Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 6

Ok, I want to get this cruise recapped before I totally forget everything we did.  Already my memory is somewhat sketchy, so I’m just going to touch on the highlights.  Everyone knows that we had breakfast, met with some cool people for dinner, blah, blah, blah. 

The Songwriter’s Panel.  This was an event for which admission was determined by a drawing prior to the cruise.  There were actually 4 events you could sign up for: SWP, Guitar Hero with Ed, Wine Tasting with Steve, and Trivia with Kevin.  I put SWP has my first choice, but didn’t win initially.  However, a wonderful message board member invited me to go as her guest, so I was set.  Out of the blue Sixthman decided to add more seats to the SWP and I was chosen that time around.  Woo-hoo! 

The SWP was held in the Caribbean Lounge.  The stage was set with 8 bar stools, one for each member of the “panel”, which consisted of Kurt Swinghammer, Jason Plumb, Craig Northey, Ed Robertson, Steven Page, Sarah Harmer, Alan Doyle, and Boothby Graffoe.

I had thought that they were going to discuss their influences and inspirations, what was going on in their heads when they wrote particular songs, that sort of thing.  They did a little bit, but mostly they just talked about random stuff, or nothing at all, and performed songs in turn.  They went through the row of singers 4 times, allowing each performer a chance to do 4 songs. Often, the other singers would join in and accompany the performer either by harmonizing along, or playing their guitar, or both. Some of the highlights of the show were when Jason Plumb sang Satellite and when Boothby Graffoe did his Alphabet Song. I had no interest in seeing Boothby on the cruise, and ended up being pleasantly surprised with his songs and personna.

Ed was going to do a song and realized he couldn’t remember the words. They have a fan (Renee) who goes to all the BNL shows with a binder of song lyrics, so Ed called out to see if she was in the audience. She was, and ran up with the lyrics book, which Ed set on the floor. After a lot of comments and razzing from the other musicians Ed began his song, but had trouble reading the book down on the floor. Craig Northey (Odds) picked the book up to hold for Ed, but not without waving it around a bit first.

After Ed performed Steve decided he needed the book to help him out, as well.

In his case, though, Ed couldn’t remember how a certain guitar part was played, so another super-fan was called up: Alan Fogel, a guy who knows all the tabs and chords to the BNL songs. He did a good job, but did fumble a bit, too.

You could really tell that the musicians were having a great time, and when it was time for the panel to end, they decided to do another round of songs. Ed ended up being late to another event he was scheduled at because the SWP ran so long, but of course those of us in the audience didn’t mind a bit!

Up next: BNL Show 2, All night jam

 

Someday…

I will finish writing about my BNL cruise.  Someday. 

 I promise.

 

Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 5

Today we were scheduled for a port day in Ocho Rios. 

Because we had been up late the night before and because I was determined to have at least one day to sleep in we didn’t set any alarms or plan to be up at any certain time.  We did not have an excursion booked; our plan was to get off the ship at our leisure and just wander about, absorbing the local flavor.  We did have plans to meet Bari/Mark and Sallie/Bob later in the afternoon for lunch, but we figured we’d have plenty of time for that. We ended up sleeping pretty late and when we did wake up Ed didn’t feel well. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave the ship at all, and wouldn’t even get out of bed.

I got tired of hanging around the cabin, and I was hungry, so I went up to the Lido deck to get some breakfast. It was very nice and peaceful; many people had already gotten off the ship so I just sat and ate while watching the people that were left onboard. Remember how I said I’m not adventurous when it comes to food? Yeah, that goes for my breakfast choices, too. Every day I ate scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes, and sausage. About a million sausages. I don’t know what it was about them, but I couldn’t get enough of those. Oh, and I discovered that the hash browns inside had onions mixed in them (yuck) while the ones in the outside express line did not. But, enough about breakfast.

I got to thinking that Ed might feel better if he ate something, so I made up a tray for him and took it back to the room.  Eating (and showering) did help him, and he decided that he did want to get off the ship and check out Ocho Rios.  I wasn’t all that jazzed about doing that, but I told him I would, so off we went. 

Let me just say right here that the picture at the beginning of this post was the best thing about Ocho Rios.  I hated that place!  First of all, this is the dock area where we debarked the ship:

There is another more touristy dock, but a Royal Caribbean ship had beat us to it. So, we got the industrial dock. In order to get around to the tourist/shopping area we had to walk up and around this road:

The whole time we were walking residents of the island were trying to get us to buy necklaces or get my hair braided or just give them money. There were homeless guys crawling up out of the bushes; it was somewhat creepy. We got to the shopping area and nothing really impressed us there. Every guy with a car was trying to get us to ride in his “taxi”. The stuff in the shops seemed cheap and poorly-made.

After less than an hour I had had enough and wanted to walk back. While we were walking it started to rain. By the time we got back to the ship we were both soaked. We had just enough time to dash to our room and change into dry tops before we had to meet the others for lunch.

We joined up with Mark and Bari and Bob and Sallie and went to the buffet for lunch and had an enjoyable time. Mark and Bari hated OR about as much as we did, and Sallie and Bob didn’t even bother getting off the ship. They were smart. I have heard from people who went on various excursions that they enjoyed OR. So, apparently you have to be part of a protected group to have fun on that island. If we ever end up there again, I’m staying on the ship!

Here’s a pic of Ed and I, with Ocho Rios behind us, as we sail away…

The funny thing about writing these cruise recaps is I always have these big blocks of time that I can’t account for. I know we must’ve done something between lunch with M/B and B/S and dinner later that evening, but I have no idea what it was. Probably wandered around, chatting with message board people, reading on the Lido deck, and general laziness. Whatever it was, I’m 100% positive that it was better than whatever I’d have been doing if I’d been home that day.

Anyway, we met up with the usual gang for dinner that night and had an enjoyable time. Yes, I had steak again. I can’t help it! I’m a picky eater and just not very adventurous when it comes to food. I was happy with my steak and red potatoes. After dinner we decided to go check out Harvey Danger and Guster. I was a little bit familiar with HD, mostly the song “Flagpole Sitta”, and I love Guster. We hadn’t had a chance to see Guster because of all the other activities, so we were looking forward to their show.

We got there super early so we snagged a good spot in the balcony. I had a book with me, so I decided to do some reading and Ed went out to explore. After a little bit he came back with 2 pairs of Simple flip flops from Reverb, apparently they gave him a great deal for a $40 donation. (It got even better after we got home, maybe I’ll write about it.)

Right before the show started Melissa W joined us, which was cool. Harvey Danger is actually the name of the band, not the lead singer, which is a mistake a lot of people make. I know this because Sean Nelson, the lead singer, made a point to tell us. I know that a lot of people on the cruise fell in love with Sean and Harvey Danger, and I will admit that the man can sing. However, I found him to be quite arrogant and full of himself; there was something about his personna that really turned me off. It also bothered me that nobody else in the band sang at all, not even backup vocals. There was one cool moment in the show, though, where Sean sang a song acapella…no band, not even a microphone. The whole room was hushed as we sat and listened to him belt out the song.

Guster was up next. Last year Guster was such a huge part of the cruise for us…we went to all of their shows, ran into Joe Pisapia everywhere we went, and really felt like the cruise was as much about Guster as it was BNL. This year, we saw them once and rarely saw the band members out and about on the ship. I think we saw Adam Gardner once, from a distance. Because we were already 4 days into the cruise and hadn’t had any Guster interaction yet I was pretty excited to see their show, only to find myself somewhat disappointed. For one thing, Brian Rosenworcel (aka The Thundergod) wasn’t there for drums. We knew that going in; his wife was pregnant and due at the same time as the cruise, so Tyler was recruited to sit in for the band. Tyler is a great drummer, and held his own, but he doesn’t offer the same sound that Brian provides. For example, during the song Demons there is a point where Brian really beats on the bongos. When I heard that song I was waiting to hear that part, and was disappointed when it didn’t happen.

Also, Guster played very little of their old classics…no Barrel of a Gun, no Fa Fa, etc. The set seemed to be filled with all their slow (boring) songs, like Ruby Falls. I just wasn’t feeling the Guster vibe that made me love them in the first place. A couple of highlights: during the song “Brazil” Scooter played drums and did a kickass solo. Also, Tyler came out at the end and sang “Running with the Devil”. That was fun. I heard later that Ed came out and sang with Guster during their first show, and that they played some of the songs that I missed hearing in the show we saw. It seems like that’s always the way things go for me.

After the two concerts we said goodnight to Melissa and headed back to our cabin. I’m not sure why we felt like we needed to get to bed, but I don’t remember doing anything else, so we must’ve done just that.

Up next: Songwriter’s Panel, BNL headliner show

 

Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 4 continued

So, I left off with us returning to the ship from Grand Cayman.  The tender ride was uneventful, except I realized afterwards that one of the guys from Carbon Leaf was on the boat with us and I didn’t even know it.  I’m such a bad CL fan, not even recognizing the band members.  Ran into CC getting off the boat and made some sort of lame comment, “Wow, I didn’t know that they let your type on these things.”  I didn’t think she heard me, but  it turns out that she did: she made reference to it on the message board after the cruise.  Oops!  Actually, not oops; I was just joking with her and I hope she knew that. 

Back on the ship we went to our cabin to change and drop off our crap and then we went back to the Lido deck.  Great Big Sea was going to be doing the “sail away” show that afternoon and we wanted to check it out.

  I’m not a giant fan of celtic-y music, but a lot of the message board people are big fans, so I thought I’d give them a chance.  First, though, we stopped to grab lunch. We ran into Leigh and Greg in the hot dog line and invited them to join us. The strange girl from a previous incidence was in line, complaining about the food; it was quite amusing. After lunch Leigh and Greg went to do their thing and Ed and I went to the upper deck to get a good vantage spot.

A few minutes after the show started Leigh found us, and decided to hang out with us. Greg was tired, so he was going to grab a nap. I had such a good time talking to Leigh; we were searching the crowd for people that we recognized and then having Ed take pictures of them. Tyler Stewart was in the crowd nearby; other people were getting pics with them so I gathered up my courage and asked for a pic, as well.

A couple of things about Tyler: he was very gracious about having his picture taken with me, but when we went to pose he became quite stiff and gave off a “don’t touch me” vibe. I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I did the old cliche’ bunny ears, only not very well. Also, see the wet spots on his left shoulder? Right before we did the picture a gust of wind just about blew his hat off. Tyler went to grab it…with the same hand he was holding a drink on. It went all over him, and resulted in this picture:

Quite hilarious.  Ed R was also in the crowd, enjoying the show.  This is one of the things I love about the Ships and Dip cruises, seeing the other artists out and about, doing the same things that I’m doing, and enjoying themselves.

I almost hated to bother him for a picture, but I noticed that others had started to and I didn’t want to miss out on my chance.

A little while into the show, more hilarity ensued when Ed R showed up in a Speedo to sing along with GBS.

He sang along with the song 500 Miles and encourage the crowd to join in, as well.

So, Leigh and I were chatting and people watching, and Ed was snapping photos. I was enjoying the day, the music was entertaining, the weather was beautiful, all was good…except that it was always the Captain’s Party and that meant free drinks. Free booze, in other words. And, that would’ve been good, except the drinks were having some difficulty making it up to where we were. I stood above and watched tray after tray of drinks get snatched up before the waiters could even make it to the stairs. Finally (finally!) a waiter walked by with a tray of something. I had no idea what it even was, I just grabbed one. Turns out it was a huge glass of very dry champagne that I wasn’t able to finish. I set the drink down and went back to the concert and people watching. Next year I’ll know that I’ll need to station myself closer to the bar if I want to get a decent drink!

After the Sail Away show Leigh went back to wake up Greg, and Ed and I wandered around the ship.  We had made plans to meet Leigh and Greg for dinner, as well as Melissa and Jack, so we headed over to the Atrium lounge to have a drink while we waited for our dinner seating.  Shortly before the doors were supposed to open Leigh and Greg joined us, and then David (ExportedMolson) and his wife, Kim, joined us, too.  Leigh/Greg and David/Kim were our dinner table companions for the rest of the cruise; it became one of the things I looked forward to each night.

After a nice dinner (steak again for me, but I got my potatoes this time) Ed and I went out to the Lido deck to just hang out and get a spot for the Carbon Leaf show.  I still had no clue what the band members actually looked like, and when a bunch of guys started doing soundchecks I figured they were roadies or something.  Turns out it was the band.  It was funny, because I had been thinking that one of the “roadies” had a really good voice and should be a singer himself.  They finished their soundcheck and said they’d be back in a bit.  We had chairs, and the weather was nice, so we just hung out.  Occasionally people would come up and talk to us and then wander off again.  There was one woman who was a little bit scary.  She knew exactly who we were (especially Ed), she knew that we had had a tornado in our town recently, and she went on and on about Ed’s photos from last year’s cruise.  They talked about cameras for quite a while. 

The show finally started and I just have to say that I enjoyed the performance very much.  The lead singer, Barry Privett, is quite fascinating to watch.  He moves in a way that makes me think of Jim Morrison; he has very expressive arm and body movements.

CL was probably my second favorite band from the cruise. They did a song from their upcoming album, Another Man’s Woman, that I’m in love with. Go now and search for the youtube clip, I’ll wait. I’m sorry I didn’t get to see them more. They were scheduled to do another show, but it was changed and the new time conflicted with something else we were doing.

After Carbon Leaf we hung around for a bit and watch the Odds/Acid Wish. I was so tired, though, that I kept nodding off in my chair…10 feet from a huge speaker. After a while we went back to the room and went to bed.

Up next: Ocho Rios, Harvey Danger, Guster.

 

Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 4

Today was the day of our first port stop, in Grand Cayman.  I was a little bit apprehensive about this stop, as the ship wouldn’t be able to “park” up next to the island and we were going to have to take little boats called tenders to shore.  There was a lot of talk about the horrible experiences that some people had undergone while trying to get to shore…and The Rock Boat from the week before passed up the island completely because of adverse weather conditions.  Needless to say, I had some pretty unpleasant images bouncing around in my head.

But, believe it or not, I’m also an optimist, so we had gone ahead a booked an excursion.  We decided to forego a Carnval-sanctioned excursion, and signed up with “Dr. Evil” to go snorkling at Sting Ray City.  I’m not a fan of swimming and really don’t like to get my face wet.  There is something claustrophobic about snorking, and the feeling of giving up some control over my environment makes me feel a little freaked out.  I’ve always been fascinated with the smaller rays that we’ve seen at Sea World and Marine World, though, and wanted to see some bigger “wild” rays.  So, I figured I’d make it work. 

Anyway, the morning of the excursion we were up bright and early, as we had to meet the gang around 8 am.  Yikes!  What happened to being on vacation and sleeping in?  The day before we had been informed that we needed to get numbers to use the tenders if we weren’t doing a Carnival excursion, so we swung by the purser’s desk and ended up with #1.  I’m not really sure what the numbers were actually good for, but somehow we were under the impression that we had to be at the tender debarking area around 7 am, so there we were.  The line for the tenders moved very quickly and we were on board in no time.  It only took a few minutes to motor over to the dock, and unload. 

Once on the other side we had to figure out where everybody on the Dr. Evil excursion was meeting.  He had sent out an email with directions, and while we were getting our bearings another couple approached us and asked if we were part of that group.  And then a single woman joined us.  We all walked to the meeting place, and settled in to wait for everyone else to arrive.  Lots of people started showing up, it was like the message board party, part 2!  I had a chance to visit with ExportedMolson (David) and his wife, Kim, and I also got to meet Finchy!  I stood in line with him and chatted while he waited to pay and fill out his release forms…such a fun guy to talk to. We also took the opportunity to get our sunscreen on.

Jason (Joyful1’s husband) really wanted to make sure that he was well-covered.

Eventually everybody was paid up and accounted for, and we loaded into buses to drive to the…I don’t know…marina?  Wherever it was that we got into the charter boats to go to where the sting rays were.  We decided to split up two ways…drinkers and non-drinkers.  Ed and I went on the non-drinkers boat.  I’m not opposed to drinking, but the only alcohol on the board was beer and I just really don’t like the stuff.  Leigh and Greg, Finchy and his group, and Melissa and Jack were all on our boat. 

It took a little bit of time to get out to the sandbar where the rays are.  Once there, our boat backed up to the bar along with several others, we were given some instruction regarding the handling and treatment of the rays, and then we were free to get in the water with them.  We had to swim a few strokes to the sandbar, and then we were able to stand up.  I was a little bit surprised at how much of a current there was…sometimes the water seemed to be just waist-high and then other times I felt like it was going to go over my head.  It wasn’t bad, though.  The guide from our boat caught a stingray and asked me if I wanted to hold it.  Heck yeah! 

They are much heavier than I expected; I almost dropped her when the guide put her in my arms. The tops are a bit rough and bumpy and the undersides are smooth. She flapped her sides a bit while I was holding her. (I say “she” because we were told that the really large ones are the females, while the tiny ones are males.) After a minute or two the guide took her back from me, and did this:

I stood in the water while the rays swam around me for a few minutes and then my eyes started bothering me from the salt water so I swam back to the boat. Ed stayed in the water and took a few more pics:

It’s pretty cool when they are swimming near you, and a tiny bit frightening at the same time. They are wild creatures, after all, and we are in their environment.

We had two more snorkling stops to make, but I was done getting in the water for the day. It was fine,though; I wasn’t the only one who stayed on the boat after the stingray portion of the trip so I had plenty of people to talk to (as is the case anywhere and everywhere on the cruise).

(To see all of the Stingray City photos, click HERE.)

After the last two stops where other people did more snorkling, we headed back to the shore and our busride back to the tender dock.  The bus driver was playing a local radio station and a song came on that had us all rolling with laughter.  The song was called, “I Don’t Want to Be a Conch” and was all about the horrible things that happens to the poor creatures.  Hilarious.  After we got home Ed looked it up and found a link to it, which is here:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/barefootman. For some reason, I can’t get that one to hotlink, so you’ll have to use some old-fashioned copy-and-pasting if you want to hear the song.

Upon arriving back at the tender docks we boarded the one for our ship and headed back.

Up next: Day 4 continues with dinner, Carbon Leaf, and more Acid Wish.

 

Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 3

Ok, so last year we kept hearing about all these great late night acts that we missed because we had gone to bed too early (hey, we’re middle-aged with kids, give us a break!) and we decided that this year would be different.  We’d stay up late and see everything and then sleep in late since nothing much really happens during the day anyway.  But, no, that was not to be.  On the very first day that we could sleep in we had to get up to do the infamous naked photo.  Last year we didn’t do it for a couple of reasons…1, it was just too hard to maneuver around with the wheelchair or crutches, and 2, we were just big chickens.  But, anybody who was anybody did it last year, so we were determined not to miss out this time. 

After going to bed around 3 am that morning we were back up at 9 to “dress” and head up to the Lido deck for the photo.  We took quick showers, and donned the white terry cloth robes that Carnival provides for our onboard use, and ventured out.  There weren’t many people on the Lido deck at that point, so we pretty much had our pick of where we wanted to stand.  If I had had my way I would’ve stood behind a pole or something, but Ed stationed us by the railing one or two platforms up.  His thinking was if we’re going to do it, we might as well do it so people can see us. 

More and more people started showing up, and it started to get really warm in the heavy robes.  After about a half hour Fin started talking to us, giving directions and asking people to move to the front, etc.  A few minutes later BNL came out and of course everyone cheered.  They climbed up to their designated area, and Fin gave the countdown and all the robes dropped!  To be honest, I felt both self-conscious and un-self-conscious at the same time.  I couldn’t believe that I was standing naked with almost 1000 strangers like it was the most natural thing in the world.  I wanted to look around, but felt like a freak for even thinking it, so I just stared straight ahead, up at the photographer on his precarious perch.  After a slow count down from 10 Fin gave the announcement to put our robes back on and everybody wandered off to do their own thing.

Ed and I went back to our room to get dressed and then went back out for breakfast.  There was quite a line at the buffet when we got there, and Ed said we should’ve just eaten in our robes.  I noticed that a lot of people did just that, but I was so hot I couldn’t have lasted much longer.  No big deal; we didn’t have anywhere we needed to be at that time.  After we ate we went up to one of the higher decks and I settled into a chair to do some reading/people watching while Ed went off to take pictures around the ship.  After a while I started to feel restless so I decided to wander around myself. 

I found myself in the Atrium Bar where I ran into PJ and his wife, Trish.  Trish was on her way off to check their son into a Camp Carnival activity, so I visited with PJ for a few minutes.  He was getting ready to go to a candy swap that another board member had organized, so I tagged along.  When I got there I ran into Leigh (Rankin Family) and Greg, David (ExportedMolson), and Lewis (NVCatGut) and his wife.  I wasn’t part of the candy swap, so I tried to just sit unobtrusively to the side and chat with Leigh.  After a while I left everyone to their swap and went looking for Ed. 

We grabbed some lunch in the buffet and then went to watch the Guitar Hero semi-finals, since my friend Melissa’s son, Jack, had won a spot in the competion during the lottery drawing for certain events.  We got there a bit early and there was an art auction going on.  I was shocked at the prices that the auctioneer was asking for some of the pieces, and even more shocked when somebody bid on one of them!  The woman conducting the auction was quite entertaining and informative and I found myself interested in what she had to say.  But, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t glad when it was over and they started clearing the art out of the room.  Ed and I snagged good seats near the competition area, and settled in to wait.  As people filed in we chatted with others who had come to watch, all the while keeping an eye out for Melissa and Jack.  Jack arrived with his two friends, Devon and Will, and Melissa was a couple of minutes behind them.  Shortly after that Ed R arrived to host the event, and the first two contestants started battling it out.  I’ll admit here that I am not a fan of watching Guitar Hero and would normally find it quite boring.  But, Ed R always livens things up no matter what the situation, by singing around and goofing with the crowd, so I was entertained. 

For a bit.  After a few pairings, however, Ed R announced that he had another committment and left.  Ok, so then I was just watching a bunch of people I don’t know play GH.  We stuck it out, though, because we wanted to see Jack play. 

He finally got his chance, and I’m sorry to say that he lost his round.  He tried his best, though, and when he realized he was losing he turned to the crowd and motioned for support.  It was quite charming. 

(All of the Guitar Hero pictures can be found HERE.)

About this time it was time to head to the dining room for dinner, so we parted ways with Melissa and Jack and took off. We ran into Bari/Mark, Andrew/Jody, Sallie/Bob, Joy/Jason, and some others and made plans to meet at the dining room so we could sit together. As it turned out, Ed and I, along with Joy and Jason, ended up waiting at one door, while everyone else entered from the other side. We didn’t end up sitting together in a big group, but I still enjoyed sitting with Joy, Jason, and Joy’s friend (and fellow board member) Jess. Shell and his wife Patty also joined us, although Shell and I never got a chance to talk as we were at opposite ends of the table from each other. While the company at the table was enjoyable, however, the actual food and service left something to be desired.

I am not an adventurous eater, so that aspect of cruising is lost on me. People kept telling me, “Oh, its so cool, you can try all sorts of different foods, and if you don’t like them send them back and get something else.” I’ll admit I had no desire to do that. Just bring me a decent steak, cooked medium rare, and I’m good. So, despite all the exotic sounding choices I ate steak or prime rib every night I ate in the dining room. Hey, it’s my vacation…I should enjoy it however I choose to, right? I was wanting a salad, however, so I ordered what appeared to be the most likely candidate. I was brought a bowl of dry green leaves, and told my dressing was coming. It never did show up, and eventually I sent the leaves back with the waiter. My first steak also didn’t come with the red potatoes it should’ve had, and when I asked about them the waiter looked under my steak. Nope, not hiding under there, so the waiter said he’d bring me some. Ed had ordered a baked potato, so he gave me his reds. It’s a good thing he did, because mine never showed up. At the end of the meal the waiter said, “Hey, sorry about that potato thing, ok?” What does that mean?

It was time to order dessert, and I had to get the chocolate melting cake since all I’ve been reading on the message board was how good it was. I was expecting something that was somewhat cakelike, but ended up with a cup of hot goo. I wasn’t really impressed, and also managed to spill some down my front. (I spilled more things on myself during this cruise than I think I have my entire adult life. Very weird. I almost ran out of clothes.) At that point I was ready to call it quits with that meal, and told Ed I’d meet him at the Howie Beck show after I went to the room and changed.

We had planned to go to the Howie Beck show in order to get good seats for the Vanity Project set with Steve afterwards. I should apologize to Howie right now and say that we never had any interest in seeing your set; it was all about Steve. But when we got there we were pleasantly surprised by his performance. Joe Pisapia and Ryan Miller of Guster were also onstage helping him out and I found it to be quite enjoyable. A lot of people were at that show, though, and I suspect that many of them had the same idea that we had. At first we had to sit in the very back of the room, but Ed discovered a table towards the front that wasn’t being used, as it was kind of tucked in near the control panel. He snagged a couple of chairs, and we were good to go.

I never had a chance to see the Vanity Project last year, so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss them this year. I was glad that I made an effort to see them, as I liked them quite a bit. Steven Page is always such a fabulous entertainer that you really can’t go wrong when it comes to anything he does, and this set was no exception. I hoped that he would play the songs Wilted Rose and Baby Loves the Radio, and he did. Very cool.

We decided to stick around and catch a show that Steve Page was doing with Sean Nelson, of Harvey Danger. It was called “The Songs of Paul McCartney”, which sounded very intriguing to me.   Turns out it was Steve and Sean doing just that…singing Paul McCartney songs.  Except they kind of acted like it was embarrassing to be a fan of McC, and spent a lot of time talking about the songs and not much time actually singing them.  Sean Nelson really likes to talk, and Ed and I found ourselves getting bored, so we left halfway through.  Later, of course, I heard that Acid Wish joined the guys on stage and really livened things up.

(There was an incident involving a strange cruiser that took place before the VP show that I found quite amusing.  I thought about detailing it here, but have decided not to.  I may change my mind later, but for now if you are meant to know about it I’ve already told you.  In the meantime, this paragraph will serve as a memory trigger for me.)

After we left the Steve/Sean/Paul show we thought about going out to check the action on the Lido deck, but in the end we decided to go back to the room and get some sleep before our early morning excursion the next day. 

Up next: excursion, Great Big Sea, and Carbon Leaf

 

Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 2

We started off the day by heading to the hotel’s “cafe” for breakfast.  As we were walking in I noticed some luggage sitting off to the side with Ships and Dip tags on it, so I started scoping out the place for fellow cruisers.  Is it that elderly couple in the corner?  Probably not, although they were wearing vacation attire.  How about the businessmen paying their bill?  Definitely not.  Hey!  Isn’t that Tami (aka mommyand3) and her brood?  Yes, it was! We went over and introduced ourselves, and plopped down at the table next to theirs.  I don’t know if they really wanted us to join them, but they were very gracious and friendly and we had a great conversation during breakfast.  Their son, Devon is a very well-behaved and polite young man…more on him later, though.  The two girls, Kennedy and Carson, are precocious and adorable.  They were so disappointed when I told them that we hadn’t brought our daughter along. After we finished breakfast we went back to the room to gather our bags and meet our shuttle.  We had arranged for a shuttle to take us to the port rather than rely on a (more expensive) taxi.  We were right on time for the shuttle, only to be told that we had to wait for additional passengers to come downstairs. 

 We waited for about 20 minutes, and then a family with a ton of luggage showed up.  It was a miracle that the driver was able to get it (and them) all into the shuttle.  But, he managed and we were off.  The baby started to cry and could not be consoled, but I tried to block it out.  The driver asked us which cruise terminal we all needed, and decided to drop Ed and I off first.  Unfortunately, that meant he had to unload all the luggage he had put on earlier, since ours was completely buried.  As it turned out, there was another couple on Ships and Dip, as well.  Ed and I took our bags and went to the terminal to check in.  I wanted to call my friend, Melissa, and let her know where we were, but was told I couldn’t use my cell phone in the terminal.  But, that was a minor glitch, in comparison to the rest of the process.

What a pleasant surprise the embarkation process was!  It was all inside and the line kept moving quickly.  Ed Robertson, Tyler Stewart, and Kevin Hearn(and K’s brother) were all walking around inside the terminal, greeting people, shaking hand, etc.  Kevin approached me and said that he was happy to see that we had come for a second year.  Ed (my husband) said that he was probably saying that to everyone…after all, he had a 50/50 shot at being right, but I like to think that he remembered me.

 After a quick and painless embarkation we were onboard!  We were told that we couldn’t go to our cabins quite yet, so we went to the bar to have a drink.  As we were sitting there, a couple from the Ships and Dip message board walked by.  (I should take a minute here to point out that I’ve been participating on the S&D MB for the last year…since the last cruise, in fact…and was looking forward to meeting some of the other posters in real life.) I yelled out, “Bari!” to get their attention and Mark and Bari (Musical Genius and Personal Venus) came over to greet us. 

We visited for a few minutes and then decided to go have lunch. In the buffet we ran into Andrew and Jody (WildEagle and Niceydoodle) and we all decided to sit together. So cool! Other message board people stopped by to say hi; it was a lot of fun.

After lunch we decided to go find our rooms. Turns out we were on the same floor, so we walked together to our floor and then split off. When Ed and I got to our room we were pleasantly surprised. We had gone the cheap route and gotten a small interior cabin and we were expecting a tiny room but it was actually quite roomy. Not having a window was going to make it easy to sleep during the day after our late nights watching concerts and comedians.

We were just getting ready to head back out into the ship when there was a knock on the door. It was my friend, Melissa, who I’ve known for 12 years, but never actually met. We’re members of the same private message board, and have shared aspects of our lives with each other. I convinced her that the S&D cruise would be a fun vacation, so she decided to bring her son Jack along for his 13th birthday. It was so cool to finally meet face to face! Of course we hugged, and then stood inside the entry to our room yakking like we’ve known each other for years (and, of course, we have). I mentioned that I wanted to see Melissa’s cabin since she had a suite, and we took off for her room.

As we were walking down the hall, we came across a group of people standing around talking to Ed Robertson. We joined them for a few minutes, not even knowing what they were talking about but wanting to be a part of any group that Ed was involved in! As we were standing there a porter approached the cabin near us in order to leave a suitcase outside the door. Ed R picked up the suitcase, and knocked on the door. When the occupant answered he handed her the bag, saying, “I’ve been told that I have to work off my cruise delivering luggage”. The girl inside took the suitcase, then looked out into the hall and said, “Where’s the rest of them?” She didn’t even acknowledge or realize who was delivering her bags…it was hilarious.

After checking out Melissa’s spacious cabin we went up to the Lido deck and ran into Deborah (Barenakedesq) and her friend, Heather.

Deborah is a member of the message board who lives near me. I met her last summer when she hosted a get-together. We visited for a while and then it was time to get ready for the muster drill.

The muster drill was uneventful; I never seem to end up in a fun group. We just did our thing, and left…for the Lido deck to see BNL’s sail away show! Of course, that’s where everyone else was going, too, and the deck was packed…well, most of it, anyway. They were still loading equipment onto the ship by crane, so one side of the deck was roped off. Ed and I, along with a bunch of other like-minded people, stationed ourselves by the rope so we could scramble to the open, empty side when the time came. It seemed like it took forever to get the equipment loaded, and I think we were actually late getting underway, but the rope was finally torn down, everyone scrambed to find a great spot, and our favorite band came on stage.

They played a fantastic set, with songs such as Stomach V. Heart, Some Fantastic, Life in a Nutshell, Bull in a China Shop, and King of Bedside Manor.  I love the energy that comes off of Bedside Manor…so much fun!  Oh, and how could I forget Upside Down?  All in all it was a great way to start off the week.

(More photos for the Sail Away show can be viewed HERE)

I’m not sure what we did after the Sail Away show, but eventually we found ourselves at the message board party that Sixthman organized for the message board junkies. It was so much fun to finally meet a lot of the people that I’ve been “talking” to for the last year. There was much talking and hugging going on; everyone seemed pretty excited to be there.  I know I’ll forget someone, but I wanted to list everyone I met, so here goes (since it was a message board party I’m just going to use their MB names):

Anaria, WildEagle, NiceyDoodle, Musical Genius, Personal Venus, TonyM and his girlfriend, Really_Mzungu, Nikkipooo, Lauren-from-Sixthman, Skates, Jess#### (sorry, J, I forgot the actual numbers), Polyester Angel, Quinbooka, Shell824, Count Abby, Mari and her husband, Doug, Serenity, DrumGroovy, klynb, CausticWookie, AThousandDreams, Rankin Family and her husband, Greg, Weedmage, CC, Son_of_Ed, ShortAlaina, AZSally, Kate_nev, PJ, and Ellen from St Louis, who is a lovely dumpling of a woman!  PJ brought me some candy bars from England because I thought their slogan was hilarious.

I don’t think you can see it, but the side of the package says, “It’s not for girls!” Why the hell not? If anyone needs chocolate, it’s girls!

(All the message board party pics are HERE.

After the hugfest at the message board party we went to grab a bite for dinner and get ready for the Alumni show. BNL decided to put on an extra concert for the people who went on the cruise last year, and once again they didn’t disappoint. When we first arrived at our seats Lauren (from Sixthman) handed us a scrap of paper and asked us to write a song request on it. I couldn’t think of anything, so I went with something obscure (The Flag). Hey, I’ve never heard them perform it live (and I still haven’t). The song requests all went into a bucket and the guys pulled songs from it to determine the setlist. There were a lot of great choices, like Why Say Anything Nice, Half a Heart, Wizard of Magicland, and Blame it on Me. Another Postcard was drawn and the guys had a discussion about whether or not they wanted to do that one. It was decided that someone did request it, and “fuck it, it’s in the bucket” became the chant of the evening. They were also asked to do the theme from Big Bang Theory. Ed sang it quite exuberantly, and when it was over seemed quite shocked to hear that there was actually more of the song. Check out the hilarity HERE.

 You’d think that, at that point, we had had a pretty full day, right?  Well, you’d be wrong.  After the Alumni show we raced to the other end of the ship to catch the comedy show with Deborah Digiovanni and Harland Williams.  We arrived towards the end of Deborah’s set, which disappointed me because I had been looking forward to seeing her ever since I saw her compete on Last Comic Standing.  However, I’m not really sure if she was funny or not because I was so tired I just about nodded off.  Deborah’s show ended and Harland came out.  Again, I was excited to see him because he had been so funny last year.  And, again, I have no idea because I continued to partially nod off.  The combination of the dark lounge and the fact that I had been going since early that morning had me completely worn out.  We decided to let someone else have our seats and headed out to the Lido Deck to catch the Odds perform one of their late night sets, but first we grabbed a snack from the 24-hour buffet.

We missed the Odds, but did get the see their alter-egos, Acid Wish.  We had been watching for a few minutes, when Steve Page showed up in this crazy outfit:

They referred to him as “Bartles” and he performed an epic rap about chili dogs. Steve/Bartles performed for a while, and then he left the stage. Right after that, Ed R popped up to play drums for a while.

(The Acid Wish/Bartles/Ed pics are HERE.
We watched Ed for a while, and then went to our room to sleep.

 

Cruising with Barenaked Ladies, Day 1

It’s been over a week since we returned from our second cruise with the band, Barenaked Ladies.  Last year I was on medical leave from work and had plenty of down time to journal about the trip on my blog.  I’m working this year, but not all that much, so that isn’t much of an excuse.  For some reason, I’m suffering from a lack of motivation.  I NEED to get this down before I forget some of it (as if that’s possible, but still…)  I’m a bit annoyed right now; my daughter is giving me a hard time about cleaning her room and my son is being completely obnoxious in general.  But, let’s give this a shot and see how things go.

The day started very early, as we needed to be at the airport before 7 am.  Ann arrived right on schedule to drive us, and we headed over.  It’s always easiest if she and the kids just drop us off outside the departures entrance, which is what we did this time.  We gave the kids hugs and kisses, left some last minute instructions for Ann, and headed into the airport.  Alex cried a little bit, but according to a conversation with Ann later, got over it by the time he got home and fired up the XBox.

Check-in for our first flight went off without a hitch.  I was nervous about the flights this year, as last year there were weather delays that held us up for several hours before we were able to leave PDX.  But, this time we left right on time.  Ed was having some trouble with his shoulder so he wore his arm sling and was able to get a pre-boarding pass for the both of us.  Since we were flying SW, this was a good thing!  We had purchased our tickets through an agent, which meant that we couldn’t go online for our boarding passes.  At check-in we ended up getting low B #’s, so Ed’s preboard pass helped us to get decent seats on the plane. 

We flew into Chicago and had a short wait before our next flight.  As we were sitting at the gate, Ed got a text from someone on the Ships and Dip message board.  Previously we had exchanged phone numbers with a few people who thought they might be arriving in Ft. Lauderdale at the same time as us.  Amber got to thinking and realized that, based on flight info we had given, we were probably on the same connection.  So, she sent us a text to tell us that she and her husband were at the back of the plane and we should join them!  I ended up sitting next to Rich, and the three of us had a great conversation all the way from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale.  Ed was across the aisle and wasn’t really able to join in, so he kept himself occupied by watching episodes of Scrubs on his Zune. 

After we landed Rich and Amber went to meet up with some friends, and Ed and I were left to figure out how to get from FLL to MIA.  We had been told that there was a tri-rail system to runs between the two airports so we decided that that was our best, and cheapest, bet.  We made our way out of the airport, and found where we needed to catch a shuttle to get us to the station.  We were a bit confused; I don’t know why we thought this, but we thought we’d just get on the train from the airport.  The shuttle was free, however, and we didn’t have to wait long, so it wasn’t a big deal. 

While we were waiting for the shuttle I noticed a girl traveling alone.  I don’t know why, but I got to thinking she was a Ships and Dipper, so I approached her and asked.  I think I may have recognized her from the message boards, and sure enough, she was.  It was “Anaria”, or Brandi.  We visited with her up until the shuttle arrived.  At that point another cruiser arrived and she and Brandi traveled together for the rest of the evening.  I never did catch her name.

We arrived at the Tri-Rail station and lined up to get our tickets.  And then we waited for the train.  And waited, and waited.  After the train was almost an hour late an announcement was made that the train was experiencing mechanical difficulties.  Right after that, however, the train arrived and we got on to head to Miami. 

The train ride was about 45 minutes long, and by the time we arrived at the Miami station we were not up for any more travel.  We jumped into a cab and went to the hotel we had reserved.  I was a bit apprehensive about the hotel since we had gotten it from Priceline, but it turned out to be a very nice Holiday Inn.  We checked in and dropped off our stuff, and then went down to the restaurant for dinner. 

As is typical for us, Ed’s meal was messed up…his hamburger was practically raw.  But the restaurant staff fixed things quickly and after we finished eating we headed back up the room to rest up for the next day’s excitement…boarding the ship! 

That should’ve been the end of Day One, except Ed woke up in the middle of the night and started vomiting, probably caused by the raw hamburger he had consumed.  It didn’t last long, though, and he was fine by morning, thank goodness. 

 

The cruise was fabulous, more details to come

It’s been a week since we returned from our second Ships and Dip cruise with Barenaked  Ladies.  I need to blog about it before I forget all the details, and will, but in the meantime here is a pic for your viewing pleasure:

Yes, those people are all naked and yes, I am in there somewhere.

 

Safeway, Faxes, and Customer Service

I’m supposed to be starting a new job, but haven’t been able to do so until HQ processes my “new hire” paperwork.  My new boss asked me to fax them in so we could at least get the ball rolling, and then I’d mail in the originals to have on file.  Because I was asked to do this on 12/24, there weren’t very many places around that could do faxes for me.

I ended up at Safeway, where they have a counter that sends faxes, sells lottery tickets and cigarettes, etc.  I told the guy at the counter that I needed to have 14 pages faxed and he replied that it was $1 a page.  I thought, “Yikes”, but agreed as I needed to have the pages sent that day. 

It took several minutes for my faxes to be completed and at the end of it I received a confirmation page, letting me know that my fax had gone through.  I paid, took my confirmation, and left, secure in the knowledge that my paperwork had been sent off.

Or so I thought.  The following Friday I got a call from my new boss, wondering where my papers were.  I told her I had sent them on Monday, but it appeared that she hadn’t gotten them.  I checked my confirmation, and discovered that the store associate had sent my papers to a completely different fax number than the one I had given him. 

By this time my husband had set my computer up to send faxes, so I sent everything right off.  However, I was a bit bothered by the Safeway incident.  Not only did this keep me from starting my new job a week earlier, but my name, address, social, etc, all ended up in some random place.  I don’t know who has access to my vital information now.

I went to Safeway yesterday and explained the situation.  The manager I spoke with was appropriately apologetic, but said there wasn’t really anything she could do about the lost wages.  She did, however, refund my fax fee and give me a $20 store gift card.  I didn’t really expect anything beyond the refund, so I guess I am happy with the gift card. 

 I can’t help be annoyed by the screw-up, though.