Still no sign of the Lido deck

or the disco, pool bar, or casino after five days here. But there is a pool, however it is a moon pool and if you end up in there you become the subject of a safety investigation. After 5 days here I can tell you it feels like 5 years. This is groundhogs day. Every day looks exactly the same as the one before. 6 AM meeting, breakfast, work on rig floor, lunch, more work, dinner, 6 PM meeting, a little more work, hit the gym, surf the net (more like paddle boat the net), bed. Rinse, lather, repeat. There is a gym on the ship (some free weights, some cardio equipment, nothing special), a cinema (not functional yet), game and hobby rooms (also not functional, being used by the catering staff to sleep in), and of course the galley (serving 4 meals a day, on the 12's and 6's!). Other than that the house portion of the ship (where we are at when not on the rig floor) contains cabins (2 per room, private bath) offices, the bridge, and the helideck. Nothing too exciting here either, 7 stories, lots of stairs, signs labeling everything including lights (ML-005-1303D is the one in front of me) and power outlets (ML-005-1526A). If it is on the ship, it has a sign with a number attached to it or above it. This is also not like a regular ship (other then the obvious 220 foot drilling derrick in the middle of it). It is heavily ballasted and dynamically positioned so it never moves. I mean the thing does not rock, sway, bob, or any other adjective you can come up with to describe motion. It also really never moves. Your view never changes from day to day, it is like being parked in the ocean. Kinda weird but you get used to it after a while. For everyone who thought living closer to work or even sleeping in the office occasionally, BAD IDEA!! You do not want to live where you work, it means you are always at work. They can page you at any time for any reason. You have no excuse to ever be late (I got caught in traffic coming up the flight of stairs from my cabin to the conference room doesn't work), and you really never go home. There is no beer on board either (except for Flite, the NA version of Hite (Crisp and Fresh!)) since you are always at work. The food is decent in a dormitory way, I wouldn't feel great if I paid for it but since it is free it will suffice. It is American food as well so that is kind of a treat in the respect that I haven't had it in a while. Anything fresh is from Korea, but they still make American meals out of it (mexican day, pizza, fried chicken, real hot dogs!) so it is not just like home but close. The people from Transocean on board are the drilling crew from the States who will work the rig once it gets back to the Gulf of Mexico next year. They are predominately from the south, Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, "in between Louisiana and Alabama, Mississippi- God's country". I have therefore acquired not one but two new nicknames, Detroit (obvious), and Dodge (from my previous engineering life). Also every time something doesn't work on the rig floor they refer to it as a Dodge as well ("must be a dodge"), apparently Dodge doesn't have the best quality rep in the business (it may not be because of me though, because another guy told me a story about a ship where they had a piece of equipment that always broke down so they referred to it as the dodge truck, like "dammit, the dodge truck is broke again" over the radio). Also, I have discovered that the big three are Ford, Chevy, and Dodge, since the only vehicles that matter are trucks. At least it is better than being referred to as Wisconsin (happened to Lynn) and having people ask you about the Steelers ("I thought you were from Pittsburgh")...