Yay! Ray finished!! Not quite the time he wanted, but he hit a ton of problems: The swim took at least 15 minutes longer than he expected. When he got in the water, he said it felt like his chest constricted and he couldn't breathe. I think it's because he didn't get time to warm up, but he thinks it's because swimming has increased the size of his chest, and now the wetsuit is too small. Then, his bike shoes got closed so that as he was coming out of the transition area, and trying to mount and get his feet in… well, he couldn't. Then, the "hill" was a lot tougher than he thought it would be. (It's Switzerland. I mean. Come on. Of course you are going to go up little mountains.) Then, the worst part was the run. He bonked with about 5k left. He couldn't take in any calories because nothing would sit well on his stomach. (Gels are just evil to him.) So, he made it through the first 10 miles, but by that last bit, he had to walk. But, the important thing is this: He finished. That's more than I can say.

I will post pictures of stuff at some point soon. No, really. I will.

Switzerland itself was gorgeous. We were in Rapperswil, right on Lake Zurich. All I can say is: Wow. I have pictures, but I don't think they even start to do it justice. And the weather! Beautiful, sunny and warm. On the race day it was up to 76F / 24C, though it was comfortable in the days leading up to Sunday, as well. For those couple of days, we just relaxed, wandered around, took pictures of ducks. It was cool.

Another really interesting thing were the dogs. It's been this way in all the German speaking countries I've visited. Dogs are part of the family. They go in the restaurants with their humans, and, typically, they just sit there and behave. Though, twice (once a Dachsie and once a German Shepherd) there were folks with puppies trying to learn manners. They were really cute in both cases, and despite their less than perfect behaviour, they were better behaved than any of our dogs could ever be.

Other stuff:

Ed is getting really, really, really skinny. We've changed his food, and he seems to like it a lot better, so we will see how it goes. We realized that he couldn't be eating his food when, during lunch, he would come in and beg for whatever we were eating. It turns out that he absolutely loves ham. Also, we got Dominos a few weeks back, and left the box of free chicken strips on a low lying table. Ray went to get a napkin, I turned my back and only because I heard the cardboard scrape did I turn around. Ed was pilfering our chicken strips right out of the box!! So, we decided that we should change his food, see if we could make him happier with something that wasn't Iams. It's been less than a week, but he hasn't begged for ham yet…. One really bad thing is that he's taken to yowling at all hours, though. It's almost that tomcat yowl, but he's been fixed since he was a kitten, so, I don't really know why he does it.

Emma, on the other hand, is just plain fat. We aren't willing to change the food because Dingo likes it. We don't really want to stop them from free feeding, either because we don't want Abbie or Dingo to start losing weight. So… We are trying to walk Emma, and trying to keep her from eating as much. She doesn't get as much in the way of table scraps as the other two. But she is a Corgi, and they have a tendency towards portliness. All four of them get to go to the vet this Thursday for their yearly checkup. That should be fun.

A while back, I'd made the observation that someone in Schiphol was drinking a beer at 9AM… Our flight from Gatwick this time left at 8AM (or was supposed to). So, obviously it was really early. As expected, we couldn't get breakfast anywhere because everything was so packed. But, in every single establishment, there were large numbers of people drinking beer. At 6:30 in the morning. Is this normal?

Anyway, that's all for now…

I get a bit annoyed with folks who believe that it is wrong to be “better” than other folks, that all people are equal, etc. The truth of the matter is: Everyone is better at something than someone else. Everyone is worse at something than someone else. Yes, {insert name of your favorite cultural pop icon here} is bound by the same physiological rules as all of us, and yes, their poop stinks too. That doesn’t mean that they can’t {insert primary role of above named icon} better than you or many other people.

So, yeah, Brittany Spears gets paid a lot of money. If you disagree, don’t purchase her albums, t-shirts, anything that she sponsors. Don’t watch her videos on TV because if people watch, they can charge more for the ads placed there, and her publisher/distributer/production house (maybe Sony Entertainment? I can’t remember and can’t be bothered to google it) can demand more money for the videos. Don’t purchase the rags that publish pictures of her being chased down the street by paparazzi (because if people didn’t buy those magazines, there wouldn’t be a media frenzy, no one would care about her , she would stop being such a spectacle, and not get paid as much).

I remember someone telling me that she had dumped a boyfriend a long time ago because he had a view that he should go to work and “be the best” at his job, and she felt this was wrong. To be the best means that you are putting yourself above others. Well, I don’t know the guy, so I don’t know if he mean that he should be the best in a personal sense (improving himself, and always striving to better than the day before) or if he meant it in a competitive sense, and be the top performer on his team. Either way, I absolutely agree with the guy.

“Your best”, means that you should do better than you did yesterday. You should do your personal best. Otherwise, you stagnate. You stop trying and you have no motivation to improve. You have no motivation to succeed. (Yes, success is another point of contention – what is wrong with succeeding by YOUR OWN STANDARDS?)

If he meant is as “better than the other folks I work with”… No, it doesn’t mean you should step on others, or put others down to make yourself look better. If it means competing with the folks you work with, so be it. You can be competitive without being detrimental. It comes down to this: Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. A profitable company knows how to exploit the strengths and minimize the weaknesses. So, you can go to work and try to be the best employee there and it just means that you can do a particular task better than other folks there. I can’t see how that is a negative thing at all.

Just a thought: If everyone were actually equal, there would be no difference in anyone. There would be no geniuses. There would be no pro athletes. There would be no movie stars. Everything would be the same with no differentiating factors. Humans would all truly be interchangeable parts, with no free will.

It’s just the way the world works – it is imperative that different folks excel at different things, else progress would not be possible. Be realistic about it! Idealism doesn’t work in the real world!!

So, we have many various odd turns of phrase, but the English have several that are REALLY annoying. The one that is driving me nuts right now is "Oh, is it?!" As in:

"Thou shalt not express your shock at the fact that Sharon got off with Bradley at the club last night by saying “Is it”."

Yes, it is a completely non-sequitor reply… Conversations with one co-worker often go something like "I am getting a cup of coffee." and he responds "Oh, is it."

I am on a roll of being annoyed by things here, I think, though… Sitting on the train, both going into work and coming home today, there were women reading those stupid gossip magazines. I can't comprehend why someone would 1) waste so much of their life caring what Billie Piper wore to some club last night or 2) support the destructive force that is the paparazzi. A woman I know told me a combination of reasons: If people want to put themselves in the public spotlight, then I have a right to know everything about them. Or: These people think they are better than me, so I like to see them brought down. In other words, it's nothing more than ego masturbation – you can't feel good about yourself, so you have to bring others down to your level… I can't stand that! Improve yourself! Who cares what others are doing? People spend so much time worrying about everyone else, they don't bother to better themselves… It's so petty and disgusting and awful… Can they really be happy being mindless clones, chattering away on their mobiles about which celebrity is screwing who and how they got drunk Saturday and how much they love their Uggs and how they have no money left til next payday? (This was the empty headed babble of a woman on the platform at East Croydon this evening…)

It's gotten nice and warm recently – really great weather, actually! But, it's been so warm lately, we had to shave Emma down… We shaved her belly completely, and clipped her fur to a normal length. She is much cooler and seems to be happier. But, now instead of being a red corgi, she is a blonde dog.

Anyway, it's 2200 and I am tired, so... Good night!

I am too lazy to write a whole blog so...

We went to Isle of Wight over the Bank Holiday weekend for some kayaking and it was WONDERFUL! We ended up with another pair of folks that were whitewater folks, as well, and we did some great milage. It was a bit tough the second day, but, fun anyway. Pics in the usual place.

Just a note: When a resort advertises "No Children Allowed", in the UK, it isn't a DINKs or a drop-the-kids-with-grandma-for-the-weekend kind of place... It's a geriatric kind of place.

Anyway, beautiful weather here. Sunny, warm. Mountain biking weather… On that note: gotta run! :-)

It is a gorgeous spring Saturday morning... We are going mountain biking as soon as Ray gets back from his swim, so that is cool. Just thought I would *gasp* update my blog over breakfast!

Since May 5 is a bank holiday here (May Day), we are also taking off the Friday before, the 2^nd, and going to go kayaking at the Isle of Wight. I am excited because we are actually taking our big boats out for the first time since we’ve been here. It should be pretty cool, and I hope the weather holds. I will take pictures!

So, my employer has changed providers for our mobile phones. Instead of BT or Orange, we are moving to Vodafone. I gotta say... From BT, I got a crappy, but sufficient and indestructible, Nokia phone. Every month, I got a bill from BT, which went directly to my AmEx, and I had to fill out an expense report, get the money back, pay AmEx... Pain in the ass. Now, with the new system, I will get an email every month, then I just chose which calls are personal, which calls are business, and... Done. That is it. Also! The phone... Ooooooohhhhh... It’s a Blackberry Pearl 8100. This is a nice little smartphone, too. I think I am just going to say screw my personal O2 account, and just use this. Yes, I know: That’s how they get you.... Then you are available 24/7 because your number is listed in Bluepages, and anyone in the company can find and call you at any point in time. But that is already the case, to be honest. The Business BT number is just forwarding calls to my Personal O2, so if someone calls at 2AM... Well, I never hear it because I am not permanently attached to my cell phone – It’s probably in the kitchen or somewhere, and I will have no idea that someone called me until much, much later. So, I don’t think it changes anything anyway, it just gives me a cooler phone and I don’t have to pay for a stupid O2 contract.

So, one of the things Ray and I watch when bored is music videos. We have about 20 channels of music videos, with probably 2/3 of them being crap. Anyway, flipping through, we saw this video which was big around the time we were moving here. I’d forgotten all about... Now that I’ve lived here, it turns out that the song is a pretty accurate representation of what the shining wonderful city of London really is. I am still not sorry that I am here, though, despite all that. I am glad to have the experience. I appreciate home more and more everyday.

Ray should be home soon... Off to Leith Hill!

Again, it’s been a while since I’ve gotten around to posting… (Has it really been 2 months?) Things have been very, very, very, very hectic at work, and a bit hectic at home as well. In the time since I last blogged, I’ve gone to Stuttgart, Germany and Bergen, Norway for work and back home to NC over vacation. Today is the last day of my 2.5 week vacation. I didn’t logon to work except to write my PBCs, and I only did that on 31 March. Otherwise, after I got back from visiting my parents, I pretty much lounged around, played this really cool persistent NWN1 world (Aenea), went mountain biking with Ray. All in all, it was nice to finally have some time off, but I am really stressed now, worrying about what got screwed up in my absence. Oh, well. I guess I can’t do everything.

So, I tried to get a head start on work for tomorrow... I woke up at 6 so it wouldn’t be a shock to my body tomorrow, and then I wandered into my desk around 7:15 or so. I started going through email, checking the status of my cases. About an hour passed. Then I look up, glance out the window. It must have started snowing right after I sat down, and after the hour or so, there was at least 3 cm of snow! Of course, Met Office had only predicted that it would snow to the north of us... Right now they are saying that it will end at noon with an accumulation of 5-8 cm... We will see.... I had to let the dogs out, and predictably, Abbie and Dingo were upset with it, (Abbie looked like a reverse Dalmatian – it was pretty cool!) and Emma ran around and played in the snow.

Now for a Ray story! Ray sold his old TT bike on EBay to a guy with the handle of robertociclismo. Ray specified that he wanted to receive payment either via PayPal or cash in hand. The guy agreed to pay via PayPal, then, AFTER Ray sent the bike, he cancelled the PayPal payment, without explaining anything to Ray. After Ray tracked everything down, he talked to the guy, the guy sent him a check, which cleared, and everything settled ok. Ray decided not to leave a comment because he didn’t see any point in making big deal over it. He was unhappy with the situation, but in the end, he did get the money. However, this Roberto guy kept bugging him to leave feedback. So, Ray posted negative feedback. The guy first tells EBay that the criticism is wrong, and wants it pulled, and then he calls the house all pissed off about it. So, Ray explains why he did it. The guy starts whining about it, and tells Ray to back to America. (Ironic because this guy is Spanish, not British!) Then, they hang up, that should be the end of it. Instead, the guy goes onto gumtree and starts responding to the "men looking for men" ads with:

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Hi, just found your add, would love to change e-mails with you...

Do you have more pictures of yourself?

Love,

Ray

x

ray’s email addr_@gmail.com
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(Notice the poor spelling and grammzr of a non-native English speaker...)