One of the first things we noticed in Europe this trip was that people are doing a better job with some of the environmental and health issues than we are in the states, at least the area of the Midwest where we live.

We just didn't see the huge people that we commonly see in the US, especially in Holland. People-of-size are not very common. I don't know if they eat less, but they seem to have a healthier lifestyle built into the daily routine.

In Holland, which has the highest fuel prices in the world (upwards of $8 a gallon), most people ride bikes. Every town and city is set up for this with bike routes separated from auto roads and sidewalks. A typical Dutch city intersection will have the auto road, the pedstrian sidewalk and the bike routes all crossing. Generally, they are different colored pavement (as in brick pavers) for the sidewalk and the bikes, so it's a pretty easy visual distinction. At the central train station in Amsterdam there is a multideck parking garage for bike commuters who ride to the station. People ride bikes in business suits, skirts and dresses, whatever.

They also ride bikes that are equipped for this type of daily trip. The tires are larger and sturdier than the typical road bike built for racing or pleasure riding in the states. They always have fenders for rain, and the chain is fully enclosed which keeps accidents from happening with clothing. Typically Dutch bikes have a sealed rear hub with the internal gear changers (the kind that, when I was a kid, would have been referred to as a three-speed), generally with about seven gear choices, instead of 14 or 21 for a road bike sold in the US with an external derailleur.

They are also comfortable with extra riders. Quite a few bikes that you see have sturdy child seats, sometimes on the rear rack but also on the handlebars, if you have two small kids. They also have a kind of parent-friendly bike with a large bin between the rider and the front wheel. This is hard to describe, but the bin is down low where the pedals are for a low center of gravity, and a lot of parents use those for two or even three small children to sit in. We also saw girls dressed to go out sitting on the rear rack, side-saddle-style, with boyfriends pedaling.

Most middle-class Dutch people have a car, but they just don't use it for the types of things that Americans do, which is basically everything where I live. They use them more for things that are really necessary, and just use a bike for most short trips. Actually, most trips in Holland are short trips, because they inhabit a crowded country and there are usually stores and shops right in the neighborhood, so people aren't driving miles and miles to pick up a few things at the store.

One other big bike-friendly advantage that the Dutch enjoy is the absolute flatness of their landscape. There is not any elevation change anywhere in most of their towns and cities. Unless you find yourself going over a bridge, which might have a slight incline to it, you're probably pedaling on the level for the entire trip. Which makes bike riding pretty effortless because there is no hill climbing to worry about. We rode around in Amsterdam (rental bikes) on a very warm day (over 90 degrees F.) and got sweaty, but that was the weather not the strenuous riding.

In England we didn't see nearly as much bike riding going on. Of course public transport with trains, and busses, is pretty widely available even in the countryside. In London, you absolutely do NOT want a car to worry about, especially if you are an American driver trying to operate on the "wrong" side of the road.

However the English currently are experiencing a rage of "pegging out." As in laundry pegs, i.e., hanging clothes outdoors on a clothesline instead of using the automatic dryer so much. In early June most stores had run out of clothespins ("pegs" over there) due to a 1400% increase in sales. That tells you that a lot of people are trying pegging out for the first time, otherwise they would already have the pegs from last year. The British are using clothes drying to both reduce their carbon footprint, and also save money from fuel costs of running clothes dryers all the time.

Makes some sense, doesn't it? One of their big hurdles is the English weather, though. It rains frequently. So those who peg out have to be ready to run out and retrieve their wash before it gets drenched.

So, are we making any lifestyle changes now that we are home? I guess we are trying. I haven't been riding a bike (partly due to my back bothering me), but beautiful spouse is trying. She is riding to the bank right now. Unfortunately, the bank is about 4 miles away and it is about 85 degrees outside with 99% humidity today, so it's not going to be a Dutch-style easy ride. More of an endurance contest.

Oh, and she hung out the wash before she left!

To any first time visitors I wrote you a special greeting called

Quick Introductions.

It's below, on June 22.

Thanks for the visit,

Gord

We had a superb, knowedgeable English tour guide who really knew her stuff and was accustomed to herding people efficiently through the sights. She was an ex-kindergarten teacher.

It was the next morning & the four of us were on an organized tour on a coach bus: Westminster Abbey, followed by Buckingham Palace for the Changing of the Guard.

We finished at the Abbey (hint: lots of famous dead people are buried there) and then had 15 minutes free time to either use "the loo" or shop. We all headed for the restrooms located below street level. At a cost of 50p (about a dollar) you got a clean and sanitary men's room. Which I needed. The in-laws were worried. "I hope Gord's OK. I didn't see him come out."

Spouse: "He didn't come out yet , Mom."

"Well, I hope he's OK."

With all biological functions taken care of we were all ready to ride our bus to the Palace. Our guide told us the best place to stand to see as much as possible, and it was a warm and sunny day. The crowds were large, but we did get a chance to see all three parades of troops into the palace gate.

By noon, the parental units were exhausted. We needed a bite to eat, and then back to the hotel to rest up before . . . eating dinner that evening. We made the mistake of lunching at an expensive hotel. A cup of soup was $15.00. The in-laws' favorite beverage (orange juice mixed with equal parts lemonade) cost almost $10 each, because the bar charged for two orange juices and two lemonades. My beer was only $4.50 though. I was too tired of the whole thing to register a complaint, so we paid and left. There was a nice pub right acros the street where spouse and I had had a good supper our first night in London. Oh well.

Spouse and I made up for it by getting a free meal at a fancy functionin Regents Park, special invitation only. They were serving champagne, tea sanwiches, nice desserts, and Pimm's. I was excited about the Pimm's because i had never had it before. It's sort of like mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby for the British. In a tall glass with ice you got orange, lime, a mint leaf, and a ginger ale tasting Pimm's with a bit of a kick to it. It was better than champagne.

We had already walked around the entire network of paths with an old friend who I hadn't seen since college days. He and I had been best friends when i spent a semester in England (back in th elast century) and I was surprised to find out that he had taken early retirement in order to return to his first love, horticulture. That was why he got the event invitations, because he had apprenticed as a gardener with the Regents Park staff back in the '70s. In a strange intersection of events which I have come to almost expect out of life, his reunion of apprentices from the old days exactly coincided with our arrival in London. So he was reuniting with several other people (besides us) who he hadn't seen in thirty years. Weird. But isn't that how life is?

We spent most of the time catching up, of course. He told us about his wife ( who I had known well but wasn't able to make this occasion due to work schedule) and their two grown kids. One boy and one girl. His son was still making his way through architecture studies, and his daughter had graduated in theater design. We shared about our three, you can probably picture the scene. Except you have to imagine the grounds: beautifully manicured and delightfully landscaped. It was a movie scene: "Well," the director decides, "let's have them slowly strolling through the park, and then we can cut to the beautiful flowers during the boring bits."

We were able to joke around and fall back into some of our old patterns from college days, so that was like a movie scene as well. After the formal garden party was winding down we went for coffee together and then said goodbye, promising to not let another 30 years go by. And it is easier now, because of e-mail, so I think we will stay in touch better, and may even get togther to do some hiking next summer in Colorado.

We were in England (with extraneous in-laws) searching for the ancestral grave plots.

The town of Farnham that is north of London is not the right Farnham. But we spent an entire day making our way there, taking detours due to closed roads, sitting in traffic, and generally getting frustrated. The wrong Farnham was a nice little village to visit, and it did have a church with a graveyard (yes, I thought about just telling them that this is the right graveyard; No, I didn't actually do that), but it was not a Methodist Church, a fact that they would have noticed for sure.

We never made it to the right Farnham, which lies south of London, but spending the day on a wild goose chase for the ancestral homeland meant that when it was time to return our rental car so that we could take "the tube" into central London, we found ourselves running dangerously out of time. The rental office was only open until 6 p.m., and we had miles of traffic to fight through. We were desperate to rid ourselves of the rental car, because we had a hotel reservation in the Bloomsbury area of central London, and couldn't imagine what we would do if we had to figure out where to park a car for an entire night. Well, the nice lady at the car rental office knew we were on our way and kept the office open an extra 15 minutes just for us. Hooray!!

Then we loaded up our wheeled luggage bags and made for the closest tube stop, about two blocks away. You're probably picturing four happy travelers with luggage rolling along a city sidewalk? It was a major expedition, requiring advance scouting, and alert reconnaisance.

When you step into the street do you always glance left to see if cars are coming? In London that little habit can get you run over very quickly, because the traffic is coming from the right! But we made it to the station, figured out how to buy four tickets, then climbed the stairs to the platform. I told Mom that when the train arrives, the doors will open and she should step on board and find a seat immediately, because the train will start again very quickly. We would worry about the luggage, and she should just make sure that she is in a seat so that she doesn't fall down. (Note: she had rcently fallen and broken her wrist in her garage about a month before the trip, but had decided that she didn't need the wrist brace while travelling.)

That part worked great and she was on board and seated securely when the train doors whooshed closed. Unfortunately, spouse's Dad hadn't really taken the hint, so he was standing in the middle of the train aisle with a suitcause handle in each hand when the doors closed. I said, "Grab a red thing! Grab a red thing!" The poles for standers to grab onto were bright red. But he couldn't decide which suitcase to let go of, so he just stood in the middle of the car looking at the red handles. Then the train started up.

Spouse's Dad did a good job of keeping the suitcases under control as he lurched his way to the far end of the train car, dragging the wheelies behind him. It was lucky that he didn't fall, and we got him seated in a few seconds. Then they both sat and stared straight ahead for the next twenty minutes as spouse and I chatted with a 6-yr old boy and his Mum seated across from us. They turned out to be from South Africa. (say it like this: Sathafrica.) Next to us was a sikh gentleman in a business suit, his head carefully turbaned. At the far end of our car were three Iranians talking quickly. There were no British people on our car at all. Welcome to London!

That evening, after finding our hotel, and checking in, we ventured out in search of a restaurant. We tried a pub, (Dad stepped inside with us and announced, after having eaten in different British pubs three of the past four days, "This is a bar!") but this pub had finished serving at 9 p.m. There was an Italian restaurant still open, and that looked nice. (Mom: "You know what I think I'm going to have? A good, old American pizza!" This served as a hint that they were ready to go home. Plus as we sat at the table they started talking about, not the next day when we would be exploring Westminster Abbey and the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, but an upcoming trip to visit their son in San Francisco next October.) Beautiful spouse warned her Mom that it might be more like Italian pizza.

"I just want a regular cheese and sausage pizza," she told the puzzled waitress.

"We have a pepperoni with cheese pizza."

"What's that?"

"It's pepperoni, Mom," beautiful spouse explained, "it's spicy."

"Oh, I don't know." We ordered it for her. Dad ordered a Caesar Salad with chicken, but was startled to see it show up when the waitress brought the salads. "What's this?"

"Thats' your Caesar Salad, Dad. I told the waitress to bring that with the salads and you can share that, and then when the pizza gets here, you can share that too."

"We're getting pizza, too?"

Next: Going to the bathroom at the Abbey

We packed pretty lightly for our recent trip to Holland and England, one bag each plus a small carry-on. Still there were a couple of things that we forgot NOT to bring. For instance, I brought a pair of running shorts. However, due to some lingering back pain, I never used them. I got quite a bit of exercise just walking around to see the sights, but never went jogging even once. I brought an extra pair of Dockers pants that never left my rolling duffle either. They served admirably as a spare pair, waiting in the "bullpen" in case my starter needed replacing in the later innings. I fully expected to drip mustard on my starter slacks, but it never happened.

I carried a summer sportcoat the entire trip, but did finally make use of it on our next-to-last evening when we were invited to a dressy garden party in Regents Park, London. Regents Park includes some formal plantings, and an enormous rose garden, plus quite a few other areas. We got an invitation to attend a real English garden party through a friend who worked in the park as an apprentice gardener years ago. Mostly I was enthusiastic because I got to sample Pimm's, a British-only drink that is the trademark refreshment at Wimbledon as well. Tastes like ginger ale, with a bit of a kick.

And beautiful spouse also brought a couple of items that were not really needed either: HER EIGHTY-YEAR OLD PARENTS! We first noticed that they were not necessary when we were having tea one afternoon. We were in Ludlow, a historic town in the Cotswolds that is sometimes referred to as "the loveliest town in England," mostly by the publicists who write the tourist brochures for the Cotswolds.

We ordered tea, and then her Mom said, "Well, I'm looking forward to trying this clotted cream that I've heard so much about!" Clotted cream is sort of like a thick whipped cream, so thick it is buttery in consistency. It is served as a spread with jam when you have a real "cream tea." So very English. Of course, the fact that we had already had clotted cream with tea both of the previous two days served to alert us to the fact that MOM COULDN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING WE WERE DOING ON THE ENTIRE TRIP!!

The inclusion of her parents also resulted in the only wasted day of our entire trip, the search for Farnham. In fairness to them, they did tell us a couple of times that day that we really didn't need to take them to Farnham. The problem was we didn't believe them. We could both visualize returning home and listening to them tell the relatives that the trip to England was really lovely, but they never got a chance to see Farnham.

Farnham, you see, is the ancestral homeland. There is even a Methodist Church with family graves in it. I know, because we visited it (without parental units) thirty years ago. The difficulty began with the fact that there are actually five different towns called Farnham scattered around different parts of England. We were able to eliminate three of them due to the fact that they were nowhere near London. Spouse and I both remembered taking a day-trip from London to get to Farnham. Unfortunately, we also both remembered that we had gone north from London. This was the key error.

Next: searching for Farnham

1. Dutch is a really easy language to fake

2. If you know English

3. And especially if you know some German, too

4. For instance to say “Thank you”

5. You just say, “Dank u wel”

6. What could be simpler??

7. And “coffee with milk and sugar”

8. Turns into “coffee met melk en suiker”

9. However, a coffeeshop sells drugs, so be careful

10. Consuming in the shop is legal though

11. If you really want coffee? Go to a café

12. We visited Delft with Dutch friends

13. Where we sampled Bill Clinton pancakes

14. It was at a café, and they are called puffetjes

15. There are Dutch ways to serve these tiny pancakes, mostly with cheeses and meats

16. But Bill wanted them with strawberries and whipped cream

17. So they made them special and named the dish after him

18. Note: the Dutch make fun of the American habit of insisting that ordinary foods should be sweet

19. Also that drink glasses should be filled with ice before pouring in, like, five ounces of actual fluid

20. And then getting free refills because there wasn’t enough to drink in the glass in the first place

21. The Dutch are logical like that

22. And they ride bikes

23. Everywhere

24. But they call them “fietsen”

25. Which I remembered by thinking of what you put on the pedals when you ride

26. Our friendly tour guides took us to places that the typical American tourist doesn’t get to see

27. Like FloraHolland

28. The largest flower market in the world

29. I am talking truckload quantities of flowers, sold to shops (large ones), supermarket and hotel chains, or consortiums of smaller shops that buy together to reduce costs

30. Many acres of cut flowers all under one gigantic roof

31. With trains of flower carts pulled by motorized forklift-type engines

32. Or speeding through the hall all on their own, moving by a motorized track system built into the floor

33. With workers riding bikes in and out

34. Cut flowers, already wrapped for sale, were stacked about ten bunches to a stand, nine stands to a rack, three racks high on each little train car

35. There were thousands of these little flower cars being dragged in all directions and then lined up into proper order for buyer lots

36. They sell 35,000 lots of flowers everyday, which then go all over Europe and to North America on air flights

37. For sale within the next day or two

38. There was not one stray flower petal on the floor

39. The Dutch are organized like that

40. The buying and selling takes place in auditorium-size rooms with a gigantic computerized price clock on the wall

41. It’s not really a clock, but looks like one. Every sale begins at a high price and proceeds lower and lower until a buyer enters a bid

42. So if you wait? The price gets lower, but you might miss the sale to another buyer if you wait too long

43. Each sale takes about three seconds, so you have to pay attention

44. All the buyers have phones to their ears, looking very busy and European

45. Besides flowers, the Dutch like cheese

46. They have whole shops of just cheese

47. So you can pick it by age: old (strong), young (mild), or in between

48. We stayed in Amsterdam for one night at the start of our trip and one more night at the very end, two weeks later

49. The last sightseeing we did was the Anne Frank Huis

50. That’s the Anne Frank House, if you don’t speak Dutch

51. I had a hard time there, as many people do

52. It’s a regular rowhouse right in the heart of Amsterdam

53. But the exterior has been shored up with a lot of steel, because over a million people tour through it every year

54. I found the Otto Frank story very interesting, because I had never given him much thought before

55. She adored her Dad, because he believed in her when the others in hiding continued to think of her as a poorly-behaved nuisance, while her older sister was smarter and better behaved

56. I never knew before that he went on running his business while they were in hiding

57. His main business was pectin, the jelling agent sold for home preserves and jams, and also a spice mixture for making sausage

58. Which Anne found SO irritating: “If you’re going to be in the food business,” she wrote, “why not make candy?”

59. The girls’ grandmother had escaped to Switzerland, and they would have survived if he had kept them there instead of bringing them to Amsterdam

60. I can’t imagine how he did it, but he alone survived the camps, and then lived until 1980

61. One of the most fascinating facts to me was that after the war Otto made his way back to Amsterdam, and when he got hold of Anne’s diary, and read it, he wanted to find a publisher, because she had wanted so badly to be a journalist and writer

62. But for a year or so he couldn’t find one who was interested

63. The first edition, in German, was 1500 copies

64. It has since sold over 30 million copies in about 40 different languages

65. Shelley Winters, the American actress who won her Academy Award playing Mrs. Van Daan in the Hollywood movie version, donated her Oscar statue to the museum where it is still on display

66. I was curious to see which filmstars were on the walls in Anne’s secret room, because in photos you can see that she pasted up pictures, but not who they were

67. Ray Milland, Deanna Durbin, Ginger Rogers and Robert Stack were among the starts that I recognized

68. I wonder what they thought when they found that out?

69. The pictures are still on the walls

70. As well as the marks on the woodwork where the girls’ growth was marked on their birthdays

71. They both died in Bergen-Belsen camp in Poland

72. Ironically, Anne’s best girlfriend from her childhood in Frankfurt was in a separate section of the same camp and saw the girls, and gave them a Red Cross package by throwing it over the fence to them

73. She knew they were dying, Anne was wrapped in a single blanket and had thrown away all of her clothes

74. Because they were covered with fleas and lice

75. I think that is enough. So . . .

76. We spent more time in Den Haag than in Amsterdam

77. It’s where our former exchange student (now 30) is living with her husband and baby

78. The baby is beautiful

79. We visited the Maruitshuis, the main art museum in Den Haag

80. And saw VerMeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring”

81. That’s probably the most famous painting in the museum these days

82. But a large painting of a bull standing on a typical Dutch farm with flies buzzing around him was way more famous until about a century ago, which is when Ver Meer’s work began to be appreciated

83. People came from far and wide to view the bull, marveling at the realism of the image

84. Nowadays the museum gift shop sells replicas of the famous earrings

85. I imagine they used to sell little bull statues

86. The Dutch are clever like that

87. Clever enough to hold back the sea

88. Which I think is going to be a greatly appreciated talent

89. Considering global warming

90. We passed a bunch of areas that are below sea level, including one large farming area (a polder) that was created about 50 years ago and now includes towns and roads just like the rest of Holland

91. We traveled up north, where everything looked a lot like Wisconsin

92. And visited her parents in their home

93. All modern interior decorating

94. With a brand new sunroom which is their favorite room

95. And we went bicycling 13 miles through the countryside around their town

96. Then enjoyed a homecooked meal

97. They actually prefer Italian cooking, but made us a typical Dutch spring meal

98. Tender asparagus shoots with melted butter

99. Served with hardcooked eggs, cold sliced ham, and boiled new potatoes, and wine

100. And beer

101. The Dutch are thoughtful like that

Planetary greetings to all!

Thanks for stopping by!

I just flew back to the states yesterday. Beautiful spouse and I were on a trip to see friends (and a little sight-seeing) in both Holland and England. Full report later. I haven't written a word yet.

The BAD news is . . . I will, just wait.

But now I see a feature on Spaces, (which is totally unexpected) so a brief listing, in Gord fashion, for any newcomers to this humble abode:

1. I write mostly about experiences and things going on for me and my family

2. not much topical or political stuff

3. no pictures or music

4. just writing

5. I'm practicing on you

6. because I want to be a published writer

7. so you can at least be grateful that I don't want to be a surgeon

8. the new Prime Minister elected in UK is named Gordon Brown

9. so one of the headlines on their papers was

10. In Gord We Trust

11. I liked that one!

12. I have a list of Best of Gord over there on the left

13. just a quick peek? click on the latest ones (at the very bottom) about travels in the Caribbean in April

14. or if you want some info on my family life

15. I recommend Now What Do I Do?? (from March 2006)

16. From last year, about our broken toilet

17. So, Gentle Greetings to all visitors

18. If you leave me a comment I will comment back

19. even if it takes a while

20. I got featured once last year and had 40,000 hits and about

21. maybe 100 comments or so

22. but it still took me forever to get back to everyone

23. (nice trivia fact about Jackie Kennedy, the former first lady)

24. who I believe is the Oxford dictionary illustration for "Class Act"

25. When JFK was assassinated she received tens of thousands of sympathy cards from all over the world

26. and personally answered every single one

27. which took several years

28. I like that story

29. BTW England was in the Tenth Anniversary mode of Diana's death while we were there last week

30. another Class Act, don't you think??

31. we were at Buckingham Palace three days ago

32. no, not inside!

33. standing outside with loads of tourists watching the changing of the guard ceremony which consists of three parades into the palace grounds starting from the Guards' HQ across the street

34. We had never watched before: it's pretty cool; but I am thinking of their election as: The Changing of the Gord

June 7 Race to airport (immediately after beautiful spouse finishes her last PM with little ones)

Check to be sure that I have my passport

Barely make overnight flight to Amsterdam

Make half-hearted attempt to sleep

Be surprised that the sun is coming up in the middle of the night

June 8 Land at Sciphol Airport & gather checked luggage

Hope that it's not like Philadelphia (last March)

Get ride to hotel from someone we have never met who is friend of relative

Try to think of something to do in Amsterdam before dark that will a)keep me awake, and b) not increase my back pain

Try to think of something to do in Amsterdam after dark that will a) allow me to sleep afterwards, and b) not get me in trouble

June 9 Note: This day should be a high point of the entire trip

Ride to Den Haag, Netherlands, with exchange daughter (now 30) and husband (sort-of, they're Dutch, it's complicated, OK?)

Hold baby

Meet many relatives

Especially her parents (who we first wrote to about 13 yrs ago)

Wonder where the time goes

Hold baby

Probably eat a Dutch meal (I'm thinking beer is involved)

June 10 Hang around Den Haag

Hold baby

Find beach??

Go sightseeing??

Be putty in our hosts hands

Hold baby

June 11 Repeat as needed

June 12 Go back to Amsterdam

Frenzied sightseeing

Think, Why didn't we do some of this when we were here a few days ago?

Remember, Oh, yeah, we were exhausted

Back to Sciphol Airport

Fly to London

Check into hotel where spouse has wanted to stay ever since we were first married (& stayed at a cheapo hotel)

Wonder why we didn't stay there a long time ago

Try to remember how we were stretching our money for an extended trip

Wonder where the years go

June 13 Get up early and return to Heathrow to pick up in-laws flying from the states

Pick up rental car the size of a supermarket shopping cart

Squeeze in

With four people's luggage

Try to remember how to drive on the left side

Remember back to the earlier part of the trip when all I had to do was hold baby

Continue figuring out how to drive until we arrive at The George Inn in Norton St. Philip (near Bath)

Check into 700 yr old inn

Drink British beer (real ale)

Eat merrily & look forward to meeting friends we haven't seen for years

I am going to stop now because if we actually make it to this part I will be shocked & I just can't think any further.

I have been reading a wonderful travelblog, several entries spaced out over several days, about four and a half min at a stretch, which takes a while.

Travel experiences are so random, who you see, doing what, the weather, everything is different from what anyone else would have experienced if they had been to the same places but just a few hours before or after you. Do you ever think that? But then somehow people form an impression of a city and other people know what they mean when they describe it, as if they had been there and know what happened.

I have never been to Prague but would love to go there. (Very daring of anyone to brave it on her own, BTW. Very writerly.) I would have been taking notes, but I know I don’t notice half or even a quarter of what some see. I would not have kicked the magazine over the edge though, so I guess I’m somewhat observant.

We are leaving Thursday for Amsterdam, being picked up at Sciphol Airport by someone we have never met (best friend of our exchange daughter’s husband). Then we have that day on our own, then the next morning we get picked up and driven to Den Haag to see her baby and family members. We know her parents just a bit from writing back and forth when she was in high school years ago (she’s 30 now), and her younger sister visited us when she was 18. But I think we are in for a lot more relatives. Plus the baby, six months old. It is going to be very strange.

I am trying to review some Dutch vocab. I used to know some, now I feel like everything is new. Dutch is a funny language when you know English, because it seems made up. Like “a man” is “en man” so it just doesn’t seem different enough. Until you try to make their sounds correctly, and everybody just laughs. The letter “g” sounds like you have to retrieve something from the back of your throat before you’re going to throw up.

I am hoping they live near the beach.

In the Philippines, a badly out-of-tune karaoke singer is, apparently, not something to be suffered lightly. A 29-year-old patron was shot dead when a security guard opened fire and shot him in the chest. The report that I saw did not specify which tune he was attempting. It did, however, mention Sinatra’s “My Way” as a song that has sparked violence in the past.

I guess I find it ironic that “My Way,” can only be sung one way.

Karaoke is not one of my talents. I am OK with a microphone in my hand, as long as all I have to do is speak into it. My oldest, however, is a karaoke force to be reckoned with. He could, I am confident, travel the Far East with impunity. I, on the other hand, would be wise to check at the door to see if the security guys are armed.

I can't help picturing "Philippine Idol" with a (Clint Eastwood) Dirty Harry type judge taking the Simon role. “Go ahead, punk, make my day!” http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070531/lf_afp/philippinescrimeshot;_ylt=As8y7xdppDMCRlig0N64RDvq188F