Who's having fun on the Fun ship?

This is a photo-essay of epic proportions. Everyone should go on a cruise. It is super fun. You get to run around and do whatever you want all day and then eat in a fancy restaurant at night. They even put your napkin on your lap for you, and you can order whatever food you want, and as much of it as you want. But drinks are not free. On a more serious note: If you're going on a cruise to see other countries and learn about other cultures, a cruise is not the way to do it. The boats are only in a place for 8 hours or so, and there's not enough time to get from the pier, orientate yourself to a new place, and discover new things. It's too hectic, and the places that cruise ships land are too touristy to be any good anyway. I was a bit disappointed with our trip to Cozumel, but we tried.

We tried our best to do everything right. We bought cruise wear with elastic waistlines, we practiced our shuffleboard, we even practiced eating extra amounts so that we'd be prepared for the 24 hour buffet. However, while the cruise met our expectations, there were still surprises.

First off: The window in our room. Imagine our disappointment when Ruth pulled back the curtain to reveal this view. So we shrugged it off and headed to the dining room.

Only to be assaulted by what can only be described as a set-cast off from Running Man or some other post apocalyptic 1980's action movie.
We decided to go along, to get along. At least there was plenty of coffee and desserts and other foody-type foods. This is the all you can eat room. There's always food in there. We ate our breakfast and lunch in this room. With sunglasses on.


Our first port of call was Key West. We got in around 7:30 in the morning, and decided to skp the pub crawl and instead mingled with the locals. Like Hemmingway here.
This photographer and I got real friendly. He never called me back.
No comment.

Ruth found some locals of her own to befriend.
After making friends, we walked all the way down to the Southern Most point. Everyone else did too. So we waited in line for a long time to have our picture taken in front of it.
But we grew weary and moved on without having a proper photo taken.


We didn't have much time left after that excursion, so we spent the rest of the time just wandering through town taking in the sights and laughing at all the cheesy souvenirs.



After we got back on the boat we had lunch and attended an art auction. We only went to that because they were giving out free champagne. Nothing is free on a cruise ship, unless they're trying to sell you something more expensive. We had to leave though, because Fritzella the cow was embarrassing us by drinking heavily and trying to bid on the most expensive items. " No Fritzi! You can't bid on that $60,000 Mickey Mouse Litho! No no no!"

We wiled away the rest of our hours lazing in the sun on the top deck of the boat.
We had cocktails, soaked up some sun and caught up on our reading.
Eventually, even the brilliant blue Carribean sea speeding past us while the wind gently ruffles our hair and the sun envelopes us in a warm embrace gets old. So we went inside to further explore the ship.
We took one look at this and went back outside. This is pretty representative of the nausea inducing decor on the ship.



The next day we stopped in Cozumel, Mexico. The town looks exactly like any other Mexican touristy town. Dilapidated buildings and people trying to sell you the same crap from every corner. The only thing we really wanted to do was find the Mayan ruins.
We found a taxi that would take us to San Gervasio and back for $45. This seemed steep to us, but we didn't have many other choices. Turned out though, that the ruins were pretty far away. Since they were so far away and in a remote area of the island, the taxi driver had to wait for us. He told us he would only wait for one hour. One hour was not enough time to fully appreciate the whole site, but we tried.
We rushed from site to site within the park but quickly realized that without a guide we weren't getting much out of the piles of rocks. There were no interpretive markers anywhere. At least I can cross Mayan Ruins off my list.

Fritzella once again embarrassed us by crossing into forbidden territory to climbing on the ancient stones. Because of her rash and incredibly inconsiderate actions we weren't able to see the actual pyramid at the site (or rather, we ran out of time and decided that we'd seen enough rocks). Guess I need to read up on my history before my next Mayan expedition.

When we left the ruins at San Gervasio we saw a horrible car crash at the intersection with the main highway. Two rental jeeps, with Alamo logos on the side, had collided and one was pretty much completely crushed. There was a white tarp on the ground that all the people were standing around. It was pretty sad to see. When you get off the cruise ships they warn you not to rent any jet skis or scooters or anything. I guess this is why. Maybe people forget that they're in a different country and they have to behave cautiously, or just that traffic rules tend to be different...I don't know what to read into it.

We spent the rest of the day doing what you normally do in Mexico. Drinking cheap beer.
And, hanging out with the locals. We really wanted to go into McDonald's and use the bathroom but it didn't work out.

Our last full day on the ship was a "Fun Day at Sea" We competed in tons of games and swam in the pool and ate even more food that we did on the previous days.
I competed in the Ship Olympics. Here's a shot of the towel-race-around-the-pool portion. I also competed in the bean bag toss and swim-with-a-towel-across-the-pool events. I won the Ship Olympics.
Laura was not impressed by my trophy.
We also played mini golf, but the wind and the rocking of the boat added extra elements of challenge to the game. Ruth won, because all brits are good at golf.


This is George, the cruise director. I'm pretty sure his main job was to walk around, talk to guests and look cute. He did all three very well.

Wiggly, Trashy and Barky

That's my dog Granite. Ruth was here last week and she SWORE that she'd take the pee-machine home with her. Too bad we didn't account for the 6 month waiting period for blood tests required for a dog to leave the country. I'll get all my ducks in a row before I go out on the AT but for now, Grant is here with me.

Still, Ruth made the best of the time she did have with the dog.

Granite had more attention in the past 2 weeks than she probably had in the previous 2 months...

She got dressed up.
We had a party...
Granite had a bit too much to drink though...
She was embarrassed in the morning.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Photo Essay

Today Ruth is recovering from jet lag, so I thought that the best thing to help her out with that would be to go on a ridiculously long and hot hike.

Jonathan Dickinson State Park is so named because some poor sap was shipwrecked there in 1669. Jonathan Dickinson was a Quaker, who had a bunch of Quaker friends with him when they crashed on their way from Jamacia somewhere else I can't remember. I can't imagine their disappointment when they stepped out of the sea and hiked inland a bit to see the miserable surroundings they were suddenly forced to deal with. It's shrubby, sandy and hot. It was nice to get out and have a walk, but beyond that...it was still shrubby, sandy and hot.


We had FUN. Especially crossing rail road tracks.
We stopped for lunch when we found enough shade to huddle in along the trail. I brought my dragonfly along. It has a lot of moving parts so I try to be careful when I set it up. Here I am reading the instructions. "A soccer ball sized flame is normal." What?
But we got the stove lit and made ourselves a nice. hot. lunch. Just what we needed....Fritzilla approved.
Fritzilla was a bit overdressed for the occasion.
The trail was not hard to follow, but it would have been pretty easy to get lost and disoriented in the endless expanse of shrubs and palm trees.

We found a friend. This is Oscar.
We interrupted his lunch, but he didn't mind. He's an easy going guy, but he couldn't keep up so we left him behind.
The End.

2012

Laura and I have uncovered a Gem in the rough of Miami. There is a movie theater right down the street. I haven't been to the movies at night for ages. It's not a great theater. It doesn't have stadium seating or the latest equipment, but it shows movies, and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It's only $5 for matinees and $6 for students to see the late show. Now I can afford it! Thanks Le Jeune 6!

Last Friday we went out to see 2012 on opening night. It was an adventure. The theater was packed, we had to sit near the front. There were at least three fussy babies behind us and a group of kids in front of us who insisted on throwing their hats in the air whenever a tense moment was resolved. The audience clapped and booed and yelled back at the screen. I've never been to such a lively showing, but I was in a good mood because I only paid $6 for it.

Like the theater...the movie wasn't great, but at least it was enjoyable in its own way. I'm pretty sure this movie was concieved over a few beers one night. The conversation probably went a bit like this:

"Hey, I just went to see War of the Worlds, have you seen that yet?"
"No, who's in that"
"You haven't! It's great. Tom Cruise plays this divorced Dad who accidentally ends up with his two kids during a natural disaster of epic proportions"
"Awesome, were the special effects good?"
"They were the best! And the kids were great too--his 7 year old daughter was precocious and had strange fashion sense and his teen aged son hated him. But they all ended up being a big happy family in the end because they went through so many near death experiences together. The guy even got back with his ex wife at the end!"
"Wow, that does sound good"
"It was really touching, and the aliens were Sweet!"
"You know, I've been thinking about making an apocalyptic film myself"
"Oh, you have?"
"Yeah, and I think now I finally have a premise..."

And so on. Eventually they crafted the script for 2012 which includes a divorced dad who ends up with his kids on accident in the middle of a natural disaster. He has to save the kids, reunite them with their mother, survive countless near death experiences (a brush with a live volcano, a crash landing in the Himalayas, and a Poseidon adventure like swim of breath holding endurance), and manage to ALWAYS be in the right place at the right time.

The best approach to this movie is to expect big explosion, ridiculous science (Crust Displacement Theory?), and not much more than that. I had a good time.

Thanks a lot Myopia... for ruining my day

It's 5:32 in the morning, which is not a totally unusual time for me to be up and at it. Usually it takes a certain amount of excitement or interest in what's going on to motivate my weary old body (yes, I'm getting up there) out of bed. Which was true this morning. Thursday mornings are for H.ammerhead swims. Yay! I love H.ammerhead swims. I get to get out into the germy-rash inducing waters of Hobe beach, dodge jelly fish, and stoke my ego because I can swim faster than 70 year old men, which is saying Something I think. I was getting ready to put on my zoot-suit. I'm so proud of that thing. Because they're normally very expensive, but I found mine in last season's clearance bin. I had my zoot in my hand, when I realized that there would be no swimming for me today. None at all. Because of my eyeballs.

I've been wearing glasses all week. I hate hate hate wearing glasses. The lenses bob around on my face and change the focus of things as I move around. I can't swim. I can't wear sunglasses. Worst of all, I have to endure people saying things like "Oh, I didn't know you wore glasses", or "New glasses! Those look great!" Which is nice, I guess, but I have to struggle to respond "Oooh thank you" while I bite my tongue and grumble grumble grumble because I'd like to say "I HATE wearing glasses!"

I've been doomed to glasses hell because I set up an appointment to do something about my eyeballs. I'm going to see the Lasik people to see if they would be able to cut part of my eyeball off and root around in there until it's better.

Last night I dreamed (or is it dreamt? I've never figured that out...) that I was in the doctor's office and he had handed me a schedule of events for my appointment. It included things like "D.A.R.E" and "Stock Market Time". No wonder I'm supposed leave a few hours for this damn thing. The doctor in my dream was a real jerk. He wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, so I picked up my stuff. I had a lot of stuff in his office, like a change of clothes and a lunch and a raincoat, so it was quite dramatic when I packed up my things and headed to the door. He looked very confused and I said "I don't have time for your drug education or to listen to you talk about things that are not my eyeballs". He begged me to stay and promised that he would stay on topic, and thus reduce the time of the appointment to about an hour. I agreed, and we headed to the operating room.

The operating room, and the ante chambers leading up to it were more high school science lab from 1943 than actual sterile medical environments. The walls were lined with jars of formaldahyde with things floating in them. Dark topped tables with initials carved into them were set at regular intervals around the room. The sinks were full of garbage. Wait...this sounds an awful lot like the science lab I work in at my middle school...but I digress. In my dream, we donned some sort of plastic wrap head covering and shoe booties. The doctor turned the lights on in the room and then I realized that it was full of children preforming all sorts of Harry Potter type magic. You know, moving things around or changing the shape of clay without touching anything, looking at a globe that was spinning on its own. Stuff like that.

And then I woke up. Hope my actual appointment is a bit more high tech than this, and that there is no drug education.

Oh boy! The paper is finally here....

Time Warp Photo Essay

Here's what you missed.

I did a triathlon. That is my finisher's medal, because I rock. I finished 9th out of 40 in my age group. It was very hot and miserable and I thought I was going to die. There were tons of people passed out. I even saw one guy getting an IV put in on the side of the road. The paramedics were covering him with ice bags and squeezing the iv bag to get the juice in him faster. He was shaking. I can't wait to do it again.My friend Katie came over and made me and Laura dinner. She brought 4 dogs with her. This is Van Gogh. He can't breath or walk very well and he only has about 4 teeth. Katie carries him around in a baby sling and he likes to be held like this.
We even got all six dogs on the couch at one point. It was over whelming. My face is sunburnt because of the triathlon.
Katie likes cooking.
Some time after that Laura and I got all dolled up for Halloween. She is clearly a zombie.
I was a vampire.
After a busy night in the Grove drinking beer, Zombie Laura was very hungry and just wanted to eat some Braaaiiinnnnnnnsssss.
And finally: Laura is a RoseBeard. No, I mean Rose B.andit. She loves biking almost as she loves her new pink uniform. This picture was taken before her big shot race where she came in 2nd. She is a big shot pro biker now. See?

That's the end, there ain't no more.