Yumm… breakfast at work on a Saturday morning…

Candy bar, glass of chilled water and a cup of java (the drink not the programming language).

Follow-up on the exciting visit from the Fire Brigade:

The automatic revolving doors in the walkway have all been shut down and roped off since then. There are 6 doors. The alternate side doors have been open to let people through.

Boy can my kids make an impression on a city!

The kids are home from school for half-term break.

Poor momma. Hee hee!

Why are there planets if we dont need them?

Will the Earth blow up in 2 million years?

Good news, honey

[–] stopped by to talk just a few minutes ago. He understands my concerns and said we’ll work on ways to offload some of the stuff I’m working on so I can take a half-day off now and again to balance my hours.

Also he said that when this is sucessfully implemented in November this will be a huge celebration for the bank and that he will have no problems telling some of us to take a day off with pay.

He did appreciate me speaking up before I got upset by the workload. I am not but he’s not used to someone working like I’ve been and not getting personally upset. I told him it’s because my wife and kids are such good support and you all keep me out of
trouble.

He’s happy you are here, but not as much as I am!

Love, your heart

Hello Chillins!
Tuesday, October 19, 2004

A BIG Hello from London!

Hey there, How you doing?

I thought I would take a minute and ask the world to stop moving long enough for me to send out a quick letter. I thought life would slow down a little bit having moved away from the hustle and bustle of our hectic lives in [Hometown]. That did no happen! Now I have to follow up on work permits, visitor visas, health records, etc.etc.etc.

I find that having family and friends all over the world is a wonderful blessing hat is keeping me very busy on the email front. I am emailing out to both sides of the planet and everyone wants to hear more and more. [Child 3] and I just celebrated birthdays at the beginning of the month and now we are preparing for Thanksgiving. We have invited over some new friends, young and old, to celebrate the many blessings in all our lives. I expect it to be very nice, although we will be celebrating on the Friday instead of Thursday, as it is not a national holiday here. Can’t really think why it is not?!?!?

We were off the Bricklane Market this last weekend in search of low priced winter coats and cheap fruit. The boys were blown away by the idea that the prices asked were not always the prices paid. They had never really experienced haggling first hand and were attempting to pay too much. I helped [Child 3] secure a new toy for 6.00 pounds down from the original asking price of 16.00. [Child 1] was beside himself. He had not heard me haggle and didn’t understand why the price was dropping as he was only listening to the man, not me. Silly boy, Mom’s have talent!!! Many goodies
were carried home.

[Husband] acquired two new undershirts and a pair of thermal underwear. He loves to stay warm and here that is not so easy to do. Although I must say, they sure have the heaters on in the stores and subways! You wear lots of clothes to stay warm outside then you have to sweat to death while inside. These coats are big and bulky. No sweaters around here. I may be missing good old [Hometown] about now, what do you think? Driving around in your nice big heated car wearing whatever you choose because you know you are going to park as close to the door as possible and you won’t even have a chance to get cold running between the two. Pleasant memories!

We haven’t gone out much at all in the last month or so as [Husband]s work has been picking up pace, as the end of year rolls round. He emailed me this morning that they are going to begin working on New York time real soon. That is where the majority of trading occurs, between London and New York. He has his finger on the pulse of the financial world! While being paid from a slow IV drip! The opportunity to stay here long term is available, even so far as having discussed permanent hire with me and with his superiors. Everyone adores him! I should start a fan club. Yes, and I could be the President of the club. I like this idea. It makes me feel important!

We will have to study and pray over this really hard. We are not familiar with all the International tax laws and we hope we are not shooting ourselves in the foot. The chance to show our children the world was too great to pass up, we had to take it. But financially it is the same hardship we had before in [Hometown]. The pay here seems higher but with the higher cost of living and the tax rate and fees over 50% of his salary, we still struggle but we are together and happy! Being here also lets us at least think about being able to visit my extended family. It is a lot closer from here than it is from [Hometown].

The kids are very happy.

[Child 2] attended her first sleepover in London. She has a couple of close girl friends that she attends school with and also gymnastics once a week. Shantalle, Corrina, and Xan had a super time playing games and dancing until 1:30. The class studies seem to move slower here so she is having a chance to really understand her math. She has never been confident with math but she is really learning now! Wonderful for her!!!

[Child 1] is playing on the George Greene basketball team. He found that most boys here a pretty much professional football (soccer) players by the time they are 10. He didn’t make the team but was pleased that his friends did and he is practicing with them everyday before school. Getting ready for next year. He also is waiting to hear if he has a spot in the Christmas Show. He auditioned last week. Pray for that please!

[Child 3] has been the big adventure boy! On the 9th of October [Husband] took the kids to the store to purchase a new set of clippers so I might trim their hair. They were looking like a bunch of Beatle’s wanna be’s. On the way home with clippers and a large box of Crispy Crème Donuts everyone vied for their spot in the revolving door. First Xan, then [Husband], and lined up next [Child 1] and [Child 3]. All went smoothly till [Child 1] got excited and jumped in the same space as Daddy, well not to be left behind, [Child 3] jumped in too.

EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

Everything came to a screeching halt. [Child 3] had gotten his arm stuck in the door, in a space about 2 1/2 inch wide. So there they are, the boys stuck in a space meant for one person and [Child 3]’s arm is turning many different colors because the blood supply is being cut off. [Husband] called me on the mobile and said they would be running a little late. At the same time the building security was calling in the emergency squad.

Sometime later:

[Child 3] was administered oxygen to lift his levels and the color had come back in his arm. Minus the arm of his coat and brand new birthday shirt (they had to cut it off him) they found their way home to tell me the whole story.

Is it any wonder I have all these gray hairs? Only my stylist knows for sure!

I am being held hostage by this computer. Every day I check the accounts, answer the emails, and ship and receive packages Hey, this is just like a “Real” job! I did work for the last year and a half as a Chief Administrative and Marketing Assistant. I started working when [Husband] became unemployed and also to help out my girlfriend. She is now moving herself, as her husband has taken a new job, they are looking forward to their own Great Adventure!

I also look for employment opportunities in the U.S. for [Husband] but with no luck. I guess we will be here for a while. Cool with me! I spend many, many hours a week trying to keep up with the emails to everyone.

If you are interested, we use an internet program called Skype. It is free and safe. We, have in the family used it for a long time with no problems. The program allows you to use a headset as a phone, but with no charge. Free calls to anyone with a Skype accounts.

You would go to www.skype.com and download the program. (We have found it to be very safe, no problems) Create your free account, they ask for no personal information.  Our account is [—]; if you type that in search for other Skype members you will find us. I try to leave us logged in all the time, so it is like a phone. So, it rings and everything.

I better wind this up for today – during this letter I have received a long distance call from [Hometown], a MSN chat from [—], and my laundry have finished. Oh my goodness I almost forgot I have to go pick up the kids. Off I go!

In the true form of my Mom, [—], this is a classic Xerox letter. Mom was known for her love of writing letters and keeping I touch with her family and friends, but with all the people she wrote to, sometimes she was forced to do a Mass-Mailing. This is my way of carrying on the tradition and getting everyone caught up. I would love to hear from you and hear how your little world is doing.

Do not fear, this will not replace the individual and personal emails; this is something I will probably do once a month. OK?

Love in Christ, from all of us, here in London!
Keep in touch,
[Husband]
and Family

Birthday weekend for the missus… gifts and kisses and everything nice.

Except for the visit from the Fire Brigade.

It seems that automatic revolving doors enjoy a nice snack of child now and again. Our poor youngest one tried jumping into the door immediately after I entered the door and was quite surprised when he found his upper arm and shoulder wedged between the door and the enclosure.

The fire brigade was not so surprised. This was the second revolving door call this week — the other one grabbed a young child’s foot.

Everyone was fine in the end. I called the missus during the ordeal to tell her we were stuck and that help was on its way. I wisely omitted the bit about her youngest’s body parts being the cause of our stuckness and that the ‘help on the way’ being the Fire Brigade and ambulance.

Well it made for a nice excuse to enjoy a couple of birthday martinis at the end of the day.

Apparently my anthropophobia flares up now and again sometimes more severely than others…. London has over 7 million people, according to the last census count.

Apparently 94% of them were in packed into Jubilee Park today when I ventured out to get some stuff at the mall. Man I was glad to get back to the relative safety of my desk!

I think we are settling in finally. Kids are in school (the timing for homeschooling didn’t work out) and we’re making friends.

Work is increasingly challenging. Good opportunities for future work but I really need to manage the client expectations. I keep raising the bar on my deliveries and should back off a little so they won’t expect 150% all the time. That gets tiring and eats into home life.

The family has been wonderfully supportive. This weekend is going to be fun. A day playing Playstation and perhaps watching a movie with the boys while Mom and the girl go look at the dog show and castles and play dress-up.

Just settling in for bedtime and saw the neatest thing. We’re near the airport on the East end of town. The night’s kind of cloudy and I can see the reflections of the buildings’ light rippling off the water from our back patio windows.

Then the neatest sight — the blue & red & white flashing lights of a plane as it comes in for a landing… then another nearby. Soon I see in the sky no less than 5 blinking little sets of airplane lights scooting across the sky like some noisy fireflies overhead.

It’s a nice way to end the day.

My brain is fried from working so my discourse on life in London will be rather terse until my creative juices ripen again…

Work project went live last weekend; celebration at the pub this Tuesday. I’ll pop in to visit but won’t stay long.

Kids are in school; can’t afford homeschool material yet so we’re glad local state school has room for the kids.

Friends are coming in from Germany tomorrow (Sunday) to visit; our kids are going to visit nearby friends today.

this is [—] here, im in londen right now i moved here on june 18 2004. ii went to school just a few weeks ago. My favorite friends are shantel and corrina (they are so cool to me). I am going to corrinas house on saterday. im going to see my cousins that are from germany this sunday but i also have a swimming party for one of my friends the same day so.. bye!!!

Quick update says it all — major software release has been hovering over our collective heads for 4 weeks now. Off-again, on-again approach. Weekend work. Home stuff going on as well. Will post soon but man it’s a whirlwind here.

Wrote one in a script
found a funny one online
thought you would like it

Online:
http://www.rswheeldon.com/haikucv.html

What I wrote in script:
/*haiku alert*/
//new, improved columns
//embedded spaces they have
//alas, pain it brings

FYI, VOL_OutputTableForVol changes output format from the migration of v5 to v6.

One would think that a weekend starting off on a Friday the 13th would be one to be wary of.

As it turns out, the weekend was very nice. The 2004 Athens Olympics started off with a bang and we were able to watch it in real-time (Athens is 1 hour ahead of us).

I worked about 12 hours on Saturday and another 4 hours on Sunday. However, we made a family outing on Sunday afternoon to London Bridge area and did sightseeing roughly between the Tube stops of ‘London Bridge’, ‘Monument’, ‘Tower Gateway’ and ‘Bermoundsey’ in about 2.5 hours. Not bad. The family is getting stronger. I’ll ask the kids to write up a report on what they saw.

Then we topped off the evening with a visit to a local Chili’s restaurant in Canary Wharf. I guess the waiter knew by our accents we are American because he put ice in the soda glasses without us asking him to do so. It was a nice affordable meal for 5 and I gave a standard American tip. The waiter came back to thank me on my way out, so that was very nice.

I pray that we are being good ambassadors for our country and family. On a person-to-person interaction, I see no ill-will towards us from the USA. However, in printed material there is definitely a strong sneering slant against the American way of life. That’s too bad, because the American way of life is more than paper-wrapped burgers and gunlust. It’s like the equivalent of saying that life in the UK is a cross between Mary Poppins and the Austin Powers movies. Not fair and certainly not accurate.

One would think that a weekend starting off on a Friday the 13th would be one to be wary of.

As it turns out, the weekend was very nice. The 2004 Athens Olympics started off with a bang and we were able to watch it in real-time (Athens is 1 hour ahead of us).

I worked about 12 hours on Saturday and another 4 hours on Sunday. However, we made a family outing on Sunday afternoon to London Bridge area and did sightseeing roughly between the Tube stops of ‘London Bridge’, ‘Monument’, ‘Tower Gateway’ and ‘Bermoundsey’ in about 2.5 hours. Not bad. The family is getting stronger. I’ll ask the kids to write up a report on what they saw.

Then we topped off the evening with a visit to a local Chili’s restaurant in Canary Wharf. I guess the waiter knew by our accents we are American because he put ice in the soda glasses without us asking him to do so. It was a nice affordable meal for 5 and I gave a standard American tip. The waiter came back to thank me on my way out, so that was very nice.

I pray that we are being good ambassadors for our country and family. On a person-to-person interaction, I see no ill-will towards us from the USA. However, in printed material there is definitely a strong sneering slant against the American way of life. That’s too bad, because the American way of life is more than paper-wrapped burgers and gunlust. It’s like the equivalent of saying that life in the UK is a cross between Mary Poppins and the Austin Powers movies. Not fair and certainly not accurate.