15 October, 2007
Oy! We arrived at the office and went rather immediately to work. A few hiccoughs delayed us a little bit, so we didn’t actually settle into the upgrading and loading of the devices until nearly lunchtime. At that time, as we settled into the task at hand we discovered that the bloody network was traipsing along at approximately 7k throughput. Compare that to a slow dial-up connection at 28.8k and you can see what we were up against. We left for lunch, eating at a place called the Wheatsheaf (different than the night before) with the hopes that the network would be better upon our return. It wasn’t. What was normally a 6-10 minute job for each device was taking hours. It was almost 6pm by the time our devices had been upgraded to the point we needed them to be. That should have been a very easy, very quick thing to do, but it wasn’t . We were exhausted. It was not the physical body exhaustion of the previous jet-lagged day, but a mental exhaustion borne of frustration. We went for drinks and dinner. Determined to visit the same places as seldom as possible, we headed off down the road to a recommended place called the Five Bells. Met a wonderful Springer Spaniel there named (sadly) Chelsea.
He was aging, but very affectionate (especially when food was on the offering). Terrill & I reached our first major disagreement point of the trip upon encountering Chelsea. I bemoaned the fact that my extremely well-behaved dogs are not welcome in any restaurant or bar in Texas. He applauded that fact saying that he was perfectly happy when other people’s dogs were not present in places where food was prepared and consumed. We reached an agreement of sorts. I conceded that I understood his point of view, and he recanted enough to say that he wouldn’t mind it one whit of dogs were allowed in bars. In fact, he mentioned that in the Ice Houses of Houston, it was commonplace. Houston is more like London than many people realize. Houston and London are very, very unlike Dallas. After leaving the Five Bells, we returned to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow (never stay there, if you have another option) where we parked the car in the carpark and walked to the Three Magpies for a nightcap. The Three Magpies, while nice enough, is very much a traveller’s trendy bar. Filled with internationals of all flavour, it was just a little too yuppy for my taste. So, one beer and we were off. Time for bed. Morning comes early.
Cheers.
~KR (15 October 2007)
Listening to:
Choke by Nerve Exhibit
on Horror of Amusement
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD850 IS
Exposure: 0.125 sec (1/8)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
ISO Speed: 800
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
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