Jet lag is a real thing! Since arrival at London’s Heathrow Airport, Neil and I have struggled to catch up on our sleep. Of course, one would think we would have slept all night on our journey from Austin to Heathrow, but even on a gigantic airliner sleep was not trouble-free. We have now been aboard the Queen Mary 2 about three days as we sailed from Southampton last Saturday morning. As an aside, Neil and I discovered a dandy and large bookstore in Southampton. The store’s name was Waterstone and it was far larger than Book People in Austin. Southampton was a high energy city and is best known for being the departure site for the Titanic, as well as one of the assembly points for the Allied invasion of Europe on D-Day. Our ship eventually embarked late at 12:32—and that did not help the sleep project much either. Perhaps on the several days we are “just at sea,” we can do a little catching up on our sleep.

Sunday, after our private devotion time, we attended a lecture about Mt. Everest of all things. The lecturer was a woman named Rebecca Stephens. She was the first British woman to ascend this tallest mountain of the world. Her presentation covered the 100-year history of Europeans trying to scale Everest. What made her talk so beneficial was that she knew many of the people about whom she spoke. One interesting tidbit was her story about when Sir Edmund Hillary and a Sherpa Tensing Norgay reached the Everest summit. It was Tensing whose iconic photo that captured the world’s attention. The reason for Tensing being in the photo and not the renowned Hillary? Tensing did not know how to operate the camera and they had so little time at the top. Therefore, Hillary took the famous photograph in 1953.

Most of our 1500 fellow passengers are older people, many of whom are older than me. They mostly come from the British Isles and Germany, and while there are Americans on board, for the most part we are in the minority. We have just left the ship to explore Lisbon. I will get back on this day’s adventure when we get to Naples. The most exciting thing, perhaps so far, was that we saw a random dolphin jumping out of the wake created by the ship. Very rousing!

From your friends

David and Neil

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.