Notes

Quite a Gap
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

This picture is actually from the Millennium but the ships are almost identical so it don't much really matter, I s'pose.

Tired. Rainy and windy today with a chance of hard work. My pretty white coveralls have become a color somewhat darker and everything from my waist down is still drenched. Have I mentioned that the "uniform" for drydocks is either white or blue Celebrity coveralls? I look like the Stay Puft marshmallow man in my whites. Suppose I should go take a shower or something sensible like that.

Just wanted to do something a little dumb, so I did. Bought a plane ticket to Flagstaff for Memorial Day weekend. Last year I was there at the same time because the Summit Center Classic is that weekend. Four stage road bike race in various parts of Northern Arizona. Good times. Anyway, the race director is my old college roommate so hopefully I'll be able to help out. Anyway, get back from France on Tuesday, leave for Arizona on Friday. . . culture shock here I come.

www.summitcenterclassic.com

Got another semi-unexpected truckload of mattresses today. The eighth. We've now got a thousand mattresses on board and another six hundred still in the warehouse. Also loaded about forty rolls of carpet today. . . and it's a good thing we did them two at a time like Noah and that ark because it was lookin' to rain so hard we would have had to get back on the ship to survive.

Tomorrow morning the yard is doing another interesting steel project. Lifting eight new crew cabins onto the bow in one fell swoop. Gonna be a pretty big piece of steel up in the air. Try to have pictures at some point but as usual the connection here probably won't allow it.

Off for shower, dinner, beer. . . yes, in that order.

Logisticalities For Big Pun

Bulgarian II
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

This post may not interest most people but if it keeps Biggus Punnus on the edge of his seat it must be worth something.

There are quite a few objects, items, equipment, materials and supplies that are difficult to get on board cruise ships. Every item has a solution if there is enough time and a little bit of translation from English to French.

20' Containers (like the one being loaded into a truck in the picture). These are the handiest items around. Subcontractors like to build workshops in them and then pack them full of materials which makes them high priority moves when the ship first gets dry. There were two boxes already here at the shipyard waiting to go up for USS (www.uss-us.com) which is a contractor installing a new AWP (Advanced Wastewater Purification) system.
http://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/pdf/advance_wastewater_purification.pdf

The first two boxes were no problem. Deck eleven, port side, facing each other so the guy who runs 'em can build a little roof between the two and have a pretty good sized workshop. The fun ones were the boxes that needed to be landed on the bow. This class of vessel has a heli-deck on the most forward part of the bow and it's only rated to handle four and a half tons. Another sub (MSP) is installing new crew cabins on the bow just aft of the helo deck. Their 20' container weighed over three tons so that pretty much maxed out the bow. Enter Sea Level Marine. These subs are refurbing the gift shops and also have a container that needs to be onboard.

You know, I just read this and realized that it's crap. Guess I'm not a good story teller at all. I'll try to shorten things up.

Right now there are four 20' containers on deck eleven, port side and one container on the heli-deck on the bow. There is another 20' container on it's way that will need to be unloaded (swap out one of the boxes on deck eleven for a time) and one more container (currently lost in the stellar shipping system we use) that has gym equipment in it. This will have to be dropped on the pool deck (deck ten) AFTER the new Bolidt flooring is done drying. This class of ship is made so that deck eleven is only a partial deck and open in the middle where the swimming pools are so that loads can be dropped over deck eleven down onto deck ten. Most cruise ships have a similar setup somewhere on the top decks.

If you've never heard of Bolidt you should take a look at it. It is a synthetic flooring system that is poured onto the existing deck and cures almost completely smooth. Then they cut lines into the deck which are filled with a black grout-like substance and sand the whole thing so it looks like teak decking. Pretty slick, needs re-sanding in five years and is expensive as hell. (www.bolidt.com)

The mattresses. Not sure where I left off with these. There are two-thousand mattresses (unknown to everyone until just before they started showing up). Right now we have eight hundred on the ship, six hundred in a warehouse about a mile away and six hundred (hopefully) still waiting in Italy. The reason I insert hopefully is because I am trying to halt the last six hundred in Italy. Worked it out with the hotel director that they will be trucked to Helsinki in June and put on board when the ship comes through that port. Score one for me. The eight hundred that are on board got there with those magical 20' containers. Rented two containers, got support from the hotel side on the ship and on the pier, load the containers with new mattresses on the pier and throw 'em up on deck eleven where a conga line of hotel workers unloads the new and backloads the old. Drop container number one and load number two, reverse process on the pier and repeat. Probably took less than four hours to do the eight hundred but it completely ties up the crane cause it's easiest to leave the box hooked up on deck eleven while they are unloading and backloading.

The six hundred in the warehouse will require a little extra coordination. Need to hire local stevedores to load the mattresses into trucks at the warehouse because ship's crew can't work that far away from the vessel. Stevedores load the new onto trucks which drive to the shipyard, which are then unloaded by ship's personnel and put onboard in the previously explained manner. A fifty-three foot trailer takes two hundred and two mattresses so we'll need three trailers. Hoping to move them all in one day to save on the cost of the stevedores. Will probably cost around three thousand Euros for an eight hour shift of the stevedores.

Gonna have to split this post up cause I still have to tell you how we load all the materials for the new AWP system (aside from the container on deck eleven) and maybe I'll tell you how we're going to get five truckloads of food stores onto the ship on the tenth.

If this post were any drier it'd be jerky.

Another Start

(ed. note:  this was written on Tuesday, May 1st. . .  but due to certain internet connections was not posted.)

 

Someday I'm going to listen to myself.  I knew that I should have posted a few times last week because now I'm in the thick of it again and I shouldn't spend much time on this.  For those interested I was able to upload quite a few photos to Flickr last week and a few of them actually have captions.  Not the most exciting photos in the world, as usual, but if you're not in the most exciting place in the world. . . .

This last weekend I did get a little more time to enjoy myself and there were interesting goings on as well.  I was privy to a seafood dinner that would have made Poseidon weep, taught BB cribbage and played some pretty good games, possibly enjoyed a tasty beverage derived from grapes and/or barley, was awakened by a rather soothing fire alarm at four am and caught some nice views along the coast to the West and North of Brest.

So the Constellation came into dock this morning at seven am.  She's still in the water but they're finally settling her on the blocks and she should be dry by three am.  Unfortunately, it was a holiday here in France so I achieved a lot less than I should have on the logistics end. . . but it was foreseen by all.  Wish I could think of something interesting to write but all my thoughts seem to revolve around PO numbers, gnomes, target arrival dates and the joy of finally getting a good cabin on the ship.

'Suppose I should mention that I made friends early with the Hotel Director and secured myself a cabin on Deck Eight this time, as opposed to Deck Two on the Millennium.  Balcony and all, baby.  Sah-wheat.  I'm off to enjoy it a bit.

It Must Be Thursday. . .

It's Nu-tastic
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

I swear this stuff is like crack. . . only a bit safer. I know you can get it in the states but I never remember it's existence until I've left the country. I don't smoke, I don't drink coffee and I rarely huff turpentine so I've decided to take up nutella as my daytime vice. If you wanna get crazy and spread some on a sugared crepe you've got a recipe for me workin' all day long with a big ol' smile on my face.

I won't put it lightly, today has sucked. Mattresses, spare parts, gnomes, tools, pipes and more mattresses all coming in for a ship that isn't here yet, and into a town that can't handle it. Super. Don't want to bore you too much. . . so I won't. Suffice to say I'm off to check the piers, count some Exhaust Flue Gas Boiler Tubes, snap some pics of a couple bearings that are to get crated up and sent to New York and then it's off to the mattress warehouse where I've got to see a man about a horse.

I picked the wrong day to quit huffin' turpentine.

Quimper

Quimper 2
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

As promised there are more pictures from my drive around Brittany up on Flickr. But if you're bored enough to look at all the pictures on Flickr then you've obviously got time to write my bored ass an email.

Not actually that bored of course but being over here ain't like travelling like I've done in the past. Without travelling to a new destination every few days I do find myself a little bored with just work to do. However, last night BB and I hit the pub to watch the Man-U/AC Milan game. Excellent match that Man-U took 3-2 on an amazing goal in the 92nd minute. Another good match on tonight with Chelsea FC vs. Liverpool.

Got a fun phone call from the Port Agent last night around six o'clock. We had been expecting a shipment of mattresses for the Constellation but normally they come in forty-foot containers, just regular shipping containers. Well the mattresses come from Italy and since we're so close the shipping company decided to just load everything onto trailers instead of containers. Whoops. First of all the ship won't be here for almost another week which means I now have to find the means to offload two-hundred mattresses per trailer AND I need to have warehouse space to store them. If the mattresses come in containers as they should I can just drop the whole container on the pier and leave it there. Secondly, the way we load mattresses on board ships is by hanging the container against the side while fifty guys unload it. How am I supposed to get these mattresses on board the ship now. Of course there are answers to that but my biggest concern is that there may be four of these trucks which equals ~eight-hundred mattresses.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, but if it's not one thing it's another and everyone is using every muscle but the one that counts. (And I'll just tell you that I'm talking about the brain before you sickos get any further in your thought process.)
Back to work. All of us.

One Man Sub

One Man Sub
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

This past weekend was cool. Got me a rental car that goes and took Saturday and Sunday off. BB and I walked all over Brest (kinky) on Saturday and drove South down the coast on Sunday to see some smaller cities and take in the coast and country side.

On Saturday we hit the Maritime Museum for a few hours in the morning and found this gem from WWII (I think). One man sub made out of a torpedo with another torpedo mounted underneath. Sounds smart to me. I had heard of these before but it was pretty bizzare to see one up close. The musee was decent but the fort it is housed in stole the show. Parts of the fort have been there since the Romans built it seventeen-hundred years ago. Views from atop the fort allowed some of the Best angles that I've had of Brest so far. . . if you're into that sort of thing you can see a few of the pictures up on Flickr. . . but remember that the pictures are of Brest, not breast.

Had a killer seafood casserole for lunch at a local place and then checked out some other parts of downtown that I hadn't seen yet. Didn't get too many good shots off downtown, might be due to lack of subject matter. I also don't photograph churches as often as I used to (could be the atheism) so that cuts down on picture options in European towns. Did get a good one from a town called Douarnenez down the coast a ways; try to get it up later.

Saturday night we ate at Le Boeuf Sur Le Quai. Pretty darn good steak, beer and creme brulee. . . and all for less than my expense account allows. Amazingly I am attempting to be financially responsible over here. Really no reason I shouldn't just spend the money the company gives me and call it a day.

Sunday was pretty nice. Picked up a map and just headed South with no real plan. Went through a few smaller towns like Crozon, Douarnenez and Quimper. Not much open though on a Sunday that also featured the first round of the French presidential election. The field was narrowed down from 12 candidates (including three major contenders) to just two who will have a runoff in two weeks. Anyone taking notes? . . . THREE viable candidates pared down to two for a second election in Two Weeks. Sounds better than what we're used to in the States.

Sunday dinner involved more crepes but I didn't spend much time translating the ingredients and ended up with some funky, funky stuff on my plate. Still interesting and I'll know what to stay away from in the future. Still quite a few good places to eat at in town including one sushi restaurant. . . but when we stopped in there once before the staff either spoke no English whatsoever or at least pretended they didn't. Have to bribe a local to go in with us.

Should be able to provide regular updates this week. BB and I have a decent office at the shipyard with a good 'net connection (Finally!) so we'll probably be in for regular eight hour days. Love to hear from people back home to find out what the goins-on are.

One Down, One To Go

Insert Here
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

Well, that's it. I made it through the first ship here in Brest. I had some easy days in the middle of the job and then (predictably) it got a little crazy at the end. But the Millennium is in the water now on her way to South Hampton. From what I've heard all the important stuff on the ship works fine. You know important stuff. . . like the integrity of the hull.

So now I'm 'stuck' in Brest for the next ten days with a guy from purchasing, a rental car, a hotel room and an expense account. . . what could go wrong? We were toying with the idea of going to Paris cause BB has never been but it's about a six hour drive and there actually is work to do here so now we're thinking that we'll head to Normandy this weekend since it's only 3 hours away.

It's pretty fun driving around the city. A little harrowing, sure, but a good challenge. I do okay with the traffic circles but the larger ones that have traffic lights built into them are a little harder to decipher. We went through a circle today that probably had six major streets feeding into it so there were lights for each of those intersections within the circle and coming into the circle too. Couple that with the fact that I didn't know where I was going and you've got a stellar morning commute.

I'll try to get some better pictures up soon. I've got an office at the shipyard here and should have a good internet connection at the hotel too so look to Flickr if you want to catch some more photos. . . and not just photos from the shipyard. By the way the pictures above may be hard to make out so I'll tell you what you're looking at.

The whole reason for these drydockings that I'm working at is the large item on the right side of the frame. On the right you'll see a section of hull that's been prefabricated and has a shiny new diesel generator slapped onto it (though I think they're pretty careful when they do the slapping). The mess on the left side of the frame is a giant hole in the hull of the ship. So they just discarded the old hull material and slid that new one it. Easy. Pretty slick actually cause the new portion of the hull is on a flatbed vehicle with about fifty wheels underneath it that can turn three-hundred and sixty degrees. They just drove the new section right into place. You should have seen the mess of piping that they had to fit this thing into. . . but somehow it fit within ninety percent which is pretty amazing.

Guess I'll get back to work now. Somebody reminded the other day that I get paid to be here which is kind of easy to forget after enough time passes. Au revoir.

Crepes Are Gooooooood

Got off the ship twice yesterday; once in the afternoon for a little stroll around downtown Brest and again in the evening for a fantastic dinner. Both times I was in the presence of a younger dude from Nantes, France. He found a place for us to eat and we took advantage.

Started the meal with small glass of wine that was like a mescal or port. Ordered up a couple of crepes and enjoyed some light cider. The crepes were amazing. The options for fillings are seemingly endless and they range from basic to amazing. Think of ordering an omelet essentially. I had a basic tomato, sausage and mushroom crepe to start and then a seafood mix for the second. I literally cannot adequately describe how good the seafood crepe was. For desert, why not have a crepe? A whole separate menu has crepes made with flour (though I can't remember what the first crepes were made of. . . some local dough found only in this region of France which is called Brittany). Decided upon a banana and chocolate crepe for dessert while one of my companions opted for his a flambe. Once again, good beyond belief.

We tried a few other things that the server was kind enough to bring us samples of and then ended with a digestive that was essentially a wonderfully smooth scotch. The dinner probably would have only been about 20-25 Euros for each of us but the supplier picked it up on his company expense account. . . good action. I should be staying in a hotel downtown between the two vessels that we're working on and I will probably have quite a few more crepe experiences.

As my brother says. . . A-out.

She May Not Look Like Much

DSCN1967
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

But wait'll you get her out on the open sea.

Actually, I truly must say that this picture does nothing in the way of justice for this ship. Really, it's the enormous cranes that are taking away from the true size of the vessel. And by cranes I mean MY cranes. . . and by MY cranes I mean just one out of the three of them. . . and yes, it happens to be the closest one in the frame that didn't do a lick of work the day I took this picture. My crane is just like me!

So this is the Sobrena shipyard in Brest (though it's actually in a smaller sub-section/town/district/whatever called Le Havre). A moment ago I started a sentence about the shipyard and it's properties that would have put a rabid Bugbladder Beast of Traal quite well to sleep, but I erased it and wrote what you just read instead. Now I rhyme, I hope you've the time.

It's 2343 hours here which means it's like 2am, three days from now in Mongolia. I would go to sleep but I'm waiting for a toolbox to arrive from Paris. Paris is not close. The toolbox is coming in a taxi. . . from Paris. Paris is not close. If I can get the information past corporate security I'll let you all know tomorrow what the flippin' taxi bill comes to. Paris is not close.

A Letter From Camp Milbrestadock

Dear Mom,
Camp is great! I love being far from home, playing with new friends and trying different things. They've given me my own room amongst all the other campers. The coolest part of my room is that it has TWO BEDS! and comes with a complimentary temperature well above Earth norm. And then they have really outdone themselves by adding a guy with a hammer and a metal grinder about one floor down who somehow manages to sound out the changing of each hour THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE NIGHT!!! What service! I expected all kinds of problems with the accommodations but you can't go wrong with your own Grinding-Hammerer-Man!

It's also really cool to listen to people from Norway, India, Germany, China, Greece, Netherlands, France, Italy, Philippines, Canadia, England and Scotland talking in over-the-top LOUD tones constantly. . . every waking minute. . . really, they do! It's awe inspiring to me, and makes me proud of the normally self-conscious human race, that so many people would like me to know how their lives are going AT TOP VOLUME!!!! And usually in a full elevator too! (That's right, Ma, this camp has not one but sixteen elevators to get us where we are going. . . and none of them are ever being repaired. Amazing!) But nothing beats the lively discussions I hear in the meeting room where they let me keep my computer. Truly you have not lived until you experience eight people from seven different countries joyfully arguing about shipments for the camp that have arrived or not arrived or Hell, haven't even been ordered yet when they were needed last week! Joy!

And speaking of my computer! They really went of their way for this one! They must have known that I love antiques. . . and that they are worth the wait. In this case mine might have to be worth a Constant wait but I think she is, so I named her Constance. Oh, and combine that with the awesome power of an internet connection that comes through the camp's satellite network. . . wow! I truly can not say more.

But not everything is so grand here. The food is served all day long but apparently they ran out of lobster some time ago. I'm just kidding! We have fresh seafood every day!!! You see we're right on the water and the camp has no less than fifty people who are fishing or diving all day for the treasure of the sea. Then they have a whole army of chefs who prepare your meal to the exact tastes of your pallet. Mmmm, mmm. Just thinking of the scrambled eggs that are never watery or tasteless and the beef in the stew that must have been cut from the cow that morning because no stew that was ever re-used four days in a row could taste like that! It's all I can do to keep myself out of the eatery!

This camp is great. Now if only I knew what I was supposed to be doing here. . .
Love and Joy,
Your Baby Boy!

But I Don't Wanna Learn French

Well, things here have gotten a little better and they will continue to be good tomorrow. Why, you ask? Easy. The magic of Easter. That's right, little fluffy bunnies running all over the shipyard laying mystical (and slightly painful) eggs of reprieve. It's almost true. Apparently Easter is an important enough holiday over here than nobody works all weekend and they have Monday off to boot. Good for them. Guess I can't complain however. The shipyard's lack of progress translates into a bit of time for me to actually learn what I'm supposed to be doing over here. Don't get me wrong, I know an awful lot about the industry from my days at SFD but doing this work from the side of the cruise liners is a whole different world.

So, yes, things have gotten a little better for me over here. Small miracles; my own room, occasional running water (sometimes it's even hot), a few beers with the fellas in town and a little bit of work actually accomplished. I've been lucky enough to have another Project Manager with me here in Brest. He's been with the company a few years and has been showing me the ropes, as they say. Unfortunately he's leaving early Tuesday morning so my life will certainly become more painful at that time. FYI, Brest is nine hours ahead of California in terms of time. . . though not

I could write more but I should be working. I'll try to get a few pictures up hopefully tomorrow before things get crazy. Looks like I'll definitely be here through our second job which means I'll be here thru May 20th or so. With a little luck I'll have a hotel and a little time off in between the two vessels (Celebrity Millenium and Constellation).

Peace and Cheetos (or Peaceful Cheetos?).

Brest, France

Got into town yesterday.  Things are fairly FUBAR and I don't know how much help I'm going to be right away.  Guess I have to remember how things were when I first started at the shipyard in SF.  Just trying to keep my head above water for now.  Don't have much time at the moment so I'll try to write more later.

. . . And That's How That Goes

Well, I'm already worried that I won't be able to update my blog as often as I thought.  I found out yesterday during my first day of work that my initial tour of service will not
be taking me to San Francisco as I was previously told but rather I'll be heading to France.  France doesn't bother me too much and even the fact that I'll be flying out today or tomorrow doesn't have any great weight on my mind. . . but the fact that I might be there until the end of May???  Weeeeeeelllll, I gotta admit that now I've got a lot to think about over the next few hours.

So!  Just bought some new luggage and now I'm gonna try to pack for a month and a half.  If I don't fly out tonight then I'll try to update this again and maybe even get to a few emails that people have been kind enough to send me.  Of course, who knows if this whole thing will get called off at the last second anyway. . .

Road Tallies

Well, the Element works and the roads were paved and here I am.  Got into Hollywood, Florida around 3:30pm yesterday and promptly discovered that the house I was set up to live in was no longer set up to receive me.  No worries though, I already found a new place and once I'm sure it's a lock I'll be passing the address on to all you fine folks via email.  Thankfully I haven't changed my address with any financial institutions yet so life won't be too hard.  The reason I am not staying at the first house isn't too shocking or crazy or anything. . . just bad timing for the owner of the place.

So, on to the road stats. 

3/20/07 
San Leandro, CA thru Yosemite NP to Bakersfield, CA  --  400 miles
Ik and I hiked Tuolomne Grove and walked the short trail to Lower Yosemite Falls.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating and we couldn't even see Half Dome but we all know that'll just give us a good excuse to return to that ridiculously beautiful place.  Hell, I still haven't climbed Half Dome. . .

3/21
Bakersfield, CA thru Death Valley NP to Las Vegas, NV  --  388 miles
We did a four mile in and out hike through the Mosaic Canyon.  Definitely another NP that needs to be revisited for a much longer period of time.  This experience was quite a bit better than the last one I had in JULY of 2005.  JULY!!! What the hell was I thinking?  Oh yeah, the tour group I was leading wouldn't take no for an answer and they insisted we stay a night in Death Valley.  I believe we actually camped at a place called Furnace Creek!  Suffice to say I didn't get any sleep that night and most likely neither did any of my passengers.  Anyway, Ik and I arrived in Vegas around 7pm and that left just enough time for my Bro to get a quick shower at my friend AC's house before his flight out at 10pm back to the Double-U Eye.

3/22
Las Vegas, NV to Flagstaff, AZ  --  252 miles
By myself now for a mostly enjoyable 3.5 our drive across the high desert.  Went over the Hoover Dam and got a few pics of the new bridge they are Trying to build.  (AC informs me that a crane blew over a while back and that will set the project back about 8 months. . . sounds efficient to me.)  Enjoyed a few fierce rainstorms that my new-ish windshield wipers dispatched with ease and got into Flag around 4pm.  Saw a pretty girl and then joined TC, Grant and his wife-to-be, Melissa, at Uptown Billiards for a cocktail.  Thai food followed by the Wine Loft and more of that pretty girl completed the evening in positive fashion. 

3/23  thru  3/26
Flagstaff, AZ
Good friends, good wedding, good times.

3/27
Flagstaff, AZ thru Phoenix, AZ to Lordsburg, NM  --  414 miles
Rolled from Flag thru Sedona on my way to Phoenix and once there I picked up my buddy Yoeller ( www.recoveryjoel.wordpress.com) and helped him with a few tasks he needed to accomplish.  Went directly to a little family gathering for St. Paddy's Day (just a few days late) and ate a lovely dinner with some good family friends.  No wanting to waste any darklight I rallied and drove down through Tucson and into Lordsburg, NM in order to have a good launching point the next morning.  My goal for Wednesday?  To drive all the way across Texas.

3/28
Lordsburg, NM to Beaumont, TX  --  992 miles
Damn!  Almost made it across Texas and almost put in a thousand miles.  If there's something wrong with me you people have got to let me know! 

3/29
Beaumont, TX to Lake City, FL  --  725 miles
I know, I wimped out this day.  I coulda made it all the way to southern Florida, you're sayin'.  Well, I'm sayin' that my butt couldn't do it after that day through Texas.  Is it ironic or just sad that the two days with the highest mileage give me the least amount to talk about?

3/30
Lake City, FL to Hollywood, FL  --  367 miles
Drop in the frickin' hat!  Could have driven this in my sleep.  Only bummer for the day was the $15+ I dropped in tolls to stay on the quick moving Florida Turnpike.  Got into town and got the bad news about the living situation.

Total mileage  =  Three-thousand, five-hundred and thirty-eight   (and that's how you break in a new car!)

So I'm here.  I start work on Monday.  It's hot.  But more importantly, it's humid.  I think the pool is calling my name and shortly after that perhaps the NCAA b-ball games and that steak in the fridge will be making that same name-like sound.

Tuolomne Element

Tuolomne Element
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

It's been almost a year since I've posted and I'm sure anyone who actually reads this has enjoyed the break. This post isn't much but it signifies the re-birth of my use of this blog. I'm on my way to Hollywood, Florida to start a new job with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. At this moment I am in Flagstaff for a wedding that will happen manana. The specifics of my acquisition of this new job and pictures from the past year will hopefully be forthcoming. . . but don't hold your breath too long. I will end my road trip around the 29th of March when I reach southern Florida. I start my new job April 2nd. So, as you can tell I've got a bit of travelling and life changes to take care of in the next week before I can get back to sharing my travels online. Feel free to appreciate this picture of my new Element parked near Tuolomne Grove in Yosemite next to a rather stylish commode. The picture is courtesy of my big bro, Ik.
Good times, good times.

D U N N

That spells DONE. Well, almost.


Say hello to George.

I'm still in Edinburgh at the moment but I'll be flying home tomorrow (Wed. April 12th). Should get in sometime after 5pm and I'm looking forward to fighting my way home on BART (though possibly I'll just be sitting my way home without any real fighting).

The last two weeks have been wonderful. I've stayed with Trekkers the whole time and everyone has done their best to spoil me. Staying with local people has definitely allowed me to see a lot of things that I would not see otherwise. En totale I've seen seventeen people out of the eighty-seven who took a trip with me last summer. Not too bad all things considered.

Everyone is probably going to ask me what my favorite part of the trip has been but I truly can't answer that. Attempting to snowboard in Switzerland was certainly the most humbling and possibly the most beautiful in a natural sense. The city that I most want to return to is probably Barcelona (though Dublin is a close second because I didn't really see much of anything there). I can't even name the place that provided me with the best parties. . . different people and different venues in every city and country. Oh well, I suppose I can just wimp out and say that every part is my favorite part. That's it for now. I'll try to put up some of the more interesting individual stories as I go through my photos and remember them. Plenty of pics up on flickr if you're bored.

I'm sorry to report that my next trip probably won't occur until the end of May when I head to Flag to help TC run a bike race.



Hope to see you all soon.


Don't ask.

Bilbao to Dublin to London to Prague to London

You know, you'd think as a part-time tour guide I would know how to plan my own trips. . . apparently a false thought, if ever such a thing existed. At the moment I'm at the last place listed in the title of this; utilizing possibly one of the worst internet spots ever. I was greatly looking forward to getting some pictures from Prague posted but alas it will have to wait.
I believe I was most recently writing about Bilbao. Here's the Guggenheim Museum. It's really hard to decide which pictures to post of this thing.


However, as great as Bilbao was I feel the need to move on. As I stated before the need to encapsulate the entire experience before expanding is great within my dome-piece.
I feel just a little bad about mentioning this next fact about TC and I traveling together. Before the trip I gave T free reign to book whatever planes, trains, pack animals (particularly Ecuadorian llamas (free-range, of course)) and automobiles he felt would be necessary for the success of our trip. Well, he felt empowered and while we haven't been on any llamas we have taken a few plane flights. Well, apparently one night TC met with an old friend of his (we'll call him Jack, though Jim would suffice) and booked all of these flights. Good on 'im, I say. Point being, we flew out of Bilbao and into Madrid and then flew (with a separate airline) from Madrid to Dublin on the same day. It was a long travel day but we didn't get in to Dublin until 9pm or so. The only 'trouble' we ran into is that Madrid, like most large airports, has a very impressive duty-type-free shop. Thank goodness it isn't truly free or we would have had to buy another duffel for all the booze. As it was we each ended up with two liters of freshly squeezed booze-juice. . . which we thought was a good idea since we were on our way to 'celebrate' St. Paddy's Day in Dublin. . . .Ireland, that is.
(It should probably be noted that neither TC or I are Irish or have an ounce of Irish in us. I guess we were going to, um. . . uh, yeah, um, we went to Dublin to support the Irish in their fine choice in patron saints. And if it meant we were going to have to consume alcohol to do it. . . well, when in Rome. . . )
We get to Dublin without too much trouble, wimp out and take a cab to the hotel and then really push it with a proper American feast consisting of ye olde Domino's pizza. There were no poor feelings about taking things easy on Thursday night before the 'Day'. We had tickets for a double championship the following day and after that the plan was to meet a few of TC's friends from Flagstaff (I will refuse to refer to these people as 'my' friends for legal reasons). I did know three people who were Trekkers with me last summer and I met one of them in town but everyone had their own group of people to party with so there was no significant amount of time spent catching up. The double championship of which I speak was the real joy of St. Paddy's Day. My local friend told me about it and said it should be a good time. Turns out she's well known in the Right Department. The two sports we saw were Hurling (which has nothing to do with drinking) and Gaelic Football.
Hurling is best described as a mix between field hockey, baseball and football. Players carry a sort of long paddle which they use to strike a baseball-looking device up and down the field. You can score by knocking the ball into a normal football goal sized net or by putting the ball through two uprights that protrude straight up from the sides of the goal. If you haven't smashed your head on your keyboard from The Boredom by this description you should check it out online. Gaelic football is a cross between football and rugby and is totally wicked. I'll leave it at that.
Want proof of my presence during St. Paddy's Day? Check out the litte green man who is properly storming the field after the hurling championship.

After the matches we met up with the Flag peeps (I'm gonna get arrested just for writing that, aren't I?). After picking up another peep (heh) from the airport the game was afoot and it goes distinctly downhill from there. It should be noted that before we 'hit' the bars that night we all realized how much we hate ridiculous crowds and "why the hell are we here then?" came up a bit and other fun topics of conversation. But we are all veteran's of such activities and we sallied forth. Let's just say that all five of us got back to the hotel sometime between 3 and 6am (though not together) and two of the five ended up sleeping in their car, which was a lot better than the jail cell that they almost ended up in for trespassing on the hotel property and proceeding to knock on multiple incorrect doors looking for the room belonging to T and myself (It should be noted that their effort was in vain anyway because they were actually the first ones back to the hotel and there was nobody in ol' 208 to greet them even if they had gotten it right.) Good times. The next day was not as ugly as you might imagine and after a hearty two pint lunch TC and I got on a plane for London.
Back in London we spent some time in the British Museum and walking around the major tourist attractions of the city. Nothing too spectacular to report. We did manage a dinner with a few Trekkers (I love that now they sound like they're all dressed up in Vulcan clothing and throwing me the 'Live Long and Prosper' fingers.) Trekkers, heh. Anyway, it was good to have some foreign female company but TC and I both had flights the next day, though they were of a very different nature from each other. So, last Monday TC flew back to LA in order to drive to Flag the next day and begin work the day after that. He never claimed to be a smart man, that TC. I, however, flew to Prague to continue the adventure.
My grand plans for Prague consisted of four nights where I would take in some football, live classical music and make some new friends. Four days later and three strikes, you're out. The plans were altered, it happens, and I ended up taking in some football (in an English pub), live jazz and didn't make friend one. No worries, the hostel was strange and gave me a room to myself with 7 beds in it so for once I had plenty of room to spread out. The Czech beer of legend lived up to the legends and the vodka really does flow like water there. I spent a lot of time with my old friend ipod and walking around the city by myself was pretty good. Once again, wish I had a few pictures online for you but all in good time. My last night there I spent some time trying to get night pictures and when I returned home I had multiple, multiple offers of a sexual nature. No, I was not particularly good looking that night, my hostel just happened to be on cabaret road and if I wasn't being accosted by a woman of ill repute I was being herded into a club by men who represented the same. To each their own but not for me.
So, I flew back to London yesterday and that's where we (I) stand (sit). I'm staying with a Trekker here in London for a few days and then I head to Cardiff for almost a week and then fly to Edinburgh for the last 10 days of my trip.
I'll see you on April 12th.
Live long and travel.

After Tasch

We left Tasch with a few bumps and bruises from playing on the mountain but spirits were high and we knew that we were finally going to get out of the cold. We arrive fairly late in Avignon, France and ended up eating at a restaurant chain called 'Buffalo Grill.' Now that's funny. The next day I took it easy. TC on the other hand rented a 'bike' from our hotel and road into the city to track down an event. The Paris to Nice bike race had a leg that started in Avignon that day and TC bought some horribly loud bike clothing to commemorate the event. Later that night we tramped around downtown Avignon which is horribly impressive because of the intact city walls that surround the city. Unfortunately, we both forgot our cameras but it was a good night nonetheless.

From Avignon we 'traveled' to Barcelona. Of course no European trip is complete without your train breaking down in the middle of nowhere. We sat for a few hours and didn't really know what was going on because neither TC or I can understand French. (Especially when it's mumbled incredibly fast over the PA system of a train.) Luckily we befriended a couple of girls from Canadia and they spoke (and understood) French. We missed our connection to Barcelona and had to take a few extra trains but we also met a few other girls who happened to find TC and myself funny. Don't ask, delusional at best. Finally arrived in Barcelona around 10pm, navigated the metro and found our hostel. . . but nobody is home. I was worried that maybe the hostel only checked people in until 9pm or something but two other guys showed up and then we knew something was amiss. We stood around outside ringing the bell until one of the people staying at the hostel let us in but sure enough there was nobody at the front desk. Luckily we found a card with info for some other hostels owned by the same people and after about 45 minutes the desk worker showed up to check us in, she had been out getting food. No note, dead cell phone battery, great. Anyway, befriended the two fellas who were waiting with us and we went out for a late dinner that was very agreeable. Next day was the bike tour in downtown.

TC and I took a bike tour with Fat Tire Bike Tours in downtown Barcelona. It was the best way to see a ton of the city since we only had one full day there. We met a mother/daughter from America and the four of us headed out for tapas and beer when the ride was over. Overall it was very cool but TC and I took off because we thought we were going to a football match that night. Turns out the website we were using had the wrong date listed and we settled for a football match in a bar. We were flying to Bilbao the next day so off to bed we went.

We flew in to Bilbao and did a glorious thing. . . we rented a flippin' car. Doesn't sound like a big deal but after taking public transpo through multiple countries and cities that we didn't know it was heaven. Of course we splurged a bit and got a mid-sized car that was a TDI 6-speed manual transmission. For those of you who have seen the Vibe I used to have it was a car very, very (eerily) similar to that. Fun to drive and we even got a GPS unit with it so we didn't have to use a map once. The GPS got us up to Zeanuri the first day and then back to the Guggenheim the next. We stayed at a villa in Zeanuri that is owned by TC's good friend, Victor.
The Villa.

Here's the view from the villa of the surrounding area.

I'm gonna cut it here cause the British Museum is calling me.

Remember;
"Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time."
-Stephen Wright

The Rundown So Far

After about a week of little or no internet access (omigod, somebody like Totally call the e-cops) I am now sitting in a hostel in London that has a couple of computers with decent speed and some internet access to match. Oh, and it's free. Currently I'm loading pictures onto flickr and trying to get in a decent post at the same time. . . most of the computers we've had access to for the past two weeks have either had foreign keyboards (though I suppose they were probably only foreign to us) or were purely limited to internet access so that I wasn't able to load any pictures.

Most of the interesting individual stories will have to wait to be told in person, however, I will attempt to provide a brief overview of where we've been.

We started in London for just a night and by the following afternoon we were in a hostel in Brussels. Aside from TC almost getting pick-pocketed Brussels was great. We walked around the city quite a bit and had a few good meals despite the language barrier(s?). The highlight of this stop was definitely the personal tour that we were treated to by one of my Trek America passengers. Herwig (or Herbie (don't ask)) picked us up in his Passat TDI and we flew, almost literally, up to the town of Brugge to the north of Brussels. The town is incredibly old and it was great to have a guide to show us where to go. Herbie took us to this old, and I mean OLD, pub for a few pints. All the abbeys in the area brew their own beer and it is all excellent, if a little high in carbonation compared to what I'm used to. We also had some of the world's best chocolate in Brugge. And as if that wasn't enough Herbie then drives us to Antwerp for wine and mussels (and a very, very brief look around the red light district). But we had bigger fish to fry and there's not much else to tell about our time in Brussels.

After taking an overnight train to Munich TC and I find ourselves in a very comfortable hostel right next to the train station by about 1300 hours on a Friday. We napped for a bit to gather strength against the impending beer storm and headed out around 1500 hours. Our first stop was a beer hall called The Augustiner. (There's actually two Augustiner's in Munich and they are both supposed to be excellent.) After two liters of beer (EACH) we decided we better conserve our energy for dinner and we headed back to the hostel. . . where, of course, we ended up having another beer (though not quite a liter) with one of our new roommates. Good fortune had bestowed upon us, or in retrospect cursed us with, some instant friends in Munich through TC's good friend in Flagstaff who runs DrunkCylist.com. We had some amazing schnitzel (sp?) and about four more LITERS of beer during dinner. After a little pub-crawling (sometimes literally) TC and I found ourselves wandering home in a driving snow storm. We did a few other things in Munich but between the beer and the snow we ended up with a rather limited (but good) experience. Munich received their highest snowfall in 50 years whilst we were drowning ourselves there.

Next stop; Geneva.
This one was TC's call and it was lovely but I would definitely recommend Geneva during the summer rather than the winter. But really Geneva was just a way of getting our feet wet (or frozen, as the case may be) because we were headed to a small town called Tasch which is just below the ski-town of Zermatt which is where they keep a little thing called The Matterhorn. If the only image that pops into your mind is somehow Disney related then you need to get out more.

In Tasch the grand plan was for TC to go skiing (which he is fairly proficient at) and for me to go snowboard (which I am absolutely inept at). I've snow boarded one day in my entire life. Yes, it happened to be in Telluride (bonus), but it was at the end of the season on ice and I had the worst gear imaginable. Do you think I was ready to take on a real mountain? Nope, but I did anyway. You'll have to see it to believe it but in Switzerland their easy runs are our medium and our hardest black diamond isn't even a black for them at all. That, and the little fact that all the runs go on for days and days and days. It was all very impressive and I was completely unimpressive and achieved a certain amount of time on my posterior. However, TC seemed to really enjoy it and this was one of his big attractions to Europe. Oh yeah, it snowed the whole time. It was wet.

Well, it's gettin' late (or early) so I'm gonna cut this installment here. I've loaded pictures through our time in Tasch onto my Flickr account. Unfortunately, I'm not quite quick enough at installing them into my weblogs yet (have to change the size of each on individually and what not). Going to the British Museum for most of tomorrow (after I find a replacement charger for my ipod, but that's another story). I'm looking forward to a little prolonged time with some relics and artifacts. I'll try to write another entry while we're here in the land of quality connections.

Pictures, If Not Words

Hola from Barcelona.

Flying up to a villa in Bilbao shortly but wanted to let everyone know that I have managed to get a few more pictures from my trip up on flickr.  You can click on the flickr advertisement-looking dealy on the right side of this page to look at what I´ve uploaded recently (and not so recently).

 

Never Met A Waffle I Did Not Like

Well, I'm here in Brussels with that guy from college that I used to know.  We took the chunnel from London today and arrived without serious incident.  Caught a guy with his hand in the literal cookie jar as we were getting off a tram here in the city.  He had unzipped one of the pockets on T's backpack and his hand was literally IN the pocket when I turned around and caught him.   Thankfully there was nothing in the pocket to steal so there wasn't too much of a confrontation.

 

Brussels is beautiful but it's fairly chilly right now.  Oh yeah, and snowing.  Chilly and snowing.  Let's go to Northern Europe in February he thought. . . they'll be less crowds.  Super thinkin' there, Tex.

 

I'm uploading some photos to flickr right now.   Just a few from Oxford.

Cheers.

Currently

Well, this may currently be the world's most boring blog but I'm in London for a few days and should be able to give a real update soon.  So far I've been Nottingham, Sherwood Forest (shook the Hood's hand) and Oxford.  Been taking it pretty easy since the whirlwind starts on Monday.

Love and cheetos.

Two-Thousand and Six, Euro-pean Trip

I got nuthin'. Absolutely nuthin'.
'Cept this. . . my rough (and I mean really rough) itinerary for the next two months.

2/15 Fly outta SFO
2/16 Get into London
Nottingham, London and ??? for a bit.
2/27 TC flies into London, we Chunnel it to Brussels.
(This is where the dates, they ain't so firm.)
2/27-3/1 in Brussels
3/2 - 4 in Munich (might have a beer here)
5 - 6 in Geneva
7 - 8 in Tasch (snowplay in Zermat)
9 travel overnight to Avignon, France
10 - 11 Avignon (watch Paris/Nice bike race)
11 or 12 to Barcelona
13 - 15 in Bilbao, Spain
16 - 17 in Dublin (St. Paddy's Day)
18 - 20 in London
21st TC leaves (awww)
3/21 thru 4/11
Pillage my way through the UK, raping the horses and riding off on the women.
Definite stops include Cardiff and Edinburgh. Other than that it's an open book.
4/12 fly back into SFO

My apologies for making this so dry. I'll do my mightiest to update this fairly often.
Please don't think that I'll be neglecting my email accounts.
Love and cheetos to all.

Sydney, Part Duex

Figured I'd give a little timeline for the places we went in Australia.
Oct. 28 thru Nov. 1: Sydney
Nov. 2 thru Nov. 9: Port Douglas, Queensland (Stayed at the 'I-Can't-Actually- Afford-This-Condo-But-I'm-Here-Anyway' Condo.)
Nov. 10 thru Nov. 18: Tasmania (Yes, there really are Tasmanian Devils)
-10 - Hobart (Tassie's largest city at 120,000)
-11 - Port Arthur (Largest remaining ruins of convict settlements in Tassie.)
-12 - Bicheno (Not pronounced Be-Kaino or even Bitch-Eno.)
-13,14 - Launceston (Lawn-Ses-ton)
-15 - Devonport (Hi, I'm in Devonport. But we stayed at The biggest hotel in town. . . sweet.)
-16,17 - Hobart (What? Ho-Bart again? That guy got around.)
-18 - Richmond (And here I thought Bicheno was small.)



So, when last checked I believe I was upset at the good people of Sydney for taking my money in exchange for playing witness to one of the worst tourist abominations in the known world. (Seriously, we should compile a list of the worst tourist traps in the world 'cause OzTrek would top mine.) 'Nuf o' that, though.

/>Is this pillar really holding up this rock? It's be a lot cooler if it was a stripper pole or something instead. I'm just sayin'.

Our second day in Sydney we took the city to task and truly put it under foot. We walked pretty much all of the botanical gardens, saw the Opera House and then hoofed it back through downtown. I guess it doesn't sound like a lot but look at a map of Sydney and you'll know why our dogs were barkin'. The botanical gardens are pretty spectacular and there were many, many good pictures to be had. There was also a metric ton of fowl-life in the gardens along with about six-thousand bats that were trying to sleep in the heat. (The bats are destroying many of the trees in the gardens but they're protected and the city can't figure out how to move them. Nice to know that governments all over the world have stupid problems.) One part of the gardens takes you directly to the Opera House so we went with the flow and came upon that magnificent, clambake inspiring structure. I love that building and feel that the best view of it is actually from the water. We didn't bother with a tour because the inside is notoriously unimpressive and right now it's being redesigned by Jorn Utzon's son (Utzon is the Dane who designed the house and apparently his son is getting help from his dad and remodeling the inside of each venue to fit the original plans). Something to look forward to on my next visit.



On Sunday the bros and I ditched Pops (with his permission, of course) and took a train out to the Blue Mountains. Supposed to be a nice set of mountains with good hikes and what-not but we were completely rained out and ended up sitting in a pub all day, drinking beer and playing cribbage. Good times. If I remember right we went to the Sydney Aquarium later on this day. The aquarium was good fun and I particularly enjoyed the faster-than-lightning (in the water) penguins and the crackpipe platypuses. . . there's a word you don't use in everyday conversation. Seriously though, I think the aquarium puts something in the platypuses food to give them that little extra oomph for the entertainment value.

The nexy day we had an appointment to climb Sydney Harbour Bridge for Pops' sixtieth birthday. The climb was excellent but the prep was a little ridiculous. They make a huge production by putting everyone in these matching jumpsuits, harnesses (really just a belt) and radios, and before that you go through a metal detector to make sure you're clean 'cause they can't take the chance of anything falling onto the bridge below. It makes sense but one of the obvious benefits for the tour company is that you can't take your camera so you are forced to buy their pictures which cost an undogly amount. (Stop me if I'm wrong but don't all cameras come with a little strap that could be attached to your belt or something?) All that aside, it was a good climb and an awesome way to see the harbour and the Opera House from another angle.



This picture wasn't taken from the bridge but rather from one of the decorative pylons on the South end of the bridge that you can climb to the top of. After the climb we grabbed a little lunch (mostly in liquid format) and took a ferry back to Darling Harbour. I can't remember anything being too special about the meals we had so aside from Pops being obsessed with meat pies (simple pot-pies, really) the food wasn't the big story for us in Sydney. Don't get me wrong, I know there are a ton of good restaurants in Sydney but for some reason we didn't start spending big money on meals till later in the trip.


(This is better. Strippers of the world. . . UNITE!)

The next morning we flew from Sydney to Cairns and rented a car to get us up to Port Douglas. Next up was the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest.
Oh yeah, if you would like to see more photos from this trip feel free to click on the Flickr add to your right.

OZ, Anyone?

Yes, I am in Sydney, Australia.
Yes, I have had a super-swell time.
No, I have not gotten after it in the drinking dept.
No, I have not spoken with any hotties except to buy the wares in their stores.

The. . . uh, Sydney. . . uh, Opera House?

We flew out on the 26th of Oct. and got in on the morning of the 28th. Thank you international date line. Travelling with the two older Bros and our Pops is a different kind of experience. Good and a sometimes not as good. . . but still good.

So we got into Sydney Friday morning and checked out Darling Harbour, Sydney Tower, Hyde Park and I suppose the airport when we first got in. Darling Harbour is just super-McDonalds-Hyper-Expensive-Tourist-Land. . . but still rather beautiful. Sydney Tower provides a rather kick-ass three-hundred-sixty degree view of the city and is was worth every penny. Unfortunately, we opted for the combined ticket with a little something called OzTrek. Yeah, um, if you've got the chance to pass on that you may want to go ahead and take that chance (to pass, mind you). The OzTrek 'Experience' was a terrifically terrible mixture of cutting edge technology (circa 1982), more information about Oz than one person can take (because the info was truly common sense and full of super-fun (moronic) cliches) and to cap it all off my fat-ass was treated to the back-tweaking expertise of a 4-D movie experience where you strap your butt into an older-than-GW's-lies hydraulic chair while the screen provides you additional information about Australia that a two-year-old happens to already contains in his tiny noodle.

'Nuf o' that crap.

Aside from wasting a little money on that mandatory tourist trap things have been amazing. Our hotel is located in the Haymarket district which is basically Chinatown for Sydney. We've had some good Chinese, Japanese and Turkish meals so far. We've also eaten at an Irish pub. Sydney is a lot like SF. .. good place to find almost any kind of food that you've got a hankerin' for. As far as I can tell Aussie food consists of anything they throw on the barbie and beer.
(Fun fact for the post: On a news ticker one morning the news was, "In a recent poll taken almost 50% of Australians believe that getting drunk occassionally is part of the Aussie way of life." Now here's a country I can relate to.)

. . . . the dots are there to symbolize that I had to stop writing at that point but I had every good intention of getting back to it before we left Syndey. Unfortunately, I did not get to it and now I'm in Port Douglas. Just wrote a couple of beautiful entries on my Pops' laptop with the hope of plugging it into the network here but that backfired on me and I'll have to find a way to do it later. Figured I'd better get this posted just in case anyone remembers that I have this site. Port Douglas and the rainforest in gorgeous. Too bad I'm too broken to appreciate it.

That's Blogtastic

(Everyone can thank the Middle-Dit-Bro for the title of this post.)

I'm here to temporarily change the function of this blog. Until now I've been posting as a tour leader as I spent all summer attempting to ensure that other people had a good time in the United States. For the next three weeks if I have the opportunity to post I will be doing so. . . .(gasp). . . on my own holiday.
Crazy.

Late tomorrow afternoon I will be traversing the wonderful world of BART with my Brothers and our Pops on our way to SFO and then to the beautiful country of Austria. . . oh, um, yeah. . . Australia. (Do you think they'd like it if I made that mistake whilst in their country?) That's right boys and girls, over three weeks of the world's most beautiful beaches, amazing views and dangerous insects for our vacationing pleasure. The rough itinerary involves Syndey (four nights), Port Douglas (near Cairns, nine nights) and the Island of Tasmania (nine nights).

The specifics are not important and not planned. . . as they should(nd't?) be. There'll be some bridge hiking in Sydney, some snorkeling above the Great Barrier Reef and some Tasmanian-Devil-Dodging in Tasmania (I missed the cut for that event by two Devils in the last Olympic trials).

Truly, I am unsure of whether I will be posting at all, given that the vacation will be short lived and only two of the four people attending will have laptops. I am also unsure of whether anyone will be monitoring this site since I've been back home for a few months now. (Allowances will always be made for the random soul who is continuously clicking the 'Next Blog' button at the top right of this page. . . a great way to kill time and look for people who be writesin good.)

In other news;
*I am currently unemployed. (That isn't completely true because I will be employed with the Shipyard for certain vessels but not full time. No worries cause I plan to return to my tour leading duties next May anyway.)
*My elbow will require surgery to remove a bone chip that is preventing full motion. (I will have this done as soon as Kaiser approves it when I return.)
*um. . . yeah.

In closing, I hope to expand this site (or create a new one) that will be a little more random and all-inclusive. In the future I'd like to post stories of my indignities following the model of my man BadNewsHughes
. . .or perhaps completely random bike-based rants like my man DC.

Don't think I won't be answering any emails while I'm in Austria. I will.
You're all beautiful people and someday I'd like to try on your underwear.

7NN Group SF

7NN Group SF, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

Whelp, here's the seventh and final group of my summer. This tour was really, really good for me as well as them. There's a lot of fun to be had across the northern states of this country. (Kinda like the southern states.) You may notice there's no picture of my 5th group. . . .that was my self-proclaimed 'bad' tour. That was when I lost my laptop and was a little despondent towards some of the group so I didn't take many pictures.

6DX Group in Key West

6DX Group in Key West, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

This was my sixth group. We did a Dixieland trip that rocked a virtual Casbah (it didn't rock a veritable Casbah cause it's hard to get to northern Africa by van). The DX is basically a party tour with a lot of cities on the agenda. We hit New Orleans before Katrina but didn't do nearly as much damage. The highlight might have been the beach blanket BBQ we had on the last night in Key Largo, FL. Not a bad place, those keys.

4W1L Group in Grand Canyon

4W1L Group in Grand Canyon, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

I need to find another picture that I have of this group. But this'll do for now.

3W2 Group in Hollywood

3W2 Group in Hollywood, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

Third group on a two week whirlwind in the southwest again. By now I had a pretty good handle on things, and I certainly had a handle on the region and our destinations. This group got along really well (which is good but usually gets a little scary). If you look close you can catch the Hollywood sign through the haze in the background. Gotta love LA. . . . . . . . okay, you really don't.

2W1S Group in Vegas

2W1S Group in Vegas, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

Obviously, my second group. A little heavy on estrogen, especially when one of the guys left the tour early for 'family reasons.' (Personally I think the women drove him nuts.) It was a chaotic tour that culminated with a night in Flagstaff where we had a little BBQ at my old roommate's house, stayed out at the bars till 3am (even though they closed at 2am) and then all crashed back at my friend's house. He and his roommate didn't know what hit 'em.

1W1L Group in Oakland

1W1L Group in Oakland, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

This was my first group of the summer. We did a Western Wonder from LA to SF in one week. Stops included the Grand Canyon, Vegas and Yosemite. Pretty hard to run a bad trip with those destinations. 50 points and a pack of poodles to anyone who can tell me where the photo was taken.

Angel's Landing Training Group Photo

Angel's Landing Training Group Photo, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

Just to give everyone an idea of what my training group for T.A. looked like. I think I'll try to post a group photo from each of my groups this summer so people can get a better idea of what I dealt with all summer.

Frozen Upper Yosemite Falls

Frozen Upper Yosemite Falls
Originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

It got cold.
Need I say more.
I must say that I enjoyed Yosemite much more ealier in the season. A bit chilly, yes, but fewer people (especially on the trails) and the waterfalls are just a scosh more active. My fortunes were bright all summer as I visited Yos' a total of six times. The final time was in August and the Upper Falls were barely a trickle. I like the strong frozen version better. . . kinda like my margaritas but not like my women. Though a woman did break my elbow when I tried to tickle her so I'll be shutting up now.

Frozen

Yosemite Tree, originally uploaded by A Ditlefsen.

This picture was taken in Yosemite valley after hiking to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls. When we started the hike it was sunny and we didn't hit the snow line till six thousand feet. When we descended there was no snow line and we found ten inches on the valley floor. Inadequate gear, lungs and water repelent made it one of the best hikes of the 'summer.'

Mama I'm Comin' Home

I'll be home sometime on Sunday the 11th of September.

Good times.

Tickling Is Evil

Well, I've gone and created another hiccup in the esophagus of my
life. Somehow I managed to fracture a bone in my right elbow on
Thursday night. . . all I was doing was tickling a girl. Now before
your minds reach the end of the gutter and drop into the drain I have
to make sure you know that it was nothing kinky and in fact was the
weakest way I've ever been injured. I thought I had just
hyperextended my elbow or maybe sprained it. But the next day my arm
kept getting bigger and bigger as I drove to Flagstaff. The next
morning I almost passed out from the pain so I checked myself into the
Flag medical center.

Of course, they can't actually find the fracture so I need to get more
film done later this week. I'm currently in a soft cast and a sling
while receiving some much needed help from some hydrocodone. Decent
stuff but I seem to be too large of a guy for these things to work
properly. Needless to say I won't be doing another tour for awhile
and this may end my season.

Cheers and beers.

Done and Dunn

Well, finished my Norther Trail successfully (though you wouldn't know it by the tips) and now I've been told that I've only got one more trip this season and then I'm through.  I sprint to Salt Lake City over the weekend and then start a specialty trip on Tuesday the 6th.  I should actually be really excited about this trip because we're going to some amazing places that I haven't been this summer. . . or ever.

 

Three nights in Moab, UT.

Monument Valley

The NORTH Rim of the Grand Canyon (that's the big one).

Zion for two nights

Bryce Canyon

Yosemite for THREE nights

Point Reyes above San Francisco

 and the we end in San Fran on Friday the 23rd. 

 

All I have to do after that is get them to the airport on the 24th.   I'll have one more night in the SF hotel and then sprint back down to LA in order to wrap up the season.  I'm a bit burned right now so I've secured a day by the pool for myself and I'm about to head that direction right now. 

 

Public Kudos once again to by Cousin-in-Law's good childhood friend (you know, the guy who drives the Lotus. . . I stilll don't believe that 190hp thing) for loaning me a laptop while he BUILDS me another Powerbook.  If anyone knows what to get for the guys who has everything let me know.

 

And I'm off.

Boppin' Another Diffle

HOLA COMPADRES. Como estas?

I'm in Lake Tahoe right now with my latest and greatest group. (you
know, the greatest group except for the three or four people who keep
crying for no reason and have the worst attitudes I've seen all
summer. cheers) We're heading to Yosemite for two nights starting
tomorrow (Wednesday the 24th) and then we'll be in San Francisco on
Friday the 26th. The plan as of right now is to sail the bay at
sunset (anyone can join us for that. . . $25, includes two free
drinks. .. just give me a call if you want to join us. . . starts at
6pm or so) then we'll be heading to Biscuits and Blues for dinner and
some music/drinking. I suppose we'll be there most of the night.
I'll make sure my phone is on so give me a call.

This trip has been pretty amazing. Met up with my WI brother in
Chicago for two nights and we got rained on (but had a good time) then
I met up with my homeless brother and his homeless wife in Yellowstone
a few days ago where it rained and hailed on us. . . . .sensing a
pattern.

Unfortunately, I have to cut this short. Duty calls. . . . or at
least the taxi service I seem to be running is calling. I hope
everyone is kickin' ass and not even takin' names. Hasta.

Just In Case. . .

. . . anyone checks this thing, here's my next trip.

Northern Trail. Three weeks across the northern part of the states,
leaves on the 10th of August. I'm in Key Largo right now. My
Dixieland ends tomorrow and then I have another lovely sprint up the
East Coast to New Jersey where I will spend one whole day in the
office and then sleep in NY one night before I start my trip on
Wednesday.
My apologies to everyone for not updating this, writing emails, or
just generally being accessible.

However, at least this trip is going better than the last. The group
is really great with only two exceptions. Turns out that Belgians and
Swiss at crazy. . . at least according to my two person focus group.
Thank goodness for waffles and watches or I'd know the next place to
send our overextended troops. Just kidding (sorta).

So, thing are okay but I'm learning that when I'm doing a trip for the
first time I have absolutely NO time for anything else. This is the
first time I've checked my email in two weeks and I don't even get to
participate in all the activities in this situation because I need to
spend that time without my passengers learning the current city we're
in or the next place we're going. It wouldn't be so bad 'cept for the
time crunch with my next trip which I don't know either. . . until I
get to CA, I guess.

The next trip will take me through Niagara Falls, Chicago, The
Badlands, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, San
Francisco and then back to LA. Obviously there's a lot of little
stops in there but those are some of the highlights.

I'll be in San Francisco on a weekend this time. August. 26th and
27th if all goes well. I'll try to find time to send an email and let
everyone know where I'll be.

Hasta luego.

Dixieland

Hola Amigos y Amigas! Como estas?

I'm in Miami (actually Sunny Isles Beach or something like that).
Staying here one night before I leave on a two week trip tomorrow
called Dixieland. The rough outline is as follows:

St. Augustine
Atlanta (2)
Nashville
Memphis
New Orleans (2)
Panama Beach City (2, don't ask)
Orlando (3)
Key Largo (possibility of grabbing a night from Orlando)
end in Miami.

I'll finish the trip on the 6th of August and then I have to do the 19
hour sprint back up to New Jersey on the 7th and 8th. Then, as of
right now, I'm set to start a 3 week trip called the Northern Trail
(sort of a northern mirror of the Southern Sun I just finished). So,
I'm supposed to start that on the 10th which would put me back in San
Francisco around the 27th and 28th. I will definitely let everyone in
the Bay Area know exactly when I'm going to be there once I know for
sure that I am coming back.

I'll probably have only one or two trips after that Northern finished
up so my summer is basically over. I wish I hadn't had that month off
in the middle.

My last trip was the worst one I've done so far. You can imagine that
my laptop getting pinched didn't help things any, but the reality is
that I had a bad attitude for much of the trip. It was hot and my
passengers were annoying. This job offers no insight as to why people
refuse to use their brains while they are on holiday. The quote of
the summer is far is from this one English girl and it goes something
like this. . . . . . "Aaron, if I eat now will I be hungry later?"

I told her she'd only be hungry later if I didn't knock her out first.
Just kidding, but you now have an idea of what every day is like on
these trips. Every where you go people feel the need to ask after the
most simple and universal things. . . . "Aaron, is there a bathroom
in this bar/restaurant/gas station/rest stop/campground/etc. . ?"

No, they want you to pee exactly where you are.

Here's to intelligence and to all of us studying up before we travel
to another country. And here I thought that Americans were the dumb
ones when we went on vacation.

Texas

Well, now that I've wallowed in self pity for a few days I guess I can
find it in me to use a computer again. I'm in Austin, TX right now
and I have a precious few 'free' hours. My group is out and about
wandering the city streets, just the way I like it, but unfortunately
I have to leave in a minute to prepare for an interview I'm going to
give to a potential new Trek leader here in town. Great way to spend
my day off. The company does kick me a couple bucks for the process
though.

This tour certainly started out as a bomb. Didn't really like the
group, out of the rhythm because I had so much time off, laptop stolen
and it's been hotter than a snake's ass in a wagon rut almost
everywhere we've been. However, the group has come together fairly
well and as long as they're happy then my job/life gets easier.

We were in Del Rio, TX the other night and crossed the border into
Mexico. I've got three under-agers from Australia in the group and it
was a good way to allow them to drink legally (though they have been
doing pretty well for themselves despite the legality of it so far).
Mexico is crazy. Picked up a one liter bottle of Kahlua for ten
bucks! Good times.

Right now we're staying in a pretty nice RV park outside of Austin.
Air conditioned cabins, pool, hot tub, individual bathrooms in the
bath house and of course, who could forget the free pancake breakfast.
We're staying in Austin again tonight and we'll be centerstage
(though in the audience) at a place called the Saxon Pub for a Bob
Schneider show. For those of you who know his music you can commence
being bitter and jealous right. . . . now!

Tomorrow we make a five-hundred mile haul to New Orleans for a couple
nights, weather permitting. Then to Tuscaloos, AL. . . . . . okay.
Then Ocoee, TN for a little class four river rafting. Then
Whyteville, VA. . . . . okay. Finally a couple of nights in DC before
I drop these poor travelling souls off in NY. I'll be heading to NJ
myself for a few days in the East Coast office before I possibly start
another trip in the south called a Dixieland. Never know, though.
Could change.

I guess that wraps it up for me. All you really need to know is that
it's hot. Everywhere I'm going to be is damn hot. I hope this finds
you all happy and healthy. . . or at least alive and kicking.

. . . And That's How That Goes

My laptop was stolen in Las Vegas a few days ago.

Predictably, it was my fault.
I left it in the hotel lobby about ten feet from the front desk.

My apologies to anyone who helped me work on that machine.

So it goes.

Big Surprise

Well, duh.

Of course I haven't written a well crafted, time consuming entry for
this site. Of course I haven't utilized my brother's generosity with
a program that will allow me to post pictures here in addition to
text. Of course I'm bitching about what I HAVEN'T done instead of
celebrating what I have done.

Good Times.

I leave on my Southern Sun tomorrow. If you want a rough outline of
my schedule you can find it here.
http://trekamerica.com/tours/sl.html
I've only made a few changes to the tour. Spending two nights in
Austin, TX instead of San Antonio. Hopefully putting three nights in
New Orleans. . . that sort of thing. It might be a bit of a crazy
tour.

Second and third nights are in Vegas. There will be another tour
paralleling me for most of the trip so we will have 23 passengers
between us. In Vegas we've booked a 650 stretch limo truck for all 25
of us. Check it out on this poorly designed website.
www.adreamweddinghawaii.com/website/limo_gallery.htm
Look for the Ford-650 Monster Truck Limo.
Should be interesting.

For the Fourth we're staying at a Cowboy Camp near Monument Valley.
There will be 4-6 trek groups there, fireworks are allowed, no quiet
hours and the camp has even hired a band to top off the event. Should
be different.

In Austin I'll be taking anyone over 21 who is interested to a Bob
Schneider show. He's one of my favorite artists at the moment and the
owner of the bar has reserved us a huge table front and center. We'll
be close enough to spit on the entertainment. . . though most likely
we'll just clap instead. Should be okay.

New Orleans. Let's just hope the group goes for the third night so I
can really get my jazz fix in. Shouldn't be too bad.

Washington D.C. will see us for two days. No big events planned here
but I'm not complaining. Should be hot and humid.

Along the way we have the option of bungee jumping, horse rides, quad
rides, swamp tour, river rafting, fight clubs, jazz clubs, water
slides and some other stuff. Fun stuff. One of those might be a lie.
Whoops.

Well this is my 'Friday' so I'm gonna get outta the office early. One
thing I'd like to say is that I'm a little depressed about the lack of
email in my inbox. Feels a little like people think I never read my
email. Hell, not only do I read it but I usually respond. How's that
for thorough.

Cheese whiz.

A Fluid Schedule

As it turns out there was a good reason for me NOT to update this page
for a while. If I HAD updated it a few weeks ago (as I SHOULD have)
then I would have had to post about five other entries just to
retract, change, retract and change what my schedule is going to be
with Trek. Here's what has happened recently.

I finished my Westerner2 and then started a Western Wonder on the
thirtieth of May. The tour finished on June fifth BUT I managed to
injure my foot on the first day of that tour and I had to cancel my
next Western Wonder that was scheduled to leave the following day.
(The actual tour wasn't cancelled, of course, but another tour leader
took the trip for me.)

So, unbeknownst to many of you I have been at home for the past week
and a half! My apologies if you didn't receive a visit or a phone
call from me. My oldest brother was in town the first week and I
spent a lot of time trying to heal my foot. At that time I believed
that I would be returning to work this past week sometime and then
start a trip called the Pacific Crest on the eighteenth.

A few days into my healing process I was told that I would be
'sprinting' my van to the East Coast and running a tour called the
Best of the East. Needless to say I was intruiged with the
possibility of doing a copule of eastern tours. (I know nothing of
the East!) At the time I was all set to leave from the Bay Area and
just bolt out on I-80 across the country. They told me there was no
reason for me to return to LA-LA-Land if I didn't feel it was
necessary. Heh.

So on Wednesday of this week I had myself prepared to leave for the
East Coast on Thursday. Sure enough, I got a call on Wednesday
telling me that as long as I was going out East I may as well come to
LA first and pick up a bunch of camping gear that is needed at the New
Jersey office. Great. I arrived in LA yesterday, after sitting on
the 405 for about two hours, and got into the office this morning.
This morning they were about thirty minutes from loading my van with
an insane amount of gear when things were brought to a halt. I
reported to the office of the man who handles all tour leaders who
aren't rookies and he revamped the schedule.

At this point I AM NOT going to the East Coast but rather am doing a
Southern Sun trip on the twenty-ninth. That trip will take me across
the southern part of the country and will finish up in New York on the
nineteenth of July.

Good times. This however, means that I will definitely have time to
update this bad boy. Of course, most of you are perceptive enough to
realize that I just had a week and a half at home when I could have
updated this thing but I think we already covered why I'm glad that I
didn't.

Perhaps I'll wait to write more until my trip is changed again.