London, Day 2

(2003/12/31 - Wednesday)

We headed straight to the London Eye this morning to take a ride up and over the city. The view from the top is pretty incredible and we were lucky enough to get great weather and visibility (for this time of year). J stayed on the ground to watch little A while the rest of us went up. I took a bunch of pictures but they really don't do justice to sheer size and color of the London skyline. (The London Eye site has a photo album, as does Nick Wood. For pictures of the Eye installation, checkout Nick's stuff.)

We then darted across the Hungerford Bridge to the catch the train at the Embankment tube station. We got off at Tower Hill and walked to the Tower of London. A very tourist-y attraction, but well worth the tour given by the beefeaters (Yeoman Warders) about every hour (according to our Yeoman, they are called beefeaters because they were originally furnished with meat as part of the pay for protecting the King and Queen, while the rest of the general population almost never ate meat.).

The tour is about one and a half hours. The Yeoman talks about the various historical aspects of the castle, following a theme -- in this case we walk the path a headless body would travel from the chopping block on Tower Hill to the Chapel in the castle. Along the way the Yeoman talk about the various people that were held, tortured, murdered, and/or beheaded here. He definitely talks about the gory details where ever possible. Standing between the outer wall and the bell tower was extremely cold -- the coldest I've been in England.

Besides the tour there are various museum type exhibits and other gory attractions. The crown jewels are also on display. The queue was massive -- all suggestions were to show up at opening time (pre purchase your tickets) and go directly to the jewels, then do the other stuff.

The B's decided to split early because the kids were really cold. It was really cold.

We forged on, across the Tower Bridge, which pictures don't do justice. We walked down the Thames opposite the Tower of London. This took as past several interesting sites; the London City Hall, the HMS Belfast, and the Golden Hinde replica.

After walking through a number of side streets and alleys, we found our way to the rebuilt Globe Theatre. The Globe, while not on the exact original site, is based on the archeological dig of the original site just a few hundred meters away. The design and construction is based on the findings, down to the inch and the materials used (including getting special permission for the thatched roof -- thatched roofs were outlawed in London after the great fire of 1666 which left the city w/ 100,000 homeless). We spent some time in the exhibit space and then joined a walking tour of the stage and house. Unfortunately there was no productions going on this time of year, since it would be pretty cold to sit (or stand if you're a groundling) in an open air, "in the round" theatre. Although, I think, Tedd enjoyed the tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company complex in Stratford more, he liked this text so much so, that we bought him a poster version to take home:

From the globe we walked to the Tate Modern, just next door. The Tate Modern is in the refurbished Bankside Power Station (originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, of note also the original designer of the famous British red telephone box.) and houses a large collection of modern and contemporary art.

Because it was nearly 5 and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we went to the top floor cafe for a bite. With the modern London skyline behind us and a view straight on of St. Paul's across the Thames this was a memorable and delicious snack (Hol: grilled mozzarella w/ rocket on spelt ciabatta, Tedd: cured ham and cheese, Ben: egg w/ watercress on whole grain bread and a cappuccino). I'd recommend it as a beautiful location to take a break -- the view is pretty incredible.

Unfortunately we didn't really have enough time to see everything we wanted to... That seems to be a theme here -- the Brits want to leave you wishing for more -- London has certainly done that.

We walked across the Millennium Bridge towards Saint Paul's Cathedral and caught the train at Blackfriars tube station home.

At the end of day 2 in London we'd seen exactly 0 homeless. I suspect this has more to do with the locations we were (mainly tourist areas) and time of year (very cold) than the city's lack of them. The one place I'd expected to encounter them was the tube, however S's flat was in a nice area (911 TTs, Boxsters, BMW E46 M3's, etc. parked all over the neighborhood) ... Today though a slightly dirty and disheveled man sat next to us on the train. He definitely had been drinking and was a bit out of sorts. He was talking and singing to anyone that would acknowledge him, but of course most wouldn't. He talked and sang about god and various aspects of Christ - definitely a born again. He asked us our stop, and to be safe I gave him a false one. His talk then turned to his family (probably because we were clearly together as one)... He mentioned a dead wife and a dead son. He'd lost them both around Christmas time. Tears welled in his eyes... his voice got very small. He again talked about god, how he'd found god and that god was good. He then apologized, produced a glass flask from his pocket, and took a swig. As he stood to get off the train we asked him to stay safe and have a happy new year.

You could feel the relief in the train car as the man exited, but you couldn't help but feel for him -- getting 'pissed' (drunk) and riding the tube New Years Eve because he had no where else to go, no family to go home to. I suppose the cynics will think he used this story as a ploy, but for what? He never asked or indicated that he would take money from anyone, he simply stood and said goodbye at his stop.

New Year's was spent relaxing with the B's at S's flat. A little beer and wine plus conversation were all that we needed to usher in the new year.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day08/

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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London, Day 1

(2003/12/30 - Tuesday)

S, who was J's best man, had generously agreed to loan us his 3 bedroom flat in Chiswick, London so we could stay in the city for a few days. His flat was really nice and located a 15 minute walk from the Turnham Green tube station.

After arriving in Chiswick and finding parking for both cars (there were 8 of us with both families combined.), we hurried off to the tube to make our first event, a "frog tour". The frog tour started just across from the All Bar 1 building, next to the London Eye. The tour itself is very similar to the double-decker bus tours everyone says you gotta do, except that it's in an amphibious vehicle which eventually drives down a sandy beach and enters the Thames River at Vauxhall. It then powers up and down the river for an additional view of the city from the Thames itself. Very cool stuff. Highlights (really saw too much too fast to even take in...): Parliament Square, 10 Downing Street, MI6 (and MI5), Westminster Abbey, St. Stephen's Tower (Big Ben), various parks, and more. The tour guide proclaimed that a large flood in London was inevitable, and felt that authorities weren't taking the warning signs seriously. Something I'd never really heard of before.

We all stopped to have lunch near the London Eye and Saatchi gallery at County Hall. We then took a walk across the Westminster Bridge (I took 5 pictures to build this panorama from Westminster Bridge. It turned out so-so. In general our 3 year old digital camera has performed well, but it definitely shows its age when compared against newer equipment. In particular the low light shots are horribly blurry.).

We then walked across parliament square, through Saint James's Park and up The Mall to Buckingham Palace. There was a throng of people gathered on the steps of the Queen Victoria monument all facing the palace. We were sort of baffled and J went to ask a Met officer what was up. At that point the palace lit up with white "snow flakes" falling down the front and then transitioned to a huge Union Jack design across its face. Apparently we lucked out, it was part of the "Brightening up London" event. The kids were pretty wiped out by this point so we all started carrying the little ones and heading for the nearest tube station.

We took S (and A) to the ASK restaurant around the corner from his flat to thank him for his hospitality.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day07/

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Oxford

(2003/12/29 - Monday)

We made a quick day trip up to Oxford without the B's today. This was my first time driving without J around to follow. To top it off, I had to drive straight through the magic roundabout. Hol took some photos of the signs to give some more insight into the insanity that is the "magic roundabout". Apparently Swindon was the site of some testing on traffic patterns and roundabouts. They found that the magic roundabout was so efficient they used it in ZERO other cities, but kindly left it for Swindon. Jamie claims it is quite efficient, however when we went through it this afternoon it was a freaking parking lot, er, excuse me, car park.

We walked around Oxford for a couple of hours. I thoroughly enjoyed the architecture and didn't mind that it was a bit rainy. Walking through the neighborhoods looking at the various old homes really reminded me how much history this place had and how much history my home lacks. It is hard to imagine the homes and buildings in Orange County being around in a few hundred years, and with their purposeful non styled architecture, I hope they aren't.

We had a nice meal at Brown's restaurant on Woodstock Road. Tedd had steak, which he'll eat any chance he's allowed to order it. We've quickly learned that there is no such thing as "Sprite" or "7Up" here, however ordering "lemonade" will get you something very similar, to Tedd's great relief.

We stopped by the Eagle and Child pub for its significant literary historical relevance. We discussed The Inklings and also the recent Salon.com article, the real fellowship of the ring, regarding Tolkien and Dyson arguing all night with C. S. Lewis about religion and possibly paving the way for the two more noted authors to write their "classics". These are some of Tedd's most favorite books so hopefully the relevance wasn't lost on him.

Not really surprising, but we got lost on the way home -- once in Swindon proper, thankfully. One wrong exit from a roundabout was all it took. The kind attendant at the petrol station set us straight. From there we got lost looking for a street name (on the map) that's called something completely different in reality. Finally got home with only a single near-death roundabout experience -- lucky for us the power and handling of the Ford Focus got us out of the situation right-quick. *smirk*

J and I walked down to a pub for Monday Night Football (Southhampton v. Arsenal: 0-1). Guinness and Strongbow consumed. Good.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day06/

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Shakespeare's Stratford

(2003/12/28 - Sunday)

The hotel that we stayed at provided a full English breakfast. None of us had a full English hangover, so I'm not sure if we deserved it. I ate enough for several hangovers anyway. Eggs, potatos, fried tomatos, mushrooms, toast, sausage, beans, juice, tea, and coffee. I also had cereal and croissants. Pure heaven.

After breakfast, we walked across the Avon to the Royal Shakespeare Company's theatre complex to get a tour. We were able to go into both theatres (the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, with a ~1500 seat house and the Swan, much smaller house built inside the walls of the original theater as a more traditional Shakespearean theatre) and see both the house and backstage areas. Additionally we were able to visit the gallery area where they have on display a number of historic costumes and playbills/posters from older productions.

Being the consummate tourists we had to visit Shakespeare's birthplace, the home where he was born and raised. The tour included a fairly interesting review of him and his family's history in Stratford-upon-Avon. The docents in the home were very kind to point out the relevant details and what life would have been like during his time here. I found it interesting that some of the first visitors to sign the guestbook (when they started having a guestbook) were John and Abigail Adams and Thomas Jefferson as they toured the English country side in the late 18th century (both Adams and Jefferson were assigned to France as ambassadors during that time).

We also stopped by the city's Holy Trinity to visit Shakespeare's grave, placed prominently (along with his wife and other family members) under the steps leading to the front of the church. The churches here are incredible, even "small" ones such as this. J just smiled at my awe. Growing up here he's encountered so many of them that, it's impossible not to take them for granted.

We stopped to get some dinner before heading home. Where? Yep, a pub. This is sweet!

Because the motorway home was all blocked up we took a side road back home. I'm sure during the day it was a pretty scenic drive -- but at night it was fairly technical. I was surprised how narrow these roads can be and was happy to only have to follow someone. Navigating on top of everything else would have been overload. It's funny how much muscle memory plays into shifting a manual. My right hand kept trying to shift.

One additional annoyance with right hand drive manuals is the indicator stalk remains on the left hand side of the steering column. Shifting and signaling in a RHD car is a two part process -- much smoother in a LHD where you can use your left hand to steer and nudge the turn indicator and right hand to shift. Tons more roundabouts to play on. Not only have I noticed many (presumably) native drivers employing the same 'every man for himself' strategy I use, they also seem to have no knowledge that the lines painted on the pavement are meant to indicate lanes in which to keep your car. We just joined in the fun.

We had to run out for milk once we were home. J took me to the magic roundabout. Picture five smallish roundabouts laid out as a star, but connected together by a large roundabout. As I'm finding everywhere, the Brits provide you with highly detailed signage, about 20 meters before you get to the road being described. Additionally, the detail is so fine that you need about 30 seconds to understand the intended meaning, rendering the signs almost completely useless. As I drove through the magic roundabout as a passenger, I realized I would just point the car toward the outlet I wanted and dodge cars on the fly. Far easier.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day05/

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Warick and Stratford-upon-Avon

(2003/12/27 - Saturday)

Drove out to Warick to visit the famous old castle. J dropped us off and then went on to take his mum home.

The castle has quite a history (as does most everything here) to it. M had recently done a report on the surrounding village and was able to tell us a little about it after being urged on by her mum.

We were there for maybe half a day... This is basically a history lesson set inside a castle, complete with castle rooms, towers, walls, dungeons, and torture chambers. There were a few things that I wanted to see but didn't get a chance. I'd guess we needed maybe 2 more hours. Overall, I’d rate this attraction pretty good. There are also a number of historic buildings in the town.

J met us back at the car park and we drove out to Stratford to check-in to our hotel. We put the kids (w/ Tedd and Morgan in charge) into one room, ordered room service, a movie, and escaped to our dinner reservation. Adult night out started with a nice meal at The Lamb (on Sheep St. no less). One quiet meal and two bottles of wine later we wandered over to the Swan theatre to see if we could pull return (rush is what we called 'em in the states) tickets for All's Well that Ends Well. Only 3 available... Bad luck. (update: very bad luck indeed. I tried a couple of times to find return tickets for us during the next week and was unable to get any.)

What to do now? Pub. We hit the Flower and Sons pub (Flower is the local brew co, although this particular pub was a 'free house'. Also, Flower's son was responsible for the funding of the original Swan theatre, although he largely donated the money quietly out of the public's eye. He was later publicly recognized for his donation of 22,700 pounds -- quite a sum for 1879. ) on Henley Street. Yum. We spent about an hour there, people watching and trying to figure out which bloke each girl wanted to take home. A couple of Guinness’s later, it was time to move on. It's been about 10 years since California outlawed smoking indoors or at bars, but I've gotten spoiled by it and an hour was as much as I could take.

Right, a walk down to Riverside St. put us right in front of a swankier bar. Time for second dessert and drinks.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day04/

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Bloody ATM machine

(2003/12/26 - Friday)

Slept late today -- trying to recover from the massive time change. Spent some time chatting with R, J's Mum, today. She talked a bit about growing up during WWII and the Blitzkrieg. For the first time I came to realize that this event probably single handedly shaped her life and attitude -- similar to how the great depression shaped much of my grandma's ways. I'd guess our generation has yet to experience anything so life altering.

Because most stores and tourist-y things are closed on Boxing Day, we went over to an indoor outlet center built in a 1920's railroad works. Of note: the guy at the Gap who told Hol no native Brits wear jeans was a freak. I'd guess 50 percent of the people were in jeans -- really, besides the store names, the chorus of "cheers" coming from the shoppers, and the indoor smoking (although, not much), this could have just as easily been a mall in the states.

This was also my first chance to pull some cash out of the ATM. There were 3 machines available, and each one had slightly different bank branding. I selected the first one and checked the "network" markings. Yep, the thing had a couple of the same logos as my card. Put my debit card in and punched in my pin. Hrrrrm, when I went to withdraw however, the machine said I had 0 balance. Hrrrmm. I knew that wasn't right and without thinking I quickly stuck my MasterCard in the machine to see if I could use that -- as soon as I hit the "enter your pin" screen, I thought 'duh'. I don't have a pin for this card. No problem, cancel and try the next machine. Hrrrm. The screen seems frozen. Oh, fantastic. I'm standing in the rain in Swindon, my credit card is in the machine, and the thing is freaking hung. OK, now what? J ventures into the rain to investigate what happened to me, and the machine finally unwedges itself and cheerily alerts us that my card has been retained. Excellent. At least the next machine over was able to figure out I did have money in my accounts. One card down, two to go.

Also, roundabouts apparently have rules. Momentarily lost sight of the B's on the way back to the house... When I finally caught up with them, I attempted to stay right on their tail. After the 3rd roundabout it struck me that there was probably some sort rules to these things. Later J laughed that he'd "forgotten to mention them, but he'd meant to". Fantastic -- no doubt there was a mob of angry Brits cursing the "bloody tourist" in Old Town Swindon tonight. Sorry. Although, after hearing the rules, I'd still argue for the "every man for himself" method I'd been employing.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day03/

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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(One long) Day 1 and 2

(2003/12/24-25 - Thursday)

We arrived at LAX shortly after 1pm for our 5:45pm flight to LHR. *sigh* Well, we certainly weren't going to be late. We waited with Dan outside the secure area for about 2.5 hours... We chatted and played card games. In the interest of efficiency I made some last minute phone calls to friends to wish them a happy new year.

I was struck by a service man (army insignias, service style haircut, etc.) sitting at the next table over. I watched him for an hour. He sat with no luggage -- just a luggage carrier and his coffee. Waiting for someone? I wondered if this was army training... sitting quietly and patiently. I found it impressive. I would have been constantly fidgeting, reading, phoning, etc. in some invariably lost cause to make efficient use of time. I hope the men and women in service at this particular time have as good of a holiday as possible -- that goes for their families too.

The flight was long and uneventful. It was interesting to watch a small group of multi-ethnic children band together and run up and down the aisles all night... Probably really annoying to many, but these kids were stuck on a really long flight. Also amusing: listening to the flight attendants -- every other word was either "lovely" or "cheers".

J and M met us at the airport and we picked up our rental from Hertz -- a twitchy little 4 door Ford Focus with an atrocious 5 speed gearbox.

Following J back out the M4 to Swindon was fairly simple with only a couple of roundabouts. The car guy in me picked out the interesting models not available in the US. Of note, an Audi S3, a Lotus Elise, and an Audi A4 Avant TDI (lucky bastard).

We enjoyed a delicious xmas meal prepared by E. We tried to stay up as late as possible to get our time change/jet lag regulated ASAP. The 'Christmas cracker' jokes were awful (apparently they are supposed to be?), but we dutifully read each one aloud. The picture is of young C with her own cracker.

Photo Albums:
http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day01/, http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day02/

Posted by ben at 11:00 PM
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Background

Posted by ben at 09:00 AM
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Designing with Web Standards

By:


My big complaint of Designing with Web Standards is that the author, Jeffery Zeldman, makes the assumption that the reader is not yet convinced that building websites with the combination of XHTML/CSS/usability (aka: Web Standards) is the right thing to do. The author spends 5 chapters discussing the pros and cons of developing websites this way. If the reader is already convinced of the arguments, doesn’t need ammunition to convince a partner or manager, or already knows the sordid histories of the various technologies, they should feel free to skip or skim the first 5 chapters... Besides this, my only other tiny complaint is about the references to other areas of the book appearing in parenthesis just following the applicable material. With such long chapter and section titles, some of these spanned several lines and made reading somewhat disjointed at times. I’m probably nitpicking now, but it was annoying enough that I still remember it now.

Throughout the book Zeldman lays out the gory details about what works and what doesn't. He outlines the facts on various hacks required to make a design compatible with several of the leading browsers (both PC and Mac). He makes no qualms about suggesting a hybrid approach to designing with standards -- no standards nazi here, just plain realistic advice about what you can and can not currently do with available browsers. Very nice to find up front and realistic books when dealing with “standards”, normally you tend to find purists who won’t even discuss an hybrid approach.

If you are looking for heavy technical reference material, look elsewhere. Overall, I found this book to be a good quick primer on the subject, but unlikely one that I would re-read or turn back to for reference. The author's corny commentary was just the right amount to keep the material readable -- of course I'm a sucker for corny material. I'd still recommend this book because the material is presented quickly and without bias, plus it is a very quick read. Jeffery also keeps his errata section up-to-date.

Posted by ben at 09:46 AM
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Ms. Holly (W03)

Another successful Fall recital was completed tonight. Hol battled with a huge storm to pull off last years event for her middle and upper (high) school students... this year, however, it was flu. Eleven dancers missing, plus the light board op.

No matter, third show in a row, standing room only (new theatre on the way hopefully). Eventually I'll get a seat myself. Eventually Hol will realize just what she's able to put together all by herself. Pretty cool stuff. I would be negligent in my duties if I didn't mention Tedd -- spot op and impromptu sound op!

Posted by ben at 10:50 PM
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Scott's Art

Just home from Scott Laumann's latest showing at his studio in Santa Ana. Hol and Alicia Laumann got right to business, talking about dance, teaching dance, and anything remotely related to dance. Scott and I consoled each other, having both been the 'lone guy' in a room full of dancers many a time. Drinking, and heavily, is the key to survival.

Some really nice work-in-progress stuff shown tonight, including some from his jazz series. Perhaps when Hol's lotto winnings start rolling in I could afford something from his jazz series. I love this one of Elvin Jones (check out his website for this one and more). Also, his work is all over the web. Try here:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.

Tedd and I walked around his space and checked out the art. Tedd had an eye for things he liked and pointed out individual elements he considered the best. On the way home, Tedd summed it all up, "Art is cool." Indeed.

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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TMGAIHAA Newsletter

Mil produces a quite famous "website" (ok, design isn't his thing...), "Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About" or as Mil says, TMGAIHAA for short.

His writing style is brilliantly funny and I find myself laughing out loud when reading his stuff. His situational humor and insight into his own and his girlfriend's psychosis's is absolutely spot-on, all published with his perfect British dry wit.

A sample from his latest newsletter to wet your appetite:

He also has a book, which is so-so. There's some great "scenes" peppered throughout it, but it's not as consistent as the vignettes that appear on his website or in the mailing list newsletters. Be sure to sign-up for the newsletter. He's also got a new book coming out soon, which hopefully will be of the same caliber as his website.

Posted by ben at 12:15 PM
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Watterson

Nice article (although not much new info) about Bill Watterson floating around the net this week.

If Bill wanted to 'roll his own' and start self-publishing Calvin & Hobbes again (or something new), I can't imagine a more popular blog. He'd certainly not have to battle over the time crunchs or space limitations that so perturbed him while working with the newspapers.

In other C & H news, someone (can't remember who now) pointed out a site featuring RSS feeds of popular comics -- you can enjoy C & H and others in your favorite RSS reader.

In other comic news, Berkeley Breathed returned Opus to us after nearly a decade. What took so long? Now if only Gary Larson would check-in!

Posted by ben at 07:16 PM
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