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OK, so during my co-op I actually worked believe it or not! On board of the Queen Victoria, I was put to work on two “Senior Citizen” Hamada 665W printing presses. This blog post is going to be a quick overview of how the press worked and the problems faced with this old style printing press. This is going to be a several blog post explanation!

The first, and most crucial step in the whole printing process was to get the feeder in check and working. The feeder, clearly, is what feeds the paper into the press. If you do not get it working right, the entire print will be a headache. SO in order to get the feeder to feed efficiently, we needed to make sure that the suckers were set to a pressure that would pick up the sheet while not grabbing more than one, causing a double feed. This usually leads to a paper jam or worse….. paper being stuck inside the ink rollers.

Next, we needed to check to see if the air was set correctly. The reason for the air is to have it blow into the sheets of paper, separating them so the suckers have an easier time grabbing a single sheet, or grabbing them at all.

Once these two are set, we need to make sure the paper is lined up evenly in the feeder. If they are off centered by a little, its not a big deal. A process further along centers the paper. But if the paper is off by a bit, it could cause paper to fly out of the press, and get re-sucked back in, causing a mess of a paper jam.

The final aspect of the feeder is to make sure the feeder table (the table which the paper lies) is exactly where it is recommended. If the tray is t high, the sucker will almost always double feed, causing an imminent paper jam. If the tray is to low, no paper will get sucked and you will get an ink build up on the rollers, making the next few prints hideous.

This has been a quick overview of how to run feeder on the Hamada 665W!

This is the feeder on the Hamanda 665W

Welcome o Kusadasi, Turkey! Home to the most disgusting and gross looking food I have ever seen. Fish products and seafood, just hanging out in the open, fills the air with a smell that I cannot describe with words.

Many many markets in Kusadasi look like this. With fresh assortments of Fish and seafood just laying out in the sun for consumers to purchase. Some of the markets has giant fish tanks to keep their products alive, before beheading them (or not), and serving them up to hungry customers.

This is a shrimp. Yes, a lone shrimp. This little bastard took me about 10 minutes to open and about 3 seconds to eat. My Filipino friends tried to show me how to do it the right way, but I was just so used to the frozen kind you find in the fridge back home.

Apparently, you rip off the head first, place it aside. Then you rip the legs off, split tie body in half, remove the poop from the insides, and then remove the shell. It….was….horrible!

Here, my friends and Boss enjoy plates upon plates of seafood, as I am scrapping off of the loafs of baked, spinach filled bread trying to fill my appetite. By the end, I was so hungry, I ended up finding a burger king (which is  HUGE deal to me), and getting my normal Tendercrisp burger.

And on a final note: Dear underwear marketers, please make these. They are awesome.

Welcome to Egypt, where the lands are filled with vast amounts of sand, and everything is the color tan. Here is home to many wonders of the modern times and exquisite tourist locations.

When first arriving to Egypt, it was not what was expected. The land was covered in pools of water and grasslands, the sky was dark with rain clouds, and the mood was dreary.

About 40 miles off the coast, Egypt became more Egypt like. The sky was clear, the sands were infinite, and the air was warm. It was amazing how fast the sky cleared and the grass became sand.

These are a common sight throughout Egypt. This is a mosque, a place fr holy events to be held, and for time of praise. In the main port of Egypt, it is said to have over 30 mosques within the city limits.

The great pyramids. One of the 7 wonders of the world. Here they stand, waiting to be explored by tourists and the hot spot for persistent sellers of goods and gifts. It is a common error to determine that the Great Pyramid is the one in the background. The Great Pyramid is actually the one closest to our location.

Here stands the ruins of the Sphinx and the second pyramid. It is said that a long time ago, all three Pyramids had a flat surface, like the one shown here near the top. Years of degradation has made them rugged and fragmented. Also shown here, the Sphinx, with its missing nose and serpent crown, both to be stored inside Great Britain’s great historical museum, Egypt has tried to reclaim these two treasures on several occasions.

Welcome to Athens, Greece, home and ruins to the ancient Greek gods of Olympus. While the city has been modernized and rebuilt, the ancient ruins that have stood for decades remain in their preserved state. The only exception is the Poseidon Temple, which is being rebuilt.

This is not that hard to distinguish. This is the ancient Greek theater that the Greeks would gather in to watch plays and give praise to the gods. Occasionally, they would host mock gladiator fights to show the gods that they were strong. This is the fourth most preserved ruin in the Athens ruins.

The main staircase to the Athenian Temple, shown here, is numerous with these round pillars. It is said that the pillars represented unique things about Greek culture. While some of the pillars have fallen, most remain strong. On the inside of the gate, you could see carvings and architecture of the Greeks when they build the gate.

Welcome to the Home of the Greek God, Athena. It is known as her home because of carvings of her on the edges of the structure. Also, the tree that stands in front of the building is known to be an Olive tree that Athena had given as a gift to the Greeks for their support. This was in an effort to keep Poseidon from gaining their favor instead. Poseidon gave the gift of mass water, but the people already had this gift.

The Temple of Poseidon, the god of the sea. This was the temple where Poseidon reign, and tried to win the favor of the Greek people. After the dispute between Athena and Poseidon, the temple was destroyed after Poseidon returned to the sea. In an effort to rebuild the temple, the insides are under construction as seen above.

The Temple of Zeus, as shown above, is imbedded in a forest inside the city. Not much was told about this temple during our tour of the city. But you can see how the city was built around the ancient structures.

What a great way to end the tour. Yum!

Welcome to Italy! The country of the most famous fish food meals, tourism areas, ancient legacies, and ancient ruins. But more specifically in Italy is the ancient ash covered city of Pompeii.

Above shows the volcano that destroyed the Italy city of Pompeii. If you follow the right edge of the volcano (near the edge of the image) and the left side of the volcano and use your finger to trace a meeting point, that is what the size of the volcano used to be before it buried Pompeii. Currently, only 25% of the city has been excavated to date. Operations are still currently being worked on to retrieve more of the city that was burned and buried during that fateful day.

Before the destruction of Pompeii, the city was thriving with pillars like these. This the city center and where people would come to celebrate rituals and holidays. The white pillar to the left is actually a clock! It has small cuts in it that used the pillars shadow to accurately tell time. It was one of the few relics that survived the burial. Throughout Pompeii, most of the buildings seem whole, but in fact were rebuilt upon excavation. The pieces that were used to replace fallen pieces were make from brick to designate what is original and what is replaced.

Many of the residents of Pompeii did not have time to react to the eruption. The debris cloud that came rushing from the collapsing volcano traveled fast enough to freeze people in place, killing them instantly. This citizen is in the exact position today that he died in many years ago, indicating the little time they had. Some of the citizens still had food inside their mouths during the instant “freeze.”

But where there is death, life is reborn. Here are some pears that are growing at an astonishing rate and massive size due to the rich soil and ash that the volcano spewed on the city.

Being aboard a Luxury Liner during intense fog, I understand what had happened when I read this article. However, what bothers me, is that during a heavy fog, the ship is supposed to remain still and blast its fog horn constantly.

As you can see, failure of judgement by one person causes chaos for passengers and shakes the already fragile luxury liner business after the accident in Italy.

On the up side, it is good to see that the crew maintained their duties by performing muster station (guest meeting, assistance and guidance points) activities.

As the Captain of a ship this size, it does not make sense to me to put peoples lives in danger by moving in such intense fog. These companies need to re-evaluate who is driving these wondrous vessels before no one will want to risk injury if an event occurs.