Funny things happen here

For one, Mrs. Blog and I found ourselves drinking beer and smoking shisha in the Middle East last night. That's not so surprising today, sure, but it's not something either of us would have predicted, say, last year.

For another, I have a can of regular Coke sitting on my desk--the vending machine was out of Diet--and I can't really finish it. I'm as big of a soda fan as I am a hater of high-fructose corn syrup, so faced with the choice of embracing no-sugar sweeteners or abandoning fizzy drinks altogether, it was a pretty easy decision. The result is that I have been drinking diet sodas for a while now... and all of a sudden the regular stuff tastes like a sugar bomb. I'm not sure what any of this means, but I thought you'd like to know.

And I most likely will be mounting a shoe cabinet to the wall of our second bedroom using a hand drill. Yeah. The kind that runs on elbow grease. Again, not something I would have predicted.

Finally, we're heading to Dubai this weekend, to a hotel on the ocean nicely situated between this:

Fronds to the left of us.

... and this:

Sailcloth to the right.

An island made to look like a palm frond and a tower made to look like a sail: how's that for a funny thing... and a great way to celebrate a whirlwind month.