Are you ready for some Football!!!

No not that football, but EPL football. English Premiere League Football. Tomorrow, August 11th is the first game of record for the season.

First a quote from this mornings sports reporter on CNN Europe. "Now that David Beckham cannot pick his nose without it making the news, he made his MLS debut last night." Ok it might not be word for word, but the sentence definately had "Beckham", "pick his nose", and "news" in the sentence. Which if the English teachers will check me are a subject,verb with direct object, and an indirect object. It is statements like that that really make the news worth watching over here.

Back to the post.

I found out this last trip that across the various marine crews my company has, there is a fantasy league so I signed up as along with 6 other of my crew mates. This morning the EPL was kind enough to send me an e-mail with my roster of 11 players and reserves. Unfortunately two of my starters are doubtful, one of which I knew about, but his return date is set as August. Kind of general, so I was going to leave him in, because if he didn't play my reserve midfielder would automatically be put in the line up. However, the other one is a complete surprise, and has me really gutted as I was having problems setting my defense as it was.

I am hesitant to use any names because the competition might have found the blog and I don't want to give anything away.

Now I am going to take a few minutes and explain why the EPL, or maybe the whole British system of football is superior to just about any sports system. Now I'm not talking about tactics or skill level, I am talking about the fact that the teams in the top level can be moved down. Using baseball as an analogy. Imagine the St.Paul Saints, over the course of several years getting into the majors and playing the Twins.

Professional British football has four levels, Premiere, Championship, League 1, and League 2. Baseball has the majors and then, AAA, AA, and A. Of course the analogy does break down a little in that AAA, AA, and A are affiliates of the majors, but the levels are my point. At the end of the season the top three teams from each league are promoted to the higher league and the bottom three teams are demoted to the lower level. For the Baseball fans, can you say good-by Devil Rays. Or for the die hard NFL fans, good-by Oakland. Of course there is always the FA Cup as well, which is basically a nation wide tournament, kinda like Minnesota's State Hockey Tournament before they made it a two tier system. A lowly League 2 team could win, just not very likely.

Just one more thing that has nothing to do with EPL, back to my very first ever post, here is an article from slate magazine, enjoy.
http://www.slate.com/id/2171870/?GT1=10346

Yes, I think he used my blog entry as the basis for his idea.

Jon

Food at Sea

Sorry it has been awhile, but I actually have been pretty busy. Since my last entry, I have gone to Kristiansund for a small boat course and the weather was absolutely beautiful. Some friends of mine that went the week before apparently had at least half and hour of hail every day. What do you expect at 400 miles south of the Arctic Circle. I also went home for a way to short break, came back to the boat early. Then once on board pulled all of the gear in, went to Mexico, cleared customs, and then but all the gear back out.

Enough of my excuses, on to the actual post.

I have occasionally been asked what the food is like out here. It is generally the same fair everyday, and since I am on the noon to mid-night shift, I eat lunch and dinner - it is pretty close to the same thing served for both meals. Fish then either chicken, beef, or lamb. A pasta and always chips, or to us Americans, "French Fries". There are a few other choices but tend to vary some. The big occurrence is Saturday night, which is Steak night. Steak night helps us keep track of the weeks.

Have you ever seen the Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day"? It's not a comedy, it's a horror movie, that I call work.

Anyway today is Saturday so we are expecting our steak at dinner, but the Steward gave us a curve ball, he served Beef Wellington instead. His version, and I say that because I don't know what is proper Beef Wellington is, was basically a steak with some mushrooms wrapped in a flaky crust, kinda like a pie crust. He also made up a mushroom sauce, think gravy, to be served with it. I really enjoyed it, and the broccoli wasn't all mushy either. As negative as I may have made the meals sound earlier, the Steward and his crew are really doing a great job this trip. Just when you are starting to dread having to select from the same menu he comes up with something special.

Jon

It's June 12th

I have been waiting for this day for a couple of weeks now. It is for only one reason, today is the day of the release of "The Traveling Wilbury's" it is actually a re-release of two albums that were released in the early 90's.

You may have heard of them, but if not they are probably the most understate "super" group ever. The group consists of the 5 Wilbury brothers: Nelson, Clayton, Lefty, Lucky and Otis. Better known as George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynn, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty.

Personally, I was trying to figure out how Tom Petty got into the group, but apparently he is really good friends with Jeff Lynn and were working on an album together. I won't get into the rest of the story of how they got together, you can research that on your own. I do believe it is one of those albums that is just fun to listen to, because the musicians were really just having fun making music.

I cannot wait until I get home to listen to it.

Jon

Grilling in Norway

Last night I was talking with one of my co-workers about weekend plans. We each had other things going on, but decided to go out and cook out last night. So we met up in Oslo to head to an area park and cook dinner.

On our way to the park we stopped off and picked up our groceries. We talked about a few of the differences, and he asked me what size of grills we used. I told him that what ever size was available at the park, or we brought the grill from home. He looked at me kind funny, and asked if we had the disposable kind. I returned his look.

Apparently here in Norway, the parks don't have any grills; which makes some since. No grills - no maintenance, up keep, or replacement costs.

So for about two dollars we got a 8x10 tinfoil pan, with charcoal, grill top, and a stand. I wish I would have known about this last September/October when I was here. It would have been one more option for eating, and it is pretty cheap. Something that is always a bonus in Norway.

Anyway it was fun. The park was very full and it was kind of funny to see everyone facing the same direction. Everyone was facing the sun and watching it, like some sort of deity. We finally left a little after 11 the sun had gone down, but it was still light enough you could read a news paper unassisted.

I'll definitely going to cook out a few more times while I'm here.

Jon

The coolest tool at work

That is a Plasma Cutter, by far the coolest tool/toy/piece of equipment on board our boat. I mean I could spend hours just making big pieces of metal into little pieces of metal. I wish I would have gotten another video of us cutting a 4x8 sheet of stainless steel. It literally is like drawing a hot knife through butter. It is sooooooo cool.

When I was putting together my Christmas idea list 6 months ago, I added a plasma cutter onto the list, half kidding. My mother sees it and promptly asks, "Why do you want a plasma cutter?" I think the video speaks for itself. Or better yet, "Why wouldn't you want a plasma cutter?" I mean other than the $1500+.

Just for a few stats about the video, the chain was a 19mm, or 3/4 in. for those that have problems with the metric system, and the plasma jet is in the ball park of 50,000 F. I've said it once I'll say it again, It is soooooo cool.

Jon

Ya, I know I can be a geek sometimes.

And it's over

The tournament ended tonight. I played my semi final against marbles this afternoon and won the series three to one. Definitely a better player than anyone I played up to that point.

Tonight I played the Welshman who beat T-gun in three straight last night. We traded the first two games before he won the third and forth. I had quite the come back going in the third game going from 4-1 to 4-4 before he put the winner away. I graped the fifth game to take it into the sixth. I proceeded to self destruct and scored three of his five goals.

I am extremely frustrated with myself right now. Tomorrow, we are going to play the Norwegian born in Iran, us two against him by himself. Just an exhibition since he is transferring to another vessel, and we cannot let him go undefeated.

Later

Jon

1 and a wake-up

By the time most of you probably read this it will be Tuesday afternoon and I will be back at work officially making it one more day, then I just have to get up and get on the Helo and be on my way. All together now WOO HOO!!!!

Well today the Group play in Foosball finished up. Here are how they ended.

Group A	GP	Pts
me	4	12
the Russian	4	5
T-gun	4	5
T-nav	4	3
the other American	4	1
Group B
the Welshman in Thailand	4	12
marbles	4	9
the Egyptian	4	4
the normal one	4	3
the Nigerian	4	1

So I will play marbles tomorrow and the Welshman has to see who wins the one game play off between the Russian and T-gun. Go T-gun, hey we work in the same department, I have to back my guy.

Otherwise life continues, I am trying to get the last of the paperwork through to get a promotion, but time is getting short. If not this trip the next one will get it done. I honestly want to go into a few more things, but I need to get my gear together for leaving, I don't want a repeat of last departure again.

I had figured I had at least an hour once I had gotten up, and I took a quick shower and heard the phone ring. It was the Party Chief saying the Helo was going to be here in 15 minutes. I was still soaking wet and had all my gear to put into the bag. 20 minutes later I was ready to go, in need of another shower, and the Helo was still at least 45 minutes away. Or so it ended up taking that long for the Helo to get to the boat. I'm not doing that again. I plan on being packed and basically ready to go before shift today.

Later

Breaking news T-gun just beat the Russian and is getting ready to play the Welshman. Gotta go support my guy.