Week 366 Update

I had to really fight to get the scale to show me a solid reading. The ship was rocking around some and I tried moving the scale around to different orientations, and finally got it to read the same thing two times in a row and so I took that as my weigh-in: 202.0 pounds.

When I weighed, we were along side of Vancouver Island heading northwest with our intent to turn that to due north as soon as we cleared the island. Today is a day at sea, with no stops at all. I learned my lesson last time we spent a day in these waters and so I came prepared with my Meclizine HCl tablets and hardly noticed the rocking and rolling. When my stomach isn't complaining about it, I actually enjoy the roll of the ship, and so finding out about these tablets really changed my life in relation to the sea.

This week started out with us hoping that our friends Jim and Tammy, who shared our last Alaska Cruise with us, would be paying us a visit, but it didn't work out. They are also with us on this cruise in spirit, because we are thinking of them a lot!

Sunday, Dotti's brother Rip came over and we took a hike up to the Pool of Winds. It was a fun hike and the weather wasn't too bad, although we ran into some muddy spots on the trail. I ended up wishing that I had worn my boots instead of my sneakers because I had a lot of trouble getting traction a couple of times.

We had been doing more walking lately, but not walking with elevation changes. So, I found this walk to be more challenging than I had expected; it is only 2.5 miles round trip, but I found I was breathing hard at times. I also was feeling some aches and pains afterwards and took some ibuprofen, which sent the scale up on Monday 2.5 pounds.

On Tuesday I woke up very early, around 1:26 AM, and was having a lot of neck pain. I was able to get back to sleep finally and when I got up at 5:34, I was down a pound to 202.5. Dotti needed to pick up a few things at Costco and I needed to go to the dentist's office for a follow up on how my dental implants were doing, especially on area where the one failed. I wanted to get a walk in for the day, and so I walked to the dentist, taking the longer route to get my 3+ miles in, and then Dotti picked me up so we could go to Costco together.

All was well at the dentist's office, and he checked the tightness on all of the caps to make sure none of them would loosen up on me while I was away at sea. Things were looking good! I didn't have my teeth yet, but that day was getting closer!

On Wednesday, Dotti had a hair appointment to get ready for the upcoming cruise. On her way to the hair salon, a passing lady motorist called out to her when she stopped at a street light that something was wrong with her rear tire. Fortunately, Les Schwab's was just around the corner and she pulled into there and dropped the van off, and walked the rest of the way to the hair salon. She called me up and said that her appointment might not be over before Les Schwab's closed and I might have to pick up the van. So, I got to a good stopping point on what I was working on, and hopped into our car and drove over to the hair salon. There was Dotti sitting in the chair getting her perm, and I got to meet some of the ladies who worked in the salon, and I got to visit with her hair dresser whom I had met before. They were all really friendly and I was happy to have the chance to see them.

I then set off on foot for Les Schwab's, where I picked up the car. As it turned out, there was no charge! The odd appearing wheel merely had a loose hubcap. The tires were in need of being rotated, and they did that as well, and since we have Les Schwab tires on the van, there don't charge for rotating tires. I always get the feeling that I have gone back in time whenever I deal with Les Schwab; they are eager to do more than is required to make you a happy customer. They will take you in, even if it is closing time, and get you back on the road. (I have had them do that for me more than once. I have also dealt with other tire places that turn you away, even if you are having a tire going flat, simply because they will be closing in 30 minutes and don't a free lift open right now.) They always appear to be happy that you came to their business. They run up to your car when you arrive and ask if they can be of service. I don't know how many people remember the gas stations of the 1950s where they used to do that, but it really makes you want to come back. I would go there now, even if they charged more money than other places, simply because their customer service is head and shoulders above anything I see today, not only in the area of tires, but in any area where customer service is required. I only wish I could find businesses in all areas that I could depend on that way. But we don't have to pay more at Les Schwab's; they have saved us a lot of money over the years, and back their work 100%.

When I got back to the hair salon with the van, Dotti was still being worked on, and I hung around and visited with her and her hair dresser until she finished. Dotti always seems to find the nicest people, and once she finds them, she hold on to them. (She has followed this hair dresser around to at least 3 different salons as the hair dresser was searching for just the right place to work. I think she has found it, because she has been here a while and the whole salon seems to be well suited to her pleasant personality.)

Thursday I was back down to 201.5, and we spent the day getting everything together for our cruise. We made sure the web page and message board were going to be well monitored by our hosting service and we of course our admins on the message board would be keeping a close eye on things. (They do such a wonderful job!)

We packed up the van with our luggage and had everything in place before we went to bed on Thursday. We were really getting excited!

Friday was the big day. I had checked the weather forecast for the upcoming week and things were looking iffy. We might have some clear days, and we might see rain. It was hard to tell. Our ship was dropping its lines and putting to sea at 4:00 PM, and we had to check in at least 90 minutes before that. Also, since the tickets were non-refundable, we couldn't afford to be late and miss the ship, if we had a flat tire, or some other problem with the car. We wanted to leave early enough to be able to find an alternative way to the ship if anything came up to slow us down. The drive would normally take 3 hours, without incident and since the gangway would open at 1 PM we thought leaving at 9 AM would give us enough leeway for emergencies, and not get us there so early that we would have to find something else to do while we were waiting to get onboard. After stopping at Starbucks (when you click on the thumbnail, you will see why I thank my lucky stars that this beautiful lady is in love with me—she's gorgeous and all mine)for a coffee to drink on the road to Seattle, we actually got on the road about 9:45, but that turned out to be just about perfect timing.

Last time, I could actually see our van in the parking lot from the ship. We pulled into the drive way of the terminal building, and dropped off the luggage out front. While Jim, Tammy, and Dotti took care of grabbing a porter and getting the luggage moved inside, I drove out of the driveway and back over to the main parking lot where I dropped off the van. I then walked back to the terminal and that was it for the car. It was very convenient.

Here is where we first started to find striking differences in the way Celebrity Cruise Lines handled things compared with Holland-America. And we were not impressed with the changes we had to deal with. This time we had to drive into a parking garage and when we got up to the floor where the parking was, it turned into valet parking, and they took our key and van, and held them for us until our return a week later. They did move our check-in luggage from that point to the terminal for us, which was nice. However, we did have to take our carry-on luggage with us as we negotiated the path to the terminal. (The thing is on a cruise, you have to take certain things with you, because your luggage might not make it aboard—we saw one bag arrive at the dock in Sitka for one of our fellow passengers, and others might not have arrived at all. If there is something that you absolutely have to have with you, you have to carry it on. For us that included a lot of camera equipment, computers, medications, and clothes. It would have been much easier if we could have dropped all of that off with Dotti at the front door of the terminal like we did last time.)

Once inside the terminal we had a long line to wait through, to get ourselves checked for weapons. Our last cruise was after 9/11 but we had far less done to us in this area. They went overboard this time around. I had to go through a hand search, as well as a wand search after tripping the metal detector with my suspender clasps. This was overkill really, and it didn't end here. Each time we returned to the ship during our cruise we had to go through the same thing again. A ship is not an airplane, and the risks involved are quite different. I honestly didn't feel any safer for the "extra" they were doing, and I felt a lot more put out. Twice we had our cameras nearly dropped during the cruise by the sloppy way they were handled while going way beyond a reasonable search for weapons.

During our last cruise, we had one long line to wait through, where we were able to get checked in. Once we cleared that line, we were free to walk aboard the ship. This time, after we got through the first line, we then were directed to another room where an even longer line awaited us, where we got our room keys and other paperwork. When we cleared the line and started heading for the ship, they had a lady checking to make sure we had our room keys and we looked at the names on them. They were Japanese names, and clearly were not our keys. So, I stood there with the luggage as Dotti ran back to where we had picked up our paperwork and in a few minutes she came back with our stuff. We were in room 7033 and we had originally gotten the keys for a room with a similar number but not the right one. We saw a lot of these little slip ups along the way, and were very surprised, because we had heard that Celebrity was known as "a step up" from Holland-America. We found that not to be the case at all.

At last, we could go aboard. Up the gangway, and onto the ship. Once we got there, they wouldn't let us just go to our room, we have someone direct us to the room. He grabbed our one piece of carry on luggage with wheels, and left me carrying a fairly heavy bag to the room. He made us miss our elevator and generally made the trip to the room a slower and less enjoyable trip. This was not starting off as well as we had hoped, but we were eager to have a good time and while noting these things we were not overly concerned about them. Soon we were in the room and on our own finally. Someone's luggage for room 7303 or something similar was standing in front of our room 7033 and our luggage was nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, in time our luggage did arrive and it was then when we met the best feature that the ship offered: our room steward. He really made up for the things we found to be less enjoyable than we had hoped for on the ship. He was always cheerful, and quick to make things better whenever we required anything. If the entire roster of ship's personnel and support staff ashore were half as good at their jobs as Rene Ramos was at his, the Celebrity Infinity would be the best cruise ship afloat. Sadly, that was not the case, but that is no reflection on Mr. Ramos.

We had lifeboat drill before the ship left the peer, and once again we found some big differences. First off, we were NOT assigned a particular lifeboat. The routine was to go to the theater with our life jackets on, and then we would be directed to a lifeboat, but no particular lifeboat. By adding an intermediate step to the process, it of course would slow you down getting to your lifeboat in an emergency. One would hope that you would have plenty of time and so that would not be a major issue, but then another difference appeared: they didn't take a roll call. Holland-America checked to make sure every single passenger onboard the MS Westerdam made it down to the actual assigned lifeboat station. On the Celebrity Infinity, they just did as sweep of the staterooms to make sure that no one had remained in his room, but they had no way of knowing if anyone followed the correct procedure and went to the right place. Very odd.

Dotti and I were hungry by this time and we next found that food was not anywhere nearly as available at the drop of a hat as it had been on Westerdam. Their ice cream counter was nearly depleted, and many of the counters were closed down completely. We were happy that there had been a fruit basket provided in our room for something to eat. I at first thought that perhaps this was the first cruise of the season to Alaska and they had to get store aboard and in place before they could get up to speed. But later I found out that they had just come back from a cruise to the same ports as we were going to hit during the week, and so even that excuse for poor performance evaporated.

I should mention that this is not say we didn't have a good time, but it is very clear in our minds that if we do another cruise in our lives, it will not be on a Celebrity Cruise ship. We were much happier with Westerdam, and during the cruise we spied the MS Amsterdam just off our bow or stern, and we wished very much that we could have changed ships at that point.

Okay, I will put the whine away so you won't need to offer cheese. I just wanted to let people know that we really did like Holland-America a lot better than Celebrity. For my next write-up I will try to be upbeat and share just the fun we had on the cruise, because there was a lot of that!

Things have been good for weather so far and we hope that will continue as the week goes on.

Eating was pretty good this week with my average points-per-day below 35. But it is clear that the Weight Commander was not happy with what was going on. My average weight for the week did increase by just under 0.2 pound, but the ibuprofen contributed to that I am sure. Still, since I am not moving downward in any sort of hurry, any uptick like that will look bad. If you go back a month or so, you can see that I have trended downwards, but for the last two weeks, things have been stagnant, and progress has been really slow. With the little uptick, the Weight Commander gave me a big red flag to let me know that something had gone wrong, and the warning message, as you can see, told me what it was. This is good, because it keeps you from drifting into bad habits without at least knowing that something is not what you really wanted it to be.

At this point, I feel that it is not the "trend reversal" that is my biggest problem, but rather the fact that I have not moved downward into my target range, even though I have been doing fairly well lately on my eating. The biggest danger at a time like this is that the lack of progress can lead to negative thinking and that is bad.

My future graph, shows that, even with the trend reversal, I am aimed at reaching about 203.5 pounds around my birthday in August. So, here is another indication that I am stagnantly sitting in the same place, even though I have been eating better. The issue is my exercise, at least to a point. One of the things I have noted all along on my journey is that when I increase my exercise level, rather than seeing a drop on the scale, it tends to go up, at least for a while. I have increased the amount of walking that I have done over the last few weeks and, in spite of the fact that this is good for my body, I have watched the scale respond negatively as it often does. So, I am not terribly unhappy with the results I have been getting, at least not yet.

Hopefully soon I will be able to turn things around and get to the point where my exercise level is good, and my weigh-ins are in my target range. I don't expect that to happen during my week at sea. In fact that "trend reversal" may grow some wings and really take off. But I am still hopeful that when I get back, I will be able to continue to exercise and to get back on track on the scale as well.

7 years, 7 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/202.0/197.5±2.5/BMI:25.25/WK- 366

Starting weight: 239.5       Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs