Monday, May 9, 2011

Sometimes you go looking for patatas...

My workday started off rather well...On the way back from taking Sophie to daycare, I quickly stopped at one of the many second hand stores around here, mainly to look for a "piggie" that Sophie has been asking for. I don't know why, but she wants to add a pig to her animal collection. So I went in to see if I saw one in the toy section, and instead I found these:

50p a piece, so why not? 
The new issues are like £4 or £5, and one has an article about filters(which I am currently looking into) and the other on wide angle lenses, which are super awesome. So instead of finding a piggie, I found these. Not too bad! And then, it would get even better! I didn't get calls for the 1st hour!

Sitting in "ready"! No calls! W00t! 

After an hour of nothing, it was calls non-stop, but then again, its always calls non-stop. So this free hour was sweeeeeeet!! And I am not making this one up...guess who called today? Anoob! lol In my 9 years of working answering phones(ouch!), I had never seen a noob! 

Are you a noob?
On a not so pleasant note, they do billing very strangely here. They had not billed us for the gas the while time we've been here, even though I called them, and notified them I had moved in, and setup the electric with them too. So what do they do? Send us a bill for 7 months of gas and 3 months of electric at once.

That just looks wrong....£634!!!


Yeah, I wonder how many people get this and freak out? I assume not everyone has $1100 to pay the gas/electric on a random month! They seem to bill twice a year for the gas, and quarterly for the electric. Weird huh?

And then, just some quick pics again tonight when Sophie and I went to the store for some potatoes(patatas in Spain!) and a few other things.

Good lookin moon! 

Moon again!
Sophie got a sticky hand from the machine! :) 

Sunset from the front of the house! Power lines usually ruin a picture, but here, I like the way they look, kind of like a spider web. 

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Sometimes you go to the cinema...

Today, Sophie and I went to the movies. Just the two of us because Geli again had to study. As usual, we were running late in the morning. So we ran to the movies. Sophie is a pretty good runner! We made it there like at 11:05, and the movie was at 11:00, so we didn't miss anything. An odd thing about the "cinema" here, the seats are numbered! So it really doesn't matter what time you get there, your seat is waiting. Kinda cool.

A quick collage from our movie experience today haha

We bought the tickets online, the night before. It was a Rapunzel movie, called Tangled(I think). It was okay. There are many other disney movies I prefer, but Sophie liked it. She sat through the whole thing, without any problems. After that, we went grocery shopping. Then home.

On another note, I watched 2 football games today(online streams)!! Manchester United vs Chelsea, and Pumas vs Monterrey. Both were awesome games! Chicharito scored, and Pumas won! Goooooooooooooya!!! A semifinales!

And for the random picture of the day, what is this?! hahaha

This was a couple of blocks from our first apartment in Milwaukee.But wth is that?! What is going on in there?!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sometimes you have fun at the castle...

Today the mailman woke us up. They finally delivered Sophie's shoes!!!! We ordered them April 19th!! And they got here today. Wouldn't be an issue, except she picked them out on the site, so she had been asking for them for a while!! So of course she had to wear them today...


So today Geli wanted us out of the house so she could concentrate. So Sophie and I wandered around the town. We went to the Trinity church tower because there was some vegan cupcakes for sale, but by the time we got there, they were out :( Which is good really, that there was a high demand for them. Bad that we didn't get any. This is what the building looked like:


The entrace to the cafe(was a church, and a Roman tower before that!)


The inside of the church converted to a cafe haha They should do that to all churches really, put them to good use.

There was people buried under the floor! This is the floor of the cafe! Weird huh?
This is the tower. Built in the 10th century! About 1100 yrs old!!!

This guy went all out! A street performer, playing on high street.
Once at the castle, we hung out at the front of it. Something we usually don't do. Sophie was blowing bubbles, then asking me to blow them for her and she "catches" them. We got a crows of kids around us, and Sophie played with them.

My best bubble shot yet? You can see me and Sophie in the bubble!

Kids climbing the castle! lol

We must have played bubbles for about an hour! Kids came, and left, and other kids replaced them. But Sophie wanted more and more bubbles...so we kept at it.

Sophie blowing bubbles for the kids...


Weird flower!!!


Bee!!
Cool plant with a flower sphere! haha


Gray bell flowers!

I like the crispness of this shot!

After the park, we went grocery shopping. Then we got some chips(fries!), and went home for lunch. Nice day at the park :) And Geli got her peace and quiet, at least for a bit....

Friday, May 6, 2011

Knitting?! And your inner fish!

First, let me say that there are few things that awe me more than learning about ancestry. Both biological, and cosmological. This time, I was wowed by this BBC article. Read it, and I hope you can watch the video! If not, let me know, and I will try to find a US source for it. But the article has the information, the video is just a graphic time lapse of what the article describes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13278255

Seriously, take the time to read it! Way too awesome! Your inner fish!

Now, today. I went to a knitting class. I never ever thought I would. But it was fun. Clare, one of the vegans we met through the NESX Vegan group here in Colchester was having a presentation on knitting. So Sophie and I went, so Geli could study. And sophie made this:

With a little help from me, who in turn had help from Clare. It is a tiny bag. She likes it! She also got some gummy candy! Look at her surprised face:

On the way back, I decided to test the HIGH ISO capabilities of the camera. Most of these shots were in 3200 and 6400 ISO, which is ridiculously high. Usually, this makes pictures very grainy, and well ugly. These aren't too bad. I mean, if you blow them up, you can see the noise, but other cameras, like our previous, the shots are almost useless at even 1600 ISO.

I forgot the lens hood, I wonder if the clare would have been reduced with it, since the light is almost direct.

Sophie + Church Street




Mooooooon!!!!

The cop was NOT pleased! LOL


The "market" streets, at night, and that poser moon!





These shots are all very sloppy, more like snapshots. But if you don't look too closely, they're ok haha I just wanted to show you guys a little more of Colchester.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Playing with Sophie...

Sophie loves habits. She eats things a certain way. She does things a certain way. Her latest habit is to not be Sophie. She will be anything, but not Sophie. She will be a dog, monster, cat, sheep, goat, horse, caillou, Wall-e, eve, even kids from her daycare. Another thing that has become a habit is playing in her room, with one of us, for hours...it takes a long time. And like today, if it doesn't happen, she feels betrayed. I promised her we would play tomorrow morning though. These are pics from a couple days ago

Snake biting Caillou!


Caillou petting snake...


Snake!!!


Blue frog talks to red frog...


China red frog... :/


The colchester sunset, as seen from her window :)

And for the random picture of the day:

Dishes! Lots of them! Milwaukee dishes! haha we would wait until we had no dishes, then wash them all....bad idea!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Pick 3!

Not much to say today, so here are some pictures almost at random:

Me in 2007! haha


2007 moon, freaken beautiful!


Amd a rat...why not?

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Football

I miss it....


I really enjoyed my weekly, sometimes bi-weekly game or two. I enjoy following a team for the whole season. Knowing how the other teams are doing, etc. I really don't care which league really. English, Spanish, Mexican. The league of wherever I am at(except the MLS in the US, luckily, i can watch the mexican league while in the US!). I thought coming here meant English football!! But no...not quite. It costs a lot of ££££! lol

TV License + cable +  Sky Sports + ESPN = too much to spend when I am the only one working

We did go see the local team once, Colchester United. And it was pretty cool. They are in League one, which is like 3ra division. Again, can't follow on TV or go to every game, so yeah...


And here are some school kids playing at Castle Park. Reminded me of Juarez, and playing at school. Except we had no grass, just concrete haha

Monday, May 2, 2011

Work Work Work...

For the obvious error of the day, we have:

Problem with Program. There is a program problem. Now I know what's wrong, yes! On a more serious note though, I really hate Mondays. I mean, I am having an awesome time on the always too short weekend, even when doing nothing. It is awesome. And then I have to wake up on Monday to this:
This is my phone, and when I get off a call, it tells me how many are holding and for how long...

Okay, well this was at noon, which is actually almost at the end of my shift, since I get out at 2pm. I hate complaining about work, because it is a pretty sweet setup I have, being able to work from across the Atlantic Ocean and all. But this is a serious buzz kill...can you say under staffed? There is calls holding pretty much all the time. The average, I would say is around 6-10 calls holding at all times. And when your service desk is composed of about 30 people, that is a lot. Needless to say, holding 21 minutes to get your password reset, or reset a hung citrix session is ludicrous. But it almost seems like that's the normal state at work now, calls holding at all times. I actually get about 45 minutes of relative peace since I come in at 5am Milwaukee time(I am the only person in at 5am). And from like 5-6am I only get a couple of calls on average. But as soon as 6am rolls around, calls holding at all times. It sucks for us, it sucks for the clients. But I guess that's what they get for outsourcing IT to us and the winners are our executives who get to cash in on us keeping the company running while they hire the least amount of people possible to keep the revenue flowing...

Just another before/after shot haha this time of a church.
And for the random picture of the day:

Milwaukee squirrel eating a tortilla chip!!!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Sometimes at 4 am, the kitchen ceiling falls...

Before going to bed last night, like at 3 am I went for a glass of water. The ceiling was swollen!! Like a bubble, and it was dripping a few drops of water. I looked for the source of the leak, but could not find it. I literally saw the ceiling blow up like a bubble, like another inch. It was odd...it is not every day you see the house move!

I would have done something, but truth is I suck at anything having to do with house repairs. And I went upstairs, to check the bathroom, to see if something was leaking, or to see if I could spot the problem from there. But nothing, everything looked normal.

So we went to sleep....and at 4 am, we hear a loud noise. Some crashing sound, some dishes. And I kind of knew...the ceiling fell on the sink. But for some reason, I also could not shake the irrational fear that someone was in the house. I know, its weak sauce to be afraid, but I couldn't help it. I finally had to convince myself of something I already knew(odd, I know!), which was that the ceiling fell, and not that someone broke in the house. So I go downstairs. And what do I see? This:


And the ceiling on the floor and on the kitchen sink...lovely. I took the scraps and moved them to the yard. And I would have called the landlord, but they weren't going to answer. They never do.


I called in the morning, and left a message. They probably won't hear it until Tuesday, since tomorrow is a holiday here. So meanwhile, we have a hole in the kitchen. I still have no idea where the water came from...no more water seems to be there, so I don't know how or why that happened. They better not try to tell me that it is our fault and we have to pay. This was sudden. Its not like there was a bubble of water for days or weeks and I ignored it. I saw it at 3am, it fell at 4am. No constant leak, no gushing water. But landlords suck, and tend to find a way of making us pay for things.

And now, for a completely unrelated picture. Here is Sophie sitting on the Moped in Milwaukee(08/12/2010)!!