Monday night – Three country day

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Whirlwind day through three countries.. Day began at 7AM in Austria.. my freind Andrej from Slovenia picked me up at Osman and Katerine’s place on the west side of Wien.. but 8:00 we were crossing the boarder to Slovakia through fields of wind turbines.. they were everywhere !

Brataslava was a nice town.. definitely on the rise.. beautiful architecture and really nice folks

Here’s our little IBM mobile for the week

I put a samstone in a small park before we began our day in slovakia

One great stop was with te great people of Fun Radio.. a really cool and intelligent talk show on the radio.. I looked them up. they have some amazing guests.. (and a really cute dog under the desk). I really enjoyed speaking with them !

ten lunch (here’s my octopus soup.. RELEASE THE KRACKEN.. or the crackers at least !)

And another cool /smart journalist there to talk to !

Then to the technical university for my talk..

talk went well. I really enjoyed speaking with the students and faculty.. I felt very, very welcome !

Here’s Andrej wit our comms handlers.. (Hi comms handlers.. thanks for your help today !)

then a quick tour of the IBM site and some meetings with the folks there..

me and my boy TJ Jr.

then back in the car.. and a 2 hour drive to Budapest.. trough even more windmills.. a beutiful spring drive.. everything here is green

 

Checked in to the hotel in Budapest only o find the last 4 digits of the internet passcode wiere the last 4 digits of my drivers license… (queue the spooky music !!!)

Budapest is gorgeous.. I emailed my old buddy Zoltan and he met us for a late tour and dinner..

Here’s the state house.. right next store is the presidents palace.. he resigned (!!!) tonight due to a scandal about his PhD thesis 20 years ago !

At my request, Zoltan drove us up to the citadela monument.. About 30 years ago I got chased out of there at 3AM by a soldier with a gun.. (long story) .. but it looked different now. .The soviet era statues had been moved away leaving the lone statue of a woman looking to the north.. It’s actually a memorial to the preWWII leaders son who was shot down over the soviet union. It’s been restored since the fall of the eastern block .   No guns up there tonight.. just a beautiful view of the city !

Zoltan and Andrej by citadela light

I put a samstone here too

then down to Litz square for a nice meal…

and now bed.. more tomorrow

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Sunday night – Happy Birthday Diane … and hello from Wien

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First things first.. Happy birthday to my lovely and magical wife Diane.. . the queen of my planet, the ping to my pong, the yin to my yang.. the see to my saw.. the gee to my gaw..  even though I’m a bazillion miles away I’m blowing out my birthday candle on a piece of sacher torte in your direction. Diane. I love you more than words can tell.. and certainly more than I can spell..

 

OK.. now where am I ? I woke today as I was landing in Vienna.. a city I love but have not visited since 1006.  in the summer before Sam’s passing. I lived here as an exchange student during my junior year in college. I’m here for a whirlwind 4 day tour of client meetings, IBM employee meetings and university talks.. I managed to meet up with my old freinds (and ex landlords) Frau Erol , and her son Osman and wife Katherine and kids Stephanie and Konstantin, and Osman’s brother Murat and his daughter Murial . Osamna pciked me up at the airport and we headed out to their house near Schonbrunn plaace..

After a quick nap we wen over to Frau Erol’s ohouse where I lived from 1979 -1980..

THere was Herr Erol

s name on the door, but sadly, he passed away 2 years back. Frau Erol met us at the door looking exactly as she had 30 years ago..

We all sat down and had a austro-turkish lunch just like I remember having with them every sunday.. While I’ve been back here at least 5 since 1980, this is the first time we’ve all sat down for lunch like the old days.. It was like the last 32 year had not elapsed.. .. 32 years.. that’s pretty amazing.. !

 

Katherine had made a Sacher Torte which is delicious and required eating when visiting Wien (aka Vienna)

We topped it off with soem of freind Debra’s specially made Maple shortrbreads that id’ bought form home. It was fun trying to explain to murial what maple syrup was.

As I was lookign through pictures, I found several of my family that we’d sent Frau Erol over the years.. there were all three boys.. . I also found the picture of Frau and Herr Erol’s son Avi who died at age 3 in 1968.. THose boys were still so much in our hearts..  It was nice to see the small picture of Herr Erol as well.

 

After lunch I took the pilgrimage up to the 3rd floor to see my old apartment. Karin and her family live there now.. though Karin was out of town, I got to see her husband Willie and two of the kids..   The apartment had changed quite a bit !

This was my old room

 

and this was our kitchen.. now a bathroom

 

the views from the stairs were just as they were ..

 

We all then set oyt for a walk that lead us down Graf Starhembergass.. then down Kolschitzkygasse.. naemd for Count Kolschitzky who supposedly rode across the siege lines during the ottoman blockade of Vienna and stole Coffee from the turks. THats supposedly how Vienna.. then the rest of Europe and America came to know coffee !

 

Past my old Ubahn (subway) stop

 

Then over to the Belvadere palace ..

 

we then walked up to teh 1st district and came down Kartner Strasse.. the main waling mall.

 

and took a quick peak in Stephan’s Dom.. the city’s cathedral.

Though I’m far from Catholic.. I lit a candle for Sam and Dylan..

we then walked up the Graben .. passing severla of my favorite haunts including te Esterhazzy keller bar and trezewiniskies were I’d stop off an get pepper glop spread on bread and vodka before class (hey.. it’s the custom here.. :-)and went trough the Easter market before coming out on Freyung.. the site of the Kinsky Palace whre I went to school that year.

 

Then we wandered back towards Stephansplatz and caught the Uban  4 back to Sudtiroler  Platz and Frau Erol’s home

On the way out, I spied te self-same telephone that we used to hack with a piezoelectric lighter.. you clicked the lighter near te coin slot.. and shazam.. it thought you’d put in $50 of coins.. we never used it for anything. it was just fun to do..

 

Later this evening Osman, Katerine, Konstantine and Froau Erol and I met for a nice Italian dinner.. we walked home.. it was so great hanging out with my old freinds. Tomorrow I start work at 7AM and will be non stop until Friday.. Wish me luck.

 

More from the road tomorrow..

Happy Birtday Diane..

Nite all, nite sam

-me

ps. Here are some more pics I took today trough our long walk in the city.

 

Saturday afternoon – Dylan at 19

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I woke today thinking of our freind Dylan. He would have been 19 years old today… a week after his
18th birthday he was killed in a single car accident on his way home.. His healthy organs helped save 4 peoples lives. Here.. like in many things.. he was much like Sam.. a great athlete.. smart.. lots of freinds.. When Sam died, Dylan really stepped in to help Gabe.. He was like a big brother to Gabe.. The two of them rode together at Bolton, at Stowe… and eventually at the USASA National Finals at Copper Mountain, CO where Dylan won 1st place. I went with Dylan, his mom Sue, our freind Matt and Gabe on that trip.. it doesn’t seem long ago at all.. As close as we are.. I don’t know what it would liek to be Gabe now.

Dylan was a fun and quirky kid.. whip-smart, irreverent, talented in many things. Today his family is going through that first hard birthday without Dylan. We know how hard these anniversaries can be.. birthdays, deathdays, holidays. For me, the worst part is the lead up to those days.. how will it feel, what will we do.. how do we get through the day ? (which we always do)

We had dinner last night with Dylan’s family.. it was fun being out. We went to Sikura’s where I once watched Dylan eat a whole chunk of wasabi on a dare from Gabe. Jim, Sue and Dani were doing OK. They were doing what they had to do.. My heart goes out to them and all of Dylan’s freinds.. and .. of course to Dylan today.. They will find as we have that while the hurt doesn’t go away.. it changes.. and becomes more integrated with your lives. Jim and Sue are great people and great freinds.. I’d ask veryone to send them love and supprt today and in this coming week. I’d also ask all of Dylans freinds to honor him today/tonight by doing somethign for him…. or soemthing that reminds you of him.. go play in the snow, offer up a toast, light a candle. Keep that kids great and wacky spirit moving through our lives.

We love you dylan.. happy birthday man…

nite all, nite sam
-me

Friday night – stacks

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Oy.. I’m exhausted.. a long , busy.. and pretty upbeat week. I’m about 2 months into my new job and starting to get the hang of it. I’m in sponge mode, trying to learn as much as I can about the area I’ve just joined. It’s all new.. the people, the  acronyms, the problems.. and I love I’m spending every waking hour trying to cram all this stuff into my head. My normal routine now is to print all the email that I get that’s longer than 1 paragraph. I’m not able to read anything longer than that on a screen for some reason.. So far, I haven’t been able to read it on a kindle either. Right now I need to have old fashioned paper I’m no luddite.. but I think it’s part of my general  reading problem.. This presents several problems.. 1st.. I now show up at home with a 2 to 4 inch stack of stuff to read every night .. I generally start after the family goes to bed  and am still at it until nearly 1AM.. 2nd.. That leaves me wiht a huge pile of double sided printout that’s hard to reuse.. I feel like an ecoterrorist.. third.. I’m usually way out of synch with online conversations. Most folks have replied twice by the time I’ve had a chance to read an email thread..

What to do ? Has anyone had any luck using an ipad for this ? .. or is there some other trick I should apply to reading my laptop ? A bigger sreen perhaps ?

Sign me treekiller in jonesville

 

-nite all, nite sam

-me