Back from Vacation



Well, I'm back from my seven day vacation at the Riveria Maya in Mexico. The goal of the vacation was relaxation and I would have to say that it succeeded wildly. I was on a really strict GDC deadline that went down to the wire. The last week, and especially the last two days, before I left I had to work very long hours to get the demo ready for GDC. Not only did this create a lot of stress but, also, I had to miss the robotics competition my son was part of. His team ended up making and winning the regional finals match! I was pretty dissapointed I wasn't there to see it.

I brought a big stack of books to read for the trip and made quite a dent in them. I read a number of Neil Gaiman books. I especially enjoyed 'American Gods' which was a luxurious 600+ pages of storytelling. On the last day of the trip I read John Mack's 'Passport to the Cosmos' and David Jacob's 'The Threat' back to back. These two books take the same exact phenomenon (alien abductions) and come to wildly different conclusions. Both books are ten years old and I kind of wonder if anything has changed since then. I sent Dr. Jacob's an email (Dr. Mack, sadly, has passed away). I look forward to hearing his response. I predict we will never get proof or know anything definitively about any of this alien/UFO stuff ever. The reason I predict this is because, to date, I have been proven 100% accurate. Moreover, if I'm ever wrong, I will get the enjoyment of seeing something actually happen on this front. In reality, thousands upon thousands of people who have had an interest in the topic have gone to their grave without getting a single satisfactory answer. I hate to be such a negative nancy on the topic but, it still seems the safe bet to take.

Meanwhile, if you see a UFO land on the White House lawn live on CNN, please Skype me because I would be thrilled to see it happen.

We did two excursions on our trip. First we went to Chichen Itzen and then took a boat road to Isla Mueres.

The rest of the time was simply devoted to rest and relaxtion. I showed up to work today only to find that my computer drive was dead and I am now waiting for it to be restored back to life.

Here are a few crappy Iphone photographs from the trip. I will upload some better high-res images when I transfer them from our main camera.




I took a photograph of this absolute little doll at the Hotel. Here huge eyes make her look especially angelic.



One of the performances we enjoyed, a very talented marichi band.



One of the members of the entertainment staff who kept the children happy.



Alex enjoying yet another buffet dinner.


Some happy revellers


Just like an image on a screensaver.


A dance troupe


A band in the hotel lobby


On our boat trip


Inside a cenote


Light reflecting off the water in the cenote


Alex


A wide view of the cenote


Mexican dancers


Chichen Itzen




I thought this was so funny. On our way to Chichen Itza we stopped at a little tourist shop. On the side someone had started to build a small replica of the pyramid and gave up. You can see where the walls began to collapse.


Terry


Alex


Me, relaxing and reading


There is a topless sunbather somewhere in this photograph. The Iphone needs a lot more megapixels before you can really see her micropixels...

Comments

jm said…
Ouch, sucks that you had to miss the robotics comp after putting all that work into helping. I needed some downtime myself, and was sort of glad I didn't do the GDC thing this year.

Glad you're OK; the silence was getting a bit deafening and I was about to call you up to see if you'd been abducted. :-P
4:46 AM
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