Well, I finally had to give up on getting my digital camera back. I got an email last week from AirTran Lost & Found dept which said:
"I have not received a camera like the one you are describing. If one does happen to come in I will contact you>"
I was going to try to get the money back on my credit card insurance, as it covers items bought on the card for 100 days after purchase, but it turns out that when I checked the date I bought it, it was just over 4 months ago :-( I've contacted the airline about getting reimbursd for the camera one of their light-fingered cleaning staff is now using, but according to their T&C: "Claims for damaged or delayed baggage must be submitted before leaving the airport after arrival.". Technically I did that, I filled in a lost items form, but they'll probably try to say it wasn't a claims form, just a missing items report form.
So, I decided to go into the shops here in dublin to see how much I can get a replacement for anyway, seing as I have a few trips coming up in the next month that I'll need a cam for. In the shops here, the same camera will set me back €419 without memory card, or €70 more than what I paid for both the camera and memory card in Tokyo. I've done a bit of looking around and found it for a better price at www.pixmania.com - camera, 1Gb memory stick and carry case for €390 (incl delivery). Unfortunately the only option for shipping it was DHL, so all I can do is hope it gets here in one piece!
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
"Getting there is half the fun" - terrorists, hair gel and the dangers of falling asleep on planes.
Waking up to the sound of an alarm clock is never the most pleasant experiences, but it is doubly worse at 5am when you've only gotten to bed at midnight after a lot of beer. But, seeing as I had a 7:30am flight form Milwaukee to Boston, it had to be done.
The first indication that things were slightly out of the normal was the sign by the check-in desk that told us that "Due to new security restrictions, passengers are prohibited from taking any liquids on board the plane". No-one had seen the news or anything (my first thought at 5am was definitely not "let's turn on CNN!"), so we paid it no heed really, until the check-in girl warned me to make sure I went straight to security, as there were long queues. The queue was fairly long, and the first real inkling people got that this wasn't business as usual was the TSA agent walking up and down the qqueue qith teh wheelie-bin telling us to dummp all liquids as they weren't going to be allowed on the plane - water, shampoo, hair gel, toothpaste, you name it, if it wasn't solid at room temp, it went in the bin. There was a good bit of grumbling at this, especially from the guy in front of me who had to bin a $100 dollar bottle of cologne, but we did it anyway, and the queue inched along.
It was only after I was through and wandering past the newsagents stall that I got any idea as to why this was happening - there was a TV on (was Fox News, but if you inore the wavy american flag in the corner and the sensationalist banner headlines, it just about passes for news). So, the brits had broken up this big terrorist ring. The way Fox were spinning it, they'd been pretty much arrested at the airport about to board the planes, so they could blow them all up over the atlantic. Nice to hear when you're just about to board one yourself!
It was only when I'd gotten to Baltimore on my stopover that I realised how much of a kerfuffle the whole thing had caused. The airport was in a panic! I'd been lucky enough to get through security in MLK before things really got mad, but in Baltimore I met ppl who'd speent 2 1/2hrs getting through security and who had missed their flight! I was just lucky that I'd gotten my Baltimore-Boston boarding card in Milwaukee, so I dind't have to brave that again! Was actually easy for me - I got off the plane at gate E8 and strolled over to E5 where I was supposed to take off from again! Had a moment of slight panic when I saw that my plane wasn't up on the departures board, but I asked at the gate and things were OK.
.....And this then is where things went pear-shaped. About half-way between Baltimore and Boston, I remembered that I'd taken my camera out to look thru the pics on the Milwaukee-Baltimore leg of the flight, and hten left it in the seat pocket in front of me. Unfortunately, due to being a tad tired from waking up so early, I fell asleep then, and only woke up when we were landing. So, I grabbed my bag and got off the plane, forgetting about the camera. So, while I was en route to Boston, my camera was en route to Rochester, New York! I went straight up to one of the customer service reps as soon as I landed anyway, and she got onto baltimore, but no sign of it. So, I fille dint he missing itelms form, and left them at it. So, I finally made it to Boston, without any huge big security fuss but without my $400 digital cameral either! :-(
The first indication that things were slightly out of the normal was the sign by the check-in desk that told us that "Due to new security restrictions, passengers are prohibited from taking any liquids on board the plane". No-one had seen the news or anything (my first thought at 5am was definitely not "let's turn on CNN!"), so we paid it no heed really, until the check-in girl warned me to make sure I went straight to security, as there were long queues. The queue was fairly long, and the first real inkling people got that this wasn't business as usual was the TSA agent walking up and down the qqueue qith teh wheelie-bin telling us to dummp all liquids as they weren't going to be allowed on the plane - water, shampoo, hair gel, toothpaste, you name it, if it wasn't solid at room temp, it went in the bin. There was a good bit of grumbling at this, especially from the guy in front of me who had to bin a $100 dollar bottle of cologne, but we did it anyway, and the queue inched along.
It was only after I was through and wandering past the newsagents stall that I got any idea as to why this was happening - there was a TV on (was Fox News, but if you inore the wavy american flag in the corner and the sensationalist banner headlines, it just about passes for news). So, the brits had broken up this big terrorist ring. The way Fox were spinning it, they'd been pretty much arrested at the airport about to board the planes, so they could blow them all up over the atlantic. Nice to hear when you're just about to board one yourself!
It was only when I'd gotten to Baltimore on my stopover that I realised how much of a kerfuffle the whole thing had caused. The airport was in a panic! I'd been lucky enough to get through security in MLK before things really got mad, but in Baltimore I met ppl who'd speent 2 1/2hrs getting through security and who had missed their flight! I was just lucky that I'd gotten my Baltimore-Boston boarding card in Milwaukee, so I dind't have to brave that again! Was actually easy for me - I got off the plane at gate E8 and strolled over to E5 where I was supposed to take off from again! Had a moment of slight panic when I saw that my plane wasn't up on the departures board, but I asked at the gate and things were OK.
.....And this then is where things went pear-shaped. About half-way between Baltimore and Boston, I remembered that I'd taken my camera out to look thru the pics on the Milwaukee-Baltimore leg of the flight, and hten left it in the seat pocket in front of me. Unfortunately, due to being a tad tired from waking up so early, I fell asleep then, and only woke up when we were landing. So, I grabbed my bag and got off the plane, forgetting about the camera. So, while I was en route to Boston, my camera was en route to Rochester, New York! I went straight up to one of the customer service reps as soon as I landed anyway, and she got onto baltimore, but no sign of it. So, I fille dint he missing itelms form, and left them at it. So, I finally made it to Boston, without any huge big security fuss but without my $400 digital cameral either! :-(
Baseball, a sport designed for beer!
Well, I have now seen my first ever live game of baseball. I don't think I'll be a convert.
After the shenanigans of the night before, it took us a bit of time to become fully human again (soakage and Red Bull was needed!), and so the day was spent in low-key mode, as we knew we'd need our energy for the baseball game that night (the original reason for me to come over to the US!). In the afternoon we went looking at Condos with K's mom (they're buying one), and headed to Miller Stadium around 3ish for tailgating.
For those who haven't been to a baseball game, tailgating is a big BBQ party you have in the parking lot (or as we yuropeens call it, the "car park" :-P ) outside the stadium. Basically, you pull up in a few jeeps/SUV's, unload a BBQ or two and a few kegs of beer, and lay into them. Another friend of mine has been tailgating down in Virginia(?), and they do the normal BBQ thing of steak, burgers, ribs, chicken etc, but Milwaukee had a big German immigrant population, so we had Bratwurst! And Bratwurst is good - got about 3 big fuck-off german sausages in a bun, with Sauerkraut, Ketchup and that piss-weak yellow stuff americans call "mustard"! I also managed to choke down some more beer, and after the first the rest seemed to go down OK again. At the start I knew no-one htere apart from K and her folks, but later on a few of the crowd fomrt eh night before arrived, so that made things less socially awkward for me.
We finally managed to make our way into the game, about half an hour after it started, and it became evident nearly as soon as we sat down that what was actually happneing on the pitch was nearly incidental to the whole "baseball experience". It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes off the drink, and realises when he goes to a game that baseball really sucks! For every bit like you see on TV where someone actualy hits something, there's a lot of not very much going on. About the only way you could stay 100% interested in the game would be if you're one of them sad anorak types who's seriously into their statistics (batting average etc). Luckily tho, we didnt have to stay sober! I spent a lot of time chatting to Devrah (who was damn cute, but taken), who seemed to only know slightly more about the rules of the game than I did, and about half-way throught the 5th(?) inning we got bored and went down to the gift shop to do some shopping! Unfortunately, she had to take a potty break, and so while I was awaiting for her we had the only home run of the game :-( Whenever the Brewers score a home run, their mascot (Bernie the Brewer), slides down a slide into a giant mug of beer, but we missed that as it happened pretty much directly over our heads.
At the start of the 7th inning, we were treated to the sausage race. Apparently it's a permanent fixture in Miller Park that you have 4 guys dressed as a Bratwurst, an Italian sausage, a French sausage and a Chorizo race each other between 3rd base and home plate. There's nearly a s much excitement about this as the result of the actual game itself! I put my money in the Italian, and surely enough, we had an Azurri victory! Easiest buck I ever made! :-) Next year apparently they'll have a Polish sausage racing as well, so will have to go back to see that.
After the 7th inning, we discovered that one of K's workmates had tickets to get into the VIP lounge at the top of the stadium, so we "borrowed" them and headed on up for a look. Unfortunately they close the bars after the 7th and so we were a few mins late to get any of the fancy (and I'm sure over-priced) drinks there, but at least the view was good. The crowd really only started getting into the game in the last inning, when it was obvious that Milwaukee were going to beat the "old enemy" the Chicago Cubs by 6 to 3 (but don't ask me how they got the scores!). Things sort of wound down from there, as I we couldn't go out mad celebrating due to (a) still being a tad tired form the night before and (b) having to get up at 5am to take my flight to Boston. So, a nice chilled end to a mad few days!
After the shenanigans of the night before, it took us a bit of time to become fully human again (soakage and Red Bull was needed!), and so the day was spent in low-key mode, as we knew we'd need our energy for the baseball game that night (the original reason for me to come over to the US!). In the afternoon we went looking at Condos with K's mom (they're buying one), and headed to Miller Stadium around 3ish for tailgating.
For those who haven't been to a baseball game, tailgating is a big BBQ party you have in the parking lot (or as we yuropeens call it, the "car park" :-P ) outside the stadium. Basically, you pull up in a few jeeps/SUV's, unload a BBQ or two and a few kegs of beer, and lay into them. Another friend of mine has been tailgating down in Virginia(?), and they do the normal BBQ thing of steak, burgers, ribs, chicken etc, but Milwaukee had a big German immigrant population, so we had Bratwurst! And Bratwurst is good - got about 3 big fuck-off german sausages in a bun, with Sauerkraut, Ketchup and that piss-weak yellow stuff americans call "mustard"! I also managed to choke down some more beer, and after the first the rest seemed to go down OK again. At the start I knew no-one htere apart from K and her folks, but later on a few of the crowd fomrt eh night before arrived, so that made things less socially awkward for me.
We finally managed to make our way into the game, about half an hour after it started, and it became evident nearly as soon as we sat down that what was actually happneing on the pitch was nearly incidental to the whole "baseball experience". It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes off the drink, and realises when he goes to a game that baseball really sucks! For every bit like you see on TV where someone actualy hits something, there's a lot of not very much going on. About the only way you could stay 100% interested in the game would be if you're one of them sad anorak types who's seriously into their statistics (batting average etc). Luckily tho, we didnt have to stay sober! I spent a lot of time chatting to Devrah (who was damn cute, but taken), who seemed to only know slightly more about the rules of the game than I did, and about half-way throught the 5th(?) inning we got bored and went down to the gift shop to do some shopping! Unfortunately, she had to take a potty break, and so while I was awaiting for her we had the only home run of the game :-( Whenever the Brewers score a home run, their mascot (Bernie the Brewer), slides down a slide into a giant mug of beer, but we missed that as it happened pretty much directly over our heads.
At the start of the 7th inning, we were treated to the sausage race. Apparently it's a permanent fixture in Miller Park that you have 4 guys dressed as a Bratwurst, an Italian sausage, a French sausage and a Chorizo race each other between 3rd base and home plate. There's nearly a s much excitement about this as the result of the actual game itself! I put my money in the Italian, and surely enough, we had an Azurri victory! Easiest buck I ever made! :-) Next year apparently they'll have a Polish sausage racing as well, so will have to go back to see that.
After the 7th inning, we discovered that one of K's workmates had tickets to get into the VIP lounge at the top of the stadium, so we "borrowed" them and headed on up for a look. Unfortunately they close the bars after the 7th and so we were a few mins late to get any of the fancy (and I'm sure over-priced) drinks there, but at least the view was good. The crowd really only started getting into the game in the last inning, when it was obvious that Milwaukee were going to beat the "old enemy" the Chicago Cubs by 6 to 3 (but don't ask me how they got the scores!). Things sort of wound down from there, as I we couldn't go out mad celebrating due to (a) still being a tad tired form the night before and (b) having to get up at 5am to take my flight to Boston. So, a nice chilled end to a mad few days!
Drinking in Milwaukee
Now, those who know me know that normally I don't drink that "beer" stuff, but I definitely seem to have made up for lost time on this holiday! After we finished up in the state fair (about 3pmish), we went to a few diferent bars to meet a few different friends of K's (and where I discovered Miller High Life, a brand you can't get at home). Eventually, late-ish in the evening, we ended up in this place called the Safe House. Bit of a strange place, it's got a whole spy thing going: all sorts of 07-type decor, and to get in you have to know the secret password. If you don't know the password you have to do somethgin slightly embarassing, like frisk down whatever friend you're with (no, nothing x-rated!), and it's all shown on CCTV inside the bar. Luckily I didn't have to do this, as there's a "secret passageway" entrance from the next door bar which we used to get in (just looks like a bookcase or something from the Safe House side when closed). This place has a few speciality cocktails, like the Spy's Demise, which nearly did for me for the night (or maybe it could have been the 10-odd beers I'd had til that point), and one called the (??) which is HUGE! Is $25 for the one drink, and you get it in a glass the size of a fish bowl, with 4 straws.
Funny thing is, we didn't even have to buy it, was this random chick at the bar, fairly drunk, who didn't know what to order and was looking for some advice. So, once she saw this thing, she got it, and just to make sure she had room for it, she donated her Long Island Iced Tea to me and her friend's Mojito(?) to someone else (Devrah maybe)! Once she heard my accent she was all "omigod, I can't believe you're from Ireland! Go on, say somthing, anything!" and hanging off of me. So, I had a momentary thought of "heh, score", but then she disappeared off to the toilets. According to K, who was in there a few mins later, she was puking her ring up, and was still doing it 5-10 mins later when Devrah went in! She disappeared anyway, so we decided it'd be a shame to let this big-ass drink go to waste (to be fair, we did give her about another 10mins to come back first!)
After the Safe House, we went on to an "Irish" bar called the Co. Clare, which wasn't as bad as a lot of "oirish" bars I've been in - was more a hotel bar that happened to sell Irish drink than anything else. We hit there a few mins before closing time, so didn't manage much out of them, then headed back to Stan's house for munchies (grilled cheese sandwiches!). at some stage somewhere around the Co. Clare we managed to pick up another member of the group (Dave?), who pretty much as soon as we got to Stan's house started schmoozing on Devrah, with a whole "my life has been so hard" sensitive artist line - he was a photographer I think, and pretty much did everything bar ask her if she'd pose for him :-) The night ended soon after that anyway (memories aren't the due to not being used to beer, plus them big fecking cocktails), with the last act being the eating of pasta - with nothing else - in K's place. So, a good night was had by all!
Funny thing is, we didn't even have to buy it, was this random chick at the bar, fairly drunk, who didn't know what to order and was looking for some advice. So, once she saw this thing, she got it, and just to make sure she had room for it, she donated her Long Island Iced Tea to me and her friend's Mojito(?) to someone else (Devrah maybe)! Once she heard my accent she was all "omigod, I can't believe you're from Ireland! Go on, say somthing, anything!" and hanging off of me. So, I had a momentary thought of "heh, score", but then she disappeared off to the toilets. According to K, who was in there a few mins later, she was puking her ring up, and was still doing it 5-10 mins later when Devrah went in! She disappeared anyway, so we decided it'd be a shame to let this big-ass drink go to waste (to be fair, we did give her about another 10mins to come back first!)
After the Safe House, we went on to an "Irish" bar called the Co. Clare, which wasn't as bad as a lot of "oirish" bars I've been in - was more a hotel bar that happened to sell Irish drink than anything else. We hit there a few mins before closing time, so didn't manage much out of them, then headed back to Stan's house for munchies (grilled cheese sandwiches!). at some stage somewhere around the Co. Clare we managed to pick up another member of the group (Dave?), who pretty much as soon as we got to Stan's house started schmoozing on Devrah, with a whole "my life has been so hard" sensitive artist line - he was a photographer I think, and pretty much did everything bar ask her if she'd pose for him :-) The night ended soon after that anyway (memories aren't the due to not being used to beer, plus them big fecking cocktails), with the last act being the eating of pasta - with nothing else - in K's place. So, a good night was had by all!
Milwaukee - beer, custard and farm animals
Continuing on the story of my trip.....
Well, after I left Chicago, we headed back down to Katie's place in Milwaukee, arriving in about midnight. The next day, we started the touristy stuff. Now when you think of America and great tourist destinations, Milwaukee (and wisconsin in general) doesn't exactly jump out as a "must go" destination, but it does have one major export - beer! Milwaukee is the home of Miller, one of the better american mass-produced beers (the microbreweries are better but not as well known). Before Miller Time though, breakfast time! For the 2nd time in my trip, my breakfast/brunch consisted of a burger and fries - good eatin'! As well as the burger tho, I was introduced to a delicacy particular to the Milwaukee area - frozen custard. Sounds a bit strange I know, but is like a creamier verions of ice cream, and is damn tasty! I was almost half tempted to go into the place, ask for the owner and try to negotiate the franchise rights for exporting it back home.
After that trip down culinary lane, it was time to start the real business of the day - Beer! We headed over to Miller Valley, and joined the tour. If you;ve done the Guinees tour or any of hte distillery tours sat home, the miller tour isn't really anything special - all you get to see are the warehouse and the bottling plant, none of the actual making of the beer at all. Then again, it's free, and you get free samples at the end, so is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. We also got lucky as well, normally at the end you go to the miller bar for 3 free beers, but on our particular tour there was a marketing dude there who wanted volunteers for some sample taste testing of some new brews. Guess who's hand was nearly the first up! We got beought into this big-ass fancy room, got 6 unlabelled cups of beer and had to rate them each on things like flavour, character (heavy beer, light, medium etc), and a few other things. How bad! I thought after that we'd get some sort of cert saying "official Miller beer tester" or something like that, like you get at the Jameson museum, but all you got were a few glasses (and they were Fosters glasses too - I can get them at home!).
After the Miller tour, we went to Lakeshore breweries - one of the local microbreweries. That was more expensive - $5 as opposed to free, but you got 4 free drinks as opposed to 3, so not too bad (so my outlay up to that point was 10 different brands of beer for $5!). That tour was even less imprssive than the Miller one, but hey, free beer! The rest of that day was Pretty much spent in recovery from all that beer and the cumulative effects of the weekend (brought Katie's dog for a walk down by the lakeshore - excitement!), altho we did find a rather nice mexican restaurant which did killer margaritas! the margaritas are responsibe tho for a rather fetching picture of me riding a 5-foot chili pepper......
The next day was State Fair time! Katie's mom had scored us fre tickets (worth $25 each) to the Wisconsin State Fair, which just so happened to be on while I was there, so never having been to one before, I was all for going! I wasn't sure really what to expect, but was a lot less redneck than I thought it'd be - only a few John Deere baseball caps on show (but a lot to be bought in the stalls), and I only saw one guy with a mullet. It pretty much consisted of a few barns with animals on show in them (cows, pigs, sheep, horses etc), a midway with a ton of amusement rides and the usual kind of stalls where you have to shoot cards, put balls through hoops, burst balloons with darts etc to win prizes (all heavily rigged against you), a few stalls selling t-shirts and various sundry fair-related stuff, and a ton of food stalls. My god, were there a lot of food stalls there! Katie kept pointing out things to me saying "you have to try those", but if I tried them all I'd need to charter a plane of my own to come home on! And, just to wash down all the food, there were also quite a few beer tents as well - it being beer country and all. I was also introduced to two of the redneck phrases du jour - "Get 'er Done!" which apparently comes from some redneck comedian on TV, and "honky-tonk badonk-a-donk", which is apparenlty the big bouncy ass of a C&W-listening woman (as in, you can get women's t-shirts & shorts with "I've a honky-tonk badonk-a-donk" written on them).
So, we wandered around, ate a lot, drank a fair bit, did some of the games etc, and then when we were sick of it all (not to mention stuffed and slightly tipsy), headed out to meet a few of katie's friends.
Well, after I left Chicago, we headed back down to Katie's place in Milwaukee, arriving in about midnight. The next day, we started the touristy stuff. Now when you think of America and great tourist destinations, Milwaukee (and wisconsin in general) doesn't exactly jump out as a "must go" destination, but it does have one major export - beer! Milwaukee is the home of Miller, one of the better american mass-produced beers (the microbreweries are better but not as well known). Before Miller Time though, breakfast time! For the 2nd time in my trip, my breakfast/brunch consisted of a burger and fries - good eatin'! As well as the burger tho, I was introduced to a delicacy particular to the Milwaukee area - frozen custard. Sounds a bit strange I know, but is like a creamier verions of ice cream, and is damn tasty! I was almost half tempted to go into the place, ask for the owner and try to negotiate the franchise rights for exporting it back home.
After that trip down culinary lane, it was time to start the real business of the day - Beer! We headed over to Miller Valley, and joined the tour. If you;ve done the Guinees tour or any of hte distillery tours sat home, the miller tour isn't really anything special - all you get to see are the warehouse and the bottling plant, none of the actual making of the beer at all. Then again, it's free, and you get free samples at the end, so is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. We also got lucky as well, normally at the end you go to the miller bar for 3 free beers, but on our particular tour there was a marketing dude there who wanted volunteers for some sample taste testing of some new brews. Guess who's hand was nearly the first up! We got beought into this big-ass fancy room, got 6 unlabelled cups of beer and had to rate them each on things like flavour, character (heavy beer, light, medium etc), and a few other things. How bad! I thought after that we'd get some sort of cert saying "official Miller beer tester" or something like that, like you get at the Jameson museum, but all you got were a few glasses (and they were Fosters glasses too - I can get them at home!).
After the Miller tour, we went to Lakeshore breweries - one of the local microbreweries. That was more expensive - $5 as opposed to free, but you got 4 free drinks as opposed to 3, so not too bad (so my outlay up to that point was 10 different brands of beer for $5!). That tour was even less imprssive than the Miller one, but hey, free beer! The rest of that day was Pretty much spent in recovery from all that beer and the cumulative effects of the weekend (brought Katie's dog for a walk down by the lakeshore - excitement!), altho we did find a rather nice mexican restaurant which did killer margaritas! the margaritas are responsibe tho for a rather fetching picture of me riding a 5-foot chili pepper......
The next day was State Fair time! Katie's mom had scored us fre tickets (worth $25 each) to the Wisconsin State Fair, which just so happened to be on while I was there, so never having been to one before, I was all for going! I wasn't sure really what to expect, but was a lot less redneck than I thought it'd be - only a few John Deere baseball caps on show (but a lot to be bought in the stalls), and I only saw one guy with a mullet. It pretty much consisted of a few barns with animals on show in them (cows, pigs, sheep, horses etc), a midway with a ton of amusement rides and the usual kind of stalls where you have to shoot cards, put balls through hoops, burst balloons with darts etc to win prizes (all heavily rigged against you), a few stalls selling t-shirts and various sundry fair-related stuff, and a ton of food stalls. My god, were there a lot of food stalls there! Katie kept pointing out things to me saying "you have to try those", but if I tried them all I'd need to charter a plane of my own to come home on! And, just to wash down all the food, there were also quite a few beer tents as well - it being beer country and all. I was also introduced to two of the redneck phrases du jour - "Get 'er Done!" which apparently comes from some redneck comedian on TV, and "honky-tonk badonk-a-donk", which is apparenlty the big bouncy ass of a C&W-listening woman (as in, you can get women's t-shirts & shorts with "I've a honky-tonk badonk-a-donk" written on them).
So, we wandered around, ate a lot, drank a fair bit, did some of the games etc, and then when we were sick of it all (not to mention stuffed and slightly tipsy), headed out to meet a few of katie's friends.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Lollapalooza
Well, am on day 7 of my 10-day trip here, so is sort of time to catch up on what I've been doing.
After arriving in slightly later than expected on fri evening, myself and my friend Katie headed back down to chicago first thing on sat morning where we met up with Katie's friend Sue (who was hot!) and a few of her friends before heading off to the gig. First off, Lollapalooza was mad! It definitely lives up to its nickname of "Stonerpalooza" - nearly every gig I was at had someone passing the joints or the pipe around! This plus the liter of vodka we snuck in on the saturday in a water bottle made the day very very interesting. Got to see Gnarls Barkley (who was great), The Flaming Lips (who sucked), Queens of the Stone Age (not too bad) and a few other random bands - there were 8 stages and so you'd just wander around until you heard something you liked. Luckily the weather had cooled down to about 80F or so, so I didn't bake too much in the sun. After the concert was over, we headed out to the bars, where I learned the pain of listening to "oirish" music in chicago! :-( Finished up the night around 4am, with me and Katie sleeping in the spare bed in Sue's flat (no, nothign like that, strictly platonic!).
I reckon maybe we overdid it a bit on the saturday as we didn't manage to drag our sorry hungover carcasses to the gig on sunday til abput 3:30pm or so. Then again, seeing as part of the delay was getting a big american-style breakfast in the cafe across from Sue's, I didn't mind so much - a big plate of ham, scrambled eggs, and blueberry pancakes covered in maple syrup sure does help settle the stomach after a big night out! When we finally got there anyway, we did the same wandering around as the day before (but with less vodka), and the only real act I knew all day was Matsiyahu - the Jewish rapper guy I discovered on the web a while back. The main headline of the night was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who normally rock but whose gig sucked a bit for most of it 'cos they have the new album out and had to play all the as-yet unknown crap off that. The gig was just about starting to get a bit good when we had to leave - me and Katie had to drive all the way back to Milwaukee that night yet so we decided to skip out a bit early and beat the crowd. Manged to get back to cheesehead country in one piece anyway without either of us falling asleep in the jeep (which would have been ok for me but not for her, as she was driving), and there I was, back where I'd arrived 48hrs earlier but with a lot more music (and alcohol!) in me than when I got in!
After arriving in slightly later than expected on fri evening, myself and my friend Katie headed back down to chicago first thing on sat morning where we met up with Katie's friend Sue (who was hot!) and a few of her friends before heading off to the gig. First off, Lollapalooza was mad! It definitely lives up to its nickname of "Stonerpalooza" - nearly every gig I was at had someone passing the joints or the pipe around! This plus the liter of vodka we snuck in on the saturday in a water bottle made the day very very interesting. Got to see Gnarls Barkley (who was great), The Flaming Lips (who sucked), Queens of the Stone Age (not too bad) and a few other random bands - there were 8 stages and so you'd just wander around until you heard something you liked. Luckily the weather had cooled down to about 80F or so, so I didn't bake too much in the sun. After the concert was over, we headed out to the bars, where I learned the pain of listening to "oirish" music in chicago! :-( Finished up the night around 4am, with me and Katie sleeping in the spare bed in Sue's flat (no, nothign like that, strictly platonic!).
I reckon maybe we overdid it a bit on the saturday as we didn't manage to drag our sorry hungover carcasses to the gig on sunday til abput 3:30pm or so. Then again, seeing as part of the delay was getting a big american-style breakfast in the cafe across from Sue's, I didn't mind so much - a big plate of ham, scrambled eggs, and blueberry pancakes covered in maple syrup sure does help settle the stomach after a big night out! When we finally got there anyway, we did the same wandering around as the day before (but with less vodka), and the only real act I knew all day was Matsiyahu - the Jewish rapper guy I discovered on the web a while back. The main headline of the night was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who normally rock but whose gig sucked a bit for most of it 'cos they have the new album out and had to play all the as-yet unknown crap off that. The gig was just about starting to get a bit good when we had to leave - me and Katie had to drive all the way back to Milwaukee that night yet so we decided to skip out a bit early and beat the crowd. Manged to get back to cheesehead country in one piece anyway without either of us falling asleep in the jeep (which would have been ok for me but not for her, as she was driving), and there I was, back where I'd arrived 48hrs earlier but with a lot more music (and alcohol!) in me than when I got in!
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Miles away from home again
Well, I'm now officially "away from home" again. I'm sitting in a friend's place in Milwaukee, waiting for her to get out of the shower so that we can head off to Lollapalooza. Temp is early 30s out there, so is going to be fun!
Am over in Milwaukee here now, at my friend's gaff. Trip over was a nightmare - I was supposed to a have a 2 1/2hr stoppover in Atlanta, but we took off 2hrs 25min late from Dublin! Landed at 5:30pm, exactly the time I was supposed to be taking off again. So, got put on standby for an 8pm flight, and hit chicago finally at 9:30pm local. Only good thing about that was that because of what happened they bumped me up to 1st class, so it was free mojitos for me the whole flight!! Got to my friend's place here about 11 last night, or about 5am irish time.
So, my trip plans this time around are:
Am over in Milwaukee here now, at my friend's gaff. Trip over was a nightmare - I was supposed to a have a 2 1/2hr stoppover in Atlanta, but we took off 2hrs 25min late from Dublin! Landed at 5:30pm, exactly the time I was supposed to be taking off again. So, got put on standby for an 8pm flight, and hit chicago finally at 9:30pm local. Only good thing about that was that because of what happened they bumped me up to 1st class, so it was free mojitos for me the whole flight!! Got to my friend's place here about 11 last night, or about 5am irish time.
So, my trip plans this time around are:
- Today and Tomorrow: Chicago, at Lollapalooza (with possibly some sightseeing)
- Mon-Weds: Touristy thing around Milwaukee, inluding my very first live baseball game (Milwauke Brewers v. Chicago Cubs) and tailgate party on weds night!
- Thurs: Fly to Boston to go see Andrea
- Fri-Sun: Touristy thing around Boston
- Sun: Fly home (arrive 7am monday morning
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Dodging bullets
Well, is that time of the year again here, Layoff time! Once again I dodge the bullet - has happneed so mnay times now that I feel like Neo from the Matrix. Wish they'd just get it over with - at this stage I've been here long enough that my severance pkg would amount to close on a year's salary! We did lose a contractor tho, so more work all around! Yay! :-(
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
gone phishing
It seems that phishing season has started this week. So far today I've gotten multiple mails from NatWest bank, Bank of Scotland, Loyds TSB warning me that they are performing a scheduled software upgrade to improve the quality of services to the bank's customers" and that I need to click on a link to confirm my details. that's very nice of them to warn me, but is kind of strange, seeing as I don't even have an account with any of those banks. I like the way though that they took the effort to put all of the text into an image so that it would defintitely not accidentally trip any spam filters so I'd definitley read it.....
Besides, it's not a software upgrade that I need for my bank account - I sort of somehow managed to break my bank card in 2 places....
Hopefully I can get the new one in the post before I head off!
Besides, it's not a software upgrade that I need for my bank account - I sort of somehow managed to break my bank card in 2 places....
Hopefully I can get the new one in the post before I head off!
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