Day 3 Friday, LA to Hawaii Cruise January 18

Day 3 Friday January 18, 2013
Tonight's Dress: Formal
Weather: Partly Cloudy: High 59 Low 50
Sunrise @7:40 Sunset 6:30
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Time Change- one hour back @2:00am between Friday Night and January 18th and Saturday morning January 19th

1)Breakfast@the Horizon Court buffet. I had the recommended homemade muesli with almond slivers and blueberry compote. I had the egg man make me an egg white omelet Denver (with onions, peppers, and ham) a piece of breakfast banger and two links of sausage and two pieces of bacon. 

2) I sat across from a Victoria (Canadian) BC couple from Holland. They had lived 30+years in Victoria BC. Now they "winter" in Arizona. They have a son they visit in Sacramento CA, so they were familiar with the Central Valley. I related to them about how much I had seen Victoria grow since 1962 when we were there for the Worlds Fair in Seattle. Dad picked out Duncan as the place we would pick up our mail along the way. We didn't realize how far Duncan was from Victoria on the island. They have since improved the drive with better roads and its not such a big deal to drive from Victoria to Duncan.
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Andy the ocean Surveyor from Houston
Andy asked if he could sit at my table... sure.
Andy clicked on his hearing aide at the back of his ear.
He worked as an engineer for the oil industry. I asked if he was a geologist..... no but he worked with many geologists. He had retired and had bought 28 acres in Houston and had a house constructed. He liked to do woodworking and he makes small projects to sell. He had a commission to make 5 headboards for a Band B in his small town near Houston. The house was in the process of being renovated. He researched the design to fit into the era of the house. He finished the headboards  and the owner wanted these beautiful cypress wood headboards to be painted white.  That destroyed him. He did not like the production side of it to begin with and felt that the cypress wood should be left in a natural finish. He would rather cast himself as an artisan craftsman. So he makes small pieces and has been successful at selling them in the town stores.

He was excited to go see one of his friends that was lecturing this morning. He was also an ocean surveyor His friend's topic was, "Who fired the first shots at Pearl Harbor?"His claim is that the mini 2 man Japanese subs fired the first shots . The lecturer was instrumental in the dive survey that found midge sub A that was hit in the conning tower before the invasion of the aerial bombers. I sat in on the lecture in the big theater and joined about 300 other passengers as we watched the power point and movie snippets about the Pearl Harbor attack.
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Sue and I went down the elevator to the Plaza again. Sue liked the small portions served. She ordered an asparagus quiche which they heated up for her. I had a bowl of albondigas... meatball soup.

The seating is pretty hard to come by as it seems that many others have discovered this place. So people are sort of combined together in order to get seating to have a cup of Starbucks like coffee or a small bite. The also have a chance to learn from each other in the process.
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The Couple from Alberta Canada 

She married the guy from Arkansas that was completely blind. He looked a whole lot like Kenny Rogers with the complete gray beard and round face. He was a social worker -regulation writer in South Dakota at the time. His regulations shut down the South Dakota governor's daughter's nursing home because it was so out of compliance, and sent all of the patients out to other homes in Rapid City. The Governor got his revenge by firing him. The regulation writer  asked him why? The Governor said he was blind so  how could he do his work? Thanks, the guy said and he was out on full disability.  

He came under the regulation that he had written. As part of his rehab plan, he wrote that he had to "work in bands". He returned to being a successful drummer that he was before going to school to become a social worker. He and his wife bought an RV and traveled roaming around the country playing for some pretty famous bands. He said that is a voracious audio book reader.

They told us of the time they were camping in the desert and he had the audio book up and playing loudly. Right beside him a road runner stood perched, watching inquisitively his every move. He was not aware of it until his wife said.. don't move. She ran in and got a camera to take a photo of the road runner observing the strange people.

They traveled throughout Europe. The man had arranged a wonderful night in Venice for his sweet wife, down to getting a fancy room, a gondola reserved, when they were about to go through the night she turned to him and said,"This place smells like shit."  He said... it did.
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 At dinner I asked the more senior couple what they did when they did in their working life. They replied that they hadn't always lived in Palm Springs. They used to live in Washington state in the Tri cities in Eastern Washington. She was a nuclear technician making Zicronioum tubes and loading the pellets . He was a nuclear physicist. She said that he was more of a math guy than she was. She took her real estate license test and half way through it she was concerned because it required math with using a calculator. She passed. He is a golfer... more so earlier in life. While on board we celebrated her 75th birthday.  She grew up in the Dolger homes near Westlake in Daly City very near where I grew up years later in South San Francisco.  Her favorite restaurant... Original Joes.

Pat's Dinner:
Shreaded salad with stillton cheese mouse (we all got Stilton on the side because it was the kind of blue cheese that was made near where our Brit table mates were from) It was some pretty neat cheese.
Asparagus soup
Leg of Lamb
Creme Bruuelle
Bananas Foster
Macroons and almond cookies

Sue's Dinner
French Onion Soup
1/2 ceasar's salad (made at the table)
Beef Bratwurst with sauerkraut
Sue left the table before the main course--- Bratwurst was after the dinner----
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Ukelele  Lessons 
I went to the ukelele sample lesson with my uke (my sister Kelly had given me one years ago) It could not hold a note .. the strings were too old. I brought a new set with me and finally got some tone from it after I strung it up. I signed up for the progressive lessons---- every day at 11:15 on days that we were at sea. We met at the same place, the wrap around bar that was next to the fancy Italian dinner restaurant.

On the sample lesson people lined up to borrow a ukelele as the ship had about 40 to loan for the free lessons.
On the first lesson poor Tom Dooley got trotted out and so did the whole world---- the 2 chord medley--- c and g7. He added pearly shells c7 and f. 75 people got a short lesson . Some of us, about 25 signed up for the progressive lessons (also free)
I learned the tuning notes....Good Cats Eat Ants