Jamie Wakefield

Comment replies

2012-01-04T21:03:00.001+01:00

Leigh said...

Pal, we're just happy you're home.

Thanks man. It’s good to be home. I look forward to many, many hours of your company.

Anonymous said...

So, since you are now back in the US, settled in and doing well, is there any chance we will see more MTG blogs from you? I'm hoping so, because I always found your writings to be insightful and fun.

I regret to inform you that I believe I am done with Magic. Sorry about that. Unless I win the lottery and no longer need to work, I just don’t feel I will ever have the time to be good at it. And it’s not fun for me or my readers if I’m not at least adequate at the game.

Eleven said...

Sweet! Looking forward to (hopefully) regular posts (also hopefully) soon.

Me too! It’s been crazy. Hope to get more adjusted soon.

Tom Darling said...

I was clearing out my old gmails and found yours from when you got married. Went to the blog and found you're back in Vermont! Wow!

Welcome back.

Thanks Tom. It’s good to be back. I would love to see you and Cathy some time and catch up. You are the originator of one of my favorite quotes. Something along the lines of “Someday, all your precious memories and mementos will be sold at an estate sale for five dollars in a box lot.” It’s helped me clean out a lot of stuff from my closets…

Mr. Fantastic said...

Random question: any plans for playing the Boston area PTQs?

Sadly, no. See above. Which is a shame because I'd love to meet you.

Laurie from Indiana said...

Hi Jamie,

I spent the summer of 2011 in Madrid, and I'm planning on moving to Spain in 2012. A friend of mine just bought me a copy of your book for Christmas. My heart resonated with many of the things you said you loved about Spain. Thanks for sharing your story.
Oh, I experienced a weird coincidence while reading your book. In one of the early chapters you describe a party in Madrid, and you list some of the names of the people there, including a woman named Candy. After seeing her name, I paused for a minute. Last year I bought a book about moving to Spain that was written by an American woman named Candy. As it turns out, my book is written by your friend! I could not believe it when I read about her wedding in your book. What a coincidence!

Anyway, I wish you and Wendy the best of luck in your new adventure in Vermont.

Thank you Laurie, I’m very glad you enjoyed the book. Candy was/is a good friend of ours and her book is the first one we grab when traveling around Spain. She’s a hell of a writer and a hell of a friend. We miss her. Best of luck in Spain!

I hope this adequately illustrates my bizarre work environment:

2012-01-04T20:18:00.001+01:00

Dan and Forrest have hooked up a Smartboard in which to draw out the network configuration. I swivel my chair around to watch, pretending I know what’s going on, but really just trying to learn. I’m sorry, my expertise lies elsewhere.

Side note to illustrate : The Assistant Principal stops Dan and I in the hall on the way to a job. “I’m sorry, non-work related question. Do you have a sec?”

“Sure.”

“I can’t get my iPhone to send mail. It can receive but not send using my school account.”

Dan goes white.

Me: “I can fix that for you.”

And I do. I’m now the iPhone expert. Go me. BFD.

Dan and Forrest (from my notes that I actually don’t understand as they draw shit on the whiteboard and I fail to comprehend:)

“The VNKernals are here (drawing.) “What if we took VMware and… gibberish, gobbledegook, gibberish... “

“Yeah but NIC1 is here…”

“ But look, the 1099 switch is..”

“Sure but management is here!”

“NO, Management is here on the other two 1099’s.”

Hmmm… deep thought…

“What if we build a separate network on the Sisco switches?”

“Or, what if we move a VM over to a blade?”

“How about two blades?”

….

Are your eyes glazing over yet? Because mine are.

Thirty minutes later we are all staring at computer screens. I spin around. “Hey, do you guys watch “The Big Bang Theory?” Last night we watched an episode that Eliza Dushku was on.”

Blank stares.

“Eliza who?”

If you don’t understand why this is complete madness, I envy you.

Life is great!

2011-12-13T17:48:00.000+01:00

We have finally settled in. The new little dog, Loki, is finally potty-trained and is an amazing dog. I've finally gotten used to the commute, the hours, everything. Finally felt up to having poker night this Saturday and had nine adults and Josh's baby over for a great time. Most of the stuff from Madrid has been unpacked and incorporated into the house thanks to my beautiful wife. All the patio and porch furniture is down cellar and the lawn mowed a final time before the snow flew.

Life is good.

Soon, I might even be able to do some real blog posts.

Busy return home

2011-10-20T17:16:00.001+02:00

As I mentioned before, I am essentially working a ten hour work day thanks to my hour commute every day. Add on top of that forty-five minutes to wake up, a new puppy who needs constant attention and care when I get home, a busted car, sleep, chores around the house and we’re talking two to three hours a day of free time. For instance: We moved back to Vermont to experience family, friends, and festivals; to be a part of the community and local traditions as well as work on making our home a blend of all of our travels and lifestyle.

Last weekend we had one plan. Dinner and walk through the production known as The Haunted Forrest with Hilary and Michele. Instead, we were informed of plans long in fruition finally bearing fruit. Our new puppy would be flown in and our shipping container from Spain would arrive. So, the weekend looked like this for me:

Friday: Work a ten hour day, do dinner and Haunted Forest with Hilary and Michele, return home at 12:30 p.m.

Saturday: Work around the house, leave at 5:30 for Manchester NH to pick up new little dachshund puppy. Spend a half an hour coaxing him out of his crate to get water and pee. Drive three hours home, get to sleep at 2:30 a.m.

Sunday: Wake up at 7:30 to put new puppy out, go back to bed until 9:30, get up and have coffee. Arrange the house in order to make room for new boxes. 12:00: Russian movers arrive. Unload and unpack boxes for five hours while taking care of new puppy that is freaked the F out by all the movement and noise. Into your crate. Sit down and relax for three hours and go to bed.

Monday: Wake up at 5:45 and get ready for work.

This weekend was of similar craziness: Rather than detail the entire thing out again let’s just say it was not a lot of sitting unless it was in a car driving, nights of very little sleep, and now a full week of work. Wendy and I have been home from Madrid since August 17^th and I don’t think we’ve had a relaxing day yet. I got up this morning to find I haven’t had time to put away clothes that have been in the dryer for three days. I have unopened mail, a lawn that needs to be mowed, a puppy that needs constant attention… I could list twenty more things.

I really wanted to invite my old Magic friends over for poker night this week, but really, I’m just hoping to get some small chores done and finally feel like we’re home and having a day off.

Anecdotes, Reviews and Rambles

2011-10-08T14:49:00.006+02:00

Why not start with thoughts about Steve Jobs? He’s the big topic these days. Here’s a quote from him about getting up in the morning.

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?"

Which is a great concept but I have a problem with the reality of that. For one thing, if you knew it was your last day, you wouldn’t plan for the future, you wouldn’t go to work in order to have money for rent or food, or a retirement. I can’t speak for women, but as a man, if I knew it was my last day on Earth, I know of a whole lot of hedonistic things I would do that didn’t involve making money or mowing the lawn or having a stable job. But those things need to be done if you think you’re going to be around for awhile.

Also, I think it’s important to realize you need to ask yourself that initial question throughout the day. When I get up in the morning, about the last thing I want to do is shut off the alarm, get out of bed, have some coffee, shower, and drive an hour to work. But around ten a.m. when I am fully awake, working on a complex tech problem or I've made some teacher really happy that I made things work again, yeah, I am pretty happy with what I’m doing today. My job is awesome. Would I go to work next week if I knew it was even my last six months on earth? No.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel like a pissy little bitch, because we all know what the real message is: Do what you love. If you’re not enjoying yourself, make a change. Like fall in love, move to Madrid and explore Europe for five years.

Speaking of my job, I love listening to the teachers and seeing their different styles. Some are dry and boring, others "good enough" and some are excellent. Yesterday I was working in a school for the younger kids and burst out laughing. The teacher was amazing.

“Joseph, why are you wearing your jacket? Are you cold? Yeah, it is a little chilly in here. Do you see my sweater? Do you notice that it’s really big on me?”

“Yes,” the kids all respond.

“That’s because it belongs to Mister Stevens. Pouting works girls, remember that. Purse your lips and furrow your brows.”

A few minutes later someone comes into the room, “Hang on kids, I need to deal with this. Why? Because whose it all about?”

“You.” They all shout in unison.

“That’s right, it’s all about me.”

I am laughing my ass off at this point. Now, don’t get the wrong idea. She was excellent, used humor to engage them, and it was clear they all loved her as a teacher. I was in there for forty-five minutes and like the kids, I just wanted to sit and listen to her talk.

Reviews!

The new 52 from DC confuses me. Why start all the comics over from number one, call it a brand new beginning, and then reference things that had happened in past continuity? Why isn’t every single issue a new origin story or a new take on the old origin story? Some are, some aren’t and it’s baffling. It’s like no one is steering this massive ship. Or more appropriately, it’s like a busy airport with no air traffic controller. It makes no sense and to top it all off, in general, the stories suck. Action comics, Justice League and Aquaman number 1 have been the only ones I’ve liked of the ones I’ve bought.

PS, Dear DC, your online digital distribution sucks.

In game reviews, Wendy and I have finally found a game almost as captivating as Carcassone which we have played to death and then beaten with sticks. We were given Dominion as a wedding present from our good friend Rod and we are having a great time with it. It’s a lot like Magic but for less than the cost of Jace you can buy the basic set and an expansion which will you give you hundreds of hours of fun. (Wow, Jace has fallen in price, when I stopped playing Magic he was over a hundred.)

Writing books is hard.Getting rejected by (literally) two hundred agents is almost as hard. Seeing over two hundred dollars deposited into my checking account each month for the last two months is easy. And fun!

I don't know what's going on. Self published books like mine usually sell to family and friends and then either stagnate, or on very rare occasions become runaway hits and make thousands of dollars a week until the fad fades (vampire love triangles anyone?)

I can only guess that my name has come up in a few Magic articles recently or some travelogue blogger actually wrote a favorable review on their website and people are actually buying my other book.

Anyway, it's a great feeling either way.

And we're back... Sort of.

2011-09-21T12:00:00.003+02:00

Just a quick update. I used to have a lot more time for blogging and I did it to promote myself and my writing career. My job used to be "Try to be a writer."

Now my job is "get up at 5:45, have coffee, shower, dress, get on the road, drive to work for an hour, do IT for eight hours, drive an hour and ten minutes home (traffic), fix the house, car, lawn, etc, sit down in front of the TV and crash at 9:30 or 10:00 and pray for sleep."

So, things have changed.

I love the new job after a two week painful learning-the-network process now this and last week am having a great time. Second best job I ever had. The best job I ever had was identical except shorter hours and a 4 minute drive not 60 and started later.

Anyway, I'm blessed to have a good job in this economy but my days are literally ten hours long and with errands, chores, delays, appts, etc, everyday is almost 5:30 - 5:30 before I sit down to relax for a big four whole hours with my wife before bed.

Yes, I know, some of you are thinking, cry me a river, those with babies or harder jobs have it tougher, but it's a major change for me. I'm slowly adapting. More soon.

Hotspot Rambles

2011-08-11T11:07:00.005+02:00

Did you know we're moving back to Vermont? Movers come tomorrow. The apartment will have paper plates, two computers, a bed and a couch. For four days before we fly home.

Internet right now is through what's known as a "hotspot" on Wendy's iPhone, which, through 3G, provides internet access. Since we have exceeded our limit on fast internet bandwidth speed, we're stuck with dial-up like internet access. Hence, very few updates.

Quick rambles: We will be home late the 17th.

The little dog is starting to show signs of age, his hearing seems gone and the four flights of steps are murder on him. He will be happy to be home to the green green grass of Vermont and four steps to get inside the house.

Wendy quit reading "A Dance with Dragons" yesterday. I don't blame her one bit. Shame on you George "Robert Jordan" Martin. (Please sir, in your next book can you stop focusing so much on peeing, torture, whining and food? Thanks.)

Ultimate Spiderman has been an amazing comic for over a decade with the same creative team. I think it is one of the best series ever. That said let me vent for a second:

Killing Superman: That was a gimmick that bored true comic fans.
Killing Captain America: Same exact thing and like we didn't know he would be back two years later. Duh.
Killing Dark Pheonix: Touching, wonderful story where she should have just stayed dead. Bringing her back ruins that entire arc.

Killing Peter Parker? (Best Jon Stewart Voice:) "How dare you sir!? I repeat! How dare you?!"

Notice I didn't say "killing Spiderman." Unlike warriors like Captain America and Superman who you actually expect to fall in battle one day, Peter Parker was just a kid doing his best to be a hero. He was the geek, the struggling high school student, the one trying to balance a job, hiding his identity from his frail aunt and trying to keep SHIELD off his back.

He gave his life heroically, saving Captain America in the process, but really? Killing a 16 year old Peter Parker.

For shame sir!

Seriously?

2011-08-02T17:30:00.003+02:00

Does anyone ever really fall for this crap?

"Greetings,

It has come to our attention that you are trying to sell your personal World of Warcraft account(s). As you may not be aware of, this conflicts with the EULA and Terms of Agreement. If this proves to be true, your account can and will be disabled. It will be ongoing for further investigation by Blizzard Entertainment's employees. If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account ownership.

You can confirm that you are the original owner of the account to this secure website with:
https://us.battle.net/login/en/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fus.battle.net%2Faccount%2Fmanagement%2Findex.xml&app=bam&cr=true

Login to your account, In accordance following template to verify your account.

* Account name
* Account password
* First and Surname
* Secret Question and Answer
Show * Please enter the correct information

If you ignore this mail your account can and will be closed permanently.

Once we verify your account, we will reply to your e-mail informing you that we have dropped the investigation.

Regards,

Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.b lizzard.com/ support/
please retain all history if you reply to this mail"

We will also need a urine sample, your SS#, your current credit card information, your mom's maiden name, your bank transfer information and the title of your car.

Dear Scammer; please die in a fire? Thanks.

"I am going to have to choke this guy out."

2011-07-29T17:38:00.002+02:00

I am at the post office in Madrid. I need to mail back my contracts to my new employer in Vermont. Everything is ready, I just need a stamp.

The little dog is panting at my feet trying to sniff the woman next to me who has no wish to be sniffed. Since the ticket machine is broken I ask (as is Spanish custom) "Who is last?" A priest tells me he is. The next person comes in, asks who is last and I assent that I am. He is a beefy guy, a little taller than me, slight gut, black hair turning to grey, muscled but not enormous.

Ten minutes go by and the same woman is still at one of the two open windows. I look to the guy who came in behind me and roll my eyes. "For the love of God," he says. "I know. Incredible."

That was a mistake.

The little dog is lying on the marble floor, clearly thinking we are at the vet and a rectal exam is coming his way soon so he is panting in distress.

Five minutes later my beefy friend is throwing a fit, cursing and swearing, blaming the president of Spain for this delay, pacing up and down the aisle, "WTF is going on, why is no one moving," he doesn't have time for this. At this point, I want nothing to do with this guy. I'm annoyed, but generally, I am a patient, accepting man. It is what it is. I might agree with him that this sucks, but I'm not about to get involved in a revolt over a post office line.

Five minutes later he is approaching the desk asking the Spanish equivalent of "WTF is taking so long?" I refuse to meet his eyes.

Oh I'm so glad they have strict gun laws here because this guy is about to go postal.

(Get it, postal? ;-)

I am starting to get worried. This guy is pacing back and forth, furious, shouting every now and then, creating a scene and I am thinking he is going to flip out at any second.

Then I start to chuckle. In a complete one-eighty my mind suddenly decides this is hilarious. This is Spain. This is the way things are here. Sorry man. And then, as five more minutes pass, his anger growing by the minute, I start to think "I might have to take this guy down and choke him out." I look him over. I can take him. He's not that much bigger than me and clearly has no training. If he flips out, I can handle it. (What I mean by this is, I will subdue him so he is not a danger to others.)

Another window opens. "Next!"

A man tells me to go, it's my turn. Except it isn't. It's the priest's down the hall not paying attention. "Padre!" I scream to him, twice before he realizes he's up. A window finally finishes, I take my turn and in thirty seconds more I am out of there. The little dog is scrapping his claws in his desperation to get out of there without an exam.

It has been thirty-five minutes and they have served five people.

I'll be watching the news to see if anyone went postal yesterday.

Ramble time

2011-07-19T17:18:00.002+02:00

* Lorelei told me I would not get any responses to "My Wife the Spy part III" because it is too scary. It looks like she is right. I'm glad she is out of that business now.

* There is not a day that goes by that we do not think "I cannot wait to start our new life in Vermont. I cannot wait to have one home. I cannot wait to have a yard, a king sized bed, a lack of construction every morning, a gym where people understand etiquette and air conditioning and customer service and... etc."

*We will miss Spain, don't get me wrong, but our time here is done for the moment.

*After a five year wait, GRRM new novel is a huge disappointment to me. GRRM is the guy who wrote the book and HBO series "A Game of Thrones" both of which are excellent. This is the best way to explain how I feel: There is another fantasy series called "The Wheel of Time." Go look at the reviews on Amazon for books 5-10 of that series by Robert Jordan. The author of those books died before he could complete the series. GRRM is making the same mistake Robert Jordan did. We want to hear the rest of the story and instead he is describing how mushrooms in butter and garlic taste. Why Daenerys Stormborn has to wear a particular robe even though she hates it. How hard it is to run the night's watch or the politics necessary to win over a cities heart. GRRM wants to describe fashion, food and pissing in a bucket for endless pages rather than tell us what happens next. I am sorry to be harsh GRMM but you are not a young man and you may suffer the same fate as Robert Jordan. What could be a classic along the lines of "The Lord of the Rings" is rapidly sinking into literature that is reviled by your fans.

*I am exhausted. Last weeks excursion has left me sleeping badly but with a lot to do. I am over-stimulated and that is bad for me. Today I walked the dog, bought a new shower rod, hung up two shower curtains, bathed the dog, cleaned the pool, (it's a small pool on our terrace but still, it needed cleaning) filled out a stack of papers thicker than my fist that are required for my new job, cleaned the terrace, wrote this, confirmed with my doctor my iPhone had been stolen and I had lost my next appointment with him, called the electric company, answered five emails, updated my Facebook status thrice, wrote a review for Amazon and made some lunch. (I'm reaching now aren't I?) Yeah, my life is hard. Anyone with children will know that was extreme sarcasm.

*Mark Waid tweeted about the reboot of DC "That's not a knock on the reboot. I trust Grant. But every time I hear the words, "Superman needs to be more relatable," I lose my mind." I couldn't agree more. Superman is not supposed to be relate-able. You don't "get" Superman if you think the average man can relate to him... Wow, holy cow do I feel passionate about that. Dear Grant, take your All-Star Superman run and start from there. Do NOT go in the other direction.

My Wife the Spy Part III

2011-07-07T09:48:00.009+02:00

Wendy is contacted by a huge company (they're in the news a lot lately including last week's issue of Time magazine) who she has done work for before.

'Hi Wendy,

How are you? Good. So, what we want this time is an investigation into two people. They want us to design a hundred million dollar project for them. The problem is, they don't seem to have any money, no previous projects, and no history of business because their company was started only six months ago. We need you to verify that they are legit."

"No problem."

Wendy contacts the home office and they put her in contact with a German spy. When I say spy, I don't mean it in the way Wendy is a spy, I mean it in the James Bond, gadgets, surveillance, trained in hand to hand combat kind of spy. Wendy is put in touch with him and she details what she needs.

Four weeks go by and things seem to be going well. She is getting regular updates and brief reports. The spy doesn't work alone, he has an associate in Russia who is doing most of the heavy lifting.

At the six week mark, when the report is supposed to be finished and turned in to the client, she gets some bad news. Allegedly, the Russia spy has been killed and found in a ditch.

!!!!

The German spy tell us that as long as he can find the USB stick the Russian spy kept all his data on, all will be well. He should have the report to her in the next week.

Is this real? I don't know but I start locking the windows and double bolting the door at night.

The head office informs Wendy that it "probably" is not. That the German spy is usually late and this is his excuse for the fact that he's not delivering on time.

Another week goes by, Wendy placating the client who is getting restless.

Finally the report comes in and Wendy hollers to me from the other end of the apartment. "Jamie! You have to come see this."

I make my way down there to look over the report with Wendy.

"John lives in an American style apartment. His furnishings are all modern, American brands. He has a forty inch flat screen TV, three sofa's, two bedrooms. He owns three guns, all of them legally. Serial numbers are xxxxx-xxxxx, xxxxx-xxx, and xxxxxxx-xxxx. He has been in front of the court on two separate occasions on charges of corruption, found not guilty both times. He has one charge of DUI. His daughter has type two diabetes and attends X university in America studying pre-med. She drives a..."

(This is not writer's license. Everything I just listed was in the report.)

And on and on and on.

"Holy..."
"I know, right?"

"Wow."
"Yeah."

Deep in the report she finds the information she is looking for. The two men are cousins to the man who runs the country. They have all the money in the world because this company has been set up by the government to get this project pushed through.

Wendy delivers this and other information to the client as soon as she can. She takes the ramblings of the German spy and turns it into a professional document. (Do they need to know about his daughter and how many guns he owns and what their serial numbers are? No, they would be as freaked out as we are.) Then she burns everything to CD, meets with the client and delivers them some important pieces of advice.

1. They are legit.
2. You have nothing to worry about.
3. They are getting impatient. This deal has fallen through once with the German company they hired before you, and because of your hesitance to deal with them, is in danger of falling through again.
4. Call them now. Get started today. Start shipping product over now.

And that's how my wife the spy saved a hundred million dollar contract.

Extreme Candyass!

2011-06-29T12:23:00.005+02:00

The high temperature in Madrid is a hundred degrees (F) every day this week.

Monday I went out running at three p.m., essentially noon here in Madrid, the height of the heat. I ran down our hill, through the park to Principio Pio, down to the river, across the bridge, alongside the river, across the bridge again and up the hill. I wanted to get to the stoplight that ends the park and is halfway up the hill to our apartment. I had to look down at the sidewalk and ignore how far I had to go in order to make it.

The entire run the dry heat of Madrid burned my lungs as I sucked in air, thin with oxygen.

I'm so extreme aren't I?

Um, no.

Let me explain. I thrive on such weather. I have always run in the most insane conditions. When I was nineteen and a friend of mine was about to enter the military, I joined him on an extensive program designed to get him ready for basic training. It focused on push-ups and running. He was going to join in early spring so our regiment was in a bitter Vermont winter. We would run every day, sometimes twice or even three times a day. Being night people, we would usually run at midnight or later in below zero weather wearing shorts, t-shirt, gloves and ski-masks. See, your legs and arms and chest don't get cold when you're running, but the freezing air sucked into your lungs burns without a mask, preheated by your breath. Your fingers also get very cold when running at below zero temperatures.

Mark and I would even run before and after our main run. He lived two miles away. He would run down to my house, we would watch a movie or music videos (new at the time) and then go out for a run in the peaceful quiet dark of a Vermont winter night. Some nights he would run down to my folk's house, rest, we would go for our run, rest, run up to his house two miles away, watch something on satellite that I didn't have access to, then I would run home at four in the morning.

That was pretty extreme.

In college, depressed over a girl, I ran 8.8 miles in a driving snowstorm in my typical t-shirt, shorts, ski mask and gloves. Two months later in early Spring I was into barefoot running but hadn't done it yet that season. I went running with a female running partner who had somehow, unexpectedly, surpassed me in endurance. The ground was frozen. The road was dirt, rocks and half-frozen mud. Every step, cold hard pain shot through my feet to mid calf. She started at a brisk pace and then I realized the whole run was going to be at this insane speed.

Five minutes in I thought: "Can I do this?"

She was one of my best friends. Very attractive, kind, wise, humble, innocent and had a boyfriend out of town who she had been faithful to for two years through college. I respected her immensely. I know she felt the same about me. One night, she had too much to drink (unusual for her) and I was actually summoned by a mutual friend to where she was. "Oh, Jamie's here, everything will be alright now," she said as she fell unconscious into my arms. I carried her back to her room where a friend took control from there.

I was not about to quit in front of her.

At this point in my life, I was just getting secure in who I was and what I was made of. I had left high school the shortest kid in my class with a horrible GPA. I was never the standout wrestling star my brother was, never once winning a tournament but collecting a vast array of third place medals. Short, not very intelligent, not exactly athletic, I only had my will and wiry frame that grew seven inches in the year after high school.

The year I took off from college and Mark and I ran, I started to come into my own. I had real willpower and a great friend. In college I cultivated a group of dependable, amazing friends who I am friends with to this day and see often.

My rallying cry at that time was "I'm Jamie Wakefield Goddamnit!"

All of this was before I was leader of a guild, winner of PTQ's, a writer about Magic, an Inn Manager, a respected computer tech and people asking me to autograph cards. I was a young man trying to find himself whose only success was in the loyalty of my friends and my own willpower. My rallying cry wasn't based on "Look at what I have done" because I hadn't actually done, anything yet. It was more a "I am me. How do I see myself? I am not a quitter. I believe in my willpower over all else." I am me.

I thought to myself, "I'm Jamie Wakefield Goddamnit" and I turned off the pain. I focused on breathing, keeping even with her, matching pace, breathing, I had no feet, breath, there is no pain. Just run.

I ran the four miles, lungs burning, barefoot, my feet numb after the first mile, blocks of ice and bloody by the end.

"Good run."
"Yeah, thanks. Good run."
And I limped back to my dorm.

That was pretty extreme too.

Monday was not extreme because it was pretend. It was not a pattern, it was a single day. I had to stop more often than I wished and the air was dry and burned my throat to an extent I wasn't expecting. When I finished, I was disappointed with myself. Anyone can go out and run in a hundred degree heat if they stop when they get tired. I was pretending to be extreme but actually... wasn't.

So, I decided I would run every day this week in the hundred degree heat.

Tuesday went much better. I made sure I was beyond hydrated. I also had multiple cups of coffee and was vibrating by the time I went out for my run at 5:00 p.m. when it had topped a hundred degrees. I stopped only when lights were against me and I would have had to run into traffic to keep going. All three of those stops were less than twenty seconds apiece. I was tired by the time I was running along the river and assured myself there was no shame in stopping once I got to the bridge. Instead, I made it to the bridge and I kept going, running all the way to the stoplight, resting fifteen seconds as I waited for it to turn, then sprinted up the hill to the next light. I had done the exact same run as the day before, but infinitely better and infinitely more proud of myself.

Today I have gone to the gym, rode the bike, did three sets of bench, curls, triceps and lats. Then I went shopping on the way home and carried sixty pounds of groceries up five flights of steps.

I feel great. And in two hours, when it tops a hundred degrees, I'm going running.

End note: This was all going to wrap up into a message about weight loss, friends, determination and advice. But, this is long enough. My butt hurts from sitting. I hope this didn't come off as "look how cool I am," because I meant it to come off as "I used to be extreme now I'm faking it, but I'm trying to be better." This week should be filled with entries about "My Wife the Spy part III," the conclusion to what I really meant to say in this article, what I went through to lose 40 lbs, and possibly some book reviews, rambles about the BMW car we rented and even some politics. Who knows, but I'm hopeful.

My wife the spy part II

2011-06-21T14:31:00.007+02:00

So, we're investigating...

America has no companies doing nuclear. No new nuclear engineers. All the guys that used to do that are 60+ because of the current opinion about nuclear in the US right now.

So, another country, of the five we're looking at, doesn't have the intelligence, infrastructure or technological base to do anything this company wants. Their computers and engineering are almost stone age.

Another country has no nuclear.

The country doing the most solar is... Spain. (Who we're not supposed to investigate.)

Wendy puts me and the intern (the wonderful Diana) on search duty. Investigate the other countries. Investigate the US for thermal solar, co-generation and other tech the client is looking for. And so the search begins.

This is harder than you might think. It takes me a week to grasp it, and another week to teach Diana. "No, they do solar, not thermal solar."

"Yes, they have pictures of generators, but they build and sell them, they don't design systems."

"No, this company has two hundred million in sales last year, they are too big."

"Yes, they list co-generation on their web site but if you look at their last twenty projects, they do air conditioning and heating. They're not engineers."

These are subtle but important things. We can't show Wendy fifty companies that don't fit the right criteria. We spend... days... searching. It is endless and mind numbing but we get it done.

Finally, we get a list together of ten or more companies in each county that could be looked at. This is where Wendy comes in. Wendy doesn't have a silver tongue, she has a diamond encrusted platinum tongue.

"Hi, how are you today? This is Donna, right? ? Is now a good time to talk? Did you get the keys I sent you? Look, I've sent you a new car and all I need you to do is transfer me to your boss and tell him it's important. I'll take care of the rest. You'll probably get a raise out of this."

Soon she's talking to the president. "Hi, I represent a discreet group of investors in Spain who are interested in your company. Do you have any interest in being bought? Acquired? Retiring early and never having to worry about money again? Being involved in a scandal with a twenty-one year old model? Because I can make all of that happen."

Some responded with "No, we're too busy for new business." To which Wendy responded with "You clearly don't understand. We're not looking for someone to do work for us. We want... to... give... you... money!"

Other times they responded with "What are you selling? No, I'm not telling you anything." These were a problem.

Other times they responded with "We would love to be acquired! Let me send you our promotional material, a video, our bank account information, our sales last year, our newsletter and a box of chocolates!"

These worked out just fine.

In six weeks Wendy had detailed information on thirty to forty companies around the world that were available for the client to buy. She knew their sales, their expertise, their previous and current projects, number of employees, dental and criminal records, etc. It was insane. And most importantly, impressive.

Nothing was ever illegal, none of it was a lie. But calling a company and asking them about their business is a tricky thing. Some responded with suspicion. Some with guarded trust, and others with child-like enthusiasm. BUY US!

Wendy presented a 50 plus page document to the client, an accompanying CD and they were beyond pleased. Information on each companies sales, skills, desire to be acquired, number of employees, etc. Wendy actually advanced a number of peoples' careers with her information.

"You hired Wendy? Really? That was you? Here, you need more money and a better position."

I received phone calls in the night. "Is Wendy married? Because she could marry our company and work here forever."

"How much are you offering?" I asked.

Slap!

"Ow! Damnit, I'm kidding! She's married! She's mine! Stop calling!"

The best story about this insane business is next. You won't believe it.

My wife the spy.

2011-06-20T19:48:00.001+02:00

I asked my wife permission to tell this story. Why?

Because she’s a spy.

Don’t tell anyone!

People constantly ask you what you do. I’m a writer, and a computer tech. That encapsulates me. Wendy’s story is a little harder to explain and always confuses people. When she gets done explaining people generally say ”So, you’re a spy?”

“No!” She protests.

Yes, I nod.

Wendy came to Madrid to work for a company that does competitive intelligence. They have some operatives in the field, they contact companies and say “Anything you need to know about the competition?” In a very general sense, things like that. Like I said, it’s tough to pin down. I really can’t go into all of the challenges she/I faced with her business because… well, because. Let me just give you a few examples that I find fascinating.

Wendy came to Spain with essentially no training, no idea what she as getting into, no idea what the job would entail. In nine months she had contacts with the biggest companies in Spain with the highest level contacts you could get. Presidents. Vice Presidents. Directors of Marketing with millions of dollars for a budget. Her skills are insane. She didn’t just have contacts with them, she was their best friend. They sent her Christmas gifts.

Two projects I want to tell you about to illustrate what she does:

I was called in on this one. “Hi, we have more money than we know what to do with so we want to acquire a business that has engineers familiar with nuclear or solar thermal or cogeneration, or solar or hydroelectric or, well, any new green type of energy. They need to have X amount of employees, X amount of capital, have made X amount of money last year and they have to want to be acquired. Oh, in one of these five countries.”

So, we investigated those countries and their businesses. One country was hilarious. “We have state of the art 386 computers with ink jet printers!” They boldly proclaimed. Um, that was state of the art a decade ago…

More tomorrow…

They got it.

2011-06-19T18:44:00.005+02:00

My father is terrified of flying. Much like I was a lifetime ago. He conquered that fear for us.

We have desperately wanted them to come to Madrid to experience what we have lived for the past four years, and this week, they finally did.

And they got it. They really, really, GOT it. Do you know how that feels to us?

"Let us introduce you to all these things that we love. If you don't love them, that's okay, but we want you to experience it."

They were in awe. Just like I was when I first came here (book link on the side, hint, hint.) They loved the people, the architecture, the food, the history, the living statues, all of it.

We wanted to take them to a seafood restaurant and order a cold seafood platter and a hot seafood platter but it's so different than American seafood. Percebes, and crab guts and cigala and shrimp and all cold with no cocktail sauce. Also a hot seafood plate with shrimp and cigala grilled with salt and olive oil. Clean and natural and delicious with no sauce.

Will they like it? Will they like any of it? Of the two, which will they prefer?

They loved it.

They loved all of it. They devoured the cold plate, delaying the cooked seafood, and when that came, they devoured that as well.

We took them for "Carne Rojo" (Red Meat 600 grams.) and at the end of the meal, my dad said "That is the way steak is supposed to taste."

We took them to many places. Today was Korgui. When the meal was done they both echoed "How can we go back? The food here is so clean, so good, so pure, so tasteful, so different!"

The food here is amazing. Of all of the things we showed them, all impressed them, but I think they really understood the most how different the food is here.

Dad said "This is the way steak is supposed to taste. I will never be able to taste steak again without comparing it to this."

Top Chef Rambles

2011-06-02T12:36:00.003+02:00

Wendy and I are huge fans of anything “Top Chef.” We have watched every season of Top Chef at least twice, most three times, Top Chef Masters I and II twice and Top Chef Just Desserts only once. Right now is the current season of Top Chef Masters III and it is still great, with a few human flaws. In Top Chef Masters these are already established chefs with their own restaurants, (many times multiple restaurants,) usually world famous with multiple Michelin stars (Did you know the Michelin star is actually awarded by the same company that makes Michelin tires? It all started with a travel and car maintenance guide in 1900. True story.)

Since they already have their own empire, they don’t play for personal gain, all the money they win goes to a charity of their choice. And I just have to rant about that because some of the charities they choose, I consider stupid. The world has real problems and if you’re going to potentially be winning more than a hundred grand for a problem, it should be a big problem.

A few of the chef-testants play for really good causes. Like, cancer research, or building wells for villages in Africa that don’t have running water. I tend to think that not having water is something we should help people with. Water is important. Fighting cancer is important. Alzheimer’s, CFS, ALS, Diabetes, etc. All those are serious things that need tons and tons of money thrown at them.

“Faster Cures” is an interesting charity. I know plenty of people out there suffering with a disease or, say, a spinal problem that would like to see a cure show up as soon as possible. Got a cure for ALS? I’m sure if I had it, I would want it NOW, not after five years of testing and red tape. I don’t care if it kills me, I’m going to die soon. Gimme the damn drug!

The dumbest charity I have heard on the show is Seed Savers Exchange which is, and I quote “Since 1975, Seed Savers Exchange members have passed on approximately one million samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners. We are a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.”

Now, I think it’s important to save heirloom crops so that we’re not reduced to eating produce that looks good and holds up to travel well instead of actually tasting delicious, but… really? You have the chance to donate tens of thousands of dollars to a cause and this is what you think is MOST important? Because you should donate to what you think is the most pressing issue of our time if you are going to donate, not to some pet cause that really doesn’t even need the money. It’s really a shame too because we love the chef-testant that is cooking for this cause.

Another charity being donated to that I don’t understand is “The Agricultural Stewardship Association (ASA) is a community-supported land trust dedicated to protecting our local farmland from encroaching development. Working together with interested landowners and active supporters, our goal is to protect 20,000 acres by the end of 2015 and to ensure a future for agriculture in our counties.”

They should line up a guy in a wheelchair, a girl with CFS, a diabetes patient sick of sticking himself with needles, and a woman bald from chemo and make the contestants walk past them as they donate their check to keeping seeds and land safe.

I’m on the fence about the “Feed America” camps. There are multiple chefs playing for getting food to kids, food to families, helping food banks, etc. I don’t want anyone to go hungry, I honestly don’t, especially children. But if you can’t find food in America you’re not trying hard enough. No, I really don’t want the elderly or children rooting through dumpsters, but there is already a lot of money and programs in place to make sure this doesn’t happen. And if you’re an able bodied male you should have no problem feeding yourself. It might not be gourmet, but we’re talking America here. We throw away more food in a day than Africa eats in a week.

Mallorca

2011-05-27T11:32:00.006+02:00

I’ve heard about Mallorca since I’ve been in Spain. Almost as famous as Ibeza, it is one of the nearby Spanish islands in the Mediterranean and a popular vacation spot for Germans, British and Spaniards. Pictures of Mallorca show the sandy beaches, the resort towns and the towering cliffs. One guidebook I read described tourism as so popular that agriculture was becoming a nuisance. I did a lot of research on this place and got the mental picture of it being much like Lanzarote turned out to be. Sure, there is a long Coney Island like strip with bad tourist food, but good, possibly crowded beaches that stretch forever into the distance. I pictured bike paths, a long sidewalk for walking above but next to the beach and then the hidden gems, the little known coves, the special old style restaurants that don’t cater to the hordes of tourists but serve authentic island food.

From the descriptions I’ve read, lots of towns fit this description on the island, the most prominent one being Palma. We didn’t want to stay in Palma because from the research we had done, it seemed like a good place to have a frat or bachelor party and sleep was nearly impossible since the partying went on all night long.

We stayed a half an hour away in a little town called Ses Salines (or six saltines as I like to refer to it.)

Rather than do my normal entry, I’m just going to throw out some bullet points and anecdotes about what we experienced and how the island was- away from Palma, since I can’t speak for what Palma is like and that’s where most people go. Let’s start with a charming encounter of the weird.

*Thanks to Trip Advisor and guide books we have found a wonderful seafood restaurant in the next town over, situated right as the port meets a small stretch of beach. Great people watching. We open the menu to see they have a full page, full color picture of their mariscada. A mariscada is essentially a big platter sampling of the restaurant’s seafood usually for two people minimum. In this case: mussels, two small pieces of sea bass, a grilled bogavante split down the middle, calamari and grilled cuttlefish. We browse the menu but know that this is what we are going to have immediately. The price is nice, will give us a nice feel for the place since we’ll be sampling multiple wares, and it has all the stuff we love. (Click for a larger view.)

A German woman sits down at the table in front of us and orders a coffee. A couple with a blessedly quiet baby sits down at the table to her left. We order and I excuse myself to the restroom. When I come back Wendy is talking to the lone woman who ordered the coffee. She is charming and effusive, late sixties, stout, short and smiley. We enjoy talking with her as she tells us about her love of the island, how she had to move here after visiting once, finding her long lost love after twenty years and now has been married to him for another twenty.

All of this is charming, but you can tell she is lonely and really needs someone to talk to and today – we’re it. The conversation is getting a little long.

Our food arrives and she goes back to her coffee saying she’ll let us eat in peace. Thank God. In a minute she is talking to the couple next to her, leaning over the baby, telling them her story as well. Wow, glad we escaped that.

Until their food arrives and she turns back to her coffee - for a full minute, then swivels around and starts talking with us again. We pleasantly chat with her all through the meal. She regales us with tales of her genius son who she struggled to get into the PRISM program.

“You wanted your son in a prison program?”

“No, PRISM,” she explains.

“He missed the cutoff but I was determined to get him into it. I camped on the principal’s lawn until he agreed to bend the rules a little bit and let him in.”

“How come he needed to bend the rules to let your genius son in?”

“You need an IQ of 120 and he only got a 117 on the test.”

“Ah, well, your dedication as a mother is to be admired, working so hard for your son’s education. What’s he do now?” Wendy asks.

“He manages a supermarket.”

“Ah.”

This continues to go on and Wendy is her usual charming self but I’m getting tired of this. Not to the point of breaking because it’s clear that she is just lonely and she’s not that annoying. But when she goes on about her son for the next ten minutes, now having moved her coffee over to our table as well as herself, it starts to get on your nerves a little bit. Hoping to distract her I ask if she eats here often? Oh yes. Since you have been here so long, what do you consider the best place to eat on the island?

“There is this wonderful Chinese buffet in Palma where the food is excellent, all you can eat, and only eight Euros!”

Really? That’s the best restaurant on the island?”

“It’s fantastic! Let me give you directions.”

We’re now done and she comments on what a lovely meal we just had. There is a lot left.

“Yes, it’s too bad we don’t have a refrigerator in our room or we would take it with us. Since it’s just going to go bad, would you like it?”

“Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? They’re going to throw it away and it will go bad long before we have a chance to eat it. You’re welcome to it.”

“Really?”

We ask them to box it up for her and they bring the bill and as is typical of Spain, three shots of liquor for the table, compliments of the house. Wendy and I decline ours but our new friend sips hers down. Finally we depart company, her with her boxes of food, us with our peace and quiet.

“Holy cow.”

“I know, right?”

*Mallorca landscape impression: Imagine if someone took a volcano and filled in the caldera with fertile soil and planted trees there. Then they dropped it into the Mediterranean and built roads and windmills. Almost the entire northern half of the island can be described this way. You drive along narrow winding paths and over the edge of a three hundred foot drop is the sea. And it looks beautiful! For miles and miles you drive like this. Just don’t expect to find a road down to it, or a beach anywhere.

*Bike tours are huge. They are everywhere and unlike anywhere else we have ever been, they seem to think they can ride four abreast and chat and make long lines of traffic just line up behind them.

*The roads are about ten feet wide. On each side of the road (everywhere) is a five foot high light orange rock wall with fields and sheep and goats and orchards. Cars are about five feet wide. Passing by each other is an exercise in precision. Now add in pedestrians who are, say, about a food wide, but luckily they are soft and squishy and won’t damage the rental car. Now add in frequent bike groups.

The most harrowing experience involving all of this was driving almost straight up a winding mountain road, with a bike group climbing it at the same time, while tour buses suddenly appear in front of us coming down the curve as we are going up. “Jesus!” Wendy screams. (Luckily, I am awesome possum on a stick at driving.)

It was a 13 mile stretch that I am sure was 6.5 miles up, 6.5 miles down and no straightaway longer than fifty yards. Well, thirteen miles isn’t that long… Yeah, unless you’re going thirteen miles an hour!

*The Germans have invaded. None of this was mentioned by any of our friends or in the guidebooks. Literally, and I am using that word correctly, ninety-nine percent of the tourists we encountered were German. It turns out that Mallorca is also known as “little Germany” because so many Germans visit it and because they have bought up so much property on the island. We don’t have any problem with Germans or the German language. It’s just weird so see, hear and experience it so much when you’re not in Germany!

*Our hotel was both a mix of wonderful and slightly disturbing. Wendy found this lovely place out in the country, less expensive since it wasn’t on the beach, that had a nice pool, a restaurant and mostly wonderful staff. We had a big room, a sitting room, a terrace and a large bathroom. The pool had daybeds, a pool boy or girl who came over and took drink orders and a wonderful view of the next town over. It was filled with guests like us (except, you know, German) who were just looking for a quiet time, a base of operations and not a nightclub. Most of the food was good and the calamari was the best I have ever had. The disturbing part was they constantly played low background music and as near as I can tell they had three CD’s and one of them didn’t work most of the time. So, on day one, we listened to Frank Sinatra for dinner, then for breakfast, then for dinner when we returned at night.

I hate Frank Sinatra.

When he wasn’t playing… well, as Wendy said “They sure do love their Kool and the Gang.”

The bathroom was nice and spacious but the shower had no door and no curtain. Nothing. Taking a shower meant drenching most of the bathroom and the floors got slippery when wet. Wendy slipped once so hard she has a purple bruise the size of my fist on her right buttock.

The beds were comfortable and sleep came easily. Until four-thirty in the morning when a very proud rooster, quite close by, would announce that the sun would be coming up, well, sometime. Eventually. It might be soon. He didn’t care. He would announce this loudly every couple minutes. Sometimes he would take a fifteen minute break but then he would resume. He did this every day we were there. On the third morning I called the front desk and asked if they had a gun or even a club, I needed to go commit roostercide.

*The beaches were hard to find in a way you cannot fathom. “The coast is that way… but none of the roads seem to lead there…” We once got directions to a secluded beach that took us about an hour to find down back roads so narrow (with stone walls on each side) that cars had to stop at one end or back up to wait for another to pass because two cars wouldn’t fit on the roads. This wasn’t one road, this was all the roads to this beach. After multiple left’s, right’s, backtracking, swearing, consulting the GPS, etc, we finally found it. I felt like I had escaped the Minotaur’s maze. There were beautiful breathtaking views from the cliffs and one small beach that held thirty people. Thirty people who were already there. (Click for a larger view.)

*On our final day there, we drove to Palma to see the cathedral on our way to the airport. After seeing the very weird Gaudi art inside this cathedral that took five hundred years to build, we went out exploring. On our way to a place to eat recommended in a guidebook we found this cute little restaurant with three tables on the street. It was a quiet street away from the crowd and no one seated there. When we found our intended destination closed, we made our way back to it to sample some tapas. The owner “hippie John” as I like to refer to him, was smiling and gracious but totally bizarre. We almost left when he lectured Wendy on speaking too fast. "Relax. It’s Mallorca, take your time," his hands gesturing widely like a pastor to his flock. Then he talked extra slow describing a particular tapa to illustrate his point, smiling beatifically the entire time.

We wanted to beat him with sticks.

We ordered a few things and a very annoying and loud man and his two French companions took the seat behind us. As annoying as this was, it was worth it. They ordered some salads and they looked too cool for school. One of them we had to try. It just looked amazing. It turned out to be a Cambodian Khmer salad. It was phenomenal. One of the best things we have ever shared. As the meal goes on we learn that John used to captain a boat, but now just helps his wife run their restaurant. His wife (Cambodian/French I think) is a master chef who has cooked for the king of Spain. The food is actually priced way too low, the portions enormous and heavenly. John is still weird though.

“With food this good, how come Mallorcans don’t pack this place every day?” I ask him.

He thinks for a minute. “Well, food is like evolution you know?”

No, actually, I’m not following you, I think to myself.

“Sometimes, people just need time to adapt. Food is like that, you know?" He trails off… "I remember the first McDonald’s that came here.”

Fascinating. No, really, go on.

“So, you’re Irish, how did you come to Mallorca?”

“Well, you know.." pause "...rain falls, and it goes into a stream, and then it sort of just takes its own course, you know?”

I don’t know but I want some of what you’re smoking. I bet it makes the food taste even better.

“Hey, look John, Tripadvisor users have rated you the number three restaurant on the entire island. Look, you have fourteen five star reviews and one four star review.”

“I hate Tripadvisor.”

“Allrightythen. I’m going to stop talking to you now.”

In closing, it was great and relaxing and frustrating and weird. Agriculture is certainly not dead since everywhere we drove had beautiful crops as well as large farms, hay bales in the fields, goats and sheep grazing – totally beautiful countryside that was reminiscent of Vermont or Provence. It was weird driving so much and yet, none of the roads were next to the ocean unless you were far above it. After we got done visiting the lovely couple we met in Venice, and got done site seeing, and found a nice beach we liked, we spent the last three days returning to that wonderful seafood restaurant, lounging by the pool and taking it easy. The hotel during the day was spectacular, lying on a daybed with my wife, reading a good book, an occasional swim and the fantastic view. The staff was friendly and nice, and all the Germans spoke English. It was a great trip, but nothing like what you might expect when you go to an island.

I Like Big Brains

2011-05-13T18:59:00.002+02:00

I LIKE BIG BRAINS AND I CAN NOT LIE!

YOU OTHER BROTHERS CAN’T DENY!

You wish you had one too. I know I do.

I only have a little brain. It’s a good brain in the sense that it is sensitive, compassionate, patient, and expressive in writing (after only a million words fine-tuning that particular skill) and usually courageous when I need it most, which is a family trait.

I love movies and TV shows about big brains and I always have. I find them fascinating. The plot can even be crap so long as the main character is brilliant beyond normal human norms and I will still love the story. Stories like Little Man Tate, Good Will Hunting, Sherlock Holmes, The Social Network, Nerds, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Lie to Me, etc., I love them all.

I think this is because I have always had a little brain and as a child had never understood the kids with big brains. When I was in fourth grade I vividly remember paying rapt attention to the teacher and still didn’t know what was going on. She randomly asked a hard question to the kid sitting next to me who had been doodling and daydreaming. Without even looking up from his paper he answered her, correctly, and continued doodling.

What the…? How do you do that?

In high school it continued. I had friends that never reviewed notes yet they got straight A’s. My father taught chemistry and I took it. He tutored me at home and I still couldn’t grasp it. I finished the year with a solid C- average.

In college, I had the same pathetic grades until I switched to a curriculum focused on writing. I enjoyed that and worked hard on the reading and writing assignments. I overcame my little brain with lots of hard work.

The people who have big brains rarely understand or appreciate the gift they have been given. They remember people’s names. They remember geography, history, directions and trivia on a scale I can never hope to match. All of it comes easily to them. And they seem to think everyone is like this, and are surprised and sometimes irritated when we’re not. Those of you with small brains like mine know exactly what I’m talking about.

I wish that there was some way I could “work out” my brain in much the same way as I work out my body. Sure, I could memorize a bunch of history or state capitals or anything along those lines. And a week after I had learned it, and didn’t use it, it would disappear. You have to use that knowledge constantly or it fades away to be replaced by other things. On top of that, none of that actually helps my memory, like remembering a place or directions or a person’s name. Like a computer with limited RAM, anything that isn’t needed is discarded to make room for more important things like which metro line to take to the doctor, or which day a TV show is on, or remembering to clean the terrace or “buy milk and bread when you walk home from the gym.”

“I need to remember that I have a doctor’s appointment on July 15^th.” And the state capital of Arizona vanishes from my memory.

Like my body, my brain is limited to what it can learn and achieve. I have an ectomorphic body type (Thank God for the internet; I had to look up the names of the three different body types) so the amount of muscle I can pack on is limited by that without the use of heavy steroids. It is physically impossible for me to look like a bodybuilder without the use of illegal substances. My brain is the same way. I found Algebra I easy. I grasped it long before others in the class did. Algebra II I struggled with. Geometry was a nightmare. My math classes stopped there. Leigh Guptil and I made a very nice computer game that I am proud of to this day. We wanted to continue doing such work but my math skills weren’t up to the challenge of doing anything more complex. That was my brain’s limit.

This isn’t to say that those of us with little brains can’t become programmers or doctors or lawyers or nearly anything else we want to be. It just means we have to work a lot harder at it. Med school might take ten years and passing the bar might take three years of preparation and ten attempts before finally succeeding.

My wife, on the other hand, bestowed with the biggest brain I have ever known, passed the bar for the two most difficult states in the union in three days. On her first try. (She will humbly tell you that “It is not that hard. All you need to do is study and not be nervous. Most people fail because they are too stressed about failing.” While it is admirable to be so humble, those of us with little brains know better.)

I’ve known a few people blessed with a big brain in my time. My friend Rob breezed through high school and college without studying a lick. He conversed with me on an adult level when he was 13 and I was 19. He found his peers boring and was even impatient with me when I couldn’t grasp something he was trying to explain. He went into hospitality when he got out of college, got bored with that and worked as a manager at Blockbuster for a while. He quit that after a while and looked for another job. Six months later he got a strange phone call from a guy who asked him obtuse intelligence questions like “There is an all white cylinder spinning in a room. You can paint two dots anywhere on the cylinder. Using this, how would you figure out where Bin Laden is hiding?”

I would have painted two dots on a random wall and answered “the moon?” and received the response of “no, I’m sorry, the correct answer is yellow.” Because I have a little brain.

Rob answered nine out of ten of these questions correctly and was then given directions to his new job.

At Microsoft.

Two years later he was the head of his division.

Even he is not smarter than the person with the biggest brain I have ever had the pleasure of encountering; my wife, Wendy.

As I mentioned before, she passed the bar, twice, in three days. When we watch movies she instantly knows from the scenery where the movie was filmed. Three seconds into The Hulk she said “That’s Brazil.” (She’s never been to Brazil.) Wendy lived in NY for five years so any movie based there she can instantly tell if the movie was before or after 9/11. How? Because she can look at the opening street shot and tell you “The twin towers should be in the distance from that street.” Or “Hey look, that’s fifty-seventh street, I had a dirty water hot dog there one day, eight years ago.”

“How do you know that’s fifty-seventh street?”

“I remember that red townhouse on the right.”

Without owning a car she has the entire map of Madrid in her head and can direct tourists to the street they need, no matter how obscure, and tells cabbies the best route to our destination depending on the time of day. She came to Madrid with no training for her new job and in three years had contacts and contracts with the highest level employees at the largest companies in Spain that asked her to vet hundred million dollar contracts. And when she did, they weren’t just pleased – they gushed like infatuated school boys.

I feel I should add... none of this is writer's license. There is no embellishment here. Wendy made contacts/friends with the highest level businesspeople in Spain. They came to trust her, and it is no lie she actually verified that a hundred million dollar project was valid and worth pursuing for a particular company. Not only that, she saved this extremely important and expensive project from the verge of being terminated by one of the parties involved.

In closing:

I could have gotten straight A’s all through college. All I had to do was give up dating, socializing, drinking, eating and sleeping. (I worked very hard in college and graduated with a 3.14 average which I think is equivalent to a B+)

I like my little brain for the patience, determination, insight, and kindness that it has.

But boy, I really wish I had a big brain.

Manta Diving

2011-05-10T11:35:00.007+02:00

I detailed my experience with the wonderful Manta Diving in Lanzarote here, and people asked for a picture. I finally found one of my instructor and her boyfriend, Wendy's refresher course instructor. Really nice people and I recommend learning scuba from them to anyone going on holiday to this island.

And, if you haven't read the entry I talk about here, you should. I think it's one of my more interesting pieces.

Happy Monday!

2011-05-09T11:39:00.001+02:00

Here's a little video that will make laugh on the worst day of the week. It's making the rounds on Facebook, but if you're not on Facebook or haven't seen it yet, this is hilarious. Especially for those of us who love dogs.

THOR!

2011-05-06T11:45:00.004+02:00

Venice Part II will be coming soon. No, really.

Saw Thor with Wendy, Lena and Stefan last night. Somehow, the fact that this movie was in 3D had eluded me. GLEEE!!!!

I don’t really have a whole lot to say on this movie. It was adequate but its high rating on Rotten Tomatoes led me to expect more. Sure, the actors did an amazing job; every single one of them. Odin was great, Thor was great, Natalie Portman was, well, Natalie Portman so shut up. I enjoyed the depiction of the warriors three, Heimdall and Loki. While Lena thought Sif was hot, I thought she should have been a bit hotter. Thor with his shirt off made Lena and Wendy make primitive, guttural noises all men want to hear, only directed at them instead of someone else.

The frost giants were giants in the sense that NBA players are giants. They were like seven feet tall. Seriously? Those are giants?

The dialogue was clever, funny and well done, I believe thanks to the story being done by J. Michael Straczynski.

As Wendy said and I have to agree, it was just a bit thin. There was too much character background, a few things that didn’t make sense, a blossoming love that had no back-story, and character actions that didn’t follow logical previous actions.

The CGI was great, the 3D was amazing at times and we all enjoyed it. Lena and Stefan left us to retrieve their car and on the walk home Wendy and I agreed that X-Men, X-Men II, Spider Man, Spider Man II, and Iron Man were all better movies. Also, Wendy was disappointed we never saw our little dog (Thor, Dog of Thunder.)

"He was in the pet shop."

"Pet Shop?"

"I need a horse!"

"Oh yeah, I didn't see him."

"There was a dachshund puppy in one of the cages."

This was a good movie and well worth seeing in 3D but it wasn’t exceptional.

B-

Three stars (out of five)

Venice Part I

2011-05-05T17:42:00.004+02:00

Wendy has shown me some truly magical places. She did not nurture a love of new places in me, all she had to do was 1) make me fall in love with her, 2) have me visit and 3) show me the wonder known as Madrid. That was all it took for me to realize “you know nothing Jon Snow.” It awakened in me a longing to see and do more. To finally quit avoiding sunlight, playing video games and believing everything I needed to see was on my TV, and everything I needed to eat was at Hannafords. As I have mentioned so many times before, I did not know I needed these new things, but I did. And in the wonderful five years that we have been together she has shown me places that, when I see them, feel like a ray of bright sunshine on my soul.

We have been on a staggering number of trips together. Almost all of them have been amazing, enriching experiences. But we still had never been to the one place that I actually have always wanted to visit, ever since I was a child.

Venice.

As a child, I thought a city built on top of the water must be a magical thing. Like an Elven city built high in the trees, it had to be so different than everything else I had seen.

In preparation for this journey I read a few things on the web like “The twenty things you can’t miss while in Venice,” and TripAdvisor forums and the Wikipedia entry and a few others. I also read some of Rick Steve’s guide to Venice and a book simply titled “Venice” by Jan Morris.

The sad thing was, all of these things discouraged me rather than the opposite effect that I expected to have. Of the twenty things I wasn’t supposed to miss fourteen of them were museums, palaces or churches. I’ve never been a museum person (luckily neither is Wendy) and palaces can sometimes be nice but they suffer from the same thing as churches. While I found them fascinating the first dozen times it takes one really special for me to be impressed anymore. Rick Steve’s advice was along the same lines with the added caveat that “While I usually try to save money and I don’t like tourist traps, Venice is expensive. Just roll with it. Spend the money and have a good time.” (Not an exact quote.) Anthony Bourdain did a show on Venice and started with the quote “Venice is known for bad food at expensive prices.” (Also not an exact quote.) Jan Morris’s book started out with not a lot of nice things to say about Venetians as well, claiming they thought they were superior to everyone else, never wrong, had the best opera house, the best food, the best art, the best church and the most wisdom of anyone on the planet. I think it was also her that mentioned that people are frequently underwhelmed when visiting Venice. You’ve seen it in movies, on TV, calendars, etc. You get there and, you want to be overwhelmed, but, you already know what you are going to see and it’s exactly like that.

Well, doesn't this trip sounds promising so far.

I didn’t let this discourage me for a number of reasons. Wendy and I like to stroll, see the fish markets, look at the outside of beautiful buildings, find the dark alleys and restaurants that serve the locals and people watch in the sun with a fine glass of wine in front of us. We’ll do those things, we’ll get lost among the alleys, have a nice gondola ride, and eat Italian pizza which is something I can never get enough of. (I used to be a deep dish pizza guy. Thanks to Italy, I have changed my mine entirely and wish to only eat thin crust for the rest of my life. Something with a little char on the bottom please.)

We arrive in Venice and the first problem that a city built on water rears its peculiar head. How are we going to get to our hotel? It’s across the bay over there! I am glad my wife has 1) been here before and 2) has always done the research. Now, to be honest, we did discuss this at home and she presented me with three possible options and asked my opinion, so I know what to expect. But once again, experiencing it is a completely different reality. Having traveled a lot, I know how to do things. You get off the plane, you find a taxi stand and you give them an address. Voila. You do the same thing if you wander around a new city looking to get lost and then you actually do. “Taxi!” Problem solved.

As you can imagine, this doesn’t work at all in Venice. If you get lost, you are lost. Taxi stands are on the Grand Canal. If you know which direction that is, you’re set. If you don’t, you’re wandering down dark alleys that end in even darker water.

Wendy buys us a ticket to a bus that takes us to a Vaporetto stop. A Vaporetto is essentially a city bus but it’s a boat. We haul our luggage onto the front when it arrives, meet a nice American mom and her twenty-something daughter sitting next to us as we make our way to Plaza San Marco. The buildings are beautiful, the water quiet and the realization that I am finally here thrills me like an electric charge. You know what, it’s exactly like what I expected, and yet, not at all. The ramifications of what it means to be in a city in the middle of a lagoon continually surprise me as I realize certain things each day.

We arrive at our stop and make our way through the plaza (more on that later) down a side street, over a bridge, take a left, down a path filled with shops, through an iron gate, into a small plaza, into the hotel door.

“Wendy! We’ve been waiting for you! And you must be Jamie. How was your trip?”

Ladies and gentleman, meet Alex.

Multifocal Intraocular Lenses

2011-05-05T10:37:00.003+02:00

If you break three pair of sunglasses in one month does that mean you are really careless or does it mean you should start buying sunglasses that cost more than five, five and ten dollars?

So, back to the rambles just to get my writing juices flowing for more important stuff. Lets finish up on the eyes.

As I was saying, I love my new lenses. I hate wearing glasses and having to carry them everywhere. And, now I get to wear sunglasses and can still see. On the not so good side, they have some side effects that really remind me I actually am seeing through a man-made lens. Florescent lights with their hundred strobe a second effect, plays havoc with my vision. It doesn’t make me blind or anything but it does make it harder to read small print or pick out one object out of dozens. What I am describing is a supermarket. Things take on a softer edge to them, making them less distinct, and the time when you most often need to read small print is on food labels. Any florescent light bugs my eyes a little and most energy saving lights are florescent. And their numbers continue to grow.

Even normal lights can be different. This only happens when it is dark and there is only one light source and it does not have a good shade. They have a halo or even a half moon under or around them depending on the angle. Imagine a row of streetlights insufficiently lighting a street because they are spaced too far apart. Each of those lights will have an edge of light around it. Not a big deal, just an additional fact.

Finally, there is now a clear distinction between my peripheral vision and my straight on vision. It is easily ignored but I can see where the lens ends and my natural eyesight to the side starts. The best way I can describe it is like wearing glasses inside your head. You can put on a pair of reading glasses and everything you see straight ahead will look slightly different than everything to the side. Or wearing sunglasses that don’t have the side covers. Everything you see straight ahead will be in shade, everything to the side will be brighter. I don’t have any difference in the amount of light, but that illustrates it well. For comic book fans, imagine what Cyclops sees when he has his mask on.

The benefits far outweigh the minor differences artificial lenses create. I had also read up on all of this before the operation and knew this was all going to happen.

http://www.uclaser.com/lasik-los-angeles/faq/multifocal-iol-faq.htm

But, its different reading about something and experiencing it. And this blog has always been about, essentially, what I feel like rambling about today. And this morning, that thing is my eyes.

Sorry for the lack of posts - To the two Mars.

2011-05-04T16:41:00.003+02:00

My apologies to all my readers. Life has been pretty hectic and when it hasn't been, we were on vacation. I am hoping to have many entries this week about our trip to Venice. Musings on just the first twenty-four hours there should be about ten pages. Hell maybe I'll try and bang out the beginning today. A couple random things:

To the lovely couple we met from Mallorca with the lovely daughter named after the ocean (Mar, same as her mother) we have somehow lost your contact information. Please email me.

Had an eye appointment today and now I am sitting here with the windows drawn and reading glasses on. In order to check the placement of the lenses and look at the healing they had to dilate my eyes. This makes it hard to focus and everything is blindingly bright.

The new lenses in my eyes are great with a few caveats. On the plus side, I no longer need to wear glasses unless the print is very very small. My eyes were so bad before the operation I needed them on to see my food so I could eat, and so the TV wasn't blurry. Also, do you know how hard it is to wear reading glasses and sunglasses at the same time? So, now I have a spiffy new set of shades. They are my third and cost me ten dollars in Granada. (The first two five dollar pairs broke.) So now, I can see, and wear sunglasses where in the past I would be called "six-eyes."

More on that in a bit. Wendy is ready to go do errands.

Mas Magic

2011-04-22T18:57:00.001+02:00

Well, I showed up at the Evolution Magic shop yesterday to draft. Considering Spain is on holiday I expected thirty people eager to play Magic on a Thursday. Sadly, we had four and one of them was one of those guys who seems to think since he is in a Magic shop the owner is actually paid to listen to him. When he finally took a pause for breath I asked (in Spanish):

“Tournament today?”

“Yes, draft this morning and Legacy this afternoon.”

“I know, but… is it going to happen?”

He turns to his partner (as in, business partner, not lover) and gives a questioning look. He clearly doesn’t understand what I am asking. I blame my Spanish.

I like this guy. Hell, I like both of them immensely. “I don’t know. It depends.” He smiles and shrugs. It is a motion of “We could do a draft if you want, but I am hoping more people show up.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Twenty minutes later I am on the phone with Wendy asking “Can you look up Forbidden Isle? I saw good reviews for it and we need a new game.” Talking guy has not taken a breath in ten minutes. I hope he passes out soon.

Ten minutes later I have left. I come home, update MTGO and join a draft. Holy crap do I suck! I draft this incredibly bad Black/Green deck without any focus at all, and consider quitting immediately. Instead I win 2 out of 3 matches and get two packs.

I learn a couple of things:

1. Elimination is good.

2. Draft Green fatties and mana Mires.

While this may seem at odds, it actually makes sense… Next time, I’ll explain why…

Magic in Spain part dos.

2011-04-19T16:24:00.006+02:00

This is not at Star City because it is very short and not because I no longer love them.

(Read part one below before reading this if you haven't already.)

Michele takes me aside. “Hilary really wants to play Magic while we’re here. It would mean a lot to him.”

Wendy tells me “Hilary doesn’t usually ask for much. Never actually.”

“FINE!”

I don’t actually say that of course, instead I sigh, slump my shoulders and say “okay, I’ll find him a tournament that fits our schedule.” Living in Madrid with two shops within walking distance, which each run two tournaments a day has its advantages. I find us a draft for the next morning. Now, if I was smart, we would have then gone online and actually looked at the cards.

Do you know that thought hadn’t occurred to me until just this moment? Holy dumb.

We show up and I recognize no one but the shop owner who greets me warmly. Hilary has informed me I no longer have to add the 6000 to the front of my DCI number. I pay for my draft and he asks me my DCI number and I tell him (in Spanish) “seven, five, five, eight.” When I stop he looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue. “That’s it” I tell him. He does one of those jerk your head back and blink when you’re surprised moves and says “wow, early.”

Yes, my epeen is that big.

We get our three packs and I think of my strategy. Let’s see,

1. Take fatties.

2. ???

3. Profit!

Number two should probably be “smash face” but that ruins the joke.

I don’t know the cards but it’s pretty easy to figure out which ones have infect, trample, metalcraft etc. This is a lot easier than I thought it would be. Also, I am surprised by how much Spanish I have that I can actually read the cards. Not every single word but if I can figure out 80% of the words, I know what a card does. Like “Cruza Montanas” is pretty easy to figure out is “Mountainwalk” and “Destruya la criatura que tenga la habilidad de volar” clearly means “Destroy a creature with flying.”

Cake.

I end up with 4 metal Rhino’s, an 8/8 generic wurm, a Viridian Corrupter, a Replica of Silvok, a couple other metal fatties, a mantis that has what I think is reach, three mana myrs to accelerate to my fatties and a few guys with infect. Oh yeah – and two Genesis Wave!

WOO HOOO!!! I loves me some Genesis Waves.

Hilary asks me a few questions about the cards he picked and I clarify a few things for him. The last card he ask me about is the Mantis and what does Arrolla mean?

“I think it means reach.”

A guy next to us says “Actually, it means trample.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Now that is weird. Why would a mantis have trample and not reach? Mantis’ pull things out of the sky all the time. And second, how cool is that to find an English speaker at the draft. Sure, there is always a few but throughout this (very small) draft, I will find that almost everyone speaks it well. Very good luck for Hilary and I.

And now to the beatings portion of the day. My first opponent is playing a nice three color deck while I am with mono green and fatties. Shocking, I know.

I get off to a nice fast start, metal mana dork, blow up his artifact with my viridian, play a Metal Steed and then a Rhino.

Then I play another.

He’s been back pedaling the whole game, on the defensive the entire time and I just keep turning guys sideways. Joshie told me long ago MTGO needed a button that said “Wakefield” and when clicked meant “Swing with everything!”

He’s throwing chumps in the way and then I tap my two mana dudes, tap all my lands and “Ola de Genesis” for six. He reels. I get four lands and a couple guys. Next turn I Ola de Genesis for ten and he extends the hand.

He mulligans down to four, plays a swamp, slumps.

Me: “Dude, dude, dude, another dude, another dude, Rhino. Sorry man.”

Hilary has lost his round but took his opponent to three.

Round two my draw is nowhere near as spectacular in either game and my opponent actually knows how to draft whereas I simple know how to collect Green cards and add forests to my deck. He beats me in two quick ones, we shake hands and I think “When am I ever going to learn that fliers win you drafts? When am I ever going to learn that one simple fact? How many years have I been playing this game?”

I go to McDonald's for a burger and when I return Hilary is just leaving the store and says we’re done. “What?”

“Yeah, it’s only three rounds today and you’re my next opponent. I got what I needed and we can play at the apartment.”

“Okay, cool, I’m just going to go in and say goodbye and thanks.”

You know what? I had a blast.

In fact, I’m going to post this, then check the web to see when the next morning draft is. Maybe you’ll even see an article up at Star City soon.

Hilary and Michele enjoying one of our favorite restaurants and one of our favorite meals in Spain. A rare sliced up steak that comes on a plate so hot you can cook the food on it if you want it more done.

Magic in Spain

2011-04-06T11:36:00.007+02:00

Hilary and Michele have arrived in Spain. We showed them a lot of Madrid yesterday and then we came back to the apartment, I carved us some jamon, and we talked until way past dark. This morning I have made them bacon and eggs for breakfast. Wendy jumps in the shower and I am at the computer, Hilary and Michele are relaxing on the couch.

Michele asks, "Do they have a comic store here? A place to play Magic?"

"Yes and yes. I used to play at two different game stores and there is a comic shop."

"Not all in one?"

"No."

Hilary pipes up with "I want to play Magic while I'm here."

"Good luck with that, I don't have enough cards for two decks right now."

"No, I mean in a draft."

"Do you understand Spanish? Because all the cards are in Spanish."

"No..."

"Because I've had over two-hundred hours of classes and I can't read the cards flawlessly yet. Do you know the latest set by looking at the pictures and knowing what they do?"

"No..."

"You would have as much luck in the draft just showing up with a deck of playing cards. Ha! Nine of clubs bitch!"

We all laugh.

Michele says "Why don't you go down, pay them your entry fee and then just leave?"

And again we all laugh.

Well, everyone but Hilary who just glares at us.

Welcome to Spain.

Small World

2011-04-04T10:58:00.004+02:00

If you read the reviews on Amazon, I'm in the vast minority but I was very disappointed in this game. I read all of the reviews and bought it for Wendy and I for her birthday. We've played it seven times in five weeks, once with four people, and we're pretty much done with it.

Small World has all the things I was looking for, but failed to deliver. I like a fantasy theme. I like a simple concept that is supposed to be difficult to master. I like the counters, the board, the extra player instruction sheets, the layout, etc. In fact, I like everything about this game except the actual gameplay.

It is somewhat similar to Risk in the fact that you have a board with different hexes you are trying to take over with your clan, be it elves, dwarves, giants, amazons, sorcerers, orcs etc. Paired randomly with each clan is a special ability. Some abilities make it easier to hold hexes you occupy or give you more gold coins at the start or make it easier to conquer certain hexes.

Sounds interesting, right?

The trouble is, the ability to conquer a region is simple math. Take over an empty tile for two of your men. Take over a tile with any sort of cardboard on it, add another man. Cardboard could be a mountain tile, a fortification, or an opposing army. At the end, score a point for each hex you occupy.

We found there is almost zero strategy to the game. All of the strategy is in what race you pick first.

Turn 1. You then attack from one side of the map and expand as much as possible.
Turn 2. You gather up your extra men not occupying a tile and repeat.
Turn 3. Repeat turn 2. You now have almost no troops not occupying a spot.
Turn 4. Put your race into decline.
Turn 5. Choose new race. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until game ends on turn 8 or 10 depending on the number of players.

Every single game is like this. The only thing that changes is the race and the power and that isn't enough strategy for us.

We really wanted to like this game but it's no Carcassone. I bought that for her for Christmas and we played two hundred and fifty games with it before we got tired of it. I don't know if it's not enough randomness, not enough variety, having to constantly look at the rules to see what race or ability does what - but honestly - we got bored with it before even ten games. I know that if we played it fifty times it would be easier to remember the races and powers by heart but for the first few games it takes a bit to set up, the tiles fall sideways into the tray, you constantly have to look at a diagram to see where in the token tray the race you're looking for is...

I know I said there's no variety and then seem to contradict myself by saying there's so many races and abilities. The thing is, the races and abilities just aren't that different. Some guys get more points if you occupy a swamp or a mountain or a farmland or a hill. Or a mine or a tile with a magic power symbol on it. That's not actually many special abilities, that's one. Some abilities or races conquer swamps easier others, Farms easier, or tiles adjacent to mountains. Again - that's not variety, that's one ability being given a different name for what's on a different tile.

If you are looking for a new game, I would go to Amazon and read the reviews. Like I said, Wendy and I are in the vast minority of people who didn’t like this game.

I was unable to find any worthwhile video about Small World to link to this post. Sorry.

Carcassone

2011-04-02T11:41:00.007+02:00

Wendy and I are gamers. I’ve shown her a few video games and she’s shown me a few board games. My friends from college have always been into the more heavily tactical board games sometimes referred to as European games. I’m referring to games like Settlers of Catan, Diplomacy, Axis and Allies, etc.

I have never joined them in their love of these games, preferring Dungeons and Dragons or video games. But, I needed something to bridge the gap between games like Scrabble and video games for Wendy and I. I wanted something that wouldn’t take us eight hours to learn, was good for two players, heavy on strategy, high replay value, and more complex than typical family board games.

What I found was Carcassone.

The game consists of pulling tiles out of a bag and connecting them to existing tiles already on the board. You start with one tile on the board that contains a road, a field edge, and the beginning of a city. You pull your first tile and it could contain a piece of a city, an ending to a city, a road, a field, a monastery, etc. Each piece can only connect to an existing piece with similar features. A road can only connect to a road. A field can only connect to a piece with a field edge to it. A city piece can only connect to a city. Tiles vary in the fact that they can have fields, roads and city edges all on the same tile or they might only contain a road and field or only a city piece or a crossroads or even two separate city pieces. To add to the strategy, you have to claim each road, field, city or monastery with one of your “meeples.” These are little pieces of maple in the shape of a small person about half an inch high. (Maple + People = Meeple.) You place them on each city, road, monastery or field (farm) you want to claim. Each turn you draw another piece out of the bag and can end a city or road, getting one of your meeples back, or continue building onto a city, road, or farm.

The game takes about forty-five minutes to learn straight out of the box, or, if you are lucky enough to have someone that already knows how to play, they can demonstrate and explain the rules to you in about five minutes.

If I was smart, I would have looked on the web and found a video that taught us how to play, like this one…

This game has the perfect mix of easy to learn combined with hard to master and polished off with a dash of randomness that can lay waste to the best laid plans.

We loved this game.

I cannot stress this enough. We loved it. Each day we would finish work, play a few games of Carcassone and maybe watch some TV before heading to bed. On the weekends we would sit on our terrace, sip wine in the sun and play Carcassone. We played fifty games, then bought an expansion, played another fifty games, then bought another expansion, repeat another two times.

In addition to all that, it scales well with up to five people being able to play.

I would guess we played two hundred and fifty to three hundred games, some lasting as long as two and half hours with all the expansions added in before we finally had sated our lust for the game. We still play it occasionally, but are on the lookout for something new.

I have discovered why Blogger sucked for me.

2011-03-29T11:07:00.003+02:00

Because I have been trying to use it with Internet Explorer.

Bill Gates was quoted as saying something like "It doesn't ship until Netscape doesn't work."

I can't find the exact quote but that was during the early browser wars and Bill was ordering his team to make it so that Windows had built in code that would mess with Netscape Navigator, making it crash more and be less effective at browsing the web.

Yeah, he got into a lot of trouble with that one.

Well, now I think Google is doing the same thing. I am typing this in Firefox and wow, does everything on Blogger all of a sudden work again. I can format text, I can cut and paste, I am assuming I can center pictures again and have them pop up when you click on them.

Let's try.

Biker Thor says "Touch my bone you get dragged behind my Harley."

Yup, the Dog of Thunder is centered and (unlike in IE) when I click on the picture it expands to full size.

My blogging just got a lot less frustrating.

I miss you Vermont. I will miss you Spain.

2011-03-29T10:28:00.005+02:00

Wendy and I deciding to leave Spain is much like any similar decision in life, like leaving a job or a lover. Once you have made the decision, everything we love and hate about Spain is magnified.

I won’t miss the city. Sure, I’ll miss the parks and the massive statues and the atmosphere and the food, but I won’t miss “the city.” I had never lived in a city before Madrid. I have always been a country boy and visits to any city always made me wonder – Why would anyone live here? My brief stays overnight only convinced me more, thanks to the sirens, people screaming at each and traffic noises all night long.

But, Madrid is different. I fell in love with Madrid from the first time I woke up in Wendy’s bed and she took me for a walk and to lunch. Madrid is much more like a village, connected to another village, connected to another village and on and on. It’s just not the same as the newer cities in America. You can’t walk a hundred yards without seeing something older than when our country was founded. There are lots of areas that are fully pedestrian and the little bars and cafes scattered everywhere are so cozy. The place is so clean too. There are always workers out hosing down streets or picking up trash or getting rid of graffiti.

Which is one of the things I won’t miss. I think police should be allowed to shoot to kill anyone they catch spray painting their initials on a wall. I won’t miss the city noises. I won’t miss having to walk twenty minutes to the store, stand in line for ten minutes after shopping, dragging my cart the twenty minutes home and then hauling sixty pounds of groceries up four flights of steps. I won’t miss Thor having to be on a leash all the time. (That dog wouldn’t survive thirty seconds off leash in the city. As Wendy says “I’m going to dash into the road to play with my car friends!”) I won’t miss the beggars and the bums who even come up to you while eating at a restaurant and ask for money. I won’t miss being trapped on the subway when some street musician climbs into the car with a music machine and plays along with his pan flute and then walks around the car with his change purse open. I won’t miss accordions. God, I so will not miss accordions. People who play accordions can be added to the same list as graffiti “artists.”

I will miss the food, the wine the beer, the architecture and the attitude. Wendy and I both firmly believe that “Mahou” is the best beer in the world. And you can’t even buy it in some parts of Spain. It’s very regional to Madrid. The wine here is also something special. You can get an acceptable bottle of wine for under five Euros. And the grapes and variety they have here I think are much better than American wines. Of course, more and more of them are making their way stateside, so, that’s good. The food here is just completely different.

Honestly, I miss American food as much as I’m going to miss Spanish food. They’re just different animals. The steak here cannot be rivaled in the states. I don’t know why but the beef here is just amazing. I will miss the super simple preparation. Steak – no sauce. Razor clams – olive oil and salt. Mushrooms -Olive oil and salt. Fried eggs – olive oil and salt. Cockles – olive oil and salt. Octopus - Olive oil and salt. Oh yeah, and some paprika. An entire platter of goose barnacles, Norwegian lobster, tiger shrimp, two kinds of crab – all just boiled and served cold. For some reason there is mayo on the table but we never use it. Just eat them with nothing. It’s pure flavor unblemished by batter or cocktail sauce.

I’ll miss the casual attitude about drinking here. And I don’t mean that they casually drink to excess, they just don’t see alcohol as the great evil it is viewed at in America. All of Europe is that way actually. It will be depressing to go back to the states where you have special areas at fairs and festivals that are roped off, like we’re bad cows. It will be depressing to go to an outdoor café and not see everyone with a glass of beer or wine enjoying the sun in the middle of the day. It will be odd to go to the butchers and not see him slicing meat with one hand, occasionally sipping a beer with the other while he chats to the little old lady he’s helping. I’ll miss that.

I’ll miss visiting the ocean on weekend trips but I guess I can do that in Vermont as well. One thing I’ll really miss is the double kiss greeting. I like saying hello to my female friends the Spanish way with two quick air kisses on each side of the face. Shaking hands or even just nodding when you meet someone feels impersonal after you get used to the Spanish way.

Blogger

2011-03-28T18:27:00.001+02:00

Well, I have a new post that was going to go up today and both times I have tried to post it, it ignores all my formatting.

My first Tweet.

2011-03-20T11:00:00.006+01:00

"If I had one wish it would be to eliminate greed."

I say this in the wake of learning that Gaddafi has sequestered billions of dollars of oil revenue for himself and his family. This is just one in a long line of people where too much is never enough.

It reminds me of the Koch brothers and Fox news trying to break up unions in Wisconsin. Or Walmart paying its workers minimum wage, never granting health insurance while the Walton family (owners of Walmart) is one of the richest families alive.

I'm not against human desire to succeed or even become wealthy. I find those goals lofty, as shoudl everyone. But once you have billions do you really need to make others suffer so you can have even more?

But no. Stealing a hundred million from your country isn't enough. You have to have twenty times that.

You can follow me on Twitter as Jaedence.

UFC 128 Picks

2011-03-18T19:14:00.002+01:00

Shogun vs. Bones Jones –

In every competition there are those guys who are just a level above everyone else. In poker it’s a sign of distinction to win a World Series of Poker bracelet. You are a master of the game now. You are head and shoulders above the top 1% of the game. But you know what? There are players with a dozen of those bracelets that are head and shoulders above you. Magic is the same way. There are guys who make the Pro Tour and some guys that have broken the top eight more than once. That is amazing! To make the top eight at a pro tour more than once is a huge feat. You are The Man (or Woman.) And there are guys like Finkel and Budde that have WON more pro tours than the amount of people in Vermont than have ever even competed in a Pro Tour. They are head and shoulders above the rest.

This is starting to sound like a dandruff commercial. Let’s change this from “head and shoulders” to “superstars.”

Other examples of people being the master of their particular arena, being almost super-human would be guys like Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, and Pete Sampras.

In MMA, those names are Anderson Silva and GSP. (I’d mention Fedor but he is on a two fight losing streak. Sorry Fedor.) This weekend in MMA, a new Superstar will be revealed. His name is Johnny Bones Jones and I believe that after his dismantling of one of the true greats, Shogun, the Bones Jones era will begin. Like Anderson Silva and GSP, he will hold the belt for a long time.
Shogun has been inconsistent. There isn’t any doubt that he is one of the greats but has he ever been considered to be at the level of Fedor or a prime Wanderlei Silva or a prime Chuck Liddell?

I don’t think he has. He has also shown us he can have very bad performances. Until his knockout of a declining Chuck Liddell, Shogun looked like half the fighter he used to be. He has rebounded from that, but facts are facts. Bones on the other hand, while his legacy is just beginning, has steamrolled through every opponent he has faced, making some top ten competitors look like rag dolls soaked in meat juice being attacked by a pit bull. He has thrown around guys that should have been a good fight for him and he has made them look like amateurs every second they were in the ring with him.

I don’t know what round it will end but the Bones Jones era starts this Saturday.

Marquardt vs. Miller – Miller is a game opponent but Marquardt has the potential to be a Champion in the UFC. He shows flashes of brilliance in some of his fights that are pure magic. After his disappointing loss to perennial contender Ushin Okami, I am pretty sure we will see Nate “the Great” as great as he has ever been. I think Nate is coming into this fight with a hungry, murderous gleam in his eye.

Mirko Cro Cop vs. Brendan Schaub – Brendan Schaub is young and hungry and Cro Cop is… not. Would you like to see the Mirko Cro Cop of old who left high kicked people into a heap on the mat? Sure, who wouldn’t? Would you like to see Wanderlei Silva be the aggressive axe-murderer of old? Of course. Would you like to see Chuck Liddell deftly avoiding punches and then knocking people out even as he backs up? We would all love to see those things.

Except those days are over. Nothing but respect for anyone I mentioned but Cro Cop’s best days are behind him, not in front.

Superman or Batman?

2011-03-17T10:47:00.005+01:00

One of the eternal questions. – Who is better/who would you want to be – Superman or Batman?

I would prefer to be Superman. I don’t like to fail.

One thing people say is that Batman is more realistic than Superman and today, it occurred to me, that is just not true.

How long do you think you would survive dressed as a bat fighting against guys with guns? Realistically you would last about one crime fighting night before being shot. If you survived that and persisted in your efforts and actually made yourself a nuisance, you would be killed. There’s a reason the police travel in pairs and call for backup when faced with superior numbers.

“Where’s your detective skills now Bats?” BLAM!

It is easier for me to believe that an alien would have powers above those of normal men than it is for me to believe a guy can take out ten gun-wielding mobsters using only boomerangs and martial arts.

If given the choice, I would choose to fly, be super strong, and immune to gunfire. In fact, since I hate losing so much, give me Thor’s hammer and Captain America’s shield while you’re at it. Oh, and Green Lantern’s ring would be nice too.

Is this the coolest thing ever drawn? I think it is.

Just some updates

2011-03-15T16:52:00.008+01:00

The Dog of Thunder warns you to stay away from his teddy monkey!

It is fifty degrees and sunny today in Madrid. Madrid has received about one inch of snow that melted the second it hit the ground this year resulting in zero accumulation.

In the abstract, Wendy and I miss snow. It will be nice to come back to Vermont and have a real Vermont winter next year. In reality, we miss snow but I know I’ll be plenty sick of it soon enough if snowfall next year is anything like this year. In Vermont, people have literally had to shovel snow every day for weeks on end this year in a record breaking snowfall winter.

The second eye surgery went well, adjusting the left eye and putting the new lens in the right eye without complications. It is now two weeks and a day later and I am experiencing everything I was told I would experience. Peripheral vision is a little weird, still sensitive to sunlight, lights in the dark have a halo around them, but the eyes are improving every day by minor amounts. I’m told it can be a month or two before everything settles down and my brain gets used to the new lenses. So far so good. While my vision isn’t perfect yet, I am now typing and reading without glasses for the first time in five years and I am loving it.

Rode the bike for thirty minutes yesterday, but not allowed to do light weight training for another week or two and another three before I can start to push it with any intensity.

My mom suggested a movie to us last week , called Priceless, and after an exhausting work day, we made some pistachio chicken and sat down to watch it last night. It is a French film with English subtitles. I love how foreign films break the formulae of Hollywood. You think the movie is going one direction then it goes in another and then off into even another direction. You never figure out what's going to happen next because it’s not what people expect. One reviewer remarked that it was very French. That it was a nice statement on French culture and mores and I have to agree. You have to suspend your disbelief a bit at the beginning with the way the male lead responds to circumstances spiraling out of his control, but they make it work. Considering it doesn’t follow any typical Hollywood formulae we (enjoyably) didn’t have a clue where the movie was going next and it had a few laugh out loud moments. One scene had us laughing for a good minute.

Right now I am reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, suggested to me by my friend Chris McMahon. The writing in it is generally very good and I love the main character so far. The beginning started out strong with a genius boy learning a vast variety of skills, including magic, as he traveled with his mother and father’s troupe of performers. Then his parents are killed and he makes his way to a city and becomes a beggar. For the next hundred pages…

Okay, I have no idea how many pages, I’m reading it on my iPhone which doesn’t have page counts. It could have been fifty but it felt like a hundred. At least. While in the city he spends three years as a beggar, somehow forgetting everything he ever learned about magic, fighting, herbalism, healing, acting, playing the lute or any number of skills that would have helped him not be a beggar and not be beaten so regularly. This part of the book infuriated me. Luckily he’s finally made his way out of the city and to the mage academy and it’s already back to being a great book. I am engrossed. I’ll let you know how the rest of it is.

Answers to some responses to last weeks “Torn” entry –

Sam R. Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying the writing. Make sure to check out this site further as there are a lot of things on here you might enjoy other than just the Magic content.
Al – Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll look into that right away. They should be available everywhere.

Mr Fantastic – Thanks for the suggestion. I haven’t looked into Magic Workstation for years. The last time I looked at it, it was just too rudimentary for me. Magic Online was 100x as expensive but also a 100x better. Hopefully that’s changed. Proxying cards doesn’t for me. The friends I have here don’t play Magic and the language barrier makes it tough for me to go to a shop and just play, especially since they have tournaments going on whenever the store is open. Yes, it is a lame excuse on my part which could be boiled down to “I just don’t like proxies and I’m lazy.” Magic could be a priority in my life right now if I had a better base of friends to play with so the writing was better. My writing style has always played off of reporting clever things my friends say or amusing things that happen at tournaments or on the road. I respect your opinion Mister Fantastic but I respectfully disagree that I’m just saying "It's so expensive, OMG!" Well, that is what I’m saying actually, and I stand by that, but thanks for giving me some options I hadn’t considered.

The next Anonymous poster agrees with me on that. Concerning the writing, I have not looked at Guy Gavriel Kay’s work but will, thank you for the suggestion.

That’s all for today.

Please watch this video.

2011-03-13T09:04:00.001+01:00

Wake up and smell the coffee. You need to know this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqW4F-EQ9LM&NR=1

Torn

2011-03-09T13:47:00.003+01:00

I was going to put some Natalie Imbruglia lyrics here, but they just didn’t fit how I’m feeling. I’m not out of faith, I’m not naked, cold and shamed, lying on the floor (that was Saturday night), nor has my inspiration run dry. Wait, actually, yes, I guess my inspiration has run a little dry…

At this point last year I would bound out of bed and have a billion things to work on. I was putting the finishing touches on a book, approaching agents, working on another book, updating my blog and thinking about getting back into Magic.

Well, two hundred rejections later, book finished and self published, then another book self published, then twenty-odd mediocre columns later – I’m a little beaten down. Two hundred rejections is a lot. I had some agencies ask for a partial, a few less asked for a full to read but none of the agents I approached wanted to rep me. My return to Magic and Magic writing has been less than stellar. So, now what do I work on? Let’s take them one at a time.

I’m very proud of “I’m not an Alcoholic, I’m just European!” The very beginning is a little slow but that's because it needs to be to explain why I moved to Spain. After that I think it’s some of my most humorous writing about a niche subject that I think would sell well if I could find an agent. I like to think I’m similar to Bill Bryson without the negativity.

Even though he does books on a lot of other subjects, Bill Bryson is the top of the heap for travelogue writers. Second place would probably go to Peter Mayle and third would have to go to Chris Stewart. Everyone else that I have read is a distant fourth. There have been some excellent travel writers that have written short pieces but nothing long enough to compare to the above three. And, I have to admit some ignorance on the subject in the sense that, I haven’t done an extensive study of the genre, but I have read multiple authors that are actually making a living off their travel books and their writing is awful.(Anthony Bourdain is not including in my list of Travel Writers because his books are about cooking, or they are a recap of his TV show.)

The sales for this self-published book are okay, but not great. In some ways it has exceeded my expectations on how many I would sell each month, but, best case scenario, it could be selling a lot more. I now have three self-published books on Amazon and if I had fifteen I might be making a living. I keep my eyes open for ways to promote the books and have tried different web advertising, word of mouth and even handing out free sample chapters on the street to tourists in Madrid. None of which have garnered the sales I had hoped for.

I read an encouraging article about a self-published author who is making a fortune in self-publishing. She said her sales really took off once she approached book review blogs. I spent the day looking over the links in the article and reading book review blogs policies. How her sales increased after approaching these blogs is a mystery to me since none of the ones I looked at accept self-published books for review.

She has sixteen self-published books out at the age of twenty-six. Guess what her genre is? Young Adult Fiction. (Which is what most of the agents are looking for when you look at each agency. Harry Potter + Twilight = Fad) Step 1. Teen Angst. Step 2. ??? Step 3. Profit! Guess what her books are about? That’s right, a girl who falls in love with vampire brothers creating a love triangle.

It makes me want to fall on my sword.

I started playing and writing about Magic again and while I received a lot of praise, I received a lot of criticism as well. While I thought the early articles were funny, they weren’t technical enough. Those criticisms stopped when I was moved to the free side of Star City but then the articles stopped being as funny because Wendy and I returned to Madrid. The clever, witty cast that lives in Vermont was replaced by me struggling to understand Spanish Magic players and flailing about in a format I didn’t understand. Which garnered more criticism.

Also, much like MMORPG’s, Magic takes a lot of practice and time. And unlike MMORPG’s, money. I found myself being drawn to mono green so much so that I didn’t want to play anything else. When I (and obviously my readers) got bored with it, I decided to try some other colors. Well, I wanted to try some other colors but, I’m sorry, I have been priced out of the game. The last time I stopped playing Magic the most expensive card was Umezawa’s Jitte. That card can go in any deck. If I want to move into white, I’m an idiot if I’m not playing Elsbeth and Gideon Jura. I never play blue so at least I’m spared having to buy Jace. But it doesn’t matter. Other that RDW, there isn’t a deck that I’m interested in playing that won’t cost me more money than I’m willing to spend - just to experiment! Hell, even my green decks would be more competitive if I had Lotus Cobra and Vengvines in them. All I need is $160 bucks (or more) for a set of four each and then I need that for online testing and another set for playing at the local shop- which would be fine if I knew they would fit seamlessly into my deck (which already contains four Primeval Titan both on MODO and physical copies.)

I love to compete. I love to try and qualify for Pro Tours. Right now, the format is Extended. To me this format is known as “All the cards Jamie doesn’t own because he’s been out of Magic for the last three years.”

I make my own decks and that requires lots of cards and lots of experimentation. This is nearly impossible these days without a support group of friends all willing to also spend big bucks so you can all borrow cards off each other and mitigate the cost even a little. I have been priced out of the game. (When I say that, I don't mean that it is impossible for me to raise the money I need to buy the cards I want, I just don't want to spend that much on Magic. It's like my favorite food, lobster. In VT I pay $7.99 to $12.99 a lb for lobster. I'll pay that. In Madrid, that lobster is 50 Euros ($70) a pound. I could pay that for lobster, but I choose not to.)

I have been taking a break from Magic because I don’t want to be like an aging boxer, mma fighter, sports figure – who has been in the game too long, refuses to retire and tarnishes his legacy. I’m not doing my Magic writing reputation any good by continuing to write crappy articles. When your boss tweets that “I used to like Jamie Wakefield’s writing, but now it’s just painful” you know it’s time to hang up the pen for a little while on that particular subject. I’ll probably pick it up again when we return home to Vermont in August.

So, what do I do now? Completing a book is like giving birth. It is a long ass, excruciatingly painful process. To do that and not find an agent is crushing. To release it as self-published and get some money for it sooths that pain a little but not much. Playing Magic and refusing to pay the cost associated with having all the cards needed to succeed is just frustrating. Writing about Magic and not having it be as good as it used to be thanks to said pricing, lack of clever, witty friends, time to playtest, refusing to move out of mono green through loyalty and cost, etc, is also frustrating. Not knowing what you should do for your next writing project when nothing has really succeeded to the extent it needs to, is depressing.

Six months ago I didn’t have enough time in the day to do all of the things I wanted to accomplish. Now I don’t know where to put my energies.

Do I transcribe my three hundred voice notes from South America and work on another book that won’t sell? Do I continue to flail at Magic and Magic writing? Do I give up for a while and focus on my body and mind by running, working out, taking Muay Thai classes as well as Spanish classes with Montse?

I’d get a job if I was legal to work in Spain.

Hence, torn.

This week has been a minor breakthrough. As regular readers know, Wendy and I will be leaving Madrid and returning to our home in Vermont in August. I’d like to work with computers again. I have great references, I find it hard to believe the HS wouldn’t take me back, and I loved it there. So, I’ve bookmarked a bunch of computer sites to refresh my knowledge and make it more current. I’m going to take this time to learn some more skills that will make me even more valuable.

I’m going to start approaching agents again. Maybe the economy has recovered enough or maybe I just haven’t hit the right one yet, but I’ll try another two hundred and see if anyone is interested in my book.

Night, Mare (Marilyn’s Story) still needs to be revised a couple more times but getting that done would at least put me closer to the goal of a dozen books available for purchase even if they are self-published. It’s also the one closest to being finished so I should work on that before moving on to our South American adventures.

As soon as my eyes finish healing (2-3 more weeks) I’ll get back to the weights and sculpt myself a little more.

So, I’ve got some goals, but I’m still torn as to what the best course to pursue is until we head home.

Random Dog of Thunder Pic!

I Want Some Ducks

2011-03-07T11:06:00.001+01:00

I want some ducks. I blame Joshie Trash Talker.

See, he has just bought his first house and he wants ducks because ducks are cuter and cooler than chickens, and yet, they still make eggs. I eat a lot of eggs and I love animals.

So, I announced this to Wendy this morning, as I fried up three scrambled, that when we get home this August, I want to get some ducks.

“So we’re going to have ducks and Guinea Pigs?”

I don’t know where the Guinea pig idea came from but when we were in Ecuador it’s a common food. They have little pens for them and all they need is grass and water. Since it’s perpetual spring in Ecuador grass is easy to come by. Once they get big enough you skin them and grill them. I found them quite tasty.

“That’s a great idea. I can move the cage around on the lawn and I won’t need to mow.”

“They have to come inside in the winter though.”

“Nah, that’s when we’ll harvest them.”

“Harvest them?”

“Sure, we’ll have a big feast. We’ll invite all our friends and family. They’ll love it. We’ll have duck eggs and Guinea pigs. Hmm… Maybe duck, duck eggs and Guinea pig! What a feast!”

“Yeah, your family will love that.”