Ah, The Worst Part Of The Cruise Is Done

Getting to the pier and onto the ship is the worst part of going on a cruise. But that's done now. Fortunately, we knew from experience that we did not have to wait at the hotel with the horde of other passengers for our assigned, noon-ish bus. Instead, we jumped in a cab around 10:30 AM and took it straight to Pier 26. Even with the glitch of computers going down at the Holland America check-in, we were roaming around on the M.S. Noordam by 11:00 or 11:15. Staterooms weren't ready until 1:30 or 2:00, so we toured the ship and had lunch.

This ship is similar to last year's, but a little bigger, nicer, and more options for eating 24 hours a day. We've been onboard for four hours and I've had five meals. Just kidding.

We have a good strong Wi-Fi signal in our room. That's good because the Library, a Wi-Fi HotSpot, must be at least a three or four minute walk from here.


There's something fishy about the bar next to the pool on the Lido Deck.

Helvetica

On the flight from Houston to Ft. Lauderdale, we watched a movie on my iPhone (I've downloaded four full-length movies to my 8 GB iPhone, and I still have almost 4 GB of storage available).

We watched Helvetica, a documentary about the ubiquitous font named Helvetica. A very interesting movie if you're involved with typography and design. And, as Sarah Palin might say, in addition to being ubiquitous, it's everywhere.


Helvetica from the Hilton in Ft. Lauderdale.

More Sidney Supper Photos

Photographer Melanie West gave us a disc of photos she shot at the Sidney Supper. I've included 16 of my favorites in a web gallery. Click the image to see the gallery (shown below).

Namaste

No, this isn't the Eastern Caribbean. It's Kathmandu, Nepal. While organizing files in preparation for the Shakespeare At Sea Cruise, I keep running across photos that bring back memories of other trips from the past.

That's me sitting on the front steps of an Apple computer store, located just a couple of blocks from the Yak & Yeti Hotel in downtown Kathmandu. Robin and I accidentally stumbled across this place as we wondered around the city. I think Apple probably was right in deciding to not go with this look for all of their stores.

Namaste to all you Nepal Mac users.

Double Bubble Toil and Trouble in Los Alamos

Never have I seen such a fair and foul night as Halloween night in Los Alamos. A 13-strong contingent of Mary Sidney Society members and Shakespeare readers from Robin's Mermaid Tavern drove through the fog and filthy air to watch the Los Alamos Little Theater production of Macbeth, starring Grady Hughes, a longtime member of the First Friday Club (Shakespeare readers) that meets monthly at the Mermaid Tavern in Santa Fe.

A full house on opening night raised our expectations and we weren't disappointed. Everyone was great, especially Grady. How good was he? I definitely will not ever spend the night in his castle. And I'll stay at least two sword lengths from him at future Shakespeare readings.

Bravo, Grady. Thanks for a wonderful night of horror, treachery, and most foul deeds.


Grady Hughes as Macbeth.

Waiting For Shakespeare

To prepare my laptop and camera gear for the Shakespeare Cruise, I spent hours importing and deleting footage from the camera, a Canon HG10. I've been procrastinating this task for months, not wanting to decide what to keep and what to toss. Since the HG10 records to an internal hard disc, you don't have easy, automatic archival of footage that MiniDV tapes provide. Whine, whine, grump, grump.

To get to the point, I'm throwing together some photos and video from trips and events earlier this year into a few movies. The link below is a slide show of our trip to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, at the end of May. After a photo-safari week in Granada, Nicaragua with pal JohnG to visit his sweetheart Marcia (we stayed at her house in Granada), the three of us flew to Leon, then hired a driver to take us to San Miguel, a two-hour drive, where Robin and friends Elizabeth and Boris were waiting for us to arrive (having arrived there a couple of days earlier).

Several years ago, Robin spent a week there with Elizabeth (a regular haunt of hers). It was my first visit, and it was everything I'd imagined a quaint, Mexican, mountain village from a hundred years ago would be like (including a Starbucks located on the corner of the Plaza, with free Wi-Fi access. Yes!)

San Miguel de Allende

Sidney Supper 2008, The Movie

If you missed the 4-hour event in Santa Fe, New Mexico, here's the seven-minute movie version.

Click on the text link above, or click on the photo below.