Cabo Wabo Reposado

Well, I did promise that I would yap about a favorite tequila of mine a few weeks back. I thought I would talk about our love hate relationship or about the time in florida where I almost got electricuted...

but no...I would rather wait until something else stupid happened to me to speak of my mexican mojito...

Take one part...wait make that 3 parts Cabo Wabo...

Wait...I'm getting ahead of myself.

Dateline. Saturday. We'd just had a good day with the family and decided to make some brats on the grill. I decided I would perfect a margarita. Two, in fact. See Heather doesn't drink much but she found a marg at a local mexi watering hole that she likes...no make that loves. When heather says she loves a "drink", daddy learns how to make it. We did our due dilligence - ask barkeep, get ingredients. We were ready to roll.

Now, Mommy had to do some last minute Easter preps (remember that for later), so Daddy decided to start on the Cabo. Little history about mi amigo. We first met about 8 years ago in Cabo Wabo, Mexico. A small group of us went to the little Mexican villa and tasted the fruit of vine or I guess cactus - agave, more to the point. Anyway...we went to Sammy Hagar's place - met him in person...and loooved his tequila. Great stuff.

Lesson about tequila. It's made from the agave plant (which actually ISN'T a cactus) and it has a few different types - in order - Blanco (silver), Gold (the stuff in frozen margs), Reposado, Anejo, and last but not that common Reserva. If you can get the Reserva, do! It's a very good "sipping" tequila - Do NOT do shots with this stuff - it's tooo good.

Patron Anejo is our favorite for sipping but Cabo Wabo is the best for making you stupid.

SO.

I started concocting my margs using 1.5 shot of Cabo, 1 shot of triple sec and 2 shots of this slice of heaven called El Paso Chile Co Margarita Mix. This stuff has key limes and meyer lemons in it and DAMN is it good.

First one tasted great. I wanted to test out some things and get the mix exact so I made another. And another...but this time I wanted to try some Cointreau and up the Cabo factor.

Next thing I know is it's Sunday morning and my elbow hurts, my nose hurts and my leg hurts. What the hell happened?

CABO WABO!!!!!!

I started piecing the puzzle together. First, Heather took too much time getting groceries at the store. When she came back, I had grilled some brats and was eating upstairs on the balcony (don't remember doing it but the fold out chair and plate was still sitting where I left them)

Summer told me that I was funny when I was drunk and fell down the steps. What a great role model I am. At least I found out why my elbow was hurting.

There were still missing pieces. Why did I bruise my leg and why did it look like I just got punched in the face by Matt Hughes (an ultimate fighter)? And why was Heather mad at me? - Oh, that was easy...see "Easter Bunny" had to hide about 100 eggs by herself while I "slept" upstairs...

It wasn't until monday morning that the case was solved. Heather was brushing her hair in the morning and happened to look out our glass sliding door in our bedroom and started laughing. Turns out there was a big nose mark on the glass...

Are you done laughing? It turns out, I slammed into the glass sliding door, smashing my nose. How did I bruise my leg? Easy. I then turned around and hit our small side dresser that points right about mid thigh level. Smash...turn...Boom! All ouch...

I've had fun repeating that story....Lesson learned? Well, not really. I know my girls will have years of therapy so why try to stop it now. I do keep the Cabo a little further out of reach...until Cinco de Mayo!!!!

adios!!!!

And that was the last we heard of Mike and Eric (or Bangalore and Mysore)

We first arrived in Bangalore, India to visit two of the three studios we are using for the Barnyard project. I had never been so far out of the country without seeing a beautiful beach. What a culture shock. First, there were people everywhere. I mean everywhere. We arrived about 2am after an 18 hour flight. We stopped over in Germany and had a beer at the airport. Sure, it was 10 am but we couldn't not have a beer in Germany.

The next morning, we awoke to a bustling Indian city. It was saturday but there was still tons of traffic. The traffic is interesting there because they really don't follow too many rules. Lanes are a mere suggestion. The traffic lights have visible timers that tell you when the light will turn green. What that allows the drivers to do is start heading into the intersection when there are about 5 seconds before it turns green. There really isn't too much signalling either. A honk of the horn is all that is needed. And do the Indians honk. My goodness, it was a cacophony of horns everywhere. Surprisingly, not too many accidnets. I was sure we were going to be in a few but didn't.

We got to hang out with Paprikas for a few days. They are about ready to move into a huge new space but are still tightly packed into a smallish studio. We then went to AniRights who are located on a Hare Krishna temple compound. The temple itself was stunning. The studio was located in the dorms next to it. We got lost a few times walking from the modeling dept to animation. Every floor looked the same :)

The coolest part of the Bangalore trip was going to Mysore, a small city about 1.5 hours south. It was on this trip that Eric and I coined the phrase, "And that was the last we heard of Mike and Eirc". The ride was pretty amazing. We saw a ton of very small towns on two lane roads. There were people everywhere. From small shantys to bigger high rises, folks were walking, riding, standing, selling everything everywhere. The trip back from Mysore (hold on, I'll get to the city in a second), was the most harrowing experience we had. I've said it before that driving was an adventure. Now imagine doing that at night when not everyone turns on their headlights...Marge "suggested" I sit up front...and that was the last we heard from...man, I thought for sure we were dead. There were so many near misses, it was amazing. Our driver did things I wouldn't even THINK of doing in the states...Keith, you wouldn't have made it my friend - you thought New York cab drivers were insane...

Mysore - small town with a huge palace. Wow, this place was cool. First, we had to take off our shoes and walk in the place naked...well, at least our feet were naked. We saw one of the largest paintings I had ever seen. It just kept going and going and going. The best part about the palace was at night. Well, not just any night but only on Sundays from 7pm to 8pm. What luck that we happened to be there on a sunday. Tons of people were let into the compound shortly before 7. It was a fun atmosphere when suddenly the lights came on. 9600 lightbulbs to be exact. I let out a gasp - something our guide earlier in the day predicted. Amazing.

Check out the pix!Bangalore

More to come later.