London- Round 2

With free time in hand, we headed back to London. Having been sorely disappointed the last time I visited, I had vowed to make the most of my trip this time. Since I was making the arrangements, I actually booked a very nice hotel right in Trafalgar Square. We planned to arrive in the early evening on Friday and meet my boss’s friend for dinner. Saturday was my free day, which I was going to get up early and see as much as I could before flying out Sunday morning for home.

We had dinner at Gaucho Grill again, which was just as fantastic as the first time I had visited. The rain had let up, and the next day had promised to be even better. And even though I was a “third wheel” for the evening, I had a great time with the girls. We stayed out a bit longer than I would have liked, but I figured a little sleep, a nice breakfast, and my giddiness would overcome anything.

How wrong I was.

I woke up the next morning at 7:30 and went straight for the shower. I felt a little off, but figured I must have had a little more to drink the night before than I thought. It was a little bit of a challenge, but managed to get myself cleaned up and ready to hit the day. After all, I was supposed to meet the girls for breakfast and then start my London adventure. I headed for the dresser and BOOM! Something hit me. All I remember is walking out of the bathroom, seeing the bed, and collapsing into it.

About 4 hours later I regained consciousness, writhing in pain. My stomach was in knots, and I literally felt like the alien was going to pop out of my torso. I managed to roll over and saw my Blackberry on the nightstand with messages waiting. I figured to see the “Where the hell are you?” message, but instead got the “Man down”…my boss was in the same boat.

Both of us spent the entire day going from the bed to the bathroom and back to the bed. The only thing that I’ve ever experienced that was worse was passing a kidney stone. There were times I literally thought I was going to die. Thank god for Pay Per View movies and a concierge that ran out and got us both bottles of Gatorade. Finally about 8pm I started to feel a bit better, but that was short lived once I looked at the room service menu. I was finally able to keep a Snickers I had in my laptop bag down…and that became breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the day.

The next morning, we both felt like someone had punched us in the kidneys. It was difficult to stand upright, let along walk. To this day we still aren’t sure what happened. It could have been food poisoning, but Mo’s friend that went to dinner with us ate the exact same things we did and had no ill effects. The cabbie that took us to the airport said there was a nasty bug that had been floating around, which this could have been as well.

All I know is, it was miserable and even though I’ve been to London twice I’ve really not seen any of the city.

I am seriously upset about that fact. I just hope my UK division starts selling soon so I can justify another trip over there and hopefully see something.

Scotland and the Audi A4 2.0L TDI

After an entire week of back to back trainings, we headed to Glasgow for our last day. I busted out two quick sessions and we were into freetime- yay!

I have had a number of people mention that if given the opportunity, I needed to see the city of Edinburgh. And since this time I was controlling the schedule and arranging the travel and hotels, I made sure we got to do exactly that.

But the problem was getting from Glasgow to Edinburgh. They drive on the left side of the road, and I had never done anything like that before. But I found that Hertz has no problem whatsoever renting to a Yank, so we were on our way. Fortunately we did have the good sense to upgrade to an Audi A4, with an automatic transmission and GPS. (Most rental cars come with a manual transmission, which normally I would adore but given the fact I was driving on the left, the less I have to distract me the better)

The Audi was very comfortable, and very easy to get around in. I only had one minor flub in a parking lot, but took very quickly to driving on the wrong side of the road. The car was extremely quiet and had plenty of oomph to get you where you needed to go. So much in fact, that when I pointed out we were in a diesel to my boss she totally freaked! If we had diesels like this in the States, I’m sure more people would be inclined to go with an oil burner.

We made it with no issues, even when driving in city traffic. And what a city Edinburgh was…I can totally see why people say you must visit. It’s a beautiful city, with a fantastic mix of old and new. Wandering around the city on foot was not a problem whatsoever, and we found a few great places to eat and to drink. Of course the obligatory trip to the castle is in order, however ours wasn’t without it’s quirks. When we had arrived, the weather had been absolutely beautiful. But that can change quickly in a coastal town, as the next morning we were fighting high winds and stinging rain. It was so bad that when we did make it to the castle, they were actually prohibiting the elderly and small children for fear they would blow over. Yes, the wind was that strong! However, the trip was totally worth it. Even though we returned soaked to the bone and freezing cold, I am still happy to report that it was well worth it.

We had spent less than 24 hours in this fine city, but I could tell it was definitely a place to visit. If you ever find yourself heading to the UK, and you have the opportunity, pop up to Edinburgh…you won’t be disappointed.

UK Invasion #2

My return trip to the UK was something that I don’t think I can forget anytime soon. I would be gone for a full week this time, and again traveling all over England and Scotland. The exciting part of this trip was the fact that I actually had built in some free time this time…learning from my last trip that there is so much to see and London can be a fantastic place.

However, this trip did have it’s ups and downs. The first down began before we even left Atlanta- a fuel problem with the airplane caused a 4.5 hour delay before we even left. So a long flight became even that much longer. However, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Because of the delay they served dinner while we were on the ground, so once we were in the air I could just sack out and sleep the whole way. We ate like Vikings, and as soon as the plane was off I was curling up and heading to dreamland. Oh how nice it was- I completely zonked out only to wake up when the pilot announced we were on our decent into Manchester.

Or so I thought.

Evidently my dreamland is more like a vindictive spite-filled hellhole rather than a happy place. I had zonked out…that much was true. But I actually dreamed that I had slept the whole way. After feeling so happy and relived that the ride felt so short, I woke up for real and discovered I still had over 8 hours left.

If I could, I would kick my mind’s ass.

PS- Interesting travel tip. If you ever find yourself flying into Manchester Airport with a connecting flight, make sure you are wearing comfortable shoes. It literally took 45 minutes to walk from our arrival gate to our departure gate. I seriously thought I was going to have to carry my boss at one point, as such a hike after a long ass flight will wear you out very quickly.

Guess Who’s Back?

So…yeah, I’ve been slacking a bit. It’s really nobody’s fault but mine, I guess I really haven’t felt like putting words down recently. I suppose it’s part of the transition from uber-travel man to working stiff. Part of me thinks that anything I would really mention wouldn’t be interesting to anyone.

But never fear. Things are settling down at work a bit which actually frees me up for a bit more travel. And with travel comes adventures…something definitely worth writing about. Stay tuned…for there are good things on the horizon.

The TravelEd $5k challenge

No...you can't win $5,000 from me :)

After things settle down a bit and I sell my Vancouver home, G and I will be in the market for another car. We are looking for a dedicated dog car to haul the pups around in, but something that could be used by friends or family when they come to visit. We've been doing some preliminary searching, but I thought it would be fun to open it up to other suggestions.

Here are the parameters that must be satisfied by your suggestion:

1. Budget of $5,000
2. Must be able to be parked in front of the house without embarrassment
3. Must be able to haul the dogs (2 medium and 1 small)
4. Must be reliable enough to let my parents drive
5. Must be within 500 miles of Atlanta, or you must account for transportation to Atlanta in your budget


This is open to all makes and models, as long as they meet the criteria listed above. So get your thinking caps on...and leave a comment with your suggestions!

GTI Woes

One crappy thing about Atlanta right now is the drought. It's rained a little bit, but we are still in the worst drought in over 100 years. Bad drought = Outside Watering Bad. Outside Watering Ban means no washing the car. No washing the car = Unhappy Ed. So the car has gone about 3 months without being washed, which is driving me nuts. Usually it got a bath about every 3 days...so this is way different.

I'm not particularly happy with the GTI right now. Actually, the car is still running fine, so I can't complain that much. But she's fallen off the pedestal with the "Wyoming" incident, the paint issue on the A pillar and being so dirty. And unfortunately these things seem to attract more bad news.

Last week I was riding around when an overwhelming odor wafted into the cabin. Not smoke, not coolant, not oil...something else. It reminded me of a ski shop for some reason. I looked over at my friend Casey who was riding with me, and his look confirmed that there was definitely something going on. He seemed to think it was electrical, and came up with a brilliant plan if smoke suddenly filled the cabin (Find an autoparts store, run in and grab a fire extinguisher while he explains to the clerk what was going on). We eventually parked and investigated, but couldn't locate the source. But something was for sure- my car wasn't smelling right.

The following day I got under the car as much as I could, and almost instantly located the source: I had run over a plastic grocery bag. It had somehow wrapped around the exhaust in the dead center of the car, completely out of reach. I could jack up the car, but of course the movers didn't pack the blocks I used to raise the car enough to get the floor jack underneath. So I had to wait until I had some time to not only run to Lowe's and by a 2x10, but also have enough light to work on the car.

Finally a week later, I found the time. Got the car jacked up, and sure enough the bag had wrapped around the entire pipe and proceeded to melt...making a two foot long section completely coated in plastic. So I climb under with a die grinder and some sandpaper...and went at it.

Oh...did I forget to mention it was snowing at the time!? Yeah...snowing in Atlanta, on the one day I really needed to be outside rolling around on the ground. And to cap it all off, since it was Saturday morning Car Talk(www.cartalk.com) was on the radio, and some guy had called in because of a funny smell coming from his car. And guess what they said the likely culprit was- a plastic grocery bag.

Someone is mocking me.

Ahhhh....Quiet Time!

It's amazing what can happen when you get some time to yourself and stop running around like crazy. For the last week or two, I've actually lived a fairly normal life- and it's been very nice. I've been able to turn my attention to getting settled in the house.

After only three weeks of bathing in front of a picture window, we finally have curtains in the master bedroom and bathroom. I'm sure the workers building the house next to us appreciate that very much, now that they don't have to look at me naked in the morning anymore.

It was an adventure getting them however. Gayle had picked some out in a Target, but of course they didn't have enough to fit our needs. So did we order more? Nooooooo....why do that when there are 3 Targets in a 5 mile radius of your house. So we started out in one Target with a plan, but insufficient hardware and draperies to complete it. We bought what we could and drove to Target #2, where we found more of the hardware, but no more draperies. On to Target #3, where we completed the hardware requirement but were still lacking on the draperies. So did we give up? Nooooo...purchased a different color, or at least as many as we could. Then back to Target #1 and #2 to get the rest in the new color.

I'm sure the guy at Visa that monitors my account activity was like 'WTF is he doing!?'. But screw him...I have curtains now!

I've also succeeded in clearing out all the boxes from the garage that don't belong there, and unpacking all but 3 or4 of the ones that contain garage stuff. I've cleared enough space to park one car in the garage, and after this weekend and a trip or two to Goodwill I should be able to park both car inside. That right there is a victory in my mind. Not too mention I dug out all my tools and got them organized- another victory. Plus I acquired a crappy fridge to keep in my newly uncluttered garage specifically for the storage of malty brews and fermented grapes. Once I fill it up, that will be a BIG victory! ;)

The inside of the house is starting to come along as well, with a few walls getting a few decorations and some clutter piles getting knocked out. Of course this means I have one room completely full of crap...but at least I know what crap is in there.