Day 27: Homecoming

It's happened. The time to come home is here, and as I write this I'm packing my bags and saying goodbye to London.

Today was actually a really good day -- one of my best, actually. I got an email from Raif van der Linden (MDR in Slough), who extended an invitation to go see a movie and have a few pints with his friends in Central London. So I hopped the tube and met up with Raif and his friends Kevin and Mioka. We caught the 3:30pm showing of the new James Bond movie and (eventually) found a pub near the SoHo area of London that wasn't completely packed on a Saturday night. Kevin and Mioka are fantastically nice people (as is Raif of course), and we had a great time. It was cool hanging out with locals in London, and I couldn't feel more gracious to Raif for inviting me. A very good last day!

I've pretty much finished packed my suitcases and will set the alarm for 9am to wrap things up at the flat and catch a cab to Paddington Station before taking the train to Heathrow. I'll probably have to pay for a third checked bag because of all the extra stuff I bought, but it'll be well worth it. My plane is nearly empty, so I should be able to grab a four-seat row to myself without much effort (fingers crossed!).

I took some pics of Picadilly Square today, but don't have time to post them. Maybe after I get back?

All in all, this has been a phenominal trip. I've probably already alluded to this, but the Concur office in Slough is an absolutely great place to visit. The people are top-notch, and although Slough and Redmond are separated by 5000 miles, the Concur culture and spirit has clearly spanned the distance. I can't thank my fellow colleagues enough for their generosity and hospitality.

Quite sincerely, I could have spent more time here without a single thought, but I miss my girlfriend (Love you Kelly!) and my friends, and I suppose if I have to go home it's a good time to do it. It'll be good to be back in Redmond and especially great to get back to the business at hand -- namely to sell a LOT of Concur solutions! :)

To all that have read this blog, thanks for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed it. I had hoped to write every day, but got a little lazy in the past couple weeks, so I apologize for that. Just know that I've had a GREAT time in London, and will always look back fondly on this superb experience. I'm looking forward to having green money, better broadband, driving a car, and sleeping in my own bed.

So for now, I say goodbye to my good friends in London, and "see you soon" to my friends in the States. I feel priviledged and thankful to have been here.

Talk to you all soon,
Tim

Over and out.

Day 26: Flies Time when the Fun is Having Yours

Dang, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. This week has simply flown by.

As I type this I'm about to say my goodbyes to my British friends and colleagues, and then it's off for my last train ride home from Slough. (In case you've ever wondered what Slough was like in the 1970's, come for a visit today). Ah, Slough, how I'll miss you...

http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/intuition/Slough.html

Quite a few of us went out for lunch today and shot some pool, which was a nice way to end my stay here. I'll try to write more later, maybe even recap my week and post a few pics, but for now I have some handshaking and hugging to do.

I have to admit, I kinda miss this place already. Good times.

Day 21: Weekend Update

Hi Y'all. I know it's been a few days since I blogged at ya, but I've been quite busy lately. My parents came to London for a week, and this was our weekend to see the sights together. So far we've seen the Queen's favorite home, the Windsor Castle, the British Museum, and the Tower of London. I haven't gone through all of my pictures yet, but I can post the pics of the Windsor Castle, which we took in on Friday.

Windsor Castle has been the home of the British Monarchy for over 900 years. Just to put this in perspective, on August 3rd, 1108, Louis IV was crowned the King of France. His knickname was "The Fat One". Things don't change much, do they?

Anyway, it's been great having my folks in town (and I'm not saying that just because they read this blog!), and I've had a great weekend spending time with them.

Here are some pics of Windsor Castle. I know there are a lot of pics here, but the light was fantastic and the castle itself was beautiful. There are a few shots taken inside the castle, which aren't allowed, so please don't report me to the British authorities, okay?

Here goes...

Not at the Windsor Castle, but kinda cool anyway
Just outside the train station at Windsor
Our first view of the castle
Some of the old shops outside the castle, including "The Horse and Groom", which so far has been the best pub food I've had this month.
Entering the castle gate



Sweet gargoyle, eh?
Everything carries the crown, even the lamp posts.
The Queen generally spends her weekends here, and this was no exception. She arrived at 4pm for the weekend. You know because the flag is flying whenever she's in residence.

The beginning of the tour inside the castle walls
All of the castles have these window-like structures that are build to shoot arrows at photographers. This poor girl was slain shortly after this picture.
The gardens
This is a picture I processed with a technique called HDR, which attempts to show both the shadows and highlights at the same time, to mimic what the human eye can see. It's not perfect, but it's a cool shot anyway (or so I think).
St. George's Cathedral
Yeah, I know. It's just a mailbox.
Another of St. George's Cathedral


View from outside the castle. If you look close enough, you can see Slough, where I work (please don't try to look for Slough - you won't like the view)
Some of the Autumn colors
The following few pictures are extremely not-allowed to be taken. Consider yourselves lucky that I was willing to risk life and limb to take them!
They have TONS of sculptures, paintings, and armory inside the castle as decoration. You really have to see it to believe it, it's really amazing to see.
More of the armory - see all the swords?
You aren't seeing this picture. Nope, never seen this room in my life. And I certainly wouldn't have snuck a picture of it!
Another HDR image of the castle grounds
I really dig this picture, with the sun peaking through the gate


One of the palace guards (probably on his way home)
Sunset over one of the minarets
Yet a few more of St. George's Cathedral, this time with sunset. We went inside, which was beautiful, but I didn't get any pics. You'll just have to visit it for yourself.


The sun setting over the castle. Silhouette shots like this are pretty cool to take, I was happy to get the opportunity.
One of the final daily 'walking of the guards'
This is really just for my Mom, who wanted a picture of the Horse and Groom pub, which as I said serves the best pub food this side of New York!

And that just about does it for tonight. Time permitting, I'll post more pics of this weekend. But for now I have to get ready for work in the morning. Looking forward to two full days of training in Slough, and after that winding up my week and heading home to the States. It's been three weeks here, and although I have really enjoyed my time here, it'll be nice to be back home next Sunday.

Hope you all have a good week!

Day 18: London is BURNING!

Tubing Music: The Pretenders - Break up the Concrete/Snow Patrol - Final Straw

Okay, so on November 5, 1605 there was this event they call the Gunpowder Plot. A bunch of Catholic conspirators, led by Guy Fawkes, attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. Apparently they were upset when they were told the real ingredients in Black Pudding, and there was some revenge a'comin'! (Actually, I have no idea why they wanted to do it, but I'm pretty sure there was an assassination of a King involved.)

So anyway, the plot was foiled when Guy Fawkes was discovered in the basement of Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder, which was, even in those times, considered 'highly suspicious'.


"I swear, m'lord, these barrels of gunpowder aren't mine, I was just watching them for somebody!"

Guy Fawkes was summarily tortured and executed for his attempted crime.

Ever since (think about this... for the last Four Hundred and Three Years), on November 5th the people of England celebrate the attempted burning of London by... well, by burning London. Makes perfect sense.

Tonight as I walked home it felt like a war zone. England has by FAR the loudest, most annoying fireworks known to man. Roman candles, sparkly things, and flat out small bombs have been going off all around my flat tonight. Frankly, I'm staying away from windows and sitting a little further back from the TV for fear of shrapnel. Oh, and to top it off, they also celebrate by burning "Guy's" in effigy (ladies...that's enough clapping).

Oddly enough, as I researched Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night on the web, it's still celebrated in a lot of countries, including one town in Rhode Island. Tonight I fear for the dogs of London, who are no doubt peeing in the corner at this very moment.

----

That said, I had a couple more interesting moments today. First of all, I nearly missed EVERY train and subway car I took today (there are four in total). Before today I hadn't had to break a sweat to catch a ride, but today I had to sprint to make them. I'm really feeling the burn, oh yeah.

I stopped for dinner at the Bayswater Arms tonight, and inside I got my first taste of Hooliganism. Five sloshingly drunk guys were sitting at a table talking in voices that could have spanned a football field, having arm-wrestling contests, calling their 'mates' and telling them that if they didn't come have a pint they'd "poonch 'em en der fookin' faces" (I'm not sure if that's considered swearing, but there you go). The Bartender had had enough after a while and asked them to leave, which seemed completely opposite their previous plan of trashing the joint. I moved my laptop bag under the table and watched the fireworks inside as fireworks were going off outside. No 'poonches' were thrown, though. I would have bet a tenner that there would be. Oh well.

A few quaint "British-isms":

There are NO trash cans here. Seriously. I carried a small plastic bag of trash from Slough all the way to outside my hotel where there's a dumpster. The train and tube stations simply don't accept trash. Frankly, I think it's a great idea. And oddly enough, everything is clean.

In Britain a flashlight is called a 'torch'. This immediately makes me wonder what they call a burning stick.

The newspapers have two pages devoted to tonight's TV Guide. Think about that for a second. They have so few channels here that they can fit them all on just two pages - with pictures of highlighted shows. If this were the US, the newspapers would weigh 12 pounds and cost seven dollars.

Enough for now. Oh, wait, just one more thing:

Tonight, I am especially proud to be an American.

Day 17: Voting Day, Voting Day!

Music to Train by: The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

Voting day is upon us. While most of America sleeps, the TV just inside the entrance to the office is tuned to CNN, but of course no election coverage has started yet. The general consensus in Britain is, as I mentioned in an earlier post, that Obama has it won. But I have to say that nothing would shock me after 2000 and 2004.

Luckily, there's a bowling alley one block from the hotel that is staying open late to watch the US election. Yeah, I know, it's a bowling alley fer chrissakes, but it's an upscale bowling alley that usually charges a cover to get in. Tonight it's free though, so I'm hoping I'll find a bunch of Americans watching TV and bowling for free.

Meanwhile, work goes on, and I gave a two hour presentation on Concur Invoice and Concur Intelligence to the MDR team located in the UK and Prague. It's much harder giving a demo to an MDR than it is to an SC, because they don't care as much about buttons, they care about value prop. I will say, however, that Sandler has been a HUGE help. Simply reinforcing that you have to be more sick than the client seems to have hit home in a big way. Fun stuff!

No pics today, just waiting to finish up some meetings with the States and then it's off to watch the election. Hope you all voted!

Day 16: Catching up

Today's Music: Split Enz - Best of Split Enz, and Nada Surf - This Weight Is A Gift

I realize that I got my posts out of order, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to reorder them so they're in order. So my apologies that Days 12-14 are all mixed up.

I wanted to catch up with y'all on my weekend. Saturday was of course spent watching Tottenham beat Liverpool (Day 14), but Sunday was a really good day as well. After toying with spending the weekend in Europe, I decided that the bad weather in Western Europe didn't lend itself to a trip. The warmer climates I considered visiting (Barcelona, Cairo (Pyramids!), and Morocco) were too expensive to warrant a two-day stay. Some day, some day...

So Sunday I caught the late afternoon light that photographers love so much by walking through Kensington Gardens (just West of Hyde Park), taking snaps of everything I came across. From the beautiful autumn leaves, to pick-up football (soccer) games, to dogs that caught squirrels, to seeing the Royal Albert Hall, it was a nice walk. It's absolutely a beautiful time to be in London.

Here come a load of pics, click on them for bigger versions....

The view from just outside my hotel.
One of my favorite 'local' pubs, the Prince Albert


Strange art display outside Kensington Gardens
The first view inside the gate at Kensington Park
A pick-up game of football
More action-packed pick-up football
I love my new Nikon 70-200mm lens. It stops all action.
Playing in front of the statue.
Walking in the park
Autumn leaves on a park bench
This dog was quite proud of the squirrel he caught. His owners, however, were pretty much disgusted by it. Poor dog.
Sitting under the autumn leaves

Outside the statue of Albert.

A few close-ups of Albert's statue.

In the distance, the London Eye on the South Bank. It amazed me that it's so big you can see it from the other side of London.
Prince Albert himself
Albert and his minions
The Royal Albert Hall (remember the Beatles song... "Now I know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall")
Another of the whole of Prince Albert Hall in the sunset
The view of the Albert statue and surrounding street. The wide-angle lens I used makes it look tilted. If I had Photoshop I'd fix it, but oh well.
Another of Royal Albert Hall
The hedge dividing Kensington Gardens from Hyde Park
Some odd architectural sculpture at a local museum
Close-up of the sculpture
I don't know why, I just like pictures of doors. This one had a brick wall behind it, so it was completely useless as a door.
Just liked the ghost-like quality of this one
Autumn colors
The pond in Kensington Gardens
The beautiful sunset. And it really did look this orange.
Seagulls staking their claim on the pond
Photographers kill for this kind of light
Yeah, I know, a pidgeon. But my new lens got him superbly sharp.
Just looked like a cool bird, so what the heck
Old brick bridge
More seagulls settling in on the pond
Cool twisted tree
Another nice sunset shot of Kensington Gardens
Nice reflection
This is not an upside-down picture
My last shot of the park before dark
A better shot of my favorite local pub, the Bayswater Arms

With that I'll leave you. Just a reminder to everyone to vote tomorrow for your favorite candidate. I placed my vote absentee, and I hope you all find a chance to get out there and place your ballot. That's my political statement for the day.

And that about wraps it up for now. With the slow broadband it took nearly two hours to post this, so I'm headed to bed. 'Night...