Ffolkes,

There are possibly a number of y’all out there who might be wondering just what the hell happened to me. The last post on this blog was put up 10 full days ago, along with a glib promise, to post again the next day, that I was not able to meet…… And, if you’ll stop yelling out questions all at once, I will explain…. Thank you…. The day after penning and posting that blog, on July 1st, our second full day aboard ship, I arose early, as usual, to begin the day’s effort, when I tried to log on to the network provided on board…. Long story short, it took over two minutes for the ship’s name server to log me in, whereupon I tried to access my blog page, to see how many ffolkes had stopped in to read the first post….

Five minutes later, I was still waiting for the page to load…. and it got worse…. After attempting to go to other pages on the net, I gave up, as each time it was slower than my first dial up connection, loading pages as if still running Windows 3.1…. Unacceptable! Apparently, if more than 10 or 11 users attempt to use the network on the ship, it affects the speed, as they just don’t have anywhere near enough bandwidth to handle the traffic…. This, for a price almost 100 times the going rate for internet service anywhere !! For a minimum use plan, paying for each minute used as you go, the price was $1.00/minute; for a 200 minute plan, it went all the way down to $.79/minute, their best bargain….

I had budgeted enough money for contingencies, I’d hoped, but this was out of reasonable bounds, and would have been frustrating to use every time I logged on… So, rather than annoy myself, and my companion, I just quit for the time being, and hoped my gentle readers would understand…. If it is any consolation, I did get a lot of pictures, and had a great time, which I will attempt to share over the next few days….. We stopped in four ports of call, as well as a day cruising in a glacier fed fjord, and I’ll take them in the order we approached them from on board, to wit: Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, Tracy Arm Fjord and Glacier, and Victoria, B.C., our final stop….. well, until San Francisco, where we disembarked to go home….. Look for those pix and comments in section three of the next few posts, ‘kay?

Murphy greeted me this morning with an old, but classic, shot to the head, to welcome me home, I suppose…. The half-and-half milady Pat was kind enough to get for me at the store yesterday, so I’d have it this morning with my coffee, broke into a million clumps when it hit the coffee, first thing, turning it into brown cottage cheese, and totally spoiling my welcome-home cuppa… not to mention having to get dressed, walk to the store in the bright sunlight, and go through the rigmarole to replace it….. I managed that without hurting anyone unnecessarily (the one guy who spoke to me won’t wake up for hours, and should recover fully….), but it just goes to show….. well, nothing, really, except I HATE MURPHY, THAT FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!

Shall we Pearl?……
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After deciding not to partake of those delights provided by using the internet while on board the Grand Princess (which, in some respects, failed to live up to its sobriquet…. The trip, as a whole, and for the most part, was fantastic, but a few things about the ship itself left something to be desired….), I decided also to completely ignore the world outside the ship, and the places we visited. I listened to no news, on TV or radio, or on the net….. I checked my phone for messages only once, while in Ketchikan, but, otherwise, left it out of the equation, turned off and sitting in the safe. For ten peaceful days, all I thought about, or mostly, was what to eat next, or what movie to watch, or what comedian to go see in the theater on board, or how much more I needed to take out of the casino to make up for the shore excursions we got gouged for (the subject of an upcoming rant….)…

I did manage to come out pretty well in that category; I beat their blackjack dealers, over the course of the trip, for about three or four hundred bucks, which makes up for a lot…. Any who…. Since I have absolutely no idea what’s been going on out there in the world, I’ll ease my way back in with a random pearl, on the subject of human nature, intelligence, and the nearly uncountable facets of interrelated effects that has on people, and on reality at large…..

“Belief is the death of intelligence.” — Robert Anton Wilson

“Of course the US Constitution isn’t perfect; but it’s a lot better than what  we have now.” — Eric Sheppard

“If science were explained to the average person in a way that is accessible and exciting, there would be no room for pseudoscience.  But there is a kind of Gresham’s Law by which in popular culture the bad science drives out the good.  And for this I think we have to blame, first, the scientific community ourselves for not doing a better job of popularizing science, and second, the media, which are in this respect almost uniformly dreadful.  Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column.  How many have even a weekly astronomy column?  And I believe it is also the fault of the educational system.  We do not teach how to think.  This is a very serious failure that may even, in a world rigged with 60,000 nuclear weapons, compromise the human future.” — Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, — Vol. 12, Fall 87

“Curiouser and curiouser!” — Lewis Carroll, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

“The moment a person forms a theory his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.” — Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Charles Thompson, September 20, 1787

As Meander says, “For our mind is God;” and as Heraclitus, “Man’s genius is a deity.” — Plutarch (46-120 AD) — Platonic Questions, i

‘T is education forms the common mind:
Just as the twig is bent the tree ‘s inclined.

— Alexander Pope (1688-1744) — Moral Essays, Epistle i, Line 149
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Since I was on the water for so long, and I feel like absorbing some obscure genius, this is the perfect fulfillment of both urges….. Enjoy!

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After two days at sea to start the voyage to Alaska, covering about 1200 nautical miles, the Grand Princess docked in Ketchikan, Alaska, at a dock right across from the town’s main downtown streets, with a panoply of still snow-capped mountains providing a beautiful and dramatic backdrop to a scene from 150 years ago. The buildings, all wooden, and built in the style of the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, were fronted with wooden sidewalks, even though they housed shops and boutiques from modern times, filled with all the local treasures, such as smoked salmon and Tlingit curios, as well as the touristy usuals such as T-shirts, magnets, and stuffed bears and wolves of all sizes…..

I must confess, I went a bit crazy in the shops we went into, stocking up on souvenirs for the folks back home, and found a new hat for myself, as well. We had a very good pizza for lunch at the Fish Pirate’s Restaurant and Bar, to the accompaniment of live music by Sitka Tex, who played some great western swing, in a very smooth baritone, with some pretty hot guitar licks….

We picked up his CD, and then went on our tour, called the Duck Tour, in an amphibious vehicle that carried us around the town for local history, then drove right into the harbor at the marina, for a tour along the waterfront, where we were able to see a number of eagles fishing the waters off a rock where they like to congregate…. The tour driver and narrator were very personable and funny, using every old duck joke there is to punctuate their presentations (What happens to a duck who flies upside down? He quacks up!….). Funny, for the first six jokes, then it got a bit old, even with the liberal use of a duck-bill shaped quacking toy…. but, fun nonetheless…

Below, you will find the best pictures I got from our day in Ketchikan, or in the case of our email readers, a link to the blog site where I’ve posted the pix….. I hope you enjoy them, because I really enjoyed the opportunity to take them….
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All in all, I wish I was still on board, but, hey, it’s also nice to sleep in my own bed….. Plus, once I got some half-and-half, it was the best coffee I’ve had in too long a time…. This Pearl went fairly smoothly, given the issues I found upon arising, may Murphy’s ass burn in hell….. It’s done, anyway, so let’s see how it reads….. Not too shabby, all in all, so we’ll go with it…. Naturally, there is a lot to catch up on around here, so, I’ll see y’all tomorrow…..  Y’all take care out there, and May the Metaphorse be with you…..

When I works, I works hard.
When I sits, I sits loose.
When I thinks, I falls asleep.

Which is Why….