It's Steve (now in blog form)

I’ve been in Sundance for the last couple of days with the good folks from HP (they were nice enough to invite me along to one of their events).  It’s a really pretty place if you can get over the whole snow thing.  I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of matter changing states when you get right down to it (sublimation is obviously an exception as it is very cool).  Check out the views from the hotel:

Those of you that have been following my blog for a while can probably imagine why I was excited to get up here…REVERSE PAPARRAZI!  The exciting game of asking famous people to take photos of you (full details here).  I figured I’d be bound to bump into a few famous folks at a boondoggle like this.  Last night it all worked out.

My hosts organized a lovely dinner in town and brought their new spokespeople Michael Phelps and Dara Torres.  Jonny Moseley was also at dinner as there was a ski activity he was involved in the next day.  Oh yeah, three gold medalists on paid to be in attendance.  Time to force them to pretend to be happy to talk to me.

Phelps shot this pic of me and Dara Torres.  Awesome.  Can’t believe that (a) she’s 41 (b) she’s so much freakin’ taller than I am .  Damn it.

Moseley took this one of Chris and me.  He’s a cool dude.  Gave his number to Chris’ wife so she could text him and they could meet up on the mountain for ski tips.  

 

It’s also worth noting that Moseley apparently took ballet for a while.  I don’t think he’d had as much to drink as I’d had, but here he is working through his exercises.

It feels really good to have found a whole new class of celebrity to harass and impose upon.

Update: Just to handle all you naysayers, here’s a pic of Michael Phelps taking my pic.

I was in Paris a few weeks ago for a conference and hadn’t gotten around to writing it up yet. Ben is asleep, Kim is out with her mother, and I’ve had a couple of cocktails so here are some random thoughts about my last trip to Paris.

I really like the Louvre- It is in no way an overstatement to say that the Louvre may be the best museum in the world.  From the architecture of the building itself to the collections, it is just incredible.  I’d been there before, but this time I made a point to check out some parts of the museum I’d never visited.

The Louvre was originally a fortress that was eventually modified into the structure that it is today.  There is a path to the lower levels that include some of the original donjon and the only remaining portion of the medieval complex.  They were uncovered during excavation to put in IM Pei’s pyramid in the courtyard.

I also made it to the Egyptian area.  Some of this really struck me.  How can you not like a culture that would sculpt happy/hungry hippos in a variety of colors?

They also have an impressive collection of Egyptian sarcophagi.  I’d not seen them displayed in a line like this with the lids before.  The interesting part is that a number of the lids were decorated on the inside.  That just seems like a practical consideration from a people that gave a lot of thought to the afterlife.

The Middle Eastern room was really something to see.  The corridor leading into it was amazing and I really like the happy Iranian.  Sadly, my picture of Hamurabi’s code failed to come out. Damn.

I was the biggest dork in France- In a land known for their abiding love for Jerry Lewis, I may just be dorky enough to develop my own French following.  I certainly made a valid try at it while I was in town.  I went on a Segway tour of the city on Sunday and it was amazing.  If you go to Paris, look up City Segway Tours.  Here’s their card.

Segways are great.  Over the course of about four hours on a very cold morning we covered a ton of ground.  Our guide would give us a bit of the history and then we’d zip off to our next destination.  The key to effective Segway driving, according to our guide, is watching out for the four P’s: people, poles, poop and poodles.   It was cold and snowing a bit, but I’d absolutely do it again in a minute.  This is my new favorite way to see a city.  Here are some of my best around Paris.

Check out all of my Paris pics here.

I’m in Paris between events and have a few more minutes to myself.  No time like the present to complete the Barcelona recap.  The food was good, but what makes Barcelona really special is it’s ability to brilliantly combine the incredibly cool with the incredibly stupid.  Don’t worry.  I have examples!

Happy Pills are cool- This is a great store front.  Had it been a pharmacy it would have been very very clever.  As it was only a candy shop, I’ll give it only one very.  Very clever.

Rhinoceroses in denim gas masks are stupid- Clearly, there is no way that denim will act as an effective barrier to most toxic gasses.  That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Barcelona epilepsy puppets are cool- Remember the Japanese cartoons that kept giving kids seizures?  These are their wooden puppet equivalents.

Original Video

Mr. Christmas Log is kind of stupid (but I still like him)- I have no idea what this guy is about.  The holiday market in Barcelona was chock full of Mr. Christmas Log.  He is, obviously, a piece of wood with legs, a face, and a hat.  I suppose I could look up his origins, but it’s almost more fun not to know.

The Gothic Quarter is really cool- The Gothic Quarter is my favorite part of Barcelona.  It’s a maze of narrow streets winding through the old city.  I basically head over there and get lost.  It’s great.  I really like when you happen to glimpse open spaces down narrow corridors.  It’s like stumbling on hidden worlds.  It makes you wonder how much of the world you’re really not seeing everyday.

The Sagrada Familia Church is amazing- This thing is unreal.  Gaudi started construction of the church in 1894 (I think that’s right), and it isn’t slated for completion until 2023.  For a few extra euros you can go to the top of the spire and walk down.  The view is unreal and the architecture is just incredible.

I can’t recommend Barcelona highly enough.  If you ever get the chance absolutely give it a visit.  Ok, I’ve got to crash.

I was in Barcelona last week as a part of my Euro travel extravaganza.  It is one of my very favorite cities to visit (Beijing is probably the other in my top two).  It isn’t that there is so much to do exactly.  It’s just a beautiful city with a really cool vibe.  Check out all of my Barcelona pics here.  Anyway, this post is just about the food.  Some of this stuff is just weird.

Tapas?- I go back and forth between loving and hating tapas (Pupus to my Hawaiian friends. For those of you in the south, think hot wings for foreigners).  For the first couple of days, it’s really fun to have meals where they keep bringing a variety of small dishes to sample family style.  After a few days however, I want to punch the waiters in the face for their inability to bring me a substantial dinner that doesn’t look like it came off the kids’ menu.  It’s really a question of timing.

Frigging fish…- Tapas choices one evening included this poorly translated gem: “Frigged little fish in andalusian style”.  I wonder if they have a professional little fish frigger in back, or if they buy them already frigged.

So fancy it hurts- We had a round of tapas at a fancy joint that ran from 8:30 to midnight over 14 courses (hey Amit, this is the place we couldn’t get into last time).  Some of it was very good, but I kept getting distracted as my ass was falling asleep.  Their specialties included gold covered macadamian nuts and gold covered chocolates.  I find this to be a pretty poor practice.  Gold doesn’t taste like anything, and I worry that it won’t digest leading to an eventual “golden egg” on my end so to speak.

They also brought out some sort of goo delicately presented in an egg shell.  I unfortunately tried to eat some of the garnish which turned out just to be a pile of rock salt (I had been drinking).

Screw you, hippie!- Barcelona is a town of meat eaters.  Iberian ham is absolutely delicious.  It would be like prosciutto’s cooler older brother.  They serve it at every meal as best as I can tell.  They also have real butcher shops where you can tell that meat comes from animals the way god intended, rather than giving the misleading impression that it grows in Styrofoam trays wrapped in Saran wrap.

Spain has great wine- Spanish wines are excellent and relatively cheap.  That spells good times in my book.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any pics to show around the wines in Barcelona.  For some inexplicable reason, all of the photos I took while drinking wine came out crappy/blurry.  There must be something wrong with my camera.

Yesterday, Kim and I went to check out a new house to rent. Today we got it. Woo hoo! No more duplex for us.  It sits directly on Rancho Park (that’s where my archery range is), and has a real backyard for Ben to be crazy in.  Very exciting.  I think we’re going to actually do the move around Thanksgiving. I probably need to pack up my junk.

On an unrelated note, I’m in SF this week for Web 2.0.  Nothing major to report at this point.  I did manage to Reverse Paparazzi Michael Arrington.  My techie friends will know who that is.  For the rest of you, he is one of the big tech bloggers.  To put it in an analogy format:
bloggers are to journalists as I am to a responsible adult.

Here’s the pic.

I filmed this happy river otter in Stockholm. Not much else to say about this one.

Happy Swedish River Otter