REAL LIFE on the Great Lakes

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[bulkcarrier]

Hello to All!

Well, the Great Lakes Shipping season has started, although a little slow, due to the economy.  I am sure all of you are familiar with that!  Anyways, here are a few photos my son and me took last weekend, along the Saginaw River, near Bay City, Michigan.  Since we are both BIG fans of SS2008, we thought we should share...and maybe convince the creators.. to do something in the Great Lakes!  Some for all here..  Sea going, ship handling, small boats and tugs..WE GOT IT ALL!!!   I hope you all enjoy the photos!  Please feel free to as questions!  Take care!

Best Regards,

Galen


The Agawa Canyon, outbound on the Saginaw River.


The Inergrated Tug/Barge unit Lewis J. Kuber, with the Tug Plive Moore, inbound to the turning basin at 6th Street in Saginaw.


Another View of the same...


The Agawa Canyon making the tight turn at Cheyboganing Creek.


The Kuber, outbound at Dusk in a heavy rain..


My son, waving at the Agawa Canyon..


And finally, the "Canyon", making one of the many tight drawbridges in the river..

I hope you all enjoy!!!!

[Kapn Jonah]

Nice pictures bulkcarrier

[firestar12]

Very nice pictures! I like them a lot!

[TerryRussell]

Excellent pictures. Thanks, BC. 

They do carry a lot of rust, though, don't they? Must be the signs of a long and hard working life.

[Kapn Jonah]

Yeah, i've been to the Soo Locks in Ontario before, and the vessels are very very rusty.

I find it ironic that some of the ships that were around when the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost are still going through there today

[The Ferry Man]

Some nice pictures there.  

[TerryRussell]

I'll be in Ontario in a few week's time. (23-26 May). I'll take the camera.

Here's a picture from last time:

[maritiem]

I'll be in Ontario in a few week's time. (23-26 May). I'll take the camera.

Here's a picture from last time:

I see that you're traveling allot Terry. Just for fun or for work?


maritiem

[TerryRussell]

Work, always work....

[The Ferry Man]

Sounds like a nice job though. Go explore the world and get paid...

Better then being stuck in the same office for years on end...

[maritiem]

Work, always work....

What are you actually doing for job if I may ask?


maritiem

[TerryRussell]

www.iso9000.co.uk is my home page. You'll see that I am well up on ISO9001 and a lot of other standards relating to management of businesses.

But a lot of my travelling is for another standard:

If you want to work manage large IT projects for Governments, in the past they have been very poorly run. So, a number of Governments got together and produced a standard called ITIL (the IT Information Library), with a supporting International Standard known as ISO2000.

To work on such projects, you have to attend training courses and pass exams etc to work your way up the scale. That can take many years. The training collecge or university also has to be ITIL accredited to conduct the training. The people who train you have to be ITIL accredited as well.

The Certification Bodies that accredit the Trainers and the Colleges are known as Examination Institutes. I am the Chief Assessor and I check those Certification Bodies on behalf of the Governments that wrote the ITIL standard (I personnaly wrote the scheme for assessing the Certification Bodies).

[Quaysider]

Oh - so you're to blame!! 

Was made to do foundation earlier this year - got my green badge....

[mvsmith]

Sounds like Terry is a Seagull.

[Quaysider]

Sounds like Terry is a Seagull.

I know that saying..... can't say that of Terry though as I don't know him that personally. Places I've worked though have had plenty of them...

[TerryRussell]

Oh - so you're to blame!! 

Was made to do foundation earlier this year - got my green badge....

Whose certificate did you get? ISEB or APMG?

Are you doing Practitioner or Expert at some stage?

A seagull? Do tell....

[Quaysider]

Whose certificate did you get? ISEB or APMG?

Are you doing Practitioner or Expert at some stage?

A seagull? Do tell....

Dunno Terry - APMG sounds about right. Due to family issues my mind was elsewhere when I was doing the course and exam so how I passed I don't know.... will not be taking any further courses (not really needed in our place for 1st line support - the managers can have that pleasure! Unless we get told to do it...)

as for seagull - I'll leave that for Mr Smith to explain....

[mvsmith]

Visitors from the head office—or a regulatory agency—are called seagulls because they fly in, eat our food, dump on everything, and fly away.

[TerryRussell]

Ah, I see.

In all the years I've been doing this sort of thing, no-one has ever called me that (and lived). We are somewhat more supportive. For the vast majority of clients, we gently assist them to develop their systems from a paper-based bureaucratic nightmare into something that is actually beneficial.


The proof of that (for me) is that although almost all of my clients don't have to use our services, they choose to do so for business reasons. We bring far more benefit than the overhead of being checked by us.

Another supporting pointer is that at the moment, almost all of our clients are in expansion mode as they take the better clients from their bankrupt competitors, or as they buy the competitors cheaply. We are absolutely stacked out with work, helping them. That's why I am a bit less in attendance here at the moment.