More from National Review Caribbean Cruise!

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[nerdgirl]

You may like to read yesterday's entry before this one:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1280916/posts

Hola Freepers - greetings from St. Thomas. Before I go onshore, I thought I'd add a few things. First the cruise is Ft. Lauderdale - Bahamas - St. Thomas - Tortola - Bahamas - Ft. Lauderdale. NR has been doing the cruise for something like 10 or 15 years - many of the people here have been on a bunch of them. William F. Buckley has also been on a lot of them, but he's not on this one. They've also cruised all kinds of places - Malta, Bermuda, Alaska, Mexico, etc. Apparently at 400, this cruise has twice the number of the last, which means NR is doing a great job of attracting new readers, mostly via their online site. I was a little disappointed that the cruise wasn't just for the online community, since as per my handle I think nerds are more fun! This is my first cruise ever - so far it has been a blast, while a bit busier than I usually like my vacations.

Before arriving I wondered what it would be like, and came to a tentative conclusion that I would probably enjoy the fellow cruisers as much or more than the "notables." They have a rotating dinner seating arrangement, where every couple of days you are supposed to get one of these guys or gal at your table. They've also had a couple of cocktail parties, and I guess there's a breakfast thing but at some ungodly hour like 7am or something (I'm on WEST COAST TIME and then some!) Basically this assumption has turned out to be mostly true.

Some buddies I made from the good ole blue state of CA had Romesh Ponnuru as their notable one night - and thought he was super friendly and had great conversations with him. I noticed at a later cocktail party that when he saw them he didn't hesitate to come and over and spend some time talking with us. Boy these people love to talk about politics 24/7. I mean here on FR it seems like we interject plenty of real life into our threads. So far about 90% of all conversation I've had with either cruisers or notables has been about politics and only politics (Caramba, get me off this boat for a few hours!)

But since there are 400 of us, unless you get lucky and the guy you want ends up at your table, you pretty much have to walk up to the notable and go "hey I'm so and so from whereverville" and then figure out something intelligent to say. So since I figure this cruise wasn't exactly cheap, and I'm hanging out in places reaaallly far from DC most of the time, when else am I going to meet people like this? So I've actually gone up to a few of them out of the blue to give them an hola - and got in about 2 or 3 minutes before moving down the road. Not entirely fulfilling on that front, I must say - but like I said there are just too many people here - but then we're only a couple of days into it. I'd say the best vibe I've gotten has been from Stephen Moore - who was super approachable, down to earth, and has some of the best ideas I've heard. Plus I agree with him on several fronts were some of the others on the panel & audience disagreed (he thinks we should have avoided the Iraq war - not in a Kerryesque "wrong war wrong time" way, but more of a "let's get the hell out as fast as we can, would have been better if we hadn't gone in, but I'll support it since we're already there" kind of way). He also doesn't assume Condi Rice is the best possible candidate for 2008 - which several of the others like Dick Morris were harping on today. He offered the divergent view that Jeb Bush is the best we've got right now, although he isn't likely to run in until at least 2012 or later.

We had the pleasure of eating w/ military & intelligence analyst John Hillen & his wife - who were awesome, and MAN is that guy a mover & shaker or what. I don't watch ABC for news, but I guess he's on contract as an analyst there, among other equally impressive things. It's a bit odd to be sitting next to a guy at dinner who casually mentions how he did Good Morning America & had lunch w/ Dick Cheney last week, and visited Porter Goss in his office recently…it may sound a bit pretentious to some, but he doesn't come off that way at all. The guy is undeniably intense, and just really FOCUSED. And damn accomplished for somebody his age (38 but looks several years younger). I sat there kind of wondering how one would feel to be the stay at home wife for a guy w/ all of that going on - has to be a hard balance. "Hi honey how was Cheney? Do you mind taking out the garbage, I think it's your turn this week…" A bit surreal if you ask me. But I guess the moral of the story is that behind the faces on TV you basically have regular people who often times have normal lives when not doing extraordinary things. John Hillen is one to watch - if you haven't read anything by him, check out NRO (www.nationalreview.com) and search for his articles.

Ah and I'd be remiss not to mention Jack Fowler - the associate publisher of National Review. I told him he's like the Ricardo Montalban of this trip (w/out the romance) - trying to make sure all of the guests are happy. He's running the show, but takes the time not only to get to know the guests, but to run around making introductions to people from your state. I think if I told him I need use of a global sat phone for my hike tomorrow, he'd go out of his way to make sure I had it asap. Or he gives off that impression anyway, which makes you feel awfully welcome. If some of the folks on the cruise come off as somewhat aloof, Jack is anything but. I had never heard of this guy before - but if you see his name on the NRO blog, know that he's good people.

Ok enough for now! Be back tonight.

[nerdgirl]

Lucky you! Oh well, we met a lot of other great folks on the cruise.