Mark Twain warned: Never argue with an idiot- they'll just drag you down to
their level then beat you with experience. So, with very few exceptions
(like a particular person on Facebook too dim to realize I have pummeled him
that some of you have painfully witnessed time and time again), I don't
argue with idiots. I suffer them in mind-numbing silence. Alone. Up on my
cross.
As a very minor example of the Academy Boy's character deficiencies, I
present you last night's installment of "Somebody, Please Shoot Me Already:"
His musical tastes range from nu-metal to nu-metal-influenced teen pop, or,
inextricably and to my absolute horror, a periodic but thorough cavort, from
start to finish, not missing a single, solitary note... through ALL of
Meatloaf's "Love By The Dash Board Lights," which honest-to-god raises the
bile to my throat each time. I could stab my ears. I SHOULD stab my ears.
Anyway... Last night he came in with something completely different (keep in
mind I crossed the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and now part of
the Indian Ocean with this guy, listening to his music for 8 hours a day)
that he'd recently copied from somebody's music collection. When I casually
asked what he was listening to, he replied "Clash." Well, he grunted it,
really. And indeed, there was a Clash song playing at that moment, but
later, after hearing Ziggy Stardust and the Sex Pistols, when The Dead
Kennedys were playing, I said "that sounds like Jello Biafra," to which he
replied "it's the Clash."
OK. This moment, by itself, is so easily shrugged off as to not being worth
mentioning... he's wrong and proud of it, so what? But he's like this about
everything. Including his limited in scope but thorough in depth (ahem...
myopic) understanding of being a sailor. In inland waters he'd be the cause
of collisions, and he'd be unable to navigate b/c he has no concept of wind,
current, or tide; the proper way of simply meeting, crossing, or overtaking
a single vessel when operating in confined and heavily trafficked areas; or
what constitutes a Watch or the meaning of "with time to spare" when you
have a conflagration of meeting, crossing, and overtaking situations with
sails, vessels of varied uses, and traffic separations schemes all mixed up
and at once... But he doesn't know it, he knows only the blue water
conventions of keeping a nautical mile distance between power driven vessels
of similar use and tonnage and which lane in a traffic separation scheme is
his. But he'll say things that are so wrong... so often... it hurts my
friggin' head.
Moving on. Approaching the Straits of Hormuz and I've heard Arabic,
Tagalong, Russian, and some unrecognizable SE Asian languages on the radio
since last night, when we put Polaris on our bow and our course as
"zero-zero-zero," or True North. Sadly, Polaris was a bit wimpy last night.
And I have to make a correction- it's the Seven Sisters (I have been calling
them the Three Sisters and that is a failure to count to seven on my part).
But I remembered which is Taurus last night... no thanks to my lack of star
chart.
The Indian Ocean here, south of Iran and east of Oman, is a light "Atlantic
Ocean blue" to the horizon, but the green only hinted at yesterday now is
showing up more and turning the water (when looking into its depths) as a
deep teal. When churned it is a dirty, pale, aquamarine- like poorly mixed
blue Easter egg dye and squid ink. Strange stuff in a strange place.
And finally, my 12 x 4 shift (the crappy shift) has become the only one able
to still get 5 hours of overtime a day due to an interpretation of STCW's
Rest Requirements by someone whose job is to find that particular
interpretation the only one worth having (I cannot name names). Yay me, boo
for my department. The Deck has fallen back and is regrouping... I somehow
think the Boatswain (Bozie) has handled this before- he made it seem like an
annoying bureaucratic thing he'd have dealt with soon... he and the delegate
have both been at this for 25 years so I'm sitting back, watching and
learning from the pros. That isn't to say that the interpreters which
killed the overtime don't know what they're doing- oh, far from it... it's
just that I can ask Bozie.
their level then beat you with experience. So, with very few exceptions
(like a particular person on Facebook too dim to realize I have pummeled him
that some of you have painfully witnessed time and time again), I don't
argue with idiots. I suffer them in mind-numbing silence. Alone. Up on my
cross.
As a very minor example of the Academy Boy's character deficiencies, I
present you last night's installment of "Somebody, Please Shoot Me Already:"
His musical tastes range from nu-metal to nu-metal-influenced teen pop, or,
inextricably and to my absolute horror, a periodic but thorough cavort, from
start to finish, not missing a single, solitary note... through ALL of
Meatloaf's "Love By The Dash Board Lights," which honest-to-god raises the
bile to my throat each time. I could stab my ears. I SHOULD stab my ears.
Anyway... Last night he came in with something completely different (keep in
mind I crossed the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and now part of
the Indian Ocean with this guy, listening to his music for 8 hours a day)
that he'd recently copied from somebody's music collection. When I casually
asked what he was listening to, he replied "Clash." Well, he grunted it,
really. And indeed, there was a Clash song playing at that moment, but
later, after hearing Ziggy Stardust and the Sex Pistols, when The Dead
Kennedys were playing, I said "that sounds like Jello Biafra," to which he
replied "it's the Clash."
OK. This moment, by itself, is so easily shrugged off as to not being worth
mentioning... he's wrong and proud of it, so what? But he's like this about
everything. Including his limited in scope but thorough in depth (ahem...
myopic) understanding of being a sailor. In inland waters he'd be the cause
of collisions, and he'd be unable to navigate b/c he has no concept of wind,
current, or tide; the proper way of simply meeting, crossing, or overtaking
a single vessel when operating in confined and heavily trafficked areas; or
what constitutes a Watch or the meaning of "with time to spare" when you
have a conflagration of meeting, crossing, and overtaking situations with
sails, vessels of varied uses, and traffic separations schemes all mixed up
and at once... But he doesn't know it, he knows only the blue water
conventions of keeping a nautical mile distance between power driven vessels
of similar use and tonnage and which lane in a traffic separation scheme is
his. But he'll say things that are so wrong... so often... it hurts my
friggin' head.
Moving on. Approaching the Straits of Hormuz and I've heard Arabic,
Tagalong, Russian, and some unrecognizable SE Asian languages on the radio
since last night, when we put Polaris on our bow and our course as
"zero-zero-zero," or True North. Sadly, Polaris was a bit wimpy last night.
And I have to make a correction- it's the Seven Sisters (I have been calling
them the Three Sisters and that is a failure to count to seven on my part).
But I remembered which is Taurus last night... no thanks to my lack of star
chart.
The Indian Ocean here, south of Iran and east of Oman, is a light "Atlantic
Ocean blue" to the horizon, but the green only hinted at yesterday now is
showing up more and turning the water (when looking into its depths) as a
deep teal. When churned it is a dirty, pale, aquamarine- like poorly mixed
blue Easter egg dye and squid ink. Strange stuff in a strange place.
And finally, my 12 x 4 shift (the crappy shift) has become the only one able
to still get 5 hours of overtime a day due to an interpretation of STCW's
Rest Requirements by someone whose job is to find that particular
interpretation the only one worth having (I cannot name names). Yay me, boo
for my department. The Deck has fallen back and is regrouping... I somehow
think the Boatswain (Bozie) has handled this before- he made it seem like an
annoying bureaucratic thing he'd have dealt with soon... he and the delegate
have both been at this for 25 years so I'm sitting back, watching and
learning from the pros. That isn't to say that the interpreters which
killed the overtime don't know what they're doing- oh, far from it... it's
just that I can ask Bozie.
"Often wrong but never in doubt?!?"
ReplyDeletePlease don't stab those ear holes. I understand the desire... Meatloaf, really??? But please don't. At least you finally got some variety. Maybe it's the beginning of a new trend.
Marine Traffic isn't cooperating with updated information. Not sure why. Thanks for always posting updates.