Taylor Vafiades

I like to think of myself as a pretty open minded guy but this I just couldn’t get my head around black pudding. And because of that I wanted to try it and came pretty close to doing so. Eventually I realized that there is really no reason these days to eat such a thing. Organs I understand in rough times but I can’t imagine the situation that would come up where you would need to eat blood. That’s super rough. At least I found my limit which I don’t think is too bad.  My trip to Scotland was great except the hotel I stayed at was in the middle of nowhere and was about 20 miles from town. Plus they didn’t have any food really except breakfast where I could get some lovely black pudding. I had one really good day of weather there so I did manage to take a boat out on the Loch, go to the Foyer and see the Eilean Donan Castle where Highlander was filmed. I was also able to snap a pretty good shot of Nessie below.

I met a pretty cool cab driver who took some pictures of me also. I didn’t eat much while I was there and ended up catching the Scotch Flu as Toenails put it. It’s basically just a really horrible cold and I ended up passing it to Eric and Mark when I got back. In fact I have been in England for a few days now just trying to get geared up for driving up to Holland with Eric and TIffany tonight. Copious amounts of rest combined with Trailer Park Boys and Futurama over the past few days and I feel great today and ready to take the ferry to France! Waste of time? Nope. I am, after all, on vacation.

Tiffany just got here and we’re getting ready to leave when Eric gets home from work.  Only two more weeks in Europe and then its back to California. I’m only in California 6 days and then I’m off to New York for a month with my Mom. Originally I intended to keep this blog just for my Europe trip but I think I’m going to continue to keep it for my trip to New York and travel beyond. I can’t wait to get back to California and work on Media Medic with much support from friends like Brian and Shelly and Jurgen. Working for myself should allow me to continue to do the things I like to do and travel and still be in “the system”.

The weather here has been typical for a summer in England but has been driving me nuts. Sunny outside one minute raining harder than you’ve ever seen sideways the next then sunny 30 minutes after that. Because of this I wasn’t able to iron out a beach trip to Cornwall. I was able to work with Eric and get the website for one of the businesses (www.mediamedic.org) we are going to be working on in the states. It’s live but still needs minor corrections and additions.  If you see any errors please send them to Taylor@mediamedic.org.  Eric’s dad has already let us know about a few things we might want to look at and those should be corrected shortly.

Back to my trip.  I decided to take a train up to Inverness in the highlands of Scotland for a few nights. It was tough for me to find a place to stay in such short notice but I was able to after a few hours on the phone. I’m excited about seeing the castles and William Wallace exhibit.  Maybe I’ll even catch a glimpse of our underwater ally. I should be able to take some amazing pictures there assuming the weather is somewhat decent.

A side note before I leave. My power adapter I brought from the states for my laptop melted tonight. I have 1 hour or so until my computer is dead for the rest of the trip unless I go and try to find another one. I’m bummed because it just happened but won’t worry about it until I get back.

So I’ve been trying to get a few websites up before I leave to the beach because lately the weather has been shitty here in England. It’s given me time to dust off my HTML skills and think about new ways to generate traffic. I was thinking Spain but might just go down to Cornwall and chill out for a few days before I begin the last stretch of my trip.  I have also been trying to keep up on emails and getting pictures up. I was able to get a few for DOTS that Eric took but I have tons more for it as well as Brighton , Ghent and Rotterdam. I will do my best to get this done before I leave in the next few days. I wasn’t sure if anyone actually read this blog for the first month or two but it’s worth all the time I put into it knowing that some people do even though they might be busy with other stuff. I have been listening to a lot of good music out here in the UK as well and wanted to make a video section on this blog but it didn’t work out. I can’t link most of the stuff I want to from youtube. Sam Sparro - Black and Gold is the first song I really heard in the UK. I dig that new Weezer video Pork and Beans and Perfect Situation too. Euro late night MTV is unmatched. Time for me to go upload some more pictures.

Eric got his .mobi address for his http://www.pixelfactor.org website which is really great because it can be accessed via cellphone now. Below is a blurb from his new http://pixelfactor.mobi address. To the right is a few other blogs I enjoy reading from different people I know.