Hello, my name is Jeff Sauer, Grandson of Norb and Lenore, and welcome to our celebration of 60 years of marriage between Lenore and Norby, or as we affectionately call them; Lenorby.

I will be your master of ceremonies for this event, and I hope that you’ll soon find that you are in good hands.  Grandpa chose me to host this event because he says I remind him of a young Bob Hope.

I have no idea what that means, but I am taking it as a compliment.

Enough about me.  The real reason why we are here is to celebrate the 60th wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Norbert T Koch.

60 years! 6 - 0.  That’s not a typo.  60 years!  That is a long time for two people to be together.  In fact, this type of longevity is almost unheard of in modern times.   This is a testament to their long lasting love and devotion.

To see how they made it this far, let me give you some insight into how things came to be.

Norbert Thomas Koch and Mary Lenore Lerioux had modest upbringings. Norb grew up in North Minneapolis, back in a time where it was safe to drive through the neighborhood with your windows down.  Lenore grew up in the town of Hamel, on a farm that is now a high school and a housing development.

Due to some unfortunate turns in life, Norb was tasked with helping to prove for his family from an early age.   In order to make ends meet, he had to make money in whatever way he could, including selling newspapers and shoveling sidewalks.     One can only assume that working at such an early age instilled him with a great work ethic, and the drive necessary to achieve his own financial independence.

Lenore was a farm girl, and still has the green thumb to prove it. Over the years I have heard many great stories about Grandma’s days on the farm, but I think my favorite is the story about when she took the truck for a spin with her sister Jeanette when grandma wasn’t yet a teenager.

When the time came, Norb served our country and defended the free world in the Second World War.  He was stationed in the Pacific and had one of the most dangerous positions in the entire Air Force.   Fortunately, he survived without a scratch and made it back stateside a true hero, armed with an arsenal of ambition and some great bedtime stories for his grandchildren.

Upon arrival back to the states, Grandpa enrolled in college at the University of Minnesota, where he played baseball while completing his college degree.   It was through baseball that Norb fatefully met Lenore, and it was through persistence that Grandma finally let him take her out on a date.   After some time of courtship, they were married.

Grandpa sold life insurance and made quite a living for himself.   I would go into details of individual deals and the perseverance involved with making it in the life insurance business, but I don’t want to put everyone to sleep.  While I have been blessed with the ability to find humor in everyday things, it’s almost impossible to keep a crowd excited when talking about Life Insurance.  I’m not a miracle worker here!

However, I do know first hand that Grandpa must have been really good at his profession, because he has a wealth of trophies corresponding to his various achievements.

• Salesman of the year - (13 times).
• President of the Minneapolis Association of Life Underwriters.
• The George Washington Founding Father of Modern Life Insurance Sales Lifetime Achievement Award. (OK, I made that one up)

You name it, and he’s got a trophy for it.  During his day, Norb was like the Arnold Palmer of insurance sales (or for the younger crowd, he was the Tiger Woods of his field).

Insurance aside, when you look at his trophy case, you’ll also notice that he was once the Tiger Woods of Minnesota Golf.  This guy has more trophies than I can count. There is so much bronze on his shelves that the only thing missing is a bronze statue of Norby himself!

Proving that they are meant to be together, Grandma has amassed herself quite a few trophies as well.  In fact, rumor has it that she can beat Grandpa on the links nowadays.  Both can shoot their age on the golf course, which I find quite impressive.   I would need to be in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest man before I could ever accomplish that feat!

But their real trophies are their children, grandchildren and great grand children; all two hundred of us.  Well, maybe not 200, but there are quite a few descendants in the room today.  That’s what happens when you have 8 children!

Nowadays 8 children is nearly unheard of, but in their time, this was expected.  Much credit is due to their strong catholic upbringing as well as the fact that this all took place before the widespread use of contraceptives.

Catholicism also contributed to the naming of their 8 children.  Resulting in their children being named after miracles past.  Constance, Frances, Richard, Patricia, Theresa, Paul, Robert and Carol.  It’s like a who’s who of Sainthood.

Those 8 children yielded 21 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren, which is a remarkable feat in itself.  Even more remarkable is how we have all grown up to be very well adjusted adults.  Being among the oldest of the cousins, I had the pleasure of seeing everyone grow up since they were in diapers.

In fact, it’s hard for me to imagine some of you out of diapers (especially you little Zachy).
Grandma and Grandpa are so proud of their grandchildren, always touting our accomplishments to anyone who would lend an ear, and constantly impressing their friends with a seemingly never ending string of A honor roll’s and sports trophies.

I didn’t fully realize the extent of how much they talked about us until I was in the 10th grade.   On the first day of school, I found myself sitting in science class with our teacher reading off the roster of students for our class.  He read through most of the alphabet without a hitch, and all was going well until he got to the S’s.  He took one look at my name, read it out loud and said “Jeff Sauer, hey, I know your grandparents! ”

Awkward!

I had no idea how to react to this.  How did this guy know my grandparents?  How did he know my first and last name if it wasn’t Koch?   Are people going to think I’m a nerd because of this?  There goes my shot at winning the high school popularity contest!  Being in 10th grade, the last thing that I wanted to be associated with is being the kid whose grandparents knew the teacher.  That’s like putting a gigantic “kick me” sign on my back for the rest of the year.

Embarrassment aside, I was also curious as to how the heck this guy would know my name and how he knew Lenorby.  It turns out that my teacher, was a waiter at a Chinese restaurant called the Pagoda.  My grandparents were regular customers of his for several years (we all know how loyal Lenorby are to Chinese food joints) and had been telling Roger about our achievements ever since we were in elementary school!  Knowing grandma and grandpa, I wasn’t surprised at all, but I WAS surprised that he knew who I was given the fact that I have a different last name!  Those must have been some in depth conversations at the Pagoda.

As you can see, it is obvious that Grandma and Grandpa love every one of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Over the past 60 years they have instilled this love into everyone around them and they have served as a catalyst for all of our life’s achievements.

Like any long-term relationship, it takes work to keep things running smoothly on a day-to-day basis.  I’m not going to lie and say that everything has been good every step along the way, but the good far outweighs the bad, and overall the past 60 years have been great!

I am honored that I was given this opportunity to be the MC of this event.  I love my grandparents with all my heart, and they have instilled so many good qualities in me that I am a better person as a result.  My fathers’ parents passed away before I was born, so I have only known two grandparents in my life.  While nothing can take the place of two sets of grandparents, I feel you did everything you could to make up that gap for me.

Thank you for everything you have done.  I love you so much.  Happy 60th anniversary.

Love, your little Jeffy.

Ketchikan is a very unique city and I found it to be very beautiful as well. We were told that the city receives rain over 200 days a year, so it was surprising to see the sun while we were there. We also learned that the climate of Ketchikan is actually much warmer than Minnesota’s climate, that it rarely gets below 30 in the winter, and the summers are mild and not nearly as humid. I always thought Alaska would be much colder than Minnesota, but that’s not always the truth.

As soon as we got off the ship, we were once again greeted by several people trying to sell us day trips. Since we only had a limited amount of time in port, we decided to forgo an excursion and play things by ear for the day. My dad had heard about a lumberjack show that was taking place, and really wanted to go. I wasn’t too interested in going because it seemed like a ripoff ($36 for a one hour show… and the show went until 11:45 AM), but I caved when I realized there really weren’t many other options.

We had a few hours to kill before the show, so we walked around the town to see what it was all about. From what I heard, Ketchikan is a fishing village, and is actually the launching point for much of the deep sea fishing that takes place in Alaska. This definitely sounded accurate, as there were tons of boats in the harbor (to go along with the great views and photo ops).

The town itself was pretty cool, and very unique. Much of it was built on a river that ran through the town, and the town definitely had a very distinctly musty smell. This is probably a combination of the river through the town as well as the 200+ days of rain per year!

Those two factors also made for some very green parts of the town. One part of the creek/river running through town was completely covered in bright green algae or moss or something like that. I had to take a few pictures of it in order highlight the awesome green color. While it was sort of ugly in person, the camera really make it look cool!

Another cool sight from the riverwalk surrounding the town was Dolly’s. Dolly’s was a place where men visited when they needed the “comfort” of a woman during the time of the gold rush in Alaska. Put another way, it was a well known haven of “negotiable affection.” In modern terms, it was a whorehouse! My dad really wanted to see Dolly’s, so we went to check it out. It was quite humorous to see the evolution of the Alaskan bunny ranch. The best part were the employment application and gift certificate that were posted in the window. The questions they asked were classic! Here’s a picture of Jimbo in front of Dolly’s.

For the rest of our short time in Ketchikan, we just walked around the town and harbor and waited for the Lumberjack show to start. I also bought a cool bottle opener and my 4th shot glass of the trip (it was only $.99, so I had to do it). I took some more awesome photos, and took advantage of the perfect lighting and slight cloud cover that day. One of my favorites is a picture I took of the reflection of our ship in the water. Gorgeous!

Finally, we went to the Lumberjack show. It was enjoyable, but I don’t think it was worth the price of admission. There was impressive axemanship and some cheesy jokes, and overall it was a fun experience. The highlight was when two guys raced up some gigantic poles and then flew down at about 80 MPH. Pretty impressive!

We made it back to the ship right on time and then shipped off right around noon. That afternoon we ordered room service and hung out on the balcony of our stateroom. It was beautiful outside for a while, so we enjoyed the sun while it lasted. Once the sun went away I did some reading, and finally caved in and used the Internet for the first time on the ship. It was $.5o per minute for a slow connection; what a rip off! I used that time to post some photos to MySpace and throw up the first two days of blogs, and synchronize my email. I would have done more, but the connection was slow and pissing me off.

After I got back from using the Internet, it got nice outside once again, so Jimbo and I headed up to the top of the ship and went to the hot tub. It was refreshing! Several others had the same idea, and the hot tubs quickly filled up. We started talking with a lady in our tub and it turns out she was from Minnesota too! She was actually from the St. Cloud area, specifically Albany. My dad was like “yeah, my uncle was the principal at the high school there… do you know of Ralph Sauer?” She knew him and everything! Small world, and not surprising that the only people in the hot tub were from the frozen tundra of Minnesota.

The rest of the night was pretty routine. I played Black Jack for a little while and ended up losing $30 after being up quite a bit. At that point, I finally decided that I was sick of gambling, and I retired for the rest of the trip. Total winnings was like $600 or something. That was enough to pay for all drinks for the trip, service charges, the train ride, the lumberjack show, etc. and I still left with hundreds more than I came with!

Overnight we switched time zones from Alaska to West coast time. Combine that with a late dinner, and we went to bed pretty early.

Tomorrow is the last full day of the cruise, and we will be arriving in Victoria, BC in the evening. Can’t wait to see Victoria and am getting ready to be done with the cruise and get back home.

View the whole Ketchikan gallery on Facebook

The Tracy Arm Fjord was a very narrow passageway that was carved out by a glacier. Since it was carved out by a glacier, the Fjord was over 1000 feet deep, which allowed our ship to navigate the passages with no concerns of being in too shallow of waters. We were immediately greeted by some bright blue ice chunks. I can’t do them justice, so make sure to look at the photos throughout this post.

We sat out on our balcony and watched as the ship passed through the Fjord. It was freezing! However, the views were too great to pass up, so we ended up sitting on the balcony for several hours as we soaked in the beautiful scenery.

Our passage into the Tracy Arm Fjord was narrated by the Alaskan naturalist that I mentioned on my day 1 diary. I just looked it up, and his name is Michael Modzelewski. He started talked to us both on the ships outdoor speakers as well as the television in our room, which we had at full blast. It was nice having him narrate what we were seeing, because it allowed us to be prepared to see the sights as we moved past them.

I was really impressed with the information that Modzelewski told us that morning, as well as at other points during the trip. He really knew quite a bit about his surroundings, always had great anecdotes about his experiences, and tied his points together effortlessly using quotes from great literary works (Henry David Thoreau comes to mind.) *Side note* I tried reading “Walden” by Thoreau when I was in 11th grade, but my reading disability got in the way. I have all but overcome my reading problems as an adult and thought I’d give it a try, so I picked it up for like $5.95 on Amazon.com. I love that site! *End Side Note*

Michael narrated us through the Fjord and pointed out various pieces of wildlife on both sides. One of the highlights was seeing a pair of bald eagles perched atop an iceberg, waiting for their next catch (if you look at the photo below at a higher resolution, you can see the Eagles on the top of the iceberg). There were also some seals within sight range, but we were unable to see them from our vantage point.

Eventually we navigated to the 23 mile mark of the Fjord, and came across a breathtaking sight; the Sawyer glacier. This was an amazing sight and clearly the highlight of the “cruise” portion of the trip (shore excursions excluded). What made it even more impressive was the sense of exclusivity we gained in our voyage. We learned that the week before our trip, the Golden Princess tried to navigate the Tracy Arm Fjord and only got to the 7 mile mark! Those unfortunate cruisers didn’t get to see nearly as many beautiful sights as we did!

I gained another sense of exclusivity later when we learned that in order to visit this deep in the Fjord, we needed to have a special Alaskan ship pilot flown in to navigate the tight spaces. The pilot has been bringing ships into Alaskan waters for over 30 years, and he said that this was one of his “top 5″ views that he had ever seen! That really made us feel good about our cruise choice.

Lastly, we learned that Princess cruises (our cruise line) is the only company brave enough to take their cruise ships deep into the Fjord’s. Once we heard all of that we felt like royalty… and I have the photos to prove it!

Bragging aside, this was really one of the coolest experiences that I have ever had. Navigating through a narrow Fjord in a cruise ship through fields of bright blue icebergs in order to see a glacier? It doesn’t get much better than that!

I was also impressed by the maneuverability of such a large ship. Once we reached the glacier at the end of the Fjord, there was nowhere to go but backward. In order to make sure that everyone had a good view of the glacier, the ship’s captain actually turned the ship around in a 360 degree rotation so that everyone had a great view! The side thrusters on the ship make it possible to turn around without going forward or backward. Quite nimble for such a big ship. (That’s also a metaphor for my love life. You do the math.)

As soon as everyone got a good view of the glacier, the ship was turned around, and we made our way back out to the ocean. The route back through the Fjord was the same as the way in, but this time we got to view the other side of the ship. It was nice to see the other side of the massive Fjord, as it offered many more beautiful views. Man I have used the term Fjord a lot in this post.

The trip to Sawyer Glacier took most of the morning, and by the time we left the Fjord, dad and I were pretty hungry. We tried to order room service, but they were too busy to take our order (everyone else had the same idea). We ended up not even eating lunch that day.

The rest of the afternoon, I spent hanging around the stateroom. I downloaded all of the still photos we took from earlier in the day, wrote the blogs from the first few days and caught up on reading. I was reading a book called “More Sex is Safer Sex” and it was enjoyable. It’s not nearly as controversial as it sounds, but I agree with the title. BOOYA! The sub tagline really describes the purpose of the book “The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics.” It’s worth reading if you want to hear some fun opinions from an economist and don’t get offended easily.

Then I got the urge to gamble. I was seriously doing so good on this trip that I felt like I was invincible. I had to see if my method really worked, or if it was just a fluke of luck. Since I was up around $600 at this point, I decided to up my stakes in progressive betting. This time I did progressive betting starting at $10 a hand.

I lost $280 in about 30 minutes.

Just as I was about to leave the table ($300 was my limit. Quite the change from my $40 limit the first day! Amazing how you get desensitized while gambling), I hit a winning streak and started to earn my money back.

I started winning and winning and winning. Soon I had turned that -$280 into a positive gain. Then I was ahead. Then I looked down and I had $575 in chips!

I cashed out for $550 of those chips and took the last $25 chip and decided to “let it ride” on the table. First hand: win. Bet $50 and won again. Bet another $50, and got another win. Walked away from the table with $700 in chips.

I decided I needed a break to soak it all in. I went up to the room to brag to my dad about my good fortune. He wasn’t there, so I left him a note telling him to meet me in the casino and then we’d go for a drink. About 10 minutes later he came down and we went to get some some Martinis!

I bought a few rounds of drinks for us, and then we went back to the room for our regular happy hour. Then we went to dinner and had some wine to go along with it. When all was said and done, I was feeling pretty good!

We went to see the entertainment for the night, which was a magician by the name of Gaetano. This dude was a decent showman, but his act was soooo cheesy and stuck in the 80’s. His magic was pretty good, but he was just so cheez! The whole time all I could think about was gambling some more to see how much I could stretch out my luck streak!

That’s the big problem with gambling. Once you start doing well, you get to feel unbeatable and want to test the boundaries. Since I was playing with the house’s money, I felt I had nothing to lose. I’m not used to winning so much, so I guess I just had to see how it would go. Turns out that I should have stopped when I was up $400 for the day.

I ended up playing quite a bit of Black Jack that night, and my luck was definitely not there. Even though it didn’t seem like I was losing a lot, my new method of progressive betting with $10 ended up bleeding away much of my winnings. Combine that with me being a little “tipsy” from the previous festivities, and I ended up dropping $330 of those winnings at the table. I was still up $70 for the day, but in retrospect, I obviously should have quit while I was at my peak. Hindsight is 20/20.

That was about it that night. 5 nights on this cruise ship so far and I really am enjoying everything that Alaska and the Golden Princess have to offer!

View my Tracy Arm Fjord/Sawyer Glacier photos on Facebook

After getting ready, we left the ship to go on a hike that was an “unpublished” free excursion that took us a few miles out of Skagway. My dad had received an article about this potential excursion from his neighbor, who had ready about it in AARP magazine. Sounds like quite the workout if it comes from AARP (American Association for Retired People). That was sarcasm; it didn’t really sound like it would be too strenuous at all.

So we took off walking and looked for the trail just outside of town. We found it pretty easily and crossed a very cool foot bridge that overlooked a flowing river. From there, we started on a path to Yakutania Point, our intended destination. It was about a half a mile hike to the point, and we ended up getting there pretty easily.

The point was pretty cool, and I was able to get some good landscape shots from that point of view. There were several very smooth rocks that we had to climb over in order to get an unobstructed view of the water and the harbor where our ship was docked.

While hiking to the point, we noticed another sign for a point of interest called Smuggler’s cove. It wasn’t mentioned explicitly in the AARP magazine, but the name of the trail was too good to pass up. We soon learned that it probably wasn’t in the AARP magazine article because Smuggler’s cove was over a mile away.

No problem for me and Jimbo, as we were looking for some exercise to offset the on ship gluttony, so we hiked to Smuggler’s cove at a brisk pace. It wasn’t until we got there that we realized the real reason why it wasn’t mentioned in the magazine; it wasn’t that good. While it was a decent scene and an alright photo, it wasn’t really that great of a sight. The best part was the exercise involved in getting there!

The highlight of the day came early in the afternoon as we boarded a train on the White Pass scenic railway. This is a historic railway that connected Skagway with the Yukon province in Canada. A lot of men died building this railroad, and as soon as we started to elevate, we could see why. The railroad went straight into the mountains, elevating gradually until we reached an extremely high elevation. From our position, we were able to see ahead of us into the mountains, as well as take great photos looking back into the valley behind us.

The train ride was 27 miles each way, and represented my first time ever being in Canada! The topography of the ride actually changed right as we hit the Canadian border. No longer were we ascending through mountains, but not the ground had leveled and we were in a valley several thousand feet above sea level.

This is where I got to take some really great photos, because I finally had an unobstructed view from the train car. On the way up, everyone on the train had got up and wanted to take photos and video from our perches on the front and back of the train (these parts were in open air). On the way back, everyone must have grown tired of looking, so I ended up having free reign on the entire back end of our railroad car.

I took some great photos, and will be posting them in gallery format on all of the normal social media channels. Look for a link in this post as soon as they are uploaded. The sun had just come out for these photos, so I was able to get the blue sky into the pictures. Even better, the blue sky happened to reflect perfectly off the half-frozen water on the ground. Throw in the fact that snow was still on the ground (it was about 42 degrees as I was sitting on the back of the rail car… that’s probably the real reason why I was the only one taking photos), beautiful green trees and mountains in the distance, and it was prime photography weather.

The rest of the train ride was much less scenic, as it started raining during our descent back into Skagway. This was very unfortunate, as there was much more scenery to photograph. No worries, as overall I took some great photos.

After the train ride we decided to go back to our ship to have a little happy hour and some dinner. Dinner was great once again! For the evening entertainment, I went back to the casino to test my luck and ended up walking away with $140 in winnings! My luck streak continues!

Went to bed early in anticipation of the next morning, where we would have the opportunity to brave the Tracy Arm Fjord. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s diary where I unveil the best photos yet!

View pictures from Skagway and the Yukon on Facebook.

We sat out there drinking coffee on and off for several hours, and I was the only one to see a whale (I saw two, but I mostly only saw the whale tails… and I’m not talking thong underwear). I was actually a little disappointed, because I was so focused on trying to get a photo of the whale that I didn’t even give myself a chance to appreciate the beauty in real life (thank god for photos!) We whale watched the rest of the morning (with a gluttonous stop at the breakfast buffet once again), and sat on the balcony up until the point the ship landed in Juneau for the day.

Since we were in for a long day of exploring Juneau, we decided to order some free lunch to our room before we left. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you can order all kinds of great food to your room for free, 24 hours a day. Two Caesar salads and some sandwiches later, we were on our way into Juneau.

Getting off a cruise ship is chaotic, because you have all kinds of peddlers trying to get you to go on their tour or to buy their touristy products. The cruise line offers (and heavily promotes) several excursions that you can pre-pay for at any time. Unfortunately, these pre-paid excursions are heavily marked up, and you can do the same excursions for much cheaper if you wait until you get off the ship. We weren’t sure what we wanted to do for the day, so we decided to play it by ear.

Not 5 minutes after we got off the ship, we were approached by a Juneau our bus and we decided to hop aboard. This turned out to be a great decision.

The route of the bus took us through Juneau and the bus was driven and narrated by a man named Ben who came from a tribe native to Alaska. His family dated back over 10,000 years into the past (proven by DNA on an unfrozen body found 10 years ago). Ben was pretty awesome, and he gave us some solid information about the town of Juneau, as well as his ancestry.

Our first stop was across the valley from Juneau in a town called Douglas. From this stop, we were able to see an unobstructed view of our ship. It was truly massive!

Next stop was at a place called the “chapel by the lake,” which is a log sided chapel overlooking a beautiful lake. The back of the chapel is a huge wide-open window which overlooks the lake. In the background, you can see a few mountains and a glacier. It was pretty cool, and definitely would be an awesome place to get married… if it weren’t in Alaska that is.

After we wrapped up photos at the Chapel, our next stop was the highlight of the tour: the Mendenhal glacier. This is one of the major tourist attractions of Juneau, and rightfully so. It was beautiful! It was also very clearly visible from our vantage point (meaning that there was nothing blocking the view in the foreground). We took a few pictures and then decided to go on a hike to try and get an even better viewpoint, so we blazed our own trail to the glacier. There was also a massive waterfall near the glacier, so we wanted to photograph that as well. We noticed from far away that there were people who were actually standing right next to the waterfall. I really wanted to stand next to it as well, but it turns out that we didn’t have enough time to make it that far.

Even though we didn’t make it all the way to the waterfall, we did make it close enough to take some awesome photos. The setting was perfect for great photos: mountains, blue skies, blue glacier, water, pine trees and glacier chunks floating in the water. This is my new desktop background and I hope to make it available in high-resolution for you to use as well (how conceited of me to think you would be interested in that!)

When the tour completed, we walked around the town of Juneau, playing the role of typical tourist and window shopping the various shops near the port. I hate shopping, so that lasted about 10 minutes before we got bored and went to get a beer at a local watering hole. The beer was great, and amazingly, the Twins were on TV as well!

Once the beer was gone, we made our way back to the ship. Before boarding, my dad wanted to get on a tram/cable car that took us 2,000 feet above Juneau. I didn’t really want to go, since it cost just as much as the bus tour that we just took and didn’t sound nearly as fun. Since I didn’t want to go and Jimbo did, he ended up paying for my ticket. It ended up being a double waste of money for him. The ride up was smooth, but the views weren’t really great. Everything was obstructed, so I didn’t get many photo ops. The best photo I got was a birds-eye view of our ship.

After all of that, we decided to head back to the ship and get some dinner. I know I promised in the day 2 diary that I wouldn’t get into too much detail with the food references, but I must mention today’s meal, as it was great! I had several foods for the first time in my life, and I definitely will be trying them again. For an appetizer, I ordered the escargot. I wasn’t really sure what I’d think about eating snails, but my dad assurred me that they were very good. He was absolutely correct! Escargot is amazing! Basically, it’s these little snails in a slotted tray, drenched with a garlic sauce and topped with some cheese. I didn’t even realize that I was eating snails. I just thought I was eating awesomeness! Dipping some bread in the extra sauce is also highly advisable.

For the soup course, I had french onion soup. This is another new food item that I have had a few times recently. For those of you who haven’t had it, the real good french onion soup consists of onion soup with some bread soaked into it, and then a layer of cheese is baked onto the top of the cup. My grandparents turned me onto it a few years ago in Arizona, and I have been a fan ever since. It’s great!

For the main course, I tried another first; frog legs. These weren’t really that great, but they weren’t really that bad either. They really did taste like chicken! I also had some lamb chops, which were pretty solid as well. For dessert, I had raspberry Crème brûlée for my second Crème brûlée experience. It wasn’t as good as the other time I tried this dessert, but it was still pretty good.

I’m not even sure what we did after our late dinner, but all I know is that I was tired, full, and looking back fondly on my experience in Juneau.

View my Juneau Photos on Facebook

Much like my other two on ship dining experiences, the breakfast buffet proved to be an excellent spread with several options. I ate a LOT. It was awesome. I tried to stick to foods that were natural (fruits, eggs, bacon, etc.) and not highly processed, and I would say I did a decent job. Still ate more than I should have.

After breakfast I went down to the casino again to see if I could still play blackjack. Turns out that I needed to wait until 10 AM. I went back to the room and chilled out a little bit and then eventually went down to the casino to test my luck. I didn’t fare nearly as well as the night before, losing $80 in about 25 minutes.

After lunch (I am not going to go into food details as much during the rest of this diary, otherwise this would turn into a food blog. If that’s what you want, you should check out my sisters Twin Cities Restaurant Blog, which kicks more ass than you could ever imagine. It is the Chuck Norris of Twin Cities area restaurant review blogs) my dad went and watched a guy speak about living on an Island in Alaska by himself. I watched the replay on TV later in the day, and it was very informative. He was like a real life version of the guy from Into the Wild (I suggest you watch this movie if you haven’t already) *spoiler alert* only he doesn’t die at the end. *end spoiler alert*

Since we were at sea all day, Sunday, our entertainment options were solely on the ship. With cold, rainy weather outside, our options were limited. That meant that our best entertainment option for the afternoon was watching Nicolas Cage in National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I actually enjoyed this caricature of a movie, because I set my expectations low beforehand. I also secretly enjoy Nic Cage movies, especially those in which he is a caricature of himself.

The movie lead us right up to happy hour, which featured a fine selection of scotch and red wine that my dad smuggled onto the cruise ship. After happy hour, we went to get dinner at one of the many restaurants available on the ship. We tried to get a table for the two of us, but apparently the ship hates when groups of 2 try to dine by themselves (without other groups of 2), so we were forced to wait 20 minutes to get a table; even though tables were clearly open.

I took this opportunity to go to the casino and test my luck for 20 minutes. I threw down $40 at a $5 minimum Black Jack table, and I brought the house down (a pun for any of you who read the book about the MIT blackjack team)! I was on fire, and with my progressive betting method, I cleaned house.

Here’s how my progressive betting works: Start out betting the $5 minimum bet. If I win a $5 bet, I throw my winnings on top of the stack of chips ($10 total). If I win that $10 bet, I add another $5 to that, and pocket the other $5. If I win that $15 bet, I put another $5 on and pocket $10. On a $20 bet, I add $5 and pocket $15. And so on… until I lose, where I start over at $5.

This is the smartest betting method I have ever used with Black Jack, and it has helped me win quite a bit of money when I have hot streaks. It plays right into the extreme streakiness of Black Jack. You ride the good streaks and when you are on a losing streak, you only lose $5 a time. It’s hard to really lose a lot of money that way, and your long winning streaks more than supplement your losing streaks (well, most of the time). It takes emotion out of the picture and adds structure to the game. This works perfectly, since it is fact that if you play Black Jack properly (hit when needed, split when needed, double down properly), you have a 49% chance of winning vs. 51% for the house. This is much better odds than any other form of gambling at a casino (not counting craps and poker. Slots and pull tabs are worst at about an 85% pay out).

Back to the story, I used my method as described above, and I started getting into some ridiculously large bets. I did not lose a hand the entire time we were waiting for the restaurant to “buzz” us, and my progressive betting had me putting $60 on each hand! When I finally lost, I had accumulated $325 in chips in less than 20 minutes! I finally lost a bet right as the restaurant buzzer went off. Total profit: $285.

Dinner was excellent once again, and without getting into too much detail, I had the best piece of salmon I have ever had in my life, as well as a medium rare tenderloin filet. I ate like a king, and was compensated accordingly at the blackjack table.

After dinner, my dad wanted to see a ventriloquist show, and I reluctantly accepted. This was actually my first time seeing a live ventriloquist, and it was better than I had thought it would be. Generally, I have two basic reactions when I even hear the word ventriloquist. The first is that those dummies are creepy! Seeing grown men with their hands up the ass of a puppet is not usually my #1 source of entertainment (a HUGE exception can be made for Bubbles on the show Trailer Park Boys, and his dummy named Conky. Much love Bubbles).

If you have never seen Trailer Park Boys, I suggest you watch the Conky episode below!

The other thing I think of when I hear the word ventriloquist is from the watermelon smashing comedian Gallagher. When I was a kid, I loved Gallagher. I’m not really sure why, but I think it has to do with him breaking stuff on stage. My dad always told me that he’d take me to see him in front row seats, but that we’d need to bring our own plastic sheeting in order to protect us from the watermelons and other sledgehammer byproducts. As an 8 year old, that was like telling me that he was taking me to see He-Man on Ice! I don’t even remember any of Gallagher’s jokes; I just knew that he smashed stuff!

Well, I take that back, I do remember one of his jokes, and it has to do with ventriloquists. In particular, it has to do with “fart ventriloquists.” Basically, he says that whenever you’re in a public area and someone lets out a nasty smelling fart, women never take credit for their accomplishment, and it is always attributed to a man. Gallagher challenges this unwritten rule of gastrointestinal discharges, and elaborates on why he thinks that occasionally these “gassy chassies” (thanks Franny) can be attributed to the other half. I think he make a compelling argument, and I am guessing that several of my readers have at one point dabbled in fart ventriloquism.

Now that I have offended most of my readers, let’s get back to the story. Jimbo and I went and watched the ventriloquist, and he was pretty decent. Rather than having a dummy to use, he actually took a volunteer from out of the audience and put a baby crib-like suit on him. Additionally, he put some kind of face mask on the guy so that the ventriloquist could manipulate and contort his face to fit in with his act. The volunteer was only allowed control of their hands, while the ventriloquist interviewed him and took on both speaking parts. Hilarity ensued.

Dad and I both enjoyed the show, and were surprised when it ended quickly. I was actually happy, because I had $325 worth of chips burning a hole in my pocket. I parted ways with Jimbo, and I made another stop at the casino. I cashed out my 3 - $100 chips for some crisp B. Franklin’s, and took the other $25 chip and tested my luck. Within 15 minutes, I had $125 in chips; all due to progressive betting (and 3 blackjacks). I cashed out once again and met my dad at the Newleywed - Not so Newlewed game.

This game was a classic crowd pleaser where several married couples of various anniversary levels (1 year, 10 years, 20, 50+) are expected to answer questions. I’ll spare you the details, but my favorite question/response came at the end of the show. It came from the husband of the old married couple (50+ years!) provided his answer to this question: “If you were stranded on a desert island, would you rather be with a nun, or a hooker.”

His response?

“A hooker dressed as a nun!”

That response absolutely brought the house down! I am looking forward to taking my stab at the newlywed game on a luxurious Mars spaceship, in the year 2024.

Later that night, I went down to the casino and tested my luck once again. I ended up winning $25, which seemed pedestrian by now. Final tally:
up $390 for the trip.

Leading up to this trip, I had told quite a few people about how I was going on Alaskan cruise with my dad. Their first reaction was “why isn’t your mom going?” I told them that it was because my mom, Franny, didn’t have any desire to go to Alaska and be cold all the time. This is quite true, and even though we reminded Franny that Alaska really isn’t much colder than Minnesota at this time of year, she wouldn’t budge.

The second reaction I received was for people to tell me to be prepared to see a TON of old people. They couldn’t have been more correct. More on this later, but let’s just say that on the demographics curve of this ship, I am an extreme outlier on the young axis.

Today started very early with a trip to the airport. Our ship was leaving from Seattle, so we first had to board the 8:30 AM flight from MSP to Seattle. Not a big deal, and I was actually pretty alert when I woke up, in spite of about 4 hours of sleep. We made it to the airport and everything pretty much went as planned. The flight took off without a hitch, and we were soon in the air on our way to Seattle.

Given my lack of sleep the night before, I had little trouble falling asleep the minute the pressurized cabin door was shut (I fall asleep at this point of a plane ride 80% of the time). I was asleep for a good 30-60 minutes or so when I heard the words that everyone fears when riding an airplane:

“Somebody help!”

I didn’t know whether I was dreaming, if it was my music, or reality. When I heard the voice again, I knew it was real:

“Please someone help! She’s having a seizure!” this time much louder than before.

I open my eyes and look around and notice that the person who is yelling is in my same row, just across the aisle. The husband was in the window seat, his toddler daughter in the middle, and his wife in the aisle seat having a seizure. I couldn’t see her (nor did I want to stare), but from my window seat I did look over at my dad, who was seated across the aisle from the woman having a seizure. He was actually sleeping too at first, and by the time that he awoke, there were already two flight attendants tending to her. Shortly after that, a doctor, seated a two rows up, came to her aide as well.

The doc tended to her closely and the flight attendants did a great job of crowd control and keeping everyone calm. They put the lady on Oxygen and she seemed to be doing alright for a while.

This was definitely a first for me, and all kinds of thoughts ran through my head during that 5-10 minutes of chaos in our row. At first I was disoriented and trying to figure out what was going on. Once I heard that she was having a seizure, I started trying to think of whether I knew anything about how to treat a seizure, or if there was anything I could do to be a ‘hero.’ After I learned that there was a doctor on board, I started to relax and I knew that she would be alright.

Then I started thinking about the show Lost, and how the doctor was like Jack, and I was definitely like Sawyer (think ruggedly handsome). Then I started thinking “man am I glad that I bought trip insurance,” because had the flight got diverted to another airport or had things delayed, we would have been able to receive our money back for our trip (did you know that in cruises, if your flight is delayed and they ship off without you, you are completely SOL if you don’t have trip insurance? That’s nuts! With the state of the airlines right now, we didn’t want to take that risk). Luckily none of this was necessary, as she began to stabilize.

After a while, things seemed to be back to normal. I drifted back asleep, and hoped that the flight would be over soon. At some point, they removed the oxygen mask from the mouth of the lady, and she passed out/had another seizure! This time, the doctor took her out of the seat and laid her on the floor to stabilize her condition. That must have worked, because I did not hear anything for the rest of the flight.

When we arrived, the flight attendants announced that everyone should remain seated, because there were paramedics meeting us at the gate. The paramedics boarded, and the doctor told them of her condition. He said that she just fainted and that if she indeed had a seizure, it was minimal. The paramedics picked her up and tried to see if she could walk under her own power. As soon as she stood up, her little toddler jumped out of her seat, smiled, and said “hi mommy!” It was seriously the cutest ending to a tense situation that I could imagine. The lady was able to walk off the plane under her own power, and the rest of us were able to go about our travel plans.

At the airport, we got our bags pretty easily and a representative from the cruise line told us exactly what we needed to do in order to get to the ship. We left our baggage in a designated area (tagged with our room number). The next time we’d see our baggage is when it was delivered directly to our ships cabin.

We boarded a bus that took us to the port/harbor, and about 20 minutes later, we were in Seattle Harbor. Across the street from us was the Starbucks world headquarters (the bus driver said it best “this is where the Starbucks folks plot for world domination.” I know the bus driver probably says that 20-30 times a day, but it was like he was speaking directly to me!)

The other point of interest was that we were across the street from Safeco field (home of the Mariners), and right next door to that was Qwest field (home of the Seahawks). This continues my lucky streak of randomly seeing massive stadiums and ballparks during my various travels (my favorite was the time that I saw Wrigley field from 2 blocks away after turning a random corner in Chicago. Others include Soldier Field, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, the formerly named Enron field in Houston, Miller park, Dodgers stadium from the Nestle tower in Glendale, the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, Mile High Stadium, the Pepsi Center, Candlestick Park - now called Monster - and a bunch of others that I can’t remember).

After arriving at the terminal, we waited in line for about an hour until we were finally able to board the ship at noon. Once we got on the ship, we were bombarded with ship employees trying to sell us unlimited Coca Cola for $39.95. That’s a shitload of Coca Cola. I declined.

Next, we toured the massive ship. This thing is friggin huge, with a 2600 passenger capacity and all kinds of amenities. We were on Princess cruise lines, and our ship was the Golden Princess, which was built in 2001. I’m not positive, but given the amount of turquoise on this ship, I think my mom must have been hired to decorate it way back in 1993. The interior seriously looks like it was decorated by a 75 year old woman who wears those sweaters that have all kinds of do-dads, mirrors, beads and other kitsch on them. Given the median age of the people on this cruise, I would say that they definitely hit their target market.

On board the ship was a casino (more on this later), several restaurants, a sports deck, a sweet bar called the “skwywalker lounge” at the top of the ship, 4 pools, hot tubs, lounges, a theater, and just about anything else you could imagine.

For lunch, we were told to go to the buffet on the Lido deck (floor 14). This marked the beginning of the fatness. I will have a lot to say about the food on cruise ships in future entries, but let’s just say this; you will not go hungry on a cruise ship, and you will not lose weight. You will gain weight and lots of it… and you will not ever skip a meal because the food is too good to pass up.

I was starving heading into the buffet, and I left on a stretcher. Figuratively. Not literally. We went back to our room, and I immediately fell asleep in a food coma.

Dad and I spent most of the afternoon napping and hanging out in the room. At 4PM or so, we went upstairs for the ships “send off” and watched the ship leave the pier in the rain. After that, we had happy hour in our stateroom and got ready for dinner.

We had dinner at one of the ships restaurants, and the 5 course meal was excellent! For those of you that have never been on a cruise before, dinner consists of 5 courses, and you are encouraged to order one or more items per course. On this night, I had an appetizer with lobster and crab in it, a pina colada soup (served in a drink glass), a green salad, prime rib dinner and a sugar free mousse for dessert. It was all very good! Eating on a cruise ship is like constantly eating at a wedding, but with twice as much food. It’s ridiculously indulgent.

After dinner, dad wanted to check out a show at the theater. I went with too, but I wasn’t nearly as interested in watching it. I stayed for a while and watched introductions and part of a ventriloquist act that was moderately funny. Then I decided to bolt out of there and head to the casino and test my luck.

The casino wasn’t quite open yet (not far enough into international waters), so I walked around until it opened. Once it opened, I sat at the blackjack table and made $60! Not wanting to lose it back, and being really tired, I headed back to the cabin and went to sleep.

I’m loving cruising so far!

I spend a lot of time on the web. Most of it is business related, but I do take time away to play. Here are some more of my favorite sites:

Site:

Stuff White People Like

Synopsis:

This site has gained a TON of momentum over the past several weeks, and rightfully so; it’s hilarious! Very insightful, yet ultimately self deprecating, Stuff White People Like is a blog that chronicles the nuances that go into the decision making process of the average white (and I would assume affluent, 25-45 year olds) person. Hilarity generally ensues. The writing isn’t particularly laugh out loud funny, but if you can have a sense of humor about yourself, it becomes hilarious as you begin to see bits and pieces of yourself in the writing.

Signature Post:

Most posts can be given signature status, but two recent posts really made me laugh out loud. The first is the post about the Wire, which is a great television show. This article easily could have been written about me. The second is about hating corporations. Since I’m not the biggest fan of corporations, this one fits me as well (although often for different reasons than outlined in the article).

Site:

Jake and Amir Dot Com

Synopsis:

One of the stupidest sites on the web, but I absolutely love it. Jake and Amir are two guys who work for College Humor. Every few days they post a video that’s about 1-3 minutes long, and it details Amir’s unhealthy man-crush on Jake. The videos are all a little odd, and make me laugh about 90% of the time. Not everyone will think this site is funny, but if you like the one I’m posting, chances are you’ll like them all.

Signature Post:

There are lots of funny posts, but I’ll give a few for you. The first is a recent one where they pick their March Madness Brackets. Another is Jake’s Computer. (warning, there is a bit of swearing, so make sure to use headphones if at work).

Site:

TK On Toast

Synopsis:

This is a sports blog started by three of my St. Thomas Buddies. Pretty funny stuff, and insightful if you like MN sports.

Signature Post:

Other than my guest post from the NFL Playoffs (boy was I wrong about the Giants), I would have to say my favorite post is their road trip diary about their trip to Marquette as part of the DTFTC. If you like guy humor and stories of drinking, this one is an epic.

Site:

Photoblog 2.0

Synopsis:

I found this site when I started to become interested in Digital Photography, and have been a subscriber ever since.  Harold Davis (the owner of this blog) takes some awesome photos and even tells you how he achieved such great shots!  He’s a very personable guy and actually wrote me a personal email after I left a comment on his site.  He even went to my site and read my posts!  Pretty cool guy if you ask me.

Signature Post:

I mentioned earlier that I commented on one of his blog posts, which showed a beautiful picture of a Gerbera Daisy.  This was the favorite flower of my girlfriend at the time, so I wrote to Harold to see if I could get a print.

Site:

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

Synopsis:

This site constantly posts pictures of signs and other unnecessary public displays of quotation marks.  Good for a few laughs if you are a fan of grammar.

Signature Post:

Nothing really blows you away, since all of the quotes are funny in their own way…. but I got a kick out of this one: “crabs”.

Normally, I don’t agree with movie reviews because they rigidly place emphasis on nit-picky crap that I don’t really care about. Dan does that too, but with one caveat; he’s FAIR with the way he grades and rates movies, and he makes an argument for each facet of his reviews. Unlike sites that lump reviews into a simplified and catch-all reviewing system of 4 or 5 stars, Getafilm actually puts thought into their reviews, and grades the film based on a 100 point rating system. The end result is a grade on a film that matches the American school grading system, from A (No country for Old Men) to F (Rambo).

I don’t actually watch movies in the theater (last movie I saw was Superbad, and before that Knocked up… I guess I’m subconciously a Judd Apatow fanboy), so I enjoy reading Dan’s reviews in order to get a heads up for which movies I should order on Netflix. Also, with Getafilm’s guidance, I can sound semi-educated when it comes to talking about the Academy Awards. Thanks to Dan, I know that Daniel Day Lewis is a lock for best actor, and Javier Bardem has supporting actor wrapped up. I’d tell you the rest of my Oscar picks, but they aren’t as cut and dry, but you can compete against my picks here.

I’ve known Dan since we played on the same basketball team in 3rd grade, and we’ve somehow remained friends in between his moves to Boston, San Diego and back to MN. His reviews are fair for the most part, and at times controversial. Help support an old friend by checking out his movie blog and if you like what you see, subscribe to his RSS feed!

Getafilm - Honestly good movie reviews

Last night I was out to dinner with my parents at Cody’s Roadhouse in the Tyrone mall near St. Petersburg, Florida. Wednesday night is 2 for 1 fajitas night, and we were on a mission to eat fajitas at a heavily discounted price! Apparently, so was the rest of Florida, because when we arrived at the joint (in its classy strip mall location), we were greeted by a 1 hour, 10 minute estimated wait time. Sifting through a sea of geriatrics, white trash with wispy stouches (my word for mustaches… it’s fun to say, and implies the person has a stache and is a douche, hence stouche), and all other kinds of depressing circus freaks, we had to decide whether or not it was worth waiting over an hour to get discounted fajitas. We ultimately decided yes and chose to wait it out in the bar area, and I am glad that we did.

That’s when I saw her. The prettiest darned thing I had ever seen in my life. The yin to my yang, the love of my life. I am now a believer in love at first sight. Every cliché about love and romance that I have ever read culminated in this one precious moment. Magically, the 70’s rock ballad “Dream Weaver” started playing in the background, and I glanced across the bar and saw my one and only. Amazingly, my parents were kind enough to document this moment with a photograph.

That’s not really what happened. As excited as it would make me to announce to you, blog readership, that I met and fell in love with this prune, I can’t tell that to you in good faith. But there is a story behind this blog post, oh yes, there is a story.

And that story may be even better than the prospects of locking lips with the Florida Raisin above.

The first part of this story was true. We went to Cody’s to get fajitas. Wednesday is the night to get 2 for 1’s on Fajitas, and like I said above, the people who come out for free Fajitas are really among the lower rung of society. If America had a caste system, these would be the untouchables. This place was extremely depressing, and the prospect of waiting for over an hour among the walking dead made me feel insecure.

When I am feeling uneasy in a public place, I tend to try and latch on to something familiar in order to break the ice and ease the tension. Being technologically savvy, I thought of the perfect opportunity to gain acceptance, and I immediately sent a text message to four of my best buds. That message read:

“I am at the Florida equivalent of Boji Godfathers.”

Of all of the inside jokes I share with my friends, Boji Godfathers may be the most universally accepted and most applicable to common life situations. It stems from Chris Bradley’s bachelor party in June of 2006 where we spent a weekend at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. During that time, we went for lunch at the local Godfathers pizza, and became immediately depressed. This place contained some of the ugliest, fattest people I have ever seen, and it wasn’t just one or two. Yes, the entire population at that Godfathers was overweight at a minimum of 2x their charted weight level

(Disclaimer: I know it is rude to call people fat, especially since I am a recovering fatty, but in this case, I feel it is justified. There’s a difference between overweight and giving up on life, and these people were the latter). There’s not many things more depressing than watching a flotilla of fatties waiting in lines 15 people deep to devour pizza from a moderately priced buffet line. It took all that we had to escape that place with a sense of fullness, and even more to leave with a shroud of dignity. If Richard Simmons walked into the Boji Godfathers tomorrow, he would have intervention material for the rest of his life. And he’d cry a lot.

Needless to say, the Godfathers near Lake Okoboji was gross, and is now our internal benchmark for gross venues across the US of A! Enter Cody’s Roadhouse, a depressing diamond in the Florida rough.

Back to the main story. I got almost immediate feedback from 3 of the 4 friends I text’d, and their responses resulted in various levels of hilarity. The first was from Baltz, who asked me “Keep an eye out for the florida pooch equivalent. ” Another inside joke from Boji. Pooch was the stripper that spent 4 hours on my lap in a topless joint called “boji nights”. She was nicknamed Pooch because she had an awesome body, with the exception of a little somethin somethin in her midriff area. After receiving the text from Baltz, I sent one to the group saying “Poooooooooooooooch”. Hilarity ensued.

Next was Shields, who is the master of all that is text messaging. He asked me a few questions about my venue, and then came up with a great idea: take a picture of the place! Never being one to disappoint, I took a few pictures of the area, but none of them really turned out very well.

Last, Chris Bradley (recent father, and great guy) sent me the funniest response (in a delivery style only he can pull off) by saying “Boji nites! Enjoy urself some poooch rolls”.

I responded “Pooch by the dozen… I got me pooch like ubu from 80’s television. Sit ubu sit.” (I was a little buzzed up when I wrote that).

He wrote back “Jelly roll pooch.”

I have the best friends ever.

Back to the story, we were about half way to Fajita time when I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to get a pic for Shields. So I started to peruse the landscape of Cody’s to see if I could get a quality picture. That’s when I saw her. She was an older lady who wore her years, beers and cigarettes on her weathered face. She had just gotten back from a smoke break, as I could tell from the “Gone to Smoke” ticket that was left in her empty drink. I didn’t think much of her at first, but then a magic, Boji-esque moment happened; she spilled her entire drink all over the bar and onto herself! It was 6:15 PM. I knew at that point that I had a winner (and perhaps a new love interest).

I handed my iPhone to my dad and asked him to take a picture of me near her (so that I could document the experience on the JS Experience). Since she was already cut off from the bar, we figured that she wouldn’t notice that she was being photographed. We were correct, as she was completely oblivious to the situation. Time passed and my dad managed to get a pretty good quality photo. That wasn’t enough for him, though, and he decided to take things to the next level. This is why I love hanging out with my parents in FL, because they are completely able to throw caution to the wind and live like they are in college again.

Rather than settling for a picture of me in close proximity to my geriatric love jaguar, my dad decided to cross the line and have me take a photo with this lady as a knowing participant. Boy am I glad he did!

Dad tapped the lady on the shoulder and said “excuse me, my son would like to take a photo with you, do you mind”.

“Of course, come over sweet thing,” she said.

I reluctantly walked over to her and prepared for an amazingly awkward photo op. She caressed me like we were on our honeymoon, and then she did something I didn’t see coming from a mile away.

She grabbed my ass!

Flattered, yet speechless, I tried to walk away gracefully from the situation. As I walked away from her, I seriously heard her say “that’s my payment for this photo.”

I feel sooo used!

This concludes my story about how I found true love in Florida. I hope you enjoy, and if you ever want to experience fun like this, let me know and we can hang out!