WPOS7 Screenshot

So I have been plugging away at creating my OS7 theme.. I previously stated that IE8 sucked completely and I have to take that back.   It doesn’t suck completely.. infact, it sucks a lot less than I realized..

I found that I was using IE8 in “quirks mode” and of course it behaved quirky.  My main question is;  What the hell is the point of quirks mode?!  “Here have our browser in a mode that is completely broken.” I just don’t get it.. I guess quirks mode is basically IE6 as they seem to render similarly.. (I have IE6 on my laptop still for testing purposes..) If that’s the case it couldn’t be better named..

Apparently since I had a misspelling (or something) in my doctype it defaulted to quirksmode.. Once I found that I was in the wrong mode, found out why and fixed it, I started to test my new UI in IE7 and IE8.. It actually works!!  Ever so minor bug in IE7, but its hardly worth mentioning..   IE8 works fine, but a little slow. er.. in fact, a lot slow.. IE8 ain’t zippy at all..

I think that if Microsoft would focus on speeding up IE8 A LOT and quash the remaining bugs, they’d have a viable browser. I fear they have been slack in development because they knew they had the majority of the market share. Since supposedly soon they will be uncoupling the OS and the browser that market share will wax..

With some of the advances that other browsers are pulling, IE is gonna hurt bad!

As to my theme.. It’s still not technically a theme.. At this point I am creating the basic window manager windows object and making all the standard stuff work..  So far so good..

What REALLY amuses me is if you use my theme, with F11 poked (fullscreen).. it looks like you’re in windows 7.  heh At a glance you can’t tell the difference.. *glee*  I want to further that illusion if at all possible..

On the back end, I need to make Wordpress ajaxable in order to pull information.. Supposedly there are already some pretty good wordpress plugins for doing this, but I don’t know that I want to rely on others work..   I’ll likely test a few before making a decision but more than likely I’ll write my own ajax solution which means poking around in the guts of WordPress.. Fun!

Wordpress OS7 Theme

So I have been using Windows 7 for a while now and I really do like it.  It’s no Snow Lepoard but it’s what I have.. heh  Honestly, its not bad at all..  I also have been using wordpress for a goodly while with the same theme “Microblue” a theme I created a year ago.

I’m getting bored with Microblue so its time for a change and I thought it would be fun to combine Windows 7’s look and feel into a wordpress theme.    This lead me down the road that I had started with my jQuery Windows post and posed an important question;

Do I implement a windows manager within a webpage?    God what a pain in the ass..

I could easily just create a static theme that looks sorta like windows 7..  Or.. I could create a much bigger and deeper product which would in essence be an entire windows manager..  In a  web browser..  I’m still pondering the route I want to go..

I’m not sure wordpress can handle some of the stuff I have in mind.. It would require some back end ajax work in order to take advantage of everything I want to do and I’m not sure I want to write that part of this..

The other issue here is that I’m going to be using a LOT of PNG files in order to take advantage of the alpha channel.  So older browsers will have to be waved off..  No matter which way I go this will be true..

I would like to try some effects that I don’t think you can do yet with PNG’s.. I want a PNG to be able to blur the image below it.. but I don’t think you can do that yet..  That will require some research..

I’m going to be working on this project for a bit outside of wordpress to get the basic look working then work on adding it to wordpress.

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Saturday, Jun 20th 2009 – So I have been working on my initial run at the WPOS7 theme.   I find it painfully ironic that IE8 can’t display it.  It works perfectly in Firefox and Safari but epic fail in IE.

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Sunday, Jun 21st 2009 — Well I spent the majority of the weekend working on my OS7 theme.  I have gone the windows manager route and am using this experience to learn more about jQuery.. What’s interesting is since I’m going this route, I’ll be able to apply my knowledge to Build Forge and the new UI that we are going to be creating..

It’s coming along nicely and works perfectly in Safari and Firefox… And to be honest, its working better than I would have thought..  IE8 is still an epic fail.. I mean dear god.. what a piece of crap..   I’m going to have to write some special jQuery stuff just to get IE8 working..  Assuming that doesn’t fail completely too..

I’m also going the route of writing it such that it will activate those windows that are created by the HTML as well as instancing new ones..   My reasoning behind this is for my work.. I am considering the creation of a new UI that would sit on the existing code base..

We’ll see.. I want to make this sucker as functional as possible..

Ork Dip -- Click me!

So I am going to be entering in a 40k tournament in August.  I’ll be entering as an Ork player and have been tuning and playing various lists in preparation..   I have a lot left to do though..  I also have a lot of painting to do because one of the requirements is that you have a fully painted army.  It doesn’t have to be professionally painted but it does have to look generally good, and have more than 3 colors on the model.

That’s fine, except I have a LOT of models to paint and I generally take far too long to paint them.  I can spend 2 hours painting a single dude, and considering I have over 100 dudes (not counting vehicles)  yet to paint.. I have a daunting task ahead of me..

I told my friends that there would be no way in hell I could paint all 100+ models in the time left.. It’s just not possible.. That’s when my buddy got after me to use the “dip” method of painting.. It’s fast and easy, and you don’t have to “color in the lines”..

So tonight I gave it a try..

I knew that if I were going to have full 2000 point 40k Ork army ready for this tourney I’d have to paint each model in about 10 minutes, so that’s what I did.. I gave myself 10 minutes to paint the model. Period. (Not counting the spray prime dry time or dip dry time.)

I went to the store and got some light tan colored spray paint that I’d use as my primer/base coat. It’s pretty light in color but I knew the dip/stain would make it darker so that’s what I went with..

0:30 — I came home and randomly selected one Ork not knowing if this would work worth a damn. I took all of 30 seconds or so to prime the model with the spray paint then let it dry. It took about 30 minutes to fully dry because I got the spray can nozzle a tad too close..

I then went inside to prepare my painting area.. I selected the 5 colors I was going to use, Boltgun metal, Catachan Green, Fortress Grey, Brazen Brass, and Calthan Brown and then got my water, paper towels and brushes ready.

9:30 — Once the primer was dry I sat down and hit the stop watch. I then took 9 minutes to paint the arms green, the helm and gun boltgun metal, some bitz got a bit of brown and some others got some grey while his shoulder piece got brass.. I was going to do some more brown and grey but the clock hit 9 and I put the brush down.

There is more I wanted to do, but I stopped at 9 minutes.

10:00 — I picked up the model and walked out to the garage where I already had the can of minwax stain open and ready to receive.. I used a pair of vice grips to dip the model all the way to the base in the stuff and let it sit in there for about 5 seconds..

I pulled it out and shook it off as hard as I could into the trash can making sure it got all the drips..

That’s it.. Done. You see the results above.  It takes about 6 hours to get to the point where you can handle the model, and then a full 12 hours to make it so it’s not tacky (or so I’m told.. I haven’t passed the 12 hour mark)..

A couple things yet to do is to spray paint a matte or satin varnish to dull some of that shine, paint the base black again (Should have done this prior to gluing to base.. lesson learned), and finally flock the base..

It’s not perfect by any stretch but as a 10 minute paint job it’s not half bad.   I’m going to refine my process and paint like 10 at a time to speed things up but this is definately my process.. here it is.. this is how I’m doing it..

I’ll post more pictures once I get more.   I’ll also post a left and right comparison of a model I actually took 2 hours painting versus one that is dipped just to see..

30 Minute Loota

Additional:

So after some game play I decided I needed some Loota’s in my army. Here is one I painted using my new method.. It takes a bit longer in total due to all the bitz that are there to paint. So probably 30 minutes total went into this one. I haven’t flocked the base or matted the model yet so its a tad shiney still.. Either way this method works very well here too..

Latest Render

While my Tau Hammerhead is coming along nicely, I needed a bit of a break from it.  I decided to model something from either the Imperial Guard or Space Marines codex.  I don’t have either army, but I do have a Leman Russ that I was planning on turning into an Ork battlewagon..  So it seemed like the natural choice for modeling..

The model is still in pieces which as actually a boon because I can hold and model each part individually and then assemble them.. or at least I hope its that easy..

As with the hammerhead I plan to show a render of the model for every 4 hours (or so) of work.

Note: This post will be updated a lot as I work on this model.

Leman Russ 01

First 4 hours — Believe it or not, that’s 4-ish hours there.   I wanted to take advantage of instancing for all the bolts and rivots as well as the spiral lathe for the springs.. took me a bit to figure that out..

What’s nice is, there is actually only ONE rivet and only ONE bolt assembly.  They are then instanced into the 8 bolt assemblies, and 90+ rivets you see here.  This means all I have to do is adjust one rivet, or one bolt and the others will match.. Or more importantly, texture only one and you texture them all.. Yay!

This mesh promises to be WAY cleaner than the Hammerhead mesh which at this point I’m embarrassed by..

Leman Russ 02

+2 hours — Okay I have added more features and details to the side of the hull.. The two side doors are open to the world now, as well as adding various other bits and greebles.  I’ll add doors later, as well as adding the sponson which can be used or not depending on the vehicle I actually want..  (Lots of different vehicles in the 40k universe use the same basic body.)  I have also started working on the track which I have to figure out how to correctly shape itself around the hull.  I know Modo has an ability to do this, but not sure what it is..  I may have to poke around on the forums to figure this one out..  (Note: the track is currently WAY undersized, I realizes this and it will be fixed)  All in all it’s going wonderfully.. I’m enjoying this quite a bit!

Leman Russ 03

+6 hours — or maybe even a bit more..  So for this addition you’ll note that there hasn’t been a huge addition.. but it took a long time..  That’s due to the tank track.. Holy crap I want to club a baby seal..  It took me ages to get the tracks in place and working.

I ended up having to do the entire thing by hand since the path instancing tool in modo just doesn’t work as advertised.  I followed all the tutorials I could find and none of them work.  It’s a really simple process too, but the results were completely wrong each time, OR the application would just crash..   It really irritated me to no end..

But at this point the tracks are in place and ready to go, as well as having the room to put in the roadwheels and what not behind the scenes, which I will do next.   Once I get those in place I can start adding the main body..  That or working on a sponson.. not sure which yet

Leman Russ 04

+3 hours — I finally completed the back/inner side of the tread housing.. The sides of the tank are pretty much complete at this time, sans the sponsons and texturing.. *gleee*   The more I look at the track the more I think they are a bit too thin.. I’ll have to beef them up a tad, but in order to do that I have to redo them all the way around the housing.. Ugh.. I’ll get to it..

I have instanced and mirrored the main side in order to see an opposite.. I’m trying to figure out about how far apart they should be for the tank innards to fit..   This render also signals a slightly different render style from the others.. I’m adding in the ambient occlusion data for the render in order to give the image a more gritty film look..  Fun fun!

Leman Russ 05

+2 hours — Roughing out the hull!  Well I have the basics of the hull roughed out..  Now for the painful process of multiplying every single edge around the entire thing to soften them a tad.  I typically would edge bevel everything but that’s just about the worst way to actually do it apparently..

Once I get the hull to subdivide the way I want/need it to such that it maintains the shape while providing clean lines I’ll start working on the hull mounted cannon.   I haven’t forgotten the sponsons or the track fix.. I’ll get to it.

At this point I’m not sure the best way to go about subpatching the hull.. I have tried a couple things and the results were never very good..  I’m going to post on the Luxology forums and see if they have any advice.. most the folks over there are stupidly gifted when it comes to this stuff.. someone is bound to have an idea..

Leman Russ 06

+5 hours — I spent today touching up a lot of things with the russ.. The tracks are looking a lot better now.  I thickened them up quite a bit, though you really can’t tell that via the render.. they are actually twice as thick as they were before..

I haven’t quite decided what I want to do about the hull with regards to rounding and what not.. My traditional method is to edge bevel instead of subpatch.. but subpatching looks way way better..  So I dunno..  I’ll probably just bevel this one too.. Either way, while thinking about that I went ahead and created the sponson and the bolter.. It’s just about 100% accurate, but looks kinda plain.. There aren’t a lot of details on there.. I might have to spice it up a tad..

I did create the 40k Imperial Aquila though.. I figured if I’m gonna have it on there its not going to just be a texture.. It’s gonna be modeled onto the tank.  I’ll have to put it in a bunch of places so I figured I might as well do a good job of it..   Came out quite nicely I think..

40k Imperial Aquila 01

+2 hours — I have completely redone the 40k Imperial Aquila.  The version that is in the 06 picture is good, and actually better looking than the one on the model, but my buddy who knows about these things explained how it was still wrong. So with that I completely redid it using an even more accurate picture to make the model.

I went WAY over board heh.. Each Aquila has over 3k polygons..  That’s more than the entire sponson.. Bolter and all..

Leman Russ SDS Example 01

+6 hours — Thanks to the information provided by folks like Michael Blackboum and Richard Hurrey I am going through and adding the edges necessary to correctly subpatch the body of the Leman Russ..

It’s a lot of work.. basically for each edge becomes roughly 7 edges.. (hard to explain that without pictures.. but just believe me.. )  So its a lot of polygon slicing..  The main point of which will be to give the hull a “real” look.   I could have just beveled all of the hard edges but that starts to a ) fail at certain intersections and b ) look less real as you zoom in.

Consider is this;  Imagine if you will two polygons intersecting at a 90 degree angle.  In reality nothing short of a razor blade has an edge like the one those two polygons have now created..  it just doesn’t look real.  By adding a bevel you can make it look more real, but as you zoom into that bevel the polygons become apparent..    But by subdividing as you zoom in the renderer automagically generates more and more polygons.. so it always looks smooth..  That’s a win for me.

Simply put, it looks more “real”..  This has been a trail let me tell you, but now that I understand the concept I’ll be doing all my models this way I think.. The results just look a lot better..

Leman Russ 07

+3 hours — Okay I have finished completely subdividing the hull of the tank and then went on to build the front little window hatch also using subdivison and subpatches.. It will take some getting used to but I can really see the power of doing things this way..

Now that I am not fixing parts of the model I had already created, I can now go on to actually continue creating stuff..  Next I plan to make the front turret..  Fun stuff!

Leman Russ 08

+4 hours — I have added the nose cannon as well as making some modifications to the sponsons bolter..  The new gun is completely subdivided and looks pretty good.  It looks like its too big to me but all my measurements assure me it’s the right size..   Maybe it wont look so out of place once I get the top turret in place.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the back of the tank that I have yet to even start on.. I’ll probably start tackling that next.

Leman Russ 09

+2 hours — I have been putzing around with several things for this update..   Firstly you’ll note a color change in my render.. heh I was goofing off with the light and environment settings to see what I could come up with..   I’ll probably keep playing with that so .. expect some differences..

Further, I roughed out the top turret housing and started working on that.. It doesn’t look to scale to me.. it looks small, but all my measurements say its correct..  *shrug*   I have also started adding detail to the rear of the vehicle.. Lots of work to do there..  I’m gonna begin on hatches and things first..

I have also been designing and pondering a couple animations with this and other 40k elements.. One of them deals with a drop pod which I need to model..

Engine Texture Test

I have been getting back into 3D modeling lately and ran into my old nemesis — texturing!  For whatever reason, I had never really been very good at texturing.  I think a lot of that was due to the way Lightwave did textures.  It used to be extremely painful to texture a model because there wasn’t really a good workflow..

Previously you’d have to export your UV’s and do some texturing work in photoshop or some such, then import them back to the model, then render it… just to test your outcome.   It would take a long time to get something looking even half good.  It just wasn’t easy workflow wise causing me not to want to do it.. thus, I sucked at it..

Wacom Bamboo

Modern day texturing is so much easier it’s not even funny.  Now-a-days software allows you to directly paint on the model!  It’s so awesome seeing your model update in near real time as you paint on it.

It’s so powerful and so much easier to use.  The only thing you really need to use to take full advantage of that is a graphics tablet.   So this weekend, I went out and purchased a “Bamboo” Wacom tablet for $69.  What a steal!  This thing is awesome.   I realize there are several thousand dollar versions of this tablet and ot be honest I’m not sure what they bring to the table.  This tablet is fantastic and does such a great job I can’t imagine needing anything else.

I know they make a super expensive one that is also a monitor so you can see exactly what you’re working on directly on the tablet, sure that’d be dang nice but other than that I don’t know what the really expensive ones give you over the Bamboo.

I’m very happy with it.  Modo 3D by Luxology is the 3D application I’m currently using to paint and model my stuff.  It is designed to use a pen and does so perfectly.  I still haven’t quite mastered UV creation but I’m pretty close I think.  All in all the tablet was a good purchase and I would recommend one to anyone wanting to get that kind of detail out of their work.

The Stormlord Thorin

Yep.. This is a World of Warcraft post.. And one in which I plan to complain to Blizzard about the recent rounds of nurfing.. But firstly let me say that Thorim is dead!  Long live Thorim.

My guild on Whisperwind is now only the second horde guild to kill Thorim in Ulduar.  He’s a VERY tough fight.  I love it.  It took 25 people with their heads on a swivel, 100% focused with zero screw ups to make it happen.  (And even then it took us 17 tries.)

But we killed him and it was glorious!  It was an extremely difficult fight and I’m sure everyone will have a fun time with it..    Until they nurf him, of course.   Blizzard has taken it into their heads to nurf all the hard content and I wish they would STOP!

Blizzard, stop nurfing the stuff in Ulduar.  As hard as he is, he’s doable. Don’t change it!  Let us scale to the instance instead of bringing the instance down to us.. He’s just right the way he is!

He’s doable..  Just as Ignis, Razorscale and Deconstructor were doable before you nurfed the hell out of them.  (Okay, Ignis had a bug with people in the pot.. fine that sucked, but he was still doable.. )

They were hard mobs that people bitched about so you caved and made them a cake walk!  You even nurfed the Ignis trash mobs to the point of pointlessness.. I mean why even have them in there?  They werent that hard to begin with..  Why are you doing this?!

I read that some guilds couldn’t even get to Ignis cause the trash was wiping them, then the issue is with the guild — not the mobs.  Stop caving..

Don’t  you understand that we don’t want another Naxx?  I mean seriously my guild can do 25man Naxx in a little over 2 hours.. it’s boring.. I’m sure really top notch guild can do it faster..  It’s not fun when you have the content on farm status so quickly.

After the first round of nurfs, you guys went on and nurfed the Antechamber to the point where we one shot everyone.  Auriaya still takes some finesse but she’s cake compared to how she first was.. Kologarn and Iron councel are a joke..

I fully expect you to nurf the keepers next.  Freya isn’t hard, again just a finesse issue but I’m sure you will reduce her spawns..   We usually drop her on the second or third attempt.  Good times!

Hodir we one shotted the first time we went in there, he’s stupidly easy yet I bet he’ll get nurfed even more.. We don’t even use frost resist gear.. sheesh.. this guy needs a buff not a nurf..

We haven’t tried 25 man Mimiron yet.. I’m told that it’s another gloriously difficult fight.. *gleee*  I just hope we can get in there and give it a go before he gets pummeled with the nurf bat..

Long story short.. stop making the content easier.  It’s supposed to be hard!  What’s the point of making top notch content only to then nurf it so that anyone can do it.. Believe it or not it’s going to drive players away from your game.. and you don’t want that..  Let the players scale up their performance to the point where they can do the content.. Don’t bring the content down to players who have no business being in there..

Whack a Seal!

So, on Saturday the 11th of April, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) held an awareness gathering in World of Warcraft where they killed four quest NPC’s as a form of protest for the unethical killing of seals in real life.  Some how it got into their heads that by focusing on protecting the digital seals in a game and instead performing the far more ethical act of killing the would-be digital seal killers, it would bring awareness to the unethical killing of real world seals.

So.. let me sum up for those who can’t put this together — what they are saying is..   Kill the people who are killing the seals.

Are you fucking kidding me?!  How is that more ethical?  They honestly are saying that it’s more ethical to kill humans than it is to kill seals?  That’s their stance?  Really?

I’ve always heard PETA was a bunch of psycho douche bags but damn.. But to their point; Apparently a lot of seals (between 100k and 400k this year depending on which website you go to..) are killed annually by the Canadian government..  Or rather, their killing is sanctioned by the Canadian government..

PETA’s website goes on a very graphic tirade about how awful it is and how each seal “must look on as fellow pups are bludgeoned to death before meeting the same bloody fate.  The anguish that a mother seal feels as she watches her baby being beaten to death just a few feet away from her is horrifying and can be heard in her desperate cries…” Wow.. Nice spin.. Complete bullshit, but a good spin all the same..

In doing research for this, I have watched a lot of videos.. And in each video I have seen it has had some lone guy run up on an individual seemingly adult seal that was alone on an ice flow and repeatedly whack the seal in the head with a hammer on a pole.. Kinda gruesome true.. But PETA paints this as mass murder where all the baby seals are gathered up and executed Auschwitz style.. That simply isn’t true..

Firstly, I have no idea why the Canadian government has an annual seal season.  And from what I have read, no one else knows either..   There must be a reason, and despite what PETA thinks its not because they are all evil evil communists who hate children..  Thats how PETA paints it, but again.. not true..  That’s propaganda..  There must be a reason it’s legal — what is it?

Apparently I’m willing to look at it a bit more objectively than PETA is;  It could be just like the deer season here in the US.. I simply don’t know.  All the websites I have found on the issue are one manner of propaganda or another..  Finding hard facts is near impossible at this point because of all the inflammatory crap being flung back and forth..

The simple truth of it is;  If it’s legal, then it’s legal. You can be offended by it, but that doesn’t mean that its against the law.  You can delve all you want into the morality pool and every one of us will come up with a different opinion on the subject.. But from a legal stand point, you can’t say that killing seals is illegal.  It’s not illegal.

I personally think the primary difference is that seals are endearing..  It’s sort of the same difference between a rat and a squirrel.. Squirrels are cute, we love them!  Rats are ugly, we hate them!  When the simple fact is they are both rodents that carry diseases, only one has a fluffy tail and lives outside which people find endearing thus squirrels are thought of more positively..  Seals are cute and as such we are offended by their early demise..

I’m more than willing to concede that there are baby seals being killed out there on the ice flows.. Probably more than a few.. but to say that all the seals being killed are just cute cuddly wuddly baby seals is pure propaganda plain and simple.  Most folks that look at a picture of a seal have no idea how old that seal is..  Hell they all look like babies right?  I’m not 100% sure, but I thought seals out on the ice flow alone (as in the videos I saw) are adults, no baby seal would go out that far alone..

Here is one of the videos I saw of seals being clubbed to death, and yes — it’s pretty gruesome.   But I would say it’s no more gruesome than a deer getting shot during the annual hunting seasons here in the US..  How is that different?  It’s an animal being killed by a superior species..  Just like a lion that chases down and kills a gazelle for it’s meat..

I eat meat.. The steak, pork and chicken that I consume also was once alive.. and is now dead..  And according to PETA I’m a murderer for it?  Really?  It’s been going on for a long time.. And my maxillary permanent canine teeth sort of imply it was meant to go on.. So why does PETA think that this sort of activity is so bad?

They would answer that a lion wouldn’t kill for sport, or wouldn’t kill for just the skin.   To which I say; Sure they would and do all the time.   Dolphins are one of the more intelligent animals on the planet and they kill for sport..

Frankly, this is just propaganda by an organization that has no power.. You see,  PETA wants to bring your attention to what they call, an injustice.. Something they call unethical..

And since PETA has the word “Ethical” right in their name they must be good right?  The words right there, therefore they must be the ones doing the ethical and moral thing..  So if you disagree with them, then you’re unethical!!  You bastard.

The problem is, it doesn’t work that way.  Ethics are a system of moral principles governing an individual or group.  Those principles are discussed and agreed upon by that group.  No one individual or group can decide what those principles are for another individual or group.  Meaning, what’s ethical here.. may not apply there.  What’s moral and ethical for you may not apply to me..

In this situation you have PETA trying to tell another group what’s ethically right, and if you don’t do what they think is right you’re wrong.   PETA is trying to control you and your way of thinking..   And they think you should DIE for disagreeing.  That’s right..  Remember from above, they think the people killing the seals, should be killed…

Frankly, I find that PETA is nothing more than a terrorist group (or even religious cult) that is extremely vocal and is very good at crafting sensational, vivid, graphic and even horrific language and imagery in order to manipulate people.  They do it in such a way as to make you feel bad if you don’t side with them, and if that doesn’t work they will intimidate, harass and threaten you..

That alone to me seems unethical.

The issue here is, like so many other animals in the animal kingdom (and yes, WE are animals) we tend to think animals are good to eat.. Most PETA members are vegetarians and as such have a moral stance that killing an animal of any kind for any reason is wrong.  Oh and they’ll tell ya about it too.. We have differing ethical stances when it comes to the killing of animals.

I’m all for not killing critters if we can get around it.. but sometimes it’s necessary.. Like for food or for other products that we deem necessary.. Where as PETA paints this picture that we are torturing animals for our food.. Or that these seals are being tortured to death for their fur.  I haven’t seen that.  I have yet to see where they hook up the car battery to the seals teets just to cause pain.  Or where they derive some sick pleasure from slapping a seal around..

In every video I have seen, they kill the animal in very short order.. It may take two or three whacks but its over and done fairly quickly..  How is that torture?   Torture to me implies the repeated infliction of pain over a period of time from which you derive some sick sadistic pleasure..  Walking up to an animal and bludgeoning it to death with intent to use it for one purpose or another, isn’t torture..

I have seen horrific and evil video of animals being tortured.. (Just watch the PETA website..)  Yeah that shits awful.. But that stuff is illegal and there are laws in place to stop it.   The seal hunts are legal, and not in the same category despite what you think.

Look, I love animals.. I do.. I always have..  And I think the torture of animals is wrong and the people doing it should go away for ever.. But it’s pretty clear to me that PETA loves animals more than Humans..

PETA will try to tell you that animals are todays “slaves” and that what happens to a cow or a chicken today is morally identical to what happened to the Jewish people in the holocaust..  And that shit is fucking offensive as hell.. And I’m not Jewish!!  To actually trivialize the holocaust like that is just unimaginable and goes a very long way to prove that anyone who belongs to PETA has no basis in reality.

Hrmm.. maybe they belong in a game?

2009 Penny Front

So I wasn’t terribly shocked to find a brand new penny in my hand upon receiving change for the breakfast I purchased this morning..  I was however shocked to see that they have been completely redesigned!!

Apparently 2009 was the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and as such four new designs were commissioned and released to celebrate that as well as the 100th anniversary of the production of the Lincoln cent (penny).

I have to think that Lincoln would be embarrassed…

click to enlarge

The front design is the same as it was, but the reverse has 4 new designs apparently featuring four major aspects of President Lincoln’s life;  his birth and childhood in Kentucky, his formative years in Indiana, his professional life in Illinois, and his Presidency in Washington, D.C as seen to the left.

I’m okay with the first two.. The log cabin and the rail-splitter designs are nice and seem appropriate to me.  The last two are also nice designs but I question how those images were more relevant to Lincolns life than say; the Emancipation Proclamation, or the Lincoln-Doublas Debates on the topic of Slavery. or something related to the Gettysburg Address maybe? etc..

I’m just not sure that a picture of the Capitol cluttered by scaffolding was a good salute to Lincoln’s life.

But most importantly;  Dear god, WHY?! … why do this?  Amid all the government bailouts, corporate bankruptcies, and an economic down turn to rival that of the great depression, how much money did the government blow to redesign those coins?

No one forges the penny so why redesign it?  Did the old designs some how fail?  Not only that but these 4 new designs during 2009 are mandated to be further redesigned again in 2010 to a permanent design.

Is this some effort to instill value in an almost valueless coin? I’m sure all the numismatists will appreciate it.. Or maybe it’s bizarro feel good tactic by the government to cheer us up?  I dunno..  But the amount of money that was bound to be put into this redesign process seems silly.  Especially in an age where the penny seems largely pointless.  Most people don’t stop to pick pennies up off the ground..

To be fair; No they aren’t worthless.. think how much everything would go up if you had to round up to the nearest nickel.. but still..

At one point (prior to 1982) all US pennies actually had a metal content that at market value was worth more than face value of the coin. Now however, all pennies are 97.5% zinc with only 2.5% being copper (coated over the zinc) and as such have an intrinsic value of $0.0028… So $28% of face value..

According to the US Mint the costs to producing and shipping already designed one-cent (penny) coins during the fiscal year 2007 was $0.0167 per cent.[ref]  That doesn’t count the cost of redesign..

$0.0167 to produce a coin worth $0.0028, with a face value of only $0.01..    Dear god no wonder we are in debt..

So, 5 billion pennies in circulation worth $50 million dollars, cost the government $70 million to make..  For those of you who are really bad at math, thats $20 million dollars wasted.. I have to think even Lincoln would be ashamed..

Voyager of the Seas

So I have been asked repeatedly when am I going to get these photos posted.. I have to apologize that its taken this long..  My only real excuse is that I’m lazy..  I could lie and say it took a while to get them developed, but it’s a digital camera.. In reality the thing that took the longest was having a clear way to display them.  The lightbox made that happen, then it was just a matter of typing this stuff out. It’s a long post.. but then it was 7 days of fun so.. lots to talk about..

Below I give a day by day break down of what the photos are as well as where / what we were doing at the time of the photo.  Each heading will have all the photos for that section and some of them will be explained further within the body of the text giving the same link again.

TODO: I have yet to get all the photos off Melissa’s camera as well as getting photos from Calvin and Karen — a few more pictures to come..

Day One — Boarding of the ship

This was a long process.. There were a lot of folks crammed into a fairly large building all trying to get on the ship.  What I didn’t realize until we came back was that on the opposite side of the building there were a lot of people trying to get off the ship.  This is a 24 hour, 7 day a week operation that goes non-stop.   The ship is never empty.  I guess in order to turn a profit it has to go go go!  Looking back I kinda felt it could do with some streamlining.. Now I think they did an amazing job all things considered.

We drove to the dock, turned over our luggage, went and parked the car, rode the bus to the ship, entered the terminal, passed customs (or whatever it is) and boarded the ship.  It all took probably 2 hours, but it went fairly quickly.

In port — Houston Ship Channel :: 001 002 003 004
Upon getting in the cabin, I walked out on our balcony and started snapping off a couple pics of the scenery around us.. Not so pretty..

In port — The Cabin :: 005 006 007
The cabin itself upon entering seemed incredibly small — and in fact was extremely tiny.. But to be honest, there was actually plenty of room considering we only slept there..  The bathroom (007) was not a lot bigger than an airplane lavatory, but served its purposes nicely.. Though you pretty much had to go out side to change your mind.

I feel safer already...

In port — The illusion of safety :: 008 009
Before we leave port they have all five thousand people (or however many there are.. it’s near 5k) don life jackets and go to their assigned safety area in order to evacuate the ship in case of an emergency..  It was just a drill, and a complete sham.. Everyone was moving in this calm cool demeanor like nothing was going on — this is just another fun excursion..  All of us lined up in our assigned area behind our given life boat.. Each boat was expected to hold about 100 people.. It was about then I realize that there was NO WAY IN HELL those boats would hold as many people as were standing next to them..  That’s when I considered that in real life there would be mass panic and half those folks wouldn’t get to the boat due to trample damage.. thus making room in the life boat..

Under way — Houston Ship Channel :: 010 011 012 013 016 018
It didn’t get much prettier as we got under way but atleast the sky was starting to clear up.  As the ship started it’s azipod impellers it churned up a lot of the muck and crap in the water (012 016).. anyone up for a swim? (013)  I’m sure the birds wouldn’t mind. Or the sharks!! (017 018) (Okay those are actually dolphin or porpoise..)

Under way — Ships in the Channel :: 020 021 022 023 024
As we headed out of the shipping channel heading into the gulf, we got to see a LOT of ships.. The funny thing is, my days playing submarine games made me think of how I would go about sinking these ships.. heh  Still it was neat to see these massive ships go about their business..

Under way — Leaving the Channel :: 025 026 027 028 029 030 031 032
Looking back at Houston the shoreline actually looks kind of pretty.. It’s nasty as ever but looks nice from this distance.. Nothing to do at this point but enjoy the cruise and look to the open ocean (032).

Under way — Harbor master departs :: 033 034 035
So there was a little ship following us the whole way out of port which I assumed was the harbor guide.. What I didn’t know was that we actually had a person on board that would have to get off and go back to Houston.  Once we got into the gulf, and I mean a good way out, the little ship ran itself right up against our hull and the guy got off..  it was interesting to watch but I wasn’t able to get any good shots of it.. It was dark so I had to fiddle with the camera settings to get what I got.. Sorry for the poor quality of these.

Day Two — On the way to Cozumel, Mexico

We didn’t do a lot on day one but wander around the ship getting to know our surroundings.  We met our dinner companions and generally had a fun time.  It was a quiet and relaxing day.

Under way — Holy crap the water is blue?! :: 036 037 038 039
So.. you wouldn’t know it to stare at the water in Houston, but the water out in the ocean is actually blue!! (037)  I mean blue like they poured food coloring in it.. heh  I woke up to a very blue ocean outside (038) and an absolutely beautiful day (039).  We were very lucky in that our entire trip consisted of days like this. It didn’t get overcast until the very last day back.

Under way — Wandering around the ship :: 040
Holy crap this boat was huge..  To give you some idea, it’s a 15 story building at sea.  It had 15 stories ABOVE the water line, and 3 or 4 below.  It had a HUGE theatre in the center, an ice rink, and most importantly a strip mall (040) that runs down the center of the boat..

Under way — The occasional passer-by ::  043
I thought it was interesting that as vast as the ocean and the gulf is, we still occasionally saw other ships.. That tells me that either everyone travels along the same routes, or the ocean is full!

Magestic Sunsets

Under way — Sunsets :: 041 042 044 045
Something I had looked forward to was being able to stand on the top of the ship and look around and see no land.  I wanted to see the ocean in all it’s glory.. Holy crap.. It was absolutely beautiful out there..  The sunsets were amazing..

I don’t think I’m good enough of a photographer to truly bring the beauty of these sunsets to film.. I also didn’t really have the camera to pull it off.. but it was nice let me tell ya..

Over all this was a very good day.  Melissa and I got to enjoy one another’s company on a ship that while full, didn’t seem overly crowded.  When we wanted to be alone we would retire to the cabin.. other wise we were just wandering around.

There was ample to do in that each day they booked all manner of on board activities.. We didn’t do too many of those mostly because we wanted to do our own thing..

Mexico!

Day Three — Cozumel, Mexico

So on day three, we pulled into Cozumel.

In port — These ships are massive :: 040 046 047
It’s hard to describe how large these ships are.. And in fact when you’re on them you tend to compare them to the vastness of the ocean which makes them seem some what smallish.. but let me tell ya, they are anything but small.. As I pointed out above while wandering around, this ship is so big it has a street running down the center of it (040).. but what I think really shows it’s size is when you see people standing next to it (046)..  There was a Carnival Cruise ship docked near by and its not anywhere near as big (047).  You can’t tell really by the photo but it’s smaller in every way.

She's so cute..(if a tad cold)

Excursion — “Scooty puff jr. sucks!!” ::
Most of these photos are poor quality due to the crappy underwater camera I got. Sorry about that.
E01 E02 E03 E04 E05 E06 E07 E08 E09 E10 E11 E12 E13 E14 E15 E16 E17 E18 E19 E20 E21 E22 E23 E24 E25 E26 E27
We signed up for, and went on an under water excursion in Cozumel during which each participant is given an underwater scooter to tool around on.. The crew of the excursion would scuba up and lead us around a small unimpressive reef while giving us critters to hold and taking our pictures..  It was pretty cool to be honest..  Not to mention down right cold..  The water was probably 68°F at best..  Which for me isn’t too bad, but poor Melissa was shivering like a chihuahua.. She was basically one big goose bump..  The scooters were painfully slow.. They had ZERO power, and at one point we had divers behind us pushing hehe.. Thus, the reference to Futurama.. We called those things “Scooty Puff Juniors” for the rest of the trip..  The crew (E27) were really very nice and we didn’t get very far from the ships (E26).. All in all it was a lot of fun, I very much enjoyed it even though the photos don’t really tell much of a story.

In port — Wandering around Cozumel :: 048 049 050 051 052 053
So after our underwater fun, Melissa and I with my friends Calvin and Karen ended up wandering around Cozumel for the rest of the day.  We had a pretty good time, I mean we weren’t mugged or anything.. but all in all I was fairly underwhelmed by Cozumel.  We ended up doing a LOT of walking and were quite tired by the end of it all (053)..  It was a long day..

In port — Pictures of the coast :: 054 055 056 057 058 063 064
After our day of swimming, and walking we were pretty tired.. Melissa took a nap and I wandered around the top of the ship taking pictures as the ship pushed off from the pier.  This picture better shows how much smaller the Carnival ships are compared to the Royal Carribbean ships. (058) I’m not even at the highest point on the ship and you can see I’m above the top of the other ship.

Under way — Please don’t feed the humans :: 059 060
One thing the I thought was very neat was that you could go and watch the captain and crew pilot the ship.  There was a viewing area above and behind them where you could watch.. and that was awesome.. I took a picture of it and was shocked that it sorta came out. (059) You can’t see all the cool stuff on the screens but.. so be it..  Oh and I found it funny as hell that they had signs posted all over to “Please do not knock on glass.” (060)

Some God Rays

Under way — Everyone!! Off the island! :: 061 062
I found it interesting that each port we visited had all the ships coming and going at the same time..  This seemed odd to me as one would think it would put a strain on everyone involved.. but.. *shrug* that’s how they did it..

Under way — A dog in our room?! :: 065
After dinner on the third day we arrived back in our cabin (they called it a suite!) to find a dog on the bed!!!  This is one of those cute things they do for everyone each night.  I’m pretty sure they would have done it on the previous nights but we had the “do not disturb” sign on the door.

Day Four — Grand Cayman

So I’m going to be a bit biased here.. Grand Cayman was by far my favorite stop..  But it’s TINY!  Grand Cayman was basically a dot on the map.. The whole of Grand Cayman is an island that spans a colossal 76 square miles (Austin, Texas occupies 272 square miles) and it had more to do and more things to see than any of the other stops.   There were so many excursions it was hard to choose just one.  And it was such a beautiful place I could see myself living there.. (That’s saying something for me.. )

Under way — On our way to tender :: 066 067 068 069 070
Grand Cayman is so small they don’t have piers or docks for ships as large as the one we were on.  (or smaller ones)  Instead you have to get on board a smaller boat called a tender (068) that brings you into shore. (069)  And man do they ever crowd folks on these boats.. (070)   This aint the US where those pesky safety regulations get in the way. hehe  I didn’t feel unsafe though.

Tendered — Shopping! .. er.. okay maybe not :: [No pictures of my shame]
Instead, what I felt like was a complete ass..  When you get on board the ship they issue everyone a card they call the “Sea Pass” with which you do everything.   It becomes your passport proxy as well as your credit card.  This one card allows you to do everything..  But of course it only works aboard ship.   I had gotten so used to just whipping out my sea pass that I completely forgot to bring my wallet to shore..   This meant we couldn’t purchase anything while in Grand Cayman..

I felt very very bad.  I was generally pissy for a couple hours because I know there were things Melissa wanted and that I couldn’t provide for her because my dumb ass had forgotten the money..  I’m not sure how to convey to you the frustration I felt at myself over this..  I was very apologetic to Melissa and she said she understood, but I could tell she was disappointed.

I promised to bring her back to Grand Cayman one day so she could do the shopping she wanted to do =)   Hell there was things I wanted too!

Excursion — Dolphins … and Birds?! :: 071 072 073 084 085
As I had stated above, there were a lot of excursions to choose from and due to time and the nature of these cruises we really could only do one per stop.  Melissa and I decided to do a “Swim with the dolphins” adventure type thing without Calvin and Karen.  They went on their own fun (and proceeded to get horribly sunburned..)  We got on a bus and were taken across the island to the dolphin facility.  The parking area was on the opposite side of a foresty area that we had to walk through and it was chalk full of exotic birds..  They were very friendly birds and would happily let us take pictures..

A very nice day..

Excursion — The facility :: 074 075 076 077 078 079 080 081 082 083
The facility itself was a very nice and new building with it’s own little cove that housed 4 or 5 dolphins over looking the ocean.  The weather was nice, it was 75 or so.. which meant Melissa was cold (076).. (And hates it when I take pictures of her..)  But I mean seriously, this place was gorgeous (077) who wouldn’t want to live someplace that looks like this?! (078) The scenery is just fantastic =) (081)

Excursion — The dolphins :: [No pictures available]
I don’t have any pictures of us in the water or with the dolphins.  They refused to let me take those photos, or to take the under water camera in the water with the dolphins.  Their excuse was they didn’t want us to hurt the animals, but I know the real reason was they wanted to sell us their pictures of us instead..  And of course since I was still suffering my shame from above, we couldn’t purchase any..  So.. you’ll have to trust me here.. there were lots of dolphins and it was fun.  I only wished there weren’t as many people..  I kind of felt a tad rushed due to the size of the group.. but what can you do.. it was a good experience.

Friendly critter..

Excursion — Oh dear god, please don’t hurt me :: 086 087 088 089
On the way back to the bus after the excursion I wandered through the exotic bird area and and made a new friend! (086)  This bird was extremely friendly.. (087) Maybe too friendly.. (088)  That bird tongued me!  (089)  And sat on my shoulder nibbling my ear.. I say nibbling, I mean licking.. if that bird had “nibbled” she would have ripped my ear right off.. that beak was sharp as hell..

Tendered — Tired :: 090
Yet again after a long day ashore and playing with the animals, we were pretty zonked.. It’s odd to me that you can get as tired as we got each time considering how long these excursions were.. I mean we probably spent 5 or 6 hours doing each one and usually that was enough to do us in..  Naps for everyone!

Wow...

Tendered — Sunsets .. again :: 091 093
Did I mention how pretty it was there?  Even the sun looked better.. Compare these sunsets to those in Cozumel.. Yeah these win..

Tendered — Money! :: 096 094
There is a lot of money in the Cayman Islands.  You can tell by the property and houses people have, the cars they drive, the boats they own and the fact that every 30 feet is a bank. And I mean a big bank.  There were quite a few hovels too but most of the island had nice stuff on it.  This one yacht was roughly half a mile away (096) and looked nice (94) (Though the picture is terrible.. digital zoom sucks.)  It was just the right size to be someones personal home at sea..  Oh to dream..

Under way — Leaving Cayman :: 095 097 101
As the sun went down everyone gathered back on board and we prepared to leave..  We returned to the room after a nice tiring day to find a stingray on the bed.. (101) We did the dinner thing with our friends, and then rounded out the night with a nice long sleep..

Jamaica

Day Five — Jamaica

On day five we woke up to find ourselves already in port.  They hadn’t cast down the moring lines yet, but we were basically completely parked.  I didn’t care for Jamaica as much as I did Grand Cayman, though it was better than Cozumel.

In port — Ya man! :: 102 103 104 105
It was a beautiful day in Jamaica and the view from our balcony was a very nice one.

In Port — To the excursion! :: 106 107 108
Jamaica was really very nice.. The weather was beautiful and there were boats everywhere..  We made our way to the back of our ship (108) and boarded our excursion boat.

Excursion — Cruise and Snorkel fun :: 109 111 112 134
Jamaica was nice and the people were friendly, but I was fairly unimpressed by the excursion selection.  It seemed all the excursions were some form of “let us take you to this shopping area”.. We chose a cruise and snorkel type excursion with intent to enjoy the cruise, and get wet in which we didn’t feel pressured to buy anything. They did have a para-sailing thing that I thought would be fun as hell but Melissa vetoed that cause she has an issue with heights.. Drat..

Excursion — Beach :: 113 115 116 117 E29 E30 E31
We cruised across the bay to a beach area and unloaded half the passengers.  Some folks just wanted to go hang out at the beach, and I have to admit I’m sorry we didn’t.  I think at this point we were a bit “fun”‘d out and a nice relax on the beach would have gone over well..  Live and learn.  It was a very pretty beach with nice scenery (116) and ample to drink (117)..

Excursion — Cruise and Sandals Resort & Overcast
We cruised around for a bit and the water started to get quite choppy.. I think I turned a shade of green.. We went past the Sandals beach resort blaring our music.. The Sandals beach resort didn’t look that nice to be honest.. I mean it sorta looked like the beach photos above but not as pretty..  I think much of that had to do with the fact that some clouds had moved in and everything had a grey over cast look to it.. We tooled around for almost an hour..

Wardrobe Malfunction

Excursion — In the water! :: E32 E33
Again, crappy underwater camera.. Sorry.
E34 E35 E36 E37 E38 E39
It took a while to find a spot for us to swim but eventually we stopped and they got equipment out for us to use in the water.  Now prior to this I thought the equipment in Mexico was bad.. Wow.. the stuff they gave us to use was complete crap.  Everything was on it’s last leg.  And we didn’t get to swim for very long.  I wasn’t very happy with this excursion and was glad when it was over.

Excursion — Margaritaville :: 123 124 125
Eventually they headed back towards the ship (123) and we stopped at Margaritaville (124), and yes there is a Burger King right next door (125).. This was nice actually we found a table and sat down to enjoy the music and atmosphere while drinking possibly one of the biggest and strongest margarita’s I’ve ever had.. It was yummy.. (we got to keep the glasses too..)

Local Jamaican band

Excursion — Local Singers :: 126 127 128 129 130
A small group of singers walked up passed out some home made maraca’s so we could join in the fun! Melissa took too it like a pro.. (126 128)  These guys were great.. And it was a lot of fun watching and hearing them play.  And apparently Melissa likes me (130), there’s no accounting for taste.. =p

Excursion — View from the ‘ville :: 131 132 133
The view from Margaritaville was nice, and you can see we aren’t that far from our ship.  You could watch others having fun on their excursions (134) too.  From here you could see all the para-sailing people, and there were quite a fiew, as well as the jet ski’s which I some how managed to not get a photo of..

Excursion — The return :: 135 136 137 138 139
Eventually it was time to head back to the ship as both of us were tired.. Several hours of sun, surf and drinking will take it out of you..  I turned and snapped one last shot of Margaritaville as we pulled away (136).  The scenery was nice though and the water was very blue (138) the captain and crew of this little boat were a laugh riot and helped make the trip all that much more fun.. I tried to take pictures of them but none of them turned out.. =/

Excursion — Sideways! :: 140 141
Turn monitor sidways — or head if you’re lazy!
We had fun though.. Melissa was tired so I took a snap of her and then she figured out what I was doing.. Doh.. hehe She’s so cute..

In port — Back aboard :: 142 143 149 150 152 153 154 156 157
As the day wound down I wandered around the top of the ship taking pictures of whatever suited my fancy.. There were any number of nice sail boats all over the place.. I mean seriously, its like everyone had one.. (154)

Sunset, Jamaica style!

In port — Sunset!! :: 146 148
I don’t have a good sunset picture from Jamaica.. The mountains blocked the sun setting over the sea and really the clouds moved in to make it kind of dull.. These were the best I could do.. Still I think these are pretty darn nice.  It really was a beautiful place, but I still think Grand Cayman was better.

Day Six/Seven — On the way home

And so back under way we go.. On our way home back through the gulf heading North towards Houston.  Joy.

Under way — The open ocean :: 163 164 165
The weather up to this point was gorgeous and to be honest it never got bad.  But it did get overcast and cloudy the last couple days on our way back to Houston.  Almost like the Gulf was pouting that we were going home.. heh

Under way — Monkey! :: 166
…a Monkey (and some towel animal.. )

Under way — Last formal dinner :: 167
Probably going to be in trouble for that last comment, so.. Whoa.. Hot chick.. (167)  One would think I beat my wife… Some how on this trip she got all bruised up.. You can’t really see it but on her leg was this nasty purple bruise that ran from her ankle half way up her calf..  She got it in Jamaica and it took almost a week to go away..

The best waitress ever — Renata Tadic :: [Pictures coming]
I’d like to take a moment to tell you about our dinners and specifically our waitress.   Each night of the cruise we would gather in one of the 3 huge dining areas in order to sit down for supper.

We had 5 couples at our table the first night.  One couple decided they didn’t want to be friendly and left before Melissa and I arrived.  Which left; Melissa and I, my friends Calvin and Karen, Sam Grien and his wife Rosemary, and their friend Dave {who’s last name I’m not sure I ever got} and his girlfriend Susan.  We were easily the loudest and most obnoxious table on the whole boat.. Good times!

Each night Renata Tadic, a 27ish year old woman from somewhere in Croatia, would greet us with a smile on her face that was completely genuine..  She would recommend food and was generally playful with us..  She was an absolute delightful woman and an excellent waitress..  The thing that I liked the most was that she was friendly and genuine.. Many of the employees on the boat were nice, and pleasant without being genuine.. You could tell that this was a job for them and they couldn’t give a crap about you, where as with Renata you actually felt important.  You could really tell that this person enjoyed what they did and took pride in doing a good job..   In my mind it was a sign of a good waitress and a good person.  (By the end of the cruise Sam was trying to interest her in his son… hehe)

When we got loud and obnoxious, she joined right in!  If you wanted something, she got it!  Even if it was something that was difficult for one reason or another..   Most importantly, she did an excellent job rounding off each day and making sure we left the table happy.

The food was always very good, but the service was what made the experience fantastic and did more to endear me to the cruise lines as a whole.   It’s interesting how one person could have such a dramatic influence over an experience.  Renata made the trip so much more enjoyable than it would have been had we had some waiter who didn’t care.

Thank you, Renata.

The End

And that’s really it for pictures.. There are a couple more on Melissas camera that I need to get to as well as getting some from Calvin and Karen but I’m out.  At this point the cruise was really over as all we did from here was to cruise back to port in Houston over the course of the next couple days and go home..

Some have commented that there aren’t very many pictures of me.. and that’s true.. The primary reason being, I was the one with the camera.  Now Melissa had a nice camera too (nicer than mine actually) but she didn’t take too many photos with it.. *shrug*

I have to be honest, at this point in the cruise, I was kind of done.  We had a great time, but 7 days onboard ship in this tiny cabin, no matter how much other stuff there is to do, is a bit excessive.   I would very much do it again though, and certainly recommend others to do it.. It was totally worth it..

Harman/Kardon Amplifier

Well already the warranty I purchased for my new (used) car has damn near paid for itself..  I was driving into work in the CLK, listening to my tunes when I noticed I needed gas..  I pulled into the gas station and shut off the car to fill it up..

Upon restart, my sound system wasn’t working.  It acted like it was working but for whatever reason no sound was coming out of the speakers..   Something had gone wrong..

I mentioned previously that I didn’t like used cars… this is why.  You never know how badly the car was abused by the previous owner..  With that thought firmly in mind I went ahead and paid an extra $2k to get the additional 4 year bumper to bumper warranty on the car when buying it.

Everything on the car appears to be in perfect shape — like new.  And it could well be that this was just one of those things..  Electronics fail eventually.. but seriously, this is a high quality audio system and it failed after only 2 years?   I have never had a car audio system stop working.. And none of my previous cars had anywhere near the price tag on their systems..

Makes me wonder how loudly the previous guy used to run it.. I did notice that he had the bass and treble sliders pushed all the way to maximum, which in my mind made it sound terrible.. but that’s an aside..

I took the car to the dealership and they sent me away with a little Honda CRV as a loaner car, that I can only describe to you as a good entry level POS with the most grabby brake system I have ever used.   (This car would stop on a dime… at 60mph..)   Apparently if you want the Mercedes loaners you have to setup an appointment.. Walk-ins get a Honda..  I guess it makes a certain amount of sense when you consider you could get 4 or 5 of those CRV’s for the price of one of the Mercedes..

Apparently the Harman Kardon speaker system that comes with my Mercedes as a nice big amplifier in the trunk that goes for a cool $1200..  What?!  Really?!  That’s nuts..   I’m no where near enough of an audiophile to really appreciate that sound system..  I mean it sounds good.. I wont complain.. but $1200 for just the amplifier?  Damn..

Lets hope anything else that wants to break will do so within the next couple of years while it’s still under warranty.. cause I dunno if I could afford replacing a $1200 part without the warranty..   Not often anyway..

Either way, this is the first screw up for the car.. I’m hoping there wont be many more.. I still don’t like used cars for this reason, and this sort of thing only goes to confirm my fears..  Lets hope I didn’t get a lemon..

It sure doesn’t seem like one though..