Back to Normality?

Man, is normality even a word?

As some of you may have noticed the past few days, Alvin is back from vacation. I have only had time to read the blogs of others and comment on a few.

Many thanks for the comments on the last post. Some were very...interesting. I stayed away from the single malts, but did have a rum punch or two. Umm, I've never worn a kilt but my dad did at our wedding. That reminds me of a joke: How many birds can you get up a Scotsman's kilt?...it depends on the length of the branch...

We got home just before midnight last Friday night. I drove Sean to his usual Saturday morning swimming and my wife dove into the two week pile of dirty laundry that spilled from the three suitcases. Sean had a marksmanship practice with the cadets (with a pellet gun, not a rifle) and V and I drove to Gull Island to retrieve the greyhound. I was pleased to see that he remembered us and was no more neurotic than usual.

I have not been able to access the server at my employer's HQ in Ontario but can open my email through a Microsoft exchange server. They hope to have that sorted out by tomorrow. Being a dumb draftsman, I don't understand the technical aspects of my remote link to work and choose to leave that to the IT overlords. If I had my way I would still be drafting on a board with a pencil pinched between my fingers and graphite smeared across the flat part of my right hand where I absently drag it across my work. Sigh...the good old days...

Oh. Vacation. That went really well. It's amazing how fast, and slow, 15 days can pass by. I had hoped to post a blog a couple of days ago but our camera was just purchased before vacation and my wife still has to figure out how to download the 1000 or so photos on to the computer. Our old camera had a card reader, but the card in this camera doesn't seem to be compatible. I have also been thinking of an old co-worker from my first drafting job 22 years ago. I discovered while reading the obits in the London (Ont) Free Press a couple of days ago that he had died at the age of 51. I know, I should get a new hobby...

The first three days in Manhattan were great. The only downfall was that I put my back out on day 3 and it hurt for a week (and I'll head off the evil comments by saying it was hurt while bending over the bathroom sink to wash my face). We visited the USS Intrepid, now decommissioned and a floating museum. We also toured through the submarine USS Growler at the same site. The sailors apparently were underwater for 60-90 days at a time and the claustrophobic conditions on board really gives you an appreciation for what they endured. We got 2-day passes to jump on and off the double-decker buses that drive about the city and took tours of both upper and lower Manhattan. I must say, NY has a bit of a reputation for being unfriendly but we found the rumours to be totally unfounded. I would go back there anytime.

Our cruise was departing out of Bayonne, NJ on the Sunday afternoon and the hotel found us a private taxi to get us there at a price much better than the yellow cabs. The ship was enormous...the Explorer of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) is just over 1000 ft long and, at one time, was the largest passenger ship in the world.

While waiting in line to check-in, I noticed that we were surrounded by the elderly. Some with hair much greyer than mine. I had began to suspect that V and I were the youngest on the ship. However, we noticed a couple of families with you children and began to relax. After a couple of days at sea we began to shake off the hectic-ness of travelling and began to relax. Sadly, the elderly began to shed their clothes and dance about on deck. All that was missing was a brass pole. One old fellow had a gut hanging over his speedos, wore a captain's hat, and danced about the pool deck waving a beer about. I referred to him as 'Captain Morgan' for the rest of the trip. If I had a dollar for every electric scooter, oxygen tank and surgical scar we saw over the 12 days the trip would be paid off by now.

Our ports of call were: Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas (USVI); Phillipsburg, St. Maarten; Rosseau, Dominica; Bridgetown, Barbados; St. John's, Antigua; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. I have differing opinions about the ports and what we could do there and I'll leave my long-winded comments for another day...

As noted, the photos are still pending but I can include one that was taken in Antigua when we took the 'swim with the stingrays' day trip. They took photos of each of us posing while holding up a stingray. My wife's was the best photo. Mine wasn't so good as I wasn't really smiling and I couldn't get my stingray up at all...