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June update.
Jun. 20th, 2017 11:09 pmSo, now its june 20th. We are still in the hotel. Work on the house has stopped as we have run out of money, and getting a construction loan to finish the house is taking way way way longer than I ever imagined. So the back to the house at the beginning of july plan is out the window. IF we got the loan check tomorrow, it would be early August before we got back in. Since once the job got stopped, it takes a couple weeks to get all the subcontractors back in to finish things up. ANd they are not gonna call subcontractors until we hand them a fat check full of money. Arrrgh.
My brother out in seattle will come and take care of mom when I'm up in Bangor in august to work on the folk festival. My sister, who did that last year for me, is depressed and out of work, so isn't answering her phone or returning messages. That adds stress to everyone in the family.
Commentary on current events. The two branches of the Demopublican party continue to spew hatred and evil at each other. The more loony of their followers are getting steadily more violent. The parallels to politics of germany in the 20s and 30s are frightening to contemplate. Time to prepare. Prepare for what is the question.
A couple of days ago, there was a collision at sea between a large container ship and the USS fitzgerald. 0230 in the morning. Most of the crew would have been asleep in their racks. Yes, it was the middle of the night, and it was in one of the more crowded parts of the ocean. Apparently the bridge watch and the CIC watch were so oblivious to the surrounding traffic that they didn't even sound an alarm before the collision. Seven sailors dead, many more injured. The Fitzgerald took a large impact from the bow dome of the container ship below the waterline. The compartment that took the hit was a berthing compartment and the adjacent machinery compartment. Those probably took no more than a minute to flood, and all of the dead were sailors who didn't make it out before it flooded.
Obviously there were fuckups. And like all really bad events, there will be multiple failures that any one of them had not failed, would have changed it from the tragedy it is to a whoopsie that only the crew onboard would have talked about. Collision at sea used to be a common thing, and over the years, a set of international rules of sea traffic have been codified. Handwaving lots of details, the bigger, less manuverable ship has the right of way, and it is supposed to just keep going on course to reduce confusion. The smaller, more manuverable ship is responsible for changing course and speed thus evading the collision. That would be the Fitzgerald.
Its dark out, but all ships are required to have navigation lights burning when it's dark out. Furthermore, many commercial ships have extensive exterior lighting in addition to the required navigation lights. Mainly so any crew out on deck after dark don't trip, but secondarily to make the ship more visible to other ships. Navy warships typically have no external lights other than required navigational lights burning. Further, recent construction USN ships have a lot of design features to make then less visible to a radar beam. So I can easily believe the container ship bridge crew never noticed them until they hit them. And where the heck was the CIC watch? They are also supposed to watch the radars to track all contacts larger than a seagull within weapons range.
The fleet commander has ordered whats called a JAGMAN inquiry. It's a formal investigation, but it has no judicial powers. It's essentially a one person inquiry, to try and find out what happened and identify problems that may exist fleetwide. But it is also easily corrupted if the investigating officer is not scrupulously honest. I hope it doesn't produce a coverup.
Edited to correct the ships name. I brain-farted on the name.
My brother out in seattle will come and take care of mom when I'm up in Bangor in august to work on the folk festival. My sister, who did that last year for me, is depressed and out of work, so isn't answering her phone or returning messages. That adds stress to everyone in the family.
Commentary on current events. The two branches of the Demopublican party continue to spew hatred and evil at each other. The more loony of their followers are getting steadily more violent. The parallels to politics of germany in the 20s and 30s are frightening to contemplate. Time to prepare. Prepare for what is the question.
A couple of days ago, there was a collision at sea between a large container ship and the USS fitzgerald. 0230 in the morning. Most of the crew would have been asleep in their racks. Yes, it was the middle of the night, and it was in one of the more crowded parts of the ocean. Apparently the bridge watch and the CIC watch were so oblivious to the surrounding traffic that they didn't even sound an alarm before the collision. Seven sailors dead, many more injured. The Fitzgerald took a large impact from the bow dome of the container ship below the waterline. The compartment that took the hit was a berthing compartment and the adjacent machinery compartment. Those probably took no more than a minute to flood, and all of the dead were sailors who didn't make it out before it flooded.
Obviously there were fuckups. And like all really bad events, there will be multiple failures that any one of them had not failed, would have changed it from the tragedy it is to a whoopsie that only the crew onboard would have talked about. Collision at sea used to be a common thing, and over the years, a set of international rules of sea traffic have been codified. Handwaving lots of details, the bigger, less manuverable ship has the right of way, and it is supposed to just keep going on course to reduce confusion. The smaller, more manuverable ship is responsible for changing course and speed thus evading the collision. That would be the Fitzgerald.
Its dark out, but all ships are required to have navigation lights burning when it's dark out. Furthermore, many commercial ships have extensive exterior lighting in addition to the required navigation lights. Mainly so any crew out on deck after dark don't trip, but secondarily to make the ship more visible to other ships. Navy warships typically have no external lights other than required navigational lights burning. Further, recent construction USN ships have a lot of design features to make then less visible to a radar beam. So I can easily believe the container ship bridge crew never noticed them until they hit them. And where the heck was the CIC watch? They are also supposed to watch the radars to track all contacts larger than a seagull within weapons range.
The fleet commander has ordered whats called a JAGMAN inquiry. It's a formal investigation, but it has no judicial powers. It's essentially a one person inquiry, to try and find out what happened and identify problems that may exist fleetwide. But it is also easily corrupted if the investigating officer is not scrupulously honest. I hope it doesn't produce a coverup.
Edited to correct the ships name. I brain-farted on the name.
