Promotional Business Card - Mimosa Bloom #2

Promotional Business Card - Mimosa Bloom #1

Promotional Business Card - Hidden Rose

Promotional Business Card - Eiffel

Promotional Business Card - Butterfly with Thistle #2

Promotional Business Card - Butterfly with Thistle #1

Promotional Business Card - Bird

Promotional Business Card - Fall Leaves

Promotional Business Card - Sculpture

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Monkey Towel

The staff that served our room were great, but others in our group did not have such a good experience.  I mentioned to the head cleaning guy that the wife likes the towel thing, so they stepped it up and provided this on our last day of the journey.  We were very appreciative, and the crew got a decent tip from us.

This is it for Cruise 2017.  This one was a little different in that we joined a much larger group of friends and associates, some of whom we hadn't known previously.  It was interesting getting to know those guys, and good for me that one of them was a gregarious chap that spoke only English, which made for more comfortable dinners.  Just like the RV culture, suppose that cruise cultures bloom among those able to take such trips on a regular basis.

Another note of interest is that all of the official photographers on the boat were still using the D300 line of Nikons (either the D300 or D300s), which I was using as well.  In fact, those in our company, supposing that I knew what I was doing, preferred that I take their portraits at the dinners instead of the professionals on the ship.  As an extra, after the last dinner, when we were all dressed up, the whole gang went to various places to get their pictures made, on staircases, balconies, etc.  Very unfortunately, I did not know what I was doing (never was good with people/portrait types of pictures) so the results were very mixed.  Thus I am determined to leave it up to the real professionals next time.

Guess this blog is getting to look like a cruise blog, but there were a couple of trips to catch up on.  Lord willing we'll be going to Alaska in 2018 for our 30th ANNIVERSARY!!  Meanwhile, other things to post...

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Main Street Parade Performers

Here the parade is coming to an end and the two main characters are exiting together stage left.

A lot of people and a lot of noise, but interesting and good for practicing low-light action photography.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Main Street Parade Performer

This lass was on the bridge over the street, in the same place the zumba instructor taught her class from a few posts ago.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Main Street Parade (Crowd)

Mentioned earlier that Main Street was actually large enough to have a parade.  At the appointed evening I was there, camera at the ready...

With all the space available here for such a thing, imagine that this ship does not come close to being the biggest made!  I'm one that would like a trip on one of those just for that fact and to spend my days exploring the vessel.  Other family members don't agree, thinking of the vast number of passengers competing for the same resources.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Ice Skating Rink Curtains

In some cases Glowing Edges does not look much different from the original:

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Ice Skating Rink Lighting

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Ice Skating Rink

2017 Cruise - Aboard Ship, Dining Room Chandelier

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Dining Room #1

These cruise ships have one - and sometimes two - vast dining rooms to feed the masses in comfort and style.  I'd learned to work a little better with the manual mode on the Big Cahoona, so practiced with some panoramas (the above is a 2-shotter) to capture the size and breadth of the place.

The pic below was taken with the wrong settings, but didn't think it looked so bad after all:

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Micro-Balconies / Perfume on the Slaughterhouse Kill Floor

1981 was my third summer working on the kill floor at IBP, and by then I knew my way around, both in Amarillo and at work.  Charley and Johnnie had split the year before, so instead of living in the plumbing shop I rented an apartment close to downtown.  And on the floor at work I was getting better with knives and doing some of the harder jobs, so they put me on the gut table.  Not as a gutter, though - instead they put me further down, in the last position on the conveyor.  My job there was three-fold; to separate the trachea from the lungs, to process the bile, and to throw any leftover fat into the fat chute.  A level-four position...nothing particularly difficult.

About the bile - if the livers were good enough for public consumption the gall bladders were already separated and just there by themselves.  In such a case - which was for the vast majority of the livers - I would pick it up, slice it open and allow a moment for all of the greenish fluid to pour into one of those 55-gallon white barrels, then throw the remains back onto the conveyor to drop over the end and into the floor below.  Sometimes, however, a liver was bad due to disease or whatever.  For those I would use my knife to separate the bladder first, then empty it in the manner described.  Each bladder produce about six ounces of bile.  I always started fresh with an empty barrel whether on the morning or evening shift, and it would be more than half full after eight hours (the depth of its contents through the day was how I measured the passage of time).

One day not long after starting the job I observed something peculiar.  I had gotten used to the smells on the floor through the years and they didn't bother me at all.  But at that post there was a new smell wafting into my space - something that smelled good.  What could it be on the kill floor of this slaughterhouse that smelled pleasant?  On a lark I ducked my head into the barrel filling with bile, and discovered that the bile itself was the source of the smell!  After asking a foreman about it he explained that IBP in fact sold the bile to perfume companies all over the world!

Isn't it true that at times sweetness and sunshine can be found in places that appear bitter and dark...

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Main Street Guidepost

Now back on the floor of Main Street.  It was easy to get around the ship, thanks in part to these signs placed here and there - different view below:

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Another Look to the Upper Reaches

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Looking Up to the Upper Reaches

These are the balconies from which the recent few posts were captured...

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Looking Down from the Upper Reaches #2

...from the same level looking down, from the other end of Main Street.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Looking Down from the Upper Reaches #1

...and a look down from the upper reaches, on the Platinum Theater side.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Disco Ball

More from the upper reaches of Main Street...Chenjean's class can be seen in action on the floor below.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Main Street Clock

Became intrigued with some of the stuff they had in the upper reaches of Main Street.  Lots of spotlights, lots of security...and a clock.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Red Dog

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Other End of Main Street

...from the other end of Main Street, a 3-shot panorama from the second level up.  Below is the bridge we crossed every day from our interior cabin close to the back of the ship.  Again, captured very early in the morning when there were virtually no people and nothing going on (hence the darkness in the foreground).

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Zumba on Main Street #2

...a closer look at the participants, from floor level.  My wife is off to the right somewhere, but this side was chosen because the arms made a more even pattern.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Zumba on Main Street #1

One day while the wife was at a Zumba class I took the time to roam around capturing different angles of Main Street and environs.  The blonde on the walkway is the instructor, directing the class below.

Cruise 2017 - Aboard Ship, Main Street Aft from Above

View is the same as posted yesterday, only from further aft and a couple of levels above.

On this trip, during the muster drill, we met an elderly couple that cruises several times a year and never leave the ship - they just like being on a boat like this to de-stress and unwind.  Brings to mind an article I read recently that weighed the affordability of permanently cruising as opposed to living in an assisted-living facility, and found it to be a fairly cost-effective alternative.  Would be a liability for the cruise lines, however, in that those folks generally have health problems that need an extra level of attention.