Aachen, Germany

I'm bad about posting photos, because it's kind of a pain in the butt. But I am trying to get to know iPhoto a little better so that I can post some of this stuff. These are from a recent trip to the Christmas market in Aachen, Germany. This is also the place where the great king of europe Charlemagne ruled from over 1000 years ago. We took a high speed train for a little over an hour to get there, and spent the day the day wandering around before coming back the same day.

Charlemagne's throne

Charlemagne's thone with me and Norwegian Thomas

Charlemagne's final resting place

Some church or something, I don't know

The crowd.

My group of travelers having a beer after a long day of standing in the rain

Inside of the chuch

Christmas market; the shack on the left was selling Glühwein, a hot spiced wine popular this time of year.

Success!

My job in Brussels is to organize conferences, mostly in the area of security and defense. My focus recently has been on conferences on cyber security, so I have been the point man for the new shindig we’re throwing at the European Parliament. It’s a smaller affair, maybe 25 participants, with two panels, each with three speakers over one hour.

Today was a good day. I’m actually home sick with a cold, but working online I see that a member of the European Parliament (MEP) has just confirmed as a speaker. Success! I have three speakers confirmed, but I still need to scramble a bit to ensure that I get the other three. I have only some of the 25 participants that I need, but there tends to be a last minute scramble on the side of the participants. If I have 15 a week before, I will likely have 30 on the day of the conference.

We are organizing this conference (Round Table, we call them) in coordination with an Estonian MEP. The Estonians are big into the area of cyber security since a few years ago. A small country, they are highly digitized with banking and voting and other central services provided almost exclusively over computer networks. In 2007 their infrastructure was attacked, severly crippling the country for a few days. Ever since, they are the first to beat the drum for overhauls to the European systems of cyber security.

So far on the list of confirmed participants we have people from NATO, Europol (the European police agency, like Interpol but for Europe), Permanent Representations to the EU (like embassies for member states of the EU) and staff members of the European Pariament. It looks like there is interest, which seems to be the case for most of the cyber security events these days.

In related news, I have been accpeted into the NATO internship program in their cyber defense area, beginning in the spring (after my current work contract is over). I still need to get a security clearance from the Americans, which is not easy. I received my background check form from the State Department. They estimated the burden to be 2 ½ hours, including research. This was not the case. Even having 20 years of housing history and 10 years of work history previously researched for other NATO forms, I was still 5 hours into the form when I started to lose my patience. They asked me if I had ever had contact with any foreign governments, and I typed “Yeah, every fucking day” and then put the form away for the night.

The next evening I drafted a three paragraph response detailing my work with my company. They wanted a list of every foreign government I had ever contacted, and I told them that it was outside the scope of this form to list every government I had ever had contact with, but that it was all in line with my job, and if they wanted more info they can come talk to me. Sometimes I really don’t think I’m cut out for government work. But if this gig doesn’t work out, maybe I can go talk to the Estonians.

I promised myself I would post something in the month of October

I'm trying not to abandon what readership I have. Sorry for trying people's patience. I've been so busy that the thought of blogging has been a little bit daunting. That's kind of the blogger's quandary, isn't it? When you finally have something to say you're too busy to say it.

But school has started up again, I'm working 15 hours a week (paid) at the German company where I did my internship. I have student government duties, and try to go to as many social events as I  can fit in, especially since I skipped some birthdays when I was hobbled up in my apartment.

By the way, the knee is better. I have ACL surgery scheduled for January 9th (Mom's birthday!). I guess I could write a whole big post on knee stuff, but I'll just leave it to say that I have been without an ACL in my left knee longer than I ever had one (17 years), and it affects my life in ways I don't always notice, and I'm looking forward to relearning how to do things with two working knees again.

I had big plans to write about my adventures in the Belgian hospital system. I had a blog post written about my struggle to learn French but scrapped it. Things are busy, which is good, but it does get stressful. I find myself missing playing my electric guitar, and end up watching youtube videos of amateur players demonstrating their new amps, and fantasizing about which amp I'm going to get once I have money and a place to play it.

So I've been turning to music to help with the stress. I wrote a song back when my friends were leaving. It really isn't about anyone or anything in particular, it's just about people leaving. It's just a demo, recorded on my built in computer speaker. If you're curious, it's posted here:

How Far Would You Fly Away From Me?

Well, I have a Halloween party tonight, so I need to go find a lame costume in the 20 minutes before the store closes. Happy Halloween, by the way. Love you all.

Backlog

I published a few things I have written earlier but haven't been able to post since we don't have internet at home right now and I haven't been to work much in the past week. I am actually sitting in the lobby of my office building uploading stuff on some random internet signal.

I did go to the doctor on Tuesday and they say my knee is broken. Not shattered, per say, but there is some kind of fragmentation at the bottom of the femur. I got an xray and CT scan but I didn't see them. The hospital system is a bit different here than in the States. For instance, in the States you are sitting in an exam room and the doctor comes in with the xrays and shows you were the problems are. In Belgium, I was sitting in a wheelchair in the hallway with black socks and no pants on, and the doctor came over and drew a little stick figure on the back of an envelope. "Uh, that's great Doc. Can I have my pants back? It's drafty in this hallway and old women are leering at me." Her English wasn't so great but she sounded like she knew what she was talking about. The whole hospital experience was quite interesting, for instance getting an xray while an xray tech who didn't speak English barked commands at me that I didn't understand. But I have private insurance, and I am eligible (and have almost finished paperwork) for the Belgium insurance plan, and these tests only cost 10 Euros in these communist countries anyway. I ended up with a full cast on my leg, and I see a specialist next Thursday.

Speaking of communists, in order to get on the Belgium insurance I needed a document from the commune. Andy, my German coworker, was kind enough to drive me there yesterday. I hobbled to the basement on my crutches, and saw that there was a 45-minute line. I am not able to stand for 45 minutes, and didn't want to make Andy wait that long, so dejectedly I hobbled back to the car and told him the line was too long and that I will just go another time. He asked me if they had handicapped access and I said there wasn't, that the "take a ticket" machine was broken and there was just a line. "This is not acceptable. I'll be right back," he said sternly, and thus the second German invasion of Belgium was launched.

He returned 5 minutes later. "I've found someone who will help you. Some were helpful, and some were not." We hobbled past the receptionist with her piles of pamphlets. "Like this one, who is ONLY GOOD FOR DISTRIBUTING MAGAZINES!" She pretended to be busy. We reached the basement and went around the corner to a back office, where Andy knocked on the door. A woman nervously pushed her head outside. "She is the one who will help you." She took my documents and I could hear the employees chattering amongst each other about Germans and handicapped access as she closed the door. But a few minutes later she returned with my documents. It was the fastest and friendliest experience I have had at the commune yet.

So, I'm bored but things are going OK. My internship was set to end next week anyways, so I'm not missing a lot. Orientation for new students is the following week, which being part of the student government I will have to help with, but won't be too taxing. School starts the week after. This might be a good time to get my knee and ACL fully repaired. I've actually had a damaged knee for more of my life than it was healthy, and to tell you the truth it always hurt. It hurt if I exercised it a lot, and it hurt if I didn't. So this might be the perfect time to get that piece of housekeeping out of the way.

I really had a great summer playing basketball twice a week. I lost most of the fat on my stomach without doing any situps. When we started playing in May, I could only play for about half an hour before getting winded. Last week we had an extended session of about 3 hours, with only a handful of 5 minute water breaks. When my wallet was stolen I was able to run a mile home without being winded to start cancelling my cards. And I had a lot of fun getting better at the game and meeting Belgians on the court. If somebody asked me at the beginning of the summer if I would still want to play knowing I would end up with a broken knee, I think I would say that I would do it all over again.

A Bad Weekend

6 September, 2011

I had my wallet stolen on Saturday night. I was walking home from a friends house, and was pickpocketed by a young man. I chased him but was unable to catch him. Left without an ID or cash cards (I luckily have a backup credit card that was not stolen) I was fuming. I went to play basketball on Sunday. The game was uncharacteristicly physical and I badly injured my knee again as I landed from attempting to block a shot. It was worse then that time I injured it playing soccer a few months ago.

So last night I was lying crippled on my couch, alone. The internet was in my roommate’s name and was shut off when he left, so I didn’t have the ability to contact anyone via Skype or make long distance calls, or even kill time on Facebook. I almost never watch movies, but I found a random DVD that had been left by someone, and wanting to distract myself began to watch it. The movie turned out to be about people whose parents get cancer and whose friends die in car accidents, and it depressed me so much that I had to shut it off.  I felt the urge to call home, but could not.

Last night, without money, ID or the ability to walk I felt homesick for the first time in a long time. And it was a terrible feeling. I hobbled to bed early, and thought of how miserable I was. And I thought about how much worse things could be. I was not injured when my wallet was taken. Much worse happens to people in Brussels, and had I been stabbed the lost wallet would have been the least of my concerns. I was safe, warm, and dry. There was cheese and grapes in the fridge. My parents and friends weren’t dying like in that horrid movie. But there was an unmistakable sadness, probably the bitter combination of the anger and frustration of being victimized and the helplessness of being injured.

I woke up today and called in sick to work. It was too bad. I had a meeting scheduled at NATO for my current internship. It was a big opportunity, but hobbling interns are not very useful.  Then things began to turn around. My German coworker Andy brought over some anti-inflamitories. My friend Fahim brought his guitar over and we played for awhile, and he offered to drive me to the doctor and to the bank, which we will do tomorrow. My Romanian friend Alexandra came over for awhile, and offered to make me dinner tomorrow. Amerian-via-Belarus Yulia explained how the medical insurance works over here (herself having similar misfortune). Fahim’s Greek girlfiend Naya drove me home from basketball last night.

And maybe that’s the Brussels experience. Expats taking care of expats. Fellow wanderers and lone wolves, none of us having family here,  becoming family. And maybe that’s what hurts so much as I watch them go, one by one, back to their country of origin or on to the next big challenge. And it’s maybe a little frustrating having this love and kindness bestowed on me with little chance that I will be able to pay it back. But I am beyond grateful that I have the love and support that I feel from my real family manifest itself in their kindness.

Berlin, or How I Spent My Summer Vacation

For my internship, I was given two weeks off, which seems a bit silly since the internship is unpaid, and maybe I could just not come in whenever I want. But fine. For the vacation, Heather came to visit me. We still Skype, and she is maybe my best friend.

For the first week, we did little day trips around Belgium and the area. We took a train to the Belgian coast to a town called Oostende. This is where the Belgian aristocrats have their second (third? eighth?) home. It was a beautiful day and we went swimming in the sea twice (also getting kicked out of the sea twice, by some guy on a jetski who had a walkie talkie but didn’t speak much English). The water was warm and very swimmable, at least by Oregonian standards. On our way back we stopped in Brugge, which I did just to show her how horrible it was. Heather agreed that it was horrible, although we did have a very nice pasta dinner there.

Next we went north to the southern part of the Netherlands to a city called Maastricht. It was nice. The Netherlands are quite livable, what with their bikes and flawless English and tall people (so that I could buy clothes there, something I’m not really able to do in the Land o’ Hobbits that I currently live in).  We got their via the famous Belgian city of Liege, which is famous for something or other but all we saw was the train station.

Anyway, the real headliner was the trip to Berlin. We had arranged with my German coworker Andy that one of his friends had accomidation for us for 2 out of the three nights we were there. Andy actually happened to be on our flight out (he goes to Berlin maybe 2 weekends a month). But for the first night we needed to get a hostel. Except that Heather informed me that she doesn’t do hostels, because she doesn’t know how awesome and cheap they are. So we got a hotel room for the first night.  It was in the East part of Berlin in a neighborhood called Mitte, and the hotel was East Berlin to the core. (As a reminder, East Berlin was communist and West Berlin was capitalist.) The building was made of concrete, as pretty much every building older than 20 years in East Berlin is. The fixtures were like some kind of futuristic 60’s deco, like Star Trek meets Mad Men. It was pretty great. Two thumbs up.

Andy showed us around town. He seemed to really like showing us the city. Berlin is cheap but not dodgy. We saw the Berlin wall, the Holocaust memorial (both are quite cool) and Andy gave us a tour of West Berlin (the “lame” Berlin) for the highlights, although we didn’t get out of his car on that side.

That night we had dinner in a restaurant that had an open-air courtyard for eating. (I had a delicious plate of gormet ostrich for slightly more than a hamburger costs in Brussles.) The building was not designed to be open-air, but was “redecorated” by Allied bombs during WWII. Actually, Berlin still shows many scars of war. There are bullet holes in the Roman columns of  government buildings. Neighborhoods are pockmarked with newish buildings built from the rubble standing side by side with older buildings that were somehow spared. Even the museum had entire floors missing from its original construction, and the interior stone walls show scars of bomb shrapnel.

That night we stayed at Andy’s friend’s house. It was also concrete, but he had decorated the place to make it quite livable as kind of a post-Commie chic seen around East Berlin. The next day, Heather had to work on schoolwork for awhile, so I went in search of Hansa studios.

When I visited Dublin a decade ago, I went to all of U2’s recording studios. One I entered by pretending to be part of a maintenance crew going in the front door. The receptionist was very nice as she kicked me out, and allowed me to take pictures of the platinum records on the walls (Google “U2 studios” and somewhere there is a website that shows all of the studios and their location. I gave them my photo and they put it up on their site). Another studio was open, so I went inside past a room full of amplifiers and up a flight of stairs. The engineer asked me how the hell I got in there, and I told him the door was open, and then he escorted me off of the premises (no pictures this time). The other two I was not able to get inside of. However! The recording of U2’s classic Achtung Baby (itself being rereleased this fall on its 20^th aniversary) was not started in Dublin. The first sessions were held in Berlin in a place called Hansa studios, where David Bowie and other famous people had worked before.

I googled the location and headed over via subway. When I got to there I was vaguely disappointed. It was an office-type entry with buzzers for various Hansa and non-Hansa entities. I pressed the button for the main Hansa studios. Nothing happened. It was Saturday, so I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there for a couple of minutes. As I was starting to feel a bit pathetic I began to head out just as a group of people arrived at the door. “Do you, uh, work at Hansa?” I asked them. One of them nodded his head. “Do you, uh, give tours?” He told me that there is a tour given in September, information was on the website blah blah blah. “I don’t, uh, suppose that I can see the studio?” He shook his head. It was, afterall, his place of work. “OK.” But as I was leaving, I looked at the back gate and saw the parking lot. The VERY SAME (I think) parking lot that appears in a photo in the albumn notes. So the Hansa mission was a resounding success and I can finally say that I finished what I started ten years ago. Four thumbs up!

Anyway, the rest of the trip was hanging out in Berlin with Heather and Andy and Andy’s friends and drinking beers by the river. I think the earliest we went to bed was 3am. It was a good trip. The end.

Train station at Liege, designed by George Jetson

In Maastrich

Heather makes a new friend

Sunset in Maastricht, Netherlands

Some guy. Everybody gets a status nowadays.

Hawaii, no wait, Oostende!

 There was nowhere to change into swimming suits on the beach, so we used my coat to wrap around ourselves to provide some modesty. Heather was trying to discretely change when I yelled "Surprise!" and she turned around, and it ended up being a pretty good picture.

I rather like Oostende.

D'oh!

And then Heather took another one, which caught me off guard.

Brugge swans

Brugge people

Brugge building

East German Trabants. They run on a 2-cycle engine, like a weed whacker. (You have to put oil inside the gas.) When the wall came down thousands of these were discarded at the border.

Berlin museum of old stuff.

View of the museum and East Berlin. Note the East German "Space Needle". I don't think it tilts though, just my camerawork.

Berlin is cheap. My mega-BLT and salad cost 6 euros inside the museum café. Also, Heather.

The Berlin wall.

Holes in the Berlin wall.

Andy, Carmello (Andy's dog) and Heather check out the Holocaust memorial.

I don't remember what this is, but it is decorated with Napoleon's cannons. And the omnipresent space needle is in the background.

Bundestag (sp?). Or Deutchstag. Uh, German parialmentary building.

Apartment we stayed at with Andy's friend Roy.

Berlin subway station.

Outside of Hansa studios.

Hanging out by the river, drinkin'.

Hanging out with Andy's friends somewhere in East Berlin at some unspecified time in the morning.

Mac'd

It's been a busy summer. I'm back at work after a two week vacation, the last week of which Heather came out to visit. We took a few day trips to some Belgian cities (Brugge, Liege, Maasricht and the beach at Oostende) and then flew to Berlin for four days. We returned last night, and Heather boarded her flight back to the US this morning. I will post some of the good pictures once I get them sorted. But I want to announce that I am typing this on my new (to me) Mac. (Warning: If you don't care about computers, you should skip this one and check back in a few days when I get some pictures posted.)

The Dell that Dad gave me last year has been bulletproof. It's a 6 year old computer (about 108 in people years) and is faster than most of the other computers I use. The secret? I keep it lean and mean without putting a lot of stuff on it. And it runs Windows XP, which is fast and efficient despite being a decade old. But the keys are starting to break, and the power cord needs to be propped up with a bottle cap in order to get it to charge, and a few weeks ago I plugged it in and it blew the master breaker in the apartment, which seems like a cue that it is time to upgrade. My uncle Bert graciously gave me his old MacBook Pro (which Heather brought over with her). I've been a die-hard PC user and defender since 1994, so this wasn't a small change.

I remember back in the 1990's when computer processors were doubling in speed every two years. Back then, a computer took about 90 seconds to boot up. With the growing speed of computers we computer nerds were promised faster boot times, as little as 5 seconds. This reality, however, never materialized. As processor power increased, the new resources were devoted to maintaining operating systems ever-increasing in complexity. As such, my laptop at work - with a clock speed 60 times faster and with 250 times more memory than my family's first computer - takes over 2 minutes to boot. This same laptop when shutting down gives me enough time to take my cups to the kitchen, wash them, dry them and put them away, and even then sometimes it hasn't been able to shut itself down, causing me to just pull the plug from the wall in frustration. What the hell happened?

Granted, the work laptop is running Windows Vista, which is widely regarded as the worst product Microsoft ever produced. But it's been a long time since a supposed "upgrade" made my life any easier.  I've noticed that every new redesign of Windows is merely a snapshot of what Apple was doing 3 years ago. So I wanted to try a computer that was thoughtfully designed with features that I would actually want to use. As I get older, I'm much less inclined to want to fiddle around with technology to get it to work. I just want to turn the computer on and have it quickly doing what I want it to do.

There are some downsides to Macs. I have already run into a few compatibility issues, and many programs are made for the PC only. But this computer boots up fast, runs programs quickly and efficiently and shuts itself down in 5 seconds or less. It doesn't bombard me with questions and messages that I don't care about. It doesn't sit there and constantly churn. And the layout is visually pleasing, something that Windows has had 18 years to get right but fails at, in my opinion.

When I informed people about my switch, Mac people usually gushed about how much they love their computers, while PC people usually responded with "Huh." So I sense that there is quite a divide between the two camps. I still will probably always use a PC for work, but it's nice to be able to come home to something that requires much less effort to use and maintain.

OK, none of that was about Belgium, so I'll try to be quick about posting some Belgian stuff, once I figure out how to import pictures into the new computer.

Airshow

Yesterday afternoon, my coworker and I were lazily staring at our computer screens when we heard the unmistakable sound of a fighter jet flying low in the sky. As this is unusual in Belgium, we stuck our heads outside. Two more F-16's followed, flying slowly, maybe 1000 feet off the ground. 10 seconds later an entire parade of aircraft followed, including 3 helicopters, 2 C-130 cargo planes and a passenger jet. At the tail end, another pair of F-16's followed.

Honestly, I thought it was some kind of airshow. But later on the news they showed the French state funeral of 7 soldiers killed in Afghanistan the previous week. Sarkozy was there, and they had the ceremony in a large cathedral in Paris. What we had seen earlier that day was a sort of aerial funeral procession.

I caught myself thinking that it was all a bit overdone; that it was only seven soldiers, that the US loses that many in a week quite often, that all they needed to do was flash their names across the scrolling news bar on the headline news show. And then I thought about how long it's been, how long we've been seeing those names on the scrolling news bar, and how maybe we're becoming desentized to the thought of soldiers' caskets flying home. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to see the flag-draped coffins and the grandmother crying on national TV once in awhile.

Poverty

I just realized that I haven't written on this thing in awhile, probably because it's just been business as usual. I'm broke as a joke, but just made 100 Euros proofreading the English for another grad student's dissertation. It's a hard way to make a euro. I miss the days when I would go to the bar across the street from work and not even read the check when it was given to me. It seems like poverty was more glamorous in my early twenties.

My clothing budget is extremely small. Clothes are expensive here, like food, rent and absolutely everything else in Belgium. The clothing I brought over has served me well, but is gradually wearing out. I have three pairs of jeans, all with holes in them. The location of the hole designates its ranking. The lowest ranked pair has a hole in the crotch and has been relegated to 'at-home' use. Another has a hole in the knee, making it acceptable for school or low-light situations. My 'best' pair has a hole developing in the pocket where I keep my wallet. While in New York, I noticed that my cousin and Fashion Icon/Sex Symbol Cullen had a similar hole in the same pocket. I'd be willing to bet that his was more intentional in nature, but I can at least be grateful that some of my clothing is dissolving stylishly.

Grocery shopping has become easier. The chain store I go to has a generic brand that has the old familiar white label. If it doesn't have a white label, it doesn't go in the basket, although I do make exceptions for various meat products that are half-off since they are expiring.  The good news is that I've been cooking more, and have learned that the entire stalk of broccoli is edible if you cook it in soy sauce long enough. However, I get the majority of my nutrition from the Costco sized bottle of "One a Day Women's" vitamins that Holly left at our house. As a type this I am preparing the first Ramen noodles I've had in years, ever since my undergrad combination Ramen / Hot Pockets diet left me with the triglycerides of a 60 year-old bowling enthusiast (no lie).

Speaking of healthy things, I'm getting some exercise once or twice a week in a basketball game with other students. It's nice to be the first one picked for no other reason than that I am the tallest person there. As I stuff their shots gleefully (and with excessive war cries and celebration), I can remind the Socialists I play with that "life isn't fair, comrade." Basketball is an ideal past time because it's free, however the injury rate is quite high. I was limping for a week when I got hit hard in the leg driving to the hoop, and I badly sprained one of my fingers a month ago, which is just now healing. On Wednesday, one player got his finger smashed and another had his knee swell up. At any given time, of the 8 of us that regularly play, one or two are on the "injured reserve" list. It must be entertaining for the bystanders to watch a bunch of poorly-coordinated grad students injure themselves, but it's a fun way to spend an evening.

Oh yeah, on Thursday I got an email from NATO saying that I've been short-listed to intern in their Emerging Security Challenges division in the Cyber Security Department, which is ironic because the top guy in the division is "General" Iklody. So I'm not sure what the next step is; I don't think there is an interview but I will know by September if I am chosen.

Conference Time

I think I met my entire blog readership last week in New York City, so I wanted to say how great it was to see you all, and how nice it was that you mountain and pacific time zone people did me a favor and met me out east.

Since I left NY, it's been pedal to the floor. I arrived home in Brussels at 2pm Monday last week, after the usual routine of planes tranes and automobiles. I started on the subway in Queens, NY, and used public transport all the way to the metro stop outside my home here (eat it, Al Gore). I got a couple hours of sleep, and then got up to get ready for the party for Holly, who was leaving Brussels to return to Tacoma, WA for good. Holly was Rob and my patron when we arrived in Brussels, putting us up for 3 weeks, so it was the least we could do to have her sendoff party at our place. We had 10 or 12 people over in our small apartment, and Alabama Dan made ribs. We'll all miss Holly, and her love of dragging us to crappy dance clubs until 4am.

As the party went on, I realized I was in a room full of lazy students and was the only one who had a job to go to the next morning. At 12:30am, I told everyone "I love you all, but get the f*** out of my apartment." They look pretty surprised, but did just that. The next morning was the beginning of the big push to finalize the details of one of the largest events my company puts on each year: the Cyber Conference. I put in my 40 hours of work in the next four days getting ready for the big day. I had never fully adjusted to NY time, but still was jetlagging a bit all week until  Saturday when I finally got to sleep in until 2. Monday was a public holiday in Belgium, but we still worked until 8:30 pm getting things ready and printing handouts.

Tuesday was the big Cyber Conference. (Personally, I think the word "cyber" is a bit dated, but I suppose the the outdated nomenclature underscores the diconnect between the general reliance on modern technology in day-to-day life and the policies developed by governmental institutions, which was a point of the conference itself.) We invited people from the EU Commission, the EU Parliament, NATO, representations of member states, as well as people from industry (Microsoft, Symantec) and some larger consulting firms who were sponsoring the conference. We got a pretty good turnout, considering it was the day after a 3 day weekend, but it took working the phones pretty hard to make it happen. The conference was held in the EU Commission's Charlamagne building in downtown Brussels, which was state-of-the-art and quite gorgeous.

I wish I had more time and energy to explain the conference since it was quite interesting and I'm considering doing my disseration on this subject. But today I will give just the highlights. I met Robert Bell (http://photos.state.gov/libraries/nato/225685/Bios/Bell_Robert_001.pdf), who is Sectretary of Defense Gates' top guy in Europe, and NATO Ambassador Gabor Iklody, who I kept calling General Iklody for some reason (so many damn things to remember) but he seemed ok with it.

As the conference was up and running there was less to do, and then my coworker Wiebke came in and said that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in the building. So we snuck out and went upstairs to another (bigger) conference room that was lit up with news cameras. We walked in to hear EU Commission president Barroso (basically the President of Europe) giving a speach on commodities in French. I couldn't see Sarkozy in the mess of people, but he was there somewhere, and all it took to get in was a fancy suit and a name badge from an unrelated conference (Wiebke snuck out again and went upstairs to hear Sarkozy talk later in the afternoon while I was taking care of bidness).

The night ended up at 8:30 or so. The conference was a great success, and the sponsors were happy. My boss, the owner of the company Christoph, took us employees out for dinner and beers as he related all of the complements he received, including one peer that said that this conference put his firm in "another level." He was understandably beaming.

The next day, Wednesday, we hosted a follow-up workshop in the Estonian permanent representation to the EU (a sort of embassy). It was exhausting but interesting, as we had invited technical cybercrime experts from around Europe to give presentations. The Estonians seemed happy with how it turned out.

Today we had a debriefing meeting over breakfast. There were few errors or mistakes to go over, it was mostly a resounding success. Christoph says that the day of the conference is the first day of the next conference, in terms of lining up new business, and he was flooded with business cards. I got a couple of cards myself, including one from a software consultancy in D.C. if I ever end up there, which is possible.

Now It's 4pm and I am drinking a glass of wine in bed. My adrenal glands are totally shot (I left work at 3), even though I slept 8 hours last night. I'll watch the 4th season of "30 Rock" tonight and put in 7 lazy hours of work tomorrow, then have the weekend to catch my breath a little.