Okay, so the motor vehicle pictured below with me in it is most definitely not mine. But it's fun to pretend. Got back from Boston on Friday night and drove up to Port Canaveral on Monday. The truck/car/roadster belongs to the man who initially hired me at Royal but was subsequently let go when the company, uh, went feral or something similar. Graciously he let me drive that roaring Chevy SSR most of the way back. Environmentally minded as I normally am I must admit that is was nice to just toe the accelerator in order to achieve a hundred plus with complete stability. (The Chevy SSR has a Corvette engine. It starts at over fifty-K and with the additional eight-K this guy put into the performance of the engine it's a pretty decent ride.)
Just wrote that I don't have much else to say but then kept writing after that so I was obviously lying. So I erased it all and wrote that. . . and this. My week in the office between dry docks has been stressful. My inbox is averaging over seventy messages a day which equates to a lot of interruptions when trying to get things done. Certainly not all of these messages need answers and at least ten of them are probably complete and absolute BS but that's still a lot of pings. Two more days, and maybe a few hours on Saturday, and then I join the Monarch in Miami on Sunday.
I guess I would have been correct if I had written that I don't have much else to say in that last paragraph.
Yeah.
Thousand points for whoever can stump me with a quote.
10.29.2008
10.27.2008
10.25.2008
Another One Bites The Dust
Just got back from Boston last night. Was on a five day dry dock for the Jewel of the Seas. We installed a big diesel engine and generator (or a genset, as they say) back in October 2007 but it threw a counter-weight, damaged the crank shaft and twisted the engine. . . or some such nonsense. So in four and a half days we cut an access into the ship, removed the old engine block, slid a new one in and welded her back up. Of course, I say "we" but in reality I had nothing to do with that work.
Took a few pictures though and I'm gonna try to get a bunch of old photos up on Flickr this weekend. I've got a week back in Florida with the possibility of flying to Freeport late in the week before my next job and I get to drive up to Port Canaveral (about four hours) on Monday for a meeting on board a ship. I've got three jobs coming up and two of them overlap. RCCL is handing the Sovereign of the Seas over to our Spanish branch (named Pullmantur) and the Monarch of the Seas is going into dry dock in Freeport for about seven days.
The real job is the Celebrity Infinity that I'll be starting in mid-November, also in Freeport. The last of the diesel genset projects. We've added these engines to 7 ships so far and replaced one as well. . . I've worked six out of those 8 jobs. . . wish I could say that I know the job in and out by now but the reality is that each job is done in a different shipyard and sometimes the contractors change AND the jobs are either for the Royal side or the Celebrity side which makes a huge difference. Anyway, just wanted to get something up again. I'll basically be in Freeport for all of November (happy Thanksgiving to me) but I'll try to post a bit. This picture below is probably my favorite from this last job.
Took a few pictures though and I'm gonna try to get a bunch of old photos up on Flickr this weekend. I've got a week back in Florida with the possibility of flying to Freeport late in the week before my next job and I get to drive up to Port Canaveral (about four hours) on Monday for a meeting on board a ship. I've got three jobs coming up and two of them overlap. RCCL is handing the Sovereign of the Seas over to our Spanish branch (named Pullmantur) and the Monarch of the Seas is going into dry dock in Freeport for about seven days.
The real job is the Celebrity Infinity that I'll be starting in mid-November, also in Freeport. The last of the diesel genset projects. We've added these engines to 7 ships so far and replaced one as well. . . I've worked six out of those 8 jobs. . . wish I could say that I know the job in and out by now but the reality is that each job is done in a different shipyard and sometimes the contractors change AND the jobs are either for the Royal side or the Celebrity side which makes a huge difference. Anyway, just wanted to get something up again. I'll basically be in Freeport for all of November (happy Thanksgiving to me) but I'll try to post a bit. This picture below is probably my favorite from this last job.
10.15.2008
The Real McCain
Cut and paste your way to the truth. I'm not saying Obama is perfect but I am saying he's the better man.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
10.08.2008
10.04.2008
No Points Earned For Reading This Post
If you care one lick about where this country might be headed very soon you just might want to read this. (Here's the URL in case you want to see pretty, pretty pictures and read useless advertising on the side of the article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080)
When Atheists Attack
A noted provocateur rips Sarah Palin and defends elitism.
Sam Harris
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Sep 29, 2008
> >>
Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's
performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the
needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most
effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here,
finally, was a performer who being maternal, wounded, righteous and
sexy could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant
a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly
intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy
smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.
Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I
was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be
much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem
she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her
fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of
cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks
of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the
journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator
who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that
broadcast the good lady's misfortune and, above all, upon the "liberal
elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century,
only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our
nuclear arsenal.
The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside
Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface
(she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met
a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking
the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual
training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await
her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful
analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to
deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin
managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a
straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia
gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a
perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American
success story but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled
into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling
into, or upon, world history.
The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that
half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual
qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of
mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is
the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists
have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it
once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too
ordinary.
We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once
provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting
for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom."
Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially
American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next
administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear
proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars
elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian
belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a
hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of
American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet
security the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent
even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any
one of them.
Palin's most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been
widely discussed. The truth is, I didn't much care that she did not
know the meaning of the phrase "Bush doctrine." And I am quite sure
that her supporters didn't care, either. Most people view such an
ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the
other things Palin is guaranteed not to know or will be glossing only
under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't
she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle
East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research,
environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance
is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put
on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on
any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of
how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.
I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but
doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs
world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions
of Americans but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our
nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain
chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she
and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and
wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job
she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason.
Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country even
the welfare of our species as collateral in her own personal journey
of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on
his personal journey to the White House.
In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq,
Palin urged the congregation to pray "that our national leaders are
sending them out on a task that is from God; that's what we have to
make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is
God's plan." When asked about these remarks in her interview with
Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs
by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham
Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response "absurd." It was
worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true
character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged
about Palin's life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and
literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the
land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church,
Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible
guide to future events and that we are living in the "end times."
Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon
unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather.
Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing as all true
Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with
Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will
be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals,
Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the
power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant
when declaring to her congregation that "God's going to tell you what
is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to
have that within you"?
You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In
the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy
"baptism in the Holy Spirit," "miraculous healings" and "the gift of
tongues." Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of
this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin's
spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of "the final
generation," engaged in "spiritual warfare" to purge the earth of
"demonic strongholds." Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed
in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place
the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually
want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy
when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or
to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: "All options
remain on the table"?
It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about
Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of
having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy
to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that
Palin's impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious
beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative
hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is
considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family
values; in the case of one of Palin's daughters, however, teen
pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town
fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama
family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their
convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who "intends" to marry her.
Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of
"the dysfunction in the black community"?
Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it
represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst,
as in the Palins' case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism.
Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds.
She has also fought vigorously for a "parental consent law" in the
state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive
decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she
should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to
term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her
daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven
for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of
21st-century family planning or, indeed, of the 21st century.
We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched
by religious ideology. Bush's claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted
a "higher Father" before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting
upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of
his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush's religious beliefs,
and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have
never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready
extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the
McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and
Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism
until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that
while she cannot afford to "talk the talk" between now and Nov. 4, if
elected, she can be trusted to "walk the walk" until the Day of
Judgment.
What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree
to which she represents and her supporters celebrate the joyful
marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that
she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take
command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin
would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:
"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on
this child's brain?"
"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid
hunter."
"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a
surgeon of any kind."
"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in
how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a
challenge, you cannot blink."
The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in
fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask
yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics?
There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent
and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our
planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite
athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote
the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And
yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater
responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all
standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose
thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we
suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with,
someone down-to-earth in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she
doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.
I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice
presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation
at risk. The world is growing more complex and dangerous with each
passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious.
Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies
so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical
reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she
is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held
in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. "You can't
blink," she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial
truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would
blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate
of civilization.
Harris is a founder of The Reason Project and author of The New York
Times best sellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian
Nation. His Web site is samharris.org.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080
2008
When Atheists Attack
A noted provocateur rips Sarah Palin and defends elitism.
Sam Harris
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Sep 29, 2008
> >>
Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's
performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the
needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most
effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here,
finally, was a performer who being maternal, wounded, righteous and
sexy could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant
a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly
intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy
smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.
Then came Palin's first television interview with Charles Gibson. I
was relieved to discover, as many were, that Palin's luster can be
much diminished by the absence of a teleprompter. Still, the problem
she poses to our political process is now much bigger than she is. Her
fans seem inclined to forgive her any indiscretion short of
cannibalism. However badly she may stumble during the remaining weeks
of this campaign, her supporters will focus their outrage upon the
journalist who caused her to break stride, upon the camera operator
who happened to capture her fall, upon the television network that
broadcast the good lady's misfortune and, above all, upon the "liberal
elites" with their highfalutin assumption that, in the 21st century,
only a reasonably well-educated person should be given command of our
nuclear arsenal.
The point to be lamented is not that Sarah Palin comes from outside
Washington, or that she has glimpsed so little of the earth's surface
(she didn't have a passport until last year), or that she's never met
a foreign head of state. The point is that she comes to us, seeking
the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual
training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await
her. There is nothing to suggest that she even sees a role for careful
analysis or a deep understanding of world events when it comes to
deciding the fate of a nation. In her interview with Gibson, Palin
managed to turn a joke about seeing Russia from her window into a
straight-faced claim that Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia
gave her some essential foreign-policy experience. Palin may be a
perfectly wonderful person, a loving mother and a great American
success story but she is a beauty queen/sports reporter who stumbled
into small-town politics, and who is now on the verge of stumbling
into, or upon, world history.
The problem, as far as our political process is concerned, is that
half the electorate revels in Palin's lack of intellectual
qualifications. When it comes to politics, there is a mad love of
mediocrity in this country. "They think they're better than you!" is
the refrain that (highly competent and cynical) Republican strategists
have set loose among the crowd, and the crowd has grown drunk on it
once again. "Sarah Palin is an ordinary person!" Yes, all too
ordinary.
We have all now witnessed apparently sentient human beings, once
provoked by a reporter's microphone, saying things like, "I'm voting
for Sarah because she's a mom. She knows what it's like to be a mom."
Such sentiments suggest an uncanny (and, one fears, especially
American) detachment from the real problems of today. The next
administration must immediately confront issues like nuclear
proliferation, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and covert wars
elsewhere), global climate change, a convulsing economy, Russian
belligerence, the rise of China, emerging epidemics, Islamism on a
hundred fronts, a defunct United Nations, the deterioration of
American schools, failures of energy, infrastructure and Internet
security the list is long, and Sarah Palin does not seem competent
even to rank these items in order of importance, much less address any
one of them.
Palin's most conspicuous gaffe in her interview with Gibson has been
widely discussed. The truth is, I didn't much care that she did not
know the meaning of the phrase "Bush doctrine." And I am quite sure
that her supporters didn't care, either. Most people view such an
ambush as a journalistic gimmick. What I do care about are all the
other things Palin is guaranteed not to know or will be glossing only
under the frenzied tutelage of John McCain's advisers. What doesn't
she know about financial markets, Islam, the history of the Middle
East, the cold war, modern weapons systems, medical research,
environmental science or emerging technology? Her relative ignorance
is guaranteed on these fronts and most others, not because she was put
on the spot, or got nervous, or just happened to miss the newspaper on
any given morning. Sarah Palin's ignorance is guaranteed because of
how she has spent the past 44 years on earth.
I care even more about the many things Palin thinks she knows but
doesn't: like her conviction that the Biblical God consciously directs
world events. Needless to say, she shares this belief with mil-lions
of Americans but we shouldn't be eager to give these people our
nuclear codes, either. There is no question that if President McCain
chokes on a spare rib and Palin becomes the first woman president, she
and her supporters will believe that God, in all his majesty and
wisdom, has brought it to pass. Why would God give Sarah Palin a job
she isn't ready for? He wouldn't. Everything happens for a reason.
Palin seems perfectly willing to stake the welfare of our country even
the welfare of our species as collateral in her own personal journey
of faith. Of course, McCain has made the same unconscionable wager on
his personal journey to the White House.
In speaking before her church about her son going to war in Iraq,
Palin urged the congregation to pray "that our national leaders are
sending them out on a task that is from God; that's what we have to
make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is
God's plan." When asked about these remarks in her interview with
Gibson, Palin successfully dodged the issue of her religious beliefs
by claiming that she had been merely echoing the words of Abraham
Lincoln. The New York Times later dubbed her response "absurd." It was
worse than absurd; it was a lie calculated to conceal the true
character of her religious infatuations. Every detail that has emerged
about Palin's life in Alaska suggests that she is as devout and
literal-minded in her Christian dogmatism as any man or woman in the
land. Given her long affiliation with the Assemblies of God church,
Palin very likely believes that Biblical prophecy is an infallible
guide to future events and that we are living in the "end times."
Which is to say she very likely thinks that human history will soon
unravel in a foreordained cataclysm of war and bad weather.
Undoubtedly Palin believes that this will be a good thing as all true
Christians will be lifted bodily into the sky to make merry with
Jesus, while all nonbelievers, Jews, Methodists and other rabble will
be punished for eternity in a lake of fire. Like many Pentecostals,
Palin may even imagine that she and her fellow parishioners enjoy the
power of prophecy themselves. Otherwise, what could she have meant
when declaring to her congregation that "God's going to tell you what
is going on, and what is going to go on, and you guys are going to
have that within you"?
You can learn something about a person by the company she keeps. In
the churches where Palin has worshiped for decades, parishioners enjoy
"baptism in the Holy Spirit," "miraculous healings" and "the gift of
tongues." Invariably, they offer astonishingly irrational accounts of
this behavior and of its significance for the entire cosmos. Palin's
spiritual colleagues describe themselves as part of "the final
generation," engaged in "spiritual warfare" to purge the earth of
"demonic strongholds." Palin has spent her entire adult life immersed
in this apocalyptic hysteria. Ask yourself: Is it a good idea to place
the most powerful military on earth at her disposal? Do we actually
want our leaders thinking about the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy
when it comes time to say to the Iranians, or to the North Koreans, or
to the Pakistanis, or to the Russians or to the Chinese: "All options
remain on the table"?
It is easy to see what many people, women especially, admire about
Sarah Palin. Here is a mother of five who can see the bright side of
having a child with Down syndrome and still find the time and energy
to govern the state of Alaska. But we cannot ignore the fact that
Palin's impressive family further testifies to her dogmatic religious
beliefs. Many writers have noted the many shades of conservative
hypocrisy on view here: when Jamie Lynn Spears gets pregnant, it is
considered a symptom of liberal decadence and the breakdown of family
values; in the case of one of Palin's daughters, however, teen
pregnancy gets reinterpreted as a sign of immaculate, small-town
fecundity. And just imagine if, instead of the Palins, the Obama
family had a pregnant, underage daughter on display at their
convention, flanked by her black boyfriend who "intends" to marry her.
Who among conservatives would have resisted the temptation to speak of
"the dysfunction in the black community"?
Teen pregnancy is a misfortune, plain and simple. At best, it
represents bad luck (both for the mother and for the child); at worst,
as in the Palins' case, it is a symptom of religious dogmatism.
Governor Palin opposes sex education in schools on religious grounds.
She has also fought vigorously for a "parental consent law" in the
state of Alaska, seeking full parental dominion over the reproductive
decisions of minors. We know, therefore, that Palin believes that she
should be the one to decide whether her daughter carries her baby to
term. Based on her stated position, we know that she would deny her
daughter an abortion even if she had been raped. One can be forgiven
for doubting whether Bristol Palin had all the advantages of
21st-century family planning or, indeed, of the 21st century.
We have endured eight years of an administration that seemed touched
by religious ideology. Bush's claim to Bob Woodward that he consulted
a "higher Father" before going to war in Iraq got many of us sitting
upright, before our attention wandered again to less ethereal signs of
his incompetence. For all my concern about Bush's religious beliefs,
and about his merely average grasp of terrestrial reality, I have
never once thought that he was an over-the-brink, Rapture-ready
extremist. Palin seems as though she might be the real McCoy. With the
McCain team leading her around like a pet pony between now and
Election Day, she can be expected to conceal her religious extremism
until it is too late to do anything about it. Her supporters know that
while she cannot afford to "talk the talk" between now and Nov. 4, if
elected, she can be trusted to "walk the walk" until the Day of
Judgment.
What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree
to which she represents and her supporters celebrate the joyful
marriage of confidence and ignorance. Watching her deny to Gibson that
she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take
command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin
would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:
"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on
this child's brain?"
"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid
hunter."
"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a
surgeon of any kind."
"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in
how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a
challenge, you cannot blink."
The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in
fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask
yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics?
There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent
and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our
planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite
athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote
the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And
yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater
responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all
standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose
thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we
suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with,
someone down-to-earth in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she
doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.
I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice
presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation
at risk. The world is growing more complex and dangerous with each
passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious.
Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies
so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical
reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she
is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held
in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. "You can't
blink," she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial
truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would
blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate
of civilization.
Harris is a founder of The Reason Project and author of The New York
Times best sellers The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian
Nation. His Web site is samharris.org.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/
2008
9.27.2008
Seriously? Palin?
I'm a registered Independent. Chances are good that I would have voted Obama in this election over McCain but at least I had respect for McCain before he chose Governor Palin as his running mate. Watch this and then really think about her being anywhere near the top of our government.
I don't even understand how she was elected governor.
I don't even understand how she was elected governor.
9.26.2008
9.23.2008
Posted Too Soon
Go figure. My trip to the Netherlands was just postponed/canceled. Looks like I may be working a super-short and rather intense 4.5 day dry dock in Boston instead. Starts on October 18th. The job is solely to change out the engine block of one of the diesel generators we've been putting into our ships. Should be a challenge to get it done in under 5 days. Raring to go.
9.22.2008
Back To It, I guess
The following represents my fall lineup.
(All dates and music eastern.)
Sept. 24-27 Boston -- I gets to watch me an engine get unloaded from a ship.
Sept. 29 Port Canaveral -- Wonder if there're any cruise ships around?
Oct. 9-13 Oakland -- Wedding bells (though not for me).
Oct. 14-25 Eemshaven, The Netherlands -- A new ship in the works here.
Nov. 2 - Dec. 4 Freeport -- Three projects in a month. Swell(tering).
Christmas in Idaho.
Ten cartoon points for the name of the character who said this.
"This is where the pilgrims landed at Fraggle Rock."
Fifteen REAL points for telling me where the 2nd line of this post comes from.
(All dates and music eastern.)
Sept. 24-27 Boston -- I gets to watch me an engine get unloaded from a ship.
Sept. 29 Port Canaveral -- Wonder if there're any cruise ships around?
Oct. 9-13 Oakland -- Wedding bells (though not for me).
Oct. 14-25 Eemshaven, The Netherlands -- A new ship in the works here.
Nov. 2 - Dec. 4 Freeport -- Three projects in a month. Swell(tering).
Christmas in Idaho.
Ten cartoon points for the name of the character who said this.
"This is where the pilgrims landed at Fraggle Rock."
Fifteen REAL points for telling me where the 2nd line of this post comes from.
9.19.2008
Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!
9.12.2008
Through The Quad
Just sittin' here on a Sci-Fi night watchin' Ike start to rip through Galveston. "Balls-to-the-Wall" reporter was just outside his hotel in some section of Houston trying to report how strong the wind was that was knocking him down (report!: it was strong enough to knock him down. . . do we need more proof that the wind is strong?) when some guy streaked the camera.
I'm not talkin' about a half-second jump through the frame, this streaker started at the far end of the parking lot so you caught a good glimpse of him but weren't quite sure what was going on. . . then he vanished. . . and then all of a sudden he's running RIGHT behind the "reporter." (Reporter, in this sense of the word, equals a dumb-ass in a rain slicker who thinks his career is going somewhere cause he's risking his life to transmit incomprehensible nonsense in the middle of a hurricane.) Point is, this guy streaked the whole frickin' parking lot. . . in a hurricane. . . now that's dedication. Talk about the need to be concerned with losing some fittings off your house!
Point of me writing after more than a month, I guess, is that it's the first time I've been that tickled in a while. (And I'm not talkin' about cute girl-type-tickling which we all know results in myself suffering from a broken elbow.)
Alas, the spell has been broken. While writing this the weather channel started showing commercials and I swear some sponsor came on and said they were sponsoring the "commercial free" coverage of the hurricane on the weather channel. I'll type that again. A sponsor came on in the middle of a set of commercials to say they were sponsoring the commercial free coverage of the hurricane. Either I need to get my hearing checked or this country is seriously FUBAR.
And (as if to top that) after writing that (see above) the weather channel switches to coverage of my local weather (82 degrees with relative humidity at 2am) and RUNNING ACROSS THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN WHERE "NEWS" IS NORMALLY PLACED WAS A SCROLLING LINE TELLING US THAT mCdONALD'S IS CURRENTLY OFFERING 49 CENT HAMBURGERS AND 59 CENT CHEESEBURGERS or some such shit. My apologies for the swearing but I can't believe the world we live in.
The only thing that just made it better was watching the "storm reporter" getting blown over in the wind again. Though at the moment the various reporters are attempting to one-up each other by arguing about what time their power went out where they are located. Needless to say they've mentioned their own power shortages a bit more often than they've mentioned the HALF MILLION people currently without power in the region. A number that's sure to grow significantly, and pretty darn quick too.
Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive cause it could easily be MY current hometown that's getting a colonoscopy by Mother Nature. . . . could be.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game: +5 bonus points (and a free FL souvenir mailed to you free of cost) for the first person who can tell me what movie is referenced in the Title of this entry. (ed. hint: the clue continues at the end of the first paragraph and throughout the second. . . if you can't put one, one and one together after THAT then you and I need to spend some serious time on your "movies I must watch" list.)
(And if you STILL can't put it together you should know that the whole event in the movie was supposed to end up in the school gymnasium but instead ended up in the back of a rather large SUV with a nice (but not-too-bright) guy being made fun of for the relative temperature outside and the physical ramifications of that temperature upon his naked self.)
(what? too much?)
And now back to my regularly scheduled beverage.
I'm not talkin' about a half-second jump through the frame, this streaker started at the far end of the parking lot so you caught a good glimpse of him but weren't quite sure what was going on. . . then he vanished. . . and then all of a sudden he's running RIGHT behind the "reporter." (Reporter, in this sense of the word, equals a dumb-ass in a rain slicker who thinks his career is going somewhere cause he's risking his life to transmit incomprehensible nonsense in the middle of a hurricane.) Point is, this guy streaked the whole frickin' parking lot. . . in a hurricane. . . now that's dedication. Talk about the need to be concerned with losing some fittings off your house!
Point of me writing after more than a month, I guess, is that it's the first time I've been that tickled in a while. (And I'm not talkin' about cute girl-type-tickling which we all know results in myself suffering from a broken elbow.)
Alas, the spell has been broken. While writing this the weather channel started showing commercials and I swear some sponsor came on and said they were sponsoring the "commercial free" coverage of the hurricane on the weather channel. I'll type that again. A sponsor came on in the middle of a set of commercials to say they were sponsoring the commercial free coverage of the hurricane. Either I need to get my hearing checked or this country is seriously FUBAR.
And (as if to top that) after writing that (see above) the weather channel switches to coverage of my local weather (82 degrees with relative humidity at 2am) and RUNNING ACROSS THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN WHERE "NEWS" IS NORMALLY PLACED WAS A SCROLLING LINE TELLING US THAT mCdONALD'S IS CURRENTLY OFFERING 49 CENT HAMBURGERS AND 59 CENT CHEESEBURGERS or some such shit. My apologies for the swearing but I can't believe the world we live in.
The only thing that just made it better was watching the "storm reporter" getting blown over in the wind again. Though at the moment the various reporters are attempting to one-up each other by arguing about what time their power went out where they are located. Needless to say they've mentioned their own power shortages a bit more often than they've mentioned the HALF MILLION people currently without power in the region. A number that's sure to grow significantly, and pretty darn quick too.
Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive cause it could easily be MY current hometown that's getting a colonoscopy by Mother Nature. . . . could be.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game: +5 bonus points (and a free FL souvenir mailed to you free of cost) for the first person who can tell me what movie is referenced in the Title of this entry. (ed. hint: the clue continues at the end of the first paragraph and throughout the second. . . if you can't put one, one and one together after THAT then you and I need to spend some serious time on your "movies I must watch" list.)
(And if you STILL can't put it together you should know that the whole event in the movie was supposed to end up in the school gymnasium but instead ended up in the back of a rather large SUV with a nice (but not-too-bright) guy being made fun of for the relative temperature outside and the physical ramifications of that temperature upon his naked self.)
(what? too much?)
And now back to my regularly scheduled beverage.
7.07.2008
Boredom
There is one email in my personal inbox and only a handful in my work inbox. If that's not a cause for boredom I don't know what is. Of course this is the time to take advantage of free time and get around to all the things I've been avoiding for a while but we all know that ain't happenin' as easily as it is written. Flying to California for a solid week on Friday. Hope to see some folks and actually catch up with them. Kinda lookin' forward to bouncing from couch to couch during the week. Yo tengo nada.
For the sake of boredom.
Helluva Time Killer
Good Clean Fun
Office Fun
Depressing
Funny
Useful?
Science, Beautiful Science
For the sake of boredom.
7.03.2008
Proud To Be A. . . . Cliche
An American, that is. I got into our nation's capital last night and spent today walking around the National Mall. It's been a few years since I was here and it's easy to forget how impressive all the buildings and monuments are. I wish I had more time here during this visit but it was enough just to walk between the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument today. My hosts and I have opted to head out to a friend's lake house tomorrow, rather than spend a chaotic night dealing with security and crowds on the National Mall.
Happy Fourth of July to everyone. I, for one, am happy to be free.
Happy Fourth of July to everyone. I, for one, am happy to be free.
7.01.2008
We're "Restructuring"
Fabulous word, restructuring. It implies that something was inadequately structured to begin with. It might imply that things will get better, run more efficiently and kittens will be placed in every cubicle. It definitely means that some people will be out of work. Well, it's not time to panic yet (and I'd argue that really it's never time to panic, which is why I own a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (actually, I own at least two copies)) but the word restructuring is being thrown around my company more than the word bonus, that's for sure.
I'd say there's a darn good chance that we'll lose somebody from our little dry dock group but selfishly I will admit that it's pretty unlikely that I'm on the axe list. HOWEVER, if they decide to let our whole group go and use sub-contractors or some other type of chaos theory for dry docks then I guess my personal chances don't much matter. There's also the Super-Duper-Outsiderrific possibility that the whole Logistics department could be sub-contracted out. . . that's how it was a number of years ago. Anyway, I'm not too worried about it. I suppose if I lose my job I'll pull my stakes outta Florida but I'm not too sure where I'll end up. Probably end up on a steady diet of government cheese and living in my Element down by the river.
Though I suppose I won't be able to afford my Element anymore. Guess I'll have to get a van. Bet my dad's got one he wants to get rid of. The (Faded) Blue Bullet.
Well, I just figured I'd post a little rant since I haven't written anything in a month. Of course I have the best intentions of putting up pictures and writing down stories from recent jobs but I think we all know how likely that is now that summer is here. I've flying to DC for the weekend tomorrow. Have to choose between the utter chaos of the big fireworks at the national mall OR a relaxed overnight to some lake house for bass fishing and what not. After that I work for a whole week (almost) and then fly back to California again. Got me a wedding reception to go to but that's about it. For once the rest of my time in CA will be (might be?) relaxing. Of course I'm still going to be keeping up on my work emails. . . may as well show some dedication on my vacation right before they axe me.
I'm also looking at taking two weeks in August for camping with the brothers and ye olde college roommate. How much vacation time do I have you ask? Good question, and one that has an answer that is constantly changing. Technically I've only got two weeks but since I've already worked 24 weekend days this year I'm trying to get some days back. Okay, all the days back. Guess I'm spent. I'll keep this updated if things get interesting at work. You can assume that if I don't update this page next week that all is well. Otherwise I'm sure I'll have an entertaining rant about big companies in America not caring about their employees and whether I'm gonna be living in Wisconsin, Idaho, Flagstaff, California or somewhere in Europe.
I'm done.
I'd say there's a darn good chance that we'll lose somebody from our little dry dock group but selfishly I will admit that it's pretty unlikely that I'm on the axe list. HOWEVER, if they decide to let our whole group go and use sub-contractors or some other type of chaos theory for dry docks then I guess my personal chances don't much matter. There's also the Super-Duper-Outsiderrific possibility that the whole Logistics department could be sub-contracted out. . . that's how it was a number of years ago. Anyway, I'm not too worried about it. I suppose if I lose my job I'll pull my stakes outta Florida but I'm not too sure where I'll end up. Probably end up on a steady diet of government cheese and living in my Element down by the river.
Though I suppose I won't be able to afford my Element anymore. Guess I'll have to get a van. Bet my dad's got one he wants to get rid of. The (Faded) Blue Bullet.
Well, I just figured I'd post a little rant since I haven't written anything in a month. Of course I have the best intentions of putting up pictures and writing down stories from recent jobs but I think we all know how likely that is now that summer is here. I've flying to DC for the weekend tomorrow. Have to choose between the utter chaos of the big fireworks at the national mall OR a relaxed overnight to some lake house for bass fishing and what not. After that I work for a whole week (almost) and then fly back to California again. Got me a wedding reception to go to but that's about it. For once the rest of my time in CA will be (might be?) relaxing. Of course I'm still going to be keeping up on my work emails. . . may as well show some dedication on my vacation right before they axe me.
I'm also looking at taking two weeks in August for camping with the brothers and ye olde college roommate. How much vacation time do I have you ask? Good question, and one that has an answer that is constantly changing. Technically I've only got two weeks but since I've already worked 24 weekend days this year I'm trying to get some days back. Okay, all the days back. Guess I'm spent. I'll keep this updated if things get interesting at work. You can assume that if I don't update this page next week that all is well. Otherwise I'm sure I'll have an entertaining rant about big companies in America not caring about their employees and whether I'm gonna be living in Wisconsin, Idaho, Flagstaff, California or somewhere in Europe.
I'm done.
5.29.2008
In Passing
You're seeing the stern of the first ship I worked on in Hamburg being passed by the second ship I worked on. Oh boy do I need a vacation. Can't even find another flickr picture to put up to try and keep people entertained. Maybe I'll tell the story of dinner at Groninger next. Have you ever seen 8 types of pork on a giant slab of wood, served with a 20 liter keg of beer? It's Germanoliscious. . . or Deutschtastic. . . I'm really not sure which.
5.25.2008
Seven Weeks
I ended up in France last year for about 7 weeks and I ended up in France, Germany and England this year for about 7 weeks. Same time of year, same result; two dry docks put to bed with decent reviews. Finally back in Miami now and yeah, it's a bit of a mind job. Drove the Element to the store last night and that was strange enough. Last time I drove was a week ago in a Benz on the Autobahn.
To make sure things don't actually return back to normal yet I'm headed to CA on Friday. You know, wouldn't want more than 3.5 days in the office or I might feel like I was really getting through some of the mound of paperwork that awaits my return.
I'm sure there are a dozen things I could write but for the moment I'm feeling a bit tapped. Obviously I've got tomorrow off so in typical fashion I'm having a hard time getting motivated in any particular direction. I suppose the least I can do is stop rambling on this post. Adios.
To make sure things don't actually return back to normal yet I'm headed to CA on Friday. You know, wouldn't want more than 3.5 days in the office or I might feel like I was really getting through some of the mound of paperwork that awaits my return.
I'm sure there are a dozen things I could write but for the moment I'm feeling a bit tapped. Obviously I've got tomorrow off so in typical fashion I'm having a hard time getting motivated in any particular direction. I suppose the least I can do is stop rambling on this post. Adios.
5.20.2008
A Week Ago
(Post was written a week ago. That's how far behind I am.)
Well another one has bit the dust. . . or the seawater, depending on how literal you want to be about it. The Brilliance got off without any major hitches, but with plenty of minor ones. Although I know that the rule of thumb is that every dry dock will end in chaos I would really like to change that for at least one of my jobs. This time I had all return items for Miami safely packed away in containers with documents and customs clearance all set and then one project leader decides that really he'd like some of those materials to go to another ship in Europe. . . not so much Miami. I was able to break the needed materials out of the container and get them to their new destination but now German customs isn't too happy and they'll likely be busting into said container in the coming days to double check the new documents I've created for the "new" container shipment. But I regress. . .
Enuf of pure work talk, let's mix work with pleasure. As usual I really don't have much to complain about.
(And apparently my thoughts either ended here or something more interesting came along.)
Well another one has bit the dust. . . or the seawater, depending on how literal you want to be about it. The Brilliance got off without any major hitches, but with plenty of minor ones. Although I know that the rule of thumb is that every dry dock will end in chaos I would really like to change that for at least one of my jobs. This time I had all return items for Miami safely packed away in containers with documents and customs clearance all set and then one project leader decides that really he'd like some of those materials to go to another ship in Europe. . . not so much Miami. I was able to break the needed materials out of the container and get them to their new destination but now German customs isn't too happy and they'll likely be busting into said container in the coming days to double check the new documents I've created for the "new" container shipment. But I regress. . .
Enuf of pure work talk, let's mix work with pleasure. As usual I really don't have much to complain about.
(And apparently my thoughts either ended here or something more interesting came along.)
5.18.2008
Unky Dude Joke of the Day: Part Duex
Pastors Sven & Ole
Reverend Ole was the pastor of the local Norwegian Lutheran
Church, and Pastor Sven was the minister of the Swedish Covenant Church
across the road. I saw them yesterday standing by the road, pounding a
sign into the ground, that reads:
"Da End iss Near! Turn Yourself Aroundt Now! Before It's Too Late!"
As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out his window and yelled,
"Leave us alone, you religious nuts!"
From the curve we heard screeching tires and a big splash...
Rev. Ole turns to Pastor Sven and asks, "Do ya tink maybe da sign should
yust say 'Bridge Out'?"
Reverend Ole was the pastor of the local Norwegian Lutheran
Church, and Pastor Sven was the minister of the Swedish Covenant Church
across the road. I saw them yesterday standing by the road, pounding a
sign into the ground, that reads:
"Da End iss Near! Turn Yourself Aroundt Now! Before It's Too Late!"
As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out his window and yelled,
"Leave us alone, you religious nuts!"
From the curve we heard screeching tires and a big splash...
Rev. Ole turns to Pastor Sven and asks, "Do ya tink maybe da sign should
yust say 'Bridge Out'?"
5.12.2008
This Is The End. . .
. . . but not really.
Brilliance moves out of dry dock tomorrow and over to a cruise terminal. A few cranes, fork lifts, containers and toolboxes and then I'm off to England for a few days of R&R before getting back to Miami. Somebody told me it's been about 96 degrees in Miami lately. . . . yeah, it's been, uh, 75 and perfect here in Hamburg. Darnit all.
Try to find time soon to write a proper update. Most importantly is that the BR has gone well and now I might get a little time off.
Cheers to all. The Hamburg Harbor birthday was a good time.
Brilliance moves out of dry dock tomorrow and over to a cruise terminal. A few cranes, fork lifts, containers and toolboxes and then I'm off to England for a few days of R&R before getting back to Miami. Somebody told me it's been about 96 degrees in Miami lately. . . . yeah, it's been, uh, 75 and perfect here in Hamburg. Darnit all.
Try to find time soon to write a proper update. Most importantly is that the BR has gone well and now I might get a little time off.
Cheers to all. The Hamburg Harbor birthday was a good time.
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