Block Crazy

EMC sent out an email this morning saying that they were having issues with the internet blocking mechanism and they apologize for any inconvenience. They are blocking my eRoom which is where I get courseware and updates, they are blocking powerlink (which is their customer portal website), they are blocking Meebo (my IM site), they are blocking MLB, ESPN, CNN, ADP, Facebook, & Bella's and those are just the ones I tried. They are not however blocking Blogspot? OK.. So today's blog is brought to you by luck I suppose.

Last night I went out for the curry club and the Old Manor with a co-worker. For 6 GBP I got a very good Chicken Tikki Masala and Vegetarian Samosas, it came with 2 pieces of nan and some yellow rice. It also came with a free beer! I got the English Bitter again. I was so tired last night after staying up late every night that I ended up crashing in bed around 10. I woke up around 2:30 and had problems falling back asleep so I watched a documentary on TV about British Yogurt sales and how the packaging and marketing evolved over the last 40 years. It was the best thing on.. I didn't watch it all, I watched from the 1960's till the 1990's before I got tired enough to shut it back off and get back to sleep.

I am done with lecture and now waiting for my students to do labs, it's a bit frustrating because they have not even started them, instead they went for a "quick" break before labs about 25 mins ago. I plan to go to London today once they are done and would really like to be sooner rather than later.

Ah Symmetrix, my old friend..

This may be a long blog because I actually have things to say I just haven't taken the time to write them down..

I am in Symmetrix Installation and Maintenance class this week.. Why you ask? I am branching my knowledge back up an old branch.. I will be adding Symm classes to my repertoire of classes I teach, should not take much ramp up time since I worked on that product for 5 years before becoming a SAN instructor.. Being in the class is pretty boring because it's amazing how little I forgot.. :)

So bored at work means time to blog..

My dad got a hold of the Sunday ticket plan games for 2010 so I spent this morning looking over games and which ones conflict with other plans. One thing I realized is that I set my Disney Vacation for the beginning of the playoffs, will that matter? Depends on how good the Mets do this year.. It would be bitter sweet if they made the playoffs and I was in Disney for it but I will take my chances.. :)

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I've read some very good books lately and wanted to mention one that really stood out above the rest.. Paul Levinson's Plot to Save Socrates.. I don't want to say too much because I do recommend you read it if you like time travel and especially if you have a keen like of Ancient Greece.. Here is a cut and paste of the Wiki article on it..

The Plot To Save Socrates deals primarily with the concept of time travel, and while the novel rarely discusses time travel directly, it poses several questions about its validity and possibility (or lack thereof). The story begins in Athens Greece in 2042 with the main character, Sierra Waters, thinking to herself, at which point the rest of the story begins as a flashback (both in her head and in the sense that the characters constantly flash in and out of historic eras). Sierra Waters, a graduate student, receives a copy of a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates is being offered an escape from his death sentence in ancient Athens by a person (named Andros) offering to take him into the future and leave a clone behind. The document appears to be genuine, and this takes Sierra onto a path that leads her to a time traveling adventure of her own. On her path she meets up with the great historic inventor Heron of Alexandria but soon realizes that Heron is a suspicious character himself. The story tangles itself a bit as more and more characters appear to be intertwined with each other and on occasion even the same person at different points in life. However, the novel ultimately untangles itself, somewhat satisfying the plot's plausibility although leaving unanswered any deeper metaphysical qualms the reader might have. The story also involves Plato, Alcibiades, publisher William Henry Appleton, as well as several fictional characters. There are scenes across time, placed in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Victorian New York City, and Roman London.

Another book that I would recommend is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. If you've seen Miyazaki's movie by the same name you will not be disappointed by this read nor by the movie after reading it. Obviously the movie has alot of things missing and some differences but Miyazaki did a great job of presenting the book in movie form.

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Back to the 20th.. The last time I wrote a blog I was getting ready to go meet Amy and Mitch for dinner. The drive down to their house really sucked, there was an accident a mile away from their exit so the 20 mile ride took me about 90 mins! I got there and we hung our for a bit before we went to Daks, a local non-chain restaurant, for dinner. Dinner was good but the place was crazy cold, Mitch found a space heater tucked behind one of the tables so we pulled it out and turned it on under our table which made it much better. After dinner we went to Baskin' Robbins near Daks and ended up leaving because they had an un-open container of chocolate peanut butter but would not open it!? The guy looked at me and said "we don't have that flavor tonight", I said "but it's right there", and he said "yeah, but it's not open"... wtf?! We drove down the road about 5 mins to another Baskin' Robbins and they had the correct ice cream so we got some.. :) It was so nice to be able to spend time with Amy and Mitch and I'm looking forward to my next trip to the DC area in April so we can hang out more. Hopefully next time she will be in better condition so we can enjoy more active activities, she had recently gotten into a bad car accident and could barely get in and out of the car because of pain..

Speaking of people I miss hanging out with.. Kaitlyn came over on the 24th and we went to the Willi Brew Pub with Lynz and Jessie. We had some good food and some good beer (as expected at the Brew Pub).. After dinner me, Kaitlyn and Jessie played some Guitar Hero.. Kaitlyn played drums and a great time was had by all..

Janine and I had planned to watch Wicked on DVD, we finally scheduled it for the 25th.. Idea, me and Jessie would go to Hoyle and Janine's house for dinner and afterwards watch Wicked.. Fail in the plan, I can't find my Wicked DVD.. Anyone have it? I know I lent it to someone but don't remember who.. Well, after spending way to much time looking for the stupid DVD me and Jessie headed over. After dinner we ended up watching Inglorious Bastards which I really liked. It was very long (153 mins) but it kept my interest throughout, Jessie was not as impressed. The only thing I would have liked was more on screen time of the Inglorious Bastards..

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Me and Jessie went to the Laire Awards ceremony this Saturday. They always have it at Dave and Busters in West Nyack NY, the last time we went the food was just "eh", this time the food was actually quite good. The Order won best group which gives us one free ward a month.

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The final episode of Dollhouse aired on Friday night. It did a good job of ending the series but I really wish it was longer, the episode seemed to be on the verge of fast forward and I think they could have done alot more with it. Hopefully the DVD set will have a longer version of the final episode. I remember reading somewhere that the final episode was going to be 2 hours but it was only 1 so who knows. Maybe my source was bad, maybe the cut an hour out for broadcast. I hope the 2nd one is true.

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When I started this blog I think I had more to say but now I don't remember what it was.. I should have made an outline before I started but oh well.. Perhaps I will remember more later and write about in another blog..

I just found out that there is a sequel being written for Plot to Save Socrates. It's called Unburning Alexandria, no listed release date but something to watch for.

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Dimension Jump XVI is being held in London on July 23rd-25th. When that schedule is being written I'm going to ask my boss if he can send me to London that week.. Dimension Jump is a Red Dwarf convention, the rumor is they are going to show episode 1 of series 10.

---Diversion of the Day

http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20100129.html

kangaroo!

Today was the first day of work in here in Sydney. Now normally I try to go to the office on Saturday or Sunday when I first arrive in a new place, well I didn't do that because I was too busy wandering Sydney to bother going to work. Well, that was not the best idea..

I woke up around 6am today and left around 7am figuring I had two hours to make it to work. Well, I walked to the train station got on the 7:20 train. I arrived at Epping Station at 8:15 figured I didn't have time to walk, plus my leg is sore from all the walking over the weekend, so I jumped on the bus to the industrial park. First off, the bus was flying so I couldn't read any signs of the stations we were blowing by. I remember Matt telling me that the EMC building was right by the mall/food court so when we past the mall I hit the button to get off which dropped me off a few blocks away from the mall. I ended up calling Matt because I had no idea where the building was and the directions I had suck. Matt got me to the building, go to the mall so that you are standing in front of Subway, walk across the street and walk between the Nortell building and some university housing complex. Behind the Nortell building there is another building, EMC is in there! Oh man, I'm glad Matt was available to get me there today.

I arrived with about 5 minutes to spare before 9am start time. Apparently a bunch of students must have cancelled out because there are only four this week plus another instructor who is co-teaching. The classroom has a really old PC for the instructor PC and no student PCs and/or laptops. The instructor PC is so slow that when I hit the next button on Power Point it takes a good 20-30 seconds for it to proceed, which is actually pretty funny but also pretty sad. Anyway, class went well and I was done with lecture before lunch which is normal for Monday MDS class. Went over to the mall food court to eat lunch because that's what they do here. The mall food court has an ice skating rink, I took a picture... After lunch the students did labs and I was out around 4ish. I got back to the hotel around 5:30 and relaxed a bit before heading out to eat. I went down to Darling Harbor and ate at a steakhouse called The Meat & Wine Co.

When I left the hotel I thought I was going to get a Wagyu Ribeye, but after looking over the whole menu I ended up with the Kangaroo Fillet. Kangaroo is VERY tender and tastes like a cross between Venison and Beef. It was very very good but the portion was small. Imagine you order steak tips, now take four of those tips and put it on a plate with potatoes and sauce, that was the size of the dish. Don't get me wrong, it ended up being a good size, I actually got dessert because I was still a bit hungry when done. I also had two glasses of a great Shiraz, one with dinner and one with my chocolate pistachio dessert.

Back at the hotel and getting ready for bed, I will upload pics to flickr before bed so when you read this there should be some cool day 3 pics.. :D

No more BUSH!!

I really need to get back into blogging more often.. The problem is that I forget some of the finer details the further back I have to go and I liked it when I was using this blog to reflect at the end of the day.

Jessie got home around 6:00 and we (Kris, Amber, Sara, Jessie and myself) headed out to Providence to meet Kevin at Cheesecake Factory for dinner for his birthday. The waiter at Cheesecake Factory was amazing, he was able to spout all kinds of information about any of the cheesecakes and meals and took our table of six order with no pad. I had ahi carpaccio as an appetizer which was holy crap amazing, it's "Thin Slices of Raw Ahi Tuna, Wasabi Pesto, Creamy Avocado and Togarashi Aioli".. For dinner I had pan seared albacore which was also really really good, it's "Fresh Albacore Tuna - Seared Rare with Shallots, Garlic, Red Chiles, Cilantro, Wasabi Pesto and a Spicy Soy-Ginger Sauce. Served with Sauteed Vegetables and Steamed White Rice".. However good the albacore was I probably would have been fine just eating another of the ahi carpaccios for dinner. After dinner we went to Dave & Busters and played some games before heading home and to bed.

Sunday was spent as a lazy day hanging around the house which ended with us all (Kevin, Kris, Amber, Jessie, Sara and myself) going to Empire Buffet and scaring the locals.. We were having a pretty implicit discussion and the people at the table next to us were laughing a lot.

I just got back from watching Obama's inauguration and speech.. What a great speech to start his presidency.. I tried to bring it up on my laptop for CNN Live and got a waiting room screen so I ended up hurrying down to the break room and got there just as they were announcing him.. Speaking of Obama, I ordered the circle logo bumper sticker for my car.. I want to show my support for him during these next 8 years.

So, back to Monday.. I am teaching Invista this week, this is the first time I am teaching this class since I was qualified back in December and the better thing is it's a new version of the class that I hadn't seen yet. So far it's been a great class, I came in on Monday and found that one my old friends from the PSE lab is in my class this week.. I was talking to Sara during the day and decided I would make a flank steak for dinner tonight which of course means I need to fix my oven. If you don't remember I broke the latch lock on the oven on Santamas Eve and have been far to unambitious to actually fix it. I got home yesterday and finally took the top of the oven apart and fixed the latch.

After fixing the oven we did some laundry and got pizza at Pyzzz. The pizza I got was dairy free, I got goat cheese, bacon, olives and green peppers with red sauce. Speaking of pizza, I still really need to bring Lynz and Sara down to Engine 6 in Norwich CT which has gluten free pizza.

Back to Monday.. Me and Jessie got some time to relax alone on the couch and we watched the first two episodes of Scrubs from this season. It was nice to finally have some down time with her, it was a very crazy fast paced weekend so it was nice to just relax at home before ramping everything back up again...

Amber called a little while ago, she is at my house and will be coming to dinner with us tonight before heading back up to school for the semester.


---Diversion of the Day

Merry Santamas

Just a quick, well quickish, blog to say Merry Santamas...

So, I don't take vacation from work on Santamas week because in the past we have always been told to just "work from home" so I don't waste the vacation time. Last year my boss got upset because nobody came in on Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas and he said that if you're not taking vacation you should come in... Anyway so on to this year.. I didn't take vacation again and last week my boss sent out an email saying that everyone who was not on vacation had to come in Mon-Wed and Friday, he said that we didn't have to stay long but that we did at least have to come in each day.. Well... I showed up on Monday and found that the elevator didn't work! It took me awhile to get up the stairs and when I did my boss said he was just about to call me and tell me not to come because the elevator was not working... Oh well.. It was good for me to go in anyway because I hadn't seen my boss in awhile so we had a good meeting.. As it turns out the elevator was broken because it froze up due to the cold weather so I was told not to come in for the rest of the week.

Tuesday ended up being a very busy day, Kaitlyn went to buy an exercise bike and Ryan agreed to help her pick it up from the person selling it. She got stuck in really bad traffic and got here later than we expected, Ryan came over and we drove up to get the bike. On the way back we ate lunch at Bill's Bread and Breakfast which was the first time I had eaten lunch there. It was good, I had a kielbasa, onion and pepper wrap. After lunch we moved the bike into my garage and Ryan and Kaitlyn left and I made my home made Teriyaki and started to marinate the pork for last night. Amber came over and when Jessie got home we went to Sara & Ryan's house for dinner.

Sara decided she would do pizzas because it would be quick and easy, unfortunately it was nothing but hard work for her, we may think of catering big holiday weeks in the future. I had a great time wandering around the house handing out presents one at a time. Lynz brought over candles for everyone which were a big hit until one of the kids threw one through the coffee table... Joe brought over home made candies which were really good, I stole most of the peanut butter cups... We had a full house this week with the addition of Amber and Badger (Jessie's friend), speaking of Badger he brought over a home made blueberry mead which was so good. Me and Amber left around midnight after we watched the Colbert Christmas DVD.

Yesterday I spent the whole day cleaning with Amber to get the house ready for Santamas Eve. We put the oven on the cleaning cycle and it finished right before I would have needed to start cooking, in my hurry to get things going I forced the latch and broke the locking mechanism for our oven... I ended up bringing the pork over to Elizabeth's house and using her oven.. So between Elizabeth's oven and my stove I cooked my teriyaki pork tenderloin, my caper pancetta cauliflower and spinach & broccollini and somehow managed the timing so the pork was perfectly cooked! Jessie made her raw sauce and zucchini pasta as well as rice pasta and regular pasta, for some reason we only had half a bag of rice pasta so we had to make both kinds. How many people can you sit at your table? We managed 13 people at ours, Lenny, Derek and Rachel got the bench on one side, mom and Jessie got the piano bench on the other side and we had 4 people on each long side (Matt, Lenny, Sandy and Joe on one side, dad, Jessie's mom, me and Amber on the other). After dinner while everyone was still at the table we did gifts and then dessert and Wii playing for the rest of the night. I got a new Rayman party game that everyone played for awhile and then Lenny and Rachel challenged me to Guitar Hero World Tour face offs. I like the idea of doing the presents here like that, makes it so we don't have to bring anything with us over to my brother's house today... By the end of the night my foot was killing me, I certainly feel like I pushed it yesterday being on it all day cleaning and moving furniture and cooking and everything else...

This morning we watched the entire Colbert Christmas DVD including the bonus song, the three alternate endings and the 25 little skits in the advent calendar.. Why do they call it an advent calendar? I'm not going to go down that tangent because I would have to actually look it up... One of the days in the advent calendar had the full version of "Jingle Man, Christmas Boy" which was the song he was doing in the beginning of the special.. Here are the lyrics, I want to rip it off the DVD so I can put it on my iPod...

Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Catching smugglers in New York and thieves in Illinois
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Dashing through the town
In a one-horse Escalade
Hunting criminals down
Punching all the way, PUNCH! PUNCH! PUNCH!
Helping the police
Eating candy canes
Wearing polar fleece
And an umbrella if it rains
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Catching smugglers in New York and thieves in Illinois
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho
Dashing through the snow
In a pizza delivery van
Over the streets they go
Hitting pedestrians, Just kidding!
Never doing drugs
Calling their grandmas
Giving lots of hugs to
Everyone who needs a hug
Oh, Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Silver bells and do be do
I lost my train of thought...
ROCK LOBSTER!
Jingle man, Christmas boy
Fighting crime with toys
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho

The more I listen to the Colbert Christmas the more I like the Feist song "Please be Patient", I really like her voice and will need to check out more of her stuff.. She is apparently a folk artist out of California. For more of her check out my diversion of the day... :)

Jessie's mom just left and I'm going to put an end to this "quick" blog so I can spend some time with Jessie before we go over to my brother's house...

---Diversion of the Day


Jessie found this on polyweekly's forum and I figure it's Santamas so why not have two diversions.... :D

---Diversion from the Diversion of the Day
Have a jolly poly Christmas
It's the best time of the year
Quads and vees are trimming trees
While metamours bring cheer.
Have a jolly poly Christmas
And when you walk down the street
Show your glee and NRE
To everyone you meet.

Oh, ho, the mistletoe
Hung where you can see;
When your quad reaches it
Kiss her and him and me.
Have a jolly poly Christmas
And in case you didn't hear,
Oh by golly have a jolly,
Poly Christmas this year!

Got my 2009 Citi-Field seats...

Last night we had another great dinner.. Lynz and John made chocolate covered bacon for dessert, well for appetizer and dessert really.. :) Joe brought over some collards so we could wrap Kristen's sausage and peppers, unfortunately Kristen ended up not making it because she had a massive headache.. Kevin made a barley, asparagus risotto which we ended up putting in the collards so it all worked out.. Drew brought over some really good stuffed mushrooms and Jessie made rice pasta with her homemade hot sauce. Sara made a spice cake and loaded it up with tons of frosting, the cake was in a glass rectangular Pyrex and Kevin ended up mistaking it for mashed potatoes and putting a serving spoon in it before realizing it was cake.. :D

Watched disc one of the Clone Wars TV Series last night. It was ok, and it reminded me of a line from Big Bang Theory "I’m sorry, but I’m not going to watch the Clone Wars TV series until I’ve seen the Clone Wars Movie. I prefer to let George Lucas disappoint me in the order he intend."

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Today has been a challenging day for me.. Feeding the cats in the morning was a bit of a pain in the ass, Nest was trying to rub up against my crutch and making me lose balance a bunch of times. After that I headed downstairs to my car and I slipped down the last stair..

Got to work and taught till 9:30 when I set up the con-call to call the Mets. We called at 9:40 and they told us to call back, we called at 9:55 and they told us to call back! We called at 10:00 and they told us their computer was down and we should just buy them online or if we really wanted we could call back tomorrow, we asked to speak with a supervisor and the guy hung up on us!!!!!! I really had to stop myself from throwing a fit because my students were in lab, luckily for me Ivon threw enough of a fit for both of us...

Called them right back and sat on hold for about 30 minutes before getting someone who could help us... Apparently they were only selling rows 13-17 to Sunday package people. The Saturday package was sold down to the point where they didn't have 8 seats anywhere together. The Friday package as well. I was playing around online while we were waiting for them to pick up and was seeing what packages I could get which seats for. Anyway, we ended up getting seats in section 522 which is still on the infield dirt. The guy on the phone said that row 17 (last row in stadium) has the same height as the lowest row in the old upper deck. I got row 14 seats 1-4 & row 15 seats 1-4, Ivon got row 16 seats 1-2 and Pete got row 16 seat 3. Other good news about those seats is that they are covered so we won't get rained on!

Here is the list of games I have tickets to:
Thursday April 16 7:10 p.m. San Diego Padres
Sunday April 19 1:10 p.m. Milwaukee Brewers
Sunday April 26 1:10 p.m. Washington Nationals
Sunday May 10 1:10 p.m. Pittsburgh Pirates
Tuesday May 26 7:10 p.m. Washington Nationals
Sunday May 31 1:10 p.m. Florida Marlins
Monday June 22 7:10 p.m. St. Louis Cardinals
Sunday June 28 1:10 p.m. New York Yankees
Sunday July 12 1:10 p.m. Cincinnati Reds
Wednesday July 29 7:10 p.m. Colorado Rockies
Sunday August 2 1:10 p.m. Arizona Diamondbacks
Wednesday August 19 7:10 p.m. Atlanta Braves
Sunday August 23 1:10 p.m. Philadelphia Phillies
Sunday September 6 1:10 p.m. Chicago Cubs
Sunday September 20 1:10 p.m. Washington Nationals

Other baseball news: The Mets signed K-Rod (Francisco Rodriguez) to a 3 year $37,000,000 contract, I know that sounds like a ton of money, but it's less than we paid Billy Wagner back in 2006. The Yankees also made a big signing today, they signed CC Sabathia to a 7 year $160,000,000 contract! I don't know if I would sign a 28 year old pitcher to a 7 year deal, but that's why I'm not the Yankees, that signing will be good for them for the first few years, but in the end it will probably prove to be a bad one.

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Continuing the theme of good and bad... I talked with Brian today and he is going to get someone to cover me so I can have surgery on my left foot on March 18th (three days after March Laire event). That will give me four weeks to heal before opening day at Citi-Field and the April Laire event. The bad news?? Well, they just sent out a new notification about travel expenses, they are stopping ALL business class travel which means no more business class buy back... I partially don't care because I don't use business class, but for someone who is too big for coach it is really unfair to expect them to sit on a plane for 20+ hours to fly to Australia...

Oh, and one more thing... I have to drive to the office each day during Christmas and New Years weeks...

6 Months is a long short time..

Updates.. I feel like I've been away from this blog for so long.. So where was I? Wednesday was the last time I blogged, at that time I was laying on the couch in much pain.. Now I'm sitting on the couch in a mostly pain free state. How did I get from there to here? Well..

Wednesday night Jessie brought home some Red Robin for dinner.. Lynz came over Wednesday after John's sword class and slept over so she could drive me to work on Thursday.

Thursday Lynz drove me to work and hid out in a classroom to "work from home". I was planning on leaving around 2:15-2:30 to get to my appointment to remove the stitches. A friend/co-worker was going to cover my class from 2 till the end of the day but he ended up getting laid off in a 1pm meeting! We ended up leaving around 2:40 and got to my appointment late. So.. Cast off.. Padding off.. Gauze off.. Now wait... ... ... ... I was holding my foot up and steady because I was afraid of messing up the tendon by moving my foot while waiting for the doctor to come in and remove the stitches. Ironic (annoying) thing is that when he came in he said I could have and it would not have caused any problems.. eh... Anyway, so after what felt like an hour (was probably more like 10 minutes) the doc came in and removed my stitches, as he removed them it was like a whoopee cushion letting the air out. The 2nd stitch on the inside of the foot was the moment when the massive pain I've felt all week went away! The doc pushed the foot up to where the tendon was fully stretched and then put a new cast on. Funny thing is that he put the cast on with my foot hanging down and bent, when I tried to straighten my leg it was like pulling on a REALLY taught bow/rubber band. I was partially expecting to have to go back in and have it fixed, but the whole point of the thing is to stretch the tendon.. I ended up laying on the couch in the waiting room and having Lynz push my knee down to straighten out my leg.

It still feels very uncomfortable when I straighten my leg out. If I keep it straight it's ok, but if I keep my leg bent for any length of time it pulls again when I straighten it back out.

Last night after the appointment John and Anja came over and joined me, Lynz and Jessie for dinner. We had food from Casa Mariachi in Putnam again, it's the second time I had the veggie burrito and I really love it. I think the tomatillo sauce is really what makes it that good. I'm very glad John came over last night, it was good to see him again after all this time. I was kinda hesitant/nervous about seeing him but it was really good, probably the most comfortable I felt around him since the first weekend they came over.

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Today.. I decided to see how far I could push things.. I put on my boot when I got to class and actually stood (without crutches) at the board, I walked around with the chair/crutches to support me but I put some weight on my right foot with each step. I did that till lunch time (end of lecture) before I decided I had enough and took the boot off and crutched again to the lab and cafeteria. Speaking of pushing it.. When Jessie got home we went to dinner at the Courthouse, I know the Courthouse is not really pushing it but.. I drove! I drove Jessie's car to the Courthouse, tried right foot on both gas and break and I was having issues with the break. I tried my left foot on the break and my right on the gas and that worked much better. I also walked (with crutch support) from the car at the bank parking lot to the courthouse.

Played a set of GH with Jessie and watched Daily Show. Elizabeth is over now and we are going to play a bit before I head to bed.

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Tomorrow is going to be a long day/night. Anja's birthday party is at 11am and Joe's birthday party is at 8pm.

Signing off now to go shred some songs with Elizabeth..

---Diversion of the Day

Legend of the "Lame-Ass" Seeker

Apparently Sam Raimi wanted to make another Hercules or Zena and somehow suckered Terry Goodkind into giving him the Sword of Truth Series for his characters and for the general plot/storyline. I just finished watching the 6th episode and I'm dumbfounded at how much they are not following the storyline in the book. Terry's books were so amazing and had such great stories, I was so excited to hear that they were making a full show of the series with each season being one book. I was more happy when Terry mentioned in an interview that they were going to be filming stuff that was not shown in the books, for example stuff that they mentioned in the past was going to be filmed so that instead of just saying this or that happened they could show it. Sounds good right? The first two episodes (2 hour premier) followed the general storyline, they changed some things (most minor but one major) but I was willing to let that go because it is a new medium and obviously they need to change it up for the TV audience.

Episode three didn't have anything to do with any story that Goodkind wrote or even alluded to, it did at least have a good point about people in the mid-lands needing to trust the seeker and showing that Richard was going to need to help out people for that to happen. Major problem in episode three was that all the women in the mid-lands have long hair and people didn't instantly recognize Kahlan for being the Mother Confessor.

Episode four once again had nothing to with anything Goodkind ever wrote or alluded to. Once again all women had long hair and for some reason people recognized Richard by site but not Kahlan! One thing from the stories was mentioned but it was something that was not talked about until book three and really kinda craps on some of the big surprises later on.

Episode five was something I would have expected to see on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel but certainly NOT on a Sword of the Truth show. They are inventing magics that have no place in the Goodkind world, instead of inventing new stuff can they please focus on something that actually DID happen in the series!

So that brings us to episode six. For the fourth consecutive episode we are not going to follow anything written, remember (if you read the books) that there was only one wizard other than Zedd and he worked for the queen and princess who had the box of ordan. Apparently they decided it would be cool if there was another random wizard floating around, and this one would have a Radahan and a Quilliam! If you don't know what those are I'm not going to go into detail but the Radahan is used by the Sisters of the Light in book 2 and the Quilliam is used by the Sisters of the Dark!

Other issues with the series? Well, it's episode six and there is no mention of the Mud People who were a main part of not just the first book but a main part of four different books. They were also the people who started Richard in learning about the sword's magic. No mention of the boxes of ordan and the only mention of the Book of Counted Shadows was in episode one and two and they burned the only known copy. In every episode so far people in the mid-lands did not immediately recognize Kahlan, on more than one occasion Zedd or Richard had to say something about her being the Mother Confessor before people would pay her heed!

How many episodes am I going to watch before I give up? I don't know, I'm pretty stubborn but I know a bunch of people who gave up already and Jessie is on the verge.

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Today was my first day back at work, it was tough to go back to teaching. I had my foot not-elevated for far too long and it was really bothering me by the end of the day, it was actually bothering me around lunch-time and got worse from there. I did manage to draw on the board and everything so I don't feel I shorted the students which is good. I did leave early, because Elizabeth is my ride for most of the week and she got there at 2:30, which is good because I don't know how much longer I could have lasted with my foot.

---
Got home and called Ikea to have them mail me the "missing" parts for the day bed. We had two broken 60Gb iPods, one of them had a broken drive and battery, the other one had a broken click wheel. I took them both apart today and made a working one from the parts.

---
Jessie ordered the Raw Box last week from Rawvolution. We had been eating it a little at a time over the last week and finished it up tonight. One of the things we ate tonight was the French Onion Soup, it was frikkin amazing. Jessie found the recipe online and we are going to have to make it. I also would love the recipe for their raw bread (hint, hint).. :D

---
We can't do anything about getting the Mets tickets till Dec 10th at 10am so that gives us time to get everyone from Section 17 together so we can try and get seats together for next year. I am going to setup a con-call on Monday morning so we can all dial into the Mets together and request our seats.

Tired...

Got up this morning after sleeping not so well.. First problem was the hard bed, second problem was sleeping too much on the plane.. I set my alarm for 7:30am and ended up getting up with the sun around 6:40, will have to remember to shut the curtains tonight.. The hotel has two restaurants that serve breakfast and both of them are free for executive guests. The first one is an "American" style restaurant and the other is a "Japanese" style one, bet you can't guess which one I ate at.. Let me give you a hint, I had chili powder rubbed tuna tartar, some spicy roe, pan fried salmon, pan fried mackerel, miso soup, salt crusted dried kelp, chopped cucumber salad, steamed tofu square, steamed scrambled egg, vegetable juice and some tea. If that didn't give it away the last hint is I was the only non-japanese person in the restaurant! If I could eat that for breakfast everyday I would not bitch about breakfast.. I know that sounds like a ton of food, but it was buffet style and I only had a little bit of each thing.. OK, well maybe I had a bunch of the tuna tartar... :D

I left that restaurant and walked by the other one on my upstairs and there was a line about 15-20 people long waiting to get in.. There was no line at the restaurant I went to..

Got to work before the doors were open, apparently they never gave my badge access so I ended up sitting in the hall chatting on IM till they let me in around 8:40. Class went well this morning, two students ended up cancelling so I only have 5 students this week. They are quiet of course and keep saying how their English is bad even though they speak better English than a lot of Americans. Class in labs right now..

There are a bunch of options for lunch food in and around this building. I chose the "easy" option of going to the cafeteria, one of the guys from work said it is good so I went down with him. The way the cafeteria works is sorta odd, you go up to a vending machine and pay/pick your meal then you wait in line for your meal to be ready. It was a good bargain, for 680 Yen I got fish with that brown sweet sauce they use on Eel in America, tuna salad, miso soup, rice, regular salad and green tea. Although the price was good the food was just ok, I would not say it was bad by any means but I gotta think there are better choices. The funny thing is that if an American cafeteria served what I ate today I would be singing it's praises but I just feel that it fell short of what I expect from food here. There is a sit down and be served restaurant in the building too so I will be trying that one tomorrow..

I don't know what I am planning for tonight, my body would probably be happy if I just stayed at the hotel, maybe hit the pool and certainly go to bed early. However, my mind says "great big city, must explore, who needs sleep".. I can't honestly say who will win this fight today.. I guess it depends on what time I get done with class today.. If I get done early enough perhaps I will take a nap and then go exploring..

If you didn't know the Nippon Ham Fighters won the game against the Seibu Lions on Sunday, why does this matter you ask.. Remember from a previous blog I mentioned that the game I have a ticket for (Tuesday) is game 4 of the series, if the Lions had won the first three there would not have been a game 4. The series is tied 1-1 right now, if the Lions win tonight then tomorrow could be their clincher which would be really awesome to see. If the Ham Fighters win tonight they will go to a game 5 on Wednesday.

The more I think about it the more I like Japanese baseball's rule for home field advantage where the team with the better record enters the series with a 1 game advantage. If they had that rule in America the Rays/Red Sox series would have ended in 3 games. The Rays having the better record (and therefore home field advantage) would have only had to win 3 games in the series where the Red Sox would have to win 4. Maybe it's unfair but it really puts the pressure on the wild card teams. In American baseball the wild card team has just as much chance to take a series, if they entered the series already down a game it puts so much more pressure on them.. It would end the crap where if both teams are going to make the playoffs like the Red Sox and Rays they stop trying because they don't care who wins the division and who takes the wild card.

Well, that's it for me for now.. Oh, one more thing.. Did you know it's against the law to smoke on the street in Tokyo! They have no smoking signs painted on the sidewalks.. I have to remember to take a picture of one.. Unfortunately it's not against the law to smoke in buildings/restaurants.. The cafeteria had a non-smoking section but the people waiting in line for their food were allowed to smoke..

Cosmos Rocks, just not in October!

Remember how I said in my blog I was all excited because Queen was coming out with a new CD (Cosmos Rocks) the first week of Oct? Yeah, well... Funny thing is that I was reading that ad in a British magazine apparently.. That CD did come out in Europe this week... It does not come out here till Nov, however if you pre-order it from Queen's website you get it on Oct 28th. I did pre-order it so I guess I will wait.. Or will I... I dunno, I'm still tempted to change my iTunes address to a UK one so I can download it.. :D

I got my new iPod case a few days ago, it sucks! The click wheel does not work with the case on and the car iPod adapter won't plug into the bottom because the hole is not big enough.. Doh! I emailed the company today asking how I return it..

Next weeks Invista class was cancelled! So I am taking Monday as vacation so we can go to CT Ren Faire and working on Invista prep the rest of that week. I am having the lab cleaned up so I can work on it.

Check out Google Translator it does a pretty good job, and it will actually do entire websites..

Oh, and a musical side.. Check this out.. Giovanni Sollima!

Going to Haiku tonight for dinner with my dad and then going home to marinate steaks for tomorrow..

BIG BREAKING GREAT NEWS!!!
I should be going to Australia in January for two weeks!!!

---Thought of the Day
Read my previous blog.. :P

Waste of gas...

I'm sitting in the office right now.. What a waste of gas it is.. I spent the night in Willimantic last night so the drive this morning was long and there really is no reason for me to be here.. I could be typing this blog just as easily from home.. :D

Got a call from the tattoo place in Putnam on Tuesday night, they drew up some artwork and I am going to look at it tonight. I really hope it's at least on the right track.. Obviously it would be nice if it were fall-in-love perfect, but I don't hold out that much optimism, if it's on the right track then I can work with the guy and get it to that fall-in-love perfect stage.

Japan update: The Central League Climax Series tickets don't go on sale till Oct 13th, the Pacific League Climax Series tickets are on sale now and I may be getting a ticket to Game 4 (Tuesday Oct 21st).. I still need to go to Putnam Bank and have them activate my Debit Card for Japanese ATMs, apparently the US debit cards don't work as ATM cards unless you have your bank activate it for their system. - Found that out from Tom W..

There was something else I wanted to mention.. I thought of it right after posting my blog the other day but now I don't remember what it was.. I thought of posting another blog yesterday but I felt I had posted enough for one day.. Crap, I just re-read my blogs from yesterday and I don't remember what it was.. I will post another blog if/when I remember..

Poly Pride Day is Saturday in NYC, looking forward to that.. Afterwards I'm going to see my friend Bob "the Long Organ" play in his band... Not sure what Sunday will bring, depends on how tired I am but there is a Country Fair at the Willimantic Food Co-op..

Here is a really funny link.. I somewhat wish this was made up but..

On the funny note here is an email I got from my dad today...

A big city lawyer went duck hunting in rural North Carolina. He shot and dropped a bird, but it fell into a farmer's field on the other side of a fence. As the lawyer climbed over the fence, an elderly farmer drove up on his tractor and asked him what he was doing. The litigate responded, 'I shot a duck and it fell in this field, and now I'm going to retrieve it.' The old farmer replied, 'This is my property, and you are not coming over here.' The indignant lawyer said, 'I am one of the best trial attorneys in the United States and, if you don't let me get that duck, I'll sue you and take everything you own.' The old farmer smiled and said, 'Apparently, you don't know how we settle disputes in North Carolina . We settle small disagreements with the 'Three Kick Rule.'' The lawyer asked, 'What is the 'Three Kick Rule'? ' The Farmer replied, 'Well, because the dispute occurs on my land, I get to go first. I kick you three times and then you kick me three times and so on back and forth until someone gives up.' The attorney quickly thought about the proposed contest and decided that he could easily take the old codger. He agreed to abide by the local custom. The old farmer slowly climbed down from the tractor and walked up to the attorney. His first kick planted the toe of his heavy steel toed work boot into the lawyer's groin and dropped him to his knees. His second kick to the midriff sent the lawyer's last meal gushing from his mouth. The lawyer was on all fours when the farmer's third kick to his rear end, sent him face-first into a fresh cow pie. The lawyer summoned every bit of his will and managed to get to his feet. Wiping his face with the arm of his jacket, he said, 'Okay, you old fart. Now it's my turn.' The old farmer smiled and said , 'Nah, I give up. You can have the duck.

I'm very sad, I'm caught up on all of my Internet comics.. That does not mean the comic of the day will stop, I saved a bunch of good ones as links so I can keep posting comics of the day for awhile still, but.. It does mean I have no comics to read while trying to kill time at my desk.. If you know of any cool Internet comics shoot me over the links..

---Comic of the Day
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20080926.html

---Thought of the Day
How did anybody ever plan anything before Google Calendars? I know they have day planners and week planners and all those great books but the problem with those is that only you can access your book and when things change you have all kinds of crossed off items. Plus you only have a little space to write and if your hand writing is anything like mine nobody else can read it which I guess goes back to the fact that only you have access to your day planner.. Sure you could put it on a Palm Pilot or Mobile Phone/BlackBerry but again only you have access.. The Google Calendar can be seen by anyone you want it to be seen by and you can even get programs that will sync it to your Desktop, Laptop and even your BlackBerry. I have a really nice program called "Active Desktop Calendar" that will sync your Google Calendar and your Outlook Calendar so you have everything on your PC..

Finally ordered...

Sitting at work.. Cleaned out my inboxes and am about to start reading my new class... But first, the internet browsing and blogging.. :D

I finally ordered two things I've been really wanting.. First - I got a Pinwheel Coin Purse and secondly I got an iPod case!

It's Monday.. Oh so fun to be at the office.. I am planning to talk to my boss this afternoon about working from home the rest of the week.. Hopefully he will let me, I get more work done plus the kitties like having me around.. :D

Looking forward to this week? Tonight's up in the air, I'm either going with Jessie to look at getting her a new Verizon phone and going to see Burn After Reading or I'm going to go to Lynz's house for dinner with her and Anja.. I'll find out later as the day progresses, it's probably going to be the first option but we will see how the day goes.. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have nothing planned yet.. I am supposed to do dinner with my grandmother one of those nights. Friday night and Saturday Jessie is going with Sara to Borderlands meetings. I am going out with Nathan on Friday night. Saturday night I think I'm going to meet up with Lynz and Anja after they get back from the CT Ren Faire and Sunday is the last regular season game at Shea.. It might be the last game at Shea if the Mets don't get their act together real fucking soon!

Another loss yesterday puts us 1.5 games behind Philadelphia and only 1.5 games up on Milwaukee and Houston. It was one of those painful losses, we were leading till the end when out bullpen fell apart again.. Where is John Maine? He is supposed to throw another simulated game today at Shea to see where his velocity is. I really hope he can help out in the next week.. The Mets play the Cubs for four games starting tonight. The Cubs clinched their division so they hopefully will be playing their B-Team to rest their A-Team for the playoffs. The Phillies play the Braves who hopefully won't lay down for them..

Heroes and Boston Legal both premier tonight.. I can't believe they are ending Boston Legal this year because of an argument that ABC got into with the creators. They are planning only 13 episodes which will put the show at exactly 100 episodes. Ironically the show is up for a record number of Emmy awards this year! I hope it wins them all so ABC will have to keep it on the air.. That's what happened with Scrubs two years ago.. NBC tried to cancel the show but it won a bunch of Emmys and they were forced to bring it back..

---- Comic of the day
http://mchat.comicgenesis.com/d/20080201.html

---- Thought of the day
No matter what you do you can't escape shopping on the Internet.. I have searched high and low since before Cork for an iPod case I liked and I have been searching since Cork for a coin purse.. Within an hour and a half I found and ordered both of them on the Internet.. It's no surprise that retail stores are going out of business.

New Layout

So, after careful consideration I decided I didn't really like any of those blog layouts.. So, enter un-lazy man!

I took the time (about 47 minutes) and edited the template I had to be three columns! Took a bit of work to edit the pictures in Paint Shop and re-upload them so they would be the right size and for some reason the padding was wrong on the main entry section but I cleared that up with a bit of trial and error...

So.. Here is my new template/layout.. Hope you like it..

Other things today?? Well, I had a bunch more meetings at work and found out they are trying to move three of my ILT classes to Centra-Live classes. Centra classes mean I get to sit in a room all by myself with a webcam and talk to people who are sitting at their houses logged in taking the classes.. They are looking to make this change in Q2 of 2009.. Two of the Three they are changing are classes I normally travel for.. That does not really mean less travel because I am picking up a new class in November which has a lot of travel involved..

I have to run to a meeting.. I will post another blog tonight.. It will have the comic and thought of the day..

Focus on the positive.

Don't you hate when you're driving and you think of something awesome that you want to make sure you add to your blog.. Then you get to work and you forget.. What a crappy thing to have happen.. So all day I sit at work and I can't remember what the hell it was that I thought was so insightful. I mean isn't that why we blog, to show the world just how insightful we can be? Sure, it would be easy to just Wright up a bunch of dick and fart jokes but there are so many out there already, speaking of which - what's worse in your opinion a hot dog that's too small for the bun or a hot dog that's too big for the bun? In one case you just have this mess of hot dog that you can't quite put mustard on because it falls off and you certainly can't put chili or kraut on it because there's nothing to hold it on the dog.. In the other case you might as well just eat a loaf of bread.. Hmmm..

Anyway, where was I.. Insightful things.. I'll get there.. This is a linear blog right? I might as well start back to what made me forget my friggin thought to begin with.. I was driving to work this morning and I (and almost everyone else on the road) got pulled over for speeding! I know what you're going to say "when you speed ALL the time eventually you get caught", and you would be right, but you could also bugger off.. The MA cops had a guy sitting at Exit 100 in CT clocking everyone's speed, they had a ton of cops sitting at Exit 1 in MA with the two right lanes blocked off and a guy in the left lane pointing at everyone who was speeding! My question is can the MA cops put a guy in CT to clock people? What are the rules for crossing state lines?

So, on to work.. Busy, busy, busy, busy.. I am not going to whine about work, at least not in this forum.. :) Went down to eat around 1:30 and the cafe was already closing, the sandwich girl had not cleaned up so she let me order.. I had ham & swiss on a wrap with mayo, lettuce, tomato and basil. Ok, no more about work today..

After work I went to my foot doctor, I am going to have surgery on my right Achilles tendon on Nov 19th with the left foot to be scheduled after that one heals a bit. Did I say no more about work? I lied.. My boss is going to give me the week of Nov 19th off platform so I can work from home with my foot elevated..

On the way home I was chatting with Lynz and I suddenly remembered what my insightful thought was!! I was all excited, ironically though as soon as I logged in to start typing this I forgot!! :( I have been typing up the day in hopes that it would jump back in there... Oh well.. On to dick and fart jokes? Nah, I'll leave those to Mr. Smith, he is the real master..

So, I wanted to mention a really awesome band my friend in Chicago showed me.. There is an acoustic duo Rodrigo y Gabriela which will blow your mind away.. This video is them doing Stairway to Heaven on two guitars, nothing but two guitars!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNc5o9TU0t0

If you have not yet you should check out my "Random Links" section.. If you have something that you feel people who read my blog would be interested in shoot me a link and I may post it over there.. Things I really want are links to my friend's blogs so that I can have one place to go for all my blogging needs..

About to head to dinner.. I am going (if they are open) to check out the Putnam Tattoo place finally.. I figure I keep going further and further away to find a good tattoo place and I keep crapping on the one right down the street because "it can't possibly be good if it's that close"..

And two more things that came to me while Jessie was checking for spelling errors.. First - Queen has a new CD (http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Rocks-Queen/dp/B001DU8T6S) coming out!!! I am so friggin happy I think I make myself wet everytime I think about it!! Second - RC is the best cola!!

---- Comic of the day
http://www.xkcd.com/400/

---- Thoughts of the day
Just because you have an insightful thought does not mean it's always a good idea to share it.. I did remember what my insightful thought was finally but after all of that I decided in the end I should not post it.. I guess today's thought of the day is that some thoughts are meant to be internal thoughts only.. Wizard's Eleventh Rule?

Remember to focus on the positive thoughts and positive things in your life. The more you focus on those the happier you will be which will in turn make you focus more on the positive things.. It's a happy spiral!

Welcome to Cold and Rainy Chicago...

Update from last week... Went with Elizabeth on Thursday and she got a new phone (Chocolate 3). John and I didn't hang out on Thursday because he needed to catch up on sleep.. Mon-Wed he had classes so he was up late.. Instead Jessie made raw pasta sauce on Thursday night which was awesome... Friday I went to Lynz's house for lunch and had leftover pasta sauce before going for a nice long ride with Matt. Dinner with Matt was good, but good god that sword fish was spicy..

Saturday Lynz, Anja and Mike came over and we went for lunch before playing Catan.. Hold on to your seat, but I lost Catan, Mike won!! Riverfire was cancelled due to the rain but we ended up seeing a really good show at VSC, me and Lynz ended up standing in the doorway for most of the show while Anja ran around in the rain... Gotta love kids sometimes...

So... Now on to new things... Yesterday I flew into Chicago, actually got an earlier flight and got in just around when the Mets game was starting. The flights were good, the Hartford to Newark flight was quick and I was in a row by myself. The flight to Chicago was PACKED, they were offering $400 and a room in Newark to anyone who would take a flight the next day.. I met a guy who was flying from the UK on the plane, he was a cool guy.. Unfortunately there was a newborn baby in the row directly behind me who decided he would yell/cry for almost the entire trip, luckily I had my iPod and headphones to drown out most of it.. Sunday night I ate at Red Robin...

Today.. I went to work and found that I only have two students this week, they didn't ask any questions during lecture and they were done with their labs around 1:30.. I tried to go to Borrowed Earth (the raw vegan lunch place) but they are closed on Mondays.. After work I went into the city and wondered around in the area of the Chicago Diner..

Saw lots of "cool" shirts in a few stores, here is a sampling of them:
Some of these are not direct quotes because my memory is not perfect...
Stick figure man with penis - under says Weapon of Ass Destruction
Picture of a fork and knife and a cat
Alright I'm sorry, unfuck you!
shh, hey you.. Less talky more sucky
what starts in the mouth stays in the mouth
I fucking <3 Fucking I really wonder who wears those, I can't imagine anyone wearing those is getting laid anytime soon.. Had good raw food at the Chicago Diner to make up for not eating it for lunch.. Dessert was a raw cocoa orange cheesecake! So good... After dinner I went to Goose Island and had a Blueberry Cubbie Ale before heading back to the hotel.. Anyway, I'm back at the hotel at the hotel now and heading to bed... I'll see you all tomorrow...
--- Comic of the day
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/1997-04-14/index.html

--- Thought of the day
A friend of mine started a new activity where each night they look at the best thing from the day and the worst thing from the day.. I decided to give it a shot and I recommend everyone do it.. You would be surprised at how trivial the worst thing usually is and how good the best thing usually is.. Plus it gives you time to reflect on each day.. As Ferris Bueller once said "Live moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Beer at work is nice, but wine at lunch is better... <3

Last night I attempted Week 6 day 1 of the 100 Pushup challenge. My body was too tired and beat to complete day 1 of week 6. I decided I would do week 5 again to build up more strength for week 6. Week 5 was tough last week, maybe it will be better this week..

On my way to work today the car told me that there was traffic ahead so it had me get off the highway early and drive down a bunch of side roads, it was a nice trip down roads that were only wide enough for one car. When a car came the other way both of you had to drive onto the sidewalk or hit each other.. Gotta love European streets..

Can this office get any better?? Today at 4:30 they have happy hour, I am not kidding when I say this but... They have free beer at work? Wow!! I am torn, part of me wants to stay and have at a free beer at work because how many times in your life does that happen, but I also want to get out and enjoy the nice weather since class will probably get out early today.. I can't actually post this blog till I get back to the hotel so the answer to what I choose will probably be in the next few paragraphs.. :)

Here is an article I saw on CNN (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAwOC9DUklNRS8wOC8yNS9jb3VwbGUuY2hhcmdlZC5hcC9pbmRleC5odG1s).. Part of me wants to treat it as a joke, but I guess I know better... I guess you can laugh at it because she got caught, but holy crap!

Onto Vacation hours and what I need to use... Because I dropped so many of my vacations this year to help out with classes that needed to be run I am going to take next week as Vacation, that will still give me my December vacation and 4 more days I will have to use by the end of the year.

http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8veGtjZC5jb20vMjY3Lw== - words to live by?

So, my decision was made for me.. It's 4:45pm, my students are still working and I'm drinking a beer and eating a pretzel.. Yes, I took a picture!

I just came back to the hotel to drop some stuff off before heading into the city. I figured since I typed this at work today I would post it real quick while I'm able to access Myspace. I will probably post another update tonight..

---- Random email of the day
I found 3 sombreros last night under my car in the middle parking garage at 176. They are now at the main lobby security desk.

---- Thought of the day
It's amazing how the simplest things (like sitting on a log) can change so many people's lives.. I love the way the universe comes together sometimes..

Germans don’t do humor.. They do beer!

I really like this training facility. I had a banana and coffee for breakfast, salmon with rice and salad for lunch and an ice cream bar for mid day snack. All of it very good and all of it FREE!!

Booked my trip to Chicago today, AE Travel's website would not let me book Continental flights because United had flights as well and they are now really pushing United flights so I had to call on the phone to book everything. I fly out on Sunday afternoon and arrive home on Friday afternoon, the Thursday evening flight was closed to EMC from Continental, there are still seats available but not at whatever price EMC pays for them.. Other plus side of calling vs. online is that calling I was able to book a compact/economy car whereas if I had booked it online I would only been able to book a mid to full size car. So, think about this for a second.. When you book a car online EMC won't let me book a smaller/cheaper car... When you come up with a reason for that please let me know.

I found out today that my Quantas miles never got credited to my Continental one pass. I called Continental and they said I need my original boarding pass?! I am going to call Quantas and ask them if they can send me proof of me boarding the plane so that Continental can give me the credit. I also found out that I can mail Continental my Marriott reciepts and get miles based on 1 mile per $1 spent! I guess I'm going to get a bunch of miles all at once, apparently I can mail in receipts up to one year old!

I really hate time zones... I'm sitting here watching the students do labs and everyone (except Jessie) is asleep and she is out wandering Frankfurt so it's not like I can sit and chat with her...

Got a con-call at noon eastern time (6pm here)..

Con-call was exciting as always... After that I drove to a S-Bahn station and heading into the city to meet Jessie for dinner. We went to a medieval german restaurant and had steak and sausages, it was ok. They did have really good mead and on the way out we saw that the waitress was playing Catan with a guy!

After dinner we went to a heavy metal club called Speak Easy, there was only 3 people there (the bartender, a guy playing pinball and another guy who was really cool). We ended up spending a long ass-time there chatting with the bartender and the other guy. We heard lots of good music and had a few beers.

Just got back to the hotel, posting this blog and heading to bed...

On to tomorrow and new and exciting things.. :)

Just a quick hi to everyone back home.. I miss you all and will see you when I get back...

37. In a row?

This morning started out with getting gas, now you may not think that's a process but it is.. I could not find the stupid gas cover release for a while. I searched in the car and then in the book (which was all in german) before finally getting it.. Gas was 73 Euro!!

Got to the facility and was shocked by what they offer the students/instructor. Free coffee, free water, free soda, free breakfast, free lunch, free ice cream, free fruit, pool table, dart board, and a fusball table. The break room has couches you could lay down on! I could really get spoiled here...

Class has students from England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany. The books that we had this morning were the wrong ones but that was fixed quickly and we were on our way.

Class went well but long.. I ended up leaving around 5:30, went back to the hotel and did my pushup test. I only did 53 pushups which puts my into the 2nd rank for week 6, this is the first week I am not in the top rank.

After the pushups I went to met Jessie in the city for dinner, we had Italian and pizza which was very good. You go in and get a card, when you order food you swipe the card and when you leave you pay.

Oh, so I did laundry here - or rather had the hotel do it. They charged 50 Euros to do some underwear, a few shirts and a pair of jeans! Speaking of expensive I paid 74 Euros to fill up the car with gas!

Going to head to the pool to relax a bit before bed..

Talk to ya all on the morrow...