Mac OSX Lion & Multiple Monitors

The good news: I got a shiny, new Mac Mini as my new main desktop, which is great for the reduced-office-space in the London apartment.

The bad news: I use dual-monitors and Apple really dropped the ball on multi-monitor support!!

Here are some examples.

The new Mission Control works great on a single-monitor system, but completely falls apart on dual-monitors. For starters, both monitors slide together; so if you're on "Desktop 2" on monitor 1 then you're on "Desktop 2" on monitor 2. I can't imagine many people who dual-monitor want this!

Most people (or at least ME) use one monitor for whatever they're working on, and then have browser, email, and Skype (or some similar variation of that) open on the 2nd monitor all the time.

Especially as a web designer, I want Dreamweaver open on Screen 1 and the browser(s) open on screen2. Then I can look back and forth quickly. But I probably also have PhotoShop open on screen1 (on a different 'desktop' to keep things orderly), and when I slide over to it, I DO NOT WANT TO SLIDE OVER TO AN EMPTY SCREEN on screen2!!!

You can work around this by setting your monitor2 apps to show on all desktops, but that breaks whenever you bring the app over to the main screen. Which I do quite often for Skype video calls, opening a 2nd browser window, etc. Also gets really confusing if you slide another random app over to the 2nd monitor and it gets lost in the shuffle.

Why, oh why, oh why can't the two monitors be controlled separately? So I can view desktop1 on screen1 and desktop3 on screen2 simultaneously! Even just a "Lock this desktop to this screen" option would probably be good enough--because I really only need 1 desktop for Monitor2.

Furthermore; full-screen mode completely breaks the 2nd monitor. It just blanks the screen completely. AND YOU CAN'T EVEN OPEN AN APP FULL SCREEN ON MONITOR2!! Slide an app over to monitor2 and click full-screen and it slides itself back to monitor1 and hides whatever else you had showing on monitor2.

HEY GENIUSES, there is more to getting your work done than aesthetics! Some people (me) have different orientations for their different monitors! My 2nd monitor is rotated 90* into portrait mode. Documents and graphics that are, you know, tall and stuff, work better on a monitor in portrait mode. It would be nice to edit them full-screen on a monitor that fits the content better.

Ok, that's it. Everything else about Lion rocks, but your dual-monitor support sucks. Fix please.

(This is written for OSX 10.7.1. Hopefully my comments will be obsolete soon...)

Americanisms

My mom sent me this link of Americanisms that British people find annoying.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

I absolutely hear these, and thought I would comment....

(If I skip a number, it means I don't have any comment.)

#1. CAN I GET A...
At Starbucks, saying "Can I get a tall drip coffee to go?" Violates several rules and pretty much writes "tourist" or "American" on your forehead. The correct way is "A tall filter coffee to take away, please." It also helps to specify black or white, because they will add steamed milk to it rather than make you do it yourself (which is, in fact, quite nice). Similar usage problems at the pub. "Can I get a pint of ...." will get odd looks occasionally. Not sure if they're thinking "I don't know, CAN YOU?" or "Duh, that's my job."

#2 LEAST WORST OPTION
Do we say this in America? I don't say this. I don't think I've ever heard this. Maybe "Least bad option." As least worst options go, saying least bad option is at least as least worst of an option as saying least worst option is as bad as.

#3. TWO-TIME vs DOUBLE

This one I disagree with. I think two-time referes to someone doing something twice on separate, distant, or unrelated occasions. "Two-time Olympic gold medalist" would mean you won the same thing twice on separate years. "Double Olympic gold medalist" would mean you won two medals in different events in the same year. They don't seem interchangeable.

#4. 24/7.

Yea, that's annoying in America, too.

#5 DEPLANE

I get it, but it doesn't bother me.

#6. WAIT ON
"Wait on" (or "on line" instead of "in line") is regional in the USA, so that one sounds strange to me, too.

#8 FANNY PACK

You think you got it bad in the UK? Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oy, oy, oy!

#9. TOUCH BASE
Yea, corporate-speak is dumb in any country, but without baseball it probably makes less sense... If it ever refereed to baseball in the first place.

#11 TRANSPORTATION vs TRANSPORT

Bart, Dart, el, metro are all better than "Link Light Rail" which is what I had back in Seattle. I hate to let you down, but it all just motorways and tram lines, starting and then stopping, etc. (See what I did there?)

#12 LEVERAGE pronounced LEV... (the way it is spelled) instead of LEAVE... (the way it is not spelled)

You can be annoyed, but do you have the leverage to stop us? And then they complain that the definition has changed to "value add." Huh? "VALUE ADD" is way more annoying than mispronouncing leverage/leeverage in either/eeither direction.

#14. SHOPPING CART
This one I didn't know about, because we walk to the grocery store so only ever use the baskets. Which are probably called "shopping hampers" because a picnic basket is a picnic hamper. Did PICNIC BASKET not make the list?

#15. GOTTEN
"Gotten" seems like a perfectly cromulent word to me. (Points for getting that reference.)

#17. BANGS (as in hair)
I guess they confuse it with bangers. Which would make fun slang for dreadlocks.

#18. TAKE-OUT vs TAKE AWAY vs TO GO
See #1. Yea, take-away instead of take out or to go. But any of the three should be easily figured out. Why would one be confusing and not another? If a brit said to an American barista that they wanted a coffee to take away, I would think that the American would get it sorted spot-on, and Bob's your uncle.

#20. A HALF HOUR
"A half hour" instead of "Half an hour" is that even different enough to count? When they really should be complaining about saying "Half six" instead of "Half past six" to mean 6:30. Maybe it should be "An half hour."

#21: HEADS UP
This little bit of corporate speak doesn't bother me. (In an unrelated story, I'm the guy who designed "Heads Up: Hold'em" iPhone app.)

#22: TRAIN STATION
What? I don't get it. Should it just be "station?" I don't know what they're on about!

#24. MY BAD
I first became aware of "my bad" in the pilot episode of South Park, when the alien apologies for killing cows, so it get's a pass. Not a good enough excuse for you? Sorry, my bad.

#28. EATERY
WRONG!!! "Eatery" is one of my favorite words, and it is the height of ridiculosity (#19) that anyone should take offense to it. Oftentimes (#27) it is the name of of a fine eating and drinking establishment. It's like a factory where they build "eat!" Love it! Eateries can only be surpassed by parlors in terms of awesomeness. And how come "awesomeness" didn't make the list?

#30. ALTERNATE vs ALTERNATIVE
So this guy is annoyed that someone uses the word alternate as an alternative to the word alternative or maybe it is that they use alternate as an alternate to the word alternative. Or maybe it is the other way around.

#31. PRICE HIKE
This one I didn't know. On an unrelated topic, I was informed that mis-speaking the "prix fixe" menu is saying "price fixing" instead of "fixed price."

#32. GOING FORWARD
Yea, I don't like "going forward" either. Stupid corporate idiots...

#33. DELIVERABLES
If those stupid corporate idiots (see above) ever went forward maybe they could get some deliverables without the rest of us having to wait on them.

#34. A MILLION AND A HALF
Us 'mericans can't count so good.

#36. YOU DO THE MATH(S)
I like 'do the math' and I am perfectly comfortable with math being the plural of math. Can it really be math if there is only one?

#37. REGULAR vs MEDIUM size drink
The correct phrase is 'tall.'

#38. EXPIRATION
Didn't know that one. I would like to give a well thought out answer, but my time is up.

#39. SCOTCH-IRISH
Mmmmmm, Scotch. Mmmmmm, Irish.

#40. THAT'LL LEARN YOU
Most of the time, "That'll learn you" is the American equivalent of the ironic garden gnome. (From either the book Watching the English, or Anglo Files, I can't remember which.) We are making ourselves sound like dumb American hicks because it's funny when we sound like dumb American hicks. (Not to be confused with actual dumb American hicks: We gots them, too. And they's a scary bunch!)

#41. WHERE'S IT AT vs WHERE IS IT
While it may not be any more informative or efficient, it isn't very much less informative or efficient, is it?

#42 PERIOD vs FULL STOP

Who's less efficient now? LOL.

#43 WINNINGEST

Again with the efficiency. (Why didn't "Again with the" make the list?) What are the alternatives? "The most winning," or "Has won more than any other," that's a lot of words.

#44 SEASON vs SERIES (referring to TV/Tele)

Um, ok. Is that the best you can do? Whatever floats your boat! (Why didn't "Whatever floats your boat" make the list?)

#46 ZEE vs ZED

I was good enough to include this as an option on our kid's game iPhone apps. Just for you!

I would also like to apologize to the letter H (ay-ch/hay-ch) for not making the cut.

#48 GOT IT FOR FREE vs GOT IT FREE

Let's go through this logically "I got this for seventy-five dollars." "I got this for six cents." "I got this for five pounds." "I got this for free." "I got this for losing." As a computer/web programmer who isn't very good, it is so much easier to code

echo "I got this for {$price}.";

instead of

echo "I got this ";

if ($price!="free") echo "for {$price}";

else echo "{$price}.";

See. I'm lazy, but the good kind of lazy.

#49 TURN THAT OFF ALREADY

In most cases, we add the 'already' specifically for the purpose of being annoying. We have succeeded!

#50. I COULD CARE LESS
This really matters to people? Because, you know, ...

Not a Tourist 6 (settling in)

Over the weekend, we moved into our Putney apartment. Leaving Islington. Our apartment is the ground floor of a converted terrace block (row house). It is in the center of Quill Lane, a pedestrian-only lane that is both lovely and seemingly rare and unique. The agents from both our relocation agency and the landlord's agency were impressed (and seemed sincere) by the location. Similarly, the "Man with a Van" we hired to move our stuff from Islington was also impressed and said that you don't see areas like this very often. Nice! We love it. It is very quiet and secluded feeling. But the lane also has a great deal of foot traffic going past all throughout the day and night which I think will be helpful for security because it will be difficult for any potential thief to case the place (or any place on our block) without people walking by and seeing.
But it isn't perfect…
Two wardrobes were left behind. Both are Ikea and in various states of shabbiness. One in the bedroom was so bad that I took the (sliding) doors off and pushed them behind the wardrobe so it is just an open hanging rack and shelf. Which improved the look greatly because the clothes in it will conceal the wardrobe itself. The other was left in the dining room, and looks fairly nice from a distance, but it is also very flimsy and some of the drawers are breaking and don't open or close very well. Also, I think it might be a TV cabinet because there is a large cabinet with no shelves in it and we aren't really sure what we will put in it.

Which got me thinking about the apartment and about London in general. If you get up close and look at the details, everything is a little bit off. Nothing quite fits. Nothing is quite clean. Nothing is quite level. Nothing is quite flat. Nothing is quite straight. Nothing is quite square. Everything has some quirk or flaw. But when you step back and take it all in, it is glorious!
I wondered if London might be a nightmare for someone with OCD for all those little reasons. But in many ways, they are the same little reasons that when added up make me like it so much.
Maybe people here freak out about different things than American's do--well that goes without saying, I suppose. Or they just rent the new modern apartments that we avoided because they looked like the new modern apartments we could live in back in Seattle.

(Two Days Later)

Our stuff arrived! Wow, there is a lot of it.

(One Day Later)

We're getting things sorted. We ended up with 5 end tables; none of which fit and no coffee table.
When we looked at the place, we thought there were built-in bookshelves in the living room, but this was not the case--so we have nowhere to put the books we brought. We're going to have to buy a bookshelf so I can get the stuff up off the floor. But things are slowly coming together.

The mail (post) just dropped through the door slot which is another oddity. There is no automated mail forwarding here, it seems. The postman is required BY LAW to deliver the mail to the address regardless of the name. We have to write "not known at this address" on the envelopes individually in order to have them forwarded to the person. Seems a bit crazy. In any case, we are getting mail, letters, magazines, etc. for various previous tenants of the apartment--including the landlord herself.

We also met the upstairs neighbors…who are moving out. So we will have new upstairs neighbors sometime soon. I hope they are nice.

We get the tele hooked up today. In worldwide cable-guy fashion (though in this case it is satellite guy fashion) he will be here sometime between 11:00 and 1:00. And I did not know that time frame until 9:00 this morning. Good to know some things are the same everywhere. Hopefully the American TV will work with the British tele signal. I think it will work, because it specifies NTSC when I switch the connection to the American DVD player. Which leads me to believe that it would recognize PAL otherwise it wouldn't bother telling me what type of signal it was receiving. According to the Internet, many new TVs support both signals.

I am getting my workspace setup in the living room. I changed one of my monitors to portrait orientation, and I think it will work great although it looks strange because I am so used to landscape. I think I will be able to tile a web browser and Skype vertically on this screen and then use the other as my main workspace (PhotoShop, Dreamweaver, etc.) I hope it works! Haven't had much opportunity to try it yet due to not having home Internet yet.

NOTE FOR EXPATS: Most computer equipment and modern electronics (not all) support dual-power and can be plugged (via adapter) directly into the the outlets here. You can conserve adapters by bringing a splitter extension cord and adapting the cord and then plugging your a few things in using the American connections (a computer, monitor and printer being an obvious example). However, DO NOT BRING POWER STRIPS! These have a fuse or circuit which will render them useless. HOWEVER, if you buy a transformer to use kitchen appliances, etc, then you can convert the transformer and use a power strip on the 110v side of that. Just be sure not to overload the transformer by running several appliances at once.
Another tip is to wrap bright orange or red tape around the plugs for things that do require a transformer or voltage converter. That way you won't accidentally plug them in directly.

…It is now 1:20 and no satellite guy. Yep, some things are the same the world over.

(Posted several days after writing.)

Not a Tourist 5 (A Tourist Again)

Last weekend, Alice and I visited Brighton, and so we were tourists again! Brighton is a crazy beach party town. The beach and boardwalk is kind of what we both picture Coney Island being like, except that neither of us have ever been to Coney Island. Fun times.

The Weather was beautiful, so we weren't the only ones who decided to drop by for a visit...


We saw most of the sights: The boardwalk, the beach, the royal pavilion, the lanes, we had a Pimm's, we had an English Breakfast, we had a good time, and a nice relaxing weekend. Ahh, to be a tourist!

The rest of this blog entry one is going to be a little scattered and random, because it's kind of a recap for the past while...

Someone Will Be Along For That
It is very much part of the culture here to let the staff clean up after you at restaurants, bars, etc. Not sure if this is a result of the class system where you can't be bothered to bus your own dishes, or do things for yourself, but people pretty much leave their beer glasses wherever they are and let someone else worry about cleaning it up. To the point of just setting the empty glass on the ground. It is common for the bars to overflow into the street after work when the weather is nice, so, yes, literally, you just set your empty beer glass on the curb and let someone else worry about it.

Bin It
This one is a bit shameful. OK, very shameful. There is no recycling system at the temporary house, so everything just goes into the trash. "Bin it!" And I'm ashamed to say that this really makes life easier. If you just don't care about anything and toss it in the bin. Hopefully our permanent home will have recycling and we can become good citizens of the world again, but in the mean time, it sure saves time and thought and energy when you just toss everything into the bin when you're done with it.

Scotch Egg
I ate a scotch egg. This is a hard boiled egg covered with sausage and breading and then fried. It tastes exactly like you'd expect it to taste. (Unless you were repulsed by the description, then it isn't as bad as all that.) Which is pretty good. Nothing life changing, but pretty good. Not as good as sausage rolls.

Pickle Sauce
Why don't we have pickle sauce in the USA? This isn't pickle relish, but this funny dark brown chunky sauce with onions and other vegetables that have been pickled. This may also be called "Sweet Onion" Sauce. It is the most perfect condiment for sandwiches or practically anything! The brand we found at the grocery store is Branston, but there are probably others available. (Which brings me to...)

No Brand Loyalty
I realized that Alice and I really have no brand loyalties when it comes to food. Which makes the transition from USA to UK food quite easy for us. We don't miss specific brands of food that are unavailable here. Salsa and things will taste different and be harder to find, but we won't ever be looking for any one brand and then get annoyed when we can't find it. Salsa here may taste different than salsa in the USA, but we were always buying different and funny salsas back in the USA, so different bottles tasted different back there, too.
I'm not saying this is a good or bad trait of ours, just that it's the way it is.
The one exception to this is the Rooster Sriracha sauce which Alice puts on just about anything. They sell other brands here, but they are not the same bright red that we have known. And they have a swan or something on the label, so it isn't Rooster Sauce.

The Royal Wedding
The royal wedding is this Friday (2 days from now). We will either go to a local street party hosted by The Charles Lamb Pub in Islington, or we will watch with the masses on big-screens in Hyde Park. I'm trying to convince Alice that we should go to the local pub just so we can avoid all travel and transportation that day, and also so we will be a mere 3 or 4 blocks from our apartment with its personal and private bathroom. But I think Alice really wants to go to Hyde Park, so we'll probably end up going there.

Speaking of which, at the grocery store, they are selling Will & Kate Commemorative Pies. Steak and bacon Pie, I think (meat, not sweet). Alice took a picture.

Speaking of Meat
We had conveyor-belt sushi, and they had steak sushi. Alice grabbed it, thinking it was tuna, but it was steak. They also had a tempura shrimp atop a sliced up tempura chicken breast. So I got to eat a few extra sushi. Otherwise it was pricey and not so great, so we probably won't go back.

And Not Speaking of Meat
Bits in pubs don't eat. Except maybe a bag of crisps (potato chips). They go, and have their pint of beer, and don't eat anything. Seems strange since Americans seem to eat wherever they go. We're such pigs, and not the kind that you make Royal Wedding Commemorative Pie out of.

Still Not Quite Here
We should be moving into our permanent home at the end of next week. It will be nice to start feeling a little bit more settled... Especially for me. Alice is fully set up at work. I'm still working off a laptop on the dining room table. Islington is great, though, and hopefully Putney will be just as good or better.

Land Of The Free
Last week, the DOJ shut down the major online poker sites in the USA. Why does America call itself a free country? I managed to change my PokerStars account to the UK before the shut-down, but my Full Tilt account reverted back to my USA address and I can't play on it now, even though the country I live in doesn't mind if I play poker online.
One irony that has not been talked about much is that online poker allows people to gamble LESS than casino poker. When playing online, I generally play with blinds of $.10-.25 or $.25-.50. Occasionally $.50-1. Or I play tournaments with a buy-in between $5 and $25 but usually in the $5-$15 range. When I go to a casino, I play $1-$2 or $2-$5 blinds and tournaments that cost $50 - $225. A bad night at the casino can cost me more than a bad month can online.
All the talk is about the people gambling for huge stakes online, but the vast majority of players--recreational players like myself--play for a pittance. What we would otherwise spend renting a movie or for a World of Warcraft subscription. Online sites can offer penny poker. Casinos can not. And the truth is, most of the time I would rather be gambling for less. I am much happier playing $.10-.25 than $2-5 (here it's £2-5 which is even worse).

No Cars
At the Shell station up the street, gas/petrol costs £1.38 per liter. I'll tell you the math, but make you multiply it out yourself:
£1.00 = ~$1.65
1 gallon = 3.785 liter.
Part of me wishes that the USA would tax gas up to this price and force us to come up with better transportation. The bus and underground and train system in London is amazing. We we ever want anything like this in American cities, we'll need to start now and work hard and pay for it.

Not a Tourist 4

It has now been 10 days, and we're settling in nicely. I have made notes on this blog editor throughout the week, so I can hit some of the fun and silly things and so I won't forget. So, without further ado...

Here is a (short) conversation between Alice and a waiter:
ALICE: Do you have hot sauce?
WAITER: No! Salt on the table.
Concise and to the point. It really needs no further explanation.

This week, we purchased the Cumberland Vegetarian Sausages instead of the Lincolnshire Vegetarian Sausages. I think I like the Lincolnshire ones better (slightly) but I'm not yet sure what the difference between them is.
I think the logical thing to do is to Pepsi-challenge REAL Lincolnshire vs Cumberland Sausages and see which one I like better in a proper taste-test. Alice will not follow (pescetarian) but it seems like my duty.
I wonder if locals could articulate the differences between the two. Maybe, maybe not. It might be "Oh, well _____ has a bit more pepper and ______ has a bit more _____."

I was pleased to notice that our (Sainsbury's) peanut butter jar has a warning on it saying "CONTAINS PEANUTS." It seems like this would be one of the cases where they should warn you if it does not contain peanuts. Speaking of which, we also bought a bag of peanuts and that did NOT warn us that it contained peanuts. Which really makes you wonder, doesn't it.
I posted this on Facebook and a friend (Mike H.) back in the USA confirmed that neither Jiff or Adams warns American consumers that their jar of peanut butter contains the deadly peanut. I sense a lawsuit.
(This is not to make light of anyone with a peanut allergy. My god!!! That is scary. It's one of those things where it seems like you could accidentally kill someone instantly and completely by accident. And I like peanuts and peanut butter enough that just being near me may be toxic. Scary!! You've been warned.)

Our 5 year Anniversary was last Friday, 8th of April. (See how i did 8/4 instead of 4/8 there!)
For this, I had packed one of my suits, a few dress shirts, ties, dress shoes, etc. in our air shipment so we could go have a nice romantic meal out. None of that has arrived yet, so I had to buy clothes for the evening...
The clothes I bought were just a little bit more British/European than the clothes they sell in America. I can't quite put my finger on why; just the shirt had a color and a pattern that looked a little bit more British. The shoes were shaped a little more British. The pants were tailored a little bit more British. Which all makes sense, since I'm in Britain.
Here's what I did notice:
For starters, everything is tailored for people who are a bit slimmer than the fat Americans. Fortunately, after my successful weight-loss last year, I am a bit slimmer than the fat American I used to be.
The cuffs are a bit bigger. They look more like faux french cuffs a bit more, and I bet if you look closely at British people on TV (tele) you will notice this. They just have a bit more flare or panache.
Same thing with the color of the shirt. And this one I really can't describe very well. It's just a shade more British than American shirts. I cannot say what that shade is. Alice was impressed overall though. Probably as much by the fact that I went out and bought myself nice clothes than the actual clothes themselves.
Which brings me to my long-term point: I'm going to end up looking British after a year or so when I have replaced many of my clothes. Whether this is the culture rubbing off, or just the only stuff I can find, and whether I still feel a little uncomfortable wearing it or not, it's going to happen.
While on my way to meet Alice wearing my new outfit, I felt a little uncomfortable just because it was a little bit out of my usual style. I figured (correctly) that I would be even more invisible than usual because I would look less like a tourist (I'm not a tourist, remember). I was given hope as I climbed the stairs out of the underground station and an older man in front of me, who was wearing a very conservative suit stepped up the stair and I could see he was wearing bright, BRIGHT blue socks. So... If he can do that, I can wear a shirt with a little extra euro-flare.

Which brings us to our Anniversary dinner. We went to a wonderfull little french restaurant in Putney, near our soon-to-be-home. It is called L'Auberge. It is run by a husband and wife, and it will be our go-to restaurant for special occasions and when Guests are in town.
This next line is incredibly high praise..

This is our London Pamplemousse.

That being said, L'Auberge (London) is almost nothing like Pamplemousse (Las Vegas) except that they are both excellent, delicious and beautiful french restaurants. There can't be very many people in the world who have been to both, but if anyone reading this has the opportunity to join the select group of us who have, I encourage you to do so!!
If you really really want to join a select group, you should also eat at Le Petit Prince in Paris.
(You're welcome.)

On to the Theatre:
We saw In a Forest Dark and Deep, the new Neil LaBute play. Featuring Matthew "Lost" Fox and Olivia "Dollhouse" Williams. (She is currently better known for the movie "An Education" but I know her from Dollhouse.) The play was excellent! I thought the script was very good and the actors gave great performances. I thought the directing could have been a little better, as there were a few scenes where both actors pretty much ended up on opposite sides of the stage facing out. And some areas of the really cool set were not used to their full potential. (And the set designer did not follow my "Design it and then spin it 30 degrees" philosophy. Which would have improved sight lines.) But overall it was a very good show and an enjoyable evening--even though the show itself was very dark and intense.

It's past 11pm, so you get one more thing and then I'm done:
Soft-serve ice cream tastes like Cool Whip. So much that I think it IS Cool Whip.
We went to the Shoreditch Flower Market today, and had Cool Whip cones which we thought were going to be ice cream cones.
But then Alice's very cool co-worker, Kignsley (who apparently didn't realize that no one in America is named Kingsley) took us to the Shoreditch House private club and we had a late lunch on the rooftop restaurant. It was jolly good!!! Or "awesome!"
And you have to say (read) "awesome" with the most annoying and nasal American accent you can muster. Because that's what we sound like to the people here.

Good night, then.
-Pete

Not a Tourist 3

Its been a few more days and I'm at least sleeping through the night now. Haven't quite gotten the time of day right yet, because it's about 2:00pm and I'm just now starting to think about lunch. In fact...

OK, it's now 4:15 and I ate lunch and took a long way around Islington. Partly to look around, partly to get a coffee, and partly to look at parks that I may want to take Katie to.
Bernard Park, Islington
Has sports fields (soccer/football) and playgrounds and some green area. Nice, but not really a destination park. Just a regular neighborhood park.
Thornhill Square Gardens, Islington
A nice little oval-shaped green & flower space next to a beautiful old church. Not quite big enough to go for a picnic unless you lived in the area or were nearby for some reason.

Pedestrian drift:
I'm getting proficient at drifting to the left instead of the right when approaching pedestrians. It's strange because there is no real rule in this country or the USA that pedestrians should pass each other on the left or right like cars. If you approach even a little bit to one side, you can pass on that side, whichever it is, without problem in either country. Only when you approach someone straight on does this difference come into play. Americans will naturally drift to their right and Brits will naturally drift to their left. So if you approach each other, you end up doing the stutter-stop 'which side do you want?' dance. But if you see them coming from several paces off, you can start drifting and get by with no problem. And you won't look like a tourist if you drift in the correct direction.
For fun, in the USA, start drifting to the left when approaching people on the sidewalk and see how many you can annoy without them realizing what you are doing differently.

Also, Twitter and Facebook are ruining blogs because you mention something there in a sentence or two and then you don't feel the need to repeat yourself.

But I'll repeat myself anyway:
PokerStars re-activated my account because I am no longer a resident of Washington State. I could go on for pages and pages about how stupid and backwards the poker laws in the USA and in WA in particular are, but I won't. Regulating & taxing online poker could be a big 2nd step in the drive to balance state and federal budgets. (Mom, I promise the 1st step wouldn't benefit tax-wise from me, personally.)

We also got our local bank cards--which have a SIM in them just like all bank and credit cards probably should--COME ON, USA! Get with the program. A SIM enabled card 'signed' with a pin # is so much more secure than a signature! About a year ago, Alice & I went to dinner with Noreen and Greg, and Noreen and I accidentally switched (identical) bank cards. I unknowingly used her card several times before finding out what had happened. This is even funnier because none of the 'stolen card' algorithms would have been triggered by me--since I went out for sushi, got some wine at a wine shop, etc. which are all things Noreen would have done if she had been along with Alice and I for the whole weekend instead of just dinner beforehand. With a PIN instead of an (often unchecked) signature, I wouldn't have been able to use her card for anything!

I need to remember, or write down all the things that amuse Alice or else I forget. Oh..
Alice was amused by

• Getting a free umbrella from work that comes in a sheath that can be worn over your shoulder like a samurai sword. She told her workers she would use it to push people out of her way to ride the tube during rush hour.
• She was not amused when noticing that these little sesame balls she bought (which looked like small versions of the ones you get at dim sum, but were actually more like doughnut holes) contained pork fat. They were delicious, by the way.
• She also made it to work and home again without incident on her first day.
• I guess she was most amused that the Covent Garden Lush store has a basement level and is huge.
  

Not a Tourist 2

Katie (the dog) is here! YAY. She's suffering doggie jet lag. Exhausted by what would have been a very stressful and confusing journey. But she's here now.

We're starting to settle in, but still only sleeping a few hours each night due to jet lag ourselves.

The temporary apartment is very small, but we're managing just fine. We will probably do a load of laundry nearly every day to keep up with the combination of limited space and limited washing machine capacity.

We are already noticing (as we had been warned) that there would be a million little differences and just doing everyday tasks will require more thought. Like grocery shopping. All our lives the grocery stores have looked about the same and had more or less the same brands and the same things. Every once in a while something new would arrive and something would disappear, and something would change labels, but it would be only one or a few at a time in an otherwise recognizable store. Here, they have mostly the same stuff, but it is mostly different brand names, different packages, different organization, and sometimes under a different name. And then you are mentally converting all the prices over to figure out what things cost.

I wonder (and will mention here if I'm still doing this) when I will just think in pounds and won't need to convert things into dollars to know a price.

Even the vegetarian sausages taste like British vegetarian sausages. Actually they are quite good and taste almost like real British sausages, but its just different than American sausages.

(Ok, I meant to write more, but didn't. It's now the next day from when I wrote all that, so I'll just post it and start Part 3.)

Not a Tourist

It's Monday (March 28, 2011), and I move from Seattle to London on Wednesday.

Over time, I hope this blog can chronicle some of the funny customs and things that I experience as an expat and go through the whole culture shock thing of moving nearly 5000 miles to a city where I don't know anyone. But I'm not there yet, so I'll talk a bit about the last month and moving.

For starters, Alice and I will be moving from a 5 bedroom, 2600 square foot house into a 1 bedroom, 525 square foot apartment. So we are giving up over 2000 square feet of living space. I guess I should point out that, technically, our apartment is a 2 bedroom, except that is purely a technicality. Because it has a dining room, the real estate people are allowed to count the living room as a bed room. Still, it is very nice place in Putney on a pedestraian-only street. Not a problem since we will not own a car.

In fact, Alice just sold the first of our two cars today. Just now, in fact. We are staying at the Fairmont Olympic hotel in downtown seattle (part of the relocation, so we don't have to pay for it) and we told the valet, "We aren't checking out, but the car won't be returning. We're selling it today." I don't think the valet hears that one very often.

The past month has been a whirlwind of packing and purging. I think we personally kept Goodwill in business for several days with all the stuff we donated there. Stuff that, if we had more time or the inclination, we could have sold for a substantial sum of money on Ebay or Craig's List. But time became more important and we just dumped it.

I guess I should write some background. About why we are moving, how, what for, how our dog is coming with us, and all that. And I probably will soon. But I'm also getting over a cold - which isn't surprising, given the past month of stress, work, change, and lack of sleep. So, I'll add more later. Talk to you soon.

PART 2 (March 31, 2011):
It's Thursday now and we're here! The flight was bumpier than usual, but fine. I took some Tylenol PM and they hit just right, so I slept for at least 6 of the 9 hour flight. I truly couldn't belive it when I woke up and the little flight clock said there was only an hour left--I was expecting it to say 3 or 4.

Cool things for today:
A guy asked me directions and while I automatically queued up the "I'm a tourist and don't know" response, he asked me where the underground station was and I had just walked past it, so I knew the answer. Pretty cool.

Alice was amused by:

• The egg isle in the grocery store at room temperature.
• The taxi driver calling me "Guv'ner."
• "Dirty Harry Waste Management Company."
  

Jet lag!!!

Oh, I have an excellent system for crossing the street in London--it's the "Kill the other guy first" method. Basically, you stand 'downstream' from someone else, watch them, and cross the street at the same time they do. That way if a car or bus comes blazing through, at least it will kill the other guy first. Hence the name.

More to come. Cheerio old chaps!