Me being uncool

 I lost my cool last night in a way that left me a bit ashamed for myself. 

       I didn't really blow up, just yelled and got surly, did a bit of 'Old Man Yells At Cloud' and tried to be nice again. 

 We had a somewhat elevated risk move to make, requiring coordination with a couple of tugboats, two tugboat deckhands, and three tankermen from two different barges plus myself and my second man (my partner Big E's son, who's brand new). The tug captains were trying to hurry us and wanted to start before everyone was ready and in position. The tug deckhand who was sort of in charge of the other guys started doing as he was told, which wasn't the right thing to do at the time, but the guy didn't know this,  and the tug captain doing the maneuvering, who I know, is the sort to be offended that his orders not be carried out. 

 I chimped out rather than say 'Whoa, whoa, we're not ready. We aren't in position and it's not safe yet.' Instead, feeling egotistical and offended that my many years of sage experience not naturally make a bunch of strangers defer to me for no reason, I tried to just take charge by virtue of being the loudest and most willing to take a swing at anyone, which is retarded. Luckily, a young punk among the other crews reaponded by not taking me seriously and trying to joke with me, which at first infuriated me but which quickly made me realize that bullying wouldn't work and wouldn't make the job more safe... at which point I calmed my tits and used reason to ASK the others to do the right things.

 Not sure exactly why I was being a dick, but we were doing something requiring managed risks which I know how to do well, but I was a participant, and absolutely not in charge. 

 I have a massive pet peeve about bad seamanship, too, which is rampant in tugboating and getting worse in my own company as we recruit  river rats, freshwater sailors from Mississippi and Texas, not oceangoing sailors, from other regions who are trained to be untrainable. They come from a culture that is not truly compatible with saltwater work, despite the similarities. When a deckhand has been told to do things, but not the why of it, they do not learn to seek perfection and take pride in being masterful in their trade even if its' a humble one. There is something deeply impressive (to us) when you see a deckhand whose a damn good sailor. They become the eyes and hands of the officer at the wheel, sure, but better than that, they become BETTER than the officer, and the boat and operations improve... or, as the river rats do, they simply rise to the very, very low bar set for them. 

 Well, before I rant, my point was that I fucked up and rather than letting my experience and relationship with the more experienced men speak for me, I tried to speak in the language of the river rats, and became just one more dumbass. 

   Not so much a lesson learned, but a good reminder not to be retarded and that I need to relearn to use my acid tongue powers for good. I can be mean. I know that. In the moment I don't struggle for the words when I want to be shitty to someone and, say, question the virtue of their mother. 

 Gotta chill. 

Mini-rant

 I wish like hell that cruise ships would put 'bunker door' or something equivalent on their bunker doors.

    Jockeying two tugboats and a couple of thousand tons of fuel and steel into a narrow berth next to a ship with a half dozen hatches along its' length, and then trying to guess which hatch is the bunker door BECAUSE THE OFFICERS ON THE BRIDGE WHO HAVE A RADIO DON'T KNOW. 

 Instead we get to spend 20 minutes trying to get stable alongside with the tugs revved up burning about $30 a minute in fuel each and pinning us alongside, praying we don't dent or damage anything the whole while... and then playing whac-a-mole and waiting for a hatch to open, praying we chose the right door... and because of course we didn't, coordinating with the two tugs, deck gang and ship crew, fighting the current, we get to slide along the ship, beating the shit out of our $10,000 each fenders, and try to find somewhere to put mooring lines because, oh yeah, cruise ships almost NEVER have sufficient chocks for a bunker operation to work alongside easily and none on deck. Instead they're recessed in the hull, so there's no crewmen to catch lines. We're working self serve.

        Sometimes we have to put out 2 feet of bow line, fall back 200 feet, PAST the spot we want to rest in,  put out a stern line, crawl forward 50, 75 feet maybe, secure the bow and stern lines, and try to wrestle a half dozen hawser-sized spring lines using chocks if we can find them, little coke-can-sized mini-cleats recessed in the hull if available, and probably also an industrial-sized lifting strap for a heavy crane, shackled to a hawser with a 50lb shackle the size of your head, with the strap wrapped around something solid on the ship, like an external frame or something. 

      Oil tankers, container ships, they usually have several nice big chocks. Easy. Crew throws down heaving lines, we tie the end of our hawsers, crew pulls them up and puts them on bitts nearby. 

😡

Intagible rewards

 Well, this week has been fine at work. We had a quiet couple of days before a weird cargo got assigned to us... which is fine, as the HQ is where the weird cargoes often go, us being a sink for experienced talent in my company's fleet (which is part of why I am still here. I have damn good friends who're also damn good mariners here on board). 

     I miss B and Big E, though. B's home for hos scheduled time off, and Big E is out with a bum knee and working hard to get back soon. 

 I got one of our fleet's Nigerians as my fill in guy. 

        Years ago, Seabulk marine (a large American maritime company at the time) had a deal with Nigeria for offshore oilfield services. As a result, Seabulk's Nigerian office was able to finagle US citizenship for some of their locally born supply boat captains. Nigeria wanted a US company to use experienced local mariners, but Seabulk wanted their boats to remain US flagged and Jones Act compliant, I guess, and that means having US citizen crew... so this was a pretty unique compromise. Unusual, from what I gather, and to be honest I'm piecing this together as I can so I may have some of the story wrong. 

    Long story short, I have an experienced Nigerian captain with me this week... we get along well, and he's a decent guy.

       There's no real culture clash except that we're wildly different. He's enormously loud, with a booming voice and no volume control. He enjoys sensory input, often having video chats with large groups of other loud Nigerians on speakerphone while a soccer game is on TV and the VHF radio in the galley is turned up to 11... and the food... he seems to really like boiled salt fish, and boiled Scotch Bonnet peppers and other strong spices... which together are not completely unpleasant but not harmonious to my own preferences, which don't include audio cacophany and a meal of  CS gas-flavored semi-spoiled old fish.

    Thing is, however he does it, when I'm sleeping, and I'm right on the other side of a bulkhead, I can't hear it. The volume is just barely not able to penetrate my room, so I can't bitch... it's just different. And as far as work goes, the guy's competent. He handled loading and blending weird mix of oils just last night for us. Ao no, I'm not really bitching. I'm bemused. And he's here until Wednesday, when my next fill in guy willl be a green tankerman, specifically Big E's kid, which is very cool, as Big E is one of my 3 closest friends, and while I wish he was here to be with his kid, he knows that the kid's in good hands, and I know the kid, and he's quiet, hard working and willing to learn. So I get a week to polish his skillset, as he's already a few weeks out of training, which is a good time to work with someone on moving beyond the basics.

 Overall, pretty decent. 

Groan...

 Headed back. At my local airport, and I'll stay in a modest Brooklyn hotel tonight. 

    It's been an eventful 2 weeks off; not in a dramatic fashion, just lots going on. 

 My first week home I was too beat to get a lot of my projects done. I handled the big stuff, like checking the drywall for moisture and painting the ceiling in my formal living room, which is sort of a great room, I guess, in that it's got like 23' ceilings, which makes painting and running a marlinspike into the drywall looking for soft spots a right pain in the balls. 

 The roof leak we had left some dramatic water stains in the ceiling, so I was happy to find no soft spots and residual moisture was nil, and I just Kilz'd the paint and repainted as I could.

 Turns out, being middle aged on an extension ladder about 20' up and at too shallow of an angle makes the ladder pretty damn unstable, so I was bouncing like a spastic kid... but it got done and my house doesn't look quite so ghetto.

 My second week, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife spent in a little cabin isolated in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The 800mile drive surprisingly was pretty mellow but we've always road tripped pretty easy. 

 Beautiful country. Lovely place, good people. Romantic AF. 

  The drive back  was good until the last 3 hours. South FL had a flood event, my area having gotten 20 inches of rain in 24 hours. Driving home in the dark for the last 5 hours, 3 of them were a real white-knuckle experience, but we got home safe. Yesterday was spent packing and prepping...and here I am.

   I'm on the plane now. Boarding was chaotic as it always is at Palm Beach airport when you fly to NY. It's deeply unkind but there is always two groups who make the trip unpleasant. The Wheelchair Pilgrims and the New York Jews Behaving Badly. 

     I've mentioned both and also my hesitation for calling out the latter group but good Lord they're pervasive. 

   The Wheelchair Pilgrims are flying to get to NY and receive the miraculous healing that enables 22 of the 25ish people who board in wheelchairs to walk off unassisted. It's impressive to see, like a televangelist from the 80's slapping the devil out of people's foreheads... and I am...blessed... to see it every fucking month when they line up for the Wheelchair Race at the gate, vying for position. The Depends 500 is an exciting thing to experience. Sour, dour Boomers lining up, the sights, the smells, their pit crews- non-english speakers often in headscarves and other garb. Perhaps they're ninjas, trying to do good and maintain a secret identity. 

As for the Jews Behaving Badly, it's Boomer retirees, the men fat and despirited looking, the women with hair like dull brass and the look of someone who just smelled a fart... the physiognamy is wildly accurate.

 Being a frequent traveler, I always get priority seating and boarding, which I pay for and which I have to compete for with the JBB, who frequently don't pay and try to use through yelling, bullying, crying racist about 1/4 of the time, and complaining loudly.

 Today wasn't bad. I didn't have to get someone to get out of my seat (about 1 in 6 flights)  and it only took about 10 minutes to get from the jetway to my seat as the husbands of the JBB have to root through one of the 4 bags their wives have brought aboard and put in the overhead bins.

  The micacles have already started. People who were wheeled aboard, at death's door, now fling their near-full size suitcases around over their heads as they get their sudoku book out from behind the sensible shoes deep in their suitcase.

 If I sound unkind, I am. Reluctantly, though in this case. I don't like poking fun at Jews, Jesus and his mom being among their number. But still... God damn. Every time, lol. 

 

Home!

 I'm back home finally. Happy to be here. Not a lot more to say. No wins were stacked, a couple of losses to people around me though. 

The Real Chinese Fire Drill

 We're moored snug, rafted up at the company mooring ball, a permanent anchor set out of the way here in NY harbor.

 The harbor's getting the remnants of former hurricane Isias today. It's sloppy driving rain and wind, and cool. Nasty day to be outside.

 Happily, I don't need to be outside. After a pleasant bunch of Chinese crew on a cargo ship took the last of our bunkers aboard, we rafted up alongside another bunker barge at the mooring and are riding out the weather in the Donut Hole, an unfortunate dead zone in cellular coverage right in the middle of New York harbor. For the past 15+ years a 1x1 mile area here has only intermittant cell service. Sadly, the donut hole is dead nuts over our heads. 

       But yeah, to the title... 

The cargo ship we were transferring fuel to took two grades of fuel through two of my 100' cargo hoses. Normally, I lift the heavy flexible reinforced rubber hoses using one of our two 60' deck cranes- there's well over a ton of weight on the hose at the choker sling that I use to hoist the hose up.

  I do my best to get the end of the hose (a large steel pipe flange about 10 inch diameter, with a 1' thick steel blank bolted to it with eight 3/4" studs) close to the ship's manifold, guided by the crew. The crew will use a davit (a stubby crane) and also some 1-ton chainfalls to position the hose flange where they can unbolt the steel blank from the hose, then bolt the hose flange to their fueling manifold. Often we will use reducers (steel pipe adapters) to match sizes of the manifold, as the sizes can vary depending on the size of the ship and the size of the piping... figuring out what size the ship's manifold connection is is often a source of challenges because of language barrier and also the Imperial vs Metric system, lol.  Luckily, I am a fluent speaker of Bad English, between experience and also two decades of marriage to a South American.

   Generally there are 2-3 guys working on the ship to connect the hoses. It takes from 15 to 45 minutes for each hose generally.

 This Chinese ship, there were SIX guys working, and it looked like chaos... just Brownian Motion. But it really was the classic Chinese Fire Drill. Within 20 seconds order was being made out of disorder. There was no yelling or pointing, and nobody appeared to be in charge. Just six individuals who only LOOKED to be randomly moving about, because by appearances, each guy just chose a task based on what he thought needed doing, and they all just quickly built off whatever the last guy started doing. Within two minutes the hose was lashed to the ship's heavy rail, the davit was taking the load off my crane and my cargo sling disconnected, and while I was swinging my crane and lifting the 100lb hook/headache ball out of the way, another guy put a chainfall on the hose too, to help with fine positioning, and guys appeared with long wrenches to start loosening the nuts on the flange.

 Less than 10 minutes start to finish. No yelling, no idle hands, no directions given. Seriously impressive stuff.

 The whole job was like that. Sometimes after we finish transferring fuel it'll be 90 minutes of me waiting for the ship to start disconnecting the hose, while the engineer, hems, haws and scratches his balls doing his part before signing the documents and letting us be done. 

 This ship? After I finished transferring fuel oil, secured the pump and swung some valves, an engineer made a face, blowimg air out, to indicate that they wanted me to blast compressed air through the hose to clear the oil in the hose, like blowing a snot rocket- pinching one nostril shut and blowing out through the other one. An air blow only takes 60 seconds. As soon as I was done, guys were swinging wrenches to disconnect the hose. While the engineer was going over the papers and checking his tanks, the crew disconnected the hose. No bullshit, under 15 minutes from when I called out the time and 'Finished with bunkers' to 'Release time is...' over the radio. 

 'Release' in this case means we're all done, all oil is transferred and the ship has custody of it,  papers are all signed, samples are sealed, and the transaction is complete. Only thing left is for us to sail.

 I wish every job I did was that good and professional. Truth is, that was a once-every 3 or 4 year event. Things are usually much less smooth. 

      

    

Preemptive preempting

 I'm trying really hard to be positive, which is another reason I have not been writing much. In talking to Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife I sometimes refer to a need for 'stacking wins,' basically wanting to front-load things to be grateful for as a means to stave of feeling like ass for times when life treats me the way a baby treats a diaper.

    There's been a few more full diapers lately, that's all. 

 Well, I'm on the downhill slope now here at work. Home in another 12 days. 

   I haven't been stacking wins lately. 

 Some of that is just me having been at work too long, and work itself being kind of a downer. 

 I'll stack wins at home, God willing. And if not, I'll still be at home, which is in itself a win. . 

2 weeks

 Well, I've got 2 weeks to go here. 

    I haven't been in a writing mood. Uninspired I guess. The days here are mostly the same lately. 

1st nor'easter of the year

 Well, the first Nor'easter came and went. It was a good one. 

 In the northeast US, a nor'easter turns into something close to a hurricane, but bigger and sometimes, more diffuse but longer lasting. The Eastern seaboard north of the Delaware River takes a beating in gales like these. 

   This one was not the strongest- storm force winds were sporty enough, but the wind piles the ocean up, making high tides higher, causing flooding.  The bitch of it was that the low pressure center built up and stalled offshore to our west a ways, so as the system built, we got a northeast wind for... 5 days now? Maybe 6. Not strong strong for much of it, but over the weekend it wandered further north and out to the east, but then horseshoed back as it grew stronger. 

 Well, it was unpleasant. The HQ, however, rode like a champ in our lay berth.  The peak of the storm coincided with us being between jobs, so we battened everything down and rode it out in a lovely protected spot. I've got a bit of cabin fever but beyond that no beefs at all. 

 

...and back on board

 I got back onto the HQ about 2 hours ago. 

   So, I had a good week away. I absolutely didn't expect that. 

           I was pretty annoyed at getting ganked (pulled off the HQ, sent to a different bunker barge), and a green-as-baby-shit tankerman put to keep my seat warm. 

  Truth is, normally they need just one senior tankerman aboard. B, Big E and I are all very senior, and there is always 2 of us here under normal circumstances. This lets the company give us fucked up weird cargo orders and sensitive jobs to do, as everyone needs to sleep sometime, and when oddball things pop up, the senior guy has to get his ass up and ride herd on the junior during complex operations and that's fine... unless it's a daily thing. A (presumably) older adult can only operate at 100% for so long on days of badly broken sleep. Thus, we get the odd jobs... but also by choice, as the upside of having so many jobs not be straightforward, we have a deep reserve of talent aboard, and our individual strengths vary, so the calming presence and exacting detail guy (B), the deep seamanship and operational knowledge guy (me), and the can-do guy who keeps the shoreside support people from hating us (Big E) together all combined makes for a very efficient workplace. The fact that all of us are close friends now also has a deep impact on our workplace and our ability to sustain good performance even as life intrudes, as it will and does. 

  So, yeah, I'm happy to be back on the HQ. 

       Having a trainee aboard is a massive pet peeve of mine. I absolutely DO. NOT. LIKE. having a trainee. It's been 7-8 years since the last time, when B and I made it clear we weren't willing to train for all the bribes in the world. Being alone a lot is a MASSIVE job perk here, and is in the top 5 reasons why I stay here rather than sail internationally, which I prefer. 

 I love the solitude I get. Deeply. Having a trainee aboard on the bunker barge I was working on is brutal, spacewise. The quarters are tiny, smaller than the HQ, as they have a single large bunkroom aboard and the galley is very narrow. Big head (bathroom), though. Pretty posh.  That meant that when I was off watch, the trainee would come in after I was asleep to go to bed himself in the shared bunkroom. 

   To my good fortune and his credit, the trainee  didn't snore, didn't talk in his sleep, didn't fart too much, and basically was a good roommate. I'd never sleep through him coming and going, as my bunk obviously was next to the door, where I could be up and out in seconds. 

...and... with all that,  it was a good week. The trainee was a sponge, asked great questions, was motivated to learn, and was good company, with that blessed but rare gift of discreet discernment, where he knew without me hinting that it was a good time for quiet here and there. We could sit in comfortable silence, which is an unusual social skill in my opinion, but deeply welcome. 

 Plus, the barge was 2 weeks out of the shipyard wherein it had had a major maintenance period. Mechanically it was perfect, the quarters were freshly painted in a tasteful way and the decks were overlaid with an epoxy floor that was well-applied and colored in speckles that had a pleasant black, blue, white and gray mix.  Very comfortable, if teeny. 

   So, here I am, back to where I want to be if I'm gonna be at work. 

Perspective

 I need to count my blessings that I have minor things to bitch about like getting ganked onto another assignment, and having no hot water on board

   Yesterday someone 3 miles away blew their oil barge up, one DRT, 2 injured.  

Ganked!

 I'm fine, everything's fine. The small, shitty part of me wants to make a list of everything I don't like right now. 

 Other than having to take a cold shower last night, I'm not gonna make that list. The guy who fucked me over so I had to get ganked off the HQ and run one of her sisters also didn't report that they had a dead water heater, and I was sweaty and dirty enough that I wasn't going to be satisfied taking a birdbath at the sink, so cold shower it was. 

 I haven't done that in a while.  It was unpleasant. My testicles tried to go back in time.

But, I went to bed with a washed ass, so... victory?

 Anyhow we're working on that today. I have a trainee on here so I have him straddling both watches, which gave me a couple of quiet hours this morning, which was lovely. Good kid. Motivated. Has a baby on the way. 

 I'm elbow deep in the day now, anyhow. Focusing on the positives. Trying to, anyhow. 

Still alive, still here

 I'm supposed to go home tomorrow but I agreed to do some OT. The job I agreed to do fell through last minute and I'm left with another job to do, which is a bit of a shit sandwich. 

 I'm not in a writing mood as yet. 

A repoast

 The more you can poke holes in any hypothesis, the more shitty it is. 

   So, you can poke multiple holes in the theory of evolution, and while not as easy, also do the same for the theory of gravity. 

 This does not mean that the base concepts are wrong, but that our understanding is weak, likely not fully accurate, and badly in need of improvement or at least, direct testing. 

Anthropogenic Global Warming is a soap bubble of a hypothesis that absolutely does not yet meet the stringent definition of a theory. 

 Doesn't mean it's wrong, again, but sure as shit doesn't mean it's right, when virtually no aspect of it stands up to examination, and claimed core proofs which can't be tested... which means there's faith involved. 

 Now, being summat religious, I've got faith and I ain't afraid to use it. But that's me. 

    Do you? Proponents of AGW certainly are exercising some degree of faith. For my part, I'm still withholding judgement on the whole thing but I'm open to either possibility.  I've got no beef with people who want to operate on a precautionary principle, so long as the human cost, or cost to humans, is low. So far, with carbon taxes, EPA permitting and Pournelle's Iron Law ruling over the moneychangers involved, it's been ruinously harmful. 

 Separately, the religious aspect of AGW:  it's insane and retarded, a cult of faith-based performative science where the priests are the most prolific profiteers of the movement... which is corruption at its' finest.

  Anyhow, please enjoy the following Historical sermons from the Church of Environmental Scientoady: 

From author/apologist. John C. Wright: 

1. 1958 New York Times: Ice-free Arctic within 70 years.

2. 1967 Salt Lake City Tribute, quoting Paul Ehrlich: Global famine by AD 1975. Involuntary mass sterilization needed to curtail population growth.

3. 1970 Boston Globe, quoting James Lodge: Ice Age by the 21st Century.

4. 1971 Washington Post, quoting NASA: Ice Age within 50 years. 

5. 1972 Brown University: Global climate deterioration due to Global Cooling.

6. 1974 Guardian: Ice Age coming fast.

7. 1974 Time Magazine: New Ice Age.

8. 1978 New York Times: No end in sight to cooling trend.

A year later, the same paper with the same somber urgency, was reporting the opposite.

9. 1979 New York Times: Global climate catastrophe. Ice-free Arctic within 70 years.

10. 1982 New York Times, quoting UN: Environmental catastrophe by AD 2000.

11. 1988 AP: Global Warming: Maldives drowned by rising sealevel within 30 years (AD 2019).

12. 1989 San Jose Mercury, quoting UN: Global Warming: nations drowned AD 2000.

13. 2000 Independent: Snowfalls a ‘thing of the past’ in England within ‘a few years’.

14. 2001 Albuquerque Journal, quoting George Hurt: Climate-change to kill New England maple syrup industry.

15. 2004 Guardian, quoting secret Pentagon report: Climate change will trigger nuclear war, submerge major European cities, Britain ‘Siberian’ by AD 2020.

16. 2006 AP, quoting Al Gore: Greenhouse gas. Point of no return in 10 years (AD 2016).

17. 2007 New York Times, quoting UN: Point of no return by 2012.

18. 2007 Canwest News: Ice-free Arctic by AD 2010 or 2015.

19. 2007 AP, quoting NASA: Ice-free Arctic by AD 2012.

20. 2007 BBC: Ice-free Arctic before AD 2013.

21. 2008 Xinhua (Chinese News), quoting Norwegian official: Ice-free Arctic.

22. 2008 New Scientist Magazine, quoting director National Snow and Ice Data Center: Ice-Free Artic by AD 2008 (that year).

23. 2008 National Geographic, quoting scientist: Ice-Free Artic by AD 2008 (that year).

24. 2008 AP, quoting NASA: Ice-Free Artic by AD 2013 to 2018.

25. 2009 USA Today, quoting Al Gore: Ice-Free Artic by AD 2014.

Note that on or about this time, circa 2010, the Glacial National Park erected signs warning that all glaciers would be melted entirely away by AD 2020

26. 2012 Australian: Snow gone by AD 2020.

27. 2013 Guardian: Ice-Free Artic by 2015, will trigger methane catastrophe.

28. 2017 Sydney Morning Herald: Climate Changes to curtail Australia’s ski industry.

29. 2018 Forbes, quoting Harvard University: Ice-Free Artic by AD 2022. Chance of any permanent ice remaining is “essentially zero.” (Despite these odds, 5.6 million square miles remain.)

30. 2018 Greta Thunberg, autistic schoolgirl, quoting ‘Top Climate Scientist’: Humans to go extinct if Climate Change not fixed by AD 2023. All humanity to perish unless fossil fuel use stopped within five years.

31. 2021 LA Times: No Snow in California by “sooner than you think.”

32. 2022 Bloomberg: End of Snow threatens to upend 76 million American lives.

Please note that in AD 2020, Glacial National Park (see above) removed the signs predicting the glaciers clearly looming above the sightseers were to have had vanished by now.

This is painful

 My employer has started throwing online training videos at us, in the same way spaghetti is thrown at a ceiling. 

 I get it, they get pressured to prove they're improving the retards by the people who hold the hoops that they have to jump through. 

     Of course we all know that if this bullshit was really important, they'd send a real live human to teach it, so... the effort taken is proportional to the effort given, if you understand me. 

     The exception being the annual sexual harassment training videos. 

    So, our industry has a BRUTAL problem with the few women out here getting harassed. No reason to sugarcoat it, it's a real thing, right up to rapes occuring.

    This year the training videos and quizzes and such is about 3x longer than last year's. And it's a shitshow. The sexual harassment part is fine, but they've expanded into microaggressions, marginalized peoples, biases, and a whole bunch of unrelated other issues that utterly detracts from the message of not being scumbags aboard. 

 Microagressions, forsooth.  One of my favorite suoervisors in my early days used to call me 'Dr. Asshole' for being overly educated, and once threatened to masturbate into the deck department's ears so 'You fuckers will hear me coming.'  Dude was beloved. 

 I really do think that the issue of sexual harassment aboard is an actual problem and widespread, based on the shitbags I have had to work with. And call me an asshole but it's easy to get members of certain minority groups fired for pulling this shit, we all have appropriately low expectations for them. But I've also seen a company absolutely marinate themselves in liability, by trying to avoid shitcanning a white guy who absolutely deserved to get his teeth kicked down his throat and thrown over the side.

 So, yeah, I get it, and no matter how retarded the training videos were, at least I didn't have to go through the indignity of an in-person class, as like 90% of things taught online, it has to be understood by the illiterate retards my company keeps hiring, so it's not as though you need to actually pay a lot of attention to get a perfect score... and as much as I dislike computer-based training, when you're doing mindless busywork, at least you don't have to go at the speed of the slowest learner as you would in an in-person class.

    Dr. Asshole, you see, reads enormously fast, which is why my monthly book budget is so high. Unfortunately the training videos force you to work slower and not work at your own pace, which makes me want to hang myself, and REALLY makes it challenging to try to stay positive. They really don't make it easy. It wouldn't matter if I was learning how to judge a blowjob contest, I absolutely can not stand having to wait and listen to narration of someone speaking slower than my rate of comprehension. 'S part of why I can't listen to podcasts. Having to listen to some gink take 45 seconds to explain something that should take 10 is just pure punishment. 

        

...and back again. Anatomy of a crew change.

  TUES AM:  

    Well, it was good to be home. 

  Sitting at my local airport now with a delayed flight to NY. Not an auspicious start to the trip.

    I dun gud, no booze, ate relatively healthy, lost 2lbs while I was home, which is unusual but welcome. Innapropriately Hot Foreign Wife had last week off so we were pretty well welded at the hip for 2 weeks, and that was nice. I have a pleasant light tan after the daily late-morning swims we did. Sadly, a series of particularly strong thunderstorms revealed a roof leak, and the $3000 to get a crew in to undo the fairly widespread damage sure hurt, but the roofing crew is at my house today so at least it's underway and was caught before I got damage inside the house beyond some spongy drywall and water stains. 

    I'm returning to work for August, which is a tough time to be working outside on a hot steel boat with 120-degree oil in the tanks. Gonna be digging deep this tour for sure. 

   My plane is boarding the miracle-seekers now. You know, the 40 people in wheelchairs, 35 of whom will magically regain the use of their legs before we land? Yeah, those trashbags. My love for humanity is at a low ebb when I'm at the airport. 

Wed PM, late:

      It was a bumpy but quick flight. In the end we only landed about 45 mins late. The pilot shoveled in some extra coal I guess. 

         Crew change was pleasantly smooth- Between JFK airport and the office is a BJ's, and I went in and stocked up on bulk items, including water and soda and energy drinks, which I usually store in the company's warehouse before heading to my hotel for the night. I was VERY fortunate in that the HQ was at the dock at the foot of the warehouse, and I humped my bulk stuff aboard and headed to the hotel. My room at the hotel was nice enough, and quiet for New York, but the TV was busted and an LED light liked to flicker on and off every 5-10 minutes, which was odd as it had been switched off but there was no visible plug to undo, so I hung some of my clothes over the light, which helped. The TV thing was no big deal except that I like to watch Youtube videos on that hotel's TV the night before crew change, as I start to adjust my circadian rhythm into work mode. 

    The night before crew change, I usually try to stay up late, until midnight or 1am, and sleep until 6. The short sleep allows me to catch a nap before taking the night watch on Wednesday after I arrive and move in.  When my alarm goes off, I shower, suck down an energy drink, and by then usually my taxi has arrived, where I'll go to a local grocery store and stock up on vegetables and staple items I didn't want to buy in bulk, before heading to the office... as it happens, the HQ left the office dock around 8pm on Tuesday, and went to anchor out by the Statue of Liberty, and I took a launch out to the HQ to relieve B, who was headed home. 

         The launch is owned and operated by the mayor of New York Harbor, Dirk the Dutchman.  Dirk, whom I've wrote about before, is an 82-year old Dutch gentleman who was a merchant seaman and later a New York harbor tug captain for 30-some years, and rather famous in our circles. 

     Forget that terrorist commie Moor mayor in New York. His jihadist schtick mandate ends at the seawall. Dirk's the mayor of the harbor, so it was good to check in and get casually sworn at, as is custom. Me being generally in Dirk's good graces, he usually limits it to 'quit fuckin' around and go on up the ladder' when it's time for me to, well, go up the ladder and onto the HQ. Prior to that though, as I usually do, I talk over the state of things on the harbor while I was at home, and get caught up on gossip and who died, when applicable. 

     After shaking hands with B when we traded places on the HQ (the offgoing guy being on the night watch, E was also there to help and thus no need to do a handoff and arrival conference with B to get me up to date), and casting the launch off, I humped my stuff indoors and started stowing my things and pulling others out of storage as E and I caught up on personal things and he downloaded the details about what's happening, what happened when I was away, and the state of stores, fuel, orders, etc. About 90 mins later I went in my room to make up my bunk and put out my shitty clothes for work, putting away the Good Shoes and my travel clothes before laying down for a nap. 

       Sadly, my nap was only about 2 hours, as the piss taker arrived. 

       Being subject to drug testing, we get randomly hit up to piss in a cup for the edification of the office people and today was our turn. I was sleeping like shit anyhow, up and down, so no big deal. After delivering the goods, I just hung out a while, wandering around and getting a feel for the HQ and doing a more official walkaround with E after the heat of the day passed. 

 And that brings us to tonight, where I am communing with nature, more or less, and passing the time (no orders until tomorrow noon), and getting back into the rhythm. I paid out the 3k for the roof leak at home, which hurt, but nothing I can do about it but cry. As I'm free for the night, I pulled out some ground chicken, and cooked it up with onions, zucchini and tomatoes, and I'll stuff a couple of orange peppers with the mix for dinner. 

    I can't say as I'm joyful to be here, but I'm here and I'm ready to work, and ready to get paid for working. 

100 days

 So one of the things we're doing differently these days on the HQ is that we're doing a 100-day challenge of no booze and no binge eating while at home. 

 Now, seeing as I spend 2/3 of my time at work and we don't drink alcohol while working, that's not exactly a challenge... the challenge for us is that the time home is when we all eat and drink to excess, where every meal is a feast and every evening a celebration of... well, really just of not being at fucking work for once. 

      I'm home now, approatching one week here, and it's been good but weird. Not a challenge, TBH, beyond that my default approach to being home involves drinking and cooking and eating too much fairly often... celebrating, really. So part of the challenge is just switching up behaviors, something that we all thought would be a good thing, 

...and it has been. Without booze, I'm sleeping better, and eating less, as the de-inhibiting factor of booze isn't present. My wife is on board, and as she'll usually have a drink right alongside me (wine to my whisky), she. not being as prone to debauchery as I, hasn't found it changes much, although I admit I enjoy drinking and swimming, which is something we tended to do, but we're both doing a daily swim after an hour's walk each morning, something else we don't normally do. 

 So, it's been good. Maybe not a blast and at the level of intensity in terms of fun, but I'm having a good time behaving differently. And as I'm well into the 100 days, I'll be freed up at Halloween, whereupon I'm hoping to be locked in a cabin somewhere in the blue ridge mountains with the Mrs, which is something we like to do in the fall. 

 Ah well, back to it. Working next week, gotta enjoy this one. 

A walk in white Brooklyn

 When I am at one of our lay berths in Brooklyn in between cargoes, it's the only time I have at work where I can go ashore on my own w/o a task to do. 

   Generally I hope to get ashore once a week to walk, get groceries, and head back to the HQ, usually a 3 hour process if time allows. 

   I'm just 3 watches away from going home so I didn't need groceries today, but I did go to the store anyhow to stock up on caffeine, bump up my stores aboard.  Along the way I saw a really unusual number of people who looked like me...and I mean, like, really unusual numbers. 80+%, maybe even 90, once I crossed over into Red Hook.

     I found White Brooklyn. 

       In the 14 years since I agreed to be homeported in Brooklyn, I've seen it become a 3rd world neighborhood, and a place in decline. For the most part much of New York is the same now. On a 4 mile walk through Cobble Hill, downtown Brooklyn and Carroll Gardens, I'll see maybe a dozen white people total, and of the other 96% it's some black people here and there mostly around the projects areas and the shoe and wig stores around Fulton Market, and a whole shitpot of arabs and latinos everywhere else. 

 But today I walked through Red Hook, and once I passed the run down ballfields and projects,  the white people started peeping out, like crocuses in a snowdrift. By the time I was walking down Van Brunt, there were sun-averse Americans on the street and in neat lines waiting to go in shops and cafes, speaking English, and it was surprising to behold. I heard words I haven't heard in over a decade in New York, when I stepped off the curb to pass a couple of sickly-looking woman in front of a shop.

'Woops, excuse me.' 

Coulda knocked me over with a feather.

   Turns out, it's Sunday and when the weather is fine, white New Yorkers put on something tan or brown, or something that won't attract the dangerous attention of feral foreigners anyhow, let down their unkempt and kinda oily shoulder-length hair (men and women), and, dowdy like sparrows on a leafless branch, make noise. 

 Surprised me too. I didn't know there were so many of us... but all had the sickly, furtive look that you see when you see Londoners in photos during the blitz. These are NOT thriving people. These are rabbits living next to a coyote den. Now, granted, it's Brooklyn, and 90% of the people more than likely share a certain political commonality, and that political demographic certainly isn't famous for being hale, hearty, broad of shoulder and brash. Rather the opposite. But it being Sunday, I saw some maybe women, but wearing dresses, which was pleasant to see, and I only saw maybe two Che Guevara tshirts on the usual weedy stunted eunuchs. 

       Still, it was nice. No fighting, no yelling, hardly like Brooklyn at all. 

 Anyhow I got my stuff and went back aboard. Next time I go ashore, God willing, it'll be to the airport. 

 

The second dog watch day

 Well now, waking up at 1am is never fun, but glory be, I am waking up to a quiet watch. No cargo ops until tomorrow night. 

    So, with one week to go on this tour, we stand dog watches, shorter shifts, so that over the course of 24 hours, our schedules reverse. I'll go to sleep mid-morning today, a few hours early, and wake up to stand the night watch tonight. It's always hard to sleep for a few days after having our circadian rythm inturrupted and by the time we fully adjust it's time to go home, but when I leave in a week and Big E returns from home, B will be on days, and the transition time as Big E gets up to speed will be smoother as B, who has had a week to stand the day watch, is fully up to speed and has full situational awareness of what's going on in the HQ. 

...and it being July, I will not be sad to be working in the cooler evenings. I roasted my balls off these past few weeks. 

      I also missed getting rained on yesterday. That almost never happens. I have a pet peeve about working in the rain, despite having worked outdoors for 95% of my working career.  There was a running joke when I was in my 20's that I was secretly a rain god, and the rain loved me and just wanted to be near me always... I dunno, something from a novel someone stole, but it does shake out that if it is going to rain, it will happen when I am outside. There's been WAY too many days when the rain stops 5 minutes before the end of my watch when it's a watch where I need to be outdoors, these past 25 years... and for 1980 to 1999 when I was fishing.

     I know it's not reasonable for a man who's been working outside from age eight to fifty mumble mumble years old to bitch about weather, but to be fair, you work all day all summer all winter in wet fucking underwear and get back to me about what a ray of God-damned sunshine you are!

        Still, tonight. Tonight I'm grateful to have a quiet night watch. I wish I could take a slug of nyquil or something when I go to bed, but nyquil is wildly verboten aboard by decree for the side effects, which, sadly, are the effects I would have wanted.  So no, I'll have to raw dog it when I go to bed. Generally that means a 3-hour nap and a long evening tomorrow, but oh well.

       I'm not someone who gets easily bored if I have something to read and essentially a square acre or two of steel machinery and parts to tinker with, so at least there's that. I've been being good with diet and exercise again too to I'm in a good head- and ass-space as I muddle my way through. 

Halfway Day

 Busy this week, for sure.

         We got our deck crane repaired, and after 6 months with the crane head having had enough twist in the end to look like a confused dog hearing a new sound, it's a pleasure to be back to standard. 

 Since there was welding to be done, the law requires a marine chemist to test for explosive vapors beforehand, and with the guy already here and a Gas-Free Certificate issued, while my crane got fixed up, the port engineer for my company here in NY and I went for a walkaround through the bowels of the HQ and talked about this fall's upcoming maintenance projects after the weather cools off but before we start freezing up. I also took several pallets of supplies and parts and another of consumables. 

Fast forward to Friday:

     It's been nonstop since the crane got fixed. The heat was so brutal a few days ago, but I am still enjoying not being rained on every damn day, so I'm bearing it well enough.