The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

 I love the public transportation in London. Or more specifically, I love the fact that there is public transportation in London that works good enough to generally never need a personal car. Of course, living and working in London makes that easier! Lorie has to drive to Reading to get to her office since the train and bus combination to get there is painfully long.

However, last night Lorie took the bus home after going out with some friends and the bus took quite a while due to a Chelsea football (soccer) game that had just let out. Milo and I were waiting by the bus stop for her and Milo enjoyed watching everyone walking past us … for 45 minutes. This morning, my bus stopped and everyone had to get on the next bus – not sure why though since the bus seemed just fine. This was during rush hour, so two packed busses tried to fit into one. It was almost as crowded as the tube during rush hour!  

I still enjoy it though. The TimeOut London magazine recently had a series of articles about the London Underground that is pretty interesting too – assuming you are interested in public transportation and how London’s Tube system came to be what it is today.  

Today my dad and I tested out my new Microsoft LifeCam ZX 6000 (pictured). He is in Longview, WA, USA and I am in London; it worked great. The ZX 6000 is Microsoft’s fancy name for a wireless headset that easily works with Windows Live Messenger.

You can download the latest version of Messenger from  http://messenger.live.com/. In the USA, you can buy the headset online here.

Technically, this wasn’t a phone call. It was a PC-to-PC "call" commonly referred to as a VoIP call, which is Voice Over IP (Internet Protocol). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP for more information about VoIP. Messenger can make calls to regular phones too and the little headset would work the same then too. However, that costs a few cents per minute. See http://get.live.com/messenger/WinLiveCallDevices for more information on the other ways you can call with Messenger.

Enough about our products (I work at Microsoft). It’s time to grab some fish & chips, a pint, and enjoy the sunshine in London.

Tonight we (Milo, Lorie, and Brian) went to The Telegraph to meet up with Cullen. The pub as crowded so I asked if we could join an old lady (92) having dinner by herself since she was in an area with 4 big comfortable chairs and a small table. She said yes and turns out she lives near Cullen (upstairs!) and Cullen knew her, but she couldn’t remember him though.

Despite her short term memory problems, she had some interesting stories. She speaks English, French, German, and Russian and was an interpretor – probably during WWII.

She was quite happy to have our company and to meet us, and likewise. Although Milo was more interested in her dinner than he was in her, which is of course normal for him.

Thursday night in London was good for blues music after a very long day at work. The pub is called Ain’t Nothin’ But and is in Soho near the MSN offices. The band playing was "Gentleman Tim & The Contenders" and the were great! The description from the above web site about the band is pretty accurate:

True devotees of the West Coast Swing & Chicago style Blues. This high energy outfit delivers all the time with the combination of powerful harp & vocals, classy guitar licks, and a slick rhythm section that are guaranteed to kick up a storm.

The pub sells a best-of CD from various bands that have played there, so I need to go back and pick up one – they’re only £10.

Powering the world via energy from the sun could take less land dedicated to solar panels than you might think. Or at least less that I had figured. See:  How Much Land to Power The Whole World with Solar? 

The Guinness brewery is a very large compound, for lack of a better word after a few beers late at night. :-)
Actually, I do recommend seeing the brewery and having some fresh Guinness. They even have a new beer that is like a regular Guinness, but a little less bitter. Thanks to Lynn and Laura for that tip.

The Temple Bar area of Dublin (after the brewery tour/dinner) is interesting, and the guys dressed in drag added some humor to the evening. And as far as I could keep track, our bus full of people all made it back to their hotel OK. Tipping the bus driver quite a bit may have helped, since we kept him out 2 hours later than planned.