Z.Monkey’s Blog

A comment from the last post was from Chloe. I cannot help but think of anyone whose name is Chloe as a pornstar. I do not think I’ve ever actually see a porno with a Chloe in it! Maybe it is because I’ve never actually met one. Hmm… best to ask, “Chloe, are you a pornstar?”

So I am home again. Hopefully, I will be here for a couple of more months at the least. I am bad a this traveling thing. I do not take the time to get flights that don’t suck, I am terrible at packing, I can’t really sleep on planes, and I am terrible about talking business. The last is especially bad when you are on a business trip because that is the most important thing you can do. Blah.

Now I, who has never been able to keep track of what’s going on, will try to come up with a system of keeping track of what is going on. What a terribly good idea. If only I knew how to start.

I really have nothing to say so I will stop writing now.

I went to a Luau last night. It was cheesie. I just wanted to show off some stuff I have seen now that I found a USB cable.

Okay, so I promised that I would let everyone know what I have been doing here in Hawaii. I would like to start by saying a couple of things: (1) I lost the USB cable to our camera in Seoul so I will only be able to show you photos when I find someone to borrow a cable from, (2) I have been trying to do as little work as possible, while I started working on that thing described in the last post, all I have to show is a list of tasks. This is not really what I was going for but as soon as I start examining what I am supposed to do I become befuddled. Hmm…

Thursday: Fly from Manchester to Detroit to San Francisco to Honolulu to Lihue. Get to Lihue to late to rent a car and very hungry as none of my flights served food (at least free food) and none of my lay-overs were long enough for me to eat. Checked into my hotel and slept.

Friday: Wake up and help myself to buffet in the hotel. The eggs are not runny so it may just be a good trip. Go to the airport to rent a car and drive up to the north shore. After a wrong turn and a short detour south where I bought coffee I headed north. I tried to stop at all the vistas and stuff but the highlight was definitely Limahuli Garden. I always like to find a nice relaxing place when I travel as it counteracts the fact that travel (at least traveling for work) is not relaxing. In Seoul there was the Changdeokgung Palace, and in Finland it was pretty much anywhere. I picked up a sub and beer on the way back to the hotel, watched hockey and worked on that thing.

Saturday: I ran into Alex, CJ and Cassie at breakfast. I decided not to go with them to the beach but to go hiking in Waimea Canyon. After a long and winding drive the views and the hike were very fulfilling. There is nothing like standing at the top of a 200 foot waterfall. Meet up with everyone for dinner and a few drinks (I had passed out while watching the Hulk when they called). Then retired early.

Sunday: Today I returned my car after a leisurely meal with Dickens, and I am now writing this and reading up on some stuff I should have done before I left NH. Perhaps I will go boogy boarding this afternoon… the future is not clear. Wish me luck.

Okay, now that I have made sure there are no fires here at work I will take a little time to write. This last weekend Heidi and I went to her grandmother’s brother’s grandson’s wedding with her grandmother and mother. Not necessarily my first choice for a weekend but I’d do much worse things for my wife and, besides, I put her through enough crap. So we drive down to the Cape, pick up the mothers, eat some sandwichs and head back north to Woburn/Stoneham. I was giving directions and I like to think that I did a pretty good job at it. The only mistake was based on the different titles ‘From 93 South’ (read north) and ‘From 93 North’ (read south). I forgot to read the 93 and turned us the wrong way off the offramp. Normal the next direction will bring an error like this to light, here are the next rest of the directions (as remembered by me):

Now it appears that Woburn and Stoneham are mirror images of each other. We were able to follow the directions upto the ‘look there’s the fuck church’ step without suspecting there was an error. Incidently, there was a church on the right. Here is a map (Pleasant St. in Woburn is one way so the directions are a little messed up). By the way the Woburn Public Library has a cool ass building, and in case you cared the wedding was nice.

Yesterday, much to Heidi’s chagrin, I played B&W2 and was much amused. I must train my stupid creature to not play with his toy and with the villagers as much. I could probably right for a while longer but there is work to be done.

Z.Monkey

So I finally uploaded pictures from my/our recent trips (Finland, San Diego, Cape Cod). Below are wonderful advertisements I saw in Finland and San Diego. Awesome.

I am feeling under the weather but I am trying to recover as we have a hockey game tonight. Maybe I should have stayed home today so I’d feel better tonight. Haha. I am one dedicated fellow.

Jeff, Heidi, Jared and I went to see Wallace and Gromit last weekend at Smitty’s Cinema. This was a thoroughly enjoyable experience as we were able to drink beer and eat whole meals of food! Plus the movie had the most amusing use of the word loam I have ever seen in a movie. It was also the first time I have seen a short film at the movies since Roger Rabbit. Ramble, ramble, ramble…

Z.Monkey

P.S. Who shits with a skateboard?

[From Friday September 30th - Somewhere over the Atlantic]

It was interesting being in Frankfurt even if I only spent 1 and 1 half hours in the airport. I would have liked finding some Henninger beer as I am personally interested in seeing if it sucks. Anyways, while in the Airport I noticed that I was actually able to understand a fair amount of German, not that I stopped and had a conversation with anyone…

Okay, the plan is get to NH without missing my flight this time [HA! Fuck you Newark Airport]. Get a large DD regular coffee and drive home. Jesus writing on paper takes a long time… this thing is barely ledgible.

So, my last night in Finland was fun in a sad sort of way. It seems that the frustrations that have been just under the surface all week boiled over. The Thursday meeting got out early and I went to downtown Helsinki with Lindsey and Julie. Yes, these were the only women at the meeting and they were also the only people even remotely near my age. I do not mind older people but I get sick of having reference explained to me… the only thing I have in common with many of them is work and travel so all conversations end up being about work and frequent flyer miles. We next met some people for dinner. I ended up having ‘Dog Food’… sausage and bacon hash with a fried egg on top all served in a metal bowl. I was informed by Julie that her dog ate from a similar bowl.

The last stop of the night was the ice bar; a walk in freezer with a bar and tables made of ice… they only served tropical vodka drinks. Only two of us (Iwahara-san and myself) decided to go in: it was cold, it was stupid, it was fun. After being chilled we sat around complaining about other people, had a few more drinks and listened to show tunes. I think this was the sad part. Sitting around drinking and making fun of people who were not there. Think about it.

Z.Monkey

Answer: The Usual. Oy! Nokia House is very nice! Do not be confused by the its name it is actually a six building complex which has two cafeterias, two parking garages (one for bikes, one for cars) and god knows what else. The building is a new and it is designed in the modern style; lots of wood, metal and glass. And, even though, I do not often like modern it is nice.

My description of Finland as similar to NH seems to be appropriate, as three or four people have already made comments in that regard. I’ve eaten smoked Roudolph but, as of yet, I have not been able to do any site seeing, and as I leave at 8:10 am on Friday I do not know how much I will be able to do.

I really do not like this getting email only after I get ‘home’ from work. Email is something that you should do during the day unless you have pressing concerns. In case you are wondering I am 10 hours ahead and I do not have email at the meeting. So I get a bunch as soon as I get back to the hotel. Blah.

Z.Monkey

P.S. This was written over two days with no editing so please excuse any mistakes.