Math, Science, History...

I have early onset Carpal Tunnel.

I guess I really am old.

It's not serious, I have wrist braces and some exercises to do and it should go away since I caught it very early on. But it's still annoying.

Ok, I'm going to have to admit something very embarrassing here:

I watch Grey's Anatomy.

Yes. I know.

Here's the thing... That patient this week -- "Chuck".

Yeah. That's me. Totally. Except I didn't go for crazy surgeries in China. But I've thought about it.... and hopefully I'm not an ass. You need to tell me that.

Now, here's your quandry. In order for you to agree or disagree you need to admit you watch it too.

Not much else new. Lots of work, not much anything else going on. Life is rather blah.

So, I started the process to refinance my home last night. My loan is adjustable starting in a year from now, and I have no confidence that my sweet rate that I bought at 4 years ago would stay anywhere near a sweet rate. So I have been looking to move to a fixed rate that was no more than 1% more than my current rate, and locked in last night to a rate 7/8ths higher than my current, but will stay stable. I hemmed and hawed, wondering if this was the bottom, or if the rates would still go lower or not. I eventually decided to go for it, and locked in.

So I looked at the adjusted rates today, expecting that they'll of course go down. They went up 1/8th. I got a good deal after all! No idea if it'll sink lower overall still, but I'm happy with the security of it being fixed from here on in. And my planned spending habits turns the 30 year mortgage into a 23 year anyway. Amazing what overpaying by a small amount a month does. Not that I'll still have this home in 23 years.

Just a note that I am home.

I'll post more later. For now, home, safe, mostly sound.

Awake at 2:30am, then again at 4am, and eventually gave up the ghost of sleeping at 6:30 and got up.

We'll see how late I can stay up tonight, but I imagine that I'll be back to a quasi-EST schedule tomorrow.

Just saying hi to all y'all back home. Please vote tomorrow. As much as I certainly have strong political leanings, I don't care who you vote for, as long as you do vote and you vote for the candidate that you think is best qualified to lead our country for the next 4 years. It costs nothing other than a few minutes of your time, so please get out and vote. And ask your friends to vote. Think of it like a chain letter. You'll have good luck for the next 4 years if you vote tomorrow and ask your friends to vote! If not, then you'll have bad luck for the next 4! (Yes, I did vote, I sent in my absentee ballot about a week before I left for Europe).

I'll update my journal with more of my travels and all when I get home, but I am having a lot of fun out here. I've now been to 3 countries so far (Switzerland, Germany, and Austria), with my visit to Salzburg today. Tomorrow I head to Berlin for a few days, and then I'll be up to Amsterdam. I am having a great time, though I'm a bit sad to realize my vacation is half over!!

I'm here, safe and sound. My internal clock is unbelievably messed up, as I fell asleep early last night and then woke up and was wide awake at 4am here local time. Which is 10pm back home. Now it's getting on towards 2pm, and I'm back at the hotel ready for a nap. Which, is better than being ready for a nap at 11am I suppose, but... I'd like my body clock on a timezone that I was in recently or am currently in... As far as I can tell, I overshot.

The hotel is surprisingly spartan, yet comfortable. My room is nothing more than a bed, a small table, a micro tv mounted on the wall, a sink and a couple lights. It's about half the size of my bedroom back home. There's a mens and womans bath on the floor, with the toilet and shower each behind a lockable door, and the floors each only have about 8 rooms, (2 of which I believe have their own baths), so I've yet to run into anyone in the bathroom when I've gone to use it, and it's been clean. On the second floor is a room that is used for breakfast in the morning and has free wifi, which is where I'm sitting now.

Anyway, it's cold and wet here. It snowed last night and there's a spattering of white on the ground, which is now mostly slush. It's apparently rare for it to snow this early, but we've got some weird weather patterns. As a result, some of my plans like going up to a viewpoint is... pointless. I won't be able to see much but cloud cover from there. I have taken a tour of the 'Old Town' which was pretty cool, and I've been through the Swiss National Museum, which kinda sucked, sadly. I've got a couple more things on my docket for today after a nap (I'm going soon, but room service was making my room when I got back to the hotel), and tomorrow I head up to Munich.

This will probably get me killed considering where I live, but the similarities just work too well.

How the Red Sox are like John McCain:
Team colors are Red
They're an older team
They've made a few runs at the big win in the past and failed
They are more conservative with their game play, going with veterans and not taking as many risks
They have a lot of experience in post season play
They want things to be just like the past year/term
Ticket prices are like taxes: Unless you're rich, they suck
Most of the middle of the country (was) rooting for them

How the Rays are like Barack Obama:
Team colors are Blue
This is their first time going for the big win
They weren't even thought of as a possibility when the campaign began
They are young and exuberant, but lack experience
Their team consists of people who want a change
Ticket prices are like taxes: The middle class can afford them
Supported by the Yankees this year

I'll add some more of these later, feel free to add suggestions. But I have a meeting to go to.

Welcome to the world of the tolerant and fair, Connecticut! (at least in this aspect)

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/10/connecticut.gay.marriage/index.html

( Day 3 )

Today we're bound for the Aquarium and Stanley Park (weather permitting).

So, here we are in Seattle, and we're still a bit jetlagged, and we had stopped in for lunch pretty late, and it's getting on towards dinner time, and we're not really hungry, but need to find a bite. So, we ask the trusty dusty GPS to find us a sandwich/sub shop. It brings us to one, which turns out to be closed at 8pm local time. So we go to another. Closed. And another... closed. And ANOTHER... closed. Eventually we wind up at a pizza place, which doesn't sell pizza by the slice. What kind of pizza place doesn't sell pizza by the slice? Why, a pizza place that doesn't even have an OVEN.

So where did we wind up getting dinner tonight? At Safeway. From a guy who apparently never made a sandwich before, and was it's own rather amusing story on its own.. At least, to a couple of sleep deprived people who have been searching for almost an hour for a sandwich it was.

And in terms of the utter randomness of the day, we're heading back to the car to check the guide to see what to see next and to put some more money in the meter, and a guy knocks on the window of the car, holding a bouquet of roses. I'm sure that this is a "buy a rose for your lady" (aka my sister). But no, the guy asks us if we could find a place for them... I rather confusedly look at him and say "umm.. I guess so." He says, "I have no place to keep them. Here!", hands me a bouquet of roses and walks away. So.. my sister got roses from a strange man in Seattle.