Google Spreadsheet

Well, it seems Google is trying to take over any form of software and offer it for free in their own format. They did this with Google Analytics and are now doing it with Google Spreadsheets. The cool part is that you can have your documents with you and share with anyone whenever you want to share them at anytime.

I have tested this and it seems to work pretty well. I think it just needs a little bit more for those needing more detailed spreadsheets. Now all I need is a Google Photoshop.

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"Why try Harder"

There is a new Fatboy Slim album out there with all the greatest hits. Be sure to check it out.

Go to the Fatboy Slim Webpage.

Back in town

Well, I am back in Memphis. But only for a short bit as I am scheduled to return to Krakow, Poland in July. This trip I rented a bicycle and did about 3 hours of bicycle riding. The next trip I plan on possibly renting the below vehicle to say that I have actually driven a Polish car.

Of course, after mentioning this to some of the locals they mentioned that I could probably buy one of the vehicles (Fiat Polska) below for around $200 dollars. Not a bad investment as I will be returning a few more times. I will see how the rental goes before investing in a $200 car.

Go to Halfsize to see the vehicle rental information. The 500 Zloty deposit is the only part that I do not like.

Lajkonik Festival

A festival that I was hoping I would not miss is the Lajkonik Festival. Most tourist booklets did not have the correct dates. It seems this happens regularly per the Tourist Information Center. Some places had the festival posted on June 5th and others the Thursday after Corpus Cristi which was on June 22nd. I took a gamble and tracked down some details. The actual festival started near the river around noon and again in the Market Square around 6pm.

I attended the festival and took many, many pictures. I know some of them are not the best, but the guy kept moving around. Not a very large festival or not as large as I expected it to be based on the Tourist Booklets.

Check out many of the photos at My Flickr Photo Album.

Up and Running

The other day I mentioned that my battery died on my camera and I was not able to upload my photos. That was part of the story. The other part was that my hour internet time was also almost up and I did not feel like going back to the room to get my spare battery. Photos can be found at My Flickr Photo Album. Of course, if you are at my place of employment you might not have access to this page as it is blocked.

Photos

This evening I tried uploading all my photos to flickr.com, but had my battery die on me. I will try again tomorrow. For those at work, you will have to access these photos from another location as it seems work has blocked flickr.com.

I will try to post a few here on the blog, but am not sure when I will be able to get to it while I am here. As mentioned on another post, I am a few days behind.

Way behind

I am way behind on my post. I actually have about 5 post that I am working on that I will try to back date. I plan on posting these in the next day or 2. But before I go there. While I was in the Hotel Bar posting, Barb C, Audrey J and and Tracee W. walked by to say hello.

Bicycle ride in Krakow, Poland

Sunday, June 18th I tried waking up around 8am, but my body just would not have it. I actually woke up around 11 am, showered and made my way to Rent-a-Bike. I told they guy that I would b renting the bike the entire day and planned to ride to Kosciusko Mound and then the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Well, I was not able to locate the Mound and after 3 hours of riding a bike with gears that did not work, I opted to return the bike. But before then, I proceeded to ride to the Wawel Castle and sit out on the banks of the Visla River with a “Coke and a Smile” to enjoy the sun. After that, I just walked around to see if there was anything I have not seen yet in all my visits to Krakow, Poland.

Weekend Plans, Not.

Well, my weekend plans did not go as planned. I mentioned a few days ago or more that I wanted to do a handful of things on the weekend here in Krakow, Poland.

Saturday, I was able to walk up the 228 or so steps of the Wieza Mariacka (St. Mary’s Church). It was very impressive and the walk up took the breath out of me as I am not in tip top shape. You can see almost all of Krakow, Poland from the top and as you can see from some of the photos. I would highly recommend paying the 5 Zloty to check this out. For those not familiar with Wieza Mariacka, there is a man that stays up at the top and plays a tune on his horn every hour on the hour. I got my picture taken with him and paid 2 Zloty for an autographed postcard. Very cool. The next stop on my trip was not as impressive, it was almost a downer.

I figured since the the Wieza Mariacka was so impressive, the Miasta Krakowa (clock tower) would also be as impressive. Well, I was very wrong. The cost was 5 Zloty and 10 Zloty to take photos. The view was terrible as the windows had were not open to view the city ad were covered in dirt grime and bird poop. It is was called a Museum, but had no historical value inside it. The best view of this structure is definitely from the outside.

Another disappointing 5 Zloty expense was the Barbican. It is another great structure viewed from the ouside and for free. It is nothing but a tunnel that goes all through the inside and a big area in the middle, which can be seen from the outside.

After taking in these 3 sites I ventured on foot to almost all of the city of Krakow, Poland. You can go to the following link to see photos from the day. My Flickr Photo Album

Lajkonik Parade

I am going to try and attend the Lajkonik Parade. It take place during my lunch break and is only a 5-10 minute run from the Lubicz Center. If lucky, I will be able to see the entire procession and attend the rest of the festival in the evening after work.

Here is a photo with the Lajkonik that hangs around the Market Square almost daily taken in May.

Weekend Plans

I am going to try and attempt the below for the weekend include a short list of items.

Climb top of St. Mary’s Cathedral
Climb top of the Clock Tower and visit the Museum
Aviation Museum
Rent Bicycle (lots of out of the city attractions)

I will try to add lots more as they become available.

Hotel Lobby

As you might have guessed Europeans love their soccer, I mean futbol. I have learned not to call it soccer. The hotel even did a special flower arrangement in the main lobby. Photo can be found below. If you cannot tell, the center object is a soccer ball made out of carnations.

Boom Boom Room.

Before reading on, this is not meant to offend, but really happened to me last night.

I was watching TV and I heard a very faint noise in the background, so I turned off the volume to find that the people in the room next to me were very busy. Instead of hearing the English “oh, oh , oh” I heard “Aigh, Aigh, Aigh”( more of an I sound). It lasted for a few hours of on and off. So whenever I would get ready to complain, it would start back up. Good thing is that it finally stopped.

I did ask a few people in Polish if the “Aigh, Aigh, Aigh” was polish. Per a conversation, we came to the conclusion that it was more than likely Spanish.

So, If this offended you in anyway, I apologize. This is a true story. Hopefully, it does not continue tonight as I am very tired.

Bicycle Rider

Strolling through the Main Square in Krakow, Poland I spotted this guy walking his bicycle around for a bit. I stalked him to see if I could catch him actually riding it, but I had not luck. I am hoping he will be out next weekend to see if I can get a better picture or even see if he will let me sit on the bike and can my own photo taken on it. Of course, I would be supporting myseld to a post or a wall.

German Bathrooms

As mentioned earlier, I was stuck in the Munich, Germany Airport way too long. I noticed a few odd things or at least odd for me.

First off, all the urinals had a fly painted on them. Yes, I was bored enough to take a photo.

The second thing was in the bathroom stall next to the toilet paper. Instead of having the tissue paper you place on the toilet seat, they have this spray you spray on some toilet paper and clean the seat with it. It smelled good.

More on European bathrooms later…

World Cup

While in the Munich, Germany airport, I noticed many things promoting the World Cup. One of the two that I found interesting was the what seemed to be a World Cup Trophy wrapped in paper in the baggage claim conveyor belt.

The second item promoting the World Cup or Foosball were the Luftansa Foosball tables scattered throughout he airport for passengers to play. Being stuck there alone, I had no one to play.

Lost Traveler

Left Memphis International Airport (MEM) Friday evening at around 7:30 pm and arrived in Munich barely on time. Out of breath and dripping with sweat I made my way to the KLM plane to Munich, Germany. Landed there to find that my bags were not check all the way to Krakow, Poland. I had to go to baggage claim and check into my flight to Krakow, Poland from Munich to find my flight long gone. I went to the Luftansa ticket counter to get a ticket for the next flight. They were able to help me, but I was on standby.

Standby is not the way to travel. In retrospect, I should have just booked a ticket for the followin morning and stay in Munich to enjoy the city or even try to catch the World Cup Opening Ceremonies. I actually ended up sitting in the airport for 6 hours till my standby flight took off withouth me because it was over booked. Bummed I was.

I was lucky and found a hotel close to the airport and took the shuttle there. For a late night dinner, I ate a smoked turkey salad and a Paulaner Beer Soup. I know what some of you are saying, “Tulio doesn’t drink beer!” I was in Germany and I had to try something on the menu that was German, and German Beer Soup is probably as German as it gets. Either way dinner was good and light before going to bed.

I woke up the following morning to make my flight to Krakow, Poland and arrive ontime, with one bag short. Yes, I lost another bag.

So, I am now in Krakow, and working on any possible tours I can find.

It is that time again.

Postcard time. I am off to Krakow, Poland again for work. If you are interested in a Postcard and I know you, please post a comment with your information and I will be sure to do my best to send you a postcard.

Don’t worry, your information will not be posted for all to see.

$2.95 article from a $.50 paper.

I currently get the Commercial Appeal at home and wanted to finish reading an article online on a break at work the next morning. To my surprise, the Commercial Appeal now charges for their online archived content, even a day later. If anything it should not be officially archived for a few days. I was baffled when my sign on did not work and started the registration process again to find that you now have to pay to read archived content on CA online. I would have easily done it, if the price for one article ($2.95) was not more than the paper version of the entire newspaper (50 Cents) and was not the next day.

The Commercial Appeal has got to be nuts. If I am a subscriber to the paper version, I should automatically get a deal on the online archival version or even get it online for free. If anything, they should drop the charge to 5-25 cents per article.

Below is a screen shot of the Commercial Appeal Subscription Page.

Strawberry Dessert

Now that you mouth has watered over the Paella, now it is time for dessert. Over the weekend the dessert of choice was chocolate covered straberries. If you notice in the picture, some were white chocolate drizzled with milk chocolate and milk chocolate drizzled in vanilla. The strawberries were huge and fresh.

More Google Maps

I posted about Google Earth a while ago. Well, now you can go beyond the Earth and get satellite images from other planets. You can now get satellite images of Google Moon and Google Mars. Both of these are onyl snapshots of a particular area. It does not work like Google Earth. Be sure to zoom in to the Google Moon, as you will find something interesting.

It is pretty cool, but what purpose does it have for a regular person. I guess you could start plotting where you want to purchase your moon plot.

Paella 2.0

This weekend, I help my parents cook Paella again for a business dinner. This time we used the large pan. To give you an idea on how big, it took 2 people to carry it into the house. In this Paella there was rice, scallops, shrimp, fresh water shrimp (hard shelled blue shrimp), crawfish, lobster, clams, mussels, and special sauce. The total weight was probably close to 30-40 lbs.

If you want to make your own Paella, don’t worry as I found 2 locations that sell the supplies. Go to PaellaPans.com and Hot Paella for the pans and any other suplies you might need.

Jeep Wave

I have always wondered why people in other Jeeps wave at me. Yes, I have a Jeep Wrangler, but does that mean I have to wave? What if I opt not to waive. Will I get chased down like Tony Roy did when he had his Jeep for not waiving back?

Well, I did a search on Google and found Jeep Talk, which has the definition of the Jeep Wave, the General Rules, and Jeep Waving hierarchy. Who would have thought that someone had this much time to come up with rules for waiving at another Jeep.

Based on the rules, someone with a higher score does not have to waive back to someone with a lower score.

Pint Lock

Here is something that would be nice to prevent others from eating your Chunky Monkey or my favorite Chocolate Fudge Brownie. It is a Pint Lock. You can actually lock you ice cream to prevent others from eating it. Perfect for the office environment.

You can find this at Ben and Jerry’s.

Squeal like a pig.

Last night while watching “Good Eats” with Alton Brown on Food Network he was cooking kabobs and it made me think of something I saw in Krakow, Poland recently. During many festivals they usually have food vendors like we have here in the states. One thing I noticed was a rotiserrie pig grill and I thought that this would be something my parents would really enjoy as they like cooking out as much as I do.

I looked online and was able to find a few. Most of them are commercial grade and cost as much as $2000. I was able to find a smaller one for about $500 that sparked some interest from my parents.

The one that is about $500 is made by McReynolds Farms pictured below.

The one that is $1500-$2000 is made by Big John Grills and is pictured below.