Last night we watched "Touching the Void" it's the documentary style film about Simon Yeates and Joe Simpson, the guy who while climbing a mountain in the Andes broke his leg and then fell over a cliff and then was abandoned as dead and miraculously arrived in camp some 3 days later after crawling off of a mountain. The film was really well done and thrilling to the last, even though we know that the story worked itself out alright in the end. It kind of tempered my desire to be a mountaineer, though I really want to go to the Andes now. I recommend the film to anyone, and particularly those with an outdoorsy bent.

Coincidentally, I believe my brother Ian is flying to Chile today. I'm not sure of his exact itinerary, but he'll be flying out of Miami and eventually ending up in the city of Valparaiso somewhere along the coast of that oddly shaped country. He'll then hang out and be disoriented for a day or two and afterwords he'll celebrate his twenty first birthday someplace south of the equator, making him the first Ritz to venture south of that mark and certainly the only one to celebrate a birthday outside of our hemisphere. Buena suerte Ian y cupleanos feliz!