Tag Archives: night

Message to Twitter Users: Use a Lint Screen

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A plea to those who [should] care.

I write about Twitter too much. I know that. But Twitter has become part of my life and, like other things that are part of my life, it has given me plenty to write about.

lint screenToday’s topic is Twitter fluff. That’s my term for the kinds of tweets that are downright boring and childish, written by people who should know better. The sole purpose of these tweets seems to be to fill the Twitter world with content. Trouble is, the quality of that content is about equal to the quality of the stuff that accumulates in a clothes dryer’s lint screen.

While you expect that kind of behavior from people who really don’t have anything to tweet about or people too immature to realize the significance of their everyday experiences, you don’t expect it from people with experiences worth sharing.

I’m not naming names here. Or Twiter IDs, for that matter. But I recently added a professional journalist to my list of Twitter friends. This is a person who works for a media organization and typically follows stories relating to the Iraq war and politics — stories that matter. An adult. A professional. Someone who should have interesting tweets.

What I found, however, is that more than half of this person’s tweets are messages to his new Twitter friends to greet them. For example, “Hi new Twitterfriends, @AlexTheBird, @JackTheDog, and @mlanger!” While it’s very friendly of this person to greet all his new friends, reading dozens of tweets like this throughout the day — between the daily “Good morning, Twitter!” and nightly “Good night, Twitter!” posts — is pretty much a waste of my time. I’m interested in what this guy is doing. Who is he interviewing? What has he learned? What insight can he share about his professional journalism world? How can what he’s doing make me think about the world around me?

I need to mention here that I don’t expect every tweet I read to contain some kind of deep revelation for me. (If that were possible, I’d spend all of my time reading Twitter tweets.) This morning, one of my Twitter friends posted a tweet in which the text was all upside-down. How the heck did she do that? She followed up with a link that showed us how. Useless? Yes. Trivial? Sure. But fun? You bet! And a heck of a lot more interesting than “Hello new Twitterfriends @joe, @jim, and @jake!”

And, for those of you ready to go on the offensive, I’m also not saying that my tweets are anything special. I just tweet about the things I’m doing. Some of them are pretty dull. (Who cares that I’m reading my e-mail?) Some of them are pretty interesting. (How many people land their helicopters in a new friend’s backyard?) But I’m not filling the Twitter world with fluff, either.

Anyway, I’m kind of hoping this journalist friend reads this and recognizes himself and thinks about what he’s typing to the world — especially to all of those new friends he keeps greeting. No offense guy, but you can do much better than that. I know you can.

Flying with Cars, Take 2

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Another gig at the Proving Grounds.

I spent yesterday afternoon sweating my brains out, flying in formation with cars.

I’d been hired once again to take a film crew around a proving ground tracks to get some footage for a internal marketing video. Last time, there had been one car. This time there were two. Last time it had been in September. This time, it was July.

The Flight Down

Mike came with me from Wickenburg. We topped off the tanks at the local airport here and took all four doors off. We’d filled a cooler with ice and bottled water and Gatorade to bring along. I also had a hand-held radio for Mike so he could listen in while we were flying. The flight from Wickenburg took about 50 minutes. It was hot — about 110°F/42°C — and even the wind through the open doorways did nothing to cool us. I had a small spray bottle and would douse my loose-fitting cotton shirt down with water as I flew. 2 minutes later, it would be completely dry again.

It was also bumpy. The desert, baked throughout the day by the broiling sun was sending waves of thermals straight up. But a 10 to 20 knot wind from the southwest was breaking all that up. As a result, the flight was like riding on a poorly maintained road with big, fat, soft tires. Bumpy but seldom jarringly so. Someone prone to motion sickness probably would have puked.

There were also dust devils: towering updrafts of swirling dust blown laterally across the desert floor. At any one time, looking out at the open desert, we could see at least two dozen of the damn things, some of them at least 500 feet tall. We were flying at about 500 feet above the ground, so dodging them became part of our flight path. If it looked like we’d hit one, I’d alter course to pass to the west behind it. This probably added a few minutes to the flight, but I wasn’t the least bit interested in getting very close to any of them.

By the time we got to the proving ground and landed on a piece of road where everyone waited, I was tired and red hot — literally! — my face was completely flushed — and partially dehydrated. It was a good thing we had an hour to kill before the film crew would be ready. I spent it drinking water and Gatorade in the air conditioned comfort of the facility’s lunch room.

The Film Crew

The film crew consisted of the same director and photographer as last time. The photographer had a big, professional video camera that he sat on his shoulder as he taped the action. The camera was attached by a cable to a small monitor that the director could hold in his hands during the flight.

The photographer was strapped in not only with a seat belt by with a rope that tied the harness he wore to the bar between the two front seats in the helicopter. In addition, they rigged up a come-along strap on the helicopter’s frame between the left and right side of the helicopter and had the camera attached to that by two separate straps. We clearly would not be dropping either the photographer or camera out of the helicopter.

Everyone on the film crew wore black shirts. These are obviously people unaccustomed to life in the desert. It doesn’t take long for a desert dweller to realize that black might look cool but it doesn’t feel cool with the sun shining down on you and a UV index of 10. They also drank a lot of Pepsi. No matter how many of us “locals” recommended water, they’d guzzle Pepsi and some weak tea looking concoction they kept in one-gallon plastic water jugs. I didn’t ask what it was.

Throughout the flight, the director would yell commands to me and the photographer through the helicopter’s intercom system. He had to yell because the photographer was hanging out of the helicopter to get his shots and his microphone was out in the 20 to 80 knot wind (depending on our speed, of course). The director also yelled into a handheld radio that the driver was tuned into, giving him directions.

Of course, the most challenging thing about communication was not the wind noise but the language. They didn’t speak good English.

The Flying

The kind of flying this time around was mostly chasing the car around the speed track (a large paved oval with sharply banked curves) and the dirt track (a smaller oval with a dusty dirt surface). I’d fly alongside, anywhere from 10 to 100 feet off the ground, but usually around 30. Speed ranged from a hover to as fast as 80 knots.

If you’re a helicopter pilot, you know that this kind of operation puts me in the shaded area of the height-velocity diagram or so-called “dead man’s curve.” I’m full aware of the dangers of this kind of flying and communicated them to my passengers.

But frankly, my willingness to do this kind of flying is what got me the job two years ago. They’d asked two other local operators to do it and they both said no. I think that the fact that they were flight schools played heavily into the decision. Wouldn’t be a good example to set for newly minted CFIs. Besides, I really think that this kind of “extreme” flying is best done by experienced pilots. Although I only have about 1,800 hours right now, that’s a heck of a lot more than the typical 400-hour flight school CFI.

The challenging parts:

  • Going from a near hover to highway speed in a very short time.
  • Keeping an eye on the car and the obstacles around the track, including poles with wires, antenna towers, tents used to hide cars from passing aircraft (believe it or not), and road signs.
  • Flying alongside the car at 20 feet above the ground, making smooth “hops” over lower obstructions (signs, tents, etc.) as necessary,
  • Swooping past the front of the car and turning so the camera didn’t lose sight of the car until it was past us.
  • Getting back into shooting position quickly after a technical shot so the photographer could maximize his video time.
  • Understanding what my passengers wanted me to do, especially on those occasions when they couldn’t agree and gave conflicting commands.

The best shots probably came close to sunset, when we were working with one of the cars on the dirt track. The clear sky, low sun, and dust combine to make magical scenes. Most of the shots used in the video from last time were ones from the dirt track. My job was to keep the setting sun, car, and helicopter in a line so the photographer could get sunset footage.

The Machine

I really enjoy this kind of work. Flying a helicopter from point A to point B is mildly interesting, but doing the kind of flying needed to photograph moving cars (or boats, for that matter), is extremely challenging. It takes all of my concentration to deliver what the photographer and director want.

But what’s probably best about it is the way my arms and legs go into a certain autopilot mode. I think of what I want and my body reacts to make the helicopter do what needs to be done. There’s very little thought involved. I’m just part of the machine — the brain, so to speak. And when flying — or doing anything with a piece of equipment, I imagine — becomes so automatic and thought-free, that’s magic.

The Trip Home

We finished up just after sunset. Rather than shut down and go inside for some refreshments, I decided to keep it running and head home. I wanted to get home before it was too dark. I was exhausted — I’d flown over 4 hours that day, including a flight from Howard Mesa and the ferry flight to the track — and was depending on the last vestiges of adrenaline to power me home. So the film crew got all their straps and cables out, Mike got in, and we took off.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Low Fuel light was flickering 2 miles from the nearest airport. Another plane was on final when I came in for my approach. I meekly asked him if I could land first because of my fuel situation. He gracefully pulled his twin engine airplane into a 360 turn to the right to give me additional room. By the time I set down at the self-serve pump, the fuel light was shining brightly. I thanked the pilot of the plane again after he rolled out from his landing.

It was still 104°F/40°C most of the way home — an hour-long flight in growing darkness. I’m accustomed to flying at night — I think every pilot should be comfortable with that skill — so it wasn’t a big deal. It was also very smooth; hardly any wind until we neared Wickenburg.

The only problem was the dust that had evidently gotten into my eyes during the last bit of shooting. It really messed up my contact lenses.

Twitter "Friendships"

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Can following a person’s tweets make him a real friend?

Sometime last night or this morning — I can’t keep track with the time zone thing — Andy Piper posted a Twitter tweet with a link to an article by Clive Thompson about Twitter. Because the article reinforces something I’d mentioned in my most recent post here about Twitter, I thought I’d share it.

The key paragraph (as far as I’m concerned) from “Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense” on Wired.com is this:

When I see that my friend Misha is “waiting at Genius Bar to send my MacBook to the shop,” that’s not much information. But when I get such granular updates every day for a month, I know a lot more about her. And when my four closest friends and worldmates send me dozens of updates a week for five months, I begin to develop an almost telepathic awareness of the people most important to me.

This is pretty much I was trying to say in the introduction of my post. But I can go on to say that even though many of these people started out as strangers, reading their tweets day after day have given me a certain awareness about them that a real friend — but perhaps not a good friend — would have.

Twitter as a Way to Make Friends

I see Twitter as a way to make friends across the world. Although, I don’t ever expect to ever meet most of these people in person, there is a chance that I might actually make real friends with one or two.

For example, I’m actively seeking out interesting Twitter members who live in Arizona to follow. By following their tweets, I can get a sense of what these people are all about. If we have a lot in common, it’s easy enough to take the next step to start a real friendship. And it’s easy enough for them to respond or ignore me.

TwitterificI’m not talking instant friendships here. I’m talking about possibly months of watching tweets as part of my day. In my case, that means having Twitterific open on my Mac’s desktop and peeking at the tweets of a handful of people as they come in. I delete “friends” who really don’t seem to be on the same wavelength with me and add “friends” who might. Over time, the ones who remain on my desktop are the ones that could become real friends. If they’re in the area, why not get together for coffee or a hike or a museum trip?

It All Comes Down to Being Picky

It all comes down to using Twitter seriously, which I’ve discussed in at least one other blog post about Twitter. Use a Twitter tool (like Twitterific or some other program that selectively tracks tweets) to track only the tweets of people who interest you. Obviously, real friends should be included — if you can get them to use Twitter.

To find new people to follow, I’ll occasionally watch Twittervision and read the tweets posted in the US, especially in my area. I’ll add one or two “friends” to track for a while. I also use the Public Timeline to find interesting tweets and add corresponding Twitter members. In both cases, I limit my time to about 5 minutes — without setting a limit, either of these monitoring tools could suck hours away from your life.

My biggest problem: Most Twitter users are between 18 and 27 years old. That really shows in their posts. (Take that any way you like.) My goal is to find mature, interesting people to follow.

And, little by little, I think I’m building up a good group of Twitter “friends.”

But the question remains: will any of these people become real friends? We’ll see.

On College Reunions

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Apathy and death among Hofstra University’s Class of 1982.

Yesterday’s mail brought a big white envelope from Hofstra University, my alma mater. May 20 was the 25th anniversary of my graduating class, the Class of 1982. Although I was tempted to make the cross-country trek to Long Island, NY from my home in Arizona, I’d scheduled a helicopter rides gig for May 19 in Yarnell and preferred to do that. I’m glad I did.

A few months before the event, Hofstra’s Alumni Association sent out a survey form requesting bios from class members. Proud of what I’ve done since my college years, I promptly filled mine out and returned it to the school. They wanted a digital photo to go with it, but I forgot to go online (as they requested) and upload a suitable image.

My College Years

Understand this: my college years were among the most difficult yet enjoyable years of my life. Difficult primarily because of the expense. Hofstra, a private school, was getting about $120 per credit in those days. While I know that’s nothing compared to today’s tuitions, that $1800 to $2200 per semester tuition bill (plus books plus room and board) was killing me. The deal I cut with my parents was that each of them (they were divorced) would cough up 1/3 and I’d put in the final third. I consider myself lucky for being able to get that much from them. I also consider myself lucky for getting two scholarships that knocked more than $1000 off the annual tuition fee. So yes — I only had to come up with about $1200 a year. But I had to work two part-time minimum wage jobs (at less than $3/hour, if I recall) to make that and the money I needed to keep my car running and food in my mouth. I was 20 when I graduated and, by that point, I’d already worked harder than anyone else I knew.

(I was also incredibly thin at one point, weighing in at only 105 pounds. I ate little and worked hard and simply couldn’t keep the weight on. At 5’8″ tall, I looked terrible — absolutely skeletal. It took the school’s meal plan and those delicious hot rolls at dinner to fatten me back up.)

I’m not complaining about the hard work or financial situation. I believe in working hard to get ahead. And 25 years later, I still believe it. Too many people are looking for a free ride. Too many people spend more effort trying to get away with as little real work as possible than actually doing the work they’re being paid to do. And then they wonder why they’re not getting anywhere in life, why the promotions are always going to someone else, or why they’re first in line for layoff when their company starts sending jobs to India and Pakistan.

I also think that everyone should be a little needy at least once in their life. Back in those days, having $20 in my pocket made me rich. The money I made went to my tuition bill, to feed myself (until I got on that meal plan and my parents picked up 2/3 the cost), and to put gas in my car. (I drove a 1970 VW bug and gas cost 70¢ per gallon.) Most of my friends were in a similar situation, although I think I was the only one footing part of the bill for my education. We learned how far you could stretch a dollar and how important it was not to waste money on things we didn’t really need. I think that’s a lesson many of today’s kids could learn from. When you have to earn every dollar you spend, that dollar becomes a lot more valuable.

As for my college years being the most enjoyable of my life — well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s mostly true. It gave me my first taste of real freedom — and real responsibility. I learned how to have fun and take care of the things I had to do to stay in school, get decent grades, and earn enough money to get by. I had a lot of friends — mostly people like me. I never joined a sorority, but I did become part of the yearbook staff as a photographer. I spent my off-hours during the day in the school’s game room, shooting pool with some friends and becoming a reasonably good pinball player. In the evening, we’d head over to a local bar, which had excellent french onion soup for just a buck and cheap beer on Thursday nights. We also hit the Ambassador Diner in Hempstead periodically for greasy but excellent batter dipped onion rings. Almost all of my friends were guys, but there was no sex between us. (I’ve always been “one of the guys” and I still am.) I dated two different guys while in college and, unlike so many of the girls at Hofstra for their “MRS” degree, wound up single when I graduated at the age of 20 with a BBA in accounting. That was fine with me.

Affection for My Alma Matter? I Don’t Think So.

I never really felt any affection for Hofstra. It seemed like every time I turned around, they had their hands out for money. I nearly got kicked out for late payment of tuition twice, yet they never failed to send requests for donations to my family. I get those requests now. They come to my house with full-color booklets about the newest on campus building and latest event, along with a summary of what the entire alumni student body has been up to — well, at least those members who bothered to provide updates. I used to provide updates once in a while, announcing a new book or providing information about my latest endeavor. They even featured my helicopter charter business in one issue. But the way I saw it, I struggled enough to pay them when I was a student and they never cut me any slack when I had trouble coming up with the dough. I didn’t owe them a thing.

I’m Not the Only One Who Doesn’t Care. But at Least I’m Still Breathing.

But when the reunion material arrived, I decided to fill it out and return it. I was curious about my classmates, curious about what they’d been up to all these years. I even toyed with the idea of blowing off my helicopter gig and going out for the reunion.

But when the reunion materials arrived today, I was glad I’d made the decision I’d made. Accompanying the “sorry we missed you” letter and donation request form was a thin booklet titled, Congratulations to the Class of 1982 on your 25th Anniversary. In it were photos as “bios” from 59 students (including me). I’d known two of them well — one of them is my step cousin. The photos were right out of the yearbook, with current photos added for the folks who had bothered to send them. Few had. Most bios lacked any amount of imagination, simply stating what degree the person had earned during his stay at Hofstra and whether he had gone on to earn additional degrees. Marriages to college sweethearts were mentioned more than a few times. Women were sure to mention how many kids they had. It was pretty boring stuff; only about 5 people wrote bios that actually brought readers up to date. (I was one of them, as you probably guessed.)

What was more tragic was the “In Memoriam” page after the bios. It listed 54 classmates that are no longer walking on this earth. 54! Sheesh! Almost as many dead ones as ones who bothered to respond to the reunion notice. And remember, this is a 25-year anniversary — not a 50-year. Most of my classmates are under 50. That means that at 54 of them died before their 50th birthday.

Now I don’t know how many people were in the class of 1982. I know that the School of Business, which was my slot at the graduation ceremonies, had hundreds of students in it. There had to be at least 2,000 students in the entire class. And the alumni association got reunion responses for just 113 of them — 54 of which were dead. Can you say apathy? And I thought I was alone in my feelings — or lack thereof — for the school.

And how many people actually showed up for the May 20 party? I hope they didn’t rent a big hall.

Cruising

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Life in a moving hotel.

Mike and I ended a week-long Alaska cruise this past Friday. We “sailed” on Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas from Seward, AK to Vancouver, BC, with stops at Hubbard Glacier, Juneau, Skagway, Icy Straight Point (Hoonah), and Ketchikan. The final day was spent cruising down the inside passage east of Vancouver Island.

This was our second cruise. The first was in the Caribbean about five years ago on — strangely enough — the same ship. We really enjoyed that trip, which we went on with another couple around our age. This trip, while enjoyable, was different.

What’s Good about Cruising

Let me start off by explaining why I like to cruise.

Float PlaneA cruise is the ultimate lazy person’s vacation. You get on board on day one, unpack in your own private room, and go to any number of onboard restaurants for free meals just about any time of the day. In the evening, your moving hotel departs the port and moves gently through the sea, arriving at the next port on the next morning. Once there, you can get off the ship and do all kinds of excursions, ranging in trolley tours of the local town, big production shows (the Great American Lumberjack Show comes to mind), active activities (such as biking or hiking), or “adventure” activities (such as helicopter landings on glaciers or sled dog trips or float plane flights). At the end of the day, you’re back on board in your comfy, maid-serviced room, eating free food, seeing free shows, and/or throwing money away in the casino as the ship moves on to the next port.

Cruise cost is determined, in part, by the type of accommodations you choose. The cheapest accommodations are a windowless cabin on a lower deck that gets really dark with the door closed and has barely enough room for you and your cabin mate(s) to move around. The most expensive accommodations are usually given names like “The Royal Suite,” and include several rooms, large windows, and one or more balconies on an upper deck.

On both of our cruises, we had the same accommodations: a “junior suite,” which is one largish room with a king size bed, sofa, easy chair, desk, coffee table, floor-to-ceiling windows, and small balcony. It was on the top cabin deck, 10 stories above the sea. At some ports, float planes landed right past our window (see above).

Cabin on Radiance Cabin on Radiance

A lot of folks say that getting a cabin with a balcony or even a window is a waste of money since you spend so little time in your cabin. I look at it the other way around. If you had a nice room, you’d spend more time in it. I’m a big fan of privacy and like the idea of having a private, outdoor space to relax in.

Hubbard GlacierWe spent much of our two “at sea” days in our cabin on the balcony, reading, talking, and taking photos of the things we passed. In fact, as the ship turned away from the Hubbard Glacier to continue on its way, we came back to the room to relax on the balcony with a bottle of wine and our cameras.

If you don’t care about private space and think you’ll be spending 95% of your waking hours outside your cabin, you should definitely go with one of the less expensive rooms. You see, that’s the only difference in onboard treatment. Once you’re out of your cabin, you’re the same as everyone else. You get the same food, see the same shows, and have access to the same services at the same price. So you can cruise quite affordably — sometimes as little as $600 per person for the week! — if you don’t mind sleeping in a closet-like room.

Cruise Limitations

Every cruise has a major limitation: you only visit the port cities on the cruise itinerary and you only stay in that city as long as the ship is at port. If you pick a cruise with the “wrong” cities, you can’t change your plans. You’re stuck with them.

Of course, since many people plan vacations out to the extreme — reservations every step of the way — this probably isn’t much of a limitation. I, however, like to wing it while on vacation. While this may mean that I don’t get to stay in a place I wanted to (because everyone else had reservations), it does give me the flexibility to stay an extra day at a place I really like or explore a place I learn about while on the road.

The best way to make sure the itinerary limitation doesn’t bite you is to choose your cruise carefully. We didn’t do this on our cruise. We just told the travel agent we wanted a one-way cruise in Alaska that began or ended in Vancouver. We didn’t know what we wanted to see. I have no real complaints about our itinerary, but now I know more about Alaska and where I want to go on my next visit.

“Hidden” Costs

Devils on the Deep Blue Sea : The Dreams, Schemes and Showdowns That Built America's Cruise-Ship EmpiresAlthough you can eat on board for free in most restaurants, there are a few costs that aren’t covered on a cruise. Alcohol is one of them. You pay for all of your drinks — unless you’re gambling in the casino. Drink prices are a bit higher than average, but made with top-shelf liquor. We were paying $8 a piece for our evening martinis (and downing two of them each night), but they were made with Grey Goose and other premium brands. Wine is typical restaurant pricing, but they offer a discount if you buy a 5-, 7-, or 10-bottle plan at the beginning of the cruise. The plan limits you to a shorter wine list, but we chose the 5-bottle plan and had perfectly good wine at most meals, with any leftovers to drink on our balcony later that evening or the next day.

The ship also has premium restaurants that cost $20 per person for a meal. There were two of these: Portofino, serving Italian food, and Chops, serving steaks and chops. We signed up for the Wednesday evening Mystery Dinner Theater at Portofino, which cost $49 per person and included champagne before dinner and wine with dinner, along with entertainment. The meal at Portofino was far better than any other I ate on the ship. (More about food in a moment.)

On our ship, we also had to pay for anything that came in a can or bottle, including Coke and bottled water. It really irked me to pay $2.01 (including a 15% gratuity automatically tacked on) for a can of Coke. The cruise cost us thousands of dollars and I felt that I was being nickeled and dimed. This kind of stuff could have been included for free in the fridge in our room — perhaps as a special perk for those who invested in a nicer cabin — but the fridge doubled as a for-pay servi-bar and it cost the same there.

Tatyana and LorendAnd speaking of gratuities, you’re expected, at the end of your cruise, to tip your lead and assistant waiters in the main dining room, the head waiter in the main dining room, and your cabin attendant. Our dining room service was very good — both waiter and assistant waiter were extremely professional without being stiffs. We joked about things, they gave us advice on wine for when we got home, and they didn’t have any trouble giving Mike and Syd (one of our two table mates) seconds and thirds of lobster tails on Tuesday night, when lobster was the popular choice on the menu. But the head waiter obviously only came around to be friendly and secure his tip, so we didn’t tip him. Many people didn’t show up for dinner on Thursday night, the last night of the cruise, to avoid tipping the dining staff. (More on cheapskates in a moment.) We tipped our cabin attendant the suggested amount, even though we didn’t like her. She did her job, but drew the line there. No special service, as we’d had with our last cabin attendant.

The excursions, however, can be the biggest cost of the cruise. They ranged in price from $12 per person for a trolley ride to more than $500 per person for some of the aviation excursions. Our costliest excursion was a helicopter trip with a landing on two glaciers; it cost $398 each. Anyone interested in saving money would probably not do a lot of excursions.

Our final bill for the extras on board (mostly alcohol and excursions) came to more than $1,800. And that doesn’t include the cost of the cruise itself, gratiuties for onboard staff, or the money we spent onshore for meals and other things. This isn’t a complaint; it’s just a note to those who think a cruise includes everything. A cruise only includes everything if you don’t drink or buy any extras on board and you don’t do more than wander around on foot when at port.

Food

If you’re on a diet and succumb easily to temptation, a cruise is not for you. You are guaranteed to eat too much of the wrong food.

Why the wrong food? Well, most of the food is the wrong food. The buffets and dining room menus are filled with fried foods and heavy starches and sweets. And since it’s all you can eat — even in the main dining room with table service! — if you like to eat a lot, there’s nothing to stop you. I gained 10 pounds on my first cruise and (fortunately) only 4 pounds on this one.

And there was certain scarcity to fresh fruits and vegetables. Why? Well, the cruise ship starts its journey in Vancouver, where it stocks up on all supplies for the next 14 days. It takes on passengers for the first 7-day cruise. Those are the lucky ones — they get lots of fresh food to eat. Then those passengers depart in Seward and the ship takes on its passengers for the return trip to Vancouver. Those passengers (which included us) are facing food that’s already been onboard 7 days.

On our Caribbean cruise, we watched them load fresh produce on board almost every single day. The food was good and fresh. But on this cruise, the food was very disappointing. I think that more than half of what we ate was prepared in advance and frozen, then defrosted or heated before serving. (Kind of like eating at some of Wickenburg’s fancy restaurants.)

The skinny (no pun intended) is this: the best food was in the for-pay restaurants, next came the main dining room, and finally, the buffet. But the only difference was the preparation: all of the food came out of Vancouver and was at least a week old.

Other Passengers

The vast majority of this cruise’s passengers were seniors in the 55+ age group. Of them, more than half were likely 65+. With more than 2,000 passengers aboard this full ships, that’s a lot of retirement money being spent.

Those of you who read this blog regularly probably know that the town I live in, Wickenburg, AZ, is a retirement town. I am surrounded by seniors every day at home. To be surrounded by them while on vacation was a bit of a disappointment. Our last cruise to the Caribbean had a better mix of guests, with age groups more evenly spread. I find younger people in the 25 to 50 year old age group more energizing and fun than the 55+ midwesterners we had on board this cruise.

How do I know they were midwesterners? I asked. Each time they sat us down with other people at meals, we’d talk. I’d ask where they came from. I got Michigan, Iowa, and Kansas more than any other state. Our dinner table-mates were from Little Rock, Arkansas. We didn’t meet a single other couple from New York or New Jersey or Arizona (our past and current home states), although we did meet a couple from Pennsylvania and another from San Diego, CA.

The interesting thing about most of these people is that they didn’t do much in the way of high-price excursions or for-pay activities on board. We never saw them in the Champagne Bar, which we visited for our evening martinis before dinner each night. It was easy to get reservations for massage, facial, etc. at the spa. There were lots of empty seats in the main dining room — two of the six seats at our table remained empty for the entire trip. My conclusion: many of these folks were trying to minimize the cost of extras by simply taking advantage of the free or inexpensive options on board and at port. And, by not utilizing the main dining room in the evening, they could avoid tipping the dining room staff. Cheapskates? Well, avoiding the dining room on the last night of the cruise to stiff the waiters is certainly the mark of a cheapskate. But I like to think that some of them were simply afraid of getting a $1,800 extras bill at the end of the trip.

Coupon Crazy!

I should mention here that these people were coupon crazy. Each evening, the cabin attendant put a daily publication for the next day in our cabin. The publication outlined hours for dining and activities and shore excursions. It also included one or more sheets of coupons. Many of the guests clipped these coupons and made it a point to take advantage of them.

For example, a coupon might say that if you went to Joe’s Tourist Junk Shop in Ketchikan (an imaginary shop) between 10 AM and 11 AM, you could redeem the coupon for a free gift worth $15 — while supplies last. I overheard people planning their day around this visit to Joe’s. And if we happened to walk by Joe’s at 9:45, they’d already be lining up. And the free gift? Perhaps a link in one of those bracelets they push at ports or a paperweight that said “Joe’s at Ketchikan” or something similarly junky. Joe’s hopes that these people will come in and buy stuff while they’re there. Some of them obviously do. T-Shirts seemed to be a hot item.

What’s B/Sad about Cruising

What’s bad or sad about cruising is what the cruise ship lines have done to the port cities. Sure, they’ve brought the ports lots of tourists and revenue. But what they’ve also done is created port shopping areas with the same stores over and over in every port. What local charm existed in these areas is completely blown away by cruise ship sponsored stores like Diamonds International, Tanzanite International, Del Sol, and too many others to remember. Every port has the same collection of shops and they’re conveniently located close to where the ships dock so all those seniors from the midwest don’t have to walk far to redeem their coupons.

Ketchikan Tourist AreaKetchikan was a good example. The day we were there, three cruise ships were lined up at the dock facing the port shopping area. This was roughly 6 to 9 blocks of solid shopping — mostly for jewelry and t-shirts — with the vast majority of shops owned by cruise ship companies or their affiliates. The Great American Lumberjack Show was on the outskirts of this — this tourist attraction does four or five or more shows a day with people lined up to see them. (We saw highlights of this on television, on a show purportedly about Alaska, so we didn’t need or want to see it in person.) This area was very crowded.

Creek StreetYet less than 1/2 mile away was historic Creek Street, the former red light district of the town, which had been converted into small, mostly locally owned shops. It was nearly deserted. And on the town’s walking tour was an interesting totem pole museum and fish hatchery, both of which were empty.

The excursion transportation — mostly buses and vans — comes right up to the port, making it completely unnecessary to step foot into town. So people who just want the bus tour don’t need to walk past tempting jewelry and t-shirt shops. They get door to door service and, on many excursions, don’t even need to get off the bus to “do” the port town.

Glacier LandingOf course, the beauty of Alaska still lies beyond all this. Sure, we did excursions, but we did the ones that took us away from the cruise ships and shopping cities they’d built. One excursion took us by helicopter to land and hike on two different glaciers. Another was supposed to take us by helicopter to a mountaintop, where we’d do a 4-mile hike with a guide and return to the ship by train. (That one was cancelled when low ceilings prevented us from getting to the mountain top; we later rented a car to see what we’d missed: on that day, fog.) Another excursion took us by float plane up the Misty Fjords, passing mountain lakes, waterfalls, and glacial snow before landing in a mountain-enclosed bay. (You can see now how we managed to spend $1,800 in extras.) And at the end of each excursion, we walked the town, going beyond the shiny gift shops to walk among the historic buildings and, in more than one instance, panhandlers and locals who weren’t fortunate enough to get jobs selling jewelry to tourists at the docks.

As usual, my cynicism is creeping in. I can’t really help it. We came to Alaska to see its beauty and learn more about its history. But at most port cities, we faced the same old tourist crap. I guess that’s because that’s what most other people on the cruise ships want to see. We had to dig to see what lay under all that junk. It was worth the effort.

Not All Ports are Equal

Radiance of the Seas at AnchorAn exception to all this: Icy Straits Point and the indian village of Hoonah. This port had no dock, so our ship anchored offshore and used three tenders (specially configured lifeboats) to ferry passengers back and forth.

There were a few excursions there: fishing, whale watching, bicycling. The main attraction was the old cannery, which had been converted into a fascinating museum with a sprinkling of locally owned gift shops. (Not a single Diamonds International sign in sight.) Hoonah also boasts the world’s longest zip line, which is over a mile long with a drop of more than 1000 feet. (I guess they felt they had to do something to get the tourists in.)

Bald EaglesMike and I did the 1-1/2 mile walk (each way) into town where bald eagles waited in treetops for the local fishermen to clean their fish. We stopped at a local bar, where a man had covered the pool table with old photos of the town and more recent photos of a 25-foot snowfall. Then we went to the Landing Zone restaurant at the bottom of the zip line and had a great lunch of chowder and fried halibut and salmon, prepared fresh and served by locals.

Back on the ship, I overheard one woman boast that she hadn’t even bothered to get off the ship that day.

Would I Do It Again?

With two cruises under my belt now, I have a good idea of what to expect on a cruise. (After reading this, you might, too.) With all the pros and cons, would I do it again?

I’m really not sure. The moving hotel aspect is very attractive. But the cost and limitations are a drawback. And the cruise ship line development of port cities is a real turn-off.

I’d consider it. But I’ll certainly do my homework before signing up next time.