The Exploits of a TurboGeek!

You’d think that a logical geek like myself wouldn’t believe in something spooky and unrealistic like ghosts, but I actually do. Seriously. I think there is all sorts of weird wild stuff out there that we just don’t get, and I’d love to actually be a part of figuring it out, or just witnessing it at some point.

When I was younger, I worked at a mall, and my store (like probably every store in a mall) was rumored to be haunted. At the end of the day, I’d always volunteer to kill the master power, which was way in the back, with the hopes that I’d run into one of the ghosts of the graveyard that the mall was allegedly built on (again, like all malls).

Well, I never did run into a single ghost. Not at that mall, and nowhere else either, until just a few days ago, while in Italy with my family. Not only did I see a ghost, so too did everyone in my family (who was on the trip). What is better, is that I learned the identity of the spectre today, on what is Hexennacht in Germany! What is weirder yet, is that the ghost I saw was German! In Italy no less!!!!

Well, I guess I should show you the picture. Then you’ll see how all of these seemingly random things tie together, and once again you’ll understand why I love wikipedia!

The supernatural phenomena that I witnessed is known as the Brocken Spectre!!! Rather than explain the phenomena, I will let you read about it on Wikipedia. I will tell you what I saw, and why I took the shot.

As we were landing over Sicily, I noticed a tiny little glowing spot on the clouds. I assumed it was a rainbow, and then I was pleasantly surprised to find that the rainbow had made a complete circle, in the absence of ground to interfere with it. As I looked closer though, I noticed a shape in the middle of the rainbow. Suddenly, I realized that I could see the shadow of our plane!

The beauty of the Brocken Spectre is, that it is not simply a shadow… Since the shadow is of the observer from a great distance, the rainbow only appears for him/her. Other planes might have been in the area, but were they to see the shadow of our plane, it would have been just that, a shadow. For the passengers on our plane, they were treated to a phenomena that I’ve only seen this one time. Take that for what it’s worth, I’ve got nearly half a million airline miles racked up on just one airline!!!

So, everyone meet Brocken! Brocken, meet everyone! If you’re currently carrying a kidling that you were thinking of assigning a German name like “Otto” to, maybe you’d like to use “Brocken” as a middle name…

Howdy!

I know I haven’t written much lately.  I’ve been busy, and you know how that goes.  So, I’m sorry, and I’ll try to write more, but you know it won’t work.  In just about a week, my parents will arrive, and then a few days later, so will my sister.  Then we all go to Rome.  So during all that mayhem, I’ll probably forget to write.  this is just how things go.

So much to write about too.  In Dublin, I had a great time.  I relaxed and enjoyed St. Patty’s Day in his old hometown.  Thankfully, I had gotten sloppy drunk the weekend prior, which inspired me to be responsible the whole time there.  I had lots of fun with friends, and a good time.  Of course, my standard improbability field kicked in on the second day there.

While walking down the street to see some sights, my phone rang, but I missed it.  As I texted the caller to let him know that I was in Dublin and would call when I returned to Germany, I received a text message which read “Dude!  We just passed you on a tour bus in Dublin!”

I found this surprising.  What was funnier was that as they passed me on the bus, they had been pounding on the bus window to get my attention.  Of course, the latent New Yorker in me heard the ruckus and applied my “Ignore it and it will go away.” filter, which of course it did.  Ultimately we met up at a nice pub near the castle, had some food and drink, and headed to the distillery.  The distillery was closed, but I made it back the next day, and the tour was great.  I recommend it!

Before finally making the distillery tour, we did see the Parade, which had a number of floats, many of which were from America.  Rather than post pictures, I am going to try to post a video, which should be entertaining.  I don’t know how to do that in this blog though, so it will probably just be a file link that you’ll have to click on.

I’ll like that in a minute, it is uploading…

After Dublin, Chryss came out for a visit.  We had a nice time, and enjoyed the only significant snowfall of the winter, which Chryss apparently brought with her from New York.  We had a nice time packing boxes and getting repeatedly pulled over.  We also had a fun night where we ate out at a fancy restaurant where we couldn’t pay because neither of us had any money, so I had to drive all over town looking for an ATM at midnight

Okay, I’m going to close this entry down while the download finishes.  I hope to write a few more times before my family arrives, and hopefully those entries will be more than just a harried accounting of my time   I hope you’re well, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

P.S. I bought a truck!  Now I’ve got a vehicle for doing messy stuff!  Woo!