OMG

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a hammer across my head.

Early shows suck. Suckage worthy of its own rant, but lets stay on the rails here. When briefed for an early show a complex series of interelated events is set into motion, all conspiring to ensure

a: very little sleep will be found before show time, and

b: see a: above.

Feh. So the alarm is set. 45 minutes is what I need to be rendered conscience and made clean enough for public presentation. Standard issue sucky sleep interrupted by regular wondering what the fuck that noise was and checking the clock to see, if I got asleep RIGHT NOW, how much sleep I could get before the just checked alarm goes off and the official hygiene phase begins.

Really? You have got to be kidding me. Flip over. Remash pillows into shape.

The compulsive checking of clock is a pilot thing, I don't know if other people in other professions do this, probably, but who they are I have no idea. Im down to a single alarm. No small feat. I think most other guys have multiple back up alarms and wake up calls. Im rolling the dice. One day the alarm will fail or I'll kill it unknowingly in the middle of the night and I will get the phone call "Hey where are you? We're in the van see you over there looser, beers on you."

Today had a special wrinkle. RANDOM DRUG TEST! YEA! Turn out the place I have to go is just two blocks away from the hotel and the drug test lady that calls says I can go in my civies not uniform, so I walked. Random drug testing is the FAAs way of ensuring that most pilots restrict themselves to pedestrian alcohol abuse restricted to narrow off duty hours. Sign the forms, walk in, breath test first, pee test next, sign the warm sample bottles and we are done.

The Wiz Quiz.

HI

Sigh

More fun at work.

Bears

For  Steve

Todays brief

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7525039

Got Figs?

Got some great Black Mission figs from a friends dad the other day. Like most times when you get fruit from someone from their home, you get a bunch. Like almost too much. Maybe that is just me. So here I am with a full plastic grocery bag of figs picked by John's dad and another half flat picked by me. I love um. When you eat a fig, you are connecting with the entirety of human civilization, as they were one of the very first domesticated crops. Eat a fig and you are eating across thousands of years of history to the beginning of man, and of course, the beginning of foodies.

Quick name a variety of figs. If you said Black Mission then fine. At least you are paying attention. What about another. Kadota. One more. Calmynia. another. Brown turkey.

So some got jammed. SOme got made into fresh fig ice cream. And some got the honor of getting soaked until the holidays in Absolute. Nice huh.

Seems like they have everything in the iTunes Store... and only $1.29!

One more lincoln meets its demise

Golden Gate Bridge

Give um up

At the entrance to the restaurant in Manilla...

Its a rental

Just off the train station and all around the city in Munich were these rental bikes. You set up an account and then text the bike number to DB and in return you get an unlock code. When you're done, park it, text in the drop location and all done!

Munich Hotel and snacks...the view out of the window...

We stayed at the Hotel Monaco just off the main train station, an easy walk through a reasonable city area with some interesting food options. This was a great base for us and I would stay there again....

We had easy access to a couple of little markets, so I was able to grab a couple of different beers, both were excellent and both were cheaper than water. :)

AND then there are the great food options - as we were there off season we sat right away generally with the locals and had a great time chatting with folks who were wondering why the hell we were there in March...

Got the sausage sampler with all three of the offered kinds, all excellent and that kraut was mind blowing.

If you liked "Cross the Bridge", you'll LOVE "Gastown Steam Clock"

Quiet on the set............ACTION

I WILL trample a child to get the shot....

Old School

My wife's bag rolls old school.......

Bowling signage, Theme buildings and PANOs

Little time in Santa Monica, LAX and a walk around with the iPhone and Autostich yields the following. It still floors me that this iPhone is as powerful as it is.... What used to take me hours happens on the phone automatically while Im having lunch.

What happens on the overnight...

Stays on the overnight

Gator Bowl....

This one is a two-fer. Bowling and Neon Signage.

Gator Bowl

Beer review...

Hofbrauhaus Beer is good. You should try some. It comes in an an easy to hold 1L serving.

World Cup accessory

Spotted North Vancouver:

Mini Mirror booties to show your team pride...

The View

It was pointed out to me that I haven't really showed how much of a fatal fall it would be from the wobbling bridge to the rushing torrents below should one be so unfortunate to go over the rail on the bridge.

So here ya go.

Splatsville: population - you

8 bit Vancouver Shamu

A groovy bit of lego art at the Canada Center, a hugegantic exhibit hall and convention center and cruise ship launching point on the north side of the city. This was in the same plaza as the Olympic torch and I never saw it on tv. Could be since the games since installation.

Some people's kids....

When in Rome...

Here is a well timed picture of my wife hawking a luggie into a well at another castle we visited. She did this because I told her I had read the sign in german that said it was good luck to spit here.

Note to self : Resolve in future to use powers only for good.

Gimme a quarter...

We like penny smashers for mementos of all the places with, well, penny smashers. I've detected three flavors here domestically. The basic single pattern hand cranker, you get what you get - no options. Then the 4 pattern hand crank ones with a choice of designs - If you are OCD about it they get you four times. Usually a couple of the designs are weak and they dont get more than 2 out of me. Then there are the fancy electric models. I find this intensely unsatisfying, I like to feel that Lincoln getting squished.

On vacation in St Goar we found this machine on the trek up the hill to the local castle...

Sigh, came out a little dorked up, it happens. My Aunt said when they were in Germany these machines were perhaps expensive and there were actual live people who would sell stamped coins and other stuff. She seemed disappointed these folks were replaced. With the result of this coin I'd have to agree.

It's all the rage in Europe

If you act like a retard on vacation, they compress you into a little pill and sell you in the pharmacy - like anti-retard on vacation venom.

Unless I'm reading this completely wrong.

On the advice of friends...

Dirigible

Thanks Craig.

and the winner of the poorest placement of toilet paper goes too...

Besides being empty, the only way this could be more of an inconvenience is if it were completely out of reach or didn't exist at all.

Either I'm growing..

Or this is a tiny car. I had never seen a Fiat 500 before. I was amused.

Later Paulo Bowler told me his father owned one of these and would drive with a friend after work to play tennis and one would change out of work cloths and slide over to driveand the other would change without stopping. I almost cried laughing when he told me that....

As Fiat is the new owner of Chrysler, the current 500 is scheduled to appear in the US at some point...

We got both kinds, psychedelic and....er.....delic.

Wichita. Kansas. To keep Steve up to speed, that's in America. In fact it is damn close to the exact middle. When the good folks ramping up the war effort in WWII looked for a place to build airplanes, they figured as far as possible from the coasts to physically protect the plants was a good idea. Hence Wichita. When the war ended all that talent didn't go to waste, they started building civilian planes there too.

But I digress...

More bowling.

The Alley, a family fun establishment directly behind the people storage units we stay in twice a year. It's new, which usually would be an automatic disqualifier, but pickins are slim way out east of downtown. They have regular bowling and extreme bowling lanes, indoor go carts of a sedate nature and pool. they also have signs that say you cant bring your firearms in and bowl. Whatever posers.

Nermal bowlin for the Nermal folks

Black lighted funny cartoon punctuated bowlin fer you long haired hippy freaks.

Judge not, lest ye be judged...

Sometimes my enthusiasm is not matched by my travel partners. Case in point:

Nice.

We're sooooo happy!

Im always a little disturbed when the menu items are so happy to be eaten. Is this a Kobe beef thing?

Having said that, they were delish. Fort Pierce FL

Beer goggles

...nuff said.

Oh hey, I don't remember taking that picture.....

For obvious reasons.

Here is the older snuff flask, the schnapps glass and pictures of the stuff Carl has parts of on his hat.