Today I took the kids to the park. It was hot, but they had a good time swinging and playing on the equipment.
While we were there, a dad and son showed up on the baseball diamond next to the play area. They took out a bag of balls and a bat and the dad started pitching balls to him. I didn't think much of it.
But when I sat down for a few minutes I was able to overhear the dad's instruction to the boy. He was talking to him about situational hitting - moving the runner over, hit and run plays, changing your stance and choking up on the bat with two strikes, fairly advanced stuff. The kid looked like he was 6 or 7! Give me a break! What ever happened to "put some bat on the ball?"
If that's the current state of kid's baseball, well, it looks like AYSO soccer for my kids.
Cameron wanted to help me scan in some more pictures - he was a little upset that he missed out on the first bunch - so we picked some out and scanned them this morning:
Another Summer 2002 Photo Album
Enjoy these too!
Katy and I got a bunch of film developed (you remember film, don't you?) a couple weeks ago. I sat down this evening and scanned in some of the better pictures of Claire and Cameron:
Hope you enjoy them!
The beer is labeled. Grovel before me and I will consider your requests for my homemade mixture of water, malted grains, honey, hops, and yeast. I may have violated the famed German Purity Laws by using honey, but let me tell you something: It was worth it. It's (pun alert) bee-licious!
I've been thinking about the process of writing a weblog. I had originally thought that the mere fact of writing these little stories would make me a better writer (not that I really aspire to "Be A Writer") but upon further review, I'm not sure that's true anymore.
It strikes me that just writing, without outside feedback (which is basically what this forum is, rarely do I get responses from anybody I don't call "Mom") is more a process of reinforcing old habits than one of education. You don't necessarily know what needs fixing. It reminds me of the phrase "practice makes perfect" - if my dad was in earshot whenever this old saw was trotted out, he would retort "but only if it's perfect practice." If you write a badly-written weblog, people probably won't take the time to send you literary criticism - they just won't come back.
I've often said (typed?) that the beauty of email is you can tell a long story and nobody can tell you to shut up. You get to imagine that the other person is smiling at the appropriate spots and generally enjoying your storytelling, when in reality they may delete it after the first paragraph, or skim down to the punchline. I don't suppose this medium is any different, really.
Anyway, some of the guys at work have told me they find my writing too wordy at times. That's good feedback. I can use that.
You may remember that I recently got my turntable back in service.
Last night I decided to try "ripping" an old vinyl album* (you remember those, don't you?) onto my computer. What a pain.
I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow of the process, but it took forever. The trimming and file management stuff was especially time consuming. By the end of the evening my Master Plan to transfer my entire 80s-centric album collection to mp3 was - in the words of Weatherford, Oklahoma mortician "Stony" Lockstone - "dead, dead, dead."
To add insult to injury, today I realized I had fallen prey to one of the classic blunders! I connected the cabling at the stereo end to my equalizer instead of the amplifier - much easier to hook up that way. But I did not recall that the eq is set to boost high frequencies - to compensate for the fabric in front of my main speakers. The equalized mp3 files are Super Tinny Sounding. Ack!
Luckily Pat has some decent audio editing software (unlike the shareware junk I tend to use) and said he can fix it for me.
* The Clocks. An early 80's rock band from Kansas. You haven't heard of them.
Sorry for the lack of new entries of late. Katy and the kids are at her folks for a few days - do you think I'm going to spend that time just sitting here typing stuff up for your benefit? Anyway, I've chunked up the weekend's adventures into bite-sized pieces below.
Cough cough. Think I better stay home today. Cough cough.
Did you know that salt air is rumored to be good for those who are convalescing?
Saturday night I went out with Mike and his buddy Martin. We drank beers and smoked cigars and hung out until early Sunday morning. It was strange to be leaving the house at 8 PM, by myself, to meet some friends at a bar. I can't remember the last time I did that.
It was fun. But I don't think I could do that every night.
I love 24 hour grocery stores. On the way home (early Sunday morning) I stopped at the store for some eggs. I really wanted eggs for breakfast and was pretty sure I would not be in the mood to run to the store when I got up.
I was right about not wanting to leave the house when I woke up - I was definitely feeling a little crunchy. Fried eggs on toast, bacon, and fresh orange juice helped me to find my center but I was a little slow the rest of the day.
(This time of year, I can buy 40 pounds of fresh-picked juice oranges for five or six bucks, not 20 minutes from my house. Aren't you jealous?)
[Warning - the light entertainment quotient is fairly low for the next piece.]
Sunday night ESPN broadcast the 25,000th SportsCenter. I know, big whoop. I watched it though, mainly to see the highlights of the day's Angels/Red Sox game.
As part of the show, they asked some celebrities about their favorite sports moment. Most recalled championship games and memorable victories. But Ray Romano remembered something a little different:
At the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Derek Redmond was expected to medal in the men's 400m. He got off to a great start in the finals but pulled a hamstring about halfway through the race. Determined to finish the race, he got up and started hobbling along the track, clearly in pain. Derek's father, who was in the stadium as a spectator, came crashing down out of the stands and onto the track, where he put his arm around his son and helped him to the finish line.
Ray had to stop at one point during the interview to collect himself, saying "I can't cry on SportsCenter..."
When I saw the clip I remembered it - not surprising since I am an Olympics junkie. But it made a different impression on me this time - fatherhood has (once again) shifted my perspective on things. It made me think about how, as a parent, I want my kids to do well at the things they choose to do. About the lengths I would go to, to help them reach their goals. And how hard it will be for me when things don't go well for them, in any aspect of their life. And that in those times I will suffer with them, and how they probably won't understand that - not really, not until they stand watching their own children.
Parenting - it's not for wimps.
Something happened the other day that made me realize that I am running pretty low on Geek Cred these days.
Mike gave me an old motherboard he is no longer using so I could upgrade my screamin' home computer (a Pentium II 266) to the point that I could run Neverwinter Nights. (I won't go into what that is, or why I want to play it, because it's not germane to the story. Go to Google and look it up if your curiosity is overwhelming.)
So he hands me a printed circuit board and starts telling me about the overclocking techniques, and the board architecture, blah blah blah - I feel my eyes start to glaze over. I have no idea what the hell he's talking about, so I just nod knowingly until he leaves.
What happened? I mean, when I was a kid I had a paper route that paid me about $40 a month. I used the money from my route to buy a computer. Yes, a computer! In 1982 I was the proud owner of my first personal computer - a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16k of RAM and a cassette drive, list price $599. I spent a lot of time POKEing and PEEKing around that box, in addition to the Z-80 based TRS-80 Model IIIs we had at school - I knew my way around those boxes, make no mistake. But this thing Mike handed me the other day could be from a telephone answering machine for all I know.
Lo, how the mighty have fallen.
I'm preparing for a massive work stoppage for Major League Baseball next week. The players have set a strike date of August 30th, and I just don't have much hope that the millionaires and billionaires currently arguing about money are going to have any meaningful conversations between now and then.
The season could very well end on August 30th. As it turns out, I'm not too upset about it.
The Angels were in first place in their division today. Even if they completely collapse over the next ten days, they will still be in the hunt for a playoff spot. At first blush, you might think I'd be upset the season getting trashed when they are so close to the playoffs - but the Angels are notorious for blowing late-season leads. Over the last decade, they've had the worst September record in baseball.
If the season ends, it's like having the band-aid ripped off quickly. It hurts, but it's over quickly. If they work it out and keep playing, well, the Angels will find a way to blow it. And I'll suffer all month long.
Some of you may know that I went to the Olympics this February for a few days. I cannot adequately express how cool and fun it was to go.
I wanted something to help me remember the trip. I saved my event ticket stubs and bought some pins, thinking I could use them somehow.
Last night Katy helped me create this. (By "helped" I mean "did everything while I sat and watched.")
I am impressed with Katy's mad X-acto skillz and am thrilled with the results. It will hang in my office for the foreseeable future.
It's been a quiet weekend. The family was all home for the first time in a while, and it was nice to have that weekend rhythm going again.
I'm pleased to announce that Bottle 0000001 (from a run of 0000028) of Flying W Brewery's Worker Bee Weizen was cracked open on Saturday night, and it was quite nice. Good color, nice strong head, and good flavor - both with and without a slice of lemon. Now that I know the beer inside is worth drinking, I'll label - and if you're lucky, distribute - the rest of the batch.
My sister was supposed to go to the state fair this weekend. I await her report on deep-fried Twinkies.
I like to think of myself as an observant person. (I suppose this is somewhat like thinking you have a sense of humor - everybody thinks they have one.) Anyway, I was using my observational skills last week on the drive home and noticed a stop sign (slightly bent up) lying on the left shoulder of the freeway.
Hmm.
I believe that, on some level, everybody would like a street sign. But most people are unwilling to go out in the middle of the night with tools to snatch one. It's illegal, the hardware on them is nonstandard, and the amount of alcohol you consume convincing yourself it really is a great idea (Really!) does things to your hand-eye coordination, making it even harder to use those tools. Not to mention that at some point (for men, it's the moment you get married) street signs are no longer acceptable interior decorating items. So my own desire for a street sign had gone dormant years ago.
Suddenly this desire flamed back up again - there's one on the shoulder! Just laying there! Already detached from that pesky post! If only I weren't sailing past it at 75 mph. Oh well. I figured it would be gone by the next day and forgot all about it.
Wednesday it snuck up on me, and I didn't notice it until I was going by. I told myself that if traffic was going slower that I would pull over and snag it. Yeah, I would. Sure. Of course, this was fairly academic as traffic generally hums along through this stretch of the freeway. Thursday I was ready for it, but once again, traffic was sailing. The sign was still there though.
Friday night traffic, however, has been slow all summer. We were slow as I approached the sign but it looked like traffic was going to open up. I decided that if the fast lane was going 40 mph or slower I'd pull over. I came over the slight rise just before where the sign was and saw brake lights. Before I could second-guess myself I pulled over. Knowing that nothing looks more suspicious than a suspicious-looking person, I strode purposefully to the sign, grabbed it, and slid it into my trunk without so much as a look around. 30 seconds after I stopped I was merging back into traffic, la ti da...
It's pretty beat up and has some graffiti on it, but it is now hanging in my garage. I haven't told Katy about it - I think the eyeroll factor will be pretty high for this little stunt - so I thought I'd see how long it takes her to notice it. (Of course, now that you've read this you are co-opted. Don't be a narc.)
[Update: I've been ratted out! By my own son! Apparently everybody was loading into the car to go to Story Time at the library and Cam said "Look! A stop sign!" So that took less than 24 hours.]
I'm happy to announce that Flying W Things - www.flyingw.org - is no longer forwarding to my ISP web space - it's now hosted by the fine people at Binary Blocks. If you were using the forwarded URL directly - www.ivwnet.com/tilde/whatever/long/gross/address/ - then edit your bookmarks accordingly.
Seeing as I am terribly clever all the old internal links within this page will continue to work - mainly because I used relational, rather than hard-coded addresses. So everything will pretty much look and feel the same.
Of course, on the off chance that something doesn't link properly, let me know. I will don my rarely-used Mantle of Humility and repair the error post haste.
Our sliding glass door had gotten quite difficult to open. I was getting concerned that I was going to break the handle off pushing or pulling it with all my (admittedly limited) might. The kids couldn't move it to save their lives - which was a handy containment method - but it was getting a bit out of hand.
According to some light research, we needed new rollers on the door. I started thinking about how to lift the door - a nice big double-paned glass monster - out of the track so I could replace them. But I have heard that glass is breakable, and I was a little concerned about how exactly I was going to lift and reposition this thing by myself, when it took all my strength just to move it back and forth in its preordained path.
So, I resorted to a time-honored tactic. I stalled.
Katy eventually got tired of waiting for me. (I suspect she was also concerned that I would end up cut to ribbons by a crashing sheet of glass, but she was kind enough not to question my abilities out loud. At least not in my presence.) She called a repair company, and they came out to fix it last Friday morning. I watched them work for about five minutes while I finished up my cereal. In that time they had completely disassembled the door frame and were already working on replacing the original plastic rollers with steel ones.
(As an aside, what was the builder thinking, using plastic rollers on a big heavy door like that? Oh yeah, they were thinking "plastic ones are cheaper." I hope they got arrested for drunk driving after drinking the beer they bought with the money they saved buying crap parts.)
I looked at Katy and said "I can already tell that you made the right decision to hire these guys."
Friday night when I came home, the door was fixed. I almost put it through the side of the house and into the neighbor's yard when I went to muscle it open - you can move it with your little finger now. Cool.
(Lest you think me completely helpless around the house, I did replace the springs on my garage door this week - all by myself. Well, ok, I had a little help from Katy here and there. But I get the credit.)
Lots of parenthetical remarks this time. Hmm.
I was out in the back yard Sunday night, grilling some hot dogs. The kids were playing well together and all was right in the world. Or so it seemed.
Then they came over to chat with me:
Cam: Hi Daddy. I have a factory.
Me: Oh? That's nice. What do you do at your factory?
Cam: I make beer!
Me: Oh? (Trying not to laugh or smile too big...)
Cam: Yes, black beer with blue lids.
(Claire comes over about now.)
Claire: Daddy, I have a factory too!
Me: That's great, Claire. What do you make at your factory?
Claire: I make beer too!
They brought me imaginary samples. It was good!
Later, Katy convinced them they should branch out into shoe manufacturing. Neveretheless, I'm starting to wonder how that first parent-teacher conference is going to go this fall.
Mike has a link to this weblog on his newly-revamped site. I took a minute to check it out this evening.
It's really quite interesting - a good idea well executed, in my mind. Here's the story - Julius Caesar kept a journal of his conquest of Gaul (see, France has been surrendering for centuries...) and sent copies home to make sure Rome knew of his successes. The keeper of this weblog is taking this journal (translated, of course - no Latin skills required) and serializing it. I enjoyed it so much I'm adding a link in the Reading List (on the right, in the margin there).
You should check it out.
Try this excellent Chinese Chicken Salad:
Put the following in a big bowl:
1 medium cabbage (finely chopped)
1/4 c sliced almonds (toasted)
1/4 c sesame seeds (toasted)
8 stalks green onion (finely chopped)
1 red bell pepper (chopped however fine you like)
2 chicken breasts (or equivalent - cut up and stir-fried, or cooked however you like, really. The original recipe I have doesn't call for chicken, but it makes it more of a meal, if you ask me)
2 packages ramen noodles (broken into small pieces - a ziplock bag is helpful for the smashing part)
Now make dressing:
1/4 c sugar
1 t black pepper
1 t salt
1 Ramen seasoning packet
1 c vegetable oil
6 T rice vinegar
Toss the salad with the dressing, cover, and chill overnight - this will let the flavors blend as well as soften the ramen noodles. Enjoy!
Wild Kingdom
Another "You Need A Weblog" Story
A few months ago, at the beginning of summer, Katy noticed that much of her newly-planted garden was being decimated by rabbits. Rabbits quickly became Enemy Number One, and were chased out of the yard with a fervor that would have done Mr. MacGregor proud. They were coming through our back fence, which is mostly wrought iron, and so we decided to put up some chicken wire (rabbit wire?) to keep them out. Katy stopped by the hardware store and picked some up, and I was all ready to install it that weekend.
That Saturday, Katy was out doing some gardening, focusing on cleaning out one densely-packed corner of greenery. What should she discover underneath the day lilies but a shallow rabbit's nest, complete with a little baby bunny - still alive, but with ants crawling all over it. Of course, I knew that bunnies were Enemy Number One and asked "Do you want I should take care of that for you?"
I did not realize that the road to Damascus ran through my yard, but somewhere, somehow, Katy experienced a change of heart that day. The next thing I know, she's cuddling the rabbit in her (rubber-gloved) hands, brushing the bugs off of it, and telling me to mix her up some sugar water so she can try to feed it from a medicine dropper.
Really?
Since I like being married, I did not question this sudden sea change (at least not out loud) and prepared the requested concoction. The rabbit did not seem to like it when Katy tried to "feed" it, and most of the mixture came out it's nose. I eventually convinced Katy that there wasn't much she could do, and that she should put it back in the nest where she found it - that way the Bunny Parents could come take care of Junior if he was indeed going to make it. Reluctantly she agreed, all the while saying it didn't have much of a chance.
The next day I went out to check on the nest, and lo and behold, the little rabbit was gone! I searched the underbrush all through our flowerbeds and it was not to be found. I stuck my head in the house and mentioned this to Katy, who was just as disbelieving as I was. Anyway, thinking that the little guy had gotten away, I went around to the back side of the fence to install the previously mentioned rabbit wire.
As I unrolled the wire I was startled by a rustling sound a few feet away. I looked up and saw a fairly large red racer snake coming out of my back yard - with a familiar-sized bulge about halfway down.
The other day I included a link to an Los Angeles Times article on gin and tonics.
I did not check to see if you could see the story without registering on their web site. Turns out you can't. I won't be linking to them any more.
They want traffic, I'm trying to deliver it right to their doorstep. And they say "No." Does this make sense to you? Me either.
Well, it's Sunday night, and I've had a great weekend.
I'm betting you're familiar with the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant. (If not, get thee to Google and look it up.) Katy and I tend to be more ant than grasshopper on the weekends - it's all about getting things done around the house. But this weekend was a little different - because Katy's folks had Claire and Cameron from Friday afternoon until today around noon.
Wow!
It may be hard for some of you to understand what a decadent pleasure it was to have the house to ourselves for two evenings, two mornings, and one whole day. It's been three and a half years since we could sprawl out with the paper, or watch Bugs Bunny cartoons uninterrupted, or complete a conversation consisting of more than two sentences. I actually got up early this morning so I could spend more quality time loafing around.
I could give you the blow-by-blow for the weekend but suffice to say it was Very Relaxing. We did do some "grownup" things, like visiting the Norton Simon museum (You may not realize it, but you've seen it - it's in the background of many a Rose Bowl broadcast.) But we also did a lot of just hanging around the house - listening to music, having cocktails, and sinking deeper into the couch than we've been allowed to in a very long time.
Okay, next...
I am weak. [I welcome your punchline here.]
I was prepared to wait until November to purchase the special edition of The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD - the version with additional footage. I steeled myself against the flurry of advertisements. I told myself how much better the special features would be on the second one. I reminded myself that I was being played for a fool if I bought two versions of the same movie within three months - those greedy bastards.
But on Wednesday morning I saw the Fry's ad on the back of the sports page. Why, look - The Fellowship of the Ring, on DVD, widescreen or brain-impaired (or whatever they call the version for people who don't want to see the whole picture), only $15.99! Special this week! Wow, I say. $16 is not much. But wait! Remember all that blather from last paragraph! No! I Shall Not Purchase!
That evening, I mention my strength to Katy. She says, "Brad, it's only $16!"
She's right. Hmm. My resolve begins to weaken. Maybe I'll buy it.
Then Friday, one of my coworkers has his copy in the office. I rig up a DVD player so we can watch a little bit. My resolve vanishes like [warning - token Tolkien reference approaching] Bilbo from his birthday party. I plan my drive home so I can stop by Fry's, and if they don't have it, then by Best Buy. Anyway, as I'm driving into the parking lot of Fry's I'm thinking, how can they sell this at $10 below retail and make any money? Well, they aren't probably making much, it's a loss leader, right? Just to get people in the store. Well, I'll show them and just buy the DVD. Ha ha! I stride purposefully in to the store and seek out my DVD.
After I find my DVD I walk past an aisle of stereo gear, including turntables. (I was a little surprised that they sell new turntables at Fry's. Anyway.) Hmm, I do need a new cartridge. What do you know - they have replacements for 20 bucks! Perfect! Now I can listen to all my crummy old records again!
It's not until I'm standing in the parking lot, unlocking my car, that I realize that I have been Suckered by The Man. Curses!
Oh well. The DVD does look really good. And it's nice to have a functioning turntable once again.
The addled rantings of a gin drinker
Noted American author Bernard De Voto called the Martini "the supreme American gift to world culture." Humorist E.B. White thought it the "elixir of quietude" and drank Martinis "the way other take aspirin." Johnny Carson defined happiness as "finding two olives in your Martini when you're hungry." And James Thurber observed "One is all right, two is too many, and three is not enough."
The Martini. A cocktail above all others in American culture and folklore. (Do you ever hear tales of "three-daiquiri lunches?") It is, in it's simplest form, gin and dry vermouth garnished with an olive, or perhaps a lemon twist.
If you are in a bar and say "I'd like a Martini," the bartender should default to this traditional recipe. The amount of vermouth may vary from none ("bone dry") to as much as 1 part vermouth to 2 parts gin ("wet"), but these are the only two ingredients that are allowed into the shaker along with the ice. (If you order the "House Special Sassy-Sour Top-Shelf Hoopty-Woop Martini,"well, all bets are off. Be careful, it might come with enough fruit to fill Carmen Miranda's headdress.)
A Martini does not have vodka in it. If you want a Martini made with vodka instead of gin, you should order a Vodka Martini. How many times have I said "I'd like a Martini," only to be asked "Vodka or Gin?" More than I care to remember.
Sigh. What did I order? If I wanted vodka, I would have ordered (everybody all at once now) a Vodka Martini.
My father-in-law sent us this picture of Claire and Cameron, taken before one of the formal dinners on our cruise. I recognize that I am a little biased, but it's an awfully cute shot. Go ahead, click on the link!
Saw this article about gin and tonics in the LA Times food section yesterday. The G&T is indeed the perfect summer cocktail. Thanks to Doug for introducing me, lo those many years ago.
Now, lest I be accused of not including any original content, a great analogy I heard in a meeting yesterday:
"We don't have any flour, we don't have an oven, and you want to discuss what kind of frosting to put on the cake."
I suppose that isn't original content either - but it was both appropriate and amusing. And memorable, at least to me.
Apparently, I have stubborn inner ears. For a few days at the beginning of our cruise the old tubes refused to believe that our cruise ship was a moving vessel, and made me feel a bit off when presented with compelling evidence that it was. After the first couple days it seemed to smooth out. But now I am experiencing the same thing in reverse - my ears seem to think the house is rolling a bit. Nice.
In other news, I am less than thrilled with my friend Steve. We both enjoy fantasy fiction - I dragged him to the opening-day midnight screening of Fellowship of the Ring - and we've been doing the "you have got to read this" book swap bit since then. He got me started on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, which is interesting, if a little adjective rich for my tastes - but that series is nine or ten books long, with no sign of wrapping up. I could be waiting for that last overly-descriptive sentence for a long time.
So when Steve handed me another one (accompanied by the "you will really like this") I was dubious. Then his wife jumped in and said it was really good - that piqued my curiousity - I can count on one hand the number of females I know that read fantasy fiction, so a recommendation from that quarter was pretty unexpected. I checked the cover, and the inside cover, for references to sequels, prequels, or companion books - "the next book in the Epic Saga of blah blah blah..." - and didn't see anything. So I figured, hey, how refreshing - a stand-alone fantasy novel. Ok, I'll read it.
Turns out to be a good read, lots of intrigue, great characters, plot twists, swordfights, the whole bit. But last night I realized I was thirty pages from the end, with five or six dangling plotlines. Curses! There's no way he can wrap all this up into one little package that quickly... Sure enough, today's amazon.com search revealed it is the first book in a (planned) series of six. Six! And only three have been written! And now I'm emotionally invested, and have to know what happens. Sigh. Now I'm married to yet another unfinished book series, along with the aforementioned Wheel of Time series and the Harry Potter books. And I have to tell you, it's painful for me to wait that extra year for the paperback edition - I mean, I want to know how things turn out, but I don't want to know for twenty-five bucks. This is going to cost you, Steve. No free homebrew for you.
Anyway, the book is George R. R. Martin's "A Game Of Thrones." It's pretty dense, with a large cast of characters, but it's really well written. The author is not afraid to kill off main characters, and he doesn't seem interested in following your standard Tolkien-issue fantasy themes - no "unwilling hero against the odds" kind of stuff to be sure. I also found the almost-total absence of magic to be a nice touch. Anyway, if you enjoy fantasy fiction it wouldn't kill you to check this one out. But you have been warned - it's an Epic Saga that's only halfway to it's endpoint.
Well, if you are a hardcore Flying W Thinger you may see this before I get back. I'm in an internet cafe - well, maybe cubicle is a better description - about 100 yards from our cruise ship in Puerto Vallarta. $4 for 30 minutes, hey, I couldn't resist. They have connectivity onboard but I'm afraid to even ask what they charge.
The cruise has been a lot of fun so far - I guess we have a couple days left at this point. Very relaxing, and the kids have done pretty well all in all. The sit-down four course dinners have been a little tough on the little ones, but we are seated by a window which gives them something to do (look for dolphins, of course) while we work through our main courses and dessert. If we're lucky, we even get coffee!
Cabo San Lucas was hot. It's the one port too shallow for the ship to dock so we got to take tenders in to the marina. From the boat, the place looks like Joshua Tree with some ocean front - very much the desert. Mazatlan was hot (are you sensing a theme here?) but a bigger place - Katy and her mom set up an impromptu tour yesterday while I stayed onboard with the kids, so she could tell you more about the place.
Tomorrow and Saturday we'll be at sea, steaming back to San Diego. And there's your summary.
Katy will not be surprised when I tell her that I stopped in here to make an entry. She believes me obsessed. It could be worse.
On the way to Katy's folks last Saturday we stopped to see an old friend of mine (and his family). He was showing us some pictures of a trip he took recently with a percussion group to New York City. He conducts the group and they got invited to participate in a concert at Carnegie Hall. (Carnegie Hall! Good Lord!) One of the pictures is of him, in a tux, conducting at Carnegie Hall. Whoa.
I mean, we used to sit around and drink beers all weekend with this guy. He's an average guy, hail-fellow-well-met sort - not some big-hair crazy European orchestra conductor type. He was in my wedding party. I was in his wedding party. We signed the Declaration of Independence together (a long story). And he's conducted at Carnegie Hall. I was (and am) impressed.
Let's see - I have some more time, what else can I tell you?
1. People who work on cruise ships work their asses off. The guy that is our waiter also works breakfast and lunch in addition to two seatings for dinner. The guy that is our second waiter busses tables in the casual restaurant during breakfast and lunch. Our room steward cleans our room twice a day - along with about 40 others. They all say it's a good job - but our waiter admits that after three years of it he's ready to cash it in.
2. The food may be free but the drinks aren't. I mean, I'm not complaining - it didn't cost me a nickel to get onboard the boat - but 5 or 6 bucks for a beer is painful. And they generally won't take cash, so you just put it on your ship's account without thinking too much about it. Booze will be a big percentage of our charges.
3. Mexico is hot this time of year.
4. Maybe I am obsessed with this weblogging business.
More when I get home...