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
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
The Longest Friday Ever!
(written in DFW airport last Friday)
My Friday has now lasted 24 hours and there's still over eight hours left of it. I don't understand why travel agents, who are supposedly experts on travel, expect that you can make a connection within an hour and a half of your arrival on an international flight. Between getting through immigration, picking up bags, customs, back through security, and changing terminals, it is not humanly possible. Yet travel agents continue to book tight connections for me. This is the second trip in a row that I've missed my connection, and now I'm sitting in Dallas from 10:50 this morning until my flight leaves at 3:50.
Okay, rant over. I've been up 24 hours with only a couple naps on the flight so I'm a little cranky.
I have had a chance to observe a lot of people here at the airport, though. There's not much better to do. One thing that I saw that was pretty cool is the respect people are showing to military personnel who are going through the airport to go on R&R or to redeploy. Seeing some people go up and express their appreciation for the work the service men and women are doing was good to see. So much of what is on the news revolves around the negative, but the men and women of our armed forces are professionals who are doing their job to the best of their abilities. Decisions from the top may sometimes hinder their progress, but as long as we have people like I've seen here in Dallas, the job will end up getting done right.
On a less serious note, it does feel good to be back in the U.S. I'm normally able to cope pretty well with being in a foreign place, but so much in Japan is so different from what I'm used to. There's never a level of comfort there that I feel in other places that I visit. That probably comes from not being able to understand the printed language at all. I don't know any language other than English, but at least I can read the characters in the European languages. In Japan I don't have a chance. For instance, if a menu doesn't have pictures or an English description, I have no clue what I'm getting. In contrast, in Europe I can at least recognize several foods in Italian, German, and French. Just guessing in Japan might end up with me getting raw octupus marinated in slime, or whole miniature squid that crunch when you bite them because of the beak.
On the move front, not much has been happening. I've been out of town two of the last three weeks, so it's a little difficult to get much done. I feel bad for leaving Fiance with all the wedding planning, but I do what I can when she asks. My focus has primarily been on getting the house ready for sale. I hope that I have enough energy to get the floor in the kitchen done this weekend, but that might be a dubious proposition.
Sorry for the rambling without direction. I'm going to hide behind the excuse of extreme fatigue.
Cheers,
Frog
My Friday has now lasted 24 hours and there's still over eight hours left of it. I don't understand why travel agents, who are supposedly experts on travel, expect that you can make a connection within an hour and a half of your arrival on an international flight. Between getting through immigration, picking up bags, customs, back through security, and changing terminals, it is not humanly possible. Yet travel agents continue to book tight connections for me. This is the second trip in a row that I've missed my connection, and now I'm sitting in Dallas from 10:50 this morning until my flight leaves at 3:50.
Okay, rant over. I've been up 24 hours with only a couple naps on the flight so I'm a little cranky.
I have had a chance to observe a lot of people here at the airport, though. There's not much better to do. One thing that I saw that was pretty cool is the respect people are showing to military personnel who are going through the airport to go on R&R or to redeploy. Seeing some people go up and express their appreciation for the work the service men and women are doing was good to see. So much of what is on the news revolves around the negative, but the men and women of our armed forces are professionals who are doing their job to the best of their abilities. Decisions from the top may sometimes hinder their progress, but as long as we have people like I've seen here in Dallas, the job will end up getting done right.
On a less serious note, it does feel good to be back in the U.S. I'm normally able to cope pretty well with being in a foreign place, but so much in Japan is so different from what I'm used to. There's never a level of comfort there that I feel in other places that I visit. That probably comes from not being able to understand the printed language at all. I don't know any language other than English, but at least I can read the characters in the European languages. In Japan I don't have a chance. For instance, if a menu doesn't have pictures or an English description, I have no clue what I'm getting. In contrast, in Europe I can at least recognize several foods in Italian, German, and French. Just guessing in Japan might end up with me getting raw octupus marinated in slime, or whole miniature squid that crunch when you bite them because of the beak.
On the move front, not much has been happening. I've been out of town two of the last three weeks, so it's a little difficult to get much done. I feel bad for leaving Fiance with all the wedding planning, but I do what I can when she asks. My focus has primarily been on getting the house ready for sale. I hope that I have enough energy to get the floor in the kitchen done this weekend, but that might be a dubious proposition.
Sorry for the rambling without direction. I'm going to hide behind the excuse of extreme fatigue.
Cheers,
Frog
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Mmmm...waffles!
In all my traveling I've found that I cope pretty well unless I have to eat something really foreign for breakfast. Here in Japan it's very common to have fish for breakfast, which is not something that I'm a fan of. I tried it once in England a couple years ago and having that fishy taste in my mouth all morning was not pleasant.
Luckily for me, McDonald's is all over the world, and aside from offering a Filet 'o Fish sandwich on the breakfast menu, the breakfast stuff is pretty much the same. The hotel also has a breakfast buffet with American style breakfast items, which is where I had the waffles.
I was definitely in the mood for some comfort food after the dinner we had last night. Parts were really good, and other parts were just funky. The first course was two tiny, raw squid with some miso. I only got one down as they tasted strongly of fish and when I crunched the beak I almost lost it. Served with that was a skewer with a block of fish eggs with some seaweed in the middle along with a rice flour ball flavored with something that turned it green. There was also an orange ball on the skewer that was not explained to me (always a dubious indication).
For the second course there was sashimi. The bluefin (I think) was very good, and the shrimp were okay. There was some squid that looked good, but after the previous squid episode I avoided it. Following this was a salad with a sesame vinaigrette that was very good.
Next a small bowl with a lid was brought out, and by this time I was a little worried. With the courses we had had so far, I was wondering if there was going to be anything hot served. I was thinking a McDonald's burger run might have to be in order after dinner since nothing that I had so far was very satisfying. The bowl ended up being a very nice surprise. Inside was a steamed, sweet corn dumpling along with steamed bamboo, pea pod, and a root shaped vegetable with some pink coloring. All the items were very tasty.
The main course was the highlight. Platters of vegetables, tuna, shrimp, and scallops were brought out raw, and small grills were lit on the table. It was similar to a Korean style barbecue. A daikon and pepper mixture and scallions were mixed into a small bowl with a dipping sauce for the grilled items. All of this was very good.
After filling up on the main course (and a beer or three), I was discouraged to see a small plate of sushi coming out. There was bluefin, albacore, shrimp, squid, and three pieces of a spicy tuna role. I managed to get the bluefin, shrimp and a couple pieces of the role down, but I was too full to tackle the other pieces.
Luckily dessert was a very small scoop of cherry ice cream. It was really delicious and just the right amount of dessert for a very full stomach.
All in all a good dinner, and a much better finish than how it started. It was a cool experience and the beer was really good (Asahi Super Dry, my favorite Japanese beer).
Frog
Luckily for me, McDonald's is all over the world, and aside from offering a Filet 'o Fish sandwich on the breakfast menu, the breakfast stuff is pretty much the same. The hotel also has a breakfast buffet with American style breakfast items, which is where I had the waffles.
I was definitely in the mood for some comfort food after the dinner we had last night. Parts were really good, and other parts were just funky. The first course was two tiny, raw squid with some miso. I only got one down as they tasted strongly of fish and when I crunched the beak I almost lost it. Served with that was a skewer with a block of fish eggs with some seaweed in the middle along with a rice flour ball flavored with something that turned it green. There was also an orange ball on the skewer that was not explained to me (always a dubious indication).
For the second course there was sashimi. The bluefin (I think) was very good, and the shrimp were okay. There was some squid that looked good, but after the previous squid episode I avoided it. Following this was a salad with a sesame vinaigrette that was very good.
Next a small bowl with a lid was brought out, and by this time I was a little worried. With the courses we had had so far, I was wondering if there was going to be anything hot served. I was thinking a McDonald's burger run might have to be in order after dinner since nothing that I had so far was very satisfying. The bowl ended up being a very nice surprise. Inside was a steamed, sweet corn dumpling along with steamed bamboo, pea pod, and a root shaped vegetable with some pink coloring. All the items were very tasty.
The main course was the highlight. Platters of vegetables, tuna, shrimp, and scallops were brought out raw, and small grills were lit on the table. It was similar to a Korean style barbecue. A daikon and pepper mixture and scallions were mixed into a small bowl with a dipping sauce for the grilled items. All of this was very good.
After filling up on the main course (and a beer or three), I was discouraged to see a small plate of sushi coming out. There was bluefin, albacore, shrimp, squid, and three pieces of a spicy tuna role. I managed to get the bluefin, shrimp and a couple pieces of the role down, but I was too full to tackle the other pieces.
Luckily dessert was a very small scoop of cherry ice cream. It was really delicious and just the right amount of dessert for a very full stomach.
All in all a good dinner, and a much better finish than how it started. It was a cool experience and the beer was really good (Asahi Super Dry, my favorite Japanese beer).
Frog
Monday, March 20, 2006
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto
Konnichiwa from Tokyo, Japan. After a long flight and what seemed like an even longer bus ride, I'm turning Japanese. Okay, I'm not really turning Japanese, but I wanted to see how many song references I could squeeze in. The last time I said it's a wonderful time of the year. It still is, but it's not quite as wonderful since the Jayhawks lost. Oh well, there's spring football to pay attention to now.
Had some really good udon with shrimp tempura tonight. It was tasty but there's one thing I can't quite figure out. Part of what makes tempura so good is the light, crispy texture that it gets during frying. But putting it in a bowl of udon makes it go soggy and you lose the texture. It still tastes good, but you lose something in the combination.
If you're wondering why I'm in Tokyo, it's for meetings with the client I've worked with for the past almost three years. It's a kind of farewell tour before I take on my new job in the UK. I'm hoping to get a chance to go see some sights on Thursday depending on how the meetings go. If I get a chance I want to go to the fish market. From what I've seen on the Food Network it looks wild.
Needless to say the jet lag is setting in. Look for more posts in the next few days since there's not much to watch on the TV here.
Sayonara,
Frog
Had some really good udon with shrimp tempura tonight. It was tasty but there's one thing I can't quite figure out. Part of what makes tempura so good is the light, crispy texture that it gets during frying. But putting it in a bowl of udon makes it go soggy and you lose the texture. It still tastes good, but you lose something in the combination.
If you're wondering why I'm in Tokyo, it's for meetings with the client I've worked with for the past almost three years. It's a kind of farewell tour before I take on my new job in the UK. I'm hoping to get a chance to go see some sights on Thursday depending on how the meetings go. If I get a chance I want to go to the fish market. From what I've seen on the Food Network it looks wild.
Needless to say the jet lag is setting in. Look for more posts in the next few days since there's not much to watch on the TV here.
Sayonara,
Frog
Thursday, March 16, 2006
It's the most wonderful time...
Okay, so maybe not the most wonderful time of the year, but it sure ranks toward the top. It's the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Is there any sporting event quite as cool as the first two days of the tournament? Sure the Super Bowl (am I going to get sued by the NFL for using the name?) is big, but there's four hours of lead up before the action even starts. Today, games have started already and will continue to be played pretty much continuously for the next 13 hours. It's a hoops fan's paradise.
A friend of mine is having a watch party at his place. I'm headed over there in a bit. We'll have our pick of games with the local CBS coverage, the March Madness On Demand, and there's a rumor that Time Warner is going to be offering multiple CBS channels. One can only hope.
The Jayhawks don't play until tomorrow night, so today is a day to enjoy the atmosphere, cheer for upsets (as long as they don't wreck my bracket), and hope that Billy Packer doesn't announce any of the games I want to watch.
A word about brackets. I always do two. One with KU winning, another that I try to be completely objective. This year that made me put Duke into the Elite Eight, but I don't think they'll beat Texas. That was lucky because under no circumstances will I ever pick Duke to win a championship. If they play Missouri I'll hope for all the players to be too ill to play so the game is called with a double forfeit.
Fiance filled out a bracket based on which mascot she liked the best. With her leanings toward the Irish, Iona went far in her bracket.
That's all the tournament musings for the moment. I'm off for Japan on Sunday, so I should have some good stories from that trip.
Rock Chalk!
Frog
A friend of mine is having a watch party at his place. I'm headed over there in a bit. We'll have our pick of games with the local CBS coverage, the March Madness On Demand, and there's a rumor that Time Warner is going to be offering multiple CBS channels. One can only hope.
The Jayhawks don't play until tomorrow night, so today is a day to enjoy the atmosphere, cheer for upsets (as long as they don't wreck my bracket), and hope that Billy Packer doesn't announce any of the games I want to watch.
A word about brackets. I always do two. One with KU winning, another that I try to be completely objective. This year that made me put Duke into the Elite Eight, but I don't think they'll beat Texas. That was lucky because under no circumstances will I ever pick Duke to win a championship. If they play Missouri I'll hope for all the players to be too ill to play so the game is called with a double forfeit.
Fiance filled out a bracket based on which mascot she liked the best. With her leanings toward the Irish, Iona went far in her bracket.
That's all the tournament musings for the moment. I'm off for Japan on Sunday, so I should have some good stories from that trip.
Rock Chalk!
Frog
Monday, March 13, 2006
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
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
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
It keeps going and going and going...
The list of things to do that is. I met with my realtor today to talk about what to do to get my house ready to sell. Now I can add that to the list of things to do. It's starting to look a little crazy taking on this much. It doesn't help that I'll be gone 3 of the next 5 weeks for work. Fiance has been great. She keeps reassuring me that we'll be able to get everything done.
Next week I'll be in Europe for CeBIT. I'm looking forward to the show a lot. I've attended a wireless show in New Orleans before, but this should cover a lot more technologies. It'll be interesting to see what the newest gadgets are.
Before that I'll be stopping off at our UK office for some meetings. I hope to have a little time to get at least a little bit of a feel for the area. I've been once before, but I didn't pay much attention to the towns.
Those bachelor party pictures are still coming. I'll have some posts about CeBIT next week too.
Ciao,
Frog
Next week I'll be in Europe for CeBIT. I'm looking forward to the show a lot. I've attended a wireless show in New Orleans before, but this should cover a lot more technologies. It'll be interesting to see what the newest gadgets are.
Before that I'll be stopping off at our UK office for some meetings. I hope to have a little time to get at least a little bit of a feel for the area. I've been once before, but I didn't pay much attention to the towns.
Those bachelor party pictures are still coming. I'll have some posts about CeBIT next week too.
Ciao,
Frog
Monday, February 27, 2006
We survived!
Well, the Bachelor Party was a success. The guys and I had a great time at Copper Mountain skiing. Darn Olympics, though. It made everyone want to ski and board. The mountain was packed on Friday and even worse on Saturday. I've been to Copper several times and had never seen the upper lifts so full.
Unfortunately I was an idiot and didn't bring my camera battery charger. I thought the camera was full, but it was completely dead. Thus there won't be any pictures until I can get some from the other guys. As soon as I have some I'll post them.
There was only one bad part about the weekend. My beloved Jayhawks lost to Texas Saturday night in very bad fashion. I just hope they can bounce back in the coming week to wrap up second place in the Big 12.
Wedding and moving plans are proceeding at a frantic pace. Fiance got a lot of invitations addressed this weekend while I was gone. Now I get to stuff the envelopes. I'm so excited I can barely contain myself. There. Did you see that excitement? It was right there. Just kidding, Sweetie. Stuffing is much preferred to actually addressing. See, Mom, there was a reason I let my handwriting become bad.
As far as the move goes, it looks like I'll probably be going to England early in April to find a place for us to live once we get there. Fiance trusts me to find decent places to at least take pictures of to send to her. We both think this is preferable to living in a hotel while we find a place. Plus it seems that it's a 50/50 split on places over there being furnished or unfurnished. Having the place picked out will let us know better what to pack.
That's the latest. I'll be back soon with pictures from the party.
Frog
Unfortunately I was an idiot and didn't bring my camera battery charger. I thought the camera was full, but it was completely dead. Thus there won't be any pictures until I can get some from the other guys. As soon as I have some I'll post them.
There was only one bad part about the weekend. My beloved Jayhawks lost to Texas Saturday night in very bad fashion. I just hope they can bounce back in the coming week to wrap up second place in the Big 12.
Wedding and moving plans are proceeding at a frantic pace. Fiance got a lot of invitations addressed this weekend while I was gone. Now I get to stuff the envelopes. I'm so excited I can barely contain myself. There. Did you see that excitement? It was right there. Just kidding, Sweetie. Stuffing is much preferred to actually addressing. See, Mom, there was a reason I let my handwriting become bad.
As far as the move goes, it looks like I'll probably be going to England early in April to find a place for us to live once we get there. Fiance trusts me to find decent places to at least take pictures of to send to her. We both think this is preferable to living in a hotel while we find a place. Plus it seems that it's a 50/50 split on places over there being furnished or unfurnished. Having the place picked out will let us know better what to pack.
That's the latest. I'll be back soon with pictures from the party.
Frog
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