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Last monday was my 27th birthday.

I found myself an awesome deal on Craigslist, a 2005 Giant TCR 2 bike. And with the economical help of Kelly, it became mine. ( By the way, anyone wanting to give me a birthday present, feel free to make a small donation to go towards the money spent on the bike)

It’s awesome! The front and rear derailleurs are Ultegra, and the brakes are Shimano 105s. It’s very light-weight, and it rides very smoothly… and it looks sexy, as you can tell by the picture.

I’ve only ridden it a bit in its first week, but I’m already enjoying it a lot. The uphill ride from work took 10 minutes less than on the old bike, and it’s such a treat to ride on something that gives me a bit of pride. It’s the best birthday present!

It’s so hard to try to tell a story, that I’m not even going to try! Instead, here are a few tid-bits of how it all went, in no particular order:

• We left on Thursday, September 3rd. It took us about 3 hours to arrive to our camping spot. Not bad!
• One of the first people we saw at Burning Man was a man in his late 40s, wearing nothing but shoes and a hat. His testicles were dangling around, remarkably stretched. The heat probably was to blame for that.
  At any rate, Kelly was welcomed by cock and balls. We gave the guy a nice and cold beer, and chatted it for a few minutes. It was a great way to start, with a friendly naked guy.
• Our camp, BRCU, was awesome. We had two big domes, one for partying (with our DJ, dance floor and lights) and the other one for chilling out (full of kiddie swimming pools, overflowing with stuffed animals). It was home for a few days, and it really kicked a lot of ass.
• There was a lot dust wind. Of course there’s dust, it’s a dry lake bed. And the dust is a pleasant experience as long as the wind comes and goes, or is a breeze.
  On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the wind was strong. It was also consistent, starting at around 10am and dying down sometime around 11pm. Ridiculous, crazy and annoying.
  What’s one to do? Well, you can either find shelter, or you can spontaneously dance.
• I’d always heard the myth that there are a lot of orgies at Burning Man. Well, let’s just say that -without participating!- it’s not a myth.
• On a somewhat related note, and once again without being involved in it, I’ve learned about more and more people into polyamory. I guess my upbringing makes it something that would never work for me, but that my open mind makes it acceptable as long as it’s not shoved into my face.
• Our diets consisted of a lot of canned foods, like Spaghettios. All we used was a couple of plastic spoons, and not even half of a very small camping propane tank.
• The one thing I enjoyed the most this year is easy for me to decide on, and probably easy for you to guess: having Kelly with me.
  We spent most of our time together, sharing our experiences and caring for each other. Every single moment worth remembering involves her as an integral part of that memory, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love sharing my life with her!
• The second “best” thing this year was on Saturday morning. We rode our bikes into the “deep playa”, and checked out the random art installations that were there. There’s stuff out there that you can’t see from far away, but it’s definitely worth the shot journey. It’s far away enough from everything else that you don’t hear the incessant music, which is a welcome change.
  While cruising around, we found plenty of art pieces, ranging from a collection of statues to a huge guitar. We’d ride up to something, check it out, look around aimlessly until we saw that there was something out there, and then do it all over again. It was a very wonderful way to spend a day with Kelly.
  I’d like to share about one of the things we found: a typewriter on a tall desk, with a tall chair. There was roll of paper, and the machine seemed to be in very good working condition.
  I climbed on the chair, and while Kelly took some pictures, I figured that I might as well write something. Without difficulty, a love note was born. When I was done, I handed the note to Kelly. She smiled, and climbed on the tall chair to write a note to me.
  The notes that we wrote to each other will be a good addition to a little scrapbook that Kelly is making, but even if those were lost, I’ll never forget how we spent our time together. The fun, the playfulness and the love are things that I’m grateful for, and they sometimes make me wonder how I ended up being so lucky.
• Sleeping in a tent is nice, even with an air mattress. But it’s not nice enough for Burning Man, when your body needs good rest after battling playa whiteouts, climbing on art pieces and cars, dancing, walking and riding bicycles.
  We’ll try to rent an RV for next year, and hopefully we can share with a couple more people, to lower the cost, and share in the awesomeness of having some more comfortable living quarters.
• I’d never really gone and hung out at Center Camp, but this year we went there a handful of times. We had some iced coffee, and sat around enjoying all that goes on.
  The Center Camp scene is apparently what most people stereotype Burning Man to be: hippies hanging out, people doing Yoga, drum circles, dancing. And in a way, the stereotype is true – but with a twist.
  Most people’s stereotype includes the above mentioned activities, and that’s it. My stereotype goes a bit further, and involves the reason why people are doing such things. So of course it’s true that people are doing all those things that some people label as lame, stupid or childish. Of course they’re doing what they want to do. It’s obvious that all they want to do is enjoy themselves, and that there’s at least one place where they can totally freely do it, and that’s at Burning Man.
  I don’t really want to go deeper into how people could have fun in the “default” world, because that’s not what I’m trying to get to. My point is that I don’t understand the criticism of people doing things that they enjoy.
• I took my Canon 40D camera, and took a few pictures. I didn’t have it on me at all times (in fact, I had it with me very little), but when I did, I think I captured some decent photographs. If you’d like to check them out, head on over to my Flickr.I feel like Burning Man is my yearly test of how my photo skills are doing. It’s a good reference point to look back and compare, and -just like last year- I can say that this year’s pictures are better than last year’s. This is a nice feeling!
• Our “exodus” took us 5 and a half hours, with 2 of them being spent on the exit line from Black Rock City to the highway. We left on Sunday, because we were exhausted and ready to get home to our dreamy bed, and anxious to be able to spend at least one day snuggling in the morning. We got home, enjoyed the wonderful feeling of a hot shower, and went to bed.
• On Monday, Labor Day, we woke up 11 hours after having gone to sleep. And then we spent the rest of the day cleaning up, and enjoying each other. We had no regrets of having left on Sunday and missing the Temple burn.
  Our Burning Man experience ended on a high note. Additionally, we would have been dead to the world for the entire week if we had to do all the cleaning we did on Monday during the week, after very busy and stressful times at work. So busy, in fact, that it’s my excuse for posting this almost a whole week later!

On Thursday, Kelly and I will be going to Burning Man. This will be my third year, and it will be Kelly’s first.

We’ve been getting ready for a while:

• We have scavenged thrift stores and garage sales, ending up with a selection of excellent outfits. Kelly is definitely not going to look like a burning man virgin, and I probably won’t look like a ridiculous mess of unmatched garments once again. I will still look ridiculous, but I think this will be my best looking year yet, because all my clothes go well with each other, and the outrageousness will be of the awesome kind, instead of the “oh, boy” kind.
• There are lists for food, packing supplies, people we definitely must visit and attempt to see, and places or things that we’d like to go see (such as the Raygun Gothic Rocketship and the Bootie mashups party).
• We are actively participating in a registered theme camp, and have been involved in the planning process since day 1. We are part of the Black Rock Center for Unlearning (Washing all that knowledge right out of your brain since 2009).

Our camp’s theme is exactly what I need, because I’m in need for some unlearning. You see, last year’s experience was positive in some ways, but it was overall a negative one. My enjoyment was shadowed by the frustration and disappointment that some of my company brought. There were several times where I just wanted to drive away, and go back to the default world.
These circumstances saddened me, especially when I took into consideration how much effort, time and money I invested, and how little I got in return.

Well, fuck all that!

This year, I’m unlearning all that.

I’m unlearning my self-destructive tendencies of letting people take advantage of me, so I’ve distanced myself from parasitical personalities. I’m unlearning my reluctancy to be impolite, and if someone needs to be told off, flipped off or punched out, I’m ready to do it. Most of all, I’m unlearning to settle, and I’m going for what I want.

Kelly is my partner in crime and my other half. With her hand in mine, I look forward to re-discovering Black Rock City. She’s excited to see the things that everyone talks about, and I’m even more excited to be there to see her jaw drop with every “oooh” inspiring moment that we experience. I know I won’t have to babysit her, and I know that she’ll be genuinely enjoying herself.

That is why this Burning Man should be the best one yet for me. Because Kelly is coming with me. Also, because BRCU is an awesome camp, and the people I’m befriending through it are sincerely good.

This is also why I love that the theme this year is Evolution. I’m saying “fuck what I know” about Burning Man, and ready to know it in a whole different way: with a heart full of love.

I’ve been thinking about MOvember 2009 a lot lately.

The other day, I had an idea that some might consider grand.

On October 4th is the Run for the Cure, a 5k running race. I’ve done this a couple of times, because my work sets up a booth and tells people about what a great job we do with mammograms (which we do, by the way).
I’ve shown up, ran the thing and then hung out at the booth for a bit.

Now, here’s my idea for this year:

• Citizens of MOvember sign up under a City of ReMO team.
• We don’t have to run, just participate. Lots of people walk the whole event, and chat with people. Say hello to getting people to sponsor your Mo! (We should have things to hand out, flyers or cards)
• We wear  a tshirt with our awesome logo.
• We rock out with a lovely hair ribbon, aka Moustache.

I mean, we have time to get ready for this event! First of all, there’s enough time to train to at least be able to jog the whole thing (check out the couch to 5k program!). More importantly, it’s plenty of time to develop some respectable whiskers. Hair growth can happen in any shape, and doesn’t have to be a Mo. It would only become a Mo on race day.

For example, I’d keep my goatee until the day of the event. Easy to do, no body laughs at me. On the morning of October 4th, before putting my socks and shoes on, I shave to leave the Mo.
With my fancy tshirt, I show up to the event with a nice brown ribbon on my lip, where I meet my Mo-bros and we accomplish many goals:

1. We support women in their fight against breast cancer. Because we care.
2. We spread the word about our own cause, because we want people to care about us.
3. We get some exercise, fresh air and -hopefully- compliments about our lovely moustaches.
4. We get to know more Mo-bros.

Wouldn’t that be awesome? I do believe so.

A while back, a server running Sharepoint Services 3.0 went down. Of course that we had to get it back up and running immediately, so I was tasked with reviving a Sharepoint site and I didn’t know how to do it.

Enter the internet.

Seriously, unless you’re doing something with brand new technology, chances are that someone’s already had the exact same problem that you’re having. And if they take the time to share and document their process, other people can use that to their benefit. This is also why I’m re-telling the story, so that if anyone comes across the problem, hopefully they find this and can use it for an answer to their issue.

After arduous searching and much head-desk contact, I decided that this little post on EggHeadCafe.com would be my main point of reference.

So here’s what I started with:

• A server with a fresh install of Windows 2003 server.
• Installed a clean version of Windows Sharepoint Services (with Service Pack 2)
• A few database files floating around, recovered from a backup that basically just copied everything on the drive to somewhere else. The files were: STS_Config.mdf, STS_Config_log.LDF,  STS_controlfreak_1.mdf, STS_controlfreak_1_log.LDF, WSS_AdminContent.mdf and WSS_AdminContent_log.LDF.
• A lot of pressure to get this done quickly, and no idea on how to do it.

I then installed Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express. There are ways to do all the work via command line, but since I didn’t really know what was going on, and didn’t have the luxury of time, a visual interface made things much easier for me.
When running the Management Studio, I connected entering for the server name “\\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query”. For Authentication, Windows Authentication did it, because the database was setup like so when I ran the WSS installer.
Once inside, if you right click on “Databases” there’s an option to attach. I attached the STS_controlreak_1.mdf file that I’d recovered, and bam! It was in the database. Ok, that was easy.

Next, I went into WSS Central Administration, which is the localhost and port 36459. From there, there’s a section for Application Management. This is where the magic happened.

Under “Content Databases” you see what databases the Sharepoint sites was using. The top right of the screen shows what Web Application you’re working on, and I could chose from Sharepoint (port 80) or the Central Admin site. Of course I wanted the Sharepoint one on port 80.
It was showing me a Database called “WSS_Content” as listed. I clicked on it, and at the bottom of the page that opens, chose “Remove content database”. Then hit OK, and felt my heart beat rise. Luckily, nothing exploded, and all that happened was that the site was no longer using that database. Turns out that “WSS_Content” is the default site that comes with WSS, so it’s safe to remove. No harm done.

Now, after clicking on “add a content database” all that I had to do was enter the name of the database holding the site. The name had to be like it appears on SQL, which in this case was “STS_controlfreak_1″. The Database Server name I used was “CONTROLFREAK\Microsoft##SSEE” (CONTROLFREAK is the server’s name, to make things even more fun).

Then panic ensued. I got an error message, saying “Attaching this database requires upgrade, which could time out the browser session.  You must use the STSADM command ‘addcontentdb’ to attach this database.” This was because the install I was doing was more recent than what was there before. In other words, I had a brand new SP2 install, and the old site apparently wasn’t Service Pack 2.
The visual interface would have worked just fine, but I was going to have to add the database manually so that it could update it at the same time, and so it was time for command line action: Windows Key + R. “cmd”. Enter.

cd c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN
stsadm -help addcontentdb (just to get a clue for what’s up)
stsadm -o addcontentdb -url http://controlfreak -databaseName STS_controlfreak_1″

That took a while to process, but eventually I got a nice message telling me “operation completed successfully”. Apparently this was good. To make sure, wanted to make sure the site was listed, so I ran:

stsadm -o enumsites

Sure enough, my site was listed there. And then, the glory. Browsing http://controlfreak had my old site back, running as if nothing had ever happened! I went all TechnoViking and the problem was gone!

Now, the truth is, I was lucky in resolving this. After many a google search, and many different attempts, I was about ready to give up. As a venting channel, I expressed my frustrations on twitter… and then the real magic happened.
A guy named Todd Klindt replied, saying he could help me. We exchanged a few messages, got on messenger, and he held my hand through the last steps.

Turns out I was close, but I needed some more clear idea on how to add the database to Sharepoint. It it hadn’t been for Todd, who knows how much longer it would have taken me to figure it out.
What I do know is that I was very thankful that Todd found my rants on Twitter, and that he volunteered his time to help me out. He is very knowledgeable on Sharepoint overall, and he runs a site on the thing! I checked it out, and bookmarked for future reference: http://www.toddklindt.com. If I ever have to work with Sharepoint again, I’ll make sure to check there first for guidance, how-to’s and best practices. If I was a super-user of Sharepoint, I’d probably be checking out his podcast too.

When Kelly and I were in LA a few weeks ago, we happened to find a store that resembled an Argentine market. It’s called “El Gaucho Meat Market“. We ate some delicious empanadas there, and we also found that they sell the actual dough to make them. Of course we bought some, because I wanted to make some of my own.

My mom passed on her own recipe, and I got to it!

First of all, there were onions to be chopped. We don’t even own a chopping board, so I had to get busy on the kitchen counter. I wasn’t expecting the process to be so laborious, and it was probably one of the most time-consuming tasks of the whole recipe.

After chopping half a pound of onions, I had to cook them. I grabbed the biggest pot we own, turned the stove on and went to town. I was very pleasantly surprised as a very familiar smell started to invade my nostrils. It was a smell I wasn’t expecting to notice so early in the cooking process, but which I welcomed and took as signal that I was doing things the right way.

After the onions cook for a while, I put in a quarter pound of ground beef, and some spices (family secret!). The smell immediately turned into what I recognized as empanada filling, and everything was good in the world. Very good.

After the mix was ready, it’s empanada making time! This is the step where the acquisition of the special dough was critical, because it really does make the empanada unique. Maybe some day we’ll dare make our own dough… but baby steps!

The process was pretty easy, specially because I had some muscle memory for this step. When I was younger, I used to help my mom make them. Well, at least that’s what I remember. I probably only made one out of 3 dozens, but I still knew exactly what I was supposed to do, so I wasn’t afraid of messing up at this stage.

After making sure they all looked pretty, were nicely filled with all the mix they went in the oven. By the way, my mom’s recipe was perfect. There was no filling leftover, and all the empanadas had just enough filling! Quite impressive, specially after translating everything from kilograms to pounds.

Only twenty minutes later, we had this wonderful looking pieces of heaven:

They looked good. They smelled good. And they tasted great! They came out a little bit on the sweet side because I was weary of using too much salt, but that means that there’s room for improvement, and I know exactly what I can do better.

Kelly and I sat down to eat, and thoroughly enjoyed them. Her parents came over to visit for a bit, and we had them try them. They also enjoyed them, which was a big relief for me! And just like that, about an hour and a half worth of work in cooking was gone, in less than 30 minutes. But it was well worth it, because it was tasty, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

As soon as we figure out a reliable place to get more of the dough, I’ll be making a lot more and having people over to share the wonderful taste of this food that I very much love, and am proud of being able to make.

My new year’s resolution has been fulfilled! I wanted to do a triathlon, and I now have done so!

It happened on Saturday, August 1st 2009. The event was put on by the Reno Area Triathletes group, and it was a great experience for my first triathlon ever.

The race started at 8:30am, and the first stage was a half mile swim on Pyramid lake. The water was not cold at all, and it took me 18:30 minutes to finish it. I took it easy on this part, since I hadn’t really trained for swimming, and there were people that were going to swim all over me if I dared to pass someone. I attempted to freestyle, but the adrenaline and the inability to see exactly where I was going made it feel futile. I swam most of the time in a very peaceful breast stroke. By the end of the swim, my arms were quite tired.

Right after that, I had to get on my bicycle to ride for 14 miles. The course was on the road that goes around the lake, with a few rolling hills but nothing impossible. I managed to finish in 50:28 minutes, with an average speed of 16.6mph.
Quite a few people passed me on this stage, particularly on the uphill sections. I made myself not think about that, and I set my sights on a guy who was in front of me. My goal was to pass him by the half-way point, and to never see him again. And I did that.
It was hard for me to put a lot of weight on my hands because my triceps were burning. But I HTFU‘d  and kept on trucking. The second half of the ride I apparently found my spot, because I only passed a handful of people, and I only got passed by two.

The last part of the Tri was the run, so I rode my bike into the transition area, changed into my running shoes and headed out to the trail.
My legs felt like potato bags. I listened to my body and jogged. I didn’t run, but I certainly didn’t walk (because of HTFU, you know).
Slowly, my legs came back to me, and less than a mile in, I was feeling like I could run again. And run I did! I picked up the pace, and before I knew it I was catching up to people -and passing them.
The circuit was a little dirt trail that looped around. It was around 10am and the sun was already making things very hot. I was thirsty, I was sweaty and I was tired. But there was only a little bit more to go.
At the very end, just yards before the finish line, a lady was sprinting up to pass me. I wouldn’t have it, and I literally finished the race running as fast as I could, on a full-on sprint. The lady didn’t catch me, but neither did my breath, and I finished with a major side ache.
Oh well, that didn’t matter. I was done! After wiping some sweat of my brow, I looked up and found my time. I had beat my goal of finishing under 2 hours, and the pain was immediately replaced by feelings of accomplishment and self-pride.
The run course was 3 miles long, and I finished in 28:52 minutes. Not bad for having swam and ridden my bike earlier.

My official total time was 1:41:57.2. I finished 142^nd (all the results are here), and I felt damn good doing it.

Some things to note for the next one:

• I really should train in swimming. It had probably been years since I’d swam for more than 15 minutes without stopping.
• I should invest in a wetsuit. The extra buoyancy would make the swim easier, and it’d keep me warm if I were to participate in Tris in places like Donner or Tahoe.
• My bike sucks. I recently discovered that it’s not a “custom bike” as I was sold, but it’s instead a GMC Denali. My bike limited me, and it’s time for me to upgrade to a real road bike.

Notice that I said “the next one”. I decided I’d be doing this again right after finishing this Triathlon. I loved the feeling, the challenge and the adventure. And now, I have a time to beat!

I’d never been to a big concert before, but a couple weeks ago, my cherry was popped in double, by Snoop Dogg and Incubus. Here’s a tale of how it all went:

Snoop Dogg played at the Grand Sierra in Reno, on July 9th 2009. Kelly, her brother Kyle and I went, and since we got in early we planted ourselves only feet away from the stage, hoping to be able to see a super-famous rapper from up-close.
The opening act was Stephen Marley (son of Bob). He put on a good show, with lots of people on stage, a little kid waving a Jamaican flag the whole time, and playing for almost an hour. By the way, he does sound a lot like his late father.

Since I didn’t know how things worked out, I expected Snoop Dogg to just come out as soon as the Marley troupe was gone from the stage, but I was told that they had to set up, and that it usually takes a good 30 minutes or so for the main act to come onstage.

Thirty minutes went by… four times. That’s right. A whole two hours later, Snoop Dogg showed up to do his thang. In the meantime, a lot of pushing and shoving went on in the crowd, and some drunk skanks got kicked out of the venue for getting in fights.

Regardless, as soon as Snoop showed up (he apparently was delayed because they were driving from California and got stuck in traffic), the crowd went wild.

Since he started so late, his setlist was cut in half and he ended up playing for less than an hour. He left the stage, and the crowd cheered for an encore. Staff started taking instruments down, and the cheering quickly turned into booing. It got so bad that they just closed the curtains to the stage.
I’m guessing this came from the GSR cutting it short, and it was pretty disappointing to have stood shoulder to shoulder with several hundreds of people for 5 hours, to only see a couple of hours of  spectacle.

---

On Sunday, July 11th, my mediocre experience was absolutely redeemed. We flew down to Las Vegas for the weekend. Besides doing the Vegas thing -walk around with a huge adult beverage in hand-  we had one major reason for being there. Incubus was touring, and this was the closest they’d get to us, so we were going to see them!

On our way to the venue, the Hard Rock Hotel of Las Vegas, we walked past a door where Ben Kenney (bass player of Incubus)  was hanging out, smoking a cigarette with a security guard. We came up to say hi, and we was very friendly, and Kelly even got a picture with him.

The venue (aka the Joint) at the Hard Rock was far superior than the GSR’s ballroom. It was clean. The staff were friendly, and I didn’t have to smuggle my camera in my underwear, because they allowed them.

Incubus put on a great show, and I enjoyed it much more than Snoop Dogg’s antics. The sound was fabulous, they had a very cool light show that went with the music and there was an LED screen in the background that played clips to go with it all. Fantastic:

Now, I was able to say I’d been to a concert. A real one, with a band that shows up when they should, provide great entertainment, at a venue that knows how to accommodate concertgoers.
However, my favorite part of it all wasn’t the awesome show. It was having Kelly next to me singing her heart out. I felt so lucky to be able to share with her, as her favorite band rocked her socks off.

This all makes me very excited about Outside Lands, which Kelly and I are planning on going to this year. More concerts!

After a rather uneventful series of flights, we landed in Mendoza. We walked off the plane (using airstairs) and into the airport, where a small welcoming party patienly awaited for us.

Fresh off the plane, and only a few hours later, my dad prepared a monumental asado to usher us into Argentina. Not only that, but we were joined by both my parents, both brothers and their girlfriends, my grandparents and my aunt. It was quite the committee, and even though I expected it, I think it took Kelly by surprise.

That was only a preview of what the next two weeks would be: an incomparable gastronomical journey, where we ingested food in both great quantity and quality. We had a little bit of everything, but I can’t miss the chance to mention some of my (and now Kelly’s!) favorites: milanesas, empanadas, alfajores and lots of delicious wine.

We visited a lot of people and places, and my mom had planned things for most days, which kept us plenty busy. I’m pretty sure Kelly met 90% of the family, all the way up to my grandmother’s sisters.
It was also gratifying to be able to show Kelly where I grew up. I showed her the schools I went to (and the one that inspired my tattoo), the streets I played in, the buses that I rode around and the places where I used to go.

There were a few memorable events that took place, which I will just itemize for brevity’s sake:

• We spent 4 days in a small apartment in downtown Mendoza. The place was very cold, but having to heat it up with precarious gas heaters was only a fraction of the weirdness.
  It was located right above a parking garage, which got unbearably loud as the business day started at 6am. Car alarms, traffic and people being loud woke us up, and would only let us be half-asleep until we gave up and got up half tired, and full cranky.
• On the first night in Mendoza, and in the apartment, Kelly was woken up at 2 in the morning by a very peculiar sound. There was someone driving down the street, with his music on full blast. Apparently, the car stopped at a red light. And the song that he was having all of the city listen to at this time of night was no other than Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise.
  When she told me this the next day, the song was stuck in my head for at least two entire days. Thankfully, we found it hilarious.
• We visited a couple of the finest wineries in Mendoza: Fournier and Salentein. We learned about the wine-making process, we sampled lots of delicious wines, and had a wonderful time with the family.
• On Saturday night, Kelly was brushing her teeth when a hose under the sink busted. Water was spraying everywhere, and the only solution was to shut off the main water line. This meant that we couldn’t flush the toilet or shower.
• On Sunday morning, we woke up and packed our stuff, and moved to a very nice hotel for the rest of our stay. Life was much better 6 stories away from downtown traffic, and with much better heating. As an added bonus, we also had internet access and my iPhone came in very handy to catch up and keep in touch with home.
• Hanging out with some of my old friends was just like time had never passed. We met, we talked, we had fun and we said goodbye in a “I’ll see you tomorrow” kind of vibe.

We spent the last 3 days in the country in Buenos Aires. The weather was perfect for walking around, and we did a lot of that: from the Congress to San Telmo (the Tango district), with stops at the Obelisk and the Pink House. We saw lots of things, and chose to walk because it’s better to be able to hear and breathe a city than to see it pass you by if you chose to ride a taxi from one destination to the other. And it’s also a lot nicer to walk when you have someone’s hand to hold in yours.

One of the reasons why we went to Buenos Aires was to check out a soccer game. And that we did. We stood in a long line, with lots of shady characters, and bought tickets from the nicest scalper in the world. Some teenage punk tried to spit at Kelly as we walked past the security line, and we didn’t really know if we were in the right line… but it all worked out, and we made it inside Boca Juniors‘ stadium. Despite Boca losing the match, we had a great time soaking in the fans’ passion, the songs, the fireworks and the entire experience. We even had a choripán from a street vendor on the way out!

We also spent a day walking around the more centric part of Buenos Aires, and we walked up and down Florida Avenue. We had lunch at my favorite restaurant, Los Inmortales. Oh, and I got a Rhodochrosite ring for Kelly, to mark the occasion of our unforgettable trip to my motherland.

You’re probably wondering where all the pictures are. It was hard for me to chose which pictures to include in my post, since there’s a lot of good ones. Instead, you get to look at all of them by clicking the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoyogui/sets/72157620641833613/

And that’s that. Well, not really. There’s a lot to it, but I can’t do it justice without writing something akin to an essay. I can sum it all up by saying that it’s always great to see my family and friends, to be home and eat the stuff I grew up eating. But it’s even better to be able to do it in company of the love of my life.

Just got back from Argentina yesterday. It’s going to take a while to blog about it all.
It’s going to be pretty much like this:

I know. It’s going to be INCREDIBLE.