I guess I should blog about our honeymoon.

We gave ourselves a few days after the wedding to relax before leaving; that also meant we didn't have to add "pack for a week-long trip" to the long list of things we had to do in the run-up to said wedding. I recommend this plan to future couples.

We flew out of our fine local airport to Cancún, with a layover in Charlotte. We only spend about six hours total in the air, because Cancún is not as far away as one might think, being on the very tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. When we arrived, we got "help" from the local tourist agency who wanted to upsell us on a lot of local attractions. I'm a veteran of coastal tourist traps throughout the Pacific, and the principle remains the same in the Caribbean, so we escaped without further financial damage.

As soon as we waled outside the air-conditioned airport, I was struck my a strong sense of deja-vu. The climate was very much like Okinawa, with the smell of salt air, the heat and humidity, and the tropical plants everywhere. The specific natural life was of course different, but the climate was nearly identical. The climate also encouraged some similar construction styles, with buildings painted in durable off-white, with flat roofs and walls constructed of storm-resistant cinder block. Only the older buildings betrayed different cultural styles. Also, Okinawa is wealthier, so the cars were fancier and the buildings often in better repair.

We hopped on a shuttle van to take us to our resort. We were staying at an all-inclusive resort called the Excellence Playa Mujares, which is actually located in the next municipality north of Cancún proper. As we rode along we chatted with the two other couples in the van: one pair was from Texas and were celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary, and the other couple was from either China or Taiwan, judging from the language they were speaking to each other.

After our 45-minute ride we arrived and were whisked inside by the uniformed bellhop. We registered at the front, and the same bellhop took us to our room, explaining the many amenities as he went. Sadly, Hil wasn't paying much attention, so throughout the week I had to tell her stuff again.

We sprang for a "Rooftop Terrace Suite" which means we had a room with a balcony, and then stairs up to a private rooftop terrace with a mini-pool. It was too small to swim in, but too big to count as a hot tub, so I'm going to call it a mini-pool. With my pale north-european complexion I didn't spend much time up there during the sunlit hours, so I'm not sure we got full value of it, but we did hang out in that pool for sunsets, of which we had a great view. I'd forgotten how fast the sun sets in the subtropics.

There were bunches of restaurants, each with a culinary style. The French place was quite good, the pan-Asian was mediocre, and the Mexican cuisine was unsurprisingly excellent.

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This afternoon, my lovely wife and I headed to Texas de Brazil, an all-you-can-eat steakhouse with Argentine and Texas meat. We were there for a joint birthday party for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

So much meat.

I can't even explain how much meat.

Well, yes I can. Basically they have about twenty different types of meat. You don't order food. Instead, the servers (dressed as, and calling themselves "gauchos" wander the dining area carrying giant skewers of meat. One will approach your table and say "Anyone want sirloin?" If you indicate approval, they will carve off some sirloin for you. Repeat every two minutes or so.

So much meat. I feel like I did my part, but the BIL is a bigger and hungrier man than I. The profit the restaurant made off of me, they lost on him. I feel like taking both him and my eldest sister's husband to this place, but I suspect they'd get competitive and someone would die of beef poisoning. (That's a Simpsons joke.)

We finished gorging on flesh and went home. After an hour of digestion, the wife and I were off again, to a book club started by some old friends of mine. It's the "Dessert Book Club", because the schtick is we meet somewhere and eat desserts while talking about the book!

This synchronicity of scheduling was amazing. I am utterly stuffed. I just checked and I weigh four pounds more than I did this morning. I need to pack a lunch for work tomorrow, but the thought of food revolts me. And because there's a foot of snow predicted, I suspect there won't be any food trucks outside my office when I need them.

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Turns out this new job comes with a lot more work. I look over at the guard sitting next to me reading Reddit on his phone, and I think "Three months ago, that was me!"

On the upside, I get a lot more pay and benefits in exchange for not having time to read Reddit at work anymore.

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We had thirty-one kids this year, not bad for a year with crummy weather. It was raining and in the mid-40's.

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There's a nice perk to working for a bank: mandatory vacations.

Lots of companies make it difficult or impossible to use the vacation days you are given. Hil's job, for instance, gives her 45 days of vacation a year, of which 15 can be carried over. But in her prior position, she had to visit every one of her clients twice a month, and it simply wasn't doable to get days off. Only with heroic efforts and the cooperation of her coworkers could she get a week off for something important.

At the bank, in contrast, I am required to go on vacation for ten straight days at least once every calendar year. (The first year is excepted.) While on that vacation, no one from work is allowed to contact me, and I'm not allowed to contact anyone from work. (The exception is that I can contact HR if there's some kind of emergency that will change my return date.) My remote access will be turned off during this leave.

This isn't because banks are friendly companies, oh no. It's required by one of the dozens of government agencies that regulate banks. The idea is that if I'm up to some kind of shenanigans, there will be ten straight days for the auditors to catch me during which I can't cover my tracks. But I'll take it gladly, even if the reason for it is that they don't trust me.

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My workspace is on the first floor of a six-story office building. The cafeteria and snack machines are all on the sixth floor, so I typically go up there twice a work day or so. (Bear in mind my work day is slightly more than thirteen hours long.)

I used to just take the elevator up, but now I'm going up the stairs. I've changed by habit not for the exercise, although to be honest I do need all the cardio I can get. No, I'm now walking all the time because with my new job, I get to do paperwork on all the elevator entrapments in the building, and it's kind of disturbing how many there actually are. I'm not claustrophobic, but I still don't want to spend an hour in an 8' cube waiting for the repair guy to show up and free me.

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Exciting news, I'm done with working as a "contingent worker" (temp) for a multinational bank, and now I'm a regular employee of said multinational bank.

About a week after they hired me, I got a call and the manager said "Yeah, we're getting rid of your position. So congrats, you're getting promoted to supervisor! There's no pay raise, but it should give bigger annual raises, for what that's worth."

So hooray, I'm now officially management.

Tuesday, they issued me my company BlackBerry. I'm a little sad about that, it's like a prison ankle monitor. Plus now I have to learn yet another OS and its associated user interface. And I can't even install interesting apps on it.

I don't think I'll give out the phone number to anyone other than my wife, because if there's a situation where I can't be reached on either my personal cell phone or the office landline, then there's probably an emergency already that I'm busy dealing with.

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Hil and I have gotten in the habit of using our portable electronic devices as alarm clocks. I use my smartphone, while she sets either her iPad or her smartphone. We like how quickly one can change the alarm time. Plus we've always got them nearby anyway.

But Hil's phone is dying, and the iPad's charging port is also giving up the ghost, so last night she needed an alarm clock. I pulled out my favorite one, she set it to the time she wanted to be up (which was an hour before my wakeup), and we went to bed.

When it went off in the morning, I had a rush of memory. I'd bought that battery powered alarm clock back in Georgia. It had gone with me to Afghanistan, Japan, California, two different ships, and more than a dozen different countries. I knew that sound.

And in the Corps it is unwise to be late getting out of the rack, so when that alarm rings my feet hit the deck. When it sounded this morning, my heart rate popped from "resting" to "alert", and my hindbrain decided that despite the lack of light, it was now officially morning. It wouldn't do to be late for 0430 PT, now would it!

While I appreciate the occasional bout of nostalgia, did I mention that it was going off an hour before I had planned on being up? Such are the perils of conditioned reflexes.

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I've been focusing on riding this summer, but this afternoon I had somewhere to be and I figured I could go for a run, because it takes less time. My USMC PFT times were generally about 23 minutes for three miles, and I know I've lost a step or two. But surely I could hold down my PFT pace for a single mile? That wouldn't be that tough.

So I gave myself a mile of a very slow jog to warm up, then put the pedal down. I was looking for "7:40 min/mile" on my fancy pedometer.

After a hundred yards I decided that "8:00" was a much more even number and would be close enough. I'd had PFTs of 24 minutes, that was still OK. And I even managed to hang on to that pace for a while. First my legs started to complain, but I brought to mind the mantra of legendary professional cyclist Jens Voigt, "Shut up legs!" Then my lungs started to complain, but I ignored them because everyone knows steam engines are powerful, so if I was puffing like a steam engine that must be good.

But at three-quarters of the way into my mile, I was betrayed by the organ I trust the most– my stomach! I could hardly believe it. I almost always give my stomach what it wants, but there it was, rebelling. If you catch my drift.

So I gave up on the dream of a mile at my old PFT pace, and slowly jogged home, my mouth filled with the taste of bile and failure. But mostly bile.

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For the first two miles of a run, I am propelled by love. I love the outside air. I love the scenery going by. I love the friendly people I pass. I love the way my legs effortlessly pump back and forth.

For the second two miles of a run, I am propelled by hate. I hate the bugs. I hate my own sweat getting in my eyes. I hate the drivers that won't slow down. I hate the nasty uneven sidewalks. I hate that my mind is stuck inside a meat-sack that won't work if I don't frequently waste my time running to nowhere in particular. I hate that my legs and lungs hurt, even though I'm doing this to improve my body.

For the third three miles of a run, I am propelled by despair. I know that if I stop it'll take a long time to walk home. I know that I could have stayed home and eaten Ben & Jerry's. I know that with each stride another little bit of cartilage in my knees has been eroded away. I know that each stride is taking me a few feet closer to the grave.

I don't tend to run more than six miles, so I have no idea what's next. I should give it a try sometime!

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