Another great thing about 2005 is that I have managed to pretty much skip winter this year with the (relatively) mild weather in Chicago and my frequent trips to sunny Mexico!

The flight south was awesome, because I got upgraded to first class! It really is the only way to fly. When we got into Guzman after the long drive from Guadalajara Sofi's mom dropped us off at the Joan Sebastian concert, where we met up with many of Sofi's relatives for the show. While I can't say it was my favourite concert, I did have a good time and lots of beer with good friends and the woman I love so that qualifies as a good time. The experience was great and I did enjoy many of the songs. Even though I didn't understand many of the words Sofi was kind enough to translate when it counted ;)

I got up pretty early considering we were up past 2AM the night before. We had a great breakfast/brunch at Sofi's house and then we hit the road to deliver wedding invitations to family and friends about town. We took a break in the afternoon with Sofi's sisters and spent a couple hours eating and bowling at Sofi's uncle's bowling alley, which was fun. We spent the rest of the day delivering invitations and making a CD for the DJ to play at the wedding. That night we went out for tacos with a lot of family which were really good. When we got home we watched TV and quite possibly saw my future niece Isabel take her first real steps on her own!

After a great breakfast me, Sofi, Miguel, and Vero went to the farm and picked up Sofi's dad and we all drove to Guadalajara together. They dropped me off at the airport and I spent the rest of the day squished in Coach all the way back to Chicago. I passed the time reading and then watched Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story on my laptop, which was pretty much brutal. It is a fabulous example of a group of people phoning it in, meaning I don't recommend it at all! When we landed the line in immigration was huge, so I spent over an hour standing in it. Other than that small inconvenience, another super weekend is in the books!

I'm heading to Vancouver this weekend on Friday afternoon and expect to spend a few days having fun with Colby and Bernie and Jae before my conference starts on Monday. I'm going to be flying to L.A. Tuesday night after it's over and taking the red-eye to Chicago so I can get to work on time on Wednesday, which should prove to be an interesting experience :S

Last weekend was another great time in America's capital!

Nick picked me up at the airport and the copious amounts of booze in the back of his Jeep meant we were in for a good time. We went back to the hotel and had a few drinks and took care of some business before hopping in a cab with a bunch of Nick's co-workers destined for downtown and the Topaz Bar. We sucked back $10 (USD) martinis and lived the good life in style. A very generous acquaintance of Nick's grabbed the tab and we hit the road in search of more fun. We stopped in an English pub and enjoyed more fine drinks, this time free of charge thanks to an insider in our party who knew the bartender. From then it was back on the road in search of more great places to enjoy. D.C. is like that, you can just go from block to block for miles enjoying any type of anything you might desire. At least, you can enjoy whatever you want until the bouncers stop letting you in because you are too drunk! After I got the word me and Nick got in a cab bound back for Georgetown. We got out and grabbed some pizza before we made the long walk home, with me singing and rapping all the way to the delight of none of the people we encountered on the way home!

Saturday was relax mode for me. I spent most of the day sleeping or watching TV as Nick was out and about on work-related assignment. That night we went to the Paper Moon for some fine Italian food and then stopped off for ice cream at a local parlour. We were going to check out a movie but decided that it might be best to call it a night after staying out all night the night before.

Sunday was a great day I won't soon forget. We got up and had some great bourbon chicken at Kelly's Cajun Grill in the mall in Pentagon City. Afterwards, we took a very long tour of Arlington National Cemetery, which was truly awe-inspiring. The view from the top of the hill is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. We even lucked out and got to witness The Changing of the Guard. The guarding of the tomb has gone on uninterrupted since 1948! We spent some time afterward enjoying Starbucks (avoid Chantico (chan-TE-ko) like the plague unless you enjoy eating cases of chocolate bars for meals) in Alexandria and then later we drove up the road past George Washington's house before Nick dropped me off at the airport. The only downside to the whole weekend was the fact that my plane was delayed for three hours, most of that on the tarmac, but even that was okay since I got to watch a movie, Ladder 49, which wasn't anything special but was still enough to hold my attention.

Kudos to Nick for once again being a great host! It's very much appreciated, buddy!

This week has had its ups and downs at work with a due date next week looming, so been busy putting in a bit longer hours than usual. This weekend I'm heading to Mexico and I honestly can't wait. We might be checking out a banda concert on Friday, which could be fun, but honestly just being there is going to be fabulous, as usual :)

I would just like to personally thank each and every member of the NHLPA for being the greedy bastards that they are, putting thousands of people out of work and denying millions more the sport they love, for no other reason than shameless self-interest.

I won't go into details because there is a wealth of information out there about how ridiculous the players' position is.

The best album of 2004 was one that you may not have even heard of. You won't see its videos on TV and you can't buy it in stores, but you can download it online!

Here's a summary from DJ Danger Mouse's website:

Danger Mouse raised the bar on hip hop experimentalism by dropping the infamous Grey Album, which used the full vocal content of Jay-Z's Black Album, recorded over new beats and production created using the Beatles White Album as its sole source material. The resulting record is a unique hybrid of work, a re-interpretation being touted as the one of greatest remix albums of all time. With one million downloads in a week and ensuing battle between major record companies, the media, Internet and copyright advocates, the release of the Grey Album has been nothing less than a watershed moment for music.

I got exposed to this CD about six months or so ago and for the last couple months especially I have been listening to it on a regular basis. In short, it is absolutely brilliant. Forget about those other "remixes" you might have downloaded from the Internet - this thing is from scratch using the highest quality source material. In fact, remix just doesn't do it justice; a better word would be re-imagination. Eminem isn't kidding when he says that he's better than 99% of rappers out there, because records of quality can be few and far between in the land of hip-hop. If you're looking for that other 1%, you've found it in the Grey Album.

So, while Nick and I are living it up this weekend in Washington, D.C. on someone else's tab, why not take a break from your pathetic life and download it today?

I think a lot of people don't respect the fact that George W. Bush doesn't (or at least says he doesn't) read the papers or watch the news. I didn't at first, I'm not sure I do now, but I do understand at least one aspect of it. I dealt with it a lot, up close and in person, during my semblance of public office. It is a terrible feeling to pick up a paper, turn on a TV, or open up a web browser only to find the most vitriolic rage a person can muster pointed squarely in your direction.

It's even more disappointing when this awful display of some of the worst of humankind is perpetrated by people who claim to want the best for it. It really makes it hard to listen to them afterwards, but I know I am not going to give up, because we both live on the same planet and it's getting smaller every day.

If you can't respect that, your whole perspective is whack...

I was chatting with Sofi's friend Vanessa this past week, and she was telling me about how she was organizing a despedida de soltera for Sofi (literally translated as "goodbye as a single person", or what we would call a "stagette"). I remarked that I was probably not even going to have a stag, for a number of reasons. One reason is that I'm really not going to be in Regina at all before the wedding. Another reason might be that I am not having a wedding party and hence there is no responsibility for such a gathering "assigned" to anyone. It's also important for you to know that in my peer group over the years I have done the majority of event planning for everyone, so I wasn't sure if anybody would have the initiative or the capability to pull something off. I am happy to report that I was wrong on pretty much all counts.

This past weekend started off innocently enough. I was coming home to Regina for only 36 hours, and every single one of those hours was accounted for in terms of wedding-related activities that I had to do (like mailing invitations, etc.), personal stuff to take care of (haircut) and work things that I can only do in Regina (like submit travel expenses). I had a lot of stuff to do and only one weekend to do it. Still, I thought Friday would be a good night to go out and socialize with whoever was able, and then I would have all day on Saturday to get finished the things I needed to do.

I had talked to Mike earlier in the week - he volunteered to pick me up from the airport and then we'd play it by ear and go somewhere for a few social drinks. I had talked with a few other people as well, like Brad and Blair and Zab about joining us. We had no set plans but I was to call everybody when I got into town. My plane was delayed but we landed around 10pm. I asked Mike where he wanted to go and was surprised to hear him immediately say The Barley Mill, a place I'm fond of so he got no argument from me. I went about my business of calling everyone and letting them know what the plan was. Little did I know that everybody I had been calling was already at the same place ...

We get to the Barley Mill and no sooner do I look at the back of the place do I see pretty much all my friends in Regina! The jig was up - everybody was there to celebrate the impending end of my spectacular failure of a single life. The best part about it was that I had absolutely no idea it was happening and everybody totally fooled me. The worst part about it was that I knew what was next - a big party, and one that I could not afford to take part in because I had so much to do over the weekend. The choice was clear: leave the place early to get my work done and insult my friends who went to the big trouble of organizing this shindig for me, or drink lots of alcohol on their tab and make me and them happy. I should also mention that this decision took a lot less time to make then it did to type the preceeeding sentence! The sight of the three tequila shots on the table also helped :) We pretty much closed down the place and then went to Brad's to finish off the night playing cards and boozing some more. Many props to everyone who showed up for the festivities and especially to Brad and Mike for their central roles in pulling off the surprise and the event!!! It was great!!!

The drinks were free but I still paid a price for having such a good time. The next day was particularly hellish. I can honestly say that I cannot remember vomiting so much in my lifetime. Thanks to Brad for driving me home that afternoon and to Marco for giving me a hand in picking up some much needed supplies (stamps!) and babysitting me on the way to full recovery. I had to cancel my haircut because I wasn't finally mobile until around 8PM or so. My parents stopped by briefly to drop off some pictures that I needed since I wasn't able to head to their place during the day to pick them up. I had a shower and went to work to fill out my paperwork and stopped to grab some food on the way home. By the time I had had food and watched Ortiz beat Belfort in UFC 51, it was midnight before I even started any of my work. Many thanks go out to Marco for staying up late and helping me with the wedding invitations, which were complete around 4AM. Marco hit the sack and I kept going, scanning childhood photographs for the wedding program until around 7AM in the morning. I finished watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (don't bother watching - not a whole lot of funny in that one) and by that time it was time to shower and head to the airport to go back to Chicago.

I didn't sleep much on the plane back, so I was pretty tired by the time the plane landed. The Super Bowl was a great game, but I didn't see the end of it, because I passed out in the third quarter and didn't get up until the wee hours of the morning :( I also missed the debut of American Dad, so I'm pretty disappointed about that as well. I'll have to download it soon...

Last week at work was pretty brutal, because I was sick for pretty much the entire week. I had some stuff that had to get done so I couldn't take a day off so I had to trudge through each day whether I was physically able or not. I'm hoping I am done with being sick for the near future!

This week promised to be better than the last one, and this weekend I'm going to Washington, D.C. to visit with Nick. I'm sure we'll have a good time - it's hard not to in Capital City USA!

CNN headline: Rice: Attack on Iran 'not on agenda'

CBC headline: Attack on Iran not planned 'at this point': Rice

Can you spot the difference?

It's time the media got started on Dan Gillmor's pillars of good journalism, because nobody's falling for "objectivity" anymore.

Mexico is an awesome place to spend a weekend. I left early Friday morning and didn't get back into Chicago until noon today. It was a busy weekend - lots of wedding-related activities like getting fitted for my outfit and folding invitations. We even had a chance to check out a movie, Ocean's Twelve. It wasn't as good as the first one, but it wasn't two hours wasted - I had a good time :) Perhaps the highlight of the weekend was when me, Sofi, and her dad drove out to a nearby town on Saturday night to check out some honest-to-goodness cockfighting! It was quite the experience. It would be a lot of fun to go there with the boys for a night of drinking and gambling. I managed to control myself and only lost 100 pesos. Otherwise, we spent a lot of time with both sides of the family on the weekend - great food and great company!

Me and my future niece!

Me and my future bride!

I'm heading home this weekend, and I plan to spend most of my short time home mailing wedding invitations. Mike is picking me up from the airport on Friday night and we're heading out on the town. I'm going to my folks' place for supper on Saturday and then I'm back on the plane to Chicago on Sunday. Anybody else interested in heading out on Friday night?