The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth

• The other night, we were with our friends Odele and Brent in Chicago when we got an interesting opportunity: see the set and operations of the Big Ten Network, which is where Odele works. I don’t watch any sports, but those of you in the US might recognize the set used by the news/sports-casters pictured here. I have a few other photos here, but didn’t want to take any that might give away details of their operations, broadcast, and editing machines. I am happy to report that almost all of the computers I saw were running Windows. We were there after-hours so the place was pretty empty, which gave us the opportunity to check out how they can monitor and control multiple games being displayed all at once, including multiple cameras, instant replays, and so on. 

Today Lorie and I (not Milo) took part in the London Bikeathon from Chealsea to Richmond Park, and back. This was the first time I had seen Richmond Park, and seeing it via bike on a nice sunny day was the perfect way to experience it. There were a few routes to choose from, and we were on the Scenic Ride, which meant we each got a wonderful light pink t-shirt. 

One big difference I noticed between this ride and ones I have been on in Washington State was at the rest stops. In the US, we get bananas, oranges, energy bars, water, and maybe a sport drink. On this ride in London, we got bananas and water, which was fine, but you had the option to purchase burgers and beer too.   

The ride was a casual 4 hours, which was about 3 1/2 hours of biking – all at a pretty slow pace, which is how Lorie prefers it.  

I posted few other photos here.

No, I am still not a classical music fan. However, one of the great things about London is the vast amount of interesting events happening at any one time. Last night, Anne invited us to what turned out to be a fascinating talk by John Suchet about Beethoven. What made it fascinating is that Suchet is so passionate and excited about Beethoven as a person and what events in his life inspired him to write his music. He almost turned me into a classical music fan and he never played a single tune.

Another thing that made it interesting was where this talk was being held, which was at Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street. This has to be the most interesting travel book store I have ever experienced, but thanks to Megan’s fascination/addiction to the place , I already knew about it. Here is the description of the talk, which sounds dull, but certainly wasn’t.

Following his wonderful fictional trilogy about Beethoven, "The Last Master", broadcaster John Suchet has now turned his attention to "The Treasures of Beethoven". He tells the stories behind the music, and highlights some of the most important events in Beethoven’s life by investigating the many items of memorabilia to be found in museums and collections around the world.

I flew into Madrid, Spain this evening to attend meetings on Wednesday. We landed at about 23:00 (11pm), so I didn’t get any time to play tourist. Since I will be in meetings all day before heading back to the airport, I won’t have any time to seem much of the city or sample the local food, drinks, adventure, or entertainment. So, I took a little walk tonight around my hotel and snapped this photo of my hotel and the square in front of it that was full of people finishing their dinner and drinks (at midnight). It seems to be a pretty popular area. The hotel is the “Melia Madrid, Reina Victoria” – or “Reina Victoria, By Melia” – or “ME by Melia”. It is too trendy for its own good since the name keeps changing depending on what I look at.

I should really start taking pictures of something other than just Milo, but here are two more. One is in Putney near the Spencer Arms, our typical Friday night hang with Megan, Alan, and Daisy out after some dog play. The other is on the bus ride home from the pub. In addition to this, we also went to a party filled with Americans to celebrate. The other photo here should give you a good idea that there were at least a few others from the Seattle area at the party.

We spent 3 days & nights in Barcelona, Spain and if I go back I plan to spend most of the time in the beach town of Barceloneta, which is basically the waterfront area of Barcelona. It has a couple of good boardwalks, a nice beach, and a ton of good bars and restaurants.

However, the entire city is interesting with the weird architecture from Antonio Gaudi. It’s an easy city to walk around with a few nice large parks worth seeing. We were there with our friends Nina & Fred with their 2 little boys, which is why we ended up at the parks. It was very warm, so the large trees in the parks provided some much needed shade, which was much nicer than the streets and the beach was too crowded to really enjoy, so the parks were a good choice for the long weekend. I have posted a few photos too.

Travelling during the week without my laptop will be strange, but it is time for a short break. There are a variety of things to see and do, or so we are told, and one of them is this strange looking church called the Sagrada Familia.

I will upload photos when we are back, but might blog a little from my phone while there. It is only a 4 day trip, which is short by European standards, but seems about right for us. We can’t sit still for too long!

Wandsworth Park is South of the river from our place in Putney, but an easy walk through Bishops Park then over the Thames via the train bridge. Milo gets some good of off-leash time when we hit both parks on the same walk.

Click on the picture below to see where the park is on the map. Switch it to “Bird’s eye” view to get the view I have below.

That goes double if you have a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th, which is what paraskevidekatriaphobia is. Yes, the phobia is rooted in history, but I think it’s just a way to explain coincidences in life. Although, this is a good story:

Ships that set sail on a Friday will have bad luck – as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday. Over one hundred years ago, the British government sought to stop once and for all the widespread superstition among sailors that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, named "H.M.S. Friday." They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again. Since then, ships are not usually launched on that date.

Yes, the war is never far in London. The other day the District line (the one we take most often) was closed due to an unexploded WWII bomb that was found. It was the biggest one found in the last 30 years.

This meant taking the bus for the day, which is no big deal since I usually take the bus anyway.

Sometimes Milo takes the bus too. This time it was on the way home after our normal Friday night pub experience in Putney. OK, that has nothing to do with the bomb that was found. 

The strange thing about the bomb is that when searching for news articles about it, there seems to be another bomb that closed other train lines too.

Just another odd experience in London!