May 15th Miami

May 15, 2011- Miami

Oh wow what a wonderful day!  Last night I decided to go to the mall again with Bryan and Ryan but I accidently overslept.  I didn’t even wake up with the bow thrusters and mooring lines which show that I’m getting used to ship life.  Honestly, I didn’t really need anything at the mall but I just wanted to go and have some fun and just explore a little bit.  So I was a little disappointed that I missed them.  About an hour or so later Brad called and asked if I wanted to go explore Miami a little bit, not having anything else to do I was happy to get off the ship.  He had some errands to do but I didn’t mind as long as I was exploring.  Our first stop off ship was downtown to pick up a magnet for his name tag.  They give us name tags on the ship and we have to wear them constantly, even in crew areas and especially when not in uniform.  The bad thing is that it’s a pin so after a while and repeat use it starts to poke little holes in your shirts (I’m really tired of ruining good, expensive shirts).  So I was really thankful that he needed one so I picked some up as well.  I managed to find a post box so I mailed some things off to people so I was thrilled about that.  I totally forgot last week to mail Jayson my Breeze card I had everything I needed except for the card itself which was very disappointing.  Afterwards he said he needed to do a little shopping at a mall near South Beach.  Apparently there is a really, really nice mall there and a nice beach as well.  I’ve never been so I was thrilled to go.  He said he had to get another shirt for formal night so he wanted to get something really nice.  The mall was absolutely beautiful.  It was an outdoors mall that was similar to short pump but the shops reminded me more of Carytown.  Every shop was in a restored art deco building and the mall was full of them.  I kind of wanted to stop and take pictures but I was afraid of playing a tourist.  Apparently there is a huge gay population there as well (I know right? Why am I not surprised.  Good mall + great architecture + beach= many gays).  By the time we got to the mall it was around 11 so we were hungry and in desperate need of good food so we stopped at a little Italian place and had pizza.  I realize now that I eat really slowly which is really bad for ship life especially when we have a strict schedule.  We managed to leave around 12:30 or so.  After lunch we headed to the clothing store.  It was a little tiny place called “U Rock!” and it was also in an old art deco building.  It was very, very, very nice.  I had no clue what I was getting myself into.  This place was unlike any other clothing store I’ve ever been to.  The walls were covered with various framed Rock bedazzled paintings in a black and gold theme obviously homage to the various artists through the years.  There were still some remnants of the art deco chandeliers, lighting fixtures and stuff on the wall but it was mainly covered up with something more appropriate for the Rock theme (which made me sad).  The chandelier almost didn’t fit in the space, still thinking about it I honestly don’t know how they got it through the door.  There was only one man working there and he looked like someone out of a Calvin Klein photo shoot.  He recognized Brad instantly and helped him pick out a few things.  This was the kind of store that demanded one on one attention.  They were really nice different styled shirts that had different fabric on the cuffs and the ribbons on shoulder that I love so much.  I managed to look at the labels and all it was all cotour!!! (Forgive the spelling) At that instant I knew that I was way, way, waaay, out of my league and just put my hands back behind my back and tried not to touch anything I didn’t want to even look at anything.  He tried on a few things and I just waited patiently trying not to even look at the wonderful pair of jeans and shirts.  I noticed they had jean sizes all the way down to 24 inch waist.  No problem finding jeans here (just can’t afford many, hell… can’t afford one!)  The gentleman was really nice while he was trying on the various things he had picked out.  He managed to understand that we worked aboard a ship Brad in entertainment and me the technician.  I told him that I would never be able to wear these things because they would be dirty all the time and he just laughed.  Smooth Larry… Idiot.    He finally found a good shirt.  It was really nice a deep black almost sheen like with a bright red line that went right across the top of the left breast pocket.  The cuffs were mostly white with black stripes that went horizontally across the cuff.  On the other side they were black so you could change them up if you wanted to or if you rolled them up.  The collar was black but on the inside near the neck had that same black stripes.  There was only one tiny red stripe on the breast pocket.  It made the whole shirt pop.  Even the shoulder ribbons were reversible to the black and white stripes.  Sure enough it was cotour.  The gentleman quickly took it up to the register and rang him up.  It was over a hundred and sixty dollars!!! For one bloody shirt!!! I couldn’t believe my ears.  I would be afraid to even touch that, especially after a hard day’s work, even after showering.  Since Brad was there so often the man said that he “let the shirt go” for 140.  I was still in shock.  Sure enough he bought the shirt and the gentleman wrapped it up and put it into a nice black and gold bag.  Maybe Brad will let me keep the label that was hanging off one of the buttons.  That’s probably about as close to one of those shirts as I’ll ever get.  Maybe when I’m a designer I’ll be able to wear that stuff to work, but not now.  Oh god, I’m still in shock just thinking about it.  He told me later that he’s only been there once and bought a pair of jeans for three hundred bucks.  Our next stop, CVS and probably one of the largest I’ve ever been to.  I picked up some things, I desperately needed contact solution.  After that we headed to the beach.  Apparently there’s an exclusive gay beach there.  I’ve never been to a gay beach but as long as people weren’t running around naked I didn’t care.  Never have I ever been to a beach with rainbow flags but I guess its Miami so whatever.  We rented some chairs and I went straight for the water.  I really love being near the ocean.  The water wasn’t as clear as, say, the Caymans but it was still nice.  We only had about an hour left before we had to head back to the ship and I loved every minute of it.  When we had to return we took a cab back to the pier.  I took the time to check in and grab last minute emails before heading back out to sea.  Leaving Miami is never fun but I skipped the bon voyage and took an hour nap after boat drill.  The rest of the day paled in comparison to the excursions on land.  One interesting thing though, I got an email from Adi (the new Jayson, my boss) saying that I wasn’t at boat drill today and I have to report to the Security Office tomorrow at 9 am.  But the interesting thing is that I was at boat drill and even signed the proper paperwork when the muster station leader came around.  The thing is that for the past couple of weeks my name hasn’t been on the paperwork so I just added it at the bottom and went along my marry way, but apparently there is some mix up on where I’m supposed to be because the email said muster station D not B where I have been.  So I have to get up extra early on a sea day (especially after today) and go and pretend to get yelled at.  I’m sure that they just changed it and forgot to tell me (I hear that they do that a lot) but I guess it needs to get straightened out sometime.  Another interesting thing happened today during the show.  So I have an AMX panel (don’t ask me what it stands for) that is basically the brain between the multiple show programs.  We have to lighting consoles one for the moving lights and one for the static fixtures (it’s pretty standard).  We also use the AMX panel to lamp on the movers, mess with the camera, etc, etc.  I was watching the show and thought that something seemed off since the last time we ran it but I couldn’t exactly put a finger on it.  The dancer’s faces looked a little dimmer and the show didn’t have a lively punch as it did before.  About halfway through the show I realized that I forgot to lamp on the movers!! I took a look at my backstage camera and realized none of them were powered up.   Total oopsies.  The sad part is that no one really noticed and I didn’t even get flak for it either.  My little secret I guess.  I’m really quite exhausted from today.  I hope that the security officer won’t actually yell at me for being in the wrong/right place.  Who knows at this point.