Denist Success

It looks like all is well in the land of dentistville. DKC went today and got a root canal and filling, and that should finish her off. She's supposed to check in next week one last time, just to make sure everything is in order, but it looks good. (Knock on wood) So with this third tooth finished, it ended up costing $500 vs $4500. Because I know you all care about my budget. The total price of this trip, including Dublin and the dentist and passports and all that other fun stuff, should be around $4500. Maybe a tad less. (Would've been better if the dollar wasn't so lousy.) So now I feel quite a bit better about the expense. We saved money, no doubt about it.

What did I do over the weekend? Went to a show at the castle on Saturday night, went to church here yesterday and took it easy today. Church in Slovakia is quite different, I must say. There are about ten people who attend each week, and that's including the three missionaries. Compare that to about 150 to 180 at home. Very different.

Watched Gettysburg today. All four hours of it. That's one way to make the time go by. I actually really enjoyed it. I had no idea that such an important role in the battle was played by Maine soldiers. Not that I'm related to them or anything, but I still felt a sort of kinship there. A strong three and a half stars--overacted in parts and too long, but worth the watch overall, if for nothing more than to get a good idea of what Gettysburg was like.

Castle BBQ

The big event of today was heading up to Trencin castle to have a barbeque and get dressed up in Medieval outfits and take some fun pictures. The archery practice was just gravy. For those of you who don't know, my wife's brother is the night watchman at Trencin castle. This means that we get super exclusive privleges normal people don't get, like cookouts at the castle after hours. Talk about cool. (Although I almost had the cops called on me today when another person at the castle didn't know who I was and started yelling at me in Slovak. You may speak a second language, but all knowledge of that language seems to vanish when you're faced with an angry native. Milos came to the rescue.) We had a great time, and I took a slew of pictures, eight of which are presented now for your enjoyment. Behind the cut, of course, but if you ever wanted to see me looking like I was trying out for Monty Python and the Holy Grail, don't say I never gave you the chance. And yes, pictures of baby girl are included, even if she didn't make an appearance at the castle. Enjoy!

Action pose of Baby Girl. We'll call her DC for short. Like the comics. Superpower TBD.


Superpower discovered. Daddy Kryptonite.


Fun times in costumes as DKC (that would be the person formerly known as Wife) gets Son (from here on out TRC) to pose for the camera. The goal was to look scary. They didn't quite make it.


Family portrait. Two humans and a hobbit.


If this doesn't look good to you, your tastebuds are broken.


TRC shoots his first arrow. I take a very well-timed shot. The other person is Uncle Milos.


Another one for you Vodnik readers out there. This is a picture of the square with the Well of Love, also known as the Vodnik's home and the scene of part of the climax of the book. It's been way too much fun visiting these places and seeing where everything happened.

Recuperating

Spent the day lying down today, for the most part. Took a brief walk, but I haven't been feeling so hot today. It helped that it was raining buckets outside. The cottage has a tin roof, and I'm up in the attic (I'll try to take some pics for you), and when it starts raining and thundering . . . you can really hear it. I also watched The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Overall, the film is an excellent contrast to Pirates 3 from the other day. Pirates is all eye candy and little coherent, meaty plot. Ugly is deliberate and methodical, slowly building to a layered climax. Pirates is fun. Ugly is art. I can recognize it for its strengths, but the pacing just wasn't doing it for me. Lots of local color, twists and turns, but the things just too darn long. I know that's sacrilege to say for a lot of film buffs. The movie's the number 4 rated film on IMDB, for crying out loud. But when you're sick in bed and want something to distract you, Pirates is going to work a whole lot better than Ugly. So, I'll give it 4 stars for its influence and importance in the canon of film, but for pure fun, we're only talking two. Too much thinking involved for me today.

Update and Pictures

Enough with dentists, right? Contrary to popular belief, I'm also doing other things over here in Slovakia. Like catching up on movies. :-) Yesterday I watched two: Constantine and Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I actually enjoyed both of them. The first was one that I always wanted to get around to watching, but never had the chance. (As a side note, I find it interesting that it's so acceptable in Hollywood to portray the Catholic Church as being true and effective against the power of evil. Not that I have anything against that, but why is it you never see Methodists battling the forces of darkness? Or Lutherans? Or Jehovah's Witnesses? Amish vs. Demons--that could be a cool combo, but something tells me no one would believe it.) I give it three stars. Pirates 3 came out while my wife was finishing her thesis. A bad time for us, so I didn't have a chance to see it in the theaters--especially since it had gotten such a poor reception from critics. Maybe it's because my expectations were lowered, but I thought it was fun and exciting, if a tad long. Also three stars.

I also have been reading. The Life of Pi is a book I've been meaning to get around to for a long while, and again--I finally did. Well worth the wait. For those of you who don't know, it's about an Indian boy who gets stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger. Literature--you could study this in college or high school. Very well written, and highly recommended. Three and a half stars out of four.

Writing's back on track--I spent a lot of time yesterday (at the dentist's) plotting out the revised version of the book, and I think I have all my ducks in a row now to chug through the book. We'll see. Over 1,800 words today--in addition to everything else I did.

Took a trip to Uhrovec, a Kastiel that almost became my home three years ago. Long story. Not gonna share it. Pictures from the last few days are below the cut, including one of me with my friend Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn book in Czech. The guy's really getting international now--go Brandon! Enjoy!

Swimming. This actually isn't the picture I wanted to load, but I'm too lazy to go back and find the right one. That's right. Lazy. You got a problem with that?


Here you go, Brandon. Proof your books are at least stocked internationally. Isaac, if you read this, they had your map and inside artwork, as well. Although they cut your signature some. Dirty rotten Czechs.


First train ride


Monkey in a tree


Uhrovec and wife


Sure is lovely here, ain't it?

Good or Bad?

So, wife just went to the dentist again. Two teeth fixed, two crowns replaced. $300. Fine. The dentist thought everything was finished, but she asked him to look at one other tooth that had been bothering her. (Yeah--she's got a lot of teeth, and most of them are apparently on rather poor terms with her). The dentist reluctantly agreed, and discovered the tooth was bad. Quite bad. Bad enough that he couldn't fix it all right then--and he might not be able to fix it all in the time we have left. It depends on what happens when she goes back Monday. We're hoping she can just get a root canal and a filling to fix it . . . but it might need something more, which will have to be done in America.

Which will no doubt be rather expensive.

So the good news is that this is a problem she would have had sooner or later no matter what. Better we find out now than later, right? And any which way you slice it, we've saved about two grand so far on dental work, which significantly offsets the cost of this trip. So why is it that I'm only seeing dollar signs right now?

Best case scenario is she goes Monday, he finishes the root canal and fills it in, and it only costs $200--which would mean we got about $3500 worth of dental work for about $500. That's the hope.

Any and all prayers are greatly appreciated.

Ixnay on the Imetay

Not much time right now. Had a good, full day--went to Melcice to visit wife's brother and sister-in-law, and we took a train so that my son could finally ride on one. Very good pictures--I'll try to post some tomorrow. Wife and I have been working on planning this Ireland trip. Can I just say that this whole weak dollar thing is just that? Weak. Totally weak. I've probably already complained about this, but allow me to vent yet again. No. Fun. What. So. Ever.

Thanks.

Anyway--my back hurts, and the chair I sit in to surf the net isn't the most comfortable in the world. Maybe I'll go upstairs and work on planning the book some more. I've got to a piece where what happens in the original version no longer really makes sense with the characters that are in the new version. It's so strange. The actions made sense for the earlier characters, but the new ones have personalities. Things they will and won't do. As I write, I realize that some just won't stand to do certain things. The biggest troublespot for me right now is Jess, who in the original version was a princess and in the new one is an independant young woman who's very insistent on being a part of things, something her earlier counterpart wasn't too upset about. Hmm . . . maybe it's hard to describe. Anyway--it's forcing me to plan and plot more than I thought I'd have to. But the book shall be better for it.

German

You know what's cool? When you haven't had a real conversation in German for about two years, and then you meet someone who speaks German and you're not just able to do the whole "how ya doin'" routine, but you can carry on a conversation for a half hour, discussing everything from public relations to typical vacation activities. I don't mean to brag, but I was pretty darn proud of myself today. Of course, it helps that Joshua Bilmes keeps sending German books my way. I've been able to read a few, and that does wonders for keeping my German going. So Joshua--thank you. Your donations are greatly appreciated. (Especially the last one--he sent me Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz in German, as well as a German audio book. The man is fast approaching sainthood in my book. If I believed in sainthood. Which I don't. Not to take anything away from Joshua, though. Then again, he  probably wouldn't want to be a saint anyway, being Jewish already and all.
 But I digress.)

Went to a barbeque today with some of Denisa's high school friends. Had a nice time and took what I hope will turn out to be good pictures. Not that I'm going to post them, but still. Also, last night I finally got around to watching Rocky Balboa. Now, I'm a self-confessed Rocky fan, so maybe I'm a softie, but I really dug the movie. Great bookend to the first Rocky movie. And anyone who doesn't like Rocky is a Communist. Except for Joshua Bilmes, who I'll allow one free I-Don't-Like-Rocky pass, just because he's cool.

And that's all I'm going to post today.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

So two good things and one bad. The first good? I wrote over 1,800 words today. This vacation is being very generous to my writing. The second good? We went into Trencin today and had a lovely time walking around and seeing everything that's changed. I have to say that it feels like Trencin is really coming along as a city. The other two times I'd been here, you could still feel the Communist influence on everything--the gray buildings, small beat up cars, and the general poor service you'd get in any store you went into. Now, things are different. They're repainting the buildings, the cars are Toyotas, Opels, Hondas and the like, and the people feel all around much friendlier--even in the stores. So that's nice.

It was strange in a way. The last time I'd visited this city, it was in my head as I set a novel there. So now I'm able to come and see where all sorts of things happened in my book. A first for me, and one that I quite enjoy. For some reason it makes me feel like the things I wrote about actually happened--like my characters were or are real people out there somewhere. Maybe that just means I have an overactive imagination . . .

It was just me, wife and son in the city, along with my brother-in-law Milos, who came for the ride. Since he knows about everyone in the city, he's helpful to have with. And--even better for all of you--I took pictures.

Wife and son at my wife's elementary school. (I think that's the kind of school it was, at least. The Slovak school system still eludes me . . . )


Trencin Castle, looking up from the Plague Tower in one of the city's squares


My son plays in the Vodnik fountain. For those of you who have read my book, Vodnik, this will make sense. For those of you who haven't, well too bad.


He's a cute little bounder, isn't he?


My son also discovered the joys of pigeon-scaring. If there were a Godzilla movie for pigeons, my son would star in it.

The bad? I got too much sun and I have a headache. Poor me. But I suppose that's a fine price to pay for what I got in return.

Dentists

Part two a success. Denisa's now getting work done on her second crown. Still saving bundles of money, which makes this trip a resounding success, and makes me feel much less guilty for coming on this trip in the first place. Writing's going very well, too. 4 of 19 chapters revised so far on the book--one while I've been here. Not much else to report.

I read about Tiger Woods' success at the Open, which pleased me--wish I could have watched it myself. But it's also really kind of nice to be more or less unplugged for a while. I still have my internet, which makes me not feel too isolated, but it's a pain enough to use that I don't stay on for hours at a time, so that's good, too.

Thanks for all the responses to yesterday's post. Maybe I ought to post pictures more often, huh? I took some more today, but the camera's upstairs where my son's sleeping, so sorry--no pictures this evening.

Brumov-Bilnice

All right. I guess I have no excuses now. I have time, a camera, the connecting cable, internet . . . I guess I'll post some pictures. Today's main event was a trip to a castle in the Czech Republic. It dates back to the 13th Century, and was involved in quite a few battles. Unfortunately, the place burned down in the 1800s, so all that's left is ruins. Still, we had a great time exploring, and my son thought it was all the bees knees. Gorgeous weather and a nice picnic didn't hurt, either. Don't you all wish you were me? Oh--and I got over 1,500 words written today. Nice.












And because my life isn't always just about Slovakia, I'm also going to throw out a challenge to all you movie buffs out there. AFI just released its top 10 lists for 10 genres. Here are my totals for how many of them I've seen:

Animation: 10/10

Romantic Comedy: 8/10 (missing City Lights and Roman Holiday. I'll fix this when I get home.)

Western: 7/10 (missing The Wild Bunch, McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Cat Ballou)

Sports: 7/10 (missing Bull Durham, Breaking Away and National Velvet (National Velvet?!? Where's Chariots of Fire?)

Mystery: 8/10 (missing Laura and Blue Velvet)

Fantasy: 9/10 (missing the original King Kong. I know--travesty. I publicly apologize. However, did you all see what landed on the list? Groundhog Day continues its inexorable rise to the Number One Movie of All Time)

Sci-Fi: 8/10 (missing The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Invasion of the Body Snatchers)

Gangster: 5/10 (Yikes! Missing White Heat, Bonnie and Clyde, Scarface: Shame of a Nation, Public Enemy and Little Ceasar.)

Courtroom Drama: 4/10 (Even worse. I'm such a slacker! Missing Kramer vs. Kramer, The Verdict, Witness for the Prosecution, In Cold Blood, A Cry in the Dark and Judgment at Nurmeburg)

Epic: 7/10 (missing Titanic (almost a badge of honor at this point), All Quiet on the Western Front and Reds)

Total: 73/100 (assuming I did my math right, which isn't a given.)

So that's a C-. Not too bad I suppose. In the past I've been a lot worse at these top 100 lists, and I've been working on fixing that over time. Getting there. Can any of you beat me? I'd love to see your totals if you have time to look over the lists and post.

And that's all I have time for now.

Back in Business

So here I am in Sidonie, a small little village on the Czech/Slovak border (literally--the river that's the official boundary weaves in and out of the town like a drunk out for a joy ride). And what do I find but an internet connection at my mother in laws! And not even dialup. Thank goodness for technology. I'm blazing along at 220 kbps, which ain't great, but it's enough for me. So I guess you're not all free of my ramblings for a month, after all.

And boy do I got some ramblin' to do.

First off: a General Notice to the Public.

They're called bladders, people. Learn how to use them. Honestly. I know there's some people out there with small bladders. I had an ex-girlfriend who always would talk about that. And I'm understanding. Or at least I try to be. But there's no way you can tell me that on a plane with 250 people on board, there's that many people with incontinence problems. Those poor Aer Lingus stewards were practically beating people away from the toilets with sticks. Seat belt sign or no seat belt sign, people swarmed the bathrooms en masse every five minutes. I know this, because my seat was right next to the toilets. A blessing (because I could get to them first) and a curse (because I had to listen to flushing for 6 hours straight).

But enough of that.

I've decided that Aer Lingus should give their male stewards green hats to wear, and then make it part of the job requirement to always talk about their pots of gold. And if they had a sign that said "You must be below this height to work here," so much the better. Because who wouldn't want to be served by a troupe of Leprechauns? Oh--and if the official cereal of the company was Lucky Charms, how awesome would that be? Wicked awesome. But alas, something's telling me that Irish people are even now taking up arms against my idea, and that if I don't drop this soon, I'll be swarmed by little green men with pitchforks. But I'm telling you people--there's a whole ad campaign just waiting to be tapped here.

The flight and travel was actually worse than I thought it would be. 26 hours. Oh yeah. But I got to Sidonia and slept for 16 hours, so I figure I'm about even now. Phew! Wife has already been to the dentist, and it's a success so far. Cost to fix crown in America? $1100. Cost to fix it here? $75. And that's even with the dollar tanking so low it's about to come up in China somewhere. If I were doing these calculations using the exchange rate of even six years ago, that total would have been $30, not $75. Three years ago would have been $45 or so. Meine Gute! It was really depressing in Ireland, where a muffin at the airport was going to set me back five bucks. Awful.

Anyway. We're hoping that the savings at the dentist continue. Although from what I can tell, Slovaks are much more of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of dentistry, and it might take a little persuasion to get the dentist to fix wife's teeth the way they need it. Because I don't want to get back to the good ol' U S of A and have to shell out the money for more root canals. If we can do it here and now, let's get 'er done.

On a different note, guess who drove stick today for the first time in three years? And I only stalled it twice. Not bad, really. I'm rather proud of myself.

In any event, I'm about out of time for the evening--and out of things I feel like blogging about. I must say that now that I'm finally here, I'm glad to be here. I've already had some chocolate Mueller Milch, plus some great cake and dinners. Europe=good.

Farewells

First of all, please remember that today is my last workday in America for the next long while. I'll be in Slovakia for a month, and I'm not sure what sort of internet access I'll have while I'm over there. I'll try to drop in and post now and then, but I can't make any promises. So nobody burn the country down while I'm gone.

Second, today is also my last day working with my current supervisor. This stinks, and I'm not happy about it, although I suppose I can admit I'm happy for her, because she's going on to greener pastures. Of course, I guess I should be pleased that I got along well enough with her that I'll truly miss her now she's gone. I know I couldn't say that about a lot of my previous supervisors, so I should count my blessings where I can. Right. I'll come back to a workplace that's different--hopefully in an okay way. Sigh. This is depressing me, and I don't want to write about it anymore.

Sheesh. Talk about a downer of a blog post. There must be something kicking around the internet that I can post to lighten things up here. Hold on a sec.

Here we go. How to make a bubble blower that'll make three foot long bubbles. If that ain't light and cheery, I don't know what is. Just don't drink the bubble liquid.

Today's Thursday

That means that tomorrow's Friday. After that comes Saturday, and then I'll be living in agony for all of Father's Day. It's ridiculous that I let airplane rides take this much control of my life, but I have a hard time letting it all go. I tend to be a wound up person as it is--I worry about things I have no control over.

Plane rides epitomize that flaw in my character.

What if the bus is delayed? What if the plane is rerouted and I miss my connection? What if I go on the wrong day? What if my kids get really sick? What if I'm looking for a bathroom, I can't find it, and my bladder explodes? (Bonus points to you if you can name the movie that last quote is from.) I know this is all silly, and I usually only do it around travel time--and only with planes.

It's not like when I'm going for a ride in my car I'm always worrying about things. What if a moose attacks me? What if the gas tank explodes? There are plenty of silly, unlikely things I can worry about. But I don't--until it's time for the plane. I think the big problem is that there are so few options with plane travel. You miss a bus, you take the next one. Your car breaks down, you call a tow truck. You have some control over your destiny. Not so with planes. They can cancel your flight, delay you, reroute you, lose your baggage--make your life miserable. And there's not really anything you can do about it. Isn't that a comforting thought?

I think that's enough writing about my nerves for one day. Sigh.

College

Yesterday someone challenged her readers to blog about what major they'd pick if they could go back to college and do it all again. In other words, if by getting the schooling you'd automatically qualify for the job (natural skills being ignored in this best case scenario), what would you do? I didn't have time to answer yesterday, but I'd like to post a brief bit about it today.

I don't think I'd pick anything other than what I picked: English and then Library Science. The crazy thing is I like my job, and I like writing. The things I do, I really enjoy doing. Sure, there are times that I don't want to go to work. There are also times I don't want to write, times I don't feel like eating ice cream, times when snow gets kind of old--but none of that means I don't love those things. And so looking back on things, I feel really lucky to have ended up where I am right now. I get to play with computers, take them apart, put them back together, read books, develop DVD collections, make web pages--and I get paid for all of that? Awesome. Being able to have time to write on the side is just gravy. Now, if I could somehow finagle some money out of my writing, so much the better. Just like I'd also love to be a movie critic. (In fact, when time starts being more abundant one day (if ever), I'd love to go see movies on opening night and then review them here on my blog the next day. That would be tons of fun.)

Not that I'd rather be a movie critic. It's just something else I'd like to do. Obviously not very much, since my reviews on this blog have usually ended up being "liked it" or "loved it"--that sort of thing.

But I'm getting off track, and I'm out of time. Bottom line. English good. Library science good.

That's all for now.

Take a Tip from Me

Okay. Because I love all you faithful readers out there, I'm going to make your day and give you a valuable tip that will make your life sunnier and happier. Better. Birds will sing in the trees, and you'll be much more carefree than you were yesterday. It's all about toothpaste.

Now, for those of you that have been reading me religiously, you probably think I'm going to talk about dentists at this point. Well, you'd be wrong. I'm talking about CD and DVD scratches. Yup. Toothpaste will take those puppies right out and make your disc as new. At least that's what the word on the street is. Haven't tried it myself yet, because I treat my belongings with care. :-)

In other news, it's not as hot here now. And the company has gone off to my brother's. A fun time was had by all, even if I think my family is going to leave thinking the entire state of Maine is one big sauna. Gotta love the humidity.

Back to work!

Hot

And not in a good way. No air conditioning. Brain melting as we speak. But at least it's cooler than it was yesterday, when I took a chair down to my basement and sat there for an hour trying not to liquify myself.

I'd write more, but I don't operate well under extreme heat. I think there's some ice water calling my name.

Wii Fit

I have one now. Does that make mii fit? (Sorry--couldn't resist.) Time will tell. So far I really like it, and it's the first video game I've ever had that actually seems to serve a useful purpose beside developing hand eye coordination. Better yet, my wife really liked it, too--which is a huge plus. If she'll actually play it with me, and we use it consistently, I'm sure that I'll get in better shape than I am now. Because anytime running in place makes you tired, you know you're seriously out of shape. Which I am.

Still, the effects will take a while to be noticed, since I'm leaving for a month and am not taking the Wii with me. But it let me set a goal to be 22 pounds lighter in a year, and that seems to be something I could fix. If only to make my little animated avatar less portly. It's embarassing. Sigh.

Alarm Clocks

You know what I hate? (Besides airplanes) Alarm clocks. I'm very much a night person. I function better at night, and I have for years. Getting up in the morning and getting myself in gear is a difficult thing, and sometimes my alarm clock just isn't up to the task. Like this morning. It went off at 6:25 like I set it to. I know this, because I woke up at 6:34 when the snooze alarm went off. However, I have no recollection of hitting snooze. There can only be two conclusions:

1. I was abducted by aliens and they had to futz around with my alarm clock in order to cover their tracks. Because aliens are notorious for returning people to their beds late. Let's face it.
2. My alarm clock is a sentient being playing tricks with my mind and trying to make me think I'm going crazy.

Either way, I'm going to need some serious therapy at some later point in my life. Oh well. I'll deal with that when it comes. In the meantime, I had to rush through my writing to get it done. I finished, but I really would have loved to have finished the chapter. Such is life.

In other non-writing related news, my son last night got very upset. Why? Because he was stressed about building blocks. Lately he's on a kick where he goes to his room and builds things for literally hours at a time. Sometimes this leaves his room in quite a state--if he has deconstructed his building but has yet to erect a new one. So last night I told him he either had to build another something or clean up the blocks. Poor kid got in a big huff, worried he'd never be finished building. I'm still not entirely sure what he was so upset about, but I guess the idea of building things got to be too much for him for a little bit.

Or he just was trying to weasel out of cleaning up his blocks, and he thought some tears would do the trick.

They didn't, but that doesn't mean I didn't feel bad for him.

Rainy

I actually don't mind that it's been raining quite a bit here the last few days. It makes it easier to be inside working on things knowing that there's not some great weather you're missing. Writing's been going  very well of late. I'm beginning to hit my groove, consistently being able to get going instead of dawdling a while before I start. Of course, so much of writing is bi-polar for me. I either feel like I'm writing the best thing EVAR, or I feel like it's all tripe. Is it like that for any of you out there? I wonder how I can be so level-headed in my personal life (at least as far as I know), yet so up and down yo-yo in my writing. I don't let it stop me from writing--I write, whether I feel like what I'm writing is trash or not. And inevitably I come up with a way to fix what was frustrating me earlier, and then I feel good about it all a few days later.

Case in point.

A few days ago I was really frustrated with the chapter I was working on (Chapter Three, in case you wondered). It all felt really bland and too conversation-y. Lots of talking, little action. Then in the shower after writing (a lot of my best thinking comes in the shower), I thought of a way to add a little tension. I went back and tried it, and lo and behold, the chapter felt like it was going great. Just a small difference, but it made a huge difference in my perception of my work. Crazy.

My hope is that while I'm in Slovakia on vacation, I can get a whole lot of writing done. Let's see . . . I won't have internet for most of it, no television I can understand reliably, no movies, none of my board game collection, no PS2, computer games, Wii . . . As long as I don't go into serious tech-withdrawal, I should be quite productive. We'll see.

And in other news, I had a lovely refresher on book repair at my library today. It's got me thinking of a new magic system that could be pretty cool to write about . . . always a nice feeling to come up with good ideas.

I Hate Flying

How much do I hate flying? As much as BA Barracus from the A Team hated flying. That's a Mr. T. kind of hatred, for those of you who aren't in the know. I'm already dreading my upcoming trip to Slovakia, simply because of how much I can't stand to be in those lousy airplanes.

It's not that I don't like traveling and seeing new places. I love that. But with planes, you have all this extra crap you have to do. For the upcoming trip, I have the following to look forward to:

• 2 hour drive to the bus station
• 1/2 hour wait for the bus
• 2 hour bus ride
• 3 hour wait for the plane (so we can get a special "baby seat." Don't ask.)
• 6 hour plane ride
• 7 hour layover (during which time I get to collect my luggage and then go through customs and then check in for the next plane ride.)
• 2 hour plane ride
• 2 hour drive to our destination

So if we do the math, that means I have a 24 1/2 hour trip to get to where I'm going to. Add packing time in and you get a seriously displeased me. I was just thinking how nice it would be if I weren't going anywhere.

Sigh.

I know I'll have a good time once I get there, but that whole getting there thing . . . not fun.

My Weekend

My Monday blog posts sometimes feel more like "what I did on my summer vacation" reports. Except shorter. What did I do this weekend? I'll give you a quick rundown.

• Watched The Man Who Knew Too Much. I've seen The Man Who Knew Too Little, and I decided it was high time I watched the original. Both very well done, and both highly recommended. And now I know how Que Sera Sera goes, so I've been culturfied, too. It's from this movie, actually--Oscar winner in its year for best song. Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. Why did it take me this long to watch? No, it's not as flashy and whiz bangy as today's modern thrillers, but Hitchcock could sure turn on the suspense when he wanted to.
• Finished The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordan. I love this series. Great voice, lots of fun. Think American Harry Potter with Greek Gods instead of witchcraft. Good times.
  
• Took a couple of much needed naps. Feeling quite a bit better now, thankfully.
• Helped someone move out of their house.
• Watched the kids while my wife worked.
• Played games for the first time in months.

Anyway. Back to the grindstone for this week.