14 Dec 2003 - Eighth day at sea
0840 - Back from breakfast at 0730. John was very quiet this morning. He's a very private person. We walked up to the bow and looked around for a few minutes after we ate and then I headed back here.
This morning, I got up at 0630 and went up to the bridge and talked to Emil. I think I am really going to enjoy talking with him. His English is excellent so I can go full speed without considering what he's getting or not getting.
He told me a lot about how he came to be in this profession. In 1986, he was graduating from High School in Romania and he was wondering what to do. he was at the top of his class and strong in mathematics and physics. Those were the Communist years under Ceauşescu and things were very closed. A friend told him about the Maritime Service and he decided that was the ticket. His parents were shocked and tried to talk him out of this idea but he persisted and they accepted his wishes. He's now been at sea for 13 years and I think he likes it.
We began to get off onto other topics when 0730 came and the Captain arrived and he had to work with the Captain and I wanted to go to breakfast.
Today, on the GENA program, I am going to focus on finding and terminating memory leaks. I've know I've had them for a long time but now that I am loading big screen sized images, they are getting bad. Time for some s/w housecleaning.
2050 - Well, I worked long and hard today on memory leaks and I haven't made much progress. Other interesting stuff happened, however.
At about 2 PM today, the third engineer came by and asked if I could help with his computer. I spent about 40 minutes on it but I don't think we knew anymore when we were done that when we began. He's got a USB scanner that hangs most of the time though everything else about his system works fine. Also, he's taken the scanner and its USB cable to his friend's computer and it all works fine. I told him I thought he needed to try to download the latest updates from Microsoft or reload his XP operating system completely.
At dinner tonight, John was absent and Anatoly and I got to talking.
Afterwards
I asked him to come to my cabin and I showed him pictures of our nursery and
home. We looked on Encarta and found where his house is in a town named
Gdynia in Poland. We talked for quite awhile. Tomorrow, after
coffee, we're going to do the tour of the engine room. That should
be interesting. This is John on the left and Anatoly on the right.
Also, this morning, Emil, the first officer, came by and dropped off a copy of the Movie, The Doors, for me. I traded him Baraka. Tomorrow, before breakfast, I'll got up to the bridge and see what he thought about Baraka.
Sometimes, at meals with these guys, it is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. But once you are one-on-one with these guys, they are great talkers and very interesting people.
At 2024, we were at 11.19S & 157.12W. We're sailing right through the middle of the Cook Islands group - a small independent nation. Currently, we're about 175 miles from the nearest island.