UK Letter Home May & June 2003

Welcome to the May & June edition of UK Bound

First, I have a lot of old email addresses in my mailing list - if you would like to continue getting this email, send me an email saying that you would like to be in my new email list. I will retire the current list. I will still be publishing these Letter Home emails on the website, so if you miss one, you can always read it there. I also usually publish the newsletters on the website before I email them.

About 6 months ago, we announced that we were getting a wean. According to "The Complete Patter", a wean is defined as:

wean (pronounced wayne) The local term, as opposed to the more easterly bairn, for a baby or child: "Ah'll need to go an get the weans from school." "She's another wean on the road" A big wean is a grown-up who is acting childlishly: "He's gauny start greetin in a minute, the big wean."

I am amazed at how many people couldn't figure out what a wean was. We are pleased to announce that Seth Alexander Carr was introduced into the world on 19 June. Seth was a little early, but he and Kim are doing well now. We have had him at home for a week now, and have taken him out a couple times to the park, and have taken downtown for a cappichino and biscotti. We are not going to do that again. Seth was wired all night, and he wouldn't give me back my XBox all night. It has been quite an experience. Anybody offering to do some babysitting? We just need someone to do the midnight to 6am shift. Last night Seth slept an amazing 4 hours. That is great compared to his normal 2.5 hour slumber. We have a couple of pictures of Seth on the website. For those of you that I've made grandparents or (gasp) great grandparents, I am sorry. It is amazing at how much stronger Seth has gotten in just a week. I guess all you parents are just laughing at me now, aren't you?? I don't think the moggies are too impressed with Seth as he is loud and takes up a lot of our time. I have been trying to spend more time with them, so they don't go totally stir crazy.

In May, Kim and I wisked ourselves to the island of Zante in Greece for a week in the sun. Zante is the first island west of Olympus. We had a great time, got a little tan, saw some turtles, ate and ate and ate, slept a bunch, ate some more, visited Olympus and did a couple tours around the island. We went on a "18-30 Club" from Thomas Cook. These trips are catered to the drinking and partying yob culture. It was OK except we were right on the strip, which was mainly nightclubs that closed around 3:00am. We would usually get a couple of hours sleep at night, then head off to the beach during the day and have a nap on the beach. Life was hard. ;-) We have a bunch of pictures, but Seth has taken all of our time, so the picts and website will have to wait. If you are lucky, I will try and get the pics up by next month. The one problem is that I just got a new 256Meg memory card for my camera, which means that I can take almost 300 pictures. As a result, I took almost 200 pictures, cause, well I could. I have to sort through them all and post the best ones. Watch this space.

On the home front, since we were away for a week in May, we decided to get our bathroom redone. We had an old castiron tub, the sink had two taps, the lightswitch and shower switch were pullcords. I am guessing that they were the original fixtures. Anyways, when we came back from our holiday, most of the bathroom had been finished, so we got the plumber to come back and tidy a little. That was in the middle of May. This is now the first week in July. The bathroom still isn't finished. So, my advice is never pay for any work in full until at least a week or two after the work is complete. This way if something breaks, leaks or just doesn't work, then they might actually come back and fix it. Don't get me wrong, the new bathroom looks much better, but there's just too many little things not finished to make it annonying.

On the work front, with the arrival of Seth, I have had the last 2 weeks off. We have hired 4 people to replace the 3 of us, and another 2 are on the way. It's really annonying when we are getting 6 people to replace the 3 of us. Just proves that we are totally overworked, or just supertalented. Actually, it's both. I had an interview with another team doing eCommerce, however, we had another person in our team quit, so our team of 3 is now down to 2. I don't think I will be able to leave our team for a while. That really bites. I was really hoping for a good break for once. Oh well.

I guess that's it for now. There's pictures of Seth on the website, so have a look when you get a chance. Hopefully there will be some of Greece soon as well.

Until later, Brian, Kim and wee wean Seth.