Today is my last day on the job site and I have a feeling it is going to be a full day. The system is completed finally and seems to be working well. I feel like it’s been one of those projects you just hopes holds together and doesn’t through any curves at you until the judging is done, or in this case I’m not a plane home.

Despite the stress and exhaustion this has been a tremendous learning experience for my AV career and culturally. The US could learn a few things from the Europeans. Ford and GM have a heavy presence in England by are producing four door vehicles, mini station wagons, with turbo diesel that get around 40MPG. Why don’t they put the steering wheel on the left side and sell it in the US? The mass transit systems are great. There needs to be an express train from Richmond to DC. I think if people could easily hop on a train and get to DC in 45-60min from Richmond you would have people going in both directions and even more people moving to Richmond and working in DC. It would be great for the Richmond economy. These are a few thoughts I’ve had this week.

Oh yes! One of my new favorite beers is Green King IPA. It is a great ale with a smooth finish!

London

I have had dodgie internet connections but I’ve managed to up load a few pictures of the weekend.  London is a fun city and I hope I can come back some day. (maybe when the exchange rate is in my favor)

I spent the day in London today it was a good time. It’s late but everyone must know…

Here are a few photos of Windsor. I could totally live here. The only annoying part are the planes flying over all the time.

http://picasaweb.google.com/wolfnbro/London?authkey=1VIrw1DxPV0

I also have found some great English beers. All the London brewery beers are great! I also found Tennent’s super lager, a sweet lager, i suppose that’s due to the 9& alcohol content.
Super Beer!

Guess what we found in Slough? A Krispy Kreme! My coworkers found it due to the lack of coffee shops open early around our job site. There is a great breakfast truck outside the building all morning, but the fellow only servers instant coffee from a machine similar to the one in mini-marts. I was up late trying to align the video cubes, and needed some coffee Friday morning so we stopped at the Krispy Kreme. They open at 8am, but they didn’t have any glazed doughnuts ready!!! The ones behind me had filing. Poor Billy was so disappointed, but the coffee help wake me up.

Unfortunately I cannot post pictures of the project due to the disclosure we are under. The cell phone industry is competitive, and they do not want pictures of the facility on the internet.

I haven’t gotten to see any of London yet, since we have been working 12hr days, and worked today. We did cut it short today and left at 4:45 instead of 7 or 8. It looks like we will be working tomorrow as well.

We had wonderful dinner last night at the Royal Oak. It is a smaller restaurant about 15 outside of Windsor. The owner is the chief and server. He is a Frenchman named Franc, and is a great chief! I ordered tomato basil soup and pan-seared lamb chops. There was five of us and we all shared escargot, and frog legs. Everything was very fresh, and hot. The soup was full of herbs and the lamb chops were in a delicious sauce. I hope to make it back there before I leave.

The weather has been dry for the past few days, and tonight we are all going to have a grill out at the other apartment. Looking forward to relaxing and going to bed early tonight.

Cheers!

Here’s where I’m staying in the UK. 

View Larger Map

I made it to London safely!!! I arrived around 6:30am and the Project Manager Chris picked me up at the airport. We drove to Windsor stopped by the apartment I’m staying at with Nick, pictures shown below. We picked him up

and Billy who is rooming with Chris in another apartment. I was feeling wide awake at this point and decided to go to the job site with them, which is in Slough. They tell me that the locals call Slough a shit hole. I’m glad we are not staying there. Windsor is very nice and is walking distance from the other apartment, a long walk from mine. We worked and then took a late lunch. We stopped by the market to pick up some food. The food here seems to have considerably less preservatives, and a ton of it is organic. There is as much lamb in the meat department as we beef in the us, and a lot of goat cheese in and on the food. Well it is really 3:45pm here so I’m taking a nap, so I’m not totally fried tomorrow.

Cheers

I’m headed to London for a couple weeks. I’m sitting in the Richmond Airport now, and will be returning June 16th around 4pm. I’ll be back at the airport the following day for a 6am flight to Vegas for a trade show, and to gamble my savings away or hit it big! Haha. I’ll be back the 21st for the weekend but leaving again the following Tuesday going to Seattle for a week and then to Michigan till the 7th. I’m looking forward to it all and I think I’ve paid all my bills, for the time being. I’ve never been to London and I’m excited to be spending some time there. I’m not much of a recent international traveler although everyone tells me its a great place to visit. Well it’s time to get on the plane. Cheers!

I took a pause in N.T. Write’s book “Surprised by Hope” to read J4P because there is a group of us reading and blogging about it.  http://bunderwood.wordpress.com/

I’ve been reading it as I travel today, and it is a great book that will really push your mind and hopefully heart.

Please check it out and if you have time read the book and join in the blogging. It is a fairly easy read!