This past weekend, a friend from work invited us out to see the real English countryside, both where she lives, near Windsor castle and where her boyfriend lives, near Hungerford. (If you are familiar with the events of WW2, you know the historical significance of Hungerford.) It was really great! It rained the entire weekend, and was kinda cold, but it meant that there weren’t as many folks about. In Hungerford we walked along the canal with the dogs and stuff. We saw bunches of ducks, swans, cow turds. I know that it sounds awful, but it actually was really cool. And her boyfriend is a great cook, and prepared dinner for group of us, which was really nice. We had a lot of fun!

Interesting observations: She has two sons. (I think 13 and 9, but I am awful with ages, so…) So the older one (very, very bright kid) was hoping to have an interesting conversation with us because he feels that the people at school are shallow and fake and stupid. He said that he couldn’t wait until he was older so he could have more interesting things to have conversations about. The problem is that, from my perspective at least, this entire country is shallow, fake and stupid. He recounted the normal conversation that he hears at school every day:

“Hey”
“Hey”
“You ‘k?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Whatcha up to?”
“Nothin’. You?”
“Nothin’.”

Then, depending on recent events, something like:

“Did you hear she is going out with him?!”
or
“Can you believe that he dumped her?!”
or
“Omigod, is so hot!!”
or maybe,
“Did you see that goal that he scored?!”
or
“Did you see last night?”

I feel bad for him if he wants better conversation than that. For the most part, all of the overheard conversations on trains or restaurants are just that empty and meaningless. It’s like life here is high school all over again. Except that most people grow out of high school.

In the same light, another co-worker of mine feels like everyone looks down on those of us not dressed in suits and short skirts and high heels. See, we are software engineers. We are technical folks who don’t have to stand in front of customers and lie to them. We fix the stuff that is broken, etc. Therefore, we are permitted to wear jeans, t-shirts, and sneakers. However, the majority of this building consists of marketing and sales folks, who are always dressed up. So, we’ve had snide comments about our general scruffiness and my co-worker’s stripy socks. They kind of look down upon us, partly because we dress for comfort and partly because sales folks in any business always look down on everyone else until they have to ask for a favor. (And maybe even then…) Consequently, my co-worker kind of feels that people are always looking down their noses at us. She feels very self conscious about it, too. I, on the other hand, have managed to ignore the majority of it, and be really mean about it when I do notice. Case in point: The other day, a group of three women were walking along the river, dressed up, giggling and talking. One tried to looked me up and down, and get this haughty look of superiority, so I laughed at her. Her reaction was great – she immediately looked away, and got really upset and looked like she was going to cry. No, I don’t believe that she actually cried. And, yeah, it might be really petty and low to want to make someone cry, but she wanted me to feel like I was crap, that I am beneath her, because I don’t wear makeup, I don’t color my hair, I don’t dress up and I am not shallow or vain enough to actually care what anyone thinks of me. So, I think she deserved it.

Well, that’s my rant for the day.

Please remember today those who have fallen in service to the great country of the United States of America. Remember those who have died in conflicts throughout our history. Remember those who fought to make our country what it is. And remember, when you bandy about words like “tyranny” and “fascism”, the mere fact that you are allowed to throw them around says what an open and free place our country is.

Yay! We are moved! We've got all of our stuff into the new place, though we haven't yet unpacked. We've got our couch, and my recliner. (Yeah, I know. Really, it's Abbie's couch. She sleeps on it every day) We've got boxes and boxes and boxes everywhere, but that is perfectly okay because everything is physically in the house.

The checkout process did not go too badly. The landlady was very happy that we'd cleaned as much as we had. The only thing she has to do is replace a handle on a window that busted. That's it. We should get most of our deposit back.

Tuesday night, we worked until 2:30AM cleaning out the old place. The neat thing was that on the drive home we saw at least half a dozen foxes. I do know that people consider them a nuisance here, but I still think they are cool to see. One was trotting along the sidewalk with a wrap in it's mouth, not at all concerned with anything around it. So, that was kind of cool.

Oh, and a friend of mine from work sent me this link for some pretty cool wedding rings.

People suck… Or not

For the 3 people that read the post: Ray misplaced the bag. All of my stuff has been found and is present.

Yay!

Sorry for the lack of updates… Still been busy moving and stuff. Plus, I managed to get sick at the most inconvenient time…

Anyway, update… We’ve finally got the house to a condition where it is suitable for habitation. Yay! Ray is going to move the bed over tonight, so we will spend the night there tonight.

The dogs already seem to like it. Which, I am not really too surprised. It’s roomier for them. The Mexican restaurant, owned by some Slavic folks, has really good fajitas. We will actually be able to get the couch through the door. We have a bigger washer and separate dryer, a bigger fridge with an attached freezer (even though not American sized, at least it’s not dorm room sized) and we have nice, new, clean, induction heat stove. We had to get Sky because Virgin hasn’t run cable in that neighbourhood yet, so, we will now get Sky 1 and 2 again. (Though I didn’t want to dump Sir Richard – he’s one of the few businesspeople in all of UK that understands how to run a business to be profitable and make their customers happy at the same time.) Anyway. Yay! It’s not such a bad place now!

It’s been very rainy and overcast the last couple of weeks. I know, it’s England, I should expect that. But it was bright and sunny all through April, with very little rain. The problem is that it’s a bit disconcerting because we gain ~20 minutes of daylight/week. So, it was getting light at 5:30 AM. Then, it’s dark and overcast every morning for 2 weeks, and the next time we see the sun come up, it’s 5:10 AM. The same way with the sunset, which at 8:45PM, but it’s not as bad for some reason. It’s just kind of odd that the longest day will start at 4:42AM and end at 21:21… And the idea that the sun will never get 18° below the horizon until the end of July… Weird. Not bad at all. Just weird. Now, if it would just warm up, just a tiny bit, it would be perfect.

Also, I’ve posted new pics up on Picasa of Dover and Minehead. That’s about it for now.

Moving and stuff...

Okay, sorry I've been really bad about updating this lately… Good news, though! We are moving to a bigger place in the Borough of Croydon. From what folks have told me, it should feel a lot like home because the population is dominated by the UK version of hicks and rednecks, though I am doubtful that they know what grits are.

At least the new place is a 3 bedroom house, though the third bedroom is the size of a US closet at 7'5 x 5'10. Also, it has OFF STREET PARKING! Yay! No more fighting for a place to park the wagon, or parking a block away. It still only has one bathroom, though. But it is a bit bigger of a garden for the dogs (though not anything nearing a yard back home). And the train station is right there, so it won't be too bad.

Here's the interesting thing… Apparently, when you rent a property, it is handed to you basically in the condition in which it was left. That is, no one cleans any part of the property. I mean, literally, this place had not been cleaned in years. They put fresh paint on some of the walls (and got it on the carpet), but that was about it. No one ran a vacuum over anything, much less steam cleaned the carpets. I spent a good three hours and 2 bottles of cleaning solution on just the living room floor (only 18' 1 x 10'5) yesterday with our Bissell carpet cleaner thingy, and it still isn't clean. The carpet was originally green, and the places where there was furniture still is green. But there were these warn out, blackened traffic paths that exist because the carpet had never been vacuumed. Well, those bits are now kind of a shade of green, which is pretty impressive. And the toilet… My god! It took Ray 45 minutes just to find the porcelain under all the urine. We have to replace to carpet in the bathroom ourselves because there is no way it can be cleaned. It's not even tacked down at all, and it doesn't meet the wall and if the just the toilet was that disgusting, I don't even want to think about what might be on that carpet… The master bedroom is just as bad, and so is the kitchen. Ok, so, Ray is a clean freak and anyone who knows me knows that I am not anything like that at all. Let's be honest – I am a mess, very disorganized and kinda sloppy. But even I can't live in the place in the condition it is in. I feel like I need a shower just from walking into the house… But this is perfectly normal. This is what people expect to have to do when they rent a house or flat or anything in this stupid, backwards place.