I once did 3 countries in three days with no sleep at all. I was a young man back then. I try to avoid that type of traveling now. I'm not bored though. I got 17 countries under my belt in my travels. Now I got too may critters to take care of and don't want to be away from them for more than a work day. I've been to Germany too. Enjoy your travels. Hopefully you'll get a day off soon and get some rest.

Thursday will be my 63rd birthday. I am kinda beat, I will admit.

But I meant it about being bored to death. That's the only thing that I can imagine being worse.

Germany isn't "travels" for me any more. I live here now.

Sometimes "slower" really is better.

One word for you, DFW: MELATONIN!

Next month, it's Chicago and Washington. THEN you color me fucked up.

"Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healty, wealthy, and dead."

But I lack ambition.

-- Mal

Eats well, works out 2 hours a day, will also be 63 this year, and now looks 40. He also has a scary eye for picking stocks, and has made himself about $45 million from sheer intuition (gave most of it away already to a foundation for education, since the State of Texas doesn't seem to give a crap). He doesn't really care about ambition at this point, just calls it "keeping score."

lazy people.

makes a man nifty, shifty and snide.

nap at three, cocktails at five.

I get up at five to be at work by six. I've been putting in about eleven hours a day on the clock. I'm usually in bed by nine. Most of the time I can't stay up longer than that anyway.

You sound like you log a lot of miles. I log mine on the ground- about 300 miles a day with three or four loads of scrap metal. It's not the least bit glamorous, but it's paying the bills right now.

Driving around in a large truck that rides like a hay wagon is more tiresome than riding around in a car. The part that gets to me the worst though is tarping the loads. But I suppose that's what's keeping me from weighing 500 pounds right now.

But you seem to enjoy your work despite the downside.

I think if you dropped while working, you'd die content. And that's really not a bad way to go.

And I meant it about dying of boredom. I still intend to retire before I'm 90. Pretty safe, since people in my family don't tend to make it to 90. Most not even to 80.

I don't stand much of a chance of dying in bed, because I'm rarely there. I did make it down to Paris, where I now am. Now all I have to do is make it home tonight in time for my wife to say happy birthday at midnight. That is my short term goal in life. I'll worry about the rest in the morning.