Share your photos with me
Hi everyone, this is my plea to get you to start sharing your photos with me as I have been with you. It might even encourage you to go on some adventure just so you have something to share! Here’s how:
- Install the new Windows Live products from http://get.live.com/wl/all (click the "Get Windows Live" button)
- Run Windows Live Photo Gallery
- Import your photos from your digital camera if they aren’t already on your PC
- Select some fun photos and Publish them. If you don’t already have a Spaces site, it will take care of it for you. You can use your existing Hotmail e-mail address when it asks you to login, or you can get a new one if you don’t already have one.
Or to put this graphically:
Let me know when you do so I can see what you’ve been up to.
Multi-cultural
A night in Munich
Off to Munich
Not that it matters for this trip though, since I won’t be there long enough to even get into the city. I need to get back to attend the 2nd day of ReMix UK For yiou non-Microsoft people, it’ a geeky software designer & developer event.
Moved into our new flat
We are busy unpacking boxes and figuring out how to fit into our massive flat…. with no closets. It’s an English thing. We have quite a few hooks, towel bars, and paintings/pictures to hang.
Even though we are only about 3 streets away from where we have been renting, we now feel a bit permanent here. When you visit, here is what you will find in our neighborhood:
- The Fulham Palace
- The Fulham Palace Road Cemetery (always an interesting quite walk with lots of squirrels to get Milo excited)
- A place to buy plants
- Craven Cottage where the Fulham Football Club plays
- We live in the neighborhood (or neighbourhood) of Hammersmith & Fulham
- And of course Bishops Park where we take Milo to run all the time
Canal Boats in Yorkshire
Daisy, Milo, Alan, Megan, Anne, Lorie, and I spent 3 days and 2 nights on the Leicester, which is a 53 foot boat in the Rochdale Canal in West Yorkshire. We started off in the town of Sowerby Bridge, quite enjoyed the little town of Hebden Bridge, and came close to getting to Todmorden. We only got as far as a good biker bar just before Todmorden, which turned out to be fun since we were the token Americans and appeared to be quite the novelty. I’m not sure about other biker bars in England, but this one included someone who had never been outside of the Todmorden area (so she says) and a guy who was swapping names of favorite poets with Anne. He rode a Honda, but would like to have a Harley if he could afford it.
The canal is full of locks that we had to open and close on our own, and the boat is really a very slow moving barge with a big diesel engine. We only made it about 8 or 9 miles down the canal before we had to turn around and get back, so it is about half the speed of a casual walk. Along the canal are old mills, pubs, rolling hills of trees and farms divided by rock-walls, and other barges that people live on.
In Sowerby Bridge, we went through the deepest lock in England, which has a draft of 20 feet, and it was the only one that had someone stationed there to operate it. Otherwise, we were the ones opening and closing the gates and drains to raise and lower the water level in the locks. For the most part, Alan and I were usually driving the boat, Megan and Anne worked the locks, and Lorie was on dog duty to keep the dogs (mostly Daisy) from jumping off the boat or getting too nervous while going through the locks (mostly Milo). Here’s a diagram of the interior of our boat – long and skinny.
Update:
Our canal boat
Lunch with smart PhD types
I was able to meet up with Revi and her advisor John today, who are in London for a Royal Geographical Society conference, which is no longer about maps. Revi even has a session to discuss something or other. 
We have been friends since we met at Microsoft years ago and she is now working on her PhD. Her main project is to put devices in the hands of women in rural villages in Kenya and India to allow them to send comments and questions to the local radio station to get them involved in discussions happening in the community, which is normally male dominated. There are a variety of interesting technical, social, and governmental barriers that they are overcoming to accomplish it.
It was great to catch up and learn about what she’s been working on. It certainly was not a typical lunch for me!
Zombies in London
This morning, Lorie and I went to Leicester Square and took part in the attempt to set the Zombie Walk World Record. We needed over 894 people dressed up (bloodied up) like Zombies, but I don’t think we made it. Lorie and I were zombies number 148 and 149, but Lorie stood a ways behind the crowd with a Starbucks coffee in hand and I stood at the back of the crowd with my arms in the air, like a zombie, and a hooded sweatshirt on to hide the fact that I didn’t have any makeup on. So I guess we were lame zombies. Afterwards, we saw the Zombie Diaries movie, but neither of us thought it was was very good.
The fun part was seeing a group of people obviously from a tour bus standing outside the fence at Leicester Square wondering what was going on. The picture is of zombies posing for other zombies who are taking their picture.
Monthly Chocolates
Thanks to Lars who introduced us to The Chocolate Tasting Club a few years ago, even though we could never join while living in the US. However, now that we live in London we are happy members who wait for our box to arrive each month. What this means is that once a month we get a box of chocolate in the mail with different types of chocolates from different chocolatiers. This month we got a truffle with rhubarb flavored creme, which sounds disgusting, but was surprisingly good. Anyway, it’s a small bit of entertainment that ruins our dinner at least once per month. Plus they are good and ethical regarding who and where they purchase the ingredients, which is a nice thing to support as we pig out on the chocolates.
The Adventures of Lorie and Brian Groth 