Lessons Learned

Metal is harder than wood I figured by now I would have figured this lesson out - it seems pretty simple - wood, metal, which is harder? But not Billy - nope, I needed a special instructional period with it. Contrary to ship building practices in the 1400s, ships today are built almost entirely of metal (I say almost because there's probably some rubber or something in there non-metallic). The other night I needed to get something out of my room- without windows and in the middle of the ship, there are three options for lighting schemes: white light, red light, and black-hole /anti-matter / darkest-reaches-of-space-darkness-kind-of-light. I went with the latter of the three so as not to disturb my slumbering roommates. Bad idea. Remember the whole "Ship is made of metal" thing? Well combine that with the darkest reaches of space and my general lack of spatial awareness in my own room (all I really do in there is sleep anyways) and you get a lesson. Well I get a lesson, most other people would probably just turn on the light and avoid the learning I was about to experience. It came in the form of the standard 'metal corner of a ladder to top part of my head' form. And all of the sudden the room wasn't so black anymore, I was seeing stars - "they're so beautiful" - I thought. The sheer surprise and blunt force trauma to my head almost was enough to cause a release to the muscle holding in my bodily fluids. So yeah - it was pretty awesome. I did take advantage of the lack of light and anybody seeing me by curling up in the fetal position on the ground until the blinding pain went away and I just went back to being blinded by the darkness. I checked myself out in the mirror in the bathroom and thankfully there was no bleeding, but there was a dent -yeah, a dent in my head - what is my head made of - aluminum? It went away - after a day or two. But the lesson comes in as I was checking myself out in the mirror - at home I run into stuff all of the time -doors, door jams, walls, that sort of thing. But I kept thinking to myself - man, why does this hurt so much - and then I learned my lesson- most of the stuff in my house is made of wood. Metal is harder than wood. Lesson learned

You know you've been on the boat a long time when...-Your buddy says, "Hey man, I bet you I can eat the inside of this role without touching the outside with anything except my fingers and not touching the inside with my hands at all." "How much are we betting?""Oh, nothing, I'm going to do this one for FREE!"Awe-inspiring. America's best and brightest locked in a tin can for...83 days straight now I think.

-The topic of conversation at the table has reduced down to two guys trying to figure out if they have read any of the same books. Rules start being applied - no cliffs notes allowed, must have been more recent than high school, must have finished the book, work-related books do not count. And everybody else is intently listening to their conversation, vaguely intrigued.

-You realize you haven't seen the sun for over 2 weeks - corollary to that is when people start to appear as white as I am all the time

-You try to see how fast you can read a book

-Even though you are the worst crossword puzzle person EVER, you actually make an honest attempt at the crossword puzzle book your family sent you - and realize you still aren't any good at them

-You get up, shave, put on your uniform, go to work, and then wake up in bed and realize that was the dumbest waste of a dream ever

I'll keep this collection going since there is no sign of land in the near future.