More political propaganda

Not only is it nicely designed, but it's funny, too. Bonus.

rally today

Went to the Obama rally at Civic park today. It was a short bike ride away, so we figured we'd check it. Couldn't see the stage there was so many people there. People were really fired up, tho.

Thought this was fitting.

After we busted LSU's chops this weekend, I thought this image was a good one. Now, we just gotta keep it together this weekend....HUGE game in Jacksonville.

NFL makes british ladies hot.

This captured from today's game in Wembley stadium in London. Was the Saints playing the Chargers. Guess American football gets Brit ladies excited.

Full facial hair chart:

This pic looks small. see if it gets bigger when you click it. if not, you can see it here.

holy crap this is funny

If I were drinking milk when I watched this, it woulda shot outta my nostrils and made my keyboard soggy.

Really funny that A) you would spend that much time rehearsing that routine- which was done a lot to memorize all those moves B) that you would then record yourself so you could watch it or share it C) that you own that outfit. Classic.

Watch it here.

Guatemala and Honduras

So, I put up some of my fav pics from the last half of our trip on flickr. check 'em out here.

I gave in.

I have resisted joining Facebook for a while. But Mere joined and for some reason that made me give in and do it.

I like the thought:

a cool site my friend Jamie sent me for providing young adults with cancer some tools to live.

back to reality.

Air travel is surreal. One morning you're sipping a coffee in Guatemala, that night a sparking water on your couch watching Saturday Night Live. It's fantastic.

it harder to sleep in guatemala

between the tuk-tuks, the f´ing roosters (one crowed ALL night long last night right by our place), the bird squakings, the hard beds and the early rising travelers speaking some loud consonant-ridden language like dutch or swedish, it´s hard to sleep in. we´ve tried, but not been very successful in these last two weeks. oh, i´m not complaining, i´m just rationalizing to myself something good about going home (my bed). i always to that when a trip is coming to an end and i wish it wasn´t.

we have figured out to keep the tv, if there is one, or music on low all night and that sorta drowns stuff out. The dreams get strange with all night reggae or spanish tv stations, tho.

guatemalan food

so, guatemalans don´t like spicy food. ¿strange, right? it took a while to figure out, as i´m a total puss with spicy stuff, so i was ordering blander stuff, being careful. eventually we realized they dont like hot stuff. if it´s hot, it´s "mexican". and, there´s not a whole lot of traditional food, either. we found a few traditional curries, and that was mostly it. oh, and they mash black beans into paste. not much else. and, they seem to love fried chicken (convenient, i do too. not been on the cancer diet, but screw it, i´m on vacation). the closest thing we found to local specialties was pollo campero. basically kfc for central america. oh, yes, we tried it. super good.

we´ve been up in some cool traiditonal towns around lake atitlan the last four days and it´s been cool seeing all the locals dressed in traditional garb. we took some pics. basically really patterny stuff, and patterns one everything the ladies wear. some men, too. the scenery is super amazing (mtns surrounding blue water), and the weather nice and cool come the afternoon rains. it´s rainy season, so it pretty much rains every afternoon. sunny in the mornings, tho, and amazing to wake up to.

we kayaked over to san marcos la leguna yesterday and had lunch. was really fun, but i can barely lift my shoulders today. so sore. today we woke up and had a nice breafast on the shore, then hit a boat across to panajachel, the larger of the towns around the lake. we´ll hang here tonight, then shuttle it thru the mtns to antigua tomorrow for one last night there then to the port. bout to go set up our shuttles then have some tacos and a brew.

while i´m always bummed to have a trip wind ùp, i´m feeling like we really had a long time away. strangely, i´m not so sad to go home. kinda looking forward to my bed, my dogs, my other clothes. we got to see a lot here- beaches, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, jungles, locals, ruins, animals and plants galore. it was truly a blast and super refreshing. i will now enter into my life again with a new found appreciation for the lovely things i have and sometimes take for granted.

oh, and before i ever come to a spanish speaking country again i´m taking an espanol class. i have managed over the years to pick some up, but screw not being able to talk to people. it´s for the birds. next time i will learn before i come.

san pedro la laguna

after a kidney jiggling 2hour shuttle over bumpy mountain roads and a 40 minute organ jostling ferry ride across a choppy lake we finally arrived in san pedro. Its one of 6 or 7 small villages around Lake Atitlan in the highlands of Guatemala. We arrived in Panajachel and saw a little of it on the ride in, then immediately jumped a boat and headed to San Pedro. We plan on also checking out Santa Cruz la laguna as well.

the lake atitlan area is amazing, huge mountains surrounding a turquoise blue lake. it was quite rainy and cold on the way in yesterday, and pretty much rained off and on all night. but, we awoke to an amazing day, and the views from our window are just stunning -a great hotel to which the backpackers here say is expensive. it only costs 25$. its got amazing views of the lake and mountains and has the best little restaurant next door. you literally walk down a path and sit at tables right on the edge of the lake. have´nt had breakfast with such a view in as long as i can remember. and the weather was abolutely pefect. not too hot in the sun, crisp in the shade.

we´´ve had great food here, too, and have finally found some authentic guatemalan food. man, took a while. there is a lot of not-that-great stuff we´ve eaten, but not here. i had a great guatemalan red curry last night that was outstanding. and our other two meals today have been great, and prob about 10$ each for both of us. Beers last night were about 1.25 each. cheap!

the ecosystem is interesting here. still tropical, but pine trees are around, too, and it gets pretty cool at night. we were in pants, shoes and sweatshirt last night. Great sleeping weather. oh, and it´s sunny in the am, cloudy in the afternoon.

all in all, liking this town a good bit. we´ll head off to maybe climb one of the volcanoes around the town or to hike to another town to explore tomorrow. should be fun. we plan to hang here another night or two, then check out santa cruz, then we´re either doing our last night in panajachel or, if there´s no aiport shuttle, heading to antigua for one more night (its only 45 mins from the airport with no traffic). we had planned on going down to a surf camp for the last couple nights, but we´re totally beat from all the traveling around. it´d be another 5 hour trek and then back to the airport from there in a few days. so far we´ve spent about 3 or 4 days on the road on this trip, and we´re gonna just chill and make the most of the rest of our time.

whew

well, let me say, watching the dawgs in roatan was a blast. glad they won, and ended up meeting a local from uga who we watched with. so darn fun. the bar our mutual friends had was quite the locals hang and we met tons of expats our age from the US. was real cool to see their community down there. and that night was the grand opening and the honduras v canada soccer game so a lot of peeps turned out. if anyone is ever going to roatan, ask me and i´ll direct you to this place. they rent rooms and have a great pool and bar and food and its a great place.

so, yestrday was so long. we woke up and started our travels at 6am. it went ride to ferry into ferry into cab into bus into bus into bus into cab and we finally got to our room in antigua at 11.30 pm. holy crap that was a long day. the upside is that we´re back near guatemala city where we fly out of next saturday and we head up to lake atitlan today for some exploring up there. the ride thru all the countryside was nice. it´s so beautiful here. think mountains only they are covered in tropical lushness. so amazing. the temps in roatan were very hot and humid and it´s nice and crisp and cool up here in the mountains. and, we get to retake some photos we took here last week. win-win, we think. so, we´´re off in a few hours, onto more adventures. more to come..

take the good with the bad

well, we're still in roatan. we thought we were leaving today but sometimes stuff just doesnt work out. thus far everything has just gone our way (knocks wood),but yesterday was just not our day. mere and i rented a scooter to cruise the island and to go to the airport to pay for our plane tix outta here. our very nice hotel operator had an employee call and reserve us tix, as we thought since we're only down here a few weeks (most people you meet are on VERY extended travels) we should avoid the ol' 13 hour bus ride back over to guatemala and treat ourselves to plane tickets. strangely, as we tried to pay for them at the Taca air desk, they had no reservations for us, and were totally booked. o, we've spent the last 24hrs scrambling to figure alternate plans. we could have left today, but we'd have missed our bus, and would have been stuck in La Cieba overnight. so, we're still here and catching the 7am ferry tomorrow, then bussing all day back to Antigua in Gautemala. Then, we'll wake up and finish the journey to panajachel, which is one of the cool little towns around lake Atitlan. whew, gonna be another long day on the road, but better to be one instead of two. another sad note was yesterday we accidentally erased all our photos, so today we've been trying to recreate as many as we can. like i said, yesterday was not our day.

so, all in all, this island has been great. done lots of stuff and met lots of good people, but we're ready to move on and to see some different things. it's real hot and sticky here, and we're looking forward to some cooler temps up in the mtns. yes, we're spoiled coloradans. thankfully, tho, we've managed to escape the hurricane season down here with sunny weather. it's been real nice.

also, our friend emily emailed us and let us know she has some friends running a kitchen up the road from the west end here in roatan. unfortunately we didn't check email until a few days ago, but we went by yesterday and said hello. they've got a real cool little spot, with the grand opening tonight. we didnt think we'd be back, but since we're here still, they told me they'd have the uga/tenn game on their 47inch samsung flatscreen. so, we're on our way after this. we're bummed we're not flying today, but at least I get to watch the game! see, there's a silver lining in every cloud.

we be in roatan

first off, it's been a few days. internet is not super avail here on the island, so we've come into to town for food and computers.

well, since i last posted, we've made some serious tracks. we got up the next am really early and bussed over to the carribean and ferried to roatan. we left at 5am and got to our (very sweet) bungalow at 6.30pm. wiped-13hour day. as you can imagine, we were very much looking forward to staying put after many days on the move.

so, roatan is really great. we have had a blast so far and haven't even really had a chance to explore the island. we got a scooter today, so tomorrow is exploration time. the first day we spent catching up on rest, hanging on the beach and snorkling. the reef is just a few mins swim out from shore. our place is a great little set of 6 bungalows across the street from the beach. it's owned by some expats, and is a nice change from all the resorts up and down the beach. they are bigger and overpriced. the beach is really beautiful, and is the best on the island. white sands, turquiose water, lots of coral and fish. love it. anyway, we played the day away and walked up to the nearest town (west end is 40 mins up the beach) for dinner and a few evening drinks at the local watering hole with all the haggared expats. met some interesting, yet strange people. mere and i are remebering that we love this about traveling. the act iteself is fun, the scenery and adventure amazing, but the people you meet along the way are the icing on the cake. we've made new friends from all over europe, cuba, south america and central am already. they all have very interesting stories to tell and make us wish we had more time, more money and no job. we could do this forever. time to start buying lottos again i suppose.

so, our second day here we started the diving. we did two dives with two instructors! one was the dive master, the other a divemaster in training and then just us two. talk about one on one. our one guide was from argentina, been traveling for 4 yrs before settling here and living for 4 yrs and was so great to us. the other in training was from cali and here getting divemasters cert before doing an around the world trip with his wife. they talked us thru everything and by the middle of the first dive i realized i had this. equalizing my right ear has been a bit of a trick, but i've got it finally figured out. so, we did two dives and by the second one, since it was just me and mere and they knew i was already very comfy down there, they had us swimming up thru channels in the coral. super duper cool. saw some big puffers and a huge eel on top of your many corals, fishes and the like. oh, and a ray, too. was great. we finished my last two certification dives today and there was actually another couple with us as well. we did another two great dives, and we saw some sweet turtles, which is waht i most wanted to see. i love it. i can see mere and i exploring lots of oceansides in our lifetime together.

so, we're not even half way and i can't believe the adventures we've had so far. i look around and thank my lucky stars i'm doing this every day. altho everyone we meet is living here, traveling for a year, on one of their 6 weeks of paid vacay (euros) or just traveling with no end ever in sight...i realize i'm a lucky guy(but jealous of them). I was laying on the beach today and looking up at the sky. I had the edges of palm leaves in my view and lots of sky. It suddenly hit me: this is what i saw every day i went to chemotherapy. The chemo people put a transparency of this exact view over the flourescent lights in the chemo ward, and so while you look up you see palm trees and blue skies instead of horrid flourescent lights. not sure if this helped or was a cruel joke, but it got mere and i talking. we used the thoughts of sitting on a beach REALLY seeing that view as our motivation to make it thru all those times when i was just really pissed off at everything. well, today was the day. I made it. i finally freaking made it. can't say enuf about how gracious i am about this.

so, i'm remebering that life is an amazing gift whether you're living it day to day in the US, or whether you're loving the days down in central america. that being said, vacation is good.

one last thing: as i type this, i see about 4 geckos outside the window catching bugs. so cool. we dont have lizards in the high west, and i'm loving being back in the jungle. it reminds me of living back in GA and the birds, bugs, plants and animals are amazing, much less the marine life. all i need is to see a monkey and i've seen it all.

ok, that was a lot of typing. off to hit some seafood and salve vida's (the beer i'm liking here). time to celebrate this kid being certified to scuba. everythime i say this word i think of that scene in "along came polly" when hank azaria asks stiller "are you for scuba". sorry, cant stop it. the only decent part of that whole movie.

so far so good...

Well, we made it. mostly, at least. our flight out of denver at 1am was a toughie, but we managed to get a few hours rest on it before landing at 5ish atlanta time (3 colorado!). we had an hour or so to nap and eat before some family arrived to visit for a few hours (was great to see ém) and then we were off again to guatemala city. we were too excited to sleep any more, which was prob not the smartest move ever. so, we landed and were expecting a cab to take us to another shuttle that we pre arranged to take us to copan. well, of course the guy wasnt there. one thing my last year of my life has taught me: roll with the punches. so, we went with plan b and got a cab to the town of antigua. by the way, this spanish keyboard is not allowing capitals most of the time. sorry. ç

anyway, we got a cab an hour or so to antigua and it was a great little town. really cool architecture and up in the jungle covered mountains. really nice. we immediately found a room, droppèd the bags and started exploring. we searched and searched for a guatemalan food place, and found nothing of the sort. thought maybe it was because it was so touristy, but have come to learn that they pretty much don´t have much of a ´specialty´. I´m told pollo campero is the closest thing they have to guatemalan. it´s basically their version of kfc. havent had it yet (but will), and am not givin up on finding something authentic.

so, we found a shuttle to get us to copan today to see the ruins. only problem is it picked us up at 3:45 am. needless to say, that´s where the needing rest comes into play. we were already exhausted, but getting up at that hour was rough. we managed to hit the sack early last night, but it still was a tough morning. to top it off, the shuttle was totally packed and i got the last seat which was in the back row (uber bouncy) and was very very tight. six hours of my knees in the seat in front of me. mere had the middle front row which was next to the driver and really small. neither of us loved that ride. but, we made here by 10am and have explored copan and the mayan ruins all day. the ruins were built in teh 8th century by hand, basically, and are really neat. was a great day, and feels like we´ve been gone forever already.

we met all kinds of cool peeps so far(met the girl who writes the lonely planet book for guatemala and hawaii), and are excited about all the adventures to come. needless to say we´re whipped. we get another bus (this time splurged for the ëxecutive bus with tv and air and bathrooms and reclining seats<) for an 8 hour ride at 5.15 am tomorrow. yes, it´s early, but if we get on that one, we can catch the ferry in la cieba and not have to stay there tomorrow night. that means we can be on roatan by tomorrow afternoon, and we´re fired up to see the ocean. ok, gotta go meet mere down the block for a gallo (kind of beer. good stuff.) and a bite. Miss and love everyone. will be back here soon to update as we have more adventures!

Getting there..

almost done packing. one last music session after work with the guys tomorrow, then home to grab the gear and off to the port. FUN!

Sometimes negative is positive

Loving the good news! Results of the CT scan are NEGATIVE! woo woo!

Time to go on vacation (tomorrow night) and have a good time.

On the road

Just a few days until Mere and I go on vacation! Needless to say we're excited about it. Def a lot of jamming things out all week at work and at home to be ready (we fly out Friday night LATE) to go. As of Friday we're gone for two weeks in Guatemala and Honduras, so I'll be signing off here for a minute.

Lots of pics to follow our return.

Veep

Kinda interested to see some of the VP debates tomorrow. The first presidential one seemed pretty average, not much happening, no one seeming really dominant or saying much in specific detail. Kinda expected, I guess.

But, after watching some of the Palin/Couric interview, I'm hoping they let Palin loose tomorrow. I have the feeling she could say something interesting. Some of the stuff on the Couric interview was both humorous and a little scary at the same time.