Mexican Riviera Part One: Cabo San Lucas

This will be the first of a four-part series that recaps a Mexican Riviera cruise that BowlingWidow and I recently returned from. Today will be about Cabo San Lucas with blogs to follow for Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and, finally, the overall cruising experience.

The Baja Peninsula, approaching Cabo San Lucas
After a day and a half at sea that began in San Pedro, CA, the Royal Caribbean ship Vision of the Seas set anchor just off the tip of the Baja Peninsula. The cliffs, rock formations and beaches we noticed as we were arriving were simply beautiful. We were taken by tender from the ship into Cabo San Lucas (or Los Cabos as it’s commonly called). Los Cabos is a fairly small town population-wise (around 55,000) that has surged in popularity, particularly among young partiers on spring break, over the last several years.

.........................................................A beach near Cabo San Lucas....................
We had a couple of hours before we were scheduled to leave for the Mexican cooking class that we had signed up for so we set out to explore the town on foot, as most every part of the town is within walking distance.

There were two clear things we noticed upon disembarking from the tender boat at the harbor. First, there were a few heavily armed Federal police roaming around, presumably to protect visitors from the bad guys and generally “boot evil” as my friend Captain ILL would aptly put it. This was a theme that showed up at every port we visited.

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Los Federales son mas macho de todos
Second, literally every 10 feet we walked there was somebody aggressively trying to sell us a glass bottom boat tour, jewelry, hats, have our picture taken with an iguana, and so on and so forth. It was like the opening credits scene in the film Airplane! in which the main character, Ted Striker, was hurrying through the airport terminal being accosted by everyone from the Hare Krishnas through Jews for Jesus. And, sadly, even when we went to a place with a deck to get a refreshment, several kids (some as young as around five years old) were making the rounds trying to get patrons to buy necklaces and other little items. It was heartbreaking that they were doing that instead of going to school, learning and playing with their friends (this was on a Tuesday morning). But that’s reality, and that’s much of Mexico. The country is correctly described as one of contrasts with the very well off and the dirt poor often living side by side.

Our cooking class took place at a local restaurant called Desperados. We started by learning the proper way to make a Margarita (and of course drank the results). We then moved to the salsa area and made some incredible fresh salsa using a molcajete, a mortar and pestle tool made of volcanic rock that smashes the ingredients. Gotta get me one of those for Christmas! For the main course, it was Pescado Marinado Envuelto en Hoja de Platano. Translated, this was sea bass marinated in an achiote based mixture, wrapped in a banana leaf, and fried 6-8 minutes on each side. Again, with the help of our instructors and another Margarita we were able to cook up an amazing dish.

Culinary genius or just following instructions?
Finally for dessert, and using the same pan, the class of eight amateur chefs created some crepes with egg, flour, vanilla, butter, milk and sugar. It was then topped with goat caramel milk called cajeta.

When it was all said and done, we were well fed and needed the sightseeing walk to the tender boat that would take us back to our floating hotel.

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The tasty results of our labor
Aside from the culinary experience, which we both agreed was a top-notch land excursion, we felt a bit out of place in Cabo. I’m sure there’s good night life and that it’s earned every bit of its reputation as a party town. Rock and Roller Sammy Hagar even has a restaurant and night club here. But we tend to go to bed at around 10pm and get up early, even on vacation. And no doubt the beaches are some of the best in the world. But we ain’t beach people. And then there was the matter of having a target on our backs for the hundreds of street vendors that are everywhere you go in Los Cabos.

It was a great day, but in all honesty our first port stop in Mexico goes into the books as our least favorite.

On to Mazatlan!

Gene Jonas: Hall of Famer

As I contemplate writing about our recent venture to Mexico, I was alerted of some breaking news that needs to be acknowledged.

A few blogs ago, I wrote about my personal bowling history and mentioned that a childhood friend and neighbor of mine, Kent, and his family took me bowling for the first time when I was around four years old. I didn't go into specifics as to who exactly organized the trip and actually taught me what needed to be done to get the ball down the lane and topple those hated pins.

But I will now. It was Kent's older brother, Gene Jonas, whose passion for bowling was the catalyst that got me hooked.

I just received word that Gene was recently inducted into the Lewis County (Washington) Bowling Association Hall of Fame. It's a pretty exclusive club, with only five members in all. Gene is from Port Angeles but has been a fixture in the Centralia/Chehalis bowling scene for nearly 40 years. He's currently the manager of Fairway Lanes and has no sign of slowing down at age 62.

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Gene Jonas (right) goes into the Hall of Fame

What about his bowling career? Not bad. He has 3 career 300 games to his credit and averaged a sizzling 222 during peak years. These days he's still competitive hanging around the 200 mark.

For me personally, there are four things I'll always remember about Gene in addition to that inaugural bowling trip. First, he and his brother-in-law Mike "The Kid" Nelson used to tease us younger kids and tag us out mercilessly in baseball "pickle" games in Kent's front yard. Second, he has an enormous capacity to eat the worst junk food in the world and not gain any weight. Third, I've never seen the man with a hair out of place. He makes Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski look like a caveman.

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Fourth, and most dear to me, while he was managing a bowling center in Port Angeles, he acknowledged my only 300 game by noting it on the reader board next to the main highway in the town I grew up in. This was despite that fact that I bowled that game in Everett, 80 miles and a ferry boat ride away.

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The P.A. Lanes sign: thanks, Gene

Thanks for that, Gene. And congrats to you. Bowling may not be what it used to be thirty years ago, but the business of bowling and the sport itself is richer for having people like you involved in it.

The newspaper account of Gene's entry into the Hall can be found here.

Off to Mexico

Our ship has nearly arrived. There it is in fact, The Vision of the Seas. We're off to Long Beach, CA later today and depart tomorrow for the Mexican Riviera (Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta) for a week. We hope to come back with lots of cheaply made items to impress our family and friends with as holiday gifts. And we also hope to have lots of good experiences and stories to tell. None of which will involve a Mexican jail.

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Bon Voyage,

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BowlingJoe and Bowlingwidow

What An Election Night

I didn’t think that I’d live to see this day. The people have spoken and we’ve elected our first African-American (as well as Caucasian-American) president. All parents in this country can now look their kids in the eye, tell them they could grow up to be President, and actually mean it.

There is a lot to be done though. Fixing an economy that’s stressed and in shambles. Creating avenues so that everyone will be able to afford health care. Fixing an education system that has grown increasingly ineffective. Getting out of a directionless war that has gone on longer than World War Two. Repairing relationships and credibility that need to be restored in a global community that gets smaller every day.

But instead of this all seeming hopeless, I’m starting to get the feeling that there’s a sense of possibility on the horizon. I’ve never seen the optimism and enthusiasm that I’m seeing with our young population. The apathetic and disenfranchised have woken up, much to the dislike of a large but diminishing population who liked it better when they were down.

After eight years of failed, self-serving myopic policies and a clueless president who will be gone in 75 days (not that I’m counting or anything) it’s time to move on. I’m not sure what the next four years will bring but have no doubt that it’ll be a whole lot better than the last eight.

Yep, I haven’t felt this good since I bowled my 300 game five years ago.

Skate America: Epilogue

We made it. Skate America 2008 is now in the books and it was, by most accounts, a success. I understand that it set a record for tickets sold although there did appear to be a lot of people disguised as empty seats. Never would have happened if we were talking about "Bowl America", believe me. Bowling fans would flock to Comcast Arena by the thousands from around the country to take in 3 days of pin pounding action. Well, maybe not. Figure skating is pretty darned popular.

Japanese TV (left) and NBC TV crews hard at work
After a great breakfast at Kate's Greek / American restaurant in North Everett (you've gotta try this place if you get a chance and get one of the dishes with feta cheese) we hit the arena at around 10:30am in plenty of time for the pairs dance long program. I can't remember who won but seem to think that they were from France. Or somewhere close to France.

During the intermission BowlingWidow (does this mean I'm now SkatingWidower?) and I took a lap around the concourse of the arena. It was an amazing logjam of humanity, largely due to the fact that the lineups of women waiting to get into the many restrooms were incredibly long. And clearly, the patience of these full-bladdered ladies was wearing quite thin as they inched toward the promised porcelain land. I can only hope and pray that any incidents were minimal and that they all made it back to their seats on time to enjoy the ladies long free skate program.

Kim Yu-Na puts the finishing touches on gold
While the pairs dance competition was artistic, the ladies free skate was full of daring maneuvers and a lot of risk taking. Some of the skaters, after a challenging jump, ended up back on the ice in a horizontal and not-so-good way. Bad for them but entertaining for a figure skating novice observer such as myself.

When the dust settled, it was South Korean Kim Yu-Na who turned in a brilliant performance to win easily. The next two were Japanese skaters with Americans taking fourth and fifth.

And Tonya Harding was nowhere to be found.

Skate America Comes to Everett!

BowlingWidow has always been a big figure skating fan and months ago I got us tickets for Skate America for this coming Sunday. Skate America is an annual national event and it's actually pretty cool that it's going to be in Everett at The Comcast Arena. NBC is even televising the thing nationwide on Sunday. BowlingJoe has been a fan of skating for a while as well. Only when I go it usually involves hockey sticks, a puck, and the occasional violent episode.

Since this is kind of a departure for me, I've developed a strategy on how I'm going to get through five hours of figure skating. Just in case another male bowler with an unsophisticated approach to life finds himself in a similar situation, I'd like to share a few "Do's and Don'ts" that I intend to adhere to this weekend:

Do's:

First thing: locate the nearest concession stand that sells beer. Visit early and often.

Leave your cowbell at home and save it for Everett Silvertip hockey games. "More cowbell" will not cure anyone's fever during an ice skating competition.

Throw a stuffed teddy bear out on the ice after a particularly good performance. It would be quite touching, and is also traditional and appropriate.

Make points with your wife/girlfriend by learning the difference between a triple axel and a toe loop jump.

Don'ts:

Scream out the word, "FIGHT" during the national anthem when "through the perilous fight" is sung. Again, save it for the hockey game.

Laugh and call a skater a "stumbly-wumbly" when he or she falls.

Point it out to the entire section when a contestant's skirt flies up.

Prior to the end of a female competitor's skate, tell your wife/girlfriend, "She's hot. I'm giving her a 10".


As a man of the people, BowlingJoe is always here to help.

Obama and The Bradley Effect

I was at my book group gathering last weekend and we were talking about the Presidential election. The topic of the Bradley Effect came up. It refers to discrepancies between what samples of people say they will do in polls (or in the case of exit polls what they have done) and the actual outcome of an election. In the 1982 California gubernatorial race, Tom Bradley (an African-American) was the projected winner based upon both pre-election and exit polling. But the newspapers had to stop the presses when George Deukmejian was ultimately declared the winner.

There have been other examples of the effect over the years in various mayoral and Senate races but this is the first time it’ll be put to the test on the level of the highest office in the land. As I write this, the Obama ticket has a composite of around a 5.1 point lead over McCain-Palin.

Will the Bradley Effect eat into this margin (assuming it holds) and make it a closer race than what many expect? Or are there valid counterarguments to Bradley, such as the notion that pollsters are predominately asking questions of people who have only land line phones and ignoring those with only cell phones (assuming that those cell-phoners would be younger voters and more apt to vote for Obama)?

I’m not sure what the answer to that is, but there’s no doubt in my mind that there’s enough covert racism in this country to make things interesting. I keep going back to a conversation I had with a family member a few weeks ago. This individual stated that some voters might say one thing in a poll but when it came time to actually cast a ballot “they won’t vote for a ni**er”.

Although I’ve grown to despise that particular word with the asterisks in the middle, I think that this person raised a valid (albeit sad) point, as we still have a long way to go in this country in so many respects.

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Any thoughts?