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