Vacation Vacation Vacation

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I have finished my coursework at Embry-Riddle. So far I’ve had three celebration dinners. Tonight Jenny made baked potatoes, steamed veggies, and homemade beer bread, and I grilled filet mignons. We split a bottle of Michel-Schlumberger cabernet sauvignon that we’d been saving since 2004 for this very occasion. It was all delicious, the taste of victory. Tomorrow we’re set to leave for Ft Lauderdale. I plan to come home Halloween night, but Jenny has to go directly up to Baltimore and Philly for work.

In case you haven’t heard, the Wright Amendment is gone, replaced by immediate through-ticketing and full freedom in 2014. Many thanks to all the local leaders (whom I bashed so much in months past) for finally coming together to get the job done. Airfares are already dropping at DAL and DFW, just like we said they would.

Until we meet again…I’ll leave you with a link to a fabulous picture of Maho Beach in St Maarten. The airport (SXM) is right next to Maho Beach, so aircraft spotters come from around the world to take pictures of the planes as they land a few feet over the beach. There are signs posted on the beach warning you not to stand directly behind departing aircraft due to the jet blast. I hope to bring you some great pictures. =)

Politics

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It’s election time again, so let’s talk politics. I hate politics. I hate political parties, especially the Republican and Democratic parties, because they shift the focus from what’s right to what’s popular and in line with the rest of the party’s platform, from helping your constituents to tricking those constituents into voting for you again. The members of Congress have taken the month of October off to campaign for the November elections. If they’re not trying to win their own reelection, they’re probably trying to help someone else in their party get elected. What a waste. I wish Congress would outlaw political parties. Naturally, that won’t happen because the members of Congress are almost exclusively Democrat or Republican and depend on their party for influence and reelection assistance.

You know whom I’m voting for in the election for Texas governor? Kinky Friedman. Not because he has any good political experience, but precisely because he’s not a politician. He’s from OUTSIDE the system. He won’t have a clue what he’s doing, and I don’t agree with him on every issue, but electing him would be a small step toward reducing the power of the parties and returning the focus to the people.

Sorry for being so cynical. I’m just fed up with the system, and election time brings that frustration to the surface. Despite my rant, democracy is a better system than any other. I’m very grateful to live in America, free to post inflammatory comments without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night. I just wish democracy could live up to its potential.

Cruising is Fun

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If you’ve never been on a cruise, I highly recommend it. All you have to do is show up, and they take care of the rest – food, lodging, entertainment, and transportation. On Carnival, it’s like eating at a very nice restaurant for every meal, and you can order what you want because it’s all included in the price. You want the lobster? Sure! Creme brulee for dessert? No problem. Creme brulee AND tiramisu for dessert? Right away, sir! The rooms are cozy but comfortable, but you won’t spend much time in the room anyway. You can watch shows, dance the night away like we do, gamble, lie on the deck and read, play games, work out, get a massage, whatever floats your boat (hee hee, I’m so punny). Jenny and I are set to leave from Ft Lauderdale on Carnival Legend Oct 23 (my bday). We’ll have 2 full days at sea sailing to St. Maarten, home of fabulous beaches, good snorkeling, and fantastic aircraft spotting opportunities. The next day we hit Barbados, home of more fabulous beaches and the Malibu Rum factory. The final stop is Martinique, home of even more fabulous beaches. Two more days of sailing finally return us to Ft Lauderdale on Halloween. We are so excited, and so thankful for the chance to get away and celebrate the end of school like we did three years ago when Jenny finished. We’re even bringing nice clothes for formal night. If you’re interested in cruising, I recommend researching your options at Cruise Reviews and then booking at southwest.com. =)

Somewhere in the Darkness, the Gambler, He Broke Even…

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Today I want to talk about music, right after I recommend a slick new movie: The Illusionist, a turn-of-the-century mystery-romance starring the incomparable Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, and Jessica Biel. It kept me guessing till the end. Anyway, music…

First of all, I am mourning the loss of one of my favorite radio stations, Smooth Jazz 107.5 The Oasis. Monday afternoon the evil leaders of Infinity Broadcasting transformed one of the few unique stations in the Dallas area into yet another station that plays hip-hoppy music. I intend to send them hate email after I finish today’s entry. I suggest you do the same.

Second, I’m exploring a new hobby: guitar. That’s right. I borrowed Jenny’s mom’s acoustic/electic guitar, found guitar.about.com, and started tinkering with it on Sunday. So far I’ve played 9 chords, if you can call them chords, plus a lot of really bad combinations of notes, buzzing, and dead strings. But sometimes the chord sounds halfway decent. Acoustic guitars soothe my soul. The first song I’ll try to play is “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.

Third, I want to introduce you to a fascinating internet radio site called Pandora.com. This is only worthwhile for you broadband types, If you’re still on dial-up, let Pandora be your wakeup call to upgrade. (It might even be cheaper than AOL.) Anyway, you tell Pandora a song or artist you like. Pandora responds by gradually building your own “station” or playlist with that artist plus many other similar artists. You can give each artist a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and over time Pandora learns your tastes and refines your list. You can have many different stations for yourself. It’s lots of fun, and it’s free, so check it out.

The Final Lap

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These are good days. If all goes as planned, one month from today I’ll be done with school and headed to Fort Lauderdale with my beloved to board our cruise ship. My car is finally running fine again. The temperature is cooling off. We’ve gotten some good rain lately. We had a great time in Vegas, and you can read about our trip on my new Vegas trip page. The Stars are playing again. I’m working lots of midnight shifts this month. I’m working out consistently, although I’ve pretty much ruled out the Rock and Roll Half-Marathon for this year. Sure, there are plenty of things I could stress about – how much longer my car will run without expensive repairs, when we should move closer to work, what those lab results will say, etc. But I’m trying to worry less, relax, and trust God more since He is the only one who knows what’s coming next. For some reason, I’m remembering the tremendous value of perspective. There are positives and negatives to just about anything if you look hard enough, and we all get to choose which to focus on.

Cut Off from the World

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Due to a hardware problem, my home Internet connection has been down ever since I returned from New York, and my ISP took their sweet time fixing it. But now it’s back. It’s amazing to me how cut off I felt without Internet access from home. I’ve grow so accustomed to checking my email throughout the day, researching various topics that enter my head, banking online, and reading the news at will that it was disturbing to lose the ability. Plus it was difficult to participate in my online course. During the outage I put together a US Open trip page with the story of our trip and several pictures. I hope this makes up for the long gap since my last blog entry. Eventually (read: once school is done) I might set up a Hobbies section with pages on photography, wine, running, or whatever other hobbies I want to share with you. I mainly take pictures on vacation, but some of them turn out well, so I keep doing it even though I don’t really know what I’m doing.