when in texas...

All good ideas arrive by chance.
- Max Ernst

Texas, you say? Indeed. I arrived in Texas this past Saturday with my cousin and her husband (or as I like to say, my cousin-in-law), and we've been having a great time. Some relaxing, some exercising, some sightseeing, some more relaxing, and a lot of spending time with family. It's been a nice breather from my usual hectic schedule, but even here I find I've been preoccupied with ideas and things I have to write and do and say and train for and work on and write about yet again. But whatever, I'm a writer, I do a lot of thinking and a lot of writing, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So to summarize, since Switzerland, June has been really busy.

Alex and I participated in our first Genesis Adventures Racing Camp on Saturday, June 7 to prepare for the actual race in August. We went to Wawayanda State Park in NJ, and it was quite the experience. I ended up with a very strange tan - the kind you get when you're out on a lake and in a forest for an entire day. You know, the band where your socks stopped and around your shoulders to clearly demarcate your sleeveless shirt. We kayaked, mountain biked, hiked, and tried desperately to learn how to use a compass. I think Alex did a better job of it than I did, as I was left glaring at my compass and turning in circles while standing in place.

Then there was Soraya's graduation and the many festivities surrounding it. Of course, no surprise there, she left with more awards than I can count, including the coveted gold cords that honor the top graduating students. Was I proud? You bet. Am I left asking how it is that my little sister is suddenly on her way to high school, the very same one that I went to, when it feels like just yesterday she was a little kid waiting for me to come home from school so we could play? Oh yeah. Ah well, such is life. We'll both still always be kids at heart =)

Moving on to the massive amounts of pictures and video I have taken in the past month alone, plus Switzerland, I have a lot - and I mean a lot - to comb through and finally present to everyone. I have, though, managed to do a good deal of printing out of pictures and have showed a lot to the family already. For Father's Day, I gave my dad a small album of only a sampling of the thousands of pictures we took in Switzerland. That same day, we all gave Soraya a scrapbook commemorating her graduation and years in school.

Still, though, a lot more pictures are yet to be printed out, properly sorted, and displayed for all, not to mention the new ones from Texas.

Then there was the Don Quixote course I finished. My paper was entitled "Donkeys, Madmen, and Literature: The Art of Transformation in The Golden Ass and Don Quixote" - which got me a nice A in the class. Or as Yaya would say - I beasted on it.

I've been reading Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star. By my count, I should have been done with it weeks ago, but due to Spanish knights and sheer exhaustion, I'm still plodding along. My critique so far - still an amazing series. Truly awesome. Excellent isn't even the word. It's so good, it still makes me angry =P

So far in Texas, we've been swimming, gone hiking, been mountain biking, visited the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center, participated in our first Bikram Yoga class at Bikram Yoga Grapevine (also where some Dallas Cowboys are known to go in the off season, as well as where I walked by a very large NY Jet player) went to the Fort Worth Stockyards where we spent an afternoon with Texas longhorn cattle (where I was so tempted to do my John Wayne impression), visited The Sixth Floor/JFK Museum in Dallas (where outside we saw many intelligent people dodging traffic to get a picture of the X that marks the spot of the shooting), went to Hurricane Harbor, cheered at two baseball games (the Fort Worth Cats and the Texas Rangers), and even bought a house...well, kind of. It was this huge house on sale for about a $1 million, but when we saw the dimensions and realized that on Long Island a house that size could be about $6 million, if not more, we knew it was nothing short of a steal. So in a way, we bought it, and as soon as we get close to one million, we'll move right in.

And that's it really. If you've been wondering where I've been, the answer is pretty much everywhere, always doing something. As for writing, that, too, like my reading has been plodding along, but I am officially dubbing July the month to get most of my book written and completed. It's a major goal, I know, especially considering that I'm also dubbing July the month in which to launch VM.

A lot to do, but we'll get it done.

We always do =)

Back from Switzerland

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's been almost a month since I've last posted, but I have a pretty decent excuse - I was in Switzerland!! And for those days that I wasn't yet there and still didn't post, well, I was too busy getting ready for the trip =)

The main focus of the trip was a conference, The World Mysteries Forum, at which my father was one of the main speakers. After landing in Zurich, we took a train out to Basel, the university city of Switzerland, originally founded by the Romans long ago, where the conference was to take place.

My father's presentation - an awesome one, might I add - was entitled "Inspirational Mining: The Progress of Science." Other presenters, including professors, archaeologists, and physicists, to name a few, gave a variety of presentations on such topics as the possibility of life in space, ancient civilizations, the intelligent universe, and quantum tunneling. For a list of the speakers and their biographies, visit the 2008 Archives of the conference website.

An unforgettable experience, we made a lot of friends, learned a lot of things, asked a lot of questions, and have vowed to return again one of these days. At the conference banquet, we were also treated to a performance by musicians and performers from Basel's world famous carnival, the Basler Fasnacht, the biggest carnival in Switzerland and one of the top fifty in all of Europe.


Also present at the conference, and for many the main speaker and guest of honor, was Erik von Daniken, a well-known Swiss author whose theories, ideas, and questions regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial influences on mankind's earliest civilizations have been at the center of discussion, controversy, and new ideas for decades now. We had the pleasure of spending a good deal of time with him and what he had to say was more than enlightening and definitely one of the highlights of the trip, most especially the work he has done and questions he has asked regarding the Nazca lines in Peru.

Basel lies very close to the borders of Germany and France, and while we could've done some country hopping, we chose to make our way through Swiss territory, so after exploring the Rhine and city streets and monuments of Basel, we made our way to the Alps. From Basel, we took a train to the town of Interlaken, nestled between, appropriately enough, two lakes, and from Interlaken, we went by taxi up, up, and up to Beatenberg, the longest village in Europe. According to von Daniken, "It's the most beautiful place in the world," and I might have to agree. The view from the hotel was absolutely breathtaking, and the amount of things to do from the mountains was endless, starting with paragliding.

Yes, I paraglided, took pictures and video while paragliding, would totally paraglide again, and have to say it's one of the most relaxing activities I've ever done - credit to my Swiss tandem paraglider for the day with 20 years of experience who helped make everything go as smooth and safe as possible. After paragliding, we went scootering down the mountain, which entailed high speeds, lots of bugs, great scenery, lots more bugs, good exercise, and still more bugs. For the bug reason, we kept our moths shut and our sunglasses on at all times.

The hotel, the people, the food, the town, shopping in Interlaken, the cows (a lot of cows), the mountains (not to mention Jungfrau, known as "the top of Europe") - I already have a trip back there down on my calendar. After about four days in Beatenberg, we went by bus to Thun, where we took a train to Zurich. There, we met my father's cousin and her family, who my parents had not seen in 30 years. After two hotels, as awesomely accommodating as they were, it was refreshing to come home to a house with family.

In Zurich, there was city life and the stamp of history. Like Basel, we visited the cathedrals, walked the streets, took in the sights, and enjoyed the Swiss air. My father got a chance to visit one of the dwelling places of Huldrych Zwingli, a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland in the 16th century, my mom went to mass in one of the main cathedrals, Soraya and I captained a paddle boat on Zurich waters, and we all ate a lot of food and bought a lot of things - all considerably priced. Yeah, by far the most expensive country in Europe I've ever been to, you should come well-armed with Swiss francs if you should ever journey to Switzerland. As a good example, an HD miniDV tape, one that I spent days searching for, cost me $30...which I promptly returned to get a bargain on a $25 one down the street. Back home, I would've paid $10. As for food and taxis everywhere we went, from Basel to Zurich, also rather, in some cases even uber, expensive. But, seeing as we were on vacation, we were happy to oblige.

Will we return? You bet. Maybe next year? God willing?

But am I happy to be home? Oh yeah =)