Forgive my absence, and typos in this post. I'm typing it into my Sharp Zaurus with my Pockettop keyboard aboard a flight from San Juan Puerto Rico to Washington DC. We went on a vacation, our first go-to-a-resorty-hotel type vacation in five years. I meant to record a short episode of a clambake but Audacity screwed me once again and I couldn't get that assembled before we left at 5:00 AM on Saturday. I kind of half-assed thought about going to an internet cafe and checking email but we just never cared that much. In fact, our hotel had free internet and we never bothered to bring a laptop. Disconnecting was part of the appeal, really. As I write this, I suspect that I have several hundred emails waiting for me.

The vacation was good, too short and now over. We stayed in post-colonial splendor at the Hilton Caribe - a hotel that still has that 50's vibe from when it was built. We visited the rain forest at El Yunque, shopped in Pueblo Viejo San Juan, layed out on the beach and ate and ate. In short we had a highly touristy experience which was exactly what we were after. I started and finished my beach novel, Max Allan Collins' Carnal Hours, a Nate Heller mystery. It was exactly what you want in a beach book, a non-challenging page turner. This morning I did a little snorkeling at the hotel beach, which was fun but my nose has not stopped running since.

One of the downsides of this trip was that I in general used very little of my fledgling Spanish. I lacked confidence, and just didn't have el ojo del tigre. The few times I did try it, folks looked at me like I had lapsed into Chinese. Since basically everyone spoke English, there was no real need to push it. Where it did help was with traffic signs, which I could more or less read all of them without problem.

In a small favor, the movie on the plane is the second Bridget Jones movie, which means my wife is seeing it now and I won't be forced to endure it later. The meal was pretty good as well, and between eating at the airport and on the plane, I am well and truly full. I'm listening to podcasts I loaded up before we left, Linux Link Tech Show, Hablemos and others. Thus far, it has been quite a pleasant experience.