what?!

This is Thinley.  He was our tour guide while touring the Everest region.  And that is a Duke hoodie.  I don't know who he's been hanging out with, but someone is clearly leading him astray.


We'll be mailing him some Carolina gear, so he can burn that hoodie.

Meet the Hot Box

This is why I'm hot

This is why I'm hot

This is why, this is why...

The Hot Box - my wife's ingenious solution for heating at least one room of our concrete-walls-sans-insulation apartment which lacks central heat. Two curtains to enclose the room and a space heater. The result: a 12x12x12 cube of precious warmth.


 Shear genius, Lloyd.

Our friend Graham came to visit us for a week!  It was a whirlwind of a trip.  In the week he was here he spent only two nights at our apartment, ascended to 17,000+ ft, fled a oncoming blizzard at Everest Base Camp, ate Tibetan, Indian, Nepali, Taiwanese fast food, and Chinese, rode around in a Land Cruiser, picked up a hitch hiking nun.....the list goes on.


Unfortunately I don't have pictures to cover all of the things above - but here are a few pictures to get us started. 

Meet Graham

His album drops soon.

 Locals

The Girls

 The Boys

The Boys with Locals

The Land

Everest

The boys survived a blizzard at Base Camp....only they left before the blizzard started.  They FLED a blizzard at base camp.  Not many people can say that. 

Below is an artist's rendering of what it would have looked like if Everest wasn't being bombarded by snow.  She's a beaut, Clark, a real beaut.

Artist's Rendering

Also, please note - it took me forever to do that. If we had something like photoshop or even paint, that would have taken no time.....but i had to turn the picture into a pdf, then download onto another website, then embed into the blog.  phew.

Thank you, Eliza

Eliza introduced us to this  - both to Robyn and to the SNL version of Robyn.


Hilarious.

Asian Baywatch

We took a boat to a remote Thai island, along with other vacationers. Stacy and I went snorkeling. This is how the other half chose to spend their time on the island. 100 yards from the beach.

Rosenfun

These are our friends James and Laura Rosenberg. Stacy and I have so much fun with them.

A brief pause during a heavily contested card game.

You know people that you meet and immediately feel like you're close friends with? James and Laura. We met them a year and a half ago, but they live in a neighboring province so we only see them once or twice a year. In fact, Stacy and I have only actually hung out with them 3 times, but somehow we feel like we've known each other forever.

On the beach in Thailand in January, just before heading back to our respective provinces.

Over the course of our brief friendship, we have hiked some seriously high mountains and gone camping, played some marathon games of cards late into the night, and most recently, the four of us traveled together in Thailand - our recent snorkeling trip was actually Laura's idea.



Good times, good friends.

Snorkeling

Me and Stace went snorkeling in Thailand. This is how it went down.

Approaching the first island.

Someone's excited. And looking good!

Eager anticipation. Or the realization that snorkeling
is a poor man's scuba diving. Either way.

Floating Beauty

I have no idea what Stacy's grabbing for...

A good time was had by all.

We all live in a yellow submarine.

A Tale of Two Showers

Stacy and I spent the last 3 weeks traveling in Thailand for work related stuff.

I am not going to recount any of the travels, just this on aspect - the first half, we stayed in a shanty of a resort shack with the ghetto-est midget shower and "garden in your bathroom" setup ever. The second half, we stayed in the most fantastic bungalow with an open-air-yet-not-exposed outdoor bathroom/garden.

See for yourself:

Ghetto, shot-out midget shower. Even if I pulled the
hose up it couldn't reach my head, so I had to sit. It
was degrading. And it was so cold that I had to
constantly flush the toilet while Stacy was showering
to keep her water hot. FAIL.

Success. The glaring light over me is the open-air back
 half of the shower, which let in the amazing tropical beach air
and sunlight but not any creepers' gazes.  And notice the
shower head - top right corner. Above my head.
And the flora? Delightful, tasteful, awesome.

Boom, roasted.

Piggy's Feast

Spotted: a pickup truck full of pig faces. Not pig heads, just the faces, peeled off and ready to eat. Mmmm, breakfast of champions.