10 Things I’ll Never Learn to Appreciate
by Alex on May 4, 2012
Try as I might, I will always hate I don’t think I’ll ever be able to appreciate the following 10 things: Cruises Wienerschnitzel X-Factor/Pop Idol/ Somewhere’s got Talent Disneyland/Disneyworld MMORPGs Real Ale Louis Theroux Steampunk High fashion Failure Bonus 11th (…)
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by Alex on April 1, 2012
When my wife and I moved to England we weren’t sure how long we were going to be here so we opted to rent a house instead of buying. It was the first time we’d been renters in a long time but it seemed like the most logical thing to do. Weirdly we would be both tenants and landlords at the same time as we were renting out our house in California at the time. 4 years has gone by and we’re still renting. Different house, different town but recently I’ve seen a lot of commentary and opinion on rent vs. own in 2012 and as a result I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my past forays into the housing market and I wanted to share some of my thoughts and experiences.
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by Alex on February 2, 2012
I’m glad that service recovery experiences like the one I just had still happen.
A screwed up order, a long wait, a happy customer. THIS is how you do service recovery.
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by Alex on December 21, 2011
I’m able to write this post a little earlier than usual as my trip to Istanbul was my last trip of 2011. This is the fourth year I’ve done this summary but I used a new tool to come up with the miles. In the past I’ve used the awesome Great Circle Mapper but this year I stumbled across OpenFlights which is a bit more weapon’s grade. It spits out neat analysis of all the flights you enter, some of which I’ve listed below.
So for 2011 I did 29 flights covering 80,732 miles, down substantially from last year’s 103, 828 miles on 36 flights. But still a heck of a lot of travel. I made a conscious effort to travel less this year so I could spend more time with my wife and son and it seems to have worked.
Read the rest of "My year in cities 2011"Maj Gen A. G. Patterson CB DSO OBE MC – My Grandfather
by Alex on November 11, 2011
My Grandmother sent me this article a few years ago, I typed it up because it’s truly an amazing article. It’s a fellow soldier’s recollections of my Grandfather. My Grandfather was a Major General in the British Army and also a Gurkha. He was fearless and tough as nails and the more I hear about him, the more I wish I was able to get to know him better. This article really highlights his bravery and loyalty.
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by Alex on November 7, 2011
I’ve been a dad for just over 13 months now. It’s been a truly wonderful experience so far but never in my life have I had to learn so much so quickly. I started thinking about some of the things I wish I had known at the beginning of this journey. After a few hours of scribbling I came up with the following 13 things I’ve learned as a new dad:
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by Alex on April 27, 2011
I stumbled across something I wrote about 6 years ago and I think it’s still as pertinent as ever. I’m glad to say I heeded my own advice 2 years ago when I went off on my own.
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by Alex on March 25, 2011
I recently an order together on the UK Apple website and seen the total with tax and shipping when I had a thought. I’m going to the US in June, I wonder if it would be better to get all this stuff there. So I put together the exact same order, same specs, same equipment, etc on the US Apple website. After I got the total, again with local tax and shipping, I compared the two prices.
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by Alex on February 21, 2011
Remember watching Wheel of Fortune (or “Fat People Guessing” as it’s sometimes know) back in the 80s? Of course you do. Well in the final round everyone picked the same letters R, S, T, L, N and E for the vowel. Why? Because more often than not the word or phrase contained those letters. Why? Cos they’re the most frequently appearing letters in the English language. It was a given, everybody did it, if you didn’t there was something wrong with you. From then on you relied on your wits to solve the Ivy League puzzles that Vanna White threw at you.
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