume. Every 1/8 inch in every tank has a corresponding volume associated with it, and as pipelines, internal framing, pumps and the shape of the hull vary, every tank has different values at a given height off the bottom. This is measured accurately enough that it's not unusual to find 1/4 or 1/2 inch difference of the total height of the tank itself, from bottom to top between port and starboard tanks next to each other. Tank vessels are built in blocks, and the blocks are assembled level, not plumb I think .I always was satisfied with a 1/8 inch plus or minus error in measurements for the few skiffs I've built, but model ships which tend to be about 4 feet long, of which I've built a few, they've got to be within a 1/16 where it doesn't matter and a 1/32 where it does. So I guess, when dealing with 300 feet of hull, a quarter or half inch of warp in the steel is what they have to deal with over long runs of welded material distorting. At any rate, hand measuring oil depth in the tank using a measuring tape with a weighted bob on it, or a sealed gauging gun (with a window for you to see the tape and  a hand crank to lift or drop it so you don't let vapors out) still means the eyes make the final measurement. 

           There are flowmeters that, when calibrated and adjusted for density of the oil, are now quite accurate. This was not the case in the past. In places in the world where fueling is a matter of lying, negotiating, bribing and fighting and the numbers don't matter as much as the skill of the parties involved in lying and negotiating, a not-super-accurate flowmeter isn't a big deal.  Here, we care, and accusing someone of being the scion of a long proud lineage of lying whores,  well, I will likely consider knocking such a man over and stomping on his head until it either changes shape or he apologizes politely with my size 12's testing the load bearing capacity of his temple. 

 So no, my employer did not see fit to outfit us with flowmeters and a criminal defense lawyer on retainer.  It would be nice, though, set up the job and sit in a cool cargo office and watch numbers tick by. But no, instead we hover over tanks, and with a gauging tape and bob, chase the surface of the oil down and shut the valves when we achieve the proper depth to take a certain volume out of that tank. Then repeat in other tanks, the volume being dictated by the total amount desired, and the tanks chosen based on keeping hull stress down (leaving some tanks full, some empty and some partially full puts strain on the keel. The hull will flex based on the weight of the oil in the tanks. We want a "Happy Banana" with the keel midships no more than a foot deeper in the water than the keel at the bow and stern. When empty, the keel is a "sad banana' with the bow and stern about 6 inches lower in the water than the midships. What we don't want is a VERY happy or sad banana, because then you break the keel.