14 October 2007

Open House Weekend

"This is the boat's dry lab. Over there is the wet lab. This is where we do all the science on the boat. Different groups of scientists will bring their own equipment on board. The dry lab is where they put all the electronics equipment and computers. The wet lab is for anything to do with seawater samples or chemicals. The idea is to keep them separate from each other.

"Over here we have the computer that controls the equipment out on deck. See that circular looking thing right outside the door? This computer controls that. As we put it overboard and send it down to the bottom of the ocean, we can watch the data come in in realtime on the display. Also, all those tube things are water bottles. When we send it down, they're open at both ends - and when we see some water we want to collect, we can push some buttons on this rack over here, and it'll close up, so we have a sample at the depth we want.

"That display tells us how deep the water is where we are now. It's coming down from the bridge. That's a giant magnifying glass with a light. Those are immersion suits, which are for if the boat sinks. That's just the eyewash. No, they don't actually let
me go out on the cruises. I know nothing about global warming, quit trying to make me say something authoritative."

... is what I did for four hours yesterday.

"Sometimes you have to lose some money to keep the customer. We could've either given him the $25 that the former manager owed him, so that he would keep coming back to buy food and therefore give us more money in the future, or we could make him pay the entire amount for his food now and never see him again. I see we've chosen the latter, and now we'll argue about it for my entire shift."

... was the three hours after that.

"braaaaaiiinnnsss....."

... was the rest of my day.

As for today:

I'm 34.

Mmm... sushi.

7 comments:

Megadeus said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

*breaks into song*

Jim Wright said...

Man, I'd kill to be 34 again.

Happy Birthday, hope you enjoyed the hell out of it - 'cause that's what birthdays are for. Wooohooo!

MWT said...

I had sushi. :)

That was the most I celebrated, though. The other highlights of the day were to yell at Mr. Squirrel about changing all the sauces back to the way they were before, and to finish and mail off the reunion newsletter.

Thanks for the well-wishes. :)

Anne C. said...

Congratulations, mwt! I'm going to be 34 in... [/mental math] 5 and a half months. Jeez, I'd better get on the ball to accomplish all those things society says you're s'posed to have done by now. Oh wait. Yeah, I told society where to shove thier expectations a couple years ago. Nevermind. ;)

Sushi is a grand way to celebrate. :)

MWT said...

Well, happy birthday five and a half months from now! :) Hope it's a good one. And so long as you're leading a happy life, who cares what anyone else thinks?

Shawn Powers said...

I've never had sushi -- but if a marine scientist willingly eats it, that's a little encouraging.

Also Happy Belated Birthday and such. :)

MWT said...

I could tell tales about sushi. :) The most memorable occasion was when the boat's engineer caught a 100lb tuna. We ate bits of it while he was cleaning it. Sushi straight from the fish while the muscles were still twitching! Can't get fresher than that.

There's non-raw sushi also, if you're wanting to ease into it. California roll is always a good way to start. Eel isn't raw and has a tasty sauce to go with it. Most of the shellfish offerings aren't raw.