Two Days in Bristol

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Mike

We’ve come back from a quick two-day visit to Bristol, where we’ve finally had a chance to see a bit of what the next 12 months will be like.

We went to see the house we’ll be living in; it’s bigger than it looked in the pictures and we can start to imagine living there now. I’ll post some pictures up in a couple of weeks. The house is not far from some shops, so we sampled the local coffee shop, bakery, and greengrocer.

On Wednesday the girls visited the school that they’ll be attending next week (schools in England are only just finishing now, since they have more breaks throughout the year). It was hard for Rachel and I to drop them off and leave – I remember my first day at a new school when I was Connie’s age. All day Rachel and I were nervous about how the girls would be, but by the end of the day when we saw them again they were very happy, and wished they could come back again tomorrow. Go figure. So it’s great that the school has received thumbs up; that will help things in the summer.

Now we’re back at Rachel’s parents again, and we’ll be here until next Friday when we finally move in.

Other bits:

  • The jet lag has more or less passed by now – I’m no longer waking up at 3:30 am ready to start the day.
  • Connie had her ears pierced today for the first time; an early present for her 10th birthday
  • Over the past two weeks I’ve attended various sporting events which I find interesting to contrast: July 10: BC Lions vs Saskatchewan Roughriders, attendance 20,000; July 11: Seattle Mariners vs. New York Yankees, attendance 40,000; July 18: Newton Tracey Cricket Club vs Nomansland (yes, there’s a village here called Nomansland), attendance 8; July 19: Barnstaple Town FC vs Donacaster Rovers, attendance 400. I seem to have developed an eclectic mix of sporting interests, with varying degrees of popularity
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Comments!

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Mike

I’ve changed the settings so that you don’t have to be “logged in” in order to comment; you just have to submit your name and email address. We’d love to hear from our friends both near and far so feel free to leave a comment. If I start to get comment spam I might have to change this, but for now it should be good to go.

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Family Portrait

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Mike
Our Family, July 14, 2010

This is what we're typically like

We took some family pictures with Chris’s camera the day before we left for England. Connie and Heidi always want to do a “silly” picture, and this one seemed quite true to life, at least to me.

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Made it

Posted on July 17, 2010 by Mike

Well we’re here in England.

It was nearly a 24-hour journey from when we left my parent’s home in Coquitlam and arrived at Rachel’s parent’s home in Devon, and we stayed up for about 31 hours with only a few short naps in between.

But after a few “please kill me now” moments yesterday, a good night’s sleep and some nice sunshine has restored the optimism. It was also nice to see all the family yesterday as well.

The girls are doing well – somewhat surprisingly there were no tears as we left. We talk about missing people and things (they seem to miss our minivan more than I would have expected), but they’re also excited about things to look forward to. This includes buying some fudge at Rolly’s Fudge Pantry in Barnstaple today. Woo!

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The Dangerzone

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Mike

Tonight I had a night out with many of the team I used to work with at Reinvent; we somehow got to calling ourselves “The Dangerzone”, referencing Top Gun, cool jet flyby’s, and Kenny Loggins’ classic.

It was great to spend some time with these guys (Grace, I’m going to use the gender-neutral form of “guy”; my apologies). I think it’s a bit of a rarity that work colleagues would develop such strong relationships that last beyond the working days. Not that we see each other that often; but I think the bonds are strong and lasting. I am very proud of this; it is the single biggest thing I miss about my former job – that you could work with smart people who were also good people and became your friends.

I will miss my Reinvent friends a lot, and I would count it a success if I were able to one day have another job with a team as good as that. I remember Jesse saying once how “the best thing about the job is that there are no jerks here”. Considering the surprisingly high jerk population, I think we did quite well. Cheers guys.

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A week to go

Posted on July 6, 2010 by Mike

Ok it’s actually 9 days, but close enough.

We leave for England on July 15, and as the last few days go by it’s really starting to feel a lot closer now. It certainly feels more real when you start to have those “last time you’re going to see your friend” get-togethers, like I’m starting to have now.

Most of our jobs are done now. We’re going to do a “mock pack” this week to make sure the stuff we’re taking doesn’t go over the allotted weight that we’re allowed to bring on the plane. If it does, Heidi’s rock collection is staying behind.

We also need to sell the car, so if anyone is interested in a 2000 Honda Odyssey minivan with 200k for a reasonable price, let me know. Geisel, I know you’ve been eying our trendy ride – now’s your chance.

Another one of my jobs – to set up a blog – is now done. As with all well-intentioned blogs, expect reasonably heavy traffic to start, followed by a tapering down into something more manageable. The URL is easy to remember: blog.goetz.ca; it should be a handy way to keep up with us.

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