Friends-
My apologies for not posting in 2 months, but life has been crazy. For those of you who don’t know, I have been promoted to Head Broadcast Technician and I now run my little tiny department. It has been extremely challenging and time consuming. It has certainly had it’s down sides, but overall it has been a good challenge and a time of great learning.
Unfortunately, my work has taken up almost all of my time. Now that we have gotten though Christmas, New Years Eve, and
most of the NFL season I should begin to have more down time. I have still had a few fun moments.
The Christmas cruise got off to a great start with the second annual pilgrimage of my entire family to Bayonne, NJ
to spend a few hours celebrating
Christmas together. I hate not being home for the holidays and these visits are very important to me. I went 4 and a half months wi
thout seeing my family which is sooooooo long for me.
Later in the Christmas cruise I slid down the largest zipline in the world over water. This was in our private destination of Labadee. I have wanted to try it since my first trip there over a year ago, but never had the courage. It was amazing! It actually feels like you’re going really slow. The view is breathtaking.
New Year’s Eve is a big event on cruise ships. The Promenade, or main street of the ship, is like Times Square. Thousands of people pack in and we drop 3,000 balloons
from 3 decks above. I was actually alone in one of my offices at midnight to switch the video feed on the Promenade from a countdown to a “Happy New Year!” logo, but I was on the bridge above the Promenade by 12:02. It was great!
Now that the holidays
are over and I’m more used to my main responsibilities I am starting to have more port time again. I used
that to my advantage and finally took a tour of St. Kitts. I’ve been to St. Kitts a few times, but I have never left the port town. I took a small taxi tour before I boarded a train for a 2 hour train tour. It was great! St. Kitts has green monkeys that hang out in trees like we have squirrels in PA. I had seen some tame ones in town before that you could get your picture taken with,
but I saw 4 in the wild on the tour. The t
rain was a double decker and the top was open air. I stayed up top for the whole time!! St. Kitts is extremely green and does not look like most Caribbean islands- in fact, it is said to look more
like an island in the South Pacific. Sugar manufacturing used to be the main industry and remains of the sugar mills will everywhere. They look similar to stone furnaces you may see in Pennsylvania.
Since the ship sails from the Northeast, the AFC Championship was a big deal for many of our guests. Because of this we threw a big party in Studio B- the ice rink. There is a floor that comes out over the ice and seats that extend over the portion of the floor as well. We brought a big screen out and projected the game there and on the monitors throughout the rink. Since it was a Steeler’s game, I went a little crazy. I designed graphics with the logos of both teams and had those out in the lobby.
I used the LED bars throughout the room to send messages such as “Touchdown!!!” and “Thank you Jets for flying the Steelers to the Super Bowl!” I had my jersey on, Terrible Towel in my back pocket, Steelers blanket wrapped around me, Steelers teddy bear on my desk…and would go crazy at each play. We played “Here We Go” as all the disappointed Jets fans were leaving! Soooo excited for the Super Bowl party!
Well, that’s a brief recap for you. Much love to you all. And I’ll try to increase the frequency of my posts.
