Not So Deep Thoughts

Wow, it’s gotten kinda quiet around here…

Helloooooooooooo… Heeeeeeeelloooooooooooooooooooooo…

::Paul runs his finger across the series of dusty tubes that his blog used to regularly frolic through, his lips pursed and brow furrowed, wondering how he could have let his unfinished collection of haphazard yet profound quotidian expositions fall into such abject wretchedness::

::sigh::

Well, I’m not making any promises here, but I’ll be damned if I abandon this to go and express my innermost thoughts, joys, fears, preoccupations and non sequiturs in 140 characters or less. But for the time being, I should probably get back to doing the work they’re paying me be here for rather than ambling around these dusty annals of reminiscences.

Peas.

Paul

Just in case the wedding bells weren’t loud enough to get the news to the 5 people who read this blog, I’m breaking out the wedding gong!

I’M GETTING MARRIEDoooooooonnnnnnggggggggg!!!!

Vanesa and I will be happily married in April ‘09 here in Madrid and a grand time will be had by all. Much of my family will be making it over the pond for the event and that alone makes me all happy inside. Spain is my home and is quite a lovely country, so it’ll be a pleasure to show that to everyone who hasn’t been here before.

Only 5 months to go and we’ve already got a date, a church, a reception hall and the bridal gown. Next step is mailing out the invitations, which we’re designing right now, and figuring out where everyone is going to stay for the time they’re here. We’re trying to think of it as a scavenger hunt to make the process fun instead of the overwhelming fiasco that people try to make it out to be.

Good times!

Peas!

Vanesa and I are spending the month of August tucked away in the countryside of Ireland.  No car, no maps, no tourist destinations…  just be. Here’s part 1: the first few days of the trip.

Click photo to see a slideshow.

You have to have forgotten film in your camera not to come home from Gay Pride with some memorable pictures. Since every character roaming around Pride with a costume on is willing to pose at the hint of interest by someone holding something that looks like a camera, I tried to look for moments of tenderness and affection that make Gay Pride what it really is: that two people, be they of the same sex or different, can openly express their love for each other.

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** Click Photo for Slideshow (or here)

Vanesa and her family take me out to Faunia, a theme-park-ish zoo on the outskirts of Madrid. They don’t got bears or giraffes or all the other celebrity animals that one would see in a zoo, but they make up for it with the always fun experience of seeing an animal and saying, “What the hell is THAT?!?!”

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** Click Photo for Slideshow

If you want your friends to come see what you do for work everyday, invite them to come help you eat a 270 square foot model of a city (especially one as beautiful as Segovia) made entirely out of food.

Food specialist, Simon Cohen, shows us why hummus is far superior to foie gras when it comes to mini apartment block construction.

**warning** Picture of roasting suckling pig that’s bound to turn someone vegetarian.

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** Click Photo for Slideshow

There’s something very special about the San Isidro long weekend.  It’s May.  The weather is just right.  There was another long weekend just two weeks before (The Day of May) when most people took the opportunity to get the heck out of Dodge, and now they’re ready to hang ’round the homefront.  And just the word BBQ makes you salivate.  BBQ.  BbQ. bbQ.

So Vanesa and I marinated a batch of chicken wings, bought a few 6-packs of Bud and headed off to Jacki and Skyler’s lovely terrace for a day in the sun.  Here are some pics.

Spring has Sprung!

Vanesa and I went a little slap-happy at the local greenhouse and brought a little life to our little terrace.  Here are some of the cute little buggers that we’ve brought home… 

Take a gander at our little sanctuary and then go outside and walk barefoot in the morning dew soaked grass, or something equally tree-huggerish.

For my birthday, my friends Jacki and Kelly hooked me up with two tickets to see Andrew Bird in concert last Saturday.  As Vanesa was frolicking around Dublin that weekend, I hit up the concert with Kelly.

I gotta tell you guys, I was a fan of Andrew Bird with or with a concert, but after seeing the guy live, my appreciation for him has skyrocketed.

For those of you who haven’t heard his music yet, he’s a classically trained violinist, an accomplished composer, a verbose lyracist, a good singer and a damn fine whistler to boot.

With all he puts in to each song; wandering harmonic progressions, a varying mixture of random rhythmic structures, layering instruments, etc… that when I saw him amble out onto the stage with just a violin and a guitar on standby, I could only wonder how the hell he was going to pull off getting even half way through one of his songs.

But he showed us.  With the help of various looping pedals, he was able to record one voice at a time, piling voice upon voice, clicking them off and then back on as the song demanded such.  It was really impressive.  And really friggin’ good.

And when in just one concert, you’re reminded at times of the sound of Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright and Paul Simon, you know you’re dealing with someone special.

If you’ve never seen him, go see him.   If you haven’t heard of him, buy a CD and then go see him.  Hell, go check him out on YouTube and then go see him, whatever…  Enjoy good music, that’s all.

How cool is this! A year or so ago I was asked by a fellow teacher if I would be interested in doing some voiceover work for a short animated film.  I’d totally forgotten about it until the other day when she sent me an email with this trailer for the finished work.

Even cooler was glancing up to the title of the film after 5 minutes clicking around the website and seeing this:

Hollywood here I come!  Michael, you got room on your couch?