But anyway, it’s time for me to leave. In February, I will be starting an exciting new job here in London, with an office and colleagues and power lunches and everything. It was quite difficult for me, with Ziff Davis and my colleagues being located in Manhattan, and me working on my own in England — at the best of times, the autonomy of working remotely was liberating and enjoyable, but it sadly wasn’t always like that. I am looking forward to being located in the same country as my colleagues, and working with a team that’s dedicated to the success of the new property that I’ll be launching. If you liked ExtremeTech, you’ll really like my next project.

To any ExtremeTech readers and commenters who have found themselves here on my blog: Thanks for helping me build a lively community — and also for keeping me on my toes. Please keep in touch via email or Twitter — and follow me to my new site! I should be able to share more details about where I’m going in the next week or two.

Me, standing inside IBM Watson at IBM Research in Upstate New York

As the new job begins in February, I now have a whole month off. I will probably use the time to travel — to Egypt perhaps, or maybe further afield to Tanzania (I’ve always fancied going to sub-Saharan Africa, and it’s the perfect time of year to see Ngorongoro and the Serengeti and the animal migrations). You may remember that way back in 2010 I was planning a grand tour to either East Africa or Southeast Asia — and then, as chance would have it, I landed the full-time job running ExtremeTech. It seems somehow fitting that, four years later, I finally get back on the travel bandwagon.

Yes, I’m aware that I haven’t posted on this blog since January 2014. Yes, I still have some amazing stories to tell from the last couple of years — and some beautiful photos to go with them, of course. I would promise to make updating this blog my new year’s resolution for 2015, but I don’t think that’s a promise I could keep. I will definitely try to post a few updates in January, though, and some more details about my new job when I’m allowed to share them.

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Welcome back How to write less like an ape and more like a human (part 1) Blog updates and sunsets

Other than the camel, though, the trip out into the Sahara desert was wonderful. The blue-slowly-fading-to-mauve skies as the sun set. The orange sand. The rolling dunes. The weirdly soothing lurching motion of the camel as every one of its thousands of steps sunk randomly and haphazardly into the sand. (OK, that last one was a lie.) Probably the most interesting part of the ride for me, though, was our Berber guides. The Berber people are indigenous to North Africa, and due to the huge number of cultures that have invaded or colonized it, the modern-day Berber ethnicity is very loosely classified. In any case, though, our Berber guides were the type who speak a Berber language (there are many, depending on which group of Berbers you’re looking at), and who wear beautiful blue robes while walking endlessly through the desert with a camel caravan.

Seb and Shannon, sitting on Douglas and Shirly, on Erg Chebbi with our Berber guide

It’s stupid, but sadly I don’t remember the names of our Berber guides, even though we conversed quite a lot (in broken English; the national languages of Morocco are Arabic and Berber, with French generally acting as the lingua franca that connects the two). One of the Berbers, who was old, lacked most of his teeth, and couldn’t speak a word of English, appeared to be the comic of the group. Or maybe I misread the situation entirely, his lack of teeth merely giving the impression that he was always smiling. In the photo at the top of the story, you can see the Berber guide who led our two camels, Douglas and Shirley.

After 40 minutes or so, we spotted a lookout on top of a large dune — another Berber who had been readying the camp for our arrival that night. He waved and quickly disappeared out of sight, presumably sliding down the dune at high speed to light any fires and give the camel-hair mattresses one last coat of back-destroying concrete. A few minutes later, after working our way around the dune, we slowly descended towards the camp.

We listened to the Berbers make music. Two of the drums were passed around around the tent, and everyone clapped along.

The Berber camp was really cool, consisting of a few sleeping tents and a main social tent around a central sandy courtyard with a fire in the middle. There were about 12 tourists in total, with two double “beds” per tent (separated by a material divider). The Berber guides invited us to try sandboarding down one of the smaller nearby dunes. Only one of us actually managed to make it down to the bottom without falling over; most of us fell over within a couple of seconds. Of course, instead of falling gracefully on my ass, I fell on my face.

The social tent, where we spent most of the evening, had a long table and walls covered in bright swaths of (presumably) Berber cloth. Dinner was a lovely tajine, filled with chicken and rice and vegetables. I spent most of dinner learning about the other tourists. A lot of them were students from the US. Most of them were doing a multi-night stay in and around Merzouga. None of them were insane (bold?) enough to do Marrakech to Merzouga and back again in under two days. I’m quite proud of that.

After dinner, we made sweet love music for a couple of hours. A few of our Berber guides picked up drums, a tambourine, and some maracas, and what can only be described as World Tribal Nomadic Percussive music quickly issued forth. After a while, the drums were passed around, and we all had a go at being musical. I like to think I was pretty good. I’m sure I would’ve been better if there was alcohol, but these Berbers were Muslim, and so I just had to shut my eyes and try my best to feel the beat of the desert.

Shannon on a sand dune, practicing her Carl Sagan face

Afterward, Shannon and I walked up the big sand dune (which I’m sure there’s a good technique for, but I didn’t manage to work it out; instead I opted for the scrambling-upwards-faster-than-gravity-can-pull-me-back method), hoping to get a good look at the stars. It’s a long story that I won’t get into right now, but I had been planning to ask Shannon to be my girlfriend in the Sahara desert. The original plan was to ask her on the camels (it seemed fittingly ludicrous, given our relationship thus far), but the right moment never occurred. Failing that, the plan was to ask her out while we sat on a sand dune under the Milky Way in the Sahara. Pretty romantic, right?

Well, as chance would have it, just as I was drumming up the courage to do it, the winds picked up and started pelting us rather painfully with sand. She wanted to return to camp, but worried that I wouldn’t have another chance, I asked her to stay a little longer until the winds died down. Alas, she was having none of it, and started to run down the dune. To this day, I wonder if things would’ve unfurled differently if I’d managed to ask her out in Morocco. It would’ve been a romantic story to tell the kids, at the very least. Instead, our prospective kids will get to hear a much longer, juicier, dramatic saga full of plot twists and turns that even I, a writer, couldn’t have conceived.

Sighing deeply — and thus inhaling a gritty mouthful of sandstorm — I chased down the hill after her…

Part three, the conclusion, will follow next!

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Morocco: Marrakech to Merzouga and back again, by camel, car, and caffeine Blue Ridge Parkway Chickens and Ireland

Unless I note otherwise, any mention of “we” over the next few days/weeks/years refers to the lovely Miss Shannon.

Me, driving a rental car, somewhere in the Moroccan desert

Marrakech to Merzouga and back again

In April 2013, we found ourselves visiting Morocco for a week. Rental cars in Morocco are not like rental cars in the US or Western Europe. Our rental had 80,000 miles on the clock, no AC, and the wimpiest 1-litre diesel engine I’ve ever had the misfortune of driving. (If you can even call 0-60 in 20 seconds “driving.”) As luck would have it, we would also wake up on the third day of our holiday to find that the car, because we paid for the premium package, had a dead battery. Driving 100 miles to Marrakech when you have a flat battery and limited functional use of French was a little bit tricky, but with the help of our lovely host in Essaouira (Jorge at Dar Skala), and my strangely successful attempts at communicating with a mechanic in terms of milky coffee and pastries, we finally got the car started with some jumper cables. Three hours later, and after some difficulty navigating Marrakech’s medina, we made it to our rather grand haven amid the madness: Riad Dar Palmyra.

There are a lot of stories to tell about Morocco, but first I’ll tell you the story of how we drove from Marrakech to Merzouga, rode a camel into the Sahara desert (probably the most painful thing I’ve ever done), ate and partied with Berbers (pictured top), slept in the Sahara on a camel-hair mattress in a Berber tent, rode a camel back to civilization, and then drove back to Marrakech… in two days (about 32 hours, to be exact).

Marrakech is on the west side of Morocco (which isn’t a small country), and Merzouga is in the east, on the Algerian border, about 350 miles away. Google says you should be able to do the trip in seven hours, but because the 100 miles between Marrakech and Ouarzazate (wah-za-zat) runs through the Atlas Mountains, the journey is nearer to 10 hours. Once you pass Ouarzazate, there’s basically nothing but desert for 250 miles — six hours or so. The roads were generally in good repair, though, and except for getting stuck behind trucks in the Atlas Mountains you can generally make quick, safe progress. Unless, of course, you get regularly pulled over by the police, like me. I’ll tell you more about that, and sharing the road with goats, mopeds, cyclists, buses, trucks, cows, cars, and crazy taxi drivers, in a future story called Driving in Morocco: A is for angry, B is for bastard, C is for corrupt police.

Me, in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco, with my new friend

Intense orange squeezing, in the Atlas Mountains

Morocco desert, near Agdz. Sparse vegetation, but interesting terrain.

Despite the length of the journey (it ended up being around 10 hours there and 11 hours back), the drive was actually quite easy. I had to stretch my legs a few times, and we did a few stops at petrol stations for fuel and caffeine, but really the only difficult bit was when we were returning to Marrakech. We hit rush hour traffic, and navigating the aforementioned clusterfuck of animals, vehicles, and pedestrians was pretty tough after having been on the road for 10 hours already. (The road was technically two lanes, but it was more like four or five once you factored in the middle, curb, and verge.) The drive through the Atlas Mountains, after the orange aridness of Marrakech, was truly beautiful. Summer flowers, thick grass, verdant dells and groves densely packed with trees — due to the more temperate climate and the various tributaries that run down from the mountains, it’s really, really lush. The arid desert stretch from Ourazazate to Merzouga was less interesting in a flora-and-fauna sense, but the terrain — low-rise mountains mixed with flat plains — was fun to drive through.

We didn’t see a whole lot of sand until we got near to Merzouga. For the last half hour or so, we were basically surrounded by beautiful, pure, blindingly bright sand. Then, as we got really close to our destination, the massive sand dune of Erg Chebbi appeared on the horizon. Morocco has two Saharan sand dunes, Erg Chebbi and Erg Chigaga, formed from wind-blown sand from the Sahara desert (which technically begins a few hundred miles to the east, in Algeria). I’ll confirm this right now: In the sun, with a clear and contrasting blue sky, Saharan sand really is as orange as the photos make it out to be. (It was less orange when I was picking it out of my navel a week later, back in England.)

Shannon on Shirley the camel, in Merzouga, riding out onto Erg Chebbi

By this point, around 6pm, the sun was already starting to descend into the western sky. I stared into the sun and sighed, reflecting on the fact that I’d just driven 10 hours, and tomorrow morning I would be driving back. But then I looked at the dunes, our caravan of camels and cerulean cloaked Berber guides, and my female companion who looked beautiful and eager in equal parts, and smiled. It was time for us to do something we’d always dreamed of: Trek out onto a sand dune on a camel (the single greatest (and most fucking painful) argument against creationism and intelligent design) and spend a night under the stars in the Sahara desert.

Part two: Sitting painfully on the shoulders of dromedaries

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Morocco: Sitting painfully on the shoulders of dromedaries Welcome back Blue Ridge Parkway

If you’ve been following this blog since its inception (almost exactly five years ago to the day!) you’ll already know what to expect. For everyone else, here’s a quick summary of the kinds of stories and topics that I write about: travel, girls, sex, geekdom, games, and photography. If you’re new here and want to quickly catch up, the Index of Topics or Travel Stories collection are very good places to start.

Me, in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco, with my new friend

As you may have noticed, with the resurrection of the blog also comes a new site design and name. I’m still tweaking the layout and colours, but it’s mostly there now. Be sure to play around with any galleries that you might find (they have navigation arrows in the bottom right corner). If you scroll too far down the home page, or venture into the archives, you’ll find there’s a lack of photos — a casualty of switching to this new layout. I will slowly go through all of the old stories (some 700 of them) and fix them up. If you find any bugs, or have any suggestions for how I can tweak the design, do let me know.

2012… 2013… 2014…

Over the next few weeks I’m going to fill you all in on the last couple of years. I’ve spent more than six months in the US. I’ve visited a bunch of new countries, and added a new continent to my have-seen list (Africa). I’ve been on the radio, and had bylines on Yahoo and MSNBC. I’ve taken a lot of beautiful photos, and it’s slowly dawning on me that I’m a lot better than most other photographers. I have had a roller coaster ride in the romance department, too, and, in possibly related circumstances, I celebrated the start of 2014 by kissing a guy. (And I liked it.) In short, I have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of photos to share.

Shannon on the Quiraing, on the Isle of Skye, Scotland

Not yet, though. For now, it’s enough to say that the last two years have been utterly insane and by far the best years of my life. Somehow, life seems to get more interesting, exciting, and fulfilling every year. I’m almost 30, and yet instead of being terrified I’m actually really excited to see what the triumvirate of Luck, Fate, and Fortune will bring my way. I feel happier and more accomplished than ever before. Perhaps most significantly, for the first time in forever, I am starting to feel fully in control. The winds of Fate still blow as erratically as ever, but I feel like I am mastering how to tack and jibe to keep my heading steady. The die of Luck is still cast, but now I know exactly how to load it so that it falls in my favour.

And yes, two years might’ve passed, but I still like the sound of my voice and words way too much. Here’s to an awesome 2014, my friends, full of food, travel, sex with people you’re actually mentally and physically attracted to, and experiencing and learning new things.

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I am leaving ExtremeTech The show must go on! Just… not today. An attempt at being more self-involved

When we last spoke, I had just been to Bristol, and was thinking about going to Bruges. I also had four chickens. I now only have two chickens. We’re not entirely sure what happened to Florence (the ginger one), but we think she probably keeled over in a bush somewhere (she’d been a bit sickly for a while). Maggie (the white one) met her maker at the hands (jaw) of a fox, in the middle of the garden. All that was left was a big pile of very pretty, white feathers.

Poppy and Cleo are both still doing very well, though. They don’t seem to be phased by the frosts we’ve had, which is odd as chickens are originally from the jungles of India/Asia. My mother keeps worrying that they’ll freeze to death overnight, but so far they seem pretty resilient. When the ground was frozen, they quickly found out that the soil was softer underneath our larger trees.

Back in September I alluded to a business idea that I was working on. That’s on the back burner for the time being, probably until spring. I have a lot of other things going on right now, and I’m still thinking about the best thing to do with all the money that I’m accruing. I’d kind of like to buy a yacht and sail around. But satellite internet access is slow and expensive. So that might have to wait for a few more years. Something’s also recently changed on the personal front (in a good way), and I suddenly find myself thinking that it might be wise to save some money — for travelling, and stuff like that. But more on that later.

The big news, I guess, is that I went to North Carolina at the end of September — Asheville, to be exact. I was there for my cousin’s wedding; he was marrying a girl that he met a couple of years ago. She’s lovely. He’s lovely. The wedding, at the Biltmore Estate, was lovely. Along with some of my other cousins, we were the only British people there; the rest were all from the bride’s side. I would link you some photos from the wedding, but it seems the wedding photographer didn’t think I was photogenic enough, or something. Instead, I have this posed shot from the terrace — probably the best view from any terrace ever.

The wedding itself was outside, in a walled garden. The ceremony was nice, but it started quite late, and the sun was behind some clouds, so it was a little chilly. The reception dinner was very nice — on some kind of covered, outside terrace, heated by these enormous patio heaters that were so hot that the pots of butter melted. I suspect the view was pretty spectacular, but it was pitch black by the time we got there — so who knows! I finally got to meet and talk to Neil’s wife, Amanda Palmer, which was nice. The evening ended with around 100 people dancing along to Psy’s Gangnam Style.

Beyond the wedding, I spent most of my time in and around Asheville. I stayed at a lovely hostel in Asheville, called Sweet Peas. It was by far the nicest hostel I’ve ever stayed in (and everyone else said the same thing). I met some very cool people there, including a couple of nice guys from Pittsburgh, and a very pretty girl from Georgia. I ate out for every meal, and I was there for ten days. (Asheville has some really good restaurants — especially vegetarian/vegan ones.)

They say Asheville is like the San Francisco of the east coast — and I agree. It’s very hippy, hipster, alternative, trendy (or whatever the word for ‘cool’ is nowadays). There are buskers everywhere, and live music pours out of almost every venue every night. There are lots of kids there, chasing their artistic dreams — or chasing the next hangover, as the case may be. I spent a lot of time in a tearoom, called Dobra Tea — some kind of east Asia-themed tearoom, with rugs everywhere. You even had to take your shoes off, if you wanted to sit in the quietest/plushest parts of the tearoom. There were over 100 types of tea that you could order, or something like that. I tried most of them.  I also had some very nice vegetarian food — but I have decided that vege burgers really aren’t for me. I tried all sorts (bean, mushroom, soy, and some exotic variety that I don’t remember the name of), but they all sucked. The flavour was OK, but the texture… damn, the texture is simply nothing like meat.

When I wasn’t in Asheville, I was driving my convertible sky-blue Mustang around the Great Smoky Mountains, and up and down the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s kind of hard to describe how awesome it feels to drive a 400-horsepower convertible around mountain roads, at speed, in the sun, while listening to classic American rock. I drove about 1600 miles in 10 days, and three of those were at the wedding, and a few were spent walking around Asheville — so, maybe 1600 miles in 6 days. It was an amazing experience, and I’ll definitely do it again — in North Carolina, or just somewhere where a convertible makes sense (sadly, English weather and convertibles don’t really go together). I think it’s cool that, almost exactly a year before, I was driving the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park — which is exactly where you end up, if you just keep driving north along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

This blog post is getting rather long, so I’m going to abbreviate things a bit. In America, I also did the following things: Shot a gun for the first time (terrifying); did a zip-line canopy tour (the autumnal trees looked amazing); white-water rafted down the French Broad (so awesome); played mini-golf in Helen (a very odd town in Georgia where all the buildings are Swiss/Bavarian chalet style); bought a pair of Vibram Five Finger shoes (and liked it).

Life after America

I’ve also done a ton of things since I got back from America (two months ago!), but they’ll have to wait for another blog post I think. I’ll give you a teaser, though: The photo below was taken at an Amanda Palmer gig. And the photo below that is none other than Richard fucking O’Brien — singing Time Warp, no less.

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Chickens and Ireland Morocco: Marrakech to Merzouga and back again, by camel, car, and caffeine Balloons and Bruges

Anyway, with that out of the way…

I guess the most exciting thing I’ve done in the last month is visit Bristol — the hipster/artist/cool capital of England. Bristol is famous for creating Banksy, the Concorde, and Wallace & Gromit, amongst other things. I went to Bristol to do some research for a business I’m hoping to open in the next few months, to see a friend, and to experience the famous Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. The Fiesta is basically just a big orgy of hot air balloons and hot air balloon nerds — and at night, they do a night glow, where about 20 balloons inflate and then fire their propane burners in musical synchronicity.

Bristol itself is a lovely city. Some very nice buildings, including a huge cathedral. Lots of big, open spaces too — and of course it has a harbour! If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone there is about 5000 times cooler than me, I wouldn’t mind moving to Bristol.

Also, last weekend, I was at a very large LAN party — the largest I’ve been to, actually. There were around 2500 computers, split between two (connected) rooms. I was there for 5 days — and by the end of the LAN on Monday, I was very ready to head home. We played lots of games — and even got kinda half-drunk a couple of times! (A first for that group of friends). We even played poker and smoked cigars. I won the poker.

I’ve got two other trips planned for the next month or two: Belgium first, and then a long trip to North Carolina. In Belgium I’ll be visiting the romantic city of Bruges (at last!), and the trip to the USA is primarily for my cousin’s wedding (Neil’s son)– but I’ll try to make a bit of a holiday out of it, too. I’ve already done mid/east North Carolina before, so I’ll probably do a road trip out west — to Tennessee maybe? (If you have any suggestions for what to see/do in and around NC, please let me know).

Other than that, the chickens are doing well. Three of them keep laying double-yolk eggs. I don’t know if this is a good thing, or just a sign that they’re genetically a bit wonky. Poppy, the rebel that she is, refuses to lay eggs in the coop — and moves her nest every few days. So far we’ve tracked her down four times. The first time I found her nest, this is what she was sitting on:

Also, it seems that all the food/treats we’re giving the chickens is attracting other wildlife to the garden. We’ve easily doubled our number of squirrels, and a couple of ravens have recently moved in. One of the treats we give the chickens is a cooked corn on the cob (ear of corn for you Amurkans, I think). Today I caught a squirrel picking up a cob with its teeth and taking it about 50 feet up a tree before tucking in. I didn’t hang around, though — didn’t want to end up with a terminal velocity cob knocking me out, and then coming to, surrounded by worried-looking chickens.

Judging by that rather delusional comment, I should probably go to bed now…

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Chickens and Ireland The keyboard (#18/365) Blue Ridge Parkway

My dad and I have always joked about getting farmyard-type animals. First it was a goat, to ‘mow’ the lawn (you tether it in one location for a few days, it eats all the grass, and then you move the tether). Then it was a pig — a Vietnamese potbellied pig, to be exact — but they get too big, smelly, and unwieldy. Finally, chickens. I mooted the idea a few months ago, when I bought this end of the house, but neither of us did anything about it — and then, two weeks ago, my dad sent me an email with a link to a posh chicken coop… and I bought it. A week later, we went to a local chicken farm to get four chickens.

Meet Maggie, Florence, Poppy, and Currently Not Named:

Maggie (white) is a Coral hybrid, Florence (ginger) is a Colombian Blacktail, Poppy (grey) is a Columbine, and Unknown is a Copper Black (some kind of Maran, I think, a French bird). I’m currently thinking of some kind of politically incorrect name for the Copper Black, like Martin Luther King or Winnie Mandela. Or a black location (like Harlem, Compton, etc.)

Maggie and Florence are currently laying eggs (cream and light brown respectively), but the other two are still too young I think. The eggs are delicious!

For the first week they stayed in the coop/run thing, but this weekend they were allowed to free range for the first time. Judging by the noises they’ve made and the hours they’ve spent rummaging in the mud beneath our big trees, I think they’ve been enjoying themselves. We lost them earlier today — they’d gone half way up the drive and about two meters into the hedge/treeline. Had to go behind them and bang a pan to rustle them out.

Anyway, as I seem to be running the risk of turning into the farmyard equivalent of a mommy blogger, I should probably stop there.

Ireland! (You definitely want to click to see the full-size version of this photo.)

Just like my semi-infatuation with farmyard animals, I’ve always talked about going to Ireland and Scotland, but never actually been. I always thought it was a bit sad that I’ve crawled through ancient caves in Cappadocia, Turkey and hugged giant redwoods in Yosemite, but never seen the Giant’s Causeway or Ben Nevis.

Anyway, I received an offer I couldn’t refuse to visit the south west of Ireland… and so I went! And keenly!

The first two days, we had lovely weather. The second two days, there was so much fog, mist, low cloud, and rain that visibility generally ranged from 20 to 200 meters. But the food was good, the company was excellent, and what we did see was very pretty. Take Fungie, for example — a friendly dolphin who has been a resident of Dingle Bay for almost 35 years. He never leaves. His only friends are the hundreds of tourists who come to see him every day.

With all of the bays and inlets, the west coast of Ireland really reminded me of Norway and the Faroe Islands. I almost could’ve shot these two photos in the Faroes:

On the other hand, this is all we could see of the Cliffs of Moher, a few-mile stretch of cliffs that overlook the Atlantic Ocean and the Aran Islands. The Cliffs of Moher are, like, the number one tourist attraction in Ireland. I felt rather bad for the Asian tourists who had travelled thousands of miles to be greeted with a blanket of fog. At times, the cloud cleared just enough to see the outline of the nearest cliff. Really sucky.

This is what the cliffs look like on a good day:

Other things I did in Ireland, in no particular order: Ate my first mussel (as part of a seafood chowder thing); Received enough inspiration that I may have to update my Best Places To Have Sex guide; Watched the Euro Cup 2012 final from a swanky hotel suite; (Almost) did a doughnut on a beautiful beach; and… I went to a drive-in cinema!

So cool — it seems they’re experiencing some kind of renaissance at the moment, or something. You just drive into this big car park, face towards the screen (some kind of massive white sheet hanging over a scaffold tower), and tune your radio into a specific FM frequency. Voila! It was pretty cheap, and you can bring your own snacks, and obviously you can make out and stuff. It felt very… 1950s America.

The people in Ireland were very friendly. I’d definitely go again (especially to the north, to see the Giant’s Causeway).

As for general travel plans and other real life stuffs, I don’t have anything on the agenda for the rest of the year. I have a cool business plan up my sleeve that might require all of my attention for the next few months. The house is looking cool, but still unfinished. Writing is going well, though I don’t know how long I will find it enjoyable. I love writing — and I love people reading stuff that I write — but out of the 50 hours I work per week, I probably only write for 20 of those.

I think that’s about it for now! I need to go make sure the chickens are all cooped up for the night. There’s more photos on Flickr and Facebook of the chickens and Ireland, if you’re interested.

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Blue Ridge Parkway Balloons and Bruges This month, on Seb’s blog…

First, a house update. Since you last saw it, I’ve done quite a lot. The kitchen is now almost complete. My bedroom… has a nice (art decoish) bed! (But there’s still a lot to do upstairs with my carpet and carpet cleaning from carpet cleaning jacksonville fl). My conservatory is empty! I spent about 10 hours this weekend, dusting, scrubbing (with bleach and rubber gloves!), drilling holes, and doing all sorts of various man-about-the-house type tasks — I hope it shows in the photos (for more photos, hit up Flickr).

But most importantly, my new table arrived! Basically, I don’t fit under normal-sized desks. For the last 15 years or so, I’ve worked from a big slab of wood nailed between two wardrobes. I’ve always wanted a proper table, though — something solid, something that will outlive me and become an heirloom/antique. So… I approached an oak master craftsman and asked him to make me a 7-foot-long monastery-style table. The base is made from few-centuries-old reclaimed French oak, recovered from a chateau that was about to be knocked down. The top is “cat’s paw” (pippy) oak — I don’t think it’s reclaimed, though. The top is made from just three planks! (This doubles the price, or something stupid). It’s finished with some light oil, and bee’s wax — no varnish.

Everyone who sees the table seems compelled to just stop, stare, and… stroke. It feels so good. If you’re in the area, you’re cordially invited to come and stroke it.

I have some new art, too — a huge, 1.5×1.2m painting of the Isle of Wight. It’s on my bedroom wall — a lovely vista to wake up to.

The house is no where near finished, though! (I am fast learning that home improvements are never finished. Even when you think you’re done… you’re never done.) Next up is some painting — finishing the kitchen, and repainting the bulk of the house from oatmeal to white — and then reflooring the living area, probably with some nice light wood (maple, I think). Make sure you read this content here to get the right kind of paint for your space. It’s some fairly crappy laminate at the moment. Then I might carpet the conservatory… and I probably need to recarpet upstairs…

In other news, I was promoted! I’m now a Senior Editor — and as I recently turned 28, some would say the emphasis is on senior, but I insist it should be on editor. I don’t have much else to report on the work front. I’ve written/broken a few stories that have made it to national US press and TV, which was pretty cool. It sometimes feels like the job is a bit repetitive, but maybe that’s just the fact that this is my first full-time job. I don’t know if I can do this for 40 years, that’s for sure. At least I have more money than I know what to do with… yay. (I have been thinking about buying a boat…)

I miss travelling, too. When I freelanced, I could go anywhere I wanted, for as long as I wanted. Now… I can’t. I have thought about some kind of crazy scheme, where I rent a house in some weird location (like Thailand) for three months, then go and work from there. Need to actually get the wheels in motion, though.

While we’re on that topic of travel, though, I was in Gran Canaria a couple of weeks ago! And at the end of the month I’m going to Ireland! I actually took some photos in Gran Canaria — the first photos I’ve taken since America, basically. Six months without taking photos. Oops. I think I lost my mojo — maybe that’s the full-time job’s doing…

I’ve been thinking about politics again. Thinking it might be time to start poking around. Just a few fleeting ideas at the moment — nothing concrete. There are definitely a few angles I could take that would lead smoothly into politics, though. Will keep you updated on this one.

Still a bit lonely, too — not as bad as when I was in the US, but I’m still acutely aware of the fact that I’m alone for something like 95% of my waking hours. Again, I’m sure the full-time telecommuted job doesn’t help in this regard. People who work in offices have friendship and companionship made easy!

I think that’s everything. I’m hosting a LAN party next weekend — a bunch of guildmates are descending on my house from all over Europe. This will be the first time I’ve had lots of people over, so I’m a little excited and a lot scared. I have to go and order lots of extra teabags, milk, and toilet rolls — and lots of paper plates and plastic cutlery. Instead of a housewarming, I guess I’m having a LANwarming. Very fitting, for the king of geeks.

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So… I bought a house At the time of writing, the sun is shining… Life on Mars

I used to live in the top left corner. My parents are there now. In essence, the main thing I’ve gained is my own front door — and, as a rather nice corollary, the ability to walk around naked.

Anyway, my new house is completely unfurnished. It doesn’t even have a kitchen. All I have is a couple of pink bean bags, a fridge (but no where to prepare food, so it just contains case after case of Coke at the moment), and my computers. Over the next few weeks… it will become furnished!

At this point, you should look at my House set on Flickr. It has a bunch of photos of my house, as it is today. Click through (or open it in a new tab!) then come back here.

The tiler is meant to turn up tomorrow, to do the kitchen floor — but, of course, he’s not returning my calls at the moment. On Tuesday, my kitchen units arrive — and my bed (I’m sleeping on some shitty, dilapidated double mattress at the moment — reeeeally looking forward to my new king-size thing). I’m going to put the units together myself. Figure it can’t be too hard. (Will get some help for all the plumbing and stuff.)

Sofas are due to arrive in a couple of weeks. One is a lovely dark blue (azure) Italian leather thing; the other is a huge swivel arm chair thing, big enough for a couple of people (wink). I already have a fridge, as you can see (it’s moving, once the tiles are down!)

Then I need to buy a worktop for my kitchen (leaning towards walnut at the moment), and then another piece of wood that will become my desk (I don’t fit under normal desks, and they’re generally not designed for the number of screens I have). The desk will go against the wall on the right side of the living room (where the fridge is at the moment).

My bed will be in the big upstairs room. Not sure what will happen to the smaller upstairs room; probably just storage, or a guest room. Or maybe that’s where I can keep my maid. Here is the One Stop Self Storage info that you might need to stay organised.

I don’t really know what to do with the conservatory. It’s beautiful, but not very good for computer work. I could just turn it into some more living space, but I don’t think I’d use it. Might be worth doing up in case I rent the house out, though.

The colour scheme is: light wood (as you see in the windows, staircase, living room floor), dark wood (walnut worktop), and slate/blue (kitchen floor, sofa).

I was going to write all about the Joy Of DIY, and how tearing out fitted wardrobes made me feel Incredibly Manly, but I think I’ll save that for another post.

I still need to buy a ton of stuff: appliances (oven, washing machine), a TV, tables and other assorted furniture, and just about everything that will make the place “homely.” Rugs, plates to hang on the wall, art for the walls — I need it all! I’m open to ideas and suggestions, if you have any.

This site will probably turn into a bit of a decorating/DIY thing for a while. To make amends, I will invite you to my house warming party. I have a swimming pool.

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My life: Decorating, cleaning and writing Yours truly apologises… To America! (a week overdue)

I’m writing this from the departure lounge of Newark Liberty Airport, but I suspect I won’t finish it until I’m in the air, winging my way towards London, England — my home!

I know that I promised the Three Thanksgiving Dinners story in the previous entry, but I was waiting on some photos of me and my long-lost, ruggedly Russian cousin Dmitry, who I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with — well, him, his wife, his kids, and a full bevy of septua- and octogenarian parents and in-laws. I have those photos now — and, despite the facial hair, you can see there’s no real physical real similarity between us — but mentally, oh! Why, Dmitry and I could almost be cut from the same gnarled stock.

Anyway, enough about him. I doubt he’d want me to tell you all of his dark secrets — especially the geeky ones. I should tell the story about how I very nearly ended up attending a Thanksgiving dinner for the friendless, familyless, and destitute at the local St Paul’s church — but ended up having a very heartwarming, Hollywoodesque day.

It all started with a tweet, with a tweet to my cousin Neil. This was two days before Thanksgiving — I tweeted him with the hope that he might be doing something festive up in Wisconsin, but it turned out that he was going to Amsterdam. Darn. But… it also turns out that Neil has done a fair bit of rooting around our family tree — and it just so turns out that a lot of my Russian-Jewish relatives ended up in New York or New Jersey. So, a day before Thanksgiving, just as he boarded a 10-hour flight to Amsterdam, he gave me Dmitry’s email address.

By this time I had also advertised on Twitter and Facebook that if fortuitous fate didn’t get a move on I would end up spending Turkey Day with a bunch of hobos who probably wouldn’t leave me any turkey.

First my boss told me that I should stop by his parents’ place — and then, a couple of hours later, one of my writers also told me that I should come for Thanksgiving lunch. I am always surprised by how many people call me friend. An hour or two after that, after he had confirmed my identity with Neil, Dmitry emailed me back to say that I would be more than welcome at his house — as long as I brought a bottle of vodka.

I plotted all three houses on Google, and they were almost lined up in a straight line away from my house — and all within New Jersey! What were the chances? I headed over to see my friends at Enterprise car rentals, picked up an SUV (a fancy, heated-leather-seats Ford Escape), stopped by the off-license to pick up lots of vodka and wine… went to bed… and then in the morning I set off to visit the first victims: my boss and his family… and his chickens.

<Insert one-month gap, while I change countries, move houses, buy furniture, and all sorts of other real life crap>

His parents live in a huge house, quite far off the beaten path — quite similar to where I live in England, I guess. It’s a big, red, hunting lodge-style thing, with lots of grass and trees all around it. His family is Sicilian, and they all have Godfatherly names like Salvatore, Giuseppi, and Annamaria. They congratulated me on my choice of gift-wine (a fairly expensive chianti) and, as chance would have it, fava beans were on offer for lunch.

After slurping down a few glasses of delicious red wine, I hopped in the SUV and headed along to the next port of call, a nice house in a neighbourhood of beautiful-but-slightly-too-ostentatious palatial abodes. If the previous household was decidedly Italian, this house was ALL AMERICAN. There were about 15 people in total, but 10 of them were busy watching Football (it is capitalized in the US, like Him). I don’t like Football, so I spent an hour or two chatting to my writer, his wife, and the occasional offspring that would emerge from the Football Temple to grab a beer/snack/etc. I had raw broccoli for the first time (dipped in some kind of sour cream-chive dressing).

I chugged down a few more glasses of wine (I had got them a bottle of “Coppola” — Francis Coppola, the director, actually makes wine now), I recalibrated my GPS thingee and headed off to Dmitry’s.

Dmitry is a small Russian man with a small Russian wife (OK, she’s not actually that small but she is called Olga). They have two kids, and a full brace of parents and in-laws (all of which were present for dinner). At the time, we figured we were incredibly distant relatives that had been slapped together by the thighs of Fate (or Neil), just for Thanksgiving — but later, after I left, we worked out that we’re actually quite closely related (third cousins, or something). Anyway, dinner was lovely (three courses of delicious Russian food, with a turkey thrown in for good measure), and Dmitry was pretty cool, too. It was a little bit odd; most of dinner consisted of me talking to Dmitry, with occasional bursts of Russian translation to the oldies. I spoke in a mix of fluent English, and self-conscious slow-and-loud expatriate pidgin English (not intentionally, mind you).

Like Neil and I, Dmitry’s a writer — but fiction, rather than the journalisticky stuff that I write. Somehow he writes English prose that makes my head spin and lips curl, even though Russian is his first language. I wonder if he actually has a solid command of all the crazy words he uses, or if he is constantly riffling through dictionaries and thesauri to find the right words. His wife, Olga, designs lingerie (for fairly fancy label, I think). The parents and in-laws came to the US 20 years ago, to be in the same country as their kids, but I don’t think I was told what they do/did for a living.

After a couple of amazing deserts (and only a tiny sip of moonshine; drinking and driving isn’t for me (but he could’ve at least offered me a glass of the vodka I brought him. Damn Jews…)) it was finally time to head out. The entire household watched me tie my bootlaces — a funny mental image that sticks out amongst the rest.

I drove home, full of familial, amicable love, and the warm glow that only moonshine and delicious food can instill. Three Thanksgivings, in one day!

* * *

In hindsight, I really should’ve written this closer to the time — way back in frickin’ November! — as I’ve forgotten lots of details since then. I’ll likely remember stuff if you ask me questions, though, so feel free to quiz me. Also, the photos in this post come from my Upstate New York road trip. The next post will have to be about that! I drove 1,500 miles in four days and visited seven states! If you want to get a head start, you can always check Flickr for (some of) the photos.

Happy new year, friends.

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To America! (a week overdue) On making friends, Mahler, Virginia, and a lovely bit of priest Blue Ridge Parkway