So I've been here for a couple of weeks now and here are my random thoughts so far.- If I ever write a book about my life it's going to be called "Continental Drift" or "Dislocation" - There are no English people in London anymore. That's not a good or bad thing, just an observation. In case you're wondering, it's now filled with gorgeous (both male and female) europeans and russians. - I don't do well without my wife around. At all. I'm really glad she's here. - the Brits are a lary, loud people. They love to shout (be it agressively or positively) at you for any reason they can think of. - The weather and darkness...really not that bad. I have a feeling being in the city really helps that which is one of the reasons I want to live in the middle of things and not out in the sticks. - It's really hard to eat badly here. Yeah there's McDonalds and the BK Lounge but everywhere you look there are great restaurants and really good, clean food options that are just as fast and cheap as McDonalds and the BK Lounge. - I don't miss the things that I thought I would. I don't miss the food (although my kind mother-in-law shipped some roni and cheese over to me, which I am really looking forward to!). I don't miss the TV as much as I thought I would. In fact I have barely watched any British TV since getting here. - I think there might be more Starbucks per capita in London than in San Francisco. It certainly feels like that. Oh and they don't have Raspberry Mochas here - what the hell is up with that shit? - So far since moving here I've eaten Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Singaporean, Malaysian, Italian and Middle Eastern food. All within 500 meters of my apartment. Awesome. - Guitar Hero has reintroduced me to my love of Velvet Revolver. They're song "Slither" is featured in the current commercial that's playing in the US. - I miss my US family immensely. Especially my nieces. But as my sister-in-law Donna pointed out in her recent blog post, in this day and age, you're never really far from anywhere. - Internet connectivity is so much faster here. It's not even funny. My wireless connection in the apartment is 5x faster than my wired connection in San Leandro. I hate you AT&T. - This is a great article on being an American in London http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article3136495.ece - Tea flows like water here. It's extraordinary. About 5 times a day someone comes around the office and asks if we want a "cuppa." Oh and tea tastes better here. I can bring back tea bags and make the same tea but it just tastes better here. - Apparently if you drink beer from a bottle here, that makes you gay. Well call me Liberace then. No, you have to drink beer that has grass clippings in it and tastes like the drainings from a compost pile. - Things they have here that surprised the hell out of me: Chili's, Papa John's Pizza, and Mexican food. - Things that are hard to find here: The Onion, Wired Magazine, Dental floss, garbage cans, TV shows worth watching. - Things that are not hard to find here: Starbucks, Cell phone companies, Chinese restaurants, clouds.
Dirty Laundry
So I figured when I got here there would be some issues or hurdles I would have to over come during the adjustment to my new life here. I figured maybe I would get lost on the tube or even walking the streets, maybe I would be cold. Well I have taken a few journeys and none have I got lost on and the cold has not really bothered me as of yet. In fact it is about the same weather I left in California.No it was the washing machine. A simple device which any good housewife should have mastered by now. I went to do some laundry because Alex has not done any since he has gotten here and I brought over dirty clothes in my rush out the door a few days ago. I found the laundry facility and thought thank god.. they look like american washers, not the ones I have seen out here before which are small. They even have really nice big dryers which to even have a dryer is a novelty! This, I thought, should be easy. So I load up my huge backpacking back pack, grabbed the soap and walked downstairs. I loaded up the machines and put my soap in. It had three containers and I accidently got soap in all three... no big deal I thought. Then I put my 2 pounds in each machine, because I was doing 2 loads. There were no directions but these were my selections: 30, 60, 60 with a circle around it, a circle, and 90 with a circle around it. Tempurature? Time? Who knows, but I didn't want a light wash so I selected the hefty sounding 90. The machines then showed 42 minutes on the clock and I left happily thinking I will be done with this by 1130 as I started at 10. I go up stairs... mind you it is five flights and the elevator is out of service, and head back in 35 minutes. Hmm... that is funny, the machines now say no time at all but are still running. So I wait and wait.... and one of them makes a buzzing sound and then the time pops back up saying 35 minutes and five minutes later, it still says 35 minutes. Well okay then. I guessed maybe I chose a 90 minute cycle? Back up stairs back down about a half hour later. No time indicated still in the wash cycles. So I wait and wait... The machine on the right dings again and starts rinsing but the time pops up AGAIN and says 25 now. The other machine was still washing. I thought for a moment maybe it was my soap, so I cleaned that out of the machines with my fingers hoping it would help. I don't know if it did but then I was left with nasty crusty powder all over my hands with no place to wash them, unless I went upstairs. I am used to doing nasty things and I saw a bucket outside that had some dirt and rain water in it so I washed up and then sat there as my hands froze realizing the whole thing back to cleaning out the soap was a bad idea. I waited a bit and the machines had not changed but the 25 min machine actually had counted down so I felt hopeful. I go back upstairs. Then down. FINALLY. The machine on the right stopped! In to the dryer they go. But the other machine... heh. It is in the whole 35 minutes with no counting down phase. I would just take the clothes out but they are still slightly soapy and with my luck the door will actually open and flood the laundry room. At least if the dryer wants to dry for a few hours I can stop it. So here I am now, one load drying, one load lost in laundry land washing itself over and over again. I don't know how long it will take for the laundry to dry so I will go back down in 40 minutes. I started at 10 and it is now 1:30. I suspect I will be here for another couple hours... doing laundry. Oh and if anyone understands the selections for washing??? Please tell me because apparently 90 means infinity. UPDATE: I finished at 4pm because the dryers both needed two cycles to dry which is not that bad. But upon removing the clothes, the first load which washed for 1.5 hours, turned all the white clothes only slighty darker. However, the load that washed for over 3 hours turned everything a gray/lightblue color. They all died evenly so I now have previously tan, gray pants and all of alex's bright whites are gray too. Like REALLY gray. And one of his sweaters is smaller than me. It isn't my fault though I swear and at least they all were dyed evenly so we can still wear them :) BTW, our apartment is exactly 256sqf. I am a nerd who packed my measuring tape.
and then there was one... and some kittehs
Alex departed probably just a few minutes ago. I dropped him off at the airport about 2 hours ago :/I was sad that we didn't get to depart together as we had planned but that is life. Everyone was sad to see him go and so was I. I will see him in 2 weeks and all should be back to abnormal again :) The kitties may finally have a home in sunny Santa Barbara to a petless good soul who has been wanting some kitties. It will be temporary until the end of May and then their kitty passport process will be complete! Hurray :) I am keeping them as long as I can so at least I have something familiar to cuddle with at night but they will make the journey down south early in the new year hopefully. I will keep on keepin on with the house because I am inches away from being done. I have to meet with the property management company next week and that should be that. A few more administrative things, sell the car, sell the matress, a dump run and a shopping spree and I should be able to duck out of here quickly. I am sick of fixing and working and stressing! I just want it to be over... So sorry if I have been a drag lately, only talk about remodeling and seem spacey and uninterested. i am at the point of forgetting family member names and washing my hair in tooth paste so yeah I am a bit out of it. Anyway..... almost there.... can see the light..... love you all :)
The kitties know what is going on.....
The Movers are here
Right now... in the house.This is weird. Bye bye beloved items.... hopefully we will see you in a month and a half. In tact. Not smelling too bad.
Keep on keepin' on
Preparations for for the move continue. We're going to be renting the house out, at least for the short term, so we've been doing a lot of work get it ready. We've had an army of almost exclusively female contractors, painters etc coming and going for the last couple of weeks. We're having the outside of the house painted a "Long Beach" brown - so called because we saw so many nice houses in Long Beach painted that color. It looks great, especially with the cream trim and white windows.
All the leaves are dry...
Last Tuesday I was in LA...it was 90 degrees.This weekend in England....it snowed.
Have I lost my mind?
Shooting paintballs in the house? Sure!Wait what? Yeah I let Alex shoot some paintballs in the house but for a good reason, he needed to get the air out of his tank so we can transport it. It may have sounded like a stupid idea, but to see him giggle like a five year old as he splattered shots all over an old peice of drywall downstairs was kind of worth it. He does have to clean it up though before the weekend. That was my only stipulation.
It all comes full circle
I'm hoping that I've been able to reach most of you in some way or another, but in case you haven't heard...Deanne and I are relocating to London next month. I am going to be the Head of Online for the Virgin Group and the offices are located in "sunny" England.We're excited, nervous, sad, happy, stressed, curious, and anything else you can think of. It wasn't a decision we made lightly...at all. I've been in California for the last 7 years and I consider it my spiritual home; Deanne has been here her whole life so upping sticks is not going to be easy. Over the weekend I found myself sitting on the deck saying to myself "It's 80 degrees, there's not a cloud in the sky......why am I leaving this again?" Well there's a couple of reasons. First is the opportunity - this is a great gig and I'm really excited about it. I'm incredibly sad to be leaving Virgin America, I've been there since the very early days and it's something I really feel has become a part of me. The second reason is...well it was time. Time for the next adventure. I've spent my whole life moving around the planet and to be honest, I got sick of it after I finally moved back to California. This last 7 years is the longest I've ever been in one place. I could also argue that it's been the best 7 years of my life. I got married to an incredible woman, bought my first house, became part of a wonderful extended family, watched my 3 nieces grow up, made some wonderful friends while enjoying old friendships from the past. And most importantly I've grown; both personally and professionally (and outwards, if I'm going to be honest.) But, as the old adage goes, a rolling stone gathers no moss. And with that, we begin to pack up our life here in California and prepare to ship it in a container across the pond. I want to use this space to keep you up to date with our progress as well as share some of the ups and downs of the move, getting back into English life, and being a pseudo-American in London.
Fattastic!
Last week I finally reached my goal of breaking the 200lb mark. (Sorry for the crappy camphone photo below.) I haven't seen a 1 at the beginning of my weight since I left England six years ago. It was a great, great feeling.
Each time I reached a milestone like 220 or 210, I would say to myself "these next 10lbs are going to be impossible to shake." Well that just wasn't the case. The weightloss has been pretty much consistent so far. We have three more weeks to go on the trial so I have actually revised my goal downwards to 190lbs, but 200lbs is just really exciting for me.
Four Things
I saw this on Mike Pusateri's site and I thought I'd follow suit.Four Things Four jobs I've had: 1. Big 5 Sporting Goods whore 2. Wannabe Entrepreneur 3. Webmaster for world's largest staffing firm 4. Web Content Manager at the number 1 nutrition company in the U.S. Four movies I can watch over and over: 1. Lost in Translation 2. Groundhog Day 3. American President (I have no idea why) 4. Akira Four places I've lived: 1. Livermore, California 2. Clearwater Bay, Hong Kong 3. Causeway Bay, Hong Kong 4. Cranbrook, England Four TV shows I love: 1. Futurama 2. Family Guy 3. Red Dwarf 4. The Daily Show with John Stewart Ten highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I've never watched a single minute of: 1. Lost 2. 24 3. Desperate Housewives 4. The West Wing 5. Gray's Anatomy 6. CSI 7. Alias 8. Buffy 9. The O.C. 10. NYPD Blue Four places I've vacationed: 1. South Africa 2. Morocco 3. Spain 4. Hong Kong Four of my favorite dishes: 1. Butter Chicken 2. Salmon Teriyaki 3. My grandmother's blackberry and apple crumble 4. Roast Chicken Four sites I visit daily: 1. BoingBoing 2. BBC News 3. SomethingAwful Forums 4. SoccerNet Four places I would rather be right now: 1. Hong Kong 2. Flying over the Bay Area 3. Constantia, South Africa 4. Mojave Airport Tag! You're it! Time for these people to post their lists! Deanne Mike Tricia Will
Too Close for Comfort
As I'm sure you heard, terrorists blew up three underground trains and a double-decker bus in London today. I knew something was wrong when the phone started ringing at about 6am - that's never a good sign. I went downstairs and there was a text message from my father saying "All ok with Hunter family, no one in London." Another bad sign. Just as I turned on the TV to see what was going on, my mom called. That's when I got that feeling in my chest.It turns out my brother Andrew was all set to be on the train from Peterborough to London, as he does every Thursday. He was due to arrive at King's Cross and jump on the underground. About the same time that they blew it up. That's too close for comfort. He had to cancel his trip down to London at the last minute to take care of something at work. Evidently someone was looking out for him today. His boss, on the other hand, was not so lucky. He was at King's Cross when the bomb went off. He's alright, but very, very shaken. To those that did this, I have just one thing to say. Run. Because they will find you. And they will kill you. And as much as I disagree with President Bush, he's very good at bombing the fuck out of disgusting little rogue nations, just like the one you come from. Don't you dare try to claim this in the name of religion or ideology or politics. You killed 40 innocent people. Not preachers or clerics or politicians. Innocent People. I am not a hateful person and I don't believe in an "eye for an eye" but for you, I'm willing to make an exception.
Some things never change
It's probably for the best
I was reading the news when I came across this little tidbit about Virgin's plan to start an airline in India."Virgin is also setting up a no-thrills airline in the US." I'm guessing most people would want a minimum amount of thrill when flying commercially.
Oh America, what HAVE you done?
Yes, that's an SR-71
I am issuing an order. If you live anywhere near the Greater Bay Area, you MUST go to to the Castle Air Museum. Even if you only have a passing interest in airplanes, it is a required destination for any Bay Area resident.
Deanne and I had driven through Atwater a couple of times and seen a mention of the Castle Air Museum. Being the plane dorks that we are, we made a note to go there sometime. Well we finally got around to doing that this weekend. Mike, Deanne and I drove out to Atwater (about an hour south of Tracy on 99.) Once we found the museum, the first thing we saw sitting in the parking lot was an SR-71 blackbird. Now this is probably one of the most famous aircraft ever made. There were only 36 produced and to have one sitting in our backyard was quite a surprise.
Almost the entire collection of 46 aircraft is outside on the site of the old Castle Airforce Base. In a park-like setting, the planes are laid out with concrete paths for you to walk around the planes. The collection consists predominantly of post-World War II aircraft with many fine examples of very rare airplanes.
Of greatest interest to me was the Sr-71 of course, but also the Avro Vulcan, which is my father's favorite airplane. It really is a massive airplane, and such a unique design. But it's size would pale in comparison to the massive B-52 which they had there. Castle AFB was home to the 93rd Bomb Wing, of which this B-52D was a part.
I could easily have spent all day there and I will definitely be going back as they will soon (through donations) be getting an F-14 Tomcat and a F-15A Eagle, amongst other things. I urge you to go there, it's only $8 to get in and you more than get your money's worth.
You can find my 99 photos from our visit here
Mike also has some great photos here
Interesting tidbit: On 16 February 1956, a B-52 exploded in midair near Tracy, California, while on a flight from nearby Castle AFB. The crash made national headlines, in part because of the B-52's then unprecedented cost of $8 million.
Biggles flies undone
Sunday was a day of gender opposites. Deanne played host to Mindy's bridal shower and Mike and I embarked on a day of testosterone driven adventure. We started the day by heading up to the Chabot Gun Club with Mike's dad to do some shooting. I haven't shot in a LONG time but thoroughly enjoyed it. There were an interesting collection of people and weapons up there. Some of them I am now convinced could have destroyed a small tank. We all shot well and went home happy.
The next part of the day would prove to be unforgettable. For Mike's bachelor present I got him a ride in a Waco (pronounced wah-co not way-co) open cockpit biplane. He's a plane enthusiast and has long harbored an ambition to fly, even completing a 12 week ground school course at Attitude Aviation.
Originally Mike's dad was due to go up with him (the plane can hold 3 people, including the pilot) but he was adamant that I go with Mike - I could hardly argue with that :)
So we arrived at Attitude and after talking it over with Rich Perkins, the owner of Attitude and also our pilot for the day, we decided it would be a lot more fun if we flew separately. This meant we could leave the control stick in and give us both a chance to fly this beautiful airplane.
Mike went up first and had a blast - he was grinning from ear to ear upon his return. I went up next. I have never flown in an open cockpit aircraft before. It is certainly a unique experience. You are cruising at about 100mph with the wind rushing over you. Truly an exhilirating experience. As soon as we were out of the traffic pattern I took control of the aircraft. We flew over Highway 84 and near (but not too close to) the Vallecitos Nuclear plant. Once we were close to Del Valle, Rich took control and dropped the altitude down to a couple of hundred feet. We did a couple of wing rolls which drew the stares of the campers by the lake.
We turned to the North and I took control of the plane. We flew along side the Altamont, intersecting Highway 580. There was quite a wind blowing from the West, so much so that the drift of the airplane was very noticeable. I flew us to the East of Brushy Peak and over Los Vaqueros reservoir before turning back South-West and over House on the hill. We entered in a 2 mile right base - the same pattern I had flown over and over with my previous instructor Luca Scheda. I was surprised when Rich told me to fly the plane all the way to final, at which point he took control and brought us in for a perfect landing.
Now if anyone tells you that's any easy plane to taxi...they're lying. I was all over the place! But I (eventually) got us back to the hangar where we posed for a few photos by the plane.
A fantastic experience, something every aviation enthusiast must do at least once. We got some amazing photos and even a couple of short movies. (Movie 1 -2mb Quicktime : Movie 2 - 3.1mb Quicktime)
Bay Tour
The Mechanics of Flight
Big Brother
I was playing around with GlobeXplorer's ImageAtlas site and it was neat to finally see my house added to their database. Since their a private organization with private satellites, their images reach the public domain MUCH faster than those taken by government satellites. Although they've been around for several years, they came to public prominence during the invasion of Iraq when they, through their partnership with Space Imaging, released several ultra-high resolution images of Baghdad and the surrounding areas.
Their shot of our neighborhood isn't bad, but they'll need to do a couple more shots before they're able to offer the kinda of detail that they have on Deanne's parents' house. Stunning. You can clearly make our their cars. You can even see Deanne's old trampoline!
The reason why this piqued my interest is that the next issue of Reason magazine will be mailed out to 40,000 subscribers, with 40,000 custom covers, each bearing a satellite photo of the individual subscriber's neighborhood, with the subscriber's house circled. The point? "Everybody, including our magazine, has been harping on the erosion of privacy and the fears of a database nation. It is a totally legit fear. But they make our lives unbelievably easier as well, in terms of commercial transactions, credit, you name it." Interesting times.