I'm back. Actually, I've been back on US soil at least, since last Saturday night. I've picked up a scratchy throat, which over the course of my trip and transitioning into the cold Chicago weather that has evolved into quite a nasty cough. Between that and adjusting to the jet-lag, which thankfully I'm just getting over and falling back into my work routine on top of it all, you could say it has been "less than pleasant" for me this past week.

My throat feels absolutely wrecked. I just finished up a bottle of Vick's Formula 44 cough syrup, I'm on my second roll of Airborne and am halfway though a pack of Halls sugar free throat drops and my throat still feels like fucking hell and all this fucking coughing is putting a serious hurt on my abdominal muscles. The cold winter-like air and the dry heat in my office and condo aren't helping much at all. I need to grab a fucking humidifier.

There's not too much else going on. My trip to the "motherland" was interesting, but more or less uneventful. I guess that was to be expected hanging with my family the majority of the trip. I love them to death, but they know little if anything about vacationing and having fun.

If I go back in the near future, I need to pack extra cash and go off on my own, hit the beaches or night clubs or something. I'm familiar enough with the area that I can do that now. I would have loved to have partied it up much more in the Makati area, that part of Manila reminds me of NYC, except it's tropical.

Also, I only had 1 day of beach time in the Hundred Islands area. Totally unacceptable. Next time I'm flying out from Manila to Boracay, a beach island destination about 30 minutes flight from the main island, I don't care about the extra fucking plane fare or hotel. If I'm going to be in the tropics I need my sand and surf. I should probably invest in my own snorkel gear because the rental gear is absolute crap.

As for the rest of the trip, I'll spare you the words. I have tons of pictures in my Facebook account if you haven't already seen them. For those who don't have access to my Facebook, give me a yell. I'm looking into posting my pictures in an alternative site, but in order for me to do that I have to get un-lazy, so go ahead, yell at me, literally. I might like it. =p

I'm sure there's more to blog about, but my brain is starting to fade, so I'll save it for another entry, so until next time...