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Welp, we can continue to banter on Monday 08/01/22.

It's turns out that the ferry hit a "dolphin." This type of dolphin is a wood and metal piling sitting in the water, with arrows pointing inward to provide direction to the ferry captain and pilot.



This is the actual dolphin that was hit. The damage is on the south facing side. In the upper left, you can see the metal triangle direction pointer.



This means the ferry came from the south of the dock, for some reason. I was on this exact same ferry 90 mins prior. It was the first landing of the day for Faunteroy. At that time we too came in from the south. Being the very first vehicle, I saw the reason why we came from the south is that a barge crossed in front of the ferry and we went around it to avoid hitting it.

This is the second time in a week that a barge has crossed in front of the ferry. Last week, a barge caused a huge wake, and even being as heavy as the ferry is, carrying 140 cars, the ferry wobbled side-to-side, up-and-down when it hit the wake. I thought there were maritime rules that barges had to be a certain distance from the ferry, or stop while the ferry proceeded in front of the barge given that we're transportation. and we take priority.

I didn't go to work today because I didn't want to deal with the 94 mile drive around and I figured, and hoped, that things would be different on Monday 08/01. Turns out, that things went back to normal around 16:30 PDT yesterday. But, I had already given management notice that I was taking a "mental health day" today as I didn't have a terrific day at work yesterday + the ferry situation.

This Twitter post is from MarineTraffic. It shows the ferry coming in from the south, backing up, then going into the dock.



You can click the link above to view the animation.

This is Kris. He and I chit-chat every morning for about 4,5,6 minutes while there is a pause before the other vehicles are loaded. The order of boarding is: walk-on passengers, then motorcycles, then vanpools, then regular vehicles, then specialty trucks like Fito-Lay and Coca-Cola. 18-wheelers get in line just like a passenger car.

Everything is done according to the time. The ferry employees are constantly looking at their watches.




Kris is training the other two because they're new. The guy on the left has been with Washington State Ferry for about a month. The girl with pink hair has been there for about four months.

Not sure why this Coast Guard boat is orange and white because the Coast Guard colors are red and white. If you look carefully, there is a gun turret in the front of the boat. While the boat is in operation, there is a guy standing manning what looks like a machine gun during the crossing.



Sometimes these particular Coast Guard boats "escort" the ferry and ride along the side. In the eleven months I've been riding the ferry, I have seen that the ferry I was on has been escorted twice.

Here is video of the ferry backing-up after it hit the dolphin and prior to it actually docking at Fauntleroy.

Welp, looks like I picked an excellent day to play hooky!

Interesting YouTube video by Glenn Kirshner, former federal prosecutor. He's talking to John Bonifaz of Free Speech 4 People which has been fighting a lot of anti-democracy issues like the Supreme Court ruling that corporations are people with 1st Amendment rights. Their latest campaign is to get section 3 of the 14th Amendment enforced now by Secretaries of State. He points out that this section of the constitution has no requirement for conviction or legislative act to apply. It's really a duty of the Secretaries of State to make sure insurrectionists and their supporters do not appear on ballots, much like it's their duty to make sure 15 year old kids can't run for congress or the foreign-born can't run for President. When they took their oath of office, they swore to uphold the Constitution. There was no "except for the 14th Amendment" clause in that oath.

In an action against Congressman Madison Cawthorn, an appeals court already ruled that the 14th Amendment still stands and was not affected by an amnesty law passed after the civil war. Interesting fact: Judges and elected officials exempting insurrectionists and their supporters from disqualification, are themselves "giving aid or comfort" which disqualifies THEM from holding any office!

How to disqualify insurrectionists from Congress

They have a website: freespeechforpeople.org
You can join them, if you are interested. They have petitions to Secretaries of State. Also one to the governor of New York, asking her to reassign the Trump criminal case to a state prosecutor after the New York City prosecutor got bought off.

Yet Margory Taylor Greene went through such a trial and the judge ruled, “meh” just this week. I’m not hopeful about America any longer.