British TV

Wife and I have done a lot of complaining about British TV since we got here. The annoyance the programming selection causes is at its zenith at the moment. Celebrity Big Brother is on constantly (live feeds of celebrities sleeping!) However, there is a ray of light. The new series of Top Gear is on tomorrow night. If BBC America doesn't have this show yet it should.

However, for a selection of the worst in Brit TV with the funny commentary to go along with it, go to YouTube and search for Harry Hill's TV Burp. I think I could do his job except that I would I have to watch bad British TV all day long which would make me insane, or even more than I already am.

Cheers,
Frog

Are you ready for some football?

I sure am. Could someone please send me a DVD of a taped game? I’m dying over here. And anyone that asks what I’m talking about because they have “real” football over here would be advised to not say this to my face. I miss my Chiefs. I miss my Saturday afternoons at Memorial stadium. I need football!

Listening to the first half of the Chiefs game last night was nice. I even got Bob Gretz shilling for Price Chopper. Of course it wasn’t the most exciting game to listen to, but I guess that’s what Herm brings to the table.

Wife has said we could get Sky with their Sports package since they show two NFL games a week, but I’m more tempted to get ESPN’s GamePlan on-line. I’d get more games and a wider selection. Plus then I could get GamePlan for college basketball, which is even more important.

Haven’t done another for and against so I think it’s about time to bring that back:

For: Multiple varieties of sausages at butchers.

Against: Chicken and beef stock is the equivalent of $5 for a 15 oz. can.

For: Being able to walk to the grocery store.

Against: The grocery store we like moving too far away to walk to.

For: The TV shows Top Gear and Saxondale.

Against: Almost every other British TV show.

For: Guy Fawkes Day (Nobody seems to know whether they’re celebrating an attempt to blow up Parliament or the prevention of that attempt).

Against: Christmas items appearing in stores already.

For: Beautiful, Welsh countryside.

Against: Slow, winding roads through Welsh countryside.

For: Friends and family coming to visit us.

Against: Going to Stonehenge innumerable times.

For: Hungarian white and sparkling wines.

Against: Hungarian red wine (aka, rubbing alcohol).

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry I haven’t been keeping things up to date.

Cheers,
Frog

Weekend Update (sorry, won’t be nearly as funny as Kevin Neelan)

Well, Wife and I got back from home last week. We were there for a week to attend a wedding over the weekend and for me to have some meetings at the main office. It was a good trip but way too short. I think we both felt like that we were going nonstop from the time that our plane hit the ground. At least we had wonderful, cool weather to greet us on our return.

The wedding went really well, and seeing our friends was great. I don’t think either of us realized how much we miss everybody back home until we saw them all again.

Unfortunately we were expecting to have our sea shipment delivered last week, but moving companies are dumb. I had made it very clear that we weren’t going to be available on Monday or Tuesday of last week since we were returning on Tuesday. So when do they want to deliver our stuff? Tuesday of course. And they only called at noon that day to try to arrange it. At that point we were still trying to find our way back to terminal 2 from terminal 4 at Heathrow to catch our parking shuttle.

Heathrow has got to be the most screwed up airport. The lines are confusing, you don’t know your gate until 30 or 40 minutes before it closes, and you may be at least 15 minutes away when you find out. I can’t even imagine what it’s been like the last few days with the increased security.

Back to our shipment. Needless to say we couldn’t take delivery by the time we got home at 2:00, so I asked if we could have it delivered later in the week. I’m sure they enjoyed telling me that they were already booked and that we would have to wait for this Tuesday. I want to send them the doctor bill for straightening my back out because the air mattress isn’t doing good things to it.

Since we didn’t have our stuff to organize we had to find something to do over the weekend. Wife thought it would be a good idea to head to IKEA in London to try to find a chair and coffee table. I agreed that this was a fine idea. IKEA didn’t want to cooperate though. If you’re ever driving from southwest of London into Croydon, don’t. Turn around and go back. It’s the longest, most boring drive through suburbia with no straight roads.

Once we finally got there the store was pretty impressive. We’d never been to one, but we had seen their furnishings before and really liked them. It took us all of a half hour to find the perfect chair that we liked.

For those who have never been to IKEA, one way they keep their prices down is that they have a massive showroom and then a self-service warehouse. You take note of the location in the warehouse of your items and their description and then you go find the items in the warehouse.

We were set. We knew what we wanted, according to the signs on the floor the chair and cushions were in stock, and everything was cheap to boot. It was just too easy. That’s when our luck ran out. We must have picked the most popular combination of chair and cushions in the place because once we got down to the warehouse we found that almost all the combinations of the chair and cushions were sold out. I wanted to post a link to the chair, but Wife says people have to come visit us to see it (we should have it by then). I like her thinking.

Feeling a little discouraged we briefly contemplated buying a different combination but then thought of another solution. Surely we could order the exact chair we wanted online and have it delivered. In the immortal words of the Guinness scientists: “Brilliant!!” Eh, not so much.

IKEA, enlightened though they are, does not yet have the capacity to handle online shopping in the UK. Foiled again. I definitely see a trip to the Bristol store as soon as they have the chair in stock. It may be farther away, but we won’t have to deal with the M25 or London.

The highlight of the weekend was probably on Saturday night. We heard loud, fireworks explosions. Wife went to look out the second bedroom window and saw that they were coming from the direction of the Queen Mary, which was in dock at the time. We had a great vantage point for the majority of the show from our bedroom and brought our spirits back up after the disappointing shopping trip.

As a new feature on the blog, I’m going to start posting recipes that I make up. Saturday night I made a really nice spinach salad for the two of us. Please feel free to comment if you try the recipes so I know whether to improve them or not.

Spinach Salad

4 cups baby spinach leaves, washed thoroughly
2 oz. fresh goat’s cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup shaved almonds
1/4 cup and 1 T. extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tsp. Balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

In a small skillet heat 1 T. of olive oil over low heat. Add almonds and toast until lightly browned. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the remaining olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and mustard until an emulsion forms. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Toss the spinach in the dressing until leaves are coated with a thin layer of dressing. Divide the leaves equally among two plates. Top with the apricots, cheese, and almonds.

Serves two for dinner or four as a side salad.

Momentous Event

Wife had a big week this week. Her foot injury had suspended driving lessons for a couple of weeks while it healed, but we were able to resume practice sessions on Tuesday night. That night we only did a very little bit of practice around our apartment, but the next night we made for the country and some more wide open space. After about 10 minutes of driving it was obvious she needed a bigger challenge to test her newfound shifting skills.

I told her to turn right and drive home. It was the first time she had driven into Southampton. While I think she was a little nervous, it also did her a lot of good. Having to drive in a situation with a little more traffic and some city driving conditions focused her efforts. Her drive in wasn’t flawless, but it was still very good. She didn’t stall the car once and made smooth shifts throughout the drive. She was understandably happy, and I was extremely happy for her. It’s a great relief to me that she can drive now so I don’t have to do all the driving, or if she really needs to get somewhere she can.

There is one thing that worries me about her driving. Her car back home isn’t a slouch, but the GTi is a little more power and acceleration than she’s used to. Now that she’s driving more normally the lead foot has a tendency to make an appearance. That wasn’t a big issue back home, but the Golf really likes to accelerate so she’s going faster than she thinks before she knows it. We’re definitely going to have to make sure she has a GPS with speed camera data in it.

We’re heading home for a week on Tuesday. Our close friends are getting married next Saturday. I’ll be having some meetings at work and we’ll also get to see our families before. I think we’re both looking forward to the trip. I know I am. Chipotle is calling my name. So is Jack Stack.

What I think I’m looking forward to most is getting away from the little things that are just slightly annoying because I haven’t adjusted to them yet. Overall living here has been a lot of fun, but the small things are starting to pile up and making me more negative than I like to be. I’ve heard this is fairly common and will pass with some more time.

Our sea shipment still hasn’t arrived. It’s supposedly in country and has cleared customs, but has not been brought to the depot for the destination agent to pick up. It seems weird that it would take a week for the shipment to be picked up, but I guess this is fairly common. The other American in the office said that was the same thing that happened to her.

One thing that I can’t understand is the European belief that drinking hot drinks to induce sweating is better than drinking cool drinks when the weather is hot. I may be different than the average European, but I don’t have any problem sweating. I’ve been traveling a fair amount lately for meetings and the one constant has been that I’ve been hot. It’s going to be terribly hot when we go home, but at least everywhere you go is refreshingly air conditioned and has air moving.

I’m long overdue for some food posts from my travels. My hope is to get to them later this weekend. For anyone who reads my blog and doesn’t care about the food bits don’t worry. I’ll give a clear warning about food only posts.

Cheers,
Frog

Speaking properly (or some nonsense like that)

Once people get to know you here the first thing they give you a hard time about is how you can’t speak properly. Don’t try to tell them how there isn’t a second ‘i’ in aluminum or that color doesn’t require a ‘u’. It won’t matter. The British will never believe that you’re speaking properly unless you pronounce every vowel in Hereford, or when you flatten every ‘a’.

Not that I mind the English accent. On the contrary I find it very interesting. When you’re here you can pick up more on the regional accents too. Picking out Welsh or Scottish from British is easy. The regional English accents are a little more difficult to distinguish. I haven’t quite figured out where they each come from, but I’m starting to hear them.

The scariest thing is that I’m picking up the manner of speech already. I haven’t been around long enough to get the accent, but it’s probably going to happen. Just the other day the American chick (don't yell at me, that's what she wanted to be called) in our office ended her phone conversation with a British accent. She’s only been here a year. Luckily, my spouse is American whereas hers is British. She gets the accent all the time where I hear the American accent every night.

I won’t even go into cursing, but I will say that there’s no English speaking accent that I’ve heard that can curse with more invective than the British. To my ear the accent gives cursing a measure of proper speech even while being as foul as an NFL coach’s halftime tirade after when his team is down three touchdowns.

But the absolute most entertaining thing about the British accent is hearing them try to speak with a Texas or Western accent. Flat a’s really make saying y’all difficult. It ends up sounding more like fowl than fall. Comedy of the highest form and they don’t understand why I find it funny. Maybe I’ll teach them how to conjugate y’all (yes, it can be done, ask any Texan).

As I end this post I’ll leave you with my favorite British saying: cheers.

Frog

The Unwatchable Sport

I guess it’s been way too long since I wrote a post since I’ve got friends e-mailing me asking when the next update is coming. Well here it is, in all its lack of glory.

The big thing over the past couple of weeks has been the World Cup. Even though it has been over for a week, the talk is still about the head butt. There have even been articles about it on Page 2 on espn.com. It wasn’t quite Artest going into the stands, but it definitely made the game exciting.

That leads me to the title of my post. We went over to a friend of a friend’s place to watch the England quarterfinal match against Portugal. There hadn’t been an opportunity to watch a full match on a real TV (Internet viewing leaves a lot to be desired), so we were looking forward to it. Plus, there were going to be grilled hamburgers, so Wife was definitely excited.

Viewing conditions weren’t optimal since we wanted to enjoy the nice weather by sitting in the garden. This required the TV to be wheeled to the back door which caused the sun to wash out the picture a little, but it was still better than a 320x240 pixel internet feed.

I think it was about halfway through the first half when Wife and I realized that the first half wasn’t close to over and we were already bored. In the game’s defense our friends who actually know soccer said it was an awful game, but we were just completely bored. And this went on for 120 minutes plus some arbitrary number of extra time minutes that the referee decided they needed to play. Even after all that nobody had scored. The only thing interesting that had happened was a Portuguese player had gotten stepped on (in the groin) leading to the best English player shoving another Portuguese player and getting ejected.

In the end England lost because their players couldn’t kick a ball into the ocean from a boat when it comes to penalties.

Now I will be the first to admit that the subtlety of the game is completely lost on me, so I won’t claim to understand the game completely. But to me it seems like the game of close but not quite. So many times the players would break away from their defender only to make a pass that was just a little ahead of the player breaking to the goal.

I guess I could find myself watching soccer more often, but I think it will be similar to how the Sports Guy watches it: be doing something else and then look up when the announcers’ voices become agitated or excited. That way I can catch all the good bits and skip all the “action” around midfield.

Wife would like me to point out that she still likes it even if she couldn’t make it all the way through final without flipping through the channels occasionally. The drama of grown men (aka: the Italians) acting like they’ve been hit by a sledgehammer when anyone from the opposing side looks at them funny appeals to her soap opera appreciation side.

That should about cover soccer (football). I’d write about cricket but I don’t have a clue what the heck is going on in that sport. It’s incomprehensible.

Cheers,
Frog

Welcome to England!

We can say that now since we’ve finally been properly introduced to English weather. While our family and friends are roasting in the hot, Kansas June, we’re here in long sleeve shirts because it’s not even 60 degrees and it’s rained all day. Like a lady at work said it’s the first day of Wimbledon. It’s almost guaranteed to be crummy weather. I’m glad it’s summer. Getting thrown into months of this kind of weather could really depress a guy.

Since I’m not above stealing gimmicks from other people, I’m going to start doing a For and Against section in my posts. I got the idea from Michael Davies, who is writing a rather entertaining blog about the World Cup for ESPN’s Page 2. So here’s what I’m for and against today:

For: British weather (at least for now)

Against: Not taking a jacket to work

For: Finding the same orange juice that I like back home

Against: No kosher salt

For: English sausages

Against: Puddings that aren’t pudding (black, Yorkshire, etc.)

For: Our apartment kitchen

Against: British plumbing

For: Being within walking distance of restaurants and pubs

Against: Paying for parking anytime we drive somewhere

There are sure to be more in the future, but that’s the list for now. Wife and I are off for dinner at a friend’s place tonight.

Cheers,
Frog

And so it begins...

Touring that is. Wife and I had our first taste of touring since we arrived. On Sunday we drove to Salisbury to see the cathedral and check out the town. It was a sleepy, overcast day and the town showed it. About half the shops close on Sunday, so nothing was busy. From the car park we wandered along the river walk for a short time, then down some shop-lined streets to the cathedral close.

When you approach the cathedral it really is an impressive site. It’s gothic in nature with a spire that stands out from all the surrounding landscape. In fact, as you drive into Salisbury from the south you can see the spire well before you can see the rest of the town. According to our guidebook the spire is so impressive that it is having a rather detrimental effect on the supporting structure.

It was proven to be an old church (built circa 1250 A.D.) by the scaffolding that covered the north side from the transept to the back of the church. As we approached we couldn’t believe how big it was. From the outside it looked comparable to the duomos in Florence and Milan. It was only when we went in that we saw that while impressive it really wasn’t as large as we had thought. With nothing around it to offer scale, the cathedral appears much larger. The only thing that can give any sense of scale are some chestnut trees that grow in the close, but these aren’t very large or very near either.

Unfortunately this cathedral has gone the way of supposedly so many others in England. There’s a donation box at every corner. Luckily we were there on a Sunday so without many tourists about there was no one present to hound people to make the donations. We were only able to stay in the cathedral for a bit as there was a service going on and we felt awkward walking around during it.

After leaving the cathedral we wandered to the market square which was rather disappointing. It is probably very nice on market day, but as there was no market on Sunday it was being utilized as a parking lot. A bit depressed by this we headed to find some lunch.

Having had a decent lunch in a pub we made for St. Thomas’ church, which was built shortly before the cathedral for the workers building the cathedral. There is an interesting mural of the Last Judgment here, though it is a bit faded. The church itself felt rather cozy and had the requisite number of memorial stones on the floor which had been worn down from centuries of people walking on them.

It was still fairly early in the afternoon when we finished at St. Thomas so we decided to follow the river walk along the Avon. This proved to be a very nice path with various water fowl on the river and water clear enough you could see the fish. After a decent distance we turned around and headed back for the car.

Overall we thought that Salisbury is definitely worth a visit, especially for some shopping. There seemed to be a good number of unique shops and some quality restaurants for lunch. Combine that with a trip to Stonehenge and you’ve got a good day of sightseeing.

Cheers,
Frog

Long overdue update

It’s been way too long since I gave an update, but I’m going to blame that on packing, travel, and sleeping on an air mattress with no pillows or blankets.

Wife and I arrived safely last Wednesday despite departing on 6 June 2006, which, if you were watching CNN, was sure to have been the apocalypse. At least they were prepared to cover it if it had happened and even more prepared to say “We told you so”.

After an uneventful flight we came down to my office to pick up the keys to our flat. Once we went in Wife was a little shocked at the size. Going from a three bedroom house in the US to a two bedroom flat in the UK is pretty shocking. I was more prepared for it as I had seen how much smaller some of the other places were.

We stayed in a hotel the first three nights hoping that our air shipment would arrive so we would have our air mattress and some other necessities, but as the week went on it became more and more obvious that wasn’t going to happen. A lady at work was nice enough to let us borrow her air mattress so we’ve been in the flat since Saturday. It’s nice being able to have some food around, but we still can’t cook anything and sleeping without sheets and pillows is getting a bit old. I’m hoping we’ll have our air shipment by Friday, which would only be 11 days later than it was supposed to be.

Over the weekend we found a great deal on a couch and we also found some patio furniture. The neighbors are probably thinking we’re the weird Americans who eat on their patio all the time. Having the couch is definitely nice since we have someplace to sit inside. I’m thinking Wife and I may have to trade off for it and the air mattress since it is so much more comfortable.

Last night we got another major hurdle out of the way. We were able to buy a car, or at least put a deposit down to hold a car. It’s a black VW Golf GTi Turbo, so even though it’s small, it’s fast. Now I’ve just got to complete Wife’s manual transmission lessons.

Overall everything is going pretty well. We’re getting settled and have arranged almost everything. We’re within walking distance of shopping, restaurants, pubs, and movie theaters in town. Everyone at work has been very helpful and nice. I don’t know if it actually feels like anything other than a vacation yet, but I’m sure that will change soon enough.

I almost forgot. The craziest thing we’ve seen so far happened the other night while we were on our balcony/patio playing cards after having dinner. The parking people had been called to put a clamp (boot in the US) on an unauthorized car in the parking lot. After the guy had the clamp put on, the person whose car he had clamped started talking to him on one side of his van. While they were talking, the person’s friends pulled a clamp out of their car and clamped the rear tire of the parking guy’s van. We felt so bad for the parking guy. He’s doing his job and ends up getting his van clamped. The irony of it was still amusing, though.

That’s all for now. I hope to have some pictures of the car and the view from the apartment for the next post.

Cheers,
Frog

It's official!

We've got our visas, the movers are coming today, and we've got the relocation. It's really happening. I guess I felt like it was all a theoretical exercise up to this point, but now it's real. There's a bit of anxiety with the idea, but that comes and goes. I just hope I start sleeping better after today. Wife hopes so too since I toss and turn and keep her awake. For some reason I've been really nervous about getting ready for the movers.

I'll post more about the move later after it's happened.

Frog

Quick move update...

Just a short update on the move this post. Wife and I accepted an offer on our house last weekend, so the last hurdle left to jump is getting our visas. As soon as the rest of the documents arrive at work I’ll be sending the applications off. I’ve been assured that the process only takes a few days. It better show up since we’re leaving two weeks from tomorrow and we don’t have permission to enter the UK yet.

The movers are coming on Friday so the big push this week is to get everything together that we need to have packed. Luckily they’ll do all the packing, but we still have to sort through everything and decide what we’ll need while we’re there. Going from a house to a small apartment could make for some interesting decisions on what goes and what stays.

Things seem to be barreling along at full speed and the two week number is a little daunting, but we’ll power through. The bit of nervous excitement just adds to the stress, but it also makes it worth bearing.

More stories of the honeymoon to come when I get time.

Frog

Changing time(s) zones

This post should have been made from my hotel in London last weekend, but motivation was severely lacking. I think the surreal feeling of actually having a place to live in England hadn't sunk in yet. Now it has and while it's still a little unreal, it's also very exciting.

Needless to say last week's trip was a success. I found a nice place for Fiance and I to live for the two years we'll be in England. It's going to be different than my suburban living normalcy as our flat is in a seven story building a short distance from Southampton city center and even closer to the water. You can see the berths for the Queen Mary and QE II from our balcony and a marina on the River Itchen from our bedroom. That's quite the change from suburban middle America. We're also within walking distance of numerous restaurants and pubs, two movie theaters, and a not unreasonable trek or short bus ride to a large shopping center. We're looking forward to the urban life and not having to drive everywhere. My only concern is having room for our bicycles. The rooms in the apartment are not what you would call roomy.

I was also able to open a bank account, which was an interesting experience. The head of our accounting department in our England office had notified the appropriate people that I would be coming to open an account. You wouldn't think that would be a big deal, but in England they don't let you open an account as easily as they do here. It basically worked out that we had arrangements with the people at the bank that when I came in I would skip a lot of the preliminaries and get a full account immediately since I had my company behind me. Unfortunately when we got there, all the people who knew of these arrangements were on holiday. It took a couple of phone calls, but eventually we were given the red carpet treatment and I now have a bank account. It doesn't have any money in it (something else that's strange to me), but I have an account.

Wedding plans are proceeding at a good pace. We seem to have most things worked out at the moment, or at least that's what I think. I doubt Fiance would agree with me. It's funny because in so many respects she is not overly girlie (which I like), but the wedding is bringing it out more in her than even she likes. She even recognizes that it's happening but is powerless to resist it.

Hopefully the house will be ready to put on the market next week. That will be one huge thing that I will be glad to have sorted out. It's unfortunate that I waited until now to do all these improvements to the house. It would have made it much more enjoyable to live there had I gone ahead and taken care of these things earlier. Oh well, at least the improvements will make it easier to sell.

That's the update for now. There may be more later in the week or early next week, but no guarantees. I imagine the next....good God! It's only NINE days away! I better get going.

Cheers,
Frog

Slacking...

Wow, a whole five posts and I'm already slacking. But I have an excuse. Lack of or problems with Internet access over the past week kept me from posting. As pseudo proof I have a post that I wrote on 6 March (trying to go British typing my dates), but said connection problems did not allow me to post. Back tonight with stories of CeBIT if I can get my room painted in a decent amount of time.

Frog

Greetings from the UK. After a very long travel day I finally arrived in England. This is the second time in the last few months that I've gotten stuck on the runway in Kansas City waiting to leave for Chicago. The first time I was in first class. The second time I was one row behind first class. Let me say that being in first class was infinitely preferable. While they're having drinks and snacks, I'm sitting there wondering if we're ever going to get off the ground. Plus the anticipation of sitting on another plane for another six hours did nothing to help me tolerate the first plane. But, we finally got to Chicago, I high-tailed it from Concourse F to Concourse C just in time to catch another flight to London (I had already missed my original flight).

Of course by the time I got to Chicago at about 8:45 I was already starving, but there wasn't time to get anything to eat. I barely made the flight. Then, once they finally started serving the meal, the attendant had to go back to the back of the aircraft to retrieve something. Of course she left the cart sitting right by me, and I was hungry enough airline food even smelled good.

Luckily I was able to have two seats to myself, so I actually slept on the flight. Two glasses of wine and a double strength Benadryl certainly helped. The taxi ride to Romsey wasn't bad. The driver was actually quite nice. He had a lot of recommendations on buying a car here which I think will be helpful later on.

At the moment I'm waiting for some people in a meeting to finish up so I can catch a ride to the hotel and get cleaned up. I hate the airplane funk feeling. It's just not pleasant. Plus I could really go for some food, even British food :)

Everyone I've met at the office here so far has been really nice. It's kind of hectic around here as everyone is working feverishly to prepare for CeBIT. It's definitely going to be interesting working here in a couple of months.

That's all for now. There may be more tomorrow when I'm a little more lucid. Four hours of sleep doesn't cut it for this frog.

Feeling squashed in England,
Frog

Hello to anyone reading,

I guess the first post of any blog is supposed to talk about the motivation behind it. Who am I to question that convention?

The idea behind this and any future posts is to allow my family and friends to keep up with me and my future wife as we move to England. As if getting married weren't enough stress, I had to go and volunteer for a job in the UK. That means that less than a month after we return from the honeymoon we'll be on another flight to start our new life in County Hampshire, England.

It's pretty overwhelming at the moment, but there's a level of excitement to it too. There are going to be so many things to adjust to, not the least of which will be being married. However, my beautiful bride-to-be (sure to feature prominently in future posts) is a great person who loves travelling adventures, so we should be all right.

Stay tuned for updates and any other ramblings I may have.

Cheers,
Frog