Christmas ended up being much busier than Christmas Eve this year. Dad and I went to my Grandma's this year and had lunch with her and my Aunt Elaine and Uncle Bob. Anyways, lunch was not bad for $3.00: chicken kiev, wild rice, and some mint cheesecake for dessert. As usual when my Dad, Grandma and aunt get together, I get to learn about some "ancient" Stearns county history; however, it is pretty interesting .

When we got home, we began preparing dinner for the Kollmann family's 1st Annual Authentic German Christmas Dinner. I originally came up with the idea after thinking about my unfortunate birthday experience from last year. After going through some websites and cookbooks, I decided that it would awesome to make up some rouladen, sp?tzle, and pfeffern?sse for dessert. If you think we are good "Germans", you'd be wrong since no one in my immediate family (myself included) ever had prepared any of this before. Basically, rouladen is a sliced roast that we wrap up around some bacon (we used turkey bacon), pickles, and some onion. Sp?tzle is an egg noodle, and pfeffern?sse is a christmas cookie.

The dinner definitely required more work than I originally thought and got some great help from the whole family which really added to the whole "togetherness" feel which I hoped. BTW, the picture is of the rouladen cooking. The sp?tzle definitely required some work as well. I had grabbed a recipe online for it and the directions were sort of vague, like a particular direction telling us to add "some" lukewarm water to the dough. We used a potato ricer to make the noodles which only take about 30 seconds to cook in boiling water.

Overall, the dinner turned out awesome, but mostly thanks to my family. We were all pretty surprised and definitely hope that it turns out this well every time we experiment on random food, though I suppose it doesn't make me feel more German . I think we've all agreed that this is a tradition we should keep going for a while.

-Trevor

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas / Holiday Season. My parents and I are having a low-key Christmas eve this year as my parents are recovering from a cold and don't want to spread the cold at my relatives since my grandpa just got back from the hospital . However, we are still planning on having an authentic German dinner tomorrow. We are making some Rouladen with some sp?tzle with pfeffern?sse (cookies) for dessert. However, we bought some Argentine wine, but it came highly recommended, so we were willing to make some sacrifices.

BTW, I was in the giving spirit today so I uploaded some photos from Sweden in my gallery. Check them out, they are chock full of useful information if you want to take your next trip in Sweden.

I'm also in the process of redesigning my website. What better way to spend my off hours on vacation than doing a little PHP programming. I picked up a couple of books to help me with a few things I've been working on. I even created a couple of b2evolution plugins, I was pretty excited about that. I don't know if you will see the redesign before the New Year, but you can see how the design is developing by checking out my Test Blog.

-Trevor

Sorry for the late post, I kept on putting off this post. I originally wrote it while waiting in New Jersey, so it was fresh in my memory.

How can I spend my last day in Europe? Well, it did not end quite as well as I would have liked. It was fairly cold today, being cloudy, cool, and breezy. So since I had planned this day as a walking tour of Copenhagen, I decided that dressing in layers was the only way to go. With two t-shirts underneath my sweater as well as two pairs of socks, I thought I would be well off. It helped. However, despite the cold weather, the walk ended up turning out pretty decent, I saw plenty of very interesting sites.

I started off checking out the royal palace at Christiansborg Slot. While it is no longer used as the royal palace, it is still used for important state functions. However, tours did not open until 1 pm, so I did not think I would make it back in time, so I thought pictures of fa?ade was sufficient. Actually, from the outside the building was fairly unremarkable, but the guards had nice bushy hats. Afterwards I checked out a couple of churches (Copenhagen seems to have plenty), one being the city?s cathedral, Vor Frue Kirke. To say that it was the brightest church is an understatement. The exterior is drab, but the interior practically radiates light. If I was a better Catholic, I think it would be easy to be moved spiritually.

Maybe I was just getting tired from traveling over time, but it seemed that after a while, many of the buildings sort of looked the same. Of course in central Copenhagen there is Nynhavn, which has a pretty rough past. It is next to a navigable canal and once was essentially the red light district for incoming sailors. Walking through, it seems to have cleaned up, and is now content to house plenty of trendy cafes.

In northern Copenhagen, I first walked to the Amalienborg Slot. Most of the palaces there appeared to be under renovation, but there was, yeah you guessed it, another church. However, Marmorkirken (aka. Frederikskirken) has a very unique dome and really dominated the buildings in the area while not clashing. Inside were some pretty nice postcards for 5 DKK each. Luckily for the church, I only wanted two and only had a 20 DKK coin on me, but I thought donating a little extra to the church probably won't come to any harm.

After this church, it was time to walk further north and find the famous statue, ?The Little Mermaid? cast by Edvard Eriksen who used his wife as the model. It was around this time that a group of Chinese tourists came out of a bus with their stereotypical SLRs strapped on their neck (Actually I think the stereotype is Japanese, but anyways, they fit a stereotype as perhaps I did as well). I was glad that I was no longer the only tourist who goes to Northern Europe in the winter. The mermaid statue is near Kastellet which was a fortress surrounded by a star-shaped moat. The fort evidently is used as an academy, so no luck on entering any buildings (I was able to walk around the hill that followed the moat).

By the time I made my journey around the moat, I was freezing. I had been walking around town for almost three hours and my mouth was getting a little numb. So I thought it was an excellent time to get some lunch. It seems that Europeans are really in no rush to eat lunch, so the whole process will always take a minimum of an hour. That was fine by me. I found a little basement caf? and had an open-faced sandwich with smoked salmon, cheese, and a sauce which I believed contained avocado. It turned out to be pretty decent and much improved over the wrap from the night before.

After lunch, I knew I was getting pretty tired, so I wanted to finish up the day on a good note, so I stopped at Rosenberg Slot. The castle/palace is set around a park that I imagine must be gorgeous during the summer months. I was able to get tickets for the treasury and a couple rooms of the castle. Inside they had some royal jewelry, including some crowns. The details on the crowns were amazing, it is so amazing that anyone was able to manipulate gold and precious stones as well as that. I finished up the day by checking out the botanical gardens. It seemed to be reminiscent of Munsinger Gardens in St. Cloud, but on a larger scale. They had some greenhouses featuring cacti (some of them were from Arizona!), as well as other exotic plants.

Maybe, I didn?t quite end the day on a good note. As I had mentioned, I wanted to check out McDonalds, and I had a huge hankering for a good American burger. I got there, and the atmosphere is much different. Being Denmark, the McDonalds has a lego themed playroom, while Euro-techno music is playing through the speakers. It seems to be a fairly trendy area. I ordered a cheeseburger from the centomenu which most items being about 10 Danish crowns (about $2). I also ordered my usual strawberry shake, but I found the food to be disappointing. While McDonalds is not great, I expect a certain level of quality that just was not present. I think it still must be good enough for most Europeans, but the shake tasted just too much like cardboard to be able to finish it. However, one bad meal does not a ruined journey make.

While I won?t bore you with the details of flying home, overall this was a great trip. I was amazed about the level and range of emotions I felt on this journey. I learned a bit about myself as well as other parts of the world. I also learned how to swallow a lot of pride and ask people directions; Arnab has some firsthand experience on how difficult it was for me to ask for directions when lost in San Francisco (maybe not lost, we were just getting our bearings.) Overall, while I am going to be a bit financially constrained for a while, I think I would go on this trip again if I had to do it over again. I would like to say thanks to everybody for being very supportive. It made the trip much more bearable when I know that there were people in the U.S. wishing me well. I really appreciated seeing e-mails and comments about my trip. BTW, I have postcards from the trip, some with stamps on them, but unfortunately, I wasn?t able to find a mailbox in Sweden to send them off in and the worker in the hostel in Stockholm would not mail them off for me. For those who requested postcards, you will be seeing yours shipped via first class U.S. mail.

-Trevor

P.S. The flight from New Jersey was delayed, but I was lucky enough to get an in-flight meal as a way of saying sorry. This was good considering that I had no food at home and all the grocery stores near my place was closed by the time I got home after 1 am.

So my day in Copenhagen started later than I originally planned. Our train was having "technical difficulties" and we ended up having to transfer in Malm? and take another train into Copenhagen, a process that caused me to arrive about 90 minutes late (the train from Stockholm that left an hour after us passed us in Lund). Anyways, the weather was still a bit colder than what I had expected, but it was sunny which was a positive. I found the hotel pretty easily, though the lights almost make it suggest that it is a little bit seedy, but it is alright, albeit very small.

Afterwards I walked around a bit to the R?dhuspladsen which is a plaza next to the City Hall (R?dhus). It appears that the city is getting ready for Christmas and put up a tree. Inside the city hall was interesting, but I guess not spectacular. They have a tower that one can get a good view of the city from, but is only open once a day at noon, and I don't know if I will be in the area when I go traveling later today.

One of the things I noticed at least around the train station (which is near the city hall) is the city is dirtier than Stockholm, which puts it on par for most American cities. Also the advertising is more blatant. On many of the buildings, there are plenty of electronic billboards spouting various products, many of them American. One of things that I noticed is that McDonalds and Burger King love to advertise in both Sweden and Denmark, there are advertisements everywhere. I think I may stop at one just to see if the food quality is any different than in the States.

On a whim, I decided that I was going to go check out the NY Carlsbe Glyptotek. Actually, it was not a whim, it got some pretty high marks from my travel guide... Anyways, I went in and was amazed about the sculptures in the museum. If my readers have not noticed by now, I am a museum junkie and this was fantastic, having some great marble sculptures and some paintings by Picasso, Manet, and Monet. Oh and it had some Egyptian mummies. And, I got to take pictures! My camera sure got a lot of use today, but you will have to wait till I get back to see more in the gallery.

After the museum, it was starting to get dark so I walked around the shopping district. After a while, the stores started looking all the same, though I noticed that there were a couple of Native Americans dancing and playing music (though not definitely not traditional). This is something that I suppose can only happen in Europe. I ended up going to a rather bland cafe with mediocre service. I tried a local beer that had a Christmas beer which was much better than the Cajun chicken wrap that had no flavor. Dinner in Copenhagen is expensive and I perused plenty of menus around the central area only to find that it mostly burgers, pizza, and wraps, no authentic cuisine is to be found, or at least at my price range. I suppose I would have to travel outside of the central trendy area, but I can't go out to one of the "suburbs" on a chance to find good food.

Well, after the cafe I was feeling more than a bit buzzed and decided to call it a night, which was still particularly early. I fell asleep to watching episodes of the The Simpsons. Below are a couple more pictures from the museum.

-Trevor

I arrived in Stockholm around 11:40 am on Sunday. Luckily I found the local convenience store in the train station and picked up a 72 hour travel pass. It allows unlimited travel by train, subway, bus, or ferry within Stockholm which for me is a blessing for a tourist who is not completely familiar with the layout of Stockholm. I had my first subway experience out to Kungsholmen where my youth hostel was; it is an island to the west of the main part of Stockholm (Norrmalm). I ended up walking around for a half hour, at one point even walking past the hostel without noticing it. I guess I missed the glaring red sign saying HOSTEL right above me.

The hostel certainly was new, but the hospitality was certainly lacking. They charged 20 SEK just for storing my luggage and breakfast was 60 SEK. Then there was of course the community kitchen, to use a fridge cost 20 SEK, so that made buying my own breakfast prohibitively expensive. However, in the end it really did not make a whole lot of difference because the rest of Stockholm was a lot of fun. For lunch, I stopped at Lind?s Caf? and had a pretty good lunch. For a starter I had some toast with a spread that consisted of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, as well as some onions and horseradish and mayo. It was surprisingly good. For the main course I had a steak with pretty good mushroom sauce. Since it was my waitress who initially helped me find my hostel, I left a nice tip.

After lunch, I took the metro (subway, but in Stockholm it is the T-bana) to Gamla Stan. It is part of the ?Old Town? and so there were some very tight winding cobblestone roads to walk through with plenty of shops. The shops are all pretty small and so window shopping is a lot of fun. The amount of people walking down the streets was amazing; it really made the city feel so vibrant. There was a square with a bunch of very touristy goods and was near the Nobel Museum. The museum was interesting, but way overpriced for the value. After the museum it was about 4:30 and was already very dark, so I decided to head back for the evening. When I took the subway back, I was still so amazed about the pace in Stockholm, everything is so fast, I think the pace of life at times is much faster than it is in Tucson, there are always people rushing from one subway track to the next.

The next morning I got up and finished preparing for the things I wanted to do when it got light. The breakfast was not all that spectacular. I seem to be adjusting to the Swedish breakfast of cereal and with some bread with meat and cheese on it. After breakfast, I picked up some band-aids for my blisters. My last band-aids required scissors to cut and with no scissor I was forced to do some butchering with a knife in the hostel kitchen (which did not really work). The grocery store did not have a knee brace and the pharmacy across the street from the grocery store did not open until 10 am. With the sun setting so early, I could not afford to wait, so I decided to just ?suck it up? for the day.

I stopped first at the train station to pick up my train ticket for Copenhagen. I found a pretty good deal for the 6:20 train which for me works great because that way I could get to the station and beat out rush hour. Afterwards, I went back to Gamla Stan to get some pictures that I was not able to get when it was dark out. There is very interesting church called Storkrykran near the royal palace with brick columns. Evidently people consider it Stockholm?s cathedral. The palace itself is closed on Mondays and it was not all that spectacular on the outside, but the size was certainly impressive.

I eventually found my way to Djurg?rden (pronounced Yoor-Gorden) which is pretty much an island forest. However it has some very cool museums. One of the museums, the Nordiska Mus?et, documented Swedish society throughout the 19th through 21st century (and some of it older). It had some interested things on the indigenous people (S?mi) of the Northern Scandinavian areas and it seems to me that the interaction between them and modern society has not always been perfect. After that, I stopped at the Vasamus?et. This is a museum that houses the warship Vasa that sunk in 1628 on its maiden voyage in Stockholm Harbor. Supposedly faulty engineering was to blame for it capsizing after a gust of wind. The brackish waters kept it very well preserved, and the carvings were amazing, though a bit hard to see in pictures due to the poor lighting.

After the museums, I walked around the park for a while. I originally wanted to see a museum that had some painting from Edvard Munch, but some poor directions from the information kiosk at the Vasamus?et and a change in bus routes due to construction left me to miss the museum. However the walk was great. The houses in the area were very nice, but I suppose one has to have a lot of money to have a lot of property in Stockholm. I walked around for a while until I found a bus stop that would lead me back to the central station. When I got there I decided to just walk down the shopping district for a bit. I found a couple of clothing stores with some very nice clothing, but if the dollar was stronger, I would definitely have picked some up. It actually seems that clothing in Stockholm, even trendy does not seem to be very expensive (at least for the natives ).
I found a Turkish restaurant for dinner that had a great special on lasagna. I picked some Falcon beer and a starter of dolmades. The reason that I tried the lasagna was that I was particularly interested on how a Turkish restaurant in Sweden would make a dinner that is Italian. Ultimately it was good, but nothing like lasagna in the United States, it was much more like a meat loaf. In the end, I think I am very happy that I went to Stockholm. While I really liked Lund, Stockholm by far made the entire trip worthwhile. It just would not have had the same charm had I stayed in the Sk?ne. I?m writing this as I am going down to Copenhagen, so it has a high bar to surpass at this point. However it will be about 15 degrees warmer and now I picked up a knee brace which should make walking a lot less painful. Of course I will go see the statue of the Little Mermaid, no trip to Copenhagen would be complete without it.

-Trevor

P.S. I saw a guy at the train station with the same North Face backpack as I have, but maybe I should not be surprised because it really is a great bag. So as a quick review, it is very comfortable to walk around town with it carrying around all of luggage (knee pain aside).

Sorry for not updating sooner, but the hostel I am staying at has a computer hooked up to a decent LCD televison, but does not have wireless so I can't add any photos, not to mention that I've been ?ber busy these last couple of days in Stockholm. I've been trying to find out what to do in Stockholm as well as prepare my trip back to Copenhagen, thus I do not have time for a full post. I'll try to get one in Copenhagen, but it has been a lot of fun. The subway (T-bana) system in Stockholm is amazing, and surprisingly fun (for at least me) to ride. I got to see a lot and took some good (hopefully) photos to share when I get back and will try to post some tomorrow evening. Anyways, I head out 6:20 local time tomorrow morning, that way I can do a little sightseeing when I get into town tomorrow.

-Trevor

I'm certain the answer to the title should be easy: Everyone who lives and is currently visiting in the country. Since I checked out of Hotel Ideon G?steri at around 9:30 am, I needed to find a new place to stay in Lund before my train ride to Stockholm tomorrow morning (7:30 local). Luckily, the host at the hotel allowed me to stash my bag while I went sightseeing, but at $190 a night, they had better damn well be accommodating. I was pretty sure I was going to stop at the youth hostel in order to try to do some cost minimizing, however, I couldn't check in until 5 pm which is a long time to be sight seeing in a town that's outside temperature is in the mid 40's. However the sun was out in the morning and I took a lot of photos of various buildings around the university. I really like the buildings in Lund more than I did in Malm?. Maybe it is also that Lund is much more of a college town and perhaps more laid back.

What was worrisome at first was my ticket to Stockholm. The manned ticket counter evidently is closed on Saturday, and when I was trying to use the automatic ticket machine, it requires a pin number for a credit card. Not so lucky for me, I don't have pin numbers on my credit cards (or I never set them to my knowledge), and so I had to rely on my debit card as the machine does not accept cash. I opted out of the internet access since it was another 100 SEK and am trying to maintain my budget.

One of the key stops for me so far on this trip was a visit to the Skissernas Museum (Museum of Sketch Art) which showcases a lot of preliminary sketches and models of artwork. Some of it was pretty amazing, though the museum does not allow any photography. Unfortunately, I think all of the walking during my trip has re-aggravated my old knee injury, so my right knee is really starting to lock up on me.

After my knee started killing me, I thought I would try to get into the youth hostel early. So I spent a half hour walking back feeling pretty blue (and probably looking blue as well) to Hotel Ideon and grabbed my duffel bag. At this point, I knew I needed to take a bus, otherwise I would probably be very sore for a while. While I couldn't get in the room, the host let me stay in the dining car, which while not warm was nice and quiet and got some reading done.

One of the highlights though was grocery shopping. I decided that I wanted to bring some food along with me on my trip to Stockholm, just in case as well as have some Pepsi (I haven't found Mountain Dew yet in Sweden). However for dinner I picked up some rye bread along with some jelly and r?kt skinka (smoked ham). To drink I tried a flavor of Fanta that I couldn't get in Arizona, Exotic Thrill, which I think is supposed to be like watermelon, and finished off with some Yoplait yogurt. Adding in some band-aids for my blisters and some apples for the road, I was very happy with my grocery shopping experience. One thing that amazed me was the pace of the grocery shoppers. I always thought Europeans complained about the American pace of life being so fast, but the Swedes are downright crazy when it comes to Power-grocery-shopping. I was "ahemmed" often for being in the way while perusing the Swedish foodstuffs.

Well that gets you guys up to date as of right now. Considering it is 11 AM in Tucson, you will have some good afternoon reading. I will add the pictures of my bedroom tomorrow when I get into Stockholm. Have a good Friday.

-Trevor

P.S. If anyone got any great Black Friday sales let me know.

Posting online so far has not been quite as easy as I would like, there is always so many things to do. So I originally woke up on Thursday at about 3 am. The flight coupled with the time zone changes have left with pretty weird hours. After finishing my presentation, I was working on various things to do in Malm?. The breakfast at the hostel was pretty decent, they had a variety of cereals, fruit, and eggs. However at 50 SEK, or about $8.20, the breakfast should be pretty good. I think if I had access to a fridge I would be able to get a cheaper breakfast, but that's life. The hotels here really like their meats and cheeses though for breakfast. By the time it was light enough to go walking, I stored my luggage in the hostel (I brought my backpack with me) and walked around town.

The receptionist in the hostel recommended that I go see the Twisting Torso. Evidently there are not too many tall buildings around the area due to various building restrictions so Swedes down here seem to take pride in the tower. I heard that the tower was started shortly after 9/11 and they had condos for sale that pretty much tanked, leaving the owners renting out the units. However, it is amazing the amount of construction in the area. It is perhaps due to the Oresund Bridge connecting the area to Copenhagen. Many of the housing units, appears to be mostly condos, while fairly generic, have more variety than their recent American counterparts.

I also stopped at Malm?hus, the castle which is just south of the tower. This castle doesn't seem to be anything spectacular, but maybe I was expecting something straight out of television. Some of the rooms were pretty interesting though, there were fairly preserved King and Queen chambers that I could walk through. The red side building was a cannon tower. The layout of the castle utilized a double moat system, though I was surprised that the king's chamber was facing the direction of the bridge.

I also walked around the shopping districts in town. I quickly noticed that shopping in Europe is out of my budget while in grad school and with the current exchange rate. I definitely see the Swedish influence in IKEA now.

After touring town, I needed to catch the train in Lund. A worker at the ticket counter misinformed me of which train I needed to take to Lund, but I wasn't the only misinformed, so I eventually found out where I needed to go. By the time I got to my hotel, I was so tired. I had (and have) some serious blisters on my foot and had blood on both of my socks. My shoes definitely are not made for walking as much as I did, so I'll have to be more careful.

I got an e-mail from the coordinator of the conference about meeting up for dinner, I thought that would be a pretty good idea. This leads me up to Day 4 (Friday). The conference was pretty good, I got some great feedback on my paper, which it was definitely in need of. Unfortuantely, I was exhausted and had to skip out on dinner, I ended up falling asleep for a few hours before I got up to write this. Which I think I'm getting sleepy, so I should get to bed so I can get up and tour Lund and find a place to stay tomorrow night. I may check out the hostel in town, a sleeper train.

-Trevor

I didn?t really sleep well on the flight to France. I was sort of tired, but it was hard to sleep, once I finally got to sleep, they started to turn on the lights for breakfast, a croissant and fruit. Not surprising, I got lost in the Paris airport. There was not any nearby displays for which gate I needed to go to catch my flight to Copenhagen. I finally realized I had to go through customs and then through another security checkpoint. The gate itself had no indication that there was going to be a flight. Overall, it was a very stressful experience. The flight to Copenhagen also had a meal, I don?t know exactly what it was, but it was an egg with peppers and onions and a lot of oil. It was pretty bad. When I finally got to Copenhagen, the airport was full of stores selling clothing and jewelry, much I probably could not afford even if the dollar was stronger. It was pretty foggy in Copenhagen and I could not really see anything out of the train on the way to Malm?. I also learned that I need to hit the ?stop? button at a station if I want the bus driver to stop. I had to walk only a couple more blocks luckily.

By the time I got to the youth hostel, STF Vandrarhem, all of my adrenaline was gone. I got up to my bed and I crashed. I went to bed at 6 pm local time. Which leads to the time I actually wrote this entry on my laptop: 3 am. I don?t think this bodes well, but at least I will have open access to the shower rooms. My initial impressions is that walking around is a foreign country where I don?t speak the language is very intimidating.

-Trevor

P.S. I'll try to get my accounts from my Thanksgiving in tomorrow morning, but I need to get some work done before I completely crash. Hope everyone is having/had a Great Thanksgiving.

-Trevor

I woke up at 9:30 this morning surprisingly rested. I was surprised about how well I slept. Usually when I am going on a trip, I temporarily contract restless leg syndrome. However, I lost my appetite and had only yogurt for breakfast. I finished my preflight preparation by loading up five audio books and 20 podcasts. This will supplement my music and the second season of Heroes very well. BTW, I came across a podcast, ?Next Big Hit New Music Mix.? It is about an hour and a half podcast that has a variety of new music from a variety of indie artists. Some of it was pretty good and worth a listen.
My ride to the airport was uneventful. I think I?ve discovered that most of my anxiety from flying is due to an undefined fear of the security. I have never had a bad experience, but the potential for it seems to be enough. Luckily for me, TSA officials did not notice that I forgot to take out my toothpaste out of my bag. After making through security I found a couple of very interesting characters. The first character was an old woman who sat next to me along with her nurse. The women bought cupcakes from one a bakery in the airport and ate them while waiting for our flight. The old woman evidently got crumbs on her shirt and seemed to be very concerned about this. She told her nurse that this has never happened to her before. After 15 minutes of this, I then discovered that she was also surprised about how her pants? color looked in the light of the airport. Evidently outside of airports, her olive green pants actually are gray.

The second character was a middle-aged hippie who sat next to me on the plane to Houston. He was wearing a tie-dyed shirt, torn jeans, and a long beard only a mother could love. After stroking his beard for a while, he decided to chug two cans of Fosters beer on a two hour flight. Other than frequent trips to the bathroom, he seemed pretty mellow.

My plane to France was a Boeing 777 (the interior was not taken by me). It was pretty comfortable. I had the window seat and there was no one in the middle seat (a very lucky choice for me). The man in the same row as me did not speak a lot of English. I noticed on international flights (or at least this one), people really liked to chat in the aisles; it was much more social than my usual flights in the United States, though all the chatter was all in French. When I originally wrote this, we were just south of Montreal with an outside temperature of -61 degrees Fahrenheit at an altitude of 37,000 feet. Oh, I also wanted to mention my first in-flight meal: Chicken and rice with a dinner salad. Not bad, but definitely reminds me of a frozen meal. For dessert we got some Brussels Distinctive cookies; the wrapper tells me that I need to set some time aside to properly enjoy these cookies. Maybe I?ll use them as a bedtime snack.

-Trevor

P.S. I didn't take any pictures in the airports.

I think I am just about ready to set off on Tuesday. I have maps, tickets, money, travel insurance, but still have to finish up reading through the papers of my fellow Ph.D. "workshoppers" (I think they will make exciting plane reading material). I noticed that Danish and Swedish currency is more colorful than U.S. Dollars. However, I don't know if this extends to smaller denominations. The exchange rate I got from Wells Fargo was 1 SEK for $0.169. This is not a particularly good exchange rate, but is largely due to the weak U.S. dollar and I do not think I can get a better exchange rate across the pond.

I was surprised about the difficulty I had in understanding the public transportation. There seems to be a million cards available or programs that seem to have various functions. While I am certain that it will be much easier when I get there, each town seems to have their own specialty card. For instance, Malm?, Sweden has the Malm?kortet for 160 SEK gives "free" access to the city buses as well as some museums. The bus system seems crazy. There seem to be a few stops that have names that do not seem to correspond to a road or landmark which I'm certain will give me huge headaches. I drew some bus routes on printed maps from Google Maps to help me get around towns. Luckily the rates are pretty reasonable and they probably beat walking around in 35 to 40 degree (Fahrenheit) weather.

I finished with all of my major packing. I wanted to avoid checking in luggage as I am changing flights in Houston, Paris, and landing in Copenhagen and then of course take a train to Malm?. This gives me a lot of chances to lose my luggage, not to mention that I will actually have to lug it around the towns, thus the need to pack efficiently. I'm pretty happy with the results (not so much the photo, but this is the best I can do with a photo on a timer). I may still try to cram in some sheets so I can save a few bucks when I go to the youth hostels (I've made room for my towel).

As a side note, iTunes free song of the week sucks. In the last couple of weeks, I thought I would pick up the songs for some fun. This weeks song is "Nike Boots" by Wale. He sings about how excited he is to still have his Nike Boots while complaining about how shitty his life is.

-Trevor

I'm trying to gather all of the important information that I'll need for my trip today. Of course, during my off times, what better way to have fun than to check out all of the airports that I'll be using. On my way to Sweden, I'll be using Tucson International, Houston Bush, Paris de Gaulle, and then Copenhagen. On my way back Copenhagen to Newark and then back to Tucson. I'm not really sure about which airport I will like the best, so far I am thinking Copenhagen's airport should prove superior, or maybe it's the excitement of going over the ?resund bridge and through the tunnel.

-Trevor

I've had my iPod for a few weeks now, enough to understand some things that I like as well as a few things I don't like so much, as you will see some features I both like and dislike. I really don't want to do a full review, there are plenty of them out in the world. By the way, I have not really attempted to "jailbreak" my iPod. One attempt bricked my iPod which required some finessing to recover from, I'm not ready to experience that level of stress again until after Christmas.

Things I like...

(1) - Size - As you can see in this comparison to my Creative Zen Touch, the iPod Touch is considerably smaller and much lighter. I don't look nearly so happy to see everybody I pass alongside the street.

(2) - User Interface - When I have to interact with my iPod, it is a lot of fun. When I used to fly with my Creative, I used to hide it from passengers because it was a bit clunky, however, with the interface on my Apple so sleek I want to show it off. I love flicking my cover art from side to side.

(3) - Features - With the ability to listen to music, watch movies, browse the web, and use various clock and calendar functions effortlessly, it brings me closer to the day in which I can leave my laptop at home and use my iPod for daily tasks at school.

(4) - Podcasts & Audiobooks - I avoided podcasts like the plague before my iPod, but thought, why not. Now I found some I can't live without, like NPR's Fresh Air and Movies, the 10th Wonder Podcast, and a friend recently told me about Gamespot's HotSpot. I'm still not completely hooked on Audiobooks. It isn't easy enough for me to go back one page and re-listen, which is a problem for my wandering mind. My first audiobook was Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead which was strange. The narrator's "woman" voice was hardly feminine and really left me feeling that the female characters in the book were pretty flatter than the usual Rand novel.

Things I didn't like

(1) - Fingerprints and Scratches - One of the appeals of the iPod is the finish. However the metallic finish in the back looks good for about five seconds, until that first fingerprint. And then there are the scratches. While I understand there are sleeves for iPods, I fail to understand why I should want a sleeve. Apple should really make a case that is less scratch resistant.

(2) - User Interface - While I love using the interface, it is something that really requires a lot of attention to manage. While on my long road trips from Arizona and Minnesota, I often would skip a particular song that I was not in a mood for. It is not so easy to accomplish using a touch screen interface. I believe there are adapters available, but I really don't like getting "nickeled and dimed".

(3) - Features - The lack of flash on my player will frustrate me to no end. If I can get flash and Microsoft Silverlight on my Touch, I will be a happy man.

-Trevor

With less than one week to go, there is not a lot of time until I make the plunge to Sweden. I think I have everything I need at this point (or is in transit to my door) except for a couple of toiletry items. I'll try to keep a pretty detailed account of my trip via photos and blog posts. I'm just hoping that I can keep that promise.

-Trevor

This weekend is flying by, but I am starting to finalize my plans to Sweden by picking up a few miscellaneous items. The first was a new laptop battery and AC adapter. About a couple months ago, I noticed my power cord began to show signs of some serious wear and with some of the rubber coating chipping off and almost exposing the wiring. Since electrical tape did not seem to properly adhere to it, I thought it was a good time to pick up a new one. Unfortunately, they are $60 on Dell's website ($30 on Ebay). To make matters worse, my battery in my laptop is no longer holding a charge and I never did qualify for the battery recall. I found a reputable seller on Ebay who only sells batteries. I got a larger capacity battery for half the price than what I could get from Dell's website, I'm just hoping it doesn't explode.

The hardest purchase was definitely my new backpack. I had my old Greatland backpack since my sophomore year in highschool and served me very well through plenty of trips, school, and hikes. It survived multiple liquid spills (water, gatorade, and orange juice) as well as someone puking on it once. Tragedy struck earlier this year when one of the zippers failed and can no longer stay zipped when the backpack is loaded. Thus it was necessary to search out a backpack, though it can never replace my old one. After going to two different malls in Tucson, Gabe and I decided to check out the Summit Hut and perused their collection. After about 45 minutes of comparison shopping, I decided on the North Face Big Shot. Sporting over 2000 cubic inches as well as a secure laptop sleeve, it has plenty of carrying capacity. It is also pretty comfortable when fully loaded. I have a feeling though that when carrying it around Europe, I will definitely be screaming tourist.

-Trevor

With less than two weeks until my trip to Northern Europe, it is starting to really hit home that I'm going to be traveling pretty far, and quite outside of my comfort zone. A couple of days ago I was not feeling excited at all, but now I seem to be turned around and am itching to go, but I do have some things I need to get done first, such as find places to stay. This is definitely difficult. Finding reasonable places to stay when the dollar is so weak is going to be difficult considering I will be staying there for eight evenings. However, there is a youth hostel in the form of a sleeper train which seems to be pretty reasonable and close to the university. However it appears to be a bit cramped and may stay at the Hotel Ideon for at least the night before my trip, that way I have an entire room to unwind in.

Another thing is plenty of warm clothes. Warm clothes in Tucson are sort of hard to come by and hard to think about when the highs are still in the high 80's. However, I picked up a Peruvian sweater on Ebay made out of Alpaca wool, hopefully it will arrive before I leave.

I think that's about it, but I did find an international student's blog about his current stay in Lund, Sweden. He stayed his first night in the train. Also, with all the pictures he took, I think I may load them onto my iPod for a frame of reference when I arrive since he flew into Copenhagen.

-Trevor

I went on a hike with a couple of friends on Saturday. We went along the butterfly trail, which is just shy of 11 miles long. One of the featured sights along the trail is some wreckage from a fighter jet. I don't have any details on the crash though. We got up pretty early for the hike and were making pretty good time along the trail until we came up to the crash site. We got directions from the Sierra Club, which unfortunately weren't really all that great quality, we ended up looking for the trail for about an hour until we gave up. It wasn't until we started walking back that we noticed where the trail branched off. The title links to a couple of the photos that I shot on Saturday.

-Trevor

I just got the iPod Touch in the mail today, and I thought I would test out the wi-fi features and what better way than to write a post. It's just too bad I can't add any photos, but it can work if I'm too bored.

-Trevor

I woke up this morning in a precarious situation, I didn't have enough milk for my bowl of Life cereal, a true tragedy. Luckily inspiration hit, I did have enough milk for scrambled eggs. The problem, I've never attempted scrambled eggs in the nearly seven years I've lived out of my parents' home. Luckily for me, people have posted instructions for just about everything on the internet, including scrambled eggs (My most memorable find was instructions on tying a tie). I was amazed about how fast the eggs "set" in the pan, as well as being amazed at how easily amazed I was. BTW, this is a photo of my breakfast. It almost brings tears to my eyes.

-Trevor

I'm pretty much decided on the mp3 player I'm going to pick up. I think while I had been an "ipod" hater for some time, I think the iPod touch finally has the sort of options that I'm looking for in an mp3 player. The intuitive design as well as it is a flash based player is really a bonus. But beyond the Nano, the Touch has various apps that will be a nice addition (as well as wi-fi access is a nice bonus). What is even better that sold me is that Apple is releasing a SDK for official 3rd party applications out in February (I can wait that long). While watching videos is low on my priority list, I think it is still a nice bonus. Now only if Apple would lower the price by $200...

-Trevor

I was just about to leave to pick up a friend from the airport last night when I thought I would load up a couple of songs on my mp3 player so I had some new music to listen to as I drove. As I was trying to turn it on, the light on the power switch would only blink three times and the lcd would turn on, not a very good sign. Creative seems to have taken off most of its tech support for the "Touch" since it is old (not to be confused with the iPod Touch). Anyways, trying to reset the player didn't do much, so I think my options are limited. It seems so weird knowing that it seemed to have no problems the last time I used it, but I guess things can change.

The problem now is that I am not sure that I was ready to pick up another mp3 player yet. The new Zune 80 isn't really what I want it to be (no Audible support) and the 16GB version of the iPod Touch is not exactly cheap and there are features that I would like on it that it doesn't have for that price such as Flash support in Safari as well as a camera. I was thinking that it would otherwise have been great for uploading quick shots while traveling onto this blog. What's worse is that I can't just transfer photos from my camera to the iPod, eliminating my other hope that I could possibly have left my laptop at home while traveling to Sweden, that doesn't seem quite as likely now, I want to be able to post things while on the trip.

The problem is that I really "need" some sort of mp3 player for a trip to Europe, a 16 hour flight across the Atlantic is not something that is overly enjoyable (at least I can't imagine it will be) and I can only take the drone of an airplane's engine for so long. I'll keep my blog updated on which mp3 players I'm looking at.

-Trevor

P.S. I thought I would insert a sneak peek about an upcoming post, I shaved my beard (it seems to be a large topic of discussion in Tucson, I don't know if anyone will care outside of it...)

As some of you may or may not know, I will be heading off to Lund, Sweden to an Economic History workshop on November 23rd (Black Friday). It is semi-official now that I finally purchased the tickets. With my newly received passport, I'm all set to go, I just need to find places to stay.

I'm a bit nervous as this is my first time out of the United States and will be flying by myself and disappointed that I will be out of the United States for Thanksgiving, the last couple of years Gabe and I threw a pretty good Thanksgiving party.

I will be spending some time in both Sweden and Denmark, so I will have to find a couple of things to do. I picked up the "Rough Guides" to both countries and will be scouring the books for things to do and places to stay. I'll be in Europe for a little over a week, that should give me time to see some sights without blowing my budget. It may not be the greatest time of the year to go, but I cannot imagine the weather being any worse than what I would find in Minnesota at that time of year.

If you have any recommendations on various places to check out, feel free to leave a comment.

-Trevor

As I was washing a load of clothes in our laundry room yesterday (it is in a building by the carport), I heard a cat meowing nearby. I went to look out and there was a feral cat clearly looking for something. He decided to rub up against my leg and still meowing. Clearly he was looking for food and possibly a place to stay. Since I am a bit allergic to cats, staying in my house is definitely out of the question, but I gave him a great dinner of turkey lunch meat and water. He seemed grateful, but still wanted to come inside. I had to go get groceries and he was gone when I got back, but I am still sort of hoping he sticks around.

-Trevor

As I was walking back from school last night, I was crossing at an intersection. There was a car traveling southbound, but I crossed the southbound section in plenty of time. However, the driver of the car apparently wanted to take a left turn, but for whatever reason slammed into the curb in the corner. I realized that he wasn't going to make the turn and ran back across the street, but he didn't miss me by more than a few feet, leaving me pretty shaken up. A woman in another car got out and asked me if I was ok, which I was. As we were talking, the other car drove away, but I was too shaken up to get a look at the driver or the license plate. The whole event seemed so unreal, I almost could have believed that I dreamed it up if it wasn't for the tread marks that I saw on the sidewalk when I walked past. Afterwards, I was reminded of this particular youtube clip I saw a while back.

-Trevor

Not much going on down in the Old Pueblo, though some interesting tidbits...

A couple months back I picked up some new shoes by Steve Madden. It was a bit of an impulse, but Becky said that they were good quality (a friend of hers is supposedly a shoe buff). Overall, I like the shoes, but I don't know if the quality is quite what I was looking for. Just today while lacing my shoes, I literally ripped off part of my lace! It seems to be a bit unreal that I possess the strength to rip off a lace, but I guess shit happens. Luckily for me, the lace was long enough that I don't have to find a new green lace.

Luckily for me, they weren't my shoes for squash. Unfortunately, my shoes don't make me a great player (maybe I should buy some Nikes?) While I am much better than I was a couple months ago when I started, I'm amazed what experience can do. After playing this afternoon, a couple of older guys (>50) started a game. I was amazed about their reaction time, if I had played, I would have gotten schooled. This is definitely a sport where experience makes a difference.

And my last comment, an airplane has been circling campus recently with a banner advertising GEICO insurance. Normally this wouldn't elicit any comments, but I've heard a few people commenting about the picture on the banner. Evidently people are not able to differentiate these two faces...

-Trevor

P.S. Picked up Halo 3, it's good, not great, but worth the money

Genre: Mystery, Alternate History
Author: Michael Chabon
Released: May 2007
Notable Works: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Wonderboys

Read more!

Robert Jordan has died at age 58 from a rare blood disorder. Author of the Wheel of Time series, he let many a fan down with his death, leading many to believe that the series would finally see a conclusion in book 12. While he was working on the book, it is unclear at this time (to me at least) of how far along he was (the book was supposed to be published in 2009), so I guess time will tell his the book will be published posthumously similar to J.R.R. Tolkien. As I told Jenny via e-mail after she let me about this story, I would like to say this to all current and budding authors: If you have a good series, please try to move the series along and have a conclusion without making your readers wait 17 years for you to die before finishing your series.

-Trevor

my recent electronic splurge in a couple days. I decided to pick up an Xbox 360, I guess the possibility of not being able to play Halo 3 or Mass Effect this holiday season was just a little bit more than I could take. Also, I think Fifa 2008 when it comes out next month should add some interesting excitement and yelling at my house during get-togethers; I think my friends down here are sick of playing Fifa 2007 in French...

On the chance that there are some sweetheart deals on HDTV's during Black Friday, I decided to pick up the new version with HDMI, that way I have the potential to play my xbox in all of its HD glory, but I think my "shitty" 480i television will suffice for now.

-Trevor

A few of you may remember an earlier study that showed that Sodium Benzoate, a common preservative was shown to kill the mitochondria of yeast cells. A new study now shows that consuming preservatives such as Sodium Benzoate as well as additives such as food coloring is now causing kids to become more hyperactive and unable to concentrate. While they are not claiming this is the cause of ADHD, they are suggesting that hyperactive kids lay off the preservatives.

Well at least now that most schools are taking out vending machines, kids will have no choice but to sit quietly throughout the day listening to their teachers. I was going to write something else, but my mind is wandering, so

-Trevor

As a fairly proud member of the Creative Zen Touch, after reading the announcement about the iPod Touch, I will say it is nice to see a lot of the best features of the iPhone into a standalone player. Watching a video of the iPod Touch definitely opened me to the reality that there are mp3 players that have much more intuitive interface than what I have to deal with. However, I just installed iTunes and faced a problem without it working correctly after installation, but it was easy enough to find the solution online. If I decide to pick one up, this will be a big turning point for me, considering that I have advocated picking up alternatives to the iPod for years now; the basic reason is that the design was not worth the markup compared to competitors, though I believe this may have changed.

I don't know if I will purchase it at the end of the month, I think I may wait to hear more details about the second generation Zune that I hear is supposed to come out around November. One of the features that I like about the current Zuneis the ability to link up with the Xbox 360. While iPods are able to connect to the 360, only audio is accepted, but I haven't decided if that is going to be a killer feature for me, so I guess time will tell.

-Trevor

Sometimes I am always amazed at how people come across my site. I was going through my logs and here a couple of my favorites...

BLOODY NOSE ALLERGIES
Can drinking Mountain Dew cause nose bleeds?
suicide chicken
"wet dog smell" in nose after pneumonia
marijuana swamp cooler

-Trevor

I'm just sort of curious how one gets a "wet dog smell" in their nose after pneumonia and why do people think they can nose bleeds from drinking mountain dew? Unfortunately, Google offered no solutions for me...

Some friends recently got me interested in playing squash. For those who don't know, the game is similar to racquetball, though the ball is considerably less bouncy. Check the Wikipedia link if you still have questions. It is definitely a demanding game for a beginner who hasn't played either racquetball or tennis previously, I am running around the court way too much. While I have yet to win a game against my friends, I think I am improving a little bit, though I still have to really work on my techniques and consistency, and ..., well you get the picture. I will certainly keep the world updated when I finally win a game.

As a side note, I went out with some of my econ colleagues and played ultimate frisbee today. It is surprisingly punishing to play outside in the heat. I am looking forward to playing when it gets a little bit cooler outside.

-Trevor

When I first heard about Senator Craig's alleged lewd behavior, I found it sort of humorous; though a man looking for sex in a men's bathroom seems to be sort of an act of desperation. However, I find myself sad that this issue led directly to his resignation on Saturday. While I am certain that I would not have voted for Senator Craig had I been an Idahoan citizen, I think if I was a good "values voter", I would have worked harder to make sure he did not resign.

Here is my take on the situation at hand. Senator Craig built his campaigns around the strong family values of all good value voters, values that only conservatives seem to possess, and those heathen liberals lack. The problem with running on this platform is that one small mistake can derail a career, there is no forgiveness. My problem with this is that one of the biggest value of Christianity (it seems that only Christianity holds the keys to values) is forgiveness. How can the people who voted him in so quickly throw him aside. While the Mark Foley case was worse than that of Craig, this is very reminiscent of the Ted Haggard case in which while serious, the church community essentially exiled him. How's that for forgiveness? Are the arguments of hypocrites false because they do not practice what they preach? Perhaps their actions indicate that while we all strive for perfection, we can all fall, but hopefully those who have supported them in the past will at least try to help them back up.

In the end this is just merely another example of a knee jerk reaction to something that while immoral, is nonetheless blown way out of proportion. I think that this issue could have instead waited until the next elections, at least letting the citizens of Idaho be able to objectively view his actions.

-Trevor

Genre: Crime / Drama
Rating: R
Director: David Fincher
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr.
Released: 2007

Read more!

During my random trawls through the net, I came across this interesting site, about a couple who are advertising their wedding date on the internet. It is advertising that the two will become "us" in about 11 months. What will people think of next?

-Trevor

Sometimes entertainment can come in the strangest of places. Anyways, I have been receiving a couple of text messages from a caller somewhere in Tucson, I don't know his/her name, but here's the conversation below. Luckily I had Dina around to help with the Arabic translations. Yes it is a small world.

2:19 AM Caller - Hey sexy you are the best sister ever
2:21 AM Caller - Hey
4:27 PM Caller - Mirna u got mail from the court about driving with out lights
4:28 PM Me - U got the wrong number
4:37 PM Caller - Hahahaha4ag
4:38 PM Caller - FulllaSHIT
4:40 PM Me - Im pregnant
5:01 PM Caller - Wat r u gunna cal him or her
5:02 PM Me - Mohamed
5:04 PM Caller - Ow his a boy waw waww ... Oh wats his dads name mustafa
5:05 PM Me - Actually its jameel
5:08 PM Caller - tab sho sar ma3l court? //Dina says they are asking about the court case
5:08 PM Caller - jamil jamil
5:10 PM Me - Khara khara //Shitty Shitty
5:11 PM Caller - SHOU KHARA KHARA
5:13 PM Caller - ???

I never expected when Dina and I were discussing baby names that we were talking to someone who knew Arabic. Crazy stuff.

-Trevor

I came across this game during my internet travels. The premise of the game is that you hit Taichi with Nanaca's bike and then try to see how far Taichi will fly through the air. You can use special combos in order to boost the distance. The game seems sort of lame and probably is, but is nonetheless addicting. Here's a post of my current high score, though I've seen screenshots as high as 11k.

-Trevor

After Michael Vick, a quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons was indicted for dogfighting, some have begun to suggest that he should be suspended for the entire year. However, a reporter, Paul Zeise, of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette has indicated that this would be harsher than if he raped a woman, which would likely give him only a four game suspension.

Rape is certainly no laughing matter, but this is merely a realistic comparison to the absurdity of standards in both pro sports and our justice system in general, and seems to me to be suggesting that rape is not penalized harshly in pro sports. While dog fights are certainly cruel and unnecessary, in my books it seems to be much better than sex-boat scandals or rape.

Therefore it is unfortunate that the newspaper Zeise works for distanced itself, suggesting that the comparison to rape does not represent the views of the newspaper.

Somewhere along the line, we seem to have lost our stomach for reality. Maybe he should have said that the penalty for dog fighting could potentially worse than if Vick would have had Repeated Abusive Penetrations in an Enclave (RAPE) of a woman.

-Trevor

Time Magazine has an interesting photo collection of showing the amount of food a family eats during a week as well as the equivalent amount in US dollars. The differences are striking between the first and third world countries. It doesn't mention if any attempts were made to find a "typical" family or not. Note the number of families who buy bananas.

-Trevor

What has the world become, pop may now be classified as a killer, right along with Fen-Phen. This is a world in which I am not sure I want to live in. A recent study has indicated that Sodium Benzoate, a common preservative in pop (including Mountain Dew ) as well as pickles, and sauces may cause cell damage. Professor Peter Piper of the University of Sheffield has shown that Sodium Benzoate can cause damage to the mitochondria of yeast cells. While I am certain that much work has to be done before this is conclusive and I am certain studies will be released that indicate the opposite, this study does seem to bother me for reasons that are not quite logical.

However, I question the motives of Peter Piper. I am not quite certain why he wants to bring these studies to light when it is well known that he likes to pick a peck of pickled peppers (which likely contains Sodium Benzoate).

-Trevor

Well I am back from Yosemite (actually last week), but I have been pretty busy at an economics conference and then packing back up to MN for June. I will get the pictures I took up when I get back. Always so much to do and so little time .

-Trevor

For my very loyal readers, I will be at Yosemite for a few days. After first looking into Yellowstone, due to lack of personnel as well as a few time deadlines, a friend and I are going to head up to Northern California for a couple days. I won't be bringing my laptop, so I wouldn't necessarily expect current updates, but it is not as if I have been updating this blog recently anyways.

Sorry to hear about your own nose bleeds Charlie.

-Trevor

Unlike Curt Schilling's 2004 bloody sock symbolizing strength of character, my recent foray into bloody clothing was not really a testament to anything but bad luck. I really love Tucson for the great weather as well as the lack of allergies, well except for about three weeks out of the year. During the three weeks during the spring, I am plagued with a bad runny nose due to "outsiders" bring their damned foreign trees to Tucson. Coupling allergies with dry weather is a recipe for a bloody nose.

Yesterday after class in one of my courses, my professor offered to take us out for lunch (there are only four students). We went to a Thai restaurant and I ordered the Garlic Chicken. While the food was great, it was a tad spicy (for me). The spiciness along with my allergies made my nose run. After lunch, we were talking and while I was drinking out my glass of water, I felt a drip out of my nose. My initial thought was that some snot dripped out of my glass; that was no problem, I could merely stop drinking. Unfortunately, my nose decided to pick a rather embarrassing time to start dripping blood into my clear plastic glass of water. While the professor was particularly kind at "avoiding" to acknowledge this situation, it is hard to ignore someone who is stuffing a napkin up his nose as well as having red stains on his shirt. Ultimately I did not die and besides having to spend time cleaning up a rather messy bathroom sink, I survived.

Unfortunately, there is no moral of the story, or at least not one that I can think of; maybe I could be a telecommuter and avoid all physical contact, but I suppose avoiding the occasional public bloody nose is not worth the loneliness from the lack of physical contact with others. Bloody noses are certainly a bitter pill to swallow for contact with other people .

-Trevor

I was glancing through a forum when I was reading that someone had noticed that Google Earth gives some great directions on how to get from Tucson to London. No I am not planning on follow the advice. Check out step 40.

-Trevor

One of the biggest complaints that I have about Tucson is how dusty my car gets. While I know the car wash industry is pretty big down here, I'm much too cheap to spend money to wash my car. Thus whenever there is a freak spring shower like today, my car is definitely coming out of the relative safety of my carport to get a free car wash. The rainfall though is definitely reminiscent of the monsoon rains complete with lightning. It's always nice to see a day that isn't sunny and warm (only to a point ).

-Trevor

A few days back I decided to go ahead and order a new computer online. The order contained weeks of looking at review sites to look at specs as well as price checking and looking at rumor sites for future releases of Intel and AMD processors. Ultimately I chose the AMD 5600+, 2GB Ram, and 8800GTS 320MB graphics card.

When it came to putting together the system, all seemed well until I was ready to plug in the 24 pin power cable into the motherboard, it was too short. I ended up choosing the Antec P180 case due to it's compartmentalized design which I felt would lead to having a cooler system, which is good when you live in a house with only a swamp cooler. Anyways, while the local computer shops didn't have a 24 pin extension cable, they did have a 20 pin to 24 pin adapter which I was able to use thus solving my power dilemma, or so I hoped (This was an interesting story in of itself, but probably not story worthy). When I turned on the system, I smelt an acrid smell for about a minute, but without being able to identify the source along with the smell dissipating, I thought I was in the clear. Unfortunately, it was the power supply that was giving off that smell. It decided it was going to fail about 20 minutes into the installation, right after commenting on the phone to a friend that I was surprised that there were no problems with the installation.

Well, these events definitely highlight the benefits and costs of buying online, cheap prices, though when something goes wrong, I can't go bring it back to the store to get an instant replacement. I guess now I will have the rest of the weekend to do real work rather than play with my computer.

-Trevor

One year ago today, I posted an article on the Durham Warlock Hunt. I can happily say that I am glad the charges against students were dropped. I do not know whether or not the students were guilty, but I do know that the hysteria that this story brought up in the Durham community was amazing and shocking. I hope this is a wakeup call to the public that knee-jerk reactions like this cannot be tolerated, regardless of guilt because in these cases real justice can never be dealt out after a media firestorm. The students were treated like criminals without guilt being determined and the Lacrosse coach was fired! I hope in the future my posts are not nearly as prophetic.

-Trevor

Researchers have released a new study on the dangers of not eating fish. Mothers are now faced with a perilous choice when shopping while pregnant - to eat or not to eat fish. If a mother eats too much fish, she risks giving birth to a gregarious ping pong champion that needs a kidney transplant. If a mother does not eat fish, her child could end up a World of Warcraft player that does not possess the motor skills to maintain bladder control, but due to healthy kidneys is able to drink large quantities of alcohol. In either case, the outcome for mothers is grim. How to choose between two equally unpleasant outcomes is something most mothers would abhor. My solution is to drown them. If that is not an option, I highly recommend avoiding reading these worthless studies.

For those who really wanted them, I uploaded the photos of Mike, Jake, Dan, and I that were requested . Anyways, you can find them in the same folder as the other wedding photos. Enjoy and try not to blackmail me in the future.

-Trevor

One of my friends in Arizona introduced me to cricket a few months back, and while I am by no means a huge fan, it is enjoyable. After browsing the net for a while, I noticed that Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 was available in England, so I decided to import it. Of course some of you may be wondering, "However did you play an imported Xbox game on a US console?" Technicalities aside, it is working and a fairly enjoyable game. However, I did notice a few points in the game do not seem to be realistic from my limited experience, but may easily be fixed in the new version due out this March (along with a graphical upgrade).

There are two problems currently plaguing me, first the game is available for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 2 (Both of which I do not own and the latter than I will not buy) and secondly the game is only available outside of the United States. While the first problem is solvable with a sufficient monetary exchange, circumstances are different this time around for playing imported games on the Xbox 360 (mainly no user friendly mod chip).

In my quest to play BLIC 2007, I decided to e-mail Codemasters (Publisher) and asked if I can expect to be able to play this game on a US system and sadly they informed me -

Unfortunately Brian Lara Cricket 2007 will only work on Playstations/Xboxes designed to run PAL format games. North American Playstations/Xboxes are designed to run NTSC format games only

I now have three options:

1) Buy an imported Xbox 360 (Very Expensive)
2) Mod a US Xbox 360 (Pain in the ass given my limited technical skills)
3) Buy the PC Version (Expensive considering my laptop cannot run this game, and no it was not mentioned earlier)

While I ultimately know I will buy an Xbox 360 in order to play Halo 3, Mass Effect, and Assassin's Creed, I imagine that I will pick one up closer to this Fall than right now, thus it is possible that I may push forward my projected Summer desktop purchase up to this Spring. This all sprung up from a game, cricket at that .

According to Newegg.com, my Summer Desktop wish list is currently just over $1300, a tad high for my budget (which is why I was hoping for a drop in price over the Summer for the specs I want). Of course taking out the 500GB hard drive and utilizing my 160GB SATA that I have lying around will save me $165 now which I can buy at a later data. Further if I choose a Intel 2 Core Duo E6300 rather than a E6400 that will save me another $50 or so. I do not know if I want to sacrifice the LCD at another $200 and use my 17" CRT, so I may just have to wait a few more months. In any case, I just picked up some extra RAM for my laptop putting the current spec at 1.2 GB which will hopefully help when multitasking (Haven't really tried yet).

Here are the current specs that I have chosen:

SAMSUNG 18X DVD?R DVD Burner Model SH-S182M/BEBN - $33
SCEPTRE X20WG-Naga Black 20.1" 5ms (GTG) DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - $200
EVGA Geforce 7950GT KO 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - $250
Thermaltake W0093RU ATX 12V 2.0 Version 500W Power Supply - $60
Patriot Signature Series 2GB DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300)- $201
GIGABYTE GA-945P-S3 LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard - $85
Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor - $222
WD Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $165
Case - Already Own
WD 160GB SATA Hard Drive - Already Own

Well, that is certainly enough babble out of me for one day. I'm going to bed.

-Trevor

I decided to give Real's Rhapsody streaming service a one month trial in order to determine whether or not I would be able to discover new music. While the service was ok, I discovered multiple software issues and a selection that was underwhelming to say the least. I did not really discover much music than what I had already had in my collection. Moreover, it did not offer many of my favorite bands, so when I was at my computer without my music (I keep it stored on my portable hard drive) I was unable to stream them. I was also surprised about the software's instability. From my subscription level, I was supposed to be able to download the music for offline listening, though when attempting to download the DRM update to allow this, it would not download. Further, the software was severely unstable, often crashing every couple of hours.

Since I did not think this service is currently worth $10 a month (though I still firmly believe this will eventually be a great model), I decided to cancel my service. I went to Real's website where conveniently I could not login to the section marked, "Cancel your account." After going through a similar section on their music player, I discovered I had to call their toll free number . There is nothing more annoying than having to call a telephone number for an internet service!!! Of course, getting your call dropped four times does not help lower the blood pressure either. Once I finally connected with an operator, I discovered the call center was clearly not in the US. I did have thoughts about asking the operator where she was from for a joke as one of my friends had done this and the operator told him that he was from Utah. Where in Utah? Utah. She seemed friendly and I wanted to get off quickly so I decided to avoid any harassment on my part. In any case, the cancellation process was not too bad, but the "accent barrier" slowed it down and I had to repeat my account information a couple of times.

Overall, I am hesitant to recommend Real's Rhapsody service right now, but neither do I recommend any service for streaming. I think that I may try e-music, though they run into the same selection issues as Real likely will since they have independent labels only.

-Trevor

A couple days late, but I have a bit of an excuse; it is actually a good excuse for any grad student - programming a nonlinear industrial production equation in Stata. Well, it was neither enjoyable nor informative, so I'll get on to the "good" stuff.

I really wanted to avoid celebrating my birthday this year. I thought that I would like to avoid the reality of how long I will be in grad school for. However, Dina discovered on Facebook that Saturday was my birthday, thus it quickly spread. So, we needed to go out to celebrate, thus I thought maybe a German restaurant would be a good change of pace. After reading a couple of reviews in the Tucson Weekly online, I thought we should check out Mountain View restaurant. Unfortunately, when we got there, we quickly discovered it was recently converted into a Mexican restaurant. While there are plenty of good Mexican restaurants in Tucson, the city really could expand their horizons a bit.

I wanted to try a new place, so Gabe recommended a steakhouse a couple miles away called Shooters. Evidently it was originally a Middle Eastern belly dancer joint in the '70s so it had minarets and the whole bit. After being seated outside in the courtyard, the owner eventually came out and apologized for taking so long. We were in a pretty good mood and were joking around a bit. The owner hit us with a bombshell, telling us that his son died last Monday. It was definitely a bit of a downer, but at least the steak was good.

Afterwards I was surprised to an awesome Cheesecake from Trader Joes. Well, that was about it, no drunken orgy or broken couches like last year, but a fairly relaxing dinner and some bullshit afterwards. In any case, rumors have it that we may go mini golfing this weekend, and there certainly is nothing crazier than grad students mini golfing... .

Reading through this post, I definitely killed the excitement of the day. I really did enjoy it though, so for those of you reading that were there, it was a great. I almost forgot to mention I had cable internet hooked up last Saturday as well. I even got free expanded basic to boot. The download speeds are fantastic, though I shouldn't mention what I've been downloading the past few days (no, it's not porn)

-Trevor

Genre: Political Drama / Thriller
Rating: R
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Ralph Fiennes & Rachel Weisz
Released: 2005

Read more!

Brian over at bbspot.com has a wonderful flowchart helping us decide whether that upgrade is for you. I've now got it posted up at my cubicle just in case I forget whether or not I am ready for an upgrade. According to the flowchart, I should wait for the lottery to get the upgrade, probably a good choice. Of course, a poster on Digg offered this simple flowchart for those thinking of upgrading: Is it stable? -> is there a torrent? -> is there a crack? -> INSTALL ULTIMATE.

-Trevor

Well I finally had to buckle down to get internet service. My "local unsecured provider" is no longer in service and with the university's wireless service being less than reliable consistently, I've decided that it is about time that I acquire a dedicated service for myself. It will be provided by the forever awesome cable internet service provider, Cox Communications. I was a little hesitant to purchase service with them, but considering the fact that I would have little savings through Qwest's DSL service, plus Cox being faster, Cox it was. They should be coming on Saturday to hook it up and I may even get the cable modem and router I ordered by Friday (Monday at the latest), so granted that there are no hiccups, I should have "blazing fast" internet service soon.

Oh, I forgot to mention the extra perk at no extra charge Cox will provide for me, basic cable! Now I get access to all my favorite network channels with the quality of analog cable plus I will have access to such other great channels such as the QVC and HSN shopping networks, C-Span and C-Span 2 and over six public access television channels!

Well, I suppose that I had to face the music eventually that I could not get a free ride. Since I am not on the friendliest terms with my neighbors, who are now leaving garbage in my back yard, I thought it was best that I did not broach the subject of accessing their wireless network, thus leaving the only option to get my own. My hope is that they will move out after the semseter with their replacements being much less of the uberparty types and hopefully willing to split some costs. If the price is right, I may consider getting expanded basic, but I think I will save the money for other necessities.

-Trevor

Well I am back in Minnesota after traveling up to the frigid North for Dan and Tanya's wedding. It was pretty awesome and had a great time hanging out with friends and family. Not to mention the best part, no cavities! That's right, my dentist visit was completely clean, they were even amazed about how little plaque buildup I had after nearly five years of no checkups . Anyways, click the title above or here to access the photos. If you want to download all the files in a zip file, click here. Anyways, I know it is late, but that is certainly better than not getting these photos posted.

-Trevor

P.S. The top searches that attracted people to my website this month are: "rasheed wallace" with 42 hits and "b5 boy band" with 21 hits with Bette Midler coming in third and Pat Robertson not being far behind . Not good news because they are probably not returning customers, but it could be worse. On a positive note, the search for "Gaymont Yogurt" is still pulling in people month after month. I think it is time to do some more yogurt reviews.

For those who remember playing the old PC or NES version of Maniac Mansion, Home of the Underdogs are hosting a graphical update to the game (a little better). While it does not offer the best NES soundtrack ever for the protagonists, it is still pretty cool to play. I spent a couple hours playing through it last night with Razor and Bernard. My only complaint, the timing of Nurse Edna leaving the kitchen is slightly different than the NES version leaving Razor to almost getting ass raped for a half hour in the dungeon until Bernard could get the Old Rusty Key, now that was lame. By the way, I decided that the Meteor Police was a fitting way to get rid of the meteor.

-Trevor

Update: Here is a Winamp plugin to play nsf files that you get get from the earlier link.

Classes have started up again nearly full steam ahead which is a change of pace and not something to be dreaded. In any case, not much has happened besides going out last weekend and probably drinking too much. I also rediscovered the problem of paying cash in a dimly lit bar, over tipping. I ended up giving a not bad, but not great looking bartender a $11 rather than a $2 tip at Plush. Then a few friends and I walked to Club Congress on the other side of the tracks and checked out some local live bands. Sort of disappointing when you pay a cover to listen to a lead singer run out of lyrics and start singing, "Dooo Doo Dooo Doooooo Do" in rhythm to the drums.

The next night was not much better. While I decided to be the designated driver, some friends and I decided after going to some bars that we should go check out the snow up at Mt. Lemmon at 1:45 am. We finally made it up to the top near Summerhaven by around 3:30 in the morning though one guy completely passed out in my car for the entire trip up despite up playing music much too loud for my cheap system to handle. The snow was pretty cool to see, some had just fallen so it was nice and pristine. I finally got back home at 5:30 in the morning to realize I couldn't sleep and spent an hour finishing up the movie Children of Heaven, which by the way is an excellent movie, I give it a perfect 5 Galaxies.

As some or all of you may know, I'll be flying back to the frigid North for Dan's wedding on Wednesday-Sunday. If I actually updated this blog frequently, you may notice that I may not post during that time, but I will try to get some wedding related pictures up along with finishing uploading the pictures from when my parents were down in Tucson as soon as I get back. I noticed that after uploading the pictures from Jenny and Greg's wedding, my site had a huge spike in traffic (relatively), so I can hope for the best .

Well I should be trying to get back to bed after my neighbors decided that it would be awesome to start yelling outside about going to a bar. No respect...

-Trevor

Here is an update to my travels throughout Tucson with my parents:

Day 5-6:

These days were pretty slow. Dad was really starting to come down with a cold and really was in no condition to do much, so we took it pretty easy. I ended up going to dinner with Luca before he headed out to Miami and ultimately back to Italy.

The weather ended up getting pretty cool Thursday as well. Tucson recorded pretty decent amounts of rain, and the mountains actually got some snow. I believe Mount Lemmon recorded around two feet of snow. I already got my "snow" shots at the White Sands so it really was not worth the effort to drive up there.

Day 7:

With Dad feeling a tad bit better, we ventured over to the Pima Air and Space Museum. The weather was cool, but sunny. It is always amazing to see that many planes, but after a while, there is just too much and all just sort of blurs together. By the end, Dad was pretty tired and we realized that this may have been a bit too much for him as he ended up feeling pretty bad on Saturday, when we were off to Kartchner Caverns.

Day 8:

Like I said in the previous paragraph, today we went to Kartchner Caverns. We probably would have waited, except that we already had reservations and they are to come by this time of year, so we may not have gotten another opportunity (not to mention the reservations are non-refundable ). Thus while my dad was sleeping, I drove down to Benson to go check out the caves. While we were unable to take any pictures, it was pretty apparent that pictures would not have been able to properly capture the magnificence of the cave. The first thing that we noticed was how warm and humid the caves are. While it was a brisk 50 degrees at the entrance with around 10% humidity, the caves remain a fairly constant 70 degrees with 99% humidity. The formations were amazing.

I particularly liked our guide; he was particularly gregarious and full of little tidbits of information. Tour guides, I imagine, must have a difficult time to try to inspire awe in the tourists. On the tour, one of the workers who had helped make the cave tour accessible was with us. She gave us a lot of information about the conditions they worked in. It was fantastic.

After the caves, we drove around the park and took a couple of photographs around. With Dad feeling ill, Mom and I did not want to walk too far since he was waiting in the van. I could see the trail winding up the mountain which had some snow up on top. It was definitely calling to be climbed, but alas it will have to wait until the next time I get a chance to go up.

Unfortunately, the rest of the day seemed to be a bit disappointing. We had planned to go to Fort Huachuca to check out the museum, but I accidentally took out the registration, thus we could not get inside the base. Then after driving from there, we were planning on checking out some art galleries that I had heard about. In my not so infinite wisdom, I thought Benson was the town whereas it was Bisbee. Stupid "B's". In any case, we ended up driving back to Tucson pretty tired, but at least knowing that we saw some awesome caves.

Days 9-10

Haven't done to much but do a little reading and relaxation while Dad is recovering from bronchitis.

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That has caught everyone up to date with the vacation so far, hopefully it was fairly entertaining. I will post again when we go out.

-Trevor

I have not been following the NFL very closely this season, but I am very surprised about the direction the Vikings have gone this year: down, very far down. One could certainly fault Mike Tice in the past, but he certainly took a lot more abuse from his players that Childress has (but also had many players stick up for him when he was very abruptly fired). Tice certainly did not drop his players as easily with seemingly no justification.

Then there is the lack of communication between players and coach. That is a just a recipe for brooding and not playing at the top level. I suppose releasing top wide receivers and sitting out other top players who may be eligible for bonuses probably does not help team morale. Frankly, it borders on unethical and while coaches certainly do not want problem athletes, there really was no justification for releasing Marcus Robinson.

Well, at some level, I believe the outcome is very well deserved and I almost wish the Vikings had done worse. At least this shows that Tice showed some skill has head coach, and a cheap one at that.

-Trevor