Notes from a cruise ship

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While unpacking the last few boxes from my move I came across some notes from my cruise from New York City to Bermuda with the family in the summer of 2001. I don't remember them being particular well-written, and I definitely was trying to put across a David Foster Wallace vibe.

07/22/01 -- Just completed compulsory life jacket training. I wonder if there's enough time for me to escape the ship and disappear into the jungles of New York for a week. We sail in 15 minutes; I'll bet I can make it.

Life jacket training was fun; on our side it was led by an impossibly tan woman from LA. We're talking Magda from "Something About Mary" tan...

The crowd so far has been unusual. I expected older couples, but there seems to be quite a range; families like ourselves, young couples (there was one couple at life jacket training that had more tattoos and piercings than I did), among others. I also noticed that a lot of people are really, really fat. Fat guys, with fat wives and fat kids. Emblematic of American overindulgence, I guess.

The ship next to us in New York Harbor (a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, I think) just sounded its sailing signal; a series of earth-shattering blasts. The one-man-band playing "send off" music said we should "ignore that ship with the gas problem." I'm currently in the shade of deck 9, called "The Sun Deck." All decks have names. My cabin, A394, is on deck 5, or the "Aloha" deck. It's on the port side, and it's an outer cabin, which means I have my very own porthole.

The one-man-mand is currently on his version of "Kokomo", which is fairly poor.

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Checking in was fairly annoying... confusion as to where the bags go, etc. The whole dock situation is very strange. These huge ships in the middle of NYC. I'm looking over at the West-Side Highway, and I don't think I could be any further from St. George, which is our first destination. We haven't sailed yet. I could still run, leap over the side, and hit the pier running; a quick subway ride to Central Park West, and stay with my friends Aimee and Jim for a week; climb in the Gunks, go clubbing, etc.

There are quite a few men wearing Hawaiian shirts... don't they know this is a Bahamas cruise?

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A 1.5 L bottle of spring water costs $2.95, plus a 15% gratuity. I wonder how much of a water tab I can ring up by the end of the week.

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16:20 -- The throb of the ship's engines is shifting from a slight tremor, sensed rather than felt, to a more perceptible rumbling. We must be backing out. According to the ship's newspaper, "The Princess Patter" (gag!), we back out, turn to starboard, and head down the west side of Manhattan, past the Statue of Liberty, and out to open sea.

The OMB is trying to get a thoroughly unattentive audience to do "the chicken dance." The poor bastard.

There's a section of the manual that was in my cabin that deals with "Courtesy". It states that "cover-ups must be worn over bathing suits in public areas." I've already seen a handful of people that will need to be reminded of this before week's end.

My cabin steward introduced himself pretty much the minute I got to my cabin. His name is "Manny" and I'm not sure where he is from, although I would guess someplace in Central America.

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16:50 Passing the WTC towers now. We're getting buzzed by a lot of smaller boats; sailboats, double-hull catamarans, million-dollar fishing yachts. One thing they all have in common thou; if there are people on deck, they wave at you. I wonder if that's for all cruise ships or maybe just because people recognize "The Love Boat." [ed. The boat we were on was the Pacific Princess... the actual boat filmed on that show. I think our cruise was one of the last for the ship. It was sold to some Greek guy in a private sale soon afterwards.]

07/22/01

23:45 -- We met our head waiter for the week (Fred) and our assistant waiter (Paul). They are both Romanian, and both very nice and funny. Food was tasty, but unremarkable so far. Maybe I'm spoiled by how well I eat, or maybe most people on cruises normally eat at McDonalds and Chi Chis and Bob's Big Boy, but since the food is such a huge selling point of the cruise experience, I have to wonder about the gastronomical standards people have.

Went to the on-board theatre to watch "13 Days" after dinner, but only made it through one hour. Something about political movies w/Kevin Costner; they put me right out. It's playing again tomorrow at 14:30, so I'll try and catch it then. Sleepy now.

07/23/01

12:30 -- No, wait, 13:30 -- New time zone. Woke up this morning to some rainy weather; apparently there was a storm last night. Noticed a couple of interesting things. First, there's no alarm clock in A394; I suppose to keep that whole vacation mentality going. Second, the water out in the open ocean is much bluer than what you see at the Jersey shore, or certainly NY Harbor (my stepfather says it's "much less chunky"). I guess the water in Bermuda is really that impossible blue-green you see in Corona commercials. I'll see in a day, I'm sure. Third, I think I know for sure that the OMB doesn't actually play anything. He stood up on deck 9 (sorry, "The Sun Deck") with a Les Paul guitar, strumming along in time and singing, but the problem is that there was no sound resembling a guitar coming out of the speakers; all just MIDI sequences.

Visited the gym this morning; crappy equipment, not worth finding.

Rented my tux for the evening. Wahoo.

07/24/01

Ow. Ow ow ow. Formal night was annoying; I've never worn a more ill-fitting tux. To make up for it, my sisters and I went to "karaoke night." Started off slow, but by the end, I was drunk enough to get up and sing with Laura on "Let's get it on", by Marvin Gaye, that I managed to turn into a gospel hymn by the time I was through butchering it. Struck up conversation with several of the crew, who all seemed to congregate at this bar that night. Met one woman who was a nurse on the ship, and met her fiance there. She told me a little bit about what it's like to work on a cruise ship, and how she was trained, even about labor unions in hospitals in the UK (there are 3 different nurses unions, and most all hospitals are unionized).

We landed early this morning at St. George in Bermuda. There's only one way to get into the Bermuda islands, through a very narrow channel. We sailed right through the channel, having natives wave at us from the shore. Once we docked, I took a walk through St. George, down to the beach. Quaint town, nice beach, but of course it's not my thing.

Went out in the evening to a bar on the island with my sisters.  Had a lovely conversation with a little goth girl who stuck out like a sore thumb in the land of the tan and blonde.  She worked on a different ship that was also docked in St. George.  She gave me all sorts of good dirt about working for the cruise lines:  how when you work there, leaving your key in your stateroom door is an open invitation to sex, how the Romanians onboard would fuck anything that moved, how most everyone who worked on a cruise ship was running from something.  Fascinating stuff.

07/25/01

Interesting day today.  Almost immediately after I got up, my mom, my sisters, and I went on a snorkel trip to a shipwreck site and a coral reef site.  I wasn't really into the snorkeling;  didn't want my mom to see my piercings and tattoos.  The excitement happened when we were riding in the boat to get to the wreck.  Another boat, a glass-bottom one, had anchored to the mooring that was placed there specifically for the boat we were on.  The other boat was being piloted by a guy who had previously worked for our boat's captain, and had been let go for showing up for a charter drunk and high.  I guess this was his way of giving a not-so-subtle "fuck you" to his former boss.  Our captain, Jimmy, flew into a rage, yelling at the guy to slip his boat from the mooring.  It was the equivalent of taking someone's reserved parking spot, but even more, in that parking in that spot was your livelihood.

If Jimmy was angry, his son Mark was livid.  He put on swim fins, jumped off the side, and swam right over to the glass-bottom boat.  He was going to until the boat himself, but then decided to just back off, and drop anchor, which is technically illegal, since it could damage the underwater coral.

While everyone was snorkeling, Jimmy gave me more dirt on the guy;  he had worked for every other major water tour company in Bermuda, and had been fired from all of them.  He had even tried to buy a boat and start his own tour company, but he did something stupid with the exhaust and the boat caught fire and sank.

When Mark got back on the boat he called his tour company secretary (his mother), and told her to draft up a letter to the other tour company, charging them $500 for the one-time use of their mooring.

I was tired at night, and didn't go out after dinner.

07/26/01

Sailed to West End this morning.  We landed around noon.  Once we landed, I got off and walked around a little.  The West End is pretty boring.  After dinner there was some big "Tropical Festival" with a dessert buffet.  It was hellish, with people doing "The Electric Slide" and "YMCA".

My sisters and I beat a hasty retreat out of there, and went to the one nightclub in the area, but it wasn't really my kind of music, so I went back to the ship and to bed shortly after.

One note: I noticed one woman on this cruise who has worn a different shirt every day, but they've all been made with "The Bedazzler".

Well, that's all i had in my notes.  It was actually a lot of fun to be with my family, but the cruise ship setting wasn't my favorite.  I had a much better time a few years later when we all went to Antigua for a week, and it was a lot more free-form and casual.

Efficiency problem

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So, in the basement of the building there are laundry facilities. Two washing machines next to two dryers. Here is what I wonder. When both loads of wash are done, is it more efficient to:

  • take the wet clothes from each washer and move one step right to put the clothes in the dryers, or
  • take the farthest left washer and take two steps to put its clothes in the farthest right dryer, and then when you do the other washer you don't have to move at all and just sling handfuls of clothes into the dryer right next to it?

I made it!

in

The 4 day drive across the country very nearly killed me (and I still have a nifty cold this morning), but I made it in last night after a few extra trips between Jersey City and Bridgewater.  The place is all boxes, so now the fun can begin. I have some trip pictures on my camera, so I will try and get those pulled off later today, if I can happen to find the box that has the phone connector cable in it. ;-)

Maybe I'll leave all the lights on

in

I haven't been staying very on top of my bills lately (my mail pile is a little scary); more just looking at what I had sent the month before to whichever company, and sending them the same or maybe more. Yesterday I actually cracked open my newest electric company "bill", and apparently I have a $400 credit balance with them at the moment. I think it would be neat if I could go around just spending random gobs of that accumulated electricity. Want to zap that slow old lady in line at the Safeway with a few volts for trying to use a ball of lint as a coupon? That'll be $.50, please. A couple of amps at an intersection junction box to make that light change faster? $1.25 sounds reasonable. Some sort of electric petting machine to placate this cat that is glommed to me like some sort of growth while I'm trying to work? I would gladly pay $5 an hour for that service.

Pro and con of gay clubbing in Philly

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Pro: The bar that somehow 7 straights and 1 gay wound up going to on Saturday night had Hoegaarden on draft. ON DRAFT, PEOPLE! Con: I have had this damn Madonna/Abba song playing over and over again, and yet I still can't get it out of my head. Damn you, 15-minute club remix!

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=http://feralboy.com/music/madonna_hungup.mp3" height="27" width="320" /]

Traveling

in

I've done a lot of flying over the last few years, so I consider myself something of a pro at it. I know how to pack my bag such that security never gives it a second glance going through the x-ray machine (leaving home my collection of antique WWII grenades was a big help.) I understand that it's not necessary to have your drivers license out when you go through the metal detector, but it is necessary to have your boarding pass. I know that standing up the second you pull up at the arrival gate actually does not get you off the plane any faster. Yesterday I nearly blew all my accumulated efficient-flying karma. I had an afternoon flight to catch, but didn't want to leave work sooner than I needed to, so I sort of waited until the last minute, and left my house with about 55 minutes to go. No problem, 20 minutes to the airport, tops, and then breeze through security and get to the gate just as the last boarding group is being called.

On the last bit of road before the airport I was faced with a decision; turn left and go to the long-term lot and catch the bus to the terminal (which I usually do), or hang a right and do daily parking at the airport (for a whopping $8 a day instead of $4). Some nagging voice was telling me to go right, but I ignored it like I most often do. Big mistake. I got on the shuttle bus right after I parked, which was great! Then we drove around for another 10 minutes picking up all those smarmy assholes who got to the airport 2 hours ahead of time like they're supposed to. Not so great! Get to the terminal, run to the checkpoint, breeze through security, grab the bags and take off at a run/jog/trot for my gate, which of course is the one at the very end of the terminal. My shoes aren't even all the way on, and I'm scrunching up my toes inside to keep them from flying off. The woman at the gate is looking right at me and yelling "Passenger Comroe?" as I approach. "That's me, I made it!" She scans my boarding pass, gives me "the eyebrows", and on the plane I go, high-fiving the other gate agent walking up the jetway on my way.

Sweaty but triumphant I grab my seat and buckle up, assuming that we must be ready to push back. After all, they were holding the flight for me, right? Hah! Not so. We waited for another twenty minutes before the cabin door was closed, apparently because we were missing an ashtray in the aft lavatory. Huh? The pilot got on to explain that it was an FAA regulation that all the ashtrays had to be there, even though you couldn't smoke on flights since "at least 1998":http://www.flyana.com/smoking.html. Stupid red tape.

My brief layover was at Houston's G. H. W. Bush airport, and it's the worst airport ever. I had to walk clear from one side of the airport to the other to make my flight. Where's the nice tram like at DFW? Or Newark? I also forgot that I was supposed to get a "meal" (i.e. a lame-looking turkey sandwich) on my 2nd flight, so instead a spent $8 on some gross chicken and rice at Panda Express.

One nice part of the 2nd flight was that soon after takeoff we were skirting an electrical storm. I have never seen one from the air, and it's completely fascinating and beautiful. The lightning is *constant*, with ripples flowing from one side of the clouds to the other. Most of it was obscured by the clouds, so it just looked like flashbulbs going off at a red carpet event, but occasionally you could see clear bolts of lightning arcing across the sky. At that distance they looked like small bony fingers reaching out for something just out of their grasp. I thought about trying to take some pictures, but the cabin lights were on, and I don't think they would have come out very well. I'm lame.

where'd the trees go? (i don't know)

in ,
alligator bark, originally uploaded by feralboy.
tree graffiti, originally uploaded by feralboy.

A big wet kiss to anyone who gets the obscure pop culture reference in the title. The Feral Marketing Department is excluded because it would be way too easy.

Sacrilege!

in ,

I just ran down to my local groceria (that's Spanish for grocery store, if you're a gringo), to pay too much for a chai at the newly-opened in-store Star-bucks. For whatever reason this particular Starbucks location is run by what must be absolute morons, as they have on more than one occasion had just one person there to do everything; take orders, get money, make change, make order, correct you when you say "large" ("oh, a venti!" (as if "large" is some sort of exotic word from a foreign language which has made it into the English lexicon, such as "hors d'oeuvres", or "sphincter")). But I digress. While my skim milk was steaming I headed over to the bakery section of the store itself, with nothing but a Boston Creme donut on my mind. At first I didn't see them. Then I saw what I could have sworn was a Boston, but it was a Danish cleverly hidden under a layer of chocolate frosting. Grrr. No Boston Cremes to be had. Ok, no problem. They have éclairs. I grabbed one, swung by to get my drink, paid my $.45 for my baked good and left.

Back at my desk, database update script chugging along, and time to take a bite out of my breakfast. First bite, no creme. Ok, fine. They must have injected it in the other end. Second bite. Hmm... something is wrong here. Perhaps I should have noticed then how decidedly light my éclair was. I get about halfway in and come to the sad realization that this morning, there will be no creme. Now, what sick bastard would go around making a donut-like pastry that looks like an elongated Boston Creme but is only a hollow shell of what a real donut should be?

Here's the conversation I immediately had with the Feral Marketing Department:

[08:03:08] FMD: who makes an éclair without cream? [08:03:12] FMD: commies, that's who. [08:03:22] Matt: filthy reds [08:03:29] FMD: ferreals [08:03:34] Matt: of course there were no boston creme donuts [08:03:39] Matt: those were the first choice [08:03:59] FMD: fucking donut nazis. [08:04:08] Matt: "no creme for you!" [08:04:21] Matt: i'm not gonna even eat the last third [08:04:25] Matt: that's my political protest [08:04:30] Matt: in fact, i just may blog about it. [08:04:38] FMD: you should [08:04:45] FMD: that's why you have a blog, after all.

Amen, brother. Amen.

WordPress

in

If you see things looking a little different around here, it's because I bit the bullet, changed "hosts":http://dreamhost.com, and moved the blog to "WordPress":http://wordpress.com. The upgrade went pretty smoothly, but I had to leave the 1000+ comments behind for now because exporting them tended to hit a CGI(Common Gateway Interface) timeout unless I was exporting very small batches of posts at a time, and that got old and boring really quickly. So far I like the way Wordpress looks a lot. Just the ability to change themes on the site and have stuff work is very cool. When I have some time in about 3 months (heh) I'll see about hacking around in one of the canned themes to get some of my own photos/colors into a layout; maybe even similar to how I had it before.