Manners
One of the great things about the cruise is the level of service you receive there. Everyone is very friendly and helpful, especially the wait staff. I can only think of a couple of other times I’ve experienced service at that level. What became glaringly obvious to me during that week is that the majority of people have no idea about etiquette and manners. Typically it is not done spitefully, but still people seem to lack even the basic habits of a civilized society and I think that it is time to bring manners back. Read more »
Posted: October 24th, 2008 under Improvement.
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During the cruise I had plenty of time to watch an interesting cross-section of people. By far the most entertaining/annoying are the group I call the “woo-hoo people.” Who are these people? They are the ones that end every sentence by raising their arms up and emitting a loud Woo-Hoo (“I’m going to the bar! Woo-hoo!”
A while back I picked up a Dell Axim PDA. I loved this thing. It kept track of my contacts, my appointments, I could read PDFs on it, it played MP3s, I had games for it, heck I even put movies and Veggie Tales on it so I always had a portable babysitter if we were stuck somewhere for a while. It was great, but by far my favorite use for it was as a GPS tool. At the time, GPS receivers for the car were extremely expensive, but for the price of some software and a GPS that plugged into the PDA, I had turn-by –turn directions anywhere I wanted. I used it all over the country and it rocked hard. Sadly, my PDA is going terminal now and is currently on life-support. It works, but not all the time and not as fast as it use to. Also, the PDA market is almost gone now, replaced by iPods and smart phones, so my time with my Axim is reaching its end. 
I graduated college (the first time) in 1992, smack dab in the middle of a huge recession. I constantly interviewed for jobs but each time I was met with “we aren’t hiring now, but we’ll keep your resume on file.” Yeah, thanks for that. Although the life insurance sales companies were hiring, go figure. So I turned from my school’s placement office to the good old classified ads. I answered one to be a software instructor for a small company and on the week of finals, I got the job. I was sweating bullets on that one because I had no backup plan. My Mom had moved away and I wanted to stay in Oklahoma so if I could not find a job then I’d have to find something that paid enough to pay for my car and a place to stay. Luckily, I did get that job offer, for almost half what I was hoping to receive, and thus embarked on an incredibly bizarre learning curve for the next two years. 
Every day I stare at the blank page of Microsoft Word. It is just daring me to write something brilliant on it, but it refuses to help me. So I stare out of my window for a little while and let my mind wander. What great truth will I tackle this time? Some days it comes easy, others it takes some work. On occasion I think, “forget it, I’ll just take today off” but then an odd thing happens. I feel pressure. I can’t move on to my next project because I feel like I need to write something. Until I actually put down a post in Word, I have a nagging in the back of my mind. Oddly enough, this is a good thing.