The 2012 Presidential Election is headed to America like the proverbial freight train, and the only good thing about it is the Democrats don’t have to go through the pain and agony of selecting a new candidate. Instead we get Barack Obama, for better or worse… but this isn’t a post about Democrats, that’s scheduled for Tuesday. Today we are talking about the other side, the not-so-loyal opposition, the Republican Party nomination process. Here, in short order, are my thoughts on the major candidates, why they are in the race, and what it means for nation.

Before I get started on particular candidates, I want to point out that the bench is not shallow, contrary to what the press my be reporting. You’ve got sitting and former congress people, a bunch of governors, and only one dude with zero government experience. It was not but four years ago that the Democrats nominated someone with an awfully shallow government resume.

Tim Pawlenty (Former Governor of Minnesota)

We’ll start with the least interesting, not because the candidate is a bad guy, but because he dropped out back in August. I think the decision to drop out so early says more than anything Pawlenty ever sad on the trail. As a governor of a state that voted D for the past several decades, Pawlenty came to the table with new electoral votes and a moderate record. Given his endorsement of Romney after he dropped out, one assumes he found it difficult to fund raise being essentially Romney v2, but with less awesome hair. But what does it say about a party’s nomination process when there’s only enough oxygen in the room to support one reasonable candidate?

Gary Johnson (Former Governor of New Mexico)

Clearly I haven’t been paying as much attention as I should, because I know next to nothing about this guy. His photo on Wikipedia does not inspire presidential confidence. Can’t imagine he’ll last past Iowa and New Hampshire.

Rick Perry (Governor of Texas)

Perry had a strong position when he announced late into the primary season, but after pushing a immigration plan that was mainstream GOP just six years ago, his campaign appears in decline. Which demonstrates a fundamental issue with the GOP primary process this year… there’s not a single, or even set, of litmus tests this year. Ideological purity on every issue appears to be required of any candidate. I’m reminded when it was a big deal that the Democrats wouldn’t consider nominating a anti-choice candidate… but I struggle to think of any other issue where the base would reject the candidate outright if they held a position that differs from the party platform. I wonder, how a party evolve to meet a changing reality if divergent opinions are punished so severely?

Mitt Romney (Former Governor of Massachusetts)

Romney is the front-runner, even if today’s polls say it’s someone else… everyone knows that the race is down to Romney and TBD. No one thinks the race is going to come down to Gingrich and Paul, or Huntsman and Bachmann. I’m told that history supports Romney’s front-runner status, as his 2nd place finish in 2008 means the party elite are likely to coalesce around him. The big question with him is whether or not the GOP has changed so much in the past 10 years that elite endorsements (where Romney is the far-and-away leader) are more of a detriment than an asset. I’m not convinced that Romney is a shoe-in, but if he loses by a large margin (major campaign catastrophe not-with-standing) I would say the future of the GOP does not look bright. If the elite don’t have at least some influence on the party, how is it a party and not just an angry mob?

Newt Gingrich (Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives)

I’ll admit right now, I’m a Gingrich fan. No, I can’t stand his politics and I find his conduct to be generally reprehensible. What I like about him is that he’s not afraid to appear smart on stage. He’s not up there spinning old yarns about how Grampa Joe’s work ethic is an allegory for the global economy. I also appreciate his belief in science and technology as forces for good. There was even a time when he supported efforts to address climate change! However, there is a nasty side to Newt. He tends to get very personal in politics, and will tear his opponents down in an ugly fashion. It’s not very Presidential. As of today, Newt is the poll front-runner, and I’m hopeful it stays that way. Not that I want him to win the nomination, per se, but more because I think keeping him on the stage keeps the conversation from going totally off the rails into crazy Tea Party Town.

As a side note, the Gingrich campaign has given rise to one of my election coverage rules. If the coverage of a campaign makes it seem like the whole thing falls apart over night (like it did with McCain in 2008 or with Gingrich in the summer of 2012) it’s probably overplaying the situation and it can — and often does — come back together just as easily as it appears to have gone away.

Jon Huntsman (Former Ambassador to China and Former Governor of Utah)

I still find it amazing that the one GOP candidate who has embraced evolution in the classroom and climate change as an addressable threat is a Mormon. I grew up with Mormons, and they are some of the nicest folks I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting… but, to generalize, they can be among the most stubborn when reality doesn’t fit their religious beliefs. So that a Governor of Utah, former Ambassador to China from the Obama Administration, and devote Mormon has taken up the mantel of intellectual honesty in the GOP primary is one of those things you don’t expect to see in your lifetime. If he were to win the nomination, I’d be genuinely worried about the general election. He’s cultivated a persona that is attractive to disaffected Democrats, who are likely not going to pay attention when Huntsman’s economic politics, which are very conservative, start getting press. Thankfully, there is zero chance that national GOP will nominate him… if they are gonna nominate a Mormon, it’s gonna be Romney.

Ron Paul (Congressman TX 14th CD)

Now we are starting the descent into crazy town candidates. Ron Paul is a perennial GOP candidate, sort of like Dennis Kucinich for the Democrats, except a lot closer to capturing the prize. In general, I try to avoid saying bad things about Paul, because I just don’t understand his MO. Here’s a man who has been in Congress since the 70’s (with some noticeable gaps) and yet, shows up to vote “no” on essentially every bill. What makes him keep doing it? It can’t be the money, he could make tons more on the full time speaker circuit. It can’t be the power… since he always votes “no”, he essentially has no power. I get he’s a libertarian, so the votes fit his philosophy… what doesn’t fit is his desire for office in the first place. One of the reasons I don’t generally worry about libertarians destroying the social fabric of the nation is that they are too busy taking care of themselves to do any real harm… but here’s a guy who claims to be a self-promoter who is not spending time self-promoting. Until I understand what he’s trying to accomplish, Paul remains a mystery. Never the less, I imagine this is the last race we will see him.

Rick Santorum (Former Senator from Pennsylvania)

Wow… I honestly can’t imagine what amazing dare Santorum had to have lost to try to run for national office. Beyond the fact that he’s got a snowballs chance in hell of winning the nomination in the first place, I can imagine no better candidate to galvanize the Left and ensure high turnout for Obama. Santorum was too active of a culture warrior to be Presidential material. I assume he’s going to write a book.

Michele Bachmann (Congresswomen, MN 6th CD)

Bachmann appears to suffer from any number of mental aliments, and I don’t say that as a joke. Her grasps of basic facts appear far too slippery, and her drive to be seen as the spokesperson for the Tea Party seems to come more from a place of megalomania than political aspiration. But here she is, running for President on the “I’m not Sarah Palin, but I’m willing to let you think I am” platform. I assume Bachmann supporters flock to her because of her ideological purity… but, in truth, I’m not convinced she has any idea how that ideology would be turned into government policy. It’s a bit too much like the folks who don’t want the Government to interfere with Medicare. They know the ideology (government == bad) but have no idea how that relates to questions like “how do we make Medicare better?” It doesn’t matter, I suspect Bachmann will be gone once South Carolina wraps up.

Herman Cain (Businessman and Radio Host)

Cain has already suspended his campaign by this time, which you had to see coming the moment he announced his candidacy. The question is, after he got the bump in book sales he was looking for, why did he stay in the race for so long? I read a report on Cain a few weeks back about how Cain was willing to leave in person audiences standing around for hours to take last minute TV opportunities. You don’t win elections that way, and I’m sure his staff knew that. I suspect Cain became the victim of his own PR machine, believing himself to truly be the savior of the GOP. Thankfully, the real world doesn’t work in such absolutes, and his past came out to remind him that no one is perfect. I just hope the book sales prove worth the destruction of his personal life.

Sarah Palin (Former Governor of Alaska and Former GOP Nominee for Vice President)

Palin never declared, and as of today, she’s saying she won’t run, and I take that as truth. The reason I mention her at all is to gloat. Way back in 2009-2010 I was very vocal about my belief that Palin had zero intention of running for President. Her behavior continues to suggest she is a Grade A grifter, and you can’t grift from the White House. She’ll make a ton more money doing exactly what’s she is doing now. So let’s all just stop talking about her… as soon as we stop paying attention, she will go away.

And all the Rest…

So, there you have it, one of the above names is likely to be the GOP candidate for President. My personal hope is for either Romney or Gingrich. If it’s one of the Tea Party folks, we’ll be looking at another 4 years of useless polarization. But if the Republicans nominate someone who is at least partially reasonable, then perhaps some middle ground can be identified during the campaign. In either event, I’m looking forward to Obama after the election, and after the point where the GOPs sole purpose in life is to deny him a second term. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll be willing to help govern the country for a few months.

I admit, for all my technical knowledge, among other developers I’m a bit of a luddite. I’ve never owned a game console not made by Nintendo, I run Linux on all of my computers, and my first scripting language was Perl, which I only reluctantly gave up for Ruby a couple of years ago. I’ve not drawn to buy the latest PlayStation, or keep up with the latest desktop PC, or to the hawt new computer language that lets you run your software on 32 cores with only four lines of code. I think the reason is that my attraction to these technologies was never their newness or their cool factor, it was that they were good solutions to problems I wanted to solve. Those problems still exist today, and I argue that while there may be new technologies out there that solve other problems better, they don’t solve the original problems in a way that poses a serious challenge.

Gaming: A Search for Experience

The easiest one to debunk is the coming death of gaming consoles. In a recent interview Richard Garriott, the man behind the Ultima franchise, is reported to have said the following when asked about gaming consoles:

I think we might get one more generation, might, but I think fundamentally they’re doomed. I think fundamentally the power that you can carry with you in a portable is really swamping what we’ve thought of as a console.

And, of course, he’s right about the power of my mobile device. It’s clearly got more power than my old Nintendo or SNES ever had, and I imagine it’s probably more powerful than my current (but aging) generation console, the Wii. Where I don’t agree is with the claim that it’s swamping anything. My phone’s great and all, but it’s never going to replace a game console for me. What makes game consoles great is they leverage my existing investments. Hanging on my wall right now is a big TV, surrounded by comfy couches, and hooked into a 5.1 surround sound system. Today I can go and buy a Wii, a PS3, and an XBOX 360 and all will hook neatly into my existing infrastructure. What’s my phone got that will ever compete with that? Controls that are difficult to use because they have to exist on a flat surface? A screen that is tiny by design? Battery life that can be reasonably measured in minutes when under active load? A network connection that is a faction of my home connection?

Which isn’t to say that the mobile device won’t be a successful gaming platform! Far from it. Publishers that crack the nut of good mobile gaming are going to make bucket-loads of money tapping into a market that has been historical averse to video games. More power to ‘em, I say! But they are trying to solve a new problem: how to attract new non-gaming customers? But see, that’s a problem that game publishers have… it is not a problem I have, or the million of other gamers who grew the gaming industry into a billion dollar juggernaut. Our problem remains the same: how do I play immersive games that best leverage the technology I already own? I don’t want my new 40″ TV to sit idle while I squint at my phone, and I don’t think anyone playing games for the past 20 years wants to either. It’s silly to let such a resource lay fallow. Game consoles solve that problem and do so incredibly well, while giving me customized controllers, fast internet, and a wired power source. If someday the mobile device is created that lets me do all those things, I would suggest that game consoles won’t have been killed by mobile devices, so much as mobile devices became game consoles.

Personal Computers: “It’s not in the box, it’s in the band”

Thirty points if you identified the above quote as coming from Antitrust a highly-decent film about an evil software company who is literally killing its young competitors. There’s a moment in the film where the Bill Gates-esque figure (played by Tim Robbins) turns to the young protagonist (played by Ryan Phillippe) and mutters the above line. This brilliant phrase allows them to overcome some roadblock with the development of Nurv, their amazing new content delivery system that will revolutionize the world. Ahead of its time, Antitrust seems to be making a cloud computing comment way back in 2001… that the solution to their problem wasn’t with the devices, but the network that connected those devices.

Sadly, in today’s world of technology predictions, the ability to differentiate between those two concepts seems rarer and rarer. On more than one occasion I’ve heard it declared that the age of the Personal Computer is over. As evidence, the prognosticator points to Cloud Computing as PC computing’s angle of death. I can only assume these people just don’t understand what Cloud Computing even means when they say such things.

Let’s start with the stipulation that Cloud Computing is a poorly defined term, and it can mean all things to all people. But given that, it still have a reasonable well accepted definition for 2011… it is the process of moving computer resources from specific nodes on the resource graph to arbitrary nodes.

Say what?!

Perhaps an example will help. Consider a media server that stores gigabytes of media files which can be accessed by various client computers. In this example, the resource is storage, because we are talking about the data that comprises these media files. But contrary to what you might have heard, a media server isn’t cloud computing! The relationship I described has been around since we had networks… it’s the standard server/client model where there are discrete resources on specific nodes. What would make this cloud computing is if instead of a single server, there were lots of servers all working together to store the music, but that the client was unaware of this arrangement. The client connects to the “cloud” and just gets the media files like it always has, while the servers work to move the files around ensuring prompt delivery. Now we’ve come to the cloud.

Something should jump out at you about this example… the client didn’t change! And the client in this case is the supposedly dying PC! You see, we still need a specific client to connect to our clouds. Whether we are talking about huge CPU clusters or massive petabyte data arrays, we need clients to make use of these non-fixed resources. To give another example, I often hear it claimed that gmail revolutionized email. And yes, it gave us a radically new user interface, but it didn’t change anything when it came to the storage and delivery of email. The idea of email residing on a server that is universally available has been around since the invention of IMAP in 1986.

Perhaps the doomsayers of the PC era aren’t talking about the cloud so much as they are talking about the different nature of devices that will be able to connect to the cloud. Today I can access my email from my phone, my tablet, and no doubt, someday, my refrigerator. Which is great, I’m all for more options when it comes to data consumption. But the assumption that these devices are going to kill the PC makes the same mistake as the gaming console. If you don’t start by looking at the problem PCs were invented to address, you’ll never understand what it will take to replace the PC.

I propose the PC was invented to give us a way to use computer resources in a productive manner. It follows that to end the PC era, we need to invent a device (or set of devices) that is more productive than the PC. Of course, this doesn’t answer the question of what is productive. That’s going to be a personal evaluation, but I think we can all agree that communicating is a productive task. So, let’s take communicating and evaluate it in the context of the PC and the smartphone.

The smartphone has some incredible advantages, not least of which is that its mobile. But in addition to a mobile network connection, smartphones are phones, and thus are ready for voice communication right out of the box. They also increasingly equipped with video cameras, opening the possibility for video communication. So, it’s got mobility, it’s got voice, and it’s got video. All great stuff… but I’m not the least bit worried about it replacing the PC as the primary form of communication. Contrary to what Star Trek may have lead us to believe, video and audio communication poses few threats to text based forms of communication. The problem with audio and video is it’s all single band. For demonstration, I encourage you and your significant other to break out your smart phones in the same room and start video chatting, simultaneously, with your respective families. Let me know how it turns out. Now, try writing an email to your parents at the same time… easier, right? You can both do it at the same time, because text doesn’t collide with others engaging in the same activity.

Sure, smart phones and tablets do text, but nothing beats a QWERTY keyboard when it comes to text input. The PC form factor provides unrivaled means of creating content. Whether it’s writing text, editing a spreadsheet or cutting up a Photoshop document, the mouse/keyboard/monitor are the gold standard. Sure, you can hook up a tablet to those same input devices, but at what point have you just built a PC in a crazy slim form factor?

In the end, these new devices provide exceptionable mobility, and that’s a powerful answer to the problem: how can I be productive when I’m mobile? But when put to the question, how can I maximize the productivity of my computing resources, it’s gonna fall short. But to those who insist they can ditch their PCs entirely… I say, bring it on! I’m all too happy to have the advantage.

Scripting Languages: Putting Text on a Screen

This last item hits closest to home, because I spend most of my professional day writing in one of a handful of scripting languages, so I get a bit defensive whenever someone says I’m coding in the past. The broad claim here is that content delivery has evolved over the year from static documents, like raw HTML, to dynamic documents powered by a combination of server and client side scripting languages, and that another transformation is coming. Instead of dynamic documents, we are going to be streaming documents… data… media? Actually, it’s not entirely clear what we are going to be streaming, but whatever it is, it’ll come in stream format. As proof of the assertion, the doomsayers point to nodeJS, the revolutionary javascript server.

I lucked out last year and saw a nodeJS demo by its developer at SenchaCon and was admittedly blown away but how awesome it was. There’s no doubt about it, you can do stuff with nodeJS that is harder to do in more traditional languages, and its introducing a whole new generation of developers to the world of functional programming. But it’s not new. Functional programming has been around since the 1950s with the development of Lisp. It’s a crazy powerful, yet mind-boggling, technology. Wrapping it up into a server isn’t really new either, as I understand it. The big plus with nodeJS is that language is Javascript, not some parenthesis laden jumble, and thus modern web developers can jump in with their existing knowledge.

But what about NodeJS suggests the death of scripting languages? For that matter, what about scripting languages suggested the death of static documents? Like before, it all goes back to the nature of the problem needing to be solved. With static documents, we were trying to get information out to the client as quickly and as reliably as possible. Static HTML answered that problem brilliantly (more so than I think anyone expected at the time). With dynamic pages, we had two objectives: (1) allow a page to be built through the combination of a smaller discrete parts; and (2) the customization of content based on the user’s input or environment. But here’s the rub… the best web applications still work with static HTML as much as possible. Caching pre-rendered objects, or whole pages, is essential to any application that is going to deal with significant load. So it’s not that scripting killed static pages, it’s that it enhanced what we could do with it. But a developer who doesn’t learn the basics of serving static content does so at his or her own peril.

So, does NodeJS allow us to solve either of the problems that static or dynamic documents solve? I suppose you can use NodeJS as a dynamic document generator. But, that’s not really it’s strong suit as I understand it. It’s power is the ability to handle multiple concurrent users and allow them to exchange information. Which, like I said, is awesome. But it doesn’t mean we won’t need to serve static pages in the future.

Overstating Death

In part, I realize, I’ve fallen victim to the prognosticators’ bombastic claim. To get press, they seem to need to say more and more outrageous things. No one bothers to print the headline that says “Technology gets incrementally better, most things remain the same.” I worry that too many developers get educated in a world of over-hyped expectations and a thirst for the bleeding edge. This obsession strikes me as dangerous. The point of technology, from a societal standpoint, is to help us solve problems. Being shiny isn’t a good enough reason to discard what came before. If all of the current developers are dancing on the graves of old technology, how will we effectively evaluate it against the latest and greatest?

The next time you read an article that says HTML5 will end the way we think of webpages or that your smartphone is going to replace your tax accountant, stop and ask yourself: what is the problem trying to be solved here, and does this new technology solve it in a way that totally displaces the previous solution, or does it just solve a particular part of the problem in a new way? My personal experience is that, in most cases, technology is rarely revolutionary… and when it is revolutionary, no one sees it coming until it’s already here.

Writing Schedule

• Saturday: The overstated death of the PC and other turn of the century technologies
• Sunday: The GOP 2012 presidential primary
• Monday: The social networking horse race
• Tuesday: Being a member of the governing party
• Wednesday: Weekend projects and urban gardening
• Thursday: How to get out of a big bank and into a credit union
• Friday: Misunderstanding Occupy Wall Street

The general plan is to alternate politics with more practical or personal stories. Hopefully that keeps the writing from being too preachy. Anyway, I’ve never tried to set a writing schedule before, so it’ll be interesting to see if I can stick to it or not. It’ll also be interesting to see if anyone will even see updates. I’ll write a retrospective at the end of the week to see how it all went.

Last Sunday I finished my 90th day! I’ll be honest, I am less pleased with my results than I had hoped, but the blame for that lies entirely with myself. Yes, I can lift more weight, I can do more push-ups (including one handed and clap), I can do more pull-ups (lots more), and I’ve seen great improvement in my rock climbing. But my physical appearance just hasn’t changed as much for how hard I worked. Of course, the reason for this failure is that I didn’t do the diet, so while I was certainly building muscle, I wasn’t building as much as I could, and while I was burning fat, I wasn’t burning as much as I should. So, starting this week I’m doing the program over again but this time I’m sticking to the diet.

But, just because the results weren’t amazing doesn’t mean they weren’t something to be proud of, because they are. So, without further ado, here is a collection of photos taken at 30 day intervals. You can click through to see a larger version of any photo.

Day 0

Day 30

Day 60

Day 90

Day 0

Day 30

Day 60

Day 90

Day 0

Day 30

Day 60

Day 90

Day 0

Day 30

Day 60

Day 90

Day 0

Day 30

Day 60

Day 90

Day 0

Day 30

Day 60

Day 90

But, this holiday season I found myself in need of a specific icon for a project I’m working on, and the design staff is either slammed or on a well earned vacation, so what’s an enterprising developer to do? Role up his sleeves and get dirty with a graphics application, that’s what! And my success was so complete, I couldn’t help but share in the wonder.

What you’re about to see was all done using The GIMP, but no reason this couldn’t be done in Photoshop or really any program that supports layers and opacity. With that, let’s get started.

The Need

The application I’m building makes use of a great set of freely available icons, which I also use on this blog. Included in that 1000+ icon package are a set of folder icons depicting different types of folders. Some with filetypes, some with pictures, almost anything you could want inside of a folder is represented. Except for “groups”. There’s a whole set of group icons, but no icon for a group folder.

The Building Blocks

Which isn’t to say I started from nothing. As I mention, there were group icons, like the plain group.png:

group.png

I also have the plain folder.png:

folder.png

And as a reference I have the folder_user.png, which is essentially where I want to end up, but with the group icon instead of the user icon.

folder_user.png

And lastly, I have the user.png icon itself:

user.png

Step #1: Resize and Positioning

First I took the original folder.png and moved the folder icon into the bottom-left corner, as all the other folder icons looked:

Step #1 - Folder Positioning

Next I determined that the person in the folder_user.png was only 12 x 12 pixels, while the original user.png was 16 x 16. So I resized group.png to 12 x 12 and then pasted it as a new layer into my work space. I moved it into the upper-right corner, where it would eventually need to be, so that layer looked like this:

Step #1 - Group Positioning

When both layers were made visible, I had the general layout of the final icon:

Step #1 - Final Positioning

Step #2: Overlap

The astute viewer will notice that on the reference folder_user.png icon, the person appears inside of the folder, such that the front flap of the folder is in front of the person graphic. At first I thought I was done for… how was I going to recreate the folder flap in front of the group layer? This is when the true genius struck (at least, for me, as a non-designer!). I copied the section of the folder that is the front flap and create a new layer with just those pixels, like this:

Step #2 -- The Flap Layer

Which I then positioned above the other two layers. With visibility turned on for all three layers, we now get a much closer to our final goal:

Step #2: With the Flap

Step #3: Opacity

After a quick self-congratulatory dance, I realized this icon wasn’t quite right. If you take a look at the reference icon again, you’ll see that the person graphic isn’t quite fully covered by the flap. It’s more that the part of the person that is covered is faded… like, the flap itself is partially transparent. The physics of transparent folder flaps aside, I was determined to get an icon that would match the set, so I set about trying to get this last detail just right.

It was then that I realized I could simply turn down the opacity of the flap layer. With only 75% opacity, I ended up with a layer that looked like this:

Step #3 -- Flap with Decreased Opacity

Because I had only copied the clap to a new layer, not cut the flap, there was an exact copy of the flap behind the top-most flap layer. By turning down the opacity on the flap layer, the group graphic was able to show through a bit as well as the identical full-opacity flap immediately behind. This way the background itself didn’t show through (which would have resulted in blue showing through when the icon was embedded in the webapp). Here’s what the semi-transparent flap looks like with a blue background without the the identical full opacity version behind it:

Step #3 -- Transparency without Full Opacity Backing

So, when we combine it all together, we have the the semi-transparent flap as the top layer, the resized group graphic as the second layer, and the full-opacity folder as the third layer, which gives us the finalized folder_group.png:

folder_group.png

All the above graphics have been at 800% size, so here is the original reference user.png and group.png side-by-side, and then the reference folder_user.png side-by-side with my new folder_group.png.

I think I’m going to apply for a job as a designer now.

Jan Primus

On Friday Sarah, her father, and I were scheduled to move the last of Sarah’s possessions out of her old apartment in Eschede to her new place in Hilversum. To make the logistics of all that work a bit better, we took the train to Sarah’s father’s place on Thursday night. Even out in the far reaches of Utrecht, the train stations are hyper-modern.

Overvecht Train Station

We had long planned to head out to an old stomping ground of Sarah’s father, and as we had this particular evening free, it seemed like a good opportunity. What I didn’t know is the bar was just down the street from Sarah’s father’s childhood home.

Bakker House

The bar was an understated affair, a few tables, some stools, tap list on a chalk board, and white sheets of paper tapped above the bar listing out the bottles. According to Sarah’s father, the bar once serve a wide selection of international beers, but these days they specialize in Belgians…and good word do they ever specialize. For whatever reason, I decided today would be the day I really came to understand what a Belgian Tripel was supposed to taste like. Recently I distributed a number of bottles of a home brewed Belgian Tripel to friends and family for Christmas, but hadn’t really experienced much professionally produced tripel. Presented with such variety at Jan Primus, I figured narrowing down to just the tripels would make the night go easier… which I suppose is one way to characterize what happened next…

Round One: Chimay Tripel, Maredsous 8 (Dubbel), Floreffe Tripel (mine)

Round Two: Corsendonk Agnus, Maredsous 10 (Tripel), Karmeliet Tripel (mine)

Round Three: Westmalle Tripel (mine), Westmalle Dubbel, Kasteel Dubbel

Round Four: Corsendonk Pater (Dubbel), Steen Brugge Tripel (mine)

And not pictured here, because frankly I was too drunk to remember to document, is a cherry sour beer that Sarah and her dad ordered, but that I ended up finishing. But look! Apparently I was drunk enough that I took a photo of myself in the bathroom.

A Self Portrait

We then went back home, thanks to the steadfast “BOB”-ing by Sarah’s father (which I’m told is the Dutch term used to for “designated driver”). Once home, Sarah’s father and I enjoyed a glass of whiskey. Suffice to say, I was as drunk as I can ever remember and didn’t have the sort of restful night’s sleep one hopes for leading up to a move.

Return to Enschede

I woke up with a horrendous hangover. We went to Enschede, loaded stuff into a van, drove back to Hilversum, had food at a truck stop, and I felt beyond miserable the entire time.

Rijsttafel

After finally shaking the hangover, we added Sarah’s father’s partner to our party and headed off for a celebratory dinner of rijsttafel. You should have two questions now: (1) celebrating what? (2) rijsttafel what?

Either that Friday, or the Thursday just before, marked Sarah’s halfway point through her fieldwork. She left San Francisco on October 14, 2009 and is scheduled to return to San Francisco on October 14, 2010… and this day was to celebrate six months in (or out) of this important professional right of passage. She seems to be doing well so far!

As for rijsttafel, it’s a Dutch word for Rice Table, a communal Indonesian dinning experience popular here in Holland. I’m afraid I have no photos of our particular dinning experience, but it was quite lovely. The four of us went to a restaurant located in Utrecht recommended by Sarah’s father. The general idea is you get lots of little dishes of Indonesian food including vegetables, meats, fruits, nuts, and even eggs. I had it once before in Amsterdam two years earlier and it was so good I insisted we have it again. I think I’ll have to make sure to get it on any subsequent trip. I do wonder why you can’t find this stuff anywhere in the States. Oh, and you might have one more question, the answer to which is: no, I did not have anything to drink beyond 7-UP.

La Trappe

The next morning we headed south to the La Trappe monastery and brewery, the only Trappist Brewery in the Netherlands and one of seven in the whole world. But before we could enjoy the beer, we had to get there… which proved more complicated than originally anticipated on account of ramp closures.

Sarah and her father debate alternative routes

Thankfully the trouble was absolutely worth it. Not only was the location quite lovely, with a big cathedral, extensive monastery grounds, and a well appointed tasting room, but it was easily the warmest day in Holland since my arrival. We were able to enjoy our entire meal outside, without coats, and even got a bit of color for our trouble.

Recently opened tasting room, complete with thatch roof

Given the strength of Trappist beers, we stuck to the tasting glasses for the first two rounds to learn what we liked best.

Round One: Witte, Blond, Isid’or, Dubbel

Round Two: Quadrupel, Trippel, Bockbier, Abby Beer (Pilsener)

After which we selected some of our favorites and graduated to the big people glasses.

Round Three: Witte, Quadrupel, Bockbier

Sarah finished off the luncheon with a curious last drink, which was about exactly what you’d expect it to taste like…

Digestif: Beer Liqueur

One cannot take a tour of the facilities unless you’ve prearranged for one, which was okay because we still had to make it down to Belgium. Before leaving we stopped in to the gift shop for some items to shower upon my more beer-favoring friends and then snapped a few photos of the grounds that were accessible without a tour.

Koningshoeven

Between the good food (I had bitterballen!), great beer, and amazing weather, it was a most splendid afternoon.

Sarah and I enjoying round one

Further Southwards to Brussels

Next we drove south into Belgium and the capital city not only of the country but of the European Union itself: Brussels. Unfortunately, there really wasn’t time to visit the governmental sites like we did in London, which turned out for the best because the batteries on the camera died early on in our walk through the city center and I had forgotten to pack replacements. But that didn’t prevent me from taking the most pivotal photo of all.

Standing in line for authentic Belgian Waffles

I took a number of random photographs of other buildings, but I couldn’t really tell you what any of them were. I posted my favorites on flickr or you can see the whole set on my gallery site. I think, perhaps, the one most worth pointing out is one of the central train station.

Welcome: Nearly everything in Brussels is written in both French and Dutch

After wandering a bit we settled on a delightful mussels restaurant and each had a hardy pot full of flavored deliciousness. Could very well be the best mussels I’ve ever had… I would need to go back and try some of the other varieties to be sure! After dinner we packed up for the long drive home.

The Wine Tasting

The last indulgence of the weekend was an invitation only wine tasting in Bussum on Sunday. Sarah and I have been to a few wine tastings in California since we moved there, but nothing compared to what we found here. Not only was there no cost to get in — except having connections in the right places — but the entire operation was self-pour. None of this “only have a little bit of each, measured out by a dude” business here… no, sir.

If you liked something, you poured yourself another taste to be damn well sure…. Want to get the commentary of a fellow attendee, make sure to resample with them…. Think you should buy a bottle, take another taste first…. Of my favorite wines I’m sure I got near to a full glass worth. Spread around the tables were copious amounts of cheese, olives, and bread, as well as strawberries and chocolate covered coffee beans for the dessert wines. Oh… and did I mention there were some 80 different wines open there?

It was amazing, just amazing. And much of the wine was really good. I especially enjoyed trying several different takes on the same grape, as you don’t normally get to do that at a wine tasting since they tend to carry only one winery. In the end, the dessert wines won first prize for me, and I purchased several bottles — don’t worry, they aren’t all dessert bottles — to bring back to the States for distribution to those who appreciate a good wine.

We wrapped the weekend up with an Iranian home cooked meal back at Sarah’s father’s house called Abgoosht. Wow, was it ever good! As a fan of mashed potatoes and of lamb, this was sort of a marriage made in heaven. They told me it was Iranian trucker food! Maybe I’m living in the wrong country…or at least, working in the wrong profession?

Other than a few odds and ends during the week, this catches us back up to our trip to Paris, for which we leave tomorrow!

Monday Morning in the Underground

The past two days in the underground were both fairly subdued, in terms of crowds. Oh sure, we had standing room only on a few trains, but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But today was a work day, and our trip began at Victoria Station, a serious transit hub for our area of London. The consequence is that there were people, so many people, crushing into each other in order to get into their train. But here’s where London surprised me. Once we had all pushed through the pay-gate choke points, the mass of humanity rarely, if ever, was an issue.

Yes, I took a picture of the energy billboard

Even when we got down to our platform, the trains came so frequently that there was rarely a pileup of people worth commenting about. In fact, there was a large billboard extolling the virtues of a particular energy company which I started reading just as an earlier train was leaving…and I was only able to get through the first half of the copy before the next train arrived. Now, I don’t do a lot of SF MUNI travel during rush hour, so I can’t speak to that situation in San Francisco. But I sure can say that on the weekends there are plenty of times when the mass of people waiting for a train outstrips the eventual train’s carrying capacity. Someday it would be great if SF could learn a thing or two from London transit.

The British Museum

Two subway lines later and we had arrived at the British Museum. Like so many of the cultural centers in London, admittance is free. That’s great if you don’t want to spend much money to see amazing things, less great if you don’t want to see amazing things while being surrounded by dozens of school groups. But I had long since mastered the avoidance of such children during my time in Washington DC where the school groups run thick through the Smithsonian.

The British Museum

In truth, I’m not really sure how to do justice to the British Museum. We spent nearly three hours there and entered only a small fraction of the rooms, and spent only a fraction of the time one could spend looking at each room. You could easily spend every day for a month looking over the collection and still have more to see. I guess that’s one of the benefits of being a colonial power who brought stuff back for its citizens to view.

Big Egyptian Heads

Sarah and I had a good conversation about the topic of historic preservation. Seems that Greece, as well as several former British colonies, has requested their stuff back, a request with which I can certainly sympathize. The problem is the claim seems to be presented as “you stole this stuff from us,” which, in a certain literal sense, is true. But the British retort boils down to “no, we saved this stuff from you.” And, again, that’s not entirely untrue either. Several of these countries have had a great deal of political and social strife and what artifacts and installations were left behind have not fared well. My understanding is the British have been returning some items, but is otherwise taking a bit of a paternalistic stance. It’s all very interesting.

Ancient Assyrian Temple Gate

Anyway, if ancient stuff is interesting to you, take a look through the photos from the museum I posted online. I will mention two highlights of the exhibits we saw.

• 

  Macro Clock

  Clock Exhibit: While hunting for the room on the Roman colonization of the British Isles, we stumbled upon a random room dedicated to clocks. Clocks of every size and type, from pocket watches to giant grandfather clocks. But the coolest part of all was a macro-sized display showing the basic elements of a mechanical watch. I was finally able to understand how my pocket watch works and how it is not all that different from a grandfather clock. Totally awesome to figure stuff like that out.
• 

  The Rosetta Stone

  The Rosetta Stone: I probably would have missed this if Sarah hadn’t pointed it out, because the exhibit was perpetually surrounded by little children. But there, in the heart of the Egyptian gallery, resides the Rosetta Stone, perhaps one of the most symbolic artifacts of all archeology, to say nothing of completely unrelated fields like cryptography. Perhaps most surprising, when I took a close look at the stone, is just how much of the hieroglyphic section is missing. Compared to the other two sections, demotic Egyptian and classical Greek, the hieroglyphic chunk is probably only a bit over 50% complete. But still wicked cool.

Seven Dials

Leaving the museum we headed back into the more youthful areas of London for a quick look at Neal’s Yard near Covent Gardens. Apparently Sarah used to come here to read and drink coffee… now a days it is home primarily to a large salad bar, as well as Neal’s Yard Remedies and a glorious cheese shop. It was one of the more colorful places I saw in London.

Neal's Yard

Next we finally entered a Caffè Nero. I say “finally” because Caffè Nero, an Italian-style coffee chain, is freaking everywhere in London. Think of it like Starbucks in Seattle… there were times when two Neros would be but a block away. And wherever you found a Caffè Nero, a Pret-a-Manger could always be found close by. It became a sort of a game for me, whenever I saw one outfit to see how long it would take to spot its complement.

Looks like a Starbucks... Smells like a Starbucks...

Anyway, after poking fun at Nero for three days straight, I figured it was time to try out London’s answer to Starbucks. Incidentally, London does have Starbucks, just far, far fewer than your average American city. I ordered a white chocolate mocha, as is my customary “coffee” drink in the States, and Nero made a perfectly acceptable version. I did take a certain measure of delight that Sarah, an independent coffee aficionado, claimed a chain like Nero as her cafe of choice in London. Interesting how different sides of an ocean (and an Italian-style cappuccino) can change a person’s perspective….

After coffee we headed back to Princi, which I have since reviewed on Yelp so you can read all about it if you like. After a lunch of wood-fired pizza slices, Sarah and I shared an Italian-style chocolate chip cookie best dipped in coffee and an amazing ricotta and cherry dessert there that was freaking outstanding. Delicious.

Sarah picking out our lunch dessert

Regent Street

Our final activity in London was to attempt some jeans shopping for Sarah (who has dropped a dress size and thus everything she owns is too big)…but there’s something about jeans shopping in a super trendy location like London that is quite off-putting. Perhaps that’s why places like the GAP are so successful. The boutique stores have such an air of judgment that you feel the only way to go in is to already meet their “standards”. Suffice to say, we didn’t buy any jeans.

Not actually Regent Street, but very near and more trendy

We also stopped into the Apple Store in hopes of catching a glimpse of the new iPad, but sadly the iPad has not yet crossed the Atlantic. Also, don’t bother to try and purchase a power cord for your Time Capsule with a European plug on it… or really any plug-style for that matter. Apple does not sell replacements. Apparently it’s okay to move your iPhone across the ocean, but don’t plan on taking your backup system with you.

Headed “Home”

Finally we made our way back to the hotel, picked up our luggage, and boarded the Gatwick Express, engendering another set of jokes about the Hogwart’s Express. We arrived at the airport with tons of time to spare, so we ended the evening in a French style café as a means to begin the transition to Parisian food. Thankfully, this was before the Icelandic Ash Cloud of Death descended upon European airspace, so our flight was entirely uneventful. Next up: two weeks in the Netherlands plus the Weekend of Beer + Wine. Let’s hope I write those posts before I board the train for Paris.

On board the Hogwart's Gatwick Express

Morning in London

Luna Simone Hotel boasts a complementary home cooked meal every morning for its guests, so we woke up much earlier than the activity of the night before suggested was wise, and headed down to the breakfast room. The menu involved picking one item out of three food/drink groups. You can have coffee or tea (I always had the tea, complete with milk!); two boiled eggs; tomato and cold ham; or bacon and fried eggs; but the real head scratcher was deciding between orange juice or cornflakes. How, exactly, are those mutually exclusive items? It was also fun to pick out the Americans by seeing who was demanding to order “off menu”… in particular the demand for bananas.

During breakfast we planned out the day’s schedule which, at my insistence, was to begin with a ride on the double-decker bus out to Ludgate Circus. Best as I can tell, there are two sorts of double-decker buses in London. The first are the tour buses, which are often open-air on the top level and look very similar to the tour buses seen around San Francisco. The second type of double-decker bus is an entirely unique experience for me: the metro bus. Almost every public transit bus was double-decker, so in that regard it wasn’t anything all that special… but I still insisted we sit on the top level and as near the front we could manage every time we road one. The view is quite cool, but it’s not really ideal for taking decent photos, what with the moving and the plane of glass between the camera and the subject.

View from upper deck

St. Paul’s Cathedral

Arriving at Ludgate Circus we walked a stretch of Fleet Street up to the cathedral. Apparently, it was along this stretch that an old college friend of mine who recently moved to London thought he saw someone like me, but wasn’t sure. It wasn’t until later that the encounter was confirmed over Facebook that either of us knew. But seriously, what are the chances?!

St. Paul's Cathedral

Arriving at the cathedral we confirmed our suspicion that entrance was limited to worshipers,  which I was not prepared to masquerade as just to get into the church. We were able to take a gander at the space underneath the cathedral–where the gift shop has been setup–and the choir singing above filtered down through slats in the main chamber floor. Sounded quite nice. I also confirmed a long held belief that it is trivially easy to take good photographs of cathedrals. You just stand underneath an impressive tower or arch, point the camera up at a bit of an angle, and snap you’ve got yourself a magnificent cathedral photo.

See, it's easy to take good cathedral photos

Queen’s Walk

Just down from St. Paul’s is the Millennium Bridge, built at the same time as the London Eye to celebrate the start of the 21st century. It is unique as a Thames span in that it is pedestrian only. The big upside is you can stand in the dead center — usually reserved for stupid cars — and take amazing pictures of St. Paul’s dome on the far end. Just across the river is the Tate Modern, one of the big fancy art museums in London (with free admittance) and the reconstructed Globe Theatre.

The Millennium Bridge

Sarah and I had wanted to attend some sort of theatre event while in London, and one of the Shakespeare performances at the Globe was at the top of our list, but in the end we bagged the plan because there was simply too much to do already. That didn’t stop us from poking around the outside of the Globe to see how modern day builders were able to recreate construction techniques from 1599.

The New Globe Theatre

Leaving the Globe we began our long trek towards the Tower Bridge along the Queen’s Walk. This took us past a museum dedicated to “The Clink,” from which the nickname for prisons originates. We also stumbled upon the Vinopolis, a wine “tunnel” tourist location build on the grounds of an ancient Roman wine store. Seemed to have several nice looking places to try and buy wine, but as this was a trip for beer, we didn’t linger long.

Eventually we wound our way back to the river side and stopped for lunch at a pub. This time I avoided the temptation for fish and chips and convinced Sarah to share a platter filled with assorted pies… beef, chicken, as well as a Cornish pasty and a couple of other miniature pies. While the stuffing was always good, what I really fell in love with is the crust of these little treats served with generous helpings of gravy. Delicious! We tossed back a couple of beers and walked the last little bit to Tower Bridge.

Lunch Pub on the Thames

The London Corporation

Coming from the south side of the Thames, before one even arrives at the Tower Bridge you pass by a massive structure of steel and glass. The whole thing struck me as quite different, even for English modern architectural design. Indeed, later we would research and discover the site was the home of the London City Hall. Now, I’m still not 100% clear on the administrative structure of London, but best as I can figure out, London is comprised of many many smaller “city” units, each with their own city hall, mayor, and distinctive street signs. Overseeing this broad assortment of polities is the omni-present London Corporation. If you bother to read the plaques that adorn most monuments in the city, you will see the London Corporation’s name.

What a City Hall!?

Recently, the London Corporation was granted its own sort of city-hood, complete with a mayor, and this massive glass structure is its home. I’m still not clear if the “City of London” is co-terminus with the London Corporation, or if it’s another distinctive agency. What I can say is that we watched a bit of BBC news recently and everyone, yes everyone, was concerned about the “Economy of the Capitol”, even if they were interviewing folks way up in northern UK. I guess that’s what happens when you have one really big city.

This is just the formal City of London, not greater London

The Tower Bridge + Tower of London

Finally we arrived at our location, the famous Tower Bridge. If you’ve seen the new Sherlock Holmes movie, I’m inclined to believe the bridge that features prominently in that movie is either the same, or modeled after, the Tower Bridge. As a result, every time I spotted it on the skyline I would remark to Sarah, “What an industrious empire.” (At which she would roll her eyes). The bridge itself is quite impressive from an engineering history perspective…but if you’re not really into that sort of stuff, it’s just a bridge and serves as a good means to cross the Thames.

Tower Bridge

But once you do cross the Thames, you arrive at the infamous Tower of London.  Sarah had told me it was famous for being a prison, so it didn’t initially hold my interest as a place I wanted to spend a ton of time. However, it turns out that the Tower of London is in fact “Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress” as well as the site of a number of historically significant prisoners, and served as the stronghold for the throne for centuries. In addition to the prison, the Tower has moats and drawbridges, and big buildings and everything. It would have been super cool to go in… but, alas, we did not schedule for it, so we just snapped a few shots and read a bunch of outside informational guides. My next trip back to London, I will be sure to take a proper tour.

Main Entrance to the Tower of London

Getting to Greenwich

Early on in the planning process for this trip I expressed a desire to see the Greenwich Observatory, which much to my surprise, Sarah had never gone to see during her years as a denizen of London. Which meant she wasn’t entirely sure how to get to Greenwich, but thanks to the handy London transit authority map, we were able to chart a path using the light rail which services the areas out of the city core. Unfortunately, the map failed to tell us that a substantial section of the line we were planning to ride was closed for repairs that weekend and that we would need to take a bus to the first functional station on the line.

After spending far too long finding that bus, we boarded and drove through sections of London quite unlike what I’d seen up until now. This was very much where the other half lived… run down or vacant buildings and sketchy looking shops dotted the road. Guess London is like every city in that respect.

Then, we made a near fatal mistake….

We were supposed to get off the bus at Canary Wharf, but had miscounted and got off a station too early. Further complicating matters, the map we had didn’t extend into this neighborhood. So, we either had to wait for the next special replacement bus to show up, or figure out how to walk to the proper station. And it turned out surprisingly okay. You never know what you’re going to see or experience when you walk through non-tourist sections of a city, and in this particular case we found a traffic light tree.

Traffic Light Tree

Once we made it onto the light rail it was just a quick ride to our final destination.

Greenwich

For those wondering why I might be so driven to get out to the Greenwich Observatory, you should know that Greenwich is the home of UTC+0, which means that it is the one place where timezones don’t exist. As a software developer, I have lost countless hours struggling with the intricacies of timezones, which are really far more complex than you might think. But here, at the Observatory, all of that fades away… UTC is UTC, forever and always. Thus, I felt a need to pilgrimage to this honored location and be at peace with timezones, if only for a moment.

But first we toured the Old Naval College, now the University of Greenwich, and the adjacent Maritime Museum. I must say that the Old Navel College is quite the collection of spectacular buildings, and put King’s College to absolute shame in terms of collegiate campuses. It even put the University of Washington — perhaps one of the most picturesque campuses in the world — to shame. The Maritime Museum was also pretty cool, with lots of boats and navigational instruments for those who enjoy nautical stuff.

Old Navel College

On our way out I stopped at the gift shop in hopes to find an appropriate souvenir for the observatory (the museum and the observatory are part of the same complex). There were your usual shot glasses and key chains and even beer bottled for a recent anniversary of the observatory’s opening, but none of it really grabbed my attention. But, then, just as I was getting read to give up, I spotted a collection of pocket watches. Seriously, can one imagine a better souvenir than a pocket watch from the origin point of time?! I ended up with the least expensive model — because I knew I wasn’t going to actually wear the thing, I’m not quite that guy — but it still looks amazing and you can see all the gears spinning and whirling inside.

Me, my Pocket Watch, and the Greenwich Meridian

Ironically, as a result of my shopping delay, we were running short on time if we were going to make our dinner reservation, so we quickly walked up to the observatory and took a bunch of photos. Turns out the observatory also had a museum component, now closed due to the late hour. If I had known, I wouldn’t have bothered with the Maritime Museum, but such is the way of things and I was still very excited to finally be at the center of time.

Fancy Clock at the Observatory

Parson’s Green

We now began a rather twisty trip from the Observatory to our dinner location by way of our hotel. Since the light rail was still only semi-functional, we used the underground to make it most of the way home and beyond. But the underground is efficient and affordable, so we got back to our hotel sooner than we had expected and were able to change into our semi-nice clothing and still make it to the restaurant well ahead of our reservation. To eat up some time we toured around the neighborhood, which had been built around a central green space called, you guessed it, Parson’s Green.

Putting the 'Green' in Parsons Green

The neighborhood really drove home just how very different each section of London is, not just in terms of restaurants and activities, but the whole aesthetic of the location. Where the downtown core could have been any major city, Greenwich had been like it’s own distinct town with a big church and shopping center, while Parson’s Green was much more a sleepy bedroom community with small apartment buildings and single dwelling houses. Again, I imagine every city is like this once you get to know it.

A park with bylaws? My kinda place!

The White Horse

Sarah had selected the White Horse as a famous gastropub, who aimed to bring quality beer together with quality food. For the most part, they succeeded, but only after a bumpy ride. For those who read my review of White Horse on Yelp, feel free to skip this section because it is essentially verbatim.

The White Horse

Sarah did a lot of research before choosing the White Horse as our final dinner location in London. Seems it was one of the first “high end” gastropubs in the area and said to have amazing food and drink. And it’s true, it did have amazing food… but something seemed very wrong that fateful Sunday which makes me wonder if after their great success, the White Horse has begun to rest on their laurels a bit.

We had made reservations online, as is quite customary in the States, but seemed very much out of the ordinary for the waitstaff. Took us a good five minutes to find someone who could tell us how to claim our reservation and then find our own table which had my name written on it. But before we even got to our table, we met our waiter who — while seeming as if he was about to suffer from a nervous breakdown — informed us that most of the menu was no longer available.

Undaunted, we took our seats and set out to learn exactly what they did still have on menu. Turns out many restaurants in London specialize in a Sunday Roast, and the White Horse is no exception. This particular Sunday, at the fairly early dining hour of 7:30pm, they were 100% out of the roast making materials… as well as a few other dishes that shared common materials. Worse yet, because it was Sunday, a number of their specialty items were not on the menu at all, having been displaced by the Sunday Roast. In particular this meant no “Toad in the Hole”, which Sarah and I had decided to get ahead of time as it is a distinctive British dish, and at this restaurant made for two people.

Crawfish and Rabbit Pie (photo from The White Horse)

After much discussion, and being won over by the extensive beer selection, we decided to stick it out, and I’m glad we did. For appetizer we enjoyed the mushroom and chestnut soufflé, which was light and airy while still being incredibly flavorful. For mains, I ended up with the crayfish and rabbit pie, which came presented with a whole crayfish bursting out of the top of the pie. A+ on presentation and taste! Sarah got a Scottish salmon and spinach dish that she reported really hit the spot. Dessert, apple fritters for the lady and a treacle sponge for me, were not really worth eating. The sponge, in particular, was still partially frozen.

To make up for the uneven desserts, absentee menu choices, and somewhat manic service, the White Horse does sport an amazing bottled beer selection. Over the course of the evening we enjoyed a lemon grass beer, a Scotch ale, a traditional British ale, a Somerset cider, and a vintage barley wine. Each served in the appropriate glass for the given beer style or brew house.

I do wish I could go back and try the evening again without the Sunday menu disappointment, but even with the bumpy start to the evening, once we got into the groove it proved to be a lovely night out… and only a block walk back to the tube station.

Thus ended our second day in London. Tomorrow we would only have a half day before needing to jump on the train back to Gatwick, but I think you’ll be surprised just how much we managed to squeeze in.

Getting to Gatwick

Getting to London with most of our day still ahead of us meant waking up all sorts of early to begin our trek to Schiphol. We departed from our local train station instead of the customary central station, because it meant less walking and the schedules lined up better… but it also meant we couldn’t catch a direct train and so we made a lot of stops between home and the airport. The flight to London from Amsterdam is so short that it begins the descent before beverage service is complete, and before you knew it we were on the ground, 10am local time.

Our first order of business was acquiring a means to move around the city, which translated into round trip tickets on the Gatwick Express from the airport to Victoria Station, £30 over two Oyster Cards for use on mass transit, and £200 in cash for food and incidental expenses. A quick stop to grab our luggage and we were off on a bus to the airport’s train station.

I mention the bus only because this was the trip’s first encounter with driving on the wrong side of the road. I realize this is all very American of me, but it still confused me after three days of looking the wrong way on streets or expecting buses to arrive on the other side. Weirds me out just thinking about it.

Luna Simone Hotel

Once we arrived at Victoria Station, and a friendly copper who looked just like Simon Pegg pointed us in the right direction, we walked to our lovely hotel. The Luna Simone Hotel is located on what turned out to be the hotel street for the area. Block after block of four/five story buildings, no wider than a San Francisco row house, and easily 90% had been converted into hotels.

This particular hotel was actually two buildings fused together to make a double-wide hotel, run by two “blokes” who appeared to be brothers and were as friendly as one could want from hotel managers. We were given room five, a nice little room with a bed, a bathroom, and a teapot. But lurking behind the curtains we discovered a charming walkout balcony facing the street. It certainly wasn’t as fancy as the hotel in Amsterdam, but it made a good home.

First Walk in a Foreign Land

The night before we had made reservations for a “flight” on the London Eye, which meant we had to get from our hotel, down to Whitehall and across the Thames in 45 minutes, which turned out to be plenty of time to soak in my first sights of London. We spent most of the walk along the Thames, where we passed by my first proper British pub, the Tate British, the headquarters for the British Conservative Party, and Parliament. Our first day the weather was amazing — like, practically shorts weather — so it was a great day to just see everything. The downside is everyone else had the same thought, and we had to fight through any number of tourist groups speaking every language imaginable, but it was nothing my Washington DC interning experiencing hadn’t prepared me for. Because of the fixed flight time, we had to sort of rush through Parliament, but I made Sarah promise we would be back.

London Eye

Much to my amazement, Sarah was unaware of the London Eye’s existence prior to planning our trip. It was built to celebrate the new millennium, and as I was obsessed with the various millennial celebrations (having been screwed out of Seattle’s celebration, thank you very much Mayor Schell), I had always wanted to go on it. For those equally ignorant as Sarah, the London Eye is a freakishly huge Ferris wheel built on the Thames just across from the government buildings of Whitehall (Dear Google Maps, this is not the location of the London Eye). At the top visitors are treated to nearly unparalleled views of the city, as the Eye is very centrally located and dwarfs the surrounding buildings. For my Seattle readers, think of it as a 21st century take on the Space Needle, without the glorified restaurant at the top. The Eye is also visible throughout the city, so it didn’t take long for me to start referring to it as the Eye of London… a great Eye, lidless, wreathed in flame.

We paid extra for Fast Track tickets, which allowed us to skip a healthy chunk of the line — since time was more valuable than money during our short stay in the city — but I can’t say I’d recommend Fast Track unless you are really counting the minutes. It probably only saved us 15-20 in the end. But I can’t recommend the Eye itself enough. Beyond just the amazing views of the city, it really helps put the geography of the city into perspective, so I was always able to have some sense of where we were on the ground. I have a long standing rule that one should get to the top of a tall building as soon as you land in a new city… turns out a tall Ferris wheel works too.

The Buildings of Whitehall

Back across the Thames is the heart of the United Kingdom’s governmental apparatus. Of course, Parliament and Big Ben dominate the whole area, but any good government geek will note there’s much more to see. The Parliamentary offices are just across the street, as are the Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defense, and of course Downing Street. Let me take a moment to comment on Downing Street, if I may.

Of course, it’s a well established fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is not exactly on equal footing with the President of the United States. The positions are just not really comparable, even if the countries took a similar approach to their government officers (which they don’t). It was with this knowledge that I approached 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister. I wasn’t looking for anything quite as splendid as the White House, with its extensive gardens and majestic Truman balcony, but I was looking for something that reflected the significance of the place. What I found instead was a well manned traffic barrier. Down a ways, where civilians weren’t allowed, you could see a few doors of which I took a picture in hope that it might be no. 10. Sadly, after getting the photo on my laptop to take a closer look, I discovered I had taken a photo of no. 12, home of the Prime Minister’s Press Office. Which is all to say… what gives Britain?!

Next to Parliament is Westminster Abbey, which is different than Westminster Cathedral, but essentially looks like a cathedral. We were there too late to go in, which was a bummer because all of the churches were closed to tourists on Sunday for worship. Oh, and also next to Parliament is the British equivalent of the White House Peace Vigil. Much like the Downing Street, the British doppleganger has much to learn from America in terms of grandeur.

The Strand

Whitehall eventually gives way to Trafalgar Square, where a giant pillar and statue of Admiral Nelson stands to commemorate the British navel defeat of the combined French and Spanish fleets. There is also a sizable public square here, where civil services unions were protesting potential cuts to national services and the, in their own words, the welfare state. It was quite a thing to see political actors explicitly defending the term “welfare state,” which in the US is like saying “I am pro-communism.” Speaking of which, the communists were there, and the speakers all referred to each other as comrade. It was quite a thing.

Next we walked north along The Strand, a popular shopping street with many fancy stores, hotels, and theatres. One theatre was even showing Legally Blond the musical… can you imagine?! Eventually we arrived at Sarah’s old stomping grounds where we stopped in for our first encounter with British food at the Lyceum. I ordered traditional fish and chips and Sarah got steak and ale pie. I was disappointed to discover that pub fish and chips is just one big piece of fried fish (nearly ever pub we encountered served it the same way), which isn’t to say it wasn’t good… but I enjoy the little chunks of fish experience typically found with American fish and chips. I also had my first pints of British beer which turned out to be essentially water. It’s no wonder they can session beer all night… the ABV was easily half of what I’m used to drinking in San Francisco. But it was good tasting beer, and as it was only late afternoon, I was okay not being tipsy after two pints.

Sarah’s Alma Mater

Just down the street from our lunch spot is King’s College, where Sarah went as an undergraduate student in Classics. Unfortunately, you can’t really get into the campus without student ID, so you’ll have to just appreciate the crest on the gate outside. Later in the trip Sarah confided in me that the British Museum stored a number of artifacts in the basement under her department during WWII, so that’s something.

Parks and a Palace

After King’s we walked to the Thames and walked along the Victoria Embankment which was the first of several parks we walked through on our way to Buckingham Palace. St. James Park was the biggest of these parks which included some amazing flower beds and a large pond filled with various fowl. Strangely, there was one sign in the park that explicitly requested visitors not feed the pelicans, but I guess it’s fine to feed one of the other dozen or so species who make the park home. I had visions of well fed ducks and swans laughing at the malnourished pelicans. If I had had bread on hand, I would have fed the Pelicans.

At the far end of St. James Park we found Buckingham Palace, one of the Queen’s official residences for use when she is in the city. Now here was a structure that could go toe-to-toe with the White House. In fact, I imagine it is several orders of magnitude larger. Having said that, I didn’t find the outside all that inspiring. I seem to have the same problem with all of these big British residences… the outside has almost no architectural variation. It makes one think the inside is just room after identical room, like some sort of 18th century hotel. Sarah assures me that the insides are distinctive, but to the commoner looking from the outside, it just looked big. There was an amazing fountain out front that claimed to be a gift from New Zealand. One wonders if colonies even have the capacity to give gifts to their imperial masters. Isn’t that just a tax?

Downtown Shopping

As the sun began to set we made our way down Piccadilly towards Piccadilly Circus. On the way we passed by Fortnum & Masons, which Sarah described as a kind of department store, but certainly wasn’t like any department store I had encountered before. The first floor was entirely dedicated to chocolate and teas. The basement floor had an extensive wine and liquor section on one side and a fruit, cheese, and dried goods market on the other. One could conceivable feed an entire family just by shopping here, but it would be awfully pricey. It wasn’t until one went to the second floor that it started to feel departmenty with the appearance of clothing and perfume. But near the top in the Men’s section there was a whole area dedicated to handcrafted game sets and drinking paraphernalia.

We also walked by the Ritz which claimed to have a high end jeweler on premise. But unlike jewelers in the states that would put its wares in the windows to entice passer-byers, the Ritz seemed to think that lame photographs are enough. Suffice to say, I didn’t stop in to buy any jewels.

Finally we arrived at the much mentioned, but never described “Piccadilly Circus.” I honestly had no idea what I was expecting to see… I had earlier ruled out that “circus” had anything to do with animals and clowns, but I won’t deny I was disappointed to learn that circus is just another word for circle. At least it was quite a happening circle… comparable to New York’s Times Square, complete with big flashy billboards adorning the adjacent buildings.

We then continued on to Trafalgar Square for our third time. But, unlike the second time, I totally failed to realize it was the same location and managed to take identical photos of the same building before I realized what I had done. I blame protesters who had managed to entirely clear out by the time we returned. From there we walked to Covent Garden, a collection of shops and restaurants around and inside of a piazza designed in 1632. If you’ve ever been to the Ferry Terminal Building in San Francisco, it has a vaguely similar feeling. However, unlike the Ferry Terminal Building, Covent Garden doesn’t close at 5pm. In fact, in that regard London is like New York… nothing ever seems to close.

Thalis: Delicious Indian Food

We had known that food was going to be an important part of our London trip, so Sarah did a bunch of research to make sure we ate at good, yet not super expensive locations. For our first dinner out we went to the Masala Zone, an Indian restaurant known in London for serving “real” Indian food. They specialized in Thalis, which is a large platter with numerous small portions of food surrounding a curry dish of your choosing. The sides change all the time, so I can’t speak to every night, but at least this particular night there wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t beyond delicious. I ordered spicy chicken curry and Sarah got a lamb curry, both of which were scrumptious. To top it all off, the meal was totally affordable. I would heartily recommend this approach to anyone looking to get a wide taste of what Indian cuisine has to offer.

Wandering through SoHo

After dinner we made our way toward the Oxford Circus tube station by way of SoHo. SoHo is an interesting place… and it’s really a combination of lots of different places. It’s clearly a young neighborhood, with lots of bars and night clubs. It’s also home to many of musicals the city has on offer. And if that weren’t enough, there is tons of mid and high end shopping options. But at this hour, Sarah and I weren’t really looking for anything than to get off our aching feet, so we didn’t stop anywhere.

That is until we discovered Princi Bakery. There, right next to the window, were rows and rows of single serving desserts. Upon entering we discovered an Italian style boutique bakery with desserts, pizzas, sandwiches, and numerous other goodies. It was also packed with people. Thankfully we were able to snag a standing table to enjoy our delicious desserts — although, I experimented and tried something out of my usual repertoire and it wasn’t quite as good as I had hoped.

London Underground

Stuffed full of dessert and Indian food we eventually found Oxford Circus and the means to our home. The London Underground is just one part of a vast transportation system that keeps the city running. I think most interesting is how each of the stations has a very distinctive feel. Oxford Circle is a huge station with several levels. The station has a feel that reminded me of a New York City subway station, while other stations were more like the Chicago L. But the trains ran quite frequently and it took hardly any time at all to get to the station near our hotel. The one disappointment is that no one reminded me to “mind the gap”… but don’t worry, I was sure to remind everyone as I departed.

You might be wondering how the overturning of a policy I support is a good thing, and the simple answer is process matters. The process matters because not all law is of equal value, and this particular regulation wasn’t the sort of foundation upon which you would want to build a free internet. To understand what I’m driving at, you need a basic understanding of the interplay between Congress, regulatory agencies like the FCC, and the Courts. Here’s a quick set of principles

• Congress doesn’t act unless it needs to — This is generally true in all areas, but especially true in technology policy. Congress, for all its many faults, recognizes it’s the least good way of getting things done. It lacks expertise and is highly susceptible to outside interests whose goals are not always aligned with the public. As such, there are numerous mechanisms in Congress to ensure only a small fraction of bills get approved, even if they have majority support.
• Regulatory agencies are expected to pick up the slack — Congress can sit on its hands because it has already setup numerous agencies to make the sorts of expert technical decisions Congress is not so good at. For example, the recent health care reform bill, while very long, will pale in comparison to the length of the regulations that will eventually be written to implement the same. Those regulations will largely come from the Department of Health and Human Services. When flaws are found in the original bill, it won’t be Congress that tries to fix it, it will be DHHS using its regulatory power.
• Courts act as a check against undemocratic law making — Yes, for all you may have heard from conservatives about courts being undemocratic, it is their responsibility to ensure regulators do not overstep the authority granted to them by Congress. This is a challenging but critical task. Regulators are under heavy pressure from advocates, legislators, and the President to push the bounds of their authority to avoid spending political capital on enacting a statute. It is the Courts job to ensure that this doesn’t get out of hand.

The interplay between these three forces is subtle and complex, and I don’t claim to be anywhere close to an expert. But what I can speculate is that when network neutrality failed in the last Congress it was in part because would-be supporters didn’t feel the issue was sufficiently ripe. Why cast a potentially difficult vote when you can have the FCC do your dirty work for you? Now that the courts have ruled that the FCC lacks sufficient authority, the issue goes back to Congress where we can finally get a good sense of just what kind of political support exists.

In the meantime, the court’s decision tells us something else important: the FCC lacks authority to regulate the internet in whatever manner it sees fit. As anyone in the TV business will tell you, that’s probably a good thing from a content perspective, least we end up with such delightful concepts as “community standards” being forced upon us all. With clear limits on the FCC’s ancillary regulatory powers over the internet, Congress can now draft specific authority for the purposes of network neutrality while avoiding the pitfalls of creating a overbearing internet regulator, but also ensure a durable and lasting legislative framework for a free and open internet.