tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67459882009-06-23T15:09:12.418-06:00The Reverendnoreply@blogger.comBlogger178125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-26099081628331573072009-06-22T15:06:00.000-06:002009-06-23T15:09:08.863-06:00

Saturday was a bit different;Sleep in until 9amWALK to champagne brunch at Paris - put dent in their cheap champagne budgetChat with waitress from LondonChat with beautiful waitress from EritreaWALK from Paris to Luxor, sweating like a Canadian in Seattle the entire wayAmazed by the Body Works exhibit with lots of plasticized bodies and body partsManaged to NOT get thrown out of Body Works for

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-45384148736793576542009-06-22T14:26:00.000-06:002009-06-23T15:06:18.819-06:00

The story as told in bullet points;Dinner at Hard Rock Cafe5 hours of sleepTour Hoover dam (South of Vegas)Eat at worst (taste/service/cleanliness) Jack in the Box everHiking in blistering hot sand in Valley of Fire (North of Vegas)Drink with D., L., S., K., J., B. and his buddy L., until S. showed up and then WALK to Freemont street (2.2 miles from Treasure Island) to eat at Tony Roma'sAsked by

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-15663652257157645232009-05-10T11:41:00.001-06:002009-06-22T15:33:27.195-06:00

There are always lots of impressions after traveling, particularly when it's somewhere I haven't been before.Germany - I love it. The people are friendly and always willing to help. Even when it's a foreigner with a dismal grasp of the language. Most of my time has been spent in the vicinities of Berlin, Essen and Frankfurt, so my impressions are limited to these areas and possibly to more urban

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-20523418572104238182009-05-04T11:09:00.000-06:002009-06-22T11:40:28.724-06:00

I've never been in Paris before! It's a cute little town with lots of cool things to see. I'd planned out a route to go catch the most interesting (to me) things to see to spend my day until my cousin came home after a day on a gravel-filled set.Alas, I got up at 04:30 in Haltern am See, Germany and headed down to the train station. I had the tickets in hand so there was no need to purchase

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-28057022227702947842009-05-03T15:39:00.002-06:002009-05-03T16:00:36.866-06:00

Everything is closed! I realized that when I had an allergic reaction to something and found I'd run out of allergy pills! N. tells me "too bad, but the pharmacy is closed on Sundays"! @#(%#!!!!The day improved not long after a cup of steaming coffee from the fancy DeLonghi Primadonna Avant. I think this thing probably whips poor Peruvian coffee farmers, collects the beans, roasts them,

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-63760316791778709962009-05-02T15:16:00.001-06:002009-05-03T15:39:14.873-06:00

Last night wasn't quite over when I thought it would be. It was Saturday night and I was in a strange city. I had to go out. N. and I strapped on the boots and went to Haltern. A 20 minute walk had us in place and we scoped out various places that looked hospitable.We stopped at Flüze Q (or something like that) which is a mining-camp inspired "smoker's club". It's a smoker's club because smoking

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-71610027003306360202009-05-02T14:48:00.000-06:002009-05-03T15:16:37.034-06:00

Credit cards aren't used in many places around here. They use bank cards, basically what we call ATM card. In theory, mine should work, at least if I knew the PIN to it.What it means is that I can't do much without cash here. I went to the book fair in town. Can't do much there other than look. I guess looking was enough, what would I REALLY need a German version of the history of the muppets for

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-92216815156090755112009-05-01T09:21:00.002-06:002009-05-02T09:51:50.938-06:00

We hop the train to Essen and head towards the club. I wish I had pictures of the train, it was full of clusters of people with large beer bottles (40's) and laughter, jokes told, playful shoves and friendly conversation. N. and I ended up next to these two girls from Münster who were on the way to the same club we were aiming for, so we ended up chatting with them a bit. N. did more than I as

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-4528169637611407422009-04-30T03:41:00.002-06:002009-05-02T09:20:47.006-06:00

The "fahrenkarte" told me to take the train from the airport to Düsseldorf-somethingorother, and then take S6 to Essen on platform 2. So I did. Except 30 minutes later I realized that I was almost in Köln, quite a good distance AWAY from Essen.Some helpful signs about what direction the train was going would've been appreciated. I was stressing a bit because we had to pick up the Plymouth and go

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-5956053408833167312009-04-22T22:28:00.000-06:002009-05-01T10:31:34.081-06:00

My updates are rare, but that's because I rarely leave the house! With airfare being less than $400, I had to do like a baby and Head Out. I called The Boss and asked for some time off, I talked to a friend about visiting and then booked the tickets.Go Home

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-21532639904473086382009-03-02T12:05:00.004-07:002009-05-01T10:16:53.485-06:00

The ride was uneventful. I got about 19mpg and did between 70-95mph. It was WAY easier to pass cars than it was when I drove my 965!   Oil pressure, water temp and voltage was good.  The temp hovered about 198ish and a hair over 200 when I was "exhuberant". It's a bit warmer here than in WI or MN, so it seems the fan turns more and the temp is higher. The only thing that made me a bit nervous

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-30367574869843787702009-02-16T11:28:00.003-07:002009-02-16T11:32:07.073-07:00

According to an article on MSN today, I live in the 18th lowest-unemployment-rate state in the nation.18. Colorado ... 6.1 percentTotal employment: 2,750,100Mean annual salary: $43,100I could make some sort of profound and eloquent statement about proper state government and all that, but I am just glad that I have a job, and one that I like.Apparently the #1 state in the rankings is Wyoming.But

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-29862843408322370212009-01-26T13:10:00.003-07:002009-01-26T13:13:43.134-07:00

My loan was for 6.5% somewhere north of $200000. With the dismal state of the economy and all sorts of panic that the fish-wrappers are screaming about, the interest rates have dropped to 5%.So the timing is perfect. I go to the bank and ask them to give me another 'just north of' $200000 loan, of which most will pay off the first one. The rest goes in my pocket to the tune of ~$180/month.I've

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-59076612965304173342009-01-26T12:23:00.004-07:002009-01-26T12:36:01.593-07:00

I sold the Volvo 760 Turbo. I wanted something nicer to start with and also something with more power. When I perused the web, I came across one that caught my eye.I just spend the last 29 hours on the road going to look at this one and I am impressed. A stock Ford 302 engine does wonders for the usually fairly sedate stock Volvo wagons.For those familiar with Volvo jargon, here are some of the

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-30273322471739579492009-01-01T11:59:00.001-07:002009-01-26T11:51:52.472-07:00

About a week ago I got a call from J's aunt-in-law. She asked if I could foster a dog for a few weeks while the transport from Denver to Oregon would sort itself out.The reason she called me was because I've always been enamored with Bernese Mountain dogs and Lacey was a 90lbs St. Bernard puppy.I jumped on the chance to have a little bundle of fur and love hover around the house for a few weeks

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-48406444460697784982008-12-28T12:19:00.003-07:002009-01-26T12:22:44.537-07:00

So I went and bought a Volvo Turbo, a 760. It had a bad headgasket, but in the interest in learning to tear apart one of these engines and hopefully make it run again at some point in the future after, I figured I'd give it a shot.Swearing for a week solid finally resulted in the head coming off the engine. Filled with joy I headed to the machine shop only to have them tell me that the head was

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-55311028362817487312008-11-03T19:41:00.003-07:002008-11-03T20:45:31.307-07:00

Sometimes you have to wonderProstitution isn't something people talk about every day, but sometimes the subjects comes up.  It turns out that an aquaintance frequents certain spots where ladies are providing smiles for a good price.I asked how an operation like that works, given the slightly less-than-legal status, and it was explained to me that the owner of the house has a few spare rooms.

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-24560190418372699532008-10-07T23:24:00.000-06:002008-10-28T20:32:30.727-06:00

My job requires me to take two weeks off, my vacation, before the year is up. If not, I lose the vacation days.A trip was in order. I hadn't been out of the country for almost a year and I was feeling the itch. Landing in the old stomping grounds in Northern Europe surprised me with a very warm day and no breeze.The weather wasn't the only bright thing. My brother, Sebastian, Caroline and I

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-1755388284643889582008-08-23T10:57:00.002-06:002008-09-01T20:41:11.117-06:00

Chuck and I were just coming back to my house from a trip to Guitar Center (trust me, the new Yamaha electronic drums are amazing!) and Harbor Freight and saw Paul clean off his Montero. He had been playing in the mud, and I asked him if he wanted another go.After a promise of hosing off the car for him, off we went.Once in the mud, we ran into a couple of other guys doing the same thing, and

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-49673365531883817122008-07-01T21:57:00.001-06:002008-07-07T22:03:53.337-06:00

Storms are a fairly common sight in the afternoons and evenings here. Sometimes they are captured in all their glory.Here's my house with a storm hovering in the background, almost making it look like my house exploded. (the light in the cloud is a lightning strike)Go Home

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-7684890803532457962008-06-30T21:55:00.004-06:002008-07-01T15:10:03.105-06:00

In the small German town of Wacken in the state of Schleswig-Holstein things are usually pretty quiet and serene, but once a year, a little festival for small German bands make the town come alive. What started as a small gathering for fans has now become a Mecca for the long-haired, leather and studs wearing contingent of rock fans. This year is no different.The W:O:A festival is coming up in

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-75345034392407323402008-06-25T12:14:00.001-06:002008-06-25T12:16:05.240-06:00

Root drive on the server is croaking so a rebuild and we'll be back up shortly!I might, or might not, point the webpage to a 'notice', depending on how long the rebuild takes.Go Home

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-2293917704696311682008-06-18T21:17:00.002-06:002008-06-18T21:48:33.443-06:00

Well, both being paid well AND getting some good vacation time, I am pondering where to go. Germany is a place I've liked everytime I've been there and I have some friends I haven't seen for a while there.Flights there are cheap at $600, so spending a couple of weeks there again is certainly doable. However, with doing some neat upgrades on my house (don't tell the HOA) and some more upgrades on

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-85677843979757792002008-06-14T09:44:00.003-06:002008-06-14T09:48:03.332-06:00

On my way over to Jeremy's house last night I see an old geezer leaned up on his car. Hazard lights on and it's off the beaten path. I whip the car around to ask if things are ok, which they aren't.Nothing serious, he has a flat tire. The problem is that he's handicapped, and on oxygen, and it's 95 degrees outside.I nudge my car up behind his, grab my gloves from the trunk and grab his jack and

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6745988.post-20130914597121500572008-06-02T21:37:00.003-06:002008-06-14T09:44:10.512-06:00

I got an email late Friday night offering up a couple of motorcycles for a screaming deal. A deal good enough to jump on.Which I did.Saturday morning I sourced a truck and hopped on the road down to Albuquerque where I started loading up the KLR 650 and the bonus plan, the ZXR 750. I enjoyed a great dinner with a good friend and then hit the sack. I hit the road back the next morning at 6am and

The Reverendnoreply@blogger.com0