Waking up on December 26 we figured that we'd plan an escape from the resort: where would we get to if we just walked and walked and walked up the beach? Turns out you that find no people, no buildings, no nothing apart from sand, sea, and big sticks. Here's me with a particularly attractive bit of bamboo:
More photos from Boxing Day in Puerto Rico are now online.
This is what Christmas night looks like on a beach in Puerto Rico:
We woke up on Christmas day in San Juan and went out for a walk on the beach. Beautiful! Warm! Sunny! Sandy! Not things one typically associates with Christmas if one's from England but Puerto Rico has a way of being different.
At lunchtime we hopped in a cab to Rio Grande, where we'd booked into the "Rio Mar Resort and Spa by Wyndham" on priceline.com (ie. we'd named our price and it had put us there). The room was super but I'm not sure a resort was really what we were looking for; lesson learned.
Photos from Christmas Day 2007 available online; boxing day to follow.
It was about 11pm on Christmas Eve when we finally arrived at our first hotel in Puerto Rico, and everything was shut. No dinner, no drinks, no celebration, but we did have a nice midnight walk along the beach to celebrate the advent. Here's Wendy looking all business-like while enjoying the sight and sound of the Caribbean sea:
We stayed the first night at the curiously named "At Wind Chimes Inn" (yes, the opening preposition is part of the name). The room was small but comfortable; the noise terrific but after our long journey not enough to disturb our sleep too much. And hey, we were a block from a lovely beach in Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The busiest beach in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico
with just enough room for me, a long piece of bamboo and a mystery photographer.
I just got back from a six-day "mini-moon"; more photos to come.
Things here are moving on... slowly. Went to see the immigration
attorney today and it looks like I might have conditional residency
before the end of 2008, which would be nice. Work is busy, my
promotion will make it more so, but in a good way.
Just back from a Thanksgiving in Fort Collins, where I took some photos of Terry Lake in Winter. Compare with photos of Terry Lake in Winter from a snowless last year.
Also have finally gotten around to replacing some framed photos in the dining room. I put up these ones from the Mission:
I've been busy on Facebook too.
Two sets of photos today (and finally). Been more busy on facebook than on here, and trying to figure out how to link the two. Anyway, in the meantime have a look at these from Bernal on Friday---crazy crane!
and these from the Mission on Saturday:
Today I got an extra hour to play with, at the expense of it getting dark at 5.30pm. I'll sacrifice the hour, thanks. Dark afternoons suck.
The photos from the wedding have begun to trickle in. Here's one of the microphone which Jackie snapped, with some couple getting hitched in the background.
So can you believe I actually made this? Starting from four crusty scraps of platinum? I melted and sanded and milled and annealed and milled and annealed and milled and milled and milled and milled and cut and filed and bent and tensioned and soldered and burred and ground and sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded and pre-polished and washed and polished and washed. It took five hours. It was great. Five days to go!
In other news, I took this down the road the other day.
Snapped this one driving around Sonoma, between Iron Horse and Healdsburg:
Not long now; per the wedsite...
There've been some pretty clouds over the last few weeks. We get really amazing clouds here sometimes... and now I think about it, an incredible variety.
Today it rained for the first time in, gosh, probably at least four months. It smells fantastic outside. First rain of the season seems early this year; I distinctly remember that last year the first autumn rain I saw at Google was on October 18th (it was the day that Sue left).
Everything's changing. Seasons, time, marital status, the global climate, my age, me.
It was a busy weekend. On Friday we went to see Guster in San Francisco:
On Saturday we met our minister to go over our wedding vows. On Sunday we picked grapes
and then went to Barndiva to choose food, sample cocktails and finalize the flower selection. Less than a month to go...
This one's from a few weeks ago up in Timber Cove. There sure were a lot of stars there.
Heading up to Healdsburg again today for final wedding preparations. Getting close now...
Here's one I took a couple of weeks ago on our trip to Vegas.
At the Mandalay Bay we stayed in the largest hotel room I've ever stayed in (it reminded me of the one in Pretty Woman) but I still think that overall I prefer the MGM Grand despite its lack of an inland beach.
Isaac fun fact: did you know that there are more hotel rooms at the intersection of Tropicana Ave and The Strip in Las Vegas than there are in the whole of the City of San Francisco?
How's about them skies, ladies and gentlemen?
I'm becoming a huge fan of Twitter even though I can't seem to drum up the same enthusiasm in anyone else I know. Anyway, you can follow what I'm up to at http://twitter.com/isaach.
Here's another pic from the Mission. Does this not look like an idyllic sixties scene? Am I just imagining that?
This last weekend Wendy and I "got away from it all" at the Timber Cove Inn up north. Little did I know when we went that included in "all" was the internet, cell phone signal, and basic hygiene... the hotel wasn't the most sparkly-clean you ever saw. On the upside, we had a room with two chairs and a little stoop and an ocean view. We also had sunshine and a whole lot of not much else. Is nice; I like.
This afternoon I was filmed for one of these. Since I couldn't remember ever wearing make-up before, I thought I'd ask them to leave it on when I was done so I could see what it was like. In a meeting later in the day someone asked me why I looked somehow different, cleaner, healthier, neater... obviously this stuff works!
I just posted this to the wedding site, so I guess I should put it here too. I present to you, the Happy Couple:
