here Again

And fly away, from this dirty boulevard

-Lou Reed

I love Madrid at night. The breeze is cool and strong. The Mets and Phils are on MLB TV.

There's some heavy clouds but i don't think we'll get any more precipitation than the few drops we got earlier. It was literally like 3 drops.

It was a nice day at the pool today. It was nice and cool, dunking in occasionally. A few brews with Cara. Hooters everywhere.

I am home.

It's nice to be back.

But that was one hell of a holiday. Quite lovely indeed.

And now – I guess it's time to get on with the rest of my life.

- - - -

August in retrospect: My Mama, Obama, and the Dalai Lama

• The Beijing Olympics took place, which brought some much needed attention to the horrible things going on in Tibet.

• Obama becomes the first African-American to be a candidate for a major party

• The Mum comes to Madrid

Weird scenes inside the goldmine

Did you know? - Hitler invented the blow up doll. He didn't want German soldiers fraternizing with foreign women. They were going to be produced in Dresden, but it never happened after the city was fire bombed.

I keep emailing Tina Fey and asking her out. Sexy, funny and a writer – hot damn! I'm down with her being married and having a kid. Still waiting to hear back from her. I'm sure she's a busy lady. Any day now...

Monday is September.

Next year is the last year of this decade.

Some of my friend's kids are turning double digits. My boy Frippy is ten next year!

The US National debt is 9.6 Trillion dollars.

Our planet's population is estimated at 6.684 billion.

I once gave the Arch Bishop of Jamaica the finger. I travelled all the way to Kingston from Mandeville (3.5 hours) to get my work Visa renewed. After waiting in his office for two more hours, he tried to sneak out without seeing me. I flagged down his car in the driveway. I explained that Leo had offered to fly me home for my Mum's birthday, but i needed a new Visa to re-enter the country. I asked him to take care of it so i could continue to work at the orphanage. He told me "Maybe you should just go back to your country," See: I'm too lazy to get off my fat ass.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "That's not very Christian!" He rolled up the window and motioned for the driver to go. So i flipped him off. The Catholic Church and I just never have been able to gel.

The Mets were leading the Phils 7 – 0. Now it's 7-5. Fucking Pedro.

If Timo Perez doesn't look back over his shoulder while running the bases, the Mets win game 1 of the 2000 World Series. From there, anything might have happened.

Aug 28

Atleti lost the first leg 1 - 0 in Germany. Away goals break ties, so they needed to win 2-0 or then they'd need to win 3 -1, which is a bitch against a team of this caliber. I really doubted they'd be able to do it. But they came out swinging and beat Schalke into the ground after surviving some defensive lapses.

Atleti crushed Shalke 4 – 0. Champions League, here we come! The atmosphere was loco. I've never seen the stadium that crazy. After 12 years, Atleti is back in the most exclusive European competition. Woo hoo!