Last night I laid in bed stewing about yesterdays blog entry. I was able to chat with a buddy from school on facebook. He offered me some really great suggestions for how to fix my steering light vibration issues. I pride myself on being an honest person. Since honesty is mostly the best policy. I've decided to lay all my cards on the table. I haven't been proactive about fixing the steering light because I hate it. I hate it because I hate being on the forward mast. I hate being on the forward mast because I might fall. Wouldn't that suck?! If anyone onboard this ship was going to fall off the forward mast it would for sure be me. I get up there and I look around and I think 'Wow, it's really pretty and peaceful up here...' that thought is quickly followed by 'Oh crap! How on earth am I going to get down?!'. Once I have that thought I can barely use my channel locks. All I can think about is how I'm going to position my feet to most safely step off the platform onto the ladder. Then everything else feels completely overwhelming....the wing nuts are too tight for me to unscrew....the channel locks are the wrong tool - I should have brought the vice grips....WD-40 never works! Why can't they supply PB Blaster in the Middle East?! If I had PB Blaster these things would come right off....it's not the vibration this must be caused by a short - those freakin' engineers! Why can't they take a look at this?!....finally I get all the nuts off and the bulb changed.....and then I screw the stripped wing nuts right back in without making any modifications and think 'Who the hell needs a steering light anyways?! Steering lights are for pansy's!' Then, because I know the bridge is watching me with binoculars and that my standby is staring up at me from below I play it cool like I'm not ready to wet my pants. I clip my harness as close to the ladder as possible and I tip toe to the edge of the platform. I get both hands on the ladder with a death grip and edge my right leg till I feel the rung. Then I follow with the left . Then I wrap my arms around the ladder as tight as I can and unhook my harness. This part sucks the most because I know that I have to just climb down. Inevitably when we enter port the helmsman will ask for the steering light I'm usually like 'do you really need the light?! It's dim anyways....can't you see the mast?! I can totally see the mast! OK fine....here you go'. At this point I start scheming to figure out who I can coerce into going up the forward mast for me. Now you know the rest of the story.... So, my buddy also told me that I shouldn't start so many sentences with 'so'. (I did that one just to spite him) heh heh. This blog has made me very aware of how atrocious my grammar is.