Round About of Death

So we have an office is in a town called Swindon, about 70 miles west of London.  One night on a trip out I was told about the magic round about: 1 giant round about with 5 mini round abouts that feed into it.  I didnt believe it, but sure enough I saw with my own eyes and it is incredible.  We didnt even know the rules, we just closed our eyes and accelerated.  Luckily nobody was around but us.

 

And today I stumbled across this and thought I'd share it, lest people think I was lying:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Swindon)

 

Not sure why one giant round about was not sufficient, but I'm pretty sure this is the nexus of the universe.

 

Get your paper chains ready

April 13.

That's when I will be kissing this God-forsaken place goodbye. Ok it's not all that bad, really just the work aspect. England itself is quite lovely. But I'm ready to get back to driving and eating a proper meal (and by that, I mean a 2000 calorie burrito).

See you all soon...

Random Observation #27

I was riding the bus the other day and noticed a fire extinguisher in a glass case, and in big letters it said "Break in case of emergency". Unless Steven Segal or Chuck Norris is on that bus (which actually cannot happen by the laws of physics as the universe would implode on itself if they ever are within 500 miles of each other), I highly doubt someone is punching through the glass to retrieve it.

Surely we can do better than this.

Homeward Bound

For the 11th in less than 12 months, I am preparing to transit the mighty Atlantic ocean. That might sound like a worthy feat if I were using a canoe. However, I am writing this from the Star Alliance lounge at Heathrow terminal 1. I don't know if you know this, but they only let fancy people in here. Which is why I am here. Because I am fancy.

Just a quick stop over in DC for a long weekend with my lady friend and other, non-lady friends. And Chipotle.

Snow!

All weekend long they were calling for snow, but this being England, nobody paid attention. Well, shame on us, because when I woke Monday morning it had already dropped about 4" in my neighborhood, with the city itself and southern England getting it worse. It was so bad, they canceled all bus routes in the city. To put that in perspective, there's like 25,000+ bus routes a day in London. And about 90% were not running. And the tube was down to like 25% of its routes (I actually would not have made it in had I still lived in Hammersmith this week). So of course, half the office was not in. When I used the term "snow day" one of the Brits got confused. He asked, "is that like a blanket day?" I told him I don't know what that means, but if it has to do with too much snow then yes.

When it was all said and done they declared it the worst snow storm in England in like 18 years. And we may get some more tomorrow. Obviously, being from Colorado, I am fine with this snow (especially since I don't have to drive in it!) but this city just doesn't have the infrastructure to handle it. They even started plowing Sunday night and into the morning, and still couldn't keep the buses running. In Colorado or any northern state, this would've been just another day with a slightly longer commute. In England, it's Armageddon.

Pictures...