Did a lot of work in port on this trip. We got into Richmond late on Tuesday, and immediately went to work bringing down the starboard boiler. Some contractors would be in to work on the furnace refractory on Wednesday and Thursday, so we needed to start ahead of time to allow the inside of the boiler to cool enough that people can work inside without melting. Most of this is accomplished by removing most of the water from the boiler, but you can't just open the bottom blow drain and empty it (as the tubes would likely melt), so its a patient process of waiting for pressures and temperatures to come into line and removing water as quickly as you can safely. By about 0330 we had it drained well enough that we could let it sit until morning.
July 2007 Archives
I've always thought of Michael Bay (Hollywood director of the Transformers and more notably and notoriously of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor) as more of a film-processing machine than as a director. Before you get ahead of me here, this isn't a slam, and I'm not here to rip on Pearl Harbor, though it may well deserve it. I've never shared the consuming hatred that most film buffs have for Bay, though many of his films have been sub-par. To me, Bay exists to translate screenplays into slick-looking, quick cut action loaded films, and in this way he mirrors Hollywood very closely. When he is given a good script like "The Rock" he creates a good slick-looking, quick cut action film. When he is given a script that is mediocre, he creates a mediocre slick-looking, quick cut action film. And when he's given a script like "Pearl Harbor", well we've all seen what happens then.
Happy Independence Day! Got not one but two fireworks shows in Honolulu, after I'd been told that Hawai'i didn't really celebrate as much as other places.
Figured I'd talk about the crew this week, since many of you might not know how a ship like this is crewed.
