New Year’s Eve in Nürnberg is unreal. Everyone has serious fireworks and at midnight the whole city erupts.

Here’s our updated and captioned photo album from our recent Christmas trip to Florida. The album was created using an amazing and free program called JAlbum.

Ups and downs of the week.

  Home at last – Good to be home where I can relax and not deal with airplanes.

  Air travel – The industry has sunken to a new low. The whole system is badly broken and needs government regulation now.

 Celtics – 24-3 and still going strong. This is turning into a banner year for Boston sports fans.

  Weather – Is it my imagination, or is this the worst start to winter we’ve had in years?

 New Camera – I am seriously impressed. So easy to get great pics.

After a grueling trip down here which only proved how screwed up the airlines are, we finally had a chance to enjoy the weather and see some sites. Pics of Ponce De Leon Springs state park and St. Augustine can be seen here. I’ll post more in detail when we get back.

Ups and downs of the week.

  Vacation time – Off to Florida and some warm weather.

  Backaches – Bad muscle pull this week. Just in time for vacation.

 Timing – Rain tomorrow until after we leave. Then snow.

  Airlines – Fares going up, service going down.

 New Camera – I think I’m going to like it.

Ups and downs of the week.

 Fireplaces – Very nice on a cold night.

  Empty head – I seem to have run out of blogging material lately.

 Dentistry – I’m finally done. “See you in six months,” he says. Ya, right.

  Christkindlesmarkt – It’s back. Fascinating place to visit. Bratwurst. Glühwein. People watching. Good times.

Ups and downs of the week.

 Red Sox – Took it all. Who’da thunk it?

 DSL – What a pain the butt. Cable is a no-brainer to set up. DSL modems with built-in routers and firewalls are a royal pain. And a big thanks to SBC-Yahoo DSL for chasing all the plain vanilla DSL (read: simple) modems out of the stores. DSL will justifiably become extinct because it is such a pain. Good riddance.

 Chicago – Great city. So many really good restaurants all within walking distance of the river.

  Chicago – Is there ever a moment when you don’t hear sirens? They need to rename the place The Siren City.

 Verizon Wireless Data – Who needs the $10/day hotel wireless? Just hook the Verizon phone to the laptop and surf away. This post brought to you by Verizon Wireless.

 Boston Celtics – I’m not a big (or even small) basketball fan, but I did see the Celts kick royal butt tonight. Maybe they will have a great season. Is a championship in three major sports too much to ask in one year?

This past weekend we drove down to Carbondale to hit a book sale and check out Giant City State Park. The book sale trip was successful (which means Sarah bought a bunch of books). Our dinner at an Indian restaurant was a bust. The park was all ours and the weather was perfect. So all in all, I’d say it was a good trip. There’s not much reason to stay in Carbondale, so if you’re going down to see the park, check out the Lodge and Cabins. There’s a great walking trail around  the park, lots of shorter trails around key areas, and horse trails (and rentals). Great way to spend a fall weekend.

Countries I’ve visited. This doesn’t include countries whose airports I’ve been in and out of. If it did, Greece and Ireland would be red. Still, lots of the world still to see.

Here are the states I’ve been to. Again, no airport in/outs. I really need to visit the northern plains. Probably some of the most beautiful places and I’ve never managed to get there.

I decided I’d like to have a place to post some larger versions of my many pictures, so I created Random Scenery. It’s a simple site which displays a single image from a directory of many images. Refreshing the page will change the image. There are only a couple dozen images right now, but that number will grow over time. I hope you enjoy your visit.

UPDATE: I added a 10 second auto-refresh, so now you can just sit there and watch.  🙂