Weather wise, it was a stellar Hump Day. Thankfully I departed using two feet, not four wheels (or on four legs) and I walked an easy three and half miles before I got home. I wish we could bottle up this weather and have it year-round.
I often check the trending videos on Comcast when I log onto my e-mail. I cherry pick the ones to watch. I don’t know alot of the new celebrities and the ones I’ve heard of like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, well … I just bypass their antics. Sometimes I’ll check out videos about clever critters or the babies laughing non-stop … but even they can get old after awhile. I had not heard of the thirty second “Hump Day” commercial from Geico until it became the subject of Facebook chatter so I hopped onto YouTube to take a peek. I’ll bet the ad agency behind Geico’s “Hump Day” is destined to win a coveted CLIO award for this clever commercial. If you’ve not seen it yet, here’s a link to the ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWBhP0EQ1lA
I Googled to find out some background on Caleb the camel who has surpassed Old Joe from the Camel cigarette commercials in popularity. Caleb was paid a flat fee for his appearance at the workplace where he wanted everyone to answer “it’s Hump Day” to his query to guess what day it is. There are over 13 million views on YouTube of this video already.
Just like Caleb’s twin bumps on his back, I’ve got two stories to share today.
The picture accompanying this blog post is me with a camel named Missouri in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt which was a port of call on a Greek Islands cruise I took in September 1981. I was part of an American Express tour group and the agent had booked our entire party to take a camelback excursion around the Great Pyramid. There were fifty camels in the caravan, each named for one of the fifty U.S. states. I asked for “Michigan” but he was already taken by the time I climbed aboard. It was a bumpy but memorable ride. Each camel had its own camel driver. I asked our tour guide to snap some pictures of me sitting on Missouri and then standing next to him when we concluded the ride. You don’t dismount a camel like a horse … the camel is positioned like above and you climb on or off and the camel raises back up again. I had another picture taken standing next to Missouri and his camel driver who removed his keffiyah scarf from his cap and plunked it on my head for a very touristy photo. Yes I was uncomfortable as I’d never shared a hat with anyone before and it was dirty and sweat-stained … ewwwww!!!
I also have a story to tell about animals in the workplace and it wasn’t “Bring Your Dog to Work Day”. When I worked at Young & Rubicam ad agency, our major client was Lincoln-Mercury. I worked in the Creative Department as a secretary. If you’re old enough to remember the Mercury Cougar ads and the snarling cougar sitting atop the Lincoln-Mercury dealership sign, you’ll remember Tom-Tom the cougar who starred in those ads. Tom-Tom wasn’t the only frisky feline in Mercury’s car ads. There were automobiles named Bobcat and Lynx, each with their respective namesake mascots. One day our downtown Detroit ad agency, which created those memorable auto ads, was paid a visit by the trio of famous cats, each accompanied by a handler. The bobcat and lynx, whose names I no longer recall, were playful and their nails kept getting caught on the common area carpeting while they were walking around the halls for the meet-and-greet event. Tom-Tom, the famous cougar, had a main handler and a stand-by handler and the visit was a P.R. photo opportunity with the president of Y&R’s Detroit office. Tom-Tom was posed in the prez’ executive chair in the corner office with a pen in one paw. We were allowed to take pictures alongside Tom-Tom and the other cats and I have a few pictures in a scrapbook tucked away in a cupboard. We never got to see Tom-Tom’s famous growl, because that growl is only done on cue with the incentive being a big chunk of meat dangling in front of him. But no matter, it was great fun and we were treated to a visit by a trio of stars, though Tom-Tom was more famous than the others. And … just in case you are wondering, yes, Tom-Tom had 8 X 10 pics of himself handed out, autographed with a paw print.
Linda Schaub
WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY 
Oh man, I would love to go to Egypt some day 🙂
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Glad you liked the photos Sindre. That was a great trip. Two-week tour … first week was a land tour in Greece, then a Greek cruise the second week, with ports of call in Turkey (Kusadasi), Israel (Jerusalem), Eqypt (Cairo) and three Greek islands. Perfect weather as well; I went the last two weeks in September. I remembered one more trip photo used which was a Panama Canal cruise which stopped for one day at the San Blas Islands. It was sickening hot and humid that day and we left the boat very early in the morning to beat the heat. The very primitive San Blas Islands was incredible and colorful. During the cruise, the ship’s photographer and I were at the same table for the entire two weeks and he gave me some great pointers on photography. I had just bought a 35 mm camera. He took this pic with some of the native children: https://lindaschaubblog.net/2016/08/11/island-girl/
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Cool, I have never been to any of those places 🙂
The ship had its own photographer?
Never knew, but it makes sense with all the tourists.
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Today is International Walking Day and I’ll try and parlay that event into a blog and dredge up some old pics. 🙂
I think some ships may have more than one official photographer … some of the cruise ships these days are massive, like a floating city. I have a friend who went on that newest ship which is/was the biggest cruise ship in the world and she has cruised before and said it was huge and you could get lost on it. For me, since I travelled alone all the time, a tour or a cruise ship with multiple ports of call was a good way to go.
A cruise is great – unpack once and not worry about packing up your stuff every day like a tour where you are in a different city every night. I never travelled light and had the photography equipment, etc. Now, I’m off to walk, in the Park – nothing exotic this morning.
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Does walking at work count?
That is all I can muster today :p
I have traveled with a big boat like that, but never been on a cruise.
I want to, specifically the nerdy JoCo Cruise, or one to the south pole.
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I say “go for it!” and yes work counts. I work from home, so I don’t rack up many miles – that’s why I started the walking regimen. My boss did a catamaran cruise of the Great Barrier Reef a few years ago … the vessel was fairly large and he/wife had a great time. It goes up closer than a cruise ship could. When I took the Scandinavian tour there was an overnight Baltic Sea cruise from Helsinki to St. Petersburg. The South Pole sounds exciting to me. I’ve not traveled in awhile, but my motto was always “try anything once.” I was more adventuresome then.
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Man, I want to work from home aswell!
I saw a great 90 minute video-log about a south pole cruise not long ago.
I plan to post it next time I don’t have inspiration on a post-day.
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I do like working from home. I went from working in a mid-sized law firm, then my boss and I left there in February 2003 and went out on our own in a small office after a merger that went bad, and now working from home since 2011. Business slowed down and I was laid off for a time (2009-2010), then began working at home, rather than returning to work on site (Detroit). That is when I started my walking regimen.
The South Pole trip sounds fun. One day I would like to go on an Alaska cruise. That is on my bucket list.
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Well that was fun to step back in time with you, Linda. 40+ years ago! I’m sorry you didn’t get Michigan the camel, but I assume his/her rider was also from your state. That’s quite a keepsake memory (and your attire suggests the 1980s – ha). I also notice you only had one “like” and one commenter back then. You’ve come a long way with your blog!
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Glad you liked my flash from the past Dave. It was a fun day and overall a very fun trip. Our American Express group was actually from all over the U.S. and we all flew to Athens to begin our trip and flew out of Athens at well. I always wore heels even though I was (likely still am) 5′ 9″ tall and rolled my jeans up due to the sand. Since you have horses and enjoy riding, I thought you would enjoy reading about how to climb on/off the camel. I remember clinging onto the pommel for dear life as Missouri was slow getting up from the ground, then suddenly shot up in the air. My mother, who preached to me since I was a young child not to try on other people’s hats was horrified when I told her about the headdress and she later saw my pictures. As a young girl, a classmate came to her school with lice and my grandmother made her shave her hair off, close to the scalp like a man’s haircut and so she used herself as an example.
Thank you – my blog has really evolved as I began with one-paragraph posts with one-word titles and no pictures. Interesting about only one commenter and often I will forward a link from awhile ago -this was the year I began my blog and my friend Marge never commented. Once she got a smartphone and tablet she always commented – maybe her computer was down that day. That commenter was Norwegian and stopped commenting a year or so later.
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