Jan 17-31
|
Vancouver
to
 Honolulu
Fred Hansen, Winter, 2005
|
FRED Home
|
We docked
around 2:30, but the ship was cleared by customs for disembarkation
only at 3:30. We duly slogged forth in the rain on various errands.
S needed Canadian $2 coins to ride the bus tomorrow, so we stopped at a
currency exchange. Very modern architecture. Modern business, too; they
don't really have any money. They just put money "into" plastic cards.
This
is of little use to us since our charge cards already do a fine job of
currency conversion. S had to look elsewhere, so we split.
Next I stopped in at a pharmacy to fill a prescription I'd had no
chance to fill. Not so fast, they say. You have to get a Canadian
doctor. But fear not. We have a tame one who will write a Canadian
prescription and just charge you $40. (Others charge $100.) So I
slopped along two blocks to the doctor; mostly under overhanging roofs.
To his credit the doc noted it was blood pressure medication and did
take my pressure. Disappointingly, it was still as high as it
had been to initiate the prescription back in Pittsburgh. This despite
my having actually started on the trip and "relaxed" at sea for three
days. Returning to the pharmacy I learned why so mnay Americans come to
Canada for medication. My co-pay for the prescribed drug in Pittsburgh
had been $24 for 30
pills. The total charge in Vancouver, without insurance, for 100
generic pills was $29, and
that's in Canadian dollars.
The parent reception was this evening. Parents and siblings, but
students not allowed. Parents can come on board tomorrow with their
children. Amazing choclate dragon and ship on the buffet. I ate too
many of the nut-filled dessert cakes.
Exercise: 2 mi. Desserts: numerous.
The students
arrive. I spent the whole day trying to move the mozilla/composer
sources from Unix to Win/XP. Finally succeeded using TFTP.
Everyone went on deck to see the ship leave.
Dinner wait was 35 minutes.
Here might be a good place to describe the layout of the vessel. The
public areas are decks 2 through 7. Others are crew only. Deck two has
passengers and the clinic. Outside the clinic on the wall are two
slots, as might be used to tuck in a few file folders. The top one has
packets of Meclizine, a useful seasickness antidote. This slot needed
to be refilled often for the first day, though people get accustomed to
the sea surprisingly quickly. The other slot has condoms. I don't know
how often it gets refilled. Decks three and four are passenger cabins,
end to end, with two corridors on each deck and thus four cabins across
the ship's beam. Most of the outside cabins have windows. None have
portholes. The windows on 4 are quite large. Each corridor is about 600
feet long and around a 150 feet from the corridor end to the nearest
crosswalk. Thus walking all the corridors on decks 2, 3, and 4 gives a
workout of nearly a mile.
Deck 5 has the lifeboats ranging along its rails. Inboard it has some
passenger cabins. The main dining room is aft. With four feeding lines
there is not too much waiting. Jost forward of the dining room is
classroom 9. Amidships on deck 5 is a circular area called, for
historical reasons, Pursars Square. Here are the principle offices for
passengers: ship's pursar on starboard, SAS administration on port.
Just forward of the Square are offices for the two deans (academic and
executive; S and Becky Drury). Above the Square is an atrium reaching
into the 6th deck.
Deck 6 is the principal living areas. Aft is another dining area, the
Garden Lounge, somewhat less formal than the main one. It was the only
dining area for the trip to Vancouver, so the faculty have come to
favor it for all meals. Two classrooms occupy the port side of the
dining area, and serve as eating areas during meals. Mysteriouls
guarding the middle of the room is a large floor to ceiling box
disguised with bubbling columns on its sides. Running from the
Garden Lounge to the atrium is what was the "street of shops" for the
cruiseship. The snackbar is starboard while port sports three
classrooms, formerly more lonuge, the library, and the cardrrom.
Then come a small circle with variety store port and clothing store
starboard. The atrium was formerly surrounded by the casino, but is now
the library on port and the computer lab on starboard. About 20 desktop
computers are arrayed on two tables and available for student use. All
access a single set of shared folders. Anyone can create a folder and
store files, providing they are willing that anyone else be able to
read and revise those files. My own approach is to have the master copy
of my files on my laptop and to recreate my public folder to update it.
That way no one can permanently revise my files but I have them as an
emergency backup. Forward on deck six is the main lounge. This is the
site of the morning "Global Studies" class taken by all passengers,
students, faculty, staff, and mere hangers-on like myself. The aft ends
of the lounge are marked off as classrooms 6 and 7. Classroom 8 is
between the computer lab and the lounge.
Deck 7 is the luxury areas. Aft is the elegant outside sunning area
complete with pool descending to fill the Garden Lounge's mysterious
box. Some exercise equipment lines the starboard side. Forward of the
sun area is the Jade Spa: beauty shop, massages, sauna, facials, large
bathtub, mudpacks, and so on. Unable to reconfigure this space, the
decision was made to man it (or woman it). So these facilities
are available. I wonder whether the students will much use them.
Students are, however, overloading the spa's gym component, featuring
five elliptical machines, six cycling machines, three stair-steppers,
and only two treadmills--my weapon of choice. There is no internal
passage from aft to bow on deck 7, so we have to go outside to move
from the gym to our room. (Inclement weather forces a descent to deck 6
and s subsequent ascent.) The housing on deck 7 is opulent. Each room
has a private patio. The fittings are much more motel than ship. Each
has its own TV and fridge. Ours, somewhat larger, even has a
massive hide-a-bed sofa. Furthest forward on 7 is the faculty staff
lounge. It is much too large for the purpose, having been the ship's
discotheque in its former life. Allegedly free coffee will be available
here 24x7 and evenings will see full bar service.
Exercise: none.
The
day began very early. The sea was rough and so: my bed creaked, the TV
swang from side to side; and the bathroom door kept banging into the
tub. I finally fixed the latter by stuffing the sofa cushion behind it.
(Oh yeah, the dean gets a sofa.) After breakfast I complained about
those items to Dante, our cabin steward. Amazingly, by dinner time they
were all fixed.
I arose at 6:30, breakfasted and walked on the treadmill. Then I began
trying to build the composer. A short way in, Maggie came by to tell me
my wife was lying on the floor having felt the effects of the strong
sea right in the middle of presenting her faculty. I walked her up to
the room
Exercise: 3 km
Sea much
calmer this morning. No whitecaps. Long swell so the ship does pitch a
bit, but tolerable. E joined us for breakfast and I started right in
compliaing about IT matters. Wrong. After I bit I ealized my error and
breakfast was pleasant.
Running on battery, computer did not behave well initially. Right
button seemed stuck. Unable to click to get focus. Could not drag from
explorer to word pad. Explorer doing lots of I/O.
I left off building "composer" last night with the problem that gcc was
taken to be "cl." Today I found this in composer/configure.in. In order
to set environment variables, I created "fred" as a legitimate user.
Then I had to change owner on all files and figure out how to get tcsh
going.
Next problem: composer wants glib, but it has to be installed so
it can all be accessed from one prefix path. I either have to fix
composer source or change my glib setup. Sigh.
Exercise: Elliptical machine. Distance 2.1 in 45 minutes. Miles or km?
Last night
was *wild*! Tremendous roll, lots of banging and creaking. I did not
seem to sleep. The administrative offices were all over the floor.
Breakfast delayed due to havoc in the gallery. The piano in the lounge
suffered; a leg snapped off, tipping it completely over. It wound up on
the opposite side of the dance floor, with the lid torn off and in
another corner of the dance floor.
Gained another hour. Now on Hawaii time. Computer slow to get
started again.
Maggie wants me to do the ba duk lecture tomorrow night. Just before
activities fair.
The glib problem is easily solved by making a new tree and copying the
glib stuff into it: /usr/glib.
7 PM The day that began so foul
turned glorious. Beautiful sun all after noon. The sea continued strong
with 20 foot waves, but the captain found a course that minimized the
upset.
I am getting into a mode of agreeing to do too many things. Just today
I took on fixing S computer and reformatting a file for Maggie. Both
simple tasks, but each with its own special hitches. My major tasks at
present are:
- maintain these logs
- lecture on go for tomorrow night
- build Mozilla composer
- Church of the WHoly Quantum
The Church is getting the short end of the stick. And I fear that too
many of these tasks are jsut sitting at this computer. That's not too
bad for days at sea, and it won't happen in port.
Exercise: planned some in the morning, but the gym was closed. I
allowed fate to decide I would not exercise today. Got quite a bit of
exercise weaving around while walking from place to place.
Mostly peaceful night. I know I slept because I was awakened
when the
TV fell off the shelf. It looks like it was just installed with chewing
gum. Terrible dream about a guy married to some sort of evil wife. He
strangled her at length and I awoke at 6:55. I seem to wake the
same time every day despite the fact that each of the last three days
has been 25 hours.
I've been having a debate with various others concerning the alcohol
policy. The way it is now, students must not bring alcohol aboard, but
they buy "drink tickets" during 5-7 PM. Drinks are then served in a
drinking room from 9-11 PM. (And no music is allowed in the drinking
room.) What bothers me is that external beverages brought aboard by
students are confiscated. Why are we confiscating a commodity and then
selling it. The cynical conclusion is that confiscation supports
revenue from sales.
The noble aim of confiscation is to reduce or eliminate solitary,
uncontrolled drinking in student rooms. This is indeed a deplorable
practice with the potential for both short term dangerous behavior and
a long-term lifetime of alcohol abuse. The only way I could condone
students bringin their own liquor aboard would be to store it in
private cabinets and dispense it to its owner during alcohol hours. Too
bad: there is no room for such private liquor supplies aboard the
vessel. So I suppose alcohol confiscation is the only available choice.
Perhaps confiscated bottles could be served at reduced prices on
alcohol nights--albeit, there would be no acknowledgement of the
generous host.
Network connectivity remains a problem aboard ship. My laptop is in the
same situation as many I have consulted on: It has a strong signal to
the shipboard wireless network, but it cannot acquire an IP address and
so cannot communicate. One thought was that there might not be enough
IP addresses available. This seems false from an experiment last night.
I plugged the laptop into a spare ethernet hard-wired connection. No IP
address. I switched to use the ethernet cable from one of the computer
lab permanent computers. It was removed from the net and I added; but I
still could not get an IP address. Then I hooked the lab computer to
the extra outlet I had used for the laptop. The lab computer worked
fine, but my laptop continued unsuccessful. This morning I make two
observations. My wirelss card is getting channel 5, but not channel 1.
The received packets display shows almost constant use of the network.
Perhaps bobcat (the laptop) cannot get an address because it is starved
for bandwidth.
Exercise: Stair stepper. 22 floors in 12 minutes. Started at
level 5, but dialled back to level 2.
Desserts: 4 (and they were all cakes, which I don't favor. Sigh.)
Good night last night. In the morning S the 25 hour days finally got to
S. She arose at 5:30 and went off to read. I still managed to sleep in
almost until 7AM. We are now in the only time zone without a city name:
"international date line, West". (Although, as far as I can tel we are
on the east of the date line.)
Last night I gave my presentation on Wei Qi, Baduk, Go. Attendence was
great. At least 20. Talk was fun to give and well received. Attendees
played "first capture" in the latter half of the session. Aftter the
community college session, the activities fair was held. About 20
signed up for the go club. However, no one volunteered to be leader, so
I don't know that club play will be arranged. This morning I got
a note and pin from Maggie in thanks for giving the class. A nice
surprise.
E was scheduled to give a talk on PowerPoint at the same time as mine,
but her audience was the faculty. And that time was chosen by the
Captain for his dinner with the faculty. S said later that one thing he
mentioned was that the main damage the other night (piano et al.) was
due to a rogue wave. About 30 feet when the others were 20. The captain
was on the bridge when it hit and saw it approach, but there was no
time to do anything to avoid it.
This morning the wireless does work to connect to the intranet. So I
can send these files to the public space.
S has another computing task (for Maggie); shouldn't really take that
long. We wtill have not got administrative access to her computer.
Exercise: stairmaster 32 floors 14 min; elliptical 0.7mi 13
min
tasks this AM:
get the class rosters online for faculty
load wordPerfect on S computer
change power management on ditto
clean CPAP eqpt
this PM
fix CQ files - a modern church ("The Church of
the WHoly Quantum")
8 PM
I did get the class rosters online. I think the faculty can get to
them, but S cannot get them from her office computer. Ram came and
helped me put Wordperfect on S computer. It works for him, but not for
S. Sigh. Along the way, however, Ram did change the timeout period on
IP addresses from 24 hours to 4. This seems to be much better. Just
now, for instance, I got an address immediately. And I got to the class
rosters. That work, however, slipped over into the afternoon.
And then I took a nap, having slept poorly last night. When we have
high seas (25 foot waves last night) my roly-poly body refuses to stay
in one place. Tonight I have asked Dante, our cabin steward, to make
the bed with the pillows at one side. I napped that way this afternoon
and splept much better.
Dr. Mike is talking about Buddhism. He's picked one aspect to talk
about: stillness. A major concept in Buddhism. He observed that the
biggest problem of many trauma patients was psychological torment.
Buddhism can help.
His practice is usually solitary meditation. He brought and played a
singing bowl. Special bought bowl; three minute ring. As it dies down
we hear silence. Listen to the sound of the silence behind the sound of
the bell. (25 seconds ring in this noisy place.)
"The teachings of the Buddha" Jack Kornfield. Around a hundred
meditations.
fred: Is the stillness like not being afraid the ship will fall apart?
Your fears are more hurtful than the actual event.
Vipasna Buddhism. "Insight" simple form of Buddhism. Close to that of
the Buddha himself.
Kathye: Tibetan Buddhism. Die, go into Bardo. There choose next lifetime
Manindri: She was taught that Buddhism agrees with science; indeed,
foresaw modern science.
Exercise: elliptical 2 miles, 30 minutes
We are close to the international date line and will cross it late this
afternoon. The ship is not making progress as expected, so we are
already in the next time zone across the line:
Solomon Islands, Magadan, New Caldonia. We will lose tomorrow. When we
awake, it will be Thurday the 27th.
I slept very well on the crosswise bed. This did not, however,
forestall my taking an hour nap after lunch. I awoke with the taste in
my mouth of the strawberry ice cream that finished lunch.
Today: fix up CQ pages
8:30 PM
Nope, did nothing on CQ. Maybe I've lost interest. Maybe there are
already too many religions.
This afternoon I napped and read some of Elspeth Huxley's The Edge of the Rift. Her style is
what is often called beautiful. It is certainly very poetic with lots
of adjectives and lots of sensory words: colors, smells, sights,
sounds. Lots of nature; specific mention of many kinds of flora
and fauna. Nonetheless, it reads pretty well and has a certain amount
of narrative interest through tension. This would make a good style for
a travelogue such as this, but is not something I can do and therefor
not something I allow myself to be interested in doing.
This evening I got suckered into three activities, two simultaneous.
The go club decided to meet B days at 7 and the web site decided on B
days at 6:30. And at lunch I agreed to collect haiku for the daily
announcements. I even wrote a haiku for the announcement:
Your
breezy haiku,
Chosen
for the daily news,
Will
blow us away.
In the initial web site meeting I volunteered to write a
program to turn arbitrary text into web pages. The point is to have a
good way to associate text with pictures immediately so submissions can
give stories with pictures. The basic idea is that
bracket-filename-bracket is augmented with a following <IMG> tags
for the file.
Exercise: Schwinn bike: 7 mi, 30 minutes
On the ships log, this day was recorded as the first 27th of January.
We skipped the 26th by crossing the Intenational Date Line.
Why was there a second
January 27? See tomorrow's entry.
Exercise: sitting
Green, angry angles
Of the sea
assail us in
Grandiose
disdain.
At 2:30 yesterday afternoon I looked at the electric clock in our room.
It was still going, telling off the minutes in shiny red letters. That
was a small triumph; the electricity had never gone out through the
turbulent night.
We had gone to bed expecting a not-entirely-easy night amid crashing
waves and howling winds. Nonetheless my crosswise bed configuration did
not me drop to sleep. I first awoke at about 1:30 with the violent
motions of the ship. At 3, the sea chastised my pride in the crosswise
bed
by rolling so steeply that I slid right out of the bed endwise. And
onto the floor. At four came the announcement that RDs should
gather in Pursar square. I later learned they decided to visit each of
their cabins to see if they were okay. All were. Some little time later
the TV snapped its leash and scurried across the floor. Having 220
volts, the leash snapped and sizzled for a second until its fuse
burned. (This turned off the fridge, endangering S medications. Sigh.)
Thereafter succesive rolls slid the TV across the cabin with great
whaps at the end. Around 6 a roll more severe took the entire bed--with
S and I as passengers--and rammed it into the patio door. It was a wild
and scary night. The oldest senior passenger called many and got me. I
hurried over only to find that the medics were already there and taking
good care. Overhead were ominous rumblings as newly-freed equipment
rampaged across the deck.
At 6, our maelstrom turned to nightmare. The intercom
blared: "All passengers put on your life vests and stay in your room or
go to the corridor." Nothing more. No reason. Only an impelling sense
of urgency. The life boat drills had prepared us and instructed us in
proper dress: long sleeves, long pants, closed toe shoes; clothing to
keep you warm. (Heat is not an amenity available found on lifeboats.)
As I
struggled to dress, the vessel continued to pitch from side to side.
Mindful of the roll-on-roll-off ferry disaster in Scotland, I decided
that the piching was due to water sloshing on a lower deck; fortunately
this was false. No way were we going to continue to subject ourselves
to the rampaging TV--now joined by the bigger if more benign bed, so we
went to the corridor and became part of a wary gathering. The mood was
subdued and without panic. We sat in two rows facing each other,
backs braced to the walls and feet braced against our opposite number
to avoid being tumbled around.
Hope was not encouraged by the next announcement instructing all
passengers on decks 2, 3, and 4 to proceed to deck 5. Again no reason.
Was the vessel flooding from the bottom up? (No, they just being moved
closer to the lifeboats. The corridors on the lower levels are
limited.) We on deck 7 were now the only passengers not gathered on
deck 5. The overhead rumblings continued with each major roll. Finally
Kenn came on the intercom to tell us that we were now rolling so much
because the engines had died. And should be restarted "in about an
hour."
The deck seven team came together and retrieved food and beverages from
the cabins. We dined well on snack food and bottled water. Plenty of
calories if not much nutrition. Time wore on. The chief engineer
hurried through with a couple of crewmen. They ventured outside. They
returned. They came and went again. Curious passengers like myself
tried to pester with questions. To no avail. A sentence started as the
crew approached could not be finished before their retreating backs
vanished around the corner. E came up tojoin the deck 7 group and slept
next to her mother for a while.
Remarkably the engines did start in little more than hour. The vessel
was turned to a better course and calm became at least a hope, if not a
reality.
Gradually the announcements began to resemble a standdown from the
alert and we returned to our cabins, scenes of disarray and even havoc.
Our cabin was a mess, but not othersie greatly damaged. Other cabins
had smashed partitions and broken tables (5/8th inch glass tops in a
dozen pieces.) Out television had completely self-destructed. The case
was separated from the innards and the tail end of the tube was broken
off with its yoke. I felt some guilt at not taking better care of it.
Had I restrained its sliding just after it broke free, it might have
been saved. However, (a) no such restraint struck me as feasible, and
(b) I was annoyed at the lack of imagination shown by the outfitters in
not imagining the rigors of the sea. The place was clearly outfitted by
hoteliers without a single thought for travel at sea. In my mind I was
grateful that the ship itself had actually been designed by a ship
builder. Had the hoteliers had there hand in it, the ship might well
have sunk soon after launch.
An afternoon session with the captain made clear the magnitude of the
event. More information was provided by the captain in an informal
meeting in Pursar Square the next morning.
-- The initial life-vest announcement came after the front window on
the bridge blew out. Winds were high, hurricane force. A LARGE wave
came along. Its foamy crest was probably on deck 7. The brunt of
the green water was right at bridge height. Sometimes the captain moves
forward to peer out the window. Had he been doing so at the time of the
wave, he would have been hurt, maimed, or killed. Fortuitously, he was
sitting in the captains chair and the glass was safety glass. He had
time to turn his shoulder and "only" got soaked and bruised.
-- All the electronics for controlling the ship are in the cabinet
beneath the main window on the bridge. (Hoteliers did apparently have a
hand in the ship design.) The engines were not harmed, but could not be
controlled.
-- The engines are on manual control and cannot be accurately
synchronized. Unsynchronized, their pitches interact to produce
continuous rattle in the Garden Lounge and classrooms 1 and 2.
-- Since the classroom spaces are adjacent to public spaces, SAS sought
permission to build partitions. This was granted too late to do a
proper job and partitions were attached only at the top. The various
rollings of the ship damaged the partitions to where they became
dangerous and had to be removed. Classroom 3 is adjacent to the snack
bar/lounge and chatter becomes an increasing distraction throughout the
afternoon.
-- Another wave tore out the window in the chief engineer's cabin,
soaking and bruising him. He had to hustle hard to get the engines
working while hurting all the time.
-- (How is it that the two officiers most crucial to repairs were the
ones attacked by the sea? We are too far at sea to suspect terrorists.
And a terrorist would surely have chosen a more direct attack. Perhaps
it is simply that these officers occupy exposed quarters to keep them
closer to the sea.)
-- Some time before the window went, the captain tried to cheer us up
by telling us that if we thought we had a mess, we should see his
cabin. According to him, he had a 500 pound safe stuck through his
desk. \
-- The ship has borrowed a compass from a passenger and may have to
borrow a GPS unit. Only one of the ship's two GPS units is still
working.
-- A questioner asked if the Captain had expressed an opinion on the
choice of a January crossing of the North Pacific. He replied that,
I was not asked and did not offer my opinion.
(No one asked what his opinion would have been. Early on a crewman told
me that there are no passenger ships in the North Pacific at this time
of year, and not even a whole lot of freighters.)
To my mind, the Captain should have at least expressed distaste. He
alone was the one person in the world who could have looked at the
weather charts and redirected the voyage to calmer waters. My safety
and that of all other passengers and crew was in his hands. He had
orders from Semester at Sea and the shipping company to sail from
Vancouver to Hokedate. It may have been that a quarter-century of
taking orders from the USNavy ill-prepared him for the difficult task
of rejecting
orders from V-Ships.
-- The Coast Guard was alerted as soon as the window blew out. They
sent a cutter that reached us a day later and accompanied us to Hawaii.
-- The nearest ship at sea turned immediately in our direction. It,
too, was a day away. No ships were sailing our perilous waters.
-- Damage was extensive.
-- Apparently we have hit the news media worldwide.
{Two months later on a bridge tour, I learned a little more. The vessel
was designed to roam the Greek islands, travelling at night. To achieve
the travel itineraries, high speed was essential. One way was to reduce
the waterline by placing the bridge well forward. The guy I was talking
to mentioned that the bridge on the Maxim Gorkiy has the bridge much
further from the bow. That way waves pretty much disipate before
reaching the bridge windows. (And, yes, that is how to spell "Gorkiy."
I am sitting here in the faculty lounge in Cape Town and looking out at
her. Curiously, besides the big foredeck there is very little outside
deck.)}
{The M/V Explorer has a sister ship, the Voyager, built to the same
plans. In March, it hit a wave and lost the window next to the one we
lost. Their wave was only 9 meters. So some designer is going to be in
deep hot water. And many lawyers will get rich pursuing suits.}
5 PM
A mandatory all-hands meeting has been called to discuss our situation.
As Captain Buzz arrived, he was greeted with enthusiastic cheers.
Kenn: Our voyage has changed dramatically.
We are working to share information.
We finally have some to give.
Housekeeping notes: regular meal sched; snack bar open til midnight
outer decks closed;
tell pursar of problems w/ plumbing or hearing PA
community college and classes continue
here he is the man who has been:
"busier than a one-tooth man in a corn-cod eating contest"
Capt. Radican:
I did not do much; the crew did. (Applause)
SAS staff has nothing to do with the ship, don't blame them
it is a rumor that someone said originally that
we should not have chosen our original route
Process: ISE makes proposed itinerary
ship management (600 vessels) approved the itinerary
they considered a data base of storms
the storms we encountered could not have been forecast
{To me, a current weather map trumps a database. Even as we left port
there were storms all across out route.}
where going and when will we get there
yesterday options: Japan, Midway
he picked Midway
prior to knowing other options
Honolulu is now an option, if the weather holds
rolling due to following sea
the following sea is giving us about 2.5 knots help
Midway: 600 miles, 2-2/5 days, depends on weather
Honolulu 1200 miles 5.5 days
choice is under review
Honolulu needs daylight - tugs
Midway is an anchorage situation
Dean Becky:
Can I get off in Midway?
Can I get off the program?
Is the program continuing?
no firm answer yet
in the past, adjustments have been made
decisions
program
safety
ship, is there hidden damage
how long will repairs take
what released to parents and web page
intended five minutes apiece on SAS satelite phones
website
message saying SAS is working to
preserve the academic
integrity of the semester
message from homeland security and US
coast guard
MV Explorer in calmer seas
continuing to monitor
690 N of Midway and in
transit to Hawaii
ship is using two engines
and is 1450 mi from Honolulu
possibilities
house in hotel
continue academic program there
fly students to Japan or Shanghai
Exercise Wednesday/Thursday: none, unless you count trying to walk
around and get up after being thrown across the room
Exercise Thursday/Friday: TBD
7007 Pat - lent books: Aztec, Noble House
7010 John - took DVD to try on my computer; it fails, I have no audio
Day, a flying fish,
Bolts aloft, boils the sky and
Sinks oblivious.
I seem to awake each morning at 7 AM in the time zone where I am. Today
we are in a time zone East of where we were scheduled to be; so 7 AM in
this area is 5AM by the ship's clock. Too early. I managed to lie abed
til 6 and then wented and walked the decks and stairs for exercise.
(The gym is still closed.)
The toilet in our cabin was out and so are all the public toilets
except those in the Faculty Lounge.
Today's task is to get a working version of PicPage, the tool for
building html from txt files.
I did get a working version of PicPage. Sadly, cygwin has include files
for gif and jpg, but lacks the corresponding libraries. Anyway, only
one other person showed up for the meeting at 6:30. Same thing for the
go club at 7.
Since the clocks are to go ahead an hour tonight, I went up to the room
a little after 8. Took an hour getting ready for bed, and went to bed
around 10.
Exercise: walked all decks and stairs inside
When
long happy hour
Hits
busted loo, bliss is a
Piss
in the shower.
Beautiful day outside. Deck is open for us!
Today: ?
Extend PicPage to build a single page referring to
all others.
Tackle CQ again?
8:30 PM
Nope. Did none of that. In the afternoon I helped out a bit in the IT
lab.
In the evening I attended the website team meeting and finally got to
show off my tool.
We put up a set of instructions on the website public folder.
Later on we are going to try to play bridge. This will be fun, but
isn't a great idea since we lose an hour tonight.
Exercise: climb all stairways
even those outside!
Waggling
the mouse
That lives in my arm cheers up
The beast in my head.
Slow day. Feeling just a tad glum. Forgot my pills at breakfast. Didn't
get around to exercising. Aha. Around 1700 I caught a mile on an
eliptical and did feel some better. Thus the haiku above. Its nto
really very good and is only the second stab. But I don't seems to see
a way to proceed with it.
The big task for the day was to deploy the web site tool for reviewing
images. Early tests revealed two problems: images from cameras are too
big to review and some users don't know to put sub-drectory names into
the names of files. And I had no programmatic way to determine or
change the size of images. Around 1500 I discovered GraphicsMagick,
which does offer these tools, but I failed to find the documentation,
so programming would have been a nasty voyage of discovery. Late in the
evening I discovered the documentation including command line
interfaces which do exactly what I need.
The evening also had the Honolulu preport meeting. The Asst. Executive
Dean gave us logistical details:
We will dock around 1430 at Honolulu Pier 2. This is
an industrial
pier and we will have to walk "ten minutes" to Aloha Towers. Imigration
will be handled in the Union with queueing by ID number. Clearing the
ship will take at least two hours. In the meantime various suits from
SAS and V Ships will board. And there will be a press conference;
probably aboard ship.
We will be in Honolulu at least four days and maybe
five.
The luau will be Feb 1 (Tuesday) , 1615-2200. We
need to arrive at bus area at 1600.
Kenn also read off some official details of our
events:
We were between to low pressure systems.
One was a storm 1000 miles wide and the
other was to our South.
The wave that hit us was at least 55
feet high.
Crest around deck 7.
Max observed wind was 101 knots (116
mph).
The bridge drench stopped al engines at
0620.
By 0700, partial power had been
restored to one engine.
The Exec. Dean exhorted to students to be mature. To be sure they would
remember the good times they were having. There is still no definitive
plan for getting us to Asia and continuing the voyage. But several
options are under consideration.
The Field Officer read off some details about trips. Mostly amounting
to asking us to arrive early for tours.
The Academic Dean hosted a cultural preport. Motly dull. The students
in the piano bar did not pay much attention. First Captain Buzz went on
about hawaiian history covering most of the material from the morning's
Global Studies. Then a geology prof covered the geology in more detail
than was palatable at that late hour. Finally we got another westerner
doing a hula; surely we will see better in days to come.
Exercise: elliptical 1.13 mi in 15:50 minutes
No global studies today. Did not awake until 8 AM. Found three empty
elliptical machines at 9 AM even though they were booked solid for the
morning.
Arrival in Honolulu scheduled for 1430. Finally docked at 1630.
Passengers not cleared for going off ship until around 2000. Many
students decided to move to hotels for at least a few days.
Exercise: elliptical 1.75 mi 25 min