The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

About a block from our house, there is a Ferrari that is regularly parked there. I’m not sure what model it is, but I’m sure http://www.ferrari.co.uk/ has the ones available in London. Here is a picture of it – and yes, it is a convertible and I’ve heard it drive by and it sounds very nice.

On Sunday, as Lorie shopped and had a day off from Milo, he and I took a long walk and hit all the spots I have highlighted on the map and we took a few photos along the way.

I don’t know the name of the street, but it looked nice. The other photos are at Bishops Park, which is the one we go to all the time with Milo.  

I am busy setting up my new Toshiba M400 Tablet PC, which is just a newer model of my old one. The biggest challenge I have is that the keyboard is not in US-English. I am used to the @ sign above the 2 key and the # sign above the 3 key. On my new laptop, the " character is on the 2 key and the £ character is on the 3 key. A few other keys are also in different locations, but that @ sign really messes me up, although I am happy to have the £ sign readily available.

Lorie has been driving for a couple of weeks now, but last night was my first try at it. We scare each other by driving too close to stuff on the left, so the passenger thinks we are about to hit stuff all the time. Lorie is getting better at it though. My first drive was in our test car, which is a Mercedes A200 (a small bubble of a car). Tonight we test a small Volvo wagon.

The other day the road my bus takes was closed due to an accident or something, but instead of taking a different road to go around, all of the busses just stack up. I walked about a mile or so to the nearest tube stop that I knew of when I saw the line of busses waiting for the road to reopen. When this happens, everyone somply gets off the bus and walks somewhere. If it happens on the tube, then you stand there on the train until it moves again to the next stop, which can get very warm!

We weren’t in Dublin long enough to be tourists, but at least we got a little taste of the Irish culture with some baked ham, beef pie, mashed potatoes, Guinness beer, and some music. I captured a little bit of the music and posted it to MSN Soapbox so you can hear what we heard. It was dark in the lounge where we were listening to the music and having drinks, but here is a the best picture I could get of what I consider my first real Guinness, since it’s the first one I had in Ireland.

1. In was Dublin, where Guinness is brewed
2. It was cold
3. It was smooth
4. It was at a gastropub, so we also had dinner
5. It didn’t taste as thick or harsh as it does in the States
6. It didn’t compare to the lager I had with dinner
7. I ordered another one when we got back to the hotel 
8. However, I still prefer a good cream ale, but I will happily order another Guinness
9. A good sake (junmai dai gingo) is still better, but a completely different experience  

Michael… when can I buy you one?

And now sitting back at the hotel in the very comfortable lounge, we are listening to some good Irish music. There is a woman in the 5-person band playing some sort of drum, but she holds it sideways on her knee strumming it with a wisk sort of drumstick. We must come back, but we need to get out and see the country too.  

So far, the following is working quite well for us to stay in contact with friends and family:

1. Run Windows Live Messenger: http://Messenger.Live.com and login when you are online – make sure we are setup as each other’s "buddies".
2. Get the Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 so we can see each other via Video, plus of course talk to each other (all for no cost other than your connection to the Internet). The VX-6000 has better video and voice quality than the other webcams on the market. 
   
3. Get a Windows Live Spaces site: http://Spaces.Live.com so we can post photos and stories about what’s going on in our lives. And when running Messenger, we see when each other’s Spaces site has been updated just by the little "gleam" next to each other’s names.

So far, we have had Video chats with my folks, my brother, and Lorie’s folks…. soon others too.

There are some pretty cool small cars in London, including the Smart Car and the Mini, which seems to be the most popular. However, there are a few of these extra skinny cars driving around and I’m not sure who makes it. I saw a 2 door Hyundai coop the other day that looked like a lot of fun, but it was too dark for me to get a picture of. I need to get a shot of the Maseratis a few blocks from our house – they get parked on the street!

OK, in American English, it would be Neighborhood, but we’re in the UK now so I am trying to spell like the locals even if I don’t sound like one. This is a map of our neighborhood with a few areas highlighted that we often walk to. http://Local.Live.com has some very cool mapping capabilities.