Carly & Daniel's Kid

Ramya and I were screwing around with the MyHeritage Celebrity Matcher again (see here and here), and just in case you were wondering what Daniel and Carly's kid would look like, check this out:Apparently they will spawn Hayden Panettiere somewhere between Remember the Titans and Heroes. You could do worse, right?

Adventures in GPSing / Dudley Castle

When our meetings in jolly old Wolverhampton (this is two Thursdays ago...9/20/07) finished up around 11:00 a.m., Shelley and I found ourselves in the West Midlands with several hours to kill. Throughout the duration of trip we had found ourselves nothing short of amazed at Shelley's new GPS (which really is a marvel), so when we got to the car we fired it up and said "Show me the points of interest!" It gave us several, but the third or fourth choice was Dudley Castle. And we were off.

It turns out Dudley Castle is now part of the Dudley Zoological Gardens, located in the small town of, well, Dudley. Originally built in 1071, it went through various iterations until being largely destroyed in 1750, and then reopened as a zoo in 1921. It really makes for quite the unique attraction- you can look at the snowy owls, then the tigers, then wind your way up the 900 year-old staircase to see the penguins. Personally, I was more interested in the castle, because we have zoos here.

But there were some interesting parts of a United Kingdom zoo- most notably was how close you could get to the animals. There was a "Wallaby Walk," which let you walk right through the middle of the wallaby pen. There were guardrails to keep us on the path, but nothing to keep the wallabies and their four-inch claws away from us. Which is not to say that we were in any danger, because they all slept right through our visit (I figure they've seen a lot more humans than we have wallabies). There was also "Walk with the Lemurs," which was a similar path through a wooded setting, with Lemurs everywhere. We were standing and watching a group of them climb a tree when one stepped over my foot to cross the path. Not only was it interesting from a nature perspective, but it was a sort of commentary on the British vs. American mindset: You'd never get that close to a wild animal in the US, no matter how cute and fuzzy it may be. If a kid tormented a lemur to the point where it chewed his nose off or something, some lawyer would sue the zoo for every penny they could get. Whereas in the UK, the jury would be like "The sign said not to touch them, you bloody prat." In any case, it gave me the chance to get really close to some animals I otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Plus, now I can add wallaby and lemur to the types of poo I've had on my shoes.

The zoo is really more "around" the castle than "in" it, which you can kind of see in this picture. There are several exhibits in what's left of the great hall, and you can climb the remaining tower. Unfortunately, the only camera we had was Shelley's phone, but it still takes pretty good pictures. Here's me standing outside the museum part:Don't you love the super-low doorway? It kind of made me feel like a giant- kind of like when I hang our with Ramya and her friends. At this point I should also mention that I didn't pack any warm clothes for this trip. I left directly from Rehoboth beach, where it was sunny and warm. Thank goodness we stopped by a Banana Republic outlet (tax free- go Delaware!) where I bought a sweater, because I wore that thing every day. I swear that it was snowing in Preston, but Shelley insists it was just a fine mist. I know what I saw. But that's neither here nor there. When we got to the top of the tower, there was actually a pretty good view.You can't really tell in the picture, but there are names and initials and "PB hearts JH" carved all over this poor tower, proving that there are teenage vandals in every country. I said "Just imagine, some hooligan could've carved they're named in here five-hundred years ago. We could be looking at medieval graffiti!" Shelley replied "I'm guessing the ones in Sharpie are a little more recent." Believe it or not, the sun actually came out while we were up there, which allowed us to take this fun picture:Yes mom, I was standing on the ledge of the tower. But notice that I had one hand on the castle, one hand waving. Safety first!

The moral of the story here is that while I wouldn't plan a trip to the UK just to visit the Dudley Castle and Zoological Gardens, it was certainly a nice surprise. And it strengthens my belief that if you drive around long enough in rural England, something interesting will present itself. That something interesting is usually a castle, but hey. It works for me!

Up next, karaoke for Ramya's birthday. But first, Notre Dame at Purdue! If Purdue wins, they would be 5-0 while the Domers would be 0-5, and I would just be beside myself with joy.

Freaking Wal-Mart!

I'm working on a couple of posts right now, because a lot has happened recently- I had a trip to England, Ramya took me karaokeing for her birthday, I went to San Diego, etc. But, since I've now been on the road for three weeks straight free time has been hard to come by. I intend to get caught up this weekend.

But do you know what's on my mind right now? The fact that I don't understand how I can take all my allergy medication, look at the bottle, see that it says "1 refill remaining," call the Wal-Mart pharmacy, punch in my phone number and prescription number, have the automated lady tell me everything is fine and my prescription will be ready at 6:00, drive across town, fight my way through the sea of Nascar t-shirts and poofy bangs that is Wal-Mart clientele, wait in line at the pharmacy counter, ask for my prescription, and then be told that I have no refills left. Sorry! Call your doctor and have them re-submit it. Why did the bottle say one refill left? Why didn't your fancy schmancy automated line tell me it was out?

Well that's fine, Wal-Mart. You know why? Because I had already decided that when this prescription ran out I was never coming to you again. You've hastened your own demise. You might fool shoppers the world over, but I'm on to you. I will call my doctor, but that prescription is going to Target! I will gladly suffer a stuffy nose for a few days to not give you another penny.

Oh yeah- Dad, I need more Zyrtec.

Rehoboth Beach, or Wolverhampton? Hmm...

For your weather update, it is currently "crappy" in the United Kingdom. It's been particularly bad today- doing that constant mist thing. As Colin (one of our contacts over here) put it "at least in the US it just rains and gets it over with. Here you have to deal with this all day." No doubt!

We spent the first two nights in Preston, which was nice because the hotel has an awesome fitness center. I mean, we're talking 10 treadmills, 10 elliptical runners, 5 or 6 bikes- they even had a weight machine room and a free weight room! There were 4 TVs, but since I didn't want to be an ugly American and change the channel I ended up watching an hour of the Pakistan / Sir Lanka ICC Twenty20 Cricket match. I can now tell you how cricket is scored, but not how it ends, because it never seems to. Apparently the big draw of the Twenty20 games are that they are much faster than standard cricket, but when I started watching it in the early afternoon the game was well underway. So I worked out, took a nap, went out for dinner, and when I was heading for bed it was still going strong on the TV in the lobby. Turns out Pakistan won. Of course, checking the scores page only adds to my confusion- seeing as how New Zealand beat England by 5 "runs" the same day Pakistan beat Australia by 6 "wickets."

Anyway, last night I turned on the TV in my room for the first time and I discovered the second best thing about the Preston Marriott. I was flipping channels until I heard "And now back to Transformers!" and I thought "I have found my station." They were showing and old G1 episode from my childhood (though it was not dubbed over with British accents, as Ramya suggested) and it reminded me that some things are best left in memory, because that cartoon is much worse than I remember. The point of my story is that when I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth, I could still hear the show- there was a speaker in the ceiling that piped in the TV sound! How awesome is that? I think all hotel rooms should have this feature. Scratch that- all bathrooms. Even in my house. For that matter, the showers here have two knobs- one to set the temp, and one for how much water you want. So once you find the right temperature, you never have to mess with it again- just crank up the flow. Why don't we do that?

If I had to pick a third favorite thing it would be that the second floor (where my room was) had a sign at the top of the stairs that said "Leisure Club" (what they call the fitness center) with an arrow pointing down the stairs. When you went down half a flight, there was a landing where you do a 180 then go down the rest. But on the landing there was another Leisure Club sign that now pointed down the other half of the stairs. Why? Who goes down half the stairs, looks around, and upon seeing the two choices of "go back where I came from" or "finish going down the stairs" thinks "Hmm, where to now?" I guess it was nice of them, but personally I've never required re-directing while still on the flight of stairs.

I just realized that I haven't posted for a while, so I need to give an update about the trip to Rehoboth Beach. Maybe I'll hit the high points in a bulleted list:

• The drive there was fun, because Ramya and I both sing along to the radio as though we were performing on stage. We listened to Time Life's Greatest Hits of the 1980's collection (two of the three discs were in the case) and then moved on to a mixer labeled "Ramya's cool disk." We don't know when it was made, but it included Rosa Parks and That Thing You Do.


• The house itself was pretty nice, and I base that on being in a total of one rental houses in my life. It was only a few blocks from the beach, and it had plenty of space (there were 12 people there). It also had an outdoor shower (a real one, not like the cottage) and actual flip flops nailed to the bathroom wall as a decoration. They tied right into the Flamingo theme that ran through the house.


• I swam in the ocean for the second time in my life (the first time being in Hawaii roughly 20 years ago). Having grown up on Lake Michigan, I was worried about getting the saltwater in my eyes. Turns out it wasn't that bad- I think years of sweating into my eyes prepared me for the mild burn. Getting it in my mouth was another story.


• I had my first experience with Thrasher's Fries. Ramya and her friends rave about them- you get them by the bucketload on the boardwalk, and they're just big, thick french fries deep fried in peanut oil and covered in salt and vinegar. They are every bit as delicious and healthy as they sound. Plus, there's a big sign on the stand that says "NO KETCHUP!"


• Ramya's friends Sarah and Sean brought their Wii, so I got my first real play time with it. Turns out I'm not so good, but I think I just need practice. One interesting thing is that when I play Wii bowling, the ball always hooks to the left- just like in real life! Maybe that thing is realistic.


• I introduced a whole new crowd to Catch Phrase. Oh yeah. They're hooked.

But most importantly, I got to meet a whole mess of Ramya's friends, and I think I passed the test. I seemed to fit right in, even though they are all lawyers. Which makes sense, seeing as how they're her "law school" friends. Anyhow, I better wrap up because it's a quarter to ten here, and I have another full day of meetings tomorrow. Good early night!

Bodies / This Weekend

First things first: Spectacular football weekend. The Colts absolutely took apart the Saints, Purdue had a convincing win over the Eastern Illinois School for Wayward Girls, and Notre Dame was humiliated by Penn State. The only game I was able to watch was Indy Thursday night, and though I always enjoy a Colts victory, I hate for it to come at the expense of my boy Drew Brees. What I did like was seeing former Colt Jason David get burned repeatedly- just like he did when he played for Indy!

As for Purdue, I'm not sure how I feel about scheduling games against Football Championship Subdivision (the artist formerly know as Division II) schools. I hate to see Purdue paying the little guys to come in and taking a beating in the name of helping their stats, but on the other hand, everybody does it. Why not take an easy win early in the season? Of course, it doesn't always go as planned.

I spent the weekend in Arlington, and our main activity on Friday was checking out the Bodies exhibit. Ramya had actually suggested it for our second date, but I had put it off, feeling that it was too early to pass out in front of a girl I was trying to impress. But you know what? It was awesome! They really blurred the line between science and art, with all sorts of different specimens opened up to show different aspects. There were many entire bodies, but also smaller things like just an arm or a leg, with enough information for a non-medical type like me to understand without being overwhelmed. My only comment/complaint was that they didn't leave the fat on any of the bodies, which made it look like they were all the remains of triathletes. Because if you think about it, is there really any difference between a fat guy and a buff dude once you remove that layer (remember: non-medical type)? Plus, the image of all that fat clinging to everything could be an effective diet aid.

There was a lady at the end who was answering questions, and since she was wearing white coat I figured she must be some sort of doctor (because they don't just give those things away). When we walked up she let us handle an actual heart and brain. It wasn't gross, because they just felt like the polymer they use to harden the samples. Anyway, I asked her what it would look like if they left the fat on the bodies and if there was anyway to tell how heavy they were during their better days. She sputtered out some nonsense that instantly let us know that for this job you didn't so much need to "be a doctor" as you did "memorize some factoids." Ramya asked if all the bodies were Chinese, and she confirmed that they were. And as we walked away she added "But it is true though- we all look the same on the inside!" Except that we don't...and they actually had an exhibit about how various muscle structures tell you what ethnicity the bodies were. But we knew what she meant.

After obtaining this new found wisdom, we did what anyone would do after examining a bunch of dead bodies: Head across the street for some Chipotle. Halfway through my burrito I realized that I hadn't washed my hands since handling an actual human heart. I said "I hope there's no residue that's going to harden my heart. Or gonna swallow my tears." At this point Ramya looked at me quizzically until I added "Or gonna turn...and...le-heave yooooou heeeeeeeeeere!" at which point she started to realized what she's signed up for. Actually, I was probably in more danger from whatever the kids in front of us had on their grubby little mits when they touched the heart than from the organ itself.

That night we watched a documentary called This Film is Not Yet Rated, which explores the MPAA and how they assign ratings to movies. I liked it, because they really break down how arbitrary and inconsistent the ratings are, and they have decent commentary from several frustrated filmmakers (including Kevin Smith and Matt Stone). They also examine how any hint of sexuality gets you an R or NC-17, but you can skate with as much gratuitous violence as you can cram in (which is exactly the opposite in Europe). Then it derails a little when the director is enraged that the MPAA will not disclose the identities of their raters, so he hires private detectives to stake out the building and follow them. Then they make a big production out of it by saying "The MPAA raters are:" and splaying their names and personal information up on the screen. They do it with a grand sense of self-righteousness, like they've found escaped convicts, and they're doing a great service to all of mankind by bringing them to justice. Which is really the problem with this movie: It thinks it is a very important documentary that should be required watching for all Americans. What's more is that people on Facebook give it five stars and say things like "OUTSTANDING! Everyone should watch this! People need to know what's going on behind closed doors!" Okay, yes. The MPAA is a little sketchy, and studios won't release pictures that have NC-17 ratings, so in turn filmmakers feel censored. But come on- it's not like we're talking about global warming or political corruption. Still, it's interesting if you're a movie buff.

We rounded out the weekend with a ride on the Mt. Vernon trail, which was really, really nice. We thought maybe we'd go all the way from Ramya's place to the end, but that quickly proved to be way to ambitious. We did make it to old town though, and all in all it was a nice ride. Ramya's doing really well for a newbie! We'll definitely be doing it again.

There's more, but this is getting long. I'll finish with my favorite quote of the weekend:
Marc: "How many feet are in a mile?"
Ramya (instantly): "Three. Wait...that's a yard. "
This is a good time to point out that Ramya is perfectly smart- I just like that for a split second, her brain thought perhaps three feet being a mile was reasonable. By the way, 5280 Feet= 1 Mile.

For the rest of this week I'm off to New Orleans, where I'm going to try to not touch anything and get out of there as soon as possible. Then this weekend: Rehoboth Beach!

Post-Labor Day

Yeah, I haven't posted anything for awhile. It's been a combination of lots of travel, not much time, and not much that struck me as "blog worthy." But just in case you're wondering what the next few weeks hold for me, it's sort of an improving travel progression: Next week I'm in New Orleans (boo!), after that England (meh), then finally a week in San Diego (yeah!). The crazy part is that the weekends therein are Ramya's birthday (we're going to Rehoboth Beach with a bunch of her friends) and Ramya's birthday party (we're going to a karaoke place) so I might have to do creative packing/laundry at Ramya's house. I've had worse stretches of travel, so I should be able to work it out.

But this brings up a more pressing issue: the Karaoke theme is the '80s, so what songs should I plan to sing? My leading candidates are Against All Odds, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Hold On to the Night...I don't know. The most important thing is to not have to jump octaves while other people are listening. Keep in mind that I'm not trying out for American Idol (for so many reasons) but this will be the first time I meet a ton of Ramya's friends. And what would be more comfortable than going up on stage and belting out a tune for them? Hmm, maybe some REO Speedwagon. Or Chicago. I'm taking suggestions!

In any case, I hope everyone had an enjoyable labor day! It was definitely nice here- I actually turned off the air conditioning and opened the windows for a few days until Monday night, when the humidity beat me into submission again. Sunday we went for a nice bike ride wherein I established a killer farmer's tan. Seriously- the shirt I wore to work today has slightly shorter sleeves and I look little ridiculous. Then on Monday we had my friends Shelley and Theresa over for a cookout. We enjoyed the deck, and even played a little Planet Hollywood (I won't describe it, but you can tell from the title that it plays to my strengths) before moving inside because the sun was too dang bright. Once inside, they challenged me too (get ready) Scene It. Fools! Shelley gave me a run for my money but I remain undefeated.

Maybe I could go a little more obscure with Hold on Loosely or High on You. Hmm, I'm going to have to see what they have available when I get there.

By the way, my favorite quote of the weekend came while we while passing the base's aircraft museum:

Me: We'll go there sometime when you're ready to see me totally geek out.
Ramya: You haven't totally geeked out yet?

I'll try to keep you posted while I'm on the road these next few weeks, but internet availability might be sketchy.

Totally unrelated: Check out some awesome wedding announcements.