Bathroom Remodel...

It all started with brown water. Yep, after being away almost a month on vacation, we found the water coming out of our faucets was a very interesting shade of brown. So we decided to bite the bullet and get our all old galvanized plumbing replaced with copper piping.

an estimate, and came back a week later to do the work. We really liked him & his entire crew. They did a great job, and seemed genuinely interested in making sure they did the right thing.With a recommendation from a friend, we found Pat Gomm from Budget Plumbing. He gave us They discovered during a previous bathroom remodel, the vertical plumbing had been replaced with copper pipes, so we'd save ourselves $500 and not have extra holes in our walls. As it turned out, the only holes we ended up with were behind the water heater (which they fixed) and in the back of a closet - so that we could replace our old gold shower fixtures with very nice Hansgrohe fixtures - similar to the these pictured.

We asked them not to patch the hole in the back of the closet, so that we could get some practice repairing drywall in a not-so-visible area. My friend Andy came over with some materials to help get me started, and pretty much took care of the hole & the first coat of spackle.

Well - since we have the spackle & drywall tools out, we started fixing little holes here and there. Including cracks & holes in the bathroom wall, etc. Then after a few sandings and coats, things were pretty smooth, so we did a primer/sealant coat & two coats of "morning glow" paint. We still need to install the bathroom fan & prime/seal & paint the ceiling & trim. But it actually looks pretty good now!

I'm not looking forward to getting the asbestos popcorn ceiling off - but that's probably next on the list of home improvements.

"upload to internet" - now a reality...

We always joked about the "upload to internet" button in reference to extremely embarrassing or unflattering pictures. Who would've thought that it's now actually possible to have pictures sent directly from your digital camera to your flickr/smugmug/etc picture sharing site! With this little SD card that also happens to be a Wifi transceiver. More information at http://www.eye.fi

It works great with wifi networks at home, but unfortunately, it won't work with wifi hotspots that require splashscreen logons. (e.g. starbucks/airports, etc). You can also just have it dump the pictures to your laptop - which might allow a little editorial work before actually uploading to the internet for the world to see... :)

Sabbatical Activities (Part 3 of 3) - France

The Eiffel Tower, Paris, France.

With the long flights through Europe from Africa back to the States, we thought we'd break up the trip with a stopover in France. The first visit, for both of us. Sarah was able to find an apartment rental in the area near the Sorbonne, so it would provide a great spot for our touristy excursions throughout the city. The plan was to stay in Paris for 3 days, then rent a car and drive down to the South of France for 5 days before catching our return flight home.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

Notre Dame Cathedrale. An amazing work that took 170 years to complete. Somehow, even if there was a desire to rebuild something like this today, the craftsmanship no longer exists to do so.

one of the 37 bridges in Paris

The Palace at Versailles

Interior of the Chapelle Royale, Palace at Versailles.

Salon d'Apollon (Louis XIV's throne room), Palace at Versailles

View from the Eiffel Tower, Paris.

While in Paris, we visited all the usual touristy attractions - the Louvre, Notre Dame, took in a river cruise of the Seine, visited the Palace at Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Gardens at Luxemborg, and the Catacombs (creepy!). Then we rented a car, and started our drive south towards Lyon & the south of France. In retrospect, perhaps we could have taken the train down, and rented a car down south instead of navigating traffic in Paris, but that would have taken too much planning. Fortunately, we were leaving early on a Sunday morning, so traffic wasn't too bad, and we consoled ourselves with the thought that we'd see more of the country this way. :)

Pont Bonaparte, Lyon

Cafe La Nuit - subject of a famous Van Gogh painting, Terrasse de Cafe la Nuit

So we picked up our rental car (a Renault Scenic), and headed south. Initially, we took the motorway (toll way) and were quite surprised by how expensive this was. From Paris to Lyon was about 35 euros. (Granted, this was about 300 miles, but we were still expecting it to be about 10-15 dollars!). Oh well. After we chatted with some fellow travellers at the Bed & Breakfasts we stayed at, we opted to take the local roads for a little more intimate views of France's smaller towns, which admittedly, we kinda zoomed by on the motorways. An interesting side note on food - I had the chance to try a Lyon speciality - Tablier de Sapeur - literally translated as "Fireman's Apron" - tripe that is marinated, breaded and grilled. Ordinarily, I think I would have liked it - but this particular place didn't prepare it quite right - more on the raw side of medium rare. I felt a little queezy afterwards.

Onward to St Vallier (a small town by the Rhone river) and to our next B&B stop over in Arles, an old roman town made famous by Van Gogh, then off to les-Baux-de-Provence, a medieval citadel overlooking the Val d'Enfer (Infernal Valley). I think this is where L'Occitane en Provence gets all their stuff.

Colorful pottery typical of the Provence region, Les-Baux-de-Provence

Le Cathedrale de Notre-Dame-des-Doms & Le Palais des Papes, Avignon

After Les-Baux-de-Provence, we headed to Avignon, where the Papal court resided from 1309-1377. After that we headed for Nice & Cannes - down in the South part of France. I wish we had more time here, but the next day we had to head back to Paris to catch our flight back to the US. Note to self: Next time, fly into Paris, fly out of Nice! :)

Sunset at Cannes, France - view from a public pier.

More pictures of the vacation in France here.
Postscript. In retrospect, this was a really long vacation. We were gone almost a month from home, and truth be told, we were getting a bit homesick in week 4. Maybe next time we should consider 2 weeks in France on its own...

Sabbatical Activities (Part 2 of 3) - Africa

Dawn. Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.

Africa.

We went on a 11-day safari of Tanzania & Kenya with Tauck World Discovery. We did the Classic Safari - which was 11 days, now a more upscale 13 days. All in all, quite the adventure. We flew from Amsterdam into the Arusha Airport at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, arriving in the late evening. It was the first time I remember getting off a wide body jet without a jetbridge - yep, all the way down to the ground, where we walked over to the single story airport terminal.

I was a bit nervous, as I wasn't able to get my Tanzania visa, but was told I could buy this at the airport without any major issues. Sure enough, that was the case, and we were soon collecting our luggage and met our Tour Director, Genevieve from Quebec, Canada. Once we had the other members of our group arriving that night, we got into the vans and headed for the hotel.
Was surprised to find the hotel had wireless internet available too! I was able to pick up a Tanzania SIM card for my cell phone in the hotel gift shop too.

The next morning, we met the rest of our group - 24 of us in total. Genevieve introduced us to our drivers, and laid out the plan for the days ahead. We would be heading to Lake Manyara National Park, the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti plains before we would cross the border into Kenya - Amboseli National Park (famous for their elephants), Samburu Game Reserve, and the Masai Mara. For the most part, we had game drives in the early morning (before breakfast), and usually a tourist type activity (visit to Coffee Plantation, Olduvai Gorge, Maasai village, etc) in the late morning/early afternoon, followed by another game drive in the late afternoon, then dinner.

Some pictures below, the rest of the pictures here.

Lion cubs, Serengeti Plains, Tanzania

Elephants, Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Beisa Oryx, Samburu National Park, Kenya

Cheetah, Masai Mara Safari Club, Kenya

Hippos, Mara River, Kenya

Masai Giraffe, Masai Mara Safari Club, Kenya

White Rhino, Masai Mara Safari Club, Kenya

Footnote: A lot of people have asked what sort of camera gear I had for these pictures. In truth, I had about 36lbs of camera gear in a photo backpack - too much. I had 2 Nikon camera bodies (D2X & D200), 300mm f/2.8, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, 70-200mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.4, 1.4x & 1.7x Tele-converters and a Mac Powerbook 12". And a beanbag, since you can't fit a tripod in the roof opening of a Land Cruiser!