What?

03:44 pm - Cultural Indicators

I went to the states over Thanksgiving. It was great. Thanks to all the people I got to see and apologies to all those I did not. I had what might be best described as a nourishing time. Which is just what I needed.

When travelling back and forth between two cultures, even two as tightly connected as the UK and US, its easy to notice differences in the cultures.

I've mentioned before the sort of aggressive nature of women here. I've been noticing that again around Newbury where the evening crowd is more young professional than student as it was in Oxford.

But what I've been noticing most lately is vomitus. In front of benches, behind lamp posts, in the gutters. Puking appears to be a fairly public affair around here. "Oi, let's go out and get lashed til we puke in the streets!"

Wheeee!

Thankfully I've managed to avoid witnessing the act. The aftermath is hard to miss. Was this stuff going on in Bloomington and I just didn't see it or is this a cultural difference? Mind you, I'm talking about puking on the high street. To be an accurate comparison Bloomington-wise, there'd need to be vomitus laying casually along Kirkwood and seated comfotably around the courthouse square, etc.

?

Current Mood: embarrassed

10:02 pm - Guitar Solo Personality Testing

Earlier today I braved a drive to Oxford to do some shopping. Some Christmas, some furniture for the new place. It went surprising well despite the extraordinary traffic.

It was helped by the fact that I had some nice tunes. Of late I'm in the habit of semi-randomly selecting a tune in iTunes that I like, making a genius playlist, chopping to the size of audio CD and burning.

So with that in mind I was cruising around with some music and I wondered to myself, "self, do you suppose your guitar and otherwise musically oriented friends can do personality trait analysis based on guitar solo preferences?" This while listening to a live version of Comfortably Numb off Delicate Sound of Thunder. That's a favorite. So is Paradise City. Or at least that's what I thought of when I was thinking of this. Which is not something I think about much.

So my guitar and otherwise musically oriented friends, what does this tell you about me?

Need more data? Um. Dunno. See above about not thinking about this much.

Maybe somebody else can provide their data and then J or S or somebody can interpret?

Current Mood: curious

11:46 pm - Midwest Bound

I shall be back in the US from November 24th through December 9th. First half of that in the Cincinnati area, second in the Bloomington area, with maybe some Kentucky excursions. Are you going to be in those areas?

Current Mood: listless

01:16 pm - This American Life Ripping My Heart Out

On the train into London this morning I listened to part of episode 359: Life After Deathof This American Life. Act One: Guilty As Not Charged is described like this:

Everyone told Darin Strauss that there would have been no way to avoid hitting the bicyclist who swerved into the path of his car. When the girl died, the police said Darin wasn't at fault. Darin tells the story of what it's like to live with being the accidental cause of someone's death.

Current Mood: sad

11:11 pm - Vote

It's an indication of the mood of the world that this year, for the first time in my entire life of being unable to vote in US elections, I really want to be able to vote. Shit is afoot. Would be nice to be a part of that.

So if any of you who can vote tomorrow were thinking you wouldn't bother, please go out and do your voting a personal favor to me. I'd be most grateful.

Thanks.

08:02 pm - Newbury First Impressions

One of the first things I noticed this evening, was how remarkably white Newbury is. And English too.

This is my first night in my new flat, in Newbury. After unloading the car into an empty but otherwise nice place, I went out for a stroll and some food. Everybody is white. Everybody speaks with a proper English accent. Not proper like tea and watercress sandwiches, but broad, loud, some would say authentic, voices

In Oxford, not surprisingly for one of the great universities of the world, you're just as likely to hear Chinese, French, Russian, Polish, something you've never heard before. I think I'll miss that.

I'm somewhat surprised to discover that Newbury feels a bit more walkable and explorable to me than Oxford did. I think this is more likely my bias than it is any particular indication of Newbury or Oxford. Oxford is a tourist destination and knows it, feels like it and caters to it. Newbury is an old town (the building housing my new flat is on the site of a mill recorded in the Domesday Book, thus its name: Town Mills) with a an important commercial history. This doesn't get tooted about on signs, but walking around you get a sense of it. In an entirely different way, this is another sort of authenticity.

More to come.

Current Mood: pensive

07:30 pm - English Living: Driving Licence

Every now and again I give a bit of tale to whoever might be listening on the other end of my chat session. Tale of some injustice or weirdness of living in England. Some have suggested I should be writing these down somewhere. So, in honor of the fact that it has now been a year (holy jesus) since I moved over here and because my tumblelog is about something other than this, I'll see what I can get started here.

Today I passed my UK driving licence practical exam. This is the part where you do some actual driving. Earlier I did the theory and hazard perception portions of the test. The whole thing felt like quite an ordeal, but evidently I got off easy.

Those of us who learned to drive in the US will remember being 16 or whatever and getting shoved into a car with a terrified parent and setting out on the road. A short time later you go to a testing place, write some things down you learned in a book, get in the car drive around the block and as long as you don't run into anything, it's time to go home a newly certified driver.

Some of us (I was one) may have lived in a state where there was compulsory drivers' education: watch a bunch of really gory movies, then spend some time becoming friends in the back of a car with some people you never otherwise would have talked to in school, laughing when the guy up front fucks up a little or commiserating when they fuck up a lot.

It's not quite like that here. Officials recommend 40 hours of in car training with a professional driving instructor. There is only a 42% pass rate. You can have major and minor faults. Major fault and you're done. I think you can have 15 minor faults. I got eight.

The theory test and hazard perception stuff is not too much of a big deal. You sign up on online and they tell you where the nearest testing center is. You spend some time studying books or online resources. The questions are very detailed but with multiple choice answers; however, unlike my recollection of the US tests of similar ilk it isn't one obvious answer and several laughable answers.

The other half of the theory test experience is the hazard perception test. You watch some videos and click on the screen when something in the video is going to make you slow down or change direction. This is much trickier than it sounds. I don't know if it is a UI thing or what, but damn. But I passed both, so...

You have to get a thing called a provisional licence. This is like a learners permit in the state. It says you can drive with an adult, during the day. I was already driving on my US license so this part didn't matter much to me, but for the parts where I was getting instruction and doing the test, it was that licence I was using.

Once you have the licence, you can seek out a driving instructor. There are five million of these guys. Especially in Oxford. I asked the examiner today how many people they run a day. He didn't tell me but he did say that on a busy day they run eight examiners concurrently. Each test is about 45 minutes long.

My first instructor was a guy I found online. He responded to my email. I could write an entire book on the email and retail experience in the UK. If you want to make contact with someone in a business here, call them. Email just doesn't seem to work out. But this guy, he did respond to my email so I thought, right on, I'll go to him.

Before our first meeting I did some asking around and some learning. As it happens, Ben (my son) is in the process of taking lessons as well, so he, amongst others, was able to give me the skinny on how things work.

It's all about the details. There is a wrong and right way to hold the wheel. There is a time and place for the handbrake. You should turn the wheel _this_ much. Shift now. Oh, did I tell you that you can only drive a manual transmission car if you test for a full licence? If you test in an automatic car, then you can only drive automatic cars. When you take the test you get faults for being in the wrong gear, for revving too high or too low, for not using the handbrake, for hesitating, for not using the mirrors as much or when you should.

So filled with all this alarming knowledge I meet up with my dude. He's in a little black Hyundai. No problem there. The problem is that in this car the turn signal is on the right. In my car and every other car I've ever driven it's on the left. So for our first day I kept heading around corners with the wipers on.

This guy was pretty keen on starting me from scratch. I never got comfortable. The next day I fell sick anyway, so I gave up on that guy.

The next guy was more my style. We did 3 lessons of two hours each. His initial assessment was much the same as mine: I can get around without killing people but I have habits that are not in line with the details mentioned above and I don't know much about the maneuvers that done during the test.

Those are things that test your ability to go backwards mostly: reversing behind a car (like parallel parking), 3 point turn in the road, reversing around a corner, reversing into a parking bay. There are ways these are to be done, details thereof. Such as when and where you make your observations. And don't forget that handbrake!

And then there's the show me tell me part of the test. At the start of the test you have to answer two safety questions about the car. Such as the how to check the tyre pressure or the oil. Or how to turn the rear foglights on. Or how to confirm the power steering is working. Where's the horn?

Miagra.

But is done. I'm now able to legally drive in the UK. Today was the day I took my test, today was the last day my US license could officially be used here (although as far as I know no one is checking).

Don't forget to use your handbrake.

08:07 pm - Tumbling With Tumblr.

I've started a geeky tumblelog over on tumblr.com, mostly talking about web-related stuff: http://cdent.tumblr.com/

09:31 pm - climBing

Over the weekend ben and I went climbing at a place called Portland. It's known as something of a southern sport climbing mecca. The area is a limestome lump of an island jutting out into the English Channel near Weymouth, my birthplace.

Looks like this:



The rest of the set, from Ben, should give you some sense of the place. The nearness of the sea, the height of the slope and cliffs gives an enhanced sense of exposure that makes what ought to be a really easy mantel utterly terrifying.

Ben and I had an alpine start: I got to Brightwalton a bit past ten (a bit late) and we dawdled over coffee, tea, admiring Bryony's new haircut. General laziness. We hit the road for the 2-3 hour drive. Saw a lot of traffic. Got hungry. Started climbing around 3 or so, got in three routes before the sun went away and the wind came up.

And I had a blast. It was awesome across all sorts of dimensions.

I've signed up this evening to get some individual instruction on multi-pitch double-rope English-style traditional climbing down on the north coast of Cornwall in a couple of weeks.

Current Mood: pleased

05:15 am - geeking

To distract myself from miscellaneous stresses I spent a few hours this evening working on my little project, called simper. It started out as a way to learn python and write a sort of wiki, blog, cms kind of thing that I would eventually use, while also playing with some ideas about document linking and associating.

Well, I'm learning some python, but it's in a bit of a vacuum so my python is pretty trashy. And rather than having a simple little thing with which I can blog, I now have an interesting thing to blog about but no blog software to blog it on. So I'm here.

If you are curious about such things, the big changeset from tonight has a rather long commit message that might contextualize.

My right eye is starting to flake out, so I'm done for the night.

11:42 pm - Oh, Hello 2008

People are doing resolutions, unit tests and predictions for 2008. I suppose I ought to, as I need some kind of plan, having changed most everything in 2007.

• Make and spend some money. On, like, clothes and stuff.
• Climb like I mean it.
• Lose some weight.
• Expose myself.

Some of these may require some explanation.

I quit my job with Socialtext at the end of 2007. I had to crash that job. I just wasn't working out. I didn't leave to another job. So I have no income right now. Meanwhile I left the US (for the UK) in the fall and all my might dollars are worth shit in the UK. You may not have noticed yet, but the US economy is teetering on the edge. It's going to get worse before it gets better. So those moneys I do have don't amount to much. Meanwhile in the meanwhile, when I brought myself over here, I brought very little. I never had much stuff, but what stuff I had I got rid of. I'm working on the same four or five pair of underwear I brought with me in October. With some cold hard Great British Pounds I might buy some more pants, and maybe somewhere to store them. I'm going to make a go of freelancing. I'm hoping this will play better with my so-called authority problems. Is it really an authority problem, or do I just call a fool a fool? So I need to locate some work, which will give me some money, so I can get some stuff. I hear tell I'm a very talented and experienced web developer. I used to have some expertise in collaborative processes in technology. I'm not sure I like that stuff much anymore, but it pays the bills. If you know a way I can make web 2.0 money throwing clay, let me know.

Besides the underwear, I brought my climbing gear to England. Each year I tell myself that this year I'll get back into the swing of climbing. Maybe this year will be the year. Shame if not because I could have brought more underwear otherwise. It shouldn't be too hard if I can get out: drive 1-4 hours in any direction but East and bountiful climbing is available. The weather is a bit of a trick, but I can hope. The other trick is climbing requires other people and son Ben is game (yay!) but he's not available what with school and all. If he were a schedule-less bum like his dad things might different, but it seems I'm going to have to find some friends. Thus the expose myself bit.

Back in peak climbing time (that would be 2004) a bet with Ding, mml and cliggett and Pater Liggett got my weight down below 150. Since then three years of sedentary lifestyle and the work at home life followed by a depressing snack and alcohol soaked Socialtext denouement of 3 months made a fat Chris. I peaked out around 180 somewhere before Christmas. So here I am, fat, with no new clothes. I look like that guy, you know the one, he works on computers, often at home, and his clothes don't seem to fit quite right. That's just not right. I've already made some progress (step one, get really really brutally sick with a fever for a few days and a cough for weeks) so I'm not too concerned on this one, but it will take some time. A little bit of climbing, a little bit of biking, little less eating and a lot less drinking and I should be alright. But I list it here for completeness.

Being in a new country is weird. Sometimes I forget: I'll be hanging out at home or whatever, and nothing is different. Then I'll try to do something and get stymied. For example I wanted to buy a lamp today. That is, simply put, just about impossible after 5:30 or 6 in Oxford. In some rare cases it is possible to find a shop that stays open until 8 or even 10, but the later they are open the less likely it is the place sells hard goods. If it's late and it is open, then the place is either a pub or a newsagent. So I get some culture shock every now and again. These sorts of things would go away with the presence of some associates. Friends even. People with whom I share what ought to be everyday normal experiences. I've never been particularly good at making friends. They've always come from work or school. Except for a few important exceptions (I hope you know who you are) Seattle was a friend drought because I had no place of work nor place of school. The situation is the same here, amplified by the fact that not only do I have no place of work, I have no work. I'm adrift in a sea of strangers with funny (or charming, depending) accents. So I must expose myself. To people. To activities. To events. To people.

That latter thing is by far the hardest thing but critical for all the rest. I'm afeared I may have to join a club or something. The ignominy!

Current Mood: quixotic

02:55 pm - Does this make me gay?

I love this:

01:24 am - first day of work from the old world

Going back to work after two weeks off is bad enough, but doing so from another country, a new home, 8 hours of time zone difference etc is weird.

But not too bad. I worked some from the Jericho Tavern, where the wifi is free (not all that common around here), the food is pretty good, the staff behind the bar is hot, and apparently Radiohead debuted long long ago. I did a lot of noodling and writing. On architecture. Software architecture.

Whether I use the network at home or the one in the pub, it's always more slow than I prefer. If I didn't have the few months of dead slow cell network from the summer I would be sad panda.

I need to get some groceries, so am going to have them delivered.

I was able to get AT&T to give me the code that unlocks my phone, so tomorrow I'll put a Pay & Go SIM in it. And away I'll go, paying. I feel a bit left out when every single god damned person around me is constantly texting.

Daylight savings just switched around here. Sunrise at 7am. Sunset at 4:42pm. This isn't as bad as it might sound because I plan to start work not far from sunset.

04:25 pm - phones

My US cell phone contracts (on two lines) terminated today. My phone number for the last few years is just gone now. I guess. I haven't actually checked to see what happens if I call it.

When I told the place last week that I wanted to cancel, I hadn't really thought about the implications. My official voice contact point for all sorts of bureaucratic mumbo jumbo is now just plain gone, no forwarding address etc. I wonder what sort of trouble this is going to get me into?

I had assumed that by now I'd have a UK mobile phone set up, but various roadblocks have prevented that, and really a sort of lack of significant need as well. Do I really need one? I'm not sure I do. I'll change my mind if I'm stranded out in the middle of nowhere, but I haven't had that problem yet.

So I'm thinking maybe I won't get one. No phone for me? I dunno.

Current Mood: curious

01:05 am - Angleterre

I've established myself in Oxford, England. I've got a bed in my friend Russell's home. I bought a nice fluffy duvet today. Tomorrow I will purchase a kettle and brew some tea.

I may go to a pub.

They are very concerned, here in the UK, with where you live. I can't open a bank account, get car insurance, or otherwise proceed with much of life without having proof of address. A simple letter with my address on it will not do the trick. I need a bill or similar.

This is but the first in many expected bureaucratic barriers.

But I remain happy and excited to be here. Oxford is a good town, and I'm in a good location in it. I can walk south and east into town where all the food, coffee, shopping, books, colleges, annoying tourists I could ever want are located. I can walk north west up the banks of the Thames, through meadows with cows and sheep and such. And grass that is far more green than anything you'll ever find in the states.

I will go looking for the climbing gym tomorrow, maybe buy a bike on the way there.

Current Mood: content

06:25 am - biking across colorado

Stan and I are in Fred, hurtling across the country. Now Missouri.

For just over 25 hours on Saturday we helped four aged but young in spirit dudes establish the 4 man team cross-Colorado bike record.

We followed US 50 from West to East across the country, ascending as high as 10,300 or so feet.

Photos will show up on Flickr soon.

By the end of it all I was dead, collapsed in a heap on a picnic table, woke up sick, and so we're heading to Bloomington, bypassing a trip to Boulder.

09:02 pm - in-n-out urge

I'm back on the road, in Fred the truck. I'm in Sparks, Nevada. I drove past an In-N-Out Burger so turned around and came in to get a double double.

Yum. These guys make quality burgers.

Nearly two weeks was too long to be in Palo Alto. I'm now heading to Colorado.

Now that I have my burger, I will refill my coke to fuel my night driving across the wastelands of Nevada.

01:38 pm - hungie

For no other reason than because I can, I'm into the second day of having a fast. I'm in Palo Alto, I have a hotel room with a nice bath, I can make tea, and since it is a holiday people are willing to leave me alone.

Here's what I've learned so far: Food sucks. Every. Single. Time. I. Eat. I feel bad in some way.

I realize this means I'm a crazy person, but what can I do.

I suspect I need a new pancreas.

In other news the truck is back in the shop: needs a new starter. The starter would not stop, even with the key out. I ran off to get some tools to disconnect the battery. By the time I came back the starter had killed itself. If I'm lucky it didn't hurt anything else in the process and can be replaced and I'll be on the road again. I'm unlucky. I don't even want to think about that. Poor Fred. There's a relay in the starter that controls this stuff. It went bad.

At some point I'm going to need to start eating again, I have to work tomorrow: interact with people. As much as I enjoy the sort of partial and private lucidity I'm experiencing now, I suspect the cow-orkers won't enjoy it as much.

11:27 am - Was it my parenting?

My roomba went gay.

05:30 am - Your Help Required

I'm in England. There's a kitten here:



He wants a cheezburger and has been doing some invisible something or other.

Halp!