Mason

Save The Date!

Deb, Elena, and I try to help Paul with a new video.

The Bedroom

I realized last night that I will never get to have that quintessential moment in so many movies where I come back to my parents house and walk into my bedroom for the first time as an adult. Slowly picking up artifacts from my teenage years, nothing moved or changed. Posters on the wall. Sitting on a bed that no one has slept in for years. Slowly smiling as all the memories of youth swell within me.
No, my bedroom was converted long ago into the "Man Cave"
Does anyone actually come home to this perfectly preserved time capsule of a bedroom?

ORR Crew and costume bowling!

Maine!

Flying Home...

So people liked my last play by play so know I am going to walk you through the next 26 hours or so. It is finally time for me to leave my adopted nation and come home to the motherland of excess. Before I can leave though I needed to have at least one more fight with a parking attendent. He said he was working, it looked a lot to me like he was drinking a beer. Apperently I disrespected him by mentioning that there was a 50ld charge for parking posted and no posting about driving through. He still wanted the money he would have gotten had we been parking. He was no match for Andrew and I. It wasn't long before I was yelling at him to charge the other vehicles that were trying to drive in too and he let us go. A few good byes to my crew and it was inside the newly "modernized" Roberts International Airport. They are beefing up security for the new Delta flights so I wasn't sure what to expect. No problems until... You guesed it. Immigration! This guy was upset that my residency permit for 2009 is dated to start tomorrow. Kudos to him for actually reading the document and doing a little deductive reasoning. The last two years all started on April 27 so it was just an extension of the original document. I continued arguing this point until he hinted that I had paid someone off at immigration to prepare the permit illegally. Now the line was groing behind me and this usually ends an argument. It worked with the parking guys outside. Thanks to intervention from an old pa he stamped me out and I am now in the waiting area. I am just waiting for them to come in and make me stay one more day.

In the waiting area a guy is walking around with a blow-up pillow around his neck. Classic already. Oh and a cute doctor from MSF that I never asked out is flying out with her boyfriend. Deb will be happy.

Now a lady with a belt that doesn't meet in the front and a mad rush to board.

No problems getting on the plane. Some guy was like "hey you get the most hassled by immigration award" If he only knew the half of it.

Empty seats next to me are a real good sign. Drunken eastern europeans could go either way.

I now realize that they won't let you use phones on flights. So I don't really have anything to say about getting to Brussels exept it was relativily uneventful. There is plenty to say about Brussels though. The first blast of 50 degree air when I got off the plane sucked. I hope its not that cold still in Ohio. I am no convinced that europeans are some of the ugliest people I have ever seen. The shopping mall these people call an airport sickens me. I fear what my home land brings to me. Slick advertising selling me stuff I don't need. Its a far cry from LIB.

Brussels:
If I see another little boy with a David Beckham faux-hawk I am going to throw up.

I am in Brussels at least twice a year. Is it too much to ask that they at least roll out some Belgian waffles? 5 hours until my departure to Chicago. I hate waiting.

Everything is automated. Hand dryers, little gates, coffee makers. If we don't watch out these robots are going to take over. I'm not joking! I was just fine 8 hours ago flushing my toilet with a bucket.

This is turning out to be a crappy bLog entry. There is only so much complaining I can do about these eurpeans. They are ridiculous though. The faux-hawk really is the official haircut for all men here. Guys in suits with them, guys in tshirts and jeans with them, little kids. Its amazing how we can make what once was a bold statement a dumbed down everyman version. I will say that something about this airport gives me painful gas.

Something of note, two Chasidic jews followed by two nuns on the people mover. I need to keep my camera out.

(At this point I stoped bLogging because I realized how lame it was all going. I did accidently speak Liberian English to a black guy in Chicago. It is good to be home though.)

America...

I will be back home from Liberia April 27-July 9. Please contact me if you want to get together.