OK, so drivin to pick the kid up a few minutes ago i got behind a pickup truck from Putnam County with some bumper stickers that have me pondering…

One of em says “The best government is no government.”

Cool. Old school anarchism. I dabbled with anarchism for a while, in my youth.  Its the kind of thing like the Atkins diet where you say “WHOA, awesome, I get to eat nothing but meat and lose weight!!” and keep on saying it until you die of a massive heart attack on account of cholesterol, or something like that.

While I’d like to go on the record to state that I don’t believe that a lack of government leads to coronary issues, I’m also not going to come along to say that it doesn’t.

It’s an attractive idea for folks that just don’t really think things through.

Anyway, I’m down with the truck so far.  I keep reading.

The next bumper sticker says something to the extent of “How is this a free country if everything is for sale?”

Well all right.  Anti capitalism.  Now I dabbled a bit with that in my day as well, cuz lord knows mo’ money mo’ problems.  I’ll pour a 40 on the curb for Biggie just for that one.  Or maybe it was Tupac.  Hell, I don’t remember (editors note: Wikipedia says Biggie.  Word). Point is, when you ain’t got money, you ain’t happy, and for some reason (although I haven’t experienced it myself) when you do got money, you ain’t happy.

Roll with it, little truck guy.  Dude from Putnum County is laying it to the man with his bumper stickers.

Thing is, I started pondering it because I was driving through a school zone behind him and the music on the radio wasn’t that entertaining, and started wondering if he’s thought his stance on financial leadership through all the way.  Cuz see,  I see a bit of a disconnect between the two philosophies of nihilism displayed on his truck window, in that I think it’d be hard to not have some sort of market system, and not have a government at the same time…

Cuz who’s gonna lay the road down that he’s driving on?  And then paint it?

By now we were starting to move a bit more freely out of the school zone so I didn’t see if any of his other bumper stickers had a clue as to what his solution to the by now oppressively intimidating intellectual gap between economic policy and legislative policy is.  I’m positive that somewhere between the gate latch and the Toyota logo there would be a faded sticker that would lay out, in detail, his manifesto for maintaining public services and infrastructure.  Maybe a point system?  Is bartering involved?  Goats and chickens?

The mind boggled.  I tried to get closer to read it, while at the same time looking somewhat casual, but our paths shortly diverged, and I had to pick the kid up.  I’ll be working that over in my head all day, like a piece of overcooked meat stuck between your back teeth.

Still, one thing is painfully clear.  The unclear, contradictory,  and rather excessive political and economic opinions  so prominently displayed on the back of his truck makes this guy an obvious candidate for immediate citizenship into the City of Oak Ridge.

He’d fit right in with some of these other dumb bastards…

I finally got the video uploaded from our visit to the windmills in the Netherlands.

We’re currently in sunny Washington DC after a long day of flights. Its crazy to have woken up this morning to a Tuscan sunrise (which actually sounds like a drink, or maybe a bedroom position).

In fact, this whole damn European thing is overwhelming. It’ll take me weeks to contemplate the things that’ll be highlights.

Rotterdam seems like forever ago, with its clean, modern cityscape, amazingly good food (never had dutch food while we were there tho, apparently when the dutch eat out, they go for other fare)and friendly, smiling people.
The dutch were happy. Its neat to watch.

The UK, really, I didn’t see enough of to form much of an opinion, other than that England and Scotland looked the same, and the food was meh.
They could drink tho. Specially them Scots. As the cabbie told us when we asked where we could find a bottle of booze “Everywhere!! We Scotish are reknown for our drinking!”

Hell yah. Thems good people.

But the best for me, which is a suprise, is Italy. Hiking through mountain villages that fended off 15th century politics, or seeing an aquaduct that was built civilizations ago, spanning the road like a modern train tresle. Awesome.

And the food, the food. Damn.
So good.

I even used my years of french study to butcher a little Italian, compared to the bro in laws excellent “baby talk”. Its so cool how immersion teaches.

Hell, I’m rambling. I got up at 4 am today, and now 6 of those hours don’t exist, I’ve run hellbent through two massive airports, and now the final plane of the trip is holding on the tarmac for god knows why.

But we’re almost done

Jake’s work is done. We’ve travelled to Italy to visit with the brother. Mom and Dad are here, too.  They’ve been here a week.

Dad left this morning…has to go back to work. Mom’s staying to help Brother after his ACL surgery next week.

We’ve been here two days.

This is the MOST BEAUTIFUL place I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

The Carribean is breathtaking. The UK is historic and old. Holland was arty and entertaining.

Italy….wow. I can’t even figure out where to begin.

It’s worth the anxiety I have with airplanes. It’s worth the time we’ve spent travelling….we’re worn out.

It freaking AWESOME here.

No, I don’t know the language. But locals are more than not, understanding- if you make clear that you are trying….

Biggest thing I’ve noticed:  Don’t talk LOUDER because they don’t understand. They can hear. They just don’t speak English.

Brother has been here almost a year. They still giggle at his Italian…but he’s trying. He explains that he’s learning…that he speaks Italian like a baby. He asked for fish tea (te pesci)..instead of peach tea (te pesca) the other day…they giggle. But they appreciate his attempts. He’s amazed me. I’m proud of him.

We still have 2 more touring days here… here are the pictures so far.  They aren’t even HALF of what they looked like in person — but it’s a start.

Enjoy.

My internal batteries aren’t recharging at night anymore.

This trip has been one of the most memorable times in my life.

Both of us are worn out.

Our bodies see the day and the night, but don’t understand the change in times. We spent a week in one time zone…and went backwards into another one. Saturday we go forward again. Wednesday is gonna blow our minds when we go backwards 6 hours.
2 1/2 weeks – 4 time zone changes

Each new place and all the people we interact with — it’s overwhelming. Soooo much to soak in.

I wish we’d taken better notes. But that would have taken away from the experiences.

I wish we could get more into a picture.
The air, the sounds, the smells.

We miss the boys. We miss the dogs. We miss the house. We miss our normal. It’s starting to drag on us a bit.

The suitcases are holding 3 weeks of living supplies. And they are becoming a pain in the butt to deal with. Not all the cabs can fit them in the trunks of these little European cars. Dragging them on the commuter trains…let’s just say you get A LOT of evil looks. Yesterday, the train to Paisley was so packed with people and luggage, that we sat on our luggage next to the doors of the train for about 5 stops….before some seats emptied–the luggage sat in our foot space. And now…we have to ship back some of our suitcase contents, because the plane we are riding to Italy on doesn’t allow 50# luggage. Oh well..

And poor Jake had to work this whole time. Our holiday will start Saturday.
We won’t have to plan routes, find bus stops and taxi stations. We won’t have to worry about not finding dinner because everyone stops serving dinner between 7-9…. it’s a stupid stress… but when he doesn’t get “home” until 5 something…and you have to wait on a cab, and ride for 15 minutes…and then walk aimlessly around a town you don’t know….. it gets late before you know it.

Last Thursday and again today…we woke up exhausted. I don’t know what it has to do with Thursday- least it’s being consistent.

Tonight we’re staying in and having room service.

We are having fun, though. And we’re together…and that makes it all pretty awesome.

Sorry for the mopey post. Looking forward to coming home.

We are taking pictures.
Check here every day or so.
I’m trying to get them updated as we go.

Enjoy!

We’re doing fine. Jake’s settled in at work and I’m hanging out in the hotel researching places to go when he gets home. Most of the big sight-seeing in Holland, we’ll do this weekend. Crazy thing… all the shops close at 5. Restaurants stop serving at 8. Whole place is shut down at night except for the night clubs…and they only serve drinks.

The trip over was ok. I hate planes, so I can’t say it was great…but it could have been worse, I suppose. No problems in security. Jake’s suitcase was overweight by 5 pounds…mine was under 15… so we moved things around to accommodate. We had a couple mixed drinks before getting on the plane. Eased the anxiety a bit.

Plane ride was 8 hours. Captain said it’d be smooth sailing except over New York… but it was fine over New York. Turbulence didn’t start until we were over the freakin ocean…for an hour. And then, they made this call over the speakers that “if there is a doctor or nurse on the plane, we need you at row 34″ — which was about 5 rows in front of us. I don’t know what was going on with the lady…and she was fine when we landed… but that plus the turbulence…. it was all I could do to not run out the nearest exit.

We landed in Amsterdam. Got our rental car. And plugged the GPS in. Rotterdam is about 45 minutes from Amsterdam. It was raining.
The temperature here is 55-ish. Overcast or party cloudy most of the time. The sun has been out today. It’s been nice to see.

After we successfully found our hotel and got our room…we slept. For 4 hours. We had a little time to walk around the area and see what kind of stuff is around us. Lots of shops, lots of restaurants. They seem to go for miles.

There are trams and trains and bicycle paths and walking paths….and cars. And each has their own stop and go signs. It’s really crazy to see.

The fashion has left us intrigued since we got here. It’s like a combination of 70s meets 1985. Little patent leather pointy flat shoes…HIGH TOP tennis shoes, ankle boots. Wow. And the pants, for women, are all about 4 sizes too small, in my view. Why do you want to show people your butt crack? Seriously? The men dress well. And we have seen some tight pants, but not too bad. REALLY nice suits for the business people. Casual consists of FABulous shoes and accessories. My brother said they are very “metro” up here (as opposed to Italy)… I can see that.

Rotterdam has some history to it, as I suppose most of Europe does. We’ll get to see some of that stuff this weekend.
Most of the old old buildings were destroyed in WWII. The entire city center was destroyed by the German bombs. The harbor is one of the largest in the world. Everyone says we need to spend the day down there. It’s about 15 blocks from where we are…so now all we need is time. Got plans to do that and see the sights around it. A few old churches. The old shipyard/Maritime museum and red light district are on the list, also.

I still want to drive to the country and see the windmills. We passed a few on the drive to Rotterdam. Old and new.

And I did see some oreo cows. hee!

Our little garden has exploded in the last week or so. It’s amazing really.

We’ve only had to water it twice since we planted it – since it’s been raining so much.
And we’re going to have to get some kind of something to put on the okra plants, because there is some little critter eating the leaves. They look like doilies. We spread coffee grounds around them for the time being. Heard that helps keep snails out. It doesn’t seem to be working.

Today, Wildcat and I did some needful in the garden.
He pulled “weets” while I put some posts in the ground and ran some string support lines. The tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are a foot or taller and leaning. It was time. While stringing up the ‘maters, I noticed the cherry tomato plant has a tomato!! It’s about the size of a dime. Kinda cute. Wildcat said, “Well… the flowers turn into the fruit. Then, it’s green first. Then orange. Then, when it’s red…we can eat it.”

So we’re gonna watch and wait.

It’s exciting.

So we’ve been like totally hectic lately.  Work, school stuff, sleep, work, work, sleep, tends to take up the whole time.

Yeah, we’ve probably had a beer or two in there, but seriously, despite all the work, we’ve recently found ourselves too broke to buy the good beer, and damned if we’re going to start dipping into the “guest beer”, so we just end up watching tv for 10 minutes and going to sleep.

Today, however, Bell was perusing her internets as is her perusal want, and found this link from the local TV station about how Norris Dam has opened the floodgates, which is always an awesome sight.

We’re talking 13,000 cubic feet per second of water.  That’s a damn lot of water.  Particularly a damn lot of water for less than 30 miles from Oak Ridge, so we decided to get our chi in alignment and roll out there for what we billed to the kids as a ‘field trip’, and it was a fine time.

Bell put together a little presentation for all you internets people, check it out:

Here’s Gnarls Barkley…at Stubb’s BBQ in Austin… playing a Radiohead cover — AND WE WERE THERE!!!!!

Reckoner…