Days of My Life

String Renaissance

2010-07-06T17:28:00.002-06:00

I am pleasantly surprised by the number of shows I've seen lately that include some sort of classical string instrument. It started a few months ago when I saw Bon Jovi's Unplugged show on Palladia which started off the show using a string ensemble for "Livin' on a Prayer", and various violin accompaniment through other songs.

Then, last week, one of my trumpet friends was in town touring with Jazz Mafia on the Brass, Bows, and Beats show. It was our first show at Le Poisson Rouge, the relatively new basement venue in the Village. What an excellent setting for a show with 40 musicians including a full big band, small string orchestra, large/complicated rhythm section, and multiple Hip Hop/R&B singers up front. This show was so good an innovative I would not be surprised if they are in the running for a Grammy. You should definitely see BBB if it comes to your area.

Then, I head off to the Montreal Jazz Festival where we saw Matt Herskowitz performing music from his Jerusalem Trilogy album. He's a pianist in a Jazz Trio, and he was doing some absolutely crazy stuff, like "Prokofiev's Revenge", a jazz piece arranged on Prokofiev's Etude in C minor, opus 2 number 3. If you don't know how hard this is, check out a Youtube Recording. Then go buy his album because it's insane. Also performing with him in Montreal (and on the album) is Lara St. John on Violin. Wow! These pieces were just incredible.

On Saturday night, Elisapie Isaac pleased us with some sexy rock vocals in a well thought-out and entertaining production which also included a string quartet!

I am very much liking the inclusion of string instruments all these various genres lately.

Porxperience

2010-03-07T23:04:00.003-07:00

You heard it here first people. Last week while review The Red Cat I coined a new term, "Porxperience", which means "transcendent pork-based dining experience". It is a much more general term than something like "orgiastic porkfest", which would be much more extreme and have a relatively higher poundage of pork than a typical porxperience.

Go forth and enrich thy lives through porxperiental learning.

Interdisciplinary Studies

2010-03-02T20:15:00.002-07:00

As long as I can remember I've always been a generalist. There's never been one topic that I wanted to drill down and become the world's foremost expert in. My fascination and interest has drifted all over the place from music performance to dance to scuba diving to sailing to.... you get the idea. And so it is that I've come to be interested in books and TV shows that are written to incorporate many disciplines. Watching a show like The Wire which incorporates studies of at-risk youth, police structures, drug dealers and how they interact with other entities like shipping ports, and the media is far more interesting than watching a show in which each episode is entirely self-contained. Similarly with The Sopranos, incorporating concepts of business, leadership, psychology, family issues, and studies of organized crime.

I've read a few books recently which are strongly inter-disciplinary in nature and that I've found incredibly interesting. First was Freakonomics and its sequel SuperFreakonomics. The goal of these books is to apply the tools of economists to problems that economists rarely think about. Detecting cheating school-teachers, economic implications of the Roe v. Wade decision, what really is happening in the global warming space if you ignore the stupid politics of the situation, etc. Using the tools of mathematics with complete disregard for moral and political considerations can apparently tease out very interesting conclusions. If you're a thinking person and haven't read these, you should.

In the social space, Sudhir Venkatesh is generating a ton of research by studying the culture of inner city (south side) Chicago. Academic anthropologists and sociologists traditionally spent their time studying new, foreign cultures outside of the Western sphere and nobody spent much time in the trenches of inner-city America. Probably because it is such a dangerous place to hang out. But Venkatesh did it, and wrote a very interesting book called "Gang Leader for a Day". It's a great read and captures the imagination as he basically lives as a distanced observer inside of Chicago gang culture. Lots of analysis of the culture using the tools of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and economics. If you like it, you can attempt to tackle his "Off the Books" dissection of the Underground Economy, but it isn't for everyone. Then you can go on to watching The Wire and BET's documentary series American Gangster.

My current read, Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy is a fascinating look at how we experience music. It starts with the evolutionary biology of the human ear, how that translates into signals in our brain, the different pieces of our brain involved in music, and the mathematics and psychology in how we experience music (broken down into rhythms, melodies, harmonies, etc.).

For example, the human brain is really good at categorizing information (which is why we tend to generalize and then group our experiences of the world together) but we can't keep track of that many categories for any given topic of information. Hence, why our musical scale is broken down into 12 categories (notes), because when we hear a tone we need to generalize it and see which category it falls into (is it A-flat? or F-sharp?) It would be unworkable to have categories like A-flat-flat-sharp-flat or A-sharp-sharp-flat-sharp, our brain just couldn't deal with the complexity. Even though we can tell the difference between all those notes if they are played next to each other, we can't hear one of them and accurately categorize it differently from the other. The analogy given in the book is like picking out paint for your house at a paint store. You can tell the difference between all the various gradations of light red for example, but if given one of the gradations you probably wouldn't be able to name exactly which one it is without a serious amount of previous training on the topic.

Also interesting is that the human brain experiences things in relative ways. So if an orchestra tunes to A-430, A-440, or A-450, as long as all the relative pitches are in tune to that one our brains will be equally pleased by the performance. My intuition is that the way we live our lives is very similar. People in Manhattan are just fine living in tiny cramped apartments that are expensive, yet it would be crazy to live like that in Fort Collins because none of your peers/contemporaries there would live like that. Imagine trying to tell a potential date that you are a subsistence hunter-gatherer living in a teepee... they would look at you like you were crazy. Unless of course you were living 400 years ago on the plains, and then having the biggest teepee could be very appealing. So the fact that the human brain works on relative principles has all kinds of applications, even to music.

Then there are just surprising things that you never would have guessed (like Freakonomics!). People with no musical training experience mostly through their left ear and via the right hemisphere of the brain. As you develop more and more musical training this starts to migrate across to the point where professional musicians overwhelmingly use their right ear and the left half of the their brain. This is where we store and analyze patterns and progressions, and since professionals have essentially developed a library of sounds, patterns, note/chord progressions, and common rhythms, this is where they experience the music.

So anyway, if you're like me and want to see a topic looked at from many different angles and disciplines, there's a few places to start.

Elvis Lives!

2010-02-22T00:41:00.003-07:00

I know I haven't written much lately, but what better to get me back to it than a Vegas trip? I'm in town for IBM Pulse and decided to have a little fun the night before the event begins. So, I headed over to the new CityCenter that I've been reading so much about. I have to say, I've been to Vegas at least 20 or 25 times and I thought I'd seen it all, but it's hard to describe the feeling when you turn off the strip to walk up to CityCenter. It is a very clean, futuristic design and there are so many buildings in the complex. If somebody built something like this in Manhattan it would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Tonight was the premiere of the new Viva Elvis Cirque du Soleil show. Like I said, I've been here a lot and seen all the other Cirques in Vegas. This was far and away the most entertaining Vegas show I've ever seen in my few short years. Cirque is always impressive, but there are so many things to be impressed by in this one.

Unlike the Beatles Love show, all the music in Viva is performed by a live band with great horn, rhythm, and guitar sections (the drummer is particularly energetic and fun to watch). Various tracks have recordings of Elvis singing along with the band and sometimes even performing duets with a live female singer on stage. Also, there's a giant video screen backing the show to show photos and video clips of Elvis.

Essentially, the show is structured around the timeline of Elvis' life. Here's a bunch of the numbers, at least as many as I can remember:

A giant robotic blue suede show rolls around the stage while couples lindy hop and do aerials

A giant hollow Guitar Trapeze descends from the rafters while two male trapeze artists do ridiculous moves around the guitar

Trampoline stuff (like the Love performance but more people and more trampolines)

Footage of Elvis going to the Army, while a recording of Elvis sings a duet of "Love me Tender" with a live female singer

A full marching band drumline enters the stage and the dancers perform a step routine in army outfits

Lots of stuff related to Elvis' movie career. There's a Western routine with people doing crazy pistol and lasso twirling

A rundown of all of Elvis' movie women

Psychadelic 60's Bossa Nova

It wouldn't be Vegas without Pole Dancing, but of course it is done in crazy Cirque style. Absolutely ridiculous.

Roller Skating and Ballet Dancing

Vegas show style finale (since that's how Elvis went out), complete with showgirls covered in feathers and crazy feather headpieces

Like I said, a true variety and something for everybody. If you like Elvis music and various forms of dance, you have to see this show. I got lucky I think since it was opening night and a Sunday, because I bought a cheap seat up in the balcony but they closed the balcony and moved me down to about 10th row center. Definitely the way to go if you can swing it.

The holiday music is upon us!

2009-12-12T11:22:00.003-07:00

This is one of those amazing weekends that you couldn't do anywhere but NYC. 3 completely different holiday concerts with top-notch musicians, preceded by great restaurants. It started off last night with dinner at A Voce, one of the newly-minted Michelin restaurants in Columbus Circle. Wycliffe Gordon and Niki Haris (Gene Harris' Daughter) were playing New Orleans style holiday Jazz at Lincoln Center. Wycliffe is a very well rounded musician (no pun intended), alternating between trombone, sousaphone, piano, and singing, and the other cats like Marcus Printup were on fire too.

Tonight we take a totally different tack. We'll be trying another of the new 1-star Michelin Restaurants, Rhong Tiam, which is the only Thai restaurant on the starred list in NYC, and then seeing the Bach Christmas Oratorio at Carnegie Hall with Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec. I've never seen this piece performed but it is supposed to be epic, and where better to see it than Carnegie Hall?

Sunday is yet again something completely different. The principal brass of the New York Philharmonic join with the West Point Brass Band to play some holiday brass music. I went to see this last year when they paired with the Canadian Brass, and I'm going to make this concert an annual tradition. Even by NYC standards this is going to be a great weekend!

New York City is a Constellation of Magic Moments

2009-05-06T08:12:00.004-06:00

I've been going through the New York City Documentary and that was one line that stood out to me. This past week has been filled with all kinds of activities that would never happen this close together, except in NYC. Here's what I did last week:

New York Philharmonic plays Pines of Rome. An excellent production, and they even brought in extra brass to play in the two antiphonal lofts above the stage.

Renee Fleming and Anne-Sophie Mutter played music of Andre Previn in Carnegie Hall to celebrate Previn's 80th birthday. Previn himself conducted, and it was music that he had composed specifically for these two artists previously.

Nathan Lane and John Goodman star in Waiting for Godot. I had never read this before but I did read the play before going to see it. It's worth reading, go check it out from the library. Some have called itthe most significant play of the 20th century. If it doesn't make you think about how you're spending your days, go get the cliff notes.

The Good Guy was so popular at the TriBeCa Film Festival that they added an extra showing of it, so I went to see that. It's a very cool NYC story, and the writer/director Julian DePietro was present after the movie to do a Q&A about how he came up with the concept, what production was like, etc.

NYC Ballet performed The Firebird. I'd performed the music for this several times and it remains one of my favorite symphonic pieces, but I'd never seen the ballet performed. NYC ballet always has great costumes and set designs, and of course amazing dancers. In fact the backdrops and costumes for NYC Ballet were originally designed by Chagall. We had dinner at one of Manhattan's best Korean restaurants, Cho Dang Gol. Great food, and bottles of korean rice wine are only $7 right now!

Dinner at Picholine, one of NYC's few 2-star Michelin restaurants. We followed this by seeing Joshua Bell perform the Saint-Saens Violin Concerto #3. He has been called a living legend, and I can definitely understand why. He is without a doubt the best violin player I've ever seen live. If you ever get a chance to see him, take it, even if you're not really into classical music. It's so rare to see someone this good at anything.

God of Carnage, starring James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, and Hope Davis.

Sophocles said that you have to wait until the evening to tell whether or not it was a good day. Looking back on the week I'd say it was one of my best weeks in NYC so far.

Frankie Manning, May 26, 1914 - April 27, 2009 RIP

2009-04-27T21:25:00.002-06:00

Frankie Manning was one of the original creators of the Lindy Hop. He was the first dancer to perform an "aerial", like those dancers in the Gap commercial that supposedly got everyone interested in swing dancing again. He continued to travel and teach into his 90s, and had an impact on an unimaginable number of people, including myself.

I spent a good portion of my 20s dancing in the SF area and also traveling around the country on weekends to Lindy Exchanges, where dancers from around the country all meet up in one city for an insane weekend of dancing and partying. I attended a Frankie Manning workshop in 2002, and got to meet Frankie there. Think of all the people who not only learned from him directly, but learned from the teachers who learned from him, and so on. That is probably tens of thousands of people who will end up making enduring friendships, relationships, families, etc., because of the dedication he had to the dance and teaching it to anyone who wanted to learn.

If you haven't read his book, check it out. It's a great history of dancing and big bands from an earlier generation. Frankie, you changed our lives in an amazing way and you will be missed!

Overheard at Newark Airport

2009-03-14T09:28:00.002-06:00

According to the guy talking on his cell phone next to me at the gate, farting while you go through one of those air-blowing airport security machines does not signal an alarm. Just in case any of you were worried about that.

People are weird.

German Excellence

2009-03-02T23:14:00.002-07:00

No, I'm not talking about the new BMW 335d diesel sedan. This week is the grand opening of the newly remodeled Alice Tully Hall and Lincoln Center. Apparently many of the concerts were sold out well in advance because all price levels were set at $25 for opening week. There were some tickets left for tonight's 10:30pm performance, so I decided to go see the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen perform Beethoven's First and Seventh symphonies.

Wow. Double wow. First of all, this new Chamber Music Hall sounds amazing. Finally, a concert hall with acoustics deserving of New York City. I wish the NY Philharmonic would build a hall that sounds this nice. Second, any audience who comes to see a show at 10:30pm on a Monday night when NYC received a foot of snow earlier in the day REALLY REALLY wants to be there. The performers knew that, and there was this amazing energy on stage and in the crowd. Even though it was the group's second performance of the evening, they appeared refreshed and extremely energetic, as well as on top of their game. Finally, their trumpet section was playing on baroque trumpets, something I've never seen in a live performance. They were so bright and brassy with all those extra harmonics, especially at the end of the 7th symphony.

They received a standing ovation after the first part of the show, and 4 standing ovations at the end of the show. The only time I have ever seen this was when the Berliner Philharmoniker played Firebird Suite. The conductor decided to play an encore, probably because he thought it was the only way to get the audience to stop clapping.

If the promoters decide to put on more shows like this, I'll probably end up subscribing next season. I'm definitely looking forward to future concerts in Alice Tall Hall.

I do miss CA winters

2009-02-24T15:29:00.003-07:00

Not that San Diego in February actually counts as "winter" for what most people think of as "winter". But it does mean you can wear shorts and go sailing, which is exactly what we did. My college roommate was getting married and for their wedding gift we organized a sailing trip out into San Diego harbor.

We hired a professional captain (she wears a pirate hat and flies a jolly roger), which meant we could actually just kick back with some excellent Temecula wine and some nice Charcuterie to enjoy the beatuiful sunset at Point Loma. Then we came back towards downtown at night to take a close look at the USS Midway which is permanently moored in San Diego, as well as Larry Ellison's huge trimaran which has caused so many legal issues here in New York Federal Court.

It was somewhere between 0 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit that week, so we were happy to be enjoying the southern CA climate. Check out the photos.

Ahoy!

2009-02-09T13:10:00.004-07:00

I recently returned from a week of sailing in the Grenadines and Grenada. It wasn't as sunny as we expected and there were rain showers almost every day, but I actually think I liked that. Many of us on the boat were working on our Advanced Coastal Cruising Certification and having to sail in strong, gusty winds and rain was good practice. Also, it can get uncomfortably hot in the Caribbean and we didn't have too much of that. I'm happy to say that everyone on the boat passed the exam and earned their ACC!

Here's the rundown from my sailing log. Our vessel was a 50 foot Beneteau named "Myrtle". She treated us well and got us to our destinations safely:

Blue Lagoon, St. Vincent to Prickly Bay, Grenada. 85 NM (Nautical Miles) This was an overnight sail for us to earn the ACC. There was no moonlight and very little view of the horizon, so everyone felt sick. Some launched their dinners over the lifelines. We were 5 miles offshore for most of the sail and very little light pollution so the view of the stars was absolutely incredible.

Prickly Bay, Grenada to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. 48 NM.

Tyrell Bay, Carriacou to Clifton, Union Island. 10 NM.

Clifton, Union Island to Tobago Cays. This is only 4 NM but we took the long was around and spent a lot of time practicing anchoring with two anchors. The rest of the Manhattan Sailing Club was in Tobago Cays so we spent the night partying with them, then stayed up until 2am taking the ACC written exam

Tobago Cays to Admiralty Bay, Bequia. 26 NM. Bequia was one of the more developed islands we visted in the Grenadines. Multiple hotels, lots of good restaurants and shops. If you have a chance to visit and are craving something that reminds you of NYC, try the lobster pizza at Mac's Pizza. Delish.

Admiralty Bay, Bequia to Blue Lagoon, St. Vincent. 8 NM. It felt good to take a shower on land.

Feel free to check out the trip photos. There are also several overlays from our GPS on Google Earth if you want to see the sailing routes we took.

What to do when it is cold outside

2009-01-15T22:51:00.002-07:00

Today is the coldest day of the winter so far in NYC. It is forecasted to get down to 6 degrees. Naturally, your activities change when it gets that cold outside. Let me just point out that if your airplane were going to crash in the Hudson river, today is a really bad day for it. Why not do it in the dead of August? Of course I can make that joke because everybody survived, thankfully.

I am cooped up in my apartment reading Anathem, Neal Stehpenson's latest novel. Every Neal Stephenson novel gets progressively more complicated and hard to follow. The trilogy is hard to follow because it is based on so much 17th century history that unless you actually have a PhD in World History you probably don't get all the allusions and humor. Even then probably not. But Anathem takes place way way way in the future, so many of the words are completely made up.

But now I'm 300 pages in, I understand the terminology, and a story is finally starting to develop. These monks are so smart and rational that they say things that sound funny even though they're not trying to be funny. My favorite line so far is, "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."

If that doesn't make you laugh then I don't know why you even read my blog.

NYC Excellence

2009-01-06T00:09:00.003-07:00

This blog is a roundup of some of the excellent experiences I've had in New York in the past month.

First of all, I've really been enjoying the New York Philharmonic's program of doing all 6 Brandenburg Concertos throughout the year. As a lover of baroque music I was happy to be able to see all 6 during my first season in NYC. I've also been sampling the Met Operas. As a newcomer to Opera I wasn't sure which ones I would like or where in the house I might like to sit, so I purchased different sections for each show.

Recently we attended Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, a 3-act opera with a running time of 5.5 hours. This was my fourth opera, and I think the 2nd act is perhaps the finest opera I've ever seen. The first and third acts are necessary plotwise but not as spectacular.

For our Christmas eve activity we attended the NYC Ballet Nutcracker production, which had a stunning set, top-notch dancers and wonderful musicians. I thought it was good when I saw it in San Francisco several years ago but the NYC group really took it to another level. I haven't bought any of the other ballets for this year but after seeing the Nutcracker I may have to reconsider that.

Then to celebrate the coming of the new year we had a mouth-watering meal at Le Bernardin, one of the world's top seafood restaurants. New York City has only 4 3-star Michelin Restaurants and this is one of them (You can see the list here). Not going to restaurants like this very often we went all out and had the Chef's Tasting Menu with wine pairings. You can see Pictures of the meal. Here are the 8 courses:

1. Salmon-Caviar. Thinly Pounded Smoked Salmon Carpaccio; Toasted Brioche and Caviar. Paired with Ginja Shizuku – Divine Droplets, Junmai Daiginjo Sake.

2. Spanish Mackerel. Seared Spanish Mackerel; Parmesan Crisp and Sun-Dried Tomato; Black Olive Oil. Paired with Godello – Vina Godeval, Valdeorras 2006.

3. Calamari. Sauteed Calamari filled with Sweet Prawns and Shiitake Mushroom; Calamari Consomme. Paired with Chablis, Champs Royaux – William Fevre 2007.

4. Lobster. Baked Lobster; Salsify; Sauce Gribiche. Paired with Blaufränkisch "Brandkraften" Wenzel, Neusiedlersee-Hügelland, Austria 2002.
5. Escolar. White Tuna Poached in Extra Virgin Olive Oil; Sea Beans and Potato Crisps; Light Red Wine Béarnaise. Paired with Nuits Saint-Georges, Vieilles Vignes, Daniel Rion 2003.

6. Black Bass. Crispy Black Bass; Braised Celery and Parsnip Custard; Iberico Ham-Green Peppercorn Sauce. Paired with Rioja, Reserve ‘Vina Ardanza’, La Rioja Alta 2000.

7. Fig. Roasted Fig, Goat Cheese Parfait, Hazelnut, Red Wine Caramel, Bacon Ice Cream. Paired with Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, Gabriel Meffre, Rhone Valley 2006.

8. Chocolate-Olive Oil. Dark Amedei Chocolate Ganache, Toasted Bread, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Maldon Sea Salt. Paired with Zinfandel "Late Harvest" – Dashe Cellars, Dry Creek Valley 2006.

Quite possibly the best meal of my life. Part of why I live in Queens instead of Manhattan is because having that $800 rent difference allows me to eat meals like that and not feel completely idiotic about it. After dinner was a NY Phil concert including Brandenburg #2 (The piccolo trumpet one!) and "Pictures at an Exhibition". Philip Smith did a great job on the Brandenburg and the rest of the show was excellent as well.

Tonight I went to see the New York Rangers play the Pittsburgh Penguins at Madison Square Garden. We had good seats in the 200-level and saw plenty of action. The Rangers won 4-0 and a fight that had to have lasted 30 seconds broke out in the 3rd period between Colton Orr and Eric Godard.

I'm about to wrap up my 1st year in New York City and I think I can safely say I'm really enjoying it here. Lots

New York City Fall Photos

2008-10-24T12:02:00.004-06:00

Following up my amazing NYC evening last night, I decided to label some photosets from the past couple of months. We did a couple more of the Frommer's walking tours in NYC:

NYC Upper East Side

Harlem

Then George and I went to our last game at Yankee Stadium. Of course they're opening a new Yankee stadium this year, but it was our chance to say goodbye to the historic house that Ruth built.

A group of us went sailing on Long Island Sound for Sonia's birthday. The trip took place on a 30' Mirage sailboat, leaving from Echo Bay in New Rochelle. We sailed all day, anchored off in Lloyd Harbor for the evening and had a fantastic dinner on the boat (crabcakes and salmon pasta!). In the morning we watched the sunrise and motored over to Northport for breakfast, then sailed back to New Rochelle.

My old roommate J from San Francisco came out for some lindy-hopping at Y10A and while he was here we spent an afternoon at Fort Tryon Park and the Cloisters Museum. The Cloisters Museum is really interesting, with whole rooms and pieces brought over from Europe and rebuilt in beautiful Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan.

Best. Concert. Ever!

2008-10-24T00:33:00.003-06:00

Wow. It's all I can say. I just saw, hands down, the finest jazz concert of my entire life thus far. Perhaps for the rest of my life, I'm not really sure. Tonight was the "Big Band Bash", hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center. Simultaneously on one stage were the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis dueling against the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra from California. They took turns trading songs for the first half of the show. LCJO would play an avant-garde piece like Ted Nash's "Dali" (his impressions of Salvador Dali synesthetically turned into music), and then CHJO would swing hard on a piece like "I Be Serious 'Bout Dem Blues". Back to LCJO playing an amazingly textured version of "Rhapsody in Blue", and then to CHJO's band leader bowing the jazz concerto "Emily" on Upright Bass. The second half of the show was the two groups jamming together, all the winds and pianos (dual grand pianos) together with the two rhythm sections trading off, culminating in "Battle Royal" which was actually done when the Duke Ellington and Count Basie orchestras were dueling 50 years ago.

By random chance, one of the LCJO trumpet players Marcus Printup was playing at the Y10A Friday night event last week, and I got a chance to chat with him for a while after the gig was over. I mentioned we would be coming to see him at LCJO in a few days and he said "Oh, drop by backstage then." So, I did, and I happened to run into Wynton Marsalis. What an amazing end to an already amazing concert!

Of course, we finished the evening with dessert at Cafe Lalo.

New York City, 8 months Later

2008-09-01T11:15:00.003-06:00

My apologies, dear readers, for such a long downtime. The fun part of living in New York City is that there is so much to do. The bad part about living in New York City is that there is so much to do, which makes it hard to find time to sit down and write about it.

In my attempt to be somewhat more organized at understanding my current home, I've purchased a Frommer's "Memorable Walks in New York" book. The goal is to attack each one of the tours in the book, after which I should have a good understanding of the various neighborhoods around New York. I've done the first two tours which represent Lower Manhattan/Financial District and Chinatown. I did my best at photo-chronicling each site mentioned in the book and accompanying them with my famous witty comments. And by "witty" I of course mean "makes myself laugh".

For completeness, here is a list of the sites in the Frommer's Book with wikipedia links for reference:

Lower Manhattan / Financial District:

1. US Customs House
2. Bowling Green Park
3. Bronze Bull
4. Fraunces Tavern Museum
5. New York Stock Exchange
6. Federal Hall National Memorial
7. Wall Street
8. Trinity Church
9. Jean Dubuffet's Group of Four Trees
10. Isamu Noguchi's 1967 The Red Cube
11. Ground Zero
12. Kalikow Building
13. St. Paul's Chapel
14. Woolworth Building
15/16. City Hall Park / City Hall
17. Tweed Courthouse
18. Surrogate's Court (Hall of Records)
19. Manhattan Municipal Building
20. AFrican Burial Ground National Monument

Chinatown:

1. Golden Pacific National Bank
2. Vegetable Sellers
3. HSBC Bank
4. Manhattan Bridge
5. Confucius Plaza
6. Edward Mooney House
7. Statue of Confucius
8/9. Doyers Street / Bloody Angle
10. Mott Street
11. Good Fortune Gifts, Inc.
12. Sinotique
13. Church of the Transfiguration
14. Ming Fay Book Store
15. Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
16. Eastern States Buddhist Temple of America
17. Kam Man Food, Inc.
18. Museum of Chinese in America
19. Columbus Park
20. Kimlau War Memorial
21. First Shearith Israel Graveyard
22. Mariner's Temple
23. First Chinese Presbyterian Church
24. East Broadway Mall
25. Chinatown's Wild West

In addition to exploring inside the city, I'm also trying to start exploring the nature outside of the city. Photos from a recent hiking trip to Bear Mountain State Park are up as well.

Jeers for Hertz

2008-03-03T19:26:00.002-07:00

Anybody who knows me knows two things about me: I travel a lot, and I'm absent-minded. These tend to go together, as one who is often rushed while traveling.

It took me forever to find some dress hats that I liked, but I finally found them at the Brooks Brothers in King of Prussia, PA. Fit great, looked great, felt great. Then I left them in the trunk of my Hertz rental car at the Philly train station. Because Hertz isn't open on Saturdays at the train station (WTF?), my key was in the lock box before I realized what I had done. By the time they opened on Sunday the manager of the office was like, "Uhhh... there are no really nice Brooks Brothers hats in the car...."

I realize the mistake was mine, but come on.... this isn't some piece of paper which could be mistaken for trash. It's a bag with obviously new merchandise inside, and something anybody with an IQ of 60 or more would know that I would want back. Hertz either has idiots or thieves working for them. I'm not sure which one is worse.

Boo for Hertz.

A Taste of Philly

2008-02-25T20:41:00.002-07:00

I have been told by several people who used to live in Philadelphia that the two main places to get a Philly Cheesesteak are Pat's and Geno's, which are literally right next door to each other. I was also told that a true Philly version of the sandwich is made with Cheeze-whiz.

We went to Pat's because Geno's is lit-up with neon like a Vegas casino and doesn't (visibly) seem like authentic Philly. There is a sign telling you the rules for ordering. You basically decide if you want onions or not "'With' or 'Without'", and then what kind of cheese you want. It isn't soup-nazi fascism for messing up your ordering technique, but you do have to go to the end of the line if you make a mistake. So, I step to the front and order "With, Whiz". I pay, and then move to the next window to order french fries and a mountain dew (separate windows, separate cashier, separate transaction... don't ask me why).

The sandwich was good, but I gotta throw a shoutout to the Fort Collins favorite A Taste of Philly" who, hands-down, make a much better cheesesteak sandwich than Pat's of Philadelphia. Go Fort Collins!

Fantastically Foo-Fooing the Philly Fire Code

2008-02-24T18:56:00.004-07:00

Before we get to that awesomely alliterative subject, let's talk about why Amtrak rocks. People in CA (especially the people who only go back and forth between LA and SF) love to slam Amtrak for being slow and generally crappy. On the east coast it's totally different. Instead of a $450 flight from NYC to Philly, I took a $100 Amtrak ride that got me to Philly faster. I show up at Penn Station, collect my ticket from the kiosk, walk to my train without going through a security-theatre line, and get right on the train. I had a coach seat with plenty of leg and elbow room and every seat-pair has 2 AC outlets for laptops. It's like it was designed be people who... thought about the design! Amtrak is the only way to travel, and I'll definitely be taking it to DC next week. Plus if it snows you don't have to deal with airport cancellations!

I proceeded to the taxi line, and got into a cab that smelled like beer (Law violation #1). But, I didn't have that far to go, and the streets were pretty clear on an early Sunday morning, so I thought I'd just go for the adventure. I figured he was a functioning drunk, since he didn't seem to be slurring and he knew exactly where he was going. I figured that, that is, until he went the wrong way down a one-way street. Twice. It wasn't too disastrous (as I said, it was early Sunday morning), and we were only caught unawares by two cars.

I started my day in Philly by visiting the Franklin institute. After Rhett lent me the Walter Isaacson biography of Benjamin Franklin (fantastic book, btw) I've been interested in all things Franklin. They had a bunch of his old scientific tools and experiements, as well as a bunch of history on his activities. I also watched several Imax films and visited the Planetarium. Franklin Institute is home to the Benjamin Franklin Monument.

I can't walk around Philadelphia without thinking about National Treasure. Naturally, I headed down Market street to visit the Liberty Bell. An amazing symbol of freedom, there are lots of pictures of famous leaders for freedom with the bell. And now there is one of me with the bell. The inscription of the Liberty Bell is based on Leviticus 25:10, which says, "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family." And to the people who were standing in front of me in line, yes, "Sesqui-centennial means '150 year celebration'".

Across the street from the Liberty Bell is Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the Constitution was deliberated and drafted. After visiting Washington DC I seem to think of all our government buildings as being huge and grand, but this one is just a small little building with a few rooms and some desks arranged for the delegates to sit at. Hard to imagine a room full of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams (both of them), and all the others just sitting together in this small room changing history forever. I read through the entire text of the Declaration of Independence, which I don't think I'd done since High School Academic Decathalon. I recommend anybody reading this post right now to go Read it. I'm sure you don't remember everything it says, and you'll feel better about yourself. We get so used to dumbed-down sitcom writing on TV, and you really have to think about what this is saying to understand it. Seriously. Go read it.

I ended my tour of history with a walk to Washington Square, which is just a small park housing the tomb of the unknown soldier. Apparently it is a mass grave to thousands of revolutionary soliders who were buried there without any markers. It took a bunch of people getting sick and dying for them to figure out a more sanitary way to bury the dead.

Walking around you can kind of imagine these city parks just lined with thousands of soldiers, assembling for duty and marching off to war. It must have been a crazy time, and not having lived through a giant war like that I can't even really imagine it.

I ended the night by visiting a sushi restaurant where the door opens inward. It was a sushi buffet and I was in such a food coma afterwards I was moving slow. There were so many people waiting for tables that it took a while to clear space for me to open the door (inward) so I could get out. I'm pretty sure this is breaking some sort of fire code, as I'm pretty sure if there was a fire we'd have to break the windows to get out. Or is Pennsylvania so big on "freedom from the man" that they don't really have fire codes?

Check out my Philadelphia Photo Set.

Bank accounts in NYC are like sandwiches

2008-02-18T20:18:00.002-07:00

When I moved to NYC I discovered that there aren't really any Wells Fargo branches around, so I joined Chase bank. There are more Chase locations in NYC than Starbucks, which is actually really saying something. However, when I received my ATM in the mail it didn't work, so I went to visit a branch today to reset the PIN on it.

Walking into this great financial institution, I was accosted by a barker who wanted to sign me up for a free checking account. He even had handbills to distribute for some promotion they were running. I asked him if he also had some free entry coupons for a strip club, but I don't think he fully appreciated my sardonic humor.

When I was working with the manager to fix my ATM card I let him know of my distaste for his methods of collecting bank customers. My thoughts in (parenthesis).

Chad: I was surprised to see a barker standing outside a Chase Bank collecting customers
Manager: We still try to maintain an air of exclusivity, but when promotions come down from Corporate we have to do that.

Chad: (Staring blankly -- Yeah, that's BS).
Manager: Plus that guy offered to do it. If you were a manager could you turn that down?

Chad: (Didn't you just tell me you had to do it anyway? Or were you lying?) Well, if I was a manager of a Quizno's I'd jump at it, but not if I was managing a Chase bank.
Manager: (Laughs Uncomfortably)
Chad: (Why don't you dress him up like a giant checkbook. That might get more attention)

I don't know if this is normal for NYC because there are so many pedestrians that it actually works, or if they're just that hardup for customers due to their own subprime stupidity. Either way, I find it distasteful. I might switch to Citibank if it becomes a regular habit for them.

I'm dreaming of a.... black.... Christmas?

2007-12-25T08:56:00.000-07:00

I arrived in San Diego yesterday (Xmas Eve) to celebrate Christmas with my sister, brother in-law, and my new nephew Dylan. Driving around Rancho Bernardo is a trip, because this is where the big fires really hit hard last month. The weather created a perfect storm for this fire, as it was hot, very dry, and the Santa Ana Winds were blowing 70-100 mph spreading the fires over hundreds of miles. Driving around the Westwood neighborhood is a trip because there are empty lots all over the place. On one cul-de-sac a lone house remains standing in the middle, with 4 lots on one side empty and 5 on the other side empty. The surrounding hills are blackened from the fire crawling over them, and you can see where it shot down one hill underneath a freeway overpass and continued along the other side.

They have all kinds of crazy stories about when the evacuation was ordered. My sister was trying to run out to the car and charcoal sized hunks of burning debris were raining down from the hills above. House after house is burning on the way out, and all you can think about is getting to the freeway so you can get downtown for safety. The freeway was closed to the north because the fire was going across I-15 up there, and it was closed to the south because there were fires south of downtown. So the only option was to go to downtown. What if the fires had spread to downtown? Who knows... everybody would have had to run into the ocean to escape the fire I guess. My brother-in-law stuck around the neighborhood for about 12 hours, capturing some amazing video of houses on fire, and of the firefighters kicking in garage doors to put fires out. There was basically just roving patrols looking for houses on fire and then they would call the firetrucks over to put it out so it didn't spread to other houses.

My new nephew is so awesome. He's the first baby in the family, and so really he's the first baby I've ever spent any time with. He doesn't even cry that often. I have no idea what normal is as the only time I see babies is on airplanes and they're crying all the time there. If you want, check out a picture of me and DJ.

I hope everybody's holiday travels went smoothly and you're sipping cocoa or egg nog with family members today!

Tokyo Roundup

2007-11-30T00:03:00.000-07:00

I sit here at Narita airport, waiting to board my flight. The Red Carpet Club has beer dispensing machines that automatically tilt your glass to reduce the foam while filling. Genius. Almost as genius as my hotel room toilet that had heated seats. I don't know why those aren't standard issue in cold states like Colorado.

A few nights ago Adrian took us to Shibuya, a ward in Tokyo that is best described as being likes Times Square. Lots of shops and restaurants, and big tall electronic screens. You might recognize one of the intersections from my photos as being in "Lost in Translation". There are cross walks coming from multiple angles and the intersection is just full of people when it is time to cross the street. We had a really great Korean BBQ dinner, where they just have raw meat sitting out and you pick what you want and cook it on the grill that is built into your table. We had a great time at that dinner, and wandering around Shibuya afterwards.

On our last night in town NEC hosted a Chinese style banquet for all the SCOPE attendees. The food was good, and then we went out for drinks afterwards. We started off at a standard beer joint near the restaurant, and then headed down to a 50s rock and roll bar in Roppongi. This place was made to look just like a post WW2 japanese bar, and the dudes in the band had Elvis style hair. Pretty good singing, and you could request just about any song from the 50s. We had a great time closing this place down.

All in all, I had a great time in Japan. I hope I get to come back and explore things some more when I'm not working during the day. Check out the Full Photo Set.

Why are hotel rooms designed by people who don't stay in hotels?

2007-11-25T17:45:00.001-07:00

I mean, seriously. How hard is it to have a couple (or even just one) power plugs near the desk. They expect you to use your computer because there's an ethernet cable there.

One thing I love about Japanese culture is this focus on specialization. The main idea is that "businesses that focus on many things do nothing well". You don't go into a japanese restaurant and order some tempura, some sushi, some sukiyaki, and some grilled teriyaki chicken. You go to a place that specializes in sushi, or a place that specializes in tempura, or a place that specializes in sukiyaki. We went to a coffee shop where the owner personally flies to south america to inspect the beans himself and negotiate with the farmers directly. I was not able to order regular hot green tea at this coffee shop, as they didn't specialize in it. Are you getting the picture yet?

We went to Akihabara yesterday, which is a mecca for geeks. It is just electronics shops, one right after another. The ones on the main street seem to focus on big name products like cameras or PCs. But if you go off the main street, there are just tiny proprietors who specialize in certain things. One just sold old NES games from 20 years ago. Old sold only old PC components, like 3.5" floppy drives. When was the last time anybody used one of those? But if you need something hard to find, chances are somebody in Akihabara has it.

Another thing about this area is the Maid Bars. This is where the women are dressed up in maid outfits, and each one caters to some sort of specific desire (fetish). The first one we saw was catering to men who like women in glasses. It looked like a Sunglasses hut up front, but with regular prescription glasses. You could pick out the glasses you liked, and then the maid who was serving you would wear them while you were there. Not really my thing, so we kept looking. We ended up going into one that catered to people who like darts called Little PSX. You could sign up to play a game of darts against the waitresses. The list was too long so I didn't play, as we didn't have all night to hang out here (these other guys did, apparently). But it was fun watching, as these geeky guys would get their egos handed to them by these cute girls, who apparently do nothing but play darts all day because they were pros. It was not uncommon for them to nail 1 or 2 bullseyes on every round!

After we finished up there, we headed back to Adrian's neighborhood and had a traditional Japanese dinner, served in 8 courses. There was a steaming box built right into our table, so they just kept bringing food to us and it would cook in there. I got some pictures of some of the courses, but not all of them. It was a great feast. It turns out I like good sake more than I like fine wine. Ordering sake here is like ordering wine in the US... the menus tell you which part of the country the rice came from, as the rice tastes different depending on the climate. I could easily see myself wanting to take sake tasting classes and learning all about it if I ever lived here, which is something I've never wanted to do with wine.

More Pictures Posted.

Yokohama Amusement

2007-11-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

I spent the day with Adrian, Mami (his wife), and Erica (his daughter) going to the Yokohama Sea Paradise amusement park. It's been a long time since I was at an amusement park... probably my sister's birthday 4 years ago when I was still living in Santa Clara. It was a total blast.

Apparently Japan is known for its aquariums (who knew?) and the aquarium at Sea Paradise is extremely impressive. They have a polar bear swimming around, penguins swimming, sea turtles, rays of all kinds, and tons of colorful fish! After the aquarium we saw a dolphin show, and then we went riding on the rides. There is a ride called Blue Drop, very similar to Drop Zone at Great America. The Great America version is 224 feet tall and the Blue Drop is 351 feet tall. Apparently the Japanese also take their thrill rides very seriously!

I also got a chance to play a video game called Taiko no Tatsujin ("Taiko: Drum Master", which is like Guitar Hero but with Taiko drums. Totally fun, and I could see this being nearly as addictive as Guitar Hero. Of course, I've finished with school now so my self-imposed limitation on buying video game consoles has been lifted. I'll probably be getting a PS3 when I get home so I can play Rock Band.

At the end of the day we had some dinner near Shinagawa station. Mostly sushi, but we also had some fried oysters. I also got a chance to eat Scorpion Fish, which is something I've only ever seen on night dives. It's a menacing fish you don't want to mess with, but it wasn't particularly impressive as a meal. Better to just leave them alive for SCUBA divers to look at.

Check out my Tokyo Photo Set.

Thanksgiving in Tokyo

2007-11-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Tokyo last night (Friday), which turned out to be Japanese Thanksgiving Day, which is something more akin to the American Labor Day. I took the Narita Express straight from the airport to Shinjuku Station, an absolutely huge train station which services more than one million people each day. It was a bit overwhelming, and I'm glad he met me there as it would have taken me a while to figure things out.

His wife had reserved us a table at a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, and it turned out to be a very traditional American Thanksgiving meal. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, even pumpkin pie! Turkey is not indigenous to Japan so it had to be imported. I was kind of expecting to have Japanese food, so this was a welcome surprise since I had flown out early Thursday morning and didn't have a chance for a Turkey dinner back home. The one funny part was that the waiter put down a plate of food in front of me, and I kept waiting for him to come back with plates for the others before digging in. It turned out that plate was the food for all of us! So the portions were Japanese-sized, even if the food was traditional American. :) We were all having such a good time that we forgot to get a picture.

Today we will take a day trip to Yokohama, which is a harbor town just south of Tokyo. Several people had told me they wanted to see it, and apparently there's a big aquarium there that my hosts had been wanting to visit so it works out perfectly. Hopefully I'll have some good pictures to post at the end of the day!

Why I hate Frontier Airlines

2007-09-04T07:38:00.000-06:00

This is my story. YMMV.

Frontier is always shouting at the top of their lungs about how good their frequent flier program is. Only 15k miles and you get a free flight! If we required truth in advertising, they'd be forced to say "Only 15k miles and you earn a right to a flight that you might get to use if you book at least 5 months in advance and don't mind flying at the most inconvenient hours!"

Or, like I heard this morning: "You can fly from Denver to Vegas, but you'd have to be routed through Memphis. Oh, and you can't come home until Wednesday."

Fill it up again! Fill it up again! Once it hits your lips, it's so good!

2007-07-21T19:08:00.000-06:00

OK, if you know what movie that is a reference too you get insta-cool points!

I just hooked up my kegerator for the first time and tapped 2 kegs in it! The inaugural beers are from New Belgium: 1554 Brussels Style Black Ale and Sunshine Wheat. I really like darker beers so the 1554 is my favorite New Belgium beer, but I know a lot of people don't so I have the Sunshine Wheat to appease my honored guests.

I'm buzzzinnnn budddddyyyyy!!! (More kudos if you know that reference!)

Orlando here I come!

2007-07-12T23:06:00.000-06:00

I'm heading out to Orlando in the morning for a trumpet lesson with Bill Carmichael, one of the lead trumpet players at Disneyworld. It's been over a year since I visited him last as I had to bail out of my previously scheduled lesson.

Orlando is a hell hole in terms of Summer weather. It is so hot and humid that when I step out of the air-conditioned rental car my glasses instantly fog up. On ancillary benefit of traveling there though is that they have a ton of Steak-n-Shake restaurants. These places serve nothing but the best steak burgers and milk shakes made from real ice cream. And they do it 24/7, which is of course valued by night owls like myself. There are 16 within a 20 mile radius of my hotel.

My itinerary is below:

Fri, Jul 13, 2007
United 1290
Depart: DEN 06:00 AM
Arrive: IAD 11:12 AM

United 1561
Depart: IAD 12:25 PM
Arrive: MCO 02:35 PM
--------------------

Sun, Jul 15, 2007
United 1556
Depart: MCO 09:20 AM
Arrive: IAD 11:25 AM

United 0923
Depart: IAD 12:15 PM
Arrive: DEN 01:49 PM
--------------------

And to you enterprising young businessmen out there... buy the rights to the Fort Collins Steak-n-Shake franchise and open one up. I'll be your first customer!

Seriously... is order fulfillment really that hard of a problem?

2007-07-12T15:08:00.000-06:00

Last weekend I purchased 6 new bar stools from barstools.com for my newly-finished basement bar. Looks like a nice product, it got good reviews, the price was right, and shipping was free.

Of course I don't wake up early in the morning, so I wake up to the sound of the fed ex guy hitting my doorbell 5 times. Maybe I slept through the first couple of times he pushed it. Anyway, I'm bleary-eyed as I open the door and start stacking boxes in my living room. No signature needed apparently, and he just drives off.

When I actually go to look at what I received, I only received 2 of what I ordered and 4 of something totally different. The box is even a different size, which I didn't notice in my half-sleep stupor but it is actually fairly obvious.

Now really... is it that hard to fulfill an order of 6 IDENTICAL PRODUCTS? I don't really know how this stuff works, but I imagine a human being gets handed a piece of paper that says "Chad Tindel: 6 of these" and then has to go through the warehouse and get them put onto a pallet somehow. This isn't a complicated task. You just look at the part number on the piece of paper and make sure it matches the part number on the box to which you're affixing a label. I can't wait until Wal-Mart style automation is ubiquitous, because at least computers are good at comparing two numbers for equality.

At least customer service was cool about it, and said they would immediately ship out 4 more of what I originally ordered. Hooray for barstools.com. Now let's see what gets delivered.

The glamorous life of a road warrior

2007-07-01T09:25:00.000-06:00

Everybody is always telling me how lucky I am to have this job that allows me to travel the world. For the most part I totally agree. I love to travel, see new places, and meet new people. But it isn't all limousines, fancy dinners, and hot chicks. I never ride in limos, I do get fancy dinners every once in a while, and of course the hot chicks are everywhere. And every once in a while you get to experience the sheer hell of dealing with the airline industry when things aren't working correctly. There may be pretty stiff competition between domestic carriers in the US, but there is very little competition over international legs because the big companies have all the international routes locked down.

Let me tell you about my travel experience on this trip. I am on a triangle trip, because I had meetings in San Francisco at the beginning of the week and meetings in Paris at the end of the week. The ticket is a regular coach ticket on United. Something literally goes wrong on every segment of this trip, and the problems get progressively worse each time.

Denver, Friday night, June 22. The 7:30pm flight to SFO is delayed. When the plane finally arrives, there is no cleaning crew available to service the plane, so we wait. Finally we depart, although it would have been faster to get onto the 8:30pm flight which left on time. I have only carry on, so I have no trouble with checked luggage or anything.

San Francisco, Wednesday morning, June 27. I wake up at my SFO airport hotel at 5am and check the united.com site to look at my itinerary. Instead of going through Washington DC to Paris and landing in time for my Monday morning meetings it says I am going from SFO to Chicago, then on to Frankfurt and then Paris and landing at 1:20pm and missing my meetings. Our company travel agents are completely useless at getting onto something better, as apparently all classes of travel are full on every other flight. Ever the optimist, I begin the trip in hopes that I can work out something better along the way. When I arrive at SFO to checkin I ask why the flight we canceled. She looks it up and gets this really confused look on her face when she says, "It was canceled yesterday because of 'no crew'". Fairly certain that I heard her incorrectly I ask, "They canceled a flight 24 hours in advance because there was no crew available to fly from SFO to DC?" "Yes." Absolutely stunned, I get my tickets for my now 2-connection flight and head out.

Seriously. With world travel you can do just about anything in 24 hours. United could fly a damn flight crew in from China in time to make this flight if they wanted to. I have no idea what happened here, because I know it was a full flight when I booked it, so it wasn't like they were making an excuse to cancel an empty flight.

The flight leaves in time, but en route to Chicago a lightning storm starts up and the entire O'hare airport is closed for over an hour to both departures and arrivals. Luckily it opened back up before we got there, otherwise we would have been diverted somewhere else. So we land, and then sit on the taxiway for over an hour because there were no gates for us to disembark from as none of the departing flights could pull away. Finally we get off the plane at 6:15pm, and I go to check the status of the Frankfurt flight which was supposed to depart at 6:30pm. Due to the weather issues, that flight will now be leaving several hours later and I'll get to France at 4pm, almost a full business day later than what I purchased.

This is where the great irony happens. Because all the flights leaving Chicago were delayed, there was now a direct from Chicago to Paris leaving at 7:30pm which I would originally not have had access to because it would leave before I land in Chicago. I go talk to the agent and there are seats available, so she stands me by. I end up getting a seat, which makes me very happy. Did you catch the irony? Because of weather problems which closed down O'hare airport, I was actually going to get to France at 10am instead of 4pm. You can probably count the number of people who can make a statement like that on one hand. They even give me an economy plus aisle seat on the side section, which is my first choice. Of course, since no segment can be perfect, I was the one seat where the personal TV didn't work so I couldn't watch any movies. There were open seats in regular Economy I could go to, but I opted to have the extra leg room.

I finally get to Paris, and have a great time. I will post my Paris writeup later. I don't want to confuse anybody by inserting good stuff into a bitch-fest.

Paris, Sunday morning, July 1. I am happy about this trip because I am flying back through Washington DC and my leg from DC to Denver has been confirmed upgraded to business class. I will get to DEN at 7pm, which means that I have time to get some groceries and still get to bed at a decent hour. Of course I have no idea yet that today will become the worst travel experience of my life.

I get checked in at the United counter, go through passport control and head to the United red carpet club. Around noon they inform us that a catering truck has driven into our plane and damaged it, so we should stick around the lounge until they have more info. At 1pm they say over the loudspeaker "The Air France mechanical crew will not come to work on Sunday. At this point the flight is not yet officially canceled but we are authorized to rebook you onto an Air France flight to New York City, which will get in very late and you will have to stay overnight in NYC. Or, you can stay overnight in Paris and try to fly out tomorrow on United." Since the flight wasn't officially canceled, I'm pretty sure we in the lounge are getting privileged information. I decide to rebook onto the Air France flight before all the people waiting down at the gate find out and mad rush to the ticket counter.

It turns out that the Red Carpet Club in Paris does not have a ticket counter. This is the first such RCC I've ever seen. And there is no ticket counter on our side of passport control, so to get back to the ticket counter I wait in line for 45 minutes at passport control. I did get to chat with a scout master from Ireland who was traveling with all his troops for a camping trip and that seemed to make things move along a bit more. Finally I get back to the United counter, and after waiting in line there for roughly 2 hours I get the approval paperwork to take the Air France flight, which gets me into JFK at 11pm. I have absolutely no confidence that the bags I checked with United will get transferred to Air France, so I will probably have to deal with that in New York. Not only that, the only Denver flight available on Monday is out of La Guardia, so I get to change airports tonight too once I land in NYC.

Paperwork in hand, I take the train over to Terminal 2 where I wait for about an hour to check in and get a seat assignment on Air France. I am so tired of standing in lines it is ridiculous. And I get to do it all over again tomorrow as a fresh passenger from LGA to DEN.

Let's not forget the golden rule that United isn't happy until you're not happy. Given the trend that the problems get worse every segment, I have no idea what is in store for me when I check in at LGA tomorrow morning. Maybe the toilets will backup, sending a river of fecal matter down the aisle. Luckily I am in a window seat on that flight.

United Isn't Happy Until You're Not Happy

2007-06-21T19:21:00.001-06:00

So, I'm supposed to be taking a free flight on Frontier Airlines to Orlando in a few weekends for a trumpet lesson. I have lots of Frontier free flights queued up, and I really want to use them because I absolutely hate Frontier Airlines and their rewards program. You literally have to book out 6 months in advance because they only have 10 rewards seats per plane. Anyway, it turns out my teacher is only available Friday evening as he has Disney World gigs all weekend, and my Frontier flight gets in too late on Friday to allow for that. Of course there are no earlier flights available. So I get my miles re-credited and start shopping around. The cheapest flight Expedia pulls up is $400. Ouch. I prefer to save my United miles for international trips, but if I have to I have to. I certainly don't want to shell out $400 right now. It turns out there are no Economy Saver awards left (for 25k miles), but there are business class seats available for 45k miles. Or I can book a United Economy standard award for 50k miles.... hmmmm.... let me think here....

Does airline ticketing seem backwards to you? Why are empty seats the most expensive immediately before the plane leaves? Don't you think they'd want to sell the empty seats and at least get some revenue? My friend sent me this link:

Sabre Ticketing System

on the Sabre ticketing system. Apparently the airline ticketing system was built in the 1960's and while it has been slightly customized by each airline, it is used by every airline and is still basically still the same code. Probably nobody understands it anymore because the original coders are all dead. At least that makes the nonsense make a little more understandable, if not rational.

And let's not forget about United's computer crash yesterday that wreaked havoc with flights. Maybe they should update that code by using Agile programming methods like SCRUM to do some Aspect Oriented Programming on Ruby-on-Rails. Can they run Linux on their system? OK, that's enough buzzword BINGO for today.

Roodulph zee Red-Nused Intree-a

2007-05-07T17:34:00.000-06:00

I erreefed seffely in Stuckhulm tudey. Effter getteeng 4 huoors ooff sleep beffure-a zee Berkstuck rued treep, getteeng nu mure-a thun 4 huoors iech neeght in Nebreska, und nut sleepeeng et ell oon zee fleeght, I ves ixhoosted. Heeltun deedn't hefe-a a ruum efeeeleble-a vhee I gut zeere-a, boot zee muneger ves tutelly cuul und hed sume-a breekffest sent up tu zee ber vhere-a I ves veeeting. Oonce-a my ruum ves reedy, I creshed fur a shurt nep (6 huoors). My meend vesn't reelly fooncshuneeng pruperly und I ves sterteeng tu shoot doon, su it felt reeeeeellllllllllly guud.

Oonce-a zee soon vent doon eruoond 9:30pm, I heeded oooot tu Oold Toon Stuckhulm fur deenner. Oold Toon is a leettle-a islund in betveee zee meeen perts ooff Stuckhulm und is oonly a foo blucks frum zee Heeltun. Pretty neece-a luceshun ectooelly. I inded up et Glenffeeddich Verehuoose-a 68 vhere-a zeey serfe-a Glenffeeddich oooot ooff vuud berrels veet a ledle-a. My meeen cuoorse-a ves a medeeoom rere-a reeendeer tenderlueen. Thees ves zee must tender coot ooff meet I'fe-a ifer hed in my inture-a leeffe-a. Cuuked perffectly und serfed veet a putetu ceke-a oon zee seede-a, I veshed it doon veet a lucel stuoot.

I leeke-a Stuckhulm.
Bork Bork Bork!

Woodstock for Capitalists

2007-05-03T23:40:00.000-06:00

This weekend I get to go to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder's meeting. For the uninitiated, BH is the company run by Warren Buffett, the 3rd richest man in the world. Warren is an amazing businessman, and his uncanny ability to predict what will happen in the future has earned him the title "Oracle of Omaha". Some people buy just one share of stock so they can attend this annual meeting to find out what he'll say. One share of Class-A stock BRK-A is roughly $110,000. One share of Class-B stock BRK-B is about $3600. I'm part of a group of students that help invest a portion of the University of Denver endowment, and our fund (Marsico Fund) has 10 shares of BRK-B. This means we get to send 4 people to the annual meeting. It's anyone's guess how long Warren will continue to run BH, so this is really a once in a lifetime opportunity to go. This is going to be a fun roadtrip, even if it means driving all the way across Nebraska. For those of you who keep a globe in your cube and want to see where exactly Omaha is, check out this Google Map.

From Omaha I head directly to Sweden for some HP business that I can't really disclose in public. But just in case there's a plane crash and those of you that know me want to know if I'm on that flight, here is my itinerary:

(Flight) 6 - 7 May 2007: Omaha (OMA) to Stockholm (ARN)
- Leg 1: Omaha (OMA) to Chicago (ORD)
  - United Airlines Flight 992
  - Departs Omaha 12:59pm
  - Arrives Chicago 2:29pm
- Leg 2: Chicago (ORD) to Stockholm (ARN)
  - United Airlines Flight 9358
  - Departs Chicago 4:25pm
  - Arrives Stockholm 7 May 7:45am

7 - 13 May 2007: Hilton Stockholm, Slussen Location
- Phone Number: + 46-8-517-353-00(To dial from the US dial 011- 46-8-517-353-00)

(Flight) 13 May 2007: Stockholm (ARN) to Denver (DEN)
- Leg 1: Stockholm (ARN) to Newark (EWR)
  - United Airlines Flight 9369
  - Departs Stockholm 10:40am
  - Arrives Newark 1:10pm
- Leg 2: Newark (EWR) to Denver (DEN)
  - United Airlines Flight 1227
  - Departs Newark 5:35pm
  - Arrives Denver 7:54pm

If you want to see what time it is in Stockholm, check out Stockholm's World Clock . Also, you can check weather reports for Stockholm.

First Whitepaper Posted

2007-03-28T21:36:00.000-06:00

I just posted a whitepaper that I co-authored with Jan Ariyasu on the web which describes how to configure diskless systems using HP's version of Debian for the telecom environment. Running diskless is especially important when your systems are in a remote bunker somewhere. There are 2 versions:

PDF. This is up at docs.hp.com

HTML. This is up at opensource.hp.com

Go click on both and increase the hit counts on my document. ;-)

Ruminations on Traveling

2007-03-11T19:29:00.000-06:00

Now that I've finished my 26 hour trip home from Tel Aviv (that's door-to-door), I thought I'd take a moment to jot down some thoughts I had while I was traveling. Maybe I'm becoming a grumpy old man or maybe I'm just getting noticing more of the stupidity involved with world travel.

Why I hate Lufthansa:

No Economy Plus. This is becoming a bigger and bigger deal to business travelers that are becoming accustomed to the extra leg room offered by United, because the Lufthansa seats are so cramped that my knees literally touch the seat in front of me. I wish United would open more direct flights from Denver to Europe.
Have to fly through Frankfurt, where people smoke everywhere inside the airport
Have to fly through Frankfurt, where you almost always have to take a bus to and from your plane because they don't have enough terminal space.
No personal TVs in the steerage chairbacks. Hell, even United has these now, and they're the biggest cheapskate international airline on the planet. They have only small monitors above the center section, so if you're in a window (like I was) you literally have to look at a 45 degree angle to see the screen. Couldn't they at least put screens over the side sections?

On the plus side, Lufthansa does give you real metal knifeware, so you don't feel like you're at some cheap carnie food booth when dining with your single-serving friends (bonus points if you catch the movie reference).

How I know for sure the TSA is suffering from a Rectal-Cranial Inversion:

When you drive to the Tel Aviv airport, you are stopped at a toll-booth like plaza, many lanes across. 30 feet in front of you, in each lane, is a man with a machine gun in case you try to drive through the plaza. Someone looks in your car to make sure it isn't full of bombs, and looks at your passport. Americans get it relatively easy... I can only imagine what happens if your name is Mohammed (yes, the great irony of the world is that Israeli Jews are extremely racist). When you get out of your taxi, you pass another security guard who does a cursory inspection of your things and looks at your passport. Then it gets interesting.

Before you can check in to get your boarding pass, you have to pass the ultimate layer of security, which is serious questioning from airport authorities. In my case, I was grilled by 2 men, who clearly took their job very seriously. Below are some examples from the exchange:

Q. Why were you in Israel?
A. Business Trip. (I present a letter from the customer I was working with, addressed to Airport Security Group explaining the company, and my situation).

Q. What kind of business are you in?
A. I work for HP. We make systems to sell to telephone companies.

Q. What kind of business are your customers in? Who are their customers?
Q. Why did HP have to send you instead of sending a local person?
Q. Who are your local contacts?
Q. What is the details of your job?
A. (How do you explain Linux kernel programming to security guards holding weapons?)

Q. Do you have any technical documents explaining the project you were working on?
Q. Tell us again about the business your customer is in?

Q. Can we see your HP badge?
A. I didn't bring it, as I was not going to an HP office. They did walk away with my business card for a while though, presumably verifying address information.
Q. Where is your customer's office?
A. Azrieli Towers.
Q. Which building?
A. The Triangle One.

Q. What is this "Saba" place in your passport?
A. A caribbean island. Although if you ask my friend Rhett, it's "really just a giant rock that shot up out of the sea floor with a few brave souls clinging to the ledges".

Q. Did you send any sort of status update to your boss?
A. Yes.
Q. May we read it?
A. (Boots Laptop and shows status message)
Q. Who are all these people on the CC list?

And on and on and on. The whole process took 1 full hour. Then I got my ticket and headed to the lounge to rest because even though my trip was just starting I was already exhausted. Going on 2 hours of sleep didn't help.

Now, what does any of this have to do with the TSA in America? After all the security and machine guns and questioning, the guards at the x-ray machine didn't even blink an eye when I took a full 1.5L bottle of water in my backpack through there. Believe me. If there was any chance that 4 ounces of water (much less shampoo) would blow up a plane like the American authorities would have you believe, there is NO CHANCE that Israel's would let me take 1.5L of water through security.

So that's it. I'm too tired to post pictures from my day at sea and my day in Jerusalem, so I will try to do that this week.

Why google is the bomb

2007-03-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

I've been storing my events, meetings, and travel plans in Google Calendar since it came out last year. It is a great way to organize my appointments because I can access them from anywhere and don't have to worry about something stupid like the battery on my palm pilot dying. I also use it for sending out invitations for things like home poker tournaments, because the interface is so much cleaner and easier to use than evite.

Today I discovered that if I go in and change my current location to be Tel Aviv, it time shifts all my appointments appropriately. Now I know that that 9am MST conference call is really 6pm here, without having to think about it. This will be especially helpful once I finish school and start traveling more for work. Maybe one of these days I'll get something other than the free Verizon phone so I can see my calendar when I'm out walking around without access to a laptop. Access to gmail would be nice too.

Yay Google!

And the Lord said unto them...

2007-03-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

"All thine applause shall degrade into synchronized quarter note clapping". I went to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra tonight to see Lang Lang, a Chinese pianist performing Tchaikovsky. At the end of the performance people were clapping and giving standing ovations... and they wouldn't stop. It eventually degraded into synchronized applause, and he gave an encore performance. Then people were clapping and giving standing ovations... and again they wouldn't stop. Again it degraded into synchronized applause, and Lang Lang gave ANOTHER encore performance.

I think this is the first time I've seen a professional guest soloist give two encores like that. Absolutely amazing. Makes me wish I hadn't fallen asleep during part of the performance, but I couldn't help it. I was sitting up next to the soundboard and I was jetlagged. I think I only missed about 10 or 15 minutes though.

Supposedly tomorrow night we're going to a belly-dancing dinner show. The wife of one of my hosts here has a best friend who is a professional belly dancer and she says this is one of the best places in town, so there you go. If you can't trust the best friend you've never met of a wife of one of the colleagues you just met, who can you trust?

We need more holidays in the US

2007-03-04T18:42:00.000-07:00

Jewish people seem to have holidays all the time. It doesn't mean they get the day off work, but it is a reason to celebrate and party. Right now they are celebrating Purim, which is a holiday where everybody gets dressed up in masks and costumes and has parties. The customer I'm visiting is having a Purim party tomorrow night where they've rented out a space and hired entertainers and all that. I'm invited and of course I'm going.... in the interest of maintaining good relationships with the customers, of course. There are 2 problems. First, I don't speak hebrew and that is what all the entertainment will be in. Second, I don't have a costume. If I'd known this was going on I could have brought a sweet costume with me from the states, but I didn't. Maybe I should have cracked that Frommer's Israel guide before I got on the plane. Anyway, now I've gotta go to the mall and pick something out so I can blend in at the party. Until I open my mouth to speak, that is.

Tel Aviv -- Wow!

2007-03-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

As soon as I stepped out of the airport I knew I was in a great place. Warm and sunny, with no clouds in the sky, it is absolutely beautiful in Tel Aviv. I am absolutely exhausted after the trip, which took almost 27 hours and 4 airports. I start work in the morning so I'm just trying to stay up and go to bed at a normal time in order to adjust.

Check out this view of the Mediterranean from my hotel room balcony:

Thanks folks, I'll be here all week!

Going to Israel

2007-02-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

It turns out that one of our customers is having problems with our product, so I need to go to Tel Aviv to help them out. At first I was a little wary about traveling to Israel, but after talking with several people who have been there I think it will be fine. Other than the obvious of not going to Gaza/West Bank, I guess I just need to stay out of crowded demonstrations, and I can't visit Jerusalem on Fridays. Here is my itinerary:

(Flight) 2 - 3 March 2007: Denver (DEN) to Tel Aviv (TLV)
- Leg 1: Denver (DEN) to Frankfurt (FRA)
  - United Airlines Flight 944
  - Departs Denver 8:50am
  - Arrives Frankfurt 3 March 2007 5:45am
- Leg 2: Frankfurt (FRA) to Tel Aviv (TLV)
  - United Airlines Flight 9120
  - Departs Frankfurt 10:10am
  - Arrives Tel Aviv 2:55pm

3 - 11 March 2007: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Tel Aviv
- Phone Number: +972-3-520-1111 (To dial from the US dial 011-972-3-520-1111)

(Flight) 11 March 2007: Tel Aviv (TLV) to Denver (DEN)
- Leg 1: Tel Aviv (TLV) to Frankfurt (FRA)
  - United Airlines Flight 9121
  - Departs Tel Aviv 5:30am
  - Arrives Frankfurt 9:10am
- Leg 2: Frankfurt (FRA) to Denver (DEN)
  - United Airlines Flight 8878
  - Departs Frankfurt 1:10pm
  - Arrives Denver 4:35pm

Israel is 10 hours ahead of CA. If you want to see what time it is in Tel Aviv, check out Israel's World Clock . Also, you can check weather reports for Tel Aviv.

Safe in Montreal

2006-12-14T00:16:00.000-07:00

I made it back to the states and onto Montreal today. It isn't as cold here as I thought it would be. I slept for most of the day, and then we headed out for some grub. Time to get back to it....

Heading out Diving

2006-12-02T13:07:00.000-07:00

OK, the ship is about to leave for the dive trip. If there are emergencies and someone needs to get ahold of me, call the Explorer Ventures Dive Company at (800)322-3577. We are on the St. Kitts to St. Maarten boat.

Hopefully I'll have lots of cool pictures to post when we get to St. Maarten on Dec 9. Stay safe!

Snow photos posted

2006-12-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to snowshoe since I moved to Colorado last year, but I never felt like I was in good enough shape. Well, I've been jogging for a year now so I thought it might be time to give it a shot. Erik and I signed up for a snowshoe clinic through the Boulder Outdoor Center. This was the way to go, because the guide took us off-trail into a bunch of fresh powder, which we probably wouldn't have done if we'd had to guide ourselves. Talk about fun! Check out the photos.

I feel like James Bond

2006-11-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yes, I order my martinis shaken. Also, the airport hotel I'm staying at in St. Maarten is right across the street from the Casino Royale. I just got here and am about to go exploring, so I have no idea what games they have in there. I'm sure I'll find out.

I just have one night here tonight, and then I'm flying on to St. Kitts tomorrow. I have already endured too much airport craziness and I'm only on the 2nd day of my 3 week journey. When my first flight landed in Newark, and old woman (maybe 80?) got escorted off the plane by police. Its a good thing we still have an escalated threat level set to orange (if you don't know the airport threat levels, read here). Personally I wish we would drop down one level, so I could say that "the threat level was lowered to elevated". But then we might have missed arresting this super dangerous terrorist grandmother.

Here is a picture from my hotel room balcony:

It looks like I left Fort Collins at just the right time. The weather report says it is supposed to drop down to 3 (Farenheit!) tonight. OK, I'm heading out to grab some dinner now, but I'll leave you with a Caribbean fun fact. The Virgin Islands are in one of those weird half-time-zones (3.5 hours ahead of Denver). Click here for the world clock of the Virgin Islands.

New Technology Brings Back Old Memories

2006-10-10T23:50:00.000-06:00

My new video iPod came in the mail this week. I was driven to this by United's lack of technology adoption. I mean really. Airline capacity is higher than ever... can't they install some personal video screens on long-haul 747s? Anyway, now I can watch my TV shows and movies on the ipod when I'm in the airport and on the plane. Pretty sweet.

As I was sorting through all my old media, I ran across an early southpark clip where Cartman sings "O Holy Night" with Kyle shocking him everytime he screws up. I crack up every time I see this clip. If you haven't seen, go watch it on youtube.

What is funny is that youtube also suggested this live-action version of the same clip.

Before you say to yourself, "Chad needs something better to do at midnight", let me just confirm that that is absolutely true.

Land of the Free

2006-10-03T11:14:00.000-06:00

America is the best country in the world. Bringers of light and freedom to the darkness that is elsewhere. Isn't that what we are taught in grade school?

Did you know that in this great Land of the Free, Congress just passed a law making online gambling (including poker) illegal?

Yes, that's right. It is now legal to play poker online in Europe but not in the United States. So much for letting adults choose how they want to live. I'm so glad we are using our tanks to bring our special brand of freedom to the rest of the world.

Beijing Hot Pot Photos Added

2006-09-20T10:04:00.000-06:00

Ulrich sent me his photos from our hot pot dinner. What they call hot pot we would call Fondue. This was probably our best meal from the whole trip, and it was very fun. More food and beer than we could possibly consume, and it was about $4 each. Unreal.

You might be able to see in the photos that our hot pot had 2 sides. One side is dark red and was so spicy that even some of the people from India said "No Thanks". I thought it was great (you can probably see my eyes watering in some of the pictures). Basically you order different kinds of raw meat and just throw them into the boiling oil until they are cooked. We had beef, lamb, and the best... sheep meatballs. I added the photos to the Beijing Photo Set.

Beijing has been getting a lot of press lately because they are hosting the upcoming 2008 summer olympics. There was a WSJ article today talking about how they are trying to "clean things up". This includes moving the worst polluting factories hundreds of miles away, and relocating poor people so they can build stadiums and upscale apartment buildings. This year, Beijing is struggling to meet its target of 238 "blue sky days", which is fairly obvious given that I didn't see blue sky a single day that I was in the city. Or the sun. If they can't do it in summer, it's hard to imagine they will do it in Winter. The article also said that if the wind blows the wrong way during the olympics, they will shut down factories hundreds of miles away.

No mention of actually trying to fix the problem or reducing emissions. They just want to hide the problem while their city is on display.

Chinese learn game theory?

2006-09-19T10:03:00.000-06:00

Haggling over prices is one of the quintessential rituals of visiting China. Anybody who has ever been there knows what I mean. Cat calls of "I remember you, I remember you", "2 for $1!!! OK 3 for $1!!! 4 for $1, final offer!!!", and "I make good deal, you first customer" (at 4pm) can get anyone fired up for some serious sport-haggling. You'd be amazed how hard you will fight over 25 cents.

Imagine my disappointment to find very little haggling over the price of custom tailored dress shirts at the Yashow market in Beijing. All tailors quoted an initial price of 100 RMB and were unwilling to negotiate. They didn't even chase me down when I walked away after expressing an interest through a counter-offer.

So I started thinking... maybe these guys have just decided to not compete with each other? Of course in the US this would be illegal, but a country where factories dump benzene into the water would hardly bat an eye at price fixing.

In game theory terms this is referred to as a Nash Equilibrium. That means that all players are maximizing their success and have no reason to change their tactics unless someone else changes their tactics first. If you don't like the math on the wikipedia page, you can read the layman's explanation of Tom, Dick, and Harry's dating strategy.

Also, if they're smart enough to do this, why can't they design a mattress whole sole benefit over sleeping on the ground is a fitted sheet?

Older Pictures Posted

2006-09-16T07:29:00.000-06:00

I have updated the Lawn Lake Backpacking photo set with pictures from Erik's camera.

Headed home soon

2006-09-16T06:38:00.000-06:00

Today was my last day in Beijing. I spent the last two days doing tourist stuff, like the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Summer Palace. Something I ate yesterday disagreed with me, so I decided to cut it off early today and chill out in my hotel room with some room service and HBO.

The pollution in Beijing is unreal. I doubt anybody that has never been to China can even imagine how bad it gets. You can start to get a sense of it in some of my newer pictures... literally, the buildings across the street are hazy.

Forbidden City was the home of emperors and was off limits to regular people for 500 years. This place is a MASSIVE fortress. When I was walking around I would walk to the end of a long corridor, and come to a giant courtyard. On the other side of the courtyard would be another really long corridor leading to another giant courtyard. Very impressive. Now it is a museum with different kinds of exhibits in each room. There are ancient vases, art, bronze works, and military weapons.

At the south end of the forbidden city is tiananmen square. I'm sure there are times when the square is more active, but it is basically empty during the week. They are doing lots of construction everywhere making the city nice for the olympics and the square is no exception. Hard to imagine the atrocities of 1989, but if you look at my pictures you can see one of the streets where the famous Tank Man stood in front of a tank in protest. Good story, worth reading if you don't know about it. No, he did not get run over by the tank.

I spent this morning at the Summer Palace. Apparently there is so much brick at the Forbidden City that it would get ridiculously hot in the summer, the emperors built some lakes and threw up some walls and called it a summer palace. At 2.7 square kilometers (1 square mile) it is a nice little getaway pad.

I've updated the Beijing Photos with the photos from these last 2 days.

Lawn Lake Trip

2006-09-11T02:54:00.000-06:00

I just posted photos of our backpacking trip to Lawn Lake. Lawn Lake is an alpine lake at Rocky Mountain National Park, at roughly 11,000 feet (basically right at the treeline). We got there Friday night right around sunset, set up camp, and crashed because that hike up was hell. The next day we had plans to summit Hague's Peak, but we left late and I wasn't in good enough shape to summit before the turnaround time. I ended up taking a detour over to the Crystal Lakes while Mike and Erik went up Hague's.

I'm still waiting for the photos from Erik's camera, which have views of Hagues. I'll post those here when I get them.

Beautiful Beijing

2006-09-11T02:40:00.000-06:00

Actually, Beijing isn't really that beautiful, at least the parts I've seen. But we went to the mountains today to see the great wall, and those really were beautiful.

First things first. I made it into Beijing last night, getting to the hotel just as a group was gathering to go for dinner. So I checked in, dropped my backpack (no bags, since those didn't make the plane (my flight from Denver to SFO got canceled, they moved everybody onto a later flight, and we all had to run to catch the connection to Beijing), and headed out for grub. The restaurant was a very spicy Sichuan style restaurant, with lots of hot food. Great spare ribs, actually.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning, and was sort of zombie-I-haven't-adjusted-to-the-timezone awake and had to watch early morning HBO since HBO is the only english channel we get. Even International CNN would be better than early morning HBO. I saw part of a Tupac Shakur documentary, and then superman 3. Arguably some of the worst TV ever produced.

Down in the lobby at breakfast some people were planning an expedition out to the Great Wall, which is about 2 or 3 hours outside of the city. We ended up hiring 3 taxis for the day. Once you get to the base of the mountain there is a cable car that goes up to get you on the wall. Once there you are free to walk as far as you can get before heading back. Some parts of it are very steep. In this photo you can see a long section of the wall. We walked the entire thing. The end of it is a very steep climb up to an observation deck. After that the wall sort of breaks down and you can't walk any further. When you look at the photos there are breathtaking views of the wall and of the mountains. Check out the Beijing Photos.

Itinerary for Beijing, China

2006-09-08T19:03:00.000-06:00

I'm headed out in the morning for a visit to Beijing. Of course it is a work trip, but I will probably take some side jaunts out to the Great Wall and Forbidden City. Here is my itinerary. Note that I am changing hotels part way through the trip because the first one is fully booked.

(Flight) 9 - 10 September 2006: Denver (DEN) to Beijing (PEK)
- Leg 1: Denver (DEN) to San Francisco (SFO)
  - United Airlines Flight 893
  - Departs Denver 10:25am
  - Arrives San Francisco 11:56m
- Leg 2: San Francisco (SFO) to Beijing (PEK)
  - United Airlines Flight 889
  - Departs San Francisco 1:38 pm
  - Arrives Beijing 10 September 2006 4:55pm

10 - 15 September 2006: Tsinghua Unisplendour Hotel
- Phone Number: 86-10-62791888 (To dial from the US dial 011-86-10-62791888)

15 - 17 September 2006: Jade Palace Hotel
- Phone Number: 86-10-62628888 (To dial from the US dial 011-86-10-62628888)

(Flight) 17 September 2006: Beijing (PEK) to Denver (DEN)
- Leg 1: Beijing (PEK) to San Francisco (SFO)
  - United Airlines Flight 888
  - Departs Beijing 12:05pm
  - Arrives San Francisco 8:47am
- Leg 2: San Francisco (SFO) to Denver (DEN)
  - United Airlines Flight 892
  - Departs San Francisco 11:13am
  - Arrives Denver 2:41pm

If you want to see what time it is in Beijing, check out World Clock.

I am the prince of darkness

2006-08-02T15:42:00.000-06:00

No, I'm not joining a satanic cult. I finally got my "room darkening" shades and curtains installed. It is so dark in my room, even during the brightest Colorado afternoon. Any nightowls out there might want to think about a similar setup.

And it looks like a normal setup! Check out the photo.

On a totally random topic change, did you notice that Wendy's now has vanilla frosties?

Photos from hiking at Rocky Mountain

2006-06-05T21:49:00.000-06:00

Michelle and I went for a hike to Fern Falls during her last trip to Fort Collins. I finally got the photos up. I'm pretty sure she went through more outfits than Amidala does in an episode of Star Wars.

1st day of ISAS finished

2006-05-15T16:33:00.000-06:00

We finished our first day of the ISAS conference today. This is my first semi-academic conference (and my first contribution to a conference paper). It is a really interesting experience because of the mix of people focusing on problems that seem entirely academic (not to mention really mathematical... I'm pretty sure every presentation today used Markov Chains) and people focusing on more practical problems like what happens to storage availability when you do things like plug in new spares or hot-swap controllers. Our presentation is the last one tomorrow (2-day conference) so I'm not sure if anybody is going to be there or if the people who are there will be antsy for beer.

Speaking of beer, there is lots of good beer here. Much of it comes from Czech or Belgium, but it's all good. I went to a Czech restaurant for dinner last night down by the train station. I ordered the house special, which is a 1 kg pork knuckle. If you want to see how much that is in pounds, click here. If you want to see it in ounces, click here. Yes, it was freaking huge. Some of that was the bone of course, but it was a gigantic amount of pork, all of which was super tender and juicy. Served with sauteed onions and potatoes, as well a very hoppy Czech beer.

This dinner was after I had gone down to the huge Helsinki Cathedral, Tuomiokirkko to watch the Cantores Minores boys choir perform a Mother's day concert. They had about 8 different ensembles ranging from little little kids to junior high and high school age. At the end they did a combined set, which was a lot of people. I was able to snag a last minute single-seat in the 2nd row, but it looked pretty sold out otherwise. The sound of the hall was fantastic... I would love to hear a classical music concert in there.

Tonight the conference organizers planned a dinner cruise on the M/aux Kathrina. This is a huge 3-masted schooner 31.75 meters in length. The food was great, and it was nice to talk to new people from the conference and see the view of the city from the water.

Check out my Helsinki Photo set.

Americans are obnoxious?

2006-05-13T03:28:00.000-06:00

Americans who travel to Europe hear it all the time. "Americans are loud and obnoxious". It has caused overseas Americans to don clothes bearing the Canadian maple leaf to make people think they are of a more genteel culture.

While there may be some element of truth to this (you'll often hear Europeans saying "Well, none of the people I personally know are like that...."), I just realized Europeans are even worse. I spent some time in the Frankfurt airport this morning waiting for my connection to Helsinki, and there were people smoking in the terminal gate! Now come on. Smoking in public is INFINITELY more obnoxious than being loud. When are Europeans going to learn that smoking is disgusting? If I had to choose one or the other I'd rather see a druggie shooting heroin in the corner of the room. It may be unsightly, but at least it doesn't give me a headache!

I made it safely to Helsinki. The weather here is awesome! If you want to see what the weather is like, click here. If you want to know what time it is, click here.

I am going to head out and walk around Central Helsinki this afternoon/evening. Need to find some things to do. Perhaps I can do one of those dinner cruises around the city or something. Helsinki is on the water... check out the map. My hotel is in the south west, near than big Number 51. It is about a 20 minute walk to the city center. I'm borrowing an HP R725 camera to see if I want to buy one, so we'll see how well the pictures come out.

One More Time Chuck Corea

2006-04-23T20:06:00.000-06:00

So I'm down in Orlando this weekend for a lesson with Bill Carmichael, and he mentions to me that a bunch of the cats from the Disney band are doing a show with Chick Corea tonight. The concert was at Rollins College and there was no real box office to call for tickets so I just headed down there to see if I could get one at the door.

I got there early enough so I did get a ticket, but it was sold out by start time. What a fantastic show. Chick has been composing and recording since the '60s and has amassed an incredible number of CDs across many different jazz genres. The band he was playing with tonight was fantastic. Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge are a contemporary jazz orchestra, with complete rhythm, sax, trombone, and trumpet sections as well as tuba, french horn, and bass clarinet players.

The lead trumpet player, Chad Shoopman, is an absolute beast. Not only was he screaming for the entire 2 hour show, but he ended the encore on G above double C. Supah-Schweet.

If you know why there's no typo in the title of this post, you get bonus points for being cool.

Brokeback spoofs

2006-04-04T22:04:00.000-06:00

If you liked Brokeback Mountain (well, even if you didn't) you'll love some of the Brokeback spoofs. I haven't watched them all, but the Back to the Future, Good Will Hunting, Star Wars, and Point Break spoofs are pretty good. Enjoy!

One second every hundred years

2006-04-03T19:20:00.000-06:00

On Wednesday morning for one second it will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. That only happens once every hundred years. Pretty neat.

Band geeks are taking over the world!

2006-04-03T10:45:00.000-06:00

I went to the movies this weekend to see the new Denzel Washington movie, Inside Man. I'd give this moving a weak 'B' rating. You can definitely wait to see this movie on Netflix (or even HBO).

However, the interesting thing was one of the previews that they showed. It was for the Drum Corps International (DCI) Tournament of Champions. That's right. The DCI Top 12 is no longer relegated to PBS. It has made the big time.

It isn't like the top-12 from any specific year like you might get on DVD though. It is twelve of the top performances of all time:

1975 27th Lancers

1979 Blue Devils

1980 Bridgemen

1984 Garfield Cadets

1988 Madison Scouts

1989 Phantom Regiment

1992 Crossmen

1993 Star of Indiana

1995 Cavaliers

1999 Santa Clara Vanguard

2004 Carolina Crown

2005 Bluecoats

Feel free to check out the movie trailer for yourself.

What's next? The best poker hands of all time on the big screen?

The Suzhou Experience

2006-03-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

Now that I am safely back in Fort Collins, I need to talk about a legendary overnight trip to Suzhou. It is interesting all the way from our trip there to our trip home. Suzhou was our "GO BIG" trip as Morris' friend Chris put it.

Morris' girlfriend Nancy is currently living in Korea, and she flew to Shanghai on Wednesday for a 10 day sojourn. She has a friend living in Suzhou, and Morris also has a friend there (Chris), so we decided to take an overnight trip there. Of course, we had to start out the day with a 2 hour massage. At the place by Morris' house, if you come in before 6pm you can get a 1 hour foot massage and a 1 hour full body massage for 100 RMB, which is roughly $12.50 USD. Quite the deal. Well, the foot massage caused us to miss the 5:30pm train to Suzhou, and for whatever reason there was no other commuter train (Get it? Commuter Train. You'd think these would start at 5:30 and go late) until 8:30 but we didn't want to get there that late, so we start looking for alternative transportation.

There was a group with a small bus trying to fill it for a trip to Suzhou. The cost was 50 RMB per person, and there were 4 of us. On the way to check out this bus, we passed a taxi, so we asked him what his rate to drive us to Suzhou was (about a 2 hour drive) and he quoted 350 RMB. At first we thought that was excessive, so we told him we wanted it for 250 RMB. Well, now the bus drivers come over and start yelling at this guy for trying to steal their fare. We'll call this "almost a fist fight #1". The taxi driver gets really rattled and tells us we can go for 250, so we load up in the car and head out. About a mile from the train station, he changes his mind and puts it back to 350. We tell him to take us back to the train station. When we get out, he demands to be paid for the part that he drove, and we tell him no since he broke the deal. Then he physically grabbed Terry by strap of his bookbag and took his glasses off. The "almost a fist fight #1" wouldn't have been so bad because that was just between drivers, but this was really bad because it would have involved our group. The last thing I wanted to do was get in a fight in a crowded train station in Shanghai. Once the driver saw Morris and Me gearing up, he decided to just find the closest policeman and have him arbitrate the issue.

This was a funny scene. There are literally thousands of people at this train station, and we're in the middle of an intersection taking turns telling our side of the story. Lots of people came over to watch, but it wasn't like american lookie-loos that you see on the freeway. These people were just generally interested in what was happening in their neighborhood and wanted to hear the issues to judge it for themselves. The taxi driver was clearly nuts, and the policeman just didn't want to deal with him anymore. He asked us to just give the guy 10 RMB so he could save some face and we could all go on with our lives. As we were walking away he said to us (in English) "Welcome to Shanghai", and then he started laughing. We ended up finding a much more pleasant taxi driver and just paying her 350 RMB. Actually she was so good that we gave her a 50 RMB tip, which is never done there, so she was really happy about that. Hopefully over time carrots will convince people in China that treating your customers nicely will have rewards.

Once we finally made it to Suzhou and checked into our hotel, we headed out for dinner with the locals. This place was a Japanese restaurant with an all-you-can-eat-sushi and all-you-can-drink-sake dinner for 138 RMB, or roughly 17 USD. Remember, this is our GO BIG night, and we hit it hard from the beginning. We stuffed ourselves with sushi and drank lots and lots of sake. We actually ended the night with some sake bombs. Dinner was really fun, and we headed out to a lounge which was hosting the last night of an awesome band that was headed back to the phillipines the next day. We stayed for one set, and then moved on to a brand new Irish Pub. The Irish Pub had a pool table so we shot some pool for a while. Then Chris got it in his head that we needed to do some Irish Car Bombs, so he ordered pints of Guinness and shots of whiskey for everybody. If you don't know what a car bomb is, you take the whiskey and drop it into the Guinness and then pound the whole thing in one motion. As you can imagine, some people can't handle their liquor so well. Immediately after Chris pounded the beer, he dropped the empty glass on the table and went running for the men's room, where he proceeded to let loose 138 RMB worth of sushi and sake (and the car bomb).

We got the hell out of that place since our friend had literally completely covered the men's room floor and headed to a techno dance club. 3 people headed home early, but Terry, Chris and I stayed until 4:30am to close the place down. I swear, I am pretty sure there were people there that never or rarely see white people. Nobody was dancing, so we cleared out some tables to open up some dance space. Once we got out there, a bunch of girls and guys headed out there to join us. We had a really great time hanging out, dancing, and drinking with these people. In China, the really popular drink at clubs is this mixture of blended whiskey (like Johnny Walker Black) mixed with sweetened green tea (like Arizona Tea) and served over ice. In fact, you usually just buy the entire bottle of whiskey from the bar and a bunch of bottles of tea and mix it yourself. These people were nice enough to let us drink from their pitcher while we were hanging out and dancing. Needless to say, by the time the club closed at 4:30 we were toast and needed to crash.

We did our best to wake up in the morning and get checked out by noon, but none of us were feeling so hot. After wondering around downtown Suzhou for a while, we found a chinese restaurant that was sufficiently busy and sat down there. The food was good, and we even ordered some chicken soup to help soothe our weak stomachs. Little did we know that the soup would contain the entire chicken head. Pretty gross, but the soup still tasted good. Then we headed out to the most famous garden in Suzhou called "Garden of the Master of the Nets". The garden was pretty, and we killed some time hanging out there since that was better than hanging at the train station. Terry and I spent some time getting Morris and Nancy to pose for pictures like models. I wanted the shots I took to appear candid, and I think they came out pretty well.

We took the train back to Shanghai, which was an interesting experience. You have to be really careful where you go in China because you might end up in a place where English is not an option. Luckily I was travelling with people that spoke and read Chinese so I was able to travel to lots of places that I wouldn't have been able to as a tourist. There was no English at the train station. They were sold out of tickets, so we had to buy them from a scalper. I would have been screwed if I was by myself. Anyway, we made it on the train and the seats were actually really comfortable.

Morris, Nancy and I headed out to the Haagen Dazs dessert restaurant near the water for some really good coconut-milk based desserts. I wish they would open something like that here in the US. Of course, we went for a 2 hour massage afterwards! Then we met up with Terry to go get some Hunanese food. If any of you spicy food lovers ever go to Shanghai, you have to go to this restaurant called Dishuidong. The phone number is 6253-2689 and the address is 56 Maoming Nanlu, 2nd floor. They were voted as having the best hunan ribs in town by the local expat newspaper, and I certainly believe it. This is the only restaurant that I went to twice on this trip.

All in all, the trip was really a lot of fun. Staying with Morris in Puxi was great, and having Morris, Terry, and Nancy there to suggest things and deal with translations made (most) things easy. The trip would not have been anywhere near as fun without the local flavor and friends to hang out with.

Check out the Pictures from Suzhou to see the documentary of this legendary evening. I have also added some new photos to the end of the Shanghai photo set.

Day trip to Hangzhou

2006-03-23T09:04:00.000-07:00

I signed up for a day trip to Hangzhou, which is about 2.5 hours away from Shanghai. I might not have done it if I knew it was 5 hours of driving, but I'm really glad I did because Hangzhou is a beautiful city up in the mountains.

We started the morning at the Lingyin Buddhist temple. It is like the buddhist temple in Shanghai only way bigger. There are lots of Buddhas, plus copper statues of all 500 of his disciples. When we were on our way out, this group walked up to me with a camera and I thought they were asking me to take their picture. Before I knew, I was crowded all around by chinese people who wanted to take their picture with me. Apparently showing a picture of yourself with a white dude is a big status symbol back home because it means you are well traveled. This was probably one of the weirder experiences of my life.

Then we had lunch and headed over to the Dragonwell Tea Village, which is known for making really good green tea. It is nestled way up in the mountains and is quite peaceful. We did some tea tasting and then purchased a bunch of tea.

For our last part of the day we went to Hua Guang Yu park, which means "Viewing Fish at the Flower's Harbor". There was a peacock garden, lots of little ponds, and cherry and peach blossoms everywhere. It is the main park for people who live in Hongzhou, and there were lots of people there. The park surrounds a large (5 sq km) lake called West Lake, which we took a cruise around.

On the way back we stopped at a pearl factory where they cut open a large oyster and showed us the different kinds of pearls that they cultivate.

You can see my pictures of Hangzhou. Morris' girlfriend flew in from Korea today, so the 3 of us are taking an overnight trip to Suzhou where we are going to party with some of his other friends. Suzhou is called the "Garden City" because it is full of beautiful gardens, and is supposed to be a really nice place.

First couple of days in Shanghai

2006-03-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a fairly tame afternoon. We went out to a teppanyaki restaurant and then met up with some of the USC people for an afternoon of haggling at the Xiang Yang market. This place is like a giant swap meet where haggling to one tenth of the originally quoted cost is not uncommon. The vendors here have copies of everything from North Face Jackets to Gucci purses to Samsonite luggage. The only thing I purchased was a couple sets of chopsticks. Some USC people purchased DVDs, PS2 games, and dress shirts. Then Morris and I headed over to the Dongjiadu cloth market, where I was sized up for a custom made suit. We agreed on a price (550 RMB for one suit), and I told them that if I liked the first one I would come back and buy more. I felt like I was getting food poisoning, so I decided to take some medicine and crash early Sunday night.

I felt a lot better Monday morning and walked down to the Ritz Carlton to get on a day tour of Shanghai. It started at the "Temple of the Jade Buddhas", which is a buddhist temple containing several huge Jade Buddha statues. After that we went to the Yu Yuan Gardens ("Pleasure Gardens") which is a beautiful garden in the city with carp ponds, magnolia trees, big walls, and cool rock formations. In fact, the garden used to be some rich guy's house and then it was given to the city for public use. We finished off the morning by walking along the Bund, which is a waterfront along the western edge of the Huangpu river. We had a family-style lunch at a restaurant there which was very good. After lunch we headed over to People's Square and the Shanghai Musuem, which has a bunch of exhibits on Chinese ceramics, calligraphy, furniture, and a bunch of other stuff. After that we went to a Silk Factory where we watched them start with the cocoon and create a huge silk duvet. To end the tour, we went to an art museum that has some really intricate jade carvings.

You can see pictures of my Shanghai Tour.

Morris and I were supposed to go out for dinner, jazz, and foot massages Monday. I laid down to take a nap before dinner, and apparently Morris was completely unable to wake me up. I woke up at 1am, long after he had gone to bed. Apparently I needed the sleep because I feel back asleep until 6am, so we decided to postpone those activities until Tuesday night.

I also signed up for a tour of Hangzhou for Tuesday. More on that later.

Three guys and a girl, Shanghai

2006-03-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

The story you are about to read is true. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Charles and Monroe began their night with a low key ramen-soup dinner on Nanjing East. Nanjing East is sort of the times square of Shanghai... tons of restaurants and lots of huge electronic billboards that light up the night sky. They washed their soup down with some Kirin Ichiban and then headed out in search of a party.

Some of Monroe's college friends from Berkeley were in town on spring break, so it was decided to meet up with them at "3 on the bund", which is a building with a different restaurant/club on each floor. By happenstance the whole group met up in the elevator, and it was decided that 3 on the bund was not the place to hang out. It was decided that the group would split up and reconvene later at a new destination. Charles and Monroe went to a jazz club across the street to await the arrival of Monroe's brother Teddy.

Teddy showed up, and then said he wanted to wait for his date to show up before we went out to a new club. The jazz club was pretty cool, but it was a little too chill for someone who was jetlagged. The girl was taking a long time to show up, so the 3 guys headed out to a hip-hop dance club.

As it turns out, some of Monroe's friends from HP were at this club having a going away party for someone who was returning to the states. It was determined that the Berkeley crew was not going to come back, even though the club they went to was lame, so HP forces merged because they already had a table reserved.

The way real partying works in Shanghai is to have a table reserved, and several waitstaff reserved just to help the table out. The other thing you do is to purchase alcohol by the bottle instead of by the drink. The group was drinking an interesting combination of Johnny Walker Black mixed with Green Tea. Our group contributed a bottle of Jack Daniels for shots.

Charles, Monroe, and Teddy started throwing back shots of Jack Daniels, and offering them to the rest of the table. I should point out to you, fair reader, that asians typically can not handle large amounts of alcohol, so it got out of control pretty quickly. Teddy's girl showed up, and then everybody started dancing to this hip hop music. The partying ended at 5am, even though the club was still hopping.

Shanghai First Impressions

2006-03-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently I have arrived in Shanghai for uncharacteristically great weather. Anybody that knows me (which probably includes you, since few strangers read this blog) know that I always take great weather with me wherever I travel. For example, when I went to Chicago for St. Patty's day we had 75 degree weather. Here in Shanghai, it rained last night (before my plane landed), and so now it is 55 degrees outside and the smog has been washed out by the rain.

I'm a little more focused now that I've had some sleep. We are about to go out for breakfast, and then the moving crew is coming at 2 this afternoon. I will mark the rest of my posts here in Shanghai local time.

Check out a few pictures of Pudong from Morris' Balcony. We are moving to the more happening neighborhood of Puxi, so I should get some even cooler pictures today.

Safe Arrival in Shanghai

2006-03-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

I made it safely to Shanghai. Morris and I went out for dimsum, and now it is 3am here so I am going to crash. Anybody that is waiting for an email from me will probably need to wait either a day or two, as Morris is moving from his Pudong (financial district) apartment to a new apartment in the more happening area of Puxi. From what I can tell it is where all the nightlife and restauarants are, so it will be like North Beach on steroids. Sounds like fun to me!

I'm so glad it is over

2006-03-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

"What's over?" you ask? These last 2 weeks. Everybody that knows me (which probably includes you, since I don't think many strangers read this blog) knows that I love to multi-task and always keep a hectic schedule. Keeping a hectic schedule is what keeps me going, because if I ever slow down I will probably just crash. Well, these last 2 weeks have been a little too hectic even for me.

Here's just a rundown of the big items:

Finish up winter quarter at DU, which meant writing 4 papers, delivering a group presentation, and taking 2 finals.

Finish up a Debian Telco release at work. Of course there were problems along the way, and in order to do this it meant staying at work until 2am and coming back at 7am the night before I had to take my finals.

Had a team outing at Dave & Buster's

Took last Friday off to go snowboarding (awesome powder!)

Went to Austin for the weekend

Prepared for my trip to Shanghai

You get the idea. It has been absolutely nuts around here. I am so ready to get on the plane and just crash for 14 hours. Plus, Morris emailed me the address of his house in Chinese, but I don't have the right fonts on my computer or something because gmail just showed a bunch of question marks. It is going to be fun trying to explain to a Shanghai cabbie that he needs to call Morris' cell phone for directions.

This is my first trip to China, and anywhere in Asia for that matter. I have no idea what I'm going to be doing there. I didn't spend much time researching touristy things to do because I'm staying with a local and didn't know how much touristy time I would be having. I can always research it there anyway. Here's my flight itinerary:

(Flight) 16 - 17 March 2006: Denver (DEN) to Shanghai (PVG)
- Leg 1: Denver (DEN) to San Francisco (SFO)
  - United Airlines Flight 315
  - Departs Denver 10:28am
  - Arrives San Francisco 12:05pm
- Leg 2: San Francisco (SFO) to Shanghai (PVG)
  - United Airlines Flight 857
  - Departs San Francisco 2:12 pm
  - Arrives Shanghai 17 March 2006 7:30pm

(Flight) 25 March 2006: Shanghai (PVG) to San Francisco (SFO)
- United Airlines Flight 858
- Departs Shanghai 1:45pm
- Arrives San Francisco 8:18am

(Event) 25 March 2006 Whiskies of the World

(Flight) 26 March 2006: San Francisco (SFO) to Denver (DEN)
- United Airlines Flight 526
- Departs San Francisco 2:07pm
- Arrives Denver 5:30pm

I'll probably buy lots of stuff there, because it is supposedly pretty cheap. Specifically I'm looking for custom made business suits, and maybe some camping gear. Perhaps I'll buy so much stuff that I need to get another suitcase as well. Other than that, I'm just looking forward to hanging out in a city which has been described by several people as being "just like Manhattan, only much bigger and busier".

Did you know that when you go to China you have to request a Visa in advance? They must do some extensive background checking or something like that which causes them to not be able to issue visas at the airport when you arrive. It just felt weird having to ship my passport off to a travel agent in Chicago whose sole purpose it was to walk the passport down to the Consulate and turn in my visa application on my behalf. Although, I have to say that their visa is a whole page out of my passport and is much cooler looking than the wussy little stamps you get in the EU countries.

Be sure to check back here for photos from China over the next week. This is my spring break and I expect to be partying like a rock star in 1999.

New pictures from Vegas

2006-02-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

I finally got the pictures posted from our Vegas trip in January. There were so many cool things on this trip! We stayed in the Stratosphere the first 2 nights. Michelle was going to be attending an IBM Software Group conference the following week, so we got to move to The Mirage on Sunday night. That room was sooo awesome! 19th floor with a view overlooking the strip.

On Friday night we went straight from the airport to Emeril's Delmonico steak house in the Venetian. Great food there. On Saturday we went to the Bellagio buffet for dinner and then saw the late show of Avenue Q at the Wynn hotel.

We found out on Saturday that Tower of Power was going to be playing at the Orleans Hotel, and we were able to score some last minute tickets for Sunday night!

Sunday morning was the gospel brunch. This was such a fun event. Lots of soul food and good fun music. In fact, this was Michelle's favorite part of the whole weekend. We got moved over into the Mirage, and then headed over for TOWER OF POWER. This was my favorite part of the weekend.

Check out the Vegas Photos.

Luckiest Guy Ever?

2006-02-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty lucky lately. My poker table in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago hit a bad beat jackpot (Aces Full of Kings beat by Quad Aces), so everybody at the table got a share of the jackpot money.

This weekend, I bought a couple of tickets for the Colorado Eagles hockey game. Just as my buddy and I were standing up to go hit the beer stand a bright spotlight came on right in my eyes, and the announcer came out with a couple of cheerleaders trailing behind him. They had drawn my seat to play "Let's Make a Deal"!!! Door #1 was a $30 gift certificate, door #2 was an envelope of cash with somewhere between $1 and $100, and then there was door #3. It was such a surreal experience to find myself up on the jumbo tron in this big arena! The crowd was all screaming "3! 3!" so of course I chose door #3. The envelope of cash had $10 in it, and I ended up winning 2 tickets on Continental airlines to anywhere in North, Central, or South America. How awesome is that?

So Michelle and I are heading to the Caribbean in December. She's going to be there for 10 days, but I'm staying for basically 3 weeks. My buddy Ed is going to fly his plane out and we are going to go island hopping for a while. I can't imagine a better way to spend my Winter break from DU.

I have signed up for a game of freeway baseball this weekend.

VEGAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS!!!

2006-02-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

I'm headed out to Vegas today. And no, this isn't the 3rd time in a month like somebody said at my home poker tournament last night.

It was originally supposed to be a bachelor party, but something happened and the groom couldn't go this weekend. That was no reason for the rest of us to cancel our plans though! I'll be staying at the Rio and hopefully winning some poker tournaments. Come find me at the Horseshoe 2am tournaments if you happen to be around.

Headed to CA

2005-12-03T09:57:00.000-07:00

I am on my way to the SF Bay Area this morning for the next SAF Face-to-Face. I have been looking forward to this trip for a while because I get to see a lot of my old friends and roommates that I haven't seen since I moved out here.

I went to sleep last night while it was raining and woke up to a lawn blanketed in fresh white snow. This is the first real snow in Fort Collins, so I guess we can safely say that Winter is here now!

Did you buy your Thanksgiving wine yet?

2005-11-22T22:27:00.000-07:00

I bought mine today. I am a Colorado orphan (all my family is in California) and Randy's family has been kind enough to adopt me for Thanksgiving. They are doing the traditional turkey dinner, and it sounds like there is going to be plenty of food, so I offered to bring the wine. After extensive research, this is what I ended up getting:

- 2 bottles of Torlesse 2002 Canterbury Pinot Noir from New Zealand. Pinot Noir was the universal red wine recommendation for turkey, and it should be served at "cellar temperature", so we will chill it in the fridge for 20 minutes before eating.
- A double bottle of Beringer 2004 White Zinfandel. White wine recommendations included white zin. and riesling, so I went with the white zin.
- A bottle of Goldene Kammerpreismunze dessert wine (Yum!)

Also, I just took my 2 finals tonight. That means I am all done with my first quarter at DU! After that Values-Based Leadership I am seriously ready to break open one of those bottles of Pinot Noir.... hmmmm.... ok, I just talked myself into it.

And Mark if you're reading this, have a great time on your Caribbean honeymoon!

SNOW!!!

2005-10-16T23:21:00.000-06:00

Apparently in Colorado it starts snowing in early October. Denver got hit with snow, and the DU campus lawns and parking lots were covered in snow when I went to class on Tuesday. However, it didn't snow in Fort Collins at all. Of course my first thought was "When can we go snowboarding?"

I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park again today. My doctor taped up my foot to simulate having an orthotic insert, and it made a world of difference. I guess I'll be getting orthotics soon.

It was about 7:30am when I hit the trail, and my car said it was 37 degrees at the trailhead. I like to get there early because the parking lots are really small and I want to be on the trail before there are hundreds of people on it. Anyway, the weather was freezing, and I wasn't expecting it to be that cold. Luckily I had an extra fleece jacket in my car, so I was wearing 2 fleece jackets and a wool beanie.

The Fern Creek trail follows Fern Creek (duh), all the way to "The Pool". Those of you playing along will remember that this was where I stopped for Lunch when I hiked to Cub Lake. The trail from Cub Lake and Fern Creek join up at a big bridge; this is a popular stopping point for people having picnics.

From The Pool, I headed up the mountain to Fern Falls, a gorgeous waterfall with a nice place to sit and have lunch. I got pretty cold there after about 10 minutes, but it was peaceful and solitary while I could stand it.

Check out the Fern Falls Photos.

My Lest Ifeneeng in Stuckhulm

2005-09-17T15:31:00.000-06:00

Tudey ves my lest dey in Stuckhulm, und I mede-a soore-a tu ectooelly get oooot und du sume-a foon stooffff. It ves a lung dey becoose-a I hed tekee a nep yesterdey effternuun und I inded up steyeeng eveke-a ell neeght vurkeeng.

Eruoond nuun I heeded oooot ooff my ruum tu gu see-a zee Svedeesh Ruyel Oorchestra perffurm. Oon my vey tu zee Cuncert Hell I pessed a mercheeng bund thet ves gueeng elung a pedestreeun mell. Zeey vere-a pleyeeng sume-a svedeesh suoondeeng merch I'd nefer heerd, boot zeey vere-a decent. Zee bund eppeered tu cunteeen pleyers frum ell ege-a runges, su I'm nut qooeete-a soore-a vhet gruoop zeey vere-a a pert ooff. Effter zee mooseec I doocked intu a greet theee restoorunt und inded up ieteeng sooper hut theee fuud fur loonch... it ves cheeckee in greee coorry veet cucunoot meelk. My nuse-a ves roonneeng by zee 3rd beete-a, boot mun ves it ixcellent fuud.

Zeey vere-a pleyeeng Mehler's 5t, vheech I nefer meess becoose-a it is Mehler's beeg troompet feetoore-a. Meechelle-a und I sev it in Flurence-a, boot she-a prubebly duesn't remember seence-a she-a ves sleepeeng must ooff zee teeme-a. Zee perffurmunce-a ves reelly reelly guud; zee 4 troompets vere-a luood und bressy, und ell zee oozeer sooppurteeng cest ves tup nutch es vell. Es it toorned oooot sume-a ooff zee SEF members thet I hed menshuned zee cuncert tu ierleeer in zee veek shooed up und zeey seemed be-a injuyeeng zee shoo es vell.

I ceme-a beck tu my hutel tu prepere-a fur a neeght oon zee toon veet Truy und Terry. Iff yuoo recell frum ierleeer zeey ere-a in my teem und heppened tu schedoole-a a tutelly unreleted treep tu Stuckhulm et zee seme-a teeme-a, und zeey ifee peecked zee seme-a hutel. Ve-a vent tu a Glee Feeddich restoorunt vhere-a zeey ledle-a scutch durectly oooot ooff zee berrel. I hed un Ilk Cheeseboorger veet becun.

Frum zee restoorunt ve-a heeded oofer tu sumetheeng celled zee Ice-a Ber. It is a hutel ber thet is setoop tu geefe-a yuoo a Nurdeec ixpereeence-a. Ell ooff zee vells, tebles, und bers ere-a mede-a ooff ice-a. Zee ruum is 23 degrees Ferenheeet, und zeey geefe-a yuoo a beeg perka und glufes vhee yuoo get in. Dreenks ere-a serfed in glesses thet ere-a mede-a ooff ice-a, und ell zee efeeeleble-a dreenks ere-a mede-a veet Ebsuloot Fudka. Ell in ell a neet tuooreesty ixpereeence-a veet sume-a neece-a phutus.

Tumurroo murneeng I'm heeded beck tu zee Uneeted Stetes, und it veell be-a neece-a tu be-a beck oon a nurmel teemezune-a. Feel free-a tu check oooot my peectoores ooff Stuckhulm. Bork Bork Bork!

Stuckhulm soore-a is culd in September

2005-09-16T04:43:00.000-06:00

Su, my SAF cunfference-a is oofer. Luts ooff guud techneecel items vere-a deescoossed, und I theenk I meeght be-a getteeng infulfed in zee soobgruoop tu help defelup zee Secooreety EPI speceefficeshun.

Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue, Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn bork! bork! bork!

I'fe-a beee su boosy vurkeeng thet I hefee't yet hed teeme-a tu du uny ixplureeng. I veesh I hed mure-a tu vreete-a. Tumurroo is Setoordey su I plun oon heetting a mooseoom und zeen vetcheeng zee Ruyel Pheelhermunic Oorchestra perffurm Mehler's 5th symphuny. Hupeffoolly I'll get sume-a guud peectoores eruoond toon und hefe-a mure-a tu vreete-a ebuoot.
Bork! Bork! Bork!

Safe and Sound in Stockholm

2005-09-13T21:56:00.000-06:00

My plane landed in Stockholm right around 7am, and after 30 minutes of the airline staff trying to figure out how to connect the jetway to the jet they finally figured it out. The stewardess did come on the PA, and giving her best Swedish Chef impression said "We just got new hardware, and new isn't always better. Bork Bork.". So I made it to my hotel around 9am and had breakfast with some other HP people once I got there.

At night we went out looking for food and finally stumbled on a nice bistro style restaurant. After dinner we went to a "jazz club", or at least, that was how they billed themselves on their website. They had a country western band that was performing old Hank Williams Sr. and Johnny Cash cover songs. This singer had NO accent (even when he was talking at the mic), but if you went to talk to him he could make himself sound like he was from CA or Germany because he was really from Berlin. Is that not the weirdest thing ever?

Anyway, the SAF conference starts this morning, so I've gotta get to work.

Itinerary for Stockholm, Sweden

2005-09-09T13:50:00.000-06:00

Yes, I'm headed back to Europe again for the next SA Forum meeting. This should be my last trip there for the year. Here are the details:

(Flight) 12 - 13 September 2005: Denver (DEN) to Stockholm (ARN)
- Leg 1: Denver (DEN) to Newark (EWR)
  - United Airlines Flight 422
  - Departs Denver 10:21am
  - Arrives Newark 4:04pm
- Leg 2: Newark (EWR) to Stockholm (ARN)
  - United Airlines Flight 9368
  - Departs Newark 5:20 pm
  - Arrives Stockholm 13 September 2005 7:05 am

13 - 18 September 2005: Sheraton Stockholm Hotel and Towers (link)

(Flight) 18 September 2005: Stockholm (ARN) to Denver (DEN)
- Leg 1: Stockholm (ARN) to Frankfurt (FRA)
  - Lufthansa Flight 6227
  - Departs Stockholm 9:10am
  - Arrives Frankfurt 11:20am
- Leg 2: Frankfurt (FRA) to Denver (DEN)
  - Lufthansa Flight 446
  - Departs Frankfurt 1:25 pm
  - Arrives Denver 3:20pm

Cub Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park

2005-09-04T14:41:00.000-06:00

This morning I went up to Rocky Mountain National Park. This was the first hike I did since spraining my ankle in June. I picked what the book called an "Easy Trail" because I didn't want to overdo it. The trail I chose is called "Cub Lake"; as you can probably guess, it heads up to a lake by the same name.

Cub Lake Trail is about 2.5 miles to the lake with a 500' vertical gain. Along the way you pass through a big grassy valley, hike along several streams, and past a small marsh. The lake is not a huge lake, but I got there around 8:30am as the sun was rising over it, and the view was gorgeous. I was feeling pretty good, and had no pain in my ankle, so I decided to go down to what the book called "The Pool". Turns out it is just a big river crossing, but it was a good place to stop and have lunch. It was pretty windy on the backside of the mountain. Or, as my good friend Derek would say in his ancestral Scottish Brogue, "It's a wee bit blowish".

This was my second trip up to RMNP, and I really enjoy it up there. The park is gorgeous, and if you get on the trail by 7am you can pretty much have it to yourself. Lots of "Good Morning"'s on the hike back though.

View my photos of Cub Lake.

Mourning the passing of a great individual

2005-09-04T00:41:00.000-06:00

Chief Justice William Rehnquist passed away today at the age of 80. As a supporter of states rights and judicial restraint, he stood for the original intent of the constitution; a bastion of hope in today's climate of judicial activism, "living documents", and the infinite powers of the federal government.

We mourn you, Mr. Rehnquist. We hope that we will not have to mourn the passing of an enlightened period of our country as the dumbest, most inarticulate, and worst president of our short history will now be able to appoint 2 supreme court justices. Hopefully our country will not degrade further towards theocracy; I'd hate to see the gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster being taught in science classes.

Einstein and Discovery

2005-08-21T05:48:00.000-06:00

Too many uses for the word discovery.

The first is about a discovery of an original Einstein manuscript in a University archive. The paper is title "Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas,", is dated December 1924, and is considered one of Einstein's last great breakthroughs. There is a Washington Post Article. If you want something really cool check out the Einstein Archive, which has High -Resolution Photos of the 1924 Paper.

The second is about space shuttle Discovery. I never realized that the space shuttle piggy-backed on a 747. Check out These photos from CNN.

Roe v. Wade, Jesus v. Judas

2005-08-20T04:30:00.000-06:00

Because of President Bush's choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with John Roberts on SCOTUS, there has been lots of debate lately over the the case of Roe v. Wade. Many are afraid it will be overturned, and we will return to the earlier situation of back-alley abortions and women dying because of it. Many others are eager to see it overturned. Clearly, it is one of those virulent issues that divides our country.

Anyway, while I was reading this thread on the topic, I saw an almost-totally-unrelated post giving a funny logical deduction regarding the story and sacrifice of Jesus:

1. Christ had to die for our sins so we can all be saved
2. Judas was the instrument that sent him to the cross
3. Judas burns in Hell forever
4. Therefore Judas Iscariot is truly paying the eternal price for our sins.

I was cracking up, because I'd never thought about it that way before. How come they don't teach it that way in Sunday school?

Geek Joke of the Day

2005-08-11T15:21:00.000-06:00

I saw this on slashdot:

Heisenberg was driving down the Autobahn whereupon he was pulled over by a policeman. The policeman asked, "Do you know how fast you were going back there? Heisenberg replied, "No, but I know where I am."

I seriously doubt that would work, but it would be funny as hell to say to a cop.

Suicide Bombing in China

2005-08-11T00:16:00.000-06:00

A bus exploded in Fuzhou City, Fujian Provice, at around 2:30pm, August 8. I hadn't heard anything about this, and the Chinese government is trying to cover it up. They were confiscating cameras, but thanks to the internet information is getting through:

Read about the blast.

I wonder how much stuff happens in China that gets totally covered up. How many incidents like the slaughters at Tienamen Square did we not find out about? We should all be glad for the internet and any technology which helps enable citizens to fight oppressive governments.

Open Source Fireplaces?

2005-08-10T13:46:00.000-06:00

I'm reading through a Benjamin Franklin biography, and I was surprised to read about his views on inventions, patents, and the public domain. When Ben was in his 40's he sold off his printing business so he could focus on studying, writing, and tinkering with inventions. One of his first inventions was a new design for a fireplace which would generate twice as much heat from 1/3 of the wood. He manufactured it, and sold it for several years.

The interesting thing is that Franklin declined to receive a patent for the fireplace design, and indeed turned down all patents for the rest of his life. In placing his inventions in the public domain, he said, "... as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

Franklin was a prolific experimenter and inventor (credited with discovering that lightning was in fact electricity), but he had no trouble generating profit from his inventions. Given that the recent trend is to use patents to actually stifle innovation (especially in software markets), I wonder if the world would be a better place if all inventors had his philosophy.

Who says the old HP is dead?

2005-08-09T00:21:00.000-06:00

Anybody that does has been reading too much Inquirer or Slashdot. My new lab had a picnic at the lake today, and the kicker is that there wasn't any reason for it! It wasn't to celebrate the end of a release that we just worked our butts off for... it was just to say "Hey, we know you guys work your butts off all the time... lets go have some fun!"

Bill and Dave used to do stuff like this all the time. In fact, they were in the habit of purchasing recreation areas like Little Basin in the Bay Area and Hermit Park in Colorado. You could even find Bill and Dave BBQing at annual company picnics! Our lab manager took on this role today, so there are still vestiges of the old HP alive and kicking.

New Poker Table

2005-08-05T01:31:00.000-06:00

As many of you know, I started working on building a poker table for my house. I wanted a simple design (since I'm not a master carpenter) that wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. The table is made of 3/4" Oak plywood, which I had ripped down to 8'x42" at Home Depot. Once I got it home I cut semi-circles on each end (with a 21" radius), and sanded it down. Both sides received two coats of polyurethane, and then 1/2" padding was glued to the top. I opted for burgundy speed cloth, because I wanted the classic casino fabric instead of the velveteen that is used on many home tables today. The rail a pre-fab rail, because it was easy and it looks nice. I finished it with folding table legs so that I can haul it down to the basement if I need to get it out of the way.

I'm going to make a more detailed posting later describing the construction process more in detail, but for now check out the pictures of my new poker table.

The American Pastime

2005-08-01T10:35:00.000-06:00

I went to my first baseball game in Colorado yesterday. Even though the Colorado Rockies have the worst record in the National League they really beat up on the Phillies. The game was scoreless going into the 5th inning, when the Rockies staged a 9-run rally. The final score was 9-2. I guess I'm good luck.

I have now attended baseball games in the following stadiums:

SBC Park, San Francisco

Candlestick Park, San Francisco

Oakland Colosseum

Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles

Angel's Stadium, Anaheim

Coor's Field, Denver

Fenway Park, Boston

Yankee Stadium, New York

Camden Yards, Baltimore

Olympic Stadium, Montreal

I'm not sure I'd want to go to Dodger Stadium again. 5 people were stabbed there yesterday after a game.

Favorites from our European Trip

2005-08-01T10:01:00.000-06:00

Well, we're both finally adjusted to US timezones again. We've taken some time to list out our favorites from the Europe trip, so feel free to click the links and check them out:

Michelle:

Favorite Museum: Uffizi, in Florence
Favorite Painting: "Spring", by Boticelli
Favorite Sculpture: Cupid and Psyche" by Antonio Canova
Favorite Fresco: Front wall of the Sistine Chapel
Favorite Church: Saint Peter's Basilica
Favorite Restaurant: Paradiso, in Venice
Most Interesting Dish: Tagliatelle with Crab (at Paradiso)
Favorite Dessert: Tiramisu Gelato

Chad:

Favorite Museum: Louvre
Favorite Painting: "Las Meninas", by Velazquez
Favorite Sculpture: "David", by Michelangelo Buonarroti
Favorite Fresco: Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
Favorite Restaurant: That place in Paris
Favorite Church: Saint Peter's Basilica
Most Interesting Dish: Gnudi, at that place in Florence
Favorite Dessert: Tiramisu Gelato

Internet Accessibility Weirdness

2005-07-14T18:32:00.000-06:00

Accessing the internet is weird. You'd think that any major area of population would be fully internet-accessible... but noooooooooooooo.

In the United States, almost every non-crappy hotel has internet access in the room. It might be wired access, or wireless access, or both. It might be free or you might have to pay for it. But it will be there. However, almost every US airport I have flown through recently did not offer internet access. And don't even think about US train stations. One exception was the Vegas McCarran airport, which actually offered free, unlimited wireless access.

Contrast this with certain parts of Europe. Every airport and train station had wireless internet access. But none of the hotels we stayed in in Italy or Spain had internet access. Do they just have very little business travelers? Or do business travelers not work from the Hotel room? Why do they think people on trains want to use the internet but not people at hotels? Very weird. I will point out that German hotels very internet accessible... in fact, Germany was more like the US than any other European country I've been to.

In the "information age", it can still be very difficult and frustrating to get connected. Why do we find free internet all over the US, but very expensive internet in Europe? I guess they have to fund their crazy socialist 15% unemployment schemes somehow.

Last Night in Madrid

2005-07-09T12:23:00.000-06:00

Tonight is our last night in Madrid. We are both pretty wiped, so I imagine it will just be dinner and some relaxing, as well as getting packed to return home. We are hoping that hurricane Dennis won't mess up our flight plans, although we are flying through Miami on our way home. We'll keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't hit Miami and screw up our flights.

Last evening we went to a place for dinner and a Flamenco dancing performance, which was totally cool. The band was small, with 2 guitarists, 2 singers, and a drummer. There were 2 dancers, who I think were father and daughter.

Today we toured the Royal Palace and the Museo del Prado. The Royal Palace has 2800 rooms in, and we went through 23 of them. The Royal Family doesn't even live there anymore... it is only used for official events now. The Museo del Prado is probably one of the most important art museums in Spain as it houses the art of painters like Velazquez and Goya.

Go check out our pictures of Madrid.

La Comida de Madrid es muy Mal

2005-07-08T07:10:00.000-06:00

All throughout this trip we've been having fantastic food, but once we got to Madrid we were extremely disappointed with the local cuisine. All of the "Spanish Tapas" places I've been to in the United States have all been excellent, but here the food is pretty gross. Everything is either drenched in Mayonnaise, or else it is deep fried and then drenched in mayonnaise. Plain mayonnaise is the salad dressing, toast is smothered in it, and deep friend anchovies are dipped in it. Pretty much all the restaurants display the same kinds of things on their menus, so I don't think we just went to a bad place. We were able to find a (totally empty) Kebab restaurant today, which was actually very good (and half the price of KFC). We'll probably be back there again.

Internet cafes are much better in Madrid than in Venice or Paris. I was actually able to just hook my laptop up and use that directly. See the Pictures of Venice and the Pictures of Paris.

Today we are just sort of tooling around the neighborhood by our hotel. We'll probably hop on a different one of those double-decker buses today, because they have 3 different routes around the city. No plans for tonight yet, but I'm still researching entertainment.

Tomorrow we will be taking a guided tour of the Royal Palace and the Museo del Prado. The Royal Palace is the largest palace in Europe, with more than 2800 rooms. Really, who needs a house that big?

Safely in Madrid

2005-07-07T08:22:00.000-06:00

We arrived in Madrid safely on the Francisco de Goya train this morning. We have seen the terrible news about what happened in London, but we are OK here. The Spanish train is much nicer than the Italian train. I actually fit (length wise) into the little bunk, and got a good night´s sleep. The restaurant was like a fancy restaurant, and quiet, very different from the Italian train.

This afternoon we took one of those red double-decker tour buses on a loop around the city. We got some cool pictures, and then walked around a bit before heading back to our hotel.

We are still sorting through pictures from Venice and Paris. We will get them up soon.

Moving on to Madrid

2005-07-06T11:24:00.000-06:00

We are sitting at the Paris-Austerlitz station waiting for our train to Madrid to pull out. There is a WIFI point here, so we were able to check out email.

If you've already checked out the Florence pictures, we've added some more that were previously missed. There are some from the inside of the Duomo, and also there are some showing food that we ate. You can see those here. Below is me eating a dish called Gnudi, which is dumplings of Ricotta and Spinach rolled up in Mozzarella balls:

And here is Michelle eating Linguini with Clams and Mussels:

Paris was fun. We arrived at the Bercy train station yesterday, but there was no baggage check there. We hauled everything down the street to Gare de Lyon, where we shoved our big bags into lockers, and just pulled out what we needed for the next day into our backpacks. Yesterday morning we visited Notre Dame, and had a quick lunch near there. Then we took the Subway over to the Eiffel Tower and looked at that for a while. I fell asleep in the Parc du Champ de Mars while Michelle was writing her post cards, leaving an interesting tan line on the front of my legs. We walked from there to the Hotel Des Invalides, where Napolean is buried. There is a beautiful garden there as well (lots of cool gardens in Paris). To finish off the day we walked up to the Grand Palace. This is under construction, but we were able to snap off a few good photos. Right next to the Grand Palace is something that looks like a Royal mother-in-law unit, called the Petite Palace. Oh, how nice it would be to have a palace so small.

Phillippe picked us up and we went back to his and Sylvie's house. After a quick shower (which was much nicer than the tiny one in the train car!) we went out to dinner. Of course, we went back to the same restaurant that they took me to before. Again, Phillippe and I had way too much wine; we were suffering this morning something awful. But the food was excellent (all 7 courses), and we had a great time visiting with Phillippe and Sylvie. Here is a photo of the group:

Today we took a semi-private tour of the Louvre (just us and one other couple). This is really the way to go, because all the exhibit text is in French, so it would be hard to find your way around. We did the highlights like the Mona Lisa and Hamurrabi´s Code. Also, before the Louvre was a Museum it was a Palace for Kings, and before that it was a fortress. You can walk around underground in what used to be the moat, and see huge stone pilings from where the fortress used to be.

Now we are on to Madrid. We did very little planning for this part of the trip, but Michelle bought a big book on Spain so we should be able to figure it out during our 13.5 hour train ride.

I haven't had time to organize pictures from Venice or Paris yet, but it will be done soon so stay tuned.

Venice Roundup

2005-07-04T06:35:00.000-06:00

Well, today is our last day in Venice. We have seen some really cool concerts while we were here. The first, Musica in Maschera was a Chamber Orchestra and Opera Singers performing famous Opera songs. The second concert was from Musici Veneziani and they performed all 4 of Vivaldi's Seasons and Pachelbel's Canon. It was the first time I'd seen all 4 seasons performed at the same concert, so that was cool. Both groups were dressed in 18th century costumes.

Tonight we are on a overnight train to Paris. It is 12 and a half hours long, and we get into Paris at 8:30am. We dont know what we will do tomorrow during the day, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. We will be staying with friends Phillippe and Sylvie, who I met on the SCUBA boat in Australia in April. On Tuesday we will be taking a tour of the Louvre, which is supposedly one of the greatest museums in the world. After the Louvre tour we will be on another overnight train to Madrid. Neither of us has ridden an overnight train before and we don't know what to expect. What an adventure!

Also, we have posted photos of Florence and photos of Siena. Go check them out!

Pictures from Rome

2005-07-03T08:20:00.000-06:00

It is taking forever to upload pictures, but we finally got some of them up! You can check out the Photos from Rome.

Venice Rocks!

2005-07-02T06:08:00.000-06:00

Our train arrived in Venice around 5pm, and we quickly hopped on a water bus to get to our hotel. I didn't realize Venice was actually an island where they just drove giant pillars into the ground and erected an entire city in the middle of the water. It is in the middle of a chain of islands, but of course Venice is the most busy. Our hotel made a reservation at a nice out of the way restaurant, and we had a seafood dinner. Scallops for appetizer, Lobster Ravioli and Crab Pasta for a first course, tuna and swordfish for a second course, and chocolate mousse and cream pudding for dessert. Yum!

This morning we got on a tour boat that visited some of the islands around Venice. First we visited Murano, known for its master glass blowers. I bought a really neat hand-blown chess set, and arranged for them to ship it to Colorado for me. The second island was Burano, known for its women that make cool lace items. It is also a fishing village, and has lots of really neat houses that are painted bright colors. The 3rd island we visited was Torcello. It was very quaint, and only inhabited by 80 people. Not too much to see except the big church, and there was a wedding happening so lots of people were dressed up.

Tonight we are going to see a concert called Music in Maschera; apparently the performers wear old victorian outfits and masks. It sounds very cool.

Still no access to high speed internet for posting pictures. We may just burn a CD and bring to the internet cafe and post them from here. Stay tuned.

Fun in Florence, Summer in Siena

2005-07-01T10:50:00.000-06:00

After getting off the train at Florence's Santa Maria Novella station we started hiking to our hotel. The hotel was only about a quarter mile from the train station, but it sure seemed like about 10 miles. The hot Italian sun was beating down on us, and by the time we reached Hotel Casci we were super sweaty and tired. But, the hotel was nice (read: the A/C worked) and so I decided to take a short (4 hour) nap while Michelle went out shopping. She finally got me awake around 8:30 and we headed out to dinner.

Florence is much more quaint town than Rome. Streets are narrow and sidewalks are smaller. The hotel recommended an EXCELLENT restaurant just down the street. I had a dish called Gnudi, which was very very good. Gnudi is a large dumpling made from Ricotta cheese and spinach rolled up inside of mozzarella, and covered with alfredo sauce. Sooooooo good. Michelle had Linguini with clams and mussels, which was also very tasty. In fact, she liked it so much that she wanted to go back there again for the same meal. Perhaps my habit of getting stuck on a dish is rubbing off onto her?

On day 2 we went to the Galleria Accademia, which is where Michaelangelo's famous "David" sculpture is. It is hard to visualize how magnificent this sculpture is, standing 16 feet tall and carved out of a single rock. The amount of detail is crazy, down to the creases in the knuckle of his hand. We sat and stared at the sculpture for at least 30 minutes, and also perused the other exhibits in the museum. After this museum we headed over to the Museo dell Opera Duomo. The largest church in Florence is called the Duomo, and most of the statues and art (including another Pieta from Michaelangelo) from this Church were moved here for better care. We grabbed some lunch, and got on a train for a day trip to Siena.

Siena is a small Medieval town southwest of Florence. It apparently hasn't changed much since the 1500s, and still retains that old-school feeling. Walking around it is easy to imagine what it was like back then. The main plaza in the center of town is called the Campo, and is actually a site for an annual horse race, with one horse representing each neighborhood of Siena. The race is on July 2nd every year, and preparations were underway while we were walking around. The weird thing about Siena is that no restaurants open before 7:30. We had planned on having an early dinner there before catching the last train back to Florence, but we would have missed the train if we waited that long. I guess it is just too hot there and the restaurant owners don't want to get all sweaty by working in the heat. We came back to Florence on the 8pm train, and just ate take-out food in our room.

Guess what we did on the day 3... yep, we went to some museums! Yaaayyyy museums! In the morning we visited the Museum of Science, which had things like Galileo's original telescopes, old sundials, instruments of medicine and electricity, and all kinds of other things. There was something like 20 different rooms and exhibits, lots of cool stuff to see. After this museum we signed up for a tour of the Uffizi Museum. The Medici family, which ruled Florence for 300 years, used this building as their office (uffizi is the italian word for office), and it was turned into a museum when the family died off. Too many paintings and sculptures to see in one day, but the tour guide gave us the highlights. The coolest ones that we saw were Boticelli's "Spring" and "Birth of Venus", but there were also cool pieces from Michaelangelo, Rafael, Donatello, and Leondardo. Yes all the teenage mutant ninja turtles are represented in the Uffizi. Right outside the uffizi is a cool bridge called Ponte Vecchio, which is a nice Kodak Picture Spot. We finished off the day by going to the Florence Symphony, who performed Mahler's Symphony #5. They did an excellent job, and the principal trumpet player was awesome.

On the last day we rested. Not really. We visited the biggest church in Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore. Lots of cool paintings on the walls, and of course great frescoes on the ceilings. Michelle ate McDonald's at the train station (yes, I'm serious) and we headed out for Florence.

When in Rome...

2005-06-27T03:40:00.000-06:00

Well, you know the rest. Actually, I think the original phrase was "sweat like a pig", but it was probably changed to be more civil.

Michelle got on the wrong plane (well, she wasn't on MY plane), so we arrived at different times. Our hotel was very nice, and run by a musician so there were stereos in every room and a huge CD collection to choose from. On the first evening we just walked around neighborhood a bit and had a nice relaxing dinner.

Day 2 consisted of touring ancient ruins. We started off by going to the Colosseum. It suffered an earthquake in the 14th century and so it is partially destroyed, but you can still walk around the inside and get a feel for what it must have been like with 50,000 people in it and gladiators fighting in the arena. Right next to the Colosseum is the Roman Forum. This is a huge area where people used to gather, and I think there was administrative buildings as well. Only various pillars and partial buildings are left standing. From here we drank lots of ice water and walked over to the Trevi Fountain, which is a gorgeous fountain. It is right in the middle of a square, and Michelle was brave enough to stick her toes in even as the Polizia were bashing in the heads of anybody who did that. At night we went to an outdoor Piano concert in the park, where I was more busy keeping Michelle awake than watching the concert (Michelle wants me to point out that during the parts she was awake for she was keeping me awake too). Jet lag is hell.

On day 3 we did lots of good Catholic things. First, we waited in THE LONGEST LINE EVER to go into the Vatican Museum. This museum averages 20,000 people a day, so you can imagine what the line looked like. Lots of cool statues and paintings in the Vatican, and we also got to see the amazing Sistine Chapel. Michaelangelo spent 5 years painting the ceiling, and then 20 years later came back to paint the wall behind the Altar. You can not even begin to imagine how complex and ornate the painting on the ceiling is... it is amazing that it was done by one person. We had lunch at the Vatican and then walked over to St. Peter's Basilica. This is the main church for the entire Catholic faith, because St. Peter (i.e. the "rock of the church") is buried inside. We joined up with an American that was giving a free tour, and he explained a lot about the church and the art inside. The Basilica is 98 stories tall, almost as tall as the World Trade Center Towers (which were 110 stories).

On Day 4 we just walked back to St. Peter's Square and hung out there for a bit before getting on the train for Florence. In the center of St. Peter's Square is a giant Obelisk that was created in Egypt 13 centuries before Christ, and later moved to Rome. Lining the ellptical-shaped "square" are statues of every minor saint (the ones that only performed 1 or 2 miracles), and the two foci of the ellipse are massive fountains.

We have pictures of just about everything that we saw (actually, we have about 5 pictures of everything that we saw), but we haven't had access to a high speed internet connection yet so we can't post them online. We will do that as soon as possible.

A Snowy Colorado Painting

2005-06-18T21:39:00.000-06:00

My Grandfather painted a snowy mountain landscape as a housewarming gift for my new house in Colorado. Thought you might like to see it: