another year, another...yadda yadda yadda

 Well I can now say that I've had a surprise party thrown for me.  'Twas very sweet.  That is my new tag line, now that I'm thirty-eight.

 Warm fuzzies all round.  Lucky to have some pretty cool friends and family.  A surprise party beats all-night internet sesh hands down.

 It's a good omen when the young and the old come together to celebrate the passing of time!

 Come to realize that deer-in-the-headlights is my standard party look.

 I felt like a not-so-fresh prince.

 Thanks everybody!

o lucky man!

 Returned yesterday from the first real vacation I've had in years.  It was awesome.  Visited Trinidad and Tobago for the first time, the place where my birth-mother's side of the family is from.  These photos are from my first day (a lot of firsts) there.  It is the beach at Mayaro, where my grandmother grew up.

 I have never been south of the equator, never seen beaches and such like these.  The heat!  The humidity!  It was glorious!

 My last trip to a completely new-to-me place was when I went to Japan for a couple of weeks a few years ago.  I had forgotten what traveling to an unfamiliar environment is like--how the experience opens you up, exposes you to new challenges, etc etc etc.  I've got a bit of the convert's energy at the moment, I can tell.

 And it is a good time to arrive back home in Saskatchewan...the melt has finally begun, and it's not minus forty-one....