BaconOst

I've been corrected (and we probably should get a dictionary!) that the Squeezy Bacon in a tube is actually just bacon-flavored cheese.

I'm quite dissappointed. I was sure it was just bacon in a tube....but no. It's just flavored cheese-food. Hmph.

Now I'm a bit concerned that there is shrimp-flavored cheese, too. That's just too weird to contemplate.

Stockholm 3: less walking, bigger stuff

We did a bit less walking today -- we still hoofed it to the Tunnelbana station but our destination today was Drottningholm Palace and we actually figured out the bus and train schedules (in Swedish, no less) to get out there. We decided against the boat, since we're going to take the Under the Bridges tour tomorrow (well, we were going to do it today, but the Vasa museum was far too interesting to leave, so..tomorrow it is!)

It apparently rained buckets this morning before we got up, and it was forecast for rain until mid-day, but everything looked like it was clearing up as we left the hotel, so I didn't bring a rain jacket. For once, I was right. It cleared by lunchtime and was sunny and gorgeous (albeit win-dy!). We definitely luck out with weather on our vacations.

Drottningholm is interesting -- in comparison to the Kungliga Slott (Royal palace) in Gamla Stan, which we toured around on Saturday, and which is designed/finished by the same architect, it's a much more typical baroque and rococo style building. The obvious comparison is to Versailles (which was built at the same time, so the rumors that thisis meant to be "a copy" are false, according to our very knowledgeable guide) with the long, perfectly symmetrical facade and wings, and the extensive French and English gardens is apt. Inside, it's french silk wallpaper, rococo and neo-classical mirrors and gilding, and not much of a trace of good old-fashioned Swedish aesthetics. Nothing is simple, everythign is a bit overwrought, most notably the main staircase which is a riot of faux painted marbles and sculptures and trompe l'oeil ceilings and alcoves. The effect is nearly perfect - I had to touch a few of the walls to confirm that they are, indeed, just paint. Some of the perspective-bending ceiling paintings are realistic enough to fool a first glance, and make the rooms look taller and larger than they are. Drottningholm is actually quite small, as apalaces go -- it is meant as a true summer home for the king, even though the current family lives here most of the year.

But it's the gardens and the remarkable Chinese Pavillion that are really fun. Over 700 lime trees in perfect, neat rows surround carefully laid out and pruned pleasure gardens, all leading to the fanciful pavillion at the far end -- a concoction of mock-oriental design and color -- "like a chinese lacquer box plopped down in the swedish countryside" our guide said. it even has a private dining house where the table and the cabinets rise up out of the floor so the cooking and serving happens below, and no servants are required to stand tableside to serve things. it's all just cooked and raised up on pulleys into the little gazebo. The king and his friends used to take a carriage from the palace to have parties here, among the tschotkes of chinese dolls and painted porcelain.

Back in town, we got stuck in a tunnelbana station a bit further away than we anticipated -- we manage to decipher something about "road work" and "20 minute delay" (we think!) from the very serious sounding announcement. But, the walk was nice and we were back on the tram to Djurgaden easily enough, once we navigated our way around the station and figured out which direction we were facing once we emerged at ground level. At least the streets are consistently labelled here (even if most street names have about thirty letters, I swear).

The Vasa museum was tops on our list to visit (and should be tops on anyone's list to visit -- it's absolutely amazing to see this huge, tall, narrow ship almost entirely intact, in the museum. Once you stand on the floor near the huge rudder and stare up at the insanely narrow, towering stern of the ship, you understand immediately why it sank promptly, in the harbor, on its first voyage out of the docks. Blub glub glub. Originally, they thought it was the weight of the guns shifting from side to side that did her in, but they were all found well-fastened when the ship was discovered and raised in the 1960s. The current theory is that she had far too little ballast to balance out the huge, top-heavy ship. The rest of the museum is fascinating, but it pales in comparison to just looking at the enormous, fully-restored ship sitting in the middle. Nearly everything is the original wood (preserved with some sort of chemical soup) and the restorers put the thing together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, matching up nail holes in individual pieces as they went. It's just a stunning work of art. I could have stayed for hours just staring at the bits and pieces all over the ship. It was for that reason taht we missed the boat tour -- I was hanging, agog, over the railinglooking down on he main deck.

We went a little further onto the island, and just walked around the park for awhile -- sat on the bluff overlooking the harbor at Prince Eugene's Waldensudde and walked up to the vast gardens at Rosendal palace (and never did see the actual palace, which is kind of funny, castle-hunter that I am). It was just a lovely, perfect evening to wander around and sit on the various benches.

Street food for dinner - Sergels Torg was filled with the 'International Food Festival" and we downed a couple of enormous sausages and picked up a half-dozen desserts (hey, you have to set priorities!) before finally trekking back to the hotel. On the way we ran into a gentleman we'd met at Drottningholm (he asked us to 'test' his photograph by holding up our hands to "hold" a building on our palms so he could help a friend of his get "the perfect tourist picture"). he actually lives only a few blocks from our hotel and we passed him walking up the street....a rather weird, deja-vu-ish sort of experience. We assured him that we were not stalking him, and had an enjoyable chat on the way from the metro station. How odd!

It's early still, and we're in the hotel room, stuffed full of bratwurst, baklava, and English fudge and probably ready to crash for the night. it took all of four seconds for us to kick off our shoes and socks and collapse.

Oh, and may I just register that I think it's against the geneva convention to charge for using the bathroom at a mall? We ducked in to the Gallerian mall (a ginormous mall near the central station) and luckily we had 10 kroner to put intot he turnstile or we'd have been out of luck. Phffft! Although, I will say, Swedish public toilets are among the nicest I've ever been in and very, very clean.

Tomorrow? The Under the Bridges tour, and if I can manage to convince Mark, the historic museum. We have to leave Stockholm by about 2:30 (We're going to be in Gothenburg tomorrow night) and we'll probably not have time to do much. But we'll try!

Stockholm 2: Footsore and sunburned

Another absolutely fabulous day in Stockholm -- warm, sunny, a bit windy, and perfect for wandering around. Wandered around Riddaholmen this morning before things opened, taking pictures of the outside of the Riddarholmskyrkan before we joined the guided tour at the Radhuset (City hall). Which is unlike any city hall I'm used to -- we never hosted the Nobel Prize dinners in any sort of city hall I'm aware of. It's an interesting building -- dozens of different styles and colors that is at once harmonious and just slightly jarring. A room of gold-leaf mosaic tiles follows a plain, pale-painted drawing room. After walking around for an hour, we decided that our original plan to climb the 365 steps to the top of the tower was probably not the best thing to do, considering how exhausted we were yesterday (and how we're both feeling a bit sore and tired.

Yes, blame me. I over-commit. Or over-plan. Take your pick. I have far too much stuff on the list for us to do than we can possibly squeeze in. And we tend to go non-stop from 8am-8pm before crashing, packing in as much as we can. That's how we always go on vacations -- up early, out all day, crash like big crashy things at night, exhausted. We often end up at the end of our vacation with aches and pains and too little sleep. Go-Go-Go!

At any rate, we walked back across the bridge to Gamla Stan again to visit the Nobel Museum and eat lunch in their cafe, sitting outside and looking over the main square and basking in the sunshine. We are continually amazed that women in high-heels can walk across the cobblestone streets.

We were going to go to Skepsholmen to visit the Architecture museum, but we decided to get off the 'hop-0n/hop-off' boat early and went to the Nordiska Museum. Mark really felt cheated -- he thought atht a museum that was supposed to be representative of life in Scandinavia shoould have more in it than a wing of costumes, house interiors, and pictures of men in bathing suits (the temporary exhibition). I, personally, loved the home interiors from the 19th century, the 30s, the 50s and a modern room. And, walking through the displays of historic costume is guaranteed to interest me -- I even lost a half hour pulling out al the drawers in the textile display area to see examples of weaving, needlework, crochet, and knitting in the various styles throughout Sweden. I did expect a few more examples of the bunad in the collection, though. There was only one. The building, though, is quite interesting.

We walked along the waterfront and gawked at all the people heading to Gruna Lund,the amusement park, and finally wended our way to Skansen, where we spent the afternoon looking at houses and farmsteads and churches of every sort moved to Stockholm from the far reaches of Sweden for an open-air recreation of the different regions. it was sunny, warm, and strolling along the cobbled lanes to look at farms from the last few centuries (including a storehouse that dates to 1320) and people-watching was a lovely, relaxing afternoon. We had been worried that it would be Disney-esque sort of place, all commercial and in-your-face (like the much-mentioned Bunratty Castle in Ireland, which still can reduce us to giggles), but it wasn't Bunrattified at all -- very low key, very little commercial glitz. You can tell they can really gear it up in the summer months during high-season, but right now, it's just starting to fill up and not everythign is open yet.

Caught the train back to central Stockholm and hiked back to the hotel -- I swear, that walk is getting longer and longer every time we do it -- there's bus service that is closer, but it's actually quicker to just walk to the nearest Tunnelbana station...but at the end of the day, the slog back can feel like miles and miles.

We drove out into the world looking for food tonight. The area we're in is pretty thin on the ground with restuarants that are open for dinner (and even fewer of them are open on Sunday night) and we figured the pickings would be better further out in one of the "shopping areas"...which were also closed, along with anything even remotely attached to them. We ended up, of all places, in McDonalds. Which is ok - we do specifically try to stop in a McDs in every country we visit, to compare notes (the ketchup is not as sweet here, and the pickles are a bit odd, but otherwise, just the same), and we wandered through a grocery store (which is fun, since everything is a different brand and we don't actually read any Swedish).

Mark simply would not take a picture of the enormous sausage that I found (figuring quite rightly that I would be forced to make some sort of off-color joke about a bright red sausage the size of a whiffle bat), but he did deign to take a photo of the Wall of Food in a Tube...more specifically...BACON in a tube. Along with shrimp, crab, cheese, ham, and a variety of other combinations of Squeeze Food. I was giggling helplessly. I can't decide if Squeezze Bacon is the best

invention evah, or a sign of the apocalypse.

Probably the latter. We didn't buy any (no place to keep it at the moment), but we might have to, even if we just empty it out and take home the tube proclaiming BaconOst!

Stockholm

Stockholm has to be the cleanest city that I've ever been in. We spent the day in Gamla Stan (old town) -- the original island of medieval Stockholm -- walking around the narrow cobbled lanes and around the royal castle and cathedral, and all the buildings are in good condition (or actively being fixed and under scaffolding and tarps), painted lovely ocher shades that make the curving streets seem as if they are bathed in sunlight, even when they are shadowed. It's a lovely place.

Easy to get lost in, despite the fact that it's about 1/2 mile from end to end. We spent the morning just wandering around, then went to the Kunglinga Slottet (royal castle), a huge square not-too-castle-looking castle to see the State Apartments and public rooms. They've got more room here than Buckingham palace, decorated most in the rococo style with tons of gold leaf, over-dramatic scenes on the ceilings, and chandeliers the size of a volkswagen. It's really sort of odd to move from one room that is very much like the florid style of Versailles (gold leaf, red velvet and the like) to a simply decorated room of pale greenish-gray walls, gray woodwork, and white ceilings. it's like going from "woah! Royalty!" to the sedate, calm interiors of IKEA. I kid, of course, but there is somethingquintissentially Swedish about those colors and simple style that are immediately recognizable.

There are actually five different museums in the complex -- and only one wing is really open to the public --so we wandered around the armory museum (which contains, among other things, a really cool collection of carriages), the crown jewels, and the museum tucked under the walls of the original north wing with the remains of the cellars and walls of the first fortress build here - Tre Kronor, Three Crowns. I'm a huge sucker for the bits and pieces that always show up under these old buildings, so we spent a while poking about in the museum there.

The cathedral, Storykyrkan (well, it's not technically a cathedral, but it's accepted as one) is lovely, and has the original of the much-copied St George and the Dragon statue along with some truly spectacularly over-the-top royal boxes/pews. I can't imagine acutally sitting in one, they'd give me nightmares of being swallowed up by frou-frou and gold leaf.

Popped in for lunch in one of the hundreds of little restaurants that line the alleys (it's going to take a while to get used to paying $5 for a glass of diet coke) and followed lunch with a long walk along the original streets of the island -- a couple hundred yards in from the current shoreline, and linked to it by dozens of narrow, twisty alleys. It took two tries to find the medieval Stockholm museum, but it was worth it -- more bits and bobs from the old town and even a stretch of the original city wall (now twenty feet down from ground level).

We made a valiant attempt to wander around the National Museum but we were done. Even ice cream, eaten while watching the boats dock nearby and enjoying the sun, wasn't enough to perk us up. We took the metro back up north and staggered to our hotel room to fall into a coma for three hours. The fact that it was still bright outside at 9pm when we ventured out to find dinner, is still a bit weird.

Tomorrow? Lots on the docket -- Skansen, the architecture museum, Stadhuset, Riddarholmskyrkran, City museum, possibly a quick trip out of the city to see the Anunshog burial mounds after dinner. Probably too much to actually get done, but...well, we're going try!It's supposed to rain on Monday, so we're going to try for some of the more "indoor" pursuits and make sure to visit Skansen and the island of Djurgarden while it's sunny and gorgeous.

Now? To sleep. Possibly to dream. most likely to sink into a coma that won't even be broken by the morning sun rising...at 3am.

Jet-lagged and overly bright!

We went for a walk last night after finding our hotel (the absolutely charming Stallmastaregarden) at about 10:30--and it was light enough to read the paper outside..we should have known that we'd be woken up at 3:30 or so by bright sun.

Seriously -- not only does it feel like noon to us jet-lagged Denverites, but it LOOKS like noon. This is going to take some getting used to. it's nice -- I mean, who doesn't want to be able to be out and about until the wee hours? -- but even with the shades down, it's awfully darn bright in here.

It's absolutely gorgeous outside (supposed to be mid-60s today) and sunny today and tomorrow. Woot!

Our hotel is north of the city a bit -- a bus ride or about a 15minute walk to the nearest Tunnelbana (metro) stop and then another fifteen minute walk to Gamla Stan -- Old Town -- our target for today. We're going to walk around the remains of the medieval town, see the castle (one of several, actually), and probably spend the afternoon at the National Museum (or just wandering around eating ice cream, you never know). Things are only open roughtly 10-4 (or sometimes 5), so today is our day to figure out how this is going to work. We might make great progress, or we might dawdle about and do nothing but people watch.

I've got a good map (several, actually) and we're set. Metro station map, Stockholm Cards, Camera. Check!

Scandinavia Mocking

Ok, yes, mock away. You're going to laugh. But here's the FIRST PAGE of the seven-page travel planning doc (which is supported by multiple other documents, including a day-by-day color-coded chart --and if you think I'm going to post THAT for public consumption you're insane) and lists of opening times, checklists of things to see, etc)

I left our housesitter a seven page documennt. The follow is only the FIRST PAGE of the multi-colored, color-coded daily plan. I think I should seek treatment.

So...mock away. I deserve it.

Scandianvia Day 1

We're off! Left the dogs in the capable hands of our housesitter, Rainer (and our neighbor, Bacon Lady) and slogged through the deluge to the airport to start off our trip to Scandinavia.

I had the standard pre-trip anxiety attack -- what have I forgotten? What if we get there and Sweden is CLOSED? What happens if we miss our flight? -- and rushed about like a demented weirdo for the afternoon before we left. Made a last minute run to pick up a spare pair of glasses and i still forgot to return all the library books. Oh, well.

We packed last night, really (although we've been piling up things on the dining room table for a week or more) and I managed to come in under 35 lbs (for a month! A new record!). Plus camera gear, of course. And Kindle. The guy at the security checkpoint int he airport commented that our trip must be a good one, if the amount of camera stuff is any indication!

But, we're in the lovely BA lounge, enjoying free glasses of wine and dinner, and I'm starting to calm down. I might take another glass of wine, though.

So -- off to Stockholm (we arrive tomorrow) and four days there,then to visit family in southern Sweden, and then onwards to Denmark, Norway, and finally Russia! Yeeha! (Yes, I'll post the embarassing and entirely too detailed charts of the trip. I promise. Mock away.

As for now, I'm going to finish my wine, relax, and see what I can do about getting seats together on the plane. More later from Sunny Scandinavia!

Lap-Giraffe

You too can have a Lap Giraffe.

I have to admit, I'm terribly annoyed by the Directv commercials, but I totally want a tiny giraffe.

Bees love Junk Food, too

I know that I'd be a bit concerned with red honey, but with a name like Cerise, what did she expect?

Apparently her bees have been ignoring the local nectar in favor of the runoff from the Maraschino Cherry factory a few miles away....

Huh. So bees like junk food, too!

Yes, yes, I know!

Yes, yes yes..I know, I've been gone for ages, but I had to pop over here to link to the funniest thing I've read in...well, possibly ever.

My cheeks hurt, I've been laughing to hard. I have actual tears in my eyes. I've summoned both dogs, who think that I'm cackling in a very disturbing manner.

I will note that you might not find this as funny if you don't have a "short bus" dog, but damn this is exactly how it is....

Dogs don't understand moving

An interesting character

Perhaps the best first obituary line, ever:

PITRE Loulan Joseph Pitre, Sr., age 89, a lifelong citizen of Cut Off, LA on Sunday, October 17th, 2010, finally stopped debating every subject imaginable with anyone lucky enough to encounter him

It sounds like Mr. Pitre was a fascinating character.

100%

According to a recent survey, the people most knowledgeable about religion are atheists and agnostics -- not surprising, really; part of understanding why we don't believe is understanding what is is that others do believe and the history of both the religion and the scripture of the major religions, and many religious sects strongly discourage that sort of knowledge, for fear it will detract from faith.

I got 100% on the sample quiz (15 of the 32 questions that were given to the phone survey participants). I'm curious what the rest of the questions were -- they seemed pretty basic (I'm surprised that over half of all protestants don't know that Luther inspired the Protestant Reformation, for example, that seems to be a core sort of understanding of church history).

I'm a little fuzzier on Jewish history, though. One of the questions (not in the sample) was about Maimonides..I had to go look that one up. Although I think I might have guessed he was Jewish, since it was a multiple choice question.

Ah, well. What does this mean? I'm not sure. It certainly doesn't mean non-believers are smarter and believers are stupid -- as some of the comments have suggested. But it might give us a hint into what and why people believe the way they do, and how they approach that knowledge. Most atheists and agnostics are non-believers because they have studied the lessons of the religion they left - often in-depth and often with the hopes of rekindling faith, if you read any of the stories they tell of their passage to atheism.

Interesting, at any rate. And sure to raise a lot of hackles.

I've got mine, screw you

Huckabee was blathering yesterday about the republican plan to revoke the 'pre-existing condition' clause in the new health care bill. The one that no longer allows insurance companies to refuse to cover a person because they either have a condition or have been treated for it in the past. Say, you were treated for colitis years ago, and have had a recurrence. An insurance company can refuse to pay for your treatment now and can reject you for insurance. Cancer treatment makes you pretty much uninsurable for any other insurance coverage. People get dropped from insurance rolls, and cannot get reinsured, because of this loophole in the insurance regulations that favor insurance companies.

At any rate, he compared the requirement that insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions to homeowners insurance companues being required to cover your burned-down house. Oh, it would be a nice thing, but it's patently ridiculous, he sneered.

No, you slack-jawed moron. Your analogy is absolutely wrong, and patently dishonest.

The analogy should be: Having an insurance company refuse you coverage because of a pre-existing condition is like trying to get homeowners insurance when your house burned town ten years ago, and you have rebuilt it, and they refuse to cover your existing house for fire because you once had a house fire.

What Huckabee is describing is what happens when you have no insurance, and finally end up in the emergency room trying to get treatment and pay for a condition that you currently have. He has completely misunderstood (or misrepresented, more likely) the entire issue. But it makes a nice soundbite, though, so I'm sure it will be touted as "truth" in no time.

Once again, the modern conservative movements credo is shining through: I've got mine, screw you. Look, if you dislike the idea of requiring insurance companies to provide insurance, regardless of pre-existing conditions, then argue against it; that's you're right. But do it honestly, eh? If you've got facts and evidence, provide them. If not, fanning the flames of fear and anxiety is not an acceptable alternative.

A Pot Rack Incident

We're having another scope creep issue here at Chez Phouka -- remember the pot rack in the old kitchen? The small hole in the wall to add a support for the pot rack ended up the impetus for totally redoing the bathroom?

At any rate, we finally got an offer from Comcast to swap over internet and tv and telephone that was too good to pass up, so we're moving all the services to Comcast from our current combination of Directv and Qwest. We're not unhappy with the service, but saving 70+ bucks a month for faster internet and HD cable was enough to do it.

But we only have one HD television, the projector in the theater downstairs. It's time to consider replacing the 15-year-old television in the living room with a new HD television, we decided.

...which will require getting a new piece of furniture, since the current entertainment armoire will fit the existing 32" CRT television and nothing else. We want a flat screen, and large enough to be worthwhile watching HD television, so it has to go, and we need some other component storage/media cabinet. This is surprisingly difficult for us - that armoire was the first piece of furniture we ever bought, and we both love it, it's just not workable.

...which requires that we either figure out where else it can go in the house, so as not to lose it, or we have to get rid of it entirely, which is emotionally difficult. Sigh. Moving it somewhere else would probably require moving other furniture pieces (I suggested moving it to the guest room, but it's a wee bit too big for that) somewhere else. It's like playing musical chairs with large pieces of furniture.

It's never just one thing, it is? I almost wish I could be that person who changes their house up every few years, new furniture, new paint, new stuff. I'm not. It took us almost a year to negotiate the painting of the living room a new color and the purchase of a new couch. It's not easy for us, apparently.

Wish us luck! We're out to look at televisions today (although we'll probably buy on line for price) and new pieces of furniture. Send any suggestions, we need them!

Frankensteinian Medicine

If anyone suggests that you should have a Nerve Conductance Test, make sure you have enough time to drink heavily beforehand. Ow! I now know exactly where all the nerves are, in detail, in my leg and hip... I know this because the doctor stuck little electrodes on me and then used a tiny medical Tazer to ZAP! each of the nerves in turn. Sometimes 10 times in a row.

Ok, it's not really horribly painful. It hurts, but more because that is not something you ever to yourself. It's awfully weird-feeling, though. I kept having the mental image of the Frankenstein monster being 'jolted' to life. "It's aaaaaa-live! Alive!".

Follow it with a muscle response test (which involved NEEDLES stuck in my leg) and my leg now hurts more than when I went in. I think I should convalesce on the couch for the rest of the afternoon. Just in case.

But - the outcome is good. The meralgia paresthetica diagnosis from six years ago seems to be absolutely correct, and the new symptom of pain is not damaging anything, just an annoying side effect. It's not even a progression of symptoms -- it may do this for awhile, then subside and go back to just being the weird numb spot on my leg, or it may 'act up' for a long time. My concern was that the pain wasn't a sign that something else was being damaged or something, and that walking wasn't going to cause eventual muscle damage or other nerve damage that might be important. A sensory nerve isn't necessary (in fact, if it gets bad, they can just cut the nerve) but it certainly does make you notice it!

Jackpot!

Wow! I knew that some universities in the US have made courses available online (via video or mp3, class notes, etc) but I didn't realize the sheer number of classes out there. Yale University, Berkeley, NYU, Oxford, tons of others -- all consolidated at a website called Academic Earth.

Jackpot! Tons of interesting classes by the top universities and colleges -- free.

Damn, I love the interwebs.

Dog Training

Most of the time when I go downstairs to plod along on the treadmill, both dogs follow me. They tend to follow me everywhere (if I let them), of course. I can't figure out what they find so fascinating about me walking in place, but it's cool down there and they like to lounge about while I exercise.

But now, when I announce that "I'm going downstairs to walk..." they both RUN to the basement door and then thunder downstairs to stand expectantly by the storage room door, tails wagging. Why? Because I -- ONCE -- went into the storage room where the dog biscuits are stored to give them a cookie before I started on the treadmill.

Once is apparently enough to convince them this is what 'going to walk' means. It means: run downstairs and we'll get a biscuit! Yeah!.

So, unlike every other dog on the planet, the word 'walk' has nothing to do with outside or a leash or sniffing every shrub for four blocks...it means 'go in the basement'

That's somehow every embarrassing.

Happy Wine Day

We are now in possession of two cases of new 2009 Mollydooker wines -- including seven bottles of the absolutely perfect Velvet Glove. I'm going to have to start inventing important celebratory holidays to warrant drinking them.

Let's see... the anniversary of our first toaster purchase. Yup! Dog's birthday. Sounds good! No rain on Tuesday, that'll do.

We tend to hoard this just a bit, since it's so good. Plan to be at our house for a major anniversary or birthday and we'll probably share.

Probably.

For Booklovers

You know you're a bookish, geekish sort when....you can name all but one of the covers pictured in this little quiz.

Ok, I really did miss 2, I knew what the book was but it was picky about the exact wording. They are mostly american covers, and not always new ones, at that.

Extra points if you can name the author for each of them....

Virtual Climbing

Well, real climbing, but a virtual hill, I guess!

According to my treadmill, I have walked 272 miles, and climbed over 38,000 feet. Woot!