bangmoney.org - Travel

The return of clean clothes

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:42:00 -0400

The long national nightmare of no washing machine is finally at an end.

Today I woke up late for some reason (probably because I didn't set an alarm) and left for work without first jumping on the VPN to see what was going on. Another important piece of information here is that my cell phone has been off almost the entire time I've been here because it's $2.50/minute so I haven't even bothered with the thing.

Anyway I rolled into work sometime just before 11 and Hanka (the office manager) appeared very excited to see me. As soon as I got in the door she was waving me down. Well it didn't really turn out to just be friendly. She'd been trying to get in contact with me via IRC (didn't check the VPN) and text message (didn't have the phone on) all morning because the washing machine repair man was on the way. So as soon as I got to work, I turned around and went back to the apartment.

The repairman wasn't waiting for me when I got back. He arrived perhaps 30 minutes later and got to work. He didn't speak any English so there wasn't really any talking going on. At one point he did plug in the machine and kill the power, confirming what I already knew. I'm not sure what exactly he did, but it involved replacing some coil from the inside of the machine and making it work again. Hooray for clean clothes.

Anyway after that it was almost noon so I figured I'd stay home a while longer. It wasn't like work was really missing me. So I went for a run. I went down the path beside the river and made it to the last road crossing before the Ikea, for a round trip distance of somewhere around four miles. I didn't quite run the entire way since that's a lot longer than I typically run, but I still got a good workout. It was also good because now I have a goal of being able to run there and back before leaving in another week and a half.

After that I finally went back to work sometime around 2pm. It's a good thing I don't have fixed hours.

More things I've noticed

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:40:00 -0400

I don't have anything specific to say, so it's time for another installment of unusual things I have noticed since I have been here. This time, here's what I have seen:

People take their dogs with them everywhere. This includes into restaurants. Just think about how well that would go over in the US for a bit.

You can have any kind of beer you want, as long as it's pilsner. I'm going to make what might be a very unpopular statement for someone in the Czech Republic, but pilsner is not my favorite style of beer. There's nothing wrong with it. I just don't find it all that exciting. Well that's too bad, because that's your only option in this country. There are loads of breweries and tons of bars, but they all really only serve pilsner. Sometimes you can also get a dark pilsner.

Public transportation is quick, efficient, and useful. This is a shocker coming from places that have MARTA (which is none of those things), or the T (which isn't really quick or efficient). The system here is all three AND you can take some form any time of the day. I don't even miss my car, except in the sense that I'm still paying for it right now while it sits in the Clocktower garage.

There are no obese people in the entire country. Okay, that's not quite true. I did see one the other day. But seriously, that's one in two weeks as opposed to the dozens you see daily in the US. Given the continuous consumption of liters of beer, fatty ground beef, and fried pork I am not at all sure what it is. My current theory is that not everything is filled with high fructose corn syrup.

Phone booths still exist. Quick, think of the last place you saw a pay phone, let alone one in its own enclosed booth.

This place is full of herna bars, most of which proudly proclaim that they are NON-STOP! A herna bar is like a miniature casino, complete with jackpot
signs out front, flashy ads, and promises of riches and good times. They usually also have attractive people on the signs in the windows - the kind you just know would never be seen in such a place. They're usually extremely depressing looking from the outside what with the covered windows and bad neighborhood. I can only imagine how soul-destroying they are inside.

All the appliances in this apartment are tiny. They look pretty small from the outside, but that's only a disguise. From the inside they are just laughably small. The washing machine holds approximately three towels. The dishwasher holds about four plates and four glasses. The fridge is basically pocket sized. I guess that's just the way things are done over here.

That's about all I can think of for now. I'll be sure to keep up a list of more unusual things and post it when I batch up enough and have nothing better to say.

Washing

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:39:00 -0400

Last night was an interesting experience. I'm here for three weeks total, but I only brought about a week's worth of clothes because there's a washing machine in the apartment. There's no dryer, but I can take care of that part easy enough. This sounded pretty good to me since it meant I wouldn't have to haul twenty pounds of clothes across the ocean and I wouldn't be taking twenty pounds of dirty clothes back with me. I hate that.

Anyway I'd been told the washing machine was tiny and a little unusual to work with. In fact I'd been told all the appliances were unusual because they'd pause if turned off and resume when turned back on. Oh also all the controls are pictures and all the measurements are in Celsius instead of "hot"/"warm"/"cold". Whatever.

On the outside, the washing machine was every bit as small as I'd been led to believe. On the inside, it was even more hilariously small. I crammed in two shirts, pair of pants, couple socks, and locked the drum. Then I added detergent, closed the lid, and deciphered the directions to my satisfaction. I turned some knobs and pressed the start button, which caused the machine to immediately begin making a series of grinding noises and pauses.

A quick check with previous residents verified that such noises were to be expected. So I sat down at the laptop to do something while the washer ran. About half an hour later, the power went out. At first I didn't make the connection. I wandered around in the dark until I stumbled across the front door then checked and made sure the power was still on in the hall. Okay, so it's just my apartment. I wandered around a while longer looking for a flashlight by cell phone screen but none was to be found. So I took the cell phone and found the breaker box. Sure enough, the main had tripped.

Well the pieces were coming together now. I went and unplugged the washing machine and reset the main breaker. Everything except the washing machine came back on. Success! Now to test my theory... I went and plugged the washer back in. As soon as the poles made contact in the socket, the breaker tripped again. So my theory was right.

Unfortunately now I had a washer full of wet, soapy clothes and no way to clean enough stuff for the rest of my trip. I spent the rest of the night rinsing clothes out in the sink and hanging them up around the apartment. Now I just need to find a laundromat (do such things exist here?) and get someone to come repair the washer. I can only imagine how warranty service works in other countries. More to come...

Things I've Noticed

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:22:13 -0400

Well I have been here in Brno, Czech Republic for a couple days now. I've made it in to the office every day this week, wandered around town a bit, and even navigated the grocery store. The only significant troubles so far were on Tuesday where I decided it would be a good idea to walk to the office (actually, the smallest coin I had was 50 Kr and the tram pass machine didn't take it), took a couple wrong turns, and got lost. It didn't turn out too bad since I saw a lot of new stuff and in the end basically ended up walking around in a big circle back to my apartment. After that I was able to buy a drink and use the change for tram fare.

Anyway here are some random things I have noticed.

Almost no one walks across the street when they have a red indicator. Compare this to how any big city in the US works with people crossing whenever they feel like it. I think this is probably because all the trams make it slightly more dangerous to do that here.

Just like the rest of Europe (so I'm told) they love their sparkling water over here. If you want the genuine article, the magic words are "voda neperliva".

You probably don't want water anyway, as beer is by far the cheapest drink around. A little thimble full of juice costs about 30 Kr (around $2) while a big half liter glass of beer costs about 25 Kr. Remember, the Czech Republic drinks the most beer per capita of any country in the world. It just happens to be largely pilsner.

The first floor on buildings is called the ground floor, and the second floor is called the first floor. Remember that when pushing an elevator button.

If you like 24 hour video poker, this is the place for you. There are non-stop herna bars all over the place, especially down near the main train station.

Doors usually open inward, which anyone from New York, Chicago, or San Francisco will tell you is a recipe for disaster. They also tend to have knobs that don't turn. Oh, and they don't close flush with the wall but stick out a bit. A picture would illustrate this better but I don't have one right now.

The trams go basically everywhere. I'm not really sure why you would own a car here unless you did a lot of travel (even still, the buses between towns are really cheap) or had a lot of stuff to transport. When the trams stop running, the bus system covers much of the same territory.

There are a ton of students in this town. Seriously, the place is mobbed with them.

The language is every bit as impenetrable as I expected. I can understand a couple words like place names, beer, water, one, yes/no, good day, thank you, and please. But even when I know what to say, I keep screwing up the ending of the word leading to some confusion and someone else having to translate. Lucky for me most people in the office speak English because of all the nationalities in one place.

It's really the little things that make it seem the strangest. Toilets work differently. Light switches work differently. The controls on all appliances are completely different. Washing machines and dishwashers are hilariously small. All the beds are singles that have been stuck together to form a larger bed. Ventilation fans tend to turn themselves on and off. Windows lean in to open rather than slide up and down.

I went into a store and asked for a Coke. The lady didn't know what I meant despite having an entire cooler of the stuff. I thought it was supposed to be the most recognized brand name in the world.

But you know, it's really not all that different. The language makes things seem a lot stranger than they are, but when it comes down to it they just have different ways of doing all the same things. I'm sure our ways would seem every bit as unusual. If I could get a rudimentary understanding of the language figured out, I think I could get around quite easily. I'd also feel less like a bumbling tourist. Over the next couple days, I'm going to try to wake up early and wander around parts of town to take pictures and get a feel for the place. That sort of stuff is hard to do when you're on a work trip and in the office all day.

I'll try to post again tonight with some more information.

And I'm here

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:21:58 -0400

Sometime around 10pm Sunday night, I got to the office apartment in Brno, which was a quick 30 hours after leaving my apartment in Nashua. Sure that includes six hours of time difference, but it's still a very long trip. As I write this it's 4:25PM local time on Monday. Who knows what time it is where you are. There was some confusion at the office as to whether I made it or not so this post is mostly directed at them to let them know I'm still alive.

I left the apartment around 3:30 on Saturday. I had to catch a cab to the bus station because the city buses don't run when I need them to on Saturday. Stupid small towns and its stupid transportation system. Then I caught a bus to Logan airport. The bus ride was uneventful though I wondered about how profitable it was to run a bus when only seven people were on it. Anyway I got to the international terminal with plenty of time to spare since my flight was at 9:40PM. Getting through security with a passport was way less interesting than I thought. The international terminal was too. It was just like a regular terminal, except with a currency exchange and a duty free store. It was kind of boring, really. Anyway I grabbed some food, talked on the phone, played video games, and eventually it was time to go.

Nothing notable happened on my transatlantic flight to Amsterdam. I actually ate a real meal on the plane for the first time since I can remember and I got free booze. But neither of those are really noteworthy events. I was able to carry out stage one of my plan to beat jet lag by sleeping a little bit on the plane. I got woken up when the sun came out and ate a little breakfast. Then we landed in Amsterdam around 11AM local time.

The Amsterdam airport was nice, but food was very expensive. My lunch of a sandwich and Coke cost 8 Euro. To get to lunch, I first had to pass through passport control. Once again, it was not very interesting. I stood in line for ten minutes or so, the guy looked at my passport, asked me where I was going, and stamped it. I was expecting more of an interrogation. I ate, wandered around aimlessly for a while, checked out the duty free shops and other stores, and started working on "Against the Day". Most everything in Amsterdam was in both Dutch and English so I got around with no troubles. The liquor in the duty free shops was very cheap. I should remember this for the way back. Overall it was a very modern and clean, though pricy, airport.

The flight to Prague was on a Czech Airlines flight. Here is where I noticed things were getting more interesting. I was no longer in the land of English-first. All the announcements were in Czech, usually followed by English. Fine, it's their airline so their language should be first. Also it was kind of nice. If I wanted to be able to understand everything, I would have stayed home. I got a snack and a free beer on this flight which was only a little longer than an hour. The in-flight magazine was bilingual so I read that.

At the Prague airport, most thing were still in two languages. I recovered my checked luggage without incident and got through the lack of customs too. It seems that the theme of this trip is no bureaucracy. I wandered around for a while and found the bankomat (ATM) to get some local currency then went in search of a phone card to call people and let them know I was down. No luck - they were either all sold out or they didn't have cards that worked at the airport. That was pretty surprising. And since my international roaming rate is $2.49 a minute, I didn't call anyone to tell them I had landed.

The bus to downtown Prague was also easy to find. I was beginning to think that maybe this whole trip would go without a hitch. Well, I was wrong. All I had for a bus ticket was a printout with a reservation number on it. I mumbled something to the lady working at the bus that I was going to Brno, and she responded to get on and I would have to change buses downtown. I knew that. We weaved through Prague which looked pretty dirty to me. I guess the bus station side of town is not the best side. Also, it was overcast and raining. I have been assured that I brought the bad weather to town.

When I got to the downtown station to transfer, I assumed I would be getting on the next bus to Brno. But no, I got to the front of the line, explained how I only had the number and not an actual ticket, and the lady told me I would be on the next bus. Then she promptly stepped onto the bus and off it went. She had a clipboard with a bunch of numbers on it, and my reservation number was nowhere to be found. This was at 5:30PM. At 6 I repeated this procedure but with a different lady. Same thing at 6:30. I was beginning to get really anxious, not to mention cold and tired of travelling. Were these people just telling me I was always going to be on the next bus just to get rid me of? Finally I went and asked at the information booth which bus I should be on. She told me I would be on the 7PM bus. Okay, I'll get my hopes up. When that bus pulled up I got back in line and got the same answer - no, you're not on this bus. Lucky for me, there were two buses to Brno at that time and I was really supposed to be on the second. It sure was nice to hear her say "seat 45" instead of "no, you're not on this bus" like I've been getting for the last ninety minutes.

I guess this is where people at the office started to worry, since I was supposed to be in Brno around 7:30 to meet with my coworkers and see where the apartment is. I of course didn't have my phone on. So two hours later when I got to the bus station in Brno, I had old messages asking me where I was. I responded and soon after stepping off the bus I saw Martin wearing his red work fedora so I knew just who he was.

The apartment was only about a five minute walk away, which gave my knees some time to stop screaming at me from all the cramped transportation seating. Once there, we debated going to get some food (not a lot of options at 10PM on a Sunday, but still) but I decided bed was a better plan. So I sat around the place for a little while just checking things out and got to sleep.

And that is my transportation story. Want to hear about the office or the apartment or my first impressions of this place? You'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Planes, busses, and more busses

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:37:57 -0400

Today, I leave for a long work trip to Brno, Czech Republic. This is my first time flying outside of the continent so it's about equal parts exciting and terrifying. While I'm looking forward to being over there and seeing some place totally new, I'm not really looking forward to the two bus rides and two plane rides I will be experiencing over the next eighteen hours. I would say that my flight is through KLM, but due to the maze of twisty code shares I am actually flying on Northwest. Whatever. As long as they serve some drinks I should be able to eventually fall asleep. I arrive sometime around 8pm local time tomorrow, which works out to 2pm Eastern. We'll see how my body handles that.

The Czech language looks pretty impenetrable - full of strange combinations of consonants like zd and dz, and vowels I've never heard of like k. I've got a lot of maps and other information printed out so I should be able to find my way around reasonably well the first day or two, but I think there are going to be a lot of really disoriented moments and times where I just can't understand what people are yelling at me. It should be a lot of fun.

While I'm there for work, I am hoping to be able to do some sightseeing as well. Brno looks like it should be an interesting mix of very old architecture, Soviet-era block buildings, and ultra-modern construction. As long as work doesn't have me sitting behind a keyboard the entire time, I should be able to wander around the city and check everything out. Conveniently, I'll be staying in a company apartment very close to downtown. I'm also planning a weekend trip to Prague (where I'll be flying in and out of, incidentally) to tour that area. It's supposed to be a very scenic place.

For English language entertainment while traveling and staying there, I'm taking Against the Day, Pynchon's latest work (you're on notice, Death Pact people) and my stack of Mystery Science Theater DVDs. That way when I get sick of listening to crazy Czech pop on the radio and soccer (or is that football?) on the TV, I can look at something whose sentence structure I understand.

Anyway, I had better step away from the computer and get this travel thing started. Updates to come in the future, hopefully more frequently than I've been doing. Having something new to talk about every day should help that.

My trip to T3 Indian Purchase

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:30:11 -0400

This past weekend, I went on a whitewater rafting trip in deepest, darkest Maine with Lon and a bunch of other people. We went down the Penobscot River way up near Baxter State Park. This was my first whitewater rafting trip, so it was pretty exciting.

Continue reading "My trip to T3 Indian Purchase"

Cleveland rocks

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:21:18 -0400

This past weekend, I made yet another trip to Cleveland to visit Sarah. Due to various other travel commitments (weddings, guests, seeing other friends) it had been since May since I was there last. I didn't expect it had changed much, but it's still always nice to get out of town for several days. So Thursday evening after work, I got on a plane in Manchester, NH and flew through Baltimore to Cleveland.
Continue reading "Cleveland rocks"

Back from Cleveland

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:45:00 -0400

I just got back from visiting Sarah in Cleveland. I left on Thursday evening right after work and just got back in the door. Since it's late and I have to be at work early in the morning, I can't post too much but I wanted to say why I have been a little light on posting recently. The short story is that we went on a bunch of tours and ate a lot of food. I came back with a cheap wool sweater for hiking, a couple empty bottles from samples I left her, and an imperial pint glass from a bar special. This was the first time I've been to Cleveland since my ill-fated trip there in May. This one worked out a whole lot better. I had a lot of fun.

I'll try to remember to post more about this in the next day or two. I know I said that about the Charlottesville trip but never got around to it. Maybe I will correct that oversight too while I'm at it.

Big Wedding Time

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 23:21:11 -0400

This past weekend, I went to see my good friends Will and Leah (of the Willrad comic fame) get married in Greensboro, NC. I've known Will since back in the Slackware Alpha port days when he worked at Compaq on Alpha Linux stuff, and I met Leah through him some time later. Will was also responsible for getting me my current job and I now live right down the street from where he used to live. So despite knowing me, he still asked me to be in his wedding.

Continue reading "Big Wedding Time"

Another weekend, another city

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:12:00 -0400

I spent this past weekend in Chicago. The reason I was there is because Ted and Nikki are getting married, and I'm one of the groomsmen. That means I need to go to do various things like run off to wedding showers when announced. That's what went on this past weekend. Let's see if I can make this entry not be as crappy as the others.

Friday
I left work around 4pm and drove down to the Alewife T station, where I took the red line to the silver line to the airport. I really prefer flying out of Manchester if at all possible, but it just didn't work out this time. The silver line is pretty weird - it's a tunnel that busses run through complete with underground stations and everything. It's like a rail line, only with busses. At least it shaves one train transfer off the trip. My flight was bumpy near Boston (it had been storming) but otherwise uneventful. Ted was nice enough to pick me up way out at O'Hare and drive back to his place.

We got back to his house sometime around 10pm and enjoyed a couple beers out on the back porch with Nikki, her friend Ruth, and Ted's brother, Charlie. Didn't really talk about too much of significance but we sure did talk about it for hours. I also saw the good work they'd been doing on their living room - looks very nice. Sometime around 2 or 3am, I stumbled back inside and down to the basement for some sleep.

Saturday
One of the problems with going to Chicago is that Ted and I are on completely different sleep patterns. He can sleep all day and usually sleeps in late on weekends. I try to sleep in, but once it starts getting really bright where I am, I'm doomed. So I woke up around 9:30 and putzed around the house. By about noon, everyone else had woken up and we could start looking for some food. By this time I was feeling pretty bad from the lack of food and sleep and from the beers the night before. I choked down some breakfast/lunch to fight the sickness so we could run errands.

Our two major errands for the day were the tux fitting and getting supplies for the party later that night. Getting measured and picking out tuxes went pretty well, though everything else about that was a disaster. We went with some pretty average looking tuxes though we have to wear vests that match the color of the bridesmaid we're paired up with. I'm paired with Ruth so for some reason, that means a gold vest. Weird. Well, the store already had a Thomas Fortner wedding down with the exact same phone number so that caused a bunch of problems. Then for some reason after a long while longer, they got everything in but we ended up being associated with the Smith/Smith wedding on August 1. Sounds more like the Uninitialized Value wedding to me. I'd say the chances of us getting those tuxes at the right time are pretty low.

The second errand was picking up party supplies - more beer, vegetables, soft drinks, and so forth. Our first stop was Costco and by the time we got there, I was starting to feel sick to my stomach. It was close, but nothing happened and we were able to get giant proportions of everything we needed. Then we ran off to Jewel for the rest of the supplies. I tried getting down a Coke with some success on the way home. When we got back, Ted, Charlie, and Nikki worked on getting ready while I went downstairs to nap. I felt like a chump for doing this, but I wanted to be sociable later on.

I was woken up an hour or two later by the Dead's "Monkey and the Engineer", so I knew it was a good time to get up. More people showed up (though conspicuously not Mark or Monica, two other members of the wedding party who flaked out on us) so I made a bit of an effort to be social. We got up to around 25 people complete with many sets of parents and various school/work friends. I felt better after the absolutely delicious dinner of grilled pork tenderloin, brats, pasta salad, mashed sweet potatoes, homebrew wine, and velvet cake. More hanging out on the back porch until late into the night. I tried to feel sick again, but nothing happened and after a little Alka Seltzer, I was great.

Ruth had a pretty exciting night with us and decided it would be best to sleep on the new upstairs couch. Always a good idea.

Sunday
I woke up around 10am and was pretty soon joined by everyone else. We had a breakfast of grits, scrambled eggs, and bacon - a great way to start the day. After a little of that and some talking, Ruth headed out. The rest of us sat around to look up airplane information. We left at noon to drop Charlie off at Midway and then me at O'Hare. While it's not a bad airport, it's so far away from their house. I got there in plenty of time to sit around playing Metroid Zero Mission and look for some overpriced food.

The flight back left at 3:30 central time. We got to sit on the runway for a while which is always fun. Then I had to deal with a layover at LaGuardia. The best part about this was how the bus to the other terminal had absolutely no markings at all so I just sat by a gate hoping my instructions were right and that someone would come to get me. Eventually, they did. I got to sit on another runway for a long time while they cleared up the traffic jam. I finally got back to Logan after nine, rode the hottest T car ever, and stumbled through my door sometime around 11pm.

It was a pretty fun trip, despite feeling like crap for most of Saturday. I think the wedding in September ought to be a lot of fun if I can manage to not be a wreck for a change. The really lame part was how I felt the best on Sunday when it was time to leave.

July Fourth in Columbus

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 23:49:00 -0400

It's taken me several days to decide exactly what I should write about regarding last weekend. I think I finally have it figured out. I spent last weekend (Friday night through Monday morning) camping in the backyard of some friends in Columbus, OH and generally partying. Those of you who are familiar with me may recall that I used to be very active on the everything2 website, a sort of communal group of writers. As time has gone on, the site has moved more and more towards quality of writing rather than the community aspects and most of my friends from the site have left. Therefore, so have I. Incidentally, it is through this site that I know most of the people I am always travelling around to hang out with.

A few years ago, it was a very popular thing to have a gathering of people from this site in various cities. I've been to these gatherings in Atlanta, Nashville, Sparta NC, and a previous one in Columbus. This trend sort of died out (or at least I became much less aware of it) recently so I stopped paying much attention. It came as a little bit of a surprise to me that Sarah told me there was going to be a rather large gathering in Columbus over July Fourth. Having not seen a lot of my friends in a long time, I decided it would be a great time. I booked a flight to Cleveland where I'd meet Sarah, and we drove down on Friday night.

I don't particularly want to go into too many specifics because to most people, sitting in someone's back yard drinking local beer and talking would seem pretty boring. At the very least, it may not seem like a very exciting way to spend the holiday. So let me share some high points with you. We played an impromptu dodge ball game in the park downtown where I learned I still suck at it. We played a little frisbee afterwards that made me feel a little bit better about myself. We made fun of the way people talk in Mass, which was great fun. I got the pleasure of sleeping in a very hot tent in the back yard and waking up extra early when the sun came streaming in. We ate tons of pulled pork and watched Spaceballs on a projection screen. Steve and I got to spend a couple hours one night helping a kid who'd had too much to drink and was busy vomiting up everything he'd had the past couple days. That might have been the low point, now that I think about it. We still got a couple laughs in at his expense. Of course, the high point of everything was getting to hang out with Sarah again.

We had to leave early on Monday morning so we could drive back to Cleveland in time for my early afternoon flight. Only a couple people were up at that time and we were able to share a few parting moments with them. I think for me, this was the best part of the weekend - seeing all my old friends and getting to share a couple days together. I don't see many of these guys too often even though I know better and have the funds to do it. It was just nice being able to see all them again and I hope to do it all over sometime soon. In the meantime, I need to plan trips down to Nashville to hang out with Scott and Julia, and another down to Charlottesville to see Jessica.

I guess I didn't really have too much to say about the weekend. What can you really talk about that would be exciting, though? I'm not a particularly good writer and we didn't do all that much that might be interesting for people who weren't there. This weekend I get to travel again. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon to fly to Chicago. Ted and Nikki are having their wedding shower and as a groomsman, I need to be there to get a tux fitted and make sure there's not excess beer. I'll be back on Sunday night late and hopefully have something interesting to talk about.

Back from the dead

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0500

The move went pretty well - I'm now settled into my apartment in Nashua and have even started that new job thing (Red Hat for anyone who didn't already know). On the bangmoney.org front, Speakeasy got DSL installed pretty quickly. There are still some name service problems floating around but I'm hoping those get ironed out within another day or two. Until then, access will be limited to people using nameservers with the right information.

On the move

nospam@example.com (Chris Lumens) — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 00:00:00 -0500

It's been just about a year now, so it's time for me to move again. I'm off to Nashua, NH this time. As such, bangmoney.org is going to be down for a couple weeks while I move and DSL gets hooked up. It should be going down around 11/4 and I estimate at most three weeks of downtime. Speakeasy has been contacted and is working on setting up DSL for me at the new place, so it's just a matter of time. Of course, this means all projects, mail, etc. will be unavailable for a little while. Here's hoping it goes smoothly.