Since last we talked I've been a bit of a travelin' man. I've been to Toronto, Mexico City, Cincinnati and Charleston. Work, work, work, pleasure - in that order. Luckily for me I had my handy dandy camera phone to photo document the whole thing.

Toronto was a fun city and I really like their monetary system. Who the hell needs bills for $1 and $2? Coins actually worked out nicely and I'm in favor of adopting that system here in the States. I do have to comment on their half-assed commitment to the metric system though. I totally expected to be able to get a "Royale with Cheese" at McDonald's but it read "Quarter Pounder with Cheese" on the box (it also read "Quart de Livre avec Fromage"). What the hell? Shouldn't it be in centimeters or something? If you're metric, go metric and embrace your metricness!

The Mexico trip was good except for the, oh yeah, chronic diarrhea (try and spell that without spell checker) that persisted for a week after the trip. But other than that, top notch! Luckily a visit to the doctor and some antibiotics fixed me up. It's funny, when you think about what's most important in your life you usually think of things like friends, family, stereo equipment, high-def, etc... but you go a week without a solid bowel movement and all of a sudden your Christmas wish list gets very short (Dear Santa, Solid stool would be fabu! Thanks, bye).

The good part of the Mexico trip was that my hotel offered up the ability to rent people to do things with you. Not in the way you're thinking though, because I know where you're headed with that. I rented a guy to play tennis with me, since I've recently taken up tennis. It turned into lessons instead of play, which was good because apparently I have what they call "bad technique" - at least that's the medical term. Two lessons later and at least I know the right way to hit the ball - that's progress my friends for less than 300 pesos. The other interesting part was the Mexican tradition of the fortune-telling clairvoyant canary. At the La Valentina restaurant a guy brings a canary cage to your table and the little canary comes out and pulls your fortune and does other stuff like put the sombrero on the little Snoopy figure (Snoopy being the predominant Latin American symbol since the early 1700's). My forecast calls for huge run-on sentences and copious amount of gibberish: Your good and open heart makes you willing to reveal your thue (sic) feelings, thereby betting you in some severe difficulties, and also making you unwilling to mistrust those who praise you with the sole purpose of deceiving.

The Cincinnati trip came and went in a flash and consisted mostly of meetings, but we did have a great dinner at the Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse - the best ribs I've ever had in my life (fun fact: the Montgomery Inn is the biggest buyer of pork products among independent restaurants, using between 16 and 20 tons of ribs per week.). As a general rule of thumb any meal where the waitress ties a bib on you before you eat is going to be good. We also had a view of the Ohio River and some terrific Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip Ice Cream for dessert.

The Charleston trip was for me and Erin to relax and unwind and get the hell away from work for a while. It was also to celebrate our one year anniversary, which happened the previous weekend but unfortunately coincided with the Mexico City/Cincinnati trips. We got to spend the 4th of July weekend there and it was superb.

It was our first visit to Charleston, so we didn't know our way around as much as some of our old stomping grounds like New Orleans, but we picked it up quickly, I think because it's a lot like New Orleans, only without the extra heat and humidity, the lewdness, the vulgarity, the stench and the boobies (I miss you New Orleans!). We had a great room at our hotel (The HarbourView Inn) that overlooked the harbor and the waterfront park fountain that had kids playing in it nonstop. You'd be surprised what having kids laughing and playing and having a good time as background noise for 4 days can do to improve your mood. Innocence of youth or whatever it was, it was totally great - Erin and I actually took some time to go play in the fountain ourselves.

Charleston also has some magnificent architecture (which I think is another reason we like New Orleans so much, the nakedness aside). We took lots of walks around the historic district and took in the churches and homes and great buildings. It was a great way to cap off our one year mark and I look forward to lots more anniversary excursions with my wife.