Quote:
“Going to NOC is like attending the Head Start program for welfare.”

Note: Here is a brief over view of the trip to France. It was good to be back in Paris once again, especially with such lovely company. I’ve had to work each day since I got back, which is why the update has been so long in the brewing.

Tape up this Bird

Let us start by saying the land of France and charms of Paris have yet to fail me. Though my love of France has not been shaken, my faith in the Canadian mechanics of Air Canada has. When I settled down in seat 29A, a packing tape rigged window is not what I was pleased to see.

Though not FAA certified, I am sure the words “tape” and “mechanically sound” have never been used in a positive connotation. When I think “tape” my brain flashes back to countless memories of duct tape supported contraptions of my youth failing. Stupid duct tape dialysis machine.

The child of my first marriage

My traveling companion is a Sock Monkey, and here is a glimpse of him hanging with me in the international terminal of the Montreal Airport, which was a packed sea of people. I was sitting in an area that served 4 gates and I was the only person around.

If you carry a Sock Monkey security will make you place him in the x-ray machine, customs will ask you a lot of odd questions, little kids will flock to you, stewards will ask if a child left it in your seat. My standard line was that he is in the banana trade and he lets me travel with him.

I was in the terminal by myself when a young woman sat two seats down from me. Out of curiosity I turned my head to see why she had picked to sit in such close proximity only to find she has a camera, takes my picture, and then walks off. This has happened before on the street - a girl walked up, snapped my picture, and walked off. Once was strange enough, but twice makes me think there is a conspiracy. It is bad for my ego too.

Elizabeth and I arrived to France on Bastille day, which is a day when the French change things up and instead of eating bread and cheese and drinking wine, they eat bread and cheese and drink wine while watching fireworks. Rebecca’s original flight was canceled and she didn’t arrive until the next day, but she didn’t miss out on anything either.

Here are the three of us chilling in a small French village known for its red rock quarry and for being french. Fact: there are no ugly French villages.

I managed to snap this picture of Rebecca in her relaxed native state without her knowing, which is why the pose has such a natural feel to it.

Accordion to me

We spent our time in southern France about 2 kilometers from the village of St. Agnan, which is another beautiful French village with a baby Cathedral in the middle of its belly.

Several times we went ventured to Carl’s parents and if things were getting boring I’d have Christian break out the accordion. You can tell I am good at accordion for several reasons…

1.) I have that hat on, which might seem less important that number 2, but trust me - it isn’t. This is also how to tell if a pirate is good. That and how many eyes a pirate has. A pirate with two eyes is not daring enough.
2.) I have an actual accordion in my grasps.
3.) I am self taught. No lessons. In fact, this was my first time to ever touch an accordion.
4.) When I play, I make very serious faces of concentration, such as this…

Here we are having breakfast. Notice the fresh strawberries and cherries with a bottle of partially empty Peach schnapps. Remember, this is breakfast.

This is an image of us an hour later at brunch. Notice the array of fresh fruit with bottles of alcohol surrounding them. The theme of each meal was alcohol, and sometimes food to accompany.

The Girls from the Train Stations

After spending 3 days with my sisters, Carl and Cathy, and their friends it was time to return to Paris. As I was standing in the train station girls kept walking up, giving me a kiss, and offering to hang out with me if I’d carry their luggage.

I can only resist so much, so by the time it had happened ten or twenty five times, I was ready to give in. Luckily it was Jamie the final time. For the record, unless you would like to be drawn and quartered never go near her stock of Diet Dr. Pepper. E-v-e-r. Even if you are the young man who hauled the three bottles a quarter way around the world.

We don’t see each other as often as we’d like thanks to court orders. So it was especially nice to be in Paris together for the last days of her long, wonderful trip to Europe.

We explored the city, went to Versailles, spent a day going to St. Avold and back, and simply enjoyed being around each other. And of course, no trip to Paris is true unless there is a photograph of the Eiffel tower…

Quote:
“Every man has two countries, and one of them is France.”

“Let’s all take a moment while my data goes Bump-bump-bump”

Turn on your record player. Now swing the arm across the record as it plays while dremeling a piece of steel. This is the sound my harddrive produced as it crashed in to oblivion last night. Yes, that is right Bucephals (named after Alexander’s famed war horse who died while chasing Porus), forged in the fire Mor-Dell-or is no longer functional. Luckily the precious contents of 40gig of MP3s (all legal?) can be salvaged, though it will cost a bit.

This means several things…
1.) I have to start doing non computer stuff. Shit like reading (sarcastic) and interacting with “people in the real world, Seth.”
2.) Xanga can only be updated from work, which means no pretty pictures of Paris when I get back.
3.) I have an excuse to purchase a new-to-me computer.

In a timely event, I got a $500.00 pay raise ($0.25 an hour) for passing my 90 day travel advisor test. I am travel genius!

Chris and I moved my new computer desk in last night. It is an ancient solid steel behemoth - the kind you see in noir movies. It was forged in the furance of Mordor and can stop a .357 magnum or tommy gun with ease, and unfortunately for our neighbors was about as quiet as .357 when we moved it in between 10:30pm and 11:30pm.

By the seat of my Joie De Vive Pants

…tomorrow I hop on a plane for Paris, France. Turns out my sister Rebecca and I are on the same flight from Montreal to Paris. After I update this I am going to mark my airline reservation record, or PNR, with fancy notes for the airline encouraging them to bump me to first class.

This morning I packed. Whether I was going for 1 week or 3 months this is the ultimate list and fits in one normal sized college back pack:

1 nalgene bottle, sandals, pumas, toiletry stuff, three pairs of pants, three shirts, 2 pair silk of travel underwear, 1 pair of shorts, 1 journal, 1 notebook of letters to Jamie, 1 digital camera and charger, 1 iPod and charger, 2 pairs of headphones, the Sock Monkey, 1 Let’s Go Western Europe, 1 travel towel, 1 umbrella, a converter set, and some pens.

Quote:
“I’d much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they are the first to be rescued off of sinking ships.”

Ode to Dinosaurs

It looks like a photograph, but actually Jamie printed this off, colored it, and sent it to me because, well, she kicks ass. It hangs on my ‘fridge and is held up by a “Blue Man Group” magnet. I made up this song about dinosaurs, I sing it when I go to the Museum of Natural History in NYC:

“Stomp stomp stomp yum yum yum stomp stomp stomp

Today I see dinosauuuuurs.
Great big BIG dinosauuuurs who eat smaller dinosauuuurs.
I’m going to be a big BIG dinosauuur. Fierce and TALLLLLL, with lots
and lots of teeth
roaming the country side (country side, country side) eating Cavemen
and their wives.
Stomping on little plants and small things that aren’t shaaaaarrrrrrp.
I am a carnivooooorve. I am a dinosAUUUUUr.

Stomp stomp stomp yum yum yum stomp stomp stomp”

The chorus is the “Stomp stomp stomp yum yum yum stomp stomp stomp” part, which pretty muchsums up a dinosaur day.

Terrorizing small children,
-VelociNinja-Seth-osaurousRexTor

Can’t Touch This

As you may have noticed I have a lot of energy stemming from an over-active brain and the most comfortable bed ever. Though my bed isn’t made of NASA developed foam memory cells, it is made of the softest substances ever: unicorns and ewoks.

On their own either of those is pretty useless, but package them together and not only do you have the ingredients for the best burgers in town, you have the most soft and plush mattress ever created. It is more useful then say, the sun, which is pretty useless because you can’t touch it. You can look at it, but you’ll go blind.What is the point of having something that big and bright if we can’t look at it? Maybe it does something useful, but scientists aren’t sure because they can’t touch it or look at it.

Subscribers, Meet Embarrassing Moment

Only 5 days until I climb on a plane and land in the beautiful city of Paris. Or CDG as we call it in travel-agent-speakish-nese. Usually there is a clever/witty/dirty quote at the top of the site. But today’s quote needs some introduction. Before you lay two jewels of chat moments:

Popeonabomb: “Talk dirty to me, Mark. I can tell you’re typing. I see everything.”
Marko: “This is Mark’s mom, Dona.”
Popeonabomb: “Oh. Tell Mark I said ‘hi’.”

Popeonabomb: “What’s up, Bitch?”
JSM007: “This is Jason’s mom.”

These quotes prove your moms are not safe from me. Sister’s are safe. Except for Cheryl’s sister. Jamie is my favorite one in a dozen. (”I wanted to shout it from a mountain top. But I didn’t have a mountain top. I had a xanga and subscribers.”) At least I am Stupendous Man to someone.

Sounds of the Stall

Today my life has an amazing soundtrack as a magnificent and talented student has been playing piano all morning in the student center at North Eastern University STA, which is where I am covering a shift today. It is a nice break from the highly competitive nature of the Harvard STA office.

I’d like to walk up, and in a cool collected way say “Hey Piano Man, do you know any Schroeder?” It would be great if the theme from Peanuts could play as we’re leaving work. It would be hysterical if the Moonlight Sonata or Emperor’s March from Star Wars played every time someone headed for the bathroom. That would rock my face off. “Rock my face off” is my favorite phrase. And yes, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was originally featured in Star Wards.

Speaking of which. I was scared to death when I used the bathroom because as I stood up a sound best described as the violent death of a jawa came from the toilet. All I could think was “Chocolate Squirrel!” (Anchorman reference day for those of you not in the loop). Apparently the automatic flushing device sensor on the toilet is berserk and for some reason makes this sound.

Fly Me, Sweden!

I thought I’d teach you all about working in the airline travel business for a minute. We use a system called the Sabre reservation system, best described as the dumber retarted inbred brother of MS-DOS. It is very powerful because it was spawned from Satan in the 1970s and has never been updated (or so it seems). Sabre is owned by American Airlines, and is subscribed to by most major airlines. Each airline is given a code that is 2 alpha-numeric characters. For instance, American Airlines is AA. Aliatliza is AZ. Sabre is

On occassion we pull up an itinerary and it has airline codes such as “8J” which is “Komiinteravia Air“. When this happens we laugh and seriously suggest taking hang gliding lessons because that might be what you’re on. Anything that is a letter+number is probably a very lesser known airline, though safe airline. Anything that is a number+number is left over from the days of Wilbur and Orville “Redenbacher” Wright.

My initials, SH, are the airline code for “Fly Me Sweden“. Cities and airports get a three letter code. I am Soliata, Columbia. Jame is the Long Beach, California Helipad and her airline is the Helijet International. (Heli yea - I can address letters to “Jamie ‘my helipad‘ Barr”). They don’t always make sense. For instance Shanghai is PVG.

When you walk in and ask for flight information going from Boston to Sarajevo on the 15th of July, I type in…

115JULBOSSJJ¤AZ

And then the results are displayed in white text on a blue background…

15JUL FRI BOS/EDT SJJ/‡6 AZ RESPONSE
** DIRECT CONNECT PARTICIPANT **
7AZ 615 J4 D5 I0 Y7 B7 M7 H7 K0 V0 T0 BOSFCO 1840 0840‡1
763 0 N0 S0 L08AZ1038 C0 D0 I0 Y7 B7 M7 H7 K7 V7 T7* MXP 1135 1255
M80 0 N0 S0 L0 O09AZ 540 C1 D1 I0 Y0 B0 M0 H0 K0 V0 T0 SJJ 1450 1630
ER4 0 N0 L0 O0 W0* - FOR ADDITIONAL CLASSES ENTER 1*C 

We spend our day decrypting screens of these. This particular one means you’re going to pay out the ass because only first class seating is left. Each letter+number combination stands for the number of seats available at a certain price. If you want me to look 3 days ahead or behind we have to look up each day manually. Fun fun fun.

Quote:
“The fireworks will all explode just over the tree line.”

Quote:
“It wasn’t Forest Gump”

Chocolate Covered Death Rays from Space

When we arrived at the movie theater to see a free showing of Forest Gump, we were confronted with a difficult decision: did we want to see a movie about a heroic, yet mentally slow, man with a box of delicious chocolates or did we want to watch rampaging aliens drive their menacing robots over the face of the earth giving everyone the death ray, which is the space equivalent of “the finger” but much more effective…. and requires a robot.

We were almost in Forest Gump when a group of Dianetic church of Scientologist cult members with flaming torches and “We love Katie” and “Hale Bop” shirts convinced us we wanted to see Tom Cruise, who was to adopt Dakota Fanning immediately after the movie.

Spielberg (pictured above with the head of the church of Scientology) is the man. The movie was excellent as were the visuals and sounds even though we didn’t get to experience the movie in a digital theater. Why didn’t we see it in a digital theater? Because George Lucas sucks. The poor Star Wars out of order-prequel-sequel is still hogging the digital theater screens. If you haven’t seen the newest Star Wars in theater by now, you probably never will. Really, who goes to Star Wars 1 1/2 months after it came out?

Logical Places to Stand

Movies like this always make me feel better about my survival skill instincts. For instance, in the movie lightening strikes the same spot in Tom Cruise’s neighborhood 27 times in a row. Yes, twenty-seven (let that sink in), thus making it the most unsafe place on the planet to be and last place you would ever stand.

However, Tom and his neighbors read it as “This spot is soft and gentle. Downy soft. Bring your entire family and form a circle.” Seriously, they were about ten seconds from throwing up a maypole or starting a camp fire and singing “Cum by ya” while cooking smores..