Angus speaks

Back in April of 1993, I was living in a crappy apartment in Raleigh with Glen Greenough. Our friend Angus was living a life of adventure in the Ivory Coast. He sent us this postcard, which at the time made me laugh. Today, it makes me wish I'd gone the places he'd gone and seen everything he'd seen.



Angus' handwriting translated:

"Jake and Glenn -- This is my new church in Abidjan... Yes, you may find it difficult to believe, but I have seen the light that Gumby is the Holy Father and creator of the universe, so I am now a Gumbian and I attend services at the Church of the Holy Gumby every Tuesday. Gumby bless you. Angus."

Testing the power of Google

In the fall of 1991, I studied in Montpelier, France with a service learning program. In other words, we did mundane tasks for no money and received school credit for it.

While there, I became very close with two people: Sarah Hechman and Archie Jao. (Alternate name spellings: Sara Heckman, Sarah Heckman, Sara Hechman and Archimedes Jao.)

I'm posting their names and pictures here on the off change that they've set up Google alerts for their own names. (It's happening a lot more these days.) Archie and Sarah -- I found these great pictures of you and I hope you're doing well. Drop me a line if you can.

Geek Fest 2007: Day 1

The entire first day can be summed up in a single video.



That and our cars were towed by the Mercedes dealership owner next door who thought they were left there by construction workers.

Pictures -- we got pictures

When someone nicknamed "He-Man" tells you to stop posting junk on your site and put up more pictures of the kid, you do it. Quick.

So, here we have an action shot from last week when some old friends came to town. All the GuilCo families came over, and TheGirl went nuts hosting all her friends, including her new older friend Adele.



There are a ton more pics from that night, and also from the beach trip.

They say Prius owners are crazy for their cars

True dat.

A big fat crazy wedding present

If you've been reading here lately, you know that our friends Eric and Genevieve just got married, and it was an epic wedding at that. But unlike most couples who spend their time and money to throw a big shindig, E&G aren't getting anything back, because their registry consisted solely of a Heifer.org donation page.

I can't applaud this enough -- Heifer is one of those truly perfect nonprofits that we give to whenever we can. It's one of those things that I love to see people do, even if Lisa and I weren't selfless enough to do it ourselves.

We made our donation this week (and got it matched by corporate America), but I'm hoping to surprise the couple with a little something extra. If anyone out there has thought even once about donating to Heifer lately, I hope you'll click on this link and do so:

http://www.heifer.org/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.488975/site/apps/ka/ec/store.asp?StoreId=5006

It would be amazing if just a few people did this and generated a few extra bucks. But I also harbor a small dream that we can get this picked up by some of the community-driven sites like Digg or Reddit and make this thing explode. I'm imagining the couple coming back from their honeymoon to find out that thousands of people have donated and made this one wedding registry just explode.

So who's with me? Can we get the online community to jump in a do big community service while at the same time giving a deserving couple a big crazy surprise?

Eric Dawson wedding update no. 3

A.k.a., the trip home.

Imagine you're in a U.S. airport post-9/11. Someone activates a portable siren, while others around him blow police whistles and throw papers in the air. Now ask yourself how long it would take TSA agents to swarm, beat and shoot this group of people: 5 seconds? Maybe 10?

Amazingly, people in Spain are allowed to walk around the airport in this way for hours unmolested. In this, the country that suffered its own mini-9/11, it's apparently fine that gangs of people are actively trying to cause a panic in an international airport.

And that was just one of the many surreal travel experiences we encountered on the way home from what might have been the greatest wedding ever.

The aforementioned return trip began at 3:30 a.m. when we had to grab a taxi in San Sebastian for the 70+ minute trip to Bilbao. This travel interlude was the result of poor advance planning and late travel arrangements on our part. Still, the ride went well, and we actually made it to the airport before it opened, which at first seemed like a mistake, until we realized the flight on our ticket didn't actually exist at this airport.

After surviving both the re-ticketing process and the disgruntled and be-whistled janitorial staff above, we found ourselves in Frankfurt having to, again, rectify incorrect tickets. Dodging both long lines and insane American tourists, we were soon on the trans-Atlantic flight home. And speaking of insane tourists, Mark was stuck next to the proverbial 450-lb. elephant until an accommodating stewardess got him a better seat. This begs the question: If I'm dinged for the size of my carry-ons, why wasn't this guy dinged for the size of himself?

It's just amazing that anyone ever survives international travel, given the sheer number of things that can and usually do go wrong. But we did, and here we are.

Eric Dawson wedding update no. 2

As Mark might say: Holy shinola, what a day. The wedding ended a mere 2 hours ago, and it was possibly the best wedding of all time. It's no offense to all of us who had great weddings also, but Eric and Genevieve held one for the ages.

We started Saturday by sleeping in late after a long night of hitting clubs. Well, one club, and it didn't start to fill up until about 3:30 a.m. Apparently, San Sebastian parties late. And luckily there were no museum trips or nature hikes or squirrel pettings to get up for -- just the spa for massages. Lunch followed at 3, where Genevieve's gay friend Andy left the straight guys in the dust when it came to looking for naked boobs on the beach. Then a quick change of clothes and we were off to the wedding.

The cathedral where the wedding took place was the oldest building in San Sebastian, and the priest may have been its oldest person. Still, he held forth on the benefits of having 3, 4 and even 5 wives, or so we understood from his English. It was an amazing ceremony, and when we all left the cathedral, there were dozens of locals gathered around to cheer on the couple.

Then we were off to the reception, where people ate 6 courses of Spanish food and got absolutely crazy on the dance floor. Even 10-year-old Pablo shook his thing and took turns dancing with pretty much all of the hot women.

The braver among us are still out partying in the local clubs, but Mark and I have (wisely, I think) turned in for a good night's sleep. Genevieve's sister just now gave us a look of doom when it was clear we weren't going back out with them. We face the challenge of either altering or adapting to our early Monday morning flight, so we'll need all our rest to make it happen.

Stohler, out!

Eric Dawson wedding update no. 1

Mark an I are shacked up together in the so-so Hostal Bahia in middle of the amazingly gorgeous San Sebastian. We got in yesterday afternoon after a flawlessly executed trip that included two planes, a cab, a bus, and a lot of walking with nothing but a street address for a destination. And we did it all on a mishmash of half-remembered French, loud English and the single Spanish word "autobus."

After a quick nap yesterday, Eric and Genevieve took the whole wedding party out for drinks and tapas at possibly the coolest little restaurant int he world. We hung out with friends of theirs from high school and work, family from the Philippines and Norway, and even random people from Durham who happened to be walking down the street and heard English being spoken. But we're the lone Guilford reps here, to the shame of all the other Fighting Quakers Class of '92.

Today, the cultured ones in the wedding party got up early and went to the Guggenheim. Mark and I enjoyed non-interrupted sleep until noon, when we stumbled out of bed, toured the city and ate chocolate croissants. Eric's beloved "La Bomba" breakfast treat eluded us. Oh, and Mark bought two yards of pink ribbon.

Tonight is the rehearsal dinner and tomorrow the wedding. Until then, we're heading out to the beach to read books and maybe eat more croissants.

Yo, We Audi 5000

Outtie to San Sebastian, Spain, that is. 'Cause when a friend is getting married, even if it's on the other side of the world, there's only one thing to do: you go. Well, first maybe you say you can't go because of the family. Then you say you can made the bachelor party in Colorado. Then you can't make that, but you're coming to the wedding after all. 'Cause that's how we roll.

The worst part about using a site like airlineconsolidator.com to book your tickets is that they insist on showing you call the fairs you missed. So as you wait for your $1,300 ticket to show up, it runs through the $550, $725 and $910 tickets that you could have had at some point in space and time. And even the price they end up showing ain't the price because there's tax involved, sometimes as much as $275.

But it's all good. We'll be on that plane June 13 and back in the states by the 18th. And in the middle, with a little luck, we'll have had one of the best wedding experiences ever. If nothing else, it's guaranteed to beat Billiam's classic Southern-wedding-in-the-middle-of-summer ceremony. Shit.