Posts on Madprof's workshop

Advent of refactoring

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I made a video series!

going through a whole bunch of code refactoring concepts, focussing on web development in Django/Wordpress.

Impact in 5 seconds!

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 21:03:10 +0000

I’m not a big fan of the use of the word “impact” to describe how we want to influence or change things. “We want to have a big impact in society!” “How can we impact the world?” “What impact will this have on our business plan?”

Impact has quite an violent or harsh physical overtone. Hitting, kicking, punching etc. Which fits in well with the western / violent / masculine language dominant in our current culture - but it’s not a metaphor that reflects the kind of long term beauty and change we want to see.

Recently I heard “impact” described as a positive thing - in that it was how musical notes were created. As in a bell, cymbals, drums, but also guitars, woodwind instruments…

Except - that’s not how woodwind instruments work. Nor guitars.

You don’t “hit” the strings on a guitar, and the note on a woodwind instrument doesn’t change by the air “hitting” the holes that you cover.

A guitar works by introducing tension, and then releasing it.

A flute works by the air being split by the block, and creating a column of air inside the body of the flute, which you then change the length of by opening and shutting holes.

A clarinet works by setting up a vibration in the reed by pushing air past it and tensioning it in exactly the right way, and then by changing the length of the tube (with the keys), it changes the speed the vibration can happen at.

The big insight to me here is that it’s not just an external force “impacting” the instrument, but an interaction of multiple forces. Interaction and engagement, not just slap and walk away.

And that’s kind of important to me… the idea that to make real change, and make things of beauty that last (like a sustained note, not just a crash of cymbal), it requires giving of breath (life), and constant engagement with the system that you’re changing. When you play clarinet, you don’t give a constant air pressure and tension in your mouth all the time - you modulate that depending on the result you’re getting. You need the feedback loop.

I believe that’s how we can make real change.

Audio Advent Calendar

Fri, 21 Dec 2018 01:24:44 +0000

This year the Creative Writing Passion-Group on board were asked to make a series of brief reinterpretations of the Advent story for every day at lunch-time on board.

Here’s my two contributions:

Daniel (Part 1)

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Phone Rings You have reached the extension of Meshack, Permanent Secretary for the office of Internal Affairs, Babylon. I’m afraid I’m unable to take your call, but if you leave a message and contact information, one of my scheduling staff will return your call. BEEP

Daniel: Mishack, this is Belteshazzar, if you could contact me please that would be great. I’ve had a bit of an odd, er, experience I’d like to talk about with you. Shalom, Click

Daniel: Oh for goodness sake Mishael - answer your blasted phone! It’s me again, Daniel. Look, the dreams have been getting stranger. I swear I’ve not touched a drop of the King’s wine. So there were these beasts, coming out of the sea, all mixed up - a leopard with four wings, a lion, a bear, hideous. This wasn’t some stupid nightmare. Nightmares are way more mundane.

I can remember so vividly, like I was actually there - I’m not going to tell you every detail now… it all ended, somehow with me seeing into the thoneroom in heaven itself! And there, a “son of man”, like, how you described the fourth man in the furnace? The same! And he shows up in the throneroom, and was greeted royally, and then gets made ruler of the whole planet! An eternal kingdom, full of every kind of people, diverse and spectacular, immense and unlike anything we’ve ever seen, Mishael.

So I went and asked one of the court guards what on earth was going on - and he told me it’s all about the future, the beasts are kings who are coming, and eventually the Most High will judge the last kingdom, destroy it, and hand it all over to an eternal kingdom of His people.

Look - I honestly don’t know what it all means, brother. Or why on earth I had this dream. I thought these dreams from the Lord were supposed to be meaningful? How can I make SMART goals or an Action Plan from something like this?!

It’s terrifying, seeing the horrors of so far in the future - I know the Lord will send this Son of Man in the end - but it’s such a long way off - why tell me now? I wrote it all down - maybe you could come by to read through it. Perhaps someone else will find it encouraging. Call me. Click

Daniel (Part 2)

Featuring the Prophet Daniel (played by me) and his Life Coach (played by Dan Potter).

Brummie's Back - maybe?

Sun, 12 Aug 2018 12:28:02 +0000

Dear Neglected Blog -

I think I should start writing again. I’ve realised how much I miss it.

I don’t know how often I’ll manage it - but we’ll see.

Brief update for the sake of historical thingness (as Euan might say):

We’re back on the Logos Hope - 4 of us now. This time for probably 2 years. We’ve been on board almost a year now, and are currently on break (thus finding the time for writing, and motivation to start again).

Life on the ship is spectacularly busy with 2 children. Essentially any time that’s not work, while the kids are awake I try to spend with them. And when they’re asleep, then with my wife. But I’m realising I do need more introvert / me time to help make the time with kids+wife better quality.

Blogging kind of takes a back-seat - as I feel like the writing I want to be doing is all fiction, and the writing I should be doing is all email / work related.

Anyway, hopefully writing here helps me feel more inspired to write other stuff that I need to. And also is perhaps interesting for you, dear reader.

A Few Video productions

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been doing a bunch of media production recently, Some work as cameraman, some as producer, some as editor.

Here’s a few links!

Albania

I was the director and producer of this and a couple other pieces. Myself and two cameramen travelled in 3 cities in Albania, meeting the OM team there, interviewing them, and finding out a lot of what they’re up to.

The night show

Currently still unreleased, “almost done”, I was the 3D set design and animator, did all the 3D compositing, and helped with a lot of the 2D compositing and editing. I also did the sound recording and initial scratch mix for the puppeteers.

Matt’s Blog

A 12 part video blog from ‘Matthew the Tax Guy’ about the certain teacher he met who messed up his life. I’m the main actor, and also co-wrote it, and helped with editing.

OM 50 years in Poland - an unusual history

I worked as senior editor on this project, helping Moray to bring together many different interviews into a single history presentation.

Live puppets in a 3D Universe

Thu, 17 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I had the enormous privilage to speak at the Blender Conference in Amsterdam!

I was talking about the latest large project I’ve been working on together with a team from Ireland, building a full virtual 3D set for a “late night” comedy show for puppets, going through the christmas message.

It was great fun, a lot of work, and a really cool project to be part of.

Some of the 3D stuff was pretty complex to work on, and so it was interesting to show off some of how we were doing the compositing and working with the puppets and greenscreens & everything.

Story Telling (Part 3) - The Hero's Journey (aka, Story Circle).

Sat, 06 Jun 2015 04:03:56 +0000

So this is Part 3 of my seminar / workshop on Story Telling that I did with the Logos Hope On-Board events Team. Here’s Part 1, and Part 2.

There’s an interesting alternative theory called, “The Hero’s Journey” (or “Monomyth”). There’s books written about this, some really cool ideas. A very approachable version is by Dan Harmon, the creator of Community. Ant Webb was the guy who introduced me to both Community, and the Hero’s Journey. We’ve been discussing it and used it as part of Matt’s Blog.

The Hero’s Journey theory says good stories are circular. You end up back where you started. They’re a journey from home, from comfort, from the concious, down into the subconscious, uncomfortable far away place, and back eventually home again. Of course, changes happen along the way.

The full theory has all kinds of Freudian stuff to do with being forced out of the mothers arms by the call of the father, eventually defeating the father, and returning eventually as a mother or father all that… (Seriously, Freud had issues.) Also, there’s loads of details that are reasonably important, and do make the story more compelling, but also, with much added complexity.

So lets go look at Dan Harmon’s Story Circle instead.

He takes the circle concept, and breaks it into 8 simple parts.

We start off at " You". This is where " you" the audience relate to the main character(s). Preferably, the character should be in a place of comfort, or at least, be connected to some kind of easy-to-relate-to “home” situation. This could be a sailor at sea on the bridge, or a little bear playing a balancing game, or Garion at Faldor’s farm, a new student enrolling at community college, etc. It’s a starting point that the audience can relate to, and feel comfortable understanding. They don’t have to dig deep emotionally to connect with the main character. It happens automatically. This is the concious, mental understanding area.

Next is the " need". Something isn’t right, or some how the stable situation will be pushed off-balance. This is pretty close to the “problem” concept from the 3-act play model. Note, we’re still basically in the stable conciousness.

So, since there’s a need, I guess we’d better " Go" do something about it. This is where the Hero decides to actually leave their safe familiar environment, and go out into the world to solve the problem. We finally dep

art the concious, and head into the scary subconscious / unconscious. The go ing can often be the most emotional part of the story. Or at least, the most emotionally motivated or driven part. Once the Hero is actually off fighting dragons and saving maidens, they’re too busy actually doing stuff to be all soppy and emotional.

Now that we’ve actually left, comes the big difficult part of the story, the Seek ing, or Search ing. We may not exactly know what it is we’re looking for yet - but we’ll find out. Many different avenues can be explored, different people met, etc. This can be long, arduous, and challenging. The main character should be growing and changing here.

Story telling (Part 2) - Of Aristotle and Acts

Sun, 31 May 2015 18:35:30 +0000

This is the second part of a 3 part series, transcribing / “article-ifying” a training seminar I ran with the on-board events team on the Logos Hope. Here’s a link to the first part.

Aristotle and a suuuper simple model

Waaay back in 350 or so BC, a clever Greek dude (Aristotle) said that he reckoned a good story (or theatrical performance) had 3 parts to it:

Beginning
Middle
End

Yep. It’s what you’re taught in primary school creative writing. Expanding those a bit:

Beginning: Introduction to the main characters, and “The Problem”
Middle: The struggle or conflict, where the main characters confront “The Problem”
End: Where either the main characters or “The Problem” win, and everything resolves.

In some ways, the most important thing from this is that without a problem, there is no story. There has to be “something rotten in the state of Denmark”. Or else what keeps your audience more interested in the programme, than in what’s on their phones?

“3 act plays”

Taking this concept a bit further, is the traditional “3 act play”. Often our events aren’t done in acts, but the concepts are useful for thinking, “Where should I put the refreshment breaks?” and thinking how the story energy levels should map out best. Whether or not you actually use this model, it’s still an interesting one to look at, and see if it helps you.

The 3 acts are pretty close to the “beginning, middle, end” concepts from before, but expanded.

Confusingly, sometime the 3-act-play can be broken down in to 4 parts:

which progresses through the main character (and audiences’) perception of ‘The Problem’.

There’s “potential” for an interesting story - you set up the main character(s), and the problem. But they’re not actually in conflict yet (at least, as far as this specific narrative goes.) There’s resistance to the conflict - things get in the way, the problem isn’t fully understood yet, etc. Finally the conflict itself, actually doing something, rather than just trying to understand the problem, and finally the outcome, and cleaning up.

I mentioned that the Main Character and the Problem may not be in actual conflict yet. Just to note here, this is for the purposes of this narrative. For instance, in David and Goliath, Israel and Phillistia are at war at the beginning of the story. However, the Main Character, David, isn’t actually in personal conflict with Goliath, until much later.

So how do these 4 parts map onto a “3 act play”?

Act 1.

Starting off the play, you need some kind of event which introduces the reason for the story.

The children of Israel are at war with the Philistines. Jeff Winger starts at his new Community College; Darth Vader boards Princess Leia’s diplomatic space ship and takes her prisoner; The orb of Aldur is stolen; Little Bear is playing, and it’s getting late.

Sometimes, this is called the ‘inciting incident’.

One thing to note is that this might not involve the main character. It’s setting the scene for the whole rest of the story, and may in fact be the cause for many different stories to happen. A murder has happened, but at least so far, the main character may not yet have been put on the case.

We interrupt this series...

Sat, 30 May 2015 12:57:31 +0000

Since we’re only on the ship for a few more days (!), I thought I’d post a few photos.

It was a friend’s birthday, and so various people filled his office with balloons. David already loves coming to visit him (Tommy), and this visit was even more fun.

Prayer night on board. They’d decided for a “gather around the fire” kind of set up, the evening being led by the Africans on board, so I added a few lighting touches to make it feel even more campfireish.

This is the new lighting control system. We’ve got rid of the old, difficult-to-teach, increasingly flaky Zero88 LeapFrog Desk, and put in place a computer, with a USB->DMX interface. The software we’re using is free, called “QLC+". It’s got a few bugs, but is *incredibly* much more easy to teach people, and allows us to do cool things like play music from the software, with lighting cues at specific times in the music, make the moving-head lights bounce around in time, etc. Cool cool stuff.

David enjoys playing table tennis with us.

Muster drill today, David got all dressed up in his lifejacket, and looked stunningly cute, in a marine kind of way. He had fun, anyway.

This is a project I’ve wanted to do for a while. The equipment in this office is “AVC” (Audio-Visual Central), and the main hub for all the AV routing around the ship (sending video & audio to the dining room so people can listen to devotions while finishing breakfast, for instance. Or displaying big programs in the theatre in the Logos Lounge as well as an over-flow venue, or as a place for ship’s company to watch, etc. etc.).

Anyway, This whole wall of racking is quite a mess. This office used to be the IT office, and backs on to the server room. Things have changed now, and it’s the on-shore-events team who work here, so having 19 inch racking makes no sense. And they need more storage space, and the IT folks need more storage space too.

So I suggested (about 2 months ago) moving the AV equipment into the far left rack, and then turning the other 3 racks into cupboards facing both ways, with plenty of space for the IT guys in the server room, and plenty for the on-shore teams in this office. Nothing came of my suggestion, so I thought, “oh well, the carpenters are too busy. whatever”. But now they’ve got a couple of enthusiastic project workers on the job, and everyone’s quite excited about how much more space they’re going to get.

Although I’m wondering if I was mad to suggest this project, as it does mean quite a lot of moving cables and equipment around…. I hope I don’t break anything. I want to do this while I’m here though still, as none of the A/V team have any experience doing racks/patchpanels/routers/install type stuff.

Story Telling (Part 1) - Energy

Fri, 22 May 2015 12:36:22 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity to do a workshop / seminar with the Logos Hope Events team about Theatre & Storytelling. I love theatre, and am very passionate about making (especially Childrens’) events into engaging stories, rather than just variety shows with a 5 minute message tacked on the end.

This is kind of a summary of what I covered, with some of the slides I made. There’s quite a lot of content, so I’m splitting it up into 3 posts.

Storytime!

To start off, we looked at 3 of David’s books, which I brought along.

Mealtime
Peekaboo Forest
Good Night, Little Bear

Mealtime is basically just a list of items you might find at mealtimes:

Spoon and Fork,
Brocolli,
Sippy cup,
Strawberry...

and so on. Not staggeringly inspiring. Often, however, events are organised in a similar manner. Get a list of things we want to put in (Introduction video, Korean fan dance, Refreshments, Sermon, Singing), have an MC or host link them all together (“Wow, that was amazing. Next we have…”) and suddenly you’ve got a programme.

In terms of energy levels of the audience, it looks something like this:

Each individual item may be all right, but they’re not really connected, and nothing really keeps the attention. And it doesn’t get more exciting, and … well. I forgot what I was … er, better check facebook.

Peekaboo Forest is quite a bit better. Each page asks a question:

‘Who is hiding behind the spruce?’

there’s then a nice crinkly page to turn over:

Peek-a-boo! It’s the Moose!

So each page has quite a nice “energy” flow:

with good anticipation, etc. But in terms of overall story-arc, it’s very dull.

It really doesn’t go anywhere, and often programmes are like that too. Each individual item may be great, but you don’t lead the audience anywhere, and don’t have everything tied together.

Good Night, Little Bear is much more interesting. We read this to David almost every night, and even though it doesn’t have crinkly pages, he still seems to really enjoy it. The story is (essentially) little bear not wanting to go to bed, instead he goes off to play, until eventually he watches the sunset, it gets dark, and he realises he should have listened to Mama bear, and in fact he’s lost now and can’t find his way home. But then Mama bear, assisted by Little Bear’s friends, Mouse and Squirrel, come to find Little Bear. He hears them calling him, and runs to Mama Bear’s arms. He’s now feeling tired, and goes to bed. It’s really well told, with lovely pictures, and so on.

A much more complex rough energy flow chart.

So that’s the “energy flow” concept. Reasonably simple to grasp. If we are making an event which is a variety show / sandwhich programme, or a concert, then it’s worth thinking about this stuff, and saying “How do we want to start? Something big and fun to grab the attention, and then we can settle down a bit, work our way up to a climax, and then slowly bring it to a close…”.

At sea!

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 03:39:30 +0000

We’re sailing again!

It’s so lovely being back at sea, and David seems to quite like it too. He actually slept right the way through the night the first night! Amazing… (If only he’d do it again…)

AV work is going reasonably well. We’re doi

ng loads of training, as much as possible, but still trying to get everything working again too. It’s really hard trying to arrange work for people to do, who know nothing about A/V at all, and may not have even touched a sound, lighting, or video console before joining the team. Still, they’re all great people, and we’re having a lot of fun.

One very frustrating thing was that I had to fix the Deck 4 music and paging system. For whatever historical reason, that’s part of A/V’s responsibility, rather than the electricians. The rack is located in a loud noisy fanroom, full of dust and grime.

The rack isn’t very accessible, and getting in to the wires is really really awkward and scrapey.

It’s not massively well documented (another task on my list…), and I think several people had tried to fix it recently, so all the settings were messed up. In the end, I pulled out the entire system, took it down to our storeroom to clean and test and set up, and then brought it back and plugged it in. It all worked! Which was great. It just then took ages of walking around with the team getting them to tell me which zones were connected and had the right volumes, and so on. Not fun, and as it needs to be working before we arrive in the next port, it meant I had to do that for 4 days rather than work on any of our venues. Grrr…

The new portable ‘fender’ sound systems that we bought are a huge success. They work really well. I asked one of the new A/V team to paint ‘Logos Hope A/V’ on the side of them all so that they don’t get lost, or apprehended into some other department. I was expecting something ugly but functional. Instead I got this:

Really cool!

Anyway, to end this post, here’s a photo of David from when we took him to the kids water zone at the mall in Singapore. Wet as a fish, a nappy as wet as he, and as Becky puts it, “Happy as Larry”. (Whoever Larry is…)

Off day.

Sat, 21 Mar 2015 14:36:57 +0000

We just had a pretty awesome day off. We woke up pretty late. Well, that is to say David woke up very early, and we were too tired to try and persuade him to sleep in his cot again, so he came to join us in bed for a couple more hours. Eventually we all got up, and had a bit of breakfast.

I then went to the galley to get some supplies (icing sugar, cocoa powder, carrots, pears, and dry pasta) for us to make cakes for some of our ‘ship family’ birthdays coming up, the rest for making food for David. You can guess which ingredients are for which activity.

I then took David to run around and play in the Logos Lounge, while Becky did some laundry. We then had lunch, and then (finally) got around to giving David his first toothbrush, and first teeth brushing!

We next headed out by MRT to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. It was lovely - really peaceful and green, but extremely well paved and buggy friendly. We found a somewhat random statue of Chopin,

we managed to prop up the camera on the buggy for a family photo too:

David wasn’t totally convinced by all the shots, though:

We spent a few hours there, and headed back. We bought a couple of extra bits from the supermarket, and got back just in time for dinner. On the way through the mall, Mini were giving out free balloons - so David got his first balloon as well!

At Dinner, our friend Maria, one of the new AV team, came and sat at our table and said, “So, we’re playing settlers tonight, right?”

So we went up to the cabin, and had a lovely game of Settlers of Catan! David loved it, and for some reason went in to giggles almost every time Maria rolled the dice for the first half of the game! Funny boy.

We finished the game - Becky won, with 10 points (short game), by stealing the longest road from me and Maria would have won on her turn, again, by stealing my longest road. We were just about to pack away, when Becky looked really puzzled, and realised that I should have won the previous round, as I also had 10 points (I’d forgotten about a hidden victory point)!

So. Quite even.

A good day.

Cleaning and Settling in.

Sat, 21 Mar 2015 02:56:58 +0000

So we’ve been here almost 2 weeks now. It seems to have passed extremely quickly. The AV team have been hard at work, cleaning, installing, cleaning,

testing, cleaning, training, and cleaning. I’ll try and post some more photos of the new equipment and nerdy stuff like that soon. But for now - here’s a photo of the 3 new recruits down in the AV store room cleaning it out. There’s a couple of tank man-holes in the store room, so often during dry-dock deck teams go in through there to work in the tank, and so everything gets covered in dust and grime. It would be nice if they told us in advance so we could get stuff out of their way and protected… but more of that another time.

So. That proves we’re actually working, (or at least that I’m making other people work - which is basically the same thing) now for some more fun photos.

We’re all settling in. David is loving all the attention and stuff going on all the time. It’s lovely being able to eat with my family every day at basically every meal at the moment. Becky is finding it a bit odd, and lonely at the moment, as she didn’t really know many of the other mums, or what things there are to do. She misses cornerstone and the community there. Things are starting to pick up though.

Playing with David is always fun - we’ve been leant loads of toys for him to play with, which is pretty cool. He’s always so active, and wanting to run around. He loves this walker, and spends plenty of time just coasting around the chairs too.

He’s such a happy baby most of the time. The two things he hates are sleeping, and ending a meal. No matter how much he’s eaten, he’s always sad when we stop feeding him and wipe his face. I wonder if he’ll be a chef one day…

Oh. And since some toys are magnetic, and we have a metal deck-head in our cabin (ceiling)…

Hello, WordPress, hello Logos Hope

Sat, 14 Mar 2015 14:51:23 +0000

I use WordPress at work, it’s the engine behind fr.om.org, transform.om.org and most of the other sites that we run for clients.

I’m in two minds as to whether I like it or not. Some things are great. For users (content authors, the people writing blog posts or static pages), it’s fine. Easy to understand and use. For writing plugins and templates, it’s… Well, kind of messy and ugly, but doable. For instance, rather than have 1 HTML template “base” file, with a block saying, “put posts here, and wrap each one in x,y,z”, you have a header.php which has only the start of all the HTML, and a footer.php which closes it all, and a content.php, a content-post.php, and so on, and you have to keep them all synced up. Also, since it’s designed for running on old PHP, it doesn’t use namespaces or other ways of keeping code clean, so all functions in all plugins and all templates are all global scope, so to avoid bumping in to each other, you have to name all your functions stuff like, “madprofs_teapot_plugin_get_resource() and similar. Then at the same time, Wordpress has multiple global functions of its own, some called things like, the_post(), others like wp_get_cached(), (so prefixed with wp_), and others in other styles. Messy.

Still, it gets the job done.

So when I wanted to update and clean up the brummie@sea blog, I thought I’d just stick with blogger. It works, it’s what I already had. But then, accidentally, while trying to update it, I lost the entire design, and putting it back together was this awful mess of Google-XML/HTML confusion, I thought, “you know, stuff it, I’ll just use WordPress.” So I span up a site on the server (in about 2 minutes), pointed the blogger importer at brummieatsea.blogspot.com, let it chug away for a few minutes, and here we are.

I’m just using a very simple built in design for now, (with my own background), but it seems to work. I now don’t have to worry about Google turning off blogger like they did with Reader and GoogleCode, and since I use Wordpress at work, I understand what’s going on pretty well.

That all said, we’re now on the ship, trying to settle in. We have a really nice cabin. Jet lag wasn’t fun, especially with the baby, but we’ll get through it. Yesterday Becky drank a big milky drink by accident - we thought it wasn’t cows milk but plant based, and last night and tonight David has been awful - screaming for ages and refusing to be comforted or to sleep lying down in his bed. So that does seem to confirm that maybe it is a lactose intolerance at the moment - hopefully he’s back to normal in a day or so.

Work so far is just cleaning the various venues. We’ve not even begun to start installing new equipment or doing anything really technical. We’ve got the lights out of their bags and air-blasted them all, cleaned many surfaces and TVs and vacuumed and dusted. It’s going alright. Still sooo much to do.

It's been a while.

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 18:53:00 +0000

So. It’s been a while, blog.

9 months ago our son was born, and he kind of took priority over writing. I’m sure you understand.

Anyway, the reason for this post is that once again, the brummie will soon be at sea! This time with Mrs. Brummie, and Baby Cumbrian. I don’t know if Becky will object to being Mrs. Brummie, as she’s actually from Yorkshire, but whatever.

So we’re heading out to the Logos Hope again for 3 months.

Becky and I were on board for 3 months just over 2 years ago, helping with the A/V and Events teams after the 6 months dry-dock in Subic Bay. This time, the ship has just come out of several months in dry-dock again, this time having the generators replaced.

I’ll be working with the A/V team again, doing training and helping getting everything back on track and working again. We’ve bought some new equipment, as most of what’s there now is from the original install 6+ years ago, and is in need of some serious overhaulage.

During the Subic Bay drydock 2 years ago, none of the A/V gear was packed away properly, which is part of why everything is in such bad condition now. At least now, since then, it’s become part of A/V culture to do a serious pack down at the start of every dry-dock. All of the lights on the truss get plastic bagged, all of the lighting dimmers get unplugged and tagged out, the desks get bagged and covered, etc.

In some ways, I’m extremely excited about going back again. For the last couple of years I’ve ended up doing more and more I.T. work here, making and maintaining websites for transform.om.org, fr.om.org, omnivision.om.org, omnitube.org, and video.om.org, as well as a few internal projects (including stuff-management and streetsign). It’s kind of interesting, some days, but also pretty frustrating too. I feel I’m more of a creative ideas person, rather than a server-maintenance guy, so the initial creation of websites or programming projects is kind of fun, the on-going maintenanace and bug-fixing drives me to despair (not to mention having to work in PHP with Wordpress…).

I love the ship’s work, I love doing events (especially the school visits and other kids events and actual theatre type events), and am quite excited about not having to do I.T. stuff here for a while.

It’s really strange to think that when we get back from the Logos Hope in 3 months time, it’ll be 10 years since I started this blog, when I first went to Doulos for 3 months….

Anyway, time for dinner, and I need to go play with our son. I’ll try and post something a lot more regularly this time. Writing is theraputic, and I suspect I’m going to need it…

vim

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:43:53 +0100

I use the text editor “VIM” for almost everything, since it’s quick, does pretty much everything I need. It’s interface isn’t the quickest to learn, but once you can use it, it’s great.

I especially like being able to log into the server from any computer in the world and be able to have my whole environment available to me, I don’t have to install huge complex IDEs or whatever.

Some plugins I use:

Vundle
vim-less
surround.vim
Syntastic
vim-powerline
pythoncomplete
The-NERD-tree
Markdown-syntax
jedi-vim
YankRing.vim
ack.vim
Pydiction
ctrlp.vim
minibufexpl.vim

and some bits I have in my .vimrc which may be interesting to you other VIMers:

and

Spacebar leaderkey

One thing I only recently did was switch the spacebar to being my ’leaderkey’. I’d not really used the ’leader’ stuff much before, but now it’s all working I really like it.

which seems a bit odd, but seems to work. Essentially I’ve mapped the “real” leaderkey to something I can’t easily access by accident, and then (outside of visual / insert mode) mapped space to the leader. I was trying for a while to figure out some kind of noimap or something syntax to say only do this outside of visual/ insert mode, but then this works without any complexity. Cool.

I’ve then assigned a bunch of window/pane movement leaderkeys:

which lets me switch windows with hitting space and then a direction, or swap windows with double tapping space.

Visible tabs and spaces:

A couple of minor things that really bug me is spaces at the end of lines, and mixing tabs and spaces. Here’s a couple of bits which make that a bit better.

Python PEP8 style helpers

It’s also pretty helpful having a visual reminder about line lengths:

Matt's Blog

Thu, 01 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Euan, Ant and I just finished releasing “Matt’s Blog” over lent/easter this year.

It was a really fun project, dramatising what we think it could have been like for Matthew, Jesus’ disciple, if he was a video blogger.

Here’s the videos!

LVM snapshots for a resetable machine

Fri, 21 Mar 2014 11:16:00 +0000

I have ended up maintaining a few websites which we are hosting on a machine off in Germany somewhere.

I want to get everything automated, so I have less work to do if something goes wrong.

I’m using ansible, which is wonderful, and have a nice set of playbooks I’ve written which take a raw CentOS install, and install everything, (php-fpm, nginx, etc…) set up the virtualhosts, install wordpress & joomla and all that for the sites that need it, etc.

Until today, I’ve been using a virtualbox on my local computer to test on, and it works great. I haven’t bothered with vagrant, as I tried it for a couple of days, and it crashed my whole computer twice, so I gave up. With virtualbox, it’s almost as simple. I have a virtualmachine which I can spin up, install stuff on, and then when I want to go back to a fresh machine, it’s a matter of turning it off, and clicking ‘restore snapshot’ to the snapshot I made when it was clean installed.

It’s practically instant, and just works.

However, running a virtualmachine on my primary work computer all the time does make everything else somewhat sluggish. So I’ve scrouged an old computer that wasn’t doing anything, and am now using that instead.

In order to get snapshots and restore points going well, here’s how I did it:

Install CentOS, leaving a bunch of free space on the LVM primary group.
Make a snapshot when it’s first installed
Restore (merge to) that snapshot whenever I want it back to original settings.
Reboot

To make & restore the snapshots, I’ve written the commands as scripts so I don’t have to remember the lg-whatever stuff. (vg_localtest is the name of the volume group I set up for the HD when I installed):

/usr/sbin/snapshot_make:

#!/bin/sh
lvcreate –size 100G -s -n original_snapshot /dev/vg_localtest/root

/usr/sbin/snapshot_restore

#/bin/sh
lvconvert –merge /dev/vg_localtest/original_snapshot && reboot

It works great so far. One improvement I’m making, since I one time forgot to make a snapshot, and so couldn’t restore to a blank slate without re-installing the whole thing (which, admittedly, only takes half an hour or so):

I’m adding ‘snapshot_make’ into a boot script, and then modifying it to remove itself from the bootscript once it’s made the snapshot. That way as soon as the machine reboots into it’s original snapshot, it will automatically re-create the snapshot.

This looks like:

/usr/sbin/snapshot_make:

#!/bin/sh
lvcreate –size 100G -s -n original_snapshot /dev/vg_localtest/root
sed -ine ‘/snapshot/d’ /etc/rc.local

and then /etc/rc.local will look like:

#… whatever it has
/usr/sbin/snapshot_make

"Matthew's Blog"

Fri, 28 Feb 2014 16:57:00 +0000

For the last few months, some friends and I have been working in our spare time on a 12 part video series, “Matthew’s Blog” - a video blog from the point of view of the Apostle Matthew (although he doesn’t know it yet).

He starts off as a young, arrogant tax officer, which is where we meet him in the first Episode:

I hope you enjoy! Please join us as it leads up to the climax at Easter this year on facebook.com/matthewsblog !

Merging directories with the magic of Python.

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 10:59:00 +0000

We finally got the last projects out of that monstrosity ‘Final Cut Server’, but one project at the end was a nightmare to export, and we weren’t sure which files from the end actually were in a different version of the project that we already had.

We essentially needed to merge two different versions of projects directories, making sure not to lose any files, and we didn’t want to lose the organization of the files.

Here’s a quick python script I wipped up to make it quicker.

With the 4000 odd files in the project, it took under a second to run, and it turned out we only had about 20 files which hadn’t already been merged. Much simpler to sort out.

The script took about 10 minutes to write and test. This is why you should learn to program. Hacking stuff like this up is easy, and saves *so* much time.

(Yes, you probably could do this with a couple of lines of perl or BASH, but what the heck.)

#!/usr/bin/env python
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
from os import stat
from os.path import basename, abspath
def run(*command):
    found = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE)
    return found.communicate()[0]
def files_in(dirname):
    return [x for x in run('find', abspath(dirname), '-type','f', '-print0').split(chr(0)) if x]
if __name__ == '__main__':
    from sys import argv
    try:
        sourcedir = files_in(argv[1])
        destdir = files_in(argv[2])
    except IndexError:
        print 'Usage:'
        print argv[0], '  '
        print 'Where you want to check if files in  are also in '
        print '(but perhaps with a different relative path)'
        exit(1)
    print '---------------------------------------------------'
    print '{0} files in {1}'.format(len(sourcedir), abspath(argv[1]))
    print '{0} files in {1}'.format(len(destdir), abspath(argv[2]))
    print '---------------------------------------------------'
    destnames = {}
    for destfile in destdir:
        destnames[basename(destfile)] = {'size': stat(destfile).st_size,
                                         'path': destfile }
    for newfile in sourcedir:
        base = basename(newfile)
        if base not in destnames:
            print newfile, 'is NOT in the new dir'
        else:
            destfile = destnames[base]
            if stat(newfile).st_size != destfile['size']:
                print '{0}({1}) differs from {2}({3})'.format(
                      newfile, stat(newfile).st_size,
                      destfile['path'], destfile['size'])

merging directories with the magic of python

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 05:34:54 +0100

We essentially needed to merge two different versions of projects directories, making sure not to lose any files, and we didn’t want to lose the organization of the files.

Here’s a quick python script I wipped up to make it quicker.

With the 4000 odd files in the project, it took under a second to run, and it turned out we only had about 20 files which hadn’t already been merged. Much simpler to sort out.

The script took about 10 minutes to write and test. This is why you should learn to program. Hacking stuff like this up is easy, and saves so much time.

(Yes, you probably could do this with a couple of lines of perl or BASH, but what the heck.)

Ergonomic things.

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 21:07:00 +0000

I get wrist pain in … well, obviously, my wrists.

Man, that was a bit of a daft start to a post.

Especially when using a mouse, but also when I have to do a lot of typing. I do touch type, but not ‘formally’, with perfect full-hand position, and so on.

Anyway, to try and make things better, here are some of the things I’m using

Microsoft Natural 4000 Keyboard

One of the weird things about keyboards is that essentially, we still use the exact same design that was needed for swinging arm typewriters. Stuffing all the keys as close together as we can, in orderly rows, so that the arm can hit the paper in the same place every time.
Actually, though, our hands would be a lot happier somewhat spaced apart, and at an angle, rather than trying to line up next to each other.

I have been using one of these Microsoft Keyboards for over a year now at work, and although it’s not perfect, it is a lot nicer than regular cheap and nasty keyboards, and a lot cheaper than some other Ergonomic Keyboards.

I currently have it at home, as, since this is a bit of a quiet time at OMNIvision, I thought I should finally get around to learning a more sane keyboard layout than QWERTY. I’m learning Workman, which is a little obscure at the moment, but to me makes sense. We’ll see if it takes off at all in the future…

Kensington Trackball

The thing which makes my wrists hurt the most is using a mouse, so I’ve been playing for a while with using the popular alternative to mice: trackballs. This one is really cool, in that it has a built in scroll wheel. That’s normal on mice, but for no apparent reason, is kind of unusual on trackballs.

I’m not 100% sold on trackballs as the answer, I think probably as big a part of it as anything is having to reach way over to the side and grip at an angle. So I try to keep the trackball in the middle of the desk, and I have it also on an angle using an old empty CD spool.

Wowpen Joy

At home, I tried for a while using another trackball I got on ebay, as it was cheap, as it was second-hand. It also wasn’t very reliable, so it ended up being more frustrating than helpful. I then looked at Vertical Mice - mice which are designed to keep your hand in the ‘handshake position’ more naturally than the twisted flat position of normal mice.

A lot of vertical mice, like ergonomic keyboards, are pretty expensive. However, on ebay there were a lot of these incredibly named ‘WowPen Joy’ mice. The name itself is enough to put you off. Anyway, I thought I’d try and see how one was. It’s actually very nice. It is kind of small, but still works fine with my big hands, I just use my middle and ring fingers to click, not index and middle.

Super fast review of the past few months.

Sun, 08 Sep 2013 15:31:00 +0000

Foolishly, perhaps, we thought this year would be a quiet one.
A couple months on the ship at the start, then back in the UK until August, Teenstreet in Germany, and then back home for the rest of the year.

There’s a quote regarding the fallibility of apparently structurally sound plans of humans and rodents which might be appropriate around here.

When we finished our time on Logos Hope, we were in Bangkok. Our organisation was holding a conference there at that time, so we helped out with the A/V techie arrangements for that. When that was over, Becky headed home to Carlisle, and I went North for a week or so as cameraman, filming and visiting with one of our teams in the region.

After I got back two weeks later to the UK, We had a couple of weeks ’normal work’, before I had to go to Ireland to run sound for an Event in Cork, as one of our other Sound Engineers needed to go back to Korea for surgery.

After getting back to Carlisle, we had about two weeks before we’d scheduled a couple of weeks in Cyprus, to take the Christmas break we’d missed on the ship, and take some time off, in lieu.

Two days before we were due to leave Cyprus, my Grandmother in Birmingham passed away, quite suddenly - although not totally unexpectedly - and so we returned to the UK with my parents and brother for her funeral.

We were then in back to Carlisle for a few weeks, before travelling over to Germany for Teenstreet.

While we were at Teenstreet, the arrangments came together for a filming project my Dad has been planning for a while in Cyprus, so instead of coming back to the UK, we headed over to Cyprus again to help with that, myself doing the sound recording and Becky the shoot documenting and general assisting.

We’ve since been back in the UK for just about three weeks, and so wondering what’s going to happen next.

Right now we have our friend Ant, staying with us, and he inspired me to start blogging again. This may not be the most exciting post in the world, but it at least starts to cover the great gap of the last several months.

You should check Ant’s Thoughts About Job.

Labels

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 13:13:00 +0000

With a post title like that, I kind of want to write a long piece about how we put people in boxes, or false expectations, or something. But alas, the subject is somewhat more prosaic. Actually, it’s not prosaic at all. It’s kind of boring, actually. Prose rather implies some kind of textual content, I feel, which this post doesn’t really have.

Anyway.

I’ve been making labels for things.
Perhaps it will make them feel more judged and unloved.
Perhaps it will simply make things easier for new AV operators to understand…

Documentation, and how balanced audio cables work.

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 08:39:00 +0000

I finally had a bit more time this morning to write a bit more in the A/V manual. There’s lots of bits and pieces of documentation on board, but no comprehensive single getting started manual. So I’m writing one, bring together bits and pieces from all over the place, sorting out what documentation there is, updating schematics, etc.

Anyway, here’s the rough version on the article I just wrote about how balanced sound cables work. It’s pretty much my standard explanation of Balanced Audio, and aimed at people coming to A/V from a non-techy musical background, rather than for Electronics Engineers.
You may find it interesting. Then again, you may not.

---–

Sound is basically vibrations in the air.

TODO: more details, pingpong ball analogy?

Inside an (SM57) Microphone head.
That is the bit of plastic and the coils!This translates really easily into an analogue electrical signal: you simply turn the air vibrations into voltage vibrations.A Dynamic microphone does this by having a small bit of paper (or plastic) which vibrates with the air around it, and pushes against a very small copper coil which, moving inside a magnetic coil itself, generates a very-very-very small amount of electrical current.

TODO: more pictures.

This gets dumped down a wire, which gets amplified by (you guessed it) an amplifier into a very big amount of electrical current, which then drives a big electromagnet inside a speaker, which pushes another copper coil around, which is attached to another big bit of paper (the speaker cone), which causes the air around the speaker to vibrate – with the same vibrations that the microphone vibrated with, just bigger.

Simple, isn’t it? (well. Kind of.)

Balanced Audio Cabling

The trouble with simply dumping an audio signal down a cable, and picking it up at the other end is that your signal line, and return (usually ground) will pick up noise (say from A/C mains electricity, fluorescent lights, dimmers, mobile phones, etc) along the way.

Here’s an original signal:

And here’s some noise:

And the result:

This is a Bad Thing™.

So some clever engineers, back in the deep recesses of time figured out the following:You could take a signal, and before sending down the wire where it could pick up noise, invert it:

If we add the signal to the inverse, you get a grand result of nothing (e.g. -3 + 3 = 0).

Now, if we throw these two signals down a pair of very similar cables twisted round and round each other like crazy, then they’ll both pick up noise pretty much the same as each other:

Note that 3 (the original) + 1 noise = 4,
while -3 (the inverse) + 1 noise = -2. NOT -4!

This is really cool, because if we add these two signals together, we don’t get 0 anymore, we get no original signal, but you do get the noise (doubled).

So we’ll use our amazing maths skills again, and divide this doubled noise in half. (2/2 = 1).

A random side story.

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 10:47:00 +0000

HK-SITREP-042.2013.01.10:

An individual with an extremely large head has been seen, dressed in a captains uniform walking around the vicinity of the Hong Kong International Airport. He seems reasonably calm, although the fixed smile on his face is somewhat disturbing. We believe he is waiting for some one, or ones, to arrive from destinations unknown.

Please advise.

Plenty of people coming off the plane were very confused. Still, pretty fun for us. I was the one with the camera, not the one in the suit, in case you’re wondering.
I think we may have slightly freaked out the bus driver on the way as well…

(Yes, we were picking up friends from the airport. No, they didn’t know we were going to bring the Captain. Yes, it was funny.)

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 11:36:00 +0000

So we’ve been on board the Logos Hope for just over a week now.

Kind of hard to believe. I really should have blogged earlier, saying we’ve arrived, etc.

As well as jet-lag, I picked up a cold, I guess on the plane, so have been totally energyless and wanting to just crash in the evenings rather than do something productive like write.

Sorry.

Anyway. Logos Hope is a much bigger ship than Doulos. I’ll try an post comparison pictures at some point.

The A/V systems on board are also quite a bit more complex and bigger. Similar concepts, and designed by OMNIvision guys, so using equipment I’m either familiar with, or familiar with cousins of. (I’d never mixed with an LS9, for instance, which is the digital sound desk they have on board - but I know the O1V96, which is kind of similar, and other digital sound desks).

So, we hadn’t quite realised that the ship is still in ‘drydock’ mode, so not really open to the public, wooden boards and paper over much of the carpeting, etc.

The Hope Theatre, the amazing on board venue which they have (*so* much bigger and cooler than Doulos tiny ‘Main Lounge’ had been converted into a mess for the deckies and engine guys, as well as workshop, storage area, dressing room, and general chaos zone.

Because the Dry-dock had been extended so many times, and they’d thought that initially it would be very short, much of the equipment (lights, sound desk, projectors, etc) didn’t get taken down and covered properly pre-drydock. So one job we’ve been doing over the last week is cleaning out the lights and projectors as much as we can, and covering them all with plastic bags so that during the cleaning of the rest of the theatre they don’t get any more dusty and dirty.

(We expect a lot more dust to come up when they lift up the floor covering boards and clean up the mess).

It’s pretty funny, seeing so many little bits of Doulos scattered around, like this ‘world’ guitar.

A lot of the equipment is slightly damaged, or very confused.

Like these poor headphones. A lot of the settings of equipment are set to really weird settings, some of which seem to have been reset to factory settings. Apparently over drydock a lot of equipment has been un airconditioned for 6 months or so, some of which has been off for that long, some of which has actually been used in that humid dirty state. I guess that accounts for some of it.

But there are also jobs which have been listed as ‘fixed’ by the previous A/V manager but are obviously done wrong. It’s kind of irritating. Apparently there has been very little hand over between managers for a while. Very little sensible training, and huge amounts of knowledge have been lost.

There really is a vast ammount of work to be done, just to get the systems operational and ready for normal ministry again. Let alone the teaching side of things.

Déjà vu

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:28:00 +0000

So Becky and I have been trying to go back to the ship for a while now.

Not the Doulos, but the Logos Hope.

Somehow, I just don’t seem to have got it out of our blood yet.

We though about going out late January time, perhaps flying with the new recruits from the January Conference.

So, the Déjà vu thing…

We spoke to some people in August at the GO conference, sent some emails around, waited a bit.

Waited some more. As one does.

Anyway, we got an email last week from our friend Mark, who’s one of the big manager types.

“I’ve spoken to the guys on board. I don’t suppose you could come at the end of the month, could you? I know it’s a bit short notice…”

!!

(Those previous two exclamation points without corresponding lexical complication are in fact, grammatically correct. ‘Self-explanatory punctuation’ I call it.)

So it looks like we may be back on board in 3 weeks! Quite exciting, and a perfect excuse to start up this blog again.

Why the ‘deja vu’ comment? Well, it seems awfully reminiscent of my first short term ship back in 2005. Feel free to find the archive entries if you wish!

The Logos Hope is just coming out of a very long (9 months odd) layup/drydock, and so they’d really like a couple of extra pairs of hands to help in the programmes/events/Audio-Visual stuff sooner rather than later.

More details to come later. :-)

sqlite dates and django

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I was getting very confused with my django DB quite happily setting the date in SQLite, but displaying a '' when loading it back from SQLite.

The SQLite field was a DATETIME, and in Django a DateField, which I would have thought should work.

Alas, no.

Apparently the SQLite field must be a varchar(20) (or similar) for a date w/o time.

Strange.

Duel Booting, mapping UIDs for different filesystems

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 10:26:00 +0000

I’m dual booting Debian & OSX on my work machine.

In OSX, users are created starting with UIDs 1000. So the admin user is 502, I’m 501, and so on. Also, the ‘staff’ group ID is 20.

On Debian, users are created starting with UIDs 1000. So I’m 1000, my testing blank account is 1001, and so on. The ‘staff’ group ID is 50.

This is a bit of a problem when I want to share files. Since it’s just me on the computer,
technically I could just mount the drive with full read/write permission to me. But I don’t want that. I don’t want to be able to muck around with stuff outside my /home (or /Users/) directory without really trying hard.

The way to do it is using FUSE and bindfs.

Debian squeeze comes with FUSE installed, and has bindfs, but the version of bindfs that comes in the repo wasn’t up to date enough, so you may need to compile your own.

sudo aptitude install bindfs libfuse-dev

Download, compile and install a new bindfs:

http://code.google.com/p/bindfs/

tar -zxvf whicheverfileversion.tar.gz
cd whicheverfileversion
./configure
make
sudo make install

Should now leave you with an up to date /usr/local/bin/bindfs

For the sake of example, I’ll show my set up. /media/OSX is the original.

sudo /usr/local/bin/bindfs –map=501/1000:@20/@50 OSX OSX

Sweet! It works!

There will be quite a big performance hit from using bindfs. Some benchmarks (linked from the bindfs page) reckon about 80%. Not a problem for me here, since it’s fast enough. But to be aware of.

Here’s a script which I put in /etc/init.d/osxfixperms.sh to run this on bootup.

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          osxfixperms
# Required-Start:    fuse
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start:     S
# Default-Stop:      0 6
# Short-Description: remount OSX drive with correct permissions.
# Description:
### END INIT INFO
do_start() {
    /usr/local/bin/bindfs –map=501/1000:@20/@50 /media/OSX /media/OSX
}
case “$1” in
start|"")
    do_start
    ;;
restart|reload|force-reload)
    echo “Error: argument ‘$1’ not supported” >&2
    exit 3
    ;;
stop)
    umount /media/OSX
    ;;
*)
    echo “Usage: osxfixperms.sh [start|stop]” >&2
    exit 3
    ;;
esac
:

Which I’ve then installed (on debian) with (as root)

update-rc.d osxfixperms.sh defaults

You’ll need to be mounting the OSX drive *BEFORE* this happens. Generally, that means stuffing it in /etc/fstab in the appropriate way. You can ask google / debian docs. It’s fairly well documented. Unlike using bindfs.

There.
Easy. (ish).

SQLite dates and Django

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:51:00 +0000

I was getting very confused with my django DB quite happily setting the date in SQLite, but displaying a ’’ when loading it back from SQLite.

The SQLite field was a DATETIME, and in Django a ‘DateField, which I would have thought should work.

Alas, no.

Apparently the SQLite field must be a varchar(20) (or similar) for a date w/o time.

Strange.

Python string concatination speed

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:31:00 +0000

I made a quick python script to convert OpenLP song (lyric) databases into the presentation format used by ProPresenter.

https://github.com/danthedeckie/OpenLP-To-ProPresenter5-Converter

is the link. I put it together in a few hours, it should have been quicker, but I’m still re-acquainting myself with python.

It is a nice language.

One thing I did today, while cleaning up a bit, was wonder about something I remember from doing python years ago - string concatenation. Joining two strings (texts) together.

“Hello” + “World” -> “HelloWorld”

I remembered something about it being slow, and python recommending using

‘’.join((“Hello”, “World”))

which seems to me one of the most blatently ugly obscure gotchas I’ve come across in a long while.

Anyway, I refactored my code into that style - converting databases and song lyrics and writing XML stuff is pretty much all Text formatting and concatination.

It made no discernable difference. So I went back to normal easier to read x += y, and x = y + z type of code.

python string concatination speed

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I made a quick python script to convert OpenLP song (lyric) databases into the presentation format used by ProPresenter.

https://github.com/danthedeckie/OpenLP-To-ProPresenter5-Converter

is the link. I put it together in a few hours, it should have been quicker, but I’m still re-acquainting myself with python.

It is a nice language.

One thing I did today, while cleaning up a bit, was wonder about something I remember from doing python years ago - string concatenation. Joining two strings (texts) together.

"Hello" + "World" -> "HelloWorld"

I remembered something about it being slow, and python recommending using

''.join(("Hello", "World"))

which seems to me one of the most blatently ugly obscure gotchas I’ve come across in a long while.

Anyway, I refactored my code into that style - converting databases and song lyrics and writing XML stuff is pretty much all Text formatting and concatination.

It made no discernable difference. So I went back to normal easier to read x += y, and x = y + z type of code.

2 weeks in Cyprus

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:11:00 +0000

So Becky and I came over to Cyprus for a couple of weeks. The last time we visited was almost 2 years ago, so this is our first time here as a married couple.

It’s relaxing, and interesting, and fun, and weird being back in Cyprus. A few things have changed, many people come and go, which is usual…

We’ve been catching up with loads of people from the local church (various congregations), been sailing with my dad twice, been to a performance at theatre antidote, looked at their lighting system and helped look at the audio stuff they have, played loads of Settlers of Catan & Ticket to Ride with my parents and their usual Catan-Cronies (hi guys! Hope you like your new title…), we visited Nicosia, and went across (briefly) to the North, spent time with the cats (me being somewhat cat-starved), went for walks by the salt-lake, I bought a Cyprus coffee maker, and some other bits of (tasteful) Cypriotness. Partly because I like Cyprus coffee, and partly because I hope we’ll be heading back towards the ship(s) at some point, and would like to have some stuff from the country to show people.

I can’t figure out how to make the webcam take pictures (I’m writing on mum’s chromebook) so you’ll just have to wait for photos of the coffee maker.

Anyway. (I can’t write a blogpost without at least one paragraph starting with ‘Anyway’.) We’re off to the UK again in a couple days, which will be odd again.

As I mentioned, briefly, we are looking at heading back towards the ship(s) at some point. Probably for a few months at the end of the year, if we can, and see if maybe we should be going out there for a few years again at some point - when, we don’t know.

I’m looking forward to seeing our friends in the UK again soon, but not really looking forward to the weather, or work, to be honest. Seeing live theatre stuff again… I miss it a lot. And being at sea, even if it is on a little boat. And warm weather, even if not that warm. OMNIvision is doing some cool stuff, and the team is amazing, and I’m glad to be part of it. But documentary-type video production, media-engineering and web development are kind of interesting, but not really exciting any more for me.

Thinking that next week I’ll probably be fixing broken mic cables and fighting stupid Internet Explorer broken-ness makes me very gloomy.

Still. I’m in Cyprus now, spent the day sailing with my wife, my dad, currently I have a cat purring on my lap, about to play a game of Settlers, and go out for a meal this evening with some old friends, so, I really shouldn’t complain! This has been a really good fortnight.

Techy post

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:43:00 +0000

I appologise for how techy and geeky and boring this post is.

I even find it so myself.

But I need to get this off my chest, so I can actually write about interesting stuff later…

And some geeky people may actually find something comprehensible in here. Perhaps even interesting.

If you want to read it, then if your eyes glaze over with techiness, then stop reading, drink a glass of water, scroll down to ’ And another thing’, and read from there.

So then.

Most of my recent work has been on the omnitube.org website.

It’s a site I put together with David when I visited OMNIvision 4 years ago (now that seems weird!). We put it together in about 2 weeks, based on a well known large complex CMS (Content Management System) called Joomla, which was the OM standard web-site-software-package, a few very large complex modules for that, specifically “VirtueMart”, plus a bunch of my own hacks in php/javascript, plus a load of very clever HTML/CSS from David. Since then, I’d done a few fixes for them, logging on from a ’net cafe in Singapore, and when Becky and I arrived at OMNIvision 2 years ago, it was basically in the same state.

The trouble was that in the 2 years since we’d put it together, the internet had changed quite a lot, and we hadn’t had the time to really work on OMNItube to change with it. Joomla had advanced significantly, as had Virtuemart, and alas, we couldn’t smoothly upgrade to the latest versions of those without majorly breaking everything.

About a year ago (from now), I decided it was about time to do something about this, as I was scared that a now 3 year old install of joomla/etc without being able to have security updates was a bit scary. Especially as we wanted to sell videos online, and DVDs, and so were doing credit-card type security stuff. And the system admin wanted to upgrade the server, and I thought doing that would probably break everything again.

I spent about a week trying to upgrade things to the latest versions of joomla and virtuemart. Some bits I got almost close to working, but in the end it just totally bogged me down. Joomla + Virtuemart + all the plugins and modules which were installed to make everything work as we wanted ended up at around 7000+ files, and 800'000 lines of code. Not joking. So tracking down bugs and errors and trying even to find which function I was looking for took forever, and I simply don’t have a big enough brain to hold that much in my head at once.

So after a week or two of working hard to try and upgrade things, I gave up, it was just too big a job for me to do on my own. I’d made no progress, and it was still a big stinkin’ mess.

We also had some new features we wanted to get working. Specifically, iTunes subscriptions, XML sitemap, facebook commenting/liking/etc, and related product lists. The “search” system was also very broken, giving pretty much useless results most of the time.

Moving Users between computers on OSX

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:22:00 +0000

So we needed to move a bunch of users from an OSX Leopard Server to a normal OSX machine (as a backup / test bed)

using the normal ‘migration assistant’ didn’t work, so we had to do it manually. Possibly due to moving from a Intel based OSX-Server machine to a PPC based non-Server?

All user details are kept in

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users

in .plist files (XML, human readable).

and all passwords are kept in hash files in

/private/var/db/shadow/hash

The hash files are named after the “generateduid” found inside the users .plist file.

If you’re using home directories on the computer, you’d need to move them across too.

Ditto for user groups. User groups are kept in

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/groups

Move the files across to the new machine, and it all just works.

if you use " cp -n" on the command line, it won’t write over the top of files already there, so shouldn’t muck anything up (hopefully!)

NOTE: One weird thing was that a bunch of the users didn’t appear in the Accounts Preference Panel. This seems to be linked whether or not the account .plist file has a default shell set up:

shell

        /bin/bash

it goes after the “realname” key/array pair.

Intro Post

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:21:00 +0000

Dear Internet,

You’ve been such a help in me finding stuff, random answers to obscure questions, that I should also submit random answers I’ve found out myself, so others can find them.

This is it.

I’m not good with computers! Honest I’m not!

moving osx leopard server users

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:22:26 +0100

So we needed to move a bunch of users from an OSX Leopard Server to a normal OSX machine (as a backup / test bed)

using the normal ‘migration assistant’ didn’t work, so we had to do it manually. Possibly due to moving from a Intel based OSX-Server machine to a PPC based non-Server?

All user details are kept in

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users

in .plist files (XML, human readable).

and all passwords are kept in hash files in

/private/var/db/shadow/hash

The hash files are named after the “generateduid” found inside the users .plist file.

If you’re using home directories on the computer, you’d need to move them across too.

Ditto for user groups. User groups are kept in

/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/groups

Move the files across to the new machine, and it all just works.

if you use cp -n on the command line, it won’t write over the top of files already there, so shouldn’t muck anything up (hopefully!)

NOTE: One weird thing was that a bunch of the users didn’t appear in the Accounts Preference Panel. This seems to be linked whether or not the account .plist file has a default shell set up:

it goes after the “realname” key/array pair.

There is a reason...

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:07:00 +0000

There is a reason why I prefer text based / commandline / unix interfaces.

“Why?” You may ask?

So I had to update a website – basically changing from ‘2011’ to ‘2012’ – for someone. Once I got in to the file manager (web based) I could find the graphics files to replace, reasonably easily, and upload new ones.

But I needed to update the text of the banner. No .html files, or .inc or anything to edit.

So I went to the “WYSIWYG” editor section of the site. I could edit everything, except that part. And the footer. And the page title. So, I could edit the “articles”, but not much else.

After hunting around for a while, I decided to try the “Website Management” area. Total different interface again, loads of settings boxes and tabs. I found there on different pages where I could set the page title, and so on. But I couldn’t find the banner! Anywhere!

Eventually, this morning, I found it.

In “Website Management” -> “Structure” -> “Website Settings” -> “Code Injection” -> “Advanced” -> “Site Banner HTML Override – Edited”

I hadn’t found it before, because the section I needed was “Site Banner HTML Override”, and to find that, I needed to look through a drop-down box which was displaying “Extra Header Code (within )” with some javascript includes.

SERIOUSLY.

What is wrong with just having a bunch of text files, and then letting me type

“grep 2011 *”

And it giving me a list of files to edit? HOW is this graphical interface any easier?

OK. So ‘grep’ isn’t common English, I know. Learning basic unix does have a steep looking learning curve. At first.

In case you’re interested, I started, months and months ago, writing an “English-like” command shell.

So you could type commands like:

“list all files which contain 2011”

and it should tell you.

It’s on sourceforge, the first alpha versions of the code.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/daftshell/

The whole idea of ’natural language’ interfaces fascinates me. I should work on daftshell again, one of these days.

So. Yeah. Graphical “easy” systems aren’t always easy.

Windows Movie Maker

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 19:57:00 +0000

I wrote this a few months ago in a prayer meeting. I know. Very holy of me.

Windows Movie Maker [C:Program FilesMovie MakerMOVIEMK.exe] is a highly virulent productivity virus. Not only effecting the computer it is hosted on, but having a socially engineered payload which self-propagates through USB sticks, video/data projectors, and various presentation media.

Reports have come in of this virus’ unique capability to be transmitted through analogue forms such as VHS tape, and occasionally film.

Symptoms:

Audience hypnotism
Hours of time wasted by ’editor’ and ‘viewers’
Computer lock-ups and data-loss
Lowered expectations of quality
Copyright infringement
Physical injury
Death

Response Actions:

CTRL-ALT-DEL

[small print. Dear lawyers, et al. This is what’s known as parody. Just like the word ‘Movie’ is in the program title. In other words, a joke.]

Beauty in the eye of the beholder?

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:43:00 +0000

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”… or is it?

By saying it is, we say beauty is only a subjective quality.

But by saying it isn’t – by saying that something may be beautiful without our being able to appreciate it as beautiful – we divorce ourselves from our experience and our association between words and description…

Is it possible to say

“It’s beautiful, but I don’t like it.”

Which I think I may have said, from time to time. In that I can see elements and aspects which, maybe I know, are considered beautiful, or perhaps I can see an underlying elegance and purpose, but aesthetically I find it displeasing… Some of Rembrant’s paintings would fall in to this category.

The thing is, am I just susceptible to the cultural conditioning of my upbringing in saying something like this? I have preconceived notions of what is beautiful and what isn’t? But then, my aesthetic sense is also formed (to a large degree) by the same…

So there’s a whole philosophic field based around these very questions.

But I guess I’m kind of wondering… how variable language is. How our thoughts are modified by the language and words we use, and yet the language and words we use are modified and morphed by our thoughts.

So often, everything seems so vague, so fuzzy, so indefinable, so inexplicable, so possibly variable, so uncertain and indefinate, and so futile. *sigh*

You become your parents,

Tue, 31 May 2011 17:46:00 +0000

Or so they say.

And hereby, I think I will prove it true, to some degree:

Yes, I’m blogging pictures of settlers games, and home made food.

Now for some context.

So we got back from honeymoon two weeks ago - which means we’ve been married now for a month! Incredible.

Honeymoon was amazing - the perfect holiday, I think. We stayed in this gorgeous cottage / gatehouse / lodge , in Gatehouse of fleet:

Went for loads of walks (Dumfries & Galloway are lovely!):

(where I took quite a few photos of flowers and insects, cos it’s cool)

Yeah. Honeymoon was cool! I thoroughly recommend it. Getting married first is a pretty good idea, too.

We visited Cream of Galloway who make icecreams:

(I love this photo!!! Becky isn’t so keen on it though. heh heh heh)

Drank lots of coffee:

(I figure if I put a funny one of me, I’ll get less flak for putting a crazy one of Becky…)

The house had a log fire,

where we made smores:

And generally had a wonderful time. Thanks to everyone who came to the wedding, helped us in so many ways, and gave us gifts and all that cool stuff. Getting married is awesome! Being married is even better.

So now we’re back, we’ve been playing with some new kitchen toys (real chef knives, a blender, breadmaker, new plates and bowls and pans and pots and a yoghurt maker… wow! I feel really thankful and very embarrassed in a good way…). Thus the food pictures:

(making pancakes using a blender to make the batter - is this the ultimate in laziness? Whatever - it’s fun! :-) )

Yes - we’re having fun. Not having to walk half an hour home each night is VERY nice too. I may well post more pictures too, as I slowly sort them out. We haven’t actually got all the pictures back from the wedding, we’ve seen some of them, but I’ll post some of those too, later.

briefupdate

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:49:00 +0000

soveryquicklysorrythere’snotimeforalongerblogupdate,
I’mgettingmarriedin3daystimeandsoamquitebusysorting
outstuffandrunningaroundemailingandthingswhichiswhy
Ihaven’tbeenupdatingheremuchI’msureyouforgivemeso
longthanksI’llpostmorewhenbackfromHoneymoonGod
blessyouall,goodnight!

Jesus' teaching

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:55:00 +0000

Sometimes it seems a bit scattered - all over the place. I’d wondered for a while about the sermon on the mount, as He seems to jump from one topic to another in a somewhat haphazard manner.

Check this out:

Judging Others

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

Ask, and It Will Be Given

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

The Golden Rule

12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few… (ESV Bible - Matthew 7:1-14)

This is how the ESV sets out the passage. As you can see, it’s nicely broken up in to paragraphs, with nice easy to spot headings, different verse numbers, etc. Usual Bible Printing Style(.css). Same as the NIV, KJV, NASB, and most other Bibles you find these days.

The trouble is, I can’t imagine Jesus teaching quite like that. No pauses, just “1,2,3,59,60,61,10008,10009,10010” kind of thing.. No “Oh yes. By the way…” between totally unrelated topics.

Yes, OK. So they’re all related to love, and relationships. Kind of.

Try and find something Jesus said that isn’t, in some manner of speaking.

Anyway…

I was trying to figure this out.

In our study group, we’re using John Stott’s notes, which give a rough interpretation as follows:

1-5,“Don’t judge others”

6, “Don’t waste your time trying to preach to unbelievers who refuse to believe.”

Theology and Perspective (Part 3...)

Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:39:00 +0000

First check out Part 1, and Part 2.

So, returning to my original quote: love isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision.

And I said, there’s some truth to it. However - I don’t think that’s the whole story.

We all long for love, and when we think of it, imagine the amazing soaring heights: long walks in the woods; laughter; passion; kisses in the moonlight; being held by someone who just wants to be with you; that secret, hidden spark; being known and knowing, intimately, deeply, unjudgingly; the look that’s meant just for you…

And Josh Harris et al. are right in saying it’s more than just the feeling we get from these things (incredible, inexplicable, wonderful and rewarding though it is…), and we must have something more, a decision, an act of the will, which keeps us going through the dark times. Though thick and thin, health and sickness, better or worse, richer or poorer. The thing which keeps us going though we’re angry and tired, and the one we love drives us mad. When everything goes wrong and we want to give up - that “not-giving-up-ness”, is also love. And without it, all of the first list are just a crashing cymbal, or breath of wind, cool, sweet, beautiful, but perishable, and of no lasting significance.

But the thing is, I don’t think that just the decision is love.

And I think we can - by looking at it, or teaching it this way - miss the fact that 90% of the time*, life isn’t passionate highlights, nor terrible lows, but plodding along in the day-to-day mundane boring normality.
[*Yes, I know. Fictional statistic for the sake of rhetorical prose. Forgive me.]

Does that sound bad?

If you get married, and have kids, then by the time they are old enough to leave home, you’ll have spent two thousand HOURS … doing the dishes.

Is that bad?

No. It’s an integral part of love. Without the details, picking up the trash and the dishes, vacuuming the carpets, driving to work, none of the “perks” of love can exist - nor would they mean anything if they did.

What we need, I think, is not to say “I have decided to love”, but “I am love”. Following God’s description of Himself in John’s gospel as love. The famous passage in 1 Corinthians comes to mind, of course, as well. So instead of thinking, “I’ve decided to love Becky”, or “I feel in love with Becky”, I must say, “I am love Becky.” (grammarians, have fun)

Then the things I do, the things I think, the things I say, will all come from that. The who I am.

And it must become part of the who.

So then, how does this all reflect back to theology, and the my thoughts about our perspective on God?

Well, I struggle to connect a lot of the bits and pieces of Christianity.

The theology, on one hand, with the practical out-working on the other, loving people on the third hand, loving God on the fourth, loving myself with the fifth hand, spiritual experience with the sixth, and by this stage, I’ve more than run out of arms.

Theology and Perspective (Part 2 of?)

Sat, 11 Dec 2010 19:32:00 +0000

Link to Part 1 (Read it First)

I played a bit with trying to make Venn diagrams in 3d. Using different shaped spheres, and so on. It’s quite hard to make diagrams which actually help to make the subject clearer. Usually it actually becomes less comprehensible.

But here’s the best I could come up with, showing 3 ‘winds’ I believe are currently blowing through the Evangelical world:

Obviously, there’s a heck of a lot more going on - just as in my previous post there are an awfulawful lot of groups who don’t fit into those gross generalisations. But I’m just focusing on a few areas - humour me. You can extrapolate the concepts out to whichever field of theological hooha you like.

So anyway. The 3 “winds”:

Proclamation: A lot of people, especially amongst the Reformed Christians, but also amongst the Positive Christians are very ‘preachy’ – in that their primary effort seems to be going in to telling the rest of the world their position. All the traditional study aids go into this: exegesis, hermeneutics, preaching, everything goes into ‘Tell the world the truth!’. And it’s not just the Reformed groups, but all across the spectrum. There isn’t a lot of open-minded-ness, because there IS an absolute truth, and our job is to tell everyone about it! One of the major shortfalls is that the people most influenced by this wind tend (I observe) to not be willing to challenge their own beliefs, but once they’ve “got it sorted” and have answers they’re happy with, are happy to debate for the sake of convincing others, but aren’t open to changing themselves. I met some Mormons a few months ago who told me, ‘We’d like to tell you about what we believe, but if you want to just discuss and try to tell us about your beliefs, then we’ll just go elsewhere. We’re not going to be converted.’

Discussion: Especially in the so called ‘Emerging Church’, much effort seems to go into ‘The Conversation’. In many ways, I suspect this is a reaction against the proclamation group - who were very much deregueur during the ’80s, and are perceived to have built into almost a fortress of dogma. The Discussion seems to be reacting away from that, saying, ‘Maybe Wayne Grudem didn’t have everything right. Maybe the world is a bit more complex than a quick Systematic Theology can describe. It’s certainly open for discussion. I don’t know, but it’s interesting – what do you think?’ And in a sense, that’s the big difference. What do you think? vs. This is the truth!And it’s not just one group saying this – I think it’s across the whole Church. Some people are becoming more open to uncertainty and relational discussion – which is positive, I think. And also, everything being open for discussion is also positive. It helps us to not become blinded.

It is a harder line to walk with integrity, though, I think, as if everything is open for discussion, how do you really know what you believe? And do you really believe it? It can also turn very easily into ‘There is no absolute truth? Right? ‘Cos, everyone has their own perspective, innit? Whaddya say?’

Theology and Perspective (Part 1)

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 10:06:00 +0000

We frequently get told the typical ‘Love isn’t a feeling - it’s a decision’ aphorism beloved of the Joshua Harris school of thought.

And, of course, there’s a lot of truth in that.

Going by the Self Help philosophy, virtually everything is a decision. You can decide to be happy, sad, excited, motivated, depressed, whatever - and Make It True In Your Life™.

And of course, we do have an element of choice in how we react to situations; our responces are not all pre-determined by DNA, our upbringing, nor instinct. Choosing to live purposefully (not in the Purpose Driven Life sense) - saying ‘I’m going to sail to this specific place, whether or not it’s easy, whether or not the wind is against me, whether or nor it’s raining.’ is more likely, I feel, to lead to something meaningful than simply being tossed around by whatever weather (whether favourable or not).

Ha! I managed it. Weather followed by whether in a sentence. Betcha didn’t see that one comin’. All this blogging stuff is helping my spelling to impruve.

Now the Perciever (MBTI) in me says ‘hang on a second, mate - you’ve got the whole thing backwards. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. So actually, taking what weather comes at you along the way - being flexible; able to adapt to the situation; enjoying the mood - is more important than whether you’re actually got some place to finally end up. And when you end up there, you’re really just en route to somewhere else! There are no desinations, only stepping stones.’

So here’s now an interesting concept. Totally un-scientific, un-tested, un-official and un-ilateral (OK, OK, superfluous punctuation for the sake of continuing the sequence humour. Sorry). The Church, in general, especially the Reformed branches of it, are dominated by J types. The theologians, especially, of the NTJs. This leads very easily to Us/Them; Saved/Unsaved; Elect/Damned; Christian/Heathen; Religious/Secular distinctions. At some level, this is fine. When it’s implimented by well integrated balanced and loving Js, it can become an inspiration to many, and allow huge, complex theological issues to be understood slightly better by us plebs. The trouble comes when we don’t realise that it is an abstraction, and that every piece of theology that we come up with - no matter how brilliant or water-tight it seems - is merely the wrestling of a fallen finite mind with concepts of an infinite perfect God.

Those of us who are not NTJs, when we pick up on NTJ thought patterns, and try to live that style, often pick it up very badly, and express the worst elements of it. I feel that myself, when I try to think or live as a Calvinist, become the worst form of Calvinist. I don’t have the capacity inside to take those black and white and apply them without either falling into Lord of the Flies over-bearing judgementalism and pettiness, or else wishy-washing it out into something which would have me burned at the stake for relativism - should the Reformation Inquisition ever catch me.

Areopress, coffee, etc...

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 11:40:00 +0000

So I thought it might be interesting to post about some things which are adding to my life here.

First post is coffee. I’m quite the coffee fan, over here. Compared so some people, not so much, but for Carlisle, quite high up the coffee freak ladder.

Unless there is a hidden coffee community I’m not finding somehow.

I don’t have a massive budget for going to flashy cafes or expensive bistros or whatever all the time, so what I’m more interested in is good tasting home coffee.

Here’s my current collection of coffee related clobber.

First a fun story, and then I’ll go into more detail about everything else, so if you’re not interested in coffee, then you can skip the end. :-)

So when I moved into this house with Euan, there was a french press / cafetiere in the cupboard, so I thought “Oh good - I don’t need to buy anything for making coffee, I can use that”. So the first morning I boiled the kettle, let it cool for a while I put some ground coffee in the cafetiere, and then poured the water in.

I thought it was a pyrex pot, but alas, I was wrong. There was a tremendous ‘crack!’ sound, and coffee started to leak from the bottom. Oh no! What to do, lah?

So since it was only leaking very very slowly, I thought, well, I won’t waste the coffee, I’ll let it brew, plunge it very carefully, then pour the coffee out - if any glass did shatter, the plunger/filter will clean it out, and then I can see how bad the damage is.

So duely I followed the above plan, until the pouring bit. I lifted up the pot, only to find that in fact the crack had been ALL the way around the base! So when I lifted it up, the base stayed on the work surface, and the rest of the pot came up in my hand.

The coffee, alas, followed the laws of physics (I know, I can hardly blaim it…) and went everywhere.

No coffee for me that morning.

So I bought a new french press to replace the one I’d exploded, but by that time, I’d already found
…
A Krups espresso/filter machine.
…
in Charlie? (the used clothes / stuff team cupboard, when you leave, you can leave anything you don’t want to take with you for others to have).

So I was quite surprised to find this in Charlie - until I looked it up online.

It has terrible reviews.

Here’s my take - it’s kinda fun to play with, but I’m not convinced by the ‘crema’ that the espresso part produces. It feels kinda fake to me, almost like the machine is somehow ‘frothing’ it to make it seem more real or something. The coffee doesn’t taste too horrible, just … meh. Not really rich and interesting. Maybe un-set up temperature and pressure stuff? I dunno. I’m no expert on any of this! The milk steaming wand is very cheap and plasticy, as well as seeming near impossible to actually steam milk in proper microfoam also seems to taint the milk with a kind of rubbery aftertaste. Maybe it’s just me though…

Back in the UK - for a while.

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:37:00 +0000

Hello Blog.
Hello everyone who reads this blog.
Hello google-bot.
Hello world.

It’s me. Daniel. Back again. Exciting, wot?

So, we’re back in the UK. I arrived back here literally 4 hours before getting on to a bus to go to TeenStreet in Germany, which we (OMNIvision) were doing video and some sound and lights and so on for. After two weeks of running this event, which I will tell you all about - later, which was very cool, we came back to the UK.

10 days later, Adam, Becky and myself went across to the Nederlands for our friends Jurgens and Eleanor’s wedding. Which was lots of fun. We came back after that to the the UK again.

Bridget (from that biggish place near New Zealand… um, forgottern what it’s called. Aus something? Something with trailers? or something?) also came with us back to the UK, and was here with us for about a month, hanging out, working at OMNIvision, and so on.

Then 10 days ago (or so) Bridget took us over to Malta, so see the Logos Hope for a few days, and also Becky’s dad and church there. I’d never been to Malta before, but Becky grew up there, so that was VERY cool. Malta is beautiful.

I’ll be posting more detailed stuff and photos later.. This is just to catch y’all up to date, you know.

So. We then came back to the UK, last week.

Now for the next scattered layer of events in between those all.

Yesterday we ran the video and lights for the Northern Women’s Convention, which we’ve been doing for the best part of a decade every year now, I believe.

On friday morning, we set up our whole smaller OB unit (the bus - aka “The Tardis”) at the main office for devotions, we filmed a bunch of stories people were telling. We hadn’t set up the unit in a while, so this was good to check everything was working before the Women’s convention… one bad camera cable, one missing focus adaptor, not much else actually wrong.

Two weeks ago, just before going off to Malta I ran sound and we did a spill-over room for the local Baptist church - as they had a new minister arriving (for the first time in decades) and so there were a few hundred people along. I’m in the middle of overhauling our sound equipment / side-racks stuff, so it’s good as well getting these smaller gigs to test things on.

I also went down to the Quinta and ran sound for them for their big 30 years Quinta+OM celebration a few weeks ago.

I do enjoy doing live sound stuff. I still wonder quite frequently if I should somehow go and do some more official training for it…

Oh well.

So, that’s the grand scope of my last few months, I’ll post more details soon.

This week...

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:03:00 +0000

Some pictures from the week.

Treatment for insect bites.

Measurements of the new theatre building.

My blender mockup. We’re still discussing.

You can’t work efficiently in blender on a laptop without an external keyboard and mouse.

Beautiful Greek letters! I find keyboards and mice from supermarkets are the cheapest, and the longest lasting. Apple and Microsoft branded mice - just say NO!

More clutter destined for the trash.

Why it may be worth going to Sunday Morning "Church Services"

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:56:00 +0000

At a Sunday morning in Birmingham, the dude running the event got up to lead a prayer. Being an Anglican service, it was a pre-written one. Alas, he picked the wrong one, and only realised half way through:

“Lord God, we have sinned, oops. Sorry…”

Thoughts...

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:44:00 +0000

We’ve booked our tickets to leave Cyprus in a month-ish. This time has gone SO fast … it did last time too.

I’ve started thinking about “stuff”. Very vague, I know. More, possessions type stuff. Here’s a picture of my cupboard:

as you can see, crammed full of all kinds of bits and pieces. From recorders (blockflöten) to juggling balls to old marmite jars with elastic bands to rope to old telephones to candles to old CD players to scissors…

I know I’m naturally something of a hoarder, and don’t want to throw stuff away… but on Doulos I think I either learned to be more balanced, or else some how got even more messed up! :-)

By the time I left AV, I had picked up quite a bit of “are we using it? No? Is it working? No? OK, then throw it away.” - I know Ant and Adam will claim somewhat otherwise *cough*oldA&Hsound-desks*cough* - but I know I’ve actually changed a lot. So now, looking at all this stuff in my cupboard, things I haven’t used in over 4 years now… I find it really hard to want to keep it.

How is it helping me to have this here? How is it helping anyone? Am I using it? No. Is it working? Well, some of it, kind of. Will I use it again?

Probably not… well… some of it? Maybe?

Sentimental value seems to be something I no longer really care about much.

I’ve thrown out the old hand-made juggling clubs (plastic milk bottles, newspaper and kitchen-roll centers :-) ) and broken telephones (for a juggling routine to do with communication), and some other odds and ends, but amn’t sure what to do with the rest.

Does it actually behoove me ( I’ve been wanting to use that word for AGES! ha! Done it! ) to throw stuff away?

Now I’m going back to Carlisle for a few years, and getting married next year, I need to think more about such stuff, I guess. I will no longer be a batchelor, able to just keep random clutter in a cupboard. I’m fine with that. (I’m pretty sure I’ll end up picking up more…)

I do have a lot of projects on the go at once. Juggling stuff - one day I will get back into it more; Obscure music stuff - I will take up the bagpipes one day; art stuff - I love painting, I just haven’t done any for a while; computer programming - a hobby. I don’t want a job of this! But a little is fun; graphic design… etc… etc…

But it’s not very efficient. I know I need to prioritise, cut away the cruft. I don’t NEED this stuff! But maybe not? Maybe actually having lots of clutter and things on the go is actually how I function best? Or maybe not?

Isn’t it great being decisive? Well, perhaps? Or perhaps not? Some times? Er…

So.

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:05:00 +0000

How do you make big announcements?

Do you blow trumpets and dance and stuff?

Or pretend like nothing is up and act all blasé?

Which is less pretentious? Which is less gauche? (I am enjoying using all these fancy words, but I have to use the flippin’ spell checker to make sure I get them right, which rather spoils the whole sophisticated air of the thing. Oh well.)

I kind of feel I should respect my British heritage, and get all worked up about the tiniest things (such as toasters, knots, AV, coffee machines, and so on) and drop big announcements as if they’re specks of dust being flicked from ones mess-jacket (not that I have a mess jacket, but it sounds right, Bertie Woosterish).

Enough of this blithering.

I’m engaged to be married to the most wonderful girl in the world! Life is a happy thing, full of kittens and sunshine and gentle summer breezes, and stuff!

Hopefully that somewhat fell between the lines of fanfare and faux pas, hint and hyperbole, I shall now go and dance for a bit.

The Abomination is Dead.

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:57:00 +0000

I don’t like Mobile Phones.

I was somewhat forced by various parents (well, mine, actually) to take one with me, when I first went off to Doulos, 5 years ago.

Here it is:

I named it “The Abomination”.

5 years later, I have conceded that they are somewhat useful. Alas, I dropped it this week. It now only does this:

So it is deceased. Good bye Abomination.

Rest in Pieces.

Larnaca

Wed, 26 May 2010 13:58:00 +0000

We’ve been in Larnaca for a couple of weeks now, it’s good spending time with mum and dad, the cats, friends, supporters, etc.

Not so good are the mozzie bites. I’m being rather eaten - if it’s not mozzies, it’s some other kind of wee beastie of the “eating daniel” variety.

We’ve been spending a lot of time reading, resting, and meeting people.

And playing a LOT of Settlers of Catan, probably the best board game around.

between a clock and the next place...

Sun, 02 May 2010 11:37:00 +0000

Again, it’s that weird time - about a week before leaving. Time to start packing and preparing, yet also not quite late enough that you can pack everything without needing to unpack bits again over the next week.

I’ve just been reading this book, which is quite challenging. I recomend reading it. Basically, it’s the story of a young radical student type, who couldn’t sit back and watch all the injustice and insanity in the world, and couldn’t support ways to end it from his couch or by sending a tenner a month to TearFund, but actually had to get his hands dirty, go live with the homeless in his area, visit Mother Teresa, work with them, and so on. The longish review on Amazon.co.uk is good - it is quite an americo-centric take on things. But suck the juice, spit the pips, you know.

So - yeah. Becky and I will be heading over to Cyprus in about a week, for a few months. It feels quite weird. We should be back here by September, God willing. So many details to organise, and also so much to just trust God about, things we have no control over.

Oh, btw, Bridget, this photo is for you:

OMNIvision’s new mobile book shop opened for the first time yesterday! Since Becky has been running the thing so far, sorting the books and generally making things happen, she was running the cashdesk (the ones from Doulos, strangely enough, which got shipped over to us) and I was able to take her out for a tea and cheesecake break in the afternoon. Cheesecake is good stuff. The bookshop is doing well, we’re all pretty excited to be able to provide this service for the church in Carlisle.

And here’s the last photo for the day:

Playing with my camera, I found some open source firmware which lets me do very fast shutter speeds. A bit of a hack, but hey. Fun to play with.

at quinta again

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:16:00 +0000

Back from Spain. It went really well. Really great people, and it was cool helping to support technically all these guys who are so excited by what they’re doing.

Quite a surprise that some friends from Cyprus were particpants at the conference! So it was quite cool meeting up with them!

We’ve been back a week now. Becky was with some friends down south, and I was up in Carlisle finishing off some projects, and then we met up again on Friday, here at the Quinta.

Last time I was here, was for a few days break after my first 2 years on Doulos. I’m now here with Becky for a couple of days debrief with our home-office, and talking to some of the new people who are joining the company in september about life on board the ships.

It’s again quiet, relaxing, and also very good hanging out with some of my friends from the Doulos who are living and working here now.

I managed to spend catch lunch with my brother and some friends in Birmingham on the way down.

Here’s a crazy story:

Trying to buy tickets to get here, straight from Carlisle to Quinta would cost 40 pounds+… but if I booked Carlisle to Birmingham, and then Birmingham to Quinta, it cost 26.

I do NOT understand why. I blaim computers. They’re evil. It’s all a conspiracy.

We only have a few weeks more at Carlisle, for now, and hope to fly to Cyprus in about a month. Probably.

Then, hopefully, God willing, etc, to come back here for a few years starting some time in the summer.

We’ll see how that all goes.

Travelling again...

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:17:00 +0000

This evening we’ll be heading down to catch a ferry to Spain.

Exotic holiday time? Um, no.

Eloping? Um, also no.

Work? Yes. My name’s Daniel, and I’m a workaholic. I know.

So, there’s a conference in Spain, which our team here is covering the audio/visual side of. So we’ll take the Outside Broadcast bus down by ferry, stuffed to the gunwhales (if busses have gunwhales, but anyway. Stuffed…) with equipment, and also a blue van equally stuffed full of equipment. Due to ferry time-tables, we arrive a bit earlier than we need to, so Becky and I can visit her mum for a day or so en route - which is pretty cool! Then we’ll arrive at the hotel, and set up. The reason for the whole bus is that they also want everything videod and recorded, so we’ll be doing a 3 camera shoot, and producing DVDs of it.

Becky will be running a camera, while I’ll be in the bus operating the Camera Control Units, routing, recording, graphics and so on. I’m quite new at this - and while I got to do some last time I was with the team 2 years ago, I’m also quite glad that it’s the usual chief engineer directing, so I can learn from him.

Anyway. Time to go and pack…

What the heck is twitter?

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:46:00 +0000

Apparently there’s this new thing called Twitter gone and showed up while I was out drifting the ocean waves.

What the heck is it?

Just WHY is it popular?

What is the point, pray?

Why do posts look so UGLY with it?

Is there any reason to use it, and how can it be used usefully?

Half the media seem obsessed with it, the other half seem scornfully scathing of it…

So... Blogging.

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 20:10:00 +0000

Today marks 2 months of Becky and me being at OMNIvision, up in Carlisle. Time… is weird. It has gone so fast, and yet it seems like we’ve been here for only a few weeks, and yet Doulos is like another world away in the past.

I guess there will be another 200 odd people around the globe feeling the same way right now… and about 300 people every year have been feeling that for the last 30 years.

Our work is a bit random - we hardly know what we’ll be doing, one day to the next. We spent a lot of time in our first week or two pulling wires out of a big OB truck, then about 10 days sorting out books, inventorying, etc, then a few days moving a server rack across the building, including making and crimping all the new cables/extensions. Then a bunch of random small editing projects, a live concert in Manchester (me on a camera, Becky as my “cable monkey”), Becky is working a lot on admin stuff - figuring out some of the shipping arrangements for equipment, and writing the OMNIvision manual, and I’ve been doing some cleaning, sorting, lighting design, editing, fixing stuff, inventorying equipment, measuring cables, pulling electric cables through ceiling spaces, writing 30 second advert clips, and so on…

Yes. Quite busy.

And yet, not… it feels in some ways a lot more relaxed and slow than Doulos… yet also it feels a bit like I have less free time.

Becky and I live about 20 minutes walk apart, and neither of us have cars. The Office - where we go 2 mornings a week - is 15 minutes one direction, and the Studio - where we work the rest of the time - is 20 minutes the other direction. Busses are slow, somewhat irregular, and expensive, so we’re spending a LOT of time travelling. Also all the regular domestic stuff - cleaning, cooking, washing up, etc, takes time. On Doulos, I’d frequently be working until 6.15, pop down to the dining room, grab a plate of food, and the continue working while eating my meal. Same for lunch, and often Breakfast. Here, a meal can take over an hour. I guess it’s good, helping me to slow down… but BOY is it frustrating.

Like yesterday, I hoped to get a video project edited and finished… but then after Prayer Breakfast at the Office, I got a lift to the Shed (where we keep the vechicals), and picked up some equipment there, then got a lift to the Studio, and it was already 12.30. At lunch, there were a whole bunch of announcements and talking… and then with computers taking a long time to work, and Final Cut Server being a pain, I didn’t actually get to editing until 2.30pm!! And then Final Cut Pro decided to act stupid and to forget half the work I did with the Multi-Camera Editing tool (which otherwise is VERY cool…)…. So I only really got about 2 hours work done. Still, I’d done enough prep work with the lighting to make the keying and stuff a fairly easy job. I spent most of today editing too, and so that’s another piece basically finished.

Contrasts

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:10:00 +0000

Very Hot:

Very Cold:

email down...

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:28:00 +0000

Hello. Not especially bloggy, but enough people read this who might want to email me that it’s worth saying…

I.T. have re-routed my on-board email to go to my gmail account, which is fine. The trouble is that I can’t access my gmail on board, as their firewall blocks it. So I’m offline re. email until next week some time, probably.

Kind of makes things on board a bit more complex too, as almost all meetings and information about various events, etc, is communicated via email.

I’ll try and go to the mall or something and get email access there somehow, but it’ll be sporadic at best.

Today...

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:50:00 +0000

We saw a Penguin today, and named it Bridget.

Long time no update...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:21:00 +0000

So I guess I’d better try and get back into the swing of things.

Well, it finally happened. Doulos is officially ending. In just under 3 weeks time.

Surprised? Well, I wasn’t. We’d known that many issues were coming to light during the drydock, and it turned out the issues were more than were worth trying to sort out, for an increasingly short possible length of time.

You can read more about it on http://www.doulos.org/ if you hadn’t already heard…

It’s been public for about a month now, I guess… and so my girlfriend and I will be leaving Doulos in exactly 2 weeks.

We’ll be going to work with OMNIvision for a few months, hoping to get a clearer notion as to whether we should go back there for a few years longer, later next year.

Right now, I’m pretty tired. I’m officially not AV any more, but working in training department, but still with many AV commitments, and jobs. I’ve not been able to hand over some of the last bits to my friend and replacement, as too many bits were caught up in the whole drydock thing, which didn’t really end solidly, so stuff just dragged out.

I’m getting bits of my new jobs kind of messed up to - down to forgetting to organize someone to lead music this morning at the “Tuesday Morning Devotions”.

I’m horribly behind with email, blog, newletters, packing and preparing to leave here soon, I’m behind on days-off, I have large projects I don’t even know where to start on, and so on.

I’m writing this at 5am, after having stayed up all night working with the videographer on finishing an “End of Doulos” presentation video which is needed later today. I was mainly doing audio engineering / cleaning up work. We still need one shot, and so a couple of guys are heading out at in half an hour to go shoot it - us sailing Doulos into Vivo City in Singapore for the final time. Then it’ll be rendering all day until getting shown this evening.

I also need to rig up an amplifier for some speakers in the bookshop this morning, and then I’m going out off the ship with the other Training Department people for the day.

It’s busy.

advent#02

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

A sermon I preached on the Doulos

This is Week 2 of Advent. “Advent” is the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas. Every year, many churches celebrate Advent almost as a month long festival, each week getting closer to Christmas, with excitement and energy building, and finally the great celebration on Christmas eve, and Christmas day.

There is no commandment in Scripture to celebrate Christmas, and some people object to it, on grounds that it’s just the pagan “Winter Solstice” with Christian decorations hung on it… We don’t know exactly what part of the year Jesus was born in. And really, it doesn’t matter. We’re celebrating Jesus, and He was alive before time existed, and He will be forever, so any time at all He is worthy of celebration.

The Jewish calendar has many festivals and special days set apart, including whole Sabbath Years, dedicated to God, and resting in His provision.

These days, we don’t tend to celebrate many, or even any of the feast days of the Old Testament; we’ve taken Romans 14:5 “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike” to mean that all days are equally unimportant. Of course, life in Christ is far more than just celebrating special days, or following hundreds of rules. We have freedom to celebrate, or not celebrate in Christ, who is the Lord of the Sabbath. Everything was made through Him, and for Him.

This week, we’re looking at the lives of Joseph and Mary, in the context of our whole advent theme “Away from Home, but going home”.

Without further ado, let’s go to the Scriptures, in Luke Chapter 1, verse 5.

We’re not yet at Mary and Joseph, but at Mary’s older cousins, Elisabeth and Zechariah.

Luke1: 5

“In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well along in years.

Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel answered, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time.” Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak. When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people."”

More Before and After pics

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:50:00 +0000

Here you go, Carlien.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

With nowt but vacuum cleaner and soft paintbrush (of course not stolen from Liezel, who’s doing much more interesting things this dry-dock), this has got to be one of the most satisfying and easy jobs on the ship.

Non-AV post

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:28:00 +0000

So, dry dock continues.

I’m not hugely productive, alas.

I just can’t seem to build up momentum to get a whole lot done in a day. I suspect a large part of it may be how horribly messy AV is right now. I’ll spend as much time as I need tomorrow in cleaning up.

So, other stuff.

A List Apart is a really cool website. I’ve done enough web design to find the articles very interesting, and was just reading some of the ones about typography. I think I need to work on my blog to make it a little more beautiful to read.

It’s unfortunate, I spend just enough time on the web and doing designy things to not be comfortable using the default layouts and all that, and want to make my own, but not enough to actually be able to do it very well. So the titles & dates, on this blog, for instance.

I modified the design last year while on furlough, and, having not spent enough time to really get my brain all the way around EMs and ENs, alignment, leading and everything, used something of a hack (I think) to get the date and title of each post a little closer together.

It looks OK to me, currently. However, if I forget to put a title, then it shifts up the date do that it overlaps some of the blog text.

Not good.

So, the answer, of course, is to insert a non-breaking-space into the title block.

But blogger won’t let me do that! So, instead, I’ll just have to keep on remembering to put in titles.

I’ll be thinking a lot about vertical rhythm of text layout, and possibly make some changes to size and stuff later. I like learning these things as it helps fill in gaps in my head.

I sometimes wish for a fuller education. But given that I’m interested in EVERYTHING, it could take a while. Someone suggested I take a Liberal Arts degree or something like that. But then that doesn’t really cover physics, electronic engineering , accoustics, psycology, software design, or that. It might help my spelling, I guess.

If I get a chance (which means, a bunch of years in a stable job with enough free time), then I may try and do something like that by corrospondence. But otherwise, I have wikipedia, a list apart, google, and the other tools of the 2009 home-educator’s mind…

...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:29:00 +0000

I found out that some of our panels were modified by someone in the past to do … interesting things.

Home built new video-patch panel. Waaay more sensible, understandable, and usable.

AV updates, mid drydock.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:13:00 +0000

Before:

After:

I think it looks a little better. Still messy, but at least understandable. Pretty much everything is plugged in now, and from preliminary tests, we appear to have somewhat better clarity in EVERYTHING, and some of the video signals are visibly higher signal-to-noise with much less interference.

We bought two new audio patch panels too, Behringer ones. Strangely, Behringer also seem to do unbalanced patch panels. Fortunately, the shop had both, and I noticed. What on earth would anyone want unbalanced patch panels for?!

I also had to butcher the two panels which we were replacing to get enough parts to fix a third panel which was very glitchy. Here are some of the internals which are slightly broken.

You can see a bit of corrosion on the top contact - even with jackplug cleaners and everything, the equipment is just plain old.

Today, hopefully, I can do the full system tests (need to borrow a oscilliscope and reference signal generators…), and then get the whole thing boxed up and leave it until the end of drydock. Then I can work on more fun projects. Videos, song composition, etc.

That’s all for now, I’ll post more shorter posts later, with more pictures.

Life carries on...

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:06:00 +0000

So. Short post.

We’re in KK, Malaysia. Beautiful place.

A whole bunch of people left, and a whole bunch of new ‘uns joined.

The crazy Swedish dude left my AV team and headed home, after two years on board, and now I’ve got a new American the team. It’s fun training him, although kind of strange. I’ve taught AV stuff to so many people now. It’s hard to remember what I’ve taught to whom. I’ve got a basic Doulos AV curriculum, finally, but it’s difficult to get it all together. Theres so many little bits of randomness.

So now the team is one Korean, one Brit, one American, and one confused-not-quite-sure-ean(me).

Amongst the new recruits is one of my friends from the UK, which is very cool. She seems to be enjoying the ship so far, and is working in the “Accomedation” team, cleaning the inside of the ship, doing the laundry, running the bookshop cafe, etc.

Anyway. So. This was intended to be a short post, and mostly informational…

Yeah.

It’s my girlfriend’s birthday tomorrow. The whole present-buying-birthday-celebration-rituals-cultures-thing terrifies me. Like, I dunno. Something about my INFP/TCK nature, I guess. I want everything I do to be meaningful, and genuine. Especially with those who are really dear to me. That’s the INFP side… But also, I feel like so many things (such as buying presents on birthdays, putting up signs, cards, etc) are very superficial, and just a crass part of some culture.

I want to buy presents that are really real - not just bought “because” of the birthday. Yet I don’t know if buying presents *for* the birthday, like, “doing the birthday thing” is also a way of being real, within a culture?

I don’t totally relate personally to any culture, really, and find almost all cultures have things which offend me, and which I don’t fit into.

Also, on the other hand, more practically, I know that there is an element I also probably ought to have of simply “Daniel, just grow up, accept the fact that you’re not all that great at buying presents, so get over it, stop making all these stupid theoretical excuses and work harder than everyone else to actually do it well, and on time. Stop being so lazy.”

Oh dear.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Oh dear.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Modern Christianity.

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:29:00 +0000

We’re not sure of the difference between baseless optimism and faith.

Blinded by love?

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:45:00 +0000

Just a random thought.

I was walking past a sign today, I don’t remember what the whole sign was about, but it contained the phrase “love makes you blind”.

Does it?

It’s a weird concept. I know what it means, but isn’t it kind of antithetical to what we would want to believe?

We say love (in it’s purest form) is the highest of virtues, biblically, it’s one of our main goals, God uses “love” to describe himself, Paul waxes lyrical about it, and almost every page of the scriptures are saturated in it. Songs have been written from the beginning of time about it.

Surely love does the opposite of blinding. It’s only in love that we are actually able to see. Without love, we are blind.

If what we call “Love” causes us to no longer see (flaws, problems, sins, etc), then is it really love? Or infatuation, idolatry?

Bolts and other bits and bobs

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:10:00 +0000

Ever wonder what a stainless steel bolt looks like when it completely rusts into oblivion?

Well. Now you know. This fell off one of our lifeboats. Makes you feel very secure, right?

This is the latest addition to the AV room:

It’s getting quite full, these days. Well, it has been for YEARS now. Any time we want to change anything, it gets quite major and complicated, trying to shuffle things around. Basically, I was fed up of having our stationary drawer jam because of too many tools inside it, so had the carpenters make us this. Makes me feel all reminiscent of the keyshop. *sigh* good old days.

Here it is, in place. As you can tell, the room isn’t all that tidy, still. Just SO MUCH STUFF! Other additions, the mug hooks on the wall, the per-day form hooks too, and also a removable wall-mount for the fan (which always used to just sit on the floor and get kicked…)

and lastly, we’ve FINALLY got the slot on the door for request forms!

exciting! I’ll post pictures of the opposite side of this amazing slot soon. It’s small, subtle, elegantly engineered and discreet. You’ll love it.

Avoid Sudoku!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 05:55:00 +0000

I hardly ever do Sudoku.

But occasionally I fall into temptation, and picked up the following problem:


[4][ ][ ] [ ][ ][3] [ ][9][ ]
[5][1][ ] [ ][4][8] [ ][2][7]
[ ][2][ ] [ ][9][ ] [ ][8][ ][ ][4][ ] [3][7][ ] [2][ ][ ]
[7][ ][2] [ ][8][ ] [9][ ][ ]
[ ][ ][6] [ ][1][ ] [ ][5][3][ ][ ][7] [8][6][ ] [4][ ][9]
[9][6][ ] [ ][ ][7] [ ][ ][2]
[ ][ ][4] [ ][ ][1] [ ][7][ ]

Apparently DEAD EASY to do. It took me about 2 minutes.

Except the last 4 squares, which are impossible.

I’m almost annoyed enough to almost go learn what the rules for making a sudoku are, and find out which one this particular sudoku has broken.

Grr.

"I don't like being a Post-Modernist"

Sat, 23 May 2009 13:39:00 +0000

It sucks.

I’m somewhat tempted to leave the post at that, but feel a little elaboration may be at least polite.

We are finite individuals. We cannot know completely, comprehensively. We can only know in part.

Modernism claims that we can know definately. That our knowing something to be true can be true, and right, and accurate.

I don’t believe that. Our finite, human perspective is so limited, so small, so warped, that how can any one human’s perception be absolutely comprehensively true? It could, in theory, be an absolutely honest viewpoint, but a small, finite, limited and warped honest viewpoint, nevertheless.

So then. Where does that lead us?

Claims of truth being relative.

Counter-claims by modernists that not believing in God as absolute truth absolutely denies you access to Him.

Declarations of nonsensical “Pan-Everythingism” as Francis Shaeffer would call it.

Refutations by absolute logic.

Definitions of logic as equally relative and therefore meaningless.

I dunno.

---—-

There is a road, and along the road there are signs pointing along it. Some travellers wear green-tinted glasses and so say “The Signs are Green! Unless You Believe In the True Greenness Of The Signs, You Will Never Reach The Destination!”

Others have red tinted glasses, and so say exactly the same, “The Signs are Red! Unless You Believe In The True Redness Of The Signs, You Will Never Reach The Destination!”

Others wear glasses where the tint is red at the top, green at the bottom, yellow on the left, blue on the right, and purple in the middle. “It depends which way you hold your head!” They say. “Everyone has their own perspective on the signs. There is no absolute colour of the signs.”

I have several sets of glasses, and I can put them both on. Neither of them really fit my nose, but without them my sight is so poor I can barely see anything. Everything looks distorted, confused, and wrong when I wear the glasses, and I don’t want to settle on any one of them.

I want the sign maker to come, take my hand, and lead me to His home: the destination at the end of the road to which the signs point.

I trust Him. I don’t know fully where I’m walking, but maybe that’s enough.

broken stuff

Wed, 13 May 2009 16:17:00 +0000

I don’t like broken stuff.

Currently:

Our main pulpit/lecturn mix suddenly for no apparent reason completely died. No signal, *nothing* any more.

About half the outputs of the audio distributor. Why? I dunno.

The door request form box (as of about a month. The carpenter finally came around yesterday, and said maybe he’ll get a chance to fix it sometime in a few weeks time…)

Two more of the TVs in our “Main Lounge” auditaurium seem to be going on the blink, just a little.

The main desk connector for the camera control unit doesn’t seem to be able to last longer than about a month. It’s broken again.

The door between our main and forward lounges. This time the carpenters don’t seem to know how to fix it or what to do.

The main stage floodlights dimmer knob has become suddenly wobbly and probably the whole unit needs taking off and fixing.

The port side BOSE speaker is making funny noises. It sounds like it’s bust a cone or something. Fluttery. I need to investigate that as well sometime soon.

The main rack preview monitor is (I think) giving out some kind of weird electrical/magnetic/radio/something interference on to every other video signal in the vicinty. As soon as it’s switched off, a whole bunch of problems go away.

The AV room amplifier/speakers are distorted.

Almost all of the mics seem somewhat wobbly on the ends of all the cables, and occasionally drop out.

For some reason I’ve not been able to get our usual wireless bodypack to connect to the violist’s pickup/bodypack, and so have had to use a SM57 for him for about a month. It always worked before, and I can’t see anything that’s changed. We only ever encounter problems like this during a 10 minute line-check and so don’t have time to fully explore what’s not working.

I’ve only got 3 mostly working DI boxes left.

I’ve got 4 VHS tape players in the rack, because they are all only capable of playing some kinds of VHS tapes correctly.

All of the amps have been dropping out occasionally, randomly.

The book shop sound system is falling apart, I fear. The fan in the amp sounds about as loud as a whole fanroom is supposed to.

The main computer VGA->composite video scan converter is distinctly unhappy, and takes about 10 minutes to turn on.

The computer sound input is *very* noisy. I don’t know why.

I have two wireless mics in the UK for repairs right now. Hopefully they’ll make their way back here in a fixed condition at some point.

The video distributor for the Book Ex screens seems to be glitchy.

All of the jackfield/patchpanels are somewhat … odd. I’m working my way through cleaning them all, but some of them just seem sad and tired. the sockets wiggle about and the connections as glitchy as you would expect.

The folding doors between our port and main lounges seems a bit squint and is now very hard to open or close.

A few days mixing

Sat, 09 May 2009 17:58:00 +0000

You know you’re not going to enjoy the evening when you get told before sound-check “make sure I’m very quiet in the mix, because I’m out of practice”.

That was a few days ago. Today:

Our keyboard output stopped working between soundcheck and performance. We didn’t know until there just was no sound as the musician hit her cue *after* the soloist started singing. We couldn’t do anything in time, eventually we managed to get it working for about half the piece, and they carried on very professionally, but it died again. She left the stage in tears. That really makes you feel crap as a sound-guy.

We then got a SM58 microphone and clamped it to the top of the keyboard’s built in speakers. That worked well enough for the rest of the show.

I hate stuff like that.

It’s fun, showing up at venues, and having comments like “Oh yes, well, all the tweeters are blown, that’s why it sounds bad. We haven’t replaced them yet”. (Well. Thanks for telling us the same day we need them!)

I spent about an hour today trying to figure out the wiring for the venue on shore, it was “broken”. everything held together with tape, wires coming out of the wall without labels. I managed to get some working, and watching the little blue sparks flying around was quite amusing when I was trying to find which speakers were attached to which wires, and which amplifers actually worked… I gave up eventually and just used our own speakers.

I screwed up a lot today. It could have been a much better performance. I didn’t manage to get the compressors hooked up into the system in time, even. And the MC and translator were all over the place with their level. Crying out for compression. Painful, even.

If someone feels like randomly donating something expensive to me/Doulos, I really wouldn’t mind about 4 or 5 of these: http://www.amazon.com/DBX-1046-Quad-Compressor-Limiter/dp/B0002H0QHI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1241888411&sr=1-1 …

I really need to start playing worst-case-scenario with my people more. I can generally problem solve and get something working “well enough” fast, but they can’t (yet), and I could do so much more, and better, if I could a few arrange things ahead of time, and think in advance, and not do everything by the seat of my pants.

*sigh* So much to work on. So much to do.

TV stuff

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Here’s a conundrum for you.

If you’re not interested in video, then this may be boring as anything for you.

Then again, you might find it facinating.

OK. Here’s the deal. A conference, and it’s Mandarin. The main speaker is American, and speaks no Mandarin whatsoever. So he has a translator. No problem. Now say you have an audience of 300-ish, and are using live video to show the speaker on TVs around the room so people can see. OK, again, no problem. But, since the speaker and the translator decided to stand far apart, if you show a shot wide enough to get them both, they’re so small on screen that it’s totally pointless putting them on screen. Usually, I believe, it’s normal to just go for a close-up of the speaker. So, then, if you have audience who are all old people and probably somewhat hard of hearing, they’ll want to lip-read the translator at least somewhat. So. What to do? Cutting back and forth between two cameras is too much work, and tiring, and probably more annoying to watch than anything else.

I tried to be a bit clever and “TVish” this time, but I still am not totally pleased with it.
If the speaker and translator decide to move around a lot, remote cameras just will not cut it.

Can you fix this?

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:27:00 +0000

“We dropped this. I think it’s broken.”

“Can you fix this please?”

Long time no update

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:25:00 +0000

Hi Blog.

Long time no update, I blame I.T. and specifically I blame Blip, who works in I.T. I don’t blame her because it’s probably her fault, but because she deserves it. I can’t access blogspot, so have to go back to the old email-mum-with-stuff-to-blog method.

Anyway.

So. Many changes in the last few months.

I went on break for a week last port in Manila. Yes, Manila again. So I’ve been there 3 times now, total of 3 months. Quite cool. Anyway, we only managed to actually get to where we wanted to go for 2 days of the week of shore-leave, but it was so peaceful there. We went up to the mountains, near a place called Taal where there’s a volcano and so on.

Back on the ship, AV wise, I’ve been doing a bit more guerrilla carpentry.

Here’s our laptop/workstation. Things to note: the amazing wall-mount for the screen. Made from 100% recyclable natural products. Also, the big screen is showing mac OS. This is from Ant’s mac mini which is also hidden in the shot. The laptop is the A/V laptop, and running windows. The big screen can also show the A/V second screen quite happily, just by pressing a button on the screen. So. Two computers, but only one mouse and keyboard? Yep! Thanks to the amazing “Synergy” software, you can scroll the mouse off the left of the laptop screen and it jumps onto the mac, and vice versa! Very cool.

We had a Jazz recording session last monday, our amazing sax player just left the ship, so before he went we spent a whole afternoon recording with the band, and then had an evening for the ship’s company to come and hang out while the band jammed in a quiet atmosphere. This is the old 4 channel data minidisk recorder that we found in a closet and used for recording each channel individually as well as the main mix on the computer.

And team changes. Here’s one of the mainstays of the AV team, who just left yesterday. She’s finished her commitment on Doulos, and has gone back to Europe. I’ll miss her a lot. She’s American. On the team currently we have a Swedish guy, two German lunatic men, an American videographer dude, or cat, or whatever historical term of endearment he currently is using, one strapping British lad who’s currently in the UK for 2 months cross-training/work with the team there (like I did last year) and me.

Notice anything? Yep. All Westerners, and all guys. In a sense, that’s pretty understandable. Of the kinds of people who join the ship, the western guys tend to be the group who are into tech/arts. But, it’s also quite unbalanced. So in a week’s time, we’ll have a new member of the team, a Korean lady! She’s worked as videographer in a big church in Korea for several years, so that’s quite exciting. Both of the Germans will be leaving at the end of this port, around the 30th, and the Brit will be coming back. So we’ll be somewhat smaller again, hopefully we’ll get someone else soon, but who knows.

Part 2

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:10:00 +0000

OK. So finally I’m getting around to an explanation of the previous post.

My current - I’d use the word dialemma, but it’s not. It’s more a trilemma or quintalemma or something - is (somewhat) about copyright. The laws are fairly complex as what we’re doing here is basically a live theatre venue, church, theatre company, video, dance and creative arts training and production centre, bible-school, and a few other things too. The people who were supposed to be taking care of the whole copyright thing have been doing a really poor - or at least misled - job for a number of years now, either that or else no-one ever bothered even trying to figure out what taking care of it really meant.

We’re slowly getting there, I think, I hope. But currently I find myself saying more and more “no, sorry, you can’t do that, that’s illegal”, without really having much viable alternative to offer.

And that sucks.

Part of the thing is what is copyright law really saying?

“This is mine, for me, and not for you, or for God. It’s mine. Shove off.”

Which people object to, obviously. Thus an argument often raised is

“Well, the artist who made this is a Christian, and so wants to glorify God, right, and we’re trying to glorify Him too by using it, so we’re fine to copy and edit it…”
Well. If the artist wanted you to just use it for whatever you want without checking with them first, then they wouldn’t have put “Copyright 2003. For personal home use only. All rights Reserved” on it…

It gets worse with the internet.

“Hey, my pastor just sent me this really cool video I want to show in the programme tomorrow!”

“Well. The music backing to it I recognise, it’s a song by Hillsong UK, and there is no copyright notice anywhere in the clip at all, one of those opening still-pictures you can see has part of a copyright label in the corner, but half cropped out, so we can safely assume that many of the images are taken uncredited from the internet, and even the one you can half read it’s web address isn’t being credited properly. That interview clip with the kids outside the theatre is almost certainly just filmed without their parents consent, and you want to show this clip to paying public?”

“But they played it at my church last week!”

“So?”

“So it must be alright!”

“Wrong.”

“What can we do instead?”

Indeed.

So now the whole issue of making our own material. Last week a couple of the programme staff went out with a camera and asked a bunch of random people on the street questions, then asked me how to edit it (for 2 days later). So I kind of pulled stuff together, found an old recording of a couple on-board musicians jamming which kind of fit.

The end result wasn’t great. In any sense. It shouldn’t even have passed my own quality control.

Ethics

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 15:36:00 +0000

“The Good is often the greatest enemy of the Best.” - Maxwell
“If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable” - Proverbs 28:9

Which is better, to spend ones time sitting with street kids loving them and giving them hope for the future, or sitting in an office, wading through tedious documents that it’s actually your duty to understand?

Which is more worthy, to slog away at understanding a law you know that 99% of people really care nothing about, nor even believe in, enforcing it over others and creating unheaval and more work and stress for all of them, or to spend time creatively working on more fun and generally well-recognised projects?

How do you find motivation to inconvienence yourself and others to a phenomincal degree, appearing to red-light and be negative to all the other people you want to encourage and help, in order to fulfil a law you don’t even agree with yourself?

For the Christians in mainline western churches:

If your country declared it illegal to meet in groups larger than 15, would you keep meeting as normal in defiance of the government and protest the loss of your “rights”, or find a way to keep “doing” church and fulfilling the call of the bible within the constraints of the law?

Which is more important: Comfortably doing what you’re used to, or uncomfortably denying yourself in order to be a righteous and unimpeachable testimony?

Guitar Repair

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:16:00 +0000

Time for a short post.

My guitar has had this annoying buzz on it for months now, and I finally got around to fixing it, which basically meant opening it up, finding the buzz (a slightly loose structural support beam) and gluing it solid. No big deal, but I’ve been avoiding guitar practice for AGES because it annoyed me so much that I couldnt’ play. It took me half an hour to fix, and now I’ve been practicing every day since.

Moral of the tale: Um. Do I really need to tell you?

Welcome back, me.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:53:00 +0000

Greetings.

It is I, author of this blog, and spokesperson of the incredibly inconsideratly inactive bloggers foundation of Doulos, and I have returned! Yea, verily, verily, etc.

So. It’s been 5 weeks since I last posted, roughly. And it has been quite a busy, time, yes, of course, that’s the way it is around here. And is that an excuse for not blogging? Well, probably not. But I’ll use it as an excuse anyway.

We’re currently sailing between Kuching, Malaysia, where we spent Christmas and New Year, to Cebu, Philippines, where we were 2 years ago.

Every 6 months or so we get a new batch of recruits, who go for 2 weeks of safety training, and that group of people is usually fairly “clannish”, and are known as the “Preship” group of whichever port they did their training. So I’m from the “Sharjah Preship”. Other famous past examples would be the Manila Preship, Banjul Preship, Istanbul Preship, etc, etc.

Anyway, 2 years ago we had the Cebu Preship join us, and they’ll mostly be leaving in the next month or so, and the next group of recruits will also be doing their training in Cebu… This is NOT normal. It’s the first time we’ve had this, ever, to popular knowledge. Normally it’s at least 7 or 8 years between being back in the same place at the same rough time to be able to do this, so every Preship is a different city.

This might seem like a very minor thing, and from a completely outside viewpoint, it is. However, Doulos isn’t just a ship full of people from different places, we also have a very strong Doulos Culture, which has devleopped over the decades as result of our rules, regulations, work habits, and the bizarre lifestyle which we have on board.

“Preship” groups are almost like your family, or clan. Whenever someone gets up to say something in a community meeting, for instance at the end of a port when we get together to share stories of what we (and God) have been up to, most people will introduce themselves with something like “Hi, My name is Daniel, and I’m from Cyprus, and the Sharjah Preship!” or whatever. At this point, everyone else from Sharjah will shout and scream or chant, or whatever.

OK, so the people from Sharjah probably won’t, since there’s only about 5 of us left, and we never managed to get a chant to work properly, but everyone from all the other active preships on board will for their people. So, to have two groups of people from different Preships, with the same name, is a bit weird. It’s like having two football teams with the same name. If they played each other, who would you cheer for?

So. There’s a random piece of Doulos culture for you. Now for some thoughts about it.

We are incredibly clannish, and seem, as humans, as christians, and as Douloi, to have an innate capacity to draw lines between each other, and to divide on the slightest pretext. And partly I object to the amount that the training department push Preship identity during the training. I can also see the side whereby this “Preship " concept can be used positively to establish a home base and place for people to live and identify themselves in the community.

Drydock '08

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:18:00 +0000

The sweat drips from my nose, and splashes, sizzling, onto the soldering iron.

It’s roasting hot, and the cables are all around me, as squashed into a small space behind the audio rack I put the finishing touches to the new audio lines I just ran across from the desk opposite.

It’s dry-dock again.My third, now, and this time, I’m just not enjoying it.

I have quite a lot on my plate at the moment, what with trying to sort out many technical issues in the A/V equipment, and also get as much as possible done to allow us to expand and use what we have better throughout this coming year.

Also, the other members of the A/V team are busy with other projects, and I’m helping out a bit again with the deck ladder-repair and making crew.

Bink!

That’s the sound that the lights make when blackouts happen.

We just had another powercut.

Vrum bzzzzzt! Klunk! Klunk! Klunkklunkklunkduhduhduhduh!

That’s the sound that the fanrooms make when the power comes back on again.

The power just came back on again, by the way.

So, anyway. Right.

Yeah, there’s another fairly huge but unofficial project on which has pretty much sucked all the free time out of one of my team for the last 10 months - even from well before he joined AV - and also has been increasingly impinging upon the time of the rest of us.

They created an(other) unrealistic deadline to finish it before the end of this drydock, and I knew he would push all his time and energy into it.

So I pretty much gave him his work time to get this thing finished.

Which is good, I guess.

I mean, he’s not dead, which if we’d pushed hard at the AV jobs as well, I think he would be.

He just wouldn’t have slept at all.

We barely did anyway.

I was up until 3 one night working on an animation for the project.

Anyway.

Many of the AV tasks I had (I wrote down 58 jobs I’d have liked to either do, or investigate the feasibility of) have not been done, and most of them I didn’t even get a chance to investigate how possible they were.

So.. somewhat frustrating.

The first version is done now, which is good.

Anyway.

Still plenty of logistics and miscommunication issues to sort out.

So.

What else…

I’ve been making sure I keep time for myself, not burning out, and part of that includes focussing more on painting and artwork.. we’ve begun “creative communities” on board - basically an internal art/photography/creative writing club, with picking a theme per month.

The theme last month was “Freedom”.

This month it’s “Love”.

Here’s a painting of mine - “Searching for Love”

I helped out a bit with the ladderwork again this drydock.

Pretty much the same as last year.. this time we stretched the rope slightly more thoroughly.. Check out before and after stretching:

Being Nasty at the desk, and nice the rest of the time.

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:06:00 +0000

Well… it’s been busy.

It is busy!

We’ve left Australia, and are sailing currently to East Timor. The programme team have a new manager, who is bent on reforming them and is changing many ways of working, becoming more team based:

brainstorming rather than ivory tower development of programmes,
Flexi-time working, everyone chipping in rather than fixed hours, and so on.

The AV team isn’t really part of the programmes team (go figure), but we work a lot with them, and so I’ve been trying to push my team into being at as much of this voyage’s programme team time as possible. Attending devotions with them, being at the creativity sessions, and so on.

This morning we had a fairly good session, which I led, I was trying to get them to think outside of the box in reguards to how we use our venue. The on board “Main Lounge” is most frequently set up with all the programme happening in one “stage” section at the front, and then rows of chairs at the back, or tables in a cafe setting. Often the most transformation the room gets is having curtains put up, perhaps fairy lights and lots of flags (you know, the whole international thing).

Anyway. We can do so much more. Once we started imagining things, ideas like turning the whole room into a Japanese Garden, with an island in the middle and a moat and bridges and stuff came up. Building a slum from Manilla out of the whole room, hanging the curtains to turn it into a ginormous beduin-style tent, and so on. One group even thought of having a “Indiana Jones” type set up, with different areas of the lounge being different places around the world, tying up some of the audience with a knife suspended above their head and then dropping it on them if their team-mates didn’t answer the questions of a quiz correctly…

Some of the ideas may take a little modifying. Health and Safety, you know.

Still, it was a good session, and then we looked through a lot of our video clips collection, to talk about what we can use, how we can use videos we have more effectively, and so on.

This evening was the weekly prayer-night, which this week was being run by the on board School. It was somewhat chaotic, as these kinds of things are wont to be.

Anyway, the guy who was leading the musicy part of it didn’t bring me a song list at all (which is mentioned on the pre-event A/V form, which he otherwise did fill in), and then half an hour before we began, during his sound check time, he brought up two new songs which needed to be entered into the database while I was trying to sound check them… He know’s it’s supposed to be 24 hours before an event that they give in any new songs.

Still, I told him off, but put the songs in anyway. So, quite hectic. It all went really well in the end, and sounded pretty good, all the songs worked, and so on. Apparently I made an impression on him though, as after the evening was finished, he showed up at the sound desk with a large bar of chocolate to say sorry for being so late all the time!! Amazing!

Makin' a movie

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:40:00 +0000

I’m working on another short film/video project. Here’s a few frames from it for your enjoyment.

I’m still quite tired and frustrated and so on, but a bit better. I’ve had a day off since my last post, which was good, and another few days off in the next few weeks too, so that’s good too. I’ll be writing a longer text blogpost soon.

Handover

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:51:00 +0000

I’m tired. I’m stressed.

I won’t pretend to hide it.

I’m pissed off at the system, thoroughly fed up of how things currently are - in my work, my life, and in many things around me.

Yet, still, most things are going fairly well…

I’m now the “AV manager”, and discovering more and more how disorganised and messed up it is.

We have small forms in the drawer under the computer which are used during the sunday service on board, we give out the little forms, then people can fill them in if they want to, so that they can give to the weekly offering (usually to help a local ministry, or work in India, or similar) direct from their on board account, rather than having to use cash.

Anyway, this morning, the guy running the service came up and asked for them.. We had 10. Not good enough! So, I told him a few ideas of who he could ask for more, but this was at half an hour before the service, on a Sunday Morning. Not the best time to go looking for people to do random work like that.

We need to have once a week or so someone to check how many we have, say on a Friday, and then to get at least 200 before the Sunday morning.

Not a big deal, right?

Well, no, not a problem at all. Just the problem is that there are *hundreds* of little issues like this. Every day. And *NONE* of them are written down. When I started, there were no current weekly checklists or anything.

I don’t want to become a lists and rules based dictator, but how on earth else do you manage to get everything done that needs to be?

When I took over this job, there was maybe 1 hour of discussion between me and the predecessor about stuff, but none of these little details were noted. Each day day I find mord

And it was the same thing when I became waterman, 2 years ago. There’s no consistancy! As soon as people leave, things get dropped.

It’s why ships tend to have such strict and over the top and detailed procedures - everything gets written down.

Anyway. It’s just intensely frustrating. I’m so bad at admin, so weak at organisation, so forgetful about details, so easily overwhelmed by situations, so inexperienced at leadership, so unknowledgeable about everything technical I should know about, so young!

I guess in one way it’s kind of exciting. I mean, whoopee! So much stuff to learn! So much I can improve!

Yet it’s kind of hard to say that and not at least have some irony and sarcasm in it too.

Yes, it’s good to be stretched and have all this improvement to do, but at the same time, it’s “live”. We’re not playing with blank bullets. Every round is for real.

Every time I start a video playing in a programme, it’s not school, not training. People are in the programme, watching, and notice if things don’t work.

Un-named Haiku

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:00:00 +0000

This blog post is short.
It is for my friend Bridget.
The sentence count: three.

Getting to know me, or not.

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:07:00 +0000

Good morning, blog. Although, actually, it’s more like evening, seeing as how it’s 7pm and everything.

It’s probably morning somewhere in the world.

I have a friend on this ship who has a fetish for “Awkward moments”. I’m sure he wouldn’t like it to be called a fetish, but whatever, he really loves them. He savours them, as a connesour, specially saving them up and preparing them, finely planning moments of Awkwardness in the same way that a conductor of an orchestra prepares the finale of a grand opera.

He’ll often say stuff intentionally to make people uncomfortable.

So I asked about a week or two ago, why?

And his response was something like,

(a) it’s fun,
(b) I enjoy seeing how people really are.

And the second one is the bit that I took issue with.

He said watching how people react when they don’t know how to respond gives a great insight into them, and let’s you see them without the pretence and acting that accompanies so much of human interaction.

What’s there to take issue with?

Well, seeing people when they don’t know how to react, is that really how they “really are”?

It seems to me to smell slightly of the whole humans-are-nought-but-animals thing.

And also, the “You know the real person by seeing how they behave under pressure”. - Likewise, the same.

There is some truth to it, of course. It’s much easier to act nice and give a good image when you are relaxed and can concentrate on impressing others, or on behaving well, than when things are stressful and you’re under pressure and don’t have time to think about what to do next.

Others have also said that you know how someone is by what they do in their spare time, or when no one else is looking, and so on.

Some people seem to do well under pressure, and be able to think quickly and clearly. Others don’t. Some people find it easy to find jobs to do and to use their spare time productively and pro-actively.

So… it’s often very useful to know how someone behaves under pressure, but I don’t think it really shows who they “really” are.

This would have been all nice and theoretical, and all that, except for this week.

I got sick.

And, it turns out, I don’t act very nice when I’m sick.

Usually, when I’m healthy and fine and everything, I tend to use a lot of hyperbole, sarcasm, and irony in my general day to day language. It tends to be (I hope!) fairly good natured, and over-the-top enough that others realise it’s not intended seriously.

“Could you play this CD for me?”
“Nope. It’s completely impossible - the computer can only play CDs on Thursdays.”

and so on.

Well, the thing is, recently I’ve started to tend to mix double meanings and more biting sarcasm into what I say, and, usually, it doesn’t mean anything - to me.

Ie, “hey, the programme schedule says you’re doing a song later, but you haven’t put a form in saying you want any microphones or instruments or anything, so it’s just a Capella, right?”

From Carlisle...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:50:00 +0000

Wind tore across the darkened misty moors of the Lake District, pounding along the side of the tent like a tidal wave breaking upon the highcliffed shoreline of a forgotten arctic land. Outside of the tent, tiny rabbits huddled together in their burrows shivering due to the icy drafts, while inside and close by rain-drenched men struggled through the mud to complete their epic task.

Less then 3 hours previously 6000 people had been standing while the melodious hymn of Amazing Grace washed around them, many, even 200 of them touched to the heart made their way forward to pray and be prayed for, to receive the greatest gift in the history of the world.

3 hours later, the knowledge of this gift was the warmth that glowed inside the men labouring to bring their flight cases, amplifiers and speakers into a truck and depart from the now empty canvas cathedral.

Finally the dismissal was given, and as the last few items were loaded in the the crew slowly dispersed. The 4 OMNIvision men removed their mud covered shoes, and climbed into their small car, and drove out through the dark unlit pathway to the main road, and off into the night.

Soaking wet, muddy and weary in mind and body, their spirits were none the less high as they left the town and none of them were expecting the sudden sliding skid towards the roundabout and the ominous crunch into the other car which told them the journey home would be longer than they had anticipated.

The driver – a Scot – immediately turned their car towards the side of the road and drove up onto the curve to inspect the damage. They climbed from the vehicle shocked but glad that none had been injured. The other car was significantly dented, but the driver was unhurt. After the routine exchange of sarcasm, licence and telephone numbers and insurance policy contact details, the other driver perked up and laughed. Quoth he “At least it wasn’t my car, it’s a company one, I’d have been really pissed off if it were mine!”, whereupon he grinned, hopped in to his, or rather his company’s car and drove away.

The four traveling companions were not so fortunate in their predicament. The bumper was only attached by one nut and dragging along the ground. Inside, the plastic wheel frame was twisted into the wheel, and the headlights were no longer attached and pointing in various directions. With still more than 100 miles of motorway to cover before reaching their destination, it was decided that to attempt to complete it in that mangled condition would be folly.

A phone call for help from the Automobile Association was made, and they settled back to wait for the assistance to arrive.

It was not long until it arrived, and their disfigured ride was lifted on to the tow. The driver, a friendly Newcastle man was quick and efficient, and as he climbed into the cab a few minutes later, he turned and said “No hado sinye fine sell bacun ahl droye temsix unwil mitwethe rileh tuhye hom. Shubetheh intwenni mints.”

At LAST...

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:23:00 +0000

OK. So, due to popular demand, this service will resume shortly.

It’s now then.

I’m back on Doulos, I took the train down to Manchester, from where I flew to Dubai, from Dubai to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Sydney, from Sydney to Auckland, and from Auckland to Wellington where I joined up with Doulos again.

That was an epic adventure, in itself. There was a bombthreat in Dubai, with some English nutcase got himself drunk, and just as we landed got into a fight with a steward, and declared he had a “device” that he would use to blow up the plane. Of course, the crew had to take it seriously, and so we were sitting out on the tarmac for about an hour or so surrounded by police and firetrucks and SWAT teams and so on, before they managed to sort him out and let us off the plane.

Oh well, another day in the life of the brummie-not-yet-at-sea. Well, the trouble then came when about half of us from that flight were now late for our connecting flights, and so had to stay 24 hours in Dubai airport for the next plane.

If you’re going to get stuck in an airport for 24 hours, it might as well be Dubai. I know it quite well, of course, and they did very nicely give me a hotel room overnight, and 3 meal vouchers. It was a bit complex trying to figure out sensible times to eat them, as I needed to leave the next morning at 6am, and was about to fly to Australia, so was trying to get my bodyclock as sorted as I could. So anyway, I slept the whole day, worked the night, and ate my mealtickets-worth at random times when I was awake.

So, right. I eventually got to Wellington, where some of my great friends were there with a ginormous paper origami crane bird thingy they’d made, attached onto a crown of old toilet-roll-cardboard, with dangly bits and all which I had to wear. It was so good to see them again. (In case you wondered). I’ll see if I can find a photo of the amazing crown. It wasn’t really my style, as such, but one does try to fit in, after all.

so. That was like a month ago now, and I’m settling in quite well. AV has been undergoing a few changes, some good, some… well, I have a differing opinion about them to the people who instigated them.

We’re now in Brisbane, Australia. It’s cool. I like it here. It’s good to be back on the ship again. Many people are about to leave, and there are 60 odd new people… But, new in that they joined 6 months ago, just as I left, so they’re already “old hands”, yet I don’t know them!

Anyway. It’s traditional for me to start new paragraphs with “Anyway” for no apparent reason. Here I am, I’ve started writing again, and so new posts will be forthcoming, fear not. I have a few more stories from Carlisle which I’ll be posting soon, but I figured it’s best to get the blog going again up to date, before launching into the past.

There and back again

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:49:00 +0000

Before I begin today’s tale, there are a few things I must first explain. The first is that the UK has these things called “Bank Holiday Mondays”, which basically means most people with office-type jobs don’t work on random mondays throughout the year. Nobody whom I’ve asked seems to know what these Bank Holiday Mondays are in aid of, nevertheless, they seem quite keen on them, generally as they happen to be some of the people who don’t work on these aforementioned Bank Holiday Mondays.

The second thing I’d like to mention is that I’m kind of used to the Doulos work week, which means that also, most people don’t work on Mondays, however, we do work every other day, including Saturday and Sunday.

So being here in Carlisle, where the team has 2 days off per week (Saturday and Sunday) is quite a rare and interesting experience. Then these Bank Holiday Mondays on top of that, wow! It’s surprising they get any work done at all! We had one of these Mondays about 2 weeks ago.

The third thing, is that you should now promptly remove all of the above from your current thoughts, but allow it to drift uninhibited and unwatched into the depths of your subconcious general knowledge. This will put you in a better frame of mind for listening to the rest of the tale, but also put you in roughly the same state as I was 4 days ago.

I got up as usual, showered, dressed, and made myself a rather tasty cappuccino with my breakfast. I headed early to the Shed to start getting some audio files ready for posting later on this week. So I got to the shed about 10 past 7, my housemate was still asleep when I left, and while I was walking to the Shed, I thought
“Once I’ve got these files going, I’ll try walking to the Office (which is on the opposite end of town) for 9am devotions” (that we have together with the Office staff 3 times a week).

So once my audio files were happily working, I set out from the Shed at about 8:15 and started walking at a reasonable pace towards the office. I kind of hoped to see the bus at the bus stop as I went past, and maybe see my housemate on it.

No sign of the bus.

“Hm,” I thought, checking my watch.

“8:23.. that bus must be a bit later than I thought.”

I picked up the pace a bit, thinking, “I wonder if I can get to the office before the bus and my housemate do!” and briskly hopped down the steps to the underpass, and headed through the park.

One cool thing about Carlisle is the rabbits. There are wild rabbits all over the place! I’m sure the local farmers hate them and so on, but I quite enjoy seeing them all over the place as I walk about early in the morning, and while along the footpath I saw a rabbit jumping out of my way.

Photo time

Fri, 23 May 2008 10:36:00 +0000

I’m feeling a little bit Italian, right now. Not much, but just a bit.

This morning I made myself and housemate espresso before getting the bus down to the Office, where we have devotions with the office people 3 times a week.

Then for lunch, I had a mozzarella and sun-dried tomato panini, from the local “Sandwhich club” which Euan and a bunch of others often get lunch from to bring back to the Shed.

Then for dinner, I made lasagne. Myself, I kind of like this whole cooking thing. Especially when I remember to not try and burn down the house (I’ll tell you about it later…), and don’t squish eggs in mid air all down the side of the cupboards and on the floor, and also when I don’t by accident tip the slice of cheese-on-toast over and dump hot cheese all over the base of the oven.

Yes, all of those have happened this week. I’ll explain later, but right now I want to talk about my lasagne, as it really was quite OK-ish, maybe. I’m always terrifed about making food for people. But it’s one of those “I’m scared because I’m scared” things, rather than “I’m scared for a good reason” things. And I’m trying to learn to (a) tell the difference, and (b), ignore the first kind of scaredness.

Well. I thought the Lasagne was alright.

Anyway. He did have seconds, so it can’t have been *that* bad.

And he did say he wasn’t hungry really, before eating.

Maybe that’s cos I’d said I’d never made lasagne before, and he’s seen all the other chaos of the kitchen I’ve had this week.

Anyway. So at the end of the lasagne, post washing up, what’s the first thought to my mind? Well, after the Espresso, Panini and Lasagne filled day, only one thing remains!

No, it’s not a good red wine. I wish we had some for dinner too, but we didn’t. It is, of course,

Gelato!

OK, so we don’t have any Italian icecream in the house, but we do have some old random English ice cream which past housemates have left.

And I have an espresso machine.

So, Hot frothy chocolate, and icecream! What a way to finish the day.

My otherwise quite unflappable very German
amused-in-a-quiet-way-at-Daniel’s-cullenary-insanity housemate is truly
shocked at the idea, and tells me I will explode one of these days.

All that sweet stuff right before bed.

Maybe he’s right.

Those Germans can be quite sensible, at times.

Nevertheless,

“Shiver me timbers!” I cry, and reach for the chocolate sauce!

It’s been a while since I posted any photos here, so here are a few choice pics for your enjoyment, and for the general visualness of this blog.

So, because of the whole coffee obsession thing that’s going on right now, here is the first ever coffee-type thing which I managed to get out of the machine:

Kind of bleh… Which is why I moderately proudly present:

Cappuccino! Well, almost. It tastes better than it looks. And, being a computer image obsessive person as well, I had to play with the colours. Dunno if it makes it look any better, or worse, but it was fun, anyway:

Of Boys, Toys, JWs, Anoraks, and St. Augustine (or, The Coffee Maker, Part 2)

Sun, 18 May 2008 13:12:00 +0000

I always knew a few people who loved trains. I even knew one or two people who built model rail-ways at home, usually in some deserted far off loft or study.

I’ve suddenly discovered, much to my surprise, that this is not one or two isolated individuals, but in fact apparently a large percentage of the male population of this part of the UK.

I never expected to learn that.

They call themselves Anoraks, and about a third of the people I’m working with belong to this group.

OK, So trains can look quite cool, and I am working with the media and computers team of the company, so it’s no surprise, I suppose, that you find a higher pecentage of people here with high IQ / arcane / obscure hobbies…

But it’s not just little nerdy geeks with glasses wandering around with notebooks and flasks of tea getting all excited about 7.25" gauge K1 engines and 1937 liveries, it’s a lot of guys, of every background, upbringing, shape, size, character and personality.

We had finished setting up for one of those J.John conferences, and were hanging out round the back waiting for it to be time to start, when this anglican vicar looking bloke wandered up, and they all ended up chatting about trains.

And all the rest of the guys too: those few who don’t have a thing about machines that roll around the place on parallel tracks get excited by all kinds of other things.

There’s a bloke here who gets very excited about trucks, vans, busses, and other large automobiles.

When I say “excited”, I mean in the kind of “eyes light up, bounces up and down and starts talking animatedly and waving his arms around” kind of way.

And he’s not a tiny geek. He’s an (roughly) 8 foot tall construction yard manager from London.

I watched two guys across the room at a pizza evening last week. They were discussing the intricacies of the AT command set, and the fun to be had trying to fix router systems by logging in backwards through a modem to solve networking problems.

Let’s turnout to a diverging track for a few moments, and I’ll see if I can work us back to this rail at the next set of points.

I went out yesterday an bought a whole load of books at charity shops. I finally got a copy of St. Augustine’s confessions.

“Even now I cannot fully understand why the Greek language, which I learned as a child, was so distasteful to me… "

I found this sentence funny, in itself, but lets keep reading for a while, and a few pages later get to this:

“For I understood not a single word and I was constantly subjected to violent threats and cruel punishments to make me learn.

“As a baby, of course, I knew no Latin either, but I learned it without fear and fret, simply by keeping my ears open while my nurses fondled me and everyone laughed and played happily with me.

Work in Carlisle

Fri, 16 May 2008 16:08:00 +0000

OK, after that huge long ramble about my personal life, now a bit about work.

Written almost a week ago, which is a bit confusing for me reading it now, but the internet has been sketchy.

I’m quite busy. In a good way, I think. We’ve got these conferences of J.John, which are kind of messing up everyone’s schedule down in the shed. Basically it’s every Tuesday and Wednesday, in 2 different cities. So we send crew down Tuesday morning at 6am or so, rig all day, gig in the evening, pack down, finished by about 2am or so, then the same again the next morning, finishing everything and back to Carlisle at around 3amish.

This week was week 3, out of 10, and was my first time on crew. The team leaders here had figured out a complex scheme to try and reduce the load on the crew, by sending different shifts of people from Carlisle, so that no-one had the complete 2 days of 6-am to 3-am, which is kind of killer. Anyway, I was in the car that shuttled down at 6am on Wednesday, arrived about 10 past 8, rigged all day, did the conference/thing, de-rigged, and then came back. I got dropped off home at around 4am.

I was expecting to be doing graphics, mainly using a programme called songpro (evil programme. the latest incarnation which they have here is even more evil than the old version we have on the ship…) for displaying lyrics on the screens during the singy bit and also some titles and playing videos too. The guy who was supposed to be doing the graphics the first day, however, didn’t go back to Carlisle, but instead stayed on for the second day, and said it made no sense for him to no do graphics, since he knew how it would all work with the band and everything, and so could get it perfect.

Not everyone from the first day crew, however, came back the second day, so I ended up “shading”. I hadn’t been shown yet how that all worked, but had a basic idea. At the most basic level, shading is kind of just doing changing the Iris levels, gamma and blacks and colour correction live on the cameras, from the OB truck, during the whole show, so that cutting between shots it looks the same, and so that the image on screen looks good and is “Legal” TV levels all the time. So once we’d rigged, I spent as much time as possible playing with the controls, figuring it all out.

I also had a bit of time before the event to play with the Jib a bit. Now that’s fun. I thought the crane on the cranedeck was multi-tasking while swinging a big stick around. Well, the jib is even more complex, as not only do you have the big stick, but you have a *lot* of people sitting around underneath it, and have various screens and stuff to not bash into while swinging the big stick around, and also all the usual pan/tilt controls for the camera at the end of the big stick, and Zoom and Focus as well.

Of Coffee Makers and Consciences (part 1?)

Sun, 11 May 2008 19:50:00 +0000

One of the things I love about the “Peanuts” cartoons are the tiny little things that I love. If that makes sense. For instance, this one thing I love about the Peanuts cartoon, is Snoopy’s book that he writes occasionally “Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?” as part of the whole debate thing with Lucy. I love those books.

Anyway.

Has it ever occurred to you that you might be mad?

It’s been of late the rather disagreeable experience of mine to have occurring to me with disturbingly increasing regularity the possibility that I myself might be in a somewhat insanitous state.

I challenge anyone to diagram that sentence, and send me the picture…

Insanitous sounds rather unhygienic, but it’s not. I just mean “mad”, in a slightly more complex way of speaking.

To take simpler mode of address, I’ll quote Freddie Mercury:

“It’s finally happened, I’m slightly mad.”

Anyway, the current evidence I have towards this conclusion is The Strange Affair Of The Coffee Maker In The Daytime.

I feel remarkably Adrian Plassish as I type this, in a “this is dead serious to me, but I get the feeling people will laugh at me about it, because it’s so stupid…” sort of way. Like his paper-clip story.

Settle back, gentle reader, and prepare thyself for an epic journey into the mind of one convinced that he is no longer all quite there.

It all began like this…

This house is great. I’m really enjoying living here. right now, I’m sprawled across one of the *three* sofas in the living room, with my laptop, and a pot of Earl Grey tea.

Seriously, how can life get more chilled out than this?

What could there possibly be to complain about?

Well, there’s no internet at home. Is this a bad thing? Well, kind of. But also, it does stop me spending inordinate amounts of time online, which I did over the whole furlough, to my shame. 3 months to rest and do anything, and most of the time I spent online. Silly. So, it’s probably a good thing that I’m not online here, and can just write emails that I need to write, and then send them from the Shed. And spend the rest of my time at home cooking, reading, playing clarinet, and exercising. Oh, and sleeping, of course.

Secondly. And far more seriously. There is no coffee maker here.

I say it again, for emphasis.

There. Is. NO. Coffee. Maker. Here!!!

Shocking! But true!

There is a kettle, and a teapot, and plenty of instant coffee, of the “Fair Trade” and the “Nescafe” varieties - both of which are vile - but a brewed mug of the real stuff? Not a chance.

So, how can I solve this crisis, I wondered, then had the brainwave: I can buy a coffee maker.

In the UK they have this really weird store called Argos, where everything is in this funny HUGE catalogue that you can get, and then you write down the item order numbers, or SKU or something, give it to the clerk, and it gets brought in to you via conveyor belt, or so. No browsing around the store, just the catalogue.

Almost a week in Carlisle...

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:57:00 +0000

What ho, blog. It’s me, the author of this blog, writing again. I do that, every so often, you know.

I’m sitting in my house feeling very domestic, and kinda lonely.

House did I say? Yes indeed. It’s a fair sized place, 3 bedrooms, dining room, kitchen, sitting room, bathroom, etc, etc. And only 2 of us living here at the mo. And my housemate is frequently gone, filming abroad or doing a bunch of conferences for “J John”. I’ll be helping with that from next week.

Anyway, I’m feeling very domestic as I just made meself a slightly over-large mexican meal, so feel kinda stuffed, and have done the washing up, and have a load of washing in the machine, making churney sorts of noises at me, as those machines have a want to do.

I’ve been here in Carlisle for about 6 days, and it’s been a very random week. I arrived Tuesday evening, and this dutch bloke, one of my new colleagues, gave me a quick tour of ’the shed’ where we work (an old bus hanger that they’ve taken over and have a bunch of OB-trucks (Outside Broadcast), busses, and so on and offices in.

My housemate, and most of the people who work in ’the shed’ were out doing the first of these conferences for J John, and so were not around. So I was wandering around this house, making myself at home, buying fruit and stuff, in someone elses house, whom I’d never met. Weird feeling, to be sure!

Wednesday and Thursday we had a set of “fund raising training” seminars we had to attend, with the whole staff of our company here in Carlisle (quite a lot, about 30 or so), and a few others from other groups about the place. So that was lots of sitting around and classroom stuff, basically.

The conference people had got back very early Thursday morning, and were asleep most of the day, but then we met up that evening, and basically most of the single guys who work at the shed came and invaded our house, we cooked some pizza, and watched a stupid rubbish movie.

(If anyone offers to watch “You, me, and Dupree”, don’t. It’s a waste of time, vulgar, and so totally down-the-line american comedy it’s just not funny. Virtually no american comedies are really funny, but this one is just resoundingly boring. About the *only* redeeming feature, and this doesn’t by any way redeem so far as to make it worth while, is that the young married couple don’t get a divorce, decide at the end to stick togeather, and that their guy friend doesn’t have sex with either of them. Bleh.)

Hey, the pizza was alright.

Friday was my first “real” work day, I got myself a tiny wee office, have a funky mac book pro to work on, with Final Cut Pro Studio on it, and was editing/top and tailing the footage from the J John conference, so we can make a DVD and sell this week’s talk at next week’s conference. This is apparently going to be one of my tasks while I’m here. Not too difficult, but took me waaaaay longer than it should have done. I guess I’m just out of practice, and trying to get my bearings in the office, and all. I’ll get the footage from this week on Thursday, so hopefully can get this one finished a lot faster.

New Template up and running. Perhaps.

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:59:00 +0000

As well as the Cairo Curse, I’m also having to put up with the Curse of Being a Web Designer.

That is to say, never being happy to leave something well enough alone.

Anyway, on this machine the blog looks fairly happy now, using the new blogger template system, and some new stuff I’m playing with.

Some random geek knowledge for you:

The traditional/oldschool method of introducing new technologies/research, or protocols for public use was to write an “RFC” or “Request For Comments”.

Basically those were (usually) longish documents available online freely, waaay back even on ARPANET, and have shaped the internet as we know it today.

More information about RFCs can be found on the wikipedia.

What was the reason for this brief history lesson?

Well, none at all, really. Except that I would like to request comments on the new theme / style of this blog. Any comments?

(yes, I know the images are missing from the side-bar. I’ll try and code a new sidebar image thingy tomorrow in perl or something so I can get the more modern pics too…)

Last week in Cyprus blues...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:03:00 +0000

Well, we’re back in Cyprus. Egypt was fun, I like Cairo. I don’t like the Cairo Curse however.

The Cairo Curse is the euphamism for a local stomach bug which quite a few people seem to get.

I got it. Woke at 4am on the day we were travelling back, and wished I hadn’t. Not a very pleasant day, all in all. Anyway, I’m mostly recovered, I guess. Still don’t feel to wonderful, and realised today I leave Cyprus in 7 days. So that means I have a heck of a lot of stuff to do.

So I started doing the ones I can manage without leaving my room, speaking, or walking too far. Such as updating my blog to the new blogger template system… Alas, it’s all going a bit pear-shaped right now, and as I have to finish making a slideshow for tonight (I’m doing a Doulos presentation thingy at the Anglican church “upper room”, if anyone sees this and is interested, 7pm, all welcome….), and the template thingy didn’t quite back up all as I wanted it to, it may take a bit longer for me to update to the new template than I hoped.

So if the site looks a bit of a mess at the moment, I’ll get it fixed and pretty for tomorrow.

I’ll also blog about Egypt as well.

Preview of waterman video

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:45:00 +0000

OK, so here’s the project I did yesterday and this morning for fun. I like keynote.

It’ll be much better, the timing is rubbish, and audio isn’t very good, and the graphics are in need of much work, but I’ll be away for the next 4 days, so I’m sure the vast community of brummieatsea readers will tear it to pieces by the time I’m back.

(may or may not work. try again if it doesn’t. Google video doesn’t seem so reliable with this for some reason)

More photos, and not much time left

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:45:00 +0000

Dear readers,

I’ve found that blogger has kindly been putting my photos I upload here to the blog into a “Picasa Web Album.”. Wasn’t that kind of them? So, it’s possible to look at all the pics in one place. Very spiffy.

The link is right here:

brummie@sea

It also can do flash slideshows and all sorts. So I’ll be playing with that. I need to update this blog design a bit anyway. I also will try and write a perl script to make the picasa album appear as the old fliker one does in the sidebar ->.

I don’t have much time left in Cyprus. We’re going as a family to Egypt this evening, for 4 days, and then after that I leave about 5 days later. Kind of scary how fast time has flown.

Then it’s off the UK for 2 months, then to Doulos.

Here’s another couple of boat/sailing sketches. The one on the left could be a Wayfarer, but the one on the right is way bigger.

I’ve been trying to make a video about Doulos to show later this week (once I’m back from Egypt) to people, and will probably post some of that later on.

I’m not very happy with Apple right now.. I had to reinstall the computer *again*. That’s like 7 times since I got back from Doulos. Why? Well, many of the times is not Apple’s fault, it’s true. I did replace the hard-drive, with a bigger one. That was moderately monstrous. They really hide those hard-drives well inside the poor laptops. Virtually impossible to get out. Anyway, the reason I had to this time was because I upgraded to Leopard, but alas, half my software doesn’t work properly with it. It’s a much nicer OS than tiger (looks-wise, but also technology like Quick-View, Spaces, and so on.

The version of Garageband that came with my laptop (only 3 years ago) doesn’t work with Leopard. I’m supposed to pay for the upgrade, which I’ve read may not work on this old a mac. This old?! Good grief.

Then Final Cut Express 4 doesn’t capture video properly on Leopard. It does about 3 mins, and then freezes.

Also Protools doesn’t work (even though I don’t have a copy, we were using it at the office for the show of Esther audio last month, and had to keep a Tiger machine around to use it…).

Anyway.

However, Apple Keynote is a very nice programme. I’ve used it to make some presentations, about Doulos, and now I’m actually working on an animation about the ship. It’s so basic, for animation. Almost too basic, I think I’m kind of pushing it’s limits, but it works. Once I’m done, I’ll post the video here.

I really have so little time left, and so many ideas and projects I wish that I’d spent more time in. Part of me feels really worried that I’ve wasted this time, and not used it as I could. On the other hand, I have this other either lazy, or else wiser, part of me saying

sailing at sunset

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Painted in artrage 2.5 on a wacom bamboo graphics tablet. At home on furlough (break from Doulos)

I saw 2 ships come sailing in ...

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:08:00 +0000

I’d like to spend a few minutes waxing lyrical about ArtRage2.
This is one of the coolest programmes I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a computer art / painting package, is relatively cheap ($25 USD), and very easy to use. Here are a few of my latest works:

Which is my dad and I sailing, on his boat. (Wayfarer, MK2). And…

I feel kinda homesick for the big ol’ rust bucket named Doulos. Both from memory, (well, I did check the number on the sail for the wayfarer, and I did have to check where the name was painted on in relation to the Anchor (sad!), but other than that, no ref. photos or anything.)

The North, and sailing

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:57:00 +0000

I was just up in Famagusta over night, meeting the Anglican church there who’ve been praying for me while I’m on Doulos. I’m slowly putting together a video about Cyprus, and so while there was able to get some photos and a bit of video footage which hopefully I can use.

Cyprus is beautiful. The Anglican church there meets in an old old church which has been in disrepair for quite a while, and now is actually a cultural centre for the university, or something like that. So there are plenty of old icons around.

We’ve been out sailing a few times now, it’s great. The boat is pretty well amazing with all the new ropes and such we’ve put on it.

Here’s a quick photo of the Out-haul on the mainsail (the yellow lines and tackle which pull the sail out along the boom, making it slightly wider, and the shape flatter, which can help to get ripples out of the sail, thus improving the shape, and speed, take a bit of power out of the sail in heavy winds, and so on.)

Dad’s quite happy with it all, but alas last Saturday when we went out sailing, the waves were very big, and while coming back in we managed to damage the centreboard (the big wooden thing I spent time sanding and varnishing a few weeks back). So now we’ve taken that out again, and today I’ve added some glass-fibre filler stuff, and will try and finish it back to decent shape again by this Saturday. Yes, I did leave it a bit late.

Last Saturday’s sailing was fun though. We and our sailing friends went out only for about an hour, and crossed pathes a few times while tacking, so when we did the first time, I put on my best piratey third-mate voice and roared “Port side cannon teams 1 3 and 5 fire a full broadside! Naaar!” and then the next time we crossed, they made cannonball flying and splashing noises, so just as they passed us, again I shouted “All torpedo tubes togeather, fire!”

So. There you go.

3 weeks until I’m back to work, for a while I’ll be in the UK working at the office there doing mediary things, and learning stuff to bring back to the ship.

Still almost 3 months ’til I’m on Doulos again though.

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 20:01:00 +0000

I was about to slightly repremand a friend for not updating their blog recently, but realised that would really be far to hypocritical from me.

So. OK. Now I’ve updated mine, I can go winge at them….

Maybe not.

I’ve kind of given up on those wretched photos for now. I’ll try again sometime. Maybe. Seriously, I uploaded them about 4 times. Those photos just *dont* want to go online. Weird.

We’ve been out sailing a few times. It’s cool. I love it!

I have some photos of that too.

I re-installed my comptuer. Again. I took it apart, and put a new hard-drive in. Replacing HDs on iBooks is a *seriously* over-the-top procedure. about 45 screws came out, and it took me 2 HOURS just to ge the old HD out of the box! OK, admittedly, we did have to go buy a new set of screwdrivers and a mini-mini torque wrench.

You know, big water valves are a lot easier and less fiddly than computers, when it comes to overhauling. With computers, if a bit get’s stuck, you can’t hit it with a hammer until it comes loose. Well, you can. but it tends to STOP it working, rather than make it work better. The engine-room motto is something along the lines of “The bigger the problem, the bigger the hammer”. Doesn’t work with computers. If I get tired of A/V, maybe I’ll go work in the Engine room.

I’m enjoying Cyprus. But I really feel like I’ll be ready when I can go back to work. I got an email saying I’ll be working with the UK office doing media and getting A/V training for 3 months, not 1 month, so still 4 months until I get to see my beautiful ship again.

Old rust bucket that it is.

*sigh*

I’ll post soon about life in Cyprus. I have a few stories about kind of reverse-cultureshock coming back here.

But right now, just to add some tofu to this post, I’ll talk about Opera Web-browser. I decided to try it out, about 2 weeks ago, and so have been using it since then, as my web browser, and also email client.

do I like it?

Well, some of it. It’s quite fast, most of the time. And has a lot of features. And integrating web and email is alright. Some things I just don’t like though.

It doesn’t seem to cope with more complex web stuff so well. Like now, on this blog typing page, for some reason it’s not put the images in for “insert link” and so on. It just has the alt text. It usually shows them.

It sometimes goes *very* slowly. Like, almost freezes, but not quite.

I like that it nicely links up my RSS feeds, email, and webpages though. And for most things, it’s really fine.

It’s really slow when trying to switch tabs which show video in. Especially if they are both *playing* video at the same time. That could be pushing it a bit with any browser, I suppose.

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 15:56:00 +0000

The Austrailians have a great phrase. Actually, they have lots of really great phrases. But this one is obscure to the point of being silly, and yet apparently universely understood by Aussies.

“Not Happy, Jan”

This phrase is generally used when something stupid happens and the person is, in fact, not happy. It came from a TV ad a few years ago they had. Bridget, this video is for you.

ok. so now, you’re probably wondering “Why did Daniel post this?”

Well, firstly, it’s because I’ve been having Aussies telling me “Not Happy, Jan” for the last 2 years, and finally I’ve got a chance to go looking such things up online. Now I know.

Secondly:

I took a bunch of photos of work on Dad’s boat, got them all colour corrected and so on, and uploaded them into blogger to post. Whereupon, I must have pressed the wrong buttons, and it’sjumped me into the address bar or something, and took me to a different page, lost the pictures somehow from the Auto-save/draft thingy, and I could find no way to bring them back.

Not Happy, Jan.

So. Here are some more pictures of Dad’s boat.

No. Here are not more pictures of Dad’s boat. I just tried to upload them again, and after uploading 1.3 meg, it then told me “failed!”.

Not Happy, Jan.

See how useful the phrase is?

I’ll post the photos tomorrow. Or later. Or something.

Tessa

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Painted in artrage 2.5 on a wacom bamboo graphics tablet. At home on furlough (break from Doulos) This was one of our cats, Tessa

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:37:00 +0000

As I type this post I can hear car horns blaring in the distance. They’ve been going for about 2 hours solidly. Yes! It’s election-time. No! I’m not talking about the US of A.

Cyprus has a new President. Most of the world probably hasn’t noticed, unless you guys can hear the car horns from outside? You can probably hear them in Egypt. Normally you only hear car-horns blaring for ages when someone gets married here. Or, rather, I suppose, when two people get married. But anyway. Then they drive through the whole town, down the seafront, with loads of guests following with all the horns blaring.

Part of me usually thinks “there they go again! noisy so-and-sos.” in a not especially interested kind of way, another part of me thinks “lucky them” and is slightly jealous.

I’ve been doing quite a bit more work on Dad’s boat again. I really miss having access to loads of decent tools easily… Especially marline spikes and sailmaker’s palms. Also good strong needles. I’ve broken 2 so far. Sorry mum..

Anyway. This is my current “ditty bag” of stuff. (Speaking of which, I should make a real ditty bag. Another good project to start looking into…)

Needle and thimble (borrowed from mum.). A thimble kind of works as a palm if you reverse it, put the needle base inside the thimble, and push from outside.

Swiss Army knife, a birthday present from before I “ran away to sea”.

And a new mini-marlinespike/fid. (The blue thing) I think it’s supposed to be a die or other kind of hole punching thingy, but I saw it in a hardware store and thought “ha! finally!”. I need to file the end a bit, and perhaps try and drill a hole for a lanyard, but otherwise it works well.

This is the new rudder downhaul. The thicker part is “shotcord”, springy rubber-filled bungy-line, and the thinner part is a basic thin braided rope with the core taken out for flexibility. The whole is used to pull the rudder down into the water. We’re currently totally overhauling it, dad’s made a new stock (top bit) for it, and I’m stripping and varnishing the blade. This is the old rudder downhaul.

Not terribly good condition.

And here is the new join between the shotcord and regular line.

Two seized eyes together.

Same kind of work as the ladder making, just a lot smaller!

And here’s a slightly more “artsy” shot of my tools.

I’m also remaking my website, doing a total re-design and everything, this time using CSS. I’ll try and link more with this blog, and get some of the more interesting bits of the last two years as proper articles there, so it can all be linked up nicely. I’ve not done any web-design for about 3 years, so I’m a bit out of practice. It’s fun to get my hand in again. Some parts of CSS are really annoying me though. I had some ideas for the design which I think would have worked well, but I just could NOT get to work with CSS in any normal/sane way. Anyway, it’s mostly working now, designwise, I just need to add all the content to the new design, then upload everything. I’ll keep you posted.

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:56:00 +0000

So. More about Cyprus. It’s wintertime, right now. That means cold. Freezing icy blasts of super-chilled air writhing and curling around in whirlpools of semi-defrosted almost-liquid oxygen, CO2, cigarette smoke, car fumes, and various other frigid things which make up common Larnaka air.

OK. So, slight exaggeration on the whole coldness thing. It was about 12 today, I guess. Still, that’s pretty cold, especially as it was about 37 when I left Doulos.

Also, Larnaka is really clean, mostly. Not so polluted at all. It’s beautiful, actually.

I’ve been helping a little at the theatre where I was working. This is the set from their new play “The History of Cyprus in 60 minutes”, which my dad and I helped set up the lights for last week. I also recorded it on video for one of the actors. I’d love to actually record it properly, with multiple decent cameras, tripods and so on. This was just a single home camera.

I’ve also been helping my dad a little at the office, doing a bit of logo/animation, and probably will do some more soon.

I’ve been helping him a bit more with his boat too, whipping/splicing/seizing, etc. This is the new out-haul block (I think. So many ropes on this little boat, I forget what they’re all for right now, as I’ve STILL not been out sailing on it…).

Anyway. It’s funny doing all this ropework on such tiny little ropes. Kind of like working on a model railway, or something. It’s nice though. I like it a lot.

Here is the new jib sheet (again, I think). We got this rig idea from his Wayfarer Book, and then I whipped it up. There are 3 seporate seizings to to make up this next piece. It should hold nicely, and will be good to work with. I’ve no idea how much pressure it’ll actually be taking, so I look forward to going out sailing soon to get more of an idea.

Today we also started work replacing the rudder stock. The old one is kind of shot, and so we’re making it almost completely afresh from (hopefully) marine ply. This is the old one (dismantled).

And here is the new one to be. We’ve jigsawed it, and now it’s being held and glued overnight so we can finish the two halfs and then start varnishing the pieces tomorrow, hopefully.

So, I’m still getting to use my Deckie skills. I miss ships so much. Maybe it’s just I miss Doulos… but I do miss ships. I miss sea-watch. I miss working with cargo, mooring stations, ropework, water tanks, painting, loading water, blocks and purchesses, bosun’s chairs, stages, all of it. *sigh*

Is it the work I miss, or is it just the people, my ship, my home of the last 2 and a bit years?

I feel part of it is the work. I also know I was so tired of it by the end. So tired of Deck Dept, so tired of the long hours and stress as waterman.

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:23:00 +0000

Yes, I’m back in Cyprus, at last. My last post showed a photo from the window of my accommodation at our office in Quinta, so now I’ll start with a photo showing the view from my bedroom at my parents new house:

These are water tanks, so of course, of special interest to Yours Truly, being an ex-waterman, and everything. The top tank is a cold water tank, and the lower one hot water. The two panels by each box are the solar-heating panels for the hot water tank. These tanks are quite a bit smaller than our Doulos tanks, of course. Combined volume on these tanks would be roughly 1-2 tons, as opposed to the roughly 800 ton capacity for freshwater on Doulos, that’s theoretical, as normally we’d have to be much much less loaded, as the ship would be too low in the water.

Virtually every house in Cyprus has one of these dual-tank combinations on top. Sometimes, as in this photo, a house will have 2 sets of tanks. Cypriot architecture is usually great, I love being back here in Cyprus, seeing all of the lovely houses and Mediterranean styles of building, but the omnipresent water tanks are a massive ugly blot on the face of Cyprus building style.

My parents moved house while I was gone. (They did tell me…), but it’s a bit odd, anyway. Kind of being “at home”, kind of totally not. It’s a really cool house. It’s got a single level guest flat on the ground floor, and then a totally separate 2 story house ON TOP of the first one! So excellent for having guests/familys to stay. Speaking of which, we have a family staying with us right now, really cool family.

I’m speaking about Doulos at the youthgroup tomorrow, and then probably at church sometime soon, and perhaps the other churches around soon as well.

I’ll blog more soon.

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:37:00 +0000

Hm.

I’m at the UK office now, staying at their guest accommodation.

It’s very quiet, lovely here. I have the apartment all to myself, and can cook and eat whenever.

It’s so quiet. I can hear sheep bleat occasionally.

Tomorrow or the day after I will head down to see family and friends all over the UK, and the fly back to Cyprus in about 10 days. I don’t seem to be suffering jet-lag, which is good.

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:57:00 +0000

So. I’m in Kuala Lumpuaa, Malaysia.

Why?

Well, it’s called “furlough”, basically, I’m off home for 3 months, after being on the ship for 2 years. After 3 months, I should come back to the ship again. I probably will delay my return, and actually go to work with UK branch of our company doing an AV exchange programme with their much more pro AV people for 3 months ( its much cheaper to go from Cyprus than later from back in whereever the ship ends up being).

I just had to say goodbye to most of my really good friends, many of whom I wont see again, until Heaven, probably. In one way, I find it easier, because I really do just see it that way, that I will see them all again. On the other hand, some people I really will miss. I don’t know how I feel about it all right now.

One HUGE amaizng thing (thankyou God!)is that I can fly to Frankfurt with probably my best friend on board, who is also just finished 2 years on board, but instead of going for furlough, is going to work on our company’s other ship for a while (they need deck ratings). I’m kinda proud, He is apparently getting some leadership position in the deck dept, because of his qualifications. He was one of my students in doing his EDH (Efficient Deck Hand) Course last year. One of my students is gonna be a bosun or something like that! Wooo!!.. Another of my students is now Bosun on Doulos too.

Ma boys is agrowin’ up, and dere Papa is proud as heck!

Kind of. They knew most of it already. But anyway.

Need to run. no battery.

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:44:00 +0000

PM shift today, so I spent the morning drawing…

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:51:00 +0000

Today we went a bit mad with a jigsaw. We cut a huge ugly hole in the main lounge desk, and found we’d cut into a structural support, and that the muppet who installed the whole desk made it all to NOT line up with the bottom desk supports.

So we had to screw all kinds of things together (literally. We borrowed two electric drills).

At this point, we realised that the AV manager would be coming back to the ship after three weeks away during dry dock.

We also realised that she would NOT be happy with a dirty great ugly hole in the middle of the AV desk. Also that we were kind of stuck, as the jigsaw wouldn’t fit under another part of the desk to finish re-cutting the hole…

So we pulled even more of the desk apart, cut more holes, screwed things back together, drilled dholes, and generally had lots of very stressful fun.

The other AV guy was sweating like crazy. I was laughing and loving it, in a stressed kind of way. Kind of like the waterman thing, leaving port with transferring water all around, ballast tanks, and overflowing, flooding places, and so on.

Fun, fun, fun.

Anyway, we eventually got it all back to a fairly good state. It all looks pretty good now:

I won’t post a hi-res photo.

Anyway, the lights are working well too. We need a few sockets for the ceiling - we’ll buy them in Manilla. Otherwise things seem sane and happy.

Those lights can be put anywhere in the ceiling - we can position them in any place! It’s great.

We also pulled the AV computer monitor out of the rack mount, managed to get a small LCD display from IT, and replace it with this. Now no more evil flickering and madness from engine/ship magnetic interference.

That was horribly complex too, with the other AV guy lifting the monitor from the back of the rack, and me trying to fit it through the hole on the other side with a screwdriver.

Anyway. All seems well.

We’ve also taken all the video tapes out of the wall, and put them in boxes. The carpenters will take out all the shelves and make us some wall mounts for the lights and cables, so we can keep them there. We never use the video library anyway (well, hardly ever). Hopefully we can make it all more efficient and sensible (and fun!) around here.

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:41:00 +0000

We’re now sitting at anchor just outside the dry dock, as there is a typhoon around, and heading our way, and the dock master doesn’t want our big heavy solid-as-a-rock ship smashing up his quayside. Also the ship next to us just started sand-blasting their hull, and we don’t want all that sand all over our nice clean ship.

As well as making rope-ladders, I’m also working at the new lights installation in our Main Lounge. As the ladders team is quite small, I feel kind of guilty and silly trying to get time off that to make the lights, and we have 3 ladders to make and everything, so I’m kind of doing lights and video stuff in my deck dept “off time”.

This is one of the finished products, this amazing bar will attach into our ceiling (or false deck-head, or whatever you want to call it) at any place in the Main Lounge.

This is the clever fitment idea from our ex-electrical officer. The blue rubber is actually from a stethoscope that we attacked, and then a wing-nut underneath tightens the bolt which squeezes the rubber and makes it hold into the ceiling. Amazing…

We then have 6 places in the ceiling which will have 4 power sockets for them, which are linked to our dimmer pack. We also have made a patch box which allows us to run DMX (lighting control signals) down our “comms” system (a complex head-set communication system built into our Main Lounge, something far too complicated and big for such a small venue…), and so to plug in a bunch of coloured LED bars lamps on the floor. Fun stuff.

My parents actually bought these lights just before LAST dry-dock, that is, about a year ago. Then, due to ship-politics, mis-communication, and lack of real push, they never got installed until this dry-dock. Rather sad.

So as not to end on that unhappy note, the lights are being installed.

And now for something totally different…

I went to get some coffee. it appears that the Programme Room coffee maker hasn’t been used in a while:

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:02:00 +0000

This blog post is dedicated to my wonderful Dad who read the Horatio Hornblower series of books to my brother and I when we were younger.

Thank you.

Dear readers, I feel it is time for your nautical education to be expanded. I’m going to teach you about making rope ladders.

We’re currently in dry-dock, Doulos is out of the water, and so we can do an awful lot of big jobs that we can’t do at other times during the year.

I’m on the lifeboats team this time, and so we’re making a few new ladders for the life rafts, as the old ones are really nasty. I’ve spent 12 hours a day for the last 2 days making this one, and I’ll be at it for another week or so, and I think you might enjoy.

First you will need some 2 mm tarred hemp (a lot), about 45 metres of 22 mm manila rope, about 30 wooden steps with two holes at each end, a hard metal eye/thimble, some plastic spacers, and some tools (heavy duty needle, sail-makers palm, knife, marlin spike, Swedish fid is very nice, and a threading spool. Although you could probably get by with a bit less. You will also need a wooden block with slats cut out for at the right distance for the steps to rest in while you make the ladder.

First soak and stretch the manila rope. We stretched it overnight with a chain block over the top of the book exhibition roof.

Next, once it’s dried, cut it in half, so you get two (roughly) 23 metre lengths.

Next divide both in half, and put the thimble in place, and seize it into a hard eye, then add a few extra security whippings.

After you have got these in place on both, you will need to thread the rope into all the steps. They should be quite tight, and it may be horribly difficult.

Once they are all on, you can start getting them ready on the ladder block. This block lets the steps sit at the right distance from each other while you seize/whip them into place.

It’s very important to make sure the first step is the right distance from the hard eye, on both.

If you get it a bit wrong, all the rest of the steps will be wrong too. Don’t.

A small aside… you should use tarred hemp for this kind of thing, as the thread. tarred hemp lasts much longer, and holds together well. We don’t have any right now, and the Chandlers are very late in supplying it, so we have to use regular un-tarred hemp, and wax it ourselves. We’re doing this by running all of it by hand through blocks of wax.

I also am using one of these threading spools to hold the hemp once I’ve waxed it. Saves a bit of time, and makes handling it all a bit easier.

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 12:40:00 +0000

Doulos. Drydock. Batangas. 2007.

Here’s a few random pictures.

I moved into a new cabin a few months ago, when I changed jobs to AV, I could no longer sleep in my beloved Waterman’s Cabin any more. My new cabin is alright. Not anything really special… Actually, it is quite special. The bathroom and main doors are in exactly the same place, in a tiny corner of the room, making it a health hazard if you happen to try to open one while someone else is opening the other. Speaking of the bathroom, here’s a rather nice photo of the flush valve on the toilet.

There. Isn’t that special. It leaks a lot, which is why it’s encrusted with green salt-crystal thingies. Doulos toilets are flushed with salt water, by the way. Thus we have a slightly strange feeling (for europeans) system, that you can have only 3 minutes of shower per day (which is fresh water, and expensive), but are expected to flush toilets for a minumum of about 20 seconds, to keep the system well cleaned out. Our toilet blocks a lot, probably partly due to the flush valve, which you’ve just seen. It has this helpful sign above it, which never ceases to amuse me:

The actual meaning of the author is probably lost in all antiquity, as is his identity, which is probably a good thing. They also left this charming inscription on another note stuck up by the sink:

Ahh… the joys of living on a multicultural almost-english speaking ship.

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:46:00 +0000

Hong Kong is beautiful. The colours of the place are really spectacular. It’s kind of similar to singapore in some ways, yet also totally different. I feel it’s kind of more peaceful, and also more human. Some of the countries/places we’ve been in the last months have been very clean, tidy, and beautiful, yet also, almost too stark. From the tiny ammount I’ve seen of HK, it seems less so. Still clean, but not clinical. I like it.

I bought a camera here, something I’ve been thinking about for about 3 years, and here is my first photo I’ve taken and been happy with. Hopefully this will also encourage me to post more frequently.

hmm

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 01:44:00 +0000

I’ve just set up this blog to now accept my posts by email from my
Doulos account. If it does work, it should be even easier for me to
post. So hopefully I’ll be sending more interesting entries a lot more
often.

I’ll keep you updated.

_____________ NOD32 EMON 2572 (20071004) information _____________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system
http://www.eset.com

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 03:17:00 +0000

So. First Post in a LONG time.

I’m sitting in a starbucks in Hong Kong, so this is also the first post I have personally posted in a long time too. Mostly I send my entries via email to Cyprus, where my family upload them here for me.

On Doulos we do have an internet connection now, and have done for the last year. This is via a huge golfball stuck on top of the book-ex roof. OK. It’s not really a golfball. It just looks like one. It’s actually a satillite dish inside a globe, so it can swing around and point the right way without getting stopped by anything or fall off or something.

A few months ago one of the I.T. techies came out from the USA and did some clever stuff with the connection packet shaping and bandwidth distribution, so now all ship computers have internet access, and when we are in port we usually have a wired local broadband connection. Personal laptops don’t have access to the net, only our doulos email accounts, but I (theoretically) could post from the computer inside the AV booth.

Speaking of which, I’m now working as an “Audio Visual Operator” or possibly “technician”. Yes, after all that hassle. It’s great. Totally different work, but getting to work with on board shows/programmes every day is good. I really enjoy that, and have many ideas I want to try, and hopefully will get a chance to soon. Learning/practicing live sound mixing is also good. Not something I feel very confident at yet, but it’s something I really want to be good at, and so working with AV every day, I’m getting better. Some nice things about being a musician and doing AV, I’m trying to be able to say “that echo/feedback/noise/loud-part-of-voice is B, one octive above concert A” and then be able to EQ it out straight away… takes practice though, to be able to do it fast enough to not be noticed. Anyway, I’m out of battery juice on this machine, so should head home. It’s lunch time. “Cold cuts and cheese” Yum.

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:19:00 +0000

I’m quite tired today. I-night tomorrow. Didn’t really get a whole lot accomplished these last few days. A bit depressing.

I feel slightly directionless at the moment. I have so many things to do, and to be doing, and yet not getting any of them done. I join AV in two weeks, but I really want to finish Deck well.

I was given three days to do the lifeboat videos, during the time these guys are doing their training, to video them doing everything, basically.

Today was my last day given to do them. I’ve got the script of one of them done, 1/4 of the second script done, a bit of B-roll filming done. But none of the blocking done, none of the real filming done, and so, obviously, none of the editing done.

I’m VERY excited to go to AV. I really look forward to leaving deck. I don’t know how it will be at all. Really weird. Kind of like being a kid, who was in school, suddenly being home-schooled, or something. I enjoy deck work, and too easily and probably too much see myself as a deckie, and a waterman. I am already doing video stuff and some AV programmes in my free time. I have so many ideas, but no way to play with them and try out.

Suddenly, it will be my job.

On one hand, sounds wonderful. On the other, slightly worrying.

Also I still have a problem really accepting that I will be joining AV. , even though I’ve had an official letter from Personnel about it, at last. I still honestly have a 80% belief that I’ll be told “Sorry, someone is leaving, you need to stay in deck” or “Logos Hope NEEDS people, you’re the only one who can go, even possibly. We don’t NEED you in AV, we could take someone else, but if we don’t send 2 deckies, they can’t sail.” Silly, I know.

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 18:16:00 +0000

Pretty good day today. Some lifeboats videoing, some script writing, some fireman maintenance work (so the fireman can do lifeboats training!).

Found found a weird inconsistancy in the liferafts procedures, so chased it up, asked the captain about it, and have emailed a picture and full explanation to both captain and safety officers.

It’s so strange though… I actually quite like ships, and all this safety stuff and all.W orking within the ISM and all the regulations and stuff is quite fun in a weird sort of way. Maybe I would make a good maritime laywer or something….

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:13:00 +0000

I was duty fireman today, so will be off tomorrow. I’ve been loading water, as well, but cannot leave the ship for 24 hours.

If there is a fire alarm go off, I’m fire-station supervisor, overseeing the investigators, calling if to page for the full fire control team to come, etc. Also I have to check any locations before any hotwork is allowed (welding, etc), isolate zones on the smoke detector panel before hotwork is allowed, etc etc.N ot very exciting unless an alarm goes off. Then it’s quite mad. My first 3 times as duty fireman I had big false alarms.

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 18:12:00 +0000

Quite a good day today.

Family service in the morning - I was doing a bit of puppets.

Taught more ropes stuff all afternoon. Was just marking taskbooks, and will have dinner (real dutch cheese!!!) and then go out for ice cream with the i-night crew.

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:11:00 +0000

The THING I actually miss from Cyprus is a stable, normal, sane Linux box to work with. I am trying to find some documents about EDH training on the network, and to figure out some stuff for the lifeboats next week. There’s one page of stuff I’ve seen the chief mate looking at, and it’s good, but he’s on break and now I can’t find that page! Annoying.

But I just got a programme installed which makes this windows machine work almost like a Linux desktop. I can have 4 or 5 applications open, adn 8 or 9 windows, and get between each job just by pressing alt-1 or whatever. No silly alt-tabbing through 10 windows to see what I want. I don’t like using the mouse.

The first day’s training went well. I covered most of the ropework they needed to know. Knots, splicing, seizing, worming/parcelling/serving, stoppering at mooring. It’s quite satisfying teaching, but complex too, and so much stuff to think about, and figure out how to get it to work. Tomorrow we will do purchases, bosun’s chair and stage tomorrow, also care of rope….

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:01:00 +0000

Life is good.

The e-day went very well.

I’m going to join AV on the voyage to Hong Kong in September!!

But I’m really tired.

Today:

9-12 i-night technical meeting, looking at the lights
12-3 sea watch
3-5.20 mooring and preparing water for the port

It’s now 5.45.

Tomorrow I start teaching EDH (Effiicent Deck Hand), so I need to prepare all that. Should be interesting, but I don’t have anything prepared yet.

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:01:00 +0000

I’m sitting in the dining room at 7.30am writing this. It’s dark outside still, with rain and occasional lightning as the wet season continues to build here in Mokpo, South Korea. The windows are fogged up by condensation and water, allowing me to see the port about as clearly as I currently see my current life and future on Doulos.

I know that what job I actually do is quite minor, really, and that I’m here to serve, and it’s God’s choice what He asks me to do, nevertheless, I’m finding it intensely frustrating, and hard to focus on what I have to do day to day, and know how to spend my time. I was told (again) yesterday that I will be told for sure by the end of the week…

Tomorrow morning I’m taking a team of 4 people who I’ve never spoken with together (one of whom I’ve never met!) to do a 90 minute kids programme. I was told on Sunday afternoon that I was in charge. I was also told I had 2 steppers (who are tour guides, and so don’t really speak english) and one from the new preship, who I’ve never really spoken with. So I tried to arrange a meeting that night, and told them as best I could.

None of them showed up.

So I spoke with the one from the new preship, who was working at the book-ex, and so couldnt come to any meetings. I arranged a programme, and told her what I needed her to do.

I managed to find one of the steppers, but I don’t really know what she will do. We arranged to meet this evening to sort out her Bible story, but she never showed again. and I still havent met the other stepper/volunteer.

So I phoned today the host, and she wants to take us for lunch. So I said it was 4 of us.Then this evening I saw the notice board for e-days, and we have someone else joining the team!! So I hope I can see them at breakfast tomorrow, and maybe we have to skip devotions or something to prepare.

I really hate just bulldozing over the others, especially the steppers and just making them translate or something, but then the ballance between “the show must go on” and also “Doulos is about people”.

To make it worse, Creative Ministries are closed all Monday, and by the time I’d found out I was in charge and thought about ideas on Sunday, they had also finished. So I havent been able to get any drama music CDs, or props, or costumes, or anything. They dont “open” until 9am tomorrow! Which is the time we’re being picked up. I’ll try to speak to one of them tomorrow at breakfast.

The host’s expectations sound quite high of us, and I am really unsure of how it will all go. We’re totally unprepared, and I’m struggling with feeling inadequate and cynical.

Just 4 days ago we had another crazy programme, a “mini-international night” which a church told us to produce at a concert hall they had booked without checking if it was a good idea with us first. So I was roped in and after work went along, having just taught 6 people that afternoon our cultural Scottish dance to perform… When we got there, we discovered one of the costumes missing, and so I had to re- teach them the 3 couple version backstage while the show had already started! We were totally unprepared, but somehow they managed to remember their steps.

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:46:00 +0000

Didn’t do a lot of work today, really. Moved a bit of water, checked a few levels, sounded a few tanks, and finished off the Pusan i-night review DVD.

It was raining today, so not so busy. It’s rainy season here, and rain does have a certain charm.

I’m probably doing AV for a programme on Tuesday. The AV head went today and talked in strong terms to Personnel, and said she sped things up a bit. She wants me full-time in AV so she can release me to make more programme videos, and media clips for our use on board.

Now I have an e-day to organise….

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:41:00 +0000

Today has been quite good.

The new Waterman is away on overnight, and will be back Tuesday. The other Waterman is doing most of the work at the moment.

So I’m working to get non-essential but good things done, such as the Waterman’s bible, and writing a proper Waterman entry to the Ship Board Operations Procedures Manual (basically ISO 9000 for ships). And I’m getting the keys updated from piles of paperwork to be integrated into the ship’s main database, and hopefully making the new lifeboat’s training videos with the Captain soon.

Maybe also working with IT to get a couple of databases done.

Oh, and I’m trying to actually get to the bottom of the whole water chlorination deal, and get a proper procedure written down, and perhaps (the Captain is backing) to get an inline automatic chlorination system added. I’m aiming to leave my mark on the Waterman job!

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:25:00 +0000

Life is:

frustrating.
tiring.
confusing.
wearying.
long.
too short.
too fast.
too slow.
too bizarre.
too boring.
too random.
too inane.
etc. etc. ad nauseum.

I saw the personnel manager today. He asked me about jobs and extending and all that, but started from ground up, as if he knew nothing at all about what I would like to do. We had an 8 minute conversation, maybe, so I tried to explain the kinds of things, just answering his questions, rather than saying anything directly about our (and my dept. head’s and others) past conversations as I was just so puzzled.

He told me that it’s all very complicated, and that video isn’t really a full time job, and that all the manning problems are causing so much confusion.

The new Waterman has started. He’s learning fast. I taught him the sounding and basic rounds on day 1, then the other Waterman watched him do them on day 2. Today he wasn’t workign with us, tomorrow he’s on e-day, Saturday we will work together again, I guess. So I’ll keep them updated about how he’s doing, and hinting that I’m redundant…

So that’s good. But I’m still feeling very frustrated, making me want to leave the ship, even though I still feel it’s the right place. Every day people ask, ‘So what’s happening?’ and all I can respond is, ‘If you find out, let me know!’ And that just makes them think I"m being funny or secretive or something.

It’s weird. usually, I can *feel* how the dynamics of the place are, and can fit in. But right now, I feel on a different wavelength, like I expect gravity to be normal, and all mass to attract each other, and apples to fall to the ground, and so on, and yet I’m living in a universe where in fact things don’t do that, but almost. And there are no rules written down, but in fact it’s something like things attract each other depending on how blue their colour is, and that’s why apples fall towards the earth.

I feel like I’m in a computer programme I’m trying to debug, and everything ALMOST works,except that there is some wretched buffer overflow error, and extra 0s and 1s get dumped into random data structures.

Right now, I want to do video and AV stuff, and maybe study and get my deck officers ticket in a few years. It takes 2 years or so. 6 months study, and 9 months on a ship, and then a few months study, then an exam. I think.

My idea currently is do AV until either mid 2008, or maybe 2010, on Doulos, then perhaps
work with the company’s TV/video group in the UK, and then either study as a deck officer, or go do AV on Logos Hope, or come work with dad, or all of the above, in some random order.

The AV team would like me to work with them.

But does the dept. head? I dunno.

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 17:22:00 +0000

I was just doing video editing all today so far, pretty much. It’s a project that the half-time video guy recorded 5 months ago, a backstage i-night video showing what goes into making i-night happen. But he never edited it, and doesn’t have time to, for sure.

I’d like to record my own footage and make a better one., I need to record some interviews anyway. I finished the music track I chose, and it works quite well, but at the end, it feels like it’s just the introduction to a whole big project. So I’ll try recording interviews,and add footage from this current i-night of the actual dances and all that,and try and make a full documentry of inight. But this means its a bit of a bigger project.

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 17:11:00 +0000

Life is tiring and frustrating.

The half e-days doing puppets with children were moderately rubbish. Unresponsive kids, then loud and random.

Then the water got messed up. The water people don’t bring anything like what we ask. Like totally different amounts. We ask for 200, they bring 36, etc. so I’ve no idea how much we have on board. Their barge only comes with random amounts of water in it.

Also I spoke with Personnel about doing half video and half deck, after being told so many times by the video boss he wants me, and my boss OK-ed it, and personnel said it sounded fine.

But today My boss had a meeting with Personnel, and they have a videographer coming in the next preship. So it looks like they don’t want me in video.

So I have no idea any more at all what is happening.

Very frustrating.

There’s little stuff on top too. Like I got a key request, but the cabin number and key number on the request don’t match, so I don’t know which they really need, and then the personnel secretary was in meetings all afternoon, so I couldn’t call her and ask which it really was. Just silly little stuff like that. Feels like the last straw when life is frustrating anyway.

Also, I’m SO tired.

Seawatch was so long and tiring, and then yesterday after prayer night I went by the keyshop, and found a water sample had gone positive, so I had to start doing re-tests on all the water until midnight. Then I was up this morning at 6am to get all the valves ready for when the water arrived while I was out.

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:02:00 +0000

We will have a new waterman next week! I’ll be speaking with Personnel tomorrow about doing half time video and deck training (teaching new people, teaching Efficient Deck Hand course to current deckies, doing lifeboats sometimes, etc.

This is OK with both the second mate, and the videographer’s boss. So maybe I start in a week or two… Even better than AV, I think. I still get time outside, playing with ropes. And I’ll still be doing AV for i-nights. If I do stay in deck, then I can apply for my AB ticket in February, since I’m still signed on under articles, still a deck rating, and still lifeboat 1 coxswain.

I can still hang out in AV, and mix video for them sometimes too.

I have three crazy days ahead.

The next two days are half e-days when I’m doing a puppet thing for six-year-olds, and half water loading and other work. Then there’s the i-night the day after.

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:10:00 +0000

Last port (Pohang, South Korea), I went with a team to stay away from the ship for almost 2 weeks, living with local families, and working with them (doing programmes at schools, church meetings, etc, etc).

During a 2 year stay on Doulos, most people will go out for 3 teams like this. Some, like here, being very civilised, others (say in PNG or parts of North Africa), being much more out-back “jungle teams”. I was staying on my own with a family of four, and every day going to work with my team from 9am until late at night. I really enjoyed living with a family, again. They were so hospitable to me, and looked after me so well, also, they were very relaxed and friendly.
I was introduced to the father like this:

“Daniel, This is Elder Shim. You will be staying at his house.”

So I was a bit worried about how formal I would have to be. We’d been warned that Korean culture is very formal, and that on past visits of the ship, many westerners had caused problems, and had problems, due to the very low-context, low formal nature of the west, and also of the ship.

But I found it totally the opposite. Very easy to get along with, very friendly, very family. The parents sitting on my bed talking (even though I don’t speak Korean, and they don’t speak English!!), and the kids running around, doing a bit of puppetry with them.

It was one of the kids birthday while I was there, here is a photo.

As you can see, a nice cake (for breakfast!) and also much traditional Korean food. My hostess cooked amazing food every breakfast. I was so well fed. Lovely. Kimchi and rice for breakfast,
with rice and soup. Mmmmmmm.

One day she made kim-pap, kind of rolled seaweed paper with rice and crab and carrots and cucumber inside. I’d wondered how it was made. Now I know. They treated us so well, we went out for Korean barbecue 3 or 4 times, had much traditional food. So good. SOOO good! Anyway. A really good time. Really nice people.

Now I’m back on the ship, and have been for a week or two. Usual stressful running around, busy life.

I’ve been waterman for more than a year. Almost 13 months now. Amazing. It’s gone so fast. And I still quite enjoy it. I’m also really tired of it, though. Firstly the long days, and always
thinking ahead and being on-call whenever I’m on board, but also it’s not something I’m especially interested in, water tanks, locks, and all. I’m able to do it, and quite well, I think, and have learned a lot, and enjoyed it a lot. But I really want to change my job.

My first love work wise is still theatre and performance/art. I’ve been working with the videographer on board quite a bit, recently in my spare time, and also helping some with the AV/technical/sound/video people in our on board programmes team. I’ve applied for a couple of different jobs, on board, but at the moment it looks like I’ll probably be staying in the deck department for a while.

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:55:00 +0000

We’ve just arrived in Pohang, South Korea! These last few days have been very hectic for me, and kind of typify my whole life at present:

23:45 - 04:00am sea-watch.
07.30 - 08:30am study groups.
09:00 - 11:45am Korea country orientation. (basic history lessons, culture, language, etc)
11:45 - 16:00pm sea-watch
19:30 - 22:00pm a-team meeting
23:45 - 04:00am sea-watch…

And so on! Quite busy, as you can see. In my “free time” I’ve also been working on the ship’s video edit suite editing 2 video projects. Tomorrow I’m going out with a group of people for ten days to work with a local church.

Here are two photos of me taken in Japan, where we’ve been for the past month:

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:12:00 +0000

Greetings, Gentle reader, and welcome to the latest episode of brummie@sea.

Before we get much further, here is a photo of yours truly:

Taken in Fukuoka, Japan. Nice place. Very clean, efficient, tidy, quiet. Kind of reminded me of some of the more sane and modern parts of London (not that there are too many parts which combine both of those adjectives).

We’re now actually in Kanazawa, which is further north.

I’ve been quite busy this port, as the second waterman has been on a team staying and working off the ship for the whole port. I was also learning a lot about the audio-visual stuff on board the ship, how to use Final Cut Pro, sound balancing, and so on. Fun stuff. We had some of the people from our company’s technical/production side out for a week or so, and doing some training for us.

Since then I’ve been working on the ship’s edit suite making a couple of video projects (a Taiwan report video, and a video about the work the ship did in Philippines to show in Korea).. Final Cut Pro is very very nice software.

Especially once you get rid of the silly one button mac mouse, and put a proper 2 button+scrollwheel on the beast.

I’ve also been working quite a lot on just refilling up the ship with water. We had to pretty much replace all our water with Japanese water, due to strange regulations here, and that was all a bit complex.

I stayed up quite late one night running around the ship with the I.T. guys, when they re-built the network system, rebooting and reconnecting the DHCP client sessions on every computer… We now have internet web access on every ship-computer (not personal laptops). That is really cool.

I am probably going to be changing jobs fairly soon, I don’t know where yet. Possibly into I.T and Videographer, or something like that. Maybe working with the Audio-Visual team running the sound and stuff programmes on board. I’ve been working as a waterman for almost a year now. On Doulos that’s a long time. I just looked in our logbook the other day, which I started us keeping. The first entries are from August last year. Amazing.

I applied for the job of Technical Administrator. It would be quite interesting, and a big challenge too. A more technical ship work, and I could learn a lot of administration skills that would be useful in whatever job I end up doing in the future.

Doing all the video and all that these last two weeks, and hanging around with the IT guys a bit, I know that that is where I enjoy working most. I love doing video editing, and IT configuring and installing and all that work is so much more satisfying than water stuff. I miss programming a lot.

I miss linux, actually. Now THAT’s a geeky comment.

But whatever job I end up doing here, it’ll be useful, and also a good change. I’m really tired of the waterman’s job. It’s a great job, you can learn sooo much. And it’s very interesting, very much responsibility, very much independence. More independence than any other job on the ship, probably. Still. It’s time for a change. I’m tired of the midnight phone calls, of thinking about the ship’s water and list and draft 24/7. Of being “on call” whenever I’m on the ship. Of working alone, truely alone. Even working with the other waterman, I still miss being part of a team. I don’t much enjoy being a leader. I prefer to be a team player. Able to relax with others who know as much or more than I do, and able to pass the ball around, rather than just holding it myself, or watch my partner/assistant run with it the whole time.

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 09:11:00 +0000

This has been a fun week… most of it. Exciting, and all, anyway. We had a damage control drill, in which the fire attack team had a chance to play with our big emergency submersible pump (big blue thing, about the size of a child and the weight of a man) which had to be carried down to the engine room, and dropped into a tank of water, and then they had the fun of emptying a few tons out of the porthole, and then the rest we transferred into another tank. Great fun for them, very good that they finally get a chance to work with that pump (it’s a monster!). And the tanks, of course, mean work for the watermen! :-)

We had two tanks which were on schedule for being worked in (we emptied out one of them a month or so ago, and had deck teams in there scraping off the old dead cement, and we last week got the new cement on all the walls.

So we had to open up this empty tank again, and open up the other tank, and get everything ready for that. This meant the usual sitting for a few hours in a bilge/tanktop covered in slime and grease and oil with various sizes of wrenches/spanners getting the manhole open.. This one also created a few more problems though, as some of the nuts were really old and totally seized up.

I had to find out how to get them off. I tried everything I knew how to do (various lubricants, hammers, spanners with extensions, and so on). My next and final option was to grind the thing off. As this is in a bilge, with oil and all about, it’s quite dangerous to do grinding, as you have sparks all over the place. So you need “Hot Work permits” which are paperwork to make sure you follow all safety procedures, have another guy on firewatch while you work, have fire extinguishers ready, etc… The chief mate suggested I try using just a oil burner/torch and heating up the nut around the edges, to try and expand it and so free it up. This would also require Hot Work permits, but would be safer, and also a lot easier, if it worked.

As I was getting ready for this (with the deadline being the drill the day after), the chief engineer suggested just using a “Nut splitter”, a really cool tool I’d never seen before. Basically it’s a chisel with a threaded end, a bolt on the end, and a case to drive it through the nut, as you tighten the bolt. Very cool indeed. So I found this device, and amazingly, it worked! Very nice indeed. I was chatting with the Engine Foreman afterwards, and he suggested a few other ideas involving chisels (and hitting the bolt in the right places to expand the right parts). So I have lots of new stuff learned. Cool. I’ll put it all in the “Waterman’s Bible.”

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:34:00 +0000

Just a quick photo, me as coxswain of lifeboat 1.

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 12:30:00 +0000

This is Sabbath week, we’re supposed to have rest from most of our work.

Unfortunately there are only two watermen.

I did some maths. The water at this port is REALLY slow to load: like 10 tons an hour. If we use 40 tons a day, then in Sabbath week we must load roughly 300 tons of water, which is 30 hours of loading.

It’s not too hard work, really, as most of the time we can rest while it is loading. But there are also about four hours of sounding to do (over the whole week), plus another five or six hours moving water ready for the voyage, and so on.

It’s quite OK - not too bad, really. If it were a normal port, then no worries. But it’s still roughly 20 hours work each - kind of annoying when we’re supposed to rest. Normally it’s no problem - like last year, there was virtually no work for the watermen, because it was the beginning of a port. So they just loaded the ship totally full - so full she could not sail - and then basically did nothing the whole week.

But we arrived here after a two-hour voyage from the last berth (which still counts as a voyage, so we cannot load above the limit). The water connection only arrived during Sabbath week. It’s a slow connection… AND, we sail right at the end of the week so we have to have all the tanks in order for sailing (some full, some empty, etc).

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 12:20:00 +0000

We slightly overloaded the ship with water last week, because of the sheer relief of a quayside connection again. The ship was totally low in fuel, so we loaded her to the max of water, with little effect on the trim. Ok, huge effect on the trim, on the draft, little effect. All the water tanks are at the back, so we ended up with a 2.5 meter trim then they bunkered fuel 4 days ago, and we haven’t loaded since.

When they loaded the fuel, the ship was below her loadline. Its quite colder weather, so all the doors are acting a bit odd. The c/m told me that he knew we must be light on water, since his door was not shutting as normal. I told him we had enough, but he said “load her up! The ship must be almost flat right now!” So I loaded her up. It was quite fun. My bathroom was almost diagonal, and the toilet outside the engine room was tilted both ways, and very weird to use.

Anyway. we will load another 50 tons or so the day we sail. (Tuesday)

So today, we started work after lunch (its Sunday) and then did basic soundings, made a few keys and I went up to the mates office. I found a really really dirty tarnished old brass ship’s wheel (with wood outer spokes) in the office. The deck secretary told me that the 2nd officer had found it in an antique store, and that it was going to be attached to the bridge of Doulos.

There were Brasso tubs around the floor, and so i asked “surely you weren’t trying to Brasso this?”

And she said no, but some others were trying to no avail. They had also tried toothpaste, and were going to try paint remover. I laughed, and said how silly. I then stole the wheel,

I phoned the store keeper, and he came to the keyshop. I borrowed some de-liming liquid from accomotation, and some wire wool and leather gloves. In half an hour of our work, it was shiny and brassy, so then then we Brasso’d it for another half hour or so, called the mates, and told them to come, and bring some Coke with them. On the way they told me on the phone that Coke has had it’s recepe changed, and probably wouldnt work. I just told him to bring it. They turned up, saw the wheel and were VERY impressed.

Today was a very good day work wise.

I did my PR thing: I told them all, “if you need to know anything, or if you need something difficult done, just ask the Watermen how! they know everything!

They kept chuckling and saying well done boys, and how happy the captain will be and we will (hopefully) get a *real* wheel on Doulos again!

The Coke actually tasted quite nice….

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:15:00 +0000

Warning: this post contains a word which may under certain circumstances be considered less than 100% socially acceptable in the context of the readers current culture and/or position. If this is the case, the blog author accepts no responsibility whatsoever.

Dealing with the baggage locker isn’t one of the most complex jobs, but it’s kind of annoying and adds stress to the work: having request forms to do every day, extra responsibility and all. It only takes a few minutes a day, normally(up to half an hour or so) but it’s just another thing to worry about.

Anyway. The firemen don’t have so much work, unless they really want it (ie, go and look for things in a not-ideal state, and then fix them). But they don’t do that (at least, not the current firemen).

So one day, I was carrying boxes up from the locker with the boatswain, who is Dutch, and mentioned to him an idea I’d had. Maybe the firemen should take over the baggage locker… ?

He stopped, put down the box he was holding and stared at me.

“That,” he said, “is a bloody brilliant idea!”

So now the firemen do the baggage locker.

Delegation is so much fun when it works!!!

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 13:21:00 +0000

Yesterday the trucks started coming at 6am, and I was finished by 5pm. Prayer night was the night before, and ended late (11.30pm) so I was really tired. I went to bed last night at 7, and got up at 7 today (even though I only slept about 7 hours, as usual… *sigh*). Tonight is i-night. So I have until lunch time to get ready. I’m in 3 items in this i-night, and it was going to be 4, but I didn’t have time for all those extra practices this week.

The waterman job is so tiring for me at the moment. I enjoy it, it’s interesting and fun, but so tiring, and such long, unpredictable hours. I don’t even know the day before what hours I will be working on the tomorrow. I guess that’s mostly because of the trucks, and once they are done, it may go back to normal again, I dunno.

The new group is settling in well… Even less guys than with ours. The ship is really short of guys! We have more girls in the deck dept, which I quite like, it kind of smoothes off the rougher edges of some of the guys.

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 14:15:00 +0000

The February group of people just joined, like I did last year. Feels very strange. Anyway, the new deck crew have just completed their deck department orientation and basic fire fighting training, so I took the opportunity to steal some of their photos for the purpose of writing a new entry. Applause is not mandatory, as I am too far away from you to hear it anyway. So, without further ado, the photos:

This is the fire-escape ladder from the propellor shaft tunnel in the Engine Room. All of our Fresh water valves are situated in the tunnel, and our workshop is quite near the top of the escape, thus I climb up and down this ladder anything up to 30 or more times a day when very busy (when we have water trucks arriving, for instance). I think this could be one of the only things which keeps me slightly fit on board…

This second photo is incredibly unclear, and shows the new recruits crawling down the main corridor of the ship, in full Breathing Apparatus and fire suits. Fun. As I said, the photo is unclear, and there are much more clear understandable photos available, nevertheless I decided to post this one as I find it almost artistic, it has a certain visual interest, which most of the others don’t. I mean, how interesting can a picture of a bunch of lemon suited unidentifiable personages with compressed air bottles on their backs crawling down a corridor be?

Quote for the day:

For no worldly thing, nor for the love of any man, is any evil to be done (Matt 18:8); but yet for the profit of one who stands in need, a good work is sometimes without any scruple to be left undone, or rather changed for a better. For by doing this, a good work is not lost, but changed into a better.

- Thomas à Kempis “The Imitation of Christ” Ch. 15

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 07:06:00 +0000

Long day yesterday…

I did 4 school visits, as a puppet, interacting with the MC for the whole 45 minute programme. So I had my arm up in the air for 3 whole hours. Very tiring.

Then After dinner I started work with loading water, we had 20 water trucks arrive, and so finished around 1.30am the next morning.

This morning I was up at 7am for music practice before the Sunday service, playing bass again… This is the second time this week I’ve played bass, and the second time ever I’ve performed with it. I feel so bad at it, I have no technique at all, and can “hear” in my head what the bassline should do, riffs, changes, and so on, but lack the practice and skill to play them yet… I need to find a “learn to play bass” book and spend a few hours practicing.

It’s kinda fun though!

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:13:00 +0000

Hallo blog.

Here are some photos of my bathroom. The first is of after the plumbers started their invasion.

The thing on top of the toilet seat is a leather welding glove., in case you wondered.

The reason there is a toilet brush with a red ribbon on is because I helped the accommodation department with a video one time, and they gave me this as a present.

The light is hanging off the wall, yes. And the wooden fitting is all broken too.

This photo shows more clearly (perhaps) the underside of the sink.

lovely, eh?

Happily, now the sink has been repaired… with cement and heavy duty black scupper paint.

It looks like this:

Quite amazing, is it not?

For those observant readers (or photospotters), you may have noticed that the wall behind the sink is now white, not that rather ugly blue. If you noticed this, congratulations, take 10 points. I dont know where you can take them from, but I’m sure there is somewhere.

Anyway. The bathroom is currently being repainted, by yours truly and my new cabin-mate,
colleague, and friend Tomas, from Mexico. We’re going to try and make it look quite appealing, but currently it just looks white.

So. That’s all about the bathroom. Current news? Well…

I’m reading “Slaughterhouse 5” by Kurt Vonnegut. Now that is a strange book. Very interesting, witty, clever, rude in places, but thought-provoking. I have a friend in the Engine Room who recommended it. He loves Vonnegut, and I have another friend who works in AV (Audio-Visual for programmes, etc) who also enjoys his works. I’m still in two minds about it. Very clever… I like some of his ways of working with language, and with stories.

I was just phoned 11 seconds ago and asked to play drums for music tomorrow with some others.

It’s dinner time, I’m going to go get some food…

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:27:00 +0000

One of the things I’ve done in my ‘spare’ time is re-write the Waterman job description.

Here’s the old one, which doesn’t really say much:

4 months

deck trainee

-common deck jobs

-chipping rust

-painting

-rubbish

-cargo handling

12 months

water trainee or waterman assistant

being taught waterman duties as

-soundings, fresh and ballast water

-greasing jobs

-luggage storage

-key cutting and lock maintenance

-fixing shoes

-improving and developing work procedures

8 months

waterman

-teaching and passing on duties

-leading the water department of about 2 personnel

-continuing the regular duty of water supply- maintenance and learned duties

Here’s my proposed replacement, which I think explains better what we actually do. There are two watermen at any point, one of whom is training the other.

Making sure the ship has safe, clean, good drinking water. This involves:

Loading water (sometimes by trucks, water barges, etc, which can come at any time of day or night, and take up to 13 or more hours to load the specified amount).

Sounding all the water tanks every day, reading engine room gauges, and filling in log books.

Making sure the ship’s stability as far as ballast tanks and water tanks are ready for voyages.

Taking various chemical and bacteria tests on the water when loading and at other intervals.

Having a good and thorough understanding of the ship’s freshwater system, including running all the freshwater pumps and valves in the Engine Room.

Taking care that the ship does not list from side to side while working, and that the Engine Room watch-keepers are able to transfer water to correct list, that the ship’s draft and trim are good for sailing, and taking accurate readings of them.

Preparing ballast and water tanks for inspection and maintenance work (emptying the tanks, opening manholes, maintaining the manhole covers, ventilating and inspecting tanks).

Making keys for the ship, maintaining all the locks, taking them apart and cleaning them, etc.

Greasing various pieces of deck machinery.

Bringing up and down luggage when needed to the baggage locker, and keeping it in order.

Mending shoes, belts, bags, etc.

Attending deck department devotions at 0900h.

Normal deck sea-watches and mooring stations.

Some maintenance of valves, tanks, pumps, and pipes.

Thinking of creative ways to do things, work around problems, and invent or establish new ways to get jobs done, and passing these on to the next watermen.

There are usually two watermen, one experienced who teaches/leads the new one.

There is very fine detail work (reassembling locks) and quite heavy work too (opening man-holes and floor-plates in the engine room, carrying bags, pumps, etc). A lot of the time is spent working alone, so self-motivation and taking ownership is important, but also a lot of the time communicating liaising and working with various departments and others (Chief Mate, Boatswain, Chief Engineer, Personnel Secretary, Purser, Engine Room Watch-keepers, local port workers (who may not speak English), the Shipping Agent, and so on.)

Many times there will be several jobs running at the same time, with pressure from many people to complete different jobs for them, while there are other responsibilities needed to be taken care of.

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:22:00 +0000

The crowds on the quayside on Sunday. It was like that *ALL* day! Very
busy.

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:15:00 +0000

Deckie outing today. A really nice beach/hotel resort. Most spent most of the time in the pool, actually. I dozed in the sun. Nice lunch.

Got back to the ship, noticed the water hose had half fallen off the deck into the water (YUK!)

So I’ve had to go and rinse it out and start de-contaminating it. blah. Sea water here is revolting, around the port area.

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:29:00 +0000

I think I may have mentioned I’m quite busy, and a bit tired. Here is a summary of my week, so far.

Tuesday 23 January 2007:

07:30-07:55 - breakfast.
08:00-08:55 - Associate director’s devotion, and community announcments
09:00-15:30 - final transferring of water, sounding tanks etc to prepare ship stability for sailing.
16:00-17:00 - stand-by for mooring stations
17:00-18:30 - mooring stations, leaving the port, preparing the anchor, and dinner squeezed in while others were on anchor watch.
18:30-19:00 - Dutch dance “dress rehearsal” to check dance quality for the programmes
organiser
19:30-20:30 - “Port report”, community meeting to see what happened in Manilla, exchange news, stories, etc.
20:30-22:00 - Lying awake in bed with the light off.
22:05-23:45 - Sleep is a lost cause. Drinking coffee, chatting on yahoo, and getting dressed and ready for sea-watch
23:45-…

Wednesday 24 January 2007:

…-04:20 - Sea watch on the bridge. Training 2 new helmsmen while supervising lookouts, keeping watch, steering the ship, etc.
04:30-05:00 - Getting ready for bed, I still have no bathroom, and so have to use one down by the engine room.
05:00-07:00 - Sleep (2 hours)
07:00-07:30 - Breakfast
07:30-08:45 - Bible Study groups
08:45-11:30 - Lifeboat Drills. More about this later.
11:30-11:45 - Grabbing an apple for lunch, showering, and getting dressed for sea-watch 11:45-16:20 - Sea watch on the bridge. Continued training of one of the new helmsmen, while
keeping lookout, etc.
16:20-17:30 - Sitting in the mess, eating carrots, waiting for dinner.
17:30-18:00 - Dinner.
18:00-18:20 - Preparing for bed.
18:20-23:00 - Sleep (4 and a half hours)
23:00-23:45 - Preparing for sea-watch, drinking coffee, etc.
23:45-…

Thursday 25 January 2007:

-…04:20 - Sea watch on the bridge, you know the story.
04:30-05:00 - Getting ready for bed.
05:00-07:30 - Sleep (2 and a half hours)
07:30-07:55 - Breakfast
08:00-08:45 - Teaching session on Galatians.
08:45-10:30 - Mooring stations, arriving in Cebu. Most experienced people just left, and we have a new deck officer who doesn’t speak English perfectly yet (although he knows everything completely in Korean).
10:30-11:30 - Soundings, getting water checked out, and filling log books.
11:30-12:00 - Lunch.
12:00-13:30 - Check emails, write new Job Description for watermen, prepare other jobs, find out whats happening with the water this port.
13:30-14:30 - Help with packing down the lifeboats, and settling down to wait for the first water truck to arrive.
14:30-15:30 - Find out that the water trucks (about 20 of them) will arrive at 19:00 tonight, so decide to write a few emails then sleep til 17:30 for dinner…
15:30 - Now.

So. We’ll be loading water from 19:00 or so until midnight or around then. Probably later. 200 tons. It’s free, though, which is nice.

Dear Steven Covey - Thanks buddy! Sectoring my time is really helping me be efficient (and facetious - right now.)

About the lifeboat drills, I’ve just been reassigned, I found out at breakfast, to coxswain of life-boat 1. Very cool. Very nice lifeboat. But I’ve not actually been in boat 1 in the water before. Nor have I ever been coxswain before, outside of the training a few months ago, in a totally calm harbour, after all the theory and going through all the procedures with everyone about 10 times.

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:26:00 +0000

There was a small leak in my bathroom ceiling about 2 months ago.

I wrote a request form for the plumbers to come and have a look. They came a week ago, pulled the ceiling apart, ripped out some pipes, splashed water everywhere, left pipes pouring out for about 3 days, dropped a pipe through the sink and smashed a hole big enough for my arm to go through!

There is a step-ladder in my shower, welding rods in my sink (whats left of it) and dirt everywhere, and it still drips from the ceiling over the toilet.

They also pulled the light out of the wall, smashing the wood of the fixture, and I’m currently waiting with great interest to see what happens next!

Now the most cool thing in the whole epic is as follows:

That bathroom has needed re-painting for about 6 months. The floor is quite bad. So I was going to repaint it, getting ideas, browsing “dynamic interior design for incredibly small bathrooms” at bookstores, and so on.

The day I was going to paint it, I got distracted by work and stuff, and so didn’t manage to start.
That day, the plumbers came and smashed the whole place up! If God hadn’t distracted me and kept me from going ahead, it would all have been in vain! God is nice like that.

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:52:00 +0000

Yesterday was my first day as duty fireman. Once every few weeks I’ll spend a day on duty running the firestation. We had a control team page at 8pm - the laundry girls saw steam coming from one of the machines doing a 95 degree wash, and thought it was smoke! It was quite dramatic. On Christmas Day, I got paged about 20 times… insane! About the 18th time I phoned info, and asked if I could get a prize. We were loading water; the quayside is weird here, and the officers wanted to ask about water several times. Also the shipping agent wanted photocopies of receipts, and the purser…

Today was kind of a strange day. I taught puppets this morning to all the port volunteers. Now they’re all shouting, ‘Hello Daniel!’ every time they see me. Then I played guitar for deck devotions, did my soundings and water rounds (quickly), then fixed the director’s cabin door. Then I replaced a broken porthole with one of the carpenters, and then took a valve apart in the engine room, and put it back together again, stopping it leaking. All random jobs. It’s not a “normal” day for watermen; it’s kind of weird, but it’s because all our normal jobs were done already. The monthly ones in dry-dock, there are no bags needing to go up or down, and no-one has lost any keys recently.

This port is quite stressful for me. Strange loading, and Stephane has moved to another job. So I’m training/leading Tomas, the new waterman. Because it’s a strange port there is no way I can give him routine jobs (like loading water) to do every day for a bit, and I couldn’t do the random jobs today with him as he was out with a team!

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 12:21:00 +0000

So, still in drydock mode. But here is a blog update I wanted to write about 2 months ago, but never got around to. I’m really tired, so this may not be as interesting as I kind of imagined it originally.

During the leadership training thing I did a few months ago, we had a day doing work at a school, making their football pitch ready. Filling in holes and such. So I spent a few hours carrying buckets of dirt and filling holes. Nice day, didn’t have to think too much. Another guy was there, who was making the buckets of dirt ready for carrying, scraping it out of the big piles of dirt dumped on the stands.

Anyway. I thanked him slightly ironically for the dirt he gave me one time, and he said something like, “Only the best for our customers” or something like that. Anyway, so we developed a whole routine about the dirt, talking about the moisture content, worms, and so on. We formed our own company:

DARN: Dirt And Rain eNterprises.

While walking back and forth so many times I slowly developed one stage at a time our mission statement, basically stating our belief and trust in giving dry dirt, so as to allow the rain to add the correct moisture levels, without the burdensome weight of pre-added moisture:

“We believe in a holistic customer-empowering service effectiveness paradigm which utilises the undeniable precepts of positive precipitation to innovativly implement a beneficial weight/content transportation ratio. "

Kind of rolls off the tongue, I think.

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:19:00 +0000

One of our frequent jobs as watermen is greasing various deck equipment.

Our grease gun (device for putting grease inside deck equipment) is moderately dead. It’s horrible. We don’t have grease cartridges, but have to fill it by sticking the end in a bucket of grease and pulling the spring back. Kind of like re-loading a cross-bow, just messier.

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:40:00 +0000

I had kind of a frustrating day today. I expected and wanted to spend the day happily in the engine room with cleaning and putting back togeather a really rusty horrible old valve. But ended up spending most of the day helping a deck team with trying to set up pumps and running around the engine room with them, trying to pump the last few centimetres of water out of parts of a tank so they can work in it.

The chief mate and bosun went briefly into the tank this morning, looked around and said it should be a quick job to do the whole thing. At lunch time, the bosun asked the team leader how it was going, and said, “oh well, at least if you get the tank empty of water by this evening it’ll be good.”

This evening, there’s no noticeable progress made at all.

I went and crawled though the whole length of the tank, found two old rust scrapers from last time the tank was opened (2 and a half years ago). It’s going to be a really big job. Loads of the bits of the tank in the forward end have all the cement fallen off, and rust and all kinds, so it’s not just a one day job. Once it’s dried (which may take 2 or 3 or more days) it may then take another week or so of work chipping all the cement and stuff and putting in new cement. It’s down in the bottom of the engine room, below generator 2, so the deckies feel really uneasy and keep coming to me for help all the time.

Luckily once it’s dried, all the rest should be done by deckies, not us. But still it’s kind of annoying.

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 09:57:00 +0000

For the first time in ages… a post from fingers directly, rather than via Cyprus! I’m right now in Singapore, on break for 3 days or so with my parents and brother who are out to visit. Very very good. Singapore is beautiful, clean, and friendly. We’re staying in “Little India”, which is (apparently) the least clean and organised part. Which is fine by me! Amazing lovely Indian food really quite cheap here, and of course, being with my family is even more amazing. Apparently I should be making more frequent and shorter posts… with more photos. Well, no photos today, no camera link available. But as to the shorter and more frequent posts, this is the first of (who knows!) many. I hope to post more, but I’m not very good at this whole sticking with good ideas thing, lah.

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 13:29:00 +0000

I’m typing this from the dry food store, miles and miles down in the depthful belly of the ship. I don’t know if depthful is a real word, but if not, I have just coined it. Please pay all royalties to me, chocolate is the preferred currency.

OK, so what am I doing in this previously mentioned food store…? Well, we’ve been having a few problems on the job.

Over the last few months we’ve been emptying out ballast tanks, (the water tanks down at the bottom of the ship which keep her stable) one at a time, and then sending a deck team in there to do routine maintenance (routine, as in, once every 4 years or so per tank).

Anyway. We just got to the last tank in the series, and so needed to fill it up with water. For some reason though, every time we tried to use the pipe to send water to the tank, the pump would get very hot and trip the electrics. We could see a very high pressure build up in the pipe by the pump, so it looked as if there was some kind of blockage in the pipe, which was not allowing water through it. We went into the tank last week or so, and looked around for any obvious problems, feeling inside the pipes as far as fingers would go to make sure they had not got cemeted over in the maintenance. No problems found though…

So we asked the engine room guys to have a look at it, and they sent a very professional welder/plumber. He took a “snake” (high pressure hose with a thing on the end which bounces around and smashes to bits any kind of blockage or rust.
Anyway… it got stuck in the pipe. So he called me, and then he went into the tank to take the pipe off and look for his snake. BUT… forgot to check which pipe. The wrong pipe got taken off…. So he took off the other one. Not his fault, he didn’t know the tank had two pipes leading into it. We couldn’t see any problems, so he put them back.

Presumably the problem was further up the pipe, closer to the engine room.

Presumably so was his ‘snake’.

So, we opened up the other tank, brought a HUGE emergency submersible pump and attached it up to transfer between the two tanks. This pump is a very serious pump. It’s designed to be hooked up, and chucked down a staircase into a flooded hold to pump it out, kind of thing. It took 3 of us to carry down to the food store here where the tank manholes are to put the pump into. We had to use all kinds of ropes and stuff to hoist the thing down. We attached it, and set it going. It was a bit complicated, as we had to have one guy at the suction end of the pump, to make sure it was OK, one guy at the discharge end to make sure it didn’t swing around and kill someone, one guy running between to make sure the hose was OK and didn’t explode, and one guy 3 decks up with a radio to switch the electricity for the pump on and off (there are only 3 connection points on the whole ship for this creature).

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 16:58:00 +0000

Yesterday was quite a long day, I worked normal 9 till 5, and then left the Engine Room watchkeeper with the normal instructions for the night, as we wanted to load water (very slow connection) overnight. Anyway, the watchkeeper wanted to make a 1 degree starboard list (tilt of the ship) so they could pump out a bilge tank. They got it a bit wrong and ended up with 3 degrees. 3 degrees sounds like very little, but at 3 degrees it is actually hard to walk down the hallway. I phoned them to see what was up, they said they would correct it.

I was preparing for teaching Sunday school this morning, in my cabin, and so thought nothing more of it until the Duty Plumber phoned me, incredibly worried because the ship was now at 4 degrees, and he was getting leaks from random pipes. I pulled on my coverall and ran (almost while leaning against the walls!) for the Engine room, shut the valves all off and started correcting it (by this time we were at 5 degrees), then ran out again to sound the tanks and find out what was happening. The Engine room watchkeepers had left a few rather important valves open that they should have shut, and about 20 tons of water had siphoned across from one tank to another.

I ended up working until 11pm in the Engine room, keeping the pump going, replacing the water in the correct tanks. So I’m pretty tired today…

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:21:00 +0000

Today was the captains dinner, like a special programme for high up local port officers, VIPs and so on, and I was asked to play background music while they were eating for 20 mins or so. There is someone I have played with before a few times, doing guitar/voice/ clarinet French songs, which seems to work really well. So we were going to play, but then today at about 4.30 I found a note in my workshop saying “Sorry, I can’t play tonight, but this STEPper will…” I’d never heard the guy play before, except once when he came around playing Christmas Carols with a few others (who couldn’t sing…). So I was moderately terrified. I’d rather not play at all than play badly. Not everyone else feels that way, alas.

To continue, I went for the sound-check at 5.15, and he said he could play classical guitar, and went and found one, and played a few classical pieces (I’m sure he could be good, but I think is very out of practice…), stopping and starting all the time, and I improvised around him. Also a few old hymns and stuff (Greensleeves…). Then tonight we went and performed, and it in fact was not so bad at all. Nothing too amazing, but they were all eating anyway, and so it doesn’t matter too much the few mistakes there were… we kept going and it sounded kind of OK though our monitor, anyway.

Tomorrow I will be MC for a programme in the morning, for 200 or so 12 to 20 year olds. Then in the afternoon/evening it’s I-night again, and I’ll be playing a small part in a drama. It’s possible that I may be in the Irish cultural dance as well. I went to the practice today, just to watch them prepare for tomorrow, but one of the guys didn’t show up, and they muttered a bit about if he didn’t turn up tomorrow… I’ve only been to 3 practices now for that! And it’s really quite complicated! Anyway. I don’t think so tomorrow.

Sat, 19 Aug 2006 15:20:00 +0000

My official and rather boring report of the A-team:

Our A-team was sent to Melacca to work with the Calvary (AOG) Church there.

We were involved in teaching 2 drama and 2 dance workshops, running a mini i-night / cultural evening with the other Melacca A-team, a school visit, children’s home visit, a programme about unity at a pastors’ fellowship breakfast, a bunch of church services, 2 Sunday school meetings, practical chores in the church building, one epic adventure across the city in search of pizza, and lots of eating.

The church looked after us very well, providing a beautiful “condo” for us to stay in (with a swimming pool downstairs!), plenteous food, bottled water, transport, and schedule.

They briefed us well when we arrived, giving us times we would be picked up and dropped every day, information about each programme, and so on. We then followed the schedule almost exactly for the whole week (I believe this is a first in Doulos history.)

One of the main highlights of the week was the cultural evening on Wednesday. We joined with the other Melacca a-team to provide a whole range of cultural items including dances, drama, videos, songs (in 3 or 4 languages), and much more. The students from the dance and drama workshops were able to perform two dramas, which was amazing after the short time we could spend with them, and we hope and pray that they will be able to continue to work and use their many gifts in the future. All in all the cultural evening was a great success with many compliments and expressions of thanks afterwards.

We were able to spend quite a bit of time just talking with the people of the church at meals, before and after programmes, and at our condo after hours. One girl sent in the first application to join the ship while we were there! Another guy was very interested and spent a few hours one evening with us, asking questions and telling us about his life, with all of us sharing with him our own testimonies, and of how we were able to join the ship.

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 17:18:00 +0000

Preparing to go on the A-team (see this post for explanation):

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 11:13:00 +0000

The waterman job continues quite busy. The last two days we have been moving an awful lot of water from one ballast tank to another, as the deck team have finished cleaning/maintaining the one, and need to work on the other. The only way to do this directly is by opening up the manholes of those tanks (both in inconvenient places down in the food store), and sticking a pump into the full one, and a long waterhose (firehose thickness) between the two tanks.

So the first problem is getting the manhole covers off. These are large heavy metal plates with a rubber seal and 18 nut/bolt s on each one. We have a nice electric wrench thingy which gets them off quite quickly. We started opening the starboard tank manhole, but water came gushing out around the edges, meaning the tank is very full. There is a bilge entrance right next to the manhole, so we figured we could just drain the water into there, and then have the Engine Room pump out the bilge into the main bilge and then into the sea next time we sail.

But they told us that their main bilge that they would pump into is already pretty full and they didn’t need another ton or two of water in it from us. so we got a small emergency pump and used that to pump from the small bilge into another spare bilge. This was taking forever though, as it’s
quite a small pump.

Then we checked the plans, and saw that the other manhole for this tank is further forward in the ship, and the bow of the ship is really quite high at the moment, and so that manhole would probably not be overflowing if we opened it. But… that manhole is at the bottom of the lift shaft in Hold Two… So we went though to there, and got it open. Indeed it is fine! So we had to get the watertight door between the food store and hold two open, put a safety chain from the lift to the crane deck and then get the electricians to isolate the lift so no one else tried to use it and drop the lift on us. Then we rigged up the hose between the two tanks and started the pump. It went quite well but SO slowly.

The book-exhibition teams needed the lift to take the day’s books up (it was about 3.30pm by then). We had moved enough water that the other manhole was free from overflowing, so we opened that one again, moved the pump across, and started pumping again. Then we had to close up the manhole in the lift shaft again, and get the electricians to restart it, and remove the safety chain from the crane deck. All this time we were moving the ballast water, it made the ship list to Starboard, so we were having to use the freshwater transfer pump to move fresh water about and correct the list with freshwater. Most of the day I had to spend down in the food store to keep watch on the pumps and all while the other waterman was doing other stuff about the ship. While | was down there I extended a watch strap by a few notches for someone as well, and started work on updating the “Waterman’s Bible”, our handbook for all things watery (last updated 3 years ago). So quite busy.

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 12:34:00 +0000

I’m going on A-team next port!! Yes! Another Doulish word with an unintelligible prefixial letter. In this case “A” stands for “Action”. Which gives absolutely no help in understanding what an “A-team” actually is. What is an A-team?

*Open “Unauthorised Revised Doulos Dictionary.” *

A-team - Noun. Abr. “Action Team”. C 1980-1990AD (Origin unknown). A short (1 to 3 weeks) land based team, leaving from the ship for however long to be involved in any number of different projects. Some do building work for a local charity or children’s home, some travel a lot, visiting a different village every night putting on a short programme, possibly taking a video projector along. Some run a youthgroup’s summer camp, and so on. Most Douloi guys go on 2 or 3 “A- teams” during their 2 years on board. Most Douloi girls go on 2 “A- teams”, and during the two dry-docks go on “Land Teams” which are basically the same as an “A-team”, but only girls, and during dry- dock. Some people go on up to 5 “A-teams” during 2 years.

So. Cool, eh? My a-team is comprised of all drama-ish creative people, and we are going to be mostly doing drama/dance/creative workshops for a local church/youthgroup. I will probably be speaking at one or two church services. So all in all quite interesting.

OK. “Quite interesting” is a bit of an understatement.

YEAHOO!!!!!

Very exciting!!

So if you want to pray for me (us!) until about the 15th or so of August it would be really nice. One or two very strong willed (lovely!) people on the team. And a LOT of time together, so pray that we will be able to work together, and help the people we meet.

So yeah. By the way, my “boss” the senior waterman just told me yesterday while we were chatting about books how he hates “chatty” books that are written in spoken English style (many modern books), rather than written English (like C.S. Lewis). It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t read this blog. I think he may find it too much spoken English.

We did our crane training yesterday. Which pretty much completes the basic deck training. Now only advanced lifeboat/firefighting/etc training to go (I think). We do training so sporadically though for these sorts of things. Drills every week though. I think I must be OK with the crane, as the teacher (my ex-teamleader) told me I was pretty good and she may even change my mooring station to the “standby” team (who start the unloading first), presumably as they need a crane driver. Pretty cool! Then again, standby team is quite boring most of the time. I’m currently in the forward mooring party, which is the nicest, I think so far. It’s a big open deck, with lots of space, and you get to watch the port and everything really easily.

That’s about it so far! Watermanning is going well. I haven’t flooded anything else yet. I greased the crane though. Tomorrow probably I’ll grease the main windlass. Huge, ugly, with about 100 points to find and squirt grease. And the grease gun is about empty, so I’ll have to fill it again, which is quite complicated and very very messy.

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:14:00 +0000

I’ve been on e-day/overnight for the last three or four days. When I got back, people told me that the entire section 6 (girls) had been truly flooded! Like a foot of water in some cabins. But that wasn’t me, it was the other (senior) waterman. He was filling up one of the ballast tanks (from empty) which has no pumpconnection, so we have to fill it up byusing a couple of hoses and the ventilation pipe, and a tiny little domestic pump. Takes about three days.

Anyway, he set it going, checked it the next day and it was fine. Next day he was out, then came back and heard himself being paged… there was water all down the steps! It was Monday, so most people were off the ship and no one had noticed it all day.

We think the water must have got to the top, and while slowly filling up the ventilation pipe found a crack in the pipe which happens to fun through section 6. We don’t really know, though.

It’s been a cool weekend. On Saturday I worked until 1pm, and then went and showered, and went to do a ‘mini inight’ programme all afternoon, and got back at about 1am. One of the benefits of the waterman’s job: I can take time off like that.

On Sunday we left at 6.45am for my kgroup brother’s church, with our whole kgroup. We did a simple programme, and then went to a shopping mall in KL [Kuala Lumpur], then stayed overnight in an apartment rented for us by his dad. We spent the day chilling out in KL. Then today was another e-day, painting panels/walls for a Sunday School in a new church.

KL is about an hour’s drive from where our port is. Even the city to which our port is attached is about 30 minutes’ drive, so it’s really hard to get out at all here. You have to hitchhike to the train station (about 10 minutes’ drive) and then get a 30+ minute train to Klang (this town), and then from there it’s another half hour or 45 minutes to KL. And we’re at this port for 5 weeks! It’s so long.

For the weekend, the brother from Klang has his own car and we borrowed a Doulos van. Then as some people had to go back to work, the rest of us just piled into his car or took the trains about KL.

People visiting the Doulos here come in cars. We get about 18,000 at weekends. It’s amazing.

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:01:00 +0000

The glued part I mentioned yesterday didn’t quite work. The glue seems to be strong enough, but unfortunately I didn’t quite check how it all fits and works before gluing it. I glued it as it is when you insert it into the lock… but once it’s in the lock part of it gets pushed into another position by a spring. So tomorrow or something I’ll try with another broken part and see if I can glue that into the already sprung position instead.

Yesterday I was in a programme as well in the evening, it was a programme for the local churches, to thank them for all their help this port, and show them what kinds of things the ship does. So
stories from one of the nurses, about her work with the ship in India at a leprosy home, and so on. I was asked to be part of the “parade of departments”.

Basically go up the front with my work clothes on, with people from the other departments, and they had to guess where we worked on board, and what we did. I don’t think the programme organiser thought about which people she asked though too much… or maybe she did. I was the last person in the line, and when we introduced ourselves, it sounded something like this:

“Hi, my name is Daniel, and I’m from Ireland.”
“Hi, my name is Danielle, and I come from Malaysia.”
“Hi, my name is Daniel, and I’m from Cyprus.”

So all I had to do was say my name, pause slightly and look ironic, and the whole audience burst into laughter. Nice. I dressed up for the occasion. I wore my normal work clothes, but raided the workshop, so had about 3 screwdrivers in a pocket, a tape measure on my belt, pliers, a sounding rope and weight on a nice harness thingy, and perhaps 80+ keys on various jangly rings.

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 14:51:00 +0000

Waterman’s job… So far, I quite like it. It seems like a good job, many things to keep busy with, but not too much stress, and quite a flexible schedule (will be more so, once I’ve got everything mastered). Sort of quite senior. Quite “elite” and all that (being only 2 of us, and no-one else actually knows what we do, how to do it, or anything. Apparently people get “chosen” for it rather than choosing it. Bit weird… one of the other ex-deckies came to me and told me “yeah, all the watermen just get chosen, no one actually ever wants the job. It’s totally unromantic, unlike “fireman” or “team leader” or something. But everyone who becomes waterman seems to really enjoy it.” And loads of other people keep saying stuff like “you’re the new waterman? oh good! It’s JUST the right job for you!!”. I feel like I’m missing something…)).

Strange thing is, a lot of knowledge about the job seems to be passed on by word of mouth, apprentice style, but then it looks like a lot of it has kind of disappeared in the last year or so. So like the lock situation, for instance. As far as I can tell, about 2 years ago they replaced the entire lock set on the whole ship, then about a year ago bought a whole load of new / replacement locks & padlocks. But they have *never* ordered any spare parts for them. Which means that about now, we are very short.

There is this stupid little brass bit right in the middle of *every* lock on the ship, which has the entire weight of the lock on it when it gets opened, and these snap quite frequently. So far, what the watermen have done is to swap the part for one in one of the unused locks, or swap out a lock from elsewhere, or something similar. We’re kind of short of spare locks now. So I’m trying to find solutions to this. They have been talking about ordering or even trying to order new parts for ages, but have never done it. So I keep reminding the other guy, and it looks like this week we should order them. But until they arrive (could be months away!!) we still need solutions.

So I first went to the engine room machinists, and asked if they could make replacement parts, with their lathes, etc. They said yes, but it could take a whole day just to make one! So that’s not really a solution. Then I thought about maybe glueing/ soldering a fix, (it’s far too small and delicate to weld). So I asked the electricians, and they gave me some very strong epoxy mixing glue stuff, which I tried out today on a part. (Today is my first day working alone…) So far it seems like it may work! Monday is our off-day, and then on Tuesday I will hopefully get some time to sand/buff off the excess epoxy cement stuff, and build a new lock to try it out with. I really hope it does work.

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 13:38:00 +0000

We’re in Port Klang, Malaysia now. Sabbath week has started, so no deck work - 8 hours watch tomorrow only, and that’s it! Probably that’s my last ever gangway watch. They still have me scheduled for watch with my team, but my new teamleader is trying hard to get me off that week of watch and straight into the job as waterman.

Sabbath week means we have seminars etc in the mornings, then afternoons are free. Monday is sports/general madness afternoon.

The speaker this morning gave away free books to everyone! He told us about the most important emphases in his life, then recommended about four books about each one . He had a table up the front where at the end each person could take any three they wanted. But there were quite a lot left over, so he said take as many more as we wanted. So I got 7!

I have the go-ahead to make the Doulos intranet website. We’re getting new computers soon, and one of the old ones will be converted to a Linux server.

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:41:00 +0000

Slightly weird news is that I’m going to be waterman. Means no more work outside really, hardly any physical work either. No more gangway watch either, mind you. I start right after sabbath week. It’s the job I didn’t want as it means being on call in evenings, but for the next lot of ports, as they are quite developed, we should always have water from a main, rather than trucks, which is better. So I won’t be on call all evening.

There are two watermen, the old one is leaving and I know the new one requested me about two months ago already. Then today I was told to work with him for the day, so I did, and then this evening the chief mate told me that as soon as sabbath week is over I will be the new waterman. It’s a job I know I can do, and some of it will be interesting. Like doing all the key-repair/locksmith stuff, but yeah. I dunno.

The chief mate knows I don’t really want to be waterman, and he knows I want to move to another department as well eventually. So he could have given me the job because they need someone, and it actually isn’t that hard, and I’ll be able to fill the second position until they find someone who wants the job. I’ll enjoy the locksmithing part, as long as I can find some good books about it, and can get enough work time to do it in. I’ll learn how to pick locks. And I’ll have a slightly more flexible schedule than now.

Also I have the go-ahead to make the Doulos intranet computer system, which should be a fun diversion. So I will kind of have full internet access sometimes for a while, to do research and get the software I need and stuff.

Oh, and I’m playing tambourine with the gospel choir. Kind of fun, but utterly exhausting in the right arm after playing solidly for six minutes straight.

As waterman, I’ll be able to play clarinet in my office, which is far away from everyone. I don’t like playing in my cabin, as there are always watchkeepers in next door cabins asleep, or in my cabin, and it’s hard to find other places which are free. I’m currently playing a lot in hold 1 which has so-so acoustics.

Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:29:00 +0000

This is lovely lovely lovely Thai fruit, “rambutan”. Tastes kind of like grapes, but without skin (once youve taken the outer layer off). So peeled grapes. One huge seed, but you dont eat it.

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:06:00 +0000

I’m spending a lot of this week on watch using my swiss knife and some twine to whip and finish lots of the book-exhibition ropes. They are all in horrible condition, although some have been finished off with back-splices, but not beautifully. Since the ropes have to be pushed through small holes in the stanchions to make lines for the people to walk, having them all thicker at the ends doesn’t make it any easier… they look so much better whipped off. Some of the ropes have
frayed though some of the strands, so I’m having to re-lay them, and then perhaps tonight I’ll splice the frayed ends togeather. It’s something to do…

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:56:00 +0000

GREAT day 2 days ago… Plan was for morning planning/preparing, afternoon teaching drama and creative stuff to teenagers, a kids’ programme after, and then a café on board in the evening where we would be waitering and stuff.

The drama was really really good. I got to basically run the whole thing, teaching drama, basics, games, etc. Kids loved it, really joined in, did so well. I hadn’t realised how much I miss drama/theatre work though until then. I miss it a lot! Teaching drama is so wonderful.

Then the kids programme after that was v. disorganised, on a street corner. ok. kids enjoyed it, I think. Did the usual dramas, silly songs, etc.

Then as we got back to the ship to prepare for the café, (which I was not looking forward to. Normally I end up sitting at a table with two people who dont speak English, I don’t understand their names, music is too loud for me to concentrate or understand anyway, and when after half an hour or so we begin to get a conversation going, before I can say anything they both leave. I dont enjoy…) one of the line-up people said to me,

“Are you free to come out? I need musicians!”

I said I was in the cafe, he said no problem, went and got me out of the café, and told me to get my clarinet. So I did, and we went to a café run by some local people. They are trying to make a new safe cafe/restaurant, where it isn’t all cabaret and sex and stuff, but friendly, good music, and so on.

So we set up music stuff, and played for 2 or 3 hours. The other musicians were amazing too. One of them was a bassist who went to music college to study bass. Between sets, he started playing
“Amazing grace” … he’s THAT good! We did a bunch of Christian songs, English, French, etc. Then after that the bassist brought out “The jazz real book” and we played a few songs from that: Georgia on my mind, Moonriver, etc.

Lovely, lovely. Clarinet and bass go well togeather, I think. He said he may be able to teach me some jazz theory before he leaves (2 or 3 months!!), whcih would be really good. and also maybe I
should teach a standard music theory course, as many musicians on board have no theory at ALL.

So that was a really really really good day.

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 09:22:00 +0000

We’re in Phuket now (pronounced “poo-kett”, in case you were wondering). It is SO beautiful. Both ports in India were coal ports, so the ship got really dusty and black, but here it is a tourist berth, and the landscape is like a tropical paradise from some Caribbean movie or something. Lovely. The people are really friendly too. I have not had a chance to go out yet, being on duty and really busy with dance practices and so on.

Yesterday we had an actual fire! Someone left a laptop on their bed coverings, and it overheated and started smoking and sparking. She had left the cabin, but one of her cabin-mates woke up because of the smoke, grabbed it and threw it on the floor. Someone phoned the ship’s internal emergency number, and all of us in the control team came running to the firestation. We sent in the attack team dressed in full gear and everything. But thankfully someone had already put out the fire with an extinguisher. They reckon they may be able to rescue the hard disk, but I dunno.. We’re just glad they were not injured.

Sat, 27 May 2006 18:30:00 +0000

Today was a pretty good day.

Not many deckies working’; many people are seasick, and so extra deckies are taking on other’s seawatches, and so on, so not many day-workers. Tomorrow there are only 3 of us!

Anyway. The Bosun asked me to wirebrush/clean/paint one of the compass stands on the bridge, which was a good job. Went well too. Hopefully the rain the rest of the day wont have messed it up too much….

Then in the afternoon we had fire attack-team training. Which basically envolved learning about how the breathing-apperatus worked (BA-sets). Then putting them on, and going about the ship, all of us getting shut inside a small compartment/fan-room togeather (to make sure we could cope with such spaces, and not get claustrophobic), crawling along mainstreet (the main corridoor of the ship) using only hands and feet (knees not being protected enough) and then we went up to the funnel, climbing down through inside of the funnel structure inside the engine room, (very very hot! while wearing heavy BA-sets too…) to give us an idea of how it is like inside a fire, then we had to go out along the propellor tunnel shaft (small, hot, and with the propellor axel/pole spinning half a meter away from you the whole time) and climb up the emergency escape shaft.

Then our instructor (one of the ship’s firemen) went and lay down somewhere in the lower engine room, and we had to go in to find him, and carry him out as a casualty, the whole time wearing our BA-sets. The normal cylinders we are using here for air give about 45 minutes, so the whole thing didn’t take THAT long, but it sure felt like it, as it was so hot, and carrying a human body about while wearing a set is quite hard. One of the people on the training mis-attached his BA tube to his mask, and so had to stop half way through, and go on the rest of the time just breathing normal air, with his BA-set detatched, and one of the others ran out of air 10 minutes before then end, as he is less fit or something, and so was using up air faster. But we got out in the end.

I enjoyed it a lot. For some reason many of the others didn’t. Most of the others got burns on their hands while we were climbing down through the smokestack funnel, – it was that hot. I didn’t. Family asbestos fingers coming into play, I think. Anyway. They ended up walking around the rest of the day clutching plastic bags of icecubes. One of the others as well was feeling too sick to participate. But one of the other guys, from Germany, was really really good. Very competent, and good to work with. I’m sure he will be on the attack team soon, and good too.

So yeah..

We left India yesterday. Kind of sad. I will miss India a lot. A lot of people on board are glad to leave, as it has been very stressful for them, what with many of the visitors being so pushy and all. For me, I didn’t get so stressed by it, even when on gangway watch, with many people coming and asking for tours, and for permission to walk about the ship and stuff like that.

Tue, 23 May 2006 14:58:00 +0000

Two days ago we got the new deck schedule for this month. no news about jobs or anything, BUT, I found I had an extra 2 days of 12-4 gangway watch this week, as some people are on re-entry training. That’s not good news. So I did 12-4 today. I’m SO tired. I wasnt ready and so didnt get enough sleep or anything, and I still have tomorrow to do.

BUT the good news: one of the other blokes wandered into my cabin just now, we were chatting, and he said, “just 2 days of 12-4? That would totally wreck your whole sleeping pattern. 1 day is fine though. How about we swap tomorrow? I’ll do your 12-4 tonight and tomorrow afternoon, and you can do my cleaning team.” He just phoned to say he confirmed it with the bo’sun. COOL!!!!!

He said he quite likes gangway. So many people tell me that. I just dont get it.

Re-entry training is brief 2 day training about getting ready for going back home. We have about 8 or 9 deckies leaving in the next few months, so it may be quite unlikely that I leave deck any time soon. I hope I’ll get the lifeboat job and that it works out as well as I hope.

I spoke with the bosun, and he knows that Im quite practical and good with my hands and stuff, and so he would quite like me in lifeboats, but the watermen want me to join them too (specifically asked for me). And he knows I’d quite like the lifeboat job. I told him that I am interested in moving from deck into creative ministies or AV or videographer job in the future, so if it is better for the deck to get someone who doesn’t want to leave deck ever (which would be good if there was someone to do lifeboats for 1 and half years! very good for the department), then maybe is better I stay in normal deck work. He was happy I told him. unhappy that I may not stay a deckie, but he really appreciates openness.

Watermen job is (in my opinion) not fun. Others think it sounds great. Basically no hard physical work at all; they are in charge of the ship’s drinking water, so when trucks come, they have to come and get it attached and coming to the right tanks, moving water from one tank to another so the ship doesn’t get lopsided, checking the water making sure it’s OK, testing the depths of each tank. There’s also a bunch of other random jobs (like looking after the baggage locker, making the new keys for the ship, repairing shoes, etc) mostly it doesn’t require too much work, but not exciting.

AND… many times they end up being “on call” all evening, and having to rush off to do water trucks at all hours, which would be really really is bad for me, as I’d almost never be able to totally confirm with a programme organiser, “yes I can be in a programme to do a drama” so they would not want me in dramas at all, as I might have to keep rushing off. So you can see how some people like the job. No hard physical work.

Sun, 21 May 2006 16:31:00 +0000

Today has been pretty good. Sunday service music practice at 7am. I went early, to warm up, then we practiced until 8:20, service started at 8:30, so about 5 minutes for breakfast. Then after the service cleaning duty, so went outside to start cleaning. Barely started when an absolute torrent of rain started. So we ran around lashing down all the canvasses, lowering the engine room hatch, etc. Got totally soaked. Totally!

Ship seems SO clean now. It’s lovely. Everyone said “God is on cleaning duty today!”

Yesterday was i-night, at an outside quasi-amphitheatre venue, a 4000 seater. We packed it!!!!! We were praying for no rain on Saturday for the last 3 weeks or so. So it was really great getting soaked today, and thinking, “This rain might have come yesterday, and ruined all our equipment, and wrecked the whole night, but God made it rain today!” so we didn’t mind getting wet at all.

Then after lunch I did the rubbish, had a 10 minute rehearsal for a drama, finished the rubbish, had a shower, went and performed the drama, played guitar for a few minutess, got some props from creative ministires, practised with 4 others for a drama tomorrow. Then I got ready for gangway relief, went and did relief for half an hour while the watchman (watchwoman) went for dinner. Then I put the lights on on the ship, lowered the flag, ate dinner myself, then came back to clean up my bunk a bit. It was covered in random stuff from i-night and all.

I was in two acts in the i-night. Scottish dance, and then TWO minutes later, the “parade of nations” as Cyprus, so very rushed to change. I wear the closest I can find to Cyprus costume: black trousers, white shirt, and a black “Spanish” waistcoat from the costume locker. Looks kind of silly to me, but (a) no one in the audience knows any better (b) if it really looked stupid, they wouldn’t keep assigning me to parade of nations (c) most of the costumes look a bit “made up” or fake, so yeah.

Oh, and i’ve got jazz dance practice in 15 minutes.

Wed, 17 May 2006 14:34:00 +0000

I’m working on a puppets script at the moment, for tonight’s practice. We brainstormed it last week. Someone else wrote the first draft, and I should have sent it back to them before. But now I have fixed many things, and re-written a few scenes, so I hope it is OK.

I will be BUSY tonight.

6.28: drama performance
6.30: Scottish dance practice (I’ll be late though)
7.00: puppets practice
9.00: jazz dance practice
10.00: clarinet practice in foc’s’cle
11.00: sleep

The drama will probably actually be nearer 6.40. I still don’t know if I’m definitely in the official drama team! One of the other drama team people who is in this drama tonight (which I already knew, and so taught them) told me he thought I was. But who knows? I’m waiting for them to tell me.

Funny thing is, in deck work I am totally NOT busy. There is far too little work for us all to do at the moment. So we’re doing silly things, and spending as much time as we can on them. Like cleaning the aft mooring station. Totally pointless, as in three days time it will be filthy again from the coal dust, and takes just as long to clean now as it will in three days, whether or not we clean it now.

We also spent about half an hour re-whipping a rope for the canvas cover for one of the bridge compasses, and then stood down two hours early.

But that’s good for me, it means I can finish this script now!

Tue, 16 May 2006 16:12:00 +0000

Fare from the firefighting. Fair food for free! Fantastic…

Mon, 15 May 2006 10:40:00 +0000

I’m finished watch, but feeling kinda sick/queasy, possibly bad fruit. I did eat four apples just before watch in one go; the fruit had probably been sitting in the backstage of the theatre getting hot and stuff all day. Not serious.

Visak port is even dirtier than the last one but it’s rained twice! Lovely. Huge massive torrents of it, with thunderstorms like in Colorado. Lightning hit one of the port floodlight towers, and so the port lost lighting for about 6 hours.

Then we got a page from the book exhibition, “Attention ship’s company, we are in need of volunteers to come to the book-ex deck to help save the books.”

So of course loads of us charged up there. Water was coming in all the sides, as it wasn’t prepared for 45 degree torrents. All the cash desks got soaked too. So I was running around tying canvases down all over stuff. Because it was a sort of i-night last night, most of the ship’s company were off-ship, so only about 40 people were on board. A lot of books got a bit wet, but not wrecked.

I spoke to the bosun about the lifeboatman job. He says he wants whoever does it to start working as soon as possible so they learn the job really well before September, when the current guy leaves. When I spoke to one of the firemen, he said that with the lifeboatman and fireman jobs, you can basically work what hours you want to, as long as you get jobs done. So it would be very cool.

Lifeboatman does maintenance of all lifeboats, emergency equipment and so on, also repair of all canvases on board, and nets, ladders etc. They can get as many deckies as they need when they want them. But if just checking rations and water supplies, no others are needed. If I did this, I’d be able to do more dramas and programmes easily, and sleep more at night! Also because I’d be working on my own frequently, I’d be happier socialising during off-time.

It sounds ideal, but then again, the grass is always greener and all that. Heading for almost 4 months on the ship, almost the whole of my preship is a bit fed up with their jobs and want to move/change etc, which is expected. In about 2 months’ time, most will probably be happy again.

I don’t know if I will do it; they must have this week’s team leaders meeting first and see what happens. They will probably decide then, but who knows? Some things happen on board so fast and other things take forever! I still haven’t been told definitely that I’m in the drama team…

Sun, 14 May 2006 11:39:00 +0000

Here is a poster they showed us in our fire-fighting “training”. I’m quite glad we didn’t have to actually put one of these on…

Mon, 08 May 2006 13:05:00 +0000

Last week has been kind of slow/busy/confused etc. One of the creative ministries people is on an away-team, we had an i-night, I went on an overnight, and am on watch this week (12 till 4), and so on. Also I learned a new mime/dance and performed it the next day. Tomorrow we sail to the next port.

The overnight went well, it was a very good experience. I’m so glad to have gone on an overnight in India. Some of it was not such fun, but very good to have experienced it. Hole-in-the-ground type toilets without toilet paper, for instance…

The book-ex has closed for this port. We were going to be open today, and pack down tomorrow, but today is election day so the local people (port authorities) told us it wasn’t a good idea to be open. So we closed today and are doing major clean/pack down. A major, major clean. This is a coal port, so there is black dust caked onto EVERYthing. Horrible. Apparently the next port is even worse…

One of the team leaders asked me yesterday if I would consider the job of lifeboat man!! More flexible hours, I’d be pretty much my own boss, as long as I got the jobs done, no gangway watch or firerounds and so on! I’d have to look after the lifeboats, clean them, make sure all ropes/equipment are correct and good, learning more about how they work, and helping to direct during drills and when using them etc. It should mean I could have more flexible hours as I’d be working on my own most of the time and so I could work around performances/practices with drama and stuff. But I’d still be a deckie, which would also be good. And, I’d get a special letter/chitty/thingy from captain and mates, which would (apparently) pretty much get me a job on any ship anywhere!

Wed, 03 May 2006 08:11:00 +0000

“I’m on a church team tomorrow,” said I.

“Cool. Who’s your team leader?” said he.

“I am.”

“My goodness? What is the teams co-ordinator smoking to make you team leader?”

… or so (approximately) went a conversation on Saturday.

Yeah. I was a team leader. So, what does that mean? well, basically, a church asked for a team of us to go do a short programme/presentation in their service today, and my job was to find out (a) what they actually wanted, (b) what we would do, and (c) how we would do it. Another question was also (d), who “we” are.

I was told that I was a team leader on Wednesday.

I thought it was Thursday, at the time. So I went to the board, and make a notice that my team should meet on Saturday evening, in the dining room. 6.20pm. Why this time? Well, the sheet of paper they had given me told me we would be collected from the port gate at 6.20am, the next morning. And I thought it kind of appropriate.

I phoned the pastor as well, and found out what he wanted (songs, drama, mime, a couple of testimonies, and a short presentation about the ship. nothing too challenging).

So…

SATURDAY :

18:20 - I was in the dining room. Waiting for 2 fairly experienced Douloids (both had been on the ship longer than I have), and 2 STEPpers.

18:30 - I phoned the info desk to ask if it was allowed for me to make a page for them to come. They told me no, only on the actual day itself could I page.

OK. No problem. I’ll just wait then.

6:35 - one of them turned up! Whoo! One of the experienced Douloids. We chat for a bit about what kind of things we should do. I’d been given one good idea earlier by someone else. As the STEPpers probably don’t know any dramas, and probably don’t know how to give a good (ie, short) testimony, I could ask them to sing a song in their own languages. Most westerners are horrified at the thought of being asked to sing solo in front of a church, but many Indians don’t seem to be. Also, although some don’t sing so well, most seem to sing very well indeed.

7:00 - I ask info, and apparently one of the STEPpers is actually out today, with some other team, and hasn’t returned yet!

7:30 - no one else decided to turn up. oh well. the both of us leave. I have some work to do, I need to stick some adhesive sandpaper-type tape to the steps to Hold 3, so they are safe to walk up without slipping over. The trouble is that the self adhesive isn’t strong enough to hold it in place, and the contact glue I have to use should really be left overnight to dry, that’s why I am doing it tonight.

8:00 - My K-group (fellowship/family group) “parents” are leaving, and it’s now time to say goodbye, so pretty much the whole of the people who joined the ship at the same time as us are there. Quite sad.

Sat, 29 Apr 2006 11:32:00 +0000

A new picture! OK, so now all the bloglines people will actually visit my blog. that’s cool.

So… meself in a kilt, after Scottish dancing in the international night programme last week.

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 18:49:00 +0000

I’ve been asked to consider if I want to join the drama team or not. One of the guys left, went home. He decided to leave about 3 weeks before he left, and had been discussing it with personnel for some time. Id still have to do deckie job full-time and then drama team a few evenings a week, during free time.

In deck department, apparently in a few months some of the carpenters are leaving, and if no professional carpenters join, they may be looking for normal deckies to start learning that job. The carpenter’s job does have slightly better hours… basically normal deckie, but no firerounds or gangway watch! Yes, it would be hard, giving up firerounds. It’s so fun getting my sleep pattern all messed up, feeling depressed and never knowing what time it is, waking up terrified that I’ve missed the watch, and wanting to go home, but I think I could handle the disappointment of not
experiencing it.

If I try really hard.

One of the other deckies told me he thought it would be my kind of thing, as I like doing stuff with my hands, and am quite perfectionistic, and so on. I’d love to learn more proper carpentry.

We’ve been doing fire-fighting training this week. Went to the Chennai technical college of maritime, for 3 full days of lectures, plus one practical day, and one other day when the time was kind of confused. We’ve been hearing loads on board about the training course the previous preship went to in Sri Lanka, I think, and how it was fantastic, real loads of training, having to crawl through cargo containers set on fire, put out loads of types of fires, and so on.

We didn’t learn ANYTHING in the lectures, nothing we didn’t have in preship. We didn’t even touch a fire extinguisher, or see a match get struck. But we get a certificate, just the same as the other people!

About the malaria tablets… they seem to perhaps be causing restlessness and sleeplessness, in varying degrees and forms. But many many people on board are finding it hard to sleep at night, just lying awake wanting to walk around or get up and type, or work out, or whatever. Particularly on Sundays, when we have to take the weekly extra pills. But we’re not really tired in the day. Everyone is so hot and sweating so much anyway. We take 2 tablets daily, and another 2 extra on Sundays. so many and we must all take salt tablets as well, as we sweat so much.

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:01:00 +0000

We’re going out this evening to eat (our k-group) as the k-group parents are leaving this week, for good. They only joined the ship for 3 months. K-group is sort of family or fellowship group, all from our preship. There is one set of “parents”, one of the married couples on the ship, so each kgroup has one married couple as parents. Ours are from our preship (which is the ideal), but many are not, but ours leave this week.

One of the older couples on the ship are on furlough right now, but come back in a week or so, and they will be the new parents for our group. They were also at the preship training. Each week we have a time together, for an hour or so, and generally it’s in the parents’ cabin, so they host it, generally provide drinks and buscuits, and so on. Also they make sure we’re all ok, and not hating our jobs too much, or whatever.

Food here is very cheap. Like a whole meal for one person can be 4 dollars. For good meal, that is.
Fast food can be a dollar, or less. Mostly veggie. Many places have “veg”, and “non-veg” on the back page.

I was so tired this week. My last off-day was right after watch, and we went out for the whole day,
so I’m just having a quiet day today. I read in the morning, had long lunch, chatting, and some music practice, perhaps clean up my cabin a bit, maybe start scripting a new film project or something this afternoon.

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 12:51:00 +0000

Just got back from the town. So many contrasts, so much poverty, so much deception, so much weird stuff. Several million people, bigger than London, and this is nothing like the capital. Huge numbers of beggers, homeless, etc. and the other people just shoving them out of the way, not caring, or worse. And so strange seeing thousands of idols everywhere.

Traffic is insane here, there are so many auto rickshaws. Imagine a 2 wheel hand cart, attached to a motorbike, and its slightly less posh than that. All metal.

Weather is pretty hot. Not too bad, for me. But if outside a long time in sun, for the Finnish, or whatever, it’s bad.

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:07:00 +0000

We’re in India! Whoo!! etc.

We arrived yesterday, on the 11th April.

I’m kind of tired, in a general way, but also kind of excited and awake too. Jumping to the firerounds schedule (11pm to 7am work time!) really messed up my body clock, and so I got very little sleep the first few days. And I know I need sleep soon. But I’m going to stay up til lunch, and then sleep from lunchtime until 8 this evening, as one of our k-group is going on a team away from the ship for 2 weeks, and we are going to have a goodbye lunch for her.

So I was filling up time until then.

I’ve been part of a group learning a jazz/modern dance since pre-ship, and had wanted to make a “training” dvd for the dance, with each section (verse, chorus, rap-section, finale, etc) able to be played, and explained on the dvd, so that if people miss learning sessions, they can catch up faster, but also so that we can review on our own parts, and also to allow the dance to be kept going if key people leave the ship.

So I went just now to the photography/graphics office, and looked through their video collection to see if they had any tapes which had the dance on, with the right kind of tape that I can play on my camera, so I could start working on making the dvd (or at least a demo of the dvd,
which I could then use to persuade the dance leader to schedule a few sessions to properly record it).

While I was talking to the photographer about this, she (first of all she wanted to talk about my toaster video – apparently her machine didn’t play it right, so she watched it about 4 times trying to get to the ending, but it didn’t work, and she was getting angry because she wanted to see how it ended! rather cool!)

.. anyway, she told me maybe I should apply for job of videographer, which is a post they have been looking for someone for for quite a while. I knew they wanted someone for the job, but thought they wanted a professional videographer, someone like dad. But she said no, in fact she had never even seen Adobe Photoshop until 2 weeks before they came to the ship, and had basically to learn on the job!

It’s kind of weird… Like, all during firerounds this morning I was thinking about my job as a deckie.

I love the job, doing all the physical work and all, all the painting, scrubbing, chipping rust, and so on, but a lot of the attitude of some of the other deckies really annoys me, and I find hard to work with.

For instance, on the fire-rounds, there are these little red strips on the walls in different sections. What you are supposed to do is go to each section, make sure there are no irons plugged in, or whatever, check the bilges, and so on. Then scan the strip, and go on. There are some strips which are outside a hold, or other room, and you are supposed to open the door, check inside the space, and then close it and go on.

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 12:35:00 +0000

I won “Pioneer” DoulOscar !

I thanked the toaster, said how great it was to work with, and how generous it was, etc, and then told everyone not to grow up. Stay as children. Its much more fun. We had 2 mintutes max for speeches, then they started playing snoring sound effects. Only one person got that though.

One of the creative people told me I got the pioneer award partly because I’m the only one doing short videos. Most people are trying to make whole long things.

our preship has a lot of techie/AV/media people, which is cool, and we’re all (except I think 3) staying for 2 years, so hopefully we’ll get the Doulos media quality going up and up. I was the only one in our preship to have made anything for the DoulOscars though!

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 12:29:00 +0000

I just got nominated for the DoulOscar “Most Creative” and also for “Best Actor”. I have to prepare speeches in case I win… for the video I made about the Doulos toaster.* I was camera man, director, gaffer, editor, cutter, best boy, tea lady, actor, pyrotechnican, etc…

I want to make it again. Its kind of rushed in too many places but I learned a lot.

\* note - to understand the significance, see the blog entry about the toaster

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 14:06:00 +0000

We’ve been doing India orientation training. It was good, though quite long, and nothing too new: mozzies, be careful of drivers, no physical contact between men and women in public, no tight jeans, etc, knee length shorts at minimum, etc, etc, and be careful about what water we drink.

We all started malaria pills yesterday: dailies and weeklies. Apparently less nasty ones than last time, as there are hardly any resistant strains or anything here. The dailies are proguanil, and weeklies (as well!!) are chloroquinine. It turns out all of the people who got malaria last time were not taking their pills.

I think the biggest worry is crowd control. Apparently we will probably be doing no deck work for most of India, just crowd control. They’re expecting at least 12000 visitors a day, maybe more.

One thing makes me very happy in India orientation: In most of the world, they talk of normal food, and veggie food. In India, they talk of normal food, and non-veggie food.

Food on board is very good now. Much pasta these days, the new chef Glenn is v. talented, and he has a hatred of “one each” signs. Most meal times there is fruit now, and also some at other times. Many times now we have signs up “ask galley staff for veggie option…”

It gets very hot now here… apparently we will have no visits to schools, as all the schools are closed for the next month, as it is too hot!!! And then we will start hitting monsoon season, I think. for most of Malasia, islands, etc. But we have teams out every day, loads of a-teams (2/3 weeks away from ship), and so on. One deck team per day is probably going out on visits too. We have only 5 teams, so maybe much more extra days out! whoo! Also the on board programme/conference schedule is up, and it is totally full. Like every morning, afternoon and evening, almost.

They had a couples night a few days ago, for all the marrieds on board. They interviewed over the last few weeks lots of them, talking about their families, pets, dogs, etc. and then mixed / edited them up. So they asked questions about the husband/wife, and then put in the answer about the dog, or something. eg: “what was your first impression of him? " “well, he has a really big nose, like this… " Funny.

i’m on firerounds or something next week, so I dont know what times I will be awake.

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 14:02:00 +0000

We will sail (in just a few days time) for Chennai, India. It is quite a long voyage, about 10 days. Hopefully not many people will be seasick.

I’m getting to do more dance on board, which is something I’ve wanted to learn more of for some time. I’m in the Scottish dance group, am learning a jazz/ modern piece with a bunch of others who joined at the same time as I did, and may be learning joining a Dutch dance group in a few weeks as well (time permitting). I’m also in the puppets workshops/teams thing.

Yesterday we did the big “International Night”, which I was involved in (3 items! I was changing costumes all evening!), and then from about 11.30pm when we got back, I was helping to unload the 3 book containers which arrived yesterday. We finished the unloading at about 4.30am this morning. I’m kind of tired, and also have a cold, have been coughing and all for the last 2 days. Poor ol’ me, whinge whinge, moan moan, etc, etc. I actually love days like this, it’s kind of unusual, but staying up crazy hours heaving heavy boxes of books about is really rather satisfying.

So, I’m still quite busy.

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:41:00 +0000

We’re now in Oman. Last week was kind of down, I was really busy, and still tired after watch and all.

The voyage was very nice, I was kind of hoping to be on sea watch, but wasn’t at all. During long voyages, they often arrange special tournaments, so we had a table tennis championship, which was enjoyed by all. It was per- k-group, so each k-group chose 2 people to represent them. It was all kind of rushed though, if they had told us a few weeks in advance, then I think it would have been better.

One of the other k-groups had someone who had been top in her country as a child, or something like that, but because her English was not so good, and she had not understood/replied to an email until too late, and so other people in her group played instead of her… which was kind of sad.

I didn’t play, by the way. :-)

Anyway. This week looks as it if will be more fun. Tomorrow is I- night, the big programme off on shore somewhere. I’m in the Parade of Nations (bah), Scottish Dance (grand!), and a drama (whoo!), then on Friday, I’m doing a puppets sketch with one of the other Daniels in the service (yah!), so all in all, quite busy.

Today will be a bit hectic though… we have 3 containers of books arriving. Probably in various Indian languages. So our deck team is “stood-down” until they arrive, and we will be working with those. Possibly until quite late.

BUT… I have a drama practice tonight at 6, and scottish dance practice at 6:20! Also the Dutch dance have asked if I would be interested in joining, they need more guys, apparently. Next week… maybe. ;-)

About the drama thing. Although I’m not in the drama team (still don’t know why), I think the creative ministries people still kind of like me (they know that that is where I would like to work, eventually), and want me in dramas, I just wont learn the more complicated long ones that the drama team prepare.

So yeah. And when we go visit schools and so on, I’ll still be doing drama at most of them, I think.

I should probably go now… I have many things to do. I need to listen to the audio of the puppets sketch (we are just doing lip- synch), and one of the school teachers wants me to play my clarinet for her students (4 year olds, I think!), maybe I will do that today. But I need to prepare the puppets more importantly.

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:43:00 +0000

I’m sitting in the dining room, typing this, after a children’s programme this morning. We went to visit the school at 11.30, and were told we had a 45 minute or an hour long cultural programme, they wanted. No problems. One of the other team members is a teacher from oz, and so she was voted to “MC” the time.

The kids enjoyed it a lot, as did the teachers, but one of the teachers _kept_ coming into the room, like, every 2 minutes, and calling for another kid to come because their parents were there. We should have really started the programme at about 11 o’clock, or 10 thirty. Eventually the whole thing dissolved at about 12 o clock when pretty much all the kids left as their parents were there to collect them. Oh well.

We taught them some (fairly) silly songs, performed a drama about friendship (they gave me the main character, which was fun), did a song about Doulos work (also quite silly, but impressive. Basically a short chorus about “if I was not upon the stage of the Doulos, I would be…” and then each “verse”, one of the people stands forward and pretends to be some job; captain, carpenter, laundry, etc, with a short chant, and actions. and each time through the song another person stands forward.

So it starts off with one person standing forward, next verse two people, the verse after that 3 people, until all of us stand forward. and the actions to each persons chant include standing up, bending down, stretching arms up and down, etc, which are choreographed so that each person ducks out of the way of the next person just as they do something. IE, the carpenter stretches out a measurement, just as the painter ducks down to stir paint, and so on.

The last character to stand forward is… a ballerina. and they are supposed to be a really strong masculine macho deckie, and so guess who that was? yes! me! wearing my deckie clothes (really grubby looking and “work” ish) and also a ballet skirt thingy on top. it always makes the kids laugh, seeing someone so tough and manly pirouette and leap across the stage… yeah. pretty fun anyway. this evening we are going to help up at the bookshop, and give tours and chat to people. but until then is time off, which is quite nice.

Yesterday was my off-day, and I went out to see the town with some of the others. we visited the souk, I wanted to try and find a new watch (analogue, with alarm and backlight, but not big and heavy, and nice looking. I’ll be using it on deck, so just simple and stuff.

heh.. anyway, I didn’t find a good one. I found lots which were almost right, but none I really wanted to get. the guys at the shops always started off prices of about 8 to 12 dinar, but by the time i’d looked at them all and decided I didn’t want to buy, were all talking off special offers, me being their friend, and 3 dinars only.

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:38:00 +0000

I’m pretty tired. drills today, after watch. and my cabin mate wakes up at 11.30, so by the time drills were over, it was too late for me to go to bed during the daytime, really, as I’d get woken by his alarm after half an hour.

And yeah. this evening is a birthday party for one of my group. this is a looong day.

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:40:00 +0000

We had three containers arrive yesterday! Almost all foodstuffs.

In the morning we went and did a presentation about the ship at a local Indian school, about 300 kids were there. We did a drama about being friends with others, no matter how different they are, taught the kids some silly songs, and so on. It went quite well, I think. Afterwards, they generously decided to feed us, lovely Indian food. I enjoyed it very much.

In the afternoon, I thought we were off until 4.45, but then the team leader came and told me I had to give a tour of the ship for some people on for a programme, and then do “parade of nations” in their programme at 3 o clock. Parade of Nations is something they put in many programmes, basically you get a whole bunch of people to walk up, say where they are from, and smile. So I quickly went and met the people, chatted for a while, gave them the tour, ran and got changed into my moderately smart clothes, ran back, did the parade thingy.

Then I ran back to my cabin, grabbed my mug and a tea bag, ran back up to the dining room for our meeting at 4.45. We were going to visit a group in the evening, and had to plan for it. So we planned for it, half the group of us to do a kids programme, and the other 3 of us to talk a bit about the ship, and how we joined, and so on. Once we’d done planning, we found that we were supposed to be at the port gate at 5, to meet them, so we managed to find a Doulos driver to shuttle us there.

When we got there, no one was there to meet us, so we drove to the parking lot (about 5 minutes away), drove around there a bit, met no one, drove back, and still no one. So we thought we should try phoning.

None of us had a phone.

So one of the guys went to try and get the port security officer to lend us his mobile. He succeeded, and was just dialing, when a big red land cruiser drove up, and it was our hosts. So we left with them (after giving back the phone, I think). They apparently had only asked for a kids’ programme… So we said OK. Then they said since we were there anyway, we might as well show a slideshow and stuff as well. So we did that, and a drama.

Now, about the containers…

They had been working on unloading them, and getting the foods into the holds since about 9am when they arrived. At about 9pm, when we got back, they were still going. So I offered to help, and was sent down into the dry food store.

I love when containers arrive. The atmosphere is wonderful to work in. It’s great.

You work like mad tossing boxes of noodles or cereal around, or push heavy ol’ bags of flour around, getting the lift empty, and then send it up again, and try and get it all packed away into some part of the hold. Everyone is tired, but working togeather. I arrived at about 9.30, after getting changed and all, and started working. We finished work at 1.15 AM. I loved it. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Well, I would, depending on what the anything was. But it would take quite a lot.

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 13:50:00 +0000

I’m on fire-watch in 10 minutes (making sure no fires start from welder), and probably i’ll do some needle-gunning (heavy duty rust chipping) too. auditions went ok, i think. dunno if am in group til some time next week.

Today was more training, I’m on the fire-support team, and so have to know where spare aqua-film-foam- forming fluid is kept, how to help teams get their fire fighting breathing suits checked and set up, etc.

Went to visit the American run hospital here, 2 days ago. I did a drama, and then an application mixed with story. Afterwards, some young school teachers invited us out, and we went (about 25 of us) to the seafront, played frizzbee, they brought us pizza, and a local ice- cream sales man made friends with some of us, and then gave us ALL free icecreams! So generous :-)

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 13:06:00 +0000

I’ve been on board for 3 weeks now. Last week I was involved in quite a few dramas, which is really exciting for me.

In my day work, I have been working on doing a lot of painting and wire-brushing, on the aft mooring-line cleats, and also the last 2 days on the “paint raft”, which is a rather ugly floating box which is used for going around the water around the side of the ship, and painting and working on the hull. I’m making a lot of mistakes though in the deck work, forgetting to put on a coat of thinner before painting on bare metal, breaking a drill bit, and so on. Nothing major, but kind of wearying. This week I’m quite tired, perhaps trying to get involved in too many things at once.

In about a week there will be auditions for the official Doulos drama team. I’m really excited about it, and in some ways it would make it a lot easier to do dramas and stuff, as I would then get proper times to do it, rather than having to try and get personal time off work for it.

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:39:00 +0000

Yesterday we had a big program in a park, I was a clown for most of the afternoon. I enjoyed it a lot. I love clowning, but it was fairly tiring.

We are in the port of Doha, and today I am planning to go out to see more of the town with some friends.

two days ago I met up with another juggler. we played quite a bit, and he is going to form a juggling group, and we will be making sketches and stuff using juggling. this is v. cool :-)

While we were meeting tho, it was my duty day, which means I can’t leave the ship, and if there is a problem, I have to go help with it. The duty people kept getting paged because of someone ironing and cooking at the same time in one of the pantries. There was no fire, and it was quite safe, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and the fire/smoke detectrs are quite easily excitable. Better that they are too active than not active enough, of course.

Still. it’s kind of funny.

Then later that evening, someone happened to knock a detector off the ceiling! that set off the alarms again, so again we all went running. heh.

Whenever there is an announcement for duty people to report to the right place, suddenly about 13 people all drop whatever they are doing and sprint off towards the control station. as soon as everyone else hears the announcement, they all flatten themseleves against the walls and laugh as deckies wearing anything from full coveralls to tshirt and shorts, to full dress coat, tie and tails race about. We train and do drills every week, and everyone knows exactly what to do. It’s just funny seeing it happen.

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 08:27:00 +0000

Good morning world, this is radio dan blogging at 20 past 10 from the good ship Doulos. I’m tired, folks, and the reason is this: I got up at 3.30 this morning to go on watch. Was quite a good watch, did one fireround in the middle. Followed the paper list, and finished in 35 minutes, so could spend almost half an hour in the mess getting something to eat and drink. Nice break.

This week has been quite busy, with many different things rather than just solid work. I had 3 days of “fire watch” which everyone in deck assured me was the most boring job on the planet. Basically, whenever someone (an engine room dude) is doing welding, there must be someone watching, from the other side of what they are working on (so sometimes a whole different deck!) to make sure sparks and heat don’t transfer into something else and start a fire that they can’t see. So I took my tenor recorder (blockflute) and some juggling balls expecting a day of relative quietness.

Wrong.

About an hour was sitting watching, but then after that the guy needed me up with him on the sun deck (top of the ship!) actually helping. What we were doing was removing an old air-vent cover from up there, so that there will be space for a new satellite communication dish tower thingy.

So I was hammering, chipping, scrapeing, jumping up and down on top of the air vent trying to make it fall off while the guy hit it with a hammer, pulling on chain blocks trying to get the thing to move, and then eventually I was in the coffee bar below, with a hydraulic jack and 2 metre long metal pipe and a few empty book pallets pushing it upwards, while on the deck above the other guy was using a chainblock and pulling it upwards. I got slightly worried when the ceramic tiles on the deck I was standing on started buckling and cracking everywhere, but he said not to worry. Occupational hazard of being a floor tile, I guess. We got it shifted in the end though.

Ah. I need to go. Some friends want to play Carcassone. Cool.

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 18:00:00 +0000

I was the fire watch man today again, for the same welder/engine guy. We’re working on building the new platform/deck for the new satillite internet connection dish thingy. It is really big and has to be really high up to get a good line of sight above the funnel and stuff. Fun.

I spent most of the afternoon chipping off paint so that the welding torch could work properly. This morning was bible study groups, drills and deckie devotions, and because of various things didn’t actually get a chance to work until after lunch.

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 17:00:00 +0000

I’m involved in a music cafe programme tonight! Sound check in half an hour! We’re doing a live percussion jam/jazz session that I started (whoo!!!) yesterday. I hope it goes well.

Today I swept the decks, helped loading cargo from a new container (food, books, etc), I love doing this. Ropes and the crane and all. Then after lunch I was helping an engine room welder with removing a large air-vent from above the book ex deck. This involved standing below making sure no sparks caused a fire, pushing and shoving on a large piece of metal trying to make it move, pumping something like a car-jack to try and lift this air-vent, jumping up and
down on top of it while he hit it with a hammer, attaching a block and tackle metal chain type affair to whatever random bits of deck or railing we could find, attaching the other end to the air vent, and pulling, and then stopping when the railing started to bend too much, and then finding another railing to try. Yeah. Fun day.

I’ve also been introduced to a really cool board/stratergy game called carcassone (possibly wrong spelling). It’s about building cities, roads and so on, and is for 3 to 5 players. Cool game, and wonderful for strange conversations about word meanings, work, and all kinds of odd topics. Very cool.

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 15:51:00 +0000

We arrived 3 days ago at the ship, and have been mostly doing training so far. I’m enjoying it. I’m working in the Deck department again, so will spend 40 hours a week as a deck-hand. Cleaning, scrubbing, painting, chipping rust, and making this ship look beautiful. Also today we had watch-keeper training. So 40 hours a month each of us will be on gang-way watch, crowd control, and keeping order. We are currently in the port town of Sharjah, in the UAE.

I bought half a kilo of cashew nuts yesterday! For about 1 CYP, I think. I’m still having problems with converting the numbers.

Today I finally saw the doctor, and got some anti fungal cream for my feet. The athletes foot problem has appeared again…

I love cashew nuts.

I hate athletes foot.

I love chocolate too. In the fireroundsmans training today, we learned: accept bribes of chocolate from curfew breakers, eat it, and then write their names down anyway.

Oh! Yeah, and I also got a nice new sun hat for around 80 cents as well yesterday.

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 11:32:00 +0000

Text message receieved Saturday night:

Just told us now our departments, I am a deckie! Whoo!

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:47:00 +0000

Another text message from the pre-ship training:

Survived practical water survival. Floating using trousers as lifejacket, for 2 mins, etc. Fun.

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 18:48:00 +0000

Text messages arrived:

Training is going well. Please pray for my Japanese brother who has much trouble with English.

V. tired. So many sessions. Culture adapting, safety, did practical firefighting today. Extinguishers and all. We are in amazing holiay resort. Lovely food. Huge chalets. Is good but all just want to get to the ship. We need to do this to get our seamen crew certificates though. 3 more written exams. Did 1, was not too hard. Need sleep. Good night.

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 09:48:00 +0000

Text messages received Saturday 11pm:

Arrived. One girl had accident w/ escalater and luggage. Sprained ankle, bruised ribs. German esclators take trolleys. her brakes were dead. Will be fine by end of week. otherwise safe.

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 18:40:00 +0000

man.. so busy. we leave here at 8am on saturday. The Logos2 people leave at 5am!!! flights. evil. so gotta pack and do last laundry and stuff tonight probably. tomorrow there is no early afternoon session, so i plan to do some more packing then.

hey, about the weight allowance, God is good, and we have a nice miracle. we can take 30 kg each! cool, eh? Mind you, we are supposed to take not quite so much hand luggage (mine was about 12 or something before, I think?) so what I will do, I think, is leave my sleeping bag to come with the next container (March), and perhaps a few things like that, and then put my old clarinet in my main luggage. That will help a lot.

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:17:00 +0000

We’ve been doing a lot about personality type and working as a group and all this week, using mainly the “4 temperaments” system. I scored highest (surprise, surprise) as “Harmoniser”. A lot of this is very well known to me, because of doing so much Myers-Briggs type stuff at home so many times. But it has been good, and many others are learning loads of stuff and realising a lot about team dynamics and all. Yeah.

We’re all beginning to get even more excited about leaving in a few days time. There are quite a few juggler type people (stilt-walkers, and all sorts!) so it will really be cool on the ship, and at pre-ship, with all the stuff.

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:00:00 +0000

It snowed! Germany is so beautiful, and snow makes everything look
lovely.

Conference is going well. It is amazing meeting all these people, and learning so much about what God is doing around the world. Meeting people from every continent going to every other continent.

Had a time today looking at all the different places where they need workers, seeing what they do, and met up with some people from a training centre in the UK who are praying for a drama person to come along and start doing full time drama ministry, teaching sessions with their students, but also putting together professional level productions, and taking them to schools and churches around the country.

It’s a place we visited in October, and I didn’t really feel very inspired by them then, as it seemed to be training all just by lectures, but speaking with the guys today, they said they are slowing trying to revise the system there and make it more interactive, not so lecture oriented, and really want to make the arts a priority. That could be interesting to do in a few years time, after the ship, maybe. I have their contact information, and will be praying about it. We shall see.

The group from Germany had a whole load of juggling equipment and stuff lying around too at this time, everyone was milling around, looking at different places like a market. Many people were playing with the juggling stuff, so I picked up a set of balls, and did a bit of practice, and then the German rep asked if I could be bribed not to go to the ship, and if they gave me lots of German chocolate, would I stay in Germany! Rather cool….

This evening we had a long session looking at the history of the organisation, seeing how it all began, and had phone-calls with some of the longest working people. Amazing.

God has used and is using so many people to do so many things, it is kind of mind-blowing.

Anyway, it is a very busy schedule, so I do not know if I will get time to post much during the conference. The first session starts at 8:45am, and the day ends at about 9:30pm. Although there are breaks, there is not enough time to get back to the hostel and back.

Tue, 10 Jan 2006 15:34:00 +0000

Arrived safely, at last. The flight was uneventful, which is good. Only problem was that they were playing Christmas songs throughout the whole flight. And they only had about 15 minutes worth of recorded songs, so they repeated, and repeated, and repeated…

Frankfurt airport is huge. Kind of confusing too, you have to go miles to find things, like baggage collection. And You see a big sign for it, follow along for a while, and suddenly all the signs are gone, you ask someone, and in fact you are on the right path, but there are just no signs. Everyone spoke good English though.

I found the Fernbahnhof (long distance train station), got my ticket and all. At the actual platform, there was another train sitting there, which had loads of officials wandering about it, and firemen, and so forth. So we stood around, 70 or so people who wanted the train, and I, for about half an hour or more waiting. Eventually, there was some kind of announcement, and we all got told to go to the next platform (up an escalator, along, and down), and get on a different train. My bag is so heavy! I may try and lighten it for the flight to the ship, by wearing heavier clothing and all.

This train got us there, and when we got to Manheim, where I had to change trains, I followed my ticket instructions, and went to the right platform no, and waited. The train turned up, a bit later than it said on the Ticket, but I thought “OK, so everything is delayed today”. I got on, and off we went.

About half an hour later, or perhaps more, I started thinking that the station names looked wrong. So I tried to find a map. I found one, on a wall, and examined it. Indeed, we had been going in the right direction, but were now on the way to Worms! So I got off at the next station, found another map, found which train I needed, and headed back to some place which was on the right route. Then I changed trains again, and was now avidly checking the map and the “Näschte Station” sign things.

After a while I heard some people talking in English. Then I heard them mention a conference, and when I was sure they were also coming for this, I went and said hi. One of them is just here for the conference to help cook, and the other is going on to another part of the world. We all got off the train at the right station, and it was a good thing I went and said hi, as neither of them had a map of how to get from the station! So we headed off together, found the right place, and checked in. It turns out we were all staying in the Youth Hostel, which is about 5 minutes drive from the base. We met a few other people who had already arrived, and had dinner.

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 19:34:00 +0000

Messages recieved from Dan’s mobile, German time:

3pm: Arrived safely. Have bags, am going to train station.

5.30pm: Late trains. 1 more hour. i think. Weather not too cold. And trains are warm.

8.30pm: Am safe at hostel, after food.

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 08:54:00 +0000

Waiting in the queue for ‘Cyprus Air’ to check in the baggage, before flying from Larnaka airport to Frankfurt.

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 21:23:00 +0000

In 12 hours, I shall, God willing, be on the flight from Cyprus. Scary.

It kind of feels unreal, and weird. Last summer, it all happened so suddenly, and it felt much smaller. This time, many people will have left the country by the time I get back in 2 years, so I am saying goodbye for perhaps the last time, or at least the last time in years and years.

My cat is sitting on my lap as I type this. She knows I am going away. Has been very disturbed all week, with me packing and all. Doesn’t know what to do. I hope she is OK.

My digestive system is all messed up, I feel all squirmy inside my stomach area, and just generally feel weird. Exactly how I feel before the premiere of a new show.

Ach well. Today was a good day. Said my farewell in the Sunday church gathering. God prayed for (whoo!!), and said goodbye to so many people. Had so many people shake my hand and say how happy they were to see me go. So many people hug me and say they would miss me.

Met up yesterday with another friend who juggles, we hadn’t met up for months, and did some juggling and diabolo on the beach. Then went for coffee and beer on the seafront. He will be in the Cyprus army (they still have conscription here) while I am on the ship, and will be coming out a few months after I come back, so we can meet up again then.

So many things. I dunno.

I need to go get some sleep.

Please pray that the airport people are not too strict about luggage weight. And that I get there correctly and safely.

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:59:00 +0000

The nurseries in Cyprus have cartoon characters painted on their walls. I was quite surprised when I saw this though:

The inescapable tux!

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:07:00 +0000

I changed the background slightly, made it a bit lighter, mum said it was too distracting while reading long posts.

I forgot to mention I’m learning to cook now. Yesterday or so did spagetti, which I love, and which is hardly ever served on the Doulos. And tonight made a lemon merengue pie with mum. I love those too. And again, didn’t see many of them while on the ship this summer either. So for all you people thinking about following my bold example and setting sail, learn to cook whatever really lovely foods you want, so that occasionally you can cook them in one of the mini-galleys on board. And because I gave you this hint, you can share it with me. Remember I’m vegetarian, though.

PS - I’ll post a picture of the merengue tomorrow or something.

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 13:00:00 +0000

Today I had the last of the vaccinations I am having here in Cyprus. I really don’t like vaccinations. I also found out that I am blood group O+, apparently. Kind of strange, as we all thought I would be A+. Some friends of ours introduced us to the “Eat Right 4 Your Type” bloodtype/diet theory a few years ago, and our family seemed to fit it. My dad (O+) prefers meats, and seems to do well on them, and my mum (A+) prefers veg, and white meats, and seems to do well on them. My brother and I, we didn’t know our bloodtypes, but as he is a meat person, and I am a vegitarian, we guessed perhaps he was O+ and me A+. Anyway. All rather confusing.

I also went and got my eyes tested, and my old glasses fixed. One of the “arms” had fallen off, and although Dad had glued it back, the spring was gone, and they kept falling off my face. Also one of the rubber feet things for the nose had fallen off. But they are fixed now. The optician will have a new pair of glasses ready for me this evening, as well as a new hard case for my old glasses, and a spare hard case. To join the ship, I need to take 2 pairs of glasses, according to one of the random pieces of documentation they gave me.

That’s about all the news at the moment…

Dan

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 09:59:00 +0000

Well, less than 2 weeks to go. Scary, wot?

I’ve done quite a bit of sorting on my room, now it’s a total mess again, as it was a week ago that I sorted it. Trying to spend as much time as I can with family, and all.

Here is a picture of my bag “proto-packed”, with all the clothes in that I think I will need to take, as you can see, there is still some space, so I will fill up the rest with sheet music.

God is providing everything amazingly. I have not got all the financial support I need yet, but He is quite good at surprising me with things. Yesterday when I went to get my ticket, He got me a ticket for about 50 CYP less than I had originally reserved it for. Cool, eh?

Anyway. People keep telling me I should post more often, so I won’t post any more now, and perhaps I’ll remember tomorrow.

Sat, 10 Dec 2005 09:31:00 +0000

OK… The new design is pretty much done, unless I get some brilliant ideas or suddenly decide I hate it or something. Anyway. What do you think?

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 16:20:00 +0000

Mum told me I had never posted any pics of my new clarinet, or some new ones I just got developed from the ship. So here they are (you can guess which is which):

I’m thinking of doing a bit of a redesign of the look of this blog… It’s kind of boring, and I wont have a chance to do anything really to the look of it for the next 2 years so…

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 08:34:00 +0000

OK.

So, now I’d better start getting this blog on the road again… “why?” you may ask, well… heres the news:

I’m goin’ back! Yeehaw! and so on.

I went for my interview with OM UK, and have been accepted to go back to the Doulos in February, so, God willing, I’ll be leaving Larnaka sort of middle of January for the conference and pre-ship training.

It’s actually all quite complicated. Yesterday I went and reserved a air-ticket to the conference. I need support for 2 years on board, and am just this week discovering how complex that all is. Some people had already offered to support me, and I met up last week with a church elder and treasurer and parents to discuss it all. They were all very supportive and encouraging, and said they don’t think there should be any problems raising it all. I was supposed to be getting up in church last Sunday to tell everyone about what I’m going to be doing, and how much I need and all. But… I was struck down by some kind of virus or something, and instead spent most of Sunday throwing up. I couldn’t even take a sip of boiled water during the morning. I’d have much rather got up in church and asked for support! I’m still not totally back to normal, but working at it. I guess God is telling me to rely on Him, not on my amazing oratary skills, or something. heh.

As well as the Doulos costs, I also have to raise money for their medical/travel/etc insurance, which equals more than another 2 months normal Doulos money. Also envolved are travel costs to and from the conference, and the cost of the conference itself.

I wanted to get my clarinet insured too. This is all quite complicated, as I need insurance worldwide, traveling, etc. I looked at various possibilities, like joining the British Musicians Union, as you can get good insurance with various agencies in the UK through them, with a discount. But… The agencies in the UK all require permanent residence in the UK, which I and my family do not have, as we live in Cyprus.

I misread the policy of the normal Doulos company, and thought they said in order to get “business items” cover (ie, expensive clarinets), it was another 500+ pounds a year, which utterly shocked me, as for that price I could almost buy a new clarinet intirely after 2 years of that… but happily, I was wrong, and I’m now emailing them getting my poor ol’ brain to actually understand it all. It’s well complicated!

As well as all this, there are more vaccination type thingys. I need to be vaccinated against Hepatitis B, according to the docs. Which is the troublesome one from before. There is, apparently, a super-accelerated one which takes 21 days. (1 jab, another after a week, and another after another 2 weeks). Anyway, I phoned my friendly doctor here in Larnaka, and she told me that they don’t have this type in Cyprus, only the 3 months variety. OK… So I told the UK office this, and they said they would check if I could have the vaccinations on the ship.

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 16:41:00 +0000

I’m back! So finally…

The epic clarinet adventure.

My teacher had been telling me that I needed to buy a new clarinet for years now. For the last 9 years I have been playing a lovely old Boosey and Hawkes Regent clarinet.
My teacher’s son is studying clarinet in the UK, and plays a Buffet RC. So of course, my teacher believes that the only Real Clarinets (tm?) are wooden, made by buffet, and have “RC” written on them.

Seeing as how I live in Cyprus, I’m a bit wary of buying a wooden clarinet, as with the high humidity and so forth, and air-conditioning, I felt that a crack would be more likely than I feel happy with.

Anyway. So read through all the klarinet archives and decided to try out a RC Greenline, when we next visited the UK. So. We came to the UK for a month, my family and I, and I had been in contact with Howarths, in London, and they said they had no RC Greenlines, but did have wooden RC and R13 instruments which I could try out at their Worthing showroom, they also had a professional-line Howarths clarinet which I could try out, which was made from ebonite, which would also appease the humidity concerns.

The people at Howarths were extremely helpful, very patient, and had contacted every available source looking for RC Greenline in the UK, and were even willing to order one from France for me to buy. Unfortunatly, if I ordered one from France, it would arrive after we had left the UK, and also, I would have to pay a non-refundable deposit on it, which, if I didn’t like it, might be a problem. Anyway. I tried out their RC and R13 and their own clarinet.

I didn’t like the R13 much at all. The sound seemed to me a bit more shrill than I liked, and I also had trouble playing it in tune. I could probably have become used to it, but things like the 12ths seemed too stretched without lipping quite a lot.

The RC I liked more. It seemed to be more in tune (to my ears) than I could play the R13, and the sound seemed less shrill, and more solid. Nevertheless, it didn’t grab me particually, and although a good clarinet, I didn’t feel it was really special for me.

The Howarths Ebonite instrument was a bit strange. I was expecting to like it, and wanted to like it too, I quite wanted to buy a non-Buffet instrument, just to be more individual, you know. :-) But, I didn’t like it at all. The tone seemed shrill and harsh, the scales didn’t sound in tune when I played them, and I couldn’t play it consistantly well. Sometimes it played quite sweetly, but other times I felt like I was fighting it. My dad commented that it almost sounded like an oboe in timbre, which when I told him about Howarth’s being originally more oboe oriented, he thought quite interesting.

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 17:02:00 +0000

We’re off to the UK tonight. I’m still not packed yet, and am now sending the last of the emails which I need to do, with contacts in the UK, and so on.

I’ve got all my references sorted, and am finishing off the last one or two questions on the OM application form. I will hopefully be going for an interview on the 17th of October about joining Doulos. All very exciting!

Anyway, I probably won’t have much chance to update the blog for a few weeks or more. But I may, and I definately will once we get back from the UK (25th of October).

If anyone feels like praying, that’d be awfully nice.

Ciao,

Dan

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 07:40:00 +0000

This is a 3d representation of the Doulos Toaster:

Strange things happen with this machine.

I’ll explain how ought to work:

You put your bread on the metal mesh conveyor belt at the front.
The conveyor belt slowly slides the bread inside, where a double grill toasts it.
The (now) toast reaches the end of the conveyor belt, falls off it, and slides back to the metal toast-catching tray at the front (just below where you put the bread in).
You pick up your perfect slice of toast, a happy smile upon your lips, and head towards your table, while others in the dining room cast admiring glances at your beautiful slice of gastronomic delight.

There. That’s how it ought to work. This is what actually happens:

You stand in a medium sized queue waiting for your turn at the toaster, while people push past you to put their finished trays onto the rack, napkins in the bin, and so forth.
You eventually reach the toaster, and now have to wait while the bread already on the conveyor belt moves forward enough for you to fit yours on.
You put your bread on the conveyor belt, and realise someone has changed the speed that the conveyor belt moves at, so now it is too fast, and your bread wont get toasted at all!
You set the speed back down to the slowest speed again.
Someone comes along with their bread, peers at yours sitting on the conveyor belt which is just entering the toaster, and they push your bread forward so that they can fit theirs in.
This really annoys you, because it means that YOUR bread won’t get as much toasting as you want!
They then set the speed up to the fastest.
This annoys you even more.
You patiently and with loving brotherly kindness explain that the dial changes the SPEED that the bread goes through the toaster, and NOT how hot the toaster will be, and that they just made their bread get less toasted, which wasn’t what they wanted, was it?
It wasn’t, and so they set it back to slow again.
Your toast pops out of the toaster.
You pick it up and…
Wait a second, this isn’t your toast! You put in brown bread, from the middle of the loaf, and this is a white crust!
You put back the toast into the toast-catching tray, and peer inside the toaster to see where your toast is.
There is no toast in the toaster. It is now empty.
Puzzled, you pick up the white toasted crust, and wander around for a while holding it, and asking random people if it is theirs.
Eventually you give up, and confusion oozing from every pore, head back to your table.
You trip over someone who was pushing their chair out, and drop the toast on the floor.
Someone treads on it, and appologises.
You sigh, say “A little dirt never hurt anyone. Especially on Doulos!”.
Everyone in the near vicinity nods sagely.

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 12:44:00 +0000

Man, I really have abandoned this poor blog, have I not?

I spoke at church, last Sunday. Seemed to go OK. I was quite nervous, but managed to make people laugh a few times, and a lot of people have said how much they liked me talking at church. Thing is, I don’t actually like the whole “Sunday Morning Church” thing. Particually having a 30 to 45 minute “Sermon” or lecture shoved in the middle. I talked for 20 minutes, and feel kind of guilty for taking so long.

I’ve got the OM application form, and thus far have not yet filled it out. I really need to. We’re going back to the UK in about a week, for an entire month. I wonder if they can post the next set of forms to me there? Hm.

One of my friends from the STEP sent me some photos of my cabin! I’ll see if I can put some online over the next few days. Here is a picture of the bathroom of our cabin…

I was going to go on a 5 day woodwind repair course in Wales in about 3 weeks, but 2 days ago I phoned them because they had still not sent me the accomidation details, and they said “Ah, yes, well, you see, the tutor we have hired just told us that he cannot come until a week later. We were just going to phone you later today to tell you…” Well. A week later than the course is the week we come back to Cyprus! So not a whole lot of use! The guy says we will get a full refund, and he is trying to see if he can find a woodwind repairer friend of his to take me on as an apprentice for a week… Who knows.

This is one of those things, you know, when all your plans just jump right out of the window, and there is nothing you can do at all. I just have to trust God again in this. I know that He can change dates and things, like He did with the Doulos when I joined, with them having a place for me in June rather than later in the year. So I know He can do the same now too. Both ways. If He wants me to do this course, He can change the dates back again, and provide the accomidation. And if He does not want me to do the course, again, the same thing. So this could be His way of saying “Not this time, boyo” (He’d say “boyo” because the course is in Wales). So yeah.

On a lighter note, it looks like I will be able to buy my new clarinet in about 2 weeks! Woo! There is a shop in Worthing which is right close to where my Grandmother lives, and we will be visiting her for a while, and will try to visit then to go clarinet shopping. Yeah! I’m currently planning to get a Buffet RC Greenline. We’ll see. I think a greenline would be best for being on the Doulos, with all the crazy humidity and other conditions and all.

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:13:00 +0000

This is a photo from my E-day in (I think) Beira, where we spent the morning clearing up rubbish from the roads, and then from the beach area by the hospital, and then did an open-air outreach in the afternoon. We were told what to do with the rubbish by the local volenteer (who was told by the municipality rep he knew).

Dig a great big hole, and bury it.

The europeans in the group thought this was very funny. Anyway, so we did. The photo shows Yours Truely in a deckie uniform (that blue thing). I spent most of the 2 months wearing that thing.

Kind sexy, isn’t it? Well… OK, not really. The shoes are alright though. Nice solid things, with steel tips. I was quite glad of those steel tips at one point. During Sabbath Week while I was on watch, the Bosun called me over to help move a cargo converyor belt, just the two of us, and it dropped onto my foot. The deckie manual says that one should always wear deckie boots while on watch, even though I was told by other deckies “Naw, don’t. Just wear black shoes, so it looks smart. Your deckie shoes are all messy, so you’ll get shouted at if an officer comes up.”

I’m quite glad I ignored them, actually. That conveyor belt was heavy! But thanks to wonderful super-magic deckie shoes, I didn’t feel anything, and we just then lifted it up again and put it up where needed.

I went to Karate last night, at the local centre. I started attending (once a week) about 3 months before leaving to join the Doulos. I hadn’t really had a chance to keep it up while on board, although I did try to do some excersize some days. Right up on top of the ship is the “Sun-Deck”, which is for crew only, and has some excersize equipment, an excersize bike, weights, a punching bag, and so on. There are also some hammocks, which aren’t for excersize, but are nice anyway. It’s quite noisy up there, because it is right above the engine room hatch, so you can talk privately if you want, and it is out of the way of visitors. Some of the guys would go up there every night to work out, do weights, and so on. Weights have never really been my thing, but I occasionally did some stretching, juggling, push-ups, and so on. It’s amazing how much better you feel if you do some excersize each day, or every other day, or so. It’s so easy on board the Doulos to just ignore that kind of thing, as the work on board (deck, catering, etc) is quite hard, and can leave you feeling quite tired, but without actually working out your whole body. Anyway. It’s well worth it.

And this is a photo from the same day as before. You can see me in the background, watching the other two who were doing a drama, during the outreach bit. They didn’t really want to do the drama, much (Statue drama), but they had organized it without asking if I wanted to act, and so when they found out that I love acting, they were a bit annoyed afterwards… Oh well. It was OK.

Sun, 04 Sep 2005 17:59:00 +0000

I hadn’t posted much for a few days. So I thought I would just start randomly typing and see what happens.

When I was on Doulos, with working in the Deck and all, I had to learn a few knots. Just simple ones. I’d always liked knots, and all sailory (nautical is a better word, isn’t it…) things, but had never been particually good at remembering them. I’d always learned them before in situations where someone showed me the knot, and then I had a few minutes to practice with about 6 other people all wanting the same rope, and then no chance to try again for weeks and weeks. Well, on Doulos, we had to use these basic knots every day, and funnily enough, I learned them quite quickly. Like this first knot, the “Bowline” (pronounced bo-lin). It’s called this because apparently some time in the depths of time, for some reason lost in the bowels of obscurity, they used this knot to tie the bow (the front) of a boat, or ship, to whatever they needed to tie it to. The dock, presumably. And for some other weird reason, almost all ropes are called “lines” by nautical people, whenever the rope has a use.

When we loaded (or unloaded) things from the Ship using the crane, we always tied another rope from the item being loaded (or unloaded), which would then be held quite tight to make sure the item didn’t swing around in the wind, or crash into things. This rope is called a “Messenger Line”. Sometimes we used 2 messenger lines, for big things (like the Doulos mini-vans, which had to be loaded and unloaded at every port.) Funnily enough, we actually used that knot (the Bowline) to attach a messenger line to the object being loaded (or unloaded).

Here is another picture. This is a knot which is in fact, a bowline, but so modified that it has become absurd, and no one would ever use such a knot. It does look kind of pretty though, I guess…

Working on Deck, I began to really like knots a lot, and when I got back to Larnaka I went and bought a small ammount of rope, and have been practicing knots and such, and inventing crazy things with them and all. Like that monstrocity here. Terrible, isn’t it.

My father just saw a mirror dinghy advertived on a notice board in the local supermarket… not very expensive, either. Second hand. My father and I have wanted for ages to get a small boat. So. We will see what happens…

Oh, by the way. I have started contacting the Doulos people again, to begin attempting to apply to join them again. And next week I will be speaking in church about my experiences on the Doulos over the last 2 months. Should be fun. Again, we will see what happens…

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 18:08:00 +0000

I just realised that I forgot to post about my trip back to Larnaka…

I spent most of the day that I left in packing, wandering around slightly disconsolately, wondering what I had forgottern, sorting out other peoples stuff which they had left in the cabin, and finishing off packing stuff myself. I had already agreed to take presents back for 2 people on board to supporters or friends in Cyprus, and 2 other people brought stuff to me randomly during the day and said “would it be OK for you to take this back with you? I know this guy in Cyprus who I met while in port there and would love to send them this gift…” Anyway. I also had random things to clear up, like I took some old sunglasses up to the Creative Ministries Office, they always want more sunglasses as props and costumes, and all that. I had a childrens activies/crafts book which I had be loaned before Sabbath Week which I needed to take back, and so on and so forth. So many things to do.

The last of the STEPPERs ate together with our STEP mum for our final meal ( lunch ) on board. The 2 SP-STEPPERs, one Swiss girl, and myself. Our Albanian STEPPER had somehow managed to go on overnight, and had been gone the last 2 days or so, and none of us knew when she would actually arrive back to Doulos, or when her flight was!

Anyway, we were told what time the minibus would leave. At half an hour before that time, I had most of my stuff packed, but not all, and was slowly going about the cabin finding other random things to pack, sorting out clothes and things to take to Charlie, and so on.

Suddenly I realised that I was supposed to go to the quayside earlier than that, in order to say goodbye to people! And worse yet, I needed to go to the loo before leaving! So I quickly rushed to the loo, washed my hands, rushed out again, and picked up my bags, and found that I had forgotten to pack my washing bag, with toothbrush and all, so I collected that, and packed it, then saw on my bunk that I hadn’t packed some other things, so I packed them, looked at my watch, was shocked, saw loads of things in my drawer that I needed to either pack or send to Charlie, and then heard my name being paged on the info system! So I picked up all my bags, and then thought “Oh, yeah, I’d better phone them back!” So I phoned info: “Hi, this is Daniel, I’m on my way! Sorry!” they started laughing, so I hung up the phone, and struggled out and up the stairs towards the prom deck and gangway.
Thankfully, another friendly Deckie saw me, and offered to carry my bag for me, so I could just cope with my hand-luggage, and with the weighing scales that I had borrowed from info to weigh my bags. Which reminded me, I needed to take them back to info! So I changed direction, and we headed up to info. I gave them the scales, and clambered out of the door to the other gangway.
Someone else had offered to carry my handluggage too, but it was that terrible backpack which I had just fixed with the sewing kit, and I didn’t want to take it on and off my back more than I had to. I had a 30 second argument about this with him, he claiming that I would be offending his culture if I didn’t let him carry it for me, which was nonsense. Well, perhaps not nonsense. His culture might be offended, but he wouldn’t. He had been on Doulos so long that you’d have to punch him on the nose to offend him. And his culture wasn’t there to get offended anyway. So I let him carry the scales for me. That seemed to make him happy, anyway.
So I got to the gangway, and all the others were already in the minibus, which was running and the driver wandering around looking distracted “You’re late!” he shouted. “I know!” I replied.

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 18:10:00 +0000

Here is a picture of that wee whaley thing we saw from up on the bridge, way back. Cute, inni?

A few people have suggested that I start formatting my blog and filling it out a bit, and turn it into a book, and try and get it published. So I went through and copied all the text into a AbiWord document, went through it all with the spell-checker (which I had to look at sternly and tell not to use American spellings…) and then did a word-count… 26839 words! Wow… I would never have expected that! Subtract a few hundred for headers and dates and all, and well. Yeah. That’s pretty good for a start. I’ll start tinkering with it soon, and adding anecdotes and all. Just random perhaps interesting stories. Like this one:

While I was on watch, the second time, more people would come and just chat to me, which was nice. It helped the time pass faster. Anyway, one of the guys who came up and chatted was a Project Worker (short termer, not a STEPPER, just came for a specific job or time or whatever), from Finland. We were talking about this one guy some of the ship’s company had met, who said he was British, on holiday on Durban, but had had his passport stolen, and now the British Embassy would not let him get a new one, as they had no proof that he was who he said he was. Not a fun situation. Anyway. Apparently, for Finnish people it is a lot easier, you can just walk into any Finnish Embassy, and get a new one just like that! I asked how this was possible, and he told me in his deep nasal voice “You just speak to them in Finnish. Anyone who speaks well Finnish must be from Finland. Nobody else can.” Ah. That explains it. Apparently also the government has some kind of way of validating it, perhaps with fingerprints or DNA or something as well… I could probably use this as a good excuse to rant on for a few pages about the horrors of Big Brother Is Watching You And Reading Your DNA. or something like that. But I wont. I mean, most people already have pretty strong opinions about it, one way or the other, and whatever I say will have no effect on them. Or on their opinions. I used to have so many random discussions and arguments with one of my cabinmates, who left earlier than the rest. The American Seminary-student. Man, that was fun. “What is the difference between ignorance and innocence? And which is the more blissful?” “How to respond to leadership, and disagreement-with leadership?” and so on, as well as all the usual ones , Speaking in Toungues, Church leadership structure, responce to disagreement with leadership, basis of faith, various cultural things, and so on. Lovely. We disagreed on so much! And at the same time had a similar view on many things. Yeah.

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:20:00 +0000

Here is a picture of the crowds in Nacala (the first port I visited, properly). It’s kind of amazing still to me how many people visited, even though it was such a poor port. Mind you, a lot of stuff was stolen at that port. There are normally tables of pens, key-chains, etc, with Doulos pictures on them, and although practically none were sold, the tables were almost empty by the end of the first day. We stopped selling them there after that. That’s enough for today. I’m still kind of settling back in to Cyprus, trying to get stuff organized, and all that.

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 10:01:00 +0000

In the words of one of the Douloids I met “I’m back! Sviss Power! Ja!” The middle bit doesn’t really make sense for me to say, about sviss power and all, but the “I’m back"bit and the “Ja” do. This is a photo my wee bro took of me at the airport, with me bag and other bag, which I repaired (and held out for the whole trip back!). Yeah. So, I’ll post about the wonderful trip home again soon, and have now allowed comments on the blog for everyone, so PLEASE leave comments! Oh, and I will be uploading many more pictures soon too, and continuing to blog, and talk about the trip and all, so don’t stop coming to this page, oh dedicated masses, but remember ye all to visit again whenst ye hath time or even forsooth, if havest ye not.

Ja.

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:00:00 +0000

I’ve been doing loads of laundry… so many guests move in and out of my cabin and they forget to take their sheets to Laundry when they leave, so there was about 20 sheets, 9 pillow cases, and so on. About 20kg in all, I think. I also have given some towels to Charlie.

Anyway, I have added a few more things to my case, and one or two people want me to take things back to Cy for supporters and friends there… so I hope I have room!

Doulos is A.C to about 24 or so, and yet it feels like hard work here! I will go ask about flights now…

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 03:30:00 +0000

I’ve packed, at least mostly. And the main luggage is about 18 kg, w/o towels (which I may leave), and w/o todays clothes (all quite light, which is why I am packing them and not wearing them. Although I may pack my heavier ones since it is so low).

I have not actually re-confirmed my flights, but was told by someone else that the pursor may have done that. I was going to ask her today, but the office was shut. I hope it all turns out OK. Anyway, if the meals are meat, I shall just eat less (ie, that which is not meat) , and drink more fruit juice, which may be a good thing anyway.

I’m so tired today. We went out to a Zulu village/tourist thingy. Very cool, I guess, but living in Larnaka has made me so skeptical of Tourist things of any sort at all that I enjoyed it less than the others. Oh well.

There was a crocodile park there as well… they have well over 50 crocs, in various places, and we had dinner there as well. They had this thing they called “The Fear Factor Challenge”, which was basically they put out some tables in one of the croc. compounds, and the people who wanted to could sit at the tables and eat crocodile kebabs with nothing between them and the crocs, and 1 guard standing there with a stick to point the crocs in the other direction.

Not really my thing.

So I just stuck to the resturant, and had a quite nice fresh salad and bottled water. Nice to have truely fresh vegitables, again. Doulos ones always seem to have a slightly brownish tinge to them… Anyway. I justtified not doing the Fear Factor with the following sylogism (if that is the right word):

Premise) The park will not gain a good reputation by having visitors lose fingers.
Premise) If it were dangerous, then visitors might lose fingers.
Conclusion) It is not dangerous.

So, therefore, you pay the extra 40 Rand or so just for a “thrill” which is in fact, not dangerous, and rather silly. And also, if it was at all dangerous, then I quite like my fingers, and find them quite useful, at times, and so risking them for the sake of saying I had eaten with crocs is intensely silly.

So I didn’t.

Crocs are such weird creatures. The keeper bloke who was showing us around before hand was down in the compound with them and tapped them, and one of them (100 years old this year) roared at him, and snapped at the stick. They are just so primeval! So totally lifeless until roused, and then totally instinctive until they forget, and then back to domant again. And so big! Weird. Weird. Weird.

Anyway. I’m tired. I’m buring a few CDs of stuff.

Bananas, other fruit, yogurt, just usual stuff is so unusual here. I am looking forward to coming home. And yet I know I will miss Doulos too.

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 03:39:00 +0000

About 10 STEPPERs left today. So it will be very lonely now in my cabin. 10 person cabin, now with just 2 people. Myself, and a German new STEPPER, who does not speak so much English, and keeps totally different hours to me. I am going to bed about 11pm, and getting up at 6, or 6.30am, he is in bed by about 9pm, and wakes up about 7.30 or 8am. So, yeah.

Very good on board Sunday Service, extremely good talk/sermon/whatever by one of the pastor/leader/teachers on board about the book of Job. Then afterwards I was able to help set up for the Doulos birthday party, and then get into a clown costume, makeup, and all that.

At the beginning of the programme (it was raining, so we were all indoors), we did a small sketch, which was fun. About 3 minutes. Then after that, I went outside (it had stopped raining) with the other clowns to do some juggling and other entertaining. I spent the whole afternoon out there, juggling, playing with someones very nice poi, and being funny, making people laugh, etc. Clowning is fun. But tiring.

If/when I come back to the Doulos, I would really like to organize or be part of more regular juggling/ circus workshops, or whatever. There used to be some, but now the people who used to do that have mostly left, and there are only 1 or 2 part-time jugglers on board, with not a huge ammount of motivation to practice, except when there is something coming up…

Speaking of coming back… People who join the Doulos for 2 years join in groups, and first have a 2 week or so training time together in whichever port the Doulos will be arriving at. These groups are called “Preships”, and people will mostly still introduce themselves for on-board events with something along the lines of “Hi, My name is David from the Istanbul Preship” or whatever. Preship training happens every 6 months. The end of January/Febuary, and in August/September.

The last Doulos Preship to join (the most recent one) joined actually in Larnaka, which was why the ship visited then. They are the Beruit Preship. The next one will be Richard’s Bay (South Africa), in less than a month. This is all kind of technical, I know. But the point of it all, was that people don’t really have a whole lot of choice in where they join the Doulos. And I think that if God wants me to join, He is able to provide the money, and also the flight costs, at that time. Some people have said it all tends to be last minute, with crazy things happening, like having people wanting to support them and telling them in their last 2 weeks before they come, all that kind of thing.

Anyway. About joining, the Febuary 2006 Preship keeps coming up in conversation with people here, as there would still be a lot of people I know and have been working with, many of whom are leaving next August, or September 06.

Sun, 21 Aug 2005 05:10:00 +0000

Some of us STEPPERs went out today to the largest Shopping Mall in the Southern Hemisphere… “Gateway” … You can probably find it on the internet (surely).* Huge place. I felt quite intimidated. I think I have more culture shock at places like that than I do from any place in Mozambique! I mean, it is just so BIG. And so posh, and modern, and all of that.

I think I spent about 15 dollars, on getting there and back (we had to go by taxi, and split the cost), and on a meal (veggi lasagna), and a vegetable curry pie. Lovely lovely food. The veggi lasanga was about 7 dollars, the pie about 1 and a half, and the rest was the taxi… It’s odd, I feel quite bad about using the money for this, but some of the people did say “use this money as you want to…”, and I have not spent a lot of money, comparatively.

Money… strange stuff. Yesterday I was helping on my e-day at that orphanage where they had 50-something kids in a tiny little house, with 2 or 3 kids to a bed, today walking around a Shopping Mall where one single concrete column which is for decoration only, and doesn’t even hold up the roof probably costs more than the entire cost of the orphanage building!

The ship did give a gift to the orphanage, but they had to purposely make it small, as a large gift would be overwelming, or something like that, and would actually do more harm than good.

It’s this whole relativistic thing. One person’s poor is another persons stinking rich, and neither of them is right. Particually thinking of stuff like say the Doulos P.M (private money). Crew get 20 USD per month as personal money. In Mozambique, that is a huge ammount, which can go a huge way, and still leave a lot to be donated at the end of the month, but in Cyprus, 20 USD is 10CYP, which is enough for perhaps 3 gyros, if you go to the right kebab shops, which if you were staying in Cyprus for a month, and wanted to go out and see the place, isn’t much.

Being a STEPPER is a bit different, so many people have said, as we don’t have P.M, we have brought money with us to use… Like, one of the others was telling me today, she is American, and all her friends and family and supporters are expecting (explicitly in some cases) gifts and souveneers from her when she returns. So it is a bit hard for her to get all of these and see everything and do everything.

If you are on for 2 years (or more), you can be more relaxed about things like gifts and so-on. I don’t know… I’ve spent a long time today just sitting in the Mall, thinking about all of these things, about what is right and wrong ways to use money and stuff like that.

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:17:00 +0000

Amazing days. Wow…

Yesterday, for e-day, we only left the ship at 6.30pm. We went to a Methodist Church for the homeless meal they have every week. We did 2 dramas, someone told their story, and they sang a song too.

Just as we were eating (good food. A kind of vegetable soup/thing with some rice, and white bread.), all the lights went out. The church was quite hi-tech, and they had spent most of the time before that setting up their computer-powered power-point lyric projection for the songs they (the church) had planned for the evening.

I was quite glad the lights went off, actually, in the end, as it meant the whole program was a lot more simple. We didn’t use the music for the dramas, just did them straight. Which IMHO is often the best way. The music does make things seem rather too professional, which in a situation like that, you don’t really want. Many of the people there are in fact believers, but many are still struggling with drug addiction, and other problems, which the church is helping them with.

I was able to talk with one guy quite a lot afterwards, his name is Julian, and he had a broken leg. He was talking about his life, moving to South Africa (from the UK) about 30 years ago. He now does not have a job, since he broke his leg he cannot work, but he had such faith, and trust in God, saying “I really am so thankful to the Lord, He has never let me go more than 2 weeks without work.” And was in fact going back to work the next day.

As he did not have a job because of his leg, he had not been able to pay his rent, and so had been sleeping on the streets for the past few weeks. Talking to him helped me to understand a lot more of why there is still anger and racism. He was quite a nice guy, but in his talking was not friendly towards the Black and Indian people in S.A. During Aparteid, he had had a job, and had been safe walking around in the city after midnight. Now, any time after dark is too dangerous to walk around, and he has no job. He believed that it was because now that Black people have more rights, they want to be in charge, and to squash the Whites.

I was able to tell him that it is not just S.A, and nothing to do with people’s skin colour. Like how we in Cyprus are getting increasing crime and less safe, particually in Lemesos, and that there is now resentment in some Cypriots against Russians, because they believe it is them bringing in the crime. There are elements of truth mixed into all of this, but blind hatred and racism isn’t the answer, of course. We just have to treat all others as we believe Jesus would, and pray about what we cannot.

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 14:45:00 +0000

The last few days have been kind of stressful, and kind of funny. I don’t know wether to laugh or cry, a lot of the time. I figured laughing is more socially acceptable, so have tried to stick to that.

I have had my last 2 working days in Deck, and did hardly any work at all, it feels like. The day before yesterday, we were going to be doing some varnishing on the Starboard prom deck, just outside the mess. However, after devotions in the morning, all the lifeboat teams got called to safety training, and so that meant we didn’t do any work for about an hour. STEPPERs are not envolved in lifeboat or safety training.

Then when we got there, we discovered that it had rained on the previous days layer of varnish, which another team had done, and it looked terrible. So as we were not sure if it would rain again on top of whatever we did that day, I suggested putting up some poles and hanging a canvas over it. We could not just hang a canvas without poles, as the deck above stops right above the railing, and the canvas would be hanging on the railing.

So the (acting) team leader told me, “Good idea, you do that and the rest of us will go and get the varnish and other cleaning stuff for the rails.” So off I went. I found some roller extensions, which would work fine, and also got some rope from the foc’s’cle. Then I set to work, perhaps not in the easiest way, but in the most straitforward that I could think of at the time. I fixed all of the poles sticking out horizontally from the ceiling out to about a metre beyond the edge of the railing, and used the rope to keep them all from falling out. Just using simple hitches all the way along.

When I had finished putting up the poles, which took about half an hour, I went to find the others, who were still not there. They were all up on another deck, varnishing that one. I told the leader that I was finished with the poles, and asked where I should get the canvasses from.

He said, “Well… I hate to say this, but I think this whole thing is just taking too much effort, and if it does rain, we’re screwed anyway, because this rail we are working on now will get wet. So, if you could just take down the poles, and instead pray that it doesn’t rain.”

Thanks.

OK. Well, no problem. So I took down the poles. I was just finishing that, when they all trooped down, to get ready for lunch break. As they were walking past, the leader looked at the ceiling, and asked what on earth the splashes of rather messy water were on it. While attaching the rope, I had unfortunately let some of it hang onto the wet deck below, which was still wet from the cleaning team swabbing it. When I pulled the rope through the loops to make the hitchesto hold the poles in place, it had splattered the surrounding locale with droplets of muddy water. Oops.

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 04:15:00 +0000

Lots of people are feeling a bit low. But also most people are really excited to be going home. I am too, of course, but they are excited to be leaving the ship. I’m not.

I am really looking forward to being back in Larnaka, seeing family again, and so on. And I have so many things which I want to do. I want to learn to cook, for instance. If I come back to Doulos, then I want to be able to cook myself some pasta or calzonies or something occasionally. There are pantries which anyone can use scattered about the ship (I think we have 4 or so…).

Part of my feeling depressed though is not to do with leaving, or with missing other people, because generally I’m quite good about that. Because I have been on the Doulos twice before, it’s not a"never see Doulos again" thing, either, which some of the people have (the ones living in the USA) a bit. And as I want to come back again anyway, I hopefully will see quite a lot of the other people again anyway.

I think part of why I am feeling depressed is because I feel like I have not really acomplished anything much. I have had so many wonderful experiences, these last 2 months, and met so many amazing people, and seen such fantastic things (I’m running out of adjectives here), and yet feel as if I have actually contributed very little.

Our STEP-mum says that that is quite normal to feel a bit like that, but not to worry, as (a) she is quite happy with me, and (b) *when* I come back for 2 years, I will have much more chance to be envolved with the Drama Group, music, and so on, as well as more chance to contribute in other ways too… But yeah.

Rebekah is still recovering from malaria, she is fully better, but is still weak, and she lost a lotof weight, and flying is never the most stressless experiences anyway.

The farewell thing tonight has a program of the following:

20:00 Welcome - STEP-mum
20:02 Thank you - Co-Director
20:20 Certificates - STEP-mum
20:30 Step participation:

Parade of Nations (AV-People) - everyone prepares 30 sec of talk - carrying T.A.N.Z.A.N.I.A. S.T.E.P. letters
Slideshow (raffi) Sing a song (nanana - goodbye)
Thank You & read a verse (Jenny)

21:00 End in prayer- STEP-mum

So, yeah. The “Parade of Nations” is a I-night item, where they put on this extremely annoying repetative dramatic music, and all the people envolved go forward wearing their national dress, and get announced by someone far too enthusiastically and everyone claps.

That is the cynical “I’m still depressed and everyone ought to blooming well know about it” version.

Sorry.

I was on watch when they did the meeting about this, and arranged it all, so I have about as much idea about the rest of it as you do. I shall just turn up and do whatever they ask me to. This totally typifies our group though. Some people not at the planning meeting, a few people will not be at the farewell (they missed work and so are not allowed to miss it again tonight), a few people not even sure what’s happening, and 1 person already left. As they say on board: Wunderbar.

Tue, 16 Aug 2005 02:50:00 +0000

I’m feeling more than slightly depressed. It is expected, I know. Less than ten days until I leave.

We have our Farewell evening tonight. The other STEPPERs have organized it. It sounds cheesy and terrible. I hope it isn’t.

The last of the previous STEP is leaving in an hour. He has been in the same cabin as I the whole time, is completely crazy, English, and a wonderful brother. I am really going to miss him.

Last night was my last watch, and I was able to arrange to get myself doing the first FireRound of the night (11pm), which is the one in which you find most of the curfew breakers. So many people have been ignoring curfew lately that my cabinmate (Andrew) who is leaving decided to do a last “goodbye” to the Doulos, and in his small way, to help to remedy the situation.

He bought a water pistol (Super-soakery type of thing. Huge great jets of water.) a few weeks ago. Fireround last night was really fun. There were about 30 people breaking curfew. They got wet.

Anyway. I’m pretty depressed.

Sun, 14 Aug 2005 08:26:00 +0000

Most of the other STEPPERs are leaving on the 21st, My flight is on the 23rd, though. A lot of them are going to fly down to Cape Town, for a weeks holiday or something like that. The STEPPERs with SP are going to stay on until september some time, because their SPs are finishing their commitment on board then, and so they will fly home togeather (and in one case at least, get married! :-) ).

[If coming back for a longer stint in future] I know now that 5 pairs of shoes is absurd. I think that I would take 2 or 3 less shirts and shorts, and more trousers and another fleece or hoodie. Oh, and 20kg as an on-ship requirement is not so vital. Only airplane limits really would apply. The limit is (I think) just to discourage people bringing like 80kg or stuff.

I am thinking, if God is calling me back for 2 years, then perhaps it would be better to get a Greenline Buffet clarinet, rather than wood. I will need to try a whole bunch and find a good one, but if I am working on board a ship, and perhaps afterwards going out missionarying, then a wooden clarinet is slightly impractical. I don’t really know.

Anyway.

The youth thing last night was OK. Not really very approp, though, I think. It was a quite large (300+ seater) pentecostal church (Tabernacle), with wooden pews, a raised procenium type stage, and so on. There were about 40 youth, maximum, from 4 or so different congregations.

We arrived at the end of the church’s music group practice, and they were staying on to do some music for us, a “time of worship”. So we all sat down, and they launched into a whole load of very upbeat loud songs I’d never heard before (no lyric sheets), during which time I noticed that (a) what a terrible P.A. system they had. I could barely understand a word said, or spoken, (b) the worship leader was speaking in Christianese, and seemed to be having a hard time connecting with the assembled teens, (c) having an eight piece worship band singing and playing with their eyes closed, waving their hands around, etc, doesn’t really feel very helpful to connecting.

Even the worship leader had her eyes closed, and I saw her at one point waving furiously for the band to make it louder, and bigger, and she asked questions, during the quiet bits between songs, asking why we all were not really joyful, and things.

Anyway. Not really terribly useful, IMHO. Then for our bit. We certainly demonstrated to the youth that not all Christians are up on a stage, off on some other planet.

It was very disorganised.

The STEPPER who was M.C.ing our bit, introduced each item something like “Um, and thankyou for that, and, yes, next we have, um, Daniel, and he will do a, a drama.”

Yeah, preach it, brother! Woo!

About my drama… well, they had put this pulpit/lecturn thingy out in the middle of the floor in front of the stage, and that was where I wanted to act. So I, dressed in my nice black acting shirt, and white Doulos mime-gloves, walked out accross the stage, picked up the lecturn, and walked it off stage, until I heard a crash, and looking down, discovered that it had had a rather nice glass of water in it, which I had just dropped, and smashed to shards, all over the floor.

Sat, 13 Aug 2005 00:04:00 +0000

I’m very tired.

Found out yesterday that tonight us STEPPERs are going on a ministry trip to visit a youthgroup, and tell them how great missions are, and encourage them to do them, or something like that. Anyway, John, who is in charge of it (the one who got mugged) told me that I am going to be doing a drama. The “offering drama”. I’d never seen this, or ever even heard of it.

He said “well go find out from the creative ministries people”. Ok. So I did, they told me in about 2 minutes. It’s a 1 person drama/mime. Very cool story, actually. They gave me a pair of white gloves too. I wish I had brought my black tousers with me.

Oh well. Maybe I’ll do it at some point in Larnaka.

So I had then to find a way to get out of being on watch tonight. I SHOULD have been given time off already. About a month ago our STEP-mum sent an email (she said) to each of the deparment heads saying that STEPPERs need to be given time off on Friday nights, and other STEP times.

But last Friday was Sabbath Week, and so no STEP ministry time. The Friday before that, we were on overnight, and so no STEP ministry. And the Friday before that, we were voyaging, I believe. Or if not voyaging, then something else happened, or else I wasn’t on watch, or something. I don’t remember.

Anyway, so this is the FIRST time that the situation has acutally arisen, and so they had forgotten about this, and so I had to personally this afternoon find another deckie, and them willing, to swap watches with me for next week. Happily, I could find someone, and so that’s OK. But it will mean that now I have to do an extra watch next week for one day. :-(

Oh well.

Met more home-educators today. 8-til-12 really lets you meet more people.

I’m thinking about renaming my blog “oh well”. What do you think? heh…

One of the previous STEPPERs, the one who left, lost his badge. Yesterday, while we were cleaning up our cabin to allow the other new STEPPERs to move in, we found it. Then one of the other cabin mates took the badge, and pinned it on the notice board with this note:

“Attention Ship’s Ladies!
Want a piece of the hunk that is
(name) ? His name-badge is going on
auction with a starting bid of 10 Rand,
please contact cabin (number).”

Then this morning, someone stole the badge from the board! This shocking problem caused my cabin mate to put a new notice on the board:

“Lost! One name badge belonging to (name).
Could whoever has stolen it please return
it to cabin (number). I know he is handsome,
but stealing is wrong!”

Then this afternoon, I saw his badge up on another cabin’s door. I told my friend, and he went and got the badge. Now he is going to put a new notice on the board, saying something like

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 01:33:00 +0000

Still deck work to do, but not for watch keepers. I get the whole afternoon free, which is very cool. I hope to go out tomorrow. I bought some more at the book-ex today. A study bible (slightly ‘damaged’, it got wet or something while sailing), NIV, basically the same as my old one, for aprox. 2 CYP (equiv.), a new bible-cover, and a book of knots and rope work. I am wondering if I perhaps will run out of space to take things, or luggage allowance. I was under when I came out, right? And I will be leaving some shoes behind. So…

Strange life. Random happenings, on watch. A man walked through the gates, wandered around the quay for a while, went to our book-ex packing equipment, and started pulling a loading-trolley, and heading back towards the gate again. Not a port worker, just a random person. So I went up to him and told him “Please don’t take our trolleys”, took it from him, and put it back. He wandered around a bit more, and then left.

I met a family of home-schoolers today. They arrived an hour early of opening time, and so I chatted to them for a while. Christians. Very nice people. We talked about schooling, and from there into evolution vs. creationism, and from there into end-times, and he then told me that, by the way, the AntiChrist is alive and well, is English (sorry), 51, grey-haired, and just got married recently (again).

When I looked puzzled, he then told me the name of the AntiChrist, which adds up to 666 when the letters are counted, or something like that, in both English and in Hebrew. He is decended from royalty, and one day will be King of England, if his mother leaves the post. Hmm. I hadn’t concidered him before… hmm.

Oh well. I have a hard time taking seriously all this eschatology stuff, I’m afraid. It’s a major failing, I know, but… well… what happens happens, and I don’t think we can know exactly who will do (or be) what, and when it will happen. One day, perhaps, I will learn to take it seriously. Perhaps. Maybe I will end up knowing who the AntiChrist (if there is _one_) will be. Perhaps I will write books and hold seminars decrying the evil hidden deeds of whoever I know for certain the evil incarnate is… Perhaps not.

Anyway.

This guy also gave me a CDROM of some pastor doing some teaching about evolution, I think. I also met a teacher of an A.C.E school here, which is being forced by the government to switch to using it’s curriculum, which she is upset about because it is so secular humanist, evolution and all, but she says is OK, because they will screen all the stuff before they teach it.

The volunteers all speak English here, which is cool, and are all quite sociable, so I have got to know some of them, and talk about stuff with them. Also SO many South Africans on board have family coming to visit and stay, and I got to chat with one family, so friendly, and talk about much.

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:49:00 +0000

Doulos opened in Durban today. I am on gangway watch 8 til 12, so any time in the afternoon I am available to give tours. Today was the official opening in the morning, and then we opened to the public at 2pm. It is now 2.30, and I will go and see what’s happening once I’ve finished the email.

One of the STEPPERs is leaving in half an hour, to go home. He is finishing early to go to back to seminary, he arranged this from before, so apparently STEP dates are really not so set in stone. It feels very odd to see him leaving.

Today just as I was finishing up my watch, at mid-day, a group of 3 people came and wanted to see the ship. We were not yet open, and so I phoned the tour people, and line-up, and others, but no-one was free, because of the offical opening.

So once my relief came, I took them on a tour, showing them the ship, and then when we went up to the book-ex, found it was open, a group of pastors had arranged a special trip, and the book-ex staff allowed my tour to go and buy a load of CDs and books and things.

My tourists (ha) were very happy, and impressed (I think), and said they will try to come back sometime, but live quite a way away. They were Christians, I think, they bought some worship CDs, anyway. “The 20 Worst of ’90s Worship: 100% pure cheese” or something like that (that was a bit harsh, though)… there is SO much Christian pop-worship on this ship, it is unbelievable.

Sarah, who works in the kiosk was listening to some classical the other day, Beethoven, I think, and it was such a nice change to hear! If I come back to the ship, I think I will remember to bring a CD player, or something, so I can listen to all kinds of music.

Tue, 09 Aug 2005 13:34:00 +0000

(Again on the computer with the weird spacebar).

Today is the last day of SabbathWeek, man, has it been tiring. Every morning doing the kids work. There are about 30 or so kids, ranging from ages of about 1 to 14, which is quite a large range. It means though that the range is too great for doing more formal games, I tried doing a few of the more basic drama games, but they just collapsed, as some kids just wandered off, others joined in enthusiastically, and then tried to help some of the younger ones, but then by helping the younger ones, got distracted from what they were doing. Oh well.

Today all of us were so tried, (I meant to type tired, but the typo seems to fit as well) that Jordan just didn’t bother with a speaky bit (we are “doing” the fruit of the Spirit, LoveJoyPeacePatienceKindnessEtc), but just put on the tv, with some cartoons. Rubbish.

Absolute garbage.

I think it was roadrunner, or something like that, where one random overly cheerful character blows up, maims, and generally smashes another random overly cheerful character for 15 minutes, and then the whole thing starts all over again. Thankyou, mum, for keeping me away from too much TV when younger. Blah.

Anyway, as predictable, the kids started getting irritable, crying, “I can’t see, you’re in my way, I can’t see” and so on, and so we took them outside for a while longer to just play on the fundeck (one of the lower decks (the poop deck officially) which is separate from the rest ofthe ship, and netted all around and has rubber floor, toys, swings, and so on).

We have been doing loads of crafts with them, Rachel has been in charge of the 5/6 years old group, and me helping for crafts. Anyway, it’s over now, the kids seemed to enjoy it, and the parents are happy, so thats good. I have 8-til-12 watch next week, so I can relax. *phew*.

I had watch 2 times this week too. The information desk is closed after 5 during sabbath week, so that means all international calls come through to the gangwayman. SO many. My goodness. About 1 every 5 minutes. Then as the gangwayman has no way of paging the ship for the person to forward the call to, you have to do a complex redialing procedure to route the call through to their cabin, or if they are not answering there, then to dining room, or other places they might be.

One funny story, after my watch 3 days ago (4-til-8), one of my fellow STEPPERs was also on watch. He is from South Korea, and his English is good, but basic. The phone is dead hard to understand anything on any way (international lines), and the re-directing system on the ship is quite complex too. Anyway. So I handed over to him. Yesterday, I was on watch, and one of the other sisters on board came and said she was expecting a call. Her mum had phoned 2 days ago in the evening (the day I was on watch, but later, during this other guy’s watch), and had been told this:

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 08:58:00 +0000

More photos! Dan sent this selection saying there will be higher-quality pictures when he returns. Also he can move them to the relevant blog posts.

This one is back from the first ’e-day’, when he was helping to dig a reservoir hole for a family of missionaries.

Another group photo, I presume of the church he stayed with last weekend. This time Dan’s in the front row, wearing a blue hoodie.

Apparently this is the pastor with Dan.

Dan is in the light-blue coveralls, the other guy is sitting on the ‘bosun’s chair’. They’re doing repairs or maintenance to the funnel. I’m glad I didn’t know about this until after the event!

Another view of the funnel.

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 17:45:00 +0000

Saturday 6th August

This week is “Sabbath Week”. This happens once a year, and is a week of (comparative) rest and restoration and all of those sorts of things. Just good fortune for us STEPPERs to be here for it this time!

The book-ex is closed totally, and all workers from there are spread out about the ship, and all duties of all departments are cut down, so this means that (say in the deck department), we only have to do 8 hours each in the whole week, plus one day of being on duty (hardly any work, but cannot leave the ship for 24 hours), and one day of doing the garbage for 1 hour in the afternoon, and then done. So pretty light duties.

Every morning there are devotions/teaching/whatever from a special speaker, who this time turned out to be Dale Rhoton (one of the co-founders of O.M). Very cool. The STEPPERs, though, are running the childrens programme every morning, so we have not actually been to any of the devotions. Very good kids, all of them younger than 12, and seem to be very happy with the programme, organized by Jordan.

Yesterday was the ship outing to a waterpark and ocean-world, which I decided not to go on, as I had not had an off-day in 12 days, and my next off-day is on the 15th! So I needed an introvert day, and so stayed on board. There were only about 25 people on board, in all, which is about minimum to keep the ship going, plus a few extras (like me). Good day.

One of the STEPPERs from another of the overnight teams has malaria… she started getting ill during the overnight, so I guess must have picked it up a few weeks ago. She had to be brought back to the ship, and yesterday was taken to the hospital. Apparently she is doing much better though, now. My Big Brother bounced back from malaria after about a week, in total, before being back at work. But he is like that. Rebekah is not so hardy. It would be nice if folk could pray for her, as it is most difficult for her, only being here a few months, and yet getting malaria!

Also the day before yesterday some of the people went out to the city, one group was John (a Malaysian STEPPER) and a group of 5 girls. They were stopped on the road somewhere in the city by a whole group of men, who grabbed John, put a knife to his throat, and forced him to give them his camera, they also tried to get at his wallet, and sliced up his trowsers.

We are all very thankful that they did not hurt him at all physically, although of course he is rather shaken emotionlly. There really was nothing he could do, other than give them what he had. Apparently, from what the South Africans have told us, this is quite a rough area of Durban, and there is quite a lot of crime, and John being the only man in a group of girls was also more likely to get picked on.

Sun, 07 Aug 2005 08:50:00 +0000

The Doulos is now in Durban (South Africa) with an ADSL connection, so Dan’s managed to send some photos, to give an idea of what he was doing on his weekend away from the ship (see posts below:)

This is a group photo, I presume of the Doulos team who visited the church, plus the pastor and his family. Dan is in the back row near the right of the photo, the tallest and fairest - not very clear of him.

This is inside the church, I’m not sure if this was before, after or even during the service!

And this one was simply entitled ’the loo’. Lovely.

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 08:39:00 +0000

Overnight Update part 2.

So, where did I leave off…

Ah, yes. The story thus far left our trustworthy hero in the hands of a local, with his fellow companions and he not knowing whence they should then depart to, and whatfor they were about to be occupied…

So off we went, the dear companions, our volunteer helper/translator, and I, off down the dusty mud-lined prickly hedged alleys of sub (very sub) urban Maputo.

Most the houses are made of cheap concrete breese-blocks, or from bamboo or reed thatch. The rooves are generally from corrigated iron, or occasionaly from more thatch. Floors are just cold concrete, if at all. Many are just mud, like the church building of the compound. There are often bamboo/reed mats on the floors, kind of like the ones we might use at the beach, just a little bigger, and rougher, probably hand-made.

No running water, but with electricity, so you get a television in every house. I hate televisions, now. We visited a few houses, but every one had a T.V in it, and it was on. We talked to a few people, but with the T.V. on it was quite hard! We went to one man’s house, a friend of our translator/volunteer, and sat down in his living room, to talk. He went to a different church, but apparently both pastors are good friends, so that’s all right.

Anyway, he began to tell us (via translation) about his plans and work that he is starting to begin a youth/young-people programme in an area not far off, where there is a lot of poverty, and unimployment, and so on. He was asking us for what kind of things we had been envolved with, and some of the others shared about some of their experiences, and gave him advice, along the lines of how to get it going, how to make sure it didn’t just stay as talk, but actually became something.

This is one of the things that the line-up teams have been emphasising to us the whole time in Mozambique. The Line-Up team is a team of 3 people (or so) who get sent to a port a few months in advance of the ship’s arrival, and there they do all the negotiations of getting a berth for the ship, telephone lines, etc, as well as working with the local churches, and municipality, and so on, to find and work out the programme that the Doulos will have when she arrives, in order to be of greatest benefit.

There are currently 2 or three line up teams out there, one in Richards Bay, and one in Madagascar. In some ports they will decide that the greatest need is practical work, so much of the effort of the Doulos will be in that sector. In some ports (like the last ones), a massive problem is HIV/AIDS, so we have had many programmes on board which are talking about this problem, as well as orphanage visits and work.

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:27:00 +0000

Monday 1st August

We left port quite early this morning, so I have an extra hour or so this afternoon, so I will try and write at least some of the detail of the overnight…

Our group was to meet at our STEP-mum’s office at 3pm, and then leave, so I had most of the day (Friday) free to pack, write email, clean up, and other things that I needed to do. I wrote down some notes for a sermon, because I had been told I would probably need to do at least one. My first ever sermon, fun.

I chose Psalm 13, the one which goes something along the lines of:

How long, O Lord, will everything terrible happen to me?
Life sucks, I’m sick, I’m going to die,
Mine enemies shalt triumph over me,
I’ve got such a headache,
Yet will I praise the Lord,
For He has been good to me
Amen.

I picked it as it is one of my favourite psalms, many of the early ones sound too righteous for me to really be able to associate to, and the later ones are too long, and I hate jumping about from verse to verse to make a point.

Anyway, I figured I needed a story as well to go with it, so randomly looked about the New Testament for a good story to use, and found about Jesus and Peter walking on the water.

Cool, I thought, and found a way to link the two passages, talking about faith, and thinking “Well, if it needs to be a sermon to non-Christians, then I have plenty of room to maneuver it into an altar call (Don’t worry, I’m not getting that holy. heh.), and if it turns out the whole audience, er, sorry, congregation, are Christians, then I have something vaguely encouraging to say, ie, that even when life sucks, God is in charge, and will catch us if we fall.”.

So that was all O.K. I knew I would have a translator (probably), and so that would make it all longer too (I hate long sermons, but have been told repeatedly that culturally long sermons are required. I feel too tired to bother speculating on reasons why. Maybe some other time…).

Anyway, then after that, I put my notes somewhere safe, and then went to borrow the sailmakers thread and a needle. I could not find a good needle, but my shift leader lent me one of his, and said “hey, no worries, it’s too thick for anything I ever use, so if it breaks, cool.” or something like that.

Which is a good thing.

My beloved rucksack (backpack) had become unstitched quite badly where the armstraps are attached to the bag, and I wanted to repair it. So I got the needle and thread, put the needle through the material once, pulled through, fine! This was great! I could have my bag nice and fixed before going. I had 2 hours still.

I put the needle through again, and pulled… and pulled… and pulled… nothing. It would NOT come through! Odd… So I reversed it, and tried again, and snapped the needle at the eye. Wonderful. Now what?

Mon, 01 Aug 2005 17:09:00 +0000

Just a very very quick update.

Survived the overnight (2 nights). Amazing. Lovely lovely people. Bucket-of-water showers, no running water at all, tin roof, no glass in most of the windows, mud streets and floor, concrete breeze-block walls, loads of prayer and singing, I preached once, told stories (preaching without directly quoting scripture), and slept benethe a mozzie net.

They killed a duck for us yesterday to eat, happily I was able to avoid eating more than about 1cm cubed of it (Thanks, Tim, for school “I did eat food, really” hints (smearing sauce)), but still…

Anyway. Amazingly cool. They got loads of photos, and a few videos, I hope to have them on CD.

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 09:13:00 +0000

Friday 29th July

The Prayer & Fasting was focused about the STEPPER OverNight (2 nights) trip away from the ship. We will be going out in groups of 5, so three groups. The only ones praying were STEPPERs, Our STEP-Mum, and possibly some of the SPs of STEPPERs.

SP stands for “Social Permission” or “Special Permission” or “Special Person”. Ship policy is that we are not to engage in (for lack of a better term) romantic relationships in their first year of being with them, this is so that they can focus on God instead, and, if God does want them to get married, they will anyway, and are by then less likely to be distracted and over-attracted by possibly cross-cultural traits which are not fully understood in the first year.

After a year, couples can apply for SP from the personnel office, which means they are allowed to pursue a more in depth or possibly romantic relationship. Some of the 2 year Douloids already had fiances (spelling?) or girlfriend/boyfriends, and some of the STEPPERs in our group (about 4!) came on the STEP firstly just to see them, a 2 year absence is quite a lot… So they all have SP, (the personnel office has the policy of 1 year, but is not inhuman).

Anyway, enough about SP, already. Today we will be leaving on the OverNight. I think we have got 5 church services planned for the time, and will all be doing preaching, praying, singing, acting, and other stuff like that, as well as probably some practical work in the village or wherever we get to, and other things like that. People who come on board for 2 years generally get to go on 4 “A-teams”, that is, week long or more trips away from the ship, with a small group of others, to do various work.

As well as A-teams, there are other random OverNights which pop up, whenever people are available, or have 2 E-days next to each other.

We had another drama training session with the Creative Ministry team yesterday, they showed us how they perform the Chair Drama, but said “learn it like this, but when you perform it, do it however you want. Improvise! Change stuff! Go mad!” So that’s cool.

At the end they were talking about the different things, and one of them said “I hear you are going on an OverNight, which is why we were asked to do this session with you. If you have a theme which you cant think of a drama for, come to us, and we will tell you about some others. We have one for every thing you could want.”

So OF COURSE, I had to ask a question. Dead serious face, oh woe is me, I know not what to do, I am but a puzzled confused young STEPPER… “Um, we have a pastors conference on our overnight, and have been asked to give a session, can you think of a good drama for Pre-Millenialism…”.

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:43:00 +0000

27th July

Pasta and Basmati rice are the things I am missing most. When I get back, I hope we have pasta. Or Lasagne. Or Spaggetti. Or all of them ;-) And Cheese! Lots of Cheese! And Parmasan! Mmmmm….

To get rid of all the anti-biotic rubbish Deets (one of my cabin mates) suggests a 2 day fruit fast, or similar when I get home.

The fast finishes today, and I am not feeling too hungry or anything. I have not taken the anti-malarials, as I guessed after a month, my system should be fairly well swimming in them (as I have been faithful to them), and I have not gone off the ship the last 2 days, and there are no mozzies on board, and I shall go back to them tomorrow when I start eating again.

(Has he found another hoodie?)

Not yet. I haven’t had a chance to go out yet, and charlie is pretty well empty. We had deck cleaning today, which means being up at 6 on the deck to work… very very cold. But that wouldn’t really be solved by a hoodie, as we wear deckie overalls. They have the A.C. down quite low, always. And even at 18 or so which is what it feels like (rationally… it really feels about 10, but I know it can’t be), it is cooold.

(Did the doctor say anything about the churning stomach?)

No, I haven’t had a chance to see him yet, but will try to arrange an appointment once we get back from the overnight. Or tomorrow, it depends. It also depends on if it starts churning again tomorrow.

(Is there any juice or squash to take ginger in for queasiness?)

Yeah, we can buy fruit juice packets (1 litre) from the shipshop, and also there is revolting koolaid type stuff in the canteen. I had been taking it just with water, on the voyages.

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 15:38:00 +0000

Tuesday 26th July

I have not been able to find yoghurt, other than occasionally with breakfast, but then that is probably not local, but doulos yog. Sometime I must try to get some local. Many individuals are buying masses of cheap African fruit, but I don’t think that the ship officially can do so quite like that. I don’t know how all these things work, what with regulations and all.

About Sunday’s day in the AOG church….

On the board was listed our group, and the time to meet up and discuss what was happening at 5.30pm on Saturday. I did not manage to get there, though, but when I spoke to the team leader later at supper, he said no-one else had either, so no big deal. We would meet up at 8am on Sunday morning, and then leave at 9.

So at 8am I went to the room we were meeting at, and no-one was there. Eventually, at about half past, the rest turned up, gradually, and we said what we would do, the numbers presentation (a whole bunch of cards with numbers on them, one of them the year the ship was build, one of them the number of visitors so far (18 million!), one with the number of book titles, one with the number of nationalities, etc), one girl would give her testimony, we would do a drama, which one of the others had just written (very simple), and one guy would preach. Cool.

So we all then went and waited for our lift at the gates. At the gates, we found another team who had been waiting since 8am there for theirs. Ours turned up after about 8 minutes, suprisingly, and was an escort, not a lift. Very tall thin smartly dressed suit-and-tie-and-glasses type. He spoke good English, and made witty jokes occasionaly, as we walked though the city.

After a 10 minute walk, we then took a chappa (local bus). A typical 11 seater type mini-van. With 19 in it. The pastor/escort said he wanted us to experience local transport. Cool.

So we bounced along for quite a while, and eventually got to the destination. A big main street of the city. No pavement, no sidewalks, but brown/red Troodos-coloured dirt. And a big road too. About the width and lenght of Larnaka’s main street, I would guess. Then we walked for another 10 minutes, I guess, through various back allys and sidestreets, made up of mud-brick and concrete bungaloes/houses, with corricated iron roofs. Loads of kids playing out in the streets, and quite a lot of people greeted the pastor.

Eventually the house! We went in through a swing door, and into a tiny courtyard/ally, and then from there into a small room, with quite nice furniture, an ancient computer (about 25 years old or so), and a table/kitchen area at the far end. We sat down, and then were introduced to the ‘real’ pastor, who did not speak any English he said (not quite true. He did speak some. And understand more.)

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 08:45:00 +0000

Monday 25th July

About those 3 people who got Malaria, I don’t know how they got it, but as the clinic is still saying, “… so take your tablets!” I guess that means that they forgot, and/or just stopped taking them. Everyone seems to hate them so much, it is not really suprising.

I think mine may be having some side effects, though, too. For the past 2 weeks or more or so I have been having a very churned up stomach feeling, and the last 2 days even more so. I had not thought that it might be the tablets, but thought it was the change of diet on board, or type of bread, or something. But I have tried not eating bread, or the “milk”, or tea, doing the proper “isolate 1 food at a time” type of thing, but to no avail.

I will try to speak to the clinic about it tomorrow, when they are open (they are closed on Sundays and Mondays). Hopefully they will tell me something like “ah, just eat more fruit. Here is a paper to tell the galley to let you have more…”. That would be really nice… I miss having fruit and cheese aplenty. We ran out of cheese about 2 weeks ago, but today had it again. Fruit is also quite low, with a 1 - 2 piece limit per meal. Next time I get to go out to the city I will try and get some more. We don’t have personal fridge space, sadly, although some cabins have fridges (ours doesn’t).

Back to Malaria… AFAIK the victims have not been sent home. My Big Brother, for instance, was not. There is a ‘hospital’ on board, which I have not seen, but is part of the clinic, I think. Anyway, with 1 full time doctor, quite a few nurses, sea air, and so forth, being on Doulos may well be more healthy than sticking someone on an airplane and shipping them home to whatever.

I have not personally seen ANY moquitoes in my entire time on board. As most of my time has been on board, and so in a salt water area, this is not so suprising, but even on days out, and off-days, I have not seen any. Other people have, apparently, but not I. Odd.

It was not so cold today, nice and warm outside in the sun. Again over the side work, but I was not. I was just sitting on the deck, occasionaly taking the paintbrush from the person over the side on a bosun’s chair, and putting fresh paint on it, and giving it back. In the evenings, and pre-dawn mornings though, it is cold. (Sun rises at about 6:30am, and sets at about 6pm). I have not yet managed to get a new hoodie, although maybe I can soon. I hope so.

The whole family atmosphere on board is very cool. Yesterday I was spontaniously declared to be a twin of someone else, because they had always wanted a twin (very-non-identical!).

Sun, 24 Jul 2005 09:19:00 +0000

Saturday 23rd July

The last few weeks, I seem to have spent almost all my working time sanding off some of the wooden handrails and putting new varnish on them. There are so many to do and it takes so long. We have proper equipment though, so it is at least Good Work, it feels satisfying. Nice big solid power-tool electic sanders. Real Tools for Real Men (People), and all that kind of rubbish. Fun.

We have to keep a thin line from each tool to ourselves, in case we drop them overboard, as they are quite expensive. It is a very satisfying experience, because the wood looks so bad before, and wonderful afterwards.

We end up spending a lot of time getting stuff wrong though, due to bad planning. We spent about an hour lowering a gangway out of the way, as no-one on our team is in the gangway squad, and none of us knew how to do it quickly, so we could get at an area of wood to work on, and then had to move it back again because it turned out there would be lifeboat drills in an hour, and the lifeboats had to drop right past where we had put the gangway.

We arrived 2 days ago in this port of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, I think. We arrived at 9am or so, which meant that as my normal deckie work, we were doing unloading of the gangways, vans, and so on. I really enjoy this work, it is probably my favorite work of the whole deck dep.

What we do is attach slings to the gangways, then the crane op swings it into position, and we then attach it, attach “messenger lines” (a rope which goes from the object being craned to the deck, so that it can be controlled, for instance, if there is wind, or if we put on 2 messenger lines, we can rotate the object) swing them out, lower them down to the quayside, and viola, done. I just like it. Getting to mess around with ropes, pulling stuff all over, it’s like real sailing. Almost.

Yesterday I was on the cleaning team, which means getting up for 6am. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then scrubbing and washing down the decks, ready for the hoards of people. Then for an hour before lunch, and then the afternoon I was hanging down off the side of the ship on a bosans chair (with a safety strap, don’t worry, Mum) chipping off rust by where the anchor is.

A Bosun’s Chair is kind of like a wooden swing seat, with the ropes meeting above the swing at less than a metre. You then attach a nice long line from the top of this swing rope to the deck above, with some complicated knot thingy, so that the line is doubled up, and the remainded drops down below you to the sea. You can then lower and raise yourself “easily” by lifting your weight up on one side of this rope, by sheer arm strength, and pulling the other half of the rope though the knot, which allows you to change the length between you and the deck.

Fri, 22 Jul 2005 07:25:00 +0000

A brief text message arrived today:

Arrived safely in Maputo. I’m teaching myself to splice rope.

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 10:00:00 +0000

Monday 18th July

I hope to be going out to the town today, it is my off day, and I want to go visit, perhaps get another hoodie, and if possible, some obscure musical instrument :-). Apparently Durban will be amazing for shopping, and the next port (which I have forgottent the name of) has a cool outdoor market.

Anyway. Enough about shopping. Boring subject.

Most of the previous STEP have left now, only 2 left, one of whom is joining us for the next month and a bit. Seems amazing that time passes so quickly here… 1 guy on the STEP has done half of his time already!

Tomorrow afternoon we will set sail for the next port, sailing time 3 days, inclusive of arrival and departure. It’s still strange to me how many people really dread the sailing, and still get seasick. Many of the longtermers do every time. One would have thought that they would get used to it, and for it to no longer effect people so, but apparently not.

I found, in the book-exhibition, 2 greek new testaments, one in modern greek, the other with 1 page of original greek, the opposing page with the same verses but modern. Very cool, and 25 units each (about 25 cents, I think?). I am still having problems getting used to the currency, something like 35000 meticas to 1 USD… and 50000 meticas to 100 doulos book-ex units… Very confusing.

The port here is very boring. Containers as far as the eye can see, and one must take a shuttle bus to get to the port gate, and then 10 minutes walk from the gate to get to the town centre.

There is music everywhere on board, quite a mixture. From CONSTANT worship CDs in the book-ex, to michael w. smith in the foc’s’cle, occasional dire straits, P.O.D, other various Christian heavy/death metal bands, trance, rap, classical, rock, and so on. Oh, and light piano jazz from fire station 3 at all hours.

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 09:54:00 +0000

Sunday 17th July

[re: emails arriving in the wrong order]

Yeah… Very confusing. My user on the network also has now gone haywire, all the settings lost, loads of error messages, etc. I talked to the I.T. manager today, and he said he thinks many people have had this, and that the server may have a faulty disk. This would not be the same as the email server, and should not effect anything like that, but quite annoying, and a bit worrying that it may lose all my pictures and mail… I hope not.

I have copies [of pictures of the whales] on my personal network space (each has one) which I got from the shared network space. Very cool.

[are there official photographers?]

There is. One. She is on my STEP, has never been a photographer before, did one year media studies which includes digital photography, is rather scared of the whole thing, but loving it totally because she gets to play with a fantastic SLR digital camera. Dad would be extremely jealous… The normal official photographer had to leave 2 months ago, didn’t have a replacment, and so they just picked the STEPper with the most experience :-) Funny.

Anyway, I want to go, play music or something. I even slept for 20 mintues this afternoon… very tired. Long day. On Deck Cleaning team today, which as Sunday is not so bad, normally that means starting at 6am, but Sunday at 7.

This morning, most of the previous STEP group left, so the one guy who is from them, and extending to join our STEP decided to play some practical jokes. He is ALWAYs doing that. He even got “hired” by another department to play some jokes for them on someones birthday.

Anyway, this morning, at 5am, he had borrowed a trumpet from someone, and woke us new STEPPERs up, and then one of us began banging a couple of metal dining room trays together, and he began to play the trumpet loudly, and then shouted “bye! we’ll miss you!” or something like that. Crazy crazy person. 10 people in our cabin last night, tonight only 4… will be so quiet…

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 09:12:00 +0000

(A message arrived this morning, in reply to one I sent earlier in the week. Answers to a few questions are included. If anyone reading this has other questions for Dan, please do write them in the comments section and I’ll pass them on to him via email)

Saturday 16th July

Today was I-Night, or rather, “Doulos International Festival”, because it was held at 3.00pm (African time, so started at 10 to 4…).

I was on the prayer team, so we left at about 11ish, to the Catholic University which was kind enough to let us use their hall. Biggish hall, too echoey and windows along the top of the walls with no curtains… kind of made the projected material a problem.

We did quite a lot of praying, and in the end the day went well, I think. Sadly, not so many people went, about 150 people in the audience, I guess. An ex-Doulos now-pastor from this country preached half way though, for 15 minutes. And he actually did 15 mins, too, which is quite amazing in ANY part of the world.

I can’t get used to the style though. He was right after the “Tales” drama, which is fantastic, all mime, basically the whole story, Father and Son make world, people, angels, an angel turns away, tempts man into sin, Son becomes a man, other men kill Him, and through His death, He defeats the turned angel, and brings back people to him. Very beautiful.

Then this preacher gets up and, basically, shouts for 15 minutes solidly. I’m kind of sceptical, I mean, I know “there is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways, culturally, only different” and all that, and I know my personal culture doesn’t do this kind of thing, but through the whole drama, everyone was riveted, as soon as he began preaching, people started leaving, and carried on leaving through the whole thing. I dunno.

Also, from a beautiful, flowing, poignant mime-drama, suddenly into full bore hell and fire preach (I don’t speak Portuguese though, so I don’t know if it really was). Anyway. I can’t judge, and I guess he knows what he is doing, and God can use anything. Oh well.

We got back about 7 o’clock, it’s now 10 to 8. Quite cold too, for me. Other people complain it is too hot still. Strange people.

[re: stars in the Southern Hemisphere]

On sea watch, boy, it was amazing. No light polution or other polution for 40 miles in ANY direction, on a dark unlit deck… You wouldn’t believe how many stars. I saw the milky way too! fantastic. Different stars, it’s lovely. I got to see whales too on watch!! I have got photos of many things from the “scratch” sharing drive.

[ re: Scottish Dancing - were all the STEP team involved?]

Just me. They have a notice board on the way to the dining room and all groups put a notice up like “All Scottish dancers meet in forward lounge at 8pm” or something. And so I went, they said, “oh cool, another man. we need you to dance with us in 2 days time, ok?”. Funny. Other people are with other groups. Swing dancing, tiniklin, irish, etc.

Tue, 12 Jul 2005 06:00:00 +0000

11th July

In Beira now. Amazing city. Yesterday was my last day of watch, I was so happy! I was expecting to sleep in today, and did. I woke up at 8am. Shocking.

So I got up, had breakfast, and then read for a bit, before some of the other STEPPERs asked if I wanted to go out to the town with them for the day, this being monday, and so the off day for most of the ship, including, thankfully, me.

So we got into the Doulos minivan, and drove out to the port gate. People are not allowed to go to and from the port entrance (about 9 minutes by minibus) by foot, and so ALL visitors to and from the Doulos, and all Douloids (strange word. better than people calling us doul-oy though. Silly ungreek pronunciation…) must be shuttled by the Doulos minivans. Amazing. Very tiring for the drivers though.

We walked about the city a bit, and after waiting about 45 mins for one of us to finish changing some money at the bank, we went to get lunch. We split 3 going to a cafe, and the rest of us to a “resturant”. which turned out to be just a bar which sold food. Not very good. We had to wait almost 2 hours for the food to arrive, and even then it wasn’t very nice. I had spagetti and tomato ketchup. Yum. We then met up with the others, who had spent the same as 2 of us for all three of them, and had had mountains of really nice food. Junk food (hamburgers, etc) but really nice, they said, anyway. And lots thereof.

So anyway. We went then to the cinima, and watch “The Pacifier” with Portuguese sub-titles, rubbish typical Holly-wood junk, but nice cinema, HUGE, but only about 15 people in it. Big stage, round concave screen, and so forth. Very old. Then we walked back, some people wanted to go to the supermarket, and so did, the rest of us got back in time for dinner on board. And now I’m here, reading email.

I want to go now, perhaps see if I can get some clarinet practice in. I played yesterday for the Doulos Sunday service, people keep on saying how much they liked it… they only normally get “usual” stuff: drums, guitar, piano, bass. The pianist is really cool, jazzman, music school trained, and keeps on sticking in weird jazz chords in the middle of songs. A bit disturbing at first, but once you get used to it (normal harmonys don’t work! You have to use jazz ones :-) ) it sounds fantastic. He even wrote out some instrumental clarinet/piano solo intro and break stuff. Funky. We did “The Spirit of the Lord is within my heart” (I will dance as David danced) in a very cool latin jazz / samba type way.

PS - computer time is unlimited, providing that not all the computers are in use, and that no-one is waiting for yours.
PPS - Internet connection at 33k this port.

Fri, 08 Jul 2005 07:22:00 +0000

July 8th

We are at sea currently, as I write this, which means it wont get sent until we have docked, if it even does then, but nevertheless, I am writing this while sailing. I have only 2 more days left on my 4 til 8 watch (yeah!) and then 1 off day before back to normal deck work.

Watch is a lot more fun at sea. We go up to the bridge, and do sea watch from there. There are more people about then, 1 Officer, 1 Cadet, 1 Lookout, and 1 Helmsman. And me as well, in training/learning.

It was quite exciting to me to be able to say for the first time “Daniel at the Helm, steering course one-eight-zero.”! Yes! I have had the privilage of steering the Doulos! Very cool. I imagine it begins to get less fun and more boring after the 100th hour or so of it, but I have only been at the helm for 3 hours now (I think.)

Being on watch is cool too. This morning, we saw whales! For about 2 hours, every 15 minutes or so another whale would be spotted, and we would sail past it, as it splashed, lifted it’s tail, sent up a spout, etc! Extremely amazing. They are HUGE.

My body is begining to get used to this crazy schedule, but nevertheless, I managed to oversleep and miss lunch today. Luckily, the mess always has spare food about, and I could get 6 or so slices of bread and also there are Marmite and Honig about. You know, if I decide to come back to Doulos for 2 years, I will have to learn some German before I join. So many Germans on board, also Dutch, and South Africans.

There is a shared network drive on board for people to share pictures, documents, etc, and so I hope to get copies of the whale pictures from this morning, and hopefully will be able to make a CD of all of the pictures I have from there now in my documents, from all the times we have been places and I have forgotten my camera.

I still am not seasick – Thank you Father – and perhaps that is partly why I am enjoying this life so much.

I have been asked to play with the Sunday service music group, and so must off to practice soon, before my watch, and before it gets too noisy, as we should be arriving in a few hours. I don’t know whether it will be in my watch or not yet, the current has not been so friendly, and we went through both sides of a storm. I had never really experienced a “calm in the middle of a storm” before, but this time, yeah. There was quite a large swell before, then the storm (I was on fireround and so missed most of it, but it was fairly rough, and lots of rain for a while), then it was reaallly calm. For about 2 hours, and then back again to the storm.

Sun, 03 Jul 2005 12:09:00 +0000

3rd July

I asked if he would be working on the deck for the whole time, or whether they changed areas. Dan said:

Same area for the whole two months, unless I apply for a transfer, but I don’t think I will. Kitchen would be cool too, you get such LOVELY smells. We were scrubbing the prom deck two days ago, and the smell from the bakery was what made the whole morning really worth it. :-)

Yesterday was my first e-day (On shore work). Digging a huge 4 meter by 4 meter by 3 meter deep hole for a missionary family here, as a water reservoir. Partly also to teach the locals that you can collect water rather than havign to walk 2km each day for water. Very hard work. I’m so tired. Back ache. Today I am supposed to be juggling and perhaps doing poi in an interval in the quayside program. I can barely bend down though if I drop. Hmm.

I asked if he had been able to play his clarinet every day, as he had hoped

yeah. not every day, but about every other day. there are a few places i can practice, but the music room (isolated from the rest) is only free at 6am each morning…

I have been getting up at 6 though pretty much every day. Next week I am on gangway and fireroundsman from 4 til 8 (both am and pm) for the whole week. That will probably be quite tough.

Anyway. Must go. I want to practice the juggling or whatever and do a bit of stretching.

PS - I am remembering to take the anti-malarials.

Sat, 02 Jul 2005 06:00:00 +0000

1st July

Today I was on cleaning duty. That means to be up on deck at 6am, scrubbing (with brooms, not handbrushes…).

“I haven’t seen a deck this terrible ever” said Glen. Yeah. Nasty. Loads of scrubbing.

Then after breakfast (8.20am) we (the STEPPERs) had our “K-Group”, officially a Bible study or something but because it is organized from within the group, today it was basically just sitting around everyone saying “oh, i am so tired, I don’t even know what I’m doing today. do you? Oh, you don’t either”.

Then us new deckies went for sailor-knot and other training, and then went to put out the paint-raft (8 foot by 12 square floaty metal thing… you put it in the water, attach a long rope the whole way around the outside of ship in the water (took ages) and then sit in it, or float around the ship and scrape off rust, put on new paint, or whatever.) until lunch.

After lunch, we went back to the raft, floated around the ship, and started knocking off rust, and then later they will paint it, and seal it again. Endless task.

Then I had to rush off at 2ish or so, get into a kilt, shirt, sporran, and socks, and scottish dance for the hoards of Mozambiquans who are outside on the quayside. Went well, I think.

There are loads of tiny wee canoes which are in the bay, with guys fishing in them, and they keep coming up and asking for money, shoes, or anything. Very friendly, and don’t really expect to be given anything, which is a good thing, as we are forbidden from giving them stuff, it encourages them to beg, and try and steal stuff from ships, apparently.

A few months ago another ship in port about 500+ meters out or more had an entire mooring line stolen during the night! They are HUGE! I have no idea how anyone could steal one in a canoe, they are about 100+ ft long, and around 2/3 of a foot in diameter. Expensive, too. Funny, the canoeists seem to speak a little english, but NONE of the volunteers in this port speak any! They have to have translators, which is making it ather difficult for them, working on deck, in the book-ex, and so on.

Tomorrow is my “e-day”, going out into the city to work, I don’t know what we will be doing. One of the teams today was building a fence for some people. The line-up team here had to buy their house, and build it themselves out of bamboo rods! Very… simple.

The currency here is 50000 to 100 Doulos units, which is about 1 dollar, or so.

Thu, 30 Jun 2005 08:12:00 +0000

We reached Nacala yesterday. Rather small indeed.I have not been ashore really, except the quayside, as a deckie.

Yesterday I helped first with sorting out the garbage, paper/plastics/other,as we were at sea >40 miles out, and so could throw paper&glass overboard. I now slightly more appreciate what dad was saying about the egyptian churchin garbage city…

Then I helped in the afternoon once we had docked with unloading stuff with thecrane. Fun. The gangways and the blue watchmans box, and all.

My deckie shoesare soo big! Great big size 47 steel-tipped things. I need some more thick socks. Ohwell. Perhaps Charlie has some.

I am the only STEPPER to not have been seasick… Pretty much the onlyone to have ever sailed at all, actually.

I really enjoy it on board, and think I will enjoy being a deckie the most too. It isthe closest to being a sailor :-) Getting to mess around with ropes and shacklesand scrubbing decks and all. And being outside during voyages is the best. Apparentlywe also get official looking raincoats as well if it is wet.

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 06:00:00 +0000

After letting us know he had arrived, Dan sent another text saying it had taken two hours to get his visa at Dar es Salaam airport, and another saying that the lock was broken on his cabin door so someone had to kick it down! We texted back but had no more response, then a week after he left we received a lengthy email which was written on the Monday after he arrived.

I finally got my computer username to work. Crazy auto-password. I am really enjoying my time on board so far. (Note, if I miss out any spaces in this email, it is because of the weird keyboard. Made in Malasia in ‘94…) Today we at last found out where we will be working. I am going to be on Deck! Great, this is what I wanted. I will ask the chief Deckie tomorrow if the hours would count towards a competant crewman… I hope so.

The first flight out was fine from LCA, no problems. Dubai was beautiful, very Modern Arab style. The hotel was very close by, the airport hotel and reached by minibus from the airport terminal. Very cool hotel. HUGE room. Met Dad’s friend in the airport about 4.30 ish. Cool. I had not slept, but read a bit, and done karate & stretching for the 3 hours or so that I was in my room.

Flight from Dubai was long… at least it felt it. The airplanes (both to and from Dubai) were nice modern Airbus, with (oh so posh) per-seat TV screens that worked! Well… mine was buggy, but they all kind of worked. You know, I’m glad that I read that “plug in drug” book*. It’s true! People don’t sleep any more on flights. They drift into a TV trance. And sit, heads 20 cm away from the screen for hours, watching junk. I didn’t watch more than about 5 minutes, before getting bored, and turning on the classical radio channel. Cool.

Arrived in Dar, looked through “forward camera” view on TV, rough runway, no lines and painting. Inside the “terminal”, it was chaos. You had to get these blue forms, fill them out, and then take them to the VISA desk. About 2 score people trying to get VISAs, and one guy sorting them out, and 4 desk dudes doing the actual work. It was a “African” queue, in other words, big squash.

1 and ahalf hours later, my passport and blue form and $50 was on the desk, and a lady said from behind me “are you joining the Doulos?” it was an ex-LogosII person, bookshop manager, come tojoin the doulos. 30 mins later I got my passport back, and visa, and went though passport control in about 10 seconds. didn’t even need to show the International Vaccination Certificate! oh well.

Met a whole bunch of Douloids outside, got in minibus and drove to Ship. I didn’t need 5 pairs of shoes!!** Mad! Most people only have 1. OR sandels. hah. haa. haa. Oh well. Apparently local people keep asking for one’s shoes. Hm.

Sat, 25 Jun 2005 15:24:00 +0000

A brief text has let us know that Daniel has arrived safely and is in Tanzania. Alleluia!

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 08:28:00 +0000

This is my last post before I fly. I have mostly packed, had all my vaccinations, done my last performance, started the anti-malarials, drunk a lot of water, cleaned my desk, and have only 9720 more things to do before check-in, which is in about 4 or 5 hours time. I will try to post when I arrive. I also have added my mum and bro to the people on this blog, so they can relay for me. About a week ago, I bought a mobile. I hate the things. Stupid bleeping all the time, interrupting, never letting you be alone. I have held out this long against the insidious abominations, but alas, one more has fallen to their fel grip. I still keep it off whenever I can though. Basically, the aim is to allow me to communicate with people here, parents and whatnot.

Yesterday, after the last school performace, we (the theatre) went out to starbucks for cheesecake. My first time there ever. Strange place. Nice cake though. And the rest of the company had bought me a book, and a card. Funny Korina. She wrote “Dear Vromopaido, come back soon because I wont have anyone to fight with.” Charming.

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 16:08:00 +0000

Had them two vaccines. Very tired, long day, with two performances this morning. Tomorrow, the last real performance! Yeah!

Didn’t fall over after the vaccine. Tonight I am going to my final karate class before next August, or September. I wonder if I will be able to train, and find others while in Africa, and on ship? That would be a pretty cool actually. Go join a karate group in whatever port, and invite everyone to the ship. Hmm…

Found a small scrap of paper in my room today which I had written on about 6 months ago:

“Fruit trees grow well with manure as fertilizer. Do the Fruits of the Spirit also get fertilized by manure?”

Anyway. Am I being heretical again?

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:14:00 +0000

Here begineth mine tale, friends all,
Aren ye sitting wel comfortablye?
Goode. Then I shal beguine.

“When they begin the Beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender
It brings back a night o…”

OK. I’ll stop now. I couldn’t think of a good way to start this thing, and that seemed like a quite unusual, and quite typical me way of doing it. I was thinking of writing the whole blog in middle english, but after the third line thought “No way”.

Anyway. About 1 and a half years ago, the ship MV Doulos came to Larnaka (where I live) for 10 days or so. I had the privilage of working on board for the time they were here with a friend from Lemesos.

At the time I loved the ship, and the community and wanted to join them properly, but at age 17, I felt I was too young to really do that, and wanted to do a year working at the local theatre group in which I had been envolved. A year later (last December, now), and they came back again for 1 day only, to pick up some new people, and I got to visit again, and meet up with the people in charge of short termers, and meet a whole load of guys who had just finished their STEP (Short Term Exposure Programme) and talk to them.

I sent in the “interested” form from their website,

and waited.

2/3 weeks later, not even an auto-responce. So I sent in another, with an email.

And waited.

Eventually a responce! Yeah! Then they (the UK office) sent me the full application form, which I duly filled out, and sent back, a few more questions went back and forth (it was March by this time) and eventually they said “Well, the time you applied for initially on board (June/August) is full… Is your second choice (August/October) OK for you…” I said “OK”, slightly disheartened. Then they said they needed to wait to ask the ship if there was space on board.

So I waited.

1 month later, I sent an email asking if anything was happening. “Still waiting for the ship to respond” they said.

So I waited.

1 and a half months later, I was getting a bit concerned. My family were wanting to plan for what to do for the rest of the year. We needed to visit the UK to sell our house, and do the usual chuch visits and all that, and we still didn’t know what was happening about the Doulos!

So I had a talk with God about it, and asked “Lord, if you want me to go, please can I have a response, one way or the other, this week…” It would be awfully nice to know…

Next day, an email arrived “Hi Daniel, I have just heard that a vaccancy has become available on the Doulos for the STEP in June. I know that this is short notice but I was wondering if you would be interested??”

Art

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a few things I’ve made with https://www.blender.org/ and other art packages!

Without proper raytracing (2001), reflections are hard!

One of the things I really like about “regular” / real painting is how you can often suggest a mood, or a texture, or feeling without having to put in too much detail. You can be abstract and “sketchy”. This was my first attempt at trying to achieve a kind of non-rendered / non-computery kind of feeling. Going for soft curves rather than jaggies or boxes.

Made in blender & gimp

inspired by the monkey island games vibe

Made in blender. Again, very basic / blocky. I’d just seen bladerunner for the first time, I think, and was interested to see how easy / hard it was to make more atmospheric cities in blender. Looks pretty naff now, though…

Worms

Made in blender. This was before “Worms3D” was even in Beta. They’d done the cool animations at the beginning of Worms2, and I really liked them.

Barmy the dinosaur

And then my first “real” blender creation, “Barmy”, who I’ve put into a bunch of christmas cards and other unlikely situations:

for a friend’s birthday card.

Made in blender, a friend for “Barmy”.

Start

Tue, 01 Jan 2002 01:01:01 +0000

Yay! Finally moved over to madprof.net, which is much better anyway. I’ve just finished doing some web design (for which I got paid!) and so thought I would do the paying bits on geocities and uk2net to have the ghastly adverts removed. It turned out to be cheaper to get an intirely new domain (silly, isn’t it?) and to “borrow” some server space from my dad. I’ve also converted the whole site into a “Makefile” based system, to make it easier to update. I developed the system while working on the hotel websites, and found that I had to make frequent changes to the headers and footers of pages, or when sketching the site up, I didn’t want to bother with the full HTML which I would put in later. It works well. Perhaps once I’ve made it better I can upload it here.

Oh, and a few new images in art, a load of cool links to the hotels in web design, and quite a few small fixes and such about the place.