The real deal . . . spring that is.

Now this is more like it. Mother Nature has decided to let go of her lingering embrace of Jack Frost. The blizzard of "snirt" captured by my camera a couple weeks ago seems like a distant memory as the darkness of winter's tunnel has ceded to the inevitability of changing seasons, toasty sunshine, and the fairer sex shedding their winter coats in favor of something more, errrrr, revealing.

The first race on the burgeoning Warsaw running calendar came and went with lots of fanfare. The Carrefour (French supermarket chain) Warsaw Half Marathon, which is a distance of 21 km over here, not 13.1 miles, turned a crisp Sunday morning spent recovering from Saturday's rugby match into something akin to running through a crowd armed with bamboo sticks. Nobody was actually hitting me, but with every step on the uneven cobblestone streets jiggling my bruised, pasty-white thunderthighs (it's tough to run in the winter), it certainly felt like it. Special guest at the runner expo was none other than famed run-walk-run guru and U.S. Olympian, Jeff Galloway. I wanted to see if he remembered meeting me at the Portland Marathon back in 2001, but didn't see him after my finish. Maybe I should've looked around, but the post-race celebration at Rooster was calling.

Last Sunday, it seemed like the whole city decided to spend the day outdoors, after the requisite trip to mass, with palms in hand. The Old Town was bursting with both tourists and locals queuing up for ice cream, sipping beers on the square, or capturing footage of their youngsters chasing each other around the fountain. Those of us who opted for a faster mode of transportation, the bike, cruised from park to park and over bridges in search of pubs and restaurants with inviting patios. From Pub Lolek to Metal Bar to the legendarily eclectic Spider Bar across the river in Praga, we cycled for hours, the last stop being my favorite spot for grub, Boston Port.

It's all downhill from here as we roll on towards summer like an 18 wheeler crossing North Dakota on I-94. This beautiful weather makes me so metaphorical. Anyway, check out this vid. Bluegrass music is taking this great nation by storm and I was one of the first on the bandwagon. It sounds great with Louie Armstrong lightly playing in the background. There is also a great clip of one of the funniest running costumes ever, second only to Mr. Blister and Captain Cramp in creativity, but definitely tops in degree of difficulty. Thanks for reading!

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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!