9.17 Finally something to watch, not read.

9.16

Happy Birthday to Allison!!

Today I unintentionally received the shortest haircut of my life. I walked deep out of tourist country in St. Maarten in search of a barber shop. I walked and walked until I saw a small sign with an arrow indicating that haircuts were just around the corner. I walked down a skinny alley and low and behold I found a small sliding glass door that opened up to a women with a pair of clippers. And boy did she like to use those clippers. 

I tried to explain how I wanted my hair to be cut, but I wasn't really sure we understood each other. This became clear moments later. She began to use the clippers on the side of my head which was fine, but then all of a sudden bzzzzzz over the top of my head they went; mountains of hair being removed in one swipe. It happened so fast that it was honestly too late to do anything, so I just settled back and watched my hair come off row by row.  The good news is I won't need another haircut for awhile. The bad news is I'm pretty sure my scalp is going to burn if I'm not careful, but I do feel much cooler now! I also look pretty goofy because you can see the tan line on my forehead from where my hair used to be to where it is now. I have a nice half inch white outline of my hair, but I'm sure 15 minutes outside on Deck 12 will take care of that. 

My latest side project (because I love to make extra work for myself) is to update the video that plays in the beginning of the Welcome Aboard Show. It's projected onto the stage scrim before the singers and dancers come out to do their routine and is essentially a pump the crowd up video that shows all the cool things you can do with Royal Caribbean. The current video looks (is) pretty old, so I've decided to make some new animations, update it with HD footage and put in some better music beds. Hopefully it will be ready to go for this Sunday's show!

9.13

Today I had some time to go exploring in Barbados. After fending off thousands of offers to take a taxi, I walked along the water for about 20 minutes until I reached the town of Bridgeport (I think). The town is very European (as it was settled by the English). The cars are mostly European brands and they drive on the opposite side of the road as we do in America (and they love traffic circles). The streets and buildings also have that close together European feel. 

After I reached the town I continued to walk because I was looking for a beach someone had told me about where a lot of crew members hang out. Well once I walked into the town I couldn't figure out how to get back out to the water as I kept running into little canals and inlets but not the actual coast line, so I just walked around and soaked in the surroundings. There were bridges and draw bridges all over the place and I enjoyed watching all of the water traffic. As I turned around and made my way back towards the ship, I stopped into a "drug store" because I'm running low on soap. Well I'm still running low on soap because I wasn't about to pay the prices that these stores were asking. It was 12 USD for a bottle of body wash!! I could buy an overpriced cheeseburger in St. Maarten for that price! With fries! I know at many of these retailers you heckle to get a better price, but I wasn't sure if that applied at a drug store and frankly I was tired and wasn't in the mood to fight for my Old Spice so I'll keep looking for a better deal. And don't worry, I'm not completely out of soap yet. I may look like I don't shower due to my current overgrown non existent haircut, but I assure you I do multiple times a day. 

Tonight is Rock n Roll night in the Centrum. I've began to notice that if Ricky (new cruise director) really gets into an event, he'll just keep going and going and going and going. And going. Whereas our previous cruise director, "30 minute Mark" as someone referred to him in our conversation about this yesterday, always ran the events on an exact schedule. I was warned that Rock n Roll could go very long, so we'll see what happens! Maybe I'll bring extra batteries and memory to be safe!  

9.12

Last night I was running the Welcome Aboard show. We record the show and then broadcast it for the guests that night and the following day. The beginning of the show always starts with a graphic and then fades into a video roll. The graphic also appears again when the show is complete. So I did just that. After the show ended I started playing the show from our video server. I did a few other things in the office and then went down to my cabin around 0045 to head to bed. Around 100 my phone rang. Apparently instead of using the Welcome Aboard graphic, I used the Farewell Show graphic. The graphics are exactly the same except for the huge letters that read either "Welcome Aboard Show" or "Farewell Show". Apparently I was just looking at the colors of the graphic and not actually reading it because I thought I was using the correct one. Opps. Live and learn. 

This morning we were in some left over rain from Maria, so the outdoor events were cancelled. Luckily the rain let up around noon and we were able to hold the Men's Bellyflop Competition in the afternoon. Ricky, the new cruise director, runs the events differently than Mark but so far I like his changes. 

This evening is the Captain's Welcome Aboard Reception so I have to wear a tuxedo. Last week the button of my tuxedo somehow got caught as I lowered the camera from my shoulder and I ripped the button clean off. Luckily I realized what happened as soon as it happened so I was able to find the button on the ground and save it for repairs. It was slightly embarrassing as this happened right in front of the stage in the theater so everyone was watching me search for my button, but I did find it and was able to have the tailor sew it on today so the jacket is good as new! 

9.8

I finally had a chance to get off the ship in Aruba today for an hour or so. Thing were busy today as I had to record another of the cast's show rehearsals this morning. We were also waiting for a satellite specialist who was flying into Aruba today and will be sailing with us for 3 days to do some work on our satellite system. We're having major issues with one of our satellites so hopefully he can resolve our problems.

We're keeping our eye on Tropical Storm Maria as she moves towards San Jaun. There is talk that we won't be able to return to San Juan on Sunday, but we'll have to wait and see how the weather turns out. If that is the case we'll most likely spend the day at sea until we can sail into the port safely. Never a dull moment at sea!

9.6

Every time we have an all crew drill one side of the ship's life boats go down in the water for practice. This week it was my side of the ship's (starboard) turn to go down. The night before someone told me a story about a cable snapping while lowering a lifeboat and the whole boat rolled over, so I was a little nervous about the drill, but I know that accidents rarely happens so by the morning I had forgotten about it. 

Four other crew members and I loaded into our lifeboat and prepared to descend. The arms above us extended out to swing the boat over the water and then we lowered 60 or so feet into the water. After splashing down we unhooked the huge steel cables holding the 150 person lifeboat and then used oars to push away from the Serenade as we fired up our engine and motored away. The Serenade looks huge when you're up against her side at water level looking straight up. As we began to move out into the harbor, Captain Karen radioed us and told us to maneuver over to another lifeboat and tether to each other, as we would do if we had to move equipment from one boat to another. So we did as we were instructed and then contacted the bridge when we had successfully attached ourself to the other boat. After we completed the exercise we came back along side the Serenade and were hoisted back up to deck 5 where we hopped out of the boat before it was raised into the ceiling for storage. Mission accomplished. 

9.4

Dear Diary, 

It's hard to believe but it's already been more than a month since we started this adventure together. Where has the the time gone? It seems like just yesterday I was stuffing my shoes with sox and packing my life into one small duffle bag. 

But seriously, I have been working at my new job for over a month and it's hard for me to grasp the fact that an entire month has already passed. I work in a world where it is either Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 or Day 7. Essentially, I'm back in middle school with "cycle days." That is really my only reference of time. I didn't even know it was Labor Day until my sister mentioned it. Oh yeah, it's September too. I guess this is a good thing as I'm not counting calendar days in a month, just counting on my own calendar that only has one page with one week. I'm told that the last two months of the contract are the slowest because you actually begin to try to keep track of how close you are to the end, but I haven't started the countdown yet so things are good. 

Today I got off the ship in San Juan and took a taxi to this MEGA MALL. I actually wasn't sure I was going to make it to the mall because no one in my taxi spoke English and I wasn't confident that the man who told me to get in "this one" correctly told the driver where I needed to go, but after a short 10 minute driver I was kicked to the curb outside a massive shopping mall. Think King of Prussa but bigger. It was 3 stories and PACKED. I needed to get a pair of pants, a lock for my safe and maybe a haircut, but before I set out to shop I just wandered around to try to get my bearings. They had a ton of stores that I didn't recognize, but also had a bunch of brands I was familiar with like Macys, Sears, Bose, Sony, Apple (can you tell I pay more attention to the stores that sell electronics?).

With my little knowledge of Spanish I was able to make sense of the store signs and find a pair of pants and lock. I was unclear what "haircut" was in Spanish and had trouble finding out how much one would cost, but luckily my translators in Etters were able to assist me. I actually didn't end up getting a haircut because I was running out of time before I had to return to the ship, but hopefully I can try to get one next week.