Our wedding pictures have finally made it from the floor to the wall. I don't think Sarah is happy with how it looks.

Sarah: I hate it. It's terrible. But this was the only way to cover the million holes that are now in the wall.

The video of the You Don't Know Jack marriage proposal that we helped with has been getting a lot of attention on-line, reported on by a good number of video game blogs.

Almost all of them ask the question, "What would the host, Cookie Masterson, have said if she clicked one of the other answer choices?" Like most of our questions, we definitely recorded different responses for each answer, but for now I don't think we have any plans of releasing those.

Still... you can check out the fairly adorable video here.

Hopefully it leads to more people playing the game on Facebook. Or a happy marriage. Both!

As long as we've lived together, which has been years and years now, Sarah has had this framed picture of Paris. We've never really put it up because... I don't know, respectfully, it doesn't really do much for me. Pictures of Paris? Why?

But Sarah's been thinking she might finally put it up.

Sarah: What if we put up pictures of places we want to go together. Paris. London. New Orleans. And then when we finally go to that place, we take it down. Replace it with something new.

I'm coming around to this idea.

I've done several of these blogs now, these "Years." I suppose this is the sixth. Wow.

Sarah: If you read all of them, you start to know what things occupy your mind. The things you end up writing about again and again.
Me: Like what?
Sarah: Getting your hair cut.
Me: Ha.
Sarah: And Comcast.

Someone at work said, "Hey, we're going down to the beach to see the actor who played the Soup Nazi on 'Seinfeld.' We have an extra seat in the car, anyone want to come?"

Why not?

Sarah leaves for another (shorter) cruise contract in less than three weeks.

Two months apart.

I'm going to miss her.

A fan of You Don't Know Jack reached out to us at Jellyvision Games, wondering if we could help him come up with something to help him propose to his girlfriend, who is also a big fan of the game.

The idea amused us, so in keeping with our long history of over-delivering, we made a special episode of the Facebook game for him, with three regular questions, and then, the fourth question ("Wed Herring"), read by our actual host, Cookie Masterson, "Kara Marie Richter, will you Marry John Crane Zekind?"

Answer choices: "Forget it!" "Who?!" "Ha! Good one!" and "YES!!!!!!"

Zekind caught it all on a webcam, and here we are at work watching the raw footage of the whole game.

Her reaction? She yells, "Serious?!" then, not sure whether to keep looking at the game or Zekind, kneeling beside her, she clicks "YES!!!!!"

Pretty adorable.

A much edited down version of the proposal-via-You Don't Know Jack should hit the web in the next couple days.

I host the pictures for this blog on Flickr. Occasionally those pictures get "favorited" by friends, or, more often, random strangers. It's satisfying, like a getting a retweet or Facebook "like" (or blog comment), but also sometimes perplexing.

The picture I took of my grandfather ended up in a Photo Group called, "Grandfathers, Granddaddys, Poppas, Etc," which is just thousands of pictures of grandfatherly old men.

Stranger still, some pictures I took of myself on Mustache Day at work a few years ago have been "favorited" by someone named chubbyman2. I only clicked on his profile for a second but chubbyman2 really seems to be a fan of... uh.... mustaches, leather, motorcycles... etc.

One of the few better things about our old apartment was that it had a dishwasher. This one does not.

Dishes are my job. I don't really mind doing dishes, I guess, but I do feel like I'm dedicating a startling amount of time each day to dish washing.

Long-overdue haircut.

But what have our former cast mates been up to since leaving the ship?

RC’s back in L.A. I snagged this picture of him off Facebook.

RC: “Not much happening here, back to regular improv, reading a lot of books, playing, music, and watching movies. So basically my ship life without being stuck on a ship or receiving a paycheck. Good with the bad I guess. Trying to write more but I'm so terribly lazy that any attempt recently to write devolves into me slowly defeating an Xbox Castlevania game. One or two more days Lord of Shadows then you're done!

“Lynn and I definitely do bits in front of other people sometimes only to realize that the only people that would get it are you and Sarah.

“I miss the ship at times. But in those moments I remember that though my house is small I can walk about it and even leave it when I choose. Also when I leave my house I don't go thru an X-ray machine. Which is nice.”

New iPhone case. Jealous?

You can order one yourself here (as well as some assorted You Don't Know Jack t-shirts).

Work brunch party. Lots of drinking and catching up and just taking a moment to see how big both sides of the company have become.

The day began with an icebreaker game where everyone had celebrity name tags placed on their back, and they had to figure out who you were using Yes or No questions. When you figured it out, you could put the tag on your front (and get some food). Mine was pretty easy.

When this picture was taken, several drinks into the day, our lawyer, "Stan Lee," still hadn't figured his out.

It was a hot day, and there was music blaring on the patio, and when "Betty White" asked me if this is what it was like on the cruise ship, I said, "It was a lot like this... only with more Jimmy Buffet."

The official pictures I ordered from Sarah's graduation ceremony came in today.

Here she is holding her diploma. Or as she said on the day, "holding my diploma holder."

I suppose this isn't a new thing but they don't give you the diploma during the ceremony, just a diploma stand-in. They gave her here diploma after she returned her cap and gown.

Sarah: So you never get a picture in your cap and gown holding your actual diploma. Kind of sucks, huh?

Sarah put these large cups up in the bathroom when we first moved in. I've just now, over a month later, figured out that one cup has fresh hand towels and I think I'm supposed to put the used ones in the middle cup.

I'm full of observations about our bathroom this week. I'm finally SEEING it.

We're finally settled in and caught up enough to finally consider tackling... our taxes (which we filed an extension for while on the ship).

So... yay?

And mistakes? I've made a few.

I posted this picture back in May when we were staying with Alex and Megan while finding our new place. And in that entry I wrote, “Me: What did we miss? What’s new? Megan: Nothing.”

Except that there was something new. Alex and Megan are having a baby!

Near the end of that week they broke down and told us.

Megan: I didn’t want you to think I was a weirdo for sleeping so much.
Me: We didn’t notice.
Sarah: Wait, we ordered sushi!
Megan: I know, the first night you were here you were like, “Let’s get sushi!” I was sure you’d figure out that I was eating vegetarian sushi.
Me: Didn’t notice that either.
Sarah: And then we went out for drinks.
Megan: You have not made it easy to keep this a secret.

I snagged this picture off of Facebook, posted by the French Magician, packing up to finish his contract on the ship. His caption read, "La Prestidigitation avec bagages ou mille tours dans 15 valises..." which maybe means, "Magic with thousand towers 15 suitcases or luggage..."

It made me smile to see this picture. The French Magician became one of my favorite people on the ship.

He was so excited when we started porting out of New York City, almost giddy. In Times Square he held up his iPad, playing the slightly bombastic intro video from his magic show on the ship, waving it around over his head, yelling his own name and, "Here I am in Time Square!"

Looking at this picture, it seems he bought an "I [Heart] NY" sticker for almost every piece of luggage.

I still have a lot of Bermuda money. Probably $10, tops, but still.

Originally I thought I'd give it to my nephews. That's what you do with leftover foreign money, right? Give it to children?

But Sarah will be back in Bermuda before too too long, so I'll probably just give it to her.

I did write several of the questions in the current Facebook version of You Don't Know Jack while on the cruise ship. People asked, "Did you write a lot of cruise ship questions?" A lot? No. Some, yes. I joked, "If you see a shuffle board question, I probably wrote it."

That said, I did not write this question, a Dis or Dat from today's game, which asks, "Is it a Carnival Cruise Line ship, a Tom Cruise movie... or both?" (Glory? Magnolia? Miracle?) I wish I had written it, though. It's a good one.

Construction at work continues.

It's disconcerting to walk into a bathroom you use frequently and discover that all of the bathroom-y things are gone.

But everyone in the office has been enjoying making, "Woo, don't go in there!" jokes about it.

Saint Martin was one of our favorite places during our cruise contract, despite (or maybe because of) only stopping there once.

Sarah came out of shop on the Dutch side of the island (Sint Maarten), holding out this little bowl and saying, "Look what I got for you."

Honestly, I had no idea what it was. A weird tiny ashtray?

I know now that it's for my wedding ring, which is wood, and which I take off when I wash my hands. It's very useful, this bowl, and a nice reminder of that odd Dutch part of the Caribbean.

Nick stopped by to pick up some boxes to help with his own move this coming week. Moving his family to the south side. He and his wife have lived in the same condo for seven years, had three children there. I don't envy that move

This blog is, ostensibly, about travel. That's the title anyway. But I'm feeling more and more rooted each day. No real travel plans... besides my yearly cabin trip to Indiana with friends (including Nick) coming up next month.

Nick: Are you ready for the cabin?
Me: I spend my whole year being ready.

I wore a t-shirt I bought in Aruba, recently, and posted a picture on Facebook, along with the caption, "I look like an extra in an '80s movie about vacation."

That led to my friend, Glynn, photoshopping this movie poster, which is really wonderful.

Sarah and I went with some friends to see Neil Diamond in concert at the United Center.

I enjoyed it very much both ironically and sincerely.

We sat pretty far up, and there was very little standing because most of the audience around us had canes.

Before the concert, a few of us were discussing the fact that we are pretty anti-"Bah Bah Bah" and anti-"So Good! So Good!" during Sweet Caroline. It is not a phenomenon we enjoy.

Lyons: I'm not doing it.
Me: I'll sing along. I'll sing along to the song, but yeah, no "bah bah bah"-ing.

And I didn't... the first time Neil Diamond played Sweet Caroline. But then he played it again a second time. And by the end of the second time he played it, I did get swept up in an entire arena full of people screaming, "So good! So good!" And that really freed me up to be 100% onboard when he played the song... a third time, in a row. If you see Neil Diamond in concert, and you should, he plays Sweet Caroline three times in a row.

Sounds dumb. But it was great. Dumb and great.

Construction at work is getting pretty intense. It's going to be a whole new place.

Since I've spent so little of my life around actual construction, I keep thinking that there are mostly murders going on behind these concealing tarps.

4th of July.

Martin (seated) had a barbeque but it was blazingly hot out so we mostly all sat inside and watched babies.

When we performed the Murder Mystery on the ship, different people would end up being the murderer depending on who the audience picked to be the murder victim. Without getting spoilery about it, I was often the murderer. Not always, but often.

There’s a nice moment at the end where the murderer is revealed and then someone from the kitchen staff (we performed the show in one of the ship’s restaurants) rushes in and takes the murderer away. And the scripted line is, “Oh no, I’m going to end up in a prison in the Philippines!” A very high percentage of the crew is from the Philippines, or there about, and this always got a big big laugh.

Near the end of the contract we were filming the show to send back to Unnamed Comedy Theater for review, and one of the waiters, the one who most often takes the murderer away, approached me at intermission and asked, “Are you the murderer today?”

“Uh.. yes,” I said. “I am.”

The waiter handed me this paper, and said, “I want to get a copy of the video to send home. Would you mind saying that the prison you’re going to is in Yerba York, like New York? It’s in Peru. It’s where I’m from.”

“Sure. Of course.”

And at the end of the show, the waiter grabbed me and I yelled, “Oh no, I’m going to end up in a prison in Yerba York… in Peru,” and he steered me straight towards the camera on the way out, getting as much screen time as possible.

Here’s the thing: Obviously… obviously… the Philippines and Peru are nowhere near each other. I know that. And this waiter didn’t look the least bit Asian. No one ever mentioned it.

I switched it to “I’m going to end up in a prison in Peru” for the next couple shows and it never got the same response, so I eventually settled on, “I’m going to end up in a prison in the Philippines or Peru,” which seemed to work.

We've joined an organic vegetable co-op. Basically, we get a box of fresh locally grown vegetables every week, and then we figure out what they are ("This is jicama... what is that?") and then we eat them."

P.S. Jicama is good.

Our new apartment is better than our old one in most ways, but the old place had a washer and dryer, and now we just have one in the basement (although it is free).

On the ship, if you left your laundry, done, in a washer or dryer too long, or even for mere moments after it was done, someone would move it from the washer to the dryer or from the dryer to the folding table, just to free up space for themselves. Annoying, maybe, but necessary.

We don't have many neighbors here in this new building, but they do seem to luxuriate in the single free washer and dryer in the basement, leaving their laundry sitting for hours if not days.

I've imported the cruise ship approach, moving along the laundry of my still-unseen neighbors, making space for my own. We'll see how it goes over.