Sometimes It Just Ain’t Fun – Iamboatman Needs a Cruise!

It is 5:00 a.m. and I am sitting in Continental’s President’s Club at Newark Airport, Terminal C waiting for my flight to Florida to attend to a family matter. 

On Wednesday I was in a very long meeting of the Colts Neck Board of Education (of which I am a Board member) after the school budget was voted down after our new Governor Christie, who continues to wreak havoc with our education system.  (Yes, some aspects are seriously broken, but trying to fix it with a hammer as soon as you take office rather than with some elegance and, dare I say, education is the height of irresponsibility…though a great boost to his ego.)

On Monday I was finalizing what I think may be a very important appellate brief on the constitutional issues concerning how the same New Jersey state government can condemn well over $5,000,000 of private property under the guise of a federal and state funded road project for what is clearly a municipal roadway…and doing so with the trial court saying where the money comes from is “none of your business” as the only issue is how much of the taxpayers’ money the property owner get.  (Seriously, millions of dollars for a silly little road while bridges are crumbling and the Governor demands that school budgets statewide be voted down.  And how our tax dollars are used, even if unlawful, is not to be questioned?!  Go figure!)

Add to this the fiasco the Icelandic volcano has wreaked on travel.

Of course there are the normal, everyday, issues.  Oh, yes, those things are, for Iamboatman, “everyday issues”!

But then, after I take those refreshing moments assisting many of you with your cruises and escapes (I am presently working on a very cool food and wine experience in Northern Italy that is fascinating), I think about sitting in the hot tub on the bow of the Seabourn Spirit, dinner with Captain Buer on the Seabourn Odyssey on her first formal night ever, running into the same obnoxious Slovenian musicians at the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Conference last month in Miami that I endured at my otherwise wonderful wine tasting at Santos Winery in Slovenia and, of course, the utter relaxation and appreciation of sitting at the Sky Bar on all of the Seabourn ships sipping an after dinner whisky and smoking a nice Partagas cigar.

It is not the same as taking a cruise…and it makes me want to get onboard a ship sooner than later…But then I remember I am going to be on a cruise in just a few weeks even though it seems an eternity from now.

And, alas, I now remember that life is pretty darn good.  Today will be a good day…and just that much closer to a wonderful cruise on the Seabourn Sojourn.