Wow, I’m soooo F’n tired.
I’ve been grinding, welding, cutting, demoing, building, from 7am (getting up at 5:30) to 7:30 – 11:00 pm every night since I’ve been here. Only 6 more days to go, I want to go home. Sometimes I wonder if I can make it?
All I do is get up, do a little stretching, go to breakfast, and go to work. After work I go to dinner, come back to my room, have a few beers, go to sleep, and do it all over again, it’s like evil groundhog day :( I don’t go to lunch so I can have a quiet hour during the day. I haven’t been off the ship since I got here. I saw the moon the other night and it made me smile. I want to feel the wind and rain soon.
The ships moral is a low as they have so many tired, hungry, and away from 
home men with taxed attitudes. A few fights have been breaking out. Management could treat their people (us) better and I must say I’ve been a bit pissed off as to how some of us are being treated. The ships crew is also not so happy to be doing this dry dock and there is some hostility towards the contractors, it’s unfortunate, but just the way it is.
I used to run crews much larger than this (Production manager/Line producer) and I always went out of my way to take care of my people and make sure they were happy, well paid, well fed, and respected. I liked being a crew manager but don’t want the responsibility anymore. I believe I was good at it. I do think I’m doing a good job here but will be more than happy when its over.
I show up to work sober, not hung over, and work hard for over 12 to 15 hours a day which is more than I can say for some. I’ve been yelled at twice for nothing, and watched my boss belittle other men for no reason. It’s unfortunate how some people treat others.
All this being said I have a good room mate (Chuck) and its good to see my friend Darrin, we got really drunk the first night. My supervisor is really cool as well of some of the management. There are a lot of good, hard working men here. When they ask me what I do and where I live it blows them away. “where do you make all the money possible for such a life style”, when I tell them they cant believe it.
If you want to see video of the refit you can go to princess cruises .com and watch the videos of the Grand Princess dry dock / refit, they post a daily video log. There is over one million man hours going into this dry dock/refit, pretty amazing the amount of work being done on this goliath ship.
I tend to gravitate towards metal working. I like metal and welding.
I miss writing my blogs, waking up on my beautiful sailboat and living a simple life. The money will be nice and I want to get Splendid to a place where I can comfortably live and charter. This is a means to an end.
Sorry if I seem a bit down but I’m really fried and my moral isn’t the best. I just want to do my job well, get paid, and go home!
Peace, Love, and PANAMA!
-Alex