I'm back, baby

Mrs. H and I are back in Ottawa from our belated honeymoon in lovely St. Maarten. It was positively blissful and it's going to be a difficult return to the regular routine this week, that's for sure. I plowed through about seven books, drank a lot of girly drinks, ate far too much rich and unhealthy food, smoked a couple of cigars and sang karaoke at the one and only Sunset Beach Bar, where Julian Lennon was among the gathered throng whom I serenaded with tunes from Toby Keith and Ted Nugent in addition to a Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow duet with my wife.

Oh, and I discovered that I really don't care that much for people from Boston, although we met tons of warm and interesting people from places like New York, Philly, Atlantic City, New Jersey, Minneapolis, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, England and France.

See here for a tutorial on how to make a couple of beverages that, along with Malibu rum and Sprite, Heineken and Carib beer, were at the top of our drink list this week at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort and Casino.

In any case, I was able to keep up a little bit on international news. Boris Yeltsin bought the farm, Vladimir Putin continued to demonstrate why he should be booted out of the G8, Sarko inched closer to the crown, John McCain officially announced his bid for the White House, Democrats debated in South Carolina as their Senate leadership inferred that American troops are a bunch of losers, Rosie O'Donnell got fired, Sheryl Crow tried pulling rank on Karl Rove, and there was continuing fallout from the Virginia Tech shooting. All this came in addition to the NFL draft (a collection of inarticulate and incoherent college "graduates" which would compare only with the NBA, but I'm not even sure most b-ballers even go on to finish their "degrees"), the NHL playoffs and, of course, the graduation of a fine buddy of mine from one of Canada's leading MBA programs.

Speaking of the Great White North, there was no Canadian news on offer in the Netherlands Antilles but I came home to find that Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent the weekend kissing quasi-separatist ass in Quebec (big surprise there) and opened my Maclean's to find an editorial which revealed that Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association are arguing that Taliban members captured by the Canadian military in Afghanistan ought to be granted protections under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

(I will follow the "if you can't say something nice, say nothing" rule about political discourse in my home on Native land for just this once.)

I won't be covering these or other issues from the last week in any depth from here forward but regular news, commentary, views and reviews will continue apace starting immediately.

Cheers.

(Oh - and if you're wondering why I didn't say why I was away or where I was going before I left, it's because just like ol' Stone Cold used to remind us rasslin' fans - "don't trust anyone".)