Roaming Randomness

First of all, I must state a disclaimer for this post. A few weeks ago, I had a request – "Tom, take some pictures of the man hole covers." I don't know why someone would want to see that, but I guess it's like flying south of the equator to see if whirl pools actually swirl in the opposite direction. (I have no idea how true that is.) I could interpret the request as, notice all the funny details and put them somewhere so we can gawk at them, but here are some man hole covers. :-)

The sad thing about these photos is, I took them without the aid of a tour guide so I can't tell you how they vary from one utility type to another.
I looked for different man hole covers for about a week
(It was somehow depressing always looking down :-)) when I found this cover while walking to a book store with a friend. Thankfully he waited as I took a snap of this one. You know just as much about it as I do, it exists. :-o


In my roaming, though, I found some things in the UK that I've never seen before. For example, I found wedding insurance. I guess it's just in case it rains on the big day. It does rain more here than the arid deserts of Utah, but I'm sure you would expect that.
I was also surprised to find that people have to kill their apricots before they eat them. I took a picture because I figured you wouldn't believe me. I'm sorry, it's blurry, but you can still make out that the apricots are "stoned and ready to eat." :-)
I happened to find a nice pub in Harefield almost about two weeks ago. It was among the nicest pubs I've been to while I've been here. I ordered gnocchi, which was really good. Something funny happened as everyone in the lab got their meals, though. A leashed, droopy eyed blood hound lead his master to our table about the same time the food arrived. They had been sitting at another part of the pub when we entered, and from what we gathered they were on their way out. But the dog walked over next to me and just sat looking at the table. No fooling his sniffer.

Since I am technically working for Oxford University, I will typically take one day in the week to go to Oxford to work in my other office. As I walk to my office from the bus stop I pass the Radcliffe Camera, which is part of the Bodleian (pronounced like Bodily-an, no emphasis on the 'i') Library. I guess the picture is more of the foot bridge over the street, which is obscuring the Radcliffe Camera, but I will see about taking more pictures of the Bodleian Library and posting it another time.

Two more random pictures I took, you're almost done. :-) When I first saw these spikes on the top of cameras and speakers the first thought that entered my mind was: "Is this a fashion statement in favor of mohawks for the thinning?" To keep you from wondering the same thing, I'll let you know what I realized. They have so many pigeons here they use these spikes to keep the birds off whatever the spikes are on. This keeps the cleaning costs down, cause even though it rains a lot here it doesn't rain enough to clean up after the pigeons. Next time I'm in Salt Lake I'll try to take a picture, so you can see what I'm talking about.
I liked this sign because, as I see, it it doesn't say, "No dogs allowed", it says, "No Scottish Terriers allowed". So, if you have another breed, I'm sure you'd be welcome to bring it along. ;-)

To give a short update of my mad life as a scientist, the last two weeks have been crazy writing to meet deadlines. Writing is an art. Not as bad as I originally supposed, but don't expect me to write much about writing. To me that sounds like watching a show about people watching TV.

Windsor Castle

For all those who aren't Anglophiles (that's not someone who likes fishing), and don't follow what British Royalty does, you may never have heard of Windsor Castle. I could tell you honestly I didn't know why we were going to Windsor Castle until we got there.
Windsor Castle is one of X castles that British Royalty live in, so if the Queen of England were there on the 31st of December, I wouldn't have all these nice pictures because tourists are only allowed in when they're not around. Oh, the "X"… that's a trick I picked up in algebra, if you don't know the number you can just use "X".

The Round Tower (the one with the flag) is the most notable feature of Windsor Castle. From what the guide told us, the Normans dug in a trench/moat, piled all of the dirt from the moat on the location where Round Tower is. It's something like a keep, but round. The really cool thing about it is the garden they have growing in that moat area at the footing of the tower.

As I think of what they allowed us to see outside of the castle, I remember that The Round Tower was pretty much all they let us see. Maybe that's why it's the most notable feature.? With the tour package we were allowed to go inside, but they didn't want anyone taking pictures. It was the same in St. George's Chapel. There were some cool things worth taking pictures of inside both places, but I guess you'll only have to take my word for it. Okay, there was only one thing I really wanted to take a picture of. After seeing Leeds Castle and Canterbury Cathedral the day before I felt pretty satiated with Castle/Cathedral views. If you didn't know, you can click on any of the pictures for a larger image.

I thought this was worth taking a picture of though. Not so much the soldier, but the tourists around the soldier. It made me wonder if this particular soldier had done something wrong or if it was just part of enlisting. Because there are so many pictures of these soldiers I wonder if it is more an honor than a form of discipline.
From Windsor Castle we went to London for the New Years Eve Celebration. From what we had been told, fireworks are lit from the London Eye, which is a large ferris wheel right next to the Thames River. I'm not sure exactly how tall it is, I'll let someone else google it, but it is tall enough to see over miles of London if you ever ride it. There were X people there when we arrived at the Westminster Abby area, really there was a lot. I counted as high as I could ten times and still found that ten wasn't a large enough number to describe how many people were there. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words
and if that's the case this is a mouthful. Looking back gives a better idea of how many people were there because their white faces looking towards "The EYE". Sounds almost as ominous as "The CLAW." :-)
I decided to take a picture of Big Ben to prove that I stood in just about one place for X hours to bring in the New Year. When something unexpected happened. Big Ben caught fire!!!



Okay, it didn't really. The fireworks were really nice. I tried taking a video, but ash got in my eye and the focus of the tower drops to the feet of the people around me. Fail. I've never seen such good fireworks before. That may have had something to do with growing up in a desert where fire resulting from fireworks is a real possibility, or it may have had something to do with the show being over a river, but really it was likely a combination of the two.

Happy New Year!… a few weeks later. :-)

Canterbury

Okay, before I say much about my New Years Eve in London, I want to say something about Canterbury and the cathedral we saw there. It was beautiful. From what I gathered, it is the oldest cathedral in the UK.

This was my feeble attempt at 'stitching' photos together. The bottom region is supposed to go together like you see to the right. :-) It was built so long ago, that Christopher Columbus has seen it.

Here are some more shots from the inside.

I was amazed at the intricate detail that was put into the structure. As I looked closer to the ceiling I saw more detail a hundred feet up than I would have expected. Maybe the detail was there because it was out of reach of most people, and so it was preserved. There were some older sculptures I saw on some of the sarcophagi that surprised me. A nose had broken off or some other facial feature, but because of the many people that had handled the sculpture since it broke, the area where the nose should be was smooth. So, it may be possible that the lower parts of the cathedral, in theory, had just as much detail as the ceiling when it was first build.

It's amazing what beauty people can make when they focus on the details. Here are two other pictures I was able to take on the 30th of December. Dover Castle on some of those white cliffs. They actually didn't let us go to the castle or the white cliffs for that matter. I don't know if it was a safety issue, but I could imagine that being the case since the cliffs are made of something similar to chalk. Between natural erosion and tourist's natural inclination to get as close to the edge of a cliff as possible for an awesome picture, I'm sure they just decided it was best to keep us far away. ;-)

The London Bridge, different from "The London Bridge" which is somehow in Arizona, was more of a drive by shooting. I don't know how many shots I took, this one was the best. No cool little factoids here. Sorry.
I'll try to have everything we did on New Years Eve posted before this time next week. Maybe I'll make it one of my New Year's Resolutions. If it doesn't work out better luck next year. :-)

Leeds Castle

Around Christmas time Tom and his girlfriend (no I'm not speaking in third person) came to the UK to take a look around. I missed going with them up to Scotland, but I was able to join them around New Years Eve. I have a confession to make, I have never felt more like a tourist in my life. I found myself in a position where I was shooting first and asking questions later and sometimes not even caring to ask any questions. I mean, I got what I was looking for… :-)

As the title suggests, I got these pictures while I was with them at Leeds Castle. Despite the name, it's not in Leeds, it's actually not too far from Canterbury. Now, you may think that seeing a coat of arms would be a good indication of being in England, but I found a better way to show it… Look at this– they're both written in ENGLish, and we all know they would be written in American if I was in America.

Now we come to the part where you wonder, "Why did you take these pictures in wide screen format when you'll only tilt them on their sides?" Oh, you didn't ask that question… I did.

Not everything is in order, but we did move from the front door up a spiral stairway, and at the top you see that large carving. I thought it was impressive how the hallways looked like scenes from The Princess Bride, but then of course, that's coming from the same person who was surprised that a green apple tasted like a Jolly Rancher Candy (green apple flavored, imagine that!).

The lake the castle was built on made a natural mote since the castle was really built on an island on the lake and not really on the lake. This wooden soldier on horse back is the oldest in the world. The statue is life size, or the person and horse that posed were a little short.

Of course, I can't be a real tourist if I don't stand in front of something as the picture is taken. And family will be happy to know that I am wearing a shirt I got for Christmas in this picture, just as I said I would. :-)