Pictures of Steinheim.

I really liked the bathroom in the place we stayed.




I think that "1490" in the sidewalk is refering to when the building was constructed.

Nuclear power. Efficient, but scary.








That yellow dot is a f*ckin' McDonalds.





A trippy Trabant.

A Taste of HL2:E1.

For those of you who haven't played or even seen Half-Life 2: Episode One, you can click here and get some panoramic views of different areas in the game. Enjoy.

Videos of Köln.

Becky showing you the Köln cathedral.




The gold blob in the beginning of the video is the shrine of the three kings... yes, THOSE three kings.




A view of the Rhine river.

Videos of The Netherlands.

Here are some more videos of The Netherlands. All but the first one were taken toward the end of the trip.





We payed the toll for the drawbridge by putting money in the blue clog.

The Detroit Airport.

Here's a video of the fountain in the NorthWest terminal in the Detroit airport. I took this at the beginning of our trip.

I Finished The Forever War.

On the flight back to the US from Prague, I finished The Forever War. It was a good sci-fi book and very easy to read. It won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel of the year. It was written by a Vietnam veteran and some of the themes of the book seem to parallel things that he would have gone through during the war. I'm sure he drew upon those experiences for this book. If you like sci-fi and want a good, quick read, I would pick up this book.

Pictures of Köln.

The shrine of the three kings.









Me, Becky, Jan, and Onkel Karl-Heinz.

Me, Onkel Karl-Heinz, and Tante Gisela.

Videos of the Flower Auction in Aalsmeer.

Some Pictures of the Flower Auction in Aalsmeer.

My Review of Fast Food Nation.

I finished Fast Food Nation yesterday. That was a very good book. It gave a lot of interesting facts about the fast food industry and especially about the meat packing industry. The facts were presented in a non-textbook-ish way that made it very compelling.

This book has only reinforced my vegetarinaism and has shown me how horrible the meat packing industry is. Their concern for their animals, employees, and customers is almost nonexistent compared to their concern about profits.

Anyway, I highly recommend this book. You'll definitely learn something.

Some Pictures of Sailing in the Netherlands.

A church converted to a house.

The Trip Begins.... Almost.

Well, we didn't quite make it to Amsterdam yet. There was a problem with the plane in Birmingham for our flight to Detroit. There was something wrong with the power in the plane and they had to wait an hour for the mechanic to show up. Our layover in Detroit was only an hour, so we would have missed our flight. We are now spending the night in a Holiday Inn near the airport in Birmingham (on NorthWest's dime) and will fly out tomorrow morning. Tonight we are going to order room service and then maybe go hang out at the pool.

Hopefully the trip will run smoother tomorrow.

A Preview of Our Trip.

Becky and I leave in 2 days for our trip. We will be spending about a week sailing around the Friesland in the Netherlands on a boat similar to this:



Afterwards, we will be driving to Prague for the 2006 IAU conference. On the way, we will be stopping off in Köln, Germany for a short visit with my aunt and uncle.

It's all about money.

I'm continually amazed at what people will do to each other for money. Check out this article from BBC News:

Inquiry into 'beggar amputations'

Craaaaaaaaaap.

I only have 4 days before I leave for the meeting in Prague. I'm freaking out. I still don't have my poster printed and I feel like I need to include more results on it. That's means frantically doing more work and trying to cram it on a poster that barely has any room left on it.

There is also a bunch of tedious stuff I need to do around the house, like go grocery shopping, clean, pack, etc. It's all just stressing me out.

Ninjonics.

Who's suprised by this?

Here's an article headline in the Entertainment section of CNN.com:

Lance Bass: I'm Gay

Bass says he wondered if his coming out could prompt "the end of 'N Sync."

Just think, there could have been an early end to 'N Sync.

This is why Lincoln is my favorite Republican.

Here is an interesting commentary by Lou Dobbs where he argues that Bush is picking and choosing which laws to enforce.

I Am a Comic Book Nerd.

I did a little hunting around and I came across some cool movie posters.

This is Eddie Brock turning into Venom in Spider-Man 3.



This is Flint Marko (a.k.a. Sandman) in Spider-Man 3.



This poster is for the upcoming Iron Man movie. I'm excited about that too.



Also, here's a picture of Peter Parker apparently succumbing to the suit (check out his eyes).

More Gore, Less Verbinski.

Here's a good review of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

El Blanco Niño

These are some of my favorite GI Joe PSA remakes. Enjoy.

Finally.

Well, I finally finished The Fall of Hyperion. I think I've been "reading" that book for about a year and a half. I probably should have started over to get a better idea of what was going on. Anyway, it was a good story and I would recommend it to anyone who likes hard sci-fi.

Live action cartoons.

Why do the Wayans brothers have to ruin a perfectly good Bugs Bunny cartoon by rehashing it as a live action film? Live action versions of cartoons are never that great (i.e. Scooby Doo and The Flintstones). That being said, I'm a little frightened about how Transformers is going to turn out. It was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid.

Blaupunkt.

I have a Blaupunkt stereo in my car, but it doesn't rock as hard as in this video.

Wheeew.

I had quite a scare yesterday. My work computer started crashing but it never happened consistently. I was truly frightened that all of my data might be lost. Sometimes the screen would lock up, other times there would be no signal from the computer to the screen at all. A couple of times the computer completely shut off without any warning.

Our computer guy, Danny, worked on the computer all morning and it seemed as though the processor just didn't have a good connection to the motherboard. I hope that's all that was wrong with it. It seems to be working fine now.

Beer.

This is a funny commercial for a pretty good beer. Enjoy.

Becky hard at work.

Here's Becky working hard with her new computer... and getting caught.