Nica dreamin'

We recenlty returned from a one-week birthday getaway in Nicaragua, and as usual we managed to have a fantastic time in San Juan Del Sur. Before we hit the beach though, we spent the night in Managua with the purpose of visiting what was reported to be the "best Irish pub in the city"...Hmm, I don't think so! In fact, this place is so NOT and Irish pub that according to Kevin, if the owner's friedns and family back home actually knew what his place looked like he would never be able to sho his face in Ireland again.
As a result of the time change we experienced upon arrival in Nicaragua, Kevin and I got up unusually early and were on the road by 6:30am, so our ride to the coast was smooth and stress free. We had beach time, fishing time, and plenty of talking time with our Canadian friend Adam and his new business partner. Kevin even found time to play in a Texas Hold'em tourney. We met some great new people, including the front-runner in the mayoral race. Even though this is the rainy season over there, we got very lucky with the weather and only got rained on slightly on a couple of occasions. We were not so lucky in other departments as we had the quintesential Central American never-stops-barking-after-mignight-dog right outside our window every night, the radio from our rental car was stolen, and we missed our flight home. No real harm was done however and as we left the country we were already planning our next visit...Do come join us!

Party on Wayne...

Many thanks to all our friends and family who stopped by to have some drinks, dance, catch a part of the slide show marathon, and just catch up!

Besitos to all.

Clara and Jewel Jr., our beautiful and talented young friend who just finished her freshman year of college with stellar grades! ...They grow up s fast!

Karla on her clown shoes: "Never leave home without them!"


Kevin DJing and making us all do the Hokey Pokey!

As always, Raoul closes out the party in style!

Party at the BIG HOUSE! We are finally Home!

You are all cordially invited to our "Back at Home Party"!

Host: Clara and Kevin
Location: Big House
218 W. Springfield St., Boston, MA 02118 US

When: Saturday, July 19, 7:00PM
Phone: 617-530-0622

Time: in the evening! (7pm...) please RSVP!

Well...After 484 days we're finally back at home and can't think of a better way to celebrate than by filling the Big house with friends! So, bring your new wife, husband, baby, boyfriend, girlfriend, roommate, boss...Bring anyone who likes to have fun! Just come on over and be a part of our Round the World recap. There's gonna be loud music, dancing, drinking, and a world-class slide show. Dress for a fun or dress for a ball...and prepare for a hot summer night.

PS: For the very first, and only, time guests will be able to wear rubber soled shoes in the ballroom of the Big house (shoes must be promptly removed if venturing anywhere else though).

PSS: Free motorcycle parking!

Great day for a ride...

This Memorial Day weekend Kevin decided to take some well-deserved time off from work, so I've had him to myself all weekend and its been great!
On Saturday we walked to the hatch-shell by the Charles river for "Earthfest 08". We enjoyed some free health food and a free concert by legendary Ska band English Beat. Kevin busted some great moves and schooled many of the younger generation in the art of Skanking. In the afternoon we picked up some of the kids from the Giants and brought them home for a pizza party and screening of the original Bad News Bears.


Yesterday we brought out the bikes and took our first ride together since Turkey. The day could not have been any more perfect as we rode south-east to Freetown, MA to see our friend Jim run a hare scramble. On our way there, we were consumed on the road by a big procession of Harleys and rode with them for some time. It felt fantastic to be on the road again and I didn't want to stop riding until we crossed a border or something. In fact, I kept checking for our (absent) passports in my pocket! We spent the afternoon with Jim, his girlfriend Dixie, daughter Gianna and nephew Matt.



Then, after we had left the track and were enjoying some Wendy's, our other friend Raoul joined us on his trike.


At night, Raoul, Kevin and I joined our friends Alexa and Scott at the movies to see what turned out to be one of the worst movies of all time: the new Indiana Jones. Wow, I can't even describe what a hunk of junk that movie is from beginning to end. Then, to add insult to injury, we watched a bit of Speed Racer before finally calling it a night only to discover that my car had been towed!!!! After several fruitless calls to the city police dept, state police dept and a few towing companies, we still had no idea where my car had been taken because it wasn't in anybody's records so we started to think for a minute that maybe the car had actually been stolen. Finally, we were lucky enough to run into a state trooper who had pulled someone over for speeding and he gave us the information about where my car had been taken. So, at about 1am we finally rescued my cruiser from the tow lot and were heading home. Even the bad evening hours couldn't ruin the high I had from the day's ride and we all went to sleep happy.


Today we will be joining our friends Mike and Diana for a BBQ at their new place in Waltham. The day is gorgeous and we're looking forward to some great music, good food and lots of stories from past good times.

Baseball -N- BBQ

Kevin had another very busy weekend as a youth baseball coach. The Sound End Baseball league was invited to participate in a tournament against the Back Bay League and Kevin was asked to coach along with three other dedicated coaches. They put together a great team with players from as many teams as possible in order to give lots of kids the opportunity to play. The tournament began bright and early on Saturday morning under cloudy skies, but by the time I walked over to the gorgeous field by the Charles river, the sun was out and the day had turned from drab to glorious! The South End team won both their games on that day, far out-scoring the teams they played. They won one game 17-0! In fact, they were the number one seed going into the elimination rounds on Sunday.

On Saturday night, we headed over to coach Scott's new home (which he shares with his new bride Kelly) for more baseball talk and some delicious grub off the grill. The coaches spent most of the evening going over their "stratigerie". Coach Scott also spent a significant amount of time chasing his crafty cat, Calvin, who escaped from the house every chance he got!


Alas the strategizing was all for naught as the South End team was eliminated after their second game on Sunday in a hard-fought loss against a team from Southie. Final score 4-3. Oh well, you can't win them all!! Just don't tell Kevin.

A play-by-play of Kevin's Giant's latest win...

A pitchers' duel turned into high scoring run fest on Mother's Day at Roche Park.

It started out as a pitching duel between, Joshua Perez of the Giants and Dyvine of the Mariners. A bases loaded walk by God scratched home the first run in the second inning by the the Giants. In the bottom of the third the Mariners were now facing Keson John and they took the lead with their patience at the plate scoring 4 runs despite just one ball being put into play.

In the top of the fourth the Giants put on their rally caps and erupted for 8 runs, led by a grand slam by Jason Pepin, backed up by a Ryan Hernandez home run. But the shorthanded Mariners, who were down to 8 players due to an injury, came back in the bottom of the fourth to tie the game at 9-9 again with patience at the plate but this time with a couple of run scoring singles by Dante and Dyvine. The Giants brought out Jason Pepin on the mound to get the final out of the inning.

As the sun faded away, the Mariners brought in Francisco in relief for the final inning. The Giants rallied again with Josh Perez getting the big hit, a triple to right. Jason came back in the bottom of the fifth to close the victory with two strikeouts and a nice play at the mound to throw a runner out at first.

On such a tension filled game, that was well played by both teams, it almost goes without saying that GOD SCORED THE WINNING RUN!

Re-connecting with people and earth.

Last weekend my great friend Alex was in town showing off her awesone boyfriend. She and I worked together at the VA back in the days when I was employed (before the BIG trip). Alex moved south to complete her pre-doctoral internship and, much as it happenned with me, she met a fantastic guy (named Jesse) and is happy as a clam! We hadn't seen each other since I left so I was very excited to see her and meet her Jesse. Well, it was all well worth the wait because we had a blast at Cleary's on Saturday night! To top off the good times, there were Mariachis at the club in honor of the upcoming "Cinco de Mayo" and they were handing out beads...two of Kevin's favorite things combined. Needless to say, he was the first to get beads and he was the loudest as we sand along with the Mariachis.


On Wednesday Kevin's little league team, the Giants, played and won their first game of the season against the Nationals. Kevin ahs 18 kids on his team and watching him manage this motly crue of 7-10-year-olds is a thing of comedy and beauty all at once!

This weekend we are re-connecting with mother earth as we plant our first ever batch of tomatoes in the back yard of our temporary home. Kevin and I have worked togehther, although Kevin has worked his butt off, to clean the less-big yard of construction debris and weeds and to sift the good soil out of the bad. Kevin built two large wooden boxes and we filled them with the good dirt. Today I planted the baby tomato plants and I'm very excited to watch them grow and eat their fruit in the not too distant future...especially with the price of tomatoes these days!

The most dangerous place in the world....

Could it be America?

We traveled around the world: Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuala, Turkey, Pakistan, Cambodia. Only place anyone messed with our bikes was in Amsterdam outside the most expensive hotel we stayed in where someone jimmied open one of my boxes.

I come back to Boston, park the bike outside on the sidewalk in front of my house for two days and some jerks steal the BMW emblems off of the sides of my gas tank.

I was at brunch at a local political legends house yesterday, Mel King, and the discussion centered around how we as a society do not respect everyone in the society, especially the children.

Maybe we have things to learn from the rest of the world.

The Mask

This is my hunky older brother, Luis, showing off the exotic mask that Kevin and I bought for him in the heart of the Amazon. Pretty cool, huh?

Sail away, sail away, sail away...

Friday night we dined once again with our fabulous friends Matt and June. We enjoyed tapas, sangria, and a delicious paella at Sole in Waltham. The food was fantastic, the music was great and our waitress was quite the firecracker. She served our food with a smile and never missed a beat with our conversation!


Yesterday, the Boston Sailing Center was having their annual open house and offering free sailboat rides in the afternoon. Kevin and I decided to take advantage of this cool offer and so we headed to the harbor in East Boston, signed up upon arrival and waited about two hours for our turn. At around 5pm we finally got our 45 minute sailing around the harbor. Kevin complained when it was all over that we probably could have spent the two hours we waited in a more constructive manner, but I say, what the heck! We don't ever get to go sailing so for me it was an afternoon well spent especially because of the great the view of the Boston skyline we got from our vantage point on the water.


After our sail, we went to our friends Marlene and Rick's house for a barbecue and laughs. They always have a fun and ecclectic crowd of guests and last night was no exception. One of the guests present was renowned photographer Kevin Ames who specializes in nudes! (you can check out some of his work at www.amesphoto.com)

This afternoon, I will be joining Kevin and his basegall team of seven to ten year-olds at the bating cages...fun for all! Have I mentioned that God is on Kevin's team?? No joking, the youngest player on the South End Little League Giants is a seven-year-old with a great attitude named "God". It's good to have him on our side!

Spring is FINALLY in the air!

We have thankfully finally had a string of beautiful days with fantastic weather in Boston. As a result, people are happy, skin is back in (or out, depending on how you look at it), barbecues are off the unemployed list, and flowers are blooming all over the place and their vibrant colors are a welcome sight.

So, last weekend we had our first cook-out invitation from Alexa and her fabulous fiancee, Scott, at their great new home...



this week Kevin and I worked on rehabbing our less-big garden which was painfully ignored by the tenants while we were away...



and today I took my camera around town paparazzi-style and captured spontaneous shots of the loveliest lady-blooms in the city!

Enjoy...







PS: THREE is the Magic number!

The circle is complete!

Well, today we really did live the final chapter of our "Round The World" adventure as we picked up Kevin's motorcycle from the docks. We were fully prepared to have some difficulty getting the two-wheeled vehicle out of Customs, but everyone was very nice, probably bouied by the fantastic blue-sky weather we're having and are predicted to have throughout the week-end. The US Custom officer even signed and stamped our "unusually formal" carnet without much ado and sent us on our merry way to collect the bike from the shipper. At the shipping warehouse, once again we were prepared for a long wait, but in a matter of minutes (and after paying the mysterious $135 handling charge) the crate was brought out and plopped down on Kevin truck-bed. All together, the whole process only took about one hour, including driving time. Not bad at all. Needless to say, Kevin was very excited to drive over to his garage and unpack the bike as soon as he possibly could. First things first though, and it was lunch time so we drove to Wendy's first for a celebratory double-bacon-cheeseburger lunch.







We spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking the bike and all the riding gear we had packed along with it. In fact, we think we actually could have packed a whole load of gems and diamonds in the panniers and no one would have known any better. As Kevin put his bike back together, I put on my riding boots and a borrowed helmet and took my first ride in months...since Turkey in fact. The bike felt fantastic, I can tell it missed me as much as I missed riding it! The ride was as they say, "short-n-sweet", only a couple of blocks to get gas. When he was finished with his tools, Kevin took the same fuel ride, the teaser, and returned very happy. In fact, he will be riding his bike all weekend since he is teaching a motorcycle safety course tomorrow and on Sunday.

As we drove "home" with the bike strapped in on the flatbed, we noticed that many fellow two-wheelers had taken advantage of the perfect weather to take their maiden voyage of the season. Motorcycle are everywhere! Once at home, I proceeded to give my riding jacked a thorough cleaning, something I had been holding off on doing until we left the grime and pollution of the third world behind. Now it's all down the drain and hopefully my jacket will look blue again, not new, not after 365 days of consecutive wear, just blue; happy, happy blue!

Big week: Big Show, big smiles, big food!

Last week was a busy one once again as our social calendar was bursting with great invitations from friends, old and new alike. On Monday the 7th we went to a Toots and the Maytals concert at the Paradise. The tickets were free courtesy of our friend Julie who was lucky caller #4 on WERS and won them. The concert was originally scheduled for Sunday, March 30th but it was cancelled at the last minute and re-scheduled for last week. In order to make up for lost time the band decided to have two shows on the same night and we got to go to the second show which began at 11pm! Needless to say, when the lead singer and main attraction of the band is in his late 60s to early 70s and presumably has been sick for a week, one cannot expect greatness on the second show of a double-header. Indeed, there was no greatness as we could barely even hear Toots although we were in the front row. In fact, the sound system was horrible and the whole concert sounded as if it was coming through on a home-made transistor radio!!! The only saving grace was that we had gotten the tickets for free, so we did the best to enjoy ourselves.

Tuesday the 8th was a very busy day; we had the home-opener of the Rex Sox at 2pm and then at 7pm were treated(by my brother Mariano and his new family, the Wights) to great tickets to a WWE(WWF) "Smackdown" event courtesy of "The Big Show" himself!! The Sox game was lots of fun, complete with an elaborate world-series ring ceremony and a cool fly-over by three F-16 jet fighter planes. Best of all, of course, is that the Red Sox won 5-0. So, after the game we headed to a local pizza joint to load up on carbs so we would be ready to scream our heads off at the wrestling match. We had four complimentary tickets and, believe it or not, were only able to find one friend willing to come with us to the event. (I believe this is because people up here in our social circle are a bit lame when it comes to trying new things). However, the guy who happily agreed to come with us, Mario, turned out to be a huge fan and connoisseur of wrestling who filled us in on all the ins-and-outs of the very entertaining sport. The event began at 7:30pm and there were quite a few bouts before our guy, Big Show, came out to fight "The Great Kali". It was a true meeting of the giants. However, Kali turned out to be no match for Big Show and the whole thing was over in less than one minute! (see video below) I was amazed at how heterogeneous the crowd was at the wrestling event, how many kids were there, and how much fun everyone seemed to have. Definitely a new experience for us that we quite enjoyed!




Friday night we went to Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square for the CD release party for "Jo Henley" the band in which our friend Tien Yi plays the drums. The sound was great as was the vibe and we were very proud of her and happy for her. On Saturday, Kevin went out around 10:30pm to meet up with two of his long-time greatest friends, Carla and Kari. They rendezvoused at Jillians and played pool and had beers and yucked it up until the wee hours of the morning.

On Sunday we had another social double-header: Late lunch at Dina and Peter's place and dinner with the Curleys and Skiadass at The No Name (this time I brought my camera!). Catching up with Dina and Peter was great and as always their cooking was delicious and their eclectic group of friends a great deal of fun. As content as my belly and I were after that gathering, I opted for the lobster again at the No Name 'cause I just can't seem to get enough of the delicious crustaceans. Hmm, with our bellies now really full and our spirits high from great conversation and friendship, Kevin and I headed home to retire for the night and be lulled to sleep by the sound of the Sox V. Yankees game playing on the stereo in the background.