Time for a break me thinks. In the USA you get Holiday time and vacation time. Holidays are what I would have called Bank holidays and Vacation is what I what call Holiday, just so you know the difference. Compared to 22 days vacation I used to get in the UK, I now get just 10. I have started to notice more now than ever how people plan their time so that Holidays are taken side-by-side with vacation so that time off lasts longer. Hopping on the band wagon I booked time off work to spend a long weekend with my family.
I want to see as much of the USA as possible. I’m getting to the stage now where I have seen quite a bit of Indiana, and know my way around Indianapolis without a GPS Sat Nav. Sarah and I looked at a map to find out what was fairly close (within 6 hrs drive) we could take a look at. We finally settled on St Louis, Missouri.
Before we go to St Louis
On our way to St Louis (Sarah driving)
When we finally got to the hotel I was greeted by a warm glowing face saying how can I help you sir….NOT! As I got to the desk I was faced with a girl covered in (what looked like gang) tattoos, chew gum looking at me as if she had no face muscles.
“I have a reservation… here are the details” I say as I hand here a print out
“It not ready until 3pm” as she flicks the paper back to me.
What I didn’t realize is that we crossed a time zone, so everything is off by an hour. We decided to take a drive to the museum to kill some time before our room was ready.
before going to the museum
just visited the museum #1
just visited the museum #2
Our accommodation was bed and breakfast only so we decided to have dinner at the olive garden. I have never been there and the last time Sarah had been, was around 15 years ago.
arrived at the olive garden
After olive garden
Day 2 just getting up before breakfast
Playing with the bug screen after breakfast before the zoo
In the water falls at the zoo
At the zoo - Zack Telling us we have just seen animals and insects
At the zoo - looking at the bear
At the zoo - after the gift shop
Friday, May 28, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Riding with the Muggles
I’m starting on a bit of an adventure today. I’m taking the bus to work. I know this isn’t probably a big deal and loads of people do it, but it is something I am starting to do.
Dan, my co-worker who I catch a lift with has selfishly (kidding) moved out of where he was living to set up a bachelor pad of his own. The result of this being that when the car is needed by Sarah to run errands and scoot kids around etc, I need to find a different way to get to work. I am seriously seeing this as blessing in disguise. I mean, there will be no excuses for doing not doing exercise. It is really easy to fall out of bed into your car, drive up to the office door and do the same in reverse at the end of the day. I have just spoken to the bus driver and he says that it is fine to put a push bike underneath the coach, so I will be able to cycle to the bus stop and then take it from there.
I helped Dan move on Saturday, which was a good laugh. He even bought us lunch to say thanks.
As I write this I am actually on the bus. I love the fact that I can hook my laptop up to my phone and get in the internet while moving. (that said I will need to put it away if anybody come near me… he bus is quite empty just now.
Zack has this box car race today. This is where they have a race wearing cardboard boxes decorated to be like race cars. They called it the kindy500… you know, like the Indy 500 race. I thought I may have over done it in helping him because we sprayed it and did some really cool things we card and hot glue. When I took it in the other day there were some there how had gone all out and put sponsor stickers on them as well. I didn’t feel too bad after that.
Having all this extra glue around gave me an idea. I peeled back all the duct tape that was holding the bumper together and used hot glue. I have to say it worked a treat, and isn’t as ropey looking as the tape. It is really solid now. The down side is that I got bitten by a few bugs while I was fixing it.
It is sooooooo hot here just now, with high humidity. You know when you go on holiday and they open the doors of the plane, and it feels like an over door opening… well that what happens each time you go out of an air conditions shop door (I love it).
Our air conditioning is out at the moment. Apparently the kids stuck a stick in the fan and a puff of smoke came out. Sarah was very cross with the kids as they have been told hundreds of times not to go near it. The guy came out to look at it, but I’m sure I will find out what the upshot of that is sometime today.
We are off to St Louis on Friday and I am really looking forward to having a break from work. Its good and all that but it I looking forward to seeing a bit more of the country/culture and spending time with the family away from the damn TV. It is quite a long journey but I got some of those DVD players that strap to the back of the head rests (that I fully Intend on taking back when I done with them).
One thing that is really good here, is that if you pay by card and you return the goods in “original packaging for resale” they will take it back now questions asked. Result!
Dan, my co-worker who I catch a lift with has selfishly (kidding) moved out of where he was living to set up a bachelor pad of his own. The result of this being that when the car is needed by Sarah to run errands and scoot kids around etc, I need to find a different way to get to work. I am seriously seeing this as blessing in disguise. I mean, there will be no excuses for doing not doing exercise. It is really easy to fall out of bed into your car, drive up to the office door and do the same in reverse at the end of the day. I have just spoken to the bus driver and he says that it is fine to put a push bike underneath the coach, so I will be able to cycle to the bus stop and then take it from there.
I helped Dan move on Saturday, which was a good laugh. He even bought us lunch to say thanks.
As I write this I am actually on the bus. I love the fact that I can hook my laptop up to my phone and get in the internet while moving. (that said I will need to put it away if anybody come near me… he bus is quite empty just now.
Zack has this box car race today. This is where they have a race wearing cardboard boxes decorated to be like race cars. They called it the kindy500… you know, like the Indy 500 race. I thought I may have over done it in helping him because we sprayed it and did some really cool things we card and hot glue. When I took it in the other day there were some there how had gone all out and put sponsor stickers on them as well. I didn’t feel too bad after that.
Having all this extra glue around gave me an idea. I peeled back all the duct tape that was holding the bumper together and used hot glue. I have to say it worked a treat, and isn’t as ropey looking as the tape. It is really solid now. The down side is that I got bitten by a few bugs while I was fixing it.
It is sooooooo hot here just now, with high humidity. You know when you go on holiday and they open the doors of the plane, and it feels like an over door opening… well that what happens each time you go out of an air conditions shop door (I love it).
Our air conditioning is out at the moment. Apparently the kids stuck a stick in the fan and a puff of smoke came out. Sarah was very cross with the kids as they have been told hundreds of times not to go near it. The guy came out to look at it, but I’m sure I will find out what the upshot of that is sometime today.
We are off to St Louis on Friday and I am really looking forward to having a break from work. Its good and all that but it I looking forward to seeing a bit more of the country/culture and spending time with the family away from the damn TV. It is quite a long journey but I got some of those DVD players that strap to the back of the head rests (that I fully Intend on taking back when I done with them).
One thing that is really good here, is that if you pay by card and you return the goods in “original packaging for resale” they will take it back now questions asked. Result!
Sunday, May 16, 2010
changing my vocabulary
I am sure that this wouldn’t be a problem in most professions, but when you are an interactive developer (or at least that’s what it says on my business card) there are certain things you are used to that suddenly become, well, different. The first shock is the keyboard. The pound sterling sign is gone, the@ sign is now above the 2 and the enter key is half the size as there is a button with a \ on it just above it!
OK, I get it. A mountain out of a mole hill right? I’m just moaning about a stupid keyboard… I have managed to get used to the keyboard is not the main problem.
When I worked in the UK I knew that:
- # is called a hash
- ( ) are called brackets
- { } are called curly bracket
- [ ] are called square brackets
- ! is called an exclamation mark
- . is called a full stop
The first time this came to bite me in the arse was when I was setting up my phone. “When you have entered you 4 digit code press the pound key” came the automated voice. I go looking for £, but see nothing. I ended up googling what a pound looked like to find out it is the # sign.
On Thursday last week I was (nerd alert) shouting across the room what code needs to be written. “You need to type this dot that open then close brackets.” What was written was “this.that{}” when what I was meaning is “this.that()”.
It turns out that in America:
- # is called a pound
- ( ) are called parentheses
- { } are called curly brackets
- [ ] are called square brackets
- ! is called a bang
- . is called a period
I think I have got my head around it now, but I does catch me off guard every once in a while. I was told a password the other day that was something along the lines of “wi!!son” but as I wrote what was being said it came out as “wibangbangson”.
I’m getting it now… It only took six months! (bang)
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