Free Beer Tomorrow

Well, I'm back at work. Settling in and it'll be a few hours before I have to take a watch, so I'm getting comfortable again. This was one of those times off where I actually felt like I was away from work for a while- a good feeling.

 However, not work-related, and as such not great blog fodder. I'll write when something happens.

Hard work Vs. working hard

Halfway through my time at home, and it has been BUSY.

 I live in south Florida, in a hurricane zone. As such, my house is stucco'd concrete, like 90% of the houses down here, and each window has been fitted for hurricane shutters- sheets of corrugated aluminum that overlap each other and get bolted over the windows if needed.

 Each one is as long as needed, and about 15 inches wide. For example, over the French doors that lead from my living room to my pool , I need 14 shutters, 102 inches long each.

 These things are NOT cheap. Anywhere from $30-70 each. And it turns out the guy I bought my house from took most of the shutters with him when he moved.

  So, this week I finally got to inventory my shutters, and was very dismayed. What looked like a sufficient quantity of shutters was nowhere near. 

The new B house is airy and open plan, 2 floors, and there are a LOT of windows. And a lot of doors.

 $5,000 later, I have the raw stock, and am now cutting and fitting. I have a 24' ladder to get to the 2nd floor windows, and I've been spending a LOT of time dicking around on and with the ladder, getting up and taking measurements and getting intimate with a cut-off wheel and a grinder before cheating on my grinder with my drill press to cut out for bolts.

    I am SORE. It's been a long time since I did this kind of labor, and it really shows. I am just achy as all hell and it's 90 and humid. I'm sore in a way I haven't been since I quit fishing.

 I guess that's to the good. This is a case where it's the kind of pain that comes from weakness leaving the body.  I don't really mind it. It's the money. Everyone said the first year I'd just be hemorrhaging money, and they were right. I try to keep a bemused attitude.Hopefully it'll be years before I have to put the shutters up. This is my 5th year in Florida, and the first three, I didn't need to use shutters.

     Aside from window dressing, it's been domestic bliss up and down the line. Getting to know neighbors, enjoying time with my family, painting and hanging curtains and shit. Been good.  About a week to go before it's time to head back to the HQ.


      

Last watch

Well, we've been working pretty steady this tour- first half was a little quieter than the second, but overall it's been pretty steady. Even so, my relief should be here after my watch ends in a few hours, and then I can head to the airport.

 Looking back, I didn't write much. Not much to write about. Sleep, wake, stand watch, rinse, repeat.

 Hopefully a few weeks at home will break up the monotony.

light blogging again

I haven't been writing much. Still feeling uninspired, and a certain amount of mental constipation, I suppose. I enjoy trolling people online at times, just being sarcastic and shitty to those I find ridiculous, you know, just to pass the time, however, there being no shortage of fools online, it just isn't as much fun as it used to be, and I'm tired, so deeply, deeply tired, of EVERYTHING being politicized. News, opinion, information, identity... ugh.
        I have never enjoyed participating in pop culture, or the workaday business of living in an ordinary way. I identify with Melville's lament in Moby Dick that when he began being tempted to just up and knock strangers' hats off into the street for no reason, he knew he was better off going to sea.  I am not writing because I am not reading the news much, and the workaday life of harbor watch that I've had hasn't been action packed of late, but also hasn't been bad, either. It's still better than riding the goddamned train into a job in a city somewhere. I don't suppose any sailor can find happiness there, or they wouldn't be a sailor.

         In a little less than a week, I'll be back home again for my time off, and I'm looking forward to it extremely. I still have to finish putting my house together, do the things my wife can't in making a home out of a house.

 My new 2nd man is entering his second week in the position- he was the trainee I didn't want a few months ago. Super nice guy, and I think he will work out well., though truth be told I worry for him, too. His job is not difficult; I've said before that you can shave a monkey and make a tankerman out of him, but the line between being employable and being good at your job is pretty stark. There are so many details and rules, and so much of what makes someone good at their job on here is subjective- knowing when to be angry and when to be patient with people, being flexible, proactive and observant, and knowing where rules and laws conflict, where to be flexible and where to stand ones' ground, which is not always clear.

   One of the reasons I've found myself reluctant to move on from this job is that there are several parts of it that sync perfectly with my personality.  All people tend to get tunnel vision when stressed and managing multiple data inputs, and as a result, start to focus more on the familiar, easy to understand things.  In a Ship Simulator class, used to be called Intermediate Shiphandling, the instructor and computer operator keep adding in new details to an evolving situation, until you fail at it. The end result is that they identify where you stop integrating new information in and focus on the information you already have to the exclusion of other, harder to interpret data. In my case, it was a down current transit around Algiers Point in the Mississippi river. The situation evolved into something I couldn't handle, and I lost it at a certain point, taking out the docks on the New Orleans side, which was actually pretty good, as I didn't end up on the beach. In watching my own results and my classmates' in other situations, I got to identify the gut feeling when I hit my limit of being able to handle new information.
 Well, I never forgot that lesson, and I like the fact that when life is throwing poo at me like an angry monkey, I can narrow my focus to my own deck if I want, and just focus on my job, and let our deckhands and tug operators do theirs until I feel better. There's a certain amount of laziness there, too, but it serves a purpose for me.

 So, while things have been boring at work, sometimes boring is good.

This story ain't over

Lots of exciting things going on. Not with me, mind, but in general. My horizon is currently limited to the deck of the HQ. We're free for the night, and it being a nice afternoon since I woke up from my nap, I'm going to do a little painting outside. We're stuck in the corner of a container terminal in Newark, so there's no shore access, anyhow, but that's OK, as I can't spend money here.

 Or can I?

       Unfortunately, the day after I make my second mortage payment on my new house, the fridge dies. As it came with the house and is 10 years old, it's not worth trying to fix, as the compressor and possibly the coils are smoked. Either way, it's not a fun time to have to buy a fridge.
 So, $2000 and a consult with Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife later, and I have a new fridge on order and my tickets home for the end of this trip.
 So, that was a serious dick punch, but not much I can do about it. I had hoped to avoid being house poor, but between my (concrete) house being attacked by a retarded woodpecker with a stucco fetish, some dry rotted trim pieces under my roof and the fridge, as well as interior decorating, there's a squeeze on. So it goes.No overtime available in my scheduled time off, which was also a bit of a surprise.

      So, I spent yesterday pretty bummed out, as I expected hiccups when I moved, but they exceeded expectations and I couldn't work extra to tread water. I spent the watch looking through shit-colored glasses, I guess, finding negatives and wallowing in them.

 Today, well, I bit the bullet, bought my fridge and tickets, and when I get home that woodpecker is going to have hisself an accident.  I will now have time to oppress him thoroughly. And since I am not going to miss a week of my time off, I have time to get things done now.  And yeah, that damn fridge, but no use crying over spilled credit. I can work on my tan, swim, and get shit done in the house.
 Silver linings.

Painting or needle-gunning is my go-to stress relief activity at work. So I've got something like 15,000 square feet of empty deck space, piping, and 8 million trip hazards that I can paint. I'll find peace before I run out of shit to paint, for sure.

 In a funny parallel, here's how a real writer handles real stress, not the 'oh, wah,' variety that shuts me down, and sends me looking for pearls to clutch.

 https://www.cedarwrites.com/2019/05/31/life-is-pain-princess-eat-cake/

Stowaways!

The deck of the HQ is not known for it's natural wonders.

         Point in fact, one of the best parts of getting ashore is that for half the year, there are some living things to be seen- not people, I mean, but nature- trees and flowers. Even in the New York metro area where we've been for 6 long years now, I can see some trees and plants and such when I get ashore... but not at work. At work there is steel and sea water, rust and noise. For a guy who doesn't much like being indoors, it's not so easy sometimes.

 So, when I do see animals beyond seagulls and Canadian geese (who are universally assholes by inclination), I like to take time to see them. I have always been an animal person anyhow, and birds in particular hold my interest. So it has been nice this year that a pair of Osprey have been moping around one of the oil terminals in Bayonne NJ, one of our regular haunts.

   This morning before sunup, one of the Ospreys was really haunting the dock where we were, crying and squealing (they have a really unpleasant call) just over and over again for an hour plus, and circling overhead. It got to the point where it was actually really really annoying, and I wished the damn bird would go someewhere else... until some time in hour two, when I near to shit myself as a squirrel shot out from under my feet when I walked close to one of our cargo pumps. Guess I startled him, though for the life of me I have no idea where the hell he came from.

 The Osprey picked him off once he was about 30-40 feet away. And I mean that bird hit HARD. The squealing had stopped, and I was still recovering my footing when I saw the bird flash down and he hit that squirrel and the deck hard enough to make a BOOM noise, rapping his knuckles pretty hard in the process, I would warrant.

    I don't mind squirrels, don't like them much either, they being hairy tailed rats to me. Still it was amazing to see the display when the bird struck. And so close to me! It was very cool to watch.


      The squirrel was just flipping out, as you'd imagine. The osprey shot over to the next berth, landed on the dock's deck crane, and proceeded to have breakfast, which didn't work out too well for the squirrel, but from my perspective it saved me from having to deal with having our trash ripped up and scattered every day on deck.

 At any rate, it was something new, and here at the halfway point of this trip, new is good.

AFK

Nothing much to write about. I've been uninspired this past week. Just plodding along at work. All is relatively well. We're fairly busy now, plenty of thirsty ships lined up, etc. I find myself distracted with thoughts of home, and things I wasn't able to get to in setting up my new house, stuff my wife'll be waiting on for me to get home.  Nothing dramatic, you know?  Still, it's enough that I'm distracted slightly.

      My corner of the web has been pretty shitty of late, too much noise and whining. I've stepped back a bit and rather than join in on the fun, I've been reading a book, trying to remember that life is about more than making sure that the people I don't like knows I think they're an asshole.

 I'm pretty sure they already know, anyhow.