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it's just 74-1/2 hours until we board the carnival ecstasy in galveston, texas for a 5 night cruise with our entire family of 5!

we have been looking so forward to this cruise for a long time and now it's almost time to actually start packing and making final plans for the voyage.

it will be my 3rd cruise, the second one for ruthie and the first cruise ever for josh, david and jon.

note: for sanity reasons, we opted for our own cabin and the boys will be sharing a cabin. it's a big ship and we can get lost (see large image) if the noise level gets too high.

ruthie and i plan to just relax, read and explore the ship, plus take many cool shipboard photos. i'm bringing my small sony portable and my Canon DSLR camera, so i should be able to get lots of great shots.

josh, david and jon have vowed to gobble down a huge share of the vast amounts of food on the ship. there is a 24 hour pizza joint, a (read a review) very good hamburger stand, buffets and formal dining available for all to enjoy. they also plan to spend many hours in the workout room to balance this out.

more on the cruise after we get back on august 23rd.

sixflags48 is the user name of my nephew dillon moskowitz. it turns out he is quite a youTube video contributor with 84 videos currently hosted on the site.

this is his video he created in tribute for nascar driver dale earnhardt sr. after he died in a crash in a race.

i would have embedded the video, but dillon has embedding turned off, so here is the video at youTube.

way to go dillon.

i just got back from a wonderful family vacation to milwaukee, wisconsin for a big party for my uncle nate taffel's 80th birthday.

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that's jon, ruthie and i with lake michigan in the background.

there were over 100 people at the party and it was great seeing many family members and friends i have not seen since last year when ruthie and i went for nate's wife's (my aunt mur) 75th birthday. it was sorta de javu in that it was in the same place and a lot of the same people were there.

a couple of observations from the trip...

the airline portion, on american airlines, was pretty much a pain in the you-know-where. between the security deal, taking off my shoes, dealing with my laptop (more on that in a sec) and trying to avoid checking luggage (because of time, not the surcharge, we booked before the surcharge applied) the whole deal was yucky.

it was one of those tiny jets for like 80 people where they squish you in like sardines into 3 seats across (1 and 2). very small space for a 2 hour flight.

on the way back i got up to go to the lavatory and 2 rows from it, this older lady gets up and goes in, making me stand there like a moron while she went in and out 4 times (she could not figure out how to close the door to get the light to go on).

the other yucky part was the baggage. they take your bag at the end of the jetway (whoever thought up that term?), put a red tag on it and give it back to you after the flight lands.

fine. but, the plane lands in dallas and 50 people are standing in the jetway waiting for the bags and the door is open and it is 102 degrees outside. it was like an oven waiting for those bags. shame on you american airlines.

ruthie and i are just about to leave for the airport for a trip to milwaukee, wisconsin (i was born there) for my uncle nate taffel's 80th birthday celebration.

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that's nate being very musical from last year's trip there for his wife, my aunt mur's 75th birthday celebration. we went over to my cousin jimmy guten's place and they put on a nice little concert in the backyard where even my mom played the piano in a set.

we have everything packed in 2 very small suitcases so that we won't have to wait for luggage in chicago as we still have to drive from chicago to milwaukee once we get off the plane and it's going to be pretty late when we get to my aunt renee and uncle jack dygola's house to sleep.

more from milwaukee soon (yes, i brought my trusty powerbook g4 along)

even though we did not get to go to detroit recently for my niece hannah's high school graduation, we did get some photos they sent us.

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we are very proud of hannah for her achievement! sorry we could not be there to share in your nachas. at least your grandma mimi got to go for the graduation.

hannah is going on to michigan state after the summer.