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Showing posts from March, 2006
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I've survived the two weeks and I get to come home on Saturday. Here's a couple of pictures from around town. I'd explain but I'm too tired to think about where I was.
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Views from the Arch.
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A couple more photos from St. Louis!
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The arch through the trees, a great stout at the brewery, and a stuffed buffalo. It was quite the sightseeing day!
The second wave of blogger spamming has hit my blog. I'm going to disable comments for a while until this wave passes.
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Who knew? I finally found something in St. Louis that was fun for a moment. Bigfoot started it's racing legend in St. Louis and the Firestone tire dealer is still the home and now museum/shop for all things Bigfoot. While the original Bigfoot is out on tour, Bigfoot #5 was stationed outside for everyone's enjoyment. Even with the threat of snow the stop was fun.
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I've decided that I'm happier than ever that I never had to move to St. Louis. There's not a lot to do here and it's cold. On this trip, I have two team members from the Middle East here with me. It's the first trip to the U.S. for one of them and he's quickly learned that the people and life here are not the same as what is shown on TV or in the movies. At the recommendation of the hotel waitress, we wandered off to 1860 - a blues bar and cajun restaurant. It was a true hole in the wall deserted location and as soon as we walked in, everyone stared. We were in redneck territory for sure. Since we had no other options, we went on in and had dinner. The food was pretty good and the restaurant was decorated as a hunting lodge. Later we went to listen to the band but between the redneck factor, the music, and the really strange mental guy that was air dancing to his own tune, we decided to leave.
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The snow filling up the new Busch Stadium.
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It's snowing and cold in St. Louis. I'm just watching the white stuff come down and fill up the new baseball stadium. I'm trying to upload photos but blogger isn't cooperating right now. Maybe later.
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No one claimed the underpants. I'm surprised that they weren't credited to Paul Bunyan but such is St. Louis. The City Museum also included a large Roman Bath area minus the Roman Baths.
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The City Museum St. Louis has all sorts of strange objects inside. This was the winner by far.
All right. It's St. Patrick's Day and instead of drinking a Guiness, I find myself at an LAX airport hotel doing homework. I have a 630 am flight from LAX to St. Louis in the morning and I just couldn't see getting up at 2:00 am to drive to the airport so here I am. At least the homework is nearly done. I cleaned up the condo as best I could in preparation for the home inspection while I'm gone. The termite inspection has been set up and now I can hope for the best. I'll probably set up the movers/storage date for the last week of April. I want the house to be empty right before escrow closes. The condo is slowly starting to feel like it belongs to someone else. I hope that the new owner takes the time to paint, redo the carpet and fix up all the things that I've neglected to do. The spiders have really enjoyed all of the boxes that I've brought into the house. Everytime that I have to unpack something, a spider jumps out. I'm not looking forward to whe
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Two last views of Lake Zurich. The water photo was taken late in the afternoon. The next day the mountains were covered in a fresh dusting of snow.
The cookie always knows.... I woke up Monday morning knowing that I had a full day in front of me. I fortified myself with coffee and more coffee and faced the day. First up - there was a offer on my condo but it hadn't come in yet. Second - taxes. And somehow the work world had managed to be quiet while I was in Zurich but the universe was kicking everything around in high velocity on Monday. But forget about work. The offer came in at 2:00 pm. $369,000, no contingencies but no pre-approved loan either. I talked to my realtor and we went over each of the 10 pages of the offer in detail. I wanted $385,000 but that pretty much isn't going to happen so I countered with $379,000. Later that day, I headed off to Coldwell Banker to sign the paperwork and the counter offer was sent. Had more discussions about the sale, what had to be done, when I could safely pack my bags and be homeless. Then I headed over to mustbereel's house to do my taxes. Well it turns out that I could
There are only one joy that go with sitting on an airplane for 9 or more hours and in the last year, that joy has been robbed from me. For whatever reason, my movie screens are constantly not working. This has happened at least 5 times in the last 10 months and it’s getting old. I did okay on the flight to Zurich, there was only one channel that was messed up. Today, I was looking forward to seeing the end of "Walk the Line" and all of "Pride and Prejudice." I knew I was in trouble the minute the plane took off and the music audio went out. Sure enough, the air map failed to display and the movie screen was blank. Oddly, the movie audio is working fine but the music audio is out. I could listen to "Fever Pitch" and watch the movie across the aisle but it’s too much work. I’m almost done with my book and have only 2 hours of battery on my computer. It’s going to be a long flight. Zurich has some surprises for me. I expected a clean city but even Zurich has
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Last night it snowed non-stop and it's still snowing this morning. I choose the right day to leave because even with my four layers of clothes, I would not enjoy walking around town today. Lake Zurich is just barely visible from my hotel window and the sunny view is gone. My two days of Zurich has been a nice introduction to Switzerland. I would have liked to have gone to the alps and the general consensus from all the other travels is that Luzern is the best city to visit. Well, those will all have to wait for another time. My goal has been accomplished, I am relaxed if only for the moment.
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One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. This was harborside at Lake Zurich.
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The old city of Zurich has historic building and churches but for Europe, the old city is almost modern. All of the old walls and ramparts were torn down to make room for new buildings from the 1800's to the early 1900's. As I sat and listened to the tour I thought, "wow, this is a first. I'm not going to see a City Wall." About an hour later the trolley stopped at a generic building and the tour driver announce that this building was where the City Wall used to be. When it was torn down, the bricks were used for new buildings so we were looking at the modernization of the City Wall. There really is no escape even when the sight no longer exists. Neither of these photos show the former City Wall. Instead we have Historic Church and Historic Square.
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Today was the usual European walk all over the place and non-stop sightseeing with no food inbetween. Someday I'll learn this lesson but it always seems that once I get going I can't stop or I might miss something. Even though it was 38 degrees, I managed to bundle up in enough clothes to stay warm even when the snow started. The highlight of the city is Lake Zurich which is what you'd expect from Switzerland - scenic and pretty. I've been told that it's quite beautiful on a sunny day.
The tour to Liechtenstein just got cancelled due to low participation. Bummer! I was looking forward to that. Intead, I'm going to head out on the usual standby of the Trolley Tour and boat cruise on Lake Zurich. There is only light snowfall this morning and so far, no rain. Now Homer has me thinking about cheese. Last night I ordered a cheeseburger and it came with just cheese. This morning my omelette had one choice of cheese. Both were Swiss cheese to me but just cheese here. Zurich is about as far from Lubbock as you can get. It's almost like being on another planet when compared to Lubbock! I can't say more for fear of having the citizens of Lubbock come after me.
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After an early start Thursday morning, 12 hours of travel, I have arrived in Zurich. I'm glad I brought two coats because the weather changes every 15 minutes. It will go from sunny, to rain, to intense snow flurrys almost on a regular rotating schedule. Here's the view from my window. Unusual art must not be confined to Barcelona. This winged lady is hanging in the train station. Today I walked around the park area and explored the underground shops. Tomorrow I'm off to Liechtenstein. I think cheese is just cheese unless it's fondue. There are ads for fondue restaurants everywhere. My hotel greeted me with Swiss chocolates and cookies. Yum.
I'm off to Zurich!
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I went to my first Laker's game this week. The pictures don't show it but the seats were really good and close to the court. I was even in prime Jack viewing! I never realized how much the crowd can change a basketball game experience. I have been to other games before but in LA it isn't just a game, it's an opportunity to been seen and noticed. Every wanna be is there and dressed to impress but in a casual offhand way. Between the players, Hollywood, the Laker Girls, and the side show of the crowd, it was pretty fun. That is until the second half when the Lakers just totally sucked and San Antonio dominated the game.
It's the night of the longest and most boring awards show on Earth - the Oscars. For as much as I love movies and the fashion pre-show, I just cannot sit through the skits, musicals, and the madatory host comedy routine. I prefer to watch the highlight endlessly on Monday and follow the awards online. So far, I'm mixed about the results but I'm glad to see different winners than the traditional popularity crowd. Courtesy of the net: Supporting Actor: George Clooney, "Syriana." I really disliked that movie. Clooney only won because he had a torture scene. Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, "The Constant Gardener." Okay. I also didn't think the movie was all that. Her fate is why she wins. Animated Feature Film: "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." I'm okay with this. It was good animation. Documentary: "March of the Penguins." You have to give the production crew credit for all of that time in the South Pole. N
Wow, even I have my limits for how much time I'm willing to spend on work and school on the weekends. Today I decided just to be lazy. I still pulled up e-mail and did the required school topics but it was such a great day I had to be outside. Since it was sunny, I started out with a good workout at the beach. I had to exercise because I had lunch plans at a Brazil Steakhouse that was all you can eat. Let me just say that I am now a fan of the all you can eat Brazil Steakhouse. There are 12 different types of meat that the waiters bring around and slice off at your table. You can have as much as you want. There's also the hot and cold buffet of salads, seafood, sides but none of them are the usual fare. I normally dislike mussels but smother them in sauces and cheese and I'm there! Fried bananas with brown sugar, yum! I hardly even eat meat but I had to try at least 4 of the 12 items. 3 plates of food later I was a roly-poly but in a good way. After all that food, I was ju
Just checking in from St. Louis. We had nice and hot weather on Wednesday and then today the cold front moved in. I might even see snow flurries Friday morning but I hope not. My excitement for the week has been minimal. I'm finalizing the dates for the next Mid-East trip, I found a company that can export ice cream to the Mid-East, and as usual, I had endless ways to sample Halal turkey bacon for export possibilities. I forgot the time difference in TV shows and came back to my hotel in time for what I thought was the start of Survivor only to find that Tribal Council was in full swing! I guess I'm going to miss out on most of this season. TAR - hmmm. could't really identify with any of the teams. I'll stay tuned for next week. I still think that show would boost their ratings if Mondo and I were a team.