crossing the equator...again.

What a glorious morning!

We are clearly in open ocean now with the rolling and swaying. We have been especially lucky with almost glass like seas while in the Coral Sea. We are now in the Solomons and headed toward the Marianas.

It is clear, bright, sky is light blue contrasted with the deep blue of the ocean.

I stand corrected(back to my original position)

Rabaul is on an island right next to the northernmost point of the main land of PNG (which is supposedly the second largest island in the world??) Now maybe I can put that to sleep. Zzzz

WWII lecture

The speaker focuses his talks around the ships and we are now into the Battle of Midway. He doesn’t try to cram too much into his time and he gives you interesting tidbits usually from people who were actually there and who has interviewed. Today he introduced two more WWII vets among us. Such a nice recognition.

Trivia

I’m going to change the folks with whom I play trivia in the am. The one lady is so controlling and unpleasant it just ruins the fun of it all.

Lunch

Delightful couple who have no regular home and have done so many different adventures in their lives. When they return to the states, they’ll buy another RV and travel the states. I never understood if they have family or anything else about them except their extensive travels which were fascinating to hear about. One of the other ladies at the table worked as a travel nurse for a while and she would go to Flagstaff AZ for 13 weeks and help in OR as people would get into the Grand Canyon and try dumb things and get hurt.

Captain’s Circle Party

Dr. Chuck, who at almost 1600 days is the most travelled person on this ship, invited us to join him this evening. The advantage, in addition to fun conversations, is that we didn’t have to wait to get into the venue and our drinks were ready when we arrived. This is pretty much a PR and recognition event and the Captain comes down to make the awards of gifts to most travelled and then to have photos taken with him.

Formal portraits

We know all the photographers on board by now so we did photos with two of them. We have a good time.

Dinner

Full table tonight and we talked a lot about Guam. We hear there’s a K-mart there and many will bee line there once on shore. Craig said he had met a retired military who served on Guam and they are going to visit the base with this gentleman. What fun.

The Oscars are supposed to be taped and then shown to us on board. We’d love to see some of the pictures but that may not happen for a while if at all.

007

That was the theme of the spectacular show the dancers and singers put on tonight. Keep in mind that the ship is moving a lot now that we are not in protected seas. The two main singers are very strong voice, very confident, very good. A real delight.

Crossing the equator

That happened this afternoon but because of scheduling, the equator crossing extravaganza won’t be held until day after tomorrow. There are a few pollywogs on board (Aussies mostly) and they have no idea what’s in store for them.

Shorter days

As we have left the Southern Hemisphere and its summer days, our sunlight has grown less and less. At the equator, you have 12 hrs of sunlight and 12 hrs of darkness. It feels very weird.

Book: The gunning of America

I’m almost through with this fascinating book about the history of firearms in America. It intermingles other history, e.g. Western frontier with its endless stories of bad men (mostly made up). The Winchester family is featured prominently and especially the history of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester mystery House in San Jose. Remington and Smith and Wessen are also major players.

It seems that the government was just about the only client for firearms and initially they were made one at a time by craftsmen. Then Standardization and assembly line production began and they had even more trouble selling their products. So then as now, the firearms manufacturers went overseas to sell to other governments. When those markets were saturated, the idea of selling to individuals came up.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the story is how marketing has been used to change the culture around firearms and create a market. Some of the sales techniques were very clever manipulations.

I recommend the book highly if you have any interest in the culture of firearm ownership and use through our history.