Another Skype date with Sarah. Chicago to Bermuda.

My new favorite bit is to occasionally, while she's talking, hold myself perfectly still so she can't tell if the connection has frozen or I'm "doing it again." Endlessly amusing. Sarah has started doing it too.

Sarah: Pretty good? Convincing?
Me: Good... yes, but that spinning fan over your shoulder is a dead giveaway.

Sarah out of town means I sleep with the iPhone on the bed instead of the nightstand.

An update from Lynn:

"I'm back in LA - working at a restaurant/deli (glorified barista), and I'm improvising and doing sketch comedy and acting and trying to make it all work. I'm doing a show called 'Requiem for the American Dream: The Best of [Unnamed Comedy Theater that we did the cruise ship contract for]' at [Unnamed Comedy Theater] Hollywood, which is a lot like our Boat show - it's comprised of archived material and a little improv. Only the material has not been boatified (I say ass and bitch and throw the c word in there for good measure).

"Besides that I'm just trying to get people to pay me for acting, watching a lot of Breaking Bad, and doing my best not to spoil that show or any others for people. That's the hardest thing I'm working on.

"OK?!!? IS THAT ENOUGH????"

The fishing trip deserves another post.

Alex was the only one to actually throw up, but the seas were rough, and I was a heartbeat away from horking several times myself. After never feeling sick on the cruise ship I was over-confident, and didn't take anything despite rough rough waters, tempting fate by guzzling beers and eating chicken fingers that Glynn brought along. And when I started to feel nauseous, I felt truly betrayed by my own body.

Subtle clue in this picture that I'm just barely keeping it together: The weird way I'm mindlessly clasping onto the hooks on that fish board. Why am I not holding it up? I think I was mostly concentrating on not barfing while the picture was being taken.

Picture and post provided by Sarah:

"Post-show message from and anonymous person who we think is on the production cast."

A fishing expedition on Lake Michigan (a belated birthday present to Alex from his brother, Peter).

I've also, somehow, never been fishing on Lake Michigan before, so, between this and the horse track, this is a much-manlier-than-usual weekend for me.

The weather was especially bleak, so we almost canceled, but instead decided to brave the rain and rough waters. Alex, almost immediately caught this giant salmon. Twenty minutes later he was barfing his brains out over the side of the boat. Still, none of us caught a fish half as big as this one.

Sarah sent me this picture from backstage before her first show with her new cast (notice our old musical director, Drennan, is also with her). Apparently it's impossible to take a backstage picture on a cruise ship that doesn't look this blurry.

It sounds like her first week of shows have gone really well.

A work outing to the horse race track. I've actually never been before.

The betting process is a little intimidating, but using a strategy of placing bets on the horses with the longest (worst) odds to "show" (make it into the top three) leads to me at least winning something in first four or five races... even if that something is only 80 cents or so.

But when a race comes around where none of my bets amount to anything... it all begins to seem a lot less fun.

Still, if all else fails, you can entertain yourself by "angrily" ripping up your losing racing slips and throwing them into the air.

Drinks with friends. More of this over the next two months is probably a good idea.

And then, you know, after Sarah gets back, stop, because I don't need these jerks in my life.

I snagged this picture off my sister Julie's Facebook page. The first day back to school for my nephews Ty (pictured) and Will. The youngest, Tate, peers through the window.

I received this Facebook message from the French Magician. You can see my immediate response.

I didn't hear anything after that until the next day, today, when he wrote, "I am fine, I hope you too. say hello to your lovely wife. I ll go back to [the ship we were on] on october, hop to se you there, we never know. take care."

I'm certain I won't be doing another contract any time soon, certainly not in October, but yes, I suppose, we never know.

Several people have joked to me that I'm going to stereotypically eat pizza and make a mess, but in truth I'm determined to use some of this time alone constructively, get at least something accomplished each day.

What I accomplished today (besides work): Grocery shopping. Some laundry. Getting the tool bag out of the front closet.

Okay, true, I didn't actually take any tools out of the tool bag and use them for anything yet, but the bag is out. It is at the ready.

Sarah is currently in port in Bermuda (remember Bermuda?!) so it was our first time testing out internet communication.

First we tried Face Time on our iPhones, which ended up being a little too choppy (and look how weirdly bloated it makes my face).

Next we tried Gchat Video which we just couldn't get to work at all.

Finally we used Skype, which also took a little setting up time (we'd never had to Skype each other before) but seemed to work. So... Skype it is.

See, this won't be so bad. There are so many options to keep in touch and some of them even work.

Day two of Sarah being gone and I'm trying out those Taco Bell Doritos tacos I've been thinking about.

Dropped Sarah off for her flight very early in the morning.

Sarah’s last night in Chicago for the next few months. We went out for a nice dinner.

Me: Man, I’m going to miss you.
Sarah: Well don’t start missing me yet! I’m still here!

Adal invited Sarah and I out for strange fancy drinks at The Aviary.

When our first round came out, mine was an ice sphere in a glass that had to be cracked open to get the Old Fashioned out, Sarah’s was a Rob Roy sitting in the middle of a sealed plastic bag of flavored air and Adal’s was a Bloody Mary with dry ice. It looked like we were drinking in a Star Trek bar. Sadly, we didn’t take a picture.

Between rounds, though, Adal, the educated foodie, assured us that it is no longer considered tacky to take pictures of your food and drinks in an upscale restaurant, that it is, in fact, encouraged. “Some places say it on the menu.” So I snapped a few pics of our second round of future booze.

Sarah: I've been making extra awesome dinners so you'll miss me even more when I'm gone.

Home.

Meador came to the cabin on Thursday getting over a cold, and yesterday half of us left having caught it.

I'm currently experiencing a pretty terrible cold. Bad timing.

Four days until Sarah leaves for her cruise contract.

A fun weekend, but yes, we’re getting older, slowing down.

There was another group of dudes somewhere nearby that we kept hearing yelling and hooting all weekend.

Nick: They’re us, ten years ago.

We ran into the old woman staying in the cabin next to ours. “They’re too loud,” she said. “For a minute I thought they were you fellas, but no, you’ve been real quiet. Haven’t heard a peep from you. What have you been doing all weekend, napping and watching movies?”

The sun peeked out of the clouds momentarily so we rushed out to the pontoon and onto the lake.

Meador and I were the only ones brave enough to jump in and we discovered that the water was very very terribly painfully cold.

A half hour on the water and we all headed back to shore.

It’s been an extremely warm summer so far, including reports that it was the hottest July in recorded U.S. history, but now suddenly, this week, it’s surprisingly cold for August.

Martin: I didn’t pack a hoodie or sweater or anything. Not even a long sleeve shirt. It didn’t even cross my mind.

It’s not cold cold, but too cold to go out on the lake, and cold enough that everyone is wearing whatever odd old coats or blankets we can find around the cabin.

Blueberry Island.

My yearly cabin weekend getaway with friends.

Young, Nick, Meador and I were able to head out a day earlier than the rest, which you might think means a little extra time to drink beers, but really just means a little extra time for us to try to play complicated board games (like the Battlestar Galactica game, pictured) that the others would hate.

This is the life!

Looking at pictures from the Mars Rover, Curiosity, at work.

You can see the rover itself in some of the pictures. It reminds me of myself, trying to take a self portrait in front of something interesting, holding the camera out as far as my arm will extend, hoping it looks good, usually only getting half my head in the picture.

"Hey, look! I'm on Mars!"

It makes me a little sad.

Another cast update, this time from our musical director, Drennan:

“So I am on another ship (after about a month on land including one week of rehearsals). I spent 2 weeks of my vacation at the meditation center outside of Rockford.

“I'm on the [ship name] right now which is almost exactly the same layout as [our ship]. There are only slight differences (the buffet and gyms are a little bit bigger). We only have 4 cabins, here, but they're all officer cabins on deck 4. I didn't think I would say this, but I actually do prefer sharing an officer cabin to those tiny single cabins on deck 3 (with the loud water tight door alarms always going off, people shouting in the hallways, bad smells, etc.). We have a really great cast which gets along really well, and both my roommates have been amazing roommates.”

Unless I'm mistaken, Drennan has spent more time over the last few years on ships than off. And he's currently on the ship that Sarah will be joining very soon.

A White Sox game with Sarah. Sarah's a big White Sox fan. I'm not much of a sports fan in general, but I do enjoy going to a game.

Sarah: There's so much for you here. Drinks. Food. The slow pace. Lots of distractions. You should love baseball. Hell, you practically ARE baseball.

This morning Sarah said, "Well, I'm off to my trapeze class."

That's the first I'd heard about it. But it sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it?

A party/comedy-movie-marathon for Steveo's 40th birthday party. Since he's one of the main writers/editors at work, it may not be surprising that his party included a trivia content with questions about him (and movies he loves).

Questions like, "Which comedy movie that was made BEFORE Steve was born is Steve's favorite comedy film not being shown today?" (The Odd Couple, The Pink Panter, MASH, Bananas, Dr. Strangelove.)

You collect tokens throughout the party and use them to insert your guesses into the four trivia question boxes for the eventual prize drawings.

I actually won some candy and a movie theater gift card by correctly guessing that the movie Steveo saw in the theater two days in a row was, 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.'

Sarah bought this "wildebeest" head when we moved into this new place. I'm not sure I understand it... but I've grown to like it (even though she's refused to ever tell me what she paid for it).

But should it have a name? Suggestions?

Sarah's shopping for new glasses and texting me different contenders. The pictures are coming faster than I can respond. "Eh?" "Eh?" "Eh?"

It's fun, although I can't truly get a sense of how they look from the pics. So, I just started sending jokes describing how she looks, like "Malcolm X" and "You look like a librarian in a cell where they keep Magneto."

Olympic fever inspired a Foosball tournament at work.

My team, Moldova, came in last place.

USA won.