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As bad as I've been at posting to the blog lately, at least I have had a legitimate excuse: Casa SanGiorgio has been quite full of late. Lots of visitors. First, longtime family friends (and blog readers), Warren and Nancy Davis, stopped by for a couple of days. Looking through my photos, I don't have a lot of photos from their visit, but I know that Warren took a bunch so maybe one or two will surface later. At any rate, although they did not stay at my place, and were only here for about one full day, they still got the total Lausanne experience: fondue, the Collection de l'Art Brut, narrow-gauge cog trains, and lots of rain. Next up, another blog reader (and occasional commentor), my Aunt Donna, stopped by for a weekend after she finished up giving a tour in Italy. Luckily for her, the weather was significantly nicer -- it only rained about half the time -- so we got to do some really fun outdoorsy stuff. Fig. 1: This is the only photo I have of my Aunt Donna and I t...

Just got word from the boss that I'll (most probably) be around for another year. So, all of you who haven't visited me yet: you have no excuse now. Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring -- it's all fun. Woo hoo!

It is pretty much the end of ski season here, even in Switzerland; so Mom, you can finally stop sending me articles about people dying from head injuries while skiing. Fortunately for me, though, I was able to sneak in two final days of skiing in April and May -- once at Glacier 3000 in Switzerland and once at Chamonix in France -- with no head injuries to speak of. Hooray! Glacier 3000 is part of an enormous ski area which stretches across the Alpes Vaudoises and Berner Oberland in central/western Switzerland. As the name might indicate, most of the ski area is on top of an actual glacier, which means that parts of the resort are open year around. The top part (which is open all-year) is very gently sloped so it is absolutely perfect for beginners. If you want to go skiing and you want to visit me, this is the ideal trip any time of year! Fig. 1: Glacier 3000. What's cooler than being cool? Since the pistes are easy, a bunch of obstacles and jumps were built to attract more...

Last Saturday, I competed in the annual 20 km de Lausanne . As you might have guessed from the name, it is a 20km race (nearly a half marathon) through the streets of downtown Lausanne. As Lausanne is built on a fairly steep hill, the course involves multiple thigh-burning climbs designed to crush both mind and body. Fortunately for me, though, I'd been training for a couple of weeks, so I was not entirely out of shape for the race. Unfortunately for me, though, I spent Friday night in Geneva with a bunch of moral degenerates and thus was not entirely recovered for the afternoon race. Fig. 1: The course layout. By my estimate, it passes within one block of 15 different apartments that I applied for and was denied. Loren was kind enough to take the train from Grenoble to run the race as well, so I was not all alone (at least at the start of the race). He had not trained at all for the race, but on the other hand, he was smart enough not to have too much fun Friday night -- so...