Brussels
April 19, 2011

Collecting Countries

I realize I left something important out of my discussion of listmaking as a form of collecting.  I forgot to mention one of my favorite types of lists, and one that’s excruciatingly appropriate for this journal:

I collect places.  I can tell you every US State I have visited.  Every National Park.  Every country.  I get demented delight in adding items to these lists.  So, as you can imagine, that creates a significant “value-added” bonus to the current trip. 

Cities I’ve Worked in Before current trip

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Houston
• Chicago
• Detroit
• Dallas
• Minneapolis
• Madison
• Buffalo
• Boston
• Atlanta
• Washington, DC
• Chicago
• Detroit
• London
• Munich
• Beijing
• Tokyo
• Irvine
• San Francisco
• San Diego
• Santa Barbara

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A pretty basic work day.  Today was the first day after the entire office got converted to the new software, and so we were pretty busy – mostly with some keyboard language issues.

Took a lovely walk through the neighborhood after work.  Brussels is full of Japanese cherry trees which are in full bloom, and the city is being carpeted with petals in a thousand shades of pink.  It’s quite magical.  I hope to get some pictures of the blossoms before they’re gone.  I need to hurry if their moment of glory is as brief as it is in Washington, DC.

Had a scare with the laptop tonight in the hotel room.  Moments after winning my first Player Versus Player gear upgrade from Baradin Hold with a pick-up group, the laptop simply died.  I freaked out:  Was the pressure from the 220V European wall outlet too much for my laptop’s power source, despite the label saying it was okay? 

I let the machine cool off for an hour and it then started up with no problem.  From now on I’m not leaving the power source plugged into the wall.  Perhaps I should even use the transformer I purchased and have with me, just to be safe.  During the hour I thought I’d lost my laptop I realized how, in a short time (since only October) I’d gotten used to having a real computer with me on the road.  It’s difficult enough to be without my smart phone while in Europe (this lack causes me physical pain daily).  The specter of being without phone OR computer felt grim.  Fingers crossed.

Also had a minor but very real frustration with Kindle tonight:  It seems that my PC Kindle wishlist is not synching with the wishlist on my actual Kindle. I sent Amazon an email enquiry and received the absurd reply that “the two lists do not synch.”  Hogwash.  They’ve always synched before.  They just pushed out a software update.  Is it one of those charming updates that actually reduces functionality?  Yay.