This is definitely one of those times. So...remember when phones were first installed and planes and people would pay bazillions of dollars to call people just cause they wanted to say "hey how cool is this?", well this was relatively a cheap thing. $26.95 for the duration of the flight I get wifi access.  I also got a $10 off coupon and frankly Microsoft is paying so I don't see why it matters. But when all is said and done, I am now blogging from like 35,000 feet for about 50 pence.

 

Yup, sitting on a plane, surfing the web, blogging my geekiness. Dude, how cool is that?

 

My dinner is getting served  in a minute and I have one of those little airplane tables so it's food or laptop. Sorry, you lose. I'm STARVING.  I hung in the SAS Business Lounge in Seattle before my flight thinking I'll nosh, all they had was chex mix and bad cheese individually wrapped in plastic and some club crackers.  Saddest nosh ever.  So now it's 8:30 pm, dinner is overdue!

 

Might pop back on later. :-)  Might be watching a movie..

So here I am 10 days into my first trip to Seattle.  I moved hotels yesterday because the Embassy Suites was like a ghost town...even though they were completely sold out. At 9:30 the other night I wanted to not be in my room yet, so I headed downstairs with my book and laptop figuring I'll have a cocktail. The place was almost pitch black and the last waitress was cleaning up. She felt bad and brought me some wine and dessert but then I sat there eating and drinking in the dark alone. That is no way to live. Plus all the cool kids (John and Patricia, Quig) live on the west side and so I was having to commute to drink. Either they had to stay on the east side after work for dinner (which made it crazy early) or I had to go to the other side of town to meet up with them.  I decided I'd rather commute to work than to commute to drink. I think this shows excellent priorities.  So I moved from the chav Embassy Suites to get this...The W in downtown Seattle.  Holy hipness batman!  I could barely see in the hallways getting to my room, but once I was in it was light.  The bar had a DJ spinning house music when I arrived at 7pm to check in and the place was hopping. When I got back from dinner at 10 the place was still hopping. I clearly made the right choice. Not to mention the excellent soft sheets, the amazing robe, the 24 hour gym (that I will hit after work today) and the best of all a Whatever/Whenever button. I will be ordering something simple first, they offer the Boston Globe so I'll get the Sunday one delivered to my room.  But then Quig and I decided I really need to order an axe and a log (all stemming from a conversation about camping and chopping wood being man-work but maybe I should do it since it looks like a good workout).  What do you think the chances I end up with a axe and log are?

 

Last week my whole team was in town. We had a professional come and deal poker and blackjack one night with beer/wine and hors d'ouevres.  It is so nice to be on a project with budget!  We all individually debated not going, too much work that needed doing, too tired from the travel or the work.  But we all went for a quick bite and stayed til the end. It was great fun. Loads of laughing and making fun of each other, at least at the Blackjack table... the poker table was very serious and quiet.  I played one round of Texas Hold-em. It is NOTHING like tv when you know everyone else's cards and you think how you would have checked or raised, I was horrible. Seriously bad at it.  I was out in 3 hands.  Went back to blackjack and the fun table.  All in all it was a really great bonding night, we definitely built some relationships.  Sometimes that's better than getting that pile of work done.   Good thing cause that pile never seems to get smaller.

 

So all my friends in Charlotte are having big drama and a lot of choosing sides, divvying up friends, some people are saying some very unkind things and being judgemental of others.  Some people aren't taking other's feelings into account. Not one person is totally right or totally wrong, but it all sucks.  I know it's easy for me, 3000 miles makes a good buffer.  I can say I am not gonna get in the middle and I am not choosing sides. That I am Switzerland.  But I'm sure it's not easy for those smack in the middle of it.  I wish I could roll back the calendar and stop all the bullshit before it begins. I miss you all and hope that somehow the hurt stops and all this lands in the past. Pipedream I think, but hey 3000 miles earns me a lot of rose colored glass.

 

Going to the Melting Pot this weekend with John and Patricia...I know it will remind me of my last outing at the Melting Pot in Charlotte before we moved to the UK. That was a great night.  Miss all you drama queens!

Anyone who has been to a party at our house knows about the whiteboard...here are the results of Saturday's cookout:

 

Top 10 things to write on the whiteboard to wind up the Brits

 

10. American English is better than UK English

9. Why do you call dessert "pudding" even when it's not pudding?

8. Why do you put carpet in the bathroom?

7. Why can't you have mixing taps in the bathroom?

6. Oh you're English…do you know Hugh Grant?

5. Oh you live in Reading…do you know my old friend Mr. Smith who lives in Glasgow?

4. You speak English with a funny accent.

3. Go Germany!

2. Oh cool, we are from Americashire.

1.  Aluminum…Discuss!  George W. Bush, POTUS…Discuss!

1.0.1.1.1.3.4.5 Tony Blair is GW's bitch!

Whatever.1 Let's go to 10 Downing Street and see if Hugh Grant is home.

So last Sunday (a week and a half ago, not three days ago) a couple of my mates took me to play Snooker.  First let me say that when I say Snooker out loud it just cracks them up, apparently I sound like an idiot American when I pronounce the word.  Fair enough, they sound like British idiots when they say it <g>.  Anyway, so we go to play.  Has anyone ever seen an actual Snooker table in real life? Holy crap, it's the size of a room. Seriously, it's 12 feet long (this is not an exaggeration, it really is 12 feet long).  The balls seem about the same size as regular pool balls (don't know either way) but the pockets are smaller.  So I am trying to send a ball the size of a room to land in a mouse hole.  Plus there are these rules that make it very strategic and complicated to play.  People plan their shots several in advance like chess.  Not me, of course, I was lucky to connect with the damn ball.  It was very fun, but I do suck.  Good thing for me my friend sucked just as bad so it came down to a sudden death called a Black Ball Fight and I won!  So we were quite even on the suck factor.  We are going to play tomorrow night again, since it's one of my last free minutes before I leave for Seattle on Sunday.  Taking Duane with me this time, I think he'll like it.

 

So that Monday I started my new job.  I've got this huge learning curve. I am so lost.  It reminds me of my first month on the phones doing Exchange support.  When I would do things like mute customers and scream out "who is dr. watson and why do I care what he thinks?"  Everything customers said sounded like greek and I had no idea where to start on anything. Same thing here.  Plus they are scheduling me for meetings every night til midnight or so.  Stupid Americans have no idea how to work globally.  Since I seem to be in meetings 6-8 hours a day, I have to find another chunk of hours to actually respond to emails, schedule more meetings based on things that happened in previous meetings and read A LOT OF DOCUMENTS.  This is also not an exaggeration, I can't slog through all the documents that might teach me what I am doing, there are too many of them and apparently I am expected to create a lot more.  I'm way confused, but I know that just like Exchange it will eventually click, hopefully sooner than later. I'm only on this project for 6 months we sure don't have time for me to use the usual ramp up period.  Lucky for me a networking team manager from texas started at the same time as me. Duane had worked with him in Toronto hiring the team up there, so that gave me the in to start chatting him.  He is really helping me. It's nice to have a buddy on the project.

 

Then finally Friday came.  After working from 8am to midnight nearly every day, I was wholly unprepared to throw a party.  So I ran to Costco between meetings Friday afternoon and then Duane and I went grocery shopping after work. Then I spent that night baking brownies and individual custardy things and chopping 8 millions lbs of veggies to get them marinating for shish kabobs.  The next morning I made spinach dip, mango salsa, marinated shrimp skewers, skewered the 8 million lbs of veggies and beef, chopped more veggies to go with the spinach dip, cut up fruit for the custardy things, made a cucumber and tomato salad, set up the table with all the serving stuff.  Duane ran around like a maniac trying to find firewood and ice.  WHAT IS UP WITH THE LACK OF ICE OVER HERE?  Seriously, it's weird enough that no one has ice makers.  Plus all freezers have these bizarre drawers so there is no space to lie a ice tray unless the freezer is empty (which mine never is).  When you go to a bar even if you ask for ice in your drink you get like 2 cubes. I usually have to beg for "a lot of ice" which equals 4 cubes. But how do they expect to keep beer on ice at a BBQ when there is NO ICE??  So he finally tracks down bags of ice and I think bought all 4 bags that particular store had.  What a wacked world.  Then he ran around cleaning our house since I was elbow deep in the cooking still.  Thank you, Duane!  Now during this entire day the sky is pissing down rain. Seriously coming down in buckets.  I was so disappointed, plus thinking that my house is itty bitty so we were going to shove 15 people into it and we'd all have to eat standing up after Duane stood in the rain to grill all this food.  Then miraculously at 4:30 (party scheduled for 5) the rain stopped.  It didn't get all sunny and warm, but it did get drier. I think partly cause Mira and Stephanie were sitting in Finland with their fingers crossed to stop the rain. It worked.  So, there we are. Ice, firewood, gallons of food, lovely dip in sun-dried tomato bread...and no guests.  1st one shows at 5:40, 2 more at like 6:15 and then the rest 7pm ish.  Yes, 2 hours late.  But it was such a roaring success after that, great time had by all, that I suppose it's fine.  We ended up just like we always did in Charlotte with everyone around the firepit slowly getting battered. I know I was drunk because as soon as we got inside around 1:30 am, I drunk-dialed Camille.  Her picture was on the tv and it seemed a natural progression.

 

All said...the week was great.

 

In the interest of finding some way to exercise as many days as possible and keep it interesting, Duane and I went ice skating tonight with a couple of friends.  The rental skates truly were medieval torture devices not designed for human feet.  They hurt in every way possible, even my instep was on fire.  I could do about 3 laps around the rink and then sit down for 5 minutes. I think I am going to look for skates of my own though, cause I really always liked skating.  It's cheap entertainment too, £4.50 for 2.5 hours worth of disco skating fun every Wednesday night. :-)

 

For those who have been waiting to hear whether I got the job I applied for, I did.  I will be a Business Capability Program Manager for the Next Generation Information Management project (NGIM pronounced en-gym).  This will put me in Seattle for 50% of my time for the next 6 months.  Lot of time away from Duane, but a really exciting high impact high visibility role.  The type of thing that can make or break a career. It's a huge learning curve and no one to tell me how to do it.  Which is ok, they will tell me what I need to deliver and I'll just figure it out as I go.  I need to be in Seattle at the latest May 15.  On the huge plus side the 6 months of my life being spent in Seattle are during the good weather months.  And I'm sure John and Patricia will make sure I am never lonely.   There was also one line in my offer that I *may* be asked to travel to NC too... don't have to ask me twice!!

 

Eugene's comment about the Middleeast Cafe in Cambridge got me thinking about this amazing musician I used to go see upstairs on Tuesday nights, Gonzalo Silva.  He played bass guitar almost like a lead guitar.  Wonderful to watch. The only other bass player I enjoyed nearly as much seeing live was Les Claypool (hey wait, I think I ran into E at one of his shows in Charlotte). So I went poking around the internet and found Gonzalo is playing subways.  He's what they call a Busker over here. Hey E, check out Gonzalo Silva if you are ever in a subway, I think you'll love him. http://www.gonzalosilva.com/

So I attended a class called Body Combat tonight. This is the description:

 

Explosively popular in clubs around the world, BODYCOMBAT® combines moves and stances from a range of self-defense disciplines like karate, boxing and taekwondo into an hour-long energetic routine.
 
Music and pre-choreography create a fierce, energetic experience which raises fitness levels throughout the whole body, while reducing fat and cholesterol.

============================================

 

Dawg..I have never felt so uncoordinated in my life. In fact, that class was the single hardest thing I have ever done.  I was sweating, panting, boobs absolutely killing me with all the bouncing, looking like a complete idiot not getting all the moves, throwing out muscles doing moves wrong.  There were 3 instructors and every once in a while one of them would give me one on one instruction cause clearly I suck.  Everything hurts.  Will I ever go back to that torture chamber? Hell yes, it was also the best workout I’ve ever had and it was kinda fun in I’m short-bus special kind of way.  As long as I can resist licking the windows and I don’t end up needing a hockey helmet to keep from hurting myself, I think I’ll be ok.

So my friend Lisa Leblanc (and favorite previous manager) came over for work last week.  While she was here we did a bit of siteseeing in London on Saturday.  I've spent so little time looking around London and we have been here almost a year, so this was great. Plus it was SUNNY!  Posting pictures, check out the new album.

 

Also, I was excited to look out my window to my back yard and see a whole tree in bloom with gorgeous pink flowers.  This is my view

 

Love to all!