thirtysomething...

Last weekend Heather, JD and I took the ferry over to France and drove up and down the Norman coast. The commentary is over in the Photo Journal. Yeah, I know, I'm lazy. I've been putting together this journal for a few days now so I'm not That lazy... Anyways. :P Click the thumbnail. :)

Time for some house cleaning. And by house I mean photo server. And by cleaning I mean emptying. So most of the current images will be down for a few days while I re-arrange and reduce resolutions of older photo journals to make room for the New.

Changing the look of the blog as well! Don't freak out now. Have a beer & chill.

Not to worry, everything is all good. :)

D

Part of our recent trip (the main reason we went over) to the US last month was to see Heather's brother get married. The ceremony was short and sweet, situated on the top of Loon Mountain, just outside of Lincoln, New Hampshire. Had to ride a Gondola up to the top. Very Cool.

The first part of my trip (I went two weeks before Heather arrived) was filled with tons of driving. The first weekend I had an autocross in Columbia, SC and the next weekend I went up to Deal's Gap, NC to meet up with 20 or so friends from the 'net to drive the Tail of the Dragon. 318 Curves in 11 Miles :rock: There are a ton of pictures of us over on Killboy's site. Just look for the weekend of June 16-19 in his shop. I'll try to post up a few pics from the Dragon a bit later. Hopefully Heather will do a guest spot on the Wedding.

Enjoy the wedding photos! Click the pic of Zach & Melissa to see 'em!

So anyone have a good cure for Jet Lag? For Pete's Sake. I've been awake since 2am. It's now 10:20pm...

In an effort to take my mind of the jetlag/insomnia I "made" a pinhole lens for the D70. It's gonna need some work to perfect it, cause the thing is REAL ghetto at the moment, but here are a few shots from the first test run.

So, it’s my birthday month! Would you believe that we are still in jeans and long sleeves here in the UK. It is also still wet. Not much different than the weather when my in-laws visited. I can’t imagine what June 21st, the first day of summer and my birthday, will be like. Did I mention my birthday was June 21st…

Every day here brings something different. When I picked our house in Headcorn, I liked that it had a nice little yard. It was small and green with a little boarder around the edges where we could plant various flowers. When spring started, plants started popping up all over the place. Most of them looked like weeds to me, so I asked this gentleman from church to come over and point out the true plants. Would you believe the only weeds we actually had were dandelions and grass!! Unfortunately, I couldn’t pull out the dandelions, because Drew, my cousin Emily and Lance’s son, actually has a strong bond with these little yellow thingies. When they visited in April, everywhere he travelled, he had to pull up a few handfuls for the road. How big is Drew? THIS BIG!

So, before I jump back to the plant kingdom, I need to set the scene. I’m sure you have heard us mention that we love traipsing off through the country on footpaths. I’m a little more adventuresome than Dee. He is always like… Can we really cross this fence?, Stay on the path, Don’t pick the flowers, Stop feeding the sheep!... jeez you would think he was my Dad. Anyway, our last adventure took us out through this huge crop field where the crop came up to our shoulders. It is a yellow flower called rape, yeah I know. They make a sweetner out of it…I think. (Ed. Note: Check the banner at the top, that's Rape.) Anyway, at the end of the crop we had to walk around another field. Well JD, our good friend from Charleston who is staying with us for a few minutes, make that months, starts whining about how he can’t walk through the field because these plants have stingers that really itch. Of course, Dee and I ignore him and keep going. JD is in shorts and we are in jeans.

So back to our yard, these wild plants, not weeds, start coming up all over the place. I’ve been so excited waiting to see what happens. You wouldn’t believe all of the different varieties! Please don’t ask me to name them. It really does look like we are on another planet! So tonight I’m out there picking some flowers to make an arrangement for the dinner table. We have this vine that has gone in multiple directions and climbing up all over the place. I bend down to unravel it and the plant it was around BIT ME! You wouldn’t believe how much it hurt. There were no stingers or scratches. Three hours later my fingers are still hurting. I went back to try to find the sucker, but I couldn’t figure out which one it was. So sorry JD, you really aren’t a wuss.

So, I'm sitting out back on the grass having a cigarette and off to my right I hear a rustling over in the bushes. I turn & look and this little round shape emerges out onto the lawn about 2 feet away from me. There are TONS of rabbits around here so I'm thinking, "Do I roll over and grab it real quick? Or do I get up slowly and go get a flashlight & the camera..." I couldn't tell Exactly what it was, cause it's quite dark out. I get up slowly and go get the gear. Come back out, shine the light around, Nothing to be Seen. Walk over to where I thought it came out and peer into the bushes.

Good thing I didn't grab it. It was a hedgehog.

Be on the lookout tomorrow for another Guest Blog from The Wife!!

Finally made it over to St Ives this last weekend. Also finally rented a car & drove around South-West England. That was an experience of itself, having never driven on the left side of the road from the right side of the car and shifting with my left hand. Especially in the Dartmoor Forest. Most of the roads in the Moor were quite narrow. About a lane & a half wide with cars going both directions. Luckily we didn't come across too many people coming the opposite direction. There were places where you would have to back up quite a ways to let someone pass. Now imagine doing that for 30 or so miles with 8 foot hedges on either side of the road. I know why American drivers are Teh Suck in Formula One. We have straight roads in the US. There are no straight roads in the UK. Zero. Nada. Zip. Everything is a curve. Especially in the Moor. I connote it to driving the Tail of the Dragon (US 129 in NC & TN) or driving on track. Constantly looking ahead. Constantly driving the line. The only difference being there Are blind driveways & roads that spring up and the ever present threat of livestock on the road. And they won't move if you honk at them. The "A Roads" were fine. Quite like Hwy 17 in Coastal South Carolina. Didn't drive any "M Roads" which would be I-85 in the US.

I only got honked at once in a roundabout (cause this jackass was trying to fly up my ass) and only drove on the wrong side once, for about 50 feet. Oops. Put about 500 miles on the rental. It was a 5-speed Vauxhall Astra 1.4 Life 16V Estate (read: stationwagon). I did brush a few curbs with the left side tires on a few in-town curves and put the passenger side into a few hedges in the Moor (those roads are TINY!,) but no damage. :)

So yeah. Saturday morning we all piled onto the train at 7am to start our journey. A 4 hour ride to Exeter, switching trains & stations in London. Got into Exeter around 11 or so and picked up the car. From there the Adventure begins. Heather is in the back seat sporadically calling out directions and I'm doing my best to figure out driving in the UK while trying to comprehend what she's yelling from behind me. We head down to Dartmoor & drive through the Moor, stopping off in a tiny village that is reported to have the best scones and tea in all of Britain (I wasn't too impressed with the stuff.) From there we drove (read: got lost a few times) over to Tintagel where the Tintagel Castle is located. Reportedly the birthplace of King Arthur.

Tintagel was quite interesting. The island where the castle stood was quite beautiful. If you have any interest in the Arthur legend/myth, you should definitely walk the grounds. I positively felt transported back in time. Be prepared though, you'll think you're working out on a StairMaster for the entire visit. Unfortunately we did not have alot of time to spend at he Castle, we needed to be at the B&B by 7pm, and we were about an hour away.

Sunday we woke, ate a hot breakfast of sausage, egg, toast, and 2 rashers of bacon, then headed down to St. Austell to see The Eden Project. That place was very cool. HUGE, and I mean Gigantus greenhouses (read: Biomes) covered the property. One one side was the "Tropical" Biome and the other was the "Warm Climate" Biome with a restaurant/info area in-between the two areas. The main grounds of Eden Project, not in a Biome, were covered with plants of Britain. The whole "project" sits in the bottom of an old abandoned clay pit mine. The majority of the flora in the project were I guess what you could call "working plants", not just pretty flowers & whatnot. Rubber, cola, cocoa, banana trees & the like. Definitely a must see if you come to the UK. From there we drove over to Mount St. Michael. Same idea as Mont St. Michel in France, but not really executed as well as the French did. The tide was in and the weather wasn't permitting ferry transport, so we didn't actually get to expore the Mount. Hopped back in the car and ventured further down to St. Ives.

St. Ives rests around a natural harbour on the Atlantic side of England. Very close to Lands End. It's a quaint sea-side resort type village with a few pubs, lots of art galleries, and a few touristy type shops. I rather liked the place, but I imagine it could get very hectic during the "on-season". To me it felt like what Charleston could have been like 50 to 75 years ago. Not that I was there, but I just had that feeling.

Check out the Pics by clicking any of the thumbnails!

Last Sunday Heather, JD and I went into London to take a "Flight" on the British Airways London Eye. When we got into London it was as cloudy as ever and didn't look to promising for a clear view on the Eye. Our train arrived around 1:30 and our ticket time was for 4:30. We walked up and down the Thames until about 4. Snapped a few photos along the way, but nothing of importance. Around five after 4 we got in line and were amazed that the sky was beginning to clear up. Sweet!

Once our flight was over (it takes about 30 to 45 minutes per trip) the sky was clouding back up and a storm was about to roll down the Thames. Walked over to Charing Cross Station, grabbed a Pint & a magazine, then headed back home.

You know the drill.. Click the thumbnail to see the photos. :)

In the immortal words of Ice Cube, Today was a good day.

It was a gorgeous day outside. 68°F by the thermometer. Clear skys, no rain (but we need it). Anyway, I finally collected all the Tri-Force pieces in Zelda, mailed off a package I have been putting off, did at TON of laundry, and bought a £20 BBQ grill for £15.

Lately I've been wanting to go back to the US. I miss my family. I miss my friends. Surprisingly, I miss my customers at the hardware store. I guess I never realized how much I enjoy solving their problems and putting them on the right path. Maybe I've been in retail way too long. :shrug: But not today.

Today I was quite content to do the same things I've been doing since we've been in the UK, and was happy to do so. It was weird. I really didn't do anything different today than I do every other day, but I didn't think about going back to the US at all today. Strange.

Maybe I'm becoming British. I do notice that the more I've had to drink, the more a British accent comes out...

Anyway, today was a good day, and I'm thankful for that.


Crikey.

Sorry for the delay again in keeping this up-to-date. I've been playing Zelda and I'm almost finished. :) Regular posts to commence shortly. In the meantime, here's something to think about.

Inbetween battling Peahats & Wizzrobes I've been doing laundry all day. Why is it that lint in the lint trap is almost always blue? Other than when you're washing a red blanket or all the green towels at once it usually has a bluish tint to it.

What's up with that?