The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

Last night I was out with a bunch of co-workers and one of them suggested that since it was January 25th, that I should have Haggis. Since this was from Fiona, who is Scottish, I considered it. She explained that on January 25, we celebrate Burns Night by eating haggis. No, we did not read Robert Burn’s poem "Ode Tae a Haggis", but I did end up having haggis on a bed of mashed neeps (so did Fiona, so it wasn’t just a trick). And yes, it was good! I think I got lucky thought, since it was thin patty, had mostly oats, and the meat flavor was minimal, which was good since none of us could figure out what “meat” was in it. Read this to understand: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haggis

Today it was 1°C and felt like -4°C, but it wasn’t snowing or raining, so I decided to walk to and from work, which is about 2.5 miles each direction. This takes me from Cromwell Road in South Kensington to Victoria and through a neighbourhood called Belgravia, where many of the original Victorian style home have been turned into embassies and the horse stables (mews) are now single-family homes (as they are in all of London). In the 1700, the rural area was popular for robberies and for the aristocracy to engage in duels. Now though, there are high-end shops and very expensive places to live, which makes it an interesting walk. One embassy had police out front who carefully watched me walk past, as did a driver in a large black Mercedes Benz, but I was behaving myself (didn’t have Milo), so I didn’t get stopped for suspicious behaviour this time.

Unrelated: Lorie just spoke to the local Seattle government about neighbourhood development (that’s the South Lake Union neighbourhood in Seattle). You can see her in the video from the January 11th at the Seattle City Council meeting at 32 minutes into the video. Basically, she asked that people who live in the neighbourhood be included when new buildings get designed so we can end up with a nice neighbourhood, not a bunch of high-rises with no green-space around them. Unfortunately, the city council cares more about building for businesses than it does for making a great neighbourhood to live. The vote was 7-to-1.

Yes, it has been snowing a little bit in London (much more outside the city) and now it is pretty icy out there also. To fully enjoy it, I got off the tube a couple of stops early this morning so I could walk past Parliament (with Big Ben) and Westminster Abbey. As others freeze and bitch about the weather, I turn into a tourist! However, other than the grounds in front of each building being covered in a little bit of snow, there wasn’t much out of place. I think I should be in the Alps right now instead of the city.

The problems it causes in this unprepared-for-snow city is the biggest news item right now. This includes running out of grit, cancelled flights, bus routes being changed or some busses just not running, and a few tubes having delays (the ones that run above ground).