The Maxson Homepage on the WWW
Pres. Obama’s jobs bill didn’t pass the Senate. Actually, it didn’t even come up for a vote. But not because of Republicans. Nope…in the house of government controlled by the Democrats (53D and 47R, currently) the bill only got 51 votes. Looks like Pres. Obama needs to have the “pass this bill” speech with his own party.
Image from shay haas via flickr
Ever heard of a sundog before? I hadn’t until I saw this picture on a friends blog. Here’s a link to the wikipedia article about sundogs.
image from Varanos via flickr (note, this is not my friend’s image. You’ll have to follow the link to his blog to see it… sorry 🙁 )
I had an opportunity to go to Windsor Castle yesterday. I had a great time, except for one thing….because it is so close to Heathrow, there were planes overhead all day long. If I were the monarch, I think I would either fix the problem or ask the government to fix the problem. I can’t imagine having a state dinner or a dine and sleep there and having it interrupted by the constant air traffic.
For those who don’t know, Windsor Castle is
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it has been used by a succession of monarchs and is the longest-occupied palace in Europe. The castle’s lavish, early 19th-century State Apartments are architecturally significant, described by art historian Hugh Roberts as “a superb and unrivalled sequence of rooms widely regarded as the finest and most complete expression of later Georgian taste”.he castle includes the 15th-century St George’s Chapel, considered by historian John Robinson to be “one of the supreme achievements of English Perpendicular Gothic” design.More than five hundred people live and work in Windsor, making it the largest inhabited castle in the world.
from Wikipedia
Image from david (ddpf) via flickr
Tomorrow (Wednesday 5 Oct 2011) is Lydia’s first day at school. I’ll tell you how it went when she gets back and I get back from work.
[Update 2011-10-05 21:48:09] Lydia’s first day went very well. I think one could say that Lydia was chuffed. We’ve got some pictures we’ll post in the next few days.
[Update 2012-09-05 10:50:08] Even though it is a year late, here are the pictures
[Update 2012-09-05 10:51:05] Here’s Lydia’s first day of Year 1.
Image from Lester Public Library via flickr
I geotag all of the pictures I can. Why? Well because I think it is cool to be able to go back and see exactly where I took the pictures. I don’t have to remember. Now, I’m careful about pictures I take at home, etc….
but, as an example of the usefulness of this, check out what this guy did. He made this map showing how many pictures are in each lat/long square in the earth. Pretty cool. The image above is what he made.
Image from Oxford Internet Institute via my flickr account;
…UK.
Just wanted to let everyone know that we arrived safe and sound in the UK this morning. Along with 2 kids and 14 of our bags. Besides a bumpy first 1/3, the flight was uneventful.
Image from az1172 via flickr
Has to be the best thing in the world. Of course, in my book, there isn’t any other way to have stuffing. If it isn’t in the turkey, it is just overcooked, dried out, and burnt 😉
Image from sushiesque via flickr
I can’t believe it is already time to leave the US and return to England. At the beginning of the summer, I never thought 5 months would pass so fast. I also never thought that I wouldn’t get to do so much stuff. I left the UK with lots of plans….I’ve done about 1/2 of it.
But, we drove tons (our jeep had about 11,000 miles put on it over the summer). We got to see lots of friends. We got to see lots of friends that we hadn’t seen since we left the US 4 years ago. We got to do some sightseeing (Cass, etc…). I did a lot of not blogging (I’ve only blogged a few times and most of that was in the past week).
I expect I’ll get back into blogging when we get back to England and get into the swing of life again. I’ll try to post that we’ve arrived. I’ll also try to make a post when our small crate of stuff gets there.
Image from pnp via flickr
…the National Aquarium in Baltimore. We had a great time and Lydia and Isaac got to see TONS of neat fish.
Just a few things to comment on:
* Parking was horrible. $17 (and that is with the $3 discount!)
* They use fake coral in their exhibits. I always thought that real coral was necessary for salt water aquariums to function properly. I guess not.
* They had this quote about rainforest extension. We are now 20 years out…I wonder how true it is?
Holy cow….I can’t believe it has been all summer and I haven’t posted anything. I’m sorry about that. I’ll blame it on bad internet and travels.
But, before we fly back to England, I had to get a new bag. I bought the ebags Motherlode mini 21. I was looking for a caryon sized bag made of nylon. I travel a lot for work so I wanted something sturdy. And roomy.
I think I scored on this bag. It has a lifetime warranty. It is built rock solid. And it is real roomy. Eventually, I’ll post some shots but I’ve got everything in it that was in my older caryon with room to spare. The blue that came was more grey-blue than in the image, but everything else was spot on.
My only complaint…..it came with some rods I had to install. The instructions pointed to a page on the ebags site that doesn’t exist. So I did a search. I finally found the right video on installing the ebags tls rods. The link is here for anyone else that is searching. Feel free to fast forward to the 4 minute mark…the first part of the video is simply a sales presentation.
[Update 2011-09-21 10:43:22] I forgot to give credit for the picture. It is actually a screenshot from the ebags website. I snagged it and put it on flickr just so I could use it for this post. Thanks ebags.
[Update 2012-04-24 20:20:11] My bag started to come apart. it looked like a manufacturing defect. Read more about how bags dealt with this here.