It's an Exciting World

This week I was still limited in mobility. I went into the office each day, but didn’t do much beyond that Monday and Tuesday.

I met with Punit again on Wednesday, and then we went to lunch in Shoreditch with Nancy and Steph.  It was really nice spending time with them.

Thursday was a lot of calls with all sorts of people.

Friday I gave a presentation on image generation to the StartX AI Roundtable, which went over really well.  I was nervous as I’m not an expert on training AI, just on using it.  I really enjoyed giving the talk, and might do another one on video generation.

I spent most of the weekend working on AI and spending time with Steph.

I’ll attach Monday and Tuesday the following week here, as it wasn’t much going on.  People from work were visiting the London office and I spent time with them.  I also went to choir at Liverpool St. on Monday, and did some volunteering with StartX on Tuesday.

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This week I was still dealing with a broken ankle, although I didn’t learn it was broken until later in the week.  I just thought it was a bad sprain, which turned out to be mostly true.  There was an avulsion fracture, but the recovery instructions was the same as a bad sprain. I was still going into work each day, and I met up with Punit Tuesday morning to talk AI at the Camden library.  We went to a nice sandwich spot in St. Pancras afterwards, which is the kind of thing I don’t do nearly enough.

Wednesday I pushed myself too hard in walking to the doctor’s office in Angel, then choir, then to dive club.  I ended up with bruises all along my leg from the brace.  I really enjoyed choir, but they were actually on time starting for dive club, so I only was there for the last little bit.

I pushed myself more on Friday as I had an x-ray and found out about the fracture.  There wasn’t anything they could really do, and I already had a boot.

For valentines I cooked for Steph and I got a bottle of cava.

After the active week on the ankle, I took it easy and went nowhere on the weekend.

On Saturday we had people over for games and dinner. Not many people were able to make it, as I didn’t start planning until Wednesday that week, but Anton and Giulio came over and we had a good time with them.  Then Jose and Diana joined and it was a great time.  I really enjoyed the game the Diana brought which was like a  reverse Jenga, where you have to build a tower without it falling over.  We also played a good bit of Codenames, Overcooked, and Drawful.

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I continued cat-sitting henry this week. It was nice just chilling with him. He is very cuddly, but doesn’t like being touched on his back. So I scratched his head and cuddled with him on the couch.

Monday I went to Choir at Liverpool street, and it as great being back in that venue. It is a gorgeous large church with high ceilings and great reverb.

Tuesday, Steph and I continued on our rush tickets experiences with Lightning Thief, based on the book of the same name. It was good, but simple. The cast was really great except for the main actor, but the rest were phenomenal. It was really lighthearted for most of it. For someone who doesn’t know the book it can be a little hard to follow, and the characters don’t get as much development as they probably needed to deliver on the emotional bits. This is especially true of the betrayal moment.

Wednesday I went to the AI Tinkerers meetup. It was nice to hear the talks and see how the different companies in the space are using AI. I plan to make more connections there and see where things go.

Friday I gave blood for the first time in the UK. It was pretty straightforward, but my heart surgery was almost a disqualification. The nurse said it would have disqualified me a year ago. That evening I went to Karaoke in Lucky Voice Soho with Giulio. His friends were stuck because of flooding on a tube line, so it was just him and me for the first hour and a half. After that I just snuck off when everyone else got in, as it was already really late for me.

Saturday I went to the dentist for the first time in the UK, and everything was just fine. That evening we went to the Canary Wharf lights walk and were joined by Radha, Nancy, Punit, and Atlas. It was pretty nice, but we thought the lights weren’t as interesting as the previous two years. This is also the most packed we’ve ever seen it, but it was a Saturday night with decent weather. Punit got reservations at a vegan restaurant, Mallow.

Sunday, Steph and I went to tea at Dalloway Terrace. It was pretty good, and worth it with the discount.

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It was a pretty chill week overall.

Some great news is that I got the global talent visa! This means I’m able to stay in the UK for another year regardless of employment status. It also brings the indefinite leave to remain timeline to the end of this year. I’ll be able to take the life in the UK test and be allowed to stay indefinitely. Steph still has to complete 2 more years past me to take the test and get her independent indefinite leave to remain.

Tuesday I went to the show Faulty Towers, which is based on a 1970’s British sitcom. I had a great time, and it was a fantastically done comedy. I had no base in the show before going and wanted to just see what it would be like without knowing the show at all. There were cheers as the characters came on stage, but they did a good job introducing everything anyway. I had a blast and it was hilarious. I got last minute tickets again, and we were second row. I ended up going with a colleague from work who I met at the theater, and I met him for the first time there. It was interesting talking to him as he’d just moved to London and started working for Meta.

My morning routine is starting to solidify. I’m going to the Camden library regularly now. It is a great space, and just above the gym that Steph and I go to. I do my personal projects at the library, then go downstairs to workout, then head into the office.

This is the first week of the spring term for choir, and I went to a new location for King’s Cross choir. Giulio joined me again, and we walked over from work together after having dinner. I really enjoyed the music this week as it is Wicked. We’ll be finishing it next week, and I’m looking forward to the full sing through together.

We also had a meeting of the dive club, and I joined and had a good conversation with people there. I’m looking forward to an early May trip to Turkey.

Friday at noon we went to the British Library with Radha for the Medieval Women: In Their Own Words exhibit. It had a lot of interesting information, and some amazing documents that we had heard referenced on podcasts about European history. After the exhibit Radha took us by where she used to live, and her favorite Chinese restaurant, which had some great Szechuan dishes, although not quite a magic chili tofu.

Friday evening I had a great call with StartX for AI, and then Steph and I had a deep conversation on our plans going forward, since we got the GTV. I’m really happy to be settling down and looking further ahead in plans.

Saturday I started cat sitting Henry again in Highgate. He is an adorable and decently cuddly kitty, but doesn’t like his back being pet.

We played some V Rising with Michael and Michelle on Saturday evening. I think I should redo my controls for the game since I can’t do some of the most powerful attacks.

Sunday we had a full day. In the morning we went to Eltham Palace again, but got to see the whole palace. Steph was also able to get her hat and scarf that she left last time. We met Pavel there and walked around the house and grounds. It was interesting to see the difference between the great hall, the modern house, and the ruins. It was a gorgeous estate and we wondered what led to it becoming part of the English Heritage group. While wandering the gardens we saw a large and healthy looking fox, which darted away from us and then we saw it wandering the grounds. We got a late lunch with Pavel around Victoria Station at Zizzi, and then I went to take care of Henry.

I met Steph at Carla and Grace’s new place, where we played a karaoke game, and then decided to switch to the Youtube based karaoke experience. I had a great time and really enjoy spending time with the two of them. We had some great deserts and cheeses while singing, as well as some wine for social and vocal lubrication.

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This week was the first real week back to work in the new year, and it is starting out pretty well.

Tuesday Steph and I went to Titanique, a Titanic movie parody, that was hilarious. The characters where exaggerated in just the right ways. My favorite was the mom character, who was yelling and saying terrible things the whole time. Then the Celine Dion character was getting in the way of the action, and making things up about the Titanic that were clearly wrong. We got amazing seats, front and center, using the rush tickets. I’ve really been enjoying the rush tickets and I plan to keep using it. Steph at one point had to sing into an aubergine that the Celine character was holding out to her as a microphone. I was given some Celine Dion fake money for a sexy dance number that Jack was having against Cal. This show was so much fun, and I would say it is one of my favorites. I laughed more at this than any other show I’ve seen in London.

The rest of the was mostly uneventful. I met up for coffee with another person on the StartX AI taskforce, which was nice. He also lives in Islington. Saturday I got rush tickets to Mean Girls, which was similar to the other movie adaptations I’ve seen, where the music was superfluous, and it is mainly targeting the people who liked the movie. I didn’t like it overall, but had a few good laughs. I also got tickets to the string quartet by candlelight that evening. Sunday I tried again, but nothing came through on rush tickets for the matinee.

This past few weeks have been perfectly bad weather, being as cold as it can be while also being wet. There have been multiple instances when I’ve walked to work with it snowing for the first half and raining for the second. When we were sitting in the Mr. Fogg’s bar last week it was switching between raining and snowing as we watched out the window. Despite that I’m still finding myself walking around for half an hour to an hour a day, just because that is how life works in London. I feel strangely happy with it, as I have all the right clothing to deal with the bad weather now. Once I get to a nice warm place after the bad weather I feel comfy in a way that I didn’t in California. Also, despite the frozen canals, the birds are still very active. I regularly see all the gulls, morehens, cormorants, geese, ducks, and coots.

When Steph got back from her diving adventures over the weekend we had a sticky toffee pudding together.

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Heidi and her partner came to London for New Years. We had dinner with them at Marketo, the Ethiopian place near our house that we like, then we hung around the flat until the London Fireworks. We watched on the TV while playing Codenames.

The next day we chilled at home until they were ready for dinner, then stopped by Dishoom, which surprisingly didn’t have much of a line. We had a great dinner there, and walked around Coal Drop Yards a bit before they headed back to the hotel.

Saturday we went to Mr. Fogg’s Botanical Tavern & Treehouse. Steph got us a seat in the treehouse part of it, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. They do such a great job with the decor, and the drinks. I loved the old portraits where they painted flowers into the hair of stogy old men, and pith helmets onto women in ball gowns. The drinks were also presented in a fantastical way. Steph had one that had a smoke bubble on top. I had one in a display case with smoke, and another that came in a small chest.

Sunday we went to an event where we didn’t know what to expect. It was billed as a twelfth night celebration at Eltham Palace with the English Heritage pass. There wasn’t any description of what that entailed. It turned out to be a Henry VIII player lecturing on what the Tudors did for twelfth night and then we did a series of dances from that period. The dancing was surprisingly fun.

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Steph and I stayed in for Christmas, making sure she recovered in time to do some caving.

We headed out for the weekend and stopped by Birdland Park and Gardens, which had lots of amazing birds. They had a large overlap with the Honolulu Zoo, but there were also a number of unique birds, like several Emu and some British owls.

We then made our way to Gloucester Cathedral, which was impressive. They had a cloister that was gorgeous, and had been used a lot in film and TV. We also got to walk around the middle balconies, and the church itself was old and gorgeous. We had hoped to go to the waterways museum, but it was closed for the winter.

We then stayed at the Moonraker Hotel near Longleat. It was a cute hotel, and the restaurant was surprisingly good.

The next day we stopped by Old Sarum, an ancient hillfort that was William the Conquerer had all the English Lords swear to him. They focussed on the period 1100 to 1300, but the hillfort goes back 5000 years. Then we went to Salisbury Cathedral and saw the oldest mechanical clock, the Magna Carta, and gorgeous stained glass.

We then left for Longleat, a stately house that also has a safari park. This was the first manor to be opened to the public in England, and it has had the safari park for almost 60 years. They had all manor of creatures. Steph especially liked the ostrich that came up to our car and tried to eat the side mirror. Then the monkeys were interesting, climbing all over the car. The lions and tigers were neat to see as well.

After the safari park we went straight to the lights walk. It was a different style of lights walk than others we had done, as in this one they had fabric creations lit from within as the consistent style of the entire exhibit. They had all sorts of historical figures and buildings from all over the world. Some of them were anachronistic, but it was all well done.

The next day we went caving from the Wessex hut. We went to GB cave and I got to hang the ladder from the bottom. It was an interesting experience as I would clip the ladder up, climb it, then clip the other end of the ladder higher and climb that end. We went through some tight wet spots and got back to an area called bat passage with some really great formations. There was also a lot of bouldering style climbing involved with this trip, which I really enjoyed.

We drove straight back after cleaning our gear and had a quiet evening.

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