I love the hats...

Great British tradition, the kids have school uniforms and aren't the hats adorable? I love it! Every school has it's own size and type. These tykes I caught in the courtyard of the Powerhouse Museum. The cuties near my friend's house have a darker blue with a more rigid crown and brim.

(click the pic to see full size)

G'day from Down Under

After flying for only 18 hrs, I arrived two days later thanx to the international dateline. I'm ahead of you all, let me tell you the future looks bright and sunny with a cool breeze off the harbour, people out in shorts, yep that's winter in Sydney. It's like San Diego but not as expensive. I'm not sure why everyone in the world doesn't want to live here.

I'm going to try to blog but for practicality's sake, it will be hard to blog as an exercise in writing. I'm going to, as folks have recommended, get pix up and tell what they are.


Sydney Harbour is absolutely stunning, especially if you are like me who finds such great peace when look out across the sea. Jetskis are illegal, so mostly the tranquil romantic sailboats glide hither and fro.


The iconic opera house and harbour bridge and both majestic and proud symbol of a captivating city.

There a many inlets from the harbour with homes overlooking the water and a marina abounding with sailboats.


Darling Harbour is a tourist center but not so much a tourist trap. It's actually an immegrant trap because you'll be asking yourself, "Why don't I live here?"


Fantastic old and new ships at the National Maritime Meuseum.




I'm hoping for more posts! And forgive me if I don't reply promptly.

Time to make travel plans...

Jury Duty is over; I did not get selected. (I was curious to serve, though.)

Guests are gone. It was great to see them.

Now it's time to hit the road and get this blog which was intended to be about traveling, back to traveling. Coming up are Houston, Atlanta, DC, Chicago & Wisconsin and I'm dreaming about the Pacific Northwest, California, BVI or Honduras (but only for diving), and I'd like to treat myself to Australia (only $800 if I fly in Oct).

Your thoughts on places to see and check out?

I’m an Engineer!!!

Classes and exams are over! I’m an engineer!!!

It feels good to be done; it feels great to be an engineer. Clearly the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Most of all, I’m finally getting back to being me. I had withdrawn from socializing as I had alluded in the last post and while it was a good choice it was a tough one too. However, today, I felt myself reconnecting with me - simple things. While cleaning I turned on the TV and there was nothing but trash, so I asked myself, “What did I do before when I cleaned?” It dawned on me that I used to listen to NPR via internet. So, I put it on (I have connected the two surround sound stereo sets so I get great sound in both rooms of the apt) and it “felt like old times”. I love NPR and I have missed it. Again, simple but something I haven’t done in years…spend a few hours listening to the news.

Then, I called an old friend and chatted a bit. We couldn’t get together but it was great to reconnect. Simple but significant.

I also went to Riverside Park to watch the sunset. I hadn’t done that since the last round of exams. There were big boats and small boats. They were what clinched the idea of going back to school for Mechanical Engineering. Tonight there were also helicopters and airplanes (aerospace also being an ME discipline) and it seemed as though all possibilities were open to me.



As a bonus, there was a free mini concert in the park. I remember enjoying those before school started. It feels good to be back.

If it feels like I've been ignoring you, well...

I have been ignoring you. I have not been doing well. (Not to fret, all in good time, I'll be back to me.) I noticed it about 4 or 5 months ago. Engineering school has taken its toll. I work 80 hrs/week and take one day off per month, if I can get it. (I did a stretch from 26 Aug 08 to Thanksgiving, no break. That will mess with your head. Engineering school is no joke. One dude started the program and by the end, he became a chick. I don't know anything that can hold a candle to that.) And I've been going at it like this for about four years. It's too much. Even for a damned obsessive workaholic demon like me, it's too much. There are a few emails that I've sent out to friends...some were silly, others spastic, some just stupid and I can't unsend them. There were few as I noticed myself not at my best, but anyway, it has been enough to make me shy away from a social setting.

The good news...I'm going to take the summer off. My job search in the last semester of school is terribly superficial. Listen, I've got 95,000 miles on both United and American plus 55,000 on Delta. Roughly, 250,000 miles, when else am I going to use them? (Email me if you want to learn the strategy.) I've friends in Houston and I will try to get interviews with oil companies for when I visit. My big bro in the bay area says, "Let's head to the mountains, the ski chalet is great in the summer time too." My lil' bro in Buenos Aires, Argentina - it's been three years since I've seen him and his wife. Family reunion in July (we're from Chicago but my dad and the boys do an annual fishing trip to the north woods of Wisconsin so they'll coincide) and it would be great to commune with nature and make friends with the mosquitos...I've been way to busy to give blood at the Red Cross, this way, I will have done my part.

Other invites so far include Atlanta, DC and San Diego. I'll certainly be spending time in Chicago. Those miles could get me a trip to Europe too. And until this blog post, I only mentioned it to a few people.

I would love to lay around my apartment and just read books that have nothing to do with engineering. Then, I'll read the chapters in the engineering books that were complicated and the prof didn't get to. I really do love engineering but it will be on my terms. And I'll do the crossword every day.

I've got the money to do it, plus a couple of part time things that are very flexible. The timing is right. And the last time I left a job and took time off, the HR guy said to me when I started having a sort of buyer's remorse, "Martin, if the only reason you can think of to not do it is because it's crazy, then you're crazy not to do it."

And well, I need a freakin' break. All that I've endured headaches, nose bleeds, shingles, sleep deprivation, group projects with a bunch of 20 year old kids - ooohhh thank god that they freakin know everything, that way nothing gets freakin done!

Ahhh, some down time would be nice. Just chill...yeah. Maybe I should get a Jamaican accent to help me round out the slow pace and calming feeling.

If I don't find anything before the next school year, I'll take an AutoCAD class and a friend wants us to take welding, so then as a student I can keep my health insurance. Also, the 4th qtr can be a tough time to find a job. The holidays wipe out a month and companies look to just get by until new budgets start in the new year. Sucks that it may be pushed off but that's life. And, and... that's probably the worst that could happen. Ha!!! Why work?

Christmas in Paris

My inspiration for this blog was to tell of my travels which were made easier when my sister Alison got a job at Continental Airlines. As the story goes...

My sister left her job in Denver to live in Paris. She lived on a student visa for years and finally decided to get a job. She called me to ask for me to be a sounding board; it was uncharted waters. She got her act together. It's not easy in a foreign country but she's smart, a good accountant and is very professional. Still there were moments of doubt as we started into the process at the beginning of the summer of 2006. But by the end of the summer she had three job offers and was then asking for advice on which job to take, plus she was very clever in negotiating an addition 20% on to the salary on the offer she did take...after all she was in demand. She took the job with Continental Airlines. As she is single, she gets to choose a "designated spouse" for travel benefits, and I was her choice.

I was going to visit her at Christmas last year. It was last minute but no problem for us, sometimes we book less than 24 hours in advance. So, I'm on the phone with Alison and sorting out plans. Economy was oversold and the only seats were in Business/First. Alison said to me, "Just pay the difference, it is so worth it. The steak is this big." "That big," I joked into my phone. Yeah it's great. I had another this time, but it wasn't easy. Paris was overbooked so I went via Brussels, but I did get first class, great steak, good conversation with the gay Episcopal Minister and Theology professor (whose 30 year partner, wow!, was working the flight), and it's so much easier to sleep in those big chairs with space to stretch out. You're practically horizontal.

A couple of years of free champagne, thick steaks and hopping about, I was back in Paris. Alison is a great host, she loves to have friends over. I love small gatherings but don't have the knack for hosting. We talk menu, decide, she's very good at certain things and I charm the guests, then we change places when she's done and I take over the kitchen.

She's got great friends in Paris. I don't think she'll ever leave. (I tell my story about how I feel so at home in NYC, to me Alison is the same about Paris. She says she'll be in Denver again someday, but her heart will always be in Paris in someway. As Heminingway said...Paris goes with you as it is a "Movable Feast", great read.)

Alison is very American, yet has taken to the French mannerisms and savoir-vivre.

Florence et moi, dans la cuisine. (That's not a stain but a lens-light thingy.)

Letting loose, being silly: Anastasia, Martin, Marine, Katherine, Florence, Samir, plus Alison.

What a great Christmas eve! Lovely and lively conversation, beautiful people ... happiness can be so simple.

Can I Overcome B.O.?

A few weeks back I got an email from Beth that made me laugh so hard. She informed me that if you search "Barack Obama" on Facebook, I came up third. Well by the time I read the email and tried it myself, I was down to fourth.


Today, I'm up to second. What would it take to overcome the man himself? How can I overcome BO? How can I better a man who raised a record $750 million?

I need to make a mistake. I mean a monstrous f*!k up such that the US government will give me $750 billion ... that's with a b, so that I can out spend the BO.

What do you suggest?

Thank you for your support,

Eebie

PS: Is it because I live in a NYC, in a blue state that I never heard any cheezy jokes before about his initials being BO?