Some quotes to ponder...

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
  - Soren Kierkegaard

There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.

  - Edmund Wilson

Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance, / And toss them on the wheels of Chance.

  - Juvenal

Some new spinz...

I’ve got an emusic.com subscription that gives me a monthly credit of songs for download...it’s in no way meant to replace more commercial venues (I MISS MY VIRGIN RECORD STORE), but it has a terrific supply of indie and smaller labels as well as oldies...I never have any problem finding music to download. Here lately, I’ve been listening to RJD2 (http://www.last.fm/music/RJD2). You most likely have heard of “A Beautiful Mine” since it’s the “Mad Men” song, but I’ve also enjoyed some of their other tracks as well. Since most of it is sans lyrics, it’s great background music (with a funky beat) while doing other things around the house.

San Diego Travels

I was in San Diego for a quick business trip and my travel schedule gave me enough time in between my last meeting and my return flight home that I couldn’t bear to head directly to the airport, so I spent a little time following the coastline from the north burbs (La Jolla) back to the airport. It was actually a bit refreshing to have time to see something out of the usual direct path of hotel...meeting...hotel...airport.

I parked the car to stretch my legs at one of the several public beaches that I passed and this one happened to be a ‘dog beach’...I got a big kick out of the dog-friendly water fountain that was installed.

One of the nice things about the San Diego Airport is that a marina is very close which gave me another opportunity to pull out the camera and walk for a while (still wasn’t ready to sit in the airport). I was able to see the downtown skyline from the walkway around the marina.

All in all it was one of the more enjoyable trips that I had made, but it did give me additional fodder for one of my many travel hypotheses that I continue to formulate...The degree of craziness (or creativity, if you will) in a city’s street population is directly proportional to the city’s climate.

On this particular trip, a gentleman was pronouncing to whomever was in earshot, “Keep Abortions Legal! Keep Abortions Legal!” It caught me off guard as this is not a frequently shared stance for street folk, even on the left-coast. I only needed to wait a bit for him to follow up his first tagline...“Keep Abortions Legal...then you will be able to feast on your descendants at Easter!” I suppose that I’ll give him high marks for creativity because I sure didn’t see that one coming!

Happy New Year!

Yeah, yeah...I know I'm about a month late in starting the resolutions, but there was just TOO MUCH going on in January to give anything more than lip service to my resolutions (conferences, Vegas, work travel).  So...my New Year's resolutions start tomorrow...I'll actually be home for the majority of February and it's a better time for me to focus without the distractions that come with being on the road.

It's probably no surprise to anyone that knows me that my goals all resolve around being healthier so I'll be exercising and eating right.  I've bought into a fairly popular exercise regimen and I've done all the background legwork...measuring, food purchases, portioning, etc.

One interesting item that I'll share is that this was the first time I've ever taken 'before' 'no-more' pictures (as recommended from the regimen for motivational purposes), and after uploading them I have to say that I threw up a little in my mouth.  While I have thoroughly enjoyed every meal and drink that has seen me to current size, enough is enough!!!  Once I've made some progress, I might be tempted to post them, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I suppose all is not lost...I'm a full two weeks ahead of the Chinese New Year!

I'm plunging into the blogosphere pool...

So...I've decided to take a cue from one of my former co-workers (and lifetime friend) and open up a blog. It's not that I have too much in the way of important information to add to the global discourse...rather I want it to be a place where I can quickly:

• pen the random nonsense that springs up in my head
• vent to the world the idiocy that I witness during my travels
• share new music, food, quotes, etc. that I like
• share links to other tidbits that I see on the Internets

"Why not twitter? facebook? myspace?" you may ask.  Well, the short answer is that my patience has already run thin with all of those social networking phenomenons (I never was a twitter user BTW).  I just want a relatively calm part of the WWW that doesn't force-feed me quiz updates, score updates, farmtown, yoville...you get the idea.

As for the content or focus of this spot, that is wide open...music, sports, travel tales, drinks, maybe a little of the dreaded politics and religion...stay tuned to see. 

I do hope some of my friends from across the world decide to check into this blog every now and again, and perhaps they can help me figure out what in the world I'm doing with a blog spot now.