Monthly Archive for July, 2004
is pretty cool. Lots of green, lots of old ruins, lots of restored buildings, lots of cool
Well, we’re still on the Millenium in the middle of the Mediterranean. It’s 7:30am here, and I’m just waiting for Chris to finish getting ready so we can have breakfast. This will be the first morning we’re going to try breakfast at the main dining hall, called the Metropolitan Restaurant. We’ve had breakfast at the buffet almost every other day because our shore excursions meet before the Metropolitan opens for breakfast.
I’m looking out the windows on both the port and starboard sides of the ship just watching the water move on by, with an occasional wave breaking over itself. The waters have been pretty calm so far. I think the worst it has been was when we were on a tender going to Santorini, where we crossed over the wakes of a couple of boats as we were brought to the port on the island. But even that wasn’t too bad.
Later that day, however, I was kind of weirded out by the cable car ride down the side of the mountain from Santorini to the port to get back to the ship. Now, I know physics well enough to know that it was fine, and that the whole cable car system was probably built with the high winds in mind, too. I was right, the ride down was pretty smooth, and the car rocked very little from the winds. But every time the car went over the pulleys at the supports, I just thought about how I might die on my honeymoon.
Thankfully, the ride was quick, and I am happy to report that I am not posting this from beyond the grave. I am sitting in a decent wooden chair with average upholstering, typing away quite alive, but tired. Chris took some pictures during our cable car ride, capturing one of the donkeys on the stairs (the alternative to the cable car ride). Undoubtedly, the cable car ride was better than the donkey ride (and despite European bathing habits, better smelling, too).
Chris should be here soon, so I’m going to go back to reading Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six until she gets here.
Well, just a quick post or two today. For those of you wondering, the wedding and reception went great. I have heard many compliments from guests, both firsthand and secondhand. A huge thank you goes out to all those who helped and took part in the events.
Chris and I are currently sailing to the Greek Islands. We are on the way to Mykonos, the birthplace of Apollo (according to Chris, anyways). The food is great, the shore excursions have been great (albeit tiring), there are many photos to post, and I don’t know how I’m going to get back to normal life in August (just like the commercials). We had a couples massage this morning at 8am. It was awesome, but of course, I’m sore now in all the places I said I needed tension relieved.
Well, I should get back to the stateroom. I just spent about an hour or two on the top decks reading and sitting in the sun. No, I’m not going to have a great full-body tan. I might have a darker face and arms, though. I may post again, I may not, we’ll see, I guess.
On my drive home yesterday, I spot this old guy along Euclid Road holding a large sign that says something like, "WARNING: GRAPHIC ABORTION PICTURES AHEAD." I think to myself, "Great! More people pushing their views on me whether I agree with them or not." As I get closer to Plum Grove Road, sure enough there are quite a few people at the intersection holding signs with pictures of aborted fetuses and other bloody imagery, as well as some anti-abortion "facts" and other propaganda that I can’t even remember because I’m sure they were meaningless in the fasion with which they were presented. As I looked at the intersection, there were four sets of people holding these signs, one in each direction.
Then I thought, "What a waste standing there trying to convince people that your viewpoint is the only one." It is my opinion that one’s stance on abortion, if strong enough, sure as hell won’t change just because of a few people holding signs along the road. If one’s stance were to change simply because of these signs, then I’m not sure one actually has a stance, per se.
I have often used my little soapbox here to proclaim my stances on topics (none of these instances come to mind, of course, but I’m sure I have). On the topic of abortion, all I will say is that I am pro-choice, meaning having the right to choose, not meaning pro-abortion. If you are also pro-choice, good for you. If you are pro-life, also good for you. If you don’t know where you stand yet, good for you. You are free to make up your own mind as you see fit, but I would suggest doing your own research and reflection on the topic. It is not my place to tell you what to think.
In Mike Cohen’s blog, a post links to Ian Spiers’s blog. From the home page, I find The Artist’s Statement. After hearing about a story from a co-worker about the sad state of our country and the trampling of many of our citizens’ civil liberties under the guise of "protecting us from terrorists," I was even further saddened to read Ian’s tale of his photography assignment gone wrong. What is the country coming to when otherwise innocent activities are suddenly brought under suspicion simply because of the color of one’s skin? Even with the bias of the stories I just recently heard/read taken into account, it is just unbelievable that the fed has enough powers to detain and interrogate anyone they choose in the manner that they do for no reason at all. I realize that these words may damage my application to the NSA, but I don’t care. I’m continually troubled by the turn our country has taken since 9/11. If my criticisms of government take me out of consideration for a government job, so be it. I’d rather stay on the outside, where my freedoms can be more liberally exercised.
I was reading at work again, and I came across a great website for lessons in writing. Nathan Torkington’s blog at O’Reilly linked to Get It Write Online. Just looking at the first tip in one of the post’s comments, I see that two spaces after punctuation at the end of a sentence is no longer deemed necessary with the ubiquity of variable-width fonts.
The same article tells of other typography issues, as well. I think the most important tip of the article: don’t use the space bar to indent or do other formatting! This is a concept lost on many people who have laid out documents on a typewriter. I can’t count the number of documents I have come across that are laid out improperly using the space bar instead of tabs, columns, or other formatting tools found in even the most basic word processing programs. Most of these documents are Word documents, which include enough layout tools that Microsoft could almost get rid of Publisher entirely from the Office suite (this is just another reason to rid the world of Publisher, the main reason is that it is by far the worst document layout program I have used, and it gets worse with every iteration).
Well, enough ranting. Time for me to get back to some databases and web pages.
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