What Blog?

So here we are at the end of August, and I've found that this has not been the Summer of the Blog. In fact, I've had a harder time keeping this thing updated than I did during tax season. With longer days and shorter work hours, you would think that the summer would be a bloggers paradise.

But there is just too much going on.

Wrapping things up at work, preparations for the BM, and trying to enjoy the brief and glorious Alaska summer is a lot of balls to keep in the air.

Plus, did I tell you that I went on a cruise?

Well I did, courtesy of Aunt Lucy, I went on a cruise to...none other than...exotic, distant Alaska! We started in Vancouver, BC and cruised up the Inside Passage to end up in Whittier, which is about 60 miles from home.

Southeast AK is actually very different from where I live in Southcentral. The towns are all built on tiny scraps of land between the mountains and the ocean. Larger towns have exceeded their scraps and have built out into the water on wooden piers and wind up mountains so steep that the roof of one home is practically the floor of the next. I lived down there for four years when I was younger, and I think I would like to again someday.

The cruise company we used does small vessel cruising, which means that we were only 120 passengers strong. This was not the huge Princess or Holland America ships that I used to watch out my window in Ketchikan, flooding the streets and shops with jogging suits. We were small, and dwarfed even further when we were in port next to the huge hotel ships. I love the smaller ship. I like to feel the ocean and I like going out on Zodiacs (rubber raft with an outboard motor) to see glaciers and coastline up close. Every evening the guides and lecturers would have a presentation on some bit of Alaska history, wildlife, or culture.

It's a great way to see Southeast if you only have a short amount of time, you have the chunk of change that I'm sure it costs, and you like afternoon naps.

The cruise took about two weeks of my last month and a half home. Now I have to face the fact that I'm really leaving for the unknown. I'm trying to figure out what to take and how to afford everything and where to live and all the myriad details that accompany a BM. Big Move, that is.

I do have my ticket, now, and I'm going to be flying through New York City to visit Jenni Kim again. We shall feast on Korean BBQ, and Shanghai Joe's soup dumplings and go to a show and maybe the Brooklyn Tabernacle before I meet up with my dad and we fly over to the UK.

I'm going to attempt to be more faithful in my updates, as I have more time now. I'm also going to redouble my efforts at finding my camera cord so that I can include some pictures in these monstrosities of text.