The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

This was a very cool birthday gift that involved me putting on a jump suit and getting into a huge wind turbine and learning to freefall for two minutes, twice. I was home yesterday with a bad head cold, so I was concerned I would miss it (been planning it for a while), but I wasn’t dead this morning, so I went for it. Lorie and I took the train to AirKix in Milton Keys (north of London). Lorie attempted to take pictures through the scratched up plexiglass, but the photo here is one we paid for that the AirKix people took. For some reason, Lorie had no interest in flying with me.

My first flight was a little shaky as I tried to figure out how to hold my arms, hands, head, and legs. I had no problem relaxing and letting my body arc, but figuring out what to do with my legs was the weird part – how much should you bend your knees when free falling anyway?

My second flight was quite a bit more fun though. I was able to hold myself in position so I could then raise and lower myself or spin circles. You only have to make very minor adjustments to move around like this.

This is the perfect training for skydiving, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever do that. Being in the wind tunnel and just screwing off is fun enough and has no real risk to it.

Yes, milk is still delivered to your doorstep if you want it. There is even a site to nominate a Milkman Of The Year, but I doubt the milkman who was caught selling pot would win it.

I took this picture in Fulham at around 6:30am when walking Milo. It is of their electric truck/van that is open on all 3 sides for easy delivery.

Cadbury has been making chocolate eggs for 134 years. Tonight at Sainsbury’s (yes, Friday night at a grocery store!) we saw quite a few pallets of chocolate Cadbury eggs. They really are that popular, but even I thought this was an excessive amount of chocolate.  

Lorie just wrote up something I found hilarious: Devil Roadkill  

It made my day, hopefully yours too.

I have no idea why these snowmen are standing at a corner in Helsinki,  but here they are, having a normal life. Maybe they are commuters that got frozen one day, I’m just not sure.

Other than this, Helsinki looked normal this evening. Normal in that Russian+Scandinavian sort of way that is Helsinki.

I will let you know how we feel after we eat all of it. Hopefully we won’t really eat all of it – that’s what friends are for. 

Even though I had been sick at home all day, I wasn’t about to miss this. Michael Palin was giving a talk about his new book that revisits his “Around the World in 80 days” show he did in 1989 for the BBC. He focused his story on a part of that trip where they took a dhow (boat) from Dubai to Bombay (now called Mumbai) and then, 20 years later, met up with the crew of that boat.

The talk was at Daunt Books in Marylebone (part of London), so it was a rather intimate setting and we (7 friends) were among 50 or so other people there. Afterwards, we were able to chat to him too. He’s a very friendly and approachable guy who admits that living in London provides so many opportunities that he doesn’t really need to travel as much as he does.

Since staring in Monty Python shows and movies, he’s been writing various travel stories and shows. See http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/ for more info. It looks like a great career!

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No, I do not bake or cook and have no desire to start. However, today 7 of us spent a few hours together learning how to make macarons, brownies, pastry puffs, and sponge cake. I have no desire to repeat any of this at home, but it was fun to do when someone else does all the prep work and cleanup. The macaroons were the best after baking them, but the brownie mix was the best before baking them, .

Lorie appreciated the macaroons for Valentine’s day when I got home. We didn’t even share them with Milo.

This has nothing to do with my adventures, but it is inspiring enough that I wanted to share it with you. Eight minutes into this video is where Bill Gates talks about the problems of education in the US and what he and his foundation is trying to do about it. A big part of it is making the teacher great. The first 8 minutes of the video is about what they’re doing about malaria and you can see him release some mosquitoes on the crowd, so I suggest you watch all 20 minutes of the video.

Yes, a crowded tube can be good for something. This morning, my fellow zombies and I were busy ignoring each other as usual, even though we were all squeezed into the same small place. All of the sudden, a woman passes out. Thankfully, the people that were squished next to her were able to catch her before she even got close to the ground. Suddenly everyone came alive and started opening windows (yes, you can open windows on the underground), fanning her, and moving her to two seats that suddenly came available. I was too far away to help, plus too many other people between me and her, so I just watched the entire thing. She came to in about 10-20 seconds and someone quickly handed her a bottle of water as another helped her undo the top few buttons of her very large wool coat. By the time we arrived at the next stop, she was able to walk out on her own.