Oh the joy of the North

Well I am not more than halfway to North America, Europe is behind us. I have crossed the Atlantic two times before, but this is the first North crossing. The weather has caused a few issues. We started off the cruise by having a guest singer get sick, and had to move our comedian up by a day. Then we had to cancel the second show of a guest singer, due to sea sickness. We luckily got a "spare" guest singer onboard, just in case the weather was too bad to not do our production show. So yesterday we rehearsed that show, just in case, then rehearsed our production show. The weather was on our side, so showtime went as planned. This has made today a pain in the butt. We start off with a matine of the "spare" singer. Then normal showtimes, then the showtime for the show we canceled the other day. So that means 4 showtimes today. yuck.

Canada tomorrow, sea day, Canada, sea day, BOSTON!!!!! I can't wait to be back in the States.

Last Europe Cruise

Well I am halfway through my last Baltic cruise before we head over to Boston for the fall foliage cruises. I can't wait. Yesterday we were in Copenhagen, Denmark. We had a visit from a few of the execs at Martin. I toured them around the ship, and they gave us a few goodies. The really liked what we do, and I enjoyed giving them some suggestions on how they could improve a few things, to make the tech's life a lot easier. We also had a Tech come over from England to fix our log fog system, interesting fella. He also looked at a few lights with me. I can't wait till I get my parts order so I can finally have my rig up to 100%.

Sitting here waiting for band setup, board as hell. I have been watching the new flyers, learn how to do their thing. I have a lot of floor lights to setup for tonight's show, and almost no time to program the changes that the Entertainer wants for tonight, plus the few special things I am adding, that he doesn't know about yet.

Settling in and looking forward

Well almost to the end of my second cruise, but I feel like I have been here for months. That tends to happen when you do long cruises. My first cruise was to the Norwegian fords, and the UK. I got to see a little bit, but being my first week. I had a lot of things to do other than getting off the ship.

Second cruise and the rest of my European Cruise will be to the Baltic. I have been able to get off in about half of the ports. I have been on duty or had to do maintenance , but I still have 2 more cruises before we head to America. Russia was very interesting. We do an overnight, so being able to get off the ship at night is great. The interesting part of Russia is that you have to go through immigration every time you get off the ship or come back the ship. It is kind of a pain, but as long as you have a bit of patience, it isn't that bad.

So after we finish Europe we will be heading to Boston. As most of you know that live in that part of the world, I have already contacted you about visiting. I am really looking forward to seeing you.

Although I just starting my current contract, it is never too soon to be thinking of what is next. I have come close to bringing out a new ship, when I worked on the Oosterdam I was the second tech ever. But installing things is something I have been looking forward to doing for years. I asked my office about doing the next newbuild for royal Caribbean. I got the first email yesterday that indicates that I will finally be going. I don't want to jinx anything, but things are looking very positive. I have been told by many supervisors and designer that they enjoy working with me and have told the powers that be. I think these comments have finally come full circle. I am looking forward to a lot of hard work.

More details to come.

Traveling to the Jewel

So I am finally off to the Jewel of the Seas for my next contract.
My trip was interesting. My flight from Oakland was delayed due to a fuel spill under the plane, so the didn't want to load us because they couldn't turn on the AC. I was watching my watch in fear. My flight was sppolsed to land at 6:10 and the second flight board at the same time. Yuck. When we landed I ran for the train, and just as I was coming down the escalator to the new terminal on the other side of the airport, they called my name, they heard me say "I'm coming". But turns out I wasn't last, but nearly. I knew that if I barely made it that my luggage wouldn't have. Sure enough my name was called at Gatwich that my bags didn't arrive. They were very good about it all, they said it would come in on the 8am flight the next morning. Off to the hotel I went, after waiting forever for the shuttle, because I missed the one by 5 minutes so I had to wait almost 2 hours for the next one, but at least it was scheduled. No problems at the hotel except no AC. Food was alright. The next morning the airport called, they had my bags, and they made arrangement with our port agent to bring them to the ship with the passengers they were picking up. So all is good. Now where in the world are my tools.

I am settling in good on the new ship. My predecessor isn't here the entire cruise, he has to leave because of a wedding, but it is a long cruise so we still have over a week together. We have already fixed a few things, and gotten frustrated at some others. So is life, new ship, old ship, everything brakes at some point.

Anyway if you want to see where I am in the world, just go to www.cruisecal.com it is a great new site that I was told about that shows where all the cruise ship are on a given day for every cruise line.

I havn't tested if I can upload pictures yet on this ship or not, if I can you will see some shortly.

More Photos

This is the Ice Rink onbard the Voyager of the Seas.



When the Voyager arrived in Europe they had a big fireworks display for us the first night.

Pictures finally

Well I am finally home so I am going to try and post some photos for the first time.

Cross your fingers

I hope I don't jinx myself by saying this. My replacement is arriving tomorrow, and I begin the final countdown to leaving the Voyager. I should be leaving the ship in one week. Time off is just what I need. Good food, and lots of rest.

Jewel of the Seas

Well I just found out that my next contract will be on the Jewel of the Seas. If you want to find out where the ship will be sailing, just click on the Title of this post.

Italian Team

Well on this special cruise we have had the pleasure of the Italian Olympic Skating Team. Lets just say they have been interesting to work with. Sorry the photo is blurry, it wasn't the best of conditions. Also note the girl on the left is one of our stagestaff.

Med at last

Well it feels good to be back in the med again. I wish we could have gone through the straights of Gibraltar during the day, but oh well. Our first stop was in the Azores, it was nice to walk around for a few hours after being at sea for five days. One more sea day then Lisbon, I have been their before, but I had to work too much so no time to get off. The cadiz the next day. I got off for a brief time, again I have been here once before. Took a few photos then back to the ship. Now we are back to sea again, but now we are in the Med. Today is the last sea day of the cruise so it feels really weird to know we still have one more day. France tomorrow, then Finally to our new home in Spain.

Europe for a little bit

Well I new I hadn't posed for a while, but it has been almost a month. Well I am going back to Studio B for about a month. I am taking over for the current tech while he takes care of some family matters at home. This puts me on the ship for Europe. It will be nice to be back for a few weeks any way. Things have been going good, I have enjoyed my time in the main theatre. At least I am still going to be on board to see a few project through to completion, or at least be able to hand them over.

5 weeks to go

Well I have been so busy that I have not had time to even remember that I had a blog let alone post too it. 5 weeks to go till vacation, well sort of. 5 weeks till I transfer for one week then vacation. At this time the most important thing is that their is only 2 weeks till I get to see my mother. She is going to come visit and sail with me for Easter. The weeks is going to go so fast. I can't wait to get home and get new glasses, and maybe even contacts. That will be a big change for me. I need to remember to take lots of photos around the ship before I leave so I can post them when I get home because I can't do it on board.

I have been on duty today and it really has been a day from hell. I might not have been so bad but on top of all the duty stuff, plus the duty crap that came up, I had to deal with one of our scenic contractors being on for the day.

And to top it all off, time change tonight!!!!Yuck!!!

St. Patrick's Day

Well sorry for not posting for a long time, but just a short post to say Happy St. Patricks day to everyone. Green bar shirt on, No Black alowed tonight, and Guiness in hand.

New Theatre, Same old Ship

Well my replacement finally showed up. So I have now moved into the main theatre. I have learned the spot cues for the shows, and everything is going great.

I spent the day getting some new par cans ready for the pool deck. Way more work then is should have been but its kind of my own fault. I changed the plugs on the new lights from Edison to 120v twist and then later realized that they needed to be 220v twist. Oh Well, now we just have to find some color and get them hung.

"As the ship Turns"

Well as someone close pointed out, ship life is like a soap opera. Not that I would know, I never liked the shows, but I knew what she meant. This past week, actually weeks have been crazy. My replacement has gone back and forth as too if he is coming. That issue is finally resolved, he is waiting for the ship to come into port tomorrow, so that is a good sign. We have had 3 tech's quit or get fired for various reasons. So staffing is going to be interesting for a while again.

I have started my handover to the main theatre. I can't wait to start designing shows again.

I have not posted for a while, and I have had so many things that I have wanted to post but just not the time. Now that I have made myself sit down and write for a while I can't think of anything.

Oh for all of you having bad weather, sorry. It was in the 80's today in Miami. And all the sailboats for the Miami Sailboat convention was a nice site.

Lights Aren't Perfect

Port: St. Thomas
Weather: Not too bad.

Well last night I got a couple of Studio Colors in the rink fixed. One blew up a control card, man did it smell bad.

Got off the ship today and had a nice lunch at the Shipwreck. Two of the musicians played pool to see who would be called Ben and who would be called by a nickname, both are named Ben.

Our Production Manager left today, she broke her foot after the superbowl. We all wish her a speedy recovery. No word on a replacement as of yet.

I also found out that my replacement might not be coming back. Anyone want to work in a ice rink and run moving lights??? Just kidding, our office will find someone.

Show is open

Well the new show is finally open. Everything went very smoothly, the audience loved it. Not much else to say.

Today has been a funny day. Although I was up half of the night programming lights for the new ice act, I got a good nights sleep. It was good to be back in my old room, it kind of like coming home. Not much was going on this morning. We are only in Nassau till early afternoon, so no reason to really get off the ship. Now we are in the middle of the superbowl. The place is very busy. Should be an easy night.

New Show

Well its Quest night again, and once again a very empty house. Quest is an adult gameshow, very funny. But some crowds of passengers just don't come. When we do have a full house it is quite the event.

Anyway back to the new show. The cast have been working very hard blocking and doing costume fittings. Today we had two costume runs, I think they went very well. I like most of the show. Even though we open tomorrow, I like to think of it more as a preview, it still has a lot of work to be done.

Usually the carpenters and lighting designers work all night long, then they do tech's all day. Somehow they manage to fit in shows every night.

The other light tech and myself have been putting in a lot of hours, We finally have most all of the lights working. We have had a few brief moments of everything working.

I will definalty try and find sometime to post tomorrow after the new show opens, if we aren't partying too hard.

Cast Change and New Show

Well I must be very busy, it has been a little over a week since I have had some time to breath and even think about posting.

The new cast is doing good. They opened the first show at the end of last week, so now we are concentrating on the brand new show. We loaded scenery on the ship for the past three times in Miami. This show is big, but at least most of the scenery all flys.

The lighting designer are now on, so we are working with them a lot. I am on duty this week, so sleep, what's that. I have to get up at about 8am and check the music in all of the lounges, it only takes about 15 minutes. Then I do my normal schedule for most of the day, popping my head into the main theatre to see what's going on, and help out when I can. Then when the main theatre is done with shows for the night, the carpenters and lighting designers come in and start working. I am usually with them doing lighting notes till around 3am.

Next week is going to be busy also. Its superbowl, so that changes things a little bit. We have a new ice act coming and also at the same time some of the music for the ice show is changing. So we have to run the new changes with the cast, and also design and tech the new ice act into the show, all this with the superbowl taking up the normal tech time for the week. After superbowl, things should calm down.

Life Goes On

Weather: Don't know but the sea conditions are rough
Port: Nassau this morning, at sea now heading to St. Thomas

Well Saturday was a long day, well let me back up a little bit. Last week we dropped the cybers in the main theatre, turned out to be really easy. So late Friday night I got to fixing them. Its something I like doing, being by myself one with the light. Taking it apart finding out what's wrong, putting it back together. Anyway, the first one tested great, nothing wrong. The second one on the other hand needed a new lamp base, new power cord, the list goes on. By around 1 am I said that's enough, and headed for the disco. If you haven't figured out yet, I don't tend to go to the disco all that often. Just not my scene. Well because the review cast was signing off and they were all out for a few drinks I figured I should show myself. But as usual after a couple and I do mean two, I did my disappearing act and hit the sack.

I was planning on getting up really early the next day to finish the cybers, but alas a few extra hours of sleep felt good, my back wasn't hurting much. I guess all that being bent over in the catwalks helped it. So around 9 I was back in the grid. I got the last light that we had dropped fixed, easy, just a few color motors. I wanted to test the last light, the one we hadn't dropped but with all the people waiting to get off the ship I figured I would wait.

At this point it was time to help off-load the old show, the one that wasn't going in the dumpster, so that it could go to another ship. That really didn't take long, so we all scattered. I had a few hours at this point so I meet some friends for lunch in Miami.

After coming back to the ship early to help load the scenery on for the new show, it wasn't ready to come on, so I went and tested the last light. Everything worked just like I had hoped.

Eventually the new scenery came on, lots of it. I can't wait to see what it looks like.

So along with the new scenery we also got a new cast. Lots of young cast members. I have briefly meet a couple of them, very nice.

Well time for bed, early day tomorrow.