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.
No comments:
Post a Comment