I think I'm going to Carolina

A tale of two footballs

2008-12-07T15:51:00.004-05:00

Over the summer I went to two very different football games. So did my friend Michael "Dougle" McDougle. The first one was Dougle's first football or 'soccer' game at DC united. As you can tell he was pretty excited.

Well get a few beers in him and he is! He thought I was taking a picture.

Ah here I am with bottle of vodka in hand and 4 hours early to the match. Now that is a true football fan! Well there was a little thing called a 'tailgate' before that we had to partake in. It was $10 for all you can drink and eat. Why the bottle of vodka you ask? Well they do run out, don't wanna miss out on some drinking time. The term tailgate comes from having a party in the car park while sitting on the tailgate of your car. It is pretty much like going to the pub before them game.

The united shirt went down really well. So many people came up and talked to me as I was wearing a 'real' footbal shirt. Many of them were expats like me. I even met two Shefield united suporters, from sheffield.

I just liked this. A DC number plate.

It was strange to see a smiliar atmosphere at the soccer game. I do miss everyone piling out of the pub or whereever and getting to the game just at kick-off. Notice Greg in the yellow.

Even though it was a terrible game we sang all match. Mark (left) is actually a DC united fan and got us sweet tickets behind all the nutters.

Here is the song that we sang a lot of the time. It was a great atmosphere. Dougle loved the game even though it was a 0-0 draw.

I said it was a tale of two football games. Dougle is a big [American] football fan. I said I would go to a game with him. I was rewarded with the UNC (Chapel Hill) Virginia Tech game (Dougle went to VT). Slightly hungover from the night before we got in Dougles car and drove to the thrill with a Bojangles tailgate special (lots o' fred chicken in a box). It was a lovely day in the thrill to sit just on the UNC campus drink beer and eat chicken and go to the game.

Here is the half time show. The marching bands. VT were down at this point to a strong Carolina team. I was sat with all the VT fans while I had no allegiance to either team I did find the Carolina annoucer rather annoying, so I was rooting for VT. It was a close game in the end and VT came out to win. They eventually won the ACC this year.!

Carolina are in blue and VT white.

NC: The Outer Banks

2008-11-30T21:10:00.005-05:00

Here is the second part of my little road trip with my parents. From Virginia we went to Kill Devil Hills, NC and Kitty Hawk, NC on the Outer Banks and then back to Durham (about 550 miles according to google). You should really have heard of these places. It was where the Wright brothers did the first powered flight. Here is a picture to jog the memory.

OK no more learning. I wanted to go for that reason, but also the outer banks are also beautiful place. We stopped off at the tourist info and couldn't resist snapping the folks acting like Carolinians.

It was just our luck to get there as a Hurricane/Tropical storm was moving up the east coast. I think it passed about 100 miles off NC a few days after we left. It did give a pretty cool

It was pretty grim weather

But being NC, it didn't want to stay bad for a while. We also still got the swell from the storm.

I love watching the pelican fly up and down the beach.

As we were pretty much across the road from where they did the first flight it would be rude not to go to the museum. I really did enjoy it, but I kinda am a geek.

This is the hill that the did their first glider experiments from, and later powered flights at the bottom. It actually moved back in thoses days so they had to put grass on it to keep it anchored, in fact most of the landscape has changed. Certainly all the houses cropping up.

You gotta loves those sunsets.

As an appology for the learning earlier, here have a silly looking American car.

Virginia: The Historic Triangle

2008-11-28T16:32:00.004-05:00

My parents cam to visit me in May (ahem sorry for the long time) for my birthday. We did a little road trip. First stop was the Historical Triangle up in Virginia. My reasoning behind this was a) it's not Durham and b) I quite like history. Here is my photoblog. First up is Williamsburg. It's a cool open air museum and was the old capital of Virginia.

I just like this photo

Next up is Jamestown. The first British settlement in America. I am glad I don't have to come over on that boat.

I really am a photo geek. I quite like explosions too. Not bad timing, aye?

Next stop Yorktown. Where we kinda surrendered the US to those colonial types. It's quite a cool place though. Here is the Virginia chapter of the Studebaker drivers club, just chilling out, maxin', relaxin'.

My dad and I both love going on boats, so we took a trip on this bad boy. It was pretty slow going out down the river but got faster on the way back.

Diffraction limit anyone? I'll get my coat.

There was a civil war battle at Yorktown too. They do like recreating stuff.

Speaking of battles. I managed to convince my dad to play mini-golf.

All smiles here but out on the course it was a tightly contested affair. In the end we played two rounds and it ended 1-1.

I really do like taking black and white photos of bars.

Next we moved onto Plymouth, VA. We were driving down to coastal NC and it made sense to stop here. Managed to stumble upon an old red phone box. They get everywhere don't they?

While not on many tourists list of places to go it was actually quite nice.

A little patriotic, but still nice.

They even had the oldest running ferry. It was a cool way to get to Norfolk, VA. Where do they get these names from?

OBX next.

Weddings

2008-11-28T12:38:00.003-05:00

I had the pleasure of going to two weddings this summer. The first was my grad student Andres, whose bachelor party I went in Boone, NC. The second being Mark and Becky's, who I first met at the infamous 'el gigante' incident (they still talk to me and possibly even worse they invited me to their wedding!).

I went to my first and only wedding in the UK the summer before I left to come to the states (Dan and Catheryn's). It is a sign you are getting older when people you grew up with start getting married. Some my even see it as a sign to actually start growing up. Yeah, kinda missed that one, oh well. Saying that I did enjoy that first wedding, even if I was slightly metally scarred by the stag do (don't go drinking with doctors kids, it's not funny and it's not clever), I didn't feel like I had to rush out and marry somebody. It was good to see my old friend up there, it was good to see other old friends at the wedding too, also to see the new friends a made from the stag do.

The american weddings I went to were pretty much the same affair as the UK one. You know, ceremony - lots of food - lots of drinks - talking crap to people while slightly under the influence (ahem). It felt different to the UK one in the sense that I hadn't known these people all my life, I only met them a year before. I felt accepted though, I was doing the same as the other wedding, celebrating two friends with other friends.

Here is a picture from the first wedding, of Andres and Kelly. It is in a bar [well] after the ceremony, in Lancaster, PA. The best man, brother-in-law and the trouble makers, were rocking it well into the night.

Here is the second wedding in Durham, NC. Unfortuately I only got a picture of the hooligans here. Look how happy they are, anything to do with free booze? Yes, I was in the same state.

Ah, I see they got a snap of me too. Note the rosy red cheeks, ah bless.

More hooligans, I think Jeff (left) was contemplating climbing something here.

This is one of my favourite photos I have taken so far in the states. It's actually photoshopped, but it looks quite good, aye?

US election 2008

2008-11-05T22:29:00.006-05:00

The election has pretty much been a constant feature of my time here in the states. It started before I got here over 18 months ago. Sheesh, they do go on a bit don't they? As I have been bad with the blog of late I thought I would write about my experiences of it all.

I didn't pay too much attention to the whole thing at first, as my general response was "but till more than a year! why are you bangin' on about it now?" or words to that effect. My take on it was, well I'm not too bothered as long as they are not republican, which I guess is the same as most British people.

The republican party did in general scare the bejesus out of me. I am sure one of them killed babies for fun, well at least puppies and/or fluffy bunnies. The only one that was kinda normal was John McCain. Thankfully he got the nomination or it could have got ugly.

It didn't really get going till democrats started hacking it out of each other. I still don't get this! I thought the republicans were the enemy guys? It was interesting hear people say things like "if Clinton get the nomination I am voting republican". To me that is like saying "Oh I really hate Blair so I'll vote BNP, even though I don't agree with their politics I just can't stand that Blair". I guess this is one of the many problems of having a two party system.

Well thankfully we had Obama win and we didn't get sensible people doing silly things like voting republican. By this I was pretty much sick of it. Like I guess the rest of the world, and most of America, well maybe except for FOX news as it gave them a good chance to be super right wing.

Watching the results lastnight was quite a surreal experience. Firstly it was in a bar. I never watched the general election results in a bar before. You would miss what Peter Snow and his swing-o-meter! It was a very american affair. Lots of clapping, high-fiving when Obama got a state. I did feel like a outsider. It wasn't my presisdent they were cheering for. Yet he will make a impact on my life, and on the lives of people in the rest of the world. I didn't join in. I was just glad it was going to plan.

When Obama won there was a huge roar, lots of clapping, congratulating etc. It was as if they had won a war. I felt slightly different. I was glad he won, but to me this is the begining. Not the end like these people were acting. The world has a long way to go to heal what Bush has done. Although I did join in for this bit. You know when in Rome. It did feel like I was witnessing history. We shall see what kind of history it is.

Next time I am not having a TV again till its over. It's just too painful to watch.

North Carolina: Wilmington and Jordan Lake

2008-09-07T22:52:00.002-04:00

After Charleston we decided to take it easy and have a night in Durham and off and another small road trip to Wilmington, NC. It's only a 2 and half hour drive and both Jimmy and I like the beach. North Carolina beaches really are lovely.

Apparently, Wilmington is twinned with Doncaster (or Donkey as I like to call it). From that sign I reckon that Sheffield is about 3900 miles away from Durham.

Last time I was on this they were filming One Tree Hill, no such luck this time.

After our little trip to Wilmington, we stopped by Jordan Lake. Which is rather nice.

We got there at just the right time. Partially due to one of my famous short cuts.....

We finished the day with a burger at Dain's. Although we didn't have any Bojangles Jimmy did have a good tour of NC and SC and it was damn good to see him again. This concludes Jimmy's adventures in NC, more of my other adventures wil be coming soon.

South Carolina: Drinking in Charleston

2008-09-03T22:24:00.002-04:00

Charleston is a really cool place to visit for all the touristy things, but also it is a really cool place to go out drinking. Here is the photographic evidence of us getting wasted. After our day of walking we got pretty thirsty so we stopped in a Irish bar for a cheeky pint (or 2). Then got ready to go out and hit a brew pub first. They offered a selection of all their beers for $10. They didn't have the eighth so we got to choose our favourite at the end. I think it worked out as about 3 and a half pints in the end.

I was obviously so excited I couldn't even keep my eyes open. Well it passed the time while we waited for food.

This bar we actually found in the day. It was the place where we found a good cupa... water, juice and nice bit of apple strudel, everything three growing boys needs to get over a hangover. The waitress took a shine to us and said we should come back later when it was a bar. So here we are after a few drinks, the tequila slammers come out.... not so good. The aforementioned waitress was kind enough to document it for us.

We hadn't even got going and Andy had borrowed her top....

Cheers! To England! etc

This really does remind me of the three monkeys.

By the end we had progressed onto surfers on acid and quite happy about it.

We even found an English pub which I was extremely happy about.

Yes Andy did steal the waitresses coat, it was really hot, but it brought out his eyes. She got it back in the end.

South Carolina: Charleston

2008-09-02T22:46:00.004-04:00

As I have been terrible with updating the blog the next post is when Jimmy flew down from Canada and we drove down to Charleston, SC to meet Andy in July. Charleston is only 300 miles away from Durham so it was too bad a drive.

It was great the Jimmy decided to fly down to Dirty D. I got to show him a few things round town and we just had a chilled out first evening. Then we drove down to Charleston the next day. We took a minor detour, as I kinda got carried away during an in-car game and missed the [not so] small sign[s, lots of them] for I-95. It was pretty cool seeing rural NC. Jimmy had definitely not seen anything like it in his life (I'm sure we heard a few banjos). We met up with Andy a little late, but that was due to setting off late (due to my bosses, grrrrr).

I will go through our nighttime adventures in the next post, here is my photoblog of Charleston in the day. Blue was the order of the day, I'm sure people were staring at us! It's quite funny how white Jimmy looks (and ahem how American Andy and I look).

The next few photos are just things I liked and snapped them while we were wandering about.

The waterfront.

A wee turtle in the SC aquarium. It was really cool place to go and I learnt a few things about the coast of NC and SC, mainly that it has a lot of cool things in the sea.

We had a great day in Charleston, and I really do recommend it to anyone. It has a bit of everything, the old, the new, places to eat, the beach and a good night life (see next post). It is a great place to get away from it all too.

Georgia: Savannah

2008-08-13T20:45:00.001-04:00

After over a year in the states I finally broke down and got a car. I really wish I could have afforded one earlier it has given me so much freedom. Anyway for my first big trip on my own I met up with Andy in Savannah. Savannah , GA is about 350 miles from Durham, about a 6 hour drive and about the same for Andy from Tallahassee, FL, so it was fate.

Driving 6 hours is weird on your own is strange at first. I stopped a lot, even if it was just to get out of the car to strech my legs. I was surprised that I didn't feel too tired during it. I guess cold air-con, caffeine, loud music, and bad singing is enough to keep anyone awake. Also I was really excited to see Andy, I could talk British!!!

Here are some snaps from Savannah.

It has a great 'old town', with lots of squares.

It was bloody hot but lots of nice shade.

It was nice to see 'old things' in Savannah. Instead of that nasty 10 year old strip mall.

It was great just wandering around putting the world to right soaking up the atmosphere.

It felt like the proper 'south' down here

I just loved this graffiti on the building site for a new group of shops

I just liked this shot.

Meeting Andy was well worth the drive. It is really strange meeting an old friend in a completely different part of the world. It was great catching up, talking crap about how the US and the UK are different etc. It almost felt like we had not left Sheffield, but then again it felt like so long ago, so many things had changed. Thankfully somethings hadn't. We still got tea, drank beer in the day and forced the Americans to watch the EURO cup while we had lunch. Although drinking cocktails in a gazebo by a pool in shorts before dinner is a new one for us. we actually went to a 'British pub' called Churchill's for dinner. It tasted like home, a twinge of homesickness, but in a good way. Then a traditional British night of carnage ensued. A not so traditional pancake breakfast and off back to Durham in the morning. The weekend was so much fun and I really can't do it justice on the blog, but I do recommend Savannah. It's such a pretty place, great food and great bars, still working on the Tea tho.

Duke marine lab, Beaufort, NC

2008-08-07T18:21:00.003-04:00

Ok I know it's been a while, but I am back. Firstly I am really sorry, I don't have an excuse. I am just lazy. The good news is, I did take a lot of photos. So enjoy all the updates I will try and roll of ASAP.

A few months ago we had a departmental retreat (in the form of a mini conference) to the Duke marine lab in Beaufort, NC. It was cool to get out of the lab and out of Durham and see some more coastal NC. It hit me how rich Duke actually is on this trip. We passed the UNC marine lab on the way, a 'warehouse' in moorehead city. Duke owns an island!

Here are some of my Lab group, front row left to right, Debby, Yee and Tao and Jeff and I on the back. As you can see we were doing a lot of work...

Here is the actual island and the view of Beaufort. The island to the left has wild horses on it. Behind that are the outer banks and the Atlantic. Tough life, aye?

Here is some of my department. Being the geeky engineers that we are we sat inside all day.

This is my boss playing a crazy game of pool. He was the only Professor that chatted to people other than professors and had a laugh with us. We had just finished working on my presentation that I had to give in the morning. My first real presentation. It went pretty good actually.

Here is a subtle picture of fat people on the beach.

We also visited a civil war fort, it was great. I just loved this sign.

It was a pretty cool design. Not your big ol' castle type thing.

A great view of the Atlantic too

I don't know quite why they had a cannon pointed at the wall, well it was a civil war after all...

Tough times back then

Ah NC beaches. We did work I promise.

Boone, NC

2008-06-04T22:08:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago a went on a 'bachelor party' or as we would call it a stag do. It was for a grad student who I work with, Andres. We went to Boone, NC. it wasn't a crazy Vegas affair, just beers and good food in the mountains. Here is Andres.

Here is Teja, who is a candidate for one of the craziest people I know. I know Rhodri! I look absolutely cream crackered as I have just driven 200 miles.

When they said in the brochure you need a 4 x 4 to get up the driveway, we were thought it would be fine. Thankfully we could walk it.

It was a little redneck but still bloody nice.

"we have to walk up that?"

The smoky mountains, part of the blue ridge mountains of the Appalachians mountains that run along the east coast.

They are also near the Great Smoky Mountains and have the characteristic haze.

I didn't take this photo as it was up a tower that was far to shaky for me to get up :(

The scenary was just fantastic

Here is a picture of the 'dudes' left to right: Teja, Randy, Andres, Hui and me looking cool (ahem)

Obviously I can't post pictures of the drinking so here are some trees.

Some scary looking ones

We also went fishing. Surprisingly caught some fish (OK it was in a fish farm), one of those bad boys is mine.

They tasted bloody good. Lemon, herbs, butter and a grill.

California: Los Angeles

2008-05-18T19:32:00.004-04:00

Well we finally made it to LA. After 1800 miles and a lot of fun we got back to where we started in one piece. Here is a view of downtown LA from the Hollywood hills.

This is a shot of Beverly Hills. behind us was a burger van. So now we know how the rich and famous live. Well I am guessing that it was all the under paid workers...

I dread to think of how much the houses on this road cost. So much you can't even see them.

Here is the famous Hollywood sign and the infamous superman pants. Why do I do this to myself.

Here is is unspoilt

Outside the Kodiak theater they have all the foot and hand prints of the stars. Who a thought he would come back as the governor.

You can find anything in LA....

From past stars

To giant hot dog cars

And cool old cars

We stopped off at Rodeo Dr on the way back. All I could afford was a picture of this arse...

You don't see cars like this down on the high street of Dronfield.

We did have time for a big beer though

So this is the end of the California post, was it good?

California: Santa Barbara to LA

2008-05-17T17:01:00.003-04:00

Almost done with the California photos. I have been so busy lately and the blog has suffered but I am going to make a serious effort to try and make it up. Here is the last part of our journey down the coast. Thought this was a classic.

I actually took this out of the window at a stop light. It turned out pretty nice.

You wanted superman pants. You got em. I am whole heartedly apologetic to the good people of Malibu for debasing their sign. Well maybe...

I tired to capture some real scenic beauty but didn't want to fall off the cliff.

These cars were actually being road tested and they had cloth covers on it was really strange seeing them in convoy. We had actually taken a wrong turning at the time but it was fortuitous.

A classic baywatch shot for you. Take note of the surfer in the background towards the orange flag on the left.

A not so classic baywatch moment. We got to Venice beach and literally just as we set foot on the sand this crazy fog just descended. Well I wasn't gonna let that spoil my chance to swim in the Pacific ocean.

Although the real bay watch had to be called.

Only joking it was some boating accident. I assume everything went OK as they weren't really rushing.

I just really like this photo of the playground at Venice beach

Crazy people, gotta love em.

Here is a rare photo of a freeway in LA where cars are moving and it is daylight. I spoke to Andrea about driving in LA and she said there is about an hour if you are lucky when it isn't bad in the daytime. Somehow we found that hour.

California: Highway One

2008-04-22T21:40:00.002-04:00

To get from San Francisco to Los Angeles according to Google Maps takes 5 hours 50 minutes, we took the scenic route and it took us 2 days. The Mustang wouldn't go any other way.

Not that we were complaining

I hope you appreciate me having to look over cliffs to take photos

This one was particularly high one

The Pacific is truly magical

Sandy Beaches, why did I move to Dirty D.............

These were everywhere

There was a whole section with these types of bridges from the 1930s

Just the open road of the blue ocean

It did get a little rough

You can just see how it hugs the coastline

This is looking back. It is extra scary going the way we did because you are so near the drop in the passenger side

If you get chance to go to California I really do suggest you try and drive this road. It is just fantastic.

California: Muir woods

2008-04-21T22:27:00.003-04:00

Just a few miles north of San Francisco, over the Golden Gate bridge is an enclave of serenity that is known as Muir Woods. It is the closest area of preserved coastal redwoods. It really is worth the trip. This one was about 1000 years old when it was cut up, it is taller than me.

They are even more impressive while still standing

The light and dark is fantastic

You can see why it gets so dark, I think it looks like spider webs

These are only baby ones

A rare bit of sky

Flowers do grow on the floor even though it can be dark

I was wanting the Ewoks to come out from their hiding place

I have no idea which way this photo was meant to go, but I like it anyway

Apparently they have to close the park when these bad boys go. They are not allowed to move them once they fall or it will upset the ecosystem.

The loop we walked on had a little steam going through it

With some fallen trees too

A deer just chillin' on the road
Almost forgot the obligatory stand inside the big ass redwood and have your photo taken shot.....

It makes me look quite thin, eh?

California: Golden Gate Bridge

2008-04-16T21:50:00.003-04:00

This doesn't really need an introduction, just remember to click on the photos for the larger images. Here is the view driving across the bridge.

A nice view of the other side.

You get a great view of the bay area from the view point just as you get across the bridge.

also of San Francisco too

It's so cool with the fog. You can just make bay bridge in the background

Here is a rare photo of Loz and I. Don't we look lovely....

California: Getting around San Francisco

2008-04-16T21:04:00.004-04:00

This is a slightly geeky post but I like the photos so there. Here is an old school tram. They are painted in the colours of where that individual tram came from. They rescue old trams from all over the US.

Here are some pick from the cable car museum. I love old signs.....

... and old machines. Although this is what all the cable cars in San Francisco run on.

Here is the famous cable cars of SF.

A sideways view from the inside (oops forgot rotate that bad boy)

Here is how they turn them. Technology, aye? It was actually great because this where a crazy man hangs out and shouts at the tourists because they are all going to Hell. He had a hoarse voice that day and was getting heckled by the dudes pushing the car.

The end of the line.....

I love these trees. I think they look like giraffes.

Here is a cheeky view of Alcatraz with the cable car lines

PS Sorry for being slow on the posts

California: Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39

2008-04-08T22:47:00.004-04:00

While fisherman's wharf is cheesy tourist trap I still kinda like it. There was even a magic show and fat Americans, who are always amusing.

The coolest thing about this area is the other 'fat' residents of Pier 39. The California sea lions.

They started showing up in numbers after the 1989 earthquake and now there are some just chilling out all year round although most migrate depending on the season.

They are so cool. A few minutes before this these to were 'play fighting' in the water, obviously knacked from this they just tried to look as fat as possible.

Or just have a little scratch....

Here is another view of the tourists and San Fran in the background.

California: San Francisco

2008-04-07T23:33:00.004-04:00

After the craziness of the drive to San Francisco it was nice not to have to drive for a while. Here are a few shots in no particular order of our time there.

It's like the Sheffield of America with all them hills (ahem).

It does have some quite famous sights...

.... and some not so famous, but still cool.

The iconic transamerica pyramid

and Lombard St

That is actually the other end of Lombard St here is the wavy bit, with the mustang that we wanted..... well for the next bit of the holiday.

I love taking pictures of tourists...

.... and people posing for photos.

This is the Colt Tower, it gives some fantastic view of San Fran and the bay area. It's worth the climb even for unfit people such ans Loz and I.

Chinatown is always good.

One of the true fishermen of Fisherman's Warf.

The bay bridge which doesn't get as much press as the golden gate.

We had a good time in San Fran. Like I said it was nice not to drive for a full day. Apart from just wandering around the highlights of San Francisco not already photographed include:

The drive in, beautiful green California which was so contrasting to the previous days of desert.

Possibly the best burrito I have ever eaten @Taqueria Can Cun - 19 th and Mission St

Going to a 'dueling piano' bar. Where two piano players play songs for money, they can interupt and try and get each side of the room to compete against each other. It was a very different experience of a bar than in England.

Also a few more that get there own posts.

California: Death Valley and the wiggly road

2008-04-01T21:26:00.003-04:00

After the bright lights of Las Vegas what do you do? San Fransisco of course. There are three routes, the normal route, the one via death valley and the one through death valley and the 'short cut' after that. We took the third option, as it had a nice looking wiggly road, and here is the way google tells you to go. This is the first time we got lost.

Actually we were not lost there, this was taken just after the superman pants picture. The drive was lovely through the deserts and we got to Death Valley safe and sound. Loz even got asked to settle a argument on how the 'British' say vi-ta-mins (vit-a-mins), by a gas station clerk. I was the one sweaty my ass off outside pumping the bloody gas, anyone would think he was on holiday....

We definitely visited at the right time of year. There was even greenery in places.

It is such a stunning landscape

The elevation extremes are crazy. Within hours we were 6000 ft above sea level.

Quite scary that it goes up to 55C

The second lowest point in the western hemisphere.

A little more like a desert now.

Furnace creek

I imagine in the summer not the coolest place on Earth but in march, crows and camper vans co-exist quite peacefully

My attempt at an Ansel Adams type photo......

This is actually part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I think the mountain shown here is about 12,000 ft, crazy.

This was taken near the start of the wiggly road as dusk. We are sure it was beautiful, it was a lot of fun going up and down the hills in the mustang, that made up for it.

We hit 6000 ft above sea level and back down to 200 at Fresno. Me being the geek I am opened the bottle at the top. The fiver makes it's first cheeky experience. This was a grueling 12 hour day. I racked up about 300 miles and Loz about 150, he drove a lot longer than I did.

This was an absolute awesome experience. California has some fantastic mountains and deserts, that isn't even the half of it. You could spend weeks just exploring them. I really do recommend it. Next stop San Francisco.

Las Vegas: How I beat Vegas

2008-03-25T20:35:00.003-04:00

After the red rock canyon we decided it was time to get back to Vegas and have some fun. It was an interesting drive back into Vegas from the north. We got to see where all the 'real' people lived. It was just like any other city in the US with its strip malls and normal housing. We even drove down the strip. The north part is so seedy and dirty, but what can you expect really. A bit of advice if you do drive down the strip, don't go in the mirage valet area as it will take you about 10 minutes to get out of. It's a bloody maze. Well here are some sights of Vegas. You have the Eiffel tower.

The statue of Liberty

The Bellagio
Hooker flyers....

So here is how I beat Las Vegas. Loz went for a 'rest'. While waiting for him as I was in Vegas I decided to put a dollar in the Kenny Rodgers 'the gambler' 5c slot machine. With a surprising stroke of luck I got the bonus feature and I just kept on winning, as you can see below. The moral of the story, get your friend to drink lots so they keep on going to the bathroom and you win in Vegas.

After that we just had to gamble... this is whats left of our $40 on roulette.

All in all I came up about $30 from Vegas. Which is not bad as I did spend quite a bit of time gambling. Here is another arty shot of Vegas.

Las Vegas: Outside of Vegas, the red rock canyon

2008-03-24T20:56:00.003-04:00

After the Hoover dam, we decided a jaunt to the red rock canyon on the outskirts of Vegas was the order of the day. I found this lovely sign while trying to find our way there (if you see if you are going the wrong way).

What we did find were the power lines leading from the dam to Boulder city.

I have to add I was driving, and I did get us there. It was worth it.

I even got to practice my GCSE photography. Get me.

There is a lovely little loop you can drive round. We even saw some fluffy bunnies on the way round.

Another one for the GCSE scrapbook

Here are some Joshua Trees with the characteristic layers rocks in the background. The red is due to iron.

You can just about see Vegas in background. We shall get to that next.

Las Vegas: Hoover Dam

2008-03-18T20:09:00.003-04:00

Instead of wasting our day in Vegas gambling we decided to go on a little trip to one of the greatest feats of modern engineering, the Hoover dam. It was pretty fantastic, even though i spent half my time terrified due to the bloody big drop.

Here is a view of the artificial lake, Lake Mead, that was formed when built the dam. This was taken from Boulder City, NV. Which is the only place in Nevada that you can't gamble.

Here is the beast. Obviously not taken by me as I was too scared.

Another view of Lake Mead. The white line is the salt deposit from the highest flood. It didnt go over the dam itself but I bet it was bloody scary.

I actually managed to do the power plant tour. This involved descending about 500 ft in 70 seconds in a lift. It was surprisingly smooth. They are absolutely massive (ca. 300 tonnes)

Here is the outside of the power station. Again not taken by me.

I love these water inlet towers. A really classic art deco design and they do look so cool close up.

Here is a new highway bridge they are building. It looks totally insane, but I bet you are gonna get a fantastic view. You can actually drive across the dam at the moment, which wasn't that scary.

Here is the dam from the Arizona side. You can see the crazy power lines. Also how they actually made a good job of the visitors center. It was refreshing not to see people selling tat.

California: The Road to Vegas

2008-03-16T22:59:00.004-04:00

It has been a while since I have updated but have I got some updates for y'all now. For the past two weeks I have been on a road trip round California including Las Vegas. I went with Lawrence (Loz) from school. Loz had never been to the states and I thought it would be a good idea for us to road trip round California. We had a bloody good time. Here are the pics. First off I know y'all wanted superman pants, well here they are!

That picture was actually taken later in the trip but I couldn't resist putting it in. Below is the car we got. I thought it was a bargain @ $350 for 10 days.

This was the beast we got. A 4.0 litre V6 Ford mustang. We knew we were gonna be spending on the gas but it was so cool to drive. The engine sounded great and we were doing a road trip in the states. We actually got almost 30 mpg that first day. It took us about 65 miles to get out of civilization. LA is massive. The total journey was about 300 miles (give or take a few errors, I was kinda navigating at first), here is on a map.

This is actually the point where I took over driving for the first time. Loz managed 200 miles, fulled on by great American fayre; a breakfast of pancakes and a Barstow dinner lunch. I was pretty nervous as the mustang was a beast and I hadn't really driven much. After a few minutes of panic it all came back and thanks to the automatic transmission and cruise control we were eating up the miles with ease. It is great just driving a long listening to classic songs on the radio.

I took this photo because years ago I saw a series of photos by an American photographer with the Union 76 gas stations as the subject. Alas the iconic ball is no longer there but it is cool that something so mundane can be beautiful.

After a nerve wracking journey through Vegas in the rush hour we finally got to the hotel. it was a pretty cool trip to have on our first day. From the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles, through the fantastic mountains and deserts, to the neon of Vegas. It's easy to forget that Las Vegas is in the middle of nowhere, you can see in the background of the picture the mountains that most people just forget about as all they think about is the money.

Here is one of the lions that live in the MGM grand in Vegas. It is just that kinda place.

It is so bad I do love it.

The first night we were pretty tired, but we managed to gamble a bit, I was even up $10. We just wandered round looking at the sights and even got some all-you-can-eat ribs for dinner. Ah Las Vegas the place of excess.

Check back for more adventures tomorrow!

NYC....well airports!

2008-02-25T21:06:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post I was planning a trip to NYC to meet up with my sister for her birthday and see Shannon. After a rough few weeks this was going to be fantastic. I had booked the flight so I had a few hours to get myself sorted before I met my sister. I had looked at the weather and knew it was going to be snowing in NYC so I had packed warm and even a jumper in hand luggage. Not just a pretty face, eh? I called Shannon from the airport and she said there had been snow but it had stopped and some flights had been canceled. I was looking at the board and a few had been but not mine so I was in luck!

About 20 minutes before the flight they were asking for 9 people to consider getting bumped to another flight. All the passengers looked round as if to say 'not me buddy'. 10 minutes before the flight was set to leave they announced it was canceled. Bugger. So I jumped in the queue to get another flight. I was two from the front, which I thought was quiet impressive and cat like of me. They said they had nothing for today, tomorrow was the best they could do but I could try getting a flight to DC and getting a train.

I really wanted to see everyone in NYC and I would only have a day that way. Also I had tickets for the NY Knicks for that evening. So I though I might as well go for it instead of just going home. So I got booked on a flight to DC. The waiting started. I was quite looking forward to a nice train ride.

I later learned that over 1100 flights were canceled that day. When I got into DC it was pretty easy getting to train station. Oh the joys of a public transport system. Unfortunately lots of other also found it easy to get there too. Upon my arrival there an announcement that no trains had spaces going north till Saturday. Bugger.

After a few phone calls I admitted defeat and made my way back to the airport. I could have tried the greyhound/Chinatown buses but I feared the same would happen and by then I would probably not got into NYC till late Friday early Saturday anyway. Also I have been to the area of town in DC where you get the buses from. It is bloody scary in the day.

I managed to get on a flight home to Durham, and back only 13 hours after I left. While it was a pretty miserable day it did get me away from it all and gave me time to chill out and get some much needed thinking done. I am happier than I was on Thursday. I even got a John Grisham book who I have never read before and am enjoying it.

When I got back I didn't do the sensible thing and go to bed. Nahh dancing in Chapel Thrill with Nathan in Mina was the order of the day. I even got my revenge by giving them shots of Ouzo. He He. Looking for that link I found this page. It's pretty geeky and involves small angle neutron scattering and papers from Langmuir (which I have been published in no less) about the ouzo effect. The aniseed separates when you add water causing it to go milky.

Anyway the moral of the story. Traveling in the US can suck but at least it wasn't the wrong kind of snow.

Plans

2008-02-21T23:34:00.002-05:00

A quick update. I am off to NYC tomorrow for the weekend. Where I will get to see my wonderful sister for her birthday and to hangout with the lovely Shannon in Brooklyn. I have been stressed with work these last few weeks so I am really looking forward to it. Hopefully I will get some cool shots for the blog too.

Also a week later I fly out for a jaunt in California, with my old mate from school Laurence 'chief' Wall. So expect real blog updates in the next few weeks.

I will try and get the NYC stuff updated ASAP but you know what I'm like.

Catch y'all later

Bob

Chinese New Year: Not Lost in Translation

2008-02-17T22:32:00.003-05:00

Being in the most international lab on our floor does have a lot of perks. One of them is you get to have lots of celebrations. Our latest lab outing was to celebrate the Chinese new year at Tao's house. Tao is my fellow postdoc in our lab and was very kind to prepare a feast for us on the Chinese new year, for the year of the Rat.

We had some great traditional Chinese food, obviously washed down with Coca-cola. Damn westerners.

and a good laugh playing table tennis after. Not shown here is Tao kicking my ass at table tennis.

All in all it was a great evening and it reminded me why science is a nice field to work in, because it truly is a international field. Anyway to the second point of my post; not lost in translation. As part of the celebrations, Tao, his wife and those originally from China tried to explain what was going on to those not from China. Firstly the food was all explained, although I was slightly disappointed that the promised goat actually turned out to be lamb (do like eating new animals). After this the bread was passed round. One bread roll contained a red bean, the person who found this would have to tell a love story.

As the bean wasn't found the first time round we started to talk about new year in our different countries. Andres playing the wag asked what I did. Obviously not wanting to regale people with my ASBOesq antics I did eventually get round to Big Ben. Tao, then told is the story of why there is no year of the cat. We then played a little game of guessing what brings or chases away good and bad luck. Not good news if you bought shoes in the last few days. While Chinese characters baffle me, one of the things cool things is that they all came from pictures originally. Here are the symbols for the animals for each year, you can sort of see em, well kinda.

Anyway I digress. Back to the bread. We were on the second round and still nobody had got the bean. It turns out Tao had forgot which one it was in and not cooked it. So we all made Tao tell the story of how he met his wife. Well actually Tao and his wife had to tell it. The story goes. Tao and his wife both helped the same person out on the same day but in different ways. So the person took them to dinner and after they played poker. Tao lost and had to make breakfast for his wife to be. As the dorms were not co-ed he had to drop it off with the porter, but saw her at a bus stop the next day, they had a drink and hit it off. The best bit was them telling this story. Tao's wife was telling it in broken English (she doesn't get to practice very much) and Chinese (we had lots of translators) but you could tell how embarrassing it was by the look on Tao's face. This was especially apparent when she let slip that during all this Tao had a girlfriend. Communication is not always verbal.

Superbowl

2008-02-02T18:12:00.000-05:00

I am really looking forward to the Superbowl. After a few failed attempts of trying to see a Duke 'football' game. Mainly due to hangovers. I also tried to watch a few other American football games, including the one from London. I was pretty much confused by the whole thing. Then I watched the NFL playoffs a few weeks ago with my mate Nathan. Finally somebody explained the bloody thing to me and it's actually damn good to watch.

I kinda got all that malarky about touchdowns and field-goals etc. I was just generally confused about why it took so long for anything to happen and why they kept stopping. Then the simple rule of you have 4 tries (or downs) to get it 10 yards or you have to kick it to the other team was explained. Then it all made sense. It's just about moving the ball forward. Things like penalties change this. Also the clock is important. Now I kinda understand the basics it is a lot of fun to watch. It's violent, but also has tactics. I had the same thing with cricket a few years ago. Never understood that, then one day somebody explained it and I loved it.

I want the Giants to win tomorrow. So go Giants!

Adventures with the DMV

2008-02-02T17:33:00.000-05:00

After months of abuse by the door staff of NC I decided to breakdown and get an ID. I wanted originally to get my drivers license converted to an NC one. This is not an easy task. Firstly to get a license you need a car. This is because you need auto insurance to get a license. The flaw in the system is that to buy a car...... you need a drivers license. So I got a lovely ID instead. Ah the joys of the NC Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

The DMV office in Durham is pretty bad. When we first got there, the guy giving people their ticket was also the guy taking the photos. So there were two big queues. It is painful watching somebody who is a stickler for protocol doing their job badly. Also notice the expiry date. It better bloody work after all that.

rant over.

P.S. I saw the fattest person I have seen in NC at the DMV. I felt bad for him as he had to try and squeeze into a horrible little plastic chair.

Spare a thought for Jimmy

2008-01-30T09:20:00.000-05:00

If you think it's cold where you live, just think of Jimmy up in Edmonton, Canadia. The brass monkeys have definitely had their balls frozen off. I am not gonna complain that it's skirting around freezing here anymore, well for a few days anyway.

P.S Jimmy it's gonna be about 18 C here in the next few days. Methinks you chose the wrong place to do a postdoc.

A night at the 506: the great 8 showcase

2008-01-27T21:04:00.001-05:00

Here is a little photoblog update. It is me playing with my new camera at a red collar gig. I took all these without a flash for that old school grainy black and white effect. Remember to click on the photos to see them big.

One of the best things about being back in Durham is the music. On Saturday I caught a show at the aptly named Local 506 showcasing national, sorry, local talent. The so called great 8, which you can see a cool flash applet about. The first band I saw properly was 'I was totally destroying it', I have seen them before, and are pretty damn cool. I think they fit into the local scene well as the local bands round here seem to be trying to reclaim pop music or at least rock 'n' roll. Unfortunately I was still working out how to use my camera and the pictures I got were pretty bad.

I did get some of Red Collar though. The first shot is actually of a film that was being shown throughout the night of the great 8. I just thought it came out nice, especially as the guy in the white t-shirt is the guy in the white shirt.

Things started off pretty quiet.

When you don't use a flash it's hard to capture motion in focus, but it does show the energy the band have.

They do move around on stage.

I got this shot on the go of 'hey come on let's go go go' from the song 'stay'

A shot with the whole band. It's tough when you're trying to fight off all the fan girls and boys for a good space to take photos.....

Durhamarma

2008-01-25T19:38:00.000-05:00

It's been a mad mad week in Durham, NC. As I posted a few days ago a duke Ph.D student was murdered. Since then there has been a spree of people being held up at gun point. This includes somebody in my research group. They think they have the people who did it according to WRAL. It has been a scary week and also a week of paranoia. It was pretty scary walking to the pub the other day as somebody was sat on a wall. I'm sure they had an innocent reason to be there and I have walked past this same wall with people on it maybe 100 times. The paranoia got to me and it went through my mind that I was going to get mugged and/or shot. They win if you start thinking like that.

What does need to be looked at is the divide in Durham of the haves (i.e. in general white people connected with duke) and the havenots (i.e. a lot of the African-American/Hispanic populations). While this is a big generalisation, it is for the most part sadly true. Durham could have so much to offer but people are scared of it. Everywhere else in the triangle is expensive. Downtown Durham could be so much fun... we just need one first, this in turn would create jobs and maybe take the emphasis off the great divide. I know it won't solve all the problems but it could be a start.

Anyways on a lighter note. It snowed last weekend, here is the view from my porch.

Google Search Terms

2008-01-21T23:36:00.000-05:00

Here is a list of search terms that people have used and found this blog, thanks to the good people at stalkcounter for the information. I don't know if I should be pleased or slight worried. If you type superman pants into google, I am top 10. Woo hoo. I really hope that the top one from this list isn't somebody trying to find me. Although it looks like people are trying to find Ryan Hill. So if you are looking for him I can tell you where he lives. Nutters welcome.

crazy brit nc
streets of philadelphia cftpa blogspot
streets of philadelphia casiotone blogspot
pub golf nyc
"1600 block anderson street, durham"
casiotone for the painfully alone streets of philadelphia
cameron crazies and chef hats
dronfield sunday lunch
duke basketball lede
"beerfest wilmington,nc 2008"
who did el gigante play basketball for
"dunkin donuts, nc hockey contest"
pub golf nyc
mocha pronunciation english
derbyshire north carolina
duke shit basketball
affair with landlord
t-shirt myfootballclub
going to carolina december
casiotone streets of philadelphia blogspot
el gigante raleigh nc pic
superman pants
filmed in wilmington nc
duke basketball action shots
superman pants
afrobats central park
manhattan island north carolina
dan may chapel hill
"derbyshire, north carolina"
derbyshire north carolina
mcdonalds manhattan island
filmed in wilmington nc
gut melting
afrobats new york
mankini uk
red collar band
el gigante north carolina
sports bars in wilmington nc with english soccer
polish mead blog
wrightsville beach pelicans
ciemas
gigante carolina
queens brooklyn accent
pub golf american version
pub golf american version
"the el gigante, north carolina"
"iam going to carolina, song"
el gigante carolina
cameron crazies
3d photos of houses
an american going to yorkshire
ryan hill postdoc
where to eat christmas dinner in southeastern nc
buy yorkshire pudding new york city
el gigante banditos
bbc adverts
dawson's creek house pics wilmington nc
boars breath nc
banditos el gigante
yorkshire pudding nc
"wrightsville beach, nc sea oats"
what to think of when going to north carolina
tales from the bar
dain's place pub quiz
dook basketball
dain's place pub quiz
dain's place pub quiz
ryan hill chilkoti
ryan hill chilkoti
el gigante banditos
banditos el gigante
poll americanness
wrightsville beach t shirts
"dain's place, durham"

Welcome to Durham

2008-01-20T16:56:00.000-05:00

I and everyone else related to Duke received this e-mail on Saturday morning:

Alert -- Shooting Death

A man believed to be a Duke University graduate student was found shot to death at an apartment complex in the 1600 block of Anderson Street, several blocks south of the Duke campus, at approximately 11:30 p.m. Friday. According to Duke Police, the incident is under investigation and more information will be shared as it becomes available. Updates will be posted on www.duke.edu/today. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call Durham Crimestoppers at (919) 683-1200 or Duke Police at (919) 684-2444.

This is scary stuff. In 2005 there were 37 murders in Durham. I was aware that it was around that figure. I just didn't realise how close to home these can be. Most of the cities I have lived in had some problem like this, but it was mostly in the not so nice areas. I am not really worried, it is just a terrible thing to happen to somebody so young and who had a bright future ahead of them.

Back in Carolina, I think

2008-01-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

Well I made it back to NC after a jaunt back to the UK. It was good to see some old faces. It is so difficult to see everyone, so I am sorry if I missed you. I was strange being back. I think I did finally get used to it by the end. Although I did miss NC. It's strange, even though it is really hard leaving friends and family back in the UK and I do miss everyone, I was ready to come back home to dirty D. It does feel like home now. One thing I don't miss about the UK in the winter is the short days and the miserable weather. We get about 2 and a half hours extra of daylight here. Also a big smile on my face.

Speaking of England, here is the end of my road in Dronfield. We got a light dusting of snow. For the colonials, that is a bend in the road.

I really wouldn't recommend doing four transatlantic flights in about 6 weeks. It really does mess with your head. Although my last flight (Philly - Raleigh) was really nice as it was the first time I have chatted to a random on a flight. It was this old guy from NY state and was flying down to see his grandson. We just talked about England and Engineering.

Just in case I hadn't mentioned it, I am now here till March 2009. I hope everyone had a good festive season. I will be updating the blog more from now on. I am even buying a new camera. Get me.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-22T12:34:00.000-05:00

I just want to wish everyone a great festive season. Normal service on the blog will return in the new year. Expect some drunken and maybe even some normal photos from jolly old England.

Mankini pub golf

2007-12-11T20:58:00.000-05:00

To celebrate me going back to the UK and passing my viva I let my sister organise a night out. True to form it involved a drink...

... or three

The idea was to do pub golf down Division St in sheffield. As I said my sister made it up so it involved me wearing something stupid. A Borat mankini.

I did say we had a few drinks didn't I?
It was a little tight....
But it got a little comfier after a while
Well maybe not
We found out it wasn't that tight.... you can fit Jon and I in
and a few friends....
Introducing 'Kinky Slimer' available for birthdays, weddings etc

Good times! Thank you everyone who made it out. Also thank you to the guys over on this side of the pond for giving me another celebration, my head hurt for a while after that.

Back to the UK and back again

2007-12-11T19:01:00.000-05:00

I have been away for a while as I had to go back to England to 'defend my thesis' or have my viva voce (depending on where your from). I passed with minor corrections just in case you didn't know. I am pretty chuffed with it, even if it hasn't really sunk in yet.

I was a strange week back in the UK. It was great to see all the old faces, family and friends. Sheffield has changed, loads of new buildings, but it was great to here the accent especially people calling each other 'luv'. Dronfield is still the same, as ever. That is comforting though. It was still really strange being back, I don't think I really got used to it at all. I was only back for a week.

The things that made it strange were the little things. The way roads look (apart from the obvious), here they just don't have the gentle curves we have, here they are wide and things make sense. The difference here is somebody thought about what was going on back in the UK some guy just went ooh that looks like the quickest way to get me sheep down the hill so I can get to the pub.

I have also got used to shopping here. The 'Hi, how are you?' ..... 'Have a nice day' that you always get. Paper or plastic? I never try and add my shopping up as the tax is always added later. Paying by card. I went to the Sainsbury's in Dronfield and you get a sweaty teenager serving you with all the social skills of a wet sponge and a granny paying in coppers. I am not saying the American or the English way is better but the American way is not as annoying as 'Have a nice day' is portrayed, in most cases it's not as false either and you do actually get genuine conversations. Maybe it because I'm in the south y'all.

I was also quite surprised about my lack of jet lag. I experimented getting up 2 hours early the week before flying back. This is so I would be 'fresher'. It worked, after two days I was pretty normal for me. My air miles are gonna be great as I will have racked up about 15,000 in just over a month.

One very nice thing about being back is that it was 26 C today. Not the kind of weather you get mid December in blighty.

Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today is thanksgiving in the US. It's a pretty strange day for someone not being from the US but a welcome day off from work and and an excuse to eat if nothing more. The food is pretty much a variation on the Sunday roast/Christmas dinner we all know and love in the UK, except with more American foods like sweet potatoes. The nice thing is that the build up to Christmas is not as visible as in the UK, so it's not saturated. Here are my experiences of two different thanksgivings.

My first was an annual bash put on by Andy as a pre-thanksgiving warm up before people head home for the holidays. It is also known as Turkeyfest. I was going to paraphrase the invite but it's quite funny so I shall post it:

Hello all,

The holidays are upon us. There is no better way to start the season that with deep fried turkeys (yes, plural), casserole as far as the eye can see, and desserts from pillars of the Triangle baking community.

It is time once again for the annual Thanksgiving gathering at the HQ II. For those new to the event, it promises gluttony, good times, and some of the most intense dining you can imagine. For those that were here last year, we're looking to break the record which means six turkeys over the course of the afternoon. In addition, if Luke shows up, we'll have at least two Indians, adding to the overall authenticity.

For those of you can make it, the rules are simple:

1. RSVP ASAP with what you are planning on bringing, anything from full turkeys to cranberry riddy to halloween cookies, we've seen it all. We'll have the deep fryer and a grill for use for those that want to cook another turkey and/or twinkies. We'll also have 2 turkeys, 1 oven roasted and 1 deep fried, and enough canned cranberry sauce for half of Marc.

2. Be creative, be generous, but don't be the napkin guy. Multiples of the same dish are fine, but please use common sense if there are already 3 green bean casseroles coming.

3. The event is socialist in nature, so overt sassiness regarding portion sizes is not acceptable.

4. We've finally removed "the beast" from the last party so let's not have that happen again.

5. While Helen [Andy's car] is a part of the family, she's not allowed to eat people food.

Feel free to bring significant others and the inevitable people who should have been on the guest list. We hope to see you all there, food/drink in tow.

It was great fun, in the end there was 5 turkeys and a Turducken (turkey-duck-chicken) all in one. Deep-fried WHOLE turkey is interesting! To say the least. It does taste good but it doesn't half spit when you put it in the fryer. All in all it was a good day out, the weather was fantastic so we could all sit out side, chat, watch the world go by, throw the American football about etc. I was so surprised at the quality of the food. Most of it was homemade and it was great. Also I found out if you try and deep-fry a turducken they do an alien chest burster impression except with birds and hot oil. I am going to try that one day, well maybe.

My thanksgiving today was a pleasant surprise. I felt bad for turning down LAM!LAM!'s thanksgiving bash but I had to study and go to bed early. I was just going to cook myself a little Sunday Lunch type affair. My landlord came round and asked if I wanted to come round to his, as his wife was away. So I got some turkey after all, and a chat with my landlord. It was a nice day, and I get to go to bed early. Boo. Hopefully I will be around next year for more festive fun.

PS just found this video, it's a quick tour of the Raleigh/Durham area.

Fall on Campus

2007-11-20T20:51:00.000-05:00

Here are a few snaps I took today of campus while I was going to get my visa validated so I'm allowed back in the US. The weather is great at the moment, clear blue skies and still slightly warm. It makes so much difference not being grey, wet and windy all the time. We also get slightly longer days than the UK.

I will try and get some more autumnal shots later this week as the 'fall colors' will be gone by the time I'm back.

Duke Basketball

2007-11-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

Here is my photos from a Blue Devils game. Apparently getting tickets for a 'Dook' (as the local say it, and the occasional ahem slip from me) basketball game is like finding rocking horse shit. How I found myself at the first game of the season I am still not entirely sure. I am guessing it was because the opponent was NCCU and are considered not as good as Dook even though they are also located in Dirty D. I was looking forward to it none the less. Andy was 'super pumped' all day and even skipped work to join the grad line. Here is where it all goes off, the Cameron indoor stadium. It's a pretty small stadium, clocking in at less than 10,000, but it's got a pretty good atmosphere.

I found a colonial to sit next too. Who of course was eating a BBQ sandwich (which was actually quite good). Ryan went to UNC Chapel Hill for undergrad, who are dook's main rivals. It's kinda like a Wednesday fan being at BDTBL. He looks happy though, bless 'em the locals do try.

Here is some particularly good photography of the start of the game.

A better action shot. Notice the guy on the floor.

Here are the Cameron Crazies in action. This is a free-throw. The crowd all hold their arms till the ball goes in. Unless the other team are taking it then it's all fair game. The best thing they did was all crouch down on the floor except for a semi-naked guy in lederhosen who proceeded to dance around making noise, I nearly wet myself.

A view of Cameron during the game. All the flags at the top are something that Dook basketball has won. They ain't bad these so called Blue Devils.

Here is a picture of the team during a time-out. The guy in the middle is Michael Krzyzewski (pronounced shuh-shef-skee) or coach K. I think he looks like Dr. Evil. He is pretty much a legend on campus, has been offered loads to coach in the NBA and swears like a trooper. He's that good they even named the floor after him.

Here is another pic of the crazies. The guys in the chefs hats are known as the shuhshefskee chefs. You can even pick Andy out in this photo. He is the one seen shaking a whisk at the opposition. It did indeed show them.

Crazy stuff happens during a time-out. Although disappointingly no time-out chicken is given out. Here is the Duke Blue Devil surfing on the band.

And of course American sports would not be complete without cheerleaders. They did look lovely.

Adverts on the BBC

2007-11-06T23:08:00.000-05:00

Notice everything different?

Yes I bloody well did. They have been experimenting with the site and adverts all day. I am glad they took the banner off the top. I understand why they are doing it. I just hope us non-UK users get all the videos and radio feeds now we have to put up with the adverts.

You lucky buggers back in the UK

Ice Hockey

2007-11-06T22:26:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to see the Carolina Hurricanes NHL ice hockey team in Raleigh. It was $10 for really good seats and a free coach thanks to the good people at Duke. It's not bad to say the nosebleeds are $20 and they were pretty high and the seat we were in were $90.

It was pretty cool. The 'canes won 5-0 against the Washington Capitols. There was even a fight. It was great. I loved the go-nuts for do-nuts competition, where the crowd went crazy for a 12 pack of dunkin' donuts. Only in America.

NC State Fair

2007-10-29T23:59:00.000-04:00

This is the last of the North Carolina state fair series (I'm actually going to have to do something blogworthy now). It was a good experience, I wouldn't go every week, but it's a pretty cool thing to do once a year maybe. Here is the NC flag, the sky was beautiful, even a touch of Carolina blue at the bottom of the picture.

This was one of the first things I saw as I entered the fair ground. I was told there was going to be wall to wall red necks.

Thats more like it....

I think this is a really nice picture of Andy and Bonnie. Also one of the few photos I have taken of Andy when he is not doing something stupid.

Back to the locals. It was a bloody massive thing. They get you with the deep-fried food as you get in. Then the rides halfway through. Someones gonna be sick.

This picture has two purposes. Firstly it shows the place where I got the ostrich burger. Secondly some fat Americans for y'all. To be fair, even at a place that sells deep-fried everything there weren't that many fat people and I'm sure you will find a similar amount in Blackpool or Skegvegas. Has my radar gone, or I am joining them.

You gotta love those Carolina sunsets.

Although after dark the freaks come out....

Red necks will pay to see anything. Oops, sorry thats Andy. Notice above only 50c to get in. Thats 25p.

I thought I'd finish with a nice one.

The state fair may not be the most intellectual of pursuits in the world, but I'll say one thing, it was a lot of fun. I recommend anyone going to one, just don't expect much and you will be pleasantly surprised.

NC State Fair - Ass and Big Melons

2007-10-29T23:14:00.000-04:00

One of the reasons for having the state fair is so that the farmers can show off their produce. It is fantastic as they show all the huge and weird looking looking fruit and veg. The pumpkin behind me is over 1,100 lbs, which is about 500 Kgs or bloody huge. You could actually buy huge pumpkins in whole foods these last few weeks, I didn't fancy spending $30 to eat pumpkin for the rest of my life.

I just think these look geat

Here is Andy checking out the workings of a chicken.

You could do many people an injustice with that bad boy.

I really wanted a chili after this. I also wanted a bacon sandwich after seeing the pigs too...

It is just crazy the amount of stuff they had on show. I loved the strange looking stuff. Yes I gaupped like a slack jawed yokel. You know what they say, when in Rome...

Well I promised you ass..

.... and big melons

What did you think I was going to show you..... you are a dirty bunch aren't you.

Trying not to get fat.......

2007-10-22T22:19:00.000-04:00

As we all know I am a lazy man and I am not the best at being motivated to do physical exercise. Unless there is a beer afterwards maybe. The has pretty much continued if not got worse since moving to the states. Recently it has got better as I joined the football team. This is only once a week and is pretty sporadic so tonight I finally broke down and ran round the Duke East Campus track, see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Bob trying to feel better about himself.

According to the source of all knowledge, or wikipedia as some call it the track is 1.5 miles all the way around. I did it in 16 minutes which is pretty bad (I did have to walk a bit). My aim is to get it down to about 12 ish. As in my youth I ran a mile in about 7 and a half minutes therefore it would be about 8 minutes a mile. I am waiting for the abuse in the comments.

NC State Fair - Food

2007-10-18T23:48:00.001-04:00

As already mentioned in the last post I went to the NC state fair. Making small animals run round a track is not generally a major pastime in North Carolina, but eating is. Typically the unhealthier the better. The state fair is no exception, in fact it makes kebabs look almost healthy. As y'all know Andy and I are seasoned eaters, so much to our surprise it was Bonnie who "didn't want to really eat" who got the first culinary delight. A really buttery corn, which was pretty nice actually. Andy not wanting to be out done got a giant turkey leg, which I also tasted (you can take the boy out of yorkshire...)

I forgot the bloody fiver didn't I....

Not wanting to be outdone by the Yanks I decided to actually pay for something. A deep fried Twinkie (a normal one can be found here). Not necessarily the healthiest start to my evenings eating but I tell you what, it was fantastic. The shop I got it from pretty much did everything. Fried snickers, oreos, several dough related items and even chocolate dipped frozen cheesecake for those not wanting their food battered. It would go down a treat in Scotland.

Yep I ate that. Aren't y'all proud of me. Yes I am wearing my cowboy shirt.

After the successful taming of the twinky I was on fire. I needed more deep fried goods. Somebody thought of a great way for kids to get their 5 veg a day. Deep fry the bugger. Here pictured are, pickles (gerkins to the educated among us), mushrooms, cauliflower, broccoli and zucchini (or as civilized people call it courgette).

Andy was tempted by the slabs of cooking meat. Good job the have the drool guard.

For desert I had a chocolate covered frozen cantaloupe. The lady who served me used to live in Skegness.

I say it was desert. I had an ostrich burger after the pig racing. I didn't eat loads of but it was good fun. I think I would have been a little I'll if I had any more. Well you can always fit an ice cream in can't you. Even the half a tub they gave us and called it a bowl.

All in all some interesting culinary delights. The ice cream was probably the best. Mmmmm cookie dough.

NC State Fair - Racing Pigs

2007-10-14T21:56:00.000-04:00

Here is the first post about about my visit to the North Carolina state fair. This is possibly the coolest thing ever. Racing Pigs and also goats and ducks! Only in NC! It was such good fun. It was packed and they were playing covers but in a country style such as Superstition by Stevie Wonder but with a Banjo... We were loving it.

Then it get all NASCAR getting people pumped about the race. It was pretty cool the guy telling us that they race for cheese doodles (wotsits for us Brits). I tell you they were bloody fast.

The first is of pot bellied pigs and the second is goats. Optional screaming by Andy Simnick. Well enjoy the videos.....

I even got the t-shirt.......

World International Beer Festival

2007-10-11T20:32:00.000-04:00

I had the pleasure of attending my first proper beer festival. Well as long as you don't count the effort that they had in the farmer a few years ago or the Sheffield University Beer festival that was meant to last three days and all the beer was gone by 11 on the first night. No this was different, this was classy, this had tickets, a website and over 150 different beers. For $35 (£17.50) it was a four hour all you can drink extravaganza, you even got a special tasting glass. Which is beautifully modeled below, with fiver as people now complain if it's not in the photo.

The festival took place at the old Durham Bulls Athletic Park, which was made famous by film Bull Durham and Kevin Costner. It was cool actually being on the field, but that thought didn't last long as there were 150 beers to try in convenient two ounce servings as to promote 'sensible' enjoyment, just waiting to be.... well enjoyed. The beer was great. Most of it was American, thankfully none of it was Budweiser. American beer is good, Brits do tend to get on their high horse about US beer tasting like pisswater (Americans are also annoying saying that we drink beer warm), but I am sorry to the say worst beer I tasted there was Tetley's. I knew it was going to be bad but I had to for old times sake. Thankfully one of the best was the Black Sheep Hobgoblin. Now that bad boy was for old times sake. I also tried Polish Mead, you know what they used to drink in Robin Hood times. Mead is pretty much bloody strong stuff which is also sweet as it is made from honey. I whole heartily recommend it. It reminds me of a lyric by the Sonics "[It'll] make you jump, it'll make you shout, it'll even knock you out". It got a little hazy towards the end, but I can assure you a good night was had by all.....it ended up in Cosmic with me giving Andy a great (apparently) pep talk, I'm not entirely sure what I said and what it was about but I am told I had a smile on my face so all was good with the world.

It's called football not soccer

2007-10-04T23:01:00.000-04:00

I have joined departmental inter-mural football (or soccer as the natives call it) team. Thankfully it is in the recreational league. I think I would look really bad in that league. It's nice to see it though. The name of the post comes from a team name in the other league.

It is nice to see the American's playing the sport the rest of the world loves. Although it's strange that even though many of them love to play it, hardly any people watch it. It does show. We were talking about 'soccer' at lunch the day before my first game and Michelle said she watched a 'kindergarten' game where they just crowded round the ball and kicked it until it went out. Well... it's not that far off.

I have met a few who do watch it. I do probably talk to them far too much in the pub, but then most people probably think of me as 'that crazy British guy'. I know most of my research group do. They even say it to my face, in the nicest possible way.

PS I did score in the last match. Woo hoo.

The importance of speaking correctly

2007-10-02T20:41:00.001-04:00

I asked for my hair shaved on the sides and cut short on top. This is what I got....

It was too late, by the time I had realised how short it was. Damn my eyes! I have been tempted to have my hair cut shorter for awhile now. I just guess its forced on me. A change has got to be good eh? It made me laugh for about 10 minutes non stop anyways.

Yorkshire Pudding Hits the US

2007-09-30T21:12:00.000-04:00

I have been down a bit of late. I am guessing it is homesickness, but it could be all sorts of reasons like feeling great after finishing my thesis and the feeling crashing etc. I'm not entirely sure. To cheer myself up I decided to make Sunday lunch, complete with Yorkshire Pudding.

I'll be honest with you, the dinner was a complete shambles, but it worked a treat in cheering me up. It was a typical Rob endeavour. I didn't have anything metal that looked like it could be used to make them, so I tried a Pyrex dish I found. Didn't have a whisk. No vinegar, which I usually add to make them fluffy. As you can see it actually rose. It tasted so good. It made me so happy. I was home for a moment or two. The rest of the meal was chaos. I haven't attempted to cook Sunday lunch in the States and only cooked one or two since I lived with Jimmy (who can be seen sleeping on the New York subway here, and was last seen somewhere in Canadia) which was last October. So my timing was bad, things got cold, I didn't have a masher and I messed up the gravy. All in all a success.

A Postcard from Derbyshire

2007-09-25T23:01:00.000-04:00

Quite a few of the readers of this monstrosity are the from the states. So I thought I would treat you some snaps of the fair shores of home. Also I have been playing with my photo editor. Some say it is grim up north......

It's not really though. Most of these pictures are of the peak district which is a national park which is only a few miles from my house. Below is a picture of the Hope valley. It is quite strange that there is an area of Durham, NC that is named after this.

A stream behind my parents house. This was actually took on a day after Christmas a few years ago, while we were trying to still walk off dinner.

This is actually 5 minutes walk from my parents house. I have put them in because snow here in NC seems so far off. The last few days have been over 30 oC.

Back to the peaks again and this is a view of Mam Tor from the inside of Peveril Castle. How very English this is turning out to be.

This is a picture of where the second photo was taken, it really is one of my favourite spots in the whole world.

Here is Stanage Edge which is apparently one of the best places to climb in the UK. It may not look high, but I worked near it for a summer and with the amount of helicopter rescues I'm guessing it's pretty easy to fall.

I have been pretty stressed the last few weeks and it has resulted in probably my worse bout of homesickness since I got here. It's crushing me or anything like that. I don't want to leave, on the contrary I think I'm gonna stay longer, if they will let me. Normal service will resume shortly, I just can't put my finger on it.....

Tales from the bar

2007-09-23T16:24:00.000-04:00

I was planning on an uneventful Saturday evening. I had acquired a $7 bottle of wine and was going to enjoy it and the mosey on down to a birthday party that was starting at 11. Halfway through this wine Hui called to see if I wanted to play darts. Not being very good, I of course jumped on the chance. I got to the bar early and sat down in front of the TV. A few minutes later a bloke came and was giving the guy next to me shit about letting his seat get taken. The bloke insisted that I stayed there as it was the best seat for the football in the bar and I was watching it rather than the last time it happened to him where the guy wasn't even watching it. My reply was yeah I'm watching it but I have no clue about American football. This sparked the obvious conversation about how can you watch 'soccer' or should I say 'football' blah blah. He actually didn't mind it just preferred American football, but did like Rugby.

I do like American bars that are chilled out and people talk to you. I could just imagine the exchange in certain UK bars. Which reminds me of watching and England match with my sister once. She was shouting at people to get out of her way so she could watch the game. Biggest football hooligan I know.

Lam!Lam!

2007-09-22T13:40:00.000-04:00

On Thursday I caught a show that I have been meaning to see for ages, and as it was at the [ahem] classy Sirens Lounge and I didn't really have an excuse as it is within spitting distance of my house. It was infamous LAM!LAM!, who are reportedly the worst thing to happen to music ever! But they do have a drinking solution, so don't be put off. I have to warn you before you listen to the songs, that they are bloody catchy and will stick in your head like a sickly sweet aftertaste.

Lam lam who is also known as Betsy and is one of the funniest people I have met in Dirty D. She like PBR and Jarvis Cocker so we get along just great. Here is a picture of us discussing a CD she is making for Ryan, it's called 25 songs to make Ryan Hill uncomfortable, as you can see this made me look like I was about to puke.

Oh look at me hanging out with rock stars!

Random Americanness

2007-09-19T23:31:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick post about life in the US. Snacks are great in the states. I got a free goody bag from the students union shop the other day. It has loads of random American items in it such as oreos, 'goldfish' (cheesy biscuits shaped like fish), chips and apple sauce. I do have to say they were all bloody good. To me apple sauce should go on a pork chop but I am warming to it as a snack..... probably should eat an apple instead but hey ho.

P.S Americanness is a word.

I made the BBC website

2007-09-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

Ha ha check the quotes of the week on the BBC sport. Click on the photo to see it properly. I will try and sort this out.

Party Invite

2007-09-17T23:38:00.000-04:00

Ryan threw a party on saturday, here is the invite, it made me chuckle, the party definitely lived up to the invite, my head still hurts two days later....

dearest of friends,

sorry to bother you on this most productive of workdays, however, i'd like to cordially invite all of you to a gathering taking place at my humble abode this saturday (sept. 15th, ~9pm). reasons for celebration are quite plentiful; some of which are the following: the coming of a much anticipated cool front this week (!), bob's submission of his dissertation and subsequent validation of his status as "postdoc," chilkoti lab birthdays (greg [even though he probably can't attend], sept. 16; sarah, sept. 22; and of course mine, may 8th), it will be saturday so why not, a gravel yard and a garage necessitates a proper gathering, UNC's imminent "learning experience" with UVa (does duke have a football team?), jonah's leaving for san diego, andy's recent "best day of experiments ever," and my being tired of driving places. i will provide a keg of bad beer, a garage, and a gravel yard; all of which will ultimately contribute to a venue for witty banter and philosophical, intellectual, and nonsensical debate on topics ranging from poetry and flowers to music and science (and whatever else you can come up with). though i feel a keg should be sufficient for properly teasing said banter and debate out of you, i anticipate that some attendees may need beverages in excess of what i'm able to provide. should you find yourself fitting this category you should (a) face your potential problem with hedonism and (b) visit the gas station around the corner from my house. as suggested by the flyer (follow the hypertext markup to the flyer), this will be an extremely classy event, almost completely devoid of "debauchery," "shenanigans," "tom foolery," or any other actions that could be considered philosophically lewd or otherwise inappropriate (this statement may in fact turn out to be sarcasm). please feel free to forward this invite to friends since my limited omniscient state prevents me from knowing every email address. all persons who are not intending to engage in theft or unnecessary attraction of authorities are welcome.

Party Flyer:

http://durhamatron.hoharlabs.com/party.html

??? Iredell St.

Durham, NC 27705

(park somewhere along the street)

~9pm, this saturday, sept. 15

sincerely,

ryan hill

Freedom

2007-09-15T18:21:00.001-04:00

I have just finished writing my thesis. It's been 4 years in the making and I have finally got there. You never know I might pass my viva and become a doctor, and my research group might have a postdoc.... Here is my celebration picture. I am currently finishing the beer off and listening to loud music. I am so happy. This means I will actually be able to face writing my blog again, so keep a look out, the superman pants may even make a few outings.

Shiver me timbers, there be a cold wind a brewin'

2007-09-11T18:33:00.000-04:00

For the first time since I moved to North Carolina it looks like it could be considered cold out side. As I am writing this it is 32 oC (90 F), but tomorrow a cold front is coming in and the temperature is going to drop to the high 20 s and later in the week we could possibly have a 24 oC. It has constantly been at least high 20 s (80 s) and more like the mid 30 s (90 s) for the past couple of weeks. Around the time my parents and sister were here it was in the 100 s. The main problem with the NC weather is that there is no respite from it. It really doesn't get cool at night, it only drops a few degrees. When I leave the house in a morning it is like a hair dryer before 9 am. Then the boar's breath humidity hits you about 11..... I'm looking forward to autumn y'all.

I interviewed a local dignitary Ryan Hill on the subject:

'I am over this heat, I want it to be autumnal'

Check weather.com out

Insect

2007-09-09T23:51:00.000-04:00

I have been trying for a while to get some pictures of insects. They are bloody massive here! Although my camera does seem to be a great insect repellent. They usually try and attack/eat me while I am doing my laundry. Not this bugger. It jumped right under my foot and made the biggest crack ever. So I finally got a picture, ha ha.

El Gigante's Little Brother

2007-09-03T15:59:00.001-04:00

Hopefully I will be be posting more from now on. So here is a little treat for y'all. Here is a Cosmic Cantina Burrito. As a handy reference tool I have included everyones favourite measuring device.

This is the correct size for a burrito unlike like this monster which I am told my sister still talks about. It was bloody good.

Also a quick note to say the the blog was famous for a day. It was the subject of a Red Collar myspace bulletin. It got over 30 hits. I thought it might blow up.

The Superman pants are back!!!!!

2007-09-01T21:49:00.000-04:00

Last night was the penultimate bulls game of the season, it would have rude not to go

So we got some friends together and decided to watch the ball game.

Oh yeah there was the little issue of embarrassing ourselves while we still can. The story goes, a while back Andy decided it would be funny to pay for the privilege of singing 'take me out to the ballpark' at the bulls game. The song is sung in the middle of the 7th innings and they lyrics are:

Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd;
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back.
Let me root, root, root for the Bulls,
If they don't win, it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.

A little bit of liquid encouragement was needed

To celebrate this Superman pants made their triumphant return

They were a little difficult to get on......

A tale of two coffees

2007-08-29T20:04:00.000-04:00

You know the feeling, y'all get into work at the crack of noon and want a coffee to help you wake up. Getting this has previously not been a problem, although my usual is a tea or 7 to get me through the day I am not against a coffee now and again. In fact I do enjoy a good mocha. Unfortunately sometimes this is not as easy as it should be.

It comes down to the English pronunciation of 'mocha', it comes down to:

I say mock-a, while you say mow-ka (I apologize for my terrible phonetics and if I am wrong please point it out)

these two variations are not too different, or at least I thought so. But as it takes me bloody ages to get a mocha having to repeat it a few times this is obviously not the case.

Ok some might say my voice isn't the clearest, but my sister had similar problems. It feels likes some people over here just cannot get different accents. For the majority it is not a problem but I am surprised at how much I do have to repeat myself, I really feel for people with strong accents. Mine is really not strong at all, and I do resort to Americanizing my speech as it is just easier. Although I may start getting all Yorkshire on em and gettin me sen off t pub. Translation and you can have a play here with the Yorkshire Translator.

Speaking of accents, Rhodri is coming to NC in October, I still think he sounds drunk when (apparently) hes not, ah well the man speaks the international language of having a laugh so I am sure they will love him.

Coastal North Carolina - Wrightsville Beach

2007-08-23T22:16:00.001-04:00

Here is the third and final part of my holiday snaps that I took with my parents. This is the closest beach to my house, about 2 hours away. I think it's slightly better than the beaches near Sheffield.

This beach is on the Atlantic Ocean

NC has nice sand dunes, although this one is a little baby

The beach is on a little island, with a body of water behind

The brown pelicans would fly right by our hotel balcony, you could spit on em if it wasn't so windy

I have no idea what this little wading bird was but they move bloody fast

Lovely flat white beaches with Sea Oats growing. It take about five minutes to walk from one side of the island to the other, but they can be really long, I think this one was about 5 miles.

The wind was pretty powerful. It made swimming really difficult but I loved every minute I was in the water

I just really liked taking photos of theses posts......

Wilmington, NC

2007-08-21T00:05:00.000-04:00

Here is the second part of my vacation with the folks. After DC we traveled to the beautiful North Carolina coast, to a lovely little town called Wilmington. Here are just some shot I took while out with my family. So I guess it would be rude not to include a photo of them.

Arghhh Ye be ware.....

The USS North Carolina now rests in a dock on the Cape Fear river. It is really cool. I love looking round stuff like this.

It is a bit of a monster

This photo is great, it's off the deck of the USS NC and it really does capture the image in my head of a gnarled southern river bank.

I found this on the other river bank..... didn't see any though :'-(

This boat is not so lucky as the USS NC

These next few photos were taken from a river cruise on the Cape Fear river. I love being on the water.

The riverfront is fantastic to walk down.

Nice seafood restaurants too

This is me getting all arty. I love taking photos at dusk. I have really started getting back into photography since moving to the states. All you UK tax payers out there will be glad to know my GCSE in photography is not being wasted, unlike the US tax payers who are paying for me to go on these holidays.

North Carolina actually has a pretty good film industry apparently. Here is a snap of the filming One Tree Hill. Dawson's Creek and Forest Gump and around 200 other films have also filmed in Wilmington. Which is why some call it Wilmywood.

DC

2007-08-19T22:34:00.000-04:00

I have been doing the tourist thing with my parents and sister but I am now once again gracing the streets of Dirty D with my presence. Here is me looking like a tourist outside George's house. My sister has started calling me 'Yankee Boy' as she says I look American. So I thought I would put this photo up illustrating the fact.

I do like Washington, it does have loads of cool buildings, such as the capitol

The Washington memorial

And the Lincoln memorial

This is a view of the Pentagon from Arlington cemetery, methinks the people in there should spend a little more time next door and see what their plans cause.

You do get some bloody good views of Washington though. I do highly recommend it.

More to follow soon...

Return of the Fiver

2007-08-06T22:38:00.000-04:00

As I am not going to be posting for a few days I thought I would treat you with some photos of random crap I found laying about. As some of you will remember I had a brief obsession with a monster of an apple that was measured by the truly scientific technique of placing money by it, so y'all will be pleased to know that the FIVER is back!

Here is a whopping 2.84l of orange juice. It is lovely but for the life of me I can't think why they wouldn't want to show the lovely colour off in a clear container.......

Here is a picture of my TV screen. Yes that is channel 257.... I don't think I actually have that many channels but it is probably about 200. I watch about 10 of em if that. I do get live premiership games (bloody united getting relegated) and BBC America.

I love this radio, it is so old school. You may or may not know that I do love old radios. This reminds me of the one I had in my kitchen at Evelyn Road, it used to be in our kitchen at home and was from the 70s.

Here is my new mode of transport. She ain't pretty but I do love her, she does have two different tires, which I shall be sorting soon. She had a little accident on Sunday and decided that two inflated tires was so passé and had to have a ride in Ryan's car.

Here is my new Bojays Koozie. A koozie is designed to keep your beer cold in hot and humid weather. So they are perfect for the North Carolina Boar's breath and Bojays is a fine eating establishment. The beer is a Dos Equis, a Mexican tipple that goes down rather nicely.

I just couldn't resist.

Blog Update

2007-08-01T19:48:00.000-04:00

Here is a piece of from the annals of the Ryan Hill. It's title is: screaming man in cytochrome C.

Anyway this point of this is to say I will probably not post till the latter part of August from after this weekend. I have my thesis to write, which is proving very stressful. It was once said by a wise man "sometimes a scream is better than a thesis" - Ralph Waldo Emerson .

But on the plus side my parents are coming on the 7th of August and we are going on a little roadtrip so expect lots of blog photos and silliness (yes my sister is coming). I am super pumped (excited for you brits) about them coming and want as much of my thesis done before they come. I may have time for a silly photo update before then.

So catch you soon.

Bob

New York City - Brooklyn and Queens

2007-07-31T21:44:00.000-04:00

Finally here is my last update from NYC. This is my adventures is Brooklyn and Queens. I flew into Queens so I thought I would start with that first. Before my trip to New York I had never taken an internal flight (only a transfer), it was very different from my other flying experiences. I checked in at a touch screen kiosk, and it really was just like getting on a bus, well with a couple of burly security guards and x-ray machines. I did almost miss my flight as I was waiting at the gate that it said on my ticket, which was obviously the wrong thing to do. Anyway here is a relic from the 1964/65 World's fair at Flushing Meadows-Corona park, Queens, NY.

Here it is, with the "UFOs" for all you Men in Black fans.

The park was actually pretty cool, definitely a nice way to spend an hour before a METS game, or if you are lucky enough to get a US tennis open ticket. I guess no trip for me would not be complete without some kinda of baseball related thing now. As Dan had never seen a baseball game I thought it would be cool to take him to see a MLB game and the Yankees were only playing on the Sunday. I sported my Durham Bulls cap of course. It was pretty cool, we saw a home run and got some hot dogs brought to us, he he.

I was really happy that we got to spend sometime in Brooklyn, as it is damn cool. From chilling out late evening on Shannon's rooftop, finding lots of book that people leave on the 'sidewalk', strolling along the promenade, to eating Pizza under the Manhattan bridge (see previous photo here). It is just a cool place to visit. It feels more like New York, the Brooklyn accent is fantastic (unfortunately Iain I didn't here anybody proclaim in a gruff voice "thats it, we're moving to joysey" but I did hear lots of grumpy people that could have said it. Which reminds me of something that I heard in Manhattan. A really big tough looking guy was talking to his friend about going to get some beers after work, then he just came out with "you will need to remind me to call my cat sitter"...only in NYC. Check other out on overheard in New York.

We also rode the Subway to Conney Island. Which was pretty damn cool as for a lot of Brooklyn it is over ground and you can see all the buildings etc, which quite a few had Dutch style architecture, which is a nod to the old school new Amsterdam era. I'm not going to lie to you, Conney Island is like Blackpool but without the donkeys and amusement parks. But it does have 'Shoot the Freak'.

And a pretty cool rollercoaster. Thats doesn't look to scary

But it kinda was....

Red Collar

2007-07-29T23:13:00.000-04:00

Had a wonderful evening last Friday night. It started off with a bloody massive thunderstorm. The electricity even went off. The tales of the thunderstorm were pretty funny, we had a near miss (due to Ryan being outside while the storm was going down), a shaking car and a broken shooing bag which nearly resulted in a tofu squashing incident. To top it off all the way to Chapel Hill it was fine and as soon as we pulled on to Franklin St (the main st of Chapel Hill), the thunderstorm decided to have another go at us, apparently not satisfied with almost getting the tofu squished it wanted to stop us going to Carrburritos. But alas four hungry people within spitting distance of the best burritos in the triangle were not going to be stopped by a little torrential rain.

After out fill of burritos it was to the local 506 for the musical entertainment of the evening. Ryan spotted the singer from Red Collar the band we were planning to see. We were invited to a house party they were also playing later that evening. The first band were fronted by a maths professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. They were pretty good actually. The place was rammed, usually at the 506 there aren't too many people, but it was a free CD launch party, people always love free shows, even with the possibility of getting pissed on by thunderstorms won't stop em. So as you can see from the photo I stole, of the gig it was pretty sweaty.

Red Collar are five piece from Durham, NC. I'm not going to try and pigeonhole them, they just play good modern rock 'n' roll. Listen to them. They put on such a good show. With so much energy (see photo below), even in the bloody hot pit that is the 506. They put a smile on our faces. I don't think you ask for much more than that. I paid money to see a lot worse bands and I will pay good money to see Red Collar again. After the set we had to get out as it was far too hot. So we went to the posh wine bar down the street. I found out they serve PBR in a can for a dollar 50. Sweet, the night was turning out to be pretty good and we hadn't even got near Time Out Chicken.

We mosied on down to the party. It was pretty cool party with lots of people. We managed to find time to find some gin that was washed down with Buzz cola (an advertising scheme from those good people who brought us the Simpson's movie). I have had worse drinks.... just. The band were indeed setting up to play in somebody's living room. That was pretty strange to see (see pic of band below, complete with curtains in the background). What was even stranger was the mosh pit that ensued. You couldn't really escape it. It was so cool being in somebody's house with a damn good band playing. Certainly one of my coolest experiences in the US so far, especially Andy 'losing his shit' in the mosh pit, I'm not going to try an explain that one but I will go as far to say he didn't soil himself. The moral of the story, Durham rocked Chapel Hill.

After the band had finished a Time Out was called, and answered. I had my usual of chicken and a biscuit, but a fellow party goer had a 2 and a half dollar ice cream sandwich. This thing was huge (not 'el gigante' huge but still pretty damn big). It consisted of two cookies that were approximately face sized and about a tub of ice cream in it. People couldn't get their teeth round it. Yes, you will be pleased to know I shall be eating one in the near future, complete with pictures of a fiver being swamped by it.

Steak

2007-07-27T19:19:00.001-04:00

A tale of two steaks.

Here we see an American male in his natural habitat. A native to North Carolinacestershire, but has spent time in the Steak capital of the world, Texas. After the Steak was wrestled from the freezer and thawed out, it was seasoned to within an inch of it's life with all kinds of goodies (I will be killed if I divulge the secret, and Ryan does a have a gun, well a BB gun...). These are the smaller variety of steak and not the 64 oz plate breakers found in Texas.

The colonial is happy to pose for the photograph, but is eager to get on with the grilling, or barbecuing as we Brits would say. They are clearly advanced in the art, as this specimen has a gas griller.

The simple meal consisted of steak, mashed sweet potato, beans, cornbread and pickled cucumber. It went down extremely well. Much better than the staple diet of synthesized food called 'McDonald's' that the larger locals tend to enjoy.

Softball

2007-07-24T22:54:00.000-04:00

I was asked to play softball yesterday, which you may remember fro such posts as this one. I am guessing I wasn't the first choice, as until yesterday I had never really tried to catch a ball with a glove on my left hand. Softball and baseball are essentially the same thing for us Brits..... Rounders with gloves. The difference between softball and baseball is that softball the pitcher bowls underarm and the ball is bigger.

Playing was bloody good fun. After a few minutes warm up with the league's glove (thankfully it wasn't like the PE kit that you used to get at school when you forgot yours), I was dropped into right field. Thankfully the other team were all right handers so left field was busy and I was just looking cool in my Sheffield United shirt watching just in case it came to me. Thankfully that didn't happen. It was a pretty slow game at first with both teams getting their allotted three outs to switch innings pretty quick with just a few base hits but no runs.

So up came my first bat. With my unconventional swing I managed to hit it first time. Which was pretty surprising. Next thing I knew I was legging it like a mad man towards the base. I was safe. Woo hoo. Next hitter hit it and the ball got to second before me. I was damn pleased that I hit it. The fielding carried on as I liked it.

Next time I batted, again hit it first time, nobody caught it and I got to first base. Two base hits in a row is pretty good. I got to second on the next hitters go. Pretty impressive I'm thinking. On the next hitters go I get to third and I am told to stop by the third base coach. I just then waited for them to tell me what to do, and just legged it home when the time came. We got 7 runs that innings and one of em was me running it in. WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO. Not bad for my second attempt, although I have to give most credit it to the rest of the team or I would have run somebody out or done something equally as stupid. I got my high fives and grabbed my well earned beer.

In the end I got about 4 runs like that in the end. Got quite a lot of base hits. I was pretty pleased. The team were pretty excited about it too. We had to play another game after the first one, which we won. The second game was against the people from the previous post. Ah ha. My batting was pretty much the same as the first except they were pretty good fielders and everyone was finding it difficult to get the runs in. I was moved to the more exciting roll of catcher in the fielding part of the innings. This was what took some getting used to. Catching with my left hand and not with my body behind the ball was really strange.

All in all it was a good outing. It really hurt today. Next time I might even get a photo of it. It wasn't pretty though, thankfully the full Boars Breath of NC weather wasn't in full effect or it could have been messy.

Poll

2007-07-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

Blogger has just added a poll option so I have decided to give it a whirl. For now I am going to put up a suggestions for the blog poll. But if anyone has any ideas (about a new poll or suggestions for the blog) please leave a comment or e-mail or facebook message, as I know people can't be arsed to e-mail anymore as facebook is just too easy (I Hold my hand up to that). Stupid suggestions welcome.

Myfootballclub.co.uk

2007-07-24T22:43:00.000-04:00

Ok here is a cool link for y'all. For £35 you get chance to own your own share in a football club, make all the decisions like who to get as coach, what team/tactics etc. They plan to get 50,000 people to join in and get a pot of £1.35 M. I like it, it's just like champ man, but for real.

http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/

Round the World

2007-07-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

I just received an e-mail from an old friend Jamie Fox from my masters and he sent me a link to his web page for his trip round the world and his life after that. I thought I would share it with y'all. Here are the details of his trip.

UK, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Greece, UK

The page can be found here @ idledreamer. If anyone is thinking of going on a trip to Africa, Australasia or South America, I suggest you take a look. Jamie also lived in Madrid, Spain for a while teaching English as a second language. He is now happily married with a daughter.

The National

2007-07-22T09:40:00.000-04:00

OK here is just a quick post about music to break up the NYC posts (the Manhattan post is now finished, woo hoo). I have been getting into a band called 'The National' recently and just wanted to share them with you. They have had a lot of exposure on KEXP, which is a fantastic radio station. Here is their Myspace, their official site and they are also coming to the Leadmill in November. My favourite song by them is 'Mr. November off the album named Alligator, which I picked up for the bargain of $12. It sort of ties in with NYC as they are from Brooklyn..... which is coming up next.

New York City - Manhattan Island

2007-07-18T20:04:00.000-04:00

I have decided to split the main New York post into two parts. Manhattan and the other boroughs. Most of the touristy stuff is in Manhattan and a lot of the cool stuff is in the other parts, not that I'm saying Manhattan isn't cool, it's just that there is more to NYC than Manhattan. This is not going to be a blow by blow story of my stay in NYC just ramblings with photos. I made quite a few notes while I was there, so I wouldn't forget stuff (How sad am I?). I am missing some photos because Dan hasn't them and some are in other posts. Here are some for your viewing pleasure.

First up is the Statue of Liberty. This is the view from the Staten Island ferry, which is nice a free and you get a lovely view of the statue. The colour was rubbish because of the hazy weather so I decided to sepia tone it. It is quite hard to get a photo of the statue on the way there as the ferry is full of tourists looking at the statue, but on the way back they are over it so its fine.

One of the things I love about New York is the contrast. Here is a view from the Brooklyn Bridge of lower Manhattan. New York is not just skyscrapers and rich people who work on Wall St. It also has some really poor people. There are so many different communities, with people from all over the world living together. Although some of the sounds and smells make you wonder what the bloody hell is going on. Chinatown and the East and Greenwich (West) Villages are pretty close together but are worlds apart. Both are really cool to hang out in. The 'village' where Bob Dylan, other musicians and artists used to live. Since then it has been gentrified and is now uber expensive. Chinatown is just awesome, it slowly creeps up on you then, all of a sudden you in China. Even the McDonald's sign has Chinese characters in it. New York in general has this wonderful hustle and bustle about it but in Chinatown is it even crazier. People selling stuff from tourist tat to strange seafood that you have no idea what it is.

One of the other things I love about NYC is the parks. You can get some pretty good street entertainment in them too. It varies from chilled out jazz bands just jamming, free movies in Bryant park and a tourist spectacle such as the 'Afrobats', as seen below. They were actually pretty funny in their very well rehearsed show, chanting punchlines such as 'rich people at the front' and 'we are risking our lives for you sick entertainment'. My favourite part was when a helicopter came overhead and they all stopped the show and acted if it was an arrest, putting the hands behind their heads.

It is easy to forget that your are in New York while chilling out maxing relaxing in central park. Well until you turn around and see the bloody big skyscrapers behind you. This was the first time I flew into Ne York, it was fantastic seeing it from the air. You get to see how big everything really is, even though Manhattan is just on a little island. Central park is just huge.

It really is a concrete jungle. This is a view from the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Which is about as high up I get so, no cool aerial photography from this one. Dan may have a few. Looking up in Manhattan gives me a sense of vertigo. It is cool though. There was a pretty big thunderstorm while we were in Manhattan. It went so dark because of all the buildings, it was pretty cool when it got back to daylight.

Live Earth

2007-07-17T21:14:00.000-04:00

The second day I was in NYC, I managed to go to Live Earth. While there were many bands that I would not normally see (the set list is here) it was still a cool event. The whole day was pretty mad, but cool. It started off with a very American breakfast of pancakes in a lovely diner in Brooklyn. I then went to meet Dan at Newark, NJ airport. I had to get my first bus to 'New Jersey' which is known as the 'garden state' or as I (and many others) like to call it the 'armpit of America'.

Everything went smoothly, till we got back to the port authority (bus terminal) in Manhattan. Upon where we realised that there was no storage space in the bus terminal. A friendly NYPD cop informed us that there was no storage in Manhattan since 9/11. D'oh, really should have guess that. So faced with either at least an hour and a half round trip to Brooklyn to drop the bag off or risk it and take it to the Giants stadium we decided to get on the bus to joysey.

We arrived across the Hudson unscathed, all we had to do was get into the stadium. The first security guard was bewildered by Dan's massive bag. Especially as it had presents from the UK, i.e. beer. The second gave us a typical New York reaction "you can't take any of that shit in here" then proceeded to go out of her way to see if she could get us in. New Yorkers can be seen as rude but they can be bloody nice. After talking to the head of security he said we could as long as we store it under the stadium. This is where the fun started. We got to ride in a golf buggy all the way to the security office. It was like we were celebrities, people were giving us funny looks (I'm used to that now). On the way we picked up a mad German woman who had to put her video camera there too. She was batty, she kept on saying how the London concert was much better.

The rest of the day was pretty surreal too. Seeing famous people such as Cameron Diaz (who has insanely long legs) and Al Gore on stage. Drinking beer out of a 'plastic cup' made from corn. Rocking out to 'Bon Jovi'..... it was good fun actually. Seeing Kanye West run up and down the stage about a million times in 20 mins. Akon wading through the crowd with huge security guards and a massive jewel encrusted cross that could feed Africa... it's good job it wasn't live 8 or they would have had it off him. Hearing an old British lady do chimpanzee impressions. Anyways enough name dropping.

A day time photo

My favourite one of the Smashing Pumpkins. Who were bloody good. All in all everyone put on a good show, even if the music wasn't what I would normally like. It was for a pretty good cause....even if they wasted a lot of energy doing the whole thing....

Photos from New York

2007-07-15T11:34:00.000-04:00

First things first, thank yous. Shannon it was a pleasure to hang out with you again (as always) and thank you so much for putting up with Dan and I, even though you weren't feeling great. Dan thank you so much for coming to the US, much appreciated.

I think this is going to take me a few days to sort the blog out, so I thought I would tease you with some of my favourite pictures that I took from the last week. Here is the view down 6th avenue from central park, complete with yellow cabs.

The British tradition of sunbathing in the midday sun has stayed with some of the colonials. It was over 35 oC and New Yorkers were flocking to central park.

This is the view on the opposite way up 6th on market day. Only in New York would they close a major road to let people sell kebabs on the street. I love it.

The first skyscraper in NYC. Clocking in at a massive 20 stories, its a baby compared to some. I think it is one of the coolest, probably because it would be one of the few I could actually go up. Vertigo is strange in NYC.

I really love the colours at dusk and the Brooklyn Bridge is so photogenic. Oh yeah that little thing in the background is Manhattan Island. It does look quite cool doesn't it.

Here is pretty much the same photo but a bit later. I think this is one of the best views of Manhattan you can get. It is from a little park in Brooklyn under the Manhattan bridge.

I just couldn't resist.....

Yup I actually walked across the Brooklyn bridge. I will tell all later. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

4th of July

2007-07-14T23:31:00.001-04:00

I am back from my jaunt to New York City, which I will update you on very soon. I just wanted to put in a little note about the 4th of July. This year it was a strange one as it was on a Wednesday, having a day off in the middle of the week really threw everything off. I was going to New York, so I was pretty excited anyway.

I guess you wanted to know what I did for it? Well I spent most of the day hungover. As Ryan and I decided it would be a great idea to sit at the bar while going to the pub on the evening of the 3rd. I saw the day in in the right spirit, getting drunk and watching a band. I just got into the party mood a bit too much. The band were great, just playing fun music, so looking back on it I didn't mind the hangover too much.

The actual day of the 4th. I watched the traditional 'Hot dog eating contest' held at Conney Island, New York. They have 12 minutes to eat as many hot dogs as they can. Before anyone suggests it, NOOOOOO. That is too far. Here is a photo I took on my travels of the billboard. The record this year was 66 hot dogs. They dip them in water and just basically stuff them in. They aren't fat guys, either. I felt sick watching it, but the commentary was pretty funny. They were hyping them up as big athletes, comparing them to Babe Ruth etc. I just wanna see them go for an 'El Gigante'.......

New Pad

2007-07-04T14:05:00.000-04:00

Here are a few snap of my new place. I will put more up soon. Check the big ass American fridge out. Also I have got BBC America on the cable. It has got advert though.

Random Update

2007-06-30T17:40:00.000-04:00

I just thought I would update you on a few things. So as you might have guessed from the picture I have become a baseball convert. I thought it was about time to get me a baseball cap. So here is a pic of me looking very American ( you can even see dirty D in the background) and also that I do indeed have a TAN......I know you can't believe it.

Also caught a really cool band in Chapel Hill called Wild Sweet Orange. Hailing from Birmingham, AL, they were really bloody good. It was an accident they we saw them as they were the first support band for Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Which is a fantastic name for a band, but unfortunately as the first band was so good, CFTPA were a bit of a disappointment and a bit too down beat for the mood we were in. Although they did a good job of covering Bruce Springsteen's 'Streets of Philadelphia' in a very Casio keyboard style. Wild Sweet Orange did a very good job of doing a Pixes loud/soft/loud and were really tight on stage.

In other news, I am moving on Tuesday to my new place. I am very excited about that, as it is really sweet place, so expect pictures ASAP. Other pluses include Internet that works all the time and my own TV with the 70 odd channels you get here. Also I am off to New York, NY, next Friday. Dan is coming for a week, so we are going to go crazy New York style, including going to Live Earth. Also we are crashing at Shannon's place so it is extra cool. So expect a big blog update after that, with pictures. Last time such scenes as this took place...

You have been warned. For those interested, this is Jimmy (my old house mate) asleep at 3 am on the New York Subway. Jon and I were tempted to leave him....

PS A couple of people comment but it would be lovely great to have more people post a few.

Durham Rising

2007-06-26T22:14:00.000-04:00

Durham, NC is a strange creature. It is also known as the 'Bull City' and dirty D. I shall try and shed some light....

On the one hand you have Duke which is not only one of the top universities in the US, it is also really rich $7 Billion in the trust fund and counting (they could pay the postdocs a bit more). So it attracts the kind of people that can pay $35,500 a year (also really cleaver kids too). I was told by my boss that the undergrads drive the kind of cars the professors wish they could. While in the Duke bubble it is easy to forget the other side of Durham.

From what I gather, after the tobacco industry had a slump, employment in Durham took a turn for the worst. It is only getting better recently. This means that 15% of Durhams population is below the poverty line. So Durham is a city of haves and have nots. It does lead to some sketchy areas, and the problems that goes along with that in western culture. Durham was the subject of a documentary with the very apt title of 'Welcome 2 Durham'. This ain't no tourist promo y'all, but neither is it everyday life in dirty D.

So Durham has a kind of bad rep. I feel this is because North Carolina is actually a nice place to live and Durham is this kind of bad apple. It's not as bad as they say. There is a lot of regeneration of the downtown area going on right now. I found this cool blog showing old pictures of Durham. There was a 'celebration' of the first stage of this regeneration, this last Saturday gone. It was nice to see stuff going on downtown. Instead of empty streets and people looking me strange because I am walking. In fact it does have this feeling of impending coolness. Is Durham rising? It could well be.

Chapel Hill

2007-06-25T22:10:00.000-04:00

I have wandered over to Chapel Hill (a map showing dirty D and Chapel Hill can be found here) a few times now. Most of it to catch some music, but food is sometimes involved but there have been complaints so I am going to try some posts without mentioning it. It is pretty well renowned for music, Ben Folds, James Taylor and Floyd of Pink Floyd fame too. Other residents of note are Michael Jordan and presidential candidate John Edwards. All the action takes place on Franklin St. Which has loads of bars restaurants and shops on. Also the UNC campus backs on to it. All in all it is a really nice place, even if it has a shop in it that Ryan dubbed 'Murder Mart', it is America after all.

We caught a local Chapel Hill band called 'the Never' (also on Myspace). Once I had got over the pretension of them, they were actually pretty good. Reasons for being pretentious: All wearing red carnations (could have got away with it if they all dressed the same), had a string/brass section but used them really poorly (i.e. all you could hear were the guitars) and also had a mandolin (or as I put it 'is that guy playing a bloody lute? he bloody well is', I was soon corrected). The mandolin was made up for, as the guy who was playing was 'face melting' (this is Ryan's term for the facial expression as pulled by 'heavy metal'/'stadium rock' guitarists circa 1984) during his solos. I do actually recommend you check em out because they could be huge and they do play nice indie pop.

Also a cool radio station KEXP if Y'all get bored of UK radio.

PS. Notice how short this post is because of no food related items.... you know who you are.

Is it really 2 months?

2007-06-20T22:18:00.000-04:00

I have been in the states 8 weeks this Monday just gone. It is one of those strange time tricks that your brain plays on you. Some ways it has gone so fast. It feels like yesterday I was blowing the balloons......for the little party we had...

Which I am all bloody glad you made it. So anyway before this gets soppy (I was fine till I actually started writing and now I do actually have a tears in my eyes) the point of this post is things I miss about the UK and things I like about the US. I am going to try and do something like like this around the end of the month like I did last month. So obviously the point of the pictures is to say the thing I miss the most are the people, but it's also the thing what I like most here. I do appreciate that people are reading this blog. I really didn't think anyone would. So except for you guys here are the things I miss/like.

I was trying to think of something to do for my monthly musing and have been now for a few days. It hit me today what I should write about while I was walking back listening to the old iPod dancing away (like you do....) that I should write about what I miss etc. I got thinking about what I miss most.

So if you haven't guess already or are still wetting yourself at the idea of me dancing while I walk the streets of dirty D.... you don't know what I'd give right now to dance my drunken arse off in the Leadmill, Hot Pants or any of those places it's probably not a the best of ideas to show my face again. Yes Lou that means I will gladly let you jump on me while I spin you around.... if you're not banned from Hot Pants by the time I get round to going again. Also to sing all those songs that I love. To hold Jon back from saving his 'bap'.

ME MUM'S SUNDAY LUNCH........YORKSHIRE PUDDING

To sing at Bramall Lane. 'I can't help falling in love with you' came on the iPod as well today, it sent shivers down my spine. To just get lost in a football match. To celebrate a goal. To be embarrassed by my sister. To hear that bloke behind you shout the witty comments. Just one greasy chip butty. A draw (America needs to learn that winning isn't everything), seeing the Wednesday/ Leeds score and it makes your day.

The way people talk. The day in day out humour (it's still a laugh here but sometimes I say stuff and it just goes woosh). Blokes calling each other 'love'. Being able to get a good bacon butty. While the cheesecake brownie from the cafe in my building is truly an amazing creation it is not a hangover killer from John's Van or the flapjack made by his mum.

Just sitting in a pub/beer garden. I miss the interval last summer. West St.

The BBC

Public transport.....

But America has some fantastic things on offer.

I am addicted to Mexican/TEX-MEX food. Even after 'El Gigante' I still love it. I have no idea how I am going to cope without places like Cosmic Cantina. Burritos and a 'dosecki' till 4 in the morning. Good cheap food in general. Chick-fil-A and time out chicken.... Yeah I'm scared it's just turning into a food blog.

Southern life. It is a slower pace here. Yeah it is hot but I'm kinda used to it now. I even said 'oooh it was quite cool today' and the temp was 28 oC... Everyone must still think I am a madman all the walking I do in this heat but hey I'm now 12 stone and haven't even started going to the gym yet. I do like the accent too, Y'All.

Baseball. Ok its not football but I can't think of many places that I have paid £4 for the best seats that I have enjoyed more. I can think of a lot of worse. also they have 1 and a half pint beers which is always good. I'm not even going to go into the foot long hot dogs. The atmosphere is so chilled out. The 7th innings stretch. 'Take me home to the ballpark'...... Actually being able to watch sport on TV.

People saying 'I love the accent'

'Paper or plastic'. Also not having to deal with spotty teenagers in whole foods.

Having a good night out and still having by far the best part of £50/$100 in my pocket. 75p for a quart of Sol not £3.00 for a tiny bottle. Mountain Dew. It's so green. PBR for $3.

Ok this is getting long. I hope you get the picture. I said at the start it's feels like yesterday.... it also feels like I have been here ages. A lot has changed...... I'm pretty sure it's for the good.

North Carolina BBQ

2007-06-17T19:42:00.000-04:00

I have just been for my first real North Carolina barbecue, here and here are web links just in case you like me had no idea what it is. And here is what it looks like. It's good proper southern cooking, which means its pretty bad for you, but tastes good.

Sorry for cheating on the photo but will get a real one soon. It was good though. A lot of pig was involved. I mean a lot. I had a plate and it was half a pound of meat. I had the 'pulled pork' with BBQ beans, sweet potato fries and hushpuppies. It was really good. And it only cost $10 or 5 sheets for y'all back home.

The 'pulled pork' is just a lump of roast pork that has been spiced in the North Carolina style, which I guess to most people in the UK is just BBQ sauce or a variation on that. Hushpuppies are fried dough and are really bloody good, and can be seen at the bottom of the picture. I really recommend cutting some sweet potato up and sticking it in the chip pan because they were so nice. BBQ bean are pretty self explanatory, kinda like baked beans and BBQ sauce but not as they were a different type of bean. You can also get loads of other random sides such as potato salad and coleslaw. Oh yeah and a big vat of BBQ sauce just in case you needed more.

My view is that it is a take on the good old hot roast pork sandwich, but with a spicy kick. I had one of the ways you are meant to eat it. The other way is in a sandwich, where you have it with coleslaw and potato salad. So that is very much like a HRP. Which reminds me of the fantastic HRP I had on Bramall Lane, which consisted of HRP, stuffing, apple sauce and roast potatoes.

Update: el gigante and random American stuff

2007-06-13T21:59:00.000-04:00

Ok so I am finally eating again, two days after the carnage that was 'el gigante'. I managed a normal lunch and a tiny dinner. Also I haven't actually put any weight on..... which is rather surprising as the monster was estimated to be about four or 5 pounds(about two kilograms).

Other news: I might have a tan.... yes I know very surprising. Also I am moving in July, so pictures will be on they way as this place is sweet. I am loving the comments please keep em up.

So now for the random American stuff. I had to go to the 'campus orientation' today, yes almost two months after arriving. It started off bad, i.e. an 8:15 in the AM. I was still worried about food induced coma from the monster. I had to be there to sort out my benefits. So instead of telling everyone this first they prattled on about duke for about 3 hours first and got us to play team building exercises. You know it's gonna be bad when the person in charge says 'well I'm just a corny guy'. He proceeded to tell us lots of random trivia about duke, and I mean lots. I had read about it before I got here on Wikipedia. Then the team building games. We had to introduce ourselves and say where we are from, somehow the guy had to talk to everyone about duke basketball. Who are really good, but duke is really good at other things too, like biomedical engineering which was never mentioned. Ok rant over, there was a plus side I found out about the lemur center which I am going to be visiting soon.

El Gigante

2007-06-12T20:25:00.000-04:00

So an introduction to 'el gigante'. 'El gigante' is found in Banditos, and is not for the weak of stomach. It is a giant burrito, which is Spanish for 'little donkey'. I'll tell you one thing, there is nothing little about this bad boy. I came to be sat in front of 'el gigante' because I stupidly said to Andy 'yeah that sounds like fun' while drunk. I think it is important to keep your drunken promises, well maybe not the 'I'm going [insert chain of swear words] kill you, you [rather longer chain of swear words]', but the stupid ones are always good. Also I guess it is part of American culture to eat a meal where you win a t-shirt if you finish it.

So there we were, three brave warriors, who had been starving themselves for days (well that lunchtime Chick-Fill-A sandwich was just a snack....hmmm maybe it wasn't the best of ideas) sat down to take their place in Durham history. When the waitress was talking about it, she did it in a hushed voice that you get when people are talking of a legend. Life was not going to be the same after this burrito. Here it is with a UK size comparison.

Here it is compared to Andy. I guess it is scary it is actually bigger than him.

This was a really good burrito to start with.

It kinda got a little painful.

But I wasn't alone.

Maybe not for Dong Woo.

Dong Woo finished first and was eying up everyones plate. He didn't even break a sweat.

I came second. It was a tough finish. The sour cream nearly got me.

Strangely the American came last....

But we all got our t-shirts and our picture on the wall. The staff were so excited that we finished. They even had to go and get batteries for the camera.

A few words of warning kids. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. I was in the safe hands of Americans who know what they are doing. Although, I couldn't think till about 5pm the next day. It was pretty tough those last few bites. I really did think I wasn't going to make it at one point. Not long after I really did regret making it. Sleeping wasn't great and it did take me four hours to eat a sandwich the next day. Looking back it was really funny and hey it saved me having to buy food the next day.

It really was worth it as I got to wear the hat.....

Some American Bands

2007-06-06T22:12:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the man with a rather surprised look on his face, I have been introduced to some rather fine music. Which I shall share now. If you are wondering his name is Ryan and is the co-creator of a fantastic 5 topping pizza (sausage, bacon, pepperoni, mushroom and green pepper).

Now to the music...thanks to the power of MySpace

First up DeVotchKA. A kind of punk mariachi band. Lots of guitar, whistling and trumpets.

Next Neutral Milk Hotel. A sort of US Belle and Sebastian. Very nice music, not so nice lyrics

Also Man or Astro-man? Which are a cool surf guitar band

The band with the best name goes to the F....ing Champs. Which is now also our new slang for balls.... we do need to get out more I know.

Another picture, this time of Curtis and I looking rather musical. You may remember Curtis from such posts as this one. I am looking rather American in this photo. I assure everyone I still have my accent.

Baseball

2007-06-03T20:56:00.000-04:00

I have just got back from my first Durham Bulls game, of Bull Durham fame. Which are my local AAA minor league baseball team. Which is kinda the championship of baseball. I loved it. The atmosphere was great. It was more like just sitting and having a chat and a laugh than watching a sporting event. There was a lot of American cheese, singing the national anthem, lots of silly games in between innings. My favourite was the Durham mascot Wool E. Bull. Who generally chased and harassed people they got onto the field to do the stupid games. It was cool that they had people just wandering round selling stuff, such as lemonade, cotton candy [candy floss....I am turning American] and all kinds of other healthy stuff. Also even if you have no idea what baseball is about, you can just sit there and drink beer. I also got to see 3 home runs in an innings, which is pretty rare, apparently 3 in a game is good. The Bulls won too which was nice. Another slice of American life that I am going to force everyone that visits me to see. I do like baseball, it is probably the thing that I have watched most on TV since I got here. The question is, do I get a baseball cap? The Libertines once said "There are fewer more distressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap", thankfully that was about Chavs so I think it's ok.

Softball

2007-06-02T10:36:00.000-04:00

I had the pleasure to attend an inter-mural softball game on Thursday. It was a different affair from the ones that take place in the UK. In the UK, you play the game, get in the pub and get drunk. In the US having a few beers is part of the game, and of course you have to have spectator participation. Softball is a long game and you only do a bit of running, so you are more likely do drink than when playing football. That's just a recipe for being sick.

This game was extra funny because I work with people from both teams. There has been 'trash talk' all week. Which I added to even though I wasn't on either of the teams, but thought I should put my tuppence in. In the first innings one team was 10-4 up, things started to get a little heated but all in good humour. It finished either 18-17 or 18 all depending on which team you spoke too. I was just laughing. In the end it was very amiable and an extra innings was played and the team that should have won, won.

It was a really nice thing to go and see. It was the real America. It wasn't the all conquering, arrogant team USA that you see in the Olympics, it was just a group of people having fun and having a few beers and a laugh. Yeah one or two people took it too seriously but for the most part it was just funny. It may have helped that I was sitting drinking beer in the sun.....who knows

Things I have to do in the US list

2007-05-26T14:33:00.000-04:00

Suggestions please....... I have put I list up already but it would be good to get some ideas. I will link them to the blog when I have done it. Stupid things are welcome but serious things are good too. I have also changed the comment thing so you don't have to have an account to do them. So after the tone please leave your message ........ I will get my hat

First Month

2007-05-24T19:40:00.000-04:00

OK so I have been here a month now and it's going pretty good. I am definitely feeling a lot more settled than I have been all the time I have been here. Yesterday was strange as it was my birthday but today has been good. I have been looking for apartments as I have to move in Aug. Yes you heard me right, I am organised and pro-active, well kinda. My feeling at the minute is that I want to stay till next Aug. I have to extend my visa anyway so I might as well put a few extra months on. This may/probably will change by the time I have to think about it, but I guess it means that I am enjoying it here.

It is strange it feels like I have been here ages, but then sometimes it's like I have only been here 2 minutes. It's the old brain playing tricks again. I must have changed since I got here. I know I feel a lot happier about everything. I just hope I change for the good. I am probably a lot more organised than I was awhile ago. Well not too organised, he he. Also I am getting better at keeping in touch. It helps when your not in the country.

I do miss everyone back home. Leaving made me realise that so much. When it actually hit me that I was leaving, I was overwhelmed. I just hadn't been thinking too much about it for one reason or another. I have had quite a bit of time to sort things out in my head. Moving has really put things into perspective. Looking back on my leaving party it was great to see everyone and I can't thank everyone enough for coming. We need to get together more often. He says when he is 3500 miles away. Before I gush too much, I shall stop.

I am gonna get I list on the blog of the top things I should do. Stuff like shoot a gun, eat a 64 Oz steak etc. The blog has got a good response so far so I will keep it up. It would be nice if y'all made some comments

My Weekend and Soul Food

2007-05-22T20:46:00.000-04:00

Had a pretty strange weekend this time around. It started in a pub on Friday (far too many of my stories start like that) where I met Ryan (music fan, drinking buddy, gentleman and a scholar) and his old neighbour from Texas, Curtis (music fan, drinking monster and Lutheran minister). We enjoyed beer, laughs and a damn good burger from Dain's Place on 9Th St. Later we drove to Chapel Hill (a few miles from Durham) to see a few bands (unfortunately not a growling metal band but you can't have everything). We spent the evening enjoying some good bands and some PBR. Nothing to heavy or crazy, mostly just talking about rubbish as usual. The bands were great, the first band was a garage rock band who even did a Sonics cover which was just down my street. I have no idea how to describe the other band, kinda indie country I guess, but still damn good. After we went to time out chicken for fried chicken and cheese biscuits. I asked to have the nastiest drunk food. I thought it was amazing, especially the biscuits. I am not talking rich tea here, they are kinda like scones but not sweet. Basically just butter. They are really bad for you but, wow do they taste good. They are part of the southern Soul Food thing, which I am really looking forward to sampling even more. As you might be able to tell as most of this post has been about it.

Saturday day was a bit of a non even, breakfast of Twinkies (see pic), acquired from a petrol station on the way home (I wanted a Slurpee but they didn't have any). Got the new webcam which you saw on the previous post. I hope you still not laughing over it. Saturday evening involved chilling out on the porch (very American of me), singing on the porch, harassing people from the porch, silly photos in hats, drinking some beers and a fantastic a cocktail called surfers on acid (I think: pineapple juice Malibu and jager), the usual heading out to the pubs on main St. Then back to Ryan's for more surfers on acid and listening to lots of music, especially pulp which Curtis was a big fan of, much respect. All in all a good weekend I think.