January 10, 2006 - I was thankful that our practice started at the original scheduled time of 10:30 AM rather than noon. Our music director was hoping for noon, but the guest artist won. Noon would have conflicted directly with lunch, and since the rehearsal ended up taking about 2 hours, I wouldn't have gotten to eat lunch until about 2 PM. I spent the afternoon surfing the internet in Mazatlan, and then boarded the ship with enough time to go to the gym before our 5:30 PM sailaway party. In the gym I ran a 5k in 22 minutes 55 seconds, which is certainly not my personal best, but it was a step (actually about 3000 steps, but who is counting) in the right direction. The show tonite went really well. I was nervous because I had a lot more notes to read than usual. This week we worked with a guy named George Soloman, who sings lots of different songs. His vocal range covers the full spectrum of a barbershop quartet. His energy level is probably the most memorable part of his performance. He runs around the whole auditorium talking to people in between songs. I finished things off in the bar with Lockman, one of the art auctioneers. He was sharing all kinds of cool military stories with me.