Excuses

Well I spent several days in a country that, I always forget, blocks my blog. Which makes it hard to post. And then life happened... well is happening. My family is coming over this weekend along with Marc so we can have a crazy good time. And I am pretty stressed about that and life and a while bunch of stuff so I am going to focus on that and we call all pretend this week's blog posts all happened. Life will resume as normal on Monday.

OH until then do yourself a favor and go watch the new season of Very Mary Kate which starts TODAY.

In the mean time look at this picture of me pretending to fly an airplane and rest assured that I have and probably never will actually fly a plane. Hopefully.

I love my life :)

So I am going to take a little break from story day this week and just talk about how wonderful my life is. Be jealous.

I was talking to Marc yesterday and saying that mondays are the hardest day to write since I am sort of put on the spot to come up with something interesting (as in not an "I found $5 story"). So I may diversify the day.

Anyway I am writing this post from the Star Alliance lounge in Istanbul. I just caught up on my movies on the ten hour flight over. Ever seen Big Fish? I love that movie. I always feel so good after it.

I am on day two (technically) of my circumnavigation of the globe. I will do it in six days and while thats faster than 80 I kind of wish I could do it by hot air balloon. Who's in?

I will soon be in a casino in central asia playing penny slots. I don't gamble much BUT last time I won $40. Its more about wasting time so I'll enjoy it either way.

I am so fortunate to travel so much for my job. I love the sometimes odd but almost always fun places I have seen. Clearly I need to get a real camera. Also it is really handy when it comes to seeing my most lovely boyfriend.

Speaking of Marc I have a wonderful, caring, and understanding boyfriend. Long distance is always hard but I am so lucky. We live a very blessed life. I will be sure to post some pictures of our platinum party. It is so happening... in Chicago, and Paris, AND Amsterdam. That is how cool and lucky we are :)

I have a wonderful family with whom I am very close to and love very much. They love me and also really love Marc. Just a few days ago my lovely mother was saying how excited she is to see Marc for our (slightly late) Thanksgiving.

As for the spirit of Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of these things! What are you thankful for?

The week in brief!

So Sunday was practically the longest working day of my life. Faced with option of "Go home now" or "Get put up in a hotel" I opted for the free night at the Hyatt Place. Lovely hotels btw. I went home Monday and after still being insanely exhausted proceeded to sleep most of it away.

Tuesday I managed to sleep through an important package delivery (grrrr....) even though I had Jimmy Johns DELIVERED so I wouldn't be out of the house when it came. Epic fail. I also hung out with a few friends, listened to This American Life (my favorite NPR radio show), and cleaned up around the house.

Wednesday I left for Miami for some additional training for work. The important part of this story is that I get almost 1700 United miles for the trip which puts me under 7k to go before I secure platinum status for next year. Sweet. Also I am staying at the Crown Plaza here in Miami. They have given us a nice little letter I would like to quote for your amusement:

"
[In the header they have included the logo of a different company with similar name]

Dear [Similar company name] Crew Member,

[skip some boring stuff...]

In conjunction with your team at [wrong company name again]...

[skip some more stuff] Please take note of the following arrangements for your transportation to/from the [name of training facility]:

Transfers from the hotel to the Training Center will depart promptly as below:
[note that we are in a list within a list now though I missed out on the first one.]
-7:30AM - Meet in the Hotel Lobby
-7:30AM - Meet in the Hotel Lobby
...
[Not sure why that is there twice or why we are randomly capitalizing things.]

[Then they go on to list pick up times for the 11th and 12th which, given I am here on the 17th and 18th, is very useful. Also they stop capitalizing the word hotel. The once again act like I work somewhere else. They THEN ask me to check out early on the 12th since they are full for the following night and want my room to be cleaned. Oh. Wait. I'm still not here til almost a week after that. My personal favorite is at the end.]

... 10% discount on all food and beverage throughout the hotel (does not include alcoholic beverages)... just let us know you are with [wrong company AGAIN] and will happily apply the generous discount...

... Sincerely,

..."

It is unsigned by the way. They are generous AND modest. The breakfast AFTER discount for a continental spread is $13.50. I can't imagine why I would want to miss that! I took the liberty of editing it (I removed the names... except the name of the tacky hotel...)





ANYWAY Thursday I had my first training day which was long but fairly exciting. I also discovered I am going on a trip next week that will get me the last 7k to platinum for United! WOOO! Marc and I promised to throw a party if we both hit platinum this year and now it will be so!

Today I will be taking my exam and doing my practicals. Wish me luck!

Who Loves Texas?

For those of us from the Midwest it is fairly common to think of Texas with a sort of country hick mentality. I am posting today that Texas gets a bad rep.

Since it is a travel Wednesday I am picking Austin as this months topic. I lived there for a long time. I still have a lot of family there and my brother and sister were both born in Austin.

When visiting Austin there are a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, you are in Texas. It is hot outside. Hydrate often. Secondly, Austin is not flat. Wear sensible walking shoes. Thirdly, it is unlikely that you will see a tumble weed. Shocking I know. Now that the basics are covered on to the fun bits!

Everyone always goes to the capital building. It looks sort of like the white house only its made of pink granite. Infinitely cooler. I would say go check out the Elizabeth Ney Museum. She was a really cool artist and her house is now a small museum with her art and history and a really cool secret passage. Take a stroll down the drag to get a feel for the Austin scene and do some shopping. Don't forget to get your picture taken by the graffiti frog. It's sort of a thing there. At the end of the drag is a really awesome toy store called Toy Joy. I used to go there all the time as a kid and it is still a really cool place for kitschy stuff. And then go take a dip in Barton Springs. The Austin area water supply is fed from an aquifer and one of the springs is dammed into a natural swimming pool. Its cold but pretty neat!

When It comes to food Austin has a variety of great choices. When I was little we used to go to the Spaghetti Warehouse. It is still a fun place to go and if you are lucky you can dine inside the antique train caboose in the center of the dinning room. My favorite place is the SoCo Cafe. They offer some really interesting combinations I would never think to try at home. It is a little more pricey but worth every penny. If you are looking for Tex-Mex and a view head out to the oasis. Its an ok restaurant with good margaritas and an amazing sunset view. Did I mention it is built into the cliff face? For a great lunch head down to Cantina Laredo. They will make your guacamole fresh to order right at the table side and the meals are just as tasty!

I know we are all waiting for the section on nightlife. When in Austin the standard Modus Operandi is to go to sixth street. There are a lot... well actually its pretty much ALL bars. I find it is a little too messy on sixth and tend to stick over on fourth st. As for gay bars I really like Oil Can Harry's (which brings up a much dirtier image than what the bar is actually like) and Rain. Right between those two is QUA. It is a straight club but the big allure is that the dance floor is an aquarium with live sharks. For all of you screaming for the poor sharks check you the QUA website first. They claim to be taking really good care of them and they never seem distressed to me. I also really like the bar Six (also right there on 4th street). This bar is connected to the Spaghetti Warehouse. It has a roof deck, nice drinks, and sometimes live bands.

Austin will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only since I have friends there but because I grew up there as a child. Its a very eclectic and singularly accepting friendly place. Don't hate on Texas til you've been!

Topaz

Hey kids.

Sorry I got a little caught up at work and missed yesterday. Also it's kinda a blah day so I will keep it short. But I owe you a story.

In the late 90s my family moved to rural wisconsin. My mom's job was there and so a family friend through her work was trying to smooth the transition and introduced me to their son as we were the same age. We were starting jr high together and going to the same school so they organized times for us the hang out.

Right before school started for the year We attended orientation together and then my mom was going to take us to a local dineresque chocolate shop as a treat after. One hitch.

Now keep in mind that I barely knew this guy.

We came home from school and my step dad was looking very nervous. As it quickly became apparent our cat ha died. Now this cat had been around since before I was born and through my, my brother's, and my sisters infancy. The cat was very dear to all of us. It had been in kidney failure for a long time and was at least 17 years old. We didn't know as it was saved from a shelter. It had waited for everyone to leave the house and then died at the bottom of the stairs.

Now it doesn't take much for me to turn on the waterworks and become a hot sobbing mess. I'm balling up a storm at this point. My poor new friend was, I'm sure, in a very awkward position. He offered to cancel our diner plans. I insisted that we go anyway as that is what Topaz, our cat, would have wanted. We went and had ice cream which soothes any hurt 12 year old soul.

Later that week I wrote a letter addressed to Topaz in heaven. I am going through my stuff in the hopes that I still have it tucked away somewhere and if I can find it I will post it for you all to read.

Pet death is sad. But this cat went at her time and I have to say I will love someday having a pet again.

Anyone have any interesting pet stories to share?

The week in brief

I have been in Amsterdam all this week as well and I have to say I really do love it here. I will sadly be leaving tomorrow afternoon to head back to work. As much as I do not want to leave it will allow me to get started on my Thanksgiving preparations. That really needs to happen so I am excited to get to work on that.

Also I will be going to Florida for some new work training. Wish me luck! It is a little stressful since we all have to score very well in the training exam. But I haven't heard of anyone not passing so far so I imagine I will do just fine! I still get nervous about these things though. I think it has to do with entering into a slightly unfamiliar situation and having lots of time to imagine all of the horrors and things that could go terribly wrong.

In other news Marc has been eating all these vegetarian meals and while I have not asked him to join in my less meat lifestyle (and he is not an extreme carnivore anyway) it is really nice that he is doing that. It is always a good feeling when loved ones support lifestyle decisions that way. Thanks :)

The blog hit over 200 views this week woo! I have kind of hoped for more BUT I also didn't want to put it out there before I had a decent number of posts and this week was when FB got the link so HOPEFULLY my blog is now going to start getting passed around or however that happens. Go and work your social networking magic!

I went exploring last night with one of our friends in downtown Amsterdam! Well it was probably less exploration for her and more for me. I, however, thought it was really cool and exciting. Finding my way to her office was sort of my first big solo adventure here. Baby steps :) Plus shopping was nice and we had nice drink in an adorable little cafe afterwards.

The one problem that arose came from my new touch card. It is a preloaded pass you use on the trains, trams, and metro. When you are entering the platform you touch it to check in and then when you get off you touch it again to check out. It then deducts the cost of your trip from the balance on your card. The problem arose when I forgot to check out. If you check out too late (something like 4 hours later) they charge you €20. The trip I was taking usually costs €2.30 or something. So after realizing my error I once again donned my it's really cold out side attire and trooped back to the station to touch my card and come on back. No big deal :) AND lesson learned.

Until Monday TTFN and have a fantastic weekend!

Widget Wednesday

So the first little toy I have stumbled up this week is not for the mildly nerdy. Some people might be tempted to just wear a watch OR even carry a cell phone. Pffffft. BUT I think this is still pretty cool. The Sundial ring:


Image from ThinkGeek.com

Basically the ring is hung from a string. You rotate the center of the ring to line up with the current month and then the sun shines through a small hole in the ring allowing you to semi-accurately tell the time. Very useful for those of us expecting to be hit with an electronics frying EMP.

Keeping with the not so practical theme, I would like to just say, "Who WOULDN'T want a floating arm trebuchet in their back yard?" No really. Those brats next door will never bother you again. They can break your windows but you can puncture their roof. Did you ever read War of the Roses by Warren Adler? They were too subtle. Medieval style warfare is clearly the way to go:


Image from X-TremeGeek.com

Last and please let this be least: Inflight Porn. That's right. The airline that thought of charging passengers to pee, Ryanair, is talking about offering streaming porn for your handheld devices. You may really need the blanket you are buying from them. I would consider bringing your own. Please also consider headphones and an eye mask. Better still: Consider flying on a different carrier. Read more...

Easily distracted

So I never posted on Friday. I am going to unjustly blame Marc since when I am here with him AND he is not at the office how am I supposed to be productive on something that is a very one person activity. Anyway, that clearly never happened.

I think today I will scratch the normal Monday procedure and just talk about the past wonderful week.

Last weekend I was finishing work and I convinced my company to not send me home and then just flew straight to Marc. YAY. I spent Monday in a small town in Poland going gnome hunting. I can almost guarantee you read that correctly. There are something like 200 small metal gnome statues arranged throughout the city. Which is fairly awesome. Garden gnomes = creepy. Awesome metal gnome riding a pigeon = want.



That night I flew into Amsterdam to spend the week here with Marc. During the week we have had dinner with some friends, gone for some shopping, and had a few lovely evenings in front of the fire sipping home made long island ice teas. That''s how we roll.

Saturday night we had a Halloween party since it is my favorite holiday ever. Anyone who plays Plants vs Zombies will be amused since Marc and I went as a sunflower and a zombie. We had an unexpectedly large and nice turn out and fun was had by all YAY.

We have also begun rewatching Firefly. If you are unfamiliar and like shows like Buffy or Babylon 5 you should look into the show. It is one of our favorites. I think it is on the agenda for tonight as well.

That is it for today then and I will be super productive and make sure Wednesday's post is up on time :)

Youtube party!

It is video time again :)

I love a good commercial. Also, on a related note, I love bouncy balls:




While on commercials, this is one of my favorite commercials ever:



And why don't we just make a day of it. It is an oldie but a goodie:



Hope you are all having a great week!

Gather 'Round Kiddos!

This one time I made a bunch of bad decisions and somehow still survived the night. Also I was sober.

So I decided to go on a random internet date with a guy who seemed fairly nice. He picked me up and we were going to go somewhere by his place. I told my roommates where I was going so I wouldn't just disappear off the face of the earth.

When we got down to his neighborhood he asked if he could just cook me dinner instead. I should have said no. However in a moment of stupidity I agreed and went up to his high rise apartment. He made something boring. I don't remember what but it was similar to the quality of something that may have come out of the microwave. It was not good. He then proceeded to say he was tired, and that I should leave, and oh by the way could I get myself home? I should have said no. I had however seen the train station mere feet away and thus thought it would not be an issue.

I was wrong.

I walked to said train station. It was for the wrong train. I figured that the right one could not be THAT far away and started walking.

About 15 minutes later, with no train in sight, I started to get worried. It became very clear that I had wandered into a not very nice part of town. To boot, if you have somehow missed my pictures, I am the most unintimidating little white boy. Ever. Greeeaaaat.

Then the police sirens started. I was getting worried. I called my best friend to calm my nerves. Why I did not get into a taxi I do not know. As I began talking to my best friend he also explained that he was in a similar situation. I am not sure why he was walking through a rough neighborhood in the middle of the night as well but he was. We decided it was safer to be alert and get off our phones.

A little while later I found a street with a bus stop I recognized. I began waiting for the bus. A very tall and scary looking man walked up. I was terrified. He was also waiting for the bus. He asked me about the bus. I answered quickly and shortly that I was walking to the train and giving up on the bus. He was following me.

After about 20 minutes I decided that is this man was going to jump me, then he probably would have already. Good. Safe. We finally reached the train.

At this point I should probably talk about karma. I don't believe in much of the supernatural. HOWEVER I do feel that when you have been given a gift you should repay the world for it. I survived this night and was now owing.

I met a man on the train who said he was going to visit his child aged daughter for the first time. He played out this huge sob story that was probably fake and asked me for money. I gave him $20. I don't know if I was just scared shitless or what but I certainly paid my karmic debt back that night.

To complete my night I got home and one of my roommates was clearly tripping. I came in and he was in the bathroom, with the light on, staring at himself in the mirror. This is really the best part of the story. So I said hello and that I was going to bed. The rest of the conversation followed thusly:

Roommate: Look at my eyes. They are huge.

Me: Ummmm yes. Yes they are.

Roommate: We should do something.

Me: It is almost 5 am. I am going to sleep... you should consider doing this as well.

Roommate: No no. We should go for a walk or something. The sun is coming up.

Me: Um yes. But it is early and I have been up all night and its not been fun and I really need to sleep.

Roommate: NO. I don't think you understand. We need to go for a walk. The sun is coming up. WE HAVE TO STOP THE SUN.

Me: OOOOOOK. It is bedtime. For me and ABSOLUTELY for you.

... And that was my worst date ever.

Friday Recap!

The secret is it is actually Saturday. Shhhh don't tell.

This week I think for now I am going to do away with the random photos. I am bored with that. The end.

At work this week I have been working with brand new employees. Two of them. They are nice and will be great and, as much as some people complain, I find working with newbies to be a breath of unjaded air. It has been lovely. Also I am working with a leader who is sort of attempting to groom me to be promoted into that position which I would quite like. Fingers crossed hoping that possibility becomes a feasibility soon.

Marc and I have been discussing remodeling and more excitingly redecorating a room in the house. I love planning those things so we have been emailing back and forth possible layouts, new furniture, ideas, etc. It will be interesting to see what happens there and I will post pictures as things progress.

Speaking of Marc I will be headed home on Monday! I convinced work not to send me home and to let me galavant around Europe instead. After a very frustrating morning in which Marc saved the day and did it for me I am not booked on a flight for Monday evening. The nice thing is I will have all day to explore a quaint little city in Poland before heading off.

As it stands I only need a little over 9500 frequent flier miles before the end of the year to hit platinum on star alliance for next year. This may seem trite HOWEVER I am a pretentious ass about my airline status. Marc has already hit his platinum (on a different carrier) for next year and if I hit platinum as well we are going to have a platinum party to celebrate our snobbery. Maybe we will buy some shrubbery and paint it blonde. Something like that anyway. The point is my flights from Poland will count toward the 9500 I still need so YAY. Probably more like 8k to go woo! Thanks Marc :)

A little bit of time this week has gone into planning this years Thanksgiving with my family. Marc and I will be hosting it in Chicago and the folks and siblings will be coming to visit. Because of my schedule we will be doing it a week late. We also don't do a traditional Thanksgiving meal (though this year there will actually be turkey...). We are doing a sort of low gourmet potluck. This way everyone can be involved AND we still get a nice meal. I will post the menu closer to the date!

All of next week and into the following I will be in Amsterdam so expect an exciting recap post on Friday! As Tigger would say TTFN!

Widget Wednesday!

This is a better name I think.

This week I have started to learn dutch. As I am, and plan to continue, spending a lot of time in the Netherlands I feel that I should have a least a marginally functional competency in the language. It is also helpful that Marc speaks it so I have a personal tutor at hand to answer all my questions.

I have been using the website www.livemocha.com. For those unfamiliar with Livemocha it is a free language service and community. Essentially you sign up for a profile and enroll in the course of your choice. I am currently enrolled in Dutch 101. In this particular course there are three units each comprised of around five lessons. There are four courses but the number of units per course lessens in the higher courses so there are ten units all in all. I can take each lesson at my own pace. They are structured into required exercises and practice exercises. The interactive page will speak the words for the user and give challenges by matching pictures with words or arranging sentences.

In each unit there is a writing and a speaking component users submit. These are both corrected by fellow language learners. In my case a native dutch speaker will correct and review my submissions. After I have submitted LIvemocha asks me to review another user's English submission. In this way the whole community benifits.

For about 100 USD a year users can subscribe to professional reviewing plus special course features and exercises that are not availible to us cheapskates. Also for every review a user does of another user's work they are given "tokens" which can be exchanged for professional review of his or her submissions.

Thus far (I am half way through unit 2) I have been very impressed. While this is not the way I have been traditionally instructed in other languages, I am finding it to be effective and the feedback I have gotten from my dutch reviewrs has been extremely useful. One kind woman even recordered herself repeating my submission to help me with my pronunciations and inflections. Awesome.

My favorite thing about Livemocha is the idea and principal it exists upon. Users are rewarded for helping other users. People of the world are reaching out to help one another communicate. This is so important and amazingly cool I would consider getting the yearly membership. If I am a good little dutch student and stick with it maybe I will reward myself by subscribing. If nothing else you should all check it out. It goes at YOUR pace so as long as you can devote a little time every now and then you too could be preparing for that trip to Paris you've always dreamed of.

Monday... Recap? Also a Story!

Kinda missed Friday's post there. By "kinda" I meant "most certainly." I will attribute it coming down with a quick but nasty head cold that rendered my desire to troop to Starbucks for internet insignificant in the wake of sleep. Sidenote: I know it is 2011 and I don't have internet at home. Anyway I intend to throw in a short recap RIGHT NOW, just before story time so everyone can sleep well tonight. Phew.

Picture time! This one time I dressed up like a pirate. Maybe this year I should be a ninja so they don't get jealous....

Last week I was working most of the week. Which for me meant time zone hopping. Normally this is not much of an issue and I just sleep it off. For what ever reason this particular week I went a quarter of the way one way around the world just to go halfway the other way the next day. I find that it is much easier to adjust your time forward than backward when travelling and the halfway was backward. This may have contributed to the timing of my cold. Now that I have resumed my forward march however I am 95% recovered and returned to you, my adoring public.

I was introduced to foreign dollar stores this week. This is not something I would ever imagine to be the amazing gem it turned out to be. While I spent more than I probably should have, my kitchenware has improved greatly due to this. That is worth the lugging this crap at least a quarter way around the world.

Speaking of travel, travel, and more travel, Marc and I have been planning my visit for next week and if everything goes according to plan then I will be at his, or as he is quick to correct me "our", house on Halloween day (my favorite holiday!). The one hiccup is that work keeps changing plans and I am sort of caught waiting til the last minute to book my travel stuffs and that makes me nervous since I am coming from somewhere I have never left from via train (the method I will be taking to our home). Not only that but they quite possibly do not speak English. This is fine of course and I have navigated the world without translation many times and I myself have a very slightly diverse language base so I *shouldn't* be worried. I would however like everything to go right and to get there as soon as at possible! Wish me luck :)

Finally, in a quick update to a previous post, I have been such a good little not very much meat eater! Yay!

On to Story Time!

Today's story is in relation to my up coming venture through the semi unknown.

I have mentioned in the past how I was a fairly fearless and extroverted child. Well the year I started kindergarten was no different. Up until this time I had been going to preschool and my parents had been driving me. Needless to say I found my reliance on their help in the act of transit irritating. So when I first discovered I would be going to kindergarten all those years of watching that big yellow bus that all my new friends were already so accustomed to I was, of course, not about to waste a smidgen of time with my parents. I immediately insisted on taking the bus to school from the first day.

My wonderful and protective mother was hesitant.

"You are sure you don't want me drive you?... It is your first day. How will you find your class room?"

I looked at her with all the seriousness of a determined 5 year old.

"I want to take the bus."

So my poor mother put her reservations aside and signed my up for the bus. Now in my school district, that year, the buses were labeled by insect. I don't know who thought this up or thought that a preteen boy would be thrilled but I, as a five year old adventurer, was super pumped to be on the majestic BUTTERFLY bus.

The big day came and I waited by the stop. Mom was staring out the window to be sure I made it on. Not only did I confidently stride right on to the bus but chose a seat right next to an enormous sixth grader and just started chatting away. Now I am not sure if she would have anyway but that certainly sealed the deal. As well all know preteen boys are evil. My mom hopped into her car and followed the bus all the way to school.

After she had parked and tried to catch up she finally found me happily sitting in my class room all ready to go. Silly mom.

It turns out though maybe she was right about the bus. It was not actually dangerous it seems while ON the bus but I picked up some colorful language on the way home. On the second day of school as I was preparing to prove the previous day not a fluke I seemed to have *erm* misplaced my backpack. In my mounting frustration I MAY have shouted, "Where the hell is my back pack?!?"

That went over well.

Now all of this has me thinking about how great it is to be a kid. Five year old me would be approaching next week without a second of trepidation and/or worry about the possible disasters that could strike. Truth be told, adult me is probably channeling my mother in the fact that the worst that will happen is I miss connection and catch the next one and maybe have to wait a few hours in a train station. In this day of cell phones it is not like I could not just text Marc to look it up, or call the train service, or go on the internet with my smart phone and look it up myself...

Please tell me you like me channeling me to combat channeling my mother. I do.

Travel Wednesday!

So for my first Travel Wednesday I think I will pick Prague. It's a good easy start and I know so much about it and I love it there.

I went to Prague for the spring semester of 2007. I lived in a dorm with a few hundred other foreign, mostly american, students. Prague has a reputation of being a little bit of a party city and, I can speak from experience, it is well deserved. I have never been in a city where it was common for people to go straight from the bars to work. I am talking about business men not bartenders.

Albeit the crazy drinking and wonderfully affordable party scene the city itself is a wealth of history and sightseeing attractions. On my daily walk down the hill to school I walked through the presidents castle and right next to the royal gardens. The building where I had classes was where Vasclav Havel was teaching and beginning the velvet revolution. A few blocks, if you could call them that, further into the heart of the city the old town square with the doomsday astronomical clock. Beware the doom of you wallet to the hands of idle pickpockets at this attraction. Further still into the city and you could find yourself in Wenceslas Square. It's a huge rectangular plaza with a large statue at one end and plenty of shopping through out. Let me not forget the most famous Charles bridge fabled to hold the lost sword of the hero for which it is named said to return when the Czech people are in the time of their greatest need.

In visiting Prague to get away from the beaten tourist roads there are several things I would recommend:

1. Have a picnic at Vysehrad. It is a beautiful castle and less frequented than the presidents' castle. Right along the Vlata it gives you a splendid view and if the weather is night it makes for a splendid afternoon.

2. Watch the sunrise from the observation point on the side of Petrin. On top of this hill (Petrin) is a monastery and walking southeastward from the monastery and a tad to the right is a little train that goes up the side of the hill to a little observation point. My best mornings in Prague were spent drinking cheap red wine with my compatriots and watching the sun rise. Don't judge us for the booze... we hadn't slept yet.

3. Probably the most touristy but most certainly a worthwhile endeavor is right off of Wenceslas square is a wine cellar bar called U Sudu. It is an underground labyrinth of little rooms with various tables, Foosball, and wonderful pitchers of wine. I cannot even count the number of nights we spent in this bar before making the mandatory fried cheese sandwich stop on the way home.

And speaking of Czech cuisine try the potato dumplings and, of course, the fried cheese sandwich. I also tried pig knuckles one night which are not as bad as they sound and a fairly standard bar fare. An absolute must is honey cake or medovnik. There are not words to describe how wonderful it is.

Last but not least I feel that I should touch on my favorite gay bar, Termix. When entering the bar you must ring a doorbell out side a random sheet metal door. It plays Fur Elise. Once inside you will stand in a small coat check with a stairwell which after descending leads to a long bar room with a car sticking out of the wall. Yes a car. There is a private room up top that can be rented out but other wise is available for sitting and a nice small dance floor. They play all the right gay hits and several of the wrong ones. With all the cheap beer you can drink and hours that usually last until the sun is up.

I hope that each and every one of you has a chance to visit some day. Prague is one of my favorite places in the world and I miss it all the time. Maybe I'll see you there!

Story Time!

Ok. So This is where planning would be SO useful. I travel a lot. For today's post I was looking for a picture of me as a 12 year old. It is at home. I am not. So I am not actually 12 in the photo... just use your imagination. Also my mother had much longer hair... it WAS the 90s.

When I was a kid, even more so than I am now, I was of the mindset that strangers were new friends I just hadn't met yet. In the checkout lane at the grocery store my mother would just shake her head as I, comfortably seated in the cart, invited the people behind us in line to come over and play. My father once let me go in the mall to see how far I would go before looking back. I didn't.

Now my parents got divorced when I was very young and my brother even more so. He is almost 3 years younger than I am and was not much more than an infant. Several years down the road my parents were living in different states. My mother was in Wisconsin and my father in Texas. This is obviously no small drive for the weekends so we spent summers and some holidays with my father and some holidays and the rest of the year with my mother. All of this was really my introduction into the world of air travel. We did a lot of it.

At one point my brother and I were walking down the street with my mother to go to a friend's house and a car pulled up next to me. I was walking far ahead of my family members which, not surprisingly, arose a state of panic in my mother. This may be a good time to explain a few things regarding my mother.

My mother is one of my best friends. I talk to her on an extremely regular basis and about most everything. She is a lovely woman. She also is very anxious. Anxious to the point of over protective. It's endearing how much she cares for her children. She panics when driving in fast traffic. She worries. Always.

This car was going to steal her child forever.

My mom starts running down the street. To her horror I am actually TALKING to the stranger in the car. My friendly nature supporting that I would talk to any strange person and probably climb in their car to go and play. I was around twelve years old at this point and not actually likely to climb into strange vehicles. She is rushing and rushing and I'm talking and talking.

When she caught up to me the nice gentleman in the car explained that he had sat next to my brother and I on flight some two or three weeks prior and complimented her on our manners and how polite we were. My mother was of course relieved even though I was still getting the "how dare you scare me like that" look. Afterwards he waved and drove off and on we went.

My mother, thankfully, still had a beating heart. I was oblivious to her concern still at this point. This is why being an extroverted kid in a family of introverts is fun.

Friday Recap!

This week's picture is of me dressed up to go to a costume party as the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland. I did the makeup myself and this picture must have been when I returned home because what the hell is the ribbon about. No idea.

On that note I have been travelling for the last 16ish hours so if I seem like a crazy today you have been warned.

So this week Marc and I returned from my family gathering/my friends wedding. It was a great time and fun was had by all. YAY! My family gave me a dining room table (which Marc cleverly ripped in half so we could fit it in the rental car) and I have been arranging and rearranging my great room to find a good set up. I love doing that. Inevitably I end up sitting on the couch staring around the room for an hour at a time deciding if I like and and what else I need. At this point I have no chairs for the table but for whatever reason I still went out and bought fall place settings. They look wonderful though.

Other than that I lounged around my days off at home and tried to be cheap and cook all of my own meals. Go budget action!

The big news I have is that after 5 years of a faux facebook marriage to a dear friend of mine Marc and I have now made our relationship facebook official. So congratulations to us! You can start sending us gifts to commemorate the occasion. I don't mind.

Now I am back at work and after a day of arguing with United (even though I was flying Lufthansa...) I ended up sending them a nasty letter where at one point I asked if they were mailing me things via carrier pigeon. Which if they actually were I would so be ok with it taking 8 weeks to get my premier exec card. Sigh. Oh well.

Have a wonderful weekend all and I am off!

Smart Machines

Ok. I'll admit it. I am a bit of a nerd. Marc will surely back me up after a conversation the other day where I was asking him to tesseract (in reference to Madeline L'Engle's wrinkle in time) and then proceeded to explain a geometrical tesseract and posted the wiki definition as reference mid chat. I won't bore you with the nerdy details.

This Wednesday is the first Gadget Wednesday (I'm still working on a better title for that) and I have decided to talk about smart technology's impending emergence into the adult beverage industry. Huge topic but I think there are a few high points worth mentioning. The picture for today's post is of me using a glass siphon to bottle wine. It was an epic fail. Clearly I need some updated gadgetry.


The Smart Keg

This top of the line not yet released drink dispensing apparatus once behind the bar should monitor the stats of what it contains. For example what kind of beer is inside, the C02 levels, and even how many times the tap is pulled. Not to mention how much beer is left inside the keg. The obvious benefit is the bar is much less likely to run out of your favorite beer.

This is the article I discovered this from

Mindwave Vodka Tasting

Would that I had seen this before now. This past May there was an Absolut cocktail tasting with an interesting twist. The participants wore the Neurosky Mindwave headset creating an artistic display courtesy of Marcos Lutyens that also gauged the tasters brain activity reactions to each cocktail. Vodka and art. Clearly someone forgot my invitation.

Read the article here

Soberlink

And for my younger readers (more for your parents) the Soberlink. This device is something part of me wishes was around when I was a teenager because it would have solved a lot of discussions when the night was getting late and we were all going to bed. There was always that one kid who was going to try and sneak out the back of the house of whoever's parents were turning a blind eye on our underage drinking in the garage and drive home. I don't know of many 16 year olds that show restraint when it comes to drinking. This handy little gadget shows your location, your image (taken when used), and sends back you BAC. Less fun for you kids out there however death by running into a tree or, worse yet, another car is about as not fun as it gets.

you can read more about Soberlink here

Come back for Recap Friday!

Quasi-Vegetarianism

So a few years ago I decided I wanted to look as pleasantly built as I did when I was 19. Now I have never been big or fat so I am not saying I was trying to lose weight. I was more interested in losing a little excess fat and replacing it with a runners build. I went to the store and bought running shoes and started running a few miles everyday. I also insisted on a dietary change and started restricting my carnivorous meal choices to once per week except on special occasions.

The first two weeks or so without meat were hell. Since I am out with my coworkers for meals a lot and they have not restricted their diets accordingly I was eating salads and wraps and they were having fried chicken. Jerks. This is the moment where in my head I am starting to rationalize the skin is more breading than skin so its probably fair game right? No no no must be strong. 19 year old working out everyday body. I persevered.

After that it really was not bad. I also began feeling much better on a day to day basis. I was in better moods and I had more energy. I still got my weekly meat fix. All was right in the world. Almost.

I started dating a foodie during this time. My resolve was being put to the test. We would go to these amazing restaurants with tantalizing meat filled dishes. If for no other reason than I had never been in these restaurants before I started ordering meat more regularly again. Then I got a new job which required a lot of international travel. Produce is not generally a good thing to try to carry through customs and when I was there for a very short bursts it became in convenient to get to the grocery store for one day in *insert random worldly place here*.

Even now that I am no longer with the foodie that habit has sort of struggled to return. The reason for this blog post will now become clear. If I say that I will be resuming my limited flesh ingesting habits on here then I can be held accountable by anyone. I mean literally anyone. Well only people with some sort of access to the internet. Now when I am in a restaurant I will be crazy paranoid. Any other patron may know that I should not be eating meat. The immense possible guilt will hopefully keep me in line.

As of today I, James, am resuming my faux-veggie habits and burning the possible beginnings of a beer belly away. I will not become contented with a sub-optimal body image. If you see someone who looks like they might be me and they have meat glare at them.

Recap Friday!

I love this picture because it was totally candid, at work, as I was climbing into a stretch SUV limo. There's a first time for everything you know.

It's been a rough week this week. In the begining Marc and I were having some communication issues but I think that has been totally resolved which is a relief. I, for one, sleep better at night knowing he is a happy man. Speaking of happy things, I cooked homemade mac and cheese in my slow cooker for the first time on wednesday for the both of us. It smelled so good and I threw in some turkey bacon and garlic. Nom nom nom.

It has just begun to start cooling off in Chicago and I have to say I was less than excited. For a second it looked like it was going to skip even a brief fall and go right into weather that makes it uncomfortable to wear all of my favorite fall sweaters and jackets. However during the daylight this week it has actually been very lovely and I love fall fashion so I am loving it. Can we just forget winter and skip it please? At least no snow. there is a reason that word has four letters...

I wish anyway.

I am currently rereading Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I am currently delving into The Two Towers. I always forget how much I love these books (though from the disrepair of my nice hardbacks no one else will miss it). The metaphors he uses for everything are so fantastic.

Yesterday Marc and I drove up to Milwaukee for the night on the way home to my freinds' wedding. We had a million plans which nearly were all changed as my reliable source of information about things to do seemed to pick things that no longer exist. In the end of the night we ended up in a little divey gay bar with a mostly tragic but still enjoyable drag show.

And today we have driven up the rest of the way into Manitowoc for the wedding tomorrow. Tonight we are having dinner with my family. That being said we need to be off and off we shall go.

Have a great weekend!

Rotating Wednesdays! Also videos!

So as it currently stands I think I will be structuring the posting schedule of this blog as follows:

Mondays are story time. This section is mostly about funny things that happened in my life a long time ago or that are not specific to the general date that they were posted.

Fridays are weekly recap where I give myself a pat on the back and just talk about all the little things that happened in my week.

Which leaves Wednesdays to be a rotating day. I am thinking that, starting with this post, 1st Wednesdays shall be video day. It's like one of those parties that gets horribly sidetracked by youtube. Only you are already online. Second and fourth Wednesdays will be obsession days where I talk about some really cool gizmo, gadget, random thing that I have been on about lately. Third Wednesdays shall be travel days where I talk about some cool place in the world I have been or really want to go to. Finally when there is a fifth Wednesday it shall be something to do with readers if I have any at the point when there is a fifth Wednesday (please).

These are subject to change depending on how much I like them as they happen. I also reserve the right to post extra in between and basically run the show how I want since it is my blog. The structure just helps me since I travel so much and do not operate on a regular schedule I can set up all my posting to happen even if I am flying. So thanks for reading :)

Yay for Video Wednesday!

I love this video because A) I cannot play the cello. B) I cannot beat box. C) I certainly cannot do them at the same time. D) This guy certainly can:




You've all seen those really expesive but really cool air multiplier fans that are just loops. This was a fantastic idea:




Last but not least I saw this on work.failblog.com last week and if you missed it I am bringing you some IT humor:

Chapter 2

If you haven't read last week's first post (the very first post on this blog) you may want to read it here as I am just going to dive right in head first.

Chapter two
An introduction to my drinking habits

So in 2007 I lived in Prague, CZ for a semester abroad. I was in a dorm with 120 some american students. We attended classes together, went out together, got lost together, and basically had the best semester long vacation of our lives. Our teachers seemed to be encouraging us to bring beer to class. Beer was a dollar for half a liter IN THE BARS (or the school cafe...). Be jealous.

One night we decided to go out in a fairly large group to a bar called Mecca. Now this bar is located in an inconvenient location where once there it is more worth your while to not come back until morning because the train stops running at midnight. It was a more expensive bar (still amazingly cheap just not Prague cheap). I did not want to be there after about an hour.

The one special they had that was a really good deal was Absolut shots. So I was drinking straight vodka. I was drinking lots of vodka. This may be a good moment to stop and explain my relationship with vodka. I love it. I drink it always. I have a decent size collection of booze in stock at my home and by far the most of any one liquor that I have in store of a rainy day is vodka. I was trashed.

Trashed James decided to travel to his favorite bar, Termix. Now for those unfamiliar with Prague there is a large river, the Vlatva aka the Moldau, that winds through almost the middle of the city. I needed to cross that river. First I went cab hunting. Now the cabs in Prague will try and rip you off. The solution is to set a price before getting in. Whatever these cabs wanted me to pay I was not having it and decided to walk. Did you catch that? Mistake One: Deciding to walk.

I had my handy dandy pocket map and set off on my merry way. The first problem arose quickly. I was not finding bridges across the river. They seemed to all be elevated and not clearly marked on my map. I kept walking. Finally I find a bridge that I should be able to cross the river on ONLY a few small hurdles stood in my very disoriented path. First I needed to climb up a muddy hill to match the height of the bridge. Done. Second I needed to climb a fence. Alarm bells should be going off here. Mistake two: Don't climb fences drunk. I did it anyway and I started walking across the bridge. I should point out that around this time I noticed that this was not a normal bridge. I was walking on train tracks. About halfway across it occurred to me that this was highly unsafe. I hurried up. Mistake three: do not get caught stuck on train tracks.

Upon reaching the other side of the bridge I was once again presented with a challenge. There was no hill to aid my getting down from the bridge on this side. I just kept walking. Eventually I was able to sneak through a train station yet somewhere in this fiasco I had lost all track of where I was. I kept wandering totally ignoring my trusty little pocket map. Mistake four: use your map moron! Finally, fairly sobered up, I found a tram number that I knew. I went to look at the sign to see how far I was from a station that would get me where I wanted to go. After several minutes of careful study I discovered I had ended up back on the wrong side of the river (I have no idea how) and not anywhere close to where I was trying to go.

Now at this point I decided to give myself point for trying and go home. The tram I needed was not running so I simply followed its route for at least two more miles to the station that would have a tram that would take me home. The best part of the story is as I in my muddy, tired, sober, disgruntled state boarded the tram I was greeted by all my classmates that I had left at the bar.

Moral of the story: I should not ever be left to drunk wander in unfamiliar territory.

Stuffs and Things

So I think Fridays should be the days I talk about current events in my life. Also I will pick a picture of me to post every Friday. Some very current and some maybe not.

This weeks photo is me standing in the engine of an airplane. I picked this photo because I am cool enough to have stood in the engine of an airplane. Just look at that photo. Awesome.

This week I finished book 8 in Simon Green's Nightside series. They are Si-Fi Fantasy Noir not really mystery novels. They are all easy reads and nice sort of young adult to early adult books.

On next Wednesday my boyfriend will land in Chicago so that we can drive up to Wisconsin and meet half of my family and go to a wedding. This particular wedding is for a special friend of mine from junior high. She is the last girlfriend I had before coming out. It should be lovely and she has been a great friend to me over the years and the whole trip should be great. My boyfriend is acting like he is not nervous to meet my mother however every time I tell him I told her something in regards to his spectacular wonderfulness he sort of groans and mentions how high a bar I am setting. So now I am doing it on purpose. He has also given me permission to start calling him Marc in my blog. That is his real name even. What a great guy!

This week I worked with a crew where many of the lovely ladies are instrumental in the union committees. It's good to get a closer perspective to what these lovely gals have been up to. I'm so proud of all the work that is getting done there even if unions are not really my thing. I have a flair for efficiency and unions are the exact opposite. However, I am able to see a system that is failing to the employees, especially because I am one, and recognize why they are important. So you go girls!

In mentioning work I have made two resolutions involving work over the past two weeks. The first one is that when I am travelling for work but not actually working the flight I will no longer be travelling in uniform. I wear that same suit over and over and I am overtired with it. This is not common but it is allowed at my company so now I really feel like I am just getting paid to ride on planes. Yay! The second resolution is to pack as light as possible unless I am sure to be bringing back shopping conquests (not unheard of). It is so nice to carry light small luggage instead of lugging giant bags everywhere I go. I need to buy a little 18" roller and do away with my 22".

I also started the blog you are reading right now!

Have a nice weekend and come back Monday. No really. Come back. Read. Comment.

PSA for Creepy Gross Bugs

Bugs and I have an interesting relationship. I have no problem with bugs in general and for the most part leave them alone or remove them to the outside where they can live and be free. I do though take offense to bugs that touch me. The amount of offense is completely relative to the size and over all creepiness of the bug. Ants are very low on the offensiveness scale where as anything larger than a quarter or with more than 8 legs will probably end up crushed.

With that in mind I would like to share a story with the world.

Two weeks ago my heroic boyfriend and I were attending a destination wedding in Greece. I highly recommend to everyone that you visit the Greek islands sometime during the span of your life. I was looking for good descriptors for my feelings on the situation and settled on:



And that one is just one of literally hundreds of pictures and doesn't even have the landscape in it!

Well on the last morning of our stay I woke up at 4 AM. This is odd since I still had half an hour before my alarm was to bludgeon me into showering and getting dressed to fly away. My arm hurt. It hurt a lot. It hurt like someone had the ink cartridge of a cheap ballpoint pen that had been dipped (and magically mantained its shape) in hydrocloric acid and was pressing it into either my radius or ulna. I can't ever remember which is which.

So I went into the bathroom to look at my arm. It looked fine. In my tired state I went back and looked at where I had been sleeping. Nothing seemed out of place. Except my arm really hurt. Sigh. Back into the bathroom. I pinch the place on my arm that hurts. Two small blood spots form. Puncture wounds. OH. MY. GOD. SOMETHING IS IN THE BED.

I hurry back to the bed. My boyfriend has rolled to my side of the bed. Not Good.

"Sweetheart, I need you to get up"

"Huh?"

"Sweetheart something has bit or stung me and I need to find it and my arm really hurts."

He gets up and stands there as I proceed to rip the bed apart. I throw back the blanket. Nothing. Throw my pillow. Nothing. Pull back the sheet. Nothing. As I am attempting to look behind the headboard my boyfriend says,

"Maybe you are going crazy... oh wait, no!"

At which point I look back just in time to see an enormous centipede crawl out of my pillow case. I left the room and told my boyfriend to kill it. He is my hero by the way. The only pictures I have of all of this are what remained of that monster.



The beer can is there for size reference. I'm estimating about six inches long and over half an inch wide. It was not a good way to start the day to say the least. My boyfriend had to beat it repeatedly until it fell off the bed since the bed was not soft enough for the beating to do any real damage and then once it was on the floor managed to avenge my poor arm.

And the moral of the story direct from my boyfriend's telling of the story, "Screw with my boyfriend and get crushed."

This is a warning to all large and nasty bugs out there. Beware.

Musing 1

As I sit in my hotel room with an excessive amount of time to kill I have decided to write a blog. You can of course see this. I am thinking that because I spend lots of time in similar hotels looking out windows that if nothing else I can learn to type WHILE looking out the window. That is like a typing +5 skill. So let me begin.

Prelude:

I am 25. I believe Scandinavian/Anglo mutt classifies me as white though my boyfriend will likely protest and explain that white people burn and I tan. I am male and thus clearly homosexual. I live in Chicago and though I am told it is not actually called the windy city for reasons of air pressure systems we are quickly approaching the season where I will have to disagree. With all that in mind it may be better to get to know me through a series of stories.

Chapter 1:
(The Emergence of Vanity)

When I was around four maybe five my parents lived in a nice little neighborhood in Austin, Tx. We lived on one end of a cul-de-sac and on the opposite side lived a slightly older boy whose name I believe was Jeffrey. Jeffrey and I had a very straight forward friendship meaning I wanted to be his friend and play together and he wanted to see me cry. Everyday I would go over there and then during the course of playing he would say something mean to me and I would go home in tears. I think he told me once his family was moving to Alaska so I could never play with him EVER again. I am fairly certain they did not move to Alaska. Texans would not be able to drive in Alaska. Rumors of snow send Texans into a frenzy and they act like it is Armageddon. Anyway...

I was the rare child born with an extreme fear that I had ALREADY done something wrong and in order to convince me all anyone had to do was look at me funny and I would be standing in the corner in repentance. My parents loved this about me because discipline was fantastically simple to administer. Jeffrey loved this because he very often achieved his goal of basking in my tears. My parents did not understand why I continued going to Jeffery's house to play.

Then one day I came home smiling. My parents were vastly confused. This had never happened before. I had gone over to Jeffery's house to play Nintendo. I thought this was unimaginably cool since I had not yet acquired any sort of gaming system. Some while into playing Mario Jeffery decided his sharing ability had reached maximum share capacity and he took the controller back. I was used to this behavior but for some reason this day the creative problem solving juices in my head coagulated into a brand new solution:

Jeffrey does something mean.
James cries and runs home.
Nothing changes.
Repeat.

Why am I crying about this all the time? Wait... Why am I even here right now?

So I stood up and started to leave. Jeffery had not only not expected this but seemingly felt slighted. He began to get angry. I believe my response went something along the lines of, "If you are going to be bad I can play at home." Which I promptly did.

Now I love this story for two reasons. The first is because I seem like a really cool smart and well behaved child. The second is because my dad loves this story and loves to tell it to me and this is possibly the beginning of how I ended up so full of myself now. Man I was an awesome kid.