Eloquent Profanity

so, I'm at The Bean Gallery, a lovely local coffee shop in Mid City, watching Netherlands-England in a European friendly. At 3pm it's MEX-USA in a World Cup qualifying match from Azteca stadium in Mexico City. Kev is unhappy because he's got band rehearsal from 1pm-4pm, so he'll miss both halves. At least I get to see the first half .

My boys are still quite the futbol fans, passionate in their support of Manchester United and the US National Team. They're divided in their loyalties in the US league, Major League Soccer, however. Justin supports DC United, while Kev has become a fan of the Seattle Sounders.

Of course, their dad charts his own course. While we all are passionate in our support of the US national side, my team in England is Arsenal Football Club, from North London. I still have a very fond spot in my heart for Leicester City Football Club, and I'll wrestle with that conflict if they ever return to the top flight.

And on that note, I'm off to the Starbucks that's closer to Kev's school, so I can make sure I get to see all of the first half of MEX-USA. :-)

hotel is in Toronto, that is, office is in Scarborough, several exits down Hwy 401. Teaching Tues/Wed/Thu, flying home Friday. Off to Dreamland :-)

I talked about this a while back, but it bears repeating--twitter is addictive.

The biggest problem with twitter is it's a lot like masturbation. If you decide to masturbate, you get sexual gratification without having to go very far. Twitter is the same way-all you need to do is type a few bursts of 140 characters and things erupt. When blogging, even on LJ, you often need to put forth more than 140 characters before people will comment back. That ease-of-gratification can really suck you in.

It really hit home for me that twitsturbation wasn't all there is in terms of on-line community two weeks ago, when we took the boys to DC for vacation. Watching how much they enjoyed the trip brought a lot of emotions in me, stuff I really didn't want to either tweet or write in my more-public blogs.

Additionally, I've missed writing fiction. I've been immersed in a lot of New Orleans stuff and the usual geekery that pays the bills. I've met an interesting person who is turning out to have serious potential as a writing partner. I like the idea of putting some short stories and fragments down. The friends-only option here, along with the overall comfort zone of being around folks who write a lot is very attractive.

Then there's the most important reason for getting back active on LJ: this is where rebellibrarian lives mostly, and I miss my friend. :-)

Now to go look back around the comms and see what's active these days :-)

Lammas is a good day to return here. I have some writing I want to do, and I don't want to do it in my totally-public locations.

The Novotel Hotel where I stayed in Bern was directly across the street from the Bern Expo Center.  The training facility where I was teaching was in a commercial area about 1.5km away, but this was the closest hotel.  It was a nice walk and the weather, while cold, wasn't so bad, so I didn't need to take cabs to and from the class.

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Last week was the first of three in Europe for me, teaching classes for Hitachi Data Systems.  The overall itinerary looks like this:

24-Jan - Delta - MSY-ATL, ATL-CDG (arriving 25-Jan), Air France - CDG-GEN, then train from Geneva to Bern.
30-Jan - Inter-City SBB Train from Bern to Zurich, changing to OBB Euro-City Trans-Alpine Express to Vienna.
06-Feb - Air Berlin - VIE-TXL (Vienna-Berlin), TXL-ARN (Stockholm).
13-Feb - Air France - ARN-CDG, Delta - CDG-ATL, ATL-MSY

View from Gate E14, ATL

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As usual, when I'm traveling for work, there's often not a lot of time for sightseeing.  The plan for this particular trip was for me to leave on Friday, the day after class, heading for Vienna.  That meant I didn't get much more than a couple hours of daylight on Wednesday and Thursday. 

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Sausage, Egg, and Cheese biscuit from Popeye's Chicken

My flights today for the trip to San Diego were MSY-ATL, then ATL-SAN.  The flight from home to ATL parked at B6, and the one going west
departed from B31.  That meant I had to pass by Popeyes Chicken in the middle of "B."

To my knowledge the Popeyes at ATL "B" is the only one left in the country that still serves breakfast.  And that's a shame, because it's delish.  Just like with po-boys, a breakfast sandwich is all about the bread it's on.  Yes, I know Dunkin's bagels and croissants are pretty good, and I'm also partial to a Sausage McMuffin, but nothing beats a biscuit from Popeyes.

No, indeed not, and mainly because we don't live on a true calendar year here in New Orleans.  Christmas starts a celebratory time that rolls through New Year's to Twelfth Night and doesn't end until about 45 days later.  The climax is Mardi Gras!