The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

Hazel is a new friend of Milo’s that we met at the dog park. She’s a mix of something that’s all muscle with a gigantic head. Sounds weird, but she’s a great looking dog, happy, and full of energy. Perfect for Milo.

Just like Daisy, Milo’s other girlfriend, Hazel is faster and gets the ball first. However, she doesn’t give it up when Milo pounds on her head. Ahhh, dog fun.

We had seen a sign for one of these restaurants in London, but never tried one. Finally the other night, after meandering through the British Museum, we went to the ”My Old Ductch” in Holborn. We really had no idea what to expect, since we never tried any of the Dutch pancakes when we’ve been in Amsterdam. You order a “pancake”, which I would consider a very large crepe, then either select some pre-set toppings or build your own; much like a pizza. I had artichokes, tomatoes, ham, and 4 types of cheese on mine. However, you don’t get too much topping, so you mostly get the pankake, which I swear is fried. It might not sound good, but it was. Lorie’s with apples, ham, and the best maple syrup we’ve ever tried. They come on delftware plates that are about 15 inches in diameter and the plate is completely covered by the pancake.

No, I didn’t take the photo, I just found it on the Internet, but this is what my pancake looked like. 

Lorie and I went to the Cycle Show this year, which was a short bus ride away at Earl’s Court. I never knew there were so many different foldable/collapsible bicycles out there nor so many different electric bikes. There were also more component manufactures (cranks, pedals, hubs, etc.) than I had ever heard of too. There still aren’t too many recumbent bicycles, but a few. 

One of the most interesting things we saw was this cot/tent that you can haul behind your bike, then just pop open so you don’t need to sleep on the ground.

Another highlight was seeing the new model of the Volvo Cross Country (V70) Ocean Race Edition like we had in Seattle, but the new model is a bit cooler looking. See the Volvo site and dig around the menu to find the blue V70.

It was my mom who always told me to go outside and play. I’m sure she was simply trying to get my brother and me out of the house so she could have some peace and quite, but I took this to mean that every day I should have some fun.

It’s nice to see that she’s trying to have fun every day too.

Happy birthday mom!

I went kayaking on Lake Union in Seattle today with friends Keith and Lisl (& Chris who was in town from Winter Park, CO). It was fun to see our old houseboat, the seaplanes, bridges, and the other parts of the lake that have changed, such as the park at the south end of the lake. There are more changes for the park and sooner or later it will be pretty big and nice. Much better than a few years ago.

My folks have now toured London, bits of Scotland, and about half of Ireland but are now flying back to Minnesota.

The photo here is of them enjoying a pint of Guinness at the brewery in Dublin. They didn’t believe me that it really does taste better there, but they raved about how smooth it was.

Sunday night we saw the last night of comedy at the Pimm’s Summerfest in Holland Park. The venue was pretty interesting, since it was outside under a large tent, but half surrounded by an old Victorian building. Click on the Holland Park link to see it in the map. For those who don’t know, Pimm’s is the summer drink of choice at pubs all around London, and goes over quite well in Minnesota when we bring it there. The 4 comedians we saw were great (should have been 5, but 1 didn’t make it) and we plan to go again next year if they do it again.

Milo’s playground in Fulham is Bishops Park. I took a bunch of photos of it in an effort to create my first Photosynth, which is Microsoft’s latest cool thing. More specifically, Photosynth is a new way to create panoramic photos, but online and in a way that lets you navigate around the set of photos instead of seeing just one big image.

Click on the picture to see mine.

A bunch of co-workers and I spent Thursday evening at the studios for Virgin Radio (recently sold, soon to be renamed) for a night of team building and rock trivia. I did OK despite the fact that I had never heard of some of the English bands that didn’t make it over to the US in the last 30 years. Being the only American helped a little, but not too much. It was a fun night and included a rather strange race at one point…

I’ll post photos once I get them, but there were about 30 of us and they needed 5 volunteers to wear large, full body-sized, foam costumes and race each other around Golden Square in SOHO. I of course jumped at the chance! The choices were a lemon, a red pepper, a banana, a carrot, and a hot dog. I chose the hot dog, but the guy in the red pepper won the race. It was difficult to run in a big costume with no peripheral vision, with the mesh thing over my face rubbing my nose raw, and of course we had all had a bit of wine with no food yet. 

Just another odd experience of living in London.