I’m not the poster child for SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). But I am the late-in-the-campaign third string for secondary markets poster child. It’s an overcast, drizzly day. A cold front moved through last night, the rain at that outdoor concert the harbinger of cooler temperatures and overall dampness of the day. I’m not feeling 100% […]

I didn’t understand the words, but I knew the tone and the aftermath.  Something hadn’t gone right in the opening monologue and transition into the first act, so they were doing it again. I had assumed the free concert in Grand Place was being broadcast live but those assumptions were quickly replaced with the realization […]

Being in Brussels is like I’m inside The Truman Show.  And it’s not the Kevin Show.  It’s as if there’s been a sequel — The Truman Show Goes To Europe — and I am a poorly screened extra who has wandered onto the backlot fantasy world of a European town.  It all has this surreal, […]

September 28, 2017 – A Free Walking Tour Of Brussels Upon checking into my hotel, a hotel which offered a room not much bigger than the cupboard under the stairs in Paris, I thought I’d wander Brussels for a bit.  You’re supposed to leave your key at reception when you go out (as a fire […]

I’m On A Bus! Is it a travel story of legend?  Nope. It’s just super boring. Sure, sure. I watched the world stream by. Pondered my insignificance on a macro, universal scale. Sniffled and coughed through what must be a re-emergence of an untreated sinus infection. But there’s nothing of import to share, no good […]

I’m on a bus! For 13 euros I’m traveling 308 km (or 191 miles) from Paris to Brussels.  There I’ll try out my new shoes at the city’s premier Marathon. My shoes are Hulk shoes.  I hope I don’t make them angry.  I wouldn’t want to run in them angry. There was an instruction card […]

I’m feeling a bit like Charlie Chaplin today. Not co-founder of United Artists, titan of Hollywood, artistic genius, and possibly not-great-guy-in-real-life-all-the-time Charles Chaplin. No, more Charlie “Little Tramp” Chaplin. For you see, there’s a hole in my shoe. Actually there are SEVERAL holes in my shoes. Because my bag for this trip was already bursting […]

I got Mom all checked in at Charles de Gaulle and grabbed a train into central Paris.  I’m at an AirBNB for the next two nights before I head on to Brussels.  The place I picked was supposedly close to the Eiffel Tower — when in France, if the price is right, why NOT be […]

Disneyland Paris Half Marathon Short, short review: Good. Almost great. Some logistical snafus that remain no matter what distance. The Corral loading was a multistage sprint. We’d hit a holding pen checkpoint, they’d check bibs (I was shoved back for a moment because my tash was blocking the Corral assignment in my bib) and they’d […]

I’ve spent far too long this afternoon trying to upload photos from YESTERDAY’S run.  I’ve given up as efforts to get those photos through the insanely small wifi pipeline here at Residence du Parc have proven as fruitless as trying to fit the squarest of pegs into the roundest of holes. So now I am […]