Friends

Due to my recent relocation from Puerto Rico to Louisiana, I have not been able to access my blog, because of technical difficulties, while at work.

Those difficulties basically stem from the fact that the crew member that worked with us (prior to our tug boat being repositioned in the Bayou) was our source for the internet signal he provided us via his wireless router. Since he is gone, our internet access is gone.

 There are many idle hours each day for a guy who works on a tug for 3 weeks at a time, and I can't believe how much I miss playing on my blogspot. When checking out my favorite blogs the time seems to fly right by. I've been blog-less for the last 2 weeks, and I miss it.

This post will be sent via the company computer in the wheel house, which is something our company frowns upon. "The company computer is to be used for company business only."

Oh please!

Anyway, I'm breaking the rule because something happened today that I thought was worth blogging about.

A fellow crew member and friend, who I shall call Raphael, gave me a gift today.

Raffie is from Puerto Rico and has always gotten a kick out of my interest in Latin Music. (See earlier post on this subject) Quite often there is Salsa music emanating from my room as he would walk past and he would always say something about the "Gringo" listening to "his" music.

I have shared with Raffie, for his amusement, my jaunts to the Latin clubs near my home with my wife for a night of dancing. The fact that 2 of my Irish daughters also Latin dance just cracks him up. He has always appreciated the fact that I had shown an interest in his Puerto Rican culture.

It turns out our time sailing together is quickly coming to an end because of a realignment our company is doing with some of the boat crews. In a few days our crew will be sent in different directions, scattered throughout the United States to join other boats.

I mentioned to my friend Raffie, a long time ago, that I wanted to buy a guiro, which is a percussion hand instrument played frequently in Latin music. When we talked about this he told me of a friend of his in Puerto Rico who is a painter, and went on to explain this abstract painting this guy did, which has a beautiful guiro as its center piece. "I'm going to get you a print of it someday, you wait, and you'll love it."We had this discussion about 6 months ago.

Today I walked into my room, and on my bed was a framed print of the painting we talked about many months earlier.

There are plenty of things to complain about in my job, but one of the benefits it offers is the opportunity to meet people, really nice people, I would never get the chance to meet otherwise.

Today I got a gift from a friend.

---

Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Get 25 GB of free online storage. Check it out.