What has happened from the last blog-post:

• Quite simply: A LOT! (hence no blog updates for quite a while)
• Trip to Baltimore Aquarium
• Baltimore Orioles baseball game
• Trip to Annapolis
• Night out in Hunt Valley and seeing X-Man: First Class
• Celebrating 4th of July (NYC visit for my brother, work for me :-)
• Hell of a BBQ party
• And… still no internet connection :-(

When I started writing this update, the very first sentence went like this. “This week, we will get finally connected!” Wel, that’s not true anymore… The reason being Verizion trying to fool us and give us a contract with huge penalties for early termination of the service. So we finally decided to stay without stable connection in our apartment an instead use free public library WiFi. At least we will do something else too :-)

But back to our adventures in US. Work is kinda OK, nothing really new – sometimes easy, sometimes busy… all-in-all, it’s OK and since our friends from high school arrived a week ago, we have a lot of fun at the pool. And lot of playing around the diving board as well (see Facebook profile from Petr S., he has the most hilarious videos shot with waterproof camera :-)

On our days off we try to travel as much as possible around East Coast so that we can do something really BIG in September (West Coast, Caribbean Cruise? :-). On our “bucket list” were among other things The National Aquarium in Baltimore and baseball game. We did both on Friday 24th June and we loved it.

National Aquarium is basically a huge building filled with fauna that is at least somehow water-related. Apart from sharks, stingrays, all kind of fishes… you can find there tropical frogs, reptiles, jellyfishes, birds. Just like a ZOO, only water-specific. We got our combo-tickets with 4D IMAX theatre movie and also a dolphin show, which I enjoyed the most (despite what I learned after watching The Cove).

As for the baseball game, we got a chance to see the match between Baltimore Orioles (= O’s) and Cincinnati Reds. Not a very prime game, but what the heck. We got our tickets for 6$ (students’ discount on Fridays) and as those were the cheapest ones, our seats were not really that good :-). But after first 4 innings (= something like a set in tennis games), we decided to go and see if there are any better ones by the playground. And boy, we got lucky. We moved to a place located right above the batter and people sitting around us were the most dedicated fans, so we had an amazing time screaming, chanting and high-fiving. What a truly American experience :-). As if this was not enough, the game ended as a tie by the end of standard 9 innings, so there were extra ones. In 12th inning, Reds almost scored against the home team, but O’s prevented that from happening by outing the player by less than a couple of inches before he reached the fourth base. And right after that, O’s hit a homerun and the whole stadium went berzerk :-). The only thing left was a winning celebration fireworks at the very end of the game… Ohhh wait, that happened too! :-) Well, it couldn’t have gotten any better!

And all that took place in just one Friday :-). After that, it was a work-weekend for us, but that was OK because we were planning to go to King’s Dominion on Monday. So we have quite something to look forward to… Unfortunately, that did not work out as our supervisor got sick. But that’s not a reason to whine and be sad.

We decided to stop being sad and be awesome instead, true story :-)

And we also decided to go to Annapolis. Even though we didn’t plan anything, we were surprised how beautiful this (once-capitol of US) city was. Apart from some important historical buildings and sights, which do not interest me that much, I was stunned by the US Naval Academy (= university for naval officers). It was huge, outstandingly beautiful, historical and very sport-related. The facilities for all kind of sports were just huge – I bet there were more playgrounds, running tracks, gyms etc. than in all Prague :-). I even started thinking what would it be like to study there…

Apart from Naval Academy, we also gut lucky and  were able to cheer up the very last rider of Race Across America (3000-mile long “race” with 170 000 feet of climbing, see official RAAM site for more info). He crossed the finish line walking with his son and it was very emotional and inspiring. The craziest thing is that the winner covered the distance in 8 days and 8 hours. And yes, I am not denying that I won’t do this crazy race one day :-). After our arrival back to Cockeysville, we decided to go to Hunt Valley and catch a movie (new X-Men: First Class). Of course, that meant that we had to go to Chipotle too :-)

Well, I guess that’s all for our travelling in recent days. Even though there was a huge celebration across all US – The Independence Day on 4th July. My brother went to NYC and met up with our cousin for 3 days… and based on what he said, he got the most amazing time ever. First time in NYC, what else would one expect :-) Well, and for me… not so sparky. I got to work on 4th, and since the transport to Baltimore downtown was a bit complicated in the evening, I decided to stay and enjoy the fireworks/celebration in our very tiny village Cockeysville, and catch up on le Tour. I was in NYC for the huge celebrations last year, so I bet Baltimore wouldn’t triumph that… :-)

The very last thing I want to mention is our (only!) second BBQ. A lot of people from around Baltimore came (thanks to our supervisor who worked as a taxi driver that night :-). We got lot of food, lot of booze… and a whole lotta fun. I hope the next one will happen a bit sooner.

That’s all folks. I hope ya’ll are enjoying the summer like we are. The time is flying by and only a few weeks left… and before you know it, we will be back in Prague (on 20th Sep)!

Related links:

• Photos from Baltimore and Annapolis on my Flickr (whole USA collection).
• My brother’s note about week 5 on FB.
• The Wire – an interesting TV show about life in Baltimore :-)

I’m going to close with our plans for the rest of the summer. Nothing specific planned, but this are things I’d like to do in the upcoming weeks:

• Trip to NYC and volunteering for Nautica Triathlon that I competed in last year.
• Another trip to Washington D.C.
• Trip to Six Flags with our LiveStrong supporter from Czech Republic.
• Rent a car and go to Ocean City & Atlantic City.
• Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland.
• Trip to Philadelphia and participating in LiveStrong challenge over there.

Už to jsou 3 roky, co si pravidelně — každý týden — ukládám 1 fotku do speciálního alba na Flickru.

A to s jedním jediným cílem – zachytit ty NEJ události a okamžiky, ke kterým v průběhu roku dojde.

Ono se to nezdá, ale když si takto zrekapitulujete uplynulých 52 týdnů, nestíháte se divit, jak rychle ten čas letí.

Ta 3-minutová videa si s oblibou pouštím několikrát do roka. A je opravdu zajímavé sledovat, jak se člověk mění a jak se mění i prostředí okolo něj. Taky mi pomáhají s připomínáním toho, že v životě bychom se měli řídit tímto mottem:

Do you live like today is the last day of your life?
~ Lance Armstrong (maybe :-)

Aneb carpe diem, jak říká můj milovaný bratr :-)

Pro úplnost zmíním ještě popis projektu na Flickr skupině:

Once a week post a photo of something you are most grateful for. This gives us a chance to reflect on the good things we have learned from or that have made us better in our everyday lives or things we just enjoy! I think everyone needs to be more grateful for what they have now days instead of always thinking about what we want! This is one of the things we can do to be more gracious people. It will be like a photo gratitude journal.

A závěrem – pokud jste předchozí Blessings projekty neviděli a máte chvilku volného času, mrkněte na rok 2009 a rok 2008.

Již druhým rokem aktivně přispívám do skupiny 52 Blessings na Flickru. Loni jsem byl s výsledkem náramně spokojen, letos je to ještě lepší!

S konceptem 52 Blessings přišel poměrně populární newsletter Photojojo.com a jeho podstata spočívá v tom, že každý týden vyberete jednu fotku, která je svým způsobem jedinečná. Výběr samotných snímků je zcela indviduální a neřídí se žádnými pravidly; můžete prostě a jednodušše vzít fotku, která se nejlépe povedla, anebo například tu, která daný týden „reprezentuje“ pokud možno co nejvíce.

Originální popis již zmiňované skupiny na Flickru je následující:

Once a week post a photo of something you are most grateful for. This gives us a chance to reflect on the good things we have learned from or that have made us better in our everyday lives or things we just enjoy! I think everyone needs to be more grateful for what they have now days instead of always thinking about what we want! This is one of the things we can do to be more gracious people. It will be like a photo gratitude journal.

Má kolekce rozhodně není dokonalá, nemluvě o kvalitě některých fotek. Myšlenka celého konceptu je ale jednoduše geniální; a navíc perfektně doplňuje můj weekly-review projekt, do kterého jsem se pustil po přečtení GTD bible od Allena. O tom ale až zase někdy jindy ;-)