New Years Eve/Day

We were invited to spend New Year’s Eve with some our new Expat Friends Sarah and Keith.

With our two kids you defiantly need a game plan if you think you can get them to be in any sort of good mood in order to last the duration of the evening. Run them ragged in the morning, let them sleep in the afternoon, and then let the chill out late at night. This works pretty well I have to say, as when they get tired they are REALLY grumpy and not at all fun to be around.

Armed with the works Android Phone, (strictly for testing purposes of course) I entered in the Address to the Google Navigation application. The phone is worth getting for this alone. It’s like a SatNav, but you get a satellite view, and a street view of where you are meant to be going. V Cool!

We arrive at about 7:30 and there was a party going on…just at a different house. My darling wife, Sarah was trying to find the invite on the phone to make sure we had the right address. Is it at the quiet house with no lights on or the house with all the cars parked outside?... too late, Zack had pressed the bell on the house that was quiet. The door opened and there stood our new Expat friend Sarah.

“We are all downstairs” she said. We take our coats off and continue downstairs to the cellar. As I am writing this I am probably not painting a very good picture of their house. Believe me when I say their house is beautiful. VERY Beautiful… and massive! You know those show homes you get?… Imagine that but on a grander scale. There were little Christmas trees on the path up to the front door, and where you walk into the grand entrance there was a life size Santa by the door. There were classy Christmas decorations all over the house (not the “it’s a gift” tat that you might see elsewhere). This place should be on MTV cribs!

We continued downstairs to the games room/pool room/gym/bar. This place was massive (in fact probably twice the size of our apartment).

…when I grow up I want to…

As the night went on, they had pub quizzes and games building up to the of the ball dropping. Just in case you didn’t know there is a big twinkly ball in Times Square in New York that gets raised up and drops at the stroke at midnight to bring the New Year in. This was the first time I had been with both kids (awake) to bring the New Year in.

I spent most of the time propping up the bar, but I was designated driver. :0( I suppose it was my turn. One thing I would say about USA is that because everyone drives everywhere, you need to have a designated driver most of the time. Either that or know a cab company, and expect to remortgage your house to get home.

I have to say it was one of the best New Years parties I been to in ages.

Thank You Sarah and Keith, if you are reading this.

Snow comes crashing down

What a day! Yesterday it started snowing again. It snows quite a bit compared to the UK, but every time it has snowed so far I have been at work and not been able to play in the snow with the kids. The plan was to go to Wal-Mart to buy a sledge (or sled as you need to describe it here) and a snow shovel. I love Wal-Mart it is bright and you can get everything you want at a reasonable price.

There is a park just behind the store that has some cool slopes to play on too! Result!

We all get in the car and take a gentle cruise across to the other side of the road to the park. The snow plough hasn’t been in this bit so it is a little more difficult to see the road, but there are plenty of tire tracks to let you know where to drive. At the bottom of this hill there is a bridge to the top car park. We gently trundle across it and get an idea of where we could go sledging later on.

Back down the hill we go…

At all of 8 miles an hour, I see another car crossing the bridge… I turn the wheel… the car doesn’t change direction… I apply the brakes… the car doesn’t reduce speed… I want to not slam into this car… the car doesn’t listen… BANG!

Shite!


My Car


His Car

The corner of my car has hit the corner of his. The corner of his car looks quite dented… the corner of mine has disintegrated. Everyone was OK, in both cars.

Sarah picked up the bits smashed car from the floor as not to drive over them and get a puncher too. She put these in the back of our car while waiting for the police to turn up. I have to say that I was very surprised at the speed they got there. Considering the snow and all, the officer met us just four minutes after the accident.

I was really glad that I had an Indiana driving license and vehicle registration with the insurance documentation there with me. I can only imagine what it would have been like with a UK license, International driving permit and temporary plates!

My poor car limped home with fog light dangling inched from the road. 4 weeks from new before wracking a car… now that has to be a record! At least it feels like my car now. I’m not used to having a car that is not damaged!

Once we got back to the apartment it started snowing again. I need to fix this thing as best I can, as the last thing I need is snow getting snow in the hole where the light & bumper used to be. After assessing the damage it became quickly apparent that I need duck (gaffer) tape and super glue.

Back to Wal-Mart I go/limp. I hate Wal-Mart with those glaring lights and tons of stuff you will never want… “Duck tape & super glue… HOW MUCH!... bloody rip off” I hate this place!

“Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart. Have a nice day” – oh p**s off.

I get back home and the snow is really coming down now. Using the bits of car that Sarah picked up I start putting together the 3D jigsaw of my car bumper.



Have you ever wondered “does duct tape lose its stickiness in sub-zero temperature?” Let me tell you. YES! I’m carefully pushing bits of plastic together and painstakingly putting superglue around the edges and gluing them back together. I say painstakingly, as I’m actually gluing my fingers to the car and ripping them away before it sets to quickly. It definitely is my car now. It has layers of my skin glued to it! I’m sure it would hurt if I could feel my hands. After 2 hours in the cold I come in to defrost, bringing the drivers light with me. That will be my 3D puzzle game when the kids are in bed later.



I finally did get to play with Katie in the snow. She loved it! We walked about a half mile circuit of our housing community, and when we go back to the beginning, our footprints were snowed over!

Once the kids were in bed I manage to put together the driver front light pretty well. I think it helped that I had some extra bits from the other guys car. Screw it! I have glue those on as well. The more the merrier. I now have borg-like headlights!

I have just finished getting the superglue from my fingers. I found the best way to remove it is with a razor blade.

Yet again I find myself looking in the mirror (while shaving the palms of my hands) thinking how do you get yourself in these situations?

Ice Skating

As the kids had done all their jobs for the week, it was time from a treat. This week it was Ice Skating at the Pepsi Coliseum. Based at the Indiana State Fairground, the Pepsi Coliseum is a very nice art deco building that houses the ice skating rink.

The kids had never been ice skating before, so were a little wary about getting on the ice. Once Zack realized that you couldn’t actually fall through the ice he grew a little more confident, but preferred to hold on to the side. I haven’t been skating in donkey’s years but I tried to act as if I knew what I was doing to encourage the kids to keep on skating.

There were some traffic cones that children were using to hold on to keep their balance, while pushing along with their feet. Zack soon gave up and decided it would be more fun to lift his feet up on to the base of the cone and then be pushed by me. I didn’t mind, at least he was moving and enjoying it.

Unfortunately he got bored quickly and decided he would rather watch the skating rather than actually do it. Katie (my future rollercoaster buddy) on the other hand loved it. She will try anything… she’s fearless! All was going well until her feet started to hurt. That is the sign to drop everything and let her rest. Believe me it is better for, well, society in general!

She took off her skates and decided to get some ice cream dippin dots. This is very weird stuff as it is like hundreds and thousands but ice cream!

While Sarah and kids were getting changed, I thought I would have a go on my own. “Come on knees you can take it”. I take it slow and try and get away from doing the small tripping action and progress to a more “glidey” movement that lets me go faster with less effort “Leeeeefffffftttttt… rrrriiigggghhhhtttt… this was going well. I’m not holding onto anything. I’m looking pretty good… Wow this is quite easy.” Just as I am getting up confidence, a 10 year old kid skates past me… going backwards. He cuts me up giving me no option other than to slam into the side of the wall. Little bugger!

Needless to say I called it a day at the ice rink!

That's a SIRIUSly good present

Happy Christmas everyone!

It took 4 hours to wrap everything from start to finish (so Santa tells me), but it took approx 12mins to unwrap everything. Next year I might let the kids have a go at unwrapping them.

Although we didn’t go out, it was a very nice day where we spoke to all of our families via skype. Obviously it is not the same as the real thing, but it is good to know that they can see and hear us at a drop of a hat… (after a fiddle of wires.. unplug it.. reboot the machine… ring technical support).

My favorite present was the Sirius (XM) radio and subscription I got. One thing I have really missed here is to wake up to commercial free radio. If you like country music, lots of talking or adverts every 3 minutes, then you are on a winner. The closest thing they have here to decent radio is i94 or radio now, but they have a play list of about 6 songs that go round and round.

I can now get BBC Radio 1, delayed by 5 hours so that when the DJs do a time check is the correct time here. It is defiantly money well spent!

I’m king of the Castleton

Christmas Eve and I have the day off. Sarah wanted to do shopping at the Castleton Mall, while I look after the kids. Dan told me a few weeks ago that there is a play area near there that you can go to that has bouncy castles and ball pits etc. I dropped off Sarah and then drove to the end of the car park and did a Google search for “play area Castleton”. It came back and said the play area was in the mall itself.

As it turns out, it was more of an indoor soft area where kids can run in circles, rather than ball pits etc. It didn’t really matter, as the kids loved it… that saved a few quid!

In the evening we went around to Kevan & Angela’s for a quick drink, and then followed them on to Chris & Tracey’s house for the party. We had a great time and met chatted to quite few of the different expats there. It was also good that there were so many kids there as we could leave Zack and Katie to their own devices.

Thanks everyone, if you are reading this!

RIP Mark Knight

Today has been a bit of a shocking day. I could talk about the snow and the fact that they cleared the roads within an hour, but instead I want to write a few lines about Mark Knight.

Mark Knight was a friend I knew growing up who passed away today. He was just a year or so older than I. I knew him mainly from the 6th Northampton Boys Brigade where he was always a key figure. He would always be up for a laugh and would make you feel welcome where ever you may meet.

As my life went on, we went our separate ways. I left Northampton and went to the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, returned to Northampton and now live in Indiana in the USA. Whenever I did bump into Mark, it would seem we would just pick up where we left off, as if no time had passes at all. In my experience, there are very few people you can do this with, as some friends look at you as if you were someone they used to know once-upon-a-time. We lost contact a little while ago and found each other on facebook again, and the banter picked right up again.

I will remember Mark as a key figure in the BB (in my day), the biggest Liverpool FC Fan and an absolute top bloke.

RIP Mark Knight. You will be greatly missed!

ihope?

I’m trying to make the most of weekends as it seems that the weekdays are quite long and I don’t get back until quite late sometimes. Also wanting the kids to help around the house, we now have a “responsibility chart” where they have stickers for tasks they needs to carry out such as: make bed, do homework, take out the trash (yes I said “trash”).

As the kids had done their jobs all week, for a special treat, they decided that they wanted to go to ihop (International House of Pancakes)… Although as far as I am aware they only have branches in the USA… Not quite sure how that works.

We turn up to the restaurant at around 2pm. It turns out that it never shuts. I suppose it is a bit like little chef. I mean you wouldn’t go there on a date… but you would go there if you were really hungry… or... well hung-over.

Sarah and I had the pancakes & eggs while the kids decided to share a smiley face pancake for dessert and chicken with fruit salad for the savory. I think I missed the memo on fruit being savory, but as it seemed to be a fairly healthy option, I shut my mouth and went with it.

When our food came out they bought it out all at once. I found out later that this is pretty standard practice here. If you order all at once you get all the food all at once (regardless if you want it then or indeed if it actually fits on the table).

The kid’s hot pancake arrived with the shape of a happy face drawn on it with whipped cream. My kids take their time eating, (unlike me). As they gently ate their way through their first course, the cream started to melt on their second course. As I ate my dinner, this pancake face just sat there looking at me slowly melting. The once happy face of the pancake now had a melted so the smile turned down at the sides, looking at me as to say “you disgust me, filling you face with your high fat, low fiber incredibly sweet dessert…. Just look at yourself!.. ya fat bas**rd.” OK, maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me that this may not be the most health of places to eat.

Don’t worry though! I helped eat his face to teach him a lesson! The judgmental git!

Is this Paradise? Is it? Is it really?

At lunchtime today I wanted to get out and stretch my legs. I asked everyone in the office if they fancied going out to get some lunch. There is a place at the bottom of the chase building (which is the tallest building in Indianapolis) called Paradise.

You kind of slide your tray along the side and build up you meal as you go… a bit like you would at a motorway service station. When you first get into the line it has two directions, one for sweet pastries and things and another for salads and sandwiches. I think you have to line up twice if you want to have a savory and a dessert…. its bit weird really. It is quite an up market place so I was quite surprised with the response when asking for a caser salad.

Behind the glass the other side of the counter was a little Hispanic lady asking what I would like. As I looked through the glass at all the lovely things I could hear my tummy start to rumble in anticipation. I pointed at one of those posh Cesar salad photos (you know being healthy and all). Instead of putting together a nice salad with the ingredients in front of her, she picked up a bucket of pre-torn lettuce leafs. With the action a vet would use to help deliver a calf, she reaches in shoulder deep and scrapped the last few leafs from the bottom and dumped in into a plastic dish, and sprinkles a bit of parmesan cheese on top. Nice!

“Do I get any kind of dressing with it?” – I say with true disappointed way.

“Yes” – she says and reaches up across all the nice ingredients to a small pot off dressing…. but she can’t reach. I would pass it to her but there is glass there so I can’t get at it. She then squats down behind the counter and returns with some tongs, jumping and reaching like a little kid. Still not being able to reach, she then turns over the bucket where my salad came from up-side-down, and stands on it, and da daaar! She reaches it... just as her necklace dangles right in the salsa dip in front of her… and splashes back in her cleavage. Hmmm nice.

I just think to myself “That’s it… just rub it in, it’s not as if you have a whole line of people watching you”

Needles to say I won’t be going there again for a while.

Stay on or get off… what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO HOTSHOT?

This week I haven’t been car pooling as Dan is on vacation this week. (Vacation NOT holiday... there is a difference!) As I have been driving myself I thought it would be good to see if there was a quicker way to go… that and I have a great sense of adventure. Basically there are two straight forward ways to get to work. “Meridian” that has lots of big picturesque houses, trees and stuff… two lanes quite and few traffic lights and “Keystone” which is commercial heaven! McDonalds, Starbucks, Macys, Subway, Arbys, McDonalds, Starbucks, Macys, Subway, Arbys, McDonalds, Starbucks, Macys, Subway, Arbys… you get the idea, but this has lights and 3 lanes.

I have been wanting to try the freeway that goes around Indianapolis (I guest this is more like the Indy equivalent to the M25… but it moves). I tried doing this earlier in the week and the SatNav women kept redirecting me back to Meridian no matter how many times I tried to get off.

At the moment I am developing websites for phone applications… and for testing purposes I have a “Motorola Android Phone” that has Google maps to direct you where you are going. This will give the SatNav woman a run for her money. I say take me home and it plots a course… via the freeway! Yay! Let’s do this thing. Off I go following the phones directions. It finds me the Freeway and its telling me the right directions.

All is going well until I lose the phone signal. Where am I? This is not a question to ask when you have to pick which lane you want… especially when there are 9 of them! It is a very odd thing. In the UK if you want to get off you enter the slip road on the right. Easy! Here, your exit could be on the right or the left. Stay on? Get off? Speak to me... c’mon Andriod you stupid thing! I headed for Chicago and hoped for the best.

In the end I had to make a “legal stop” and grovel to the SatNav woman to get me home… She knew I needed her and I’m sure she won’t let me forget it.

It's all about the delivery

I have bought furniture many times before in the UK. I remember the last time I bought a load of stuff from "a well known swedish furniture store" that needed to be delivered I got asked “When do you want it… next Thursday or a week next Monday?” Well, I won’t be able to be there to let you in on Thursday so a week on Monday I guess. “Certainly that will be £300 delivery, plus the £150 storage fee for the week… which now costs you more than the furniture you are buying. We won’t be able to tell you what time of day, but we will be happy to post a note through your door saying we called and you were out!” – Bloody rip off.

You finally get it home and you need a good 5 hours to assemble the bloody thing!

Does any of this sound familiar?

Today we finally bought a bed, drawers, dresser, mirror, headboard, bed and bed-frame from American Freight. “When would you like it delivered?” says the sales guy (when he is not complementing me on my accent). “Erm, soon as possible” I say expecting it to be 3 weeks from next Wednesday. “How about between 5-7pm this afternoon?” he says like it’s no big deal. “Sure, that would be great” I say.

Cut to 5pm when I get a call from the driver saying her will be there in 15mins… Result! Two big (very polite) guys come and drop it all in our bedroom. “Is it difficult to assemble?” I say not knowing what to expect when opening the boxes. “All you need is a screw driver to put the handles on the front of the drawers and your all set." That’s it! No matching point A with point B.

I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep on a bed that I don’t have to keep filling up with air!

To recap, from looking at it in the store, to it being fully assembled in our bedroom 3.5 hours!

Surely everyone knows what parse the Parcel is!

Surely everyone knows what parse the Parcel is!

So today it was our office party and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I have been to one or two office parties in the past ranging from one in an all expenses paid castle with an open bar (where I was close to falling asleep in a massive leather chair by the fire with a whiskey in my hand) to a casino night where a couple I and a couple of the people I was with ended up gate crashing a club and getting back home around 4:30am. (You know who you are… and it was a great night!)

This was my first American office party. It was to start at 4pm and everyone was invited. Unfortunately Zack wasn’t feeling too well and in the end Sarah and the kids didn’t join me. :0(

The food arrived in the morning and started getting dished out right from the start. There was loads of it. (So much in fact, we were eating it the next day… even after taking some home at the end of the day) We sat and stuffed our faces with and chatted. The odd thing was that because there are two offices, this was the first time that some of the people had actually met each other. Since I have been working here, there has been three new staff hired. I really felt like it was a getting to know you session. I must say this is probably the most some of us have chatted ever! Generally it is a very quiet environment where most people (myself included) focus on what they are doing and listen to their own music etc with head phones on.

Once we had all eaten, we all had a toast and moved the furniture into a big circle. Once we had cleared the way, presents of all shapes and sizes were brought into the middle of the room. I’m not kidding, there were loads. They were put there as part of the game.

There is a shaker with 4 dice in it. If you get a double number then you get to pick up a gift. If you open the gift then it can be snatched. If the next person rolls a double number then they can either pick a gift from the middle or snatch yours from you. You keep going until there are no gifts left. If there is anybody who hasn’t rolled a double, the people with 3 or more gifts have to put the ones they like least in the middle again. If there is not enough, people with 2 gifts have to put there’s in the middle. Once everyone has a gift, there is one last shake of the dice each where you can swap one of yours with someone else’s. Tactically, I think the best thing is if you are last, as that way you will always pick something you want. I did pretty well out of it, but felt it would be right to swap my back massager, with Steve, as he was in a car accident a few days ago and seem to be in quite a bit of pain still.

I really enjoyed it, but it seemed to come to end quite quickly. I know it started at 4pm, but by 8:30ish people were making a move to go home. I imagine this is because the average commute to work is around 50 minutes… and you can’t get too drunk. It was Dan’s turn to drive to work so I took advantage and had a few beers. (Thanks Dan if you are reading this).

When I first got here I was told that when you are invited out to… wherever, it is quite norm to have a start and finish time. Back in the UK, (from my experience) it was more a case of a start time and a “struggling to keep conscious, so better make a move” time.

It probably is a good thing, but I do enjoy the long haul drinking sessions, where you can take it easy and chill, rather race then burn out… not that I was… you understand.

DHS > i766 > DSS >SSN > NUMI > BMV > WTF! its BS

My god its cold! -7°C The day before yesterday we work up to snow, and today it has started again but with a really strong wind. Bear that in mind when I tell you about today.

Yesterday I got my new Credit Card. So what right? Getting a credit card here is a big deal. If you don’t have credit you get charged over the odds regardless if what to get a loan or mortgage. Even getting a mobile phone contract you have to put money down long before you are allowed to use the service. AT&T for example wanted to charge me $400 per line (one for me and one for Sarah) due to a poor credit rating. And with this you don’t even get the handset… bloody ridiculous!

Last Saturday Sarah was told (by the bureau of Motor Vehicles “BMV”) that she couldn’t sit her driving test as her Social Security Number “SSN” Card had her maiden name on it. Although you can’t get reissued a SSN you can get a bit of paper called an NUMI that proves that you name has been changed on the system without getting a new card.

Today I went for a walk in a gale force winds and snow blowing in my face with a wind chill factor of -7°C to the federal building about 8 blocks from when I work. I know the routine, since I have been here several times before. I said hello to the armed guards, go through the metal detector, get frisked, got in the elevator, walked in to the Social Security Dept (SSD), took a ticket and sat with all the other muggles. 45 minutes later my number gets called. I have my speech and documents already:

“Hi, I am looking to get a NUMI for my wife. She has a social security card from when she lived here before fifteen years ago. She has this as back then you needed a SSN to open a bank account. She is here with me on a H4 spouse Visa when means she can’t work. Please could you change her name on the record and provide me with a NUMI, so she can sit her driving test” I say in a very organized way.

“In order to do than she needs to fill in this form” said with eyelids half closed and a get out of that one Sherlock expression on her face.

“You mean like this” as I present it to her

“signed?”

“yep”

“have you got proof that you are married”

“Yep, here my passport, my SSL & our marriage certificate” boom boom boom, we are 3 for 3.

“Do you and your wife have the I94 document?”

“yep! Here you go” boom boom, there is nothing that this woman can ask me that I don’t have an official and original document for.

She then goes on to type details in the computer… Than it happens… One big “Computer says no” moment.

“The computer is asking me for her i766 work permit” – she says

“She doesn’t have one, nor will be able to get one, as she is not allowed to work here on her visa” I say with mind panic.

“I need the i766 to complete the change of details form on the computer” she says

“Well I can’t get it, but you could still change her name just so she can do her driving test, right!”

“Sir, I cannot process you application with the documents you have given me, Do you understand what I am telling you” she says in a stern voice with the two armed guard poking their heads up out of their security booth like mere cats.

Crestcom training then kicks in – you will love this one Keith.

“I can see you are getting frustrated with me. If I were in your position I would have had those guards chuck me out by now. I come pushing all these foreign looking documents that look like monopoly money under your nose asking you to do something that the system won’t let you do. Thank you for putting up with me. Can you think of anything that could help me?” I say in my calm voice, fluttering my eyelids (not that doing that flittering eyelids helps.. she probably though I was having a seizure.

“Well, I can get you a letter to the BWV saying that your wife does not need a SSN… What’s your address?” she says with a little smile

“144 cool creek…”

“Coal creek?

“No, cool creek”

“Cold creek”

“Cool creek… like, You dude, cool!!”

God, not this again!

She also gave me the address of the Department of Homeland Security “DHS” to see if I could get Sarah a work permit (but I think this futile.)

To summarize, for Sarah to get a driving license she needs to go to the DHS for a i766, return to DSS so the SSN is OK, to print a NUMI so the BMV can let her do the test to get her license… I think it is time to add an acronym myself. This is BS.

Ring Ring

I am working on my first ever mobile website and have spent most of this week putting mockups of how it will look on an iPhone or the Android type phones. I won’t say who the company is, but you would have heard of them. My cryptic clue is their logo is an Orange Straw.

Today I have given a handful of brand new phones to play with… I mean, are essential for testing purposes. How cool is that!

Test of Driving and Patience

I was up at the crack of sparrow fart this morning as we all had a busy day in front of us. I have my driving test and Sarah was due to have her written test this morning. After getting back from weight watchers, Sarah came back in the car ready for me to drive the BMV (Bureau of Motor vehicles). I thought I better do some last minute maneuvers in the car before doing my test as I realized that I hadn’t actually done any of the 3 maneuvers in our new car (the golden hornet) that I have done in the UK driving test all those years ago. You may wonder how is it possible that you have never done a parallel park in the USA yet? Well the truth is you don’t need to (for the most part). It is all car parks with lines on the ground that fit two of our sized cars within them. So there I am outside our house trying to pretend that there is a car there while gently reversing back in to a space. I didn’t hit the curb…. the reason being they don’t have those either! The edge of the road near use is a kind of gutter that directs rainfall into storm drains rather than Curbs. Bo**cks to it. That will do and let’s just hope it is the other two maneuvers (turn in a road and reverse around a corner).

We get to the BMV just in the nick of time. After me going there twice last week to sort out the number plate for my car, this will make it 11th time in total. My god! I check in at the welcome desk and wait for my turn. “Kevin will be with you after this lady” says the lady at the counter. I look at this very serious looking bloke with a goatee beard walked across the waiting room with an air of “I could make or ruin you day in one easy word.

After 35 minutes he came back with the first girl who seemed to be explaining to her waiting mother how she failed her driving test. This guy is obviously not a pushover.

He called me to the desk and asked me a load of questions about my health, previous driving convictions, inside leg measurement and if I dress to left to the left or right. We walked to my car and he said he needed to check the all the lights and the indicators were working. I won’t lie to you, this was the scariest part of the test as I thought it may fail. He asked which car was mine and I said, “If I am feeling posh I would say it is champagne but I’m common so it is tan”. He gave me a grin that kind of broke the ice. Once we were out of the car park it was very relaxed and to be honest it was more like giving a mate a lift, but they know the directions to wherever they are going. We were just chatting the whole time, but I did the mandatory over exaggerating of the looking at mirrors and making sure that the hands were at 10 to 2.

I PASSED! YAY!

I filled in paperwork and watched the lady on the desk type really quickly in the computer. I was expecting her to say “computer says no… cough”. FOURTY-FIVE MINUTES later… She gave me a photocopied A4 bit of paper. “This is your temporary license. Your one should be the post and with you in the next 15 – 60 days, after it has been checked with the department of homeland security. This one is valid for 15 days, so if you don’t get one on the post, then come on back in” she says. Great! That will be 12 times at the BMV in 2 months. It’s all good fun, in a kind on gouge my eye out with a rusty spoon type way.

It turns out that Sarah couldn’t do her test as her Social Security Card (SSC) has her maiden name on it. Even though she had taken our marriage certificate with her, she still needs the correct name on her SSC. We then head off into the VERY cold Indianapolis to the Federal building. Been there, done that. It was closed so we head off via the kids museum to entertain them for the rest of the day.

In the evening we head off to a place called Columbus, Indiana. Every year they have the festival of lights parade. This is really cool and reminded me a little Disney world… but not quite. It was really good and the kids loved the different lights and cars that took part in the electric lights parade. One moment you would have a group of smart cars covered in Christmas lights, quickly followed by a huge truck with strobes and the horn blasting as loud as it would go. The kids loved it and enjoyed watching the fireworks from the back of the car.

A lie in tomorrow I hope!

skills that are truly mobile

I have been quite busy this week working on the re-launch of lionel.com. I spent quite a bit of time testing and making sure it works across all the platforms this week. Yesterday I have been given the Tropicana.com mobile website project to work on. I finally get to work on a mobile web app. Watch this space! :0)

As I write this it is -6oC outside with a chance of snow. I am due to have my Indiana State Driving test tomorrow morning. I am crapping myself as the last thing I want to do is swerve all over the place, wel, no more than I would anyway.

Moving along… No Pressure

Today is the first vacation day I have taken out of my ten days annual leave. I must make it count! Those were my thoughts as I got out of bed this morning, quickly followed by “S**T we are late, Come on everyone, get up… Zack your bus leaves in 20 minutes”.

After getting little man on the bus and all the jobs done before getting on, we decide to take a nice little journey in the countryside and swing past the car dealership to see if he has the cars title. This is the legal bit of paper to say the car belongs to me. SatNav programmed, fuel in the tank, Katie and Sarah in the car… Let’s go! Rumpha… bula, bula, bula, bula, bula… What the…!

It turns out I have a flat tire. GREAT! Lets swap it with the spare…. It turns out I don’t have a spare… GREAT! We limp to the nearest gas station which luckily is literally two minutes walk from where we live. We crawl along until we finally settle at the air machine. I pop into the shop and get an emergency tire repair kit. $5. I do as the instructions say and fill the tire with the solution in the can. As I do this I watch it trickle out of the tire and go straight down the drain. Well that was $5 well spent! My guardian angel was looking over me as a man who was filling up his Jeep came over to me as he could see I was in a bit of distress. “All you need to do is to jack up the car and we can go to one of those tire places and have it fixed. Your Jack should be in the back here somewhere… HA!.. Well here is your jack but there is no tire iron or handle for the jack… I have one back at my place. I’ll be back in 5 minutes with my jack”. He says as he had his lip out in an all knowing way. What a top bloke!
I wait in the cold waiting for him to return just 5 minutes later.

“I have it but thinking about it I’m not sure how you would get back. The best bet would be if you follow me and I’ll show you the way to the tire place… follow me” he says. We fill the tire as much as possible and see how far we can get before it goes down again… It turns out it was all of 40 yrds.

Off we go… bula, bula, bula, bula, bula… I have never seen my steering column shake as much as this bula, bula, bula, bula, bula… how far can this possible be… bula, bula, bula, bula, bula… cars beeping at me to get out of the way… a 30 car long traffic line quickly builds up behind me…what else could go wrong.

The police seeing this perhaps?

I kind of mouth to the officer through the glass, we are just going to the tire place at the next set of lights. Not that bothered by this they just carry on straight passed me. Phew! That was close. I would hate get stopped by…. Oh s**t! It’s the Sherriff behind me with the all the flashing lights going. GREAT!

Luckily! The man from the gas station who I was following jumped out of his car and spoke to the officer through his window. I calmly wait, watching the whole time looking at my mirror to see if should get of the car. Luckily it was all cool and the man rushed passed my window saying, we are all good…. follow me. Off we go, rumbling along at a smooth 5mph… bula, bula, bula, bula, bula.

I finally get to the tire place and it turns out that not only do have a flat tire, but two of my tires are too big for the car and have the tread just going in to the markers.

Three new tires $230, one new spare tire $76, balance, fitted and the old ones disposed of $10... to have a complete stranger blag two police cars from giving me a ticket for stopping the traffic on the freeway… PRICELESS!

Bargains, Christmas Trees and Crowd Surfing

After a lovely thanksgiving meal with Dan and his family yesterday, today was planned to be quite a lazy day… until I realized it was black Friday. Now, Black Friday is, I suppose, the equivalent to the January sales in the UK. It is quite common for people to camp out over night and get tickets for the “door busters” which basically means if you are first in line you can get the best deals. I know I am an early riser but there is no way I am camping outside overnight to get there for when the doors open at 4am. At 9am however I was more than willing to trample over anyone who was in my way. I managed to buy Sarah an early Christmas present that she is in desperate need for. Her laptop is quite old and recently not been charging or indeed wanting to stay on for large periods of time. I managed to get her a laptop for $450 where it would have cost about $700. Bargain! The rest of the day was spent getting her online and fart-arsing around with the bloody WiFi Router.

In the evening there is a tradition among the people of Indiana of the lighting of the tree ceremony. Technically it’s not a tree but rather the lights on the monument in the centre of Indianapolis. This is quite a big deal as there were around 15,000 people there all watching the singing and dancing. It was a father son thing this year as Katie was being a “moaning mini” which is never a good thing when you are in public. Sarah stopped home with her whilst Zack and I went to the event. We got there around 4.30pm and parked at the same place as I park for work using the existing parking permit (that saved $10). We had a little wonder around and ate at the mall watching time go by, rather than standing in the crowd freezing our arses off.

Around 6:15pm we decide to make a move. We got to monument square and walked gently around the monument looking at the stalls of food, gifts and television crews. We finally made our way to the front where there was a young girl singing Christmas songs. She was pretty good considering it was so cold. Zack and I leant up against one of the shop windows to get a fairly good view. More and more people arrive and it soon gets quite packed at the front of the stage where we were.

“I can’t see” come a little voice from my side. Bearing in mind Zack has a phobia of sitting on my shoulders; he did quite well to sit up on them for a fair few minutes. I guess this was mainly due to me leaning against the shop window rather than free standing. All was good until a tall bloke with a cowboy hat stands right in front of us. Great! Let s move a little bit across. You need to understand that is was absolutely packed out at this point and that we were crammed in there so much I couldn’t actually see my feet. “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Daddy. I want to get down I don’t like it” says the voice from my shoulders. “I can’t put you down Zack there is nowhere to go.” I say. “I want to come down now. I’m really scared of falling.” “Well I’m scared of losing you in the crowd or you getting crushed, so you need to stay up there” I say quite firmly. It must have fell on deaf ears because Zack decides he would try his hand at crowd surfing. He gets a foot hold on my shoulder and makes a leap for it. “WHOA… WHAT YOU DOING?”I yell as he gently sinks into the crowd. I firmly grip on to the hood of his coat making sure I don’t lose him. After the initial shock of the jump I soon realize that this boy has quite a skill. He had a good sense of direction and was making better headway through the crowd than quite a few other people. Most of the crowed parted like the red sea as he made his way thorough, and with the rest of the people he would gently touch the middle of their back and they would see him and get out of the way… all the time dragging me behind him. There were a few instances of him touching in appropriately, them turning around giving me daggers then realizing it was him and cutely smiling at him. This boy has a gift. Whenever I have “accidently” touched anyone trying to get through a crowd I would get a slap! I can’t until he is at drinking age as he will be able to get to the bar first and get the round in.

At the end of this we didn’t actually see the lights go on, as he was too tired and wanted to go home. Sarah recorded it on TV and both Zack and I watched it with Sarah having a marathon of “there we are” on every wide angle shot of the crowed there was.

between a rock and a hard place

A different day but the same principle: make the most of the weekend, where shall we go?

We decide to go to another museum, as the children’s museum last week was such a success. We decided to go to the Indiana State Museum. It was interesting and had quite a few exhibits, but after the amount of interaction the kids had at the one last week, they found this one a little less interesting. Because of this, we kind of jetted through quite a few of the exhibits.

After our visit I decided to give the kids a tour of the city center (where daddy works). The Colts were playing away today so all the sport bars we full and the streets were empty. Throw in a few tufts of grass and a hand full of zombies, and you would have the film “I am Legend”… with me being the buff Will Smith character… Ahem…

I thought I would treat my family to a Jimmy Johns. Now, Jimmy Johns is kind of like Subway, but fast. On weekday lunchtimes, I find it is best to know what you want long before you walk through the door, otherwise you will get sucked in, and spat out.

“Ok, I would like a #4 TURKEY TOM...NoTomatoWithPickleExtraCheeseExtra… (breathe) …AvocadoSpreadNoHotPeppers... Potato Chips and a Giant oatmeal raisin cookie … GO! GO! GO!” At this point you swipe your card and try to keep up with you sandwich quickly being created as it is handed from one person to the other, each adding and ingredient or performing a function. By the time you get to the end your sandwich is wrapped labeled and ready for consumption. I think I had a stitch buy the time I got to the end of the line. I kind of felt I should stand at the end of the production line and chew as fast as they prepared it. All this on freshly baked bread, created in the back there. With food prepared this fast, it kind of makes up wonder if that white dusty stuff is flour they are sprinkling on the bread!

After eating a sandwich there I promised to take the kids to the ice cream place just of monument circle. This is a great place where they charge by the cup not the scoop. At the cinema back at the UK they would put the tiniest bit in the and say…”what three flavors, that will be extra. Here they push it right down to the bottom of the cup until it will take no more… No limits on the different type you can have either!

While my family is tucking into their ice cream I get the urge to use the men’s room. I ask the lady who served us where it is and she says its down stairs, let me get you the key. She then hands me of a tiny key, attached to a big rubber chicken/cockerel. (I swear I am not making this up) “You need to go out into the lobby that backs on to this building and take the fright elevator down to the basement. Keep going straight, then take a left through the third door then a right once you are down there.” She says.

Off I go, through the ice cream parlor in front of all these customer eating ice cream taking my big rubber cockerel for a walk. I walk through these posh looking doors and walk down the marble floored lobby to the elevators. Very posh! I then see the one I have to get on…not so posh. I opened up the dors from the bottom and top like a giant mouth that you step through. I hit the basement button and slowly descend in this rickety rackety old thing. The doors open and they are two leather clad bearded biker men standing right in front of me. “You got the key to the restroom?” the first one says. “er yeah” I say holding out the rubber cockerel. “OK, we’ll follow you”, I then start walking through this labyrinth of tunnels looking for the toilet. Was it left then right? Third door?.. ahh I can’t remember! This place looks like that scene from Matrix reloaded… Doors everywhere!

“It’s around here somewhere… heh” I say feeling quite awkward. “Nope that’s a dead end… it must be this way” as I do a U-turn and walk past them again. They don’t say a word, but just follow me with the sound of rubbing leather and clumping boots. “Oh here it its” thank god.. a room with a lock. I open the door and it has a stall and a urinal in quite close quarters. They walked in after me not knowing how big the toilet is, so there was no kind of “I’ll wait outside” kind of talk. One guy goes in the stall and the other guy is right behind me as I balance the rubber cockerel on the urinal…god this is awkward. I keep a super close eye on the reflection of the pipes by the urinal making sure nothing was happing behind my back. God knows what I would have done… beaten him to death with a rubber cockerel I guess.

I pretend to finish… let’s face it, stage fright was bound to happen. I flush the toilet, grab the cock… let me rephrase that, I flush the toilet, pick up the rubber cockerel and go to wash my hands. Due to the way the lock on the main door was, I had the kind of hold the door so it didn’t lock them in.

I had an out-of-body experience. I saw myself in the situation I was in a different country, far from home, in an underground venue, holding a rubber cock, waiting for two bikers, knowing that the next words I was about to say where to be along the lines of “let’s find the exit”.

Luckily we found the freight elevator quite quickly and got back to the ice cream shop where Sarah and the kids were sitting enjoying their ice cream.

If I am there again and need to use the bathroom I will just hold it in!

Lights, Comfort, Action

I am determined that while we are here we make the weekends count. I think it would be very easy to fall in the trap of sitting in front of the TV and watch one of the hundreds of channels that are available all day. I could do that back in the UK, so I always try and not watch TV in the daytime when there is stuff to do. With that in mind, on Saturday, we went for a little drive around to see what parks and local attractions there are. We stumbled across a place called the Monon center. This is like a big leisure center that has conference facilities etc. Inside there is a swimming pool and a running track that circles the main basket ball court. It is a little strange as I have never seen a running track built as a balcony two floors up. You see people running and walking in different lanes depending how fast they are going. I think I might be getting a little set in my ways or I am just so totally green, but when I see loads of people running indoors or running on tread mills when there are lots of footpaths for running on outside on the, quite frankly, warmest Mid-November day I have even encountered, just seems odd. Why would you drive somewhere to run indoors and then drive back? I just don’t get it.

Anyway, as we are about to drive back we get a call from Sian asking if would like a sofa. The timing couldn’t have been better. I was due to get paid tomorrow and the plan was you buy a sofa then. As comfortable as the removable car seats are, they are no substitute for a proper couch. Apparently, a friend of a friend was moving to a smaller place and this couch was too big and was about to be dropped off at a charity shop, when Sian though of us. Cut to an hour later and our apartment is swarming in people moving the new couch into the living room. When I say new, I am not exaggerating. This couch is great! In fact I was seriously thinking about having a row with Sarah so I could sleep on the couch and to think about what I had done. Anyone who knows me knows that I am crap at arguing. I tend to mutter to my invisible friend when confronted in those kinds of situations.

After the dust settled a bit and we had a little chill out, we were off to see the lighting of the Carmel Christmas tree. I would usually say it is a little early to get into the Christmas spirit of things, but truthfully I loved it. I really love this kind of event because you get a real sense of community. As we parked up you could see a row of around 20 stalls, all lit up with twinkly lights, selling homemade cookies, jams, waffles, apple cider, etc. As you went down the row everyone was keen to chat and have a laugh, while offering free samples. Some of the stalls I had no interest in buying the food, but when you kids have polished off half the tasters, you kind of feel obligated to buy something.

Just across from these stalls were real reindeer with (real, but rather tall) elves holding on to the reigns. We waited in line to have a balloon animal made. Katie wanted a reindeer hat made from balloons and Zack wanted a Candy cane. Of all the things this guy could make out of balloons, Zack asks for a single white balloon with a crick in the end. Nice one Zack!

When asked if they wanted to go and wait in the line to sit on Santa’s knee, both kids looked at the huge line and said “Naa… we’ll wait until Christmas” which is ironic, as I think there are kids even know still waiting in line.

After getting back and warming up a bit, it was party time. Sian and David had organized a get together from some of the other expats and friend of theirs to pile around there house. Bottles of beer in huge ice buckets and food and snacks sitting on hot plates, it was great! It was good to chat with the other expats and talk about their experiences here and exchanging tips on things to do and what to look out for. There were quite a few other kids of a similar age to Zack and Katie who seemed to enjoy their company. In the basement there was a playroom with a Nintendo wii and big TV screen. We could leave the kids pretty much to their own devices. Every once In a while you see one of them shoot past us in the kitchen, weaving in and out of the other guests legs usually holding on to some food such as a bit of pizza on a paper plate. I’d go down and check on them every once in a while and they would be sitting and chatting to the other kids. Zackery would be they in the corner, with a clean plate and no crumbs and Katie would be there with an orange face and bits of spaghetti down her front. (That girl.. honestly!, She looked like a wii possessed umber-lumpha).

I had a really good time and I wanted to stay longer, but in the end the kids where absolutely exhausted after a busy day and didn’t make it back to apartment without falling asleep in the back of the car. I had a drink (or two) and Sarah drove back! I think she loves driving here.

Benz in the hood

Dan has had the last two days off so I have been driving into work on my own. I noticed the little fuel light came on the way to work so I wanted to make sure I filled up on the way back from work.

There is an app from the iTunes App store called cheap gas. Basically, it finds out where you are and then shows you the nearest petrol station area and the price of the fuel. Great! While at work I found out the there was a petrol station just a few blocks away that was selling a gallon of regular for just $2.50 (in UK English this means there was 3.79 Liters for £1.52). Bargain right?

Time for the trusty SatNav to take me to the garage! Ten minutes into this journey I’m thinking she is guiding me the wrong way. Fifteen minutes in and I’m thinking to myself I have REALLY gone the wrong way. Gone are the big houses and long driveways, but rather hello broken down cars and rusty shopping trolleys in the gardens. It’s the kind of place where I really needed to ask for directions but thought better of it. I could just imagine how it would play out. “Yes, you go straight until the 4th boarded up house on the right and then take a left… just keep on going until you see the burnt out car on the right. Drive through the stop sign and then you get to Bubbas house. Tell him I sent you. He’ll fix you up good”… Not the kind Friday evening I had in mind.

“You have reached your destination?” the women in the SatNav says as if it is a question. Er, no in fact no you haven’t reached your destination. I’m in the middle of the bad lands for goodness sake and I have a car with yet another warning light on the dashboard, but this time demanding petrol! I keep on driving praying I find a gas station soon. Then I see it, like an oasis, illumination the night sky with its big “7Eleven” banner gently beckoning me to come closer. Ahh, ahh ah, ah… Is that angels I hear?

As it turns out… no. It was Piped easy listening music to where the pumps where. This soon gets drowned out but the guy who has just pulled up behind me in the pimped out pick-up truck with the spinning rims, low suspension, chrome exhaust pipes and booming music. All I can think about is how I didn’t really want to be in this place, at this particular moment in time. I quickly think to myself, “Hide the valuables… but really they are all hidden away in the glove box already… the only thing that is worth anything is the SatNav, and that bi**h got me in the bloody mess in the first place. You can have her... the cow!”

It’s no good you have to fill up at some point. Let’s do this thing! The good thing about the petrol pumps here is that you can just plug the nozzle in the side of your vehicle, leave it running and you wait in the car until it goes click. It’s not like the UK where you have to wait around standing there holding the trigger… (“Ben: don’t think, about triggers right now”)

The pump goes click and I go to the Kiosk to pay. “Hmm what a nice grocery store, with nice produce and nice thick bullet proof glass to protect the cashier” I wait my turn in the line (I’m British, it’s what I do) and try to ignore the man behind me who is slurping a massive slushpuppie-esque drink in my ear. I figure he might have a brother outside in the running car. I get the front of the line and get served by the guy who I can only describe as Cheech (from Cheech and Chong) wearing a hair net, vest and has a nice shiny gold tooth. He did have a full set of teeth you understand, just one of them was gold. I hand over my card to him to pay. When I say hand it to him I actually mean post it through the drawer under the bullet proof window) and he swipes it and mutters something. Usually when I don’t hear someone say something I can lip read to get the gist of what they are saying. Unfortunately, my vision was blocked by signs saying “24hours CCTV”, “No Cash is left here overnight” and “these premises will
automatically notify the police if a robbery is in progress”. It turns out he wanted me to sign for the purchase. I sign the receipt and post back through the drawer after it nearly chopping my fingers off in its galantine-like motion.

I sternly walk to the car. Sit down, LOCK THE DOORS, turn the engine on and get ready to leave, when I get a knock on the window. “Have you got a cigarette?” says a woman with no teeth. (I swear on my life I am not making this up). “Sorry no, I don’t smoke, and my window is jammed shut, and I can’t open the door and the car is moving forward and I can’t seem to stop it, and look my breaks don’t work, I can’t stop, sorry, gotta go, sorry , bye , love you, bye” get me the hell out of here… I’ll sort that cow in the SatNav out later, I just want to get back from this side of the tracks. The toothless lady just stood on the forecourt and stared at me as she was left in the dust of my car.

After all that, the petrol turned out to be $2.66 per gallon. The moral of the story is… pay less for petrol… take it in turns to carpool/get a lift with someone.

Cool Accents?

17th Nov 2009 – Cool Accents?

I have been both dreading and looking forward today. I have been counting down the days to when I was likely to start getting bills and invoices in from the utility companies. Paying for stuff is slightly different here. They don’t have direct debit as such but rather a thing called autopay where they can automatically take money from your account. I think it more like a standing order kind of deal rather than a direct debit setup.

I got my first invoice from the cable company yesterday and they have overcharged me by about $60 and the electricity company has submitted their invoice that has an extra $125. It says that this is a deposit. In the fine print, if you really look for it says that "Your deposit will be credited back to your account after you have paid your utility bill promptly each month for the required period, or at the time your service is terminated”. Sound to me like the "you have no credit, we don’t trust you, so let’s charge you so more cash!” Great!

I thought I’d better ring the cable company to see if I could have the bill altered. 1800-comcast is the number I have to ring on the phone.

"This is Shaquille O'Neal and welcome to Comcast” says the first voice. "Welcome to Comcast for sales press 1, for support press 2 and 3 for billing”

"er 3"


"please enter your phone number”

"er ok, let me just that… done!"


"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code."

"let me see here… ok done"


"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code."

"I’ve just it, twice I can see it on the display I have entered as written in the bill"


"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code or press 5 to enter your 20 digit account number

"must be worth a try"


"we are just conneting you"

"thank goodness for that"


"for phone press 1, for tv press 2, for internet press 3"

"I have the bundle… do I press all three at once?, ah bollucks let go for 2"


"thank you, transferring you now... please enter your phone number"

"oh god, not again"


"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code."

"I just want to pay my bill!"


"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code or press 0 to speak to one of operators"

"0 it is…"


"thank you for calling Comcast how may I help you today?"

"Hi, I have a bill that is the wrong amount that I want to pay it please"


"OK, let me take some details… what is you name?"

"Ben German"


"and you street"

"it is cool creek boulevard"


"coal crook boulevard?"

"no cool creek, like opposite to hot"


"cold creek boulevard"

"no cool creek.. you know like, hey that’s cool dude"


"oh cool creek"

"yes"


"ah I see you have no phone number in your account, you know if I take that from you now you will be able to fast track through our system"

"that would explain my earlier problem. So yeah I have been overcharged I think"

"ah yes sir, it looks like you were put on the wrong package. In order to down grade you need to ring this number and go for option 4."

"fine"

"1800- Comcast"

"I already rang that to get here"

"yes but you must press option 4"

"fine"

I dial the number

"This is Shaquille O'Neal and welcome to Comcast” says the first voice. "Welcome to Comcast for sales press 1, for support press 2 and 3 for billing”

"and the fourth option?... nothing, bollocks I’ll press 4 anyway"

" please enter your phone number”

"here we go again"

"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code."

"oh for god sake"

"that phone number is not recognized as a Comcast number… please try again including you area code."

"I just want to pay this sodding bill"


"we are just conneting you… Hi this is Amy, how can I help"

"been over charged but want to pay the remainder of the bill"


"sure! You name please sir"

"Ben German"


"and your street"

"it’s cool creek boulevard"


"cruel crook boulevard?"

"no COOL CREEK, like brrr its chilly"


"cold creek boulevard"

"NO COOL CREEK.. you know like, as in cool surfs up dude."


"oh cool creek – you have a wonderful accent."

"yeah its great … please can I pay my bill I have like 3 minutes left of my lunch hour."


"certainly, please just go online to www. Blah blah blah and enter you user name and password"

"let me do this while you are on the phone. So I know I am doing it right… tap tap tap, I has just come up saying username not recognized"


"oh, if that happens you need to speak to the technical dept in broadband.. I’m in Phone. Simply redial 1800-comacst and hit 5"

"Argh!"


Before I ring, I shout over to Dan who is in the desk next to mine, "How do you say cool creek boulevard?” – "Coo-wel creik bowlivard” he says (please forgive the phonetics here). I’m saying repeating this over in my head ready for the questions. Coo-wel creik bowlivard, Coo-wel creik bowlivard… It kind of sounds across between shaggy from Scooby doo and the goodfellas.

"1800-comcast"


"This is Shaquille O'Neal and welcome to Comcast” says the first voice. "Welcome to Comcast for sales press 1, for sup…"

"5! I want 5, I don’t want to hear another word just option 5"


"please enter your phone number"

"no probs, I know this with my eyes closed now"


"we are just conneting you"

"hi you are through to Jed, how may I help you to day?"

"hey jed, ha yaw doin? Yo I got da bill hit my mat and I’m like bummed dat yo chargin me dis, dude! I been towkin to brandy in da fown dept, been spekin to amy in da billin and they jowst cay-ant hey-alp me get own to da day-am website."


"certainly sir let me take some information…what is your address?"

"Coo-wel creik bowlivard"


"Lovely, I have your details on screen let me just give you your password…"

He understood me first time! That was amazing!

"Your password is tunebass"

"toonbass?"


"tunebass!"

"townbass?"


"tune – as in music and bass – as in bass and treble"

"ah tunebass – yep that logged me in, thanks jed"


"have a great day!"

"forget abaad et!"


Bill Paid! Lunchtime Over! – I Bloody Hate Tuedays! (toosdays)

Party in the USA

I was dark when I left work today. As I stepped out of the office I tripped over a little kid. And there was another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another! What is going on! I felt like a Salmon going against the current. It turns out that Miley Cyrus was performing at the Conseco Fieldhouse (which is the basketball stadium of the Indiana Pacers). Road were shut off, police were everywhere, and Moms with little kids in tow where just as excited as the children themselves.

Children’s museum

For the last week I have been building up the idea of a special treat at the weekend. The kids didn’t know what it was exactly, but they did know it would be really cool. The Indianapolis Children’s Museum is 4 floors of really cool exhibits. In the basement they had a dinosaur exhibit that had loads of interactive activities that really got the kid’s imagination running wild. They loved it! Up on the other levels they had everything from the history of the US railroad to space-quest where everything was themed around starwars chonewars.



Towards the top of the museum, there was an area for younger kids that Katie was initially interested in. They had a soft toy play area and a little quiet room for reading. I’m not sure what it was but Zack wanted to go in there and do some reading. As a proud parent I want to encourage this as much as possible. I soon realized that the room we were in was aimed at very young kids and new parents. As I sat down and chilled out for a second, Zack decide to find a book to read. Of the hundreds of books that were on the book shelf, Zack found the one book about pregnancy and the changing body. He sat there flicking through the book until I said to him “Is there just writing in the book? What are you looking at?” He quickly showed me the pages he was bookmarking with his fingers. ‘”Look Daddy… Boobs”- as he handed me the book… That’s my boy. Moments after this, a lady came into inform me that the room was about to be used for story time. I wish you could see the filthy look she gave me when she saw that I had my finger in the page of the naked pregnant lady. Thanks Zack

Now why didn’t I think of this earlier

Today was the first time we had the chance to go full on shopping where we could go out as a family and load the car up with groceries and bit and bobs that we need to make our house a home. It is quite different when you have a car to transport the stuff, not that I am complaining. I did after all enjoy my little walks.

Remember I had all that trouble with getting those seats to stay in the back on my “new” car? I have a cunning plan for furniture for our house!




Pretty cool eh?


I also have a new head shaver, Phew! My hair was starting to look a little crazy. I’m sure if I frowned I would look like a klingon.

Who’s there?

It three in the morning and its pitch black. I hear a noise and my eyes flick open as wide as they will go. Lying perfectly still I can hear the hum of the fridge, the tick of the clock and the gentle snooze of my wife and kids. But what is that other noise? I hear footsteps go moving from one end of the apartment gradually getting neared and nearer. “My family, how can I protect them, I need a baseball bat or something. I know they are trying to be quiet, but I can still hear them. The sound is getting closer. They are above me! OH MY GOD!… whow, whow, whow, Hang on , wait, calm down. Of course there are footsteps trying not to make a noise above you. There is an apartment above you dimlow! You don’t just have attic space above you anymore”. Yep, you guessed it, I woke up first thing this morning and completely forgot where I was. Needless to say once you give yourself a scare like that is it not always easy to get back off to sleep. I really need to sleep as it is a big day for the little man today. That’s what we call my son, for the record. Yep it is Zack’s first Day at school and he is going on the bus on his own.

We all got up early and made sure we had everything ready to go. Book bag, lunch, pencils case, books… oh yeah, and the boy too! We all went off to the end of the road (about 10 minutes walk) to where the bus is due to pick up Zack. We were a little concerned at first at the lack of other kids about but we soon relaxed after seeing the bus appear at the entrance to our community. Here it come slowing down… to speed up… right past the stop, over the ramp and right down the road. Bugger! We missed it. Luckily for us it turns out that it does a kind of loop to pick the kids up and then comes back and picks us up. There he goes my little boy into the big wide scary world all on his own. It’s alright, I’m OK!



On with the day and I am ready to drive my car to work for the first time! With all my insurance sorted out, I head off to sit in my new car. I am actually pleasantly surprised. I know this sounds really bad, and I will probably get a lot of stick for this, but this is the first time I have seen the car in the daylight. Shocking, I know, but it looks really quite nice. Leather seats, very spacious, not too shabby! I don’t quite know what we going to do with the extra 2 seats in the back, but I seems that kids like the idea of having options open to them when sitting in the back of the car. It can have all the leather seats and cruise control it likes, but it won’t detract from the blacked out windows and sliding doors. I am slightly ashamed to admit this but when I pulled up at the gas station to fill up, I did actually walk between the two front seats and open up the sliding doors at the side to jump out. Literally “jump” out singing the A-Team theme song quite loud. DUN-DA-DA, DUN, DUN , DAAAAAAA. It turns out that you can take people quite by surprise while they are refueling when you do that. Nobody said anything, even though I had my “quit yo jibba jabba, FOOL!” line already to go.

At this particular petrol station they had televisions built into the pumps so you can be entertained while filling up (although I was getting more looks than the TV’s). If I had the car before I ordered the cable in our house I would have simply driven out the gas station and watched Telly there! They even have popcorn at the kiosk.

I am still car pooling with Dan so we are taking it in turns to drive. I was quite impressed that I managed to find his house kind of without a GPS/SatNav? I started with it on but the voice of the woman really starts to grate after a while, especially if she has it in her mind to go a specific way. She obviously doesn’t know about the road works, but will she listen! Will she bol**cks.

I quite enjoy the commute to work, but you really have to keep your eye on the lanes. It is quite common for the right lane to come to an end, or the left lane to suddenly turn left. If you get in the wrong lane you have to your quick thinking, years of driving experience and the knowledge that you car is probably the least valuable thing on the road (which includes road kill) to tactically suggest other divers let you in. It seems that in Carmel drivers tend to be nice and gracious, but in Indianapolis city center it is survival of the fittest.

I don’t have any new dents on the car, but the engine warning light has come on again. Its only bad if it flashes right?



This is on the side of the building, just up from where we park. Not sure if it is true or not but it made me laugh!



The view from our office when I leave at night

ah Mellow Man!

I think there must be something in the air today. It has been a lovely warm day where I have worn nothing but and jumper. (Let me rephrase that, I didn’t wear a coat I wore a jumper). Although most of leafs are now on the ground the sun is really beaming. Time for a lovely stroll.

Knowing that we needed to get some bits and pieces for Zack’s first full day, we ventured out to the wide work of “Target”. I think I have mentioned target before but for those who missed it, “Target” is a bit like John Lewis. Seems it was a nice day for a walk we all set of to go the most direct route to the shop. Comfortable in the knowledge that I can cross these 10 lanes of traffic in relative safety, we were all set off to cross the road… without incident I am happy to say. We walked through clay terrace, which is full of the high end stores I have talked about before. Must walk quickly!

When we arrived at the store the kids were just about exhausted. Two trolleys, two kids, two seats… sorted, right? Nope. The shopping trolleys are slightly different here. Other them being plastic, the trolleys have two levels to them. They have a kind of shelf, ideal for carrying heavy items such as big bottles water, flat pack furniture or, as it turns out, a small child. “Look I’m superman flying through the air” says my darling son. “Yep, but I am pretty sure that superman got higher the 4 inches you are flying just now”. We eventually got all the stuff we needed/would be prepared to carry home and got ready to go. “Is the man and woman coming to pick us up again?” says Katie. “No, that was a very happy occurrence that happened one time. We need to walk home” I say, knowing I have just pulled the pin out of a whine grenade. “BUT I’M TIRED AND I CAN’T WALK ANYMORE” she screams at the top of her voice. “well we are all tired, we have all walked a long way and I’m sure that that if we just keep a positive attitude and think about something else we will be there in no time” I say. Although she is only four, she sure knows how to give a look of “ I’m four, I’m not dumb… I don’t buy that crap for a second”.

Needless to say it was a longer journey back to the apartment. We stopped every little while for a break if we saw a bench or wall or even ground it would seem. All was going well until it came to the killer road again. I turns out (in Zack’s eyes) the central reservation is also a good place to sit down when you are tired. Needless to say that he has learned that isn’t the case.

Once we got back to the apartment Katie wondered off to her bedroom. She sometimes has problems articulating in words what she means, but when she appeared back in the living room wearing her pajamas, she communicated quite well the fact that she wasn’t going out again today.

I think it is fair to say I am the kind of person who always seems to be doing. I get really get restless if I don’t get out and about in the day, especially when the weather is so nice. I knew we needed some more groceries, so armed with a sturdy bag I went on my jolly way to Marsh. Marsh is a grocery store that I would equate to Waitrose. Earlier in the week Dan had told me that he had seen an advert for, whit for it, crème fresh! Wow! This stuff is like gold dust. The store that sold it was very close to marsh. From my little adventure to find the nearest playground yesterday I worked out that I could take a fairly direct and safe route to the store. The authorities here have been working on an extension to the Monon trail. This is a foot path that goes through the woods and is ideal for cycling and walking etc. This worked quite well. It was safe and much quicker too!



I got to the store that sold the crème fresh ($4.99 for a small pot.. Rip off), then went on to Marsh. I got some of the basics including yoghurt (for Zack’s packed lunch) eggs etc, orange juice and milk (each in a gallon container). Fully laden with all this stuff I worked out I could do a more direct route. There is even a path! Result!.. Yet again I was tricked. Damn you! You and your paths to nowhere!



As I walked I thought “Stick with the plan Ben it has to be quicker… It’s not that bad it’s all downhill… downhill quite fast… God this is steep, ok I ‘m running now and we have stopped… what’s that squelching? … ew great, that my trainers wrecked, my foot has gone right in the mud. Back we go, maybe I go under the bridge under the paved bit… nope that’s not paved they are rocks. Come on Ben just balance… An gallon container in each hand you will be ok… Ok this is starting to feel like a quarry now as the rocks are moving. You are nearly clear... safe! :0) oh, another big hill :0( I just need to get to the other side of that fence… ok wall.. need to get the other side of that wall… it’s not too high… 1,2,3 jump….it not to high that side anyway! And the eggs are still not cracked.”



I eventually got back on the trail and limped home, with a squelch on every alternate foot. I must have looked a right state compared to these fresh faced cyclist who decided to stay on the track. “Come on children, ignore the strange man.” – I think I heard one lady say… (cow!)

Needless to say when I got back home I had to freshen up and get changed. Soon after that I got a call from Dave “I’m out side, you ready?”

I quickly get my stuff together and go on my way to pick up the car. Off we went back to Tim’s garage/man cave. He got all the paperwork ready for me to sign. “Basically there is a whole load of fine print that is there, but who reads that right? Just sign this bit here and Initial there and he keys are yours” says Tim. “Can I read it first?” I say, “If you want to” says Tim.

Basically it says that I was buying it as seen and there is no warranty on it. With this in mind I asked if I could check the seats that didn’t lock down that he said were fixed. “It sounds to me like you don’t trust me” he said with a deadpan menacing face…. A long 5 seconds pass as all I could here was the tick of the clock and the sound of crickets chirping… “arrr I’m just kidding you, knock yourself out. I’m not really like that” he said with a big grin on his face. God that was awkward (and he knew it). I go out to see the seats and take the car’s VIN details etc for the paper work. Yep, the car seats are stick right in there, and if I pull this cord will come out, and if I put it back they will lock back in place…. they will lock back in place….damn it lock back in place you b**tard thing! Oh crap! I’ve broke it. (Glad I didn’t sign anything).

“Er, Tim? About these seats?” It turns out they only lock when folded down… I thought I had good and proper broken them. It was a good job he showed me how to do it as I would have spent ages trying to get them in there. Happy with the inspection of the car, I went in the office, signed the ownership papers and gave the man his cheque.

We shook hands and I agreed to follow Dave back to my apartment. In the car I get… wuw, wuw, wuw.. ticky, ticky, ticky, “oh you are kidding me”… wuw, wuw, wuw.. ticky, ticky, ticky, nothing. It has a flat battery “GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK!” It turns out that I had flatted the battery when leaving the doors open for a good hour while messing around with the seats.

He gave us a boost and I was on my way. He said that it was a brand new battery and if I get any problems with it, he will swap it out for me.

I got home and I was knackered!

Can it really be a month already?

I haven’t logged quite as many things that last few days as usual. I’d love to say it is because I have been rushed off my feet and have been just too busy. The truth is I have been working and the day to day stuff computer programming stuff may not be interesting reading. One thing I will say however is that working with some of the bigger clients is quite different to what I am used to. This week we commenced work on and website for a soft drinks company. I don’t believe I can say their name yet but I can it I say it’s not Lucozade and it does not have crocodile in the brand name (I think that is cryptic enough). Technically, don’t believe I was down to be on the team to actually work on this project. I accidentally walked into the meeting room and before I knew it we were talking about a new website. Opps! That’s one way of getting in on the action. They were doing a conference call with one of those big advertising agencies. It kind of reminded me of the film “what women want”.

We are on line at home now! Yay! After the rip off that was AT&T, Comcast has come along and got out cable up and running. The only slight issue that is not wi-fi ready. It is more a case of having a forty-five minute walk to get some more equipment and then spending half a day arsing around with it to get it to work. Ooh fun.

This morning, knowing that I was going to speak to Mum and Dad, I decide to run to the shops… literally! We were out of cereal and I though it a good opportunity to get a bit of intensive excursive. Since I have been here I have learnt to play the system a bit. I know that if I wait until the cars are at the top of the bridge, I can cross the first six lanes of traffic without having to run. Then it is just a case of walking the median (central reservation) until the light on the other side change. “Safely” across the road I start my jogging routine. My plan was to return the old TV areal I had and swap it for a wi-fi box. I managed to get to Wal-Mart and go straight to the customer service desk. I learnt today that you can just about take anything back to Wal-Mart without a receipt if you are polite and show of a nice shiny accent.

I say “Hi, I’d like to return this please, but I don’t have receipt”

“Say whaaaat! sey thay-at ag-ayn” –came the shocked response

“You see, I got it but then we got cable and it turns out we don’t need it” I say thinking I have just upset her

“Yaw wayt hyre sweedie…. RONDA! JA!... com ere!... Now, sey thay-at ag-ayn” she says again.

“So yeah, I got this and I don’t need it anymore” I say with an ever growing audience.

“oh my gowd, I jas lowve yaw ayc-ceyent. Say some-em eylse. I cawld lysen to hym awl day”

This went on for about five minutes, but it seemed longer. I won’t lie and tell you it didn’t feel good these people hang on my every word, even though I was talking a load of old boll**ks!

“he say-ed yoghurt, say some-em eylse diff-ryent” she says.

“I’m just saying it how it is spelt.. yog-hurt not yoe-gert… I mean you don’t say I have got my trainers on and I’m about to joe-ging do you?”

“yayer, wha do we sey they-at”

She was obviously distracted and she gave me a full refund without the need a receipt. Result! I got my bits and pieces and headed back home… 20 minutes no problem.

I was due to look at the car this afternoon but I didn’t hear anything. I rang Dave and he said “did you not get my text message?” He sent me one saying that he couldn’t get hold of Tim the car dealer so we will go around tonight. It seems that my mobile phone just can’t get text messages from other US phones, (except Sarah’s new mobile phone). Quite a few of them don’t have a + key on them which means they can’t dial internationally … to my phone… next to them. I will be getting a new one soon but I need to work out if I can use a US SIM card in the phone. The way that phone contract work here a quite different to the way they work in the UK. It is really simple in the UK when it comes to pay-as-you-go phones. You get a 10 quid voucher and top up. You get charged for the calls and text you make. The more you use it the more it is. Here in the US the pay-as-you go seems to be quite different. If you don’t use your phone, you don’t pay. If you want to sent a text message or make a 5 second call is costs you $3. Rip off right! The catch is, that you can send as many texts or spend ages talking on your phone, but it still is contained within that $3 per day. That doesn’t include 3G internet time either. I think is it a very subtle way of making you either spent more or talk more.

I have done the washing today and I have now lost the first sock in the USA. How does this happen! We had an even number when we got here… bloody thing!

Knowing that we had a free afternoon, I wanted to go out and find the nearest park. As I have said before, everything is spread out here. The nearest park is a good thirty minutes away. To get to it we had to walk through a fairly private estate. It wasn’t what I would call a gated community exactly but rather the kind of area where people would look at you to say “this is my patch… what are you doing”. I found a very easy way to throw off these looks. Basically, all you need is a blonde smiley four year old on your shoulders. It seems to work every time! (Although I think I need to get the light weight version as my back is killing me know). We would walk down this very beautiful path and there would be a man looking out of his conservatory giving you daggers. “right, I’m waving at him” I thought. The thing is when someone waves at you it soon defuses any threat. So he gave me a kind of reluctant semi raised hand back. “Right Katie, let’s go for it… wave at the man”. My darling daughter really went for it waving like crazy at the man who was like a long lost friend. The man had nowhere to go from here, and started waving back in an equally ridiculous way… That did make me laugh and I think secretly it made that guys day!



As we ventured further around the estate, you could really smell the money. We counted at least 6 houses that had a three door garage that had a car in each, plus one on the driveway. As first it seemed quite quiet, to the point of giving the feeling of an abandoned town. Everything new, massive, luxurious but ultimately empty. As we went further down the twisty road we heard kids playing/working. This is the season to be raking leafs alright. I am not kidding when I say that the whole community was getting involved. Ride-on lawn mowers whirring up and down while leaf blowers were being used to create piles of leafs ready to be compacted into bags by the kids. It seemed to be a full on event, and I felt a little left out. I miss my leaf blower. You could shoot a dog turd miles with that bad boy! We wondered up and down this street, people were happy to talk to us and give us directions to the nearest park. It was really nice getting some fresh air and kicking the leaves and wonder through the woods on the way home. On the way back Katie said to me “I am really glad you made me come out in the end daddy, I really enjoyed it”. Coming from a tried four year old girl who, trust me, knows how to whine when she is tired, really meant a lot to me.

Dave came around at seven and said that he still hasn’t been able to get in touch with Tim the car dealer, so we would go around tomorrow after the Colts game… Come on you Colts! The Kia will have to wait until tomorrow, which rather scuppers my plans with doing stuff on the weekend. I’m not quite sure how this will work, as I have heard that you can’t buy a car on a Sunday in Indiana.