Monkey's are ALWAYS funny!

Tee hee.

Easy

See MB, It's that easy. Awwwww....

The Difference Between Us and Them

After reading the above Pearls Before Swine strip, how did it make you feel? I giggled pretty hard at it. But then I wondered how others would take it. I’m not practicing any religion at the moment, but I grew up in the Baptist church and know plenty of other Christians and I can’t think of any that would be offended by it. I’m sure there are some that will, but over all, I don’t think you are going to hear calls for Mr. Pastis’ head.

Now consider the recent plight of Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher who merely allowed a student to name a teddy bear Muhammad while teaching at a school in Muslim Sudan. She was arrested and immediately sentenced to 15 days in jail. If the British Government had not stepped in, the sentence would have included lashes and could have been punishable by death.

So which is worse, illustrating your Savior as a comedic crocodile or naming a teddy bear after your chief profit? Either way I think the reaction speaks for itself. This is just another reason why Western cultures are seen as superior to others. We don’t want to kill people for making a joke.

Personally, I would have slapped some boxing gloves on the bear and said I was just a big fan of 1970’s boxing.

Love Advice

So we're sitting at a Mexican food joint when Kyle declares that the waitress is "hot". Now for those of you that know him you aren't surprise. The in issued this bit of love advice...

"You have to make them FEEL cute before you tell them they are. If you just tell them they are first, it will ruin your whole relationship. They have to feel it first."

1. He is eight
2. He is right
3. I'm in big trouble when he starts dating.

Ahhhh Traffic

Since I have nothing better to do but blog while sitting in this crap, I thought I'd send this in. I used to get really uptight in traffic but either age or just getting used to it has calmed me down. Often I just thing that the poor slop that is causing this jam is worse off.

Blogging

 Tee hee

 

Why I live in Texas

Just a little proof that we do have some color here in the fall, and unfortunately my little camera just can’t capture the colors very well.

A lot of people think Texas does not have a fall, actually they are wrong, we have a very long fall, we just don’t have a winter. Not a long one anyway, about a day or two is plenty for us. Y’all can keep the snow, if I want snow I know where to find it.

Seriously, I know it gets too damn hot in Texas during the summer which also last too damn long, but when you have days like today I can’t honestly see why someone would live anywhere else.

Antwerpen 1.5

Did I mention the narrow, yet historic roads and alleyways?

 

 

 

 

Antwerpen 1.4

Most of these photo’s came from personal walking tours and a guided tour that our host, Post Belgium, conducted for us as we did a progressive dinner. You know what I mean, drinks in one place, appetizer in another, main dish in another and so on. Six stops in all, I think this one was appetizers. It was really kind of neat, even if all we really wanted to do was drink (hey, we are mail guys and gals, it’s what we do).

 

 

 

Antwerpen 1.3

“Hey, what are you staring at? Not every part of my body can be GIANT!”

 

Cute statue of drunken sailors looking at the giant. Just very unfortunate positioning of the little guys.

 

 

 

Antwerpen 1.2

At first I thought this was yet another gruesome statue, which of course it is, but it really does fit. This is the top of a statue that is found in the main square. It tells the story of how Antwerpen got it’s name. Apparently during the medieval times they found some whale bones near the river… being medieval type people with medieval sized brains, they just figured it was the bones of a giant and thus had to come up with a story. So I guess the one that stuck was that there was a giant that would make boats pay a toll to come this way up the river. If you didn’t pay the toll, it would cut off your hand and toss it to river. Apparently there was a Roman hero that came up there river and battled the giant, cutting off his had and tossing it in the river thus ending his reign of terror. Werpen was the Roman word meaning “to throw” and thus “Hand – werpen” became Antwerp.

 

Hey, I don’t make them up I just tell them.  

 

 

Antwerpen 1.1

I was fortunate that our meeting was being held at the Hilton in the historic district of Antwerpen because believe me my company would never have approved the cost had I not threatened to take a taxi every day from the other side of the city. (What they don’t know, is that probably would have been cheaper).

 

Old Antwerp is dominated by its Cathedral and indeed it proved very useful while marching through the narrow and winding streets and alleyways of the city. If ever I wondered where I was I only had to look up or listen for the bells that rang every 15 minutes. The cathedral has a much storied history. Started in the 15^th century it latterly took centuries to finish. In fact, some would tell you that it is not yet finished as it only has one tower. You can see it’s stubby, unfinished, sister just this side of the finished tower the photo here. Indecently, I tried taking many many photos, but being that most of the time I could be out and about the city it was dark, this is really the best I had. The one thing I was told by locals is that everyone can remember how tall the tower is because it is an even and easy to remember 123 meters high. I guess because it is the 1-2-3 it is easy to remember, but I thought it would have been easer to remember if it was 100. I guess they didn’t ask me.

 

Back to the history… I’m doing this from memory, so don’t sue me if I get it wrong in a few places. After the Romans left town the Vikings decided to take a turn at Antwerp (something that apparently happens a lot) and being Vikings, they burned the place to the ground. After the Catholics came a conquering they found, in the ashes, a statue of what appeared to be a Madonna, which was most likely the Roman Fertility god, but it was burned and when you’re looking for a miracle, who’s counting. So they figured this was where God was telling them to build a church, they did. The decorated it with a lot of great art, most of which can now be found somewhere in Madrid, because of course the Spanish had to have their turn with Antwerp.

 

 

 

Antwerpen

If you have ever been to Europe you know that the Train stations are magnificent. Of, course they were the latter day “airports” and nobody does them better than Europe and Antwerpen is not the exception. Never caught when it was built, but the façade is at least 18^th century. After some much needed sleep it was time to wake up and shake the cob webs from my head. Unfortunately, being nearly winter, the sun went to bed early and with was dark by 5 o’clock.

 

 

 

Something new

OK, I’m going to try blogging about the trip and since I like this new email interface so much, I’m going to use it to get this accomplished. So you will see multiple posts instead of one long one. Oh, and I’m doing this because my little TV. screen on my flight home is busted and I can’t watch movies. Arghhh.

The posts I made from my phone should be posted by now so you know how I got there, but you don’t really know the story of my getting home. Ah the trials and tribulations of airline employee travel. I can’t just buy a ticket like a normal person. No I have to fly stand by on any carrier but mine. I have been pretty lucky, but that luck ran out and I couldn’t get on the flight from BRU to FRA so my best option was hopping the Eurostar to London. With the new high speed tracks now on the English side and the new arrival terminal at St. Pancras (pictured) I was there in two hours! Then a short tube ride to Victoria station and then on the Gatwick Express. From the time I made the decision to abandon hope getting to FRA to the time I was at LGW was less than 4 hours. Not too bad.