Aunt Helen Again

SO, it's the usual routine, I get off the boat, head to the airport and spend a few hours unwinding before catching my flight home.
Today I"m hunkered down in a corner of an establishment inside George Bush Airport. Like any travelers today, I pull out my laptop, set up shot, order a glass of wine, avoid direct eye contact with the other patrons and check my email.

The no direct eye contact is I think a result of the computer age, but that's a subject for another time.

My inbox showed I had an email from my cousin. He sent me a video of the wedding of my Aunt Helen. Who is Aunt Helen, you may ask? Just an awesome lady is all. She passed recently, I spoke about her in a previous post here. http://mark-marksrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2013/01/last-spring-i-attended-family-st.html

Anyway, so I have this video to look at. Great. I mean really, how good can this thing be? She was deep into her 90's when she passed, got married at the age when many people first get married, so you do the math, this is an old video.

So, I had time to kill, let me open this thing.
Let me tell you, it was a crazy experience watching that. There they were, all of my Aunts and Uncles, some of whom looking like they appear in my memory bank, and there, is that my Dad? Holy moly, it is!

But one image really threw me. The youngest of my Aunts and Uncles, who are all gone now, was Aunt Franny. Aunt Franny died at a young age so the only memories I have of her is of a young woman. I remember her being as sweet as they come, even sweeter. The video closes with a candid shot of her in a car, running her hands through her hair, smiling, all candid. All like I remember her.

It was a moving experience watching this.

In closing let me say this, hats should come back in fashion. Hats for women, hats for men.
Class.

Asparagus ??

Yeah.

I got nothing today.

*

When I worked on the ships when I was younger

I kept a journal for about 5 years.

I do enjoy looking back through it once in a while.

So when I came on the boat this time

I said to myself

I'm going to start up this journal keeping again.

I came on board  April 10th.

My first journal entry was April 11th.

My last journal entry was April 11th.

Ok, this obviously isn't working.

Like I said, I got nothing today.

In contrast, this post on scotch +soba

is interesting, clever, funny and scrumptious.

( Yes this is a shameless attempt at promoting my daughters blog, work with me here.) 

Various Stuff

In the time it took me to drink a cup of coffee on the stern today,

cream and sugar please,

I saw this.

**

I usually like listening to Bill Maher who hosts "Real Time,"his sarcasm filled show about anything politics.

But I disagree with what he said yesterday about the Boston police. He showed a picture of riot gear clad cops walking beside armored tank vehicles as they searched for the bombers responsible for causing havoc all through the city and the country.

He claims that was a bit "over the top", and says we live in a police state. Anyone who knows anything about law enforcement, and that does not include Bill, has been saying what a wonderful job the authorities did in Bean Town, to investigate and capture one of the suspects. (killers)

Does Bill forget already the anxiety that permeated the air for 3 days as we wondered if more bombs were going to go off?

Hey, they could have flown F-16 fighters at tree top level up and down the city streets for all I care.

I don't think they were over the top at all.

**

Last weekend just days after the problems in Boston,

36000 adrenalin filled runners stood at the starting line of the London Marathon.

They dialed back their competitive urges for 30 seconds of silence,

in remembrance of those injured by the Boston bombs.

I thought that was very cool. 

** 

Some guy named Swarez plays soccer for Liverpool.

They say he's a "big time striker."

I don't know what that means,

but Mr. Swarez recently

took a chunk out of the competition,

I mean literally,

when he BIT an opponent on the arm.

I saw the video.

I'm not talking a small little "get away from me" type of bite,

it wasn't a nibble.

It was a  "Man you taste good" type of bite.

Swarez gnawed on this guys forearm with the concentration of my Grandfather

cleaning the meat off the bone of a Thanksgiving Turkey! 

And they say soccer FANS are crazy??

i what?

As soon as I walked outside today

into the glare of a overcast, dull,

very uncooperative photographic conditions,

my first thought was

I'M GLAD I DON'T HAVE AN IPHONE!!

Sure, that sleek little baby is easy to carry

and can fit nicely in your pocket,

next to your car keys and breath mints,

but can it capture a formation

of pelicans at 300 yards????

 I think Not.

Sure, the iPhone is the popular thing to have

and you're always just a finger swipe away

from updating your status on Facebook,

 but

Will it freeze a moment in time

in the most unforgiving lighting,

while large jawed prehistoric looking birds

wizz but at 20 MPH?

 I don't THINK so.

Just keep your phone/music player in your pocket

and wait until the next toddler birthday party you attend to brandish that baby.

I hear the iPhone takes great balloon pictures.

BOOM!!

Hey iPhoners......

I'm just messing with ya.

Showoff

Steve Jobs, the genius behind the popularity of "APPLE" , has me a little ticked off. I know, he passed away sometime ago, but still....hear me out.

I was out on the bow of the tug yesterday capturing photos of dolphins. My weapon of choice, a Nikon D3000 with Nikkor 55-200mm lens. 

As our tug cut through the oil polluted waters of the Gulf of Mexico at a dazzling speed of about 12MPH, I perched myself over the edge, pressing the shutter every time I sensed those beautiful beasts were about to break the surface.

Soon, the dolphin, who glide through the water with the ease of no other, swam off, bored with the slow speed of our tug. I immediately starting checking my photos, and I saw I captured a few good shots. With the excitement and pride of a grade schooler running home to show his mommy the "A" on his report card, I ran up to the wheel house, excited to show the mate on watch my newest pictures.

As we started looking at them, when I got to picture #3, he interrupts me, and with the excitement of a grade schooler running home to show his mommy that he got TWO "A's" on his report card he says, "Oh, wait, check this out." He takes out his damn iPhone. ( I say "damn iPhone" because I don't have one.) He swipes his screen and taps it a few times and hands me the iPhone to look at, as he says, "I just took this earlier."

What I'm watching is a VIDEO of freekin dolphins jumping this way and that, on the same bow I just came in from where I was taking antiquated still photography. Gulp!

Not only am I watching dolphin jumping like I'm at Sea World, I can actually HEAR the water as they dive back in. The clarity of the video is so clear, I asked for a towel to dry myself off, I thought I was actually in the water with them.

Seriously mate? Way to burst my bubble.

At the conclusion of the near perfect video, he swiped his finger across the screen and re-pocketed his iPhone, with the deftness of a gunslinger twirling his pistols before holstering them.

Showoff!

I lifted my large, obtrusive and dated piece of equipment called a camera and slinked off to my room, alone, to peruse my single frames of dolphin.

Now do you understand my issue with Steve Jobs?

He wanted to invent a device that combined internet, phone and music. Waalaa! iPhone.

He added the camera with video capabilities just to piss me off.

Flipper's back.

As luck would have it, I was standing up in the wheelhouse with the mate chatting about nothing in particular, when I noticed off in the distance, my friends, heading our way to play for a bit at the bow of our tug.

 The mate was in mid sentence and I just took off, ran downstairs to get my camera and ran out onto the bow.  I'm usually not rude like that but hey, everyone on here knows, if dolphin are involved, I'm getting my camera, we can resume our conversation when the dolphin decide to leave.

Seeing Flipper always puts a smile on my face. 

Weather patterns

After spending the first 10 days of my time back on the boat

at the dock,

I was nice to finally get underway again.

The positives for being at the dock are

TV

Internet

and 

calls home.

The negatives are

endless emails from the office

endless calls from the office,

did I mention endless emails from the office?

So it was nice to get out of town

if only for 48 hrs or so.

Once we got to the entrance of Freeport, Texas

which was our destination

the seas turned a bit nasty,

just nasty enough to prevent us from getting off the tow wire

and into pushing mode.

Which meant,

"weather patterns."

Basically what that is,

is we just run really slow, just barely moving

and we do circles out in the Gulf

but we stay within 10 miles or so of the entrance

in case the weather improved enough for us to do

what we have to do

to start pushing, instead of towing, the barge safely.

Doing circles, going nowhere works on your head.

I overheard the captain explaining what its like, to do weather patterns, to his wife.

"Honey, get in the car and go to the mall parking lot.

Put the care in first gear

and drive around the outside of the parking lot.

Go no faster than 5 MPH.

You can not go into the mall,

just keep driving around the parking lot in a circle,

for 24 hours.

That's what it's like to do "weather patterns."

Heavy sigh.

I see a lot of strange things on the water,

barges carrying all kinds of unusual stuff.

But I've never seen these before.

I'm told by our chief mate

that these are off shore anchors.

Actually, these big pipes get lower into the water 

until they reach the bottom.

At that point all the air gets sucked out of them

and these things sink into the ocean floor.

If you zoom into the draft marks on the side, you see the top mark

say 110. That's 110 feet.

I'm assuming these are used

once they are secured below the ocean floor

to anchor oil rigs in place.

I didn't go back and ask the mate.

He was getting all full of himself explaining to me

how they work.

**

SCOREBOARD UPDATE.

BOSTON 2

TERRORIST 0.

I just saw on tv

at 8:45 pm the second terrorist

who was on the run,

ran out of room.

They showed scenes

of the citizens on the street

giving the police a round of applause

as they drove out of town after cornering

and capturing the younger brother

of the 2 men who were involved in the bombings in Boston the other day.

I can't even imagine what Bill O'Reilly (Fox News)will come up with

to complain about on this one.

Big props to the Boston police, FBI and all who were involved.

Big props also to the citizens of Boston.

What a nightmare this has been.

I was thinking today as I was working in the engine room

how drastically life has changed in just the short 57 years I have been around.

I was thinking of the images I had just seen,

SWAT teams going door to door in a once sleepy neighborhood in Boston.

German shepards being led around sniffing for bombs.

Empty streets

because the police had told everyone to stay inside.

( Easier to catch a murdering coward trying to blend into a crowd.

No crowds, no blending.)

Neighborhoods that look like war zones

with SWAT trucks

and armed men anxiously searching

with guns at the ready.

Hell, when I was a kid

my neighbor would go to Mass on Sunday

and leave their young child in a crib,

on the front patio with no worries.

OK, I agree

as I type that it just hit me

how crazy that was.

But you get my point, right?

YAY BOSTON!!

CSI, CNN and wall licking

Did you see where the FBI seem to be targeting 2 guys with black backpacks ( say that 10 times fast) for the bombings at the Boston Marathon.
They have released video footage of the guys they are zeroing in on. Hey, I hope they're right, I hope they have this figured out, because as time goes on the harder it will be to catch whoever did this.

I'll give you this, I'm sure the FBI is better at figuring this stuff out than I am, but when I look at the video, I can't tell what they're carrying and I don't know where they are headed. They could be headed to the locations where they sat the bags down and promptly ruined the lives of many, but if you told me they were heading to the nearest restroom because they had to "go", I'd believe you. I have no idea. I'm just praying they wrap this case up quickly.

**

While scanning CNN online I saw the teaser, "What Mitt thought of the Presidents speech." Immediately my pulse quickened.

"Are you kidding me," I thought. "Is he actually going to dump on Obama's speech"

Why can't we leave politics out of it. This isn't the time for Mr. Romney to be attacking the President. Boston is in shambles, our country has been wounded again. Leave it alone Mitt.

Then I read the article.

Mitt said he thought the President gave a superb speech and was inspired by it.

Way to go Mitt.

**

 Ginger is our old dog, oh, about 150 years old I think. Anyway, she's not as sharp as she once was. While I was on the phone with my wife yesterday I asked, " How's Ginger?" My wife replied, in a tone that suggested this is perfectly normal behavior,  "Well, she's licking the wall right now." 

Like I said, not as sharp as she once was.

I just visited the Gun Owners of America web site and their just beside themselves with joy.
Most of this country's Senators voted against stronger gun control today, and do you know who's fault it is?
It's ours.

Polls show that over 90% of Americans are in favor of changing, in some small way, our gun control laws, which, by the way, are the laughing stock of most other countries. So, if 90% of American's wanted the Senators to vote yes to tougher gun control, and most of them voted no to tougher gun control, then, who do the Senators represent, and why are they still in that job?

Some of this blame has to go to the citizens who don't vote, or just go up and vote the same way each time, just like their Dad used to vote, or to the people who will bitch about this outcome but do nothing about it. If you wanted your Senator to vote yes today, and he didn't, he should not get your vote next time around. The system isn't working, but it's because we're not trying to fix it.

If you're part of the small percentage of Americans who wanted this gun control legislation to fail, well, congratulations to you, this is your lucky day. I'm sure the families of those killed by guns would love to hear your reasoning on not wanting more extensive background checks for people who want to buy guns.

This idea that any little change to anything relating to gun laws, automatically means to you that the government is coming to take away all your guns, well Mr./Mrs paranoia, the government doesn't want your freekin guns! They just don't want crazy people walking into a school with one.

John Adams, one of our founding fathers said,  everyone has the right to own a gun, but along with that right should be a set of laws to be followed. Why doesn't the NRA only recite the first part of that sentence?

The Senators are supposed to be the voice of the people, not the NRA, Gun Owners of America and any other gun lobby you can name.
It's nauseating what happened in Washington today.
The people did not speak.
Lobbyist did, and that's shameful.