Illinois Jones at your service.

Well, it's been about a month and a half at sea now. From what the passengers are saying the ocean is pretty rough right now and I'd have to agree. While I can't feel the ship rocking at all anymore, I can visibly see my Coke sloshing back and forth in my glass and it is a bit disconcerting. Anyhow, on with the weeks events.

Lets talk a bit about Firedoors shall we? Firedoors on the ship are typically thick steel doors that have what is essentially a little doggy door on the bottom corner so you can feed a fire hose through. However what they're *actually* used for is smashing your ankle when you attempt to hold them open with your foot. Sadistic Dutch designers... Anyway, on our Royal Promenade (tm) Which is a giant open space, we have firedoors that come crashing in a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Now every Saturday night we have a parade who's morning preperation involves putting the equivalent of a giant thong onto one of the bridges on said Promenade (tm) which isn't a big deal, except that you have to hop the railing of the bridge and curl yourself around the edge of the Firedoor track to do it (see where this is going? I thought you might)

To continue with the story building nonsequitors, the Promenade (tm) is your typical large space, so when there are announcements over the loudspeaker that don't relate to the day's Bingo, it sounds more like a robot gargling than an actual person's voice.

So here's the scene: I'm dangling over the edge of this precarious 8-9 foot drop (very dramatic, I know. Next time I'll try to do it from the top of the rockwall) attaching this 30 foot long bridge-thong helf on by velcro while my duty partner Dave is setting up a platform on the bridge itself and bragging about his new cellphone blahblahblah. We're going about our business when we hear the usual garble over the loudspeaker, nothing out of the ordinary: "mutterstuffleblahsquelch" so we continue on attaching Velcro and talking about shiny cellphones. Five minutes later I hear behind me "Mutterstuffleblahsquelch!!!!" (It turns out the loudspeaker works just fine, the bridge first officer just happens to *actually* sound like he swallowed a tin can) anyhow: I look up, and crashing down on me is said unstoppable Firedoor: I reach up and go to grab the railing to ungracefully flop myself back onto the bridge and what do I find purchase on? Dave's shiny new cellphone. Dave looks at me with a mixture of panic and "I can't believe he's stealing my new shiny amidst this crisis" and I, finding myself totally off balance with architectural lingerie in one hand and a brand new motorola in the other, start to fall. Now for the cool part, I start to roll off the bridge clinging to life to this banner-bridge-thong-thing, aqnd the velcro starts to rip off for approximately 3 feet until it hits the safety cable which is a Nico-pressed aircraft cable ordeal at which point I find myself swinging down, level, and back up safely on top of the table in front of the irish pub. I blink and realize I have just pulled the coolest manuever I will ever perform in my life. Cellphone in hand, and the bridge officer (being a suave adventurous 20-something dutch tin can eater) tells me that he'll give me 20 dollars if I can do that again. I learn from him that the announcement was that they were testing all the firedoors in that particular area, and that I should probable avoid movie stunts while working.

Next lesson: Karma. Everything evens out. Everything.

Later on that day I'm working on something for the aforementioned parade down on Deck three. Now the two guys I work with in Studio B aren't exactly the most humorous fellows, however for some reason today they're feeling a bit cheaky. We have these handheld confetti cannons, on Saturday they need multicolored confetti, and on wednesday they need blue, but for some reason the blue confetti never got fired out of two of them. So, my Nicaraguan coworker Stevie thinks this a great excuse to shoot one at Eric. Now, at a range of <20 feet these things are essentially tightly packed paper bullets. So, of course, Eric shouts, says some vulgar things and promptly decides that in retribution he should of course shoot the other one at me. Now I am unaware of this whole process as I'm working out in the hall bent over a cart. As I'm tinkering with the cart Dave turns the corner and the whole thing works out like this:

Dave :"Hey!!"

Me: "Oh He-"

*Eric turns the other corner and fires off the cannon, hitting me square in the berries*

*Matt makes various death gurgles as he collapses to the Floor*

Dave: "There's my cellphone!"

Me: "uunghunghuuuuugh"



So in the end Dave got his heroicly stolen phone back in a rather ironic way, and I'm worried that my future children may be born with confetti-shaped dents in their foreheads; but the saving grace is that in the aftermath I told Eric that one day soon he'd find his headset magically covered in a particularly strong adhesive, or that in his drink he'd suddenly discover some sort of new industrial laxative. While this in itself seems cruel, the fact is I'll never do anything to him and he's spent the last two days paranoid about touching anything for fear of my testicle-vengeance; so I'll let the paranoia be my revenge.

Anyhow, enough of my morning ramblings: I hope everything's going well where you are, and I'd like to open the forum to any questions you have about cruise ships, the life, the vacation, the caribbean, the ports etc. So feel free to leave a comment. Take care