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.

Well the people of Gent have turned their city center into one giant construction mud pit. They are in the middle of rebuilding parts of it, and then also building an underground bicycle parking garage. So for those of us who had decided to visit, we got to walk around in the mud. Fun.

Now, there were some interesting things there. We went in a very lovely church that is apparently very Spanish influenced. I have to say that the churches over there make our churches look kind of silly. Some quick Googling has led me to learn that this was the St. Bavo cathedral, and inside is a very famous piece of art – Lamb! And I saw it.

Then we toured a very old castle, which made me very glad that I don’t live in a period where people have to live in very old castles. And we also saw some construction equipment.

In fact, construction equipment was pretty much the main thing that I remember about Gent. That and the mud. But we did have a nice lunch, and I accomplished some shopping, so all in all, not a bad day.

The rest of the day was mostly just packing, and then watching some Fawlty Towers. It was a pretty relaxing end to a very nice trip.

I know that this is short, but I’m very tired right now. Tomorrow, however, I shall write a sort of epilogue, summarizing my thoughts on the trip, if that is really possible.

- Driving in Europe looks like it is a pain in the ass. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Bruges, and probably close to half of that time was spent just trying to get across Brussels. Once we were on the motorway, it was fine. But when you are actually in the cities, you are screwed.

- Bruges (Brugge) is maybe the most beautiful place that I have ever been. Frans said, and he is correct, that it isn’t Disneyland, it is real. But you can see that this is definitely what Disney is going for in places. Except there is something way more amazing about being someplace that is actually 600 years old, as opposed to someplace that was built 40 years ago to look 600 years old.

- The Church of Our Lady in Bruges is the most beautiful church I have ever been in. And without realizing it, I saw a statue by Michelangelo that is in the church, but I was so overwhelmed by everything else in the church, it was hard to focus on any one thing.

- I had an amazing lunch of garlic mussels and fries. You have to love a country where you get a big pile of fresh fries with every meal.

- Some chocolates were purchased. And I think some of them will even make it back home without me eating them.

- The art museum in Bruges that we went to was much more civilized than the Louvre. Smaller and much less crowded. You didn’t constantly feel like you were about to get run over by a large group of tourists.

So yeah, overall I really enjoyed Bruges. And it definitely made up for me missing Amsterdam. In fact, I think that I would have been very sad had I not gotten to see Bruges, or only gotten to spend an hour there or so. For a plan B, it was not a bad one at all.

Then today was Gent. More on that later.

Well, when was the last time you were at a sporting event where –

- The supporters for the home team stood the whole match, singing different songs, yelling different chants, booing when announcements were made in the opposing team’s language, and giving the finger whenever the opposing players were announced?

- The supporters for the opposing team had to be kept in a different section, entirely inaccessible to the rest of the stadium?

- The whole crowd lives and dies with every touch of the ball?

- The crowd, after a goal, all chants in unison the players last name after the first name has been announced?

- At the end of the game, when their team is about to win, holds up their scarves and starts singing a hymn?

It really was an incredible experience. And I don’t think you even have to like soccer to get wrapped up in the emotion. Especially when the home team wins 4-0.

Oh, and did I mention that we had front row seats, and a perfect view for the first goal of the game, which happened literally right in front of us?

Yeah, it was amazing. Thanks, Frans!