Every melon tells a story.

Was it plucked from the vine too soon? Or left to linger too long in the weeds? Does it carry the battle scars of youth into its plump old age or is its wizened skin pocked with fresh victories?

Our job, as those who carve the melon, is to slice away those scars. With each stroke of our knife we carve away another distortion, another half-truth, another falsehood from the melon’s purest essence, which awaits us at the fruit’s core. There, in fleshy pink, is the melon’s central core; the truth of its melonness.

It survives there not in defiance of its stories, but in celebration of them.

This is why we carve, my child. This is why we carve.

The Nintendo 3DS has this feature where it can merge the faces of two people who are standing in front of each other. It’s a little strange and finicky, but it works sometimes, and the end results are… weird.

Like this picture of Gaia and her cousin Kyra merged, that looks a good deal like Kyra at age three or four.

I think that there is something really space-age about a pocket computer with three cameras that can combine multiple images to make composite image of pair of faces. I have been really impressed with the 3DS, as a Nintendo game system and fun toy for a six year old, it’s a really great experience.

The stop for today was at the island that the cruise line itself operates, named “Great Stirrup Cay”. I want you to know, I don’t like the idea of actual beautiful land being turned into a commercial enterprise designed to help pad the cruise line’s margins.

See, cruise ships run on pretty thin margins by a room and board standard. They need to cruisers to buy expensive drinks, spend money in the casino, shop on board, and go to the onboard restaurants to make their margins. Taking you to a port of call that has restaurants not affiliated with the curise line means you’re buying expensive drinks and food from someone who is not them, and therefore not padding their margins. Thus, the private island gives passengers access to a beach, but also keeps passengers spending like it was a day at sea. Call me cynical, but it’s business we’re talking about here. They’re not doing this because they love you.

But, the truth is, it’s not only about the margin. Having now experienced the Bahamas, I think there is something else going on here. By taking control of their own island, they’re– yes– padding their margins, but they’re getting to other things that are not as obvious.

1. They’re getting control of the experience that cruisers have on shore.
   There is a reason the cruise director daily warns cruisers off renting scooters, and it’s not because of money. It’s because people who have no business renting scooters end up renting them, hurting themselves, and then having a shitty time. When that happens, instead of saying, “It was so great to spend time at the beach on Cancun”, these stupid idiots tell their friends, “I went on a cruise and got hurt and had a shitty time.” That’s not good brand management. Neither is “I got mugged in Nassau,” or “I got food poisoning in Belize,” or “The pay-toilets in Playa del Carmen are just nasty.” By having their own private island, they control the entire experience.
2. And I think this is the important one: By having their own port that they control completely, they have a bargaining chip to waggle at the other ports of call on their itineraries. A cruise line that owns a private island can tell the Port Authority of Nassau to go fuck themselves the next time they try to raise docking rates. Do not underestimate the significance of this negotiation. Especially if you are Nassau, who is quite dependent on the cruise line’s continued interest in suckling from their tiny little sour teat.

Homogenized Beauty, but beauty none-the-less

But don’t let the business side of things throw you. If you’re going to rail against consumerism, going on a cruise with a line that owns (technically has a 99-year lease) on a private island is merely annoying the pig.

Ultimately, if you’re looking for a sandy seaside and some palm trees to sit under, you’ve got an archetypal opportunity to find that here. They do other things on the island, too, yes. Stupid things, like Parasailing and a giant inflatable water slide, but that’s all nonsense. The fact is, Great Stirrup Cay is indistinguishable from the hundreds of other chunks of dead coral that stick out of the ocean across the Bahamas, and that’s ok. It is what it is. Or has been made. Or whatever.

You can probably tell that I am still having a hard time letting go of my apprehension about the necessity of having such an experience. The fact is, without the hundreds of thousands of man-hours and dollars poured into turning these private islands into something habitable, there wouldn’t be enough beach to go around, right? People want beaches, they want to see some fish, and then they want to wander up the hill a little bit a buy a bucket of domestic beer from a man who might not actually have a Jamaican accent.

So the cruise lines are giving that to them. I guess.

But the beauty, part– You’re going to get to the beauty part, right?

Yes. That’s enough of my first world guilt about the island for now. Just know that I’m not terribly comfortable with the whole idea of cultivating an entire landmass for the exclusive purpose of rampant consumerism– but if I think too hard on it, I just get sleepy. So lets talk about fish.

There are fish. We saw fish. Lots of ’em. A stingray. And really neat little urchins and schools of fish, and we dived for rocks. And it was a neat little bay to swim in. Not a ton of coral but there was reef enough to enjoy looking at a pretty complete little aquaculture.

But the beautiful part is this: Drifting through the crystal clear water arm in arm with my six year old and wife, floating around and pointing out fish and rocks and stones. And being chased by a little needle-nosed gar fish that Jeni insists was a water version of Eddie Guapo. Gaia ended up snorkeling around with us for two sessions of about an hour and fifteen minutes each. And she enjoyed it immensely, and her pleasure was my pleasure, and that made it all worth while.

But there were storms looming on the horizon.

Storms?

Yeah. Storms. With lightening and thunderclaps and screaming idiots rushing to the tenders.

Jeni and Gaia and I saw that the weather was going to get bad, so we returned our rental snorkels and as we did so the pressure shifted and the temperature dropped 8–10 degrees. Everybody looked up and saw the dark clouds looming on the horizon, and it was on.

By the time we gathered up our stuff, the crowd was rushing around packing up stuff and running toward the door. Like maniacs.

Jeni and Gaia and I picked a comfortable spot in one of the covered pavilions and hunkered down for a wait. There is no reason to rush off a privately owned island. I mean, it has a helicopter pad. You could literally be in Miami in 40 minutes if you needed to be. They won’t leave while people are still there. Also, I’d rather be sitting in the pavilion than on the open-topped tender when the clouds break.

This instinct proved to be a good one according to one of my fellow Mr. Sexxy Legs contestants who was on that Tender earlier. He said they shouldn’t have rushed to get on the tender, because he ended up sitting up top, completely exposed to the weather, and being thrown around by the wake and wind.

I, on the other hand, was fairly dry under a pavilion, quietly singing soothing songs of comfort and love to my baby girl who is very, very brave, but nonetheless, afraid of lightening.

As the storm came in, I counted the time between thunderclaps to ascertain that it was, indeed coming closer. Eventually the thunderclaps became more distant and the rain slowed down.

But there was a lot of water pooling around the pavilion. Some of the girls, including Gaia, had dug little pools and canals in the sand and it was cute to see how it moved the water around and how excited they were to work the dams.

I did’t see the sinkhole start. I only saw it when it was bout the size of a dinner plate. Suddenly the picnic table behind us, which had been in a pool of about two inches of water, was now sitting over a rapidly growing whirlpool of foamy sand. The water and sand must have found somewhere to run, and suddenly a trickle became a rush, and the next thing anyone knew, the whirlpool threatened to take the picnic table with it. A girl jumped on the table Jeni was sitting on and sunk our table about a foot into the sand.

I can only imagine that keeping the sand on that beach is something of a full-time gig.

Anyway, It was pretty awesome. Eventually we made it back to the ship (on the last tender) and were showered and resting by 5:30 p.m.

Final Night Blues

There is a weird energy about a cruise ship on the final night. I explained it to Jeni sarcastically; ’I’ve spent a lot of money and have tried filling myself with drinking and excess, but yet I still feel empty."

There is also something else:

1. By the final night, most of the people are no longer lost and confused. They’ve figured out the rules and how things work, so now they’re slipping into their routine of self-loathing and being above the rules. They’ve run out of polite.
2. By the final night, most of the crew is in a pretty good mood because they’ve been through the wringer and have probably had a few hours off earlier that day.
3. By the final night, the crew is going out of the way to say, “Well, It’s the final night. Don’t forget!” They do this because you’d be surprised how much they need you to get off the ship on time in the morning.

There is a secret thing about cruising that they don’ tell you in the marketing materials. You know how they tend to count the number of days you’re cruising as a feature. Say you’re going on a five day cruise. The fifth day doesn’t count. Really. You need to get off the ship by 10 a.m. on the fifth day. They don’t serve lunch and most of the services they do offer are bare bones at best. That’s ok. You’re supposed to get the eff off the ship. They have to clean the whole damn ship now, and you pigs have been grinding cigarettes and beef tartar in to the carpets on the forward deck. Pigs.

Also, if you don’t want to carry off all your own luggage, you need to have it packed and out of your room by 1 a.m. the last night. That means you pretty much start mentally disembarking a full day and a half before you’re off the ship.

On my first cruise, I found this disappointing. By my third, I recognized it as the real reason for the final night blues. You’ve already had your last night on the cruise, you just didn’t know it. There’s nothing left for you year but to put all your shit back in your luggage.

Tomorrow., there will be land. And home. And you will feel dizzy most of the day from having acclimated to the rocking of the ship.

And it will have all been worth it.

There are some things that feel dishonest in Nassau.
I don’t know. I hate to poop on a whole island, and specifically the most populous one in the Bahamas, but Nassau, I’m not a fan. Here’s why:

1. Shifty. The whole damn town is shifty.
2. American Chain Restaurants. They have seven Dunkin’ Doughnuts in Nassau. That’s more than we have in Milwaukee. They have a fucking Kohl’s. A fucking Kohl’s. Seriously.
3. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly why I feel this way, but there was this sort of sneering indifference from the retailers and service providers in Nassau. While at the Grand Bahama, I felt genuinely appreciated, in the “retail district” of Nassau, I felt like a mark. Subtle difference, I know, but an important one.
4. There was a distinct feeling of pride in Freeport. There was a distinct feeling of distain in Nassau. This couldn’t have been more perfectly illustrated than by the visit to the gated “Governor’s” Mansion, featuring a sculpture of Columbus wherein the driver of the tour bus spat out a venomous, “So there you go. Take pictures of him if you must.”
5. I took the picture out of spite.
   
6. Finally, the whole thing ended up with the driver dropping us off about five blocks west of the gated area that you needed to pass through to get back to the cruise ship without nary a mention of that’s where we needed to go or how we should expect to get through there. I mean, I’m pretty good at this kind of stuff, but I’m a little worried about the old woman with the double knee replacement’s chances of getting back to the ship.
7. If you are especially boorish and sketchy, you might work as one of those “hair braiders” who linger in darker corners between the glances of the port authority patrols.
8. There are buildings with whole courtyards filled with rubble and garbage. I understand the 2004 hurricanes were hard on the locals.

I could keep going but it gets depressing from there, really. There were some minor highlights. There was a fantastic one-eyed cotton tree on one of the corners that I didn’t get a chance to photograph, but if you’re ever in Nassau, you should check it out. It’s up past the underwear store across from the police station. And we paid a guy $1.00 to go up and look around a fort with some fake cannons on it, which made me nostalgic for Puzzle Pirates.

The tour of a rich and famous something something.

One of the features of the approach to the semi-submarine was a tour of the palatial estates of very rich people who don’t really live there except for once a week or something. We saw what the guide (who did the best Snoop Dogg routine of any of the tour guides I’ve ever seen,) told us were the estates of “the guy who owns Smith and Wesson” and “The guy who owns Colt 45.” We also saw estates alleged to belong to Ophra Winfrey and Tom Cruise. And a dock-side cabin that was allegedly smashed in a scene in Thunderball. And Atlantis. Not the one that sunk under the sea, but the boring one.

However, it wasn’t a bad tour. But I do wonder why the tour guides tend to think that we want to hear the tinny reggae music blasting from their ship’s speakers.

Underwater awesome.

Boarding the semi-submarine was way better than I expected. The boat had what looked like a commercial air conditioner welded to one of the top decks. The submarine part was clean and didn’t smell bad. The windows were clean and not distorted or full of crap.

The reef was amazing. Not the most amazing reef I’ve ever seen, but a semi-submarine is a really neat way to see a reef. We saw the largest Lion Fish I’ve ever seen. And a Nurse shark. a couple of them, actually, and we saw a barracuda and a sea turtle. The fish that lived freely on the ocean seemed an entirely different kind of alive than you see in aquariums.

Get me back on the ship. Please.

I feel like the big secret to understanding Bahamas is something like this: The Bahamas, for the most part, is for people who are worried about what their church groups would think if they told them they were going to Jamaica. Maybe I just don’t get the pot-smoking lifestyle, though. Also, I don’t believe for one minute that it really was the tour boat operator’s birthday yesterday. It was funny to see the people scramble when he pretended to see a dolphin, though.

I liked the Bahamas, don’t get me wrong. It’s beautiful and warm and you’re on the ocean, and there’s certainly all kind of great pirate stories. But they have their own Coca-cola plant there, people. It’s hardly off the grid.

Back on the ship.

Jeni took a nap after a late lunch, and Gaia and I spent almost two hours splashing around in the pool. At some point, she cajoled me into entering into the “Mr. Sexy Legs” contest.

While I did not win, I was certainly the crowd favorite, if I may say so myself. Nobody hooted for the other guys, anyway. I announced to the host that my name was “Mr. Sexy Legs 2011” and that I won my title on my last cruise, which was on the ship named the Norwegian Clam. Gaia would repeat this joke for the rest of the trip.

When it was my turn to dance, I did a strange crane/tai chi/samurai form for the judges, who were not impressed by my amazing clowning. Because they were French and I was not Jerry Lewis. Stupid French. Stupid Jerry Lewis. I really wanted to win that contest.

I was given a drink for the effort. It was called a “Dark and Stormy” it was some kind of black label rum and ginger beer over ice. It was pretty good, considering it was a $7.00 cocktail.

Sunset

We got to watch the sunset from our dinner table. It was strange to see the sun visibly shrink over the horizon. And the green flash. It was amazing moment, and it made me feel very small.

Oh, Christian, you’re too nice

I really liked our server. She really liked Gaia. I filled the form to compliment her, and wrote something like, “Thank you for being the kind of person we hope to inspire our daughter to be.” She told Gaia to always wash her vegetables before she eats them and not to drink too much milk. I’ll let Jeni fill you in personally on why that’s so funny.

Christian also told us that it might rain tomorrow, but if you ever need to help it not to rain, in her home of the Philippines, they practice this little bit of folk magic: Put an egg in water under the table.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, “but do it anyway.”

Wrap up in the tubby

We saw a juggler in the theater, which Gaia loved, had a coffee and walked through the arcade, and then went up and had a soak in the hot tub. Then we went to bed. It was our latest night of all. Almost 10:30 before we were asleep.

Jeni did ask me this before we went to bed: “What are you going to do when we get back home and you can’t have your usual BLT before bed? ”

I don’t know, Jeni. I don’t know.

Breakfast.

We woke up kind of late, but by our standards, it was really early. I mean, it wasn’t late. It was 7:45. I don’t know. The ship docs at 8:00 a.m. So, 7:45 was was probably later than we should have gotten up in order to have breakfast in the dining room.
See, as I hinted at yesterday, Jeni and I can’t stand the buffet crowd. I’ll tell you something, cruisers, if you are on a cruise ship and you are treating the experience with the same reverence and awe you have for Shoney’s, you’re doing it wrong. Sorry, but its true.

But I digress. Well, wait, one more: Why do you smoke? You’re surrounded by miles and miles of fresh sea air, and you are sitting at a bar smoking? Really? If you smoke, please stop. You don’t like it. Smoking is for the weak and stupid. You’re not weak and stupid, so please stop smoking. I like you and I want you to live. Asshole.

Ok. So we had breakfast. It came with a glorious plate of bacon shaped like an Angel. And it was pretty good, this heavenly bacon. And it came slow but we got off the ship in plenty of time. Jeni was worried about the time pretty much all day. Because she broke her watch. So we never knew what time it was. That was hard on her. I have never adjusted from the recent time-shift for dailylight savings time, so I have decided I don’t really care what time it is anymore. But getting back on the ship is important. So I’m glad someone cares. Turns out, we all bought watches onboard later. I have a watch now. It’s a Terner. I think that’s french for “extra fancy.”

Freeport, the port.

The Port of Freeport on Grand Bahama, or where they docked the big ship, or whatever, is, according to the tour operator, in the industrial side of town. it would seem that in Freeport there is an almost fanatical devotion to zoning. Which isn’t bad for a country that only earns it’s unconditional freedom in 2068. *(date may be off). I mean, in some countries, it takes more than 200 years to get to a point where zoning decisions outweigh founding principles of human liberty.

Traveling through and around Grand Bahama with this particular guide seem to feature, mostly, information about zoning: “This is where they build the industries. This is where they build the light industries. Here is where they build shopping for the people who live in the island. And this is the gehtto. And here is where you can only build duplexes. And this is the zone where all the churches and not-for-profits go.”

The guide also seemed to relish sharing the occasional tidbit of folly. “Here’s where the governor decided to connect all the properties here with channels, but in so doing he created this massive flood zone, and so nobody here can get flood insurance.”

Also, the 2004 hurricanes were hard on them.

In all, I found Freeport to be one of those kind of sad, broken little islands. It seemed from our 6 hours there to be especially devoid of wildlife, agriculture, or, really, self-sustainability of any kind. It’s probably not surprising, though, since, again, as the tour guide said, “We don’t make anything here. We have to have everything imported.”

Also, the 2004 hurricanes were hard on them.

Aboriginal Bahamians?

So that kind of begs the question, I guess. Who where the aboriginal bahamians? Who lived on these islands before Columbus brought over his particular mix of influenza, vanereal disease and self-righteousness? Nobody seems to talk too much about the Lucayans, but that’s probably because Columbus and the spanish were pretty effective in rendering them extinct.

I’m not trying to be a downer, here, but this is important. From what I was able to suss out based, again, on the mostly homogenized version of the stories being told to us by a local who really, really hopes we’ll give him a good tip, they all died. Or were taken into slavery. Or both.

We took an excursion to Lucayan National Park, where there are some caves and a beach, and we expected to be able to kind of run off on our own, which was what happened.

What lives here? I mean besides the fish.

Pro Tip No. 2:When the group of 100 tourists all are shepherded off to walk down to the caves past the bathroom, walk the opposite direction. You’d be surprised at how well this instinct has served me over the years. It did this day, that’s for sure.

Jeni and G. And I took off the opposite of the crowd and walked into the little nature trail that took us toward the beach. It moved along the land which, nearer the center of the island is harsh – mostly dead coral and scrub and the fantastic Caribbean pine.

Oh, the Caribbean Pine. What a fantastic tree! Growing twenty feet tall, like a palm, and blooming into a beautiful firework cascade of piney branches the top, I can only imagine what its like to see the pinecones come falling down to the rough soil beneath them. Maybe the reason we had a hard time finding any pinecones was because when they hit the ground from those heights, they disintegrate.

As we walked along the nature trail, approaching the ocean, the flora thickened as mangrove took over, eventually giving walk to larger tropical plants and more and more mangrove, until up and over an embankment, we come to some of the island’s (according to the sign) largest sand dunes.

And we are suddenly alone on a beautiful Caribbean beachside surrounded by beautiful organic spider castles of tipped over mangrove driftwood.

It was fantastic. And, of course, it couldn’t last. So when the beach started to crowd up, we head back along the circular nature trail – across a very large patch of wetland teaming with fish. I saw our tour guide coming through as we approached him from the beach he was heading toward it, throwing a crumbs of bread over the rail for the fish as he walked down the boardwalk. I can’t an’t help to wonder if he was offering the bread to the fish as a way of thanks or if he was throwing the bread out into the water ahead of the tourists to help embiggen his tip. I like to think both. Both have merit, honest.

As we approached I saw in the Northeast a large bird circling, almost never flapping, and although it at first looked like turkey vulture, it seemed a little small for a buzzard and had a slightly different wing shape than I’m used to seeing. I think it might have been an osprey. I suspect it one of those who watch over the island, and I am also certain that the little lizard that escorted us and then lead us to the caves a few minutes later was too.

And then there were caves.

Following my intuition, and the kind directions of a passing lizard, we found our way to what is called “Burial Cave.” Again spoken by the excursion guide, who told us to call him “Biggie”: “There were some indians left on the islands, and those who didn’t want to go into slavery or get sick and die went over to this cave and lived in there, and so then they all starved to death there.”

I don’t believe that’s the real story, but there you go.

When we got down to the cave we were all alone and amazed. It was a sad, solemn place but amazingly beautiful There were several holes that were begging to be explored. Some from the roof, some from the floor, but the most interesting one was the one that lead back from the back of the walkway that had been built in the cave and disappeared into the black. There was no way to walk there and the caves were full of water, so it was pretty much out of the question.

We went around then to what is called “Dan’s Cave”, so named for the guy who found it. And you can see how these caves would be hidden away from the surface, with mangrove vine climbing over the edges, it would be easy to walk out into the middle of a net of vine and tree.

Dan’s cave resonated on a low hum, so I held the note and listened to it bounce off the walls for a while. Sitting down near the water in the cave, things seemed very still. We paid our respects and moved on.

Fortune Bay

Eventually it was time to go. We climbed into the coach and were whisked off to a Banana Bay Restaurant along Fortune Bay that is “’”well known for their famous banana bread."

We had agreed to eat light, and there were a ton of people, so we lost some time while the wait staff did its best to manage the throng of people. Then Jeni, Gaia and I went out into the ocean. And swam with pure white and silver barbs. And a few other strange fish. And Gaia collected shells and bits of conch. And I took my pants off in front of people. It would not be the last time on this trip.

The Banana bread was, indeed, quite good. And maybe worthy of the accolades of its fame. I’m pretty sure it was made with a little cinnamon and honey. It was nice to finally get in the ocean though. Very nice.

Back to Freeport.

They have the junk shops that pop up along the ports of cruise ships. they are amazing and sad and amazing to me. The people come out there, sell and hustle their wares. And they work so hard at it. And you have to haggle, which I hate.

Back on the ship

We tucked in early, after lunch and dinner, and my favorite thing happened. They made a towel bunny for and gave him my sunglasses. And Gaia thought it was fantastic. Because it is.

In a lot of ways spending time on a cruise ship is like being stuck at a wedding with a bunch of people you don’t know. Or a bunch of weddings of a bunch of people you don’t know. The best way to handle it? Stay the fuck away from people. They’re not your friends. If you’re in bed by 8:30 p.m., you can leave the mooks to fester in their own vomit on the pool deck bar and it’ll be cleaned up by the time you’re up there again.

Breakfast in Miami

The “Hotel” offered complimentary “continental” breakfast. Which was served with lavish aplomb from gallon-and-a-half jugs. You could choose Vitamin D Milk (4%) or Pulpy Orange Juice from Concentrate. And Bagels. And a bunch of fake hostess doughnuts. And they had some kind of cookie that had peanut butter in it, like a Twix. For breakfast. It wasn’t that bad, actually. For free anyway. “Continental” is code for “No protein.”

Then we hit the town.

I have to tell you, the area around the hotel wasn’t much less sketchy during the day. Jeni put it: “You see this scene in front of us. Urban City in Warm Climate. USA.” And that’s what it is.

I have discovered that it is nearly impossible to blend in to the local surroundings when walking around with Jenifer and Gaia. Jeni shines like the finest, pinkest dainty peach in the sunlight, and Gaia walks around in dumbfounded awe at buildings taller than two stories.

It’s not entirely the girl’s fault though. Its like the guy at the $.99 store said when I told him I was local. “You can’t be local. I know all the locals! The locals are Cuban.”

I can pass for many things, but I will never fool anyone into believing I am Cuban.

Bonus Pro-tip: Don’t forget to turn off the bluetooth on your iPad, or at least turn off Byword when you’re traveling, because otherwise the random keyboard bumps will write beautiful poetry all over your document.

Anyway, we did make our way to a french cafe in the greater downtown area. We never would have found it, nor it’s fantastic artisanal bread, had it not been for Miami’s “Downtown Ambassador” who was a guy in a white shirt that helps people, I guess. Or at least a friendly guy who is confused as to why all these people are asking him fairly basic and simple questions.

Aboard the Norwegian Sea

Anyway, we made it to the cruise ship nice and early and managed to get on board the ship in the second wave of people. The Sea is a small ship. According to one of the bajillion bits of paper they hand you when you board, the Sea has a double occupancy of 2,004 people. It did seem quite a bit smaller than the other ships we’ve been on. On other ships, though, we’ve traveled a lot faster and a lot further.

Note: After doing a bit of research after the fact, turns out the ship was recently rechristened the Sea. Because it was, up until recently, the “Pride of Aloha.” But it doesn’t really matter. It was a nice ship.

Jeni had read that the smart money for people who get onboard early is to keep your swimsuit in your carryon, so you can jump into the pool, because pretty much the pool’s about the only thing going at that point.

Gaia swam and swam and swam and swam. And in-between she ate ice cream. How many ice creams? Five. And Counting.

Buffet blues

We grabbed lunch on the buffet, because that is about all that is open for the first lunch. And it is madness. Madness! The buffet is always madness. I’m not sure why someone would eat buffet when there are such great restaurants on board. I mean, really nice people will bring you food at really nice restaurants. It’s amazing. The buffet is just lame. I mean, a lady sprays your hands with disinfectant when you approach the buffet. That should tell you all you need to know.

We watched the ship pull out and then went into our state room and unpacked.

Dinner

Everything was delicious – it always is. It’s supposed to be. We had a really great waitress named Christen who took very kindly to Gaia. Gaia was exhausted, so she was in need of some special attention, and Christen did her very best.

It occurs to me that many of the workers on the cruise ship have families of their own back in the Philippines or Ireland or India or wherever. It must be very hard to be away from your family while serving a tour on a cruise ship. I don’t know how they do it.

A walk among the stars

There is a lot of light pollution on a cruise ship, so it can be hard to see the stars. But there was even more light pollution coming from the city of Miami. I have no idea how far off Miami we were (not that far, less than 60 miles) but you could see it via the glow in the sky. It was very weird.

After dinner we went out to 12 forward and looked at the stars. But the real star was little G, who took the opportunity to quietly dance in the little stages made by the cleared spaces on the decks.

A dancing, swimming, eating vacation so far. Couldn’t be happier.

This article published by the internet hating Wall Street Journal is nothing more classic scare tactic aimed at convincing people to give up their computing freedom in exchange for the illusion of security.

Shawn Henry looks like a super-villian standing in front of the Department of Justice logo with an American flag standing jingoistically in the background while he dishes on the sorry state of the FBI’s efforts to fight “teh haxxors.” It’s almost as if he stepped out of casting call for “Severe-looking Government Man.”

“The current public and private approach to fending off hackers is ”unsustainable.’’ Computer criminals are simply too talented and defensive measures too weak to stop them."

He did not say: So long as we keep demanding backdoors for surveillance, we can never really have secure computing. He did not say: Total online security can be had in a way that doesn’t suppress freedom, but that comes with the expense of allowing total freedom in our computer networks.

Shame on the media for falling for security theater. Again.

This is a calculated move by those who are threantened the freedom information and the decentralization of information structures as provided by the internet as we know it. They want to scare people into giving up liberty in exchange for the illusion of security. Watch for this issue to become the rallying cry of those who want to regulate internet use. Watch as the issue of “corporate security” morphs into one of the reasons we have to clamp down on online piracy. Never mind that piracy and security have almost nothing to do with each other.

You can have a completely secure internet experience right now. Today. The cost of doing so, however, isn’t liberty, its ease of use. You have to give up some easy to get total security on the internet. You don’t have to give up freedom.

The problem is, just like the issues of drugs and terror, the issue of “cyber security” is being debated in the context of fear and war. And fear and war are the enemies of freedom.

The true way to achieve cyber security is to build truly secure systems. That means those systems can’t have backdoors for government and corporate spooks, one-click logons, and easy-to-reset passwords.

You can be completely secure online right now. The technology exists. Demand that your government and ISP and financial situations use it, disclose it, and demonstrate its functionality. You don’t win when you fight the hackers. You win when you stop being their target. And you stop being their target by using security techniques that are proven, trust-no-one, and are open and on display for all to see.

I always get this way on the day before a new moon.

Listless. Tired. Worn thin. That’s how today is. It’s the day before the new moon. We’ve all been down this road; its just a matter of whether we’ve noticed it. It’s the day before new moon. We had our race, we ran it. It’s done. This is just the part where we clean up and get ready to race again. Very uninspiring, really. This is the quiet before the storm; the silence between the thunderclaps.

If a glorious full moon brings us our moment of great fecundity and a time of our great creativity, it stands to reason that the day before the new moon is the time of our least productivity. A time when every inspiration is a struggling, heaving labor. Nothing comes easy. It is a bleak, moribund place to be.

I have no suggestion to offer. Keep going. In life, there are two of everything. There are full moons and there are new moons. There are races ran and races to run. There are yesterdays and there are tomorrows.

New moon, for me, is when I, tired and worn, stop and take stock. I make one more preparation for the new beginning that comes tomorrow. It is a time for introspection. The darkest time is just ahead. Walk with me into that dark place, but know this, little one: once we’re through, it starts getting light again. It will start getting light again. It will.

This is new moon. It is a fresh start every 28 days. It is the apsis of our downward orbit. Tomorrow, when the moon does not appear over our homes and heads, we will be at our lowest, most basic self. The light does not shine above us. We are reliant only on the light we have kindled within ourselves. We are starkly, nakedly, completely ourselves. This is new moon.

If you, like I do, suffer from seasonally affected depression (with a strong lunar indicator), you might look to new moon as a chance to begin anew.

By beginning anew at new moon, you get all the advantages of a swelling creative basis to carry you toward the apogee of your creative powers. You will hit the full moon running at full strength, with your creative powers and your creative activities aligned.

This has worked for me. It may seem completely self-evident. It may seem something that doesn’t need to be said. But that would be the kind of talk you could expect on the day before new moon.

Tomorrow it will be darker. But after that comes again the light. From there, we build again. New moon. It will start getting light again. It will. New moon. Walk with me, little one.

New moon.

Why you need to know about TOR and why you will probably be using it in the future.

I’ve been pretty quiet about the whole SOPA thing. For your of you who don’t know, SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (and it’s Analog in the Senate (PIPA)) will allow the United States government to block certain websites based on an arbitrary set of criteria. You can find out a lot more online. It’s censorship, basically. In the same sense that China, Siria, Iran and other human-rights unfriendly countries do. Welcome to America in 2012. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

It’s a shame it’s come to this. Write your senator. Tell him you won’t reelect him if he supports the PIPA bill. Write the president. Tell him you care about the freedom of information. Tell your mom. Tell your sister. Sticker your cat. Shout it from the rooftops. Here’s a huge list of cool and easy stuff you can do to make your voice heard.

The bottom line: the world’s greatest library, the collection of the knowledge and culture that makes us a people, the Internet, is about to be shut off from you. You’ll still be able to use it, but you’ll never be able to trust it. The internet is going away in favor of a brand-friendly propaganda-only machine that prevents you from freely using, thinking, or learning things that your government, and the corporation it works for, don’t want you to know. Maybe you think this is a good thing. I don’t know. I hope not. I want us to stay friends, you and I.

If this doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what else will. Someday, the internet you know and love could look like this:

But here’s a sliver of hope for you.

I have, for years, been using something called “Tor.” Tor is “a free and open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as ‘traffic analysis’.”

They actually have a bootable live disk (based on Debian) now that works as a computing environment wherein all the traffic is routed through TOR. This is the same software that internet users in countries with oppressive governments use. It’s slower and clunkier, but it works, it’s (mostly) free and (mostly) safe.

Download the stand-alone browser bundle and give it a try. What can it hurt?

The bottom line is, Tor works. If not only as a proxy, at least as a source of anonymity. And using it, configuring it, and supporting it, I think, is something that is going to be very important to our future as a people.

Sad that it is so. But you would do yourself a real service to familiarize yourself with Tor and the Tor Project.

So Gaia and I are watching Mars Needs Moms, and at one point, (spoilers) the stupid kid leads his mom out into the surface on Mars. Mom is wearing only an breathing helmet and a football jersey. Gaia turns to me and asks, “Wouldn’t she be cold?”

“That’s a great question,” I say. “I think she would.”

We quickly looked up the average surface temperatures on Mars.

Turns out, if Mars was in the midst of a heatwave and it was the very hottest part of the day in the middle of summer, Mom would probably have been ok, with a maximum temperature of 20° C (68° F) having been recored on Mars.

However, because Mars has such a thin atmosphere, the temperatures on Mars vary wildly thorughout the day, and the story sets the actors on the surface of Mars just before sunrise. So it’s pretty likely that the temperatures were more likely in the -87° C (-124.6) range.

So, yeah. Mom would have been cold. But that would have been the least of her problems; I mean, who sleeps in a football jersey?