Time to write something

Hi all!!
I just thought it would be about time to write a few words again, as there's nothing much else to do on board this rusty thing at the moment. I finally got a heads up for next yard stay this morning, which seems to be just before Christmas, starting on the 5th of December. At least that's the latest plan, but we will see what we end up with at some point. They usually decide the dates a few times before anything gets settled, so I'm not holding my breath this time either.

Did I tell you I went down in the mess to learn how to bake my own bread yesterday? Or, I sort of know how to bake bread already, and I really love to do it when I'm back home, but I seem to do something wrong at times, and I really wanted to find out what. So what's better than join a short training course with one of the best baking guys around, at least out here in the middle of the North Sea.
So I joined, and I think I learned at least a couple of very nice things to know. Let's just hope it's all valid for the kitchen back home as well, as the last times I have been trying this on my own I have ended up with bricks good enough to kill horses, if that's at all useful to anyone.

This is more like the day has been like for today. Reading manuals, writing small words into the margin of papers trying to sort out useable stuff among all the other things you're not that interested in at the moment. This is not me, mind you, but an old snap of one of my earlier first engineers. He used to snap some himself as well, but on a pixel collecting level, of course. A great guy still. No idea what camera used for this one, but could easily have been a rangefinder with 35mm lens...

Hey, I even brought a camera down there to the galley as I thought I might get the opportunity to snap a few of someone actually doing something on board this thing. Some Nikon loaded with Kentmere 100, so we will see how that perform in some low light conditions at some point. When it's developed and all, as you should know all about by now. 
I brought another camera as well this trip. I had completely forgot about the small thing, but a while ago I was visiting my mother in law and found this nice little P&S in one of her drawers while looking for a knife. A real Olympus Mju II... kid you not! 
So I dropped a new battery into the thing, and threw it inside a drawer back home to pick out some other day. And forgot all about it until the day before I was going to work. I was looking for some kind of adaptor for a pixelcollector, but when I found the Mju I forgot all about the little adaptor thing. So now it's here, loaded with some film... I think maybe FP4+ or something similar. We will see when I pick the finished roll out of the thing.
I have even snapped a few, and it seems to work allright. A bit annoying that the flash starts directly in auto, but I hopefully will get used to just that. Need to press the flash button two times after turning the thing on to get rid of the flash firing constantly... but that's the way it was built, and I'm not going to open it to find a fix! Just saying...

By the way: Snaps shown today is totally random stuff I just happened to stumble over somewhere. Sorry and such if they have been seen at some point before around this place!

The last trainee in the engineroom, Michael from old East Germany. He even recognized my ORWO film as something he remembered seeing around his grandfathers house before he moved to Norway some years ago now. Great lad, this one :) We got a new trainee these days, but it's a bit early to bring snaps of him... and he never seems to be sitting still long enough to get something decent either, but some day it will happen for sure!

Ah, and the Nikon I happened to bring got this lovely, nice old 35mm f/2 lens attached. Don't ask me why I'm not using it more often that lens, but it somehow seems to go under my radar all the time. I mean I love to use the 35mm length on the rangefinders, and it sure is a great focal length to use on the SLR's as well. And the lens looks absolutely as new, at least on the glassy sides of the thing. A few scratches and stuff on the exterior, but that's just the way it is, and nothing to worry too much about. Even the focus ring is tight and nice and feels like new, and just as is the aperture ring. The only downside of it would be that you really need to twist and turn your hand to focus the thing, because it's almost a full 360 deg. turn from shortest focus to infinity. But then again it foucus all the way down to below 30 cm. It's actually an old non-AI lens, which at least means it was released some time before 1977, but it has been converted at some point and most likely by someone who knew what he/she was doing. Very professional job with the right spareparts used and all. According to this useful list (at least for anyone owning old Nikon lenses), my lens is from a batch started march 1975 ending in 1977.
It's still a great lens, but I use it to rarely. That's why I dropped it into the bag for this trip, to try make some good use of the thing. And used it I have, so just wait for all the masterpieces to appear in about a month or so, when I get home and get some film developed. I got hopes of something not that ordinairy, but then again you will never know until you see the result hanging from a string.

Look at this!! I have even managed to snap the wife at some point without her sensing what was going on and being able to hide away super fast. Looks like I had to use a bit longish shuttertime on this one, but I might even try with even more time added at some point. If I get the chance, that is...

Well, I got something to read more of before I go to bed. You see the mate of the North East Liberties of Coleraine of Northern Ireland has posted something historical from his place over there, and you need to read it at least twice to get hang of what it's all about. History, you know. It's not the kind of stories that always end like you thought they will. So I'll jump over there, and see you again soon!!