The flight to Dulles was slightly delayed, not enough to be alarming, merely annoying. I ran to the empty departure area, slightly out of breath and as I checked in with the gate agent, she smiled and ripped up my boarding pass. It took me a half beat to catch on as she mumbled about [...]

As is my tradition before leaving on a long international trip, I’m up too late blogging instead of doing other, more reasonable things, like sleeping. But at least I’m mostly done packing. I’m excited by two new innovations on this trip. First is the REI self-stowing Zip daypack, which is rather self-explanatory. In it’s self-stowed [...]

an appropriate start to the week Made it to BRU with a minimal amount of fuss. Well, it was minimal if you don’t count the 24 hour layover in Chicago due to my inbound flight from DEN getting delayed for malarky, making me miss the single flight to BRU that United fly per day, but [...]

gatos de Toledo It’s Wednesday and changes are afoot. Things are coming up milhouse. Not really ready to reveal anything yet, so instead, let me distract you with pictures of cats. Rawr!

woman with grandson, Lijiang, China Photographic spring cleaning. I’ve been sitting on quite a few photos from various trips, etc. that I never got around to posting because it was just too painful to process them with an ancient Mac mini G4 with a mere 1GB of RAM. Old Lijiang city in China was one [...]

old man with a cane, Lijiang, China This is what I feel like after this particular week of employment. On the other hand, if my facial hair looks that amazing some day, sign me up. I may have to stop shaving for the rest of my life beginning… now. The WSJ quotes Bernanke as saying: [...]

If only he were puking Sour Patch Kids. Torre Agbar and La Sagrada Familia This lizard is everywhere. Personally, I found it a little underwhelming. Love the argyle though! This is probably what I look like all the time. Except I’m, you know, Asian, so I’ve got that sweet stereotype going for me, which is [...]

Math turns me on too.   We spent a half day wandering around la Sagrada Familia, designed by Gaudi. One of the cooler cathedrals I’ve ever been to, and it’s not even completed yet. I loved how much Gaudi borrowed from nature in his designs, from plant morphology to placing fruits on top of the [...]

Slicing a sliver of delicioso. Traditional Spanish breakfast: a full cup of chocolate with churros. No, I also don’t know why the entire country hasn’t died of diabetes yet. Absolutely delightful. Beep! Back for a few days and I’m already missing eating tapas for every meal.

To properly picture the Cortes Ingles, start with Macy’s, but then stack a Best Buy on top, then a Crate & Barrel on top of that, a Home Depot design center on top of that, and put the entire stack onto a Whole Foods. There are probably other stores in there too; I only visited [...]