Jimmy.Brainflush.com

So I’m leaving for Brussels tomorrow morning. My cousin and sister both called tonight which is like a record for the ol’ answering machine, which I’ve renamed the O, you still don’t have a life. I call it that for the number of messages that are routinely there.

While I’ve moved on in my career, to my family I’ll always be the home computer fix it guy. And that’s okay with me. Because if I wasn’t, I’d never hear from these people. My cousin needed help with her WiFi router, and my sister called to wish me a safe trip. We communicate via VoiceMail, which oddly works well for us.

But back to the not having a life department - I’ve even gotten happy hearing the voices of telemarketers. I’m getting more messages from President Bush’s campaign people. I got a picture of George and Laura out on the ranch. I blame my Wall Street Journal subscription for this.

Ohio is the hotbed for this election, so we’ve been told. I feel life a left wing Undercover Agent at work - I’m surrounded by the Conservative Right - so conservative that any notions I held prior of Republican loyalty have been washed away by the constant barage of we’re right, they’re wrong, black and white descriptions.

On an unrelated note, my Bush impressions have really improved, so I’m kind of okay with him winning even though it may compromise all that we hold near and dear in the free world.

But some of them there right wingers think that Bill Clinton is the devil, and Ann Coulter is the friggin’ Virgin Mary. And, truth be told, if any of the rumors I’ve heard on the Hill are true then odds are that she is far from virginal. Close to Virginia, but FAR from virginal.
Do you ever get the feeling that some of these people, in former lives, were at Klan rallies and such? Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. Amway, perhaps?

As I was driving home tonight from Borders I had my quiet, “Goodbye America” self speech that is new and strange having not really left the American Continent before. I’ve read and watched as much as I can about Belgium, and I am staying in a very trendy part of Brussels.

Rumor has it there are many CyberCafe’s in Europe, so I’ll try and post from these as I have the time. My dream about Big Ben a few years back seems to be leading to my taking a right out to England for a day to confirm and make that visage real.

My good friends at the coffee shop are asking about my book. I will write when I come home. I will study when I come home. Life, as I knew it, might just come back to as quasi-normal as it was.

Why aren’t we ever satisfied? I used to envy every person headed up on planes.. since I was 8 or 9 when Grandpa snuck me and my brother Dave up to the observatory at Midway airport.

I’m the anonymous guy in the Brooks Brothers suit now, Franklin planner in tow, heading off to the Next Big Thing on a Red-Eye to Europe. I’m even dare I say lusting after a foreign automobile. There’s something about the Audi A6 that makes me stare and nearly crash my car when I see it on the highway.
Our Partner in Charge of the Brussels location really wants to grow the office, and I’d like to believe that I could connect some of the technological dots to make that a reality.

Why not?

7.5 hours on a plane. Leave New York at 7:15PM, and Presto! 7 hours later it’s 8:30 in the Morning!

Call Continental a DeLorian, and me a McFly on the wall heading back to the future. Am I a dork or what?

Sleep tight in your home, dear reader. Remember to look up, because up there are all of our hopes and dreams. The satellites - man made and galaxy-made, are amazing and real. If you don’t look up, you might just stay down on the ground with which the familiar and past are so welcoming and real.

It’s different up there. Rainy and cloudy and snowy days don’t exist. Only sunshine and blue skies and white puffy clouds so close you could touch them. That magic will never really die. No matter how many frequent flyer miles pile up, that part of the travelling experience really make you feel closer to God.

The lights we see up there were created long before our planet even knew she’d departed from the Sun. It’s awe inspiring when we think about it, and look up feeling small.

G’night All.
Jimmy