Onto the City of Brotherly Love...

So here I am sat with 12 other people on board a flight to Philadelphia from Montreal, which means yes, I have a shiny new passport and a visa. One short hop from Philadelphia and I’ll be in home with the girls for the July 4^th celebrations.

The sheer relief I felt when I was able to collect my visa earlier this afternoon from the Embassy in Ottawa, is hard to describe, as much as I have thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of Russell & Kelly, it feels so good to be going home. 

Its been a roller coaster of  a week,  each day bringing its highs and lows, ultimately in 8 days I have achieved the task in hand, at the same time also completing the necessary paperwork to ensure we will be able to complete on the purchase of the new house. We will take possession on the 24^th July, starting another chapter in this period of this adventure....

and so the Odyssey begins...

its now 9.15pm EST on Monday the 24th June and as sit here in the BA Lounge watching Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals, waiting for my flight to the UK I don't know when i'll be back in Providence with Laura and Aila.  It has to be said that leaving your family behind is never easy, over the past 6 years I have become used to Laura crying when I leave and whist it pulls at the heart strings, its nothing compared to when your 5 year old starts to cry and then says "i'm going to miss you daddy" well suffice to say a large lump appears in your throat...

so why am I here, well back in November my passport and visa were stolen when the house was burgled, it was due to expire in February so I wasn't that worried, oh how little I knew. Despite my best efforts as to this date I don't have a new passport, which I now need more than ever as we are trying to complete the purchase of a new house. And  of course for a family that likes to travel and for someone who travels for work a passport  is really an essentiality! 

with the help of some colleagues in the London office, I have managed to obtain an appointment at the uk passport office in London on Wednesday. Then the fun really begins, there is a 95% probability that I will receive the new passport on Wednesday, a 5% chance that it will take 6 days... in this instance it really needs to be 24 hours.

as I cannot apply with the US Embassy for an appointment for a replacement visa application until I have the passport in my hands. This would not have been an issue in normal circumstances, only it now occurs that there is presently a three week!! waiting time for appointments at the Embassy in London. When I discovered that fact on last Friday, it did take some time to pick my chin up off the floor. A quick phone call to the attorney though led to the development of the next twist in this tale, the Embassy in Ottawa has only a two day wait. 

now July 1st sounds like a normal day and it is in most countries in the world, apart from Canada where it is Independence Day! which yes, means that the US Embassy will be closed, oh and just for good luck they are closed on Wednesday's as well. Are you still keeping up?

so now the plan is Wednesday UK Passport Appt, Thursday receive passport, Thursday book appointment at Embassy and hope like hell that I can get an appointment on the Tuesday or even better a cancelled appointment this Friday. It would appear that next Tuesday is the earliest I can fly home, if not then hopefully the Weds/Thursday of next week, until then, well I guess were stuck with each other. 

for those of you who read this and are wondering why I have not yet confirmed plans to catch up with you, hopefully you now understand.


now back to that 5 year old, for some unknown reason (though I would be looking directly at Laura if she were here in front of me), we decided that she would go with her mum for a manicure and pedicure this weekend. it became one of those decisions that as we counted down the hours on Sunday morning I was beginning to regret. 3 hours of is it time yet, why is the shop closed til lunchtime, how do you know etc, etc.  

Suffice to say she was slightly excited at the thought and it has to be said thoroughly enjoyed herself, being very pleased with the final  outcome (see photo at the bottom of this post) 

hopefully i'l be in such a good mood on Wednesday morning. Until then. 

Paul 

Its been a while

So here we are again, this time no false promises about future posts, it will only increase my guilt. Having logged in last night and catching up on previous posts I realised how little things that I had forgotten about triggered other memories, i'm doing it again aren't I...

...anyhow as I enter hour 5 of today's 6 1/2 hour journey it struck me how sometimes we need to sit back and realise just how lucky we are. I forget where I read an article or tweet highlighting the point, no doubt comparing it to a victim of some tragic event, I guess it triggered a spark in my mind. 

It would be easy to complain about the amount of traveling I undertake with this job, the  early starts, the late nights the nights away from home, etc, etc.. Then I sit back and realise all that we have and not for one minute would I swap any of it, ok I lie a few less hours would be nice. I guess I now have a better understanding of my makeup (is that finally I hear my parents say!) in truth I probably spent my late teens and early twenty's squandering my talents, that or it just took longer for the light switch to click... nevertheless here I am now am and i'm incredibly happy with my lot. Also please don't misconstrue my words here, I had an awful lot of fun in the teens and twenties, almost as much fun as I have had in the past 15 years, just that now I feel that i'm heading in the right direction, unsure as to where the path is going to lead me (us) and still having fun, just with a better sense of purpose.

Throughout the time I lived in London I never felt it was home, for some reason whenever I drive into Providence, either from the north or south there is something extremely comfortable and homely about the sight of the city and its buildings. Its a funny old world as some would say, I lived in one of the busiest cities in the world with all the history, art, night life, convenience opportunity and more that a place can offer and a sleepy little city in southern New England inspires a feeling that I don't recall ever having. I guess making the move two and a half years ago was a good decision. 

So what have we been upto over the past year, there literally is too much mention, Aila turned 5, its taken almost 6 months to try and buy a house, a colleague had to leave the office early as the chickens has escaped (more on that later), a battle with the drug company, a trip to the Augusta National, a holiday on the cape staying only 20ft from the shore line, the house flooded repeatedly, turning 40....

most importantly we have made some wonderful friends and everyday I get to watch Aila grow and develop as a beautiful young child...life's pretty good. 

Paul 

a post from 30,000 feet

In typical fashion you wait 3 months for an update...


and now for one from 30,000 feet as I fly home from Utah. I realise not everyone is a fan of technology and I share the view, that we never seem to get the chance to disconnect. However in-flight wifi is a really wonderful advancement, particularly when flying on a work trip and often dreading the 200+ emails that will hit your respective device when you land and are able to get service...


Utah itself is a beautiful state, from the Valley of Salt Lake City where you can see the mountain ranges flanking you on either side, to the mountain ranges of Snowbird and Alta, which are quite simply stunning.


It is a long way here from the East Coast (of the good ol' USA) but its well worth it. Suffice to say I fully intend to return with the girls.


I'll update the Flickr feed when I get home, somethings still cannot be done inflight, now back to the day job.


Safe travels
Muswell 

We have moved.....

So as most will probably know we have moved, after a year, Wow time really does fly fast! we moved out of the apartment and into a house. 


When we first decided to rent the apartment, the location was key. In so far as it was only 5 minutes walk to the office, allowing me too spend more time with the family. In addition the aim was to gain a better understanding of Providence and Rhode Island in general. We discovered we preferred the 'East Side" not to be confused with East Providence, so luckily enough we have managed to find a house on the East Side! confused you will be!


Apart from the ridiculous number of rooms and space in general, its about three times bigger than the apartment and has a very big garden, probably even bigger than in the house in South Croydon. 


Once the temperature rises, minus 13 last night I intend to begin cycling to work, were now about 2 miles from the office, which is just that little bit too far to walk. As an aside I do miss walking past the ice rink and zamboni twice a day. 


Photo of the rear of the house and garden below.

Muswell

Turning into my father.....

As the title would suggest, this could be of great concern! Actually its ok I still have my hair, in addition to my wife's great relief, I don't actually class Norfolk as one of the worlds seven wonders!!!


In all seriousness, I have updated the flickr site, for those who have spoken to me recently you will be aware, work is overtaking my little world again. As Laura has commented there seem to be an ever increasing number of wildlife photos! I can only begin to explain that the feathered friends seem to sit still longer than my daughter!


Hopefully another blog post and some more photos to follow soon.


Muswell

A few technical issues

So this is attempt two to get the Flickr stream working, if you checked earlier this week on the basis that I asked you to, you may not have seen the link in the blog header to the photo stream. 


Apologies, sometimes I am a muppet!


Muswell

did the ground move for you?

Just as we have all begun to settle back into normality and enjoying family life back in Rhode Island, along comes the first significant earthquake tremor to hit the area since 1976!


From limited research it would appear such tremors have been reported in New England, five times in the last 50 years, 1976, 1967, 1966, 1965 and 1963. Now a note of confession here, nether Laura or I felt the tremor. 


I was out buying a sandwich for my lunch, apparently when your stood on the ground, in the street your less likely to feel the ground shake. So you can understand my surprise when I returned to my office to discover all my colleagues asking each other if they had felt it, apparently the building swayed for a good 30 seconds.  


Laura who was is in the apartment, was also unaware when I emailed her to see if she had felt anything, I guess if nothing its pleasing to know that a quake which measures 5.8 and has its epicenter a mere 558 miles away, has no impact on the building we live in.


This is not the first the earthquake we have experienced as a family. In April 2009 we were visiting  Laura's parents in Rome when the Perugia earthquake occurred, this measured 6.1 on the richter scale* and we were only 113 miles from the epicenter. 


Now I have to confess at first I didn't think it was an earthquake, the previous night Aila (15 months old at the time) had fallen out of our bed, on the night of the quake, I merely thought she had climbed in again, only to fall out for the second night on the trot!




Muswell








* I was intrigued as to whom the scales name had been named, after all, these always are! It dates from Charles Richter who developed the scale in 1935 in partnership with Beno Gutenberg. Further explanation below.

The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake.

In all cases, the magnitude is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the amplitude of waves measured by a seismograph. An earthquake that measures 5.0 on the Richter scale has a shaking amplitude 10 times larger than one that measures 4.0.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

Photos and updates

It goes without saying that I haven't been able to update here for a whilst, partly due to work and partly as I have been renewing my enthusiasm in photography....




Having come to the conclusion that i'm not going to get sufficient time to blog every time I take a photo, instead I have opened a flickr feed which I have linked back to the blog..


This way, hopefully you'll have the chance to see what we have been unto, even if the commentary will have to follow later! 


The first batch were taken over the weekend, either on the East Side of Providence or at Galilee, RI.


Muswell

when does west end?

A thought struck me sat here in the  lounge at LAX. When does West end and East begin, i'm about  to not see Saturday as i'll be in the air and land at 7.30 am HT time, having departed LA at 1o'clock on Saturday morning. Does that mean I'm still going west, and how do you arrive in the east when your flying west?


I realize the pedants among yourselves will point out to GMT and long standing time calculations, I think your missing the point though....


I had one of those only in California moments yesterday. I had to have a car take me from the office to a local best buy (US PC shop/chain).  My driver (Jimmy), a native Californian, in only 5 minutes had shared his life story with me, very similar to a cabbie in London at this stag.


its when he proclaims, he is actually a Jazz musician that I had to smile. On the return journey we listened to his latest album, ok so its not actually been pressed yet, he won't release it until he's happy with the quality. 


To be fair the jazz was very relaxing, his singing though oh dear! fortunately he didn't ask me to buy his latest offering. The ride though certainly blew away the office stress....


Muswell

New York, New York...

As part of my role, I am increasingly spending more and more time in New York, indeed one of the reasons for the move to Providence was to prevent having to be away from home for increasingly longer periods of time. A days trip to NY,is far better than a week.  When rising in the ungodly hours of Tuesday morning, I had no real desire to spend six hours on the train traveling to and from New York. 

As we departed, heading south through lower Rhode Island and into Connecticut I realised how silly I was being, train travel really is one of the more relaxing forms of travel, eye opening in that it presents you with the ability view the breathtaking countryside, from the comfort of your seat. I made the journey to New Haven two days later by car, the view on the highway comes a very poor second to that offered by the train. 

I first traveled to Providence by train after a weekend in New York, that journey in October 2007, still remains vivid in my mind. I recall not working on my presentation as I had planned, instead staring out of the window, my eyes attention grabbed by the sheer multitude of colours of foliage and the views of the Atlantic coastline as the train seemed to hug the very edge of the country. Quite simply I was hooked, wishing I could spend longer traveling this vast country, the small matter of a 6 month pregnant wife at home, is one of many reasons why ended not doing so!

Now I have to be honest, New York is not somewhere I would want to live with a young child, the sheer size of the city though is something you can ever comprehend. As the train cuts away from the coast and the city suddenly appears to rise up by your side, its a stunning sight. Living in Providence for the past four months, you quietly forget the hustle and bustle of living in the big city, only upon arriving in Penn Station am I reminded of the life we used to lead.

With a nod to the blog of a colleague, who reminded me of the power of the black and white photo. His blog http://ricardojardin.tumblr.com/ is worth 10 minutes of any one's time, below in a similar vein are two photos, which hopefully convey the size of the city and the awful view I had from the office on Tuesday.

lastly in glorious technicolour the view that greets you as you walk into reception. To the left you can make out the Hudson River, Central Park reaches out in front of you and the ever changing architecture of the Manhattan sky line finishes the view.

I have to confess the picture does not do the view justice, however my wonderful wife, finally caved in and agreed that I should finally buy that SLR. So this Tuesday I take delivery of the new camera (woo hoo!!), fortunately we had planned to spend next weekend in New York, so I should have plenty of opportunity to further capture this intriguing city.


Muswell

in the meantime

Whilst working on a little something over the weekend, I found this from last year, I thought some of you may enjoy it....

EDIT: I need to find a new host for the Video, the quality seen here is not a true reflection.

the art of growing up

One of the advantages of living in Providence so far has been the ability to spend more time of the family, something I have written about before. Neither Laura or myself are particularly artistic, we both though believe in encouraging Aila to try her hand at everything. 


So in an attempt to encourage this leaning, Laura invested in art material. Aila thoroughly enjoyed the finger painting, though her mum is still to this day doubting her wisdom in such a decision..

Muswell

once a month

Ok so I'm blatantly failing to blog once a day, let alone much more than once a week, must do better Paul!!


The good news is that Spring has sprung, though somewhat cooler than in the UK, if recent gloating phone calls are anything to be believed. With the recent visit of friends from Canada, we took the opportunity to view Providence from the terrace on the 14th floor of the apartment building, now Kelly has a strong interest in photography, something that I have found rejuvenated in myself with the improvement of the camera on the iPhone4.


The best of my efforts follow, now if I can just persuade Laura to let me go shopping for the SLR..

The middle of the three buildings is my place of work. If you look between that building and the one to its immediate right, you will see what could be mistaken to be a halo. Its actually the light shining off a local bridge, the bridge is too far away for either Kelly or myself to be able to capture a better photo, one for another day.

For those who suffer from vertigo such as Laura, I had to step a little closer to the edge,than she felt comfortable with for this last shot. 


The more observant will have noticed there appears to be little traffic, these photos were taken at around 7pm on a Saturday night. When we visited Providence last summer, the guide who had been recommended to us by the relocation company, was somewhat shocked that we wished to consider living downtown. Given in her view that its far too busy with traffic and unsafe at night, rush hour tends to last about 15 minutes here, and given where we have lived in the past, our experience to date is that we couldn't feel safer. Mind you I suppose once you have survived Croydon on a Friday night, anywhere including Kabul probably feels safer! 


Muswell

finally.....

No, not the fact its an update but far more importantly, three weeks ago we finally collected the Car!


I had never imagined it would be such a long drawn out and very frustrating process, it all started very smoothly, the first weekend we were residents of Providence we had chosen the vehicle we wanted.  Now I have to be honest, I preferred the Ford Edge, given though that Laura will be the predominant driver during the week, the casting vote was hers, the Escape became the chosen vehicle. 


Unfortunately, when you move to the US of A from the UK, your credit history does not travel with you, combine this with a lack of social security number, the latter takes at least two weeks after you apply, something you can only do after you have been in the country for two weeks....


in some ways i felt sorry for the car salesman (not often you hear that statement), when we walked in he had a deal in about 2 hours, well its good to haggle... On day 2 he called to inform we couldn't buy the car over four years as my work permit is only initially for three and it was feasible that we could just abandon the car and finance agreement, unlikely but I can almost so there point, actually I can't but I digress. So instead we decided to lease the car, which we thought again, would be a sensible solution, given we did't want to pay $29K in cash. This then required an additional trip back to the showroom to complete another set of forms, oh and yet more additional paperwork from us to confirm our details, salary, inside leg measurement et, etc.. We are now 7 days into the process if your keeping count at home. 


Three days later we receive confirmation that the application has been successful, so another trip to the showroom, sign yet more paperwork and pay the deposit


Yep, just like me your now thinking we should be all there, entering from left stage the Rhode Island DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), with whom we have to register the car.  By this stage I had applied for my Social Security number, indeed a copy of the application was required by Ford Finance, for the DMV though this was not sufficient, oh no. Despite having a copy of my passport, work permit, lease agreement, Social Security Application, Bank Statement, vehicle documents etc, the RI DMV would only be happy if I could provide a denial of right to work in the USA. 


Yep your read correctly, the DMV as I could not produce a SS number, would let me license a car if I can prove I do not have the right to work in the country!!!  So after yet another trip to the Social Security office, four in total by this stage, they provided me with the denial of right letter, of course this was on a Friday so we then had to wait for the DMV to open on the Monday before we could finally register and then collect our car, some 20 days after we had originally chosen it that Sunday morning.


Mind you I do miss my friends at the car rental company, we who were almost wiling me to walk in each time with good news. I'm also expecting to be seen on missing in America soon, reported missing by the security guards at the Social Security office!


as you may have guessed the car is  below....on a recent trip to the zoo.

all that matters

So finally after three weeks of trying to arrange the paperwork we have picked up the keys to our car.  For the time being all you need to know about the vehicle, is that the three year old in our family has given it her blessing as the central console and cup holders can be lit up in various colours

of course her favourite is pink!

talking of 3 years olds, it bath time.

Adopo

Muswell

morning commute

One of the many reasons for leaving the UK was that had I become so tired with the daily commute,  when Aila was born it became clear very quickly that if we stayed in the UK, I would never have the opportunity to spend much quality time with Aila than if we were to move country. I may be old fashioned in this view,  when I became a father I didn't want to be the dad who was never there, I only have one daughter, I wanted to maximise my time with her.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed riding the scooter for the past 2 years, indeed I even managed to refine my route over time, so that the journey time from office to home took no longer than 45 minutes. My goal when moving over here was to have a commute of no longer than 15-20 minutes.

When we started looking at properties they were all within this time range, ultimately we settled on our current apartment which is the grand total of a five minute walk from the office.  So now rather than driving through Brixton, Clapham, down the albert embankment and up the mall (i'll admit there are worse commutes in life!) My commute now takes me over the bridge and past the ice rink, not quite the Mall and Buckingham Palace, for the time being though I prefer the ice rink and the zamboni....

Muswell

going back to the future and chocolate brown

One of my earlier memories in life is driving down to Heathrow from my grandparents house in Norfolk, as a family we were about to depart for a new life in Botswana, to be honest I don't think at the age of 3 you really comprehend what that includes, you just know that you don't want to leave your grandparents and from what I recall most particularly, in my case my Grandad Jim. 


There are two moments in particular that are vivid in my mind, the first was that we reset the trip mileage on the dark chocolate brown cortina, he was driving at the time. I recall wanting to know just how far a journey it was, I suspect this may have been a diversion tactic to keep me out of the way, whilst my parents packed the bags. By the way, what is it with chocolate brown? its a colour that we never seem to be able to escape, even over here its seems no house has been built in the past without having had its walls painted chocolate brown, at least once in its life. 

Is it obligatory that in a house over the age of 20 years old that it must have been painted chocolate brown? was there a time when all houses were simultaneously chocolate brown? This must have been in the era of the black and white TV. I can see it now, ooo that chocolate brown looks nice Arthur, do you think we should decorate the hallway chocolate brown its looks very good on TV, everyone's doing it you know, they say its the new magnolia

Anyhow back on topic, the second memory of that day is standing in the car park overlooking, what I presume was Terminal 2, stretching  below as far as I could see, well I was only 3! were a sea of aeroplanes, this was certainly the first time  I had seen a jumbo jet, I was enthralled and recall not wanting to leave the car park. 

... So fast forward some 35 years and there I was at Heathrow, albeit sat in the lounge with my own 3 year old, ok so sat is the wrong term... trying desperately to keep her entertained whilst her mum had a break would be more truthful. At some stage I happened to look out of the window and I happened to see the plane that would fly us off to the next chapter in our life, suddenly I couldn't help but cast my mind back all those years.


We never did check the mileage on the trip....

Muswell

woooooooow....

So I guess we had better start with an apology....if you were waiting patiently every day for an update on here, or even worse were worrying if we had made it safely.....well we did, I have just been far too busy with home and work. Sorry! 


We safely arrived on time and have been in the apartment for 3 weeks this Friday, doesn't time fly when your shopping and trying to organise your life!


I will backfill over the coming days, however briefly I wanted to share this little morsel with you. As some readers may be aware I have a healthy (some may find alternative words, Laura for one) interest in sport. 


About eighteen months ago Verizon begun to run trailers online for  their fibre optic cable service, which just happened to run often on several US sports websites I happen to read, I guess they knew their market!


So on the very first day we were here, I had arranged for Verizon to install FIOS in the apartment, obviously my main consideration was to ensure we had an internet service to allow us to Skype with family and friends. That being said having also subsequently purchased our 46" wide screen tv for the living room, its obligatory over here, when you enter the country after having your passport stamped, they question when you will be buying your TV.


Their may be an untruth in the above statement!


Anyhow - Ice Hockey in glorious HD Woooooow


The link to the advert is below, this whole post will make more sense, once you have seen the advert.


Verizon advert


Muswell

At last...woo hoo

The passports have been returned from the US embassy, we leave tomorrow Wednesday for Providence...


..now all we have to hope is that the movers can find a spot in their schedule to deliver all our worldly possessions.