Well I'm finally home after 2 1/2 weeks of wandering the earth...Diego Garcia is the definition of tropical paradise...granted the only things to do are exercise or drink and I'm not a drinker...long walks on the flour soft white beaches in the morning and evening. I found a turtle nest one evening, watched a bunch of sunsets and sunrises, snorkled almost daily in the lagoon and hiked some great jungle trails. An hour or two of work a day just to say that we accomplished something...it truely made up for the week spent in Bahrain which is about the furthest thing from paradise that one can get. I did my best impression of either a mad dog or and Englishman as I walked to a local mall under the noonday sun...I think it was 100degrees (or more) of as they say "dry heat" sorta like hell...I lost 7lbs in 2 hours...not one of my smartest actions that's for sure. I now understand why the locals don't do anything in the middle of the day...night time was a much better time to explore the markets (called souqs)...I bought a bunch of saffron for my whole family (xmas shopping early) and a couple of rugs...Rug shopping is very fun...I had a budget and a particular country of origin (Pakistan) of the rugs I wanted. Pakistani rugs are simpler, bigger patterned, and of lower quality than say Persian/Iranian rugs but of better quality than say Indian...I would love to buy an Iranian rug but they are waaaaaay beyond my budget (like 5-10 times what i want to spend) and in truth too fine a rug for my household (cats and dogs) but handling them while shopping sure is nice. I think I looked at 70-80 rugs narrowing it down to about 6-7 before walking on the rugs to figure out which one I wanted...then came the bargining...a good half hour of bargining from about $400 down to to what I actualtly paid which was $220...it was definatly worth it though and the carpet looks great in our bedroom. I also added to my collecting of prayer rugs. Sadly my trip home all 27 hours of it was not fun at all, topped off by KLM/Northwest losing our luggage (all 11 pieces) someplace between Bahrain and Detroit...Made going through Customs easy though. Oh yes and once I got home I realized that I left my cell phone in the room in Diego Garcia...thankfully they found it but it'll be two weeks before I have it again. Never thought I would be jonesing for my cellphone


vagabond-punk

The musings of Tony Peters, a perpetual child, no matter where I am I will find a way to climb something or go skateboarding Read more »

vacation and such

well my father, brother and I set out last thursday for Ithaca NY, my father and I on our motorcycles and my brother in his LandCruiser pulling a trailer/tent. The goal was to get from Rhode Island to Ithaca for a family reunion and back by using only back roads. We succeeded and we plenty of adventures to boot...my Go »

Last day skateboarding of 2007

OK I admit that a 41 year old man finding a day of enjoyment skateboarding might sound strange but I find it centers me and provides a source of exercise that I can't find else ware. That said I spent the day working on my tuck, downhilling in a nearby neighborhood. I lost count of the number of times I went down the half mile hill my legs are feeling the hike back up (gotta earn those runs) so I'm gonna guess more than 20 times and I know I listened to at least 6 hours of music on my Ipod. Go »

Music....my life got a bit easier

I have a music fetish....I collect it and organize it and listen to it all day long....I am likely addicted to my shuffle, the New Itunes 8 just made my life so easy....Genius Go »

the toils of being a home owner

just when you think that everything is groovy boom your furnace burps blowing all the seals and well $6000 later you can have heat again. Mind you it was 12degrees yesterday when this happened and at present I can't keep my house any hotter than 55degree's or the house fills with smoke...not to mention that the soonest I can get a new furnace installed is thursday. Go »

animals are family

one of our cats, Sketch was diagnosed with CHF (congestive heart failure) on Friday we spent the weekend at the the animal hospital before bringing her home late sunday night. Her Condition has been mixxed since though we hope for the best. Her heart seems to be OK and her lungs are free of fluid but she got severely dehydrated which has really messed up her digestive track. Go »

change 2

well I got to work this morning and I got my holiday break back...it seems that our money guys don't want to pay to have 2 groups of people traipsing around the med at roughly the same time soooooo...they want one team to fly from end to end and then back again over a three week period and it's probably gonna end up costing as much if not more than it would for 2 teams to but and here is the part that sucks for me it'll cost less this year, and we are broke this year, Jan 1 starts are next batch of money...so Go »