Apple, making my life easier
Man, Apple continues to amaze me. I brought up a video conf between my Dad and his good friend, Ron, in Florida this evening. We did it to troubleshoot a problem Ron was having when using iChat. The quality was amazing and the app did exactly what it was suppose to do. I was able to walk Ron through adjusting the audio settings in no time. We closed the 3-way conf call and my Dad needed some more help with his system. We used another new feature in iChat, Screen Sharing, to allow me to connect to his system and take control of his desktop to fix a few things. Worked like a charm . . . speechless.
Went to a party last night at Rod's house. He recently returned from his 
I'm in this groove day to day that you can almost set your watch by. I leave for work the same time every morning. The same person serves me coffee at the train station, grote coffee, alstublieft. I see the same people waiting for the same train on the same spot on the platform to sit in the same train car. I've been doing this for over a year. It totally distracts me when I'm running late and can't get my coffee or miss my usual train. The groove is comforting, but at the same time drives me a bit crazy.
Just ordered some 
Here in The Netherlands, you're required to go to school when you turn 4. Marin went for his first prep-day. I caught hell for asking Nensi to take a picture on their way to school. My Mom always took pictures of my sister and I on our first day.
We spent a wonderful long weekend in warm and sunny Madrid. What a great way to celebrate Nensi's birthday. We caught the best museums and the best nightlife. A totally different way of life - tapas at 1400, dinner at 2200 and packed streets at 0300. Great. We'll be back there soon. For sure.
A good friend of mine, Rod Oliver, is riding his bike from Istanbul to Bangkok. He bravely quit his job, flew to Turkey to start his trip across Asia. He's now in central Turkey. His 
Spent a week and a half in Houston, Texas on business. Worked my butt off, but had a chance to relax a bit. It's really an amazing place with really amazing people. I always thought that southern hospitality was just a bunch of baloney, but I'm tellin ya - the people I met are great. The city itself wasn't really too impressive, but I saw some great bands, great bars, eat some (a lot of) great food and met some great, new friends. Thanks y'all . . .
About a year and a half ago Marin fell and hit one of his front teeth on the table. It slowly started turning dark and yesterday we were forced to pull it. At the dentist's office he was given a sedative to ease the whole process. As we were waiting for it to kick in full strength I got first glimpse of what a 3 year old is like drunk. He was sitting on my lap and looking at a car magazine with me performing for the entire waiting room. Slurred, loud questions on why the girl leaning on the yellow car had almost no clothes on. We eventually poured him into the dentist's chair and got down to business. It went from the peak of laughter to the low of tears and screaming in a matter of minutes. The dentist yanked it out. It was more stressful than I imagined seeing Marin dealing with pain. It's really not much more elegant than taking the kid out back and yanking it out with a rusty pair of pliers. The pliers just come in a sanitary wrapper.
My youngest son, Marin, is 3 years old !!! Happy Birthday my little man ! We bought him a bike, which I spent last night putting together. Thank God it was only a bike. Makes me feel old. Makes me appreciate my parents. All those hours putting crap together for Christmas and birthdays. God bless em. It was so great to see Marin riding around our place in his PJs.
I've heard an awful lot about 
We just arrived in New York City. You run into quite some characters in this magnificent, amazing city. We stumbled into a toy store on 5th Ave that was hosting 
I'm amazingly disappointed in the mobile phone 
We're in Iceland enjoying an extended weekend here before heading on. It's cold, very cold. It's a weird combination of European and American culture. Makes sense since it sits in the middle. The language is very nordic seeing as it comes from Norwegian/Viking settlers. The architecture is simple and socailistic. It reminds me of a cross between Finland and north east American (if you can imagine that). The people are as cold as the weather but they look and dress great. The prices are amazingly expensive. I thought things in Amsterdam were expensive. It cost us almost €14 for 4 hot dogs and a small Cola at the same stand the Clinton ate at when he was here. The water is great. The electricity for all of Reykjavik is produced from geothermal water. The steam from the water generates the power and the left over hot water is sent to the residents through the pipes running under the streets and sidewalks to keep them all ice free. It doesn't make you feel so guilty for taking a nice hot natural shower since this is its second use.
I'm replacing my Olympus 
It was 14 years ago this fall that I headed to the Soviet Union to begin a very pivotal period in my life. I attended the Leningrad State Technical University in Leningrad, USSR. It was an amazing time that really set the stage for me making the decisions later to live in Europe. I made a good number of friends, that I'm, unfortunately, not in touch with anymore. My plan is to tell some good stories and post some classic pics. I was inspired after reading an 
I was willing to accept the fact that RSS feeds would eventually be peppered with advertisements. Over the last few months I have seen more and more ADV: popping up in my RSS aggregator. While I can tolerate a few advertisements here and there, I was amazed yesterday to see that a feed I'm receiving from a technology news site, 
My iPod is always with me. It's been in my ears constantly for the last four and a half years. The content is getting better, the devices are getting bigger and the prices are getting lower. As good as they are I still have a few things I would like to see in them to make them my ultimate device.
