!hola, folks!

we begin this week's story in the arizona desert. let us begin the tale
off of state highway 77, where we see a herd of cows running frantically
from a frenzied jeni barovian, a gold record, and a troupe of
photographers. in jeni's defense, she claims she was not frenzied, merely
"enthusiastic."

but our real story takes place farther south... in a magical land called
mexico.

taking the words "world tour" more seriously, we decided the gold record
needed to see other countries. and so, we bold adventurers set out on a
quest.

at this point in the story, i feel compelled to introduce the adventurers
personally. i am your humble narrarator, michael, and my hair is brown
this month. our bold leader in our travels is mr. steve panhorst, whose
hair, also brown, is somewhat pointier. in the passenger seat is jeni
barovian, who needs no further introduction. and rounding out the journey,
we have val brown, who dini. (don't ask.)

and so the four of us, armed with four cheese pasta, some type of a meat
sandwich, and lots of water, set sail for adventures in the land down
under. when we got into the car, the goo goo dolls were on the radio. and
we drove.

we stopped for ice cream on the way, and it was good. i had the flavor of
the month, which was kahluhachino chunk. it was tasty. i like tasty
things.

then we got to mexico. nogales, fact. nogales reminds us of maumee, ohio
after a festival. and there was a little kid who we wanted to follow us
around, but we showed him. we looked around mexico, and then we came home.

the record had a little trouble getting through customs. try explaining a
gold record on a world tour to a customs agent some day, while there's a
whole line of people waiting to get back into the country. and then the
agent at the only other open line decided to come see what all the fuss
was about, so we, in fact, completely held up the traffic between two
countries for a few minutes. at least the customs guys were fans...

and did you know that there are no signs in mexico (in the 100 square feet
we experienced) that said "azul palido?" what kind of country is that?

and then we came back to phoenix for more adventures, which you will
likely hear about soon.

-michael