Below the actual photo galleries are two presentations I've been wanting to show off for a while: my old computer art and a collection of receipts and pictures from the Coronado High School Jazz Band's Europe trip in '97. They'll be organized much like the regular galleries.

----------------

Update News

This WAS just going to be the tour-by-receipt, but I got to looking over my photo album from the trip and decided to pick a handful to scan in. I've got scads more where these came from, but these are my pick of the lot. Here we go...

Click to enlarge
(none)	LONDON: Okay, so I didn't scan any of the receipts from Gatwick Airport, where we spent a three-hour layover on the way over (Phoenix-to-London-to-Vienna) and a six-hour layover on the way back (Paris-London-Phoenix). It honestly was less like an airport than it was a big shopping mall where planes happened to take off and land. During the layover on the way over, I ate at the Burger King therein, and I had to try the Beanburger: a patty of refried beans, breaded and deep-fried, then served with the traditional Whopper toppings. I think it was an early attempt at making a vegetarian-friendly burger, albeit one I never saw in the United States. It was interesting, though.
	VIENNA, AUSTRIA: Our first stop on the trip was the worst of them all. Our hotel was not air-conditioned, and we had the good fortune to arrive at the same time as a heat wave, so it was about 95º out during the day -- and then 90º at night, too! Everyone left their windows open to try and get some air moving in, but unfortunately, the only thing that came in the windows was a swarm of mosquitos. Oh, it was fun. The second night we all left our windows closed, and almost passed out from heat exhaustion. And the third night... I don't know if anyone actually slept. I know Chris Cazan didn't; he ordered 300 schillings' worth of adult pay-per-view, not knowing it would show up on his rom bill. Oops. Anyhow, those receipts over yonder are from Rosenberger Restaurant & Market. It was a neat three-story deal in downtown Vienna. The ground floor was the restaurant, kind of an upscale cafeteria. The second floor was where the tables were, and then the third floor was a grocery store. The food was really good, though. The first day (July 2nd) I just grabbed a couple of sodas in the grocery store (Limo 0.5L would be a ½-liter bottle of Limo-flavored soda, if I remember correctly), but on the 2nd day I had lunch there, which was a bowl of pasta with the most amazing tomato-cream sauce I've ever had ("Beilage", which literally translated means "Supplement"... you had to pay for the pasta then for whatever sauce you wanted), plus another Limo soda.
	Someone took this picture of me enjoying my pasta lunch at Rosenberger, then gave the print to me after the trip. The lousy cropping job is intentional; you can see the cafeteria on the first floor behind my table, as I'm right by the edge.
	Joe Starks provides some decency to an otherwise unclothed statue. "Good heavens, man! Where's your trousers?"
	GRAZ, AUSTRIA: The hotel in Graz wasn't anything special, but it was palatial compared to the dump quaint lodge we stayed at in Vienna. There was a little grocery store down the street, and that's where this receipt came from: the Julius Meinl Supermarket. All I got on this particular trip was a Pepsi Light (the first Diet Pepsi I'd had on the trip... 'twas a relief) and a 7-Up Orange, which is something I'd like to see them bring over here. That was some tasty soda. Anyhow, Graz was all about the awesome concert we had...
	We had five concerts to perform on the trip: one each in Vienna, Graz, Salzburg, Lucerne, and Paris. The Lucerne concert was second-best: we performed in a busy train station, yet every time we started playing, groups of people would stop, listen to the song, then take off running for their train. But the best concert of all was here in Graz. We were performing at a night club called Focaccia during their yearly jazz festival (JAZZ NIGHT IM FOCACCIA, as the poster blares). Walking around town doing the obligatory sightseeing in the days before the concert, we kept seeing posters advertising our upcoming concert, so each of us wound up tearing down a poster and keeping it as a souvenir. I figured I'd scan it to go with these receipts. Our name is misspelled ("Coronada Jazz Band") but it was definitely us, and we were closing out the set. "Sa. 5 Juli, Beginn: 19.00 Uhr" basically means "Saturday the 5th starting at 7:00 PM," so we were the closing act for the Saturday night show, and the place was PACKED by the time Maja Jaku finally got off the stage around 10:30. That had to have been the most apreciative crowd of strangers I've ever played for. (The most appreciative crowd tends to be family, since they'll clap for you even if you screw up royally.) We went back the next afternoon and saw the Tarheels' Big Band, although there was practically no one there at 1:00 PM on a Sunday.
	I picked this otherwise-useless photo of the floor of our room in Graz to point out the ever-present bottle of Pepsi Light. I didn't drink much else, save for the occasional 7-Up Orange when I cound find it. And if you focus on the Pringles can, you can see they're Paprika flavored. THAT was different.
	SALZBURG, AUSTRIA: Our next stop was Salzburg. We had gone from the northeast part of Austria (Vienna) to the southeast part (Graz), and now we zigged back across to the northern part for Salzburg. "Salz" is salt: Salzburg, thus, is "Salt City." And that's pretty much what the town is famous for: salt mines, like the one Jason Stringfield and I were in when this photo was taken. "Weißes Steinsalz", by the way, means "white rock salt," which is what that ribbon of white winding its way through the wall above our heads is. We took a very long tour of this mine, led by a young guy who, I thought, hadn't led many tours yet. His English was excellent, though certainly not his first language, but he was nervous as hell leading our big group. About halfway through, he was talking about an earthquake that had befallen the mine 200 years ago. He had said, "These people were, ah, the wictims -- I mean, the VICtims of a terrible, ah..." and he paused and looked at his feet and said, "I apologize, for my English sometimes is not too good." There was a pause, and from the back of the group someone said, "Dude, your English is better than mine!" to which everyone laughed, and he really seemed to warm up to us after that.
	On our last day in Salzburg, we came out for our continental breakfast to find a platter of rolls with a big bowl of what appeared to be gravy next to it. One of the guys began to rejoice. "Finally! Biscuits and gravy! All we've had for breakfast on this trip has been hard rolls and butter!" He took 2 or 3 of the rolls and slathered them with the white stuff, then sat and took a big bite of... biscuits and room-temprature yogurt. The look on his face was so priceless, I almost spat out my Tutti Frutti Geschmäcken tea (it was sweet and red, yet still tasted like tea, sort of). Later that day, I headed down to the Interspar supermarket during break time and stocked up on snacking things... that's a bottle of ketchup (more on that later), three bags of gummi bears (Haribo, which is a pretty common brand, and then Fruchtgummi, which is self-explanatory), a soda of some sort, a couple of candy bars, and Mozart Wuerfel (Cubes), which are those great little gourmet chocolates I have shipped in every so often since I fell in love with them on this trip. There's a place in Philadelphia called Gourmet of Olde City that imports them (not the cubes, specifically, but the Mozart Kugeln, or Mozart Balls), and whenever the weather's cool enough, I order a couple of bags and keep them in the fridge. I'm out for the summer right now, but as soon as it's cool enough for chocolate to make it 3 or 4 days in a UPS box without melting, I'll order some more. I mentioned that bottle of ketchup I bought. I'm a ketchup nut. Can't help it; I've always liked it, on so many different fods or, occasionally, just by itself. They had some regular brand on sale at Interspar, so I picked up a bottle. It was a little different than our standard Heinz or Hunt's here: a little more thick, less uniform in texture, and definitely with more tomato flavor. As it was with the chocolates, a few years later I began to wish I had some more of it, so in my search to find out where I might get some interesting ketchup, I came across Ketchup World. I've ordered from there a half-dozen times now, trying nearly everything in their catalog. Right now I have six different varieties of ketchup in my fridge, ranging from organic to rich to weird (try ketchup made from bananas instead of tomatoes). This just proves that you really, truly CAN find ANYthing you want on the Internet.
	INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA: Between Salzburg (Austria) and Lucerne (Switzerland), we stopped off in Innsbruck for lunch and to visit the Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds) just outside of town. I remember the lunch I had there in Innsbruck because it was terrible: a second-rate fish sandwich I'd bought at a deli. Blegh. But anyhow, we weren't there long, which was a shame, because I would have liked to explore the city a little bit more. You know... Sound of Music country. Anyhow, we were shuttled off straightaway to the Swarovski tour. You've probably seen at least one Swarovski Crystal store in a mall or airport somewhere or another, and this tour that we took showed us where most of their crystal comes from. Then we walked through the gift shop, and let's just say that most of the stuff therein was out of my price range. But it was a neat tour nonetheless, and I saved my admission stub.
	LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND: By the time we got to our fourth major stop, our chaperones were growing weary of ruling over us with an iron hand, and so we had a little bit of leeway to have some fun in Lucerne. We were allowed to choose between going on the formerly-mandatory sightseeing trips or staying in our rooms for a few hours, and I usually chose the hotel room, not understanding that a few years later I'd look back and wish I'd taken the opportunity to see these amazing cities I was in, places which I might never have a chance to see again. My roommate (we were two to a room) took note of the soda machines there in Switzerland: the one just down the hall from our room contained Coke, Coke Light, Fanta Orange, 7-Up, and two varieties of beer. Naturally, on our first free afternoon, he managed to get two beers from the machine and smuggle them back to our room unnoticed. (The chaperones might have been more agreeable, but they were still very observant. I was surprised he was able to pull it off. Mind you, nary a handful of us students were over 18 on this trip, and certainly none over 21. Though it was legal over there, we still had to obey by our own laws as far as drinking age went.) He offered me one that night, and when I declined, he shrugged and said, "S'alright, more for me then." Apparently, their beer was slightly more stiff than he was used to from back home, since he woke up the next morning with a raging hangover and was miserable all day. This receipt is from Pizzeria da Tommaso, a neat little Italian place that myself and two of my friends had lunch at one afternoon there in Lucerne. I was way, way ahead on my spending money, so I sprung for lunch. (The exchange rate per dollar was way different between Austrian schillings and Swiss marks; "62.20" paid for three pizzas in Switzerland, while that amount of schillings would have bought about 4 bags of gummi bears at the Interspar in Austria.) I had one of the Quattro Stagioni pizzas, which I remember being very tasty... I remember it had a bunch of artichoke hearts on it, of which I'd never been a big fan eating them straight from the jar though I'd never had them cooked before. I'm sure I had the Cola Light, whereas the other people who were with me had the "Lemonsoda" and the "Rivella Rot", which really sounds nasty in English. One of the people with me wanted "a plain, old sausage pizza," but they had to settle for a salami pizza, which they said was "kinda like pepperoni, but good enough."
	I put this picture in here to show the general chaos that ensued whenever we tried to unload the bus. This is us disembarking at that big train station for our Lucerne concert. That's Mr. Ingram front and center, trying to direct traffic. Kat Kumlin is clinging to Geoff Hoag on the left side of the shot, and behind Mr. Ingram, you can see Brooks and Rob discussing something with Dave Glascock. I think that's the back of Steve Mineer's head behind them.
	I'd like to think that I snapped this picture because I was fascinated by the electric buses in Lucerne. Unfortunately, knowing that I was a 16-year-old male, I probably took the picture because the building BEHIND the bus is called "Restaurant Gotthard." ...and, then, cue Beavis and Butt-Head laughter. It WAS 1997, after all.
	PARIS, FRANCE: Ah, sweet Pah-rree. This was our longest stay, at four days and five nights, and also the most like home, in my opinion, in the sense that in the tourist-heavy places we visited, they try as hard as they can to attract the English-speaking dollar. I don't know if I liked that or not; I enjoyed being totally in a different place for a while, like it was while we were in Lucerne or Graz. On our first lunch break in Paris, everyone flocked to the nearest McDonald's, while Brooks, Dave Glascock, and myself went in search of something more local. Brooks had not found Dr. Pepper anywhere on the trip to that point, but at the little kebab joint we found, they had Dr. Pepper in the can, and Brooks bought five or six, even after I pointed out that, through the exchange rate, he was paying out the nose for them. Paris was also our biggest stop for seeing things I knew about. We toured the Louvre, we toured the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was about 7:00 am when we were on our way to the tower, and our tour guide was way too caffeinated for this early-morning journey. I remember being irritated that he wouldn't let me sleep, and I remember him describing how to say Eiffel. "Ferrst off, eet eez not 'EYE-full', like most Americans say it. Eet eez also not 'I-Fell'. You say 'I-Fell', I say 'Who fell?' Ze correct way is to say 'EE-fell'. Ze EE-fell Towehr." No one showed particular interest in what he was saying anyhow. That accompanying picture is my admission ticket to the Eiffel Tower, or more properly, the Ascension de la Tour Eiffel, or the Eiffel Tower Elevator. You're allowed to walk around the base of it all you want... it's just a giant sandbox, more or less. You have to pay to ride the elevator up. One evening, we ate at a super-high-class French restaurant (go figure!), and I tried paté for the first time. Am I wrong for thinking it looked like cat food? But at least I tried it. Most of the people in our group just passed on it. In several of the public restrooms, including the one in our hotel lobby, they had these amazing self-cleaning toilet seats. The actual part of the seat that your butt touches was detachable from the rest of the seat. When you pushed the Flush button, a little robotic arm popped out of the toilet. On the bottom of the arm was a little roller with disinfectant on it, and on the end of the arm was a little catch that slipped over the inner edge of the toilet seat. The roller would start to spin, and the seat would rotate around underneath the roller and pick up a fresh coat of disinfectant. We were transfixed. We'd stand there and flush the toilet five or six times and just watch the thing work.
	A shot of the Eiffel Tower, from the shade of a copse of trees near the base. If I remember correctly, it was nasty hot that day, so the fact that I got my picture from the shade doesn't surprise me.
	A collection of photos taken from the highest point on the Tower they'd let us go. I took eight or nine shots of the city from various points around the spire.
	Approaching the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The lousy angle and quality of this and the Eiffel Tower picture prove to you that it was actually me taking these photos, and that I didn't just pick them off of postcards.
	Oh, don't EVEN get me STARTED on my missing pictures from The Louvre. I dutifully obeyed all of their photo-taking rules throughout the museum -- no flashes, no flashes, no flashes!! But I used a whole roll just in the Louvre, and I took a good 3 or 4 shots of the Mona Lisa. So, I get back to the States, and I have all of my film developed at once. What do I find in the envelope that should contain my pictures from The Louvre? This one print I'm holding in the scan-job at left. "UNPRINTABLE ORDER?" I raged. The photo clerk at Walgreens told me that there must have been a defect in the roll, because all of the negatives were completely exposed. It was true; they were all blanked out. I'd heard that even if you were so crass as to use a flash in the Louvre, many of the protective panes of glass around the more-important pieces would reflect brightly and cause your picture to be for nil anyway, but that wouldn't explain what happened to my roll, since I SPECIFICALLY know I didn't use a flash at all (and, to think, I was worried the pictures wouldn't come out well for that reason). Oh well. I'll have to make my way back someday and take another roll's worth.
(none)	LONDON: Then back through Gatwick airport, and back to dear old Sky Harbor. It was 116º the day I got back into Phoenix, and I remember enjoying just how perfectly dry the air was when I stepped out of the terminal into the parking garage.

W00T! That's all for this page for now. Check back often, as I might just find more and more things to add.