Archive for the ‘cruise’ Category

Two years

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016

Shannon-lobster

Here’s Shannon standing in front of Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium on September 9, 2012. We were on a leaf-peeping cruise out of Baltimore and had a wonderful time seeing new places and just being together. Part of my famous Cruise, Shannon, and Statue series.

That was our last cruise together. A little more than four months after this photo was taken, we received the news that Shannon had leukemia. It happened all of a sudden. Many people who lose loved ones to cancer can look back and see when it started. Not so for us. She was fine when this picture was taken, she was fine when she single-handedly moved our things from the house in Manteca to Las Vegas, she was fine when we left Pennsylvania, she was fine when we drove from Manteca to Las Vegas, and she was fine when we finally moved into the house. Those were very busy months and she was fine. A week or two after we got here, she started feeling sick and antibiotics didn’t help. Finally, on about February 20, 2013, we went to the emergency room to see why she was feeling so bad. She walked in. And she started dying.

Today, it’s been two years since her death. So much has happened that she has missed. Oh how we miss her.

Katy posted the above picture on Facebook this morning with this comment: “I miss you every day, Mom.”

Paul posted this picture and said: “Here’s one of my favorite pics of Mom. I think of her constantly and miss her desperately. I’m so happy to have such a great support system of family and friends to help me during times like this. The last few years are kind of a hazy blur, but it sure doesn’t feel like she’s been gone for two years. I love you!”

I think I’ve written thousands of words about her life and death. I could come up with several thousand more, but I’ll just say this today: For more than 35 years, she was the light of my life. When she was gone, the only wish of my heart was to go with her. Instead, I’ve spent time over the past two years reflecting on the things she taught me and the things she gave me. Now my only wish is to love and care for the people around me the way she did, and to be happy the way she was happy.

Thank you, Shannon. I love you still.

Mexico ship

Monday, June 9th, 2014

IMG_1865

Here’s the cruise ship I took on my March 2014 trip to Mexico. Note the threatening weather. It was pretty rugged that day, but it didn’t last long. By the first night, we were out of the cloud cover and the rain had stopped for the duration. Weather in Mexico was sunny, warm, and beuatiful. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam, taken at the cruise ship terminal while I boarded the ship, and part of my famous Cruise, Machinery, and Vacation series.

No post on Friday. Can’t remember why not. But I’m posting tonight!

Had a great weekend! We went to Laguna Beach, California to celebrate my 57th birthday. That age seems younger every year, doesn’t it? We ate at a lot of very nice restaurants, took a harbor cruise in Newport Beach to look at the homes of rich people (where I got a sunburn on the tops of my knees), did a little scavenger hunt thing around town, got a Thai massage, and went on a food tasting tour of the little beach town there. I had a great time!

The Thai massage was a very interesting thing. The masseuse was a small (fortunately) Thai lady. They had me lie down on a comfortable but firm mat on the floor and the masseuse spent a pretty good part of the time kneeling on me, except when she was leaning on me with her elbows. At one point she was both kneeling on the backs of my thighs and bearing down on my back with her elbows. I came out of there extremely relaxed but with my muscles quite thoroughly stretched. Final verdict: it was a bit more rugged than a Swedish massage, but I would definitely do it again.

The place we stayed was right on the beach and was beautiful. Highly recommended. Laguna Beach is quite crowded on weekends, making getting around a bit of a challenge, but we managed. It was much less crowded today.

The drive there and the return home were uneventful and relaxing. I love road trips.

And that’s about it for today. I’m healthy, happy, and doing well. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this exciting Morrowlife Employment Agency job opportunity: fugitive Chinese chicken! (Warning: autoplaying video. Yuck!)

See you tomorrow.

Cruise boarding – Sept 10, 2012

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

IMG_1074

Here’s Shannon boarding our cruise ship after a long, fun day at one of our Canadian ports during our 2012 Maine/Canada cruise. That was such a wonderful trip. Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, and Vacation series.

Pretty nice day today. I think I finished all the work we needed to do before we invite the world to our October conference. I tested the conference payment system in PayPal’s sandbox and everything seems to be working just fine. So it’s live, John’s colleagues will start inviting their community, and we’ll see what happens.

Didn’t do much else today that I can remember. How strange. Let’s see, we exercised in the morning, as usual. We had breakfast and dinner, as usual. Dinner was at Burger King. We’ve been going to much nicer places, but I’ve really been in the mood for a Whopper, so that’s what we had. We enjoyed it. Oh, I ordered some flowers today for my friend Joanne. Tomorrow is her wedding anniversary with her late husband and I expect it to be a solemn one for her. Hopefully, the flowers will cheer her up a bit. Also hopefully, she doesn’t read my blog, or I just spoiled the surprise.

Heard from my nephew Dale today. He’s coming to Las Vegas tomorrow and I hope to see him. He’s been going through some tough times lately – his divorce was just finalized – but he seems to be doing very well. I think the marriage had become a very hard thing to remain in.

My [amazon asin=B00AFGQ3Q4&text=new bluetooth headset] arrived yesterday! It’s exactly like my old headset, except this one works. The battery stayed alive on the old one and it didn’t physically break – a first for me – but it just started turning itself off this past week. I liked it so much, though, that I found another one on Amazon. It’s a different color, but the exact same product. Kind of older tech at this point, but still highly recommended. It just works.

And that’s about it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: peanut butter and jelly sandwich-related knife fight!

See you tomorrow.

Living statue – Sept 6, 2012

Friday, April 25th, 2014

IMG_0983

Here’s another picture Shannon didn’t want me to share on the blog. This one was taken aboard our ship during our East Coast cruise in September 2012. I think she captured the artist’s mood exactly, don’t you? Great Art courtesy of the exclusive iPhone-cam and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Statue, and Vacation series.

No post yesterday – sorry about that. I was out until pretty late in the evening and just didn’t have the energy to write. But yesterday was a very enjoyable day and everything went well.

Today was enjoyable too! I worked on the website again and got a preliminary version of the conference registration working. It still doesn’t allow you to pay (which I think is a fairly important aspect of the thing), but I think I figured out how to make that happen just moments before I stopped work to go out to dinner. So tomorrow or Monday.

Lots going on over the weekend. Mark and I are marching in the parade in the morning and then I’m going to a meetup luncheon at a Thai restaurant mid-day. Then there’s a meetup family picnic on Sunday afternoon and a few other things sprinkled in there too. It’s going to be busy and it’s going to be enjoyable. This has been a very good week.

Extremely strong winds today, continuing into tonight. I’m hoping it eases up a bit before picnic time rolls around. It might be a bit awkward chasing our hamburgers and watermelon slices all over the park.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: domestic banana assault!

See you on Monday.

Cruise beginning – Feb 21, 2010

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014

IMG_1537

Here are Shannon and me getting ready to board the ship that took us to Mexico back in February 2010. She had her great old flower bag, which accompanied us on every one of our vacations for many years. I had my computer bag, which accompanied me pretty much everywhere always. Great Art courtesy of our friends Doug and Connie – I have no idea which one of them took it – using their nice Canon camera, and part of my famous Shannon, Cruise, Machinery, and Vacation series.

I look at this picture and think: if I had only known we had less than four years left. There are a lot of things I would change. I would overlook everything and anything that I let come between us. I would tell her I love her a hundred times a day. I would do everything in my power to make her happy and make her life absolutely carefree and make her feel constantly surrounded by love. I would treat her like the queen she was to me. But there are some things I wouldn’t change. I think this vacation is one of them. We had a wonderful time together and everything was just perfect. I’ll never forget it, along with the other cruises we took. I was so happy and felt so close to Shannon on those ships. It’s no wonder I love cruising.

Not a busy day. My sinuses are acting up pretty badly. I’m sure it’s an allergic reaction to something, although I have no idea what. If I knew, I’d get away from it. I’m feeling pretty miserable. No fever, no other symptoms other than clogged sinuses on the right side of my head and a headache. But that’s enough.

So I didn’t do much, yet again. I did find the time to go through a bunch of emails and to plan out the next few days of work. Now I just have to do the work. I also spent a little time finding accommodations for Mark and me (and Andy and Heather, although they’re making their own reservations) for the family reunion in Park City. We’ll be staying at the same hotel where we stayed for the last reunion. It’s not the best place in town, but it was nice and worked for us then, so I suspect it’ll work for us now.

I’ve been reconsidering my contemplated driving tour of the country. As I’ve probably mentioned before, my original plan was Las Vegas – San Francisco – Park City (or Salt Lake, depending on when) – Denver – Detroit – Stafford – Orlando – Tucson – Las Vegas. When Mark and I looked at the calendar for that trip, it would take more than 30 days. I’m thinking that’s a bit more than I really want to do. So now I’m thinking Las Vegas – San Francisco (only if Katy and company have time to see me then, otherwise I’ll visit them another time) – Park City – Denver – Detroit – Las Vegas. It’s two days’ travel from Denver to Detroit and three back to Las Vegas, so I would have to find some hotel rooms for five nights. I would plan to stay in Detroit for the week that includes the Fourth of July, which would make it something like ten days there. I wonder if the Michigan family would get tired of having me there for so long. I guess I could split my trip up between family members so none of them had time to get fed up. I’m planning a trip to Orlando next February for a conference, so I’ll see Tony then, and I can run over to Tucson and see Chris pretty much any time. I’d miss Paul and Melissa this time, so I’d have to find a way to get with them soon. Besides, they’re hoping to move to Las Vegas soon, so I’ll see a lot of them then.

Anyway. I need to make a decision and start checking with family members to see what works for whom when.

And that’s pretty much it for today. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: macaroni and cheese-related parental assault!

See you tomorrow.