3 Countries, 2 Continents, 1 Pro Wrestler: HBomb Second Birthday Party

BIRTHDAY!!!!

Turning 2 years old is one of the seminal events in the life of any young man.  Beginning to understand the concepts of birthday parties - presents, cake, and undivided attention from all your jealous friends and relatives - are wasted on 1 year olds, but not on the older, wiser, two year old crowd.  To mark the momentous occasion of the HBomb's second birthday, obviously a party was in order.  However, Mark and Anne were not sure that a single country could handle all of the festivities.  So it was decided that HBomb's 2nd birthday festivities were to be spread over three countries and two continents.

Round 1 was in the United States.  HBomb and his cousins had a Curious George birthday cake, which was summarily demolished prior to HBomb opening gifts with the help of Grandma and Grandpa.

The birthday boy, a couple of cousins, grandma, grandpa, some neighbor kids and maybe a walk-in or two.

Birthday hot dogs with cousin Stitchy.

Grandma helps with the gifts.

Mark gets the Curious George doll to levitate.  Best Birthday ever!

 In addition to the cake and presents, Grandma and Grandpa also held a pool party at the hotel.  Not too much beats a pool party with the cousins.

Henry showing Grandpa how to splash.

Stitchy and C enjoying the pool

 After the American party, it was time to move on to the second leg of HBombTwoYearFest2015.  Anne, Mark and the HBomb went to Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport - voted place most likely to lose your luggage in 2008 - and waited for their flight.  As often happens, HBomb attracted celebrity attention.  HBomb has already met an American Picker (the tall, skinny one, not the short, ..... stout one), former presidential candidate Dick Gephardt and noted travel author and liar, Rick Steves (yes, Mark is still bitter about those directions to the Catacombs of Priscilla, Rick!!!!).  Today, HBomb ran into "The King."  No, not Elvis, Jerry Lawler.

For those of your unfamiliar with Mr. Lawler's work, he is currently an announcer on pro wrestling and had a fairly long and successful wrestling career.  Mark most associates Mr. Lawler, however, with a famous or infamous episode involving comedian Andy Kaufman.  Although later revealed to be a stunt put on by the two, a "fight" they had on the set of Late Night made David Letterman admit that he had completely lost control of his show.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11T_-k7ckrg

Eventually, HBomb took his birthday flight to Old Mexico and made it in time for birthday party number 2.

Birthday partying with Uncle Eric and Aunt Shannon

I'll show you some "ROAR!!!"

But like all good things, the fiesta en Mexico had to come to an end, but HBomb's birthday rolled on.  Upon his return to Argentina, HBomb had Round 3 and received maybe the best birthday present ever - Vikings pajamas!

One of the 7 Wonders

On the solstices, the shadows fall on the staircase to make a serpent's body appear on the staircase above it's head in El Castillo (roughly "The Castillo")

In early August, Anne, HBomb and Mark had the opportunity to visit one of the 7 wonders of the world, Chichen Itza.  Granted, the original 7 wonders of the world were all in Europe, the Middle East or North Africa, but that is because the guy drafting the original 7 wonders of the world list didn't know that North America existed.  Both the NEW7Wonders Foundation and USA Today put this great site of Mayan ruins on their new lists of the 7 wonders of the world, so that's pretty good.

Nothing more welcoming than a couple of serpent heads and 365 steep stairs.

Chichen Itza is a site that was built by the ancient Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now called Mexico, but they probably just referred to as "home."  The Mayans were back in the news a few years ago, you may remember, for their calendar reaching it's end in 2012.  Some interpreted the end of their calendar to be a prediction of the end of the world, as if the Mayans had some cosmic insight into the details of that event.  Frankly, after visiting Chicen Itza, I am not sure I really trust the judgment of this ancient civilization.

Now don't get me wrong, this was a fantastic site.  The giant pyramid, the sports/deathmatch court and the ruins of the pillars were all phenomenal and I have a lot of respect for how this ancient civilization harnessed the power of astrology, geology and empire building in ancient America.  BUT - Mayans, come on.  The three most important things in giant pyramid real estate are location, location and location.  And this location was bad.  It is located right in the middle of a jungle.  Wasn't there a nice ready-to-build spot along with beach with some cool Caribbean breezes blowing in where you could have built this thing?  I'm not telling you how to run your ancient civilization, but hey, this is low-hanging fruit.  I mean seriously, it wasn't quite "Africa Hot," but it was definitely "Jungle Hot."  (see scale for further information)

HBomb and Anne going to see what all the fuss is about.

But despite the harsh conditions, our group sojourned on.  Hbomb showed no fear, rushing up to the pyramid and even attempting to run into the serpent's head on one occasion.

Checking out the serpent's head.

And after seeing and hearing some of the history of this place, maybe our group should have been a little more afraid.  One of the cool aspects of the site is the sports court seen below.  Off in the distance on the right, you can see a hoop that is attached to the wall nearly at the top.

Reverend "Moonshine Gerry" gets in for a closer look in the photo below.  The signs and guides say that the prevailing belief is that this court was used for a game, but there is no written record of the rules and we really do not know much about how it was played.  It appears that two teams played with a rubber ball, the game was important to the ancient Mayan rituals, and the hoops may or may not have been part of the game.

It's way up there.  Too high for even Moonshine to dunk on it.

Based on the carvings at the site, it appears that the captain of the winning team offered his head to the losing team, which then decapitated him.  This was a great honor because the now super-dead winning captain would then get a free ticket to heaven and not have to go through all of the intermittent steps that all other Mayans faced after death.  So, he's got that going for him.

Apparently, this is the gallery of past champions in the Ancient Mayan ball game.

College Football in Hot-Lanta

Where's Waldo, er, the Honor G of Grinnell College?

At the end of July, Anne, HBomb and Mark returned to the U.S. for a little visit.  The first stop was Atlanta to see Anne's family there.  While in that part of the country, the men folk took a side trip to the college football hall of fame.  If you ever find yourself in Atlanta with a little time to kill and have any interest in the sport, this hall of fame is well worth the trip.  Mark has been to the pro football hall of fame in Canton, Oh a couple of times and this one is much more interactive.

Upon entry, visitors register in the computer system with their favorite college football team (you can choose from any of them represented in the photo at the top of this post).  Then on each section of the hall, the exhibit will be customized to emphasize that particular team.  Mark, of course chose the mighty Grinnell College Pioneers and when he went to look at the records and conference championship archives, sure enough, the records popped right up (1998 being the last and most impressive conference championship for the school of course).

The older we get, the better we were.

Anne's brother Jim had no trouble choosing a favorite team as he is lifelong Hawkeye.  Mark and Anne's brother-in-law, Stu, chose the Iowa State Cyclones - apparently he did this to save time as he did not want to be held up at each exhibit by reading or hearing about a team that actually had "wins" or "accomplishments" to be discussed.  Eventually, Jim convinced his nephew of the virtues of the helmet with the mighty TigerHawk logo.

Passing the Hawkeye love to the next generation.

Next, the hall had an interactive exhibit.  Our group focused on the interactive "tailgating" experience, playing a little bean bag toss (Mark refuses to refer to this game as "cornhole") and getting a hot dog and some popcorn from the vendors.  There were also field goal kicking and route running areas.

Stitchy pounding a hot dog

I don't see a lot of bean bags actually in the scoring area, fellas.

The hall itself was pretty well done, with a lot of ESPN-sponsored interactive exhibits ("do your own SportsCenter" and "call famous plays on radio") and a lot of information arranged in easily accessible and entertaining formats.  It was not without controversy, however.  Upon leaving the 10 minute introductory film, which was not specific to any team, but rather emphasized the values and pageantry of college football Saturdays, Stu and Mark overheard what can only be described as a ravenously obese Tennessee Volunteers fan commenting on how the video needed to be re-done because of either too much emphasis on Alabama football or not enough emphasis on Tennessee football - his jumbled mutterings made this point unclear.  This seemed odd, but haters gonna hate, so neither of them thought much of it.  About 20 minutes later while reading an exhibit about rivalries in college football, the same old Tennessee fan walked by again still bitter about the video and with mutterings slightly less coherent but more angry.  I guess in the south, it's more than just a game.

Pretty good height for 1st and 3rd graders... also, that Bo Jackson manequin appears to be almost 7 feet with full gear on.  No wonder he smacked down the Bozz.