Bugs on Pins

Whew! I just got back from visiting my parents in Florida.  They treated myself and my brother and nephews to a Walt Disney World vacation. We stayed for 4 days in the Fort Wilderness Campground and visited the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center and Animal Kingdom.  Doing Disney with a 5 and 8 year old is an entirely different experience than doing it with a bunch of adults.

I think, for the boys, the highlight had to be the Pirates’ League. In this ‘experience’ they got pirate names, had their faces painted in a pirate style, got a pirate bandanna, an eye patch, a pirate earing and swords.  Swords which I must admit they didn’t use to kill each other.  They also really liked the swimming pool at the campground though Uncle Marc should have known better than to send the 5 year old down the big slide.  The lifeguards had to blow their whistles and cut off the water to the slide…  no harm done but was subsequently unable to get him to try it again.

I participated in the Dive Quest ‘experience’ at the Living Seas EPCOT exhibit.  This is SCUBA diving in an aquarium. Lot’s of cool fish that you wouldn’t normally see together and they are quite tame and swim very close to you. There were a couple of huge rays, a huge turtle and several sharks. One of the highlights from this experience is goofing around in front of the windows and waving to your family.

Animal Kingdom was very nice and the safari ride was excellent. The animals were quite close to the trucks and Disney added a ‘storyline’ which made the whole thing a little goofy, but probably added something for the kids.

Mom and Dad’s travel trailer worked out well. We were able to eat all our dinners at camp.  I slept in the ‘annex’ (my tent) out back.  With 5 people already in there I didn’t think I would get much sleep.  The weather was very cooperative and I slept well.

Being back in Frankfurt is a return to work, but it’s a short week as we have Good Friday and Easter Monday off.  Haven’t decided what, if anything, I should do over the 4 day break. I want to get out on the bike and maybe overnight somewhere but haven’t figured out where I want to go yet.

I have safely arrived in Florida. I think I got everything done at home before I left (at least in my home), I have no idea if I’ve gotten everything done for work that had to get done.  I’m also not so confident that I packed all the clothes that I needed to pack for this adventure.

I flew into Miami yesterday and met my mom at her office at around 3:00pm. Then we went home, had some dinner, chatted and went to the driving range for a golf lesson. About 9:30/10:00pm I was basically falling down so I stumbled off to bed. The bonus of such an early bedtime is that when you wake up at 5 you’ve still gotten 7 hours of sleep.

Today’s plan is to do some errands before we leave for our camping trip. My brother and nephews will be flying down from NY to join us. It will be the first time I’ve seen them since leaving for Germany. I’m pretty excited about spending time with them. After errands my mom has a doctor’s appointment to go to, then we are planning on getting in a round of golf. That should take a while because under normal conditions I can only hit the ball straight about 25 yards. 

Tomorrow we’ll pack up the camper and head out to their little house in Lake Placid, FL and then on Sunday go to the campground. Mike and the boys will be joining us there.

I’m going to try and stop at a T-Mobile store and see what options they offer for pre-paid (or very short term) mobile broadband. I’d like to use at least the data features of my phone while I’m here without paying a million euros per kilobyte.  I’m sure that’s the quote I got from T-Mobile Germany when I asked about data roaming costs in the US.

It’s been a beautiful day here in Frankfurt. It was more typical for late spring than for the 2nd of April. My main goal was to take a long motorcycle ride this afternoon but never quite got to my intended starting point so I had to settle for a shorter one. There’s a tour on one of my maps that starts near Koblenz. I got as far as Mannheim when I decided to head back.

I went out again Sunday for a few hours and found a few good twisties. I was even mostly on my intended route.

I started writing this entry on April 2nd and since then I’ve sort of lost the thread of what I was saying. That, coupled with the fact that I’m writing this from my phone, means I’ll just post and start a new entry once I’m in Miami.

Ciao from gate C16 at the Frankfurt airport.

Good morning, everybody. Today started off nicely enough. My eggs flipped over without any broken yolks, were cooked to medium, the coffee was good and strong and my toast was exactly like charcoal!  Yumm.

After Saturday’s spending spree Sunday had to be more subdued. Of course this is pretty easy to do considering all the shops are closed. Oh, and on a related note, Frankfurt is having the Spring Sunday Shopping this Sunday from 1:00pm until 7:00pm. So if you really need to get a new pair of pants or a raincoat to wear over your suit before the upcoming London customer visits here’s your chance.

Sunday had beautiful weather so I was out and about. I didn’t do anything too out of the ordinary. I went to the gym and did legs and had  a quick swim, popped over to Charles’ place for a coffee, took a nap, went for ice cream, rode the motorcycle and fixed dinner.  I made some beef on the grill that marinated in soy sauce, lemon juice, onion, bay, salt and pepper.  It turned out really well though the cut was more like a roast than an extra thick steak.  It was supposed to be London Broil but getting the butcher to understand what I wanted wasn’t happening.

Work is off to auspicious start. No production issues and I am making some progress in reworking our Major Incident response. I think I have a solid plan but figuring out how to communicate it and get people to buy into it will be the hard part.  On next Tuesday I’ll be in London for some customer visits and then I’m back here on Wednesday and then leave for a week in FL on Thursday.  McMuffin the cat will be returning with me once I finally get back on the 17th.

Today got off to a really early start because I went to bed last night at around 9:45. That meant I was rested and ready to go at 6:30 this morning. It’s so dissapointing that the rest of Frankfurt just isn’t ready then. I managed to make do and get some small, quiet things done around the house.  Then the spending began.

I went to DM, the local variety store, and bought toilet bowl cleaner, dish soap, and Meister Proper (Mr. Clean) for the bath.  Then I went and had a cinnamon.  After that I went off towards Bad Homburg to go to the motorcycle shop that’s up there to try on helmets. I got a new one. It’s a Shoei Qwest.  It looks like this and costs a pretty penny.

After getting my helmet I went to Ikea to get a new tablecloth and some bedding.  They had chosen not to sell flat sheets today and didn’t have any tablecloths I would use so that was a bust. I did get some small napkins (still have plenty of the dinner sized ones I moved from Chicago) and a plastic storage container.

Once I got home and dumped off my stuff I changed transport and hopped on my bicycle to go to the gym.On the way I stopped off at the Espresso Store and got a pitcher for steaming milk. I did chest today and then after though I would have a late lunch at Vapiano’s. It was late when I got there, around 2pm, and it was really late when I finally got my pizza (like 45 minutes later).  After that I went home.

The next spending was done at the pet store. Since McMuffin will be coming to FRankfurt in a few weeks I needed to get all the things that go into making my apartment her apartment. After getting one litter box, litter, scoop, water and food dish and treats I realize that I didn’t actually get any cat food.  I’ll be sure to fix that later in the week.

I tried to take a nap, but couldn’t get to sleep so I went and got groceries instead.  Turns out you can’t by charcoal in the grocery store yet because it’s not quite grilling season. That meant going back towards Ikea because Hornbach (the Home Depot equivalent) is the source for this.

I’m back home and my wallet is very much lighter after all of this. I wanted to go see True Grit tonight but I don’t think I could afford a full price ticket at this point.

It’s been just about forever since I wrote anything and apparently there are actually at least a couple of people that might be reading my ramblings. A lot has happened since my last post but since I don’t have chance in he’ll of remembering everything that has happened, or of getting the timing right, I’ll just start with the past month.

In mid-February I went on the RSVP vacations cruise in the Western Carribean. It was great. The ports didnt really do it for me but Roatan was pretty cool. In port, except for the Port of Cortez, Honduras, when I stayed on-board, I went SCUBA diving. I saw all kinds of cool fish. Of course the parties and entertainment on board is half the fn and that was all great. Holland America did a great job with the food and keeping our drinks refreshed. With the exception of the Tequilla incident on the first night everything was pitch perfect. Even my assigned roommate was very nice and easy to get along with. I had a blast but don’t think I need to go on another for about five years.

I got back to Frankfurt and about three days later left for Chicago on a business trip. It was very productive and catching up with my colleagues was great. I stayed at Buck and Jeff’s and got to see all my friends from the neighborhood. I flew back in on Friday morning and left that evening for a postponed weekend city break to Helsinki. I got back from that and am not going anywhere until the 2nd week in April when I’m going to Florida with my parents, brother and nephews.