topherBLOG » Travel http://chris.merrillblogs.com Nurdery, and the life of a very proud husband and father. Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:45:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Photos from San Francisco http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2009/10/02/photos-from-san-francisco/ http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2009/10/02/photos-from-san-francisco/#comments Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:23:45 +0000 Chris Merrill http://chris.merrillblogs.com/?p=346 I walked home from work today. I saw this neat bike store on market street. Here are the pictures:

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And with the cover removed

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looks like they are from mydutchbike.com

It reminds me of the madsen that Melisa wants.

I was also playing around with the Panorama mode on my phone. IT produced this:

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it seemed kind of cool at the time...

]]> http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2009/10/02/photos-from-san-francisco/feed/ 0 Lifehacker: The Power Traveler’s Checklist, Part One: Pre-Flight http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/10/17/lifehacker-the-power-travelers-checklist-part-one-pre-flight/ http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/10/17/lifehacker-the-power-travelers-checklist-part-one-pre-flight/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:04:44 +0000 http://www.plunker.com/blog/2007/10/17/lifehacker-the-power-travelers-checklist-part-one-pre-flight/ This is a great article: Find the Best and/or Cheapest Tickets

Cheap tickets are the holy grail of travel, and there are millions of methods for finding them. If you've yet to buy your tickets, we've got a few pointers for making that purchase.When it comes to shopping for a ticket, you've got tons of choices. Everyone and their reindeer want to help you find tickets (hell, even Google wants to get you to some cheap tickets), but your best and easiest bets are to either go directly to your airline of choice's web site or start looking for deals online using one of many travel search aggregators. Our favorite search aggregators are:

  • Kayak: Searches across other travel aggregators as well as directly from airlines for the best deal available. We've been big fans of Kayak's results for quite a while.
  • Farecast: Predicts the rise and fall of ticket prices with the intention of letting you know whether or not now is the right time to buy.

Source:
LifeHacker_Logo_Small

]]> http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/10/17/lifehacker-the-power-travelers-checklist-part-one-pre-flight/feed/ 0 China – Tuesday http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/14/china-tuesday/ http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/14/china-tuesday/#comments Tue, 14 Aug 2007 08:18:15 +0000 http://www.plunker.com/blog/2007/08/14/china-tuesday/ What a marathon Monday was. I was so tired that I actually fell asleep in the bathtub. Which is great because I slept very well as a result.

Tuesday brings some real work.

I met Don (my boss) downstairs for breakfast. Dangit he was in a suit. I should have brought mine. So we had breakfast and then I came upstairs to put a Tie on. Breakfast was good. It is at a Western Buffet. I had some scrambled eggs, Bacon, Hashbrowns, a sausage link, blueberry muffin and a glass of milk. It was all really good.

Then we went to the office and got started on the training. (nothing really exciting)

Then it was lunch.

Last time here for lunch, we went to some fancy restaraunts. This time Jon ordered in lunch. Much to my surprise it was Pizza Hut. And it was TONS better than pizza hut back home. Not nearly as greasy. Don tried this seafood pizza that had shrimp and calamari on it. I totally passed on that and went straight for the Meat Lovers. MMMM. Then I had some chicken wings. One wierd thing is that in the US, they cut them apart. Here it is one larger(ish) wing.  Wash it down with a cold Coke Lite (mmm) and it was a good lunch.

More training after that. 6 hours total time listening to yours truly.

Now we are headed out for some tourist activities (shopping and stuff).

]]> http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/14/china-tuesday/feed/ 3 China – Monday http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/13/china-monday/ http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/13/china-monday/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:24:44 +0000 http://www.plunker.com/blog/2007/08/13/china-monday/ So we went to Happy Valley

It was pretty cool. We went on a ride called Golden Wings in Snowfield.
It is one where your feet dangle and the car is attached above your head. It was amazing.

We waited for the coaster called Crystal Wing to open

but it never did.

A couple of interesting rides were:

The one on the right looks like a platform on the top of a big arm that swings around. The one on the left is a big plastic ball you climb inside of and go out on the water. Strange.

 

After we left Happy Valley, it was off the the silk market. I was able to fill some of the requests I received from my family. I look forward to going to the toy market tomorrow. Oh yeah. there will be some work in there too.

 

 


]]> http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/13/china-monday/feed/ 2 China Day One – Travel to China http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/12/china-day-one/ http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/12/china-day-one/#comments Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:14:00 +0000 http://www.plunker.com/blog/2007/08/12/china-days-number-1/ I say Days number 1 because it took about a full 24 hours to get here. The journey started in SLC at about 9am Saturday. I arrived at my hotel about the same time Sunday morning (Utah Time) which is about 11PM in Beijing.

My flight out of SLC was at 11am.

When i finally got to the ticket agent to check in (no kiosks allowed for international travel) it was about 10:30. She then tells me that there is a problem with my ticket. GREAT, i think!

Our company uses this travel agency from Hunstville. So far for me it hasn't been to bad of an experience, until saturday morning.

What happened was the travel agent booked my flight directly with Korean Air, and did not post my ticket to Delta. So Delta knew i had the seat, but no paid ticket. GRRRR. This finally got figured out about 10:40. 20 minutes to get through security. Double GRRRR.

The oh-so-helpful folks at Delta told me i would never make it and they would be happy to assist me in rebooking my entire itinenrary. YEAH, NO THANKS!

I took my ticket and ran. Towards the 50 minute long security line.

I decided to try my luck and go for the Medallion line. Yeah. it worked. (chris-smiling)

It took me all of 10 minutes from ticket in hand to be boarding the plane. Now it was just a question if my bag would make it. My boss was not sure it would make it. Off we go to Seattle.

Its amazing to me how short domestic flights seem these after taking some 12-14 hour flights overseas.

More to come... I have to get ready for Happy Valley

]]> http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/12/china-day-one/feed/ 1 Beijing and Tokyo, Here I Come http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/06/beijing-and-tokyo-here-i-come/ http://chris.merrillblogs.com/2007/08/06/beijing-and-tokyo-here-i-come/#comments Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:12:23 +0000 http://www.plunker.com/blog/2007/08/06/beijing-and-tokyo-here-i-com/ I am headed back to Beijing this weekend. This should be quite a trip.

Sun-Thurs in Beijing;Thurs-Sat in Tokyo.

I througholy enjoyed my last trip to Beijing. I am really looking forward to this trip.

On monday we are going to 'Happy Valley' It is an amusment park. Should be AWESOME.

Now that I am doing more blogging, I will post as things go by.

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