When it comes to drumming, I’ve had a busy couple of months.  At one time I was juggling four steady drumming gigs, and was looking at the possibility of adding another one.  Now with the baby coming, I’m taking a bit of a sabbatical from drumming – at least as far as gigging projects are concerned – to get ready for the new parent adventure.  Given that I’m going to have a little bit of musical downtime, I wanted to share some reflections from the road.

First and foremost, I’ve uncovered my new drumming pet peeve: backline sharing. Like most things on the road to Hell, this is based on the good intention (usually made by people who are not drummers).  For those that don’t know, backline sharing is when drummers, bass players (and any other instruments with bulky gear) are asked (or in my case, volun-told) to share their gear for a multi-band bill.  Whether you’re on the one doing the sharing, or taking part in someone’s shared gear – this is a lose-lose situation.  Like I said, this decision is usually made by someone who doesn’t play any of these instruments, thinking only of how they can cut corners and minimize the transition time between bands.

The bottom line is that as a drummer, I have spent a considerable amount of time and money to get the sounds that I feel best compliment my playing style, as well as the type of music that I’m playing that evening.  This was culminated from many hours spent in the drum shop finding that perfect cymbal or snare drum head, then going home and determining the exact placement of each part of your kit.  When you’re asking your drummer to backline share on someone else’s kit, you’re unknowingly saying a big “Efff you” to their musicianship and the time they spent to getting their instrument to sound the best for your music. 

I understand there are certain exceptions (like school drum sets) where you’re not playing on your own kit, but I often equate that to driving a car: I can drive someone else’s car and get around for the most part, but when it comes to understanding how the car corners, brakes and maneuver in tight spaces – you want your own vehicle. The same goes for drumming. If you’re asking me to give my best (often to help us earn money), let me cook with my own ingredients.

It’s bad enough to be asked to share someone else’s instrument, but when you’re asked to do the sharing: you’ve taken it to a completely worse level.  All that I said about putting in the time and effort to get the perfect sound out of your kit, is not a cheap process – and now you’re asking me to entrust my kit to someone who I’ve never met before and likely won’t see ever again?  Seriously? In one of my first bands, one of my band-mates was goofing around on my kit and busted up my brand new Pearl Eliminator pedal, with no offer to help rectifying the situation (luckily the pedal was under warranty and Pearl was great about fixing it), but from that point on I decided to go against the lessons my parents taught me – (when it comes to my drums,) NO SHARING!  Now while I’m watching the opening act, rather than mentally preparing for the music I’m going to play, I’m now fixated on the stranger playing my drums and cringing at the possible damage that’s being inflicted on a prized possession.

So memo to band-leaders: you’re thinking that you’re doing us a favor with us lugging less gear, but lugging gear is part of drumming – I’m more than happy to deal with it.

I’m pretty satisfied with the art work, but definitely could use some improvement on my script. For something quick & dirty: it’ll do the job.  I’d definitely welcome any feedback (especially on the artwork).

Also if you happen to find yourself in Boulder on Saturday (Feb 23), come out to the Lazy Dog and check us out! We’ll be playing around 11pm.

On last week’s Vergecast, they had a fascinating discussion on this very topic: the relationship between social networks (particularly Twitter) and TV.  They both need each other: Twitter needs to be validated by other businesses, while TV Networks need to give viewers an incentive for people to watch live and immediately participate in the conversation.  It seems that every TV program (or commercial for that matter) is flashing a hashtag or a Twitter name of a personality.

So why the hell does CBS still insist to tape delay live broadcasts?  Two nights ago they aired the Grammys, and while I was watching 60 MInutes my Twitter stream started blowing up with reactions from those watching it in the Eastern and Central time zones.  When the Grammys finally started at 7pm in Mountain Time, my stream became a complete mess, with people reacting to stuff taking place live, now with us in Mountain time reacting to our events.  By the time our friends in the west join in, Twitter is just a cluster at this point.

This wouldn’t bother me so much, except for the fact that CBS and the Grammys disingenuously feature Tweets as a part of their show. Every time LL Cool J came back from a commercial he would read some random (and often crappy) Tweets, with the half the country being denied the opportunity to participate.

I don’t understand why the Grammys and CBS don’t get it.  The Oscars are broadcast live and everyone manages to watch it.  Aside from the Olympics (which still don’t get it), sports are always carried live and people manage to watch them.  Don’t sit there and pretend you’re inviting us to be part of the social media conversation, then turn around and slam the door on half of your viewers.  CBS: why don’t you join us in the 21st century and get with the program?

A DSLR has been on my wish list for a while, and after getting the chance to play with one during Christmas, I began to daydream about the great pictures that we could take.  I don’t want to become a photographer, but I definitely would like to make sure we beautifully capture the special moments of our family, but didn’t want to break the bank.  After seeking some advice from my sister’s boyfriend, who is a fantastic photographer, I narrowed the camera down to two choices: the Sony NEX-5 and the Nikon D7000.  The Sony was definitely a tempting camera, but ultimately the ability to have more options with lenses down the road put the Nikon over the top.

After unboxing the camera, it became pretty apparent that I have a lot to learn about photography.  The Nikon is helpful because the camera will take some pretty good pictures on its own, but I definitely want to get out of auto and do some playing around. There are tons of great videos and tutorials out there, and I’ve started building a playlist with ones that I’ve found particularly useful.  Jared Polin’s videos have been particularly helpful, as he did a great walk-through of all of my camera’s controls, and has some awesome walkthroughs for beginning photographers.

In order to become decent by the time the baby comes, both my wife and my cat have been patient subjects.  Below you’ll find some of the better beginner shots that I’ve taken, and would definitely appreciate any feedback and tips.

Hey I should post something! I have a great idea!

-That’s great, but you need to explain what you’ve been up to so people can at least get a semblance of where you’ve been these last few months.

That’s too hard and I’m tired from a long day, I’ll just go to bed.

I’ve just accepted the fact that there’s no way for me to begin to cover what I’ve been up to and find the time to pack it into a single post, so I’m just going to go with the big stuff and hopefully my thoughts won’t come out too random.  Also I apologize for sounding so disjointed, it’s been months since I’ve written this long that’s not a work-related email (sad, I know).

So let’s start with the biggest life changing event, which is best explained in our Christmas card:

Yes, we’re expecting our first child to arrive in June, and can’t be more excited!  As we’re finishing up our 21st week (well Bethany is, I’m not really doing heavy lifting), we’re starting to get a grasp of what we need to do to (try to) prepare for our young bundle of joy.  We’ve taken to calling the baby “In Beta”, coined after the software development term. At some point I’ll share some experiences we’ve had in this transition into forthcoming parenthood, but in the meantime I wanted to get this exciting gem out there and apologize to those of you who haven’t heard this news before.

This was my inferior attempt to pull off the Aaron Rodgers.

I played around with it a little bit during Thanksgiving week, treating my family to this:

I think Bethany’s ready for December to arrive.

Basketball Players’ Night Off Makes a Stand for Sitting Out

David Stern’s heart is in the right place, but as usual, his methods make a mess of everything.

I appreciate Stern’s coming from, and as a paying fan, I am grateful that he’s at least appearing to look out for his paying customers.  We sold our tickets to the last Broncos game against the Chiefs (the last game of the season) and right now I’m scared about the prospect of the team having nothing to pay for, and the tickets my friends are using for family Christmas presents won’t look as great without Peyton and Von Miller in the game.

Ultimately sports is in the business of entertaining people, more so in the NBA who actively markets their stars to the point of charging more for visiting teams with more famous players.  It’s not unreasonable for a fan to expect to see said stars when they buy tickets to this game.

Coach Popovich’s best interest is the well-being and competitiveness of his team, and I do respect his decision to limit the number of minutes for critical players. However, the ultimate error was when he had those players fly home and not even attend the game.  At least have these guys come in and sit on the bench, or even better: play them 2 minutes and throw the fans a bone.  It’s also one thing if you give one player a night off, but when four of your five starters aren’t even in the building – that’s a problem.

Stern, a business leader, is trying to serve his best interests: his paying customers (both the fans and TV partners).  Where Stern went wrong was with his tactics, by threatening the team before the game with an “or else”, then slamming the gauntlet and trying to set a precedent. The problem is that David Stern doesn’t have a lot of room to talk when he says “disservice to the league”, when he presides over a league that schedules 4 games in 5 nights, that experienced a lockout where games were missed last year, as well as belittling those who have the audacity to question the legitimacy of a lottery awarding their top draft pick to the league-owned team. David Stern shouldn’t be casting stones from his glass house.

All of this mess could have been avoided if one guy stepped in and did his job: Peter Holt, the owner of the San Antonio Spurs.  While Popovich acts in the best interest of the team’s competitiveness, Holt’s job is to straddle the line between competitiveness and entertainment enterprise.  Wearing his “enterprise” hat, he should have stepped in and canceled those plane tickets, forced the players to at least go to the arena: either in shorts or suits. It’s his job to look out for the greater good of his organization, and avoid a PR mess like this. Popovich may not have been happy, but would accept this compromise, because his boss – who is looking out for bigger interests – told him to.

Hopefully good can come from this. It’s time for the NBA to have a serious conversation about an 82-game schedule, and whether these crazy road-trips are really worth it.  People don’t start paying attention to the NBA until your 10-week playoffs start anyway.

I’ve been posting to this blog (in some form) for over 7 years, and 714 blog posts later I’ve found that my posts have been getting fewer and further between.  I can attribute this to many things, among those: a lack of time & shifts in priority, but there is one barrier which I’m attempting to remove: my blog’s link to Facebook.

One thing that hasn’t been a barrier is a shortage of thoughts and opinions.  They usually visit me in the most inopportune times, when plugging away at a keyboard for an hour isn’t feasible.  Oftentimes my craving to express these opinions is satisfied by Twitter, but believe it or not, sometimes my thoughts can’t be articulated in 140 characters.  I then consider posting to my blog, but then am approached by another barrier: my self doubt of expressing my views, and how they will be perceived by my loved ones.  When I first linked my blog to Facebook, it looked like an awesome opportunity to drive traffic over here, and a lot of you have graciously clicked the link in Facebook to read my latest rant.  At the same time, I have a hyper-sensitivity to what gets posted about me in Facebook.  While some people post virtually every thought, I’m pretty particular about what ends up on my news feed and who just might see it.  Through that my “not anonymous” platform becomes that much more public.  This results in every inclination to blog getting trumped by my self-doubt.

This makes no sense, right? That’s what I figured, but looking back at my blog I yearn for the days when I was posting regularly and am looking for ways to recapture that pattern – so I’m going to try this.   This will be the last auto-post that will be added to my Facebook profile for the foreseeable future.  If I end up writing something that is particularly noteworthy, I’ll manually create a link, but for the most part I’m yearning to detach my posts from my news feed.

If you’re still interested in keeping up my thoughts, you’re always welcome to subscribe using my RSS feed (which works with Google Reader and various other news-reading apps).  I’ll also continue the auto-posting to Twitter, which somehow seems a little more anonymous.  Otherwise you’re always welcome to drop into the site from time to time.

So here’s to most posts, more rants and more ramblings.  Thanks for indulging me.

Having attending my first Broncos game in 2001, I never got to experience the Elway era in person. I’ve heard stories of the fabled “Mile High Magic” and for the better part of the last decade, I’ve faithfully gone to the home games in hopes to experience the magic first-hand. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve witnessed greatness at Mile High (the 2005 New England Patriots playoff game comes to mind) – where I’ve tasted the magic.

To me the Mile High Magic is that euphoric feeling at the stadium when you tell yourself “Sure we’re down, but we’ve got this. We’ve got …” I’ve seen some pretty incredible wins at the new Mile High, but typically they’ve come in the “Oh my God, I can’t believe they pulled it off.” fashion.

That all changed on Sunday night. Going into the 2nd half, down by 3: the magic was there. We got this.

It would be easy to say it was all because of Peyton Freaking Manning (or PFM), and he definitely played a large role in this. This is different than Tebow. A charismatic character, Tebow didn’t necessarily inspire confidence, but more along the lines of “How did we pull THAT off?!?”. Starting deep in our territory, PFM resonated “Be patient. We got this. Let’s make it happen.”

The minute I walked into Mile High on Sunday, things felt different. No longer were fans polarized over a QB (although I did hear a Tebow-lover bash Peyton early in the 1st quarter, who was then quickly silenced by a great “3rd & long” conversion). People were there to see the Broncos succeed, believing PFM – along with the rest of the talent on the roster – would bring us there. People were actually quiet on offense and cheered at the right time. People finally rallied around the team, saving the animosity for the arrogant and obnoxious Steeler fans. With the rightful return of the primary color, Mile High Stadium once again became a unifying sea of orange. That was the moment I felt the Mile High Magic return to our stadium.

I’m not saying that the Broncos will go undefeated and win the Super Bowl. This team definitely has a lot of room for improvement and will definitely see adversity throughout the fall. At the same time, this was the first time in a very long time when fans were unified under their love for this team, the players and our hopes for this coming year. It made these last 4+ years in the desert worth it. Our patience has finally been rewarded, with a stadium experience that is finally enjoyable again.

Go Broncos.

Our last day on the cruise ship started off as another Sea Day, making our way back down towards Seattle – for the most part.  At 7pm we made an evening stop in Victoria, British Columbia in Canada.  We actually only had less than 5 hours to spend on land, and because our time was so brief, we decided to do the cruise-sanctioned excursion to guarantee we’d get back in time. The trip we took was to Butchart Gardens (pronounced “Butch-art”), which was a botanical garden that featured fireworks.  This 100-year-old gardens used to be a limestone quarry that was running dry, when the owner’s wife started planting flowers to make it look better. The gardens came about from this.

There were a lot of beautiful flowers on display, and while these can be seen in other places, there were a few of note that caught my eye.

While the flowers were all really beautiful, the special attraction was the fireworks that they feature on Saturday nights.  From what we were told, the pyro-technicians at Disney consulted on the design of this fireworks show.  These fireworks were not only impressive, but arguably bests any that I’ve ever seen – including those at Disney World.  Have you ever seen the fountains at Bellagio in Las Vegas?  Imagine that water show, but instead of water, they used fireworks – this is what was featured at Butchart Gardens. The opening scene hit a little close to home for those of us in Colorado:

While the photos depict this show as a normal fireworks exhibition, check out these videos below to see how they used pyro-technics to accomplish what Bellagio does with the fountains.

My personal favorite was during “Begin the Beguine” (a song I play in jazz band, which I didn’t realize had words), and how they used fireworks to depict a waterfall.

After a the fireworks, we were taken on a brief tour of downtown Victoria, before heading back to our cruise ship. We stood on this balcony to watch the ship leave port at midnight.

From the brief time we spent in Victoria, I loved our time there – so much that I wish we would have spent the day there and done a four-hour stop in Skagway.  I’m sure this wouldn’t be practical, being only 80 miles from Seattle.  However, I’d definitely like to spend a long weekend in Victoria sometime in the future.

We went to bed right after the ship left port, awakening to our arrival in Seattle.  I’m currently writing this last post from our trip as we wait to board our plane to Denver.  After being on the road for three weeks, along with the tragic news regarding Bethany’s brother, we are definitely ready to be home.

After the show we were taken on a tour of one of the ship’s seven Galleys.  With food being such a paramount part of the cruise experience, it was impressive to see how vast these kitchens are, and just how much work goes onto cook all of our meals.  There were some interesting figures that we were given on the tour:

Each Day:

• 1,700 amount of fish are cooked
• 1,400lbs. of chicken are used
• 1,600 salads are made
• 13 gallons of mayonnaise are used
• 1,500lbs of flour are used in the bakery
• 470 gallons of coffee are consumed
• 70,000 dishes are washed

It’s crazy to see just how much effort goes behind feeding everybody on the ship – then to think how much of that is wasted when people send stuff back.

Afterward they took us through one of their seven Galleys for a walk through tour.  It was amazing seeing the vastness of the kitchen and all of the prep stations.  I found the stove range most intriguing.

Throughout the Galley tour they had various fruit carvings and ice an ice sculpture that we going to be on display during dinner, which also made for some interesting pictures.

The rest of the day was spent resting and relaxing, which included eating more meals, working out, and some time in the hot tub.  We also managed to catch an impressive “British Invasion” show, a musical act paying tribute to all of the British artists over the last 60 years.  We ended the night with a New Years-style balloon drop in the atrium.

While these days at sea don’t make for interesting blogging material, we definitely have appreciated the forced relaxation that these days offer.  Sometimes it’s nice to not have things to go explore, having nothing better to do than take a nap!

Next Up: A brief stop in Victoria, B.C.

Our third stop and last Alaskan stop on this cruise is Skagway: an old mining town that was prevalent during the Gold Rush days. Today it’s a very quant small town with a year-round population of less than 1,000.  It’s an interesting place that tries to balance trying to preserve it’s history but also trying to make money on the travelers that pass by during the summer months.  The town itself has been well-preserved, with most of the wood buildings and sidewalks still standing today and are protected by the National Parks Service.  The main drag, Broadway, is filled with various shops that feature historical artifacts, Alaskan heritage goods, as well as the common tourist gifts we’ve found in the other port cities.

We managed to cover the shops in about two hours and got a few things along the way.  There were a few buildings of interest, including the Red Onion Saloon, which used to be – you guessed it – a brothel.  Today it’s part museum, part bar and part mock-brothel with the waitresses all wearing outfits from that area.  We took a shuttle to the Gold Rush Brewery, which featured Alaskan beer and these awesome Salmon Sliders.  Like the Red Dog, you could break out a Sharpie and leave your mark on the restaurant, which we did to honor Bethany’s brother Rocky.

I’m going to be honest here: as quant and historical as this town was, it’s really no different than the historical mountain towns that are near us in Colorado.  We may be taking history for granted, and if I had a bigger appreciation for historical architecture I may say differently, but I’m not sure if we appreciated Skagway as much as people who don’t live in Colorado. We really only snapped a dozen pictures or so, and two of them were of the Disney cruise boat that sailed in next to us.

One thing that was really cool: the area where the cruise ship docks.  Over the years, each one of the different ships that docked in Skagway left their mark on the nearby rocks, painting the rocks with their ships name, logo, the year they first arrived, as well as who their captain was at the time.  This extended hundreds of feet down the pier and was fascinating to see.  You have the wonder how the different artists made it to those points on the rocks to make their mark – some of those paintings were pretty high up.

We set sail from Skagway at 5pm and enjoyed a very good dinner before turning in early. I think we were still recovering a bit from our early morning watching Tracy Arm.  We are scheduled to spend the next two days at sea before reaching Victoria, BC on Saturday night.

It was crazy seeing the chunks of ice that sailed by the ship, and just how close some of these came.

We finally got in sight of Sawyer’s Glacier, but due to the level of ice that blocked the passage, our ship was forced to stop with the glacier still a ways away.  To give everyone a view, the ship did a full spin, then made it’s way back out of the passage.

Once we turned around at the glacier it was about 8:30am, so we headed back to bed for a few hours before we would arrive in Juneau at noon.

We were the fourth ship to pull into Juneau at noon. The year-round population of the capital is at about 35,000, so with 4 cruise ships in that day, we increased the population by at least 25%.   Juneau is also the only state capital that cannot be reached by car.  Apparently every road in Juneau eventually has an end, and as a result virtually every good that has reached the city has been barged in.

After arriving, Bethany and I took the walk into town and boarded the shuttle to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is the most-visited glacier in the world.  The glacier observatory had a trail that brought us within a 1/2 mile of the glacier, right next to a beautiful waterfall pouring into Mendenhall Lake.

This was definitely worth the trip. The hike to the falls was only a mile and pretty easy, with the visual payoff being huge.  It’s crazy to think that the Glacier is still so far away, as you can see in the picture, the magnitude of the glacier made it feel a lot closer.

After the bus ride back into town, we stopped back into the Red Dog Saloon, an intricate watering hole that has sawdust all over the floor and one of Wyatt Earp’s guns on the wall.

There was live music, even on a Wednesday afternoon.  Our first singer was a 74-year-old piano player who played a trumpet solo with his right hand while his left hand stayed on the keyboards.  He also was dishing up crude jokes and sharp-witted insults.  Somehow the guitar player following him up also kept up and offered a very entertaining atmosphere.  After knocking back a few drinks at Red Dog, we worked up the courage to try a “Dark Fart”, an incredibly awesome shot that is one part Crown, one part Bailey’s, one part Kailua.

You could spend hours just looking at all the stuff they had on the walls and ceilings, along with an awesome sign that reads: “If our food, drinks and service aren’t up to your standards, please lower your standards!”

Our short time in Juneau came to an end as we walked back to our ship and departed later that evening. Despite only having time to do two things, Juneau definitely showed us a great time!

As we previously mentioned, the death of Bethany’s brother Rocky has been weighing heavily on our hearts.  During our travels we have been looking for opportunities to honor him and reflect on his life.  Our two stops in Juneau gave us two opportunities to do so.

Next Up: Skagway.

After a 1 & 1/2 days at sea, we arrived at our first stop: Ketchikan. Ketchikan calls itself “Alaska’s First City” – not because it’s the first city established in Alaska, but because it’s the first stop for many cruise ships along the Inside Passage.  This is a quant town with a population of 14,000, so on a day like ours where there are three ships in port, the population can double.  We were greeted with weather that was overcast, but nice and cool with no rain.  For the two of us who have experienced a hot summer in Colorado, this was a welcome change.  This was the view that greeted us from Jim & Pam’s balcony window:

Like many of these port cities, a significant part of Ketchikan’s history includes their Red Light District.  In this case, it was Creek Street, a boardwalk passage by the river that contained many brothels.  What is surprising is that the district wasn’t shut down until 1954, and according to the signs along the street, many of the Madame’s lived in those houses until the 90’s.  Many of those houses are now shops and museums.

Further up the boardwalk was the Salmon Ladder.  As the “Welcome” sign reads, Ketchikan is considered the Salmon capital of the world.  One of the coolest attractions is this ladder, which the salmon swim upward to lay their eggs before they die.  It was incredible watching these salmon fight their way up these rapids.  We staked out on the observation deck, with my finger on the camera, trying to capture the moment when the salmon would jump in the air.  Giving up, I decided to take a video to show off the rapids the salmon were trying to climb, when I was rewarded – keep you eyes peeled the last few seconds of this video.

Further up from this rapid, we saw the calmer waters where the salmon were either resting, spawning or dying. The cluster of dark in this photo before was a large group of salmon.

At the top of the hill was the Totem Heritage Center, which houses various totem poles from the 19th century, retrieved from Indian villages.  As you may know, Totem Poles were used to convey stories or share family history. We were awe-struck with the level of craftsmanship used to carve these poles.

They also had other artifacts from the Tsmishians as well, including these intricate masks.  We found the one with hair to be a little scary.

Also as we were walking around town, we found supposedly the best pizza in town… at a Mexican restaurant??  We didn’t stop for lunch, but instead headed back to the ship.

We departed Ketchikan in the mid-afternoon and made our way up to Juneau.  We had an early dinner that night so that we could get on the observation deck to go through Snow Pass, an area known to have waters favorable for whale-watching.  We were in luck and did encounter a few whale sightings, but only was able to catch quick glimpses of their fins while they came up for air.  The reason we didn’t see tail sightings is because the whales are essentially walking to their next destination, so they only have a need to briefly come up for air.  Those big tail sightings occur when they need to come up for a large breath, usually when they are going to feed or rushing to get something.  I’m still glad we got to see what we saw.

The scenery was still breathtaking. In the second picture below you can see just how calm the water was by these islands.

We spent the rest of the evening down in the Wheelhouse bar, a lounge with live music, taking in the breathtaking scenery from the warmth of indoors.

Next Up: Glacier-watching and Juneau!

This is actually my second cruise. I did take one with my school band back in high school, but that was a three-day trip on a smaller cruise ship. This is my first time out at sea for a week, as well as my first time spending time on the Pacific Ocean (although we’re spending most of our time on the Inside Passage of Alaska, which has more sea-like calm waters for most of the way.  Before setting sail, I was pretty nervous about spending this much time on the water.  Back during our honeymoon, we went on a dinner cruise where I spent the majority of the time avoiding sea sickness.  I even managed to feel queasy when I went sea kayaking on the weekend of Rachel & Ken’s wedding.  However, I’ve been pleasantly surprised about the smoothness of this journey, and how good I’ve felt without taking any kind of medicine.

We departed at 4pm on Sunday, the third ship to leave port at approximately the same time.  I got a cool shot of the other ships pulling out of the harbor while we waited.

We were treated to some great views of the Seattle skyline as we departed, and you can see the Space Needle over Bethany and her dad, Jim as we were embarking on our journey.

As we were heading out of Seattle, the ship sailed alongside many sail boats out for some fun.  It was neat seeing the steady stream of boats sail by as we headed northward.

Sunday and Monday were spent at sea, where we spent much of our team eating, exploring the ship, relaxing, sharing stories and sitting in the hot tub (I did also manage to get a work out in).  Trust me – it’s better that there aren’t a lot of pictures of me doing those activities.   There weren’t a lot of photographic opportunities in our first days on the boat, but we were treated to our first “formal night” on the cruise on Monday – where people are asked to wear tuxes, suits or formal dresses (I guess a pants suit was acceptable).  During the course of the evening, we were treated to a champagne waterfall on the promenade.

Bethany also celebrated a birthday on July 29th, so the cruise staff treated her to a cake and a song during our formal dinner.

We wrapped up our first night trying to watch Man on the Ledge “Under the Stars” up on the open deck, but grew too tired and turned in – thus concluding our first full day at sea.

Next Up: Arriving in “Alaska’s first city”.