International travel is yucky

Please forgive the lowbrow title, but I am exhausted. I am in Geneva this week and after spending labor day on various planes getting here. Between all day overnight travel on Monday and working all day and part of the evening on Tuesday I am still not totally recovered. I slept well last night, but am still jet lagged to a significant degree. I will start to feel better tomorrow and Friday, right in time to waste my entire Saturday traveling home.

This place is so absolutely gorgeous it is almost worth the trip. It make me wish I could paint.

No 1 of Consequence

Civility

I just read this article by Joe Klein. It interestingly details how he was slightly misled by a politician only to be completely lambasted by left wing bloggers. The politician called to tell him the misleading statement was unintentional and apologized. He printed the apology and got crushed again by the writers carrying the banners of the left.

I am absolutely a left leaning guy. Some would say I lean so far left I am actually laying down. They might be right. :-) My point in this little foray back into the political is that the inability to argue points with civility is what prevents progress. If someone is hateful, spiteful and vindictive is drags down their entire cause.

I fall into it sometimes, as do most people. I freely admit that the mention of Ann Coulter causes me to lose all ability to reason. Overall though, I try and keep an open mind.

Raising the level of debate in this nation is important. We have to ask more of ourselves and our countrymen. We have to focus our eyes on what is important and definitely learn to separate the things that aren't from the national stage. Publicly eviscerating people for making minor errors doesn't help anything or anyone.

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Some notes from the UK

- TV here sucks. It just out and out blows. I was stuck watching reruns of Bones last night and felt like it was almost a good show because I was that bored.

- I don't sleep well here. It is hard to be super productive when I am dog tired a lot of the time.

- My brother calls my international cell phone to talk about fantasy baseball. I love that.

- I found out that significant time in Geneva is going to be in my future. I am note sure how I feel about this. Of course it means I will probably hit platinum medallion status on Delta.

- I really like the guys I am working with here. This consulting bunch is fantastic. They are a LOT of fun to work with and while I don't enjoy being away from my family that much, it could be a whole lot worse than it is.

- The UK is so damned expensive I can't even begin to tell you. The US needs to get the dollar back under control and they need to do it very badly.

- I found yesterday I have a new boss... sort of, maybe two new bosses, it still hasn't fleshed out and I am not really thrilled about it.

- There is a 99% chance that I am going to start doing podcasts. I just need to figure out if I can record using my Skype headset and Polycom Communicator.

No 1 of Consequence

Back in the saddle

You know, I haven't been very good to my faithful few for awhile. I love this blog, but I fall in to the age old chasm of lack of time. It is an excuse to be sure. One could say if I truly wanted to devote time to this blog, I would.

I have been traveling extensively internationally and that is going to continue through the end of June. Hopefully, come July, I will be able to devote some time to writing about some of the absolutely messed up stuff that has been going on in the world.

A guy with an almost incurable form of transmissible TB knowingly getting on an international flight. This hit very close to home, because I have been in Hartsfield Jackson airport in Atlanta more times than I care to count in the last couple of months and I have been on several trans-atlantic flights, with several more to come in the next few weeks.

The deomcratic party slowly but surely squandering its strategic advantage heading into the 2008 election.

The pathetic display of the New York Yankees on the field so far this year.

and much much more.

I have about a million things I want to write about. I hope to give you more to read soon. If not, please be patient, this blog lives.

No 1 of Consequence

Live, from Geneva, it's No1 a go go

Yes, it's me, your favorite blogger away from my beloved country in Geneva, Switzerland. This is my first trip to western Europe. I have travelled in eastern Europe and the Middle East, so I am not culturally deficient, but this has been an experience.

Some quick reasons Switzerland is cool. The people are super friendly. Even though I am right near France I am not feeling any of the French, "we hate America" attitude you hear a lot about.

Every light has a motion sensor attached to it. You walk into a hallway, a light comes on, you walk into another part of the hallway, the first light goes off and others go on. It saves a tremendous amount of electricity. Also, in your hotel room, your hotel key activates the electricity in the room. So when you leave and take your key, everything automatically turns off.

Everything is beautifully clean. The countryside in Switzerland is gorgeous and the alps... Wow. You can see Mont Blanc right from the office where I am working this week and it is truly magnificent. Unless you live in Colorado you can't imagine. Waking up to such beauty every morning is both humbling and empowering.

Pay one price salad buffets. In the US, if you go to a salad bar (Sweet Tomatoes notwithstanding) you pay by the pound. Here you pay by plate. So you can get a nice hearty salad for lunch and not pay through the nose for it. Of course it is the only thing you don't pay through the nose for.

However, not place is perfect and there are some major downsides for an extra large American like myself. Everything is tiny, from the cars to the chairs to the hotel rooms. My ass has been in pain for about 72 hours straight.

Hotel rooms are ridiculously expensive as are most meals. They wanted 50 Euro in the hotel for breakfast. I actually laughed out loud before I walked out of the hotel restaurant. My gracious host paid about 25 dollars for me to eat a small plate of dark meat chicken & mushrooms and a roll last night with a small bottle of sparkling water. A meal like that goes for about 12 bucks in the U.S.

Swiss/French TV sucks. I tried to watch How I Met Your Mother online last night and the CBS site said the programming was not available for viewing outside the US. Same for the NBC and ABC sites. Yuck.

Being out of touch sucks. I am a husband and a dad. Not coming home at the end of the day is something I can seriously do without. Not much as lonely as arriving back in a hotel room at the end of a super long day and not being able to talk to anyone or get pounced upon by the little ones. Double Yuck.

Overall the trip is going very well, but I am really looking forward to coming home.

No 1 of Consequence