ice hotels

After doing work on my Writing World column and sending in my kids' articles proposal to the magazine I mentioned earlier in the week (fingers crossed!), I went on my first purposeful Christmas shopping expedition late yesterday afternoon. I'm not great with crowds and line-ups and chaos, so I prepared as best as I could by:

- Not bringing a winter coat or other clothing that would get too hot. I can get to the underground PATH system by going across the street, so I only spend a few minutes outdoors. Once I'm underground, of course, I have access to a vast labyrinth of shops as well as to the subway system.

- Wearing running shoes.

- Bringing my MP3 player and headphones. On my player right now: the Bohnhoffs' Manhattan Sleeps, some Hawksley Workman, Jim Boggia, Ron Hawkins, Ookla the Mok.

- My Palm, loaded up with games and things to read for when I'm in line-ups.

- Knapsack. When loaded up, also useful as a cudgel for beating off other shoppers who are trying to get to the same great sale item that I am.

- Cellphone.

Still a lot to do, but at least I've gotten started.

My Pet Peeve of the day: over-enthusiastic sales help. I was in a shop in First Canadian place where a salesperson approached me at least once every two minutes. I know, because I started timing. It was a relatively small shop with about five different salespeople; I had interactions with all of them during my visit. They either asked if I needed help (I always said no, I was just browsing) or wanted to point out some helpful feature about whatever object I was examining, or that they thought I was examining, or that they thought I should be examining.

When I was paying for my purchase, the clerk ringing in the sale asked me if anyone had helped me. I said yes, all of them. The clerk thought I was joking and laughed.





Links/News:

I've updated Waiting For Frodo.

One year ago, I met Moira Allen in person for the first time. Moira and I had been working together for about six years, but all through e-mail and the occasional phonecall. I finally went to visit her in Maryland.

Three years ago, Jeff and I went to Sara's school Christmas concert.

Four years ago, I was still trying to find a chat environment appropriate for Filkhaven.

Five years ago, I looked for Norm Brown, a childhood crush.





Today's Blatherpics:

A practical survey of ice hotels by Parki and me.

	Parki and me at the Jukkasjarvi in Sweden.
	Parki and me at the Ice Hotel in Quebec, Canada.
	Parki and me at the construction of the "Ice Palace" in Pinewood Studios that was used in the recently released Bond movie.

Okay, here's the explanation. I wanted to post a photo of Parki and me that Jeff took just before Parki went to his company Christmas party (Parki had dropped by to give us his annual Christmas CD). But just posting a photo seemed rather dull. At the same time, I came across a photo of an ice hotel which I thought was rather cool (no pun intended). I decided to combine the two. Then I wondered what other ice hotels looked like, started surfing a bit through the Google image directory. You know the rest.