In the span of a week I went from enjoying 90 degree weather to perservering through 15 degree weather (in Indiana this past weekend). To make it worse, the current temperature when I left the home this morning was 10 degrees….this is in Hotlanta as they say. Hell may not be freezing over but it’s getting a little nipply!!!

   Ah yes, so lunch begins. Just for the record, I am only documenting detail by detail to this point right . . . . . here.

So Jamaica was a lot of fun. I am still kind of depressed about leaving. I swear that my people are originally from Jamaica though. I look like everyone there. I felt like I had found home in a deep almost spiritual sense. The people seemed to take to me and I definitely took to them.

The entertainment staff at Couples Negril was beyond excellent. It had gotten to the point where I was hanging out with them more so than other guests at times. Though it is their job to make each couple feel special, it felt like they actually wanted to be around us and that they would have done it regardless of a paycheck.

I plan to post pictures as I get the time…

So finally we are at the resort after our near death bus rides. Check in is smooth and made even smoother with a glass of champagne. We go to the room and immediately start snapping some pics. We are also starving as we haven’t had anything since that nasty little doodad passing as a meal on the plane. So a quick change of clothes into more suitable attire and we rush to the Cassava Terrace restaurant which promptly stopped serving lunch 15 minutes earlier. On to the beach grill for some mild jerk chicken and a burger. Oh, and a Red Stripe. I felt like I had to drink because it was all inclusive and if I didn’t drink then I was wasting money! Can’t waste my parent’s money…wouldn’t be right….

So half way to the resort, the driver pulls off the road. He gets out of the vehicle and starts talking to some dude that we passed fifty yards back. A couple of minutes later, as we and two other couples anxiously await the outcome of this unexpected stop, the driver returns. . . . . with another passenger. Just some friend of his that needs a ride……this too would resurface as we left the resort headed to the airport.

A little while later, we stop at a roadside bar….and I mean ROADSIDE BAR. This place had no entry point. You get off the bus and there’s the counter for beer, a table with various knickknacks etc. At this point, the driver comes to me and is real buddy buddy. He asks me if I like to party. Luckily one of the other couples on the bus had informed me that this question really means do you want some drugs (presumably weed but who knows nowadays). For the record I declined. But that got me to wondering, of the six folks on the bus, am I the one that resembles a pot head?

To be continued

I had just arrived in sunny Jamaica. Granted we were a day late due to some birth certificate issues on Monday. But we figure since the wedding and reception went so ridiculously well, if something had to go wrong, let it be missing a day on the honeymoon. In hindsight, it just added to the anticipation.

The first sign that I knew we were in Jamaica was when we landed. Yes, I know that’s an obvious sign but there’s more to it than that. For the entire flight, the flight attendant had used her normal voice. She had a Jamaican accent but that was about the only noticeable aspect of her voice. As soon as we land though, she went from normal flight attendant to some ‘just had an orgasm and I need a cigarette voice’. I mean she literally started with a breathy, seductive, ‘man I want to do whatever it is she did during landing’ “Welcome To Jamaica”. It was so blatant that passengers were looking around for strewn clothes leading to a secret queen size bed on the plane somewhere…..

The second sign that I was in Jamaica was the extremely hot airport. At the time of course it was welcome since the weather was the reason we were there in the first place. But after returning to the airport a week later to go back home, I realized that the damn airport is humid and hot and in places quite malodorous…..

So after getting through immigration, we are directed to the Couples Negril waiting room where we receive a warm welcome and ice cold RED STRIPE…..mmm. Little did I know how much Red Stripe I would consume in the following days.

Once the bus arrives to take us from Montego Bay to Negril, I realize I’m in a different world. It’s remarkably sunny, like summertime sunny, like wow my eyes hurt so good sunny. As we start our drive I damn near have a heart attack because they drive on the left hand side of the road. I didn’t realize at the time that the initial scare was the first of many when riding in automobiles in Jamaica.

To be continued…..

There is now officially a Mrs Xpinionated. On Dec 4, I hopped the broom at a wonderful ceremony. More details later as I haven’t been to work in a week and have an assfull of emails to go through….

In two hours, I begin my 10 day marriage/honeymoon/no go to my job vacation.

After the wedding, we got sunny beaches, unlimited libations, and activities to do while partaking in unlimited libations!!!

A coworker informed me today that the Spanish word for wife is the same as the spanish word for handcuffs: esposa (wife) and esposas (handcuffs)….Coincidence???

I won!! I won!!

What have I won? Well let me tell you. I won a mini IceHouse fridge with $100 worth of beer. The contest was being held at Jeffrey’s in Suwanee, Ga. Basically, for the month of November, every Icehouse brew you put down, you get an entry form. Well, being that I spend quite a bit of my waking life in this bar, I decided to drink Icehouse for the month though normally I’m a Budweiser man. Actually, I don’t really like Icehouse (man they are getting all kinds of free advertisements in this post). So, on college football Saturdays, three or four entry forms. Throughout the week on Laker gamenights, three or four entry forms. I told the manager the night before the drawing that there was no way this fridge was going anywhere but the Xpinionated residence. And lo and behold, I go in last night with the Fiancee and the Mom in Law to be, and I’ve won the damn thing. Ironically, I have also won $100 worth of (yep) Icehouse…..

I know a lot of people feel pretty strongly about whether or not prayer should be allowed in school. What I don’t understand is what exactly do those in favor of prayer in school hope to achieve with prayer in school? Better yet, what do they hope to achieve with prayer in school that parents can achieve with prayer at home? If you want your child to pray, pray with them before you send them off to school instead of letting them watch a cartoon in the morning.

Personally I believe that religion is a private institution in that an individual needs no one else to communicate and have a relationship with God, whatever their religion may be. As such, a mandatory group prayer sounds more like a missionary crusade to convert\brainwash those that may be on a religious fence so to speak. I read a blog (sorry don’t remember which one) that suggested placing students whose parents did not want them subjected to prayer in another intercomless room during the morning school prayer. So in this country of diversity, in this melting pot, we still want to pick out the onions or carrots. These kids will be singled out if such a situation were to occur. The blog goes on to say how ‘neat’ a muslim prayer is to hear (very belittling though I don’t think the author intended it to be). So the options were to a)place kids in a holding room during the morning prayer, or b)say multiple prayers for all the various religions in the morning.

Odd, isn’t this what church is for? Shouldn’t school be used to teach the regular school subjects? With inadequate school budgets as it is, do we really need to allocate the limited time and funds on prayers which can (and should) be done at home?