Its been forever since I've looked at this.

I've been travelling a lot, taking many pictures and meeting some interesting characters.

I was asked to be involved in the birth of a baby (which was amazing), visited London, Belize, Guatemala, and all over the midwest. I've got some trips lined up to South America, Hawaii and possibly China. Gotta love free airline travel.

Drinking interesting beers, bowling, spear fishing with local kids, Korean and Chinese missionaries, capturing monkeys and shenanigans have all been done.

Archery and telescopes have taken hold as well.

Two of my cousins are travelling the world for a few months and I plan on meeting up with them in exotic locals.

Tropical diseases suck. Antibiotics and painkillers are working. I dare say that's why I am rambling here.

See you in another 6 months.

Jabu

Here are some pictures of our new border collie Jabu. She's exactly 11 weeks old today.

I've become quite introspective lately.

New York City was amazing. The culture, sights, sounds and smells you experience around every corner is unreal. I probably heard more people speaking foreign languages than I did English. It was great.

For the few days I was there I ate Brazilian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Italian, and Greek food. The best meal by far was the Vietnamese. It was damn good. One thing I don't think will catch on is the Ethiopian restaurant we saw. After you eat, instead of giving you a shot of amaretto to 'cleanse the palate' they actually give you a shot of ipecac so you actually leave hungrier than you did when you got there. Weird.

The first day we decided to get on one of those double decker busses and take the tour of Manhattan so we could get our bearings and scope out any areas we wanted to go back and explore. We also took a cruise around the island, which was great. The only other tour we did was of the NBC studios of Conan O'Brian, SNL, and the Today Show. I was amazed at how small the studios were for SNL and Conan. They aren't much bigger than a couple of classrooms. It's amazing how camera-trickery works.

Hmm, what else... We saw a comedy show headlined by Jim Norton, toured the International Center of Photography (it was lame), and walked all over the place. Times Square at night was my favourite by far.

Anyways, here are some pictures. My photo host is totally screwed up so I had to use Xanga and it resized most of them. I'm working on that. Click on them to see full size.

Half-painted advertisement:

One of the many 9-11 memorials around town:

Silly Xanga resized this, but its a shot of Manhattan from the mouth of the Hudson:

My brother in a bar on Times Square:

One night we rented a rickshaw and this was our driver. He's a turkish student here for the summer. We talked for about an hour and it was great. Evidently he was "#1 kickboxer in Turkey!!" Yup.


Times Square at night- looking uptown.

This guy was a character. He was teaching these Irish kids how to rap.

All these people were below MTV watching Pharrell Williams perform.

The Broadway side of Times Square:

On top of Rockefeller Center looking towards Central Park:

Now looking downtown:

We ventured up to Harlem and saw the Apollo theater. Pretty low key, eh?

I'm off to New York City for the week. I'm flying out in the morning and staying in a hotel right on Times Square. Tis going to be awesome.

I'm planning on eating some great food, visiting the sights and just having a good time soaking it all in. I'll have pictures and stories when I get back.