everburning

Anyone know where I can get a set of cybernetic feet from? Spent the day wandering around the streets of Amsterdam which now has my feet telling me to fuck off.

Spent pretty much the whole day wandering around, about 7hrs worth or so. Tried to go back to the farmers market from yesterday to pick up some more cheese and bread but it wasn’t there today. Instead there was a flea market in its place. There was some pretty cool stuff there, picked out a few things for Stacy.

Happend upon a marathon that was going on in the city, watched that for a little while before running across the marathon path to get to the other side of the road. Once across I went to the Rijksmuseum and saw The Masterpieces exhibit. This includes works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jacob van Ruisdael and Jan Steen.

After Rijksmuseum I randomly wandered around until I found The Van Gogh museum. I’d have to say I like the Rijksmuseum better. Don’t get me wrong, the Van Goghs look amazing, but the I just find the Rembrandts to be more vibrant and realisitic. Some of the Rembrandts make you blink and say “fuck me, that’s not a photo?”

After the Van Goghs I headed to a more modern type museum which I’d spy’d on my travels. The Heineken brewery. I’ve been to the Keiths brewery in Halifax a few years ago and had a good time. This one was just as good. They had some amusing shows like the “Life of a Heineken bottle” ride. All in all, a good tour.

All in all, a good day.

Well, I’m in Amsterdam. The flight went pretty well. I managed to catch about one hour, maybe hour and a half of sleep. Hm, although I moved ahead six hours in time, does that mean I actually got 7 hours sleep? For some reason I don’t think my brain believes that.

Managed to push through the rest of The Cluetrain Manfiesto while on the flight. It’s got a lot of interesting points in it. Lots of interesting, and given the way the internet has been going, accurate thoughts on how business should be run in the connected age.

Got to the hotel at about 7am (local time) to find out I wouldn’t be able to check in until, at the earliest, 10am.

After thinking about it, and checking my email and some online maps, I decided to go wander around Amsterdam carry my 30-40 pounds of crap on my back and shoulder. This laptop is a fucking killer.

Took the shuttle back to the airport and caught the train into town, after discovering that neither my bank card nor Mastercard work in the ticket terminals. I didn’t realize how quite the trains are. I think of them like the TTC which I usually find loud. The trains where quite and smooth. Definately a nice way to travel.

I was suprised at just how quite it was wandering around town. Maybe it’s because it was about 9am on a Saturday but I’d very infrequently see cars and it was impressively quiet.

It’s always fun wandering around old cities. After coming from Toronto and other cities in Canada we don’t have as much of the old architecture and heritage that these builds have. Just the little touches, carvings, sculptures and little gargoyls.

Wandered into a little farmers market at some point by De Waag. Picked up a fantastic miniture loaf of bread, about a third the size of a full loaf, and some amazing cheeze. Sat in a little park and watched the people as I ate. The bread was some kind of whole wheat but had a touch of, almost, peanut butter to it. Quite possibly the best bread I’ve had.

Anyway, currently back at the hotel recuperating. Trying to decide what I want to do tomorrow and Monday.

Well I’ll be off on another work trip next week. I’m flying out at 1630 on Friday, should land in Amsterdam sometime Saturday morning.

I’ll be there until the following Saturday when I fly back at 0600, I think, landing in Toronto around 1200hrs.

Should be a fun trip. I’m flying out on the Friday and don’t have to start working until Tuesday so I’ve got three days to tour around the city (assuming I’m awake on Saturday). Then I’ve got the next Friday off as well. We were suppost to fly back on Friday but it’s a lot cheapter to stay until Saturday morning. Plus, I’ll have evenings to do as I want during the week (although I’m not exactly sure where we’ll be but it isn’t in Amsterdam).

All I’ve got to do is find somewhere to sleep for those three nights until I move to the hotel that work is booking for me. Minor details.

Well, I finished up my last too presentations (one in Toronto and one in Montreal) earlier this week and I'm now on vacation. I had a hell of a time getting back from Montreal. Got a call from my boss at about 4pm telling me my 6pm flight had been canceled. Ok, fine, I was already on my way to the airport (I had actually fell asleep in the taxi as we drove to the airport, heh). I get there and manage to get on an earlier 5.30 flight. Which was then delayed till 6.15, then 6.30 then 6.45. We took off around 6.45 flew to Toronto and ended up burning about 30 minutes in the air waiting to land.

After landing the airport was under 'Red Alert' which means they can't allow any ground crew on the tarmac because of lightening (you know, large metallic airplanes, lightening, tiny people, understandable). So we sit there and get told it'll be 30 minutes, then get told it'll be 30 minutes, then get told we can't be told how long it will be as they don't know. Then get told it'll be 30 minutes, etc. After about 2.5 hrs we managed to get to the terminal and unloaded. So, my 1.5 hr flight ended up involving sitting on an airplane for about 4 hrs.

Was a long time, but I didn't really care as I just sat there and read my book. Was a bit hard on the knees, cramped into the tiny seats, but I'll survive.

Anyway, I'm back in Toronto now. With my presentations done I can back up my laptop and get Solaris 10 6/06 installed and start playing around with ZFS again, should be fun.

Not quite sure what I'm going to do on my vacation at this point (I'm off for five days). Probably heading up to Owen Sound on Saturday to visit some friends and quite possibly to Brampton on Friday to visit Stacys father and brother. Might try to fit in some Ewl programming, if I can get back into the grove. Don't really feel like playing warcraft at the moment. I booted it up, walked about 50 paces, turned around, walked back and logged off, heh. (I am in the processing of installing it in the Powerbook, just in case, heh).

Maybe I'll wander over to chapters to read for a while (although as I'm typing this it's just started to piss down rain and I can hear thunder in the background) so, maybe not.

So, I spent last week in New York. Was down there on business and spent pretty much all my time in downtown Manhattan. It was a fun trip and I got some good pictures. Managed to see the Brooklyn bridge, Battery park, Statue of Liberty (from Battery park) and lots of cool looking buildings.

This was my first trip to New York, and it's been about 10 years since I've been in the states. So, it was interesting from that perspective as well.

It's good to be home tho.