A new post - better take a picture.

Happy New Year to all who read my often updated blog!

So one thing of note that's happened in the past few months is I'm now a manager - some call it a promotion, but it doesn't come with a raise, just more responsibility and people under me. So far its been pretty good, and definitely different - I'm getting to see an entirely new side to the business. I've been planning to take my career in this direction, so its a good thing!

No new car purchases have been made since my last post, but I did recently splurge on a new Canon XSi Digital SLR camera right after Thanksgiving. I've been having some fun taking pictures over the Christmas break, and just got them posted online. In all honestly, keeping up with my Shutterfly account is probably more relevant, since I post to it more often than my blog! You can even subscribe to the RSS feed, or I can add you as a member so you get an email whenever something new gets posted - just let me know.

Anyway, I've got my car and auto-x pics posted here: http://autox.shutterfly.com/
And my other pics of friends, and whatever else here: http://centanni.shutterfly.com/

Jaguar for Sale

So, I've had the Jag for sale for a while now on craigslist and couldn't understand why people seemed to flake out after I emailed them back... and then I realized they were probably Google searching for my name and Jag or something along those lines. Well, it turns out the first hit is my blog post about the Jag having the check engine light calling out the O2 sensor! Doh! Well, I'll go on the record for all the internet to know - the Jag is fixed and perfectly fine - I replaced the O2 Sensor with the exact replacement Bosch part for the pricey sum of $300! And the reason for selling the Jag is basically I just have too many cars to enjoy them all.

Cop Car, RIP

Well, its official, one car sold... The cop car had a good life the past 5 years, but I sold it tonight to a guy who will likely use it in a movie or two, and will either crash during one filming, or transplant a transmission from another car he has and give it a new lease on life. Either way, not a bad way to let it go. I figured putting together a collage of pictures would be a bit much, so I decided to post a pic from one of the infamous good times had in the cop car - Death Race 2000 Road Rally!
Now, moment of silence, please.

Almost Like New...

Big Thanks to my Dad for getting my new daily driver ready! A little paint and we'll be there - pretty amazing what a few new parts will do :)

#7 - Yep, that's right 7

So you thought I was joking when I said I should buy another vehicle, huh? Well, below is a picture of the latest addition to the fleet! Its a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis with 52k miles, and was in a little wreck where the front grill and valence were crunched, but I was able to get for about $3k less then what its worth if in good shape, and the parts are about $100 and bolt on! The car is actually in New Orleans, and my dad's helping get it back into shape before I come pick it up - thanks Dad!


And yes, Carrie, I will be getting rid of one or two of my cars and this will become my daily driver, but for the time being, I've got one vehicle for each day of the week ;)

When it rains it pours

Wow, 2 blog posts from me within a week of each other - the devil may be breaking out his winter coat ;)

As I mentioned in my last post - I have 6 vehicles... One would think that would be enough chances to have working, legal transportation, right?

Well, the cop car's transmission decided to go belly up over the weekend - it slips in 3rd gear and won't go into overdrive or reverse (the reverse problem makes for interesting parking!). Repairing the transmission would cost more than I paid for the car 4 years ago, so it may be time to let her go - car #1 down.

The miata developed a bad coolant leak - it sprays out from somewhere behind the engine at high RPM - there's one gasket I am going to try to replace and hope that's the problem, otherwise its the headgasket, which is a major job, and I may just swap the engine if that's the problem - car #2 down.

The jag has a check engine light calling out the o2 sensor, which is a pricey part, and my debug says it may not even be the problem, so I've been trying to read up and figure that one out... in the mean time, I'm not comfortable driving it around with the CEL on and the inspection has also expired - car #3 down.

The vette sprang a coolant leak from the thermostat housing this weekend and it also doesn't have a horn or blinkers, so its not inspected yet either - car #4 down.

The stang doesn't have a working parking break so its not inspected either, so technically shouldn't drive it either...and the battery needs charging - car #5 down.

The Harley works fine, but I need to get it re-inspected to make it legal, so technically vehicle #6 is down as well!

What does all this tell me? ... I need another car to increase my odds of having one that works ;)

Just under a year

So I'm sneaking this post in just under the year mark, thanks to a little prodding from Taylor. So what's happened to me in a year - lets hit the highlights in case ya'll missed anything:

I started (and am still!) dating a wonderful girl, Dot, who's back in New Orleans finishing up grad school for the time being.

As I mentioned in my last post, which was actually done from London, I traveled Europe with Chad and Mel - London, Paris, Munich, and Rome - good times - still can't believe its been a year we were there!

Vegas trip with some of the guys from work - crazy times - cracked a rib attempting to snow ski - the rest stays in Vegas...

Couple of Wedding shout outs - congrats Jeff & Becky and Greg & Maureen.

I've been auto-crossing my little red nugget once or twice a month, fairly successfully I might add - they kicked me out of the novice class from both the Austin and San Antonio clubs because I came in 1st place, so now I'm racing with the big boys and still holding my own - I've got a few videos out there on my YouTube account if your curious.

Other automotive news - I bought a '99 Jaguar XJ8 a few months back. So for those who can't keep track - that's 6 vehicles - '68 Mustang, '72 Corvette, '90 Miata, '94 Crown Vic Cop car, '98 Harley Sportster, '99 Jaguar XJ8 - and one driver :) I really need to get a picture with all of them together for ridiculousness' sake.

And most recently, Dot and I went on a cruise to Cozumel and Progreso - Awesome time - I highly recommend cruises to those who haven't been on one! Pics out on my Imagestation account for the time being (fyi, Imagestation is shutting down in a few months, so I'll probably move all my pics to Shutterfly).

One last thing - I now own a Wii. Highlight of ownership so far was watching my mother and grandmother play Doubles Tennis together on the Wii Sports game - amazing the cross generational appeal this system has - Nintendo really has hit a home run...

That's all for now - lets see if I post again before next September!

Wow, its been that long?

Wow, so its almost been officially a year - I just checked my blog and saw the date on the last post!... and its not that I haven't had anything to blog about, its just that life has kinda been going full steam ahead since Katrina. However, now I'm actually taking a much longer break from the normal pace of life - I'm actually in London right now on a 3 week tour of Europe with Mel and Chad (who's keeping a much better blog of what we're doing anyway)... But I'll get to that later: a semi year in review is in order. Lets see how much I can remember...with the help of my imagestation account! (For those who forgot - http://www.imagestation.com/members/centanni)

I'll get the sad stuff out of the way first:
Katrina happened, my parents lost their house and lived with me for 3 months.
My grandmother (Dad's mom) was living in Austin in a nursing home after Katrina, which meant I got to see her more often... though not often enough - sadly, she passed away the week before mother's day.

Now on to the happier things:
My parents did eventually go back to New Orleans and bought a new house in Metairie, which with they seem to be very happy, and it didn't flood, so that's even better.

I went to Ruidoso (an hour north of El Paso) for my buddy Victor Rubio's wedding right after Thanksgiving, then went back to El Paso for my buddy Aaron's wedding. Oh, and there was the Vegas trip for Aaron's bachelor party - can't forget that! Then I went to my buddy Luai's wedding in Tallahassee, got to visit with Jenn, and experience my first VERY different culture wedding (Luai is Muslim) - a good time was had by all.

This past Labor Day weekend I went to Chicago for a short vacation with Taylor & Carrie, Richard & Mary, Erin, and Melissa. It was great to get to spend some time with friends who I haven't seen in a while, and I even got to see my cousin Katie, who I haven't seen in almost 4 years!

Now on to the vehicle update.
Back in December, I bought a '90 miata with the intention to Autocross it. Well, I had a hell of a time getting it to pass emissions, and then after driving it for about 2 months, I realized it had a major problem with the crankshaft - suck. It took me about 4 months to get up the guts to fix it, which basically meant glueing things back together! (Its a strong epoxy, but still, its basically glue!) Anyway, its running again and last month I finally autocrossed it for the first time. I came in 5th place out of 14 people in the novice group - not too bad for a 16 year old car with 143k miles, street tires, and an engine that's held together with glue and making about 70% of the horsepower its supposed to have!

Three months ago I finally got the Chrome Bumper Vette that I've been wanting. I'm not a fan of the color, but its growing on me. I bought it from a guy who's an aircraft mechanic and had restored the car with his son while his son was in highschool. The kid graduated, so it was time to get rid of the car - so I bought it for a steal! The car has basically been completely restored, frame off. Check out his website, the pictures speak for themselves!

I saved the bad news for last - I haven't ridden my harley in about 5 months now because I'm missing a footpeg. Last time I took it out, we were on our way back from the San Antonio bike fest, on I-35, and when I pushed myself back in my seat, my left footpeg sheered off. I pulled my foot up in time to only have it skim the pavement, but that completely threw off my balance, and I almost lost control of the bike - kinda scary! We pulled off and let me gather my wits, and then I ended up riding the rest of the way back in the crotch rocket position on my Harley, using the rear passenger pegs - I looked rather funny, but I just wanted to get home at that point! Anyway, I haven't been able to find a replacement footpeg yet, but I will soon, and I'll give this riding thing one more shot.

Anyway, that's it for now - I'll post some pictures of the miata and vette later, and write a post about London later...

Not for the Faint of Heart...

We went into my parents' house back in Lakeview for the first time yesterday. What can I say, it was pretty devastating, and the smell was aweful, but having seen pictures of other houses, I had braced myself. The door had been kicked in by search and rescue teams and the only sign of life was the faint chirp of a smoke detector with a dying battery...and the flies in the kitchen that had congregated since the freezer door was cracked open. Furniture was just all over the place, in positions you couldn't fathom how it got that way. One of the things that caught my off guard was the floor - as I was walking around I noticed big bumps running the length of the room under the carpet - it was the hardwood floors that had buckled because it expanded so much from being waterlogged. On the good side of things, my mother's china cabinet hadn't fallen over, so some of her china was salvagable. Everything in the attic was fine (some of my old toys were up there!), and we emptied that out today. Anyway, here are the pics I took of the house - I put descriptions under each picture - its hard to make out what some of them are. Walking around the house without much light, things didn't seem as nasty, but the flash really brought out how bad it really was.

Routines

Been back from Germany for a week now and finally getting back into my normal routines. It was weird, even the little things like brushing your teeth before taking a shower in the morning seemed to be out of wack and took a little while to just become second nature again. Anyway, its been a bit of a rollercoaster week. My sister decided not to go to Austin Community College for reasons I'm too embarrassed to mention in writing for the world to see. So she and my mother will be going back to New Orleans, or actually Metairie where they will stay with my aunt and my sister will go to UNO (at their Jefferson campus). At least they'll be out of my circle of worry there and can do something productive! We'll also be going to see what we can salvage from my parents' house - preparing myself for devastation in my face.

On the happier side of things, this weekend I attended the Texas Classic Car Show at Rudy's with siraj, my father and his buddy Dom who also evacuated here. Good time had by all, and it was nice getting to share it with my dad, since he enjoys cars almost as much as I do :) Anyway, pics here.

Eating Solo

As some of you may or may not know, I've got this semi-phobia, or rather just strong aversion to eating in public by myself - it just feels weird and I think people would look at me funny, like "what's wrong with this guy - he doesn't have any friends who would eat with him?" or something like that... Well, while I was in Germany, the hotel I stayed at had a full breakfast every morning, and most mornings I'd meet Yuen down there, so I had someone to eat with, but some mornings I was late and he'd already have left, but I managed to fool myself into eating alone, kinda thinking that he'd eventually show up. So baby steps. And I just managed to convince myself to eat some Popeye's in the Atlanta airport, as I had a 4 hour layover and was really hungry. So another baby step...just thought I'd share my small personal triumph.

Castles, Cars, and Beer

9/23 - Late night at work since it was my last workday here in Germany, so Joerg-Stephan and I tried to make the most of it. Dean and I met Yuen for a late dinner at a fancy restaurant where we all had lamb chops with a yummy pepper sauce. That's about it for today...

9/24 - I woke up at the butcrack of dawn (4:45am!) to bring Yuen to the airport - he was catching a flight to Vienna to meet a group of friends for a long weekend - they were taking a tour of Europe and he was meeting up with them for Austria and then Venice. I actually decided to stay awake and get an early start for the day - that doesn't happen often! :) Anyway, Dean and I headed to the famous Neuschwanstein castle (the one Disney based their castle in the Magic Kingdom) and Hohenschwangau castle. Neuschwanstein is amazing - just hard to believe that its real, even walking inside of it - and the countryside is so picturesque - just amazing. Supposedly Ludwig II wanted to live in his own little fantasyland, well, he created one hell of a place! Hohenschwangau was Ludwig's father's castle just about a mile away and was pretty impressive too. Oh, and that hike from Hohenschwangau up to Neuschwanstein was pretty intense - felt like we were climbing up at a 45 degree angle! - and I'm sure it didn't help we took the "short" way up - a small gravel path that said it would take 10 minutes less to get to the top - what were we thinking? (or should I say, what was Dean thinking, and why'd I let him think it! :) Dean and I had a nice late lunch in the town in the valley between the two castles, then headed back to Boeblingen. What should have been a two hour trip back turned into almost 4 because they were doing contruction on the autobahn. I mention this because two things were equally impressive about this, in opposite ways. The bad - the autobahn went from two to one lanes and they didn't give much warning - just a big truck with a blinking arrow parked in the right lane that you couldn't see until you were about 50 feet away from it - caused slight merging problems and bumper to bumper traffic for 10+ kilometers. The impressive - they were literally tearing up the lane about 2 feet deep with one machine, and a couple hundred meters behind it they were laying down the new asphalt, and a few meters behind that they were steamrolling it and putting the top layer on! Now, I think about how long it took in the US to complete a few miles of resurfacing of I-10 - it seems to take us years, and over in Germany, it seems like they'd have several kilometers done by morning! ok, maybe I was just going crazy from sitting in traffic for 2 hours...guess ya had to be there...

9/25 - I ask you, would my trip to Germany been complete if I found out that one of the largest car shows in the world was taking place about two hours from me, and I didn't go? I didn't think so either! I took off on my own Sunday morning to Frankfurt to attend the Frankfurt IAA show. Here's a mental image for you from my trip there - me blasting down the autobahn at 140mph in my Beemer with Mozart blaring on the radio - just made me smile. Anyway, the auto show was huge - I walked through most of the 10 buildings of the convention center pretty much non-stop for 5 hours - and I still think I only saw about 2/3 of what was there. It was an eye opener to see all of the cars that just never make it to America - cars I had only seen in Gran Tourismo before now :) Anyway, I high-tailed it back to Boeblingen and Dean and I hopped on the train to Stuttgart for the Volksfest - like a mini-Oktoberfest, but still frickin' huge! Anyway, I had the worlds largest wienerschnitzel and another 3 liters of beer - good times. Gonna miss the hefeweizens over here... Chad, guess I'll be joining ya ordering those weizens when we go out! That's about it - signing off from Germany.

...Through the woods...

9/22 - I went with the department I'm working for while I'm over here on their annual Department Hike. The entire department took off at 1pm and met in the small town of Unterjesingen, about 30 minutes away and we proceeded to hike about 4 miles through the hills/mountains to a small castle that has a biergarten in its courtyard. Pretty intense uphill hike for my out of shape ass. Now, I was originally told we would hike there, then walk a short distance to the next town and take the train back to our cars - guess that got lost in translation somewhere. So after 3 beers, a nice lunch, and sitting there for 3+ hours in the sun (beautiful day, btw - clear, sunny, in the high 50's), we hiked back a different way, where we descended very steeply at first, then the rest was uphill, which meant we basically hiked uphill, both ways. And now as I write this, I think I hurt myself somehow - my left calf muscle hurts like a !@#$&. Anyway, enough whining - today just really made me realize I need to get back into a regular exercise routine. Later tonight, Yuen and I went to this little Italian Pizza place, where I ate quite possibly the best calzone of my life, and the one interesting ingredient worth mentioning was a sliced boiled egg.

Schokolade

9/21 - We hit the Ritter Sport chocolate factory today after work - stocked up on all kinds of chocolate for everyone back home - I think I bought about 25 lbs of chocolate - it was so cheap! I'll have to have a chocolate eating party when I get back. Anyway, other than that, had some Thai food for dinner and then had to go back and call into a 3 hour meeting back in Austin (from 9-midnight German time) - joy.

Centanni House, post Katrina

My buddy Keith, who lives around the corner from my parents's house, was somehow able to back to the city yesterday and take some pictures of my parents house from the outside. Other than the fallen trees, the house looks like its in ok shape, but you can see the waterline halfway up the windows, which means probably about 5 feet of water in the house for at least a week or two. I'm sure getting to see the inside will be the truly overwhelming part, but at least this puts to rest a few of the questions we've had bouncing around our minds...

Hair Salon

9/20 - I got a haircut today at an actual Salon - weird for me - and the lady didn't speak English, so that was fun - I had to point to a picture in a book she brought me! Anyway, I had my hair cut/styled, shampoo'd, and scalp massaged - man I could get used to that! Had another late day at work, so Yuen, Dean and I just went and grabbed some food at a little Italian restaurant around the corner, took a short walk around town, had schnappi time, then hit the sack.

Codon Bleu

9/19 - Not much to note - got out of work a bit late and went to dinner at the Palladium with Yuen and Dean. Dinner consisted of a huge salad and then some Swabian Chicken Cordon Bleu Ravioli things that were scrumptious - I'm a fan of anything Cordon Bleu! Other than that I've been trying to keep up with the WWL Katrina Blog http://www.wwltv.com/ and am a bit concerned about hurricane Rita, but also glad it pushed Nagin to delay the reopening of the city... I didn't think it was such a hot idea to start letting people back in so soon - Algiers and Metairie, fine - but places without water and electrical services, not so much...

OKTOBERFEST and other stuff...

9/16 - Not much to note today - went to dinner with Yuen, Dean, and Kirill (the Russian guy who I couldn't remember his name last time I mentioned him) to this little Greek resturant down the street and had a tasty meal and some sweet Greek wine in the basement of this place - kinda cool. Though the dinner got off to a bad start when they gave us a shot of "schapps" before we sat down - it was actually Ouzo, the licorice flavored liquer from Greece - and as many of you know, licorice anything and me just don't mix!! Anyway, after dinner we went to the trusty old Schonbuch Biergarten for a few beers.

9/17 - We woke up at the crack of dawn and headed to Munich with Yuen, Dean, and Chris in Dean's BMW 116i - weird little One Series BMW. After realizing that Munich was a huge city and we had no idea where Oktoberfest actually took place, we decided to just park somewhere downtown and ask someone in the trian station. We made it there about 30 minutes before the kickoff - the official tapping of the first barrell in the Lowenbrau Tent at noon. Pretty crazy... And now when I say tent, I think of either something you go camping in, or a bigger thing that you can have a picnic under - these German's have a slightly different definition. These "Tents" are massive buildings with a canvas roof - I guess the canvas roof allows them to technically be called a tent! Anyway, it was standing room only, and you can't get a drink unless you're sitting, so we stood and watched for a while, then went around the grounds and took in the sights. There are these huge tents everywhere, but its also like a giant carnival with rides and bumper cars and street venders everywhere. Lunch ended up being a brat on a bun with some mustard in the rain. Oh, I didn't mention that it was freaking COLD and rainy - 7C which is in the low 40F's. So needless to say, we weren't gonna stroll around that for long, so we decided to head over to the Deutsches Museum. This Museum is insanely huge and full of all kinds of technology, etc from the past. We were there only for about two hours, and I had to basically run through it and I don't think I saw half of it...and you know I was moving fast because I only took a few pictures in the beginning before I realized how huge it was. After the museum, we headed over to the Hofbrauhaus and sat out in the biegarten in the cold (at least it had stopped raining) and had dinner and three liters of beer...each (except Yuen since he was driving back). Yes that's right, 3 liters of beer in about 3 hours - as you can imagine, we weren't really feeling the cold much after that! The trip back to Boeblingen wasn't without incident...about halfway home, Dean, being the lightweight, ended up yakking all over himself in the car before Yuen could pull over - good times. Man, this was the first time I've had someone do that in a car I was in (another arguement for the fact that I didn't really get the college experience!). Anyway, pics from the Oktoberfest and Hofbrauhaus here.

9/18 - Yuen and I got a late start and headed to Stuttgart to check out the Mercedes and Porsche Museums - Mercedes was very in depth and well done, but both were pretty cool. And of course, being a car thing, I took pictures of everything (Mercedes here, Porsche here). We just drove around Stuttgart the rest of the afternoon with the top down, taking in the city. Dinner was at this very trendy little Thai restaurant Yuen had found last month - had some yummy chicken curry dish. Laid back day after a loooong day in Munich!

'68 Mustang

With all of the commotion surrounding Katrina and my trip back to Germany taking precedence in my life, I forgot to mention another major goings on in my life. I traded the '79 Vette for a '68 Mustang. The Mustang is in much better shape than the Vette - having been mostly restored! I know, Jerry without a Corvette...but I like most cars, and this still doesn't rule out me getting an old Vette too :)

Beer in the Lab

9/15 - Today was productive at work - learned a good bit of useful stuff. From 5-7pm we had a little celebration in the lab with beer and other tasty beverages, and some German equivalent of spam burgers, but much bigger and better and on pretzel buns. I ended up staying at work pretty late, but drove home with the top down and then just drove around town taking in the sights at night. Weather has been kinda gloomy lately - overcast and rainy/drizzly alot, but tonight was clear and cool and the air was crisp - felt like December back home.

Thanks Greg for Oktoberfest advice - I'll at least try to heed the one water for each beer I drink!

Oktober Plans...

9/14 - Not much went on today - had some Swabian Ravioli for dinner - good stuff. Worked out at the gym in the hotel before dinner. We started discussing plans for the weekend already - Oktober fest starts Saturday in Munich - anyone been there before and have suggestions?

O'Donavan's

9/13 - Dean, a guy from Rochester who I've worked with before, showed up here yesterday and joined us for a nice steak dinner at Lago's and then Trivia night at the local Irish Pub, O'Donavan's. We came in 3rd, and I think we would have done better if we could have understood the Scottish guy reading the damn questions - think Brad Pit in Snatch. I added a few more pics to my Boeblingen Album.

Mercedes

9/12 - This morning we showed up to work a little late because we went to the Mecedes Benz Factory Tour in the adjoining town of Sindelfingen. Pretty sweet to see the 200+ km's of assembly line and all the quality control and precision that goes into making Mercedes. We weren't allowed to take pics in the factory, but here are a few from the Customer Center. Had some Gnocchi Bolagnase at a local Italian resturant for dinner - felt like I was back in Italy - everyone in there was speaking Italian! That's it for today...

Weekend = European Vacation

9/9 - Not much exciting at work today - met up with Yuen, Joern, and this Russian guy who I can't remember his name who's working here at the Schonbuch Biergarten for drinks after work. I decided to try some rather interesting drink combinations after my normal Hefeweizen - I had a Bannana-Weizen, a Radler (half beer, half lemon soda), a Radler-Weizen, and a Cola-Weizen. I ended the night with a shot of peach schnapps. All tasty - and laid the path for a wonderful night's sleep! Pics here. (login:jerrycentanni pw:jerry)

9/10 - Yuen and I hit the road to Nuremberg, famous for the Nazi trials after WWII, but the building where the trials were held was basically non-descript - we weren't even sure we were at the right place, but the GPS told us we had arrived. The Kaiserurg Castle, however, was pretty cool. We wandered around in the rain, went in the castle's museum, had some pretzles and Nuremberg-style bratworst for lunch, walked around the city, then headed home. We ate dinner back in Boeblingen at the Schiller, where I had a Argentinian Steak, a glass or Rotwein (red wine), and some apple strudel with vanilla ice cream for desert - yummy. Pics here.

9/11 - Another day trip in the BMW - did I mention I have a BMW convertible as my rental car this time? Man is it sweet - that little diesel engine was still pulling at 225kmph when I had to slow down for traffic (yes thats 140mph! - officially faster than I ever went in my Corvette!) Anywho, we headed to a very cool town a little less than 2 hours away called Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Its known as the best preserved midieval city in Germany. Yuen and I walked around entire city on the fortification wall - arrow slits and all! We went to the KriminalMuseum where they had many remains of medieval torture devices as well as law and order documents, etc - kinda scary, but cool at the same time. We climed to the top of the tower in the Rothaus (Town Hall), for a great view of the city and coutryside - they used to lookout from here for enemies approaching. This is also the city where you can find Christmas stuff year round at the Weihnachtsmuseum (Christmas store/museum) - pretty crazy. Pics here.

We headed back to Stuttgart around dinnertime for the annual Stuttgart Wine Festival and had several glasses of wine (one red, one rose, and one white), along with a brat-on-a-bun, a waffle, apple strudel, and a pretzel - healthy evening. Pics here.

Away from Home

9/8 - Tuesday when I left Austin, I left with some of the first good news I had heard in a week - my parents and sister had gone to Texas A&M and were able to enroll her in classes and get a dorm room - she was going to get to start her college career after all! I was so proud of my little sis! Only to find out the next day when I talked to my parents that she was miserable there and it was just too big, and too much to handle right now with all the other emotional stress going on with the Katrina disaster - she wanted to be closer to her family. I can't blame her, but I still think it would be the best thing for her right now to try to stick it out. My parents were an emotional wreck because they felt they had abandoned her, so they're ready to go right back and pick her up. I tried to convince my mother to give it time, and these were normal feelings of letting go of a child as they go off to college (something they never had to go through with me), and that everything was compounded with the emotional stress of losing our house, belongings, etc. But the long and short of it is I'm not her parents and I'm not her - I just wanted what I think is best for her. So frustrating. And Sorry Mom, Dad and Donna if you didn't want all this broadcast to everyone, but I'm over here in Germany without the means to really talk to anyone about this, so this is my outlet.

Beemer

9/7 - On a happier note, I upgraded myself to a Silver BMW 320id Convertible 6spd - it was about $300 more for the 3 weeks I'll be here and it has the GPS system, so even if I have to pay for it, its worth it! Top down on the way home from work today :)

Back to Germany, but with a Heavy Heart...

9/6 - I write this on the airplane from Austin to Atlanta on my way back to Germany for another 3 week stint. I was listening to iTunes on my laptop while reading through some work email when it started playing the song "Second Line" (the uniquely New Orleans song that you always hear around Mardi Gras or at any wedding reception in New Orleans) - I'm still fighting back tears as I write this - will there be another Mardi Gras as we knew it? The City I grew up in has been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The only good thing so far is that everyone I know had made it out of the city alive. My parents are living with me now, my dad will be able to work with the same company in Austin, and my sister was just able to enroll at Texas A&M this morning, so life is moving on. Questions of rebuilding and whether to ever go back are still up in the air. Many of my friends from back in New Orleans are spread across the country now - its just crazy. New Orleans will never be the same.

Coming home - at least for a bit

After a bit of swapping schedules around, I'm going to go back to Austin on this Sunday (after the wedding in El Paso). I'll stay there for a couple weeks and help with this first bringup, then probably come back to Germany for another month (9/5-10/3). I know, kinda crazy... Anyway, its 10pm here and I'm still at work, so I'm getting outa here. I'm attempting to hit up the Ritter-Sport factory on my way to the airport...

Good, but SUCK...

8/18 - I'm flying to El Paso tomorrow for my buddy Victor Garibay's wedding and the plan was for me to fly back to Germany on Monday, and stay until 9/16. Well, things are moving ahead so fast here that they're ready to bring the card we're working on to Austin to attach to a real system... and this is the part that I was supposed to be ready to help with! So we're stuck between whether I've learned enough to go with this one German guy Fritz to Austin to attempt this, or if I'd be better off coming back to Germany to learn more... Argh. I guess one possibility is to just postpone my return trip to Germany for a week or so - who knows - we're waiting to talk to the Austin Program management guys to see what we want to do... more to come later...

No Show...

8/17 - Well, we got stood up by the Italian bartender :( ... or maybe it was because we showed up 15 minutes late? Who knows - maybe we'll have enough balls to go back there and ask her why she bailed on us. Anyway, after work we went to Kevin's manager's house warming party (actually not warming, more like building - they throw a party when the roof is put on the frame, or in this case, the walls installed in the gutted apartment). We took the train there, since we'd be drinking a good bit (had quite a few Erdinger Weissbier's ). We ate some schnitzel, stayed a bit too long talking and drinking, and then had to wait for the next train, which caused us to be late to meet the ladies. So we're not sure if we stood them up or they stood us up. Either way, we were a little relieved because we were exhausted. We went back to the hotel, had "Schnappi Time", then went up on the hotel's balcony and had a beer since tonight was Kevin's last night here. I added a few pics to my Germany Album here.

One other thing - I've been getting a bar of this chocolate at the little store outside the cafeteria every day after lunch. The factory is close by, so I'm taking orders - who wants what kind? :)

Long Work Day

8/16 - Long day at work today - and the work that the one German guy tried to offload to me since he was going on vacation turned out to be very important. So now, the lead guy who I came here to learn from has now been given the task, so I'll be helping do this after all... Met the guys around 9pm at the resturant Lago, in enough time to have a glass of red wine and desert. We stopped by the Italian Cafe' to have a beer (Weizen Hefeweizen) and make sure we were still on for our date at the disco tomorrow night. I ran home after lunch to finally get around to doing some laundry - the hotel washer and dryer can only be used one at a time - some weird power switch - so doing 2 loads of clothes took 7 hours! I'm thinking I'm just going to send my clothes out to be cleaned next time, even though it costs 10 times as much...

Brats, Czechs, Thai, and Italians

8/15 - Finally had me a bratwurst today for lunch - yum - and the mayonnaise with the potato wedges is starting to grow on me. Got out of work late - had a meeting with Austin guys to review some designs - learned a bit, so it was worth it. On my way back to my hotel room, I was accosted in the hallway by two drunk Czech guys who wanted me to come party and drink with them. Turns out they were from IBM too and had just arrived earlier that day. I was only able to get past them and make it to my room after taking a shot from the bottle they had of this spiced rum type alcohol and assuring them we'd party at some point. I ended up meeting up with Kevin and Yuen at a Thai restaurant for dinner - had a Hefeweizen Crystal (a clear hefeweizen - weird!) and some Thai noodles, then wandering the streets and stopping at a "Italian style" cafe'/bar for a glass of wine. We were sitting outside for a while and the cute Italian bartender came outside to bring us a free digestif shot. She didn't speak English, so with the help of one of her friends inside, she asked us to go out to a "disco" in Stuttgart with her (akin to clubbing in the US, I presume). We were exhausted, but after many hand gestures and a few drawings on her notepad, we made plans to meet up with her and some of her friends Wednesday night to go out - this should be interesting!

Switzerland and Racing

8/12 - Worked picked up today, only because one of the German guys I went to talk to decided to offload a HUGE amount of work to me because he's going on vacation next week, and its not really what I'm here to learn about - nice of him, eh? So, while I've learned alot starting on this exercise, I also realized it would take me 3 weeks to do, so I'll be unloading this soon! :) After work we (my new friends Yuen and Kevin), went to a nearby town called Tuebingen to wander around. We had a nice dinner there, then went to the local brauhaus and shared a 2 Liter pitcher of their Neckarmuller Hefeweizen.

8/13 - Kevin, Yuen, and I went to Switzerland - yeah, that's right - I hadn't been out of the country for the first 27 years of my life, now I've hit 3 European countries within 6 months! It was about a 4 hour drive to the town of Interlaken, which, ask you might guess, is between mountain lakes. The Swiss Alps were amazing and the water of the lakes were this translucent tourquise - just amazing. We had lunch at a resturant in town and I had this Swiss cheese,bacon, and potatoe skillet deal - yummy. I also bought a Swiss Army knife - I just had to. Anyway, we were planning on taking a train to the top of Jungfraujoch (one of the tallest mountains in the Alps) but it was very foggy, getting late, and would have been 120 Euro each, so we decided to take a ski lift to a lower peak. Here's my Switzerland pics and a few other pics. One is of a Mardi Gras like crowd in Zurich (some kind of festival going on) - we were planning on stopping there for dinner, but it was insanely crowded, so we just came back to Boeblingen, where I had a WurstSalad (basically a pile of sausage meat put through some kind of press with shredded cheese - man was that dense- but yummy).

8/14 - Exhilirating - one of the best experiences of my life - today, I drove the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Amazing. And this was even just driving the rental Ford Focus hatchback I have! Kevin and I took two laps each, and Yuen took one, but all three of us were in the car for each lap. I'm really at a loss for words to describe - I was giddy as ... as a... I don't know what, but damn that was an adrenaline rush. Here are a few pictures, and I have a good bit of video, if anyone wants it via email. Kevin does autocrossing on the weekend, so being a pretty good driver, he was pushing the car to its limit. And yes, Chad, I did go off the road in the same spot as the damn License test in Gran Tourismo 4 - trying to carry speed through multiple s-curves in a real Focus is a bit trickier than than on the Playstation2! :) Oh, and we basically forgot to eat we were on such a high, so on our way back, we stopped at a Burger King, then headed back - I know I know, BK when there's all kinds of schnitzel and wurst to be had, but we were HUNGRY! To end the day of high speed driving, as we got back to Boeblingen and had just gotten off the autobahn, I saw a bright flash of red light - it was the automated speeding ticket machine taking my picture! A day of going 160+kmph (100+mph, fo those who need the conversion) and I get cought going 65kmph in a 50 - GRRR! Still, awesome day!

Germany Take 2

8/11 - Another slow day at work - I'm realizing I really don't learn well by reading - its not as much of a comprehension thing as it is a short attention span and the inability to ask a document a question that I want the answer to right now. Its frustrating because the guys with the answers are right next to me, but they're very busy until next week, so I guess I'll just keep plowing through documentation and presentations until then.

I forgot to mention this about last night - we learned that its quite uncommon for a guy to buy a girl or girls some drinks from afar... One of the guys I was with tried this and there was quite a bit of confusion, some funny looks, but it did end with a very happy "Thank You" from both of them girls as they were leaving... Much funnier in person - guess ya had to be there.

Had some more Schnitzel for dinner - Cordon Bleu Schnitzel - a joining of cultures, I guess, with a glass of riesling wine. On a related note, I still can't get used to this "water with gas" - if I wanted something carbonated, I'd get a coke, people!

Swabian Life

8/8 - Well, the trip didn't start out the greatest... I left Austin at 1:30pm and arrived to Stuttgart at 9am (2am Austin time) and got little or no sleep because of this 10 year old girl behind me who kept kicking my seat every time I was about to doze off. I got so frustrated, I couldn't even come up with a polite way to ask her to stop, so out of fear of causing a scene, I just sucked it up.

8/9 - One thing I noticed as we were landing at Stuttgart - ALL of the buildings in these little German towns have red tile roofs - crazy! Anyway, I didn't end up springing for the nicer car (think BMW 3 Series), so I'll just have to see what this Ford Focus can really do - man I love driving stick shifts! I made it to the Hotel Boehler (pronounced much like Ferris's last name) without incident. Its a very cool little European style hotel in the middle of downtown Boeblingen, and they give you a shot of a schnapps of your choice when you come in after work - hmmm, isn't Goldschlager a schapps? :D So once I brought my bags up to my room and unpacked a bit, I began the adventure of finding the IBM plant. The lady at the hotel desk gave me a little map and drew the route I needed to take, but she also drew over the street names, which led to the adventure... I also learned that "bear left" in German means make a U-turn into oncoming traffic - oh God! An hour and a half later, I finally broke down and asked where I was, got my bearings, then some 30 minutes later made it to the IBM plant. Work went well, got to meet the team I'll be working with here - they all seem friendly and more importantly, all speak English well! I left work a bit late, and had to go back to the hotel to call into a meeting back in Austin, which lasted for 3 hours, which meant I was awake for about 33 hours straight, without the Vegas lights and girls to keep me going!

8/10 - The second day at work was pretty low key, though I did have a tasty Swabian (South-Western Germany) dish of lentils, pasta, and two 9" hot-dog-like sausage links for lunch, which is subsidized by IBM, so it cost $2.40 Euro! After work, I met up with a buddy (Louis) from Austin who's also here for a few days, and we went to the Schonbuch Brauhaus/Bier Garten with some new found buddies from work. Very cool place - and what makes it better - its about 2 blocks from my hotel. We sat outside for about 3 hours and then it got quite cool (mid 50's I'd guess), so we went inside for an hour or so. To attempt to keep track - I had 4 beers - a Pilsner, a Hefeweizen Dunkel, a Polar Weizen, and a Horst Hell - all quite tasty. Also had some some Wiener Schnitzel for dinner - not sure why I thought it was supposed to be sausage, but its actually breaded veal - silly American! During conversation, I found out that one of the guys, who's here from Poughkeepsie, is a car guy too, and he already went to the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife to watch some races, but he's happy to go back with me and actually try to race on the track - for 15 Euro you can race your own car! Now I really wish I had played some Gran Turisimo 4 before I left - we'll see if I kill myself - at least I'll die happy! ;)

I've already started an Imagestation Album for my Germany trip, and I'll try to keep it updated, along with my Blog, so people can follow along as I go, as opposed to my Italy Trip, where I dumped 1300+ pictures for everyone to go through at once...has anyone really made it through them all?

Life Altering?

I decided this deserved its own post, as it was the most significant thing that happened over the past few months - my Paw Paw passed away the week before the 4th of July weekend... The 3rd of July would have actually been his 83rd birthday, which was the main reason I was going back to New Orleans - to see him one last time, since his cancer had been getting worse. Instead it ended up being for his funeral. Funeral's are never fun, but are particularly hard when its someone you were close to and care about very much, so I truly thank Fritz and Chad and Mel for coming to support me - it really meant alot - and thanks to everyone for their kind words and wishes.

The funeral, and all the family and friends that gathered, really got me thinking and missing home alot more than every before. The sense of community and family was very strong - the number of people who's lives my grandparents have touched, and how close of a family we have just made me rethink priorities in life. My career is important, sure, but my family and friends are more so -that's how my grandfather lived his life, and he seemed to have a very happy and very full life.

Jumping a little bit, something that the funeral reminded and frustrated me of was my lack of religious faith. God and the Catholic faith was a huge part of my grandfather's life and he seemed to have a more peaceful and happy existence because of it. Chad even jokingly commented about my grandfather's funeral saying that he had never seen so many priests on an alter at one time. I miss the feeling of having more faith many of us had when we were younger, and I don't really know how to get it back. Just something else that's been bouncing around my head since then.

So I'm not sure where this all really leaves me - I guess just trying to live a better life and figure out what really makes me happy and what's important. But then again, isn't that what everybody strives for?

Long time, no blog

Its been almost 3 months since I posted, and quite a few things have happened... I'll go for the short list below, and will probably get some stuff out of order... or maybe not, since, as Chad likes to point out, I'm anal about which day of the week it was, and what people were wearing, and other pointless details when recounting a story.

My Sister graduated from Mount Carmel High School - oh God, I'm getting old! Congrats Donna!

Republic of Texas (ROT) Biker Rally - my first real Biker Rally - was a good time, except for the fact that my bike died the Thursday night before! The wires that go from the alternator to the battery (for charging) got disconnected when I installed my new foward foot controls(oops) - didn't find that out until a week or so later, so I was riding around on battery power. But I did get to see George Thorogood sing "Bad to the Bone". Anyway, pictures from the rally here.

So Chad has accused me of nesting! I've purchased furniture, flowers, and plants for my patio, bought a few paintings and hung them on the walls, bought a violin and hung it and my trumpets on the wall in my "music room" formerly known as the dining room, and put all my car posters up in the garage. Does that constitute nesting?

A few weekends ago, Diego and Anna came to visit the Riche's and we rented a pontoon boat and spent a few ours out on Lake Travis. We also took them to see the Bats under the Congress Ave. Bridge - good times had by all.

And of course, no blog post is complete without mention of cars somehow. A few weekends ago I went to two car shows - the Corvette Summer Celebration and the Texas Heatwave, which, incidentally, I realized I've gone to for the past 4 years and have never had the same person come to the show with me... was it something I said, or just the rediculous amount of scorching heat? And on the opposite end of things, here are some pics from the Car Museum at the Imperial Palace Casino in Vegas - most of these cars with in the $150k-$1m range - crazy.

So Vegas... This was my second trip there, and a bit of a different experience than the first 10 hours of craziness Chad and I spent there 5 years ago (think 7pm-5am). A group of 13 of us went to Vegas for Victor Garibay's bachelor party - it was actually much tamer than I was expecting, but we still had a good time and got in the necessary debauchery. Also learned how to play craps and won $200, and came out +$100 as far as gambling (would have been more if we hadn't stayed up till 11:30am the last night teaching these three sisters how to play blackjack!), so overall good trip!

I was going to write about another major event in my life, but decided it really deserved its own post, so expect that soon... Along with updates from me in Germany - I'm going to try Taylor and Chad's suggestion and try to blog as I go...

Piano Man

The formal dining room of my house has had a beautiful antique brass chandilier and a fooseball table in it for the past year... That's about to change. I recently purchased an antique 1936 Story & Clark baby grand piano. I've been looking for a piano for about 6 months now and I saw this one pop up on Criagslist right after I got back from Rome. I'm pretty excited - I miss playing a real piano - electronic keyboards just don't cut it (or at least not the cheapie one I have!).

I'll use this opportunity to say I think craigslist is great, and as Chad has jibed, I am somewhat addicted. Its the whole feel like you're getting a bargain and "one man's junk is another man's treasure" and my general attitude that I don't really need something new, and in fact sometimes enjoy fixing something up or making it how I want it to be, that buying used stuff allows you to do. Ok, I should probably work on my english writing skills to make this paragrap make sense, but whatever, its my blog, and I'll go for the run on sentence, conversational style. Sorry Carrie :)

Ahh, Roma...

I've been back for a week now, so I figure its time to finally post something about the trip. Well Rome is awesome. Italy is just a magnificant place all together. I was there for two and a half weeks staying with Jenn and Wayne, who I owe a big thank you for housing and feeding me the whole time I was there - and to the Centro (Center for Intercollegiate Classical Studies), where Wayne has been teaching. I ate many meals at the Centro and also got to accompany Wayne and the students on their field trips around Rome. Its hard to describe how cool it is to have your friend, whose specialty is Ancient Roman History, show you some incredible sights around Rome. I did take the train to Florence and Venice and spent a day in each city, which was just enough to get a taste of the both very unique cities - I've decided I need to go back and spend a few days in each! Anyway, I could ramble on for quite a while so I'll cut it short, and let those of you who truly have alot of time on your hands look through the 1300+ pictures I took while I was there! (login:jerrycentanni pw:jerry). And I have to thank Andy and Melissa for insisting that I have coffee and gelato every day I was there - man, I miss gelato...yummm gelato...

Here's the general outline of what I did each day in Italy, for reference to all the pics, and so its logged someplace in cyberspace so I don't forget!

4/21 - Thurs - Day 1
Arrive in Italy

4/22 - Friday - Day 2
Janiculum Hill

4/23 - Saturday - Day 3
Roman Forum w/ Wayne
Victor Emmanuel Monument

4/24 - Sunday - Day 4
Capitoline Museum
various Piazza's
various Churches

4/25 - Monday - Day 5
Forum - Curia, Arch of Constatine w/ the Centro
Quadrinale
Trevi Fountain

4/26 - Tuesday - Day 6
All day with the Centro
Via Appia
Circus of Maxentius
Temple of Romulus
St Callixtus
Santa Constanza

4/27 - Wed - Day 7
Colloseum
Bath of Caracalla
Church of Giovanni e Paolo

4/28 - Thur - Day 8
St. Peter's Basilica

4/29 - Fri - Day 9
Florence

4/30 - Sat - Day 10
Venice

5/1 - Sun - Day 11
Day o' Rest

5/2 - Mon - Day 12
Church of San Clamente
Quattro Coronati
Lateran

5/3 - Tues - Day 13
All day with the Centro
EUR - model museum
Via Latina Necropolis

5/4 - Wed - Day 14
Palatine
Spanish Steps
Piazza Della Popolo
Castle Sant Angelo

5/5 - Thurs - Day 15
Trastevere
Campo De Fiori

5/6 - Fri - Day 16
Vatican Museum

5/7 - Sat - Day 17
Pics of Me in Rome!
Cappucian Monks
Santa Maria Della Vittoria

Italy, here I come...

There's been a decent amount of stuff going on in my life to write about, but alas, I'm a slacker when it comes to updating my blog. Oh well... For those who don't know - I leave for Rome tomorrow afternoon - I'm pretty pumped! My first vacation since I started IBM, and its going to be 2 and half weeks in Italy! I'll be staying mostly with my freinds Jenn and Wayne in Rome, but intend to take a few side trips - I'll update everyone when I get back.