So, to show you how well I know my girls, I'm guessing that bridgett giggled out loud when she read the title and Sharon rolled her eyes.
Today I got off the ship for the first time. The port was Cartegena, Colombia. it's the closest to the equator I've ever been and it felt like it. It was hot. But it was a humid heat. So it was really hot. I got off the ship with the drummer, who's italian, his girlfriend who's a dancer, and another couple of Russian dancers. Everyone in the dance dept are coupled up so I'm constantly a 5th or 7th wheel. Oh well. Where was I? To quote a song from the 70's "the heat was hot."
You walk for about 5 minutes through the port and you come to a little port shopping area like you find everywhere. Except, unlike everywhere, there was a little bird sancuary where both enclosed and non-enclosed birds were wandering around. Most were parrots but there were also touccans which are amazing birds. I've never seen one before today I don't think. I took pictures. Super cool.
We then took a cab into the old city. The cab driver agreed to a price of $20 round trip. For some reason as soon as we left the port area, he got confused and decided that we would pay him $40 for the round trip. We corrected him by telling him we would give him $10 and then $10+tip if he came back to pick us up (there are dozens of cabs in the city, so we weren't in danger of being stranded or anything.)
We walked around in the old city and I stopped to look at some sunglasses from a street vendor. I couldn't find any I really liked (though I needed sunglasses). Finally there was one that was ok so I asked how much. $80. I said "no thank you, too much for me." He said, well how much. I explained that I just needed cheap sunglasses and I only could afford to pay 10. The rest of the negotiations consisted of him saying a number, and me shaking my head and saying 10. I bought the sunglasses for $10. I'm an awesome negotiator. They say Ray Ban on them. They look fairly cool.
The cab picked us back up and all was fine. We were only out for a little over an hour, but it was plenty.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
No foosball
Well, you'll all be happy to know that there's not a lot of foosball playing on board. Fortunately for me, there IS a lot of ping pong playing! I spent an hour or so playing last night. It was awesome. They set up tables at night. There's a ping pong tournament coming up. Maybe i'll play...hmmmmm. More to come.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Self Esteem Machine
There are two options to explain what happened this morning.
I went down to the crew gym on deck 1. Although I like the feeling of going down to a dungeon to work out (I believe that the less nice the gym is, the better workout you get. It's the Rocky III training theory), I was not a fan of how hot it is down there.
So, two options. EITHER - I ran a 5k in under 22 minutes after not having run for a couple months OR - the treadmill was not exactly accurate in its estimation of my speed and/or distance. Either way, I've dubbed it the self-esteem machine because it makes you feel like you're running REALLY fast.
PS - yes, the machine measures in Km, not miles.
PPS - whatever this movie is with Sandra Bullock who is going to get deported to Canada unless she marries her assistant...is pretty cute. Or, maybe I just really miss Sandra Bullock. Lot's of questions in today's blog. Not a lot of answers.
I went down to the crew gym on deck 1. Although I like the feeling of going down to a dungeon to work out (I believe that the less nice the gym is, the better workout you get. It's the Rocky III training theory), I was not a fan of how hot it is down there.
So, two options. EITHER - I ran a 5k in under 22 minutes after not having run for a couple months OR - the treadmill was not exactly accurate in its estimation of my speed and/or distance. Either way, I've dubbed it the self-esteem machine because it makes you feel like you're running REALLY fast.
PS - yes, the machine measures in Km, not miles.
PPS - whatever this movie is with Sandra Bullock who is going to get deported to Canada unless she marries her assistant...is pretty cute. Or, maybe I just really miss Sandra Bullock. Lot's of questions in today's blog. Not a lot of answers.
How do you say "24" in Indonesian?
Well, I'm off on another one. After much prodding and begging and admitting she's wrong about lots of things, my Favorite prodder and beggar convinced me to write another blog. She did it under the guise of how Mrs. Mamola really likes my blogs, but I know that bridgett just can't handle not hearing from me every day. ...which is cute.
So, equipped with a box of matzah from Sharon's mom, Gayle, I flew to Miami to begin my 4th contract. This is kind of funny because when the band master asked me after my first contract if I wanted to come out again, I had to think long and hard.
When you are not a fancy band master and they put you up in a hotel overnight, you must share a room. So, here I am in a hotel room in Miami with a kid from Indonesia who speaks just enough English to...work in the engine room of a ship I suppose.
It was Monday and I knew 9:00 was rapidly approaching. He didn't really speak enough English to really follow American television fully, but, 24 was going to be on. I'm pretty sure ass-kickin' is a universal language, so I was going to put 24 on either way. He was pretty sleepy with the jet lag, so he didn't seem to mind some much. I'd like to think I brought jack bauer to indonesia.
When you need Jack bauer brought to Indonesia, there's only one man for the job: Me!
So, equipped with a box of matzah from Sharon's mom, Gayle, I flew to Miami to begin my 4th contract. This is kind of funny because when the band master asked me after my first contract if I wanted to come out again, I had to think long and hard.
When you are not a fancy band master and they put you up in a hotel overnight, you must share a room. So, here I am in a hotel room in Miami with a kid from Indonesia who speaks just enough English to...work in the engine room of a ship I suppose.
It was Monday and I knew 9:00 was rapidly approaching. He didn't really speak enough English to really follow American television fully, but, 24 was going to be on. I'm pretty sure ass-kickin' is a universal language, so I was going to put 24 on either way. He was pretty sleepy with the jet lag, so he didn't seem to mind some much. I'd like to think I brought jack bauer to indonesia.
When you need Jack bauer brought to Indonesia, there's only one man for the job: Me!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Sorry
Sorry I'm a bad blogger. Nothing terribly exciting happened the last couple of weeks. I did buy 2.375 L of Crown Royal for $30. That was cool. And I bought some fancy rum for Bridgett and Shane.
It was definitely the easiest of all my contracts thus far by far. In fact, I now see how much the deck was stacked against me on my first contract. This ship was free of drama, the music was easier, the work was less....
Plus, after about a week or so on the ship, my boss told me he was going to recommend me as a music manager (band master, music director...etc) to the head office. So, if I get back on, it wouldn't be as a sideman again. So, private cabin, room service, etc.
Again, sorry to all those who checked my blog regularly. I'm just a big dissapointment!
It was definitely the easiest of all my contracts thus far by far. In fact, I now see how much the deck was stacked against me on my first contract. This ship was free of drama, the music was easier, the work was less....
Plus, after about a week or so on the ship, my boss told me he was going to recommend me as a music manager (band master, music director...etc) to the head office. So, if I get back on, it wouldn't be as a sideman again. So, private cabin, room service, etc.
Again, sorry to all those who checked my blog regularly. I'm just a big dissapointment!
Monday, January 4, 2010
Free Time
Free Time
So,in the 60 hrs between 6am Jan 1 and 6pm Jan 3, I worked a grand total of....1.5 hrs. Of course, that's not consecutive...I had a break in the middle of the two 45 minute sets. I mean, i'm not a machine!
Yes, work is incredibly light on this ship. Sometimes I'm happy to have a set just to break things up. The only sets I don't like are the variety shows or the welcome aboard shows in which we play an opener and then sit for 20 minutes and then play a 3 minute song and then sit for 20 minutes and then play a closer. It's amazingly boring. At least sometimes they close the back curtain and we can get up and leave for 15 minutes. I'll go watch a bit of a football game. Some guys will grab a drink.But still, not so fun.
In order to fill time during our time off, many of the musicians have taken up foosball. Of all the novelty table games in the ping pong/air hockey family, foosball was always my worst. I mean, I'm terrible at it. But, after playing a lot over the last week, i've gotten...less terrible at it. Like anything else, it's amazing what skills people come up with when they do something a lot. It's like pool. Unless you watched a pro play, you'd never think of using spin and varying follow-through and all sorts of things that the real pros do. It's the same in foosball. Amazing the shots people come up with.
So, you see why I haven't blogged too much this contract. I mean, I just wrote an entire blog about foosball basically. Next, advanced rock/paper/scissors stragey.
By the way, I'm happy to see that gail and Steve Arnow are now followers of my blog.
Oh, also, the other night they showed the movie "Inglorious Basterds" in the main theatre. It's a great Tarrentino movie with Brad Pitt about an American squad of Jews sent to France to kill Nazis in World War II. A ficticious story, but very entertaining. Pretty violent at times if that's not your thing.
So,in the 60 hrs between 6am Jan 1 and 6pm Jan 3, I worked a grand total of....1.5 hrs. Of course, that's not consecutive...I had a break in the middle of the two 45 minute sets. I mean, i'm not a machine!
Yes, work is incredibly light on this ship. Sometimes I'm happy to have a set just to break things up. The only sets I don't like are the variety shows or the welcome aboard shows in which we play an opener and then sit for 20 minutes and then play a 3 minute song and then sit for 20 minutes and then play a closer. It's amazingly boring. At least sometimes they close the back curtain and we can get up and leave for 15 minutes. I'll go watch a bit of a football game. Some guys will grab a drink.But still, not so fun.
In order to fill time during our time off, many of the musicians have taken up foosball. Of all the novelty table games in the ping pong/air hockey family, foosball was always my worst. I mean, I'm terrible at it. But, after playing a lot over the last week, i've gotten...less terrible at it. Like anything else, it's amazing what skills people come up with when they do something a lot. It's like pool. Unless you watched a pro play, you'd never think of using spin and varying follow-through and all sorts of things that the real pros do. It's the same in foosball. Amazing the shots people come up with.
So, you see why I haven't blogged too much this contract. I mean, I just wrote an entire blog about foosball basically. Next, advanced rock/paper/scissors stragey.
By the way, I'm happy to see that gail and Steve Arnow are now followers of my blog.
Oh, also, the other night they showed the movie "Inglorious Basterds" in the main theatre. It's a great Tarrentino movie with Brad Pitt about an American squad of Jews sent to France to kill Nazis in World War II. A ficticious story, but very entertaining. Pretty violent at times if that's not your thing.
lunch
Lunch
So, it's been 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure I've yet to have a food entry other than my steak house fun on Christmas. I've found my new favorite lunch on the ship. I go to the passenger buffet and make a big salad with lots of fancy things like dates and raisins and cheeses and nuts and anything else that looks good on the buffet. Then I take a wheat roll. Then I go over to the grill and get a plain chicken breast which I cut up and put in the salad. It's so yummy!
Of course, right next to the grill is the pizza buffet....calling to me like sirens. I've been able to resist so far but it smells soooo good. This week I've allowed myself a pizza and ice cream dinner. Maybe even tomorrow night since tomorrow morning is a running day. Actually, I guess that would make tonight ideal since I'll burn off all the carbs on the run. Kind of like when Michael Scott "carboloaded" with fettucini alfredo right before a race. Ok, tonight OR tomorrow will be pizza and ice cream night.
So, it's been 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure I've yet to have a food entry other than my steak house fun on Christmas. I've found my new favorite lunch on the ship. I go to the passenger buffet and make a big salad with lots of fancy things like dates and raisins and cheeses and nuts and anything else that looks good on the buffet. Then I take a wheat roll. Then I go over to the grill and get a plain chicken breast which I cut up and put in the salad. It's so yummy!
Of course, right next to the grill is the pizza buffet....calling to me like sirens. I've been able to resist so far but it smells soooo good. This week I've allowed myself a pizza and ice cream dinner. Maybe even tomorrow night since tomorrow morning is a running day. Actually, I guess that would make tonight ideal since I'll burn off all the carbs on the run. Kind of like when Michael Scott "carboloaded" with fettucini alfredo right before a race. Ok, tonight OR tomorrow will be pizza and ice cream night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)