Shocking

Day two of the week has been as bizarre as day one, although in different ways.

I came home to find that although the lights worked, no electrical appliance in the house was turned on. I looked at the trip switches to see if one had gone, and couldn't see it (turns out there was another one I wasn't aware of later). Good thing I wasn't, because had I spent all evening hunting around the house for the problem, I'd have hunted in vain.

After Dad returned from an evening out, we did get a hunt going and we did eventually find the issue - the wire to the fountain in the fishpond outside had frayed and therefore got in the water, and tripped the whole circuit. This has all the hallmarks of a cat.

Net result was this evening I spent sleeping, which was probably necessary anyway.

Card Woes

So by virtue of my unbridled generousity, I had a tiresome morning. Essentially, Chrissi and I were looking at new laptops, and one seemed to have a good deal, so I attempted to purchase it. Due to the site only allowing purchases from the US, this wasn't too successful for me.

However, an unintended consequence! It registered the attempt and my card was blocked. So when I got to the station this morning with a grand total of 16p in my pocket, it wouldn't let me buy a train ticket with my card. Or allow me to withdraw cash.

So I had a bit of a difficulty getting into work due to 'no money' to purchase a ticket with! I talked to the bank once they opened, had a call from the fraud prevention office later in the day, and my card is now working again fine. All it meant was that I had to work from home today. But an unnecessary hassle, all things considered!

Weekend Blogging

I rarely end up commenting much on weekends. This is typically due to two things - one I forget, the other is that as I often have the computer left on overnight I won't see my blog on my homepage when I come on the next day.

I've had two days back at work since my return from holiday and it's not been too bad so far. Taken a while to get back into my stride, but this is partially because there wasn't too much for me to take on immediately. There's also been some changes in the team - new folk in, other new starters expected (one on Monday, no idea about the other). All in all, should be interesting. I'm now one of the senior members of the team - which is, as always, mildly hysterical considering my years of experience.

Chrissi baked and the cookies went down a storm. This means I know what has to be done in January when Chrissi next comes over!

Redesign!

As you may have noticed, I played with the blog formatting. Out with the old parchment scroll, in with the new ... vague blue thing. It's new, it's shiny.

You may also now notice the random 'rebranding' that I've done. I decided that Musings from Slumberland was inaccurate now, especially considerating my recent insomniac tendencies. So in true unoriginal Hollywood style, we continue onto Episode II of the same. Essentially, no change, just new merchandise.

Highlights

So I'm back to 'normality' now, if you can call it such a thing. I've not been away for that long - only a week and a half - but because I've been to so many places (well, two) it feels a lot longer.

Highlights of my trip:

Seeing everyone in Canada. Was great to catch up with people again and I'm delighted that I made the trip this way, as it was long overdue. A very convivial long weekend.

The E190 for my flight from Halifax-Montreal and Los Angeles-Vancouver. They're gorgeous little planes; only two seats either side of the aisle, but they are very comfortable and considering I'm usually not a fan of flying, extremely enjoyable.



Spending time with Chrissi, obviously. Always great to see her and spend time with her. Also nice to catch up with other people while I was there, and I enjoy that as well! We didn't do particularly much this trip - Chrissi's work schedule saw to that - but the Aquarium of the Pacific was a nice day out.

However, tragically the chief highlight of my trip I think was when landing at LAX from Montreal. This is solely because I was watching a TV program (the excellent Spaced) on the entertainment system, and at the very moment we touched down, the theme tune from the A-Team was playing. It is impossible to describe just how cool this was.

In Transit

I'm writing this from the lovely Vancouver International Airport - and that's not a joke, it's a nice airport. Fortunate for me, as I've been here for three hours already and have another forty-five minutes to wait before my plane departs.

So far my trip has been fairly uneventful - airports are not the most fun places to kill time, let me tell you! Besides that, all is good and following a 9-10 hour flight I'll be back in England tomorrow morning!

More later, we appear to be starting boarding.

Timing is Everything

So one of the things I was excited about for being in America at this time of year was that I'd catch the baseball post-season. As the Angels made the playoffs this year, this would be a fabulous opportunity to experience that.

So what happens? Well, the Angels sweep the Red Sox, meaning that I miss a potential game five. Then they end up facing the Yankees, who by virtue of their superior regular season record, host four of seven in New York. The games in Anaheim? Um, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. The flaw? I fly out again Monday morning!

I managed to be here for an entire week in the middle of post-season, yet it has conspired to keep me from seeing a game live. Bah!

Home Away From Home

So here I am once again, sitting in Chrissi's room and composing a blog entry. As previously mentioned, this trip I've first called in to relatives in Canada - which was very enjoyable. It also had the successful achievement of breaking down my trip into two chunks, which is a bit of a change from the eleven hour marathon flights out here!

As usual, despite doing many things, I don't have much in the way of things to post. One thing does come to mind though.

On the Air Canada entertainment system, they play a multitude of adverts before any program you select - mostly adverts for Air Canada, bizarrely! One of these was along the lines of 'where would you rather be?', showcasing all interesting destinations that Air Canada fly to. I suppose this is relevant to mention because to me, the overwhelming thought was that where I'd really rather be is here with Chrissi.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

I've not updated for a little while, which has been in part laziness and part deliberate. Since my last blog, things have come to a head - I realised the route I was going down wasn't very good. I've since visited a doctor, been signed off from work for two weeks with the terribly generic 'stress'. This takes me up until my holiday, so I have four weeks off work - an appropriate break to get my mind in order, and also I hope kickstart me into being more sensible about a great many things.

I don't want to do a 'woe is me' blog, however - part of the reason I've not been posting this past fortnight! So I'm going to finish on the latter half of this by looking forward to the next couple of weeks and my coming holiday.

I go to Canada for a long weekend, spending time with family there, before flying on to LA to visit Chrissi, staying there for a week as well. This involves lots of hopping back and forth and some odd flight combinations compared to my usual. However, the advantage is that I also mostly have significantly shorter flights than my usual ten or eleven hour marathons!

Should be good, I'm looking forward to it.