May 10 | Happiness

I have been reading a book on happiness written by a grump called "The Geography of Bliss". Jeremy Bentham, a London lawyer in 1776 came up with a mathematical proposition to calculate happiness. His theory was that you add up all your pleasurable experiences and subtract the unpleasant ones, and the result was your level of happiness.

I was sitting on my front porch with new Boston ferns swinging in the morning breeze and the sun warming my toes. This got me thinking. Was I happy? I decided to do the math.

I love my home with all its creaks and cracks. The crooked floors, mismatched chairs, svelte lawn and manicured garden. My wife, a beautiful blond woman with tanned skin, dirt under her fingernails and a love of her vegetable garden. Three beautiful children who I both adore and whom drive me crazy in equal measure. And our dog Seamus whom I would donate a kidney for.



I love living at the beach with all its peculiarity. The smells, sounds and sights of living in the low country. Early mornings on the beach with my good friend Bob, searching for waves and drifting among the dolphins. Long days at the shore with sandwiches packed in ice and cold iced tea. Even the seagulls, which can be rats with wings, make me smile. Fresh baguettes smeared with pesto and feta cheese. Hotdogs. Fresh, sweet corn, which as Garrison Keillor has said is better than sex. An outdoor shower, which after a day in the sun at the beach is proof of a loving God. Our screenhouse full of surfboards, fishing poles, a mini fridge full of cold beer and a fan to blow all your troubles away.

I love the winter, where we pack ourselves away indoors in front of the fire and read books and watch movies. I love roast chickens, mashed potatoes, canned green beans, and red wine. I love the smell of sawdust as it spills out of the back of the chainsaw and the sight of our dogs lounging in the dry leaves. The long walks on Sundays where we walk in a circle and talk of nothing. Football and hot wings. Hoodies and warm socks.

I love quiet mornings where it's just me and a book, a journal and the dog. The feeling that you have the whole day ahead of you and you're the only one awake. In the winter it's in front of a crackling fire. In the summer it might be on the beach with a newspaper and a steaming cup of coffee.

I don't want to detail the things in my life that are unpleasant, but suffice it say, they are do not add up.

And for than I am happy for today.

May 9 | A Hint Of Summer

I was standing on my porch smoking a cigarette during the middle of a severe thunderstorm when a man riding a John Deere riding lawn mower drove past my house against traffic, which I found strange.



It had been a beautiful day and Jane and I spent a few hours searching for Pelargonium peltatum, which I learned are Amethyst Ivy Geraniums, and are apparently harder to find than you would think. Or maybe you wouldn't. Normally I wouldn't enjoy driving from garden center to garden center on a lovely, warm, sunny day, but Jane and I had a nice time. We needed the time together.

We never found the exact plant we were looking for but we enjoyed ourselves and when we got home I lit a fire outside, opened a beer and read a magazine while Jane planted flowers.

It felt like summer. Jane had been marinating chicken for a couple of days and I grilled the chicken along with new, red potatoes coated in sea salt, fresh rosemary from the garden and olive oil. Add a little steamed broccoli and you have yourself a pretty nice, summer meal. It almost made me nostalgic and homesick at the same time.

I'm looking forward to getting home from Dallas and spending some time at the beach.

As the sun began to set, dark clouds moved in and we began to hear thunder in the distance. Eventually we moved inside and began to watch TV. I heard some loud cracks of thunder and went outside on the porch to smoke. As I stood there, the rain began to fall in sheets, the lightening glowing in the distance and the thunder echoing against the house.

And then I heard a lawnmower. It's good to be home.

May 7 | Dallas

I'm sitting in my room at the W Hotel in Dallas, Texas. It's what you'd expect. Very chic. Very nice. Very modern. But not a lot of personality. It all seems a bit cold to me. Maybe I'm tired.

I admit, I was up a little later than I would have liked. But that's not the tired I'm talking about. I'm tired of being on all the time. Making decisions. Impressing the clients. Making other people happy. The travel is really taking its toll. I need to be home for a few days with nothing to do. The problem is, when I do get home, I really need to help Jane out around the house. She's doing it all herself and that's not fair. We need to put the air conditioners in, which I hate more than just about anything in the world. I don't know why. I just do. I really need to look into having central air installed in our 285 year old house. Sounds wrong, doesn't it?

What I really needed to do was take my vacation AFTER all of this, but it doesn't always work out that way. I don't even want to go anywhere. Truthfully, even all that "fun in the sun" can get tiresome.

I'd like a morning that lasts all day. Quiet. Maybe a little soft music. A book and my journal. Coffee. My dog at my feet. No phone.

When I was younger I was definitely a night person. Most young people are I guess. But now the time I cherish most is the morning. Maybe it's because I get so few of them that aren't complicated by work or travel.

I'm reading a book called, "A Three Dog Life". It's a memoir of a woman who's husband was hit by a car and suffered brain damage. He lives in a home and has almost no short term memory. He knows who she is and can remember things from his past, but he can stand in front of the bathroom mirror for over an hour with his toothbrush in hand because he can't remember what he's supposed to be doing.

She moved from their apartment in NYC into a small home in the country to be near him. She has three dogs (hence the name of the book). She's a wonderfully honest, funny writer.

One of the lines I wrote in my journal: "Ironically, the last several years of my life have begun to feel shapeless, like underwear with the elastic gone, the days down around my ankles."

Another was, "And what is home anyway, but what we cobble together out of our changing selves?"

I don't even know what that means but I like the sound of it.

May 6 | Dallas

All this comfort food is making me very uncomfortable.

Been in the Big D for a couple of days now. Everyone keeps taking us to greasy spoon diners, I guess because it's like showing you were the locals hang out. The thing is, what they call comfort food isn't as comforting as I remember. It's just a heart attack on a plate. I can't say that I'm an extremely healthy eater, especially compared to many people I work with who order Salmon or a salad, or something else high in some type of cancer fighting ingredient, but compared to these people, I'm practically a vegan! I wouldn't mind so much if it was decadently bad for you. But it's just not that good. If I'm going to eat with abandon, I want to really enjoy it.



I was down here about a month ago and Cris Andrei, my producer, and I were staying at a very nice, chic hotel. We were a bit tired so we decided to just to eat at the hotel restaurant. I was looking at the menu and it had all the right ingredients to be a chi-chi, modern restaurant: heirloom this artisan that. But upon further inspection I found a dish that absolutely appalled me. Chicken fried Kobe beef. The whole point of battering and frying a piece of beef is because you're using cheap meat. The fried batter and the gravy is there to disguise the quality of the meat. You just don't take the most expensive beef on the planet and fry it!

So, I'm calling for a moratorium on diner food for the remainder of my time here. I want to eat lunch in a place where the menu selection is greater than: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner. Call me a snob. Call me arrogant. I don't care. I'm already doing enough damage to my body through lack of sleep, alcohol and cigarettes. I don't need any more help.

May 4 | Home For A Rest

My good weather luck seems to have finally given out. First I had Mexico, then unusually good weather in Moscow and London. Now I'm home again and it's cold and damp. But, I leave early tomorrow morning for Dallas and it's going to be in the eighties, so I'm not doing too bad.

It's true, that travel can be exciting. But sometimes it's more fun to have been there than to have gone there. In other words, it's great to see the sights and have the memories, but the process is grueling. Even tomorrow I have to get up at 3am to catch a 6am flight. Getting up at 3am is ridiculous. One time I woke up and realized that the ice in my bedside drink hadn't even finished melting and I said to myself, "That just isn't right." Jane laughed.



I'm going to Dallas for two reasons. First, we to do casting for a photoshoot and television commercial for a client in Calgary. That's right, we're an agency in New Jersey flying to Dallas to shoot a commercial for a client in Canada. What can I say, it's the only place we could find where there is mature wheat at this time of year. The concept is shooting models in the middle of a wheat field. Can't say any more. The next day we have one final scout of the locations. I've been told that the fields suffered some frost damage and I don't yet know what that will mean to me.

The second reason for going to Dallas is to present creative to a new client there. Just coincidence, but the timing fell close enough that it made sense to combine the trips. Since we were planning on staying over and taking the client out to dinner, I leave Tuesday, do the casting, location scout on Wednesday, present to new client on Thursday, come home Friday.

The following Tuesday, I go back to Dallas and am there for ten days. There's a lot of pre-production work to be done. Wardrobe. Props. Technical scout. Fittings. Working with the art department (set designers), director of photography, producers, etc....

I hope to buy cowboy boots.

The worst part of all this is the packing. I like to have everything I need, or might need, so I tend to overpack slightly. Just slightly, as of course I'm quite practiced. But, for this trip, I need my camera equipment, sound equipment, tripod, laptop, portable drives, battery packs, not to mention clothes both for casting and scouting (shorts and flip flops will do since it's 85°), but for client meetings (slacks and sportcoat or suit, depending). Toiletries. Portable DVD player for the plane, along with headphones (and I have to charge it first). Book (you never know when you have time to kill). Journal (how do you think I remember all this shit). Boxers (this is a bigger deal than you might think. When you're traveling as much as I do, laundry is constant). And whenever possible, I try not to check bags. In this case, is inevitable because of the size of some of this stuff.

And especially when you're tired and just finished unpacking, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the task. I've been home for weekends every two weeks, or something like that it seems. Get home Friday or Saturday. Leave Monday or Tuesday.

But there are upsides. We stay in nice hotels. Sometimes we're in First Class, but not always. We eat well and generally have a good time entertaining clients. Plus we get to see other parts of the country and the world. But not as much as you might think. Unless we have time off for ourselves, which is rare, we're working, not sightseeing. So, like in the case of Moscow, we spent our time touring shopping centers, not Red Square. Which is why all my photos are of retail and dining, and very few tourist attractions. Yes, I've been to Moscow, but name the top ten tourist destinations there and if I'm lucky, we drove past them.

April 28 | London

We arrived in London last night and after checking into our hotel, met Bill’s sister in law at her house in Chelsea. Cute neighborhood. Full of book stores, fromageries, old hardware stores, florists, pubs and restaurants. Everything you could ask for.

We ended up hitting several pubs and restaurants and ended up in a Scottish bar that Bill likes called Doon.

So throughout the day we’d been to Tsum, Gum, and Doon.

We vow to get up early tomorrow and head to Knotting Hill and have a walk down Prospect Road. If you ever saw the movie with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, this is the area where he walks around. Lots of shops and stands.

We got up a little late, but were up nonetheless. We walked towards Parliament and caught the Tube near Westminster. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day so of course everyone and their mother were out.


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London is like New York in that it can be hard to find people who actually speak as if they’re from there. You can spend a lot of time in New York and not hear a New York accent. Same holds true for London. Much of the service staff at hotels and restaurants are immigrants. The black taxi’s are all native Londoners, but otherwise, it’s anybody’s guess.


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Walking down Portobello Road from the Tube station was a bit of a nightmare. It was simply wall-to-wall people. We shuffled down the street en masse which seemed pointless. I couldn’t see anything to the left or right of me and I hate crowds. It was like being in the airport. We finally broke free after several blocks and found a pub on the corner. There were outdoor tables in the sun, but what our chances of getting one might be was anyone’s guess.


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The pub was called The Duke of Wellington, and the table farthest from the crowds and nearest the door was occupied by two British gentleman. Two people who had been sitting at the table with them got up and left. I asked if they minded if we joined them and they welcomed us with open arms. It was the best move of the trip. That was the last we saw of London, because until we had to leave for the airport, that’s where we sat.


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First, there was Joe, a likable fellow in his fifties. He was, as it turned out, also in advertising, but more of a director. He lived around the corner. Joe was nonstop laughs. Not just that he was funny, but he wore a perpetual grin. A little devious maybe.


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Next was Jim. Also in his fifties. Also lived nearby. And he was also in advertising, but as an art director. Jim and Joe had been friends for years and appeared to get on very well with one another. As the day grew on, Jim became harder and harder for me to understand. I always got the gist of what he was saying, but he used so much slang, that he could talk for 20-30 seconds without me understanding a word he was saying. It was brilliant.


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Joe informed us that this table was the Pole Position, a racing term to signify the best position. He was absolutely right. We sat in the sun, drank cold cider, smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and watched the world go by. It was one of the best days I’ve ever had. The guys were funny as hell, and we laughed and talked and drank.


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Before we left, we exchanged email addresses and vowed to keep in touch, and ring them next time we were going to be in London. I can’t imagine a better plan.

So, Joe and Jim? Thanks for a great day. You made my trip.

April 27 | Moscow

We’re going around to see the competition today. There are four main competitors in addition to street level retail. Tsum (Tsentralniy Universalniy Magazin), pronounced “zoom”, which we saw yesterday. Gum, (Gosudarstvenny Universalny Magazin) pronounced “goom”, which is directly off Red Square. Crocus City Mall, a little farther outside the city center. And Luxury Village, an open-air center on the outskirts of the city.

We start at Gum, which is on Red Square, so we stop at the square and take a few pictures. We can’t actually get into the square so we miss the opportunity to get inside Lenin’s Tomb, or any of the other attractions.


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There were lots of soldiers and police, mostly standing around. The square itself is enormous. In fact, the main road through town is no less than 16 lanes wide. It’s incredible.

But because today is a holiday, there are almost no cars on the street.


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Gum was originally one, state-owned store housing over 1,000 shops. Today it’s several million square feet of luxury and bridge retail featuring about 150 shops. It’s three levels with a glass roof that runs the entire length of the building.


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One very interesting store was on the first level. It was a long, skinny gourmet grocery store called Gastronom No. 1. It’s called this because back in the Soviet days, the groceries were all state owned and they were numbered. This being the closest grocery to the Kremlin, it was number one.


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The name of the company that owns GUM is Bosco di Ciliegi, which basically means Cherry Wood, hence the cherry trees in full blossom throughout the center.


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Our next stop was Crocus City Mall, a contemporary center close to what you’d expect to find in North America. Same luxury brands. Immaculately clean. A little boring if not beautiful. We had lunch there in an Italian restaurant that was quite good. They sure know how to do retail and dining in this city.


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Our final stop of the day was Luxury Village, a super contemporary center that looked like something you’d find in the Hamptons, which is basically what the area was like, minus the ocean. It’s where all the rich people have their dachas, or country homes. In addition to the Gucci’s and Prada’s, there were dealers selling Ferrari’s, Bentley’s, Porches, and Harley’s.


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All in all, Moscow was what you’d expect from a country with new found wealth. A mix of traditional culture and conspicuous consumption. The wealthy here flaunt their wealth and bigger, better, faster, cooler is the name of the game.

We headed to the airport and waited in an Irish Pub. I’ve been to 15 countries just in the past 10 years and there’s been an Irish pub in every one of them.

April 26 | Moscow

Today we are meeting at our client’s, Vremena Goda, which means Four Seasons. It is an upscale shopping center a bit outside the city center. We’re told it is a good location because it is on the major road that links the city to the western suburbs where all the rich and powerful live.


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The center itself is immaculate and very modern looking. It’s six or seven levels, with the first level being the very high-end luxury and then for the most part it gets more approachable the higher you go. They have most of the big luxury brands including a Porshe dealer on the second floor.


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One of the most interesting things to me was the quality and number of restaurants on the premises. They were stunning in design, totally unique, with the highest standards in service and food quality. It was really quite impressive.


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One of the restaurants was situated on the highest floor and offered an open air lounge in addition to the indoor dining area. They had a DJ and it appeared to be set up more as a nightclub than a restaurant. The windows opened in warmer weather for a great view of the city in the distance.


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We finished a long day and drove back to the hotel, but we weren’t quite done. We walked across the street to see one of the main competitors, a department store called Tsum. It was possibly the nicest department store I’d ever been in. Every designer brand you’ve ever heard of was represented. The design of the store was spectacular and their brand was both integrated and completely pervasive, from the signage to the clothes hangers.

We finished up with a drink with Sergey on the rooftop lounge of the hotel, looking out over Red Square. This is when we saw the tanks rolling through the streets below.

After Sergey went home, Bill and I walked down the street to a place called Vogue Cafe and had a few drinks. We had two drinks each (although I think Bill’s were doubles) and Bill had a cigar. It cost us $200USD.

That’s the thing about Moscow. It’s major league expensive. There are 40% tariffs on all imports so while you can find anything, it’s already more expensive to begin with. Alcohol being one of the main things.

April 25 | Moscow

We left Newark yesterday on a 9pm flight. The good news was that we were flying Upper Class on Virgin Airlines. The bad news was that it was going to take us about 14 hours to get to Moscow, and it would be an eight hour time change.

Sergey, our new client, was there to meet us at the airport, along with his driver. This surprised us. The drive from the airport to the hotel took about an hour and we got to see some major tourist points such as Gorky Park, The Kremlin, and Victory Park.

Our hotel, The Park Hyatt, is situated about a block from Red Square, which means it’s in the middle of everything. There is a point in Red Square, which is known as the zero point, because all roads in Russia lead to this point.


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The staff at the hotel was great. Better service than I would have expected, though we came to learn that Russians are known for their hospitality. At least at high-end establishments.


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Unfortunately, we arrived just days before Victory Day, a major Russian holiday to celebrate the end of World War II. Red Square was closed to the public as they prepared for a major parade. There were something like 15,000 soldiers in town, mostly national guard reservists, and they were practicing with tanks, missile trucks, and troop carriers; the whole shooting match, just like the old footage we used to see of the old Soviet leaders standing on the bleachers as the military rode by.

New Septic

From front yard.

Our timing was wonderful. I'm leaving for Moscow tonight. Meanwhile, they're digging up my front yard to replace our old cess pool with a new septic system. Ain't life grand?

Puerto Vallarta | April 24 | Day Eleven

Somewhere around 3am, I fell asleep and slept more or less normally until 5am, when we woke to the alarm. Earlier in the morning, I’d tried to put a glass of water back on the side table and missed completely, so now there was broken glass scattered around the floor.

Thankfully, I was no longer shivering like a crack addict and made it up, showered, and got dressed. We’d packed the night before, so there was no real work to be done. Only now, I couldn’t get anyone on the phone to help us with our bags. After a good ten minutes someone finally answered and agreed to help us.

Oh, I forgot. I’d liked some of the rings I’d seen with the vendors on the beach even better than the stuff I’d seen in the shops, so I spent the last of our pesos on rings on the beach. I needed at least 100 pesos for the cab driver.

Of course the hotel would have an ATM. Or so you would think.



I had to tip the bellman who helped us in change, apologizing in Spanglish as I went along. Like most people, my language skills deteriorate if I’m drunk, hungover, tired or all around sick. My Spanish doesn’t improve either.

The cab driver stopped at the Mexican 7-11 and withdrew $200 pesos which is about $14. Had to be the smallest amount of money I’ve taken out of an ATM since I was in college. It was perfect. Enough to pay the cab, tip the skycap at the airport, plus tip the baggage handler who crawled into the luggage bay to withdrawal my bag so I could check the lethal knife that I’d forgotten was hanging off my carry-on.



Our flight home was uneventful and I made it home in one piece.

P.S. It wasn't until the day after we got home that the news broke about the Swine Flu outbreak. We didn't know anything about it. Actually, I'm not sure anyone did until we got back. But as of this writing, most of the cases came from Cancun and Mexico City. I'm sure I would have assumed I had Swine Flu and who knows what they would have done. I'd have probably had to be quarantined in a Mexican hospital. I was also worried that other countries weren't going to let me in because I had a recent Mexican stamp on my passport, but I guess they really don't look that closely at things.

P.P.S. I was contacted by a couple who saw my photos of La Estancia. They own one of the units, actually as close as you can get to ocean in a two bedroom unit. They can offer better prices than anything you can find. Their website is http://www.villalaestanciaoceanfront.com

Their names are Brad & Joey Aronson. Tell them I sent you.

Puerto Vallarta | April 23 | Day Ten

We waited until the last day of our vacation to buy gifts for everyone. Truth be told, other than food and drinks, we haven’t bought anything, for ourselves or anyone else. So now we have to pay the piper. I don’t know what we were thinking. Why didn’t we go earlier so we could just lay around in the sun?



What are you going to do? We got dressed and headed into town. We started at the head of the Malécon and worked our way down the street. Mostly a bunch of junk no one wants or high priced art and jewelry we’re not interested in.

Jane did find a sink she loved, and I have to admit that if A) we needed a sink somewhere in the house, or B) we could get it home, it would have been cool.



We finally got hot and tired (not to mention that I was a little hungover...go figure) so decided we needed to get something to eat before we could make decisions on major purchases like keychains, cheap pottery and old Mexican license plates. I didn’t even have the resolve to find someplace nice to eat, so ended up at a little outdoor cafe at the end of the Malécon.

We drank instead.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of people using three and four year old kids to sell trinkets. Or maybe you would. Other than this, it’s a most civilized country. Well that whole business about severed heads being found in ice chests is a little disturbing, but as far as I know, we never met any cartel members. In fact, the whole time we were there not one person offered us drugs. Incredible.

When I finally got my strength back, we made our way down the street. We finally found a couple of jewelry shops and bought a couple of gifts for the kids. We ended with what they called a flea market, which was just a collection of shops selling curios. We bought a few.

We finally got a cab back to hotel, changed into our suits and headed to the beach. Thank God.



After a few hours in the sun, reading and drinking (anyone see a pattern here?), we met up with another couple. A guy from a small town in Illinois and a girl from Scheskateuan (sp). Turns out he was a orthopedist and she was a nurse. They were very low key and Midwest. But funny. Jane used this opportunity to ask them about every strange illness she’d ever heard of. Mostly they were no help, so Jane took the opportunity to tell them about every strange illness she’d ever heard of. On top of it all, they live outside San Francisco and she worked part time at an outpatient recovery center for plastic surgery that just so happens to host post-op transgender patients. For Jane, this was the mother lode.

Now as an aside, earlier I’d felt a rumbling in my tummy-tum-tum and made a mad dash for local facilities. Barely made it time, I swear.

By the time Jane and I made it upstairs, I had a fever and crawled in bed shivering. No shower. I just lay in bed alternating between cold shivers and hot sweats. It was lovely. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to get up, get dressed and make it to the plane. After a fitful night of sleep, where I swear I woke every fifteen minutes, I woke up and looked at the clock. It was 12:30am.

Puerto Vallarta | April 22 | Day Nine

Not a big day here in Puerto Vallarta. Just fun in the sun. We laid around and read. It was great.

Puerto Vallarta | April 21 | Day Eight

It was another banner day in the land of honey. We got to the marina about 9:40am for our 10am launch. I bought beer in the little convenience store and we waited for the boat to arrive. We’d stopped by yesterday to look at the boat, but apparently they don’t actually keep the boat there so there was nothing to see.

So we waited. It was already sweltering and looking to be a cooker. Finally a boat arrived, that I simply assumed could not be ours, since it was over 40 feet and much nicer than the picture of the one we were shown. This was a boat that was priced at $600 for four hours. We were paying $280.


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Sure enough, a young kid hopped off the boat and approached us. He asked if we were waiting for a boat and I said yes, the Barbara. “Si. Barbara,” he said. “You ready? We leave.”

We loaded up and off we went.

We weren’t even out of the marina when I realized my first mistake. I had bought a twelve pack of Sol beer for Jane, and a twelve pack of what I thought was that new lime beer everyone is selling. What I got was beer with lime and salt in it. It was like drinking tart salt water. It was truly undrinkable.


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The boat had barely gotten out of the marina and into the harbor, when Chico, the captain pointed to schools of sardines jumping out of the water. Something was feeding, so Willie, the first mate, jumped down, tied on lures and before we knew it had dropped four lines into the water. Soon after, Jane caught her first fish: a Bonita.


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We fished for four hours, never getting much further than Neuvo Vallarta, which is where we’d been staying before. Jane caught 5 Bonita, 2 Spanish Mackerel, 4 Toro, and a small Barracuda. Plus a couple that were too small to keep.
The weather was perfect, which means it was hot enough that when you were moving, which was always, it was just the right temperature.

Before we knew it, our four hours were up and we were headed in. Puerto Vallarta sits in the middle of Banderas Bay and the mountains rise up in sharp peaks behind the town. It makes for a beautiful sight.

I should also say a word about our big argument on the boat. From what I saw from all the other people hawking boats, including the concierge at the hotel, we hit the mother lode. It was a 41' beauty with a full cabin, great crew and state of the art equipment. What a steal. I stand corrected.


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We got back to the hotel and headed straight for the beach, but I think we both felt we'd had enough sun, so I sat under the shade of the tiki bar and Jane feel asleep on a lounge nearby. After a few hours, we went back to our room, showered, dressed and headed out to a restaurant we'd heard about. Barcelona. Spanish Tapas.

Barcelona is on the fourth floor of a tall skinny hotel which itself sits high on a hill overlooking the city. It's quite the view. The entire place is open air and we had a table for two right at the edge overlooking the bay. The food was all fresh and grilled to perfection. Jane thought it was easily the best meal we'd had since we got here.

And so endeth the evening.

Puerto Vallarta | April 20 | Day Seven

I have to admit, I’ve fallen a little behind. I spent this morning recapping yesterday as I simply had not enough time to write last night. The truth is, it takes awhile to process the photography and it’s the pictures, not the writing, that slows me up. Normally, I take a lot more time with the images, and as it stands, I’m rushing through things…


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To cut to the chase, today was back to normal. Jane and I had a lovely time, back to making fun of everyone else and feeling good about each other. We laid in the sun for most of the day, had a wonderful lunch, took an unproductive walk over to the pier, bought some supplies, and are now back in our room with Jane sleeping and me writing. Soon, we’re going to shower, dress and head into town to eat dinner at Trio, the restaurant we “found.” I hope it’s good, because I feel like we stumbled upon it rather than reading about it in a guide book, or finding out about it from the concierge.

We has a great time on the beach today. The hotel isn’t much, at least by our standards, and the service is not what we’d become accustomed to at the last place, but it was friendly and decent.

The pool you can have, but the beach area was much more European, even Greek in its simplicity and elegance. It was more rustic in a way than La Estancia, and a little less removed from the world. Mind you, there was no one to dress your chair, but they did come around once in awhile to offer you a drink. One of the upsides of having a little less attentive service is that you don’t drink as much which Jane and I agreed was a positive thing.


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Lunch was good, but not great. We’ve come to grips with the fact that while you may be able to get really good food in PV, it’s not likely going to come from your hotel. That said, lunch was decent.

Our favorite pastime, as it turns out, is cutting other people down. But we’re not prejudiced in the least. We hate everyone equally. Hate is maybe too strong a word. We just don’t like anybody else. Which is a good thing we’re together and for the most part like each other.


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Well, I need to get out of my suit and into some linen. Time to go to dinner.

Tomorrow we set sail. Jane wants me to take lots of pictures of her catching lots of fish, so that all her friends will be lots of jealous. We’re an evil pair, she and I.


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P.S. Dinner turned out to be wonderful. A place called Trio that specializes in Mediterranean food. We sat by the window, had good wine and great food. After dinner we walked to the Zona Romantica, which is basically, among other things, the gay neighborhood. Jane wanted to see a gay bar, so we found the only empty gay bar in town and had a few beers with the two young guys who owned the place. Turns out, they'd only been open a few weeks, and it was a slow night. Jane promised to return when it was more happening, and try and convert them.