guapacha.com

Today is the two year anniversary of my mother’s death. It feels like much longer than two years and it seems like it is wrong to feel that way, that somehow that betrays her memory. Not that I don’t think about her often – she certainly would have loved the Alaska trip, and when thinking of future visits home it is hard to remember that she won’t be there to cook my bacon sarnies, or to fall asleep in front of whatever movie we might be watching.

A day to look back and fondly remember.

Two instructional videos for Talk Like a Pirate Day:

One of the items in the meaty stack of mail delivered whilst on the cruise was an invitation from the INS to have a chat about my US citizenship application aka ‘the interview’. Scheduled for October 10th I had plenty of time to study the question bank, but this weekend I got another letter saying that ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’ my interview had been canceled. The letter says they will be in touch should they reschedule.

Yep, looks like I’ve survived another Imperial Valley summer, temps are getting back below 100. Time to fill up the hot tub and dust off the grill!

Arrived back from Alaska in the wee hours of the morning after a long day’s traveling (though nothing compared to my Dad’s). No near-naked girls to report this time, instead a broken water heater leaking into the garage; just never possible to ease back into reality it seems. Hopefully the plumber man will return to install the new heater any moment, he needs to as we have piles of laundry like you wouldn’t believe.

Obviously there will be more Alaska posts to come. Right now I am sorting through 896 pictures to come up with those worth keeping. I’ll post some here but you’ll need to check out my flickr page to see them all.

Toodles for now.

This site has hardly been a non-stop thrill ride in the last few weeks (ok, ever!) but the silence will continue for the next two weeks as guapacha.com is going to Alaska!

Teri, Erin, my Dad and me will be in Anchorage on Monday, spending a couple of days in Denali National Park (don’t you dare call it McKinley!) before heading south to Seward to board a cruise ship down to Vancouver. Already planned:

• Husky farm tour – awww, those cute little husky pups!
• Denali Park bus tour – go deep into the park and play dodgem’s with moose and bear
• Denali flightseeing and glacier landing – I’ll try to keep my hands off the controls, promise
• Comedy tour from Anchorage to Seward – no, I have no idea what this will be either
• Glacier bike tour and microbrew tasting in Juneau – mmm…. beer
• Bear wrestling and baiting

So, I’ll think of you all while I’m in the buffet line and will post pictures on ye olde Flickr site when I get back.

Ooh, the word ‘upskirt’ should get me some hits! Last week I raved about Hot Shots Golf 5, coming soon to a PS3 near you and in doing so I mentioned the short skirts some of the female players wear. Well, thanks to perverts with too much time on their hands (there was a joke here but I narrowly avoided making it) it is apparently possible to check out what these girls are wearing on the course. Not sure which is crazier – the fact that someone went to the effort to find out if you could look up the skirts, or the fact that the Japanese would code for that eventuality. Anyway, here for your viewing pleasure: Hot Shots Golf pantsu:

We need some anti-electricity bill powder from the bat belt: our power bill for July – $454!!!

All this week I’ve been hooked on Hot Shots Golf 5 for the PS3:

Right now it’s a Japan-only title and that to me is most of it’s charm. Check out this video trailer and see what I mean. You’ve got the crazy looking characters, and even some cute chicks in non-LPGA short skirts and stockings but its the music and the manic Japanese voices that make it so much fun. The courses are gorgeous – ostriches were walking across the green yesterday when I was trying to sink a putt on an Africa-themed course – and the control mechanisms straightforward.

I’m really not sure what is going on outside the golf since all the menus and announcements are in Japanese but that’s it’s charm. The US version comes out October 1st and I think it’s a must buy, though I wonder what it will sound like in English. I’m told that previous versions did a great job but we’ll see.

Went to the Imperial Valley Mall as usual on Saturday, first store we see has a giant posted of Father Christmas in the window. I’m like wtf? The banner proclaims “Look who we’ve got inside” or some such message. A look through the window showed a display of Christmas ornaments and assorted crap. I wanted to go inside and shout “Don’t you know it’s only fricken’ July” but I was distracted by the shouts of “orange chicken?” and “sample?” from the nearby Chinese eaterie.