Until I started walking around New York City and noticed that every third or fourth person seemed to have one, I was blissfully unaware of the popularity of iPods. When this late adapter walked into the Apple Store the other day to buy an iPod Nano, I likely became one of the last of my friends to buy one of the devices. I had resisted over the years mainly because I have psychological issues about paying $150 or more for a something barely larger than a credit card.

Bill and Amarins Harrison, of Mount Vernon, Ky., are taking their children, Cheyenne, 6, Jasmine, 4, and Robin, 3, on a bike ride across America. Now that's what I call "a memorable family road trip." The Harrisons say they enjoy traveling and embraced the biking idea as a great way to see the country. Their final destination on this 7,000-mile family outing is Fairbanks, Alaska. Bill Harrison hopes his family can arrive there by the end of the year, after traveling through Texas, New Mexico, and California on a bicycle built for five.

On Saturday I took the subway to Madison Square Garden in New York City to attend a concert celebrating Polito Vega's 50 years as "El Rey de Radio" (the King of Radio). Vega was honored for his half-century on the airwaves with a two-day concert series organized by two radio stations, WPAT and WSKQ. The evening featured a star-studded Latin music lineup, with artists like Gilberto Santa Rosa, Víctor Manuelle, Millie Quesada, Olga Tañón, Oscar de León, José Alberto "El Canario," India, and Tito El Bambino.

When I was a kid I didn't understand that the experience of visiting the barbershop was just as much about the social experience as it was about the haircut. I used to hate going. Now, I'm tempted to go once a week. I feel sorry for two types of guys: (1) those who grew up being dragged to a "salon" and (2) those for whom their mothers cut their hair past kindergarten.

"Fathers are really close to their sons down here," I thought as I walked around Guayaquil, Ecuador, watching fathers and sons with their arms interlocked or draped over one another as they walked, having one-on-one lunches together, or simply having an afternoon coffee. Initially the level of physical closeness struck me as isolated, but as I moved around the Guayaquil, and later on in Quito, I noticed the same pattern. It seemed that fathers displaying physical and emotional closeness with their sons is simply a normative cultural value and likely a parental expectation.

I literally fought back tears last week while having lunch at a very prestigious tennis club in Ecuador after noticing that nearly all of ball boys were black. The club didn't seem to have blacks even touching the food like you would find in the United States. Food service seemed to be reserved for the lower class, mixed-raced Native Americans.