An American in London

 

Visiting a friend in London yesterday, I was taken by the view from his window.

A Sunday Walk in the Park V

 

There were walkers, and bicyclists, people carrying Razors, even people on horseback.

Sunday Walk in the Park IV

 

A Sunday Walk in the Park III

 

A Sunday Walk in the Park II

 

A Sunday Walk in the Park

 

Prevent...What?

 
This is a sign that I see when I wlk to the club to work out. Isn't that a slightly overweight Batman running? Prevent him from doing what? I think I have good reason to be confused

Bruxelles a respiré sans voiture

Brussels breathed without cars, yesterday. And it seemed like everyone who normally would be home on Sunday went downtown by bike and by (free) Metro and public transportation, to prove a point.
http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/belgique/ce-dimanche-sans-voiture-a-2008-09-21-640857.shtml
Our first hint of how crowded it was going to be was arriving at Kraainem train station, and there were more cars parked then there are on a Monday morning. It was fun, we took my brother and his wife into the city and we wandered around, buying gifts, and enjoying it.

Try it - a day without cars.

Burn After Reading

OK, we enjoyed it. There were embarassing moments, like when George clooney's characters secret project was revealed in its 'true glory', but still we laughed at this silly movie.

Men's fashions...

I have been holding off on this comment, because, I couldn't believe it. We joined a gym, and as happens when you join a health club, you check everyone out. And there is a new fashion of an old fashion.
Capri pants for men - not stretch, but 3/4 length, with dark socks underneath (I suppose to call attention to one's slender ankles. Don't have a picture, but it would be worth a thousand or so words.

And the club wasn't the first place I saw a man wearing this in public. We were shopping at a Carrefour's, a box store, and there was a pear-shaped man there, wearing the same outfit, with the dark socks. It is a kind of plus-four, but without the extra material at the bottom of the leg. Very stocking...

Things I have noticed, thought, that I want to make a note about...

And pictures I want to take. We live in suburban Brussels, capital of the European Union, the world's largest trading block. People have been living here for centuries. But I walk by cornfields and beet fields every morning, down lanes, noticing the snails and slugs, the little lean tos and sheds that the farmers have made out of bits and pieces of material that are in little fenced in areas between the fields. The kids walking to school eery morning, the people riding bikes to work, men and women, the bike trails that seem to be a part of all the road construction that goes on. The backed up traffic on the highway that I have been walking over each morning, looking down on their red lights. And then I come back and post this on the Internet, probably on a server in the States somewhere. Hmmm...

Brussels Movie Days

Bought tickets today for some movies showing as part of Brussels Movie Days (http://site.voila.fr/brusselsmoviedays/main_fr.html). Hellboy 2, which opened in the summer. Also, Burn After Reading. Kathy is not going to Hellboy 2. She has this habit of falling asleep during fantasy movies. I think it might just have to do with her sitting still for too long. Anyway, there are some previews and others - "Avant-premieres".

Car Care in Belgium

This is who we use:
Carrosserie Wilikens A BVBA op goudengids.be
Takes care of our VW and our Opel. We stopped in yesterday needing a fuse, and he replaced it immediately and charged us a Euro.

Sullivan has a feature called The View From Your Window (http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-view-from-7.html) which I like. This is a view from our kitchen window.

Local News

http://www.lesoir.be/
Here's a link to the local news. We missed la Gordel, yesterday, a ride around Brussels.

What has been happening

I have to admit I have been caught up in the drama of the Republican convention the last few days, and working (at home) in Brussels.  Working at home has gone relatively smoothly.  My wife, who has been here for awhile, upgraded our home access to the Internet to the 'business' level, and it has been very fluid.  Combined with a suggestion from someone in my London office to back everything up on a portable drive and bringing it along (everything I had stored on the office network), this has been easy.

In New Providence, in Neew Jersrey, where I used to work from, the problem (and the good thing) was that my boss, and most of the people I work closely with, were based in London.  So there was limited access but they also went home at Noon (New Jersey time), so I could focus on what I needed to do in the afternoons.  Now, I'm in communication with them all day, and the people I still work with in the states are working late into the evening (according to my clock here in Brussels).  One day this week I was goiing late into the evening here.  

So the Blog fell off. 

But what has been happenening:

I got a new chip for my cell phone, so now I have a number here.

We went out to dinner at Mai-Tai, a Thai restaurant in Wezembeek-Oppen.

We had a new battery installed in the Opel.

I was in-processed by the HR department.

I found my way to Diagem and picked up a pacckage that came from DHL.

I won't quote the email from a friend who said something nice because I managed to get 1 sentence out of 2 in a French that didn't need to be rewritten.

So there.

The sky is so threatening today. I have a feeling this is going to be what a lot of skies are going to look like.

What so you see on the way to your door

Kathy insists she's going to put up a "Snail Crossing" sign, and is very protective of these creatures that share our walkway. This guy (girl?) must be 3 inches long.

Later when we walked out of the movie, we were greeted by this sight, the Atomium at night. "It looks transparent," said Kathy, my wife.