Camping in West Virginia

Camping in West Virginia

To celebrate my Sister in Laws Birthday, we went camping in West Virginia.
The family spent a whole week at the campsite, but due to work commitments, Vicky and I could only stay for two days.

http://www.yokum.com/

Apart from the insects, the mud and rain, and the disgusting shower facilities, we all had a great time!

London 2012

I was very happy to see that we had the honour of hosting the Olympics this year.  But unfortunately I wasn't able to see as much of it as I would have liked.  TV channel NBC have the rights over here, and they showed 5 hours worth of highlights every night.  Unfortunately that was about it!  If you wanted to watch it live you had to watch it on their website during the day, when most of us were at work.  During the weekends I watched the majority of the live events online on the bbc's website.

NBC did not show the whole of the of opening or closing ceremonys.  Part way through the opening they cut away to an interview with Micheal Phelps!  Most of their coverage was good, but if an American was not involved in a final, they were not interested.  During one of the mens gymnastics finals, TeamGB won the silver, but the Japanese who won Bronze appealed, and the judges swapped our medals during the event.  I only found this out the next day, I watched this event on NBC, but the commentators did not explain very well what was going on.  Insane.

As a once in a lifetime event, I bought a few things from the official 'London2012' website, here's a couple of things I bought:

Not pictured is a lanyard I now wear at work with the Union flag all over it and 'London2012'.  I love this as I think it has stopped people asking if I am from Australia.


A week tomorrow my Wife and I are going back to New York for the weekend!
Expect a blog about this soon.

A couple of random things I have found in local supermarkets, which I left on the shelf!

Zombies and Beaches

Zombies and Beaches

Last Sunday saw the restart of a favourite tv show.  The Walking Dead.  The quality of the writing is superb, and the zombie make up and 'special effects' ie gore, is of the highest quality.  It is remarkable how a show like this is in the mainstream media.

And to celebrate the shows return, I saw it at the Cinema!

http://drafthouse.com/winchester

The tickets were free and on a first come first served basis.  They used the television channel feed so we got the adverts, but it was a thrill to see it on the big screen.

Wednesday I had a second interview with HP.  This time a telephone interview with three people.  It was all over within about 20 minutes and I think I did well.  I had over prepared the previous day and had numerous notes all laid out, but I did not need to refer to them.  I'll find out at some point if I've been successful or not.

The next day I spent the day at Vickys office as we were then on a road trip to Virginia Beach.

Click the link for a map: http://g.co/maps/r7hp4

Vicky wanted to meet up with an old school friend as they were moving back to California.  Originally the plan was to stay in two hotels.  The first one near to the court for Vickys juty, and the next hotel in the same area as her friend.  Fortunately the jury duty was cancelled, and she rebooked.  And the new hotel had a hot-tub!  $170 for three nights, thank you very much.

Being February, the place was almost a ghost town, but we managed to find good places to eat, thanks to meeting up with an old work friend of my Wifes.

This is the view from our room.  Looks just like Tynemouth!

On the Friday we went to the cinema, and I had my first IMAX experience.  Journey 2 was the film, and I was very impressed with the screen size and audio.

A little trip

Not much happening here at the moment, but on Wednesday, Vicky and I will be driving down south to the town of Norfolk, Virginia.  We are visiting a school friend of my Wifes, and they have not seen each other since High School.  Initially this was to be a weekend trip, but Vicky has been called for Jury duty for one day.  We were horrified when she received the letter, especially with the trip to Norfolk, but the place is somewhere half way between, so we've compromised with a hotel.  At the very least, we're both sharing a road trip, and we'll treat it like a mini-holiday.

More random recent pictures:

Pepper watching telly

Sunday mornings are just too much effort

Sushi should NOT be on my chair!

I enjoyed my first Blooming Onion at the Outback Steakhouse, and here we have a kit to make your own.  I did not buy it!

I found these Japanese imported kitkats!

I took this picture of Sushi one morning, one of my favourites so far

New Years Eve

Vicky and I had been invited out with her Sister, but we wanted to just be with each other this time.
We'd been apart the past two NYE's, so this year was all about us.

We chose to go around Berryville.  I have written before about how small it is, and unfortunately most of the restaurants were closed by their normal hours.
We started out at the Battletown Inn:
http://thebattletowninn.com/
Check out it's video tour.
After a couple of drinks we moved onto the Berryville Grille.  But it was closed.  Shame as the food inside is always very nice.
http://theberryvillegrille.com/our-menu/

So it was off to the Camino Real.  A mexican restaurant and the only proper 'bar' in Berryville.  They were open till 1am.  Vicky drank a couple of Tequila Sunrises, and I stuck with yuengling lager.  Yeungling is America's oldest brewry.  Around 11pm, we walked back home to watch the ball drop.
London has the fireworks on the Thames, and in the USA, people watch a ball drop slowly until their fireworks are set off.

It was brilliant spending the time, just the two of us, and we both had the next day off work too!