North To Alaska! Day 2

I woke up at 7:30, got ready for the day. We will be at sea all day heading for Juneau. The Explorer is delivered each day to your cabin and lists what is going on at what time. There is more to do everyday than anyone can attempt, so you pick what is important to you. Mike is Catholic and wants to attend 8am Mass. I pass, but agreed to meet for lunch at 1pm. I went off to Lido Deck for the BF buffet. Pretty deep line at the main serving station so I went over to the omelet station. Added toast, fruit & juice and I felt I had a good BF. Chatted a bit with those sitting at my table and headed off. There is a 9:30am Windows 7 (W7) workshop I want to attend so off I go. It took some bumping around, but I found the Digital Workshop in the shopping area, Deck 3. Tony is paid by Microsoft and will be giving workshops everyday. He wants all of us to learn how to use W7 more effectively. My first class is oddly enough, 'Learning W7'. I have used W7 for 2 years now, but Tony walked us through features on W7 that I did not know existed. He pointed out that few of us bother to read the manual and are not getting as much out of W7 as we should. Great class, free of course and we got a gift bag at the end as well! At 10:30 a class on 'Beginning Photo Editing' will start. Early arrivals have a laptop to practice on. Since I am a holdover from previous class, I have a laptop to play with. Many others do not. 24 laptops, over 50 in the class. I have been using Adobe Photoshop for years, but Tony wants us to use Windows Live Photo Gallery. He walks us through: cropping, auto adjust, red eye removal, contrast/color and finally making a panoramic photo. Very informative, easier to use than Photoshop. All of us that have W7 can download Photo Gallery for free. It is now 11:30 and I want to get in my workout before lunch. Back to the cabin, workout gear, up to the Lido Deck. I do legs, stomach and 30 minutes on the bike. Shower, walk past the pool and into the buffet. I find Mike, we tend to sit on the right side as you enter, window seat if possible. I build my own sandwich, salad, fruit, water. I am trying to make good choices as it is very easy to overeat on cruises. Unlimited buffets, sit down dinners, late night snack, it can all be too much if you let it.

There is a lecture on arthritis pain I want to attend at 2pm. Given by the resident Acupuncture guy, I hope to learn more about why my knee hurts most of the time. Big surprise, his answer to everything wrong with you is, drum roll please, ACUPUNCTURE!! I resist the temptation to sign up for a series of acupuncture treatments. Others do, but I move on. I leave and head over for the movie, 'Big Miracle'. Fitting movie when you are heading for Alaska. After the movie I head back to the cabin to bring my journal up to date and read a bit. Mike is there and we discuss the day. Tonight is the first of 2 formal attire nights in the Dining Room. Since I did not bring suit/tie I will pass and head back to the buffet. Salad, pasta, pizza, tea are tonight's choices for me. At 8pm is the first show in the Vista Lounge. 'Grand Tour' is a production show featuring the Westerdam singer/dancers. Music and dancing from countries in Europe. Very well done and I get a few photos w/o flash.

I head over to the casino and I find Reid & Eunice at the Poker Table and join them. We only have 5 and need more to make an interesting game. We try to con others passing by to join us. Most decline, but we do get a few new players. Phillipe walks them through how to play on the computer and they join in. Computer Hold 'Em is easy once you have played a few hands. Everyone is in a good mood and we have fun w/o losing very much. About 11pm a guy named Brian joins us. A non stop talker, and it turns out a drunken fool. He goes 'all in' several times and we all fold. Most of us have about $200 to play with, he starts with $50 and runs it up to over $100. It becomes apparent he is betting on crap hands and Reid, Eunice and I decide we are going to break him. We now 'check' not matter what we have. When Brian bets too much, one us call him. Another bet by Brian, call him again. It takes 5 hands, but we send him to the rail. We all decide to quit at midnight and that is what we do. I lost first night, but make up most of it tonight. We had fun even with Brian's presence. Of course taking all his money was icing on the cake. We head back to our rooms and call it a night. I read for awhile, take my Tylenol PM and go to bed about midnight. Day 2 is over.