24 Hours

24 hours or so at home to empty one suitcase, pack two others, get a couple long naps to start the jetlag recovery process, watch some NFL (yawn, Boston/NY Super Bowl), and then head back to the airport for the 1-hour flight to Manchester and a work week in England.

Snow Drive

Port Townsend Snow

Somebody doesn't mind the weather!

Fort Warden

Let It Snow

Inconvenient timing, the weatherman says 12-16 inches (!) of snow in Seattle tomorrow ... the day I'm supposed to drive to Seattle from home, and fly the next day.  It's also supposed to warm up at the end of the day and turn to rain, so it looks like I'm crossing my fingers and trying to drive on Thursday morning ... or I'll have to reschedule the flight.  Yikes.

Meanwhile, sitting by a cozy fire and watching the snow come down!

Port Townsend Bay

Dawn, Monday

Snow, sun?  Sunday couldn't make up its mind

Back in PT

Weather was kind of nasty driving home ... but it got better!

Turn Back the Clock

Paul Scholes returns to Manchester United at 37 and scores against Bolton ... the oldest Englishman to ever score for United.

Columbia Tower, City Hall ... view from my downtown hotel room

Columbia Tower

Back in Seattle again

Wasn't that an Aerosmith song? No wait, that was "back in the saddle again" ....

ANYway. Beautiful winter Sunday morning with the sun out and the mountains sparkling with fresh snow, I was awake wayyyyyy too early (thanks jetlag!) and finally headed out around 8 am, walked up to Pike Place Market and had breakfast with a beautiful view of said mountains, then did some shopping to provision the (great) kitchen in my hotel room with some cooked Dungeness crab, fresh oysters, blueberry scones, holiday seedless grapes, SBC coffee and fresh lemons.

Later on I'll head to Uwajimaya for some beer & wine and hopefully an oyster shucker.

The joy of travel

My KLM/Delta flight to Seattle was supposed to leave at 10:40 Saturday morning.

Taxi to the airport at 8, go to priority check-in and .... hey, FOUR hour delay for your flight, sir! Departure 2:40, six hours away.

So ... 8:33 train back to Amsterdam center after checking in my big bag, might as well kill time at home as sit around the airport for six hours!

**update** 1:25 pm and we're waiting for the plane to start boarding but ... so far it looks good. Sitting with 5 co-workers in the waiting area who are all on the flight with me.

Still hoping to make it to Seattle in time to watch the Saints-Lions game with some friends.

So Save We All

Pretty funny 16-bit game synopsis of the Battlestar Galactica remake:

Not the brightest bulb in the pack ...

In reporting on the recent convictions of two defendants in racially motivated murders in London, this tidbit about one of the genius defendants was disclosed:

Norris, a father of five, cut a shambling figure, often changing phones and homes, and unable to hold a regular job. He has complained of mental health problems and at the trial needed headphones to hear what was being said.

It can now be revealed that his poor hearing stemmed from a prison attack while he was on remand at Belmarsh last year. Norris abused a black convert to Islam during morning prayers. The inmate smashed a television set on Norris' head, leaving him in a pool of blood with his nose and ribs broken and teeth knocked out.

Picked the wrong guy, huh?

Nigeria Strike over Gas Prices

From the BBC

Nigeria's main trade unions have announced an indefinite strike and mass demonstrations from Monday unless the removal of a fuel subsidy is reversed.

The withdrawal has led petrol prices to more than double since Monday, prompting anger countrywide.

"We have the total backing of all Nigerian workers on this strike and mass protest," the Nigeria Labour Congress's Chris Uyot told the BBC.

Does this mean I won't be getting exciting banking offers in my e-mail for a while?

Starting 2012 With Some Miles

Guess I'll really jump-start renewing my KLM Silver Elite status in 2012, I have six KLM flights in the next month.  Round trip to Seattle, round trip to Manchester, round trip to London.

That takes me to Super Bowl weekend when I'll take Monday off ... then I'll have another KLM hop to Copenhagen and we're working on getting something lined up in Morocco, probably followed by Spain.

Does Whatever a Spider Can

According to the BBC, researchers led by Prof. Don Jarvis of the University of Wyoming have succeeded in genetically modifying silkworms to spin silk using the much stronger silk of spiders.

Researchers have tried for years to get the best of both worlds - super-strong silk in industrial quantities - by transplanting genes from spiders into worms. But the resulting genetically modified worms have not produced enough spider silk until now.

GM worms produced by a team led by Professor Don Jarvis of Wyoming University seem to be producing a composite of worm and spider silk in large amounts - which the researchers say is just as tough as spider silk.

Commenting on the work, Dr Christopher Holland from the University of Oxford, said that the development represented a step toward being able to produce toughened silk commercially.

So, either we get a wonderful new industrial material ... or the world ends with all of us wrapped in steel-tough silk before being devoured by venomous worms.  Great.

Today's weather

Crappy, with continued crappiness through tonight!

Hermitage Amsterdam

Really enjoyed a rainy Monday spent indoors at the Hermitage Amsterdam museum.  The current show of Rubens, Van Dyck & Jordaens, Flemish painters from the Hermitage has some spectacular works that have not been outside Russia since Catherine the Great thought they were pretty neat and bought them all up.

You enter the main room by passing by Rubens and Snyders' The Union of Earth and Water:

Back to work

Waiting for the morning Intercity to Rotterdam ... coffee cart at the right waiting to go onto the train.

Happy 2012

New Year's Eve in Amsterdam was amazing ... from my bedroom window you could see fireworks along the whole skyline from the harbor to Dam Square down toward Leidseplein with hundreds of impressive private displays in between.  Nonstop barrage for an hour starting just before midnight.

And when your city is all stone and water -- sound carries!