Wii & TV

Lyngbox is still in development, as far as I know. I posted about it previously and was excited about it, but I’m still waiting for the time when I can actually buy one. What I’m looking forward to now is the Wii. Three weeks, baby! I’m still looking for a source to preorder one. So far I’ve looked at Amazon.com, ToysRus and AAFES, but no deal, yet.

It just looks fun! A lot of games these days are more like work than fun. Sometimes it is fun to simulate someone else’s job, and that’s what a lot of games do, concentrating on the fun aspects and downplaying the tedious boring aspects. It seems to me that Nintendo seems to concentrate more on making games fun than other aspects of games, like plot, graphics, or realism. I also like the idea of a more natural control scheme. Instead of both hands gripping a controller or one hand on a mouse and the other on the keyboard, you’re essentially gripping a magic wand. The Wii comes with a sports game and to mimic the motions that you perform in real sports is just plain cool. I’m really looking forward to it.

TV. Lately we’ve been watching Lost, Desperate Housewives, Gilmore Girls, Heroes, The Nine, The New Adventures of Old Christine and old episodes of Seinfeld. I still watch episodes of CSI, but Natalya won’t watch them with me because of the blood and guts. The last episode of Lost that I watched, I didn’t like too much. It was a bit unbelievable. Natalya & I regularly ask rhetorical questions like, “Why did she do that?” or “Why didn’t they do this?” and the answer usually is just, “Because it’s a TV show.” If there’s too many of those TVisms then it wasn’t a great episode. There were too many in the Lost episode “Every Man for Himself.”

Heroes is currently my favorite of the ones I listed, and also, Natalya’s least favorite. I think her favorite is either Seinfeld or Gilmore Girls. Seinfeld still hasn’t aged as far as quality. It aged enough that even though I remember main plot points, I’ve forgotten enough that I’m still delighted to watch them. Heroes is just an adult comic book made into live action, but still subdued enough that they can put it on TV. They’re trying to save NY from a nuclear explosion (some of them at least). I wonder if the show gets cancelled, in the last episode, they just fail to stop the nuke, and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) happens around the globe. I hope it goes on to several seasons.

By the way, the picture is of Natalya on the Spanish Steps in Rome, taken last year on our New Year's trip.

Sick in the Loo

Not much to say. I’m sick. So is Natalya. Just normal colds with sore throats, runny noses and fuzzy heads. We still went out on Friday and Saturday night though. Smart, huh? We went to an EMBL party on Friday, which was interesting. The party was for the new bunch of scientists going for their PHDs. English is the language for EMBL so I liked it because I know everyone there can speak English.

Saturday we didn’t do much all day, but at night we went to “The Loo,” a small bar that we didn’t realize was a gay bar, even though we’d been there before. It was ok though because we went there to meet a friend of a friend that was visiting from Moscow and he happened to be gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

“The Loo” is decorated like a toilet. It has some toilet seats (we sat on the comfortable, non-toilet shaped seats), a toilet paper dispenser, paper towel dispenser, and a bathtub, among other things.

Then we went to Ziegler’s, which wasn’t too crowded when we got there, but only got fuller as it got later. I was falling asleep, so I had to excuse myself and walk home. It was cool with Natalya and she wanted to stay, so I gave her some money and told her to take a taxi since nobody would be walking our way and it wouldn’t cost much because it wasn’t far. When I left, all the seats were taken, and there was a big line of people paying to get in. It was around midnight. I went home and crashed.

Sunday we just stayed in and watched TV and slept and ate some soup. We took a little walk, but barely a block.

Happy 33rd Birthday to me!

I spent the day before my birthday, Saturday, Oct. 7th, cleaning up my Mini and changing the oil in it to sell it. Then we had a party and at midnight, cut and ate the birthday cake. Then we went down to O'Reilly's and I sang "In a Little While" by Uncle Kracker to finish off their night of karaoke. It was great.

Reading & Water Skiing

The Sony Reader (http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/reader/) is something I’d love to have. Take a look at Wired’s review of the product (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71844-0.html?tw=rss.index). I think it’s a bit out of my price range as of now, but if somebody wants to buy me one for my birthday, it’s coming up! Well, the first one won’t even ship till the end of October but, hey, one can wish! That said, I have a substantial personal update.

I went water skiing on Sunday. It was at a local lake called the Leoner See (See is the word for lake in German) near St. Leon Rot. If you have Google Earth, you can see the lake at these coordinates: 49°16’55.89” N, 8°35’15.45” E. If you look closely, you can see lines and poles holding the lines. There’s a pulley system that drags lines around the roughly rectangular course around the lake. The water skier simply holds on to the line as it drags him around the lake. The problem is that at the corners the dragging power dips for a second or so and you start to fall until it kicks in again, probably due to the power being transferred to another motor. Regardless of the reason, when it kicks in again, it jerks the rope a bit. I had done this before and hadn’t really gotten the hang of it. Sunday the first time I tried it, I got to the first corner and got jerked off my skis again. The second time, I made it almost to the corner where I started, and it jerked me hard again, over my skis, and pulled my left arm out of the socket.

Nobody there was able to help me put my arm back in place, and since I couldn’t drive and Natalya and our friend Aksana also couldn’t drive, they called the ambulance and they came and got me and Natalya. They took me to the American Army hospital. Nobody there wanted to try to put my arm back in, and standard procedure is to call the Orthopedic doctor. It took him awhile to come in, which wasn’t his fault, obviously. They took x-rays and determined it wasn’t broken and the doctor tried to put my arm back in place, but it wouldn’t go. Apparently my arm & shoulder muscles had tensed up while waiting and it was too tough to get it back in. Oh well. They got me anesthesia that also worked to relax my muscles and right after they put it in my IV I don’t remember and I woke up to find my arm back where it should be. Now I have to get an MRI on Saturday and also a follow-up appointment on Monday afternoon.

Right now my shoulder and arm are still a little sore and I was told not to move them much and definitely not do any exercise that might stress them. I hope the pain goes away soon and I don’t have to worry about it coming out again. I’m not too worried about it—it’ll get better. I wouldn’t recommend doing the water skiing at such a place, and I don’t think I’ll ever do it again (unfortunately) because of the possibility of reinjuring my shoulder.

Das Parfum

I saw “Das Parfum” last night in a German theater in German (http://www.br-online.de/kultur-szene/film/kino/0608/06484/). It was apparently filmed in Munich. It was pretty disturbing, but also, I thought, predictable and ridiculous. Perhaps it was just the movie and the book was better, and I don’t see how it couldn’t be. It’s about a guy that develops a supernatural sense of smell and lets that ability lead to his “fate.” It seems to show that we all are, at least somewhat, masters of our fate, even though the main character seems to resign himself to what he thinks is his. The photography was good and had wonderful colors and evoked the sensation of smell by all the close ups and such. Towards the end of the movie there was a scene where I didn’t like the photography, but I’ll get to that in the spoiler portion. Don’t read ahead if you don’t want to know about the plot.

**SPOILER ALERT**

He kills a woman that smells “perfect” in the beginning of the movie on accident. Later he figures out a way to capture the essence (odor) of a woman through coating her body and hair with goop and boiling away the goop so he’s left with the essence (essentially a liquid with a concentrated smell). Of course, women won’t just let him do this, so he kills them. He kills an assortment of women to make the ultimate perfume of their essences and gets caught after killing the last component of his perfume: the sister of the “perfect” one he killed in the beginning. Fortunately, by the time he’s caught, he’s already captured her essence and mixed it into his ultimate perfume. Now he’s taken to jail and when they come to pull him out of the cell, he puts some of the perfume on. Everybody is gathered into the town square to witness his execution and he arrives alone in a carriage. He walks to the raised dais where the executioner waits, puts some perfume on himself and the executioner exclaims, “This is an innocent man!” and removes his mask. Then he waves a handkerchief around with the perfume on it and everyone starts making love.

This was the most ridiculous scene of the movie, and I hated it. “Come on,” and “Give. Me. A. Break.” were some comments going through my head. It would have been over the top if it were shown for 30 seconds, but it was shown for probably 2 or 3 minutes. Then he escapes to travel to his birthplace, a fish market, to kill himself by putting the perfume on and letting the poor people mob him to death.

I think he committed suicide to complete his life, having fulfilled his fate of creating the perfect perfume. With the effects of the perfume, he could have done ANYTHING. Instead, he chose to kill himself. Nice. Stupid. What was the point? Just to do what he could do and then die. What did he do? He created the ultimate perfume that a crowd smelled and then could never be duplicated, and took at least 13 lives to create. It’s ghastly. It’s pointless. It’s a waste. The reason it proved to me that we have some control over "fate" is all the choices he made where he could have chosen differently. After killing the first woman (which one could argue, he could have avoided), he could have decided to never kill again, and not put himself into a position where he would be tempted to. He didn't. His next kill happened when the woman wouldn't let him put the goop all over her. He could have put an ad out, "Be a part of my brand new perfume!" or something, but he went the "easy" route and just killed the woman. He also decided to kill himself at the end. He didn't have to. We have to deal with the hand God dealt us, but we don't have to play to make everyone lose, including ourselves. Another point: fulfilling your purpose in life shouldn't include serial killing and doesn't have to end with your suicide.

I didn’t hate it. There were parts that were quite enjoyable. It was pretty intense, too, but it was wasted on this sick story. I had dreams about it at night. Anxiety dreams. I would rather have had nice dreams of the sweet smell of fresh fruit, flowers, freshly cut grass, or normal perfume, in some kind of relaxing situation. Not some murderer killing women and capturing their essence. Ugh.

Met Tony Dorsett!

Wow. When I was a kid, my dad showed me the pleasure of watching & playing football, and my team was the Dallas Cowboys. Back then, there were some amazing players on the team: Drew Pearson, Roger Staubach, Danny White, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, but the greatest was Tony Dorsett. I was amazed at his speed and ability to find holes and fake out defenders. He was my hero. Well, today, I got to meet my hero.

There was a Food Show today not far from where I work, so a coworker (MAJ Hutchinson) and I headed over there because we heard about the free food and that Tony Dorsett was going to be there. It took place in a ballroom and there were lots of booths with free food. I asked a guy where Mr. Dorsett was and he told me right around the corner. We went over there and there he was, just standing around talking to people. I went up to him and talked to him and Hutch was nice enough to take my picture with him with my cell phone. He was there because he has his own food line (http://www.tonydorsettfoods.com/html/td_1.htm) now. The catfish was the best! It was light and fluffy, had nice spices in the breading and was just yummy! The ribs were great, too! He seemed like a real nice guy and very genuine. Check out his unbeatable record on the link I included. Very impressive.

Weekend - Dasha's B-day party & Bowling

It’s been awhile since my last update, so I thought I’d throw some thoughts up real quick. Natalya & I shared our 1.75 year (21 month) anniversary on Thursday and it was great! Friday we went out with some friends (David, Aksana, & Boris) and went to an exotic place called the Loo that had toilet seat covers on the wall and some bathroom fixtures on the wall and some of the seats were actually toilets. We sat in some really comfortable chairs that weren’t shaped at all like toilets. I felt so tired in there because of the nice chairs.
Saturday I went to get some berries from the local open market that they always have on Saturdays but I’ve never been to, and I was impressed! I think part of it had to do with the fact that I was so hungry, but they had stands with fruit, vegetables, and flowers. I got a bright little bunch of flowers for 3 Euro (a bargain), some raspberries, blackberries, and coffee from the market. Then I had to go to a store that had the blueberries that I originally left the apartment for, which cost a whopping 7.80 Euro! Ouch, but we still have some left after eating them for two days, so they were worth it.
Then I had to go to work for an hour or so, and then we went shopping. We ended up buying some stuff, but good stuff for good prices. A brown short skirt, a purple-red (I’m not sure of the exact color nomenclature—maybe plum?) sweater, and a purple stretchy shirt with a v-neck, all for Natalya. I didn’t see anything I liked for myself, but I love going shopping with Natalya for Natalya. We also got a present for her friend whose birthday party we went to that night.
The birthday party was nice. It was outside, which might have been the last night you could have an outdoor dinner for awhile. There were no bugs to speak of, it wasn’t too cold and the food and conversation were pleasant. There was homemade pizza, a salad with parsley in it that tasted really fresh & brisk, and some hummus. There were also appetizers that had cheese and ham of various types, but I didn’t try any because I wasn’t all that hungry. Anyway, it was all good.
After the party, we went to Gecko’s for one drink and then went home and to sleep. I was SO tired!
Sunday, we relaxed. We ate at Mandy’s and went bowling with some friends. Natalya and I didn’t do as well as we usually did. I feel ok if I break a hundred, but I got 99. It was still fun. Then Aksana, Natalya & I went back to the apartment. I stayed there and the girls went out for a walk. I watched some American football. It was great. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Ok, that wasn’t that quick, and not many thoughts, more actions, I guess. I’ll try and be thoughtful in my next post to even it out.

Lyng & Learn

There are a couple of things I’ve gotten excited about recently. One is the Lyngbox (http://www.lyngbox.com/) and the other is the Microsoft’s High School of the Future in Philadelphia (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/09/07/school.of.future.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories).

The LyngBox is like a Tivo for satellite users. It does for satellite users what cable boxes did for cable, and more! It automatically updates it’s channel listings from the internet and allows multiple users with different channel listings. The coolest is that it allows recording on its 160 GB hard drive, and since it is connected to the internet, allows remote record from the internet, meaning I could be on vacation and check what’s coming on through the web and ask my LyngBox to record it. Awesome.

The High School of the Future is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and sounds like an awesome place to go to school. There’s a blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/phillyhi/default.aspx) and if you’ve got Google Earth you can plug in the address (https://sdp-webprod.phila.k12.pa.us/OnlineDirectory/Directory & then search for word “future”) to look at the grounds. I don’t think Google Earth has a recent picture of the grounds with the new building on it, but it’s a beautiful looking area. There’s about 170 students in the first year class, which is grade 9 (Freshman), and they’re looking to expand to 750 students eventually. They’ve got electronic smart boards instead of blackboards and computers instead of books. I think they’ve moved into the paperless classroom. The whole place has wireless internet access. I wonder if they have any printers there. It brings up the question, “What is art class like?” By the way, I got most of the information from the CNN.com article referenced above and here again (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/09/07/school.of.future.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories).

Don’t get Zorba’d!

In my previous post, I described the experience that coined the phrase, “We got Zorba’d!” Again, in simplistic terms, being Zorba’d is eating at a restaurant that is bad and can afford to be so, since it is in a touristy area of town and tourists will wander into it without knowing that it is horrible. Example: “We got Zorba’d in Mallorca/Rome/Munich/Florence (pick any city with a flourishing tourist industry) since we didn’t know where to eat.” Now I’ll give some handy-dandy tips to avoid being Zorba’d.
More customers generally indicate more quality. If there are a bunch of people at a restaurant, chances are that it’s good. They could be locals or tourists that found it in a guidebook or tourists that ate there once before. All of those categories of people indicate a plus to the restaurant’s status. It’s the people like me, the ones that only start trying to find a place to eat when they get hungry, that drag a restaurant down. If it’s the only appealing restaurant in the area, there is a chance it is still bad. Of course, numbers aren’t the only factor you’ll consider in your search for a good restaurant.
Look for customers with food and drink. Don’t be afraid to walk through the restaurant. If a waiter asks you about it, tell him you’re looking for a friend. If there is food on half the tables that are occupied, it is pretty safe to say it’s a decent restaurant, as long as the food looks good, of course. If there’s food on only one table and only drinks on half the others, you’re rolling the dice. If you walk to the back of the restaurant, no sign of food or drink on any of the tables, and people look up at you, hoping to see the waiter instead of you, then leave immediately, and when the waiter or owner tries to convince you to stay, do not be swayed.
If there are few people there, or at any local restaurants, then it may just be an abnormal time of the day to eat. In this case, look for something you probably won’t see, but could be a sign you hit the jackpot: little cards with “Reserved” on them. Then again, they could be a ploy by the owner to make tourists believe that the locals eat there.
The farther from the tourist attraction, the cheaper the price. It’s just simple supply & demand economics. They have an endless supply of customers, whether or not the place is horrible, that are demanding food. Those establishments located outside the general walking area of the average tourist have to offer something better (prices, service, atmosphere or food) to encourage the locals to eat there, so if you have the time and energy, enlarge your search radius and look for something better.
Ask the locals where they eat. This is a last resort, usually, for a few reasons. They might not like tourists and then give you a bad recommendation. You might not be able to communicate effectively. You might mistakenly identify a fellow tourist as a local and get a bad recommendation. Or, you might be directed to the best restaurant you’ve ever been to that you would have never found or thought to eat at, had you not talked to the locals.
Don’t forget to check the menu. If it doesn’t have something you want to eat on it for the price you are willing to pay, don’t eat there.

Now, following all these tips still doesn’t guarantee the fact that you won’t get Zorba’d, but it will greatly reduce the chances. Good luck in all of your eating out endeavors!

Getting Zorba'd

Zorba. It’s a name that will live forever in infamy for me; not for the famous movie “Zorba the Greek,” or the famous song from the movie, “Zorba’s Dance,” but the name of the restaurant that my friends and I went to late one night in London. It was June 19, 2004. I had just been to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert in Hyde park and when I got back to the hotel, two of my friends, JR & John, and I decided to get something to eat. It was about 11 p.m. when we headed out and we found two or three restaurants that looked like they might be good, but they were closed. Then we happened upon Zorba’s Greek Taverna (http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/restaurants/restaurant-176.php). We were pondering whether to try it out or not when a guy emerged from inside the restaurant and asked us to come in. I thought that was friendly and a sign of luck (and it was, but in this case, the bad kind) so I voted we follow the guy inside. JR & John were a little more wary, but seeing how it was around 11:30 at this point, we figured we might not get another chance to eat, and we were starving. We went inside and sat down and noticed there were three other tables that had people at them, one with 7 people and one with 4 and one with 2 people. The people at the big table had their drinks but no food and nobody else had any food.

The first part of the dining experience went as expected, with the waiter taking our drink order. It was awhile before he came back and gave us our drinks and took our food order, though. When the drinks came, I was shocked. The drinks cost 4 pounds and were in little glasses. They weren’t shot glasses, but they couldn’t have had more than 0.2 liters (about 6.75 ounces) of fluid in them. I think I’m being generous. We ordered and JR ordered a plate of tzatziki so we could dip our meat in it. I was thinking that was kind of wasteful since I thought it customary to include some tzatziki on the plate with the meat. I like tzatziki, but I like to taste the meat as well.

Next, the waiter brought out some bread and put it on our table even though we didn’t order any, nor did he ask if we wanted any. (Some of you might have fallen for this trick, which was our biggest complaint, in the end.)

About this time, we were starting to get really cold. The door was open and we asked a lady that worked there if they could close it. The lady nodded but didn’t close it. We asked again. She nodded again and smiled. Still no movement of the door. One of us went over and closed it part of the way but the lady wouldn’t allow us to completely close the door. I went to the bathroom, which was downstairs. It wasn’t completely clean but it was acceptable. Also, it was a little warmer there than upstairs. I considered staying for longer than was necessary, and it wouldn’t have hurt since when I got back to the table the food still hadn’t arrived.

When our food finally did arrive, shortly after the food at the big table (we don’t know how much longer they were there than us), it wasn’t the size portions that we were used to. It tasted good, sure, but it wasn’t much. There was no tzatziki on the plate like I thought there would be and the side order of tzatziki was a small plate with just enough spread on it to bring it level with the top of the plate. It was thicker than tzatziki I’d had before and would have been enough for only one person eating a normal amount of the stuff with a Greek meal.

When we finished, our plates were cleared in a normal amount of time. We waited for the check for a little while, and then we asked for it. We waited. We asked again. We waited. Finally, I got up and went to the door the man was going in and out of and asked him for the check. He said for me to go and sit down and he would bring it to me. I said that I would wait there until he brought it to me. I think he realized I was a little upset and he got it prepared fairly quickly.

The bill. It looked like a lot more than I thought we had ordered or was justified. I was tired and frustrated and suggested to the guys that we should just pay it and get out of there. JR & John looked at it and couldn’t believe how much it was. After looking at each item, we realized he charged us for bread and a service charge. I guess bad service costs more. We decided to leave him the amount of money for everything minus the service charge and the bread and get out of there. We didn’t have exact change so we ended up giving him a little more than was fair for what we received.

You’d think that would be the end of the story. We walked out of the restaurant and started down the street when the waiter comes running after us! All of the sudden, he’s in a hurry! He tells us we didn’t pay enough. We tell him we paid him for what we ordered and we weren’t paying any more. He told us how he would have to make up for that money and how we were taking money out of his family’s pockets. We told him that was too bad and he should learn that he was taking money out of his customer’s pockets when he charges them for something didn’t order (bread) and something they didn’t provide (service). We kept walking the entire time he was talking so eventually he had to give up and return to the restaurant.

That is why we coined the term, “Zorba,” to persuade tourists to eat at a low-grade restaurant, and “Zorba’d,” to eat at a low-grade restaurant in a tourist area, as in, “We visited the Heidelberg Castle last weekend and unfortunately ended up getting Zorba’d at one of the nearby restaurants.” In a future post, I’ll explain how to significantly lower your chances of being Zorba’d.

Long weekend with Castles & Munich

This weekend was a long weekend for me, so Natalya & I went to Neuschwanstein Castle and to Munich. The picture is not one that was taken by me but by “mildog” (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattandrhya/). Hopefully, I can exchange the one above for one we took, but I haven’t transferred the pictures from the camera to the computer yet. The day was beautiful and warm, despite the few days prior being mostly cloudy and raining most of the day. We toured the castles and stopped at a restaurant on the way, and didn’t get Zorba’d, thank god. I’ll have to explain the phenomenom of “being Zorba’d” in a later post, and some tips on how to avoid it. Anyway, the restaurant was fantastic, for that type of food, which was Bayern (Bavarian) food. I had the lamb schnitzel and Natalya had the Cordon Bleu. It really hit the spot.

On to Munich (München). We stayed at a hotel not too far from the city center. We got a parking spot on the street, which was lucky—some guy just happened to be pulling out at that time, so we didn’t have to pay for parking and I didn’t get a ticket. The hotel was right next to a subway/metro/underground/u-bahn stop so we were able to use that to get around the city for the rest of our time in Munich. That night we went out for some drinks on a portion of Ludwigstrasse that the hotel clerk recommended to us. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t all that great either. He also told us where the best club area was, too, and we were thinking about going, but the day had been long enough for us.

The next day we spent walking around Munich and taking pictures and shopping. It was nice. On our way back to Heidelberg, we stopped at Dachau, one of the concentration camps from WWII. We got there shortly after 1800 so the exhibition hall was closed, but we were able to get inside the gates and see the remade barracks that showed how detainees (as we would call them today) were housed back then. We were on our way back to the crematorium when a guy said they were closing up for the day so we missed that and we left.

We live just over one of the bridges here in Heidelberg. We were just about to cross the bridge when we noticed some policemen getting ready to pull a barrier onto the street to block the bridge off. We got to the other side and they already blocked the right turn lane and fortunately we were able to go straight. We realized it was time for the third “Castle Lighting” of the year and we were just in time for it. I thought I’d never find any parking, but I got the last of the illegal-but-probably-not-too-illegal-to-get-you-towed parking spots and there was much rejoicing. We put our stuff in the apartment and headed straight back to the bridge to watch the fireworks. More on the Castle Lighting here (http://www.e-heidelberg.com/attractions/attractions.html#fire). It’s not all that great and there’s always a huge crowd, but it’s something. I think if it was once a year, maybe the fireworks would be better, but then the crowd would be worse. Hmm.

Sunday & Monday we didn’t do much, but that was just what we needed.

Anyway, it was a great weekend. Perfecto!

Writing along...

I just got a new pen yesterday from JetPens (http://www.jetpens.com/). It is a small pen, an Ohto FF-10T, Silver. It is made in such a way that when you put the cap on the end, it is held tight and makes the pen long, but when you take the cap off, it is pretty short and fits in your pocket easily. It is a thin pen, also, so it may be a little bit harder to hold than a thicker one. I don't know yet. I seem to squeeze my pens tighter than need be, which contributes to my hand cramping up sooner than most people. I always had a hard time doing essay tests in school. I found myself rubbing my hand, with my pace and my handwriting suffering towards the end of the test. I prefer typing for that reason, but I still value the look and feel of putting pen to paper.

Regardless, I may get one of Ohto's slightly bigger pens because this one is just too petite. Fountain pens are notoriously expensive, but the one I bought was only $20 and the other one I was looking at was also only $20. If you've never used a fountain pen, it may be hard to get used to, but this one seems to be so well made that it doesn't seem like it would be an issue.

I seem to like stationery, but maybe it's just a phase I'm going through. Merriam-Webster online defines stationery (http://www.meriam-webster.com/dictionary/stationery) as: materials (as paper, pens, and ink) for writing or typing as well as what most people think of when hearing the word: letter paper usually accompanied with matching envelopes. I'm talking the first definition. I like to use Moleskine (http://www.moleskine.com) for writing in and have bought a few. One for work notes, one for a personal journal, and a small one for writing down ideas. I just started using them a few months ago and they exude a feeling of luxury and personality.

Let's get this party started right.

The picture is one of the first that I took of Natalya, my girlfriend & fiancee. This was when we took a trip to Idar Oberstein in Jan. '05. It was fairly fun, but the castle/keep was closed and it was raining. Actually, it was only fun because she was there and so was a friend named Anel. We had a good time because we would have had a good time anywhere.

Now on to things in the very recent past. Yesterday, we were invited to a friend's place for a birthday party for Tatiana. We got a gift and a bottle of wine and headed out. We were asked to get some cheese for the party so we hit the Shell station that was pretty much on the way to the party. For some reason (unknown), it was everyone's idea at that moment to pick up some munchies for the evening. It seemed as if they conspired against us to make us wait the longest possible amount of time. I waited outside in the car, since I didn't need anything and Natalya jumped out to grab the cheese and hurry back inside. It was 10 or 15 minutes until she would return. There was an absent-minded lady that didn't know she should wait in a line, or had never before waited in a line, or had forgotten (or never understood) the concept, and there were also two girls that chose that time to consolidate their stamps they'd been collecting for gas to trade in for a pack of gum or some such and, of course, a slow checkout lady. Those are the highlights. I won't describe all the other people that went in and out.

Well, that just irritated the hell out of me. I don't know why. I shouldn't have let it get to me, but it did. Now, in this wonderful mood, we proceeded to the general area where the party was and drove around for an hour while looking for the street. We were told that it was "one building away" from a place we'd already been, near the EMBL 'campus', and which place (the place we'd already been) I found straight away. Turns out it wasn't (one building away, that is). It was actually a left, then the next right, then the next right again away from that location. Don't those directions read wonderfully? Why couldn't anyone tell me those directions? I don't know. Next time I go to an unknown location and have the address, I'll go to Google Earth and find it, no matter how easy a friend says it is to find. Shoulda, coulda, will next time.

When we showed up, the party literally hadn't started. There was lots of food on a table (snack/party food) and lots of alcohol (bottles of wine and various hard liquor) but none of it was open. Natalya was perfect and grabbed me a beer from somewhere; I think the fridge. There was no corkscrew for the wine. Boris (one of the participants) opened a bottle of wine by using something to push the cork down into the bottle. I'd heard that could be done, but I'd never seen it. Impressive. Anyway, I calmed down and started to enjoy myself.

I didn't want to stay long because I had been up since 0530 in the morning and had to be up by 0630 the next day and didn't want to be completely useless. I told Natalya I wanted to leave at 2300. The timeline ended up being something like this: 2105, left the apartment; 2110, arrived at Shell; 2125, left Shell; 2210, arrived at party; 2335, left the party. It's too bad we left. Natalya was having a good time and she was asked to stay, but she left at least partly because I wanted her to. She's the best! She's awesome. She could have stayed there on a couch or on somebody's bed or something, but I didn't know that that was an option before hand (if I had, I would have been more receptive to that idea) and I think she felt that and that she didn't want me feeling weird. She knew I was already frustrated because of the Shell and the Search and just being tired, and felt that I needed a friend. I did.

Initial post

This is the initial post. My name is Michael Klepzig, but I go by Mike. There aren't many Klepzigs out there, but I'm a Klepzig. Klepzig is not a common name. A friend of mine said that I really have no excuse for not having a web site, and I had to agree with him. Here it is. Oh, and that friend would be none other than Michael Dane Toguchi. Thanks, buddy. When I'm rich from all the profits that come from me starting this blog and all it spurred me on to do, then I'll think of you and give you a mental high-five! Right on.