CERN, part deux

Well, it's Thursday and I am still alive. Apparantly, firing up the LHC
didn't bring the world to an end. But it must have affected the brains
of some of the scientist at CERN. The proof is in the video below:
(That's a perfect 10 on the GeekMeter )

What a cool way to go

Worried about your job, the presidential election, loosing the
'Kleimenhagen Classic'? Don't worry, be happy, because the world
is coming to end on Wednesday. That's right, you heard it here first.
On Wednesday, the CERN in Europe will turn on the
Large Hadron Collider(LHC), the biggest particle accelerator to date.
Some critics fear that the experiments in the LHC could create
black holes that could consume and destroy earth. Wouldn't that be
a cool way to go? Observing how the Earth consume itself and being
killed in the process. And all got started by smashing a couple of neutrons
at high speed at each other.

Peoria Trip, Part II

I am back in Novi and the trip to Peoria is already history. I had a great time
though. It is always fun to meet good friends and spent some time with them.
Thanks to Angela and Jim I had a place to stay and I even got to test drive
Jim's Prius. I also got to play some golf at Quail, but I couldn't pull of a
win at the 'Classic'. I played descent, but a couple of holes just killed me.
Damn you, hole 8 and hole 15 and hole 18 and ............. :)
I was pretty beat the next day, but had enough energy to meet with Chris
and family to hitch a boat ride on the Illinois river. Pretty cool, we got
up to 55mph and I even saw some Asian carp jumping out of the water.
Well, all good times had to come to an end. After lunch on Monday at
Panera Bread, I was time to say good bye to my friends and turn the
Schnitzelwagen towards Michigan. The drive was fast and after 6 hours
of driving, I was back in Novi. It's a long drive for sure, but it was definitely
worth it. I had a great time.

Peoria Trip

Since this is a long weekend, with Monday being Labor day, I decided to
take Friday off and head down to Peoria for a quick visit. For some
reason, flying was not an option, so I saddled the Schnitzelwagen for a
400mile run to Illinois.
I wanted to make the drive as painless as possible, so I decided to leave
Novi EARLY in the morning. Said and done. I went to bed early last night,
caught a coupe of hours of sleep and set the alarm for 3AM.
I actually woke up alright, through my stuff in the car and was on
the road by 3:30AM. After about 5miles I noticed that I left my cell phone
on the kitchen counter. So, I turned around, got the damn phone and
started the journey with a small delay.
The drive was pretty uneventful and works pretty well. After driving
the first couple of hours in the dark, the sun came up when I hit I-80
and gave me a nice boost. I stopped for gas in Pontiac and decided to have
a nice breakfast at Panera Bread in Bloomington.
I arrived in P-town and I am having a nice cup of
coffee to wake me up again. The weather looks promising and
I can't wait to meet with some friends and play a round of golf.

Exceptional games?

Well, I guess the Olympics are over. The IOC president called them
"... truly exceptional games". Personally, I found the games rather
uninspiring. Besides watching a couple competitions here and there,
I never caught the Olympic fever. Of course, the games were perfectly
organized and the world records were broken, like there is no tomorrow.
But, everything seem just a touch too perfect and with most of these records,
there is always the linger of doping. Maybe it was the NBC coverage, that
focused on a couple athletes and teams only and that was typical
hyped-up and patriotic. I mean, come on, the US basketball team's Olympic
experience was dubbed 'Road to Redemption'. Wow.
I found myself watching mostly CBC, because they actually showed
some sports you usually don't see on TV. I will however, give kudos to the
NBC Internet site. They had most of the sports on video, often live,
and without commentators. Truly enjoyable.
Well, time to focus on the upcoming football season.
One of the few hyped-up sports I like watching. :)

Into the Wild

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded the soundtrack of
'Into the wild'. More curiosity than anything, since I didn't
watched the movie, but I like Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder wrote
the songs for the score. In case you don't know. The movie is based
on a book by Jon Krakauer, who writes about Chris McCandless from Virginia,
who died at age 24 in a wilderness area of the state of Alaska.
After graduating in 1990 from Emory University, McCandless ceased
communicating with his family, began traveling, later went to Alaska.
There McCandless headed down the snow-covered trail to begin an odyssey
with only ten pounds of rice, a .22 caliber rifle, a camera, several
boxes of rifle rounds, some camping gear. He took no compass or map.
He died sometime in August, and his decomposed body was found in early
September by moose hunters.
Personally, I felt the book was a let down. After reading Krakauer's
"Into thin air", which was one of the best books I had read in years,
I just couldn't connect with 'Into the wild'. So, I didn't watch the
movie, but I heard good things of the soundtrack so I gave it a try.

The CD has been in my car ever since and I still like to listen to it. The songs
are very simple, mostly acoustic guitar, but have great melodies and
lyrics. I am usually not a big fan of folk style music, but for some reason,
these songs just keep me captivated. Maybe, because some of them are
protest songs, actually having a political message. Hard to find these days,
where it seems the biggest thing to protest against,
is the age of Chinese gymnasts in the Olympics.
Overall, a great piece of music.

Rotten Luck

This was suppose to be a great weekend. Last week I got a call from
Thomas, a good friend from Germany. I know Thomas since college and
I usually visit him and his family when I am in Germany.
Thomas was on a business trip throughout the Americas and had a
weekend stop in Chicago. So, we decided to meet on Saturday
and explore the windy city. I used some frequent flyer miles for the
first flight out of Detroit and I was set to meet with
Thomas for breakfast. Since my plane would leave Detroit Saturday
morning around 7am, I would have to leave home about 5:30 to make it.
Good plan!
Friday night I woke up around 1am, because it seemed like some of my
dinner from last dinner launched a full scale attack on my immune system.
I spent the rest of the night pacing between my bedroom and bathroom and
at 5:30am, the time for departure, I rested curled in my bed with a
cold sweet and frequent stops at the porcelain phone. At this point
I knew, i wouldn't make it to Chicago, so I reluctantly called the
airline to cancel the flight. Rotten Luck.
I spend the rest of the miserable Saturday sipping tea and nibbling
pretzels to past the time. Great!!
Of course, today I am fine. Besides a sore ribcage and a big headache,
there is nothing left of the big fight.