Inappropriate Pictures For a Vacation

The title of the post says it all, but I feel no remorse. I was on vacation for crying out loud, and you're SUPPOSED to do inappropriate stuff on your vacation. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as the others I've posted from my vacation.

As you can tell, I'm somewhat obsessed with good looking guys, especially their abs and butts.

That 70's T-Dance

My favorite T-Dance of the entire cruise was the (you guessed it) "Classic 70's Disco T-Dance". That was the one I spent most of my time anticipating and preparing for. Here are some of the pictures I took. Enjoy.

My next photo set to be published will be titled "Inappropriate Pictures For a Vacation". I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did taking them.

Not Three, Not Two, Butt Juan

These are some pictures I took of Juan (never learned his last name), an Atlantis Events volunteer who was working during the Mexican Riviera Cruise. He was, in my opinion anyway, one (or should that be Juan) of the hottest guys on the Radiance of the Seas, and when you consider how much eye-candy was on board, that's saying something.

The pictures were taken during the three bingo games held during the cruise, and every time the bingo callers would make a "mistake" or have a bingo "accident", Juan would have to take off an article of clothing. It made me wonder if we could get away with something similar at the Stockton I.S.J.D.E. bingo game we hold the first Thursday of the month at Club Paradise. I wonder if we could get Tim the Bartender to be our stripper. I'd do it, but I would want to lose about 80 or 90 lbs first.

Anyway, enjoy, and Juan, if you're reading this, I think you're a great guy and a terrific sport. Good luck in your future endeavors in London, England with your partner and your future career.

The Celebrities I Met

I no sooner boarded the ship when I met Charo. I was giddy at the encounter. I am so gay!

I got another picture with Charo later that evening at the kick-off show. Later I went and bought two of her autographed CDs.

I met Alec Mapa at pre-boarding. He is such a sweet guy, and so funny.

Me with Shan Carr, the greatest lesbian comic in the world!

Me with cabaret star Mat Yee.

Me with drag queen/magician Cashetta.

Me with comic Jim David. I hope the neighbors are enjoying this! (Inside joke.)

I met Miss Richfield 1981 at bingo. The fact that we're both wearing yellow was pure chance.

Cheeta Rivera in concert on the ship. You go Cheeta!

Bruce Villance on stage. I met him later in the dining room, but didn't have my camera. Damn!

Well, those are the celebrities I met on my 2008 Atlantis vacation. More pictures will be coming soon.

Vacation Report-2008

Well, I'm back from my vacation everybody, and I had a fantastically good time! I know I said I would be posting a vacation diary, but I was having so much fun, and so much was happening I just didn't have time. I tried to be everywhere and see and do everything.

I was up Saturday morning (10/18/08) at 2:00 a.m. to finish packing so I could be out the door and on my way to the airport by 3:30 a.m. I arrived early enough that when I was finally able to board the plane, I was able to get a window seat in the front row (normally I like sitting on the isle) and had some great news. Either they're making the seats wider, or I lost more weight than I thought, because I didn't feel squeezed in this time.

Then the bad news hit. I got to the airport in LA and the airline put one of my suitcases on the wrong airplane. I landed at 8:30 a.m., and my second of my two pieces of checked luggage arrived at 12:30 p.m. Southwest took my report and said they would rush my suitcase to the port, and Royal Caribbean said if the suitcase had arrived after the ship departed, they would forward it to our first port of call (Ixtapa), but still, I would have been two days without a change of clothing. Fortunately, my suitcase did arrive before we pulled out of port. Yahoo!

So, after a bit of a rough beginning, my vacation ended up being one of the best times in my life. Pictures will be posted soon.

In Just 12 Hours or So!

In just about 12 hours I'll be getting on the airplane for LAX, hopping on the shuttle-van for LAH, and waiting to board the Serenade of the Seas for my 2ND annual Mexican Riviera cruise vacation with Atlantis Events. I got all my packing done, and now it's time for bed.

Before I go though, please follow the link to the Karaoke Queen (no, not me). I'm just sorry the lighting is so bad. Next time will be better. Trust me though, she really is beautiful.

Deep-Dish Country Apple Pie (AKA The Skipped Recipe)

I just realized, I forgot to post my Recipe of the Month last Sunday, October 5th. I hope you can all forgive my tardiness.

This month is another special diabetic recipe for those who still enjoy desert, but think you cannot have anything sweet anymore, whether it be because of diabetes, heart trouble, or surrendering to the body fascism of the gay community at large.

Deep-Dish Country Apple Pie

• 5 cups sliced Gala apples
• 3 cups sliced Granny Smith Apples
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (*or optionally; 1 teaspoon vanilla, butter, and nut flavoring)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar substitute
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons diet margarine
• 1 prepared, refrigerated pie crust

1. Preheat your oven to 425*F
2. Combine apples, lemon juice and vanilla (*or the optional).
3. Add flour, sugar, sugar substitute, cinnamon and nutmeg; toss again.
4. Transfer to 9-inch (ouch!) deep-dish pie pan and dot with margarine.
5. Cover with crust, and cut several slits in crust. Bake 50 minutes or until apples are tender. (Cover edges with tin-foil during the last 15 minutes of baking if browning too quickly.)
6. Serve warm or at room temperature. Cover leftover pie with plastic wrap; store in refrigerator.

This makes 8 servings.

Here is a little something extra you might want to try with your pie. I learned this from an episode of "I Love Lucy"; try serving the pie hot, with a slice of cheddar cheese. Yummy!

On a side note, I love "I Love Lucy". She had a voice like the little girl who just found her mother's lipstick. You can hear the twinkle in her voice. Don't believe me? Try watching the next episode with your eyes closed. You can hear the twinkle in her voice.

Have We Bottomed Yet?

Anyone with access to a radio or television, who also doesn't change the station when the news comes on, will know that the DJIA rose over 11% today! Now, the question I, and financial commentators are asking is this, "Have we bottomed yet?"

My answer is quite simply, "I don't know."

My portfolio increased 5.31% for the day, but I'm still looking at a paper loss of 7.5%. In dollars and cents, I had paper gains of $1,463.19, but am still holding a paper loss of $2,353.50.

Add to that the fact that over the next two months is "Earnings Season", when companies tell their investors and the world how much they made or lost. Well folks, I'm predicting good news for the following companies that I'm invested in;

• Heinz (HNZ)
• McDonalds's (MCD)
• Pepsico (PEP)

And I just wish I had been smarter and put some money into a position in Hershey (HSY).

Why am I predicting good news for these companies (which represent 20% of my total portfolio)? Well, they all started coming down as the price of commodities, the raw materials they need to make their products, began going up. To maintain their profit margins, they began a series of price increases, but now, the price of commodities is coming down (FAST), and they have made no move to lower their prices. In simple math, if you sell for $2 what it costs you $1 to make, your profit is $1, but if your cost goes down to $0.75 and you're still selling for $2, you are now making $1.25.

So, if you can, put your money in these stocks. In tough economic times, you can't go wrong investing in companies that make things people eat and/or drink.

Peace.

Modesto's Closet Ball

I meant to post this Sunday, October 12th, but with one thing and another, I wasn't able to. I'm getting closer and closer to my 2nd cruise vacation with Atlantis Events, and I spent most of yesterday either at the gym or shopping for supplies. I'll wait till Friday though before I buy the "supplies" I'll need for special activities so I'll have them nice and fresh.

Anyway, the Modesto Closet Ball, 2008, was a lot of fun, and the new Closet Ball Queen, Missy, looks like she's well up to the challenge. The transformation from Corry (her boy name, and sorry if I spelled it wrong) to Missy (again, sorry if I spelled it wrong) was truly remarkable, though the shaving of the goatee had a lot to do with it. Here are some before and after pictures of Modesto's new Closet Ball Queen;

Corry as a boy.

(He's the one in the white tank-top t-shirt)

Introducing Missy!

Like I said, the transformation was truly remarkable!

The entertainers were all fantastic, but I do have to say, Mama Cantrell should have done the "Let Me Entertain You" song from the musical "Gypsy". The dress she was wearing was a dead ringer for the one that Natalie Wood wore in the movie. Don't get me wrong, her performance was fantastic, I just thought the other would have been a better one, especially since the one dress strap kept slipping down (though in the movie, Gypsy removed it on purpose).

Very Cold, Very Small Comfort

Just over 1 year ago yesterday, the DJIA reached it's all time high peak of over 14,000. As of yesterday, the main market average is down nearly 40%, below 9,000 points for the first time in 5 years.

Here is my very cold, very small comfort; my portfolio is down just about 11%. I'm down like everyone else, and everyone else is down like the rest of the market. But my stocks are down only 11% vs. 40%.

The only thing I have to look forward to is the dividends I will be earning on the stocks I have invested in.

I've decided to cut a large number of my expenses (IE "EXTRAVAGANCES"), and use the extra cash to pay off my credit cards. I can no longer afford to live as I have been living. So, no more membership to TitanMen.com, no more "short car rides" within Stockton (riding my bike will be better for me anyway), and I won't be going out of town anymore for imperial court functions unless I get at least one other person who agrees to go with me, and only then if they agree to share the cost of the gasoline. Sorry folks, no more free ride with Wesley, unless of course we have to stay overnight, and you agree to pay for the hotel room (I want to be fair after all), and if you agree, then back out at the last minute, I won't go, and, if we go some place out of town, and then you try to back out of an agreement to share expenses (EX. you pay the hotel expense, I pay for the gas) I am quite willing to strand you in a far distant city. I will no longer be taken advantage of or taken for granted by anyone.

I am NOT giving up cruise vacations however! If you say that makes me selfish, F**K YOU!

Side Note: For those of you who are wondering why I didn't actually spell the F-word, I didn't want to have to put up the block you would need to click to confirm entry into the blog. That, and with over 300,000 words in the English language alone, I have never been one for using the same 4-letter ones over and over again. It shows a limited mind.

Message In a Bottle

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever written a message in a bottle and thrown it into the ocean or a river or lake? You send out that message, and wonder if anyone will ever find it, and if you will ever hear from them if they do.

Once, when I was younger, I put a message in a bottle. It was a line from a movie I had seen where the central plot point was a lonely young woman who would go to the beach every day, and throw a bottled message into the ocean. Every day for two years (if I remember the movie correctly.

Each message was the same. Her name, her address, and the following;

"There is in certain living souls
A quality of loneliness unspeakable,
So great it must be shared
As company is shared by lesser beings.
Such a loneliness is mine; so know by this
That in immensity
There is one lonelier than you."

I've come to realize that's what my blog posts are sometimes. Each one is a message in a bottle, and each time someone posts a comment, it's like getting a response to that message that you never really thought would come, but one that you kept hoping for anyway.

Yes. I'm feeling lonely. I feel lonely a lot, and treasure each comment on my blog, each private e-mail I receive, each phone call, kiss or embrace. They all come so seldom, occur so infrequently, that I try to prolong the experience as long as I can in order to store up the memories so they will last me a long time. Because who knows when the loneliness will be broken again, if ever.

Could I Be Psychic???

On Monday I got a horrendous ass-chewing from my boss because it was thought a $10.00 imbalance in an account in my office was my fault. I still get chills up and down my spine when I remember the look on my bosses face and the words he said to me.

Well, last night (or should I say this morning) after I went to bed, I had a dream that the senior accounting technician in my section found the $10.00 we had been looking for, and for some reason it was found in her purse. It was a very strange dream since it wasn't an actual $10.00, but an account imbalance.

Well, today, about an hour after we all started working this morning, looking for "MY" mistake, she realized it wasn't my fault at all! The missing $10.00 wasn't missing at all, she only thought it was because SHE had entered the wrong number in the computer spreadsheet, from an account SHE is personally responsible for. So, in a sense, my dream came true. She did find the $10.00, and while it wasn't in her purse, it was in something she has jurisdiction over. How freaky is that?

By the way, for those who were wondering, she did apologize to me, in a sense. Her exact words were, "I'm sorry, but you have made mistakes like this before." How gracious of her to point out a past error of mine to excuse an error of hers that could have gotten me fired.

Our boss, by the, way hasn't said jack-diddly about the whole entire affair, but he did have enough sense of shame for the way he spoke to me to not be able to look me in the eye when he had to talk to me, and an embarrassed flush turned his normally fair complexion positively pink whenever I caught him looking at me. I don't know what it is exactly, but for some reason fate always seems to feed the people who treat me unjustly a large amount of crow before to long.

I would tell some of the people who are treating me badly outside of work to learn from this, but they wouldn't listen anyway. No one ever listens to the words of the prophet till it's to late and learn that nothing is more expensive than regret.

Speaking of prophets by the way, the dream I mentioned that came true (in a sense) wasn't the first time it has happened. It happens quite a bit, though I don't realize the significance of the dream till later. I've decided therefore to try harder to remember my dreams in the morning, and maybe post them here on my blog. Maybe one of you will make the connection for one of my dreams.

Peace.

16 Days Till My Vacation

Well, the title says it all. Only 16 days till I start my vacation, and only 17 days till I'm on a cruise ship with over 2,000 other gay men. This will be my second trip with Atlantis Events.

I don't know if I'll be able to do much blogging while on vacation. The internet connection is a little wonky while at sea, and I may be to busy having a butt-load (no pun intended) of fun to find much time for posting, but whenever I'm able, I'll be posting updates of a "Cruise Vacation Diary, 2008: Day #". I got the idea from a style of posting used by fellow blogger and porn super star Steve Cruz.

Not much else to talk about at the moment, so I'll leave it at that, except for one little thing. To all you artists and aspiring artists out there, I have a paraphrased quote from Pablo Picasso. "Creating art is just another way of keeping a diary." Art can be anything you put your whole self into, not just sculpture or painting. Art can be writing a poem, cooking a meal, taking a picture, or pressing a leaf into a photo album. I'd love to hear from you all about what kind of art you create. Post something about it in the comments section. It's not difficult to do. Hey, even that can be art :)

Peace.