Ray and I have come to the conclusion that what foreigners seem to think is the British ability to hold their heads high in times of strife, i.e. the British "stiff upper lip" is really just apathy. When it rains, only about half the folks have umbrellas or raincoats or even hats… The other half act as if it isn’t raining. They don’t cover their head with a newspaper. They don’t wipe the rain off their face. They don’t seem to enjoy the rain falling on them, but at the same time, they don’t seem to be upset that it is raining on them. There is just absolute apathy that it is raining and that they are soaked to the bone. Now, that doesn’t hold true for everyone. Just some folks.

A lot of people here seem rather apathetic to their situation. It seems as though people are happy with just getting by. Maybe that is just a difference between me and the folks I’ve met, rather than a difference between the two countries. But it feels like everyone here is simply working to get enough money for beer so they can get drunk and forget about work. Is your life really that bad? I don’t actually understand, so this next statement isn’t a condemnation of drinking: Do you really enjoy getting so drunk that you cannot remember what happened? If you can’t remember how can you tell if you had fun? I don’t understand because when I drank I never got that drunk. I always remembered everything. The drunkest I’d gotten in many years was Sloan’s 21^st birthday. We were doing Irish car bombs. Mmmm… Tasty! I had many, many car bombs, but I knew when I’d had enough. The point when I asked Ray to take me home was when I almost attempted to hug Dain before I realized at the last second he wasn’t Ray. I instead patted him on the shoulder and found the real Ray and went home. (Ray is still annoyed that I woke up with no hangover. No headache, no vomiting, no nothing.) Anyway, my point is, yeah, I had fun getting drunk and stuff. I know that it was fun because I remember what happened.

I think I went way off from where I started there… Oh well. Anyway – I need to go. We have to go to B&Q and Tesco and do a couple of things in Sutton. I shall write again soon.

I am working from home today because I left the house in such a rush this morning that I grabbed the wrong laptop. I have two because one is the old one, one is the new one and I need to load the new one with an OS, transfer my crap over and give back the old one… Of course, I grabbed the new one, with nothing on it. I got all the way into work, sat down and saw that I couldn't put the laptop in the dock before I realized what I'd done. By that point, I'd decided that it would be a wasted day if I came home, got the laptop then turned right around and went back into London, so I stayed home instead. That is really frustrating.

So, my friend who went to Glastonbury came back with lots of pictures of mud. She said she had a great time. It isn't my thing – I don't really go for the hippie stuff – but she loved it. Though, I don't understand how they can call themselves hippies and environmental conscious when they leave crap everywhere. I read about some folks who said that they just left their tent there. I can understand that it is ruined by the mud and stuff, but still… Pick it up and throw it out! Don't just leave it behind for someone else to have to clean up.

Anyway… It occurred to me to wonder, as I was watching the much-celebrated and over-promoted Simpson's 400^th episode on Sky One this past Sunday, are a good part of the jokes lost on the folks here since they don't have Fox or Fox News? Wow! Simpsons has been on since I was in 6^th or 7^th grade. That is pretty amazing.

That's about all for now…

Since I seem to have plenty time while waiting for my file to compress so I can upload it to shared storage for a co-worker so that I can finally go home…. Then again, if the laptop doesn’t stop acting up, I may not post anything.

The weather here is, well, interesting. It’s rained most of the day, though it was sunny when I came in and I think it is going to be sunny on my way home. Absolutely perfect for commuting!

We went to Windsor this Saturday and got to look around. It’s really kinda neat, as it’s the oldest castle still being occupied and used, over 900 years old. I will post pictures soon.

No rants today. But it’s been a pretty good day. I get to hear from my friend tomorrow how Glastonbury was for her. (Muddy, I expect.) And Marcee will be here in another week!

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Dad!

Emma is a very strange dog...

Sorry for the lack of updates… I was back in the States, but I lost my laptop charger in the airport on the way over.

It didn’t really start out very well… The Heathrow Express wasn’t running and it took about 3 hours to get from Southbank to LHR (something that shouldn’t have taken longer than an hour or so) because of signaling failures and other Underground problems. And then, an 11.5 hour hell flight to LA because I couldn’t get Virgin and business class was overbooked by 4 seats… Then, the hotel somehow lost my booking! But, after that, everything turned out really well. Hertz was out of compact cars, so they gave me a convertible instead. (A crappy Miata, but, hey, it’s better than the Ford Focus I was supposed to get!) And the training class was really cool – It was just the developers sitting around telling us what they’d done and why and how the product does what it does. Plus, it was cool to put faces to names/voices that I’ve been dealing with for some time. I got to see beaches and surfers, and the normal SoCal stuff. Plus, I got Ray a jersey from Triathlete Zombies. It’s your standard tri store, but with a name like that, who could resist?! Though, every restaurant that we ate at had really bad late 70’s, early 80’s crap music. It followed us everywhere.

Then, I went back home for a couple of days. Mmmmm… Pulled pig. And Mom made a real Southern dinner for Father’s Day. And I got to see Marcee. And I got extra clothes and stuff. It sucked though, because they gave me a Kia Sorento, which was a hunk of crap. My backpack strap got stuck in the tailgate and we could never get it out , nor get the tailgate open. Also, Mom’s miniature dachshund, Honey, hates me and tried to bite me. (I have never had a dog dislike me, ever. Dogs can smell a sucker, and they tend to react accordingly.) Otherwise, it was pretty uneventful, but, at the same time, really relaxing.

Oh, and, yay! Marcee is going to be here for the Tour!

Are all cats this stupid? I am sitting downstairs, in the recliner reading my book when I hear this yowl, approaching the ground – a cat falling. It sounds like Ed. Ray and I jump up and start looking for the cat, but all we find is an open window upstairs. After looking around outside for several minutes, we discover that he is under a car, hiding and hissing at anyone who dares approach him. Yeah. He jumped out of the second story window and, apparently, landed on his face. It appears that nothing is broken, but he definitely either knocked a tooth out, or just broke it because he has blood in his mouth. I shouldn’t completely blame him, though, because windows in this country don’t have screens. And they open stupidly. The windows here swing out so that the window is opened in a vertical line, rather than sliding up and down, the way ours do back home:

Anyway, Ed is okay. Just stupid.

Oh, and one other note. If you are ever in London and looking for a good burger, GBK, (Gourmet Burger Kitchen) has some of the best burgers I have found in the area. A friend from work put me on to them – she swore they were just the best burgers ever. I have to say… They are pretty durn good.