Vegas!!!

I just bought tickets to Vegas, where I'm meeting my friends Ron and Michael. I'm going from November 7-9. My room has space for 2 more! Who's in? Austin? Juggy? Lake? Cout? C'mon!!!

I seriously can't wait. Vegas is one of those weird places that I can keep going back to. I can only take about 2 nights at a time, but those 2 nights - friggin' sweet. The last time I went was for my friend Lake's bachelor party. I was losing my ass at the tables, and then, in one pull of the slot machine, I won $600, and I was back to even. Thank effing God!

I want to go back to Shadow in Caesar's palace. Strippers dance behind a backlit screen so all you can see is their sillhouettes. It's all tasteful-like. It may not sound all that great, but believe me - it is way cool.

My goal is to win enough money to pay for our honeymoon. We're looking at going to the Yucatan Peninsula around New Year's. Thanks to some tips from my friend Angela, I think we're going to stay in Xcalak. It's 5 hours from Cancun, so away from all the jerky tourists. It's supposed to be great for snorkeling, and kayaking, and chilling on the beach. Can't wait.

Hope all is well with you! And happy birthday Courtney!

Hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind. (Screw off, Austin).

Confucious Say

Man who jumps off cliff, jumps to conclusion.

So, sometimes we feel like we jumped off a big cliff moving to Arizona. It's neat and all - beautiful mountains. Cool cacti. Interesting wildlife. Warm weather. But coming from a place full of friends, with a comfortable house, with somewhat of a routine and going to a place that has none of that can sort of wear you down every once in a while. Bergie and I both feel it from time to time.

We're working on it, though. And I'm still glad we came. On Sunday, we started our first weekly training ride with the Greater Arizona Bicycling Association. We and about 30 other people went on a 30 mile ride at 6:00 AM. We're going to do that weekly, gaining in mileage each week until the 109 mile El Tour de Tucson on November 17. We didn't make any new friends on Sunday, but we did lots of smiling and chatting and stuff - the kinds of things that lead to friends. I'll bring cookies this Sunday. That's bound to work.

Anyway - confucious also say - he who drops watch in toilet have shitty time.

There's no watch in my toilet just yet. Hope the same for all of you.

Hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a State of Mind

Date Weekend

Hello everyone,

Bergie and I decided that we'd celebrate the Labor Day holiday this year by declaring it Date Weekend, which meant that we went on a different date event every day. Friday night, I made it my goal to get Bergie drunk, so I picked her up from school and took her to a swank little pizza place called Enoteca for happy hour. The happy hour wasn't especially cheap, but it 3 wines later, it was getting pretty happy. And that was just the start. After that, we drove over to a Spanish place called Vicente's. The tapas were half-assed, but the live music made up for it. After that, we topped the night off with more wine and some dessert at this fau-French bistro called Pastiche. Again - the food wasn't all that impressive, but it was still fun.

Day 2 started off with an early morning bike ride. Then we came home and cleaned our sty of a pad. That night, however, we decided to use one of our wedding gifts - a gift card to an upscale tex-mex place called Terra-Cotta. (Thanks Elise and Jamie!). And check out the fox in the picture on the right. Oh, and the fake animal behind her is pretty cool, too.

This time they got the food right. We ate and drank and ate some more. Damned good stuff. We definitely found a place we'll bring visitors.

After dinner, we went downtown to the HOCO Festival to check out Okkerville River. Turns out they have a new album, and it effin rocks. You can check it out at MySpace. The concert was fantastic. Unfortunately, they aren't going through Minneapolis on this tour, but if you have a chance to see them, do it. That did it for date night #2.

On Sunday, we got up and hopped in the car to head out to Mount Lemmon. It is about a 25 mile drive Northeast of Tucson. The drive is gorgeous. And you end up about 9000 feet above sea level, which drops the temperature about 20 degrees - a fantastic escape from the heat of Tucson. We hiked through the woods for a couple of hours. Then, we took a ski lift to the top of the mountain where we had a picnic lunch. That night, we just chilled at home. We were pretty shot from all the hiking.

On Monday, Bergie had a ton of school work to do, but to make sure we kept our commitment to Date Weekend, we did take in a movie that night. We saw Once - a pretty deece movie about a singer songwriter in Ireland who meets this Czech girl, and together they sing songs. It's almost a musical (and as you all know, I like musicals), but it's not they typical break-out-in-song-for-no-apparent-reason kind of musical. In this case, the singing makes sense, and it's pretty good to-boot.

So, that's it for Date Weekend. Good times. Good times.

I hope you all had as much fun.

Big hugs,
Godfrey

P.S. Arizona is a state of mind.