My last leg of the Europe trip finished in London. It was a quick stop, only one day. I flew in direct from Geneva into Heathrow. It was a pretty straight forward flight, although it was slightly delayed. I ended up landing in London around 10:30am, and was about 1 hour from the hotel where I was going to stay. I took the Underground to the hotel, which was easy to do. However I have two comments:
1 - I was not able to get on a single train which would take me directly to my stop, even though I was on the line that was going to my stop. So I would make it about half way, then have to get off the train and get on the next train. Not something that happens in Chicago often, but I ran 100% on this in London.
2 - When going to Knightsbridge at Hyde Park, be prepared to be on a crammed train, even at 11am. It might have just been because of the holidays, but it was crammed pack and I had luggage to wrestle with.
Because the rest of the story will touch on too much work, I won't really take this story much further. Although I will say I stayed at a magnificent hotel that was extremely luxurious, and everyone there was wonderful. The hotel upgraded my room to an amazing room, and I had a fantastic dinner at the hotel. I look forward to going back. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much outside the hotel, but I'll be back in time.
My trip home was fairly uneventful, although I had hoped I would get a bump by chance on my big flight home, but no luck. I flew from London to Frankfurt, then to Chicago. I thought that last flight was never going to end, but eventually to my relief it did. Customs was quick to get through, then I grabbed a cab home. However home wouldn't last long as it was Christmas! The next morning Heather and I were off to Indianapolis to begin the holidays.
I need to gather my photos and stories from the holidays, but there will be another post. Until then...
Monday, December 31, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
European Tour
I am a little over half-way through my work related European tour so I thought I'd drop a note online. The tour is as follows:
Days 1-3 - Donegal, Ireland
Days 4-6 - Geneva, Switzerland
Day 7 - London, England
For the most part this trip is all about business, and I won't really be doing any site seeing. However that doesn't mean I won't take any pictures!
This trip is crazy as far as the number of planes I will be on. I will be on 9 airplanes when all said and done. Most of them are related to getting to Donegal Ireland. I had to fly from Chicago, to London, to Dublin, to Sligo, then grab a rental car up to Donegal which is about an hour drive. It took me about 18 hours to get there! The next leg onto Geneva wasn't that different as I had to drive back to Sligo, fly to Dublin, to London, then to Geneva. There were direct flights from Dublin to Geneva, but unfortunately the flights from Sligo were limited so I landed after the last direct flight to Geneva was available. Fortunately the rest of the trip is more straight forward. I will fly directly to London tomorrow morning, then will fly back from London to Chicago via Frankfurt.
The first stop on this trip was Ireland. I seem to get a bit lucky when I come here as the rain tends to take a break when I arrive. Apparently it was raining for the last couple of weeks hard prior to my arrival. However when I was there it had stopped. The sky was still overcast, but things were dry. I was in Ireland for a work project that was taking place at Lough Eske. I have done a project with this hotel group before, and they have very (very) nice places. My last trip to Ireland was for one of their projects as well. Here is a shot of the entry of their hotel which is a castle built in 1866.
Lough Eske Castle, now the Solis Lough Eske Hotel
The grounds of this hotel are really nice as well. I was there as the hotel us just opening, so there is still a bit of work to be done on the grounds from the construction, but it will be really nice once completed.
Unfortunately Ireland was basically all work, so I don't have any great stories to tell. I went into the town of Donegal one night for a nice meal. However I didn't have my first Guinness until I was leaving Ireland at Dublin's airport between flights! I tried to talk my team who was onsite to go into town with me on my last night there so see some session music playing, but no luck they were all pretty tired by the time it was possible. I was tired too so it probably was the best decision.
Onto Switzerland. I have been to Zurich before with Heather during one of her business trips. However I have not been to Geneva. It is interesting because in Geneva everyone speaks French, when in Zurich there is more German spoken. Fortunately most people speak English so I can survive as I've realized my 4-5 years of French classes in school (15 years ago) apparently did not stick at all.
I can actually speak the small simple words ok, and recognize several words, at least enough to get the gist of things. However this morning was funny in my hotel room and I have a story there. The doorbell rang to the room and it was housekeeping. Since I was working out of the room that day I was still in the room. She started speaking very fast French to me, to what I assume was something along the lines of "can I clean your room now, or should I come back later" I couldn't tell for sure so I just told her "Je ne parle pas Francais. Parlez-vous Anglais?" She had a brief "ahhh" look to her, but then she went into several more sentences in French and once finished she looked at me for an answer. To which I replied "Je ne comprend pas" (I don't understand). Though I was telling her things in French, all phrases which indicate I do not speak French or understand it, that didn't stop her from starting up with more questions in French! Finally I resorted to the smile and shoulder shrug with arms up indicating "I don't know what you want". Seeming a little frustrated she left. I later had a meeting in the afternoon after which I came back and the room was cleaned, so things worked out I guess.
After later returning from my meeting though, ding dong, the doorbell again. This time the person had some small chocolates in hand and she asked me if I wanted my room turned down. Now I know this not because I understood what she said, but I know this is what she is there for as it was that time in the early evening. That conversation was more straight forward, all I had to say was no thank you.
Later that night I went out for dinner, and wanted to eat some fondue if possible. I searched online and found a place that was rated in the top restaurants in Geneva, and seemed to be priced ok so I went hunting it down. Unfortunately the area I thought I saw this place was in on the online map was completely off base. I walked up the lake side and couldn't find it at all, so I pulled out my mobile phone and google mapped it and found I was on the wrong side of the lake. So I had to walk around to the other side and ended up finding the place. I got there near 9pm, and unfortunately the place was packed and they couldn't seat me. Plus everyone in that place was smoking so I didn't mind looking for something else. I then walked the old city center streets looking for another restaurant that would look good and I got lucky and found another fondue place. So I ate there.
It was a nice and quiet restaurant. I ordered a plate of dried meats to start with along with a white wine, then some cheese fondue with bread and potatoes to dip. The table directly in front of me was most of my entertainment for the meal. There was a guy there with two girls. I believe they all worked together, and he was American and they had French accents. It looked like they were grabbing dinner after work as much of the conversation was about work things. For the most part they spoke English, but the guy could speak some French so they would jump between the two languages during the conversation. They were talking at one point about Chicago which I found to be funny. Little did they know at the table next to them was a Chicago resident. There isn't any real gossip to report on their conversation as I wasn't paying super close attention, but it was hard not to overhear things.
Below are a few pictures I took while walking to the restaurant. It's neat here at night as there are some decent light displays. Tomorrow I hope to see more of the city during the day and will try to get some more pictures.
This light display was interesting, a giant safety cone! What says Christmas more than a giant safety cone? Maybe this is a Festivus tradition? I didn't see the Festivus pole anywhere though...
Kind of trippy...
Days 1-3 - Donegal, Ireland
Days 4-6 - Geneva, Switzerland
Day 7 - London, England
For the most part this trip is all about business, and I won't really be doing any site seeing. However that doesn't mean I won't take any pictures!
This trip is crazy as far as the number of planes I will be on. I will be on 9 airplanes when all said and done. Most of them are related to getting to Donegal Ireland. I had to fly from Chicago, to London, to Dublin, to Sligo, then grab a rental car up to Donegal which is about an hour drive. It took me about 18 hours to get there! The next leg onto Geneva wasn't that different as I had to drive back to Sligo, fly to Dublin, to London, then to Geneva. There were direct flights from Dublin to Geneva, but unfortunately the flights from Sligo were limited so I landed after the last direct flight to Geneva was available. Fortunately the rest of the trip is more straight forward. I will fly directly to London tomorrow morning, then will fly back from London to Chicago via Frankfurt.
The first stop on this trip was Ireland. I seem to get a bit lucky when I come here as the rain tends to take a break when I arrive. Apparently it was raining for the last couple of weeks hard prior to my arrival. However when I was there it had stopped. The sky was still overcast, but things were dry. I was in Ireland for a work project that was taking place at Lough Eske. I have done a project with this hotel group before, and they have very (very) nice places. My last trip to Ireland was for one of their projects as well. Here is a shot of the entry of their hotel which is a castle built in 1866.
Lough Eske Castle, now the Solis Lough Eske HotelThe grounds of this hotel are really nice as well. I was there as the hotel us just opening, so there is still a bit of work to be done on the grounds from the construction, but it will be really nice once completed.
Unfortunately Ireland was basically all work, so I don't have any great stories to tell. I went into the town of Donegal one night for a nice meal. However I didn't have my first Guinness until I was leaving Ireland at Dublin's airport between flights! I tried to talk my team who was onsite to go into town with me on my last night there so see some session music playing, but no luck they were all pretty tired by the time it was possible. I was tired too so it probably was the best decision.
Onto Switzerland. I have been to Zurich before with Heather during one of her business trips. However I have not been to Geneva. It is interesting because in Geneva everyone speaks French, when in Zurich there is more German spoken. Fortunately most people speak English so I can survive as I've realized my 4-5 years of French classes in school (15 years ago) apparently did not stick at all.
I can actually speak the small simple words ok, and recognize several words, at least enough to get the gist of things. However this morning was funny in my hotel room and I have a story there. The doorbell rang to the room and it was housekeeping. Since I was working out of the room that day I was still in the room. She started speaking very fast French to me, to what I assume was something along the lines of "can I clean your room now, or should I come back later" I couldn't tell for sure so I just told her "Je ne parle pas Francais. Parlez-vous Anglais?" She had a brief "ahhh" look to her, but then she went into several more sentences in French and once finished she looked at me for an answer. To which I replied "Je ne comprend pas" (I don't understand). Though I was telling her things in French, all phrases which indicate I do not speak French or understand it, that didn't stop her from starting up with more questions in French! Finally I resorted to the smile and shoulder shrug with arms up indicating "I don't know what you want". Seeming a little frustrated she left. I later had a meeting in the afternoon after which I came back and the room was cleaned, so things worked out I guess.
After later returning from my meeting though, ding dong, the doorbell again. This time the person had some small chocolates in hand and she asked me if I wanted my room turned down. Now I know this not because I understood what she said, but I know this is what she is there for as it was that time in the early evening. That conversation was more straight forward, all I had to say was no thank you.
Later that night I went out for dinner, and wanted to eat some fondue if possible. I searched online and found a place that was rated in the top restaurants in Geneva, and seemed to be priced ok so I went hunting it down. Unfortunately the area I thought I saw this place was in on the online map was completely off base. I walked up the lake side and couldn't find it at all, so I pulled out my mobile phone and google mapped it and found I was on the wrong side of the lake. So I had to walk around to the other side and ended up finding the place. I got there near 9pm, and unfortunately the place was packed and they couldn't seat me. Plus everyone in that place was smoking so I didn't mind looking for something else. I then walked the old city center streets looking for another restaurant that would look good and I got lucky and found another fondue place. So I ate there.
It was a nice and quiet restaurant. I ordered a plate of dried meats to start with along with a white wine, then some cheese fondue with bread and potatoes to dip. The table directly in front of me was most of my entertainment for the meal. There was a guy there with two girls. I believe they all worked together, and he was American and they had French accents. It looked like they were grabbing dinner after work as much of the conversation was about work things. For the most part they spoke English, but the guy could speak some French so they would jump between the two languages during the conversation. They were talking at one point about Chicago which I found to be funny. Little did they know at the table next to them was a Chicago resident. There isn't any real gossip to report on their conversation as I wasn't paying super close attention, but it was hard not to overhear things.
Below are a few pictures I took while walking to the restaurant. It's neat here at night as there are some decent light displays. Tomorrow I hope to see more of the city during the day and will try to get some more pictures.
This light display was interesting, a giant safety cone! What says Christmas more than a giant safety cone? Maybe this is a Festivus tradition? I didn't see the Festivus pole anywhere though...
Kind of trippy...That's all for now. Next time I write I'll probably be back in the states recapping the last part of the visit. Until then...
Monday, December 03, 2007
Swiss Alps from Airplane
IMG_0670_2
Originally uploaded by jaspass
Hello Everyone,
Sorry it has been a while since posting, but we haven't really been anywhere of note since Italy. I have been to Daytona Beach, but it wasn't for Bike Week for anything like that, it was during the off-season for a work installation, so it was quiet. Heather has really only been to and from New York a few times for work as well. Next week though I will be traveling to Ireland, Geneva, and London. So I should have some pictures and tales to tell of travel then.
In the mean time I wanted to post this picture. I took this while heading back from Italy. We were flying from Rome to Munich on this flight, and this was the start of the Swiss Alps. Pretty cool huh? There are a few others I took which are on Flickr if you want to see them. Anyway, enjoy! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Pictures from Italy
Hello all,
I have just completed posting our photos from our recent Italy trip. Below is the itinerary, here is the link enjoy! Italy Pictures.
Venice - Days 1-3
Florence - Days 3-5
Pisa - Day 5
San Gimignano - Day 6
Volterra - Day 7
Certaldo - Day 8
Siena - Day 8
Tuscany - Days 5-9
Rome - Days 10-13
Vatican - Day 11
I have just completed posting our photos from our recent Italy trip. Below is the itinerary, here is the link enjoy! Italy Pictures.
Venice - Days 1-3
Florence - Days 3-5
Pisa - Day 5
San Gimignano - Day 6
Volterra - Day 7
Certaldo - Day 8
Siena - Day 8
Tuscany - Days 5-9
Rome - Days 10-13
Vatican - Day 11
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Hello from Italy!
Don't have much time to chat, but wanted to get a link up of some of our photos I had a chance to upload from Venice. I have lots more, including Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa, etc..., but those will have to come later. In the mean time, enjoy!
Click here for Venice pictures
Click here for Venice pictures
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Our newest member of the family
We brought home our new cat on Wed! Heather had contacted a breeder weeks ago, and found one that was nearby that just had a litter. So the last 8 weeks have been tourture for Heather as she waited for the time she could bring out cat home. Heather has been reading, studying, everything you can imagine getting ready for the cat. We spent several days shopping for cat things, and Heather as cat proofed the house. Finally after the long wait, Wed we went out to the breeder and picked him up. He is 10 weeks old, and is a Siberian Classic Tabby. Here he is:
We haven't decided on a name for him yet. When we first brought him home, he was a little gassy, and since he's a Siberian and pretty hairy, we figured and old man's name would be funny. Monty was what we came up with, after Monty Burns on the Simpsons. After using the name a bit, it just didn't seem right now. Heather later thought because he was so inquisitive and the whole house needed exploring, Marco might be a good name. But that hasn't seemed to stick either. We've read that if we keep the name simple, with only two syllables, the cat will learn to respond to his name. So let us know your thoughts! Drop Heather or I an email to put your name suggestion in the mix.
After we brought him home we kept him basically in the basement, and we hung out there with him playing with him, and watching movies while he rested (he does sleep a lot). It didn't take him too long to get used to the room, and to find his hiding places. At night we have been taking him up to the bedroom with us to sleep. After a couple of days of this routine he was considerably more confident in his surroundings, so we brought him into the living room and dining room area. This was also the first chance Murphy got to see him. Watching the bird and the cat is a bit funny. Murphy stares down at the cat with his crest up high on his head, and he doesn't take his eye off him. The cat just sits there and stares right back. He's harder to read though. If I had to read his mind, I think he is thinking "What the heck is this little, moving, feathered thing. Looks like something I'd like to play with, but it is way to high for me to reach and he seems protected. I guess I'll just watch him."
Today we are hanging around mostly in the living room and are letting the cat do his own thing. He has already spent a good amount of time in this position pictured above. He is fascinated by Murphy, that is for sure. He is also fascinated by the cuckoo clock, we don't have the bird coming out right now so I haven't figured out the appeal to that just yet.
We decided we needed some pictures, so below are the remaining pictures I took, and a quick video of him playing. He can be fun to watch!
Kitty hiding under the chair in our bedroom.
Kitty pouncing on his dead leaf he is playing with.
He got it! Of course the leaf didn't put up much of a fight.
We haven't decided on a name for him yet. When we first brought him home, he was a little gassy, and since he's a Siberian and pretty hairy, we figured and old man's name would be funny. Monty was what we came up with, after Monty Burns on the Simpsons. After using the name a bit, it just didn't seem right now. Heather later thought because he was so inquisitive and the whole house needed exploring, Marco might be a good name. But that hasn't seemed to stick either. We've read that if we keep the name simple, with only two syllables, the cat will learn to respond to his name. So let us know your thoughts! Drop Heather or I an email to put your name suggestion in the mix.
After we brought him home we kept him basically in the basement, and we hung out there with him playing with him, and watching movies while he rested (he does sleep a lot). It didn't take him too long to get used to the room, and to find his hiding places. At night we have been taking him up to the bedroom with us to sleep. After a couple of days of this routine he was considerably more confident in his surroundings, so we brought him into the living room and dining room area. This was also the first chance Murphy got to see him. Watching the bird and the cat is a bit funny. Murphy stares down at the cat with his crest up high on his head, and he doesn't take his eye off him. The cat just sits there and stares right back. He's harder to read though. If I had to read his mind, I think he is thinking "What the heck is this little, moving, feathered thing. Looks like something I'd like to play with, but it is way to high for me to reach and he seems protected. I guess I'll just watch him."
Today we are hanging around mostly in the living room and are letting the cat do his own thing. He has already spent a good amount of time in this position pictured above. He is fascinated by Murphy, that is for sure. He is also fascinated by the cuckoo clock, we don't have the bird coming out right now so I haven't figured out the appeal to that just yet.We decided we needed some pictures, so below are the remaining pictures I took, and a quick video of him playing. He can be fun to watch!
Kitty hiding under the chair in our bedroom.
Kitty pouncing on his dead leaf he is playing with.
He got it! Of course the leaf didn't put up much of a fight.Saturday, August 18, 2007
Ireland - Aug 2007
So what do you do when you have to take a business trip to Ireland on your first wedding anniversary? You take your wife of course! I flew into Shannon Ireland on Saturday August 4. First I flew to Philadelphia, then onto Shannon on US Air. I'd like to say now that US Air is the cheapest airline I've ever flown and look forward to not flying them anytime soon. They are the only international airline (I've been on) that charges you for alcohol. To date I've flown internationally on United, Lufthansa, and Lot. Technically I've also flown Air Canada to Canada and American Airlines to Puerto Rico, but that doesn't really count in my mind as they were relatively quick flights.
After I landed I went to get my rental car. Turns out the family next to me was named Young and they saw me fill out my Immigration card and wondered if I was family. I have no idea if I am, but probably way down the line we are. This was my first experience driving on the left side of the road. Because of this I rented an automatic car. Apparently in Ireland, manual cars are the standard when you rent, so you have to ask special for automatics. I figured the road part would be challenging enough without trying to shift with the other hand. I think it was a good call. The only other thing I will say about driving in Ireland is that if you haven't bought a GPS system with Europe maps, then rent one when you get the car. It is a life saver in my mind. Takes all the guess work out of getting from A to B, and there would be a lot of guess work with all their round abouts.
Since I was heading East, I landed on Sunday 8/5. I went straight to the hotel we were working in which was in a town called Castlemartyr outside of Cork. The hotel itself was an amazing five star (who knows maybe even six star) resort built around an old castle ruin. They had an amazing spa on site, as well as a full golf course. You could get a horse and carriage ride around the estate, or walk the dogs of the hotel. I have never seen such an impressive place.
I'll skip through the work part of the trip and get right to the site seeing. Heather flew up on Wednesday, and I arranged a spa session for her after she landed. I still had to work her first day there, so while she was in the spa I wrapped up what I was doing. We stayed at the resort an extra day while we went around Midleton for some site seeing. Unfortunately I had a good bit of work that carried over that day, so site seeing was minimal. Friday we left Castlemartyr and went on towards Galway.
Along the way we went back to Midleton and did a tour of the Jameson distillery, and picked up a few souvenirs. Afterwards we went on Northwest to find the Cliffs on Moher. That was an interesting place, and we got some great pictures. Turns out while we were up in Ireland there was an outbreak of Hoof and Mouth disease in the UK, so while in places like the Cliffs of Moher where you are near livestock there were signs up all over telling you to stay on the paths and out of the pastures. I don't know much about this disease, but it is interesting to me. Growing up and visiting Kentucky where my relatives raised some cattle, not going near them never occurred to me. In the UK though, farmers have to take a lot of precautions apparently.
After the Cliffs of Moher we made it to our hotel outside of Galway, it was called the Twelve. It was a pretty near place, had recently opened about 6 months earlier. They upgraded us to a suite. We took some pictures and if you view the album from the link at the end of this post you will see. Since we got in town a bit late we didn't do much more that day.
The next morning (late morning, we slept in everyday) we went into the town of Galway. Did some site seeing, drank some Guinness, at some good food, got rained on a lot. Turns out it rains quite a bit there, they tend to joke about it too. I also forgot to mention the warmest it ever got was probably around 60 degrees, we were in jeans and long sleeves everyday (this is August keep in mind). Another interesting thing about Ireland is that it is North enough that this time of year at 10pm it is still a bit light outside. Anyway, after tooling around town a bit and getting rained on we made some dinner reservations in a restaurant in town and headed back to the hotel for a bit before dinner (I had a conference call I had to jump on).
That night dinner was really nice. It was a quaint, cozy restaurant that had lots of wood and stonework inside. I think I had some beef dish, and Heather had lamb. It was pretty good, and we had some good wine with dinner as well. After dinner we then went on a hunt for some traditional Irish music. Earlier that day we found a bar that we were told had great music, so we went back to check it out. The music was good, it was a guy on an accordion, and a guy on a guitar. The only problem was they rarely played Irish music, but they did play Dylan, the Doors, and a few other classic rock bands. We left after a beer looking for more traditional music. We ran into a few places, and some of which were places Heather used to go to when she was a student here, but no one played traditional Irish music.
Heather was really disappointed as she wanted to show me this side of Ireland. We went back to the hotel and regrouped for the next day. It was a toss up between checking out the Aaron Islands, or a music festival. Since it rained most of the day, we decided the Aaron Islands might be a risky move, so we decided since we didn't see the music we were looking for earlier, that we should go to the music festival.
On Sunday we woke up and headed straight to Feakle, that is the name of the town. It was only about an hour away. After arriving there we parked the car and started walking into town. Heather said she needed to use the restroom and convinced me to go the other direction to a bar we saw. Turns out it was exactly what we were hoping to see. In the bar as soon as we walked in there was a group of players (fiddles, accordions, guitar, flutes) all doing what they call "session" playing. One player just starts in with a traditional Irish piece, and the rest just jump in. It was very neat to watch.
After grabbing a Guinness, I saw a guy trying to push his fiddle into another person's arms who was watching. He then walked outside for a smoke, so I followed him and picked his brain on this type of playing a bit. Turns out these players study this in school or with teachers. This music is generally made up of 8 bar phrases that they just repeat 3-4 times. To be a good enough session player to sit in during a bar session, you need to have about 300 of these tunes under your belt. I learned a lot that day. Though from a classical standpoint the fiddle players have terrible technique, it is played with great feeling and cool licks that would take me a long time to get down. You really get a sense of where American Bluegrass comes from when you watch this type of music played.
After watching the session players for a bit we ended up heading into town to watch the featured performers at the music festival. The bands were really good and we picked up a couple of cd's to keep with us to remember our trip. Once we had our fill we went out castle hunting to look for cool ruins. We found a few and took some pretty neat pictures which are in the photo album link. After some cool photos we then headed back to the hotel for dinner we had planned that night. It was delicious and very fulfilling. We had great wine, and great food. Later than night we then walked to the shore to get away from the lights to watch the meteor shower. We laid on our backs for a good 15 minutes without seeing anything. I was about to give up until I decided to look the other direction. Glad I did because that was where the shooting stars were. Interestingly enough I also saw a couple of satellites flying by. One was so bright I thought for sure it was the space station, but after we went back to the room I jumped on NASA's site and saw it wasn't overhead yet.
It was the end to a great day. That next morning we went straight to the airport and flew home. Nothing big to report on the trip home. It is always great to return though.
Here is the photo album for you to view, enjoy!
After I landed I went to get my rental car. Turns out the family next to me was named Young and they saw me fill out my Immigration card and wondered if I was family. I have no idea if I am, but probably way down the line we are. This was my first experience driving on the left side of the road. Because of this I rented an automatic car. Apparently in Ireland, manual cars are the standard when you rent, so you have to ask special for automatics. I figured the road part would be challenging enough without trying to shift with the other hand. I think it was a good call. The only other thing I will say about driving in Ireland is that if you haven't bought a GPS system with Europe maps, then rent one when you get the car. It is a life saver in my mind. Takes all the guess work out of getting from A to B, and there would be a lot of guess work with all their round abouts.
Since I was heading East, I landed on Sunday 8/5. I went straight to the hotel we were working in which was in a town called Castlemartyr outside of Cork. The hotel itself was an amazing five star (who knows maybe even six star) resort built around an old castle ruin. They had an amazing spa on site, as well as a full golf course. You could get a horse and carriage ride around the estate, or walk the dogs of the hotel. I have never seen such an impressive place.
I'll skip through the work part of the trip and get right to the site seeing. Heather flew up on Wednesday, and I arranged a spa session for her after she landed. I still had to work her first day there, so while she was in the spa I wrapped up what I was doing. We stayed at the resort an extra day while we went around Midleton for some site seeing. Unfortunately I had a good bit of work that carried over that day, so site seeing was minimal. Friday we left Castlemartyr and went on towards Galway.
Along the way we went back to Midleton and did a tour of the Jameson distillery, and picked up a few souvenirs. Afterwards we went on Northwest to find the Cliffs on Moher. That was an interesting place, and we got some great pictures. Turns out while we were up in Ireland there was an outbreak of Hoof and Mouth disease in the UK, so while in places like the Cliffs of Moher where you are near livestock there were signs up all over telling you to stay on the paths and out of the pastures. I don't know much about this disease, but it is interesting to me. Growing up and visiting Kentucky where my relatives raised some cattle, not going near them never occurred to me. In the UK though, farmers have to take a lot of precautions apparently.
After the Cliffs of Moher we made it to our hotel outside of Galway, it was called the Twelve. It was a pretty near place, had recently opened about 6 months earlier. They upgraded us to a suite. We took some pictures and if you view the album from the link at the end of this post you will see. Since we got in town a bit late we didn't do much more that day.
The next morning (late morning, we slept in everyday) we went into the town of Galway. Did some site seeing, drank some Guinness, at some good food, got rained on a lot. Turns out it rains quite a bit there, they tend to joke about it too. I also forgot to mention the warmest it ever got was probably around 60 degrees, we were in jeans and long sleeves everyday (this is August keep in mind). Another interesting thing about Ireland is that it is North enough that this time of year at 10pm it is still a bit light outside. Anyway, after tooling around town a bit and getting rained on we made some dinner reservations in a restaurant in town and headed back to the hotel for a bit before dinner (I had a conference call I had to jump on).
That night dinner was really nice. It was a quaint, cozy restaurant that had lots of wood and stonework inside. I think I had some beef dish, and Heather had lamb. It was pretty good, and we had some good wine with dinner as well. After dinner we then went on a hunt for some traditional Irish music. Earlier that day we found a bar that we were told had great music, so we went back to check it out. The music was good, it was a guy on an accordion, and a guy on a guitar. The only problem was they rarely played Irish music, but they did play Dylan, the Doors, and a few other classic rock bands. We left after a beer looking for more traditional music. We ran into a few places, and some of which were places Heather used to go to when she was a student here, but no one played traditional Irish music.
Heather was really disappointed as she wanted to show me this side of Ireland. We went back to the hotel and regrouped for the next day. It was a toss up between checking out the Aaron Islands, or a music festival. Since it rained most of the day, we decided the Aaron Islands might be a risky move, so we decided since we didn't see the music we were looking for earlier, that we should go to the music festival.
On Sunday we woke up and headed straight to Feakle, that is the name of the town. It was only about an hour away. After arriving there we parked the car and started walking into town. Heather said she needed to use the restroom and convinced me to go the other direction to a bar we saw. Turns out it was exactly what we were hoping to see. In the bar as soon as we walked in there was a group of players (fiddles, accordions, guitar, flutes) all doing what they call "session" playing. One player just starts in with a traditional Irish piece, and the rest just jump in. It was very neat to watch.
After grabbing a Guinness, I saw a guy trying to push his fiddle into another person's arms who was watching. He then walked outside for a smoke, so I followed him and picked his brain on this type of playing a bit. Turns out these players study this in school or with teachers. This music is generally made up of 8 bar phrases that they just repeat 3-4 times. To be a good enough session player to sit in during a bar session, you need to have about 300 of these tunes under your belt. I learned a lot that day. Though from a classical standpoint the fiddle players have terrible technique, it is played with great feeling and cool licks that would take me a long time to get down. You really get a sense of where American Bluegrass comes from when you watch this type of music played.
After watching the session players for a bit we ended up heading into town to watch the featured performers at the music festival. The bands were really good and we picked up a couple of cd's to keep with us to remember our trip. Once we had our fill we went out castle hunting to look for cool ruins. We found a few and took some pretty neat pictures which are in the photo album link. After some cool photos we then headed back to the hotel for dinner we had planned that night. It was delicious and very fulfilling. We had great wine, and great food. Later than night we then walked to the shore to get away from the lights to watch the meteor shower. We laid on our backs for a good 15 minutes without seeing anything. I was about to give up until I decided to look the other direction. Glad I did because that was where the shooting stars were. Interestingly enough I also saw a couple of satellites flying by. One was so bright I thought for sure it was the space station, but after we went back to the room I jumped on NASA's site and saw it wasn't overhead yet.
It was the end to a great day. That next morning we went straight to the airport and flew home. Nothing big to report on the trip home. It is always great to return though.
Here is the photo album for you to view, enjoy!
The Album is Done!
This album has been years in the making, literally. It is amazing how much time it takes to create an album when it's only two of you doing everything. The album I am speaking of is Nathan Cole's Rapid Approach. It has now come back from duplication, and the paperwork is underway to get the album sold on CD Baby as well as iTunes. Once I have those links, I will post them directly on here.
It is an amazing album of an amazing violinist. I feel very privileged to have gotten to produce it. Nathan Cole is an extremely talented musician that will go very far. We also had great support from both of our wives, Akiko and Heather. From the studio, to album artwork, to just dealing with Nathan and I while we shut ourselves in the office upstairs doing the audio editing and the graphic artwork.
Since I will jot more about this later, I will leave you with the album cover.
It is an amazing album of an amazing violinist. I feel very privileged to have gotten to produce it. Nathan Cole is an extremely talented musician that will go very far. We also had great support from both of our wives, Akiko and Heather. From the studio, to album artwork, to just dealing with Nathan and I while we shut ourselves in the office upstairs doing the audio editing and the graphic artwork.
Since I will jot more about this later, I will leave you with the album cover.
Macau - Part 2
Well this post is quite delayed. Truth be told the rest of my trip to Macau was spent working very long hours, and not really seeing much else. I saw a lot of the hotel I was working and staying in though! I learned a lot on that trip. That is while I'm overseas on business, people think I still work US hours too.
It was an interesting place to visit when all said and done. I got to sample some of the local cuisine on my last night, and I saw more of the island. The whole time I was there I couldn't really figure out why they were calling this place the Las Vegas of Asia, but then I saw the other side of the island. This is a booming place with a lot of new buildings opening up too. Apparently there was one guy who basically had all the gambling licenses in Macau for some time, but then he either sold them or the laws allowed for more. After that happened every major US casino company is beating down a path to open up shop there.
I also found out that there are interesting rules regarding employment there. According to my sources (sounds like I know people), only Macau citizens can work at the casinos. However at a regular hotel with no casino, they can employ anyone. Apparently the jobs in Macau casinos are paying more than regular hotels, so the regular hotels are having a tougher time staffing and most of their staff now is from other countries.
Well because I feel guilty, I have a few other pictures of Macau I took on my way out. Here they are!
A shot of the Sands hotel and casino
This is the water ferry terminal
The sitting Buddha near Hong Kong's airport. I only saw it after take-off, next time I'll try to see it in person. See it over the wing?
Lastly a shot of the surrounding islands after take-off back to the US.
It was an interesting place to visit when all said and done. I got to sample some of the local cuisine on my last night, and I saw more of the island. The whole time I was there I couldn't really figure out why they were calling this place the Las Vegas of Asia, but then I saw the other side of the island. This is a booming place with a lot of new buildings opening up too. Apparently there was one guy who basically had all the gambling licenses in Macau for some time, but then he either sold them or the laws allowed for more. After that happened every major US casino company is beating down a path to open up shop there.
I also found out that there are interesting rules regarding employment there. According to my sources (sounds like I know people), only Macau citizens can work at the casinos. However at a regular hotel with no casino, they can employ anyone. Apparently the jobs in Macau casinos are paying more than regular hotels, so the regular hotels are having a tougher time staffing and most of their staff now is from other countries.
Well because I feel guilty, I have a few other pictures of Macau I took on my way out. Here they are!
A shot of the Sands hotel and casino
This is the water ferry terminal
The sitting Buddha near Hong Kong's airport. I only saw it after take-off, next time I'll try to see it in person. See it over the wing?
Lastly a shot of the surrounding islands after take-off back to the US.Saturday, June 16, 2007
Macau - Part 1
I write this today from a hotel room in Macau (China). It is a small island not far from Hong Kong. In fact to get here, I took a ferry from Hong Kong, it was about a 45 min boat ride.
Here is some wiki info on Macau.
My journey started on Thursday morning. I was booked for an 11am flight direct from Chicago to Hong Kong. This is a 14.5 hour flight. I checked myself in online before going to the airport so I could get in quickly. Things went pretty smooth, and checking in was no different than checking in for a domestic flight, except when I was online it asked for my passport info. The gate for the flight was in the B gates at O'Hare, which is where all the domestic flights are, so it was a quick entry.
I got to the airport in enough time to grab some food for the trip. I went to the store and got some beef jerky, some gummy worms, some M&M's, and water. With such a long flight, I'm at the mercy of the airline as to when I will be fed, so better safe than sorry.
After getting everything I'd need I proceeded to the gate where they had just started boarding. I get up to scan my boarding pass it the machine goes "beep beep beep beep beep", definitely meant to bring attention to the ticket taker. She looks at the ticket, then looks to the side and goes "Good news Mr. Young, you have been upgraded to Business Class". Sweet.
The next 14 hours flew by living in the lap of luxury. There were hourly massages to make sure my muscles did get too tired sitting in my completely reclining seat that contoured my body.
Just kidding, it was a long flight, but it was comfortable too. Having a wider seat that reclines in every direction is helpful on this flight. The food was ok, nothing amazing. I actually should have slept more on the flight than I did. Instead I watched every movie shown pretty much. I did get some sleep, but not really enough.
Ok, so I land and go through customs. I then exchange about $100(us) for about $725(hk). I'll need this later for taxis and what not. After this I get a train pass on the Airport Express train which will take me straight into Hong Kong. It was a pretty quick train ride, I'd say maybe 30 minutes. The last stop is Hong Kong (there are only 3 stops from the airport). From this point I was to grab a taxi over to the ferry. It took me over an hour waiting in line to get a cab. The funny thing is, I swear the cab just took me around the corner.
Once at the ferry terminal, I got a ticket pretty easy for the 5:45pm boat. Inside the boat it is a lot like an airplane that is wide. There were trays on the seats in front, and they offered beverages and what not during the ride. I was so tired at this point though, I slept for the whole boat ride. After landing on Macau I went to another taxi line, which took me to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where I was staying.
I made it! It only took about 22 hours door to door, but I was here, and man is it warm and muggy! Needless to say my energy levels were low. I reached out to the team I was to meet to let them know I was here, and we coordinated meeting the next day. After that I needed to figure out how to talk to people back in the states. I had a conference call scheduled for 3am Macau time I needed to sit in on. I downloaded the Vonage softphone application thinking that would work. I called my voicemail back home and left a test message to see how I sounded. It seemed to work good enough, although there was a little digital distortion probably due to bandwidth I thought. Now it was time to finally sleep.
I woke up around 2:45am for the 3am call and quickly found out my Vonage solution was not going to work well. I could hear everyone, but I couldn't be heard. Fortunately there were several other people from my company on the call at the same time, so I IM'd them anything I needed said on the call. Pretty funny when all said and done, but it worked ok for this. After the call I just called by boss (who was on the call) through my cell phone. I was previously trying to avoid using the cell as it costs $2/minute, but we needed to talk. After that call I went back to bed.
I woke up Sat morning at around 9am and got ready to go out and see Macau. It is a small island when all said and done, and there isn't a tremendous amount to site see as the island is really known for casinos. I can't say I saw anything amazing, but I did find a bit of a mall near my hotel. I was hoping to find a mic/headset for the laptop thinking it would help the VOIP calls I was trying to make to avoid spending the $2/minute on the cell phone. Plus since it was Heather's birthday on the 14th, I needed to find her something neat while I'm here. So I was now on a mission to find these two things.
I found the electronics section, but had no luck in finding what I was looking for. I did find a couple of Australians and asked them if they had any suggestions. They told me to go to the "Red Market". They said just jump a cab, and there was a ton of shopping there with better pricing, and they have everything there.
The cab ride over was pretty funny. The driver spoke no English, and I speak no Cantonese. The driver had no idea what "Red Market" meant, so I remembered the Australians told me it was just on the other side of the tunnel. So I then proceeded to act out a car driving through a tunnel. Somehow he figured out what I meant and drove me to a tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel there seemed to be a lot of shops, so I jumped out.
At this point I was getting pretty hungry as I hadn't eaten anything since landing. It was near 1pm by now so my tummy wanted something. I hate to admit this, but I was a little gun shy after my experience with the cab driver and the language breakdown that I went towards something everyone speaks, McDonalds. Everyone knows what a Big Mac meal with a coke is, so that's what I got. It tasted pretty similar to what you'd get in the states, and it foot the bill to get me through the afternoon.
After feeding my brain it hit me that I had a computer on my hip (cell phone), so I Googled "Red Market" and found the streets it was on. I was in luck, I landed on the right street.
I then walked the streets and alleys (as there are a bunch of shops in the alleys) for a few hours on my hunt for a headset, and something for Heather. At first I stayed on the streets, but then I found this alley with a ton of little stands with food, so I kept going down the alley, and it just kept opening up to more and more alleys with more and more stands, it was crazy. This is where the real life was here. I took a video while walking through this maze.
Finally after getting to the point where I was going to give up because I could not find an electronics store that sold a computer headset, I managed to find a hole in the wall computer store. I found a Philips headset and bought it, it was only about $150(hk), that's less than $20(us). By the way, Macau has its own currency as well, but they take Hong Kong dollars and the exchange rate is almost 1-1. Success! One task down, now for a gift for Heather.
I won't go into any detail here as she will probably read this before I get home to give her the gift, but let's just say it is really nice, unique (I think), and I haggled the price as you are supposed to here.
After purchasing everything, it was time to go back to the hotel. I had done a lot of walking around, and it is pretty hot and muggy (did I mention that before?), and I was feeling tired. Fortunately I found a cab pretty quickly and he took me back. Once getting to the room I tested the new headset, no luck. The audio was just as choppy as during my call. I had read in a forum that if you get a USB headset it will take the processing load off the computer's internal sound cards to be full duplex and would help. Oh, well. After this small defeat I decided to take a nap.
I was woken up by a call from the team who were going to meet up for dinner. We ended up walking over to a nearby hotel/casino and ate at a Japanese restaurant. We ate a teppanyaki dinner. It was nice and not too expensive. Afterwards we went over to the Wynn casino for a drink. Walking through the casino was interesting because they don't play any games you would in the US. Their big games are Roulette, Slots, Baccarat, Sic Bo, and Fan-Tan. Fan-Tan seems the oddest of all games, it is remarkably slow to play, and they are betting on the number of buttons the dealer has (basically). Didn't seem very exciting to me, but that's just my take.
Also at the casino is a stage where these performers come on one after another keeping the stage live constantly. It was interesting to watch as the singers all sang American songs, however I don't think they actually spoke English. I also don't think most of the people watching speak English, so it was just such a funny concept to me to watch.
After the drinks I headed back to the hotel and knocked out a little work and called it a night. That brings me up to today. It's morning now in Macau, and a bit rainy out. I have some work I need to knock out in my room here, then I need to go to a meeting. The next time I write will probably be while on the plane heading home. Since I'll have 14 hours to kill, it's a good time to sum things up. Until then, here are some pictures I took.
Guess where I'm at today?
This is the view from my hotel room in Macau
A nice walk along the water
This is where the taxi dropped me off near Red Market
I stumbled upon this in a bakery window. The aroma in the air was awesome!
Here is another street shot near Red Market
Lot's of scooters here to get people around
This is a night shot outside the Japanese restaurant we ate at
Here is some wiki info on Macau.
My journey started on Thursday morning. I was booked for an 11am flight direct from Chicago to Hong Kong. This is a 14.5 hour flight. I checked myself in online before going to the airport so I could get in quickly. Things went pretty smooth, and checking in was no different than checking in for a domestic flight, except when I was online it asked for my passport info. The gate for the flight was in the B gates at O'Hare, which is where all the domestic flights are, so it was a quick entry.
I got to the airport in enough time to grab some food for the trip. I went to the store and got some beef jerky, some gummy worms, some M&M's, and water. With such a long flight, I'm at the mercy of the airline as to when I will be fed, so better safe than sorry.
After getting everything I'd need I proceeded to the gate where they had just started boarding. I get up to scan my boarding pass it the machine goes "beep beep beep beep beep", definitely meant to bring attention to the ticket taker. She looks at the ticket, then looks to the side and goes "Good news Mr. Young, you have been upgraded to Business Class". Sweet.
The next 14 hours flew by living in the lap of luxury. There were hourly massages to make sure my muscles did get too tired sitting in my completely reclining seat that contoured my body.
Just kidding, it was a long flight, but it was comfortable too. Having a wider seat that reclines in every direction is helpful on this flight. The food was ok, nothing amazing. I actually should have slept more on the flight than I did. Instead I watched every movie shown pretty much. I did get some sleep, but not really enough.
Ok, so I land and go through customs. I then exchange about $100(us) for about $725(hk). I'll need this later for taxis and what not. After this I get a train pass on the Airport Express train which will take me straight into Hong Kong. It was a pretty quick train ride, I'd say maybe 30 minutes. The last stop is Hong Kong (there are only 3 stops from the airport). From this point I was to grab a taxi over to the ferry. It took me over an hour waiting in line to get a cab. The funny thing is, I swear the cab just took me around the corner.
Once at the ferry terminal, I got a ticket pretty easy for the 5:45pm boat. Inside the boat it is a lot like an airplane that is wide. There were trays on the seats in front, and they offered beverages and what not during the ride. I was so tired at this point though, I slept for the whole boat ride. After landing on Macau I went to another taxi line, which took me to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel where I was staying.
I made it! It only took about 22 hours door to door, but I was here, and man is it warm and muggy! Needless to say my energy levels were low. I reached out to the team I was to meet to let them know I was here, and we coordinated meeting the next day. After that I needed to figure out how to talk to people back in the states. I had a conference call scheduled for 3am Macau time I needed to sit in on. I downloaded the Vonage softphone application thinking that would work. I called my voicemail back home and left a test message to see how I sounded. It seemed to work good enough, although there was a little digital distortion probably due to bandwidth I thought. Now it was time to finally sleep.
I woke up around 2:45am for the 3am call and quickly found out my Vonage solution was not going to work well. I could hear everyone, but I couldn't be heard. Fortunately there were several other people from my company on the call at the same time, so I IM'd them anything I needed said on the call. Pretty funny when all said and done, but it worked ok for this. After the call I just called by boss (who was on the call) through my cell phone. I was previously trying to avoid using the cell as it costs $2/minute, but we needed to talk. After that call I went back to bed.
I woke up Sat morning at around 9am and got ready to go out and see Macau. It is a small island when all said and done, and there isn't a tremendous amount to site see as the island is really known for casinos. I can't say I saw anything amazing, but I did find a bit of a mall near my hotel. I was hoping to find a mic/headset for the laptop thinking it would help the VOIP calls I was trying to make to avoid spending the $2/minute on the cell phone. Plus since it was Heather's birthday on the 14th, I needed to find her something neat while I'm here. So I was now on a mission to find these two things.
I found the electronics section, but had no luck in finding what I was looking for. I did find a couple of Australians and asked them if they had any suggestions. They told me to go to the "Red Market". They said just jump a cab, and there was a ton of shopping there with better pricing, and they have everything there.
The cab ride over was pretty funny. The driver spoke no English, and I speak no Cantonese. The driver had no idea what "Red Market" meant, so I remembered the Australians told me it was just on the other side of the tunnel. So I then proceeded to act out a car driving through a tunnel. Somehow he figured out what I meant and drove me to a tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel there seemed to be a lot of shops, so I jumped out.
At this point I was getting pretty hungry as I hadn't eaten anything since landing. It was near 1pm by now so my tummy wanted something. I hate to admit this, but I was a little gun shy after my experience with the cab driver and the language breakdown that I went towards something everyone speaks, McDonalds. Everyone knows what a Big Mac meal with a coke is, so that's what I got. It tasted pretty similar to what you'd get in the states, and it foot the bill to get me through the afternoon.
After feeding my brain it hit me that I had a computer on my hip (cell phone), so I Googled "Red Market" and found the streets it was on. I was in luck, I landed on the right street.
I then walked the streets and alleys (as there are a bunch of shops in the alleys) for a few hours on my hunt for a headset, and something for Heather. At first I stayed on the streets, but then I found this alley with a ton of little stands with food, so I kept going down the alley, and it just kept opening up to more and more alleys with more and more stands, it was crazy. This is where the real life was here. I took a video while walking through this maze.
Finally after getting to the point where I was going to give up because I could not find an electronics store that sold a computer headset, I managed to find a hole in the wall computer store. I found a Philips headset and bought it, it was only about $150(hk), that's less than $20(us). By the way, Macau has its own currency as well, but they take Hong Kong dollars and the exchange rate is almost 1-1. Success! One task down, now for a gift for Heather.
I won't go into any detail here as she will probably read this before I get home to give her the gift, but let's just say it is really nice, unique (I think), and I haggled the price as you are supposed to here.
After purchasing everything, it was time to go back to the hotel. I had done a lot of walking around, and it is pretty hot and muggy (did I mention that before?), and I was feeling tired. Fortunately I found a cab pretty quickly and he took me back. Once getting to the room I tested the new headset, no luck. The audio was just as choppy as during my call. I had read in a forum that if you get a USB headset it will take the processing load off the computer's internal sound cards to be full duplex and would help. Oh, well. After this small defeat I decided to take a nap.
I was woken up by a call from the team who were going to meet up for dinner. We ended up walking over to a nearby hotel/casino and ate at a Japanese restaurant. We ate a teppanyaki dinner. It was nice and not too expensive. Afterwards we went over to the Wynn casino for a drink. Walking through the casino was interesting because they don't play any games you would in the US. Their big games are Roulette, Slots, Baccarat, Sic Bo, and Fan-Tan. Fan-Tan seems the oddest of all games, it is remarkably slow to play, and they are betting on the number of buttons the dealer has (basically). Didn't seem very exciting to me, but that's just my take.
Also at the casino is a stage where these performers come on one after another keeping the stage live constantly. It was interesting to watch as the singers all sang American songs, however I don't think they actually spoke English. I also don't think most of the people watching speak English, so it was just such a funny concept to me to watch.
After the drinks I headed back to the hotel and knocked out a little work and called it a night. That brings me up to today. It's morning now in Macau, and a bit rainy out. I have some work I need to knock out in my room here, then I need to go to a meeting. The next time I write will probably be while on the plane heading home. Since I'll have 14 hours to kill, it's a good time to sum things up. Until then, here are some pictures I took.
Guess where I'm at today?
This is the view from my hotel room in Macau
A nice walk along the water
This is where the taxi dropped me off near Red Market
I stumbled upon this in a bakery window. The aroma in the air was awesome!
Here is another street shot near Red Market
Lot's of scooters here to get people around
This is a night shot outside the Japanese restaurant we ate atTuesday, May 29, 2007
Changes Brewing
Sorry it has been so long since I posted, but Heather and I really haven't traveled anyplace. Or at least anyplace that is much fun to speak of. Heather has had several trips to New York for work over the last few months. It is her new territory for work, so that's basically the only place she travels to now.
Our travel schedules might be changing here though. Last week I officially put in my two weeks notice to my current employer. As a rule of thumb I try not to go into work details on public spaces like this, so no company names will be mentioned. I have accepted a position with another organization which I am set to start on June 7. This job will include travel to some neat new places I haven't been before. The first trip is tentatively scheduled to Macau right now, which is an island near Hong Kong. You actually fly into Hong Kong, then take a ferry over to Macau.
With this new gig, it sounds like I will get to see a bit of the world. The nice thing is there are opportunities for Heather to come along as well and see these neat places. I have a feeling we will be running a constant balance of minimum miles in our frequent flyer accounts because Heather will use them more regularly now.
Speaking of Asia, Heather has been pouring herself into the backyard lately and making a really nice Japanese style garden. It is complete with a stone lantern, deer chaser fountain, special selected stones, and wood decking to walk around on. Once it is completed I will post a picture of the new backyard, along with a photo of what it looked like before. All I can say is it looks great, everyone will really enjoy the look and feel of this space.
I have had a project of my own which I've been working on. With the new gig, I will be working out of a home office, so I needed to get that setup. It really was just a utility space before which was more functional than decorative. Now that I have to spend the majority of my day in it, I decided it needed a face lift. The first thing to go was the paint on the walls. There was this sea foam green color on the walls when we bought the place, it was a light shade and it didn't offend, but it didn't help anything. I've now painted over that with a nice deep dark blue with shades of gray. It has a comfortable feel to it, yet it also has a bold feel. I've ordered some prints for the walls, and hung my guitars up. I haven't done anything with the furniture yet. I might get a new desk, and will definitely get a new chair. The room still isn't complete, but it is getting there. Painting this room was nuts as two of the walls go completed down a set of stairs, and at its highest is over 20ft tall. That was not easy, but I'm glad it's done!
With everything new up in the air, there will be more to review in the coming days/weeks. Next weekend we have the last concert of the season with the LSSO, and Heather's family is coming up for the concert. We are trying to wrap a lot of this up in time for their visit. We'll see how that goes! Until next time...
Our travel schedules might be changing here though. Last week I officially put in my two weeks notice to my current employer. As a rule of thumb I try not to go into work details on public spaces like this, so no company names will be mentioned. I have accepted a position with another organization which I am set to start on June 7. This job will include travel to some neat new places I haven't been before. The first trip is tentatively scheduled to Macau right now, which is an island near Hong Kong. You actually fly into Hong Kong, then take a ferry over to Macau.
With this new gig, it sounds like I will get to see a bit of the world. The nice thing is there are opportunities for Heather to come along as well and see these neat places. I have a feeling we will be running a constant balance of minimum miles in our frequent flyer accounts because Heather will use them more regularly now.
Speaking of Asia, Heather has been pouring herself into the backyard lately and making a really nice Japanese style garden. It is complete with a stone lantern, deer chaser fountain, special selected stones, and wood decking to walk around on. Once it is completed I will post a picture of the new backyard, along with a photo of what it looked like before. All I can say is it looks great, everyone will really enjoy the look and feel of this space.
I have had a project of my own which I've been working on. With the new gig, I will be working out of a home office, so I needed to get that setup. It really was just a utility space before which was more functional than decorative. Now that I have to spend the majority of my day in it, I decided it needed a face lift. The first thing to go was the paint on the walls. There was this sea foam green color on the walls when we bought the place, it was a light shade and it didn't offend, but it didn't help anything. I've now painted over that with a nice deep dark blue with shades of gray. It has a comfortable feel to it, yet it also has a bold feel. I've ordered some prints for the walls, and hung my guitars up. I haven't done anything with the furniture yet. I might get a new desk, and will definitely get a new chair. The room still isn't complete, but it is getting there. Painting this room was nuts as two of the walls go completed down a set of stairs, and at its highest is over 20ft tall. That was not easy, but I'm glad it's done!
With everything new up in the air, there will be more to review in the coming days/weeks. Next weekend we have the last concert of the season with the LSSO, and Heather's family is coming up for the concert. We are trying to wrap a lot of this up in time for their visit. We'll see how that goes! Until next time...
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Puerto Rico
I'm getting behind in our posts, so I'm going to go back to Jan 19. Heather and I took a trip down to Puerto Rico. Heather had a large sales conference for her company down there, so we decided to go down early to spend the weekend before her work.
We were to start our trip on Friday night. We left work early, and booked over to the airport. We decided to take the Blue Line since we'd be there for a few days and we didn't want to run up huge parking fees. When we got to the station, the train was just pulling out. Oh well, we'll catch the next one. Finally another comes and we are on our way. So we thought. About 2/3 of the way there the train stops on the track due to a fire on the track! There were fire trucks and everything. So we sat for probably 15 minutes.
Now here is the thing. We both travel a lot, and know how much time to leave ourselves and how long the train should take. Well, we didn't have time for this type of delay that night. We ran (mostly fast walked) to the check-in where we swiped our cards and it said "So sorry, too late to check bags for this flight." Looking at the system time, we were 1 minute late! So we desperately tried to get someone to help us. We were already checked into the flight, we just needed someone to take our bags. No luck, nothing but idiots that night behind the United counter.
We get a woman, who it has to be her first night on the job. She informs us you have to have a gate override card to accept bags late. She walks over to her manager, who then says "no", and walks off on break leaving her high and dry. Keep in mind, because this lady had no clue initially, she wasted like 10 minutes screwing around on the computer before she realized she needed to ask her manager.
Anyway we didn't get on that night. Thanks for nothing United. So Heather and I decided to have a nice night anyway and make the best of the situation. We dropped everything off at the house, and went out to Ron of Japan restaurant. We lived in 230 E Ontario previously, and this restaurant is in the lower level of our building. Our friends Akiko (everyone calls her Mamasan) and her Nephew Tony run and operate the place. There is also one out in Arlington Heights. Here is some info on them from the Metromix site.
So we ate well, then went home to get ready for our new early morning flight down to Puerto Rico. The next morning we got to the airport in plenty of time. The flight was long, and now we weren't flying direct so we had to stop in St. Thomas. I also forgot they are 2 hours ahead of us this time of year so we lost that time too. We ended up arriving around 4pm.
Turns out there is a huge festival in Old San Juan that weekend we were there. We didn't know this though, so getting from the airport to the hotel should have only taken about 15 minutes, took over an hour. So we finally get to the hotel, which is in the middle of this festival, and they don't have our room. Because we didn't check in the day before, they gave our room out. Of course once we missed out flight we called Starwood, but the goofballs at the hotel didn't get that message. After speaking with the manager they found a room for us. Funny how that works, like it was hidden under a pile of something. Oh! Here's a room! How'd that get there?
Well, at this point it was late, and we traveled all day, and on top of it we had to be up at 5am for Scuba diving the next morning. Heather and I got cleaned up and went out for a nice Italian dinner in Old San Juan. We walked through the festival which was full of people partying and listening to live music which seemed to be coming from everywhere.
A word of advice, don't get a room in Old San Juan during this festival if you want to sleep. We didn't need a wakeup call for the 5am scuba trip, because we really never got to sleep with all the noise.
So the next day we went scuba diving. Heather did great! She dove like a pro. The water was real choppy, and there were pretty good swells. Unfortunately the visibility wasn't great and there weren't many fish. But it was nice to get out on the water.
Afterwards we went back to the hotel that Heather's conference was in, and we checked in there. We cleaned up, then went out and met everyone to watch the Bears playoff game which determined if they'd go to the Superbowl. Now me myself, I thought it silly to fly down to Puerto Rico with limited time and then go to a bar and watch a tv, but that is me. I had to go with the flow on this one.
The next day Heather started her conference, so I relaxed at the hotel pool, and played some games in the casino. Later that day we went around Old San Juan again but this time to the forts. I have some pictures of this too. After Monday I had to head home to Chicago on Tuesday. Heather stayed in Puerto Rico for a few more days for here conference.
That was basically the trip!
San Juan Photo Album Found Here!
We were to start our trip on Friday night. We left work early, and booked over to the airport. We decided to take the Blue Line since we'd be there for a few days and we didn't want to run up huge parking fees. When we got to the station, the train was just pulling out. Oh well, we'll catch the next one. Finally another comes and we are on our way. So we thought. About 2/3 of the way there the train stops on the track due to a fire on the track! There were fire trucks and everything. So we sat for probably 15 minutes.
Now here is the thing. We both travel a lot, and know how much time to leave ourselves and how long the train should take. Well, we didn't have time for this type of delay that night. We ran (mostly fast walked) to the check-in where we swiped our cards and it said "So sorry, too late to check bags for this flight." Looking at the system time, we were 1 minute late! So we desperately tried to get someone to help us. We were already checked into the flight, we just needed someone to take our bags. No luck, nothing but idiots that night behind the United counter.
We get a woman, who it has to be her first night on the job. She informs us you have to have a gate override card to accept bags late. She walks over to her manager, who then says "no", and walks off on break leaving her high and dry. Keep in mind, because this lady had no clue initially, she wasted like 10 minutes screwing around on the computer before she realized she needed to ask her manager.
Anyway we didn't get on that night. Thanks for nothing United. So Heather and I decided to have a nice night anyway and make the best of the situation. We dropped everything off at the house, and went out to Ron of Japan restaurant. We lived in 230 E Ontario previously, and this restaurant is in the lower level of our building. Our friends Akiko (everyone calls her Mamasan) and her Nephew Tony run and operate the place. There is also one out in Arlington Heights. Here is some info on them from the Metromix site.
So we ate well, then went home to get ready for our new early morning flight down to Puerto Rico. The next morning we got to the airport in plenty of time. The flight was long, and now we weren't flying direct so we had to stop in St. Thomas. I also forgot they are 2 hours ahead of us this time of year so we lost that time too. We ended up arriving around 4pm.
Turns out there is a huge festival in Old San Juan that weekend we were there. We didn't know this though, so getting from the airport to the hotel should have only taken about 15 minutes, took over an hour. So we finally get to the hotel, which is in the middle of this festival, and they don't have our room. Because we didn't check in the day before, they gave our room out. Of course once we missed out flight we called Starwood, but the goofballs at the hotel didn't get that message. After speaking with the manager they found a room for us. Funny how that works, like it was hidden under a pile of something. Oh! Here's a room! How'd that get there?
Well, at this point it was late, and we traveled all day, and on top of it we had to be up at 5am for Scuba diving the next morning. Heather and I got cleaned up and went out for a nice Italian dinner in Old San Juan. We walked through the festival which was full of people partying and listening to live music which seemed to be coming from everywhere.
A word of advice, don't get a room in Old San Juan during this festival if you want to sleep. We didn't need a wakeup call for the 5am scuba trip, because we really never got to sleep with all the noise.
So the next day we went scuba diving. Heather did great! She dove like a pro. The water was real choppy, and there were pretty good swells. Unfortunately the visibility wasn't great and there weren't many fish. But it was nice to get out on the water.
Afterwards we went back to the hotel that Heather's conference was in, and we checked in there. We cleaned up, then went out and met everyone to watch the Bears playoff game which determined if they'd go to the Superbowl. Now me myself, I thought it silly to fly down to Puerto Rico with limited time and then go to a bar and watch a tv, but that is me. I had to go with the flow on this one.
The next day Heather started her conference, so I relaxed at the hotel pool, and played some games in the casino. Later that day we went around Old San Juan again but this time to the forts. I have some pictures of this too. After Monday I had to head home to Chicago on Tuesday. Heather stayed in Puerto Rico for a few more days for here conference.
That was basically the trip!
San Juan Photo Album Found Here!
Saturday, January 13, 2007
A Week of Separate Travels
This last week Heather and I both had work related trips in opposite directions. Heather to Seattle, I to Toronto. Heather headed out on Monday, and stayed through Thursday.
For the most part Heather's trip was fairly standard, and she was able to meet up with her brother. However on her last day, she decided to go to her brother's that night after her work meetings were done, and she got caught in a big snow storm. In her words, it took her "4 hours to go 10 miles". The roads iced up, cars were sliding all over and being abandoned wherever they were.
I got an email from her that night while she was in the middle of this. I was on my break at orchestra rehearsal and checked my emails and saw her message. I gave her a call to make sure she was ok. At this time she was just within 2 miles of her brother's place, and they had determined a plan where he would come out and meet her (in his car) to get her back to his place. The car Heather was driving wasn't a great snow car (a rental), so she was having a time getting up and down the icy hills there.
Here is an article I found published in the Seattle Times a couple of days later regarding Seattle snow driving.
In the end she ended up making to her brother's ok, and left the car on the side of the road about 1/4 mile from her brothers. The next morning she was able to get out ok and make her flight without issue.
My trip was less dramatic, but was a nice trip. I headed to Toronto for a quick work day trip. It was interesting going to another country for a day trip. Even trips to Canada now have the same formality as basically any country to travel too. You need a passport, you have to fill out all the same paperwork, wait in the same lines, and they ask the same questions. It gave it that flare of traveling someplace far away, but fact of the matter is Toronto is only about 500 miles away from Chicago. Nothing too exciting happened on the trip, although my return flight home was delayed a couple of hours due to strong winds in Chicago. Here are a couple of photos from Toronto:
For the most part Heather's trip was fairly standard, and she was able to meet up with her brother. However on her last day, she decided to go to her brother's that night after her work meetings were done, and she got caught in a big snow storm. In her words, it took her "4 hours to go 10 miles". The roads iced up, cars were sliding all over and being abandoned wherever they were.
I got an email from her that night while she was in the middle of this. I was on my break at orchestra rehearsal and checked my emails and saw her message. I gave her a call to make sure she was ok. At this time she was just within 2 miles of her brother's place, and they had determined a plan where he would come out and meet her (in his car) to get her back to his place. The car Heather was driving wasn't a great snow car (a rental), so she was having a time getting up and down the icy hills there.
Here is an article I found published in the Seattle Times a couple of days later regarding Seattle snow driving.
In the end she ended up making to her brother's ok, and left the car on the side of the road about 1/4 mile from her brothers. The next morning she was able to get out ok and make her flight without issue.
My trip was less dramatic, but was a nice trip. I headed to Toronto for a quick work day trip. It was interesting going to another country for a day trip. Even trips to Canada now have the same formality as basically any country to travel too. You need a passport, you have to fill out all the same paperwork, wait in the same lines, and they ask the same questions. It gave it that flare of traveling someplace far away, but fact of the matter is Toronto is only about 500 miles away from Chicago. Nothing too exciting happened on the trip, although my return flight home was delayed a couple of hours due to strong winds in Chicago. Here are a couple of photos from Toronto:
Testing Video from YouTube
This is a video of our friend Dave golfing on our Michigan trip a couple of months ago. I'm using his video as a test subject for learning how to post videos, through YouTube, onto our blog. Thanks for being my test subject Dave!
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Happy Holidays!
It's officially 2007! This holiday season started with Heather and I flying to Washington DC to spend the holidays with my parents. Heather's brother Sam also flew in from Seattle. Heather and I stayed with my parents, and Sam stayed with my brother's family a few houses up the street.
We started off on Saturday with a day at the Air and Space museum. This is the one downtown on the mall in DC, not the new one near Dulles. I could spend hours in that museum, I love the history of everything having to do with aviation and rockets. Here are a few pictures of things we saw.
SpaceShipOne
We started off on Saturday with a day at the Air and Space museum. This is the one downtown on the mall in DC, not the new one near Dulles. I could spend hours in that museum, I love the history of everything having to do with aviation and rockets. Here are a few pictures of things we saw.
SpaceShipOneThis first picture is of the vehicle SpaceShipOne, the first privately developed and piloted rocket to reach space. This is a fairly recent addition to the museum, I was not expecting to see it there and was happy we got to see it. For more information on SpaceShipOne - visit here
Some more planes....this area (below the planes) was being renovated for an updated display.
Heather and I on the mall with the Capitol building behind us
Sam (Heather's brother) on mall. I caught him off guard in this shot.
Cool shot of the Capitol around sunset with neat colors behind it.
After some site seeing around DC we came back and finished up some last minute holiday shopping, then on to another day!
On Sunday we all went back downtown for a tour of the International Spy Museum. You can read more about it here. Afterwards we headed over to Ford's Theater to take a look inside, however they had an event that day which you needed tickets for, so we headed out. That night we had a great dinner that Mom prepared, and we played some of the new Nintendo Wii. Josh (my brother) bought one for the holidays because it is pretty interactive and fun to play with other people. It also has an easy learning curve. During the evening we also got a visit from Santa! He is pictured below with Maya (my neice).
She asked for a piggy, and something that's not scary. Pretty simple wish list!
Christmas morning came and we all woke up early and headed over to Josh's house to watch Maya come down the stairs. Maya left out milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer, all of which was consumed by morning. Maya had a blast opening everything, and got a ton of gifts. After we opened at the gifts at Josh's house we went back to Mom and Dad's and opened more gifts there.
We did a little more site seeing that day with Sam, and saw the monuments on the mall. After that we came back, took a nap, and ate a great dinner.
Heather and I headed home on Thursday, and then got the house ready to host New Year's. Our friends Ana and Damien came up from Indiana to spend the weekend, do a little shopping, and help ring in the New Year. With everyone over (Tinah, Dave, Colleen, Eddie, Tony, Erin, Russ, Ana, and Damien) we grilled out, watched the Bears game, sang Karaoke, toasted the New Year, and then did some more Karaoke. It was all a lot of fun, and we were glad everyone came over.
Some more planes....this area (below the planes) was being renovated for an updated display.
Heather and I on the mall with the Capitol building behind us
Sam (Heather's brother) on mall. I caught him off guard in this shot.
Cool shot of the Capitol around sunset with neat colors behind it.After some site seeing around DC we came back and finished up some last minute holiday shopping, then on to another day!
On Sunday we all went back downtown for a tour of the International Spy Museum. You can read more about it here. Afterwards we headed over to Ford's Theater to take a look inside, however they had an event that day which you needed tickets for, so we headed out. That night we had a great dinner that Mom prepared, and we played some of the new Nintendo Wii. Josh (my brother) bought one for the holidays because it is pretty interactive and fun to play with other people. It also has an easy learning curve. During the evening we also got a visit from Santa! He is pictured below with Maya (my neice).
She asked for a piggy, and something that's not scary. Pretty simple wish list!When Santa came, Maya was at the top of the stairs and looked down and saw him through the window at the front door. Her first instinct was to run into my parents room and jump on the chair in the corner of their dressing room. I shouted "where you going?", she ran back and said "I'm not scared, it's Santa". She then asked Santa where his reindeer was, and told him what he wanted. Santa said he'd be back later after she went to sleep.
Christmas morning came and we all woke up early and headed over to Josh's house to watch Maya come down the stairs. Maya left out milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer, all of which was consumed by morning. Maya had a blast opening everything, and got a ton of gifts. After we opened at the gifts at Josh's house we went back to Mom and Dad's and opened more gifts there.
We did a little more site seeing that day with Sam, and saw the monuments on the mall. After that we came back, took a nap, and ate a great dinner.
Heather and I headed home on Thursday, and then got the house ready to host New Year's. Our friends Ana and Damien came up from Indiana to spend the weekend, do a little shopping, and help ring in the New Year. With everyone over (Tinah, Dave, Colleen, Eddie, Tony, Erin, Russ, Ana, and Damien) we grilled out, watched the Bears game, sang Karaoke, toasted the New Year, and then did some more Karaoke. It was all a lot of fun, and we were glad everyone came over.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to take more photos and post more blog postings. Talk to everyone soon!
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