Happy Birthday, Diana!

Happy Birthday to my sister-in-law, Diana! Today, 28 April is her birthday. Dan & Diana have recently signed the paperwork to build a new house. Should be an adventurous year for them.

Enjoy!

Barry, Wales

Alright, I finally decided to cross over the boarder and make my first visit to Wales! It's very pathetic that I haven't been then yet since I can see the shoreline and the bridge from my back patio! I'll blame it on the weather. Yesterday morning I opened the map and chose a spot to visit. I did pretty well for an un-educated guess. I chose Barry or Y Barri in Welsh, Wales. It's about one-hour from my house, on the coast, of course. Barry is located along the northern coast of the Bristol Channel less than 7 miles (11 kilometers) SSW of Cardiff, the capital of Wales, Barry is a popular seaside resort, with attractions including several beaches and the Barry Island Pleasure Park. Once a small village, Barry has absorbed its larger neighbouring villages of Cadoxton and Barry Island, which are now parishes within Barry. I really spent my time on Barry Island. As yesterday the weather was warm [66 degrees F], lots of people were out and about. There was a guy trying to manage a kite that you ski behind, though he wasn't in the water. Lots of folks were in the water. Dogs are allowed on the beach until 1 May. In the pictures in the margin, you'll see that Misty managed to get in her fair share. The tide was out, so I was able to take some pictures of tethered boats. In one picture, you can see what remains of a boat in the foreground. The flowers in the lawn are yellow primrose which are blooming all over the U.K. right now, especially in the woods where I take the dogs. I tried to get a picture of the sign for Barry town, but would have likely caused an accident. I did take a picture of Bethel Baptist Church, as I passed. I was already thinking of my friend, Barry Danielson, and I thought it funny that there would be a Church the same name of his college in Barry, Wales. For the record, there are not very many Baptist churches in the U.K.!
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=barry,+wales,+uk&ie=UTF8&ll=51.489079,-2.953262&spn=0.230022,0.749817&z=11

The Queen & Learning the language

Monday, 21 April, Queen Elizabeth celebrates her 82nd birthday. This is her actual birthday, celebrated privately. Her public birthday is celebrated the 3rd Saturday of June each year. The Queen is the fifth longest serving British monarch (56 years).

Queen Victoria 1837-1901 (63 years)
King George III 1760-1820 (59 years)
James VI of Scotland, 1567-1625, James I of England 1603- 25 (58 years)
King Henry III 1216-1272 (56 years)

Forget the Queen's English. You have to understand the metaphors used!

New Words / Phrases

You'll have to say this out loud, but you know the shoes & running clothes made by Adidas? It's pronounced, "a-dee-DAS".

VFM or Value For Money - This refers to the return you get on your investment, whether is time or money or other resources.

Customary & Practice - means the precedent or usual way things are done.

Add another string to my bow - when I first heard this I thought it referred to a bow, as in a bow & arrow, in which case you would 'add another arrow in your quiver'. No. It refers to the bow you use to play a stringed instrument, thus enhancing the sound. Makes much more sense!

Hoover up the data - upload the data. Actually, "hoovering" is a verb that refers to picking something up!

and my favorite, "It's like teaching Granny to suck eggs!" - The story behind this expression is that you can punch a hole in both ends of a raw egg and suck out the insides. When a child learns this, it's the kind of thing the child wants to teach to someone else, especially Granny, but the reality is that Granny already knows about it. Perhaps one measure of Granny's skill at Granni-ness is how much enthusiasm she can display while 'learning' about and eating raw eggs. The metaphoric meaning is that Granny is already an expert as far as egg-sucking is concerned, and experts get kind of bored when someone is trying to teach them something they already know quite well. I see it as a sort of admonition to pay attention to the audience, and just because something is new or interesting to you, doesn't mean it will have any appeal or relevance to someone else.

Wash up - after you finish a group project or task, it's when you sit down and talk about what went well and what didn't. We called this a "post mortem" in my last job. This way is nicer!

BFN - by for now!

Looney's Wild Kingdom

Hiya. Last Friday, 11 April, was my-friend-Heidi's birthday. This is us last year on our trip to Bermuda. Heidi was my guest for the sales awards trip. Seems like that was forever ago and it hasn't even been a year yet! The Bermuda Islands is a British overseas territory about 640 mi west-northwest of North Carolina. It is the oldest and most populous remaining British overseas territory, settled by England a century before the Acts of Union created the United Kingdom. The territory consists of approximately 138 islands with a total area of 53.3 km² (20.6 sq. mi.).

It has been a busy week of travel for me, making two trips to London and back. This week coming up, I will be making four as our US CEO is coming for a visit. On Friday, whilst I was working in my office at home, a small female fox came into the yard and then up on the porch, looking for scraps of food. At one point she was just 3 feet in front of me! I was so awestruck that I didn't think to turn around and pick up my camera. I am happy to have her around as she will fead her family any field mice or rats that are also visiting my back yard! Then as the day closed out and I went to the let the dogs outside, a Pheasant rooster took off as it had been perched on my fence. It's Looney's Wild Kingdom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Just a few lines to wish my Mom a Happy Birthday. Always up for an adventure, here are my Mom & Dad earlier this year in Las Vegas in the Chinese garden display in the Bellagio Hotel.




This is Mom and her long-time friend, Amy O'Neill in Cork, Ireland.

Hard to pass up the opportunity to take a picture like this!

Football 101

Hiya!

I celebrated my birthday by attending a Football game on Saturday, the Bristol Rovers. The club's official nickname or mascot is The Pirates [blue and white home uniform], reflecting the maritime history of Bristol. The local nickname of the club is The Gas-heads, from the gasworks next their former home stadium. It's kind of like being in Chicago as their main rivals are Bristol City Robins [red & white home uniform].

The Rover's club history can be traced back to 1883. Rovers currently play at the Memorial Stadium, where they have played since August 1996, and this year they are getting a new 18,500 capacity all-seater stadium. "All-seater" means you get to sit! I stood at the game yesterday in the family terrace. You can see the fans standing here in the Bass Terrace.

The fans are very involved in the games. They call out when players try to gain an edge when setting up the corner kick. They chant constantly throughout the game from the terrace at the end of the field which is the visitor's goal during the second half. The only chant I can repeat [and partly, that I understood] is the singing of "Good Night, Irene", which basically tells the other team you're losing! There are five divisions in English Football and the Bristol Rovers play in League One.

The Premiership which stands alone after breaking away in 1992 receiving more money and TV time. I won't get into the rest of it here.

1. The Championship,
2. Football League 1 [aka Coca-Cola Football League 1]
3. Football League 2, and the
4. Football Conference.

Unlike in the U.S. where a player may be traded at the end of the season, players are traded here as well, but the entire team moves between the English Football Leagues depending on the results of their season. There are 24 clubs in Football League One. Each club plays every other club twice (once at home & once away). Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw and zero for a loss. At the end of the season a table of the final League standings is determined, based on the following criteria in this order:

• points obtained,
• goal difference,
• goals scored,
• an aggregate of the results between two or more clubs (ranked using the previous three criteria) and, finally,
• a series of one or more play-off matches.

At the end of each season the top two clubs, together with the winner of the play-offs between the clubs which finished in 3rd–6th position, are promoted to Football League Championship and are replaced by the three clubs that finished at the bottom of that division.
Similarly, the four clubs that finished at the bottom of Football League One are relegated to Football League Two and are replaced by the top three clubs and the club that won the 4th–7th place play-offs in that division.

The Football League organises two knockout cup competitions, the Football League Cup (currently called the Carling Cup) and the Football League Trophy (or for sponsorship reasons, the Johnstone's Paint Trophy). The winners eligible to participate in the European Cup or UEFA Cup. This is the opportunity for teams to play out of their league, so to speak.

Lastly, before I go, my brother Mike celebrated his birthday this weekend as well. He's a life-long fan and player of football, or as we say in the U.S., soccer. Happy Birthday, Mike!