In Copenhagen

I'll try and sum this up pretty quickly cause we're trying to get out to see more of the city before we have to fly to Barcelona tonight, where I don't think we'll have internet access.

I flew in to Amsterdam in World Business Class again. Always great. The seats are so comfortable and it's so easy to get to sleep, so I got some good sleep, which probably helped me adjust to the new time zone. When I got to Amsterdam, I realized my phone wasn't working, which was not what I expected. I went though a whole process with T-mobile, and typed a code into my phone, blablabla. But no dice. This phone was pretty much the only way I was going to get ahold of Sarah when I got here, but now that was out.

I proceeded to the KLM coutner where I had an agent list me standby for the KLM AMM-CPH flight. I asked her how the flight looked, and she seemed unsure. "Minus four in coach, but eight open in business." I wasn't sure if that meant I was going to get on or not, but I was hopeful at this point.

I walked my way to the gate a couple hours early, thinking that it was techinically an international flight, so I should be there pretty early. I waited for an hour, when another flight boarded, litereally 15 minutes before it was to take off. So there was no hurry, but I sat tight.

Waiting for a flight standby is like walking through a swamp (i could use nastier imagery here...) to get to a nice field, but you don't know how big that swamp is. See everyone has to walk through that swamp, but most know where the field is, so the swamp doesn't smell so bad. 3:15 p.m. in this case. But my field may have been 3:15, 5:00, 10:20, or even the next day. who knew? Well luckily, my green grass came at 3:15, when a KLM agent called me up for my business class ticket! So we all boarded a buss that took us out to the parking-lot-like tarmac where several KLM planes were parked.

All the seats on the plane were the same, in a 2-aisle-3 configuration, but the seats up front had different seat-head covers. Europe select, they call it. Well when they brought the food through, coach got normal little metalic bags with who knows what. Us lucky ones in front (well, the rest of them were probably just rich or work at a nice company) got a long cardboard box with two small dishes in it. One had a salmon cube, a skewer with three oysters and another small piece of fish in a white dipping sauce, and the other had three small mousses, dark and milk chocolate, and vanilla in an apricot sauce.

After a short, pleasant flight, I got off the plane in Copenhagen, hoping I was going to be able to find Sarah in about five hours. I spent a good two hours walking around the airport trying to figure out what I was doing. Eventually I found an info booth that was open (others were closed). Once I found that, I got a map of Copenhagen, and where to catch a train to the station I was supposed to get to. After trying to decipher hand-copied directions from an e-mail from sarah along with the map, I asked the ticket booth operator how to get to Norreport station. Turned out to be pretty simple, so I got on the train, counted 4 stops and got off. Still unsure of where I was going, I emerged from the underground train station and tried to pull out my map to figure out where I was going. Holy Hannah, wouldn't you know it, I already lost the map.

Amazed at my lack of city survival skills (I'd die in five minutes on Man vs. Wild), I asked where to find Stroget, one of the main shopping streets in the city. Lucky that he understood me (wait till later), I was directed south of the station. So I took off for Stroget. Sarah told me to go there, as it would be a fun place to hang out waiting for her. Without a phone, I thought maybe we'd meet up there, or I could keep calling her phone from there.

The sun started setting and I was walking several blocks until I found a bar near some pay phones, so I decided I'd grab a beer and wait.

"60 Kroner" the bar tender said. I handed her a 100 DKK bill as I tried to figure the exchange rate in my head. carry the zero...five, ten, fifteen... $12. A $12 beer. At home, I'd be wasted just touching $12 of beer. But now I had a pint, a book to read, and about two hours till Sarah said she'd probably be back.

So after that beer, about 20 pages, and another beer, I began trying to call sarah. I got a message in danish and a beep. Could have been her answering machine, but it didn't matter. She doesn't know how to check the messages. So I kept calling her every 10 or 15 minutes. 9:15, 9:30, 9:50, 10:00, 10:30. I decided this wasn't going to work. So I pulled out my phone, which I used to take a picture of her address from an e-mail, and showed it to the bartenders.

"Do you know where this is?" I asked. They could barely read it, so I read off the letters. They had no idea, but they wrote it out for me and told me to find a cab.

The cab driver didn't know where it was, but typed it into his GPS, and we took off. After an amazingly short ride, I paid him about 50 DKK ($10), and stood in front of her dorm (kollegeit - not exactly a dorm, cause it's in the middle of the city and doesn't "belong" to one school). The doors were locked, but one of the residents let me in, and I walked around, trying to find out where her room was. D111. I found the hall and figured I'd wait there, hopefully she'd show eventually.

Meanwhile, Sarah, her friend Vicky, and Vicky's new danish boyfriend, Torbin, were racing around Norreport station trying to find me. My phone didn't work, and, I found out later, Sarah's phone wouldn't turn on, so she was calling me from Vicky's phone. After going through the Norreport station, and checking out a couple of places, Vicky's very smart boyfriend said "he's probably back at your place, I'm a man, and that's what I'd do."

So after my waiting at her building for about 20 minutes, watching each group pass by, hoping to see Sarah, I looked over and saw the short blonde hair and her pink scarf. Holy crap, it worked, I thought.

So yesterday we ran all over the city, saw a bunch, which I'll write about later. Time to get t0 Barcelona!

Humpty Dumpty

If I were a broken egg, I would not want king's horses trying to put me back together again. They would probably be real bad at that. Hooves, man. HOOVES. But I would feel pretty important if the King sent ALL his horses and ALL his men to try and put me back together again, even if they were extrememely poor at reconstructive egg surgery.

El Loro

Honestly. I just had mexican lunch at a restaurant called El Loro. And I can't think. We call it the El Loro coma. And I seriously thought something weird just happened to the atmospheric pressurization around my head right now. Keep in touch. I should be able to blog again soon after this coma runs its course.

Devil's Advocate

I was hanging out in the men's room today when a man walked in and told a work buddy of his that "someone just told me they were playing devil's advocate, all that really means is that they wanted to say something but not be responsible for it." While I pretty much have come to the conclusion that he doens't mean that he is playing "Devil's advocate" from the movie with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. And since the "advocate" refers to the Devil Al Pacino's son, played by Keanu Reeves, he means that he is taking the position of Keanu Reeves, who also played Neo in the Matrix and Ted, in Bill and Ted's blah blah Adventure or whatever. And by saying that he was Keanu Reeves he was also taking the position of Ted in those "bogus" movies, in which Ted rarely takes any responsibility for much of anything, therefore, he is playing "Keanu Reeves as the devil's advocate who also played Ted who never takes any responsbility, so I can say whaever I want."

To the contrary, I think the man in the men's room was actually referring to the fact that when you play the "devil's advocate," you are just making sure that the discussion includes a point of view which the advocate in question does not actually back up. But this naysayer believes that every time someone says that, they are actually just shirking all responsibilty just so they can get their point of view out there without actually having to fess up to all the negative impact that point of view might face. But is that always the case?

I think one could genuinely want to take a look at opposing view points even if that one did not support them. Part of a responsible decision making process should always include that aspect, shouldn't it? I suppose it's possible that it gets down to what your internal motivations are for taking any certain action. Do you actually compeltely not support something if you mention it, or is there a small part of you that supports that point of view?

I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here and say that you sure can play the Devil's advocate, and not support something, especially when you rock out on the air guitar anytime something cool happens, dude.

Broken lunch break

My lunch break, by Justin Roth

-Part I-

So I realized I left the large lunch I packed for myself at home in the refrigerator. So I took my lunch break going home to go get the lunch, rather than spend about $9 to purchase a comparable amount of food at the cafeteria here. So I get home open the fridge and pull out a nearly empty large ziplock baggie. All that's left is 2 yogurt cups and a protein powder bag.

I do some detective work (calling my mom) and found out she took the majority of the lunch I painstakingly put together the night before. I was kind to her on the phone, but I got off and yelled. I proceeded to take an orange out of the fridge to begin reassembling the lunch, but realized the last of my Grandmother's huckleberry jam was on the sandwich that was now in my mother's possesion. This revelation pushed me over the top and I pounded the orange with all my might. The orange dissasembled all over my shirt and pants and I began tearing into it with my mouth. I then dropped the orange into the sink, open side down, so I decided to chuck it into the garbage disposal with fervor. And what a chuck it was.

After this, I quickly assembled some tuna, a pb sandwich and a cup of yogurt to scarf down before I had to rush off back to work.

-Part II-

After putting down the calories needed to survive the rest of the work day, I headed back to work. On my way I thought about how much fun it would be to have some new, good music to listen to. I was currently listening to a bootleg live John Mayer show, so, I thought, why the heck not? I took a detour to Best Buy on the way to work to check out the John Mayer section, but much to my dismay, I didn't like the prices or the content, really. Until I came across his first CD, Inside Wants Out. Just a few tracks on there, but they are mostly all accoustic and it was only $10. But one CD? It just didn't feel right. I decided to browse the rest of the music to see if something popped out... Bob Dylan, not this time, although I really do need to catch up on the last 400 years of his stuff. Rolling Stones... no... but same story. I wanted something that I hadn't heard before. Something that was kinda catchy, but I wasn’t going to hear on KDWB, either original or sampled by Kanye. Then I saw The Derek Trucks Band, a prodigy out of the Almann Bros. family, I was introduced to some of his live stuff about a year ago. I loved what I had heard, and found out this CD had just come out this year... I was sold.

I ripped into it in the parking lot as some teeny girl and her oily haired boyfriend blasted Eminem next to me. Not that I hate the Slim Shady, but I couldn't wait to drown it out with some good, bluesy, soulful licks by Trucks. As soon as it entered the CD player, I was better. What orange? Who's sandwich? I had completely forgotten.

Moral of the story: Buy Derek Trucks music when you have a bad lunch break . . .

============
Confusing sub plot:
So I was checking out at Best Buy, and the girl looked at my ID and said "wow, you're young." I was dumbfounded. What the hell do you say to that? I was just like "ok..." And then she said "Well you look so (something something-can't remember relating to old)" and I was like "Well, that's what years of hard work and stress can do to you." She laughed. I said "well, I wouldn’t call it hard work, but you know." And she elevated her chuckle. That's all. Just funny. I didn't know what to make of someone calling me "young." Dissasemble that, fist.

i debate

Foriegn policy. The best movie of the season. What's the new black? The content changes, but there's always a debate surrounding these topics. Right now these topics are being discussed. Years down the road, people at large tables with expensive clothes on will still be talking about these topics. But right now there's a debate going on that is new to the social landscape. It is the debate of the decade: which I-pod is better? (or more generally, which .mp3 player is better?)

Everyone has an opinion. Even that weird looking kid on the corner whose pants are too tight. But I wouldn't listen to him. He doesn't even like hot dogs. And he's a kid. That's not natural. And his opinions are probably influenced by which one Sponge Bob has, anyways.

Of course your i-choice depends on the i-needs that you have for an i-mp3 player (apple adds the "i" to everything, why can't "i"?). Even though different players are right for different people, owners of a mini music box will defend their fav as the best against all competition. Someone who owns the 30 gig i pod video will defend the massive memory size to the death, while those who own a smaller more portable version will defend its specific benefits. It's actually pretty entertaining.

Just last night I heard a plethora of different reasons to get a certain kind instead of another. For instance, the shuffle makes it too hard to pick out a certain song you want to hear. But of course the huge i pod videos cost 3 car payments. The Zen Micro is the best choice, because... "something something blah something," ... can't remember. But you get the point. Everyone's got their iron-clad opinion.

I'm not going to lie. I own one, but I feel a draw towards the nano. Smaller and cheaper, but still holds a good stack of CDs. But the little monster on my shoulder says "no! - don't banish yourself to the deep throes of "can't-fit-my-whole-CD-collection-on-that-i-Pod" hell!!! Buy more gigabytes!" Then another monster, somewhat more intelligent and more consumer-reports informed metions "That i-pod doesn't even play .ogg files and .flac files. You have a ton of music in those formats." Where to turn as a .mp3-player virgin?

Maybe the real debate should be, how will I continue to listen to my music? I've been listening to CDs my whole life. Who need's an .mp3 player when you've got CD players everywhere? Yeah yeah yeah... I know, portablilty isn't a strong suit for the 3-foot wide stereo in my bedroom. Well another debate for another time . . .

Hours in a day

So the other day I picked up the first season of 24 with Keifer Sutherland (it was on sale for $20 at Target, ususally $45). I can't get enough of it. The action is fast, the story line is enticing and the acting is... well, it's acting. And the best part is, no commercials. No sweating it out for 7 days waiting for the next hour of the story.

You gotta love 80s (early 90s?) superstar Keifer Sutherland making a splash again on pop culture. Has he really done anything worth our time since Young Guns? I think the attitude of his character reflects his mini come-back. His pent up agression for getting lame, straight-to-video movies comes out when he tells his opponents to drop their weapons, or what he'll do to them if they don't do what he says, etc... (I'll tread carefully, Three Musketeers was awesome.) Keifer has found his place. And we love it.

But one thing that seems kind of far fetched is all the events that happen in one 24-hour period. Honestly, Bauer's daughter was kidnapped, like 32 times in one day. Let's get some damn agents on that girl!