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Ahhhhhhhhh, behold the colorful bloom of spring in Warsaw!

Oh S**t! It's actually on TV!

Nobody in this country cleans up after their dog. There are brown landmines of every shape and size littering the city of Warsaw. I probably have to dodge these lawn sausages at least a dozen times a day from the moment I walk out of the gate of my building until I ride my bike through the Kabaty Forest on my way home from work.

People really have no collective fecal conscience here. I'm sure they believe that these canine colon cannonballs are biodegradable and will eventually be swallowed up by the ground. Instead, they just lie in wait for some unlucky pedestrian to plant his painstakingly polished loafer into its squishy goodness.

On a related note, did you know that through the power of the internet, you can send somebody (preferably someone you don't like) a bag of doggie duds? Check out this site . It's even been featured in Time and Maxim magazines so apparently someone is ordering enough to keep them in business. Too bad this didn't exist back when the Unabomber was terrorizing America. You can't be sentenced to life in a super maximum security prison for Fedexing dogcrap but it sends the same message as a bomb without the bloody mess: "You're not really my favorite person."

Anyway, the commercial crusade that encourages Poles to "Clean up after your dog man." has reached the airwaves of MTV. I haven't personally seen it, since that would require me to sit through some of their mindless programs (Tia Tequila? My Super Sweet Sixteen? Whatever happened to music videos?) but the magic of Youtube will allow you to watch it over and over.

It took fourteen hours and around forty people to film this one minute commercial. I was happy to be a part of something that gives back to society, something that just may make Europe (it will be shown in other countries) a safer place to wander around without constantly staring at the ground.

Off piste or piste off?

Last week, we had "winter break", more commonly known by its other name: Ski Week. Luiza and I were lucky enough to find a cozy little apartment nestled in the French Alps near the famous Alpe D'Huez resort. Click on the map to the right for a better view.

This was my first European ski experience and I found it much different than the U.S. Here, you are treated too much longer runs, some as long as 4-5 miles, but you are riding / skiing straight down the face of a mountaintop glacier rather than through powder-covered mountain runs carved out of vast stands of evergreens. Finding pockets of "freshies" can prove to be quite difficult, especially when day after day is bathed in glorious sunlight. I'm not complaining . . . it was just a bit, like I said before . . . different.

Also, rather than one ski lift taking you to the top of the mountain, you might have to hop onto an aerial tramway or gondola lift before jumping on a chair lift to take you to the peak. The area we were at reportedly has 93 different lifts. This may seem like a mind-boggling number of ride choices but I am thinking they are including surface lifts in order to inflate that figure.

The Dutch continue to live up to their reputation as a fun-loving, hard-partying bunch. We walked to the only hotel in Allemont for Après-ski and found out that it had been bought in the last year by an Amsterdammer. The place was filled to capacity by fifty of his fellow countrymen and boy did they know how to party. The hotel bar was packed with people dancing on tables (which included us after awhile) and singing along with the in-house band. Strangely enough, their well-behaved children, numbering at least twenty, were in the adjacent room having dinner while being attended to by hotel staff. After eating, they then left their parents to party while they went to bed, on their own! Not only do the Dutch know how to party but their children are self sufficient. Not bad.

After five straight days of me riding my board and Lu on her skis, our bodies felt like one of those Stretch Armstrong dolls from back in the 70's. Next time we will enjoy more Apres Ski and less of those quad burner 10K long black diamonds. Though over here, they aren't diamonds, just black lines. However, you can't possess nearly the same amount of bravado when you tell your sporty friends how you were rippin' it up on the black line runs.

Anyway, hope that spring has almost sprung in your neck of the woods. We are still getting some dustings of śnieg over here in the Polska land. Oh, by the way, we wish you a happy Women's Day. This is the day that you honor the women in your life which means makeshift flower stands all over the city are having their best day of the year selling tulips and roses. So if you have a Polish woman (or one of Polish descent) in your life, make sure you surprise her by acknowledging her existence on this special day.

The feminists were out in force today, making sure their calls for liberation for Polish women were heard in the form of a live female rap group on the back of a semi truck. Yeah, I don't get it either. Whatever happened to the art of the protest song?:

Happy Birthday Dad!

The man who sported the Magnum P.I. stache throughout the 80s is having a birthday today. I would like to write some poignant prose about how much my dad means to me but a few sentences pounded out on this french keyboard will have to suffice. My typing speed has slowed to a snails pace and i can,t even find the apostrophe. Dad, I am thinking about you today, and will see you in a few weeks. Love, Mark

Here is zhqt z znetence zould look like if this keyboqrd hqd qll the letters in the right plqce: This is reqlly frustrqting: ?qbye I should hqve just typed this zhole post like this§ Do thing you could hqve understood zhqt I q, trying to sqy§

Sh!t . . .

Ever since I was a precocious youngster playing the lead in St. Leo's third grade stage adaptation of Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree", I knew I was born to act. I wanted to be mentioned in the same breath as Gary Coleman, Ricky Schroeder, and Kirk Cameron, but it was never in the cards for me to be on the cover of Tiger Beat magazine as the next teen heartthrob. I attribute this to the fact that my family never went anywhere for vacation beyond Wisconsin. There are a distinct lack to Hollywood talent scouts in America's Dairyland, or the Land of 10,000 Lakes, for that matter.

But here in Poland, the rules are different. Knowing somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody leads one to be involved in situations that can only be described as surreal. Recently I had such an experience.

Somehow word spread to Warsaw about my broken childhood dreams and unfulfilled potential as the male equivalent of Punky Brewster. Through some strange twist of fate, or the need for a native Amerenglish (not the Queen's English) speaker, I was called for an audition at Propeller Film. They have amassed an impressive portfolio of cleverly filmed commercials that air on television throughout Poland and the rest of Europe. These guys are professionals. And I am certainly not.

Somehow, after thirty minutes of channeling my inner Deniro (You talkin' to me?"), I landed the role of a gangster in a commercial about dog poop. My line was brief, but required the utmost feeling of steely emotion in its delivery. I need to look into the camera with the look of a man facing a lengthy prison sentence and simply mutter "Shit!". Sorry for my profanity Grandma, but it was pretty cool getting paid to repeatedly say a word that used to result in a mouth full of soap.

The commercial is still in the process of being edited, but I can tell you that those who are not in "the biz" have no idea how complicated the production process can be. The actors have the easy part. We spent most of our time sitting in the make-up trailer sipping Red Bull while waiting for the crew (around forty people) to adjust the lighting, sound, and camera angles.

The finished product, around one minute in length, was shot in the style of an American crime thriller set in an abandoned factory. The entire shoot lasted around twelve bone-chilling hours. I was only there for eight but the production crew spent all of their time outside in sub-zero weather. I can't imagine how much work goes into producing a full length feature film.

I hope to provide you with a link to the completed project in a couple weeks, with permission from the film studio. For now, I've included some behind the scenes action.

Sports report

The 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games are being held right now in Boise, Idaho. The Chronicle made arrangements with BBC sports correspondent Cathy Rushton to capture some footage of the Polish delegation. This skeptical Brit even made speedskating silver medalist Mariusz Skonieczny verify with photo I.D. that he was Polish before she provided us these great shots of him enjoying the games. We wouldn't want any imposter Poles appearing on this page.
Her overall impression of the games: "It was really very moving, the enthusiasm and joy was quite incredible". Thanks Cathy!

Pretty boys . . .

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of work, education conferencing in Paris (pics coming soon), rugby training, and now, frantic preparations for Valentine's Day. These are all valid excuses for my return to the every two weeks format of the Chronicle. You remember those days? During the first year of its existence, The Chronicle was fortunate to find enough material to update every 14-20 days. Somewhere along the way, the editor decided that there was a demand for a weekly dose of folksy tales from the East side. Either that, or he just decided he was into this writing thing. This has resulted in a detectable upswing in political rants and a leveling off of Polish content.

That being said, the target of my civic rage is safely clearing brush back in Texas, so we are pursuing a fresh, more upbeat report, the working title of which is called "Pole Position". We will ask a random Pole ten questions relating to their homeland, the state of the world, and some quirky, offbeat subjects as well. The first edition will be forthcoming within a week.

Pole Position speaks to my demographic since we all grew up playing this now archaic video game on the Atari 2600. But is there a better, wittier, title out there? I know that there is a wealth of creativity within Chronicle readers, so now is your chance. Please submit your ideas in the comments section and we will make sure to give you intellectual credit, although the financial crisis prevents us from offering monetary compensation.

Last weekend, the Warsaw Frogs were given their big break; a photo shoot for a Polish men's fashion magazine. It was gratifying to witness the dedication it took to get a dozen rugby players together in the dank, dilapidated (alliteration alert!) basement of an old hotel at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning. We were there for four hours, with our only pay being cookies and Pepsi which, in true model form, were promptly regurgitated into the toilet during the post-shoot wrap party.

The feature should appear in next month's edition of Malemen magazine, but the Chronicle was able to get their hands on a couple outtakes. As you can see, we had to roll around in the mud prior to the photo session. All sense of pride and dignity go out the window when you are turned into a piece of eye candy.