this is a strange place

Well, it’s almost 10 here, so I guess I can tell you. DHL should (fingers crossed) be delivering our equipment Monday afternoon. We had to get a duplicate Carnet (which we had to pay for – again – and those things aren’t particularly cheap) and they were through customs sometime this afternoon. DHL is going to refund the Carnet they lost, but still, it’s a pain.

Grace and I didn’t do a whole ton today. We slept in, got to the NHM late because the Underground was all messed up. Someone found an unexploded WWII bomb (I think it’s where they are doing construction for the Olympics) and the police were attempting to “make it safe”, as the voice on the intercom kept saying. I can understand why they didn’t want the trains carrying passengers getting too close to the bomb, but the lines we needed to take were severely delayed. It didn’t matter though, because Chris was also running late. We got a tour of the lab at the NHL and saw a few cool (read: expensive, some of those things were worth millions of dollars, if you could put a pricetag on them at all) things some of them several old fossils, that sort of thing.

We broke after that, Grace and I went to the train station where we are catching the Chunnel train to Paris tomorrow, just to check it out. We headed home after that and have been hanging out and getting ready for our trip to Paris ever since.

I’m sure I’ll have a lot to report tomorrow, after Paris. Grace and I are thinking of heading to Birmingham on Sunday, that’s where Grace’s boss is from and the Cadbury Chocolate Company is located there. We’re thinking of touring that, then heading over to Wales just so we can say we’ve been to Wales. Until next time.

Still no equipment, so Grace and I took a day trip out to Stonehenge and Bath. My phone’s alarm clock didn’t go off, so we got off to a bit of a late start, but it was still a good day.

We left London around 10:20, and got to Salisbury around noon. There’s a tour bus that takes you through Salisbury, which is a fairly interesting town in it’s own right. It has a cathedral with one of the highest spires built in medieval times, one of the three original copies of the Magna Carta, and was never bombed during WWII because the Luftwaffe pilots used the Cathedral spire as a landmark on their way in to bomb London. The tour bus takes you past Old Sarum, a Roman fort, and then to Stonehenge. Stonehenge was pretty amazing, Grace and I took a ton of pictures, it was pretty neat. We were there for about an hour and a half, then took the tour bus back where we just barely made the train to Bath. The tour bus got to the train station at 2:40, and our train left at 2:41. We got out of the bus, went to the platform and walked onto the train literally as the doors were closing. In fact, the conductor (jokingly) threatened to “leave the Missus behind.” I wouldn’t mind going back to Salisbury sometime, Old Sarum looked like it might be interesting, and I’d like to see the Magna Carta and the Cathedral, but we just didn’t have time today.

The trip to Bath took about an hour. There was a Jane Austen museum that looked interesting, but because of my stupid phone we didn’t have time to do that and the Roman Baths, and we decided that it would be rather dumb to go to Bath without seeing the Baths. That was interesting. I think that one of the most interesting things is that the foundations for the temple the Romans built there and for the bath houses are 15 feet below the current ground level. Goes to show how stuff gets built up over time. It would have been a very impressive sight 1500 years ago, and they had a lot of surprisingly well preserved artifacts.

We had supper at a Moroccan restaurant in Bath. Grace had a cajun chicken, and I had lamb with cous-cous. Frankly, I didn’t like it very much, but what can you do. It was alright, and it’s always good to try new things, right? We caught the train back to London a little before nine, and got back to the apartment around 10:30. Overall, a pretty good day.

Oh, and congratulations to Barack Obama. Now all we can do is hope and pray that he does not choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate.

Which, if you don’t know, is where Sherlock Holmes lived. But more on that later.

Grace and I were just commenting that the last few days had gone pretty smoothly. We got to the NHM around 10:30, talked about logistics for about an hour and a half, and then parted ways. Grace got to see a fossil that Chris Collins (our contact at the NHM) was preserving, which was pretty cool because it wasn’t going to be displayed, so Grace is probably the only person who doesn’t work at the museum who is going to see that fossil. DHL lost the Carnet (a Carnet is kind of like a passport for goods, rather than people) for the shipment again. Someone at DHL in the US took the Carnet off of our shipment and put it in another box, but that box’s shipping number never got put with our shipments paperwork, so our Carnet is in a box somewhere at DHL London, and nobody knows where. Kind of like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a little unmarked box in a huge warehouse. So, we have no idea when we get our equipment. If it doesn’t come in tomorrow Grace and I might be able to take a day trip out to Stonehenge and Bath.

We broke around noon, and Grace and I spent a couple of hours walking around Kensington Gardens (right next to Hyde Park), saw Kensington Palace, a pond with a bunch of swans and geese and ducks (we both took some really cool pictures of the swans), the Speke monument and the Peter Pan statue. We took the Tube to Baker street, had lunch in Regent’s Park and then went to the Sherlock Holmes museum at 221b Baker Street. The museum was neat, they had it set up like it would have been in the books. It was fun. But, since it was finally nice weather Grace and I didn’t want to stay inside for too long.

We went to Tottenham Court and bought some cheap pay-as-you-go cellphones, so that we could communicate with each other while we were in London and Scotland. Then we headed down to Leicester square, which is in the theater district. We didn’t get any of the half-price theater tickets, they were sold out by the time we got there, but we will probably head back sometime. Funny thing happened, while I was in a store paying for some souvenirs, a guy tried to pick Grace up. She said it was kind of funny, a guy came over, said she looked like someone he knew and asked if she was waiting for someone, to which Grace said that she was, and then asked if there was any way he could contact her. She said she was only in town for a few weeks … with her husband. After which point he said he was just checking her out, that I was a lucky guy, all the while nervously looking around for the guy who was about to come clobber him. He asked where I was, Grace told him and he left in the opposite direction. Like I said, pretty funny. I have a good-looking wife ;)

Anyhow, we headed back down to Westminster, took some pictures of Westminster Abbey since we missed it on our first trip down there, and then went to find a restaurant. Unfortunately, they were either expensive or packed, so we headed home and got pizza from a little place about a block from the apartments. It was good, for about 16 pounds they gave me a large pizza and a bag. When I got home, I started pulling stuff out of the bag, and we got chicken wings, some garlic bread, a thing of pop and a pint of ice cream. I did not know I bought all that, the ice cream was especially surprising, but it was a pretty good deal.

I think a scoop of that ice cream is calling me, and my bed is too. Until next time.

Not a whole lot to report today. We went to the NHM around 10, met with Chris Collins (the conservator we are working with at the NHM) who got us registered, showed us the room we are going to be in and got us security badges, which only kind of work. They don’t let us into the lab, only into the museum itself, if we need to get back into the lab we have to ring a doorbell and have someone let us in. We have to do this every time we leave, and we have to leave every time we need the loo. So, like I said, security through turning the place into an insane asylum from all the doorbells ringing. We also probably won’t get to play with their CT scanner, but hopefully we’ll have a chance to at least talk to someone about it.

We finished meeting around 1, none of the equipment had shown up yet so there wasn’t much to do. DHL lost the carnet again. Never, ever, ever ship DHL internationally. They have lost our carnet on both shipments we have made with them which means everything gets hung up at customs, and we don’t get our stuff in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time.

Grace and I spent a few hours at the Science Museum which is right next to the NHM, took a lot of pictures. We headed home around 5 and have been hanging around here ever since, cause our feet still hurt from yesterday. Grace made us a lovely dinner, and that brings us up to now when I am blogging about our day.

Really Plain
Really Plain

So, London Bridge is nowhere near as cool as I thought it would be, but more on that later.

The day went pretty well, right up until the end again. We both got a good night’s sleep, I got about 10 hours so I was feeling quite refreshed. I met with Seales and Ryan at noon to go over stuff for tomorrow. We were going to start at the Natural History Museum (NHM) today, but that got bumped to tomorrow. Grace and I grabbed some groceries after that, then headed off to take the tube into the downtown London area.

We get out of the tube station at Westminster, turn around, and we are right underneath Big Ben. That was kind of cool, to actually see it. Of course, Big Ben is a part of the Houses of Parliament and that’s a pretty neat looking building too. We crossed the Thames at Westminster Bridge, and then just started walking along the Thames since that’s where a lot of the historic stuff is.

We didn’t go in anywhere, but we walked past a lot of things on the south bank of the Thames. We walked past the London Aquarium and Tate Modern, both of which we want to go to sometime. The Eye of London (big ferris wheel, gratuitously shown in the second Fantastic Four movie) is something we want to do sometime, it looks like you can get a really good view from the top. We saw Globe Theatre (Where Shakespeare performed many of his plays (I think, Sarah, rip on me if I am mistaken)), London Bridge (as mentioned before, very plain), Tower Bridge (very cool-looking) and then we crossed over Tower Bridge to see the Tower of London. We took a bunch of pictures of all that too.

The Tower of London looked really neat. We passed by Somerset House and walked back over the Waterloo Bridge to the south bank. We also watched for several minutes while several skateboarders threw their skateboards over the wall onto the banks of the Thames, and another skateboarder threw it back over the wall. We have video, which we will post sometime. We took a quick look at Westminster Abbey (which is right behind Parliament) but by that time we had walked six or seven miles and our feet were hurting. It was getting dark too, and we got some really neat pictures of Parliament and Big Ben.

We hopped the tube back, and that’s where things got interesting. The first leg went fine, we transferred at Baker Street and then there was a problem (fire on the tracks or something), the tube was diverted, and we ended up on a different line. The guy at information told us that he thought the tube was still running, and that we had to go over to the other station (a ten minute walk) to catch it the rest of the way. Well, he was wrong. We got there and they were announcing that there was no service. We finally found the ticket office to get our money back (Paddington station is huge) only to find out that there was no need to, it must have already been taken care of automatically or something. We are using an Oyster card, which is a pre-paid pass for the tube and the buses and some other transportation, so some system must have already taken care of us. Anyhow, we had to catch a bus back home, we started out standing at the wrong bus stop, then Grace thought we were at the wrong stop so we went to another stop, where a lady told us that no, we wanted this third stop that was across the street. As we turned around, we say the buses we needed driving past, so we ran and had to knock on the door just as it was pulling away. We went up to the top of the bus, and I have to say, I think that a London bus driver could get that camel through the eye of a needle too. They took those huge buses through some holes that I would have had a hard time getting the Omni through. We got home around 11, an hour and a half or so after we left Westminster station, and it should have been half an hour. Oh well, we made it eventually.

Now for some more of that sleep stuff. That’s some good stuff. Then I need to figure out how to make the whole day go well, instead of something going wrong at the very end. And then? World peace (or maybe coffee…)

Or something like that. Not sure if I got enough extra u’s and e’s in there. Someone can correct me if I am wrong.

We got here. It wasn’t uneventful, but we are here, all our stuff is here (unlike Seales’ wife’s grandmother’s baggage) and I’m awake enough to post (I think). Now, let’s get to the not so uneventful stuff.

It started out small. We saw the taxi drive by our apartment twice before he found it, but we had plenty of time so that wasn’t a problem. Then we got to the airport and Grace’s bag was four pounds overweight. A bit frustrating, but there was no line and we were able to rearrange things in a satisfactory manner. We went through security about as smoothly as possible, and had an hour and a half to kill before our flight. But, I’d rather be early and sit at the gate then miss the flight.

The flight from Lexington to Cincinnati takes about 20 minutes from wheels-up to wheels-down. The landing wasn’t the best I have ever had (the plane should go straight down the runway, not waggling like a drunk) but they could re-use the plane so it’s all good. We had about an hour layover in Cincinnati, no big deal.

Then the flight from Cincinnati to Gatwick. Very long flight, although we had a good tailwind most of the way there so it was shorter than average. We land around 8:30 AM London time (about 7 and a half hours in the plane). This flight is when things started going poorly. I got about 1 hour of sleep, and I missed the coffee because I was in the loo. So, this left me in a slightly sour mood, but then things started picking up. We got off the plane. It was a very long walk to passport control, but that’s just walking, right? We got through passport and customs with nary a hitch, and then went to find the train to the bus station. This took a bit longer than it could have, but not much. Plus, I got my coffee on the train which is probably why I am able to write this right now. Unfortunately, the wheel on my suitcase broke, but still works (kind of) which isn’t a big deal … yet.

The bus is when we started to have problems. We have six bags between us, since we needed to bring camping stuff for Scotland, and it didn’t fit on the bus real well. But we made do.

The real boo-boo that I made was getting off at Ladbroke Street station, rather than Ladbroke Grove station. Both Grace and I are tired, hungry, and want to get to the apartment to rest. But since I got off at the wrong stop, we wandered around London for an hour, dragging six bags over crowded, narrow, not very well kept sidewalks. This is where the broken wheel became very frustrating. This did not improve our mood any. Finally, after asking two people for directions, we found the place. Neither set of directions were accurate, but they got us close enough. All we have to do is get the keys from Brent’s wife, and then we can go relax, right?

Wrong. This would have worked, except Brent’s wife hadn’t arrived yet. We sat outside their flat for an hour with all our bags before they showed up. They had had massive problems, delayed flights, lost baggage, you name it, so it’s not their fault at all.

Oh well, we’re here now, and that’s what matters. Grace is napping, and I think I might go join her since I am feeling my caffeine wearing off. I’ll post more later.

One of the weird things that has always kind of thrown me about college, is how easy finals week is. The last two weeks or so of school are usually a living hell, getting papers done, getting projects done, getting all your ducks in a row. Then throw in other complications (moving, jobs, etc) and they just become a nightmare. But not finals week. The actual week of finals, I always feel like I have plenty of time. I spend a few hours studying for a final, a couple of hours taking it and then I am done. So much easier than the last couple of weeks.

Well, I finish my last undergraduate class tomorrow. Then a final on Monday, a final on Tuesday and a final on Wednesday. Graduation on Saturday and my wedding on Sunday. That and the data analysis for statistics, and then I’m done. I’m really looking forward to May 21st.

Poli – many
tics – bloodsucking creatures.

The above quote is far from original, but it’s brought me a few smiles in the past. I’m starting to think about the upcoming presidential election, and figured now is probably as good a time as any to figure out which candidate stands where.

There are two big issues for me this election, issues which I haven’t really considered in the past. The first is energy. I have a whole other post about exactly what I think we should do about the energy problem, but getting off foreign oil and developing domestic alternative energy is an absolute must. Of the politicians I’ve looked at so far, neither McCain or Giuliani really talk about that on their websites, but Obama talks about that in depth.

McCain: 0, Giuliani: 0, Obama: 1

The other issue is health care. As part of my RAship, my health insurance is covered. However, to add my wife to my policy would cost me something to the tune of $2,500 a year. Now, that’s not really a whole ton, until you consider the fact that that’s going to be about 15-20% of what I make. The health care system in this country is fundamentally broken, and I’m a pretty big a proponent of small government, but I think this is one of those cases where they have to step in and fix it. Capitalism has failed in this area, so we have to try something else. Neither McCain no Giuliani mention this prominently on their web pages, Obama does, and he wants to fix it.

McCain: 0, Giuliani: 0, Obama: 2

2nd amendment: Both McCain and Giuliani want to protect the second amendment. They believe, correctly, that guns in the hands of a normal, law-abiding citizen is a good thing. Giuliani did a heck of a job cleaning up New York with that policy, so it obviously works at least to some degree. Obama doesn’t mention this issue prominently on his web site.

McCain: 1, Giuliani: 1, Obama: 2

Abortion: McCain wants to repeal Roe V. Wade. I forget Giuliani’s exact stance, but it wasn’t quite as far-reaching as McCain’s. Obama doesn’t mention the issue prominently on his site.

McCain: 2, Giuliani: 1, Obama: 2

I need to do some more digging. Most of what I have now is one candidates stance on an issue, but not the other ones. I just read the quick “Here’s what I think” on each candidates websites. Who knows, McCain might agree with me on energy, but it’s not something he has posted prominently on his site. But as of right now, McCain and Obama are looking pretty good. I’m not even going to bother with Clinton.

I haven’t mentioned on here what happened with grad schools. The only place that offered me money was the University of Kentucky, so I ended up accepting there. I have an RAship on the EDUCE project (http://www.stoa.org/educe/), which is a project where we are trying to scan old, damaged documents (scrolls, books, etc) that can’t be opened by hand without destroying them. The scan is then taken into a computer and digitally opened to be read. I’m really pretty excited about it, after visiting Kentucky in February they became one of my top choices and getting an RAship straight out of my undergrad made me feel pretty good about myself. I’ll be working on the networking and HPC aspects of the project (since we are talking about huge datasets, there are some definite HPC considerations) which is precisely what I enjoy doing. The RAship will last at least until I get my Masters, assuming I maintain satisfactory progress and do satisfactory work. I am planning on finishing with a PhD, but who know what the future holds.

Alright, now I’ll get back to it.

that when I get really, really busy is when I start thinking about how I haven’t updated my blog in a while, and have this overwhelming urge to take a few minutes that I really don’t have to update it. Right now, I’m in the middle of doing research for an 8-page religion paper that is due on Monday (that’s four days from now). I have had a topic for about a month and a half now but haven’t even started researching it until a few hours ago.

I am so looking forward to Grad school. I like doing research, I like doing research a lot, and, honestly, once I get started on it, I even enjoy doing research in areas outside of computer science. Right now, I am honestly enjoying doing this research for this religion paper. I’m writing about how the archaeological record and the biblical record of the Israelite conquest of Palestine don’t really add up, and trying to present the different views. I’m having fun, the bad part is that I have to have 8 pages done by Monday, and I know that in order to get that done, I can’t dig into things as deeply as I would like to. I think I am going to like the focus that grad school brings. I’m also going to like the fact that I’m getting paid to do research.

I really wish I could have started this earlier, but with everything else I have going on I just couldn’t. Microwulf (my psuedo-senior project, a portable supercomputer) took a lot of my time the last few weeks, I had a few time-consuming projects for computer graphics and of course the wedding in two and a half weeks are all conspiring against me, and unfortunately, being the only class not in my major or highly applicable to my career choice, religion took the hit. Oh well, as long as I pass.

I should get back at it.