I’ve ridden trains in Atlanta and Boston and even took an Amtrak from Chicago to New York City and back once, but I’ve always wanted to ride one of the superfast European ones. Over the past couple of days, I’ve now done that twice — once from London to Paris, which took about two hours, and another from Paris to Barcelona, which took almost seven. I read online that the train travels at speeds new 200mph. It didn’t seem that fast while looking out the window, but it did seem fast, efficient, and comfortable.

We had first class seats on the train. I didn’t see any other seats so it would be tough for me to compare, but the first class seats were plush and came in multiple configurations, none of them private. Ours ended up being in a two-by-two configuration. Susan and I sat next to each other across from two other people, with a shallow table between us.

On the first half of the trip we sat across from two men who were not traveling together. Both of them immediately opened their laptops and worked the entire time they were on the train. Susan and I played on our phones to kill the time.

About halfway through the trip, the train stopped and both of our seatmates left. We were hoping no one would join us but right before the train began to roll, a small Japanese woman entered our car. It was obvious English was not her first language as she was having a difficult time finding her seat. Susan eventually looked at her ticket and confirmed that she seat was across from mine. After she was seated she began reading a book, I went back to watching movies on my tablet, and Susan went back to her phone.

About an hour into the second leg of our trip, Susan dug a few Starburst out of her purse and handed me one. On a whim I asked her for another one (which turned out to be the last one she had) and slid it across the table to the woman across from me. She reacted in the most traditional of ways — bowing and thanking us multiple times before unwrapping the candy so carefully I knew she was going to save the wrapper. After eating it she thanked us again and told us what a delicious treat it was. Secretly I was laughing a little, thinking of the hundreds if not thousands of Starburst I have eaten throughout my life and never given them a second thought.

A few minutes later, the woman got up and left. Once the train gets rolling people occasionally cange seats and we just assumed she wanted to sit somewhere else. She quickly returned with two small boxes of candy, one for each of us. Through broken English we discovered the candy was Toraya Yokan in some sort of limited edition packaging noting the year. Susan’s said 2024 and had a picture of a dragon; mine was 2025 and had a picture of a snake. We heard the words “special” and weren’t sure if we were supposed to open them or not so we just kind of sat there staring at them. Everyone was trying their best to converse, but there was a pretty big language gap between that small table.

Again the lady left and this time she returned with her nephew, who was also traveling with her and had been studying English at school for many years — a translator!!

And then, it was on.

The woman, who I thought was maybe 25 years old, was actually a few years older than me or Susan. Some of the translation was a bit sketchy, but I believe she is an interior designer and her husband is an architect. Her nephew, Taro, is attending college and is a karate champion. A lot of the conversation involved picking up on keywords and then pulling up pictures on our phones to show one another.

We talked about houses and what our cites are like. We showed them some recent pictures and Susan showed them one from the toy show. I mentioned Marie Kondo (the Japanese organizer) which they knew. We talked about food — sushi and sashimi and bento boxes and giant American hamburgers.

While time on the train seemed to drag when we were sitting quietly in our seats staring at the backside of strangers’ laptops, things changed when we were able to actually make friends with someone. We had such a good time talking to our new friends. Taro (the nephew) travels all over the world and hikes and we were sure to tell him if he comes to Oklahoma, he has a place to stay!

We have had such a good time wandering around London, Paris, and Barcelona seeing the sites, but our favorite part has been the conversations we’ve had with locals and other travelers.

When Susan asked if I was interested in visiting the London Eye, I thought she was talking about the city’s well-known camera/surveillance system or something. She wasn’t. She was talking about the 45-story tall Ferris wheel in downtown London… which we rode.

Unlike a traditional Ferris Wheel, the London Eye consists of enclosed capsules. There are 32 capsules, numbered 1-33 (there is no capsule 13). They say each capsule can hold up to 25 people, although there were only 7 in ours. There’s around bench in the middle people can sit on and handrails all the way around so you can look out the glass walls.

The Eye doesn’t really stop so you have to watch your step when entering your capsule. The whole thing rotates pretty slowly so it’s not too hard. Once inside… off you go.

There are a few buildings next to the river that you can use to gauge how high you are. You can see Big Ben and other sites… but you keep checking those buildings. We were even with the 5th floor… and then the 10th flood… and then the 20th floor… and then over the building. And then way over the building. If you’re looking for an aerial view of London, the London Eye offers one heck of one.

Because the thing moves so slowly, it never really feels like you’re moving. It’s just up and up and up and then down and down and down and all of a sudden, it’s over. The time flew, but according to my watch it took about 30 minutes to go all the way around.

My wife, who has traveled to the UK a few times, warned me about jetlag. I told her that stuff like time zones and daylight savings time doesn’t really affect me and, frankly, I think jetlag is something that tired travelers just made up. I am typing these words at 2:45 AM local time, and stand (sit) corrected.

The first leg of our flight was from OKC to CLT (Charlotte, NC) and was largely unmemorabTle. At CLT, we were granted access to the Admiral’s Lounge, which sounds really elite until you realize there are 200 people in there. We did get some free snacks and WiFi while we waited 2 hours for the next flight.

The next flight was from CLT to London, almost 8 hours. My wife tried explaining to me what our seats would be like, but I didn’t quite get it until we boarded the 777. They were almost like mini cubicles at work. Each “seat” had a TV, multiple outlets (120v and USB), headphones, multiple touchscreens (one for the TV and one for the seat). The motorized seat went from upright to sorta-reclined to really-reclined to flat-as-a-board. The seats down the middle of the plane are joined but have a little divider in case you’re sitting across from a stranger.

On the flight we crossed another 4 time zones, plus the one from Oklahoma. We slept overnight on the plane and woke up and it was 8 AM… except it was really 3 AM for us. We’ve had a really good day Ubering around London and seeing stuff, but boy, am I tired. Except not right now, at nearly 3 AM, when I should be.

Our bags are packed and the itinerary is set. In an hour from now, Susan and I will be heading to the airport to begin three weeks of vacation! This time just Susan and I are going and the kids will be staying at our place.

With assistance from drugs and alcohol, I’ll be taking two flights today — one to Charlotte, NC, and a second to Heathrow Airport in London. We’ll be spending two nights there before zooming off to Paris for another two nights. Next is Barcelona, where we’ll spend a day before boarding a cruise ship and spending the next fourteen days leisurely cruising back toward Miami, making several stops along the way. I’m not sure what ports we’re stopping at but the one I’m the most excited about is Bermuda because, hey, Bermuda Triangle.

While Susan has been “over the pond” before, I never have so I’m looking forward to seeing something new. I’ll try to update the blog during our trip and of course we’ll be posting lots of stuff to Facebook. With everything that’s going on at work it’s probably not the best time to take a vacation… which on the other hand makes it the perfect time to take a vacation!

Last Saturday, Susan and I filled my van up with tubs full of toys and attended our fourth toy show. So far we’ve done two shows at the OKC Fairgrounds, and this was our second one to do in Del City.

We continue to up our game at each show. Most of these shows have a setup period the night before when most people set up their tables and many set up their entire displays. On the day of the show, doors open to vendors two hours early and up until this show we’ve set up our entire display in that two-hour window. This time, we actually drove out the night before and set up our tables and about 1/2 of our stuff. Saturday morning we brought the rest of our stuff and were much less rushed.

At two of the four shows we’ve attended, vendors who rented space directly next to us did not show up on the day of the show. In both cases we were invited to spread our tables out to fill the empty space. The first time this happened we were unprepared to really take advantage of the additional space. We spread our stuff out, but it was a lot like taking the ingredients of a small pizza and spreading it out to cover a large. This time, we brought additional stuff “just in case” and ended up with enough space to put it all out on display.

While it takes more work up front, we had 80% of our stuff pre-priced. That made setup go fast. Susan brought plenty of cash for making change and printed QR codes for using Venmo and CashApp… and then we had two people want to use PayPal, and a few more wanting to use debit cards. We’ll try to account for that next time.

We sold a lot of items for less than $5 and things priced for $10-$20 sold well, but almost none of my more expensive things sold. I brought two 31″ Jakks Star Wars figures from 2014. I checked eBay and the last two sold for $135 and $112. At the last show two weeks ago, I priced them for $100 each. On Saturday I marked them down to $60 and would have sold the pair for $100. Nobody gave them a second glance. When we get back from vacation I guess I’ll put them on eBay.

These sales are a lot of work, but just like last time we made more money in six hours than we make all month at our toy booth so that makes them worthwhile to do. We’ll keep doing these shows as long as we have inventory to sell, which should be at least 5-10 more years.

One of the greatest things about modern computers is the ability to connect multiple monitors. As someone who multitasks 100% of the time, having two or three monitors connected to a computer allows my ADHD-riddled brain to run like a freed stable of wild horses. On my home computer it allows me to watch videos and monitor email while surfing the web or, well, writing blog posts. On my work computer it allows me to monitor email, participate in meetings and chats, and script all at the same time.

Unfortunately, my eyes are getting weaker. The three monitors connected to my home computer are 27″ in size and meet my needs, but the two 24″ monitors connected to my work computer are a tiny bit too small. Recently I’ve found myself making minor mistakes when scripting, and finding those single-character errors can be maddening.

I mentioned this to my supervisor and while there were some larger monitors I could potentially get, they all seemed to be wider but not taller. Now believe me, a super-wide monitor seems cool and I would love to play with one, but I don’t think that would resolve this particular issue I’m having.

And so, I decided to replace my two 24″ monitors with a 40″ television.

Modern flatscreen televisions have HDMI inputs just like a computer monitor, and have resolutions to match. What little information I found online seemed to say that televisions didn’t have the refresh rate of a computer monitor and might not be ideal for high-end gaming, but (a) I wonder if that’s still true as plenty of people game on televisions with modern consoles and don’t seem to complain, and (b) I’m not planning to game on this television.

My personal limitation is that in the corner of my office I’ve mounted a 55″ television to the wall. The mount allows the TV to tilt and swing around but not move up or down. Because of where my desk sits, that gives me a finite amount of space to set a new TV/monitor. It appears to me that the smallest television they make with 4K resolution is a 43″ and while that resolution would be ideal, physically it just won’t fit and I would have to move the mounted TV. The next popular size down is the 37″ which easily fits, but only goes up to 1080p.

While on a quick trip to Sam’s (with money burning a hole in my pocket after not buying anything in January) I found a single 40″ television by Vizio. It’s only 1080p, but it was on sale for $138. At that price I decided to give it a shot and if it didn’t work I could return it or, more likely, find some stupid place like a bathroom or closet to mount it.

While at Sam’s Club I bought a case of Monster Energy Drinks. It cost $40. A 40″ flatscreen television at Sam’s Club costs the same as 84 cans of Monster Energy Drink — unless you buy them at 7-11 for $3, at which point it would only be 47 cans. I digress…

Getting this Vizio television up and running was the most frustrating television I’ve ever worked with. While all I really wanted to access was the HDMI input, the TV demanded that I complete the Vizio login process. That included being forced to create a Vizio account and fiddle around over and over with some sort of “connection” that connects my TV to that account. Even more troubling is Vizio’s rather Draconian EULA that informs you their televisions use “video and audio monitoring technology” that can view or listen to anything you watch — not just their Smart TV content, but anything and everything — and send it back to them for marketing purposes. By enabling their smart television features I would be giving them permission to monitor my work email, for example. No thanks. Of course that’s why this TV costs $140 and not $500. Once I completed all the setup features and performed the required updates, I promptly disabled its WiFi connection.

As you can see above, the television is large but not obnoxiously so, and it clears the television above it by literally a quarter of an inch. If there’s any downside to the video quality as compared to a standard computer monitor, I’ve not seen it.

Really, I’ve only run into one major problem with my new purchase. The television that’s mounted above it also happens to be a Vizio television. When I turned the new TV on with the remote… the other TV turned off! The remote controls both television and no amount of aiming or blocking the sensor with my hand seems to prevent either one from receiving the remote’s powerful commands. In a world where phones connect to televisions and I get text messages from our washer and dryer, the only solution I’ve found is to stand up and physically press the power button.

How barbaric.

While I don’t remember when Big Lots first opened in Yukon, this article says it was in the fall of 1996. A lot of times, especially in a town the size of Yukon, the arrival of a new chain is a memorable event. Based on that article, Big Lots opened a couple of months after Susan and I moved to Spokane, which must be why I don’t remember any fanfare surrounding the date.

At least in the early days, the Big Lots business model involved purchasing inventory in, well, “big logs,” and then passing savings on to their customers. As mentioned in the article I linked to, customers were encouraged to buy things they liked when they saw them because they might not be there next time. That might have been true in the early days, but over time they became more like every other store. For me, Big Lots filled the gap between the deep bargain stores like Dollar Tree and Dollar General, and places like Walmart and Target.

Over the years I bought lots of weird things at Big Lots. One time in the early 2000s, Big Lots was selling small pillows that looked like Jolly Ranchers. I bought one in every color to decorate my movie room with, only later to discover they were intended to be dog chew toys! I bought lots of toys from Big Lots over the years, too. A year or two after Tron: Legacy was released in 2010 (long after the film had dropped off the public’s radar) the toy section of our Big Lots was flooded with action figures and toys from the film, all marked between 1/2 and 2/3 off the retail price. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sequel but because I love (a) the original and (b) a good deal, I ended up buying almost one of everything. I displayed them unopened on a shelf for nearly a decade and later sold them to a fellow collector.

But, things change. Those random, weird arrivals at Big Lots became fewer and far between. The arrival of unique pillows was replaced by a pillow aisle that looked identical to the one in all the other big box stores. Soon there was a kitchen department and an automotive department and, at least in our store, a substantial furniture department full of couches and chairs of dubious quality. And, just like those same stores, big sections of the store became dedicated to holiday items. In September and October multiple aisles were dedicated to Halloween items. Midway through October, Christmas items began to arrive, some of which remained on the shelves until they made way for Valentine’s Day and Easter goods. And while I love a good Halloween store, it was obvious that somewhere up the line the way the chain operated had changed.

Big Lots became my favorite store where I never bought anything. There are two Big Lots relatively close to me (one in Yukon and the other in Oklahoma City) and every couple of months I made a point of visited one of those two locations. I went in every time in hopes of finding something and almost always left empty handed.

While I’m sure Amazon and other online retailers didn’t help matters, what killed Big Lots for me is exactly what they strived to be. Over time, those middle-of-the-road products became less and less attractive. Everything in the store was either less expensive at Dollar General, or better quality somewhere else.

Earlier this week Susan and I visited the Yukon Big Lots probably for the last time. We weren’t looking for anything in particular which is good because most of the store looked like a turkey carcass the week after Thanksgiving. There’s still lots of furniture and some Christmas items that haven’t moved, but many aisles were completely empty. You know you’ve come to the end of the line when there are price tags on a store’s fixtures and shelves.

I’ll miss Big Logs, and I’m not sure why.

A year and a half ago my CPAP machine started telling me it was old. Every time I turned it on, a message popped up on the tiny screen informing me it was old and tired and needed to be replaced. Again my old CPAP, a ResMed S9, was working fine. The only reason I replaced it was because it literally told me it was time to do so.

Upgrading a CPAP is a series of minor pain in the ass events. While the medical industry would certainly not agree with me, as a consumer/patient it feels like a series of arbitrary hoops designed to milk insurance companies. To get my new cPAP I had to have another sleep study done (my fourth or fifth one since getting my first CPAP two decades ago), make multiple appointments to see my sleep doctor, and finally pick up my new CPAP machine. Again, not the end of the world, but multiple appointments, tests, and payments to keep doing the treatment I’ve been doing and has been working for twenty years.

My new CPAP machine, a ResMed S11, has a bunch of bells and whistles my old one lacked. The new one came with heated tubes designed to further warm the air that comes out of the machine and shoots up my nostrils. The new machine also came with a cellular modem that tells somebody somewhere how much I use it. I already know how much I use it, so the data is not for me. They also replaced the small LCD screen that had I could (but rarely needed to) navigate with a rotating dial. The new one came with a large touch screen that adjusts its brightness according to the amount of light in the room, making it impossible to view unless you cover the sensor and trick it into thinking the doom is dark when all the lights are on.

My initial thought was “this new CPAP has a lot of things that could go wrong with it.” It took sixteen months for that to happen.

Last December I began waking up in the middle of the night with my nostrils on fire. It didn’t take long to discover the built-in humidifier was no longer working. It’s a little confusing as to who actually owns the CPAP. It appears to be some sort of rent-to-own plan through my insurance. When the CPAP is broken, it becomes very clear who owns it. Me.

It’s interesting but perhaps not unusual that all the same people I had to see to get the CPAP were suddenly not responsible for its repair. My insurance company said they only paid for the machine and pay for supplies, but not repairs. My sleep doctor was also quick to say “not it.” When we contacted the place that gave me the CPAP they said I could contact ResMed directly as the machine was still under warranty, but if I really really wanted to, I could bring it to them to look at. Second guessing myself and afraid I had dome something to make the machine not work right, I opted to take it in. Secretly I was worried that I had unintentionally changed a setting or broken something by taking it in and out of the van while on my little camping adventures.

The week before Christmas, I took my CPAP back to where i had received it. After a bit of brow beating (I was asked multiple times if I had dropped it or spilled water inside it), my CPAP was wrapped up in a plastic bag, papers were signed, and off it went to ResMed for repairs.

I went back to using my old CPAP. The one that nightly reminds me it’s on its last legs.

After nearly a month, we received a call that my new new CPAP had returned and was ready to be picked up. There was no charge, I was told, and the paperwork I received said that the humidifier had failed and needed to be replaced and daughterboard that controls the heating system had failed and needed to be replaced, and the motherboard had failed and needed to be replaced.

Well, at least the plastic shell was still okay.

We picked up my new CPAP a few days ago and… it’s still sitting in the plastic bag in the floor of my bedroom, waiting to be hooked up. Sometime this weekend I’ll re-disassemble “ol faithful” and put the old S9 back in a box, warning message and all, waiting in case it ever needs to return to service.