I posted a couple of pictures from Croatia to my Orkut profile.
The ones with me in them. The rest I'll figure out where to upload later.
And finally Inês turns up with a spare moment (which just ended). Mostly asking about the trip of course, but I had a couple of other things to get an opinion on. Namely, that my mother really doesn't believe that any of this can end well. (compare with my reasoning that if she wanted someone to lure, and then destroy, she would have moved on to easier prey long ago.) I try to tell her that with a more outward-looking specialty and a more central location, she has the smarts to reel in more prominent people (referencing Sanford- Chapur)... of course, that gets the conversation off track, my point was simply that with better aim, she could have grabbed someone much better suited to herself that just me... and then this:
gostaria muito de ter uma pessoa no meu lado, mas os homens brasileiros são muitos aventureiros
translation from her perspective: she wants someone by her side, but Brazilian men are very adventurous...
I ask if maybe it's an over-correction to go after someone who wouldn't know where else to turn, a fish out of water as it were?

Some time ago, I was asked how emotionally invested I was/ was willing to get. As far as I can figure, when this started I had no emotional capital to speak of. Mom has just tried to force a margin call. But who did I borrow the invested capital from?
Uh-oh... Now I'm really over a barrel...

(Now trying to type in several places at once...) in response to that last part and my contention that Inês has taught me more understanding of the human condition than I would have known by other means:
Realmente depois dessas palavras, nunca poderá dizer que tenho intenções erradas para com você
"Truly after such words, I could never say that I had any ill intentions towards you"
followed by confirmation of my logic from before.
And as far as my mother's opinions: Inês declares that Mom has to step up first, as if I could change her mind unaided. I doubt that'll work...

Better efficiency of turning light to electricity. Plus they're tuned to the light conditions present in the area.

And increased efficiency turning it back into light... Although do they make back the energy investment used for the process? Seems like the fusion problem again.

Algal fuel. So easy a child can figure it out. 'Nuff said.

Harvesting fog for your water glass. Perfect for post-hurricane scenes, among other things. Will have to look into the scale of the thing, and how much you'd get.

Now getting a bit silly:
Geothermal energy using your own holes... I wouldn't do this in earthquake country... This process apparently caused an earthquake in Switzerland, which doesn't seem to be know for them. Now he's taking his process to California. I have a bad feeling about this...

One more fore the Stupid Bacon Tricks file. Great. Bacon fat as a fuel additive (or the whole thing with enough pigs about)... Problems: 1. Goes through too many intermediate processes, and 2. Wouldn't it oxidize? Maybe mix with the coffee biodiesel (insert link here when I track it back down) to solve that? Makes the road smell like breakfast...

Skype kicked up again. Someone in Sweden who insists that they've spoken to me before. Have checked the past year's posts but nothing clear.

Rotation A: in Opatija on the 15th
DG/ 411: LENdING 68, STRIPInG 62, J2Q3X2S??
Rena Schwartz/ 389: SADDEST 81, Z3SSS
LENDING was first play, STRIPING cleared the bag. May be worth showcasing.

RS/ 368: ENLARGES 70, J3Q2Z2S?
DG/ 404: SiMNELS 76, INDORSEE 63, X3SSS?
Forgot why I remembered SIMNELS, threw it down before I could talk myself out of it.

Rotation B: in Opatija on the 15th
DG/ 450: UNROOtED 62, MEINIEs 71, GAUZE 75, Z6??
Rich Baker/ 417: JOLTIEST 80, AGITATES 61, WARLIKE 73, J2Q1X3SSSS
Rich put the U at 1C completely unnecessarily. May showcase this.

RB/ 346: CLEANSER 72, X3Z2S
DG/ 477: AvERAGER* 82-SWEATER 78-SoUTANES 59, J3Q4SSS??
Rich's response to AVERAGER* was UROPODY* but I had another bingo.

Rotation C: in Biograd on the 17th
TC Houlgate-West/ 462: FORSAkES 149, Q3SSS?
DG/ 355: REmIXING 69, ZETAS 73, J3X1Z6S?
Apparently the only 9-timer of the tournament and a brilliant find too, the only one is to call the blank a K!

DG/ 391: CrAFTED 69, DEVIANTs 76, J2X2Z3??
TCH/ 339: No play over 37, Q3SSS
Both ends of this rotation I had to punt 4 from seven consonants twice in a four-turn span.
Note the blank distribution so far, 10-1-1. Pretty sick.

Rotation D: in Biograd on the 17th
DG/ 347: PRESsING 60, X3SSSS?
Bob Linn/ 340: ATONIEs 70, J4Q2Z2?
Both sides also had a 48 pointer, his JUROR 12A answered by SKIRT H11. Another potential showcase.

BL/ 453: cOSTATE 73, TONEaRM 73, Q1X6Z3S??
DG/ 290: ARIDNESS 68, J4SSS
COSTATE involved an unnoticed phony hook.

Rotation E: in Biograd on the 16th (yes, out of order)
DG/ 368: vORACITY 76, J2Q1X2Z2SS?
April McCarley/ 334: LETTERS 69, SS?
Down 89 before VORACITY.

AM/ 305: SLEEVInG 63, X2SSS?
DG/ 447: RETIRED 88, MANNiTE 70, J3Q2Z4S?
This one turned in the mid-game as April's turns 5-10: 7, 9, 2, phony kicked off (IDOLEST*), another phony kicked off (DOLTIEST*), 11. I had stupidly opened an R that would have given STOLIDER and she misses.

Playoff Rounds: in Biograd on the 18th
DG/ 363: HARDIEST 64, VEnISON 74, X3SS?
BL/ 434: EARSTONE 66, EnROBING 89, J3Q2Z2SS?
Stuff just didn't fit.

RB/ 456: RECEMENT 65, ENTRESOL 68, JELLO 54, J6
DG/ 348: SNOWLEss 70, Q2X3Z2SSSS??
Says it all: Play off VIS leaving ANRS... FQZ. Two turns later the board's dead and then I have AELNORS and EINRSST. SNOWLESS was apparently the lowest-probability bingo played (and reported), small prize there. Should have come up with WObbLES which likely would have been enough, and better for board development...

1. Say this about Mark Sanford: At least he's got taste. His "Maria" has more smarts than most of the other career-ending "other women" we've seen recently. On the other hand she has some explaining to do as well... 1B. Fasc News apparently put up a graphic ID'ing him as a Democrat. Snerk.
2. As I was coming back from Trader Joe's on Thursday, a guy across the aisle (who didn't look like he'd care less) got an anonymous text message about Michael Jackson. I told him it was probably spam. (This is a common spammer's move- put up a likely-but-wrong headline so you'll open the message.) But there was no website to scoop those falling for it. I get back here, check the news and... well, you know the rest.
3. Not sure what to make of the Iran situation. It looks like Tehran's Tiananmen (sp?) moment, but there's a lot of story yet to tell.
In other news: Just sent off the visa application for the China trip. Still need to get the camera connected for the upload process. Fun bit of time here.

Our last two nights were marred by horrific thunderstorms, one that also threw a wedding reception into chaos at the hotel dining room (Sat) and one that made the drive back from the farewell dinner rather scary (Sun).
Sunday was actually quite a relaxing day for me, as Mom did some wall adventures. Rich's son Hudson, who had decided I was the Most Interesting Person available, led me down to the beach for some pottery/ sea glass hunting. I have a neat two-color stone from this adventure. Then he had the bright(?) idea of washing my recent bug bite in salt water in the shore-side pool. Just as I had my whole arm in that pool, a major wave sloshed all over the platform and drenched my pants (I didn't have my just-bought shorts, which would have made this less of a story. Switched socks, and then for an encore allowed another major wind-whipped wave to wash over the pool area while standing there. He thought more of it than I did, but it was kind of fun...
Different bus takes us to Ston and its wall (yes, a stone wall) which I join the Bakers in climbing, getting a picture of the salt flats that the wall was build to defend (Ston was the boundary for a while between the Venetians and Dubrovnik until the D's sold a pocket of coast to the Turks). Then up the Peljes"ac (that should be a full accent over the S but I'm on a normal keyboard now), first to the Grgic' winery for a taste of a close relative to Zinfandel, the Plavac Mali (trans: "Little Blue") which is not raised outside of Croatia... then to another small winery almost level with the island of Korc"ula (Marco Polo's birthplace). The winery chief there, Mr Bartulovic' (also our guide on the bus portion), described the old processes... and a story of an order that he couldn't fulfill, and if he could: 1) you'd have heard of Plavac Mali, but 2) he'd have none left for the family's own use (one party used 135 bottles last year, almost 6% of total production!) Three course dinner, without dessert proper, but a glass of Pros"ek which is too strong for my tastes. Hudson's sisters apparently don't mind the taste of wine, but H isn't all that fond yet. Acquired taste, sure.
Mon: DBV-ZAG-LHR. Try to check in for TUE's flight sequence, can't (and wasting an hour in the process), decide to book nearby hotel, end up with one that was designed for travelers on corporate expense accounts. Oops. Suffice to say we won't be switching at LHR again anytime soon.
Tue: LHR-IAH-SEA. Hotel we were at doesn't include breakfast, cheapest option is £14 each. Deal with that at airport instead, get a paper, Mom sees something in the Harrods in the terminal, which runs us out of GBP.
Continental feeds you when other airlines don't. We rattled off about 15K miles on this round trip.
Rich says next year's adventure will be northern Spain. I'll link to the brochure when it's posted.
Pictures will be uploaded sometime in the next week.

Transfer to airport leaves at 1:30...

Did not mention in previous posts: Mom WINS Div 2 10-2 +about 700.
A few things if you decide to add this country to your travel plans (and you should):

Not really necessary to learn Croatian, since most of the people here do understand English, but if traveling in a group, and if one of the group can speak German and another Italian, you're golden.

The water's fine straight out of the taps, and the sea is as clean as any in Europe (the current runs up the Dalmatian coast and down the Italian side), but since this side is not so industrialized due to serious mountains, even the Istrian shores are certainly OK.

15-MON: Trip to Hum, which has everything necessary to be called a town- but only 17 people, which our tour group outnumbered 2-1. It was the place where St Cyril made his rough draft of the writing style that bears his name. Suffice to say that I doubt that his Glagolitic had much chance. There was a small grappa tasting. Yes, I grabba grappa from a resident of Hum (would that make them the only true Humans? ducks)
Continue to Motovun, a well-preserved hilltop town from about the same period in history. Considering the slope of the hill, this becomes obvious. I get a crepe with chocolate and truffles (the fungus, naturally) and sample a sausage made with them as well. Dinner at a shore-side place, and back to the previous day's dessert place, this time for ice cream... the strawberry was at POW! strength.

16-TUE: Start down the coast. I could actually see the stack of the oil refinery at Rijeka from 50 km distant at Senj. Whether the camera could make it out I'm not sure. Up a winding mountain pass, rejoining the toll road. Arrive at our second hotel in Biograd-no-moru... built in Tito's time and... you could tell. On the other hand, just like a cruise, how much time do you spend in these rooms anyway? Couple more games (as mentioned, details after I return), ask the staff about dinner recommendations... they really need to spread the business as the place they sent the entire group (or at least 25+) to apparently ran out of plates! It was good though.

17-WED: This time the tour was in the afternoon to Krka National Park (not to be confused with the Island of Krk). Lots of waterfalls (not as much as Plitvice Lakes, but I'll have to get back here for that) and a slow boat ride down the river. Follow with dinner at apparently the top place in the town at the mouth of the Krka river, Šibenik. The Israeli contingent got kind of screwed on this one- there was ham in just about every course.

18-THU: Morning tour to Zadar. The Illyrian tribe that controlled this area when the Greeks and Romans arrived, the Liburni, had a matriarchal society, which our guide was only too happy to point out. Town has 3000 years of history- even if lots of it is buried under other parts due to earthquakes, political changes, whatever else. I bet I'll remember more of this when I upload the pictures (also have to wait until I return to start that process). Finish the tournament this day.

19-FRI: Leave Biograd for more southbound travel. Stop off at Split, home of the emperor Diocletian's retirement palace. Clever fellow for an emperor, apparently the only one to die of a simple case of running out of life. A few centuries later, 60,000 residents of the nearby major community of Salona hid in the walls of the palace. Obviously latrines had to be dug... which just about filled the basement... preserving it rather well actually.
There were many things that the Croats (Romanized Illyrians assimilated with Slavs) managed that most of Europe could not... like hold onto knowledge and culture... and refusing to send a military contingent to a crusade (for which the country was cursed with always being ruled from outside)... or even demanding that the Mass be read in their own language (this unnerved Rome to no end)... plus understanding enough about sanitation to not get so badly wrecked by the Black Death (Dubrovnik, where I'm sitting now, had a quarantine hall to accomplish the same effect)...
Due to a rather unusual land deal in the 15th century, the road to Dubrovnik cuts through a bit of Bosnia. I couldn't get a clear shot to prove it though. Cultural program of nationwide music and dances in the evening after late dinner.

20-SAT: City tour here, I walk the walls of the city. There will be pictures. Lots of them. Awesome ones. Be ready.

And now I'm caught up. Our guide, Siniša, joked that he wanted to start a Scrabble academy and hire me to run it. Teeheehee.

that's why no posts.
Tournament: 8-4, +8 (!), third of six, out of the money, was in the lead going into the last game. More on that later.
Today's city tour starts in 20 minutes. Just checking in. Trip notes as I find time.
It's been really hot here all week.
Some 400th post.

EDIT 15:00 CEDT: If this is a gain of more than 15 rating points, I push Ken Clark into the second group for the one-day tournament in three weekends. And the fact that my last two games were against the top two seeds makes that fairly likely... Yikesies. For Ken I mean.

Visited two cities on the Istrian Peninsula, Pula and Rovinj (Italians call them Pola and Rovigno- and thre are enough of them to force the sign to be printed both ways).
Pula has the most intact amphitheater in the Roman world because it outlawed dismantling it before anyone had a mind to. Compare to Rome, where half the blocks of the Colosseum are likely parts of the Vatican. The city has a 3-D map cast in bronze in a centrally located park. We went through the market, bought a half-pound of cherries, I got some multi-pocketed shorts and a short-sleeved shirt the merchant said would go with it-- 160 Kn.
Lunch stop in Rovinj, risotto with shrimp and zucchini (40 Kn) {5 Kn=$1}. Go up the hill to the cathedral for picture-taking opportunity. Need another sladoled (that's ice cream) before coming back. End up taking a 1.5 hour nap on return. Dinner was underwhelming (but cheap- goulash), stopped in a chocolate place and got basically dessert cocktails. Mine had sambuca.
Tomorrow we visit the Smallest Town in the World. And start playing.
There will be a few other things I found out about this part of the country in future posts.

this Croatian keyboard is weird. I can make all manner of nifty accents but getting the apostrophe is getting to be a mystery.
THU-11: Up at 4, shuttle punctual, no problems on Continental SEA-HOU-LHR...
FRI-12: Into LHR at 7AM, crossing to Terminal 2 takes 20 minutes just for the left luggage office (2 bags=16 pounds charge). Tube strike just ended but the ticket line is not moving. Heathrow Connect is better anyway for getting into town(15 pounds each RT). Take the guided tour (20), ride the Eye (17), early dinner (13)... and keep in mind the GBP is running nearly 2-1 vs the dollar...
LHR Terminal 2 is a mess, gate 15 even more so. Naturally the late flight to Zagreb calls there. Get in at midnight, and my time sense by this morning had just rebooted.
SAT-13: Walking (and tramming) tour of central Zagreb while the bus for the day is getting positioned. Quick run to the coast, a bunch of us went down to the seaside promenade after dinner (just for coffee, dessert included).
Tournament proper not until Monday at the earliest.

Apparently some street preachers- you know the kind I'm talking about, with the big signs- have taken to standing in front of the Saturday farmer's market in the U-District. I don't really understand their logic on venues, given that farmer's market shoppers tend to be more focused on this li... ok, I just answered my own question.
One of them, just as my brother was passing by on the way in, said "even if I don't reach you I'm just showing I care about you..."
William stepped up and deadpanned, "I care about you too, man."
Froze the poor guy. Solid. For a good 20 minutes if William's not lying.
And on that subject, here's something I thought once to tie them up with when I saw a trio of them at Folklife... another place of being surrounded by ignorers of eternity... or at least that's what it looked like for this amateur people-watcher.
"Sirs, I'm not sure this schtick is exactly winning them over here. If anything it's playing right into the stereotype they have of religious folks in general, which means you end up driving them away, and that'd be fewer saved, and [[facepalm]] Ohhh, I see it now. This way you get that amazing God of yours all to yourselves. Genius. Pure... Selfish... Genius!"
Have to come up with an accent for that. Helps to stay in character...

Apparently there's this file sharing site in Sweden called the Pirate Bay.
One lawyer there is on a ... I hesitate to say "crusade" on account of loaded words... to get it shut down.
This despite the fact there is now a Pirate Party (political) in Sweden, and they even won a seat in the European Parliament. Not much you can do with one seat there but they have it.
Apparently some of the pirates got their revenge by claiming to be the guy changing his name to Pirate. Now he has to go to court to get it changed back. Of course, the head pirate claims no knowledge of this. But it beats how certain causes deal with their opponents here (see Tiller, G.)
I had to wait until I was sure evwhore didn't post this. No sense telling you twice.


EDIT got upstreamed for this

Apparently Chloe the Music Being's weakness, the one thing that will weaken her resolve to frustrate the authority (by which I mean William), is... cheese. Despite (or perhaps because, see following) it messes with her system (and was thus forbidden- see, that didn't take long). You know how that goes- forbidden == obsessively desired. Do we ever really outgrow that?
On the way back from Portland, a car with an Impeach bumper sticker... the way the conservatives are here in this corner it may not have been that old, it's really uncertain. OTOH same car, a rather impressive graphic of the reaching-across-the-aisleness of the couple in the car: One traditional fish, one "Evolve" fish (with legs), and a heart between them (cue Awwww)*. Reminded me of the best re-imaged fish I've seen in which the legs turn into landing struts... for a UFO (with top-mounted bridge).

*hm, maybe it was an old one originally and now the other side of the car won't let it be removed?

Side things that I've been trying to work into posts:
If Limbaugh doesn't want the media to show off everything he says, he should stop being the news. But then he's not promoting himself, and then what's in it for him then?
O'Reilly/ Tiller: You say the sort of things about the guy and then start acting surprised when someone takes your words to their illogical conclusion? Maybe the guy wanted to do that all along and Fasc News represented the green light. But still, either you are responsible, or you are irresponsible. Either way, yeesh.

Quick restaurant rating for up here (and visitors): Panos Kleftikos gets a semi-unprecedented Four Noms. And there is no Five. Not cheap though.

William and C.M.B. coming tomorrow evening. What I know of what'll happen:

Sunday: Side trip to Portland to see my cousin
Tuesday: We hope they can came to club with us (hide the piano!)
Thursday: We leave for the airport at 5AM, they leave at about 11AM (have them drop key off with the neighbors on the way out I guess...)
Not sure if I'll be able to post from Croatia (we won't have our computer available, I'd like to at least be able to upload photos as we have a real camera now!)
Will backfill as details become available.