WE HOPE YOU HAVE A PLEASANT STAY HERE ON EARTH, OR WHEREVER YOUR FINAL DESTINATION MAY BE.

WE HOPE YOU HAVE A PLEASANT STAY HERE ON EARTH, OR WHEREVER YOUR FINAL DESTINATION MAY BE.

Don’t focus on the negative things, only by focusing on the positive will your life grow in a positive way.

Your life suddenly seems to be falling apart, just when it seems to be getting good. You’ve been working hard, getting lots accomplished, and suddenly a million things come piling up your way. Car troubles leave your already thin budged suddenly strapped for any cash. Your job seems to get more difficult, and you have no time for the big test coming up that you must pass in order to get your degree or that big promotion you were planning on. Just when you thought things were going to get much better, they get even worse. A big WHY??? Is probably going through your boggled head, trying to wrap your mind around the situation. It is difficult to prioritize, manage your time, or even get anything done at all. Drama in your personal life is usually creeping out around these times as well. Again, you ask yourself WHY????

Just remember that when the devil sees you accomplishing something, getting somewhere in life, he seizes the opportunity to kick you when you’re down, to suckerpunch you when your hands are not free to defend yourself! You must soldier on, steel yourself for the grand finale, and push through across the finish line giving 150%. Because now, so close to the end, is the most vulnerable you will be. Ever notice how many people like to talk about “what they could have done?” what they started but never finished? The world is filled with unfinished projects and empty promises. The devil loves to take advantage of laziness. The best thing you can do is be strong, and trust in God to help push you over the top, reaching stability, control, and if you allow it, happiness. J

Don’t disregard those who have learned the hard way. It’s one thing if you fail to heed the advice of those who have seen that and been there. It’s another thing entirely if you are obtaining your own knowledge. Because nothing worth knowing is ever learned the easy way.

Traveling

SO



 I'm going to document my travels and experiences on here from now on.
My most recent experience was to New Orleans, so i will start with that.

So I had to go to New Orleans to pick up a job for the summer. I really only needed to be there for a few hours on friday afternoon. I bought the tickets about 2 weeks in advance, when Ginny from the marine office at Columbia University called and told me the date they were going to call the job out of the New Orleans hall, and assuming i got the job, would reimburse me for the flight.
So when Thursday comes around, i woke up in the morning, around 8 AM. Stretching, i glance out the window at a gorgeously clear day ahead. Possibly a very warm spring day. My bedroom has 6 tall windows from the floor to about 1' below the ceiling. I get a decent view, with the Oakland coliseum, airport, and the south-west bay area on clear days. I glance at my phone to check the time, and i see i have a message. Of course, who else could it be but my ex-girlfriend? sent at 6 AM, she says that she happens to be in oakland... obviously she wants to hang out. I haven't seen her for about 5 months. We tried to be friends but i didn't think that even that would work. Her family hates me, and she can't be seen with me to avoid persecution...
So anyway, i ask if she wants to have some coffee or something and so i proceed to the shower. She says she is staying at a hotel by the airport. i didn't bother asking what she is doing up here, better conversation in person. So eventually i figure out where she is and drive down to pick her up. we say the usual hellos and awkward shoulder hugs with the butt sticking out, and i start driving towards the nearest Starbucks... she asks if i know anywhere where i can get bloody marys... i honestly had no idea. there were a couple places i knew of but wasn't sure they would even be open yet. but i love bloody marys, and had all the fixin's at my place. so i suggest we go there, and off we go. We both had 2 bloody marys in a hour or 2, had a pretty good time listening to music and talking about everything we've been up to and plans for the close future. I told her about my flight to New Orleans, and she happened to be flying up to Alaska the following day for a summer job... hence the reason for staying the night in Oakland. I tell her about this cool bar called the Trappist with some good lunch food downtown, and we head off there. we have a couple beers apiece, and shared a pastrami sandwich. At this point, its 12:30, and i have a 2:30 flight out of San Francisco... its not going to happen. She starts coming up with ideas, and eventually she tells me i should just change my flight. so i do, after getting my paperwork out of the car, have a couple more beers, and i end up taking her back to my place since we have time. We are both pretty buzzed at this point. Her boobs are poking out of her shirt,  she's being really flirty and silly. I play a few songs on the guitar for her, and she finds the leather strap really interesting. she tries it on as a belt. It doesn't quite work, i try to help her with it, and after tightening it around her waist, i grab the loose end and pull her towards me...
in the end, she ends up making a huge mess on my bed, having four or five orgasms,  being a squirter and all. It was pretty fun. She hadn't had sex like that since we broke up over a year ago. pretty funny. So i end up having to take her back because her brother was going to meet her and can't figure out where she was. bad. I did not feel like running into her psychotic older brother who thinks i'm a loser.

Anyway, i fly out from oakland around 8:30 PM, and since i got a last-minute flight, head first to seattle, then to Chicago, and i finally make it to New Orleans at 10:30 AM on Friday morning. I'm up at the top level since i didn't have any baggage besides the old backpack i had as carry-on. I find a taxi that just dropped off a elderly couple,  and take a ride to my hotel. He told me about the jazz fest, which i didn't even know was going on. It made sense, because it was very difficult to get a hotel. once i get there, i find the reason the hotel had some empty rooms left... pretty shitty. but it was only 2 blocks from Canal street, and only about 5 blocks from the union hall. so i take a shower, i still smell like pussy. I headed over to the union hall, got the job, and chatted it up with the dispatcher, who is originally from San Francisco. I had to walk about 3 blocks down to the medical center, where i had to complete a pre-employment physical. the place was all locked up, and i was banging on the windows for about 15 minutes when 2 office clerks/nurses finally came walking out from the back... the doctor buzzes me in. I was very suspicious about what they were doing back there.... The doctor was an indian guy who didn't say much. honestly, i doubt they ever do much either, since hardly anyone gets any jobs down there. they are closing that place down at the end of the month since it is under-utilized... 
The doctor was very thorough for a pre-emplyoment physical.... didn't even check my hearing though... he was more interested in grabbing my balls and sticking his thumb up my butt.... fucking awful! i can't believe that guy. Thats more than they do for my annual physical, since i'm under 30 they dont do that other stuff...
Anyway, once i got the doc's signature, went back to the hall to finalize the paperwork, and the dispatcher decided to treat me to lunch, which was pretty cool. He liked hearing about the research ship adventures, i guess.  that night was cool, very packed in the streets. I had some oysters and crawfish, checked out a pretty cool brewery, picked up another coaster. i forgot to get a beer mug, though. oh well. I like collecting them, thats all. i hada  good night, left early in the morning and had a nice non-stop flight back to san francisco. i took the BART back to oakland, and decided to just walk the 6 miles home up to the hills. wasn't too bad, actually. took me 1.5 hours.

well that was my New Orleans adventure.

Been a while;

Update:
I've been working a lot, was on the SS Kauai for amonth back in november, then got on the M/V Green Bay from early January until the end of March. That job kept me busy. the kauai just went from Oakland, to Honolulu, to Seattle, and back to Oakland. not too interesting, although i was on a 30 year old ship, and we were plugging blown superheater tubes in the starboard boiler every time we got into port. our main cargo was containers, but we also carry molasses. On the green Bay, we went from Honolulu to 3 cities in Japan, we stopped in the middle of the ocean to nearly kill me, the 3rd mate, deck cadet, and 2 A/Bs in a lifeboat... we continued on to 2 cities in Mexico, (dont expect me to remember their names, i never even got off there. I didnt want to anyway, what a shithole. We continued through the Panama Canal, stopped for a few hours in San Juan Puerto Rico, where the chief steward decided to just pack his bags and leave... and when we finally hit Jacksonville, we actually got some food on board so we didn't starve or get sick from the weevils... the cook was fired, and we got a new steward who wasn't any better than the last one.
"her" name was Vernon Thibeudeax. You know, you'd think with a cajun name like that, they'd be a pretty good cook, right? Wrong. I had sailed with her on the Matsonia a couple years ago, she was always in the captain's office, she refused to wear gloves while cooking or serving us food. the food she makes is always bland and plain. you have to douse the shit in salt and hot sauce to make it close to palatable. Have you ever seen Dane Cook's show with the office worker who's body is just... "shapes?" the one who keeps shifting like some amoeba, this weird lumpy body, all shapes, hard to tell if its a man or a woman. i told the oiler Ricky one day that "yeah i sailed with that steward before. she's no better than the guy who left" and his jaw dropped to the floor. as he was picking it up, i said "yeah, she's awful. always in the captain's office for one thing or another, always bothering the engineers because a hinge in her room is loose, or a light bulb burned out, or whatever" and he said, "SHE???!!" what do you mean she?? and i said oh yeah, the captain had to ask what sex she was. and she replaied "oh, no, sir, i'm a woman, i'm a woman" hilarious.

So from jacksonville, we headed to baltimore, newark, Rhode Island, Boston, back south to Savannah, jacksonville, and finally Houston, where i couldn't stand it anymore and quit. they were going to head over to 10 nasty ports in the middle east, and i wasn't going to have any of that. Especially with Richard Phillips as captain. drills drills drills. and then he'd probably let some pirates aboard because they claimed to be starving refugees, and  even give them the keys to the ship, and set off in the lifeboat again....
That was a car carrier, aka "ro-ro" (roll on, roll off) and we carried all jsubarus, mazdas, and suzukis from japan. on the east coast, we loaded up brand new caterpillars, plus lots of used ford explorers and lexuses.... made me proud to see a couple things that the US makes better than anyone else. those black people sure do love ford explorers and 2-door lexus cars with 30" rims.... My ex-girlfriend was t-boned by some nigger with a ford explorer sittin on 22's... totaled her 71' BMW, when the prick decided to do a left turn on a red light while she was cruising through the intersection at 35 MPH... and of course, they didn't have insurance because he had spent the rest of his money on his chrome rims because respect in the hood of LBC is more important.... what a waste.

So i just got back from New Orleans. It was my first time actually going into the city. I spent a summer in southern Louisiana working back in 08', but never got a chance to go to the city... i went there to ensure i got a job on the research ship, because i had to show them my paperwork. i had a pretty nice time though. the company reimbursed me for the flights and the room. I wasn't impressed with Bourbon Street, though. I liked Decatur street better. nicer place, felt more authentic. I hate going to places where its just amob of people walking around looking at all the other people and acting stupid because they were told that everyone has a good time there..... its like that all over the place and i'm sick of it. especially San Francisco. i hate how people don't understand when i tell them that the city is ok, i prefer oakland though. they stop talking to me after that. not that people really talk to me anyway. i went on a date with this girl i met recently at the cold war kids concert. we shared no more than 10 sentences of conversation the whole night. but she's the one who asked for my number in the first place, and set up the date and a cool bar/club. i kept asking her questions and  she would just start talking to someone else randomly at the bar. we went outside for a smoke and she became best buddies with a group of 4 dudes standing outside bumming cigarettes off me talking about everything under the sun. she asked me a few questions, but as i started to answer them, she would turn around and talk to someone else. But later she gave me shit for "having a vibe that says don't talk to me" and being weird, like how they show a serial killer in the movies. I laughed, i though that was soo typical of a girl like her to say. She stopped walking, and with this expression of fear on her face, she said "don't laugh like that. seriously. who are you?" and i just kept laughing... hahahaha. When she and her friends finally found a new place that was cool enough for them to be seen in, they proceeded to bum cigarettes and drinks off random people in the bar. There was a giant projector screen where a bunch of asians were having a street fighter video game championship. I had a beer, sat down at the bar, talked to the bartender, got bored and went home. Later this girl actually texted me asking if i made it home ok. i considered not responding, but i said "yup"... if i ever hear from her again it will be too soon....

Sweet

All right, i've got this blog thing now. I just woke up, still in bed, gotta go work out, take a shower, and head to the union hall to try and muscle my way for 8 hours of work. Always fun. I ride my bike the 14 miles just to give myself something else to do. If I drove, I would end up with too much time in the day. I'd rather not sit at home and do nothing, I would either drink or be tempted to start watching porn again. Till next time.