scott

Civilised Working From Home

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My sister in law came to visit in March. When trying to come up with something that we would be interesting to do with her I thought going to the Doctor Who shop. She is Doctor Who fan like I am. I wasn’t sure if she had ever visited the store in her trips to London. She had not so we planned to go. M was going to take the girls to a park nearby while we browsed the shop. When it came time for us to get ready to leave the girls were a bit crazy. Since M had spent time with our sister and law while the girls were in school she suggested that I take her on my own since I was more of a fan.

It was well worth the trip. We geeked out in the shop for a really long time. I bought the girls the latest Sonic screwdriver (13th Doctor) to go with their collection. I also got a Tardis tea set for one.

We also paid the pound to each to go into the museum they have in the back. That may be its own post since it was super awesome. One of the owner showed us around and he was supercool about explaining everything.

It was a fantastic experience even though I spent more money than I had anticipated. On the plus side now I have a tea set to help me get into the tea drinking habit.  Since I got the tea set I have been making a mini pot of tea when working from home.  I am even having it on the weekend.  I treat myself to one or two tea biscuits.  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the new ritual.

The girls are even getting into the ritual sometimes on the weekend.  They saw me doing it one day.  I couldn’t say no to them after they saw the tea biscuits.  They also love tea.  Since team to them is really a tiny amount of tea and the rest of the drink being milk in the cup.  Adding a biscuit to the ritual sold them too.

W Sisters Shorts on Mummy’s Wedding

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Our Wedding Cake Topper

M is in the States. It is the girls and I for the holiday weekend. On our way from breakfast this morning A says to me: “mummy is going to her wedding today.”

My response was “what??? NO?”

A responds “oh she is going to her friends wedding today”

Me “yes that’s better”. Secretly I went phew! I thought she had inside information.

Is This Use of an iPad Too Much?

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If you have read any of this blog at all or know me you will know I am a fan of technology. I think it can be used for great stuff. Recently on holiday in Copenhagen and Stockholm I had to wonder is there a too far in use of consumer electronics? The Square terminal with an iPad just seemed to fit when I first saw it. This I wasn’t sure.

In two different hotels in two different countries we saw a beverage dispenser that used an iPad as the interface for it. On the surface it seems pretty ridiculous right? That was my first thought. Then I remembered something I read a while back about the power of these devices. Basically the argument is that lots of devices that once had to be custom designed using embedded chips or custom software could now be done using a commodity device like the iPad and some sensors or add on accessories. In this case the iPad was plugged into a beverage dispensing system. I don’t know how much that rig cost versus an old style machine with a few hard coded buttons. It makes sense that it may actually be cheaper. The iPad is a pretty powerful computer.

Seeing this setup to me seemed ridiculous. I had to try it out. After thinking about it I now have a new perspective and think it may actually be an odd looking but good evolution of the technologies uses.

First Cold Brew of The Season

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It’s warmer out. Much warmer than it should be in April however that’s a different story. With warmer weather i ran out earlier to grab my first Nitro Cold Brew of the season before my next meeting. Of course i shouldn’t have done that prior to a big call. I could feel the caffeine at work as i got on the phone!

The Story Of My New Improved Internet Connection at Home

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This sat in drafts for ages since I originally discussed my internet being down on the 28thof Octobe.   As a follow on to that my DSL provider sent me a new router to install. Between the time they said they would send a new router and when it showed up my internet link started going up and down. At first it was down for 36 hours. Then it came back online however the speed was horrible. I rebooted the router and then it was down again. It came back again after another 30 some hours.  It was still not performing well so I gave up till I got the new router.

On Monday I was supposed to receive the replacement router however it did not show up. It arrived on Tuesday.  I’ve talked about that this DSL line has been flaky from the beginning. It was just generally an annoyance. When I tried to get help the hoops I had to go through weren’t worth the time since if it would go down it would only be down for a minute or two.

Talking with my neighbors they said they had Virgin Media. They also said that the speed was really good. With Cable internet you need to be sure that your specific area isn’t oversubscribed. All the neighbors I checked with were in technology and I trust their usage pattern is is close enough to mine to be happy that Virgin might work. So Saturday after my Internet was down I ordered Virgin cable.

The package arrived Tuesday. In recent memory it was the easiest set up I’ve had to deal with. They sent me a text and said to reply with “go” when I was ready for them to turn on my service. Within five minutes I got a response saying my service should be up. I plugged all the cables in the modem just worked. It wasn’t even screw in coal act cables. It was pushed in. That little feature alone made me happy.

Another added feature for me is that I turned the virgin router into motor mode only. That allowed me to plug in my Asus router be up and running. That switch was flawless.  I now get faster speeds, plus the custom Tomato router I wanted.  It is the ideal setup for now.  Thankfully the switch and setup was straight forward.  I will give my old provider credit also.  Their canceling process was pretty simply.  Now all that has to happen is the line gets canceled without any snags.

W Sisters Short on The TARDIS

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“It is smaller on the outside, and bigger on the inside”. That is A’s explanation of what a TARDIS is to British kid.

The first thought that came to my mind when I heard that was it was very funny and I had to write it down. The second thing that went through my mind was I thought having a working knowledge about Doctor Who was a legal requirement for all British children? My nephew not knowing about it in America is just sad, however a 7 year old in London not knowing about it I thought was illegal.

The Story of Wonky Weather

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This is a post I wrote back in September.  The screen capture is from then also.  it wasn’t 20 C today.  I have had a huge backlog of things I wrote that I never posted.  Then I stopped writing a bit and have been slowly posting things.  Then I just forgot to post stuff.  I have come full circle and want to write again so the first thing I am doing is getting the backlog out.  I felt that this post was appropriate since its like 60 degrees Fahrenheit  in March right now.

I got the impression prior to my move to London that the city has a reputation for being cloudy and wet. After living here for a little while I realised that is a broadly accurate statement. The problem is it’s a wildly broad statement. What I’ve learned is that complaining about the weather almost national pastime in this city.  I was all but told that by more than 2 friends of mine. From their point of view I can understand some of the complaints. Coming from New York however where there is a significantly wider variance of whether you prefer a little bit more of the consistency of England. Even if that means less sun generally.

Everyone is pretty consistent in their assessment that things “get real”when it’s below zero (Celsius).  That is 32 F for Americans. They also comment about the fact that it usually doesn’t get over 25°C or about 77 F in the summer. I have also heard from many people that snow is virtually unheard of. Ironically all the statements I just made are not true this year.  We had a week of snow that basically shut down London even though from my perspective coming from NY it wasn’t much snow.  It was 25-32 C for probably around a month to 6 weeks in the summer.  And because of the heat there was tons of sun.

The rational side of me wants to believe everyone who made the original wild generalisations of the weather here and wonder why this year is different. The other less rational side of me is thinking why am I in the middle of a big deception around the weather in this country?.

Even with the two snowstorms. Well what they consider snowstorms. Even with the few days below zero. And even with 4-6 weeks of heatwave in late June and July I been very comforatable with the weather. The idea of a milder summer and a milder winter compared to what I am used to appeals to me. Problems start to arise when it gets over 25°C, somewhere in the 80s Fahrenheit. That is when air-conditioning would be required in New York. There simply is no air conditioning most places here.  To survive we bought two fans.  On most days we were ok.  Thankfully when I am writing this post in early September the weather has settled down to 20-25 C or mid 60’s to mid 70’s F.  That is kind of perfect.  The rain has come back too but not as bad as in the winter.  Lets face it our lawn needed the water since it was getting pretty brown for a while.