Oh! We have plans. After months of inactivity and moving at the pace of a three-toed sloth, the coming weeks are going to be a relative blur of activity, comparable to most peoples' normal pace.

This time next week Mr. Troutbend and I will be on the Norwegian Star steaming south toward the Mexican Riviera (western coast of Mexico), watching out for whales and dolphins and other ships.

One of my plans for this trip is to take one of those photographs of the setting sun where it looks like a person is holding it in their cupped hands or something like that. I was thinking in terms of it shining out from someone's rear end, but am not sure if that will work out although not for lack of trying.

I don't know if I'll get off the boat at any of the stops. I stayed on the ship the whole time during last year's cruise and am still fine with it. This year might be different, though, because my bad knee is much, much better so I can walk distances without being laid up with ice packs for the next two days. I hear there is civil unrest in Mexico right now, but I don't know exactly where. Last year we were amazed at the armed soldiers (maybe they weren't soldiers) surrounding our cruise ship as it came into the harbor.

A couple of days after we get back we are checking into one of the Strip hotels - THEHotel, where I've never stayed before, and then on the Friday after that Mr. Troutbend is driving me and Buddy the Interstate Cat home to Colorado for the summer. Mr. Tbend will be there only a couple of days then drive back to Las Vegas to finish the bowling league season. Buddy is going to miss him a lot. I don't know if you have ever tried talking to a dog or cat on the phone, but we never have much luck with it.

Living room at THEHotel:


So in the next few days I have to pack for the cruise and pack for the summer, plus make piles of stuff to take back there. What we can't fit into the car on the first trip, he will bring on subsequent trips; usually he drives back here for bowling tournaments around the Fourth of July.

What I am working on right now is backing up my computer in case it gets stolen while we are cruising or the hard drive crashes, and I'll have the files to transfer to the computers in Colorado. I bought an 8 gigabyte memory stick that will hold all my files and then some. I had a 3 gig one that wasn't quite big enough, but I can use it to make an extra backup of the business files. In case the first backup fails. Have you ever heard the expression 'he's a belt and suspenders type of guy?'