So I walk down to my local laundry mat, deck 4 midship.
On opening the door, I see two inches of suddy water covering the entire floor. Stunned, I watch as it casually moves to the left before slowing and drifting to the right.
At this point, what do you think I thought?
If you guessed, “Oh, I we must be moving,” you are right. I would not have known we were moving without the water moving on the floor with the motion of the boat.
So this guy, on his toes, trying not to get wet turns to me and asks solemnly, “Abandon ship?”
He was joking, since clearly a washing machine had simply overflowed.
But it was pretty hysterical. I mean come on, when is the last time an overflowing washing machine resulted in someone asking you about abandoning ship.
So, where has Mika been. Mika has been on a grueling two weeks, which started with one little F10, and then another.
To run a process on the system I command, and loath, I press F10. The other day, I accidentally pressed F10 twice.
The system crashed.
Crashed hard.
Crashed so hard that we in Russia woke up someone in LA to fix it.
Crashed so hard the person in LA worked for hours, got stuck, and called in a mainframe expert from IBM.
The system was down for seven hours. We literally could not leave Russia until we had the system back up. Talk about incentive! (All the customs and immigration data was held in the system.)
Now let’s go back a minute and reassess what I did, instead of hitting F10 once, which is good, I hit it again which was FATALLY bad.
Who designed this system!!! The Everything In Moderation Counsel?
So I still have a job…. Even after the following day.
What happened the following day Mika?
Well kids, I did not hit F10 twice… but I did press a seven instead of a six. Wish I was joking. We were down for four hours. This time however, everyone who looked at the log was baffled by why the seven caused the crash.
Meanwhile, in Mikaland, I am just picking keys off the keyboard to prevent further problems. No F10, no 7.
If I run out of keys all together, then we will be abandoning ship.
So it has been stressful in the land of Mika, especially in what I now call Saint Petersbrig. (This is because I am not allowed off the ship in Saint Petersburg, still.)
A recap of the cities I have seen recently:
Stockholm: Fantastic, especially for museum goers. Great modern art in the city. Tons of museums. Beautiful green spaces. Canals everywhere. A truly beautiful city. (Paid for with a 25% sales tax.)
Helsinki: fairly boring, except for this Finish girl. I asked her if she spoke English. She said yes. I asked her my question and was very surprised by a near perfect American English accent. I asked her why she spoke with an American accent instead of an English one. She said, “I studied in WiscONsin.” I knew for sure she was telling the truth. You have to spend at least a few months in Wisconsin before being able to pronounce it with a Wisconsin accent. Nothing like a Finish kid with a Wisconsin accent.
Tallinn, Estonia: Fantastic!!! Tallinn is a medieval city with nearly everything intact, from the castle walls, to the armory. The streets are super narrow and some too steep for cars. At the same time, all these medieval buildings, are painted in the warmest pastels. It was fantastic. Pictures coming soon. Tallinn is one of those cities in life I would never have seen if not for a job, and I am most grateful for having seen. Highly Highly Recommended!
Saint Petersburg: Well it still looks pretty boring from the ship.
Gdansk, Poland: I never found the tourist attraction. I would pass on it. (I feel guilty giving it the Mika Seal of Death, but then I am not exactly an influencial travel author, so I think they will long out live my death seal.)
I have far more tales to tell…
I really should tell them now, because we will be moving into satellite silence for a while. We do the Norwegian Forges next week. This is too far north for our regular satellite coverage.
But, I have to sleep sometime.
Sometime after the little funny tidbits from the day…
Bit One:
User: “I have a problem with the computer.”
Mika: “What is the problem?”
User: “It does not work.”
Mika: “Well what does it say?”
User: “It is now safe to shutdown your computer.”
Bit Two:
I was on the bridge chatting with the second officer. A portside surpassing tanker spawned this piece of wisdom, “You haven’t lived until you’ve taken an oil tanker from behind.”
Bit Three:
I get up at 5:30 am to go to work. But tomorrow is going to be very busy, so my coworker offered to help. “You can call me if you get swamped, but don’t call me. I’ll be ugly at that hour.”
Maybe no sleep… the second officer, who was driving ten minutes ago is now buying drinks at the bar.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Monday, June 13, 2005
UN F*!@%ING BELIEVABLE
So I am sleeping soundly in my cabin, at 2:40am in St. Petersburg when my cell phone rings, the first time in a month.
I think, “Hmmm, something must be up in America and someone needs information from me.” I was thinking a parent.
I answer and it is a voice I do not recognize. Then my thought is, “If this is a telemarketer calling me in Russia, at $5.99/minute, I am going to be outraged.”
No, it was UCLA Medical Center calling in regards to my past due medical account, my past due medical account which, notably, called last month to issue a credit for overpayment.
This is in regards to bills from July of 2004.
It is June 2005…
At least here in St. Petersburg.
I honestly believe I would have been billed, here in Russia, much more quickly and efficiently.
(And more advantageously in Rubles.)
But what do I know? It is 2:40am in Russia.
And still light out.
Twilight.
I think, “Hmmm, something must be up in America and someone needs information from me.” I was thinking a parent.
I answer and it is a voice I do not recognize. Then my thought is, “If this is a telemarketer calling me in Russia, at $5.99/minute, I am going to be outraged.”
No, it was UCLA Medical Center calling in regards to my past due medical account, my past due medical account which, notably, called last month to issue a credit for overpayment.
This is in regards to bills from July of 2004.
It is June 2005…
At least here in St. Petersburg.
I honestly believe I would have been billed, here in Russia, much more quickly and efficiently.
(And more advantageously in Rubles.)
But what do I know? It is 2:40am in Russia.
And still light out.
Twilight.
I had
VIAGRA
for lunch...
What would you have for lunch in Copenhagen?
Copenhagen is a lovely little city. It has a nice shopping thorough fare, a theme park, and an incredible city park, grass, bushes, dogs, school children, pond, trees, ducks, green stuff. (You miss green stuff on a ship.)
This was an incredible store: http://www.royalshopping.com.
It had lots of Hans Christian Anderson things, statues, monuments, tributes, and lots of spires.
It also had a hungry Mika, at least when I was there.
So Mika wanted to eat something from a place where she could order by pointing at the menu, where she could understand enough of the menu to know what she was eating and was reasonably inexpensive.
I found a menu on the side of a little store and saw what I thought was a salmon sandwich.
I was quite surprised when the woman said, “Ok. Viagra for you.”
Sure enough, I had ordered Viagra,
at the HonkyPizza place in Copenhagen.
(Note that it was not a pizza so much as a little bit of cheese, tomato and lox between two toasted crackers.)
You can’t make this stuff up.
----
P.S. This was such a "kick-ass" comment, it had to get frontliner entry in my blog.
From Kirsten, "The spammers have invaded Copenhagen restaurants! This is terrible. Next time, order the CI4L1S."
Hysterical!
Copenhagen is a lovely little city. It has a nice shopping thorough fare, a theme park, and an incredible city park, grass, bushes, dogs, school children, pond, trees, ducks, green stuff. (You miss green stuff on a ship.)
This was an incredible store: http://www.royalshopping.com.
It had lots of Hans Christian Anderson things, statues, monuments, tributes, and lots of spires.
It also had a hungry Mika, at least when I was there.
So Mika wanted to eat something from a place where she could order by pointing at the menu, where she could understand enough of the menu to know what she was eating and was reasonably inexpensive.
I found a menu on the side of a little store and saw what I thought was a salmon sandwich.
I was quite surprised when the woman said, “Ok. Viagra for you.”
Sure enough, I had ordered Viagra,
at the HonkyPizza place in Copenhagen.
(Note that it was not a pizza so much as a little bit of cheese, tomato and lox between two toasted crackers.)
You can’t make this stuff up.
----
P.S. This was such a "kick-ass" comment, it had to get frontliner entry in my blog.
From Kirsten, "The spammers have invaded Copenhagen restaurants! This is terrible. Next time, order the CI4L1S."
Hysterical!
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Expensive Paperweights
Drug Sniffing Dogs
Vibrating Beds
Stupid: Not being able to print to any printer on the ship from any computer on the ship (some just inches apart) because…
Your satellite connection is down.
You are in the Baltic, and the computers contact LA to print.
And you thought you had printing problems!
(Those of you who are network savvy, the printers are mapped by name, and the DNS is in LA.)
So the Captain changed course so we could get a better angle on the satellite. Apparently this will be an ongoing problem in northern latitudes. (First I lose high speed access, then 28.8 access. What did I do before the internet!?)
Anyway, I forgot to mention the drug sniffing dogs on board in Amsterdam.
They put the drug sniffing dogs on the ship in Amsterdam.
Think about that.
Were they hoping the dogs would sober up?
Were they afraid we would import more drugs than we used while there?
I haven’t figured that one out. Maybe they were just cold. Fifty-three degrees AS THE HIGH in June.
I saw none of Amsterdam. I have been there before and worked instead. I did see the locks as we left. We were in this one little lock. The ship is about 90 feet wide. The lock was about 110 feet wide. I was very impressed by this.
One of the cool things about life at sea is, in certain seas, I have a vibrating bed. I also have a rocking bed sometimes. Please stay tuned for a full analysis of all possible bed motion classification, strictly due to oceanographic manifestations. (Get your heads out of the gutter.)
As a Californian, I occasionally wake with a start to a bed shaking, curtains swinging, various things clattering and think it is an earthquake. This always gives me a giggle. It is an amusing little manifestation of being California grown.
Alister had the opposite experience. He went home and was sleeping at his sister’s when an earthquake struck. She got all bent out of shape, and he, just shaken from sleep told her it was fine, just a little rough seas.
Tomorrow, Copenhagen.
Your satellite connection is down.
You are in the Baltic, and the computers contact LA to print.
And you thought you had printing problems!
(Those of you who are network savvy, the printers are mapped by name, and the DNS is in LA.)
So the Captain changed course so we could get a better angle on the satellite. Apparently this will be an ongoing problem in northern latitudes. (First I lose high speed access, then 28.8 access. What did I do before the internet!?)
Anyway, I forgot to mention the drug sniffing dogs on board in Amsterdam.
They put the drug sniffing dogs on the ship in Amsterdam.
Think about that.
Were they hoping the dogs would sober up?
Were they afraid we would import more drugs than we used while there?
I haven’t figured that one out. Maybe they were just cold. Fifty-three degrees AS THE HIGH in June.
I saw none of Amsterdam. I have been there before and worked instead. I did see the locks as we left. We were in this one little lock. The ship is about 90 feet wide. The lock was about 110 feet wide. I was very impressed by this.
One of the cool things about life at sea is, in certain seas, I have a vibrating bed. I also have a rocking bed sometimes. Please stay tuned for a full analysis of all possible bed motion classification, strictly due to oceanographic manifestations. (Get your heads out of the gutter.)
As a Californian, I occasionally wake with a start to a bed shaking, curtains swinging, various things clattering and think it is an earthquake. This always gives me a giggle. It is an amusing little manifestation of being California grown.
Alister had the opposite experience. He went home and was sleeping at his sister’s when an earthquake struck. She got all bent out of shape, and he, just shaken from sleep told her it was fine, just a little rough seas.
Tomorrow, Copenhagen.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Things That Are Stupid
Stupid: A high of 53 degrees today in Amsterdam!
People… Summer time… try it.
Stupid: working 00:00-4:30, 8:30-14:00, and 15:30-19:30.
Stupid: getting paged every time you have reached thirty minutes of sleep.
Random…. So I am walking on Deck 12, enjoying the sights in Bordeaux, when the crew member in front of me jumps over the side!
Oh my god!
So I race over to the railing, not thinking of the cement dock eighty feet below. What I was planning to do when I reached the railing, I have no clue.
And there, looking over the railing, ten feet below, is the guy in a basket with a window squeegy.
Stupid: Being yelled at for sitting in the front of the bus. But that's ok. My mom says I have good company in Rosa Parks.
Stupid: Being yelled at for all sorts of rules no one bothered to tell me about.
Cool: There are still more cool things than stupid things… But every now and then, after being yelled at, you have to vent.
I am so behind in stories to tell you… but must be up in seven hours. (Hopefully I will get to sleep all seven.)
People… Summer time… try it.
Stupid: working 00:00-4:30, 8:30-14:00, and 15:30-19:30.
Stupid: getting paged every time you have reached thirty minutes of sleep.
Random…. So I am walking on Deck 12, enjoying the sights in Bordeaux, when the crew member in front of me jumps over the side!
Oh my god!
So I race over to the railing, not thinking of the cement dock eighty feet below. What I was planning to do when I reached the railing, I have no clue.
And there, looking over the railing, ten feet below, is the guy in a basket with a window squeegy.
Stupid: Being yelled at for sitting in the front of the bus. But that's ok. My mom says I have good company in Rosa Parks.
Stupid: Being yelled at for all sorts of rules no one bothered to tell me about.
Cool: There are still more cool things than stupid things… But every now and then, after being yelled at, you have to vent.
I am so behind in stories to tell you… but must be up in seven hours. (Hopefully I will get to sleep all seven.)
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Bordeaux
First, about Bordeaux…
This was the view from the ship.
I went for a bit of a wander (perhaps a Kiwi phrase) with a few fellow officers. We walked up the streets of Bordeaux and enjoyed the shear ambiance of narrow cobbled streets, lined by three or four story high stone buildings with shuttered windows and flower boxes, the occasional bicyclist with fresh produce in a front mounted basket wizzing by.
Simply turning a corner would yield a spectacular site.
This, by the way, is comparably a very wide street. The rails are for the trams which not only look like they should be in Disneyland (see the view from the ship) but make the exact same noise as the Disneyland train.
The people were very nice and quite willing to speak with us in English, contrary to everything I have heard of the French.
The Canadian, Kiwi, German and I ate in a lovely café for dinner where I found myself in a very bizarre conversation I never thought in a million years I would have. As officers, we began discussing and comparing out steward(esse)s.
I have a stewardess. My second so far. She is wonderful and cheerful and bends over backwards to do anything I need. She has been working on ships since 1998 and even met her husband, of three years, on board. They both now work on my ship.
Ironically, we, my fellow officers and I, all admitted to cleaning before our stewards come lest they talk to other stewards and word gets out we are messy. (God forbid.)
Anyway, back to Bordeaux. The nice thing about our ship is, when you need to get stumbling home, it is easy to find.
I put this in its own link, for better viewing. Click here.
You just turn down a street and, there it is. The ship! (The ship is dead center in that picture.)
The next morning I picked up on a few more things.
The city smells like chocolate croissants, which is entirely accurate, cause there were chocolate croissants everywhere. There is nothing so charming as walking down an ridiculously narrow lane (or half lane) smelling baked pastries, in France.
In America, the kids experiment and dye their hair unnatural colors. In France, it is 50 year old women. Bright punk rock pink seemed most popular, followed by neon blue. Usually this flare was done in streaks. I suppose if you are going to cover up the gray you might as well do it with pizzazz.
French people are wafer thin in general. My only theory is you must get sick of smelling chocolate croissants all the time.
And then there was the guy riding his bike with an according on his back.
I don’t know why I took this picture, after all bike riding accordion players are so common where I am from.
I have to be up in three hours…
More later.
This was the view from the ship.
I went for a bit of a wander (perhaps a Kiwi phrase) with a few fellow officers. We walked up the streets of Bordeaux and enjoyed the shear ambiance of narrow cobbled streets, lined by three or four story high stone buildings with shuttered windows and flower boxes, the occasional bicyclist with fresh produce in a front mounted basket wizzing by.
Simply turning a corner would yield a spectacular site.
This, by the way, is comparably a very wide street. The rails are for the trams which not only look like they should be in Disneyland (see the view from the ship) but make the exact same noise as the Disneyland train.
The people were very nice and quite willing to speak with us in English, contrary to everything I have heard of the French.
The Canadian, Kiwi, German and I ate in a lovely café for dinner where I found myself in a very bizarre conversation I never thought in a million years I would have. As officers, we began discussing and comparing out steward(esse)s.
I have a stewardess. My second so far. She is wonderful and cheerful and bends over backwards to do anything I need. She has been working on ships since 1998 and even met her husband, of three years, on board. They both now work on my ship.
Ironically, we, my fellow officers and I, all admitted to cleaning before our stewards come lest they talk to other stewards and word gets out we are messy. (God forbid.)
Anyway, back to Bordeaux. The nice thing about our ship is, when you need to get stumbling home, it is easy to find.
I put this in its own link, for better viewing. Click here.
You just turn down a street and, there it is. The ship! (The ship is dead center in that picture.)
The next morning I picked up on a few more things.
The city smells like chocolate croissants, which is entirely accurate, cause there were chocolate croissants everywhere. There is nothing so charming as walking down an ridiculously narrow lane (or half lane) smelling baked pastries, in France.
In America, the kids experiment and dye their hair unnatural colors. In France, it is 50 year old women. Bright punk rock pink seemed most popular, followed by neon blue. Usually this flare was done in streaks. I suppose if you are going to cover up the gray you might as well do it with pizzazz.
French people are wafer thin in general. My only theory is you must get sick of smelling chocolate croissants all the time.
And then there was the guy riding his bike with an according on his back.
I don’t know why I took this picture, after all bike riding accordion players are so common where I am from.
I have to be up in three hours…
More later.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Lisbon and Le Verdon
Thank you everyone for the comments on the red dot I call home.
Well, it is a good thing tomorrow is a sea day because I have so much to write!
(Sea day: a day spent entirely at sea with no ports of call.)
I went to Lisbon, June 1. Lisbon has Jacarandas! They are huge, old, and vibrantly violet (or violent, as my initial typo indicated). Santa Barbara has lovely jacarandas. They are comparably tiny to the old ones lining Lisbon’s streets.
Lisbon has an affair with tile work and mosaics. Building façades are covered with elaborate tile work, or washed in brilliant pastels. The sidewalks are mosaics.
This is a picture of just some random side walk. All the sidewalks were like this though.
I was not very impressed with Lisbon. It was dirty. There was graffiti everywhere. It seemed like there were lots of improvement projects forgotten half way through. (stupid)
Unless you are crazy into mosaic sidewalks, enormous jesus statues over bays, or majestic jacarandas, you can probably pass it.
I bought a plant for my cabin though, which made it worth the stop.
(I feel so guilty, like I am sentencing it to tourism death.)
Le Verdon, France: I did not have the opportunity to go into Le Verdon. I did however get off the ship for an hour and walk around the dock.
Why am I telling you this?
I walked to the end of the cargo lot and found, to my pleasure and delight the most secluded stretch of beach I had seen in a long time. My foot prints broke the smooth canvas of sand, millions of shells, rain pockets and crabs. I was the only set of foot prints.
It made me realize how vast my love is for a long walk on an empty beach. I collected shells; they are in the plant saucer, I got from the florist on board, around the base of my new plant.
I am most grateful for the solitary walk through a space so pure as a meadow to the right and the sea to the left. (cool)
Next…
BORDEAUX!
I LOVE BORDEAUX!!!!
Here is a picture… so you have something to return for….
I will write about Bordeaux tomorrow....
Well, it is a good thing tomorrow is a sea day because I have so much to write!
(Sea day: a day spent entirely at sea with no ports of call.)
I went to Lisbon, June 1. Lisbon has Jacarandas! They are huge, old, and vibrantly violet (or violent, as my initial typo indicated). Santa Barbara has lovely jacarandas. They are comparably tiny to the old ones lining Lisbon’s streets.
Lisbon has an affair with tile work and mosaics. Building façades are covered with elaborate tile work, or washed in brilliant pastels. The sidewalks are mosaics.
This is a picture of just some random side walk. All the sidewalks were like this though.
I was not very impressed with Lisbon. It was dirty. There was graffiti everywhere. It seemed like there were lots of improvement projects forgotten half way through. (stupid)
Unless you are crazy into mosaic sidewalks, enormous jesus statues over bays, or majestic jacarandas, you can probably pass it.
I bought a plant for my cabin though, which made it worth the stop.
(I feel so guilty, like I am sentencing it to tourism death.)
Le Verdon, France: I did not have the opportunity to go into Le Verdon. I did however get off the ship for an hour and walk around the dock.
Why am I telling you this?
I walked to the end of the cargo lot and found, to my pleasure and delight the most secluded stretch of beach I had seen in a long time. My foot prints broke the smooth canvas of sand, millions of shells, rain pockets and crabs. I was the only set of foot prints.
It made me realize how vast my love is for a long walk on an empty beach. I collected shells; they are in the plant saucer, I got from the florist on board, around the base of my new plant.
I am most grateful for the solitary walk through a space so pure as a meadow to the right and the sea to the left. (cool)
Next…
BORDEAUX!
I LOVE BORDEAUX!!!!
Here is a picture… so you have something to return for….
I will write about Bordeaux tomorrow....
Thursday, June 02, 2005
In-Port Manning
Well, I did not get off in Cadiz. I went to leave the ship and they wouldn’t let me off. I had In-Port-Manning.
In-Port-Manning: An internationally mandated regulation requiring ships to have enough men on board to abandon ship in port.
There are probably more than twelve words in the regulation, but that is what it boils down to.
So I had In-Port Manning and thus was required to stay on board, so I could abandon ship, should an occasion arise. (Boat disasters are not nearly as interesting if no one is on board.)
Cadiz was wonderful from on deck. It has a huge Cathedral.
Anyway, this is my ship in Cannes. The red dot is my port hole.
In-Port-Manning: An internationally mandated regulation requiring ships to have enough men on board to abandon ship in port.
There are probably more than twelve words in the regulation, but that is what it boils down to.
So I had In-Port Manning and thus was required to stay on board, so I could abandon ship, should an occasion arise. (Boat disasters are not nearly as interesting if no one is on board.)
Cadiz was wonderful from on deck. It has a huge Cathedral.
Anyway, this is my ship in Cannes. The red dot is my port hole.
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