GOODSTUFFs LIFE STORY

Maybe the ancient Mayan,s calendar ending in December of this year was a foreshadowing of this thing with Multiply shutting down and nothing more ... I am now looking for a new blogging home. Please allow me to introduce myself 

In 1957 I was born as a mirror twin (my twin bother). Started working when I was thirteen. All kinds of old jobs. One of the best was picking up golf balls at a driving range...

The just after the Vietnam conflict was declare over, I joined the US Coast Guard and became an electronic technician at Governors Island (four years).

After experiencing New York City, I like living in mega cities

Was station on Marcus Island (Minami Torishima) for over a year. There was a woman behind every tree... but there were no trees. There were these plants called Manra Scaevola, which were more like a plant than a tree.

Visited Iwo Jima twice for a total of fourteen days. The John Wayne movie should of be called "The Black Sands of Iwo Jima"

Spent a year on a Micronesia Island name Yap. Fell in love but did not get married, she ran away...

After hitch hiking all over America, I wound up homeless in the Florida Keys (Islamorada area). Lived on boats and a VW micro bus. Became a very good sport fishermen as a deck hand. Shortly thereafter, I hung out in Jamaica and the Caribbean for six months...

BTW - during the above time frame (Marcus - Caribbean) I did a lot of scuba diving for work and play

Also - Six months after Reagan Administration did the Cuba thing, I took a shotgun to Cuba and murder a bunch of birds that were distroying fruit orchards

I became a productive member of society by accident. I went to the wrong personal office and they wanted me to work as a seismic navigator (doodlebugger). I was not sure but when they said "you will be working in Brazil on a brand new boat as a navigator and we will pay you lots of money." I said "were do I sign?". The best part of working in Brasil was being a base station coordinator.  I got to travel the Brazilian coast twice with a fleet of trucks setting up navigation base stations. During my breaks, I explored South America, Central America and Mexico while sporting long red hair and a top hat (sorry, no photos).

After reading James Michener's "Drifters"; I cross the big pond to work in the North Sea and the Middle East. The plan was to become a renascence man. Towards the end of the chapter, I fell in lust with a big boobed English gal. On the 4th of July I was wearing fowl weather gear as I walk to the local pub. That was the end of the renascence period.

True story - While doing a transition job in Egypt, I crossed the Gulf of Suez with a zodiac to buy cases of Israeli OK beer.

After learning the hard earn skills of a navigator, I became a contract navigator. Lots of interesting jobs while ping ponging between Alaska, Hawaii and the Gulf of Mexico. I live on all the Islands of Hawaii but the micro climates of the Big Island (fire and ice) was my favorite. And a course, I did like the charms of Hotel Street in Oahu. 

GOODSTUFF  -- This is when I got the name "GOODSTUFF". The seismic industry was going through a slow period. As a contract navigator I needed a gimmick. Therefore, instead of saying "roger roger" on the radio/intercom all the time, I started saying GOODSTUFF. 

Around this time I became a "Master Navigator" and the Taxman was confirming that I needed to stop paying taxes. While I was hanging out in the Fijian islands a job came up in South East Asia.

cool note  -- Just after the 1987 Fijian coup, Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka saw me walking around Suva while carry his just released book. He flag me down and insisted that he sigh his book. I did not argue with him. He was a big scary looking Dude.

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The pre-GPS days - I was asked to fire up a job in South East Asia on the TSS Beata. The job (it's not a job, it's an adventure) was so much fun that I never wanted to take a break. During this time period I worked as a Master Navigator, Base Station Coordinator, Navigation Manager, Scout Dude and Expeditor.

I live and worked all over Asia, South East Asia, the outback of Australia, Spratly Islands, and India. When I did take a break, I went to really exotic places like Burma, Borneo and beach resorts in Thailand. I was use to the differences of third world countries but I found my self saying "Wow! look at that square egg", at least once every two days.

This is a "no shit story" - I was shipped wreaked in the remote islands of Indonesia with out water. I swam across an estuary to harvest some coconuts. On the return swim, I was chased out of the water by crocodiles. Close call!

cool note - Over the years I mapped/explore the entire coastline of Borneo.

The domesticated years - After a couple visits from the Grim Reaper, the advent of GPS and other changes in the seismic industry I needed to make some changes. The biggest changes were getting married to my only wife Srisuda, adopting A Dude and Boobee Kid and helping take care of a bunch of kids with cat/dogs while living just outside of Bangkok, Thailand.

I still needed adventure in my life. I then pioneered the job know as Scout Navigator. Which entails living on small local boats while supporting the mother boat, clearing fishing gear, chasing away fishing boats, hazard mapping, reporting and being a Commodore (max; 23 boats, 120 plus men)

real life - I have had several close encounters with real pirates 

showing off - I can map in real time using pencil and paper. Using a computer, I can process the collected data and have a final product within two hours. Also, I can build code in four languages  

BTW - Look Mom, no tattoos

note - some cool stories and stuff have been omitted to protect the not so innocent.

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HOW NOT TO REPEL PIRATES

Here lately there have been some heavy hitters posting on the world’s response to modern day pirates in the Gulf of Aden. How come? Well, those pesky Somali pirates have kept themselves in the headlines long enough to draw the attention of the UN Security Council (I'll bet the pirates are terrified). However, most of the posters just don’t have a clue about this pirate stuff. This blog is about how NOT to repel pirates.

First off pirates are not like the actors on TV or the movies. In reality they armed robbers, kidnappers and terrorists. Pirates are now arm better armed, organize and financed than ever before.

Repelling pirates with fire hoses and fire monitors is just dumb. You are only going to make the pirates mad and you will be exposing crew members to real bullets

Using fire bombs to repel pirates is probably the worst thing you could do. The crew members will be in the open when they toss the fire bombs. In addiction the pirates can just catch the bottles and throw them back at the crew members. There by creating another major problem that only aids the pirates. Just stupid!

Some posters recommend using a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) which is an expensive loud hailer that can easily be defeated with ear protection (cigarette butts). You are dreaming if you think harsh words are not going to stop a pirate attack, it’s only going to make them laugh.

There are many good laws that forbid seafarers from arming themselves. There is also the problem of clearing in/out of international ports with firearms. In practices it’s a bad idea to shoot at a more experience and better armed group of pirates.

Issuing Letters of Marque & Reprisal to civilian contractors like Blackwater, Paratus World Wide Protection, or Triple Canopy is another bad idea. Private security guards are not keepers of the international law. Government armed forces are keepers of international law. The same argument applies to enforcing anti-pirating laws.

Denial of Ransom?  “Stop paying the pirates and many of them will likely find new careers ashore.” Economics and seeking funds to support terror activities is the reason they are pirates. I am sure seafarers and their families don’t think much of this idea

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GOOGLE OCEAN IS A TOY NOT A TOOL

MAPPING IS THE FIRST STEP IN EXPLORATION In an age when we are mapping the surfaces of Venus and Mars, it is difficult to believe that so little is known about our own planet. We know more about the backside of the moon than we do about the bottom of the ocean. Louisville seamount chain which is a chain of large undersea volcanoes having a length equal to the distance between New York and Los Angeles. These features are unfamiliar because they were discovered a little more than 20 years ago. The Louisville seamount chain was first detected in 1972 using depth soundings collected along random ship crossings of the South Pacific This is a composite map using satellite data and multi-beam sonar data.  HUDSON CANYON The Hudson Canyon is still a true ocean wilderness right in the backyard of the largest metropolitan area on earth, NEW YORK Cartography is still a art and science. Lots of new methods and ideas that is marrying more than a few branches of bathymetries However, what users are seeing is an artefact of the data collection process. Sea floor terrain data is often collected from boats using sonar to take measurements of the sea floor. The lines reflect the path of the boat as it gathers the data. The fact that there are blank spots between each of these lines is a sign of how little we really know about the world's oceans.
  SOME VERY COOL MAPS  

 GOOGLE OCEAN version 5.0 You can fly under the surface of oceans and explore underwater terrain

 

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