Bryan's Mind

I am testing boastMachine blogger to see if it meets my needs. Until I have toyed with it a bit, I won’t really know. It does categories and other neat stuff.

Check it out. It was pretty simple to configure. You basically unzip and ftp the folder and then call a script to set up the SQL connection. I need to put together a template, though. It won’t look like this site, but it won’t be full of big fonts like the current one.

Check it out, tell me if it sucks or not. Clicky

Seems like most of my peeps in Florida have fallen out of the habit of blogging. I guess work and other things have them occupied.

A shout out to my peeps down in Florida. What’s happening?

I noticed that Merriam-Webster Online has added irregardless as an irregular but acceptable alternative for regardless. What is the world coming to? Coming soon: supposably, nucular, and simular.

Here are some new ones Webster is adding: Clickety-Click. I like ginormous and gription, and have used them in the past.

We went to the park in the morning for another “last” trip, and on the way we bought our train tickets to Torino. But I dug that park, man. There were a bunch of large greenhouses that we had yet to see. Seems on the other 5 trips to the park the greenhouses were closed for that European lunch “hour” (more like three hours). We even tried to show up once only to realize they weren’t open at all that day due to unforeseen circumstances or something. Coco said that it was due to people stealing stuff, and then she digressed about how French are thieves. I think in summary of our discussion a better term would be “hateful opportunists.” She said that one time some old couple screwed her over when she was in college and took her for about 100 bucks pretending to be locked out of their house. Most French are total asses, I agree, but if that’s what it takes to have good cheese and wine, then I suppose it is our cross to bear. Besides, it’s not like we couldn’t go over there and whip up on them at our whim if they got too uppity.

We returned to Chez Coco and said our good-byes and all and Coco took us up to the train station. Antonella had previously thought that we could make it all the way to Firenze, by looking at the map of Europe in Coco’s bathroom. I had only purchased tickets to Torino because I knew we couldn’t make it to Firenze and stop for three or four hours in Torino. No, in the real world maps have this thing called scale. So, when you see that we were only six inches from Firenze as the clow fries, it doesn’t mean that it is a two hour train ride. It was more like 4-1/2 hours. It was a beautiful ride through Genoa. It is one of the older port towns (heck Christopher Columbus left from there) and the houses were built onto the side of a moderately-sloping hill overlooking the Mediterranean. It was a gorgeous ride.

We arrived a little past 8 pm and just looked for a hotel in Torino adventure-style: that is, we just started dragging all of our luggage into the city. It is always fun, as we were hungry, tired and bitchy (not necessarily in that order.)

The hotel we found was about 70 Euros and was pretty nice for the money. The people at the counter were very courteous and friendly. I suppose that will all end when the Olympic Games have come and gone.

We wanted some eats, so we went to the pizzeria next door. Antonella had some kind of lobster pasta something or another and I had a pizza. All of it was very good.

When we returned back to the hotel room, I surprised Antonella with a ring. I wanted to give it to her in Paris, but we didn’t stay in Paris. I wanted to wait for a better opportunity, but I had been carrying it in my jacket pocket and luggage and I was afraid it would get stolen or the surprise ruined by her finding it in my luggage.

With that, we went to bed. Yeah…right.

Today was a little lazy. We took a stroll through the park in the morning. Coco’s sister Sophie and her new husband came for lunch. While they were waiting, Coco asked me to recite a poem. I am afraid I need to set up some background for this poem, so pardon the digression.

I went to hang with the Cordials when they lived in Ft. Knox, Kentucky. During the course of my stay, I mentioned that the only French I still knew was that which I had remembered via poems I was forced to memorize in high school. So she wanted to hear one. After I finished, she laughed and said, “I don’t know what you just said.” So, I tried a couple more, each with similar results. I had not said any of those in years, but last year one of the kids mentioned Jacques Prevert and I said one of the shorter ones. They all clapped and Coco said “That was great!” I asked her if she understood this time and she said yes.
Well, this year she wanted me to recite some for her sister. So I started out “Il pleure dans mon coeur,” but I mispronounced “coeur” as “cul”. So, instead of “it rains in my heart,” it was “it rains in my ass.” Hilarity ensued. Everyone got a good laugh at the stupid American. Thanks, Ms. Faulk, thanks for teaching me to speak French that French people don’t understand. (I think of one of those NBC commercials where the star with the comet flies across the screen and some actor or actress comes on and says some little parable about staying in school.)

After Sophie left, Antonella hibernated while Coco and I had a discussion on fundamental religion and its consequences. It was something along the lines that it is ridiculous to think that God does everything for everybody when they ask. It would be like “Bruce Almighty,” if that were the case. We talked about many other facets, but that was the gist of it. The reason the topic came up was Coco believed her sister to be guilty of that.

We went for one last tour of the park, and to take some pictures with the kids, then rushed back to meet Coco’s parents who were coming for dinner.

Her parents were very sweet, and very interesting. Her father was German and her mother was French. There was never a lapse in the conversation, even during dinner. Coco’s mom, Marguerite, was learning Italian, so they spoke a bit in Italian. They also spoke good English. We had Boeuf Burgeonese and carrots and had strawberry mousse and strawberries for dessert. We poured the remainder of the mousse in ice trays, as per the Cowboy Twinkie’s “Sunshine on a Stick” campaign I watched religiously on Saturday mornings during cartoons. The kids loved it, and finished off two ice trays full the next day before noon. We had much wine, so soon afterwards we bunked in.