Granted it has yet been a while since I last updated, and granted I said I would make the attempt to update more frequently, recent family issues have unfortunately delayed updates until now.
I have been back in Texas for a month now. My second contract on the ms Oosterdam was quite tumultuous both on the home and work fronts. I enjoyed Hawaii, the Mexican Riviera and a third summer in Alaska to the best of my ability. I visited the somber site of Pearl Harbor, flew over Haleakala via helicopter in Maui, went whale watching a total of three times (once in Cabo, once in Honolulu and the other in Maui), visited the amazing Polynesian Cultural Center on Oahu (and had a tour guide who had long rants about 50 First Dates, the Karate Kid 2 and other somewhat useless information on the way to there)...
...okay, on that note really quickly, some people would love to hear about the cinematic flare of Hawaii (we sold a tour on Kauai dedicated strictly to that). But these are senior citizens, many of them thinking that "wax on, wax off" will make you blind and/or send you to hell. Back to the post...
...flew over the beautiful Misty Fjords via floatplane (finally) outside of Ketchikan, saw Sitka for the first time and many other great experiences. It was good to see my Juneau friends as well.
In approximately three weeks, I will be boarding the ms Maasdam and repeating the Atlantic Adventurer cruise I did last fall, followed by six weeks in the Caribbean, an amazing 49-day Amazon and Carnival itinerary to Brazil (including two nights in Rio de Janiero), ending with another six weeks in the Southern and Eastern Caribbean and mostly likely continuing on to New England and the Canadian Maritimes for the encore (we shall see about that). I am scheduled to return home April 22nd but if they want an encore expect me back home sometime mid-late May.
I also recently picked up an affordable camera lens add-on kit featuring a small wide angle lens add-on and a small telephoto lens add-on (this one increases the zoom x 2.2). It's obviously not the high-end professional equipment but I want to build up to that. Besides, just because my Nikon D3100 isn't what you would call a "pro" camera, it can more than take professional-quality photos (just without some of the real fancy stuff). I am in the market to purchase another actual lens, most likely a 55mm-300mm or some variation of that but a nice f/1.8 for night shooting is also being considered. I will say, though, that my 18mm-55mm lens kit is very sufficient for night shooting as is, so I might decide to go for a 24mm f/2.8 or some variation like that.
I'm also deciding which photos I've taken in the past couple of years to have printed out and hanging in my house. I'm considering having three or four large prints and four smaller ones to hang up, and then all of the "finalist" photos printed out on 8x11 for portfolio purposes. My skills are nowhere near professional quality yet (I still have a lot to learn about proper exposure) but hopefully in due time this will change.
So here's to another summer, this one being flushed down the toilet as quickly as humanly possible. A very rocky road is ahead, so all I can do is try to go with every bump and pitfall regardless of the bruising that will occur.
"Wax on, wax off!" Lol
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