Interesting Things From the Internets

I've been away from the internets for a while, so it's taken a few minutes to catch up on all of the coolness I've missed. Here's a few notables in no particular order...

First up, in case you've didn't know, there's a remake of Nightmare on Elm Street about to hit theaters. Here's a shot of the teaser poster:

In a reboot-happy hollywood, it's not a huge surprise that this is being made. The huge surprise is that somehow they've managed to make Freddy Kruger uglier than ever and actually frightening. I grew up with Robert Englund as Freddy, but this time around they've cast Jackie Earle Haley for the reboot. If you saw his performance as Rorschach in "the Watchmen," or the pedophile in "Little Children" you know he can do creepy better than anyone else.

Click here to watch the trailer on Myspace

There's also an upcoming sequel to TRON.

While I've been poking around looking for project ideas, I stumbled across Flickr user DROP HPC-ANC who does some really impressive street art. My favorite is his LEGO Grim Reaper:


Whenever I move ashore again, I want this guy to paint my house.

Elsewhere online, I've found yet another reason to finish my tank project:

Cool.

On the subject of random videos, I've also stumbled across this really great music video by OK Go, starring an impressive Rube Goldberg machine:

Suddenly I'd really like to set one of these things up.

Finally, I stumbled across some really amazing iPhone cases made out of billet aluminum or brass. The aluminum ones come in a variety of anodized finishes, but the brass ones really impressed me quite a bit more. The best of the best was brass with a wooden insert and an elaborate engraved design. I ordered one for Ana and she's been getting nothing but compliments on it wherever she goes:

If you want one for yourself, go to www.exovault.com.

There's plenty of other amazing stuff I've stumbled across. These are the ones I most felt like sharing.

On Your Bookshelf, Evil Cthulhu Waits Thinking

While I was home back in December/January, I decided I needed to make some little bookend statues. I finished the sculpt and the molds, but it wasn't until I got back to the workshop the other day that I finally managed to make castings.

I call him "the Cthinker." The French would call him "Le Méchant Penseur."

For those of you who've never heard of him, Cthulhu is one of the "Great Old Ones," fictional cosmic entities created by science fiction and horror author H. P. Lovecraft in 1926. The first appearance of Cthulhu was in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu" published in 1928. He is often cited for the extreme descriptions given of his hideous appearance, gargantuan size, and the abject terror that he evokes. Cthulhu is often referred to in science fiction and fantasy circles as a tongue-in-cheek shorthand for extreme evil.

This rendering stands approximately 8" tall. I'm casting them in urethane resin with a cold cast bronze finish, but I'm thinking I'd be just as well off painting it bronze with a bit of faux patina.

These pictures are of the first casting out of the mold. The rest of the castings will have a more even coloring.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

I've got these statues listed in my Etsy shop. Order one and he'll sit on your shelf, thinking evil thoughts. Order two and use them as bookends for your Necronomicon.

First Free Weekend After Getting Off the Ship

After another month at sea, I've been overdue for some down time. So what did I do the morning after I got off the ship? I got underway aboard the Sea Scout Ship Compass Rose:


The trip was just a quick overnight jaunt to Sausolito and back, so there really was nothing to it. I'm not exactly sure what the plan was supposed to be upon arrival. Mostly I think it was just an excuse to get underway with all of the new crewmembers on board. The roster has shrunk in recent years, so it was nice to have a grand total of five scouts aboard instead of the usual two or three we've had for the past few months.

Since I've been out of the picture for the past few months, this was my first opportunity to meet most of the new kids. So I grabbed a handful of gear and left my boat all buttoned up:


Then we cast off and headed out. Matt Herman was on hand to help with mooring lines and wave goodbye:


While he didn't make the trip with us, his wife Jen did:


Jen kindly volunteered to manage the galley for the trip. This gave us the dual benefit of hot cooked meals and plenty of opportunities to practice fire drills:


Heading down river was met with the usual allotment of intriguing scenery:


Meanwhile, the skipper was at his usual station in the pilothouse:

He claims that playing solitaire keeps the scout at the chart table from cheating by getting the position off of the electronic chart display. I'm sure.

The new guys seemed to enjoy themselves:


So did the not-so-new guys:


There was one more crewmember aboard, but for some reason I didn't end up with any pictures of her:


As we passed through Raccoon Strait, it looked like it would've been a gorgeous day to be under sail:

Oh well.

Sausolito itself was pretty inviting upon arrival:

Once we were all fast at Schoonmaker Point Marina, the scouts headed ashore to wander around downtown. The rest of us headed ashore to pick up a few things at the local West Marine and find a coffee shop.

The rest of the evening was pretty low key and I got to bed earlier than ever.

The following morning everyone headed out again to wander around downtown. There was some notion of visiting the Bay Model, but nobody thought to check in advance and it turned out they were closed Sundays. Oops. Instead, we ambled around downtown checking out the wide variety of shops and restaurants and taking advantage of the chance to be out and about despite the wet weather.

In the end the trip was a success, the ship returned to Petaluma safe and sound and a good time was had by all.

2009 Sea Voyage Part 4E: The End

DAY 86: Arrival in Long Beach

Today's weather was a nice break after the past few days. Here's a winning snapshot taken off the starboard bridge wing as we passed through the Channel Islands:


Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how nice the weather is once you get within range of the rusty brown miasma that makes up the local Los Angeles atmosphere:

As we made our approach I headed up to the bow where I joined the Ordinary Seaman already standing by as lookout:

We crossed through the breakwater and entered LA Harbor right around sunset:

Once we were moored, everything suddenly got crazy. I got pulled every which way and had all sorts of things distracting me along the way. I was hoping to be off of the ship sometime around 1800, but with all of the extra noise it ended up being closer to 2030. Damn.

Still, Ana was waiting for me by the gates to the container terminal. After a somewhat brief bout of complaining about my being late, we headed back to the apartment and I won't be discussing the rest of the day's proceedings.

Day 87: Easy Day sitting in Port

Today I was supposed to start my day by taking new crew members around and showing them the safety and lifesaving systems on the ship. It all sounded so simple.

I was supposed to have the new crew meet me in the cargo office at 0800. By 0840, I'd seen three of the nine folks I was expecting and figured nobody else was coming. The 3rd Mate was the same guy that was here when I'd started this job, so we were getting caught up on all of the things that had changed since he'd left. That's when the 1st Assistant Engineer popped up on the UHF radio:

"Anybody on the air," says he, "I've got a medical emergency in the main control room. We need the AED down here right away."

The AED is the Automated Electronic Defibrillator. It's the thing you plug into someone in order to zap their heart back into working properly. On this ship it lives up in the officer's mess.

I ran from the cargo office up to the mess to grab it. What I didn't realize was that they were shampooing the carpet in the mess. This wasn't a problem on the way in, but when I ran out into the tiled passageway I lost my footing and slid through three other guys as I tried to turn the corner.

"What the fuck!" one of them yelled, "why don't you watch where you're going?"

"Sorry," says I, "I don't have time to deal with you guys."

From there I scrambled down the four decks worth of stairs toward the main control room. On the way, folks started pointing me to the upper level of the main engine room. When I got there I found a small crowd standing around a man lying prone on the deck gratings.

What I found was a 65-year old male who was being treated for shock. The 1st Assistant was there and said that the man in question had been feeling dizzy and lightheaded and had to steady himself on the railing. Then he started to lose consciousness, folded up, and collapsed.

By the time I got there he was awake and aware. He had a strong pulse and steady respiration, so it was unlikely that I was dealing with a cardiac event of some kind. The paramedics were on the way, but I still had plenty of time to sort out as much as I could. I was able to learn that the patient takes medication for high blood pressure, hadn't had anything to eat all day, and regularly suffers from low blood sugar.

When the paramedics did show up (along with a whole platoon of firefighters) things got interesting. They rigged a stair chair to haul the man up to the main deck. At the same time, the Chief Mate had contacted the terminal and had them bring their "rescue basket" over to the ship.

Once the paramedics were confident that they'd stabilized the patient, they strapped him into a stair chair for extrication from the engine room. Somewhere in there I had a bit of conversation with one of the firefighters:

"I thought we were supposed to be going to the engine room," says he.

"You're in the engine room," says I.

"Where's the engines?" asks he.

"You see those things over there? Those are the cylinder heads. You're standing on the upper level and the engine is over four stories tall."

"Oh. Damn."

I guess it's easy to miss the forest for the trees in a place like this:

Anyway, I grabbed the patient's personal effects and headed up the ladder to make sure things were prepped to get everything off the ship. When I got up to the main deck I found complete pandemonium. The Chief Engineer was yelling at the top of his lungs telling the 3rd Mate to bring the terminal's basket inside the passageway on the main deck so the firemen could load the patient into it.

What he didn't seem to realize was that the rescue basket was essentially a skeletonized 20-foot container. There was absolutely no way to fit it inside any of the doors into the main deck passageway.

Moments later, the firemen had hauled the patient up to the main deck. At this point they'd been turned around six or eight times since they'd come aboard and had no idea where they were. Unfortunately, when they started looking for directions to figure out where they were headed, the loudest, most in-charge-seeming guy was the Chief Engineer.

With all of the yelling that was going on, I can understand why they would make that assumption. Still, all he was doing was creating distress and confusion. It took a bit of effort, but I managed to get everyone's attention, steer them toward the rescue basket, and get them safely off of the ship.

I really can't wait to be done dealing with the Chief.

Once that minor little emergency was taken care of it was all downhill. In fact, for most of the afternoon all I had to do was sit around and wait for one of our suppliers to deliver our charts and publications. They never showed.

A few minutes before 1600, I stopped by the cargo office to see if there was anything else for me to do. That's when the Chief Mate asked me to help him unbolt the manhole covers on some of the voids in the forepeak. If nothing else it was an opportunity to earn some overtime pay.

DAY 88: Delayed Delays

We were supposed to be leaving today at 1800. Instead, the terminal fell way behind on loading our cargo and it's going to be more like 0300 tomorrow before we actually get underway.

Sometime just before lunch, the navigation supplier finally showed up. I'd say he brought all of the charts and publications I was expecting, but he didn't. It was all stuff we needed, but not the stuff I ordered. Supposedly those are in the ship's warehouse somewhere, so I don't have to worry about it.

Once I was told not to worry about it, I went ahead and called Ana to come and pick me up. I met her at the pier just after 1600 with all kinds of plans for the afternoon and evening. Then, as we were driving away, her phone rang.

It turns out there was a minor problem at the Coast Guard Sector Command Center that she had to come in and fix. Oh well.

After a bit more running around, we ended up back at the apartment. Not long after that, Ana started nodding off. Then she offered to take me to the ship so I could get some rest. Nothing transparent about that I suppose.

I'd like to say I actually got some rest, but by the time I got back to the ship it was only a couple of hours until...

DAY 89: Enroute Oakland

We were underway at 0330. Casting off went quick and smooth. Then it was time to try to get sleep again. I didn't. Instead I did some laundry and some packing.

Oh well.

My afternoon watch went pretty smoothly as well. The sky was overcast, but there was very little shipping traffic to contend with and the sea was fairly calm.

Once again the plan after watch was to get some rest. Once again I failed.

DAY 90: Arrival Oakland

I was supposed to be paid off of the ship upon arrival in Oakland. As luck would have it, there was a VIP tour group scheduled to come down and visit the ship this afternoon. As a result, the Captain asked me to stay aboard for an extra day to help out because, "when you answer questions it sounds like you know what you're talking about."

I'll take that for a day's pay.

When the tour group finally got up to the pilothouse, I was asked to give a quick overview of the electronics and whatnot. Two minutes into my totally unprepared speech, the guy in charge of the group cut in and told me I had two minutes to finish up before they had to head out. Two minutes isn't much time, so I just opened the floor up to questions.

"Do you worry about icebergs?" one of them asked.

"I do not," says I, "Today's my last day."

That brought a bit of a chuckle from the crowd. The rest of the questions were pretty predictable, but I had fun with it all the same. Then it was time for them to leave. On the way out, one of the visitors stopped me and said that he works in "corporate communications," developing training material and presentations for executives, and he thought that my presentation style and material was very well thought out and effectively delivered.

Not bad for making it up on the spot. I guess I do sound like I know what I'm talking about.

For the next couple of hours I was tasked with following a group of engineers around while they poked around some of the modifications that were installed in the shipyard. They were a lot less entertaining, but I did get to trade sea stories with one of them who happened to be a retired US Coast Guard Warrant Officer. Cool.

With all of the tour guide work done, I stopped by the Captain's office and got paid off. So once again I am briefly flush with cash and overwhelmed with free time. This will all change very rapidly.

Now back to our regularly scheduled unemployment.

2009 Sea Voyage Part 4D: ...and Back Again

DAY 77: Great Circle North

Today we’ve been headed North to get some distance between us and a low pressure system that’s rolling across the Pacific and causing all sorts of foul weather. Even though we’re on this course to avoid nasty weather, it’s been a bit unpleasant. The ship has been pitching and rolling in the perfect corkscrew motion to get over half the crew seasick.

I like seasickness. Not the actual being seasick, because I’d imagine it’s pretty uncomfortable. I like the fact that other folks get sick long long before I do. I take it as a sign that I’m a superior mariner; a symptom of belonging on the water.

DAY 78: Not Much to Talk About

The elevator has been inoperative since we were in Chiwan and a Chinese scrap metal dealer, thinking he was trapped inside when it stopped for a moment, beat the crap out of the inside of the elevator and destroyed the control panel before anyone could pry the doors open and drag his crying, screaming, little body out of it.

Now we’re stuck taking the stairs until we get to California where the spare parts are waiting. These are the stairs:

Fortunately, my room is only two decks from the pilothouse. Here’s a shot of my room:

It’s pretty cozy.

That reminds me: when I started this job I mentioned what looked like a cupholder above the toilet paper dispenser in my room as an illustration of how well appointed the space was. Here’s what it looked like:


I was wrong. It is not a cupholder. I didn’t figure it out until I used the head in the ship’s hospital and found one with all of its parts intact and in place:


It’s to hold the ashtray. I guess that makes some sort of sense.

DAY 79: Time Changes

This ship is kinda fast. Fast enough that you can almost get jet lag with all of the time zones we cross in not too much time. In order to keep up with local time, today we rolled the clocks ahead by three.

There’s no good way to do this that will make everyone happy. To make it a bit more equitable, we break it into three one-hour time changes. On this ship they happen at 1400, 1800, and 2200. That way each of the watchstanders gets to enjoy one shortened watch. The cook gets an hour less to prepare for dinner, and the day workers probably get an hour less sleep, but it’s the best option all around.

The only other bit of excitement for today was a fire and boat drill.

DAY 80: Still Going

The weather predictions have been getting pretty interesting lately. There’s a handful of low pressure systems that will be building up and crossing our path as we make our way across the Pacific. We’re following a great circle route, so most of them will pass well south of us as we near the Aleutian Islands. At some point though, our course will veer back to the south.

For now it looks like we’ll pass between two major weather systems. This seems to change every time we get a new updated weather report though. One report will have a couple of storms passing right across the top of us, then the next has us scooting comfortably between them.
It’s still far enough away that we can’t really do anything about it yet, but it’s going to be interesting.

DAY 81: A Duplicate of Day 80

Today we crossed the International Dateline. So while yesterday was Wednesday the 10th of February, today is too. So I’ve come back from the future. Still no jetpack...

By now we're way up in the northern latitudes and about to start bending around to the right and angling for Southern California. It's pretty up here:



DAY 82: Will Navigate for Cash

The deck cadet has been having trouble with his celestial navigation homework. He’s going through the process just like his professors probably told him to do it, but somehow he’s just not quite able to fix the ship’s position using celestial observations.

To be fair, it’s not the easiest thing in the world. Celestial navigation isn’t exactly brain surgery, but it does require a bit of knowledge and tremendous attention to detail. You can teach someone the essentials in a couple of afternoons, but the only real way to become proficient at it is through repetition.

The other day we were talking about it and I decided to add some incentive to his plight. Here’s the plan:

1. Weather permitting, we’ll each make three observations of the sun during the afternoon watch.
2. Having made the observations, we’ll both go ahead and reduce them to lines of position (LOP) using the altitude-intercept method.
3. Whoever manages to establish the more accurate LOP (using the GPS as the reference) two out of three times, wins $5 for the day. We’ll tally this up when we get to San Pedro.I like this plan because it gets me back into practice with the sextant. I used to be pretty good at this type of work, but by now it’s all rust and cobwebs. I’m overdue for clearing the dust off of that part of my professional qualifications.

Today was the first day we were competing. Here’s a winning shot of me taking an observation of the sun:


Navular, isn’t it?

By the time we each reduced our first observation, my LOP was about 7 miles off from the GPS position. The cadet was a little over 30 miles off. On the second round, I was just about 7 miles off again and he was still over 30 miles off. On the third round, my LOP was within 5 miles of the ship’s position, but I’d already won the day’s match.

Once I’d plotted my third LOP, I stopped to look over the cadet’s shoulder as he was working through the calculations to reduce his observation. I noticed one particular error (there’s about a thousand ways to get the math wrong) and, when he corrected it, his third LOP was also within about 5 miles of the ship’s position.

Then I made the mistake of the day. I told him to check his work on the other two to make sure he hadn’t made the same mistake. It turns out he had. Once he reworked them both, they were both just outside of 5 miles off from the ship’s position. With my little bit of assistance he beat me today, starting him off with a $5 lead.

Good for him. For now…

In other news, we advanced clocks another three hours today. The ship is now on California time. That, and the weather's starting to take a turn for the worse:


DAY 83: A Touch of Weather

I’m not sure if I’ve remarked on it or not, but since I’ve started this job the weather has been surprisingly benign. At worst it’s been a bit cold in some of the places we’ve gone, but other than that there really hasn’t been anything to complain about.

Until now that is.

Ever since we left Yokohama we’ve been watching the satellite images and weather forecasts tracking a handful of low pressure systems rolling across the Pacific Ocean. For a while it looked like we were going to pass right between a couple of them, but in the late hours of last night one of them slowed down and we were stuck with the choice of stopping altogether or just slowing down a bit to cut across the tail end of it.

The ship’s schedule being as vital as it is, the decision was made to cut across. How bad could it be, right?

During my morning watch things were pretty comfortable. It wasn’t until sometime after breakfast that the seas started to really heap up. By the time I went up to take the afternoon watch, it was downright ugly. We had swells that were hitting us on one quarter and wind waves hitting us on the other quarter. They were taking turns grabbing the ship and knocking it off course to one side and then the other. The combination had the ship pitching, rolling, and yawing in an amazing sort of 3-axis corkscrew motion perfect for making a mess of everything. Just about the same time we start to settle out and ride smoothly, another heaping swell shoves us sideways and starts the whole thing all over again.

Here’s a quick video clip I took from the pilothouse:


I realize it doesn’t look all that rough in that clip, but bear in mind that the ship is over 900 feet long, the window the camera is looking through is about 100 feet above the water, and those waves are upwards of 30 feet high. The whole thing makes for a bit of a wild ride.


The ship has been rolling as much as 30 degrees to either side. It’s bad enough that we’ve slowed down to a crawl and turned the ship so that the largest of the waves hits us square on the stern. This way the rolling is minimized and there’s less likelihood that any of the cargo containers will break free and fall overboard. During my watch we did end up with one briefly exciting moment where the ship started some synchronous rolling and we had to put the rudder hard over to break the cycle before something snapped.

I’m loving it.

While motion like this makes it nigh unto impossible to sleep, I haven’t gotten the slightest touch of motion sickness. Meanwhile, much of the crew is incapacitated. I took a moment before bed last night to put away the few things I had sitting out on my desk in my stateroom, so when my watch ended everything was pretty much where I’d left it. This strikes me as a hallmark of a capable and competent mariner.

With that in mind, walking past the Chief Engineer’s office brought and oddly smug sort of smile to my face:


I can't get too smug though. While my stateroom remained largely intact, it turns out that the filing cabinet in the hospital wasn't bolted down. Why not? I couldn't tell you, but I'm responsible for the hospital, so this is my bad:


DAY 84: Channel Fever

I suppose I still haven’t quite adjusted to the time changes, because for no reason at all I can’t sleep. I should be able to sleep. I haven’t really had any sleep for the past two days, but somehow I’m still not feeling especially tired.

Weird.

The weather’s started calming down a bit. Here's a winning shot of a squall line as it passed us by:

In other news, today I bested the cadet at celestial navigation. So we’re even now. With a bit of luck we’ll have clear enough skies to make observations tomorrow too. I’d hate to think we’d made a wager and no money got to change hands.

DAY 85: Last Day in Transit

I still can’t sleep for some reason. The weather was pretty crappy today, so the cadet and I are still tied on the whole celestial navigation thing. Other than that, today was mostly spent finishing up some paperwork, updating some of our navigation pubs, and making tiny bits of progress on a few projects in my stateroom.

On an unrelated note: this was supposed to be a 70-day job. With the shipyard side trip added in, a couple of weather delays, and the Captain asking me to stay aboard for one extra day to help out with some VIP tour group the day after I was supposed to pay off, it’s looking like I’ll be on board for a full 90 days.

Tomorrow we'll be in San Pedro. After that it'll hopefully be an easy week and I'm done with this job.

Stay tuned...