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Still feeling the effects from jet lag, Erin and I decided to take it easy today by staying near the hotel. Just down the street from the hotel’s front door is the Jardin du Luxembourg, or Luxembourg Gardens. According to our guidebook, this park is to Paris what Central Park is to New York City. It is a tree-laden haven in the center of an otherwise bustling city. People of all ages visit the park to read, run, sunbathe, and picnic.

The park features several gorgeous fountains, complete with dozens of benches and chairs. Some of the grassy areas are open for people to walk on and sunbathe while other areas of grass are just for looks. There are also a few playgrounds full of kids, and ping pong tables (however you must furnish your own paddles and balls). Several sidewalks snake through the park that are perfect for runners/joggers/walkers. There were also dozens of Parisian men (of all ages) wearing shorts. We spent some time sitting in the shade eating our sandwiches we brought for lunch.

The fresh air replenished our ambition, so we continued to walk 10 minutes south from the Gardens to the Cimetière du Montparnasse, the Montparnasse Cemetery. The cemetery is another sanctuary in the heart of Paris, surrounded by dozens of cafes and brasseries. Erin suggested we go in search of a particular statue named Le Baiser de Brancusi, or simply “The Kiss”, located along the cemetery’s eastern wall.

The weather has been great these past two days (mid-70′s and sunny during the day), and these two parks located close to our hotel really helped to bring a couple of sleepy-eyed travelers back to life. I also pulled together a map that shows both the Jardin du Luxembourg and the Cimetière du Montparnasse (as the large green patches in the center of the screen) and a green arrow that points out the hotel’s location.

My web server was starting to run out of disk space, and instead of spending several hundred dollars upgrading the disks or moving to a new server, I decided to move my photo album to a professional host.  I did quite a bit of looking, but ultimately chose a Pro account with Flickr.  I like their interface, and their terms of service seem ironclad enough to host my photos forever.  Over the past few days I’ve moved my huge collections to their new home.  Among the tagging and RSS features, the one key feature that sold me is sorting my pictures on a calendar by date taken.  It’s a neat way for me to look back on what was visually happening in my life on any given day during the past 5 years for which I have digital photos.

So anyway, check out the new photo album.

If you happen to have a Flickr account, please feel free to add me as a friend and I will gladly return the gesture.  Enjoy!

I live in Washington DC near the National Zoo.  Freaky things happen in this town all the time: buildings are evacuated, Metro cars searched by police armed with automatic weapons, and buses never run on time.  However last night it hit a little closer to home.

At around 2 AM, a helicopter began orbiting near the Zoo (which is right outside my balcony) with its spotlight beaming to the ground and occasionally passing my bedroom window.  Helicopter flyovers are also nothing new in this town where dignitaries hitch rides on US Marine choppers all the time.  However, this was no Marine helicopter (it looked like a commercial model that police and news stations use) and it was 2 AM.  After about 20 minutes of this continued activity, right in the middle of my natural sleep cycle, I decided to do something about it.  I did what any responsible DC citizen would do, I called 911.  The lady who answered was a bit surprised at my complaint, and said that it was a DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) helicopter flying over, in search of an armed criminal.  She suggested I take shelter in a secure location, and to keep a lookout for some guy wielding a gun.  She said if I saw anything I should definitely call back.

I thought this alarmist response was a bit immature, though this town is occasionally known for its instances violent crime (mostly political types disposing of bodies in Rock Creek Park, anyone remember Chandra Levy?).  The helicopter continued to fly over in the same pattern for over an hour more, and then disappeared.  This morning’s Washington Post contained no news of the incident, and its website had no mention.  The MPD  incident blotter also contained no mention.  As a taxpaying resident I would like to know why this helicopter interrupted my sleep for so long, but alas, a communist-style government has decided I should have no further details.  I am left only to trust that the DC Council and the MPD have my best interests in mind, and that such a cover up is in my own interest.

I can only hope that I fare much better this evening. So far, so good…

I had a most peculiar dream last night where I walked into a McDonald’s restaurant and overheard McDonald’s executives discussing plans for a new restaurant chain.  The idea was for McDonald’s to create a new high-end restaurant chain, comparable to a Wolfgang Puck-style restaurant catering to a larger segment of the middle-class dining market.  I guess a spin off like this could be compared to what McDonald’s did with the founding of Chipotle.  Their intentions were to make it just as unhealthy as McDonald’s and Chipotle, but use advertising in such a way to make it seem healthy (just like they currently do for Chipotle).  They were to name it “Karl’s” which is a play on the name of McDonald’s Corporation founder, Ray Kroc.  They were going to use one of those unmistakable “luxury” product voice over actors in their ads, like one of those guys who narrates fine jeweler commercials.  The commercial was very vivid in my dream, but I can’t remember many other details than just the sound of the voice.

It’s definitely a weird dream, and I don’t even like McDonald’s (it has been months since I’ve even been in a McDonald’s restaurant).  It would be interesting to see them come out with something like this now…

A little more than a year ago Erin and I made our first trip together to Amsterdam and Paris.  We had an absolute blast, and it was a great way for us to get to know each other better.  We’re making the trip again this year, in early June.  We’ll be spending a week in Paris, and then will take Thalys (the high speed train) first class to Amsterdam.  After three days in Amsterdam and possibly including a trip to Den Haag, we’ll return to Paris and fly back to the States (directly to Dulles).

We are very much looking forward to it.  I’ve been promised that in addition to visiting art museums and monuments that we will be touring several Parisian breweries.  The only thing better than a brewery is the free beer that awaits at the end of the tour!

I woke up this morning at, according to my alarm clock, 9 AM.  I came out to the living room and noticed that the cable box showed the time as 10.  My laptop had also displayed 10 AM as the current time.  Clearly I had forgotten to set my clocks ahead one hour last night.

This may seem silly, but it’s really the first time I’ve ever not noticed the time change the night before.  Usually the newspaper has some sort of notice on the front page, the news media discusses it endlessly in the days leading up to the change, and someone reminds me somewhere.  This year, none of that happened.  It all seems a bit odd, but in any case the glitch has been corrected and all of my clocks show the correct time.  Hopefully I’m not the only one who didn’t notice this!

I felt it would be a shame for March to go by the wayside without posting an entry.  Life has been very busy recently, but it’s a good kind of busy that leaves me with a nice feeling at the end of the day.

The past few months have flown by, and the weather is definitely getting a lot nicer.  I’ve put another couple hundred miles on the Vespa in the past few weeks, and earlier this week Erin and I rode down to the tidal basin to check out the cherry blossoms.  I took several pictures that I’ll soon post to my photo album for all to check out.

On an entirely different note, Erin and I will be going to Paris in mid-June.  We’re both very much looking forward to it, we had a blast last year when we went.  This time we’ll be flying directly to Paris, and from there may travel to either Madrid or Amsterdam.  I haven’t been to Madrid in years, but it tends to be a little hot during the summer.  Amsterdam is always a good time and comfortable in the summer.  We’ll have to see!

I’ll definitely try to update again soon, but no promises!

I was recently reminded of my high school yearbook quote, always good words to live by!

“Seize the time… live now.  Make now always the most precious time.  Now will never come again.”

I’m selling a cell phone of mine, the Motorola RAZR V3 (GSM version), on eBay.  If you’re in the market for a GSM phone, or know someone who is, please pass this along to them!  It’ll probably go for $150-200, which is significantly less than the retail price of $400.  Take a look at the eBay listing!

I’m always amused to read about new government legislation that limits individual rights, but lawsuit-weary companies taking the initiative is really quite odd.  See this article about how several major UK-based chocolate companies are labeling their products with warning labels.