If you’ve been on top of a glacier, the pools of meltwater on pure blue. The water is sitting in a white bowl, basically, so there’s nothing to diminish the intrinsic blueness of H2O as the light streams through it. Alaska has a couple of drive-up glaciers: Mendenhall in Juneau, Worthington just north of Valdez, and Matanuska about a hour’s drive from Anchorage. The entrance to Mat Glacier is on private property, but if you pay the fee it’s probably the easiest way to hike on a glacier.

You mean THAT kind of bangs?

BA says he saw layers of sediment in the ice… How many layers? Were there more than 6000? How did the Flood manage to freeze in layers with dirt in between, and not in one solid mass? (That must be where glaciers came from, freezing flood waters, and not from thousands of years of snowfall, right?)

(Let’s see if all the responders to the Colbert takedown thread take this seriously…)

Also, http://waltzking.org/photos/AmSafari/AKInsidePassage/
which includes pictures of Juneau. I hope Phil is having better weather than we did a year ago, because it rained every day we were there (but the sun also came out every day we were there).

I have to say Phil is right about the blue color of the glaciers; if you’ve never seen it it’s hard to describe and hard to capture properly in a photo. It’s one of the most intense blues I’ve ever seen, and is even more impressive if you get to see it up close.

They pay 6 to 5 when you get a 21 on the first two cards instead of 3 to 2.

Whether you play a system or basic strategy, one of the primary foundation stones of the players statistical advantage is the solid return base of the 3-2 payoff.

Removing that is an extra 1.4% advantage to the house. If you know much about gambling, you know that’s a BIG number.

http://www.blackjack-primer.com/singledeck.php

They’ve also ruined the video poker payouts. I liked VP to relax a bit between table gaming sessions. You could put in a $20 bill and play for quite a while and enjoy the free drinks and cocktail waitress costumes- and sometimes even walk away with >$20.

Instead of 2-1 for two pair and 3-1 for three of a kind, it’s 1-1 and 2-1 respectively. These seem like little things, but most of the payoffs in VP are those sorts of low end hands.

I’m a huge free market supporter, but when an industry as endlessly profitable as gambling feels the need to squeeze its customers for every last penny, it’s just depressing.

Vegas used to treat Joe Average like a champ. Casinos would comp you meals and rooms if you so much as peeked in the door. Prime cuts of beef could be had for $1.99 as late as the 1990s. All you can eat buffets were gifts.

Now he’s just a chump. Now it’s just a place for the idle semi-rich to be seen at the Wynn’s Ferrari dealer.

Not really. Vegas seems to be on another of it’s “we’re a clean family city!” acid trips.The soulless hotel coporations have ruined it. 6-5 on a Blackjack? Blow me.

God, I wish they’d put the mob back in charge of that place.

As long as you didn’t act like a complete idiot, you’d have a blast. Drinks, hookers, gambling, hookers, more drinks, more hookers, more gambling.

And they took care of any small time criminals that might harass customers outside the casinos. Took care of them way out, deep, deep into the desert. Probably all the way to the nuke testing ranges. Now THAT’S freakin’ law enforcement, children!

Sigh…

What was the thread topic again?

Oh, cruise.

I can see going on a vacation with like minded folks. I keep threatening to go on one of those Macintosh cruises. But why the speeches? Aren’t you preaching to the choir, or are you sharing ideas to fight to ignorant power?

Anyone have a way to teach ignorant gamblers that 6-5 on a BJ makes single deck worse than an eight deck shoe?

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

A recently-added page is a photo that shows 6 (yes, *six*) rainbows.

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/bowim6.htm

(Of course, there’s nothing like seeing them in-person. I wish I had a camera the time I saw a secondary rainbow so strong that I think I saw a tertiary rainbow.)

The glaciers are melting at an increasingly fast rate–enjoy them while you can!

However, generally speaking, I’d say any simple *bang* is not worthy of worry. a **BANG** followed by a host of other sounds (ripping metal, buzzers, kalaxons, or dematerialization) might well be a cause for worry.

I would also mention that the sound of running water – as in a stream or brook – is a very bad thing to hear aboard a ship. I used to think “made his blood run cold” was poetic license. ‘Tain’t so.

It’s been my experience that seasickness is frequently related to the size and configuration of the ship. As an example, I never got seasick on my 25ft cabin cruiser (fishing boat).. but if I was facing large seas (20ft plus – or 15 on the beam) I’ve been known to make acquaintance with the local garbage can. On the buoy tenders, that is. Round-bottomed ice-breaking hulls. Nothing to counteract the motion of the ocean. Ferries and cruise ships, on the other hand.. no problems experienced – no matter the size. Trim tabs are mondo cool.

I’m still jealous, though. and homesick as hell.

[oops - note to self: stay away from angle brackets when emphasizing - silly software thinks it's an HTML tag]

However, generally speaking, I’d say any simple *bang* is not worthy of worry. a >>BANG

If you’re having trouble with the sway while shaving, (or just fitting into your shower – they’re not very tall), try the locker room near the aqua-spa – which is much larger than your private bathroom, and closer to the center of the ship.

Global warming is impacting the arctic faster than anywhere else (at least visually), save perhaps the glaciers in the Alps.

We need a virus to course through the planetary population, but one that kills only stupid people.

Seriously, I’d hope to take an Alaska cruise this year (I turned 50 and hoped to do that as a birthday celebration). I still hope to go in the next few years, just not quite sure when. I want to see the actual glaciers, and not just photos of them.

An upside to global warming is that, in 10,000 years or so, there will be no pollution laden ice samples from our era for scientists to point to as proof of our profligate ways,,,Hey, no proof, no guilt, right?

Ancient ice cubes? Just right for my margarita.

Love the pics. Thanks, Phil.

GAry 7

click the image to embiggen

I cringed when I read that.
I looked it up in wiktionary. It’s a neologism. One of the meanings of neologism is apparently:
“The newly coined, meaningless words or phrases of someone with a Psychosis, usually Schizophrenia”. I suppose that is what happens when you hang aroud Hubbard’s glacier too long
Seriously though; thanks for the great commentary on the cruise. I am looking forward to more. Have fun.

I thought it was fun, at least until it was time to go to bed. We are on the 7th deck, at the very fore of the ship, and got the brunt of the action.

Hey, certain hotels in Vegas charge extra for that kind of thing.

There were several loud BANGS during the night, too. I have no clue what they were even now.

Obviously the ships ghosts were disoriented and kept hovering into things.