Caretaker - Memories In A Bottle

I lived in California for a bit less than twenty years and, since leaving for a "six-month trip" almost six years ago, I've only been back a handful of times. Of course, I have a ton of great memories. During the last trip in March, Diana and I went with Gail and Chuck to visit Gail's long-time friend Trish and her husband, Randy.

Randy's quite the wine connoisseur and was nice enough to lead us through some of his collection. It's not often I've sat down with an expert to talk about and try various wines. One of the things that gave me a charge was how Randy (and Trish) often combine travel with his (their?) love of wine, be it in California, Europe, or some other place. We all talked about some of our favorites and why and I mentioned that one of mine when I lived in San Diego was Caretaker, which comes from Trader Joe's.

Caretaker's a Pinot Noir from California's central coast, which is the area between Los Angeles and San Francisco. From what I understand, it's made for Trader Joe's from multiple growers' grapes. For me, it's a pretty good, easy-to-drink wine.

I found it by "starting at the bottom", which I've used in both Germany and Spain with good results. Since I already know that price is, for the most part, what someone else thinks something's worth (read: "somewhat arbitrary"), I do a little basic research about local wines then start with the lowest-priced bottle for each grape/type I want to try and begin working my way "up" until I find something I really like. From there, I try a bunch of each of that type of grape/wine until I find a favorite. At that point, I have an intersection of price and (one) wine type from which I'll maybe try something like 50% more expensive - just to see if there's a difference worth the premium. I can then repeat this for each type of wine someone recommends and/or I want to try.

Now, granted, I have to work my way through some crappy wines but I learn a lot about what's grown locally and at low cost. (Don't worry, if the wine's really crap, it gets tossed out.) This is the way I found Spatebergunder while in Germany, Granatxa in Spain, and Caretaker Pinot Noir in California. And, as people who are into wine already know, they have commonalities.

During our visit that evening, someone asked me if I had Caretaker recently and if I still liked it as much now that I've tried so many others. I hadn't but, as you can see, the local Trader Joe's had it in stock so I picked up a bottle to take back to Barcelona.

Vladimir was over one afternoon and we decided to open the bottle to see what we all thought. As I transferred it to the decanter, I immediately had memories pour into my head. The smell alone reminded me of so many good times in California. Sort of like hearing an old song, truly amazing. And surprising. I also remembered that Randy said something similar; about how different wines triggered different memories for him.

So, what's the verdict?

Over the past few years, I've found wines I'm not a fan of and others I've enjoyed a bunch. There are certain characteristics I like more than others. Mostly, I've enjoyed the process and experience. The taste? Yeah, I was a bit surprised, it's still one of my favorites. But, in terms of memories-per-bottle, Caretaker wins hands down!

Back In Southern California! - Part 2

After going to the Grand Canyon and Vegas, Diana and I were happy to be leaving the California-Arizona-Nevada desert and going "home" to Oceanside again.

You really can't beat San Diego, and Oceanside in particular, for the scenery and weather! The view north from the Oceanside Pier:

We stayed with my long-time friends Chuck and Gail for the last four or five nights in California. I've know these guys for over 20 years and it was so comforting to hang out again. Even though I haven't seen them for like four years, it took seconds to connect.

Mandatory Beach Break Cafe breakfast with Chuck and Gail (so nice to be back):

Our last few days were a whirlwind of activity. I sold off, donated, or threw out what was left in storage and was happy to leave the unlocked and empty unit behind. As I mentioned in part one of Back In Southern California, cleaning out made me realize yet again that I don't really want to accumulate things ever again. The bitter sweetness of no longer having as much stuff and the realization of what all that stuff originally cost is a complicated feeling for me to this day.

Anyway, it wasn't all heavy. I was happy to play tourist with Diana in my old, long-time hometown. This even included, believe it or not, attending Sunday-morning mass at Oceanside's San Luis Rey Mission with Chuck and Gail.

We have lots of luck when it comes to seeing the pope. The coolest part of going to the mission that day was running into Frank and taking selfies! Of course we invited him to come visit us in Barcelona.

On our last night in California, a bunch of friends met us for dinner in a local Carlsbad place where we caught up over margaritas. So many friends who absolutely need to come visit us in Barcelona before the wind one day carries us somewhere else!!!

The day we left, Dave came over to say goodbye and took Diana for a quick motorcycle ride through the local hills. Diana was all smiles as I think she was a Harley rider in a past life. Actually, I think that if we lived in California, you'd find her with her own ride!

Sadly, but full with happy memories, we packed the rental car and made the drive to LAX for our flight to Barcelona.

Spontaneously on the way, I called another long-time friend, John, who lives and works right near the airport, to see if he could meet us. John was the other gringo in the team when I moved down to southern Mexico almost twenty years ago. He said yes and about 30 minutes later, we were catching up at Starbucks in the departures area. We haven't seen each other for maybe ten years. It was a nice bonus to the end our California visit.

Thanks to Dave, Chuck, and Gail for opening your houses for Diana and me. Thanks to all the friends we were able to meet up with during our brief stay. Sorry to those with whom our schedules didn't mesh. Next time for sure.

And finally, if you haven't visited us, it's time. Get your butt in plane and do it.

Thanks again California (and Mexico) and see you soon.

Back In Southern California! - Part 1

Finally! Back in southern California!

It's been about four years, believe it or not. Basically since right before the wedding. I couldn't wait to go 'home' again. Even if the concept of where home is is complicated.

I had hoped to go in March of 2014 but we got sidetracked with a surprise trip to San Francisco, which delayed us by a year. The 'official' purpose of our trip was to clean out the small storage unit I've been paying for since December 2009. Back when I first left on my world voyage, I put my MINI and enough stuff away for my return in "six months or so" (which kinda' ended up being Gilligan's Island time - three-hour tour!). The idea was that I could pick up where I left off quickly and easily. I guess life got in the way...fortunately.

We flew from Barcelona to London and then onto Los Angeles and made an immediate beeline down to San Diego to stay with my good friend Dave. We were pretty beat our first evening so he cooked us up a nice dinner and we all hung out, played with his dog Miles, and caught up on a few years of life.

The next morning it was off to breakfast (if you know me, a verrrry important thing) at a local hot spot then we took a nice long walk along the beach. It was so nice to be back in sunny, warm, and very not humid California!

On Monday morning, it was off to meet up with an old workmate Bruce. Of course I had to give him a box of maple-glazed doughnuts for old-times' sake. I also met some randoms to sell off a bunch of the items I had in the storage unit. Actually, meeting people in parking lots to sell them stuff was a recurring theme during the trip. The parking-lot thing is like selling on eBay except with none of the convenience.

After our work for the day was done, Diana and I went over to nearby La Jolla, which is arguably one of the most beautiful places on earth. The view near La Jolla cove:

And no trip to La Jolla would be complete without a big-ole-Mexi lunch (with margaritas!!!) at Jose's Court Room. Paradise!

Dinner that night was with Ruma and her daughter Nicole who had visited us a year or so ago in Barcelona. Actually, visiting, eating, and catching up with friends was maybe tied for first with parking-lot rendezvous. Dinner with Jim and Maria was another night but I can't remember which. Can I say how much I missed all my friends!

Another reason for the trip was to renew my driver's license. We rented a car at LAX but could only keep it for part of the time as my old license had an expiration date in the middle of the trip. Because of this, we had to go back up to LAX and trade the car for another. This ten-minute transaction required almost 200 miles of driving!

Because of the work-like nature of  lot of the trip, I made sure we did something fun and/or touristy every day. The day we had to change cars, we went to Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. This short street, which looks like something out of Mexico, is where L.A. supposedly started.

And, the fun didn't end here. The next morning we woke up and headed down to Ensenada, Mexico, where I lived for about 18 months back in the late 90s, to visit my good friend Eduardo and his family. To be continued...

San Francisco - The Official Selfie Tour

Diana's work paid off again recently with a trip to the San Francisco area. Of course I had to tag along to be the supportive husband. It wasn't until we got back to Barcelona, though, that I realized more than half our photos were selfies so I decided to use exclusively selfie photos for this entire story.

Diana and I en route (note how empty the plane was - it was like this both ways, which made for some nice lay-down-on-four-seats sleeping going home!):

Our obsession with taking self portraits started on the first night we met when Diana asked me to take a photo of the two of us. We've kept at it ever since, including during our wedding. I really didn't appreciate them at first but they grew on me when I was looking through a bunch of old photos to use in our wedding album. Almost all of my favorite pictures were ones we had taken of ourselves over time. Chalk another one up to Diana's persistence.

Anyway, there were a few things I absolutely needed to do during our very brief visit to San Francisco. One was eating as much Mexican food as I could, which we managed to do the first night we were there and I did twice more while she was working. Another thing I wanted to do was go out to breakfast each morning. Well, here we were doing just that on our first full day in the Bay Area (breakfast selfie):

According to the never-wrong-and-always-to-be-trusted wikipedia, the first selfie was taken in 1839 but the first recorded use of the word itself was by a drunken Australian in 2002. Hmm...yeah. Sounds about right. Like I said, seflies have grown on us to the point where we prefer to take our own photos even if someone offers to take one for us. Just about to board a California Street cable car in the financial district:

...and about five minutes later as we passed by Chinatown:

Our trip lasted just three full days and four nights but we were only able to visit the city for one day because of Diana's commitments. The day we spent in SF was typical winter stuff - rainy and windy - well, actually, that could pretty much be any time there. When we got over to the Golden Gate, it was completely fogged in and raining pretty hard. But, there were a few minutes here and there when you could see the towers and even the other side. Golden-Gate selfie during one of the breaks in the weather:

We decided to walk out on the bridge in spite of the high winds and rain. If you've met me, you know that my hair is fairly course and doesn't move around a lot. Well, looking at this photo might give you an indicator of just how windy it was:

This next photo reminds me in some ways of the Beatles Please Please Me album my parents had when I was a kid, except that it's a selfie and it's damn cold, damn windy, and, of course, damn foggy!

Our "whistle-stop tour", as the folks in Dublin say, was as complete as it could be for having maybe eight hours or so to see all of San Francisco. We took a cable car, we walked on the Golden Gate, we ate chocolate at a very wet Ghirardelli square:

...and watched the cable cars be manually turned around at the end of Hyde street:

What visit to San Francisco would be complete without eating over-priced, under-flavored, and previously-frozen clam chowder out of a made-in-a-factory sourdough-bread bowl at Fisherman's Wharf? Not this one! Welcome to paradise!

One of the last times I was in San Francisco was a bunch of years ago when I met my mom and dad there for a quick weekend visit. My mom decided to buy a flight in a small sea plane for my dad and me. I remember that flight like it was yesterday because we flew over all of San Francisco, Alcatraz, and on our way back to where we started, the center of the Golden Gate.

One of the other things I remember vividly from that trip was hanging with my folks at Pier 39 watching the sea lions resting on the docks and even on some boats. The docks and a couple of the smaller boats were partially submerged with the weight of the sea lions. I guess they've removed the boats and made some special docks for them as it looks different now. One thing that hasn't changed though is the smell - yummy... Pier 39 sea lion selfie:

One of the other things I had planned was a trip to Trader Joe's to buy all kinds of TJ's snacks and a few bottles of California Pinot Noir to bring back to Spain. Yes, we brought empty suitcase with us to California exclusively to fill it with TJ's booty!

It was a great trip made even greater by the fact that most of it was paid for. What a treat! A few days in the Bay Area, some great Mexican and Chinese food, good California wines, and Trader Joe's. What's not to love? Oh, and it spelled the end of my eight-week beard experiment as well. Here were are at U.C. Berkeley on our last morning in town with my freshly cleaned up face (and, of course, with spring-like weather just in time for our last couple of hours):

Thanks for the memories and great selfie-taking opportunities San Francisco and Berkeley. Hope to see you in our lovely self portraits again soon...and definitely for more than a couple days!

I'm A Drunk!

Today's my last full day back in California and I've been reflecting a lot lately. A LOT! Did you hear me? I'm getting married THIS Friday! REFLECTION CENTRAL here!

So, anyway, one of the things that I've realized during this time is that I've become sort of a lush...maybe even a bit of a drunk. I think that I've had at least one drink everyday since I finished my CELTA class three weeks ago. For example, this past Saturday I had two margaritas for lunch and then most of a bottle of wine with dinner. That was after going to a five-course dinner and wine pairing on Friday night. Wine...it's been a lot of alcohol but, for the most part, a LOT of wine.

Wine is good. I first started to like wine when I lived and worked down in Mexico and my friend Eduardo and I would hang out at his folks' house and drink from his dad's collection. Over time my tastes have become more developed (I hope) and I owe it to a handful of different people from a few different countries. My preference has tended towards lighter-bodied red wines that are drier. I have a very nice friend named Paco who lives near Madrid who introduced me to some amazing Spanish Tempranillo wine (as well as Baco, the god of wine!) last year that got me hooked on that. It's basically all I drink now when in Spain.

But here in California, I'm definitely addicted to Pinot Noir. I have an old friend from Japan to thank for that one. The one I've been drinking most for the last few years is one called Caretaker that I buy at Trader Joe's for around $10. It's to die for. You can see it on the right in the photo below. I think I've drank probably a half case of the stuff in the last three weeks! The other bottle in the photo is a new addition to my wine-purchasing list. it's a Trader-Joe's-branded Pinot called Carneros that also costs about $10. In my completely unscientific and untrained opinion, I'd give both of these California Pinots an eight or nine out of a possible ten.

Pinot Noir seems to be all over the board as far as texture, flavor, and relative sweetness. I like both of these because they are light-bodied (watery?) and fairly dry. The cards at Trader Joe's and their bottles say something about red cherries, wood barrels, and other stuff that I'm sure if I understood might make me seem somewhat intelligent if I could string enough of them together. In other words, I really don't know much but I do know that I like 'em dry. My ultimate goal is to be more thirsty when I'm done drinking a wine than when I started!

One other thing that I found out when I was taking the photo for this story was that the label on the bottle of Caretaker uses the wording "freshly laid road tar" to partially describe the flavor! My pallet isn't that trained yet but I have eaten shit more than once back in my bicycle days. I can remember getting road tar pulled out of my face for sure. Maybe that's where my love of this stuff comes from??? Whoda' known?

Like I said, tonight's my last night in town before I head back to Barcelona tomorrow. Wish me (and Diana) luck with the next chapter of my (our) journey. In the mean time, I'm going to go uncork my last bottle of Caretaker. Salud!

Shopping At Trader Joe's

What do Hawaiian shirts, folksy staff, silly brand names, and a ship's bell have to do with food shopping? A whole lot if you're at Trader Joe's!

This story is long overdue. When I first moved over to Barcelona, I wrote a story about me going to the supermarket but I realized a couple of weeks ago that I've never written about one of my favorite stores here in the U.S. Actually, Trader Joe's is probably more accurately described as an "experience" rather than just a store. Since their humble beginnings in 1950s, this Los Angeles area-based chain of grocery stores is now in 29 states and has over 350 locations. This is the one in Escondido, California, right near where I'm staying:

Trader Joe's is unique for a whole bunch of reasons that range from their folksy staff, outstanding customer service, and unique product lines. They've done all kinds of little touches to make the stores fun and interesting places to visit. I like these tiny, kid-sized shopping carts that they have:

Don't let their fun, casual style give you the wrong impression though. They are pros at what they do. The layout of the stores and the product mix are highly engineered to get you to enjoy your shopping experience enough so that you stay for a relatively long time and buy a lot of stuff. One example is when you first walk in the front door, they have fresh flowers for sale, which is an old store-design trick to make you feel like everything there is super fresh. From there you move on to the fresh fruit and veggie section and then onto the awesome cheese-assortment section:

I think that what makes TJ's really successful is that they offer a lot of (mostly) Trader Joe's branded items that just don't exist anywhere else. If you look closely while you shop, you'll notice that the name Trader Joe's is changed depending on the ethnicity of the food being sold. I've seen Trader Giotto's, Trader Ming's, and Trader Jose's among others at one point or another. Some of my favorite items are their salsas and chips, which are great:

Another highlight of Trader's is their wine selection. The chain started out as a specialty wine vendor where you could go to find pretty much every California wine. Over time, they added snacks like cheeses to their wares and it's continued to expand ever since. Below is my local Trader's wine area with a big "Two Buck Chuck" display. Two Buck Chuck is actually a series of wines from the Charles Shaw winery that are sold only in TJ's and cost between $2 and $3 per bottle. The cost doesn't reflect how good these wines are. I have to be honest, though, that my favorites are some of the Pinots that they sell in one of the other aisles.

Finally, my strongest Trader Joe's addiction is for these mini chocolate chip cookies that sell for $4 a tub. I've been known, during my more portly years, to polish off at least half a container in one sitting. I do better now but I still eat too many.

Oh, and the ship's bell. When the lines in the front of the store get too long, one of the Hawaiian-shirt-clad employees rings the bell once to alert one of their coworkers to come running and open a new register.

Like I mentioned, they've spread throughout the U.S. to the point that they're now in Philadelphia too. What makes it super convenient to get my Trader's fix while there eliminated one of the easiest annual Christmas gifts for my family. I'd go and load up a whole box of salsas, cookies, and a bunch of other stuff to give out to my grateful family. Oh well, I guess the trade off is worth it.

See you there!

MINI Cooper Club Run

One of the things that I was looking forward to doing while back in California this summer was going with the members of my local MINI club for a run through east county San Diego. This past Sunday was finally the day that I got to meet up with the group for the first time in almost two years. We ended up with at least twenty-two MINI's worth of folks and had a nice fun drive for about four hours. Here are some of the cars and peeps at our first rest stop:

Like I mentioned, this was the first run with West Coast MINI (WCM) that I had done in almost two years (since I left San Diego). I really enjoy the runs because I love to drive and also because the folks in the club are a great bunch. We started out on Sunday at about 9am and headed east to drive through the twisty roads and mountains that ring the east side of San Diego county. It ended up being one of the hottest days of the year, getting up to, at one point, 114 degrees F (45.5 C)!!! I missed getting a picture of the thermometer in my car but I did manage to record it reading 113 degrees...it was hottt!!!

The runs, which our fearless leader Steve plans, take us on some beautiful and not-so-crowded roads that are a blast to drive. Steve's become an expert in every fun-to-drive road in San Diego county. Other clubs and organizations like local car dealerships sometimes ask him to plan their route sheets when they hold driving events and rallies. One of the many nice things that he does is to have us take breaks along the way usually at some interesting places. Our second stop of the day this past Sunday was at the Dudley's Bakery in Santa Ysabel. This bakery is located about 1 hour east of Escondido (just before you arrive into Julian) and is famous for its bread. It's always funny to see people's faces when a couple of dozen MINIs show up somewhere:

I bought my MINI new in December of 2006 and was invited to join the club by Wendy and her husband Mike, who I met on a online MINI forum, before I even owned the MINI. Since then, I've made a lot of great friends and had some amazing adventures with the club. Each year, in addition to the near-monthly half-day runs, there are a small-handful of multi-day trips that members of WCM go on. One is in the spring when many folks head up to Las Vegas for A MINI Vacation In Vegas (AMVIV) and spend a few days in Sin City. The other trip is a four-day deal when we drive up to Monterrey, California together. The club also does a few charity and community-service-type events during the year, which are always fun. The trips, charity events, and frequent runs through east county allow everyone to really get to know each other. It's a pretty tight-knit group of fairly-diverse people who all share a love of a funny little British car.

I miss the runs when I'm gone. There's just something about "driving the twisties" of San Diego following another MINI (or twenty) for a morning that just makes me happy.

This particular run was bittersweet because I'm in the process of selling my MINI and it will be my last as a MINI owner. It just doesn't make sense to continue to pay for storage, maintenance, registration, and insurance on a car that sits for something like 48 weeks of the year. I still plan on riding shotgun on some of the runs when I come back to town but I'll definitely miss everyone. I'll also miss the revvy-whiney sound that the MINI's supercharger makes when I'm following Steve through the turns. Thanks for all the great times West Coast MINI! I miss you guys already.

Becoming An English Teacher

If you've been paying attention, you may have noticed that I have only posted a couple of stories this past month. I've even had two people email me asking what's up since I normally write something here every couple of days. Well, I've been going to school...to become an English teacher! Here I am in action at the front of class (believe it or not!):

Getting trained as an English teacher's something that I've been kicking around for a couple of years but I really got hooked when Diana and I were in Tibet and I had a chance to sit in one day at an English class there. Since I had to leave Spain for my required 90 days and Diana stayed behind to work on her thesis, this was the perfect opportunity. I registered at the International House in San Diego to get the CELTA certification and began classes four weeks ago.

The class was way more intense than I expected it to be even though they are careful to tell you in advance that it's intense. But, how hard could it be, right? Umm...yeah. I went to school from 9am to 530pm five days a week and did on average four-to-five hours of homework per day. You have classroom training in the morning and are teaching in the afternoon. I taught on my third day! During the course, there were a few times where I didn't get more than two-or-three hours of sleep per night for several nights in a row. They are basically taking a random person off the street and training them in four weeks to be an English teacher. We learned about classroom management, lesson planning, grammar analysis, how to structure a lesson, and how to create activities that would engage the students regardless of their learning style. I can't believe how much I learned in such a short period of time.

It wasn't all nose-to-the-grindstone though, we did have a bunch of fun too. Here's a couple of photos from some activities that we did one day where we were learning to use music in the classroom:

...and...

International House did an amazing job getting us ready to be in front of the classroom and I ended up enjoying it much more than I thought that I would. Really what did it though was the quality of the trainers and the amazing, amazing group of students that I was part of. To be in a group of 12 people who all speak at least two languages (we counted at least 10 languages spoken fluently between us) and the majority who've lived overseas for some part of their lives was pretty impressive. I left the class bummed that I probably wouldn't see most of them ever again but exceptionally happy for having gotten to know them. Can I say one more time, WOW, what a group:

And what would school be like without talking about the students? Our students were mostly made up of recent immigrants (in some cases, less than a month) to the United States. We had three main groups: Haitians and folks from Thailand and Myanmar (or Burma if you prefer). Others came from Iraq, the former Soviet Union, and a few other countries. To say that I was amazed at how far they came in their abilities and confidence in four weeks would be an understatement. I think that the process will become addictive. The more people that I work with and the more success I see, the more I'll want to do it. Here's half the student group and some of the teacher trainees on the last day of class:

Like I mentioned, passing the course makes you a CELTA-certified ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. The CELTA is controlled and administered by Cambridge University and is considered the gold-standard for ESL-teacher certification. I'm looking forward to teaching, whether it becomes my full-time gig or something that I do on the side. It'll really depend on my experience with it, how much work I can get, where Diana and I decide to live, and whether or not I end up back in my same field again. In other words, the excitement never ends! This is me getting my certificate with my beyond-awesome teachers, Emily (from Liverpool, England) and Tony (from Sydney, Australia):

Thanks to Chris, Sarah, and Karen at International House San Diego for your work making our course a success. A super-so-big thank you to Tony and Emily for helping me along the path to becoming a great English teacher. I have so much more confidence now compared to when I walked in that door four weeks ago and it's all due to you guys. And finally, a huger-than-huge thank you to my fellow classmates without whom I would have crashed and burned. The awe that I have for who each one of you is, the quality of people that you are, and for your commitment to making the world a better place is inspirational. I look forward to following your (without-a-doubt) successful careers where ever you end up. I'll miss you all. Thanks!

Vince's Annual Tacky Party

Every year my friend Vince throws a party that's a must-attend event. I'm not sure where the original idea for the party came from but every year it continues to get better. The theme of the party is that everything about it needs to be tacky. People wear some pretty crazy outfits and this year was not a disappointment:

In case English is your second language and your English teacher never told you, tacky is an adjective that means "in bad taste". The goal of the party then is the celebration of all that is in bad taste. I love it!

I know, the idea of a party where everything is tacky is kinda' strange but it works. Think about how hard it is to come up with ideas for clothing and pot-luck items that are tacky without using the old stand-bys of arriving late or drunk, not bringing anything, or bringing a bunch of uninvited guests (all of which have been done already). I can't believe how the competition gets more intense every year.

Oh yeah, I said "tacky food":

I really appreciate the creativity of the food items that people bring. I know that some folks that show up have been planning for a whole year and can't wait to spring their creation on the world. In the photo above, there's half-baked cake, a fish loaf made from meat, German-chocolate Ding-Dong cake, and a bunch of others. Probably my favorite this year was the Jellied Tuna Salad Loaf that was green:

Keep in mind that all the food items are edible and meant to be (sometimes) quite good. I enjoyed the build-them-yourself BLTs that someone brought this time. Yummy bacon! I give my own award this year for creative naming to this pile of Twinkies and cupcakes. Meet Foamhenge:

No summertime party would be complete without a barbecue. Vince has a monster-sized BBQ wagon that his uncle made for him a bunch of years ago. Dave, the guy on the left with the hat, cleaned out the freezer in his garage and brought all his older-than-two-years meat to barbecue for everyone. I, unfortunately, didn't partake in the lovely repast he created but it didn't look half-bad. Oh, and that's Vince, the creative genius behind the party, with his arms up:

Vince does a lot of work each year planning for the party. He not only sends out invites, makes sure that everyone is coming, and arranges for a live band to play, but he also puts together a whole pile of parting gifts for his guests. For what must be months, Vince collects all kinds of stuff. This year I left with a lovely coffee mug and a photo. Not just any photo though! Vince creates an annual self portrait that's a work of art. What could be more tacky than giving someone a photo of yourself, right? Anyway, I have a whole collection of Vince self portraits that I know will be financially lucrative one day very soon. For now, I can treasure this year's piece de resistance:

It's been a few years since I was able to attend the Tacky Party but I was here in California and couldn't miss it for sure. I'm glad I had a chance to go and can't wait for the next one. I'm even thinking of licensing the idea and translating it into Spanish for when I get back to Barcelona. I'm already thinking about my self portrait even though I can never challenge the master.

Thanks for the great time Vince! See you next year.