Day Forty-nine: late evening of September 20th 2009

The only thing that I did today was a system update check on my Mac Book Pro. Then I went around to make sure everything was up-to-date on the other computers. I’ve set up most of the applications to automatically update, if they have that setting, otherwise I do it manually. When I was on my ship, we had a large Plexiglas status board with a schedule of all maintenance related operations, system tests, computer calibration checks. This was called the Planned Maintenance System, or PMS (which caused a bit of a sophomoric chuckle from our shipmates, whenever we explained what the PMS board was about. It was the early 70s and our crew members were in their late teens or early twenties).

I guess that is where it was driven home that an aggressive maintenance program cuts down on a system failure at a critical times. As it happened to our navigational radar when we were in the middle of an iceberg field on our way out to our ocean station patrol. We had to use our narrow beam fire control radar to plot a course through the field. Not something it was designed for, but we made it work, while the electronics technician tried to figure out what caused the massive system failure (It was discovered later that this failure would not have been detected through the maintenance program-Murphy’s Law).

We survived, although there were times when I wondered when we were going to take evasive maneuvers. On our screen we would see tiny blips and massive blips, as our radar sweep around the ocean’s surface. If we noted a large blip ahead, we would get a range and bearing and report it to the bridge to be plotted. If the bridge required an update it would be done ASAP. One time, after being relieved from console duty, I went topside to see what all the blips were about. What an amazing view spread out before me. Hundreds of bergs, everything from growlers (piano size) to one that looked like an aircraft carrier (very large category). I wish I had my camera with me. Electronics could give you data, but Nature gives you majesty.