Bon Voyage!

We're off to Paris...can't wait! Will post pics when we get back.

The Bloods & Crisps

In some ways food is very different here... haggis, blood pudding, bangers/mash, mushy peas, etc. Crisps are potato chips, and chips are french fries. Shopping can be very different because all of these little towns have very pedestrian friendly (car unfriendly) main streets. In other ways, things are exactly the same here. New American style outdoor strip malls are popping up all over, and you can't travel very far without seeing Subway, McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. Hell, our town even has Dominos delivery! You have towns struggling to change after factory closures and the social problems that follow high rates of unemployment.

Today we went far away from all of that, up into the Lake District at Lake Windemere. It is a very beautiful area. We took a half hour cruise around the lake, and saw countless sailboats, row boats, and waterfowl. There are no fast/loud boats ripping through which makes it all very relaxing. The lake is 10 miles long and we drove the length of it which is a narrow winding stone wall bordered road.



Most of the buildings in this area (even new ones) are made of true fieldstone. It is amazing. There is good food and nice sidewalk shops in Bowness. Ambleside looked terrific too, but we only drove through. We ate at the Travellers Rest pub, good food and the building has loads of "character". When I say character I mean there isn't a true wall in the place anymore! Great selection of cask ales but I was driving so I resisted. I have to say Theakston's Old Peculiar is my "favourite" so far.

While in Bowness, we toured the Beatrix Potter museum. The kids were very afraid because many of the storybook animals looked so real.



I think there was a little bit for everyone today. The best part for me? We stopped by a guy's home in Blackpool to pick up my Yamaha subwoofer ebay win. yay!

School's out...

School let out for the boy today. He said he prefers his school in England over that in Toledo. They have recess 3 times a day and better food.

Finally...broadband @ my UK home

Today I came home from the Laundromat and saw the wonderful green light on my broadband router. This was supposed to be activated long ago, and after many long phone calls its finally working!

You may be wondering, "Aaron, you seem to have a great job with a great company, why would I be going to a Laundromat?". Ahh, a question my wife has asked me as well. It turns out that our dishwasher, clothes washer, and dryer, all languished while waiting for our arrival. We knew about this 2 weeks ago, but I'm learning that NOTHING happens fast over here (except how quickly the taxes start piling up). Yes, there is a 17.5% sales tax (VAT) added to nearly everything. And our first piece of mail we received was a letter from our borough (county) asking us to promptly pay our council tax (property). Shortly after we received a letter from the government asking us to quickly pay our annual TV license (you pay an annual fee to government just to have a TV in your house)...ugh



We are starting to venture out a bit more from the house now. Yesterday we spent time at Albert Dock in Liverpool, and then on to the great beach in Southport. Both are just 20 minutes from our house. I'm still getting used to how quickly you can travel what seem like long distances on a map. UK has about 54 million people and is probably comparable in size to Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.

I'll definately be bloggin' more often now that I'm back online...feels good.

Settling in

Life has been very busy getting settled into our new house. The kids are loving it. Megan is trooping along without a car, but the towns here are very pedestrian friendly with great public transportation.

Our air shipment arrives tomorrow and our ocean shipment should be in the next week or so.

I'm working with a great bunch of developers now and I think I'll enjoy it much more. Before I was sort of alone in my work and now I'll be with a good size team.

More to come...

Moving day...

I always joked that if Toledoans re-elected Carty then I was getting the heck out of Dodge. Well, it took a while but the movers are coming to get our stuff later today. Seriously, I don't dislike the guy that much but coincidentally Megan, the kids, and I are moving to the UK for a 2 year assignment with Pilkington (soon to be Nippon Sheet Glass).

Please forgive my lack of blogging lately, but life has been crazy busy. I'll be posting pictures, thoughts, and life adventures from across Europe over the next couple of years.

By the way, if COSI closes in that time, we won't be moving back to our home in central Toledo heh heh. Is this some sort of self fulfilling prophecy developing?

Stay tuned...


A

Cymru (Wales) Road Trip

We had some spare time so my colleague Steve (from Australia) suggested a road trip. I'm so glad we went for it! We tried to get lost but our USB GPS and MS AutoRoute would not let us. It kept a nice log of our journey.

Here is Steve on the northwest tower of the castle at Conwy.

Here is the beautiful South Stack light house at Holyhead.

Spring Break 2006 - Day 9

A long day of driving!!! Saw some terrific views though, the 19 Mountain Expressway was a good scenic diversion around Charleston WV. You get to cross the New River Gorge Bridge. It felt like driving through clouds. Made decent time, driving 814 miles in 14 hours. Including stops that averages 57MPH. Really the kids slept most of the day after the exhasting prior two days.

10:15am leaving Savannah GA for Erie PA: 15,790
12:20-50pm Columbia: 15941
4:00-4:40pm lunch somewhere
6:30pm somewhere else in West Virginia: 16237
12:30am Erie PA: 16604

Spring Break 2006 - Day 8

Went swimming at hotel

Downtown Disney



Lego store!!!



Dinner with Andrew at Mama Fu in Sanford

8:15pm Leaving for Savannah GA: 15528

Spring Break 2006 - Day 5

2:25pm leaving Alphretta for Orlando: 14973
6:05pm - 7:45pm Lake Park FL: 15231

Light breakfast with the Bumpus family...everyone was groggy. Mostly a day of travel.

Spring Break 2006 - Day 4

9:05am Pigeon Forge for Atlanta: 14657
10:35am rest stop: 14738
12:30pm Alphretta

Today we visited our old friends the Bumpus family near Atlanta, GA. First we visited their nearly complete new home that will have a terrific view of a forested pond. The house will is very spacious with a sensible layout, I'm sure it will be marvelous when the finish work is done.

After an early dinner at Cracker Barrel we went downtown to the Georgia Aquarium, which is simply amazing.



We spent 3 good hours there then walked down to Olympic Park which was bustling with people. For dinner we walked a couple blocks down to the Hard Rock Cafe. The kids all bonded pretty well.

Spring Break 2006 - Day 3

Today we went hiking with my mom, stepfather, and sister in the Smokey Mountains. We took an "easy" trail to Grotto Falls...I think mom was reaching her limits! It was a perfect day in every way. The kids really like the falls, my son liked it so much he went for a "butt swim" by slipping and putting his rear squarly into the water. I soaked one shoe pulling him out making the hike back to civilization a bit squishy.

Later we went to the Dixie Stampede which was a great show! My daughter is convinced she wants to ride two horses at a time some day just like Dusty. Tip: get a vegetarian plate and a regular plate for a better variety of food to share family style.

Spring Break 2006 - Day 2

9:00am Waffle House
10:00 Explorium and lunch in downtown Lexington



1:30pm headed for Knoxville
4:00pm Knoxville Zoo
5:00pm Headed for Pigeon Forge: 14,582
Dinner with the Conrad's, putt putt, rest!

Spring Break 2006 - Day 1

1:45pm departed from Toledo: 14,091

3:15-5:00pm : 14,182

We ventured south to Wapakoneta's Neil Armstrong Space Museum. This was a decent stop with some interesting items. The size of the place is just right to see and then get back into the car after an hour or so. Megan liked the original paperback copy of Stranger in a Strange land that one astronaut read onboard a space shuttle.



7:30-8:15pm Skyline Chilli just south of Cinci: 14,300

Spent the night in a Motel 6 north of Lexington...ewe

UT Campus - Dorr Street corridor

Dorr street by campus has been looking cleaner since Corpus Christi has bought and torn down a couple of old commercial buildings. Also, Jimmy Johns and Papa Johns (any relation?) have moved side by side a bit closer to campus. With the student population greatly shifting to the south side of campus...that whole strip needs redeveloped into something cool.

I walked through the new Ottawa House East/West dorms for the first time this week. I'm really impressed, they put a trendy looking new coffee shop in as well, open to the wee hours of the night.

In any case, UT/MUO administration is thinking of a new name for main campus. Go here to give your input.

Shout out for Death Cab for Cutie

I heard Transatlanticism from Death Cab for Cutie a few years back, and although I liked it, I'm fully addicted to Plans. I know they opened up for Pearl Jam at the sports arena in 2004; now I really regret missing that show.

New toys

My new Mpeg1/2/4 video capture board came yesterday from NewEgg, as well as a dual layer DVD recorder (up to 8.5 GB per disk). I was very pleased that the price of the two...about $70 combined, will let me convert some old VHS home movies as well as other things to digital formats. My tool-less Silverstone case made it so simple, both things were unboxed, installed, and working in about 20 minutes. The part that took the longest was digging out some extra AV cables for the VCR!

weekend log

The remodeled family room is finally complete... it is 21 by 11ft. It used to be very dark with orange knotty pine shelving. I removed all the gingerbread trim, primed the whole thing, ditched the rickety ceiling fans, installed new closet doors, patched some drywall holes, new baseboard trim, and installed carpet tiles. Overall the project took me about a year, but I had many starts and stops.






...onward to the upstairs bath.

Frank Morgan

I took a colleague visiting from overseas to hear a great jazz quartet staring Frank Morgan down at Murphy's tonight. Its been a long time since I've been down to that place, brings back some nice memories.

46645

I've been toying around with Google SMS, its so kewl!

Try this one: w 43697

4 day forecast of beautiful Toledo weather...