The Megz and Her Majesty

Vietnam, part 0.1

2009-05-02T21:22:00.002+01:00

Stories and more from Vietnam coming soon (Meg?) but the first of the photos are posted on Flickr.

No on California's Prop 8: an open letter

2008-10-30T10:39:00.003+00:00

Dear friends and family,

I'll be blunt. I'm writing to ask for your help in defeating California's Proposition 8, the ballot measure that would codify the discrimination inherent in the statement "marriage is between a man and a woman."

I could give you fiscal, social, familial, or personal reasons why I believe Prop 8 is wrong, but I'll just say this: it's fundamentally unAmerican to say that some people are more worthy of government sanction than others. It was wrong when we counted slaves as 3/5 of free people, it was wrong when women were denied the vote, and it's wrong today.

If you're in California, please don't forget to vote. And no matter where you are, please join me and thousands of other Americans in giving whatever you can - your time, your money, your goodwill and word of mouth - to defeat the proponents of inequality.

New Restaurant Tuesday: Le Mercury

2008-10-08T13:52:00.005+01:00

Meg has been busy so she hasn't written up about last week's NRT but we'll forgive her and go right on and hope she'll catch up...

Meg picked Le Mercury which conveniently is right in our neighborhood. I go in and am offered the choice of downstairs or upstairs and since I'm still sore from my sad little half-marathon I choose downstairs. I sit down and am promptly ignored until Meg comes in. The vibe is very French bistro and a bit like Lucien in NYC which used to be our favourite place for a mildly celebratory dinner so that's good. The restaurant is crowded but unlike a crowded NYC restaurant you aren't putting your elbows in your neighbour's soup.

Tiny paper napkins and diner-standard flatware/glasses are all that's on the table. Meg arrives, we get the menus, and order drinks. We get glasses of tap water, which are never refilled, and a bottle of chenin blanc which turns out to be a 2008 from Long Beach winery in South Africa. This is a little sweet, but very nice - I like it a lot. The bread is pretty plain-jane white bread, but it has poppy seeds on the outside which make it better than expected.

Meg has Tian au Crabe which is described on the menu as "Tian of crab and avocado emulsion." What is a tian? We don't know which seems as good a reason as any to order it. It turns out to be something like crab salad. Meg seems to enjoy it.

I have Chevre Chaud, grilled goat's cheese with fresh leaf salad and basil pesto. This is quite good although I think rather too heavy on the goat cheese and not heavy enough on the pesto as it's a little dry. The salad is nothing special and in fact I was hoping for more leaves. Weirdly, I guess, I'm asking for them to have more of the cheap ingredients in this dish.

For mains, Meg gets Supreme de Poulet Roti - roast breast of chicken, garlic mash, green peppercorn. She seems to like it. I have Filet de Loup de Mer - sea bass with cauliflower puree, raisins, and chili lemon zest. Everything individually is good but they don't seem to go together that well.

And that's it. We're tired, Meg seems to be coming down with something, so we skip out after just over an hour for under 40GBP. A great deal, convenient, decent food. We'll definitely be back.

Le Mercury, 140a Upper Street, Islington, N1 1QY. 020 7354 4088

Thank you!

2008-10-07T11:36:00.001+01:00

A huge thank you to everyone who supported me in the Run to the Beat and donated to fight leukaemia. It was a slog, but I finished the half-marathon on Sunday - and the only reason I got to the start line was thinking how I'd let you all down if I let tube troubles and a little rain stand between me and the run. There's still time if you'd like to donate, but thank you so much for your virtual cheers and real donations.

Liquid Assets

2008-10-06T11:01:00.001+01:00

A colleague of mine just sent this to me... I love it!

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today. But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund (10 cents in some states), you will have received a $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg.

A recent study found that the average American walks about 900 miles a year. Another study found that Americans drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year. That means that, on average, Americans get about 41 miles to the gallon. Makes you proud to be an American!

New Restaurant Tuesday: The Big Easy

2008-09-25T16:50:00.005+01:00

The Big Easy
332-334 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UR

Megan’s first turn to choose a restaurant, and she picks a place that is definitely more up my alley than hers (I’m a meat-and-potatoes gal, Megan likes, well… vegetables): The Big Easy in Chelsea. This place is something of an anomaly, and I’m not really sure what it’s trying to be – a self-proclaimed BBQ and Crab Shack… that’s also won a Wine Spectator award! Now, I love BBQ and seafood and wine, but I’m not sure I can recall the last time I had all three at the same place! Oh yeah, and they’re known for their tasty margaritas too! Weird…

Anyway, we started with a couple of margaritas – clementine & ginger for me, passion fruit & chile for Megan. Megan’s was painfully sweet, and mine was OK, but I generally like to taste my booze instead of being tricked into drinking it, so these weren’t really a huge hit with either of us. We opted for bottles of Dos Equis to go with our meals.

The menu is huge – there must have been 75 items on it. The best way I can describe this restaurant (and everything about it) is that it’s Dock’s (a well-known seafood mini-chain in NYC) meets Brother Jimmy’s (another NYC mini-chain which has the same motto as the Big Easy, “put a little South in your mouth”). The décor definitely swung the way of Brother Jimmy’s – Christmas lights, US license plates, plank walls, etc. I think the desired effect is to make you feel like you’re in a Cajun crab shack (albeit one that serves BBQ… and huge steaks… and Alsatian wines), but it felt a bit contrived to me. An added bonus – this place played great music. During the first part of our meal, they were piping in southern rock: CCR, the Black Crowes (!!!) and a little Tom Petty for good measure. Later in the evening, a cover band started playing upstairs; they were pretty good, and were definitely playing crowd favorites like Oasis, Jack Johnson, U2, the Foo Fighters, etc. The place is clearly catering to American expats looking for a bit of home.

We started our meal with the Voodoo chicken wings. I was hoping for Buffalo-style (these weren’t), but these did not disappoint. Fairly spicy and a homemade bleu cheese dressing on the side. The chicken was breaded though, and that didn’t go over great with either of us. Overall, they were pretty delicious. After we polished off our order of 5 wings, the waiter brought over hot towels – a nice touch, especially considering that we were both covered in wing sauce.

For our entrees, we decided that we would order baby back ribs and a half of a roasted chicken and share. Big mistake. The portions were HUGE, and I suspect that we were fed some genetically modified, mutant (though delicious) chicken. I thought the ribs were good, but Megan thought they were a bit overcooked. Both featured the same BBQ sauce, which was pretty good, but a little sweet for my liking. On the side of both plates (really platters) were huge portions of coleslaw and BBQ baked beans. The coleslaw was just OK, but the beans were great, if for no other reason than they weren’t of the Heinz canned variety that are ubiquitous here. Everything made for delicious leftovers on Wednesday night!

Total damage: £66. We don’t think that we would hurry to come back here, but it could be a fun place to catch a baseball or football game (they have NASN too!) and hang with some expats.

CUBS WIN!

2008-09-18T23:14:00.003+01:00

The Cubs win! They beat the Brewers this afternoon to chip 2 games off of their magic number! Geovany Soto is my hero, hitting a 3-run homer with 2 down in the bottom of the 9th to send it into extra innings. D-Lee hits a blooper into shallow center in the bottom of the 12th to send... wait for it... JASON "I'm a baseball player, not a pitcher" MARQUIS home for the game winning run. The magic number is 2!

Best part of the game: Megan and I watched this amazing game LIVE. Yeah, I finally convinced her to subscribe to the North American Sports Network (NASN), the ex-pat's saving grace in the land of no ESPN. This station gets MLB, NFL, College Football and Basketball, and other sports that only folks from the US and Canada care about.... like curling! :) The Cubs making their post-season run was reason enough for me to subscribe. Watching the game live was almost as good as spending the afternoon at the Friendly Confines... except without the Old Style, sunshine, or post-victory dance party at Sluggers!

LET'S GO CUBS!!!!

New Restaurant Tuesday: The Ledbury

2008-09-17T10:24:00.003+01:00

This week’s NRT is a special occasion treat as it’s our anniversary and it only comes around, well, once a year. Even though it’s my week to pick Meg makes a recommendation of The Ledbury and I haven’t thought of anything to top it so we go for it.

For the second week in a row, I get there on time. Even early. I’m not sure the world isn’t coming to an end. They show me immediately to the table and I ask for a vodka gimlet (say that with a soft “g”!) and then Meg gets there too. Unfortunately since we’ve arrived separately we never hear the specials, which is actually ok since the regular menu is hard enough to choose from. It’s prix fixe.

Big open room and on a Tuesday night not completely packed, but the patrons are weirdly congregated around the edges. Lovely recessed lighting punctuated with low spots and weirdly beautiful chandeliers. Lots of windows with heavy luxe drapery (black with blacker embroidery) combine with tables covered in white tablecloths to give the room a real feeling of luxury.

The patrons are an interesting group, mostly our age and older, mostly couples. There’s one younger couple that appear to be on the “let’s get engaged” date but they’re a course or so behind us so I don’t get to see the outcome of that.

Staff is clearly professional – not a lot of “I’m doing this while I work on my degree” here. They all had responsibilities for different parts of the meal/service so I think we saw everyone in the restaurant at our table at some point. The hostess, who was also in charge of close-of-meal stuff (petits fours and bill). The order-taking drinks and lead waitress, who described some of the courses. The sommelier, who described some others of the courses. The bussers and food runners, who described some the rest of the courses. All very good but I do admit I like having someone “in charge” of our table to rely upon.

No pictures tonight as it really didn’t seem the place. I liked that, despite the quantity of food you’ll read about below, I left not completely stuffed, as the portion sizes were very reasonable given the whole of the menu.

On to the food…

The Ledbury, 127 Ledbury Road, Notting Hill, London, W11 2AQ
Date: 16 September 2008

On the table: mini salt and pepper grinders (I think – we never used them as everything was perfectly seasoned) which are even better than last week’s s/p wells.

Drinks: Vodka gimlet with a lime rind garnish – a little sweet for my taste (when I make them at home I use just straight lime juice rather than Rose’s) but I think it’s made to contemporary recipe standard. Hendrick’s martini with (bar) olives – Meg wanted a place like this to serve it with nicer olives instead of the “Oscar Meyer” of olives.

Canapé: spiced flatbread with pate mousse piped on in two long snakes.

Water: we’re the only people in the room drinking tap, as far as I can tell. When we ask for it, our water goblets are removed leading me to fear we’re going to get kiddie cups but eventually the goblets come back filled with icy tap water and a couple of lemon slices, and are kept filled all night from a pitcher also holding lemon slices. Definitely passes the tap water test.

Wine: The list is really a book. Too much to choose from, so we ask for a recommendation. The sommelier knows most of what we’ve ordered and takes Meg’s “we like Cabernet Franc” suggestion and flips through the book. He comes up with three different suggestions, all under £40 – quite a feat when you consider that about a quarter of the book is in that price range. We settle on Domaine de la Chevalerie Busasrdieres Bourgueil (1998 ) which he says is “quite different.” On this we concur, but overall find it to be too fruity for our tastes.

Amuse: Courgette puree w/parmesan creme and sourdough croutons. Delicious.

Bread: a basket of choices: bacon and onion brioche (Meg), sourdough (Megan), brown roll with black pepper (neither). Meg likes the brioche, I find it a bit much. I like the sourdough, especially with the addition of a little butter – served in a cylinder on marble with a small sprinkling of sea salt on top.

Apps:

Terrine of Foie Gras and Pain d’ épices with Mango and Cabernet Vinegar Caramel. Again Meg goes for something I don’t like. I try a bite but, nope, still don’t like foie gras. Maybe she’ll tell us about it.
Scallops Roasted on Liquorice with Fennel, Cepes and Roasting Juices. Liquorice is used like a skewer to make scallop lollipops. Very meaty and flavourful.

Mains:

Confit Suckling Pig with Spiced Peach, Salsify and Ham Beignet, Baby Onions Pickled in White Beer. Again, Meg goes for bacon for dinner. The peach is quite amazing, and the baby onions are really sweet.
New Season’s Lamb Roasted in Balsamic with Spinach Purée and Aubergine Glazed with Miso and Garlic. I generally consider aubergine to be a reason not-to-order but the seasonality of lamb win me over. The dish arrives with both the regular bits of the lamb and sweetbreads in the form of pancreas. One of my clients at work is a diabetes product, and they try to be all science-minded so I look at pictures of pancreases (pancreii?) all day so this bit is fascinating. It’s really rich tasting. The juices are definitely a hit. Aubergine is roasted so much I thought it was a banana/plantain, and it’s actually nearly that sweet, so better than expected. Spinach puree is a little flat but with the addition of the juices and/or lamb I’m quite happy.

Pre-dessert: a small glass of passionfruit jelly and diced mango, topped with vanilla cream. YUM.

Dessert:

Three Small Brûlées with Ice Cream and Madeleines, and a glass of Tokaji. Arrives with a cocoa brulee with basil ice cream (glad this is a small one, though I think the basil ice cream would serve as a nice palate cleanser); an Earl Grey brulee with an ice cream flavour I can’t remember – Meg’s 2nd favourite; and a brulee I can’t remember (Thai?) with olive oil ice cream. Clear winner. Madeleines are, of course, too chocolatey for Meg but I enjoy one.
Terrine of Strawberries with Sour Cream, Hibiscus Consommé and Warm Vanilla Doughnuts, and a glass of Riesling. Very strawberry-flavoured. The hibiscus really adds to the complexity. The vanilla doughnuts are filled with jelly, and a little unnecessary.

Petits fours: a choice of several different things from which we select dark chocolate square with eucalyptus and a banana chocolate macaroon. They get put into a cool off-centre silver bowl filled with chips of something we can’t figure out – looks like dark chocolate but tastes more like toasted wood – obviously we weren’t meant to eat that part but we tried it anyway to figure out what it was.

Damage: £205 inclusive. It would be possible to eat (not drink) well in this restaurant for £112.50 for two if you just ordered the menu and tap water.

Happy Anniversary

2008-09-16T08:00:00.002+01:00

Hard to believe that 2 years have passed since Megan and I got married in Chicago. Things that have changed since September 2006:

Sold our house on the LES.
Bought a house in Park Slope.
Got married.
Went on a honeymoon to Costa Rica.
Moved to Brooklyn.
Meg got a promotion.
Megan got 2 promotions.
Meg got a job offer to move to London.
Megan found a job in London.
Moved to London.
Moved from corporate housing, to an apartment, then to a house in London (in the span of 4 months).
The Megz combined flew 40,000+ miles in the month of December 2007.
Turbo moved to London!
Megan ran a marathon.
Traveled to Spain, Belgium, France, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, and probably some other places too.
Partied at Glastonbury with 180,000 of our closest friends...
Bought bikes.
Still madly in love with my wife... :)

Madonna at Wembley Stadium

2008-09-15T12:22:00.004+01:00

On 11 September, Megan and I went to go see Madonna at Wembley Stadium as part of her Sticky & Sweet tour. Not that either one of us are huge Madonna fans, but it is hard to deny the fact that she's a cultural icon, and that of all places, the London show would be notable if for no other reason than it's the Material Girl's adopted home (she lives somewhere near Hyde Park, and allegedly has adopted a British accent which I find hilarious for a girl from Michigan!).

The production of the show was amazing - Unfortunately, we forgot our camera so I've only got this crappy photo taken with my Blackberry from our seats about a half a mile from the stage. The stage seemed to be constantly moving and changing - an effect achieved largely through moving video screens of various shapes and sizes, platforms that moved and also changed shape, and an extremely talenteed troupe of dancers with intricate costumes.

The show lasted 2 hours, and was non-stop. However, the sound sucked and we had to sit quietly to just be able to hear what was being played - hardly conducive to the Madonna dance-party I was planning on having! I don't think I would be eager to see another show in the Stadium, especially if the roof was open. My theory is that, since the roof was open, a lot of the sound was escaping.

Given the Stadium location, I was surprised that tickets were such a hot item; my boss was visiting from the US and expressed interest in going to the show. I did a bit of research on the day of the event, and many brokers had no tickets available - those that did have tickets were selling them for up to £650 each (more than 10 times what we paid for our seats)!!!

All in all, I was glad we went, but I don't think I would run back to see another Madonna show.

Songs played:

Candy Shop: with a video version of Pharrel from the Neptunes
On the Beat Goes: during the song, Madonna and her dancers drive out onto the stage in a white Rolls Royce, video version of Kanye accompanies her
Human Nature: Madonna plays the guitar... badly
4 Minutes tease to Vogue: with super-hot girls in bondage outfits
Die Another Day: featuring a boxer theme, Madonna changed from her bondage-style outfit into short shorts and boxing boots
Get Into the Groove: with Madonna doing double dutch - and kicking ass! - and dancing on a DJ booth that had a stripper pole! This was my favorite number... :)
Feel it in my Heartbeat: Madonna and crew dancing on a Jamiroquai-style moving track
Borderline: with more crappy guitar from Madonna
She's Not Me: with a montage of stills from her videos, also several of her dancers were costumed to look like her from the videos... and then Madonna beats them up
Last Night a DJ Saved my Life tease to Music
Devil Wouldn't Recognize You: Madonna performs from behind a video screen with rain projected on it
Spanish Lesson: with dancers dressed in latin-style ninja costumes that become more traditional flamenco outfits
Miles Away: more flamenco dancing
La Isla Bonita: backing band is a mariachi band, who performs a song without Madonna after the conclusion of "La Isla Bonita"
You Must Love Me: from "Evita", performed with the mariachi band
Get Up: played over the PA system while Madonna had a costume change, featured a video with a montage of terrible images of starvation, genocide, and leaders that history has not looked kindly up including Hitler, Lenin, John McCain, etc.); the second half of the song featured "good" images: Desmond Tutu, Ghandi, Bono, Oprah, Barack Obama, etc.
4 Minutes: Madonna's new costume featured her wearing American football shoulder pads decorated with sparkles and other flair, Justin Timberlake "performed" on small video screens that moved around the stage as Madonna "danced" with him
Like a Prayer : sung in tandem with a video featuring lots of Kabbalah images and Hebrew and English text
Ray of Light: featuring more crappy guitar from Madonna and dancers in Daft Punk-style helmets
Express Yourself: sung a cappella with the crowd
Hung Up: with LOTS of crap guitar from Madonna, complete with Pete Townshend-style shredding and amp humping, played in tandem with a strange video featuring chess pieces
Give It 2 Me: Madonna's new single, performed by herself on stage, featuring a crazy-good solo dance party from Madonna

New Restaurant Tuesday: The Clerkenwell

2008-09-10T10:58:00.008+01:00

Meg and I decided that we're starting a new tradition called New Restaurant Tuesday. It's not hard to understand: (nearly) every Tuesday we'll go someplace we've never eaten before and write about it. Meg picked last night, so I get the honors of writing the first NRT post.

After a crap day at work, I arrive on time for our 8:30 reservation at The Clerkenwell. We wait a few minutes as our table isn't quite ready. There's a bar, but no place to sit at it - you just have to sort of hang around in the hallway by the toilets. We decline a drink and idly peruse the menus.

We bring our menus with us when we get seated. We've left the wine list at the bar but it arrives promptly when requested. The staff kindly leave us alone while I have a good cathartic cry. I pull myself together and we order. After a long wait suddenly everything appears nearly at once: tap water, amuse, wine, bread. The staff are alternately attentive and absent. Nicely spaced courses.

The space itself is beautiful and (with the exception of the odd rendition of "Happy Birthday") quiet enough to have an intimate conversation without being so quiet as to inspire a feeling that everyone will notice if you, say, happen to clang your knife against the plate. We agree that we would definitely return, and it would make a nice business lunch location.

The Clerkenwell, 69-73 St John St, London, EC1M 4AN
Date: 9 September 2008
Wine: Solabal Rioja (2005). Pleasant without being overpowering. Goes with nearly everything we order.
On the table: my favourite, salt and pepper wells. The pepper isn't quite ground enough, though.
Water: tap water brought quickly when requested. Arrives with lemon slices in a pitcher just for our table, which I think is a nice touch
Bread: Warm from the oven, more slices than we care to eat in a basket. It's crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside, just as it should be. White bread is a little bland for my taste, especially when there's no butter (even though the bread plates have butter knives).
Amuse: a surprise from the chef! Not sure if this happens for everyone, or if it's to make up for the long-ish (but not bad at all) wait to order the wine. It's a creamy soup with a basil oil on top. I ask a bunch of times and can never understand the name, but it's delicious.
Apps:

Salad of crab and avocado, chilled gaspacho. Meg loves this. I don't even like the ingredients, but even I agree that it's quite good. It's a log of crab salad on top of sushi-style avocado slices in a log, in a bowl of gaspacho. Meg tries to take a picture but it comes out terribly.
Beignet of courgette flower, provencal vegetables and buffalo mozzarella.

They appear to have stuffed some delicious mixed veg into the flower of the courgette (zucchini) before dipping in a light batter and frying. There's a fan of mozzarella and surprise tomatos (grr) next to it. A strange combination, but it works. I think it would have been more successful if they'd used just the flower part - not the stem - and put both the mozz and veg inside. Perhaps 2 flowers on a plate? Still, quite good.

Mains:

Crisp confit pork belly, fricassée of coco beans and new season garlic.

Meg likes when there's bacon for dinner, so this was an easy sell for her. I only had one bite so don't remember much about this, but I do remember thinking it was good.
Seared salmon, crushed new potatoes, watercress and beurre rouge.

Um, yum! I had forgotten the potatoes were "crushed" so wasn't really expecting the pile of mash but it was so good. Actually I don't think they really did make mash, I'm pretty sure it was just crushed potatoes with maybe a little salt. On the plate is the buerre rouge sauce, and a lightly herb-y green sauce as well. The salmon is perfectly done, flaky and moist, and well seasoned.

Dessert: Let's get crazy here. NRT won't always be like this but why not tonight after all the craziness at work. I'm a sucker for anything with pine nuts, so I can barely read past the Ricotta Lemon cheesecake, pine nuts and raisins.

The ricotta gives the cheesecake a nice grainy-ness. Lemon flavor is not too strong. Pine nuts, and especially the raisins, feel a bit added-on. It goes nicely with the Tokaji dessert wine, though.
Damage: £145 inclusive, which sounds crazy until you consider that the dessert wine set us back £40 alone.

I'm going bananas in the fight against leukaemia

2008-08-26T16:04:00.004+01:00

As I'm sure you all know, I completed my first marathon this spring. This fall, I'm running a half marathon to raise money for Leukaemia Research UK. (Their running team is known as the Banana Army. I don't know why, and I don't really understand it, but that's where the title of this post comes from.)

You may have already received a plea from me, in which case feel free to ignore our sadly neglected blog until Meg writes something new. Or, read on to find out how you can help...

I'd love to raise £300 between now and October 5, 2008, so I'm running a little contest. Details can be found at my donations page: http://www.justgiving.com/meganhall.

As of this writing, I'm nearly half-way there thanks to donations from Mom & Dad, Grandpa, Kate, Mikaela, and Meg. I've gotten commitments from a few other people that will definitely get me to >50% - but I can still use your help getting all the way there!

If you're inclined to support me, I'd be thrilled and honored. Even $1 will get you an entry to the sweepstakes! And if you should happen to find yourself in London on October 5, I'll be wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and would love to high-five you on the way to the finish line.

Red Bull Air Races

2008-08-07T13:35:00.003+01:00

We have also recently gone to the Red Bull Air Races. This is really cool, and if you have a chance to check it out you definitely should. Pilots flying <20 feet off the Thames between big air-filled pylons at 200+ miles per hour. Pretty incredible. Sometimes they'd misjudge the pylons and fly into them - they were made of special parachute-like material that was designed to explode or disintegrate in sections on impact to stay out of their propellers. Then the crew would stitch a new section back on and fill it full of air again and it would be back up in less than 5 minutes. Really spectacular.

For your viewing pleasure:

Update

2008-08-06T15:44:00.008+01:00

I know, I know. No updates makes Megz bad cross-Atlantic bloggers. Sorry.

First, something fun to read today, following on from my last love of science post: How to define a gram.

Quick update: Since our last post, we've been to

Edinburgh

Glastonbury Music Festival (pictures still stuck in a different camera)

Cape Cod for our god-daughter's baptism

Meg also went to Germany to drive the Nurburgring

Meg's brother Rob and his wife Hilary are here visiting this week.

We're both crazy about/with work so apologies for lack of posts. Love to see you.

I like science!

2008-05-18T00:33:00.002+01:00

I am a big nerd, I know. I love science museums, especially if they've got some interactive component. The Exploratorium was my preferred San Franscisco activity well into my 20s. So our trip to the Wellcome Collection this afternoon was a big treat. Wellcome himself was, in addition to being an early pharmaecutical baron, an indiscriminate collector of anything even tangentially related to medicine. There's the mummified person and the used guillotine blade, the glass chemist's jars and the lock of some king's hair. Bizarre yet educational and fun.

My favourite part of the museum today was a temporary exhibit called Life Before Death. It features photographs of terminally ill peple shortly before they died and shortly after, plus exerpts from interviews with them. Beautifully shot, and extraordinarily powerful. It's closing here, but if you've ever got a chance to see it, I recommend it.

One of their permanent exhibits is Medicine Now, which among other things lets you create an "ID" for yourself based on a few biometric details.

Like many museums in London, this one is free. Next time you come to visit, put it on your list!

thoughts from the absent Meg...

2008-05-04T22:31:00.003+01:00

It's Sunday night on a lazy bank holiday weekend (that would be one of the 3-day weekends that the UK has periodically for some unknown reason) and I realized that I haven't blogged in ages. Sorry about that all. Life here is going well - working too much as always, and we're making plans for another busy summer of travel. Nothing earth-shattering going on these days though, so I'll post a few random thoughts instead:

We're happy here in London, but a new bar has opened around the corner from our place in Brooklyn. Must say that I can't wait to check out Beer Table. Sounds right up my alley...

We had a great visit to NYC in April, and got a chance to meet up with a several of our friends for a fabulous night out at Ginger, our favorite sushi place in the East Village.

Congrats to my mom on her retirement in a few weeks. Can't wait to open the "cabin" over Memorial Day!

If you are a reader of our blog, then you know that Megan just finished her first marathon last weekend in Blackpool. She did a great job, and it was awesome to watch her accomplish her goal!

The Glastonbury lineup was announced today. After going to Bonnaroo several times, I must say I'm excited to see the inspiration for that festival. The lineup is amazing, to say the least. We're renting a campervan and doing it "luxury style". Yeah right...

Lots of visitors lately - it's been great to see everyone! Nikki came for about 10 days and we took a side trip to Amsterdam for a music festival... good times! :) Then Teddy stayed with us while he was completing a med school rotation - I think Turbo was secretly happy to have some "testosterone time" while we were away in Blackpool at the marathon.

We hope to see you soon - either on one of our visits back to the US or over here in the UK!

My marathon report

2008-04-28T17:50:00.019+01:00

I finished! 5:26:48. You can get all the finishing times at http://www.blackpoolmarathon.com/results.html. The first 10 miles were pretty good, then the lack of breakfast really hit me and I started to struggle. Meg was an awesome race supporter and brought me a banana, which helped for a while, then another one which totally got me through. I did a mixture of running and walking – I had planned to do between 1 minute and 0.1 mile in every mile, which worked for the first 13-15 miles (it’s all a little hazy in there) when I started walking more and more. Finally around 21 miles I started to rally and finished pretty well. We spent the rest of the day riding the highest and fastest roller coaster in Europe and with me eating pretty much everything put in front of me.

I’m totally sore, and incredibly happy, and already thinking about the next one. Meg has requested it be a bigger one so she’s not so bored. I’m hoping to improve my standing on the celebrity marathon runner list:
George W: 3:44:52
Oprah: 4:29:20
-->Megan: 5:26:48
Katie Holmes: 5:29:58
Mario Lopez 5:41:41
Freddie Prinze Junior 5:50:49
David Lee Roth 6:04:43

If you want the blow-by-blow, I’m putting it on my running blog to spare you all the 4 pages, but here are the photos courtesy of Meg.
Here's me getting ready:

Here's all the things I needed to run:

The morning of the marathon:

Here go the wheelchair racers:

The runners are off:

I'm in here somewhere:

At mile 2, I saw Meg before she saw me:

At mile 19, I was struggling - but still smiling (I think - that might be a grimace):

I finished:

Here's me and my medal in my T-shirt from Ginger:

Spring snow

2008-04-07T15:53:00.004+01:00

We had the biggest snow storm of the year yesterday. I took my camera and Turbo and went to the park, and I'm glad I did because the snow is all gone by this morning (except for a few sad pieces of snow people). Pictures on Flickr as usual, but here's my favourite.

Amsterdam, 30, the marathon, where's Meg?

2008-03-24T21:59:00.004+00:00

We've had the last week+ off work as we went to Amsterdam for a music festival with our friend Nikki. We had tons of fun (nothing we can't tell Mom about!), time to walk around and think, then came back and Meg and I have had a lazy few days just hanging out about the house. Just in time for ...

the big 3-0. Yes, indeed, I had a birthday. I got a cake from my grandparents, but I don't need to eat a whole cake so I thought I'd share it with you:

As you may recall, as a 30th birthday present to myself, I decided to run a marathon. 5 weeks and counting...

Paris photos

2008-03-02T22:02:00.002+00:00

Like I said, we went to Paris with our friends Mikaela and Lisa. I put some photos on Flickr, but here's a taste:
We walked around a lot and went to a bakery for some amazing pastries:

We also walked up to Sacre Cour:

Meg has promised to write about what all we did there, so that'll be all from me.

In "print"

2008-03-01T19:04:00.003+00:00

My first short story has been published in an online literary magazine! You can download the whole issue. I'm very excited.

Turbo goes on vacation

2008-02-21T16:50:00.006+00:00

Meg and I went to Paris last weekend with our friends Mikaela and Lisa. We had an amazing time. Photos coming soon.

In the meantime, here's some photos from my coworker Anna and her flatmate Faye, who dogsat and fell in love with Turbo. At one point, he was so sleepy they had to carry him to bed:

Turbo's new job

2008-02-05T09:44:00.001+00:00

As you all know, Turbo has been over here in England since the new year. He has a pretty easy life - his day's are mostly filled with ball-chasing, walks, and naps. Bringing him over here was pretty expensive though (we try not to add up the total cost, for fear of inducing a heart attack), so we've been talking to him about finding a job. The problem is that his skill set is pretty limited, and finding a job in this economy has proved to be tough. He's tried a few jobs, but has not really been very successful:

Driving a limo seemed out of the question.
He tried being a bartender but just drank all of the product.
His typing skills left something to be desired.
He's not much of a lifeguard.

However, after much thought and evaluation, we think we have found a new profession for him: Turbo's Computer Screen Cleaning Service. He charges reasonable rates, and his work is guaranteed! For a sample of his work, CLICK HERE.

JOY JOY JOY: for Meg

2007-12-13T11:35:00.000+00:00

(Is it just me, or does this feel like it's becoming my blog? Meg, we'd love to hear your take on this all...)

Anyway. Last night I arrived safely from Switzerland and went straight to The Borderline to see Jenny Owen Youngs. The photos on her page don't do her justice, so I'll put one of my own here and more on Flickr, but in person she looks like what would happen if our lovely and fun friend Lindsay Mac had babies with the uber-talented Kaki King:Since Meg couldn't come with me, I promised her a setlist, complete with jokes. Unfortunately Miss JOY was a bit sick, so the set was a little shortened, and there's a bit of rambling, but she's an amazingly talented singer. There weren't a ton of people there, so I got to be up front, and weirdly a lot of them had only heard one song of hers (more on that in a bit).
1. Coyote
Jenny asks everyone to set their ring tones to g-sharp, the key of the next song.
2. Lightning Rod
Someone's phone rings, but in the wrong key. A new verse for the song is written - "I thought we talked about the ring tones."
3. A new song, I think, which I'm calling Dissolve
4. Drinking Song
Here, the English cold medicines begin to take effect on Jenny. She finishes the second chorus, then can't remember whether or not she's played the second verse. Since hardly anyone in the audience knows the music, no one can say for sure. She begins again with the second verse. Someone shouts "We've heard that bit." The third verse begins.

Dave House is in the house. He joins Jenny on stage. They play "the one with the cursing":
5. F**k was I
Jenny asks if we've brought our feeleings. Someone in the audience says, "We're English, we don't do feelings." Jenny says, oh right, you live in this country that's cold, rainy, and full of ennui.
6. Porchrail
Dave leaves before the song is even over.
7. P.S.
8. Woodcut
Now, we find out that Jenny loves the English "beans on toast," which makes their poor excuse for coffee almost tolerable.
9. From Here
Dave returns.
10. Keys Out Lights On
Jenny promises she'll put on an evening gown later, since that's what we've all come for: "If I were a crack dealer, these songs would be my pancake store. Do you have pancakes here?" An American in the audience laments the lack of Aunt Jemima to go with pancakes. We also learn that Jenny ordered flapjacks once, and got a "horrible excuse for a granola bar," and warns us all not to go to America and order flapjacks and expect that.
11. Voice on Tape
Dave leaves again. He hasn't said a single word all night.
12. A song I'm calling Avalanche, by someone who I think is called Garinne Hawk
13. A new song I'm calling The English Language
14. Another new song I'm calling I Couldn't Want You
15. Her cover of Hot in Here, which turns out to be why everone came to the show. For the first time all night, they're singing along! Too bad the show is over now.

Where we've been

2007-12-04T18:06:00.000+00:00

We've had so much fun traveling and having visitors in November that we haven't written about it (or even put up pictures):
First, my parents came. We went to Cornwall with them for a long weekend.
Then, they left and went to France.
My sister came. She met me for lunch, then went to Cambridge to see her James. Then off to Spain with her.
Meanwhile, Meg's mom came. Then we went to Barcelona together, where we met my parents and sister and James for Thanksgiving. It was really fun, though of course without all the American media hoopla it didn't feel much like Thanksgiving. In fact, it felt so little like Thanksgiving that we didn't even all have dinner together. Still, family is (at least to me) the most important part of a holiday, so it was still good.
Next, Meg, her mom, and my parents came back to London. Meg's mom left after one day (had to go back to work) and we had a few more days with my parents.
After they left, my sister came back to London. We had so much fun hanging out. We went for a run and went to a party at a co-worker's house, but really nothing too intense. Then James came down from Cambridge, and we all had kebabs and hung out for a while longer. On Saturday we went to Borough Market and then to one of our favourite pubs - they have an awesome beer selection and an outdoor patio with heat. Monday Lindsay and I did a little (very little!) Christmas shopping in Oxford Circus. While we were out James texted me and said he'd finished his work early and wanted to come back down and surprise Lindsay. She and I went home and made this AWESOME butternut squash lasagne. I heard James put his key in the doorway and talked so Lindsay wouldn't hear it. She was washing dishes and talking to me, and he came up and stood behind her until she turned around. She was very surprised!
So that's what we've been up to...what about you? Hope to see you soon!