The Happiest Place on Earth

No, for the last few weeks of September and beginning of October it is not Disney, it is Munich, Germany and the great Oktoberfest! Again, taking advantage of my current situation, I hoped on a plane Thursday morning with a buddy from work to go check out what the big deal was, and it was great.

We arrived at the fairgrounds about 1:30 on Thursday afternoon and it was packed. We made our way through a few tents without finding a place to sit before settling for an outside table to get started. I had been offered tickets to join a vendor who had a table starting at 5:00 so we made our way there and enjoyed the atmosphere, the beer and the music inside. Knowing that we had more friends coming in on Friday and that we would want to put on a good show for them, we called it a night relatively early and went back to the hotel.

On Friday we struck out into the city center area. The buildings were just amazing. It was a really nice down town area, so much different than Cologne. It seemed bigger and cleaner.

After finding a place to get some good schnitzel, we made our way to the festivities again. We capitalized on our experience from the day before and found a table outside to start. At about 4 we went to a tent and met Caren, one of the waitresses, as soon as we walked in. She asked if we had a table, when we told her, "No." She told us to wait right there. Two minutes later she came back and led us to a table that was just big enough for all 10 of us.

This was completely different than the night before, since it wasn't a corporate thing, the people were much more relaxed and, um, lubricated. The band played a larger variety of music (I never would have guessed I would be singing John Denver songs in the middle of Munich!) and Caren made sure we were never too empty or hungry.



Unlike Thursday, we gave a much better showing on Friday and stayed until they turned the lights off on us. The really great thing was that with very, very few exceptions, no one got out of hand, the place was very clean, and when it was time to break it up for the night, it was just a bunch of happy drunks finding their way to where-ever they needed to be next, so unlike most events like this in the US.

Next year they will wonder what happened

It happened, I have hit the top of the ladder, the frequent flyer ladder that is.

I have officially earned 100,540 qualifying miles and that is not counting my flight to Singapore which hasn't been credited yet. About 30,000 of these miles aren't actually flight miles, but instead are bonus miles for flying in business (thank you DHL).

The kicker of this all is next year whatever job I go into, I will definitely not be traveling half as much and I will go from being Chairman's Club (good until March 2009) to, um, well, they don't have a name for that club, maybe I will make Silver again, but I doubt it. In any case, if I'm not traveling, does it really matter if I belong to an elite travel club? Membership does have it's privileges, but it does come at a cost...

A sad day

No, it isn't the rain, or the cold weather. I did something today which may shock some people, in a way it shocked me. I sold the Harley. (For my other motorcycling friends, don't worry, I didn't go entirely off the deep end and buy a BMW or anything like that.)

I say it shocked me in a way because this is something I have been talking about ever since moving here mainly due to the economics of it all. Harley's are inherently worth more and with the dollar doing as poorly as it has recently, it made the difference even more pronounced. But it was always talk. Actions are much harder to do.

I started this process on Saturday when I took it to the car wash to clean all the dirt and grime from the trip through the Alps off before going to the dealership to get a quote from them, which was pretty decent, I really wouldn't have sold it for too much more if I had done it myself and the whole language barrier with buyers would have been a real pain.

All the rest of the day and a lot of Sunday I thought about it and tried to figure out why it was a big deal to me and why I didn't just hand over the keys, but instead said, "Let me think about it and come back on Tuesday". Knowing dang well what the outcome was going to be.

Some theories I have come up with:

1. It is a part of my identity. Not as much as other parts, but when put together with all of the other parts, it is a very unique combination. Many of the people I work with know about my passion for motorcycles and frequently bring it up when I meet with them. Especially here, not many people ride Harley's let alone commute in a suit on them.

2. It was my first bike. After riding at the police department I knew I wanted one. It took a few years to be able to work it out and when I did I thought for sure it would be my only bike and with me for a very long time.

3. I worry about what the bike thinks. I know, crazy thought. But I read a book last year by Jeremy Clarkson, a personality on BBC's Top Gear. The book was titled "I know you got soul" and was about machines - mainly vehicles - and that although they were inanimate objects, they had a soul to them. The Concord was one of the great vehicles he highlighted and as he felt sorry for the plane when it was grounded he wondered if the plane thought "What have I done, why do they not want me to fly anymore."

So in the short term, I am not a biker by ownership, yet deep inside I will continue to love Harley's and will always look for the dealerships in the odd cities I end up in. I will also very likely walk away from those dealerships with a shot glass or t-shirt in hand. And one day, in the not so distant future, I will most likely ride out of one of those dealerships with a little more than a T-shirt...

German TV Sucks

As many of you know, we haven't watched much TV here because all we get is German Cable. We could have spent a decent amount of money to buy a satellite dish and then Sky TV from the UK, but when we thought about "writing the check" it just didn't seem to make sense to spend all of that money just to watch TV.

This means we are relegated to watching only two English speaking channels, BBC and CNN. We occasionally watch Eurosport and other channels that sometimes carry sports because you don't really need to understand the commentators to get the enjoyment out of the game. Then there is the occasional Bloopers show, again, you don't need to understand the host to laugh at a guy getting whacked by his kid with a wiffle ball bat.

Today it got worse. The World Championship for Road Racing is being hosted in Stuttgart, Germany today. It is only a 1 day race, but all of the big names come out for it to win the honor of being the World Champion and wear the rainbow jersey all next year. According to the TV listings, it was supposed to be on two channels, RTL and Eurosport. Well, RTL had the Formula 1 race from Japan on. The race must have been seriously delayed from rain. When it was supposed to end, it was just at lap 7 of 67. Cycling was pre-empted. So off to Eurosport. YES! They had the race - live!

So here I am having lunch, doing some work on the computer, listening to the iPod and watching the race. After the 7th lap ended, the TV goes to commercial. Time to get up to get a drink. I come back to find Eurosport has changed their programming in the middle of the race to the Women's World Cup Final between Germany and Brazil! What happened to the race? I flipped through all 30 channels and found the soccer match on twice, F1 still going strong and some other auto race as well. But no cycling. Oi!

UPDATE: After RTL finished the F1 race, they did not go to Cycling, instead a dubbed version of the A-Team - Go Mr. T!