Happy World Wide Web Turns 30 Today!

Today the big www turns 30! Wow, it has been awhile. I remember when there was no web, just its precursors. When I was young, I got to go to work with my mom in the late 60's for take your kid to work day. She worked for the state as a key punch operator, typing data onto punch cards whose information was stored on the big mainframe computers.  At the time, I didn't really appreciate it, but sure do now. Here's a link to what a key punch machine and card look like.

In the early 80's one of my first adult jobs was typing phone company service orders onto ticker tape (punched tape), to be transmitted across the state each morning via teletype. I used a keyboard, with no monitor. There was a small window that had about five words of what you had typed. In order to see further back, you had to read the tape. I couldn't find a picture of the machine I used, but here's the tape below. I think that pink one says, "Help, I'm stuck on pink tape!" Just kidding.

Eventually I graduated to a "dumb terminal" on a daisy chained network, where I got to enter the service orders via computer between the hours of 2 PM and 4 PM every work day. Each office on the chain was given a specific time allotment to use the computer. Once time was up it would be switched to the next computer in the chain. Our chain ran across several offices in the state. These were the first networked computers used in corporate America. Okay, I skipped all of the APRANET stuff that led up to this point, but you can research that if you care.

Fast forward past the telecommunications gig, a stint in the travel industry, then some schooling, to where I spent most of my career, in computer software testing. This is the career I enjoyed the most. Getting to test the code software developers wrote to ensure it was as bug free as possible.

My favorite type of testing has always been websites and web content. So, Happy World Wide Web Turns 30 Day! Thanks for the livelihood all these years. 

On Being a First Time Grandparent

Wow, I don't have words to describe how it feels to be a grandparent, but I'm going to try anyway. It's much different than being a parent.

When you're a grandparent, you get to feel all of the emotion, excitement and fun of having a baby around but don't have to take 'total' responsibility. It sounds odd but it's true. You have true unconditional love, and can put up with baby's fussiness like a pro. At the end of the day/visit though, grand baby goes back home with Mom & Dad. Grandma's free to do whatever Grandmas do.

I have what I think I'd like to call Grandparentitis: I have baby's picture plastered everywhere you can imagine. All of my computer desktops have different pictures of Grandson Nigel. I have several 8X10's hanging in my home office (and in frames around the house) let alone cell phone and ipod backgrounds. The kids a natural model as far as Granny's concerned. :) The picture showing is my current desktop picture of him on my home computer. How cute is that?!?

To Recline on an Airplane or Not? That is the Question.

On an airplane flight, is it your right, or a privilege you shouldn't use, to recline your seat?

Great question. My hubby is 6'4 and every time we're flying in coach it seems the person in front of him invariably tilts his seat back, right into Andy's knees. Not very comfortable to be sure. What do you do?

Andy and I normally do anything we can to get into an exit row. If that is not possible, we have been known to pay extra to upgrade to first class as long as it's reasonable. When those aren't options, here are some other tricks we use.

First, we put Andy in the aisle seat so he can at least stretch out a leg after take-off. Once seated but before takeoff, we converse between ourselves how tight the space is and Andy's height. We make sure we're loud enough so the person in front of him hears. That works pretty well. Next, if the person doesn't take the hint and decides to recline, a good coughing fit right over their heads usually does the trick.

As for me, I'm always super aware of who is behind me on a flight. If it's a guy, I don't bother reclining my seat. I use a neck pillow if it's a long flight and I need to catch shut eye. My mouth ends up open and I drool whether I'm relined four inches or snoozing upright. What's the difference?

Last Two Days in London

There was only one day we didn't have a hotel. I left one night open in case we wanted to rent a car and go somewhere outside London. Turns out we were perfectly happy in the location we were. The only bad thing is we had to try to find another one. We walked all the way next door and rented a triple room. Good news for dragging our heavy luggage, bad news is they put us at the bottom of a really long, narrow staircase. No, there was no lift. *sigh* I was really tempted to stand at the top of the stairs and give my case a good kick, but I endured. It bumped easily all the way down.

The last sight Julie wanted to see was the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. We walk umpteen miles only to wrestle our way (or was that muscle our way?) as close to the fence as possible, which is about 7 people deep. It's 80+ degrees out and yup, I'm sweating. People are swarmed around us. I can't see a dang thing! Our running joke was, "Oh look, fuzzy hats!" At one point I asked Andy to put me on his shoulders. We all laughed. The best thing I saw that made my day, were two little blonde girls sitting on their parent's shoulders. They couldn't have been more than three years old, cute as buttons and looked like twins. They both had expensive digital cameras and were happily snapping photos from their vantage point. I heard the mom tell one of the little girls she did a great job. Too adorable. Save yourself the trouble go here:

http://www.royal.gov.uk/RoyalEventsandCeremonies/ChangingtheGuard/Overview.aspx

and here:

CotG Video Youtube

Later that evening Andy and I met his Eve online buddy in London for dinner. We caught the underground tube to the Oxford Circus area. Andy had sent him a picture of us so he could find us outside the station. It was really nice to put a face to a voice. He and his significant other are from South Africa. We went to a great Thai restaurant and spent several hours visiting with them. It was a great way to spend our second-to-last evening and get to learn a bit about South Africa. Now I want to go there!

Tonight we are hanging out at the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel. It's right next to the airport as we don't want to have to worry about getting there tomorrow. Overall it has been the most enjoyable trip I have ever had. I have memories upon memories and we have about two gazillion pictures to go with them. Look for more pics on my facebook. See you back home!

Edinburgh Scotland Tour

Edinburgh is a definite must come back to. After a very rocky start, meaning we waited for 45 minutes to be picked up (starting at 5:45AM), finally called the tour company, and they send a private car to come get us. Apparently our transfer driver was waiting for people who hadn't bothered to tell them they didn't need a ride. Little did we know that our train tickets were for 7:00 AM. We arrived at 6:58AM. Needless to say, our frantic tour person at the train station had our tickets changed to the 8:00AM train. The good news is we have first class tickets so the ride is very nice, great scenery all along the route. The only downside is we lost an hour of our self-guided tour day. We arrive in Scotland at 11:30 and catch the hop-on-hop-off bus to Edinburgh Castle. We spend a couple of hours there and stop for lunch at a local cafe. Our train was leaving for London at 5:15PM, so we finished the city tour and headed to the train station. Whirlwind day...we all want to take a day off from sight-seeing.

I'm already planning an extended tour of these places for when Andy and I retire. Andy says I'm several years too early but I'm too excited to wait. :)

Tour of Bath, Stonehenge and Windsor Castle

First day in London, we have a day-long (really, really day-long: 14-hour) tour of Bath, Stonehenge & Windsor Castle tour. This picture is of the Roman Baths in Bath. Our transfer driver picked us up at 8:15 a.m. in the pouring rain. I had been forced to buy an umbrella (I would have thought they'd make them better than this in LONDON!) as I seemed to have left my really nice Seattle umbrella somewhere on the property of the Italian Villa. I'll chuck it just before we leave to come home.

We get a late start as we need to wait for the tour company to find us a bus. Hmm. Turns out we get a brand new one that doesn't even have the company logo painted on. It was nice and our tour guide Steve is very knowledgeable and quite witty. He's been in the business for 25 years and is hellbent on making up that hour we've lost. Here's his website: http://steve-tourguide.com/ It has a lot of interesting pictures and information there. We can tell he is a seasoned tour guide as he proceeds to tell us all about the London sights on the way out of town to Bath which we hear again when we take the big Hop-on-hop-off London city bus tour.

First stop is Stonehenge. Turns out that a few years ago they discovered that it wasn't extra terrestial or a sacrificial offering ground. It was a grave yard. They had the stone part, what's left as we see it today, which signifies death, and a replication of it built out of wood, with little houses built. People would save their dead (either cremated, or boiled clean bones) and meet there twice a year. Once at the winter solstice and again at the summer solstice but only if they had anyone from their tribe die during one of those times. They know this as there are several sites they have excavated and found bones. Read Steve's website for more info. Pretty interesting stuff.

We pre-order lunch from the bus via Steve's cell phone and stop at a wayside restaurant. Andy has the bangers and mash (sausage with mashed potatoes smothered in lots of onion gravy). Julie and I have the pork. We get exactly 45 minutes to eat and have to rush back onto the bus to continue on to Bath.

Bath was interesting as well. Back in the 17 & 1800's rich people would go there to recover from the pollution in London, but several years ago they excavated it and found the actual Roman baths and have done a pretty good job of restoring quite a bit of them. I would like to go back and spend additional time there as the city is quite charming.

We are all quite tired by the time we get back to the station. It was a good day.

Viva La Chunnel!

Julie, Andy and I said goodbye to Sue and Brenda at the end of our cruise and the next morning cabbed it to the train station to catch our train from Paris to London, also known as the Chunnel. Brenda and Sue are heading back to the states, and we still have another week of excitement.

Everything is going well, this time we really do have first class reservations (see previous post from first train ride in coach) and it is wonderful. Nice relaxing 2.5 hour ride, we visit, watch the sights when not in the tunnel, and read our books. I highly recommend train travel. They have it down in Europe. Trains are super fast, it's really quite a rush when your train passes another one going the opposite direction.

We arrive at the station and grab another cab to the Best Western Victoria hotel. The hotel could not have been in a better location. Very near the Victoria Station which has trains, buses, underground and tons of shopping and restaurants. The only problem is that our rooms are actually in the annex portion which is around the corner from the main hotel and doesn't have a lift. Yes we have to lug our ginormous suitcases down a long stairway. (See many previous references to our huge bags.) Julie and I are lucky, the hotel worker carries mine down for me and Julie is on a different level so she only has a few stairs to go down. Andy carries his own. This is to be our home for the next 5 nights. Next up: City tour, Stonehenge and Bath.