The Exploits of a TurboGeek!

Did you ever have a nightmare and wonder if it might one day come true? I did. I dreamt that I was supposed to go on vacation somewhere, in Scotland or some other “Essy” place, and on my way to the airport, I realized I had forgotten my passport. I went home to get it, but then I was running late, and missed my flight, causing me to hop a flight to Ireland instead, where I partied with some good friends at a concert. When I decided to return home to work, I noticed I had 2 hours before work, but a 3 hour flight ahead of me, and panicked. If only I’d remembered my passport!!!

This has nothing to do with my recent trip to Sweden, save one thing. I didn’t forget my passport. Nor did I actually need it… There were no border guards in either Stockholm or Frankfurt, which was a small surprise. Also a bummer, since now that I’ve gotten Sweden under my belt, I don’t have a stamp to show off. How sad. Happily, I think I’ll be going back there, since it was wonderful.

The Herrang Dance Camp was a wonder. More than one person has asked me what I did there, since there seemed to be very little to do in the way of non-class activities. Well, I hate to ruin your image of me, but while I was there… I… went… to class! You’re right!!! There was nothing to do other than go to class! I had four days of classes, three classes a day, and I went to every one of them… Well I overslept once and missed one. Still, 11 out of 12 classes, that is better than any week during my undergrad!!!

The Herrang camp is in a tiny fishing village in Sweden. The village is inhabited by many retired folks, a giant water filled quarry that I failed to gain entry to, several million blood thirsty mosquitos, a slightly smaller number of innocent tiny frogs, and a goodly sized number of enormous to tiny snails.

The dancing was divine. In class, there were students from all over Europe. I danced with Swedes, Finns, Norsewomen, Lithuanians, Russians, Germans, Swiss Maids, Australians and a few American’s too. Everyone was just so wonderful and warm. I am looking forward to the Munich Exchange, during the first week of Oktoberfest! I will keep you posted!

I have a ton of adventures to relate, but for now, I am going to draw this entry to a close. You may look forward to the travel tales, the tales of the toads, and many more. For now, be well, and I’ll tell you all about it in due time!

Dan

Hello, just a quick post…

There are many things I don’t understand. One of the things I don’t understand are kids, and any related kid-type etiquette. For instance, if you’re in the supermarket, and a kid is screaming, do you:
Politely ignore it?
Politely ask the parent of the kid to silence it?
Politely report it as a possible abduction?
Politely punt it out of ear shot?

I’m not sure. One of the other bits of kid etiquette I’m not to clear on is reporting when one is expecting a kid to arrive. Some folks wait until the end of the first trimester. Others won’t tell you about it until right before he/she leaves for college. I’m not sure when I could have revealed this, but I’m going to reveal it now

My brother and his wife are pregnant! I am going to be an uncle! Today I learned that I’ll be receiving a nephew! I’m excited, even though I was kind of hoping for a Panda. No names have been chosen yet, so nothing to report there… I’m looking forward to meeting the newest member to the family after he arrives sometime in December! Woohoo!

P.S. If there are any other bits of kid
related trivia you think I might need
to know, post them in the comments,
lets see how much we really know about
what we once were (and I still am!)

Hello There! Sorry for not writing in so long. As I alluded in my previous entry, My Big Run, I’ve been a bit swamped at work. Well, that all ends tomorrow, after work. I officially begin a one week vacation, for which I will be going to Sweden… Yes, you guessed it, I’ll be headed to Herrang for the Swing Camp there, and I am lucky to be joining some friends from here, so I won’t have to be all lonely. What this means is I probably won’t be writing much until I get home. I am going to try to set up my blog to allow me to post via email, if I can pull that off, then I’ll try to post. If not, then no posts until I return.

For now, here is an entry that I’ve been meaning to write, but slightly too overwhelmed to actually put down on paper. Almost a month ago (gosh, it has been that long?) some of my best friends came out to visit me, and we had wonderful time. The first adventure I’d like to share concerns our trip to Paris…

We started out, pretty much right on time. A bit later than planned, but no later than one should have expected on a trip which involved me. Driving in France is actually delightful. The tolls are exorbitantly high, so few people use the highways, and you can just rip along at about 80mph (130kph, the limit…) with little to no cars to spoil your progress. We were headed just about due west, and except for a sneaky French plot to secretly move us further north than expected, everything went well…

The plot works like this. You’re driving on a two lane highway, and you’re in the right lane. As you approach a moderately steep hill a third lane, on your right, appears to permit slower traffic to continue up the hill without impeding the traffic flow. At the top of the hill, the highway returns to two lanes, dropping the left most lane. Astute readers will notice that the lane that disappeared is different than the one that appeared. So, if you were sitting happily in the right lane (the correct lane if you aren’t overtaking other cars) you now must move over a lane, since it is illegal to be in the leftmost lane when you’re not overtaking another vehicle. Hence, there is a constant northward drift…

We stopped for lunch at a rest stop, and made our first rookie blunder… See, we arrived for lunch right at 11, and the cafeteria was still setting up. Looking at the unlabeled food, in France, I used the tried and true selection method of pointing. I selected a delectable looking sausage, apparently wrapped in bacon. Scott was as lost as I was, but thought if I knew what I was doing, he’d just follow suit. Luckily he asked first, and I confessed that I was just guessing at lunch. We agreed that he’d get a different sausage, and then we’d split and share. This turns out to have been a bad idea.

Sitting at the table, I cut my sausage in half, only to learn that the outer bacon-like wrapping was just a loose sausage skin. Inside, were pinkish things that looked not quite right. Then, a foul odor drifted up as I passed Scott’s half to his plate. Scott handed over the half of his sausage which looked normal enough. In my head, I began preparing myself mentally for the challenge of eating whatever it was I had ordered. I was thinking to myself about how badly a certain cheese my father is fond of, smelled, but how good it tastes. It is a French cheese, and I figured that this menu-item was a similar phenomena, reeking to high heaven, but actually tasting quite good…

Looking up, I saw Scott finish cutting the offending sausage, and briefly wondered if he had caught a whiff of it yet, as he commenced eating it. Turns out, he hadn’t. He immediately stood up with a troubled expression on his brow, which startled me. We both looked at the stack of napkins on the table, and I handed him several as I had guessed the sausage wasn’t really tasty, as I had been hopefully deceiving myself. “That isn’t good.” he said.

Given his experience, he ate lightly for the remainder of the meal. I had to continue exploring, and found that the pink things in the sausage shell appeared to be bits of organs. However, my investigation turned up such a frightful odor, that I could barely eat either. Once the table was clear a while, I topped off my lunch of half a good sausage with an ice cream. I made a point of finding out just what that gem of a meal was called, so I could forever avoid it on future travels… Here, for you, my faithful friends, is a cautionary tale, complete with a hyperlink… The vile sausage is called Andouilette Grill.

As we continued toward France, Scott looked it up in our guidebook, and the translation was Chitterlings, AKA “Chitlins”. So now you know.

Later, in Belgium there was a similar mishap. Eating at a little stand, we all ordered Bratwurst. Additionally, I ordered another thing, whose name I cannot recall. When I asked what it was, I was told “It is a meat.” I like meat, so I agreed to it and received a small fried cylinder in return for my Euro. After eating my brat, I carefully bit into the little fried cylinder and encountered a gray/brown paste. It was fairly tasty, but had the consistency of pudding. As far as we can tell, whatever meat it was, it had been pureed at high speed for several hours. Tasty, but not quite right, so none of us could handle more than a bite or two, it went into the trash.

Okay, that is all for now. I hope you are well, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Howdy! I’ve been working quite a bit, so I apologize for not writing. Basically, all summer long, me and my coworker are taking turns taking vacation. However, our managers elected not to find a replacement for either of us, so while one of us is on vacation, the other is at work all the time. Sadly, my colleague has some 400 hours of vacation to burn, so he has 3 weeks off for ever 1 of mine. Hence, I’ve been a bit tired.

Today, I got back on the horse and worked out. I ran about 1 mile to the nearby public pool, where I swam about half a mile, then I ran home. Well, I walked much of it and I wasn’t really into the swim. I planned poorly, so I ate dinner late and ended up working out on a full tummy, and I felt like I was pregnant with a lead baby the whole time. Not nice, especially since I have no idea who the father might be…

Today’s workout was mostly a mess, but it made me think of the last time I ran this route, and that was a lot of fun… First off, I had no idea what trail to use. I drive past the pool all the time, and I can see some of the trails from the road. However, the parts of the trails I hadn’t seen are complete mayhem. I had started a bit later than I expected, and I had about 20 minutes to make it to the pool before it would be too late and they’d not let me in. Ideally a mile run should be between an 8 and 18 minute commitment for me. However, I kept going the wrong way and backtracking. Once I got on the right trail, I was motoring pretty good.

I noticed that someone was running ahead of me. So, naturally I ran a bit faster to catch up. For some reason that runner accelerated to outdistance me, but ultimately failed. As I caught her, I realized that she was running a cross country practice, and was probably finishing up a far greater distance than I had yet covered, and was exhaustedly trying not to be overtaken by a competitor. When her coaches heard me crashing through the woods behind her, they seemed surprised that someone was so close, until they realized that I was just some random chuckle-head running along, then they all had a good laugh.

I pressed on, and made it to the pool with about 5 minutes to spare, which was good, considering all the random running around I did. The whole run was peaceful really. The sun was pretty high in the sky, and I ran along a field of golden green grasses blowing in the breeze. I ran under a bridge and into the woods, which were surprisingly similar to the woods I played in growing up. The earth was a reddish brown that was almost inviting. The trees filtered the sunlight which made fun dappled patterns and sunbursts in the corner of my eye. I was almost sad when I emerged near the pool, except that I was excited to get into the pool!

Normally the pool costs about 4 bucks for two hours, which is a bummer because I never swim that long. However, the Germans are uncanny. If you come in one hour before closing, they only charge you for one hour, so there is an added bonus in that not only is the pool less crowded, it is cheaper to go there. I went into the nifty locker, which I discussed back here. I didn’t have any underwear woes since I bought some cool “Performance Underwear” from RE1, my new favorite store.

They are nifty Lycra boxer briefs which have the performance features of spandex, but the look of underwear. They’re good for running because they reduce the likelihood of chafing. They’re especially good for run/swims, since they can stay on the whole time, and I don’t have to lose time changing. It is also good because I don’t really like wearing spandex under my clothes. Don’t get me wrong, spandex is comfortable and all. However, it is a small step from wearing spandex shorts under ones clothes to wearing an entire spandex outfit and hoping to fight some crime.

The swim was nice. The run had me primed and I was all fired up when I got to the pool. I didn’t even have to use my normal mantra I am nothing without form. since I was already firing on all cylinders. Instead I got to use my more energetic mantra of “Are you an animal?”

When I’m really working out well, I ask myself that. I think to myself, what sort of animal am I? If I were a cow, or some other herbivore, mostly I could stand around eating and hope that nothing pounced on me. However, I’m not a herbivore, and I’m far more apt to pounce than be pounced upon. So when I’m getting lazy and just sort of going through the motions, I ask “Are you an animal?”… I am an animal… If I want to eat, I have to pounce. I need to run fast and kill me a tasty herbivore. I’m fast, and I’m furious and I’m going to dine on your flesh dammit!!!!

Whoa, got carried away there. Anyhow, I was getting fired up, and I was swimming strong and fast. Then I got beaned in the head with a Nerf ball. R-A-G-E. “I’ll kill you.” I thought to myself… “Fucker. Who threw that? Animal. You’re an animal. Nerf balls don’t taste so good. Stay on target.” I was in the middle of my lap when I was struck, and I was composed and focused by the time I hit the wall and turned.

Then the roly-poly bastard dove over me to retrieve his ball. Luckily for him, I was in animal mode, so I had cat-like reflexes, and I dodged before he struck me. “You son of a bitch, I don’t want to have drown your fucking ass.” I thought as I resumed my lap. You can see why I reserve the animal mode for work-outs. I’m not so polite. However, I elected to swim under him, since I was swimming for time, and I didn’t want to mess up my lap by stopping to drown some 10 year old.

It takes about four minutes to truly drown someone, and then maybe another 10 to revive them when you start feeling guilty. I had planned to swim a kilometer, which should take me about twenty minutes, so a 14 minute drowning investment didn’t seem like such a good idea. Plus he was a kid and drowning him wouldn’t teach him anything. His friends might come away with a valuable lesson or two, but he’d probably not take much useful information away from the whole experience. I had surfaced mid pool by the time these thoughts had rolled through my noggin, and it was time to breathe and focus.

“You’re an animal.” Yes I am, so I swam on. Now, the pool had been empty until the little dude had jumped in with me. I was in an end lane, minding my own business and now, the jerk is playing catch with his friend, with the ball used to strike me, while treading in my lane. “You’re an animal…. But animals are tolerant of baby animals. You once saw a cat let a kitten jump all over it and it didn’t beat it up. Breathe.”

So, I evaded and moved over a lane. Swimming faster, channeling my rage about the annoying kid into my swim-stroke, I was making great time, turn around, and he’s in my new lane…

New strategy. Closed fist over hand crawl. Splash louder. Baby animal perceives threat. Baby animal moves. Finally, some peace. I finished my kilometer in about 20 minutes. Not a great time, but nothing to sneeze at. I dried off, threw on my shoes and started running home…

One the run out, I was a bit surprised by how heavy my towel was. I couldn’t find my backpack and I was in a rush, so I was carrying my goggles and towels in my hands. After running half a mile, a towel gets pretty heavy. Soaking wet towels are even heavier. Especially giant sized towels made to dry off drenched people like me. I didn’t want to carry it anymore, but it is a pristine white towel. I wasn’t about to leave it laying somewhere.

I had a beautiful mental image of myself running through the forest with my towel tied around my neck like a cape. I could make whooshing noises and jump a lot. Maybe even skip. That would be fun. Who would see me? Well, anyone within earshot or line of sight, what with all the whooping and bounding. No, I won’t do that. Then, I saw some people on the trail coming toward me.

They had a puppy, a spaniel I think. He was jumping around and playing with them until he saw me, and he darted toward me. Have I mentioned how well behaved German dogs are? They’re incredible. Just two nights ago, I saw two people walking dogs who, when they saw each other immediately took interest. Neither one barked once. They approached each other, sniffed and went “woof” really quietly once. Then one dog bitch-slapped the other one (well they were both boy dogs, but you know what I mean). One owner said “Nein!” the other just pointed at his dog. The “Nein” dog backed up and looked at his owner. The pointed at dog lay down with his paws folded under himself, and his chin on the ground. Then the owners passed one another with dogs obediently in tow.

This time, the puppy’s owner yelled something in German and the puppy stopped and looked back at them. Then he looked at me. Then at them. Then at me… Then he took off running. This little puppy isn’t quite that well trained yet… He was a “little” puppy, but he’ll be a big dog someday. I was momentarily unsure whether a dog was approaching, or a collection of over-sized puppy paws, ears and a giant tongue. All I saw was chocolate fur just bubbling over with joy. When he got to me, I tried to continue jogging, but offered my hand so he could sniff it. Instead, he jumped up and tried to trip me, repeatedly. So, since I really relished an opportunity to stop running (another animal made me do it, that is fair), I stopped to pet him. Only he kept jumping and trying to lick me, so it wasn’t a very good petting session.

His owners caught up and corralled him, and apologized in German. I laughed and said it was okay in German. Despite my lack of practice, my German laughter came quite easily. I resumed running and managed to get home in just under an hour. About 2.5 miles run and a kilometer swam, all in all, a good work out. I know of few animals that could keep up with me, which is good. If an animal ever tries to eat me, I now have an escape plan.

If only every work-out was that productive.