Bunking In With Teddy

I admit there were times I wasn’t really all that confident we’d enjoy our recent Caribbean cruise as much as we normally do. Part of the problem was that we were going to have two year old  grandson Teddy sleeping in our cabin.

As I saw it there were a few problems with this arrangement:

(1) Teddy normally sleeps in his own room without the distraction of others – especially fun distractions like Nonna and Grandpa.

(2) Teddy is used to Mom or Dad being there when he wakes up. We weren’t sure how he’d react when they were not.

(2) Teddy gets up EARLY. 0530 is a common rising hour and - while I used to get up them when I was working at Unilever - it’s been a while since I’ve wanted to.

Anyhow we decided to give it a try but we had a backup plan. There was a second crib placed in his parents’ stateroom in case of emergency.

We began our little experiment in the hotel in Fort Lauderdale. The first night’s sleep ended with a cry of “EEE-YAW! Up!” precisely at 5:30 AM. Can you imagine having an alarm clock that worked like that? Not a pretty thing to contemplate.

As time progressed we went to a new mantra each day: “Daddy? Daddy? Mommy? Mommy? Nonna? Grandpa? Up. Walk.” Things were going pretty well until a time change moved everything back an hour. At 4:30 Nonna found herself  walking him around the ship watching the cleaning staff and finally wheeling him down to Plan B – his long suffering Daddy.

Another night after a day of missed naps, we found him up and ready to go at 1:30 AM. Any attempts to snuggle or return him to his crib got “No, no,no,no! Up! Walk! Nonna coming! Grandpa coming!” Time for Daddy to take over again.

Toward the end of the cruise Teddy was settling in nicely although still rising around 5:30 - but the last night he had another 2 AM incident. His Nonna told me later that as she wheeled him around the ship and got him asleep in his stroller she noticed other passengers just coming back to their cabins with drinks still in their hands. Good thing we weren’t among them I guess. Teddy went back to good old Daddy again that night and Dave got him to go back to sleep. Thank heavens.

So at the end of each day we managed all right, and a couple of good nights sleep at home has cured our exhaustion. And the two weeks of quality time we spent with this incredible little boy was worth every minute of lost sleep.

True Celebrities

Celebrity Cruises has a theme that they’ve used for years – that the guests on their ships are like celebrities in their own right. Slogans like “We treat you famously” or “Starring you” have been coined to get this point across.

I suppose the Celebrity marketeers believe this, but after our 10th Celebrity cruise (and 2nd on Celebrity Equinox) I’m convinced that the true celebrities are the wonderful crew members who serve us aboard the many ships. Those are the folks who keep us coming back to Celebrity.

A case in point would be Leandro, our waiter from our first Equinox cruise. He remembered us - especially our 2 year old grandson Teddy - so he greeted us warmly when we met him again. He was kind enough to let me get a photo of him with Dave and Teddy for our cruise scrapbook.

We met many others on the ship who also remembered Teddy as well – Melani from Mauritius, Albert from Honduras, Leonardo (our all time favorite sommelier) from the Philippines, Antonio from Portugal. During our last Equinox cruise, Antonio had given us a map of Lisbon that was kid friendly so that we could make the most of our day there. We were really happy to see him again.

Maria and I even managed to re-greet a really nice young man (Remzi from Turkey) that we had as an assistant waiter on a Med cruise in 2007.

This time we got to meet a bunch of new celebrities – Leo’s lovely wife Maria who was also aboard Equinox, Anne from France, Ephraim from Turkey, and our fabulous waiter team of Yalcin from Turkey and Alejandro from the Philippines.

We also enjoyed meeting two other nice ladies – Janet from Nicaragua and Samantha from Jamaica - and a tall handsome sommelier named Bojan from Serbia. Bojan loves little kids and came around every day to our table to cuddle our 6 month old granddaughter Veronica. He should make a great dad someday.

I know the cynics among us will assert that these people are paid to be nice and serve us during our cruise vacation. But there’s a huge difference between paid service and genuine unsolicited friendliness. We always get the latter from Celebrity Cruises’ multinational onboard staff. That ensures our loyalty far more than any sort of repeat cruiser program ever could. Here’s to the true Celebrity Celebrities.

September Song

I got a letter today from Service Canada that told me that my application for Old Age Security has been accepted. It’ll be a while before the money starts rolling in, but I definitely am on my way to the winter period of life.

Just as well I suppose, because when I was in the drugstore today the cashier asked me if I was over 65. It was seniors’ day after all.

Anyhow this got me thinking about one of my favorite old songs – one my Dad used to love. It’s called “September Song.” His favorite version was by Frank Sinatra, but I think mine is by Jimmy Durante. Yes, I know Lou Reed also recorded it but give me some credit for taste.

So here are a few details on “September Song” for your reading pleasure. It was written by Kurt Weill and Max Anderson in 1938 for a Broadway musical featuring Walter Huston – great actor, no singing voice. Apparently the writers dashed it off in a couple of hours and made it as simple to sing as possible.

The show wasn’t that successful but the song became a classic. There are some poignant lyrics that really resonate with me today as I contemplate my OAS notice:

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few

September, November

And these few precious days I’ll spend with you

These precious days I’ll spend with you.

Down to the Sea - In This Ship

We’re off on another cruise in a week or so. We got started with cruise vacations rather late in life, but now we like them a lot. This will be our 10th one – all with Celebrity Cruises.

Sticking with the same cruise line – assuming you like their style of cruise experience – is a good thing, because eventually you start getting some nice perks. We now get free Internet and laundry service, a lounge with drinks or specialty coffee provided, and priority tendering and departure facilities. We’ve also enjoyed galley and bridge tours.

We’ve had cruises on a wide variety of Celebrity ships – from the smaller more intimate Celebrity Zenith up to the brand new megaship Celebrity Equinox. Right now I have to say we like the big ship best. It’s very comfortable in all sorts of weather, has lots of facilities to keep you happy on sea days and we really like the way they have organized the dining experience.

Last year we went across the Atlantic on the Equinox. This year we’ll be cruising down to Panama and South America. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Watching A Little Boy Grow Up

Oh sure I loved Mom and Dad when I was a boy growing up in the Leave It To Beaver era. However my favorite adult for a lot of that time had to be my Grandpa.

He was quite an old man when I arrived on the scene. Here’s a pic of us in 1955 when I was 9 and he was 80. However Grandpa lived until age 91 so I have a long and vivid memory of his presence in my life.

He was a man of seemingly inexhaustible patience and good humor – ready to answer any number of questions, and with a treasure trove of stories guaranteed to interest a small boy. He spoke of log cabins and coal oil lamps, steam engines that ran on the railroad or were pulled along the roads by horses and mules, working on the farm or in the city. He would drive me to a convenient spot outside the town where we could watch the trains thunder by, and later get a big basket of fresh strawberries from a local grower. Even when his vision failed, and he had to rely on me to tell what time it was on his favorite pocket watch he never lost his kindness and generous spirit. What a guy,

I mention this now, some 60 years later because nowadays I have my own 2 year old superfan in the making. His name’s Teddy. I am not sure I can channel my own Grandpa – certainly I’ll never be able to compete in storytelling – but I’ll give it my best shot. I’m a bit younger at this stage of life and God willing I’ll be around awhile to provide lots of memories for Teddy as he gets older. At the end of the day I suppose that’s the goal of any Grandpa – sit back and enjoy watching a little boy grow up.

Windows 7 Is A-OK

I am pretty much a Linux guy when it comes to the PCs around here. Mind you, most of them are older pieces of hardware where Linux runs very well. One machine is fairly new but I didn’t want to be bothered paying for its operating system, or getting involved with licensing hassles. I just installed Linux from the start.

Up until recently I had just one Windows machine in the stable – and that was my Windows XP based Dell Optiplex GX620 desktop from 2005. I still use Windows for a few essential applications, and I expect to continue to do so. Windows XP is getting pretty antiquated, and security support will end in a few years. At that point I would have to abandon Windows completely and go strictly Linux, or move on to some sort of Windows successor O/S.

My experiences with Windows Vista did not inspire a lot of confidence, however. The first Vista machine I saw was one of those “Vista capable” fiascos which had barely enough memory to run the O/S itself, let alone any useful apps. It was slower than an underpowered XP machine it replaced and was only made tolerable by adding another 2 GB of RAM. When I tried configuring wireless routers on other Vista machines I soon became frustrated by all the sidebars, gadgets, popups, UAC interventions and general noise that Vista threw in my face. Not to mention the angst of finding the controls for a simple wireless client configuration. I soon learned to tell any neighbor who asked for help “Sorry I don’t do Vista.”

That’s all changed with the purchase of this Windows 7 equipped Dell Inspiron notebook I’m using right now. Mind you, it’s got plenty of hardware muscle – quad core processor, discrete graphics, scads of RAM, big hard drive. However, Windows 7 is tuning out to be a pleasure to use.

First of all, it is rather minimalist in comparison to Vista. The sidebar is gone, and gadgets are completely optional. The taskbar at the bottom of the screen handles launch icons and minimized Windows buttons with ease.

Second, it is very quiet. Information popups are kept to a minimum and you only see the User Account  Control when you are making a major change to the system like installing a program. Security suites like McAfee run unobtrusively and don’t have much effect on performance as far as I can determine.

Third, the Aero interface is very attractive and has some nice features without being too glitzy.

Finally Windows 7 comes with some nice Windows Live! applications like Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Writer (for blogging.) I am still not that crazy about Internet Explorer or Windows Media player but there are good alternatives available like Firefox, Google Chrome and Songbird that work very well.

To sum up, Windows 7 is A-OK with me. It is a worthy successor (finally) to the aging XP, and far nicer to work with than the bloated and annoying Vista. I’ll have no problems if some day I have to replace my Dell Optiplex XP desktop with a Windows 7 machine. And what would happen to that old desktop? I can see Linux in its future.

No More Lonesome Whistle

The Brockville and Ottawa Railway has had several names over its long and interesting history - B&O, Canadian Pacific, Ottawa Valley Railway - but no matter what you call it, it's being taken off life support.
This fine old railroad - which traversed Canada's first rail tunnel, carried the Prince of Wales in 1860, and was the scene of one of the worst train wrecks in Canadian history in Almonte - will die today (February 5, 2011.) It hasn't been in use for close to a year and the last opportunity for anyone to buy it as a working entity ends today. CP will tear up the tracks, and probably the counties of Lanark and Renfrew will buy the roadbed for recreational trails and possible re-use if ever needed.
This railway was a major contributor to the industrialization and settlement of many of the Valley towns in the 19th century, but today it's really a road to nowhere. It can't really serve as a commuter railway as most traffic runs perpendicular to it on roads to Ottawa. The last viable Ottawa commuter line near Almonte disappeared over 20 years ago.
CP doesn't need it for slow, heavy, long haul freight transfer either, and there's no local rail traffic between the small de-industrialized towns it formerly served in the Valley. Perhaps some of it would make a nice scenic tourist railway, but I don't know how the Carleton Place suburbanites or the inhabitants of Almonte's poshy downtown condos would like a smoky old Ten Wheeler or light Pacific chugging past their homes in the summer heat. Besides, Ottawa's already got a steam railway for the tourists.
So after 150 years the lonesome whistle will no longer sound in Almonte. There's a nice old railway bridge over the Mississippi that'll be great for pedestrian traffic, and not much else.