League Night

I come from a family of hard-core bowlers, so it was no surprise that Aidan would pick up the sport so easily. Note the avante-garde pin arrangement.

Fall Arts and Crap

My "friend" Mandy once described my decorating style as "arts and crap," but I prefer to describe it instead as having Martha Stewart-aspirations. I guess there's not a lot difference, only the skill level. Anyway, I had Aidan work on some fall decorations I wanted made (one more reason to have children: slave labor). Here is the centerpiece we made by cutting leaves out of construction paper and painting them.






We first got the leaves wet and crumpled them, then let them dry before proceeding to step two, the paining. I like to call this the "dirty water" technique: Aidan got the paint brush wet and then dipped in about five colors of water color paint. It made the leaves look really mottled. And awesome.





Here is a wreath Aidan made, using the same technique, except not crumpling first. We glued the leaves on a cardboard circle. Cheap!

Tiny Soccer

Aidan has started soccer season. I am really surprised they even let 3-year old kids play soccer, or any other team sports, but here we are. Mostly, the kids chase the ball around like it's an ice cream truck on the hottest day of the summer.










Here is a close up of my sweetie. He has started making an awful, over-the-top smile face lately, so this natural smile is really appreciated. his team is the "Green Dragons," even though Aidan had offered another name. "I think 'The superheros who use powers to get bad guys' is a little long for our team name, Aidan," his coach said as she gently let him down. If only- I have to say that would have been the coolest team name ever!

All aboard for Switzerland!

To continue with the Family Adventure Series while Joel is gone, I decided to take the kids on a trip to Switzerland and a ride on the St. Moritz Express.
The little red train takes an unbelievably beautiful route through the mountains, from Italy to St. Moritz. There were lots of tunnels, covered bridges, scenic overlooks, and a famous 360-degree turn. Such a fanciful thing would never be built in this day and age.



St. Moritz was really beautiful and scenic, but we didn't have much time there before we had to get back on the bus for the return trip. This was a convenient photo-op next to the tourism office. Hmmm... convenient place to put a wooden chalet...

Ca'Bruzzo Winery tour

While Joel is off in Bulgaria becoming a bigamist, I am dumping my kids off and getting smashed at the local wineries. Just kidding... sort of. Here are some pictures from the winery tour I went on with the post travel office.

First, we went on a tour of the vineyards. This is a family-run, organic winery- no pesticides, no fertilizer, no irrigation. It's amazing anything grows here at all! They grow a few different types of grapes here, mostly purple ones. As you can tell, I am a real wine enthusiast now, with all the lingo down!

Of course, some old woman on the tour has to go and make an ass of herself and, by association, Americans, by asking the farmer if he's ever heard of these great Concord grapes that we have in the U.S., and why don't they make wine from those? They make a great jelly and grape juice! she says. I did learn something pretty cool- ALL of the grape vines in Europe are grafted onto American roots, due to a pestilence that attacks the vines; apparently one of our varieties is resistant.

Here is a close up of some of the grapes- beautiful!! They were very sweet, because they have been on the vine so long.

For the grand finale, the owner smoked a cigar while he played guitar and sang songs in Italian. We relaxed and ate cheeses and salami on wonderful bread and drank the wines. Who could ever get tired of this??

Monte Berico

There is a Basilica here, Monte Berico, in Vicenza that has a really awesome view. I drove over there and took some pictures the other day. Peep this:

Tiny Chess Game

In Bulgaria, there's a whole sub-culture of tiny old men that gather in the parks and place chess on normal sized boards with normal sized pieces.

I didn't believe it when I first saw it, but you can't deny this photographic evidence:





Yet another bizarre part of Bulgarian culture.

War-stache

I don't know what it is about being deployed in Iraq, but it makes soldiers want to grow their mustaches out. Plenty of guys do it. When I was deployed in 2003, I sported one for a couple of months. I kept it until it got thick and collected so much Iraqi sand and dust that anything I ate tasted like dirt. To be honest, the food wasn't that delectable to begin with, but you've got to have standards.

So I wasn't too surprised when my brother Justin sent me this picture of his Iraqi war-stache.



Nice, right? For comparison, here's my profile pic with a artificial mustache. Notice the family resemblance? Uncanny, I know. Although I think I do look a little more sophisticated in my picture. Look at that sublime eyebrow raise. Goosebumps!

Did you remember what today is?

Today is September 11th. For those that have forgotten, six years ago the U.S. was attacked by terrorist who hijacked commercial airlines and flew them into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon.



Three thousand Americans lost their lives that day.

More than three thousand, seven hundred American soldiers and civilians have lost their lives during the four years of war since then.

But what is on the front page of MSN today?



"Summer's Biggest Scandal"? Paris and Lindsey are front page news on 9/11? I'm surprised they mentioned 9/11 on the front page at all. At least they gave a small link on the left of the page to acknowledge the fact that it was 9/11.

For today, try to not read the celebrity gossip news and sports box scores. For today, think of how the world has changed in the last six years and how that's affected your life and the lives of your loved ones. Today, remember the fallen Americans that were killed six years ago today and the thousands that have died since.

Never forget.
Never forget.
Never forget.

A funny thing happened last night...

Well, what do you know?

After a night out on the town, I wake up to find myself married to a Bulgarian girl. Who knew it could be so easy? Jessica's not going to be thrilled about this.



And if she's going to be pissed about that, she's going to be furious about this. Due to a huge misunderstanding, which I will admit was partially my fault, I didn't wed one but two Bulgarian girls last night.



Good grief.

At least the priest was nice enough to only charge me for his services once, since he only technically performed one ceremony. Here's a shot of me and him hanging out afterward.



On a serious note, these pictures were taken at my hotel last night. I came back from dinner to find that there were not one, but two different weddings being hosted by my hotel. Must be a popular place. Anyway, by the time that I came back from dinner, the booze had been flowing and everyone was my new best friend. After learning how to say congratulations in Bulgarian, I wished the wedding party the best and asked for pictures with the brides. Ideally, I wanted to get them both in the same shot, but the timing didn't work out. When I saw the priest hanging out, I went for the trifecta. I'm the Bulgarian "Wedding Crasher".

The priest was an interesting guy. After getting the hotel night manager to ask him in Bulgarian (the manager and the priest were acquaintances), he came over and gave me an uncomfortably long handshake while he asked me questions in Bulgarian and I waited for translation. After I got the picture, I asked my Bulgarian friend what that was all about. Apparently, the priest is hesitant to get his picture taken with people because there are semi-religious cults in Bulgaria that would try to get a picture with a priest to give credibility to their sect. So he was feeling me out with the questions to make sure I wasn't one of these cult wackos. Yet another bizarre glimpse into the world of Bulgaria.

Our Little Princess

I don't know about you, but the first thing I think about when I give birth is "What will this precious new baby be dressing up as for Halloween?" This may be because Joel and I have a special place in our hearts for Halloween, and in particular, Halloween parties...and, ahem, fog machines. So, after checking out all of the costumes for fairies, bees, peas, angels, superheros, hot dogs (and other disturbing food items), care bears, and caterpillars (actually, really cute for a crawling baby), we decided on a princess costume...Princess Leia!

Check out this awesome picture of the baby model:

Pretty sweet, huh? We had a little trouble finding it, but thanks to http://www.halloweencostumes4u.com/ we were able to get it. Maybe you should check them out for all of your holiday costume needs, as well!! (Does that smack of shameless promotion? They offer to refund the shipping cost to people who blog about the site.) But, I am a fan- they had this costume when the first ten sights I checked were sold out, so yay to them!!

In case you have missed this, here is the hot dog suit- delicious!!!

My Brilliant Idea

I don't know why, but when I'm in Bulgaria I seem to keep coming up with crazy business ideas. There's been a-plenty, but this post is just about one of them in particular.

But first, a little background...

All around Bulgaria, I keep seeing this very poster:



Now, I don't read Bulgarian. I can only go by what I can glean from the picture and what I know about Bulgaria. First, I can see that some thug-ish looking gentleman is prominently featured at the front of this poster. He appears to be surrounded by a throng of acquaintances; a mob of people, if you will. Second, I know that Bulgaria has a large and active underworld criminal element. Third, by the production quality and frequency that I see this poster, I make the assumption that this is for a TV show or movie in Bulgaria. So my first conclusion was that this was some sort of Bulgarian version of the Sopranos.

Turns out, my first conclusion was incorrect. The guy, I learned, is Slavi Trifonov, host of the Slavi Trifonov Show. From his website:

Slavi Trifonov`s Show is a daily sixty minute evening talk show broadcast from Monday to Friday from 22:30h 23:30h on the first private nationwide TV in Bulgaria - bTV. Although it is an external production it turned into the media emblem and basis upon which it started to build its image and prestige.

So, it's kind of like a Bulgarian version of Sabado Gigante. But I think that my original idea would actually be a better sell. A Bulgarian version of the Sopranos, with this guy Slavi as the lead. Set it in a suburb of Sofia, have Slavi go through a mid-life crisis while he's trying to balance the mob and his family, through a little Balkan flavor in there; it's a can't miss premise. Also, doesn't Slavi bear a little more than a passing resemblance to this guy?



Now, who can green light this baby? I'll set myself up as the executive producer, get some hot-shot Bulgarian director, and a crew of hungry university students for writers. It'll make millions.

Buried Alive

I was relaying a story to a Bulgarian about safety coffins. For those of you not in the know, people in Victorian England and Europe would get these coffins that had bells attached to strings that the departed could pull in the event that they "wake up" from an accidental burial. Sounds crazy, but I guess it happened on more than one occasion back then. Check out this passage from deathonline.net:

Fear of premature burial was widespread in 18th and 19th century Europe, leading to the invention of the safety coffin. Over thirty different designs were patented in Germany in the second half of the 19th century. The common element was a mechanism for allowing the 'dead' to communicate with people above ground. Many designs included ropes which, when pulled, would ring the church bell, or a purpose-mounted bell. Others replaced the bell with a raiseable flag, a powerful fire cracker or a pyrotechnic rocket. Some included a shovel, a ladder and a supply of food and water. An essential element, which was overlooked in some designs, was a breathing tube to provide air and occasionally even sustenance.

Weird, right? So after reading this, my first question was, "How did people get mis-diagnosed as dead?" Any suggestions, Wikipedia?

At least one report of accidental burial goes back to the 13th Century. Hundreds of instances of accidental burials were documented in the 1600s during epidemics of plague, cholera, and smallpox. Revivals have been triggered by dropped coffins, grave robbers, embalming, and attempted dissections. Fearing premature burial, George Washington, on his deathbed, made his servants promise not to bury him until three days after his death. Patients in the 1990s have been documented as accidentally being bagged, trapped in a steel box, or sent to the morgue.

Sucks to be the doctor that mistakenly pronounced someone dead when they weren't. That's got to be the ultimate "D'oh!"

I also came across this super creepy painting by Antoine Wiertz called The Premature Burial. What kind of a wacked out painter do you have to be to paint this?



Oh wait, he's Belgian. No further explanation needed.

All figured out

I was counting up all the time that I've spent in Bulgaria, to include all the time that I will be spending here this month. By my count, I've been here 13 days already and I'll be here for 38 days once I leave on 30 September. That's not exactly the summer holiday that I was hoping to take this year, but I'm going to try to make the most of it.

So I've noticed a lot of similarities between the Bulgarians and a certain fictional alien race. I hate to make a Star Trek reference here, but unfortunately the analogy does fit. I'm talking about Klingons. Just take a look at this picture and decide for yourself:



Hmmm, separated at birth? But there's more! I've been hearing a lot of spoken Bulgarian lately and I can't help thinking that it bears more than a passing resemblance to the fictional language of the Klingons. Compare these two songs:

Klingon Song

Bulgarian Song (press the green button on the linked page)

Alright, now that's not just a passing coincidence. By the way, the Bulgarian song is actually being sung by the woman on the right in the picture above. No not that one. No, the one on the right. No, the woman. Ugh, just forget it.

Here's another thing about the Bulgarians that may or may not be like the Klingons, but certainly seems alien: they transpose the meanings of their headnods. That is to say, they nod their head side-to-side when they mean "yes" and up-and-down when they mean "no". It confuses the crap out of me. I've been here for a couple of weeks by now, and I still can't seem to remember this small but vital difference. All the time, I find myself talking to a Bulgarian, discussing some business, and thinking, "Why is this guy disagreeing with me? I thought we were on the same page with this?" Then I realize that he's shaking his head "no", but means "yes". Fricking confusing.

Also, I've been on pretty good terms with all the Bulgarians that I've met. But you couldn't tell by the way that they talk to me. There's something in their national character to talk loudly and agitated at you, even when you're talking about something pleasant. For example, I was at the cell phone store getting a Bulgarian number for my phone. I was already in the store, I had decided to buy this store's chip, I was going to put additional credit on the card. I was a slam dunk customer for these guys. But they were talking at a volume that was just below yelling and almost rushing me through the process, even though I was the only guy in the store for nearly 20 minutes. Where's the fire, fellas? I know there's a line of customers piling up behind me eager to drop some money on your... Oh wait, no there's not. It's just me. Go figure.

Anyway, it's a strange place filled with strange people. A little like Klingons, but not with the ridged foreheads and leather outfits. Well, maybe some leather outfits.

Later.

Oooo-oooo, That Smell!

I checked into my hotel room yesterday here at the luxurious National Hotel in Sliven. Immediately, I notice a powerful and somewhat familiar smell. Holy dog crap! Where have I smelled that before? It's like an old lady funeral home. It's like a flower farted. It's what I imagine Sex Panther smells like. Oh yeah, it was the same smell that was in my hotel room the last time that I was here in the Hotel National. Except it was a different room in the hotel.
When I was here then, I thought that the smell was maybe from the strange dried flowers that were in the room last time. Some sort of bizarre, Bulgarian potpourri. But here I am in a totally different room with the same stench and no dried Bulgarian flowers. So what gives?? A couple minutes of frantic searching reveals the culprit:



Some shitty Plug-In? That's been causing this epic aroma? Jessica and I have had these things in our house before, and they usually aren't worth a damn after about one week. But not this little bastard; he's cranking out the juice. Well, mystery solved. Pretty lame, after all.

**UPDATE**

Just got off the phone, and my luggage is en-route from Sophia to Sliven, with a short detour into Plodiv. It should be here sometime this afternoon. I can finally change my underwear. After three days, it's starting to wear a little thin. Gross.

Rolling into Sliven

I arrived today in the bustling metropolis of Sliven. Where might that be? Why, it's nestled within the heaving bosom of Bulgaria. See for yourself:



As you can see, it's the hub of all things Bulgarian. Things such as green peppers:



Red peppers:



And bear statues.



It's a little much to handle all in one day, but I'm making the most of it. Those photos were actually taken on my last trip to Sliven, around 24 August. Not sure if there's any photography buffs out there, but those were actually taken with my crappy cell phone camera. I know! It's hard to believe from the quality!

Those peppers were from a farmer's market that sets up near the center of town and the bear was on top of a communal water fountain. There were probably 10-15 people at any one time around this water fountain; drinking, splashing their faces and hands, filling up little bottles. And when I say water fountain, I don't mean the metal, rectangular boxes that we see in office buildings. This was an old stone watering point, with little brass spouts that water flowed out of into a basin. The people would come up and either fill a little cup or bottle, or cup their hands to drink.

I did pack my video camera to capture the essence of what is Sliven. Unfortunately, that camera is packed away in my missing luggage that has still not materialized. If everything goes as planned, the luggage will arrive on the 1600 flight from Rome today and the airport's courier service will bring it to me tomorrow morning. We'll see how that goes.

Get your fill of my kids

Here are the kids... not much story, just some cute pictures.

Lake Garda, Part II

I've never been to a lake in the states, so I really have nothing to compare to this one, but it was really unbelievable. The view was ridiculous; just see the pictures. The water was cold, but not freezing, and super clean. I also really liked how the area around the lake was grass, so we could lay Ava down without her getting sandy. My only complaint was that the shore is made of rocks, and it hurt my feet to walk out and once in the water, the rocks were really slippery. Next time I'll have to figure out some kind of water shoe situation.

There were also olive trees all over. It gave the area a really sweet smell and the trees shaded the beach area. Awesome! Joel was checking them out for snacks, but they were really small. I think the olive harvest is in the late fall, like October or November.

Back in Sophia

It's been months since my last post. Thankfully, Jessica has been stepping up and making some posts so everyone doesn't think that this blog has been abandoned. We're still here; unfortunately, I've been away on my business trips to the Balkans for most of the summer. On the plus side, if anyone is interested in doing anything in the Balkans (specifically Romania or Bulgaria), I'll be happy to lend my services as an area expert.

I'm going to try and increase my blog output this month, at least the first two weeks when I'll have some free time without adult supervision. For starters, here's a slideshow of our recent trip to Innsbruck, Austria.

We drove there on Thursday and came back Saturday evening. It was a short trip but we all had a great time and saw some cool stuff there.

It's late here, so I'm signing off. Tomorrow I'll have an update on whether my luggage arrived from Italy or not. As of now, I'm 2 for 3 at having my luggage lost at the Sophia Airport. Moral of the story: If you're flying into Sophia, try to have your stuff in a carry on. That's a little tip from the pros. It's a freebe. Enjoy.