And while I’m really sad that the holidays are over, it is also nice to get back to normal, and back to a routine. I have really missed playing the piano for two hours a night. I have really missed playing Starcraft. It has been weeks since I’ve played, and that makes me really sad. I miss cooking dinner, and I miss watching Downton Abbey. So I need to remember those things when I think about how sad I am that the festivities of the holidays are over.

It also happens that the fun will be continuing for the Halley minor clan for another month or so. Next week Kelly and I go to Chicago to meet the new baby of my friend from Wash U, Matt. And of course get to see Emily and her family. The following weekend we are going to Frohna, MO, to spend some time with Kelly’s bio-mom and sister. That should be an… interesting experience. And then on January 30th, we leave for California to spend a week romping around out there.

As I’m typing this, I realize that by saying that things are getting “back to normal” for us, that really just means “continuing the craziness.” And I suppose I wouldn’t really want it any other way.

But then last night we were sitting around, and it smacked me right in the face. Of course we need to go to Cyprus. Why would I turn down a chance to go to Europe? That doesn’t make any sense! And so Kelly and I started planning and scheming. We really only need to be in Cyprus for a few days. Two or three. Which leaves us a good six or seven that we could spend somewhere else in Europe beforehand, and then fly to Cyprus for the wedding before returning home. Sounds like a great plan!

Right now the idea is that we’d fly into Paris or Rome, spend a few days there, before heading to Cyprus, or if we go to Paris, Cyprus via a detour to Brussels. I think that right now we are leaning towards Paris, not only because it is an amazing city, but Kelly hasn’t been there and she speaks French, so it would be a much better fit.

But we are also open to other ideas. I was thinking maybe we could be totally crazy and go to Prague. I mean, why not, right?

Anyway, this is short because there is a game night downstairs, but let me know your thoughts!

This trip was even better than the first, not only because of the addition of Kelly, but also because of some of the really awesome things that we did. In Amsterdam we got to experience “Queen’s Day”, which is like Mardi Gras on steroids, except doesn’t feel nearly as sketchy, which is pretty amazing considering it was in Amsterdam. It might be the most fun day that I have ever had.

That is, unless you take another day from later in the trip when we got to see the final game of the season for Sheffield Wednesday, my favorite English soccer team. And it was an incredibly important game in that if they won, they got promoted to the next higher division. And they did win, and it was amazing, and afterwards we celebrated with steak and ale pie, which turned out to be also amazing.

Oh, and we ate a ton of waffles in Belgium, and those were pretty awesome also. Ohhh… and poffertjes. Ohh the poffertjes.

So anyway, Kelly and I really loved it there, and got us thinking and talking. We are pretty settled that we are going to stay in St. Louis for the rest of our lives. It is a good place to live, and we love it here, and it is where large parts of our families are. We are St. Louisans. But wouldn’t it be fun to spend longer than a week or two out of the country? We thought so.

So our crazy “plan” that we are pretty sure is never going to happen, but we can dream, is to try to take a much longer “vacation” to Europe. More like 4 months or so, choosing a home base of sorts and exploring out from there.

The plan relies on two things, though. One is if my our work situations can be molded such that we can either keep working remotely, or take a sabbatical of some sorts. One option will maybe work for me, another for Kelly. The other is our ability to motivate and make sure that everything is in place to make it happen.

I’d put our chances at around 3%. But hey, 3% is enough to dream about.

In other news:

- I have started playing classical guitar, and I love it.

- At the end of April I am going to California for four and a half days.

- July 1st – July 10th Kelly and I will be going to California for a costal adventure. We are going to be starting in San Diego and end up in San Francisco.

- I’m still roller skating. A lot of the thrill is gone, but I still do it.

So that is about it for now. I have more to say, but I don’t want to do it right now. But I also wanted everyone to know that I am still alive, and Smackie isn’t doomed to death.

So like I said earlier, this was actually a really good year. This is a year where I saw Paris. PARIS! I went to Bruges, which is the single most amazing place I’ve ever been. With the possible exception of Paris. What is there to complain about in a year when things like that happen? I should reiterate how good my trip to Europe was. Despite the fact that I missed out on Amsterdam, I saw a lot, and had a really good time. I was thinking about the soccer game that I went to the other day. That was a trip that I will probably think about for the rest of my life.

And right after I got back from Europe, I got engaged. How can I complain about a year where I got engaged? And then just a few months later, I got married. MARRIED! I still can’t believe that I got married. And got married to someone who is really damn awesome. Someone so awesome that it almost makes me feel bad when I read or hear about stereotypical bad marriages and bad wives. Because I don’t have that at all. I’ve got it really, really good. And I’m pretty sure that we had the best wedding in the history of weddings. Rollerskating, cake, and deer. I don’t know what else you need.

Speaking of roller skating, I got first place in my event at Regionals. Again, it would feel wrong to write a bitchy letter when I had a year where something like that happened. And even though I totally tanked and sucked at Nationals, I still went and competed, and made a comeback at my next event by taking two second places.

Oh, and somewhere in all of that, we remodeled our bathroom and have the most kickass bathroom in the world. If you had ever been to my house and seen the old bathroom, you knew how bad it was. Well the new one is probably a million times better than that one.

But since people like the bad stuff, I guess I can throw some of that in as well. Mom and Dad still haven’t sold their house. So that means we won’t be going to Disney World anytime soon, which is a pretty selfish way of looking at it, but I know that I’m not the only one with that view of the situation. And Kelly and I found out that her house is worth significantly less than she owes on it. So we’ve had to rent it out, which has been good for money reasons, but not so good for stress reasons.

And I guess in the process of ripping out the bathroom, we destroyed the kitchen, so we’ve basically been living without a functioning kitchen for close to a year now. But you know what? That is about to get remodeled too, so it is hard to complain too long for that.

So yeah. This has been a really damn good year. I know that things are hard out there for a lot of people. I know that the world isn’t a terribly happy place. And if you follow the links I post on Facebook, you’ll see that I’m getting more and more frustrated with our government, and even our system of governing. But still, I think all of that is pretty inconsequential in light of all of the good things that I’ve had happen to me this year, and so at least for the last little bit of 2010 I’m going to choose to focus on those things, and not so much on the bad things.

Some background – I am a type 1 diabetic, and to treat that condition, I wear an insulin pump, which is a little machine that is plugged into the side of me and literally keeps me alive. I wear this 24/7. In the past when I have flown it has usually not been an issue. The agents sometimes notice it, sometimes don’t, but almost never make an issue about it, and have always known what it is when mentioned, so I’m assumed that they are trained about this.

Anyway, I was flying home from San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, a few days after the new procedures went into place, and I was slightly nervous because I wasn’t sure how they would affect me and my situation. When I got to the security area I was very up front with them, showed them my insulin pump, and they seemed confused. I was put through the backscatter machine, while holding my insulin pump in my hand, and was then held while the TSA agents went off and discussed my situation. After a few minutes they came over, and I overheard them saying that everything checked out fine on me, but then they took me aside where I got the “enhanced pat down.” Then they also did the swab test on my insulin pump, and everything checked out and I was sent on my way.

This got me to thinking, though. Am I going to always be subjected to the “enhanced pat down” because of my medical device? I don’t even so much object to the backscatter x-ray machines, and I don’t have any problem with them doing the swab on the device. So I did some research and talked to other people with the insulin pumps who have also flown, and they have had to deal with the same thing I did. One lady was even told by a TSA supervisor that if you have a medical device like an insulin pump, you have to go through the “enhanced pat down”. No choice.

I’m really bothered by this, for multiple reasons. One, they clearly said that they saw nothing was wrong, and still submitted me to the “enhanced pat down”, even though it seems to me like at that point checking my insulin pump to make sure it was real would have been fine. I also think it is pretty wrong to single out a group of people, specifically those with a form of disability, and make them go through something that is pretty unpleasant and demeaning. I’m not someone opting out of the scanner for some reason. I’m being told that the scanner is not an option for me no matter what. I have no choice.

And finally, I can’t take off the pump and run it through the flatbed xray because it is not certified for that. If something were to get messed up in it from some errant x-rays, I could die. And I would still have part of the apparatus connected to me that would show up in the backscatter scanner.

Anyway, I don’t know if this is going to do any good, but I feel like it is a part of the conversation that has been largely missed.

And truth be told, I’m not really nervous. This year Regionals was my thing. I was aiming to do well there, and anything above that is just a bonus. So I’m going to go, have fun, watch some other people skate, and go out and do my best without stressing out too much about how well I do. If I make finals, great, and if I don’t but I skate my best, then that is great too.

I do have a few things to do to prepare for the competition, though. Well really only one thing. Putting rhinestones on my outfit so that I’ll be even prettier. I started last night, and it was really tedious, and frustrating, and I got glue all over my fingers. But I have to say, it does make the outfit sparkle. So that’s a bonus.

Finally, Nationals are going to be streamed live over the Internets. I’m not sure if my event will be one of the ones streamed, but if it is, I will post a link so that you can all watch me precisely go around in a circle. Which I know is what you all want.

Anyway, I guess I’m prepared. I have more practice tonight and tomorrow, but let’s be honest. At this point I’m not going to make any great strides or anything. At best I can hope to fix a few small issues, and get my various steps a little more ingrained.

What I am not prepared for, and I don’t think I can be prepared for, is the mental aspect. The things I’m doing aren’t that physically complicated. It is difficult to do them well, but they aren’t insanely tricky. But mentally, they can actually get you. There are a ton of things that you have to remember, and in the end, it is a mental game. This has been reinforced to me the last several days by my coach and several of my fellow skaters who keep telling me that you have to be mentally tough.

Well here is the thing. I am not mentally tough. I am the absolute king of psyching myself out. I can psych myself out of anything. And it has already begun for skating. I’m already convinced myself that I’m going to screw up a takeoff or something, and that will surely make it a reality, which only convinces me more, which only assures it even more. It is a vicious, vicious cycle.

So I’m going to do my best, but I really don’t have any clue what my best is. But hopefully I’ll have some fun, and it’ll be an adventure regardless. And honestly, I don’t really care what position I come in. I mean, after all, it is just roller skating.

Anyway, like always, I have been neglecting this. And as cliche as it is, life has been really busy lately. It should calm down pretty soon, though. Regionals are coming up in 2 weeks, and after that I should have more free time to devote to other things. Then again, there are so many other things, that perhaps it is wishful thinking to think that after Regionals things will calm down.

Which brings me neatly to the second part of my summary. I can’t thank Frans, Maria, Jeannot, and Figaro enough for what they did for me. They opened their house up to some strange American from the other side of the Atlantic, and couldn’t have been nicer to me. They went out of their way to make sure I was enjoying myself, to make sure I had delicious things to eat, and overall to make sure that I had a great trip. And especially Frans, who took 8 days and basically gave me a personalized tour of Belgium and Paris. So thank you.

Now what did I think about Europe? That’s really hard to summarize. It is like asking what someone thinks of America. Unless you are just going to take a stereotyped view of the world, it is impossible to answer. So maybe it is best to say that Europe met all of the expectations that I had for it, while at the same time being completely different than anything I could have imagined.

I think that Americans can have a tendency to romanticize “The Old Country”, and think of it as castles and old buildings and cobblestone streets. Basically we think of it just as how we left it. And that is certainly there. In Paris it is there, in Brussels it is there, and certainly in Bruges it is there. There are churches that have been around for almost 1000 years. There are curvy streets that were clearly laid out before anyone had ever thought about something like a car. There are castles where you can imagine being a Duke in the middle ages, lording over a field of serfs. That is all there for your consumption.

But just focusing on that misses a lot of other things. The high rises, and the restaurants with food from all over the world. There are modern transportation systems, and lots and lots of funny looking French cars. LOTS of funny looking French cars.

So really, it defies all expectations. You don’t know what to think. You don’t know what to look at. And when you are trying to capture it on film, or in blog posts, you find yourself completely at a loss. How do you capture Paris? I’m certainly not Hemingway, and so I don’t even know where to start. And I was only there for 3 days. You could spend 3 months there and still not know what as going on.

How do you capture a place like Belgium, with language and political issues that still don’t make a lot of sense to me?

I guess all you can do is focus in on the little snapshots, and that is what I tried to do. And it is also what I liked most about the cities and the people. Because in the little snapshots that you see, you realize that we really aren’t all that different. The people listening to their iPhones on the Metro in Paris aren’t that different from the people listening to their iPhones on the subway in New York. The people cheering for Anderlecht aren’t really that different from the people cheering for the Cardinals. The drivers stuck in traffic after a long day in the office are the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

So in the end I came away overwhelmed, and confused, and in awe. But I also came away with a feeling that the world is a much smaller place than I thought it was, and I kind of like that.

Except for all of the funny little French cars.