C'mon, give me a smile

I have been in Amsterdam for the last few days. It really is an old and beautiful city. The buildings are all stone, with narrow streets and canals.

I arrived early on Sunday morning and could not check into my hotel. I finally got a room around noon and had enough time to take a 30 minute nap and a quick shower. More sleep would have been better, but I had to get out to the trade show for work. It was feeling like a long day already.

I went to dinner at an Indian restaurant that had wonderful food. I have not had a whole lot of Indian cuisine and all the people traveling with me said to forget this experience...it evidently will not always be this good. After that we found a sports bar with American Football and watched a little bit of the games. Although it was 9pm in NL, the early games were still on back in the US. I finally got back to my hotel around 10pm and went to my room. When I tried my keycard, nothing happened. I tried again. Nothing. No lights, no sounds. Nothing. So I went back to the front counter. After a brief conversation with them - "Yes, I tried to do it slowly. Yes, I tried quickly. Yes, I even tried it backwards. Okay, thanks for making up a new key."

Back up to the room. I hadn't really slept in almost 2 days. I was tired.

I got to my room and tried again. Insert, slide out....nothing. I tried it again, slower. Nothing. I tried a few more for good measure and went down to the lobby again. I walked up to the counter and told them it did not work, so they sent me up with security to give it a try. Back on the elevator and back to the fruitless swiping. The security guy called maintenance. The problem was that the lock only took keycards, no physical keys, and the battery was dead so the whole lock needed to be removed. It was now after 11pm. More swiping and nothing, but this time with master keycards. The security guy sent me down to the cafe for a cup of coffee. After a few minutes, he came back and told me I had two options. 1) I could wait at least an hour for some one to arrive and remove the lock or 2) he would put me in another room. I opted for #2.

Did I mention that everything I had with me was locked in that room? My clothes, my computer, my phone charger. I had a suit, a cell phone and my passport - that's it - still, I just needed to sleep, so I didn't care. I got into my new room, crashed on the bed and slept till morning. When I woke up, I realized that I had been moved into a much nicer room. I went from a shoebox to a larger shoebox, but this one had a semi-balcony and overlooked a neat town square. Look at the picture...it was cool.

I decided that this was going to be my new room at the old room rate. Squatter's Rights. So, I went down to my old room and grabbed my stuff since they had fixed the lock and went to my new room. On my way out that morning I stopped by the front desk, gave them my old keys and let them know I had moved my stuff. No one questioned it, so I headed out. Mission Accomplished.

I got back to my room later that afternoon and some one from housekeeping stopped by my room to make sure "everything was okay" and then left. About 10 minutes later, another person from housekeeping came by and asked the same thing. I knew something was up. Then the phone started ringing, and ringing and ringing. It didn't go to the frontdesk, so I figured it was the frontdesk. I answered the phone. The manager on duty informed me that I was only supposed to be in this room for one night and I could either return to my other room or pay to upgrade into the new room. Evidently a shoebox with a view in Amsterdam is considered an "Executive" room. I declined both options. I then reminded the manager that the evening before her hotel locked me out of my room, away from my stuff and it was very inconvenient. I also told her that I had no intent on changing rooms again and would not pay a higher rate. Thanks for checking with me. She protested. I decided to hit her with the big guns...I heard the words come out of my mouth..."you are charging me $450 a night AND you forced me to sleep in my underwear last night. I am not making any changes!" I heard her frantically typing and then she realized the reason I was in this room and she apologized and let me know it would be taken care of. Done.

So, I have been able to sit in my room with my balcony door open enjoying the sounds and cool breeze from the city. It is really awesome. I am sorry that I missed out on some sleep the first night, but I think this may have made it worth it.

BTW, Amsterdam is a great city to walk and travel by way of public transportation. There are trams all over the city and everyone, I mean everyone, travels by bike. I heard there was an average of 2.3 bikes per person in the Netherlands. It is flat. At sea level and people ride their bikes everywhwere. I was here once February and they were biking in a blizzard. The other thing is that they park their bikes anywhere. Every pole has a bike attached to it and the train stations have thousands of bikes parked out front. It is really something to see.

So, back to the title of my blog post...I only have one complaint about this city; the people don't smile. I have sat in town squares and stood by canals, just watching people and no one (except obvious tourists) are smiling. Now, it is very overcast here most of the year, but still, can't they eek out a "tee hee hee" once in awhile? I just don't get it.

I have a meeting tomorrow near the airport and then I head out to Paris. I have enjoyed my stay in Amsterdam and I hope to make it back here one day in the spring to tour the countryside and see the windmills and tulips.

Eeeeek, a Lizard!

This month I am doing lots of traveling, so my plan is to take pictures along the way and post them to my blog. Kinda like a travel journal. We will see how long it lasts. I am not sure what will come first - losing interest in writing the blog or growing weary of uploading the photos from my phone. I guess we will all have to tune in regularly to find out.

Today, I am in Phoenix. Typical for the desert it is very hot - 100 degrees hot. Of course it is a dry heat so it is not really that bad, mostly when I am used to the humity of ATL. I flew in yesterday for a meeting today and then I am heading out on a red-eye tonight. This all seemed like a much better idea before I found myself sitting in a Starbucks at 8:30pm local time, feeling like it was 11:30pm on my internal clock and knowing I had 3 hours before I could even board my flight. At least I was upgraded to first class so the 3 hour flight (and hopefully 3 hour nap) will not be too bad.

I love the desert. I love the jagged rock mountains, the vibrant colors, the rugged plants...all of it. Rachael and I had seriously considered moving out here when we were looking to leave VA Beach. I am glad we landed up in ATL, but I still yearn a bit for the western US and the desert.

So, when I booked my trip I was able to get into a swanky resort called The Phoenician for a few dollars more than the Courtyard I usually stay at. My intent for this blog post was to put up some pictures of the view from the hotel, like this one:

And this one: And they even had a "Cactus Garden" with some beautiful cacti, like this one: This one: And the one that became my friend:

After I went to the hotel lounge for dinner I came back to my room to watch a little TV and go to bed. As I got closer to my room, I noticed a hotel employee hanging out around my room. As I walked up, she said hello and asked me if I was staying the in "this room" and pointed to my door. I said yes and she informed me that there was a little problem in my room. Problem? What could that be? There was no "problem" when I left the room. I gave her a look that said go ahead and expand on that a little. She told me she was in the room turning down my bed (a nice service I might add...maybe I should teach my kids to turn the bed down for us before they are sent to bed each night) when she noticed a lizard running across my floor. Excuse me, did you just say "a lizard" because I could swear you just said "lizard." She assured me that it was a small one. Fortunately, she was able to catch it and was waiting for building maintenance to come and deal with it. I don't like bugs (please see I caught a bug) and I am not fond of lizards or really any type of critter. God made all these things to scurry away from me, not for me to have to touch them or deal with them.

We stood outside my room door with an awkward moment of silence when she asked me, "do you want to see it?" Well...I guess so. So into the room we go to find my new roommate, the lizard, on the middle of the floor under a glass cup. Now, I expected it to be small; I mean I would have noticed if there was a Komodo Dragon in my room but I was not expecting anything this small. This lizard was teeny - I don't even know if I would have noticed it or even cared if I did actually see it. It is hard to see in the picture below because he was flipping out under the glass when I took this photo, but if you look closely you can see him.

The thing about it all is that I usually do not stay at 4-star resorts when I travel. I mean I stay at decent hotels but this was out of the ordinary. However, even at a cheap hotel you do not expect to find a lizard sharing the space you are paying to occupy. And just like that *snap* this trip became memorable.

I did not sleep very well that night and I am not sure if it was the bed or the lizard, but regardless, I did enjoy the chocolates left on my pillow. :-)

Goodnight and Sweet Dreams

I believe late last night, she let out a big sigh and said goodnight. She hoped it would turn out better, but her hope was wavering. They were doing their best to show her their admiration and respect, yet it was just not meant to be. They still have their memories, all our memories, and they will not drift apart. We just wanted to see it work out better as the next chapter was turned. This is just the way it will be...it will become part of our history.

Last night, the Anaheim Angels defeated the New York Yankees and knocked the Yanks to 10 games behind in the AL East to make it to the playoffs. Of course there is always hope that it will turn around, but the Yanks elimination (or magic) number is also 10. At this point, for the Yankees to make it into the playoffs about 6 teams in the AL will need to crumble; starting tonight. That is not likely to happen. So, after a 14 year run in the post-season play-offs, the Yankees will be sitting at home watching their big screen HDTV's this October. Wishing they were in the big show and I hope figuring out how they can get back there in 2009.

The really sad story is that after 85 years this is the last season for Yankee Stadium. The House That Ruth Built. I am guessing that last night she also recognized that the season was all but over. After hosting so many championship teams, she will have to go into October empty. No fans in the seats, no players in the dugout, no pitchers in the bullpen and no one on the field. Quietly and proudly, she will stand her last October, alone, but full of more wonderful baseball memories than any other field in sports history.

Goodnight Yankee Stadium and Sweet Dreams.

"Get to bed - it's a school night"

This is the first time these words were spoken in our house. Drake is starting Kindergarten tomorrow and Emmy Kay is starting Pre-K. A big day in our house...literally. Both kids will be home-schooled so the walls of our home will take on a new role, school-house. Everyone is really excited around my house so I hope everything goes well tomorrow.

We have planned to home-school our kids for a long time. We have thought about this a ton and feel like we are doing the right thing. People always like to weigh in with their opinion about it and it runs from support, to people thinking we are doing the worst thing for our children. I could say a thousand things about it but I think the bottom-line for us is that we will take it one year and one child at a time. Regardless, I believe we can provide an education for our children that is at list 1% better than the government or a teacher with a room of 20 - 30 kids. Time may change my mind, but right now we are getting ready for school tomorrow.

I am very fortunate that my wife is extremely organized. She has the kids schedule planned out for the next 3 months with lessons for each day. On top of that, I can go to our shared Google calendar and see what their school schedule is for each day. Changes will happen, but I am glad we are going into this with a plan. At least with a plan we have somewhere to adjust and we can figure out what to change. Becoming a parent of 4 kids has been a crash-course learning-curve on so many things. It has been a fun and exciting 6 years. Now I am very excited about adding a totally new dimension to our family...this is taking it to the next level.

Tomorrow morning the school bell rings at 9am and the fun will start. The challenge will be to learn how our kids learn. So far, we think Drake is linear and Emmy Kay is...well, she is...Emmy Kay. She once told me that she did not want to go to church because the people at church keep trying to teach her "new stuff" and she didn't like it. I am not a very abstract thinker and Rachael tends to think in straight lines so most likely, Emmy Kay will be schooling us on thinking outside the box. Quite honestly, I think it will be good for both of us. Also, for anyone that says home-school kids aren't "socialized" - spend 15 minutes with Emmy Kay and you will understand why we are not concerned.

So find a seat, sit down and get ready for class.