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