This has been a bad couple of weeks.  Now I’ve lost another friend my own age, this time to a heart attack.  Craig was a big, burly guy who always had a smile and a ready laugh.  And one of the Godliest christian men I’ve ever met.  For the second week in a row, my life has become poorer.  Rest well, my friend.  And enjoy your mansion.  Well done …

My friend Donna passed away a few hours ago.  Taken by cancer at only 46 years old.  I’ll miss her glorious, powerful voice and her warm, generous wit.  So much more I feel, so much more I’d like to say.  I just can’t right now …

Being a wedding photographer isn’t exactly a high-energy job.  Sure, the wedding day is pretty active, but then you have all that incredible food …

Plus, the rest of the time it’s pretty sedentary, lots of sitting at a computer.  As a result, I’ve packed on quite a few pounds in the last few years.  When Jean and I got married in 1996, I was a relatively OK 180 pounds.  Last month, I was 225.  I’m rapidly approaching 50 years old, I need to do something about this.  It was getting to the point that I was getting out of breath just working around the house.

Jean teaches an adult Bible study called First Place, which centers around both spiritual and physical health.  It has a simple, easy-to-understand weight loss program which I’ve been using for the last few weeks.  I was really happy to see this morning that I’ve dropped back below 210!  Any weight-loss program has a large loss in the beginning, but it’s amazing how much better I feel just losing that 15 pounds!

The bitter taste of poor quality far outlasts the sweet scent of a low price

I came across this quote from P.J. O’Rourke, I can’t wait to use it on my own kids …

I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says that, I say, “Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.

“When you put the clowns in charge, don’t be surprised when a circus breaks out.”

Getting access from the ship was a real pain (and expensive) so I didn’t get around to posting shots during the cruise. So here are some shots. (I had to be somewhat conservative in shooting. I decided at the last second to take a different camera body and in the hysteria of the change I left out my memory cards. The local Best Buy in New Orleans had cards, but the prices were awfully high, so I only got one 4-gig card)

Arriving at the ship: You can’t imagine how big these things are until you’re standing by one.

 

Down the Mississippi: The ship flipped around and headed downriver. I was surprised how long it took to reach the ocean, around 12 hours.

 

Waiting on sunrise: The decks are really empty at six in the morning

 

First day sunrise: A beautiful, clear morning. I really enjoyed just standing up on the deck and taking in the experience. The view was pretty nice, too

 

Sleepyhead: Not everyone was up before sunrise

 

Third day: Backing into the pier at Progreso. You can see the reaaaaalllllly long causeway that leads from the dock into town. I was feeling so lousy we never left the ship. The kids had a really great time in the ship’s “Camp Carnival” program.

 

Cozumel: Apparently the pier at Cozumel was damaged during one of last year’s hurricanes, so we had to anchor about a mile offshore and take shuttle boats to shore. So we didn’t even get onshore until about 10:30, only enough time to walk to Carlos & Charlie’s for lunch and head off to our swim with the dolphins.

 

Heading home: The trip home was a bit rough, a couple of storms and lots of rolling around.

One thing that was kinda neat was the “towel animals” the cabin staff would make every day. The kids got a real kick out of them

 

Just a shot to give you an idea of how small the cabins are. Of course, you don’t spend a lot of time there, but just getting ourselves and three kids dressed in such a small area was a bit of a comedy

 

Some shots of the ship, it was really windy and cold that last day, so the pool area was a bit deserted.

 

Our last sunset at sea

 

And sunrise in New Orleans

Well, we’re on the ship.  Left the house at 4:30 this morning to fly to New Orleans, so we’re pretty tired at this point.  Emily fell asleep in the middle of dinner.

The ship left the dock at about 5:00.  I thought we’d be in the Gulf in an hour or two, but I was dead wrong on that one.  Apparently, we’ll be in the Mississippi River until around 4 in the morning.

Having a great time so far, the food is excellent. And plentiful.  Samantha couldn’t make up her mind between the fillet mignon and the broiled salmon.  The waiter had an excellent solution: he just brought her one of each.  I had the fillet (wonderful) and something called a melted chocolate cake for dessert, which was essentially a bowl of melted chocolate.  I was a happy boy.

 I wanted to post some pictures, but I messed up and forgot to install Nikon Capture NX on my laptop.  The older version of Capture I have can’t handle the raw files of the new D3.  So I’ll set the camera to shoot both raw and jpg files, I’ll try to post some shots tomorrow. 

At least I don’t have to mope around waiting for my replacement Mac.  A very kind client of mine is taking all her employees on a five-day cruise to Progeso and Cozumel.  She invited Jean and I to go, but we have nobody who can watch our kids.  And I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving them for a week anyway.

So, upon hearing of my plight, Judy graciously offered to pay for the kids to go along with us.  This is gonna be cool, I’ve never been on a cruise.  And, since we have to fly to New Orleans to meet the ship, Jean gets her first airplane ride at the age of 45!  The kids have never been on a plane before, either, so they’re as excited about that as anything.

I’ll have some internet access during the cruise, I’ll see if I can post some pictures!

We bought this really nice DLP television last year and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.  However, the high-intensity bulb doesn’t last forever and it burned out last week.  Luckily, it’s still under warranty, because the bulb cartridges cost over $250!  I’ve located a source to get just the bulb for $165, but that’s still quite a chunk of cash to spend on your TV every 9-12 months.

The bottom line is that we’ve been without a TV for a week now and, honestly, we’ve barely noticed it.  If it weren’t for the fact that football season is starting, I’d be tempted to not put the new bulb in for a few more weeks.