June 7
[Taken April 24, 2007 | Dogwood flowers | Dayton, OH]
Normally I would be morally opposed to turning on the air conditioning this early in the summer. However, today it is in the 90s and hunid. I went around closing the windows and turned on the air as soon as I got home. It feels nice now.
Despite the heat I still had to weed the flower beds, since I have been putting it off for a while. Over an hour pulling weeds, a plastic grocery bag full of the weeds that I have pulled, and when I step back and take a look at everything I can't even tell that I made a difference. Ugh. Sometimes it makes me want to just give up and let whatever wants to grow in the flower beds just grow there... but then I remember that the damn 3-leafed clover would just take over everything. That stuff is everywhere, and I have no idea where it comes from...
I need to find something that blooms in the summer to plant in the garden. Now that spring is well and truly past, and all of the spring flowers are gone, the flower beds seem so empty.
I haven't been doing a lot other then work lately. Working on an project using the agile development method is great because there is always something going on and always work to do. Working on a project using the agile development method truly sucks because there is always something going on and always work to do. Its a good thing I like my job.
June 27
[Taken June 22, 2007 | Houses of Parliment | London]
Since it has been a bit over a week since I got back from London, I can safely say that I am completely re-adjusted to Eastern Standard Time. I have come a long way from last Sunday, when I walked through the front door at 4:30, had something to eat, and had fallen asleep on the ouch by about 6:30. Ouch. I am much better now.
London was nice. Not that I had a lot of time to explore too much of it, since I was there working in the Camden office for the week. The Sunday I got in I took the tube down to the Embankment and spend the afternoon and early evening wandering around and trying to stay awake in order to try to beat jet-lag and force myself to acclimate to the 5-hour time difference. It was very overcast, and a touch chilly. Actually, it was pretty overcast and a touch chilly the entire time I was there, including my last day there… a Saturday and the only day I had to do any real sightseeing. That day I had to deal with a couple of surprise showers as well, which made me glad I had brought a small travel umbrella with me.
That Saturday I started out at the Tower of London (spent the whole morning there actually… with a entrance fee of 16 pounds I was determined to get my money's worth) I saw pretty much everything there was to see there – the ravens, the torture exhibit, the armory in the White Tower, the cell where Raleigh was held, the crown jewels… The crown jewels exhibit was amusing. The exhibit was in the actual vault - at least, I assume that it was the actual vault since the doors in and out were about two feet thick and looked like solid steel – and in order to control the crown and eliminate loitering you stood on one of those moving walkways and it zipped you past the glass cases… which made it hard to read the information cards. I can only assume that the crown jewels that I saw were the "real" ones, but since they were so blinged out, jewel encrusted, and over the top, they just didn't look real.
After I finished with the Tower, I walked across the Thames on the London bridge and walked along the river past Southwark Cathedral (stopping to have lunch at the greenmarket) and past the Globe Theater. I walked across the millennium bridge to St Paul's Cathedral, but couldn't get in as it was closed to the public that day (it looked like there was some kind of military ceremony going on). I walked all of the way down to the Embankment – to the Eye of London, Cleopatra's Needle, and Parliament.
I was unable to get into Westminster since it was only open until 13:30 (that would be 1:30 on a 12-hour clock) and I had misjudged the times and arrived at its doors far after it had been closed for the day.
I sat on the edge of one of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, but did not feed the pigeons.
It was a good trip. It is a good thing that I enjoy my business trips to London and the people that I get to work with there, since I will be making this trip regularily over the next couple of months.