Uncling My Way South

If you know me at all you know my summers and breaks are all about uncling. Yo soy el tio orgulloso de tres sobrinos maravillosos. One little man, a prattling petit princess, and of course my hairy nephew. Sabre, the eldest, is doing well as usual. Elizabeth has turned into quite the garrulous little girl. She regularly speaks in no less than ten languages simultaneously, and has already familiarized herself with telephones. While home I got to see her transition to walking. It's pretty exciting and cute. She gets this huge grin on her face right before she lets her legs give out to fall into you. She's also the perfect size for tossing. Sometimes, a bit too high.


Elizabird

The little man Tyler just turned three. He's now pretty properly potty trained, and with that is showcasing on demand the new and oh so stylish Diego underwear. At a holiday gathering, after innocently asking him what briefs he was bearing, in a courageous display he promptly drops his pants to check and with great enthusiasm replies, "Cars"! What a guy. Besides the twenty hour trip to Florida we got to spend a lot of time together. He's really developed quite the personality. I brought a friend over for dinner one night and he was macking it up. Something I'd never seen him do. He kept bighting her with his shark and then during dinner he'd try to make everyone laugh and the whole time he'd stare at her out of the corner of his eyes. Though he may not have been so subtle, it was still a better approach than I've seen from many other guys my age. And I've got to give him credit for trying with a girl more than ten times his age.

All in all he's a thoughtful guy. Whether through genuine and constant concern for "baby" or articulating the taste of a bitter, dry red wine as "bad like Sabre's poopoo", he's got a lot going on in that little head.


Stinkin' and Thinkin'

Kinky Travels

Oh the holidays are a wonderful time of year... as long as you're not traveling. Not quite as bad as Denver, London only mustered up some "frozen fog". Either way, 300,000 people or so got stuck, and it sucked. Surprisingly it was my first bad experience with airports.

I got there having been delayed two hours leaving Copenhagen, and naturally was in a rush to catch my flight to New York. At the gate, they ordered me down to wait in the customer service line. No big deal, I still had a chance. Then I got down and saw the people. Hundreds and hundreds of people. No way around it. The line moved maybe 15 fph. And I should have been going about 700 mph. I stood in line for literally over five hours. Three hours in they told us that there would be no flights to any European destinations. That pissed a good number of people off. In the end I barely made an empty flight to New York. The line was twice as long when I left.

After a four hour nap in terminal 3 of JFK, and hoping that a new day meant a new way, I approached the last leg with as positive an attitude as I could. Security made quick work of that. First, they decide that since I'm the first customer of the day, I deserve the full treatment. As I'm being gently molested by a gentlemen in a hat, another lady digs through my bag and finds a key chain/knife that I've been traveling with for five years or so. She says, "this is garbage" and is about to throw it away. I'm back to the check-in counter to check my ten ounce bag, and then through security again. Since they enjoyed it so much the first time, they figured they'd give it another go. If only I could enjoy the curious grabbing of a stranger.

Anyways, in the end I made it. I had been traveling for a straight 36 hours and the only money spent was on phone calls home. I guess I was luckier than the rest. I got home for Christmas and I managed some hot shots of London from the plane.


Foggy London