Date:                           October 31, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

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            Time flies when you are having fun.  It tends to flee away even when you are not having a great deal of fun, also.  For those of you that have stumbled on to this meandering of words and thoughts and have had the pain of visiting previously, you should realize that it has been over a year since my last posting. I have no good reason for that fact, either good or bad, so I will not postulate any lame excuses.  Let it be entered into the record that my aged mind and body has for what ever reason and fact not  posted a blog entry for over a year.  Be it good, bad, or of no interest to anyone other than me it is still a fact.

            The last year has been has been a Dickens’s type of year for us as I am sure it has been for everyone.  We have had good times and we have had times that are not the best of experiences.  My wife and I are healthy and safe, and as such, feel our lives are quite normal and on the plus side of the scale of being.  We can not, however, say that for all of our family and friends. Those of you that need our prayers, I hope know, are in our prayers and will forever remain there. Those of you that feel you do not need our prayers are also in our thoughts just because we love you.

            The last year has taken Connie and me from Mississippi to South Carolina to Florida by motor home. It has taken us to Buffalo and Boston by plane.  We have seen family, friends and business acquaintances.  We have laughed, cried, been angry, disappointed and lived a normal life.  Like the weather we have clear days, cloudy days, days of rain and some days we just hid in seclusion.  It has been quite a normal year.

            We are not workamping, a very long and boring story.  We are not doing NOMADS projects, another boring story.  And we are planning a 10 day cruise for our 25^th anniversary, a much more enjoyable tale and the reason I have opened my blogging file one more time.  As the sailing date nears, the 1^st of December, I thought a running blog on our adventure might be fun and enlightening for our own enjoyment.  If you wish to vicariously enjoy our coming adventure, please feel free to join my large fan club of blurry eyed blog readers.  If this bore the ever lasting out of you, why have you read this far?

            The drama of the year gone by will remain in the past as we prepare for an eastern and southern Caribbean cruise on the SS Noordam from Holland American out of Ft Lauderdale.  There will, I am afraid, be sad days and happy days as we progress toward our day of embarkation.  The sad days I will try to report and the happy days I will try to share.  I hope that our happiness will in no way cause you to think we do not share in your sadness and pain.  But, if in an instant we can help you share a second of our joy maybe just a tiny bit of your pain will be lightened.  We do not presume to be able to remove your hurt, only to remind you that you too will enjoy the pleasure of life’s good side when fortune again blesses you.

            Having brought you all up to date and given you absolutely no information I am ready to progress to our forth coming hedonistic romp in paradise aboard the SS Noordam.  The day in Daytona Beach FL is, right now, bright, sunny and portending 80 plus degrees of warmth.  We are getting ready to get ready to start readying ourselves for our cruise, but first we have an ocean to tend and a flee market to explore.  We will be in St. Thomas for our anniversary.  I will be enjoying a very special dinner in a very special dinning room aboard a very big ship with a very special person in a very special dress.

I am counting the days until we sail and for your edification it is:

30 DAYS to EMBARKAION