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billroperWhen you're between ports on a cruise ship, there's not a lot that you have to do. We set out today to do just that.
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daisy_knotwise and I didn't crawl out of bed until 10 AM or so, aided and abetted by the first of two time changes on our way back to California. As noted before, I don't much care for breakfast, so I didn't much mind missing it. I did, however, want to get up to the Crow's Nest for Team Trivia at 11 AM. Gretchen, Jerry, and I (plus or minus Jeff) have hooked up with a couple from NJ. Herman's a lawyer (and looks the part), Nancy's a former schoolteacher and guidance counselor (ditto). We've won one match and finished second a couple of times. Today, we got beaten to death by a number of questions to which our response was "Huh?" It didn't help that Jeff, our English major, was drugged up to the gills on seasickness tablets and more than a bit groggy.
I've been taking the seasickness pills steadily and today I really needed them. We've turned into the wind and are experiencing force 7 winds and rough seas. Also, one of our diesel engines appears to be operating at less than peak efficiency, according to the announcement that the Captain of the Statendam made today. All of this means that it's not only pretty miserable going, but that we're running behind to the point where we may not make land in San Diego on schedule. This would be bad, but we'll see what happens. (They're saying that they should have the engine fixed by tomorrow. I'm hoping they're right.)
After trivia, Gretchen, Jerry, and I grabbed some lunch, Jeff excusing himself since he'd had breakfast too recently. I contented myself with a roast beef sandwich and some french fries, a combination that I correctly felt wouldn't annoy my digestion. After that, I headed down to the room. It was too choppy to read -- which I'd anticipated the previous night when I stayed up a bit late to finish reading "The Eyre Affair" -- so I grabbed my guitar for the first time since we arrived in Hawaii and spent some time noodling. Gretchen had gone to zone out in a deck chair, as she's still recovering from her cold.
Later, I met Jerry and Jeff for a round of Taboo, which we won; then met Gretchen to sign up for the talent show later this week. We'll be singing "Apology". We'll see what they make of it.
I went back to the lounge where Jeff was still trying to download his e-mail. I had tried to get mine through Speakeasy's WebMail interface earlier, but it had been abominably slow. When I got back, I just used telnet (Jeff doesn't have SSH loaded,tarkrai) to link into my shell account and snag critical e-mail via Pine, which is a lot faster.
(I apologize, by the way, for being in essentially write-only mode for the duration of the cruise. We're paying 40 cents a minute for connectivity of highly variable goodness, so I'll be doing a lot of catching up when I get home.)
I'm hoping that Doug at work got my e-mail yesterday, because he didn't respond. I've pinged him requesting a response, so we'll see if I get one back tomorrow.
I went back to the room, because the ship was rocking and rolling and lying down was a good choice. I noodled on the guitar for a bit, set it down, and fell asleep with a pillow over my eyes because it was just too much trouble to close the curtains. Gretchen joined me in the nap about an hour later, although she pulled one curtain closed and told me that I could stop being lazy long enough to pull the other one closed as well.
When we woke up, Gretchen flipped on the TV and we ended up watching "Big Fish", which we'd intended to see, but hadn't had time to in the general rush of the last year. Then we dressed for dinner (it was a formal night, so I got some more use out of the new tuxedo), met with the rest of our gang in the Ocean Bar for a drink, and headed off for the late seating.
Afterwards, Gretchen and I were both tired and headed back to the room to crash. I'd noticed that the Illini had beaten Wake Forest in basketball as I passed by the TV screens in the Casino Bar, so with Gretchen's permission, I spent a bit of time catching up on sports with the volume turned low while Gretchen went to sleep to try to beat her cold into submission. I never did catch the Illini highlights though.
As I said, we set out to not do much. It was an admirable success.
daisy_knotwise and I didn't crawl out of bed until 10 AM or so, aided and abetted by the first of two time changes on our way back to California. As noted before, I don't much care for breakfast, so I didn't much mind missing it. I did, however, want to get up to the Crow's Nest for Team Trivia at 11 AM. Gretchen, Jerry, and I (plus or minus Jeff) have hooked up with a couple from NJ. Herman's a lawyer (and looks the part), Nancy's a former schoolteacher and guidance counselor (ditto). We've won one match and finished second a couple of times. Today, we got beaten to death by a number of questions to which our response was "Huh?" It didn't help that Jeff, our English major, was drugged up to the gills on seasickness tablets and more than a bit groggy.I've been taking the seasickness pills steadily and today I really needed them. We've turned into the wind and are experiencing force 7 winds and rough seas. Also, one of our diesel engines appears to be operating at less than peak efficiency, according to the announcement that the Captain of the Statendam made today. All of this means that it's not only pretty miserable going, but that we're running behind to the point where we may not make land in San Diego on schedule. This would be bad, but we'll see what happens. (They're saying that they should have the engine fixed by tomorrow. I'm hoping they're right.)
After trivia, Gretchen, Jerry, and I grabbed some lunch, Jeff excusing himself since he'd had breakfast too recently. I contented myself with a roast beef sandwich and some french fries, a combination that I correctly felt wouldn't annoy my digestion. After that, I headed down to the room. It was too choppy to read -- which I'd anticipated the previous night when I stayed up a bit late to finish reading "The Eyre Affair" -- so I grabbed my guitar for the first time since we arrived in Hawaii and spent some time noodling. Gretchen had gone to zone out in a deck chair, as she's still recovering from her cold.
Later, I met Jerry and Jeff for a round of Taboo, which we won; then met Gretchen to sign up for the talent show later this week. We'll be singing "Apology". We'll see what they make of it.
I went back to the lounge where Jeff was still trying to download his e-mail. I had tried to get mine through Speakeasy's WebMail interface earlier, but it had been abominably slow. When I got back, I just used telnet (Jeff doesn't have SSH loaded,
tarkrai) to link into my shell account and snag critical e-mail via Pine, which is a lot faster.(I apologize, by the way, for being in essentially write-only mode for the duration of the cruise. We're paying 40 cents a minute for connectivity of highly variable goodness, so I'll be doing a lot of catching up when I get home.)
I'm hoping that Doug at work got my e-mail yesterday, because he didn't respond. I've pinged him requesting a response, so we'll see if I get one back tomorrow.
I went back to the room, because the ship was rocking and rolling and lying down was a good choice. I noodled on the guitar for a bit, set it down, and fell asleep with a pillow over my eyes because it was just too much trouble to close the curtains. Gretchen joined me in the nap about an hour later, although she pulled one curtain closed and told me that I could stop being lazy long enough to pull the other one closed as well.
When we woke up, Gretchen flipped on the TV and we ended up watching "Big Fish", which we'd intended to see, but hadn't had time to in the general rush of the last year. Then we dressed for dinner (it was a formal night, so I got some more use out of the new tuxedo), met with the rest of our gang in the Ocean Bar for a drink, and headed off for the late seating.
Afterwards, Gretchen and I were both tired and headed back to the room to crash. I'd noticed that the Illini had beaten Wake Forest in basketball as I passed by the TV screens in the Casino Bar, so with Gretchen's permission, I spent a bit of time catching up on sports with the volume turned low while Gretchen went to sleep to try to beat her cold into submission. I never did catch the Illini highlights though.
As I said, we set out to not do much. It was an admirable success.