Trader Vic's in Bellevue closed this weekend. Fuckers. At least I have two of the Bellevue tiki glasses. These are specifically for the suffering Bastard, my favorite drink. That will have to do for the near future.

Suffering Bastard - Trader Vic's

From The Webtender Wiki

The Trader Vic's Version of the Suffering Bastard contains Rum, Orange Curacao, Orgeat Syrup, Rock Candy Syrup and Fresh Lime Juice.

[edit]

Recipe

Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook (1968)

In a Double Old-Fashioned Glass with Shaved Ice.

• 2 oz Dark Rum
• 1 oz Light Rum
• 1 dash Orange Curacao
• 1 dash Orgeat Syrup
• 1 dash Rock Candy Syrup
• Juice of 1 Whole Lime - save 1 shell.

Fill glass with Shaved Ice. Top with Metal Shaker and hand shake drink. Decorate with lime shell and fresh mint. Serve with a malt straw.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.webtender.com/wiki/Suffering_Bastard_-_Trader_Vic%27s"

Suffering Bastard - Trader Vic's - The Webtender Wiki

I've heard about this for a while, this company is shipping wines by sail, first to the UK, then to Canada next. There are a few things about this I like, it's clean, it should be better temp controlled and less expensive than container, and it's just really cool.

Hopefully it is a commercial success.

18 juillet 2008 BREST : CTMV-FairWindWine load 22 pallets of South Of France Wines onboard Kathleen&May Schooner. Destination : Dublin. Unloading for Gilbey's and Obriens importators the 25th July. 25, 26, 27th July, wine tasting onboard the ship in the center of Dublin.

First commercial trip of CTMV FairWindWine onboard Kathleen&May - Wine by Sail

Well, I had a delightful little case of food poisoning last Wednesday, and 24 hours and 5 pounds later, we were scheduled for our trip out to Poulsbo via the boat. I was nervous that I wasn’t going to be well in time, but got lucky. That and a half-bottle of Imodium AD kept us to plan. The plan meant leaving at 3 on Friday, and going through the Locks , staying at Shilshole overnight. This was our first family overnight cruise, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

We left closer to 3:30, but that was fine. I had estimated a two-hour drive out to the locks, and an hour to go through. Shilshole is just outside the locks, so that last leg was not a worry. Lake Washington was a bit windy and choppy going out, not real bad, but annoying. Once we got into Montlake cut, we were sheltered from the wind and things calmed down. We had a nice slow cruise from there to the Lake Union Gas dock across from the Police Station.

This was actually a pretty impressive setup. A huge gas dock, Pumpouts on both ends, water hoses ready at each mooring (enough for 6-8 boats at once) and a nicely stocked mini-mart. We filled up with Gas, used the pumpout, and topped off our water. When we were done, Guenaddi called us from his boat, he was running behind us, but was only a few minutes away at that point. He finally caught us in the Fremont Cut, and we stopped at the Ballard Bridge to swap a few fenders, and get our friend Adam over to our boat. This gave us a balanced crew on each boat, and made going through the locks easier.

From there we went to the waiting pier for the Large Locks (the small ones are under maintenance) and tied up. We were pretty lucky, and only had to wait about 15 minutes before the light went green and it was time for our group to head in. The number of fish that jump in that area are really amazing, both in size and frequency. But with the fish ladder there, it isn’t surprising. The locks were no real trouble, we got placed next to a larger boat, so we didn’t have to manage our ropes against the wall, (which is pretty green and slimy). The boat next to us was a 50 foot, 1968 Chris Craft, beautifully restored. The captain and his wife were experienced, and were very helpful to Yulia and Adam as they worked the lines to tie us up. We chatted with them a bit and with the tide high, it was a short ride down.

Once out of the locks, I was able to hail the harbormaster at Shilshole, and get our spaces on the guest dock. All of Shilshole has gone through a full remodel, and the place is immaculate. H Dock has the guest spaces and the fuel dock as well. Each slip has a post with full power, water, and Cable TV. Normally, the Cable TV would be superfluous, but with the Olympics on, it was appreciated. We were able to grill chicken on the BBQ, break out some Bordeaux, and have a great dinner, watching the sun set over the breakwater, and watching the Chinese finish cheating their way through women’s gymnastics.

I used to have a really nice collapsible bucket. I say “used to” because the crew saw little fishes swimming near the dock and tried to catch some with the bucket. It had a short little rope attached so you could haul it back in, but apparently it needed a float attached to the end, just in case someone threw it too far and the rope slipped from their hand. Lesson Learned.

In the morning, we had a quick breakfast, and left under no wind with clear skies. The water was like glass heading out, and we were going straight across Puget Sound to Agate Pass. We timed the tides to hit as close to slack as possible, since Agate Pass can be really fast when at full tide. We were still against the tide a bit, but aside from a few bumps as we entered, it was no real problem. From there we slowly meandered our way into Liberty Bay, and on to Poulsbo.

Coming into the public marina, we saw that the wooden breakwater was covered in Harbor Seals, and the water was filled with little jellyfish. The Harbormaster gave us two slips on F dock, and we went around the back side to tie up. The wind was starting to pick up, and was blowing us to the side, making mooring difficult. Naturally, there was a huge crowd of people on the dock, drinking and watching us. Advice was freely given. It took me three approaches to get the timing and direction of the wind correct, but I managed to get the boat to slip into the fairly narrow slip without smacking anything, earning me a round of applause from the group watching. They helped us tie down, and we were in.

Poulsbo looks like a kitschy little Norwegian town stuck in a fjord somewhere, and was the home to Norwegian immigrant fisherman (they liked the whole fjord look.) In fact, we were lucky enough to land for the 100 year celebration festival, so there were events, music, lutefisk, the works. Walking around town there was a street fair and dance scheduled for the evening. It was the perfect time to be there.

We took the dinghy out and drove past the seals to get a few pictures. They were bored with us for the most part, since we were not offering any food. The girls got to hold a non-stinging jellyfish, which I thought was a bit gross, but they liked it. It was hot enough in the afternoon that I put the top up just to give us more shade, which helped a bit.

Dinner was BBQ veggies and Lamb, more wine, and more wine. We took a nighttime walk around the city to see the dancing and look at the shops open late. There was a great little Nautical gift shop that had Brass lamps, pirate stuff, cigars and model ships. One of them was the old Mosquito Fleet ship, Virginia V. I thought that one was pretty neat, since I have seen that very ship on Lake Union, and it is one of the few remaining original ferries from the old mosquito fleet. After that, we had some wine. For some reason, falling asleep was easy.

The next day, we headed out after waiting for the quick morning rain to stop. There was a bit more wind, and the water had a few more rolling waves once we were outside Agate Pass. But it was mostly uneventful out to the locks, but this time we had a much longer wait. Over an hour later a huge stream of ships came out of the locks, including a gigantic barge and tugboat, several big sailboats, and to my surprise the Virginia V, the real ship that I saw the model of in the store. That was surprising.

In the locks again, we were tied up to some very new, 90 foot megayacht, crewed by a guy in Hawaiian shorts, and his wife, who knew a lot less than us about how to handle lines. This should have been my clue that this was going to be less than optimal. We were all tied down, and once the doors closed and the lock started to fill, I headed to the bow to watch the lines there. It took a while to notice, but apparently the megayacht “captain” fired his engines back up, so he could use his maneuvering thrusters. This kept him from actually having to manage his lines with actual body strength. Of course, this totally filled the lock with Carbon Monoxide fumes, and all the people in smaller boats were choking, but the lockmasters didn’t notice, and once we got to the top it was too late. We all had monstrous CO headaches once we got out of there.

From there we slowly worked our way out back into the lake, Stopping for a pumpout again, and watching some fool in too large of a sailboat almost smack into the Montlake Bridge with his mast. He was too close, and it didn’t open when he wanted it to, so he had to reverse quickly, but had traffic backed up behind him. So he turned sharply, and almost smacked the side of the cut. He ended up sideways in the cut, blocking all traffic, until the bridge was open. We finally headed for home, and stopped once again to make a little dinner of sausage and cheese. We were hot, and we were tired, but it was a very successful cruise.

photography by Yulia Hancheroff

This is totally excellent. I can't imbed to follow the link and watch.

March of Shame - CollegeHumor video

Movie pirates are cool, but the real thing pretty much sucks. This story came out about one captain's pre-planning, and happy ending.

Quote:

Red Dragon showing her mettle -  .. .  

Whilst transiting through the Gulf of Aden, we had three people on watch at all times as during the previous few weeks the Somalian pirates had been very active. Whilst in a position of approxi-mately 13 degrees North and 53 degrees East, we saw a large dhow change course at eight miles from us and head towards us. At four miles, they stopped and launched six fast boats with about three people in each towards us. This certainly got the heart racing and adrenalin pumping.
On arrival, they were surprised to find eight people in flak jackets with guns awaiting their arrival and decided that they would do better to wait for an easier, less prepared target. Six hours later a merchant vessel came under fire in the same location and 24 hours after that three ships were also hijacked in the same area and are at the time of writing all off the Somalian coasts awaiting ransom negotiations.

Sail World - Powerboat-world: Sail and sailing, cruising, boating news

Kos is the best liberal politics site out there, but it is also filled with a bunch of really cool people in general. Today: Hummingbird photos.

Quote:

One of my favorite subjects to photograph is hummingbirds.  They represent a real challenge: they move very quickly and do not stay in one place for long, plus they are smaller than any other birds I photograph.  

This means that successfully photographing them requires a good combination of skill, careful planning and just plain dumb luck.

Most of these are smaller versions of images that will take you to a larger one.  The image shown on the right, however, will take you to two animated images; one is of a ruby-thraoted hummingbird feeding one of her young (it's a 1.6mb file) and the other is a smaller file of a rubythroated hummingbird feeding from our nectar feeder. 

Daily Kos: Surprise! Hummingbird Photo Break

What else can you say?

Quote:

The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush -- a man still carrying with $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush's famous deck of wanted men -- has been America's secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger). The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, "resettled" Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money.

In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD -- as Habbush had foretold -- the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization."

The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conduction disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil.

Ron Suskind: The Forged Iraqi Letter: What Just Happened?

I found a neat site on the net today. It is a social site for boaters, which is cool, but it also has reviews of locations with GPS markers on a map. That way you can find places where others have been, and get their reviews. It is supposed to link into facebook, but that doesn't seem to be active yet.

Check it out: TheBoaters

Well, it's that time of year again. It has been an interesting year for HST fans, with a few books and a film, the TV thing on Starz, and work being done on the film The Rum Diary.

We all raise a glass....

Today July 18th is Hunter S. Thompson’s birthday. He would have been 71. Now everybody knows that Hunter liked to have a good time so lets just do that today and celebrate the man - he would have wanted to hear ice clinking in glasses and the sound of people having FUN! 

Totally Gonzo

Heh.

Jesus and the Leper, Mark 1:40-47

...40 And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, if though wilt, thou canst make me clean.  41 And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and saith unto him, I will; dost thou have insurance? 42 And the leper saith unto him, Yes. I have Empire Blue Cross.  43 And Jesus asked of the leper, Dost thou have the PPO or the HMO? 44 And the leper saith unto him, I have the HMO. 45 And Jesus saith unto him, I am sorry, my child, but heal you I cannot, for I only accept Empire Blue Cross' PPO plan.  46 And the leper wept, but Jesus saith unto him, Perhaps another messiah will be along who accepts your plan.  47 And he sent the leper away from him.

CollegeHumor - Funny Pictures, Funny Videos, Funny Links!

How many fucking times to you need to make jokes about burning eyes with lasers until people get the point, not to look into lasers?

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas, Russian health officials said on Monday.

Moscow city health department officials confirmed 12 cases of laser-blindness at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic, and daily newspaper Kommersant said another 17 were registered at City Hospital 32 in the centre of the capital.

Ravers lose sight at laser show | U.S. | Reuters

Possibly it is too much to ask for air conditioning in the Cabo airport, but how about a few frakking fans?

Jesus this place is hot and muggy. The Cabo airport appears to be one of those surplus military storage huts. It is all brightly painted, with fresh tile and nice little shops, but the lack of central air conditioning is a dead giveaway that this place was just thrown up overnight. I like airports, actually. It is part of the travel process, that while never pleasant, has its own interesting aspects.

Currently, Sasha is watching Spongebob Squarepants on the TV in Spanish. She doesn't need subtitles, since she has already seen every episode so many times that she already knows the words by heart.

"Hola! Spongebob!"
"Hola Patrick, donde esta Squidward?"

Yulia is checking out the shops to see if any of them are air conditioned, or at least have a big ice cream cooler to stand in front of. I probably wouldn't be so interested in the place here, but we arrived three hours early for our plane, since the taxi was much faster from the hotel than planned, and there was no line for bags yet. So this is our home for a bit.

----

Close examination has shown that there is a small downdraft of cool air in front of the duty free shop, and inside the the shop near the Chivas Regal is another, these are too weak to cool you down, but almost stop you from heating up further. The duty free shop offers test shots of the tequila they sell. I am most certain that their tequila is in fact defective, and that this can only be proved through several rounds of thorough testing, however I am not sure the girl pouring shots will buy into this.

An hour and a half to go until our plane boards.

----

They started boarding the plane early, so we went racing across the airport to find everyone and get our stuff in time. I usually don't worry about losing our seats, that just isn't going to happen, but if you don't get on in time all the overhead space is gone. And we have been waiting too damn long in this steam room of an airport for someone else to take my fucking overhead bin. I'll shift your contents motherfucker.

Planes have air conditioning. Air conditioning is good. The drinks can't start coming soon enough.

-----

The three overweight women behind  us are too drunk to talk in a normal tone, and too sober to pass out and just shut the fuck up. I really no longer have any interest in hearing about how each of them can sooo relate to the women of Sex and the City, what a terrific deal they got on the timeshare they bought at the presentation at their hotel, or how they want to pick up on the good looking male flight attendant, who is obviously gay.

It is probably these moments of true grating annoyance that make me really enjoy flying. I hate people in general, and sometimes I forget why. Times like this recharge my hatred batteries, giving me the cynicism and vitrol enough for the rest of the year. I return from my break ready to face a whole new batch of stupidity, energized and prepared to dive headlong into the problem that someone else created, and not give a crap.

One of these drunken bitches got up to let her buddy go to the restroom and poured Sangria down Yulia's back. Class. With a "k". I hope they drank lots of Mexican water.

LAX is up next.

-----

Oh yeah, I forgot how miserable LAX is. John Wayne is a much better airport to use in LA, but we have our transfer here. LAX is one of those airports where you have to go outside to change from the International Terminal to Domestic. And there are no transfer instructions for visitors either, so I pity those who don't speak English trying to catch a connecting flight. We had plenty of time and were able to get through all the Passport control, baggage claim, Customs, baggage drop off, run down the sidewalk to the next terminal, go through the next security check, and run out to the gate.

We were at Gate 31, which is in that old section that has all the good looks (and smell) of your average urban train station. There are only two places to eat, and they are actually not too bad, but pretty filthy. It was certainly better than the Cabo airport, if only because it was less than 300 degrees inside, but when you look at places like Sea-Tac, that have worked to modernize their facilities, it gets real surprising to see such a huge hub like LAX be such a disaster.

Looks like we have good weather in Seattle for our return. That would be a real change from most of our trips, and a welcome one at that. It will be nice to sleep in our own beds when we are back, and I'm sure that Oscar and the cats have missed us as well. Sasha missed them, and had adopted a couple of hermit crabs in Cabo to be her pets. We kept them in a Tupperware container with sand in the hotel, and released them on the beach this morning. The were healthy and glad to be back in their beach, but Sasha was sad to see them go. Ever the magnet for animals, Sasha has a cat-carrier bag with two meowing cats below her on the plane.  She is very concerned that they are not happy, but I figure they that will sleep on their own at some point.

Once we land, I have a towncar reserved to pick us up, it's the same price as a shuttle or a taxi, and much more relaxing. It is also pretty convenient to not have to bother your friends to come and get you.

----

I think we will probably do Cabo again at some point. I think it would be good if we could find a year to do a driving vacation, as Yulia still hates flying and it is no fun putting her through it. But a two hour hop like this is a lot easier than the 7+ to Europe, or the 12 to Moscow.

We'll see. Planning begins now.

As noted on our France trip, when touring around I always carry my trusted Pan Am Airlines shoulder bag. It's light, not a bulky as a camera bag or other "man purse" and I get to fill it with crap. This vacation's contents included the following:

• Camera (HP Photosmart E427)
• Sunblock
• Chapstick
• Small First Aid Kit
• Room Key
• Sunglasses
• Disinfectant hand cream
• Spanish phrasebook
• Moleskine Notebook
• 2 pens
• 2 pounds of Mexican coins adding up to a total of $2.35
• Mini Swiss Army Knife on a Carabineer with Mini Compass, that didn't work at all

I also wore my trusty straw hat, now entering its fourth year of service, and a bit worse for wear. It has lost most of its stiffness, and is sagging terribly. I need to find some way to stiffen it back into a proper shape. Maybe hairspray. I will work on this when we get back.

Another equipment note, I am still using my Toshiba Portege 2000 notebook for travel, it recovered from its wine ingestion last year, but a few days ago the keyboard went wonky. The arrows quit, then the "a" key quit as well, and soon other keys were pretty spotty in their response. It turned out that the heat by the pool loosened the cable connector of the keyboard. I was able to use the swiss army knife to disassemble the keyboard and reconnect the cable. Pain in the butt, but it lives to serve another trip.

The bag is big enough for the laptop at times, or a sixpack of beer, maps, shoes, or some other alternating thing for the moment. I have certainly gotten my 35 Euros worth out of it.

Damn, another seriously hot day today. This is our last full day in Mexico, and we have a great combination of scorching heat and high winds with huge waves on the beach. Got mail from Humbaba earlier saying that their Condo is just down the beach, so after breakfast we swam a bit and headed in that direction to find a few cheap drinks. The Tabasco bar has been our favorite hangout in the area, so we stopped there for a quick six beers before continuing. We were quickly adopted by a dog and several silver merchants, we liked the dog best.

by this point the sand was insanely hot, and we ran screaming down the beach for Pueblo Bonito, with it's funky blue domes. It was a nice place, I checked out the pool, and Yulia and Gena peed in the beach shower while pretending to clean up. About halfway back up to our hotel they were proved the wiser. We got back to out hotel and I hobbled back to the restroom, nearly bursting in the process.

Relieved and tired, we all rested a bit, then I headed to the business center to print out tickets. I managed to unfuck our seating arrangements, and get everything in order.

Not much else went on. it is good to have a slower day, after such a busy week, We went into town and finished our souvenir shopping and had dinner.

Back in Seattle soon.

From the Hotel Concierge:

To all our guests and patrons. We deeply appreciate your business, and do hope that your time spent here is as pleasant an experience as possible. We would ask that if you  are a fat woman with a near total inability to move under your own power, please do not go down onto the beach when six foot high waves are crashing in. But if you do, please do not attempt to run sideways, allowing the wave to crash into the side of your already weakened knees, snapping it in half. As you writhe in pain on the sand, please try not to flail and crawl about as much as possible, making the damage worse. If this does occur, we will have the paramedicos arrive by small boat, in those same six foot waves, and nearly get pulled under trying to get  you assistance. In this event, we have a team of large, pasty white gringos who will help the paramedicos get to you, then they will also assist in carrying you from the beach to the ambulance.

Sadly, you will be mocked mercilessly on their blog.

Thank you again, and don't forget to get the free breakfast for listening to one of our fascinating presentations.

Gracias!

So Yulia came back from her morning run pretty excited. We had been talking all week about going out to Todos Santos, or some other small town to see something that was less resort like. Todos Santos was high on our list because of the Hotel California there, and because Yulia went there with her brother last year, who was in Mexico on business at the same time she was. Most of the tours that we had heard going out to that area were pretty expensive for what you got, and didn't spend much time in the city in general. Yulia as it turned out was talking with the girl at the tour/rental desk, and the girl there told her that the best option was either to just rent a car and drive, or take the public bus. lots of the hotel workers commute daily from Todos Santos, and it is a quick drive if you aren't on a tour that stops all the time.

With six of us, renting a car was only a little more expensive than the public bus, so we went with the car. There is only one road between the cities, so getting lost wasn't that big of a deal. And since I have driven in southern California, I know enough roadside Spanish to get along. We signed for the car and the girl brought around a Chrysler minivan, which was perfect. There is a nice little ring road that bypasses the downtown, and it took us straight over to Highway 19, the main strip going north.

Road to Nowhere...

The road between Cabo and Todos Santos is a really nice, freshly paved four-lane highway - for the first two miles. After that, it turns back into the narrow, two lane road that twists and turns around the hills, climbing and diving along the terrain. Warning signs for dry creekbeds across the roads and wild cattle were everywhere. Every few miles there would be a nicely build gateway, announcing the entrance to Rancho Something Or Another, with no actual ranch or homes behind it, and no apparent way to drive into the gate. Land For Sale sign were everywhere, and it wasn't too hard to imagine this whole area turning into the same kind of suburbs that Cabo has on the way from the airport, Big expensive houses on the water, with little support towns on the main road.

We eventually caught up to a slow moving truck, towing some kind of generator or other equipment, and shortly thereafter a rapidly approaching Tour Bus caught up to us. The bus driver had no interest in slowing down, and came right up to our rear bumper before slowing down. He jockeyed about a bit, and finally passed both of us on a downhill stretch, followed by a caravan of local trucks and cars, until only other tourists were behind us, also not interested in passing the slower truck. We finally got to slow down as we hit the speed bumps in Pescadero, which we were told is a very cute town. We chose to roll past Pescadero and get lunch in Todos Santos. A few minutes later we were there and looking for a place to park.

Yulia recognized most of the streets, and was pretty excited once she saw Hotel California. We parked just around the corner from the hotel, and headed into the little gallery on the side. It was actually a pretty nice gallery, but once you find out that the whole town is filled with galleries, you get really picky. The lady running the hotel (one of the owners) was very happy to spin us the tale about how the hotel was the inspiration for the song, even though none of the Eagles had ever been there, and have actively denied the song having anything to do with any actual hotel at all. But obfuscation is smart business in this case.

We walked around a bit, checking out the shops and galleries, looking for a place to eat. We came down to two places, and picked the one that had outdoor seating by the street. As usually, the food was fantastic, and the Margaritas were as big as your head (not my head, but maybe yours). The pico de gallio was so good we were eating it with a spoon. Yulia had a fantastic Chille Relleno, and I had a sampler of everything. It was also good to get out of the sun for a bit, even being just a bit further inland you could feel the difference in temperature that not having a ocean breeze makes. We talked to the waiter a bit, and told him we were from Seattle, which he had never heard of. We then mentioned that Yulia and the others were from Russia, which he had also not heard of. At this poiint we just commented that the tortillas were nice, and he was glad to hear that. A short time later, Yulia realized that this place was where she and Kolya had lunch a year before, and the waiter finally recognized her. We told him that we'd see him in a year, and he smiled and waved at us like the idiots that we were.

Along the streets we ran into a few more interesting things: a little shop ran by a big happy dog, with help from his owner; lots of Real Estate agencies, A business that advertised "problem solving", and a new market for fresh fruits and vegetables with cool metal lizards on the walls. This place was very new, and stood out for that same reason. It was also humorous to notice that all the dry goods in the store were "Kirkland" brand, from Costco. Sasha was pretty collected here, getting a bunch of mini bananas, taking then to the counter herself, paying in pesos, and saying "Gracias", all from a kid who two years ago was nervous to talk to her own Grandparents.

The cactuses here were in bloom, covered all over with very beautiful, and really painfully sharp flowers, (only if you are an idiot and pick one up without thinking - note: me==Dumbass). Further into town we found a little hole-in-the-wall hotel called the Todos Santos Inn. What was surprising was that once we went through the entry way, it was this exclusive beautiful hotel inside. And it was totally empty. We snuck past the front desk into the courtyard and were really amazed. The whole place was just amazing, little rooms on a brick courtyard, down a small set of stairs was a dining patio, down another were more rooms, the honeymoon suite, and a little pool. I went to the lobby to keep the hostess distracted, by seeming interested in the place and asking her rates and times, meanwhile, Yulia and the girls took a quick dip in the pool to cool off. When we left we thanked her, and left a trail of wet footprints on the way out.

On this hilly section of town, you could really see the difference in how the buildings are laid out, each curb was different in height by between two to three feet. Little concrete steps were built into the corners to get you up onto the higher curbs. I'm just glad I didn't fall off without looking. We headed back towards the town center and to the Tequila Factory outlet. We had passed it earlier, and they had free samples, of which we did our best to determine the cream of the crop. A few bottles later and we were ready for church. As expected, the church is in the center of town and really serene. We stopped in quickly, sat for a bit, and headed out of town.

On the way back we wanted to stop somewhere nice for a few more beers, and Pescadero was supposed to be older and cute. It is entirely possible that there are two towns called Pescadero, because the one we saw was a mess. There was nowhere to stop, and nothing that was truly old either, it all looked like pretty new, pretty bad construction, run down and in need of paint and screen doors. It was also small enough that we were out of town before we realized it, and just kept heading south.

The road was totally empty for the longest time, then Sasha saw a place coming up, and we pulled in. It was located at KM post 69, and called Art & Beer. Personally, I chose beer at this point, but we were going to get both whether we wanted it or not. The place from the road looked like a farm or ranch or something. The fence was tall enough such that you really couldn't tell. As we approached the gate, an old man with flowing robes and a beard, like a Mexican Jedi, came out and asked us if we were there for dinner. Not really knowing what was going on, I said we were there for some beers, and he told us to go in and find a table.

On the inside the place was a  cross between a sculpture Garden, fine art gallery, Tavern, and Mos Eisley from Star Wars. It was pretty hot, so we got  round of drinks to cool off, found  a table  at the end of the place near their "stage", and relaxed for a bit. Every inch of the place was covered in some form of artwork, from paintings, to cocktail umbrellas in the woodwork to an old schoolbus painted up to mean some damn thing that I couldn't figure out, but must have had meaning. New Age music was playing over the speakers, composed any played by the owners as well. Choosing Beer, I still got art.

The  food was also great, we just had some fruit, all fresh, chips, a fish and Jicima spread, and a collection of insanely great salsas. These were too hot to eat, but too good to stop. We were all hopping about from the hot sauce, and drinking water to cool down as best we could. I bought a CD of their odd Music, and as we left to pay, we each got an extra beer on the house. We talked with the owner as we finished these, and apparently the place is a favorite hangout of many of the Hollywood types that live in Cabos. Anthony Hopkins is a regular, Michael Jordan another. Yet another Famous place that no one knows about.

We headed out, and as we drove, Gena noted that the signs on the side said "Curva peligrosa" or "Curves Dangerous". As it turns out Curva is a Polish swear word for Whores, but since we didn't see any dangerous whores around, we assumed this to just be a coincidence.

But we kept our eyes peeled, just in case...

We (just Yulia Sasha and I) all got up early enough to hit the town for some breakfast and groceries, as we were heading down the front of the hotel through the security gate, we were stopped twice by hotel employees asking if we were heading to timeshare presentations. Apparently they take down your name and room when you go to these offsite, the implication being that they want to make sure you don't vanish into someone's van forever.

We walked to a place called "City Club" which was recommended by pretty much everyone as the best place to by groceries that you can walk to. We ended up taking a big detour around the block, and by the time we got to the entrance, were looking forward to getting inside and getting a bite. Naturally, it is members only. from there we hit the nearest mini mart to get coffee and something. Fiesta Mini-Mart was back on the same road as our hotel, and had a fantastic little bakery. After eating a few pastries, some juice, coffee and Gatorade, we headed further into town. Everything off of the main drag was much cheaper, and little vegetable carts, bakeries, and shops were all around.

We ended up at a place called Oxxo that had packaged tamales, mini-pizzas and burritos, we grabbed a bunch of those, some beer, and headed back to the hotel. Now we were prepared with some easy food that would keep us from having to pay hotel prices each time.

The big entertainment of the day was a sunset cruise aboard the Buccaneer Queen. The boat was a three-masted sailboat dressed up to look like a pirate ship. And they did a quality job too, all the rigging, sails, and everything were top notch. Most importantly it had a open bar for the whole evening. The  cruise took us out of the marina, over to the arch for a bit. The place was seriously crowded with boats, I was impressed that no one bumped into anyone else. From there we went around the point, into the Pacific Ocean. The seas were way rougher out there, and Sasha and Yulia were pretty nervous.

Around this point the crew photographer called us over, and we went down into the cabin. The cabin was insanely dressed up as well, with great woodwork, displays of pirate art and coins, and the computer used for the photos. These were way cheaper than the Dolphin place, so we got one of the group of us. The captain was down here taking a break as well, and naturally, had a parrot. Sasha's spirits lifted with an animal to play with, (we also have a hermit crab living on our balcony) and she felt much more relaxed once we went back up on deck. (the parrot stayed below)

Back in the bay, the crew started their program, with an introduction of people having birthdays (including a lot of kids), and then went on to the dance contest. Naturally, with Yulia being the hottest girl on board, she was grabbed first to go up. They filled the stage halfway with women, then told them all to find partners. Having great sympathy for me and my debilitating White-Man's two-step disease, Yulia brought me on stage. Since there is always a trick, the trick to this contest was that the crew would shout out commands:

• Tequila - freeze in place
• Margarita - raise your arms and yell
• Cerveza - switch partners

If you got something wrong, you were out. It started out pretty easy, but as it got faster people were getting eliminated. Of course one of the better tricks was to grab a partner of the same sex just to stay in, this didn't break the rules, and seemed quite popular with some of the guys from San Francisco. The music and commands got faster and faster, eventually knocking Yulia and most of the others out of the running, and once we got down to the last four (including me!), they added two more commands:

• Pina Colada - Guy on his hands and knees and woman rides him like a horse.
• Salsa - Guy lifts the girl in the air like Scooby Doo.

The Pina Colada command now stressed the importance of having a girl as your partner. The crew was having a good time yelling commands as fast a they could, and Yulia looked like she was going to injure her spleen laughing at me on stage, but I was able to keep up with the music and commands. I had no trouble lifting the girl faster than the other guy to keep up, but as he was from San Francisco, he could get on his knees much faster. Finally the crew called it a draw, and we all won coupons for snorkeling on the ship. Yulia was very proud of me for winning, but I was glad to get off stage, as I was begging to approach sobriety after all the physical exertion and getting slightly self-conscious.

Some light snacks were brought out to sop up the Rum in everyone's stomach.  They then ran a sword and acrobatics show, which was pretty good, and very funny. They were swinging from the rigging, making jokes, and did some pretty good sword work. Finally, the "bad guy" took a leap from the deck, grabbed a rope, swung out from the ship and dove into the water to "escape". During this Yulia was talking to one of the younger bartenders and found out that the boat is run by two families, and the young guy is working to get his Captain's license to get another boat.

This was probably the most professional, and most fun of these goofy events that we have been on. Way fun.