The flight to Ft. Lauderdale was pleasant enough, with the usual assortment of small travel events that differ from daily routines: flying with an extremely tall collection of Chinese women (a basketball team); the guy sitting next to Robin telling her about killing four deer near Santa Rosa, New Mexico (his 17th trip there to go deer hunting); bus driver humor between the Ft. Lauderdale airport and our hotel ("Ladies and gentlemen, it will be only a two hour drive to the hotel."); watching "Wild Hogs" on my iPod Classic; reading the book Robin bought for me at the Albuquerque airport, "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A personal view of the search for God," by Carl Sagan. If like thinking of yourself as the focus of God's creation, instead of a speck of dust in the boondocks of a minor galaxy, you might want to skip this book.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the cruise. After checking in last night, we made ourselves at home in the middle of the hotel lobby, visiting with friends. We met the Neil Bauman (CEO of Insight Cruises) and his wife Theresa. Super nice people. I took an immediate liking to Neil because he was carrying an Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro (laptop).
We board busses in a couple of hours that take us to the ship. So far everything is soooo much better than the Carnival cruise I took years ago out of Miami, where the boarding procedure was a nightmare (a thousand people crowded in the hotel lobby for hours, waiting for permission to get on assigned busses). Neil has everything so organized that there's no crowds or lines or stressed-out passengers. Two gold stars for Neil so far (counting the laptop one).
One last note for dog-people: we met a 8-month old Golden Doodle in the lobby last night. She's in town for a dog show.
Next updates from the floating Volendam.
jt
