Last night I picked the winner of my Message Board contest amongst 13 entries. The sole criteria was signing up for, then posting on, the message board. I was happy to send Kujio a $50 Amazon gift certificate for taking the time to do so. I met Stefan in Santa Elena, Costa Rica in 2005. We went on the same tour of the Montaverde Cloud Forest Preserve, followed by a rained upon attempt to find a giant waterfall, and finally a tour of a nearby cheese factory (the best part was the free cheese at the end). He's from Arizona, though on an internship for the State Dept in Germany. I hope to run additional contests in the future. Please drop me a comment if you have any fun ideas.
For lack of some excitement, I upgraded my WordPress (blog software) versions last weekend. The step-by-step directions for backing up the databases, and then uploading the new files worked like a charm. It went off without a hitch, and there are definetly some immediate improvements I've experienced, specifically in terms of the text editor with which I create postings. If you're wondering where I come up with this stuff, I posted a pic above of my computer desk. Exciting!
Last night, I heard the Pogues on a Cadillac commercial. Strange but true. The Ataris will be playing at The Black Cat in early March, and I'm thinking it'd be a good show for such a small club. The last time I went there was for a sold out Rancid show, which was awesome. Below is a pic of a little wooden Buddha sculpture I picked up last month at a Himalayan/Nepalese store in Dupont Circle I tend to frequent. I liked him because he's carrying a little rucksack over his back. It reminds me of the parallels between the Buddha's start as a prince who once he witnessed the human suffering outside the palace walls, he set off to learn more about it. It sounds a bit silly, however I feel a bit of that same desire to explore and experience humanity outside of the United States for a longer period of time than I've been able to do in the past.
