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This last trip to Eindhoven left me with a little free time to wander around and explore the city. I’ve been there a few times now, but the trips are usually quick in and out stops for work. Flying in on a Sunday and leaving on the following Friday don’t leave a great deal of time for anything other than getting used to the new time zone and meetings.

But, with a longer trip there is time after the jetlag wears off to poke around.

And you know, I had a lot of fun visiting and exploring. I went for a really long walk about and got to see some really interesting little neighborhoods and parks. It’s not a very old town, mostly built since WWII, but the style of living is very different from what I’m used to.

The weather held out just long enough for me to pull the camera out for a little bit too. I think I got a couple cool shots along the way.

Oh man, not again.

I’ve gone through a couple computers for work now, and every time I change it’s a big hassle.  It doesn’t seem like I really do that much with them, but I have a fair bit of reference information that I need to use day to day and loosing all that hurts.

But even worse this time, it seems the adapters have been upgraded to a new technology.

I’m scheduled to survey a room tomorrow to see if it will be suitable for one of our most sensitive pieces of equipment and to make sure there aren’t going to be any surprises I am running through my equipment tonight.  But sure enough the one thing I didn’t count on has bit me in the ass.  I can’t even plug the equipment into my computer.

So here I go into a series of important meetings tomorrow and I can’t even do the main job I’ve driven 4 hours to come out here and do.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get an adapter mailed to me overnight, but I think this is going to turn into another long week.

The Olympics are off to a great start.  What fun! It’s been great getting to see my old home on the TV so much this week.  It makes me want to get back up to visit.  But, I’ll probably hold off on that till all the craziness is finished up there.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the road in the last three years. Between work and holidays, I’ve probably spent nearly as much time away from home as in it. It can be a nice life if you’re into that sort of thing, but you quickly develop habits to try to minimize the costs.

It seems like almost every time I go into a restaurant now I can spot the fellow road warrior.  For the most part they blend in.  But the next time you head into a restaurant, especially if it’s a big chain, have a look towards the bar.  What you may see is a single man, sitting near but slightly apart from the other guests.  He’ll probably be eating dinner as well with his drink.  If you get really lucky, you might even spot a closed paperback on the bar beside the plate.

If you want to meet someone new, this is the person to talk to in the bar.  For the most part we are pleasant and polite.  Since we make our living working with, and trying to please customers, we have a lot of practice chatting with new people.

A note to the bartenders out there: talk with your customers too!  We’re sitting at the bar because we want some social interaction to go with our dinner.  There’s more to being a great bartender than just pouring drinks.  The best bar staff will take a moment to talk with each guest and that really goes a long way to get the guests talking to each other as well.  Usually, what keeps me coming back to a restaurant isn’t the food or drinks, it’s the great time I had because of the staff and service.   There are more than a few places that I make a special trip to visit whenever I’m in town especially because of a great bartender.

I appreciate all of the passion and intensity that you brought to our relationship.  But it’s over now and it’s time for us to break up. I won’t say that we didn’t have our ups and downs along the way.  But you have to admit that our time together has run it’s course.

I’m sorry, it’s not you, it’s me.  Good bye.

Posted a bunch of new pics today.  Closed out a batch from 2009 and started 2010 off with a few more.

In other news, I’ve been building a few more tools for the site this week as well.  A new rss feed went live yesterday, you can find the link off of the front page here.  If you keep an eye on it you’ll get updates on any stories or photos that get posted on the front of the site.  The photo pages have been tuned up a little bit too.  All of the new galleries posted from now on should be easier to use and look better.

I met up with an old friend this weekend.  It was great to catch up after all these years.  But boy did it take me back real quick when he pulled out some old pictures. 

I can’t believe that’s actually me there between the girls.  Ten months in Thailand and not really doing much besides excersising sure doesn’t hurt eh? 

I sent this one over to Beth as a reminder of how I used to be hot before I met her.  She thought it would be just fine if I got back in shape again like that.

We’ll see… I kind of like being soft.  It keeps me warm.

Day 3 on a new time zone and I already seem to be on top of it.  This is a new record for me.  Time changes usually kick my ass.  But, so far, I’ve been sleeping just fine on the new schedule and staying awake in class.

This is always an uphill battle for me.  I usually end up knocking off for sleep as soon as I get back to the hotel from work.  But then I wake up sometime just after the restaurants close and get to spend a wonderful night awake and hungry.

Speaking of food though: I’m starving.  So, off I go.

The stack of wedding invitations is growing.  Beth and I spent last night addressing and stuffing envelopes and it looks like we’re about ready to put everything in the mail.

This is all pretty exciting stuff for us.  Our venue is going to be pretty small, so it’s been hard to choose who we won’t be able to invite.  But we’re definitely going to have our closest friends and family there.

With a date, a place, and invitations printed and addressed…  I guess we can’t procrastinate anymore.

It’s always nice to get messages out of the blue from old friends.

Every now and then I get a urge to reconnect with everyone.  It seems to happen more often when I’m traveling, but the feeling came on me a couple weeks ago while I was munching on some sausage and cheese in a pub in the Netherlands.  So, I pulled up a word processor and quickly had a note put together and ready to send.  So I opened up e-mail and just as I’m ready to press send…

I don’t have her e-mail address.

I checked facebook: her account lapsed. I searched the internet: only old contact info.  Even worse, none of my other friends could help it seemed.

So I just pressed save and ordered another beer.

But wait long enough and apparently the world will come to you.  Either that or she saw my name on someone else’s blog.

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It’s shaping up to be a busy year.  Beth and I are finally getting married, more details to come once the invitations go out. So there’s a wedding and a honeymoon to go on, which will probably be two separate events for our own sanity.  Work is looking like it’s going to be a lot of fun too.  I’ve got a new system coming this fall that is going to be some of our newest and greatest technology.  I’ve been wanting to work on these for a while, and I’ll finally get the factory training to go with it.

So the calendar is really starting to fill up and  I’m excited for all of it.