Go ahead, try and find it (halfway down the page) -> http://phottle.com/blog/funny-wedding-photography?commented=1

Source: Alex A.

$10 to get in ; more players --> more to win Just fill out the bracket online & kindly give Darin your money to play. Something new this year for my buds out of state, I'll accept PayPal! (I'm no longer accepting credit cards via PayPal, sorry...)

First, I managed to catch pneumonia and had to go the ER to get diagnosed. I felt absolutely terrible. Forced me to cancel a plane ticket to Colorado for a weekend visit. I was and am seriously bummed about all of that. My lungs are still not feeling great, and I'm not supposed to do any aerobic exercise for another couple of weeks. what a mess!

Second, our house got robbed just after I got better and started back to work. Thief broke the window by our front door, and unlocked the door to make him/herself at home. They took an empty suitcase and went shopping. Took my iMac, Powerbook, 2 iPods, digital camera, some jewlery, and some other material goods. As if that wasn't bad enough, I had my IRS refund check sitting out and they nabbed it as well. Also, for good measure, claudia's checkbook, my passport and social security card, and a debit & credit card. That's right, armed w/ my identity they ended up with a $3015 spending spree all around Ausitn. what a mess!

So that's what's new. Just a heads up. Trying to keep a good attitude here, looking for some good karma and hoping bad things don't come in threes...

This is probably a good time to state that, hey -- I'm taking a many vacation. Heading up to Utah to Alta/Snowbird to see what Utah skiing is all about. Should have 3.5 days of skiing ahead of me. I'm dropping in on my folks for a few hours in Denver on the way (via airplane). Claudia will meet me out there for a couple days of the skiing. It should be pretty sweet.

Thanks for continuing to check the page -- I promise to make a better blogging effort in the near future...

In short, it kicked ass. Here I am next to the freaky vampire sign at the entrance:

The castle Bran was inhabited by 'Vlad the Impaler' in the 1500's who was known for skewering his enemies on wooden stakes on the nearby hill. He was a cold-hearted leader, but he was loved by the folks here. He was somehow attached to the Dracula fiction, mostly by the fact that his last name was also Dracula.

The inside of the castle was remade into a home by some Queen in the 1700's, and looks quite nice.

Of the things I saw here, the creepiest was this old cross with some ancient lettering that looks straight out of an Anne Rice novel or something. Though it was really touristy, it was totally worth the visit to dispel the last of the vampire myths of Romania...

Offense http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9kp6l6bWNc&feature=related

Defense http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69nIToQ24i4&feature=related

Thanks Ryan!

I couldn't help throwing in a funny picture of a guy trying to pretend to be carpooling, or trying to pretend he had a hot chick in his car. If you look closely at the picture on the right, you'll notice that the girl is definitely an airhead.

Dracula is a word here that is synonomous with good luck. Fitting then that you'd have a dracula casino nearby.

There is a lot of social strife in this country with regard to Romanians versus the Gypsies. The gypsies here are a group of folks that have set up sort of a parallel (but weaker) government and social system but still live in Romania. They have a King, and en emperor, and these crazy gypsy castles all over the place. Money is highly valued in this culture it seems, as the building are topped with Euro and Dollar signs. They walk around wearing black hats on the street. And they are totally maligned in this culture. Everyone thinks the gypsies are a pain in the ass and wants them the hell out of this country.

More randomness, check out the assortment of fur hats! I'd buy one as a souvenier, but I generally don't agree with the wearing of dead animals for glamour's sake. Besides, I don't see much practical usage for a fur hat in Austin.

These suits of armor worn by the ancient knights were really cool. And really heavy. It also looked like they were about a foot shorter than most folks nowadays. I cannot believe these nasty weapons they used -- ball'n chain, katanas, heavy broadswoards; you name it, they kicked someone's ass with it. Imagine bringing something like this back through US customs...

This castle was built in a very strategic location over the years, with each civilization building up a more impressive fortress on the same location. Originally, the Dacians had set up shop here back in the thousands of years ago time frame. Sometime in the 1500's, this Baron started building up this castle which has been restored to its former glory. It even has a moat w/ a really cool bridge up to the front door (no drawbridge, but pretty damn close).

The inside was pretty cool, though I think its funny that the baron had a stained glass picture of himself in the castle's chapel. The dining room was straight out of the Lord of the Rings movie I swear, big wooden chair with long wood table with no side chairs.

On the outside of the castle, there were some bizarre things to see. The picture on the left shows the giant 'beast pit' where the Baron would throw down his unwelcomed guests. Supposedly he had some bloodthirsty pet animal that lived down there. And to finish off the movie themes, there was a 4-5 story well that looked like the well from the Ring. 3 Hungarian dudes were thrown down there a long time ago, and stayed alive for a long time by digging and living off of the well water. Definitely didn't look like a good way to end your days.

With full stomachs, we attacked the 'drinking problem' we needed to solve. We had purchase lots of beer and plenty of wine. The problem was furthered along by our hosts giving us all shots of Suica upon entry to the guesthouse. The solution was to start some drinking chess. We started off w/ some beers, and then cooked up some 'boiled wine' which was very tasty. It's just cheap red wine w/ various spices added to add some flavor -- great on a cold day.

Of course that's never good enough for me, I gotta push everyone to their limits :P I introduced them to the few drinking games I know, including Golf (yes Tob, I still play your 4 card drinking game) and King's Cup. The King's cup was what finished just about everyone off. And it was fitting that me, an innocent bystander, drew the 4th king and was forced to down the most nasty cup of beer.

It was a very fun night, with all sorts of funny, hourly pictures taken along the way that are not suitable for posting online. And the best part was, we woke up somewhat functional the next day.

Rares, Emilia, and Razvan and I joined the masses of folks watching a little one on one dirt track racing. It was just like those old video games where there are two parallel tracks that criss cross here and there; and each car must do one lap on each track before finishing. Here was a cool spot where there was a bridge that one car flew over while another car was looping underneath.

I was amazed at the number of people that came out early on a Saturday to watch this business. There were no grandstands, just a bunch of people standing on the mud rim surrounding the course. We did get sprayed w/ some dirt once, but that was as close as we got to the action. I'll be sure to post some cool videos that have some audio so you can hear how loud these cars were when they went shooting by.

They have a magnificent set of big plazas in the city center, with really cool stonework on the ground in this grid pattern. In town, there are all sorts of great museums and plenty of neat sculptures nearby. We couldn't figre out exactly what that statue represented, perhaps some ancient snail or some ancient snail turd... The architecture was really cool and like nothing I'd ever seen before. Check out the picture below of the red roof -- there are little eyelets sticking out of the roof for the attic windows. It literally looks like a bunch of eyes following you around.

We took a quick soup first, and then met the other carload of people for an eight person real lunch in a neat underground cafe. After filling our stomachs, we wandered the streets for awhile. For instance, we puzzled at this large tooth like statue that we called a 'medusa' or jellyfish in english. It was a talking statue that said to keep coming back after dark. We came back and it still did nothing special. I'm still scratching my head on this one.

At dusk, we climbed up to the top of this sweet old clock tower, that has been there since the 1500's or something. After seeing the stairs on the way up to the top, I'm inclined to agree that it's really really old. A scary walk, sometimes in complete darkness, to say the least. But we were rewarded with some great pictures of the sunset over the city of Sibiu.

It was a great day and a really neat town. It would be fun to spend some time at night there sometime and check out what the nightlife has to offer. Seems like the capital of culture to me :P

Not true! These guys really have their act together out here. The office building is in a really nice part of town outside of downtown. We have the whole 2nd floor of this building, which is enough for all the folks working here right now. And enough room for a ping-pong table, of course.

The little virtual tour I can offer is right here. First, you make your way to the front door (shown) and then up the stairs to the newly installed badge reader.

At this point, its good to get cozy with your coworkers. If you thought low cube walls were outrageously open, well you're not going to like working in the offices here. I'm in a room about 4 feet from each person here. But really, it lends to a pretty laid back work environment where everyone is approachable for questions at anytime.

These guys have done a great job trying to use English all of the time in the office, and if they get excited and start spouting out 10 minutes of Romanian; they will kindly explain to you what was being talked about. Unless it was some sort of political joke. Or unless it was a joke aimed at you, at which point they will tell you that they were in fact discussing a political joke :P

On Wednesdays, Johnny and I have been hitting this sweet basketball court at a high-school near Cluj's UT.

This is the sweetest blue basketball court I've ever seen. European style lanes, really short distance to the cieling; perfect for those folks that don't shoot outside. There are some interesting rule variations in 'Romanian street basketball', most of which have to do with the flow of the game. For instance, if the ball goes out of bounds (hits a wall), the other team does not have to wait for everyone to get set -- you just tap the ball on the wall and play on. There is no stoppage of the game. It's a fun way to play, but you end up w/ a lot of cheap baskets sometimes. Johnny's new nickname is Dirk Nowitzki for his sweet drives the hoop. I held my own and had a good time as well.

Of course no trip with Darin is complete without a little weekend geocaching side-adventure. There's only one geocache in cluj, and I found it.

The scenery around the botanical gardens of Cluj was great, with some neat old bridges and pleny of foreign flora and fauna. A great place to spend your days hiking around. And the best part, no Romanian required for entry :P There are also rumored to be many great forests around here for hiking and camping; but the reality is that it's a little too cold for that this time of the year. ]]> http://www.jumphook.com/scgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/trips/RomaniaMonth/ClujNightlife.html /trips/RomaniaMonth Darin Wayne Gillis 2007-11-06T11:30-06:00 No summary of Cluj is complete without talking about the ridiculous nightlife in this city. The big thing here is that bars stay open until... well whenever. So unlike in the states where there's this 2am cutoff where you are forced home, you have to exercise some sort of self-control with regard to leaving the bar. If you're 'not tuned' for this, well then you'll do what I did and accidentally stay out well past 4am. That's bad on the weekdays :P

Here are some pics of the cool cats I've been hanging out with. On the left is a group of Rares's friends that went out one Sunday with me to play some pool. They have slightly different billiards rules here (gee imagine that :P I've played about 10 variants of 8-ball on my travels) but it's actually pretty close to US rules. You don't really get penalized for scratching, which is very strange. They also had one of those 'snooker' tables there; I had never seen such a big pool table. On the right, is the work crew of folks - Dan, Cosmin, Razvan and Liviu out one night at a funny place named "Insomnia". It was a pretty wild coffee shop with pictures of sheep humping pigs on the walls. Never quite figured out what that was all about. But, as they say it's probably better than 5 guys 1 beer and some feminine products (such an inside joke).

As far as bizarre bar sightings, it's hard to top this place. Diesel bar, which would be the trendy multilevel club sorta place, looked straight out of Dracula's dungeon or something. Red velvet curtains, mirrors, weird lights. Prefect Transylvania club really :) I only went there the first night, as the clubbing crew really isn't my brand of people to hang out with.

I spent most of my bar time in the shadier brand of bar. Here are some pics from my Halloween night out on the town with Dan and Vlad. Place called the Hard Rock Cafe. You certainly won't find one of those cheesy t-shirts here - they have Pantera or Metallica playing on the projector screen 24-7 in this place. It's very smoky (as all bars in Romania are), but other than that it's a pretty cool place. I can't find a picture to really do it justice. And on the right is one of the poorer decisions I've made on this trip -- a drink called the 'passport to hell'. It certainly led me to a stiff hangover on a Thursday morning. Much thanks to Dan for being my drinking buddy over this 2 week span after the Austin crew left me in Cluj -- good times for sure!

It's hard to sum up Cluj-Napoca in a few sentences. There are so many little oddities that sum together to define the city. First check out its skyline -- the tallest building around is the giant gothic church at the center of downtown's Piaşa Unirii. I had never seen an example of 'gothic architecture' before, but it is quite commonplace in this region. This church, which dates back hundreds and hundreds of years ago, is pretty bare on the inside. Check out the sepulcher in the center of the building though, such elaborate woodwork and really just plain creepy looking.

I couldn't capture the large student population of Cluj in a photograph. There are 2 big universities here, UT (Technical Univ.) and Babes Univ. (Liberal Arts). It adds up to a ton of late night food options, a very youthful look to your average passerby, and a crazy set of nightclubs and bars to satisfy the masses. That also means that there's lots of student housing around as well -- which accounts for the hundreds of dingy little apartment buildings dotting the outskirts of the city.

Here are some other sights I took in during my walk around town a few weeks ago. There's a common statue of this really thin archway, but no one has been able to tell me what it signifies. Adjacent to the arch there's an old orthodox church right down from one of Romania's most famous opera houses. I thought this guy randomly painting a building here was kinda neat as well. There are a lot of different colors on the buildings here, though really more than 50% of them could use that extra coat of paint.

Bǎişoara is a tiny little "town" of sorts, with a nice little ski run right off of the main road. It was great to see snow! The place reminded me so much of my Colorado home, it was crazy. Pine trees, fresh air, snowflakes.

I have to admit though, I've never actually tried doing anything besides skiing on a ski run. These guys are champions, and since there was not enough snow to ski on, we packed on the hiking boots and walked up the ski run instead. Pretty nice, though I was a bit winded (probably from all that Romanian food and none of that American exercise. Anyway, a few snowballs later, we were back in the Romanian driving amusement ride heading back to Cluj.

However, Romania will not be outdone in spookiness. I mean this is Transylvania for God's sake. Turns out that the day after Halloween is a special day: the Romanian Day of the Dead. No festivals. No crazy drinking. But a really spooky graveyard scene to marvel at.

I spent an hour walking around the Central Cemetary on the evening of Day of the Dead. All of the surviving relatives are supposed to come to the cemetary and light candles on the graves of their past loved ones. It was really amazing to see the tens of thousands of candles that were lit on all of the gravestones.

After walking around by yourself in a graveyard for awhile, you start trying to focus on non-supernatural things to keep yourself from getting spooked. I started experimenting with my camera's night picture mode. I have a little tripod, and I took a few picture with me in them -- lit up by the ghastly candlelight.

But few graves compared to this one, as far as number of candles. This one looks like the grave is practically on fire. I got a little freaked out by these two dudes mumbling Romanian at me while I was hovering around this particular grave. However, I couldn't help but waiting around until I had some free time to take this crazy shot. The whole experience was really amazing and totally unexpected. Who needs Halloween anyway?

The landscape was straight out of what you'd expect from England. Rolling green pasture, with white rocks that you picture right around Stonehenge. Of course, this is the Romanian countryside though; so there's nothing wrong w/ a little free range roaming from the local livestock. The start of our hike began with the shepherd's yell on the wind trying to guide his animals home for the night.

On the way there were plenty of bushes with wild berries growing. Stefan and Cosmina showed us which ones you can eat, and which ones you shouldn't. I cannot resist an eating challenge, so I had to try the berries as well. Pretty starchy, but pretty good if you were on the verge of starvation. I felt like survivorman or something :)

After a good mile or two, we hit the edge of the gorge. It was kinda hard to get perspective on how big it was from the top, so I had to climb right down by the edge. It was a really long long way down the sheer cliff, let me just put it that way. I'm not sure how a river ran thru the middle of this large hill in the first place, but it carved a nice slot out of it that's for sure. There were lots of rock climbers that had clibmed up the rock nearly to our point. Pretty amazing. Those guys are crazy :) Anyway, we raced the cows back to the car and headed back to end a great day trip to Turda.

When I say old, I mean really, really old. Like 500 years old. This mine has been pumping out salt for a long while, which means its has a pretty huge undergound chamber carvered out. And apparently, they don't like the idea of tourists going in and filling their table salt containers with a few whacks of the ole hammer -- or at least that's what that sign meant to me.

So when you cross through this door, you enter into a long tunnel. All ye who enter: Be Not Clausterphobic; it's a long way horizontally out of that mine that's for sure. It was very mesmerizing looking down this long tunnel with the lights every 20 meters. I thought that the white stuff on the walls was the raw salt that was being mined away, but actually it was not the same stuff that was being mined -- the raw salt crystals that were being carved out of the deepest parts of the mine.

The main chamber has been getting bigger and bigger for hundreds of years. They just kept cutting out new horizontal slices out of the ground every few years (until the mine closed in the 50's). The picture does not do justice to the size of the place -- to get from the roof where you enter to the floor of the chamber, you go down a rickety 20 story staircase (seen in the background of the picture). The strands of fiborous material you see hanging from the roof are actually salt stalagtites of sorts -- water has leaked into the chamber from the roof and has saturated the salt and formed those very dangerous stalagtites. They won't let you into the space underneath them because it would be quite dangerous. It was crazy to think about the walls being composed of raw salt crystals, but it was true! You can lick the walls and taste the salt to make sure...

And who could miss this record breaking salt crystal that was taken from the mine. It's a big load that's for sure -- a microwave sized, prefectly transparent salt crystal. I'll never look at table salt the same way again.

Thanks to Stephan for driving us out there and taking us out for a great day in Turda. And that was only half of the day...

What kind of foods do the folks in Cluj take in? The answer: any and all mixes of meat and cheese. In this picture, taken at 'Speed', a 24-hour diner just outside of Plaza Unirii (downtown Cluj), I'm taking in something called a caş (cazsh) sandwich. It's a sandwich, but instead of meat, it has a big wedge of fried cheese between the buns. Talk about cholestorol! Served with a fine side of french fries and cole slaw. And no 24-hour restaurant will serve food without a cappuchino accompaniment.

Next up (no photo) would be the appetizer tradition of meat and cheese. I cannot remember the romanian word for this assortment -- but its the closest thing I've seen next to my Mom's football gameday tray. There's usually an array of 5 different dried meats and 5 different cheeses and some fresh olives. Included in the meats is always some pork fat (really nasty stuff if you ask me). It may seem a little heavy for an appetizer, but in general if you're at a nice restaurant -- you're sacking it in for a 3 hour experience anyway so you have time to get hungry again. After the appetizer, you may like to burn off that food with a shot of Suica -- the local plum derived hard liquor.

What about the main course? Well I've had sll sorts of things. They're a big fan of soups here, including a soup well known for its hangover curing properties: 'Tripe Soup'. Tripe. Yes, that's right -- cow stomach lining soup. The texture of the floating bits in this delicacy are a little slimy, but if you can stomach raw oysters you should do OK with tripe. Usually, you'd have something more than just soup. Mabye a breaded chicken schniitzel. Maybe some meat and potato dish. I had something during this meal in Turda that was akin to an all in one breakfast casserole. The farming folks typically eat this dish when its cold, because its heavy and it 'sticks to the ribs' for sure. A pot of grits, 5 pieces of bacon, and a few fried eggs are baked in the oven and served in the baking dish. It seemed like a big breakfast to me, but here its a nourishing dinner.

At work, there is no cafeteria (never thought I'd miss Sodexho) but that doesn't mean you go out for lunch all the time. With the heavy traffic in Cluj and the shortage of 'fast' lunch options, you're looking at a 2-3 hour adventure for lunch. The NI-Romania guys usually have a catering service deliver food the office at lunchtime. I've had quite a few 'Menui Zillei's ('menu of the day') in my stay here. They're usually 2 items: a bean/vegetable soup and some sort of meat/rice dish. Not too bad really, but a far cry from the ole Mopac Theme Cuisines.

Of course, no one goes out to eat all of the time. So sometimes you gotta suck it up and find the nearest 'Hypermarket'. The supermarkets here have all sorts of goodies, though it can be a very intimidating experience w/ all of these foreign items and no english descriptions attached. Here's a picture of my shopping trip to Cora's -- where I picked up the necessary items for my kitchenette in order to make pasta, cook up sausages, and boil water for tea. The biggest difference (aside from the tubs of 'Crap' in the seafood isle -- yes the container says 'Crap' in big red letters, it's the name of a local fish) would be the enormous selection of meats and cheeses. I still haven't found the brînzá de conşuleţ that was recommended to me, but I've seen every other type of cheese imaginable. The hardest part of the Romanian shopping experience is transporting the groceries back to your apartment -- if you don't have a car -- like me. I have been packing up the ole trusty backpack to the brim with food for the taxi home, or calling Dan P for a ride to the store (thanks man!). Anyway, speaking of all these groceries, they won't eat themselves. Time to mix up a hotplate dinner...

I'm staying in Cluj in the Babes University Housing Room 708. Babes is pronounced 'babesh' and is one of the 2 big universities in the city. It's about 10 min (by car) from downtown, and right next to a pretty sweet park with running track. For long term housing, it makes sense to have a place with a little kitchen rather than the very hotel like experience I had for the 1st week of time here -- Hotel Centraal right downtown Cluj. The main difference is that I'm a cab ride from the bars/coffee shops rather than a 5 minute walk. But I'm closer to other practical things like a place to exercise and a place to get groceries.

I'm not really close to work, but everyone at NI-Romania has been beyond accomidating by picking me up all the time. I tend to get two rides a day, with Rares taking me to and from work (thanks man!) and someone else rotating and picking me up for dinner/trips/etc. The folks at work have been awesome, awesome hosts -- they have made me feel very welcome and gone way way out of their way to make sure I'm comfortable and happy and entertained while staying in Cluj.

Funny that last night they had live music in Cluj -- probably the first name a big name musician has come to the city. It was Beyonce. She played in a old soccer field pretty near to the old apartment, and I could hear the concert decently well by just opening the windows. Pretty good, considering it was a crappy cold and rainy night; so I got to enjoy the quote unquote music in the background while studying up on my Romanian. Here's a video of what I could see from the apt -- you can kinda hear the end one of her big hits in the audio though you cannot see much of the lights from the show... ]]> http://www.jumphook.com/scgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/trips/RomaniaMonth/StinkyShoeArrival.html /trips/RomaniaMonth Darin Wayne Gillis 2007-10-23T11:56-06:00 Arriving to Cluj Romania was a little more interesting than I had pictured. I had been told of some oddities with the local airport -- where they have a bus drive you 20 meters from the plane to the front door. In other words a tiny airport. But what I wasn't prepared for was the surprise in my carry-on luggage.

It all started the day before in Amsterdam. Wandering here and there, heading out to the Van Gogh museum and checking out the sweet green grassy field in the museum area there... Well I guess it started earlier than that. The story really begins when Fido was eating his kibbles n bits that morning; and then proceeded to drop a nice, stinky poo somewhere in that park in Amsterdam.

Suffice it to say that I had no idea what I had stepped into. You know how it goes -- usually you don't know that you took a stinky step until you take those shoes off. In this case, I was blasted drunk by the time I squeezed out of those sneakers back in the hotel room; and I certainly didn't notice anything was amiss.

Getting up at 6am, hungover, I spend 15 minutes decided if it was the right time to wake up and get moving to the airport. Oh wait, gotta pack real quick. Getting the medicine bag put away, check. dirty clothes, check. running sho--oh yuck, what haenous shit did I step in yesterday !?! Well there was no time to worry too much, I was nearly late for the train to the airport. I searched thru the hotel room looking for anything remotely resembling a stink-proof bag. couldnt' find a damn thing. Best I could do was a piece of plastic wrapper from the bag of hotel slippers that i had foolishly torn in half. Good enough, i figured. Just slap that plastic strip on the bottom like a second sole and pack those shoes away and deal with it later.

Welcome to the baggage check at the Amsterdam airport. Hello ma'am, yes you speak English great! Wait what do you mean my checked bag is too heavy? There are 5 people in line behind me and I've been here for 20 mintues. You want me to repack it quickly here you say?... So I take out the obvious heavy things, and remain a few kg over the weight limit. Only thing left was those damn stink shoes. So I reluctantly open that part of the bag, letting lose the odor, and snatch those shoes out of there. Great, the bag is now light enough to check. and there it goes. And here I am w/ some stinky carryon luggage.

So I carry the stinky shoes thru security (thank god they didn't ask me to go thru the bag). I put them in the overhead compartment. I could smell a bit of a waft of poo from time to time, though I'm sure the other passangers assumed that it was just one too many chili dogs from the guy sitting in front. Guiltily, I pretend not to know a thing.

One plane down, one plane to go. Welcome to Budapest. So we grab a bite to eat, with the striped, stink-bombed laundary bag far enough away to avoid causing a stink. From there, to the next gate. At the gate, my nightmare.

The lady says that I can only take 1 carry-on and I must check the other one at the plane. While I'm digesting this information, she instinctively leans down to tie off the 'extra bag check' tag to the bag. I didn't know what to say. Her nose was right down in it. Then she couldn't get the tag attached, and waved the other girl over to see if the way she'd tied it on was good enough. I was bright red. I grabbed the bag, and was off and couldn't look her in the eye.

And that was how I arrived to Cluj, and my 4 weeks in Romania began. Gotta be my worst slash funniest baggage story to date.

So why hasn't he blogged before now you may ask? Well from the second i've arrived in Cluj I've been taken from place to place, from 2 hour lunch to 3 hour dinner to bars and so on. Free time is time one should be sleeping. I'm not complaining, I have the best hosts in the world here in Horia, the head honcho at the NI-Romania office. You name it: taking the dinner tab, hooking me up with a more permanent apartment w/ a kitchen, and providing hilarity at every turn as well.

Whoooppps will write more and post some pictures next go round, i'm being called down to one last group dinner before the big NI-Romania soccer game. the majority of the Austin work people are back on the plane to Texas. I think I may get some time for my own exploration in the very near future!

And if you haven't picked it up from this -- I think Cluj is freaking awesome. I miss my girl, but other than that life is pretty damn good. Vive work travel.

Omid and I pulled in around noontime here yesterday, and we've just sorta been wandering the streets since then. It's a pretty sweet town, with bars and coffeeshops all over the place. The urge to get a beer is instantly satisfied at all times. The red light district is a sight to behold as well, never seen anything quite like that... Literally window shopping. Nuts.

This morning, at Claudia's advice, I'm popping off to the Anne Frank house. This afternoon I think the Van Gogh Museum is in order. Really I don't know what else we'll do. All i know is many coffees will be consumed, and many beers will run dry. Maybe even a geocache found if I can stay motivated... Having a blast so far!

1. Work has been crazy. I know its cliche, but its true! I recently have decided to change roles at NI by moving into Project Managment from development. It's an unexpected move that I hope will hold off the burnout that can set in by sitting at a desk all the time. The process of moving to this new role has been painful, because it pretty much means I'm doing two jobs at once (old job responsibilities winding down, new job responsibilities torquing up).
2. Heading to Romania in a week. I'm leaving for a month long work trip to Romania, in 7 days! This I've been looking forward to for almost a year, and I'm really excited to get a chance to go over. Whenever you leave for a month, there's a long laundary list of things to take care of. Also, I have to get a bunch of work stuff together for the trip. Best part will be - weekend beforehand in Amsterdam! What a layover :)
3. Got a new Mac. If you haven't seen the new redesigned iMac, you are really lame. It's got a dual-core Intel based chip, and gobs of RAM -- but the most impressive thing is just how it feels. It's like straight out of Star Trek - a single, sexy flat-panel screen with wireless mouse and keyboard. Now I've just gotta find the time to set it up.
4. jumphook.com is censored in China. What did I ever do to the Chinese Government? So lame - but they've got my site on the blacklist it seems. Justin (who has arrived in Shanghai for his 7-month work-stay) just reported this to me from China. Is this site all about free love and democracy and capitalism or something?

Anyway, be sure to note that blogging will ramp up when I leave for Amsterdam/Romania :) Much love to my dedicated jumphookers out there that still occasionally check.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S3RbRifTSk

Love it -- THIS IS DIVISION 1 FOOTBALL, THIS ISN'T INTRAMURALS

Darin jets out of Austin for one weekend to the east coast for a quick visit. Dustin and Amanda put me up for the weekend and drove me all over the state. First night, we all met up with Laura and went out in Manhattan. After that, took a car ride up to Saratoga to watch the Travers stakes, and also squeezed out a 6 mile hike in the Adirondacks the next day.

Thanks to Dustin and Amanda for driving me everywhere and being such great hosts. Thanks to Laura for making the long trip from Boston to visit on short notice. It was a blast!

Well its been too long since I've posted, because I've been waiting to deliver this jucy bit of news. I'm actually taking a spur of the moment trip out to NY weekend (Aug 25 weekend). Flying into NYC on a friday night (shenaningans will surely take place) then heading up to Saratoga, NY (near Troy NY were my good buddy Dustin is going to school) with little D and Amanada to see the big Traver's Stakes horse race. Should be a fun day, and a good excuse to go visit my former 3rd grade classmate :) The ugly part of the trip will be the red-eye 6am flight from Albany, NY back to Austin on a Monday morning -- but there was no way around it without paying an arm and a leg.

If you're in the neighborhood (ahem, Laura) give me a shout and maybe we can meet up somehow. I've never been to the north east, so I can't wait to check it out!

Had a great time visiting the fam in Estes Park for the weekend recently. Watched a lot of movies, had a lot of home-cooked food, and played a bit of cards. Also, on the way back from Estes I managed to get a Sunday night out with Shaun and Kee (and Kee's new girlfriend Jenn) in Uptown Denver.

I didn't even know such a thing as 'uptown' denver existed -- I thought it was 'lodo' or nothing when going out. Denver keeps on changing though, and its no surprise that its getting awesomer all the time :) Had some good food at Stuebens down there, and then hung out at the local Tavern for some good times.

Good times in this case meant jager shots and bar games -- including this naught-often-seen mini-bowling game. Hilarious that the pins were suspended by strings and dropped down like puppets to reset the frame. Special thanks go to Shaun (once again) for letting me crash at his place, and big thanks to Keeler for getting up at 5am to drive me out to DIA monday morning. Great visit guys -- and great to meet you Jenn! (Kee you've outdone yourself :P)

Photos are up from the Housewarming party welcome me to Claudia's little casita. Great turnout despite the rains, and had an absolute blast. My only regret is that the maximum conversation length with each person that attended was in the neighborhood of two minutes. Oh well, we cashed those pony kegs before 11pm so that's the sign of a good party. Thanks to everyone that dropped by!

Claudia and I leave the 50 states for the 4th of July - this time to the "51st" state of Puerto Rico. Had a great trip and hit the hot spots of Old San Juan, the casinos, the island of Vieques, El Yunque, Rio Camuy Caves, and the Arecibo Observatory. Met the friendliest people around, and made us feel like we had a Puerto Rican home away from home :)

• Windy Mountain Roads: A Puerto Rican highway away from the coast consist of about 40 hairpin turns stuck together in a row. They will intersect with 2 or more highways with the same number of turns.
• Highway Signs: Always misleading, will tell you that a 'road will eventually lead to Highway 149', but certainly isn't the most direct route. Best to work on your spanish and start asking for directions at each intersection
• Broken Down Cars: Turns out that broken down cars in the front yard slash street serve both as a place to put your extra potted plants and as a social status symbol. The nicest neighborhoods and properites always had a borken down car in front. I guess it says: 'I'm rich enough to have bought 2 cars in my lieftime, here's the proof!'
• Puerto Rican Bookstores: The just don't really exist except in the capital San Juan. Well really that's not entirely correct, they have Christian bookstores but nothing else. We litterally went to 2 towns, a Wal-Mart and a WalGreens and found a whopping selection of 50 books. (total). About 40 of those were in Spanish, and useless to me.

Fantastic trip. You gotta see the pics - they will be up as soon as I get time to sort them and post 'em :)

In the midst of moving into Claudita's house and refinishing kitchen floors, I found time to disappear into the fields of Manchester, TN once again into the magically music offered by the Bonnaroo Festival! Thanks to an extra ticket from Scott, I flew in and made it to all the great shows I wanted to see: Brazillian Girls, Flaming Lips, Tool (2nd time in a month), and many many others. Flaming Lips was the top act, with just insanely awesome music and a complete visual experience. Check out the photos!

Potpourri of the spring time 2007 the year of our lord. First up we have the parents visiting, than the Grafitti party at Anu's pad, then we've got some pictures from the Galveston trip to visit Lindsay.

And to round off the album, some lovely photos of the Dallas Anti-Wedding bash with DQ. Gotta love that fantastic grub, totally worth the drive. Now Claudia's green bug needs an oil chezk after all these road trips this spring :)