It's an Exciting World

I had a good choir rehearsal on Monday and got to chat with Zaheer at the pub. The songs this session are more challenging that the previous sessions, and that is saying something.

Tuesday Steph and I went to the Hitchhiker’s Guide. It was an interesting experience, and just as strange as the books. They try to keep some through lines, but even having read all the books I missed many of the references and had forgotten many of the characters. The level of interaction was low, but not terrible, and it was a little slow paced. I still enjoyed it.

Wednesday we went to the Slomo sauna in one of the squares in Kings Cross. We plan to go once a week while it is open. They have two really nice sauna rooms with optional steam. Then four cold plunges with different temperatures and a hot tub. It is a really nice setup and amazingly relaxing.

Saturday I took a long walk along the canal and through Regents Park. I walked along the canal through Camden Market, and up into the park. I walked all around the park including the rose garden and tried to find all the interesting nooks that I hadn’t been in before. It was a gorgeous day and I got to listen to the audiobook the whole time.

Sunday Steph and I went to the Magicians Table, where they had ten different magicians doing short acts and then rotating. I had a great time and it was a fun format to get so many different styles of acts. There was also an overarching theme and some tasty drinks.

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I really enjoyed the song for choir this week, as the bass line had the melody, which is rare. It was also just really fun to sing, with some humming and whistling thrown in.

Steph was in Zurich for the start of the week, and I got access to a great coworking space nearby, which is where I spent most of the week during the day. The weather was cold and wet, so I didn’t get around much otherwise.

For the weekend I hosted karaoke on Saturday, which was great fun. I had some people from choir as well as Stacie, Aaron, and Giulio. It was a smaller group, but it worked out really well. We also played some Drawful 2 and then some Code Names which was great.

Sunday I went to Mercato Mayfair in the morning and sang with people, which was great fun. I really enjoyed it, and getting to chat with everyone was also great.

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After our trip to Devon and Cornwall it was nice to be back home with the kitties.

Monday was a busy day back to work, and in the evening I got to join the first Ready Singer One choir performance of the year. I had a great time of it, and we are learning some hard songs, the first one from Dragonborn.

Tuesday evening was great fun as Steph and I went to Prison Island. It was similar to the Escape the Bomb experience I did in Atlanta, but with many rooms. Steph and I did really well together, with a great mix of mind puzzles and physical challenges. Only a few weren’t really possible with only two people, but the others were a good challenge.

The rest of the week was very cold, with a touch of snow and the canal freezing over.

On the weekend we went to the Turner and Constable exhibit at the Tate Britain. It was a lot of great paintings, and the story of the two was good, but felt incomplete in the telling. I like Turner more for his variety as Constable has a specific valley he did most his work on.

Sunday, Steph and I walked to the Camden Garden Center and got some succulents for the glass container she got me for Christmas. It is a neat geodesic pattern that works really well for the succulents, but not quite for a terrarium.

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This week I finished the final edit for a movie I made with AI.  It has lots of movie making problems, but most of those aren’t problems with the tech, more of problems with my ability to make a movie.

Monday I had tea at BAFTA and was able to talk with a movie industry veteran about the AI in Movie space.  They confirmed most of my assumptions about why my AI video platform wasn’t working, and it helped me confirm that I wanted to make a big change. 

I didn’t do much else this week.  On the weekend Steph and I went through Islington and had a great time in the shops.  I found some interesting trinkets to put in the small gift boxes for the Christmas Eve celebration we were planning.

Sunday was amazing, and I got to see Romana perform lots of Christmas songs with the orchestra.  They were joined by four amazing singers.  I got to hear a lot of the classics and some of the less common Christmas songs, and some other songs on request.  We got to drink before the performance with the top violins from the Orchestra, and I ran off afterwards to get home to see Steph after her latest trip.  I also noticed that one of the percussionists in the orchestra had performed with RS1 several times as well.

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I made it back to the UK, and made it to the RS1 performance. It was great to see the performance, and hear all the parts blending together. Normally I would only hear the section I was in, but being in the audience I got to hear it all. There were certain parts that I always felt were awkward, but when blended were amazing. I also got to join at the pub afterwards.

Unfortunately I got sick and didn’t really do much the following week.

Eventually on the weekend I made it to lunch with some Meta people, then Karaoke on the weekend.

The next week on Tuesday we had a triple choir rehearsal, and that was so much fun. It is amazing getting to sing in the large groups, especially when mixed. Then afterwards we went to the pub for an amazing quiz game. Somehow our team was winning at the start, and we did well throughout, but the mechanics of the quiz weren’t great for us at the end, and we dropped down in the rankings.

I met up with Marissa to cowork in Kensington one day. We only did the morning, then I went to the V&A afterwards to wander the exhibits. I did only a small portion before heading back to the flat.

On Friday I did the last step of the ILR application and then went to the variety show Sabrage. It was pretty good, with a lot more nudity than I was expecting. Steph and I had a great time going to a show together, and it is convenient being a 10 minute walk from our place.

Saturday I went to the Gemini hackathon, but missed half of it due to going to the Lander 23 experience from Punch Drunk. It was my least favourite of their shows, but still pretty good. I don’t know if it is worth going again. It was effectively the game flashlight tag with some extra bits on top and a very loose theming and pretty much no story.

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I spent most of this week working, including going to a few meetups and hosting a breakfast for StartX people in London. I also had a great time at choir rehearsal. I learned that due to my trip to the US I wouldn’t be around for the dress rehearsals.

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Monday was a standard rehearsal at Pushkin House with the choir. I really enjoyed it.

I coworked with Marissa Monday afternoon, at a local library in Kensington. It was a really nice space, but it wasn’t the kind of space where we could easily talk. I prefer the more laid back feel of the Wellcome Collection and British Library.

Wednesday evening I went to a talk on funding and AI from some Stanford based VCs. It was interesting as the kind of thing I’m working on didn’t really come up. I’m not sure if I should be more worried about that or not.

Thursday I went to the Wellcome Collection and worked there in the morning, and it really is a nice place to sit and think. The library is a gorgeous space to concentrate in.

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This week was a break from choir, but for a few people who still wanted to sing, I hosted a karaoke night. It was a lot of fun having them over. I’m looking forward to doing it again. There were a good number of people that showed up, about 8. I think we could support up to twice that number, and we’ll see for the next time.

Tuesday I worked from the British Library and Wellcome Collection with Marissa, and it was really nice. They are such pretty places to work.

Wednesday I actually made it to BSAC, and helped out with the Lifesaver training.

Friday was Archer’s surgery. I took him in the morning and everything went smoothly. He had one tooth that needed to be taken out due to absorption. I picked him up that afternoon, and he was so scared and woozy. He was so sad that week, and he just hung out in the carrier in the hall. I don’t know why and it was very strange behavior for him, but he was still on strong pain killers.

I needed to concentrate on work over the weekend and went to Yonder both days. It was still hard to concentrate, but I did a lot more at Yonder than I would have done at home.

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Monday we had rehearsal at our normal location. The singing was great, but I headed home after to spend the rest of the evening with Steph.

Tuesday I decided to work from the Wellcome collection, and it went pretty well. That space is so nice, with the only issue being power, since they don’t allow charging. Luckily my computer lasts a while before needing a charge, even when running the AI a ton, because I do it mostly on servers.

Wednesday I took Archer and Lana to the vet. They generally looked good, but Archer needed to have a dental visit, so I scheduled that. I brush Archer’s teeth a few times a week, but he is just prone to plaque I guess. Lana’s teeth were pretty much perfect and I never have to brush hers.

Thursday I had my Life in the UK test out in Stratford. They had intense security on the test. I went in an hour early and they were ok with that, and once in I took it really fast. I double checked everything, then submitted. It takes 18 to pass and I was 100% confident on 17 of them. I think the history shows and UK travel Steph and I have been doing has helped a lot. There were parts of the test I learned from our travels, including the recent Battle of Hastings reenactment.

On Friday, Steph and I went to the BSAC dinner. It was at Anchor Bankside, which was a great location. We had fun with the diving movie quiz, although we were off on the years of the movies by a frustratingly small amount, with many being off by 1 or 2 years. We were able to do well overall in the due to Alex and Steph having so many dives between them. I would have liked to talk to some of the others more, but the room was too tight to move around freely and chat.

Saturday I went on a lovely walk around Hyde park as part of an event that Marissa organised. I enjoyed talking to all the people at the event. It was a great group of people and a relaxing time for most of it. I really want to do more events like that and ground myself better. I spent the rest of Saturday with Steph before she headed out on her day trip Sunday. I spent most of Sunday at the British Library.

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