Cabo -- Day Dos

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 12:14:25 -0700

This was a great day with one small caveat. We took the plunge and went to our first (and based on the way it turned out, our last) time share presentation. When we checked in each couple was offered $200 in hotel credit if we would agree to go through their “90 Minute” presentation. We of course eagerly agreed. The only qualifications were that you had to bring your wife (Chavo doesn’t have one) and the man has to be at least 28 years old (I’m lacking there). No worries we though. Surely those are just pretend restrictions.
We show up at the presentation and they’re looking at everybody’s ID to verify age and if you have no wife you have no free $200. Great. Just great.
In anticipation of the ID issue we all just left ours in our posh casita. They made us go back.
I’ll spare you the details but four hours later both Chad and Bridget and Jess and I are the proud new owners of timeshares here in beautiful Cabo San Lucas. We’ll be returning here every year for the next thirty. Play your cards right and you can come too.
This is what we looked like right after we signed the financing papers.

Oh yeah, one more thing. We didn’t really buy a time share. What, you think we’re crazy or something?

Cabo -- El Primera Dia

Sun, 2 Nov 2008 19:16:17 -0700

So...I guess I’ll just start off by saying that Cabo is alright. You’ll see from the pictures that we’re really taking one for the team here. I mean, we sit around most of the day talking about how rough it is here and how we’d rather be back in Abq working or something.
OK...so maybe it’s amazing here. Incredible. Stunning. Breathtaking. Muy Bueno. From our infinity pool which overlooks the pacific ocean and sunset beach, to our trip to Costco on the way in, to watching the “Cougaaars” last night at Cabo Wabo and the grinning marlin. Everything is amazing.
After not sleeping at all Friday night, getting to the airport at 4am, and flying for the next six or seven hours we finally arrived in Mexico. Of course, I think we almost got arrested right off when I mentioned that I was “Hotter than a hostage” on the plane. Apparently you shouldn’t talk about hostages when your on a plane. Who knew?
From the airport we went straight to El Costco to get some food and stuff. Then it was off to the hotel. I use the word “hotel” loosely as we’re really staying in a private mansion. Since our casita wasn’t ready when we got here we decided to go have a late lunch by the pool and do some swimming. One of the helpful people here recommended we go to the sky pool. He claims it is the second best pool in Mexico. My question is:
Who exactly is involved in rating pools?
Are they hiring?
Where is the number one pool?
Since we are the youngest people here by about 43 years we were pretty popular at the pool. By “we” I really mean Jess and Bridget. We had a great time at the pool, drank one or maybe two (three? four?) margheritas and then called it a day.
Oh, and by a day, I mean that we went and discovered our Casita, cooked some steak, and then went out. More about that later. For now, just sit back, feel sorry for us, and possibly covet the experience we’re having.

Greenburg, McCain, and The Atlantic

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 16:54:35 -0600

Thus far, I’ve refrained myself from writing anything political in my blog but tonight I was so appalled by this that I couldn’t help myself. Regardless of your political affiliation or ties I would hope you would share my outrage that a “professional” photographer would behave in a manner so brazenly unprofessional, and in my opinion, immoral.

Additional articles on this can be found here, here and here. The Atlantic’s response to these photos can be found here.

If you are supremely interested, additional pictures of what this supposed professional photographer did to the photos of Senator McCain can be found at her website.

Here are a few quotes taken from an interview with the photographer.

“I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad...”
“After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”
What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.”

Just Glowing...

Mon, 1 Sep 2008 00:24:59 -0600

When Jess and I were still dating and I came to Arizona to meet her parents for the first her dad took me on my virgin scorpion hunt. When Gary is around the hunt involves a blacklight and a stake. When Gary isn’t here it involves Jess and I, a camera, and a blacklight. I don’t like to get close enough to kill the scorpions so I forego the stake. Plus, I feel like once I stab the scorpions they’re going to jump on me and attack. I mean, seriously, look at those pinchers.

Anyhow, scorpions have a thin transparent film in the outermost layer of their exoskeleton that contains a protein that “fluoresces”. That means that they glow like a freaky little alien when you hold a black light up to them.

Seeing this little guy up close is so creepy.

The Hike

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Being the intense outdoor people that we are Jess and I decided that we would get up early this morning and hike to the top of camelback mountain. Ever since Jess hiked it with her Dad and sister a few months ago Jess has been wanting to take me up there. Since it’s still pretty warm in Phoenix we got up at 5:30 in an attempt to make it up and back before it got really warm.

Jess borrowed her dad’s camelback and we headed out. Since Jess had done this hike before, and because she wasn’t feeling great this morning we decided she should lead and I would follow at whatever pace she set. Going was slow at first but Jess was a trooper and after kept on trudging forward. The hike was beautiful, we eventually made it to the top, and in the end we pretty much owned the mountain.