m-space

Caribbean

Well, so far I've been in the Caribbean for 9 days on a cruise ship. We finished our work a couple days ago and have been hanging out and quite bored. I thought I would be able to get some work done but wifi costs a fortune and its hard to concentrate when everyone around you is on vacation, leathery, and entitled.

Yesterday, I was able to get out in St. Martin and sail on US55, Stars and Stripes, the 1987 America's Cup yacht that was instrumental in bringing the Auld Mug back to the US after Dennis Conner lost it to the Aussies in 1983. He redeemed himself by skippering US55 to victory in the Louis Vuitton challenge series and then skippering the Young America boat in the finals of the Americas Cup. I need to check my facts but I think that's how it transpired.

This morning i turned on the TV in my cabin and the Americas Cup, which is in the hands of the Swiss, was getting ready to start. Larry Ellison and his BMW Oracle trimaran won the first race handily. You have to love International TV. I've been able to catch a couple Italian Soccer matches as well.

Sunday I say goodbye to the sunny Caribbean and the Solstice and hello to the Eclipse in Papenburg, Germany, where the temperature is currently 20 degrees.

Boy, do I miss Jess and Viola!

I am a Berliner.

Its not very often I get to quote JFK. Fred, Steve, and I were on a bike ride through the German countryside to the Netherlands when a squall started so we headed into a little cafe. Fred asked if I wanted anything, I said cinnamon roll and went to find a seat. He returned with a jelly doughnut. Here are a few pictures of the pastoral landscape as well.

Finished

Here's a couple images of the finished ship shop. The first is the current shop aboard the Equinox and the second is aboard the Solstice. The Solstice shot shows a bit of context and as you could see by the last post the Equinox is still indoors without the stacks in place due to the limitation of the twenty story building its parked in. We finished in record time this round thanks to the shipyard actually having everything done they said they would so I guess it was worth the delay even though the mysterious scheduling was tough on everyone.

Guten Abend from Deutschland!

The installation of another Corning ship shop is going better than expected. We should be finishing up tomorrow. Here's a couple photos from inside the Meyer Werft Shipyard. The first is a shot down the side of the Equinox. Its hard to get a sense of scale but the building the ship is in is about 20 stories high and over 1000 feet long and as you can see by the second shot, they are building another large boat directly in front of the equinox.

Craters

Every time Joe tells me the craters are scheduled to come to M-Space tomorrow, I imagine this:

But it's really just humans who build crates around stuff for shipping. In this case, the stuff is electric glassblowing equipment for a cruise ship. If Joe keeps at this, we will live in a world where not one cruise ship patron has to endure a cruise without watching live glassblowing.

The equipment itself is super cool looking. I wonder if it's ok for me to post a picture here? Joe is sleeping, so I can't ask him.

Uh, it's sideways, but you get the idea. My new computer doesn't have any photo editing software on it yet.