(not the same as revisions, but we have some of those too)

I'll be in NYC this weekend for various reasons, the most writerly of which included a weekend lunch with my agent to go over the last round of revisions and meeting up with Matt Cody, author of the upcoming Powerless, to coo over his (and his lovely wife's) newborn son. Unfortunately, the agent-meeting had to be canceled for unexpected reasons, so we'll just have to settle for emails and phone calls for now.

The primary reason for the trip is, of course, to finish packing up the last of Kate's things in anticipation of her move to Denver next week. I cannot describe how happy I am that we're finally at that dream-like future place that was always there and never here, and describing things is what I do for a living. We'll also be meeting the reverend on Sunday, and... oh, I dunno. Other stuff. Probably walking somewhere, or looking at things, or maybe a movie. If I want to think about 9/11 for the next couple days, maybe I'll suggest Cloverfield. We'll see.

KK has contracted ... something. The doctor believes it's shingles, but is also testing to make sure it's not a Staph or Strep infection (I didn't even realize you could get a strep infection externally), which are both a bit more of a problem. Shingles (think localized chicken pox) is apparently more painful in adults, and the girl has been in remarkably good spirits despite itchy spots on her side and a slight fever. The biggest problem at this point has been daycare, which she can't visit until everything she's recovered.

Dizzy has a pretty serious series of 'attacks' on Saturday, involving a lot of muscle seizures and utter disorientation and loss of equilibrium. I was able to narrow down the cause of that to dehydration, but the reason for the dehydration (she still won't go anywhere near a bowl -- I have to give her water with a turkey baster) is still up in the air. The most recent news from the vet's test is good -- it looks like it's some kind of thyroid gland underperformance, which can be treated with supplements in her food. I'm already inclined to believe that diagnosis, as it would explain some lingering questions regarding her general fitness. (The fact that when she and Jake eat the same amount of food, and are the same size, she gains weight while he loses it.)

So that's been most of my spare time in the last few days. Whenever I've had a few minutes to myself I've worked on the new website and cleaned up some old directories on the server that desperately need it.

Things to do this month: revisions on Hidden Things, and scheduling flights to New York (both for the end of this month and in April).

Things not to do this month: devote any more brain power to wedding reception seating arrangements.

A one sentence review of Mark Wahlburg's "Shooter":

"The fairy tale that redneck conservatives tell themselves when they want to believe that they could fix the government if it gets too corrupt... with the help of a good woman and a 30/30."

Kate's one-word review of the movie:

"ENUNCIATE."

---

We're out in Utah for the weekend -- Kate's one of the speakers/interviewees at a writer's conference and I'm splitting my time between that and working on a book editing job in the (really) gorgeous two-story ski condo that the conference got for us. On a mountain lake a few miles from the winter Olympics ski site, free high-speed wifi, hot tub on the deck, roaring fire (that turns on with a switch!) and a bunch of DVDs left by the folks who own/sublet the place... not a whole lot to complain about for a short weekend away.

Frontier is pleased to offer our low fares and award-winning service to three new cities: Rapid City, South Dakota (RAP), Sioux City, Iowa (SUX) and Wichita, Kansas (ICT).

First, before anything else, let's all collectively have a laugh at the Sioux City airport abbreviation.

*chuckle*

*shakes head*

Seriously, what were they thinking?

Anyway.

THIS IS FANTASTIC! I fly to NYC at least once a month on Frontier, have all kinds of perks and benefits as a result, and often bemoan the fact that it costs almost DOUBLE to fly half the distance to NYC and visit my family. Kaylee's been back to see her family there like... what? Twice in two years? Terrible.

But Sioux City? That's an hour from Bonnie's place, which in turn is about two and a half hours from my folks.

"Hey Mom, can you drive two hours to see all of your grandchildren, conveniently gathered in one place?"

Also, this might mean THEY could come see US. WHOOOO!

And the rates? The rates are quite awesome: suitably less than the NYC flight.

Two flights daily, at good times, for a good price.

Very, very happy.

Tastes salty..., originally uploaded by DoyceT.

Kate and Kaylee in the ocean. This was the second day at the beach and the first time Kaylee let us get in the water very far.

It was also the first time she screamed bloody murder when we tried to take her OUT. :)

Sandy, originally uploaded by DoyceT.

Daddy brushing the sand off.

Swing!, originally uploaded by DoyceT.

Time at the park, originally uploaded by DoyceT.

Sssslide...

Day at the beach, originally uploaded by DoyceT.

Hula girl!

Sun hat!, originally uploaded by DoyceT.

Getting ready for the beach.

I meant to mention this yesterday, as it actually happened then, but neck pain and work pain conspired to distract me from the internets for most of the day.

With a few relatively minor tweaks to my driving style (drive about five mph slower than my norm, set the cruise and leave it alone), I managed to wring 401 miles out of my last tank of gas in the Matrix, which worked out to 35.8 miles-per-gallon. That's on the (very) high end of the dealer-advertised mileage for the model, which I think everyone knows is usually a wistful fiction, so I'm pretty happy.

Especially since I did at least forty of miles of that down in the middle of a sweltering stopsign-every-other-block residential area, with the air conditioner running. In short -- it means I could get it even higher.

I wish the car had one of those "this is what your MPG is *right now*" readouts -- it'd be like playing a video game. :)

I was going to save this post until I got some pictures uploaded, but that might take a bit more time, and I'd rather not wait any longer, so...

As I've already mentioned, Kate and I spent the weekend in the Florida Keys (Ocean Reef on Key Largo, to be specific). It was a very low-key (heh) relaxing kind of a trip, with nothing much to do and lots of time in which to do it.

We got into the Ft. Lauderdale airport at pretty much the same time on Thursday and had a liesurely drive down the Florida turnpike onto Key Largo (the first of the islands), where we turned in at Ocean Reef, a combination gated community/resort where Kate's family has a place. We got our stuff unpacked, poked around the flat a bit, went grocery shopping for breakfast and cocktail hour supplies, and then went down to the "Raw Bar" for dinner -- a place I'll remember fondly for good fish and yummy key lime pie (not a pie I've really been a fan of in the past). We took a brief walk around the beach while the sun was still up, but we'd got in fairly late in the day for proper beach bumming, so after dinner we headed back to the condo and sifted through the DVDs we'd brought along. Ended up watching The Holiday... a curiously mixed bag of meh and not-so-meh that nevertheless elicted more than a few heartfelt yelling-advice-at-the-screen moments for the both of us.

Friday's plan was simple: sun, swimming, sun, reading books, dozing off, sun, more swimming, more books, sun, icy drinks... repeat. That was the day. We'd had a big lunch (which involved the very APEX of unhealthy but delicious cuisine -- waffle-cut fries cooked in curly-fry batter-- YUM), so supper consisted of a couple appetizers, then we headed home to watch a few episodes of El Hazard, and then an earlyish bedtime. Lazing about in the sun is exHAUSTing!

Knowing we had an 'event' planned for mid-morning on Saturday, we slept in a bit and got to the beach right on time for the "Eco-Kayak" tour of the Mangrove-surrounded waterways along the coastline. It was a good-sized group of about a half-dozen kayakers, of which only Kate and I selected a tandem-style craft -- a bit more of a challenge to steer (and, notably, stop -- we ROCKED at bumper-kayaks -- too bad no one else was playing), but fun once we got everything all worked out. Afterwards it was more sun and beach and swimming and book devouring.

Sunday we slept in as well, though we didn't have any particularly good excuse to do so, then repeated the Friday/Saturday pattern of lunch at the reef (did I mention the waffle-cut fries in curly fries batter? YUM!) followed by more sun, swimming, and drinks ( a couple of which were free, compliments of a woman for whom Kate rescued some hair ties from the bottom of the 'infiinity' pool. That night we finished up watching El Hazard, (somewhat unexpectedly, since the dics are laid out oddly).

Monday was simply packing, cleaning up, driving back up to Ft. Lauderdale, then too-early goodbyes as we headed to our seperate terminals -- Ft. Lauderdale's airport is laid out quite annoyingly in that you can't move from one terminal to another (there are at least five) without exiting and later reentering security checkpoints, which you need an appropriate airline ticket for -- so we spent the last couple hours in Florida texting each other from less than 600 yards distance. Unrelated suggestion: avoid booking any connecting flights through that airport at all costs -- it would be a nightmare.

So... lunch, waiting around for the flight, reading a British men's wedding magazine, catching up on trip-notes, and finally boarding for Denver, watching Bridge to Terabithia (fun little tear-jerker), home, and an evening happily spent with Kaylee.

To Do
1. The snorkeling out on the coral reef looked quite fun -- maybe next time.
2. Budget better for the trip.
3. Start splitting one lunch order between the two of us a lot sooner. :)

In a couple weeks, Kate's out in Denver, where we'll be trading sun-bathing for home-improvement projects of the "ripping up carpet, laying down new bathroom flooring" variety.

Heading down to Ocean Reef in the Florida Keys, folks. I'd like to say that I'll be totally unplugged while I'm down there, but work stuff has dictated otherwise, which makes this trip a bit odd all by itself; for all that I travel a lot (a LOT), I haven't brought a laptop with me on a flight in over a year.

Still, I'm trying to turn all that into an upside and get some writing done during the trip. Off to the airport!

Kate flew into Denver (after many delays) on Wednesday, and after a yummy Valentines/Birthday dinner at Strings that night, we got our bags/car packed and headed out to South Dakota on Thursday evening.

This was all part of our (and by 'our', I mean 'Kate's') cunning plan to maximize Baby Sleepage by doing most of the driving at night. By and large, this worked -- we piled into the car around 7pm and headed out of town in the dark of night, and (eventually) Kaylee fell asleep and (generally) stayed that way until we got where we were going.

The downside? We got where we were going at 6 in the morning. YAAAAAWN.

There were quite a few upsides, however, not the least of which being that we got to my folk's several hours ahead of the massive ice storm that pretty much crippled travel on Friday the 16th -- we had to deal with some major league high winds during the drive, but that was pretty much the worst of the weather we encountered.

After having some delicious coffee cake, we napped for a few hours (from 8 to 11 am or so) then got up and lazed about the house, visiting with the family (everyone but Reggie made it up for the weekend). There had been some talk of driving into town to visit my paternal grandparents on Friday but, as I said: Ice Storm. Instead, everyone at the farm came over for Birthday Cake and homemade ice cream that night, we put Kaylee down and went to sleep ourselves not long thereafter.

Saturday was a little more eventful -- after pancakes, we headed into town to visit Kaylee's grandparents, toured Miller a bit, did a very little bit of shopping and then headed back to the farm. I showed the folks how to use the DVD player I'd given them about two years ago, then settled in to watch the Firefly pilot episode, which I'd been using to 'test' the player. (It was during this period of the day that Grandma helped Kaylee with the fancy 'do you see in the lead picture). There was chili for lunch, little meatloaves for supper, and a very fun game of "Turkey Foot" dominoes that night. Good stuff.

Sunday, we piled back into the car to take Kaylee down to the Vermillion area to visit her other Grandpa and Grandma. I dropped Kaylee off, picked up Justin, and Kate and he and I went down to the Sioux City mall for a few hours. Kate did some shopping while Justin and I blew twenty bucks in the arcade, shooting Aliens. The kid's almost as tall as me, now: like 5'11".

We picked up Kaylee around 4pm and headed back to Denver by way of Omaha and I-80. Since the wind/weather wasn't a factor and the drive required a lot fewer intersection turns, I finally released my over-developed death grip on the steering wheel somewhere around Lincoln and let Kate drive. Kaylee wasn't much interested in sleeping, once she woke up from her nap at 6:30, so that was a challenge -- she finally dropped off around 9:30 pm and we stopped playing the Kaylee-approved Swing Music Mix and resumed the brilliantly-narrated Anansi Boys, which saw us the rest of the way through the drive.

The drive itself was pretty uneventful, though we did make hourly stops from about North Platte on, switching drivers back and forth as our energy reserves went beyond 'flagging' to 'flopping' -- rolled into the Casa driveway at 2:20am on Monday morning and left everything but Kaylee in the car til the next morning.

Monday, I worked from home and after Kaylee was off to daycare, there was a lot of numb, quiet watching of TLC home-renovation shows -- we were tapped out, people: that's all we had the energy for; a lot of to-dos around town did not get to-done.

I did manage to measure the upstairs rooms to get an idea of what I'd need to replace the carpet up there -- before picking up Kaylee, we ran by Home Depot to price flooring. The evening was spent at the Consortium, munching on take-and-bake pizza and visiting.

Again, an earlyish bedtime, and Kate was off to the airport this morning.

A whole lot of traveling (2600 miles and 14 hours in the air for Kate, and 1800 miles and 26 hours on the ground for all three of us), but good.

Edit: Kate talks about the trip in her post Home again, home again, home again, Jeeves, and puts up a link to a website that shows you a map of all the states you've visited.

Mine looks like this:

Create your own visited states map.

Not as many states as Kate (a measley 27), but about the same amount of land mass covered -- thank god for Montana!

Happy birthday to Kate, who is spending her Special Day stuck at La Guardia airport. Her flight has been waiting to take off... for... four hours, so far.

I really hope the flight finally goes. Yes, we have dinner reservations, and we're supposed to be driving back to South Dakota tomorrow night with Kaylee, all of that stuff, yes, sure -- that's all true.

But aside from all that? I just want her to be here.

I joke a little bit -- come this time of year -- about how it's not a huge amount of fun for me, traveling over the holidays.

And by "joke a little bit," I mean "speak the gospel truth"; and by "not a huge amount of fun," I mean "essentially the 14th circle of Hell"; and by "for me," I mean "for any sane person."

So... right. This December, I'm flying out to New York with Kaylee, then turning around about 3 days later and doing a 11 hour drive (with baby breaks factored in, and not counting 4 more hours up to my folks' place) with her, to South Dakota. (The next weekend, she's flying to Cali with Jackie, but I'll be taking a break from travel that week.)

Clearly, I am insane.

I had a pretty good plan (I thought) for the trip out to NYC: get on the plane at 11, have an hour of excitement from the takeoff, then feed the wee munchkin, let her drop off for her nap as is her norm, then it's just a couple hours to entertain her before landing.

Lemme tell you people: no toddler is going to nap on a flight they haven't been on fifteen times before. Period.

They also will not want to be held for 4 hours in the same place. (A statement which any parent or person-with-half-a-brain can read and think: "Duh.")

So... what really happened was that a very very VERY un-napped, tired little girl got to La Guardia at about 4:30 pm, desperately in need of a quick 10-minute trip to the apartment and a nap.

Right. It's the week before Christmas. We got to the apartment just a little after six, and most of the hour and a half delay was waiting in line for a cab.

She slept in the cab. That was it. Once at the apartment, she and the bags under her eyes were UP and NOT INTERESTED in sleeping. (Though, granted, she never failed to be cute.)

MJ came over to get a dose of cuteness before KK crashed out, then she stood watch while Kate and I ran out to get some food down the street. (9pm, typical east coast supper time.) Back home, the three of us watched the Doctor Who tribute to ELO ("Love and Monsters") and by then I was ready to crash myself (you try entertaining a toddler for a 4.5 hour flight).

Saturday was gloriously lazy. The three of us basically hung around the apartment, hanging up pictures and playing. Once Kaylee went down for her nap, Kate started on cookies for the Sunday christmas thing at her sisters and I ran out to the deli to fetch lunch. Kaylee woke up at some point in there and was entertained by Keeley, who amused her with raspberry noises at the TV and playing catch.

(Speaking of TV: the ability to TiVo a random selection of children's shows to unleash at a moment's notice is AWESOME. Also: Kaylee loves the Wiggles. A lot. This was her first encounter, and she llllllllllloved them. Honestly, I liked them too.)

I did my cookie baking, and by the time we were actually thinking about getting out of pajamas and going out to see some New York Christmas Sights (tm), it was 4:30 in the afternoon and getting duskish.

That's right: the whole day in pj's, playing with the girl. That's a GOOD Saturday, people.

We got ready while Keeley put his hats on Kaylee and had her do bobblehead doll impressions as she walked around the apartment.

"Into the city for lights at the Rockefeller Center" turned into an amusing (for Kaylee) Human Grape Crush all along fifth avenue (people pressing in on every side so tightly you literally don't need to support your own weight -- Kaylee amused herself by waving at random people and 'adjusting' their hats).

After that, Kaylee charmed the thug-lites on the subway on the way to a small Christmas party, where she played with the little 6-pound terrier -- the perfect combination of doggy love and cat-size -- at least from her point of view. Then it was back home, bedtime for Kaylee, and PB&J's for Kate and myself while watching Battlestar Galactica and more Doctor Who. (We know how to live it UP!)

Sunday, Kate went to get our rental car for the trip out to Jersey (2007 Toyota Rav4 - nice), and Kaylee and I went down to the local bakery for bagels, some bread for a spinach dip bowl, and free cookies for Kaylee from the owner. (Yes, she did in fact charm every single person on the East Coast, why?)

The family shindig was great (somehow we didn't get a picture of Kaylee in her pretty dress), and Miss M (who is five and a half and also has red hair and blue eyes -- they could be sisters, honestly) bonded with Kaylee (petting her hair and hugging her constantly) and made sure she was entertained... and close at hand... all night.

By the way, here's a FANTASTIC party idea: if you're hosting a shindig where you know there will be lots of kids, hire your two best local babysitters to BOTH come over for the party and keep an eye on ALL the kids. That's what Kate's sister did, and it was genius. Kaylee charmed them instantly, and there was never a moment one of them wasn't within arms reach of the munchkin the whole night. (This didn't stop me from checking on her every 10 minutes or so, but it helped a LOT.)

It was a long, pretty tiring night for her (she learned the basics of Duck-Duck-Goose -- tap people on the head and go "dah... dah... dah... dah... GOO!" and then run from whoever is chasing you), but although she was pretty frazzled by the end, she clearly had a great time.

Next morning it was up at 6:30am for the 8:30 flight (returning the rental in the process), which was an extra hour long due to Global Warming.

So... just figure that it was pretty much like the outgoing trip, but longer.

Result: a great, fun trip that I totally want to do again...

... just, not... you know... right away.

Here's a riddle: After a long, fun trip in Europe, what's the best way to ease back into the idea of going home?

Answer: Travel via Frankfurt; nothing will make you want to Go Home more than spending any kind of time at all in that miserable airport.

We got up at around 4am to get packed up and out to the local airport in time for our 7am flight. Evo met us downstairs at 5am with a smile and a "Prague... Yes?" and a thumbs up -- the man's a saint.

The flight out of Prague to Frankfurt was fairly uneventful: we slept entirely through it.

We needed the rest, as it turned out - the Frankfurt layover was an ordeal complete with confusing directions, lousy, over-priced food that made me regret bypassing the McDonald's stand, four security checks manned by people longing for nothing more than an early lunch break, and a power-tripping head purser on the flight with a voice like a male Ethel Merman and sporting an exact replica of Patrick's "Hard Man" haircut from Coupling.

How bad was it? Ponder this: it was a RELIEF to finally reach our travel-class seats on the plane, with an 8-hour flight looming ahead; that was an IMPROVEMENT.

We had an uneventful arrival at JFK, then a (free!) cab ride back to the apartment for unpacking, some delicious american comfort food (pizza-like products without sweet corn on it!), and getting caught up a little on BSG. We were trying to stay up as late as possible to get our internal clocks reset, and we actually did okay -- it was about 10pm when we passed out, which meant we'd been up roughly 24 hours straight.

And that, except for my flight back to Denver the next afternoon, was that.

Prague is a great city, and honestly I'd love to go back and do more of the stuff there is to *do* there, despite the fact that I feel as though we saw alot of what there was to *see* -- in other words, we caught most of the Sites and Sights, but didn't get enough time to check out things like any of the dozen musical performances we got fliers for on the front steps of cathedrals. I'd like to see more of the countryside, maybe even (as De mentioned) during winter.

We had a great time.

Friday was pretty uneventful -- it was a 'clean up' day for us. We had a late breakfast at "coffee and cigars" right across the street from our flat, then spent some time shopping for souvenirs. We weren't too hungry by lunch time, so we spent some time in a "Best of" Mucha & Jan Saudek exhibition right off Old Town Square, then had a late lunch at "Red Hot and Blues." We were getting a bit homesick, and this was the answer -- I had the Grande Nachos, thanks very much, and hummed along to Johnny Cash on the speaker system.

Took the long way home, stopping at the Museum of Communism (MAN the Czechs like making fun of Communism! :) on the way, then spent the afternoon packing up for the next (very very early) morning.

We went out that night for last minute souvenir shopping, took one last set of pictures from the Charles Bridge, and crashed sometime around 10 pm.

And y'know what? It was a good day. There's something to be said for taking a vacation that FEELS like a vacation: sleeping in (albeit on the Most Uncomfortable Bed Ever), taking lots of naps, and generally just going at your own pace, even if it means not always packing the day full-to-the-brim.

So... one more save point, and the game's over.

Our plan for Thursday was a trip out to Karlstejn, the "second most-visited castle." This required actually getting up at a reasonably early time, which we managed (sort of). We had breakfast at the flat, then took the metro down to the train station that would (we hoped) take us on the forty minute trip out of town.

Now... the train station required some detective work, combining Kate's native familiarity with All Things Mass Transit and my familiarity with the Czech-English dictionary I had close at hand (and ability to ask for and actually get change from one of the newsstands). It was complicated, people -- our travel guides spend about four pages trying to decipher the train schedule, then admits that even the natives don't really understand the posted schedules.

Anyway, we got our tickets (something like 2 bucks :), found our train, shivered for awhile on the platform, then had a very speedy and very country-scenic 40 minute ride to the quaint Karlstejn Station (see the opening picture). As promised, it was still a hike from the station to our destination. There's a ten-minute walk to the village of Karlstejn itself, a ten minute walk through said village, noting the pubs where we'd probably have lunch and the view of the castle from below, then a STEEP 15 minute hike up the backside of the hill the castle's built on, right past one of the entrances to Paragon City's Pocket D (geek reference).

Now, I can say it was a steep hike, and you'll all nod and say "got it," and I will secretly doubt that you do, so let me illustrate. Take a look at this picture. No, you can't see much, but you can make out the incline of the path, right? Imagine that, for fifteen steady minutes. That's what I mean.

So, I've written quite a bit about getting to the castle, and not much about the castle itself. Honestly? Not much to write. Architecturally, it's a gorgeous castle, and the layout reminds me strongly of Wales' Chepstow Castle in some ways, except the river's a bit further off, there's way more climbing to get there, and Karlstejn has a complete roof (and is, in fact, completely habitable).

That said, there really isn't much to see inside the castle itself -- almost all the really cool furniture was carted off to Italy several hundred years ago, so you're left with a few pieces, some models of what it used to look like, and an uninspiring tour guide. There's supposed to be an amazing room in the final tower of the castle, but it takes a couple months to get into that tour, with a special reservation.

So we hung out a bit, did the tour, attacked a drawbridge, delved into the castle's lowest courtyards (and found out, once we got there, that the "well tower" was closed for lunch), and then headed back down into the village. Had lunch at U Janu, then back to the train station and Prague.

That makes it sound pretty plain, but it really wasn't -- it was a nice relaxing time out in the country... just not a lot to say about it.

Once back in town, we dumped off souvenirs at the flat and headed down to the Museum of Decorative Arts.

What the heck is the Museum of Decorative Arts? I'll tell you, but it won't sound as cool as it really was. It collects — in both Czech-national and international contexts — examples of "historical and contemporary crafts, as well as applied arts and design." In short, it's a collection of art-as-functional-stuff -- chairs, clothing, clocks, cutlery... really cool and historical and sometimes just beautiful examples of the tools we hairless monkey use from day to day. It's just neat. Also, they have a ton of interactive things to mess around with, and really pretty stairwells (we couldn't take pictures in most of the space).

Outside, it had gone to sunset, so we took a few pictures, then walked across the river for shopping near Charles Bridge and a tram to "BarBar" for beer and sweet crêpes - which in my opinion is Prague's finest contribution to gastronomic innovation. Yummy.

From there, we took another tram to Molly Malone's for many (many, many) glasses of cider, "authentic" live Irish music... (played by two Scots, an American, and an Ukranian woman on fiddle), complete with an all-hands-on-deck rendition of The Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York.'

What more can you say about a night like that? We went into a small irish pub, drank some beer (and cider, and baby guiness), danced a tiny bit, and sang along with everyone in the place. That's a good night, right there.

Someone hit a save point, because I'm crashing.

From the north end of Wenceslas Square, Na prikope runs north-east along what used to be a moat surrounding Old Town. Today, the street is mostly shops and impressive examples of Adaptive Reuse -- read: 'turning stately buildings into shopping meccas, leaving Gestapo and Soviet hardliners to spin in their graves.'

My personal favorite is the Museum of Communism, which shares the second floor of a building along Na prikope with a casino and lies upstairs from a McDonald's and across the street from a Benetton, but Slovanky dum runs a close second -- it's a renovation of the former offices of the Gestapo and the Communist Party.

(What was that "This sounds American!" store about halfway down? Cottonfield and something? I can't remember. Anyway.)

Why bring this up? Well, we took more than a few walks along Na prikope, and started off our third day with another one: breakfast at the Municipal House.

Doesn't sound very nice? Hmm. Well, you can try it in Czech (Obecni dum), but really the best way to understand what the big deal is would be to check out the picture. That picture on the right, there -- yeah... that's the "Municipal House" -- the grandest Art Nouveau showcase in the city. Built during the early 1900's, it's a multipurpose building housing the Prague Symphony Orchestra, galleries, offices, meeting rooms, and a couple restaurants -- one of which, "the plain one", does breakfasts.

The plain one. Right. The thing about those Art Nouveau guys? They can make anything, even bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling on wires look good.

Attached right to the back of Obecni dum is the Powder Tower, a gothic declarative statement with exclamation point built in the 1400s. The name comes from the fact that the government used it to store gunpowder -- personally, after climbing the thing (which we did right after breakfast -- oy), I can't imagine lugging casks of explosives up the spiral stairs, which are steep enough that they've wrapped a rope around the central column of the stairs to hold onto and pull yourself up with -- the closest thing to a handrail you find.

The view from the top is pretty worth it, though. Originally, I'd gotten Kate to take this picture because I was in love with the neat maze of rooftops near the tower, but looking at it later, I realized that it also showed all the 'high points' of the trip so far: from left to right that's Petrin Tower, Charles Bridge Tower, the Klemenitum, Old City Hall's clock tower, Tyn Church, and Prague Castle. It makes sense that you can see all that from the Tower -- back in the day, the Powder Tower was the official starting point of the 'Royal Route' which coronation parades traveled (through Stare Mesto, across Charles Bridge, and up to Prague Castle).

From there, we proceeded to the "Jewish Museum," which is the name of the ticket you buy to see pretty much all of key elements of Josefov, or Prague's Jewish quarter -- home of the famous Rabbi Loew and his Golem.

Now, I'm not going to say much about this portion of the trip. Yes, the history of the Golem is intensely cool. Yes, so is the town hall clock tower with the clock in Hebrew (and running backwards, just like the language does).

But Josefov Jewish Museum is the history of the Jewish people in an eastern European country -- do the math. It is not a fun place.

It is an important and serious and not-to-be-missed place, but no: not fun.

It consists of exhibits in four of the old Synagogues and the Ceremonial Hall, along with the Old Jewish Cemetery, and has one of the most extensive collections of Jewish art, textiles and silver in the world; there are 40,000 exhibits and 100,000 books. It's an amazing collection Jewish history and heritage.

Which sounds great on paper, until you realize that reason most of this stuff survived the Nazi purge was because Hitler intended to turn the whole place into the "Exotic Museum of an Extinct Race" when the war was over. During World War II, Jewish artifacts from all over Europe were brought to Prague and stored in preparation for this museum.

So... yeah. We didn't take a lot of pictures. I'll share two.

The Old Cemetary is positively jammed with gravestones -- literally thousands upon thousands of them, because the city in all of its history never allowed Josefov to expand their cemetery holdings, so the Jewish inhabitants of the quarter had to keep reusing the ground. You're out of space in the cemetery? Cart in enough earth to create a whole new level in the cemetery, raise up all the old gravestones to the new level, and start burying again.

It's a big space, don't get me wrong. It's big. And at best estimate, graves are layered twelve deep throughout the entire area.

This might put the whole Josefov area in perspective -- the Cemetery was probably the most upbeat place we visited, because at least everyone buried there died where they should have died.

Contrast this with the Pinkas Synagogue, which is no longer a functioning place of worship, but the world's largest epitaph; the walls of the building are covered from floor to ceiling in the names of all those who were taken away from Josefov to concentration camps in World War II. Over 75,000, and still only a fraction of all those who died in the camps.

Depressed yet? We were.

So where do you go after a sobering field trip? Somewhere less sober. In this case, Molly Malone's -- a great Irish pub right on the edge of Old Town, with tables made out of old sewing equipment and bed frames. It's great. We had a great lunch and a good chat with the ex-pat bartender ("I'm from the best part of Ireland: Scotland.") while Kate revisited one of her favorite Irish brews, and I investigated Stowford press cider, scrumpy and tasty. We vowed to come back the next night for the live band playing Irish music.

From there, it was back to Nove Mesto via the tempting open air market in Stare Mesto, the disappointing Sparky's toy store, and finally to the fascinating, souvenir-rich, pocketbook-depleting Mucha Museum.

Loot in hand, we headed back to the flat for a rest, followed by a nighttime walk on the Charles Bridge and dinner at Don Giovanni's; Prague's best-known, and possibly best Italian restaurant.

Hit a save point, and that's the day.

We got out the door on Tuesday around 10am, which doesn't seem like much better than noon of the day previous until you realize we'd already had breakfast (cereal and milk -- not buttermilk! -- I ran to the store around 8am and got the right stuff after much consulting of the Czech-English dictionary I'd put in my Palm).

Our flat was really amazingly well-situated -- about five electric trams ran by the front door of the building and there was a metro entrance about half a block away, which is where we were headed in order to start from the west side of town right away.

We navigated the very pretty metro without too many problems, thanks in part to Kate's extensive experience with mass-transit of all kinds and my ability to... stand there and look pretty, I guess.

The metro let us out about as close as it could to Hradcany (Prague Castle), which really wasn't that close at all -- this, the oldest part of Prague, shows a regal disdain for all forms of mass transit. Therefore, before we'd even got too close to the castle, we were set a march up a number of steep streets and those damnable 'public' stairs that are about as wide as a one-way street, three miles long, and comprised of stairs about six feet deep with a four inch rise. Much stair climbing resulted. The best way I can illustrate the climb up to the castle is with this picture. Focus just on the stairs you see curling away from the lens. Picture them going on for about 100+ meters. Then figure you're about halfway up. And you climbed three towers YESterday. Oy.

Now, from the outside, Hradcany really isn't much to look at -- that's why they light it up all pretty at night; it needs the help to look interesting from the outside -- someone or other decided to make the thing 'uniform' by surrounding the whole bloody thing with a wall that faces the city; it's still a working governmental facility, you see -- people have work to do, and the Soviets wanted it to look like a good-and-proper government building -- in other words, boring.

So, you get to the first courtyard, and there's not much there -- just a lot of tourists waiting for the changing of the guards.

You get to the second courtyard, and it's a bit empty there as well -- actually even more so than the first one, because there's no people there -- pretty much everyone just keeps walking through it to the third or Central Courtyard, which is... very very full.

Full of what? this. THAT is St. Vitus' cathedral, which for all intents and purposes comprise all the 'cool bits' that you can see of the castle from a distance. It's a Gothic paean that the guidebooks have the gall to call 'uninspired' -- basically the spiritual heart of the Czech state. It took about six centuries to build; 1344 start-date, with the final phase of construction somewhere around 1929. It boasts solid silver sarcophagi about the size of a dump truck, solid stone tombs decorated with cherubs that seem to be saying "WHAT? *I* didn't kill 'em... I'm just trying to do some cavorting here...", stained glass designed by Mucha, and really tall ceilings.

This is also the home of St. Wenceslas Chapel, which is where they keep the coronation jewels -- behind a door with seven locks (in honor of the Seven Seals of Revelation), the keys of which are in the hands of seven different key (heh) members of the Czech government.

So after wandering around the cathedral itself, we climbed the South Tower, which is about 280 steps in a TINY little stone spiral staircase that is used by both the upward- and downward-bound traffic. Tight and exhausting, but the payoff is pretty darn good. (The stone bridge crossing the river on the left of the photo is the Charles Bridge as seen from this side of the river, so the tower at the other end is the one we climbed, and the verdigris dome pretty much dead-center is the "other" St. Nicolas Cathedral (not to be confused with the one on Old Town Square), which is also a baroque showcase.

Once down from the tower, we took a shot of the thing we'd just climbed (that's it there on the right, with a statue of St. George hogging the foreground -- click for bigger), we took a break, then wandered back into the rest of the castle, taking pictures of the amazing architecture. (Here's a chandelier from directly underneath, one of my favorite shots. I think this was in or near the great hall, INSIDE of which they used to hold jousting exhibitions. Yes, it's big.)

That is to say, Kate was taking shots of the architecture -- I was just taking shots with this crossbow (Kate did too, but I actually hit the (distant!) target. Heh. :)

We exited the Castle ground the back way, past a save point and into the castle gardens, which are a lot more like the castle jungle. (It's from that angle that Kate took the picture up at the top of this post, which is probably one of my favorite ones of the many we got of the cathedral.) To say that the path off the grounds from the backside isn't very heavily traveled would be understating it juuuuust a bit. Pretty neat, though.

The guidebooks that say the castle will take half a day to get through aren't joking. We ate a traditional Czech lunch, but not til about 3pm down in the Mala Strana, forgoing a travel guide recommendation for a nearby pub that actually had people eating there... and according to the sign, has had people eating there since the late 1600s! (As the sign promises -- it's not health food, but it was GOOD... so was the beer.)

Following lunch, we visited the Church of St. Nicholas, which was right next door, and snapped a couple pictures of the understated, reserved decor.

St. Vitus' south tower isn't quite the tallest thing on the west side of the river. That distinction goes to Petrin Tower (which, as you can see, has a predecessor in Paris), on Petrin Hill. We rode one of the trams down to the base of the hill, then took the funicular railway up to the top.

Well, the top of the HILL... the top of the TOWER was our own problem -- the elevator was for handicapped use only, and the (300+) stairs felt like a lot more at the end of a day of climbing. My legs were shaking by the time I got to the top, but at least the tower has two flights of steps -- one for upward bound, and one for down. We (and by 'we', I again mean 'Kate', with me offering unhelpful advice) took a LOT of shots from the top of the tower, but I'll just include this one, on which I will simply comment: "Charles Bridge -- crowded."

Near Petrin Tower, there's a small chapel and a little toy castle, in which you will find a mirror maze and a room full of fun house mirrors. Now... every single thing I've ever seen written about that mirror maze castle says "it seems like it's cheesy, or that only the kids will like it, but they AND YOU will be giggling by the end."

I was skeptical.

I was also giggling by the end.

And why shouldn't I giggle? I've got ENORMOUS HANDS. The one the gives you incredibly long legs was Kate's favorite, but I think the one where we were both midgets was mine.

We walked down Petrin Hill instead of taking the tram, went by one of the entrances for a City of Heroes cave mission, and got back to the flat around 6pm.

Supper was cold pizza (yum!), toasted pb and/or j sandwiches, a nap, then out for a pivo at U Medvidku, or 'The Little Bears,' and that was the day.

Our first full day in Prague started jet-lag late; it was nearly noon by the time we left the flat. The original plan had been to start with Hradcany (Prague Castle, and apologies for not getting the accents right on the Czech names, but some of them just don't exist in the 'international ascii' list), but the indications seemed to be that the castle itself took at least half a day to get through, we had a dinner with Kate's business associates that night, and we weren't interested in rushing to get anywhere. The Hrad postponed, we opted for a walk from Wenceslas Square (the most well-known part of the 600-year old "New Town" or "Nove Mesto") up to Old Town Square (Stare' Mesto). Along the way, we stumbled over one of the last open markets still running (daily) in Prague, and had to restrain ourselves from buying all our souvenirs on the first day (though as it turned out, we almost could have -- it's really a great market). Between the shopping and the getting lost, it was just after 1pm before we got to Old Town Square, and we'd missed the chiming of the Astronomical Clock. We wandered around the square, taking pictures and marveling, and settled down for Lunch/Breakfast around 1:30 at U Kovarna, right across the square and about 20 yards from the Astronomical Clock. It chimed just as our food arrived, and after lunch we we entered the tower the clock is set in (part of the Old Town Hall.

Oh yeah... totally the stairs (though we did ride the elevator on the way down).

From the top, you get a great view of the rest of the city, most obviously of the Tyn Cathedral right across the square, but also all the way across the river to Hradcany (that multi-spired building up on the hill in the picture linked), and the surrounding rooftops of the square, where you can see all kinds of stuff you otherwise have no idea is there, such as a whole restaurant. Pretty cool.

Once we'd gotten back down to street level, we walked in the general direction of the river and Charles Bridge (Karlov Most), with the intent of checking out the Klemenitum as well. On the way, we realized we'd found the "New" Town hall (only about the same age as most of the British Colonies in the New World), which was funded in part by Prague's then-burgeoning Armorers Guild, represented by one of the key statues on the corner of building -- a very early concept mock-up for Darth Vader.

From there, we made our way to the Klementinum, which runs hourly tours and is, apparently, still usually very hard to get into (we met one guy up at the top of the tower who'd been in Prague for 14 days and had finally managed to get into a tour that day -- we got in the first one we tried -- go us!)

So... what's the Klementinum? Big, for one thing. It's right in the center of Stare Mesto - a complex of buildings that's second only in size to Prague Castle. It was built by the Jesuits about 400 years ago -- a big chunk of Old Town was demolished to make way for the college, the (massive, beautiful) library (chock-a-block with medieval manuscripts and codices) with a gorgeous illusionary-dome-painted ceiling, the Church of St. Saviour, and a replacement for the Church of St Clement.

The tour includes a climb up the 279 stairs of the Astronomical Tower - used as an observatory since the early 1700s - there's a really neat demonstration in the top tower, where the Jesuits managed to determine the Prague meridian (from where they calculated high noon, and signaled Prague Castle to fire a cannon at that moment).

We got that guy who'd been trying to get on the tour for two weeks to take a picture of us up at the top of the tower, and it got a couple cool buildings in the background. The verdegris-domes left of my head are from the (other) Church of St. Nicholas, the Disney-looking ones are the Church of Our Lady Tyn again, and the one on the far right is Old Town Hall clock tower, which we'd just climbed.

Also in that picture, you can see the sort of metal plate mounted on the railing? That's got an etched sketch (heh) of the city skyline, with all the cool buildings labeled, and there's one on each of the four corners -- using that, we were able to identify the closest tower of Charles Bridge, and the Petrin Tower on a distant hill. (The Charles Bridge tower's in the mid-range of this picture, and the Petrin Tower is juuuust visible, almost obscured behind one of the other spires in the Klementinum (I put an arrow on it and blew it up.) More about both towers later (though at different times).

So after that, we wandered down through... K-something Street. The tourist shop honeytrap of which all others are but a pale shadow. This opened up into the square just on our side of the river and the tower that denotes the start of the Charles Bridge. There's great cathedral just to the right of the tower in that shot -- the Church of St. Assisi, my notes say, and we've got a couple pictures from the Baroque interior. Gorgeous. Quote from Kate: "You know what they say: 'If it's not Baroque, don't fix it.'"

((I'm just the messenger people.))

So... right. Let's talk about this next picture.

We climbed up to the top of the Charles Bridge east tower and took quite a few shots. This one might seem a bit plain in comparison to a few of the others, but it's full of information:

1. The Bridge has another tower at it's far end, but if you follow the straight line of the bridge, you won't see it -- that's because the bridge curves. That first shoreline you see at the end of the bridge is actually Kampa Island; the bridge angles about 15 degrees north at that point, so if you follow it that direction, you'll see a black-roofed, high-peaked tower pretty much right in the middle of the picture. That's the other end of the bridge.

2. Charles Bridge is always packed with people. At 2am, you might get a thinner crowd, but it'll never be entirely empty. The mass of people you see in that picture is pretty much the norm, taking pictures, listening to the muscicians playing (the Prague Synchopated Orchestra was playing great big band numbers while we crossed), and touching the good luck plaques along the bridge (Badge Earned!).

3. The arrows to the right and left are, respectively, Hradcany (Prague Castle) and Petrin Hill -- our main destinations for Day Two in the really REALLY old part of the city.

We ambled across the bridge, took a few more shots from that end, and then realized we probably needed to head back to the flat to get ready for the dinner thing we'd planned with Kate's friends.

Now, two days later, this would have been a 10, maybe 15 minute walk. This was our first real day, however, so it took us more like a half hour to get back to the building. Luckily, this meant the sun was still up, so we could actually stand back and see the incredibly gorgeous building itself.

Click on that picture for a bigger version. It's just amazing. Or click on this to see a version where I've picked out which of the windows comprised our flat, and the balcony. Gorgeous. The main door is amazing. The metal work is amazing. It's just a really neat building.

Before we went up, we detoured through the Lucerna "Pasaze" (read: shopping maze) with its wacky decorations and did some grocery shopping, first at the british Marks & Spencer chain for some treats, then the Albert supermarket in the metro station for milk and bread and soda and the like.

However, when we'd got back to the flat, we realized (the hard way) that the language barrier had resulted in our purchasing buttermilk rather than regular milk. Yikes.

By this point we were running late, so we raced around, got ready, found a cab (which we erroneously assumed would get us back to the Old Town Square faster than we could walk it), and got back to the namesti. (Which, I should point out, is also very photogenic at night), and had dinner.

Prague's buildings in Old Town are really interesting, in that most of them have a full flight's worth of stairs leading down right from the street level to get to the "main floor" -- the historical reason for this is that many sections of town used to flood a great deal, so one of the Kings (I want to say Charles IV, because it seems like it's ALWAYS Charles IV) decreed that all the streets had to be raised high enough to prevent flooding. This effectively buried the first floor of every building in Old Town, so stairs were built down to what used to be the front door, which is where the business still does its business, as it were.

The place we ate (whose name I forget) actually had a full restaurant not one, not two, but three floors beneath street level. To say it was quiet and cozy and charming is trite, though it was all those things. Also? Great food, good conversation (Czech mothers get THREE YEARS of maternity leave!), and excellent pivo.

After that, we headed home, hit a Save Point (a joke you'll only get if you've played Prince of Persia, but darn funny to both of us :), and crashed, so as to get an early start on the next day.

My flight out of DIA was scheduled for 10:30 am on United. Now, while I could have caught a (cheaper) flight straight from DIA to Frankfurt, I opted for DIA -> La Guardia -> Taxi -> JFK -> Frankfurt, so that on the trip back I could sack out for a day in NYC and watch Battlestar Galactica rest.

I'd given myself a lot of time in NYC: my flight was scheduled to arrive around 4pm and the flight out of JFK didn't take off til 9:30 -- in theory, this was planned wiggle-room in case of complications, but I had hit on a possible plan to shoot over to JFK as soon as I touched down and see if I couldn't get on the 6:30pm flight instead, thus getting into Frankfurt sooner.

As it turned out, I needed the wiggle room. The United flight out of DIA aborted in mid-takeoff, and by that I mean "threw up the airbrakes and smacked back down onto the runaway after having already gotten off the ground a few feet." That was fun. The person sitting next to me had never flown before -- that was fun too. :P

Anyway, we sat on the tarmac for about a half hour, during which time fire trucks rolled out to us, ostensibly to make sure the brakes weren't too hot from the quick deceleration. After that, we rolled back to a gate and the captain announced that the odds were 'pretty good' we'd need a new plane before we could fly again. Maybe it'd take another half-hour?

Riiiiight. Because there are spare planes just... laying around at DIA. Sure. I chatted with the captain after everyone else deplaned to pick up a fresh latte, and opined that it'd be more like "a half-hour before we even know what's going to happen."

By this point, I'm reviewing my schedule and know that not only will I not make the early flight, I need to be off the ground in about 45 minutes or I'll miss the ACTUAL flight. Joy.

Right, so I find out about one other flight on United heading out, head down there, and after some grousing from the gate warden about 'can't just let everyone on', despite the fact that they had a half dozen seats remaining, and assuring her that yes, I could deal with a middle seat (or, in fact, being tied to the underside of the wing) just fine if it got me to NYC on time, I boarded.

Can I just say that United Airlines has, in my opinion, nothing at all going for it in the way of service or personal appeal? Nothing. I'd select any number of other airlines by preference, if they'd only had flights arriving anywhere near the time I needed them to arrive. They give you a free movie to watch? Big friggin' deal.

Right. Got into LGA behind schedule, but with enough time, given no other major problems. The taxi over to JFK took an age, but the check in was relatively painless. Boarding took yet another age, and we got into the air late. I was pleased that the movie playing wasn't one I had any interest in at all, so I could sleep as much as possible. Wasn't perfect, but it helped the jet lag later.

Got into Frankfurt and out of Customs around noon, local time, on Sunday (4am for those keeping track in Mountain Time), took a shower back at the hotel, ate lunch ("Breakfast!" my metabolism cried out. "This should be breakfast! And it's too early!") and then Kate and I walked around the city a bit before heading back to the hotel to pick up our bags and head BACK to the airport for our short (ha!) flight to Prague. Security was a repetitive and redundant mess, due to a bomb threat that had been made in Prague's Josefov (Jewish) Quarter earlier that week -- four security checkpoints before we got to the 'refreshingly feature-free' lounge, where we awaited our BUS out to the plane. (Frankfurt makes you bus out to pretty much any plane that might be going anywhere dangerous -- cooties, you know.)

Arrived in Prague around 7pm, met by the driver arranged for us by some of Kate's business associates (who were also providing us the flat for the week, for free!) The driver was great -- sort of a Harley-biker grandfatherly-looking guy with a beard and a ponytail who will be played by Bob Hoskins in the movie. His name was, I think, Ivo (phonetically, eh-Voh).

Ivo doesn't speak English. That was a hoot. While he drove, we tried out a few Czech words on him to see if he had a sense of humor -- he did, and also helped out with some good examples.

Key words to know in Prague:
1. Prosim (PRO-seem) -- this means, alternately, 'please', 'excuse me', 'you're welcome', and about fifty other things, depending on context.
2. Djekuju (dYEK-koo-yoo) -- this pretty much means "Thank you: I am a stupid american, trying to speak your language. I have noticed that no native EVER says this word, but the guidebook says it means thank you, so I'll use it as a means of entertaining you with my hopeless mangling of your language, thus to get a small smirk out of you and a miniscule lowering of the price of whatever item I'm trying to buy from your shop."
3. Ahoj (ahoy) -- this is the Czech version of 'aloha' -- it's interchageably used for either hello or goodbye by those who are informal with one another, or by Americans who can't pronounce anything else in the guidebook.
4. Zaplatim (ZA-plah-teem) -- "Please bring me the check... and if possible, a calculator, so I can divide the amount on the bill by 23, so I can figure out what I'm paying in Real Money." This is, conveniently, a pretty easy work to say correctly, in Czech -- which is good, since saying "Check, prosim" to a Czech is... confusing.

We got to the flat after dark, so we didn't get a really good idea of how gorgeous the outside of the building was until the next day (it's actually listed in the tourist guides as one of the Art Nouveau Places to Find and Take Pictures of). After settling in, we took off for a short walk around Vaclav Namesti (which is actually easier to spell than Wenceslas Square :P) and realized we were about a half-block from one of the ex-pat-recommended pizza places in town -- Pizza Colisseum -- so we stopped in there for supper.

Good pizza, though I found out the hard way that 'pepperoni pizza' means 'lots of bell peppers on it' not 'pepperoni on it'. Also, a 'personal pizza' in Prague is about 8 inches across.

We headed back to the flat, negotiated the five or six locks to get inside, and crashed for the night (and most of the next morning -- jet lag sucks), thus concluding (for me) a 32-hour stretch (less three hours sleeping on the plane) of wakefulness.

Next up: Prague, Day One!

... while Czech food has the homey, comforting qualities I associate with the farming communities of the Great Plains, the Germans...

I'm convinced that everthing the Germans know about beer was gained by dint of some ancient, infernal sacrifice that cost them all understanding of food items more complicated than the sausage and boiled cabbage. They put ketchup on chicken sandwiches and kernels of sweet corn on pizza.

Pity them, for they are the damned.

Easy: Travel out of the U.S., then try to get back in. In W's America, wanting to leave for a few days is reason enough to make your reentry hell, like trying to come home and have a pleasant Christmas with a relative who's still bitter about the year you declined the invitation.

You can do it, but you'll pay for it, and it'll leave you making different plans for next season. :P

I have nothing more to add here. Prague is great. T'aint LONDON, but I like the night life more: where else do you get an Irish band with two scots, an american, and a Ukrainian, playing 'Stormy Weather'? Nowhere, that's where.

Gotcha all pretties. More later on non-tiny keyboard.

So, the second day of a millionzillion tourist stairs (indicated in Prague by giving the 'trapped' placename an accented character so the locals know to stay away) has come to a close. Posting has been and will continue to be sparse until I get back, due to very very little internet access. (This post is via blackberry.) But the city is great, the sights are amazing, the food is homey, the beer is sehr gut, and our flat is listed in the tourist guidebook under Art Nouveau stuff to see. Crazy.

The party you are trying to reach is out of the country until sometime on October the 15th. He isn't going to have his cell phone on, and he'll only be checking email every so often, but he will be having a good time (since he hopefully paid off all his bad travel-karma during the first massive snafu at DIA).

Leave a message here if you like; for requests of the "buy me a nested doll!" variety...

Well, no. :)

A list of non-liquid items like mouthwash powder, shampoo bars, and powdered tooth cleaners that are safe to carry on commercial airline flights.

Here's something interesting: imagine the consumer product world, as a 'near future science fiction' exercise, in which all major non-food (and even food) industries have shifted entirely to non-liquid versions of their current-day, modern antecedents.

Of course, in six to ten months, once there's an entire 'liquid-free for the frequent traveler' market of products ranging from makeup to yogurt, there'll be another anthrax scare and Powders will suddenly be the new black. (Or, in this case, the new Threat Level Orange.)

Meh.

To paraphrase Greg Rucka, calling it the War on Terror and acting as though it is an ongoing battle is idiocy: once people are afraid and, more to the point, make significant choices about their day to day life based on that fear, said "War on Terror" becomes a moot point; terror has already been delivered to its intended target.

Doesn't mean you can't have a War on Terrorism, I suppose, but that's a very different thing.

Google Maps/NYC Subway Mashup

As already summarized by here, we spent most of the weekend up in Estes Park, horseback riding and camping and suchlike. Rather than go for a specific breakdown, here are a few thoughts and highlights:

* Sombrero Ranch is very well organized, very professional, very affordable, accepts walk-ins for most of the rides, and offers rides year round (though the overnight camping trip is only available in the summer months), ranging from one-hour walks, to overnight all-day camping trips, to weekend long 'adventures' that involve actually doing a cattle-drive and the like. I really can't recommend them highly enough.

* I had a hambuger on Thursday and a steak on Saturday night, and I suffered no ill effects that couldn't be handled by a few pepto-tablets: my inability to eat red meat is pretty well a thing of the past.

* We observed a rule for the weekend: "From the drive up to Estes until after the drive DOWN from Estes, no talking about games, gaming, or City of Heroes." With only one BRIEF lapse (in which I shared a funny character concept that involved the 'brick house' pig from the three little pigs, plagued with survivor's guilt), I actually managed. Those who know me might find that totally somewhat unbelievable remarkable.

* My horse's name was Hippy; which turned out to be absolutely perfect -- her blonde mane was long and shaggy, she constantly had the munchies, and she liked grass a little too much.

* I need to pick up this album.

* Pain. What I wasn't prepared for was being slightly bowlegged, but still supporting my weight quite a bit on the various rocky downslopes for hours at a time -- the cockeyed angle put a lot of strain on my knees, and I was feeling that pretty hard by the end of the day on Saturday. Also, riding in general works your abs like an angry Russian personal trainer. Unrelated pain: Hippy REALLY likes scratching herself along trees as she rides past them (or over them, if they're small enough to give her a belly scratch), and I was allowing this behavior fairly indulgently until I got my left knee mashed repeatedly between her and a ten-year ponderosa with no give at all. After that, Hippy and I had to come to an understanding about my needs as the-guy-with-the-reins. Coupled with all that was a completely punctured air mattress (someone -- possibly me -- packed the mattress way too close to the tent stakes) and a night of laying on the ground. Ugh. Back muscles are still feeling that.

* Everyone should take the time, as often as they can, to get somewhere with no lights nearby and look at the stars. It's really... important.

* Would I do it again? Absolutely. (Provided I had the sense to pick up slightly more appropriate shoes next time.)

Off the grid for the next... oh, say day-and-a-half: up in the mountains, camping and riding horses in Estes Park. Pictures to follow, eventually.

Spent the weekend in NYC, which was generally pretty darn quiet, since people had headed out of town for a long weekend.

Friday
Got into town at about 6 am on a red-eye and crashed til close to noon. Talked about Dogs in the Vineyard with Keeley and basically lazed about. In the evening, there was deleeeecious dinner at... I cannot POSSIBLY convey what this restaurant was like by saying "hole in the wall restaurant." It was a portable-hole-in-the-wall... in a hidden basement, behind a secret door, with two sets of guards and a password required. It was also

really

really

Good.

After eating too much Mexican Deliciousness, staggered out to walk it off and see Superman Returns. Lemme tell you people: that is a great movie. I think they kept all the best parts of the original movies (Reeve's inarguably perfect depiction of Clark Kent, for example) while giving it a solid grounding in realism and heart and dare-I-say believability that the original movies often lacked. It's the best Superman movie they've ever made, in my opinion.

Saturday
Wow. Archetypal New York summer Saturday -- the kind of thing you read about or see in a movie: Grab a blanket, a couple books, some sun screen, and head to Central Park (all of maybe 10 blocks from Kate's place) to laze around, read, and people watch (picking up bagel sandwiches on the way) -- that was pretty much the morning and early afternoon. Watched The Perfect Score, which I highly recommend for anyone who needs a Breakfast Club fix.

That evening, fun and Turbo Cranium over at Matt's apartment (whose balcony looks down on Daredevil's *coff*totally gentrified*coff* "slum of Hell's Kitchen"). Again, Turbo Cranium is laugh-until-your-insides-hurt funny, and produced the title of this blog post while people tried to guess the Puppeteer-meets-Charades 'clue' that another player was trying to give for "pinata". High-larious.

Sunday
Sunday at the Met(ropolitan Museum of Art -- also only about 10 blocks from Kate's), looking at ... well, stuff. Egyptian stuff, including the TEMPLE OF DENDUR (spooky, no?), lots of great period clothing stuff from England, lots and lots of swords and armor stuff, including a really fun exhibit focusing just on the warriors of the Himalayas. My brain felt all expand-y, and the air conditioned goodness was a much-appreciated side benefit.

Watched Dark City, because I just... kinda... have to get people to watch it if they haven't. Still a darn cool movie, even after ... hmm... seven years? Wow.

And then delicious chicken wraps, and packing, and a plane filled (50% of the passengers, I'm not kidding) with small, angry children, and back to Denver I flew. Napped a bit and then read the rest of Holly Black's Tithe on the flight((and that's a good book, by the way)), hitting the last page as we taxied up to the gate at DIA.

And that's it. How was your weekend?

I still haven't recovered. I don't know if I ever will, or if I'll ever see 'right' again -- everything keeps tesser-imaging out of the corner of my eye, and I got off easy -- no one even knows if poor Keeley will pull through after they took his baby, and Maureen...

Jesus, Maureen, I'm sorry.

To the rest of you: I have to record this -- put it all down, get it out of my head -- but you don't have to read it. Hell, you probably shouldn't; if they decide you know too much, you'll be on The List, too.

You just... you don't want that. I don't want that -- I couldn't live with myself.

If you read the rest, I'm sorry.

It was supposed to be a simple trip to New York, just like all the trips I'd taken twos of times before. Fly in, fly out... simple and quick and silent, like a cat burglar. A flying cat burglar. With luggage.

But I got a message on my comm that let me know every little thing was, in fact, not gonna be all right. One of Them had gotten to Keeley -- gotten to his baby -- killed it, or close enough... taken its mind, its soul... it's hard drive heart. I think Kate must have known They were closing in -- she'd tried to get one of the Security goons from the Main Office in to batten things down, but it was either too late by then... or he was in on it.

Forewarned, I slipped into the city under the cover of the dimly-lit darkness of full night, like Snoopy in one of those really spooky Red Baron montages that you never really understand when you're a kid, but you watch anyway, because you don't have cable and it's a cartoon that's playing when grown-up stuff is usually playing, and that's cool.

It was raining. It was foggy. It was damp. It was chilly. It was Friday.

The fiction of a 'lazy weekend' was already overtaking me by the time I got to the Branch Office, and I wasn't ready for a full-out battle -- trying to crawl past all those fox holes and machine gun placements while snaking along the ground like Snoopy is exhausting, and trying to do his little dance, afterwards? I was done in. Hell, I didn't even realize we were entirely off the grid until mid-afternoon, and by then, there wasn't much I could try; I figured it was a glitch in the System, and we were still getting some signals through -- a ping here, a pong there, and almost an hour worth of communication from Battlestar Galactica. It made us feel safe. Secure. Warm.

God we were fools.

We broke cover when the sun started to give up the fight (we should have noticed something then, dammit!), detoured by the Main Office for a few minutes, and headed over to Base Trey for resupply and debriefing.

The debriefing was good, and the resupply, scrumptious. It would have been nice to stay -- sweet, even -- but Kate got word about a invasion of Brachyura decapods trying to break through the City wards at specific coordinates, and we had to get some back-up and move quick.

I don't like to talk about what happened then, but let me tell you: not one of the brave soldiers that went into that place were moving quick when we came out. The first round of oyster shells alone... my god.

We knew what was going on by then: this was a battle for mankind, a race for the brassiest ring on the merry-go-round... and I didn't even have my all-day carnival ticket.

Luckily, there was Kate -- we would have called her ear-to-the-ground Kate, except we didn't -- she told us about a group of hooligans that needed to be watched; recklessly extravagant... characterized by wasteful expenditure...

The Prodigals.

For work like this, we had to call in Maureen, and it was a damn good thing we did, because I was too weak to maintain surveillance through the whole night -- I'd been up too long, crawled through too many rolls of razor wire, taken too many shells...

... and I'm pretty sure that by then their hackers had gotten into my eye.

We thought it was a good sign that we got back to the Branch Office unscathed, but it was all ruse. They just wanted us where they could keep an eye on things.

Until Saturday.

They must have gassed the Branch Office -- I didn't come to until almost noon, and I woke to a kind of horrible horror show of macabre horror. Keeley had bits of his baby strew from from room to room and was pacing in tight, "Knit One, Purl Two" circles, pulling out tufts of hair -- some of it even his -- and gibbering about his slots; more than any man needed to hear. He knew he needed help -- some kind of support -- but so did They, and They had taken us entirely off the grid.

We went out for resupply -- it helped, but it wasn't enough, and the only thing we could think to do was get out and away from the Branch Office and see what good ol' Ear-to-the-Ground could find out.

Somewhere near NYU, one of Our People actually managed to make contact with us, and was able to explain why They were working so hard to keep us cut off.

It was Booth. The son of a bitch was time-jumping again, loose in Greenwich and East Village and recruiting some of the henchiest henchmen I've ever had the misfortune to see -- planning a jump back to 1860 to kill Lincoln before the man was ever named President. Our contact set us on his trail with a copy of the secret communiques that Booth was using to clue his men in on where to meet for the last big jump. With that and one of The Company's "tardis cameras" to show us snapshots of our locations as they were in the past, we tracked the greasy bastard down. It took hours. It was grueling. But we got him.

What did we do to him?

I've taken oaths of silence, but I'll guarantee you this: by 2006, John Wilkes Booth is verifiably dead. No question.

We headed back to the Branch Office, triumphant. We were ready to celebrate -- to eat the multi-colored cupcakes of victory. Little did we know, the battle was far from over.

The cues started to come in when we got back to the Branch Office and found out we were still off the grid and Keeley's baby was still twitching on the floor -- twitching in time with my eye, actually, but I didn't want to tell anyone that -- didn't want to alarm them more than they already were.

Maureen made it in and with her filling in the blanks, we figured out the rest -- it wasn't enough that we save this world, we had to save another.

Catan. Always Catan. God, how many times?

I worked at trying to get us back on the grid (I'm guessing that's why Their Hackers went for my eye, but the way things are going now, I think it's possible it might have been radiation from the tardis-cam) while Keeley constructed the complex matrix that would send us back to the pathetic, backwards, nigh-on two-dimensional world we needed to guide into the light.

The portal was set, the tesseract opened, and we moved into orbit over the tiny, plasticene minions the Main Office had already bent to our will -- they are pathetic creatures, but loyal -- we are as gods to them, and they treated us as such -- almost a fair trade for the sacrifices required to achieve total omnipotent power.

Of course we saved them, there was no doubt we would -- only how long it would take, and this battle, came at a price. The Demon Cat demanded we leave one of our own behind to rule the mongrel, particoloured Catanites, and after much pain, we chose Maureen.

God, I'm sorry, Maureen, but you were the best of us -- the best able to rule...

Plus, you had that really great Library. It's not like you didn't have stuff to read.

Exhausted by our world-saving efforts, we received a few hours of broadcasts from Galactica, then collapsed like all good soldiers do. Those are the rules -- eat when there's food, sleep when there's time to sleep, and do a peppy little dance whenever they play that Gorillaz song on the radio.

That's what we did, because we're brave little soldiers.

Sunday

By this point, we didn't know what to expect. Sunday could have been anything: despite my best efforts (and a cruel moment when They let me think I'd broken through), we were still off the Grid and were forced into the City for more recon. We stopped at a diner for resupply, but two of Their Agents were there, equipped with some kind of sound-based... mind... and word... sucking... thing.

We fled into some kind of ... Park.

I know. It was the City, but still, we somehow managed to find a Park. Some kind of ... central... Park. I thought we'd escaped our pursuers, but They sent rain that drove us under a bridge for cover, and eavesdropped on our conversations with tiny little ninja sparrows, hopping from one perch to the next, whispering in their staccato morse-code... whispering threats.

We fled.

They were STABBY NINJA SPARROWS, MAN! What would YOU have done?!?

The Battlestar was broadcasting when we got back to the Branch Office. We watched it, still not sure what it all meant... I'm not sure we ever will.

After that... well, I had to get out.

It was the only way. I hated it. Hate it even now, in fact, but it was only way I could get the word out... to let people know about Them. About the City. About the War.

I'm hoping someone can do something more. I'm hoping I can go back. I hope I've got what it takes.

I need to be like Snoopy.

Snoopy went back, over and over.

Every damn Holiday Special, he went back.

Heading off the grid for a few days, guys.

this post enabled by airblogging.com.

Huh. There's a Doyce Street in London.

Certainly, this was a busy weekend, what with the trip out to the Hills and lots of vacationy goodness. Let's sum up.

Thursday:
We took off for the hills at around 8:30 (had to stop to fuel up the car and grab some papers I'd left at work) and did the trip in good time: we arrived at the cabin a few miles outside of Lead just before 3pm. Our timing was good -- about the same time we got out to the cabin, everyone else (driving in from "Eestriver") had arrived in Lead and had picked up the house key and gone grocery shopping.

The cabin was great: fully furnished and stocked with utensils, appliances (fridge, microwave, satellite tv, washer and dryer, et cetera), and able to sleep 10 before you even get into things like kids in sleeping bags and whatnot. Some folks took pictures, but there are plenty on the website, so there you go.

We'd talked about going out and doing something that evening/late afternoon, but after all the packing was done everyone was pretty much in the mood for barbeque and vegging out. We grilled brats and I tossed in Titan A.E. for the kids to watch in the meantime. (We'd brought out our old DVD player for my parents -- get them into the modern age and all, so I figured to put it to use while we were there.) Jackie had invested in super-soakers and laser-tag-like badges for all the kids as well, so much fun was had as the sun went down. After supper we tossed in The Italian Job, which my folks hadn't seen, and some of us even watched it.

Later in the evening, after Reggie taught me how to lose big at Texas Hold-em, we broke the shrinkwrap on Apples to Apples and taught everyone to play... that was around 9pm, and I think we played until about midnight. Yikes. Everyone had a pretty good time with it, I guess :)

Friday
Dad and Reggie and I headed over to the Tomahawk Country Club in the morning, after the womenfolk assured us they'd 'find something to do'.

This scenic course is highlighted by the numerous trees that can alter your shots and water hazards coming into play on three holes. The greens are sloped, and the fairways are extremely narrow.

I talk more about how things played out for me in a previous post. In this first time around, I didn't get beat nearly as badly as I did in the second round -- I was only five strokes back from Dad and Reggie, which I'm going to blame mostly on some really bad pitch-shots. I didn't lose a ball.

We got back to the cabin right at noon, ate lunch, and headed down to the D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, by way of Scenic Spearfish Valley Byway (Hwy 14) and a stop at Roughlock Falls. Both of these stops were quite a blast from the past for Bonnie and me, since we grew up doing summer vacations in the Black Hills and visited both of these attractions at least a couple times -- they sell big bags of fish food at the hatchery and watching the kids holler when the fish went crazy at the dropped food really reminded me of what it was like back in the day.

...but I don't remember it being so HOT.

By the time we'd finished up with the hatchery, everyone was hot and pretty tired/grumpy, so we headed back to the cabin for supper (steaks and pork chops) and downtime. More card playing, more Apples to Apples (at the gleeful request of those who'd been taught it the night before, which I count as a success), and I popped in an episode of Firefly to spread the faith (Paige and I watched Our Mrs. Reynolds all the way through after most everyone else had crashed).

Saturday
The night before, we'd all agreed that planning to do tourist stuff in the middle of the hot afternoon was lunacy, so we planned out Saturday with the idea that 2pm was about when we'd get done, instead. Good plan (and even better when I remembered some planning failures during the first day visiting London and we dropped one stop from the schedule and turned the Crazy Horse memorial into a drive-by instead of a visit).

So, we drove past Crazy Horse and into Custer State Park, via the Needle Highway, which is narrow and twisty and features a number of one-lane tunnels that are quite cool. The drive is fun if you're at the wheel and sometimes nerve-wracking if you're not -- I was driving, so it was fun.

We stopped at Sylvan Lake around eleven and ate a picnic lunch, then rented some paddle boats and toddled around the lake for a bit (I don't remember it being such hard work when I was a kid) and headed for Keystone (small town at the base of Mt. Rushmore).

There, we had some ice cream at Dairy Queen (and met up with Justin, who'd been off for the morning with his mom, who took off back home after dropping him off) to get everyone's blood sugar and mood up, then headed up to Mt. Rushmore (find your own website, sheesh). Stared in awe, watched the little movie in the nicely-air-conditioned theatre, and that was that. The place has changed quite a bit, but the old cafeteria building is still there (if off to the side and serving a different purpose) and I even saw a food-begging chipmunk on a bench.

By then, then menfolk were pretty much done with tourism for the day, but the kids and ladies wanted to try out the President's Alpine Slide, so we split up the cars differently and the menfolk headed back to relax play some more golf.

We were about halfway back (call it 30 miles) to the cabin when we realized that the ladies had the key to the cabin.

Anyway, we got back to the cabin and got inside...

...nevermind how; there's a damage deposit and we got all of it back, so it doesn't matter, does it?

... and off to the course, where (a) I golfed exactly the same score (b) Reggie pointed out what was screwing up my chip shots, which I only wish he'd noticed about 10 holes earlier.

Everyone else was back from the slide before we actually started playing (they stopped at the course), and they said they had a really good time. Cool.

Saturday night, the guys ended up reheating the pork chops and steaks and making sandwiches out of them with some con queso sauce... yummy. Everyone crashed pretty early, because we'd been up late and getting up DAMN early most of the trip (which happens in a house containing a year-old child :).

Sunday
We packed up and cleaned the house, which took a little while, got everything into the right cars, and decided to wander down Deadwood's historic mainstreet for a bit, where I became enamored of a replica peacemaker that I figured I could order online just as cheaply (and I was right). Justin and I wanted to do an old west style photo, but Jackie demurred and put us off (temporarily -- we have such studios here in Denver as well) and we headed back to Denver around eleven, arriving around five in the afternoon to some very happy dogs.

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In summary, it was a very successful vacation -- the first in which the entire extended family was in attendance since 1992 (Breckenridge, and I think possibly the last time any of us went skiing, by some weird coincidence that makes no sense). It was great to go back to what has always felt like 'home' as far as childhood vacations go.

A little different, a little the same, and all good.

As ***Dave mentioned on his own behalf, things have been normalizing around here after about a month of weird schedules, trips, sickness and so forth.

Perfect time for another trip, right? Ugh.

Jackie and Justin and I are off to the Black Hills this weekend to hang out with my folks, Justin's mom, and my sister and her family. Tourist stuff is in the offing, with trips to Custer State Park, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Bear Country and Deadwood on the docket (also some golfing and nightly grilling).

I doubt very much that it will be either restful or relaxing, since our 'cabin' is a solid hour of driving from most everywhere we want to go and we really can't get anywhere without involving all three cars, but it will be very nice to see everyone and vaguely nostalgic to revisit the Black Hills, which was my family's annual vacation location from approximately 1974 to 1989.

I've been trying to explain to people how the folks and KOA managed to cook pretty much everything for the whole weekend inside of a couple cardboard boxes.

Anyway, I've tried to explain the things as best as I can, but just to get the whole thing documented, here's something like the full assembly instructions.

Take a sturdy large box. (A Computer Monitor box seems like a pretty good size.) Completely double-line the inside of the box with aluminum foil (reflective side facing the heat).

The box sits on its side, so that the former top of the box and the flaps are on the side and can be used as oven doors (which obviously need to be closed tightly to keep the heat in – seems like a longish bungee would work for this if you were real paranoid). Put steel rods (such as rebar) or hangers through the middle of the box (to form a rack to place baking trays on). Place an inverted pie tin (with a slightly bent rim to allow air to flow under it) on the new ‘bottom’ of the oven and then another pie tin (right side up) on top; this is where your charcoal goes. (It is important to have the inverted pie tin in order to insulate the bottom of the box from the charcoal.)

Place 2-3 pieces of charcoal in the pan per 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) of cooking temp you need (bigger boxes need a bit more charcoal). The main thing is to make sure that there is absolutely no exposed cardboard inside the box, otherwise your box will ignite.

The kOa variant uses a large ‘outside box’ double-lined with tinfoil on the inside, which then contains a slightly smaller “inner box” that is both double-lined and covered in tinfoil to further reduce the chance of heat escaping. They also hang an oven thermometer inside the oven on one of the pieces of rebar, so you know if you’re getting the temperature right.

(Thanks to Margie for pointing out that such things aren't that rare and that instructions for various types are out on this 'internet' thing.)