Lauderdale evening

On my walk to the gym tonight I passed this canal. I love the Christmas lights.



More lights, this time in the sky. Behold the lovely Venus and Jupiter conjunction.

Jupiter Venus Conjuction

(pic from Sky and Telescope)

Tonight and tomorrow, check out the sky. Jupiter and Venus are conjunct within one degree of each other in Capricorn. In astronomy and astrology, a conjuction refers to when two planets are within two degrees or less from each other. And throw in the crescent moon for a nice photo op.

In the astrological sense, if planets were like people, Jupiter would be Santa Claus -- it's a feel-good, lucky jovial star. Venus is the planet of love. So their conjunction is good for romance, money and just feeling warm and fuzzy. Jupiter expands your vision and radiates positive vibes that tend to produce good luck and helps anything it is associated with, this time Venus, which rules love and money.

Here in southern Florida, where it has been completely beautiful, clear and perfect for stargazing for the past, oh, month -- this is today's weather. I took this video just now. Poo. Hopefully where you are, it's clear.

The mystery of Thanksgiving as explained by foreigners

Last night a yachtie friend from Sussex, England invited me to go to Waxy's Irish Pub, a popular watering hole frequented by the Euro crew. I enjoy listening to him say funny words in his thick British accent, like "bloke" and "mate" and "brilliant" and "bangers" (weird British entree) and "chippie (carpenter) and so on. Here we are, sipping our pints, when the following conversation took place. I'm lucky beer didn't shoot out of my nose from laughing so hard.

ENGLISH: It's dead here tonight.
ME: Yeah, because of Thanksgiving.
ENGLISH: Is it true that Thanksgiving is about thanking the slaves?
ME: What?
ENGLISH: Yeah, Jamie [the captain of the boat English works on] told me that Thanksgiving came about back when American people had slaves, and they decided to have a holiday to thank them, so Thanksgiving was when the owners would cook dinner for the slaves.
ME: That is the craziest thing I have ever heard. Where's Jamie from?
ENGLISH: Australia.

I give English the story about the Mayflower, the Puritans, Plymouth rock, the Indians, the feast, blah blah blah.

ENGLISH: Are you sure?
ME: Yes, I'm sure.
ENGLISH: So Thanksgiving really has nothing to do with slaves?
ME: No, it really doesn't.

Blogging from the Gulf of Aden

There is a yachtie publication called Dockwalk whose readership is made up of captains and crew. In the online version, there are blogs, including one written by Captain Ivaylo Chividzhiyan who drives the below 133-meter yacht, Seabourn Spirit. In 2005, pirates attacked her with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Thankfully the crew fought off the pirates by using acoustic sonic devices and by running one of the pirate boats over. Holy smoke! Guess they aren't taking any chances nowadays.



The captain wrote yesterday,

Hey Mates, Great adrenaline-high and adventurous events going on in the Gulf of Aden Passing with a respectful squad of 11 French heavy armed soldiers and an escorting Fregate. What an honour :) There is a Chopter as well, spying long-range ahead. Some ships transmit sporadically Pirate's May Day, then our French guys load their weapons and stand-by staring to the horizon - amazing experience, isn't it ? We are making our way through the Gulf towards Khasab and Dubai later. Godspeed!

Unreal.

Crew house entertainment

This is Russia, looking quite pleased on the left, versus South Africa, who's just lost his queen. Not that you can really see that.


Isn't this the teeniest tiny little chess set you've ever seen? The pieces are smaller than your pinkie fingernail. They asked me to play the winner, but I declined. I didn't have my microscope handy.

What I'm thankful for this year

I had a brief pity party for myself today as I moped about how I'm not able to be with my family tomorrow on Thanksgiving-- but then I realized how much I have to be thankful for.

Because tomorrow's holiday is actually about recognizing all the blessings that we have, I decided to take a few minutes and write down the things I am thankful for in 2008. They include, in no particular order:

• grape Gatorade G2
• really good headphones

• girly DaKine backpacks
• Barack Obama having won
  
• people who say "please" and "thank you"
• living in Manhattan
• living on a boat

• living at the ocean in a tropical climate
• knowing how to set a beautiful table
• working with an amazing chef who's taught me a lot about food
  
• new yachtie friends I've made

• dogs, how I love them

• Rankin Bass Christmas specials

• bands who pour their soul into it, even in shitty dive bars
• generous, kind friends
• cheap gyms
• my reliable, fast, kickass bike

• knowing how to make a good martini
• Facebook
  
• real books
• writers

• Halloween
• my new Verizon wireless plug-in thingamajiggy
  
• air-conditioning
• public transportation
  
• funny kids
• good doctors (especially you, Patrick)
  
• an iPod filled with lots of good music
• my family

• learning Basic Firefighting at the Fire Academy
• "Generation Kill"
• "True Blood"
• The Daily Show
• The Colbert Report
• The Charlie Rose Show
• sausage, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches
• getting back to Maui for vacation
• learning how to stand-up paddle

• Marines who are trying to kick the Taliban's ass in Afghanistan
• people who read this blog.

Somali pirates wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Aden

When you look at the size of this Saudi oil tanker that Somali pirates raided last week in the Gulf of Aden, you think "How the hell?" These guys are seeking $25 milion -- $1 million for each crew member of the Sirius Star they are holding hostage. And they'll probably get it.

Check out The Weekly Piracy Report. Pirates are running rampant from Nigeria to Colombia to Cameroon. But most attacks are in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia.

It's not completely unusual for yacht owners to hire an ex-military guy who knows his guns to travel with them for pirate protection. Piracy incidents have declined over the past five years, except off the coast of Somalia, where they've increased 100 percent in the past year alone. The "pirate town" of Eyl is where they hold the crew for ransom.



I wondered why Somalia was the main place where piracy was going on. Turns out they haven't had a government for 20 years, their economy is beyond horrible, and fishing, once a big source of income for Somali coastal towns, is no longer a viable option.

In an interview with The Guardian this week, pirate Asad Abdulahi said "we consider ourselves heroes running away from poverty. We don't see the hijacking as a criminal act but as a road tax because we have no central government to control our sea."

The BBC interviewed a retired Somali army colonel who lives in Eyl and advises town elders. He explains that in addition to piracy,

. . . there has been something else going on and it has been going on for years. There are many dumpings made in our sea, so much rubbish.

It is dumped in our seas and it washes up on our coastline and spreads into our area. A few nights ago, some tanks came out from the high sea and they are leaking into the water and into the air.

The first people fell ill yesterday afternoon. People are reporting mysterious illnesses; they are talking about it as though it were chicken pox - but it is not exactly like that either. Their skin is bad. They are sneezing, coughing and vomiting.

This is the first time it has been like this; that people have such very, very bad sickness.

The people who have these symptoms are the ones who wake early, before it is light, and herd their livestock to the shore to graze. The animals are sick from drinking the water and the people who washed in the water are now suffering.

This town is close to the sea. It is a very old town which has a mixture of Somali clans. It is not big but it has a well-knit community.

Our community used to rely on fishing. But now no-one fishes. You see, a lot of foreign ships were coming and they were fishing heavily - their big nets would wipe out everything, even the fishermen's equipment. They could not compete.

So the people here began farming and keeping greater numbers of livestock. Like in any other Somali town, all one can do is rely on oneself.

But now we have these medical hazards.

What can we do about it?

That's a good question, but in the meantime, what can vulnerable vessels do to counter pirate attacks?

In addition to electric fences along the ship's guard rail, holographic radar for advanced warning, and even good old-fashioned barbed wire, there are some cool technological advances that ships can deploy, including sonic devices that can practically blow out the pirates' eardrums called LRAD, or Long Range Acoustical Device, made by the American Technology Corporation.

(photo by xeni)

Then there's the Magnetic Acoustic Device (MAD), pictured above, which also emits a warning noise like a focused laser beam of sound. The manufacturer's president Vahan Simidian says, "Should [pirates] keep on closing, the captain would commence evasive actions and switch on 'tone' - this is a piercing sound that will irritate and disorientate them," he said. "For now, the speakers on a merchant vessel aren't capable of hurting a person. Is our technology capable of hurting someone? Absolutely."

Basic Fire Fighting at the Broward Fire Academy

Every crew's worst nightmare

For our final day of SCTW '95 class, which concluded the Basic Fire Fighting portion, we had to be at Broward Fire Academy by 9 a.m.



After we were given the correct fitting pants, jacket, and boots, we then went to a classroom where a firefighter instructed us on how to assemble, wear and operate a fire fighter's air pack, which is a little bit smaller than a SCUBA tank and is worn with the cylinder upside down so the first stage regulator won't get caught on any hanging debris or wires.



This is Harry, who decided on a complete career change recently. He's getting his 200-ton yachtmaster license, which will enable him to drive superyachts like a good-sized 150-footer. The larger the boat, the more the captain gets paid. Salary goes by the meter for most crew personnel.



Three out of these people are already captains taking this class to renew their SCTW licenses, which last five years before expiring. Most of us in the class were newbies.



We each had to extinguish two outside fires, this one above using a dry chemical extinguisher, and another fire with a carbon dioxide extinguisher. Dry chem smothers the fire, and the freezing cold C02 extinguisher sucks all the oxygen out of the air, preventing the fire from burning. If you have a fire near electronic equipment, say in the wheel house, you don't want to use dry chem because it is highly corrosive and will rust metal within one day. However, you can't use a C02 extinguisher inside without good ventilation because you won't be able to breathe.



Not that you can tell, but this is me looking really, really sexy wearing 20 pounds of non-breathable protective clothing and a 30-pound air pack. This was just before attaching the regulator to the mask a la Darth Vader for the "Find Dead Fred" exercise, which entails crawling on hands and knees in a pitch-black apartment to locate a fallen victim and dragging his 170-pound ass out to safety. During this exercise, for which I was designated the team leader, my mask malfunctioned which set off the high-pitched "leak alarm" on my air pack. Since there wasn't any smoke for this exercise, the firefighter shut off my air to quell the alarm, so not only was I wearing 50 pounds of equipment in this hot, un-airconditioned Florida apartment, but I also had on a wool hood which protects your face and ears, and a plastic mask strapped over my face with no fresh air coming in. It was steamy and hot and disgusting. But we found Fred and rescued the dummy.



The last exercise was the scariest for me, because the inside temperature of the above training trailer was 500 degrees at floor level, to 700 degrees at standing height. In teams of three, we climbed the ladder to the roof. Then we descended another interior ladder one at a time and got into position. Each member of the team has particular function, and we each took turns being the lead firefighter who hoses the fire. The most dangerous part of using the hose is steam. One gallon of water creates 1700 cubic feet of steam in a house fire, so you have to be really careful not to use a lot of water. The protective gear is great against dry heat, but steam can permeate through your jacket and pants and cook you like a lobster. I fared well, but one of the girls in class fainted from the heat. Of course the firemen took great care and revived her no problem. It was inferno hot!

As dark as it was in the trailer, the firemen kept it ventilated so it was relatively smoke-free for us. One guy told me that a burning building is pitch black inside from smoke and they have zero visibility. So completely blind, roasting hot, and crawling on their knees, because it's cooler near the floor, they locate the fire by feeling the radiant heat increase in temperature! Talk about job stress.



I had a great day, a lot of fun, and learned a tremendously valuable skill set. If I ever had to experience my own Poseidon Adventure. . .



. . . I'm confident I won't panic and will be able to properly handle the equipment to keep safe the best I can the passengers, my crewmates, and myself.

I think firemen are the best, and I'm sure you do too. I can assure you, however, that I have even more respect and admiration for these guys now that I've walked in their big rubber boots and experienced for myself how hot, heavy, tiring, and uncomfortable this equipment it, how scary their job is, and how easily things can go wrong. I wonder if fire fighters aren't actually badass angels in disguise.

What Bush has "accomplished"

My friend Bob (whose wonderful political musings definitely warrant a blog) just emailed me a great essay about the Bush years. Here's an excerpt that really puts it into perspective. Too much perspective.

We will remember Bush for many things: When he took office, there was a $700 billion surplus, but next year’s budget will have a one-half trillion dollar deficit. The number of Americans without health insurance has increased by 7 million people under Bush. Bush’s tax cuts gave the top 1% of income earners an extra $1,000 more per week, while the lowest 20% of income earners receive $1.50 per week. The national debt is now approaching $10 trillion. Bush promised in 2000 to create 20 million jobs, but we have growing unemployment. He created a program called, “No Child Left Behind,” but he never provided the full funds that he promised. He ordered the SEC to back-off strict enforcement of regulations of the investment industry and now we are in the worst economic period since the Great Depression. Imagine if his plan to privatize Social Security had passed!

STCW '95 Training: The Gumby Suit

Yesterday was day two at the Maritime Professional Training's STCW 95 class, the certification mandated by the Coast Guard to work on a large-ish vessel.

Training in the Gumby suits was a blast. Thankfully, the instructor made us jump from only the 4-meter board, not the super high one. Unlike a SCUBA entry where you scissor your legs, in an entry wearing a survival suit you cross your ankles. Why? Because in a real emergency while abandoning ship, "you may hit debris or bodies upon hitting the water," the instructor informed us, so you want to protect your girlie/boy parts. Yeesh.

What surprised me the most was how warm you stay in your survival suit, even though it's big and baggy unlike a wetsuit. When I finally was able to take it off, about a gallon of water poured from EACH of the leg and arm compartments. For some reason, mine seemed to fill up more than average. Nothing like climbing up the pool ladder wearing an extra fifty pounds! We got a good laugh when I kept emptying and emptying and emptying it out for the next student to wear.

Christmas Cards a la The Onion

Not that I'm pimping out the idea of holiday shopping already, but "Merry Second-To-Last Christmas" is just one of many offensively wonderful boxed Christmas cards you can buy online from The Onion (ten cards for thirteen bucks).

"Jewish Kids In the Window" below, with the Stars of David encircling the "Merry Christmas" written inside, is pretty damn twisted too.

Barack and Michelle Obama on 60 Minutes

MICHELLE: [The northeast Washington D.C. apartment] reminded me of a little better version of the apartment you were in when we first started dating. That was a dump too.

BARACK: Right near Harold's Chicken Shack.

MICHELLE:Yeah.

BARACK: Yeah. That's when I had the car with the-the hole in it.

MICHELLE: And you could see the sidewalk, because the rust had gone through.

BARACK: The air-conditioning.

MICHELLE: So that was my side. I would look and see the ground going past. And I still married him.

BARACK: That's how I knew she loved me. It wasn't for my money.

Did you catch 60 Minutes last night? Our President-Elect and his First Lady are the cutest couple ever.

I still find it hard to believe that he's this cool and a politician.

STCW '95 Training

Tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. I begin a five day-long, eight-hour-a-day training class at Maritime Professional Training here in Fort Lauderdale. This $800 class is called Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping, or STCW '95 for short. This intensive training will teach me not to lose my shit if the boat on which I'll be crewing catches on fire or capsizes. How far from the hallowed halls of Harvard can you get?

This certification course is mandated by the Coast Guard if you crew on a vessel that's bigger than a six-pack, which in dive boat speak refers to one that holds six passengers. The STCW training encompasses Basic Firefighting, Personal Survival, Personal Safety and Social Responsibility, and Elementary First Aid.

I'm looking foward to the Personal Survival part when we have to don survival suits and plunge from a thirty-foot-high platform into the water and then haul our waterlogged asses into the life raft. Awesomeness. The firefighting part seems a bit scary, as fighting fires is hardly my strong talent. I hope I don't end up looking like Beavis, that's all.



FIRE! FIRE!

Alligator versus python

"I used to let Myles sleep with Larry and me so he could stay warm, but he pooped the bed one night so Larry put an end to that." ~My friend CJ, on cuddling with her beloved six-foot pet python

My friend CJ, a wonderful artist who marches to the beat of her own drummer, had a python named Myles. While cleaning his cage, Myles needed to be kept warm, so she asked me to hold him. I said sure, as I'm not scared of snakes (cockroaches make me scream like a little girl, but not pythons).

So she carries Myles over to me and plops him on my lap. Two things shocked me. One: his extremely heavy weight. Snakes are solid muscle, and Myles felt like a ton of bricks. Two: snakes have no body heat whatsoever, and Myles was as cold as that Boston winter morning. Sensing my body heat was there for the taking, Myles started to slither up toward my head. "Uh, Myles, what are you doing?" I asked him, although snakes are deaf and he could have cared less that he was making me nervous.

Myles got up to eye level where he checked me out, his black forked tongue flicking in and out. Snakes use their tongue to smell. I hoped he didn't smell fear. Myles seemed friendly enough, though, and I wasn't worried that he'd strangle me. However when he decided to go exploring down my sweater, that was another issue altogether.

"CJ? What is he doing?" I asked in a panicky tone. She turned around from her cage-cleaning duties, amused, and said, "He's burrowing for warmth, don't worry, he won't hurt you."

Before I knew it, Myles had slithered down to my stomach, wrapped himself around me a couple of times and stuck his head out the bottom of my sweater so he could keep an eye on things. I had to laugh. This was one of the most bizarre pets I'd ever met. And he was still ice cube cold. No matter how long he remained in contact with my skin, poor Myles never seemed to warm up. I hoped CJ was almost done with the cage.

When I saw this photo this morning, I almost fainted:



There is a python explosion (literally and figuratively) in the Florida Everglades. People who buy them for pets get rid of them once they grow to cat-munching size and now they've run amok, taking over the ecosystem. This python swallowed a live alligator -- whole -- and biologists believe the gator clawed and clawed until the snake exploded. How revolting of a double death is that?

Makes me think of Myles in a whole new light. I'm glad he liked me, or that at least he wasn't hungry that day.

Shaken, not stirred.

I saw Quantum of Solace yesterday, and there was one scene that stood out. Instead of Bond giving explicit directions to a bartender which seems to happen in every Bond flick, this film had a scene that served as a foil to those other "shaken, not stirred" moments. He sits alone in First Class on a flight from Italy to Bolivia, drowning his sorrows over his loss of Vesper. His friend joins him at the bar, sees him with the martini glass, and asks what he's drinking. Bond, who is tired and buzzed, admits that he's had seven and can't recall the ingredients. So the bartender, who is peeling another lemon wedge for drink number eight, answers for him. Behold the Vesper Martini which Bond invents in Casino Royale:

• Three portions of Gordon's gin,
• one portion of vodka
• a half-portion of Kina Lillet (pronounced lee-LAY) vermouth, now known as Lillet Blanc
• and a slice of lemon peel.

And of course it's shaken, not stirred. Does anyone really stir martinis anymore?

Here are some gratuitious photos of Mr. Craig that have nothing to do with martinis, but who cares?





Want to look like this while sipping your martini, gentlemen? The workout that trainer and ex-Royal Marine Simon Waterson put together for Daniel is the following;

• Clean & Press
• Squat
• Bench Press (super-setted with push ups)
• Chins
• Dips
• Bicep Curls
• Lateral Rotation (L-Flys)

Four sets (one of them being a warm up) of each exercise with reps and weight varying over the six week programme. In order to maximise fat burning effect, Simon suggests moving from one exercise to another with minimum rest periods. Also, the time between sets should also be kept to a strict minimum.

Repeat 3 – 4 times a week.

Apple cider hilarity

I buy some apple cider and am drinking it at lunch in the crew mess area.

FIRST MATE: What kind of cider is that?

ME: It's this brand (turning the container so he can see the label).

FIRST MATE: Oh, well if you see Dickins Cider, that's really good.

ME: Dickins? I've never seen that one. The store only had this kind, but I'll look for Dickens the next time.

FIRST MATE: Yeah, Dickens Cider is the best one.

CHEFFIE: Another good one is Cummins.

FIRST MATE: Cummins Cider, that's a good too!

ME: Cummins, okay.

FIRST MATE and CHEFFIE burst out laughing.

ME: What's so damn funny?

FIRST MATE and CHEFFIE laugh even more.

ME: Oh shit, I just got it. I feel like Mo when Bart prank calls him at the bar. You guys suck.

Election night coverage

What an emotional night. The relief! The happiness! This was, to me, one of the most powerful moments on television. If this image of Jesse Jackson doesn't choke you up, nothing will.




Finally, the original John McCain who used to be cool is back. Having finally escaped from his Republican handlers, this is the guy who should have been campaigning. The classy, compassionate, stand-up-guy, gracious McCain. Maybe Obama will offer him a position in his cabinet.

A bittersweet day for Obama

Poor Obama. His grandmother, who raised him from age ten to eighteen, died of cancer on Sunday night. He called her "Toot," short for the Hawaiian name Tutu that island kids call their grandparent. He must be so devastated. He told the crowd at a University of North Carolina rally yesterday, "Some of you heard that my grandmother who helped raise me passed away early this morning. I'm not going to talk about it too long because it's hard for me to talk about." He had tears in his eyes.



Obama requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made for the search for a cancer cure. For a list of the top-rated cancer research non-profits, click here for CharityNavigator.org's four-star recommendations.

Sailing to Victory: The Vote Boat

The "Vote Boat" has been cruising up and down here on Lauderdale's intercoastal for the past few days. I much prefer this portside view to the scary starboard side, pictured below.


Like Palin's lamp post nose job? I intended to do that. Really!

This "Photo Sails" is brilliant marketing. I didn't know you could print such quality four-color high resolution on sail cloth. You learn something new everyday.

Alex and the Woodpecker

My sister Susan has two teenagers. She tells me that they both hate being asked questions. Any questions whatsoever. She says this "Zits" comic strip from last Thursday utterly and thoroughly represents her current state of motherhood (click image to enlarge).



So I can just imagine her quietly sitting at her kitchen table early one morning last week, sipping her tea, reading the paper, and certainly not asking any questions when the following event happens.

My 17 year-old nephew Alex sleeps on the second floor of their house. Right above his bedroom window, under the eave, is a woodpecker. TAP TAP TAP TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP. It starts revving up with the pecking thing really early. And high-schoolers do not like being awakened early.



Rudely roused from heavy teenaged slumber yet again by the incessant pecking, Alex pads downstairs, silently passes his mother in the kitchen, proceeds to the gun cabinet, and removes the .22. Still without a single utterance of explanation, he then shuffles outside, throws pebbles from the driveway at said woodpecker, causing it to fly away in alarm, whereupon he readies, aims and fires. BAM!



And just like that, with one shot, the inconsiderate dawn aviary alarm clock has ceased to be a problem. I can just imagine my birdfeeder-filling, National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds-owning sister watching this scenario unfold from the kitchen window. Alex then returns to the house, locks the harbinger of death back in its case, joins my sister at the table, and matter-of-factly says, "Mom. What's for breakfast?"

And I apologize in advance if this story upsets you, but before commenting on my cold-blooded murderous animal-hating kin or some such nonsense, check this woodpecker damage out. Wouldn't you want to shoot the damn thing too?