morrowlife

Here’s another artsy one. That was sure a productive photography day. Thanks to Readers Number One and Four for their excellent unrehearsed (not to mention unaware) posing work. All the Trier pictures are on my other computer, so look for more of them later.

I’m back from Germany/Luxembourg, one day early. Our meeting went so well that we finished late in the afternoon yesterday. We had a little banquet last night at the Bitburger Wirtshaus in Trier, which is a pretty good informal place. I had an excellent sampler plate with lots of traditional German meats, potatoes, and vegetables (some of which I actually ate).

Came home today in first class, so I can’t complain. I still have two more systemwide upgrades on United, so that wasn’t my last first-class trip. The traffic getting out of Washington and then through Baltimore was pretty heavy, and there was some light rain in Pennsylvania, but it was above freezing all the way home and I heard a lot of podcasts. Watched Shadow of the Thin Man and North by Northwest on my computer on the way home. The Thin Man movies are all major favorites of mine (not just for certain reasons), and North by Northwest goes down with several other Cary Grant movies as some of the classiest filmmaking ever.

I also finished Eniac during the trip. More on that tomorrow.

We delayed our March Paris trip into May. This is a good thing – I had too much travel scheduled this month. Time for bed. Hasta manana.

Today’s picture is pretty lame, but I love the name. I’m staying in Trier, Germany for a few days and meeting in Chateau Betzdorf in Luxembourg. The hotel is nice – I’ve stayed here before – and there are lots of hotels nearby. When we got here yesterday, the Carnival parade was going through town. I got there just after the parade ended, but I got a few pictures of festival-goers. Thankfully, it’s quite a bit calmer than Mardi Gras in New Orleans (at least from the sound of it – I’ve never actually been there). There was some good old oompah music on a giant sound system and a lot of people drinking too much and throwing the bottles on the ground. And a lot of spilled beer – everybody’s shoes were sticking to the pavement. Still, nobody was obnoxious and the mess was amazingly cleaned up within a few hours of the event’s end. I have a few more pictures that I’ll post here in the upcoming days.

No post yesterday. Sorry about that – I was traveling and didn’t get online. Right now, I have just a couple of minutes left before the hour of connection time I bought expires.

This week’s meeting is going well. We hope to end tomorrow – a day early! – and go home on Thursday. We’ll see how it goes.

Went out to dinner with Mike McHone, Bill McMurry, and Terry Jensen. It was Bill’s birthday. We had a nice meal at the Coyote restaurant across the street from the hotel. It’s kind of a German version of TGI Friday’s, but the food was okay and the company was nice.

It’s time for my connection to time out and, coincidentally, it’s time for bed. See you tomorrow, hopefully.

How about another Nassau picture today? (Link alert: ocean sounds.) It’s freezing cold, the wind is blowing at a million miles per hour, and it would be great to feel warm. Of course, in a few months, I’ll be wishing I could just feel cold again. Some people are never satisfied.

Anyhow, this guy was riding his horse along the beach. Looks pretty cool. I imagine that’s how he makes his living – I wonder what his schtick is. All I know is I wouldn’t want to be the guy swimming behind him.

Although this post’s date says Friday, I’m actually writing this on Saturday night. I didn’t get to write anything last night because I was camping with the scouts. It went pretty well and I think everybody had a good time. We spent some of the very windy evening inside the church having our paper airplane contest. We went through a lot of sheets of paper, had prizes for distance, hang time, and accuracy, and generally enjoyed it. Ian won twice and Braden won once. Afterwards, the boys played dodge ball (with a big, soft, red ball) in the dark cultural hall. It looked like a lot of fun. I didn’t play because I have a family to support and didn’t want to break any of these old, brittle bones. Turns out I wouldn’t have broken any anyway.

Off to Luxembourg tomorrow. I’m bringing my laptop computer with me, so I hope to be able to post while I’m there. If not, I’ll arrange for a guest poster. One way or the other, keep reading!

Here’s my proposed new design for the computer desk of the future. Actually, they may have done a lot of things right back then. I’ve been reading a little bit from people who have stand-up desks, and they seem to be pretty much an ideal way to write. The desk in today’s picture is beautifully made, has lots of storage space inside, is pretty ergonomically sound, and even has several strategically-placed lighting sources. Not that candles are necessarily the best light for writing, but you have to admit they’re cool.

Spent the day getting a bunch of little things out of the way – things like travel authorizations for the next month’s worth of travel and deliveries of a few documents to launch service providers. I never got to the main thing I wanted to do today, but I hope to be able to spend most of the day tomorrow on it. It’s got to get done before I leave for my campaign in two weeks, and I’ll be spending a week of that time on travel in Luxembourg. It’s pretty much now or never.

My evening was mostly taken up with scouting and finishing my 25 weekly pages of the Old Testament. At this rate, I’ll read the whole thing before the year’s out.

I’ve been thinking of adding a book club on the right side of this page – kind of like Oprah, but much better books and much lamer execution. I would just list recently-read books, my current reading, and what’s on the pile. Maybe there would be links to significant sites related to the books. What do my Esteemed Readers think of the idea?

I have to go pick Mark up from Barbershop practice in a couple of minutes, so it’s time to quit! So long.

Liked the sign. Took its picture.

Monk (sound file behind the link – you’ve been warned) was good tonight, as much of it as I could stay awake for. I’ll bet the rest was interesting too.

Also saw Napoleon Dynamite, which Shannon borrowed from a friend today. It was actually amusing, although they tell me you don’t really appreciate it until you see it the second time.

Also saw a goodly portion of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians – the MST3K version. Brilliant. I told a co-worker I was grieving at having recorded over it some time ago and he got me another copy. Thanks a hundred, Charlie!

I planned some business travel this afternoon. From 26 February until 23 March, I’ll be home a total of four days (7 thru 10 March, actually). Yuck! I could technically be home a couple more days in there, but it’s hardly worth flying home from Europe only to turn around and go back two days later. So I’ll stay. After that little jaunt, I’ll be home for a week and then back on travel for three more weeks in April. Busy, busy, busy.

I’ve decided to stop saying I have no time to write anything just before I end up writing 500 words. So, good night.