OK so time to Ketchup.

So here I am posting a late weekend celebration blog. I'm going to skip over the Friday hi-jinks and say if your interested go checkout those picks. Basically I had the whole team over to the hotel we ate and had a blast.... then it all hit the fan. No, no. No trouble with the hotel... no it was much worse. In a word. Balot! No that's not misspelled Mr. Traub. For those of you with weak stomaches be forewarned... skip down past the next paragraph.

This little concoction is a duck egg allowed to grow to a young maturity and then cooked. yeah that's right. Duck embryo. The one I had was apparently of a young age. And it was... strangely good. Not stunning... but good. Lots of fun was had. As you can tell from the pictures I was exhausted by the end of the night and abandoned the team as they went out for drinks. If your interested in pictures and video of the balot goodness... go here.

For pictures of the team enjoying a beer or two after work. Enjoy.

The next day was fairly uneventful. Did some souvenir shopping. Had a good time and enjoyed myself. Got to meet Ivan's daughter. Adorable young girl. A future architect. Dinner with Sir Al. And a chance to go over launch day specifics.

And then there was Sunday. Oh my. We went to Intramuros. Also known as the walled city. It was great! Beautiful Churches of old. This city has literally centuries of history and culture within it. Spent a good portion of the time following a tour guide that apparently had already begun. Jerry and I each loaded up a camera and went to town taking pictures of this amazing place. It was hear that I discovered that Manila literally means "Lilly's on the water" which is where the area apparently gets it's name.

There are some awesome pictures of the entire time. Way to many to post so here are a few of my favorites.



It was an amazing time filled with history, friends and fun. For more of those shots feel free to check out the entire Picasa folder here.

Upcoming....

3....2.....1...... LAUNCH!