Well, we had a fun afternoon at a local place here in Seattle called the Marco Polo. Where we had an open bar and some good food, and watched the Superbowl. I'm not a huge sports fan. In fact, I know exactly two things about football. Jack, and Sh*t, and Jack packed his bags and left town.

In any case, I had a good time hanging out with the rest of the crew and had a few beers. Actually, just three... then I switched to cokes. I hate getting hangovers, so I often quit drinking long before I get to that point.

There were door prizes that everyone had a ticket for, but I didn't win anything. Carl and Robert who were sitting on my left both won something, and Dennis who was on my right won something. I don't have that kind of luck, though. I don't win stuff like that. But, I do consider myself very lucky. I don't need a giant inflatable Superbowl XLI Ring... I really dont, hehehe...

Anyway, I was just maintaining my various pages and stuff on the web, and thought I'd drop a line here. Have a great night all.

Love and Light,

Cedalion

Okay, so only part of the day was overtime, but the rest of the afternoon was spent at verious Goodwill and Salvation Army Stores, finding treasures.  I found a nice goblet for my altar and a pair of candle holders, as well as a unique brass bowl for salt.

Anyway, back to the post...

So, when we are underway, we (my boss and I), cook for the crew and for the scientists that come onboard to study the fish, mammals, and the waters they live in. We cook breakfast lunch and dinner, seven days a week. He and I order all the food, plan all the menus, prep, cook, and clean up. But we REFUSE to read the menu to anyone. By this I am referring to the people who don't read the board posted right THERE next to the serving line. They will point to an item and ask, "What's that?" We usually just point at the board.

Our day starts at 5am, and we serve breakfast from 7 to 8am. We clean up and cook lunch, which is served from 11 to 12. Then we clean up again and take a break until 3pm. Then it's back to work. We cook dinner and clean up, making sure we leave several plates for those people that work the night shift. We are typically done by 7pm and then we can chill out for a while. I'm in bed by 10pm usually and up at 4, so I can shower and get some coffee in me before work the next morning.

We are capable of being underway for more than a month at a time, and are really only limited by food stores and fuel capacity.

This year, there is a stretch over the summer, where we will 'touch and go'. That means we will come in from a trip, and dock just long enough to refuel, restock, and change groups of scientists/equipment. This will be for at least three months.

For recreation onboard, we have a small gym with a stationary bike and a 'nautilus' type machine that is designed for ships. It reconfigures for different exercises. We also have a good sized set of dumb-bells, which I thought was strange to have on a ship.

We also have a large movie library, provided to us by the generosity of the U.S. Navy. We get first run movies not long after the theaters do. We have several players, and a big plasma tv screen in the lounge. But you can even go down to your stateroom, and tune in to the channel that a movie is playing on in relative privacy. There are alos computers in each of the crew staterooms, and we can load our own software on them to play games if we like.

I like to read and draw and play guitar, so I have plenty to keep me busy in my off hours.

Well, that is about it for now. I'm thinking I am going to head to bed and get some rest. My boss says to sleep in tomorrow, but I always feel wierd doing that, especially when I know that we have contractors onboard. I like to make sure the coffee is made.

   When we are underway, my day starts at five in the morning, but since we are in the shipyard undergoing repairs, we can't put away alot of our dry stores, and the galley on the ship is closed.  There is a dining facility in the federal building next to where we are docked, and since we normally receive our meals in the galley, which as I mentioned is closed, we go over there for meals.

   The dining hall there only serves breakfast and lunch, and they are closed on weekends, so we are pretty much on our own for those meals, but we have sandwich fixings and cereals available, coffee, and such. But, we get an allowance for the meals that we are not provided so we can go anywhere we like for dinner during the week and for meals on weekends.  They take good care of us here.

  Okay, my boss just showed up, and we've got some stuff to take care of (Overtime, Baby!) so I will continue this later.

Love and Light,

Cedalion

So, I mentioned in my previous (and first) post, that I was embarking on a new career. In the 'about me' section, I briefly wrote about the job being with NOAA. For those that are not familiar with the agency, NOAA stands for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. I've just been here a month, and I am really enjoying it.

The ship Oscar Dyson is a 209 foot fishing trawler. We are home ported out of Kodiak, Alaska, but we are presently dosked in Seattle Washington undergoing some repairs. We are hoping to get underway this week and get our 2007 field season started.

There are 15 crew and 4 officers, and we take groups of scientists out to the Bering Sea and other places, to study fish, whales and other sea mammals. We don't fish for profit, but only trawl for samples and then let them go back, I guess you could say it is catch and release on a very large scale.

I am the 2nd Cook onboard the Dyson, and I work with the Chief Steward, cooking for the crew and scientists (typically a dozen or more at a time) and taking care of the mess daeck and the ships laundry.

I live onboard the ship with a room-mate in a small two man stateroom. It's not all that bad when you respect each others space, and give each other time in the room alone once in a while. Besides, when we are underway, we are all working 12 hour days and all we want to do is sleep when we are finished with our work.

I started the process of getting this job in May, 2006. I had just returned from a rather unpleasant stint on a cruise ship in Hawaii. The company will remain nameless, but it rhymes with Norwegian Cruise Lines. (ooops!) I loved the shipboard lifestyle, but the cruise ship industry is like nothing I have ever experienced, or ever want to do again.

If anyone else out there is a professional cook, please feel free to chime in on this one. We've all worked in places where things go wrong from time to time. Sometimes you dont get the things you ordered, sometimes something breaks, sometimes people show up late, or show up drunk, or dont show at all, sometimes things get stolen.

In the cruise ship industry, all of these things happen. Daily. At The Same Time! It is the only place I have ever worked where ALL of the previously listed dynamics can (and do) occur with amazing frequency. I never want to do that again.

I was in the United States Coast Guard for four years, and was honorably discharged in 1992. I was stationed at a SAR station (Search And Rescue) on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts for three of those years, and I suppose that the sea got into my blood. I am also a Pisces, so that might have something to do with it, maybe.

Originally, when I learned that I was selected for the job with NOAA, I was offered a ship in Hawaii, called the Hi'ialikai, but someone else filled that position from within, and then I was offered the position I have now.

This is all good, too. I make a decent living, and I live onboard ship. I have virtually no living expenses, so all of my money (except for a small amount to play with) is sent to my creditors. I will be out of debt by the end of the summer. Completely. Then, I just start saving. So, when I take a vacation, I can pretty much go wherever I want... or looking at the long term. I can stay here and retire in about 15 years, buy a house with cash and start my own business. I can do anything I want, really. It's a great life.

Love and Light

Cedalion

So, I've been thinking alot on how I got to this point in my life. I'll be 40 in just a few weeks, I'm divorced, going on three years now, and I am just starting an exciting career change.  I look back and realize all of the bad choices I made and have to shake my head. I have heard that knowledge is learning from your own mistakes, but wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. Damn, but I feel like I should be one of the most knowledgeable people around.

I remember being about twelve or thirteen and going to the Fortson public library in the small town of Hampton, Georgia, and asking the librarian if they had any books on Astral Projection. I remember a blank look and the lady saying something to the effect of: We don't have any books like that here. This was the mid nineteen-seventies, and there were plenty of books on psychic phenomena around. I ended up borrowing one from a friend of my parents and began reading about it. I tried it many times, but it was not until my early twenties that I believe I successfully travelled astrally. I was living in one of those rent by the week motel places, and I was trying to establish myself back in Georgia, after my Mother moved us to Utah back in 1981. I never liked Utah, and I tried for years to get away from that place, but I kept going back, or being pulled back... so, here I was, I was lying on my back on the bed, meditating. I did this for three consecutive nights, and had no success, until the third night. I was meditating, and then I was gone. I remember nothing. No dreams. No waking up during the night (which I am constantly doing.)Silence. Blackness. Nothing. And, when I awoke the next morning, I was exhausted. I felt like I had not slept in days.

When I was a bit younger than that, I had an aunt and uncle that taught me to see auras. I don't really know if they 'taught' me anything... but, I kept trying and trying, and I believe I can see them. Most recently, I was talkng to a woman that I worked with at my previous job and I told her about hers, which was different than others I had seen. I knew she was a witch. This she told me, but her aura was silver and there were what I thought were spikes on it, but I realized they were not spikes but lines fading off into the distance, that were connected to something else. It was then that she told me about her connections to her coven, and how strong they were in her tradition. I thought this was really cool.

I have tried to learn the Tarot, and have had some success with that, but sometimes after a read, I am completely worn out, so I begin to wonder if that is something that I don't have the gift for, and I am trying too hard.

It's interesting to me what we learn from different sources, and how sometimes something we learn today, can answer a question that we asked years ago. I think I may have a gift for healing, mainly because when I was married. I would take my wife's headaches from her. I would absorb them and then I would hurt. So, after I separated from her, and moved to Tennessee, I met a woman that has become one of my dearest friends. She had fallen and broken her ankle at some time in the past, and it would hurt her sometimes. So, I would be over there, and we would be drinking some wine and talking, and I would go to take her ankle. She would stop me and tell me, "No." When I asked why, she said, "Because you don't know how to release it, and you keep it in you." Which was true. I would internalize it, and I would begin to hurt, not my ankle necessarily, but it would just wear me down. It was only recently learned about grounding, and the importance of releasing energy, so I am studying and meditating on that and maybe it will help with determining if I have any healing talent.

I thought I would mention something about my choice of handle for this site. If I had my druthers, I would change it because it seems rather presumptuous. In any case, I have always enjoyed making things with my hands. Building things, sculpting, drawing, whatever. When I was living in Utah, right before my divorce, I had a nice little workshop where I would fix furniture, or work on some little project. So, one day, a friend of mine comes  to me and wants me to help her with her shrine. She is Kemetic Orthodox, an ancient Egyptian religion. She also has really bad athsma, and cant handle the fumes from paint or dust from sanding. She brought this wood cabinet on legs to me, and I started working on it for her. I stripped it down and it was really well constructed. She wanted a place to put the statue for her Patron Yinepu (also known as Anubis). The cabinet had three shelves inside, one being the bottom of the cabinet itself. Her idol was taller than would fit inside, so I cut out two spaces in the upper shelves to create a 'terraced' effect. so her satues could sit on the bottom shelf, and she could place various offerings and other items around it on the terraces. I painted the outside cream and the inside blue ( as per her instructions) and made other additions, such as gold rope trim and new hardware. Anyway, the point of this whole thing is this: I felt like I was making something worthy. Something for the Gods and Goddesses. I have also always said that I believe that I had a past life as a blacksmith. so, I started thinking about the name Hephaestus, the Greek Blacksmith of the Gods.  Humbly though, if given the opportunity, I would change this to Cedalion, his apprentice.

Anyway, I am really excited about this site. I hope to get a chance to chat with the members and learn many things.

Love and Light,

Cedalion