Investment Advice

I think this is an important read – and very appropriate given our current climate.

Steve A. Wiggins

One of the more obvious transitions to adulthood involves Christmas becoming less of a holiday for receiving gifts. As we get older we learn that very few things in life are actually free, and that gifts often have some kinds of obligations involved. My favorite gifts have always been books and movies. Each comes with a required investment of time. That doesn’t mean I’m not grateful, or that I don’t want these things—quite the opposite! It simply means that time is required to enjoy them. Or benefit from them. In the workaday world, time is the rarest gift of all. The gifts I received fell mostly into these genres, so I’ll be sharing a number of these books and movies with you over the next few months.

A knowing relative gave me a refrigerator magnet. Our fridge is covered in these, mostly from places we’ve visited. We do have one…

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My Most Recent Conquest

It’s been a while since my last update, and a lot has happened. The last time I posted, I was down in Australia filling in on the Carnival Spirit sailing from Sydney. While I was there I was asked to deviate from my next contract which was supposed to be a ship out of LA, and rejoin a ship that we had a great time on around this time last year. I am back on the Carnival Conquest.

Do You Have The Time?

I once heard a Stevie Wonder quote that went something like this “The best thing that you can give to any musician is your time.” Now I am sure I paraphrased this horribly but the meaning rings true. Spending your time with a musician, singer, actor, dancer, or any performing artist is the simplest, but most important thing you can give them. On ships this is no different.

Happy Australia Day!

Greetings from down under! In a strange turn of events I have just joined that Carnival Spirit in Sydney, Australia. Although my last post was all about how much I was looking forward to vacation, I just couldn’t say no to an opportunity to visit Australia, and some of it’s surrounding islands, and the first cruise I join it is Australia day! Of all the days… I’ll only be here for a few weeks, so I will still have some nice home time before my next regularly scheduled outing at sea.

Vacation, Or What I Call Going Home

3:30pm Cincinnati, OH

Here I sit in the Cincinnati airport on a layover and I am reflecting over my last six months on board the Carnival Paradise. Why they would send me so far north to go southwest I’ll never understand… But, I digress.

It’s a bittersweet feeling the day you sign off of a ship. On one hand you finally get time off, time for yourself, and the freedom to use your time how you’d like. Still, on the other you know that these experiences with this

Warning, New Years Resolutions Inside

New Year’s Eve 2015. I find myself doing what I do most days that I am in the states and off of the ship. I’m at Starbucks in Tampa and using what little precious internet time that I have. As does everyone this time of year I am thinking about resolutions, and more specifically the resolutions that I have given up on or forgotten about in years past, probably before February even rolled around. Last year, one stuck throughout the year, and even though my success rate for resolutions is likely 10% I am pretty proud of it. It’s all about that momentum. This year my resolution is to stick with my resolutions!……….

-Read a Book a month. This is a continuation of the resolution I stuck with last year. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, since I fought against it my whole life.

-One blog post per week (this terrifies me)

-Continue to grow musically. Specifically with guitar, and guitar reading.

-Stretch. At the time of this writing I can’t touch my toes. Maybe 2016 will be my year.

-The obligatory gym resolution. Seriously though… Seriously.

-Be open to change, and not just to accept things because they’re comfortable.

-Make $1 from something I create. Business, music, whatever it may be.

Thank you to everyone who has read along with my life in blog posts this year. It means more to me than I can ever express. It is a pastime that I never would have though would bring me joy, but it has been a truly pleasing way to chronicle life at sea. Thank you all so much, see you in 2016.

Christmas On Board

I’ve posted a lot recently about the holidays, and how it is to be on board for those days. You can read my Thanksgiving post here, and even a birthday post here. Christmas is easily the strangest holiday on board. Something about the caribbean weather just doesn’t scream White Christmas I guess. Regardless, I hope everyone’s Christmas was wonderful!

Eight years ago I moved from eastern Washington to Las Vegas with a group of my closest friends. We left in the winter, and that was a large topic of conversation of things that we were not going to miss. The cold in eastern Washington lasts for what seems like an eternity each year, and while we were happy to leave it for that warm desert

Give Thanks, Not Attitude

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, here is a post about why it’s better to live happily.

Pardon the cliche, but there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who wait for the storm to pass, all the while complaining about their circumstances, and there are those who have learned to dance in the rain. This was exactly the case a couple of weeks ago on a rainy Cozumel afternoon. I was heading to lunch with a group from the ship and we saw a group of 10 or so friends dancing in their bathing suits outside a bar in the rain. Jimmy and I took special notice of this groups attitude, and spoke about it in length that day. We concluded that everyone has a story of a sunny day on the beach in Mexico. But these guys have a much more unique story. This group, literally were able to dance in the rain.

Onward and Upward

Over the course of the two years I have been on cruise ships, the band I play in has gone through many different looks. Though myself, and one other original member remain, we have seen the other four positions rotate through (hold on I’m counting) 11 other members, one of them two separate times. We have lost members in every way from retiring from ships, to being fired, getting promoted,

28 Years

Last week I celebrated my 28th birthday on board the ship. I have now celebrated my last three birthdays while on a contract. People that you meet and grow close to on ships always do a great job of making birthdays special, and memorable, but it is a different feeling on board than what you have grown used to on land. I am very fortunate to get to work closely with some friends that I have known for a couple years now on ships, and even have the luxury of a friend from home who is currently working on board the same ship. Having either of these on a ship is very rare, and the fact that I have both is extremely lucky.