2007

The year 2007 AD has about 30 more minutes left in it. I suppose that I should do some soul searching and reflecting before moving to 2008.

So here I go...

This year I have discovered, yet again, that the closer I get to Jesus, the uglier my sin looks, and the more beautiful His grace shines.

I had a great time on Thursday or Friday mornings with Lance, Eric, and Johnny studying the bible slowly.

Work has been complete joy, both in California and in London.

My children have grown so much this year, physically, spiritually and mentally.

And my wife is everything and more than I could have ever hoped for in a partner. She has been hugely supportive and encouraging through many challenges this year. I love her so much.

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When I was a teenager, I made a list in my head of some things that I'd like to accomplish in my life. 

• I wanted to write a book. 
• I wanted to design and build a house. 
• I wanted to make a movie out of the Chronicles of Narnia. 
• I wanted to have grandchildren (mostly, I think, because my grandfather seemed to have so much fun with my sister and I).
  
• I wanted to start a school.
• I wanted to start a Christian hospital.
• I wanted to travel.
• I wanted to spread the Gospel.

Many of these things, God has graciously allowed me to do, though not at all the way I thought I would as a teenager. Which makes me wonder how the others might work themselves out, if they will at all.

Stonehenge

For Kelly's birthday, we went out to Salisbury and saw Stonehenge. It is a very enigmatic place. In and open field, there are enormous stones arranged in a curious way. Archeologists have dated these as being between 3,000 and 5,000 years old.

When we were there the wind was blowing pretty strong, and was very cold. With the wind chill factor, it was 34ºF out there. 

I like the lighting on these pictures, though I'm not sure at all why these stones were put here. 

Dave

Windsor Castle

One of my favorite days recently was one where we all sat in our bedroom for about two and a half hours while we read a book about medieval castles. We had to take a number of breaks of course, but in all, we had a great family time of learning about a fascinating part of history.

And then, of course, since we're in England, we had to go see a real castle. There are many castles in England to visit, but one of the most impressive ones is Windsor Castle. Not only is it one of the best examples of medieval architecture to survive into the 21st century, but it is still a working, living, lived in castle. And not only that, but it's the Queen's home. And on top of that, it has been the home of the reigning monarch of England for 900 years. That's as old as Yoda!

The day we went it was overcast and windy. On one hand, we were a bit disappointed that we didn't get beautiful sunny pictures. But to me the weather gave it a much older feel somehow. It was much more gothic and serious with the imposing cloud cover. I couldn't help but feel as if we were at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, waiting for Isengard's orcs to come marching up the valley.

St. George's Chapel is an awesome building. The architecture is spectacular and beautiful. One of the most interesting aspects of it to me was thinking about how they built it so long ago, without modern scaffolding and equipment. Not only is the craftsmanship superb, but they had to get the big, carved pieces of stone up to the top of  the ceiling to install them. 

One of the comments in the audio tour was that though the building and the architecture is impressive, we should remember that this is a place to worship God, and that is the primary purpose of the building. And while I agree that that should be the primary purpose of the building, I found it hard to see this. Mostly it seemed like a place to worship the past monarchs of England, since their names, emblems, statues, and in many cases, their bodies are enshrined here. There is a beautiful carving behind the altar, showing the risen and glorified Christ, and He is shown in the center windows of the stained glass above that, but all the other ones depict the public and private life of Prince Albert. It's a beautiful building and the achievement it represents is amazing, but I found it hard to see God glorified in it. One impressive spiritual aspect of St. George's Chapel was that since it was built, over 800 years ago, they have worshipped God there every day. That is a beautiful thing indeed.

I truly enjoyed seeing all the splendor and majesty of the State Apartments. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was amazing to see. Though it seems very self aggrandizing to see the paintings the monarchs had made of themselves, and the wealth and lavish displays of riches and treasures gathered from around the world, I think that they portray a very clear picture of royalty and majesty that we Americans don't conceptualize well. And after seeing this place, and seeing how past Kings and Queens ruled the empire, somehow the current system pales in comparison. I believe that democracy is a good way to govern, especially in this age, but a good and just King or Queen could do a great deal to rule a people. Of course, a selfish or tyrannical one would be the worst way to ruin a country, but selfish or shortsighted people in a democracy would do the same thing.

We six were the last people to walk through the State Apartments, and as we left each room, the caretakers would turn out the lights and close the doors behind us. It was kind of interesting–a bit like being on a ride a Disneyland when they have to stop the ride and turn on the lights to fix something. Except here, when they turned out the lights, it was still a grand and imposing room left behind you in the dark. At one point, I asked the woman who was in charge of the Grand Reception Room if we were keeping her, or going too slowly, and she politely said,"No, don't worry about it. Take your time." Somehow, I got the feeling that though she said "take your time", we shouldn't dilly dally, but get on with it.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of the castle.

This is the keep, atop the motte. It's official name is the "Round Tower".


This one shows King Edward III Tower above the moat that surrounds the motte. The moat at Windsor has always been dry, though it wasn't always a lovely garden as it is now.


On the left is St. George's Chapel. In the center, in the background, is the Round Tower. On the right is Mary Tudor Tower and the Military Knights' Lodgings. In the very bottom of the image is my lovely wife and eldest daughter.

This is a view along the north side of the castle.


Dave

Merry Christmas

I found that I had 8 holidays coming to me from Framestore that I didn't know about and that I had to use them by the end of January or lose them.

So, by taking the 24th, 27th, 28th, and 31st off, I have 11 days in a row off. And since Northrop shuts down from Christmas to New Year's also, I have plenty of time off here in London with my family. I'm very excited about this.

Today, we stayed home and had hot chocolate and ginger snaps for breakfast. Kelly made an egg dish for our real breakfast. Then we opened our stockings and presents, and cooked a turkey. We also had traditional English Christmas Crackers.

The turkey I bought with Malakai at a real butcher shop. I've only ever bought them at the supermarket all packaged and tidy, so this was a big deal for me. We don't have a lot of kitchen tools, since we're trying to stay minimalistic with our "things". That means that we don't have a meat thermometer or a baster or big forks for moving the turkey around. Also, most English families have duck, goose, or lamb on Christmas, though some do have turkey. But going to the supermarket on Christmas Eve, I couldn't find any cranberry sauce, marshmallows, or roasting bags large enough for a turkey. So we decided to use a different recipe using aluminum foil. My friend Antonio down at the corner market said,"you don't need a thermometer, just cook it for 3 and half to four hours and then stick a skewer or knife in the breast. If the juice comes out clear, it's done; if not, cook it longer." I think that part of this advice was a result of the fact that he didn't have any thermometers to sell, but it turned out to be good advice. We stuffed the cavity with cut apples, celery, and onions and it was delicious.

After our turkey dinner (with mashed potatoes, stuffing, broccoli salad, rolls, and gravy) we were stuffed. Kelly used the bones and juices to make some soup stock and then we Skyped our family members. It was great to see everyone we were able to get a hold of, and it was also amazing to actually see everyone in all the various time zones.

Tomorrow is Boxing Day, which is similar to Black Friday in America, where all the stores have their big sales of the year. I've heard that many stores are slashing their prices 70%. They shut down Oxford Street to motor vehicles and it's just a mad crush of people all the way across the street. I'm not going there. I'm sure there are people lining up tonight in front of their favorite store to get in and get the deals first. Crazy!

View Larger Map

Besides the fact that we wanted to be home with our family today, all the public transportation is closed on Christmas Day, which is nice so all the people who work there can be with their families, and everyone else has a good excuse to stay home and be with theirs.

Later this week we're going to try to go to Windsor Castle and see that. Then we'll go and see an old castle somewhere that just has the ruins.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Dave

Triple Boot Update

Well, the triple boot experiment has had some great strides forward and a few backwards.

I got the airport working fine (though I'm not sure exactly how, just trial and error) and I got the ATI drivers installed, but I can't get the big monitor to do anything but mirror the little one.

I did get Houdini installed and running under the Apprentice version, but there were significant display issues, so as of yet, it's not workable.

All in all it's getting there, though it's much more time consuming than I had hoped.

Dave

Triple Boot Mania

(I have this nearly uncontrollable urge to begin every blog with "So, ..." I don't know why, it's just what's in my head.)

We have a MacBook Pro that I installed Boot Camp in nearly a year ago so that I could run Houdini (and therefore Windows) on it. I don't really like Windows, though it's not as bad as I had feared. I really prefer Linux over Windows, but it was just easy to put Windows on with Boot Camp, so that's what I did.

That being the case, I've wanted to find another way to run Houdini, and tonight, I finally got my Mac to triple boot. Yes, this machine can do it all, Mac OS X, Windows and Linux (though not at the same time).

I tried the virtual machine route with Parallels and VMWare, but the performance just wasn't there.

I bought a small USB hard drive (80Gb) and successfully installed openSUSE 10.2 on it.

It's not all glory and roses yet, since I don't have the airport extreme card working yet, but I have read some web pages that show other people have done that part.

Soon I will have Houdini running on Linux on my MacBook Pro. Woo Hoo!

Dave

Framestore's Annual Christmas Party

Tonight was the annual Christmas Party at Framestore. At first I wasn't planning on going, because I had heard it was a "dress-up" party. I did bring a nice pair of pants, but I didn't really feel like going to a fancy party.

But then I heard that the "dress-up" part actually involves costumes and a contest and that many people just "come as they are". So I decided to just go as me.

The theme was "Metallic". Many people wore tinfoil hats to ward off any spying from the government. There were many shiny dresses. James wore a sequined vest. There were also a lot of shiny ties. But the person who made the full on robot costume out of cardboard and tinfoil got my vote for the best costume. I just showed my wedding ring if anyone asked where my metal was.

The party was held at a club in Leicester Square called "Sound". And there was a lot of it. I could hardly hear anyone I was talking to and my voice was getting hoarse trying to be heard. I guess these kinds of parties aren't really my thing. I got to see some of the guys that have moved to other shows, but I would have enjoyed having lunch with them much more.

I'm not sure there's any point in calling it a "Christmas" party, other than it's about a week before Christmas. But that's the only connection to Christmas I could see.

Ah well. I went, made my appearance, and came home.

Dave

What Daddy Does At Work

Don't you often wonder what your kids think you do at work all day? I do.

Last Saturday, Framestore hosted their annual Family Day Christmas Party. They have food and drinks, a children's entertainer doing games and magic and balloon animals, Santa Claus in his grotto, and they show children/family films in the cinema. This year, we saw "Enchanted" and "A Bee Movie". Both were fun, but the little ones thought that "Enchanted" was pretty scary at times.

The next day, my little ones were telling me which were their favorite scenes from "A Bee Movie". They thought it was so funny when the Bee flew down the staircase instead of walking, and his mom scolded him for not walking. "Your father paid good money for that staircase, you could show some respect and use it sometimes."

Then this evening, after I came home from work, my littlest one came to me and told me that he wanted to go to my work.

"Why?" I asked. "What do you want to do there?"

"I want to see a movie and eat food!" he said. It turns out that's what he thinks I do at work all day, since that's what we did when he was there! I had to explain that we're making a movie, and the only food they give us is breakfast (and dinner if we work past 8pm...and lunch if we work on the weekends. Hmmm, maybe he's right!)

So that's what Daddy does at work.

Dave

The Trailer is Out!

Here's a still of the shot that I did in the trailer.


The river surface, the round shockwaves and the little wispies off the tops of the waves are all mine.

The whole trailer can be downloaded here. It's 49Mb, so if you have a slow internet connection, you can see a lower quality one on Yahoo

I hope you all enjoy the trailer.

Dave

Prince Caspian Widget

I just found a cool widget (for Macs only) that counts down the seconds until the release of Prince Caspian. If you've got a Mac, you've got to have this one!!

(note: this isn't a working widget, it's only a picture of what the widget looks like. If anyone knows how to put an http countdown clock on a web page, let me know!)

Dave

Prince Caspian Trailer

We got to see the trailer in the Framestore Cinema tonight. They showed it to us twice!

As we watched it, I actually got a little teary-eyed. I got sucked right into the story and I can't wait for the movie to come out.

My shot seemed so short in the whole thing, but it's there. Seeing our images with the sound, finally hearing Prince Caspian's voice, and seeing it all cut together, was amazing.

I've heard that it's playing in front of National Treasure II and The Golden Compass. Of the two, I'd recommend National Treasure II, but it's up to you of course. You can also wait a week or so and see it on the Quicktime page, but I don't know exactly when that will be posted.

It was great watching it in our private cinema, with all the people who were working on it. What a wonderful experience.

Dave

A Surprising Post

I was walking to lunch today with my colleague Brian. He was telling me a very interesting story. I can't remember what he was telling me about, because he suddenly hit my chest with his right hand. It stopped me cold and as I looked up, there was a post 1" from my face, dead center of my eyes! If he hadn't stopped me I probably would have broken my nose, or knocked myself out. I have no idea what he had been talking about because we both started laughing so hard about the incident, we couldn't get back to what it was.

That was a surprising post!

Dave

Office Party

Our producer Robin decided that there were enough new people on our show that didn't know each other and so she threw a party for us all to get to know one another. I've never been to a party in England before, and our office parties back in Redondo were usually barbecues. I wasn't sure what to expect, but decided I really wanted to meet some more people from the show, so I went.

It was at a bar/restaurant called Red Soho. We had the whole downstairs to ourselves. Robin paid for the bar and they served beer and wine. I walked up to the bartender, sounding very much like I knew what I was talking about and asked what kind of beer they had. He said,"Grolsch, Grolsch, Grolsch or Grolsch." I said,"I'll have one of those then." I really had no idea what I was going to choose if there were any choices, so that worked out perfect for me. I nursed that beer for about an hour and a half. They had a few finger snacks and that was it for refreshments.

On to the good stuff. I met a very nice guy who sits about three chairs from me by the name of Matt Bell. He's working on Aslan and Trufflehunter. He walked away from his desk for a few minutes this afternoon and his cell phone went off about three times. He has a very entertaining, upbeat song on his phone, but it's very loud. Some people got annoyed. Jacob emailed this picture to everyone on the FX team:

I talked to a number of guys who are in the Compositing Dept. They are all very talented guys who do amazing work, almost as good as William Furlong!

As usually happens at these kinds of gatherings, everyone hangs out with the people they usually hang out with. I was no exception, but I did try to meet some new people. There was one guy, Paul, who is the lead shader writer for the show, but his accent was so thick that I couldn't understand him much at all. He had a number of loud interesting stories to tell (apparently), so I listened and laughed when the other people did. Robin spent most of her time walking around, breaking up cliques and introducing people to each other.

One of my goals for the evening was to let Robin know how much I've enjoyed working for her these last few months. She's been pretty stressed out lately, and I wanted to let her know that from my perspective, she's been doing great. When I did get to tell her, I think she had a hard time holding back some tears. You know how it is when you're working really hard at something and it doesn't seem to be going well and you're still in the middle of it and it doesn't seem to be getting better any time soon and someone says anything nice and you just want to lose it? It seemed like that's where she was tonight. I'm praying for her big time.

When I got home, my whole family was fast asleep, at 9:30. Wow. I think that's a first.

Changes, Indeed...

In my last post, I said I didn't know what God's plan is. I still don't know the whole plan, but for now we're staying in England. Though we aren't working on the sequences that I thought we would be, the production staff has asked me to stay on and do other shots and FX. I'm very excited to be continuing on with the Narnian project. I've added a link to my "Related Links" bubble on the right to the Official Narnia website.

The trailer should be coming out soon, though I don't know exactly when. There is one shot in the trailer that I worked on. When it comes out, I'll tell more.

Here in London, it has started raining in earnest now. Today was the second full day of rain in a row and the forecast is for rain all week. Sunday was really cold, about 0º C. (multiply by 1.8 and add 32) 32º F. Monday and Tuesday were a bit warmer, though still very cold.

Sunday, after church, we went to a pizza place by my office that has medium pizzas for £3-£4. That's when it started to rain. After lunch we walked back past my office and stopped in for a restroom break and so I could use the internet to search for a store called Primark. We were told that Primark is a good, reasonably priced department store and we needed a coat for Kelly and a robe for me. The little ones fell asleep in the prams (strollers) in the freezing cold and rain on our way over there, but we made it. Primark turns out to be a nice Target type store, though it's all clothing. We didn't find a coat, but we did find a robe.

From there we took the tube and the train home. When we got home, Q couldn't find his baby doll. We searched all around and couldn't find it. He was very sad. Kelly had dreams about the doll. Then Monday night, we figured that he must have been left at my office while I was searching the internet. I called and the nice woman at the reception desk said he was there and that she would put my name on him so I could collect him in the morning. This morning I went down, collected him, brought him back up to my desk and put him on display right between my dual monitors. I got quite a few looks and a few questions about him. Not only did I have this dapper little boy doll on my desk, but he's got black skin. I just told everyone that he was my son's baby and that made him my grandson.

Here's some video. The quality is horrible, 'cause I got this with my mobile phone.


That's all I have for now.

Dave

Changes

Today marks a significant change in my activities here in London. The sequences we were working on for the film have been moved to another facility. While I'm sad that all the hard work that my colleagues and I have put into this won't be seen in the film, I still believe that God has a plan through all of this--I just don't know what it is.

But I know Him, and that's enough for me.

Dave

Natural History Museum

This is a skeleton of a Diplodocus. Some people think it's 150 million years old. I don't. Answers In Genesis has some compelling things to say about this. There are lots of websites about Creation Science. It's still cool to see this amazing beasts. They're HUGE!!

And here's my Noah's Ark collection...




I enjoyed being with my family at this interesting museum. We had a lot of fun being together that day.

When I was a kid, I remember going to the Natural History Museum in downtown L.A. and having a sack lunch out on the grass in front of the museum. I also remember loving the dioramas of the African savannah and the jungle scenes. But my favorites were the dinosaur bones. I don't know what it is about these creatures that fires the imagination, but they're so awesome.

I love giraffes. Maybe because I'm tall, but they seem so interesting. They're tall and graceful and gentle and powerful. And they drop their newborn 6 feet to the ground when they're born! The newborns can walk within hours of being born.

When I was in high school, I took a photography class and we went to the L.A. zoo for a photo shoot. One of my favorite pictures from that shoot was of an African Elephant's eye. I tried to recreate that shot here, but it's not the same. And my high school version was in black and white.

And Jonah...


One of the ways we choose what to do this day was that C really wanted to see the life size whale. It is quite a sight to see a life size model of a whale and then to think what it would be like to be in the water near one of these animals, let alone swallowed by one and deposited on the shore of a country that you don't want to go to, to tell the people there to repent, not wanting them to repent, seeing them repent, and then having to learn the lesson from God all over again. To think that being swallowed by one of these wouldn't make you just do whatever God said!

Dave

Alex

I found out today that Alex has a blog also. He's got some great photography on it. There's one of a fly up close that's amazing.

Check it out.

Dave

Working Environment

Here are some images I took with the camera on my phone. This first one is the view out our window, looking west along Margaret Street. I don't know what it is about this image, but it looks like a photo of a miniature model, but it is real. It must be the compression on the image and the lack of direct sunlight.


And this is Alex and Jacob deep into working on the rivergod. Alex is on the left.

And yes, that's Sarah Michelle Gellar in the background (the cardboard cutout version). I'm not sure where she came from, but I think she was in the office before the guys moved in.

London Fog

One of the traditional aspects of London that I've been kind of missing has been the fog. All the stories about the "pea-soup" fog of London, the long coats by the company called London Fog, all remind us of the fog. So where is it?

It turns out that it wasn't a natural fog. Well, it wasn't unnatual, but it was man-made. Before 1956, residents used to burn a soft coal for heat that produced a yellowish smog that hung thick in the city. This had been going on for centuries, but then they passed the Clean Air Act, and the fog lifted.

So, it turns out that it's better to breathe than to experience romantic smog.

Dave

Interesting Ironies

My producer Robin came around this evening to say she was leaving for the night and that she was going to see "The Sound of Music" (the play). My friend Florian, who is from Germany, asked what it was about. Isn't it strange that a true story about a WWI war hero defying the Nazis isn't common knowledge in Germany?

Another irony is that Framestore is finishing up the special effects for a film called "The Golden Compass" written by an atheist named Phillip Pullman, and we're doing the special effects for "The Chronicles of Narnia". It's been said that Pullman's series "His Dark Materials" is the anti-Narnia, pitting them against each other ideologically. Snopes

Dave

Driving on the Left

Someone told me that the reason that the British drive on the left side of the road is an old Roman tradition.

In the olden days when Rome ruled in Britian, soldiers on horseback would carry their sword on their right sides. As they passed each other they would draw their swords. In order to not have to strike across one's body, they would pass on the left so their swords would be towards their opponent.

Sounds fishy to me, but I haven't heard any other explanation. So that's the one I'm going with for now.

Dave

Reformation Day

My friend, Pastor Paul Viggiano wrote an interesting and provocative article for the Daily Breeze newspaper in So. Cal. that I wanted to give you a link to. The summary is that we Christians should work to take back Oct 31 as Reformation Day and leave Halloween to itself.

Here in England, Halloween is a very small event. I think that most of the people that are doing anything about it are foreigners. I saw a few masks for sale in a couple of shops, and there seemed to be a little more candy displayed near the checkouts, but in general it's no big deal here. I'm sure that there were plenty of people at the pubs drinking tonight, but that's not really any different from any other night, so...

But the sad thing is that no one knows or cares about Reformation Day. I'm sure there are a few Christians here and there who know what it is, but it's not even on the radar as far as most Londoners go. And I'm ashamed to say that I haven't done much to change that. After reading Paul's article tonight, I feel emboldened to talk about this more. The truth of God's Word will prevail, even when agnosticism and atheism seem to reign in a country like England.

And so, now that I've totally dissed Halloween, here are some images from the Nunhead Cemetery (click on them for a bigger version):



This last one is for a woman that was over 100 years old when she died. You can't read it in this little image, but it says,
ALSO
IN MEMORY OF ELIZABETH MARY BRAIDLEY,
WIDOW OF THE LATE JOSEPH BRAIDLEY,
WHO DIED THE 3rd JULY 1890
IN THE 100TH YEAR OF HER AGE
"SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE"
I think I would have liked to have met her and her husband. I don't know why, but those 100 years would have been great to hear about from the woman who lived them.

And a quote from Ecclesiastes 7:2: "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart."

Dave

A Quick Transportation Note

Tonight I made a very good discovery. I took the Bakerloo line to Elephant & Castle to try to catch the Southeastern train to Nunhead. But when I got to the train station, the train was just pulling away from the station. The next one wasn't due for 40 minutes. Arrgghhh. I hate waiting on the platforms. It's just such a waste of time.

So here's my important discovery. If you miss the train, the bus is faster than waiting.

Last week I worked late in Narnia. Framestore has a great policy that if you need to work past 10pm, they'll pay for a cab to take you home. So I went down to the reception desk and the woman there called a cab for me. Great! Except that it took an hour and 15 minutes for the cab to arrive. Once he did, it was a nice 30 minute ride home, but altogether that was 2 hours to get home.

So Saturday night, after working till midnight, I took the bus home. Including walking to the bus stop, the bus ride, and walking from the other bus stop to my house, it was 57 minutes.

So I tried the bus again Monday night after working very late again.

Each time I realized that the bus went right by Elephant & Castle station. So tonight when I missed my train, I went and got on the same bus and was home before the train was due back at the E&C station. 55 minutes saved.

I like having alternate routes available to me. I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on the transportation thing. It's only been two months!

Dave

And Another Thing...

Not only do the British use this enormous plugs to get their 240V out of the wall, the light switches are down for on and up for off. Like I said, everything's different here.

Dave

Sebastian @ SIGGRAPH 2006

My colleague whose desk is next to mine is named Sebastian. He's been getting episodes of Heroes for me. Today I found out that he worked on a series of shorts that were featured in the SIGGRAPH Animation Festival in 2006 in Boston. You can see his animation here. I think that's very cool to have a piece in the animation festival.

Dave

The Past Two Weeks

As of my last post, I was staying at my friend Peter's place for a while, while I finalized my living arrangements. Since then, so much has happened that I will probably never be able to catch up on all the stories I was going to write here.

My first main observation is how completely dependent on the internet I've become. During the last two weeks, I couldn't find out important travel info, couldn't communicate with Skype, couldn't check my email or do my timecard from my California job, couldn't do my online banking, and couldn't download "Heroes". Once my family was here, I wanted to show them how to get around London, but I was always using the internet before to find out where to go and how to get there. Without it we had to rely on these little pieces of paper called "maps" that had little squiggly lines on them that were supposed to represent the streets. But without a satellite overview with them, it's hard to tell where you are.

I was so happy to have my family arrive. I got to the airport about 20 minutes after they were scheduled to arrive, but then found that their flight was delayed by an hour. Then it took them over an hour to get through immigration, they flew through customs with their 15 pieces of luggage, and we had big hugs and kisses all around.

I have so much more to write, but it's getting late and I'll have to put in a very long day tomorrow, so I'll post more this weekend.

Thanks for being patient with me,

Dave

London is All About Transportation

It's interesting to me how much of my life here has been wrapped around getting from point A to point B.

In California, I'd just jump in the car and go. If I needed to take more people, I'd choose the Suburban. If not, the Beetle. I know where all the roads are, where they go, what time of day one should avoid certain routes, etc. If I needed to be somewhere at a certain time, I'm reasonably certain that I could arrive on time, or even early if I wanted to. And if my normal path was blocked by road work, or an accident, I usually have a number of alternatives that wouldn't take me too far out of the way to get there.

I know what stores I would go to to get the things I need, and about how much they should cost, and what order I would go to those stores to minimize my travel time. And I know how I would get those things back to my house. I've never much thought about how easy that all is in Southern California.

But in London, that's all different. I'm afraid to drive on the left, so I'm using public transportation. It's MUCH cheaper, and in my case, less dangerous. I have to travel on the train's schedule, not mine. So I end up waiting at the stations for much longer than I planned for.

And the trains don't always go to the same place as they did the day before. Sunday schedules are very much more restricted than the Saturday's are. There's a train that goes from Nunhead station to Lewisham station during the week and on Saturdays, which I used to move one of my suitcases to the house yesterday. It only took my half an hour to get between the two. But today, the train didn't stop at Nunhead, so I took the bus. It took almost an hour and a half to get there. Transportation.

It was a nice ride, with a number of families riding with me. Which had two effects on me. One, it made me feel much more comfortible about my family getting around on the bus. But the other effect was that it made me miss them even more. The closer it gets to their arrival, the more I miss them.

After church today, I went to IKEA to get some mattresses for our house. First, I found out that they only had 3 of them in stock, instead of the 6 that I wanted. Then I found that IKEA's delivery service is "next-day" only. But there won't be anyone at my house tomorrow to receive them. So I just bought one and carried it back with me to the house. Tomorrow I'm going to go to try to get the other five and hire a driver to take me home with them. Transportation.

When my family arrives, I'm planning on meeting them at the airport. That means there will be six of us with all the luggage for five, needing to get from the airport, which is west of London, to our house, which is in the southeast. I got on the internet and found a company that has an 8 seater van thing that can take us all home. £80 for the trip. I think that's reasonable, though I think it might take us 2 hours to get there. Transportation.

The tube and buses and the tram all use a system called Oyster. It's card that you can "top-up" with money and just tap it on a reader as you enter and exit a station. It's very convenient and apparently has really turned the whole London transportation system into a profitable enterprise for the city. But of course, the British Rail Services don't use Oyster, so that's a different system that I have to use. I haven't been able to figure out how to get a monthly pass for the British Rail Services, but I need to, since I'll be commuting on it everyday for work. Transportation.

I've found that I can only get about one errand completed on a given weekend day, unless I can complete the task on the internet. It just takes so long to get anywhere, and I don't know enough about how to get around to plan it out any better.

I hope this post doesn't sound like I'm complaining, though I admit it does have a negative tone. I'm just trying to share some of the difficulties of living in a different country. It's still quite an adventure, and I'm having a good time, but sometimes it takes a lot of time to get to where I'm going.

Dave

Homecoming

In six months or so, I'll probably have a post called "Coming Home", which will be the opposite of this one.

I just signed all the papers and paid the money and got the keys to my own house here in London. I am now officially a resident.

After signing all the papers, I went over to the house, unlocked the door and walked around. The light switches all work, the fridge is cold, the stove and oven works. But the company that was supposed to install the washing machine, didn't. They delivered it, but since it's a new kitchen, they didn't have the tools to plumb it and finish the install. So they're supposed to come tomorrow morning and install it then.

The backyard still needs serious attention, but I'm assured that it will be done soon.

Other than that, there's nothing in the place but a phone book.

And as I walked through the bedrooms, I realized that none of them have closets. Hmm... I'm not sure what we'll do about that, but we'll think of something.

Dave

My Cousin Dan

My cousin Dan Barnett got me hooked on this blogger thing, so I thought it would be fitting to include a link to his blog. It's a collection of his book reviews, called Musable. Check it out.

Dave

We have a maid

Kelly took this picture and said,"I've always wanted a maid to clean up after my kids."

So I thought I'd share it with all of you.

Dave

Funny Sayings Update

A German guy came in to talk to Dan who sits next to me. They talked about the work that Dan needed to get done and Dan said,"Ok, I'll have it done by half five." To which the German said,"Uh, so 4:30?" "No, 5:30."

It turns out that "half five" in German means "a half until 5" as in "it's halfway to 5". But the British mean "half past 5".

Isn't that funny?

Dave

Quick Update

I took the plunge and rented a house today. I actually even put money on it this time, so no backing out. We decided to take this place unfurnished because then we could furnish it the way we want (cheap) and kind of camp out for 6 months. IKEA and swap meets will be our decorating theme--we just need that one inspiration piece! ;)

I also got paid today in British Pounds. I was supposed to get paid last Friday, but something happened in the finance dept and it didn't happen until today.

It looks like I'm going to move into our house Friday night, Saturday at the latest. And the family comes over on Tuesday! Just in time, no? That's how God usually arranges these things.

I feel like my life is going to settle into a routine soon. As soon as I am in my own place, I can unpack my suitcases, set up my desk, get a monthly Travelcard to save money on commuting, and get into a rhythm.

A big thanks to everyone who's been praying for us. We're almost back together in the same country.

Dave

Housing, Transportation, and Funny Sayings...

Here's the quick update on the housing front. The agent said that the landlord would be willing to furnish the place, but would be firm on the price. Today, she was out of the office so the manager was handling the negotiations. He said that the landlord DIDN'T want to furnish the place, but would be willing to for £100 more a month in rent. Kelly and I have decided that we like the place enough that we're going to take it unfurnished and furnish it ourselves for (hopefully) less than £600 (which is the increase in the rent over 6 months). It will probably cost more than that, but we would have to get more stuff than what would be provided anyway.

Tonight, in an effort to start figuring out if furnishing the place ourselves would be feasible, I found the IKEA that closest to the house and took the train down there. Once I got there I took the last kind of public transportation, the tram. It's essentially a streetcar/mini tube train, that's overground.

I think after visiting IKEA and talking with the family, we'll be alright furnishing-wise. We'll just need to do something clever with the furniture just before we leave. We'll either donate it, or sell it on eBay, or maybe even sell it back to the landlord if he wants to let the place to someone else for a period of time.

Ok, here are some interesting British phrases:
"Half two" mean 2:30.
"Whilst" is a common word in signs, usually in the context "Please excuse the inconvenience, whilst we do these works," with "works" being any kind of construction or refurbishment.
"Scheme" is not some nefarious endeavor, but is just a "plan"--usually a government instituted one.
"Mind the gap" means watch out that you don't stumble getting on or off the train.

That's all for tonight. I'm waiting for a download, but I think I'll just get some sleep.

Dave

Lots O' News

Much has happened since I last posted.

I moved out of the Hotel on Friday, and I'm staying with Peter for a few days while I finish finding a place to live. I saw three places yesterday: The first one was ok, The second one was unfurnished, had a long commute, and wouldn't be ready for at least a week (they were still doing construction while I was there). But the third one I really liked. It had the biggest bedrooms of all the places I've see since the first one that I didn't want. It's on a very quiet street, in a nice neighborhood, with a family with kids next door and behind us. It's a decent commute, though door to door, it might be 30-40 minutes. Not bad since my walk was 20-30 minutes from the hotel. Here's a picture of the front:

I traveled all over London yesterday, and took the Tube, the DLR (Dockland Light Rail), the Southern Overland Train (very nice train) and a bus. Friday night, Peter and I took a taxi for a bit with my suitcases. Apparently there is a tram kind of thing in one other part of London, and when I've ridden that, I'll have used every form of transportation there is in London.

After all my househunting, last night Peter and I saw the Bourne Ultimatum at the local cineplex. There's a good bit of a chase scene in London at the Waterloo Tube station. That was fun to see that in a movie, since we're right here in London.

This morning I went to CCW again. I got a picture of Alwyn as he and the drummer were doing a sound check...


After church, I went back over to our potential neighborhood to hang out and get a feel for the place. It felt great there. It was quiet and peaceful. There is a famous Victorian cemetery there, and 5 primary schools. You can read about Nunhead on Wikipedia

Then I took a couple of buses and the DLR back to Peter's and here I am.

Dave

Taxi Attack!

This morning I had my first real taxi attack.

On my regular route to work, I got to an intersection to cross, looked right, looked left, looked right again, and seeing nothing, I stepped out. Immediately a taxi came out of nowhere on my left and laid into his horn. I looked right at him, realized I was directly in his path, and jumped back to the side of the street that I had come from. My heart was pounding! I was still shaking a bit when I got to work. By the evening when it was time to walk home, I was fine though. I guess I need to look longer and harder in both directions at the same time.

Whoever came up with the plan in the U.S. that pedestrians have the right of way was a brilliant person. I wish they lived here when they were making up the rules.

Dave

Housing Update

On Monday, the Valuator called and wanted to set up a time for me to come down and make my deposit on the expensive place in Kensal Rise. I asked if she had talked to the agent and she said yes. I had to explain a number of times that I was only going through with this because I had signed the contract, but that I didn't really want to. Additionally, I wasn't going to pay 8 weeks of a deposit instead of the 6 weeks I had agreed to in the contract. She asked if I really wanted to lose this property over £1000? Uh, yeah. That's what I'd been trying to tell her. Of course, she didn't want the deal to fall through because then she wouldn't get the commission. She even asked if I had another credit card I could use to up the deposit! Then I had to argue with her about the break clause, which had been miscommunicated to me to mean that I could break the contract at any time during the first 7 months, as long as I gave 60 days notice. But there was tricky language in the contract that made it so that I could only break the contract at 5 months, with my "notice" (which means my 60 days notice) to expire at 7 months. Of course that wouldn't do, since my visa expires after 6 months and it was at this point she finally gave up and relented, saying "I am going to recommend to my client that he NOT let this property to you." "That would be a good idea," I answered.

Finally.

So now I still need to find a place to live. I extended my stay at the hotel, but that's expensive too. Then today, Peter had pity on me and after his wife and daughter leave for overseas later this week, he said I could sleep at his place for a bit, while I find a place. Hallelujah!

And it looks like we've found a home school family to rent our house out. We're still working out the details, but that seems like a go.

I talked to a few letting agents today, but no one had anything for me today. One guys said that he thinks that he may have something for me tomorrow. I'll call him back for sure. It looks like my lunch times will be spent calling agents until I find something.

That's all for now.

Dave

P.S. I learned how to do italics in this post!

God is good

After church yesterday, I went house hunting in a place called Tooting Bec. I liked the area alright, and the prices seemed reasonable, so I'm going to write to many letting agents there, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After house hunting, I zipped back up to St. John's Wood to try and get a copy of the contract that I had signed, but wanted to get out of. The timing couldn't have been better. I got there a few minutes after closing time for the office, but a woman was still there who let me in and helped me. Just as she started to call my agent, I saw him out of the window and he saw me. He wasn't even in the office that day. He had been hosting an open house all day and had just stopped in to drop off the keys. He spent an extra half hour copying my contract and chatting with me about the real estate business in England. I felt so happy to actually have a copy of my contract, that I decided to go do some sightseeing, even though it was evening time. I went down to Westminster and saw the Thames River, the Westminster Bridge, Parliment, Big Ben, the County Hall (where they're having a Star Wars exhibition), the London Eye, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I didn't actually go into any of these places since they were closed for the evening, but I got a renewed sense of excitement about bringing my family over and having them see this great city.

So, if you're in the Imperial Capital of the World (London) and you see Stormtroopers guarding a big impressive building, it's quite dramatic. I don't think this picture really captures the moment, but it was the best one of the Stormtroopers.









This one has Parliment (the dark spire on the right), Big Ben, and the London Eye all in one shot!















When I first came out of the tube station, I looked over my shoulder and saw Big Ben through the trees. I really like this shot.



Dave

Calvary Chapel Westminster

I went to CCW again this morning. Today I didn't have any appointments right after church, and I got there early, so I was able to hang around and talk today.

Kelly had been emailing with a woman named Esther, so I decided that I would ask for her. The first guy I talked to said,"There's lots of Esthers here." When I explained that my wife had emailed someone at the church about us coming over, he said,"Oh that's probably the pastor's daughter." That sounded about right, so then I went into the main hall where the band was warming up and doing a sound check. Alwyn Wall was sitting at the mixing board eq'ing the guitars and so I went and sat down next to him and waited for a break in the sound to ask him about Esther. We had a nice chat and talked about church and the sermon I had heard two weeks earlier (see my earlier post). He knew about me from Esther and indeed it was his daughter that Kelly had been emailing. He said, "She should be here somewhere..." but then it was time to start, so he went up on stage to play.

A nice woman, named Agnes, sat down to record the music while the band played and we worshipped. After the music, she moved over to the other side of me and one of the guitarists came and sat down to record the sermon.

Alwyn started 2 Peter today, and only got about 6 words into it. That's my kind of teaching! "Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle" was as far as he got. There's a lot there in the introduction. "Simon" means "shifting sand" and "Peter" means "Rock". So he's starting out saying where he's come from and where he's been brought to. "Bondservant" is one who is a slave by choice. If you couldn't pay your debt, you could become a slave or servant of the person you owe the debt to for 6 years. Then after that, if you so chose, you could become a bondservant and be that master's slave for the rest of your life. The master would then pierce your ear to a doorpost and put a gold ring in it to signify your status as bondservant. In the same way, we owe a debt of sin to God, and once we become His servants, we realize we love Him and want to be His servants forever, and so become bondservants. "Apostle" is an authoritative representative for Jesus. So in these few words, Peter tells us where he's come from, who he has become, who he belongs to, and by what authority he writes to us. Amazing.

Afterwards, I asked the guy sitting at the sound board next to me if he knows Esther. "Yeah, I know her well. She's my sister." He pointed her out to me and I went over and met Tom, her husband, and the Famous Esther. We had a good chat about where to live and how to find a place. Everyone recommends FindAProperty.com, yet no one has ever actually got a place directly from there. It's more of a way to get an idea about the price of an area, and to find an Agent. It should be called "FindAnAgent.com", but it is what it is. Then Alwyn came over and they all prayed for me, which was wonderful.

I then came back to my room, called my agent and left a message to ask if he could have a copy of my contract printed today so I could pick it up this afternoon. We'll see.

Oh yeah, and there is a connection to Holy Trinity Brompton and CCW. Alwyn went to HTB first and came from there to start CCW. Interesting, no?

Dave

Blog notes

I just noticed that the time displayed on my posts is Pacific Time. I'm going to change my preferences to London time, since the British insist that they invented time and are quite proud of it. All the times on all the posts will change to my time. I know this doesn't matter to anyone but me, but as my son says, "No one cares about your blog."

Dave

Laundry Day

So I just went and did my first loads of laundry in London. I'm happy to report that the whole process is remarkable like it is in America. Finally, something that's the same!

£3 for a small wash, £3.19 for a box of soap (960g/~2lbs), £1 for 20 minutes in the dryer (I ended up using £1.70).

There were nice friendly people in the laundromat. One older bald headed man told me how much money to use for the dryer. He also helped a young student get his washing going. Before I was done, a guy who sounded somewhat American offered me his box of soap, saying that he was traveling and didn't want to carry it. Since I already had a box, he just left it on the washer and I gave it to the next girl who walked in.

All in all a very pleasant experience. And now my clothes are clean.

Dave

Sin Causes Stress

Not all stress is caused by sin. At least I don't think so. Maybe it is. But in any case, I know that sin does cause stress.

This week, I signed a contract to let a house (which means renting a house). After I signed it, I decided that it was too much money and didn't fit into my budget well. So I called the letting agent and asked if I could get out of the contract, that I didn't want to do it. So far, so good. But then, and this is where I went wrong, I decided to be stubborn about it and tell them that I wasn't going to honor the contract. I had lots of reasons and excuses, none of them valid as far as the contract was concerned, but in the end I just wasn't letting my "yes" be "yes" and my "no" be "no". I wasn't honoring my signature, and my word.

At this point, I've decided to honor the contract. I don't know if they will still want me to be their tenant, but I've offered to honor it. The letting agent said that they've already cancelled the furniture, so I'm sure that will be a problem, but we'll see what happens from here.

While I was being stubborn and not honoring the contract, I was very stressed out. It was hard to concentrate at work, and I couldn't get to sleep last night. But in the middle of the night, God changed my heart and showed me my sin. As soon as I repented, I could feel the stress starting to leave. But, of course, it's not enough just to change your attitude. You have to take action. So I got on the internet, worked out some financial details so that I would be able to pay the deposit, first month's rent, and the processing fee for the letting agent as soon as I could get in touch with them in the morning. Amazingly, as soon as I got that taken care of, I fell right to sleep and slept for a good 7 hours.

God is good and if we would just do what He says, we'd be much better off.

Dave

Mistaken Identities

My colleague next to me is named Daniella. He's nice guy with an interesting accent. I thought that he was French.

Earlier this week, I went to lunch at an Italian restaurant with two other guys. James is from Texas and Jean-Claude is Italian (which is why we went to this place, he knows all the people that work there). I saw Daniella and some of his friends at the next table and said that must be the French table. To which Jean-Claude asked why and I told him that I thought Daniella was French. He said, "No he's Italian like me." I apologized and then Jean-Claude said,"I don't know why, but lots of people think I'm French. Even in Italy, when I went to vote, the guy at the polls asked if I was French." I personally think that Jean-Claude sounds like a French name, but he does speak Italian, soo...?

To which James said to me, "Well, you're Canandian aren't you?" I explained that, no, I'm American. He thought I was Canandian because he said I have Peter Bowmar hair. (For those of you who don't know Peter, he has curly hair like me).

At least no one mistook the Texan for anything else. The saying I've heard is that you should never ask a man if he's from Texas. If he is, he'll tell you soon enough, and if he's not, there's no sense in embarrassing him.

Dave

Still looking for a place

I haven't written in a while because I have been very busy trying to work a job and half and find a place to live.

I thought I had found a place last weekend. It was beautiful, brand new, three bedroom townhouse. The only problem was that it was pretty expensive. I had figured my budget poorly while I was back in the States, thinking that the exchange rate meant something about the cost of goods and services over here. WRONG. The exchange rate is simple how many pounds they'll give you for a dollar (or actually, how many dollars it will take to get a pound). The actual price of buying things here is only slightly less than it is in America, which means stuff is almost twice as expensive here.

For instance, in America, a 20 oz bottle of Diet Pepsi is about $1.20 in a vending machine. Here, a .5 liter bottle (which is a bit smaller than 20 oz) is .95p (pence). Which means for a slightly smaller bottle actually costs $1.90. You get the idea.

Well it's only worse with real estate. Rent is through the roof here. But I made a bad mistake. I signed the lease paper before I was 100% sure I could afford it. After sleeping on it and talking more to Kelly, we decided that it was too much. I called the agent as soon as I could and talked to him about it. Unfortunately, the landlord had already bought furniture to put in the place and it was being delivered today. When the agent's boss heard that I was backing out, she called me directly and chewed me out (very politely, of course. This is Britain, after all). She got all snippy about it, pointing out that I should have decided all this before I signed the contract, and that the only way to deal with this was to go through with it.

Fortunately, I hadn't actually given them any money yet. One of my colleagues at work who lives here, said that he was pretty sure that in Britain you have up to 14 days to change your mind on any contract. I'm going to check with a lawyer tomorrow and see if that's true and that will put me at peace on this issue.

I have another appointment to see a flat on Saturday, hopefully that will work out well.

That's all for now,
Dave

It's the little things...

It's the little things that make you realise you're in a different country. The clouds look the same, the sky is the same color, people are people, but there are small things that are very important.

Many of my friends who had been to England before warned me, "Look right, then left" when crossing the street. I learned that pretty well the first couple of days, but I was still very paranoid about crossing the street. Crossing the street. Sheesh. Such a little thing, but I realised today that even though I was looking right, I wasn't looking far enough down the road to the right. This is important because in America, the pedestrian has the right of way. Not here. Cabbies have the right of way, then buses, then cars, then bicycles, then pedestrians. I'm suddenly at the bottom of the food chain, traffic-wise.

As I walk to and from work, I see shops that say "Fully Licensed" in the window. Which causes me to wonder if there are any shops that are "partially licensed." I asked at work and they said it means that they either sell alcohol or adult things. Ahh, I can stay out of those.

George Bernard Shaw said, "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." That's true on the computer too. A British keyboard is just a little bit different than an American one. The # sign is replaced on the keyboard with a £ sign. The @ sign and " are switched. The left shift key is not wide, but the same width as the letter keys and in that space is another \ sign. There are a couple of other differences, but you get the idea.

I needed a Phillips head screwdriver and asked at the front desk for one, and he said, "Oh, you mean an American one?" I had no idea that Mr. Phillips was an American. But he didn't have one the right size, so I went for another walk and got a spectacal repair kit. The screwdriver was the right size, but not strong enought to loosen the screw to upgrade my RAM.

Oh well, I'm having trouble staying awake right now, so I'm going to bed now.

Dave

First render

So I finally got my way through a few .hip files enough to find something to render. I rendered a particle system test tonight. We'll get to see it tomorrow. It's very nice to have other people to watch your renders overnight.

(And John, they did show me where all the dailies are on their intranet and told me to look through them all today. It was awesome. Lions, and Lucy, and badgers, oh my!)

I found a short cut to work this morning and it took me 30 minutes to walk to work, but I stopped at a little shop to buy a soda, since I was feeling the need for some caffiene. The buildings are so beautiful, I'm going to take a camera on my walk soon and get many great shots for reference for "The Great Divorce".

I got to work a little early and found that none of my office mates were in yet. I spent a few minutes praying for them. I'm reading a good book by Phil Downer called, "A Father's Reward" about discipling your children. One of his points is that fathers have given up spending time with their children in favor of "supporting" their children and making an idol out of "the work of their hands". So I prayed that I would not make an idol out of working on this film, but that I would keep my eyes on Jesus as I work, remembering that He put me here for a purpose, but that running my family is my primary responsibility. It's a good balancing act to keep my priorities straight. If you pray for me, that is my prayer request right now, that I keep my eyes on Jesus, and not on the storm and water around my feet.

Anyway, back to sleep for now,

Dave

Day One

I'm not going to number all the days that I'm here on my posts, but day one seemed significant.

Last night I went to sleep right after writing the last blog, but I woke up again @ 3am. I called Kelly and talked to her for a few minutes, then put on The Matrix and got about 25 minutes into it before falling back asleep till 7am when my alarm went off. Pretty good first night sleep. So far, I haven't really felt any effects of jet lag--thank you to everyone who's been praying...

I went downstairs for breakfast, and found that when you scramble eggs in England, they have that small crumbly texture to them. But I had some cereal and toast too and was off to church.

I went down to Calvary Chapel of Westminster. There were about 60 people there, Alwyn Wall was singing with the worship team and I knew most of the songs. The last one we sang was "Indescibable" which really captured how I was feeling this morning.

Then I went to meet Peter at Tottenham Court Station. Actually, at the entrance to the Virgin Megastore near the Tottenham Court Tube Station, right across the street from a theatre that is showing "We Will Rock You" a musical by Queen, with a giant Freddie Mercury statue above it. It only took me 45 minutes to walk from just south of Buckingham Palace to our meeting place, which gave me another 45 minutes to hang out. Nothing noteworthy, except I gave directions to two girls looking for Charring Cross Road, which was just south of us. I showed them my map.

Peter showed up and we had some hamburgers for lunch and then he took me up to "Little Venice" and Maida Vale to look around at the properties and look in the estate agents windows. The places look very nice from the outside, but a little pricey yet. I'm going to start emailing as many estate agents as I can find to live in that area. Hopefully I can get one to show me a bunch of places next Saturday.

Peter showed me how to get an Oyster card, which will save me a bunch of money on transportation. He also showed me where the studio is, so I can find it tomorrow mornnig. He also found a shop where I bought a couple of plug converters for my monitor and hard drive. They were half the price for the same thing as in a different, more "polished" electronics store.

Then I walked back to my hotel and decided that I'm going to take the tube in the morning, even though I could walk. I just want to be as fresh as I can be when I arrive.

Now I'm going to check some email and maybe take a short nap.

Dave

Here's photo of the front of the studio:

Arrival!

Today was a big day.

I got up on Friday, went to the funeral service of one of my pastors. He was such an amazing man whom the Lord took home suddenly. He loved Jesus so much and made everyone around him feel Jesus' love. He was also an inspiring father to his 4 children and a wonderful husband to his wife. I hadn't cried so much in a very, very long time.

After that, I came home to pick up my daughter for her dentist appointment. She thought that her shoes were in the car, and I am such an inspiring father, that I forgot to check before we drove away. So she went to the dentist in her socks. And to Home Depot. And to the bank to exchange $ for £. And to Costco.

Then back home to do the final packing. My wife had a headache and had taken some medicine, so she couldn't drive. Then the cell phone company was doing something to the network (you know, that huge army of people that follow you around) and we had no cell signal at our house. So she sent out an SOS email to my Mom and Dad and to our neighbors to try and find someone who could help get them home from the airport.

My Dad arrived shortly after to save the day.

I finished all my packing, loaded up the car, drove down to the airport 3.6 hours early and checkin was a breeze. The line to pack my bags only took about 20 minutes, so we went to Carl's Jr. for dinner.

Went back to the airport and got through the security check in about 15 minutes.

Here are my security check tips as of today:

1) Wear shoes that are easy to take off and on. You have to remove them and put them in the basket to be x-rayed.
2) Pack your laptop in a way that will be easy to put it back into your luggage.
3) Have as little in your pockets as possible. I had a coin purse and my wallet. Easy to pull out and put in the basket.
4) VERY IMPORTANT TIP: Keep your boarding pass and passport in your hand at all times. Do NOT put it in the basket to be x-rayed. The guard who puts you through the metal detector needs to see your ticket and passport to let you through and if it's over on the belt in the basket, it's a big deal to let you go get it.

Of course, I learned #4 the hard way, as did the woman in front of me.

After that, I went and bought a pack of gum for the pressure and sat to wait. I only had to wait about an hour. I dug through my carry-on to pull out a book and found a little package my family had put together with little "I'll miss you notes" from them and newly printed pictures. It was then that I realized what was up with everyone sneeking around just before we left the house.

My seat was towards the back of the plane so I got on in one of the first groups, got a spot in the overhead compartment right above my head (rather than three rows up or back as I've had in the past) and sat to wait to see who would sit next to me.

The guy that sat next to me was named "Paul", but I couldn't understand his accent at first and I thought he said his name was "Paw". Once we figured that out, I found out that he was on his way to London for the WEEKEND! A friend of his is getting married tomorrow and he's in the wedding. He lives in L.A. now, but was born and raised in London. He works in the film industry as a business and finance guy. He was part of the new movie that just released this weekend "3:10 to Yuma". Very nice guy. Oh yeah, and he loves all things Mac and had an iPhone.

I watched Spiderman 3 on the plane. I started Surf's Up and Pirates 3, but I just couldn't stay awake well enough to watch them. They did have a nice feature on the video monitor where you could watch the progress of the plane on an interactive map of the world.

The sunrise over the Atlantic was absolutely amazing. We were at 37,000 feet and it came on suddenly and smoothly. I felt like I was watching some of the most amazing footage out of the shuttle bay, with the dark sky, the tinge of yellow on the eastern horizon, and the subtle blend from blue to black. God is truly amazing!

We landed at Heathrow without any trouble. Fortunately, I only had my carryon at that point. The immigration line was about 1.5 hours long. When the officer tried to scan my passport, it didn't scan for her at first. Then she tried again and it worked, but it had me sweating for a minute there.

Once through immigration, down to baggage to get my two checked bags. I had borrowed an older American Tourister hard shell case from some friends of ours to put my monitor in. As I spotted it, another guy put his hand on the handle. "I think that one's mine," I said with my American accent. "Well it looks just like mine," he said. And sure enough, we looked around and there was another one EXACTLY like mine. We examined the old tape marks and determined which ones were ours, then I opened mine just to be sure--and we were right.

£18.50 buys you a train ticket and a tube ticket to get from the airport to the station nearest my hotel. The train was beautiful and well designed with luggage areas, since it mainly goes from the airport to Paddington station. BTW, it's not easy to manuver two large suitcases and a carry-on through the train stations. At the airport there are carts that you can use, but nowhere else. And the transfer from the train to the tube required going up a long flight of stairs. A very nice Englishman took one of my bags up for me, for which I was very grateful.

The tube however had a problem. There are only a few stops to my hotel, but at the first stop, Edgeware Road, we sat on the platform, in the train for about 15-20 minutes. Finally a voice came over the loudspeaker explaining that they were having trouble finding a driver for the train. He finally arrived and we were off. At Baker Street a ton of people got on and then it was a bit difficult to deal with my luggage, again.

I finally got to King's Cross Station and got off. I pulled out my map and realized that I had no idea where on the map my hotel was. There was an arrow on the map sort of near the center, but it covered up the name of the street, so I couldn't tell if that was the right arrow or not. I decided to go up to the street level on faith that God would show me where to go and there was a good street map on the wall up there.

I walked the 6 blocks to my hotel, checked-in, setup my internet connection, tried to Skype my family unsuccessfully, and went in search of dinner.

£4.50 buys you a hamburger, fries and a Coke Light. It was alright, but I was very hungry, so anything would've done.

I came back to my hotel and sucessfully Skyped my family. It was sure great to be able to see them, all the kids, and my Dad (seperately).

Now it's 11:00pm here and I'm tired, so I'm going to sleep.

I'll have pictures to post tomorrow!

Dave

The Excitement Builds

The folks at work took me out to lunch today at OB's, a great little place down in Manhattan Beach. They have great lunch specials--today was Taco Tuesday. Giant tacos for $1.75. I had two. They have peanuts in the shell in a huge barrel and you're supposed to just throw the shells on the floor. Great fun.

I also confirmed with the hotel that there is wireless internet in the rooms. That's a good thing, since I was planning on working there quite a bit.

I also had my eye exam today. The good news is that Kelly can pick up my glasses on her next visit and bring them to me. The guy pre-adjusted the frames that were there in the store for me. The bad news is that I'm getting older and need to get progressive lenses now. Ah well, the price of wisdom...

Now we just have to finish packing up the house, get a tenant, and fly away.

Dave

Departure Looming

Three more whole days and then Fly-day. (That's my little play on Friday, since I fly on Fly-day, get it?)

We packed all day today, and my parents watched the little ones. What a big help!

As of today, I have all of my arrangements in order. I have my airline, hotel, visa, luggage.

But we have many unanswered questions here at home. We still have a lot of packing to do. We don't have a tenant, we haven't received the family passports, we haven't bought the plane tickets yet.

We're still waiting to see how it will all work out.

Dave

Progress

I got my network token today. I was able to get to my email, but I can't remember my timecard password, so that will have to wait until next week to test.

I met with my friend Gene today at lunch who gave me lots of tips for living in London.

Number One Tip From Gene:

When handing cash to a vendor, say out loud the demonination of bill you are handing them so that they don't try to short change you, saying that you only gave them a £10 when you really gave them a £20.

I'm still conflicted on how to get a monitor over there, whether to buy it here and lug it over, or to buy it there and pay duty on the way back.

I have to check to see what the charges are for overage on luggage with the airline.

I also set up a SkypeIn number so the folks at work can call me anytime.

Dave

More Patience

We're waiting to hear from prospective tenants, waiting for my remote network fob, waiting for the family passports, waiting to buy airline tickets for the family, waiting.

It's hard to wait.

I'm not sure this is a good post to my blog, but it'll have to do for today.

Dave

Patience and Faith

It occurred to me today how much patience and faith are related.

I had an appointment with the British Consulate to get my visa today. I allowed an hour to travel the 17 miles from my office to the Consulate. I knew the 405 would be congested this morning, so I took surface streets. Lincoln Blvd was all torn up and down to two lanes, that weren't moving. So I cut over to Sepulveda and wound my way through the streets of west LA. I had to call my friend Patrick to help with directions and he helped a lot. But at 9:27 I was still a few miles away. I called my family and asked them to pray that I'd get there in time (even though I knew that it was physically impossible). I got to the Consulate at 9:40 for my 9:30 appointment. I was a little stressed, but since I knew they were praying for me, I just kept going. When I finally got through security and up to the 12th floor, the very nice security officer let me know they were running a little behind and not to worry. He told me where to sit, what forms to copy before I got to the window. There were about 15 people in the waiting area already, so I took a seat. After one more person, they called my name, I went right up, handed in my papers and everything went great. No problems. In fact, it went so smoothly and quickly, I forgot to ask about whether I could have my family come over for less than 6 months without a visa!

I had to return later this afternoon to pick up my passport with its new visa inside, and I asked the question then. Yes, if they are coming to "visit" for less than 6 months, they do not need a visa. That's a savings of $2100!

So here's where faith and patience fit in: I had to be patient with the traffic and not get flustered by my circumstances. I had to have faith that if God was to make this happen, it would happen in His time, not mine. And what good would it do to get things done outside of His timing? It would be like eating fruit from trees that we weren't invited to eat from.

Dave

Good News/Bad News

The good news is that I went back to the website and someone else had cancelled their appointment, and I grabbed it for tomorrow. This is good news because I should be able to get my Entrance Clearance in a day and be cleared to go.

The bad news is that I have to pay $420 for each of my other family members to bring them--$2100!!

This is not the easy process that simple travel is. If we were just visiting, it wouldn't cost us anything, but the regular airfare, hotel, food, etc. But since there's work and money involved, it's not easy. The governments all have clever ways of separating people from their money. Ah well, it's an adventure, right?

I'm hoping that if I delay their arrival so that they are coming for less than 6 months, there might be some relief on this. Six months seems to be some magic number for them.

If anyone else is planning this kind of thing, 6 months is a very magical number for the UK Home Office. If you can get your contract under 6 months, the immigration part will be much easier.

Dave

Baby steps

I got my work permit approved, hooray!! I thought that was the big hurdle in getting into the UK. Well it was one of them. Next I had to apply for a VISA, no small task. The online application took me about 2 hours to complete. Fortunately, you can save it and go back, but still...

Another odd thing about the application process is that I couldn't use a lower case "t" without copying and pasting it. I finally gave up and started typing everything in all caps.

In a number of places on the website, they tell you that you must complete the application process before you can make your appointment to get to the VISA office at the embassy. But not until I had paid the $420 fee did I find out that the soonest appointment I could make was Sept 11th! I'm not superstitious about that day, but it is about 4 days after I'm supposed to leave to get to England. Dang!

I'll have to call them on Monday to see if there's any way to either mail my application or get an earlier appointment.

Dave

Nothing New

Not much new to report today, but I feel strangely compelled to write something here. I told my friend Patrick today that this feels a little like writing on the bathroom wall to keep in touch with my friends, but it's much cleaner.

I still don't know what's the status of my work permit.

Dave

Starting Out

Three weeks from now, I'll be in London, starting work on Prince Caspian. I'm not sure how much about the actual production I'll be able to write about (probably not much). But I'll be posting my adventures of working overseas, finding housing, using the public transportation, and maybe even some Houdini tips and tricks as I learn them.

Right now, I'm wondering how long it takes to get a work permit, since that's the piece that I have no control over and there seems to be some doubt as to whether it will be done in time for me to get on the airplane. It all becomes a big exercise in faith.