Bonjour a Paris

Happy New Year from Paris! Beth, Dan, Rene and I have all been having a good time. We spent the day today at the Musee d'Orsay looking at Renoir's, Monet's, Manet's and Van Gough's. We plan to head to Le Louvre on Sunday or Monday. I have my daVinci Code guide to help me out there. I can't wait to search through the halls in the footsteps of Robert Langdon. That will be fun. We've visited Notre Dam and walked the banks of le Seine. On our way back from the d'Orsay we passed by Le Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. We also plan to visit Champs Elysees, Tour Eiffel and Moulin Rouge.

There has been no shortage of fresh croissants, et le pain au cholocat francais. I also hope to get in a traditional meal of entrecote avec pomme frites (steak and fries). The weather has been cool, ranging from the 30s to low 50s and sporadic rain. All in all, the weather has cooperated, without much wind and just comfortable enough to walk around.

Tonight, in celebration of the New Year, we'll be cooking a half a chicken purchased at a local meat market where they also sold wild boar and horse. Gross. Half a chicken seemed the more tame option. After the meal, we will head outdoors to watch a fireworks display. Not sure where that is, but I would imagine somewhere near the Eiffel Tower. It looks like it's going to be a white New Year in Northern Nevada. I wish it snowed when Beth and I were there for Christmas. We'll be headed back to the states on January 4. Until then, I wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year. Dan wishes the same. Au voir!

A year in review

On my flight today a passenger handed me the "Best and Worst of 2004" Special Edition "People" magazine. This entire issue is dedicated to looking back at 2004, including everything from fashion to feuds, rumors to riches, drama to divas and war to Ws, George Ws that is. There were several items of particular interest to me, so I decided to create my own "Year in Review" including important and not important events that struck my fancy, and they're listed in no particular order. Except the first one.

While Iraqis continue to fight a democracy they don't want, Americans, scratch that, Democrats are fighting to keep the one they have. We all know November was the shittiest month of the year, well, in my mind anyway, and there's a simple four letter word to explain that one: Bush. Or five: Shrub. Either way, the results of the November election were downright disheartening and really made me lose some faith in the country I was born and raised. In this People issue, two staffers from People sat down and talked with George and Laura and asked them "year in review" type questions. These are some of the questions and answers supplied by the Mr. and Mrs.

1) PEOPLE: We've heard so much about red states and blue states. Do you believe that we are truly a nation divided? BUSH: Elections in America are close. But that doesn't mean the nation is divided. In my first term I was able to bring people together to reform education and the tax code, and I intend to bring people together to do big things for this country.

You've got to be kidding me. I don't believe this nation could be more divided, but yet, this must go with his, "I've been given a clear mandate by the people," crap. Barely winning the popular vote is hardly a clear mandate and definitely shows a divide among Americans. If that doesn't, I don't know what does.

Now, through all my Bush bashing, I must give him credit for one of his responses to a question asked:
2) PEOPLE: We've certainly seen an increase on TV of foul language and sexual titillation. Where do we draw the line? BUSH: They put the on/off button on TVs for a reason. We're in a free society and creative people come up with all kinds of ideas to try to lure listeners. The consumers of America can control the content by not paying attention to it.

Wow, and he's a staunch Republican. I was amazed at this answer. I still have no hope for him, but was glad to know he gets one thing right. At least I think he does.

And that leads me to this year's "Oops" category in the magazine. Listed as big "Oops!" for 2004 were:
1) Janet Jackson's errant boob
2) Tara Reid's errant boob
3) Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching snafu on SNL and
4) Anna Nicole Smith and her drunken appearance at the AMAs

Of course, the only real "Oops!" on that list that I really think is of any note is, well, none. It's weird Anna showed up drunk, but I didn't expect her to give an intelligent speech or anything. If she thought alcohol could get her through it, more power to her. Just not the whole bottle. So one of Janet's and Tara's boobs decided to go public. Hey, good for us, not so bad for them. And Ashlee, well, anyone who thinks music performers really sing while dancing their ass off are simply gullible.

And last, but not least, no more 1918 chants at Red Sox games. After 86 years of missing out on the title, Boston finally won the World Series. And none too soon. I was proud to watch them play Oakland and win a three game sweep in September that paved the way to their victory in St. Louis.

Oh, and Scott's gonna die. Too bad.

Yes, yes, there is much, much more that went on this year, but these are a few of the things I find of interest at this moment. I am sure others will strike me in the coming days, and I'll just have to save it for when I return stateside. In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderful New Year celebration, and I hope that New Year is everything you hope it be and more.

Paris bound

Beth and I had a wonderful Christmas and it was great to spend some time with my family. I had to head back to St. Louis on Sunday to work a trip today and another one tomorrow. Beth is still in Gardnerville. However, tomorrow I will be flying from St. Louis to Orlando and back, then to Dallas to meet up with Beth and it's off to Paris we go! We are both so excited we can hardly stand it. We originally had planned to fly out of O'Hare but the flight loads were looking better from DFW, so we decided to go that route instead.

We'll be arriving in Paris about 10am on Wednesday morning and will stay through the 3rd. That will give us plenty of time to enjoy the sites Paris has to offer. It will be such a blast! A full report, with pictures, apon our return. I promise!

On a sad note, tonight is my last night here at the crashpad in St. Louis. Tomorrow is my last St. Louis based trip. I will be flying out of Chicago effective January 6. I have met some great people here and am sad to leave, but am also looking forward to the challenges of something new. If I don't like it there, I can always come back to St. Louis. So, it's not such a gamble. But it's still sad to leave. ;-(

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas...

Well, not really. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a wonderful day!

Brutal

Beth and I just pulled an all nighter getting ready to leave for Gardnerville and eventually Paris. Our schedules these past few days have been packed, leaving very little time for us to clean up the house, do the laudry and get ourselves packed for the trip. We found ourselves with a full schedule today and, unfortunately, that schedule didn't include anything that needed to get done for the trip. So, we hunkered down and did it all. Here it is, 4:24am and my alarm is about to buzz. You see, I set it for 4:30 knowing that was the time we would've needed to get up in order to get ready and leave for the airport (we have a 7:35am flight). No sleep for the weary. Sadly, the flight to Reno is only 50 minutes. It's about now I could use that seven hours to Paris.

Speaking of Paris, we still aren't sure how our trip to Europe is going to work out. What is for sure is that I'll have to work on Monday and Tuesday, and depending on when I can get off Tuesday I'll have Beth meet me in Chicago. If that works out, we'll fly to London together that night, spend a day in London and take the train from London to Paris on the 30th. We are still planning on coming home the fourth, but will probably have to go through London and therefore leave Paris on the 3rd. It doesn't matter, as long as we get there and have a great time with the time we've got. I'm sure that won't be a problem -- we've just got to remain fluid and easy going and we'll be just fine. And it'll be one helluva trip! Oh, there's the alarm...

Bitten by the bug

Bethany was finally bitten by the blogging bug. I set her up with her own blog titled SpiCgirl. She has talked about wanting to have a blog the past few months and finally decided to give it a go. From the sounds of it, her blog will moslty be creative writing dealing with the world as she sees it. It should be pretty funny and I look forward to what she'll produce there.

There is a link to her page in my links column to the right, otherwise, you can access it by going to http://spicgirl.blogspot.com

Changes

I've been long talking about changing the look of my blog, and actually learning a WYSIWYG editor, like Front Page, but that has yet to happen. I've also wanted to simplify the site. So, I have taken a temporary copout and used one of the templates Blogger provides. It works, for now, and has at least accomplished both of my objectives.

There was a nice surprise, however, and that was my Archives reappeared when I switched to the new template. I was reading through some of those past entries and I laughed, and I cried. If you have time, read some of them. They just might make you laugh and cry, too. Enjoy.

In front of the gun...

My school semester ends Friday, and as usual, I've procrastinated to the very end to get a lot of things done. This week will be filled with, "I should have done this sooner," and other anxieties as I finish up the lose ends of my classes. In addition to being home all week working on these classes, I should be out plying the skies with American. I am hoping to complete my required number of hours prior to the 23rd. I have the 24th-26th off, but am "available" to the company from the 27th through the 31st.

Beth and I have grand plans of heading to Europe for a week, and unless I get those hours in before the 23rd, that won't happen. As it stands now, Beth and I are heading to Gardnerville on the 24th to spend Christmas with my mom, dad, Brian and Rene. On the morning of the 27th Beth and I will fly from Reno to Chicago and then on to London, arriving early on the morning of the 28th. We'll stay there until the 30th, where we'll catch a train from London to Paris where we're going to meet Dan and Rene. We'll spend New Year's there with them and head home on the 1st or 2nd. It'll be a fast trip but we're very much looking forward to it. Beth has never been to Europe, heck, she's hardly been out of the country having only been to Mexico, so she especially is looking forward to it. I hope it all works out, but I am working on modified versions of the trip should something with my work schedule cause a problem.