Generic Ramblings

Gwen and I had another lazy weekend, and in the process of enduring successive lazy weekends I'm realizing that we're officially becoming old.

For example, on Friday night we went out to dinner with Pete and some of the Navy Reservist docs who had spent a year here "deployed" at Landstuhl and who were preparing to head home. (Yes, when you're in the Navy, apparently you are "deployed" to four hours west of Paris. But no, Gwen, Pete and I aren't bitter.) It was a farewell shindig of sorts. We ate some food, had a few drinks, and then went next door to a bar. Dinner was nice, and so was the catching up, telling stories, and hearing how people "really felt" about certain things, etc. Then we got to the bar, which was loud and smoky and within ten minutes I remember thinking, "This is weak - I want to go home." It was crowded, smoky and loud and the fact that I'm complaining about those things here and now officially makes me old. I feel like this more and more often.

Saturday morning I had one of my patented and coveted 'lazy mornings' where I sleep in, roll downstairs with vintage bed head, collapse onto the couch, drink coffee, surf the internet and either read a book or play a video game. Typically this herculean feat of laziness lasts all morning and is interrupted only when Gwendolyn slyly implies that we should consider doing something productive with the day. Often I tend to disagree but she usually wins. This particular weekend I delved further into "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," a heartwarming tale of a boy and his dream. At times laborious but absolutely fascinating, I've been really enjoying this book. People seem genuinely astonished when I tell them I have trouble putting it down - but I honestly do. It's mesmerizing. I'm about half-way through currently and more to follow in a future post.

When the afternoon rolled around and my lazy morning came to a tearful end, Gwen and I went curtain shopping for my apartment (Curtain shopping: another sign of the apocalypse, or of being old - I can't tell) at the massive and imposing "Mobel Martin", which is the undisputed Death Star of furniture stores. Whenever I walk in, I have visions of a Gran Moff Tarkin-like figure presiding grimly over a control room in its upper levels. (Tarkin - played by Peter Cushing - was English, but he certainly had a German Field Marshall look about him, didn't he?) Put Mobel Martin in orbit near an IKEA, and I swear you'd hear "Stand By" twice, sense a dramatic pause, and then see a pristine green laser obliterate the Scandinavian flagship.

We also picked up a sharp-looking rug for the in-progress Man Room, which continues to come together slowly but surely. We'll be headed to Jacksonville later this week before I can really hunker down and address the aforementioned internet issues, but upon my return, and if I'm successful in getting things running smoothly, Man Room will be a formidable power indeed. Not quite Mobel Martin, but not unlike a young Annakin Skywalker. Somehow I must steer it to the light.

There has been a carnival here in Kaiserslautern, an event which occurs twice-yearly and which Gwen and I have been to before. Small in scale, but proportionately large for K-town, Gwen and I managed to cruise through a small portion of it on Saturday. Unfortunately we hit it a little early, before the thing really came alive. There was, however, a strong preteen funboy element beginning to form and grow in strength, as one would expect at any large German event, and it was amusing to watch various youths stake out their claim near various booths (one which featured horse meat) and on various walls. Once in place, they would assume some derivation of the same pose - a foot up on the wall, a cigarette in hand, and a colored faux hawk displayed prominently like some sort of techno-era peacock showing off its wares. We didn't stick around to watch the shit go down, but one can assume that the poor preteen German women were mercilessly and indiscriminately slain by the limitless charms of those described above.

We DID get to see this, however.




That's right - it says ICE MAN on the back.



Saturday night we stayed in, largely because I had an online fantasy basketball draft. As I type that and italicize the basketball portion (I mean come on - this is clearly football season), I realize that I have a problem. I shall elaborate in a future post (or promise to elaborate in a future post), but let it be known that my obsession with fantasy sports (football primarily, but also baseball, hoops, even hockey) is becoming scary, maybe even dangerous.

On Sunday I enjoyed another lazy morning, and the rest of the day was spent preparing for football and then, of course, watching football. I had the rare privilege to witness my Giants and all four of my fantasy teams win for the second time this season.

Sometimes life is good.

The Uber-Net

Gwen and I were relegated to call this past weekend; I stuck on nights and she on all the time, so we just took it easy. We made into town on Saturday, cruising around the walkplatz to do a little shopping, beg T-Mobile for insight into the German internet, and get some lunch.

The internet (as well as the actual phone line itself itself) at my house works poorly, at best. I finally got the internet to connect at all (meaning I deciphered the German paper with my account number and password - this, as well as applying said knowledge specifically to be able to connect on my laptop, was a nightmare) a few weeks back. And it - the internet - chugs along OK for a spell and then will suddenly disconnect. No amount of tinkering with routers, cable modems, or my computer and PlayStation 3 seem to be able to fix this. It will hum along at decent if not spectacular speeds for a time, and then abruptly cut out, disconnecting because of an "error communicating with DNS server". Its been driving me nuts, and I now have nightmares of some hulking DNS server in my dreams that I run and run towards, only to never get closer.

So we went down to the T-Mobile (called "T-Punkt") store to see what we could find out. The local employee - a typical humorless German - was actually fairly helpful if not full of witty repartee. He asked for my phone number, which allowed him to access my account, and then grunted at the computer for a few moments while typing and clicking things. I'm not sure if he explained the problem with the disconnecting, but by the time I walked out of there I had purchased a new cable modem and upgraded my speed to the highest available for the low price of just 54 Euros a month! And with the current strength of the dollar, that can't be more than 172 dollars a month, right? Point - me.

Of course in two weeks (October 29th - some sort of internet "Judgement Day" at my apartment) when this new connection takes place and my phone line still sucks and the internet still periodically disconnects, it will be all worth it, right? Right. Did I mention I got the highest speed available?

More to follow.

This Could Be a Cool Pad...

We didn't travel anywhere far last weekend but we did manage to spend a night at an exotic, off-the-beaten path type of place that hadn't been used in any significant capacity in years. My house.

Yes, some two years and two months after signing a lease on my apartment when I first arrived here in Germany, I (with Gwen) have finally spent a night in the place. Odd, huh?

Many know the story - when we got here we found Gwen's place first, Gwen signed her lease first, and her stuff arrived first, and after all that we had a full home set up and by the time my furniture showed up from overseas there was a distinct why-even-bother feeling settling in regarding my place. When my worldly possessions finally did arrive, we arranged the basic elements, unpacked a little, moved a few necessities over to Gwen's and bam - we had a place for the both of us to live. My house was left in second place and after that went neglected. Then work started and Iraq loomed resulting in even less motivation to jump-start my house. Even when I got back, my aspirations to get the entire place up and running went astray as I focused exclusively on building up Man Room. For months afterward, and despite several Man Room operations trips, I had never spent a night at the house proper. Until last Saturday.

I had been meaning to do it for a while now - intending late spring/early summer - but laziness and a lack of reliable internet have kept me (and us) away from spending a night there. But with a few things hovering on the horizon, and especially with Christmas coming up and us planning for several guests to be in town at that time, I figured it was finally time to bite the bullet and make the place somewhat livable rather than just keep it as an over-sized storage place for all my stuff.

And again, its not that we hadn't been to the place, because we had. Since my return from Iraq Man Room (Tm) has seen much improvement, with a full-fledged home theater system installed, a PS3 and new laptop purchased, a giant couch purchased, and even more. Gwen and I have been watching movies over there for several months now. When we did go there, though it was like actually going to the theater. We'd drive there, get some food, sit and watch the movie, occasionally use the bathroom, and then leave, returning to Gwen's to actually sleep.

So while I dove into Man Room full-fledged, the rest of my estate (i.e the main building - Man Room is located in the guest house) was left to rot, unloved, not unlike Ron Dayne on a fantasy football waiver wire. Cob webs accumulated, old furniture sat with piles of old paper on them, and in a way it all resembled some sort of bizarre museum to my former life in Seattle. It always even depressed me a little when I walked through the place, thinking of all that stuff - such a part of my Seattle life - which wasn't even being used, touched, or even looked at. (Again the Ron Dayne analogy seems appropriate here. I will say this, however - at least my house didn't run into the back of it's own offensive line and fall down.)

But all that changed on Saturday when Gwen and I drove to the base and bought a few necessities (soaps, toiletries, air fresheners, groceries, etc) and went and made the place livable. We got there at about 3 pm or so on Saturday afternoon, spent a few hours sprucing it up and cleaning, running the dishwasher and the washing machine, and then we walked off to dinner in K-town and finally came back and spent the night in Man Room trying out the PS3 and futilely trying to master the vexing German internet (a story worthy of another post). After that we toyed with the idea of running around the house reenacting the scene from Teen Witch where Brad takes Lousie to that old house for a little romantic hide and go seek - but it didn't materialize. (The whole clip is gold, but the 2:00 to 5:00 mark is what's pertinent...)

Instead, we simply retired upstairs and actually spent a night in the place.

Will wonders never cease?

The Day the Madden Ended...

Well its happened. My Madden Season - the all-offense, play-every-single-game one I started in Iraq as a way to kill time while dodging incoming mortar fire - is over.

Hard to believe.

It took almost a year to complete. More than a year if you count that fact that I was seven weeks in initially when the original memory card crapped out. That happened right when I got back from the desert. But, with a resolute sigh of dedication, I started anew sometime in November 2006 and did it all again. Seventeen regular season weeks, plus playoffs, and the Super Bowl. All offense, all the time. Time to punt? Just switch to the other team before the return. Throw a pick? Immediately hit start and switch to the other team (changes take effect on the next play; if you're not fast enough, you might have to suffer a play on defense). Score a TD? Kick the extra point and then switch for the return.

It started out as an experiment. After years of going 16-0 on All-Madden with the Giants and building unbeatable dynasties in the franchise mode, the game became too easy. I needed a challenge, or at least a way to change it up a little. So I thought of this idea and went with it. Turned out to be a pretty fun way to go.

I did it on 6-minute quarters in the All-Madden setting. Passing Cones ON. There was definitely an adjustment period in the early going as I realized it was going to be hard to throw into the super-hero All-Madden secondaries (every defensive back is like Spider-Man in an All Madden zone defense) with the likes of Charlie Frye and a young Alex Smith, or God forbid Chad Pennington and his noodle arm. And remember, this was the 2007 Madden, which features the 2006 rosters - and the early season rosters at that. Donte Stallworth? Still a Saint. Deion Branch? Still a Patriot. And so on. So the rosters were slightly askew but I got re-used to them as I went.

On the flip side, I got to play with everybody, which means the good as well as the bad. It was definitely fun to play with the running quarterbacks, Vick and Young, who totally change an offensive approach. I think both had over 1200 yards rushing. And then there are the all encompassing mega-vision-cones of Manning (Peyton, mostly) and Tom Brady. They see all. Tomlinson? A blast. It was even fun to see the difference in the kickers.

One of the best things was that all the stats were generated in game, so it was neat to see how all that shook out, who led the league in what, as well as the race for the Pro Bowl spots (normally dominated by my franchise Giants), the league MVP (turned out to be Peyton Manning), rookie of the year, etc.

I averaged about a game a day, and only infrequently played more than one game a day. But I was consistent and barring travel I played about a game a day just about every day. One game with six minute quarters lasts about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. So over the course of many months the season progressed and eventually there was a playoff race. Injuries happened and changed things. Some people over-performed, and some under-performed. I learned to love some of the team playbooks and hate others (Seattle especially), and was somewhat surprised by the variety between them. My main goal in each game was to do whatever it took to win with whatever offense I had at that time. Sometimes this meant going no-huddle all the time. Often this meant running the ball out to protect a lead, which was boring as hell but I did it.

In the end, the AFC playoff teams were Jacksonville, Indy, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, New England, and Kansas City. The NFC playoff teams were Philly, Dallas, Chicago, Carolina, Arizona (!), and St. Louis. (Sadly, the Giants porous defense prevented them from getting in, though they were close). Wildcard Pittsburgh knocked off Baltimore, Jacksonville, and then Indy to get to the Super Bowl. In the NFC, Chicago (the number 2 seed - bad division) outlasted Dallas and then Carolina to be the NFC representative. (Which means I was actually VERY close to having the actual Indy vs. Chicago super bowl occur).

In the end, Pittsburgh staged a late fourth quarter drive and a go ahead touchdown to secure a "repeat" championship.

I realized this is all way too much information for anyone reading this, but there it is. (I write this mostly so I can look back on it a few years hence and laugh at myself in remembrance.) At the end of the season, it felt kind of weird to be done. After so many days of routinely playing a game of Madden, I had nothing to do for that hour. I even played the Pro Bowl out for one last game (AFC won). Some sort of weight had been lifted.

For the time being, and with my current real football obsession (obsessive football watching into the wee hours of the night on Sundays, four fantasy teams, multiple betting pools, pick 'em pools, salary cap pools, and survivor pools), I've decided to step away from the game of Madden for a while. Clearly there is enough football in my life right now. (Or is there? Can there ever be enough? Sweet, sweet football....)

Not sure how long I'll hold out. This would be a great time to start spending an extra hour a day catching up on reading, or improving my German. Likely though, it will just mean a different video game. (I've already started God of War - good game).


At the very least, my blogging should improve. My normal post-work day routine was come home, eat, play Madden, and then be too tired to do much of anything else except check email (and rarely reply) and surf the net a little.

Now, who knows?

Barcelona

Just got back from a long weekend in sunny Spain, spending four days in the ultra-cool city of Barcelona, which for some reason is lisp-ily pronounced "Bar-tha-lona" by the locals. (Something to do with them embracing their Catalonian heritage, I think.)

Barcelona is another great town in Europe which lived up to its billing. I heard nothing but positives about it prior to our trip and after going its easy to see what all the fuss is about. The weather is nice (really warm in our case), the city is beautiful, the food is good, and the people are friendly.

Unlike some of our other recent trips, this getaway featured a larger group. Besides Gwen and myself, there was Pete, Betsy, Betsy's work-friend Dimas (favorite over-used quote regarding him - "DIMAS high-school-football RULES!"), Margie (a PA whom Gwen knew from Iraq), Steve (Margie's Man), and my friend John Lesher, a buddy from medical school who also did (civilian) residency in Seattle (and who is perhaps most famously known for being Destro during our infamous Cobra Halloween in New Orleans.) It was a good group.

We flew out on Friday afternoon, another Ryan Air low-fare special, destined to return on Monday. Things started off well, because we learned we shared our departing plane with the German speed-metal band "Vendetta". Suspicions began to mount that a band (of some sort) was on board when we saw surly long-haired German guys checking in instruments at the ticket counter. Several of the guys including a manager-looking type had t-shirts on with a web address featuring the words 'vendetta' and 'band' on them. (A little searching reveals the band's myspace page...).

Once I got it in my head that there was some band on board the plane I couldn't stop making cracks about "how hard this flight was going to ROCK", or "dude, this is going to be SO AWESOME", etc. It was even funnier when we boarded and Gwen ended up sitting next to two of the guys. The ultimate moment came when we landed and as we were walking off the tarmac I caught a glimpse of the back of one of those t-shirts, which featured the all-too-truism "If you are married, you can divorce your wife. But if you're married to metal, you're married 4 life." I don't know why, but the gratuitous use of the NUMBER 4 on the shirt had me cracking up infinitely more than if I just seen the shirt with a written 'for'.




(A little research reveals that Vendetta is in the midst of a comeback tour of sorts after releasing only two albums, sometime in the 1980s or 1990s. They had a show in Barcelona over the weekend. The image of this poor band - relegated to flying Ryan Air - its a little sad. Despite my many "these guys effing ROCK" declarations, I can't help but think a more successful band wouldn't have to suffer a discount airline during their tour, checking their instruments, removing chains for security scanners, etc - the thought of this just cracks me up for some reason.)

Anyway, after rocking out (in my head) with Vendetta we arrived into one of the auxiliary Barcelona airports located a good distance outside the city, and we had to hop a bus to get into town. The first thing we noticed was how sunny it was, and we began stripping off jackets and sweatshirts (which are necessary for the German "Fall") on the way down. Spain, unlike Germany, was doing its best to hold onto at least a small piece of Summer.

Pete, a natural tour guide anyway (he has schooled us many times over by now from the various Ric Steve's books in many cities), had been to Barcelona before and took the reins when it came to leading us around. Gwen (after much toil I might add) found us a great apartment big enough for eight, which was located in a great spot right near the hub of Barcelona's activity.

When the five of us showed up (Gwen, Pete, Margie, Steve, and myself), the other three were already there. We dropped up of our stuff and then headed right down stairs where there were a couple of open air cafes and bars literally right below our apartment windows. The sun was out, and soon we began to have a few drinks and then we headed out into the city.

It was good to catch up with John in particular, who I hadn't seen since February 2006 (when he and Chris visited right before I went to Iraq), and we spent some time catching up. The rest of Friday night we sort of marched around Barcelona, stopping in for drinks here and tapas there. The food in Barcelona is quite solid, unique if not earth shattering. Its better than German food (not hard), probably not as good as French or Italian, but closer to the latter two in my opinion.

One weird thing about Spain is that everybody eats dinner late - like REALLY late - put it this way if you show up at a restaurant at 9:30 pm you are probably one of the first to be seated for "dinner" that evening. We adapted to this madness by having an early evening snack each night, which basically amounted to four meals a day and played a little havoc with people's digestive systems. (Eating dinner at 12:30 am is just weird. On the flip side, I was a big fan of the "siesta" mentality...)

After gallivanting about Friday night we all headed back to bed late. The next day most of got up around 9 am or so. Pete got up early and actually went running through the city for an hour, thus declaring himself insane. After he returned we found some coffee and a quick breakfast before signing on with a "Bike Tours of Barcelona" type of thing which turned out to be really cool. We had a good local guide who spent about 4 hours total with us on some rented mountain bikes and the weather was phenomenal. Bike touring, we're learning, is a great way to see a place and cover a lot more ground in less time and with less energy. We circled all over the place on those things from the inner city to the ports areas and beaches and back again. We were schooled in local and national history alike at points along the way and of course their was immature behavior on the bikes from time to time (read: every five minutes).

After the tour we got some more tapas and then some of us headed back for a nap (read: me) while others went out to a city park and explored some more. We met up again later and had dinner and some more drinks to round out Saturday evening.

Sunday Pete headed out early for a Picasso walking tour that no one else made it to (nobody, including Pete, made it to bed before 3 am the night before). This early go-getter, bright eyes and bushy tailed behavior, combined with the prior day's running all combined to suggest that Pete is not in fact human.

While Pete was doing his tour, several others of us took our time and then headed out on our own. Margie and Steve hiked off somewhere while Gwen, John, Dimas (high school football rules!) and I went to the Picasso museum and spent an hour or so there. (Between Van Gogh and Picasso, I take Van Gogh, having been to their two respective museums in consecutive weeks. Both are good - I just think Van Gogh is better. Write that down.)

Lunch was more tapas and beer (a recurring theme) and then we all met up back at the house to send off Betsy and Dimas-high-school-football-rules, who were flying out Sunday evening rather than Monday.

Following that, Gwen and I headed out on our own for a bit and walked for another hour or so checking out some more of the sights. We returned to the apartment again at about 5:30 pm on Sunday or so for a very important reason - it was almost time for NFL football. I had brought my laptop and we had internet service in the apartment so I was all set to watch football. (Yes, I'm obsessed. Yes, I spent at least four hours watching football on Sunday night on my laptop in an apartment while in Barcelona, a city I had never been to before. Any more questions?) Gwen stayed around to watch football with me. We were both happy because both the Steelers and the Giants won, and I even had some fantasy luck for once this season, always a plus.

While we were watching football, John and Pete headed out to try to go to a REAL "football" game featuring the Barcelona team at the stadium. Unfortunately the game was sold out, but they managed to head to a bar and watch the "match" like a couple of pure-bred Euros.

After the first set of NFL games was over, we headed out for another dinner, which turned out to be our best meal of the trip. We sat on some lush red carpet dais which seemed quite middle eastern, though the food was Spanish. It was an interesting set up, but we had a good meal and some good conversation (it was just Pete, Gwen, John, and I at this particular dinner) - a good way to wrap up our trip.

On Monday morning, we got back up early, cabbed to the bus station, bussed back to the airport, boarded our (delayed) plane, landed, and drove back home. Total travel time was about 8 hours to do all this. (Not sure what's up lately, but on my recent travels over the past 8 months I'd say at least 60 to 70% of my individual legs have had some sort of delay or problem. The industry is apparently in shambles.)

And that's our trip. I had a good time and again Barcelona is a great town - I could easily go back in the future at some point. That said, the travels, despite being a great opportunity, can get tiring (and not to mention expensive - the dollar is incredibly weak right now - ouch) when strung together consecutively and I'm looking forward to a few weekends of chilling out (and more importantly - focusing on watching football). We have another trip coming up to the States at the end of this month to see Gwen's mom and step-dad in Florida. After that we're happy to rest for a while, I think, and then host (my parents come out over the holidays) before possibly attacking the mountains again for another ski season.





More Photos:

Barcelona 2007