I'm delinquent

I realize I'm rather behind in posting these days. It's sort of hard, because the browser on the Mac I'm borrowing (while my computer is on the fritz STILL) doesn't like to show all the buttons that Blogger likes to make available to me. Also, I haven't really done that whole "transfer pictures from my camera to someone else's computer" thing so that I can show you all the fun things I've been doing. But because I know you care, I'll at least tell you about them. So, last weekend:

Friday: We all left work early to go play in a golf tournament. 18 holes in the blazing August sun is rough, but I managed to make it through because, hey, the American taxpayers were paying for me to play golf. We split into two groups. The "good" group placed second in their bracket. The "fun" group came in dead last, by 14 strokes, in a best-ball tournament (meaning there's only one score for the whole team, and each time everyone hits the ball on your team, your whole team goes to whoever hit the best ball and then hits from there, and so on). I'm sure you can guess which team I was on.

Saturday: We decided on a whim to go to Rome for the night. Because we can. So we drove up and called a hotel on the way (it happened to be the one my parents stayed at when they visited, and they highly recommended it; they were right). On the way up, we stopped off at an outlet mall just south of Rome and bought some fine Italian threads. For just over $400, I scored two nice wool suits, two dress shirts, a pair of linen pants, and a tie. We continued on, made it to the hotel, checked in, and walked around for a bit. Had dinner at the fantastic Argentinian steakhouse near the Forum that I'm always raving about, and it was once again, fantastic. Then we went back to Campo di Fiore, which our hotel was right next to, and happens to be the piazza with the best bars and nightlife in Rome. So we sat outside one of the bars in the piazza and undertook some quality people-watching and -meeting until they closed down the bar.

Sunday: We went to Mass at the Vatican. Because we can. I was actually going to be a Good Catholic and go to confession there, too, but when I went over to the confession area, there was only one booth that claimed the priest spoke English, and there was a wait for it, and it was taking quite a long time. Apparently English-speaking peoples have a lot to get off their chest. After Mass, the people behind us asked us if we were Americans, and, imagine that, so were they. Americans? In Rome in the summertime? Imagine! Then the lady told me I looked like Garth Brooks. I must have looked offended (I wasn't) or really confused (I was; that's one I've never heard before), because she quickly said, "no, no, I mean a YOUNG Garth Brooks." Yeah, because that makes more sense.