Notes on England

Some things in England are different than the US. Here are some examples:


(1) The ducks are much friendlier.
















(2) People tend to be a little more . . . confident.
















(3) Beer is abundant

















.... and they don't cheap out on hops.














(4) The neighbors can be extremely loud, and would often wake me up in the morning. No consideration.


















Find more pics like these, at
http://picasaweb.google.com/vmhodge/England61607, http://picasaweb.google.com/vmhodge/England62007, http://picasaweb.google.com/vmhodge/England62107, http://picasaweb.google.com/vmhodge/England62307.

Passing Through

The airport is a very ethereal place to me. The dulced tones of Wolf Blitzer being produced by the droves of flatscreen televisions softly outweighing the murmur of passengers scurrying to their destinations. Really no universally accepted definition of time; only the suggestion of what time zone you are in recognized only for context. This is no more aptly demonstrated than by restaurants accepting our U.S Airways food vouchers for "dinner" at "breakfast" and Spending a lunch voucher on a 16 oz. Sam Adams Summer Ale.

We should be in England.

We gave ourselves several hours to catch our flight from Baltimore to Philadelpia last night, but the plane we were supposed to take was coming from Charlotte and was delayed just enough that we figured hopping a cap to Philly would give us a better chance of making our conecting flight to Manchester. This was probably a good decision as our cab driver never found cruise control below 90 mph and we made a 2:15 drive in about 1:20. But the lines were longer than we bargained for and we found ourselves in a free hotel room at a Ramada Inn with $40 of food vouchers to last us 24 hours.

After a good night's sleep (first one in about two weeks) and having spent the past 6 hours or so in the airport, we've burned through our vouchers (mostly on beer. Can you believe they let you spend food vouchers on beer? I love U.S. Airways) and are waiting for our 1st class flight to Brussels, where we'll hopefully connect without incident to Manchester to spend the week with Vanessa's family.

It's been a colossal pain, but we've had fun as airport denizens AND we have first class seats to Brussels so we can't be too upset. I've really enjoyed our time milling around the airport. It's like a little city populated with temporary citizens. Everyone has a story about where they're going and why they're sitting in a restaurant in Philadelphia rather than hanging out at their final resting place. There's an overwhelming feeling of being snowed in. People that would normally never have occasion to meet one another find themselves showing off pictures of their kids. Some random place in concourse C becomes your local watering hole for an afternoon, and the bartender instantaneously knows exactly how you like your gin and tonic. People sleeping on seats in public and having overly emotional phone calls on a bluetooth because there's no better place to do it.

Those pictures in the previous post? That's me showing Vanessa how a blog post goes from concept to creation after four pints. We're sitting in the Philadelphia Brew Pub, our new local bar. Making it our own. "Who, those people taking pictures," the bartneder answers, "That's Jamo and Vanessa. Heading through to Manchester. Been regulars here for three hours."

airport antics

Brain.

Shink!


















Synthesize.

















Create.

schedule

here's our upcoming schedule:

this weekend: poultry days
thursday: leave for england
june 24 (sunday): get back from england
july 3: i go to pittsburgh for mars
july 6: vanessa goes to italy
july 15: vanessa gets back from italy
july 23: vanessa starts at google

among this we must:

sell a house
find a place to live
get rid of my car
pack/ship our things
move out of my place
get her car out there
i must quit one job and find another

it's enough to give someone a panic attack. but this weekend? this weekend is for us. poultry days, baby. we know we probably shouldn't go seeing as we have no time. but with vanessa missing mars this is going to be one of the last times for a while where she gets to see just about everyone (a few stragglers won't be around, but this will be a pretty large gathering of just about everyone).

so we ship out tomorrow at noon for the 8-hour drive to cause trouble in a state that i probably won't have occasion to be in for a very long time to come. which is probably for the better.

Coming Out Week

This week at work was completely dedicated to telling people, one by one, why I am leaving, where I am going, and listening to their absurd comments about San Francisco. This is Oren's rendition of a couple of my coworkers, which he created during a conversation where they called San Francisco the "gay city" which is home to lots of "wet backs":



Because I share an office with Oren, he's been privy to a lot of the crazy conversations that I've had, as well as a number of conversations that all sound exactly the same. (Where are you moving? Where are you going to work? When's your last day?) It's been nice to have someone to laugh about everything with, and yesterday we decided to go out (Oren, Laurie, Jamo, and I) and blow off steam. It was really nice just to forget about the move and goof off for awhile. Also, you know, it's always good to dance. See more pics here. After we move, I will definitely miss those two!

Fairwell, Old Friend

Nobody wants to buy a couch that has been loved like this one for so many years. Nobody will even take the couch for free. In fact, we decided, nobody will want to buy a condo that has this couch in it.

So, Jamo gave a heartwarming eulogy, and set the beloved couch free. Moments later, he says, it was compacted to the size of a dime by some kind of monstrous garbage machine.


Yesterday was a big day for me in terms of moving milestones. Firstly, I told my manager I was leaving -- and oh my goodness, I was completely unprepared for how hard that would be. I mean, really, it's not my manager's fault that San Francisco is way more fun than Westminster, MD. So it goes.

Now I'm in that awkward in-between stage at work, where my leaving is not completely common knowledge yet, but a few select people know about it. There hasn't been enough time for word to spread far, so I'm never sure who knows and who doesn't, etc, etc. Luckily, I have a four day weekend, starting today, so that should help get my mind off work.

The other moving milestone achieved yesterday was the official listing of my condo. Here's the clip:

Internet Remarks: FANTASTIC TERRACE LEVEL CONDO! LOVINGLY MAINTAINED, OPEN FLOOR PLAN, NEUTRAL DECOR, BERBER CARPET, CROWN MOLDING, PRIVATE SIDE ENTRANCE & PATIO, ALARM SYSTEM, CEILING FANS, DUAL SINK, HARDWOOD FLOORING, LARGE STORAGE ROOM/PANTRY OFF KITCHEN, SECURE BUILDING ONLY MINUTES FROM METRO AND SHOPPING! THIS ONE WILL NOT LAST LONG!

What do you guys think? Will this one last long? Are the internet remarks speaking the truth?

phase 1: repair

in an effort to make vanessa's place more marketable we decided to repaint the hallway of the main entrance. in large part because of the wall patches that were still showing from the previous owner. also, we wanted to add as much more stress as we could to this whole process. turns out we should have taken the advice of the surly home depot paint counter employee when he said, 'if you paint over one kind of paint with a different kind of paint, you gotta prime it first.' of course having been a professional painter for a summer about 5 years ago i thought my eye was good enough to tell paints apart. wrong-o. so here we are with a gallon of semi-gloss painting over god only knows what. also, the paint we bought is significantly lighter than the undercoat making the paint difference all the more noticeable. excellent.

so now we got a photographer coming over thursday night to get some sweet shots of her crib for the introweb and her place will be on the market by this weekend -- according to armondo (not an alias) the real estate agent, this weekend is a big deal for house hunters.

monday i was officially promoted to manager of my store. thank you, thank you. the extra money will be nice and the notch on the resume will be even better. but i can't help but feel a little guilty about this. i know i can't tell fastenal i'm leaving in two months for a variety of reasons. and i can't reasonably turn down this promotion. certainly the "right" thing to do would be to sit down with the powers that be and tell them my situation and work with them to get someone in here while i'm around to show him the ropes of the store. but all of the business-minded and successful people i've talked to about this have pushed me into keeping my mouth shut and convincing me that the way i'm currently handling it is the only way i can.

okay, time to paint!