Well came on shift and as seems to be the case with me and my luck did a whole shift of work!

Actually not that bad as this shift has gone pretty fast so far, launched the plough, did a bit of ploughing and will be recovering it shortly.

^I should add a lot more to it than that but hell I’m not going to bore you with that information, I mean this is boring enough already!

Anyway I won that auction for the Graphic Cards too, even better won them for only 160 quid, damn cool that, so bidnip worked for me

Managed to grab the phone before going on shift and chat to Angel too

Just to balance it out a bit, think I have managed to catch a cold (bugga).. Still I’ll get over it before home, lol.

What else?.. Hmm Dunno, sure to think of something tomorrow.. Oh and Happy New Year for everyone that I will miss tonight.

So again tonight find we are standing by in pretty much the same place as yesterday.. Hmm.. Oh well at least got to read some more if nothing else

Only managing 4 hours sleep at the moment, which is strange.. Hmm..

Anyway I am going to try and make the next week of posts positive and slightly amusing, if for no other reason than they will make me chuckle

So what can I say today?

How about the fact that the Alienware M17x R1 that I have is pretty damn neat and can have 2 graphic cards installed in it and yet still has a onboard one to boot!

Not only that but you can fit two ATI 4870m cards or Nvidia GTX 260m or Nvidia GTX 280m in Sli.. Although you might need a power supply that’s a tad bigger

What else? Well it seems you can also change the CPU for a more powerful one that is unlocked if you like, I have a Q9000 in mine and I can change that for a Q9200 or Q9300 Engineering sample cheaply enough and get another boost in performance.

Last but not least you can add two Hdd’s to it, although you need a caddy for the second drive.

I expect I could also change out the slot DVD drive for a Blueray drive if I owned any Blueray films

Yesterday I subscribed to Analog the magazine, got it on Kindle too, very impressed with the short stories that were in it that’s for sure.

Oh an something to make you laugh..

For breakfast, which is my midday meal, I decided to have a sausage sandwich. Made from an uncut bread loaf no less… Anyway put me sausage in the sandwich smothered it tomato ketchup and munched into it.. Only to find?

It’s a sweet bread.. DOH!

So at last I can start to count down to the day I get off and head home, but first I must * integrate* with another load of people who are of differing backgrounds. As such I have already noted two people I’m not convinced about.. Still time will see, love the way people just assume they know the answer to things without even looking and expect you to sort it by waving your hands or just speaking (I guess this is because they talk their way out of problems rather than fixing them). Anyway I have a job to do which I assume will take a couple of hours this lovely moony (I work nights so it’s never sunny) night.

We were supposed to be doing something but something broke, not our fault I might add, now we have not a lot to do.. Oh well.

Been watching a few eBay auctions and although I hate eBay with a passion for certain things its sometimes useful to keep an eye on it anyway I found a rather useful site -

You get a few snipes, as they are called, for free so might be worth signing up for an account if you ever want to snipe (bid at the last second) on an auction. I like it because you can set a limit and forget about it until won or lost. Much better than just bidding one more time towards the end of the auction when you can get “carried away” and bid far too much on items.

Anyway I guess I should go show my face on deck and look at least slightly interested in what’s happening, even though I’m not.

Hope everyone is having a good time at home?

So here I am in port again for a crew change and some fuel too boot, sadly I’m not on the crew change and have another two weeks of sheer hell on here to put up worth but hey at least I may get out and about today for some time.. Then again I have a feeling I may just go to bed and cross off another day until I go home and enjoy my Christmas, I’m starting to look like one of the guys that I hated before.. The money chasers and no matter what I say I know it looks like that is all I’m interested in to the guys on here and who can blame them after all they have probably suffered the same fate from the guys on the other vessels at times before and had to put up with no work for months on end while they have the majority of the work (and money).

However it seems that they have been through a lot of people and I have most of them looking to me to stay, probably because I will bring some stability to the vessel, who knows? Me I just want to go home and put this trip behind me and I have another 2 weeks yet! DOH!

Anyway one good thing about being alongside and that is that I can download some more books for my Kindle.. Shocking that I have managed to read another 3 books in less than a week.. Starting to think I should have brought something else with me to take up the time when I’m sitting around getting bored… More to the point I would like to actually achieve something rather than sitting here moaning about it all the time or just stewing. I have thought about trying to learn a new skill.. But seriously what do I want to learn? Might be an idea to bring some electronic project next time for something to do?.. Hmm Maybe but I have a feeling I will be bringing my Guitar and the ones on here are all broken so a month without the neck of a guitar is becoming a bit depressing to say the least, oh well.

Anyway I suppose I should pack some of my gear up and head out to the plough shack and call Angel and have a bit of a waffle, at least better than moaning about in here.

Wonder if I can start counting the days down now

So what can I say about today? Not much really came on shift and waited for some work to start then the weather started to increase and now looking out the window it looks unlikely we will be doing any work today or tomorrow, I guess we may go to anchor shortly.

Still reading a lot on here and Dray Prescot is some serious pulp fantasy that is available on Kindle.. So far I have read 21 novels and on book 22 right now.. Not bad considering I didn’t start reading these novels until March this year! Things that make life bearable offshore -

MP3 player
Laptop
eReader (AKA Kindle)
Munchies

Things I miss -

Everything! Mostly Angel and the Hounds though Not long now though as just about half way through my trip, I have however just found out that the next bunch of guys may be even worse than this lot! I really hope I do not have to return to this vessel.

Managed to get my Alienware to boot Linux, just had to turn off the integrated video card (seems Linux can not deal with hybrid setups ).

Gave Angel a ring on the phone today (after trying for an hour to get through) and had a good chat, hope I get the next shift off as I could do with a good sleep and I don’t seem to be getting one during the day Oh well.. Best get back to it I guess before someone starts to mutter and moan about nothing happening (even though down for weather).

Well Yesterday was err.. ok.. I missed the evening meal because it looked pretty dire.. Had a Full English and then missed the dinner as it was a Christmas one and frankly I just was not interested in sharing my Christmas on here. A lot of people were saying things and being bitchy, even making the only female crew member cry, basically because most were not able to spend time at home with the family getting drunk they decided it would be ok to be rude to everyone else. My answer? I just started reading my book and ignored everyone else, worked too as no one even tried to speak to me, in a room full of guys (30 ish) I was in a world all of my own and left alone.

I am beginning to feel I was better off not coming here and burning my bridges I can see an accident occurring on here shortly, I also feel I am not really wanted on here and just being tolerated because there is no one else available. Luckily for me I actually said that I would rather not come here when I was asked.. Although I was not stupid enough to put that in writing.. Time to look for something else for sure, I know I moan on and on about this from time to time (every other day) but I am starting to fear the worst and wonder how long I can put up with it. I’m not even two weeks into my month offshore and already I’m starting to wish I was dead.. Seriously.. Things are that bad.

Oh well only a couple more days of most of these idiots.. then I have another bunch of useless ones..

So a merry Christmas to all I guess. Mine is on hold until the 12th, back home on the 11th but think will wait till the day after before I celebrate as will be so tired.

Well came on shift to find the vessel leaving the quay and heading out into the field so I guess I will be earning my pay again working Christmas day, ho ho ho..

In fairness I managed to get some sleep, been unable to get any of late and struggling to work out why.. I sleep for 5 hours and then just lay there.. Trouble is I just can’t sleep.. Anyway managed an hour during the night after checking out the food on offer (crap).. Had my midday meal (which as normal is either bugger all or Full English) and now sitting in the Plough Shack out of the way of everyone. Before making a call to Angel on the Sat Phone (If I can get a line out), the weather is still just outside of limits so a I doubt we will be doing anything for the rest of the shift, but we may well be going for another cable when I come on shift tonight.

The day shift spent a great deal of time explaining how great the Christmas dinner was at 6pm.. Yes.. Thanks..

Seems there is a meal at 12pm until 2pm.. Needless to say I’m going straight to my bed sod the food I’m not celebrating until I’m home, besides I hate having so many people talking at once does my head in.. And all about work and sod all else.. Sad gits.

Watched Trading Places, Ghost and Elf on the TV and now they have a comedy DVD on.. So time to chill out in here doing blog updates and generally trying to stay sane (a bit late for that I think).

Anyway I hope everyone has a great Christmas.. I’m thinking of you all (ya lucky *&&##ds!!) lol

So sitting here at Harwich doing bugger all… Came along side because the weather is bad and here we sit not able to go out (everything is closed as I’m on nights anyway).

With any luck may be able to bugger off out tomorrow morning sometime and buy a new razor and pick up some more sweets and some fizzy drink, although not sure we will be allowed.

The other shift had a pretty hard day too as they struggled to get some stuff done on deck and only finished just as we came on shift leaving a little bit of cleaning up to do. I was also not too happy to note that a couple of the guys went out and had a drink for a couple if hours. Made them go and clean up the deck and some other stuff before letting them go to sleep, pretty annoyed they did it truth be told but they’re young lads and probably don’t give a damn at all, I guess I was the same when I was younger too.. No I know I was like that.. *sigh* Now I’m too old and ugly to consider anything like that.

Well trying to stay awake at nights is becoming a night mare right now, nothing to do and only so much I can read before I go cross eyed.

I have been told by a few people that contracts have been arriving so might get mine tomorrow, will have to find out from Angel tomorrow night, but if not I know where I stand. So if by the end of this trip I still do not have a contract I will be certain of where I stand with the company, also gives me a chance to work my 180 days off before I get to December next year meaning I get to stay at home Xmas and New Year.

Not very happy with Jasper as he managed to let Angel and one of my main (pretty much only) client down again.. I guess I will have to close the support side down and just concentrate on web based stuff from now on.

Really missing being with the other guys I have worked with before, know where I stand and feel more comfortable with the way operations are run (safety over BS, and honesty over lies) but you can only make your moves with the numbers on the dice.. And I haven’t thrown them so have no chance right now.. Feb, March next year however and it will be a different ball game.

So get up to find we are heading to anchor, seems that we are now expecting some bad weather (WOW means Waiting On Weather) at first it didn’t seem that bad but as we got to anchor the weather has started to steadily increase right now we have 3 meter seas and that’s sheltered at anchor.. Looks likely we are going to get 6 meter seas in the next 48 hours so Xmas Eve is going to be bumpy. There is talk of us going into dock for a day but I doubt it will last until Xmas Eve or the day.. So expect we will be bouncing around like an apple in a bowl..

Sorted out a couple of laptops during the night and watched a film, read a book and have been thinking that I have another 3 weeks of hell on here I feel this trip is going to last forever

Hope everyone else has a good Christmas and New Year.. I have been told the food on here is great at Xmas and New Year.. But no comparison to being at home.

On the plus side if we go in I will get a phone signal

Got up to go on shift and was surprised to find we are going for it, the weather forecast last night was terrible yet here we are about to throw the plough over the back, in fairness the weather doesn’t seem to have become as bad, although it looks likely to increase this afternoon.. Oh well on the bright side get to do something for a change as been pretty boring of late, sadly I didn’t get enough sleep last night either so pretty tired.. Needs must and all that old chap.. what ho..

Interesting to note how they do things on here in relation to the other vessels I have been on, seems less control given over here and a lot more done for you, but everyone seems to check everyone else, which is nice and takes a bit of the strain off us all.

Not a lot else to add really, not been able to phone Angel tonight and most likely not be able to tomorrow either as be on shift working in the morning, might get a chance after shift but expect the phone lines to be engaged.. So just email today then.

Right guess I should bugger off and get ready to launch the plough then