Rome wrapup

First of all, please take a close look at the picture to the right. In the center of this guy's chest is a yellow area -- with a smiley face. Seriously. Click on it to see it larger... that amuses me so.

Anyway, today was my last full day in Rome. I went to an area called Travastere, which was described in my tour book as "bohemian". Apparently, in tour book speak, bohemian means "gay". Actually, it wasn't that gay an area - I saw a lot of families, but it was the only place in Rome I saw gay flags (and lots of them). There were lots of galleries, interesting little streets to wander, great people watching. All in all, a perfect Amy area.

I went to have lunch at a place that was packed with locals & families. I had to wait to get in, but I figured that I'd get real Italian (not tourist style) food. I finally was seated, got my menu and was surprised to see that the pasta that I was going to order was only available on Mondays and Wednesdays (today is not one of those days). So, I thought I'd try chicken cause there wasn't anything else veggie on the menu and I'd waited so long and I thought I'd start trying to eat chicken someday soon anyways...I'm still not a fan. I don't hate it, but I didn't really see anything appealing about it although my body did seem happy afterwards for giving it all that protein (sigh). But...they had the greatest roasted potatoes ever! These things must have been soaking in olive oil for days. They also had a little Rosemary. Truly awe-inspiring (potatoes). Heh.

Ended up wandering around another part of Rome and accidentally ended up at the Trevi Fountain. I prefer walking and taking picture of the city to these tourist spots filled with people. I did take some pix but I'm pretty sure one of the statues in the Trevi Fountain is gay. Just by his stance. I can tell.

Oh yeah, Rome pix are up. Tomorrow I head to Florence.

Pix from the Vatican are up

Wrapped up my work and went to the Vatican this morning. We signed up for a tour so that we wouldn't have to wait on line (apparently, if you don't take a tour, it's a minimum of 2 hours on line waiting to get in. I'm not nearly patient enough for that. And, it was raining on and off.)

So, we zipped through the tour line in a mere 20 minutes, which was pretty snazzy. I was having a good time taking pictures with my new equipment (new camera, new lens I bought before my Asia trip). You were allowed to take pictures everywhere but the Sistine Chapel, where you're not even supposed to speak. So, here's my thing about the Sistine Chapel. #1 - I'm a dolt. I didn't remember that it's in the Vatican. #2 - As far as artwork goes, it's really busy - I mean, there's a lot going on there. You've got 9 panes on the ceiling that depict different scenes from Genesis. Michelangelo painted that - I remember reading about him lying on his back for months painting it. Around those 9 scenes are naked folks - he was very big on the nudity thing. Then there's angels 'n things and the walls have more scenes painted by other artists and one huge wall is more Michelangelo stuff - I mean, if one were to be under the influence of illegal substances, I'm pretty sure your brain would explode in there (in case you were considering it). My brain on the other hand, finally calmed down (because I avoid illegal - and most legal substances - except for Diet Coke) and I was able to appreciate the individual pieces of artwork.

All in all, the place is just overwhelming and we only spent about three hours in there. It's huge - we really didn't cover very much of it. The Pope was out, so no chance of a sighting or a quick picture with him...however you can see the pictures that I did take cause I stuck them here. The picture above was a little piece of a very large map in the cartography room. It made me happy.

Really great animation

This is very well done and a great way to be amused for a few minutes.

Rome day 3

The first night I was here, I went for a little walk to just feel the flavor of the city. I feel very comfortable here - Italians are my friends. Many people speak English and seem to be amused by my attempts at speaking Italian. My friend Rosie told me to just go into random churches in Rome - that they're all really beautiful, so I did that the first night. It was very impressive, especially when a guy started playing this HUGE organ. It was very churchy and a nice intro to Rome and Italy.

First dinner was penne arrabiata and it was pretty disappointing. Since I hadn't slept on the flight over, I crashed around 10 and woke up around 6:30am which was surprising. Got Pia up and we walked over to the Forum and the Colisseum. During the walk, I discovered that I had brought inappropriate socks and my feet were unhappy with me, so my first Italian purchase was new socks and I must say I am very happy with them.

Coliseum was interesting - we took a tour which provided context beyond what my tourbook included, so that worked out well. We went to a small pretty place for lunch and I had the yummiest pizza and decided that I could survive on pizza for the entire trip!

Actually, I'm behaving. I've been walking to and from the place where my conference is being held, which is about a mile each way (listening to "This American Life" on my iPod), and eating fish. My blood sugar is actually much better than it was at home, which is good. I haven't had any gelato yet, but I will cause they tell me it's super-yummy. Maybe I'll wait till the end of the trip so that I don't fall in love with it and want to eat it every day!

Conference ends tomorrow, so I can get back to sightseeing. I'm working through the end of the week, so I'm not actually on vacation until Saturday. The content for the conference is awfully dry...but I'm talking to folks and learning new things, so that's all good. Oh yeah, European men wear suits & ties - at least they do to this conference.

Cute #2

Cute alert

it's been a while since we had something cute on here. This is Mick the WHITE koala bear...

There's something wrong with me

There are a lot of very attractive priests wandering around Rome. I find this disturbing. (Hey, I could have said I was dressing up as a young boy...)

Marcel Marceau

Dead.

(shhhhhhhh......)

(thanks Richard)

I'm in Rome

Flights were uneventful - I have nothing bad to say about Air France, oddly enough... Of course, I couldn't sleep the entire time, but I got in some quality music listening time.

Arrived here around 3pm and met my friend Pia (from LA) at the airport. I went for a walk around the neighborhood near my hotel and found a church with this guy (look to the left) coming out of the door. I think it's awfully cool. Inside the church was a very old tomb (you could see the coffin) - I didn't remember what MCM meant - I could read the characters to the right of that, but I know it means "old". Everything here is old.

Had pasta last night. It was extremely al dente and kinda "eh". I'll try again today.

My conference doesn't start until tomorrow, so we're going to the Forum today. We're going to do what my guidebook calls "A Day in Ancient Rome"....

I'll let you know when I post more pictures.

Vacation?

Not so much shopping:

The dollar fell its lowest-ever level against the euro on Thursday as the european currency traded above $1.40 for the first time since it was introduced in 1999. The U.S. currency also moved closer to parity with the Canadian dollar.

Getting ready...

(Weather forcast for Rome next week. Yay.)

In case you're wondering

Orville Redenbacher popcorn (the air pop kind) really does pop up larger than the competition.

The power of the penis

Guys think that stuff like this impresses girls

In an attempt to impress his girlfriend, Matt Wilkinson of Portland grabbed a 20-inch rattler and stuck it in his mouth.

Oddly enough, the rattler bit his tongue, which swelled and almost killed him.

So here's the thing. Obviously, there's men out there that think that girls find this type of behavior hot. Am I crazy? Are there actually women who would think that's it's super-cool for their guy to put a rattlesnake in his mouth? Am I that disconnected? Or is this some sort of fetish that I'm not aware of? Should I be? (urgh)

Here's the whole story. Oh yeah, let's not forget "You can assume alcohol was involved," he said. Actually, not just beer. It was something he called a "mixture of stupid stuff."

Narcolepsy

You're dinner - you're my friend!?!

A photographer is taking some pictures of Huskies in the snow in northern Canada. The Huskies are chained to stakes in the ground (which, apparently is what they do with Huskies when they're not at work). A huge, wild, male polar bear appears and heads straight for one of the huskies. Watch this slide show to see how the wiley dog makes friends with the polar bear.

Taiwanese kids learn to speak English

a la MC Hammer. This is a class of 5 year olds. Stick with it through to the end.

If you're on Verizon mobile, call this number. Now.

Verizon Wireless customers who don't feel like having their personal information and account information sold to marketers can opt-out by calling 1-800-333-9956.

A notice tucked into our recent bill told us we had 30 days from receiving the notice to do it. Considering that Verizon just sold 1,000,000 old accounts to a debt-collecting agency who tried to bully people into pay debts that were already paid off or never incurred in the first place, calling this number might be a wise move.

Warning

If you start playing this game while at work, you may never get back to work.

Awwwwww.....

This monkey and dove are in love. Apparently, the baby monkey was abandoned near death by its' mother and brought to a rescue center. Somehow, it hooked up with the dove. It's doing well now and has a friend for life.

Thanks Daily Mail!

(hmmm....struggling with its' or its. I'm going with its')

Now this is a great ad

click on the monkey to go to the site...

Another good use for a blog

This guy is posting a new song he's written & recorded each week. You can purchase the mp3 for $.99 and it goes right to him (and not some nasty corporation that doesn't care about musicians). We all like that (even though I work for a corporation some may call nasty. Oh yeah, I used to before I drank the Kool Aid.) But I do like sticking it to the man. (heh. That's my hippie impression.)

Anyways, I really like this week's song, so here it is.

Get this widget Share Track details

Pictures

I went to the Seattle Art Museum's sculpture garden yesterday with my friend Jenna so that we could play with our cameras. It was a lot of fun and I'm very happy with some of the pictures I took. Click on the picture to the left to see more.

Stumbling on Happiness

Just finished reading this book last night. The author spoke at work last year and he was really interesting. It took me a little bit to get into this book, but I found it fascinating.

It spends a lot of time talking about our brains and how they fool us. For example, what we perceive will make us happy, doesn't usually make us happy. He quotes studies that show that folks who have enough money for their needs (food, home, etc.) do not experience any long term happiness when they get/make/come into a lot of money. The only folks whose happiness levels change when they come into money are people who don't have enough money for basic needs.

The books wraps up talking about how you can accurately predict what will make you happy, because just imagining/thinking about it doesn't work. You need to talk to someone who is currently experiencing the thing that you are considering. If you ask someone about their past experience, they won't be able to give you an accurate description, because your brain doesn't store all the information - it stores bits & pieces - it can't keep everything and the bits & pieces it remembers are the ones that make you either feel really good or really bad - and that is often based on the last thing that happened. (He talks about recalling that he hated Schindler's List & his wife said he loved it. They re-watched it and it turns out he loved all of the movie except for the last scene - his memory was that he hated it.)

The only time you can be objective about an experience is when you are actually experiencing it. Once it becomes a memory, it is no longer "accurate". So, if you want to know how you'll feel during childbirth, ask someone while they are in childbirth. If you ask them afterwards, you won't get the truth - not because they're trying to manipulate you - because their brain is manipulating them!

Fascinating stuff.

Selling digital SLR body

I recently purchased a Canon 40D, so I'm interested in selling my Canon 20D body. It's in excellent shape and comes with the original documentation, software, cables, battery and battery charger. I'm asking $500 plus shipping ($20 within the US) and am offering this to my blog readers first. If you're interested, please email me or comment with your email address enclosed. If I don't know you, then we'll use PayPal for payment.

Click here for a review of the 20D and more technical details.

More airline news

Don't fly Nepal Airlines anytime soon...

Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.

Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem.

The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said.

"The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights," said Raju K.C., a senior airline official, without explaining what the problem had been.

(ummm...was the "snag" fixed by the goats or by actual technicians? I think I'll avoid Nepal Air.)

Gus the dog

Because things are going so well

our Dear Leader says that we should be able to start bringing back some troops from Iraq.

Now that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what we call spin.

Clowns harass Klan

I hope this is true. According to this link, a bunch of clowns went to a KKK rally and responded to the Klan. For example, when the Klan yelled "White Power", the clowns responded with "White Flour!" and threw flour at them. They then responded with "White Flowers" and "Wife Power!" until the Klan lost their minds and were arrested.

Fun.