Somewhere in the middle of all this wedding hullabaloo, Dropped In quietly turned two years old. Like we did last year at about this time, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on where the blog has come, and what's next for Malcolm and Jillian.

When we started, I had just come off a five year stint in NYC, and was reuniting with Jillian in our apartment in New Haven after a year spent commuting to each other's houses on weekends. Jillian was teaching as a substitute in the Hamden public school system, and I was working by myself from our apartment. We started the blog purely out of vain self-indulgence, not really sure where it was going to end up. Okay, maybe it hasn't evolved much beyond that. But we hope that in the middle of our echo-chamber mumblings, we have given some people at least a tiny amount of guidance or entertainment. Mexico is an incredible place to live, and we hope we have inspired some people to make the leap.

The future of Dropped In is somewhat uncertain. As life here becomes normal, it is harder to write with freshness and energy about the things we are experiencing every day. In a way, having an audience has become kind of intimidating. It's harder to write when people are actually listening, we know the people behind some of the products or services that we might otherwise slag off, and our commitment to daily updates has definitely not been followed through on. Right now, we are kind of torn. Either we spend a significant amount of time switching the blog over to some new software, doing a redesign, and pushing on with somewhat irregular, personal-flavor updates, or we start over. We are currently working on a new project (which we will make an announcement about soon), which would offer us the opportunity to comment on life here in a more "official" way, and provide some real guidance and how-tos for living here. Frankly, I'm not sure which way we want to go. Rest assured, though, either way, we will continue writing on the Internet forever.

But enough of that. This entry is about celebrating. Here are a few fast facts about Dropped In as we turn two years old:

Our Favorite Entries from Year Two:

• Steven Stiffler is My Homeboy (October 13th, 2006)
  My encounter with Seann William Scott during a trip to Los Angeles.
• We´ll Always Have Pot Roast (Novemeber 2, 2006)
  In honor of the Day of the Dead, Jillian reflects on her late grandfather.
• Ode to Illicit Mayonnaise (November 5, 2006)
  A poem written about mayonnaise, before I discovered its availability locally.
• Weekend Trip to X'Matkuil (November 14, 2006)
  Commentary and coverage of the fair in X'Matkuil (beginning again soon!)
• Good Artists Copy (November 21, 2006)
  Jillian's likes and dislikes, after just a few months in Mexico.
• Dentista (Novemeber 28, 2006)
  Malcolm's first trip to a Mexican dentist.
• Christmas in Merida: A Photostory (December 25, 2006)
  A photo essay covering our first Christmas in Merida.
• San Crisanto: The House That Wasn't (January 04, 2007)
  Details on the fall-through of the first house we tried to buy.
• Merida Costco Invaded by Gringo Marauders (January 24, 2007)
  We acquire a Costco membership, and tuna is the star of the show.
• crAsh Wednesday (February 21, 2007)
  Coverage of last year's carnival celebrations.
• At Trotter's, Merida Cuisine Finds Complexity (March 07, 2007)
  Our review of Trotter's restaurant in Merida.
• Nine Things from Our Trip to Belize Which, Had They Not Happened, Would Have Made the Trip an Awful Lot Cooler (March 16, 2007)
  Ugh. Belize. Re-reading this entry made me angry all over again.
• Are There Scorpions in the Yucatan? (April 03, 2007)
  After months of speculation, we encounter our first scorpion. And boy, was he a doozie.
• Gaining Entry Into the Mexican Credit System (May 20, 2007)
  We buy our first car. An addendum to this entry is that Autos Cetina is owned and run by a man who is at the very least a criminal, and who probably also abuses small animals, children, and illegally stores medical waste in the trunks of his used automobiles. Avoid this place.
• Turning 29 at the End of the World (May 27, 2007)
  My birthday in Dzilam Bravo.
• Been a While Since I Rapped At Ya (June 28, 2007)
  My first few days alone at our new house in Chelem.

And if that's not enough, here's some fast facts about the blog after two years:

• Number of Unique Readers per Day: 800-900
• Unique Readers per Month: 30,000+
• Top Search Terms from this Month, Proving the Internet is Stupid:
  1. gene simmons pumpkin stencil
  2. jillian raucci
  3. cruisin cooler
  4. michelle+pfieffer
  5. washing+feet
  6. bill+cosby
  7. dropped in
  8. altares+mayas+(hanal+pixal)
  9. video+game+tattoos
  10. gastronomique new haven
  
• Google Pagerank: 3 (We lost a point!)
• Alexa Rank: 1,09,624
• Total Incoming Unique Links: 5,851
• Number of entries written: 505
• Number of comments received: 1,381

Once again, a big thanks for your support. Keep reading, and we'll keep writing. Let's see what happens in year three.

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Posted by Malcolm at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The wedding week is behind us, and we had an absolute blast every single day. An unbelievable thank you to everyone that made the trip. Believe me, I would love to share the details with you, but I've got a small problem...I didn't have a camera with me for the entire event. Now, I know for a fact that a lot of our friends and families took no less than 500 pictures each, and I wanna see them! When you get a spare moment, please upload what you've got using Picasa, Flickr, or your photo-sharing program of choice, and then email me the web address. And of course, if you don't want to post them, you can also just zip 'em all up, and I'll give you someplace to upload them. I will assemble them all into one giant album, and use some of the best ones to illustrate the storytelling.

thanks!

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Posted by Malcolm at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October is shaping up to be as scarily hectic as September was. Though we sometimes we get caught up in the day-to-day and don't get to fully enjoy living in Mexico, we try to remind ourselves that really, we are getting better set up and accomplishing more than we ever could have in the States. What's on tap for this week?

1. Picking up Jeep from repair shop in Merida, whose latest fault has been the transmission. Repairing muffler.
2. Gluing side mirror back onto rental car that I accidentally smashed off on my front gate. Returning rental car.
3. Meeting with wedding coordinator to write some checks and organize tasting for new reception venue.
4. Shopping in Merida with architect to pick out new tile, bathroom fixtures, toilets, and sinks. (Did we mention that we decided to tear out our old bathrooms and build new ones just three weeks before the wedding?) Staying at my paren'ts because we have no water. Checking on progress daily. Feeding dogs.
5. Signing lease on new office space in Progreso, and paying deposit. Installing new glass facade windows and door. Buying office furniture. Establishing TelMex contract.
6. Preparing for arrival of guests and wedding festivities in just two weeks. We have a list with 20 tasks...we are trying to nail out one per day.

It's been fun, but I swear this: I will never do all of these things at once, ever again.

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Posted by Malcolm at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)