And There Was Evening and There Was Morning in London - The Second Day

As you can obviously see by my lack of posting, life has gotten busy on me again. How the heck does it keep doing that? Oh that's right...I travel the entire Midwest for work and then have to spend my evenings in hotels doing the "office" work that I missed while traveling instead of blogging about my world travels. That's ridiculousness and it needs to stop right now.

There. I stopped it.

Now, for the continued adventures of Ty and Stacie in London! I believe our story left off with us returning to the tiny hotel room for a bit of shuteye after watching Phantom of the Opera. So good.

The next morning we had our sights set on a big day. Our first stop was back to Trafalgar Square to visit the National Gallery. But first we had to take some pictures on the lions. Because that looked like the thing to do there.

Taming the beasts

Next we headed into the National Gallery which was a lot of fun. We really enjoyed looking at all the amazing paintings. I'm sure we'll revisit this gallery at some point in the future.

After our visit to The National Gallery, we made our way to the other side of Trafalgar Square and to the Texas Embassy. When the Great State was the Republic of Texas, she had an embassy here in London. This particular embassy is a cantina filled with delicious Texan refreshments. The original embassy was not at this exact location, but it's close enough. We decided to take in a little DP and Lone Star on our break.



After our little break, we headed to Kensington Gardens to check it out and ultimately head to The Orangery to have afternoon tea. It is England after all. We wanted to make sure we observed some of the customs.

In Kensington Gardens

But our goal of having afternoon tea at The Orangery was thwarted. After walking a very long way, we were told there was some high-to-do going on and that we were not on the guest list. Stuck up, snobby Brits and their private parties interfering with our touristing...

Exhausted from walking, sad about no tea at the Orangery, happy to be in London

Not ones to let a minor setback ruin our day, we proceeded to carry on with our touring, making our way down to Westminster Abbey for Evensong. As we got off of the train though we made our way by the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

Big Ben

After checking out Big Ben it was on to Evensong. Evensong is a great way to check out Westminster Abbey. Instead of paying and taking some tour, Evensong is a mass that happens everyday at 5PM. So we were able to go in and worship while checking out the cathedral. It was beautiful and amazing. It's pretty cool to go in and worship where folks had been doing just that for over a thousand years

Westminster Abbey

After Evensong we weren't sure exactly what we wanted to do, but since we hadn't been to Buckingham Palace yet, we decided that should be the next stop. So we took a stroll in that direction. The flag was flying which apparently means the Queen is in residence and there was one guard with a machine gun patrolling the front of the palace. There was also a wedding party taking pictures by the fountain out front. We didn't go inside and I'm not certain that we even could, but it was still pretty cool to go check it out.

Buckingham Palace

After that, we made wandered around the city a bit more and wound up eating at an Italian restaurant that we saw the night before in Trafalgar Square. It was very good and there was some great people watching there. Our table was on the bottom level (sort of in the basement, I guess) and sharing the area with us was a bachelorette party, two very young kids on a date (I'd say 17 at the oldest, but that's guessing high I believe) and an odd looking couple in the back who could not or would not quit making out long enough to eat their food.

It was pretty crazy down there.

All in all, it was another great day in London. There's nothing left to say except:

THE

(of day two.)

Our Trip to London - Day One

You may have noticed via Facebook or via me getting really excited and telling you or via me being gone for ten days straight that Stacie and I did a bit of traveling recently. We took a trip over the big pond to do a little European exploration. Our first stop was London. We landed just about 12 hours before they shut down all of the airspace over Europe due to Iceland's crazy volcanic eruption. It was at about 10.45PM, or as they would say 22:45, and we proceeded to take the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station. I'm not sure that was the most cost-effective way for us to get where we were going since we had to then take a taxi from there to our hotel, but I'm glad we did it because Paddington Station is beautiful. Plus that would be the only time we'd take a taxi in London, and their taxis are pretty cool compared to ours, so I didn't even know that I didn't want to miss that.

We immediately went to sleep, or at least tried to, once we got checked into our hotel room. The jet lag didn't make for a great night's sleep, but nevertheless we made it up and out around 10AM the next day to begin exploring London. Side note here: our hotel room (at the Luna Simone) was tiny, but it was nice and they served breakfast (which we were never up early enough to partake in.) And by tiny I mean maybe as big as our master bedroom at home for the whole thing, bathroom and all. And we don't have a huge master bedroom in our little condo in Chicago. But we loved our location for a first time visit. We'd probably change it up on a second trip, though.

The first day there we decided to take the train all the way out to the Tower Hill stop and then just spend the day walking back to our hotel. We wanted to wander and explore and just see the sights and get our bearings. It was really the perfect thing to do on the first day.

Naturally, the Tower Hill stop lets you off pretty close to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. We didn't go into the Tower of London, but we'll probably do that on our next visit. We did a lot of things, but you can't do them all. You'll notice that theme running through our trip. The great thing is that when we returned from 10 days in Europe we actually felt rested and as though we had been on vacation. I don't think that happens for most people. We didn't push ourselves like crazy. We saw the sights and just enjoyed ourselves.

Here's some other things we did that day:

A better view of the Tower Bridge.

Stacie felt sorry for this street performer because he wasn't getting much love from the crowds. In defense of the crowds he wasn't very good at standing still like he's supposed to do. And it turns out that he's from New Jersey.

The London Eye with Parliament and Big Ben in the background.

Ridin' the Eye. That's what they call it there. Actually, I just made that up. Please don't embarrass yourself in London by saying that.

Parliament and Big Ben from the Eye.

Stacie did this a lot during our trip, so I caught her a few times when I thought it looked cool.

Along our walked we passed the Globe Theatre, which we will go to later in our trip. We stopped to sit in a cafe and have a snack and a cold beverage. We grabbed lunch at this crazy market that we just stumbled upon. You can stumble upon it right here: http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/. It was amazing how it just kept going and going and winding through alleys and streets. One of my favorite parts of London and Paris was wandering into something cool like that. We also wandered into this really cool wine store, but those pics are on another computer, so I guess we'll just have to put them on facebook because I'm in the zone here and don't want to move.

After we finished our revolution on the Eye, it was time for us to pick up the pace back to our hotel. We didn't make a lot of plans before heading to London, but one thing we did was buy tickets to The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre. So, we hustled back to the hotel. Our feet were exhausted from walking all day. We changed quickly and headed out the door. We caught the bus right outside of our hotel which took us up to Trafalgar Square. From there, we walked around looking for our theatre and perhaps some food. But what we stumbled upon was the premier of a movie at The Odeon in Trafalgar Square. Apparently it was a pretty big deal in England because there was a nice sized crowd gathered watching the stars of the show go into the movie. I didn't recognize any of them. It was called The Heavy, and if you're interested you can do more research here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473364/.

Some very nice policemen who were on duty for the premier kindly pointed us in the direction of our theatre and wished us luck getting through the crowd. We pushed through and walked about a block, turned left and there she was: Her Majesty's Theatre. At this point, we were both hungry but didn't have time to go anywhere fancy or eat anything substantial so we ducked into this little chain called Pret A Manger. It's French for "a place to eat", I believe, and they have them all over London. It's just a quick stop for soup or a wrap or something along those lines.

But we made it to the show with a few minutes to spare. It was amazing. The music, the cast, the set...it was all incredibly well done. If you haven't seen Phantom, I highly recommend it. If you have, but not in London, I highly recommend you take a trip sometime. It will be well worth it.

Stacie and I outside of Her Majesty's Theatre. I feel like the striped shirt gives me man-boob here, so I apologize, but it's our only picture we have from the evening. :(

After the show, we went to grab fourth meal at one of the restaurants right around Trafalgar Square. I think it was like going to a London version of Bennigan's. It's called Garfunkel's. We got Traditional Beef with Yorkshire Pudding - one of our many attempts at eating local cuisine. I have to say it wasn't bad.

After that, we strolled over to Hagen-Daas and grabbed an ice cream cone. Trafalgar Square was bustling with people. There were dance clubs and restaurants and cafes and movie theatres. We just wanted to hang out there and people watch a bit. Then after getting solicited to go to a dance club by a young man who said he'd take us there and get us in with a 5 Pound discount, we decided it was time to call it a night.

So back on the bus we went. Which then let us off with about a mile left to go because it was the end of the line for that time of night. We don't really know if that was the case, but after a little more walking, we thankfully crawled into bed around midnight. And lay there wide awake for a while because it was only 6PM in the US.

Well, that wraps up day one. Not bad for a first day I'd say. I'll post more photos and the rest of the trip as I get the time to do so.

Oh and P.S. - all of this happened on April 15th, my gorgeous wife's 30th birthday. Happy Birthday, Stacie!! I love you so much and you get more beautiful with every passing moment.

Stuff Conservatives Like

So, I've been inspired. There is a book that I find really entertaining called "Stuff White People Like" and a blog I also find really entertaining called "Stuff Christians Like." They're truly fantastic in their own way, and I'm sure one probably spawned the other. Well, I'm white and Christian, but what I also am is conservative. I don't know if a "Stuff Conservatives Like" exists or not. And I am not going to Google for fear that it does. But what I will do is throw down my own "Stuff Conservatives Like" post. Who knows, maybe it'll become a regularly occurring feature.

I just heard my brother mumble, "Yeah, right." He knows me so well.

So what is the first foray into "Stuff Conservatives Like"? How about:

USING THOMAS JEFFERSON QUOTES AS THEIR FACEBOOK STATUS.

Ever since the recent health care "reform" legislation was signed into law there has been a very vocal crowd on ye ol' book o' faces. I must confess to being part of that, but, man, have the quotes of dead people been flying around or what? I mean, you never see those of a more liberal slant pulling quotes off of Google and slapping them on their facebook status updates do you? Of course not, and I'll tell you why.

We conservatives are obviously heartless bastards who hate the poor, the sick, minorities and Michael Moore. But we can't just come out and say, "I'm a cold-hearted, half-reptile, half-man redneck who doesn't want to share." That would make it way too easy for us to be swept aside like crazy people. No, silly, we have to prove that long before us there were heartless bastards who made this country into the place it is today, where our uninsured are dying in the streets and our poor people only have a normal cell phone, not the kind with games and internet on it.

You see, a liberal doesn't have to look to the past. They're called progressives now. Get it? Progress. Progress is forward. If they look to the past that will just slow them down. Plus, why would you have to defend your stance as a liberal. You want everyone to have health care and big houses and college educations and a steady stream of disposable income to spend on unicorn rides. And you want it to magically appear out of the Lincoln Memorial.

Who wouldn't want that? Oh, that's right. Me and my puppy kicking, dream squashing friends. But you know what, I do want unicorn rides for all! But I run into this problem when I think about money pouring out of the Lincoln Memorial and floating in the reflection pool. I don't find it plausible. Well, and I've never seen a unicorn yet.

I'm pretty sure all the stuff everyone should have has to be paid for, somehow, though. And you know what else, I bet Thomas Jefferson spent a whole lot of time thinking about what kind of a country America could be. He probably thought about it even more than Joe Biden practices his salty sailor talk. Thomas Jefferson saw the opportunities and the inherent dangers with the type of country our founders were forming. He and others warned against what could happen once we turn to the government as providers rather than defenders of liberty. So, maybe it's okay to look back and quote him every now and then.



Of course, maybe we conservatives are just too brainwashed to formulate our own thoughts and opinions. We pretty much just listen to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh all day. I mean, when we're not snacking on kittens.

I. Am. A. Genius.

Well, if not a genius, I definitely have some type of 6th sense thing going on here. Seriously. Here's what I wrote back in August of 2009:

"Obviously, I'm picking the Bengals to win this division."

Sorry to those of you that started reading this piece thinking it was about something meaningful. Not this one, my friends. It is sports related, so as always, if "sports aren't your thing", feel free to check out for today. But know that you'll be given one demerit.

This is my annual review of the Come and Blog It Annual Prediction of How the NFL Season Will Play Out.

It's taken me a little longer to get to writing this one largely due to the massive amount of tears I shed after my Bengals let me down in the playoffs. It's hard to type when you keep shorting out key boards. This is going to be a short one, though, because as you can see, if I picked the Bengals to win the AFC North, and nailed it, obviously I didn't miss much. I am that good.

"But wait," some of you are saying. "What about at the bottom of your division analysis when you wrote":

"Oh forget it! I'm picking the Bungles! I was wrong about everything last year, so maybe this will be an unexpected correct pick."

Who are you? The Pick Police! It doesn't matter how I got there. I put it down in stone so it was right.

But you're not here for what I got right, are you? No. That's boring. You're here for what I completely fouled up...you people are so predictable. Fine. Here it is:

First, I picked the Green Bay Packers to win the NFC North. They went 11-5 and made the playoffs, but they didn't win it. I picked the Vikings to be second and they were pretty much awesome.

I picked the Falcons to win the NFC South. But at least I picked the Saints to...finish third and miss the playoffs...hmmm. This division always baffles me, and this year was no different. In fact, here's what I wrote:

"I think I've picked New Orleans to win this division two years in a row now. And two years in a row the Saints have let me down, despite Mr. Brees and his fantastic throwing arm."

Thanks, Saints.

About the NFC East I said:

"...this thing comes down to a Giants team that I always seem to under appreciate and an Eagles team that I constantly distrust because of Donovan McNabb's accuracy issues."

Turns out I over-appreciated the Giants by a bit this year and under-appreciated those Cowboys. But as always, the Redskins finished last. At least I can predict that one properly.

Man, I'm gonna be honest with you. I actually did a pretty nice job of prognosticating this year. But you know what that does...? That makes for one boring review of your predictions. I correctly picked 4 of the 6 playoff teams from each conference. I missed both of my Super Bowl predictions, but still, this is a pretty boring review.

NFL, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm putting you on notice, Colbert-style. That's right folks. The NFL is on notice. If I can predict with this accuracy what's going to happen, the league has become lackluster at best.

NFL, you'd better get back to your crazy days when it was all Steelers and Patriots and everyone else was just playing for second. Because that free-for-all for second was a lot more fun come this time of year.

If the NFL doesn't get its act together, I suggest you all come back to this page in August, print a copy of my predictions and head to Vegas, 'cause baby, you about to be rich.

For the Troops

Hey folks, I mentioned in my previous post (a kind of ranty one, I'll admit) about Peter King petitioning his readers to donate to a good cause.

Well, I received an email from the USO asking me to pass along the link if I didn't mind. I don't so here's the recommend text from them:

"Hey,

I wanted to let you know about an amazing effort Peter King from Sports Illustrated and the USO are running right now. It's called the Five for Fighting campaign -- I just took part and am hoping you will join me.

Through this campaign, we can help bring support to Sgt. McGuire and his troops. They are set to deploy to Afghanistan later this year and in preparation are looking to us to help bring some of the comforts from home to their base, like a TV with video games and weight equipment.

These troops make amazing sacrifices every day. It really doesn't seem like too much to ask to chip in $5 and take part in the Peter King's Five for Fighting campaign. Will you join with me and help bring a touch of home to our troops? You can donate by clicking here:"

http://uso.org/PeterKing

If you've got a spare five-spot, help the soldiers feel a little more at home while they're serving our country.

Thanks, you three are the best!

My Fair Share

Today I received a letter from US Census Bureau. You probably received one, too. It read:

"Dear Resident:

About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.

Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

Thank you in advance for your help."

I don't know about you, but the term "fair share" pretty much makes me gag. And this form letter, though short, was nonetheless extremely gag inducing. Of course, I'm a guy that thinks government should provide for certain things like defending our country, keeping commonly used infrastructure in tact, protecting our rights and liberties, things that fall in the big picture category. When it comes to schools, health facilities and "programs", I'm generally not a big fan of Federal involvement.

But aside from that here's what makes me gag:

• FAIR SHARE: I hate the word fair except in baseball. And unless we're talking baseball, who the heck can even know what is fair? Who decides what is fair? If I'm forced to use the word, I'd say that my fair share of the things the census is offering would mean that I would get a proportionate amount of the services to my taxes paid. But I'm willing to bet what is meant here is that if my neighborhood has a generally higher income level, they're going to put less resources into our "schools, health facilities and programs" because it wouldn't be "fair" to use our taxes in our neighborhood because we can just pay for stuff ourselves.

And seriously, who decides what is fair? Bureaucrats, that's who. And what's their
motivation? Votes. Don't think for a second that most of the people in elected positions
want what's best for our country. They want to stay employed.

• SO WHAT'S FAIR, THEN?: Is it fair when we all have exactly the same amount of money? Is it fair when we all have the exact same amount of homes with the exact same amount of square footage and the exact same amount of food in the exact same fridge? There's no such thing as fair in this sense! It doesn't exist. I don't believe it exists in any sense. I'd like to say that fair is when we all have the same opportunities for success, but that doesn't and will never exist. Some people will be born into families that instill in them a work ethic. Some people will be born into families that let them do whatever they want with no accountability whatsoever. Some will be given up for adoption. Some will have no dads. Some will have the best parents. Some will have a lot of money and go to college for free. Some will have no money and have to work their way through school if they want a degree. But the thing that's great about our country is your guaranteed the opportunity to strive for success. And you'll have to overcome many things that aren't fair on the way to that success.

• NEED!: Ugh. As if all that "fair share" talk wasn't enough to make me throw up in my mouth a little, they had to go say that we need the things that the great government will provide us our fair share of. Programs! Health facilities! Schools! Sure, we need hospitals. We need schools. But government acts as if they weren't there we'd just let our sick die and our kids grow up as uneducated imbeciles. And the programs...well, the programs have all done their "fair share" to cause people to be overly reliant on government. Does the government believe we'd let our needy go unattended to if they weren't around? I wouldn't and neither would the rest of the country. Have you seen our country's generous outpouring of help when other countries need help? How much more do you think we'd show up to help our own, but government has wretched that from our hands and now use it against those who need it to secure their vote. Peter King is a sports writer for SI.com. Most of you have probably never heard of him, but he met a soldier at a Cardinals baseball game once and a friendship between them grew. This soldier and his troops are headed to Afghanistan to start a remote base and Peter asked what he could do for them. The soldier said he'd like for his troops to have something to do in their downtime (lift weights, video games, nice TV, etc.) like they would have if they were on a more permanent base. So, Peter went to his readers and asked for $5 to be donated to a USO site that builds these type of rec areas at a cost of $20K each. His readers donated enough in one day to build that one and 4 more for other troops stationed in different areas. The average donation was over $25. We are a generous people at our cores and we don't need the government to do every little thing for us when we hit a tough spot.

I realize this post is a little ranty, but it's been that kind of day and I felt like typing hard. I'm not against paying taxes (though I am against the income tax, talk about not "fair", and I'm against the covert removal of taxes from our paychecks so that most of us don't even know what goes out the door), but I believe there are certain things the government should use those taxes for and certain things that are our own responsibility.

And I don't like it when the government dangles "fair share" and "need" in front of my face like a carrot to get me all excited about the Census.

Now I need to go, I hear my big white phone ringing.

"Hello, Ralph..."

iTunes, Sometimes I Feel Like You Don't Know Me at All

The last three days of work have been so busy. And tomorrow and Friday aren't looking any better. Oh well. Such is life sometimes.

But since I can't get it all done and everyone needs to take a breather at some point, I decided to spend some time on iTunes looking for some new music. I hadn't checked out the "Just for You" section in a while, so I thought perusing that might bring up something worthwhile. Who knows right?




I'm not sure if you can see that too well; you may have to click on it. But did you notice the gray highlighted song that iTunes recommended for me.

That's right. The University of Iowa Fight Song. Performed by the University of Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band.

What?

What could I have possibly purchased to lead iTunes to believe that not only would I want to listen to a marching band perform a high school style college fight song, but that I would then want to drop 99 cents to own the thing?

Not only that, three of the songs on that list of recommendations I own already. They're in my iTunes library, iTunes.

And then there's the Dave Matthews Band and Brad Paisley recommendations.

I never thought I'd say this, but iTunes, I'm putting you on notice, Colbert style. You think you know me and have stuff "Just for Me"? Time to start proving it or I'm just going to have to search through all your files to find my own stuff. And that could take up a lot of bandwidth.

Yeah, that's a threat.