Major Mike’s Musings

After a great night’s sleep when we got home from the cruise, I took a shower. I was so excited to be in my own shower, I washed my feet three times. You cruisers will relate.¹

1. For you non-cruisers, it’s because the shower is so small, you can’t reach your lower extremities unless you step outside the shower. [↩]

Wallenius Wilhelmsen

We’re home. We got home Christmas Eve at 3:30 am, the flights delayed about two hours because of the weather in the Midwest and Northeast. We had a great time. Sweet Dau Major and her boyfriend, Todd are visiting until the 1st, so I don’t get much time on the computer.

The photo to the left is the ship that went through the Gatun Locks with us. It’s an auto carrier. Coincidentally, it was the same ship that carried my MINI from England to the US back in 2002. Small world.

Thanksgiving Centerpiece by Mrs. Major

This is the centerpiece that Mrs. Major designed for the Thanksgiving 2008 table. Pretty creative, huh?

Tomorrow we leave for our cruise. I marked all the books I intend to read as “currently reading” but only five of them showed up in the sidebar. You can see them all by clicking on any of the books then clicking on the “back to library” link on the resulting page.

We’re almost all packed. We’ve got a couple of bags of pecan bark to deliver to the neighbors, and Mrs. Major is finishing up a batch of buckeyes for Son Major who will stop by tomorrow to wish us well on our trip. We’ll load him down with all of the food that would go bad during our trip.

I’ve just finished reviewing our itinerary, making sure all the flights are supposed to go when we thought they would, checking with the hotel we’ll be staying at tomorrow night. We’re spending the night at a hotel near the Orlando airport where we will leave the car during our cruise. It’s a pretty neat deal. 

I’m really not going to post tomorrow, so I’ll “see” you after Christmas.

Blooming Orchids

Just in time for our cruise. Two of my orchids are in bloom. Fortunately, dendrobiums bloom for many weeks so we’ll be able to enjoy them for a while after we get back.

I haven’t decided yet how many books, if any, I’ll take off my yet to read list and put on my currently reading list. I’ll probably read at least eight books while we’re on the cruise. Mrs. Major has already informed me that I’ll be playing cards with her every day. But with two travel days and seven days at sea (one of which will be transiting the Panama Canal), I’m sure I can find some quality reading time.

It’s only two days and a wake-up until we head out, I may not post until we get back at zero dark thirty on Christmas Eve.

Just in case I don’t post again, Merry Christmas to all of you.

If you hadn’t noticed, I changed the gravatar¹ scheme. Many of you have commented on how your gravitar looked, sick, scary, ugly, so I changed the scheme to monsters. 

If you don’t like that scheme, you can always upload your own gravitar at http://en.gravatar.com/. The account is free and you can upload any small picture you like, associate it with your email address, and it will appear next to your comments at any tech-savvy, gravitar enabled site like Major Mike’s Musings.

1. the little picture that appears next to your comments, aka Globally Recognized Avatars [↩]

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

Yesterday, Black Friday, consumers spent 3%¹ more than last year. All we heard on the news was how horrible for retailers the day would be. That folks were only going to browse. I think Mr. Galbraith is correct. The crowds even trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death in their rush to buy stuff, for crying out loud.

1. UPDATE: latest figures estimate that the increase may be more like 7% [↩]

Spam

Alas, The North Lake Marine Corps League will not be serving Spam burgers today at the flea market.

I received this as an email from one of my nieces. The deal was to fill it out on yourself and send it back and send it to a bunch of other folks.

I usually don’t forward emails, and I usually don’t spend much time filling out surveys like this, but this seemed like fun. I emailed a copy back to my niece and am posting it here…in case you’re interested. (more…)

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)

So what do you think? Is this a combover or a really expensive hat?

I’m 98% recovered. Whew.