Personal

The Story of Our Meet-aversary

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Our Wedding Cake Topper

Today is an important anniversary for me. Today 10 years ago I meet the most amazing lady. I knew from early on that something was different about her. It turned out I was right. 10 years later that superstar is my wife, and we have two awesome kids. We are on our 3rd place together. And second country.

It is like thinking back to another life i lived when i think about all the things that were different before then. Even with all the crazy going on in the world I cannot believe how unbelievably lucky I am to be with M, and have A & T.

Bedtime Stories For Grown-Up’s

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A few years ago I download the app Headspace. I didn’t do much with it at the time. I had tried a few meditation apps and haven’t really done very much with them. About two years ago I decided to really focus on things I could do to calm down and be more focused. I made a leap of faith and spent some money on an discounted annual subscription to headspace. I have been using it ever since. That’s not what I specifically want to talk about in this post. It is just the background.

A friend of mine who I sat next to in the office till about year ago was talking with me one day. He asked if I had the Headspace app. I told him I did. He asked if I’d ever tried their bedtime stories. I had seen them however I had not every tried them. He proceeded to tell me how awesome they were. He summed it up by saying basically you start listening to some story they tell you and wondering what the hell is this. Is this really going to do any thing for me? The next thing you know he said you wake up the next morning surprised that it worked.

Since I already subscribed to the app I figured I would give it a try. For years I have used a white noise machine when I was in New York. Since the machine wouldn’t travel to London I have been using a simulated raining sound from my Amazon Echo. I still figured this wouldn’t hurt to try to get me to sleep.

My friend was right. The first night I tried it my experience pretty much went the way he explained it. I have been using it ever since. There are a bunch of different “Sleepcasts” you could choose from. Some are more appropriate in certain weather or seasons. I do have some favourites. Headspace claims that they are suddenly different each night. And they are different. If you listen to some of them enough and do not goto sleep right away you can tell that much of the difference is that the segments of the story are presented in different orders. There are enough of the Sleepcasts that I like to keep the variety going. The good news is every few months the release three new ones. Almost always I will fall asleep before the story ends. Sometimes if I am unable to sleep I will get to the end and the story will stop. I could tap my phone and say I am still awake and it would play more. I haven’t done that yet. I usually just tried to fall sleep on my own after that. In almost all cases though I don’t make it to the end of the story. There are many nights I don’t remember getting passed the wind down in the very beginning of the story.

The headspace Sleepcasts are now my new Grown-up’s bedtime stories. M thinks I may be using them as a crutch. She does not believe in really using aids to get to sleep. She felt that way with the sleep sounds as well. She is cool with me doing it though. And sometimes is curious to what we will listen to. I do not care how much of a crutch it is if it helps consistently i will keep using it.

The Return of Writing

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A recurring theme for me in my writing is to talk about my writing. I think the reason the topic comes up is I go through a very visible cycle of writing and not writing. Other than periods of lack of motivation I cannot figure out the pattern. There are different ways that I write. The most public being this blog. I also privatly journal. I use an app called Day One. I have for years. I love it. Besides journalling about things I am finding that I use Day One too log where I have gone and what I have done. It easy since you can geo-tag entries and you can also attach photos to them. It paints a good picture of what I’ve done on a day. Even when I have been less consistent sometimes about actually writing about things I have done.

In the past three or four years I have also taken to writing actions in a paper notebook. The intention is to then complete things and check them off on the day. Anything else goes into my electronic task list. I have read that the tactile act of physically writing helps in memory. As much as I like the idea of physically writing it was something that I would only do every now and again. I would go a few days and then stop for long periods of time. Right around the time of the lockdown I started writing actions out on paper more consistently. I know that I started doing it daily after the lockdown. I did try to do it more frequently even before the lockdown. I remember packing my notebook in my book bag I took to go into the office in March.

Through April, May, and June my physical writing consisted of writing out action lists of things I remembered that I needed to do that may or may not have already been in my electronic to-do list. It was my way of clearing my mind of things I was thinking needed done. sometimes the actions were already in my to do list. As I would think of things I would write them down. If I would complete something I would check it off the list. If I didn’t finish it that day I put it on my Trello board (my electronic task list) to work on later I will mark a T where I would normally check the completed action. If I didn’t do the action and I didn’t put it on a Trello board I would simply mark it with an X. I thought it was simple enough.

I have for years had an aversion to paper. When I finished a day of writing in the notebook I would take a picture of it and save the file as a PDF. That way I have all of my actions/notes stored electronically. I still kept the physical notebooks however if I lost them or decided to part with them I had the PDF’s. Sometime along the way in May or June I started adding things I had done already to my daily list. Just as an FYI so I knew it happened. After I started doing that I realised if I have all these PDFs of what I did it is a good indication of what happened on that day. I started adding those PDFs to my Day One journal. The OCD in me later realised after a few weeks that my Day One journal would start getting very large in size. Each PDF file was about 250 kB. I already bloat my journal with photos of things that happen on the day. I wanted to avoid adding about 2 MB of size to the journal a week. My solution was to take the hand written notes and write them out into my daily Day One Journal entry. At first it felt like a good idea. Again the act of writing or typing is good for memory or so I have read. Inevitably I grew tired of it. That daily process evolved then into me dictating out what I had written into Dragon Anywhere. I would then paste the dictation into Day One. The thing with dictating was that it was very easy to do. What I had written was very simple and short since when writing I was trying to limit what I wrote to as little as possible yet still trigger my memory. It was hard to say so few words about the topic since dictating was so easy. I found myself starting to elaborate more on each line that I have written. After a few days that turned into a Complete Journal entry of what went on for the day all be it in bulleted format instead of paragraphs. It was still pretty complete. Instead of having to sit and write free form things I thought about for a daily recap I now had an agenda for me to discuss if I want to.

At the time I am writing this I have been journalling in that way for about two weeks. This week I found that I slacked off a little and had to go back to several days and go through the process. Luckily I was able to recall enough of what’s going on by what I wrote. It feels like that I could go several days and not lose that much detail. Any more than that and it’s probably not worth it. I am liking the new style of writing because I have the notebook with me everywhere and using it gives me that physical touch I don not get with just a phone. I can see myself ditching the paper notebook and doing the same thing in an electronic format. Yet for now I do like the old school approach.

I have been putting my daily writing into moleskine notebooks. I am on my third Harry Potter special edition notebooks. I can get about three months worth into a full notebook. The first two notebooks spanned over a year each. At the time I was not writing in them daily. The one I am on now I hope to fill completely from now until sometime in the autumn.

In the same time I have been journalling more I have neglected my blog entries. It is not a conscious decision. I just don’t give myself enough time to write. Since writing for me is dictating in an app I need a quiet place alone to do it. M has said several times that she is okay with me dictating with her around. I am self-conscious about doing it so I do not. The routine I have gotten myself into lets me take my written bullet point journal and dictate it into a Day One entry takes about 5 to 15 minutes depending on how much I decide to elaborate on what I wrote out. That makes it relatively easy to do every day as long as I remember.

The blog on the other hand requires me to think of what I want to talk about. Then I dictate it. From there I do proof read and edit the entries. I have to make a lot of manual typing since the dictation is nowhere near perfect. For a private journal entry its perfectly fine. For something to publish on the internet it does need work after dictating. Once done writing and editing an entry I need to label it and find a suitable photograph to go along with the post. Then it is figuring out what I will post next. I know that I sometimes write a lot and then not at all for long periods of time I limit my posts to once a week. The big question that comes up in my mind when writing something such as this post is how long the lead time between when I write something and when I publish it. In some cases that has been months.

As of the Autumn 2020 this is my process. Since I wrote this post in late summer my process has changed a bit. Since marking that update in the Autumn of 2020 I am still loosely following the same pattern. Before that changed I figured I should finally post this entry before it has its own birthday. I am glad that I am keeping with the routine!

The Story of My Chuck Taylor Dilemma

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If you know me now you may have noticed that most of the time I am wearing trainers (aka sneakers). Specifically Converse Chuck Taylors. Surprisingly it is a relatively new phenomenon for me. It was only maybe five years ago that I started wearing them.

When i first started wearing Chucks they were not that comforatable. I tried insoles and they were ok. I was about to stop wearing them when Convese announced their Chuck Taylor II’s. They claimed they would be even more comfortable. I was curious. I could not wait unitl they came out. When they did i got bought a pair. They were very comfortable. I ended up buying pairs in several colours, both high and low top. From then on that was pretty much what I would wear everyday.

I ended up buying about three colours in each of the hightop and the low top variant. I like the hightops for work and the low’s are easier to get on and off when I am home and out with the kids. So I own several pairs.

Since I have several I don’t wear any one pair down very quickly. Right before we moved to London I think I had to replace one pair for the first time in a few years. When I did so it was no problem to get a new one.

Last fall i had two pairs of hightops that had the souls start ripping. They needed replacement. When I went online to buy replacements I was confused not to see the Chuck II’s anywhere. What I did not know was that the Chuck II line of shoes was cancelled after about a year or so of production. Apparently diehard fans were not a fan of the new look. The look was not bad for me. The big deal was that they were much more  comforatable than the traditional model. When I previously bought replacements they must still have just had stock of them. Now no one had them.

I tried the Converse one Star as an alternative. I wasn’t too happy with the way they looked however I needed something so I tried them. They were not comfortable at all. It was a total waste of money from me.

Then I tried what are used to do before the Chuck II’s came out. That was purchase a regular pair and put an insole in them. It was what I did to the dress shoes that I used to wear before wearing the sneakers to work. Oddly after wearing the really comfortable cushion on the Chuck II’s the same insoles were not as comfortable anymore. I did force myself to wear that one test pair with the insole for a while. I am still wearing it and they are totally fine however not nearly as comfortable as I used to have. I could buy more of those however I was trying to find other alternatives before I did that.

My next step was to go to eBay where I was surprised to find a half way decent selection of gently used Chuck II’s. I was hesitant on buying that sort of used stuff on ebay. The prices were super cheap so I gave one a try. They turned out to look exactly like the picture and were in fantastic shape. It was like they were never used. I was able to buy one or two more like that however then the supply dried up. I realise I needed to find a better long-term option. Since I was totally over thinking my solution at this point i continued my investigations.

In my research I keep coming across comments about the Chuck Taylor 70. People had said that they were definitely more comfortable than the originals.  Some people were also comparing them to the II’s that i had. Then one or two people said they probably were not as comfortable but close. Since I was running out of options I decided to buy one pair of the Chuck Taylor 70’s high tops. I was hoping to see how they fit.

The first pair I got was definitely way too big. I bought the same size I wore in my other chucks. I quickly returned them back to converse. I then went looking for 1/2 size smaller of the same shoe. I could not find it anywhere in stores. Most stores didn’t even have this model at all. I finally did find one store that had them in stock. Unfortunately they were only one size smaller. The sales clerk said they don’t stock half sizes. I tried the one size smaller and it was too small. With that information I rolled the dice and ordered the half-size smaller than the original one I bought online.

When it arrived, I realize it fit a little bit too big. I decided that would work good enough since the full size smaller was too small. I have been wearing this pair for a while now. I even took it as my only pair of shoes on a week long holiday. I can’t say for certain if there as comfortable as the II’s. They are comfortable enough that I can use them as my day-to-day shoe. Since I was able to buy a few cheap pairs of the II’s on eBay I haven’t had a need to buy any new 70’s beyond the first pair I bought. At least I know now that when another pair wears out I have an option for replacement.

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.

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.

London Mug Mark III Lives For Now

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After the untimely demise of London Mug Mark II M looked and found the name of who makes the mug. An easy search on the internet found a place selling the exact mug. About £20 later I ordered the replacement. I didn’t even have to go to Heathrow for this one like I did for the Mark II. The mug arrived right before our holiday (in February). This post is late getting published.

Hopefully Mark III has a longer shelf life than Mark II at 4 years or Mark I at under 2. If we are aging these thinks with a half life that means Mark III could last 8 years!

My IT Skills In The Real World

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I was able to use rule number one I learned when starting out in IT when trying to troubleshoot a stove with M. Turning it off and on again fixes everything. Seriously never question a hard reboot’s effects on anything.

The Story of My Complex Relationship With The Old Fashioned

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There was a time long ago (2-3 years ago) when I did not like the taste of a good old fashioned  . Let’s call that time in my life BOF (Before Old Fashioned). I recall ordering one or two at bars and not really liking them. Then one January a few years ago on our anniversary M and I went to Jean George’s. I remember the night because I got there early or on time. M and I were both coming from work so we did not travel together. Side note the subway was messed up and M does not give herself any leeway in travel time.  Those factors and the fact that I generally am too early to things added up to me waiting about 20 to 30 minutes before M joined me.

While I was waiting at the bar I figured I was at a three-star Michelin rated restaurant so I assumed they can make pretty good cocktails. Up until that point I have had bad luck with old fashioned’s. They just didn’t taste quite right to me.  I did want to give it a few tries before I made my decision on if I like them or not. So I ordered one and drank it while waiting for M. The verdict was I still did not like it. At the time that last bad experience settled the drinks fate. It was off my list of things I would drink.  Or was it?

Flash forward a few years and I tried one again. My memory is fuzzy on the circumstances. I think it was we were at M’s friend Joe’s in Maine. The prior year he made me a fantastic Manhattan. So much so that I started making them myself the way he did it.  Wow those are strong but yummy.. The next time we saw him I believe he made an old-fashioned.  When he made it for me it was really good and I enjoyed it. So much so that when I was out with friends from work I started trying to order them again. It was still hit and miss in the beginning but after that I got really into them.

I started mixing them at home. The old fashioned are more complex and time-consuming to make than my favorite sidecar. I made them anyway. The first time I ran out of the ingredients to make the old-fashioned I forgot what it was that I originally had bought. I turned to the Internet to see what good bourbon to use for the drink. I found a couple of review sites that talked about the best bourbons to use in the drink. I then took the two top suggestions and went to the local liquor store to see if they had them. They had both options however for some reason I said I’m gonna buy the second best one. I can’t remember why.  I think the description better suited me.. It wasn’t like one was that much better than the other. They just had different reasons for liking one over the other. And that’s how I started mixing drinks with the Four Roses.

When I would be out and ordering an old-fashioned at a bar some of the better places would ask what I wanted it made with. It used to be I never knew a good answer for that.  Then I started asking what the suggested options were. That’s when I realized I had picked a delicious choice because many of the places I went to with good bars would have the four roses as a choice. After a while when asked what I wanted the drink made with I would specifically ask for that.  Then every so often i would get a “good choice” reply.  It was nice that something i liked made me sound like i knew what i was talking about.  I really do not know what I am talking about.

Somewhere along the way in my old-fashioned drinking experience I was introduced to the maple old-fashioned. It was super delicious. It basically replaces the simple syrup,  sugar, and water of a regular old-fashioned and replaces it with maple syrup. It was a simple Google search or in my case duck duck go search and I had the ingredients and how to make the drink. It was significantly easier to prepare and almost more delicious.

I thought I found a new goto drink that i could make at home.  Side Cars are good and easier than a regular old fashioned however if i do it the way i like it with the sugar on the glass it gets messy and takes a little longer.  To have an easier option would be great.  I made a few of the maple old fashioned at home. In the same general time frame I was waking up with migraines now and again. That’s rare for me. I was curious what the trigger was. After a little while I thought the trigger might have been the Maple old-fashioned. It is a lot of sugar. Some foods can be trigger so I got really scared.  Migraines are not something I mess around with so that stopped my buying or mixing this cocktail cold.

That didn’t stop me from making or buying regular old-fashioned. I just make them less often since they are a pain to do.  When we got to to London I didn’t have the same ingredients to make the original ones I liked the cube sugar that M had bought so I at the time thought stupidly to roll the dice and had M get some maple syrup. After the first attempt i was ok.  So i tried them again.  I was still ok.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could drink them and be okay. No trigger made me very happy so I was back on making these delicious beverages.

This brings me to what inspired me to write what turned into this very long post. I had a finite supply of Four Roses.  A big positive of London vs New York is you can go anywhere and get liquor.  The local market we use has.  Getting a good selection of higher end liquor is more of a challenge.  Some suggestions given to me did not pan out.  I turned to Amazon almost just to check for funzies.  Turned out they had what i wanted.  Amazon had a decent selection so I not only got the Four Roses I wanted I now have a new goto place to order any nicer stuff i may want to buy.

Next up for me is finding a new cocktail to master.