Joo Lie

July is summer.  Time for some fun in the sun with some dark folks and white folks and some in between.

Sometimes multiple birthdays falls together in this week.
So we celebrate it together as 1 big dysfunctionally normal and, most times, happy family.


What can you do when you live in a shoe.  Well this is the one week that we get to stay in a house with room to spread out.
It's awesome, and I'm always so grateful for the opportunity to go.  Even if I wasn't able to go. I'm thankful I got to go at least 1x for the experience.




Birthday cards like these are always better than Hallmark's.  Cuz they can't be bought.  No Autocorrect.  No political correctness.  No manufactured jokes or kitties that are soaking wet and pissed off, with some reference to your age and that you are now over the hill.

Just a crayon written message from a kid who needs to improve his spelling, but is happy enough to add life to a blank sheet of paper.




 There is only so many more years that these cards will be produced.  Or maybe he'll continue to do them but have better grammar and spelling.

Only time will tell.

I was on fire this week.  Almost untouchable.  I even fixed Ray's unfixable swing.  Before I used to have to carry my own clubs down the middle of the fairway, while Ray played on either side of the fairway.

This week Bob's swing was on vacation too.  Poor bro was suffering the shanks and yips.  No monkeys or squirrels in the trees or frogs in the waters around the course to send his ball back into the fairway.  Only gator eating balls.


If it wasn't for this last freakin hole.  I blame my caddie.  I would have had the low score for this day at Harbor Town.
And possibly low score the next day at Shipyard.  Cuz my swing with my 15year old set of Mizuno irons was proving that playing 1x per year is okay.  If you have a good swing.  But no matter what, nothing can overcome abdominal pains and still play well.  I managed for 9 holes.  Then it was down hill.
Either a bug or bad food + lots of wine did me in on the last day when I couldn't wait for the round to finish.

I was starting to feel the stomach pains and I managed to hit this green and glad I didn't have to take a drop.  Cuz that gator was pretty close and was munching on a turtle for lunch.


Happy birthday to me.
The kids were just waiting for the cake and didn't care that I was on the road to recovery from either heat stroke or something.
Gimme cake said the girl to my right that looked like a clown.

Happy Birthday to my bro. The sign the kids made was amazing. I have it.
Thanks to the entire family for the fun week.  That ended with some people having a uber-gurgling tummy in the toilet asking God for forgiveness.

It's back to the grind of unfinished reno's.

Photos: Hilton Head 2014

Lankan Style

I attended my first Sri Lankan Hindu wedding.  I didn't know what to expect.  It was a 2 day event.  It really set the bar high for Indian weddings cuz even the invitation smelled really nice.


Shanthan left his style mark on everything.  He even said he wears the style pants in this relationship.  I didn't understand a word the Hindu priest was saying, but it was certainly a great experience and the food was fantastic and people were so helpful. 

 I must have looked lost because people would give me instruction on where to put our shoes and that we can go down into the food hall to eat since there were lots of people and that when we were done we should come back and greet the now married couple to get a picture and we can offer our gift to them there.

I did a count and there were almost 600 seats in the temple.  When we arrived it was not even half full.  But people arrived and the entire place was packed. 

The first part was solely the ceremony.  I guess it could have all been in 1 day, but it would have made for a long day.  But what I heard was that there was at home ceremonial things going on.  The wedding ceremony itself was the entire evening it was several hours long.

This was Day #1.

Shanthan Style Wedding


Monday was Part #2 of the wedding.  This was the reception.  Pretty standard.  But Sri Lankan style!  The food was really good.  Spicy!

The little presentations they had, there was so much indian style dance that is so expressive, it was entertaining and fun to watch.  And they just looked like they were enjoying themselves so much.

The music was great.  It was non-stop all night.  Everyone was dancing.  All ages.  And when the indian pop music came on.  Watch out.  It was a dance battle - Lankan Style.

Glad we went and it was so much fun.
We couldn't remember the last time we had such a great time dancing.
And Shanthan's wife Vaithe is so nice.  Both are lucky.

It was pretty much like this all night.
Not sure how she got on someone's shoulders in that dress.
Shanthan had trouble in his suit.





Ceremony