Mark Schultz has a great new song called "Broken and Beautiful", which has been making its rounds on Christian radio in these few weeks before the CD release. Why do I think it's so great? Because it echoes the reality of so many different people from so many different walks of life:
"There's a business man
There's a widowed wife
A smiling face with a shattered life
A teenage girl with a choice to make
It's crowded here in church today"
When I step into church, I know all too well the worries and stresses that I'm facing in my own life, but I often forget that everyone is coming weighed down with their own burdens, too. Everyone has struggles, everyone has pain, and everyone comes in need of healing. Which is why the next part of the first verse is so applicable:
"And the preacher says as the sermon ends
Please close your eyes
Bow your heads
Is there anyone in need of prayer?
Oh Jesus wants to meet you here"
To me that's just really powerful, to be reminded that no matter what we're going through, God still loves us and wants to help. Hearing those words above really touches me, because I know how important it has always been to me to have that prayer time in church. But then, sadly, Mark's song becomes less good, and by that I mean he completely misses the point, ruining everything he had just built up:
"'Cuz we all fall short, and we all have sinned
But where you left, God's grace begins"
That first line is beyond appalling in its simplicity, ignorance, and condemnation, all of which are too commonplace in the Christian Church today. Mark just finished talking about four people who have come to church in need of prayer and love and support [at least two of whom are not themselves guilty of nor responsible for their situation, the first and fourth, I think, are being deliberately left to individual interpretation], but now the blame has been placed back onto these distraught souls, anyway. It's appalling to me because this game of blaming the victim is, sadly, the most common refrain I hear coming from the ultra vocal, ultra conservative Christian right, and I'm dismayed to see this attitude has now creeped its way into my favorite music genre. These people Mark describes to us came to church seeking renewal and relief, not pulpit-imposed guilt for crimes not their own.
This isn't to say that the church should be all feel-good, all lovey-dovey, without any talk of culpability and responsibility for one's actions, but when sin is invalidly assigned as the root cause of suffering when it is clearly not (as was the case for the lives talked about in Mark's first verse), I am forlorned. It's really just that one line that's a kick in the pants. The rest of the song works. The rest of the song, in my opinion, paints a beautiful portrait of what can happen when we come to God, hearts opened, begging for healing and restoration, and the end result truly is beautiful.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
An Exciting Afternoon!
This afternoon, as I was driving back to campus from Minneapolis, I was preparing to exit from Highway 77 (Cedar) onto 35E, when all of a sudden I felt a very noticeable jerk and noticed my speedometer begin to drop. At the very outset I assumed it was the cruise control inelegantly readjusting me down a mile or two, but then the engine started to make a lot of noise: a very loud and unnatural clicking noise, along with the painful sounds of going much faster on the inside. "Hmm", I thought. "That's probably not a good sound. I'm already committed to take this entrance ramp onto 35E, but I'll take the first exit once I'm on that freeway." I turned off the cruise control. "Hmm", I thought again. "I'm pressing the gas pedal, I should be speeding up to about 70mph, but I'm slowing down. That's odd." Meanwhile, the engine is still making the loud clicking noise. I was down to about 50 on my speed and I realised I probably wasn't going to make it to the next exit. I put on my hazards to warn the car behind me and started to slow down. The real excitement came when I started to pull onto the shoulder, though, because that's when the SMOKE started coming out from under the hood! Yikes! I finally stop about 200 yards back from the merge to 35E, park, turn off, and get out as quickly as I can, convinced the car is going to catch on fire, an assumption not helped by the fact that more and more smoke kept coming out of the hood in greater and greater quantities. I had two thoughts, and two thoughts only: my computer is in the trunk, and that's more or less my life, so I really hope the car doesn't become engulfed in flames; and, more importantly: I have too much to live for to be caught in an explosion, so I must get away quickly. I prayed along the way, too.
Now, good for me, I had my mobile with, so I called my parent's house where I thought my dad was. No answer. I call again. No answer. I call my mom's cell, planning my first words to be something like "Get in the car now and I'll explain on the way". No answer. Distraught, and in a huge panic, I call the AAA emergency number and give them the details. They send a tow-truck on its way to rescue me, and I eventually get a hold of mom and dad, both of whom come on their way. (My real first words to my mom were "The important thing to know is that I'm okay").
While I waited (half an hour), two other cars stopped on their way to offer help. Knowing both my parents and the tow truck are now on the way, and seeing that the car was no longer smoking, I graciously sent the good samaritans on their way, my faith in humanity's potential for goodness restored.
The tow-truck arrived first and starts making preparations to load the car onto the flatbed. Dad arrives a few minutes after, we load all of the video equipment I was carrying in my trunk into the van, and wait for the truck driver to finish loading my car. I call mom to let her know how it's going and that we'll meet her at the car dealer (Freeway Dodge, where we were having the car towed to).
And then we're on our way. We all met up again at Dodge, glance around at some of the used car stickers in case we find ourselves needing to buy a replacement instead of repairing, and then mom brought me back to school, several hours and a good deal much more excitement later than I had originally planned.
Things could have been a lot worse. If I'd driven any farther, I'm fairly certain the car would have actually caught on fire. I could have not had a cell phone to call for help. We could have not had AAA coverage. And I could have been much less composed than I was. Now, admittedly, on the inside, I was very very nervous, but I still managed to evaluate, process and react to the situation in a very orderly and outwardly calm manner. I pulled off the road so I wouldn't block traffic, I attempted to call my parentals, I successfully called AAA and coherently gave them the information they needed, and even before that phone call I had very consciously thought through the situation: do I need to call 911? Do I call AAA? Do I just call my parents? Who else can I call if they can't come rescue me? In short, in the end, I feel that I did quite well, which gives me a realistic confidence that I'll be able to remain clear-headed if I'm ever in a worse situation in the future.
Now, good for me, I had my mobile with, so I called my parent's house where I thought my dad was. No answer. I call again. No answer. I call my mom's cell, planning my first words to be something like "Get in the car now and I'll explain on the way". No answer. Distraught, and in a huge panic, I call the AAA emergency number and give them the details. They send a tow-truck on its way to rescue me, and I eventually get a hold of mom and dad, both of whom come on their way. (My real first words to my mom were "The important thing to know is that I'm okay").
While I waited (half an hour), two other cars stopped on their way to offer help. Knowing both my parents and the tow truck are now on the way, and seeing that the car was no longer smoking, I graciously sent the good samaritans on their way, my faith in humanity's potential for goodness restored.
The tow-truck arrived first and starts making preparations to load the car onto the flatbed. Dad arrives a few minutes after, we load all of the video equipment I was carrying in my trunk into the van, and wait for the truck driver to finish loading my car. I call mom to let her know how it's going and that we'll meet her at the car dealer (Freeway Dodge, where we were having the car towed to).
And then we're on our way. We all met up again at Dodge, glance around at some of the used car stickers in case we find ourselves needing to buy a replacement instead of repairing, and then mom brought me back to school, several hours and a good deal much more excitement later than I had originally planned.
Things could have been a lot worse. If I'd driven any farther, I'm fairly certain the car would have actually caught on fire. I could have not had a cell phone to call for help. We could have not had AAA coverage. And I could have been much less composed than I was. Now, admittedly, on the inside, I was very very nervous, but I still managed to evaluate, process and react to the situation in a very orderly and outwardly calm manner. I pulled off the road so I wouldn't block traffic, I attempted to call my parentals, I successfully called AAA and coherently gave them the information they needed, and even before that phone call I had very consciously thought through the situation: do I need to call 911? Do I call AAA? Do I just call my parents? Who else can I call if they can't come rescue me? In short, in the end, I feel that I did quite well, which gives me a realistic confidence that I'll be able to remain clear-headed if I'm ever in a worse situation in the future.
Friday, September 15, 2006
PHP Email Validation using Regular Expressions
This is a very geeky post, but I spent a good three hours making this code work perfectly, and I'm kind of proud of it, so there.
The idea is this: I needed a function that would validate the email address entered by a user on a new Tech Request System that I'm writing for Minnehaha, but I also wanted the user to be able to enter comma separated email addresses in the form and have those parsed correctly. Google didn't seem to have a ready-made function available for me to use, so I knew I had to take on the challenge and write my own. It was fun, too, so I can't really complain. The code may not be the most efficient it could be, but it works, and for a small scale application like this that's really the only requirement.
The following PHP function, validateEmail($email), checks the input ($email) to see if it contains valid email addresses. This is done first by parsing the input string into an array, each location in which will contain an individual email address to be parsed (this is assuming the original input was a comma separated list of emails; if only one email address was entered, this array will only have value associated with it). I then create a variable to return (cleverly named $return) and initialise it to be the returned value from calling validateSingleEmail on the first item in the aforementioned array. If there are more items in the array, the for loop goes through and checks them by calling validateSingleEmail on each. If the item is a valid email, that text is returned and appended (with a comma and space) to the $return variable. If the item is a blank email (pure whitespace, that is), validateSingleEmail returns an empty string and nothing is appended to $return (this is useful to catch any trailing commas and spaces in the original input so that they don't cause an error). Otherwise, if the item is an invalid email address (not matching the format abc@def.ghi), a validateSingleEmail returns false, thus causing validateEmail to also return false, which, in my application, causes an error message to appear on the user's screen when they press submit.
If all goes well, though, the function returns $return, and also sets the POST variable $_POST["Email"] to be this return value (that way everything is entered into the database correctly when the rest of the data is sent).
That's it. Very exciting for the non-computer people, I know. Actually, I'm sure it's not all that terribly exciting for the computer types, either, but maybe it will be useful to someone else someday.
function validateEmail($email) {
$emails = preg_split("/,/", $email);
if($return = validateSingleEmail($emails[0])) {
$count = count($emails);
for($i = 1; $i < $count; $i++) {
$addition = validateSingleEmail($emails[$i]);
if($addition !== false) {
$return .= ($addition == '' ? '' : (', ' . $addition));
} else {
return false;
}
}
$_POST["Email"] = $return;
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
function validateSingleEmail($email) {
if(!preg_match('/[^ ]+\@[^@ ]+\.[^@ ]+/', $email, $matches)) {
if(preg_match('/[\S]+/', $email, $matches)) {
return false;
} else {
return '';
}
} else {
return $matches[0];
}
}
The idea is this: I needed a function that would validate the email address entered by a user on a new Tech Request System that I'm writing for Minnehaha, but I also wanted the user to be able to enter comma separated email addresses in the form and have those parsed correctly. Google didn't seem to have a ready-made function available for me to use, so I knew I had to take on the challenge and write my own. It was fun, too, so I can't really complain. The code may not be the most efficient it could be, but it works, and for a small scale application like this that's really the only requirement.
The following PHP function, validateEmail($email), checks the input ($email) to see if it contains valid email addresses. This is done first by parsing the input string into an array, each location in which will contain an individual email address to be parsed (this is assuming the original input was a comma separated list of emails; if only one email address was entered, this array will only have value associated with it). I then create a variable to return (cleverly named $return) and initialise it to be the returned value from calling validateSingleEmail on the first item in the aforementioned array. If there are more items in the array, the for loop goes through and checks them by calling validateSingleEmail on each. If the item is a valid email, that text is returned and appended (with a comma and space) to the $return variable. If the item is a blank email (pure whitespace, that is), validateSingleEmail returns an empty string and nothing is appended to $return (this is useful to catch any trailing commas and spaces in the original input so that they don't cause an error). Otherwise, if the item is an invalid email address (not matching the format abc@def.ghi), a validateSingleEmail returns false, thus causing validateEmail to also return false, which, in my application, causes an error message to appear on the user's screen when they press submit.
If all goes well, though, the function returns $return, and also sets the POST variable $_POST["Email"] to be this return value (that way everything is entered into the database correctly when the rest of the data is sent).
That's it. Very exciting for the non-computer people, I know. Actually, I'm sure it's not all that terribly exciting for the computer types, either, but maybe it will be useful to someone else someday.
function validateEmail($email) {
$emails = preg_split("/,/", $email);
if($return = validateSingleEmail($emails[0])) {
$count = count($emails);
for($i = 1; $i < $count; $i++) {
$addition = validateSingleEmail($emails[$i]);
if($addition !== false) {
$return .= ($addition == '' ? '' : (', ' . $addition));
} else {
return false;
}
}
$_POST["Email"] = $return;
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
}
function validateSingleEmail($email) {
if(!preg_match('/[^ ]+\@[^@ ]+\.[^@ ]+/', $email, $matches)) {
if(preg_match('/[\S]+/', $email, $matches)) {
return false;
} else {
return '';
}
} else {
return $matches[0];
}
}
Sunday, September 10, 2006
That's a wrap! And let school begin
Finally, my long overdue post announcing that, *drumroll*, Harry Putter has wrapped! Our last day of shooting was on August 26th, starting from a 6:00 am call and running until about 7:30 pm that night - a long but absolutely wonderful day! We had an awesome crew, an awesome cast, and an awesome time all around - huge thanks are owed to Matthew Feeney for making it all possible; without his time, effort, and connections, the whole project would have sunk months ago.
So what's next? Everyone I've talked to asks me when the premiere is going to be. The answer is I don't know; we need to get a rough cut done first, and then it has to have the music score added, and then we'll be putting together the bonus features for the DVD, and then we will think about what premiere we can have, if we can have one at all (renting out a real theatre is expensive, and as I discovered would probably cost more than the entire budget of the film). Summary: a premiere, if there is one, is many months away.
In the while, I dropped off all the tapes with Tony Peltier (he ran sound during the HP production), who will be editing the film. Now it's in his hands - I just sit back and wait patiently. Which means Ben Latz, Matthew, and I can start looking toward other projects for the future, such as writing HP2 (this is, of course, based on the assumption that HP1 will turn out well - prayers are appreciated).
And it also means that I can start to focus more on school, now that St Olaf is back in session. I'm taking my final semester (third) of Norwegian, after which I will be done with my foreign language requirement! And I'm taking an Intro Astronomy course, which, aside from being of interest to me on general principle, will also be the last of my science GE requirements. Lastly, I'm taking two courses in the Computer Science area: Algorithms & Data Structures and Client Server Applications, both of which are highly project and programming intensive (C++ and Java, respectively), and thus both of which may very well be the kind of classes I've been waiting for out of the CS department here, thus, I'm excited.
So what's next? Everyone I've talked to asks me when the premiere is going to be. The answer is I don't know; we need to get a rough cut done first, and then it has to have the music score added, and then we'll be putting together the bonus features for the DVD, and then we will think about what premiere we can have, if we can have one at all (renting out a real theatre is expensive, and as I discovered would probably cost more than the entire budget of the film). Summary: a premiere, if there is one, is many months away.
In the while, I dropped off all the tapes with Tony Peltier (he ran sound during the HP production), who will be editing the film. Now it's in his hands - I just sit back and wait patiently. Which means Ben Latz, Matthew, and I can start looking toward other projects for the future, such as writing HP2 (this is, of course, based on the assumption that HP1 will turn out well - prayers are appreciated).
And it also means that I can start to focus more on school, now that St Olaf is back in session. I'm taking my final semester (third) of Norwegian, after which I will be done with my foreign language requirement! And I'm taking an Intro Astronomy course, which, aside from being of interest to me on general principle, will also be the last of my science GE requirements. Lastly, I'm taking two courses in the Computer Science area: Algorithms & Data Structures and Client Server Applications, both of which are highly project and programming intensive (C++ and Java, respectively), and thus both of which may very well be the kind of classes I've been waiting for out of the CS department here, thus, I'm excited.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
I Love My Job
During the summers, and in a limited sense during the school year, I work in the Technology Department at Minnehaha Academy, a Christian, Covenant affiliated high school in Minneapolis. My job consists of helping the faculty and staff with their [sometimes / often really simple... oh, was that my out loud voice?] computer questions, helping teach technology workshops, and work on the school website, be it mere updating or full scale redesign, as well as implementing individual web projects (such as our new Tech Request system, which was my little baby). And I help with the creation process for the image that we put onto each of our computers (it's "ghosting" in the PC world, it's "imaging" in the Mac world).
And I love my job.
I love knowing almost everybody in the building (moreso office and other staff than faculty, but still), and I love that almost everybody, even some of the new people, know me. I love being able to learn on the job, be it about life and theology or more specific tasks such as PHP and database programming. I love being able to have fun, have real life conversations with my boss, share jokes with my colleagues and former teachers, or put a picture of a stuffed Tigger toy on the front page to our admin mail login (our admin mail is hosted on a server named "Tigger"). And I love helping to lead the tech workshops - that's my one chance to really get to know the teachers at the other two campuses that I never had, and it's almost always a really fun mix of people. Plus I get to look smart, since we usually only teach basic programs like Word and PowerPoint.
So anyway, the moral is, I love my job. I know I won't be at Minnehaha forever, and this may even be my last summer there, but for the time that I am working in that school, at the end of the day, no matter how stressful it's been, I know I'm doing good, and I'm having a good time, and I like to think those two things are the most important in choosing a vocation.
And I love my job.
I love knowing almost everybody in the building (moreso office and other staff than faculty, but still), and I love that almost everybody, even some of the new people, know me. I love being able to learn on the job, be it about life and theology or more specific tasks such as PHP and database programming. I love being able to have fun, have real life conversations with my boss, share jokes with my colleagues and former teachers, or put a picture of a stuffed Tigger toy on the front page to our admin mail login (our admin mail is hosted on a server named "Tigger"). And I love helping to lead the tech workshops - that's my one chance to really get to know the teachers at the other two campuses that I never had, and it's almost always a really fun mix of people. Plus I get to look smart, since we usually only teach basic programs like Word and PowerPoint.
So anyway, the moral is, I love my job. I know I won't be at Minnehaha forever, and this may even be my last summer there, but for the time that I am working in that school, at the end of the day, no matter how stressful it's been, I know I'm doing good, and I'm having a good time, and I like to think those two things are the most important in choosing a vocation.
When Technology Just Works
Technology is an awesome thing, and we've all seen how it can be used for both good and bad. For now, I like to focus on the good - and I'm not necessarily talking in terms of computers right now.
About two weeks ago or so, I was in an informal meeting at work when my phone vibrated. It wasn't a call - I could tell from the vibration pattern that I'd received a text message. Assuming it to be from a friend, I flipped the cover open and realised, no, this isn't from Matthew or anyone like that, this is actually important, dare I propose emergency-level information: an Amber Alery had just been issued in the Metro area, and, because I'd signed up some many months ago to receive the text alerts, I was now able to read, on my phone, within minutes of it originally being posted, an alert about a missing child. Now, granted, the message was somewhat cryptic, lacking any sort of punctuation or line breaks, but still, this was a neat thing: technology working for the better in order to help save lives.
The same thing happens on the interstates - when an Amber Alert is issued, the overhead electronic signs that normally tell you how long until the next major interchange or landmark change to display the alert information, along with phone number contact. To me, anyway, I think that's just really really neat. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see how our modern marvels of the electronic age can be used for the good and protection of our citisens. Now granted, it still takes the vigilant eyes of the public to take the investigation from search to rescue, but it's that initial mass network of critical and life-saving information dissemination that makes it all possible.
About two weeks ago or so, I was in an informal meeting at work when my phone vibrated. It wasn't a call - I could tell from the vibration pattern that I'd received a text message. Assuming it to be from a friend, I flipped the cover open and realised, no, this isn't from Matthew or anyone like that, this is actually important, dare I propose emergency-level information: an Amber Alery had just been issued in the Metro area, and, because I'd signed up some many months ago to receive the text alerts, I was now able to read, on my phone, within minutes of it originally being posted, an alert about a missing child. Now, granted, the message was somewhat cryptic, lacking any sort of punctuation or line breaks, but still, this was a neat thing: technology working for the better in order to help save lives.
The same thing happens on the interstates - when an Amber Alert is issued, the overhead electronic signs that normally tell you how long until the next major interchange or landmark change to display the alert information, along with phone number contact. To me, anyway, I think that's just really really neat. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see how our modern marvels of the electronic age can be used for the good and protection of our citisens. Now granted, it still takes the vigilant eyes of the public to take the investigation from search to rescue, but it's that initial mass network of critical and life-saving information dissemination that makes it all possible.
The Hidden Costs of Cruising
I got home late last night from my first ever cruise, and, though it was tons of fun (see previous blog entries), I also feel inclined, for my future benefit and the benefit of others, to note that there are a lot of what I like to call "hidden costs" associated with cruising.
The 4-night cruise we booked was fairly inexpensive (about $300 something), and this does include all meals (including the choice of several different restaurant areas to choose from for breakfast and lunch) at no cost - you can even order as many different dishes (like escargot or shrimp) from the unique daily menu as you please, all "free" (ie, 'all included in the original ticket price') - and their dining room service is exemplary! And there are a number of onboard activities, such as swimming pools and hot tubs, and high quality nightly shows, to keep one occupied. Again, all free.
But what the ticket price doesn't cover are any special excursions to land: guided tours, rides, extra adventures, nothing. Nor does that initial price tag mention the air fare required to get to and from the port of departure, nor the cost of taxis to and from the hotel (from the airport and from the cruise - a total of four trips for us this past week), nor any specially elaborate or alcoholic drinks onboard, nor the added gratuities for the waiters and other servers onboard the ship (no dispute that they earned every penny, I'm just saying that the price isn't included on the initial figure).
And the price tag doesn't include what were, for me, the most significant expenses: the financial opportunity cost of taking a week off from work (which, for those of us who work several jobs - one in the day and freelance projects at night - this is significant), and the killer: the time spent away from loved ones. It was this last one that really got to me all week, not being able to be in email contact with my friends and loved ones back home.
So, worth going? Sure. It was an experience, reasonably fun, and now I know a lot more about how to prepare and what to expect for the next time. But I'm not going to go on a cruise again with only just friends. Yes, I'd want to make sure I had lots of friends with, of course, but frankly, the next time I go on a cruise, I want it to be shared with a significant other.
The 4-night cruise we booked was fairly inexpensive (about $300 something), and this does include all meals (including the choice of several different restaurant areas to choose from for breakfast and lunch) at no cost - you can even order as many different dishes (like escargot or shrimp) from the unique daily menu as you please, all "free" (ie, 'all included in the original ticket price') - and their dining room service is exemplary! And there are a number of onboard activities, such as swimming pools and hot tubs, and high quality nightly shows, to keep one occupied. Again, all free.
But what the ticket price doesn't cover are any special excursions to land: guided tours, rides, extra adventures, nothing. Nor does that initial price tag mention the air fare required to get to and from the port of departure, nor the cost of taxis to and from the hotel (from the airport and from the cruise - a total of four trips for us this past week), nor any specially elaborate or alcoholic drinks onboard, nor the added gratuities for the waiters and other servers onboard the ship (no dispute that they earned every penny, I'm just saying that the price isn't included on the initial figure).
And the price tag doesn't include what were, for me, the most significant expenses: the financial opportunity cost of taking a week off from work (which, for those of us who work several jobs - one in the day and freelance projects at night - this is significant), and the killer: the time spent away from loved ones. It was this last one that really got to me all week, not being able to be in email contact with my friends and loved ones back home.
So, worth going? Sure. It was an experience, reasonably fun, and now I know a lot more about how to prepare and what to expect for the next time. But I'm not going to go on a cruise again with only just friends. Yes, I'd want to make sure I had lots of friends with, of course, but frankly, the next time I go on a cruise, I want it to be shared with a significant other.
My Cruise Vacation: Day 6
Friday, 18 August 2006:
We were once again rudely awakened by the sound of the PA in our room, saying all guests who have white, lavender, or grey luggage tags could disembark. Who cares? I'm still asleep, and we were assigned green tags anyway.
So instead of sleeping until 7:45 like I had planned (we had to be out of the room by 8:00), I woke up at 7:00. Oh, the pain.
After journaling the events of last evening, we left the room to meet the others up in the Windjammer for one last meal onboard. And I needed to grab a new customs card, since the one I picked up last night was actually in Spanish. My customs card filled out, we waited patiently upstairs for our color tags to be called. And we waited. And then the restaurant closed down, so they wanted us to leave, but fortunately, on our way out the door, the announcement came for our green tags and Chad and CJ's purple tags, so we were ready to go!
Down to fourth floor, wait in line, scan our SeaPass cards at security, and then leave the boat from the opposite side from where we came in. Down a hallway, down an escalator, and to the baggage claim carousels. Then it was time to actually cross through customs, for which there was a rather long line. Fortunately for us, one of the porters pointed out that there was actually a second line with literally no one in it, all we had to do was cross around to the other end of the barricades to enter - so we did and passed right through!
By coincidence, we found the same taxi driver (Lorenzo) that had brought us to the cruise port on Monday, so we hired him to bring us back to the hotel, where we would sit and wait until it was time to go to the airport for our flight tonight. We checked our bags with the bell man on duty, and sat in the hotel lobby for the next considerable amount of time, reading, talking, doing stuff on our laptops, whatever we could to keep us entertained. I even wrote a few letters that I won't need to deliver until next year!
One benefit of having all this spare time to just sit and do "nothing" is that I could spend a lot of it calmly going through some of my post trip "processing", such as downloading my pictures from my phone (I used my RAZR as my camera for the whole trip), moving voice records from my voice recorder onto my laptop for later transcribing and actions, and going through a few of the emails I didn't have time or interest in addressing yesterday, thus getting me closer to being back "online", or rather, up and running, so to speak, when I finally get home.
To the relief of myself and CJ, our group of four that was leaving today (Matthew, Chad, CJ, and myself) got to the airport plenty early, checked through their security, and then waited. We boarded about 5 minutes early, left about 5 minutes early, and landed 5 minute early, so not a bad deal. I called Mom and Dad as we taxied to the gate, and then met them at baggage claim a few minutes later. It's good to be home.
A couple of random cruise notes remain, but I wasn't able or didn't remember to work them at the times, so this list stands as thus:
We were the only table in our dining room (that we noticed) that drank milk with dinner. Everyone had their water and wine glasses, of course, but we were the only table that added goblets of milk each night. And our servers were very cool about it, too - they were slightly confused the first night when we were all asking for milk (I started that trend), but each night since they brought out a pitcher and a tray filled with full milk goblets - they learned quickly.
I never did make my way to the exercise studio on the boat with all their fancy machines, but I did get plenty of exercise by almost always using the stairs instead of the elevators (I took a total of three elevator trips). This is significant when one considers we lived on deck 2, while the Windjammer is on deck 11, the pool (where I often met up with the others) is up on deck 10, and the balconies looking out to the oceans were only on deck 7 and above. So I got lots of exercise on the stairs, which made me happy.
And I never got sea sick. I was worried, as I had felt a little queasy-like back in July when we took the ferry over Lake Michigan, but I never felt nauseous at all on this trip (well, not from the waves - the over abundance of food did admittedly cause an amount of stomach discomfort on more than one occasion).
That's it. It's "tomorrow" - Saturday - and, though I had a decently good time, I'm very glad to be home again.
We were once again rudely awakened by the sound of the PA in our room, saying all guests who have white, lavender, or grey luggage tags could disembark. Who cares? I'm still asleep, and we were assigned green tags anyway.
So instead of sleeping until 7:45 like I had planned (we had to be out of the room by 8:00), I woke up at 7:00. Oh, the pain.
After journaling the events of last evening, we left the room to meet the others up in the Windjammer for one last meal onboard. And I needed to grab a new customs card, since the one I picked up last night was actually in Spanish. My customs card filled out, we waited patiently upstairs for our color tags to be called. And we waited. And then the restaurant closed down, so they wanted us to leave, but fortunately, on our way out the door, the announcement came for our green tags and Chad and CJ's purple tags, so we were ready to go!
Down to fourth floor, wait in line, scan our SeaPass cards at security, and then leave the boat from the opposite side from where we came in. Down a hallway, down an escalator, and to the baggage claim carousels. Then it was time to actually cross through customs, for which there was a rather long line. Fortunately for us, one of the porters pointed out that there was actually a second line with literally no one in it, all we had to do was cross around to the other end of the barricades to enter - so we did and passed right through!
By coincidence, we found the same taxi driver (Lorenzo) that had brought us to the cruise port on Monday, so we hired him to bring us back to the hotel, where we would sit and wait until it was time to go to the airport for our flight tonight. We checked our bags with the bell man on duty, and sat in the hotel lobby for the next considerable amount of time, reading, talking, doing stuff on our laptops, whatever we could to keep us entertained. I even wrote a few letters that I won't need to deliver until next year!
One benefit of having all this spare time to just sit and do "nothing" is that I could spend a lot of it calmly going through some of my post trip "processing", such as downloading my pictures from my phone (I used my RAZR as my camera for the whole trip), moving voice records from my voice recorder onto my laptop for later transcribing and actions, and going through a few of the emails I didn't have time or interest in addressing yesterday, thus getting me closer to being back "online", or rather, up and running, so to speak, when I finally get home.
To the relief of myself and CJ, our group of four that was leaving today (Matthew, Chad, CJ, and myself) got to the airport plenty early, checked through their security, and then waited. We boarded about 5 minutes early, left about 5 minutes early, and landed 5 minute early, so not a bad deal. I called Mom and Dad as we taxied to the gate, and then met them at baggage claim a few minutes later. It's good to be home.
A couple of random cruise notes remain, but I wasn't able or didn't remember to work them at the times, so this list stands as thus:
We were the only table in our dining room (that we noticed) that drank milk with dinner. Everyone had their water and wine glasses, of course, but we were the only table that added goblets of milk each night. And our servers were very cool about it, too - they were slightly confused the first night when we were all asking for milk (I started that trend), but each night since they brought out a pitcher and a tray filled with full milk goblets - they learned quickly.
I never did make my way to the exercise studio on the boat with all their fancy machines, but I did get plenty of exercise by almost always using the stairs instead of the elevators (I took a total of three elevator trips). This is significant when one considers we lived on deck 2, while the Windjammer is on deck 11, the pool (where I often met up with the others) is up on deck 10, and the balconies looking out to the oceans were only on deck 7 and above. So I got lots of exercise on the stairs, which made me happy.
And I never got sea sick. I was worried, as I had felt a little queasy-like back in July when we took the ferry over Lake Michigan, but I never felt nauseous at all on this trip (well, not from the waves - the over abundance of food did admittedly cause an amount of stomach discomfort on more than one occasion).
That's it. It's "tomorrow" - Saturday - and, though I had a decently good time, I'm very glad to be home again.
Friday, August 18, 2006
My Cruise Vacation: Day 5
Thursday, 17 August 2006:
I was rudely awakened to the noise of the cruise director's voice over the intercom, telling us that we had docked at Key West, FL, and would have to go through US Customs, and that the top deck (deck 10) should start on their way for that now. Great, but for those of us on deck 2, that was not a pleasant way to have to wake up.
So I got up and going, waited, read a little, and finally went through "customs", which, apparently, since this isn't our final port of call, simply meant: "go through the line, show them your passport, and let them punch your SeaPass card with a little anchor". Seriously, that's all it was. What a waste of time. But without that little punch, they wouldn't let us off the ship.
I met Allen and Rob, and later Matthew, Debbie, and David, up in the WindJammer café for breakfast, and afterward we all (except Matthew) headed into town (Matthew stayed behind to catch a quick nap before his para-sailing adventure an hour later).
The shopping in the stores near the port was okay, but nothing all that special, and we came back after not too long a time. I went out again soon after with Debbie to meet up with Matthew and David after their para-sailing. We met up with Chad and CJ not too long after, and found a Hard Rock Café to sit down, cool off, and get a drink (the others got food, too, but I, as usual, was full from breakfast, and saving myself for the free food back onboard the ship).
We trickled out of the restaurant one by one, some back to the ship, and me to a nearby Internet Café we'd spotted earlier (I had brought my laptop along this time). After being unable to connect to their wireless, I finally wired myself into one of their waiting ethernet cords and checked my email for the first time since Monday afternoon. Oh my goodness, that was chaotic. Well over a hundred real messages, some of which could be lumped together and filed, but a number of others with some level of "I really want / need to respond to this"-ness about them. The most frustrating part of checking, though, came in discovering that several rather important messages that I had sent from the hotel on Monday never got delivered. They didn't bounce right away, they were just delayed, and then finally returned with fatal errors. So, instead of reading the replies to them that I was hoping for, I had to resend the originals. Argh. Thus is life with technology.
Some of the others found me in the café, and then we walked a few blocks to see the Earnest Hemmingway house. We saw the outside of it just fine, but none of us realised it actually cost money to go inside to tour, so we turned around and came back to the ship via the shopping street.
Not too many hours later, we pulled away from dock, which, for as exciting as one would think it *should* be, is actually a rather uneventful process. I suppose it's because we have this strange notion of procedures and safety, rather than speed and excitement. Funny that. The ropes are untied from the dock one by one, rolled back into the ship, and finally, after the last is released, we start to drift out. Then the side engines kick in on low gear, moving the boat away from dock and rotating it to face toward the open sea. About 20 minutes later, all the engines stop, there's a brief delay, and the rear engines turn on, thrusting us slowly out toward sea as the captain and crew skillfully pilot the ship through an obstacle course of red and green buoys. A total of about an hour from when they first started untying the ship and we are finally out on open sea. For as slow going as it is, though, watching the whole process unfold is very relaxing, soothing away any stresses the day might have had, and giving one opportunity for quiet introspection.
Before dinner, about half the group made our way to the theatre to watch the singing and dancing goodbye performance, similar to the Boogie Wonderland two days ago, except this time with a Latin pop music theme. I suppose I liked it better than the other, illustrated by the fact that I wasn't eagerly anticipating the end as I had on Tuesday. In any case, it was fun.
Then time for dinner - we actually got there early for once, only to discover the doors weren't open yet. There was live music playing in the Centrum, and an elderly couple enjoying the time by dancing, so we watched them - seeing "old love" like that, still so alive and active, was really heart warming for me; it reminded me a lot of my Grandma and Grandpa.
Dinner was, as always, wonderful, and at the end of tonight, being the last night, all the waiters gathered around the dining room to sing to us (they had also done this yesterday, but that was more of an audience involvement singing led by the head waiter in his fancy red suit). Afterward we each took our turn to shake our waiters' hands, thanking them for their truly magnificent service, and also to pass along our gratuity envelopes for them. Of course, this was a special dinner for me, too, as it was the first one all week that I managed to dirty all the 10 pieces of silverware at my spot (through methods like the clever use of a spoon and a fork and a knife in the clam chowder).
Following dinner Matthew and I headed to the Centrum area shops, just to look around. I didn't really see anything particularly great for buying - I'm not a huge shopper for trifles and souvenirs - but Matthew picked up an expandable tote bag to help carry all his purchased drink glasses back; he's been collecting shot glasses, margarita glasses, etc, all week to take back to furnish his new bar in his basement.
Then it was time for Bingo! I'd never gone before, but it was the last night, so I went to cheer on Chad, CJ, Rob, and Matthew. None of them won, but it was still fun. And I learned that there can be some level of formal rules to the game, such as standing when you have only one number remaining to Bingo, and a whole procedure for calling back numbers once someone has actually called Bingo. Cool to watch.
But by the time that was over, my bed was calling me. Except I had to finish packing first - Royal Caribbean required that we deposit our suitcases in the hallways the night before departure, so, even though I had done most of my suit-case packing earlier in the day, it still took another 15 minutes or so to figure out how to reduce my carry-on load for tomorrow, and then just get all those minor details of packing taken care of.
This, followed by some writing, followed by sleepy-bye.
I was rudely awakened to the noise of the cruise director's voice over the intercom, telling us that we had docked at Key West, FL, and would have to go through US Customs, and that the top deck (deck 10) should start on their way for that now. Great, but for those of us on deck 2, that was not a pleasant way to have to wake up.
So I got up and going, waited, read a little, and finally went through "customs", which, apparently, since this isn't our final port of call, simply meant: "go through the line, show them your passport, and let them punch your SeaPass card with a little anchor". Seriously, that's all it was. What a waste of time. But without that little punch, they wouldn't let us off the ship.
I met Allen and Rob, and later Matthew, Debbie, and David, up in the WindJammer café for breakfast, and afterward we all (except Matthew) headed into town (Matthew stayed behind to catch a quick nap before his para-sailing adventure an hour later).
The shopping in the stores near the port was okay, but nothing all that special, and we came back after not too long a time. I went out again soon after with Debbie to meet up with Matthew and David after their para-sailing. We met up with Chad and CJ not too long after, and found a Hard Rock Café to sit down, cool off, and get a drink (the others got food, too, but I, as usual, was full from breakfast, and saving myself for the free food back onboard the ship).
We trickled out of the restaurant one by one, some back to the ship, and me to a nearby Internet Café we'd spotted earlier (I had brought my laptop along this time). After being unable to connect to their wireless, I finally wired myself into one of their waiting ethernet cords and checked my email for the first time since Monday afternoon. Oh my goodness, that was chaotic. Well over a hundred real messages, some of which could be lumped together and filed, but a number of others with some level of "I really want / need to respond to this"-ness about them. The most frustrating part of checking, though, came in discovering that several rather important messages that I had sent from the hotel on Monday never got delivered. They didn't bounce right away, they were just delayed, and then finally returned with fatal errors. So, instead of reading the replies to them that I was hoping for, I had to resend the originals. Argh. Thus is life with technology.
Some of the others found me in the café, and then we walked a few blocks to see the Earnest Hemmingway house. We saw the outside of it just fine, but none of us realised it actually cost money to go inside to tour, so we turned around and came back to the ship via the shopping street.
Not too many hours later, we pulled away from dock, which, for as exciting as one would think it *should* be, is actually a rather uneventful process. I suppose it's because we have this strange notion of procedures and safety, rather than speed and excitement. Funny that. The ropes are untied from the dock one by one, rolled back into the ship, and finally, after the last is released, we start to drift out. Then the side engines kick in on low gear, moving the boat away from dock and rotating it to face toward the open sea. About 20 minutes later, all the engines stop, there's a brief delay, and the rear engines turn on, thrusting us slowly out toward sea as the captain and crew skillfully pilot the ship through an obstacle course of red and green buoys. A total of about an hour from when they first started untying the ship and we are finally out on open sea. For as slow going as it is, though, watching the whole process unfold is very relaxing, soothing away any stresses the day might have had, and giving one opportunity for quiet introspection.
Before dinner, about half the group made our way to the theatre to watch the singing and dancing goodbye performance, similar to the Boogie Wonderland two days ago, except this time with a Latin pop music theme. I suppose I liked it better than the other, illustrated by the fact that I wasn't eagerly anticipating the end as I had on Tuesday. In any case, it was fun.
Then time for dinner - we actually got there early for once, only to discover the doors weren't open yet. There was live music playing in the Centrum, and an elderly couple enjoying the time by dancing, so we watched them - seeing "old love" like that, still so alive and active, was really heart warming for me; it reminded me a lot of my Grandma and Grandpa.
Dinner was, as always, wonderful, and at the end of tonight, being the last night, all the waiters gathered around the dining room to sing to us (they had also done this yesterday, but that was more of an audience involvement singing led by the head waiter in his fancy red suit). Afterward we each took our turn to shake our waiters' hands, thanking them for their truly magnificent service, and also to pass along our gratuity envelopes for them. Of course, this was a special dinner for me, too, as it was the first one all week that I managed to dirty all the 10 pieces of silverware at my spot (through methods like the clever use of a spoon and a fork and a knife in the clam chowder).
Following dinner Matthew and I headed to the Centrum area shops, just to look around. I didn't really see anything particularly great for buying - I'm not a huge shopper for trifles and souvenirs - but Matthew picked up an expandable tote bag to help carry all his purchased drink glasses back; he's been collecting shot glasses, margarita glasses, etc, all week to take back to furnish his new bar in his basement.
Then it was time for Bingo! I'd never gone before, but it was the last night, so I went to cheer on Chad, CJ, Rob, and Matthew. None of them won, but it was still fun. And I learned that there can be some level of formal rules to the game, such as standing when you have only one number remaining to Bingo, and a whole procedure for calling back numbers once someone has actually called Bingo. Cool to watch.
But by the time that was over, my bed was calling me. Except I had to finish packing first - Royal Caribbean required that we deposit our suitcases in the hallways the night before departure, so, even though I had done most of my suit-case packing earlier in the day, it still took another 15 minutes or so to figure out how to reduce my carry-on load for tomorrow, and then just get all those minor details of packing taken care of.
This, followed by some writing, followed by sleepy-bye.
My Cruise Vacation: Day 4
Wednesday, 16 August 2006:
Matthew was hopeful of going on a scuba excursion this morning, but of course it had to be scheduled for 8:00 am. Oh, the pain. His alarm turned on at 7:15, and I'm not sure I fell back asleep after that. So eventually when my alarm (aka mobile phone) started dinging at me at 8:50, I was ready to get up. After a short shower in the claustrophobically small bathroom, and after being unable to raise anyone else in the group on our little radios, I went on my way up to breakfast alone, and proceeded to have a most wonderful conversation about school, life, and Christianity with two of my table mates (a couple from New York, also on their first cruise, as I learned).
As I was ordering my meal, Matthew happened to beep me on the radio, which was inconveniently hiding in my pocket not within easy reach. Turned out his scuba excursion had been canceled because no one had signed up (he was going to sign up this morning right before hand), so he, Chad, and CJ were out on the deck watching the rain (yes, it has rained for part of the day every day so far). I finished breakfast then set out on my way to find them (by way of the purser's desk, whose system was still down and thus unable to fix my key card), eventually running into Matthew, who talked me into coming with them to the beach.
And when I say beach, I mean that we shuttled from the boat (or "tendered", if you will), anchored a fair distance from shore, to the Royal Caribbean privately owned island of Coco Cay. Though it's a relatively small island, there was still plenty of beach for all, and for today they were also serving lunch there. We walked around a little bit, saw a sting ray and some other fish swimming about in the near pristine water, then went to eat. Well, the others ate; I was still stuffed from breakfast, so I subsisted on a mere glass of watery fruit punch.
After lunch, Allen, Rob, and I cruised the small shopping complex of stores (at least they were selling different things from the stores yesterday!), then got back on board one of the tenders heading for the Majesty.
Coming back on board the boat is always an adventure for me, having so many things, specifically metal things, in my pockets. And for that reason I really dislike having to go through security checkpoints - it just takes so long to empty and then restock. Some day I'll learn to just carry less stuff.
I stopped by the purser's desk again in the hopes of getting a new key card, but the system was still down. Now I'm a little irritated, as I'd been told this morning that it would be functional in only a short time (ie, before I returned from shore). They called room service again, and this time they actually showed up to let me in. How kind. A little journalling later and I was off to take a quick nap before the afternoon.
Allen came by the room at about 3:15 or so, and we headed off to the Art Auction. After registering, we took the next half hour to walk around and look at the art pieces, which were sprawled over two entire levels of the centrum. Hundreds of pieces, some of which looked very nice, others of which looked, well, not to my taste. The way the auction was set up, only requested pieces actually made their way to the block, so we used our sticky notes that came with our bidding card to mark the pieces we were specifically interested in. There pieces there ranging in value from $50 to $50,000, so there was plenty to choose from. I only marked the cheaper ones (not that they had price tags, but you could ask one of the suits to look up the price for you). Then we took up prime standing spots, centered on the balcony level overlooking the auctioneer and his display, and waited for the event to begin.
The first piece up for auction was valued at around $3000, and the auctioneer started the bidding at $1. Yes, $1. And no one raised their cards. He dropped his microphone and walked off the stage, then returned a moment later to try it again (it was a joke, and people laughed). This time the bidders responded, including Allen. When the bid was up at about $120, Allen raised his card again, then leaned over to me and whispered that he didn't really want it, he was just raising the price against the woman in the front row downstairs. But then all of a sudden he was the only bidder left. The auctioneer kept asking the audience, "Should I let him have it for only $120?", and everyone shouted "Yes". So the auctioneer pounded the gavel and said "Sold!" and Allen was taken by surprise. But, not to despair, the auctioneer followed this up by saying he would do us one better - he'd let him [Allen] have the piece for free! Seriously, Allen won the piece for free, just for being the last bidder. So that was exciting.
Allen placed bids on a number of other items, and, for better or worse, won about 5 of the auctions. And in the midst of that, he also won a $500 certificate to use on the art, just for laughing loudly at one of the auctioneer's jokes! And then the auction was over and it was time for the raffle drawing. Three $2500 art prizes. We knew our odds were getting to be pretty good, since you had to be present to win, and a majority of people had already left, so we were happy campers going into it. But then Allen won!! We were both stunned, but really excited. He has an appointment tonight at 10:00 to go pick out his free art from the gallery (this segment of my journal being written at 7:30, I don't know the results of that yet).
Not only was the experience downright fun (especially once the auction staff started paying special attention to Allen, giving him some heads up on upcoming pieces, etc), but it was also educational - we learned all about some of the up and coming artists, like "Max" (full name is Peter Max, but everyone just says "Max"). He's the European-born-now-American-citizen who raised millions in donations to refurbish the Statue of Liberty not too many years ago, and almost all of his recent paintings (of which there were quite a few brand new ones in the auction) combine images of the Statue, American flags, and hearts. And their colourful and nice to look at. That was my culturing for the day. But in addition, those several hours proved to be good friendship-building time for me to get to know Allen better, and vice-versa, which, him being one of Matthew's best friends, and me also being one of Matthew's best friends, seemed duly appropriate.
After the auction, I stopped by the purser's desk again, and this time they were finally able to re-magnetize my keycard so I can get into the room again. Then it was time to run off on my own with my computer, write this (sitting in yet another seating area that I haven't tried before), and just relax before dinner.
Dinner time was fun. Or rather, the dessert time was fun. About half an hour before dinner started, I approached our table's waiter in the dining room and asked him to deliver a special present to Matthew at dessert time tonight - the Mickey Mouse hand lotion gag gift that has been going back and forth between us ever since New Year's Eve. So at dinner time, after we were done stuffing ourselves (in my case, with shrimp), our waiter delivered our dessert menus, took those orders, then proceeded to bring out the special dessert. At first Matthew didn't see it coming, but as our waiter cleared around the corner of the table with the Mickey Mouse hand lotion prominently centered on an elegant white plate, he said something to the effect of "no way", and then started with a combination of laughing and blushing. Everyone else who had been at the New Year's party and knew the story, once they saw what was coming, also started laughing, very hard. I got a few compliments on how clever a delivery that was.
After our real desserts (chocolate cake for me), we went up to the ship's library where the art people had set up their displays for the evening, to watch Allen pick out his winnings. Turns out he won a total of 7 paintings! Unfortunately, it wasn't "pick any painting", it was "choose a quantity from this selection of 4". But still, not bad at all for a day's winnings, and it was fun to listen to the art dealer describing some of the other, more expensive pieces, that were available for purchase.
After the art show, I took a moment to fill out the automatic gratuities form for our servers - though I had come into the trip grousing about having to pay these added expenses, after the exemplary service we've received, I'm gladly throwing in the extra few dollars per day. The way it works, I filled out the form last night, so they will charge my credit card on file and then give me vouchers to put into the envelopes to give to the servers. Then, tonight, when we deliver those envelopes, I also have the option of throwing in a little extra in cash if I want, which I think I will.
And then the would-be highlight of the evening (if I hadn't been so absolutely stuffed from dinner): the chocolate buffet! An all-you-can-eat buffet of chocolate and other sweet delicacies, held in the lower dining room. Go through the line, take what you want, then indulge. Except I was too full to enjoy any more than two and a half small pieces. Drat.
Matthew was hopeful of going on a scuba excursion this morning, but of course it had to be scheduled for 8:00 am. Oh, the pain. His alarm turned on at 7:15, and I'm not sure I fell back asleep after that. So eventually when my alarm (aka mobile phone) started dinging at me at 8:50, I was ready to get up. After a short shower in the claustrophobically small bathroom, and after being unable to raise anyone else in the group on our little radios, I went on my way up to breakfast alone, and proceeded to have a most wonderful conversation about school, life, and Christianity with two of my table mates (a couple from New York, also on their first cruise, as I learned).
As I was ordering my meal, Matthew happened to beep me on the radio, which was inconveniently hiding in my pocket not within easy reach. Turned out his scuba excursion had been canceled because no one had signed up (he was going to sign up this morning right before hand), so he, Chad, and CJ were out on the deck watching the rain (yes, it has rained for part of the day every day so far). I finished breakfast then set out on my way to find them (by way of the purser's desk, whose system was still down and thus unable to fix my key card), eventually running into Matthew, who talked me into coming with them to the beach.
And when I say beach, I mean that we shuttled from the boat (or "tendered", if you will), anchored a fair distance from shore, to the Royal Caribbean privately owned island of Coco Cay. Though it's a relatively small island, there was still plenty of beach for all, and for today they were also serving lunch there. We walked around a little bit, saw a sting ray and some other fish swimming about in the near pristine water, then went to eat. Well, the others ate; I was still stuffed from breakfast, so I subsisted on a mere glass of watery fruit punch.
After lunch, Allen, Rob, and I cruised the small shopping complex of stores (at least they were selling different things from the stores yesterday!), then got back on board one of the tenders heading for the Majesty.
Coming back on board the boat is always an adventure for me, having so many things, specifically metal things, in my pockets. And for that reason I really dislike having to go through security checkpoints - it just takes so long to empty and then restock. Some day I'll learn to just carry less stuff.
I stopped by the purser's desk again in the hopes of getting a new key card, but the system was still down. Now I'm a little irritated, as I'd been told this morning that it would be functional in only a short time (ie, before I returned from shore). They called room service again, and this time they actually showed up to let me in. How kind. A little journalling later and I was off to take a quick nap before the afternoon.
Allen came by the room at about 3:15 or so, and we headed off to the Art Auction. After registering, we took the next half hour to walk around and look at the art pieces, which were sprawled over two entire levels of the centrum. Hundreds of pieces, some of which looked very nice, others of which looked, well, not to my taste. The way the auction was set up, only requested pieces actually made their way to the block, so we used our sticky notes that came with our bidding card to mark the pieces we were specifically interested in. There pieces there ranging in value from $50 to $50,000, so there was plenty to choose from. I only marked the cheaper ones (not that they had price tags, but you could ask one of the suits to look up the price for you). Then we took up prime standing spots, centered on the balcony level overlooking the auctioneer and his display, and waited for the event to begin.
The first piece up for auction was valued at around $3000, and the auctioneer started the bidding at $1. Yes, $1. And no one raised their cards. He dropped his microphone and walked off the stage, then returned a moment later to try it again (it was a joke, and people laughed). This time the bidders responded, including Allen. When the bid was up at about $120, Allen raised his card again, then leaned over to me and whispered that he didn't really want it, he was just raising the price against the woman in the front row downstairs. But then all of a sudden he was the only bidder left. The auctioneer kept asking the audience, "Should I let him have it for only $120?", and everyone shouted "Yes". So the auctioneer pounded the gavel and said "Sold!" and Allen was taken by surprise. But, not to despair, the auctioneer followed this up by saying he would do us one better - he'd let him [Allen] have the piece for free! Seriously, Allen won the piece for free, just for being the last bidder. So that was exciting.
Allen placed bids on a number of other items, and, for better or worse, won about 5 of the auctions. And in the midst of that, he also won a $500 certificate to use on the art, just for laughing loudly at one of the auctioneer's jokes! And then the auction was over and it was time for the raffle drawing. Three $2500 art prizes. We knew our odds were getting to be pretty good, since you had to be present to win, and a majority of people had already left, so we were happy campers going into it. But then Allen won!! We were both stunned, but really excited. He has an appointment tonight at 10:00 to go pick out his free art from the gallery (this segment of my journal being written at 7:30, I don't know the results of that yet).
Not only was the experience downright fun (especially once the auction staff started paying special attention to Allen, giving him some heads up on upcoming pieces, etc), but it was also educational - we learned all about some of the up and coming artists, like "Max" (full name is Peter Max, but everyone just says "Max"). He's the European-born-now-American-citizen who raised millions in donations to refurbish the Statue of Liberty not too many years ago, and almost all of his recent paintings (of which there were quite a few brand new ones in the auction) combine images of the Statue, American flags, and hearts. And their colourful and nice to look at. That was my culturing for the day. But in addition, those several hours proved to be good friendship-building time for me to get to know Allen better, and vice-versa, which, him being one of Matthew's best friends, and me also being one of Matthew's best friends, seemed duly appropriate.
After the auction, I stopped by the purser's desk again, and this time they were finally able to re-magnetize my keycard so I can get into the room again. Then it was time to run off on my own with my computer, write this (sitting in yet another seating area that I haven't tried before), and just relax before dinner.
Dinner time was fun. Or rather, the dessert time was fun. About half an hour before dinner started, I approached our table's waiter in the dining room and asked him to deliver a special present to Matthew at dessert time tonight - the Mickey Mouse hand lotion gag gift that has been going back and forth between us ever since New Year's Eve. So at dinner time, after we were done stuffing ourselves (in my case, with shrimp), our waiter delivered our dessert menus, took those orders, then proceeded to bring out the special dessert. At first Matthew didn't see it coming, but as our waiter cleared around the corner of the table with the Mickey Mouse hand lotion prominently centered on an elegant white plate, he said something to the effect of "no way", and then started with a combination of laughing and blushing. Everyone else who had been at the New Year's party and knew the story, once they saw what was coming, also started laughing, very hard. I got a few compliments on how clever a delivery that was.
After our real desserts (chocolate cake for me), we went up to the ship's library where the art people had set up their displays for the evening, to watch Allen pick out his winnings. Turns out he won a total of 7 paintings! Unfortunately, it wasn't "pick any painting", it was "choose a quantity from this selection of 4". But still, not bad at all for a day's winnings, and it was fun to listen to the art dealer describing some of the other, more expensive pieces, that were available for purchase.
After the art show, I took a moment to fill out the automatic gratuities form for our servers - though I had come into the trip grousing about having to pay these added expenses, after the exemplary service we've received, I'm gladly throwing in the extra few dollars per day. The way it works, I filled out the form last night, so they will charge my credit card on file and then give me vouchers to put into the envelopes to give to the servers. Then, tonight, when we deliver those envelopes, I also have the option of throwing in a little extra in cash if I want, which I think I will.
And then the would-be highlight of the evening (if I hadn't been so absolutely stuffed from dinner): the chocolate buffet! An all-you-can-eat buffet of chocolate and other sweet delicacies, held in the lower dining room. Go through the line, take what you want, then indulge. Except I was too full to enjoy any more than two and a half small pieces. Drat.
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