So badly out of date

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to the blogosphere (note trendy verbiage). I'm woefully behind in posting, my old mac was actually wheezing so I took advantage of the ridiculous exchange rate to buy a new MacBook (thank you, Santa) whilst (note silly Brit word) in Florida visiting family over Christmas. Yay. Its so lovely and white and spanking-ly great. Has a big-ish screen and the battery lasts for ages and any minute now I'm going to transfer all th egoop from my old machine to my new machine but for the moment its all just so shiny and new.

I flew back in town today -- arrived at a stellar London airport on Sunday. It was sunny and warm the entire week in Mad Beach, family is all doing fine, thank you for asking. London is cold dark and dank. Not sure why I live here; oh yes, its a great job. Hmmm, may need to rethink my priorities and chuck it all in buy a boat and float around a la Travis Magee. Bonus points to anyone who remembers the name of his boat and sends in a comment!

Really was a great and relaxing visit, will dig up some photos and post at some point. Had a great catch up with My Friend Nancy Last-name-starts-with-a-Y-or-did-until-she-married-but-its-too-late-to-change-a-nickname--also known as MFNY. I have decided I can talk about my friends but only if I don't use a real name. Anyway, she brought me up to date with all the friends who didn't know I had moved: Cat Mag, Manker, Elise, etc. etc. Great to here all about every one's life and especailly see MFNY's giant wall O' Christmas card pictures. So many children!

Anyway, have a safe and Happy New Years celebration.

And Note to Ali - be nice to my English friend doing a tour of Florida; I think she needs Cuban coffee and perhaps some roast pork while she's in your fair city.

Politically incorrect signage

Really not much I can say about this sign except to note that I may not have found it as incorrect if I hadn't been raised in the southeast United States post-Jim Crow. I think its aimed at Japanese residents in my neighborhood--of which I have seen very few, but there you have it.

Meant to post this earlier

In early December the leaves are almost all gone, reminds me of how desparate I was in the spring to see green and flowers. So I took this picture walking to work one morning just to remind myself that Fall (or early winter) is also lovely in leafy north London

New St Pancras

Snuck this one in by back dating it. When the female parental unit was visiting last month, we made a pilgrimage to the newly renovated St. Pancras station in London. It was really great; beautiful HUGE train shed. It is still getting finishing touches, but that was OK because you got to see things like the picture above. Its working crawling all over the enormous glass ceiling getting some last minute Windex-ing done.

The trip including some champagne at the champagne bar that watches over the trains to France. Best part of that was the fact that the seats in the banquet tables are heated. Reminded me of putting the top down on my old car and driving around with the heated seats on. Very luxurious. Well worth the visit and tipple.

Mum visits

Hmm, I don't think this worked right. The picture is a CLASSIC tourist photo of me and my Mum at City Hall in London. Note the fabulous weather. When she returned home she told me the AC was on. Oh well, there is no tower bridge in Florida so we do have some good things here.

Lovely visit. If I can figure out a better picture I'll refresh this link.

Another Cheese Post

I can't help myself, signs here are worth taking pictures of. This shop is very close Borough Market. As you walk up to it you see its called Gastronomica - then you read the shops subtitle (tag line? what would you call that?) which is "Cheese Never Sleeps".

What does that mean?

Looked like a good shop though

Happy Thanksgiving in the USA

I love this picture I took it when I was in a meeting in New York in October. It was for a conference of the International Downtown Association, which is an organiz(s)ation of people who run Business Improvement Districts. So they care about tourism and development as it applies in an inner city/town centre/downtown setting.

This picture encapsulates the group fully. Here we are on a boat tour around Manhattan on a beautiful fall day. Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Manhattan all beautifully framed and there they are both pointing to the new dock in Brooklyn. That dock means that BIG cruise ships can stop over in Brooklyn and therefore more tourists can come to the city. That's why my friends are pointing AWAY from the Statue of Liberty and toward Brooklyn.

More New York in Fall

I did spend time in Manhattan but apparently took pictures only off that island. This is a view of a party venue in DUMBO (down under Manhattan bridge overpass). I'm always looking for good uses for the dead areas under over passes. This one is an old building fronting the park that runs along the river. The view in the other direction is Manhattan lovely.

It was a great party!

High Line goes through a building

The High Line is an old abandonded elevated freight rail line in Manhattan in the southwest of the island. It survived into the 21 century becasue the neighborhood was always so crappy (sorry) that no one paid attention to it. Then Chelsea/the meat packing district became cool and rich dentists from Newark started moving in and suddenly folks wanted to tear it down. So Friends of the Highline got together and saved it and now its an elevated park running through the neighborhood.

This building is actually just outside of the historic district that has been established so the high line is allowed to go through the building - like it would have done when it was delivery and removing goods to the industry that used to reside there. Its a big deal deigner building--can't remember the architect-- so th eunits will be EXPENSIVE. I wonder what it will look like when the apartments (condos?) are overlooking it? Will you be able to walk through the building when you stroll along the park?

Can't wait to hear someone tell me what its like around that building but more importantly I think I will really love walking through the park. There is another elevated park; it is in Paris and called the Promenade Plantée which looks pretty cool, too.

Isn't she cute?

I am trying to write more blog entries. So I'm scraping the bottom of the picture barrel. Rather than google pictures, I found this great picture of me! Look on the phone even at this young age. Well, no reason to really write in this entry, I can just gaze at how cute I was.

BBC Radio 4

Have I mentioned how much I love the BBC? Probably not for a while now so I'll say it again, I love the BBC. In fact my TV license will be coming up for renewal and I will gladly pay the 150 GBPs. Not only do I love the BBC for the TV but I ADORE the radio.

Keeping in mind that I'm basically a latte-drinking, democratic-voting, New York Times- reading, NPR-listening type of American; this love of BBC Radio should not be surprising. But Radio 4 is really quite good. Every morning I wake up to the shipping report which is incomprehensible if you are half asleep and have no clue about the geography of the place. Followed by a news briefing, prayer for the day(!), then Farming Today. How is it possible that I actually listen to all this before 6am? I don't know but I do and I love it. Then at 6am (after those weird six pips which signal the top of every hour)the Today show starts with With Edward Stourton, Carolyn Quinn and this bellicose guy named John Humphreys - who is sort of like your crabbiest uncle. Yet some how they let him interview heads of state, captains of industry and other assorted high falutin' types - today it was the head of the Bank of England for god's sake. He gets in fights with them, cuts them off, talks over them. It's amazing.

Anyway the point of this blog is the fact that every week they announce some horrible piece of news. The country is obese, it drinks too much, has the worst children, the schools are crap, they lost the ashes to OZ, horror horror horror. This used to worry me, I thought I had made a bad decision moving to this land, but it turns out its just some collective moaning session. Its all over by 9am and we are all at work and its all forgotten until 6am tomorrow morning.

I think its because its such a small place, they all listen to the same news and its cathartic.

Tonight - its the Queen's Speech. Wonder how that will go...

Friday and back in London

Just reviewing my posts from AD and realising that I gave the place a very short shrift (what does shrift mean anyway?) The truth is I arrived after 10 at night and only went from hotel to client's place, back to hotel - twice. So my whole experience was airport, cab, hotel, cab, conference room, cab, airport. Which is of course what most business travel is.

What I saw from the cab was an interesting urban form. Blocks which had obviously been sold and built on by separate parties with little connections considered. The roads were enormous, really along the scale of Beijing: four plus lanes in each direction. Being a pedestrian was tougher than I thought possible, of course I was a) jet lagged; b) confused because the traffic was coming from the wrong direction; and c) stunned because I spent the day in a fiercely air conditioned conference room.

The place was not as dry as I had expected. There was a LOT of irrigation, which was probably not great. There was a really lovely waters edge promenade, which was empty during the day but seemed to have picnicking families and couples under the shelters once the sun went down. This reminded me of the causeways in Florida.

All in all, I should go back with out my snarky attitude and look at it again. Its an area of the world where there is a tremendous amount of growth and it deserves a longer look. Or at least a look that doesn't include a cab.

Its 1 am and this airport is packed!

This is the view from duty free at the Abu Dhabi airport up to the concourse level.

Unbelievable, right? Then factor in the fact that it is after 1am on Thursday morning. The tile work, kind of makes your head spin a bit. I was sooo disoriented I bought a liter of Jack Daniels at duty free. If any one had ever suggested to me that I would buy a liter of Jack Daniels at 1 am in the morning in the Abu Dhabi airport at ANY time in my life I would have fallen over laughing. And yet I did that very thing.

Just as a side note, a guy in my office describes this air port as being reminiscent of the bar scene in Star Wars. (OK warning I got way laid on th einformation super highway attempting to find an image of the star wars bar scene and discovered this one which is even better because its that scene done in Lego.

Ever wonder what ever happened to Tang?

Don't worry I've found an outlet - yes its the duty free shop in Abu Dhabi. Oddly they had a rather large display of Tang branded goods.

And it looks like they have branched out from the orange flavour of my youth to embrace other fruit flavours, if their sign is to be believed.

Traveling again...

I'm in Abu Dhabi. the thing about Abu DHabi, is that if you are an American chances are unless you are in the military or are a new commentator or vaguely clued-in politician. You couldn't find it on a map, except by gesturing east of Africa and possibly south of the western bit of Russia. I found it right away, it a city-state in teh United Arab Emirates smack to the left (west-ish) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I got here by taking the national airline of the UAE, Etihad; which is a rockin' good airline. Perhpas I flew Delta too long so my standards are really low but it was grand to be treated like a person on a plane and not chattel.

I do have my camera and I'm hoping to take some more pictures, buttonight its late so I'll just show you around the hotel room. Basically, its like every other nice hotel room I've staid in since I gave up on motels. Its got beds and a big armour with a tv and clean towels and little soaps and shampoos. Butthen in the corner up above the standard issue wall of curtains is the above little green sign.

Can you read it? It shows you the direction to face when you are praying to make sure you are facing Mecca. They had it on the plane too, which was kinda confusing until I figured out that the arrow rotating around the plane on the little map (you know the one in back of the seat in front of you which tells you in many languages that you only have 5 hours until you can FINALLY get out of the flying tin can and its -500 degrees outside and the plane is going a zillion kilometers per hour?) as we departed London was pointing towards mecca. Just as a side note (I do realise that this whole blog is nothing but a side note but really that's why you read it, right?) the sign was pointing to a wword written in arabic which is why I didn't immediately click on the wole Mecca-thing.

Anyway,since I'm an infadel I don't really need to know where mecca is but I thought that was very friendly for them to keep me informed.

Free slippers

You know you are in a quality establishment when in addition to pointing the correct direction for prayers, they also give you a snazzy pair of slipper inscribed with the name of the hotel -- it says in tiny type, under "le Royal Meridian" logo, "Abu Dhabi."

These are keepers.

Day After the Halloween Party

So, I had a Halloween party on the Saturday before Halloween, or really I should say that I was talked into a Halloween party by some friends from work. It goes like this, Brits think that Americans have all these weird giant Halloween parties and they don't really get them. BUT they love to dress up and drink beer - so acouple of American friends said "Let's throw a Halloween party<" and I said "OK, we can use me flat." All agreed it would be agreat idea. However, we didn't take into account that a) it was half-term, which is this strange British time when schools go on break so ALL families of means flee the country, so all teh grownups we know (aka those with kids) had left town, b) evite is way to scary/complicated to for Brits to use and they are afraid to admit they cannot use it so they don't come and/or c) no one wanted to come to a party (that couldn't be!).

It turned out to be fine and fun. We had the usual assortment of priests, medusas, cats, french maids, school girls, men and dogs in matching bathrobes with hats (!?), ghosts, an Indian Chief and at least three folks who didn't comprehend "costume."

We carved pumpkins, drank beer and wine, and listend to the top 100 hits of 1972. The above picture was taken the following day to show off the pumpkin carving skills of my British, South African, Swiss, Australian, Jamaican and American friends.

I still have beer.

He walks

This is Henry! For recollection sake -- check out my last picture of Henry, a couple of weeks before I moved to London! This just shows you how much time has passed and how children grow so quickly and I swear they live in dog years or something -- your remember they get seven years for your every one? I've been grappling with London (its actually been good) he's bee rappling with learning to walk and recognise faces, and learning to laugh and clap. Wow, I guess we've BOTH come a long way in the last 12 months!

Another Brompton Post

In the UK, there is new legislation which allows participating companies to set up bicycle purchase schemes, so that people can buy bicycles for commuting tax free. That doesn't sound like much but its net of VAT (basically 17% sales tax embedded in most purchases) and paid with pre-tax dollars (tax rates run from 20-40%). This scheme (program) mean that there has been a rash of new bike purchases at my firm since July.

This is ANOTHER Brompton photograph. This is my friend Chris, cycling away on his new bike scheme Brompton. Now Chris is a major-major cyclist. The kind of guy who has lots of bike gear - and he stooped to a brompton, "just because it was nerdy." But now I've discovered an even more nerdy bike - the Pashley Princess. I don't think its possible to pass this one up: chain guard, skirt guard, basket. Its the Miss Marple of bicycles.

As much as I have admired Bromptons; my heart may have been won over by Pashleys. meanwhile my trusty trek just keeps on moving along. Perhaps I'll post a picture of her next time.

Milton Keynes New Town

There is a new town outside of London called Milton Keynes. It was established in 1960s but mostly built since the 1970s. Its now sort of a distant London bedroom community.

Anyway, when it was built they put up these concrete cows as a sort of a joke (they may even originally have been paper mache)on themselves. To this day one of the things people mention, when you speak of Milton Keynes is the cows. I have a friend who lives there and this summer I went to his home for dinner. I insisted that I get to see the cows - and here they are for you.

Snout House Brit Style

Milton Keynes was 40 this year. So it was born in the car-crazy sixties. Lots of big roads and single family homes sprawling out. It would make an American homesick. This house has with its garage right out in front, is sometimes called a snout house because its wearing its garage like a rather ugly nose. I had to laugh because I come all the way to the UK and go for fun out to look at suburban houses.

The rest of the day involed checking out the old town that MK was built around. Which was interestingly a coach stop on the way from London to parts north. Becasue it was a coach stop there were several competeing pubs including The Cock and The Bull. The two competeing pubs used to have competitions to tell the tallest tales - so is it theorigin of teh cock and bull story - or just another fairy tell they tell Americans?

The flag over the castle

Had to postthis shot, makes the hair on your arms stand up with Welsh pride, doesn't it?

Sure its a country that has been overwhelmed by the English, but its still got a great flag. I may have to learn Welsh, just to show solidarity with my people.

Buildings as poetry

This is the front of the new theater at the bay, enscribed on the front is a piece of a poem in Welsh and English "In these stones horizons sing." The other sides are all Welsh slate. Its stunning building.

I couldn't get a decent picture of the Assembly BUilding, you'll just have to go there.

The Rugby was good

The Millennium Stadium was good but not as full as I had hoped, therefore the singing was not as loud as I had hoped. But the rugby was really good, despite Wales' loss the the Frogs. Those boys sure are big and there's not a lot of padding to make them big. I was surprised to see that they really did look like the cartoons drawn of rugby players that I had been seeing since I was a kid. Barely a nose was shaped as Sebastian Chabal, who has this flowing black hair a a big beard. When he's running down the field his hair flows out behind him, he really does look like a cave man.

Now I'm going to follw the Rugby World cup!

Yes, that is a goat...

and next to him is the Goat Major, sorry the picture is so fuzzy. I'm not sure I completely understand it but as I read in teh castle the Welsh regiment use a goat as its mascot because a baby goat (a kid) woke up a sentry guard during the Crimean War, who alerted the troops and thus thwarted some incursion. Why they have given the goat those gilded horns was not recorded. I'm sure some of my more tuned in Welsh readers can give us more scoop on the goat.

There is a friendly pub called The Goat Major not far from the stadium, to which I retired after the game for a well deserved beer. Funny people, the Welsh.

Cardiff Bay

Very behind in my blogging so sorry. My visit to Cardiff for last sunmmer Bank holiday was very fun. I staid at a lovely hotel on the Cardiff Bay which has changed a great deal. They've built a barrier which keep the bay's huge tidal reach in check so the water no longer drops down to the mud twice a day which make the bay a lovely new site for all sorts of things like my hotel - the St. David.

This is a picture from my balcony (each room has one) on Saturday evening. The weather was lovely, they knew how to pronouce my name and I didn't have to spell it when I checked in -- remarkable!

St. David Hotel on Bay

from this picture you can see how the hotel flaots above the bay sort of like a ship, I guess that's why they gave it sails. On th eother side there is a wonderful wetlands board walk so you can better see the land/bay connection.

Norwegian Church and other bay sights

This is a view from the bay walk across the bay. The Norwegian church is a hold over from when the port of Cardiff was a working port (technically there still is some shipping) full of seamen from all over. Its now an arts centre and has a lovely place for lunch. The ferris wheel may have just been there for the Bank holiday weekend festival or it may be permenent, who knows. The ship in the foreground is a historic sailing ship that takes tourists out for cruises. It had some very popular pirates wandering around teh Bay festival while I was there.

Cyclists Dismount

This sign just made me laugh, mostly becaus eall signs were in Englsih and Welsh and the Welsh is so impenetrable - sort of like my name I guess.

Bank holiday news

This weekend is http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifthe summer Bank Holiday. I still find it funny that they call these days off Bank Holidays, why is that any better or worse/funnier than Memorial or Labor Day? Anyway, boils down to another day off.

So I'm taking advantage by hiving off to the land of my parents. That's right after 10 months I'm finally going to Wales. Got an ihttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifnvite to attend the Wales v. France Rugby Union match in the famed Millennium Stadium. It may only be famous to me, come to think of it. This is why its famous - in 1999 I was toiling away in Atlanta for Deloitte & Touche. My New Zealand aunt and uncle, who among others stayed with me for the 1996 Olympics, were on another round the world trip and visiting their homeland. My Uncle sent the family an email description of being in the new stadium for a rugby world cup game and how amazing it was to hear all those people singing. So that's why the stadium is famous and that's why I'm looking forward to going.

There is also the rest of the city (lots of regeneration to take pictures of) and the rugby - but really its really the singing.

My first celebrity sighting

OK, I was just reviewing my last posts and realised I need to inject a little humanity and humour into the blog. So here goes, on Sunday I had my first celebrity sighting (is that the correct way to spell siting/citing? must be, with a "C" I would be referring to it, right? update - thanks Marcia, OF COURSE its sighting - duh!) I digress, I live in a very posh neighborhood - well beyond my means (its an apartment that belongs to a friend, thanks, Virg). When I tell folks where I live they usually make some sort of comment about the neighborhood. Usually followed by, "have you ever seen any celebrities?"

Now there is two things wrong with that question 1) I don't know many British celebrities because they have many different ones than Americans do, so I'm only just beginning to catch on and 2) I'm mostly not looking for celebrities so even if I knew them I probably wouldn't realise they were celebs until much later.

However, dear reader, on Sunday I actually twigged to a celeb siting in real time! It was in a book store, I was down on my hands and knees trying to find a copy of Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" since I had been previously thwarted in my attempt to purchase the new Peter L. Bernstein book, "Capital Ideas Evolved" - not out in UK yet - drat you John Wiley and Sons. See how erudite I am? But the point is I'm groveling on the floor in the Waterstone's, when I hear a voice I recognise. Odd, I think to myself, I'm in a country where I know almost no one and I recognise a voice? So of course I squirm around to see who it is and its Russel Brand, easily recognisable because he has a giant bird's nest of hair and is dressed all in black.

Those of you who are regular readers (or who cleverly followed the link), know that Mr. Brand is a comedian who I wrote about in January because he was seriously over exposed and I was fascinated - so its funny that I would have this celeb encounter.

OK, so encounter is kind of a big word for realising I knew the voice, turning around and recognising him, catching his eye, then turning away in embarrassment. Why embarrassment? I have no idea, I guess I thought he should be able to do his book shopping in peace and I was bordering on gawking. So I left him to his shopping took my book to the counter, paid and took it home - celeb sighting over.

BTW, the Raymond Chandler book rocks.

Friday night at Tate Modern Urbanity exhibition

What can I say? I spent a Friday night looking at MORE city planning stuff. This exhibition called Global Cities is in the huge power hall. Some of us went after work. The exhibit was really good, nothing really new but interesting to see the kind of research you do laid out in an exhibit.

The part I was most taken with was the modeling of the population relative to the size of a city - giant sculptures that reflected the population density as peaks. The photos curated to support the exhibition where also interesting. The pace of change is not something I don't know about (double negative) but when its graphically portrayed for each of the five cities its quite shocking.

Best of all, because it was at the Tate you can site down at the bar and discuss with the friends you came with.

Bad infill

Back in London wandering around, this time I'm headed down from my flat to the Primrose Hill area and strolling along I saw this!

I'm not sure where to begin, on the one hand it looks like some one took the roof off and added a cube in the middle and poked a giant window in the middle. Then to try and make it look more - I don't know.. British?? - they added a window treatment that makes your eyes water, can you see it? Look at the shape at the top of the upper window - sort of a modified regency thingy perhaps from the inside it seems like a good idea...

Unfortunately I believe the owner or a visitor to the home saw me talking a picture and I had to skedaddle, otherwise I would have tried for more angles. and whats' up with that colour? I am going to assume its faded and was not chosen that way.

Same neighborhood, part of the door collection

Keep walking, take a left and there is an amazing street of row houses with very similar fronts but each door is slightly different - different colours, brick patterns, stained glass, flower boxes etc. This was my favorite on the street. Wish I could have showed you the street it was very interesting seeing all the difference which some how remained the same.

Couldn't help myself, here's another door on that street. Note that it is EXACTLY the same door - bricks painted and door stripped. May be I need to go back and look at those doors again, perhaps its all paint and mirrors...

Inside of Billings, Montana

I was in Billings for a meeting of people who manage downtown cores. Its always interesting to see the different scales of "downtowns." As you can imagine Billings has a fairly small downtown. Interestingly they created a plan for keeping it going, you know focusing on the historic architecture - lots of small older hotels being re-purposed into antique shops, restaurants and bars. But the streets were HUGE - must have been 75 feet across. Parking on both sides (also enormous parking decks everywhere) and many in the downtown were one-way pairs. I almost stopped in the middle of the street and took a picture just to show how huge-ly wide they were. Built for the entire state of Montana (under a million) to drive through each in their own huge truck and you still probably wouldn't fill those roads.

It has a lot of the same terrible inflictions as other big sprawling Midwestern towns and railroad towns I've been in. The scale is completely blown by about two or three high-rise (really mid-rise) 70s and 80's buildings. In this case it was a bank and a conference hotel. In that same area there was a beautifully restored full block six or seven story brick building probably built in the 20s. Which may have had slightly less SF than the "towers" but were so much better for the town. Interesting juxtaposition; plus the building had a fabulous restaurant - I thought for a moment I was in San Francisco. Guess there are a lot of rich folk who own ranches in Montana and they have to go out to eat somewhere.

Anyway the other interesting thing about Billings was this white sail-like thing which covers their 100% intersection. Looks like it was designed in the 1990's for the inside of a mall. But it defines that area of town and they have Friday night music under it, a farmers market under it on Saturday mornings. Obviously with the size of their streets, re routing traffic is not really an issue so closing down that intersection doesn't affect traffic flow. Interesting idea to create "place." Don't know that I would suggest it for anywhere else but they seem to be fond of it. Apparently, the wings on the thing contract in the winter and the site of the guys moving it is really something to see.

One other thing about this 100% corner is another older building undergoing condo conversion. Selling price are about $185 per square foot. Hard to imagine you could restore and construct for that but then again I'm looking at 500-1000 Great British Pounds sales price in London these days so everything in the US - especially Montana seems cheap to me.

Outside of Billings, Montana

This is the site of the Little Big Horn battlefield outside of Billings in Montana. This trip to the US was a long strange journey involving six separate plane flights! Anyway the battlefield tour was a side trip for another meeting. I didn't really see the point of a battlefield tour, until I heard the story from the National Park Service guide. He put it all in perspective. The Battle, AKA "Custer's Last Stand," was a turning point in US history, because it was a victory for the Indians, who then lost the bigger battle for the right to travel away from the newly created reservation. It came to take up such a large part in the American Psyche because news of the battle reached the eastern US on the same week as the Centenary celebration in 1876. Imagine the stir that must have caused.

The battlefield itself, was stark and rolling hills with markers where the American Army men fell. The interesting bit is the second picture, which is the VERY recent monument to the Indian dead. Once I figured out the story, this memorial became even more moving. You enter a circular space, with the stories of the Indian tribes on the walls and one side of the circle is open (away from the monuments of the US Army) and this sculpture is silhouetted against the rolling hills.

Perhaps its because of the current war, but this set of dueling memorials really made me think about what we do to each other. I bet both sides thought they were righteous.

Cubbies in the sunshine

Had a quick-ish trip through the US in July (gotta get quicker at uploading this stuff) that included beautiful Chicago. It was a lovely lovely couple of days - clear blue sky, not too hot and relatively painless meeting followed by my friends Jeremy and Shira's guest room..

Guess what? The guest room came with season tickets to the cubs game. Shira had to work all day so I got her seat. As you can see it wasn't half bad. It was an amazing day.

Got to see all kinds of only in Chicago things. Including the following...

So Chicago

This is such an emblamatic Chicago street scene. I know its not the flowered up shopping drag but its an inner suburb on the north side near Wrigley Field. Note the muscular brick buildings, the encroaching elevated rail, the folks just walking around and the size of the streets. For some reason I usually see Chicago in the winter or I'm in town for business so I don't get in to the neighborhoods. They are really remarkable - lots of corner bars, newish shops and folks walking around.

Push button

I was really taken with the SIZE of these signs instructing you on how to use the signals in Chicago; they must be about 16 inches tall. The first word is "Push" it is obscured on this one. If a sign can yell at you these certainly do. May be pedestrians in Chicago are just more aggressive than elsewhere and need to be kept in line - graphically.

Old school score keeping

No jumbotron for Wrigley Field! It looks like they actually have guys who turn over the scores behind the green score board. But even better, they also keep you up to date on the scrore of other major league baseball scores - National League on the left, American League on the right.

No sky boxes, either

I'm not sure how they do it but the Cubs don't have sky boxes at Wrigley, either. These are houses across the street from the stadium and their roofs overlook the field. Apparently for years they just over looked the field but then people started building up the structures and stands and the team ownership threatened to build a big wall unless they got a cut of the action, so now those houses all have giant super structure stands on top of them. One even has a rooftop painted with the Budweiser logo.

I'm trying to imaging the zoning hearings that it took to get these things approved.

Film school in San Fran

Ah, my buddies at 900 Tennessee sent me this lovely picture of summertime funny in SF. Our old factory building would get together and BBQ (mainly vegetarian) stuff; then watch a film projected on the side of the building. No such building camaraderie yet here in leafy North London, plus I guess the bricks my current apartment (flat) would make Citizen Kane look funny.

Also please note how flippin' cold it is there in the City by the Bay - so cold they all have to hold dogs on their laps to keep warm!

Best use of overpass

I cannot tell a lie, This is NOT London. I found this picture while I was cleaning out my hard drive on a long plane flight. I took it in Curacao last year.

Its very hot in the Netherlands Antilles and I thought this was an ingenious use of an ugly overpass. If you look very closely peering under the bridge, you will see an orange-y coloured building tucked in the shade. That building is restaurant/club. Oddly, given that it was in the dark it was such a relief to be out of the sun that people fled to the place and had a beer and relaxed.

I haven't seen many successful uses for the darkness under an elevated road - I hear there is a great skate park in Oakland - but I recommend this as a great use for that space.

Pub in Diamond District

OK, so I'm not up to pub-a-day levels but I am still very interested in pub life in London. This is one of the pubs in the neighbourhood where I work, which is in Hatton Garden, the diamond district of London. I love that it has such a play on names: Deux Beers and De Beers - get it?

I wanna Brompton

Here are some pictures of the DE-luxe folding bike I am considering buying, a Brompton. Above is me peddling -- note how jaunty and happy I look. Imagine my eyes are open.

The above picture is the bike opened.

here it is with the back wheel folded - from there it collapses to about 1.5 feet square; perfect for flat (apartment)living.

But then again - its a lot of money - maybe I will just wait for my current bike to get stolen then I'l have to get a Brompton!

Ballet Boyz at South Bank

Tonight, unday evening I went to see Ballet Boyz at the South Bank complex.

1) It was my second time at the South Bank Centre, which includes The Royal Festival Hall, The Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall and even more fabulous stuff. Its two year facelift nicely finished before I got here. Now the Royal Festival Hall opens up onto the Thames with a very nice river walk and unbelievable views across the river to the city. I highly approve and next time I will remember to take a camera because these web links don't do it justice.

2) The Ballet Boyz show was really amazing it was a "Gala" which apparently means a conglomeration of different companies each doing a small piece. The Boys themselves were very good as were their guest performers. I forgot how great dance can be - London is certainly full of it. There's an entire venue devoted to it; called Sadler Wells. That's next on the list!

Summer Time!

That means time to "stand around out of doors drinking" here in London. This is a picture of some folks from work headed to a pub; Sarah carefully showing us the way. She's taking ACTing classes so its all about the gesture now.

Will you look at that crowd!? Beautiful Friday evening; work is over and all of London decides to go for a drink. So I decided to take a few more pictures of crowds out side of pubs. This is my tribute to my recent vistors Jen and Bob and their pub a day feature.

Another pub

To the left of the previous pub

Yet another out door pub scene

Just down the hill from the previous pub.