One more to go

The Queen Anne run went well last week... I finished in 31 minutes and change, which is pretty much exactly a 10-minute mile. If I can keep it up, that should be good enough to finish... the Big One.

That's the 8K (a.k.a. "five miles" for the metric-impared) I'm running on Saturday. I haven't had time to run this week, but hopefully the training I've done this summer is still somewhat intact. I've been wanting to run this one for a while, because it takes you down the Torchlight parade route before it starts, with parade-goers cheering you on from both sides of 4th Ave. downtown.

Here's my sprint to the finish from last week:

All of that wore out me and Alex:

It's time to power up

I'm doing this 5K run in a few short hours:

Rocky main theme is on the playlist. Twice.

This one's for mom

Happy birthday to my mom. She is the best mom, and she will assuredly make a smooth transition into being the best grandma.

We've already sent her a physically tangible birthday present, but here's a high-tech online bonus present for her, which I will share with all our loyal furdell.com readers: an hour-long clip from KOL-AM radio in Seattle, from 1962, right around when the Century 21 World's Fair Expo goodness was going on (the same event that gave us the Space Needle; note: I almost just typed Space Noodle). I don't know if she listened to this station, but nonetheless it's a cool memento of old-school Seattle.

(Technical note to mom: these are big files, 30 MB each, so you'll probably want to download them at school, save them to disk and copy to a USB key. Then you can bring the USB key home and import the files into your iTunes library, and listen to them there or on your iPod.)

Track 1
Track 2

That opening jingle on the first track always makes me happy. We ARE the number one-derful people in Seattle.

"You're totally harshing my buzz"

I have a running joke with Andrew that absolutely everybody in his adopted Eugene, Oregon, is high all the time, and basically just contastly smoking the weed, to the exclusion of everything else in life.

Anyway, that's why this is hilarious:

I've got a new job

I'm still at Microsoft, but I've moved over to the Windows Mobile team. This is the operating system that runs on handheld devices, like Smartphones and Pocket PCs. (Check it out here and here.) Version 6 is coming out soon, and I'll be working on testing the release after that.

It should be fun to work on, and at the very least I'll be getting a cool handheld device out of the deal. Swag!

Start buying blue things, and also baseball gloves

Ultrasound provided the crucial visual evidence today: we are having a boy.

Hey, I'm sort of doing it

Skiing, that is!

Over the holidays, Andrew invented a new word while we were all watching the insipid Bob Saget-hosted game-slash-reality show 1 vs. 100.

During the course of the game, each player receives three opportunities to receive assistance from the mob, known as "helps". They are "Poll The Mob", "Ask The Mob", and "Trust The Mob". Each player can choose which of the 3 helps they would like to use at any point in the game.

I noted that "helps" is not actually a word, but merely an attempt to copy lifelines from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire without actually using the word "lifeline". Andrew proposed that "helps" be replaced with the more-trademarkable noun "helpamagoos", which everybody liked better (and, unfortuantely for 1 vs. 100, we invented it first).

I went to Snoqualmie Pass last weekend, and dared to ski on the blue-square (i.e. medium difficulty) trails "Top Traverse" and "Alpine", at a not-very-good weather time (freezing rain made the terrain very slippery). The slope was steep, and I wound up falling and losing a ski, which wouldn't normally be a big deal, except I have trouble getting back up on a slope (blame my poor 31-year-old non-flexibility). Even when I was able to get up, it was super-difficult getting my skis back on. Either the skis would travel downhill without me, or I would slide downhill without my skis. (A helpful snowboarder nicely delivered one of my rogue skis to me.) So, of course, I'm crawling around on the ground like an idiot while more expert skiers are sailing by me with no problem.

It was then that I decided what I need is one helpamagoo per skiing session. Kind of like when you're playing a racing video game, and you crash up and fly off the road, the game helpfully deposits you back on the track, car completely intact. That's what I need while skiing to minimize embarrassment.

In the meantime, I am highly enjoying my birthday present, new skis. I don't think I'll be doing any difficult black diamonds this year... I'm quite content to stick with green circles. Green circles are my friend.

Keep watching the skis!

Pity poor Andrew

It took him more than 24 hours to get from Jacksonville to Eugene. I believe he will not have kind things to say about U.S. Airways once he returns to the living.

What's Going On With James

Well, you see, Internet, I've been having an insane year. The last two months especially... working on the new Windows Vista, plus football officiating, plus... I'm going to be a dad.

Yes, it's true. There's going to a be another Furdell. A very small one.

So, between freaking out, and being really excited, and being super-stressed, I haven't done any writing. I've, honestly, sort of forgotten how. Hanging out with a bunch of English-challenged engineers will do that. So, let's get back into the swing of things and let everybody know What's Going On With James.

1. Seattle's cool, but it's really, really far away.

I love Seattle. I do sometimes feel like I'm in southern Alaska. It doesn't help in the winter when it rains all day and gets pitch dark at 5 p.m. There are, fortunately, tons of things to offset that:

- Rose's Chocolate Treasures in Pike Place Market
- Cinerama (good for action movies)
- My balcony

2. Football season was up and down.
It was my first year with the new association. I got to work at referee more than I had any prior year, which was great.

Funniest moment of the year: I was refereeing a freshman game at Soundview Park in Ballard. After a kickoff, I was getting ready to whistle the ready for play, but out of the side of my eye I noticed something running around on the field... it was someone's dog! The puppy ran toward the end zone carrying the kicking tee, where it stopped to play with its new toy, as one of the players exclaimed, "That's my kicking tee!"

(There's no rule that says a dog can't play football... or a giraffe...)

3. Wikipedia has replaced Casey Kasem in my life
Now, anytime I need to find out about a band or a song, I hit Wikipedia.
"Monkey Gone To Heaven" by the Pixies
"B.Y.O.B." by System of a Down
The Cheeky Girls

4. I worked on an unpopular piece of software.
My team develops the anti-piracy aspects of Windows; I specifically worked on the new volume activation. Volume licensing in the past allowed users to bypass activation, which was one of the big piracy weak points, but although we tried to make it as painless as possible, this new system will require companies' technical pros to do more work to get Windows installed. We'll see how it goes.

5. What the hell am I going to do now?
The year's winding down, football is over, it's holiday time, and I can't wait to take it easy for a few weeks. And, then, after that, try to figure out how the hell to raise a kid. In the meantime, I'll try to squeeze in some more writing. No promises, though. (We're also getting hit with more comment spam than usual, so if comments get closed, that's probably why.)

Go Seahawks.

Happy birthday Kimberly!

I'm trying to convince her that 30 isn't so bad. It's only sort-of working.

Yes, I am old

But I'm also employed. This company had the intelligence and foresight to offer me a job. And/or, I tricked them into thinking I'm smart. Either way, I'll be working in Washington for another few weeks, and then we'll be moving to the other Washington. State, that is.

Once everything's finalized, my job title will be "Senior Developer," further emphasizing my oldness. (I also think that means I get cheap movie tickets now, so bonus.)

Everybody: thanks for all the moral support during the job search.

More student journalists prefer Kimberly-brand studies over any other brand

Dateline -- The Pitt! Or... the 'Burgh! Whatever!

A study written by researchers Harold Wolman and Kimberly Furdell of George Washington University and Edward W. Hill of Cleveland State University looked at cities deemed to be distressed, including Pittsburgh, from 1980-2000. Researchers sought to evaluate the level of success of urban revitalization projects and the changes made from the 1980s to the 1990s.

In the study, researchers perceived that cities like Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cleveland have successfully undergone revitalization since the 1980s.

It's like the old saying goes...

(P.S. Kimberly is defending her life today at 4 p.m. ET. Let's all send her good mental vibes.)

Why this week was crappy for me, personally

Reason 1: Arrested Development was cancelled today. Nobody watched it like I told you to. Taste the sad.

Reason 2: Microsoft doesn't want to hire me. Damn you Billy Gates!

Yes, I had an interview out there in Redmond, Wash. a couple weeks ago.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy. And, in the past, I've sometimes felt unprepared for the pop-quiz portion of software engineering interviews. This time, I was determined to be prepared.

Microsoft's interviews are notoriously difficult; they fly an army of people into Seattle every day, but make offers to only a small fraction of those people. A day of interviews at Microsoft is like running the gauntlet. They schedule you to talk to three or four different people, and if those people all like you enough, you eventually get passed on to the hiring manager... the big boss. (Come to think of it, it's kind of like a video game.)

Microsoft's philosophy is to look at as many people as possible, and try to find the ones who have the best potential, and they would much rather score someone as a false negative than a false positive. As a result, you can get weeded out in a hurry; if they send you home after only a couple interviews, that's a bad sign. So my mission was to do my best to stay alive and not get voted off the proverbial island. (Has Survivor been turned into a proverb yet?)

Before I left, I prepared myself as best I possibly could. I researched the coding questions I was most likely to be asked, and practiced them in C. I brushed up on C++ and object-oriented programming, and did my best to study up on testing procedures. I even picked up a copy of How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, which is full of famous logic questions (even though Microsoft has moved away from such questions).

I was nervous the day of the interview, as usual. This would be an even longer and arduous process than normal interviews, but it would also be a good test of how well I had prepared. One by one, I talked to members of the Office Business Application team, who were looking for a "Software Development Engineer in Test" (that's a diplomatic way of making "software tester" sound almost as cool as "software developer", even though it's clearly not).

My first interview was with "Altaf", who asked me a question I had prepared for: reverse a string (of words) in place. Mysteriously, I knew how to code it up quickly on the whiteboard. Later, when "Hamesh" asked me to eliminate the duplicate elements of an array, and "Brett" asked me to find missing element in an (n-1)-element array of distinct integers from 1 to n, I was again mysteriously able to come up with solutions (ahem... had some practice on those too). After answering some hypothetical questions from "Clodagh", I made it to the Big Boss... "Anu". I was excited about getting that far... I made it all the way to the end!

It felt like a miracle. Altaf, Hamesh, Brett, Clodagh and Anu. (Heh... "Brett.") I felt like I had set them up and knocked them down. Getting past the technical quizzes is the tough part; I can talk about myself in an interesting and engaging fashion for hours if I can just get past the damn tests.

Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. Getting turned down for a job is tough in any case, but this one really hurt because the degree of difficulty was so high, and I really thought I had nailed it. Microsoft told me they would "move quickly" on a decision, but wound up taking two weeks before giving me the bad news. Maybe that means I was close to landing it; I really have no idea why, in the end, they didn't want me. And that's the most frustrating thing of all; I'd really like to know whether I did some to screw it up in the end, or if there were just other candidates who were better qualified.

Not that it's all bad that I won't be working there. The primary benefits were obvious; they would cover relocation, and I would gain experience in Windows programming and testing, two areas where I really haven't had much experience at all (which also could have been a factor). There were some major red flags going up as I researched employment at Microsoft. Most troubling is the stack-ranking system they have for employee reviews; they grade on a curve, which means somebody always has to get the shaft (and it's usually the new guy). It makes for a less-than-comfortable work environment. Plus, lately, a lot of their smartest employees have jumped ship, worried that the software behemoth is focusing too much of "defense" (i.e. protecting its monopolies) and not enough on "offense" (i.e. innovation and promoting new ideas). Not that I think I would have been one of their smartest people if they had hired me, but I still found it interesting that former long-time employees feel like Microsoft's best (and most interesting) days are behind it.

So anyway, I'm disappointed that it's back to the drawing board on the job search. That's the other reason getting an offer would have rocked... because looking for a job SUPER-SUCKS. It's especially hard in my field, because it's not enough that you have x years of experience or attended y university... you're expected to prove yourself anew to each potential employer. Over the past several weeks I've worked on practice problems, programming quizzes, sample projects, and even an I.Q. test (really!) to prove my worth to various hiring managers. I've done nearly as much coding over the past month as I did all year while having a programming job (sadly, they didn't really give me a whole lot of work to do).

For example: this was a project I did while applying for this job. They said it should take two-three hours; it took me about 10 hours to get it right. After sending it to them, they almost immediately rejected me. Here's another piece of code I worked on for another company's programming test; it was so difficult I wasn't even able to finish in time. This is annoying, not only because it reinforces my low self-esteem, but because doing this work eats up a lot of time, and it's just demoralizing when all that work turns out to have been fruitless. My latest opus is this tic-tac-toe program, which I can only hope will impress the company I wrote it for: "Tic Tac Toe Industries." Hopefully they'll be impressed that my computer player always tries to select the center square first; Andrew calls that the "James gambit."

(OK, that last part was a lie; he actually called it the "Picard manuever." Damn you, Jean-Luc! Always outshining me!)

At any rate, it was great hanging out with Andrew, and it was great being in Seattle. It really reiterated to me how much I love it there... I would love, love, love to move there. Here's hoping somebody will be willing to hire me long-distance.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

My brotha.

Kickin' it West Coast.

More info on Robin Furdell's plane crash

Here.

Furdell news... ON THE MARCH!

We at furdell.com hear your cries. "Where's Kimberly?!" you ask frantically. "She never calls, she never writes..."

Well, she's actually doing something important, unlike the rest of us.

The study ? "Evaluating the Success of Urban Success Stories: Is Reputation a Guide to Best Practice?" ? examined whether opinion matched reality about revitalization efforts in 48 distressed U.S. cities between 1990 and 2000.

[...]

The study, which updated a similar one done 10 years ago, was conducted by Wolman and Kimberly Furdell of George Washington University and Edward W. Hill of Cleveland State University. It was released last month in the Housing Policy Debate, a Fannie Mae journal.

The angle for this particular article: experts' low opinions about Rochester's level of economic distress are, well, accurate.

This has been Furdell news... ON THE MARCH!

(Buy Snacky Smores.)

Question 1: How does a janitor have $2.3 million?

Question 2: Getting a raise, Dad?

Furdells... ON THE MARCH!

Dateline: my mom!

?Local politicians talk with even more platitudes and generalizations than the national ones,? said Elizabeth Furdell of Jacksonville, Fla. ?I assume most running for office will tout themselves as pro-family, anti-crime, pro-education. I want to know more about how candidates stand on development, traffic, schools, sewers, etc. I don?t care if they?re religious or not, only that they have some clue about these real concerns ordinary people face.?

Ahh, mom. Always so refreshingly eloquent. What's she doing in the Spokane (Wa.) Spokesman-Review? No idea.

Random Furdells... ON THE MARCH!

DATELINE! Somewhere in southwestern Florida.

? April Etzold will coach the North Fort Myers Red Knights, who will be led by senior captain Eselina Sepulveda and junior co-captain Lauren Brod. Juniors Kayla Campisi, Taryn Glynn, Gina Dibagno and Misty Furdell also will contribute.

Way to go, Misty!

I have no idea who you are, but presumably you are related to me. Sooo... way to... contribute. With the swimming.

Oh yeah

Kimberly and I have been married four years now. Actually, four years plus one day. Rawk. Andrew: thanks for the present.

Go Andrew; it's your birthday

Don't try to act like you don't know where he's been, either.

He's in the club all the time.

Happy birthday, Kimberly

After seemingly years of anticipation, Kimberly's special day is here.

I got her a new bike.

Leave birthday greetings here.

Happy birthday, Dad

Bow down before the awesomeness of our vacation

Presenting the story of James and Kimberly's Awesome European Vacation, Featuring London and Paris. It may indeed be the Best Vacation Ever; the Good Vacation Luck Gods were smiling upon us the entire time, as well they should.

FYI, the details are long and boring and of little or no appeal to the general public. This is primarily a service to our friends, so that we don't have to bore them in person with endless details about what we did (we can bore them on the Internet instead). Don't click on the jump if you're not interested in the gory details.

First of all, props to my homies in the W12. (Translation: big thanks to Mom and Theo for letting us crash their flat while they were in London doing research. Without them providing lodging, we wouldn't have been able to stay in Europe as long as we did.)

Thursday 13 May

We arrived in London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday morning after an overnight flight. (Note: British Airways? Best airline ever. Great food, free alcohol, and they even provide you with a toothbrush. Utterly brilliant!)

I mention to the passport guy that it would be hard to get Arsenal (soccer) tickets. He says he prefers a sport with some proper violence (rugby). He then said "jolly good" and stamped us through. For the next two weeks, we said "jolly good" after roughly every third sentence.

We ate some toast, drank some tea, and slept for five hours after finding the Shepherd's Bush flat. Once we recovered from that, we took the double-decker bus to Piccadilly Circus, on the top level of course. We walked around a bit, then found a pub in Leicester Square called the Brewmaster and had some fish and chips. From this day forward, I would like to be known as the Brewmaster. Our dinner came with the ubiquitous British peas (Kimberly's favorite), as well as the mystery known only as... "brown sauce." (What the hell is brown sauce? I should have also asked for purple stuff.)

After that, we did a little window shopping up Regent Street, while eating some delicious gelato. Hamleys, the best toy store ever, rocked our faces, and included a giant rendering of Harry Potter in Lego form.

Friday 14 May

This day was especially busy. We started at the British Museum, which includes all the relics from nations that were at some point conquered by England: the Rosetta Stone, pieces of the Parthenon, giant sculptures of pharohs, etc. It's a museum to end all museums, and sits in a large space, with a circular reading room in the center. And, it turns out, it also has a good cafe for lunch. I had the salmon. Yum.

We then hopped a bus down to Parliament. After getting the requisite pictures of Big Ben and the Parliament building, we spur-of-the-moment got in line to get into the House of Commons. After about 10 minutes they let us in. The inside of Parliament is even more amazing than the outside; very ornate, with beautiful art along the walls. We caught the very end of a boring speech until 3 p.m., and which point they prompty adjourned, in mid-sentence. That's the way to do it.

Westminster Abbey was across the street. Another beautiful, ornate buliding. Lots of dead kings and queens inside. Poets as well, in Poets Corner. We took a break in a pub and had a pint before meeting Mom and Theo at the Painted Heron, an Indian restaurant on the Thames. Delicious food, and we were stuffed afterwards, so I hailed us a cab home.

Saturday 15 May

Portobello Road! After Kimberly stopped singing the Bedknobs and Broomsticks song, we checked out this miles-long street market. All kinds of antiques, baubles, and, dare I say it, tchotchkes, at one end; a flea market at the other end; and a produce/farmer's market in the middle. Kimberly made the first purchase of the day: a toast stand that spells TOAST! We thumbed through tons of silver, books, and jewelry. Kimberly bought a purple purse on the flea market end for ?6, haggled down from ?7 by yours truly, thank you very much. In the farmer's market we bought some big raspberries and a loaf of bread for making French toast later. Finally, I bought three small, wooden, custom-made pub signs for hanging in the kitchen or something.

Whew... time to relax. If only there were a place in London to relax, sit down, have a cold beer, and watch some footy... A-HA WAIT A MINUTE! Turns out there are thousands of such places, called "pubs." We chose one called The Green, adjacent to Shepherd's Bush Green, and watched Arsenal beat Leicester City to become the first team to go through the 38-game Premier League schedule without ever losing a match. (I had been tempted earlier to place a fiver on a draw result at 11-1, but wound up chickening out, so I was glad when Vieira put Arsenal ahead for good.) During the match a big group of college students came by halfway through their pub crawl.

In the evening, we went back down to the West End and ate at the Soho Pizzeria on Beak Street, near Carnaby Street. A relaxing dinner with cheap chianti and tasty pizza, and the servers were delighted that I brought the American concept of 15-percent tipping to the U.K.

Sunday 16 May

Kimberly cooked up some delicious French toast from the ingredients acquired the previous day. Then we went to Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, where any crazy person can get up on a soapbox and start talking about whatever their crazy heart desires. Plenty of good insane people about today: crazy monarchy guy, crazy cowboy hat guy, and crazy proper English lady in flowery dress touting Christianity.

After that we walked all around Hyde Park, down to the Serpentine, up to the Italian fountains, back down to the Peter Pan statue, and across all the way to Kensington Palace.

Late in the afternoon, I gave Kimberly a bit of the James Reality Tour by showing her the Maida Vale flat where Mom, Andrew and I lived for six months in 1987. We checked out Little Venice, and took in a couple pints at a fine local drinking establishment. At night, we went back to Soho and had dinner in Chinatown for some set menu deliciousness. We walked around Chinatown, and bought a bag of what looked sort of like Rice Krispies, but was really a dessert made of crunched-up fortune cookie dough. Yum.

Monday 17 May

Best day ever? Perhaps. We started in the morning by trying to get day tickets to a play, Tom Stoppard's new adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV at the Donmar Warehouse theater. The theater sells 10 tickets on the day of each sold-out show; it didn't look like we were going to get any, until Tube troubles forced the box office to delay opening for half an hour. Some people gave up waiting and left; we didn't, and managed to snag the last of the day tickets at 11 a.m.

That left plenty of time to hotfoot it back down to Westminster Pier and catch a Thames river boat to Kew Gardens. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we got to hear Big Ben strike noon as we set sail. We sat on the deck and watched the river sights go by.

An hour later we arrived at Kew. Acres of grounds stretch out in every direction, planted with different types of trees and flowers from all over the world. Kimberly liked the Palm House, with tropical plants and a pond with huge goldfish. There were large flower beds filled with tulips outside the Palm House, and statues representing different parts of Britain, like a greyhound and a griffin.

After hours of walking around gawking at the flowers, we headed for an afternoon tea at the gardens' Orangery. Hot tea, tasty sandwiches, some scones and cake to finish up... it was all very British.

We tubed back to our flat and got ready for our play. The theater turned out to be tiny, with a capacity for fewer than 200 people. We were upstairs, but right on top of the actors and very close. Ian McDiarmid, a.k.a. Emperor Palpatine, did an incredible job playing a man deluded into thinking he's medieval German king Henry IV. Perfect mindbending material for Stoppard to work with. We finished the night with a late dinner at Fuel Bar, which served us some tasty pasta outside in the warm evening dusk. Perfect day!

Tuesday 18 May

Time for the much-anticipated side trip to Paris. We boarded the high-speed Chunnel train at Waterloo station and arrived at Paris' Gare du Nord two and a half hours later. After successfully avoiding pickpockets, we bought a carnet of Metro tickets and worked our way over to where our hotel was, near Cardinal Lemoine station.

It was a hot 85 degrees in Paris as we made our way up the hill towards the Pantheon. Our hotel was called the Hotel des Grand Hommes, which we found with no problem. The man who checked us in gave us a nice surprise: upgrade to the top-floor suite, baby!

Yes, it was that incredible. And yes, we had breakfast on the balcony.

We walked around and grabbed some delicious crepes at a creperie near the hotel. Kimberly's was chocolaty and coconutty; mine was boozy and aflame. Then we walked through the Jardin du Luxembourg, a beautiful and popular park. On the way back we stopped at a French comic book store, where I bought a French-language of version of Superman. Gotta find some way to bridge that language gap... although the more French I read and spoke while there, the easier it got. I took several years of French in high school, and was a little nervous about communicating, but it started to come back to me the more we immsersed ourselves in it.

After returning to the hotel chilling for a while (and watching French quiz shows), we set out and made our way toward the Champs-Elysees. We walked up the famous road, flanked by shops and such, and stopped by a fast-food sandwich place. Perhaps predictably, the baguette sandwich I had from this fast-food stand was better than the food I've had in most American chain sit-down restuarants.

We made our way up to the solemn Arc de Triomphe and marvelled at its architecture. Then we jumped on the Metro again and headed for the Eiffel Tower, which was lit up and beautiful at dusk. At sunset, it lit up with sparkly lights, which several people gathered on the nearby green were waiting to see.

Getting back was tricky, as after we walked past L'Ecole Militaire, the Metro station we had been shooting for was unexpectedly closed. But we found and open one and made our way back to the hotel for some well-deserved sleep.

Wednesday 19 May

Another hot and sunny day. We headed out for some sightseeing after hitting a nearby cafe for deux omelettes avec jambon et fromage (at this point I was starting to think in French, too... scary). We headed for the middle of Paris, to the island known as Ile de la Cite, which holds the Notre Dame cathedral. After nosing around inside and getting some pictures, we took a picturesque walk up the bank of the Seine to the Musee d'Orsay, perhaps my favorite art museum in the world. They have a great Impressionism collection, and the architecture of the building, a former train station, is fantastic. In fact, every building was a sight to look at; most featured gargoyles, clocks, and other ornate decorations. The museum also provided a great view of the Right Bank from its top floor.

We were tired and had museum legs after that, so we hopped the train back to the hotel and napped for a couple hours before dinner. Then came the moment of truth: I had to hail a cab and tell the driver where we were going, en francais. Which proved to be difficult because the little Frommer's Paris book I picked up had the wrong address for the restaurant. In fact, the address they had didn't exist on that street, which the cabbie told me in French (and I just managed to understand). He took us to the road and I eventually just told him to stop on the street so that we could walk around and find it, which we did after just another block.

Then came the next test: ordering food at the restaurant. I had managed to make reservations earlier in the week from London, but had had to do it in English after an abortive attempt at French. So I was a bit apprehentious apprehensive about trying to read the menu. Fortunately, I had bought a little English-Francais dictionary earlier in the day, which helped to translate the words I didn't recognize.

The restuarant was just incredible. I've been telling everyone since that France's food is on a whole 'nother level... they're the major leagues, and we're just Double-A. Kimberly hadn't wanted to to the traditional heavily-sauced French food, so I found a restuarant in our neighborhood that featured food from the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, a place where many French people go on vacation. Coco de Mer featured several seafood dishes done with a French bent. To start, we were adventuresome: Kimberly had tuna tartare, and I ordered an octopus au gratin dish, which was incredible. For entrees I had swordfish in a fruity salsa. Finally, we finished with incredible desserts: one chocolate covered brownie and one mango mousse. I even was able to order pre-dinner drinks and wine with little problem (there was no wine list, so I just had to pick the first wine I recognized off the list the waitress rattled off). This dinner is definitely going in my Top 5 Dinners list.

After finishing with an espresso I was a little wound up, so I wandered down to an Internet cafe and caught up on the world. As I walked back to the room, the Eiffel Tower was sparkly and lit up once again. I sat on our balcony and listed to dance music on the radio (AWESOME), watching the partied-out students below stumble home in the cool night.

Thursday 20 May

On our last day in Paris we took breakfast on the balcony. We had a few hours to kill until our return train to London, so we squeezed in a little more sightseeing. We ambled through the incredible Rodin Museum, which features a near-complete set of the famous sculptor's work, with some of the more famous pieces (including The Thinker) sitting outisde of the museum in a lovely garden. We spent a good amount of time there before wandering across the street to the Hotel des Invalides, a hospital for veterans that includes the ridiculously ornate Tomb of Napoleon, but also houses a great and solemn new exhibit in the Museum commemorating WWII.

After all that we finally headed back to London. When we arrived back at the flat we were too tired to go out, so after perusing the delivery options availble to us in Shepherd's Bush, we of course went with the best option, Space Pizza. Mmm... pizza from space.

Friday 21 May

Thursday had seen the start of the latest international cricket test match between England and New Zealand. For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, which would be everyone, test matches are played by traditional cricket rules, and are allotted five days in which to complete them. Friday was Day 2 of the match, and I wasn't sure how likely it would be for us to get tickets to the day's action at Lord's Cricket Ground in northwest London. Somehow, I managed to convince Kimberly to tube with me out to St. John's Wood to find out.

Fortunately, a nice man with a bullhorn at the foot of the tube escalator let us know there were still tickets available at the gate. We walked the few blocks to Lord's and purchased a couple seats with no problem, although the day's action had already started about 30 minutes earlier (which means we didn't miss much at all).

People tend to boggle at the fact that a cricket lasts for days, and that they play all day. In the States we'll complain if a baseball game lasts more than three hours; watching a days-long cricket match would seem downright boring to most of us. In reality, it's a chance to spend all day outside enjoying the (admittedly schizophrenic) British weather, perhaps while enjoying a picnic and some alcoholic beverages while chatting with friends. There's no obligation to pay 100% close attention to all of the action; indeed, capturing a wicket (10 of which end an inning) is so rare that we only saw it happen twice during the five hours we were there, and only at the very beginning of the day to end New Zealand's first innings. Most of the time you're watching the same two players bat, and cheering if they manage to hit one all the way to the boundary for an automatic four runs, or straight into the stands for six.

Mostly, the spectators carried coolers with them filled with sandwiches and drinks. Of course, you could also nip out for some fish and chips from Vinegar Joe's, which we did, or some Pimm's or Guinness or Fosters. We were a little bit cold on the overcast and drizzly day, and sitting in the shade, so we required some frequent trips for coffee and tea while trying to stay warm.

During the lunch break, I bought a big floppy white sun hat, like they wear on the field. I am determined to make it my new trademark.

After New Zealand got out, England batted for the rest of the day. We got to see Andrew Strauss, in his first test match, have a great day by putting up 100 runs by himself before being put out, which is not a common feat. Eventually, around the tea-time break, we just got too cold and had to head home to watch the rest on the telly. All in all, a fun day. (And, in the end, England wound up winning on the very last day.)

In the evening, we took it easy and rested up for the next day's trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. Oh, and we made sandwiches for dinner. Public service announcement: English mustard is much, much hotter than our mustard. Much hotter.

Saturday 22 May

Before we left the States, I had purchased tickets for a matinee performance of Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Straford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. To get there required taking a train from Paddington Station, which I expected to be quiet on a Saturday morning at 9 a.m.; little did I realize that fans of Millwall, the little-known middle-of-the-pack Division One soccer team that had surprised everyone by making the final of the FA Cup, would be gathered at Paddington for their charter train to the match in Cardiff, Wales. Millwall is apparently a team in South London, and their blue-clad die-hard supporters had gathered at Paddington early to chant, revel, and drink.

We jumped on our train, which afforded a lovely view of the English countryside once we got outside of London (past Slough, the Reston-like suburb where The Office is set). We arrived in the lovely little town of Stratford-upon-Avon about 11:30 and walked around. It was filled with people out and about enjoying the beautiful May afternoon. We walked along the river and eventually made our way to Lamb's restaurant on Sheep street, which Mom and Theo had recommended.

We had a tasty lunch and made our way over to the performance, which was great. Our seats were two rows from the stage, so we had a great view of all the lovely violence and gore. (Macbeth has long been my favorite Shakespeare play; it reminds me of films noirs like Double Indemnity, where the black cloak of murder hangs over the characters and infuses every scene with dread.) The actors were suitably creepy, especially Lady Macbeth; Kimberly said the scenes with the witches made her arm hairs stand on end.

Afterwards, we found a lovely local drinking establishment. Funnily enough, it was a UK suburban chain restaurant with a Chicago motif that was trying to be more like an American restuarant, a la T.G.I. Fridays. We had a pint and managed to catch the end of the footy match; sadly for our friends from earlier that day at Paddington, Millwall lost 3-0 to heavily favored Manchester United.

After returning to London, we stopped for dinner at Gioia Mia in Shepherd's Bush, a cute little neighborhood Italian restaurant that was actually quite good. Another utterly brilliant day! Jolly good!

Sunday 23 May

We spent the day doing some low-key sightseeing in London. Fortunately, two things we wanted to see had good Sunday opening hours.

First, we hit the British Library, the new home of all those amazing manuscripts I remembered seeing at the British Museum in 1997. The Treasures room is aptly named; it has Shakespeare's first folio, Jane Austen's writing desk, an early version of Alice in Wonderland handwritten by Lewis Carroll, original printings of each installment of David Copperfield, multiple copies of the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg bible, original poetry handwritten by Seamus Heaney and W.B. Yeats, original musical compositions written (and, in some cases, corrected) by Mozart and Beetoven, original scribblings by the Beatles... and that's not even half of it. Kimberly especially liked the preserved sound recordings, such as Florence Nightengale giving an address, Yeats reading one of his poems, and James Joyce reading from one of his confusing books in a suitably dense Irish brogue. Hearing Virginia Woolf reading in her deep, majestic voice was interesting.

Next we headed down to the Tate Modern gallery, a fairly new museum in South London built in an old abandoned factory. I agreed with Kimberly to skip any paintings that were just colored squares; fortunately, there were tons of other great pieces to look at. One room featured colorful communist propaganda from early Soviet Russia; another featured some Andy Warhol paintings, a first for me, which were really interesting. There were also works by Mir?, one of Kimberly's favorite authors, and Max Ernst, and of course a sprinkling of Picassos.

After taking an unscheduled detour through Elephant and Castle, which is not nearly as cool a neighborhood as it sounds, we headed for Piccadilly Circus and settled on an early dinner at Adam's Rib, which made a brave attempt at serving American food but couldn't quite hit the mark. But it did have a nice window overlooking the street and a row of theaters. After dinner, we took a walk and made an impromptu executive decision to check out a movie at the Leicester Square Odeon. We saw Bon Voyage, a French comedy-drama set during the German occupation of France. It was surprisingly good! Sadly, no one came by to sell us albatross during the interval. Pleased with our good fortune, we returned home to meet Mom and Theo and regale them with stories of our exploits.

Monday 24 May

We had to check out a castle while staying in London, and preferably one that, of course, has a hedge maze. We settled on Hampton Court, a popular sightseeing destional southwest of London that was once home to Henry VIII.

The interior was amazing; every floor, wall and ceiling was beautifully ornamented. The Great Hall was particularly stunning, with high arched ceilings. There were several student groups walking around, and some employees walking around in period costume, giving it a slight Disneyland feel but still fun nonetheless. The old kitchens were interesting, with a vast floorplan and an interesting array of cooking implements and gadgets for feeding a palace full of people.

The outside of the palace looks as you would expect a palace to; red brick with large ramparts and several courtyards, one of which had a large, beautiful clock that chimed the hour. The garden were very impressive and huge, with lovely flowers planted everywhere. A huge vine takes up a good bit of real estate in one part of the grounds. The maze was fun; we made it to the middle and back out again, and felt like little kids. The trees in the large garden at the rear of the castle were mercilessly pruned into wide cones, because nature must be NEAT and ORDERLY! We laughed at seeing that, as we had in Paris.

Another cool sight at the palace was the royal tennis court, and long indoor room where two men were actually playing the adjusted-rules tennis that seems to incorporate some of the rules and physics of racquetball. The ball could be played off any surface, and the players were using the old-style wooden racquets.

We got back to Waterloo station and split up for a couple hours. I sat at a pub and watched the final bit of the cricket test match, while Kimberly went to see a Salvador Dali exhibit nearby in the Royal County Hall, under the Saatchi Gallery. Kimberly admired over 500 pieces of Dali's work, including illustrations for Don Quixote and some of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. She liked his sculptures the best, especially the Femme Giraffe and the famous melting-clock-on-a-wooden-hanger. I admired a couple pints of ale and England's impressive down-to-the-wire win against the Kiwis.

At 5:30 we met Mom and Theo by the London Eye, basically a giant Ferris wheel that makes one revolution every 30 minutes and provides a panoramic view of all of London. We saw everything up there, and took copious pictures like tourists. After the Eye, we went to Soho to seek out a Hungarian restaurant that Mom recommended, called the Gay Hussar. It turned out to be great; the dining room was small and cheerful, which bright white linens and sparkling silver. Kimberly had delicious chilled wild cherry soup for a starter, which she loved. Most importantly, now we can say we've had Hungarian food.

Tuesday 25 May

This was our last full day in London. First we took a half-day trip to Oxford, where I spent Summer 1997 in the Emory study abroad program, for the final leg of James Reality Tour. We left from Paddington again, and this time I made sure to get Kimberly's photo with the Paddington Bear statue, now that now Millwall fanatics were in the way. Please look after this bear, thank you.

Oxford is beautiful, with all the campus buildings made from yellow Cotswold stone. It was an exam day, and we spotted some students coming out of theirs wearing traditional Oxford exam dress: caps and formal robes. Very scholarly. We walked down High Street and found where I had stayed and taken classes, University College. We managed to sneak in via the side entrance down Logic Lane, and I showed Kimberly all the old haunts. We had lunch at the Grand Cafe on High Street, which fed us some delicious sandwiches and coffee (it claims to be England's first coffee house). We had yummy white chocolate truffle cake for dessert to tide us over.

Later we did some shopping at an indoor market, and made our way up to the Eagle and Child pub, where J.R.R. Tolkein, C.S. Lewis and their friends ("The Inklings") once frequented, and downed a quick half-pint of lager. The Inklings used to sit in the Rabbit Room, so we did too, and checked out some of the literary mementos they had on display. (And we laughed at the American Hobbit-nerd who sat next to us with his mother, taking pictures of everything on the walls.)

After returning to London, I wanted to hit the West End one final time. We had one last big shopping spree, where we bought everything we might have had an eye on previously. First I stopped at Soccer Scene, and got Pup his Manchester United jersey he had requested. I also got a polo shirt with the logo of Queens Park Rangers, as it has "Loftus Road", where our flat was located, in the logo. (The team plays right behind where our flat was, at Loftus Road Stadium. Dig that fight song... "We'll stick the blug flag up your arse!")

I picked up another shirt at a Gap-type store called "Next" that featured a big stylized representation of the English flag (white with an off-center red cross), probably on sale in preparation for the Euro 2004 soccer tournament coming up. We walked from Carnaby Street, all the way down Oxford Street, until the stores started repeating.

Finally, we headed back for the flat and deposited our stuff. Late in the evening, we took our last meal at a Greek Restaurant on the Uxbridge road near our flat. It was a nice, leisurely cap-off to a great vacation. We decided that there's no way to see everything there is to see in London, so we resolved to catch up on those things we may have missed "next time."

We're back too

Brain not yet working. We did so much in two weeks in England and France that it's hard to wrap my head around all of it right now. But everything went perfectly, and we even got really lucky on a few occasions. Details some time in the future when brain works again.

Honorary Furdells

Because our friends are also hilarious, like us they deserve to have a voice. Eric Lipman, in fact, demanded it, and his late comments on Andrew's Jew Watch post are certainly worth repeating:

Alright boys (& kfree) - you're my web-savvy friends, so here's my idea; make it so:

Hijack the JewWatch domain name or IP address or whatever thingy you have to, and link it to . . . me. I'll get one of those webcams and Krazy Glue it to my head, leave it on 24/7, and all the anti-semites [please read that word as though spoken with the Polish immigrant accent of my late Great Aunt (in both senses of the term) Taube, affectionately known simply as "The T": ANti-semITES; in the interest of full disclosure, she was occasionally known to refer to Jesse Jackson as "that blek bestahd,"] can see how the chosen people really live, and that we're not so evil.

Imagine all they'd learn.

For example, they'd get to see me sit behind my desk, using my law degree to fight not-so-passionately to defend the interests of big corporations (often run by non-jews) accused of screwing the little guy.

They'd get to see me eat a bagel and bacon together - an image that screams religious and ethnic harmony.

They'd get to see me . . . well, that's pretty much what I do - eat and work. If nothing else, maybe I could bore the hate out of them.

Just a thought, nay, a little something extra.

(Ahh, a Lagniappe shout-out, no less.)

Meanwhile, the stuffed toy bear of dear Furdell friend John Chan has somehow found his way into the blogosphere. He's a playa and his name is Pup. And he is, predictably, funky.

You will listen to me. I am Pup. Pup is the voice in the back of your head.

Yes, I will speak in third person about myself. So what? That's cool yo.

Here I will Rant on and on because all I do is sit in the apt. all day watching my Bonzi tree grow.

Today's post was brought to you by the number P.

Watch out, playas. Pup's coming to steal your ladies.