Quick Thoughts 2/27

• Our house is going on the market today.  I’m nervous as heck about the whole thing, but I have a good feeling that things are going to fall into place. 
• I bought the NFL Films – Chicago Bears – The Complete History DVD last week and watched the first disc last night.  It was a pretty good, and I learned a lot about the early days of the franchise that I didn’t know.  Disc two is all about the ‘85 Bears season and Superbowl XX.  I’d always wanted the NFL Films production of the ‘85 Bears and I had to get this DVD set when I saw that.
• He just wanted to say “Good game!”
• Some people at the medical clinic in my hometown won a pretty nice chunk of change in the big Powerball jackpot last week.  Winding up with $24k after taxes and a twenty-way split is nothing to sneeze at. 
• Let’s try bringing the lyrics of the day out of retirement.  Today’s lyrics: “Just a few more hours, and I’ll be right home to you.  I think I hear them callin’…”

Sudoku

I’m becoming addicted to sudoku puzzles, and you’ll notice I’ve provided a link on the right to a sudoku puzzle of the day.  Unfortunately, you’ll have to copy the puzzle to paper, but you can follow the link to see the solution. Even better yet, they have a  step by step solution to help you out in the tricky spots.  Much like in the newspapers, the puzzles start out easy on Monday, and increase in difficulty during the week.  I hope you enjoy this new addition as much as me.

Kahn's Top 10: Movie Soundtracks (non-score)

Today I will look at my favorite movie soundtrack albums.  This is a pretty broad category, so I’m narrowing it down a bit and excluding all albums that are just orchestral scores.  (Sorry John Williams.)  Also, I’m not listing any Broadway shows that have been made into movies either.  At first I thought I was going to have a hard time coming up with ten choices, but once I started looking at my collection, I noticed that it was going to be hard to limit the list to just ten.  So here’s the list of my favorite movie soundtracks. 

1. Top Gun – The ultimate 80’s soundtrack artist, Kenny Loggins has two songs on this album, with “Danger Zone” being the better of the two.  Between that and Berlin’s ultimate 80’s movie love theme, “Take my Breath Away” this was an easy choice for the top spot. 
2. Last Action Hero – Awful movie, awesome soundtrack.  My personal favorite on this album is a live version of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” with a backup orchestra. 
3. (tie) American Graffiti & Forrest Gump – Both of these are double disc albums and are great ways to bolster your collection of oldies.  A.G. has all the essential songs of the 50’s and F.G. is great for the 60’s. 
4. Dazed and Confused – Pretty good collection of classic rock from the 70’s.  Skynyrd’s “Tuesday’s Gone” is the highlight of this album.
5. The Blues Brothers – I’d really categorize this movie as a musical, but I think Broadway would have a hard time adapting all the car crashes to the stage.  This soundtrack is just a beginning to all the great blues songs that the Blues Brothers performed and recorded.  A lot of other music legends have songs on this album as well.  A must have. 
6. Saturday Night Fever – All the disco you’ll ever need is on this one album.  Interesting tidbit:  Walter Murphy, who wrote the Family Guy theme and a lot of the music for that TV show, has a song, “A Fifth of Beethoven” on this album.
7. Swingers – This album just makes you feel cool when you listen to it.  When I was looking up the link for this, I noticed that there is a Swingers Too Soundtrack that has extra music from the movie.  It has the lounge cover of “Stayin’ Alive” that is being played as the guys enter The Dresdin club.  I must have this.
8. Spider Man – Everyone has heard “Hero,” but my favorite track on this album is “Bother” by Corey Taylor.  This is a ballad with just him singing and accompanied by a guitar.  It’s quite a contrast from his stuff with his band, Slipknot. 
9. Footloose – Kenny Loggins makes his name on yet another soundtrack. 
10. City of Angels – A good mix of blues and sad, eerie ballads can be found on this album.  Sarah McLachlan's “Angel” is my favorite on here. 

With this list, I’ve covered music from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and 2000+.  I’d call that pretty comprehensive.

Kahn's Top 10: Christian Rock

Today I’m going to change things up a little bit a do a list that a lot of my readers might not be familiar with.  The top-40 radio station in Rochester has a program on Sunday mornings called Straight from the Heart.  It’s really geared toward teens, but they play popular Christian rock songs during this program.  I started listening to this a couple of years ago and realized that there is a ton of great music that I hadn’t tapped into yet.  After listening to the same classic rock songs for 15 years, and not being a big fan of most top-40 pop music, I was excited to stumble across some music that really sounded good, and made me feel good as well.  So here we go with my list of favorite Christian rock bands and artists.

1. Kutless – This band has only been around for a few years, but have three excellent albums under their belts already.  Their Sea of Faces album is my favorite, and I highly recommend it.  I can’t exactly lay my finger on why, but Kutless is my favorite band in this genre.  I just really enjoy the guitar riffs, harmonies, and catchy choruses in their songs. 
2. Jeremy Camp – He has some great heavier rock songs, but also some touching ballads.  For a good feel of his lighter side, listen to Jeremy Camp: Live Unplugged.  Jeremy’s only in his mid-20’s, but has already been through a lot in his life.  His first wife was diagnosed with ovarian cancer shortly after they were married, and died just a few months later.  With that in mind, the lyrics of his songs are much more powerful.   
3. Audio Adrenaline – Their best-of collection,  Hit Parade, introduced me to the band and I loved what I heard.  It’s hard to categorize their musical style because they have used quite a few different ones.  Most of their stuff is pretty much like pop-rock, but they have an element of funk in a lot of their songs that makes for some pretty cool guitar riffs. 
4. Third Day – They have a southern rock style, and their lead singer, Mac Powell has a great raspy baritone voice.  Their part live, part studio albums, Offerings, and Offerings II are excellent introductions to their music.  When I checked their website I saw they are in Minneapolis on 2/25, and in Ames on 2/26, touring to promote their new album Wherever You Are, which is also very good.
5. DC Talk – It’s too bad I only recently started listening to DC Talk’s music.  They had been around for years, but split up for solo careers in about 2000.  DC Talk started in more of an R&B style, but evolved into more of a rock band in their later albums.  I’m a bigger fan of their later stuff, and their song “Jesus Freak” is one of my favorites.  Their Intermission: The Greatest Hits album is a good introduction to the band.  I can’t help but remember a guy that I went to middle school with, who had a DC Talk wrist watch.  We would always ask him if it talked, which of course it didn’t, but we thought we were funny.
6. Switchfoot – They crossed over to mainstream rock with their 2003 The Beautiful Letdown album, which contained the hits “Meant to Live” and “Dare you to Move.”  That was the first I’d heard of Switchfoot too, but they actually have been around since 1997 and had three previous albums.  I highly recommend The Beautiful Letdown.  It’s one of those rare albums where none of the tracks are skip-worthy.
7. Falling Up – These guys are pretty new, and just released their second album, Dawn Escapes, last year.  I like their sophomore album, as a whole, better than their first album.  Their big hit from their first album was a song called “Escalates,” and that song got me interested in the band.  It’s worth an iTunes purchase for those of you who use that. 
8. Hawk Nelson – They are also new to the scene and just have one album released so far, but it’s a good one.  Hawk Nelson has a pop/punk sound that kind of reminds me of Good Charlotte and Simple Plan.  Their songs have very catchy hooks and were quick to grow on me. 
9. Skillet – This band is a little heavier, and has kind of an industrial sound on some of their albums.  The interesting thing is that Skillet consists of two guys and two girls.  You don’t see that too often in a hard rock band. 
10. The O.C. Supertones – Their style is mostly ska, and I’ve always liked ska music.  I guess I enjoy the horns that ska music usually has, and it makes me think back to my trumpet playing days.  The O.C. Supertones have a lot of energy and very catchy songs.  Their album, Hi-Fi Revival is probably my favorite of theirs. 

A lot of these artists can be found on the X compilation CDs.  If you’re interested, I would recommend the X 2004 album, for a good sampling of these artists.

Kahn's Top 10: Guilty Pleasures

Today’s list is of artists/bands that I like a lot even though most of society pokes fun at their music.  I’m willing to bet that most people like a lot of selections on my list below, but don’t have the courage to admit it.  It’s just not cool to like the music on this list, but I’m taking the plunge and declaring my love for the bands and artists below.  So, here are my top ten guilty pleasure bands.

1. Meat Loaf – I’m a sucker for Jim Steinman songs, who penned all the songs on Meat Loaf’s 1977 album, Bat Out of Hell and 1993’s Bat out of Hell II: Back into Hell.  Steinman also wrote Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and Air Supply’s “Making Love out of Nothing at All.”  I guess I dig the big epic songs that Steinman is known for. 
2. Journey – What does everyone have against Journey?  Any band that had a video game can’t be that bad.  Cheesy videos and bad hair don’t define a band, and I can look past those things. 
3. Firehouse – “Love of a Lifetime” is one of my favorite songs of all time.  For me, Firehouse goes hand in hand with memories of middle school dances, even though that isn’t necessarily a good thing.
4. Creed – It’s not cool to like Creed anymore, but I bet most Creed haters were fans five years ago.  Scott Stapp is nuts, but Creed’s guitarist, Mark Tremonti, is one of the most under-rated guitarists of our time.  Great songs.
5. The Proclaimers – You know, the guys who sang “I Would Walk 500 Miles,” but they also had some fame a few years ago with a song that appeared on the Shrek soundtrack.  Their album, Sunshine on Leith, is one of my favorites.  They have a very unique sound, that I would categorize as folk rock, but their thick Scottish accents make it very distinct.
6. Styx – Don’t let it end.  Come sail away with me, babe and show me the way, or Mr. Roboto will leave with Suite Madame Blue and a blue collar man in their Jeep Renegade.  There are eight Styx songs in those previous two sentences.  That was fun.
7. Mariah Carey – I had a huge crush on Mariah in the early and mid 90’s, but then she changed on me after getting divorced from Tommy Mottola.  I rarely listen to her music anymore, but she had a couple of really good albums with Music Box and Daydream back in the mid-90’s.   
8. Bon Jovi – These guys just keep going.  Their peak was in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but they are still putting out some decent songs.  They are another band that puts on a great live show, and that definitely has something to do with their longevity in the music business.
9. Neil Diamond – It’s not cool to like Neil Diamond unless you are over 40.  I can really thank my fifth grade teacher, among others, for exposing me to his music.  We used to listen to The Jazz Singer all the time during class.  That was my favorite, but I remember us listening to The Westside Story Soundtrack, Hooked on Classics, and something by Jan and Dean too.  It’s one thing to listen to Neil Diamond songs at a karaoke bar, but I enjoy listening to my Neil Diamond playlist quite a bit.  It’s on right now as a matter of fact.  
10. Milli Vanilli – I loved their album when it came out, and so did most people because it was winning all sorts of awards.  Then we found out that the voices didn’t belong to who we thought.  So does that make the music itself any worse?  It really shouldn’t. 

*Honorable Mention: Boston – Apparently, Boston fans are on the endangered species list.

Happy Valentine's Day

I find it rather humorous that today at work they have a gift shop set up in the cafeteria.  It’s filled with Valentine’s Day cards, chocolates, flowers, and other little gifts.  Since the majority of people on site are men, I guess they figure they’ll cater to the procrastinating, last-minute gift buyers.  Unfortunately, nobody can use the excuse that they were too busy working to be able to get out and get a gift now.  As for me, I already came up with a little something, but since we just got back from a cruise, we don’t have any special plans for tonight.

Kahn's Top 10: Classic Rock

I love music.  One of the ideas I came up with, for a series of blog entries, is a top ten list of artists/bands in different music genres.  Today I will begin with the first genre, classic rock, which seems pretty safe and easy.  These lists are going to be based on my personal musical preference, so I expect to run into a few objections.  I have a few more genres in mind for future entries, but if you have a suggestion for a genre you’d like to see me tackle, please let me know.

Tune your radio to a classic rock station, and chances are you’ll end up hearing something from one of these bands within five minutes.  You know you are dealing with a great band when you can fill more than one CD full of their best songs and never feel the need to skip any tracks.  Here are Kahn’s top 10 classic rock bands of all time:

1. Led Zeppelin – I love Zeppelin because they have some of the most fun riffs to play on the guitar.  “Black Dog, Rock ‘n Roll, Stairway to Heaven, and Over the Hills and Far Away” are my favorites to play.  However, after watching Wayne’s World, I know to never play “Stairway” in a guitar store.  Like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin has a very impressive catalog of songs that was created in a fairly short span of time.  They are true rock legends.
2. Boston – I know most people think I’m crazy for putting Boston this high on the list, but I have a lot of respect for Tom Scholz, who actually has a masters degree in mechanical engineering from MIT.  He also has a lot of patents on the circuitry used to give Boston their distinctive guitar sound.  Their first album, Boston,  is so good, that it could practically be a greatest hits collection by itself.
3. Pink Floyd – So many great albums, but that’s the thing with Pink Floyd, you really need to listen to the full album instead of just a couple songs to get the big picture.  Did the band intentionally make Dark Side of the Moon such that it perfectly synchronizes with The Wizard of Oz?  I’ve tried it, and am convinced that they did.  The Wall is a great album, but I didn’t get the movie at all.  That was some bizarre stuff.  Rock bands should stick to making music, not movies anyway.   
4. AC/DC – I can’t think of many other bands that have actually been better when having to replace the lead singer.  Back in Black is AC/DC’s essential album to have.  I also like them because most of their guitar riffs are pretty easy and fun to play.
5. The Beatles – I’m more of a passive Beatles fan, but I can’t deny how great the Beatles music is and how important they were in shaping rock music.  McCartney and Lennon are probably the greatest song-writing duo of all time.  I’m impressed with how their music evolved over time and became more complex. 
6. The Rolling Stones – They defy time and keep on cranking out great shows.  The Stones were the first band I ever saw live in concert, and while I’m not a huge Stones fan, I can appreciate a good band when I see one.  They must be doing something right to still be going after forty years in the business. 
7. Aerosmith – The American version of the Rolling Stones?  Both bands have lead singers with big mouths and lips, so a lot of comparisons have been made there.  Aerosmith has been able to thrive in the past fifteen years with new music as well as their classics.  The Stones don’t seem to tap into the younger generation with their new stuff like Aerosmith has been able to do.  I’ve also seen Aerosmith live in concert, and they put on a heck of a show as well.
8. Van Halen – Dave or Sam?  Sorry Gary, you really don’t count.  VH enjoyed major success with two different lead singers, and have great songs in both the Sam and the Dave eras.  Eddie is a true guitar hero.  Their first album, Van Halen, is my hands-down favorite VH album.
9. The Eagles – The Eagles are as close to country music as I’ll ever be caught listening to.  “Hotel California” is one of the best classic rock songs ever written. 
10. Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Free Bird!”  Play some Skynyrd!  You can’t go to a concert (any concert, any band) without hearing someone yell these phrases.  “Free Bird” is one of the best songs of all time, and my favorite part is in the fast dual guitar solos toward the end when the snare drum comes in underneath them with a big crescendo.  I love that part.

Vacation Recap

I suppose I should get this entry written before I forget all the details of our cruise.  All the pictures from our trip can be found here, but I’ll post quite a few of them within this entry too.  Get comfy because this is going to be a long entry.  So without further ado, here is our vacation re-cap.

Sunday

This was our day of travel.  We saved over $200 a person by flying out Sunday instead of Monday.  I had never flown on Sun Country Airlines before, but apart from the tight seating, I was very impressed with them.  They had an excellent beverage selection, and instead of just a bag of pretzels, we had a grilled cheese sandwich, a cookie, and some gummy Life Savers.  MSP is Sun Country’s hub, and the Tampa flight is only a seasonal route, so I guess that explains why the cabbies and hotel shuttle people in Tampa had never heard of them before.  On our way to the hotel, I noticed that we seemed to be on a very long bridge, but it was dark so I couldn’t tell for sure.  I didn’t realize this, but it turns out that Tampa has bridges that span across the Bay.  The one we were on was eight miles long.  I had a better view of it the next morning when we drove to the sea port.  I’m just amazed at the engineering feat of building an eight mile bridge.  That’s impressive.

We got a very low rate ($40/night) for the hotel we stayed at, the Days Inn Clearwater.  Note to self: you get what you pay for.  Right next door to the hotel was a “gentlemen’s club,” and when we got to the floor our room was on, it smelled like urine.  The room was fine, but the hallway was rank.  Later I noticed that they allowed pets, so I hope that’s what the odor was from.  Plus the first room they put us in hadn’t been made up that morning, so I had to complain and get a new room.  Overall, it really wasn’t that bad though.  They had an average continental breakfast in the morning, and we had a free shuttle ride from the airport.  That still made for a good value overall.

Monday

Once we got on the cruise ship, we found out that we were going to be at the late seating for dinner which was at 8:30 PM.  That’s pretty late for us, so we tried to get moved to an earlier seating.  We were disappointed that we were put on a waiting list, but it turned out that we would have a great time at our late dinner seating, due mostly to our awesome waiter. (More on him later.) 

After some mandatory emergency evacuation training where we had to wear life-jackets what were way too tight around our necks, we were free to do whatever we wanted.  Just like our first cruise 6.5 years ago, it was raining when we left port.  This made for some great pictures of a full rainbow, and even a double rainbow.  Here’s one of the pictures that we took with the panoramic setting of our camera.  We have software that stitches the pictures together to form one complete picture.  Unfortunately, this picture was taken when the rainbow was starting to fade, but it was the most impressive rainbow I’ve seen in my life.

For dinner that night I had the beef fillet which was excellent.  We met Catalin, our waiter, who was from Romania, but he told us that we could call him “Bobby.”  I didn’t understand why at first, but after he did some Robert DeNiro impressions, I realized that he looked an awful lot like a young Robert DeNiro.  Among other things, he entertained us by pretending to do little pole dances as seen here:

Dinner quickly became our favorite part of the day and we all looked forward to the great food and even better service we were going to get.  Bobby really went out of his way to make us happy, and we expressed our appreciation in his gratuity at the end of the cruise.  I also found it interesting that Bobby has a computer science degree and used to work in that field back home in Romania before leaving to work for Carnival several years ago.  He was very good at what he does now, and it was obvious that he enjoys it very much too.

Tuesday

This was our “Fun Day at Sea,” and the weather was beautiful.  I spent most of the day lounging on the upper deck, and actually ended up getting a little too much sun.  As you can see, I got lobsterfied.  My ankles were the worst, but I also had a couple spots on my arms that I missed the sunscreen with. 

Tuesday was the formal night for dinner and there was a captain’s party before dinner where they had appetizers and free cocktails (one of only two times the alcohol was free).  After that, it was on to the dining room for dinner, where the prime rib was my meal of choice.  It was decent, but required quite a bit of work to trim all the fat from it.  Here are a few pictures of us dressed to the nines for formal night:

After dinner, we headed to the Candlelight Lounge for an evening of karaoke.  I was delighted to see that they had “The Humpty Dance” in their karaoke library.  For maximum effect, I first performed my old stand-by of Neil Diamond’s “Cracklin’ Rosie,” which went over very well, before later totally changing gears for “The Humpty Dance.”  When it came time for Humpty, the DJ totally ruined the moment for me by starting up the wrong song to begin with.  Apparently, the crowd would have rather I sang Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time,” because they booed when he stopped that song.  They got into Humpty at first, but some drunk girl up-staged me by getting up on stage and doing some Humpty dancing.  As it turned out, I think that’s the last time I’ll ever perform “The Humpty Dance.”  It will rest beside “Chocolate Salty Balls” as songs that seemed like better ideas in theory than they were in reality. 

Wednesday

Grand Cayman was our port of call on Wednesday.  We had to get up early to be one of the first groups of people to take a tender to shore.  There was still quite a bit of debris and destruction left from 2004 when hurricane Ivan hit the island.  I also found it interesting that they drive on the left side of the road here, but there seemed to be an equal number of vehicles with steering wheels on the right and left side.  All drivers were very good about stopping for pedestrians in the crosswalk though.  Nobody seemed put-off because they had to wait for this, like is usually the case in the U.S.

For our shore excursion on Grand Cayman,  we booked a snorkeling and Stingray City adventure.  Most of the time was spent on the boat getting out to these places, and we had just thirty minutes in the water at each stop.  Snorkeling was okay, but having done it twice in my life now, I don’t feel a need to do it ever again.  I saw a stray stingray, some coral, and lots of fish, but ingested enough salt water that it made the experience less enjoyable.  Stingray City is just a big sand-bar out in the ocean where lots of stingrays hang around because they’re going to get fed.  I did learn that stingrays are not opportunistic feeders, so when they are full, they will stop eating.  Their mouth is on their under side and their eyes are on top, so they can’t really see what they are eating.  They usually troll around the ocean floor and suck up their food, and this suction is very powerful.  For that reason, when you are feeding them you have to be careful that you don’t wipe the squid juice on your clothes, or else the stingray might mistake you for food and give you a big hickey!  Many jokes were made about this as you can imagine.  I touched the stingrays, but didn’t end up holding one like most of the others did.  Overall, I thought this excursion was just okay.

When we got back on the ship, we ate lunch and then I took the best nap of my life.  We were in an interior room, so when the lights were off, it was pitch black.  It was impossible to have any idea what time it was when waking up in the morning, and the same was true for an afternoon nap.  I went down at 3PM, and woke up very refreshed.  Thinking I’d been out for less than an hour, I was shocked to see that I had actually slept for 2.5 hours! 

There was a comedian, Big Tony Esposito, doing his “R rated” material at midnight, so we went to that show.  We laughed a lot, and really enjoyed his act.  His style of comedy was right up my alley, as there was plenty of toilet humor. 

Thursday

Thursday’s port of call was Cozumel, but I actually never made it to the island because my shore excursion required me to head to the mainland.  Everyone had to take tenders to both the mainland and Cozumel, but prior to last fall’s hurricanes, cruise ships were able to dock in ports at Cozumel.  Hurricane Wilma completely destroyed these docking piers, which were made of reinforced concrete.  It’s amazing how much destruction nature can cause, and the evidence of destruction was everywhere.  There were lots of dead palm trees, debris laying around, and lots of construction efforts going on to repair the buildings that were damaged.  The day we were in Cozumel, there were supposed to be TEN other cruise ships in Cozumel, each one having a few thousand people on it.  It’s absolutely astonishing to think about how much money was lost for every day they had to turn away these ships after the hurricane.  It’s no wonder they tried getting the major stuff up and running again as fast as possible. 

I ended up going to the Mayan ruins of Tulum which was on the Mexican mainland.  We took a 45 minute tender ride to get to Playa del Carmen, and then an hour bus ride to get to Tulum.  Ten years ago, the population of Playa del Carmen was just a few thousand people, but it’s now over 200,000!  It’s known as the “melding pot” of Mexico and is growing at five times the rate of the rest of the country.  I thought that was amazing.  Before getting on the bus, one of the first signs I saw was for Wal Mart.  I guess there’s no way to escape them! 

The ruins themselves were pretty interesting.  The site in Tulum was not a major Mayan city, but just a trading post.  It was actually built at the highest location on the whole Mexican Gulf coast; a whopping 43 feet above sea level.  I found it amazing that the Mayans knew this was the highest point.  The Tulum post thrived between 200 and 900 A.D, but was used until about the 1400’s.  This surprised me, because I had assumed that this site was much older than that.  In 1840, a New Jersey lawyer came down and explored the jungle, only to stumble upon the temple.  The jungle had completely overgrown all of the Tulum site, and it wasn’t until the third day of exploration that he noticed another building just a stone’s throw away from the temple.  The jungle was that thick!  Of course, there isn’t any evidence of a jungle at the site now, and I took quite a few pictures of the ruins.  Here is a shot of the main temple, and the view behind the temple.  It was beautiful.

I definitely made the correct choice in going to the ruins instead of deep sea fishing.  It was terribly windy on Thursday and being on a small fishing boat would have been awful.  Plus, on the tender back to the ship, Holly sat near some people who did the deep sea fishing.  They said that nobody even got a bite, and they asked the captain to take them back early because the seas were so rough.  Someday I’ll check deep sea fishing off my list of things to try, but waiting to do that was definitely the right move.

For dinner I had the grouper, and this was the best fish I’ve eaten in my life.  It was absolutely delicious.  After dinner we went to the nightly show which was a Blues Brothers tribute.  I love the Blues Brothers and all the music they performed, so this was another show that was right up my alley.  The cruise director played the role of Jake, and was was a great fit.  The guy playing Elwood didn’t quite fit the bill though.  The live band was excellent and they performed classics like “Soul Man, Sweet Home Chicago, Shake Your Tailfeather, I Can’t Turn You Loose,” and many more.  If you ever want a Blues Brothers album, I suggest you go with The Definitive Collection.  There are lots of good tunes on that one.  Also featured as a second part of the show was a guy that balanced a lot of stuff, like putting the handle of a dagger in his mouth, and balancing a sword on the end of it, tip to tip.  It was okay, but he went by just one name and had cheesy music playing during his act; something I consider to be typical cruise ship entertainment.

Friday

The weather was lousy.  It was raining and relatively cold, so we spent the whole day indoors on our final “Fun Day at Sea.”  I made several trips to the 24 hour soft-serve ice cream machine, and ended up watching Batman Begins on the TV in our room.  There’s not much else to mention about Friday except we ended up getting back into the Tampa port eight hours early to beat some fog that they predicted for Saturday morning.  Everyone stayed on the boat until morning, but the shops and casino on board had to close when we entered U.S. waters. 

Saturday

This was the most boring day of my life I think.  We got off the ship at 8:30AM, but our flight didn’t leave until almost 10PM.  The Tampa Aquarium was right by the sea port, so we went there for the morning after it opened at 9:30AM.  After seeing everything at the aquarium, we grabbed some lunch at a nearby Hooters, and then took a cab to the airport.  We arrived at the airport at 2PM, and found out that we couldn’t check in until 6:30PM.  So we sat around for 4.5 hours just killing time.  When 6:30 rolled around, we checked in and went upstairs from where we had been sitting all afternoon.  To our surprise there were many shops, restaurants, and tables up there that we could have been at this whole time.  This was all in one central location before the security checkpoint.  Time seemed to pass a little quicker up there, and at 8:45PM we finally headed to our gate.  Our plane was about fifteen minutes late getting to Tampa, so that delayed our flight a bit.  On the plane we were served a bag of pretzels, a cheeseburger, and a cookie, along with a beverage.  The only downside to flying Sun Country is the lack of flight options outside of MSP.  I’d fly with them again in an instant.  Anyway, we finally got back to MSP a little after midnight, and drove back home to Rochester.  It was 3AM when I got to bed.

Overall, this was a very relaxing vacation, and we had a great time.  It just seems like when you add everything up, the transportation, food, entertainment, service, and lodging, a cruise is an excellent value.  I’ve now been on two cruises, and wouldn’t hesitate to go on another one, especially to Alaska. 

If you read this entire post, I thank you.  Don’t worry, I’ll probably never write this much in one post again, or maybe not even this much in a whole week’s worth of posts.

Crazy razors

Did you see the new Gillette Fusion, 5 blade razor that was advertised during the Super Bowl?  Actually it has a sixth blade on the back so you can trim your sideburns, and what-not.  These razors are getting out of hand.  I use the Gillette Mach 3, and the replacement blades for that are expensive enough.  Pretty soon, all men will start growing out beards because they can’t afford to buy blades for their razors.  Five blades!?!  When will it stop? 

Actually, this made me think about another razor, Ockham’s Razor, and how it can be applied to the escalating number of blades on shaving razors.  If you follow the link above, you’ll see that Ockham’s Razor basically states that if you have two theories, choose the simpler one because it’s usually the correct answer.   But, Wikipedia also offers a translation that perfectly fits the shaving razors:  “Multiples should never be used if not necessary.”  Are five blades really necessary?  There is no way that they are.  Multiple blades are nothing more than a gimmick.  I’m sure the razor makers had the ability to make multiple blade razors years ago, but it’s only been in the past ten years or so that razors with more than one blade have been developed as a way to make more money.  That’s my theory at least.

Back to the grind

We had a great time on our cruise last week, and I’ll have a big post later this week with pictures and details of the trip.  I just have too much to catch back up with to write that one yet.  So check back for that.

I passively watched the Super Bowl and commercials last night.  We definitely timed our cruise correctly, because I was able to avoid all the hype last week.  I got all the hype I could handle by turning on the TV thirty minutes before kick-off.  I just wasn’t into the game very much and I honestly didn’t care at all who won.  There were a couple of exciting plays, but overall, I found the game to be pretty dull. 

As soon as the Super Bowl was over, I watched the premier of “Survivor” that I had taped last week.  This season looks like it has some potential to be exciting because they’ve added some new twists to the game.  They have four teams of four people, and they are grouped by gender and age.  Plus they have the “Exile Island” where one person from the losing team will stay each week.  There’s also an immunity idol hidden on the island, and that should make for some interesting strategery.  “Survivor” is pretty much the only reality show I watch anymore, and I think I’ll keep watching it as long as it’s on the air.  (I got hooked on “American Idol” last season, but decided not to watch it this season because it’s just too big of a time commitment to watch it multiple nights a week.)

That’s it for today.  Time to get back to the normal routine now.