Strange moments on the trip thus far:

1) Sitting in Trafalgar Square and doing the wave at the direction of a drunk Manchester fan.
2) Leichester Square, a dog juggles a balloon jumping in the air.  Buddhist chanting in the background.
3) Getting asked whether I had left my wife behind in Salisbury Cathedral
4) Wondering if there was anything special about the sheep near Stonehenge.
5) Having to buy a block of cheese to get change to pay for photo id pictures for our metro card.

Pictures to follow.

    

Fish and Chips!

Hello from across the pond!

I’m writing from London town after a couple of days of wandering the city.  I still love London, and I’m even got to catch a few things that I missed the last time.

When we first arrived at the airport, we found out that the flight to Raleigh was delayed, so we were transfered to a direct flight (nice) into horrible seats (not so nice).  During this transfer they were trying to pinpoint our luggage and have it moved to your plane.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and when we arrived in the UK, we find that our luggage was still in Raleigh.

So luggageless, we make it into London and wander around the block twice before finding the hotel (my bad, I missed the street sign).  Fortunately, the hotel was nice and clean, if not very big.  Well tiny.  Really tiny.  Really Really tiny.  (Which is why I’m here btw, giving my traveling buddy some needed space while I take an afternoon constitutional/internet break).

We take a nice walk and get to see Kensington Palace, the Albert Memorial, and Big Ben and Parliment.  After a good bit of walking, we get home and call it an evening sleep through dinner.

The next day was a trip through Westminster Abby and the British Mueseum.  Upon getting to the BM,  Jill comments that “we only have 4 hours to see it!”  An hour later, completely full of history from both the Abbey before and one wing of the BM, we decide to declare it an evening, and go back to our tiny room and nap some more.

Later that evening we wake up and grab some fish and chips from Micky’s Fish and Chips, this place right next to the hotel.  On the menu board, I see “Curry Roll” and can’t resist ordering it.  I think they misheard me, and I end up getting a nice big egg roll (I mean a HUGE egg roll).  On the plus side, the fish and chips were quiet filling.

After that we go down towards the south bank and have a nice stroll and see the city at night.  On our way back, there’s a train that’s about to leave and I misread Jills signal to run on to it.  So I hop on turn around, and the doors close on me with Jill on the other side!  Ack!  Luckily someone notice, or my attempt to pry the door open triggered the safety, but we were quickly reunited (though I’m carefuly NOT to jump onto a leaving train now).

Getting tired and this is a bit long winded, so quickly: Tower of London yesterday, more napping, and then a trip to Canary Wharf to see my good friend Calvin.  We had a wonderful evening at dinner (UBON by Nobu), and I was finally able to hand off the two pounds (mines a roll or two) of Gummy Life Savers I had smuggled into the country.

All in all a nice and relaxing trip.  Pictures to follow (I’m not taking nearly as many this time, so no need to worry).

Cheers!

Ergonomics and the Console.

So I’m starting at this big honking command prompt screen craning my head slightly to look at the bottom (the terminal is full screen at the moment), when I wonder if it wouldn’t be better for my neck if someone way in the past had decided that instead of having text scroll down a console, it would scroll up (so the latest entry is at the top).

It’s backwards from our normal way of reading, but I’m sure people would get used to it.  I know I do when I sort email (the most recent emails are at the top, so I don’t have to scroll down to see them, and I can see later stuff and skip earlier stuff in long threads).

So who knows… it makes me ponder… maybe I’ll try to modify a terminal program to do that and see how it works….

Smart Legos

So I don’t like Lego CAD software, cause it’s just not the same as playing with legos.  But then again, it’s one of the best ways of conveying your lego model to others.

But what if you put electronic pin outs on Lego brick pegs, and ID chips inside each block., so the block can identify itself and where it was connected.

Build something with legos, and the slap on the “TRON” brick (a brick that would translate the whole lego structure into signals and zap it into your computer… like they did with the orange in TRON). 

Any takers?  All I want is a set when you’re done.

Comic onion of pain.

This is a little late, since it was over a week ago, but I’ve been wanting to write about it so bear with me….

Sometimes I forget to floss.  This is very bad if something gets stuck in there, and gives you that annoying shooting pain that runs down your gums and into your neck.

What’s worse is having that happen at work with no floss.  The pain is bad enough that I’m constantly tilting my head to right in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain.

Fast-foward to the end of the day, and I finally get home and floss out the offending bit of matter.  The pain subsides only to reveal that craning my neck all day has left it stiff, sore, and ooooh so painful.

Flash-step to the weekend.  I decide that my TV viewing angle isn’t ideal, so I buy myself a nice TV tray.  Being the lazy bum that I am, I try lift the TV and slide the tray in there.  Now mind you, the TV requires two hand to lift, so my hips have to do the ‘shoving the tray under the lifted TV’ bit.  Predictably, this fails miserably.  It fails RIGHT ON TO MY TOES.  I feel a pain I haven’t felt in a long time: the kind that not so much hurts as echoes excess sensation in a small region.  I’m now flat on my back for a good hour.  The only up side is that the pain is masking my previous back pain.  There’s bruising, but I can walk, so if my toes had broken, I don’t know it (still don’t, they seem fine now). 

So the work week rolls around again, and I succumb to either a light nasal/throat infection, or a rather nasty case of allergies.  Either way, I’m not feeling all that good all week, but at least I’m not noticing my toes or back anymore.

Come Friday, the weather has turned towards freezing, there’s even a bit of snow!  I’m just getting over my cold, after a late night of sniffling.  I walk outside in my groggy state and notice a patch of ice right in front of my porch.  “Odd”, I think as ponder it.  “Look at those white specs, they must have salted it for me.  I think I can confidently take a step on it……”  The next thing I know, my vision gets blurry (my head has fallen out from under my glasses), my feet are flying into the air, and I’m straighting my body so I fall flat, instead of on my coccyx.  I imagine it looked much like a classic banana peel slip.

So now my back hurts, my chest hurts, and most of all, my head hurts.  I think I must have sustained a slight concussion, because the world was tilted slightly to the left for most of the morning.  I suffer through work, come home to take a slight nap, and feel much better after going out for some sushi.

I wake up the next morning, my head is nice and refreshed, and I didn’t die from falling asleep.  Then I get up.  You got it, my back is now hurting like insane.  Any movement at all, and pain shoot through my shoulders and into my arms, and bounces off my fingertips.   In this condition I drive to Houston!  By the time I get down there, I’m much better.  After a good nights rest, the should pain is mostly gone, and my head feels almost normal.

But as I sit up, I realize that there’s this sharp pain at the base of my sternum.  Every time I sit up, I have to roll sideways, or pull myself by hooking my arms under my legs.

What a way to start the New Year!  I hope I used up all the bad luck.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi (Happy New Year! (In Vietnamese (without diacriticals))).

All Hail Wired

Why do fools fall in love?
Blame the neuro-chemicals that fuel the brain’s built-in reward system.
Triggered by the sight (or smell) of that special someone, the brain
releases dopamine, upping the desire for sex. Serotonin levels plummet,
creating that “can’t live without you” feeling. The attachment
chemicals, oxytocin and vasopressin, also kick in. No fool can resist.

Other gems such as these from here.