Just got off the phone with my mom. Apparently, when you are living 7052 miles away from home, it's not enough to call back once a month or less. Apparently even the bloody amazing SMS isn't really working these days.

She seemed worried about the storm that passed two nights ago but just tonight resulted in additional household expenses in double figures for a heavy duty showel and an ice-breaker. But I still love my winters. Religiously.

Speaking of winter, I believe there is no better time to go on vacation like winter. I speak from first hand experience, since just this past week I was on a two day stint myself in Mystic, Connecticut.

We (me and my girlfriend) drove up there. It was three days before the expected blizzard but we still had quite a bit of white during our drive (so much for 'the calm before the storm...'). Well, good for us, the Days Inn we checked into was really empty. Then we were off to Foxwoods after an hour of "freshening up". And boy, did the Indians (oops, I mean Native Americans) have those access roads void of snow and sprinkled with the finest of salts. They really do need the money. And they were getting a lot, even on that night of blowing snow, people were pumping the slots with whatever they had. We only managed to keep our loses at $40. The high point was still the buffet, I mean how could you not visit a buffet when at a casino resort? Except if you are foolish enough to eat right before you arrive, which we did the very next day when we visited The Mohegan Sun.

But that was after we woke to visit the Mystic Aquarium. Here's where we got more blessed for being winter tourists. No lines at the ticket both, no waiting for people to finish at the next exhibit so you can try to squeeze your neck through the crowd, nope, nothing like that. In fact we got person tour of the outdoor exhibits from a very knowledgeable lady. And then at the Titanic exhibit, we witnessed Mystic Aquarium Founder Dr. Robert Ballard give a personal tour of that and other under sea discoveries that he was involved in to some guests of his. Unfortunately, it wasn't untill a couple of days later when re-reading last month's Wired I found his article about under sea exploration. Fuck, how could I miss the guy who discovered the Titanic. Not even a fucking picture with him. I really should just throw my digital camera away now.

And that showel too.