galapagos. more photos have been posted to flickr. to get a detailed day-by-day i suggest reading ryan's account; i dont plan to post what limited record i wrote in my pen and paper journal, and i know i won't see everyone to tell them in person. i do plan to have some form of get together to show photos and talk about the trip and drink whisky. stay tuned for more on that.

pictures. ok ok, days 1-3 are now up on flickr. more as i can get to them.

travel. i´m in quito at the hotel. the trip has been amazing. i´m exhausted. tons of pictures to sift through tomorrow when i get back, then you´ll see some.

galapagos. tomorrow i leave for the much anticipated trip to the galapagos. i'll be gone for two weeks. hopefully i'll have plenty of new pictures for your browsing pleasure upon my return.

happy easter! it was a spectacular day here in nyc. the skies were clear, sun was warm and the breeze was cool. after church this morning, alicia and i had a bite to hold us over until dinner. we went food shopping (at whole foods, which is quite the adventure on a weekend) and made dinner back at her apartment. we had bread and hummus for a starter/snack while cooking, an asparagus, lemon, and mushroom pasta dish. and ended with the well reknown Guinness chocolate cake. yes, i ate two pieces.

opera. i saw my first opera tonight. we got comp' tickets to don giovanni at new york city opera. i enjoyed it, but was glad to have someone much more educated in the subject to fill in or point out details i would have otherwise not picked up on. there were a couple mistakes i was surprised to see at that level, but enjoyable over all.

food stores. so, there is a whole foods in union square, thats been there for about a year. recenlty, a trader joe's also opened near union square. yeah!

go to church, live longer?

baptism. i'm godfather all over again after this weekend. on sunday d&s's son was baptized and a. and i spent the weekend with them. it turned out to be a great weekend as the weather was as beautiful as all the people that came to celebrate. will was really good all weekend considering all the new faces and excitement all weekend. hopefully he--and his parents--are getting some more peaceful rest during the week.

i am also the proud new owner of a digital rebel xt. so, be sure to check flickr for more photos in the near future.

godfather. dave's son is getting baptized this weekend, so i'm off to philly. i can't wait to see him and everyone else.

pictures. for those that haven't noticed the new right hand link, i've signed up for a flickr account.

some long awaited photos from the whisky tasting. thanks d.

notable people that share my birthday are: Willard Scott, Tammy Faye Bakker, Franco Harris, Lynn Swan, and Rob Roy.

thanks to all those that sent me birthday wishes by phone, email or post over the past few days. i had a long day at work, but a lovely dinner and wonderfully chocolately dessert.

whisky tasting. so last night's whisky tasting was a success. there were five of us and five bottles of whisky. no, we didn't finish all of it. dave took some pictures, so hopefully he will share some and i'll post some here. we tasted the following (in order of tasting)

Auchentochan Three Wood
Aberlour 15
Arran Non-chillfiltered
Bowmore Darkest
Highland Park 12

Several of these were new to me, and in hindsight, I should have probably switched the order of the Aberlour and Arran. And in my taste, the Highland Park and Bowmore can go in either order.

A good time was had by all, and we finished the night in fine style with a trip to san loco for a bite of mexican.

This morning I slept in (12 hrs in all) and got out of bet around 2pm. Thankfully with little more than a minor headache from dehydration. This is pretty much to be expected.

alicia and i went to see "dog sees god" last night. it was excellent. great writing and acting. the writing did a great job of addressing big questions of the day, but also included the right amount of wittyness so you don't start taking the cartoon characters too serious.

i know my attendance has been sub par here, i'll try to improve.

got one for the thumb. the steelers won their 5th superbowl tonight, tying dallas and san francisco as the three teams with 5 rings. i can only image what its like back home.

whisky. so i'm planning to do a scotch whisky tasting at the apartment in a month or two. i started building my stock (it won't be cheap). yesterday i picked up bowmore darkest and auchentoshan triple wood. both were reasonably priced at the broadway liquor warehouse. and of course i had to make sure the bowmore was still as good as i remember it. i also need to pick up michael jackson's latest guide.