Just a very few words from downtown Rio de Janeiro

Good evening all, or whatever it is at this time of the day around the world. Over here in Rio it's about 21.30 or 9.30 pm as they rather like to say over here on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. It's OK, I know both terms well enough, so you can use whatever you're used to. 
I'm back again today as well, with a few rants and a couple of snaps that has nothing to do with anything being said. Which should mean everything is as it should be right now as I got nothing much to say about the photography part of it. 
One day I will though, so stay tuned folks!

We came in to town around four o'clock this morning, and it's been a darn long day ever since, I tell you. The client had some stuff to get done on one of their very stupid winches, which of course means we have to join them and go in to the shore either we like it or not. 
I like to go to in and see land and buildings and things, but honestly it's getting worse all the time due to the amount of work piling up that you have to try to get done during the very few hours you get alongside. 
You will have made ready a list of things to do of course, duly written on the door in the engine control room, and then you start on top and work your way down towards the end as far as you get before someone up on the bridge will call you and say "hi-ho" and heave them ropes aboard and fire up the steamers, and off we go again. 
Big trouble is you always only get about this far down your mentioned list before people start calling about all the things that has gone wrong around this old vessel. Winches that don't move, pumps not starting, valves not operating... and the one I never like to hear: the crane is not working!! Which was todays big happening, of course. The crane not working always means we have to drop whatever we're doing to shorten down our list, and jump onto that huge thing to try get it fixed ASAP. It means a world to have that crane working, as it's part of the ship and the ship will get off-hire as soon as it's not doing what it's supposed to do. No pounds, shilling or pence into the ship owners pockets, in other words. 
It's an old crane this one, made in 1998 in good old Holland. It's been great and has served us well, but it's also quite big and it's got a dreadful load of internal parts inside itself. 
About five years ago it was decided to have the thing a bit updated for about 5-6 million Euro, but due to the big crisis and bad things happening in the industry it was put on hold. I guess that's what we are paying for right now... with sleepless nights and a mighty lot of work to be done to keep the thing still working. 
Well, don't let me dwell into the matter too much. We finally found two tiny cables in contact with each other at a place where particularly these two cables should absolutely not be in contact with each other, and then stuff like this tends to sort itself out pretty quick after tearing them cables apart and have them secured that way. 
It's just a matter of finding the buried dog of course, in the middle of a million cables and sensors. It was well hidden this time, waaaay down in the lower and inner parts of the machinery inside everything. What most people seem to fail to understand is that the part you see of this crane is actually just a tiny bit of it. It also takes up quite a large space over five floors inside this old ship. Huge old yellow bastard it is!

 I'm really not sure what made me stop and waste a frame of film on this piece of warehouse somewhere at one of the piers on The Clyde in Glasgow a couple of years or so back in time. Looking at it now it could have been the positioning of things... and the brickwork maybe? I don't know, but there's been people working here some time back. That's for sure!

And not only that, but I even went around the corner to the opposite side of it and snapped that part of it up as well. This time it makes a bit more sense maybe. I think I thought about why they decided to put in a perfectly new and fine door into the hole where a rotten door probably used to stay a short time ago, but failed to see that the roof was about to fall into the building itself? I mean right now there will be a guy standing pushing against the door and wonder what on earth can possibly be blocking their rather new and perfect door from the inside? They can call me... I might be able to give them a clue.

Before all this maniac stuff happened we had a rather good time actually. At least part of the time. We were supposed to get some old sludge delivered to an on-shore lorry, and that part went well enough after we suddenly had a couple of hours extra work because of the fact that they were (for once in a lifetime) deciding that the port side of the ship was the best side to have alongside this time. That little detail created a total mess out of everything, but after that was sorted out it was great for about one hour... until the crane thing happened of course. I mean I even managed to take the black old Leica out on deck in the sunshine taking a few snaps. I even managed to get shouted at very loud because of pointing it into the direction of (obviously) the totally wrong man, and I could go on and on and on. 
All in all it's been a typical great day alongside in Rio, as you probably already have guessed.

And now I'm off to bed, just saying!