quick hits from SOTB
Back from "date night" and Sharaun decided to read a bit, so I, as usual, turned to the soft glow of my laptop screen. Just thought I'd do some quick hits from south of the border.
Keaton's pool floaty popped. She is still mourning.
People told me not to drink the water. I totally drink the water. Like, everyday I drink the water. No one can stop me now.
Tomorrow dawns day our sixth day in Mexico. Before I left, the ten day forecast for Playa Del Carmen showed rain and clouds every single day of our trip. So far, it hasn't rained a drop.
The trip to the "off resort" beach today was by and large a bust. Lots of walking under the burning Mexican sun for something we had in our backyard at the resort. From now on we're sticking to the beaches and pools right here where we're staying (they're better anyway...).
Sharaun and I went to some Mayan joint tonight for our date night, then strolled the shoplined streets down by the water. It was a great night out.
Spending all day in the water has done wonders for Keaton's "socialization" to the stuff. She's now much more outgoing when we're swimming, even to the point of wanting to jump in from the deck (only when dad has his arms out to catch her, thankfully though). Back in Hawaii in October, she was still pretty skittish.
Well, that's about all I've got.
Lastly, I've been trying not to spoil my post-vacation Keaton-gallery update, so 'll only post a couple quick pictures here. These, though, are a couple gems from the past couple days (see, she has more than that yellow bathing suit!).
Goodnight folks. Hasta whenever.
getting pruny
Hi guys. Had some time. Wrote some blog.
Tomorrow we break the poolside routine and catch a shuttle bus to a local beach for a few hours. Then it's "date night" for Sharaun and I while the friends we're vacationing with watch the kids (was our night tonight tending to their brood). The rest of the week looks to be much like the week thus far: getting pruny in the pool or sunning alongside it. Oh, and eating and sleeping... can't forget eating and sleeping.
Really though, most of my day is spent in the water. Keaton has a floaty thing she loves kicking around in, and I've been trying to invent a new game or two to play with her in it each day. So far, we have "spinning," which is (hopefully) self explanatory; "flying," which is when I lift her out of the water (still in her floaty), spin her over my head, and then splash her back down again. Today I invented "bouncing," which is, again, a pretty simple bobbing up and down, and "camelballs," which is what she calls it when I jump off the steps and splash her with a big wave (I called it "canonball," the name-change was something she came up with). Like I said, we've been getting pruny.
Well, from the balcony, the last bits of sunlight from another day in Mexico are slipping into the ocean, and Keaton wanted to drop into the blog to say "Hi" before she has to go to bed for the night.
Until later. Adios amigos.
hola amigos
Greetings from the therapeutic heat and humidity of far-from-work sunny Mexico.
A proper pictorial update when we're back.
Now, though, Keaton says she's ready to "float" again.
You'll find us poolside, sans watches and cellphones.
good to be home
A happy Friday to you, friends and enemies alike. I wrote some stuff again today, and you're about to read it, I think. Enjoy.
My time in Chicago was short. Not that I wanted it to be at all, let along long... but I had hoped we'd have landed earlier, as we were planning on making the most of the overnight delay and taking the train downtown for some pizza or something. We got in too late, though, and ended up eating a horrible and overpriced dinner at the hotel bar. After which neither of us had the will or determination to stay up and chat, so we retired to our respective rooms (cramped little odd-shaped holes off the main floor that must be reserved for airline comps).
In the end, I made it home and am glad to be back here in the 75° Californian weather with my two favorite girls. Keaton gave me a hero's welcome, and even colored me a picture as a homecoming gift. Sharaun appreciated the authentic South Carolina grits I brought her, and I was more than happy to change into a fresh pair of boxers. Good to be home.
Now then, let's close the week "In Pictures" with snaps from my Thursday. You'll have to live without Friday shots, as my night-before blogging schedule makes that impossible. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and I'll be sure to do it again sometime sooner than four years from now. For now though, here are some highlights from today (yesterday, as you're reading):
Well, almost time for me to sign off. I'll take this chance to remind you that it'll likely be a bit slow around here next week while we're all on a family vacation in Mexico. But, however strange it may seem, I am taking the laptop with me - so I could end up posting once or twice if I feel up to it (it's hard for me not to, being perfectly honest).
Oh, and, just quickly before I go - I wanted to note that I broke 200,000 pieces of blocked comment spam sometime in the past couple days. Incredible.
Goodnight.
kinda like a wolverine
Happy Thursday folks. I'm writing from a cramped table in an airport terminal (crowded with two laptops, two cellphones charging, and two beers). You'll find out why as you read on.
Since I won’t be home in sunny California until sometime around midnight tonight, I figured I should go ahead and write when I can. So, here I am, a lull in the second day of this two-day all-day meeting, writing a bit. I have time, actually… at lunch United sent me a text message saying the flight leaving here was delayed by more than an hour, which puts me right up against the connection in Chicago. Looks like I’ll most certainly miss that, and a couple calls to the airline and the company travel agent bore no fruit. So, I’m stuck hopping the flight to Chi-town and hoping for the best on the connection. Since I’m relatively sure I’ll end up missing the connection, I’ve been looking at what there is to do in Chicago. I’m traveling with my boss, so I would at least have an companion to bum around downtown with. We have enough time to get downtown, have some dinner and maybe walk around a bit.
Wait… wait a minute folks… this just in… the BlackBerry buzzed in my pocket. The text message tells me that our flight has been delayed again and missing the connection is now a certainty (I think I know why). Bummer. Now it’s so late it’s not even worth making the flight to spend an evening in Chicago… so it sounds like another evening in South Carolina. Yippee…
Today we had some free time that we used to grab a southern-style lunch and do some walking around downtown Columbia. I had sweet tea, shrimp and grits, and collard greens with pepper sauce to eat. Was delicious, and when I was done I spoke like Foghorn Leghorn for a full half hour. Afterward we walked into the only grits-mill that’s still active in South Carolina (apparently there were forty-one of them at a time). Finally, we drove over to the capital building and walked around the grounds a bit. And, last night on the way to dinner, one of the locals drove me around USC campus a bit. So, at least I got some culture out of the trip. And, being that this paragraph is the perfect lead-in for the Wednesday edition of “In Pictures.” Enjoy:
Transition: I'm going to change styles drastically, one of the negatives of not writing all in one sitting.
On a plane with a full bladder and the seatbelt light won't go off. Thumb-typing on the BlackBerry, I'm pretty fast now. Finally I break down and just go, I don't care if my singular rebellion is a catalyst for all-out anarchy or not - I have to pee. Decided to listen to the Wrens album from some years back, don't know why, other than that it almost always sounds perfect to me. The clouds below is look like a frothy ocean, they often do. They look all pillowy and soft, like we could bounce to a safe landing were we to plummet through them. Guess clouds are a little misleading, kinda like a wolverine (for some reason they look non-threatening to me).
I wonder how many other humans are in the air right now... thousands? Yeah, maybe tens of.
I think can smell my own feet; maybe it means I need new sneakers. Not a stinky smell, something more like sweet; maybe only I smell it. It makes me aware that I only brought enough clean underwear for a three day trip, didn't expect the extra night in Chicago. I hate reusing underwear.
The clouds broke. I see a big river down there, a factory alongside it, smoke coming from its smokestacks, and some mountains and roads. Wonder where we are? I hate that I'm so bad at geography. Makes me feel ignorant. Like I'm contributing to the stereotype of the dumb American who thinks he doesn't care about what he can't see.
From another hotel room, this time in Chicago - goodnight.
that’s all i’ve really got
Hi Tuesday folks, or Wednesday folks, as the case may be.
It's just after 9pm here and I'm already back at the hotel room for the night. The iPod has its heart set on jazz for some reason, and it's doing OK at setting a mood. Maybe not the most exciting mood, but certainly one that makes me want to sip whiskey and smoke. Too bad I'm doing neither. In fact, I've had this bugger of an itch in my throat all day long, and my sinuses were giving me trouble too. I'm hoping it's just a reaction to the thick dusting of yellow pine pollen that clings to everything around here, and not some illness which might take root and decide to blossom south of the border next week while we're on vacation.
Hey, while I've still got that "just started the post" momentum, I'm going to go ahead and jump to today's installment of "In Pictures." Not a whole heck of a lot to document today, just a long meeting and a fairly uneventful group meal afterward, but I managed to take a fair amount of snapshots anyway. I did take a quick tour of some of the highpoints of USC campus - but totally forgot to take pictures. Sometime after I got home I switched the little phone camera into "superfine" mode, so some images might look better than others. Here we are then, my Tuesday in brief:
Hope you enjoyed 'em.
The meeting today was long. I couldn't get to sleep at a decent hour last night, and I seem to react to a three-hour time-change more than tend to do going oversees on a long haul, so I was actively trying not to nod off after lunch. Eventually I just got up and stood by the wall, which is a tactic I use when those afternoon doldrums take the wind from my sails. It works well - it's much harder to fall asleep on your feet. The meeting itself was good, lots of good networking and handshaking and strategy-exchanging... all that wanna-be high-power business-school crap.
I miss Sharaun, and Keaton. Keaton most of all. Every time I hear her little voice in the background when I call Sharaun I just wish I could be there to scoop her up and kiss her. I'm really looking forward to next week when I have them all to myself in Mexico. Can't wait to get home and leave again, in fact.
Now then, that's all I've really got. Goodnight.
safe, sound, south
Safe and sound in South Carolina (bonus points for alliteration).
A happy Monday evening to you, folks. My day began early and looks to be ending late - at least when you take timezones into account. Going on eleven here in the SC, and I rolled my butt out of bed at 5am this morning back in sunny California. A couple of flights later and I touched down in the land of Cracker Barrel, Waffle House, and "smoking or non-smoking?" (Funny how you forget the little things.) Got to the hotel around seven and headed right out in search of some sustenance. Hit a local seafood joint the hotel-guy chatted up and wasn't too disappointed; had scallops and vegetables - I love scallops. Also enjoyed some fermented grains, as travel often demands.
Right now some Pink Floyd is playing. But, not just any Pink Floyd, mind you, no. This is a live performance of their classic Dark Side of the Moon LP for BBC radio in 1972. It's one of the most widely lauded Floyd bootlegs of the time period because the sound quality is simply amazing, and the live interpretation of the album is inspired, presenting a welcome change to fans who've memorized every single note of the storied long-player. It's making a great hotel room soundtrack for the short time I'll be awake prior to crashing. Anyway, if you simply have to hear it now, just turn to your friend and mine, Google, and hit this link for tons of win.
Before I get much more into this whole thing (not sure how much more I have in me, actually), I wanted to go ahead and do today's "In Pictures" bit. If you'll remember, I've chosen to document this week not only with my typical words, but also with images. I know it's sort of anti-climactic to see only a couple pictures from each day, but really... today was sort of boring to begin with - some eight hours of traveling doesn't really provide a wide and varied backdrop for composition. Deal.
Here, then, is my Monday... in pictures:
Now that that's over - what I really wanted to write about tonight.
So, on the plane today I somehow got stuck with a middle-seat (stupid United booking tool isn't supposed to do that to VIPs like me). Anyway, I had my iPod on for the entire flight, so I wasn't really interacting with the seatmates to my left and right, nor was I paying much attention to Alvin and the Chipmunks. In fact, between playing Ms. Pac Man and solitaire on the iPod, about the only thing I was doing was looking around the plane, watching people.
At some point during the flight I noticed that of the three seats in front of me, only the guy on the aisle had reclined. This created a little "gap" through which I could see most everything he did. I only mention this because, shortly after recognizing my voyeuristic opportunity, the guy actually began doing something worth watching. Pulling out his handheld PDA, he fired up what looked to be an e-book application, and several lines of large-print easy-to-read (even at my distance) text filled the screen of the device. At first I took notice simply because reading e-books on a PDA is something you don't see to often, although it's a use-model the marketing folks at Amazon would likely have us believe is widespread.
Of course, taking my nosiness to the next logical level, I began to read what the guy was reading. It really was quite easy, the text was large and the guy wasn't making any effort to conceal it (even from the guy seated to his immediate right in alongside him in his row). Pretty soon, certain special words began jumping off the screen and into my eyes: handcuffs, balls, slave, master, chains. Oh... oh.... what the... Yeah, that's right. Turns out, after following along with the guy as he thumb-scrolled through more than a few paragraphs, I found out he was reading some very hardcore sado-masochistic gay porn. Right there in the airplane, in front of the me, the stewardesses, and God himself - this guy was casually enjoying some totally raunchy gay porn.
Now completely interested, I simultaneously tried to get a better look at the man sitting in front of me enjoying his S&M gay porn on sold-out packed-to-the-gills airplane while also not neglecting to follow along with his chosen time-passing narrative. He was an extremely well-groomed guy, haircut couldn't have been more than a couple days old because I could still see telltale tanlines under the fresh cut. Asian or Pacific Islander or some mix of both (that matters how, I'm not sure), wearing glasses and dressed all biz-casual in dockers and a button-down long-sleeve shirt.
And, when I say he made no secret of his reading, I'm serious: He even continued reading when the stewardess took and delivered his drink order, PDA screen held in front of him where anyone with eyes close enough could read it. Outwardly, he was a totally regular fellow, the kind of guy you'd sit across the table from in a customer meeting, the kind of guy you'd ask to make sure he had his report to you by noon Friday, pretty unremarkable. Had he not been reading gay torture porn, I'd have been unsurprised to see him browsing an e-book edition of the NY Times or Grisham or playing e-sudoku. But nah... not for my guy, only the hardest-core freaky-freaky for him.
As for the story, I was actually able to pick up quite a bit of the plot: A man has been captured and made a sexual slave to several other men. He is kept chained up and is renamed "Nancy" by his captors (I'm being entirely serious right now, this is exactly what the story said). He is a heterosexual male, but his new masters make him do homosexual acts as part of his enslavement (which, in an entirely shocking twist, he eventually learns to enjoy). In addition to "attaching" him to various medieval-themed torture devices (chains, collars, weights, etc.), the "masters" give "Nancy" daily hormone injection shots so that he'll grow breasts. The writing was really rudimentary, all action, to-the-point and brief to a fault. For your benefit, I won't go into any more detail here, but rest assured it was about as exploitative and explicit as it could be (maybe that's the only flavor this literature comes in, who knows).
I was just in awe of homeboy - straight-up reading it right out in the open...
And guys, I wanted sooo bad to snap a picture of the guy reading his gay S&M smut for today's "In Pictures," but the BlackBerry doesn't provide a way to snap pictures without an accompanying faux-shutter "click" sound that's fairly audible to those in close proximity. I doubt the S&M guy would've heard or suspected, but it was bound to look odd to the guys sitting right and left of me. So, I chickened out - but I swear every word of the story is true. Funny what people dig, you know? You just never can tell...
(And... Kerry, if they don't block me today, I consider it a blank check for the future).
Goodnight from the dirty south friends, I'll have a bowl of grits 'n' cheese for you tomorrow AM.
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