I once vacationed on Barbados and sat slathered with sunscreen on a part of the beach that appeared to be shaded and in 30 minutes got roasted bright red and wound up paying exquisite prices for a week of pain. Rain, dear reader, does not hurt you unless you are made of spun sugar. So I am now permanently off the Caribbean.

That's a real pity - but I just got back from Barbados a month or so ago - and had a damn good time, even though I sprained my ankle (but that was while walking in Bridgetown).

The trick to sunbathing in "Bimshire" is first, you never do it after 10.30 a.m. or before 3 p.m. Especially if you "looked like you just crawled out from under a rock" - to put it in Bajan parlance. Next, you make sure you use a screen with at least SPF 15 or higher, and be sure it has the right ingredient - to block BOTH UVA and UVB rays. (some don't)

Also don't stay out more than a half hour the first day. (I learned that the hard way when I first went to the Caribbean in the Peace Corps) You then build up your exposure gradually, increasing it by about 15 mins. per day.

Barbados and the Caribbean, including St. Lucia and Martinique, St. Martens is one of the best places to vacation - but you do have to do some with some common sense. What you don't do is go all Sun-crazy practically right from the time you disembark.

There are also plenty of places and things to see and do - you don't have to spend ALL day at the beach. In your Bim trip you ought to at least have gotten to the Harrison Cave, the Flower Forest, Andromeda, Cherry Tree Hill, and taken a tour of Speightstown and Holetown. You could also have had a great local experience by catching a Z-van into Bridgetown.

My one mistake? Not watching as I stepped onto a curb, which crumbled beneath my feet. But hell, you cannot expect the same level of capital works in the Caribbean, as say, NYC or Miami. Next time I will be more careful - and make no mistake the ankle sprain won't keep me away from the Caribbean or Barbados.

You ought to go back again, sir, but this time putting more of a premium on some common sense.

Barry Bonds was better than everybody else before, during and, still for the most part, after steroids. Funny how that worked out.

Yeah, like just look at how the classless jackass behaved in his interview with Bob Costas on his HBO show, merely because Cost had the guts and integrity to question Bonds' spurious record. And that it would be regarded as inauthentic. And what does Baby Barry do? Toss a hissy fit and carry on like the simpleton brat and cheater he is, calling Bob a "midget" etc.

But, as Keith Ollbermann noted in his Friday night 'Countdown' show on MSNBC: "Mr. Bonds, sir, in ethical terms it is YOU THAT ARE THE MIDGET! About a four inch high midget, ethically speaking!"

You go, Mr. Olbermann!

In the end, all Bonds will be remembered for, even after getting his 560 or whatever, is being a petty cheat, scoundrel and miserable black brat - who is so enamored of his sense of entitlement he lost his humanity long ago. Probably about a year or so after he started his 'roids/

As for my dear wife, she agrees with everything I have said 100%.