Random Traffic Through Nick's Brain

… you utter the phrase:

Hope is not actionable.

I’m afraid (possibly phobic) of needles, sharp things, and blood. That said, hopefully today was the first and last time that I’ll undergo surgery under local anaesthetic.

Time for another haircut.

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I was up at 03:00 today. :-(

I know I’m in Lexington again when I wake up at 03:30 and am lucid, productive, and rarin’ to g… zzz…..

I’ve switched the language on my phone to German. Let’s see how well this works.

It’s interesting to me that my definition of a mental health day is now approximately “I’m going to code”. Combination of being management and having kids at home will do that to you apparently.

1. iPhone 4: Check.
2. Star Craft 2: Nope.

The ATM has a 1,000 CHF (~ 950 USD) quick cash with receipt option.

• Iron Maiden on the car stereo.
• Having to understand a meeting in Dutch (and succeeding). It’s interesting to me how much can be gleaned from the meeting structure and process.

One dead and 40 injured as Swiss train derails in Alps

This is the same Glacier Express that we took last year. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convince Dina to take a train over a bridge or beside a ravine ever again.

Just returned from a two week vacation… vacation notes will follow later… Arianna notes for now…

• OK… I lied… the first one is travel-related. Dividing by 7.5ish to convert from Swedish Kroner to US Dollars or Swiss Francs is oddly hard.
• Arianna is extremely stubborn in wanting to be like her parents and brother. Feeding her is a challenge as she insists on feeding herself with utensils and isn’t yet that good at it.
• When she’s done with her grab cup of food she just throws it out of her stroller. Watching it get ejected from the stroller is amusing.
• She knocks over her sippy cup, says “Uh oh” (like Alex did) and blows on it (to clean it, also like Alex did).
• In general, she’s very good at pointing at what she wants, and patiently saying no/nei/nöd/nein while shaking her head until we hand her the right thing.
• Milk and Cookies: Yesterday while nursing, she tried to eat a cookie that she had in her hand at the same time. She also blows on Dina’s nipple when it falls out of her mouth before resuming nursing.
• OK… somewhat kid related… but more related to the book I read on vacation. In Terry Brooks’s “The Sword of Shannara”, Shea is the last descendant of the Shannara line, the only person remaining that can use the eponymous Sword of Shannara. The near-immortal antagonist can only be stopped by a descendant of Shannara. Shea has a multi-week layover between learning this news and embarking on his quest. So… during this time, why not copulate with as many nubile females as possible as insurance (or at least a sequel)?

I’m not allergic to wasp stings.

1. Today, we booked a two-week vacation in the Jura mountains (yes, the namesake of the Jurassic period of geology but no, not Jura, Scotland, Scottish island, in the Inner Hebrides where Isle of Jura Single Malt Whiskey is distilled, sadly). We booked it for next July. I have a whole year to figure out how I’m going to survive without internet for that long.
2. Today, just cause, we hopped in the car, left the country, and visited Liechtenstein. Planning time / horizon: 5 minutes. Total trip time: 4 hours.

The Switzerland-Chile World Cup game ended an hour or so ago. By the lack of continuous honking in the streets, I’m going to assume, without checking (the rest of) the internet, that Switzerland did not win.

Bought a cut out Italian Euro piece (with Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man) while in München. He had some other very pretty cut-outs that were tempting including the ones from Kanada, Ägypten, and der Schweiz.

In a lot of our touristing pictures, Alex is wearing a New England Patriots cap and a Roots hoodie.

We went to London last weekend for a 4-day weekend to visit Hannah, David, Kiaya, and Alma. Alex and Dina got to see Hampton Court Palace for the first time. Alex was looking forward to it as he had a Paddington Bear book where Paddington visits the palace. London was a good weekend city trip for us as we’re very familiar with it. Gave us confidence that we can do the same type of trip for other cities. Mind you, London is very different with kids.

This weekend we drove to München (Munich) with my cousin Austin and his friend Sarah. Very pretty city. Germany tends to be much more beautiful than I anticipate.

All that said, I still feel that we don’t travel enough… odd.

You know you picked a good weekend to go away when:

1. It’s raining when you leave home.
2. It’s beautiful when you arrive at your destination.
3. It’s still raining when you get back home.

• After supper: Grappa. Chocolate. Espresso. Church bells. Sun. Family.
• Elevenses: Scotch. Cool night air. Stars. Solitude.