Underwater Earplugs...

...I'm listening to a song that sounds like underwater earplugs.  I like this feeling.  My headphones are already earplugs, in all of their difficult technology.  I appreciate this opportunity today to feel small, as if I were underwater with earplugs.

Hip Drinks

Photo by bittermelon/jennifer yin, pulled from Flickr

Cool...

Americans and the French

Today, I bought a book at Barnes & Noble using a gift card I received for Christmas.  The book is clearly enough about the French.  I read part of the book months before my recent trip to France, and now having returned want to finish it. 

The subtitle of the book is "Why we love France but not the French".  The clerk checking me out must have looked at this title before she said, 'Why we don't like the French, because the French hate our guts.'  Well, they like this American.

Photo by Me, 2009

Chinese Garden

Chinese gardens are straight rock awesome.  This one is in Portland, Oregon.  They have a building where you can have tea. (Maybe I can live there?)  If I was building a house, I couldn't do much better than this.  Or this.

Photo by Jessica Hibbard (Flickr jesshibb)

Somalia

"Our people like conflict, rather than peace and negotiations." shopkeeper in Mogadishu, as quoted by The New York Times.

Motivation

Ooo-ooh child, things are gonna get easier.  Ooo-ooh child, things'll get brighter.

Photo by Alpha Tango Bravo / Adam Baker

Portland

So Micki and I have a list of places we would like to go.  Places we've discussed, and have no current plans to visit, include:

Ireland

Greece

Scandinavia

Vermont

Quebec

Toronto

Niagara Falls

Washington, DC

Wisconsin

Colorado

Seattle

Portland

California

Tokyo

China

New Zealand

...and there are many more I haven't discussed with her.

But one place, I really think I need to go, and I haven't been there, so I don't know if I'll like it there, and hell if I went it would be for a week or so and how can one like something fully after only one week unless it only costs $1.99.  Still, I want to go to Portland.  I've heard so many good things.

And there are mountains, the Pacific ocean, wine, beer!