ronnyd's we(blog)

I moved into the new place on DeMontfort Road in here in Reading. The roomies are pretty cool, actually going out with them for the second time in three nights. It’s Owen’s birthday, he’s 25. One of the places that we went to was the Purple Turtle. I am the oldest in the house, at he ripe old age of 28.

I finally get to go to London this weekend, because I don’t have to spend the weekend looking for a place to live since I now am writing this in my house.

I went karting yesterday with the chaps from the office. Fun. Lotsa rain, not lotsa grip, lotsa spinning.

Happy Birthday, Jer.

I bought an umbrella today at Marks & Spencer that cost me £15.00. That’s about $24.00 or so at 1.65 exchange rate. But you should see this thing. It’s tiny. And it only weighs 158g. It is amazing. I think that the amazement comes from biking. One of the things that happens to you as you ride more and more on your bike and start reading some of the press on bikes and biking in general is that you garner an appreciation for light weight things, the lighter the better.

I love the fact that one of the newspapers here, in England, in the book review section, has a weekly poem feature: The Independent’s Sunday Poem for today is:

Antidotes to Fear of Death
By Rebecca Elson

Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars

Those nights, lying on my back
I suck them from the quenching dark
Til they are all, all inside me,
Pepper hot and sharp.

Sometimes, instead, I stir myself
Into a universe still young,
Still warm as blood:

Nouter space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there
But unconstrained by form.

And sometime it’s enough
To lie down here on earth
Beside our long ancestral bones:

To walk across the cobble fields
Of our discarded skulls,
Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,
Thinking: whatever left these husks
Flew off on bright wings

So I just got back from looking at the first place that I had arranged to see today, and it was not exactly what I was looking for. The weirdest thing, and I almost took it for this reason alone, was that the owner of the house was a Nazi. I’m not kidding, he was a lieutenant in the German Army during World War II. I am not a promoter of a Nazi mindset or of anything that they believed during the Second World War, but to me it was was a very surreal experience to have met someone like that. But the place itself left something to be desired, having been owned by old people, it looked old. Old furniture, old appliances, and just an old musty feel to the place. Plus it was in the basement, had no phone line: they expected me to have a mobile, and everything looked like it hadn’t been changed since the 1940’s. At £340 (~$544) a month, there is no way I can pay for that. The surreal experience will have to be limited to just that brief encounter because I’m not going to pay that much for the crappy little space in the Nazi’s basement.

It Is 4:45 am, sitting on the bed of the hotel room, not able to catch a bit of sleep. My sleep has been entirely screwed up since I got here, and slept like mad the first day. Friday is what really messed me up though. I got back from work at about 7 pm, after having strolled through Reading a bit after getting off of the bus. I was about to go out immediately to grab something to eat but instead watched a bit of television and then fell asleep for about three hours. I then couldn’t sleep until about 2 and then woke up at 4, then went to breakfast, going back to sleep at about 8 am on Sat morning, only to wake up at about 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. I had completely slept the day away. With a few phone calls I was able to locate a bike shop and get some of the things that I had neglected to bring with me, like grease chain lube and degreaser.

I can’t believe how expensive things are around here. I wonder if it is because the dollar is so weak right now, because I have spent the equivalent of US$250.00 since I have been here.

Very early. Write about Graham at the Moderation, Stephen said it is a tough guy bar. Ray, then the Portuguese. “Watch out for friendly fire when sitting next to a Yank.”

Express Holiday Inn
Richfield Avenue
Reading RG1 8EQ
United Kingdom

It is the end of the first day in the country. I heard someone say bloody hell as soon as I stepped off of the gate at the airport, and I immediately knew that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I have actually never been to Kansas, but hearing everyone here speak with an accept indicated that wherever I now found my self it wasn’t what I was used to.

I will admit that I am the one that is now speaking with an accent. I can’t deny the accusations as I did when I was in California, trying to deny that the Californians heard my Midwestern / Michigan accent.

It was a very pleasant day when I landed at 7 am this morning. My cab driver, Justin, said that this was not usual for this time of year, and that he had actually gotten sunburned at a pub this past weekend. Most of his friends think that summer has just come early, but he has the idea that we are still in store for some more of the bad weather of the winter.

When I had arrived at the airport and he had gone to pay for the carpark [yes, the parking lots are called carparks] I had moved along the right side of the car and had expected to sit in the passenger seat, having completely forgotten about the fact that the English drive on the right side of the car. So the occupation of the passenger side of the vehicle with the steering wheel was yet another sign that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

I was delivered to the wrong hotel, both of them being Holiday Inns. Luckily the right hotel was only next store, and as soon I had walked in and asked if I was checked into the hotel, they must have recognized the American accent and asked me if I was Mr. De Marco. They told me how Viv was getting worried because the driver had said that he had dropped me off, but that the hotel had told her that I had not yet made an appearance. The staff got me checked in, jokingly said welcome to the family as I had been booked for 20 nights, and immediately called Viv back to let her know that I was safe and sound.

I then had to make several walking trips from the hotel that I had originally stored my things to the one that I was actually booked in. I watched TV for some time, watching news reports that the US had attacked the journalist’s hotel, believing that there was sniper activity at the hotel and killing 5 of the journalist’s stationed there. The news also said that they had attacked a building 12 minutes after an intelligence report said that Saddam Hussein and his sons were in the building trying to determine escape routes from Baghdad. I still don’t know if they have confirmed or denied Saddam’s death.

I fell asleep watching some Sandra Bullock / Hugh Grant movie, and woke up 5 hours later.

I then went to dinner at this Kebab place up the road from the hotel, bought some maps at the local petrol station and the back to hotel. I ventured out for some beer but didn’t make it into a pub. I bought beer from the gas station across the street.

Tomorrow morning I will be picked up by my new office mate, Richard McNeill and then taken to the office to meet the gang there.

I feel a little disconnected, as I haven’t yet figured out the phones, or had internet access since I arrived. I don’t feel lonely yet, but I feel as though I am far from home. The money thing has been the most confusing aspect. Everything really is more expensive over here.

Today is day I leave the US, and head to Great Britain to live for six months.

So it begins. I am in terminal of Detroit Metro airport, waiting for the plane that is going to take me to Chicago and then on to London. I have no idea why I’m going to Chicago first, but that’s all right I guess.

As I wait here, I am a little less pissed off than I was about 45 minutes ago. These new post 9/11 airport security measures are a load of crap making the already unpleasant experience of flying with an airline even less so. Plus its compounded with the fact that there are nothing but absolute morons working here in the airport. I am moving to London for six months. I am not going anywhere for such a long time without one of my bikes, so I brought the Gary Fisher to ride around town with the slicks and then put the knobby’s back on hopefully for some cross country riding in the hills of England.

Anyway, to help us all feel more secure, airport security is now required to scan every piece of luggage that comes through to be checked. My bike case, which I had very diligently packed over a week ago, would not fit into their new multi thousand dollar scanner, so they had to open up the case to make sure I wasn’t smuggling over stolen handlebars or a mail order bride or plastic explosives. What got me upset was watching these people operate, and not witness one shred of intelligence in them at all. Sometimes you really can gauge a person’s level of comprehension by the look on their face. The men handling my bike case had little comprehension of anything other than when they were going to get off the job and head down to the local sports bar to hit on some bucked tooth waitress.

The bike box is held tightly closed with six nylon and plastic clasping straps. Anyone who has ever used something that has clasping straps probably knows that the easiest way to use them is to lengthen the strap from the clasp, make the connection between the sections of the clasp and then to pull the strap tightly in order to secure the link. Am I wrong on this? Isn’t this pretty much common sense?

I can answer that. No, it is not common sense. I watched the boneheaded ‘security’ personnel open the case up, with no regard whatsoever for the contents inside, pull the padding apart between the layers of the case, and then try to put the case back together without loosening the straps of the case. *Sigh* At least I can sigh and write about this now without having to feel my blood reach the boiling point.

Watching this unfold before my eyes yesterday in Detroit, I have to wonder how safe are we in the skies these days anyway? What are the numbers for attempts at bringing in any dangerous items onto a plane before and after Sept 11, 2001? I bet that they are not really all that high, and that you are far more likely to be assaulted in other more violating ways. Violating ways of destruction on one’s self such as being struck by repeated bolts of lightning or being swept up by a tornado in the middle of Kansas. The FAA, or the the ‘guvament‘ is only playing a numbers game and using the inherent fear that we all have in order to pick through all of out personal belongings. The numbers do not support the level of intrusiveness that every single passenger must endure before they get on a flight. I am not opposed to having my things checked, but I am against not being able to touch the items after handing it over. The security system is simply run inefficiently.

All I wanted to do was to help them put the thing back together, as I know that they had never seen anything like it before. Even I had some trouble getting it together and I had packed the damn thing a few times before. What the heck was I going to do, anyway, worst case scenario? Slip a bomb into the case? Sprinkle the anthrax from my pocket over the bike? Give me a break, … please just give me a break. I just hope my baby is okay.

…

I’m on the second and final leg of the flight from America to Great Britain. We haven’t yet gotten to the runway, and are waiting to taxi. I can’t believe this, but I have finally managed to score an exit row. I have scored not simply an exit row but one of those huge gaps of space between sections of the airplane, with the wall in between on which they mount one of those large LCD’s for whatever crappy movies they’re going to show. I have a huge screen right in front of me, an I literally have five feet of leg room for the entire length of the flight from Chicago to London Heathrow. I am so excited by this prospect of leg room, it is almost indescribable.

…

Even better, just got to see Adaptation again, a movie about a self indulgent writer. Seems appropriate rereading some of the things that I have written before. I am in this strange place in between time zones. I don’t know if it is still the 7th, as it was on the day that I left America, or if it is the 8th , as it will the morning of when I land at Heathrow.

We are over the Atlantic, finally. The informational screen that they have is great for a distraction on such a long flight. We are two time zones from the point of departure, and we are still three time zones from the point of arrival. So I guess that there is really a means to determine when it is that we are. The last body of land that we flew over was Newfoundland. We passed over a bit of Nova Scotia. Even though I wasn’t ever on the ground there, Mom will be pleased to hear that.

1955 Miles to London. 44 degrees Fahrenheit outside of the plane. Ground Speed 613 mph, altitude 37000 ft.