I only have one funny story to share from my big trip around the world.
When I landed in Germany for Shannon’s wedding, I was hungry. I found a little bakery and bought some croissants filled with chocolate. I took a few bites and thought, “Something’s not right. It tastes funny. But maybe croissants just taste funny in Germany?”
That night I became very, very sick.
During her wedding I was still sick and spent most of the day in bed, a few steps away from a toilet. I watched most of the wedding reception through a window.
Two days later in Croatia, I was still sick. Meg said to me, “Jeffrey. You can’t plan our route based on where toilets are. You need to buy medicine.”
So I went to a pharmacy and nothing was in English. The woman behind the counter did not speak English. So, dear reader, how do you tell someone who does not speak English that you have diarrhea?
That’s right, like some fucked up game of charades I used my hands to gesture shit shooting out of my ass. And then I expressed relief on my face.
She smiled and I left the store with a small jar filled with little pills.
That night I took one. A short time later while on the toilet, I realized, to my utter horror, it was a laxative.
The good news was that whatever was in my body was gone by the morning. The bad news was that by the morning, when I woke up on the bathroom floor, I was a shriveled raisin and my butt hurt.
I went back to the pharmacy and I used my hands to gesture shit staying in my body. The same woman laughed like it was the funniest joke she’s seen since the breakup of Yugoslavia.
If you feel compelled to share this story, do it. You can even pretend that it happened to you.

This month I moved into a new house with a blue roof. The beach is across the street and the Catholic Church Monastery of St. Gerard is above my home.
I have one complaint about my new abode. During our first morning together it tried to kill me.
It was a normal start to a normal day. I woke up late, as usual. I hit walls while walking to the bathroom and I fiddled with the temperature of the shower. I noticed the tub was unusually curved. When I groggily turned to grab the shampoo and sing like Ferris Bueller my feet lost their grip and, as usual, gravity was pitiless.
I fell in the tub. I was embarrassed, even though I was alone. I carefully stood up, dressed myself and went to the doctor. I thought I fractured a rib.
After giving me a series of hugs to assess the damage to my rib cage the doctor said, “You probably have a small fracture. Don’t be a pussy and go to work.”
Apparently I like to start a new year by breaking bones. One year ago I broke my toe. January is a dangerous month.
When I told a colleague at work I slipped in the tub, she said when her mother fell in the bath she broke her nose. When I told Richard about my accident, he said his grandfather died from slipping in the tub.
Be careful, reader. Tubs are dangerous.
Hi. Somehow my RSS feed was acquired by Google. The address has changed, so if you subscribe to this blog you might want to update your RSS reader.
They told me you wouldn’t need to do this. But I don’t believe them!
This is the correct RSS feed: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/JefWeg
Stink!
Violation station
The setting: My desk.
The time: Sometime after coffee but before lunch.
The chief offender: Rod Drury.
§
My phone receives a text message:
“We will probably go to drink around 4. Do you have a lot of work today?”
I look at my phone. It’s sitting on my desk. As my hand moves from the keyboard to the phone, time slows. From out of nowhere, Rod swoops down like an eagle, and within a jiff his talons dig into the guts of my phone, lifting it off my desk.
I see his index finger slide across the surface. He has successfully unlocked my iPhone.
His fingers work it over. He responds:
“It’s Jeff’s boss1 here. He works until 5.”
Slave driver. The nerve! To think I have to work all day.
At least the message was innocent. I thought an iPhone was a full-proof mechanism against Rod. I guess not. The rumors are true — His fingers are in all the pies.
Now if I leave early he’s going to notice!
1. Not only is he the boss, he is the CEO of Xero
I broke my toe three weeks ago. I have a spy at the hospital who pulled my file and sent me the x-rays via PXT.
Here’s the whole foot, notice the break in the pinky toe.

And here’s the break.

How did I break it, you ask?
By saving the life of a child standing in the middle of the road. He was almost hit by a bus!
Actually I hit my toe on the edge of my couch. I heard the crack, too.
I thought I had strong bones from all the milk I drank as a kid. I guess not.
Each winter my writing trickles to a stop. Who knows why?
Last weekend I went skiing on the North Island’s most popular volcano and it was beautiful:

This photo is pathetic! You have to see it for yourself.
§
When I arrived at the ski area, I went to the ticket counter to buy my gear and lift pass.
“Hi, can I have skis, boots and poles, and a upper mountain lift pass?”
“Sure, you might be eligible for a youth discount. Are your parents here? How old are you?”
“I’m 27.”
§
By the end of the day, I had a fresh set of bruises from:
- falling off a t-bar lift with Anouk
As Egon said about crossing the streams, “Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.” The same applies to crossing your skis. Anouk was not happy!
- jumping into a wall of snow
Not nice, fluffy snow. The water which formed this snow used to flow in the sewers of Gary, Indiana, I’m sure of it.
- dodging a boy (like a good samaritan), who happened to fall next to a ski ramp
When I landed, my skies, gloves, hat, etc. were scattered across the field, as if I were Mr. Potato Head and a screaming child threw me against a wall.
In a few weeks I’m flying to Queenstown for some more skiing (yes, I am a masochist). Feel free to fly down and join me!
Last night I met Vicky, Neil and Anouk for dinner.
On my way to Crazy Horse1 someone threw a water balloon out of a window and it nearly hit me. It landed next to my right leg.
I looked up at the sky and shook my fist! They were out there somewhere! It was probably the same person who hit the back of my head with a fork.
I thought I escaped embarrassment. But during dinner, Vicky said, “You should go salsa dancing.”
“I don’t salsa dance,” I said.
“Why not? They always need more men.”
“The last time salsa danced I kicked the toenail off my date.”
“Ouch!”
“I had to make a tourniquet out of a napkin for her bleeding toe,” I said.
“Right,” Vicky said. “I always forget that story!”
Salsa dancing confuses me because there’s too much stepping. One wrong move and bang! She loses a toenail.
If I tried again, I would make her wear steel-toed boots. Not very sexy, but safe.
1. Crazy Horse is an excellent steak house in Wellington. I had filet mignon. In New Zealand “filet” is pronounced “fill it.”
Last Wednesday I gave a presentation to the .NET user group. The presentation was about form design and it was based on research by Luke Wroblewski and Matteo Penzo
Designers (sometimes me) are different than developers (almost everyone at the presentation).1
For example, before the presentation began, Kirk had an announcement:
“After the presentation we’ll give out a keyboard as a prize, so stick around,” Kirk said.
I said, “A keyboard? Excellent! Is anyone in the audience musical? Can anyone play a song?”
…
“No, it’s not that type of keyboard,” Kirk said. “It’s a Microsoft keyboard.”
…
I was the only person in the room who thought it was a musical keyboard.
The presentation went well, and it was fun to meet new people in the IT community. If you went to the presentation, thanks for coming!
Update: the presentation has been posted to Slideshare.
1. Although the title of the presentation made some girls bite the bait! Design can do that.
Two weeks ago I went to New Caledonia. I slept. I ate. I mingled with French people. I also visited a small aquarium between two beaches, where nautiluses (living fossils) swim around.
Noumea’s a nice place. Almost everyone I met knew how to play chess and poker. Games are important when the people you meet can’t speak English.
The city was different… it smelled like Paris.
My camera isn’t used to sunlight so it saturated the hell out of my photos. Everyday looked like this:

(near the Baie des Citrons)
Some interesting people too. The first day at the hostel I had this conversation (imagine my broken French):
§
“Hi. Are you okay? What happened?” I asked.
“This morning my cell phone was stolen. It fell out of my pocket and someone picked it up and turned it off.” he said.
“That sucks. My phone was stolen in Australia too.”
§
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked.
“Last night I left my wallet on the table outside. Someone stole 500 dollars from me.” He frowned.
“That really sucks. I hate carrying money.”
§
I was playing chess with a baker and he walked past our table, looking like death.
“What’s wrong with him? Is he still sad about his cell phone and cash?” I asked the baker.
“No, did you know his father was in the hospital? This afternoon he passed away.”
“Shit.” I said.
§
I don’t know how to console someone in French, and quite stupidly, I felt compelled to say something.
I said, “Tu n’as pas de la chance,” which means, “You’re not lucky.”
It didn’t make him feel better and made me feel like the king of understatements.
Life’s hard, eh?
Yesterday I bought pavlova1 for dessert.
I poured a bottle of cream into a whipping machine, and while fiddling with the plug the machine slipped from my hands! In one instant my kitchen floor went from dirty to rancid2.
While this commotion was in locomotion, the chocolate on the stove was burning in the pot.
Burnt chocolate, cream-less pavlova, rancid floor. How lame.
1. a dessert consisting of a meringue base or cup filled with fruit and whipped cream.
2. our floor was already gross, cream excluded. Instead of tiles we walk on doormats.
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