Weird Animal Activities

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day. Too busy in many regards. 

Monarch Butterfly at Picnic

But, during the course of the day I observed two very different animals doing funny things.

The first animal encounter occurred during my office's picnic. The person cooking the burgers and dogs was visited by a very persistent monarch butterfly. The butterfly fluttered around for quite a few minutes before deciding that he was not the milkweed plant for which it was looking. 

Riordin Tries on a New Box

During its time at the picnic the monarch butterfly even posed for a picture perched on the cook's hand which was holding a paper plate.

And then , there was Riordin! The cat likes boxes of all shapes and sizes. The parts arrived to repair the broken garage door opener and Riordin just had to try the box they came in on for size--even though clearly it was too small for him. 

He arranged himself in the box and sat there for a few minutes in the most undignified pose trying to decide whether this was the box for him. It wasn't and I was finally able to add it to the recycling pile.

Animals do the strangest things and sometimes the encounters add spice to my days.

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Tales of the Toilet

It seems that my house is revolting against me for being gone almost two weeks.

Every evening this week I have been in the "fix and repair" mode to  get everything back into working order.

Yesterday it was a toilet. Not your usual problem of a clogged toilet, or one that won fill or flush properly. No, my toilet decided it needed to leak around the bolts that secure the tank to the bowl!

I had never considered that toilets could leak in that place. It was ugly. I am glad that at least the toilet waited to revolt until I had returned--it could have been catastrophic had it sprung a leak while we were away. I can imagine water soaking through everything! Ugh. Maybe I should start closing the water supply valves to the toilets when we go away.

Toilet repairs are not particularly difficult, but they are also not a lot of fun. And, as it turned out my toilet required the use of the "alternate" instructions for the kit. Of course it did! And I didn't recognize it until it was all back together and leaking worse than before.


I did not enjoy taking the toilet all apart, again, to reconfigure the parts. I also did not enjoy driving to Lowe's during rush hour traffic to obtain the parts which cost a whopping $4.95. I probably spent more on gas than the parts cost.

But, the toilet is fixed!

So the repair was a stunning success!

I wonder why there are so many different types of toilets?

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Are You Cold?

Temperature challenged people are everywhere.

I am possibly becoming a temperature challenged person, although after reading Chilly at Work? Office Formula Was Devised for Men, I should be in the group that is comfortable since I am a guy.

I have noted that Chris gets colder, faster, and in more places than I seem to be.

Despite that, during our recent vacation, I found places that were cold, even for me.

The Fort Lauderdale airport Southwest Terminal area is one of those places--it is just cold. We knew that it was going to be cold because that terminal is always cold and we were not disappointed. I remember arriving there from Baltimore, walking off the cool but comfortable Boeing 737 through the sweltering jetway into the terminal to be greeted by the sensation of walking out the front door of the house during the coldest days of winter.

Even I was chilled.

It goes further. Chris and I are always discussing the temperature in the areas where we spend time. We never could get the temperature in our stateroom on the ship just right--we were constantly adjusting it and never fully satisfied.

At home, we often have the same discussions, with the exception that Chris is often too hot while I am comfortable.

And then I learn the algorithm to determine optimal work place temperatures is inherently biased towards men.

Temperature challenged! I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere that air conditioning is not widely employed--like Europe? Perhaps we have taken a good invention too far? 

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

What did I do on my first day back after vacation?

I remember going back to school after summer vacation when I was in elementary school. It seemed that the first ice breaker of the year was something about what did I do during my summer vacation? 

Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge
Willemstad, Curacao

The corollary is, What did I do on my first day back at work after my vacation?

With the vacation rapidly passing from reality to memory, I returned to the daily grind. I was enthused to see my work-mates and regale them with tales from my cruise adventure. But there was a lot of work that needed to be accomplished as well. I worked a full day, plus a bit. 

As a reward for my exertions at work, I treated myself to a much needed massage to shake off the stress of returning from the cruise--but then it was home and into the breech to get the house back into shape after being gone for almost two weeks.

First up was the yard! It was mowed and looks really good. Then the pool was brought back into shape by replenishing the chemicals that keep it clean and sparkling. This morning's thunderstorm rendered the cleaning that I did pointless, but the pool was pristine last evening when I went to bed. 

But wait, there's more! 

Most Awesome Piece of Cheesecake
Ever!

A door handle needed to be tightened, I ordered parts for the broken garage door opener, got gas for the leaf blower, purchased spray to kill the tent webworms that appeared in a couple of trees while I was gone, and also bought and installed a new shower head for one of the bathrooms because the old one had become clogged and really needed to be replaced.

Somewhere in there I took a timeout for dinner. By the time I was done it was 9 PM.

Wow, what a day. Of course as I reflected on the week gone by, I knew that one the cruise 9 PM was in the middle of our dinner hour. Alas, now it was shortly before bedtime. 

And just like that, the day was gone. 

-- Bob Doan, Elkridge, MD

Monday Musings - August 3, 2015

Sunrise August 2, 2015
Aboard the Carnival Conquest in Port Everglades, Florida

1. It is the first Monday in August--I bet that almost slipped in unnoticed.

2. Wow, what a change. Yesterday I woke up on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida and today I am back in my everyday life heading off to work. Ugh! 

3. If vacations didn't end, I wouldn't appreciate them so much.

My Towel Dog Made on the cruise

4. Chris was so relaxed during our cruise that I had to nudge her a couple of times to make sure she was still alive.

5. No good vacation goes unpunished! My garage door opener suffered a catastrophic failure while I was away. Ugh!

6. With the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba, it is time to end the economic embargo. I was amazed, but 72 percent of Americans support ending the embargo.

Swimming with the Fish
Grand Turk

7. I am going to miss the towel animals on my bed every night. Wait, I took a course on the ship about making towel animals!

8. Swimming with the fishes took on a new meaning last week.

9. My heart goes out the parents of the 14-year old sailors lost at sea during a fishing trip off the coast of South Florida. The Coast Guard suspended the search, but they haven to lost hope.

-- Bob Doan, writing from home in Elkridge, MD

The Cruise is Over

There are some words that fully express how I am feeling right now as the Carnival Conquest ties up at the quay and the cruise is completed. 

Carlin Park, Jupiter, Florida

It is over. Our entire vacation from Jupiter to the Caribbean is over.



Wow. It is hard to believe that eight days ago Chris and I departed on a journey that took us across the Caribbean to Grand Turk, Curacao, and Aruba only now to return us to the spot from which we departed.

It is sad. Not only is the cruise over, but the entire vacation is ending.

Carnival Conquest
Grand Turk
July 27, 2015

By this time tomorrow I will be wither on my way to work or trying to work off the extra cruise-induced weight on the racquetball court.

It was fun. But it was all too short. I'm glad we never considered that it was ending until last evening. The whole ship was abuzz and I  could see it in the other passengers, and especially the teenagers, that we were sad that the journey was coming to a conclusion.

Everything has a beginning and and ending and we have just arrived at the final chapter and pages of the book.

Speaking of which,  I read two books during the cruise. 

There is a long day of departure and travel ahead on Chris and I as we prepare to return to our day-to-day lives.

We have awesome memories and made a couple of new friends too.

After all, isn't that what vacations are about?

-- Bob Doan, aboard the Carnival Conquest in Port Everglades

My Take: Reality is Real

Cecil the Lion

It is August, and despite still being on vacation, I read a thought provoking OpEd piece in the New York Times this morning. 

The article by Roxane Gay titled, Of Lions and Men: Mourning Samuel DuBose and Cecil the Lion, reminded me that reality is not absolute. What is real may be absolute, but reality is based upon perception, emotion, and belief. If I believe something, then for me it is real and it affects the lens through which I view the world. 

I have been following both stories, Cecil the Lion who was illegally poached by the Minnesota dentist and the shooting/murder of Samuel DuBose. 

Samuel DuBose

The released video in the Samuel DuBose case appears to materially contradict the reports of the police officers. The video recorded what was real. It recorded what happened without regard to the interactions between the people involved. 

I know, from my own experiences, that what I remember about a situation varies from what is real because I am influenced by my own reality. My reality precludes me from being an inanimate recording device because I feel emotion and my memories are clouded by my biases. I remember how I was feeling and I see the situation through my own lens--and it is often a cloudy lens.

In her piece this morning, Ms. Gay writes:

When you hear, “black lives matter,” don’t instinctively respond that all lives matter, as if one statement negates the other. Instead, try to understand why people of color might be compelled to remind the world that their lives have value.

When others share their reality, don’t immediately dismiss them because their reality is dissimilar to yours, or because their reality makes you uncomfortable and forces you to see things you prefer to ignore.

I highlighted the line that really resonated with me, because I know that it happens all of the time. I see it, I do it, and I have my own personal reality negated.

I agree with Ms. Gay that it is interesting that our society seems intent on rectifying, if it could, the slaughter of Cecil the Lion, but not stopping the violence that is happening all around us. In closing her OpEd piece this morning she writes:

I am thinking about how and when people choose to show empathy publicly. Cecil the lion was a majestic creature and a great many people mourn his death, the brutality of it, the senselessness of it. Some people also mourn the deaths, most recently, of Sandra Bland and Samuel DuBose, but this mourning doesn’t seem to carry the same emotional tenor. A late-night television host did not cry on camera this week for human lives that have been lost. He certainly doesn’t have to. He did, however, cry for a lion and that’s worth thinking about. Human beings are majestic creatures, too. May we learn to see this majesty in all of us.

I believe she is onto something we all need to take a moment to think about.

-- Bob Doan, writing aboard the Carnival Conquest 

Curacao: Special Edition

I have finally finished editing the videos that Chris and I took while visiting Curacao. I broke them into two separate videos, one for the land highlights and the other for the snorkeling highlights.

Curacao on-land highlights are above and snorkeling highlights are below. 

We had fun while on Curacao.

I still have not completed the video of snorkeling on Grand Turk, we took too much video and it takes a long time to get through it all; and I have just begun to work on the Aruba snorkeling video.

All of my videos are available on my YouTube channel.

-- Bob Doan, aboard the Carnival Conquest in the Caribbean Sea

Aruba Rocks

Shopping District
Oranjestad, Aruba

The final port of call for my cruise occurred yesterday with a few, too short, hours in Aruba.

I can say that Aruba has stolen my heart and of the three places that Chris and I visited during the cruise, it is the one that we want to return to the most. Maybe next April!

Cuttlefish
Aruba

We started the day by taking a taxi to a beach for a couple hours of snorkeling before the crowds appeared. The highlights of our time in the water off Aruba were a sharptail eel and many starfish. There were also a lot of cuttlefish!

Chris has a special place in her heart for cuttlefish.

Starfish
Aruba

We have enjoyed the snorkeling everywhere we have stopped, but I have state that it has not been "reef" spectacular. By that I mean, we did some fantastic reef snorkeling a few years ago while staying in St Lucia, and none of the areas we have snorkeled on this trip have come close to the reefs there.

Even so, the snorkeling was rewarding because there was something different or special at every stop. 

Yesterday was nice because we were able to return to the ship and change before going out shopping in Oranjestad. That was nice because the dive bag gets heavy after a short while of dragging it around into and out of shops.

Sharptail Eel
Aruba

I prefer snorkeling and reclining on a beach to shopping, but it was fun to shop as well. 

We had a nice lunch and made it back comfortably to the ship before our 4PM departure. I was later told, by an eyewitness, that the announcement we heard calling out a number of our shipmates names at about departure time was because they were not yet onboard and the captain was preparing to cast off just as a taxi came screaming up to the quay, just in the nick of time. I suppose worse things could have happened than being stranded in Aruba.

Cuttlefish keeping a close eye on me

It was sad that all of our port calls have been completed, but we still have two sea days remaining.

I will be catching up on my pictures and editing the movies. Oh yea, and sitting in the sun by the pool.

-- Bob Doan, writing from the Carnival Conquest currently somewhere in the Caribbean Sea

Reflections of Curacao

Willemstad, Curacao from the Ship

I spent the entire day in Curacao yesterday. Chris and I departed the ship promptly at 9AM and did not return to the ship until after 7PM. 

The excitement of being on one of the islands that I have read so much about and have longed to visit was rapidly met by the reality of life. 

Knip Public Beach, Curacao

We took a tour that covered most of the west end of the arid, poor, and trash clogged island. We visited plantations and learned of the history of the slave uprisings resulting in the eventual abolishment of the practice. In a strange evolution, we photographed flamingos living and eating on the same salt flats that the slaves used to work.

Chris and I visited three beaches and the National Park to watch the waves crash onto the north shore of the island. It was impressive.

Smooth Trunkfish, Curacao

The snorkeling was excellent right along the beaches with many interesting animals.

We had a lot of fun, but could see the poverty at every turn in the road from our seats in the open air tour bus.

I have more images to share, but it is an early departure for Aruba this morning and so this will have to do for now. I believe I have some great videos to share as well, compliments of my GoPro.

Another vacation day is at hand!

-- Bob Doan, writing from the Carnival Conquest just docking in Aruba