Canstruction in Dallas Galleria.

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Don’t ya’ll ever forget.

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Doug

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Doug

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Picture of Steve Ballmer’s teleprompter at CES.  I can’t quit put my finger on the opportunity he’s referring to…

Doug

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Doug

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A great reflection article about Dunkin Donuts and how they adapted their
business:
http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/02/23/editorial3.html

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-- Ingvar Kamprad, Founder, IKEA

(Take from Harvard Business School Case Study)

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-- Geoffrey A. Moore, Balanced Scorecard Report

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It has been requested by JD that I post the code I used to accomplish this parent / child relationship in ExpressionEngine templates.  So… without further adieu… here’s the tutorial file.  This is this first time I’ve shared code of sorts, so if I didn’t explain it well, please feel free to comment.  I’ll do my best to help you out.

Enjoy!

subcategories-in-ee.txt

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The first quarter of the year is over - so lets take a look at what I’ve accomplished so far.

• Read a book - Yep, I already read a book!  What book did I read?  It’s called Seeing Systems, by Barry Oshry - and no, by “Systems”, it is not referring to computers; It is referring to organizations.  The book was actually the recommended reading for a week-long workshop I attended for work, and it was amazing.  I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about how organizations operate, and why people react as they do to certain situations.
• Take on more public speaking opportunities - No, I haven’t joined Toastmasters yet, but I did get an opportunity to speak at a local high school about what I do at my job.  I think it went very well, and I’ll be looking to volunteer for things like that in the future.
• Make a Dabbledoo work schedule so my life is more structured. - This is becoming increasingly harder and harder to do as more and more tasks / projects / todos surface.  I have been trying to make goals to get certain things done each day, but sometimes that doesn’t leave much time left in the day.

Doesn’t seem like much right now, but hopefully I’ll get a bunch more done in the months to come.  Here’s what I plan to accomplish by next quarter:

• Get married smile
• Start a new job
• Take the GMAT
• Buy a beginners DSLR - I think I’ll be getting a Nikon D60

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I love being able to go from concept to production testing to production within a few hours.  If you are trying to do a similar thing and need some help, let me know and I’ll send you the code.

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I joined Twitter way back when, and only started using it within the past month or so.  All of the downtime is just painful.  I’m talking the kind of pain that you get when your cell phone dies… you don’t know what to do with yourself!  I’d say I’ve checked the service twice today, and both times it’s been down.  Not only that, but think of the amount of third party applications out there that are bricks right now because the grand daddy is down!  I would imagine services like Twitter Vision that rely solely on the feed from Twitter are caching information just in case the service goes down.

At the beginning of February, Twitter decided to ditch its old web host and go with an Enterprise Hosting Solution at Verio, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NTT America.  Apparently that’s not helping the situation as much as we had hoped.

Is Twitter growing too fast?  To this question, I’m going to have to say yes… but only as a user.  If I was a Twitter employee/owner, the growth would be bittersweet.  On one hand, it’s amazing to have millions of people stomping on your service 24x7; but on the other hand I know from experience that when you have server troubles, nobody is taking the heat more than you are. 

Maybe they attempting to reach their vision of being a “reliable global communication utility” too quickly?  I’m going to say so, because at this point, Twitter and “reliable” don’t go in the same sentence.  What do you think - should I keep using Twitter?

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Once Adam came on board and we grew Gadgetell to a decent size (about a year later - October 2006), we decided to branch out and create sites for Apple news, and gaming news; meet Appletell and Gamertell (which both finally launched in May 2007).  We figured it would be best for the growth stage of our business if we moved to a CMS that was made to handle multiple blogs in the same control panel.  The ideal solution would allow us to have multiple member groups, multiple blogs, and a whole slew of other options.  We did our research, and it appeared that ExpressionEngine was the way to go.  They had a fair-sized loyal development community, and had pretty much all the settings / options you would ever need.  Also at this time, we thought it would be a simple export / import moving the Gadgetell data from WordPress to ExpressionEngine.  Boy were we wrong.

We were already working with a design firm at this time, and they said they would move the Gadgetell data into ExpressionEngine.  When they realized they didn’t have the means to do the work (after months of fumbling around), they hired outside help.  Little did we know, the outside help was going to run into problems as well.  It seemed that none of the WordPress export tools were able to handle our data for some reason.  The bizarre thing was that we didn’t make any crazy customizations - it was pretty much out-of-the-box.  The only feature we counted on that was not included in WordPress itself was Ultimate Tag Warrior - a fantastic plugin by Christine Davis.  We also had one custom field in WP that we relied on to auto-generate the thumbnails.  All of that beside - we knew what needed to be done: export the WordPress data in MovableType format (pretty much a standard for blog migrations), and import the MovableType data into ExpressionEngine.  Sounds easy, right?  Apparently not.

After months of the outside help not being able to do the migration (whether it was due to other commitments or simply not being able to do it, I’m not sure), we hired another developer to do the work.  Apparently the ExpressionEngine import tool was just not cutting it, so our new developer wrote an ExpressionEngine module to do the migration.  This process only took a few weeks of grunt work, and we were all ready for EE… just in time for the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.  Following CES, the developer went MIA (and has been MIA ever since), so I had to learn how to finish up.  Now it was my turn to figure out how to do all of the URL redirects via .htaccess (which I had little or no experience doing).  The goal was to get the old WordPress URLs to redirect to the new EE URL structure so the proper pages were delivered.  I finally figured it out after a couple hours of Apache .htaccess research.  Note: the official documentation is not helpful at all.  I’ll cover how I did this in another post, so check back soon.

So where do we stand today?  We still have yet to get the the custom field that holds our image urls moved over to ExpressionEngine since that was overlooked in the initial migration, but that’s really it.  We’ve run into a few roadblocks with EE and our server, but that too will be a good topic to discuss in another post.  I think I’ll call it “How the hell do you configure your server to handle high traffic EE sites?” - a question to which I don’t really know the answer to, but when I do, you’ll be the first to know.

And that, my friend, is the story of how switching content management systems can be an absolute nightmare.

A few takeaways from this experience:

• To developers: Be open and HONEST with your clients.  Don’t hold anything back that may piss your clients off later.
• If you don’t know how to do something, then find some who can, and move on.  You can’t be afraid to admit you don’t know how to do something.
• If you have development work, don’t hire a design firm to do it.
• Work WITH your clients to get the work done.  You’re all working towards the same end-point.
• If you’re working towards a deadline, don’t waste time writing long emails to the client.  All they want to know is that you’re working on their project and haven’t forgotten about them.
• Always set milestones for your projects.  If a developer has no milestones to work towards, then they’re in no rush to get it done.
• Make a contract with every contractor you work with.  I don’t care if they’re designing your site or coding a plugin.  Make a contract.

I’m sure there’s a ton more lessons I’ve learned, but if I wrote them all out now, why would you come back to my site?  Stay tuned.

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• Get married
• Start a new job
• Purchase real estate (probably a condo)
• Furnish our condo
• Become an expert in something - Brian Clark (of CopyBlogger and Teaching Sells) wrote a article over at Teaching Sells entitled Secrets to Becoming an Expert in Any Subject about how all you need to do to become an expert in any subject is read 3-5 books.  Interesting enough… I’m going to try it this year.  I’ll report back with what it is I want to become a so-called expert in.  Michelle wants it to be in personal finances, but we’ll see.
• Read a book - it’s been way too long.  This one’s a given if I’m going to follow through on the previous goal.
• Take the GMAT.
• Buy a beginners DSLR - possibly a Canon XTi?  Any suggestions on this one?
• Buy a MacBook Pro.
• Start a new project with Adam.
• Build my personal website up to 1,000 visitors a day.
• Take on more public speaking opportunities.
• Join Toastmasters to strengthen my public speaking / presentation skills.
• Make a Dabbledoo work schedule so my life is more structured. It drives Michelle crazy that I don’t know what I’m doing each night until the night actually comes.
• Learn to play the guitar. This is a very audacious goal if I do say so myself.  I’ve always wanted to be able to play the guitar - so I think the time has come.  I can’t guarantee that I’ll be strumming like John Mayer by the end of the year, but I hope to be able to play a few songs.

Remember - these are meant to be goals difficult to attain, hence the Big, Hairy, and Audacious headline.  More to come as I think of more items to add to the list.  If you can think of anything I should add, feel free to post it in the comments and I’ll update my list.  And if you can help me accomplish any of the items above, I’m all ears!  Wish me luck!

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Why start blogging again now? You know, I’m at a place my “online career” where I feel like I have a lot to offer folks that are just getting started - after all, Adam and I have been at it since October of 2005!

What do I have to offer? When I started Dabbledoo, I was well acquainted with HTML, and vaguely familiar with CSS.  Since then, I’ve taken a CSS class, and am pretty much nearing an intermediate/advanced status on that front.  Also, I’ve really picked up ExpressionEngine and WordPress coding techniques - many of which I’d love to share with all of you!  Stick around, I’ll try and get some tips, tricks, and all around goodies out in the public so everyone will benefit.  There’s no use in keeping things a secret - it’s not like it gives me a competitive advantage or anything! - or does it?  I’ve also started doing a lot of reading about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and design, so I will shoot out links and tips as I come across them - and you can feel free to chime in at any time with comments or thoughts.

I’ll also be as transparent as possible with how Adam and I run Dabbledoo Media (our company) on a day-to-day basis.  We’ve learned throughout the years that it’s best to be open - because others that have gone through the same challenges are usually willing to help out - which we appreciate and welcome!

As you can see, I’m ready to start blogging - so I hope you stick around and enjoy your stay!

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so i’ve been having a lazy week… most of the days i’ve been sitting at my computer doing nothing. on thursday, me, marc, emily, stacy and caitlyn went to Camden Market and walked around a bit. we all ended up getting track jackets… i got an italy one and the rest of them got england ones. quick story… marc was bargaining to get us a deal since we were buying 5 of them… marc offered 37.50 so we would all pay 7.50 each… the guy, being the idiot that he was counteroffered marc 35.00 pounds… marc then proceeded to have a very confused look on his face and accept the offer. what kind of business man offers lower than he is offered… apparently one that doesn’t speak very good english.

today, shira, chelsea, caitlyn, emily, stacy, marc, taz, scott, greg and me went to kensington gardens for a picnic. we played soccer… i mean football, at some cookie cake, listened to some music and had some good laughs. sitting around at the park all day was very relaxing but i have 2 papers to write and they’re due this week… maybe i’ll have some time to do them tommorrow.

cheers.

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i’m sitting in the computer lab right now making a cover and title pages to the paper version of my blog.  here’s what they look like right now… click to make them bigger...

anyways, sorry i haven’t been writing much, i’ve been sick since i got back from barcelona… must have been something i ate.  possibly the Dublin Bay King Prawns (shrimp).  i’ve been brainstorming lately with greg and others about possible website names for businesses.  everything seems to be taken.  we have a great idea for a college website but we don’t have any money or anything to get it off the ground.  mom and dad?  haha just kidding.

everybody has been going out and doing things around me while i’ve been sick.  it’s kind of depressing but at the same time a good break from going out.  monday was scotts birthday and everyone’s been going out to celebrate.  happy birthday scott!  last night there was drama mama in our dorm with all of the alcohol going around and the STABs were being loud (STudy ABroad Students).  that’s what the degree students here call us.  isn’t that mature?  i think we’ll call them ASSHOLEs… it’s of course an acronym.  haha.  wouldn’t it be funny if all of them read my blog?  here, i’ll make it easier for them to search for it on google with some keywords they may be looking for… abroad, richmond university, aifs, london, degree students, study abroads, STABs, history of london, winston churchill.  i think that will do for now.  winston churchill will definitely get them when they’re researching for their papers.  ok i’m going to get going now.

peace.

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in the couple of days that we´ve been in barcelona, we experienced so many weird experiences.  we´ve experienced fights on the beach, scott taking any interesting shot, as well as our hostel with me sleeping practically in the ceiling.  the night life is as crazy as they say it is.  it´s even stumping jackie with how late people stay out here.

brad has told us a few sights to see but mainly we are just here to relax for our last trip.  today, we walked to the top of a mountain to look at gaudi´s museum and architecture.  it was cool and all but my legs are going to be really sore from that mile walk uphill.

back to the man picking fights on the beach… there are men that walk around with coolers selling refreshments on the beach and this drunk man was starting fights with each and every one of them… one of the guys got so into it that the drunk guy ended up throwing a huge rock at the guys head (i´m very glad he missed).  after that, the drunk guy swung at the refreshments guy.  it was pretty crazy on that beach.  in addition, the drunk guy was messing with us and picked a fight with lee.  well, i guess technically he picked a fight with all of us.

ok i´m going to go now because people are waiting for me to get off the computer.  goodnight michelle and everyone else.

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• rome, italy
• venice, italy
• florence, italy
• paris, france

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today, my friends and i became aware of an article that was published in our school’s newspaper. although it’s not much of a newspaper, this article was very offensive us. this article, written by a degree student, refers to the study abroad students as ants and roaches. the author mentions that we make all of them so miserable and they dred the day that they take classes on our campus. i don’t understand why you would attend a school and be so miserable. there are plenty of schools in london and throughout the world that would love to have them in attendance.

she complains that we are always in the way and using the facilities in the place they call home. listen, if i want to use a computer in the lab, i will use a computer in the lab… i pay for it too. it’s ridiculous that we feel alienated in a school that prides itself on diversity. and the most interesting part of the article is how it tries to make the same point that i just did. how can you make a point of diversity when you’re alienating half of the school? this girl needs have a reality check and notice that when most of the students around her are study abroad students, she’s the minority. why would you alienate the majority? does she expect retaliation? i hope so because she’s going to get it. we’re going to make a “study abroad” newspaper and distribute it to the student body. i can’t wait.

i think you’ll get a kick out of this! the cartoon in the center of the article features a fat american wearing a McDonald’s shirt and a baseball hat (study abroad student) arguing with an angry european wearing a shirt with a peace symbol on it (degree student). i’m sure i know people from america that are thinner than the author of this offensive article. and another thing, i don’t understand the stereotype of a fat, lazy american. i don’t even like McDonalds anyways… although i did have it last night for dinner.

that’s what i have to say about this “degrees of separation” article. i’ll work on some cartoons of that fat lazy american kicking the angry degree student’s ass.

goodnight.

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the header to the page is funny to me.  why?  because i haven’t followed any sports in years.  with all of the people following sports around me, it’s getting difficult to stay away from it.  i’m not sure if it’ll work, but i’m going to try to be a baseball fan this year.  i might watch 5 games, i might watch 50… but the important thing is that i’m going to try.

anyways, i think i’m going to start changing the image on the top of this page when i feel like it.  it’ll add some spice to the site and will keep me entertained at the same time.  it’s kind of the same concept of google changing their header on google.com.  i’m sure googles will always be better because they’re a company with a team of graphic designers, but i’m going to do my best.

i’m going to play uno now with marc and taz so i’ll check in later.

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although i didn’t praise the pope, it’s sad that such an influential person passed away last night.  i find it crazy that there were 10s of thousands of people in st. peters square, where i was about 3 weeks ago.

on a different note is the final four. i’m so excited that illinois and north carolina won last night. well, no i just like their uniforms. i really try to get into sports but it just doesn’t work for me right now. last night we were at the sports cafe watching the illinios game and i had to force myself to watch it. i think part of the reason was because i didn’t want to go out in the first place, but i wanted to hang out with ben, schneider, and amanda who are all in town.

today’s going to be a working day for me. i haven’t done hardly any homework or studying since we left for italy. that’s like a 3 week break!

here’s a funny email i got from the school… it’s a mistake mom so don’t worry…

In accordance with the University’s attendance policy, I am writing to warn you that if you are absent from any other meeting of

ADM 362B Pixel Playground

you will receive an F grade for this course.

i’m going to meet marc and amanda in covent garden now for lunch… peace out.

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i can’t even tell you how many times i’ve toured london with people visiting. i’ve done everything probably 5 times. however, my parents are here right now and we’re having a good time exploring london. last weekend, they came to london and then we went to paris the following morning. paris was an amazing city and it was crazy to be there… especially being on the roads that the tour de france takes place on!!! while in paris, we went to the eiffel tower, the louvre, musee d’orsay, musee de rodin, and others. mostly the things that everyone else does when they go to paris. the mona lisa was a big dissapointment since it was so tiny. after hearing about it so much, you expect it to be larger than life. on a good note, it was awesome being in the building that so much of the da vinci code took place in.

today, we went over to the area by the cutty sark, which is a ship that delivered tea to the uk from other countries. around that area is a place called canary wharf which reminds me of clayton in st. louis. it’s a brand new area with very sharp looking buildings and lots of money. nearby was the prime meridian at greenwich. we took some pictures up there because the view of the surrounding area was beautiful.

this weekend, there’s even more people coming to visit. this includes ben, schneider, some of their friends and amanda. i cannot wait to show more people around london!!! (sarcasm… but i’ll suck it up and do it).

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this past week, us IU boys had plenty of visitors (including the lovely michelle). i believe the final list goes as follows: michelle, growe, spector, soshnik, schuvy, schnitzer, and weiss. if i missed someone, tell me. so the week was all in all pretty fun - with bickering every here and there. we did some sight seeing, had some nice meals and drank a lot (stop it mom, i’m 21 now).

during my birthday, we went to the british museum and abbey road. i can’t even tell you how much fun it was going to abbey road to look at that amazing intersection. yeah, i’m being sarcastic… it just didn’t do it for me. i mean come on, why’d we take a picture with that street sign?

moving on…
tuesday and wednesday, michelle and jeff came to class with greg and i on our outside trips. they got to see that we don’t really have classes. thursday morning, michelle and i went with brittainy and tomer (her bf) to the changing of the guard. i still haven’t found the perfect spot to stand for the ceremony. i’m going to find the perfect spot for my parents to see it. or maybe not.

on friday we went to the tower of london. it was very interesting to learn about its history and how people still live there. the man that led our tour is called a beefeater. this means that he is one of the queens personal bodyguards, and let me tell you, this guy had a hell of a personality. he managed to keep about 100 people entertained at every stop.

after that, michelle and i went on the london eye.  if you don’t know, the london eye is a huge ferris wheel with glass capsules instead of seats.  i think there’s 36 capsules and each one holds about 20 people.  on the ground below, you see things like parliament and big ben, westminster abbey and other things in the area.  i took some nice pictures from up there.

i think you’re all caught up with my current events now!  pictures will be up soon.

ciao.

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after rome and venice came florence. right when we walked off the train, ben was waiting. on the walk back, we ran into schneider, jacobs, and mookie. all of the guys were very welcoming and their hospitality was impeccable. thank you gentlemen and ladies for giving us places to stay.

all of their places were very nice and it would be a complete different abroad experience to live like them. they don’t have a dining hall and they have to cook their own food (or go out to eat). on one hand i’m really jealous because i love cooking and on the other hand i feel bad for them.

during the day, we walked around and looked at the cathedrals and saw michelangelo’s david. at night, we went out to clubs and pubs and didn’t end up drinking too heavily. one of the mornings, we took the hour trip to the prada and gucci outlets. it was crazy… we hired a driver for the day like VIPs. i’ll give a shout-out to my man from nino taxi. this man barely spoke a word of english and scott some how managed to have an hour-long conversation with him. very entertaining.

when we got to the prada outlet, we all were very confused. from the outside, the prada outlet looks like a very clean warehouse building (pictured above). when you walk in the doors, it’s an outlet. i loved all of the clothes there and ended up buying a tie.

all in all, we had a great time in italy. there weren’t too many fights and we’re all still friends in the end. i wish i hadn’t waited a week after the trip to write this because i feel like i’m leaving so much out. if anyone has any additions, add them as comments or let me know. pictures are coming soon… i have to get them from other people this time because i didn’t have a camera charger with me.

ciao.

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sorry it’s taken so long to update but michelle and all of the boys just left. back to venice… hands down the most beautiful city i’ve ever been to. the idea of using water instead of streets still boggles my mind even after seeing it. every step you take is a “kodak moment.”

we stayed at an amazing hostel (can’t remember the name of it). when we checked in, we got a small history lesson about the city and how it came to be. we went up to our room and there was a master bed (2 singles) and 4 other single beds… very spread out might i add. in addition, there was a kitchen and a well-sized bathroom. very impressive for being on HostelWorld.com.

once we got settled in, we decided to buy water bus passes so we could travel by canal… we went down tot eh piazza san marco and i believe it was here where marc, taz, lee and i held bird seed in our hands and let the birds attack us. it was surprisingly fun!

on a different note, scott had a connection with a man that lives in venice. scott gave him a call and he said that he would take us to a nice restaurant. when we heard nice, we never imagined it was going to be 50 euros per person. on a good note, it was one of the nicest meals i’ve ever had (excuding cruises of course). let me tell you about the meal… we started with a glass of champagne.  i then had salad with shredded ham on it a large plate covered with prechuto ham and a bowl made of crispy cheese, lots of bread… and oh yeah… a fillet mignon with vegetables.  there were 7 of us there and we ended up drinking about 8 pitchers of red wine.  wasted.  the next morning, scott threw up and we went on with our day.  more to come.

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i do not even know where to start, so i’m going to start at the beginning and might jump around in time…

we were a little nervous from the beginning since we were staying in a hostel called “guys paradise.” interesting name, wouldn’t you say? our first encounter at this place was with a gigantic frenchman that looked like an ex body builder. he was dressed in a long sleep muscle shirt, a beanie, valore pants, and a star of david around his neck. i’m telling you, this guy was probably 6’5” and 300 pounds. he made some questionable homosexual remarks to us and from then on out we wore pants to sleep (just kidding). the hostel was an interesting exprience since they gave us free beer, breakfast croissants and pasta for dinner. when were checking in, we asked for keys and they said they didn’t have one for the first night and that the pillows were at the cleaners. so… scott and i built a beer can alarm by stacking cans against the door. this way, it someone opened the door, the cans would fall and rattle. well, they worked. an hour into our sleep that night, a weird italian guy opened the door and scott jumped out of bed to meet him at the door and stop him. the guy claimed that his bed was in our room and he had been staying there. scott finally convinced him that someone was in gregs bed and he didn’t have a bed in there. and the guy finally left. minutes later, there was a loud car crash outside our window. interesting night.  the following day, they still couldn’t find the key to our room… so they gave us the master key.  it’s a shame the key is the one pictured below.

makes you wonder what the non-master keys look like.

the architecture in rome was amazing. st. peter’s basilica, the colleseium, and the rest of the city were out of this world. when we walked into the basilica, it was like being in a stadium. the ceilings and the cupola (dome) were so high up that the letters on the top were 7 feet tall. we went to the top of the cupola on the inside and the outside and the view was crazy. it overlooked the entire vatican and a lot of rome. i think we have some pretty good pictures of that so check my shutterfly when i put them up.  while walking around the cupola, we decided to write our names along with thousands of other peoples names up there.  that’s all i can think of for now so we’ll move on to venice...

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happy birtyday diana… well kind of… not really but… happy birthday!  (leap year baby)

i can’t believe it’s already spring break. greg, marc, taz, bock, scott, and myself will be heading to italia around 6 tonight. i love being able to hop on a quick train or plane and finding yourself in another country. it’s a luxury that we don’t have in the states. we pretty much have the option of going to either canada or mexico.

here’s what our trip looks like…

• 4 days in rome
• 2 days in venice
• 3 days in florence with our whole fraternity

check out the funny blog… there’s a link on the top of the page. this is where you can find anything from links to drunk ramblings.

alright, i’m going to finish packing now… i can’t wait to eat pasta… mmmm.

ciao.

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so i came back to the room last night and nobody wanted to get quiznos anymore… in that case, we walked around looking for an italian place without a wait.  after walking around for about 25 minutes, we came across the most distinguished place that we could find and decided to go with it. it was called pizza hut. yes, we ate at pizza hut in london.  greg, scott, and i got the following food for 24.99 pounds (about 46 dollars).

• 4 soft drinks
• 2 appetizer of our choice (garlic bread and chicken dippers)
• 1 large pizza (cheese)
• 1 medium pizza (chicken)
• 3 bowls of ice cream from the ice cream bar (with optional chocolate wafers as toppings)
  

on a different note, i finished all of my papers and my pixel playground project, and now it is time for some sleep. goodnight all.

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i think that if there was one thing that teacher could assign me that would make me mad it would be a research paper. i cannot stand writing papers. it’s kind of ironic that i love writing in my blog, but i hate writing for class. maybe i should start typing my class papers on my blog and then i’ll actually get something done… or maybe not.

so the deal is that i have 3 papers to write before we leave for italy on spring break. 2 of the papers have to be over 1500 words, and 1 of them is a measly 500 words (which will still be challenging for me). i guess the kelley school of business has been spoiling me with no writing assignments except for in the I-CORE case this past semester. if anyone wants to write my papers for me, let me know… just kidding mom, someone else already wrote them for me.

on a different note, we just booked our trip to barcelona. i don’t remember the dates but it’s sometime in april so we can sit on the beach all day. i can’t wait until michelle, jeff, and jason come to visit us in 15 days i think it is? we’re going to have to start planning what we’re going to do with them so we’re not bored the whole time. i think it’ll all work out beautifully.

wow, it’s a shame i can’t use this for my 500 word essay because i’m getting close to that long now! ok i’ll let you go now… g’day.

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this whole alliteration thing is getting kind of hard… gallopings? is there a horse running around? wtf mate! so this is supposed to be about the changing of the guard so i’ll get right on that.

this morning we went to see… you guessed it, the changing of the guard.  kind of funny story…

podo (a friend from home) told marc that we should stand by the right gate outside buckingham palace in order to get the best view of the ceremony. right when we got there we did just that and camped around the right gate. since the first set of guards entered through the center gate, we move over there and lost our places by the right one, thinking that we were right and podo was wrong. shortly after the first group of guards came the rest of the parade. yep… they went through the right gate. therefore we had no view of what was going on and pretty much missed the whole thing. it was so crowded that in order to see what was going on, we had to take pictures with a full arm extention and look at the pictures. sooo, we’ll probably have to go back and do the whole thing again.

pictures taken with full arm extention

the moral to the story is listen to what people tell you because you’re probably a moron and they’ll say i told you so.

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halo. (that’s dutch for hello)

overall, it was a good trip. we stayed at the stayokay vondelpark hostel and i definitely recommend it to anyone going to amsterdam. now i’ll fill in some details of some things that we did while there. but first, lets start our with a picture of the smallest car i’ve ever seen…

thursday, we went to ann frank’s house to see where she wrote her diary from. we also went on our own little canal tour. if you didn’t know, amsterdam is kind of set up in a big circle. pretty much everywhere you can get by road, you can get to by canal. therefore, we decided to take paddle/pedal boats down the canals… it was about an hour ride. at one point we got lost and had to ask for directions from a man that happened to be taking a biking break on the street by the canal.

learning our way around the canals

it was at that point that we realized that we were headed the wrong direction. greg and i had to make a U turn in a boat with a hand rudder… we should be professional pedal boat drivers cuz we made that U turn look good. as greg and i were driving like pros, scott and shira weren’t have too good of luck with their boat. in order to go straight, they were pedaling back and forth… it was pretty damn entertaining if you ask the people on my boat. something tells me that if you just go straight, it’s a little less work. greg and i’s words of wisdom paid off and by the end they were driving almost like amateurs.

friday, as i mentioned, we went to the heineken brewery. that’s pretty much it.

saturday, we ate at an italian restaurant pretty close, if not in the famous red light district. since they don’t serve tap water at restaurants, we had to buy a bottle for the table… it was 6 euro per bottle. that’s like 9 bucks. on to the RLD… the only word that i can think of to describe the red light district is bizarre. there were women standing in the doors of “stores” wearing practically nothing starring at you as you walk by. i mean it’s kind of cool but still bizarre. we walked into a sex shop out of curiosity and saw every sex toy and video you can imagine.

red lights everywhere!

sunday was pretty relaxing… all we really did was walk around and then leave. the fun times then came to an end.

*the link to my pictures is in the previous post.*

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