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.