A Brief Time-Out to Catch Up

We tend to lead a fairly quiet life without a lot of overtly social activities, but once in a while a week comes along that ends up being jam-packed with social engagements.

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Last Sunday, I went to play "Airsoft" at Ground Zero with some people from work. This is a boys-and-their-toys type of activity involving war games with replica fire-arms that shoot plastic BBs at a high velocity and rate. It's a bit like paintball without the paint and with realistic weapons. We all got into it with gusto, climbing around amongst the bushes and trees. Even though the weather was absolutely miserable that day, cold and pissing down rain the entire time, we enjoyed it immensely. The guy who organised the get-together is already working on another one. We didn't really have a chance to take pictures what with the BBs flying past and the inclement weather, but here's a picture of me the day before, testing out my "fatigues":



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Then on Wednesday, we were invited to a presentation given by a surgeon who went on an expedition to the North Pole (the true North Pole, not the magnetic one). He had come to the Arts Institute in January this year for advise on how to use an HD video camera in general and in arctic conditions. He's a friend of the school principal. The principal put him in touch with me. I advised him on what kind of shots to get and what he needed to do to keep the camera from seizing up and the batteries from dying quickly in the cold. He would be travelling with a Norwegian documentary crew, but wanted to bring his own camera to get additional footage. It transpired that the Norwegian crew hardly got any footage because their cameras seized up, so his footage was practically the only existing from the expedition. He was very grateful for this and gave me an entire case of Chilean wine as thanks. Well, he was also very effusive in his presentation at the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Sandbanks which we attended. Afterwards, there were a few people who came up to congratulate me and were perplexed about how I could have outdone the seasoned Norwegian crew. All I did was a little research on the internet about shooting in extreme cold and mixed that with my camera experience. He's the one who actually shot it!



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On Thursday evening we went to see the Kaiser Chiefs at the Bournemouth International Centre. Again, this was with a couple of people from the Arts Institute. K and I hadn't been to a concert in quite some time. They played a great set. This is one of those bands that's great to see live because they put on a good, energetic show.

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Friday night, my dad arrived from Denmark again to teach another of his Chiropractic seminars on Saturday. We went to dinner with him at Taj Mahal, our favorite Indian restaurant in Westbourne, on Saturday night. This morning we had homemade Liege waffles for breakfast and spent a few hours working at a laptop, each of us. He left on a National Express bus for Heathrow a while ago.

Laundry Mountain -- Part 2

Today, we finally got our new washing machine installed. It's been almost a month since the other one died on us. Once again, it took a lot of calls and a lot of patience. The laundry mountain would have been even bigger than this if it wasn't for the opportunity we had a couple of weeks ago (babysitting a downstairs neighbor's birds for a few days) which allowed us to do a few loads of laundry. It's a good thing the new machine got installed today because I'm currently wearing my last pair of underwear!

The repairman pointed out something interesting. There had been this sort of rotten milk smell out of nowhere once in a while in the kitchen. We looked everywhere but found nothing. Today we found out what it was. The people who had installed the washing machine and dishwasher originally had done such a piss-poor job of it that the two machines' outflow hoses were giving each other "feedback", as it were. In other words, dirty dishwashing water would sometimes flow into the washing machine hose and vice versa. The rotten food smell was the dishwashing water rotting in the washing machine hose. Nice, huh?

The Bobbies Came Round

The police just came to our apartment.

I had just gotten home and locked my bike in the garage. As I was walking around to the front doors of the apartment building, a police car drove in. They went past me and turned around in the parking lot. I was walking up the stairs and saw them park out front, get out, and approach the building. I wondered "Who are they going to see in this building?" When I was almost at my landing, I heard a door buzzer go off. Sounded like one of the neighbors, but when I walked in the front door, K was on the buzzer-phone. She buzzed them in and said it's the police, but they said there's nothing to worry about. We were mighty curious what this was going to be about. K asked if they had caught me riding my bike without a headlight. Nope, because I put some new batteries in it this time.

One of the police officers stayed outside and the female office came inside. She said that a car was found abandoned and vandalised in London. It had a VIN number that is registered to this address. Interesting... I just came from the parking lot and I definitely saw my car there. They asked if they could go down to verify the VIN number, so we did.

She asked me a few questions about where I work, how long we've been here, where has the car been, have you ever been in London with this car, etc. Then she called in the VIN number and we waited around for a few minutes for a reply. Obviously, something is fishy here. The male officer said if our car is a "ringer", then they will have to impound it. I said, "Oh, well that's not too bad because we want to sell it at some point anyway."

The VIN number on the car in London was pulled from the engine block. She got a reply back from the VIN number people that said our car was OK. It's the one in London that is the fake. Strange thing is, the car in London was also a gray 520i BMW.

They thanked us for our help and left. I wonder if this is the last we'll hear of this...