Back to work

So my voicemail box if maxed out despite my outgoing message NOT to leave any messages. My work email inbox has 2 pages of unread mail, and I'm operating on 5 hours of sleep over 48 hours. "Tired, so Tired...."...is that a Ren and Stimply Space Madness qoute?..can't remember.

From reading the Discourser's account of the GoG weekend festivities, it looked like a huge success. I love everyone's tags:
NTT's BRAIN
MOOSE
THE GM
THE PROFESSOR
THE ACUPUNCTURIST
RAVE-BOY
THE PERFECTLINE

And you can throw in:
myself the SUPERGOOBER
THE BOY
CAJUN.

Now the Discourser has to come up with a good tag for the rest, but here's my recommendations:
For our friend in Germany: SUPER-TEC
For our friend the L5R Wasp rank 3 Archer: THE CRAFTSMAN
For our friend in Oregon: THE DUFF
For our friend in the Phillipines: THE KAWANGA KID
For our new friend, the BOY's friend: THE BARD

You have to understand, I'm a child of Marvel Comics and role-playing games and have the nerdly ability to instantly visualize a Hero's powers and appearance based solely on their Hero Name. Just try to imagine our motley crew. The Discourser will have to take it from here.

Iberia Airlines suck

Due to fly out Saturday at noon. Told to check in on one line then diverted into another long ass line and in the end we failed to check-in on time. They told us that they would reschedule us for a flight the next day, 24 hours later. Needless to say, we were pissed and gave anyone and everyone we talked to an earful. We were shuffled form one line to another and after standing in line at 4 stations and after 6 hours, enought was enough. We were beaten...they may have won this battle, but I assure you, they did not win the war.

We were essentially given the run-around. On top of that, we discovered that nearly a dozen other people could not get on board do to over-booking. These people were given a place to stay, transportation, food, and 800 bucks as an apology....for us, JACK SHIT. In other words, even if we had checked in, we would not have been offered a seat. Even when we had the names of these people they had over-booked, they refused to admit they over-booked! No help with accomodations, transportation, or even a frickin apology. They pointed out a pay phone and told us to find a place to stay on our own. So we did....though dejected, defeated, and exhausted, we refused to let this ruin our incredible vacation and decided to take the Metro into Madrid for one last night of fun...and thats what we did...a nice meal, a nice walk, a couple of drinks, and some late night shopping.

So there we were again the next day. We checked in 3 hours early, got to the gate, and our flight was delayed 4 hours!! We missed our connecting flight at Chicago!! AA told us they would put us in a hoted overnight given the lack of seats on any flights to the bay area but we stood firm and refused. They managed to get one of us a first class ticket to SFO and placed my wife on standby. After another 4 hours of waiting at O-Hare, some anxious moments on standby, we finally got on board. I got first class, which rocked BTW, and my wife got economy. I had my dinner sent to her and I managed to get 1 hour of sleep. BTW, she sat accross form Shariff Abdur Rahim, 6-10 NBA small forward standout!...very cool.

We got in at after 11:00 pm, picked up our checked bags and had to literally run to BART to catch their last train to the east bay...and I mean RAN to catch that train BTW...thanks to the Discoursers wife re. BART info...we would have missed it if not for her heads-up.

So after our 50 hour ordeal, we finally got home to 2 super happy little cats.

I have supreme jet-lag and am at work on 5 hours of sleep.

I'll be uploading and adding some pics to my last several Spain blogs. Check it out soon.

Granada notes.....

Driving in southern Spain is like running with the Bulls in Pomplona. It is complete chaos in the urban centers. There are hardly any intersections...they use roundabouts...some huge and some tiny, and each a ride for your life. There seems to be no lane designation and no hard and fast rules....you simply dive into position and hope the other driver notices

Also, after 1000 miles of driving in both rural, suburban, and urban areas, I can count on 1 hand the number of SUV´s I´ve seen...much like the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany. In Spain´s case, you simply can´t drive ANYWHERE in any city unless you have either a scooter (which there happens to be thousands of) or a mirco vehicle like ours. You need to see our pictures of the streets to believe how narrow they are...and the locals FLY down them with literally inches to spare from the walls, and locals scurrying for doorways to avoid being flattened...I´ve also definitley added a few levels to my "driving a clutch" skill.

So Granada,...it really comes down to one of the new wonders of the world,..the Alhambra.



Just crazy.


Too much to explain and I´m a bit too tipsy to write. I´d love to live in spain. They live life pretty close to how I´d like to live it. Here's pics of our little hotel...



To my buddies, we have to get together and plan some international travelling....as I´ve always said, internation travel changes your life....it´s completely undeniable.

Time to sleep.

Malaga notes....

We decided to hit a few towns on the way to Malaga. We wanted to check out Ronda, a large town set atop a 1000 foot plataeu with jagged vertical cliffs on three sides.



It was fantastic BTW, but the road to get there was near ridiculous....56 miles, the road to Guacin through the Cerro Ronda,...I stopped counting after 450 turns,..my wife was getting car sick and I wished I had the S4..tear it up beaatch!


Anyway, Malaga, Picasso´s home town, a city on the Costa Del Sol, or the southern coast of spain.



Have little time on this computer so here´s the Andulucian checklist:

1. Gorgeous people-check
2. Roman ruins-check
3. Visagoth ruins-check
4. Muslim, Moorish Alacazaba and Fortress-check. This Fortress in particular has been chronicled by Christian scholars since the 1400´s a Fortress Impregnable...and it looked the part indeed.



5. Catholic Gothic Catedral-check


6. Labrynthian maze of narrow cobble streets-check


7. A medeival town surrounding the catedral-check
8. Endless hidden plazas-check
9. Tapas bars, restaurants and bars nearly everywhere-check
10. Throngs of locals and tourist alike drinking and eating together on the streets until 4:00 in the morning-check

On our way to Granada...the best is left for last.

Seville notes....

Ah, Seville, the heart of Andalucia, Bull Fighting, and Flamenco. The weather has been perfect. In the 80´s during the days and in the 70´s in the evenings.

2:00 pm Woke up from a late night of tapas and sangria the night previous.

2:30 pm Got out of the shower and dressed. The wife and I hit the streets of the historic district.

2:45 pm Breakfast at a Cafe on the Calle de Marianas. Enjoyed churros y chocolate...fresh fried churros served with a steaming cup of melted milk chocalate.

3:15 pm Got in line to see the Catedral and the Giralda, the main monuments of Seville.

5:15 pm Just finished our tour of the Catedral Sevilla and jotting down some notes in a small leather notebook I purchased in Cordoba (a town reknown for it´s leather craftsman)....and my mind is still recovering from the assault, my rods and cones blasted by the overwhelming detail.


I realize I use the word ridiculous too much in my day to day speech, using it at times for the mundane and pedestrian. But if I were limited to using the word to only twice in my lifetime, I´d have to use it this first time to describe the Catedral de Sevilla and save the second for either the Pyramids of Giza OR the Great Wall of China.


Hmmm, the Catedral in a nutshell: It´s the largest Gothic catedral in the world; 25,000 square meters of floor space!! 23 chapels, some able to seat more than my grade school catholic church! required 500 frickin years to build! has 5 naves! a tower 100 meters tall! and ornamentry of such overwhelming volume of detail that your mind would reel from the onslaught.


6:00 pm Walked to el centro, the shopping district....massive and world class, 120 square blocks of hyper modern shiny shops set within medieval streets and 300 year old buildings.

6:20 pm Had chocolate Gelato

7:30 pm Walked home to change
Our Hotel was primo BTW. Here's a pic of it by night.


8:15 pm Hit Cafe Intenesa in the Bario de Santa cruz for Tapas and Cervesas

9:45 pm Walked to Cafe Consornum

10:15 pm Listened to the Great Carlos Del Rio play spanish and Flamenco Guitar


11:45 pm Enjoyed a Flamenco performance till 1:30.



Seriously would have loved soo many of you guys to have been there with us. I´m havind such a blast...

Talk to you in Malaga....

Cordoba notes

Sorry it´s been a while. I´ll try and catch up the next few days.

- Took the 300 mile trip south to Cordoba located in Northern Andalucia; the "plains in Spain"....and yes it did rain.

- Cordoba was founded in 152 BC by, who else, the Romans. And, as is the history for most Andulucian towns and cities, was abandoned by the Romans at the fall of their Empire in and around the 6th century, then conquered by the Visagoths in the 7th, conquered again by Muslim Caliphs in the 8th, and again by Catholic Kings in the 11th.

- Cordoba is known for its 1000 year old reputation as a fabulously tolerant paradise. This rep is typified in what is considered as one of the wonders of the architectural world, the Mosque Mezquita. Truly a rediculously beautiful structure. Here´s another Lord of the Rings reference; it´s interior of what appears as near endless columns and arches inspired the design of the underground Dwarven Halls in the Fellowship.

The structure is 1200 years old, originally had some 1300 columns, some taken from ancient visagothic temples, and some scavenged from even more ancient Cathegian buildings. It is one of the largest Mosques ever built, 23,000 sq. meters!!! Here's a pic of just one of it´s some 30 massive entrances.

- Re. the Spanish Inquisition, well we can´t seem to escape good ole Torquemada. Here at the Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos, the Inquisition operated it´s home base from 1490 to 1821.

The screams of horror echoeing within its halls reverberate through the centuries!....just kidding. What we did see were several cute little ferral kittens tumbling around it´s manacured gardens...no ghosts here.

- Cordoba is also known for the medieval town focused around the Mezquita..a maze of pristine cobbled hyper narrow streets with white washed buildings and wrough iron verandas. Just think of Cairo or Demascus and you get the picture.

- Our hotel is bad-ass BTW...just perfect! Had a veranda and a view of the Mezquita´s gates!,

was quiet, private, clean, and cheap as hell.

- And did I mention it rained?

Talk to you in Sevill......

Notes from Spain: Madrid con´t & Toledo

Firstly, I´ll be uploading pics to illustrate my blog entries. Unfortunately they´ll uploaded when I get back to the states and probably no sooner so I`ll try to be as discriptive as possible.

Notes Madrid:
- Can´t stop clicking pictures, I want to take a photo every 1.78 seconds.

- Our Madrid room sucks, no privacy, too hot, but the neighborhood rocks

- I think I need a new wardrobe
- the women are gorgeous
- drinking alot of sangria and beer and eating tons of tapas
- I can´t understand anyone! All the rapid fire lisping, vosotros, and dropped "s"´s are too much
- Made the mistake of letting go my wife´s hand for 20 seconds while walking through the redlight district. Within 5 seconds I was groped.
- Prado Museum: One of the world´s top art museum...and the Discourser will appreciate this stuff considering our Art classes in college. Saw master works from Titian, Velasquez, Reubens, Van Dyck, and of course El Greco with his slender tortured supjects...and our favorite, the wild man himself Hieromyus Bosch. What a surprise to enter a room to see, front and center, THE Garden of Earth Delights!!

And on to Toledo:

- Picked up our rockin Peugeot. It was their diesel version meaning even less HP, down to 64 HP. Thank God for GPS! Sorry, looking irritated in this pic.

- Toledo is an ancient hilltop town sprawled around the mightly and looming fortress Alcazar, and surrounded by it´s crenalated walls....the entire hill flanked on three sides by the river Tijo. View from the Fortress Alcazar.

Used as a way station by the Romans 2000 years ago, abandoned in the 6th century, conquered by the Visogoths in the 7th, my Muslim Invaders in the 9th, and conquered again by the Catholics in the 10th century. I swear, they could have used the labrynth of steeply undulating streets to shoot Minis Tirith scenes...and my god, GPS had us driving up, through, and around the narrowest, steepest streets, some with no more than 6 inches to spare on either side of the tiny micro car...and to Peugoet´s credit, they built one of the smoothest and easiest to modulate clutches I´ve ever used.


The locals, taking all in stride, would suck in the guts and step into doorways as we drove by....and the poor guy witht the 5 series BMW, reversing all the way down and back a particularly narrow and steep portion....mmm, the smell of burnt clutch. Anywyz, Toledo was such a treat, 1400 year old roman walls, 1000 year old Muslim fortress, and throughout, and if you look closely, grail and crusade imagery-motifs hidden and tucked away into every corner of every ediface...soo cool

Anywayz, i´m running out of time. Sory for the bad syntax/grammer. No time to proff read.

Talk to you in Cordoba....

Notes on Spain so far....

the Bad: this keyboard sucks, that one needs to be a Triathlete to navigate the Madrid Metro with baggage, that of the 4 European Union countries I have been to that all of them have the propensity to serve you 4 dollar eight ounce glasses of soda, paper thin walls, the evening heat.

the Good: Like I´ve said before, there are very few cities I´ve seen that I could imagine myself living in other than our City,...and Madrid is certainly one. I absolutely love the way they´ve managed to meld the past, with it´s ancient buildings and narrow cobblestone streets, with the modern at it´s most cutting edge. While parts of Germany at times makes the US look like a 3rd world country, Spain´s Madrid, it´s sense of fashion and decor, makes us look drab and completely unoriginal...ie, the way the people dress is stunning in it´s boldness and originality...no one dresses the same! Even elderly gentlemen pay attention to each piece of thier wardrobe. You have to see it to believe it. Also, I absolutely love the way they live each day....case and point; they´re restauraunts OPEN when ours CLOSE....it´s rediculous...and again, it´s not just the young people...you´ll see geriatric couples and entire families with children enjoying walks at 11:00. Dinner starts at 10 and plan on bars and clubs to open no sooner than 1:00. It´s completely crazy.

Anywayz, one more thing before I go. After my last post and as we walked out into the Plaza mayor, we ran into Justin Timberlake, Cameron Diaz, and Antonio Banderas...they were on a large dais in front of throngs of people pushing Shrek.


I wonder if they knew that Torquemada and the Spanish inquisition burned people alive in this very same square some 250 years earlier.

Ok, gotta run....

Greetings from Spain

After a cab ride at 6am Monday, a Bart trip under the tube, an Air tram, 1 continental and 1 cross Atlantic flight, a people mover conveyor, 3 subway rides on the Madrid Metro, we have Finally arrived 11am Tuesday! Youd think that after 22 some hours just getting here we´d be inoculated from feeling anything other than exhaustion but let me tell you, emerging from the subway and into Gran Via in the heart of Historic Madrid simply blew us away.

At every turn, around every corner, along every road and path seems another uber quaint or gorgeous vista. It simply never ends. For example, I´m writing to you from the tourista depot in the Plaza Mayor...just another plaza in Madrid.


Well, its 500 years old, had bull fights for some 250 years, can hold some 50,000 spectators, and some 250 years ago, became a center for ritualistic punishment administered by the Spanish inquisition.

Anywayz, i gotta run. Will blog again in a couple of days

Ready for Spain

So, as promised, I'll be posting pics as a means to illustrate particular points. Firstly, re. ThePerfectLine's going away shindig...it was splendid. It was held on the Island with gorgeous views throughout. In fact, it had a great view of where my wife and I got married:



Also, Finally got all my car parts in. What a pain. And the kicker is that they sent me a wrong part. They sent me 1 all aluminum control arms from an RS4. To bad it won't fit so I gotta ship it back and wait for the damn replacement. Here's what I'm talking about. The bushing, bolt thread, and bolt specs are fukak'd:



Also, here's a run down at the places we've been lucky enough to reserve while in Spain.

First, Las Muralles in Madrid:



Then, Puerta de Sevilla in Seville:



Then, Atarazanas in Malaga:



Then, Dauro II in Granada:



And finally back to Madrid at some typical Airport Hotel. Needless to say, we're soo ready to go away. Oh, BTW, of course,...check out this bad-boy I'm renting:



They call it a "Micro", the Peugeot 107. They don't have that car designation in the US yet. The beast has a 998cc motor pumping out a massive 69 HP. At least it's a manual and more importantly has "air".

Anywayz, gotta run.

This and That....

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Here's the low down on the happenings near and around my life this past week:

1. Outside my work, a maroon Mitzu truck driven by some doped-up guy (looked a little Harry Reams'ish) blasted through a red light, smashed into a silver Mustang GT, which spun like a top a couple times BTW, and pin balled into the side-walked packed with pedestrians. It jumped the curb, ran over a Latino ice-cream vendor (and his little ice-cream wagon), ran over an elderly couple, and finally slamming into the side of a B of A. The poor elderly man was pinned underneath the truck and was clearly dead, by witness accounts. The woman and ice-cream vendor was sent to the hospital...while the driver of the truck sat slumped over in the back of a police car. The crowd that had develped clearly wanted to unleash some street justice, vigalante style on his sorry ass.

2. As usual, our local hosital's Psych Emergency Services are on red alert, meaning that they can no longer accept any new 5150's. This occurs more times than not now-a-dayz. The brain trust at DPH are trying to tease out why this is happening. Earlier in the week I sat in on a massive "State of the City" address where it was mentioned that despite our best efforts in keeping new homeless folks from coming into the City, we see a yearly increase of 1200 new mentally ill transients. Dispite this increase, we haven't seen a concomittant expansion in services, outpatient slots, inpatient beds, etc. etc. yada yada yada...you know the old story. So what do we do. Apparently the city has a wide-spectrum, multi-departmental approach to tackling this problem. Our Office, given it's front-line position, has been directed to become a safetly valve of sorts. Here's the logic. One way you can create more "room" in the system is to move clients more swiftly within the system. Great strategy from a numbers standpoint, but what about the individual? I cannot tell you the number of truly tragic and utterly horrific stories I hear from folks already struggling with mental illness. And when you complicate these situations with substance use/abuse, medical complications, un-documented and/or mono-lingual issues, children, legal issues, sexual identity issues, etc., you can see we need longer term treatment, or at least an expansion rather than the opposite. Soo what happens is folks exit the system unprepared and ultimately recycle right back into emergency services...ie. higher rates of recidivism.

3. Went to the Perfect Line's going away party on the Island and had an awesome time. The DJ was spinning endless Trance/Electronika beats and the bar supplied an never-ending stream of mixed libations. Good times, good times. ALOT of girls BTW, but I behaved myself quite well I must say.

4. Readying for our trip to Spain, finalizing the details, will be contacting the hotels to confirm and crossing our fingers re. the weather.

Well, I gotta run....will blog again soon.