I never buy the extended warranty. Who needs it? With most things nowadays by the time that the basic warranty runs out, it's time to upgrade anyway. Besides, most of the time, you never encounter any serious problems that justify the warranty to begin with.
Towards the end of the summer, my Harley started making some funny noises. It sounded like things were a little loose in the engine. I didn't worry about it at first. I really wasn't riding the Harley that much anyway with all of the bicycling that I had been doing. But as fall wore on and I took the bike out for a couple of fall rides it really started to bother me. I finally got to the point where I decided it just wasn't right to ride the Harley until I had a chance to have it looked at.
The problem is that I was riding the Harley so infrequently that it seemed silly to spend a whole lot of money having it fixed. So, I just let it sit for a month or so. I had been meaning to get it in to the dealer for a while to have it looked at but just didn't get around to it until yesterday.
I told the service manager about the noise I was hearing and was fully expecting to have him tell me that there was really nothing wrong and that I was just imagining the noise. Even if there really was a problem I was expecting them to say that just because this is a place where they will bend over backwards to belittle you and make you feel like an ass.
So, I was surprised when I heard the service manager tell me that he heard what I was talking about. I was disappointed when he said it didn't sound good. I was frightened when he told me that it sounded like a piston knocking or slapping. Now fixing a knocking piston on a bike can't be as expensive as a fixing a knocking piston in a car, but still I imagine that we are talking upwards of a thousand dollars. I went home with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Of course, I was going to pay the money to have the bike fixed. This is, after all, my baby. We've been through a lot together. But it made me sick to think that I had let things get so bad to amount to such a costly repair.
There was still some hope. The service manager had given me an off-the-cuff diagnosis and said that he would have one of his technicians look at it in the morning. Maybe, just maybe, the technician would discover that the problem wasn't as serious as the service manager had imagined.
Fast forward to today... I just got off the phone with the service manager. The problem is that serious. But it turns out that in a fit of anxiety over spending $20,000 dollars on a motorcycle that I actually, against all odds, had the foresight to purchase the extended warranty. My bike is completely covered until May of next year. I had completely forgotten that I bought the extended warranty. It seems like such a long time ago that even when I remembered that I had paid for it, I was surprised that it was still active.
So, who needs an extended warranty? I guess I do :)
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Post Race Info
There were some action photographers at the race on Sunday and I finally got ahold of some of the photos that they took.
Here is one of me going it alone at about mile 6 and a half:
And here is one of Rosey and I crossing the finish line together:
They have also posted the results on the "Other Half" website. I was a little bummed to discover that I came in dead last in my gender and age group (Male 20-29). But then again, I still came in ahead of the thousands of people that didn't bother even trying to run a half marathon :)
Here is one of me going it alone at about mile 6 and a half:
And here is one of Rosey and I crossing the finish line together:
They have also posted the results on the "Other Half" website. I was a little bummed to discover that I came in dead last in my gender and age group (Male 20-29). But then again, I still came in ahead of the thousands of people that didn't bother even trying to run a half marathon :)
Monday, October 23, 2006
Victory!
I did it! I survived a 13.1 mile run in Moab, UT. And I'm proud to be able to say that I didn't walk a step of it. Of course I did slow down at the water stands every two miles and I stopped once at mile 6 to use the porta-potty, but I'm not counting those as stopping :)I really had my doubts going into the run that I was going to be able to complete it without killing myself. On Saturday, I was almost dreading the thought of running that far as unprepared as I was. But when Rosey and I got up on Sunday morning and got out to the start line surrounded by a thousand other runners amidst some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet, I knew that I was going to be able to pull it off. There's something about being surround by so many other motivated people that enhances your own motivation.
My strategy was to take it slow and steady for the whole run. I knew that if I ran too fast in the beginning that I was going to jeopardize my ability to finish. So, I set a slow and even pace. I finished the first mile in a little over 12 minutes (12:10 if I remember correctly). That's not a fast pace by any stretch of the imagination, but it was working for me.
Rosey, originally said that she wanted to run with me so that I would help pace her and so that we could enjoy the run together. We only got to about half a mile before she couldn't stand running at such a slow pace and took off on her own. I was actually glad that she did, because I would have felt bad for slowing her down all day. Rosey is a considerably faster runner than I am. She did, however, meet back up with me at mile 8 and we ran the last five miles of the race together.
Dean Karnazes (author of Ultra-Marathon Man) says that the first half of any run is in your legs and the second half is in your head. Fortunately for me, my legs carried me a little further than half-way. But from about mile 8 on, it was sheer will power that propelled me forward. I was having aches and pains that on any other day probably would have convinced me to stop running. But yesterday, I was motivated to finish no matter what the cost. I was prepared to crawl across the finish line if it came down to that :)
Fortunately, it didn't come down to that. My calves and shins were throbbing with pain by the time that we entered the last half-mile stretch into the finish line at the Sorrel River Ranch, but I was still maintaining a steady jogging pace and Rosey was right there at my side. We crossed the finish line hand-in-hand 2 hours and 47 minutes after starting. To give a little perspective, the winner of the race finished in an hour and 16 minutes (roughly).
So, there were a whole lot of people that finished ahead of us, but there were also a whole lot of people that finished behind us. Mostly, I was just proud that I finished at all. It's hard to imagine me completing a run like this even a year ago, and impossible to imagine 2 years ago. It amazes me sometimes how far I've come and yet I still feel like I have further that I could go. Maybe next year I'll be able to finish in under two hours.
Although my lack of training over the last couple of weeks didn't prevent me from finishing, it did carry it's own price. My body is so sore right now I can hardly walk. I don't think that there is a single muscle in the entire lower half of my body that doesn't scream in pain every time that I move. Oh well, it's a small price to pay :)
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Unprepared
Tomorrow morning I will be running "The Other Half" half-marathon in Moab, UT and I couldn't be less prepared. My longest training run was 9 miles and that was over a month ago. I have only been running once or twice in the last two weeks since I got back from Germany. I think that I'm in good enough shape that I will be able to suffer through it, but it's not going to be pretty. Oh well, I guess it will be motivation to prepare better for next time.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
It's Good To Be Home
Yesterday was an interesting day of travel. I dealt with bad software, delayed flights, beer confiscation, and then rounded it off with a really delayed flight. The whole day was just one mishap after another.
The first mishap occurred as I checked into the Munich airport. I was walking through the auto-checkin when I arrived at a screen called "Confirmation" with a list of the places that I was flying to. To the right of each destination was a button with no text on it. I assumed that the button was meant to be used as a checkbox element and that I was being presented a checklist of all the places that I was flying through that I wanted to route my bags through.
It didn't make any sense to me, but I figured I would just click through it anyway. So, I clicked on the "checkbox" next to the Frankfurt list item and was distressed to discover that it wasn't a checkbox and was actually a normal button that confirmed Frankfurt as my final destination where I would be claiming my baggage. I realized my error right away and tried to cancel the operation but there was no option to cancel. My only option was to proceed. So, I figured that I would contine through the process and then get a flight attendant to help me fix it in the computer later.
My biggest mistake was to actually place my baggage on the conveyor belt. I figured that the problem could be fixed in the computer and it wouldn't matter that the bags had already been sent packing. Little did I realize that the routing information for the bags was printed on the baggage tags and once the bags got on the conveyor belt there was nothing that could be done to change them.
I was freaking out because we had less than an hour for out connection in Frankfurt. There was no way that I could claim my bags, recheck them and then make it to my next flight on time. It wasn't very encouraging that the attendants at the check-in counter weren't very sympathetic. I couldn't understand any of the German that they were muttering under their breath, but I'm pretty sure that "Stupid American" was thrown around once or twice.
Just as I was resigned to the idea of catching a later flight out of Frankfurt, one of the attendants emerged from behind the counter and announced that, although it had been a lot of work, she managed to get someone to snag our bags and update the destination.
When we arrived at our gate we discovered that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes and then 45 minutes. It looked like it was going to be impossible to make our connection even though the baggage problem had been solved. When we arrived in Frankfurt after a short 35 minute flight, the flight crew announced that we needed to hurry to make our Chicago connection. I was surprised that it was still even waiting for us.
Greg and I ran through the airport. We took the tram to the other terminal and were just about to get to our gate when we realized that we had to go back through security. There was a huge line to get through. Luckily, we were able to talk to an attendant and get expedited through the line.
I was just about to clear security when I got a funny look from one of the security guards. "Sir, do you have 4 bottles of wine or beer in your carry-on". "Yes", I responded. "Don't you know that you're not allowed to bring any liquids with you on a flight to the U.S.?". Damnit! I had forgotten all about that. I had just spent 9 Euro buying that gift pack of beer at the Duty Free in Munich. I figured that if they sold it in the airport that I shouldn't have any problem carrying it on with me.
If I'd had more time I could have checked the beer as luggage and still gotten it to the U.S. But we were already ridiculously late for our flight. So, I had no choice but to leave the beer at Security and home that one of the security people would give it a good home. Sorry Rand, I tried :)
The flight back to the U.S. was long. I killed a good portion of the time by watching the in-flight movies. They really do make the time go by fast. I watched, "The Devil Wears Prada", "Click" (well only part of it), and "Pirates of the Carribean". The first two movies weren't great but they weren't that bad either. And I had already seen Pirates.
When we arrived in Chicago, we discovered that our bags didn't make the connection. It really wasn't a huge surprise considering how late our plane was. But no matter how ridiculous the connection you always hope that yours bags make it somehow. The frustrating thing was that their was nothing that we could do about it. The baggage people told us that we would need to file a missing baggage report when we got to Salt Lake City. It felt really strange to leave customs without our baggage and without even filing a missing baggage report.
We got our connecting flight information from one of the baggage people. We had to catch a tram to terminal 2 and then get to gate F7. As we were walking through terminal 2 it began to disturb us that our flight didn't show up on any of the signs. It was supposed to start boarding in half an hour and it wasn't even posted. Had we been sent to the wrong terminal?
It didn't take like to figure out that we were in the right terminal but our flight had been delayed by three hours. Ouch! At this point we had both been awake for like 22 hours and were starting to feel a little ragged. The thought of spending another 3 hours in an airport was almost too much to take. But we sufferred through it and did eventually make it home.
I had originally planned on working today, but it was midnight before I got home from the airport with Rosey and even later before we actually got to bed. I didn't even hear Rosey leave in the morning. I slept until nearly 11 AM. It felt great to be back in my own bed.
The first mishap occurred as I checked into the Munich airport. I was walking through the auto-checkin when I arrived at a screen called "Confirmation" with a list of the places that I was flying to. To the right of each destination was a button with no text on it. I assumed that the button was meant to be used as a checkbox element and that I was being presented a checklist of all the places that I was flying through that I wanted to route my bags through.
It didn't make any sense to me, but I figured I would just click through it anyway. So, I clicked on the "checkbox" next to the Frankfurt list item and was distressed to discover that it wasn't a checkbox and was actually a normal button that confirmed Frankfurt as my final destination where I would be claiming my baggage. I realized my error right away and tried to cancel the operation but there was no option to cancel. My only option was to proceed. So, I figured that I would contine through the process and then get a flight attendant to help me fix it in the computer later.
My biggest mistake was to actually place my baggage on the conveyor belt. I figured that the problem could be fixed in the computer and it wouldn't matter that the bags had already been sent packing. Little did I realize that the routing information for the bags was printed on the baggage tags and once the bags got on the conveyor belt there was nothing that could be done to change them.
I was freaking out because we had less than an hour for out connection in Frankfurt. There was no way that I could claim my bags, recheck them and then make it to my next flight on time. It wasn't very encouraging that the attendants at the check-in counter weren't very sympathetic. I couldn't understand any of the German that they were muttering under their breath, but I'm pretty sure that "Stupid American" was thrown around once or twice.
Just as I was resigned to the idea of catching a later flight out of Frankfurt, one of the attendants emerged from behind the counter and announced that, although it had been a lot of work, she managed to get someone to snag our bags and update the destination.
When we arrived at our gate we discovered that our flight was delayed by 30 minutes and then 45 minutes. It looked like it was going to be impossible to make our connection even though the baggage problem had been solved. When we arrived in Frankfurt after a short 35 minute flight, the flight crew announced that we needed to hurry to make our Chicago connection. I was surprised that it was still even waiting for us.
Greg and I ran through the airport. We took the tram to the other terminal and were just about to get to our gate when we realized that we had to go back through security. There was a huge line to get through. Luckily, we were able to talk to an attendant and get expedited through the line.
I was just about to clear security when I got a funny look from one of the security guards. "Sir, do you have 4 bottles of wine or beer in your carry-on". "Yes", I responded. "Don't you know that you're not allowed to bring any liquids with you on a flight to the U.S.?". Damnit! I had forgotten all about that. I had just spent 9 Euro buying that gift pack of beer at the Duty Free in Munich. I figured that if they sold it in the airport that I shouldn't have any problem carrying it on with me.
If I'd had more time I could have checked the beer as luggage and still gotten it to the U.S. But we were already ridiculously late for our flight. So, I had no choice but to leave the beer at Security and home that one of the security people would give it a good home. Sorry Rand, I tried :)
The flight back to the U.S. was long. I killed a good portion of the time by watching the in-flight movies. They really do make the time go by fast. I watched, "The Devil Wears Prada", "Click" (well only part of it), and "Pirates of the Carribean". The first two movies weren't great but they weren't that bad either. And I had already seen Pirates.
When we arrived in Chicago, we discovered that our bags didn't make the connection. It really wasn't a huge surprise considering how late our plane was. But no matter how ridiculous the connection you always hope that yours bags make it somehow. The frustrating thing was that their was nothing that we could do about it. The baggage people told us that we would need to file a missing baggage report when we got to Salt Lake City. It felt really strange to leave customs without our baggage and without even filing a missing baggage report.
We got our connecting flight information from one of the baggage people. We had to catch a tram to terminal 2 and then get to gate F7. As we were walking through terminal 2 it began to disturb us that our flight didn't show up on any of the signs. It was supposed to start boarding in half an hour and it wasn't even posted. Had we been sent to the wrong terminal?
It didn't take like to figure out that we were in the right terminal but our flight had been delayed by three hours. Ouch! At this point we had both been awake for like 22 hours and were starting to feel a little ragged. The thought of spending another 3 hours in an airport was almost too much to take. But we sufferred through it and did eventually make it home.
I had originally planned on working today, but it was midnight before I got home from the airport with Rosey and even later before we actually got to bed. I didn't even hear Rosey leave in the morning. I slept until nearly 11 AM. It felt great to be back in my own bed.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Oktoberfest!
There really aren't words to describe how awesome it was to finally experience Oktoberfest tonight. It was incredible. GWAVA had reserved us a whole section of tables inside of the Ochsenbraterei beer house. In this single beer house there must have been 10,000 people singing and dancing and drinking and just generally having a good time. It was just an awesome atmosphere to be in.
I ended up at a table with Dirk, Morris, Sundy, Svetlin and several German customers and Novell consultants. Surprisingly, I even remember their names (although I have no idea whether or not I'm spelling them correctly): Rieser, Sacha, Frank, Griet and Arno. It was a pretty good table to be at.
The good thing about being at a beer festival with a bunch of people from Provo is that you are bound to find a few extra drink tickets. GWAVA provided everyone with tickets for 2 free beers. I think that I ended up with about 8 free beers... although I ended up sharing the wealth with several other people. Rand may disagree with here, but I think that 8 litres of beer is just too much for any one man to drink in a single night.
I'm proud to admit that I was the first person in the GWAVA group to stand on the table and start dancing :) It became increasingly common over the course of the night and by the end pretty much everyone was doing it. It's actually a pretty natural thing to do. The benches are so crowded that to get some air you either need to climb over a bunch of people to get out or you just stand up. Of course once you are standing you have no choice but to dance.
The music was really interesting. As you might expect, they played a number of traditional Bavarian songs, but then they also played a bunch of American songs as well. Things like, "In the Jungle" (the Aweemaway song), John Denver's "West Virginia", and even some more recent music like 4 Non Blondes, "What's Going On". It was really bizarre to be sitting in a beer house in Germany surrounded by a bunch of Germans belting out John Denver while standing on the tables. You just can't put a price on an experience like that :)
So, I was frequently standing on my table and even hanging from the rafters a couple of times. This drew a little bit of attention to myself and made me the subject of quite a few peoples photos. I think that it was particularly amusing for some of the conference attendees who had been in my sessions over the last couple of days and recognized me as a Novell employee.
Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures of my own craziness. I'll have to wait for some people to send me their pictures. Svetlin, Dirk, Morris, Mark (from GWAVA) and Danita got plenty of pictures that I'm hoping to have sent to me.
Because we started drinking at about 5 in the evening, I was feeling pretty good by about 9:30 and decided that it was time to head back to the hotel. It was a little bizarre to end the night so early but there just wasn't much more beer that I could have forced into myself without risking being sick. So, Dirk and I walked back to the hotel together in the rain.
After a short drunken call to Rosey (I'm sure that she was amused) I drifted off to sleep at about 10:30. I didn't even bother getting inside of my bed. I just passed out right on top of it. Now the funny thing is that my body has grown so accustomed to a lack of sleep that I was wide awake at 5 and a half hours later at 4 in the morning. I've been up for a couple of hours now blogging and im'ing. In a few more hours, I'll pack everything up and jump on a train to the airport to come home. This has been an incredible trip, but I definitely think that I'm ready to be home. Having this much fun can really wear a guy out :)
I ended up at a table with Dirk, Morris, Sundy, Svetlin and several German customers and Novell consultants. Surprisingly, I even remember their names (although I have no idea whether or not I'm spelling them correctly): Rieser, Sacha, Frank, Griet and Arno. It was a pretty good table to be at.
The good thing about being at a beer festival with a bunch of people from Provo is that you are bound to find a few extra drink tickets. GWAVA provided everyone with tickets for 2 free beers. I think that I ended up with about 8 free beers... although I ended up sharing the wealth with several other people. Rand may disagree with here, but I think that 8 litres of beer is just too much for any one man to drink in a single night.I'm proud to admit that I was the first person in the GWAVA group to stand on the table and start dancing :) It became increasingly common over the course of the night and by the end pretty much everyone was doing it. It's actually a pretty natural thing to do. The benches are so crowded that to get some air you either need to climb over a bunch of people to get out or you just stand up. Of course once you are standing you have no choice but to dance.
The music was really interesting. As you might expect, they played a number of traditional Bavarian songs, but then they also played a bunch of American songs as well. Things like, "In the Jungle" (the Aweemaway song), John Denver's "West Virginia", and even some more recent music like 4 Non Blondes, "What's Going On". It was really bizarre to be sitting in a beer house in Germany surrounded by a bunch of Germans belting out John Denver while standing on the tables. You just can't put a price on an experience like that :)
So, I was frequently standing on my table and even hanging from the rafters a couple of times. This drew a little bit of attention to myself and made me the subject of quite a few peoples photos. I think that it was particularly amusing for some of the conference attendees who had been in my sessions over the last couple of days and recognized me as a Novell employee.
Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures of my own craziness. I'll have to wait for some people to send me their pictures. Svetlin, Dirk, Morris, Mark (from GWAVA) and Danita got plenty of pictures that I'm hoping to have sent to me.
Because we started drinking at about 5 in the evening, I was feeling pretty good by about 9:30 and decided that it was time to head back to the hotel. It was a little bizarre to end the night so early but there just wasn't much more beer that I could have forced into myself without risking being sick. So, Dirk and I walked back to the hotel together in the rain.
After a short drunken call to Rosey (I'm sure that she was amused) I drifted off to sleep at about 10:30. I didn't even bother getting inside of my bed. I just passed out right on top of it. Now the funny thing is that my body has grown so accustomed to a lack of sleep that I was wide awake at 5 and a half hours later at 4 in the morning. I've been up for a couple of hours now blogging and im'ing. In a few more hours, I'll pack everything up and jump on a train to the airport to come home. This has been an incredible trip, but I definitely think that I'm ready to be home. Having this much fun can really wear a guy out :)
Monday, October 02, 2006
Beer Crisis at Oktoberfest
It's not as easy as you might imagine to get a beer at Oktoberfest. No, really I'm serious. I wouldn't have believed it myself if it hadn't happened to me tonight. In a country known for it's beer, in a city known for it's beer festival, at a beer festival known the world over for it's ridiculous consumption of beer, it took over two hours to find a place that would actually serve me and my compatriots a glass of beer. Here is my story...
On Saturday night all I wanted for dinner was to find a little wurst-stand to get some fresh german sausages. Despite scouring the city for an hour and a half, I was unable to find this Utopian sausage stand of my dreams and we ended up eating at some streetside cafe, which incidentally had excellent food but nonetheless wasn't a wurst-stand.
Fast forward to Sunday night when Dirk and I made it down to the Oktoberfest grounds for the first time... we walked through gates of Oktoberfest and were greeted by Bratwurst nirvana. A thousand, nay, a million vendors selling fresh German sausage. The only problem was that I had already eaten :( I vowed to come back the following night to fulfil my gastronomical dream.
So, tonight the goal was simple. I was going to round up the guys and head over to Oktoberfest to partake of the wurst-goodness and drink a few beers while I was at it. Now, I didn't really have plans of getting smashed tonight. I just wanted to have a few beers with dinner. I was saving up my beer-drinking stamina for tomorrow night when the whole GWAVACon conference is planning on heading over to Oktoberfest en-masse for a celebration.
Things got complicated when one of the local Novell consultants got invited along. He is from Munich and seemed to know all about Oktoberfest. He recommended that we stop by a beer garden first and then grab a bite to eat a little later in the evening. Now, I hadn't really planned on stopping by the beer gardens because I figured that they were going to be really crowded and, as mentioned before, I wasn't really in the mood to drink mass quantities of beer tonight. But, I figured that the local guy knew best so I was going to go along with his plan.
Oktoberfest was busting at the seams tonight. It only about 5 minutes to separate our group of 6 into 2 groups of 3. Dirk ended up with the two guys from Europe and Morris, Sundy and I ended up together. After about 30 seconds we gave up on trying to find the other guys and decided to just head to one of the beer gardens. Problem was that everyone that we stopped by had a group of 50 people standing outside of locked doors waiting to get in. It appeared that all of the beer gardens were already operating at maximum capacity and that we were going to have to wait to get a spot.
What made the situation even more dire is that it occurred to us as we were walking around that we hadn't seen a single person drinking a beer outside of one of the beer gardens. We also didn't see a single place to buy beer outside of the beer gardens. So, to get served beer, we had to get into the beer garden, and to get into the beer garden we had to wait.
And so we spent the next 45 minutes waiting to get inside the Hacker-Pfeltzen beer garden. Forty minutes at Oktoberfest with no beer. Seriously I thought I was in a bad dream. Why couldn't they just serve the people outside? I didn't understand. After 45 minutes, we decided to just give up. It's not so much that we got tired of waiting as it was that we were afraid that at the current rate of travel we weren't going to make it in before Oktoberfest shut down for the night. What was the current rate of travel: 0. Not a single person had been let inside in the entire time that we were waiting in line. This is Oktoberfest! Why can't we get a beer.
Of course we could have walked back into town and gotten a beer at one of thousands of pubs in the city, but damnit this was a matter of principle now. Desparate, we started walking around the perimeter of the beer garden structure. Now they were serving a number of people outside of the official building, but you had to have a seat to get served and there just wasn't an inch of space on any one of hundreds of tables that we passed by. Seriously, people were packed 12 deep at tables meant to seat 6. People were sitting on top of each other just to get served beer. It was ridiculous. Can it really be this hard to get a beer at Oktoberfest.
We left the Hacker-Pfeltzen and passed by a number of other beer gardens. Every one of them was in the same boat. With a broken spirit, I reluctantly decided to give up on the idea of having a beer that night. There was good news however. There was nothing preventing me from attaining my goal of eating bratwurst that night. Of course a bratwurst without beer is almost not a bratwurst, but I was willing to make that sacrifice to salvage at least a piece of my dream.
So, we stopped at one of the myriad wurst-stands and a got a metre-long bratwurst. Seriously it was awesome. This thing stuck out from the bun by 6 inches on either side. I slathered it with mustard and started chowing down. Instantly I begun to feel better.
We were on our way out of Oktoberfest when something strange caught my eye. What's that I see over there? Are there people walking around with glasses of beer in their hand? Is there really some place that is actually serving beer to the public without a waiting list??? Indeed there was! Hallelujah! For a brief moment, it occurred to me that there just might be a God out there after all. Granted they weren't serving beer in the litre mugs that Oktoberfest was renowned for, but it was still beer. And not just any beer, it was fresh, it was German and it was good :)
I still can't believe that it took so long to find this place. And I don't understand why they aren't serving beer in a hundred more stands like this. Why on earth would they be holding back? This is, after all, a beer festival, is it not? I'm desperately hoping that tomorrow will give me a different impression of Oktoberfest.
On Saturday night all I wanted for dinner was to find a little wurst-stand to get some fresh german sausages. Despite scouring the city for an hour and a half, I was unable to find this Utopian sausage stand of my dreams and we ended up eating at some streetside cafe, which incidentally had excellent food but nonetheless wasn't a wurst-stand.
Fast forward to Sunday night when Dirk and I made it down to the Oktoberfest grounds for the first time... we walked through gates of Oktoberfest and were greeted by Bratwurst nirvana. A thousand, nay, a million vendors selling fresh German sausage. The only problem was that I had already eaten :( I vowed to come back the following night to fulfil my gastronomical dream.
So, tonight the goal was simple. I was going to round up the guys and head over to Oktoberfest to partake of the wurst-goodness and drink a few beers while I was at it. Now, I didn't really have plans of getting smashed tonight. I just wanted to have a few beers with dinner. I was saving up my beer-drinking stamina for tomorrow night when the whole GWAVACon conference is planning on heading over to Oktoberfest en-masse for a celebration.
Things got complicated when one of the local Novell consultants got invited along. He is from Munich and seemed to know all about Oktoberfest. He recommended that we stop by a beer garden first and then grab a bite to eat a little later in the evening. Now, I hadn't really planned on stopping by the beer gardens because I figured that they were going to be really crowded and, as mentioned before, I wasn't really in the mood to drink mass quantities of beer tonight. But, I figured that the local guy knew best so I was going to go along with his plan.
Oktoberfest was busting at the seams tonight. It only about 5 minutes to separate our group of 6 into 2 groups of 3. Dirk ended up with the two guys from Europe and Morris, Sundy and I ended up together. After about 30 seconds we gave up on trying to find the other guys and decided to just head to one of the beer gardens. Problem was that everyone that we stopped by had a group of 50 people standing outside of locked doors waiting to get in. It appeared that all of the beer gardens were already operating at maximum capacity and that we were going to have to wait to get a spot.
What made the situation even more dire is that it occurred to us as we were walking around that we hadn't seen a single person drinking a beer outside of one of the beer gardens. We also didn't see a single place to buy beer outside of the beer gardens. So, to get served beer, we had to get into the beer garden, and to get into the beer garden we had to wait.
And so we spent the next 45 minutes waiting to get inside the Hacker-Pfeltzen beer garden. Forty minutes at Oktoberfest with no beer. Seriously I thought I was in a bad dream. Why couldn't they just serve the people outside? I didn't understand. After 45 minutes, we decided to just give up. It's not so much that we got tired of waiting as it was that we were afraid that at the current rate of travel we weren't going to make it in before Oktoberfest shut down for the night. What was the current rate of travel: 0. Not a single person had been let inside in the entire time that we were waiting in line. This is Oktoberfest! Why can't we get a beer.
Of course we could have walked back into town and gotten a beer at one of thousands of pubs in the city, but damnit this was a matter of principle now. Desparate, we started walking around the perimeter of the beer garden structure. Now they were serving a number of people outside of the official building, but you had to have a seat to get served and there just wasn't an inch of space on any one of hundreds of tables that we passed by. Seriously, people were packed 12 deep at tables meant to seat 6. People were sitting on top of each other just to get served beer. It was ridiculous. Can it really be this hard to get a beer at Oktoberfest.
We left the Hacker-Pfeltzen and passed by a number of other beer gardens. Every one of them was in the same boat. With a broken spirit, I reluctantly decided to give up on the idea of having a beer that night. There was good news however. There was nothing preventing me from attaining my goal of eating bratwurst that night. Of course a bratwurst without beer is almost not a bratwurst, but I was willing to make that sacrifice to salvage at least a piece of my dream.
So, we stopped at one of the myriad wurst-stands and a got a metre-long bratwurst. Seriously it was awesome. This thing stuck out from the bun by 6 inches on either side. I slathered it with mustard and started chowing down. Instantly I begun to feel better.
We were on our way out of Oktoberfest when something strange caught my eye. What's that I see over there? Are there people walking around with glasses of beer in their hand? Is there really some place that is actually serving beer to the public without a waiting list??? Indeed there was! Hallelujah! For a brief moment, it occurred to me that there just might be a God out there after all. Granted they weren't serving beer in the litre mugs that Oktoberfest was renowned for, but it was still beer. And not just any beer, it was fresh, it was German and it was good :)
I still can't believe that it took so long to find this place. And I don't understand why they aren't serving beer in a hundred more stands like this. Why on earth would they be holding back? This is, after all, a beer festival, is it not? I'm desperately hoping that tomorrow will give me a different impression of Oktoberfest.
City Sights
Today began as most days have begun for me in Munich... way too early and with not enough sleep. I got up at 5:30 in the morning after only 4 hours of sleep so that I could work out and shower before a seven o'clock meeting. I've been working out in the hotel's gym for the last couple of days to help offset all of the drinking and eating that I've been doing while here. It's not a very big gym but they have a treadmill and a weight machine that I have been using.
Half awake, I drug myself down to the gym only to discover that it wasn't open yet. I was kind of upset because I really felt like I needed to work out. I inquired at the front desk and was able to convince him without any trouble at all (none really) to let me use the gym unsupervised. They usually have an attendant in the "wellness center", but I believe that it's mostly to supervise the pool and spa areas.
I finished my workout leaving just enough time to shower, shave, iron my shirt and then head back downstairs for my 7 o'clock meeting. Instead of being greeted by a room full of customers, I found only my director in a half-setup room with a puzzled look on his face. It took us a couple of minutes to figure out that the meeting was actually scheduled for 7:30 and not 7:00. You can imagine that we were both a little frustrated with the marketing guy that failed to relay this information to us considering how precious a commodity half-an-hour of sleep is on a trip like this.
When the meeting did finally start, it was actually really productive. In fact, I would say that this morning's meeting with half a dozen of our customers was the highlight of the work portion of my trip so far. We got a lot of good feedback. We have another meeting just like it tomorrow morning that I'm hoping will be equally productive.
With the meeting behind me, I was actually free to roam the city until my shift in the lab started at noon. I set sail through the streets of Munich piloting a pair of Adidas running shoes. My goal for the morning's walk was to make it to the English Gardens on the other side of the city. I really didn't have any specific directions but at I had a general bearing.
My journey began by beating a familiar path to Marien-plaza in the heart of downtown. I had stopped through the area on Saturday night and was awed by some of the architecture of the buildings downtown. Unfortunately it was dark out on Saturday night, so I vowed to come back during daylight to get pictures. And so I did :)
Now, you will probably ask of each of these buildings that I took pictures of, "What is that place? Did you go inside?". The answer on every single occasion is, "I have no idea, and 'No'". The architecture is impressive from the outside, but I've found that I'm not really drawn to the insides of buildings. I prefer to be out walking through the city streets. In my opinion, indoor activities like Museums and historical tours are best saved for rainy days.
It didn't take me long to find my way to the Engligh gardens. The 'garden' is an oasis of lush greenery and flowing rivers in the desert of concrete and stone of downtown Munich. It reminds me of Central Park in New York. Of course, I've never been to Central Park in New York, so it reminds me only in concept :) There were a number of jogging and bike paths that criss-crossed through the park and I was about to embark on one of them when I discovered that my camera was running low on batteries.
I hate not being able to take pictures of really cool places. It has already happened to me several times on this trip where I didn't have my camera available and couldn't take pictures of something that I really wanted to. I decided that rather than take my chances with the low batteries that I should delay the walk through the park until I could find some replacements. When I conceived this idea, I imagined only walking a block or two farther before discovering some convenience store or gas station in which to buy batteries.
Funny thing about Munich... I haven't seen a gas station or convenience store since I've gotten here. There are plenty of cars so I know that there must be gas stations, but they do a damned good job of hiding them. There are plenty of corner stores here, but I just so happened to walk nearly a mile before happening upon a corner with a corner store on it. Fortunately the mile that I walked followed the perimeter of the gardens and I just ended up entering the gardens in different location and walking back through the gardens instead of "there and back" like I had originally planned.
I had a nice leisurely walk through the gardens which was a nice change from the frenetic pace that I was keeping through the city streets. I only had 2 and a half hours to kill and I wanted to make sure that I got as much in as possible in that time. But, once I got to the gardens, I had arrived at the something that I wanted to "get in", and so I took it down a notch or two to enjoy it.
There was nothing really spectacular about the gardens in an exhibitionist sense of the word. There were no ornate flower arrangements or bushes trimmed to look like animals. It was just nature. There were trees and shrubbery and a quaint little river that ran through it. It was peaceful. It was relaxing. It was everything that I hoped that it would be and exactly what I needed.
I didn't really have plans after the gardens. I just knew that I needed to start working my way back to the hotel and that I had more time to kill than I had imagined. So, I peeked at a city map and headed in the direction of something else that looked interesting... two larges rivers which paralleled each other and plenty of bridges that ran over them. There was plenty more architecture to see along the way, and it ended up being just as cool as I had imagined walking alongside and then criss-crossing over these two rivers. (Dad: for bonus points, can you name this river?)
After my river adventure it was starting to get late and I was worried about making it back to the hotel in time for my shift in the lab. So, I walked a couple of blocks to the nearest Taxi station and caught a cab. It was the first time that I had ridden in a Taxi since coming to Munich and I have to admit that it scared me a little bit. You don't get a sense for how much narrower the lanes of traffic are here until you attempt to squeeze in between two lanes of cars with 6 inches of space on either side of you at 45 miles per hour (of course the driver was driving in kilometers per hour, but I'm not quick enough to do the calculation).
All in all, I would say that I made pretty good use of my 3 hours off of work today. I got to see a lot of the city, a little bit of nature and got plenty of exercise from walking around. I would guess that I walked at least 6 (if not more) miles through the city today.
Half awake, I drug myself down to the gym only to discover that it wasn't open yet. I was kind of upset because I really felt like I needed to work out. I inquired at the front desk and was able to convince him without any trouble at all (none really) to let me use the gym unsupervised. They usually have an attendant in the "wellness center", but I believe that it's mostly to supervise the pool and spa areas.
I finished my workout leaving just enough time to shower, shave, iron my shirt and then head back downstairs for my 7 o'clock meeting. Instead of being greeted by a room full of customers, I found only my director in a half-setup room with a puzzled look on his face. It took us a couple of minutes to figure out that the meeting was actually scheduled for 7:30 and not 7:00. You can imagine that we were both a little frustrated with the marketing guy that failed to relay this information to us considering how precious a commodity half-an-hour of sleep is on a trip like this.
When the meeting did finally start, it was actually really productive. In fact, I would say that this morning's meeting with half a dozen of our customers was the highlight of the work portion of my trip so far. We got a lot of good feedback. We have another meeting just like it tomorrow morning that I'm hoping will be equally productive.
With the meeting behind me, I was actually free to roam the city until my shift in the lab started at noon. I set sail through the streets of Munich piloting a pair of Adidas running shoes. My goal for the morning's walk was to make it to the English Gardens on the other side of the city. I really didn't have any specific directions but at I had a general bearing.
My journey began by beating a familiar path to Marien-plaza in the heart of downtown. I had stopped through the area on Saturday night and was awed by some of the architecture of the buildings downtown. Unfortunately it was dark out on Saturday night, so I vowed to come back during daylight to get pictures. And so I did :)
Now, you will probably ask of each of these buildings that I took pictures of, "What is that place? Did you go inside?". The answer on every single occasion is, "I have no idea, and 'No'". The architecture is impressive from the outside, but I've found that I'm not really drawn to the insides of buildings. I prefer to be out walking through the city streets. In my opinion, indoor activities like Museums and historical tours are best saved for rainy days.
It didn't take me long to find my way to the Engligh gardens. The 'garden' is an oasis of lush greenery and flowing rivers in the desert of concrete and stone of downtown Munich. It reminds me of Central Park in New York. Of course, I've never been to Central Park in New York, so it reminds me only in concept :) There were a number of jogging and bike paths that criss-crossed through the park and I was about to embark on one of them when I discovered that my camera was running low on batteries.I hate not being able to take pictures of really cool places. It has already happened to me several times on this trip where I didn't have my camera available and couldn't take pictures of something that I really wanted to. I decided that rather than take my chances with the low batteries that I should delay the walk through the park until I could find some replacements. When I conceived this idea, I imagined only walking a block or two farther before discovering some convenience store or gas station in which to buy batteries.
Funny thing about Munich... I haven't seen a gas station or convenience store since I've gotten here. There are plenty of cars so I know that there must be gas stations, but they do a damned good job of hiding them. There are plenty of corner stores here, but I just so happened to walk nearly a mile before happening upon a corner with a corner store on it. Fortunately the mile that I walked followed the perimeter of the gardens and I just ended up entering the gardens in different location and walking back through the gardens instead of "there and back" like I had originally planned.
I had a nice leisurely walk through the gardens which was a nice change from the frenetic pace that I was keeping through the city streets. I only had 2 and a half hours to kill and I wanted to make sure that I got as much in as possible in that time. But, once I got to the gardens, I had arrived at the something that I wanted to "get in", and so I took it down a notch or two to enjoy it.
There was nothing really spectacular about the gardens in an exhibitionist sense of the word. There were no ornate flower arrangements or bushes trimmed to look like animals. It was just nature. There were trees and shrubbery and a quaint little river that ran through it. It was peaceful. It was relaxing. It was everything that I hoped that it would be and exactly what I needed.
I didn't really have plans after the gardens. I just knew that I needed to start working my way back to the hotel and that I had more time to kill than I had imagined. So, I peeked at a city map and headed in the direction of something else that looked interesting... two larges rivers which paralleled each other and plenty of bridges that ran over them. There was plenty more architecture to see along the way, and it ended up being just as cool as I had imagined walking alongside and then criss-crossing over these two rivers. (Dad: for bonus points, can you name this river?)
After my river adventure it was starting to get late and I was worried about making it back to the hotel in time for my shift in the lab. So, I walked a couple of blocks to the nearest Taxi station and caught a cab. It was the first time that I had ridden in a Taxi since coming to Munich and I have to admit that it scared me a little bit. You don't get a sense for how much narrower the lanes of traffic are here until you attempt to squeeze in between two lanes of cars with 6 inches of space on either side of you at 45 miles per hour (of course the driver was driving in kilometers per hour, but I'm not quick enough to do the calculation).
All in all, I would say that I made pretty good use of my 3 hours off of work today. I got to see a lot of the city, a little bit of nature and got plenty of exercise from walking around. I would guess that I walked at least 6 (if not more) miles through the city today.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Busy Sunday
Today was my busiest day of the whole trip. Things kicked off with an 8AM pre-show meeting, I worked in the lab from 9 until 1, and then gave my first presentation from 1:30 until 2:30 in the afternoon. I thought that the presentation went really well. There were a good 25 people signed up for my session today and I imagine that attendance will be similar over the next two days as well.
I had a couple of hours off after my presentation which I ended up using just relaxing in my room. It was really uncharacteristic of me to spend that time in the hotel instead of out exploring the city. But it was raining, I didn't have that much time, I didn't feel like changing into walking clothes, and maybe most importantly, I was just tired. It felt good to take a short nap before the keynote presentation.
After the keynote, I headed back down to the lab for "Meet the Experts" where I got to talk to a handful of customers, partners and even some Novell folk from Europe about various GroupWise issues. It was a really positive experience.
The work day wrapped up at about 8PM. Sorry Mom, didn't have time to catch any of the conference talks :)
After spending the whole day couped up in the hotel I was itching to get out on the streets. I didn't have anywhere in particular that I wanted to go but I just needed to stretch my legs and explore a bit. Dirk was feeling the same way and decided to join me. Although there were some snacks served at "Meet the Experts", it really wasn't enough food to constitute a meal. So, we figured that while we were out exploring we would find a place to stop for a bite of food.
Just as we were about to leave the hotel we bumped into a bunch of GWAVA guys in the lobby and were invited to dinner with them. The GWAVA guys really have been generous to us. We had a great time at dinner in the Chinese restaurant inside the hotel. Yes, we did go to a Chinese restaurant in Germany :) Over the course of dinner we got to hear a rather amusing history of the birth of GWAVA and some anecdotes from the early years of the company.
We didn't finish dinner until nearly 11PM, but I still had the itch to set out walking around the city. The thing that I really like about Dirk is that he's not afraid to just get out and explore. He's not the type of guy that needs to have a plan. So, we just started meandering through the city. We stopped at a Turkish restaurant for some Turkish Baclava which is apparently slightly different than the more common Greek baclava. I didn't much care whether or not it was Turkish or Greek, it was all just good to me :)
Our meandering incidentally led us to the Oktoberfest grounds. We hadn't really planned it that way, but by a simple twist of fate had accidentally chosen to go down a road that led to the Oktoberfest grounds. Oktoberfest was a madhouse. It was just insane to see so many people out having a good time. I was also surprised to see that it wasn't just about the drinking. There was a big carnival with rides and booths and food stands, much like a state fair.
Unfortunately, we arrived just as things were shutting down, and I didn't have the chance to drink any Oktoberfest beer. I know, it's kind of sad :( I may try to head back down there tomorrow night if I get the chance otherwise, we have plans to go for sure on Tuesday.
I had a couple of hours off after my presentation which I ended up using just relaxing in my room. It was really uncharacteristic of me to spend that time in the hotel instead of out exploring the city. But it was raining, I didn't have that much time, I didn't feel like changing into walking clothes, and maybe most importantly, I was just tired. It felt good to take a short nap before the keynote presentation.
After the keynote, I headed back down to the lab for "Meet the Experts" where I got to talk to a handful of customers, partners and even some Novell folk from Europe about various GroupWise issues. It was a really positive experience.
The work day wrapped up at about 8PM. Sorry Mom, didn't have time to catch any of the conference talks :)
After spending the whole day couped up in the hotel I was itching to get out on the streets. I didn't have anywhere in particular that I wanted to go but I just needed to stretch my legs and explore a bit. Dirk was feeling the same way and decided to join me. Although there were some snacks served at "Meet the Experts", it really wasn't enough food to constitute a meal. So, we figured that while we were out exploring we would find a place to stop for a bite of food.
Just as we were about to leave the hotel we bumped into a bunch of GWAVA guys in the lobby and were invited to dinner with them. The GWAVA guys really have been generous to us. We had a great time at dinner in the Chinese restaurant inside the hotel. Yes, we did go to a Chinese restaurant in Germany :) Over the course of dinner we got to hear a rather amusing history of the birth of GWAVA and some anecdotes from the early years of the company.
We didn't finish dinner until nearly 11PM, but I still had the itch to set out walking around the city. The thing that I really like about Dirk is that he's not afraid to just get out and explore. He's not the type of guy that needs to have a plan. So, we just started meandering through the city. We stopped at a Turkish restaurant for some Turkish Baclava which is apparently slightly different than the more common Greek baclava. I didn't much care whether or not it was Turkish or Greek, it was all just good to me :)
Our meandering incidentally led us to the Oktoberfest grounds. We hadn't really planned it that way, but by a simple twist of fate had accidentally chosen to go down a road that led to the Oktoberfest grounds. Oktoberfest was a madhouse. It was just insane to see so many people out having a good time. I was also surprised to see that it wasn't just about the drinking. There was a big carnival with rides and booths and food stands, much like a state fair.
Unfortunately, we arrived just as things were shutting down, and I didn't have the chance to drink any Oktoberfest beer. I know, it's kind of sad :( I may try to head back down there tomorrow night if I get the chance otherwise, we have plans to go for sure on Tuesday.
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