This Thanksgiving we decided that we would make the trek to Annapolis, MD to be with V’s parents. The whole family is descending on Annapolis so it is bound to be a Wii-filled, overeating, football watching, new baby cuddling good time. I also decided that it would be a good chance to look at some datacenters in the Virginia area because, well what’s a vacation without some quality datacenter tours? Reston, Virginia is home to AOL and at one time the datacenter capital of the world (AOL is to Northern Virginia as DEC is to Boston: It’s hard to go anywhere in Boston that doesn’t have some connection to DEC). So I will be looking at some old AOL places today and if all goes well I should be leaving with a trunk full of free AOL trial CD-ROMs…Christmas will be good to some of you!

Because V has to work it was decided that I would drive down to Annapolis on Monday and she would take the Acela to Baltimore. I could bring the dog and every piece of clothing we own and go rent a car as to not put any more miles on a leased Touareg. Luckily for us Avis still thinks I work at Yahoo! and gives me a generous corporate rate so that was a nice bonus. Avis was kind enough to give me a luxury Dodge Caliberwhich is, as they say, hot. The car kind of looks like something out the Transformer movie but I can’t imagine what it would transform into. Maybe a better car? Maybe an oven? Needless to say this was going to make my 441 miles, 6.58 hour trek special.

Well thanks to some heavy rain and miles and miles of stimulus roadwork the trip actually took 10 hours and felt like 700 miles but in that 10 hours I was able to make the following observations:

1) My Garmin Nuvi 360 GPS, while providing sub-par directions, proved to be a very good speakerphone when connected to my iPhone over Bluetooth. Who knew?
2) I think New Jersey is just messing with people when it comes to tolls. I mean c’mon?!?! Is there anything that expense on the stretch of road that it justifies that many tolls? Do people in NJ have to pay income tax?
3) Merritt Parkway to the Delaware Memorial Bridge all normal road rules are abandoned. This is no such thing as a left hand passing lane. The breakdown lane is just another lane. It’s a free-for-all and at times felt like I was in a Mad Max movie.
4) The Dodge Caliber proved to be a worthy vehicle. Yes, it’s bright orange and clearly designed by people that had never seen other cars but it worked and got me here. I wouldn’t buy one but I wouldn’t tell other people not to buy one.
5) Satellite radio was a HUGE bonus. A very nice and expected surprise that made the trip substantially better. That said Satellite radio is death for those of us with ADD and I must have changed the channels 300 times. In the end The Standup Comedy Channel, The Willie Nelson Channel, The Alternative Rock Channel and the Coffee House Rock Channel proved to be the winners.
5) The Playboy channel on Satellite radio is highly overrated. Yea, I know, what did I expect?

Now I’m off to collect those AOL CDs. I heard that traffic in the D.C. area is fun.

Here are the pictures from our recent London trip.

— This taken from Vanessa’s Email’s Home —

So we arrived in London safely on Monday night around 8pm,
it was an uneventful flight for those who were worried about me : )
We took a $140 cab ride from the airport (which Sony would pay for
if I didn’t forget to get a receipt!) and checked into our hotel,
which is unbelievably beautiful. We walked around a bit – saw Parliament,
Big Ben and the London Eye (which actually we can see from our room)
and ate dinner at a great little Turkish restaurant right by the hotel.
Yesterday Kai worked (I’m sure he’ll be updating his blog asap with his take)
and Kai’s brother Taylor came from Oxford to be my tour guide. After waking
from a coma around noon, Taylor took me to see Buckingham Palace, Hyde
Park and a bunch of other places I can’t remember the names of. Kai got
back around 6pm so we went to Trafalgar’s Square, had dinner and put Taylor
on the bus back to Oxford. Today I was on my own and feeling a lot like
Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation, complete with the water aerobics
class going on when I went for a swim a little while ago. Luckily for Kai
I haven’t run into Bill Murray, although I did befriend the waiter at the
Turkish place who said he could tell I was American because I was so nice (?).
I walked around a bit, got lost, and found a discount bookstore where I
bought 4 huge design books. I then had to carry them back to the hotel in
the pouring rain, after a stop in Boots for “plasters”, a really crappy umbrella,
and lip balm. All in all, even with the rain, and the 6am fire alarms going off,
I can’t believe how much I love it. Just walking around, seeing the most amazing
things, it’s incredible. Right now it’s 9pm and I’m in the hotel “business center”
struggling to type (could this keyboard be different than at home??) as my internet
time runs out. Kai is having dinner with the client so I’m debating getting either
a “take away” or room service and curling up to watch British TV. Tomorrow Kai is
free so we’ll be able to spend some time together. Although I would like to go to
Harrods and he wants to go out to Oxford…

Hello again!
Although the trip back was not as uneventful as the trip
there – JFK (which I’ve decided is the worst airport ever) and an engine fire –
we made it home safe yesterday morning. The rest of the trip was all about
seeing everything we could possibly see. We decided Thursday night that a
trip to Oxford and/or the country wasn’t going to be possible given the
amount of time left and the amount of things we had to see. So Friday
Taylor took another 2 hr. bus ride (such a trooper!) in to London and spent
the day with me and Kai. After my time alone, it was nice having company
for Westminster Abbey & Kensington Palace. Westminster was amazing and by
far my favorite part of the whole trip. Kensington had an exhibition about
Diana, beautiful black and white portraits of her taken by Mario Testino,
and some of her dresses. The palace itself was nice but not mind blowing
and I’m pretty sure Kai and Taylor didn’t enjoy seeing Diana’s dresses as
much as I did. We walked around the Kensington area, shopped a bit -
Mark’s & Spencer (loved it), TopShop (saw the Kate Moss collection, not sure
what the hype was all about) and ate some very delicious Indian food.

On Saturday, Kai and I were on our own. We purchased bus tour tickets,
which included a one way boat trip up the river, so we took that in the
morning from our hotel to the Tower of London. The Tower of London was
very, very interesting. We hopped on the bus afterwards and rode around
London for awhile and got off at Harrod’s. Maybe it was because my feet
hurt so much, the hordes of tourists, or it was just too much of a shock
coming from 1050 AD to 2007, but I really didn’t like Harrod’s. After a
really pushy saleswoman asked if she could wrap up an $8500 map of Boston
Kai had been politely looking at, we decided we had had enough. We walked
around the Chelsea area for awhile saw 7 (Kai counted) Ferrari’s, several
Rolls Royce’s and an old, fat Arab man in a complete captain’s uniform
(hat and all) surrounded by 5 young women fawning over him. Turned off a little
by it all, we got on the tube and went to the Piccadilly Circus area. At
this point our feet hurt so much we just took a couple pictures, found a
restaurant close to the station, had a very nice dinner and went back to
the hotel.

Sunday morning we went to the Tate and in the afternoon we had tea at the
hotel and then headed to the airport. All in all is was a wonderful,
wonderful trip. We have tons of pictures that should properly bore
everyone to tears. Hopefully Kai will be posting them soon. We were sad to leave
such an incredible city but happy to be home with our precious dog. We’re
also pretty happy that a cup of coffee is not $6 and we don’t have to worry
about getting run over at every corner!

I just got finished reading the book Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. If you enjoy history books this one is outstanding. It was especially fascinating for me because of the regional relevancy as the entire backdrop for the book was the South Shore of Massachusetts. Throughout the book Philbrick is good about linking the scene with the present day location so it was very easy to imagine the general location of the characters as they tried to get their bearings in a hard New England winter. So after I finished reading the book I convinced Vanessa that we should drive down to Plymouth, MA to check out the Plimouth Plantation. Anyone who knows Vanessa knows her love of all things historical and this was no different. When I suggested that we walk around an exact recreation of a 1627 plantation on a cold, wet day she could barely pack the car fast enough. The only thing better than a days worth of history was the fact that the “citizens” of the plantation assumed 1627 characters and all interaction with plantation people was in the speech and attitudes of the time. So this wasn’t just history, this was history with a slightly awkward twist. Needless to say Vanessa was excited at the prospect of me also assuming a 1627 character (“Good Day, Lad, How Ya Faring?”) – we finally agreed that I would not be a complete dork – my camera wearing, jeans-with-sneakers, constant question asking was enough to fill my dork quota for the day. Anyway, the Plantation is indeed a replica of the original site of the English settlers and is NOT located on the exact site although the site of the replica is home to a number of original farms and events from the colonization of Plymouth. The plantation is also set in the year 1627 which is 7 years after the settlers arrived so the the site is more advanced then what the settlers had when they first arrived. Nonetheless, the Plantation does an excellent job of providing a enjoyable, interesting and historically accurate view into the world of both the English settlers and the native people from 1627. If you’re interested, we tried to take a few photos and you can view them here.

Peru opens bridge to Machu Picchu ruins – Yahoo News

This is no good I say! We were lucky that we got there early enough that it wasn’t crowded but I hear it gets very crowded later in the day and this can’t possibility help. I say this while I sit thousands of miles away in a comfortable office. I guess my perspective would be different if there was the chance that my salary was about to go from $2/day to $20/day.