Monday, the ninth of July, the year of our lord 2007…

Monday, the ninth of July, the year of our lord 2007…

Last night was a good time. I was able Watch the first run of our Sunday “Vegas style” show from the sound booth, and the second from the automation perch. It is your typical razzle dazzle glitz and glamour song and dance revue named “Living in America”. Plenty of patriotism, Neil Diamond, and good ol’ American cheese. The department does a very good job with cue sheets and of making sure you have a good working knowledge of the show before you start running it. I am very confident I won’t be killing any of our pretty young (and in most cases, foreign) dancers by dropping loads of metal and scenery onto their heads. The automation system seems very straight forward and I think by the end of the week I’ll be rockin’ it out. The late night comedian was simply awful, and we had to wait until 12:30 for him to finish his act. Went for and Had 2 beers (remember all good things come in two’s) with the company trombone player (Matty, Philly ) and the guy I am replacing (Norm, Detroit). After some crafty detective work I found out Norm is a fellow IATSE brother. It is always great to work with somebody with a card, so we raised a glass to the International, and that was that. I Had 1:30am chicken fingers in the crew mess and kicked myself for not bringing my anchor bar sauce. All in all it was a great day and it helped to quiet my very noisy mind.

Today: Started the day with a 7am shakedown. Two Indian (dot not feather) Security officers came in, made me draw the curtain around my bunk, and searched the room for contra-ban. It felt very much like an “MSNBC investigates: Inside Folsom Prison” moment. From what I understand, these are pretty rare, but there is a federal safety auditor aboard, so my floor got chosen. Roll of the dice, spin of the wheel, what can you do? Anyway, went back to bed for a couple more hours and got over it really quickly. When I woke up, I grabbed a cup of coffee and had a few smokes on the crew deck. I guess I should mention today is a “sea day” so no port of call, just deep blue water as far as the eye can see.

All new hires had Orientation/Training at 11 this morning . There were 8 of us, all wide eyed and still reeling from the last 48 hours. We finaly got the proper tour of the boat everybody kept promising, and I have to say she really is quite impressive. Everything is in top order, and polished to beyond gleaming. We also had to watch loads of training videos which were easily circa 1988, still on VHS if that tells you anything. They were absolutely awful, par for the course when dealing with corporate training. So that leaves me here, lying in my bunk, listening to music and quickly posting this. I have to load in the fly on “Motown” act in an hour, so I reckon I should quit jawing on and go have some chow.

As always, kind regards,

Seabag Manbag

P.S. Take a Gander at the pics, most of them are from crew deck looking at ocean. If you can make out any land, you are looking at the Bahamas. The pics of the ship are from Port Canaveral. Enjoy, and keep those comments coming! Sorry they are so crappy and small, the internet onboard is almost as slow as dialup so I am trying to save time. I’ll try and post prettier ones in port.