BOOGIE NIGHTS

April 10, 2018

It was amusing watching the singers and dancers put on a disco show when not a one of them was alive when disco was the thing.  And the clothes – especially the men’s – I know they looked like exhibits out of a museum to them.  But they can move to the rapid beat and I cannot.  Not my favorite show, and judging by the polite applause, I’m pretty sure others thought the same.  But you can’t please everyone.

I did my potato talk today amidst some confusion.  There was a video being shown in the theater of the recent dry dock of the Crown Princess, explaining and showing what was done – new PVC pipes, and stuff like that.  Academy Award stuff. 

Anyway (boy I’ve got a grouch on tonight) the video ran late and so I was late starting.  When I was practicing back in our stateroom, I realized that I had not converted one of the videos from MP4 to WMV (ask tech support) and so it would not play on my backup laptop (which is running Windows XP).  Fortunately I have the converter program on the traveling laptop and was able to make the switch and copy it onto my flash drive to move it to the other computer. 

So I get the computer set up in the theater and go to test the audio, and wouldn’t ya know it, the afore mentioned video wouldn’t play.  Guess why.  I still had it on the flash drive and hadn’t copied it to the hard drive.  So I ran the program from the flash drive and couldn’t use my clicker.  But you can push the arrow keys to change the slides, so all was well.

When the talk was over and Bonnie and I were walking out of the theater she said, “Do you know how long that talk was?”  I said, “No, because I didn’t have my clicker which has the timer on it.”  She allowed as how it was an hour and 10 minutes.  I remember preaching one time for an hour and 15 minutes, but I’ve never done a talk past 50 minutes.  No one got up and left so it must not have been too bad.  There was one man sleeping in the front row, however.  After lunch I went back through and edited some stuff out.  I’ll time it during my next rehearsal for the upcoming HAL cruise.

After all of the above, I can hear one of my readers saying, “Yes, but you are on a cruise!  How bad can it be?”

We have found some rough water and down here on Deck 5 when the ship hits a wave there is a large KERTHUMP.  Most entertaining.  It is either a wave of we are murdering whales.  It is ear plugs tonight at bedtime.

And now hereeeeee’s Bonnie!

TTFN

Yes, up at 6 am and out for my walk. Walking inside because it is cold and windy outside. Lots of people walking with me or against me. But I got in my steps. I have over 10,000 steps today. I did not get to go out after lunch because the Captain had come on during the other guys talk and said we were experiencing rough seas and waves and wind. So to much rocking for me to safely walk around the deck. I have enough trouble walking on dry land.  Well, after walking in the morning, I came back to the room and he was just getting up. After he finished showering, I got ready and we went to breakfast. Just some cantelope and banana bread and hot chocolate. After breakfast he headed to the room to study and I headed to the theater. The early talk was to start at 9:15. It was on Barcelona and I got some ideas of what we can do when we get there, since we have a whole day there and then fly to Ft Lauderdale on the next day. The ship is doing an over night before it takes on new passengers and sails on to its next port. During the early talk the captain comes on with his announcement about the weather. So the speaker does not quite finish his talk because the ships video person wants to show her video about dry dock. Not very interesting. And of course during David’s talk the clocks are turned ahead an hour , so by the time he finishes it is 12:40 not 11:40.

We go back to the room and swap stuff and head to the Lido for lunch. We get a slice of pizza today and it is very good. We will do that again. After lunch we go looking for a place to play cards. We wind up in the Explorer’s lounge where they are doing their art auction. What a farcical thing. If those people actually buy that stuff they must need their head examined. And it is high pressure selling. Well, we played a few hands and headed to the room. He worked on editing his talk and I took a nap. I am not sure how with as loud as the waves hitting the ship were. 

Supper was formal night but their food was not exciting. I had a goat cheese tart (it was good but not as good as some I have had before), filet mignon and a small dish of ice cream. The steak was cut up on a skewer with sweet potato squares and there was a rice pilaf under it. The pilaf was disgusting. I ate 2 small pieces of the steak , it was okay. 

Then off to the show. There was a full house but the show was just soso. The 4 lead singers are not near as good as some we have seen before. A lot of lip singing goes on. Their lips are moving to a recording and it is sometimes obvious.

Well, we are back in our room. The noise outside is horrendous. I am not sure how I am going to go to sleep. There will be a big bang followed by a loud noise like someone scraping metal against metal. I am not exaggerating. Sometimes the bottom of the whole ship literally vibrates under our feet. Well, hopefully my brain will shut it out.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny with a high of 64 degrees. We will wear a sweater and a jacket. We got our shuttle tickets and I have packed my bag and am ready to go whenever we finish breakfast and get the all ashore call. Funchal is a fun island to visit. We have always had a good time here.

How was school Mac? And everybody else, too.  Jen, how is the class going?

Well, love you all. Mom, Granny and Bonnie