Month: November 2019

The W Sisters And The Story of The Coaster Hostages

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There has been a constant hostage situation unfolding in our house since we moved in. It has involving one or more of our bar coasters. The girls would steal them and hoard them. Then one would get free or be found. Only for us to have another go missing. I am not really sure where they would go all the time. We had limited evidence to conflict any single child. We know they would take them, and then they would turn up. Problem was all of them would never turn up at the same time.

About a week or so ago i thought like they were all finally turning up and then one would be missing. Today I was cleaning out under the couch and found one. When putting them all together I realised that we finally had the complete aet.

The band was finally back together. Just in time. We have house guests coming next week. I think I need to put police protection on these to make sure they stay together for the next week.

The Great No Wallet Experiment

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One of the minor advantages to living in England versus the US is the ubiquity of tap to pay. Pretty much anywhere that takes a credit card allows you to use the NFC chip on your credit card or Google/apple pay. The catch has been you can only use it up to £30. After that you need to use the chip and pin. That meant for most day-to-day transactions I was able to use Apple pay on my watch. I kept my belroy slim wallet (pictured) with three credit cards and ID in it along with 20 pounds just in case I needed to spend more than £30.

In late August I read a newsgroup thread talking about how merchant terminals were no longer limiting Apple pay to £30 per transaction. That made sense to me since I bought stuff in the Apple Store for way more than £30 and they didn’t seem to have a limit. What I didn’t realize immediately was I was reading about a change to the banking laws that was coming into effect in mid-September so the terminals were changing their requirements

After September 17 or so there’s no longer a hard limit on how much you can spend with tap to pay. Apple and Google Pay offer 2nd factor authentication already. It’s my face or fingerprint on my phone so there in theory is no additional validation or limit on using my phone or watch to make purchases.

Using a physical card with a NFC chip need to reauthorize with the PIN every hundred pounds or so. This change in theory makes it possible for me to not have to carry a wallet. It also means in theory that using Apple pay is more convenient/better than using an actual physical card.

At the time of writing this it’s been at least two months since this came into effect. Since then i only once had to use a physical card at one merchant. Since this is still an experiment I leave my wallet with an emergency card or two in my bag hidden away. It still also has an emergency £20 note. You know for that rare time I need cash. So far the experiment has been fantastic. Even the one case that i did need my physical card i think the terminal was having issues. Even with the physical card the system had to try twice to make the transaction go through.

Here is to hoping I don’t need to carry a wallet ever again. Well at least in the UK.

The Full English vs Full Irish Breakfast

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This post is topical since I have friends visiting for Thanksgiving and we had this discussion about breakfast. Their feedback was simply its all a lot of food.

Previously I have written about my picky eating habits. Specifically my lack of trying new foods until relatively recently.  I wrote “If The 12 Year Old Version of Me Could See Me Now” back in 2012. In that post I talked about how breakfast was transformed from me after I started eating eggs. Since then I have enjoyed going with M for diner breakfast.

When we moved to London we were no longer able to experience a good old-fashioned American diner. Thankfully there were lots of other options for us. I started ordering the full English breakfast. Mainly because it was an option available on most menus when we would go out for breakfast. I enjoyed it. My challenge was there were parts of it and I just didn’t like and would not eat. Mainly the baked beans, tomatoes, or mushrooms. If given the chance I would simply order eggs and some sides. The full English was typically enough if it was the only option.

We went to Ireland for a holiday in May. I was intrigued between the differences of the full English versus the full Irish breakfast. I was surprised to realize there were some distinct differences between them. Our first morning in Ireland I tried out my first full Irish. Instead of beans, tomatoes, mushrooms they added black pudding, white pudding and bacon. Since coming to England I have tried and liked the black pudding. I had never tried the white pudding,  however I give it a go. It turned out to be pretty good.

In the end the substitutions between the full English and the full Irish made it so I would eat the entire meal of a full Irish breakfast. I am going to say that is a good thing. Depending on how you look at it it could be a bad thing since probably not healthy for you. Every day of our trip I had one. Like the perfect lobster roll or piece of chocolate cake I am now on a mission to find the perfect full Irish breakfast. The catch is always even if I have the best one I’ve ever had a better one could still be out there so I have to keep trying…

I will still eat the full English. It just pales in comparison (for me) to its Irish cousin.

Too Many Choices, What Lounge to Choose?

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Since our move to London we have been flying more. We are taking advantage of our location to see Europe on our holidays. With this travel we have been using one of the credit card perks we have, airport lounge access. With MC and my American Express cards we can each get into Priority Pass lounges and take 2 guests. That means the entire family can get in a lounge without any extra cost beyond what we paid for the annual fee on the card. This benefit alone this year justified the annual fee. The way i calculated that was since we need to get to the airport early for flights especially with the girls. We would get lunch. Lunch was costing us £40-60 pounds. Since we can get food at the lounges i calculated each visit to a lounge to be worth that amount to us. By adding up all the times we used the lounges it works out to be a worthwhile perk.

Before our trip to New York for our summer holiday we debated what airport lounge we should goto. We were flying Virgin out of Terminal 3 at Heathrow. We had flown Virgin in June for our quick trip to NY. That meant we had already gone to a lounge in Terminal 3. We did not know if we should return to the Aspire lounge or somewhere new. In this case the No1 Lounge was our other option.

The girls are now old enough to start providing their opinion on subjects like this. Their opinion was they liked the lounge in Gatwick the best. That feedback was helpful however not in the context of where to go for this trip. That simply meant that anywhere we went in Heathrow would not meet their expectations! M was trying to remember if she liked the Aspire Lounge in Heathrow Terminal 3 or not. I liked it. They had the best breakfast buffet of a lounge we have gone to so far. What won me over, eggs and proper sausages in a buffet.

I had been to the No1 Lounge before. It was when i was by myself for work. I did not stay very long. The wait seemed long at the time so I had a drink and left. It looked nice though.

After more discussion than was likely necessary on the topic we settled for the No1 Lounge. We were curious.

The place was crowded. At first it looked like the lounge would be a total bust. M and I both were asking staff if there was anywhere to sit. Finally someone suggested we sit in the movie room. So we did. It was a nice sized room with chairs that had trays on them to eat off of. They were playing Despicable Me 3 or something. The girls loved it. M and I were happy since at first there was no one in the movie room. It was quiet. We ordered our food. The food came pretty quick. I liked my sandwich. The buffet was pretty good. Overall a huge win. Since they have since asked if they were going back there I think they have a new favorite lounge.

I am glad this is the biggest debate we are having:)