Krakow

And here are some photos from the second stop on our trip: Krakow, Poland.

Yes, it was as cold as it looks. I'm too lazy to attach captions to the photos so you'll likely have to guess what some of them have to do with anything. The photos include a picture of our hotel, the Wieliczka Salt Mine, the Dragon of Krakow, and some of the other major sights.

Ann wants me to mention that there are an "insane" number of churches here -- all Roman Catholic, of course -- and that they are in constant use. It's true. The praying and confessing Poles outnumbered the tourists in all of the churches we saw. I hope some of them are praying for better weather.

On our last night we sat near a guy at an Indian restaurant in the old town, a friendly radiologist from Detroit who was in for a conference. As he began telling us about Jainism and how it relates to vegetarianism I got the uneasy feeling that he might be proselytizing. But when the conversation naturally shifted to lost & stolen wallet stories I realized that he probably wasn't. I also noticed that nearly all of the ten to fifteen diners in the small restaurant were speaking English. Our waiter didn't even bother to respond in Polish when we tried out our practiced three or four Polish words. English speakers are fortunate in Central Europe because English has become the lingua franca.

Prague

Ann and I are in lazy Eger, Hungary after busy stops in Paris -- for a 1/2 day layover -- Prague and Krakow. Here are a few pics from our 2.5 days in Prague.

The weather was nice in Prague, something we are no longer taking for granted as the skies have been bleak and the temps cool to cold ever since we left (wait 'til you see the Krakow photos).

Some highlights:

• Managing to find veggie or veggie-friendly places to eat. This can be tough in this part of the world.
• Stumbling on the Wallenstein garden, adjacent to the Czech senate building, which was not highlighted in our guidebooks. Ann spotted it on the long walk down from the castle (check out the drippy, gray wall slash art installation).
• The Mucha stained glass window in St. Vitus Cathedral.
• Our meal at Lehka Hlava ("clear head"), a funky place in the old town.

Prague was difficult to navigate, in a mostly-fun way. Even with the best map we could find we got turned around. But there was always a nearby trail of tourists you could follow back to a landmark. Prague is plagued with tourists -- I had more than one "I feel like I'm at Epcot" moment. But it was a really nice section of Epcot!

Czech hockey

Ann and I saw a Czech Extraliga hockey game last night at the O2 Arena in Prague. This is the same arena where two regular season NHL games will be played this year between the Rangers and the Lightning.

The game was a first-division contest between HC Slava Praha (one of two Prague pro teams) and BK Mlada Boleslav. Here are some pictures I took at the game. I have some video too but I'll probably have to upload that when we get home. The home team posted pics on its website too.

Some comments on the game:

• The most expensive ticket was $15 and the place was maybe 1/3 full. No idea why. It might be because the Prague team is playing in a large venue.
• No anthems. Instead, they played a full-length version of Queen's "We are the Champions" while they slowly raised last year's championship banner.
  
• The style of play here is definitely different. No fighting, of course. Much more fluid and less contact. The defensive play was lousy overall, perhaps due to the lack of physical contact in the European game. Defensemen were poke checking and getting burned alot. Made for some exciting set-ups though and a ton more chances. The goalies had to be good.
• Saw lots of nifty stickhandling. Dribbling the puck in the skates was common. I'm sure NHL players can do that but are told not to because of the risk of losing the puck.
• The players in the Czech league can be docked 10% of their wages -- which probably aren't that high to begin with -- for diving and faking. The decision is based on post-game video review of any such penalties. Welcome to Europe.
• The fans who showed up were great. No hooligans here and lots of kids having fun.
• As you can see from the signage on the concession stands, English is spoken everwhere.
• Ads everywhere, even on the officials' rear ends (how a company can be convinced to place ads there is beyond me). But there were oddly no ads on the zamboni machines.

For those of you who are checking my blog for traditional travel pics, I'll post some when I get a chance.

New Bridge

Interesting article in the NY Times about construction progress on the new I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.

Personal note: Ann and I happened to be on the very same tour as the NY Times writer and photographer. I highly recommend the weekly tour, which starts every Saturday at 11 am. The engineer was extremely patient with all of the questions and the information he provided about the construction methods was fascinating.

Another dog video...

We had a stump removed today. Huckleberry decided to help out with the sawdust:

Wings Win!

Abby's Graduation

Way to go Abby!!! The photos are also available at my SmugMug site.

Ball Machine

We need to get one of these for Huck.



Thanks Casey for the link.

Ann's New Show

The next time Ann gives you grief for watching bad TV, you might want to remind her about this incident.



In Ann's defense, one of her former students is a contestant on the show. I'm generally the bad TV guy in our house. So I love it that Ann happened to be watching something lowbrow tonight.

Sunday walk (May 11, 2008)

Snow Day

Wow, lots of snow for this late in March!

Our crazy dog will not step on the bare, cold ground in the Springtime but he will gladly romp around in the snow, as this video proves:

San Diego

Here are some photos from our trip to San Diego 10 days ago. Pretty tough to tell we were there because we're not in many of the pics. We stayed at a fantastic Marriott resort on Coronado Island (thanks cousin Kelly!) and even though the weather was chilly we had a great time. Ann and I hate zoos but we liked the Wild Animal Park a lot, where there is a clear emphasis on conservation. The other pics are from Point Loma and Balboa Park, mostly.

Visit my SmugMug page for a closer look.

New dog bed!

I know, big deal right? Well it's a big, fat deal for Huckleberry (our dog) because he's upgrading from a simple crate with little padding to a luxurious, ultra-plush dog bed. He's had it for a few days and he seems pretty happy to go to bed. Which works out well for me and Ann too.


Pics posted on SmugMug.

Naples, Florida

Nice weather this year for the x-mas visit to Pelican Bay! Here are some photos. Larger slideshow versions are available here and here.

Where's Ouagadougou?

Fun and semi-educational time waster: Click on world cities to test your geography knowledge. Although at times I felt like it was my mouse-clicking abilities that were being tested.

Word of the Year: Locavore

The New Oxford American Dictionary has selected its Word of the Year for 2007. How is the word selected? According to one of the dictionary's editors, "we are always looking for a word that is both reflective of the events and concerns of the past year and also forward-looking: a word that we think will only become more used and more useful as time goes on." Previous winners: Carbon Neutral (2006), Podcast (2005).

In other news, Michael Lewis has written a great piece about NFL kickers.

Arizona Trip

My dad and I took a trip to Phoenix to see the Detroit Lions play the Arizona Cardinals. If it's true what they say, that Lions fans love to suffer, then this was a dream vacation! Actually, only the Lions' performance was bad. The rest of the trip was fun.

Here are a few photos from our day trip through Jerome, Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon (click here to see larger versions of the photos in a new window):




And here are some from the really fantastic game where the Lions continued to build for the playoffs by beating ... oh, wait, it didn't really work out quite as planned (click here for larger versions):

"9/11 is over"

The NY Times ran a great Op-Ed piece by Thomas Friedman on Sunday about why it's high time we stop re-living 9/11. In lieu of hunting down the criminals, the Bush administration's response has been to wall us off from rest of the world with regulations that are destroying our economy (not to mention our civil liberties). It appears that Giuliani, the presumptive Republican candidate in 2008, has decided to run on a similar fear-based platform.

Friedman writes that earlier this year, "Microsoft, fed up with American restrictions on importing brain talent, opened its newest software development center in Vancouver." If we continue to respond to the world in fear we can look forward to a day when Chinese and Indian companies come over here to hire cheap labor.

Top Goals 06-07

Yeah, ESPN has lousy hockey coverage these days. But they put together an awfully nice collection of some of the more interesting goals last season:

More NHL Preseason Photos

The Globe and Mail is rockin' with the pre-season shots. The put up another gallery today.