Whirly: good to go

I’ve not been keeping up with this journal as well as I expected. It turns out, writing about being in Paris isn’t as much fun as being here.

I visited the Musee Rodin and, along with ‘The Gates of Hell’ and ‘The Kiss’, they had a ‘Thinker. I’ve seen the Thinker in San Francisco though. They say there are 30 copies around the world. Was this one the real one? If you had the real Thinker would you leave it out in the yard? Either way, I’ve seen 1/15 of the official Thinkers.

The Eurostar to Paris is a whiz. It’s fast, smooth and easy.

I’ve invented the idea of a baby car. They put all the babies in one car, probably children under 12ish, no 22, in another. When you purchased a ticket they’d ask, “Baby or non-baby?” We had two of them in our car, I wonder if we were in the baby car, hmm. Neither of them liked riding on trains. I don’t know what other words she knew, but one of them knew “no” very well. Luckily, I always carry ear plugs.

We waited in line for half an hour for a taxi at Gare de Nord. Our driver got us to our Hotel through, what seemed, terrible traffic. Our room reservation was a little wrong, easily corrected with money.

The elevator to the fourth floor wasn’t large enough for two bags and two people so I started walking up the stairs. It got darker and darker, as I climbed, until I was completely blind, it was terribly funny, me stumbling up, my hands out, laughing.

I now know there is a light-switch, on the each floor, that turns the light on for some set time. I’ve seen it before, but I forgot. It’s very efficient. No reason to have a light in a stairwell that has no people in it, but we Americans are kind of dumb about this stuff.

We’ve had time for a fancy dinner, and a stroll to see the Eiffel Tower at night. Tomorrow, Le Louvre

The pants situation resolved successfully with one minor misunderstanding. When entering the store the sales person asked if he could help me. I answered, “Yes. I’m looking for casual pants.” He asked, “What size? I have only three pair.” I responded, “You only have three pair of pants?”

He takes me to a rack and says “Try these.” They had big pockets on the leg and I said, “I don’t really want pants with big pockets.” He, “These are cargo pants.” Me, “I know. I don’t want cargo pants.” He asked, “What did you say you wanted?” Me, “Casual pants.” He, “Ah, I thought you wanted Cargo pants.” We had a short giggle and he showed me the regular pants.

I had my first official Crispy Cream donut today at Harrads. I went with the original thinking I should start at the beginning. It was much lighter and less doughy than a regular donut.

Also, Yo Sushi. You sit at an oval counter with the staff preparing the sushi in the center. There are two conveyor belts circling, in different directions, with colored bowls of sushi. Each bowl color has it’s own price. There are small, sparkling and still, water taps on the counter, along with wasabi, soy sauce, chop sticks and what not. It was quite fun. The problem with sushi normally is you must choose some set sample or experiment. This way you can see and choose.

Tomorrow the Chunnel to Paris. This was our longest stay in London. I’m sorry to leave.

A terrible thing has happened. I’ve destroyed my pants in a cloths drying mishap. Each time I travel I try to pack lighter. Last year, I purchased two micro-fiber pants from Orvis for $100 each. I added a third this year and that’s my complete pants traveling wardrobe.

Today, while washing and drying, I cooked two pair of my plastic pants. They are a complete wrinkled mess. One of the three has a 1 1/2 inch seam rip that I’d intended to repair this evening. That’s the pair I wore while wash-destroying the other two. Later, at a movie, I was lucky enough to get gum stuck on the leg.

So my best pants have gum and a hole. It’s certainly not a vacation killer. My intention is to replace the destroyed ones tomorrow. It’s not as exciting as buying a Rolex though.

The one thing my Hotel in London does not have is wireless Internet access. I saw a sign in McDonalds, between Lester Square and Piccadilly Circus, saying it had Internet access so I’m going to try to pull this off there. I don’t want this to be too long, but I’ve done quite a few things.

1) Hot buttered scones. Yes I’m the last person on the planet to discovered hot buttered scones.

2) I found -my- Rolex today. It’s blue. I can either purchase this watch or get every other thing on my list of things, except the motorcycle. I’m still thinking.

3) Courtauld Gallery, part of the Somerset House museum. The van Gogh’s self-portrait, some famous Manet, Cezanne, Rubens and Degas. I’d also mention my first two Talose Latrec paintings, but I don’t know how to spell his name.

4) St. Martin-in-the-Fields for Mozart’s Requiem. Wow, that was good.

I’ve been to London a few times before. There are plenty of other things in this wonderful city, as if you needed me to tell you that. Tomorrow, laundry. I’m getting a little gamey.

Our day in Seattle started with breakfast and a stroll through the famous Pike Street Market. After which, a taxi to the huge REI compound. I had not seen the new REI facility before. I think the queen stays there when she’s in town. It has a bike testing path, a hiking trail and rock climbing mountain.

One thing it doesn’t have is a taxi stand. We walked to the Seattle Center, where the Space Needle is located, it felt like two miles.

I’m not one for heights so I’ve never been up the Space Needle and I didn’t today. I’ve been checking the ‘Experience Music Project’ with Google Earth and, let me tell ya, it looks different up-close than it does from space. Not many straight lines here, other than the doors, It’s all curves, swoops and colors. It kind of reminds you of music. Or an acid trip.

It was more fun that I expected. Lots of music history with old instruments and what not. Also, some powerful videos showing why the greats are great. They also have an interactive recording-studio playground that is fun even for non musicians.

We visited an art exhibition ‘Doubletake: From monet to Lichtenstein’, that I later learned, opened Saturday. It’s a selection of paintings owned by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. I don’t know anything about art, but I know what I like and I liked these. These excellent few, presented in an approachable way designed for us who know nothing about art.

They also have a science fiction museum that would have been more interesting if I wasn’t tired. It deserves a better review than this.

The second thing I did friday, after getting home, was drag my now sopping-wet coat from the rapidly filling washing machine; its placement into, was the first thing. Previous, by a few hours, was a Costco trip. I purchased a 1 gig memory stick for my camera. The third thing was to remove that drenched memory stick from the pocket of that coat. I tried the never-used memory in my camera, the next day, at the airport. You’ll try almost anything when a two hour wait turns into a six hour ordeal.

One of those hours was spent at the mall, luckily within walking distance. At least it is in good weather. I can imagine it being a bit too far in cold, wet or windy weather. I don’t know if the teenaged runaway at the mall walked or not. It looked like she’d slept in her too-large coat, but she might always look like that. “Your dad is looking for you,” from a group of young women elicited, “I ran away. I stood up for myself, finally,” from the coated one.

16 years, more or less. At some point, grey-haired men can’t tell. So much drama at that age. More than a wet memory stick, more than a flight delay, more than a walk to the mall.

Teen aged girls can’t tell how old grey-haired men are either. Are their memory stick always wet? Are they running away? I don’t think she noticed.

The only thing that could stop us in Blackfathom Depths was lag, and some dumb murloc. At one point I had over 2000 latency. I was killed, at the log in screen, when I lagged out. It was an annoyance, but we soldiered on, I had fun, good fun.

With two cloth and a mail wearers we usually get leather drops. Not tonight. I received a new stick and shoes. Mark looted a new chest, shoulders, back, pants, 10 slot bag and an axe. He said his AC almost doubled. Mike only received a pearl. He’s a good mage, but not overly lucky.

We killed names, Ghamoo-ra, Lady Saravess and Gelihast. From the map it looks like we went through about half of the instance. Mike and I dinged 23.

I’ll be gone, and unable to play, until May. This was a great last night. I’ll miss playing.

I’m going on vacation Saturday. Normaly, when I travel, the only technology I take is my digital camera. This time, I’m taking the Palm TX and a folding keyboard. Oh, and a cell phone. I’m going to try to use the Palm to check my email, as a journal, and possibly post here.

There are three problems so far. One - to charge the palm, camera and cell in europe I need to take all the power bricks and a converter with plugs. It’s quite a pile. Two - no spell checker. Um, I’m a real bad speller. Three - with my only test-post using the Palm, it seemed to mess up some punctuation.

This is an official test of the Palm posting system.

Well, once again WoW is unplayable. And, in prime time no less. I tried to find something else to do, like cancel my EQII account or play Morrowind, but nothing is working out - yawn. I guess this is as good a time as any to explain how I got rich in WoW.

First, I’m not really rich yet. The last week or two have been hard to play, for everybody, so making money has been difficult as well. After a month I’ve gone from 3 gold to 413 gold. My highest character is a level 22 priest, but he’s only made 62 gold, the slacker. My auction house mule is a level 14 horde Druid who had 351 gold the last time I could check. My Druid is completely cashed out. I sent anything that could be dis-enchanted to the Priest and sold the rest to the nearest NPC. I’m going on vacation Saturday and I didn’t want to carry any stock.

Initially, I intended to use a spreadsheet or database to track auctions. Searching the web for ideas, I found a program called “Auctioneer”, an add-on for WoW. It is amazing. It scans all items at auction and creates a database. Over time, and multiple scans, the database can accurately report the normal price range for an item. It can also provide you with a list of items you can purchase, at cut rate prices, and potentially make a profit selling. Plus, much, much more. I couldn’t begin to list everything Auctioneer does for you. If you are interested…

http://auctioneeraddon.com/

BTW my Priest made that 62 gold in one week buying stuff at auction, that was worth more dis-enchanted than the buy out price, and selling the components. Enchantrix, which comes with the Auctioneer package, gives you the information to pull this off.