Our company's new website

Work has been going well. I wrote a lot of first draft content for our new website and helped with the overall design. I can't discuss any ongoing projects as we work on a confidential basis, but I have been able to travel some and meet some interesting new clients. For a general sense of the type of work I'm doing please read our site!:

ITCM - Innovative Technology for Custom Machinery

Bank Holiday at Warwick Castle

Bank holidays are great. It is always nice to have a Monday off. I'll post what I remember of our visit to Warwick Castle on the most recent bank holiday on 25 August. Warwick is about ten miles down the road and we woke up and drove down (This was when we still had a car). Apparently this is a popular place for a bank holiday as we had to park in a field about a mile from the castle. When we reached the gate I the line for credit cards was so much longer than the cash line that we took a walk to the cash point (ATM) in town. This is a really impressive castle, but since it is 'ruined' like Kenilworth Castle it is much more of a tourist trap. Saying that, there are a lot of very great events.

The Birds of Prey demonstration is very cool. They had a bald eagle, hawk, vulture, and other very large birds that are well trained. Actually, "well-trained" means that they found a very easy way to eat. They only came back when the handler showed the bird some meat. We were really pleased to see these animals at such a close distance. The vulture was neat. It hopped around just like their cartoon depictions.

There was a stand with pork and stuffing sandwiches. I really like that stuffing is put on sandwiches. As an aside, at work we have a sandwich list, and I regularly order the turkey, stuffing and cranberry sandwich. This particular stand had a whole pig that a local farm had brought in. The meat was sliced straight from the pig into the sandwich. It was heaven. After a good meal it was time to trek up the tower. It is a small winding staircase worn by years of use, but it is worth it for the view.

I clearly recall wading through throngs of tourists. It reminds me that the popular locations are best left for the low season. Low traffic spots are best for the busy days. We did find a great area on the castle grounds called the peacock gardens. There are dozens of peacocks (some with tiny chicks) wandering the grounds. Topiary peacocks are interspersed amongst the flowers, and there is a conservatory with some impressive indoor plants. It doesn't compare to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid, but it is great for a day out. Looking down from the conservatory is a vast lawn that extends to the River Avon (a few miles north of Stratford). There was also a trebuchet demonstration. I had seen it in April of 2007, and we both agreed that there would be a massive line of cars waiting to get out afterwards, so we left. As a gift to the locals, you receive two free passes to come back to the castle before the end of the year. At Halloween they have a "haunted castle", so I think we'll have to picnic there and see the trebuchet soon. Maybe next Sunday.

Cycling

It was at a point where we were going to join a gym and build upon the general fitness that comes with walking to work, the store, etc. One thought was tennis lessons, and we were quite excited, but our schedules are too erratic to plan for that. We found a cheaper gym outside the city, but Stella would need a bus pass. There was a gym next to the bus station, and we'd settled on that. Then Stella found a new job that wasn't in walking distance, but wasn't quite far enough for the bus. So, bikes!

I'd wanted a bike for a while, but I am tight with money (and poker chips). Stella's situation presented a clear savings to having cycles. No bus pass and no gym membership (cycling 4 miles a day to work should be sufficient). We talked about it Saturday morning before she went to work and I spent the afternoon looking for the best deal. I found a small outdoors store that was clearing out its cycling department to focus on backpacking, rock climbing, etc. The bikes were on sale for half price, and the full price was already a discount over the bike shop price. They aren't perfect, but they are a good start.

Sunday we went and picked up two new cycles, helmets, locks, etc. We assembled them and went for a test drive. The test drive turned into a nine-mile ride! Before the advent of rail, much of Europe built canals to transport industrial goods. These canals now line the country, but are mainly used for recreation in narrow canal boats. We live at the base of the Coventry Canal, where a greenway has been built for people to fish, ride, run and bike. To get some exercise we had used this canalway as a running path. On our bikes we made it quite a bit further than by foot. We traveled over four and a half miles to the Ricoh Arena where the Coventry City Football Club plays. On the way we stopped into a shop and bought seat cushions and did some window shopping. The conclusion, despite being sore, was that we were going to have quite a bit of fun with this cycling thing.

I bought a handlebar clip for my Garmin GPS - the trusty device that made certain Stella and I always found the hotel, no matter how much fun we had in Spain. I was eager to get out and play with this new toy, especially considering my love of maps. I also needed to visit the bike shop for a few accessories. I rode up the canal again briefly before exiting onto the road. I didn't find the first shop I was looking for, but there was one near Stella's new restaurant that would be more convenient anyway. I collected a few things and rode over to Stella's current pub and we rode some more. I showed her the route to her new restaurant. Tally for day one? 12+ miles - here's the map. Today Stella was able to come along for the whole ride. We went to War Memorial Park and found a great place to ride off-road. We rode by our old hotel, and around town. We added an extra mile just to make sure we'd really had enough. We were able to do a bit of shopping on the way and a quarter mile from home we picked up a couple pints to celebrate. We'd done 8.5 miles! Here's the map from today.

I have to work tomorrow, but I had a great weekend. 20 miles!

UPDATE: I need to give a shout to the wonderful people who contribute to Open Street Map, a community mapping project that is free to edit and use. I was able to update maps for the whole UK to my GPS without paying the large fees normally charged. It's made possible by people contributing and participating in mapping parties.

I really should have been updating this...

Stella and I are settling in nicely here in England. It took a while to get everything we needed, but eventually our shipment arrived and we can communicate online again. We have been rather busy and updating this blog became a low priority. Then, after three months, how do you write, "We're here!"? I wanted to write an exceptionally long re-cap of the past few months, but I think it will be easier to break into bite size chunks. Highlights? Poker, The Windmill, Ditching the Car, Henry V, Warwick Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon, etc. I will make an effort to post something about each of these in the coming days.

Briefly, I will mention that getting here was quite a hassle. I hope that we can stay a little while just to make the effort of moving across the ocean worth the trouble (that, and we've been enjoying ourselves). Six weeks for our shipment to cross the ocean, four weeks in a hotel, and another six weeks for internet service. Not fun at all, but we're settled in now, meeting some locals and enjoying ourselves immensely. On with some new blog posts!

PS - These new posts are going to be backdated to appear as "when I should have written them", even though I'm just now writing them.