The fun Barcelona airport 

THE BARCELONA AIRPORT STRIKE

It is 5am in Dusseldorf, Germany on Sunday. It is amazing we made it here and is stupid (my stupidity) that we are here. Why would I fly from Spain to Germany for a six hour stay? Because I had never been to Dusseldorf. It seemed like a much better idea when I booked it.

We leave this morning to fly to Atlanta. I will write about the trip while on the plane and post on my Blog Monday morning.

But in the meantime, Friday we drove from Alcañiz to Barcelona airport and dropped off the car. There were thousands of people and we thought it was just because this weekend is like our Thanksgiving weekend-the biggest travel weekend of the year as it is when all the Spaniards leave on holiday (vacation). But this seemed excessive.

The taxi guy seemed surprised to see us. He asked how we landed and we said we had driven and asked why he said that. He said that on Friday morning the Iberia ground workers went on an undetermined (amount of time) strike as they were going to have layoffs. This is a common but not quaint Spanish custom. They wanted to shut down the airport at the worse possible time and they did. To make matters worse, they went out and cut huge trenches in the runways so the other airlines could not land or take off. The Guardia Civil was called out. It was a mess.

We knew we had to leave the next morning (Saturday) at 830 for Dusseldorf. We kept watching the news and at midnight they said they had restored the runways. So with 3 hours sleep we left the hotel early on Saturday to go to the airport, normally a ten minute drive. It took over an hour. So many people were stranded in the airport all night they got angry and so on Saturday morning when they tried to open the airport to all but Iberia flights (which thousands were booked on and still couldn't get out) the irate passengers decided to strike. Like I said, a common but not quaint custom.

So they took all the baggage trolleys (carts) and set up a blockade at the entrance to the airport. Traffic was backed up for miles. People were abandoning their cars and walking to the airport with their entire luggage. It was a mess. The Police were called in to clear the trolleys. We made it to the terminal at 730. There were thousands and thousands of people-I've never seen anything like it. I have posted a couple of photos I took of the mess.


Sleeping at Barcelona airport-these were the ones who decided to create a second stike 

We shoved, pushed and struggled with our bags to force our way through the throngs to get to the Air Berlin counter. Fortunately, not many people were going to Germany since they were all headed south. Somehow or other we made it on time, although the plane sat on the runway a long time as the strike had messed up traffic all over Europe. A fun way to end the trip.

Finally, here are a couple of cool photos (in my opinion) I took in Spain. I will post more once I am back in Atlanta.


A field of Spanish sunflowers 


Just one of the many castles you see along the road in Spain 

EATING CARDOONS & OX CARPACCIO

It is Tuesday night in the small town of SOS del Rey Católico. It is about 30 miles or so from Pamplona, the Spanish city made famous by their annual running of the bulls in July of each year.

During the approximate six hour drive here from Madrid yesterday. I think I only got lost twice. We spent a great deal of time talking about the weekend. When we decided to come over here, which was before we knew Andrea and Lee would be with us, I wrote Luis and told him I had become more and more aware of the way life seems to move on as one ages and that I knew there were more years behind us than ahead of us and I wanted to spend more time with him. We had not seen him since last September in Copenhagen and I missed having time to just sit and talk with him.

Luis is someone I have known for 20 years, since his son, and now our son, Gustavo moved in with us as an exchange student for a year back in 1985. I remember the day he arrived at the airport in Atlanta, a 16 year old boy who has become so close to us that he was the best man in Grover and Cris’ wedding. When he graduated from high school he came back to the states and went to school in DC at the same time Grover did. Our kids went to Spain and spent time in the summer with his family and over time we all became very close. Gustavo is another of our children but this is going to be about his Dad, Luis.

I remember that night when he arrived, as we showed him his bedroom and he told us, in the Gustavo’s way that we have come to love, he had lost the keys to his suitcase. Little did I know then that his Dad, Luis, would become one of my dearest friends.

People asked me where I learned to speak Spanish and it is not an easy answer since it is not something I did in school. But if I was ever asked “why” I have worked hard the last 20 years to speak it the answer would be easy. It is so I can communicate with Luis.

Luis has become one of my dearest friends. He has taught me so much about life, about dignity, about letting go when your kids leave home, about how much people are more alike than different even though they come from different cultures. I have cried with him at the funeral of his wonderful wife Maria Jesus, a truly polished and classy woman who loved us as we loved her. I have put up with years of him telling me with a straight face that I speak good Spanish after he hears me call a peach a coyote or to ask him how his kidneys feel when I meant to ask him to pass the olive oil.

I knew him for five years before he ever asked me what I did for a living or told me what he did. He said he would rather not know at first so he could get to know me as a person, not by what I do and vice versa. That lesson has had a big impact on me.

We have fought like kids over who pays the bill every time we are together. He is way ahead in that game. We have both devised schemes to pay ahead or slip the waiter money so we would get to pay. We have gone to church together, stayed up all night dancing and drinking to see the change of the Millennium together and I have even taken him to a few places in Spain that he didn’t even know existed until I showed him.

So this visit was special because we had time to just talk. And that was a big reason why I wanted to make this trip to Spain. And although he doesn’t read this Blog, or any Blog for that matter, I want to say “Thank you, Luis”.

Moving on to the trip, the drive was not particularly exciting. At one point near Alcala de Henares, the city where they found the Islamic Terrorists that had blown up the trains on March 11, 2004 in the name of their religion (they were pissed because the Spaniards had thrown them out of the country in 1492 and I guess the wounds are still fresh and raw), we saw four hookers wearing barely nothing at all. They were operating on a corner and one of them managed to pick up a John, or Juan, while the other three continued to prance around in 100 plus degree heat. That was about as exciting as the drive was going to get. It’s interesting that the hookers are working in an area full of “devout” Muslims.

But when we got to SOS (as it is nicknamed), we knew we were in for a treat. We were staying at one of the government run Inns called Paradors. They are almost all four and five star hotels although a few of the older ones are three stars. (Click here to see a website with all the Paradors)

All of them are spotless and feature regional cuisine so each one has some different specialties. I recall eating Pickled Partridge at the Parador in Sigüenza, Wild Black Boar in the Parador in Santo Domingo de la Calzada and eating Javelina (with apologies to my brother and sister-in-law) in Cáceres, in the Province of Extremadura.

Here in SOS, I had Cardoons (Cardos is the Spanish word) cooked in a ham and cheese flavored sauce. Cardoons are a thistle or nettle and must be related to the artichoke as the taste is similar to the artichoke heart and they have the same type of thistle type things on the plants that artichokes do. It is a weird dish that I had one other time at the Parador in Almagro, down in La Mancha. It was incredibly rich so I couldn’t eat all of it, no doubt in part because I had devoured a huge plate of Jamón Ibérico as an appetizer. You just don’t find a lot of cardoons on the menus in the United States. But then you don’t find Jamón Ibérico either. Cathy had a delicious mixed salad for an appetizer notable for its light dressing of oil with sesame and cinnamon. This is not a combination I would think would be good but it was great. For my appetizer I ate an entire huge plate of Jamón Ibérico (at $32 a plate). Man was it good.

I read this week about a guy who has a taco Blog. I think I may start a Jamón Blog. I could easily write every day about Jamón!

SOS is a really cool town. It is where King Ferdinand was born (of Ferdinand and Isabella fame). On Tuesday morning (I’m now writing this on Thursday since I can’t get to the internet to post it) I wandered the town by myself for 2 and a half hours taking photos. I climbed to the top of the town and the old castle, built in 1054. Think about that. Up there was a man in his early 70’s that was very overweight and only wearing some shorts. He was panting heavily and I have no idea how he made it to the top. I started talking to him and at first he was reluctant to talk. But then he asked me if I was from France and I told him no, that I was from the States and he laughed and started talking like crazy. He was from San Sebastian and I mentioned I knew the town and that he was obviously a Basque. That pleased him and he told me he was quiet at first because his Spanish wasn’t too good (it was certainly better than mine) as he had been speaking nothing but Euskadia (the impossible to learn Basque language) since Franco died as then it was no longer illegal to speak.

I told him I read that the castle we were standing on top of had been built to protect the Spaniards from the Moors (note-this means Islamic Terrorists or Arabs who invaded and occupied Spain from the 7th century to try and force them to convert to Islam). He said that was true and was the case with most castles in Spain.

I said, jokingly, “Some things never change” and he started laughing and suggested we ought to just make them convert to Christianity or kill them. That seemed a little extreme to me but he felt strongly about it. I think he may have been a descendant of the Spaniards that in 1492, while Columbus was looking for our country, held what is known as the Reconquest and threw all the Moors out of Spain. In light of the recent activities of Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, this may be a policy the West should reconsider.

Later that day we went to the old Monastery of San Juan de la Peña. Peña means giant boulder and this monastery was built under the hugest boulder so the Islamic Terrorists could not find and kill the monks. It took a couple of hours to get there but it was a very interesting tour. I will post some photos once I get to a high speed internet site.

On Wednesday we just lounged about until the late morning but at the buffet breakfast in the Parador we watched an elderly couple make four huge sandwiches of Jamón and put them, along with some yoghurt and several pieces of fruit into the woman’s bag when no one was looking and then she casually strolled out.

We then drove to Alcañiz, which is to the Southeast of Zaragoza. I was only lost three times. Along the way we took some great photos of some towns and saw fields and fields of sunflowers. They do not grow as tall as the sunflowers do in the States so they must be a different strain. Enroute we were on the Autopista, a toll road where the traffic moves quite fast. I was going 155 kilometers per hour (93 miles per hour) and cars were passing me regularly. Suddenly I saw a car coming up like a jet behind me and he was going so fast we could barely tell it was a Mercedes as he went by. He had to be going 130 miles per hour or so. And of course at all the service areas they have bars along with restaurants so that just makes for great driving safety.

There are 91 Paradors and we have stayed in 24 of them and here in Alcañiz was one that we had not stayed at previously. It is in an old restored castle built in the 13th century. We had a nice room but it had a canopy bed and an underperforming air conditioner so it was awfully hot. We had dinner in the hotel dining room and I had my first Ox Carpaccio. It was quite good although the idea of eating raw ox was a little off putting at first. We left the dining room about midnight and after a couple of phone calls went to bed.

I’m now typing this on Friday. We drive to Barcelona today and I am hoping I can post what I have written so far from here via a phone connection but will not be able to do the photos yet.

Yesterday we drove down to the Maestrago region of Spain. This is a mountainous area near the Valencian coast. I got lost once because the signs, which I expected to be in Spanish, were actually in Valenciana, an ancient language from when Valencia was a separate Kingdom. Like The Catalans in Barcelona and the Basques in the northern part of Spain, once Franco died and the dictatorship disintegrated, these languages (along with the Gallician language in the northwest) resurfaced after being illegal for so long.

So I was looking for San Mateo, the Spanish name of a town that in English would be Saint Matthew. When I saw the sign in Valenciana for Sant Mateu it did not register with me and so of course I was lost, something that happens a lot to me in Spain.

We had decided to go to some small out of the way towns and we certainly succeeded there. We were gone for over 8 hours but it was so much fun. We found the town of Mirambel that has been named Europe’s best preserved small town and got some great photos. We went to Cantavieja, a very famous town from the Carlist Wars (when were those?). We arrived there at 2 pm and went to the Plaza Mayor, which is the center of every Spanish town and where all the people gather. We walked about ten minutes to get there and ten minutes back and never saw a single person or store that was open as we were there at siesta time. While Madrid and Barcelona and other large cities no longer practice the custom as much as a few years ago, in the smaller towns (this town has 55,000 people), everything shuts down from 1:30 to 4pm or 4:30.

We had read about a restaurant we wanted to try and I will write about it later but we couldn’t find anyone to help us. Suddenly we saw a young guy and he was very helpful and told us where this restaurant was. I will close for now and share later the story of this restaurant, a very special place.

WEEKEND IN MADRID

I never had the chance to finish the posting about our time in the Province of Segovia. We hiked down to the Ermita de San Frutos in blistering hot weather. I posted a photo of it. The hermits, who were monks, lived here for over 700 years in isolation. Well, not the same monks for 700 years-different ones. It was very interesting and we enjoyed showing it to Lee as we have been there many times.

We then went to eat at our friend Tinin’s restaurant in Sepulveda. The name of it is El Figón del Zute el Mayor. His nickname is Tinin and the word Figón means “joint” in English and that is what he has-a joint. But what food.

There is no menu-he just brings out salad, bread, red wine and roasted baby lamb. I had written him ahead of time and he had reserved a table for us (we were the only tourists in the place) and he knew Andrea doesn’t eat meat so he had a huge plate of white asparagus.

We ate two different platters of 1/4 lamb, had some after dinner drinks called Orujo that was like drinking pure alcohol and hugged he and his son goodbye but not before he took Lee into the kitchen to show the Horno (oven) that he uses to cook the baby lambs. He also gave Andrea and Cathy each an Albanico (Spanish hand fan) as a souvenir.

We wandered around the village and took some photos of the storks (one I posted the other day) and also of an 11th century Cross that was placed there at the beginning of the Renaissance. That is how old the village is. I will post a photo of the village in the background that I took of Lee and Andrea outside of town.

We then drove to Pedraza where I took 55 of my friends and family for my milestone birthday two years ago for the biggest and longest meal of any of their lives. We wandered around about 45 minutes and stopped at Don Mariano’s where we had our opening lunch two years ago and he brought his daughter out to say hello-she had let us use her baby’s crib for Landon when we were there for the party. It was so hot we didn’t stay but headed back to Segovia.

That night we went to Di Vino, a restaurant I had heard about as their two sommeliers have both won the Naríz de Oro (Golden Nose) awards in Spain-one in 2002 and the other in 2004 for the wine knowledge. And the wine was great but the meal was just barely okay.

We finished a little after midnight and wandered through the packed with people streets to the aqueduct and caught a cab back to the hotel.

We left Segovia on Friday and drove over the mountains to Madrid. We checked into the Melía Castilla hotel, a very nice hotel a five minute walk from the Pallares house. We had a little confusion over what time we were going to get together but we finally worked it out and met at their home at 730. It was a great reunion and we exchanged gifts in the Spanish style and then Luis took us all down to a restaurant in the park next to the Royal Palace. We sat outside until after midnight eating, drinking and chatting. It was very warm outside but so nice to be together.

On Saturday we met at noon and headed out in two cars for Chinchón, a town I love and wanted Lee to see. Again, it was over 100 degrees so pretty toasty. Gustavo and I went to the restaurant, Las Cuevas, to make a reservation and I also wanted to tell the guy that I had to pay since Luis will never let me pay. I told the guy there was an older man that would be with me who was “un poco loco” and to ignore him when he tried to pay. Gustavo was laughing so hard at this.

We then walked down to the main plaza where they had set up a bullring for Tuesday’s bullfight and met the rest of the Group. One of the Toreros is a deputy in the Court system (he is a judge) and is also the son of the former President of Spain so it was very interesting that he is also a bullfighter. We had some drinks at an outdoor café and Lee tried Morcilla, a blood sausage very popular (not with me) in Spain. He enjoyed it.

Andrea, who had not had a bite of meat in 15 years had decided that for this weekend only she would eat some Jamón and some Chorizo and it was weird to see her doing that.

We then walked up to the restaurant and Luis gave Lee and Dorte and Andrea a tour of the caves with their giant Tinajas (huge jars-15 feet in diameter-that were used to store Olive oil and wine. He also showed Lee the ancient wooden and concrete olive press which is quite interesting. We pigged out, eating and drinking way too much and about 5 pm we headed back to Madrid for a nap.

That night we met at La Tahona, a restaurant near their home that serves great baby lamb chops, cooked on your individual brazier as you stand at the bar, although we never got to those. We just had some drinks and some Chorizo and then went to an outdoor café where in 1994 I took 40 or so of my employees for a big party. We sat out there until midnight and then said goodnight.

Yesterday, Sunday, the four of us took a cheesy bus tour of Madrid. It was a nice tour in terms of sites but the recording didn’t tell you much. But it was fun and we were able to get off and show Lee the Plaza Mayor where there is a huge flea market every Sunday selling postage stamps (for collectors), coins, holy cards, cell phone cards and holy cards.

After the tour we took a taxi to Retiro Park and it was filled with people. The Municipal Symphony Band was in the band shell playing and there were hundreds of people in the audience. The Band furnishes the folding chairs and they have a concert every Sunday during about six months a year. We then sat under some trees and had a drink and then went to meet the Pallares family at Il Carpaccio, an Italian restaurant we like. We had a big lunch and had to finish early (4pm) so Andrea and Lee could make their plane. They said their goodbyes to everyone and we put them in a cab for the airport. I took a good nap as I was beat and at 8 we met the Pallares again in the hotel lobby, had a drink and went to a Chinese restaurant as there are very few restaurants open on Sundays in Madrid and practically none during the summer. We argued politics, outsourcing to India and everything else in the world and I was so pleased my Spanish has gotten strong enough to argue forcefully.

At 1130 we did our hugging and told them all goodbye, knowing we will see them in January at Andrea’s wedding.

It is now Monday morning and we are leaving soon for some small towns. I likely will not have internet access until next weekend but will keep a journal and post it on the Blog then.

I have not had time to write any more as we are too busy having fun, but here are four photos below I took during out trip.


Lee and Andrea with Segovia's 2000 year old Aqueduct in background 


My traveling team on the river banks with Segovia's Alcazar in the background 


Ermita de San Frutos in the Rio Durat�n. The monks abandoned it in 1835 after 700 years of living there. 


It's a long ways up hill from the Ermita back to where we parked when it is over 100 degrees

I’M NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS

It is now Friday morning about 1am. The Villa Magna where we were staying yesterday had some kind of block on their system that would not allow me to upload my posting about España nos Bienviene (Spain welcomes us) that I wrote on Wednesday. So I decided to wait until we arrived in Segovia (where I am now) since the reason I picked out this hotel was that they had Wi-Fi and I would be able to post it.

As it turns out, their WI-FI is security protected and they don’t understand why none of their customers can access it! So I didn’t get it uploaded today and won’t be able to upload this one either. Tomorrow we are at the Melía Castilla hotel in Madrid. It is part of a chain and is a Five Star hotel so I assume and hope I can do both of them then. I am not happy about this.

Andrea and Lee were late getting in and arrived at the hotel on Wed night at 12:15. We told them to drop their bag off and we would meet them in bar for a drink since the bar closed at 1am (a very weird thing in all night Spain). We went to the bar and waited and waited. They finally showed up and said the reason it took so long was because Lee was eating the huge plate of Jamón the hotel left in their room. Of course we all laughed as the Jamón was supposed to be in our room due to my Courtesy Card and they got it mixed up. Andrea felt bad (I don’t think Lee did and I wouldn’t either) but we were happy he got to have a plate of Jamón.

Lee had two beers, I had two Patcharans (a Spanish liqueur made from Bilberry), Andrea had one beer and Cathy had one glass of wine. They brought the bill and it was about 85 dollars. But after we paid he did come over and give Andrea a second beer and Cathy a second wine but wow-it was expensive. The last time we stayed here they charged me 7 Euros (9 bucks) for a small expresso so I should have known better.

We went to bed about 130 and got up on Thursday and checked out at 10am and headed for Segovia. We had no problems with Madrid’s notoriously bad traffic, likely because the city is less crowded in the summer. We were soon on A-6, passing the Valle de Los Caidos with it’s enormous cross sitting on the side of the mountain. This is where Franco is buried.

We stopped in a small town called Otero and went into a bar and had some coffee, toast, and soft drinks and they brought us a tapa of Chorizo which Lee loved. Most amazing, Andrea, who hasn’t had meet in 15 years, took a small bite to see what it was like.

When we saw Segovia’s famous Roman Aqueduct, built over 2000 years ago, we stopped and park to take photos. As I backed out of a parking spot I hit the car next to us. Fortunately I didn’t hurt their car much but did appear to scrape the rental car pretty bad. We are hoping we can rub off the paint from the other car and that there won’t be real damage since when we were in Italy last year they charged me an additional $550 for scratches on the car.

Of course even though I had a general idea of where to go from the hotel’s website, (Click here to see the hotel) we got lost as usual. I had to stop and ask a couple of people and in the end it was located where Andrea had said it was-we had driven right by it. We unloaded our stuff so it wouldn’t be in the car the rest of the day. The rooms were small but clean-a typical four star hotel. It had a cute setting right on a river with a pretty walking path along the water and on the other side, up on the hill, the Disney like Alcazar, or castle. It was quite a stunning sight. There was no elevator so we had to carry our bags up the stairs but soon we were off again headed for Sepulveda.

We had another situation of getting lost at a detour. We didn’t know where to go but 3 or 4 cars in front of us were all headed together so we followed them but it turned out they were going to a KIA dealership. We gave up, went back towards Segovia and decided to go on a different highway, one that I knew. It took about an hour to get to Sepulveda and then another 20 minutes of beat up roads and a long dirt road to find the parking lot for the hike down to the Ermita (Hermitage) de San Frutos.

I will share the San Frutos experience and photos in the next posting. Getting them uploaded from here is no easy task.

España nos Bienviene

Here it is 2 in the morning New York time on Wednesday, July 19, 2006. It is 8 in the morning in Madrid and I’m looking out the window of the plane from JFK to see if I can see my beloved Spain. Our plane was scheduled to leave JFK at 715 last night. We boarded a little before 7pm and I immediately took a sleeping pill and a melatonin. I was asleep in 15 minutes. I remember waking up once and we were still on the ground-perhaps around 9pm but I am not sure. They had brought me a bowl of warm mixed nuts and I ate it and went back to sleep and slept pretty much for six hours. I am not sure how late we are given that we didn’t take off on time.

In the mid 90’s I wrote something in my diary about Spain during a trip. I thought I would import it below. While a few things have changed as Spain has accelerated its emergence out of the Franco years, much remains the same.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. It haunts me and touches my inner soul like no other place. Much of what impacts me in this way are its contradictions. Where else do they spend hours lingering over a meal, oblivious to the ticking clock, yet after the meal they will drive 100 to 110 miles per hour down the road and think nothing of it?

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. Where hookers and transvestites are common on the street corners at 9am on the weekend, where the young people wear the latest anti-establishment fashion, be it long hair, body piercing in weird places or tattoos. Yet Spain today has the lowest divorce rate, the lowest number of births out of wedlock and the fewest number of people living alone than any other European country.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. Where the people will be meticulously groomed, wash their hands vigorously in the bathroom and be almost fastidious about cleanliness. Yet they follow the custom of tossing their soiled paper napkins and other small bits of paper on the floors of the Tapas Bars where they are socializing.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. Where they will not enter a restaurant to eat dinner until 11 pm, yet have absolute traffic gridlock at 8am the next morning on their way to work. “When do these wonderful people sleep?” asks the first time visitor.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. Where you can stand in a bar, an obvious foreigner and no one will greet you or talk to you. But take the time to ask them one question and they have suddenly decided you are a good friend.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. Where else in the country side will they tell you how to drive to a town when they actually have absolutely no idea, because they don’t want to disappoint you? Yet in a city or town, they will stop whatever they are doing and escort you personally to your destination.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. Where the country is leapfrogging much of the world in the use of technology in business, yet where home use of the internet lags much of the rest of the western world. To a Spaniard, free time is “in the street” time, chatting, arguing and gossiping with friends and family. They could not imagine sitting alone for hours in front of a computer screen at home.

Spain-The Land of Contradictions. In God’s whole scheme, there must be assignments he gave to various groups to have a balanced world. Perhaps the Germans were told to be the model of efficiency and perhaps the Indians were told to be the model of chaos. But there is no question that to the Spaniards he gave the assignment to be the people who live life to its fullest.


Spain-The Land of Contradictions. The one part of the world I go where all thoughts of my work and my business responsibilities back home seem to disappear as fast as the first plate of Jamón Jabugo that is placed in front of me. When I am in Spain, especially when I am there with Cathy, life is good and I am at peace.

While the use of the Internet in Spain has increased rapidly since I wrote the above (as it has everywhere) and the country has shed in some ways parts of its conservative culture (gay weddings were recently approved-an absolute “no way” when I first wrote this), most of the centuries old traditions remain.

When we left yesterday it was July 18th, 2006 which was the 70th anniversary of the start of the Guerra Civil, the horrible Spanish Civil War that killed over a half a million people and pitted brother against brother and at the end of 3 years of horrific events, Franco took over as a hard-line dictator that ruled the country for another nearly 30 years until his death. What Spain has done in the ensuing 30 years (since 1976) has been described over and over as Europe’s economic miracle.

This trip is our 40th journey to this country we love in the last 20 years. We have seen the changes and we are excited to see it again over the next 12 days. ¡Viva España!

This is also a special trip since Andrea and Lee will meet us and we will be with Luis, Teresa, Gustavo and Dorte. I wish Grove, Cris and the boys could also be with us but that will be another time. Landon was introduced to Spain and Jamón Ibérico, as well as Morcilla (blood sausage) by Luis when he was there with us right after his first birthday.

I’m also looking forward to spending time with Luis, who was 83 in March. I have learned much about life from this wise man over the last 20 years. We have been with him for the funeral of his wonderful, vivacious and classy wife, Maria Jesus. We spent New Years Eve in 1999, the change of the Millennium, with him staying up all night in León, dancing the night away while Grover and Gustavo were up on the stage with the band smoking huge cigars and obviously enjoying the Vino Tinto and Cava. At six that morning we were all served a big bowl of garlic soup and by 7am the party began to break up.

But my fondest memory of Luis was on his 80th birthday in March, 2003. Gustavo and Dorte flew to Madrid from Copenhagen to celebrate his birthday and they suggested they all walk over to La Tahona, a restaurant near their home that has some of the best tiny lamb chops (chuletitas) in all of Spain. In fact, lamb is all they serve.

As the three of them and Teresa walked into the bar, Cathy, Andrea and I were waiting and yelled surprise and he was so overwhelmed and overjoyed that we came to honor him that we were all crying. It was a wonderful time with him and something I know he appreciated more than anything else we could have done.

So, the monitor says we will be landing about 9:40 this morning. We will rent a car and go to the Hyatt Villa Magna and sleep for a while and then go have lunch about 3pm and I am starting with an entire plate of Jamón. We want to go up to the Pedro Muñoz men’s store in the famous Calle Serrano area where I always buy some of the most unique and well made men’s shirts. We may go to another shopping area we have learned about.

My guess is we will likely be back for a second nap (at least I will) around 7 and then perhaps have dinner about 930 so we can be done when Andrea and Lee arrive at 11 tonight. I am hoping to find time to write in my Blog a little every couple of days to be able to capture some of the sights, sounds, smells and flavors of Spain in July, 2006.

SEXY LEXIE AND SPAIN

We spent Saturday afternoon, all day Sunday with Grover, Cris and the boys in DC. See photo below. It was so much fun and they are growing up so fast. Wes is completely laid back and Landon never stops. At 640 yesterday morning he was pounding on our door, came in and said “Come on Grammy. Get up so we can play”. And of course she did.

When they took us to the train station yesterday morning for out trip to New York, Landon was crying and saying he didn’t want Grammy to go (What am I, chopped liver?).

It was a really nice visit but I am still nursing sore arms, back and shoulders from having spent a few hours helping Grove moved 3,147 pounds of Mulch from his driveway to the yard on Saturday and Sunday.


Wes cannot believe his older brother is trying to be macho with the open shirt at 3 years of age.

We took the high speed Acela Express-it is amazing-it used to take us 5 hours and 15 minutes from Penn Station in Manhattan to DC. Yesterday it took 2 hours and 52 minutes, cruising along at 160 MPH or so. This is a great train.

Of course, like most of the rest of the world, it was hot as can be in DC and here in New York. The high here yesterday was 95 with a heat index way over 100. When that happens, the smells, both good and bad of Manhattan assail your senses. We were walking to meet Harvey and Barbara for dinner last night and the stifling heat really brought out the smells. I told Cathy I would move back here in a heartbeat. I really miss this city.

We had a great dinner at L’Impero. The last time we ate there was when we took our friends Raúl and Lizzette there in November, 2003. The Governor of New Jersey, John Corzine came in for dinner and Harvey knows him (no surprise) and he was with one of the big Union leaders (I forget his name) that Harvey also knows. So when we were leaving Harvey wanted me to go over and meet them but I am never interested in meeting famous people so I demurred and Cathy, Barbara and I went outside and waited while Harvey said his hellos. He is so good at that. I don’t know anyone in the world that has as many contacts, relationships and true friendships (not just surface) as Harvey does.

The Lexus we gave my Mom arrived on Friday of last week in Kingman and Steve and Judie went up over the weekend (escaping from the 118 degree heat of Phoenix for the 107 degree heat in Kingman-a real cool spell) and taught her how to drive it. She was so excited and she said she has the sexiest car in Kingman so she named it Sexy Lexie. Below is a photo of her standing between her old car, the 1971 Impala and her new car, the 2000 Lexus with the bow on it. You can tell she is happy. They even had a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate. I talked to her twice over the weekend and she was so excited. I am really glad we did that. While the car is 6 years old, I only put 41,000 miles on it in those six years so it is still in great shape.


Mom with Sexi Lexie and her Chugged Out Chevy.

I have an Actuarial Foundation meeting in New York today and then a car takes us to JFK. I have an AHIP Executive Committee call from there for about an hour or so and then we board the Delta flight for Madrid, arriving tomorrow at 9am. It will be a hectic day but then a couple of weeks of fun without many interruptions for conference calls which seems to be my life.

It has been nearly two years and two months since we have been in Spain. It will be wonderful to see Luis and Teresa again, although we were with them last September in Copenhagen for the wedding. Gustavo and Dorte are flying in from Denmark to be with us also and the really, really nice part is that Lee and Andrea are flying in Wednesday night. It was about 7 weeks ago when we had that tearful goodbye at the Atlanta airport so we are excited to see them.

So, I will be sharing some of our fun times over the next couple of weeks along with, hopefully, some great photos.

THE TSA, ANIMAL PENISES AND THE POST OFFICE

I have been either the CEO or Chairman of the Board of an insurance company since 1987. During that time I have made many mistakes and did a few things right. But I also learned many lessons and one the most valuable is that when you see a company going off on a tangent instead of sticking to what they do well, they are in deep trouble.

Let’s take Gourmet magazine as an example. They have been around for at least 60 years and have become famous for their cooking lessons, their wonderful fairly easy to fix recipes and their articles on different areas of the world. But boy are they losing their way.

There is a new restaurant in Beijing whose name is Guolizhuang. According to Gourmet Magazine, page 55 of the July edition (you will never believe this if I don’t tell you where you can find it); this new restaurant offers over 30 varieties of Animal Penises. The organs, often served with testicles, are thought to enhance virility.

On the same page they contend that Researchers consider Octopuses to be the most intelligent invertebrates – possibly even as intelligent as house cats.

Also on that page they describe the Cassia Grandis, a pod-shaped fruit native to Tropical America that has a distinctive smell that has earned it the nickname “Stinking Toe”. This is all on one page, followed in a couple of pages by Blueberry and Lime Popsicles “for your children” as well as Herbed Goat Cheese Toasts.

Keep in mind that the title of the page the penises are on is GOOD LIVING.

Let’s ponder this for a minute. 30 different varieties of animal penises? What would you serve an elephants with? Pole Beans? Or how about a chipmunks? Would you serve baby Brussels sprouts?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Do they really think any of us that subscribe to Gourmet are going to rush out to the local Whole Foods Market, go up to the meat counter and awkwardly ask the butcher “Uh, yes, do you have any uh, uh, uh, uh-you know, Weasel Rods”?

Let’s change topics. Let’s discuss the TSA. A month ago at the AHIP meeting in San Diego the hotel left a wonderful plate of cheese and a bottle of wine in the room since I am AHIP’s Chairman and we had 3,400 attendees there. I picked up the disposable corkscrew they gave me with the wine and realized it might work well with a certain type of New Zealand Pinot bottles that they seal with wax. So, I meant to toss it into my suitcase but I guess I tossed it into my backpack.

Since then I went through the flowing airports: Orange County once, Salt Lake twice, Jackson Hole twice, Sacramento twice, Chicago five times and Atlanta six times.
They never discovered this corkscrew, which includes a small knife. As someone who is on about a 100 flights a year, this is not reassuring. Yesterday, as I headed for Dallas, in Atlanta they found it. Of course the previous six times I had passed through Atlanta they missed it. How can this happen with the billions we are spending?

Have you ever wondered what the TSA Screeners did before 9/11? This question really bothers me. Collectively, they are a strange lot. Where do they find them? If these are the people whose previous jobs were outsourced to India, I can assure you that their previous employers did the right thing.

Oh-wait-I know the answer to my question about the billions we are spending. It is part of the government. This brings me to the Post Office, another wonderful collection of top-notch employees like the TSA folks. Let me give you an example of a few of their Employees of the Year.

Andrea bought her home in Atlanta in November of 2004. The USPS still forwards volumes of mail to her home belonging to the former owner-almost two years later.

In early May she went to the branch of the PO that delivers her mail and had it forwarded to our home since she was moving to London. Not much happened in terms of the mail delivery system. Once in a while a stray piece of mail would land in our mailbox but most of it kept going to her home. In June, after she was in London and we kept finding her mailbox full of mail (both hers and the previous owners) she went to the USPS on-line website. It is good to know they are keeping our taxes low through the use of technology such as a website.

She changed the address AGAIN on their website so that it would be forwarded to our house. The volume of her mail sent to our home picked up to a few pieces a week with the bulk still going in her mailbox. Of course, with a For Sale sign in the yard, by the time we would get over to pick it up after being out of town, the good stuff, like statements with credit card numbers on them had been.

Last Saturday I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to the same branch and after waiting in line for 20 minutes I very politely explained the problem to the woman and gave her two letters I had taken out of Andrea’s that day as examples. She looked it up and said-read carefully-this is good-she said: “Oh yes, that is Robert’s route. I am not sure how to say this, but he is, well, a little touched and he has missed a lot of work this year for illness and also he has been off for about a month on vacation”. I restrained the urge to scream at the top of my lungs while jamming the chained ballpoint pen into my nostril (or her nostril).

She asked me to wait and she went in the back for about five minutes and returned without the two letters I had given her as examples. She said “I swear, poor Robert. You would have to be blind to make that mistake. There is a huge sign (no doubt after Andrea told them the second time through their website) that says “Do not deliver to this address. See forwarding cards in file”. Note the use of the plural word-CARDS. She went on to share that “I don’t even know how he gets the mail in that slot with the sign there.”

She said “Poor Robert. He is just a little slow”. I asked her what I needed to do and she said nothing could be done. She would remind him again. I asked her for the two letters I gave her and with a completely straight face she said “Oh, I forwarded them to your house”.

Monday of this week arrives-lots of her mail in her mailbox including some on the street with the mailbox lid open. Yesterday I go there and again the mail box lid is open and it is full with mail. I now began to understand why people “Go Postal”. I never really understood what that meant until 2pm yesterday. So off I went back to the branch.

This time, I waited only 12 minutes and also translated for two customers in front of me. I guess it isn’t the government’s policy to hire people who can speak the language (Spanish) of the people who reside in the neighborhood where the branch is located. Although as I typed that last sentence I realized they speak my language and they don’t seem to understand me so it doesn’t really matter I guess if it is English, Spanish or Farsi.

There was a really big guy working behind the counter wearing a shirt that said Iraqi Freedom or something like that from the first time we marched into that pleasant place back in 1991 or so. His neck was the size of a small wine barrel. Being the quick on my feet type, I said to myself “Do not give this guy any crap-he will break your neck and then stomp on you”.

So I amicably explained the problem and he said “That is horrible. We have so much identity theft in this area (gee-I wonder why). What is the address of your daughter’s home?” I told him and he then got this funny look on his face and started sucking air in through his teeth the way Japanese men do right before they say “Ahhh so”. It reminded me of the way my friends smoked during the 60’s but I won’t get into that. He even tilted his head to the side and squinted his eyes. After what seemed an eternity he said “Oh, this is a big problem. You need to talk directly to the Carrier”. I told him what his co-worker (wait-change that to co-employee-there’s not a lot of work going on here) said about Robert being “touched”. He replied “Well, that is just rumor and you shouldn’t repeat it but I do think it is true. We have had lots of problems on this route so you need to talk to him.”

I said I thought perhaps a friendly chat with his supervisor, or the branch Postmaster would be in order. He said that won’t work as they have talked to him and he doesn’t listen very well to them but perhaps if I “explain it to him” he would do better. He wrote down the main number for this branch and said to call between 8am and 10am and ask for the carrier for this area. Before I could pursue it further, he asked the customer behind me how he could “help” her.

Just imagine-if you think our health care delivery and financing system is in shambles now, just visualize if we let the government turn it over. How would you like to get your annual physical from Robert?

I stormed outside. I was driving Andrea’s car and since it was her mail, at her home, in her mailbox at her address and her branch post office that was causing all the trouble, I considered for a moment ramming her car into the set of mailboxes that were in front where people drop off their mail. I was so furious that when I went to get the car washed a little later, I accidentally threw away the piece of paper with the phone number on it.

Later that day, after that pleasant encounter, I took MARTA (Atlanta’s metro) to the airport and, for about the fifth time in a row, looked up at the board that has the upgrades in order of priority and saw I was at the top of the list and there were four empty seats available. I then proceeded to watch them call up four people that were behind me. The same thing happened today in Dallas. I was upgraded on every flight for years-now I can never get upgraded and I know I have more miles and am a higher status (which is why I’m always listed at the top) than almost all of these people. The world doesn’t seem to work the same way that it does for others.

So I marched back to row 25 and made myself comfortable. Right before we were getting ready to leave there was some commotion 3 rows in front of me on the other side. The two flight attendants were talking to an elderly woman. I knew it was a language problem as they kept speaking louder and louder which is what most of us do when someone can’t understand us. We seem to think that if a person from Sophia only speaks Bulgarian, she will understand us if we just shout loud enough.

I was reading and sort of forgot about it. Then they came on the PA system and said that if anyone spoke Italian they should ring the attendant call button. No one did, so I pushed it even though my Italian is limited. They had me go up and ask her what the problem was because the woman next to her said she was crying and wanted off the plane.

She told me she was going to Dallas to see her family and thought the plane was going somewhere else. She was crying and worried she was on the wrong plane. She wanted off. I told her not to worry and then said “Signora, questo aereo va a Dallas. Tutto e bono” and she smiled and said “Mil Gracie” and so I sat down and the plane took off. I had expected thunderous applause but it was the silent film type I guess.

When we landed in Dallas and she got off, her family was there and she told them what happened and this guy comes up and pumps my hand and pats me on the back. I felt pretty good about that.

When I arrived at the hotel in Ft. Worth it was 930pm and still 95 degrees. I left my bag in the room and walked outside. The streets were full of people (this is right in the center of downtown Ft. Worth). I stopped at a place called Jamba Juice, a chain, and was so baffled by the choices (things like fresh raspberries with orange sherbet, wheat germ and mint blended into a smoothie) that I just ordered a regular lemonade. As I was waiting for them to make it I leafed through a nutrition book sitting there and I saw the lemonade was 455 calories, no doubt the result of the main ingredient being white grape juice. I would have erroneously said the main ingredient in lemonade would be lemons but apparently not. However, this was the best lemonade I have ever had.

I woke up today at 4am and did some emails and at 530 went out for a long walk. It was still hot but pleasant with a strong breeze. It was a really neat downtown area, extremely tidy and filled with Western memorabilia. I took several photos with my new camera phone and have posted them below.

I bought a Starbucks (they open at 5am they said) and was just meandering and really having a relaxing and enjoyable morning when suddenly I came around a corner and saw this big building with 1000 or so people standing in line or lying on the sidewalk. (Is it laying or lying? I never can remember the rule).

I thought they were homeless except they had chaise lounges, folding chairs, some tents and even sleeping bags. It seemed a little hot for a tent or bedroll but it was driving me nuts so I walked past about 4 blocks worth of people until I got to the front of the line. I figured they would be the most likely to know why they were in line since they started the queue.

They were a couple from Henrietta, Oklahoma (where I used to travel to 30 plus years ago) and said the building was the Bass Brothers (as in the filthy rich Bass Brothers) Opera House and they were in line for auditions to a TV show called either “So you want to be a millionaire?” or “Do you want to be a millionaire?”

They said they had been there since 8am yesterday and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that after 22 hours in heat in excess of 100 (it hit 104 there yesterday) they really looked like crap and didn’t smell like millionaires. They were very nice and real friendly and so I offered to go get them a coffee or water or anything else and they said no because some young guys had been running back and forth since yesterday morning getting those type of things for a 50% premium. I wish I would have met those guys-I would have hired them. A photo of some of the people standing in line is also below.


The Potential Millionaire Queue


Topiary Bull


Cowboy Topiary


Wall Sculpture of The Chisholm Trail

The plane will be in Atlanta in a half hour and I have run out of things to say (for now) which I know surprises some of you.

TEACHING, LEARNING AND EATING MEAT

It was a good week. On the 4th, we had our United Family Life reunion at Bill’s. There were about 40 people there and we managed to eat every last bite of the 23 pounds of Beef Brisket I had smoked all night long (12 hours) the day before on my Green Egg plus the 12 pounds of pork and the 6 pounds of chicken that Bill cooked on his Green Egg. We also consumed who knows how much beer and 20 bottles of wine. It was great seeing everyone, some of whom I had not seen in 12 years or so. I know I ate at least 3 pounds of Beef Brisket by myself. We decided we are going to invite all of them over to our house for a Christmas party this December. All of the people there were part of the team of my first company as CEO and I am forever indebted to them as we took the company and transformed it from a sleepy little company in a yesterday business to a market leader in an entirely new business.

Wednesday I flew to Lake Forest for a dinner meeting with 3 of our senior folks, Dave, Mark and Brinke (who I noticed occasionally reads this Blog) and on Thursday and Friday I taught my Financial Training classes to 20 of our employees. I had taught 3 days worth the week before and finished with these two days. They were both fun groups and I enjoyed being with them. But since I know a number of our employees at Trustmark read this, what else can I say?

I flew back Friday night and made the mistake of stopping at Eatzi’s to get something for a sandwich. I bought some Jamón Serrano and they had a freshly baked loaf of Four Cheese Bread. I bought it and ate so much that night I was in bed by 930 and slept until 630 on Saturday morning, something I never do. I managed to eat the entire loaf of bread by today. Since we will be in Spain in ten days, I am not sure why I bought Jamón Serrano now but there is never a bad time for eating Jamón, a philosophy that is shared by my son.

I spent Saturday morning running errands and picked up Cathy at the airport (she was flying in from Dallas) in the afternoon. Last night we had a very interesting dinner. The President of Georgia State University, Carl Patton and his wife Gretchen are friends and they invited us to a casual non-GSU related dinner. It was a fun dinner. Carl and Gretchen live on the Penthouse Floor of the new condos in Centennial Park. As you go on their balcony the new Georgia Aquarium is down below on the left and the Park, built for the 1996 Olympics is right in front of you below. The view is spectacular of downtown Atlanta. Gretchen, who is struggling with MS, looked great and her spirits were high. Cathy and I have commented so often that Carl and Gretchen are the kind of people from a values standpoint that we would really like to know better. On the other hand, they are so well educated it is a little intimidating.

It was a very casual event with a few other friends of theirs. The IQ must have averaged about 200 and I doubt there were many there without PhD's. We were a little out of place.

In addition to Carl and Gretchen there was a man named Elridge McMillan who was interesting, eloquent, brilliant (graduated from college at 19) and is the longest serving member (31 years) of the Georgia Board of Regents. He told interesting stories about growing up as a black child in racially segregated South Carolina in the 50's. He has received numerous honorary doctorates and is truly a very friendly and very nice gentleman. I enjoyed his company a lot.

Also, a guy named Jeff Swanagan who is the Executive Director of the Georgia Aquarium was there. He was saying he has no hair on his legs because he works tagging sharks this time of year down near Tampa and that they rub all the hair off his legs. If I understood him right, the largest attendance in any year in any Aquarium in the USA (there are 55 of them) was 2 million for the year at the famous Shedd in Chicago. In 2006, as of last week, his Georgia Aquarium has had 2.4 million visitors already with half a year to go. He was an interesting guy and said when Landon comes to see us we should call him and he will help us with a special visit. I think Landon is a little too young for a special tour but we do want to take him to see the Aquarium.

Then there was a guy named Bijon, a Fulbright scholar from Iran who was a student with Henry Kissinger at MIT. He now teaches at GSU part time and he is married to a younger woman who is a Doctoral student in 18th century English. She is from Azerbaijan. She is a Shiite Muslim who was not dressed as such, drank red wine, and was very, very interesting. She teaches English composition at GSU while working on her PHD. Bijon is also involved in MicroCredit as I am with Freedom From Hunger. He has been doing some work in former Soviet Georgia and I am going to find some time to spend with him since we are both involved in similar charitable endeavors.

Finally, Hal and Susan McAllister were there. I've met Hal before. He is in charge of the CHARA (Center for High Angular Resolution in Astronomy) for GSU. He spends much of his time at the Mt. Wilson observatory in Los Angeles but they live in Atlanta. Mt. Wilson is primarily run by Georgia State. Mt. Wilson’s telescope (which they asked us to come see-(how cool would that be?)is on top of a mountain only 18 miles from downtown Los Angeles yet in early May they still had 2.5 feet of snow on the ground at the telescope. While all of it is computerized now, they still have the actual telescopes that Hubble looked through and when we go they will set them up and let us look through them as Hubble did many years ago. They were a nice couple.

Needless to say, we felt a little "out educated" but everyone was so friendly and interesting. We really enjoyed it. At one time we were telling stories about early jobs and I am sure the others were flabbergasted to learn I was a used car salesman and then a repo man.

I got up this morning and had a good hard bike ride-the weather was fabulous. The rest of the day I have spent doing almost nothing other than making a great salad for lunch. I took some Arugula and tossed it with Lemon Olive oil, grapefruit sections, thin pink radish slices, fresh red currants, Black Mission Figs and Cabot Black Wax Cheddar Cheese. It was great if I do say so myself.

I have become skilled at sitting around for hours doing nothing but constantly worrying about all that I have to do and should be doing. I have 69 emails to answer and so what am I doing? Writing in my Blog.

We did watch Italy trounce the crap out of the French (I’m happy about this) in the World Cup. Zidane’s stunt was horrible and he deserved the red card. Yes, like many of my friends who are reading this, I cannot believe I am talking about sports. This is what happens when your daughter falls in love with a Brit.

(Click here for a video of Zidane's now famous head butt)

Since we are now entering the wonderful season of hurricanes, I thought I would post this photo of the back of our home in Florida after Hurricane Dennis came through last year. This was the second year in a row we were hit. Hopefully this year is not the famous “third time is the charm”. The photo was taken with a camera phone so it is not as clear as it should be. Well, I guess I am done. It would be nice if I could think of something witty to say but I can’t think of anything so I will just say bye for now.


Hurricane Dennis damage in 2005

LIKE ANDREA & STEGGY, MY CAR HAS NOW LEFT THE BUILDING


The neighborhood Fireworks Display Tonight <

Happy Independence Day weekend. Our neighborhood has a wonderful fireworks display right across from our home every July 3rd. We walked across the street and sat on the lawn and watched it tonight. It is as big as many city displays. Now I know why are association dues are so high.

At any rate, I snapped 64 photos tonight of the fireworks and decided to share one of the best ones with you, which is right above here.

Now, about this morning (July 3rd). I was sitting doing emails at 8am today and the doorbell rang and it was the exterminator who came in to spray. Doesn’t that seem a little early? It really bugged me. Get it?

Then at 9am the truck came to take my car (no, it was not repossessed). My Mom has a 1971 Chevrolet Impala that after about 300,000 miles (my parents bought it new) and 35 years in the Arizona desert sun, is finally about to call it a day.

Since my Mom will be 91 in a few months and still driving I am sure the Chevy was surprised as it probably thought it would last longer than Mom would be able to drive but then it doesn’t know my Mom like we do.

So, I had a 2000 Lexus 400 series that is almost as big as her Impala. It only has 42,000 miles on it since my life revolves around planes more than cars, so I gave it to her. They came and picked it up today (we are having it shipped on a truck) and it will be at her apartment in Kingman in ten to fourteen days. My brother Steve will drive up from Phoenix and teach her how to use the many things that have changed since 1971 such as shoulder straps instead of seat belts, remote key access, and temperature controlled heating and air conditioning and a host of other things. I’m happy that the car is on the way.

Speaking of Arizona reminds me of a story that I wanted to put on my Blog. It is a story from 39 years ago that still makes me laugh. It starts with the definition of a Tostada in case you don’t know what they are. They are often called Chalupas but when this happened, the term Tostada was more common. It is a crisp and flat fried corn tortilla (much like Papadum in Indian eateries) and on it they spread refried beans and then sprinkle lettuce, cheese and tomato, although I did not have any tomato that day (or any day since) since I have always despised tomatoes.

Cathy and I had driven to Snowflake, Arizona (an odd name for a place in Arizona) to repossess a broiler (like a portable oven) from some guy who owed my company money. After we picked it up we stopped in Flagstaff at a restaurant we both loved. We were seated in a booth and we ordered our meals and mine included a couple of Tostadas (with no tomatoes).

The waitress set the plates down and said to be careful as they were very hot. As you know, in a traditional Mexican restaurant, they usually pass the plates under a broiler for a minute to get the food to a temperature of about 200 degrees before bringing it to the table.

I was sitting across the table from Cathy and there was another couple sitting in the booth immediately behind me. I very carefully picked up a Tostada so that I would not burn my hand on the plate. As I raised it to my mouth to blow on it, I looked up at Cathy and the next thing I knew, as I was raising up the Tostada, my elbow touched the hot plate and it burned the skin almost to the bone (or so it felt). Of course, my instant normal human reaction was that once it touched the plate, my arm skyrocketed involuntarily upward and I launched the still hot tostada over my shoulder and onto the head of the guy sitting in the booth behind me.

Now, since back then everyone was bigger than I was (I weighed 120 pounds), I knew without looking back that he was bigger (and likely meaner) than me. But it struck me as funny and I tried so hard not to laugh as did Cathy. He was not happy. There was lettuce, cheese, and refried beans everywhere.

Of course, instead of thanking me for ordering them without any tomatoes (which would also have gone on him) he didn’t think either the toss or my amusement at it was very funny. He was actually quite rude and ungrateful about the lack of tomatoes. To this day I don’t know how we got out of that restaurant without getting our butts kicked.

Last night we took Bill and Cheri to dinner for his birthday. No big deal except Atlanta is a huge city and as we were sitting there, very good friends (Greg and Carol Egger) came in the same restaurant with Jerry and Donna Tassa (Jerry worked for me in the early 80’s) to celebrate Jerry’s birthday. It was too weird.

We bought a cool piece of art when we were in Prague and just received it so I (yes, for those of you that know my lack of tool skills I actually did it) hung it up yesterday. Below is a photo I snapped of it before the hanging.


The art from Prague <

Don’t you just love salami’s and hams like Jamón Serrano and Proscuitto? I think they are my favorite eats. And now I have been introduced to Salumi. I pigged (pun intended) out on it yesterday and am hoping I can contain myself enough to save some to take to Grover in two weeks. I am now a rabid Salumi fan-especially the kind made with fennel. Yes, I know this was a total and complete change of topic. But I'm hungry so I thought about it. If you want to buy some, go to the site below. In fact, ask for Marilyn and use my name. She is the mother of a very famous chef called Mario Batali in New York-he owns Babbo, Lupa, Bar Jamon, Esca, Casa Mono, Bistro du Vent and Otto Enoteca Pizzeria all in Manhattan. We've eaten at Babbo where I had my first beef cheeks about 7 years ago. His Mom (Marilyn) and her husband are from Italy and after he retired from 30 years or so at a big plant (perhaps Boeing-I can't recall) he and Marilyn opened up this little salumeria in Seattle. Don't bother ordering their famous Culatello-I've been on the waiting list for months and it will be this fall before they deliver it. When they do, Grover, Landon (and maybe Wes by the time it comes) are going to have a ham fest-a true pig out.

(Click here for the most fabulous salumi you can imagine)

Happy 4th. Don’t try any of the stunts done in the following links with fireworks. These are proof positive that there really are a lot of stupid people in the world. Stupid, but funny.

Lee, now you will see how we celebrate winning the war with you guys a couple of hundred years ago. Very sophisticated us Yanks, huh? But no purple hair. If you, my reading public, are interested in my purple hair comment, go to Andrea's Blog (link on left at top of this Blog) and see the photos of her posting today.

(Click here for the first dumb video)

(Click here for the second dumb video)

(Click here for the third dumb video)




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