OK, it's time for some post holiday confessions. Don't worry, nothing too revealing or dramatic. All safe content, I promise. However, the confessions do reveal two things about my personality. First, I am a procrastinator. There is always something else to do (even it it's just sitting on the couch watching tv!) Second, I'm a perfectionist. I don't like doing things by half.

The end result of these two personality traits are that while there are many things I would like to do, every thing takes me probably ten times longer than it would anyone else because I want it to be perfect. Of course, because I know something is going to take me a long time to do, I am far more likely to procrastinate and not get around to starting, or worse, finishing something because I can't get it quite right.

So, why is a usually shy person revealing these personality traits? Well, as I said I have some confessions.....

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Since Lotusphere there has been much discussion in the blogosphere regarding how to allow new Domino bloggers (or even non-bloggers) to find a voice within the community. It seems that everyone is struggling with how to keep up with reading existing known blogs, let alone finding an acknowledging new bloggers.

As a way to at least help people find new blogs is now here. We have now launched the first implementation of www.dominoblogs.com. This is a first-run, quick and dirty design ripped from the openntf domBulletin database. Over the next few weeks we will look at improving both the interface, and providing more functionality to make this really useful - RSS feeds to the directory listings, auto-generating OPML files (based on content, region, etc), and other ways to view the list (category, name). Other suggestions of how to make this site really useful are welcome from all.

Initally we have set this up to be a self-managed directory for people to list their own blog and help make it easier to find new Domino-based bloggers. This way people can choose to make themselves known without having to email a whole bunch of people to get added to blogrolls.

To start though, we need to get the list of names in there started so we have something to begin with. So, everyone should take a couple of minutes to head over and list themselves. Also, pass on the word through the blogosphere as this will really only work if everyone participates.

I promise this is the last of my travel blogs (blags!) for a while. I know they've probably been boring for anyone else, but this is the new version of a travel diary for me - a way to keep a record of the trip beyond photos and souveniers (of which there are many).

We survived the nightmare journey home - a full plane is never a good plane in my opinion, and all of our luggage (new bag included) arrived home safe and relatively unharmed.

This, of course, is followed by the standard "Everything looks the same", as though we had been gone for 4 years, not 4 weeks!

Two days followed of strange jet lag, gasping at the heat and humidity, with loads of washing that seemed unwilling to get any smalller, food - oh my goodness, the food - bread, fruit, charcoal chicken, breakfast cereal all high on the list of favourites, comforts of home - bed, couch, tv & topfield, drawers & cupboard, new, clean clothes, and of course, just simply having nothing to do or see for a couple of days was great!

Today, I'm back at work. Why, oh why, does a holiday always have to be followed by work? I've never been given a good answer for this. Credit card, schmedit card I say!

Anyway, as all good things must come to an end, so too did USA2006. Now, what was AJAX again?

Las Vegas is the final stop on our trip, and what a great place to unwind and relax before heading back home. It has been 8 years since I was last in Vegas, longer for Tim, and boy has it changed!

Gone is the land of $1 beers and $3.99 buffets. There is no $1 blackjack, and even $5 blackjack is hard to find, and even harder to get a seat at. Theme casinos are on the rise, with no apparent end in site. Many of the old, kitschy casinos are gone - knocked down in order to make mega-casinos or mini-cities. Want to see the world - just go straight to Vegas. Paris, New York, Venice, Egypt, generic Italy, Rio all available within a 5-10 minute bus ride.

Many things are now aimed directly at families and tourist, not gamblers. This means that things which used to be free or extremely cheap are now pretty standard with the rest of the country. Food, once the single great hurrah of Vegas is now actually pretty expensive in most of the casinos. Roller coasters are everywhere now, with zoos and art galleries thrown in as well, there is lots to keep the kids amused. It's really just like one big theme park now - instead of an entry fee, you just pay your $5 shuttle fare from the airport and away you go.

Does this mean there is no fun to be had? No way, it's just a little harder to find "Old Vegas" beneath the glitz and glamour.

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Generally there are two types of people who go on holidays - a tourist and a traveller. A tourist is someone who just goes to the known places, buys t-shirts and souvenirs from every place visited, and takes "standard" photographs - here's me in front of xxx. A traveller is someone who goes "off the beaten track", and enjoys emersing themselves in a culture and discovers things that tourists generally would never find. Of course, there are also a large number of people who, like me, fall somewhere in between the two.

Tim & I try to plan holidays so that we have a nice mix of seeing the key things in a place - the things you've always heard about - with having enough time to explore an area without a planned agenda. Sometimes, unfortunately, time and money mean that travelling just isn't possible, and you are left with visiting only the tourist destinations in a place.

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San Francisco is really just a through-stop for us on the way to Las Vegas. Both Tim & I had been here before, separately, but Tim had never been over to Alcatraz. As we were going to be so close, we decided to drop in a quick day in San Fran so we could do this tour. When researching the trip we discovered that there is now a night tour, and we knew immediately this was for us.

The tour leaves Fisherman's Wharf at 4.20, so you still get a bit of daylight, allowing you to see the city and circumnavigate the island before being led up the from the dock to the prison block by a tour guide with some very interesting stories about what we were seeing, and about to see. Once at the top, outside the prison blocks you are left to your own devices to explore the prison block and around the top of the island.

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When we were planning this trip I really wanted to see New York covered in snow. As we couldn't make it for Christmas, this was going to be the next best thing. I had grand plans of ice skating in Central Park, enjoying the beauty that snow can provide to a city.

For most of the week it was looking like it was supposed to snow on Friday, and so I kept my hopes up that we would get a flurry before we had to leave. By Thursday, I knew this wasn't going to happen as the predictions moved to Friday night, then Saturday afternoon.

As we left on Saturday morning, Tim & I reflected that we were, in retrospect, pretty ok with the lack of snow. We had gotten to see a lot more of the city as we had beautiful clear, although very cold, days. We arrived to the warmth of San Francisco to find out that New York was in the midst of the biggest snow storm in recent history.

Although it would have been fun to see a blizzard (quite a rarity in Sydney!), we would have been stuck in New York for an extra couple of days and missed out on San Fran - so probably quite lucky in the end.

Our week in New York has finished, and although I'm exhausted the week re-confirmed for me that it really is a fantastic city. It's such a viseral city that can assault the senses - the sights and sounds and smells are unique and it really just has a "vibe" that is unrivaled by any city I've been to. It is a tiring city, and while I think it's possible to find moments of peace when you live there, visiting the city is pretty tough going. There are so many things to see that you really don't have time to stop and reflect all that much.

I have been to New York 3 times before, and yet I mostly saw things things that I hadn't seen before, and I know there is still more to see. Hopefully we will get the chance to go again.

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Last Tuesday night I completed something of a dream - I saw the New York Knicks playing at Madison Square Garden. While I am a basketball fan, I'm not a Knicks fan, and haven't followed the NBA for several years, but the Knicks at the Garden is one of those legendary sports things - something you just have to do if you get the chance.

Although we knew the Knicks weren't having a great season, and they were playing the LA Clippers - traditionally a bottom of the ladder team - we paid the $US115 per ticket for pretty good seats in the hopes that we would at least see some good plays up close. Now they were great seats, but we did feel a little ripped off when we could see the $US40 seats only about 10 metres behind us.

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Sorry for the quiet over the last couple of days but New York has lived up to it's reputation as the city that never sleeps! From Brooklyn to The Village to a Knicks game to Times Square to the Empire State Building to.... whew, I'm tired just thinking about it and we have two more days to go until the relative peace (I hope!) of San Francisco.

Will provide more details as soon as I've recovered!

Tonight we had a real American experience - watching the Superbowl. It was a pretty good game, even though Seattle lost. Why was I going for Seattle? Simply because I've been there and quite like the city, and Seattle Supersonics have been my NBA team since the glory days of Gary Payton & Sean Kemp. So, they lost, but for NFL it was a pretty good game. I know I'll cop some flak for this, but it's kind of a strange football game to me - kind of soft. Coming from Australia, where we have rugby union, rugby league and australian rules football, not to mention soccer, I'm quite used to games where men run at each other and fight over a small funny shaped ball. This, however, is a game where it's easier to get a foul than basketball, and players only seem to need one skill, as there is are about 50 other guys around to play the rest of the game, and after each "play" there is a long pause while they talk and plan the next move, which means there is no fluidity to the game.

However, it is quite a spectacle, and tonight's game was pretty exciting. The first half was quite tight, and fortunately I was with people who could explain the rules, so I understood most of what was happening.

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Today was our first full day in NYC. We arrived yesterday afternoon to a rainy, cold day (no snow, unfortunately) and decided to "go for a walk" around Chelsea, where we are staying with friends. Of course, we got no further than a pub on the next block before drinking the afternoon away and crashing out at 10pm on a Saturday night!

So today, feeling fresh after a recovery breakfast we headed out to see New York. Although I have been here a few times before, I am always excited just to be here - I love the sights, sounds and smells of New York. It has a real "vibe" which just rubs off straight away and makes me wish that somehow, someway we could end up living and working here.

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As we leave Washington DC for the glitz and glamour of NYC I have to note my favourite "ordinary" thing in Washington... the pedestrian crossing lights which count down how many seconds you have left to cross the road. Instead of just seeing a flashing red man which can flash anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds, in DC you always know exactly how long you have left - and so whether it's worth it to run!

This is a difficult entry to write, and may be a little rambling, so forgive me. Over the last couple of days we have seen a number of exhibitions and memorials remembering Americans at war. From the exhibition "The Price of Freedom: Americans at War" at the Museum of American History to the Korean and Vietnam War memorials to a visit to Arlington Cemetary it is clear that Americans know how to honour those who have fought and died under the American Flag, both at home and around the world.

What is not so clear is whether there is any real understanding of the true cost of war at the detail level - where it involves individuals, families and communities rather than a nation, a force or a division. To see the rows and rows of graves at Arlington Cemetary is startling and the seemingly never-ending rows of names on the Vietnam Memorial is overwhelming. In an era when it seems that America (or at least the American government) is all too willing to stay in another war which has no visible end or objective in sight, I think it would be a good object lesson for George W (and John Howard could tag along - as he loves to do) to take a tour of these memorials and just take note of those vast rows and try to remember that these are real people with families and friends whose lives were sadly cut short.

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Yesterday we continued our tours of Washington DC by walking up to Capitol Hill. On our way up Pennsylvania Ave we were joined by a protest march - around 1000 Ethiopians protesting America's support of the current Ethiopian government ( regime?). It was interesting to watch democracy in action - we don't really get anything of this scale back home. Aside from recent protests against the Iraq war, and a larger protest against John Howard's industrial relations reforms - there are hardly ever protest marches in Sydney - and the ones which do exist are usually poorly organised university students who rarely garner any respect.

Unfortunately, watching this protest was more interesting than the hour and a half we wasted to tour the Capitol building. This tour followed the trend we have noticed here - there can never be enough queues, and you can never have too many different people pointing you in a new direction. First, you line up at the bottom of the hill and get your ticket. Then you wait at the bottom of the hill for your time to start (we only had to wait around 30 minutes). When your time comes, you get instructions and pointed up the hill. After this, you walk up the hill in a group and form another queue in a tent where another "tour guide" makes you wait another 5 minutes before telling you the same instructions and directing you to the next queue. Here, you are again told the same instructions (which you have been given on a piece of paper as well) by yet another person before being sent in groups of 5 through to a security check where your bags are scanned and you are sent to a group of chairs to wait. Once everyone is through and sitting, another person gives us instructions to follow a path around the front of the Capitol Building where we form another line at the door. The door opens and we are ushered in by yet another guide who instructs us to form two lines - one on either side of the corridor. Once we all 40-odd of us are cramped inside another "guide" drills instructions into us again before pointing us up the stairs to our actual tour guide. So this process has taken us about 30 minutes so far and we are about to embark on what we think is our one hour tour. Apparently, however, this 30 minutes is included in our one hour tour, as all we actually get to see of the Capitol is the rotunda - for about 10 minutes, then we walk through to the old Senate room which is filled with Statues from each state. From there, we walk down some stairs to another room (I can't even remember what it was) where we are then told that we can look around and then exit the tour when we are ready. All-in-all this was a monumental waste of time - the only good thing to say was that it didn't cost anything but time!

We redeemed the day after this by going into the Air and Space Museum - a great, fun hands-on museum which was a nice counterpoint to our visit to Kennedy Space Centre. Although there were some similar items, there was lots of new stuff as well. Particualarly cool for me was to see the Apollo 11 re-entry module, Space Ship One and the Wright Brothers Flyer.