pirating

A big thing nowdays is "pirating" music. Now that music is in digital form it's very easy to give away. If I buy a CD, I can theoretically give it away to millions of people by putting it on the internet. It's only become a problem since the internet/digital music has become so big. Apparently there is a way to "copy" vinyl records however. I don't think I would like to go through the pain for that though.

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mom and dad

Mom and Dad came up last night and we went out to eat with John and Connie Wade. We discussed our cruises with their upcoming cruise to Alaska. They can hardly wait.

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back home.

Monday I had to go in to Monett for a meeting. I took the day off today to work on the house at Diamond. We are trying to get it ready for an open house. I had to take some window screens in to get them fixed and Miranda painted. I've basically been in Missouri from last Thursday until now. I'm ready to be home.

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contacts

In the past few weeks I've needed to contact people but I don't know their information. However they all are on facebook. So very reluctantly I've signed up again on facebook. I decided to go under another name so I can avoid the teenage girl endless updates about boyfriends, games, etc... to a minimum. I'm Guillaume Allain (French for William Allen).

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computer

The motherboard went out on my computer. I had to go to Monett yesterday for work and I dropped my computer off. The computer guy said that my motherboard is bad and will need replacing. Not sure how much $$$.

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joke.

Did you know that acoustic was originally a Scottish word? It means "stick for herding cows". Get it? "A cou stick".

That was one of the jokes from a tour guide.

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present

On our cruise, Mom and Dad gave us an anniversary present. It was a nice flower, ballons, and a free picture.

Thanks guys!!!

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music

On the cruise we heard a group called Livewire and they were pretty good. They were Irish and the lady played the fiddle. They did a couple of songs that we'd heard before! "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" which is probably one of the better known fiddle songs around but then they also did "When You Say Nothing At All" by Keith Whitley (hit single in country music in 1988). They did some Rock music and, best of all, some Irish drinking songs (are there any other kinds of Irish music? I'd say no). This first one is really an anti-drinking song but it's my favorite. It's also not of Livewire but they did a great rendition.

The next one has a bit of adult humor but it's not real bad. There are a few quite bad versions apparently but this one is pretty tame and pretty funny:

Both of these are done by The Dubliners

It's a bit hard in spots to understand their accent so here's the lyrics that he sings:

As I went home on Monday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a horse outside the door where my old horse should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that horse outside the door where my old horse should be?

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a lovely sow that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've traveled a hundred miles or more
But a saddle on a sow sure I never saw before

And as I went home on Tuesday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a coat behind the door where my old coat should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that coat behind the door where my old coat should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a woolen blanket that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've traveled a hundred miles or more
But buttons in a blanket sure I never saw before

And as I went home on Wednesday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a pipe up on the chair where my old pipe should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that pipe up on the chair where my old pipe should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a lovely tin whistle that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've traveled a hundred miles or more
But tobacco in a tin whistle sure I never saw before

And as I went home on Thursday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw two boots beneath the bed where my old boots should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns them boots beneath the bed where my old boots should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
They're two lovely Geranium pots me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've traveled a hundred miles or more
But laces in Geranium pots I never saw before

And as I went home on Friday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a head upon the bed where my old head should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that head upon the bed where my old head should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a baby boy that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've traveled a hundred miles or more
But a baby boy with his whiskers on sure I never saw before

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vacation.

I've put my thoughts on the vacation on here. However you really need to read backwards because of how blogs works. To read this, you need to find the post titled Cruise and then work backwards from there.

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eating.

We shared a table with another couple. Their names were Hiroki (I think) and Yoko from Japan. Yoko spoke English pretty well (better than I speak Japanese) but pronunciation was, again, hard to understand and her vocabulary was limited. Yoko loved to talk too. So every evening was the most stressful experience of the day as you spent the entire meal trying to figure out what she was saying. She was a supremely nice person but it was very frustrating. In Bar Harbor, I finally found a English/Japanese dictionary to try to help the conversation along. One evening she asked about Obama's popularity and when I said that he was pretty unpopular she asked why. So I started a spiel into economics and ran into a problem when she didn't understand what the word "unemployment" meant. It went downhill from there. Finally she just started nodding and saying "yes".

The only words that I understand in Japanese are (in English spelling), konichiwa (hello), sayanara (goodbye), sumo, and seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment). The first two come up at the beginning and end of a conversation. You can work sumo in if you try hard enough. It's preferable not to try to work the last word in at all.

We gained the most weight in the Chicago O'Hare airport because we found a Chili's. We made up for the entire week in one sitting. It was nice to have normal food again.

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Boston

Frustrating day. We sailed in and had to sit on the boat until the border patrol got ready. We finally made it ashore about 9:30 started on our Historical tour of Boston. The guide went overboard on trying to appear that he was a local. He said 5-6 times that he lived in almost every area in town, and the only historical mentions were of architecture. He went on and on and on and on about architecture. They were only historical in the sense that some of them were built about 20-30 years ago. We did see some historical sites but we only stopped at one and then it was mostly about the newer buildings in the area.

They then dropped us off at Logan airport where we had a bite to eat and wasted time before departing to Chicago.

At Chicago, we wasted about 5 hours. Had one gate change clear across the airport and the flight was 1 hour late.

We boarded the flight and got to Tulsa about 11:00. Got our luggage (it was all there!!! I've never had lost luggage and it's amazing because they have a supremely difficult job). We got home about 1:00AM.

next stop... Yoko.

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Bar Harbor

We had been to Bar Harbor and knew exactly what to expect and we had an awesome time. No excursions were planned for the day and so we shopped. and shopped. and shopped. Then we shopped some more. I had a Crabroll which is crab meat on a hot dog bun and served hot dog style which was to die for. Miranda had fish and chips and despite her not liking fish, loved it.

next stop... Boston

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Halifax

Halifax was a bigger city (about 250K). The shopping was very good here and they had a nice boardwalk where it was located (obviously right next to the harbor). A major Canadian Navy port is here so there were tons of Navy Ships.

We got on the Tall Ship Silva here for our excursion. We cast off and under motor-power we headed out into the harbor. The sails were raised and then we..... continued motoring around the harbor. yay. We were never under wind power and we never left the harbor. We just kept circling around like a deranged dog chasing his tail. Apparently there was a major explosion in Halifax in 1917 (start of WW1) and we had a history lesson about that. It was a big disappointment.

next stop... Bar Harbor.

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Sydney

The town of Sydney wasn't much. Unemployment was high there and you could tell it. Not as bad as Montreal but not as good as Charlottetown.

We had a tour of the Fortress of Louisbourg. The history was amazing but we didn't have enough time to go through it all. It could easily last an entire day to see it all. They have completely reconstructed the town that they had documents for (apparently the French kept a lot of documents, bureaucracy was alive and well at that time too). The fort had been completely demolished before being rebuilt.

next stop... Halifax.

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Charlottetown.

We sailed into Prince Edward Island (or as it's known, PEI). Regis and Kelly were there from the ABC morning show. The place was crawling with people. We avoided that and took the Anne of Green Gables tour. The tour guide was amazing and despite my expectations, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences. The island was beautiful with rolling hills. Apparently the Irish are heavy in the area because it looks like Ireland (so the guide said).

The island revolves around Lucy Maud Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables). They do have quite a bit of agricultural stuff but I didn't fly 2000 miles to see cropland. Their corn was only planted in June because if you plant before that it will freeze. That's right. Freezing in May/June. Insane. They grow a lot of potatoes. They also have beautiful fields of canola.

Even the Anne stuff was nice.

I would definitely go there again.

next stop... Sydney

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Quebec City

Quebec City was the coolest/cutest city in the world. I haven't seen many but I don't care. You can't top it.

We took a tour and pictures (I'll try to post some later). We ended up with tea at the Château Frontenac.

We only really hit the tourist trap area. The streets were small, lined with old rock buildings with wooden shutters and each one of them had gorgeous window boxes with flowers. It was very nice.

French everywhere. You never overheard conversations in English.

next stop... Charlottetown.

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Montreal

We landed in Montreal and had to work our way through the airport (the most fiendish layout of an airport that I've ever seen). After hauling our luggage a good mile, we made it out of customs and carried our luggage about 200 yards to the bus. I wasn't impressed at this point. Got on the bus. Then we proceeded to drive through 40 minutes of ghetto to get to the harbor. There was nothing but graffiti and abandoned buildings the entire way. This was all we saw of Montreal.

It was worse than Oklahoma City and that's saying something.

next up... Quebec City

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Cruise

We are back and not-so-rested up. The cruise was nice but we will probably never go on a cruise again. Mostly due to the fact that Miranda gets so seasick (more on that later).

We flew into Montreal and got on the boat there. Pretty much lost/confused so we started exploring. The boat was huge but as we later saw, it was pretty small compared to other cruise ships.

Overall it felt a bit like I imagine a prison feels like. You are stuck in a confined area and everything rotates around what the time is. 8:30? Ok, now we get off to go on an excursion. Go through security. Sit on a bus while someone talks. Go back to the ship. Through security again (complete with X-ray machines). 3:00? Go to a specific function on board. 8:00? Go to dinner. This same routine happens every day.

Now onto specifics... Going down the St. Lawrence was nice. On the day that we were going out to the Atlantic, Miranda started having side affects from her patch for sea-sickness. Blurry vision and headaches. So she took the patch off. Big mistake. A storm hit that night and add in the rough Atlantic, we were rocking and rolling. She spent the rest of the evening throwing up.

The food was haute-cuisine and pretty pretentious. It was good but we gained no weight. Everyone says that you gain 5 lbs at the end of the trip. Not us. Although we did walk A LOT (and I complained the whole time).

At 7:00, they had a nightly-show. They mostly had the Maasdam singers/dancers. It wasn't awful but we didn't really enjoy any of those shows. The background dancers lip-synced to music and it was reminiscent of the Lawrence Welk Show except quite a bit worse. Luckily for the other passengers, they were mostly hammered on the flow of wine/beer. Unluckily for us... we weren't. It's not as bad as it sounds but it wasn't good. They had a couple of other shows that were very good but only performed one full show and a half show together. They were awesome. They had a juggler/comedian and a Celtic/Rock/Country fiddle show. The group was called Livewire. More on this later.

99% of the staff were Filipino or Indonesian. They spoke great English but we weren't used to their accent and so we said, "Pardon me?", "What?", or a simple "Huh?" a lot.

Everyone was very friendly (even in Canada which was a huge relief).

We paid for a view of the ocean and all we got was 2 portholes about 12 inches in diameter BEHIND THE BED. You had to climb on top of the bed to look out.

Next step... Montreal.

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off

Off into the wild blue yonder. No postings until we get back. No computers until we get back. I'll probably go crazy.

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boat.

I found a boat but can't get it. I don't have a pickup truck. Unfortunately it probably still won't be there when I get back. Bleh.

2 days until the cruise!

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holiday

Busy weekend. Went to the lake with the in-laws. It rained most of the weekend. I did make an advancement on my smartphone decision. We had no access to phones while Verizon Wireless did fine and U.S. Cellular didn't do too bad. So I think I may have finally convinced Miranda to move to Verizon.

I think I may have found my next toy (after the smart phone). A Catalina 14.2 sail boat. I did read something interesting about this. Let me quote:

A fleet in Wichita, Kansas was concerned about this [turtling], as they routinely sail in winds of up to 25 knots. (Kids, don't try this at home.)

My first sailing lesson was in Missouri and had winds at 25 knots. The instructor said that on the ocean, they wouldn't have let us go out. It really wasn't that bad but it was a big boat (26'). Unfortunately 25mph winds are common around here.

I can find all kinds of used boats here.

We did get our house cleaned on Monday. We got there about 11:30 and left about 5:30PM. They'd punched a hole in the wall, so I had to fix that. Plus there was a broken recliner, entertainment center, and a dresser still left. We also hauled out four bags of garbage. It was not fun.

4 more days until we leave for vacation. We are REALLY ready.

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odd.

A lock of Napoleon's hair was sold for $13,000. I should have saved up my money!

Reminds me of the movie, Micmacs à tire-larigot. One of the bad guys in the movie collected various body parts of famous people. Not as creepy as it sounds but close.

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