scott

4th of July BBQ London Style

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M originally had plans for last night. She changed them / they got moved. That gave her an opportunity to BBQ. This was a first for her. We do not have a fancy BBQ grill however that didn’t stop my superstar M. For under £3 she picked up a one time use BBQ thing and grilled up hot dogs and hamburgers.

The girls had a play date and hung by the pool in the garden and then had BBQ. For desert M even had a red, white, & blue (strawberry, whipped cream, & blueberry) desert with ice cream. With the perfect weather this was an unexpected fantastic evening with the family. And if you look close enough you can see the Batman plate I used (thanks to A for liking DC comics)

I am glad that even with 30 minute delay on the Tube i was able to home just in time for the start of the grilling.

Independence Day or In England We Call It Wednesday

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Happy Birthday America.  Pictured in this post is me prior to moving to England.  My brother in law bought me that shirt since he wanted me to remember the country I come from.  At time of writing this post I am not sure if i am going to wear this shirt today.  That is the plan however.

Now I need to find a good place for BBQ for lunch.  I am pretty sure there will not be any fireworks for us today.

Underground vs Subway Showdown Part 2: Reliability

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I am a tech guy so of course in part one of my Tube vs Subway showdown i was going to talk about Payment systems. In Part 2 I focus on reliability or how bad can a system get. Let’s find out.

The New York City subway is not what most people would call reliable. I remember countless mornings where I would take the local train after dropping the kids at school because the express train was taking as long or longer. On the local I would at least get a seat. Other times I would count 5 to 7 trains in one direction before the train I needed showed up. This was in Penn Station and not some remote location mind you. In many other cases sitting in a tunnel for 30 to 45 minutes with no explanation as to why. Then doing that again the next day. And again a few days later. This was a regular thing when living in Forest Hills. Hopefully for those not living in New York you get the point. The subway is slow, and prone to incidents. How can anyone explain to me why an express train regularly is slower or maybe equal to a local when the express skips 5 stops?

Besides the delays there was the construction. When I lived in Long Island city for 8 to 12 weeks of winter I wouldn’t have a train on the weekend direction. That might not fall under reliability category however it wasn’t available when I wanted it so….. I also know that the underground may be similar in that there are sections that get shutdown for construction. Thankfully for now i have not experienced this.

Local friends in London have said I should be wary of the underground with regards to service and reliability. We were looking for a house in November we had to radically change our plans to get to the airport because one of the underground lines was down. Besides that incident and a few other minor ones I have not had as many issues as in NY. I cannot stress enough how regular the issues were in NY. In London so far the train arrival time boards seem relatively accurate. I just don’t feel like I’m stuck in a tunnel as much on the underground.

One area unreliability that I do have an issue with the underground is strikes. For this arbitrary comparison i will put strikes in the reliability category. Twice so far I’ve been living here.DLR has not been running for a few days due to strikes. I’ve also experienced an underground strike when I was here for business a few years ago. I will say this that the strikes are relatively orderly. They are pretty frequent compared to the New York City subway. The subway on the other hand does not strike very often. When it does it’s terrible. You also don’t know when it will end.

Score another one for the underground. It’s just more reliable. This isn’t even a close one.

That is it for Part 2 of my Underground vs Subway showdown. In Part 3 I talk about all of you people when I complain, um I mean compare the crowds in each system.

Shared Goals Makes Everything Better

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If I wrote a business book the title I think would be “Shared Goals Makes Everything Better” How to Reduce Friction and Get Things Done In Cross Functional Teams.

I came up with that while having a conversation with someone at work. I find it pretty funny because it could be (maybe should be) a real book. I do believe shared goals do make everything better.

Now all I need is some semi interesting buzz word jumbled together and I can be the next David Allen. One can dream.

Candy Floss, Seriously?

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I have been trying to embracee the terms used in my new home.  M sometimes makes fun of me because of it.

Sometimes you have to adapt.  If i asked around for a bathroom people would likely not help because they dont know what i mean so I adapt and use Loo or Toilet.  I keep remembering i need to call what i know as pants, trousers.  if i call them pants people will think i am talking about what i know as underwear.  so adapting is necessary a lot of times.  When you start talking like that you continue to use the terms even at home or when you don’t need to.  That is when i get the funny comments from M sometimes.

As we learn the right terms we also adapt.  Many terms i knew already, like lift vs elivator or toilet vs bathroom.  Others I didn’t know like popsicle vs lolly.  Lolly makes sense to me so when M told me about it i was like ok, noted.  Then there is the stuff that doesn’t make much sense to me.

M said that cotton candy is candy floss.  I was like WTF?  It didn’t make much sense to me.  As of writing this it make a little more sense than when I originally heard it but still not much.  I have a few other translations i noted I want to write about.  This one however popped in my head when i had a few minutes to write.

Now I am off to get a chocolate Lolly and pondering how unhealthy candy floss is.

Mojitos Box is Open

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Mixology Tiki Bar

I keep forgetting we have fresh mint in our garden. Finally M reminded me while we were out so i could remember to get fresh Lime and club soda so I could try making Mojitos. We love them and it is one of the drinks i have been meaning to try at home. Our first two test drinks were both pretty good.

That means that Pandora / Mojitos box is open. I am told and can independently confirm we have a good supply of mint in the garden so my only limiting factor is how many limes we have on hand.

Now I have a good use for our Tiki glasses. Next up is trying to make Pims now that i got real British lemonade.

Underground vs Subway Showdown Part 1: Take My Money

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While I am still settling into writing routine I figured I would start off with some comparison posts. I know its a bit cliche to do comparisons. I also know people who have moved countries say you shouldn’t really do it if you want to enjoy your new home better however with some things my mind just goes to comparisons. And no comparison between New York and London would be complete I feel without talking about the subway and the Underground. FYI I refer to the Underground a lot in this post. I do that instead of saying the Tube mainly because my Dragon Anywhere dictation had trouble getting Tube correct in all the different contexts I was using. I really mean the Tube and the DLR in my comparison since I use both systems daily.

Payments

The Underground and the subway are in some ways similar and yet are so starkly different. First difference between the systems that stands out for me how you pay. In New York the subway is a flat rate to go anywhere. You can also purchase a daily, weekly, monthly unlimited card. The flat rate of the unlimited cards were pretty awesome. That is where the awesome ends with the Metro Card. You see for those of you that do not live in NY the Metro Card requires you to use a magnetic strip reader that was semi new and cool when introduced in the mid 1990’s. Ah the aggravating memories of having to stand at a turnstile swiping my card 15-20 times before it would work. Or swiping it 15-20 times only to have it say just used when you did not just use it because you were standing there for 5 minutes trying to get the dam card to work. Wow, I just had bad flashbacks about that. That is just two typical issues I had with my Metro Card.. I sum up the Metro Card experience by saying it is 1990s technology that has not aged well. At present there’s only a rough roadmap to replace the system.

The underground on the other hand you pay based on where you are and where you’re going to. I get the reasons for this however in practice it costs me more. Payments on the underground are contactless. I had the oyster card when I visited for moving here. On the last trip or two visiting I realized I could use my iPhone with Apple pay to tap into and out of the system. Since I’ve been living in London I have an Apple watch series 3 and now am able to make payments via my watch.

Head-to-head contactless payments for the Underground wins. Even if it costs a bit more money the Metro card is crap. I had countless issues with it. The simple fact that I can pay for my trip using my watch will win anytime.

In Part 2 of The Underground vs Subway I will ponder why in the world stuff breaks so much on 100+ year old infrastructure.