Thank you America!

I just wanted to take a moment and thank all the people who made our vacation great-- from all the captains who flew our planes to all the friends who hosted us. We really appreciate the kindness and the homes and beds of Richard and Alia and Emma and Christina and big shout out to my mom! I appreciate all the good friends that had dinner with us, made time to come out and hang with us, even those who only had a few seconds to spare. Thanks to all the people who bared with me as I slightly shakily drove up and down the highways of California, and to those who gave us directions when the GPS didn't make any sense. Thanks to those people who moved out of the way when we were taking one of our ten billion photos. I thank the park service people and guides and maintenance workers who help keep New York and California's public spaces so beautiful and nice to photograph. Most of all, I thank The Captain for being such a wonderful travel buddy, this was one of the best holidays of my life.

We'll be back!

OK, here are pictures...

Swinging Slovenia

This is probably one of my most favorite Slovenian songs ever.

Mala Terasa (Little Terrace) by Bele Vrane (The White Crows)



There are a fair amount of under-appreciated properly kitschy tracks from the 60s swinging Ljubljana days. I've heard quite a few on Radio Student and also occasionally on a late night bus ride back from Ljubljana but this is the only song whose title I ever remembered. Does anyone know if there are any compilations out of this kind of stuff? It'd be great to pop this into the car when on a ride, instead of cursing the awfulness of current Slovenian music.

UPDATE: LerumSLO has a bunch of this stuff on their Youtube channel.

Profundity

The Captain in California- September 2008

"There is some serious path dependence in nonconformism. First it's because you want to, then it's because you wouldn't know how not to."
- Stolen from my dear friend Sumana


The Captain helping me ship the last of my stuff to Slovenia - September 2008

I'm Baaack

I'm finally back in Wheelville after a whirlwind trip through NYC, LA, and SF with the CAP.

Just as I was working on my jetlag I decided to stay up until four am watching the presidential debates. So the struggle will continue.

I will post a few pictures here over the next few days. Gimme a lil more time to sleeep first.


cat sleeping at the Polish newsstand in my old hood of Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Never learning?

FIFA fines Croatia for racist fans




Fifa has fined the Croatia Football Federation £14,920 after a section of their supporters racially abused Emile Heskey during the World Cup qualifier with England. ...

It is the second time in a matter of months Croatian fans have been found guilty of racist behaviour with Fifa issuing a small fine during Euro 2008 following chants during their quarter-final against Turkey....

Heskey has been racially abused while playing for England in Slovakia in 2002, while Shaun Wright-Phillips and Ashley Cole were subjected to monkey chants in a friendly against Spain in Madrid in 2004.

"You have to let the people above deal with that and I'll carry on playing my game," Heskey said after the match. "They are ignorant people, you have to ignore it and enjoy your game. Their players weren't happy about it either."

Read the entire article here.

Also if you have time, check out this series on The Real Football Factories - The Balkans on Youtube. These are the dudes that made me scared to go to Serbia a few months back. Here's Part 1...If only they could fight the police in the name of something good.

The Water's Fine

I can't believe I am STILL on vacation. Whew! It has been a long stretch and we are winding down. Here are a few shots from the last few weeks.

The Man With The Funny Hat

My ridiculously cute friend Tomaz has recently taken on the daunting task of conducting a basic Slovene course via Livejournal and Youtube.

check out Lesson 1

Happy World

The Captain and I are still travelling and I am hoping to get a few choice pictures off the camera to show you where we've been so far and what we've done.

Until I can do that, I wanted to share this with you.

My friend here just told me about this "Where The Hell Is Matt?" viral video thing, and I thought it was too cute not to share.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.