World Cruise - Day 17 - Jan 29 - At Sea

I got my new Canon Rebel EOS T3i camera yesterday (thanks to Lynn, who got the Amazon delivery at her home in San Diego and brought it to the ship).  Here is the first pic I took on it at sailaway, even before reading the instruction manual:

Not a bad pic, since I knew nothing about the camera other than point and shoot.  You can see the Star of India in the background and the Port of San Diego pier where we were tied up as we sail out into the harbor, with San Diego in the background.  This morning I went out to take a sunrise (OK, not really sunrise, the sun was already up for awhile) with my old PowerShot camera:

Then went out about 15 minutes later and took another photo with my Rebel DSLR:

Ironically, Krissie liked the first pic better.  I’ll have to take some side-by-side to see which works out better.  Sometimes the blurring of the sunlight by the lesser camera can actually make for the more interesting pic.  So I didn’t send back the PowerShot and plan to hold onto it until at least the end of the cruise.  The lint on the sensor is gone (not sure how), although the lens cover does still stick.  It is nice to have a pocket camera, especially walking around the ship.  But I can see how having the DSLR will be the preferred camera when on tours, although I will definitely look like a tourist.  As Brandon said on our recent Europe trip, “Dad, we still look like American tourists, even without the camera.”  Yeah, I guess so.  Anyway, I’m having fun with the new camera and starting the read through the instruction manual this morning, so you will likely see a mix of pics from both cameras on the blog.  The other thing to note about the new camera is that the pic file size is larger (3M-6M vs. 2M-3M), so the pics don’t compress down as small (about 300-350K vs. 200-230K).  That might be a limitation on the blog with the 5M blog entry limitation.  Anyway, I’ll just adjust the compression if and when needed.  Off to play ping pong with my new ping pong paddle (also delivered to Lynn’s home compliments of Amazon Prime overnight delivery).  Brandon, is it unfair to have your own paddle when playing cruise ship ping pong?

I won at ping pong this morning.  I beat Dan (we’re calling him “The Young Stud”) in the finals.  Dan is on the left playing Wei (on the right) in the pic below:

Eric left in San Diego, so pretty much anyone could win.  I’m going to just watch tomorrow.

World War II Historian Bruce Petty gave a Scholarship@Sea Lecture this morning on “The Pacific War for Beginners”—here is a pic of him:

We’re going to be visiting several significant WWII sites as we make our way around the Pacific, including Pearl Harbor, Guam, American Samoa and Hiroshima.

After the lecture, Krissie and I did a ballroom dance class where we several more West Coast Swing moves.

Our trivia team won this morning, answering 18 correct out of (20 answers plus 2 bonus answers).  Here are a few that we got wrong: What type of meat is referred to as “fragrant meat” in Chinese eateries?  Dog (we put duck, I have to remember that when ordering in Shanghai).  What European capital was formerly named Lutetia?  Paris (we put London).  What city in the US has more unlisted numbers per capita than any other?  Las Vegas (we put LA).  We got this one: What is the highest number of Oscars won by any film?  11.  Bonus: which two films earned that number?  Ben Hur and Titanic (we put Titanic and Avatar).

Today is Sunday, so that means the chef’s Sunday Brunch:

Sunday Brunch is a big deal and they really go all out, including ice sculptures:

There are pasta stations, carving stations:

…more ice sculptures:

...omelets to order stations:

…and plenty of breads, fruits, nuts, and, of course…

…dessert:

All of the photos above of the Sunday brunch are taken with my new camera, no flash.  I’m realizing that they don’t compress as small as my other camera, since I am already at 4MB on my posting.  I may have to knock down more photos to 2^nd level compression (like with the pic of Bruce Petty doing his presentation), but I want to keep the pics larger where there is a lot of detail.  I can already see I’m going to end up with Part 1, Part 2, etc. for some of our port stops, since it will be tough to narrow down to the top 10-12 photos of the day.  Sea days we should be OK with fewer pics.

We are really having fun on this cruise!  There is a lot to do during the day, or you can just kick back and relax.  We had an open spot on our schedule this afternoon, so we decided to do a couple loads of laundry.  The laundry room isn’t very busy, since we had a new group of people joining us yesterday in San Diego.

It was nice being able to make phone calls yesterday while we were in San Diego.  We were able to connect with each of our kids as well as three of my sisters, one of Krissie’s sisters and her Mom.  I tried my Mom, but wasn’t able to reach her, so I’ll try to reach her when we are in Honolulu or Kauai this Friday and Saturday.

We lost at trivia in the afternoon, we got 14 out of 20.  Some really tough questions.  How many amendments to the US Constitution?  27.  What year did synchronized swimming enter the Olympics?  1984.  How many years did the Berlin Wall stand?  29.  What classic work of British literature included a man of law, a summoner and a wife of Bath?  Canterbury Tales.

I watched part of the Pro Bowl in the Casino Lounge (where David plays piano later in the evening).  They had both a projection TV and wide screen TV setup there:

For the Super Bowl next week, they will be doing a special event in the Cabaret Lounge.

The entertainer tonight was a sleight of hand magician, Bobby Borgia:

He was very good, difficult to figure out his card tricks.

Tomorrow is sea day #2 of 5 on our way to Honolulu.