Jumped on a short 2 day workshop for a major customer here.  The flight time for the trip is equal to the time in town.

Weather is amazingly warm and wonderful.  Sydney is very walkable (at least, the downtown area).

Managed to creep up to Chinatown in a roundabout way, found this restaurant called Mamak.  This definitely warranted a lunch stop.  It didn’t disappoint, wonderful food, if a bit expensive.  Come to think of it, everything is expensive here.  A regular can of soda cost AUD$3.20 ?!  Anyways, tried the curry lamb, sambal shrimp, fried rice and a regular roti canai.  All good stuff.  Like the name implies, the place focuses only on a limited range of Malaysian food – specifically, selections of the more popular mamak-style food.  Great business decision, serve only a few things but cook them well.  Was told that this was the best Malaysian restaurant in town, what luck!!

Have had several discussions regarding all the baby “stuff” that needs to be purchased.  Am amazed at how everything is built to look good but assembled cheaply (won’t last long).

This Delta dresser I just assembled, was quite impressive when assembled.  However, the drawer bottoms are simple slide in boards (like IKEA furniture), as is the back of the dresser.

Looks like if you want something to last and built well, you’ll need to spend the few hundred bucks.

Wahoo, Vegas and CES, fun times, right?  Wrong.  Came down with a cold earlier in the week so I sounded pretty bad.  And caught a bout of food poisoning from one of the restaurants in the MGM Grand, that pretty much knocked me out of commission for 2 days, so much for enjoying Vegas.

Anyways, was not happy with the whole situation and it impacted my work significantly.  ’nuff said.

Convinced the wife to try out a 2006 Lexus 400h (the hybrid SUV).  Drove smooth, had decent mileage for its size.  And it was priced lower than a new Honda CR-V that we were originally thinking about.  Made this deal easier to swallow.

Have to like Lexus quality – everything was nice and comfortable.  RX design is spacious, that trunk can hold plenty of cargo and still seat 5 comfortably.

A couple things however, changed the air filter, cabin air filter right off the bat, they were filthy, as expected.  As this was a hybrid, there’s more wear and tear on the normal car battery, so had to replace that fairly quickly as well (within the month) – Costco has cheap car batteries with 3 yr guarantees, only $70 to replace.

This is one of the smallest, less affluent countries I’ve been to but it looks like any other eastern european locale.  I do like observing the old Communist-era buildings vs newer construction in the past couple decades.

The city is small enough not to have any major hotel chain present, which leaves you with the only option for a 4-star establishment.

Again, the weather sucks in winter – snow, snow and more snow.  So from what I could tell, Chisinau is white and slushy at times.  Suffice to say, too busy again to explore the surroundings.

Took the red-eye flight across the country to make it here in the late morning for another convention.  Surprised myself by sleeping through most of the flight.

Weather is fantastic! Warm, humid and rainy.  A lot like Seattle, except much warmer … a couple days later … Weather here is wacky.  Cool day, then a sudden heavy downpour which almost immediately goes away.  Granted I’m not watching the weather news at all.

Fabulous meal at Le Coq Au Vin – kicked off the meal with seared ahi appetizer, a half portion of the cassoulet and polished off the grand marnier souffle for dessert.  This place is so good, I came back the next night.  This time, started off with the chicken sausage gumbo followed by the lobster topped grouper (this was amazing).  Their creme brulee was just average by comparison.

Capped off the last dinner of the week at Capital Grille – a high-end steak chain.  What do you expect? Excellent service, great food.  The lobster & crab cake appie was quite impressive and delicious.  They have dedicated wine lockers for regular patrons – one of them was listed as Warren Sapp (retired NFL player, I assume).

With all the traveling I’ve been doing lately (the year started slow), I found myself moving up in the United frequent flyer ranks …. wahoo! made the Premier Executive level which means I get to board sooner.  That’s about the only perk I need aside from free upgrades.

I accompany my CTO on occasion.  With the global services status he has, I get treated like royalty just by virtue of traveling with him.  Amazing stuff.  It has also spoiled me when I do not get to ride his elite-flier coattails.  Among the nice benefits – instant priority upgrades, automatic flight re-booking (multiple) if any connection is delayed.  And of course, you get to board before everyone else … and I mean, everyone else.  Am not sure what it takes to get to that status level but it practically means living on the road.

Hopped to go on a last minute trip to Denver, CO.  It was snowing when the plane landed, wet, slushy sleet.  And 2 days later, it still is snowing.  Most of it melted but it is enough to make things wet and cold.  All this traveling is really cutting into the time I need to devote to getting the new house fixed up properly and move in.

Can’t really say I’ve seen much of Denver, cooped up in the hotel room and it’s miserable outside.

Dinner at Panzano was decent – it is the restaurant inside the Hotel Monaco.  I had the duck leg main course – served over polenta.  Not sure if that was the best choice.  Would have preferred risotto instead.  Forgot how fatty duck was, especially those legs but the meat was delicious, if a little salty.  Dessert was capped off with the tiramisu, excellent stuff, almost as good as the homemade original tiramisu I had a while back in Bulgaria.

Rioja – nicely located in what looks like the most happening parts of downtown Denver.  Classified as mediterranean cuisine, it stands out as a organic, fresh, green, eco-friendly joint.  Not that it matters to me, I just want good food.  And good it was.  The calamari appetizer has a nice lime flavor.  The flatbread with carmelized onions and other stuff (it had me at the onions) is extremely tasty.  I stuck with another serving of duck (the breast) and it turned out to be significantly better than what I had at Panzano.  Dessert was topped off with a hazelnut something something, looked fantastic, tasted great but I was too stuffed from prior plates.  My short term memory isn’t what it used to be.  Great presentation on all the food.  Pretty busy place for a Thursday night.  Reservations are made online.

Got to hate convention food – overpriced, tasteless crap and you really have no choice.  What’s worse is the lack of cleanliness.  Saw the cook and attendant at one Mexican food corner touch the food without gloves and without cleaning their hands after moving about.  Sigh.

Another project brought me here.  My hotel reward points are now slowing spreading out evenly between both Radisson and Marriott chains… bleh.

Winter is always an interesting time to travel, never know what to expect.

Riga is one of the better eastern european cities I’ve been to.  Ate mostly in the hotel simply because it was too cold to walk out in the evenings.

However, I did manage to make it to restaurant in the Berg hotel.  Simply amazing, great food.

Didn’t have time to take a tour of the city, maybe next time.

Am exhibiting at a show at Amsterdam – a week of long hours which starts m on a Fri through the weekend into the following Wed.  Organizers didn’t seem to think this through very well.  The show was from 9 to 6pm daily – quite painful if there’s little chance of a break.

In any case, we (my colleagues and I) rented bicycles as it was a lot quicker to navigate around town compared to taxis or the tram system – with 1000’s of people for this event, it’s a long long wait for anything.

Exhibition food services were the usual overpriced fare, but actually tasty. For the tiny size of the booth, there seemed to be a constant flow of traffic, kept things very busy.

Managed to catch up with old friends one night over dinner, wine, lots of talking.

The hotel I stayed in, had just the basics, was very worn down, tight room with an even smaller bathroom (I think this hotel room is the smallest I’ve ever stayed in).  No fitness center, was about to throw myself into the canal.

From the helpful viamichelin site, there were a few outstanding restaurants that we managed to find.  A couple that stuck in my mind:

Tempo Doeloe – an Indonesian restaurant that’s constantly packed.  One tiny shop lot sized establishment.  Great food, tasty, delicious and for some dishes, extremely spicy, just the way I like it.  The rijstaffel menu gave a decent selection of entrees, although the serving sizes were in tiny bowls.

De Compagnon – This place deserves a honorable mention and is about as highly recommended as I can make it.  The food here is superb, a small hole in the wall place off the main “touristy” streets.  Located in the heart of Amsterdam, overlooking the canal.  We took the 5 course pairing dinner and every plate was excellently presented while tasting even better.  A mix of meats and seafood.  The icing on the cake was dessert.  It was called Pot au feu … ice cream in a little pot that was baked with pastry on top, just wonderful.  I will definitely be back here again the next chance I get.