Congradulations Mark!!!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone. I´d first like to say that I hope you all had a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Also I´m going to give my first preemptive birthday shout-out to Tyler Levad. Tyler I hear that you finally made it to Chicago! I hope everything´s going well there and also I had this idea: If my band ever decides on a name you should make a website for us....just an idea.

Well since I´m sort of on the subject of my band, I´m happy to announce that I got to play the drums last week for the first time I over two months. I was really happy though, because as far as I can tell I haven´t lost any ability to totally rock it. Anyway, I´m going to try to make this a more frequent occurance. Also, I´m making an announcement that my band has yet to choose a name and that my previous prediction that we would fail to do so until sometime after Christmas extreamly came true. This is probably due to the fact that I am the only one (as far as I know) who´s trying to think of names! I have three so far that I would go with and I´ll let the masses (all nine or so of you) tell me what you think: In Tandem (I´m not sure but this name may be taken so I would also go with...), Ever In Tandem, Capes of Lead, and Fighting an Epic Battle. Ok, so if you care, go ahead and tell me what you think.

Moving right along, I´ll tell you all a little about my Chritmas vacation. I stayed in Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador located on the coast) for about a week. We just sort of hung out, went to a couple malls, went out to eat every day, oh and we went to this one, well I guess it´s sort of a park, along a river called Marlicón. That place was really cool, nice open space, cool plants, awesome trees, little shops and stuff...I heard that a lot of american tourists say that it´s better than Central Park. I´ve never been to Central Park, but somehow I doubt it. Don´t get me wrong, this place was awesome, but I´m just saying I have my doubts.

This year I had the worst Christmas of my life. It wasn´t that it was a bad day (in comparison to other days) but it was just that it wasn´t special in any way, shape or form. The only thing we did was go and see the new Harry Potter movie (thankfully in English, which made things a little better), but other than that, it was just your average day. I´d say that Christmas was when I´ve been the most home sick, but whatever, I´m over it now. New Year´s however was pretty fun. We spent it here in Riobamba and we went around town during the night to watch all of the cross-dressing dancing guys. Yeah that´s right. There´s a tradition here in Ecuador for guys to dress up in drag on New Year´s Eve go dancing in the street, usually in a somewhat suductive way. Everyone who doesn´t participate drives around to watch them and when they get to an intersection where the guys are dancing, they stop and give them a little change, wish them a happy New Year, and the guys in drag usually say some vulgar comment that makes everyone laugh. So yeah, New Year´s was pretty fun.

Ummmmm....what else...Oh, I went to a wedding the other day. That was pretty cool. At the actual ceremony when the couple walk past after they get married everyone throws rice at them. For a little while I thought that was something totally new to me, but then I remembered The Beatles song ¨Elenor Rigby¨, you know the part that goes ¨Elenor Rigby picks up THE RICE at a church where a wedding has been...¨, and I was like, hey, I already knew people did that. Then directly after I came to this realization, the organist started playing ¨Hey Jude¨. I was then reminded of another song, and I had to think ¨How Bizarre¨, but of course with Robby Gilbertson doing an imitation of TJ Berry. Anyway, after the ceremony we went to the reception. This part was really cool, because the groom is part of the police here, so all of his ¨policia¨ buddies were decked out with formal colonial-style uniforms with swords and capes and stuff. Also, when someone in the police here gets married, they have this tradition that the groom drinks a medium sized glass filled to the top with whiskey! And this guy downed it in one try! I was like ¨Holy Crap!¨.

I found something else out that night....My hoast brother Cesar loves food more than anyone else I´ve ever met in my life. When we sat down at the reception table the first thing he does is reach for the appitizers and grabs like, three of these paistry things. Later, my hoast dad told me to go with Cesar to bring the car closer because when we parked pretty far away. In the car, I asked him what they generally ate at weddings. He told me that in the cities they usually just ate rice and meat, but here, just out of town (and he said this with the utmost glee in his eyes) they serve soup too...¨Un Almuerzo,¨ he said (the biggest meal of the day). Later he ate all of his food and most of his mom´s.

Anyway, that´s some of what I´ve been up to lately. I think I´ll bring this to a close by saying first off, Ryan Lewellen and Robby Gilbertson, you should take a more active roll with the naming of our band. Secondly, if any of you are fans of Douglas Adams, you should read Dirk Gently´s Hollistic Detective Agency, I liked it more than then any of the Hitchiker´s Guide books I´ve read (thank you Jared and Michelle for sending me that). Thirdly, I´d like to ask, Noah Parks are you going to call me or not? And fourthly and finally CONGRADULATIONS MARK GILBERTSON ON GETTING ENGAGED! Ok that´s it, untill next time! Peace!