It's an Exciting World

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Overall this week the weather was starting to get actually good. The wind really picked up, so it wasn’t quite warm enough to not wear a jacket. I let the kitties out onto the balcony, which they enjoyed: so many smells.

Monday was a holiday, and Steph went to dive to check out her gear with a cave diving buddy. I stayed in for the day. Monday evening we went to TINA, the musical, with Grace and Carla. It was surprisingly good.

Tuesday evening I performed in St. Pancras Station, which went ok. There weren’t many people as it was a rescheduled event with a changed location. The first round was rough, but the following three went pretty well. It wasn’t nearly as cold as the December performance.

Wednesday evening was with dive club. Thursday was StartX, and then drinks with people from work who were in town.

Steph was off cave diving for the weekend. I had the performance on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the video I’m just to the left of the musical director. After the performance I went inside, into the crypts, and then up to the roof. It was amazing. The choir was practicing while we were there and it was a gorgeous sound.

That evening I got rush tickets to see Frozen, the musical. It was very well done, especially with how they displayed the magic. The child actors were phenomenal, and the extra songs they put in for the musical were fun. As expected it was full of kids, but they weren’t that disruptive. There was one kid near us that kept saying “Oh no!” at the bad guy reveals. It was cute and everyone laughed.

Sunday was chill, and I played some Monaco with Grace, then Steph got home and we had book club.

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Monday evening I went to Guys and Dolls with Craig. We got the immersive seats and it was really fun. They were moving in and around us the whole time, and a few people got pulled up to the stage during a few of the numbers. The whole thing was fantastic, but Steph’s criticism was very valid. The guys were terrible to the women and we seen as redeemed and great by just agreeing to marry them. They had no time to show they had changed their ways.

Tuesday I was supposed to go to Liverpool St. Station for a choir performance, but it got cancelled. I ended up going out to Beer + Burgers with Sagar, David and other people from work. I really enjoyed chatting with all of them.

Wednesday evening I went to the King’s Cross choir for the final performance. We got a recording, but the audio isn’t the best.

Friday and Saturday we played Frosthaven. We got into a set of linked scenarios. We had our first characters retire at the same time. Steph went for the Crashing Tide crab character, and I decided to do a new Boneshaper, but with a different set of cards.

Friday we went to LEGO: the Art of the Brick exhibit. It was pretty fun, but it was one note on many of the monochromatic people. We grabbed drinks with Grace and Carla before then, and it was nice.

Saturday evening I joined some people from Choir at Overtures, the musical sing-a-long piano bar. The evening was great. I was especially amused by the choir singing all together on arrangements that weren’t the official arrangement, and the people playing the music got very confused. We were so confidently wrong.

Sunday, Steph and I headed to Richmond Park, the largest park in London which has a big herd of deer.

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This week was the final week for learning songs at Choir. We finished up with a few really fun songs, but I only made it to Liverpool St. on Monday. Tuesday I went out with coworkers to the pub and had a great chat with some of the people visiting from the US. I left when the quiz started up.

Wednesday was just a late day at work, but I goofed off most of the week, so it wasn’t so bad.

Thursday was just a quiet evening in, and doing a lot of chores.

Friday, Steph had set up a dinner of okonomiyaki at Abeno near the British Museum. It was delicious, and we tried some ingredients we hadn’t had before. One was a mixture of seaweed and yams that turned into a sort of gummy.

Saturday I went to a HIIT class and then a dance cardio class. I really enjoyed the dance cardio, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as the HIIT class.

Then I had the dress rehearsal for Choir. It was a great time, but I don’t know this set of music nearly as well as I knew the set from last year. I’ll be doing fewer performances as well.

Saturday evening we played some V Rising with Michael and Michelle. We started adventuring in to the new biomes, which have some really hard enemies.

Sunday was pretty chill, and we played some Frosthaven.

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I started the week by seeing a musical that one of the choir directors composed: “Bette and Joan and Baby Jane.” The music was pretty good. They didn’t have stage directions yet, so it was somewhat like a reading. Despite the lack of stage directions it was pretty good and I enjoyed keeping up with the characters. I was almost tempted to go look at the source materials, but decided against that after one of the other choir members did and reported that, while good, it was really disturbing.

Tuesday was another outing with Ice Wharf for the pub quiz. Steph joined this time, and the team had grown considerably. I think we’ll need two tables next time if the trend continues. We ended up leaving early as Steph had to prepare for her training. She also got some fancy caviar and we decided to give a tiny bit to Archer and Lana. Archer didn’t care, but Lana seemed to like it.

Wednesday was the usual choir then dive club. Dive club was pretty calm, but we got to talk to people a lot more. Thursday we headed to the airport for our trip to Tromsø, Norway.

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Monday I went to Liverpool Street for Choir. We were singing “The Lusty Month of May” which I don’t much care for, but it will take a lot of practice because it is a very difficult song. As I was leaving there was an adorable fox on the lawn outside the church. It was very relaxed and healthy looking.

Tuesday was a late day at work as there were a number of meetings with the US. I had a number of good calls with StartX groups as well. Steph and I went to dinner at a Thai place nearby that was really good, Rosa’s Thai. We will have to go there again.

Wednesday during the day the re-org at work finally took shape, and I learned that my team was staying in the UK, while the team that sits next to us was being asked to move to California. Wednesday evening was the King’s Cross choir, singing the same section of the same song, but it was good practice. I then went to dive club and had good conversations.

Thursday was StartX again, and then dinner at Little Georgia, which was delicious. We then went to Lucky Voice for some karaoke. It was interesting that most of the team wasn’t really up for singing. I did a few songs, and we had a great time of it. I had a bad hangover on Friday from the tequila shots we did at karaoke. I saw another fox near the Chapel Market area on my way home Thursday.

Friday I finally managed to go to overtures, which is a piano bar in SOHO that does musical theater sing alongs. I wasn’t nearly as studied up as I should have been, as I only knew a few of the songs they played. I’ll be going back at some point, but I’ll listen to a lot of musical theater songs before then so I can have more of a chance of knowing them.

Saturday was super chill, and I did a lot of chores. We had book club in the evening and then played V Rising with Michelle and Michael. We beat the butterfly woman in the Glade, but it was tough. Then we lost once to a necromancer, and finally went back to barely beat him the second time. Michael was the only one left alive at the end of that fight.

Sunday we did a little shopping at the Chapel Market, and got kitty stuff for when we are away. Steph also founds some interesting goat cheeses for me, one smoked and one pickled. She also got a cheddar and marmite roll, which was surprisingly tasty. I found that Uniqlo has some pants that might be good replacements for the ones I have now that are getting close to being worn out.

We then went to see Dune with Nancy and Punit and grabbed pizza afterwards at one of their favorite places.

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Adam and I met up in the afternoon on Monday at the Tower of London. We walked over to the Tower Bridge and got the full tour. The bridge was impressive, especially considering it was built in the 1880s. The glass floors were neat, and the engine room was impressive. I was amazed at how well constructed it was. Adam and I then headed to dinner at a little pub nearby, and got in just before a large crowd.

We then headed to Bromley by Bow to visit and artist studio for a woodblock printing class. We had a great time, and Adam did an amazing crab that we didn’t get any pictures of and he lost the art on the flight. I kept thinking that it was so much work to get these prints, and that you really had to appreciate the process. The outcomes were pretty good for me too with my portrait of Archer. The studio was in an industrial park, and was a little disconcerting to get to.

Tuesday, Adam and I had breakfast at my work, and I had some StartX volunteering in the evening. He ended up going to an airplane museum near Cambridge.

Wednesday I was showing off some VR experiences to people in dive club. The two main ones were

1. Ecosphere – a 180 and 360 set of videos, some from famous dive spots. The ones I focussed on were form Raja Ampat.
2. Ocean Rift – a VR experience where you can play with sea creatures in a few different settings.

I had dinner with Adam beforehand, and we had about 10 people come try out the experiences. I pulled together 6 working headsets, and got everything downloaded ahead of time. That took a few hours of downloading and checking statuses and charge states.

I had a farewell breakfast with Adam on Thursday before he headed to Vegas, then home.

Thursday evening I caught up on some chores, and listened to some good audiobooks while cuddling kitties.

Friday Steph got back, so I met her at the train station. She took a nap, so I went into work for a bit, then took my afternoon meetings from home. Friday evening I went to Sergio’s birthday party and hung out with Craig and David from choir. We didn’t make it to Overtures, but the plan is to make it there next Friday.

Saturday Steph and I spent a chill day together, watching shows, doing taxes, and going to a pizza dinner in SOHO. Sunday was also pretty chill.

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This was a packed week.

Monday I made it to choir at Liverpool Street, and it was a ton of fun since we were learning Mama Mia.

Wednesday I joined Finn and Mario for a free diving class taught by Wendy and Mika. The class was really quick, but was mostly the same info as the one I did in Mexico. We then went to the pub and had a pretty chill pub meet.

Thursday was the StartX neighborhood, and I think it went decently well.

After that I stopped by the London Bridge choir for some more Mama Mia. I went out for drinks afterwards as well, and had a great time chatting with the musical director.

Adam got into town on Friday and we had dinner together on top of The Standard. This is one of the restaurants we’ve been walking past every week and saying we should go, so I finally went. It was decent food, and the ride in the glass elevator was surprisingly nice. He came over and we made some plans for while he was in town.

Saturday we had a full day. We went to the Hunterian Museum and John Soane house. They were amazing little museums, with strange and fascinating collections. I’ll have to go back to the John Soane house with Steph. We then walked to the London Mithraeum, which is a Roman temple. There wasn’t much of it left, but still neat to see. They did a really good light and sound show for it. We then headed to Covent Garden for Dishoom and only had to wait 10 minutes. Then we went to see Choir of Man, which was a happy pop musical. The show was so wholesome, and I really enjoyed the choir aspects of it as well. We did a bit of a pub crawl around Islington; stopping at The Old Queen’s Head, Camden Head, and then grabbing food at Marketo.

Adam was tired so he headed to the hotel, and I joined Craig and Sergio at some bars in Soho. It was interesting as these bars weren’t my scene. I still enjoyed it, especially one bar that was full of Ameritrash. They had terrible American beer, and were playing 90’s and 00’s American pop music. I called it after the second bar.

Sunday Adam and I went to Camden Market and did the escape room, similar to what I did with George and Michael. We didn’t do as well, mainly because the rooms we were in this time were really dark, and both of us had a really hard time seeing and hearing things. I was tired, and crashed for the afternoon, then did chores to finish the day.

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This week didn’t have much going on. Steph was prepping and packing for her trip to Mexico, and I had some long hours at work.

Friday we had a great time with Carla and Grace doing some Youtube karaoke and Unrailed. I really enjoy spending time with the two of them.

Saturday I helped Steph to the train station, and only a few hours later George and Michael got to town. They were travelling for work, and separately added a London weekend onto their trips.

Michael and I grabbed some North Sea fish ‘n’ chips, which was amazing. Then we met up with George at the V&A. We were able to go to some of the major museums together, and I showed them where I performed at the V&A with the choir. We grabbed a pint at the pub, before George headed off to dinner. Michael and I headed to Battersea for the lights displays. They weren’t nearly as good as the Canary Wharf lights. We waited in line for Dishoom, and while waiting David from work came by. The food was amazing as always. After seeing the lights we stopped by The Vaults and Draughts at Waterloo Station. That station is more of a maze than King’s Cross is, which is saying something.

Sunday the three of us met up at Camden market, then Michael had to head to the airport. George and I had lunch and then headed to an escape room in an abandoned underground station. We did really well, and had a great time of it.

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We had a great time Monday with Craig and a group from the Choir. We went to see the musical The Big Little Things about Henry Fraser, a paralyzed artist. The story was about his youth as he became paralyzed and then found art. I really enjoyed it, and the music was great. The stage and seating layout was especially interesting. The stage was made up of tiles that were part of a large screen across the stage. The tiles mostly showed artistic brush strokes that worked as the floor for different scenes, like being at the beach. I liked how they had moments where colors were mentioned and the whole stage would sweep with the color. It was a very well done production.

Most of the rest of the week was too much work. Steph did some more photogrammetry and then connected that with 3D printing one of the objects she scanned.

Friday I had lots of calls with family, and they all seem to be doing well.

Saturday Steph and I did some yoga, then went to a lovely afternoon tea at Kai. They had a lunar new year theme with lots of things done slightly differently from how they would be. They didn’t have sandwiches, but deconstructed steamed buns. They didn’t have biscuits, but had a macaron with clotted cream and flavor crystals. It was a great experience, besides the crying baby that showed up halfway through. We did get a second round of the savory plates, which more than made up for the crying baby.

Saturday evening we had Diana and Sam over for watching a diving movie. We chose “Into the Blue” which was a much better movie than expected. The diving was pretty bad, both unrealistic and with a complete disregard to safety precautions.

Sunday was a calm day. Steph wasn’t feeling well so I went and did my workout and ran to get stuff from the grocery store. We had book club in the evening. It was Tress, a Sanderson book, which was great to discuss.