The Newlyweds (pic heavy)

[GoldenRivet]

We havent got the pictures from the wedding back yet, but here are some shots from the honeymoon. We went on a Carnival Cruise to Progresso and Cozumel Mexico and had a hell of a good time.

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Carnival Triumph - Yes the one that caught fire in the gulf of mexico and stranded itself adrift without power or running water - fortunately that didnt happen this time

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Bride and Groom

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Our Stateroom

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Passing the USS Stewart at Seawolf Park on the way out of port

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USS Cavalla and Stewart

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Main Lobby Bar was a beauty

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Drinks and a Cigar at the Ship's Cigar Bar

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First day at sea, the sunrise was amazing.

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Ready for breakfast

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Not much to do on a sea day besides eat, get drunk, and explore the ship for things to get into. I wont two awards for movie trivia and consumed about $250 worth of various alcoholic beverages LOL

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By the time we reached the Port of progresso, the two of us were pretty hung over so we spent the day on the beach in hammocks alternating our gaze from the Beach Bar ...

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... to the beach ...

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... To a sea gull who seemed to feel the same as we did. LOL

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Cozumel Mexico, aboard the boat that took us to the Atlantis Submarine tour

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Our descent into the depths passing through 52 feet

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The view of the coral from the sub... unfortunately due to the diffusion of natural light as we went deeper, most of the pictures we took didnt turn out well at all. Pretty much just a blurry light blue hue of a glob, we reached a depth of 115 feet ultimately. saw some rays, tropical fish, lobsters and reef and a reef ship sunk several years ago. I thought it was funny that during our return to the surface the crew played this song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJv9hwcTTqw)over the speaker system

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The sun starting to set on our last day at sea

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Arriving back in port by days end... we were ready to be back home to Texas!

Thanks for viewing!

[Jimbuna]

Fantastic :rock:

Here's to every happiness for you and your wife John :sunny:

[GoldenRivet]

Thank you Sir! :salute:

[u crank]

Great pics.:up:

All the best in the future.

[Catfish]

Thanks for the photos, and congratulations ! :)
All the best for your future :sunny:

[Herr-Berbunch]

Congratulations!

Lovely couple, great pics. I can see that gull one being some internet meme,something along the lines of 'Best weather for six months - partied too hard last night', but prolly funnier.

One last compliment, you look younger than I imagined. Always had you down as some wizened old fact. :hmmm:

[GoldenRivet]

haha thanks

35 years old myself... there are bits of grey in that beard :up:

[Aktungbby]

haha thanks

35 years old myself... there are bits of grey in that beard :up:

NOT HARDLY!:D http://www.mckellen.com/images/t/0914.jpg (http://www.mckellen.com/images/0914.jpg)

[GoldenRivet]

LMAO:haha:

[d@rk51d3]

Congrats.

And here I was, all these years, thinking you were an old bugger.
..........You're younger than me. :oops:

[HW3]

Congratulations to you and your wife!

[fireftr18]

Congratulations. Great pictures, looks like you had a good time. :D
She is way too hot for you :up:(of course, people say the same about my wife and me, and I agree).
Is that a fire department shirt I saw on her? :06:
Were you trying to line up an attack on the submarine trip?
:Kaleun_Periskop:

[August]

Congratulations GR! :woot:

[GoldenRivet]

Congratulations. Great pictures, looks like you had a good time. :D
She is way too hot for you :up:(of course, people say the same about my wife and me, and I agree).
Is that a fire department shirt I saw on her? :06:
Were you trying to line up an attack on the submarine trip?
:Kaleun_Periskop:

Thank you... she got the local FD shirt as part of some sort of fund raiser.

While the sub trip was cool, i did find myself guessing range and AOB in my head on the various ships out at sea :oops:

[swamprat69er]

Congratulations!

[nikimcbee]

Brief thread hi-jack.:D
Ever play the game "Where's Waldo?"

Now from subsim games: "Where's Neal?"
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Looks like you guys had a good time!:salute:
Congrats again.:salute::salute::salute:

[GoldenRivet]

One afternoon before dinner, the missus was in the stateroom getting ready as i sat out on the balcony. We were about 500-600 nm out into the gulf of mexico, and gliding just above the water i saw this bird scooting along just what must have been 2-3 feet above the water.

It occurred to me that this bird must have had a wingspan of about 3 feet as i was a good 9 stories above the surface.

I thought to myself, we are an awfully long way from shore... surely this bird is not a stowaway as i hadn't noticed any birds on the open deck.

suddenly he splashed down and vanished into the water, i watched, but he did not resurface.

moments later, about twenty of these birds leaped out of the water at speed and soared along the surface of the water just like the previous one... they went on for what must have been 100 or more feet and then almost as one, splashed into the water - appearing almost like machine gun tracers hitting the sea.

Flying fish!

I was stoked as i had never seen one before

the ship had apparently run through a school of them, for probably 30 minutes, groups of anywhere between 1 to 20 of them would demonstrate their abilities. We tried like hell to capture a picture, but this is the best shot we ever got of one

hope you spot him (just bottom right of center of the image)

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[Onkel Neal]

Great pics, and congrats! Wish I could have come down to Galveston to see you two kids off my own self.

[Penguin]

Congratulations to you two, looks like an enjoyable honeymoon! I have to admit you look quite sympathico for a Conservative - guess you hid your horns well. :D

Two questions:
1. How did you propose? Got any tips that don't involve a club?
2. When did the greying start?

Asking both for a *cough* friend of mine...

[Catfish]

...I have to admit you look quite sympathico for a Conservative - guess you hid your horns well. :D

:haha:


Two questions:
1. How did you propose? Got any tips that don't involve a club?
2. When did the greying start?
Asking both for a *cough* friend of mine...

For a friend, of course ! :O:


I spotted the flying fish, i take it the shutter of the camera is much too slow for those fast-flying fishes. Nice trip ..

[GoldenRivet]

I have to admit you look quite sympathico for a Conservative - guess you hid your horns well. :D

Thats because i am conservative fiscally and favor a small government, socially - though i shudder to use the word... i am more "liberal"

1. How did you propose? Got any tips that don't involve a club?

I took her to Las Vegas for Valentines day week, we stayed in a nice suite on the 28th floor of the Vdara overlooking the city. Did the normal Vegas Scene, saw the shows, bar hopped, enjoyed nice dinners.

We stopped on the way into the Bellagio in front of the fountain and she wanted to take a picture with her iphone's panorama feature.

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When she turned around to ask me what i thought of the picture, i was on one knee with the ring in the box, opened up.

the rest is history

as far as what advice can i offer?

well, young men spend a considerable amount of their lives thinking about how "it's" going to be on the honeymoon if you get my drift :up:

Women... different story - they spend a considerable amount of their lives thinking about how "it's" going to be when he proposes and how that perfect day and the wedding will pan out.

The trick is to create a memory... you dont have to pull strings and take the center of the field at half time during the superbowl and hire dancers and a band for a woman that loves you - it will be enough to find scenery she will never forget and make a moment about the two of you exclusively.

Most women - not all but most - want an audience, they want people to ooooh and aaaahhh and awwwww over how sweet the special moment is. It is romantic for strangers to approach with congratulatory well wishes, good tidings and compliments on the ring. So a crowded area where she can be made the creamy warm center of the universe and play the leading role of her own romance movie for 2 and a half minutes is perfect.

for shock value it should be a proposal out of the blue... take mine for example. I had taken her on trips before, so valentines day in Vegas - while awesome for a guy to do for her, was pretty much what she had come to call "normal" for me. for someone else, say someone who doesnt travel much, to take your girlfriend on an expensive trip is more or less a dead give away that something is up

2. When did the greying start?

Asking both for a *cough* friend of mine...

I guess the grey in my beard started when i was in my late 20s.. 28 or 29 perhaps.

I have only just noticed this year 2 or 3 grey hairs around my right temple but they are only visible when the hair grows out and is not cut short the way i keep it.

fortunately, there are a lot of women out there who think a man gets sexier with age, gray and wrinkles... and mine is one of those ladies.

[Penguin]

Thats because i am conservative fiscally and favor a small government, socially - though i shudder to use the word... i am more "liberal"

Puts on his worst fake Texan accent. "Well, I ain't no gawddamn librawl either, I am a hopeless lefty." :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw - but that's for another time of friendly bickering.



The trick is to create a memory... you dont have to pull strings and take the center of the field at half time during the superbowl and hire dancers and a band for a woman that loves you - it will be enough to find scenery she will never forget and make a moment about the two of you exclusively.


That's some pretty solid advice! :up:


Most women - not all but most - want an audience, they want people to ooooh and aaaahhh and awwwww over how sweet the special moment is. It is romantic for strangers to approach with congratulatory well wishes, good tidings and compliments on the ring. So a crowded area where she can be made the creamy warm center of the universe and play the leading role of her own romance movie for 2 and a half minutes is perfect.


There's a considerable different mentality about that here. You can compare public proposals here to showing bare breasts in the US - one is totally fine to display, the other should be a private event. So if someone would tell they proposed to their partner after a party where friends/family attended, nobody would bat an eye and ask "Why didn't you let us participate?". It might be different among the Generation YouTube, but I think most people who upload vids of it do it for the show, not for documentation reasons.

The crowd would also react less "awww"-ly, and more with comments like "run away before it's too late!" for the better or "what a bunch of pretentious arses!" for the worse. Many people would also think it puts the partner under a lot of additional pressure, even though rejecting a proposal is not necessarily seen as a breaking point of a relation, at least much less than in America.


for shock value it should be a proposal out of the blue...


Been there, done that - actually I used the simpson-esque approch of "Are we there yet" for some time - with no success. :) Untill recently, when she told me "Hey, if one time you'll make a serious attempt, I might say yes"
Our last trip was romantically enough, a little cozy house close to the North Sea, in the chilly November - that's when I felt I was getting closer to the target. That's why I said earlier the special event advice from you is a good one.
At least she accepts my answer to her "why?" question now, and would also be willing to face some back blow from her employer for marrying outside her religion.


I guess the grey in my beard started when i was in my late 20s.. 28 or 29 perhaps.

I have only just noticed this year 2 or 3 grey hairs around my right temple but they are only visible when the hair grows out and is not cut short the way i keep it.

fortunately, there are a lot of women out there who think a man gets sexier with age, gray and wrinkles... and mine is one of those ladies.

My brain started to displace some hair at this age, haha, but my first grey didn't appear until recently, about 12 years later - I would have preferred it the other way. I can confirm your last sentence, have a friend who became really piebald in the late 20s resulting in getting more gals than before.