Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 11:56:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Well boys and girls...

...I'm off to Rome tomorrow.  I'm not sure how long I'll be there, but
probably a week or so.  I'll still be online and reading mail but
depending on what sort of terminal I have access to, answers may be a
little slow.

I decided to buy myself a book to read on the train so I went to the
biggest bookstore in Neuchatel and wandered around till I found their
English book section.  This consisted of a single 2m tall by 1m wide
bookshelf.  I managed to find a reasonable book.  Nice paperback SF novel.
Wanna know the price?  14.40 CHF which is about $14 CAN.  The price on the
spine says $6.99 in Canada.  C'est la vie.  I bought it anyway.  Anything
to keep me from having nothing better to do on the train than read my
quantum mechanics textbook.

I've got a bit of an experience to tell you about.  Okay, you have to
picture this to get the full effect.  Picture a man in his late 40's,
speaks a little English but with a strong French accent, greying hair, one
of those really thin moustaches and a little bit of a belly.  He's wearing
a white shirt, white pants, white shoes and a white belt.  Okay, so you
got a good picture of this in you mind's eye?  Okay, now give the man a
straight razor.  Welcome to Aaron's hair cut :)  Actually, everything went
fine, I was just a little suprised that he used a straight razor to shave
my neck and sideburn tops.  I don't think I've ever had a straight razor
used on me before.  I cannot imagine even considering letting someone
attempt to shave my face with one.

Anyway, I got my hair cut and have been playing with the hair bleach.  I'm
ready for Spring.  Unfortunately, my brother says this is not enough to
get the foriegn babes (and since he's lived in Europe about 5 times as
long as I have, he should know).  Apparently, speaking a foriegn language
is not the answer either.  The magic ingredient for attracting the foriegn
babes is euro-glasses.  I'll have to work on that one when I get back from
Rome.

I finally finished writing the software documentation I've been working
on.  27 pages of crap.  It takes about 15 minutes to print because of the
images and stuff.  I wonder if anyone will ever actually read it.  One
good thing is that most of the people that might actually be reading it
will be non-native English speakers so I don't expect too many complaints
about my grammar.

I dropped a roll of film off for developing (I really don't want to know
how much that is going to cost me) so when I get back from Rome I should
be updating my web page.  In the mean time, check out Gary and Debbie's
cool page at:
http://planeteer.com/~glinn/
A must for Red Dwarf fans.  Also, don't miss out on the White Trash link.
Did you know the age of consent in Delaware is 13 and in Mississippi it's
17, except if the girl is over 12 the statute only applies if she's a
virgin.  And I was worried about oggling the highschool girls in the
cafeteria.

Anyway, I'm pooped.  I've actually been working solid for the last few
days till late at night and then attempting to get up reasonably early the
next day.  Tomorrow I'm going to have to get up at 5:00 or so to catch my
train to Rome.  Bleah!

The European wanderer,
Aaron de Neuchatel