Stuff you didn't need to see...

I hope you're okay with the fact that this site is in a shameful state of disrepair. I'm catching up man, I swear. I've finally got time to do all the stuff I couldn't do during school. There was an awful lot I put off, but now I'm slowly getting to all of it. Work still takes up a big chunk of my day, but that's to be expected.

I went to see Lord of the Rings: Return of the King today. Pretty good flick; apparently there were elves in it. Haha, just kidding. Yes, I'm a geek, so I've read the book and I was thoroughly put off by the ending (which was sappy and not nearly as cool as the book). Otherwise, it had some of the most amazing battle sequences that I've ever seen. A tolerable acting job from Bernard Lee (Theoden) this time around helped, as did the ever-inspiring presence of Miranda Otto (Eowyn). How many ways can I say this? Eowyn is hot. Eowyn is really freakin' hot. Hot blonde chicks killing demons makes me hot. Life is good.

Anyway, I promised to say more about Cancun. Mexico is on my mind once again because a good friend of mine just went down there. She's going to Cozumel. I'm so damn jealous. But, I probably don't need any more sun just yet. I've pretty much recovered from my incredible sunburn-of-doom, but the skin on my ankles is still peeling. This process has been quite fascinating, such as when I took a shower and noticed that some sort of translucent slug-like lifeform had attached itself to my leg. It turned out that my skin was filling with water, forming a 3-inch long sack of water underneath the layer of dead skin on my ankle. It was a tad disturbing.

But enough about that. Mexico is like some sort of dreamland. It was in the 70's for Christmas. As a Minnesota boy, this is just weird. When we were first descending through the clouds on our final landing approach, I thought we'd somehow found heaven. The clouds were just perfect that day; spaced well enough so you could see the ground below. And as we got closer to the ground it became clear that the vegetation is incredibly thick. You literally cannot see the ground at all. There's so much green, leafy life everywhere; trees, vines, bushes. But there probably isn't much for grass because the light can't penetrate through the canopy above. If you wanted to cut directly through the forest you'd need a machete and a lot of time. It would probably take all day to get a couple miles.

The Mexicans present a wonderful, Fantasy Island-style face to the tourists, but you don't have to go far to see the crushing poverty of those folks who aren't getting exorbitant taxi fees out of tourists. Whether in the city or in the country (well, "jungle" might be a better word. Or "wilderness" or something) there are a lot of people who don't have a pot to piss in. The rundown shacks in the rural areas are the most depressing. It looked to me like people were using some corrugated metal - placed atop some stones or whatever, forming a roof - as a house. Yeah, the weather is nice all year, but still. And of course, the yards are strewn with trash, or maybe those were their possessions, I don't know. I suppose if you're poor you hold onto anything you might find in case somebody wants to trade for it. Also, there were stray dogs wandering everywhere, looking rather depressed themselves. Mind you, I only saw this side of Mexico on the way to Chichén Itzá and back. In Cancun proper life is more like that of an American (by which I mean USA; Mexicans are North Americans, too) urban center. By the way, make sure you check out the Photos page for some cool Chichén Itzá pix.

Well, if you made if this far, I suppose I can let you see the sunburn pic. Laugh if you will, but I learned a very valuable lesson: Never suntan for 3 and half hours without suntan lotion in Mexico. Even though I'm Whitey McPale I probably could've gotten away with only a slight burn in Minnesota. The sun is different in Mexico; it's activey trying to kill you. In Minnesota the sun tries to kill you by withholding its mighty heat. Really, there's no excuse, though. I don't know why I did it. Maybe it's the only thing convincing me that Cancun is a real place. Anyway, that's enough for now. Until next time....