Aldoblog

Two years ago, Rochelle and I attended a champagne tasting held at Absinthe, and hosted by Terry Theise, a specialty wine importer. He introduced us to “grower producers,” or, champagnes made by the same people who grow the grapes. It was eye opening, and we immediately decided our next big vacation would be to the Champagne region of France.

Rochelle and I just returned from 11 days touring the tequila region. We went with a group of like-minded tequila enthusiasts, and were lead by the manager of the bar at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant. In the five official days of the tour we visited eight different tequila fabricas, were treated to the finest hospitality Rochelle and I have ever enjoyed, and drank an average of two bottles of tequila per person per day. My liver hurts.

“You didn’t give me any credit for driving 85 [MPH] through Santa Clara County.”

“Sure I did. I wasn’t nagging then, was I?”

Photos of our trips to Costa Rica (end of May) and Los Angeles (last weekend) are now online.

“Coke ‘til two, sex ‘til four.”

Rochelle and I have great fun with each other while on vacations, but we don’t always travel well together. Our trip to Costa Rica was a textbook example. The passport problem was just the beginning of our troubles.

So, getting ready for our trip, Rochelle was going to Xerox our passports, so we would have copies, just in case. I was in the tub, and she went to get mine. A minute later, she came down the hall, laughing, “A ha, Michael is a dumbass!” It turns out my passport expired on 30 April 2003. Oops. We had exactly 18 hours to figure out what to do.

As many of you know, Rochelle and I have been involved in graduate studies for a couple years now, and we’re finally coming to the end of the program. We’ve been doing a lot of coursework, including extended exercises at home that are not required to graduate, but are required for complete mastery. Rochelle has just one class session left, while I have two, and then it’s just final exams for us.

For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds.

We just ate cheese for dinner. Four really fucking good cheeses, air shipped to us from France. Rochelle read about Fromages.com in the New York Times, and talked Hilda into splitting a shipment with us. Our selection arrived this morning.