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4-COLOR BOOKLET OR POUND OF FLESH
We keep getting these expensive four-color Viking Cruise Line booklets in the mail, each touting Viking cruises on both ocean and river vessels. These are not brochures, they’re booklets that are each about a quarter-inch thick, printed on slick paper with beautiful photos. We don’t get two or three a year. We get a couple booklets a week, all inviting us to come onboard for another wonderful international adventure.
The other day, after getting the third Viking missive in a week, I suggested to my wife that maybe we should contact Viking and tell them to stop wasting their money sending us these booklets because we are never going to go on another Viking cr
“Nope,” Carmela said. “I want them to keep sending those booklets until they spend more money marketing to us than we spent to go on their cruise.”
A nutty woman, my wife.
The back-story is that five years ago – in March 2019 – Carmela and I flew to Europe to embark on a three-week Viking River Cruise across Europe that started on the Rhine River in Amsterdam and ended on the Danube River in Budapest. We opted for both a couple extra days in Amsterdam and the end-of-cruise side trip to Prague. Although lots of people love this kind of cruise where everything is planned out, we found that it’s not really our cup of tea.
We spent long hours planning our cruise, picking tours, making arrangements, and being excited about the trip. The first couple of days were great. We loved being on a river boat that floated lazily down the river as we watched the world go by.
But it was the first cruise of the season and because of the snow melt in the mountains, the river was running high. Finally – just west of Wurzburg – we came to a bridge that the long ship would not fit beneath. So we docked for several days and waited, hoping the water would recede enough so we could squeeze beneath the bridge.
But the clock was ticking and the cities and attractions we bought were falling farther and farther from our location, as we remained docked on the wrong side of the bridge. Not to worry though, Viking provided us with lots of pre-packaged cookies and kept the bar open round the clock for us to purchase alcohol to ease our pain.
Normally, when the river becomes impassable by one of the long boats, the folks on an east-bound boat would disembark and change places with the folks on a west-bound boat – then the west-bound boat would turn around and go east and the east-bound boat head west. A little inconvenient, but that’s how travel is. But since we were the first cruise of the season, there was no west-bound boat onto which we could transfer. Not exactly great planning on Viking’s part.
Finally, the cruise line hired buses to take folks to the attractions promised, but as the days passed and the boat didn’t move, the bus rides to attractions became longer and longer, which meant the visits to the promised attractions became shorter and shorter. So, instead of sailing down the river and then taking a half-hour bus ride to our historical destination, the boat sat where it was and passengers had to take as much as a four-hour bus ride each way to see a castle or museum – leaving a visit of an hour or so for our nine-hour time investment.
Of course, travel is an adventure and when you go on an adventure, things can go wrong. But we were on an adventure where we had no control over where we went, how long we spent there, or what we saw. Viking was in charge of all that, and frankly, we were less than impressed.
We didn’t go on a cruise to sit docked on a boat by the side of the river or to go on endless bus rides to far-away places.
Did we have fun? We did, but mostly because Carmela and I have fun wherever we go. We got off the boat several times and wandered on our own into the nearest town on foot. And, we had a couple adventures of our own making. The crew did a wonderful job trying to entertain us and make the best of the situation. But let’s face it, we were really just prisoners on a nice long boat with good food. Our destiny was not our own.
Would we ever do it again? No way. We prefer to be in charge of our own trouble.
Just before our river journey ended, the cook – Chef Roman – addressed a gathering of passengers. He boasted that he himself had fallen ill during the trip, but he soldiered on and never left his post in the kitchen, preparing wonderful meals for us all. By this time, everybody on board was hacking and wheezing, including us. Thank you Chef Roman.
What we realized on this trip was that as much as we liked cruising down the river, we had turned over control of our trip to a company that charged big bucks to entertain and feed us. The little German towns we visited along the river were tourist traps with lots of shops all hawking the same memorabilia and novelty junk. By the third identical town, Carmela dubbed them all “It’s a Small World,” and reminded me that she hates Disneyland.
But, we both agreed that we would have liked to spend more time in Amsterdam, an exciting and beautiful city; more time in Vienna, a place of great culture and beauty that was reduced to a six-hour visit; and more time in Budapest, a city full of restaurants and culture. We got about three hours there.
As it was, the visits to those wonderful, cosmopolitan cities were cut short.
The extended trip, overland by bus to Prague, was probably our favorite city of all. We had a great time there, but it was only a short visit with a plane to catch and a flight to take to another airport where we would take another plane to take us home. And, of course, we were still suffering from Chef Roman’s cold the whole three days we were in Prague.
Having said all that, we know many people who love the Viking cruises, both river and ocean. And that’s pretty cool.
There were parts we liked too, such as sitting on our private balcony, close enough to the riverbank to wave to the people on shore, watching night fall, going up to the top deck which was mostly deserted except for the few other hardy souls willing to brave the cold wind and rain.
The Viking Cruise definitely wasn’t all bad. But it wasn’t us. Maybe because planned adventure is not really adventure at all. It’s just three-week-long “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride with a couple “Small World” turns thrown in.
After our trip, Viking offered to compensate us for a river cruise that even they admitted had gone badly. Fair enough. We would have been happy with a partial refund. The compensation turned out to be discount vouchers for other Viking voyages.
That is never going to happen. So keep sending us those slick, four-color booklets, Viking. Maybe even send them first class mail, instead of bulk.
Carmela wants her due.
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ROBOT OVERLORDS
It may sound paranoid, but the robot takeover of our lives has begun.
People think that being ruled by robots means humanoid-type synthetic creatures, spreading mayhem and killing humans. That may be the end game, but for now, we have less obvious robots taking over our lives and controlling our behavior.
Frankly, it bugs me.
We have a truck, which I really love, but we also have a robot built into the truck who is there to nag me in case I am doing something the government doesn’t like.
For instance, when I get in the truck and insert the key, it will start beeping at me to make sure I have closed all my doors and fastened my seat belt. I actually think seat belts are a good idea, BUT I don’t need my truck to nag me to fasten them.
I have a wife who would happily nag me if I neglected to fasten my seatbelt. And that’s OK. That’s another human who has dedicated her life to caring about me.
If somewhere on my drive, I stop, unfasten my seatbelt, and get out, my truck will start beeping to remind me that I left the keys in the ignition. When I open the door my parking lights come on, whether I want them to or not.
We have been in the dark forest at night, sleeping in a tent, surrounded by the sounds of owls and wind blowing through the trees. When we emerge from our tent and go into the darkness, there is an almost mystical connection to the natural world. A feeling of being close to nature and to the wildness that surrounds us.
But if we open the door to our truck to retrieve something inside, the parking lights come on, illuminating the night and disturbing other folks at nearby campsites. And if we accidentally push the wrong button on our remote, the lights start flashing and the horn starts blaring.
If all this weren’t annoying enough, there’s now a legislative proposal afoot that would require car horns to start blowing repeatedly if the driver goes more than 10 miles over the speed limit. This is nagging carried to an extreme.
There are other plans to tax us by how many miles we drive, which means the government – and make no mistake about it, we are talking about a bunch of pinhead politicians – will be able to track all our movements everyplace we go.
Step-by-step, the robots are becoming our bosses.
For now, they are nothing more than the bully boys for politicians, bureaucrats, and big corporate entities. And unless you are incredibly naïve, you know that politicians and bureaucrats are bought and paid for by powerful interests – both political and private.
I’m not a fool. We need government, not only for our national defense and our infrastructure, but to make sure the meat we eat isn’t riddled with disease, the water we drink isn’t contaminated with chemicals, the places we work are relatively safe, and children are not starving in the street.
Government – even big government – may be a necessary evil. But people and freedom should always come first. Try telling that to a pile of flashing, beeping, annoying metal parts.
– George Lee Cunningham
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HELLO BURGER BUDDY
After reading how much I whined on Facebook about my wife Carmela trying to give me a “hamburger sandwich for dinner,” our California-Florida-Texas pal Victoria Stevens took pity on us and sent us a package of Burger Buddies.
A Burger Buddie – which I prefer to call a Beef Patty Pal – is a little silicon holder for your beef patty sandwich, which keeps the juice from running down your arm while you are trying to eat your meal. You simply place your burger in it’s bun, put the whole thing inside the Patty Pal, and then you can set it on your plate without mess or spill, leaving you to enjoy whatever side dishes you may have.
It’s an excellent product and it works exactly as advertised. When you are through with your beef patty, you simply toss the empty Burger Buddy in the dishwasher so it’s ready for the next time you need it.
The burger buddy comes in a package of four colors, so there is no confusion about which burger belongs to whom. And, according to the packaging, you can use the Burger Buddie for a variety of things. For example, you can put a doughnut in it so your fingers don’t get sticky. Or, you can put a bagel in it, so you have plenty of time to chew and sip your coffee in between bites. It’s really quite a multi-purpose item.
And, thanks to Victoria, it gives me one less thing to whine about. I thank her, and so does Carmela.
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SPOILED ROTTEN ME
Not to be crude, but words sometimes have a double meaning.
Take “a**hole,” for example. Sometimes it means the normal part of the anatomy deep between the cheeks of your fanny, and sometimes it describes an entire person.
I am sometimes guilty of having AND of being that rather crude word.
Case in point, my loving and hardworking wife told me we were going to just have hamburgers for dinner. My response was to get grumpy and sulky about how neglected I was.
When she finally questioned me about what was wrong, I complained that I didn’t want a sandwich for dinner. Why? Well, when I hold a sandwich in my hand, it’s hard to put it down without it falling apart, so I sit there, eating my sandwich with all the juice dripping down my arm, feeling sorry for myself while all the rest of my dinner gets cold.
Whah, whah, whah.
So, my wife, who’s much more mature than I am – even though she was in grammar school when I was dodging bullets in Vietnam – takes some offense. What’s really the problem, she asks.
I think about it, and here is my answer.
“I don’t want you to call it a “hamburger.” I would prefer you call it a “beef patty.”
She just shakes her head and says, “maybe we’ll have some beef patties for dinner.”
“OK, fine,” I say, feeling like a complete fool and also like that pitiful person, who is what he also has between his butt cheeks.
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DRIVING WITH ST. CHRISTOPHER
I’m not a person who wears jewelry.
I have a simple gold band that I wear on the fourth finger of my left hand. I wear it there, and I never take it off because it means something important to me. And now I have a necklace that I put on each morning and wear throughout every day, because that also means something important to me.
Carmela and I visited our cousins Roger and Nancy in Florida earlier this year, and before we left, they told us there was something they wanted us to have before we hit the highway home. Then they took the St. Christopher medals from around their own necks and helped us put them around our necks.
We were both touched.
Although Carmela has been familiar with St. Christopher – the saint of sailors and other travelers – all her life, I didn’t really know the story.
As it turns out, St. Christopher started his life known as Reprobus. He was 23 feet tall and had a “frightening” face. Reprobus, in searching out the strongest power that he could serve, met a hermit who convinced Reprobus to carry people across a dangerous river, which he could easily do, since he was 23 feet tall.
One day Reprobus was carrying a small child across the river, but the river kept getting higher, and the child kept getting heavier. After both of them almost drowned, Reprobus got the child safely to the other side, where the child revealed himself to be Christ. From then on, Reprobus became known as St. Christopher, from the Greek name Christophoros, which means “Christ-bearer.”
I’m not religious, but the sweetness of the gift meant something to me. I don’t know if our St. Christopher medals will keep us safe in our future travels, but I’m pretty sure they are not going to hurt. And maybe, just maybe, St. Christopher really is looking out for us and keeping us safe.
We can only hope.
– George Lee Cunningham
If you would like to subscribe to our work, you may contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know and you will get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.