Hail to the Redskins!

Hopefully yesterday's hard fought win will bring some of the doubters on board with the solid Redskins program this year. But, we still have another big division road game coming this weekend. A win in Philadelphia will certainly help our cause, too!

My Beloved Redskins

You know, it's hard to believe that the Redskins are being counted out by just about every columnist in the nation. Granted, they are, currently, in last place in the NFC East. However, considering that their record is 2-1, there's nothing to be ashamed about and it certainly seems a bit premature to panic!

Consider this:

* The Redskins are in arguably the toughest division in football, yet played a close game against the 3-0 defending Super Bowl champions in their first game under their new head coach.

* They then took on the Saints. Granted, the Saints are 1-2 team, however, another 7 points and they'd be 3-0. Their win came against the 2-1 Buccaneers, who are hardly slouches this year. And the Saints other loss came against Denver, considered one of the top teams in the AFC, which was decided by only 2 points.

* Finally, the Skins defeated the Cardinals in week 3. In recent years, the Cardinals have been at the bottom of the abysmal NFC West. This year, however, they are at the top of a much improved division. They have wins against the 49ers (another 2-1 team) and the Dolphins (who just stomped the Patriots).

Not exactly a slouch schedule to start the season. And now they have back-to-back divisional road games. If they can emerge from the next 2 weeks at 3-2 (hopefully better), they'll have positioned themselves as a legitimate contender. Only time will tell if that will be enough to get them back into the good graces of the media, but one thing is certain. The Redskins, despite a very difficult start to the season, have set themselves up to go into their bye week (week 10) well over .500 and with a lot of momentum. Of course, games against St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh will help out on that front...

Looking ahead to Dallas, Jason Campbell is coming off of 2 straight weeks with a passer rating over 100, is 61 of 93 so far this season with no INTs. And, the best game of his career came against the Cowboys last year.

The Redskins secondary is getting back to full strength; Shawn Springs, Carlos Rodgers, Reed Doughty, Fred Smoot, and the new up-and-coming Chris Horton represent a solid defensive back corps. And while Jason Taylor has gone down with a leg injury (recover quickly), the Redskins D-Line should prove capable enough to create a little pressure on Romo. Finally, the Redskins linebackers have the speed and size to take on Witten 1 on 1, which should help take away the check down from Romo.

Don't be so quick to count out the Skins just yet; the Burgundy and Gold are back in the hunt!

Stateside Reception

We ended up with about 75 people at our reception in my grandmother's backyard. Great turn out, great weather, and of course, great times had by all. Thanks to everyone who was able to make it - we certainly appreciated having you there!

I'm a married man!

Hey Everyone,

I know that this is a bit belated, but I am now a married man, as of August 31. Here are the pictures from the wedding: http://casner.shutterfly.com/829.

I know I said I would try to keep this blog going, so I'll get back on that sometime soon. In the meantime, we just got back from our honeymoon and have a ton of family coming into town for a little stateside celebration!

No Doggy Bags...

Hej,

Last post from Sweden. Wow. Hard to believe that 3 months have passed already!

There are seven of us flying home to various US destinations tomorrow (Denver, Austin, Atlanta, Salt Lake, and Indianapolis), plus European colleagues flying off to other projects around the world (France, Australia, England, and Brussels), so we went out to dinner last night. We had traditional Swedish fare, which apparently I am getting used to. I had a Swedish dish called gubrora (without the accent marks, it just doesn't look right). Basically, it translates to "man mix". It's basically egg salad with anchovies. Probably a once in a life time experience for me, but it wasn't bad. I also had Swedish meatballs (the real kind, not the Americanized version).

When it was all said and done, my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so I asked for the leftovers to be boxed up. And was abruptly ridiculed by my European colleagues. Apparently doggy bags are solely an American thing - one that they thought was only done as a joke in TV shows, for that matter. So, when going out to eat in Europe, err on the side of "too small" rather than "too large, but I'll take the rest home". :-)

It is a little bittersweet leaving here. Mostly sweet. But I did make some good friends out here, so don't be surprised if Ashleigh and I end up with some visitors with funny accents. :-)

See you all soon!

Jared

p.s. I think I will just keep the blog going from the US, if anyone is interested...

Indiana Jones

Hej,

Finally got around to seeing a movie in the Swedish theaters. Can't say it's too much different from seeing a movie in the US. The biggest difference was that the seats are assigned. At first, I found that a little wierd, but it actually was quite nice to not have to race to be the first into the theater to grab seats. The theater layout was more like a playhouse than a movie theater - we sat up in the balcony, but the seats were nice and because of the angles, it felt like there was no one in front of us. And, it was Indiana Jones, so, how could it have gone wrong??

This week will be a little hectic around the office as I prepare to roll off this project, but I fly home on Friday, which is quite exciting.

Talk to you all soon!

Jared

16 days...

... until I come home! Not as if I am excited or anything... :)

I actually just got word that I would be allowed to get on the flight I have booked for May 30, so I am definitely coming home then!

Quick Trip Home

Hej All,

Sorry for the lengthy delay between posts. I got the opportunity to jet home for a few days, so I jumped at the chance. Because of it, I was able to make it to my sister Sarah's college graduation in Ohio over the weekend, which was great!

Of course, I didn't even tell Ashleigh that I was coming home, and gave her quite a scare when she walked in the door from work the other day! She hadn't even looked up yet when I said "Hi". She nearly leapt out of her shoes upon hearing a man's voice in the house when she wasn't expecting it. But, I think she liked the surprise, overall... :-)

Sorry if I didn't get to see you on this trip home; it was just a whirlwind trip. I'm still on track to permanently return to the US on May 30th, but I'll keep you posted on that. Hope all is well!

Jared

Swedish Sunlight

Hej,

At 9:30 last night, it was still dusk. At 3:45 this morning as I was walking home from the bars, it was already getting light out. Ugh. I can't imagine how I am going to get any sleep by the time the end of May rolls around, especially with as bright as my apartment is. I am going to have to rig up some curtains or blinds here pretty soon...

Jared

Paris Pics

Hej,

Ashleigh put the Paris pictures up at http://casner.shutterfly.com/action.

Enjoy!

Jared

Paris

Hej All,

Ashleigh and I just got back from Paris. We both landed Friday morning about an hour apart and picked the easiest landmark we could for a meeting point: McDonalds. We then headed over to another terminal to meet up with my coworker and his girlfriend who joined us for the long weekend. About 3/4 of the way there, we got stopped by airport officials, police, and army and air force troops. 10 minutes later, we heard an explosion. Turns out, someone had left a bag by accident, and rather than worry about it at all, they just cleared out the area and detonated the bag. It's not uncommon - my mom and sister had a similar experience several years ago when they were in Paris last. Once we finally got through the mess and met our friends, we headed out to the hotel. The girls, having flown in from the States, were quite jet lagged, so we just got a late lunch, relaxed for a little while, and called it an early night.

Saturday morning we headed out to Trocadero plaza to get some good views of the Eiffel Tower. After a few pictures we headed down to the Tower, but found the lines to be a little long for our tastes, so we just wandered around for a little while to kill time before our tour started. We took a 5 hour bike tour that was quite nice. After the tour, we headed over to Notre Dame for a nice visit of the church. Finally, Saturday night we met up with a Parisien coworker and his wife for dinner, which was quite nice.

Sunday morning, we headed out to Versaille. What a magnificent display of opulence! It makes it pretty obvious as to why the French people revolted in the late 1700s. Tax the people 80% and live like that while they are starving? Sounds like a good plan. After Versailles, we headed home, got cleaned up, and went out to catch dinner and the show at the Moulin Rouge. Quite an experience!

Monday, Ashleigh and I got up pretty early and got in line for the Eiffel Tower. It ended up taking us a little over an hour to get to the top, which isn't bad. We then headed over to the Louvre and got to see the "Big 3", the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. We also walked through the Greek and Egyptian exhibits, and finished off our visit with 17th century French, Italian and Spanish art. We then walked from the Louvre through the Tuileries Gardens to Place de la Concorde. From there, we walked up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe before heading home for the day, foot sore and tired, but having had a great time.

Pictures will have to wait - I forgot my camera, so we'll have to wait for Ashleigh to get the pictures loaded onto her computer, then uploaded to the web so that I can grab them.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Jared

Swedish Engagements

Hej,

This story is actually a couple week's old, but I am finally getting around to sharing it.

I had a co-worker return to the US to propose to his girlfriend. When he got back, none of the Swedes asked him about it, even though they all knew why he had flown home. Finally, after about a week, he mentioned her by the new appelation (fiancee). The Swedes all heaved a great sigh of relief, then asked him where his ring was. Turns out, when you get engaged in Sweden, both the woman AND the man wear rings. So, our Swedish coworkers were all afraid to ask him about it, thinking she had said "no" since he came back without a ring.

I then learned that the women in the office thought I was a big jerk for being engaged but not wearing my ring!

When they learned of the American custom, they understood (sort of), but they still think we're weird. :-)

Jared

Tallinn, Estonia

Hej All,

Just got back from a great weekend in Tallinn, Estonia. Very cool little town that often gets called a "Medieval Vegas". The sites worth seeing there are all old buildings, churches, etc, just like in the rest of Europe, but Tallinn definitely has a better preserved medieval feeling to it. I highly recommend the city to anyone interested in the middle ages! On top of that, it does have casinos and an amazing night life. I didn't gamble on this trip, but I did check out a couple of the night clubs - Friday night we didn't leave the last club until about 4 AM, and Saturday night I called it quits "early" at 2 AM.

Here are a few pictures and some video from the trip...

This is the outdoor concert hall. There is a choral concert and festival held hear every 5 years that involves 30,000 singers. All at once. The "stage" is a massive choral bench. The lawn in front is where the festival attendees sit and stand, and has held as many as 300,000 people at a time.


Here's the Russian Orthodox Church - quite spectacular.


Just a panoramic view of the city.



Finally, here's an Estonian hip hop group that played at the club on Friday night. They didn't start their first set until 2:30 AM. The sound quality is pretty bad (sorry, my camera isn't great at videos), but the group was really good.


On Friday I am meeting Ashleigh in Paris, which should be a really good time!

Later all,

Jared

Apartment

Yeah, I'm slow. Here are some pics of the apartment... It's a little messy, but that's to be expected from me :)

Living room/dining room/part of kitchen:

reverse view that gets more of the kitchen

here are the stairs up to my room. I am convinced I am going to fall down them one night when I am too drunk to climb stairs that steep, and too drunk to know better!

Here's the bathroom and laundry room in one...

Anyhow, it's late, so I'm off to bed.

Later all!

J

Snow Day!

Hej,

I moved into an apartment a couple days ago - I'll post some pics when I get around to taking them, but it's a pretty cool place. Vaulted ceilings, "master" bed room is in the loft, lots of sky lights, HUGE bath tub (I'm thinking about going hot tubbing in it later...) - all in all, not too bad. Not a really big place, but not too bad. Of course, it took several phone calls to the States (thanks Mom) and to the Swedes to find out how to work the washer and dryer, but I finally managed.

We got a couple inches of snow last night (1.5 - 2 inches), but word on the street is that our 50 degree weather is supposed to come back soon. Don't know if I believe it yet, but here's to hoping!

Work is still kicking my butt, but at least it's easier to deal with after my couple days off last weekend. I am sticking around Stockholm this weekend, but have made it quite clear that I will not be working (at least, not for this client). Next weekend, a few of us are headed to Tallinn, Estonia for a few days. Should be cool!

Catch you all later!

Jared

Supper Club

Hej,

Final Amsterdam post here... Last night we had one of the best dinner's of my life. We were looking for a good restaurant, so we decided to check out the Supper Club, one of Amsterdam's elite restaurants (rumor has it that you literally eat your meal off of someone). Apparently, you need more than a day (closer to a month) to make reservations at the original Supper Club, so we booked ourselves on the Supper Club Cruise.




Talk about an experience!! We were shown to our table, only to find that it's basically a massive bed inside of a floating club...



This picture is after the 4th of 5 courses and a good quantity of beer...



The host for the evening was a very flamboyent man. If you have ever seen the 5th Element, his voice was exactly like Chris Tucker's character... If you haven't seen the 5th Element, go see it! :-) In between courses, he got people up on a little ledge in the middle of the bed for some dancing...



About half way through dinner, they also had a masseuse come around and give 15 minute massages!



Some of our fellow guests:



After the cruise, we headed out bar hopping until we were finally ready to stumble home for the night (about 3 AM). Instead, we stumbled upon this incredible Tuk Tuk - think moped converted into a golf cart - which we hopped into for the trip back to the houseboat.



All in all, it was a pretty fantastic evening!

Jared

Bridges for Ashleigh

Hej,

Some of you may already know that Ashleigh used to design bridges in her former life. There were a couple really cool draw bridges that are completely hand operated that I had to take pictures of. So, here's the special post, just for Ashleigh, with some pictures of bridges. I believe these were all built in the 1800s or earlier - we saw a couple paintings of bridges similar to these from circa 1850... Talk about built to last!!

J

Amsterdam

Hej,

We have had a really good time in Amsterdam! Enough so that I need to split this out into separate blog entries... We flew in on Friday and were met by a good friend Sunil who was gracious enough to let us crash with him on his houseboat (ignore the mess).

Here's the view from the deck...

And, of course, this is just a beautiful city...

We got to see the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum, both of which are excellent. Missed out on seeing more because of work obligations, unfortunately, but we did have a great time!

Jared

Par-tay!

Hej,

After working 10 straight 11 hour days (or at least, averaging that much), I organized a little event last night to help people blow off some steam. We sent the first guy home in a cab at 9:30 (my PM, in fact), because he was a little too inebriated. And then we really let loose! :-) I'm a little tired today, but spending a night on the town with 15 co-workers helped out with the stress levels quite a bit. This weekend, I am headed to Amsterdam (I think I may have mentioned that once or twice before), which will be a really nice change of pace - no work for 2 days; what a relief!

Jared

Pics from last night:

College Hockey and More!

Hey All,

Not too much to report right now, actually...

I'll be working all weekend this weekend (yuck), but next weekend I am definitely headed to Amsterdam. Which will be nice. And Ashleigh and I are all booked for our trip to Paris at the end of April!

In the meantime, I'll be cheering DU on in the NCAA Hockey Tournament that starts this weekend. DU won the WCHA title for the 15th time, the most in WCHA history, last weekend! Miami of Ohio (my parent's alma mater) is also in the national tournament after coming in 2nd in the CCHA tournament.

Not much new to report here. If I get some time, I am going to try to get out to see a few museums this weekend, but I may just need some R&R, which is too bad.

Talk to you all soon,

Jared