T Minus Four Weeks

Today marks exactly four weeks prior to my start date in London.

Despite two weeks away (a week at the corporate mothership learning my new job and then a week at the in-laws for Christmas) we have made great progress on the London prep. I have booked tickets for us and the cats (flying out Jan 23), we have temporary housing, we have a storage locker for the stuff that is staying and are getting moving estimates for the stuff that's coming, and we've picked out what is what for each of those categories. We have started packing the non-essential stuff that we are leaving behind, and Mary is shifting into "clean the freezer out" mode. It's starting to get real!

The two trips were very successful in their own rights as well. The work trip was mainly to introduce me to my new job and team, and went well. There are a lot of interesting projects going on, and I really enjoyed talking with all the folks I met. I also got re-introduced to the joys of recreational math via Project Euler and will likely be using that to refresh my Perl skills. I haven't used it in a while, and even when I did I allowed myself to succumb to the laziness that Perl inspires rather than keeping myself disciplined into writing decent code. The new group uses a lot of well-structured Perl, so hopefully that will shame me into behaving.

Christmas was fun, and it was nice to see my in-laws. It's always a pretty chill affair, and we were able to relax and chat and unwind from all of the London madness. Per our request for folks to avoid durable goods we got mostly gift cards, though we did get a bunch of travel books for England and Europe which we plan to use quite extensively.

Go Mode

Every sufficiently close relationship tends to develop it's own language. Sometimes, I feel like Mary and I speak entirely in code. An example of this is "Go Mode". Go Mode is when one of us gets so focused on doing something that everything else -- no matter how important -- falls by the wayside. An example of usage is "Bill, I know you are in Go Mode, but you still need to eat." One generally uses it to describe the other spouse, and tries to pronounce the capitols.

After quite a while of nothing much at all going on with the move, every imaginable thing was suddenly getting underway at once. In part, we have a handful of related things we wanted to get squared away before leaving (doctors visits, a week-long trip to CT for me for work, Christmas travel) and December seemed like the perfect month to schedule absolutely every one of them. Suddenly, we were both in Go Mode all the time.

Now, we finally feel like we are getting stuff done. As of Thursday our visas have been issued, and those should be getting FedExed to Mary's office as I type. We have appointments with several moving companies, and have selected a storage place for the things we are not bringing. We've picked a travel date, and I have reached out to the travel agent to start getting the ticketing process (more of a process due to the cats) underway. We even have temporary housing almost squared away! I place to live! How novel!

The way to really tell that I am finally out of Go Mode though? I actually slept through an entire night last night, without once waking up to mentally iterate through our many to-do lists. Take that, Go Mode.

My Voice Is My Passport. Verify Me.

As part of the visa process, we have to go in and "have our biometrics taken." Biometrics! It's sounds so scientific and futuristic! We knew that this would involve fingerprinting, but what else? It had to be more, because if it was just fingerprinting then it would be called "having our fingerprints taken." But this? This is Biometrics!

I, being fascinated by the world, am dying to find out what this means. Will there be retinal scans? Voice printing? Will state-sponsored phrenologists be called in to map the complex geometry of our skulls to prevent Tom Cruise in a rubber mask from infiltrating the UK? We'll know later.

Update: We have now returned from the biometrics and....it was just fingerprints. High-tech scanning of the fingerprints into a computer, but still. They also took another photo. This time, smiling was ok as long as no teeth showed. I went with the blank stare again, just in case.

She's Having His Baby

Fetch the royal dummy!

Hereditary rulers in modern times fascinate me. I can see how lineage could make a difference in olden times. When you couldn't ride across the kingdom in a single day, having a broad network of people who through trust, fear, or purchase could be relied on to enforce your rules would be key. Maintaining the various mergings and divisions of those networks via marriage and birth is the easiest way to make sure that folks stay in line even after you die.

In modern times however...just...how? How are there still kings? I do realize that unlike some (I'm looking at you, Kim Jung Un) the royals in the UK are actually figureheads, more preservers of culture than setters of policy. Still, It's fascinating.

So now a royal baby is on the way. I had actually been hoping for this, because I am curious to what extent the average Londoner cares about the royals. The run-up to this little bundle of joy's birth will be the perfect lens through which to view those feelings. Do they actually care? Or are the royals just their version of the Kardashians with worse teeth and more corgis? Can I pick up a commemorative plate? Will we get the birthday off from work?