Top 20 Albums

A colleague challenged me to name my favorite 10 albums. This is so difficult! Here is my 10, plus another 10 honorable mentions. There are certain songs on some albums that annoy me, but overall they are all excellent. I plan on reviewing all of these on Amazon if I haven't done so already.


Top 10

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1) Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
2) Ben Folds - Unauthorized Biography of Rienhold Messner
3) Craig Armstrong - As if to Nothing
4) Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
5) Death Cab for Cutie - Plans

6) DJ Tiesto - Just Be
7) Nelly Furtado - Folklore
8) William Orbit - Pieces in a Modern Style
9) Beth Orton - Daybreaker
10) Joan Osbourne - Relish


Next 10 - heavier and older

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11) Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
12) Days of the New - II
13) Stone Roses - Second Coming
14) Trail of Dead - Source Tags and Codes
15) Meat Puppets - Too High to Die

16) Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies
17) Phish - Billy Breathes
18) Dave Matthews - Crash
19) Charlatans - Some Friendly
20) Tears for Fears - Tears Roll Down

Firenze / Florence

Had an unforgettable time with Megan and the kids in Italy for the past 6 days. We spent some time in Pisa and the rest in Florence. I have so many photos and so many things to glow about, but nary the time to blog about it. Here is my highlight... my 4 year old girl trooping to the top of Brunelleschi's dome with dear old dad. 295 feet and something like 450 steps to the top. You climb up narrow steep stairs between the two layers of the dome.


By the way, the images painted on the inside of that dome are scary!!! I'm talking people getting eaten alive and the condemned being sodomized by torches...not exactly what I'd want to daydream about on Sunday morning!


We visited many churches seeing all kinds of fresco / alter / grave / relics / gardens. We saw the art of Uffizi, Bargello, Acedamia, Piatti Palace, Boboli Gardens.

We toured the science center where you can see these excellent old contraptions like one an original Pascal calculator (and one even older), astroblades, lode stones, telescopes, etc.

Walking around town we saw lots of old town ruins and little statuary tucked here and there within the city. We sampled lots of wine and local food (gelato...mmmm), ate at streetside cafes under canopies, listened to musicians and watched street performers, bartered at open air markets, ugh... I am so tired just thinking of it all again! But it was a once in a lifetime experience that I'll always cherish.

Stoke on Trent

Today we went to a place called Stoke on Trent, its like the pottery capital of UK.

There are various museums in the town, we chose the Gladstone. It is obsolete as far as pottery production goes, but they've kept the old factory nicely in tact. You can look inside the old ovens, wander around and see what it was like for the workers, and best of all, you can get your hands dirty!

The boy took a shot at spinning a bowl. The girls made bone china flowers.

Its a great experience, highly recommended. I will fix up this stiched photo someday...not great exposure controls on my mobile phone ;-)



There is a nice exhibit on ceramic tiles. You can see arabic designs from 13th century, large mosaics, see presses and how making tiles has changed over the centuries. They also have a very strange exhibit on toilets through history...toilets as functional art? Never gave it much that much thought!

Copenhagen sightseeing day

A brief selection of what I saw, many more pics to come. What a smart and beatuful city, except for that Chistiana part...more about that later.

Training day in Copenhagen

The course went very well... Michael took me to his favorite lunch spot. He always gets the mussels there, something I've never tried, until now. I had no problems with them, but maybe not something I would go out of my way in ordering again. When the course was over, I walked around some of the shops on the Strøget. This is claimed to be the longest pedestrianized street in Europe...I'd beleive it. I love my Ecco's.

Now that is what I call a bike rack...


Later in the evening I decided to venture out and see what the streets were like at night. I passed a club playing some caribean music, peaked my head in and found they were giving mambo lessons. Then later a live Cuban reggaeton act (Aliaza I think). Never understood a word they sung but they had very good harmonies and rythms! When I finally left it was snowing and the city was so beautiful. People were still riding their bikes through the slushy snowy downpour, at midnight! By the time I made it back to the hotel my wool coat was covered with big fluffy snowflakes, I looked like a snowman.

Women of Toledo, beware...

My friend Andrew sent me this article today, ranking the healthiest and least healthy cities for men in the US. Toledo rated 98th, I think he is proud that he escaped the gravitational pull of Toledo for sunny Orlando. But after reading, I wonder if it is worse for the women's prospects of dating the unhealthy men?

Live from Copenhagen

I found the motorway towards Manchester airport to be more like a parking lot, so I took backroads (cutting through Warrington at 8am) and somehow made it to the airport on time. The flight was somewhat annoying, because I had the world's most obnocsious passenger to the left, and the most nervous on the right. At least the food was decent.

Copenhagen airport is very nice, and the train station joins up directly to it (what a concept, c'mon Toledo). Took the train to city center for 28 kroners (Denmark doesn't use Euros). The trainstation roof is a timberframe masterpiece!



Walked the city a bit and found my hotel. Walked the city some more, visiting the National Museum. It is a wonderful museum and covering both art and some natural history. It had some great Hindu statuary of Pavarti, Shiva, and Gonesh. It also had some amazing medieval Christian woodcarvings.

Tomorrow is a trianing day, but on Saturday I'm hoping to see some more sights. By the way, it is cold here! There is some frozen snow that melts in the sun during the day and refreezes at night. Reminds me of what Ohio is supposed to be like. In England we have only seen frost 2 or 3 times this season, and ice forming on ponds or rivers is pretty laughable.

Salling Clicker

I've just discovered a new use for my Mio... it is a wifi based HTPC remote control! I was sort of jealous of my boss who just bought a sonos system for his home (which is still cool if you have the cash).

But using Salling's clicker software to establish a wifi connection to the agent you load on your PC, you can use pre-configured scripts to control apps like Windows Media player, Winamp, powerpoint, or even just a virtual mouse/kbd to navigate your htpc monitor. If they don't have a script for your app, you can make your own. Imagine walking around with your PDA which can control any HTPC or regular PC in your home...the possibilities are endless. The software can be set to use proximity detection also to lock everything and shut off the music when you leave.

Truly amazing stuff.

The Mio runs Windows Mobile 5 on a 400mhz processor. It plays movies, stores plenty of content on a 4gb sd card, and navigated me across Europe. I'm already considering turning in my n80 that has the problematic symbian os for a windows mobile 5 gps wifi enabled phone like this one.

A blustery day in the hundred acre wood...

They don't really know tornados here, but man was it windy today!! We were sitting in our office when the gusts started getting bad and they blew open the emergency doors a few inches. Then we saw a big plastic dumpster roll across the parking lot, jump the curb, and make its way down the stairs letting its two bags of rubbish free to roam. Pieces of our building were blowing off and damaging cars. Crazyness!

9 deaths attributed to high winds

Gardener's Seed Swap

Toledo GROWs, an outreach program of TBG, will once again host the increasingly popular Seed Swap at the Crosby Conference Center. The Swap is simply the sharing of seeds for the upcoming garden season. While exchanging seeds and bulbs green thumbs can also share knowledge, ideas and tips. The event is free and open to the public.

Friday, February 23 at 6:30pm events and presentation topics include...
Seed Tasting
Seed Starting/Saving
Preserving Local Culture Through Seed Saving

Saturday, February 24 at 12:00pm events include...
Seed Exchange
Live Music featuring the Root Cellar String Band
Games and Storytelling for Children

Click here for more info.

I've been busy lately...

After holidays I had plenty of work to catch up on. Its always a rush in January to get ready for the boy's birthday. I also bought a car for Megan (Peugeot 309). Lastly, busy planning out the next three excursions.

January - Copenhagen, DK

February - Italy (Pisa, Florence, Lucca, Siena)

July - Germany road trip (Cologne, Bremen, geneology search)

back "home" again

At least our temporary home, this going back and forth over the holidays has really made me thing about what the word home means. It really was excellent meeting with family and friends for a couple of weeks.

On our flight back to UK yesterday I saw Little Miss Sunshine...what an excellent movie!! I had heard good things about this in the past but just couldn't get past the movie premise on the jacket. To those who like their movies a bit off color, this film is a must see. It is hilarious in parts, has some horrifying social situations, and is very very creative. The diverse eccentric character personalities were put together nicely and the acting is top notch. Toni Collette has been in some cool movies!

Onward to Erie

After all the Christmas festivities at my two families, we headed to see Megan's folks. Its about a 3-4 hour drive from Toledo, and Cleveland makes a nice stopping point whenever the kids get stir crazy in the car.

In Erie we visited the new Tom Ridge environmental center on Presque Isle state park...it was really nice! It highlights the use and changes of the penninsula over the years and has some good interactive exhibits. There is a tall lookout tower with great views of the bay. Also, the building has some cool green features like natural convection cooling and use of recycled materials.

Also we visited the Splash Lagoon waterpark, whew some of those water slides are crazy! I went down this one that takes you outside (in the dark) and then back into this huge vortex type thing that then drops you down into a big pool of water. When you come to the surface you can barely tell which way to swim to get to the edge.


On our way back to Toledo, Megan and the girl stopped in Cleveland to see the My Little Pony live show. Me and the boy went to the downtown library for a while, what a very impressive place!

The party continues

Today we picked up the boy and then headed over to see a family we met while he attended the Grove Patterson school. We left our remaining gold fish Jerry with this family when we moved to England and were sad to hear that he had given up on life...but it was a long life of 7 years for the carnival fish won in the ping pong toss.

Later we headed over to one of my good friends Jim's, who put together a nice party for us. Some old friends from Napoleon as well as some newer friends from the Toledo area dropped in. There were kids hopping around; real english ales; the Los Straitjackets holiday songs in the background... what a great time. Thanks a lot Jim!

Breakfast with Laura

Today we had breakfast with a good friend of ours, Laura Lago, and her daughter Abigail. Laura has this way of coming in and out of our lives at important times. When we were getting maried, she was the nice lady at the fabric shop who helped Megan pick out the fabrics for her dress. When we had the boy, she was the wise lady who helped us plan Liam's naming ceremony at First Unitarian. Megan has spent countless hours with her sewing and pontificating religion. She has spent some nights at our place with the kids so Megan and I could sneak out for a while. It was good to see her again and I think she feels back at home in the old west end.

Later that day we made a family trip to the dentist (health care isn't so great in UK) and then the boy went for an overnight with one of his good friends.

Lunch with co-workers

Today Megan and I ran around town getting some gifts sorted for Christmas. We stopped in for lunch with my former boss and my old team...it was really nice hanging out with them again for a while.

a day in Ann Arbor

Today Megan and I wandered Ann Arbor... Pinball Pete's arcade, bookstores, cafe, etc. Later we saw US vs John Lennon at the Michigan Theater main hall, a very beautiful venue! It had lots of music and interviews and was produced pretty well. It filled in a lot of gaps for me because I've never known much about him (and Yoko). A quip about Bush near the end really cheapened the whole thing and I'm really surprised this wasn't edited out. Only in a town like AA do you get a standing ovation at the end of a Monday night documentary at the theater!

We almost moved to this town once, I think it still has possibilities when we move back to the states.

Lunch at Mom's

Today we drove to Napoleon and had lunch at mom & Dave's. Later Megan and I made our way to the Holiday Inn French Quarter while the kids spent the night at grandma and grandpa's.

Flight to Toledo - Back in T Town

We came home for a couple weeks to meet with family and friends over the holidays.

We arrived at Toledo Express at 7:30 and headed to Liberty Center to stay at dad's house for the night. The kids were very shy and didn't know what to do when they saw my dad and step mom...but they soon warmed up. It was a weird feeling driving the old Saturn again, I like my Vauxhall Zafira much better I have to admit.

Has it really been that long?

Yes, yes it has. Megan and I were married at Hope Lutheran Church on Indian / Bancroft 10 years ago today. Since then we've done some very nice things like finish college, start a family, remodel a home, and live abroad. I wonder what the next 10 will hold?

I sure hope it slows down a bit because that decade absolutely flew!