SIA...

Sorry I have been sick in action. Well I should say no action. I have been sick for over a week. If I wasn't working, I was sleeping. I'm not sure of what I had. It was mostly my sinuses but it knocked me for aloof. I know one of the girls on the boat didn't enjoy me being sick either. One night we had the AC off all day and it had just started to come back on when we went to bed. Well I got into a coughing fit. I could not stop coughing for the life of me. The whole time I am apologizing to her for being so loud and keeping her up. Her response was that it was fine, but asked what the smell was in the room. Haha. I said "I may have been farting this whole time. I'm coughing so hard that it just kinda slips out the back as well". That was the only thing that bothered her. Haha I thought she was going to stab me in the middle of the night. I sprayed some airfreshner , took some cough medicine, and propped myself up and eventually fell asleep.

So not much else exciting has happened in my absence. I finished getting my sign offs for inport OOD. Not bad for not even breaking in right now. Hopefully I can get a board at some point and start standing it once we get back to Miami. The only other quals I can work on now is underway OOD and Boarding Officer. Both of which we need to be underway for. Soon.....

My kinda crazy...

I had a blast last night! I scored tickets to go see Toby Keith in West Palm Beach at the Cruzan Amphitheatre. The concert was amazing. Definitely the best one I have gone to. We (my fried Katie and I) got there a little early so we walked around and people watched for a bit. There are some interesting people in this world. I saw everything from a emo/goth cowgirl to a guy who looked like he just left basketball practice in flip-flops. But man...oh...man... there was alot of NICE looking country boys. MMMMmmmmMMM. Haha.

 

 

The best person we saw was this older man line dancing. He was so awesome. He knew all the words to every song that played (and I was quite surprised by some of the songs, not your typical everyday radio songs) and he danced to every one of them. He had the biggest smile on his face the whole time. You could tell this guy really enjoyed life and you couldn't help but to smile with him. There was also a little girl out there trying to dance with the rest of the group. She was just too damn cute!

Younger generation and older generation all sharing
the same good time.

The first performer was Thomas Rhett. Good singer but he played alot of cover songs. The second was a man I would love to have teach me a few "guitar tricks". Brantley Gilbert. Yeah funny name, but oh my....he is definitely something good to look at! He's like 27 years old, tattoos, plays the guitar, and a really great voice. I wouldn't mind taking him home! I decided I need a good ole country Georgia boy like him. Haha, or at least a good ole boy. I could be his "My kinda crazy".

CMA's

Finally it was Toby Keith. He was really awesome. You could tell he has a sponsorship with for though. Haha "FORD" was everywhere! On the stage, in his video, yada yada.... He played a song that went something like "I'll never smoke weed with Willie again". Haha that was too funny. He played alot of songs, my favorite of course was "I love this bar". He topped off the night by doing an encore of "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue". I have to hand to him, Toby does have alot of Patriotism. Toby also threw all of us for a loop when he played Ted Nugent's "Stanglehold" Not what I expected but he totally rocked it!

Red Solo Cup!

Willie (not actually there, though I did detect the smell of a certain green leafy substance,  so I guess he was there in spirit)

'Bout to practice my skills...

Ok so normally I'm not that violent of a person, at least at home, but the neighbor is on my last nerve. He has this speed boat that he has been revving the engines all flippin day. Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of a good engine. But this guy's engine is LOUD AS FUCK! It's vibrating my floors. I live on the 8th floor and he is across the canal. Seriously dude? I'm about to use my shotgun skills and shoot your damn engines out. There has to be something about noise pollution in a residential area.

Nice boat, nice and LOUD

The bar

On other news...I haven't done much practicing on my guitar. After work I have just been going to get a beer instead of studying. This has been a very frustrating week. Well at least the beginning. We are at the repair dock at Rybovich Shipyard in West Palm Beach. This isn't no ordinary ship yard. It's a freakin Super Yacht Marina. All the boats around us cost as much as our boat and some cost more. There is the "Kennedy" yacht and also "Henrick Motorsports" yacht here. Yeah can we say "MONEY"? Also there is the M/Y Cafe right by our boat. That sells cheap food and beer by the way. Yup That will be interesting.

The view from the cardio room at the shipyard

We also have a couple of rooms at the Homewood for us to use. I haven't stayed in it yet. I have just been staying on the boat and I got to go home this weekend. I get half of the week off. Which is good after this week. I will probably stay in the hotel most of the time. It's about an hour to an hour and a half to get home. Not too bad, but I really don't need to go home. Plus the boat serves food and I guess the hotel does as well. I only came home this weekend because the rooms were already spoken for.

Kinda sucks cause I need an oil change. And I am getting free tickets to go see Toby Keith this weekend in West Palm Beach! Oh yeah! This only makes my third concert, but I am super stoked! I hope the seats are good. The Captain got them somehow and offered them to the crew. Nobody wanted them so I was like "I'll take them!". One of the guys' wife is going to go with me. He said she would have really wanted to go but it is hard for them to get a baby sitter. I told him that if he would watch the kid I would give her the other ticket. No need in me going by myself! It's going to be an awesome time. Standby for photos!

Well that sounds better....

Well after all the money I spent on getting really good steel strings for my guitar, I found that everything still sounded like shit. And that wasn't just me. The 1st string (e string) just sounded really pitchy. After some investigating I found out that the acoustic guitar that I bought is actually a classical acoustic. Which probably all sounds like jibberish to you. Anyways it boils down to the fact that steel strings aren't really the best type of strings for that particular guitar. I actually needed nylon strings.

These are the BOMB!

Well after a quick order I was able to get nylon strings and they sound soooooo much better. I have been holding off on learning new chords and songs because everything sounded funky (and not the good funky). YAY! Just in time too because the boat is going to drydock to get the engine replaced. We will be there for a month so now I will have something to do when I get bored on the boat or in the hotel.

I have learned how to play the riffs for "Another One Bites The Dust", "Smoke On The Water", and "Hang On Sloopy" and I can play "Happy Birthday". I'm ready to move on to more. I really need to sit down and learn what all the chords are but I am so damn impatient that I just want to play songs. Haha. Guess I need to pace myself a little more.

Well wish me luck!

So I usually don't care...

Ok so this may sound bad, but I usually don't care when someone dies (unless it's like close family). I may sound heartless, but it's the way of life. You come in to this world and eventually you have to leave it. Sometimes it's sooner than later or for some just not soon enough.

I was actually really upset to hear about the passing of Michael Clarke Duncan. I read Stephen King's "The Green Mile" and loved it. This was before the movie ever came out.  I loved the book. I am a huge Stephen King fan. They way he described John Coffey in the book is exactly the way Michael Clarke Duncan looked like. Or at least that's how I imagined it. I had never heard of Mr. Duncan before so when I saw the first preview for the movie I knew in an instant that he was the one playing John Coffey. I swear I think Stephen King wrote the book for Mr. Duncan.

I also really like this particular actor because just by looking at him, he made you want to smile. He almost always had the biggest happiest smile on his face. You couldn't help but smile back. I really am going to miss seeing him.

World, you lost a great man. Heaven, you gained a rather large but gentle angel. God, thank you for making him and blessing us with his presence.