Last November I had the pleasure of entertaining an old friend of mine, if only for a couple of days. Phil Lee was my boss, twice, back in my southern California life. First, he hired me for the position of Document Control Specialist for Energy Innovations, an Idealab startup located in Pasadena, CA. It was…
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Ten Years Ago Today
It was exactly 10 years ago to the day that I finalized the second biggest change in my life and the biggest change yet of my own volition. On March 19th, 2010 I boarded a Poland-bound plane with a one-way ticket in hand ready for change, landing in Wrocław a full day later on the…
The Other Side of the Owl
We’ve been to the local Owl Mountains a few times in the past, but we’ve mostly hit the same trails since we simply didn’t know any better. So when the weather forecast called for a super sunny and warm day this past Saturday, we knew that we had to spend that day outdoors, but we…
Dresden Christmas Market
Speaking of Dresden… There are quite a few things that took place between our trip to Dresden in August and today, but since today’s story also deals with Dresden, I’ll just write about it now. Today, however, the temperature was hovering around freezing, it snowed at one point, and most important difference of all, we…
Women of EICMA 2016
I was really trying to write a meaningful blog entry just now, but simply nothing was making any sense as soon as I typed it. I figured it just wasn’t a good evening to write. So, without further ado, I leave you with all the models of EICMA 2016. Please note that most of these…
Deine Schwalbe
I’m guilty of neglecting this blog a little. Well, neglecting it a lot actually. And I’m not one to make excuses, it’s just that I’ve been pretty busy in other areas of my life. One such area is the Schwalbe scooter seen below. My role in this scooter is that of a project manager. I…
Vacation Food
There are two things we consumed in heavy rotation during our stay at the sea side: fish & chips, and waffles! Ok, so there was an occasional smoked fish, too, but all in all, fish and waffles was the theme of our daily routine. An extremely delicious routine if I may say so myself. Fish & chips…
Trailer Trike
I saw this trike pulling a trailer on the highway today. Honestly, I don’t see any sense in this. You’re out in the open to the elements, but you’re basically a car. With a camper trailer to boot. The setup itself is pretty impressive though.
Selling My Zoom
Remember my ‘Rust Bucket List’ post from 2011 where I introduced my newish Mazda 6? (LINK here) Well, five years later it’s time to bid farewell to that rust bucket, very literally speaking. Turns out that Mazda 6, years 2003 to 2008, was really poorly weatherproofed and rust is only a matter of ‘when’. Sure enough…
Vespa PX125
A couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a Vespa PX125 by Piaggio. A model made sometime between 1983 and 1985 according to the VIN number. I did not buy this scooter, nor is it mine to keep. I was simply asked to evaluate its current state as it hasn’t been ridden in…
Frankie Says Relax
When I was just a kid, my dad had a pretty extensive record collection. Or at least it seemed extensive in my child eyes. There were tapes, too. Lots of them. But there was this one album I was always afraid to listen to alone. Hey, I was just a kid, remember? Anyway, the album was…
Sushi Night
Speaking of fish… Every now and again we get together within our circle friends for a movie night. The usual scenario is that we collectively pick a genre of the movie we would like to watch and discuss, every couple submits a movie title in that genre, we then vote on the movie, watch it,…
Wrocław, by the Sea
Catching up with regularly scheduled blog posting… Wrocław is some 460km (267miles) from the Baltic sea. That’s about a seven hour drive on crappy Polish expressways, making Wrocław as un-coastal as possible. So what do you do when you’re in a mood for fresh sea food without the hassle of a fourteen hour round trip? You…
PMI Certified
I’ve been very much absent from the blog for some time, but in my defence I do have a pretty valid reason for my time away from here. It’s called Project Management Institute, PMI for short. I took a 5 day Project Management Professional prep course in November, filled out an extensive PMI application some time…
Losing The Signal
Only recently did I start to appreciate the wonder that is an audiobook. I never paid audiobooks much attention because I could never focus on listening to something meaningful while performing another task at the same time. Until I started regularly walking our chocolate lab Fado. Fado doesn’t really care if I walk along with…
The Silent Treatment
Some time ago I did an SSD hard drive upgrade to my aging Mid 2012 MacBook Pro. I threw out the original Toshiba 750gig drive for a speedy Kingston 240gb SSD. The speed boost was extreme, but that was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was how quiet the laptop got. Totally, absolutely, dead…
Bergamo, Italy
I spent the first half of this week in Bergamo, Italy, visiting a plastics manufacturer named Acerbis. I had previously only stopped by Bergamo on my way to Milan, and I must say that I was impressed by what Bergamo had to offer. The city has this totally european/Italian vibe to it. Pizza shops closed…
80th Birthday
Today is my grandmother’s 80th birthday. We had a small dinner with family on Sunday to celebrate following a church mass in her honour. But it’s today, February 9th, that grandma Helga turns 80th. Happy birthday grandma! And many more to come!
Frozen Over
So, what’s up? Haven’t been on here in a while. I’ve tried, time and again, to write that special ‘first 2016’ blog post…and sort of lost track of time. January is almost over and my last post was somewhere mid December. Crap. Is anyone out there still reading my stuff anyway? Well, to those that…
The Queen
During my Transalp days, I often rode with groups that almost always included at least one or two Honda Africa Twin motorcycles. The “Queen” they call it. Twenty years old and long discontinued, it was the enduro motorcycle that would never die. Well, a few beers into any Africa Twin conversation you’ll get a short…
The Polish Magician 