Halloween Fun

Okay, now we're a solid week past Halloween, it's time for me to blog about it! Sorry about the tardiness- I had to go to the UK this week and internet access there is always spotty. Especially at the Hilton Manchester Airport. We do have a toll-free UK number we can use for internet, but the hotel charges 50 pence (roughly 6.34 galleons) a minute for toll-free calls. How do they sleep at night? So in an effort to save your taxpayer dollars, I decided not to chat with Ramya, check Facebook or ESPN or do work e-mail for a few days. These are the sacrifices I make as part of my civil service.

One note I will tell you about the United Kingdom: Does anyone know what they talked about there this week? I'll tell you: Obama. And then they'd talk about Obama, and when that got old, they would move on to Obama. Obama, Obama, and more Obama. From when I stepped off the plane Tuesday morning (before the election, mind you (I voted early before I left)) until we took off Friday, virtually every television channel (they only have like seven, mind you), radio station, magazine cover, or T-shirt was either a picture or sound bite from Obama. Shelley and I foolishly thought we would be getting away from election talk by fleeing across the Atlantic, but we were sorely mistaken. On the bright side, the election seems to have made the European community hate America a lot less, so we've got that going for us.

So back on topic. Halloween! Early on it came to my attention that Ramya had never carved a pumpkin before. How can that be? So in order to do it right, we eschewed the el-cheapo $2 pumpkin carving set and sprung for the $4 el-deluxo kit. This also marked the first time I've ever carved a pumpkin from a pre-made pattern. To me that makes it less impressive, but it was still a "medium" difficulty design, and I think I pulled it off (mine is on the left). Ramya did an excellent job with her classic face layout.And because I'm sure Carly and Karen are dying to know, yes I did carve a Marc symbol in the back to project on the wall. It's just that we decided to put them out along the sidewalk so you couldn't tell. You didn't think I would totally forgo personalization, did you?

The night after Halloween (Saturday) we went to my friend Dan's Halloween party. Ramya and my costume wasn't so much a "couple's" getup as it was a "pair." See if you can guess:Get it? Anyone? Okay, if you guessed Hannah Montana and Billy Ray Cyrus, you're way ahead of the curve. And yes, we went dressed as a father and daughter pair. This was met with more than a few "Ewws" and "That's disgustings!" It's a Halloween costume, people! We're not advocating incest or anything. Lighten up!

There was a very interesting aspect of putting these costumes together for Ramya and me. First, to get my Billy Ray outfit we simply hit up the Salvation Army- always a reliable source for cheap, out of date clothes that you're going to deface, wear once and then never touch again. Ramya (and her friend Kavel, who joined us for the trip) had never been in a resale shop. Whereas I, being Tawnya Rowden's son, spent a good portion of my childhood in such places and wearing stranger's gently used clothing items. Their verdict was that it was a little sad, being that we were in there ironically, and for many of the patrons this is their primary source of goods. But that's a topic for another post.

On the other side of the coin, to transform Ramya into Hannah Montana we had to visit several stores in the mall that I have been walking past for 20-odd years, and it had never occurred to me to go inside. I'm talking about Claire's, Forever 21, and a whole host of others I can't remember with names like "The Rouge." These places are primarily geared toward pre-teens or sorostitues, dealing in "clubbing" clothes. We're talking glittery, skimpy, shimmery, rhinestoney, ridiculous clothes. As much of a foreigner as Ramya and Kavel were in the Salvation Army, I stood puzzled in these stores thinking "Who wears this garbage?" I would look at some little, one shoulder couture rhinestoned top with, I don't know, "Tasty" bedazzled across the front (on sale for $215) and asked "When would anyone possibly wear this? What utility does this have?" They would look at me and reply "Duh! Clubbing." Right. Clubbing. This is one of many areas that I have no expertise whatsoever in. Luckily the Hannah Montana and Billy Ray outfits came together relatively cheaply as we exhaustively searched from resale shops to high-falutent clubbing retailers- or as I like to call it, "The Best of Both Worlds." Yeah, I went there.

Another note about Claire's: They sell jewlery and accessories to what,8-14 year old girls, right? Well, then one we went to was selling flasks. Like, you know, for booze. They had several versions- ones with an art deco peace sign screened on, one with "I heart NY" in pink rhinestones, and many more. What are these for? Why does a pre-teen girl need a flask? How are we okay with this?

Furthermore, we checked the seasonal Halloween store just to see what they had. And let me tell you, pedophiles everywhere can rejoice, because slutty costumes aren't just for adults anymore. They had several choices including, but not limited to, Shipwrecked- or as I think of it, pre-teen pirate ho. Would you let your daughter wear that? I must be getting old, because as I was searching for that picture I felt like I was looking at kiddie porn. This might just be a sign of the times, but that seems way too revealing for a child to wear to me. Heck, I remember the time in 8th grade that Britt Unger wore a top that bared her midriff. Why? Because it caused quite a stir and people talked about it for days. I believe she was asked by the school not to wear it again. I bet if any man who was attending Concord Junior High in 1992 reads this post, they will remember exactly what I'm talking about.

As for passing out candy, it was another down year. I can't figure this place out- one year we'll get like 60 kids, then the next it'll be like 20. On the plus side I think there were only 1 or 2 that weren't wearing a costume (though it seems that every member of the Leonardtown Raiders football team dressed up as a football player). The trick-or-treaters started showing up around 6:00, and were long done with by 7:30. So Ramya and I made dinner, went downstairs to watch a movie, etc. Right about 10:00 the doorbells rings, so I answer it. On my doorstep were two "boys" that were about my height, both wearing normal street clothes save for Target bags with eyeholes on their heads. I was like "Really? Okay." And gave them each some candy. All in all, better participation than last year.

On a final note, while in the UK we talked with the local guys about Halloween (I think it started because I was always eating candy in the meeting). Apparently they only started celebrating Halloween about 5 years ago, and they say it has really caught on in the last two years. Who knew? I thought it was just an American thing.

So you can check out the rest of my pictures here. Happy Halloween! On to Thanksgiving.

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.

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!

Back in the USA

Annnnnnnnd, I'm home. Actually, I got home Friday afternoon, but I've been pretty busy up until right this moment so I hadn't had a chance to update the ole' blog. In any case, England was pretty much the same as everytime- just another business trip, only with massive jet lag. And there was a lot more driving since now the government contract flights are direct to Heathrow (London) instead of Manchester, making the drive to Wolverhampton 2.5 hours instead of 1, but whatever. We could still fly to Manchester if we wanted to, but we'd have to connect in Chicago. Somehow I refuse to fly 2 hours in the wrong direction only to make an 8-hour flight a 10-hour flight when I can just drive another hour, but that's just me.

Speaking of driving, we had a pretty sweet Peugeot this time, and it had one of those computers that told you your fuel economy all the time. Get this: it told you in miles per gallon, even though they sell gas in liters. How did that happen? I was talking with the British guys about this, and they said what's weirder is that in France, they measure fuel economy in liters per kilometer. So instead of 30 mpg, a car has 0.0784 l/km. I'm sure it's just upbringing, but that seems like a much less useful number to know. Other different things I noticed on this trip:

Live Free or Die Hard is called "Die Hard 4.0" over there. Not just Die Hard 4- apparently they use 2 significant digits at the cinema.

I saw an add for a brand of potato chips (crisps) called Man Crisps. Previously I've seen man-oriented marketing on the Yorkie candy bar, which proudly proclaims "It's Not For Girls!" right on the wrapper, but it still seems a little funny to me. This article refers to these kind of campaigns as "jumping on the mandwagon," and I think that's funny!

We were fairly unadventurous this time food-wise, opting to eat at KFC and Subway instead of local pubs, and though I always have trouble understanding people with accents other than Midwestern, the girl at Subway was something new. I can usually understand British people, but this was the first time I spoke to one who couldn't understand me at all. She would ask "What type of crisps do you want?" I'd say "the baked walkers, please." She'd say "Sorry?" I'd repeat myself. She'd look confused, say "What type of walkers?" I'd say "Baked, please?" and so on, until I ended up with the cheddar and onion variety. It's not what I wanted, but I already had a bottle of Diet Coke when I wanted a fountain Sprite so I let it go. Anyway, the point of this story is that we can sit over here in the United States, fat, dumb and happy thinking we have the most powerful onion flavored potato chips, but dear lord- the United Kingdom clearly has the advantage. I think I could take a bite out of a raw onion and it wouldn't have been as oniony as those crisps. Once I got used to them (or my taste buds burned away) they weren't bad, but I'm sure I had some killer breath thereafter.

And finally, I'll admit that I have trouble with British currency. It's still a handy base-10 system, but I don't recognize any of the coins and I always end up feeling like I'm in a Harry Potter book (how many knuts in a galleon?). But I'm a little confused by the 2 pence coin. It's like a 2 cent coin, and what's the point of that? Is it really worth manufacturing a whole separate coin for 2 cents, when we don't even have a 2 dollar bill anymore (really)? You change would have to end in 4 or 9 pretty often to make it work, and it doesn't because tax is always already included in the price, and they all end in 0 or 5 as it is. I'm sure they have it all worked out.

Plus, there was actually one day that it was sunny, which was the first time I've ever seen the sun in Wolverhampton. It was a nice change of pace. Oh, for another fun note, we took the train from the hotel to the airport, and I woke up at 4:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. EST) to make the 5:30 train. When I finally laid down in bed Friday night it was 11:30, marking an even 24 hours awake. Woo-hoo! Of course the only reason I was up that late is because my buddy Eric was in town for a visit and we got stuck playing Donkey Konga, but whatever. It was all good. Now I'm here for a week, then it's off to Texas for a week. It's like that Jet Set game show I saw on the BBC, but for places no one really wants to go. And I get a lot less money. But I'm not complaining.

Word Verification

I'm about to head out the door, but here's a quick Blogger note. You know how you have to do that word verification thing to leave a comment? Check out the one I got the other day:
Seriously? I have now idea what that's supposed to be. Obviously I didn't get it right (I deleted the question mark) so the world may never know.

I'm actually heading out toward Dulles early (my flight is at 9:47 pm), because we discovered long ago that you're much better off going to Tysons Corner before rush hour, killing some time at the mall, then heading to the airport rather than fighting traffic. I think Shelley and I are going to see Ratatouille, because I didn't get to see it last week like I planned.

Speaking of which, I did get to see Transformers and Live Free or Die Hard. Transformers was worth seeing, especially if you're a fan like me. I was surprised by how childish some of the humor was, and yet there was also violence and profanity. It was kind of like they couldn't decide who the intended audience was. I was disappointed, but it was still a nice spectacle and I recommend checking it out. Die Hard, on the other hand, exceeded my expectations in every way. I thought it was going to be one of those cop-out, just to make money sequels, but it was a really fun movie. They went all out, and it's quite possibly the best one of the series. They even have a nice scene involving the JSF (sorry, I mean the "Lightning II"). It's not quite right, and they could've talked to me for like 2 minutes and fixed about 5 glaring errors, but what are you gonna do? Only a real dork like me would notice. But if they're going to spend millions of dollars on a scene, why don't they start with a simple internet search to check the facts? This is another reason I should be a consultant in Hollywood- the first being to screen out horrible dialog.

Allright, I better run. If anyone's wondering what the weather in Wolverhampton is going to be the next few days, it looks a little like this: rain, cloudy, light rain, rain. In other words, just like always. I'll update you next weekend!