Year End Edition:

It’s a new year, meaning not only will I continue signing checks with the wrong name, I’ll sign them with the wrong year.

I have good news and I have bad news: the good news is that my New Year’s resolution is to update this site more often. The bad news is that I’m too tired from the trip Matt and I took to the U.S. to write a column about it. Instead, I’ll offer a highlight reel:

• Humming the national anthem in front of a display of Slim Jims in a Georgia gas station.
• Roaming the eastern U.S. in my father-in-law’s big red truck, listening to Skynrd.
• Consuming non-Colombian delicacies like dill pickles, dark beer, Thai food, and cheddar cheese, sometimes simultaneously.
• Seeing the Washington gang, the in-laws, Robert’s double TiVo, and meeting Matt’s Atlanta crew.
• Sleeping on not one, but two air mattresses over the course of the trip.
• Road-trip hypnosis: the act of misinterpreting road signs to dirty effect. Bullocksville becomes Buttocksville, for example.
• Television! In English! No subtitles!
• Eating venison, personally shot by my brother-in-law to be.
• Shopping for $3,000 wedding gowns and pronouncing Am-sa-la as Am-SALE. I got an eerie reminiscence of that scene in Showgirls where Jessie Spano brags about her dress from Ver-SACE. Rule for clothing you’ll never be able to afford: the more syllables you use, the more accurate you will be.
• Putting Armour Potted Meat Product in everyone’s stocking, and watching my daredevil mother-in-law try to eat it with mayonnaise.
• Registering for china and crystal at Macy’s. Cripes, I’m married. I have uses for fine china.
• Pentagon City - stores galore! Filene's Basement! Target!
• Eating on patios without looking for grenades. Eating out anywhere, in fact. For that matter, going wherever I want without security restrictions.
• Being expedited through the Bogota airport by fast-moving, non-English speaking men who ran away with my passport (it was returned).
• Realizing that Bogota is my home now, and that I was not only willing but eager to return.

Well, that’s it for now - I’m going to try to write a short column once a week, instead of a big long one every couple of weeks. Let’s see how it works.