We took our big family vacation this weekend. We had been talking about going to NYC, but we decided that was an ambitious drive for Isabel, so we settled on Philadelphia. But when we looked at what there was for kids to do in Philadelphia, all the same stuff was available in Baltimore. So we had our vacation in exotic Baltimore, about 40 miles away from home.

Checking out the fishies at the Aquarium.

Hitting the puzzles at Port Discovery, Baltimore's children's museum.

Whipping up some plastic food at Port Discovery's fake diner.

Isabel plays in the educational beartrap at the Baltimore Zoo.

Hanging out with the goats in the petting zoo.

Isabel's two-fisted goat-brushing style is unstoppable.

Family photo, with giraffes.

See, there's this Cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster... Um, there's this public relations campaign in Baltimore... oh, never mind.

Now that I've talked up amateur radio, I have the study materials for the Technician Class, General Class, and Morse code exams if anyone's interested.

Spotted at the Montgomery County Fairground. The sign reads: "Donations to the cheese booth are tax deductible." Revenue shortfalls apparently prevent the County government from trimming the nearby shrubbery properly.

This past weekend I took my amateur radio license exams. Ham radio has all the relevance and social cache of COBOL. So why take it up? The Amateur Radio Relay League has an opinion on that subject, which they outline in their entry-level Technician Class license manual, enticingly titled Now You're Talking!:

• You can talk with other hams over ranges of up to 50 miles with a hand-held radio that fits in your pocket!
  
• You can talk to people in other countries without paying for a long-distance telephone call!
  
• You can use radio-computer interfaces to type to other hams!
  
• And many other things that must have been pretty nifty before people could use cell phones, Skype, and instant messaging without having to pass a complicated licensing exam!

And on instant messaging you can swear like a sailor without getting your license revoked. At least that's what I hear.

Could it be the aura of "cool" that comes with being an amateur radio operator? For our answer, let's take a look at the September issue of the ham radio magazine of record, CQ:

The September 2006 issue of CQ, which is frequently confused with the similarly titled GQ. By blind people.

I guess that's not it.

In any case, last Sunday I went to FARFest, an annual hamfest in Maryland, where guys named Bud who have their callsigns inscribed on their mesh-backed trucker's caps can buy vacuum tubes from guys named Herb who wear too-tight t-shirts bearing the legend, "WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS: AMATEUR RADIO". There was actually a booth there with a machine that could embroider your callsign on a mesh-backed trucker's cap while you waited.

Sadly, I didn't have a callsign yet, because I was there to take my exams. Not only did I take my entry-level Technician Class exam, but I took the more advanced General Class exam on the same day. This required me to pass a Morse code test. COBOL actually does look pretty cutting edge when compared to Morse code; news of Wild Bill Hickock's death was transmitted by Morse code. I studied for the code test on my iPod, and the irony was not lost on me.

I passed all three tests, and on Monday the FCC assigned me a General Class license with the callsign KI4RDI, suitable for embroidery.

So why did I do it? I can't really say. In an unrelated story, I recently got a catalog in the mail from a company called "Extreme Geek". I know what you're thinking, because I assumed the same thing, but it was addressed to me. Weird, huh?

So photogenic is Jakarta that I took an entirety of two photos there:

The Nebraska Grill was right behind my hotel. Exotic!

My birthday fell during my trip, and the hotel staff went mental over it. The doorman wished me a happy birthday as I exited the cab back from the office, and I was wished a happy birthday three more times on the way to the elevator. I called for room service and in the middle of my order the guy on the other end interrupted me to say, "Oh! Happy birthday, Mr. Silva!"

It was nice, but I was kind of glad when it was over.

The cake that was sitting on the desk in my hotel room when I got back from the office on my birthday.

After finishing up in Jakarta on Friday, I headed out to Bali for a few days of diving. I went straight to Tulamben on the northeast coast, largely avoiding the endless parade of hookers, aggressive sunglass salesmen, and suicide bombers that is Kuta.

I'm sorry that I don't have any photos of harlequin shrimp, the wreck of the USS Liberty, the bumphead parrotfish the size of a Volkswagen, or any of the other stuff I saw on my dives, but I refuse to pay $60/day to rent an underwater camera.

What you've heard is true: Bali doesn't suck.

Bali, not sucking.

Rob vs. the volcano.

The black volcanic sand in Tulamben.

In Bali, even the Buddha hangs out by the pool.

Sunrise over the Lombok Strait.

I'm in the airport lounge in Denpasar now, about to begin my looooong journey home.