Life in the rainforest...

Hey, well guess what it's doing today? No, there are not blue fluffy things flying about through the sky (well, there might be, but only after the use of many illegal substances) - it's raining! Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen - there is water falling out of the sky, which has happened, oh, I don't know - nearly ever day for the past week or so (I've lost count). The trees are all (mostly) dead, but the grass is lush - squishy, but very lush. David and I went walking through Hampstead Heath last weekend, and I was very happy my hiking boots were (sort of) waterproof. But still I dutifully (that word doesn't look right) - anyway I get up at the crap of dawn (actually, even before dawn passes wind) to head out into the morning traffic. I was especially pleased with myself the other morning that I managed to find a side-street to cut out one of my least favorite parts of the morning commute. Simple pleasures...

Actually, I was thinking the other morning as I was weaving my way through traffic - I cycle every morning over Tower Bridge. People come from all over the world and take pictures of Tower Bridge. Apparently, it's one of the most famous bridges in the world. Yet, on my morning bike ride, it's just parked traffic, and moron pedestrians wandering out into the street without looking. I walked over the bridge the other day, on my way to a meeting at City Hall - it was really nice to actually be able to see the bridge, and see the view from the bridge, rather than just see the bus that cut me off, or the group of Japanese tourists who have not, it seems, encountered moving traffic in a road before. I like walking along my bike routes - it helps me remember why I think London is a fantastic city, and not just a moving obstacle course full of dimwitted numbnuts.

Anyway, we (the whole house) went over to friends of Robin's last Saturday for Thanksgiving dinner (as we all had to work on Thursday). It was, of course, raining. The food was excellent. The flat was, well, unusual. Both of the denizens are (gay) architects, meaning that everything was arranged just so. Even the books in the shelves were arranged by height order, whereas our books are generally arranged by where they get crammed. They had six gay men and one very neurotic Spanish woman (fag-hag) who had just moved to London from New York crowded around the table. Naturally, the conversation was, at turns, catty, bitchy, political and generally snarky. It reminded me a bit of the dinner scene in Beetlejuice, though, fortunately, our dinner didn't reach up and grab us.

David and I are heading off to Dublin tomrorow morning on the 0910 train from Euston. I've not been to Dublin in 14 years, since I lived there. It may have changed a bit! Actually, what I'm really looking forward to is seeing whether it still feels like travelling 50 years back in time. I doubt it does - there might even be real, live, non-white people there now! I do know that Ireland has just been decimated by the recession - but then, I lived there before I became the 'Celtic Tiger', so maybe it will feel as if nothing has changed. We're taking the train and ferry there, which takes all day. David's never been there, and he's never taken the ferry, so it seemed like a fun thing to do. We're flying back though. Once is fun, twice is a pain in the ass.

Blah - I suppose I should do some work before the bosses get back from whatever inane meeting they are at.

Oh, funny thing - we had our 'GIS User Forum' yesterday - which consisted of a few of us talking about various things to a room full of 20 semi-interested (or perhaps semi-comatose) people. I just sort of got up there and blathered, as opposed to some of the more organised talks, and people said they really liked it! I suppose all those years of teaching undergrads was good for something. The meeting was supposed to finish at 430, but it was dragging on a bit. Get this - people actually got up and left at 430. How rude is that? Some guy was still talking, and they just left! Stupid bureaucratic people. If I was up there talking, I would have shamed them, because the speaker was very English about it and just kept speaking, though I could tell he was very embarrassed. People suck sometimes.

Ok, work now. Yuck.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs...

Which has nothing at all to do with this blog entry, though it is cloudy and it's supposed to rain (again). It seems to be getting very good at doing that - rain and rain and rain and rain. Lots of heavy rain in a country known for it's semi-continuous bits of piddly mist and light rain. They just got a foot of rain in Cockermouth (where do they get these name?) in Cumbria - the most rain ever recorded at one time in the United Kingdom. It's late November and we haven't had any frost. In fact, we haven't even had any cold nights. The trees still have about half of their leaves as well. I'm sure it's not climate change or anything so silly. It's more likley to be an al Quaeda plot or perhaps the fault of Obamacare.

Oh, what a world, what a world, what a world.....!

Anyway.

Life continues to progress in a distinctly lifelike fashion. I just applied for another job - I don't actually expect I'm going to get it, as I'm missing some of the 'key skills', but it sounds cool, and it would be a big salary increase, which would be a GOOD THING. The weekend was rather boring. Shockingly, it rained. I didn't manage a bike ride - nothing like cycling in 50mph wind and hail. David and I did to to a house party on Saturday night. David thought it was one person's party, but it actually turned out to be another person, with the same name. Oh how embarrassing - fortunately, he noticed this little tidbit of information before we actually got there. We had a bit of an epic journey to get there as well. The first train was cancelled 'because of a person under the train' at Euston Station. I mean, really - how inconsiderate! So we schlepped to the next station, where we got on the next train, where someone decided to let off a stink bomb. The Tube has a lot of bad smells, but boy, stink bomb on crowded train pretty much takes the cake! The party itself was a bit odd. It was more a collection of groups of people. There were the 'cool kids', who, for some reason totally incomprehensible to me, seemed to disappear off to the bedroom for short periods of time - usually in groups. They would then come back into the room distinctly chirpier. I'm sure they just went back there to discuss the future of British politics, or perhaps to look at pictures of puppies. I felt distinctly left out with my boring beer and small talk. Dear diary... ;-)

Oh - random things I've seen in Hackney at lunch lately... 1. A dead person being wheeled out of a building on a gurney. 2. A guy on a very large unicycle riding down Mare Street (main drag), weaving through traffic while texting on his phone (not the dead guy, I'm pretty sure, though you might wonder).

So anyway, I should go cook up my lunch for tomorrow, shower, be fabulous, stand on my head and such - the usual evening things...

Who ate all the cookies?

Blah. So, I tried to do a blog entry yesterday, but the website crapped out and that was the end of it. 'Computer says no...' It's Friday evening and wet and windy outside. David and Robin have gone to the supermarket. I went last night, in the pouring rain. So, I thought I'd just hang out and read things online. Unfortunately, I bought a package of really large chocolate chip cookies yesterday, and they are really yummy, and I just ate two of them, and now feel like a complete hippo. Oh well, I'll run a million miles tomorrow and cycle on Sunday (or stand on my head and play the zither - I get confused).

I was reduced to taking the train into work today, as I had to go to a meeting at City Hall this afternoon (about heat mapping and community heating systems - something I know, amazingly, nada about). I figured it would be bad form to show up looking like a drowned rat, particularly since most people seemed to show up in suits. Hello, suits? In local government? What is this about? I felt a little underdressed in my jeans, long sleeve t-shirt and hiking boots. Oh well - I'm sure they will get over it. Anyway, I managed to slip out early and play hookey. Had coffee with a friend of Robin's I ran into, then went to the gym and had my new gym-member health check. Apparently my morning diet of eggs and bacon has not harmed my cholesterol, and my endless cycling means I have a resting heartbeat of about once per week. Not bad...

So yeah, in other words, a slow news day, so I'm going to go back to reading about the general awfulness of the world, or the current conspiracy regarding swine flu. I'm quite enjoying that one - especially since I have yet to meet a single person who has had it... Hmm...

And now is the time when we are SILENT!

Blah. So, today was Remembrance Day, and also, apparently, this is National Mouth Cancer Prevention Month. I don’t have any particular comments about the second (except don't chew tobacco - it's icky), but as for the first, well, work, in its usual level of thoughtfulness and sensitivity, had two minutes of silence this morning at 11am. Now that’s all well and good, but they chose to start and finish the two minutes’ silence by sounding the fire alarm. I’ll tell you, nothing gets me into a more reverent mood than hearing the fire alarm!

Anyway, I’ve been exceedingly bad at keeping this up lately. I have interesting and amusing thoughts every day (well, interesting and amusing to me, anyway), but I never actually get around to writing them down. Then a week has passed, two weeks, etc. Very sad.

So, the glory of autumn in London (snigger) has notched down just a bit. About half the leaves have fallen, and the rest seem to just be clinging on, being stubborn. We’ve had a few cold and rainy days, and some chilly nights. You’d think though that, given the sudden preponderance of heavy coats and scarves, we were in the middle of an ice age. Londoners really are weather weenies. At work, the heating has been on since Oct 1, and, just for good measure, the air conditioning is on as well, b/c the heating makes it too hot. That’s energy efficiency for you!

I had to be off my bike for several days. As luck would have it, a gear cable gave way when I was off in the most inconvenient part of North London. That’s usually how it works. At least it wasn’t raining. Anyway, four trains and two hours later (for ten miles) I finally made it home. One of the funny things about cycling around London is that it opens up the entire city for easy exploration. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that when something goes wrong, which it usually does, one is usually as far away from a useful train as is humanly possible without being in a place that doesn’t actually have trains (yeah- don’t interpret that statement too much there). But now I’m back cycling my 30ish miles per day, which makes me happy. Oh, and I’m scheming two big bike rides for the summer. One of them is from Trondheim, Norway, to a ski town in Sweden called Are. (That’s Are with a little round doodah over the A). Why? Well, for one, it sounds completely random – just the sort of thing I would do, and the other, I’ve been talking to someone online for a while in Are, and it occurred to me that this was the perfect flimsy excuse for me to cycle through the wilds of Norway and Sweden! (Going to try for the summer solstice). The other ride, for later in the summer sometime, will be from Bern, Switzerland, to Milan, over the Alps. Why is this? Well, I know people on both ends (so, of course, it’s very sensible), but mostly, it sounds like a ridiculous challenge, so why the hell not? I’m applying for my UK citizenship in January, and it’s just sort of beginning to dawn on me I have this whole, interesting continent to explore, right there. Of course, it would be better to have a better paying job… Baby steps… Oh, and David and I might cycle on the Rhine in the autumn. He’s not much for the hilly rides… (And both he and Robin think I’m a wackjob for wanting to do them, but that’s pretty par for the course).

Anyway, I’m about out-blathered for now. I’m going to really really try to be better at this. I’ve even set myself a daily reminder!

Oh, and the low light of winter must be here, b/c I'm craving carbs like you wouldn't believe! Time to get out the happy lamp!

Jibber Jabber

Ah well, another week has gone… We’re at just about mid-fall right now, and the leaves are doing their thing, so much as leaves in London ever do their thing. There are few trees that put on a proper autumn-show, but a lot more typical is the London Plane, which seems to engage in an ongoing battle with its leaves every fall. One at a time, probably during the night, they crinkle into a sort of yicky brown, then fall to the ground with a slight crackling thud. Very unlike, say, a sugar maple, where some bit of inner choreography celebrates the shortening days with a riot of color before the leaves commit mass suicide and plonk to the cold ground. Unfortuantely, London has a lot more London Planes than it does sugar maples, which may go some way to explaining their name… Hmm…

I’ve managed to catch a minor cold, it seems. Sore throat, general mild crappiness. Not bad, considering that I work in an office full of unhealthy, chain smoking, grease-consuming lardybutts. I still managed to go out for a 55 mile bike ride yesterday – I figured maybe I could scare away the cold germs.

Saturday night, Avi came over, and David, Robin, Avi and I sat around, eating junk food, and watched four episodes of BS Gallactica. Fabulous way to spend an evening.

A random observation from the work shower… Someone there has shampoo with ‘Extract of Horse Chestnut’. This seems odd, as horsechestnut contains a blood poison, and the Native Americans used to use a relative – buckeye, to stun the fish in water. Why one would want to rub this in one’s hair is beyond me – perhaps it tames wild hair?

And tomorrow we have an all-day ‘away day’. An away day is where the entire department spends the entire day listening to bullshit presentations and some amount of self-esteem or communications related drivel. This time, their idea for a ‘lunchtime activity’ (mandatory, of course) is a group singing session by some woman who thinks she can teach non-singers, llamas, and corduroy to sing (http://www.singalive.org/about.php). I’ve informed my boss that there are several important things about being a grown-up… 1. I don’t have to eat foods I don’t like, and 2. I don’t have to sing. I mean, really – where do they get off thinking that people in an IT department are going to want to stand around and sing KumBaYa?

Not much else exciting – it’s been pretty dull – hence my lack of entries…

Shit and Champagne...

You wouldn't think those two would go together... However, Saturday, David, Robin and I went over to Avi's to help him plant palms and tree ferns in his back yard (which he is redoing completely). When all was said and done, he offered us all a glass of champagne (us all being raging and notorious homosexuals). I had my glass of champagne while sitting on top of a bag of horseshit. Very classy.

I am coming up to one week with no caffeine, and I have to say, it's been really difficult. I suppose this is the reason I had to have coffee, tea or soda every day for the past 18 years. I got through the headachey and bitchy phase (bitchier than normal), but I'm still waking up at night and am unable to fall asleep. Weird. Who'd a thunk that caffeine would be so addictive? Well, there goes my desire to have a heroin addiction...

I went for a bike ride yesterday - not very far - only 42 miles, but it was the first bike ride of any length I'd been on since August. The weather was absolutely crap and I got soaked, but I suppose it is October, and one must expect these little trials and tribulations.

Went this morning to a talk given by Google's top laywer about censorship and general freedom of information. Very interesting, but not always for the reasons it should have been. As it was a public talk, it was pretty general - lots of examples of how Google had dealt with censorship requests from various governments. I couldn't, however, get past the thought that 'Wow, this guy has really drunk the Kool-Aid' as far as he painted a picture of Google as this sort of beneficent extra-governmental organisation fighting for free speech everywhere. Of course, he did mention that this was sort of important for the business model, but still, it really made Google sound like the corporation you'd bring home to mom...

Not much else exciting at the moment... My cooked breakfasts are going well (bacon, eggs and beans), and while I miss my daily PBJ, my salad and meat lunch seems to be getting rid of the PBJ around my middle. Who'd a thunk that PBJ would cause so much midline damage?

Anyway, time to change and head out towards the gym. It's already getting dark - blah.

Wet and crappy...

So, I'm nearly through the process of cutting out caffeine completely, and I actually haven't murdered anyone yet (though the thought has crossed my mind...). Today I had two green teas. Tomorrow it's one. And then Wednesday, for the first time in 18 years, I'm going to try to go through the entire day with no caffeine (if I eat chocolate, that doesn't count, b/c my protein powder is chocolate). I'm not going to never have coffee or tea again, because that's just silly, but I decided that I needed to stop having it every day, because I really don't like the idea of being dependent on something. Ironically, given that the amount of caffeine I've been having has been dropping (to be honest, it wasn't that much - 4 cups of tea per day), I've been sleeping terribly and having weird dreams. Wow - good thing I don't smoke, seeing as how much of a baby I'm being about this...

Today is wet and cold and shitty out and I'm feeling uninspired. My bike ride in was full of morons as well - you'd think that in a place that rains as frequently as this, people would know how to drive properly in the rain. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong.

Blah.

Oh, seen at lunch - the first Christmas decorations from lamp posts. How horrid! Some of the stores have had their Christmas crap up since mid September. It's pretty sad that now by the time that Christmas gets here I'm completely sick of it. (And both sad and ironic that all traces of it disappear within several days after, when they were up for months before!).