3 posts tagged “europe”

I know that I have said it before, but I have yet to change my mind.  Michael Palin is a great host for travel series so Sunday morning after work I eagerly sat through four episodes of his latest series called Michael Palin's New Europe.  The web site describes the program as thus:

"Michael Palin explores the countries that were, for much of his life, hidden behind the Iron Curtain, and now are very much part of the New Europe of post-Soviet times."

There are only seven episodes, but I found all of them to be very interesting.  Palin travels through twenty countries and of that count; I have only seen six firsthand.  Yes, for the most part Eastern Europe is still new territory for me and I hope to change that in the future.  Now thanks to Palin I have become aware of a country called Moldova and I also got to learn more about Ukraine, Romania and Croatia which are all places that I want to see in my travels.

Somehow the month has reached the halfway point and I have yet to say a word since the wedding.  So where do I start?  I think that I need to do an information dump of my brain if anything is going to work here.

00:00 – Work was slow so I decided to test some ISDN for various customers.  This is something that I do each month and having some down time was a perfect opportunity to get that task out of the way or at the very least started.

00:30 – I had a brief conversation about the latest episode of Survivor on CBS.  Both of us agreed that seeing Jonathan forced out of the game due to an injury was harsh.  Jonathan has been playing a strong game and to see him leave so early was disappointing.  Overall I have been enjoying this latest season of Survivor.  None of the fans have impressed me that much, but I am very pleased to see Amanda, James and Ozzy again.  All three of them are fun to watch although Amanda must have a better fitting swimsuit this season, because there has been far less blurring of her ass this time around.

01:14 – Spoke with a programmer from India. He was looking for a folder on a server that I seldom access.  I did not find it, but told him that he probably has different rights to the server than I do.  I think that he understood what I meant.  Whenever I speak with them, I have to wonder what they think of their American employer.  We must seem either inept to them or very rude.  I hope that that is not the case when they wok with me.

02:45 – Problems started to happen in South Carolina.  I suspect that they are weather related, but that has yet to be confirmed by AT&T.

03:05 – I head upstairs to the cafeteria for some lunch.  Someone from my department had bought pizza from a local restaurant that I like so I ate that instead of the lasagna that I had brought with me from home.  After having the issue with me for at least a month, I finally had a chance to read the first issue of the Annihilation Conquest series by Marvel.  Lately, I have been very disappointed by what Marvel is producing, but the writing tram of Abnett and Lanning who had a good run on Legion for DC, quickly drew me into a well crafted story using some of Marvel's best outer space dwelling characters.  It was good to see Adam Warlock again.

04:00 – Back from lunch I notice various alarms coming from a major application that our customers use.  On both Saturday and Sunday, we had seen these same alarms, but the frequency of them had not been as strong.  Plus they eventually stopped.  This is not the case today.  I might need to call someone to get some answers.

06:15 – I had an interesting discussion with someone from another department about the high cost of taxes in Wisconsin.  I knew where he lived and was not shocked to hear what he pays in taxes.  Then the topic turned to where I might be going for my honeymoon.  I said Russia. Then the discussion shifted to how the Euro is crushing the American dollar.  Naturally reminded me of how when I first went to Europe eight years ago, the Euro had yet to be readily adopted by Europe.  The American dollar was strong and I went home with eight different foreign currencies in my backpack.

06:30 - By the time that the first shift crew walked into the office, I was ready to go home.  The night had been steady when all that I wanted was some down time.

08:10 – I make my way into the exercise room and am pleased to see that no one else is there.  Yesterday I had skipped working out, because I was so tired and I needed to go see my old condo.  The most recent feedback from a showing had been less than favorable so I wanted to see for myself if what the person has stated was true or not.

11:30 – Despite on verge of collapse from lack of sleep, I watched the final half hour of the TLC program What Not to Wear. Yes, I confess that I have an odd love hate relationship with Stacy London.  I find her oddly compelling and annoying at the same time.  Plus I like seeing what these women will let Stacy and Clinton do to them when it comes to clothing styles.

12:00 – I also watched some footage of a St. Patrick's Day parade in New York.  I have Irish blood in me, but have never that much interest in the holiday.  Too many people just seem to see it as an excuse to drink to excess.  I think that that is what turns me off more than anything else.

18:15 – I woke up fifteen minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  I felt relaxed and warm under the blankets.

18:30 – Spent some time online reading various web sites.

19:45 – Showered.

20:05 – Realized that I needed to eat something before I went to work.

20:35 – My wife came home and we spent some time together before I went to work.