Cruise Planning Part 1

I love to celebrate my birthday.  It’s just plain fun.  I know many people agonize over turning 40.  As it is inevitable should an individual be alive that long, I am inclined to make the most of the situation.  While I have noticed some changes as this approached like the hot flashes, needing a new eye glass prescription, mild memory blips, and a few more aches and pains than before, I made the decision to put some things into place that makes it impossible to dread it and makes me absolutely enthused for the time to come. Take into consideration that in the autumn of 2012 I begin thinking and planning for this momentous occasion.  I can’t help but be a little anal about preparation for such an important event.

For me traveling is a lovely thing.  After living in Maryland from the age of a few months to 19 years with just some minor travel in the United States I have always been eager to see new places and do different things.  Traveling is a wonderful treat for me.  Knowing that I wanted to see some place I had never been, maybe even some place “exotic”, without having to fork out almost a thousand dollars in airfare I started talking to people who travel often.  I met a man from Puerto Rico who had lots of good things to say about his home.  Then a co-worker traveled there for vacation and gushed about how wonderful it was.  I was initially looking at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Rico.

Then in November 2012 my best friend Jamie and I were discussing my intended 40^th birthday trip when she decided that she wanted to go with me on this trip.  As comfortable as I am with traveling alone, it is always better with company.  Then to have the kind of company that a best friend provides is a whole new level of fun and exciting.  Jamie’s suggestion was not to go to one location to an all-inclusive resort, but to broaden our horizon and take a cruise.  Brilliant!  See and do more with the same amount of time!  How could I say no?

I was excitedly checking out cruise lines and cruises that set sail from Puerto Rico which I had intended to see on my trip.  I honestly wasn’t interested in Carnival as I heard too much about it that wasn’t all that positive even before the “poop cruise” incident earlier this year.  I found out that Royal Caribbean has a lot of cruises that leave from Puerto Rico and that they have a solid reputation in the cruise industry for good deals on excellent products and services. 

I found the cruise I was most interested in and informed Jamie about the Royal Caribbean Southern Caribbean Cruise with prices with a starting cost of only $499!  One year to the day we would arrive in Puerto Rico we put our down payment on the cruise.  The long term planning began in earnest.

A Mormon Woman, the News, and Fairy Tales

This is a viewpoint combining two things that have bothered me in the last year.  These thoughts and topics have been stewing in my mind.  I am a Latter-day Saint (Mormon) woman.  This post is from that view point.  It is also about trust issues with our American news media outlets.  I have recently expressed concerns about the news media lacking for actual solid news, but having lots of drama and spin.  Taking facts and making fiction.  This is a huge glaring very personal example to me.

Mr. Romney's presidential campaign put a bright white hot light on my faith for quite some time. So, while some people may perceive my views as more traditional and write off what I am about to say, you couldn't be further from the truth.  I'm not a traditional Mormon.  I wasn't raised Mormon, that came later.  I am not a Republican, but that's a strained discussion for another time. Most of my family when I was growing up were Democrats.  I was raised in a distinctly low income bracket where we relied on government services to survive for things like food and shelter.  I was the daughter of a single mother until I was almost 12.  I had an absentee drug and alcohol addicted biological father.  I believe that without trying my mother and other important female figures in my life were feminists for their times.  The woman as a strong figure was an important part of my upbringing.  So, again, I repeat, I am not a traditional Mormon.  I am not married and never have been.  I have never had any children and I am a career woman so to speak.  Not a traditional Mormon, but a Mormon nonetheless.  Taking all of that non-traditional-ness into consideration please read my words and digest them for what they are worth.

I had problems with a newspaper article that peeved me.  The article that really set me off is from the New York Times, which I often like to read online.    It is about women wearing slacks or pants to church.  Here is the link to the article - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/us/19mormon.html?_r=1&

I was angry and frustrated when I read it.  I know I shouldn't let it make me angry, but that is who I am - I am an emotional responder and I'm being honest when I say I was angry. Let's dissect that article because I have many a bone to pick with this one. 

First, the death threats thing was like screen worthy drama.  This is one of those, "Really?  Are you kidding me? Who believes this sh, uh stuff?" moments.  I wondered if they could make Mormons seem more weird if they tried.  I've gone to so many different Mormon congregations in different states and even in different countries that I really can't count them all.  I've seen women dress in many types of clothes, even clothes I thought were a little to revealing for church, but never a death threat.  Although when I could see that 17 year old girl's underwear through her dress I did want to smack her on the back side of her head and say, "Could you look more like hooker at church?"  I'm from the school of thought that if you are messed up in any other part of your life the least you can do when you go to church is show some respect.  I mean you took the time to go to church in the first place, at least pretend to be good for that hour or more.  Anyways, I think this article was total B.S. and I don't mean the college degree.  Told you, not a traditional Mormon.

Second, when it says, "Others said they could not participate because they were fearful of ridicule or reprimand."  Again screen worthy drama.  Where are these people?  I want to know what congregations they attend so that I can tell someone to straighten this out.  This is not normal "Mormon" behavior to ridicule or reprimand unless you are 17 and the dress is totally like a hooker dress.  Again, could they make Mormons seem more weird?

Third, the comment, "Organizers hope the dialogue will now expand to include issues like the ordination of women, or women taking on more responsibilities at church events."  Holy Priesthood Batman!  These women don't need ordination to be whole.  How have they missed this?  For fear of my message getting lost in this one piece of doctrinal deep water, let me express this as simply as possible.  The Latter-Day Saint woman is whole and glorious in the sight of God without being ordained.  If I am whole in the sight of God without it, why would I want it?  For personal, selfish, or self-aggrandizing desires. Not for good or God.

I must express my strong feelings on the part of the quote about women taking on more responsibilities at church events.  Are you kidding me?  Does the person who wrote this do ANY research before spouting this nonsense?  What congregation are these women attending, because a congregation where men take on more of the responsibilities at church events is perfectly fine with me, but I doubt that it exists.  In the congregations I have attended all over the U.S. and Europe women do a minimum of a third to half of the responsibilities at church events.  Depending on the event sometimes women perform 100% of the responsibilities.

Fourth, the statement, "They also cited the pronounced role of the Boy Scouts in the church — boys routinely become troop leaders in the organization, but girls have no similar outlet with the Girl Scouts."  Duh, if you want to put your daughters in Girl Scouts, do it.  No one is stopping you.  In addition, there are activities and programs geared specifically for young women called the Personal Progress program.  It is based on LDS doctrinal beliefs and is structured with developing leadership, goal setting and achievement for the young women only.  There is also the young women camping activity every summer.  Obtaining the Young Womanhood Recognition is the equivalent of the Boy Scout Eagle Scout award within the church.  I received mine at 17 and I knew I was special for this unique achievement.  So, again my response is, "Did this guy do any research at all?"

Fifth and this is my most anger-worthy sentence from the whole dang article, "the fact that young men are expected to go on two-year missions to spread the faith, but young women are not. The result: the vast majority of Mormon missionaries are men."  I served an honorable mission for my church.  I knew at the ripe old age of 16 this is what I wanted for myself.  At no point in time in the 5 years between 16 and 21 did anyone ever discourage me from wanting to serve or from going.  If anything it was the reverse.  I was encouraged.  Yes, young men are ‘strongly’ encouraged to go, but not one person is stopping the young women.  After last year's announcement lowering the age for women to go from 21 to 19 more and more young women have started submitting papers and begun serving missions turning that male female ratio to almost 50/50.  Get outta here with this junk.

Those recently expressed concerns about the news media lacking for news?  Well, doesn't this just say it all?  This is not a reporter of information; it is a writer telling a fictional story.  And just think if this is what they say about Mormons, what are they spewing about people of other faiths, other lifestyles, other societies, or other cultures? 

Lest you think I am condemning the New York Times, fear not I’m not a conservative picking on a liberal newspaper.  That would require me to be conservative, which I am not.  I’m a moderate looking left and looking right and seeing nothing but polarization and fairy-tales.  You cannot trust the American news media to give you the cold hard facts.  They expect others to look through glasses with a prescription so wrong that you can never see clear reality or find intelligent objectivity.  To heck with that.  Not this Mormon woman.

The Year of 40

I've always loved the ancient Greek aphorism "Know Thyself.” I've learned it, like any other piece of language, has many meanings.  It’s a warning on boastfulness or about being more humble, about not allowing what others think to manipulate how you perceive yourself, an admonition to those entering sacred places to understand their standing in relation to deity, a recommendation about being more temperate, even an explanation that by knowing more about one’s self one can know more about others and the world around them.

I’ve decided that 40 is about knowing myself better.  It’s interesting to me that I am more fascinated by it than afraid of it.  I know that it can be an impetus in a life for good or bad.  Often you hear about the mid-life crisis of those who lose their minds, divorce their spouses of many years, get sports cars, lose weight, and marry people young enough to be their own children.  I’m not sure what a mid-life crisis looks like (yet) and I’m glad for it.  I like living the unusual life. 

For me this last year has been about stopping, marking the time, and trying to see what it means.  My Mom teased me earlier this year, “Ha, ha you’re turning 40.”  To which I answered, “Ha, ha you’re the mother of a 40 year old.”

One of the first things I’ve decided is I’m an adult now.  You are allowed to laugh at that.  I’m single without the responsibility of a spouse or children and that makes a big difference in life expectations.  I’m taking advantage of being an adult these days.  Went to lunch at a restaurant and when I was done eating my cake and I hadn't eaten all of the icing I was told, “You have to eat your icing.”  My response was, “No I don’t.  I’m a grown up and I don’t have to eat what I don’t want to eat.”  I’m not sure who put these arbitrary rules in place, but darn it, if I don’t want to eat the icing, I’m not going to.  I will live with the repercussions of that action because that is what adults do.  I can do what I want when I want, but will have to live with the repercussions of those choices.  Maybe 40 is being prepared to do some things I don’t really want to do, because I don’t want to live with the repercussions.  40 could also be about the wisdom of knowing when to fight a battle and when to choose not to fight a battle.   

I have already seen some of the physical changes.  What’s fascinating is that I thought to myself, “Hey, it won’t necessarily happen to me.”  HA!  I’m not sure if it was naivete  wishful thinking, denial or a combination of all three, but I was mistaken.  I want to make sure it isn't perceived as complaining, although I do my share.  I’m quizzical, want to take it apart and see it from all of the different angles.  Find my fit in this new era of my life.

I started peri-menopause.  I’m pretty open about it because it is a natural part of a human woman’s life and shouldn't be considered an uncomfortable secret.  It happens.  Deal with it.  I needed a new prescription for my eye glasses for the first time in almost 3 years.  I started having the memory blips.  I became particularly upset when things I used to remember vividly were not so readily recalled any longer.  Some of those details, particularly from my youth are starting to slip away. 

My most recent physical sign of approaching 40 has been an increase in my aches and pains.  Due to a previous injury and surgery my right knee can tell the weather better than the combined wisdom of every forecaster on the Weather Channel.

I know with absolute certainty that 40 is a time of change for the mind and body.  It may be a gateway to better perception and is only that which I make it. It is learning when to fight and when to concede.  Right now 40 is taking the time to know myself.

Really Digging the Hand Made Cards

I've recently started to really get into hand making cards.  With paper and ink stamps and all the accouterments, dingbats, doodads,doohickeys, gizmos, and whatchamacallits.  Its a lot of fun and the expense would basically equals the cost of buying regular cards without the personal touch.  I love being creative.  It fulfills me.  I work to eat food and pay bills, but I create things to fill my spirit.  I have a favorite little clip about creating things that I like to share, click on the underlined word to take you to the 2 minute video - Create.  

The speaker is President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (a leader in my church).  He invites us to rely on the Spirit and use our divinely inherited ability to create things of substance and beauty.

On another side of my creativity and in fulfillment of my humorous and art/art history loving side I found the following list on the blog called "Twisted Sifter". There are infinite views on creativity, here are fifteen famous ones for inspiration on your next endeavor.

 Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, print-maker  ceramicist, and stage designer. As one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous work is Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

  Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted.  He completed many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self-portraits, landscapes, still lifes, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.

 Salvador Dali

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), known as Salvador Dalí was a prominent Spanish surrealist painter born in Figueres, Spain. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters.  His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

Leo Burnett

Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an advertising executive and was one among of the most 'creative' men in the advertising business.  The Leo Burnett Company is the workings behind some of the most famous advertising icons in our time like the Jolly Green Giant and Tony the Tiger. Burnett was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

 

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950) was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays. He was also an essayist, novelist and short story writer. Nearly all his writings address prevailing social problems, but have a vein of comedy which makes their stark themes more palatable. Issues which engaged Shaw's attention included education, marriage, religion, government, health care, and class privilege.

Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel ( March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone. Geisel published 46 children's books, which were often characterized by imaginative characters, rhyme, and frequent use of anapestic meter. His most celebrated books include the bestselling Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who!, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

 Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was a highly-influential American jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader. Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third Stream, free jazz, and classical music. Yet Mingus avoided categorization, forging his own brand of music that fused tradition with unique and unexplored realms of jazz. He once cited Duke Ellington and church as his main influences.

  Voltaire

François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets.

Donatella Versace

Donatella Versace (born 2 May 1955) is an Italian fashion designer and current Vice-President of the Versace Group, as well as chief designer.

 Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953). Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers. Many of Bradbury's works have been adapted into television shows or films. Steve Jobs

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)[5][6] was an American entrepreneur. He is best known as the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields. Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar.

Cecil B. DeMille

Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959) was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films.He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies. Among his best-known films are Cleopatra; Samson and Delilah; The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture; and The Ten Commandments, which was his last and most successful film.

 Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the general theory of relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and the most influential physicist of the 20th century. While best known for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2 (which has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation"), he received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" The latter was pivotal in establishing quantum theory within physics.

Ships Ahoy! Part 2

In my last post I mentioned that I took two trips on the water. Here is my account of my 2nd trip – sailing on my co-worker’s boat from near Gibson Island, Maryland out onto the Chesapeake Bay.

It was a long awaited trip from over two years ago. The group of us works closely together in our division to see that things run smoothly, to offer assistance to each other, to help shape our departments and grow them, to help each other solve problems and face challenges great and small. We arrived at the Potapskut Sailing Association (PSA) at 1:30pm where Marcea &Ken’s boat Sophie is moored. PSA has an interesting past that goes back to 1938.

The interesting history of the PSA from their website:
“Five Chesapeake sailors sat on a porch drinking in the calm and color of the fading day and sipping their favorite elixir of Rye and Water. Their sailboats swung listlessly on moorings in Wall Cove.

It makes little difference now which one of the five first voiced the suggestion, for it had been in the mind of each for some time...the idea of a True Sailing Association, for skippers only, was spontaneously accepted. They walked to their cars in the deepening twilight with the mutual agreement that each would discuss the formation of a "Sailing Association" with the owners of the other sailboats then moored in Wall Cove, and with a call to all those interested in a meeting as soon as possible.

On October 10, 1938, thirteen men signed the Articles of Association. Our Sailing Association was born...The name of the new Association proceeded along the usual course, with many suggestions, until we became aware that the root or derivation of the name of the river that splashed against the pile of rocks at the mouth of Rock Creek, came from an Indian word "Potapskut", meaning "at the jutting out of the white rocks".

We walked our way down the dock to the lovely sailboat. I made sure to have my seasickness patch on and an additional anti-motion sickness pill swallowed before our drive down past Baltimore towards the water. The sky was so momentously blue. It was 86 degrees – which is a minor miracle in Maryland in August – with a light wind. It just couldn’t get any better a day in August for such an adventure.

We boarded the boat and off we went sailing away to the Chesapeake Bay. The water had some minor movement, but it was more than easy to deal with. I never got sea sick once on that boat. There is a special seat at the very front (bow)of the boat sitting almost all the way over the water. It was really nice to sit there. A Titanic “king of the world” spot. Saw all of the action so to speak. It was very relaxing. We took turns riding on the seat at the bow. Then when we picked up some wind in those sails the fun really started.

When the boat leans to one side it is called listing. This occurs often if you have some wind in your sails. I set myself down on the listing side and put my legs over the edge of the boat. That’s when I started getting a little wet. It was very refreshing. Soon my co-workers were joining me. The captain of our boat decided to play a little trick on one of my co-workers. He waited until this co-worker got down and put his feet over the edge to let the boat list over even more – the implication that this had caused the boat to list more by adding his weight to that side. We laughed and laughed as the water grabbed our feet them let go in splashing waves.

I will recall it always – the water sparkling like diamonds, the white sails flying against a deep blue sky, the wind taking the edge off of the heat from the bright sun, and the cooling waves splashing me while sitting with good people who aren’t afraid to laugh like children in delight. It was a day of good fortune.

I can only be grateful for a generous co-worker and her family to share something so wonderful with us. Thanks Marcea & Ken

Ships Ahoy! Part 1

In the last two weeks I have had the opportunity to go on two fun trips. The first trip was a chartered fishing trip from Tilghman Island, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. The second a sailing trip on a co-workers sail boat from near Gibson Island, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. The two trips could not have been more different if someone had planned it that way!

Our first trip started on Friday evening at Harrison’s Chesapeake House. It is an “inn” for fishermen awaiting their early morning push offs at the dock for their chartered fishing boat trips. Apparently fishermen do not require the most lavish overnight accommodations. However, this fisherwoman does and it was a challenge. I knew that the “inn” had rough accommodations, and we prepared ourselves for this, but our last trip was in October when the air conditioning was not required.

My room was hotter than the seventh level of hell. I thought that by turning the air conditioning on at the start of dinner time – 6p- on at full blast that by the time we were done eating, laughing, talking, drinking, and doing karaoke-around11p - we would have nice cool rooms. Apparently five hours was not nearly enough time to cool down my room. It was now only as hot as the third level of hell. Sweat was just pouring off of me. I tried a variation of locations on the bed in an attempt to get the most air conditioning near my skin as was possible. It was just never enough. I was concerned about possibly becoming sea sick (although I had no problems the last time) so I got a medicine patch for behind my ear but I was so sweaty it wouldn’t stick. I had to use band-aids to keep it in place. I had no original intention to shower becausethe water smells like rotten eggs, but sweating all night did not give me a choice. My shower gel did counter act the rotten egg smell, so that was good. I brushed my teeth with bottled water. I couldn’t stand the thought of that taste in my mouth.

On a real positive note - one really great thing about Harrisons is their food – their buffets. Friday evening we had a seafood buffet with snow crab, shrimp, calamari,oysters, and it included other food items like macaroni & cheese,vegetables, and prime rib. Always delicious! Their horseradish was divine on the prime rib. I also got anon-alcoholic pina colada and man was that good!! I loved it. Dessert was a tropical bread pudding. It sounds bizarre but it was additively delicious.

We woke up at 5:30 am. Anyone who really knows me understands how challenging this is for me. I cannot truly function that earl yin the morning at all. Plus add in the sweating and lack of sleep it was a miracle that I dragged myself to the restaurant for a light breakfast; just in case I was to get nauseated and (fill in the blanks)… We boarded the biggest boat at the dock. Captain Buddy is a well-known local personality and he was taking us out personally. His boat is 60 feet long and 20 feet wide. We boarded around 6:30a. Immediately we could see that this trip was going to be a bit different from the last one. On the boat was a barrel of fish. Never thought I’d see a barrel of fish- ever, anywhere. I kept thinking of the saying, “Like shooting fish in a barrel.” These were real live swimming around in the water fish. They were going to be bait. Oh man. Apparently Rock fish in August in Maryland are downing spot fish. They are on the hunt for them. So, that it what we had to use for bait. Sigh. As we made our way to our first fishing location all was well with me and any possible sea sickness. It didn’t last long. My thanks to God above and all other heavenly bodies that I had that medicine patch on, other wise I would have been chucking my guts all day long.

We got to our first fishing location. They baited our rods, we cast our lines, and the second I looked down into the churning water, my stomach almost fully rebelled. I handed off my rod immediately and sat down on one of the outside couches. I basically stayed there, unless I was braving moving around for a shot on my camera. The Chesapeake Bay was so choppy there were white capped waves – all of the men handling our trip agreed that it is rare for a day with the water so dramatic. The waves were tossing our big boat to and fro. There were much smaller boats out there and I wondered how they didn’t capsize.

We were out from 6:30a to 12:30p. In six hours combined our boat of eight people caught 17 fish. A great haul! There were other unfortunate boats with upwards of 15 people on them who only caught 4 fish. I reeled in one fish between my bouts of nausea. A couple of times I was offered a snack to help settle my stomach. I declined the food with the philosophy that I would rather be empty than emptying.

U2 360 Tour North American Tour II Great - Another Lesson Learned

On November 17, 2009 I went on Ticketmaster.com and purchased my 4 allotted presale tickets due me as a paid member of U2.com. At the time, the closest U2 was going to come to Taneytown was Philadelphia, PA - a 2.5 hour drive. The planned wonderful night was July 12, 2010. I immediately purchased a night at a hotel and alerted my best friend Jamie that we were going to have another chance to enjoy the U2 360 Tour - our first time was September 30, 2009 down in Charlottesville, VA.

We got the second best seats in the stadium. U2 sells many levels of tickets. The three levels of tickets remotely in my realm of affording are Premium at about $200, Good at about $100 and nose bleed or general admission (standing on the field) at about $60. Jamie and I had the good tickets for our 2009 concert. We were surprised and saddened by the concert attendees in our section who didn't seem to enjoy the concert the way we were. We were thinking that we were in the "old people" section. We were the only people yelling, singing, jumping up and down, dancing, and generally losing ourselves in U2 and throwing ourselves into the music with abandon. At one point we saw the crowd in front of the stage just enthralled by U2 and enjoying them the way we were off in the stand in our seats. We promised that we would never miss the opportunity to be in that crowd should another opportunity present itself.

So, the opportunity presents itself and I buy 4 general admission tickets and wait for the 8 months to go by to my next chance to enjoy U2. Less than a month before the concert Bono got hurt pretty bad preparing for the Salt Lake City concert. The news was sad, Bono had severe pain with partial paralysis from a severe compression of the sciatic nerve caused by a serious tear in a ligament and a herniated disk. He had to have emergency surgery in Germany. The entire North American tour was postponed to 2011.

The postponed date was July 14, 2011. I immediately purchased new hotel reservations and dealt with the disappointment. The friends coming from out of town to enjoy the concert still came for their 2010 visit as many of our other tickets and reservations were not refundable like the hotel, the tickets to see an exhibit on Cleopatra, tour bus tickets etc...

I have been counting down the days since January 1, 2011 for the concert. I actually had a hard time finding people to attend the concert with me. Luckily some co-workers were happy to attend with me about 3 months before the concert.

We drove up to Philadelphia and enjoyed an authentic cheese steak sandwich at Jim's (an hour wait), then checked into the new hotel chain called Aloft. Very modern decor and we loved it. We relaxed for about two hours before heading off to the concert at 4:45 PM. I was seriously excited. After waiting in the long line we got into the stadium and were like 5 people/rows from the front of the outer stage. This is where the happiness of my experience fell apart.

I thought I was young enough for this situation. I thought I was a U2 super fan. I was TOTALLY WRONG. Standing from 5 PM to 12 Midnight was very painful. Being pinned in that throng of people was challenging in a feeling crushed, claustrophobic kinda of way. People were drinking beer like it was the last night that beer was available on Earth. People were smoking both legal things and illegal things (this was not a Grateful Dead Concert). People were arguing, pushing and eking their way into fights right in front of me. One guy was talking to hear himself talk about how many of the U2 360 tour concerts he's seen and it sounded kinda impossible unless he was wealthy and this was his whole life. The group to my right kept having friends come and join them as they showed up much later than the rest of us. I survived being there through the opening act - Interpol - who we could not understand and every song sounded the same. The count down to U2 started and I couldn't see the stage because the guy in front of me was over six feet tall and the guy in front of him was over six foot four.

I lost it. I turned around and started pushing my way out of there. I almost knocked one person down. I was completely freaked out and the more people I had to push my way through the more panicked I got. It was bad. I kept thinking about something going wrong and having no way to escape. I also thought about what if I have to go to bathroom?!!!? When U2 came on stage this crowd of people was going to press on each other and go crazy. I am very glad we got out of there. From the back of the crowd I could see better, dance, sing, yell, clap and just generally have room to breathe. So, I really belong in the old people section, but I act like I am on the field.

So, once in the back of the field all was well. U2 came on and I was in nirvana. They played songs that I never thought to hear in concert. I felt the music. I moved with the music. I sang the words and yelled my happiness to the world.

Here is the link to my concert...www.u2.com/tour/index/date/44/97

Of course I am looking forward to the next album and the next concert tour so that I can buy those expensive Premium tickets and enjoy the concert from beginning to end.