HARDWARE IMPERFECT

For the moment things have turned upside down for me, first off was my gaming laptop HP broke down very recently due to suspected battery reasons. Second is that I can't play "Call of duty : modern warfare" videogame together with my crew mates because of this. In other words my hp laptop is pretty much useless and finding a replacement will take some time and money. i can still play games with my tablet PC  acer but the graphics fell short compared to my HP laptop.

I tried to restore It and reformat my computer thinking it was some sort of virus but apparently it didn’t work and the worst part was that all the system updates I made was deleted. As in all of it. I was back from scratch and asking help to my crew mates was not helping at all and ended up me losing more data on my works. Fortunately for me some of the data that is stored on my HP laptop is backed up using my acer tablet pc including this diary , so my diary / journal  data loss is the least to worry about. In the meantime I will be using the lenovo laptop temporarily to update my journal while my Hp laptop is out of commission.

I'm thinking a number of solutions about this and my HP laptops situation hasn't made any progress, power is still a big problem. I'm starting to think that I should be buying a new one instead of repairing it. My laptop as only been around with me for less than two years and yet it hardware easily got degraded. Somehow I'm starting to think that HP brands are inferior to any other brands. I'm still yet undecided on whether I should buy a new one or repair this HP when I get back home in the Philippines.

I could buy a new laptop but I still have to save at least a month's salary for me to at least get a 900 U.S.D. budget to buy a high end gaming laptop. Repairing and bringing my HP laptop could be much easier and cheaper in some extend than buying a new one but the problem lies on the "service centre's" and repair shops in the Philippines. Most shop's in the Philippines including the ones who are located inside the malls have been reported to be a chop shop and cannibalize branded computers. Replacing them with substandard and inferior parts. Another option I had been thinking with is buying a new one in the Philippines , in there I could make a proper selection what I really want to buy as a gaming laptop, the only problem in there is Gaming laptop prices are higher compared to the U.S. for some reason and that there's a possibility that the selection of computer there isn't as extent and updated as it is in the united states or in europe.

Tsk ! If I haven't just bought only the "action camera" (used for surveillance and education purposes) I could have now enough money by now to buy a brand new gaming laptop, I guess there's nothing much to do as of the moment but wait and be patient on using a tablet PC for the moment.

In the past few days there have been changes regarding on my work, apparently folks on the deck decided that they have to transfer me and change job descriptions and as a result I am now doing work as an O/S - O.T. instead of O.S. theo. Personally I did not met this sudden change with enthusiasm - because of two reasons, one is that im going home soon and I should focus my attention in preparing to go home, for me doing work as an O/S - O.T. is just another unnecessary distraction.  Second reason is that I'm used in working as an O.S. and being just an O.S. is not bad at all compared to being an O.S. - O.T. or A.B. , being a plain O.S. means that I have plenty of rest hours and rest days to attend to myself and my well-being (health).An O/S - O.T. and A.B. does not have any holiday at all in practice. I was forced to accept the new work description because of the fact that I receiving the money called "watch keeping allowance of 100 U.S.D." on the previous months without actually doing watch keeping.

Anyway I hope that this work rotation is just temporarily and that this will be over soon within a month , otherwise I'm screwed.

Lately I took interest in watching anime shows (on whatever that’s left of my free time ) and been currently hooked up watching it. The japs have really had a way to capture audiences on their anime, I was never a fan of any anime but given with my circumstances that I'm "imprisoned"  and have nothing  much to do but watch. Well for the record I did enjoy watching those cartoons and it’s a good pass time indeed.

On the past few days I was on watch keeping , my health was faltering a bit and my sleeping pattern was all but messed up. I'm not used to the rotational working schedule of an A.B. that is working 4 hours in the day and another 4 hours at night. Back before I was on watch keeping , I usually enjoy 8 hours straight working and the rest of the hours of the day as a straight rest , since the disruptions I had problems in adjusting on my new temporary working schedule. For now I had a bad cold and an occasional cough every now and then and with some chills - flu like symptoms. I asked 2nd mate Olan for some meds and he  gave me some anti-flu tablets called "bio-flu" (local medicine in the Philippines) which is a combination of nasal decongestant , antihistamine and analgesic anti pyretic  med. Not exactly the thing to rid of my flu but something to take the edge off on the symptoms.

In news related to work.

It seems that we have a new captain on Conti Agulhas and that our current captain just only stayed here for  roughly two months , apparently from what I heard on the crew the recent departure of Captain Romaniuk was that it has something to do on the twelve new tanker ships NSB will be launching soon. From what I heard Captain Romaniuk will be one of the captains that will fetch the new ship from the dry dock. I had no other details on these new twelve tankers ships of NSB . The only thing I knew is that this will be launched probably new year or before this year ends. In the meantime our replacing captain for Romanuik will be Captain Gorge Pornitiche , my former captain from Conti Greenland.

I'm ok with Captain Pornitiche since I had work with him on Conti Greenland before. In fact He's more reasonable and lenient compared to the other two ship captains I had encountered here in Agulhas.

Last saturday on this we had some sort of barbecue party at the poop deck , nothing special but this is the first time in six months that a barbecue party was held at all. Somehow our former captain Sorin and Captain Romanuik is not very fond of these at all. From my understanding Captain Romanuik says that barbecue parties are just for children , the same thing goes with captain sorin. Its fortunate that Captain Gorge Pornitiche don’t mind at all on these barbecue parties. Barbecue party was great to be honest

As usual pre caution, nobody in the crew carried a digital camera nor cell phone during the party. ABSOLUTELY NO PICTURES OF ANY KIND. , certainly there isn't anything wrong about taking pictures during the event but apparently from what I heard in this company there is are some ship official's that got a bad rep and got reprimanded years back when "pictures" of their party leaked out in the social media and this principal company saw it. I'm not sure why CSM / NSB took those harmless pictures in a bad way but it was clear that they don’t like their crew having fun at all.