Its About Time!

Ok, so I have been back in Tacoma for awhile and haven’t been updating. I have TONS of pictures from our trip to the UK and have yet to put any of them up. I was hoping to Geotag them, but it seems as though I am really too lazy to. Geo tagging over 2000 pictures may just be too much. With the way I have been doing it. So, I have created a flickr album, one for each day, and linked it from here and from each appropriate blog entry. I’m getting bored here, so expect geocache stuff in the near future!! Tomorrow, I am rolling out a guide on how to Geotag photos using a Mac!

Stonehenge/Glastonbury! 8/15

So Stonehenge was pretty cool. Sadly, we couldn’t get too close to it, so it was a little small. Check out the pictures, linked bellow!

We then drove over to Glastonbury, said to be the location of the Isle of Avalon, the final resting place of King Arthur. We checked out the old Abbey of Glastonbury, which was completely torn down. It is said that the Abbey is the oldest Christian Church, and that Joseph of Arimathia visited here on a few occasions (locals say that he even brought Jesus). It is even said that Joseph brought the Holy Grail here, and washed it in the well. Whether or not the stories are true, there is a lot of history here. Overlooking the abbey is a large Tor, with a small tower on top, the last remnants of a small, sister abbey. Sadly, Cromwell, had the Glastonbury Abbeys destroyed, so ruins are all that are left.

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022097&l=7045e&id=17700012
and here -> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022098&l=efea0&id=17700012

IM TIRED!

I’m so tired! Tonight is our last night in the UK... BUT, I have been carefully documenting the journey, and will update everything when I get home... or maybe when I get to Tacoma. But I have found new and wonderful ways to display my travels and photos! Geotagging! And iPhoto and Google Earth and HoudahGeo! Oh man, everything will be so much prettier and faster I can’t wait! I’ll be stateside tomorrow! Check back here for crazy vacation blog-ness!

Stonehenge 8/14/07

We are stuck in traffic right now... Our engine is off, and for the first day it is raining. The channel was dark and full of white caps, it was really windy, and pretty cool. We are on the M25, south of London on the way to Stone Henge, and eventually Bristol. Annnnnd my battery is at 3%......

SO! We were stuck between junction 8 and 9 on M25 for about an hour. It was pretty humorous when Laura had to go to the bathroom. It was raining, and my Dad got out of the car in the middle of the motorway (freeway) and began scoping things out, as soon as he did, so did the rest of the freeway. It was basically a parking lot for a long time. We heard on the radio that a lourie (a big rig) had turned over and they couldn’t get it out of the way. When things finally started moving, we realized that the truck had actually turned over only a couple hundred yards in front of us. Had we been going a tiny bit faster, we possibly could have avoided the whole mess, or heaven forbid, been a part of it.

The sad thing is because of our long delay, on top of a second over turned lourie, a missed turn and other traffic, we had to skip all our attractions today, and head straight into Bristol. So we are in the hotel room, and we plan for stonehenge tomorrow! woo!

Bodiam Castle 8/13/07

Today is my Dad’s 50th birthday! Half a century old! dang, thats old! haha, Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today we departed hastings to visit the Castle at Bodiam. On the way we stopped off at Battle Abbey, the location of a battle between the Norman, William the conqueror and the Saxon King Herald in 1066. In the end, Herald was done through, and England was forever changed, becoming an imperial behemoth, and eventually a funny talking cousin of the colonies. The abbey was pretty cool, but it was way expensive, so we continued on our way.

I have to say that Bodiam Castle is truely amazing. When I build my castle, AND I WILL, it will be in the same style of Bodiam. It was built to protect the river from the French. It was then abandoned and had trees growing up through it and was covered in vines. There was a painting of it, which looked amazing. This castle style with moat is a later castle than what we saw a the Tower of London, which was basically a fortified keep. At Bodiam, the rooms of the castle is the fortification, with a great cortyard in the middle, and all surrounded by moat. It looks like it is just sitting in a lake, which in turn, is surrounded by rolling grassy hills, it really is beautiful!

Check out the pictures here -> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022085&l=41fd8&id=17700012

Dover Castle! 8/12/07

Today we drove over to Dover. From the tall white cliffs of Dover (which Drake said his landing sight in Marin reminded him of), you could just make out the shores of France. We drove to the highest hill in Dover, and there was a large triangular shaped fortress. Dover Castle has a pretty large history. The Romans built light houses throughout the channel in the late first century, one of which went on the hill in Dover. Then in 410, when the Romans took off, the Saxons came in and built an wooden fortified town around the light house on the hill. They built an old abbey next to the light house which still stands there today. They also surrounded the town with a trench and hilly earth work to add extra defense. Then, William the jerk face, as the Saxons called him, came in around 1066, burned everything down, took the thrown, and civilized the English. In Dover, William quickly built a keep on the hill, and then surrounded it with stone fortifications. The resulting castle was used a lot over the next thousand years, and abandoned at various times. When Napoleon started getting war happy, the started bolstering the defenses at Dover again, and continued to through the second World War. There were portraits of the Battle of London, depicting the castle set in front of mortar and flack explosions in the sky. It would have been a pretty scary place to be. Turns out that Dover Castle also has a HUGE series of secret tunnels under it, which acted as the naval headquarters during WWII, and that the evacuation of Dunkirk was planned in those tunnels. Crazy history, in that that castle was used as a military place for over 800 years. Similar to the Tower of London too.

The castle keep itself was pretty small on the inside, with tremendously thick stone walls. There were also a lot of tacky touristy things added in all the rooms to make it seem like King Henry VIII was on his way (he apparently stayed there for 2 nights once). It was cheesy and funny, especially the recordings of “workers” who were getting everything ready for the king. “Hurry up there! Hurry up! You! Stay out of the kings quarters!” hehe. funny stuff.

While we were driving back to the hotel, we noticed a strange stone thingy poking up over the hill. So we swerved off the road to check it out. After a short drive down a tiny little road we came upon a stone archway, the last remnants of what seemed to be a great wall. We drove through and immediately started photographing. Before long, we began turning around our diesel guzzling cherokee, and a grizzled old man with a cane strolled through the arch with his walking stick, and two old sheep dogs trotting in front of him. The English country side rolled out to his right, and the setting sun cast an orange hue on the stone arch. I wish I had my camera up at that second. He told us that it was the old wall of Winchelsea, and that the town was a large, old port city. He also said that he was having an argument with another man, about this very archway. He said that this was the traitor’s gate, and was left open when the French came a-knockin’ in the 1200s. The town is only a few blocks in size now. The old man said it was once much larger. Those darn French! Everything here is so cool. What a crazy history!

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022044&l=ac38f&id=17700012

British Museum 8/12/07

Today we went to the British Museum, which is huge and filled with many interesting stolen artifacts. After a quick lunch we saw the pieces of the Parthenon which were removed. The argument is that they would have been destroyed had the British not carted them off, which I think I half believe. Next were the giant man/lion/eagles from Mesopotamia, and then the remnants of the mausoleum of King Mausolus. While there were only a few tiny pieces, it is clear why it was one of the wonders of the ancient world. Each figure was massive and really well crafted. After going through greek sculptures we hit the Egyptian section. The main attraction here was the Rosetta Stone, which is a lot larger and thicker than I expected, and equally magnetic when it comes to attracting tourists. Trying to catch a glimpse of the front, you would be lucky not to be knocked down by a swarm of history-hungry travelers.

Upstairs was the Europe and Britain section. Europe... Probably the most interesting part of the British section was about the Romans. All the trinkets in the pre-Roman era were tiny, ugly, and rather unimpressive. Suddenly the Romans came and there were fancy things like architecture nice jewelry, art and neat Roman stuff. Then Rome fell, the Romans left England for Europe, and the Anglo-Saxon tribes just kinda sacked everything, used the ruins to make huts and leantoos, and reverted back to the state they were in before the Romans even showed up (if not worse). I just don’t understand why they didn’t hang the door back up on its hinges and try to restore the Roman buildings.... oh well.

We got tired after awhile and decided to flee the city. According to the map we were on the main road, but it really didn’t seem like it. Cars were parked on this tiny street in such a way that in order to continue, we were forced completely into oncoming traffic. Driving is pretty weird here. If there is any space for your car, you take, regaurdless of direction of traffic, or the color of the stop light. I think its pretty fun, but I get a little freaked out whenever a car is comming, and we are in the left lane. “Its just not natural,” says my Dad. But we are in Hastings now, at the Royal Victoria Hotel, right off the beach. We have two bedrooms, and it is super old and kinda fancy. Hooray for McDonalds, even here, its the only thing open really late.

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022043&l=16ec4&id=17700012

The Abbey

Today we had a lot planned, and didn’t really make it to everything. We got up early and had breakfast at the breakfast club which was pretty good. We are finally confident to order tap water, so no more paying through the teeth for watery refreshment!

My Dad wanted to stroll over to an old Temple of the Knights Templar. Built waaaay back when. We got there, and sadly it was closed. But it was a very cool courtyard!

A short tube ride across the Thames took us back to Westminster Abbey where we took the tour. It is filled with many many old dead people, many of which were Kings and Queens, all of which were crazy rich. It was fascinating how much time went into the effigies and tombs, while time itself wore much of all the work away. The floor was smooth from millions of feet shuffling across it, wearing away the names of those buried beneath. On many of the inscriptions, the person’s life story, along with any rich relatives was often described. One in particular interested me because the man had lead a noble life, fighting the Moors, killing the Moroccan King, and even defending the town against an uprising partially lead by his own son! For some reason, they took the guy to the Tower and cut off his head... All thanks to that no good son... Atleast after hundreds of years, people are still learning his story! The oldest grave I could find was from the year 1080! wow! Sadly, photos weren’t allowed in the cool parts.... But check out the pictures of the flying buttresses in the map! So cool!

This experience took all day so we couldn’t make it to the British Museum, so instead we took a detour passed Buckingham Palace on our way back to Trafalgar Square. The queen was out, so there weren’t many cool guards, but it was still a pretty neat sight to see. In front of the palace is a memorial for Queen Victoria, and many gates, each labeled with a country of the commonwealth. Never before, and never again do I think I will see a giant stone kangaroo!

The Mall from the palace took us where we wanted to go. We got back in time to have fish and chips at a pub, and then ran over to the square to see an Indian dance and light show! There was a 4 piece band playing very ethereal music, while the dancers swayed back and forth. When it was dark, a crane lifted a bunch of white sacks in the air. Suddenly, they burst open, revealing angels (who in the end turned out to be men dressed as women, but that is besides the point), who threw snow and glitter on the dancers bellow. It was really a sight to see. With the lights, the dancers, the instruments, the angels, and Admiral Nelson looking down on it all, it was pretty astounding!

Anyway, tonight’s our last night in London. Make sure to click the buttons on the map bellow, and comment! yes! comment! well... when i post the map... do it! Check back for adds!!!

Check out the pictures here -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022038&l=a9030&id=17700012
and here! -> http://ups.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022042&l=2179c&id=17700012

Ultra Modern!

Today we went to Tate Modern, the modern art museum off of the Thames. There was an exhibit on city density around the world which was really interesting. Mumbai is crazy, and one shouldn’t live there unless they reallllllly like other people... And sewage. Then upstairs there was a Dalí exhibit. It was really cool. All the drippy clocks and really random paintings. His films were pretty funny. I personally think he was selling out towards the end, but oh well. The rest of the museum was interesting. There was a running theme of a man tripping over a dog. It was funny at first, but in the end, I honestly think anything could go up in a modern art museum. Sedaris’s book Me Talk Pretty Someday explains it all.

We also tubed on over to Trafalgar Square to check out an Indian Music Festival. It was pretty cool, but we literally caught the tail end of it. London is a pretty town, so I am glad we are hopping all over it. We got pizza we had to eat with a fork, and then Laura and I went to a pub. It was called the Hope and Anchor pub, and there were Specials, Selector and Madness memorabilia from when they performed there last! OHHHH MAN. I wish I was there for that!

Apple just updated the OS to 10.4.10 and apparently broke part of Google Earth... So no maps for awhile... But I just found a work around involving some fussing with Package contents.... Maybe I’ll try...

*futzes*

haha woo! oh those silly programmers...

maps up soon! For now... look at these:
AHHHHH!!!! click here to see the good ones BIG! -> http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021274&l=ae10f&id=17700012

Prowling the streets!

Well today was a lot of fun, if not exhausting. At a camera store we were told that the US is way behind the times as our credit card did not have “chip-N-P” (?). I guess he meant the pay and tap thingy where there is a micro chip in the card. So, the poor lad had to actually swipe the card for us, letting us know “we rarely do this,” as if he was breaking some kind of rule, or would be docked his commission pay or something.

Another major difference (or so I am told, because I really don’t notice except the most extreme cases) is the fashion. My Mom and Sister are extremely concerned about the hippest London trends (I am frequently told by my mother that “Grey is haugte in London!”), so it takes forever to do anything because everything must be prepared for. For instance, there was a spot on my Mom’s shirt. Lucky for us, the hotel was close and we hadn’t eaten in 9 hours! After a “quick” change we were eating fancy Thai food! mmm! Anyway, what did we do today?

The Thompsons are masters of the tube system! I have to say that I really like the London Underground. Its pretty spifftacular. My family is horrible at making decisions, so when food time comes around, we end up wandering for hours. Thanks to the underground, we can always just hop on somewhere, and get off where there is good food. For instance, today we went to the Tower of London. I personally think it didn’t live up the hype. It was cool, but coming from the nation that runs Guantanamo, I was hardly spooked. After seeing the crown jewels, I now know that QEII is more iced out than Flavor Flav. It was pretty interesting, but the lines in and out of The Tower were worse than Disney Land, so afterward we were all cranky and hungry. So we walked a few blocks to get away from the tourists, only to find ourselves smack in the middle of the financial district. The only open establishments were pubs packed to the street with businessmen enjoying pints of their favorite ale. After walking forever, the family turned down every possible establishment (i helped) and for some reason we hopped on the train and wound up in Westminster where we wandered for another few hours. I got some good pictures, but by the time things were getting hopeless, it was 8. Underground to the rescue! We ran to the nearest tube station, and before we knew it, I was eating Thai food! yum! Anyway, Its almost midnight, and we turned Laura down on a pub run. She is eager to get out. I think it is kinda funny, especially because after a long and hard fight about how she is 18 and London is all about having fun and not sleeping, yet she was the first of us to fall asleep. WOO!

Maybe more maps will come tomorrow... If you are good!

LONDON!!!111!!1!!!

        Its a good thing my Dad wanted us to get to the airport 17 hours early, it is absolutely empty. Barely anyone is flying, yet the security is out in force. We were told by the ubiquitous airport voice that the threat level is orange, and we have to cooperate with airport security as best we can. The airport security outnumbered us about 2 to 1 and were apparently in the middle of some fued. They had fashioned sling shots out of rubber inspection gloves and dust clothes and were catapulting detergent-soaked rags at one-another. I was nearly caught in the cross fire as I walked through the metal detector. Lucky for me, I escaped with my life, and my dirty jacket, intact.
        I am sad that the only available internet is through T-Moible, but I guess I can post this when I get to London... at least 13 hours from now...
        Over the next few days my family and I will be traveling around southern England. We’ll be staying in London for a few days before we start moving west, seeing as many sights as we can along the way. Armed with my GPS, and my Dad’s new Nikon D200, I’ll try to drop as much as I can on here in the evening when we get back to our hotels. Anyway... I think I’ll read one of my embarrassingly nerdy books until the plane gets here... More when I land! ~>

Internet in the hotel room is 15 pounds... *sigh* I guess we’ll try it once?

        The flight was alright. British Airways was decent enough to supply us with two meals and complimentary wine! shazam! I got to watch Shrek the third , read my book, and nap a bit before I was startled awake by an ungodly noise. Ofcourse, a baby was crying, no, screaming, on the airplane, and we were only half way through the flight. Normally I am a fan of live and let live, so I shrugged it off and decided the matter would be best left to a pair of priests, one young and one old, who could devise a way to exercise whatever demon had possesed this poor child. So, only somewhat bothered, I tried to concentrate on my book. About an hour later, I realized that the cries from the infant were actually complete sentences, and that it was not an infant at all, but a child between the ages of 4 and 6, who was upset because their Mum (ooh look at me in England!) wouldn’t let them watch the telly. This was suddenly an in-exusable problem for me, a clear issue of bad parenting. I’m not a parent, so I don’t have to figure out how to shut the kid up, thats their job, one that they were clearly failing at. But if you ask me, some form of capital punishment was quickly beginning to sound like the only option. No I didn’t really want to kill the kid, just somehow render his vocal cords useless. Eventually someone flicked on the TV and wouldn’t you know it, the crying stopped! Before tooooo long (6 hours later), we landed into stuffy London Heathrow and joined the hussle and bussle of happy people with funny accents. The Euro trash is pretty funny. Honestly, I can’t get enough.
        We took the Heathrow Express (15 pounds each) to the Paddington Station Underground and from there to Islington (4 pounds each). While my family wandered around like headless chickens trying to figure out the Underground system (is it really so different from Bart), I vacantly stood there until a friendly Londoner approached me and offered me his day pass. I can ride free all day now. As for the fam, they will continue to pay the big bucks. Laura is passed out, my Mom is on the way there. And we are currently having communication problems with the difference between “roll-away bed,” “extra-bed” and “cette.” There was also a pretty funny mix up with the whole smoking/non-smoking thing. My Mom has issues with smelly things. So getting a room where someone once smoked a cigarette anywhere in the hotel, there will likely be an issue. I just can’t get over the money thing. 43 p for $1... We should have gone to South Korea, where $1 will get you 400 WON. Anyway, to end this rant, I look forward to having some good food and get rid of this light headed-ness..

Update and such! Subject: Music Biz

SO. I did some stupid cut and pasting of javascript, making the maps stop working... But it is fixed now. Its a little slow, but hey, my compsci degree is an AA from the University of Google.com, so I am pretty satisfied with it all. Thursday was my last day at Iris, and Friday my last day at Dolby. It was really a great summer, albeit busy. I learned a lot and had a blast doing it! I am glad that I get time off to travel and hang out before going back to school.

Thursday we got to talk to the Programming Director over at a popular music download service. The most enlightening part of the conversation involved how he chose to feature various artists. He said 75% of the features come directly from Billboard rankings. His logic was that the labels are putting a lot of money behind some of these artists, to make them popular, the music store then features these artists to give consumers what they want. This sounds fishy if you ask me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that “a lot of money behind these bands” means he is seeing any of it... but it just seems that a popular band need not be featured because they are already well known and don’t need “free” marketing from some retailer. If people want it, they will dig for it (And by dig I mean click on an artist on the Top 10 board on the main page...SO MUCH DIGGING!). Sure, maybe some Billboard artists have actual quality music and therefore deserve features on the main page. But 75% of all features coming directly from Billboard? Makes me a little sick. Yeah, big names will get big features. But if you have control over what people listen to, why add to the machine when you can give young minds new, good music?! It just lets you know how great of an industry this all is.

One of my coworkers sent me an essay written by about Tony Brummel, CEO of Victory Records, one of the largest indie record labels. Its by Brummel’s VP, Ramsey Dean, who has since left due to the horrible working conditions. The essay surfaced a few days ago, but Victory had it taken down. Its in Google’s Cache, but its starting to resurface. If you have a some spare time and are wanting a good horror story, check it out. If the link dies, or you dont want to read it in this hip-hop blog, let me know and I’ll email you the story!