Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Twitter Over the Years

Similar to a similar post I did on Facebook, here are some charts summarizing my tweet counts. First off, each year's total since I joined in 2008:

Next, the overall by-hour:

And, of course, the by-hour with each year as a separate line:

Past the jump are the by-hour per-hear charts as well as some comments on them.

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Way Home

NOTE: The big post is here, but I wanted to gather the tweets and whatnot from after leaving Dublin Airport. There is also an album associated with this part of the trip.

Since my Kindle's batteries continued to be unhelpful, I didn't really have much to do. I did watch Unstoppable for a portion (albeit without headphones, thus silent), and a couple who were heading to a heavy machinery auction let me read some of their auction listings (and gave me one of the booklets).

My layover in this direction was in Philadelphia.

I wanted to just see the downtown a bit, and I certainly did so.

However, I stayed too long and had to get the taxi driver to rush back to the airport. I did make it, but barely in time for boarding. If there had been any crowds, I never would've made it.

I was pretty much unable to use my phone for the rest of the day, so I spent much of the time chatting with an older guy who was heading to an interview with Microsoft. He spent much of his younger adult years playing music while 'stuck' in Greece after running away from everything, and transitioned into media stuff since he had learned to programmed as a child. He was tired of startups and small companies, though.

I did manage to snap a photo of a bicycle locked up at Seatac Airport with my camera while lugging my stuff to the Link station, though..

Lastly, there was my transfer downtown from Link to RapidRide, and I was home.

And the next day, I found the camera charger I thought I had lost…after its intended replacement had arrived. Well, now I have a travel charger!

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British Isles

This is going to be a long one, folks. Before the break, I have a couple of more convenient link/note dumps.

Photo Albums

NOTE: There are more photos in these albums than are included in the post.

  1. England
  2. Wales
  3. Ireland
  4. Going home

Related Posts

  1. On the Way to the British Isles: The first leg of this trip.
  2. The Way Home: The return trip.

Travel Notes

  • People here tend to avoid each other less than in Seattle, but I was primarily in the English countryside.
  • Pubs are common in rural England similar to how fast food eateries are common in rural America.
  • The roads here are rather narrow and often without markings. Passing spots are frequent. People park on the sides of roads and effectively take up travel lanes.
  • On that note: the knee-jerk reaction to travel isn't the car; people consider walking and other forms of transport seriously. 'Normal' people cycle on the side of major routes in some areas.
  • Mixer taps aren't very common, especially in older houses and buildings.
  • England looks small on maps, but it is still quite a long ways via ground transport.
  • Small shops (corner stores, butcher shops) are quite common here.
  • Brick houses are everywhere.
  • Pretty much no mobile phone reception in many areas. 3G is like finding gold. It's difficult to use a lot of data without being able to ever get a significant amount of instantaneous bandwidth.
  • Public transport (trains) is regarded as terrible by residents, but they haven't seen how bad it is in Seattle.
  • (Unpaved) byways and bridleways crisscross the landscape.
  • Traffic signals indicate when they are about to go from red to green.
  • Both beans and potatoes are popular here. Yum.
  • Baguettes seem to be a bit more common in the UK and Ireland than the US.
  • Doors often open with the keys alone, rather than being unlocked then opened with a knob or handle.
  • There are a lot of sheep in Wales.
  • Drivers in Ireland are scary.
  • It's very windy in Wales and Ireland.
  • Dublin is a lovely city.
  • Waiting staff don't get tips, but get better wages. Service standards are a bit lower.
  • People tend to have electric kettles rather than coffee makers, even if they drink coffee.
  • Tea is more often offered there than in the US (where coffee is king), but there is typically a very limited variety of tea (almost always black teabags).
  • The general attitude is that of begrudging acceptance rather than forcing things to change to one's liking.
  • Throughout my trip, my 'universal' AC travel adapter hadn't been working very well: I had to wiggle it to get it to work when in the UK, and it wouldn't work at all in Ireland, despite them sharing outlets. I'll have to get a UK→US adapter for when I travel to the British Isles again.
  • The UK keyboard layout is a bit different, and the double-quote is further away from the home row than the @ symbol.
  • HORSE MEAT SCANDAL EVERYWHERE.

My original intent for this trip was to hike The Ridgeway, but that ended up being a very minor part of the trip.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

On the Way to the British Isles

NOTE: The big post is here, but I wanted to gather the tweets and whatnot from my way to London Heathrow as well.

From home to downtown, I hauled all of my gear on my folding bicycle. Something about having everything above and behind my rear wheel bothered me, so I didn't continue this arrangement for the rest of my trip.

Next up came the train, which brought me to the airport where I dealt with secuity and whatnot.

Of course, when we flew by Mount Ranier, I had to take this photo. (Everyone commented on it being on an Alaska Airlines flight.)

I spent much of my idle time on this portion of my journey reading my Kindle, whose battery didn't last much longer than the two flights. Even charging it didn't seem to help much for some reason.

I really didn't like the weather in Los Angeles (my layover). Thankfully, the layover was only a few hours.

I also got some £ for after my next flight.

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