Merry Christmas - USA

Location : Gulf of Mexico

Wish you all a very happy christmas and new Year!

This is a very beautiful stamp issued by the USPS on christmas and I am
actually trying to collect stamps based on paintings of great painters.
Especially Van Gogh. Let me know if you guys have any to spare.

Mansoor Ji - Thanks for commenting. I would love to send you a couple of
Paquebot mails. But as I don't have internet, I can't go on your blog to
check your mailing id. Drop your address in the comments and I will get the
notification. Sadly, US post is very bad in Paquebot mails and I have had so
many mails that were either rejected or not stamped at all. But hopefully
you should get a nice Paquebot from Mexico.

Happy Holidays

Location : Gulf Of mexico

Well the winter holidays are finally here, though we'll be lucky to even get
an anchorage over here so that we can relax a bit. Still, I hope you all
have a great and safe holiday.

Best Wishes!

Letters to Santa

Location : Off Houston

The fog set in again yesterday and it just might mean another extra day out
here at the anchorage. But the Telly is working here, so not much to
complain. The season to be merry seems to have set in on the Americans, and
crazy sales ads are the only things that seem to be on.

The whole nation seems to be firmly in the grip of the Christmas season,
though nobody seems to be sure of what role Christ had to play in the whole
event. I think this has firmly become an Santa event, with gifts becoming
the main focus. The last time I was in Macy's in Beaumont, TX, they had a
table set up for kids to write postcards to Santa.

I loved the concept. The Kids could write postcards to Santa, and mail them
right there in the Macy post-box. macy promised to donate 1 dollar for every
card that was dropped in their box up to a million dollars. Apart from the
fact of the donation of money, I love the concept of mails being written to
Santa. I need connection to the net to get more figures / fact on this, but
the USPS actually has a process for dealing with Santa mails that land up in
its post-boxes. If you register with the USPS, you can even get the Santa
mail delivered to you so that you can take action on mails that you want.
And be the defacto Santa.

I think its also a neat way to get children to write atleast a couple of
postcards a year. :)

I picked up a couple of cards myself and maybe I'll post one myself. I just
don't know how much postage its going to take to the Northpole!

USA - Gary Cooper

Location : Off Houston

The US government usually releases stamps in a series. This stamp is from
its "Legends of Hollywood" series and is actually the 15th in the series.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Gary Cooper, and though I have heard of the
movie, "High Noon" I haven't seen it or his other Oscar winning movie the
"Sergeant York". But I am a fan of the Western Genere. Where Cowboys whip
out guns on dusty streets and shoot down dastardly outlaws. Unless the hero
himself is an outlaw and shoots down the Dastardly sheriff. And then rides
off with the damsal in the sunset.

But that apart, I wanted to put up this stamp to show the great manner in
which USPS promotes understanding of the subject. Gary Cooper died in 1961
and its unlikely that even American Kids have much idea about who the chap
was. Writing a short note about him in the sides, adds so much value to the
collector. India releases so many "Personality stamps" every year. There
seems to be absolutely no reasoning behind the choice of people selected.
Unless a FDC is released on the person, there is no written info provided to
tell you anything about the concerned person.

If the Indian post put in just a little more imagination and inserted a
couple of lines about the achievements of the person or subject, wouldn't
that be great. After all, one assumes that if a person deserves to be on a
stamp, he must have done atleast enough to merit a couple of lines!

Mexico - 100 yrs of aviation

Location : Gulf of Mexico

If I am not mistaken, the first flight by the Wright brothers was made in
1909. As a result countries around the world have released stamps to
comemorate the 100 years of aviation.

I had already acquired the sheet released by India during my vacation, so
was pleasently surprised to find the Mexican sheet still on sale.

This was an added bonus because I also collect stamps of Airplanes /
Military.

Incase you guys have your own country's stamps on this subject, it would be
great to exchange them.

PS : Cheers All! Thanks for the many comments.

Mansoor ji: Do let me know which subjects you collect on and I can buy an
extra set for you.

Lefung : The twon where I go to in Mexico has a very small post office and
they didn't have the polar stamps on sale. But I will send you a postcard
from the place the next time I visit. Let me know if you need any other
stamps that I put up here.

Gulfman : Thanks for the wishes. Good luck to you too.

Gulf coast lighthouses

It is always a pleasure when your hobby intersects with your job. So I
though it an amazing coincidence when I found this sheet of the "Gulf Coast
lighthouses in the USPS store - especially when I am going to be on the US
Gulf coast for the next few months.

The lighthouses shown here are the (from L to R) - Matagorda Island - Texas
, Sabine pass- Louisiana , Biloxi - Mississippi , Sand Island - Alabama and
Fort Jefferson - Florida. As you can see, they pretty much seem to have
picked one light house from each state on the Gulf coast. I had not
known till last year that there was also a state called Mississippi.

As luck would have it, the very next port we went over to was Beaumont, TX,
for
which we had to go over the Sabine River. Which ofcourse mandated that we
pass within hailing distance of our Lighthouse No 2. The description behind
the stamp described the lighthouse as follows:

"Erected on soft, marshy ground in Louisiana, Sabine pass light house
features eight buttresses that stabilize the heavy brick structure and give
it a distinct missile like shape. Completed in 1856, the light house was
deactivated in 1952 and is currently closed to public. "

I do like the American method or giving a slight detail behind the stamp. It
is an example that should be followed more by the other countries.

I just had my Iphone to take the picture with, but there certainly was no
brilliant Mississippi sunset in the background or Herons prancing around in
the foreground as in the stamp sheet.

The pilot claimed that someone from Houston had bought the lighthouse for
18,000 dollars. When asked why, he said that he had never owned a light
house before. As per the pilot, " In Texas, that's as good a reason as any."

Back on ship - The Simpsons

Location : Mexico

I know its been a log time since I blogged, but I am back on my ship and so
I am back to blogging about my stamps as well. It was a great vacation and I
had the funnest of times at home with family. Thanks to all of you who
wished me well and thanks again to all of you who came back to this blog to
see if any thing was still being written.

I joined the ship in New Orleans USA and even though I couldn't make it to
the main post office, I did manage to get to one of the smaller ones and got
a handful of current stamps. Since I am a fond collecter of cartoon and
comics stamps, I was glad to get the "simpsons stamps" which have been out
for some time, but I didn't have them as I have not been exchanging for some
time now.

Its sad that the USPS came out with just five stamps of these characters as
it would have been neat to have a miniature sheet of these guys.

Lets hope that I can get more regular with my postings. Also if you people
want some stamps from this part of the world ( US - Mexico), please do let
me know in the comments section.

PS: If anyone is reading this in France (Eric?), please let me have the
miniature of the Astrix Stamps that was released recently. Let me know what
you need.