It's been a week since the last blog-- lots of excuses, of course, none of them great. I really underestimated my writing requirement during the break-- I have effectively been working most days, partly because of the course planning as well. I can see that I have to do a better job managing my time and prioritize my activities.
As it is, Lynn's also been under the weather for almost 2 weeks as well, which means that the kids are having a relatively dull vacation. That's not necessarily a bad thing for Taran, who definitely has needed down time, but when the kids are together too much in the house, they settle into a simmering feud that explodes roughly every 90 minutes into screaming, pushing, or crying. Today they had seemed to be playing well in their room when apparently Kenna said something about one of Taran's stuffed animals being only her fourth favorite, so Taran hid under his covers while Kenna teased him and when she went in after him he bopped her on the nose.
At the moment Kenna is (thankfully) at Megan's house having tea, while Taran and I prepare for Hogmanay. We're planning to be in the torchlight procession and see the fireworks. Hopefully it will be fun and not too cold. Afterwards we'll pick up Andy and Tara from the train station-- Wisconsin friends currently living in London who'll be visiting for a couple days.
My own scheduling has been spiraling out of control. I'll be in London the 4th - 7th of January to do some work with Gerry and then collect data from a couple early stage companies. Then back here to finish up submissions to Academy of Management, which is sure to be exhausting. Then the term will start with a bang on the 11th, especially as I don't yet have all my lecture presentations ready. February will arrive and I'll go to the US to collect data from a couple more companies. In the meantime I'll be teaching and collecting data from a couple Edinburgh start-ups, and somehow working on the development of broader entrepreneurship courses for the University. Maybe.
The Hogmanay celebration here really is a bit crazy. I'll link to the website for the moment, and hopefully have time to blog over the next couple days about everything that's going on.
http://www.edinburghshogmanay.org/
Happy Hogmanay!
Thursday 30 December 2010
Thursday 23 December 2010
Oh, many, many things
To start, we signed a lease on a new property starting at the end of January. The street can be seen here (cut-and-paste, sorry, the blogger linking system won't accept a long URL):
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=101a+st.+stephens+street,+edinburgh&layer=c&sll=55.958777,-3.204313&cbp=13,71.54,,0,-1.49&cbll=55.958624,-3.204892&hl=en&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=101B/8+St.+Stephen+Street,+Edinburgh+EH3+5AB,+United+Kingdom&ll=55.958624,-3.204736&spn=0.003592,0.009055&z=17&panoid=vQl7JmUCLqBGEwUBBXyHkw
The most important characteristics of the new flat are that 1) it is newer, only 10 years old or so, and thus employs modern thingys like insulation and double-glazed windows, and 2) it is only 2 blocks from the kids' school along level roads, so no more treks up and down "big hill" (as we refer to Gloucester Lane).
The kids' received their follow-up Hanukkah and solstice gifts-- they were especially grateful for the legos and sylvanian toys.
Kenna's winter term holiday starts tomorrow, Taran has a half-day tomorrow. Then there is no school until 11-Jan. I've no idea what we are going to do with them...
I marked exams for one of our bigger entrepreneurship courses. It is fascinating to mark exams in the UK which are so dramatically different from exams, and marking processes, in the U.S.
We had planned to all go to London the first week in January as I need to be there for work, but our accommodations fell through and so it will just be me going from the 4th to the 7th. Lynn has had a thousand playdates for the kids, so I've no doubt that once Christmas is passed the extensive social calendar for the kids will resume. Lynn also managed to secure a sledge (sled) for the kids, which are in short supply this winter, so the kids' should have a chance to hit the local slopes in the next week or two, as there is no indication that the snow is going anywhere soon.
Speaking of which, the main thoroughfares across Edinburgh are incredible black slushy messes. There is a preference to use grit (which is, amazingly, not sand, but some sort of red small-diameter gravel) rather than salt whenever possible, presumably because of the risk of damaging the streets and historic facades. There is salt used in many areas where it's just impossible to clear the ice otherwise, but most of the streets and sidewalks in the city centre are about 1/2 to 2" deep in a sort of muddy mushy gravelly sludge that appears to have nowhere to go. The temperatures are hovering just around freezing, and the sunlight is so weak (and only around for a few hours, and even then rarely OVER the actual rooftops) that there is no melting action the way there would be in Wisconsin even on really cold days. So the slush is here to stay, for now.
Lynn was even able to arrange an evening at a pub for me with some of the dads from the neighborhood. It's fun to be able to talk politics when it doesn't really matter to the other people, other than as a source of fascination. It was good to be out for a pint.
If you've not been paying attention to college football, then you should know that Stanford - #4 in the country (?!) - is playing in the Orange Bowl, while UW-Madison - #5 in the country (?!) - is playing in the Rose Bowl. My dad and I went to the 2000 Rose Bowl in which Madison beat Stanford, and my guess is this the closest those two will ever come to competing in a bowl game again. If it weren't for the Rose Bowl's being the non-AQ team bowl this year, they would have played... though I'm a bit far this time to go.
I'm sure there's a lot more that I haven't covered, so I'll try to set aside a little time each evening to try to get caught up.
Oh-- we made it to our first solstice in Edinburgh! Though the weather won't be warmer for a while, yesterday was as dark as it gets. Yesterday the sun rose at 8:40am and set at 15:40 for a whopping 6 hours, 57 minutes and 31 seconds of total possible sunshine, but at a maximum altitude of 10.6 degrees :)
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=101a+st.+stephens+street,+edinburgh&layer=c&sll=55.958777,-3.204313&cbp=13,71.54,,0,-1.49&cbll=55.958624,-3.204892&hl=en&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=101B/8+St.+Stephen+Street,+Edinburgh+EH3+5AB,+United+Kingdom&ll=55.958624,-3.204736&spn=0.003592,0.009055&z=17&panoid=vQl7JmUCLqBGEwUBBXyHkw
The most important characteristics of the new flat are that 1) it is newer, only 10 years old or so, and thus employs modern thingys like insulation and double-glazed windows, and 2) it is only 2 blocks from the kids' school along level roads, so no more treks up and down "big hill" (as we refer to Gloucester Lane).
The kids' received their follow-up Hanukkah and solstice gifts-- they were especially grateful for the legos and sylvanian toys.
Kenna's winter term holiday starts tomorrow, Taran has a half-day tomorrow. Then there is no school until 11-Jan. I've no idea what we are going to do with them...
I marked exams for one of our bigger entrepreneurship courses. It is fascinating to mark exams in the UK which are so dramatically different from exams, and marking processes, in the U.S.
We had planned to all go to London the first week in January as I need to be there for work, but our accommodations fell through and so it will just be me going from the 4th to the 7th. Lynn has had a thousand playdates for the kids, so I've no doubt that once Christmas is passed the extensive social calendar for the kids will resume. Lynn also managed to secure a sledge (sled) for the kids, which are in short supply this winter, so the kids' should have a chance to hit the local slopes in the next week or two, as there is no indication that the snow is going anywhere soon.
Speaking of which, the main thoroughfares across Edinburgh are incredible black slushy messes. There is a preference to use grit (which is, amazingly, not sand, but some sort of red small-diameter gravel) rather than salt whenever possible, presumably because of the risk of damaging the streets and historic facades. There is salt used in many areas where it's just impossible to clear the ice otherwise, but most of the streets and sidewalks in the city centre are about 1/2 to 2" deep in a sort of muddy mushy gravelly sludge that appears to have nowhere to go. The temperatures are hovering just around freezing, and the sunlight is so weak (and only around for a few hours, and even then rarely OVER the actual rooftops) that there is no melting action the way there would be in Wisconsin even on really cold days. So the slush is here to stay, for now.
Lynn was even able to arrange an evening at a pub for me with some of the dads from the neighborhood. It's fun to be able to talk politics when it doesn't really matter to the other people, other than as a source of fascination. It was good to be out for a pint.
If you've not been paying attention to college football, then you should know that Stanford - #4 in the country (?!) - is playing in the Orange Bowl, while UW-Madison - #5 in the country (?!) - is playing in the Rose Bowl. My dad and I went to the 2000 Rose Bowl in which Madison beat Stanford, and my guess is this the closest those two will ever come to competing in a bowl game again. If it weren't for the Rose Bowl's being the non-AQ team bowl this year, they would have played... though I'm a bit far this time to go.
I'm sure there's a lot more that I haven't covered, so I'll try to set aside a little time each evening to try to get caught up.
Oh-- we made it to our first solstice in Edinburgh! Though the weather won't be warmer for a while, yesterday was as dark as it gets. Yesterday the sun rose at 8:40am and set at 15:40 for a whopping 6 hours, 57 minutes and 31 seconds of total possible sunshine, but at a maximum altitude of 10.6 degrees :)
Sunday 19 December 2010
Long time no post
It was a busy week, even by our standards. I was in a professional training seminar for three days, went to Glasgow on Wednesday for an Advisory Board meeting, and attended the Business School's Holiday (Christmas) party on Friday. Didn't leave a lot of time left over for regular work, and I've managed to fall behind both my course planning and manuscript writing. In the meantime, I had the good news of getting two very small research grants approved for travel and transcription, but had a paper rejected from a conference.
Edinburgh got hit with more snow last week, which disrupted a lot of travel. The schools stayed open, however. There were somewhat confused predictions about heavy snow in the midweek, but the reality was mostly blue skies on Weds and Thurs. On the other hand, the predictions were dead on for snow starting last night (Saturday), and continuing through today. We've probably gotten another 2-4", and there is ongoing "monitoring" of the situation to see whether or not schools will be open tomorrow.
In other news, Taran hosted his first sleepover, and he and Sebastian ("Seb") generally had a good time, though Taran ran into difficulties this morning when he couldn't behavior reasonably after an hour or so of Wii time. That's an ongoing issue-- the transition away from Wii or any kind of video can be quite a challenge. He redeemed himself by cleaning his room, and this afternoon he was rewarded with a trip to the Christmas Fair and the opportunity to go on the bungee jump :) I didn't take photos or video this time because I was concerned it would be too much pressure (and that he might not enjoy it). He was a bit trepidatious at the start but soon trusted the cords and harness enough to let go and enjoy himself. He did tucks and straddles, but wasn't quite ready for a flip. But he wants to go again, and hopefully we'll find a nice day when we can also do the Ferris wheel.
We've been doing a lot of lego building... or I should say I've been doing a lot of lego building, I suppose. I'd forgotten how therapeutic it is, and I'm afraid I got caught up in it a bit with the darkness and the cold. So far I've made a yellow and black frogstar fighter, a blue and white police space cruiser, a red and white spacejet vaguely reminiscent of the SR-71, a blue and black stealth fighter, a red three-wheeled landcrawler because kenna asked for a car, and a more normal jet fighter. The kids have made various things as well, though Taran's focus and interest waned significantly after finishing the Falcon. Kenna tends to play with the lego people, and incorporates all her imaginative play toys together (littlest pet shop, sylvanian, lego, and stuffed toys).
We've been quite healthy, really, despite the cold and darkness. The one unexpected discomfort may actually be chillblains-- something I'd read about but never really heard of in "real" life-- as if it were something primarily out of Dickens. But Lynn's having some swelling and redness on her fingers and I've had some sore spots on my toes. I'd written it off to slightly small boots, but all the symptoms are consistent with chillblains, for which the cure is just waiting and warmth.
Lynn found a new flat starting in late January. The Darnaway flat is wonderful for what it is: a large, classic Georgian property in the NewTown. But, pretty much by definition, that means both that it's grander than what we need, and impossible to heat. The new flat is closer to the kids' school and has a lift, which they are very excited about. More walking for me (and more uphill in the morning to work) but that's fine-- I'm thinking of signing up for the University's gym in the new year as I'm not getting any exercise other than walking and carrying groceries at this point. Here are photos of the living room which, along with the other common rooms is on the upper floor (the bedrooms are on the lower floor), and the view out the back of the property. It's a double-upper, so it should still be quiet, but it's smaller, much much newer and should be significantly warmer :)
That will have to be enough for now. Hopefully I'll be back on track to blog more consistently in the coming week and in the new year.
Edinburgh got hit with more snow last week, which disrupted a lot of travel. The schools stayed open, however. There were somewhat confused predictions about heavy snow in the midweek, but the reality was mostly blue skies on Weds and Thurs. On the other hand, the predictions were dead on for snow starting last night (Saturday), and continuing through today. We've probably gotten another 2-4", and there is ongoing "monitoring" of the situation to see whether or not schools will be open tomorrow.
In other news, Taran hosted his first sleepover, and he and Sebastian ("Seb") generally had a good time, though Taran ran into difficulties this morning when he couldn't behavior reasonably after an hour or so of Wii time. That's an ongoing issue-- the transition away from Wii or any kind of video can be quite a challenge. He redeemed himself by cleaning his room, and this afternoon he was rewarded with a trip to the Christmas Fair and the opportunity to go on the bungee jump :) I didn't take photos or video this time because I was concerned it would be too much pressure (and that he might not enjoy it). He was a bit trepidatious at the start but soon trusted the cords and harness enough to let go and enjoy himself. He did tucks and straddles, but wasn't quite ready for a flip. But he wants to go again, and hopefully we'll find a nice day when we can also do the Ferris wheel.
We've been doing a lot of lego building... or I should say I've been doing a lot of lego building, I suppose. I'd forgotten how therapeutic it is, and I'm afraid I got caught up in it a bit with the darkness and the cold. So far I've made a yellow and black frogstar fighter, a blue and white police space cruiser, a red and white spacejet vaguely reminiscent of the SR-71, a blue and black stealth fighter, a red three-wheeled landcrawler because kenna asked for a car, and a more normal jet fighter. The kids have made various things as well, though Taran's focus and interest waned significantly after finishing the Falcon. Kenna tends to play with the lego people, and incorporates all her imaginative play toys together (littlest pet shop, sylvanian, lego, and stuffed toys).
We've been quite healthy, really, despite the cold and darkness. The one unexpected discomfort may actually be chillblains-- something I'd read about but never really heard of in "real" life-- as if it were something primarily out of Dickens. But Lynn's having some swelling and redness on her fingers and I've had some sore spots on my toes. I'd written it off to slightly small boots, but all the symptoms are consistent with chillblains, for which the cure is just waiting and warmth.
Lynn found a new flat starting in late January. The Darnaway flat is wonderful for what it is: a large, classic Georgian property in the NewTown. But, pretty much by definition, that means both that it's grander than what we need, and impossible to heat. The new flat is closer to the kids' school and has a lift, which they are very excited about. More walking for me (and more uphill in the morning to work) but that's fine-- I'm thinking of signing up for the University's gym in the new year as I'm not getting any exercise other than walking and carrying groceries at this point. Here are photos of the living room which, along with the other common rooms is on the upper floor (the bedrooms are on the lower floor), and the view out the back of the property. It's a double-upper, so it should still be quiet, but it's smaller, much much newer and should be significantly warmer :)
That will have to be enough for now. Hopefully I'll be back on track to blog more consistently in the coming week and in the new year.
Monday 13 December 2010
Tutoring at Ulster...
I've just discovered that I'm tutoring at Ulster...
http://www.ulster.ac.uk/staffdev/Research_Training/controller.php?function=view_unit_details&id=279
---
Course Details
Title Entrepreneurship in the Research Context (1) : "Entrepreneurial Motivation" (PGcertPD Mod 1 required) - Online CODE: 1:279
Hrs: 6
Skill Statement Reference
Convenor
Target Audience
Level
Prerequisites Please register for this course in the usual way - you will be given instructions as to how to access this online course.
Aims Module 1 "Enhancing Research Practice" requires completion of 18 RTCs in Entrepreneurship. "Entrepreneurial Motivation (this course) counts for 6 of these RTCs.
Outcomes Entrepreneurship in the academic context
Entrepreneurial motivation
Characteristics of a successful entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship and you
Unit Description About the Tutors:
Author - Dr Shai Vyakarnam, Cambridge University
Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam is Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He has extensive experience in business and in business education, most recently at Cambridge where he has initiated a number of courses designed for science, engineering and technology students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
He founded a consulting business, Transitions, through which he has invested in and initiated a number of start-ups, all of which are technology dependent. His other affiliations include a visiting professorship at the University of Reading and Nottingham Business School. He is on the advisory board of ArcLabs, a telecoms-oriented incubation centre in Ireland, and the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship. He is a fellow of the RSA and trustee of a charity that works in rural India (GEN Initiative).
His present research interests focus on gaining a better understanding of how social networks operate in high-tech clusters. And for fun he runs a blog www.shaivyakarnam.blogspot.com on entrepreneurship education and related issues.
Author - Adam J Bock, Imperial College London
Adam J Bock is a doctoral student in innovation and entrepreneurship studies at The Business School, Imperial College London. Adam has led, advised, and financed numerous technology ventures. He also has experience teaching and researching entrepreneurship topics.
Adam has co-founded two medical device companies spun out of university research programmes and served as chief executive of a third. He spent four years facilitating private funds into start-up technology companies on behalf of angel investors. He has consulted on more than a dozen early-stage ventures on technology transfer, recruitment, financing, business plan writing, product development and exit. He has taught entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business and served as a coach and mentor for DesignLondon and the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center.
He is the co-author (with Imperial College Professor Gerry George) of Inventing Entrepreneurs (Prentice-Hall, 2008), a book that describes the entrepreneurial journeys of academic entrepreneurs.
Adam lives in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin with his wife Lynn and his children, Taran and Kenna.
Session Process This is an online course. Please register in the usual way.
http://www.ulster.ac.uk/staffdev/Research_Training/controller.php?function=view_unit_details&id=279
---
Course Details
Title Entrepreneurship in the Research Context (1) : "Entrepreneurial Motivation" (PGcertPD Mod 1 required) - Online CODE: 1:279
Hrs: 6
Skill Statement Reference
Convenor
Target Audience
Level
Prerequisites Please register for this course in the usual way - you will be given instructions as to how to access this online course.
Aims Module 1 "Enhancing Research Practice" requires completion of 18 RTCs in Entrepreneurship. "Entrepreneurial Motivation (this course) counts for 6 of these RTCs.
Outcomes Entrepreneurship in the academic context
Entrepreneurial motivation
Characteristics of a successful entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship and you
Unit Description About the Tutors:
Author - Dr Shai Vyakarnam, Cambridge University
Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam is Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He has extensive experience in business and in business education, most recently at Cambridge where he has initiated a number of courses designed for science, engineering and technology students at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
He founded a consulting business, Transitions, through which he has invested in and initiated a number of start-ups, all of which are technology dependent. His other affiliations include a visiting professorship at the University of Reading and Nottingham Business School. He is on the advisory board of ArcLabs, a telecoms-oriented incubation centre in Ireland, and the Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship. He is a fellow of the RSA and trustee of a charity that works in rural India (GEN Initiative).
His present research interests focus on gaining a better understanding of how social networks operate in high-tech clusters. And for fun he runs a blog www.shaivyakarnam.blogspot.com on entrepreneurship education and related issues.
Author - Adam J Bock, Imperial College London
Adam J Bock is a doctoral student in innovation and entrepreneurship studies at The Business School, Imperial College London. Adam has led, advised, and financed numerous technology ventures. He also has experience teaching and researching entrepreneurship topics.
Adam has co-founded two medical device companies spun out of university research programmes and served as chief executive of a third. He spent four years facilitating private funds into start-up technology companies on behalf of angel investors. He has consulted on more than a dozen early-stage ventures on technology transfer, recruitment, financing, business plan writing, product development and exit. He has taught entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business and served as a coach and mentor for DesignLondon and the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center.
He is the co-author (with Imperial College Professor Gerry George) of Inventing Entrepreneurs (Prentice-Hall, 2008), a book that describes the entrepreneurial journeys of academic entrepreneurs.
Adam lives in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin with his wife Lynn and his children, Taran and Kenna.
Session Process This is an online course. Please register in the usual way.
Wisconsin strikes back...
To all the Dunediners complaining that we brought the Wisconsin weather with us... Wisconsin had an answer. 22" (56cm) of snow over the weekend, and now temperatures dropping to -8F (-22C) with windchill temperatures of -25F (-32C).
From wkow27.com
Posted: Dec 12, 2010 7:30 PM
MADISON (WKOW) -- The weekend's snow storm is expected to give way to dangerously cold temperatures Sunday evening and into Monday, leaving icy road conditions overnight.
The Governor declared a State of Emergency for all 72 counties across Wisconsin.
The National Weather Service is reporting a decrease in snowfall intensities across parts of the state. Much of the snowfall is expected to taper off late this evening.
Wind chills are expected to hit minus 15 statewide.
Highs on Monday should vary from the single digits in the west to the low teens elsewhere. Temperatures are expected to creep back up Tuesday and Wednesday.
The weekend's snowstorm dumped some 22 inches of snow in areas of the state Saturday night into Sunday.
Meteorologist Jessica Brooks says Jackson County in western Wisconsin had a two-day total of almost 22 inches as of early Saturday. She says areas in Adams, Monroe and Taylor counties got about 21 inches.
Sunday 12 December 2010
Images of snow
Some photos I took on 1-Dec during the first snowstorm. The winter fair in East Princes Street Gardens, a shot of the castle looking past the Art Museum on the Mound, a picture lookup up the Mound to the Playfair Steps (note the sign for the Biergarten on the right-- what would an Edinburgh Christmas Fair be without a biergarten?), and a picture of the high street-- if you look carefully you can see the sleet streaking down against the dark backdrop of the church and shops.
Saturday 11 December 2010
Wisconsin weather
Okay, the Scotland imitation of Edinburgh weather ends officially today. Here's the weather forecast for Madison, Wisconsin :)
Issued by The National Weather Service
Milwaukee/Sullivan, WI
3:47 pm CST, Sat., Dec. 11, 2010
... A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST SUNDAY. A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS EVENING.
* TIMING... MIXED PRECIPITATION THIS AFTERNOON WILL TURN TO ALL SNOW BY EVENING... AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING. CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW WITH WHITEOUT CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED LATER THIS EVENING THROUGH SUNDAY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS TONIGHT AND SUNDAY... 8 TO 13 INCHES. HIGHEST AMOUNTS NORTH OF MADISON... LOWEST NEAR THE ILLINOIS BORDER.
* WINDS... STRONG NORTHWEST TO NORTH WINDS OF 30 MPH... WITH GUSTS TO 40 MPH... WILL DEVELOP LATE TONIGHT... AND LAST THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT.
* IMPACTS... MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW... AND BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW... WILL MAKE FOR DANGEROUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS TONIGHT AND SUNDAY. WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AND SNOW COVERED... DRIFTED ROADS ARE EXPECTED. MANY ROADS MAY BECOME IMPASSABLE.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS... MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED... STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.
Issued by The National Weather Service
Milwaukee/Sullivan, WI
3:47 pm CST, Sat., Dec. 11, 2010
... A BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST SUNDAY. A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM CST THIS EVENING.
* TIMING... MIXED PRECIPITATION THIS AFTERNOON WILL TURN TO ALL SNOW BY EVENING... AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES THROUGH SUNDAY MORNING. CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW WITH WHITEOUT CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED LATER THIS EVENING THROUGH SUNDAY.
* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS TONIGHT AND SUNDAY... 8 TO 13 INCHES. HIGHEST AMOUNTS NORTH OF MADISON... LOWEST NEAR THE ILLINOIS BORDER.
* WINDS... STRONG NORTHWEST TO NORTH WINDS OF 30 MPH... WITH GUSTS TO 40 MPH... WILL DEVELOP LATE TONIGHT... AND LAST THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT.
* IMPACTS... MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW... AND BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW... WILL MAKE FOR DANGEROUS TRAVEL CONDITIONS TONIGHT AND SUNDAY. WHITEOUT CONDITIONS AND SNOW COVERED... DRIFTED ROADS ARE EXPECTED. MANY ROADS MAY BECOME IMPASSABLE.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A BLIZZARD WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW WITH STRONG WINDS AND POOR VISIBILITIES ARE LIKELY. THIS WILL LEAD TO WHITEOUT CONDITIONS... MAKING TRAVEL EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. DO NOT TRAVEL. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL... HAVE A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT WITH YOU. IF YOU GET STRANDED... STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE.
Legos and malapropisms
Taran received a mid-scale Millenium Falcon lego set for Hanukkah from Grandma Maris and Grandpa Harvey, and he's spent the last couple days putting it together, with only a little help from yours truly. But arguably the best moment of the entire process was when Kenna wandered over and asked me how Taran was doing with the "lemonade vulcan."
Kenna and I also did lots of lego play, in between Sylvannian family playtime. Kenna received the Toy Shop as well as a new family of brown rabbits (7 total: Mom, Dad, 2 boy and three girl rabbits including a baby girl rabbit). It turned out the brown rabbits were from Scotland and had moved to America and will be living with the American Labrador family in the windmill.
Kenna was full of something this morning. We were playing with the legos and she picked up the helicopter and started flying it around saying, "Alert! Alert! Alert!" So I said, "My goodness, an alert. That sounds bad." And she responded: "No, it's not a problem. There's an alien over here but the guys picked him up and are taking him to another planet." I was game for that, so I said, "Oh, good. What planet are they taking him to?" And she answered, "They're taking him to planet couch. It's over here in the living room."
Yesterday's bon mot was well-intentioned: "Daddy, I love you every day. But I love Mommy more."
Taran's one-liner this morning was:
"All I need is Luke's hair and then Mozart will come."
This requires some real explaining. Taran got a "Celebration Luke Skywalker" lego minifigure when he bought his Star Wars Lego Collector Encyclopedia. Luke has long blond hair and is wearing the outfit from the end of "Star Wars." Taran claimed, initially, that it wasn't Luke Skywalker at all (though I've forgotten who he said it was). But then a while back Taran announced that Luke looked like Mozart (?) because of the hair. So now Taran takes the hair off Luke's head and puts it on one of the pirate figures and calls it Mozart. I suppose that's one better than, say Bon Jovi.
Kenna and I also did lots of lego play, in between Sylvannian family playtime. Kenna received the Toy Shop as well as a new family of brown rabbits (7 total: Mom, Dad, 2 boy and three girl rabbits including a baby girl rabbit). It turned out the brown rabbits were from Scotland and had moved to America and will be living with the American Labrador family in the windmill.
Kenna was full of something this morning. We were playing with the legos and she picked up the helicopter and started flying it around saying, "Alert! Alert! Alert!" So I said, "My goodness, an alert. That sounds bad." And she responded: "No, it's not a problem. There's an alien over here but the guys picked him up and are taking him to another planet." I was game for that, so I said, "Oh, good. What planet are they taking him to?" And she answered, "They're taking him to planet couch. It's over here in the living room."
Yesterday's bon mot was well-intentioned: "Daddy, I love you every day. But I love Mommy more."
Taran's one-liner this morning was:
"All I need is Luke's hair and then Mozart will come."
This requires some real explaining. Taran got a "Celebration Luke Skywalker" lego minifigure when he bought his Star Wars Lego Collector Encyclopedia. Luke has long blond hair and is wearing the outfit from the end of "Star Wars." Taran claimed, initially, that it wasn't Luke Skywalker at all (though I've forgotten who he said it was). But then a while back Taran announced that Luke looked like Mozart (?) because of the hair. So now Taran takes the hair off Luke's head and puts it on one of the pirate figures and calls it Mozart. I suppose that's one better than, say Bon Jovi.
Thursday 9 December 2010
The slow thaw
The weather improved dramatically-- mostly clear skies and temperatures close to 40F. The photo to the right is from our kitchen. If you look carefully, you can actually see a couple drops of water descending in midair... I wish I could take credit for spectacular photography but it's much more an indication of the rapidity of the melt and the volume of water coming down.
The temps are supposed to stay warmish for the weekend, which probably means a lot of wet shoes and dirty cuffs :)
The kids' Hanukkah presents finally arrived (well, some of them), having been delayed well over a week in the Edinburgh depot (hurrah for sophisticated tracking systems that can tell you exactly where and for how long your packages have been delayed). But they're here, and you can probably tell from their expressions how excited they are-- they are thanking their Grandma Maris via iChat, which is why they are managing to stare fixedly at the iMac while tightly holding their presents.
On the down side, Taran's drama class and play were cancelled, though we're not sure if that was weather related or not. The Stockbridge Christmas Fair was cancelled, apparently because the city wasn't sure it would be safe or warm enough-- again, we're not clear on the details.
I was very excited this week to get a small travel grant that will help pay the costs of flying back and forth to the US to collect some of the data I need. The journal resubmission is in, and there's nothing to do on that but wait and see. In the meantime, I'm grinding away on possible submissions to AoM, which I now appreciate as both a deadline to work towards and an opportunity for free feedback that I definitely need.
The ramp up to teaching has been relatively jerky-- stops and starts and lots of uncertainty. If I can get through next week's training sessions, I'll have relative calm and quiet to sort it all out. Perhaps I'll even be able to set up the project management system I keep envisioning but somehow don't have time for.
The kids are asleep-- Lynn's gone over to a friend's flat for a chat, and I'm going to call it a night soon. Cheers!
Wednesday 8 December 2010
The perfect snowstorm-- Most snow in in Scotland in 50 years...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/dec/08/transport-secretary-scotland-perfect-storm
Transport secretary says sorry after chaos of Scotland's 'perfect storm'
M8 has reopened, and thaw forecasted across much of UK, but snow and freezing continue continue in north
Kirsty Scott and Helen Carter
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 December 2010 19.42 GMT
Scotland had faced a "perfect storm" of snow and freezing conditions, the country's transport minister said, as the main motorway, the M8, finally reopened after two days of gridlock across much of the central belt.
Despite forecasts of a thaw across much of the UK before the weekend, the big freeze is continuing to cause chaos – hundreds of motorists spent a second night in their cars on snowbound roads as temperatures north of the border again fell to -20C (4F). And more than 100 vehicles were trapped on an exposed route in North Yorkshire after a sudden heavy snow shower on Tuesday night.
In an emergency statement to the Scottish parliament, the transport secretary, Stewart Stevenson, said he was ultimately responsible for the chaotic situation, and apologised to commuters for the closures and delays on many of the country's key routes. Efforts will be made to ensure that authorities to react more quickly and more robustly to extreme conditions.
"On Monday morning we faced a perfect storm," he said Mr Stevenson. "A highly unusual weather system came in and this hit our transport system exceptionally hard."
Drivers across central Scotland had been forced to abandon their vehicles after the worst winter weather for decades. A 20-mile section of the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh reopened only this afternoon, and police were still urging motorists not to travel.
Councillors in Edinburgh have asked the army to clear thick ice and snow from side streets and pavements after days of sub-zero temperatures left many routes treacherous. The city has seen its heaviest snowfall in nearly 50 years over the past 11 days, up to 30in (76cm). Many streets and pavements were too heavily iced over to be cleared by snowploughs or grit. The council hopes soldiers at the city's Redford barracks will be deployed within the next few days.
The army, along with mountain rescue teams in central Scotland, has already sent out 4x4 vehicles to help ambulances and police to ferry the sick to hospital across the central belt.
More snow was expected across north-east Scotland, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire and Humberside, with icy roads expected around the country. Overnight temperatures were expected to drop to -20C in parts of Scotland, and to -15C in Yorkshire and parts of Cumbria. London was just below freezing.
The A171 between Whitby and Scarborough had to be closed temporarily on Tuesday night when snow fell on ice, making driving extremely hazardous. North Yorkshire police said all cars were released overnight using snowploughs. At least nine people have died during the freeze, including an elderly man found dead in snow at a Lincolnshire caravan park.
Insurers say there has been a huge jump in the number of household and motor claims across the UK because of the freezing weather. Axa said it had seen an 85% jump in single-vehicle claims as motorists slid off the road in icy conditions.
Sub-zero conditions are forecast to abate at the end of the week then return. Tomorrow will be much milder, with lows of 2C for most of England. All parts of the UK will stay above zero on Friday, and the south-west and parts of western Scotland will see temperatures peak at 9C.Lindsay Dovey, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "Nowhere will have freezing temperatures on Friday, and just a few places in Scotland will be below zero on Saturday.The wind is changing to a westerly direction, which will bring some much milder weather. But colder temperatures are returning from Sunday and into next week."
Transport secretary says sorry after chaos of Scotland's 'perfect storm'
M8 has reopened, and thaw forecasted across much of UK, but snow and freezing continue continue in north
Kirsty Scott and Helen Carter
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 December 2010 19.42 GMT
Scotland had faced a "perfect storm" of snow and freezing conditions, the country's transport minister said, as the main motorway, the M8, finally reopened after two days of gridlock across much of the central belt.
Despite forecasts of a thaw across much of the UK before the weekend, the big freeze is continuing to cause chaos – hundreds of motorists spent a second night in their cars on snowbound roads as temperatures north of the border again fell to -20C (4F). And more than 100 vehicles were trapped on an exposed route in North Yorkshire after a sudden heavy snow shower on Tuesday night.
In an emergency statement to the Scottish parliament, the transport secretary, Stewart Stevenson, said he was ultimately responsible for the chaotic situation, and apologised to commuters for the closures and delays on many of the country's key routes. Efforts will be made to ensure that authorities to react more quickly and more robustly to extreme conditions.
"On Monday morning we faced a perfect storm," he said Mr Stevenson. "A highly unusual weather system came in and this hit our transport system exceptionally hard."
Drivers across central Scotland had been forced to abandon their vehicles after the worst winter weather for decades. A 20-mile section of the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh reopened only this afternoon, and police were still urging motorists not to travel.
Councillors in Edinburgh have asked the army to clear thick ice and snow from side streets and pavements after days of sub-zero temperatures left many routes treacherous. The city has seen its heaviest snowfall in nearly 50 years over the past 11 days, up to 30in (76cm). Many streets and pavements were too heavily iced over to be cleared by snowploughs or grit. The council hopes soldiers at the city's Redford barracks will be deployed within the next few days.
The army, along with mountain rescue teams in central Scotland, has already sent out 4x4 vehicles to help ambulances and police to ferry the sick to hospital across the central belt.
More snow was expected across north-east Scotland, Northern Ireland, Yorkshire and Humberside, with icy roads expected around the country. Overnight temperatures were expected to drop to -20C in parts of Scotland, and to -15C in Yorkshire and parts of Cumbria. London was just below freezing.
The A171 between Whitby and Scarborough had to be closed temporarily on Tuesday night when snow fell on ice, making driving extremely hazardous. North Yorkshire police said all cars were released overnight using snowploughs. At least nine people have died during the freeze, including an elderly man found dead in snow at a Lincolnshire caravan park.
Insurers say there has been a huge jump in the number of household and motor claims across the UK because of the freezing weather. Axa said it had seen an 85% jump in single-vehicle claims as motorists slid off the road in icy conditions.
Sub-zero conditions are forecast to abate at the end of the week then return. Tomorrow will be much milder, with lows of 2C for most of England. All parts of the UK will stay above zero on Friday, and the south-west and parts of western Scotland will see temperatures peak at 9C.Lindsay Dovey, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "Nowhere will have freezing temperatures on Friday, and just a few places in Scotland will be below zero on Saturday.The wind is changing to a westerly direction, which will bring some much milder weather. But colder temperatures are returning from Sunday and into next week."
Monday 6 December 2010
Edinburgh Christmas Fair
Here are some photos from our short evening visit to the Edinburgh Christmas Fair. The first shot is the kids in the flying car ride. The second is the Ice Maze-- you can just see Taran in the maze at the far right. The third shot is Kenna on the reindeer ride. At the bottom is a link to the YouTube video of our ride on the rollercoaster :)
Roller coaster ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAwwHoanvd8
Roller coaster ride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAwwHoanvd8
Photos from Hanukkah
Here are some photos from celebrating Hanukkah with Sukkat Shalom on Saturday evening. It was a very nice, informal get-together. Rabbi Mark did Havdalah first, and then the 4th night of Hanukkah. There was some food, including latkes with sour cream, and even a game of dreidel and a game of "pass the parcel" for which Gillian Raab prepared a parcel that included multiple gifts under various parcel layers. We had fun, and the kids were demanding to come again next year.
Lynn's special powers...
This past year held one major disappointment for Lynn. For 20 years she's been involved with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hoofers Sailing Club. She was one of the founders of the short skirt party, and the socials coordinator when the club began doing Friday night socials. Lynn wasn't just the life of the Sailing Club party, she actually started the party.
And another of some members of the club arriving at the Cohen's house by windsurfboard. All this is, of course, totally normal. But the photos below are something else altogether.
Unbeknownst to myself or our hosts at the Gala, Lynn somehow found a way to attend both parties. I'm not aware of a twin sister (though it does run in her family), or magical powers specifically associated with this (although she is a good baker, and spellbindingly good with the kids), so I'm afraid I have no explanation for this, other than the power of Hoofers...
Here's Lynn with one of our great friends and long-time Hoofer, Barry Widera...
And here's Lynn with a selection of some of her close girlfriends from the Club...
It's just eerie, I tell you...
And, of course, the BIG party each year is Commodore's Cup, and the BIG party at Commodore's Cup, especially for someone like Lynn who likes dressing up and dancing, is the Commodore's Ball. But this summer we were invited by some very good friends to the Discovery World Gala in Milwaukee on the same night-- a fancy black tie event at Milwaukee's waterfront, complete with alcohol-infused limo ride to and from Madison, a gourmet dinner, drinks, a professional band, and the company of friends (Paul and Ellen, Neil and Jess, Dan and Tiffany) that we don't see nearly enough.
So, despite misgivings, Lynn told me she had decided NOT to go to Commodore's Ball. Little did I know...
Here's a shot from the Cohen's house of the preparty before the ball.
And another of some members of the club arriving at the Cohen's house by windsurfboard. All this is, of course, totally normal. But the photos below are something else altogether.
Unbeknownst to myself or our hosts at the Gala, Lynn somehow found a way to attend both parties. I'm not aware of a twin sister (though it does run in her family), or magical powers specifically associated with this (although she is a good baker, and spellbindingly good with the kids), so I'm afraid I have no explanation for this, other than the power of Hoofers...
Here's Lynn with one of our great friends and long-time Hoofer, Barry Widera...
And here's Lynn with a selection of some of her close girlfriends from the Club...
It's just eerie, I tell you...
The snowy castle
Two quick photos (from my own hand, for once) to give a sense of the wintry scene that is Edinburgh...
Sunday 5 December 2010
Priorities
Just pointing out that the Scotsman (Scotland's national newspaper, though circulation may be below 50,000), has a well-marked Whisky section but, as far as I can tell, no weather section.
Here's the Scotsman's "flavour map," which is actually surprisingly useful, I think.
The cold continues. We went to dinner at friends' house, and we towed the kids in a plastic sled most of the way. It was quite fun, really, despite how cold it was. Anyway-- just spent 45 minutes helping Lynn with the endless photo quest... time for bed.
Here's the Scotsman's "flavour map," which is actually surprisingly useful, I think.
The cold continues. We went to dinner at friends' house, and we towed the kids in a plastic sled most of the way. It was quite fun, really, despite how cold it was. Anyway-- just spent 45 minutes helping Lynn with the endless photo quest... time for bed.
Friday 3 December 2010
Taran's treasure hunt 7
My Body: From Head to Foot
Which organs remove waste from the body by producing urine (pee)?
People and Places: Asia
What are kibbutzim, and what country do you find them?
The Sea: World of Water
Why is water near South America less salty than the rest of the Atlantic Ocean?
Which organs remove waste from the body by producing urine (pee)?
People and Places: Asia
What are kibbutzim, and what country do you find them?
The Sea: World of Water
Why is water near South America less salty than the rest of the Atlantic Ocean?
more snow, more cold, and more
The Wisconsin imitation continues unabated! I'm pretty sure whatever weather service she was checking was wrong, but Lynn said the temperature was 9F this morning. My guess is that it was closer to 25F. Still cold-ish, anyway. The funny thing (not to Dunediners, of course) is that the temperature has been so constant, both during the day and at night, that the incredible amount of SLUSH sitting around has remained almost perfectly constant: where there was a half-foot of grey slush on the pavement Monday is exactly what there was today. Slippery, somewhat ugly, annoying, pants-cuff-wetting, and often deep-puddle-hiding.
To the right is a news photo of the Holyrood Monster.
It's been a long week, really. The kids had no school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and with only a half day today (Edinburgh state schools only do half-day on Fridays, for some reason, presumably to allow the general population to start drinking a bit earlier), she's pretty much had it with being a stay-at-home mom for the week. Not that she'll get much of a break for the weekend, but we'll figure it out.
Kenna did her first sleepover in Edinburgh (2nd in her life, I think) on Wednesday night. She stayed at Grace's house, and apparently had so much fun that she went right back there after school Thursday. Gracie is an only, so both she and her mom like having Kenna over. My understanding is that Gracie's had some health problems, and being in-and-out of hospital has limited her time making friends in school, so Kenna has been a very welcome presence for both Gracie and her mom.
Hannukah has had a bit of a slow start-- Taran's enjoyed the candle lighting but we've gone easy on the presents, mostly because the presents from Grandma Maris and Grandpa Harvey haven't arrive yet (again, weather issues-- normally stuff ordered from AmazonUK arrives in 2-3 days. The kids gave each other small presents last night, but tonight ran late.
Thursday was Lynn's birthday, and I'm afraid my intended plans for finding a present or even a card fell by the wayside because of scheduling, a manuscript resubmission, and the whole weather/school thing. I actually didn't leave the house between Sunday and Wednesday. I had a miserable day on Thursday, frankly, because I spent something like 6 hours accomplishing perhaps 30 minutes of actual work for the manuscript resubmission. I was not exactly in a good mood when Lynn and I went out for her birthday dinner, but we really hit bottom (no pun intended) when Lynn slipped and fell in the snow, bumping her head in the process. I was pretty sure we should've just gone home, but Lynn persevered and we had a nice dinner at Bon Vivant after all.
Tomorrow will be a bit busy-- tea with a colleague will require that Taran and I go pick up fruits at the store (and perhaps other necessities) in the morning. Then we'll try to go to the fair before the Hanukkah party with Sukkat Shalom. Sunday will be quieter. Happy Hanukkah!
To the right is a news photo of the Holyrood Monster.
It's been a long week, really. The kids had no school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and with only a half day today (Edinburgh state schools only do half-day on Fridays, for some reason, presumably to allow the general population to start drinking a bit earlier), she's pretty much had it with being a stay-at-home mom for the week. Not that she'll get much of a break for the weekend, but we'll figure it out.
Kenna did her first sleepover in Edinburgh (2nd in her life, I think) on Wednesday night. She stayed at Grace's house, and apparently had so much fun that she went right back there after school Thursday. Gracie is an only, so both she and her mom like having Kenna over. My understanding is that Gracie's had some health problems, and being in-and-out of hospital has limited her time making friends in school, so Kenna has been a very welcome presence for both Gracie and her mom.
Hannukah has had a bit of a slow start-- Taran's enjoyed the candle lighting but we've gone easy on the presents, mostly because the presents from Grandma Maris and Grandpa Harvey haven't arrive yet (again, weather issues-- normally stuff ordered from AmazonUK arrives in 2-3 days. The kids gave each other small presents last night, but tonight ran late.
Thursday was Lynn's birthday, and I'm afraid my intended plans for finding a present or even a card fell by the wayside because of scheduling, a manuscript resubmission, and the whole weather/school thing. I actually didn't leave the house between Sunday and Wednesday. I had a miserable day on Thursday, frankly, because I spent something like 6 hours accomplishing perhaps 30 minutes of actual work for the manuscript resubmission. I was not exactly in a good mood when Lynn and I went out for her birthday dinner, but we really hit bottom (no pun intended) when Lynn slipped and fell in the snow, bumping her head in the process. I was pretty sure we should've just gone home, but Lynn persevered and we had a nice dinner at Bon Vivant after all.
Tomorrow will be a bit busy-- tea with a colleague will require that Taran and I go pick up fruits at the store (and perhaps other necessities) in the morning. Then we'll try to go to the fair before the Hanukkah party with Sukkat Shalom. Sunday will be quieter. Happy Hanukkah!
Tuesday 30 November 2010
The BFG
Just wanted to add in a photo (professional) of one of the giants from the Paradok production of the BFG-- to give credit where credit is due, this is borrowed from David Monteith-Hodge's website which can be found at:
http://www.photographise.com/blog/?p=483
I think this one was the BoneCrusher, but I can't remember for certain.
Below is a picture of the BFG, who was a very tall human (about 2m I'd guess), but in an interesting interpretation spent nearly the entire production is a sort of crouch, which did add a sort of height effect courtesy of the other production tricks. The most prominent was Sophie being represented both by the actress as well as a Sophie doll that mirrored the events on stage.
Different planets, same species
Live from whatever planet Sarah Palin lives on:
“We're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do,” she said on the Fox News presenter’s nationally syndicated radio show.
“So this speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policies.
“But obviously we gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/sarah-palin/8159130/Sarah-Palin-in-North-Korea-gaffe.html
And, in the world of reality:
Severe weather update: some schools to reopen on Wednesday
Published Tuesday 30 November 2010
Some primary schools in Edinburgh are to re-open on Wednesday and 4th-6th year pupils at all secondary schools should attend (1st - 3rd year should stay at home).
With colder temperatures and more snow expected, the situation remains changeable so parents are urged to continue checking the Council's website and Radio Forth for updates.
Councillor Robert Aldridge, Environment Leader, said: "I want to thank everyone for their patience. With such a lot of snow falling in such a short space of time, it's inevitably going to take some time to clear residential streets and restore other services to normal. I also want to thank those people who have been good neighbours to vulnerable people and the Council staff who have been working flat out to keep the city moving."
“We're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do,” she said on the Fox News presenter’s nationally syndicated radio show.
“So this speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policies.
“But obviously we gotta stand with our North Korean allies.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/sarah-palin/8159130/Sarah-Palin-in-North-Korea-gaffe.html
And, in the world of reality:
Severe weather update: some schools to reopen on Wednesday
Published Tuesday 30 November 2010
Some primary schools in Edinburgh are to re-open on Wednesday and 4th-6th year pupils at all secondary schools should attend (1st - 3rd year should stay at home).
With colder temperatures and more snow expected, the situation remains changeable so parents are urged to continue checking the Council's website and Radio Forth for updates.
Councillor Robert Aldridge, Environment Leader, said: "I want to thank everyone for their patience. With such a lot of snow falling in such a short space of time, it's inevitably going to take some time to clear residential streets and restore other services to normal. I also want to thank those people who have been good neighbours to vulnerable people and the Council staff who have been working flat out to keep the city moving."
snow, blue skies, and a home day for me
Happy St. Andrew's Day! How funny to see the Tartan and Saltire on the Google main page!
When I got up this morning, the sky was grey. By 8am the snow was coming down in a thick curtain of huge white flakes. At 9am the skies are partly cloudy with sun poking through and the brightest blue I've ever seen beyond, but I've already cancelled my meetings because I don't want to deal with late/delayed/stranded buses.
The kids have no school again, and apparently Lynn and Kenna are going with Belinda and Isla to see their horses which are stabled just outside the city. Since I'll be home Taran can stay here and have a reading day, as I have no illusions that he wants to see a pony, much less a horse.
Snow isn't foreign to Scotland-- there are parts of the country that get it regularly and where it sticks for more than a few days-- as this photo of Balachulish shows. Haven't been there, but am definitely looking forward to seeing the North sometime in the not too distant future.
When I got up this morning, the sky was grey. By 8am the snow was coming down in a thick curtain of huge white flakes. At 9am the skies are partly cloudy with sun poking through and the brightest blue I've ever seen beyond, but I've already cancelled my meetings because I don't want to deal with late/delayed/stranded buses.
The kids have no school again, and apparently Lynn and Kenna are going with Belinda and Isla to see their horses which are stabled just outside the city. Since I'll be home Taran can stay here and have a reading day, as I have no illusions that he wants to see a pony, much less a horse.
Snow isn't foreign to Scotland-- there are parts of the country that get it regularly and where it sticks for more than a few days-- as this photo of Balachulish shows. Haven't been there, but am definitely looking forward to seeing the North sometime in the not too distant future.
Monday 29 November 2010
Schools closed
Well, we did get about 3-4" of snow, and the temperature is steady between 29-33F. School was closed today and will be closed again tomorrow. Most of the city's buses are running, though our recycling wasn't collected :)
Here are some photos-- clearly the best one is the guy in the kilt, clearing the sidewalk in front of a shop on Princes Street.
I spent the day at home working on my manuscript resubmission. Lynn hung out with the kids for the morning and they went to Belinda and Isla's house in the afternoon, trudging through the unshovelled snow.
Here are some photos-- clearly the best one is the guy in the kilt, clearing the sidewalk in front of a shop on Princes Street.
I spent the day at home working on my manuscript resubmission. Lynn hung out with the kids for the morning and they went to Belinda and Isla's house in the afternoon, trudging through the unshovelled snow.
Scotland thinks its Wisconsin
29 November 2010 06:07 GMT
Drivers stranded and schools closed as snow chaos grips Scotland
A9 reopens but severe snow is continuing to cause chaos across the country with schools closed and treacherous road conditions.
Drivers have been stranded, and schools and roads closed, as the severe winter weather that struck Scotland over the weekend continues to cause disruption.
Much of the country woke up to yet more snow this morning, with further flurries predicted throughout the day and a danger of black ice.
The Met Office issued severe weather warnings in Grampian, Strathclyde, Central, Tayside, Fife, Lothian and Borders and South West Scotland.
The A9 was closed between Perth and Stirling for Sunday evening and Monday morning, but reopened in both directions around 10am. The M90 was shut from Perth to Kinross, the A93 at Spittal of Glenshee was also closed again for a second day. Snow is still causing delays on the A80, M80 and M876.
Chief Inspector Donald McMillan, head of Roads Policing for Central Scotland, said: "The weather conditions overnight have led to significant problems on the roads network. We are still asking motorists to only undertake their journeys if absolutely necessary.
"If you are making a journey by car, please ensure you have the maximum visibility by clearing all snow from your windows. Some drivers are taking to the roads with windscreens obscured by snow."
Midlothian Council said that all its schools would be closed to pupils because of the weather, though staff had been asked to attend. All schools in Dundee were also shut, along with Perth and Kinross, , Fife, Angus and Edinburgh. Elsewhere there were major school disruption in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
ScotRail warned those travelling by train to expect disruption, particularly in the central belt where further heavy snowfalls were forecast.
Forecasters said that more snow is likely across most of the country with the cold snap expected to last until the weekend at least. Coldest overnight in the UK was Altnaharra in northern Scotland, which recorded a low of minus 16.1C (3F).
Victoria Kettley, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "There will not be as much snow as on Sunday but there will be 2-5cm widely and over uplands easily up to 10cm through the day and overnight.
"It will remain cold as there's still the easterly wind so it'll be a maximum of 2-4 degrees centigrade in coastal areas and inland it would be lucky to get above freezing."
Drivers stranded and schools closed as snow chaos grips Scotland
A9 reopens but severe snow is continuing to cause chaos across the country with schools closed and treacherous road conditions.
Drivers have been stranded, and schools and roads closed, as the severe winter weather that struck Scotland over the weekend continues to cause disruption.
Much of the country woke up to yet more snow this morning, with further flurries predicted throughout the day and a danger of black ice.
The Met Office issued severe weather warnings in Grampian, Strathclyde, Central, Tayside, Fife, Lothian and Borders and South West Scotland.
The A9 was closed between Perth and Stirling for Sunday evening and Monday morning, but reopened in both directions around 10am. The M90 was shut from Perth to Kinross, the A93 at Spittal of Glenshee was also closed again for a second day. Snow is still causing delays on the A80, M80 and M876.
Chief Inspector Donald McMillan, head of Roads Policing for Central Scotland, said: "The weather conditions overnight have led to significant problems on the roads network. We are still asking motorists to only undertake their journeys if absolutely necessary.
"If you are making a journey by car, please ensure you have the maximum visibility by clearing all snow from your windows. Some drivers are taking to the roads with windscreens obscured by snow."
Midlothian Council said that all its schools would be closed to pupils because of the weather, though staff had been asked to attend. All schools in Dundee were also shut, along with Perth and Kinross, , Fife, Angus and Edinburgh. Elsewhere there were major school disruption in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
ScotRail warned those travelling by train to expect disruption, particularly in the central belt where further heavy snowfalls were forecast.
Forecasters said that more snow is likely across most of the country with the cold snap expected to last until the weekend at least. Coldest overnight in the UK was Altnaharra in northern Scotland, which recorded a low of minus 16.1C (3F).
Victoria Kettley, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association, said: "There will not be as much snow as on Sunday but there will be 2-5cm widely and over uplands easily up to 10cm through the day and overnight.
"It will remain cold as there's still the easterly wind so it'll be a maximum of 2-4 degrees centigrade in coastal areas and inland it would be lucky to get above freezing."
Sunday 28 November 2010
Edinburgh weathers...
We begin to understand why weather is always the first topic of conversation, and why that conversation tends towards bemused frustration. The day began with a blizzard (for Edinburgh, anyway)-- about 3" of snow fell in a few hours while cold winds blew pushing the wind chill down to about -5C (frigid for Edinburgh). The wind died before noon, and around 1pm the sun emerged. Now, at 3.15pm, a thick fog has enveloped the city, while temperatures moderate significantly. The only constant about the weather is that it is totally impossible to predict for more than a few hours in advance, and not always that.
Images of Edinburgh
Here is, arguably, my new favorite image of Edinburgh. It is, apparently, William Crozier's painting, Edinburgh (from Salisbury Crags). This is exactly the idealistic image of Edinburgh I have in my mind-- the colors, the architecture, the landscape.
A day out
As we've noted previously, the Scots take their holidays seriously. Again, I rely on a photo from the internet (though we took a few as well) to best show the scene. This is a photo taken from Light On night, when the city turns on all the lights around the Mound and Princes Street, as well as the big Christmas tree on the Mound itself. Of course there are fireworks-- the Scots are quite big on fireworks. We missed the actual moment (though I was walking home about 15 minutes before the event), because of kids' activities in Stockbridge, but next year we'd plan to hang around and see the lights go on and perhaps even the fireworks.
This is Princes Street Gardens East-- a grassy rose-garden most of the year, cleared once in a while for special events (like the World Archery Championships in September), but now completely built up into a winter carnival. As Lynn pointed out, we do fairs like this America, we just don't do them in the middle of winter at night. The Ferris Wheel is lit up, there is a shiny golden carousel, various other rides (including a child's roller-coaster), a big ice-skating rink, and so on. We took the kids last night and they rode the teacups-- but it really was quite chilly (though many of the Scots demonstrated their fortitude by going without gloves and, in some cases, jackets).
It was actually a relatively big day yesterday, especially for Taran. He and I went to the Central Children's Library, which was quite warm and pleasant, though nothing like a library in the States-- it was smaller than the children's area at Sun Prairie Library, for example. Then we had lunch at Snax Cafe, Taran's favorite restaurant, just off campus. It's really a local student burger/breakfast place, with very cheap food.
But the big treat was going to see a local production of Dahl's The BFG. It was a wonderful play and Taran loved it. The bad giants were really well done, and they used a variety of neat, simple stage effects to deal with the challenges of staging a book that included a 20ft tall giant. I'll post some other photos and Taran's enthusiasm soon. We even got a picture of Taran with Sophie (who turned out to be from Oregon).
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Kenna's first blog
Nursery is so much fun. And when you were in Scotland when you were little I hope you came into nursery one time. When Daddy was gone, I missed him so much.
Monday 22 November 2010
More dark and stormy :)
Well, Edinburgh is working harder to live up to its reputation. The weekend was relatively cold, windy, and wet, and today followed suit. I actually spent the entire day indoors (Monday is my writing day, anyway), and Lynn only left to get the kids to and from school.
The kids have been crankier. Kenna has become very recalcitrant, fighting about very small things like getting dressed, while also pestering her brother for attention. I would say she needed more attention, but she gets attention constantly and seems to have lots of friends at school. Lynn and I think it may be an environmental issue: the combination of the darkness outside and the cold air inside-- I think it's triggering hibernation-type effects where the kids at least, and perhaps Lynn and myself as well, are being prompted by our bodies to get more sleep and eat more calories. We've begun putting Kenna to bed earlier, and she's regularly sleeping 12+ hours each night now.
Taran is trickier. By last week we'd reached the point where we decided there was something in the food causing trouble, and so on Weds last we put him back on a diet without processed foods (I suspect the Cheerios, Lynn suspects the fluoride tablets), and he seemed to be doing better... and then we took the kids swimming on Friday. We'd gotten passes from British Gas for open swim, and the closest location was a hotel downtown. The pool itself and the facility were nice enough, but we've always seemed to have trouble with Taran and hotel pools. Perhaps the high chlorine level? Regardless, Saturday night Taran was coughing at bedtime, and we commented that it seems like everytime we take Taran to a public pool (other than the PAC which used an ultraviolet system to keep the chlorine amount down) he has coughing fits and behavior problems. Sunday the coughing was worse, and we gave Taran hydroxyzine, our standby for coughing/allergy/itching/sleeping problems, and he slept through the night soundly, but was coughing much worse this morning, and his behavior today was awful. We thought we'd seen behavior problems with the hydroxyzine, but he was just a wreck today. I think there is a sleep issue for him as well, and so today we moved their bedtimes forward 30 minutes. Kenna was asleep before 6.45pm, and Taran is now in bed and will hopefully be asleep by 7.30.
We had a nice visit with Eyal and Ionathan on Saturday, and Eyal's father brought us a basic Hanukkiah and kosher candles all the way from Israel. Taran's eyes lit up when he saw it, and he and Kenna spent the afternoon trying to get Ionathan (who is 2) to play with them, but he was just too shy, and of course they are loud and a bit crazy. Sunday we visited with Ashley's family (Ashely is one of my colleagues), and their three kids were just fantastic keeping our kids busy all afternoon while we ate and chatted. It was great.
Lynn is fully into the apartment hunt now. We're experimenting with the underfloor heating in the bathrooms, and my guess is that we're closing in on running the heat constantly while we're home (just in 1-2 rooms at a time) to keep warm. My appreciation for modern insulation methods now knows no bounds-- we could heat our entire house in Wisconsin in -20C weather for the cost of heating 2 rooms in this flat at 2C weather. I'm not sure how much better the heating situation will be in another flat, but it surely can't be worse, and if we're paying £200-300 less per month, that more than makes up the heating bill.
I can't seem to find enough writing time these days, but I'm really enjoying the networking within the University structure. I am trying to follow my supervisor's advice about sticking to my primary responsibilities, and have set boundaries where possible, but will need to do even better, as I'm just involved in too many projects right now. Soon I need to ramp up my research again, and I'll be even more busy once teaching really starts next term. The upshot is that I'm enjoying the desk research and writing so much I wish I could spend most of my time on it-- a strange conclusion from a person who expected to want to focus on teaching...
Cheers from mostly dark and a bit stormy Edinburgh!
The kids have been crankier. Kenna has become very recalcitrant, fighting about very small things like getting dressed, while also pestering her brother for attention. I would say she needed more attention, but she gets attention constantly and seems to have lots of friends at school. Lynn and I think it may be an environmental issue: the combination of the darkness outside and the cold air inside-- I think it's triggering hibernation-type effects where the kids at least, and perhaps Lynn and myself as well, are being prompted by our bodies to get more sleep and eat more calories. We've begun putting Kenna to bed earlier, and she's regularly sleeping 12+ hours each night now.
Taran is trickier. By last week we'd reached the point where we decided there was something in the food causing trouble, and so on Weds last we put him back on a diet without processed foods (I suspect the Cheerios, Lynn suspects the fluoride tablets), and he seemed to be doing better... and then we took the kids swimming on Friday. We'd gotten passes from British Gas for open swim, and the closest location was a hotel downtown. The pool itself and the facility were nice enough, but we've always seemed to have trouble with Taran and hotel pools. Perhaps the high chlorine level? Regardless, Saturday night Taran was coughing at bedtime, and we commented that it seems like everytime we take Taran to a public pool (other than the PAC which used an ultraviolet system to keep the chlorine amount down) he has coughing fits and behavior problems. Sunday the coughing was worse, and we gave Taran hydroxyzine, our standby for coughing/allergy/itching/sleeping problems, and he slept through the night soundly, but was coughing much worse this morning, and his behavior today was awful. We thought we'd seen behavior problems with the hydroxyzine, but he was just a wreck today. I think there is a sleep issue for him as well, and so today we moved their bedtimes forward 30 minutes. Kenna was asleep before 6.45pm, and Taran is now in bed and will hopefully be asleep by 7.30.
We had a nice visit with Eyal and Ionathan on Saturday, and Eyal's father brought us a basic Hanukkiah and kosher candles all the way from Israel. Taran's eyes lit up when he saw it, and he and Kenna spent the afternoon trying to get Ionathan (who is 2) to play with them, but he was just too shy, and of course they are loud and a bit crazy. Sunday we visited with Ashley's family (Ashely is one of my colleagues), and their three kids were just fantastic keeping our kids busy all afternoon while we ate and chatted. It was great.
Lynn is fully into the apartment hunt now. We're experimenting with the underfloor heating in the bathrooms, and my guess is that we're closing in on running the heat constantly while we're home (just in 1-2 rooms at a time) to keep warm. My appreciation for modern insulation methods now knows no bounds-- we could heat our entire house in Wisconsin in -20C weather for the cost of heating 2 rooms in this flat at 2C weather. I'm not sure how much better the heating situation will be in another flat, but it surely can't be worse, and if we're paying £200-300 less per month, that more than makes up the heating bill.
I can't seem to find enough writing time these days, but I'm really enjoying the networking within the University structure. I am trying to follow my supervisor's advice about sticking to my primary responsibilities, and have set boundaries where possible, but will need to do even better, as I'm just involved in too many projects right now. Soon I need to ramp up my research again, and I'll be even more busy once teaching really starts next term. The upshot is that I'm enjoying the desk research and writing so much I wish I could spend most of my time on it-- a strange conclusion from a person who expected to want to focus on teaching...
Cheers from mostly dark and a bit stormy Edinburgh!
Taran's knowledge treasure hunt 6
Studying the Universe: The Universe
Why are observatories built on mountains away from cities where the air is clear?
When Dinosaurs Lived: After the dinosaurs
Name three things that ice age hunters made from animals to survive.
Our Planet Earth: Air and Water
What does the Beaufort ("Bo-fort") scale measure?
Why are observatories built on mountains away from cities where the air is clear?
When Dinosaurs Lived: After the dinosaurs
Name three things that ice age hunters made from animals to survive.
Our Planet Earth: Air and Water
What does the Beaufort ("Bo-fort") scale measure?
Sunday 21 November 2010
Taran's knowledge treasure hunt 5
Our Planet Earth: People and the Earth
What used to be on the land where people create farms?
In the Factory: Machines
What kind of vehicle takes milk from farms to the dairy?
The Solar System: The Universe
Usually Pluto is the farthest planet. How often is it closer to the sun than Neptune?
Pluto has one moon named Charon. Who is the moon named after?
What used to be on the land where people create farms?
In the Factory: Machines
What kind of vehicle takes milk from farms to the dairy?
The Solar System: The Universe
Usually Pluto is the farthest planet. How often is it closer to the sun than Neptune?
Pluto has one moon named Charon. Who is the moon named after?
Friday 19 November 2010
Taran's knowledge treasure hunt 4
When Dinosaurs lived: Evolution
How many years ago did the first fish move onto land?
People and Places: Europe
Fish are caught in floating nets. What are shellfish caught in?
Our Planet Earth: The Land
What is the difference between stalactites and stalagmites?
How many years ago did the first fish move onto land?
People and Places: Europe
Fish are caught in floating nets. What are shellfish caught in?
Our Planet Earth: The Land
What is the difference between stalactites and stalagmites?
swimming in edinburgh
Here's a nice shot of the castle at night, mostly just to show the incredible variety of colors that only seem possible here.
We had a very different sort of day today-- we used "free swim vouchers" courtesy of Scottish (British) Gas to get access to the swimming pool at the Edinburgh Carlton (Barcelo) Hotel. A small pool, but a spa (hot tub), sauna, and steam room, and lots and lots of warm air and hot water, which were luxuries in themselves. The kids wore themselves out, had huge dinners and went promptly to sleep. There is a closer, public swimming pool, Glenogle Swim Center, but we've not made it there yet for open swim, and it was nice to get a free one in.
Lynn's big (follow-up) ladies night is tomorrow: I'll be doing a self-skills audit and mentoring plan for myself. And hopefully some paper writing as well.
The kids are consistently tired, but generally well-settled. Taran has made friends at Stockbridge and has finally gotten past all the opposition, apparently, as he's now earning credits for his House (Henderson) and getting "golden time" on Fridays where he can trade Pokemon with friends during school hours. I must admit, however, that I'm hard-pressed to pry out of him any kind of academic work at school...
Thursday 18 November 2010
liking scotland
One has to admire people who assess the encroaching darkness, wind, rain (and sometimes snow) and say, "I've got a great idea, let's have a carnival. Outside!" Indeed, the Ferris Wheel has been set up and lit up, along with the carousel, nicely bracketing the spiky dark broodiness of the Scott Monument. The photo below is not mine (as usual), but it is representative of what Princes Street will clearly look like in another week or two. The well-lit castle-like building in the background is the beautiful and elegant Balmoral Hotel where I enjoyed afternoon tea two months back. Very posh and Scottish, at the same time. If you look carefully you can just barely make out the shape of the Scott Monument Tower looming over the Ferris wheel.
Clearly, the winter holidays are taken quite seriously here, and by that I mean people plan to have a seriously good time, no doubt aided by a few warming beverages.
Who rides a Ferris wheel at night when the temperature is 2C and the wind blows 25kph...
Wednesday 17 November 2010
weather, work, etc.
Just a quick note. Weather has been moderate-- upper 30s and 40s. The wind picked up today a bit. Over the next 10 days, the low temp is predicted at 36F and the high 45F. That includes days and nights.
Work's been really busy. Preparation finally underway for next term's classes-- I'll be co-teaching two. Research about to finally get re-started, and lots and lots of writing to do. Deadline for AoM submission is 11-Jan, and I'm hoping to have three full submissions.
Kids seem to be doing well, but Kenna's been very tired. I worry the cold in the flat is getting to them. Lynn went and looked at other flats in the catchment, but one was too small and the other wasn't advantageous enough to be willing to switch to, given that it's still quite expensive.
More soon :)
Work's been really busy. Preparation finally underway for next term's classes-- I'll be co-teaching two. Research about to finally get re-started, and lots and lots of writing to do. Deadline for AoM submission is 11-Jan, and I'm hoping to have three full submissions.
Kids seem to be doing well, but Kenna's been very tired. I worry the cold in the flat is getting to them. Lynn went and looked at other flats in the catchment, but one was too small and the other wasn't advantageous enough to be willing to switch to, given that it's still quite expensive.
More soon :)
Sunday 14 November 2010
Friends in Venice
A wonderful one-day visit to Venice wouldn't be complete without seeing the Piazza San Marco, a ride on a vaporetto, a lengthy winding walk around the entire city (nearly), the Bridge of Sighs (now terribly marred by advertising), pizza, and an incredible seafood lunch at a true local restaurant on Murano. As it was, the trip also included a wonderful hotel, a visit to the University, and time to wander the canals.
But the best part of the trip was, of course, the company.
Kenna the creeper climber
From our trip to London, a photo of Kenna in the mouse-house ball in the Kew Gardens Creepers and Climbers indoor play area. Kenna sat in this spot for more than 15 minutes. Perhaps it was just very warm up there.
Thursday 11 November 2010
appreciating edinburgh weather
Today was classic Edinburgh. Cold, blustery and rainy all morning. I worried that Lynn and the kids got doused on the way to school, since I saw Lynn didn't take an umbrella. By early afternoon, the sun came out and my office got uncomfortably warm. By nightfall, the wind had picked up, the rain returned, and I got partly drenched on the way home, because the wind rendered my umbrella nearly useless. I fully appreciated the Edinburgh mindset of: "I'll just get there and dry off." The wind is still blowing hard, and the rain is so odd it is funny. Nothing for a while, then a rapid patter on the windows and skylights, lasting as long as 5 minutes but often as short at 5 seconds. It is not unusual to walk through town and find a 50ft length of wet pavement surrounded by dryness. That's where it rained.
I leave for Venice tomorrow morning. The more I do this the more I realize I'm just not a good international traveller. It's rather embarrassing, really-- but it makes me anxious. I don't like changing money, or trying to figure out transportation. Sometimes I worry I should really just stick to the US, Canada, and the UK (I wouldn't have previously put the UK in there, but I can hardly claim to be anxious about traveling around here now).
The UK Border Agency gave us most of our VAT tax back. Rather, they sent us a letter saying they would, which is probably pretty much a guarantee. Everything takes longer here-- and just when you think nothing is going to happen, it finally gets sorted.
Lynn's social calendar is amazing. There's stuff for her and the kids to do constantly. I'm exhausted just looking at it all. I'm also exhausted working on this manuscript resubmission. As usual, I underestimated the work required to just get it done. I'll be spending all of my 5 hours in Schipol tomorrow on that.
Cheers from dark and stormy Dunedin!
From Wikipedia:
"Edinburgh has also been known as Dunedin, deriving from the Scottish Gaelic, Dùn Èideann. Dunedin, New Zealand, was originally called "New Edinburgh" and is still nicknamed the "Edinburgh of the South". The Scots poets Robert Burns and Robert Fergusson sometimes used the city's Latin name, Edina. Ben Jonson described it as Britain's other eye,[32] and Sir Walter Scott referred to the city as yon Empress of the North.[33]"
Here's my personal favorite:
"Robert Louis Stevenson, also a son of the city, wrote, 'Edinburgh is what Paris ought to be'."
Tuesday 9 November 2010
cold inside
Cheers from chilly Edinburgh. As Lynn pointed out today, it's not really that cold (even considering the dampness)-- if you bundle up, you can be quite comfortable walking around. After all, it's about 2-5C (34-42F), and even with the windchill it's nothing like a Wisconsin winter. And it really won't get much colder than this.
That's not the problem.
The problem is that it's cold INSIDE. We can't keep the flat warm. My guess is that it's about 60F in most of the flat, and more like 50F (or colder) in the North facing rooms on the 2nd floor. The wind comes off the Firth, up the hill and THROUGH the single-pane, paint-insulation-only windows directly into the rest of the flat. The estimate from British Gas to heat the flat for a year was £3600 (yes, that's around $5000). Clearly, we aren't spending that much, mostly because we're just living with the cold for now. The kids don't seem particularly bothered (Taran tends to run around barefoot), but Lynn and I can really feel it. There's just not much we can do-- 14' ceilings are quite grand, but the windows wouldn't pass inspection in any Midwestern city.
In any case-- a busy few days, and then Friday I leave for 1 day in Venice to work with my co-authors on a paper. Back Saturday night (late). All else seems good, but very very busy.
Stanford is 6th in the BCS, Wisconsin 7th. Who'd have thunk it?
Check out the text from a climate website-- note that the "rainiest months" in the description don't actually match the data...
"Edinburgh has very unpredictable weather, sunny summer days sometimes rapidly changing into damp, showery conditions or vice versa. Summers are generally fine though, with mild temperatures and bright sunshine, although days might start out misty. Winters are long and damp with many frosty days. December, January and February are the rainiest months, but snow in winter is infrequent. The best time to travel to Edinburgh is during spring when parks are a riot of colour and the weather pleasant."
Sunday 7 November 2010
uk services, ha ha!
Well, suddenly the American capitalist-driven system seems elegant, sophisticated and efficient once again...
Oh, I still appreciate an economy that provide universal health care, and I'm the last person (perhaps literally) to complain about the Tube services, and I love the country-wide train services (London to Edinburgh every 30-60 minutes!), but once in a while...
We returned from a fun weekend in London with the Vellas (more about that in tomorrow's posting) with the expectation of problems with phone, internet, etc. Lynn had commented that the internet wasn't working when she left on Friday, and her phone stopped working around the same time. In the meantime, we'd gotten strange emails from Paypal about troubles with our bank accounts, and my NatWest card gets rejected about 50% of the time.
Here appears to be the strange confluence of problems:
1) My NatWest card expires this month. According to NatWest, it expires at the END of the month, and is valid through the month. They claim a new card will be sent "2 weeks" prior to that. In the meantime, my card is getting rejected roughly 50% of the time. At the hotel on Friday, some restaurants (but not others), and so on. I can get money out, and when I went to the branch at Imperial on Thursday I was assured the account was active and the card working. It is what it is-- in other words, it's only working part of the time. Prediction: no new card arrives, the account becomes inactive at the end of the month. Near-term fix: move all the funds out of the account to our Bank of Scotland accounts, although...
2) Bank of Scotland, which has generally batted above .400 (which is VERY good for a UK bank) with us, transferred the direct debits from Natwest to them. After all, we were dropping NatWest anyway, since they are almost totally unhelpful and, in effect, leaving Scotland (something their London compadres are in fact, unaware of). The process appears to have batted about .400, which I suppose makes sense. The biggest problem appears to have been with 3 (our mobile provider). Lynn lost mobile service on Saturday, with a text message that direct debit hadn't gone through and therefore our payment was late. We've restored it today by paying the bill by phone (rather than online, see #3 below), but the explanation from the 3 customer representative was that they received the information to debit the new bank account but when they tried to do so it was rejected by the bank because (and I quote) "the bank had received no instructions." So, apparently, when BoS offered to transfer our direct debits and, by extension, pay our bills out of that account, they didn't actually mean they would, in fact, PAY OUR BILLS. What sort of instructions did they need? Something like "Since you said you'd pay the bill, PAY THE F'ing BILL!" ? Who knows which of the other direct debits have been similarly f-ed up? I guess we'll just wait and see which services stop working.... which brings us to #3...
3) Our internet is down. So our first theory was that VirginMedia ran into the same problem as 3, so (once we'd re-established phone service) we contacted them. But it turned out that there is some sort of network fault covering our entire neighborhood, reported initially on 3-Nov, and they hope to have service re-established on 10-Nov (yes, that's Wednesday). In the meantime, we're stealing bandwidth from some kind soul in the neighborhood running a non-password encrypted wi-fi network, and aside from that Lynn's iPhone runs faster on 3G than this does. We can't, in a bit of irony, perhaps, actually LOAD OUR VIRGINMEDIA account on this borrowed bandwidth, because it's too f'ing bandwidth intensive (attempting to get us interested in current culture, I suppose).
Oh for the simplicity of American industries driven by the flawed but pure intent to make as much money as possible! My comment to Lynn was that while such mechanisms might not be appropriate for health care, they damn well appear to make sense for financial systems and telecommunications. They may be evil, but they get the job done.
Cheers from chilly and dark Edinburgh!
Oh, I still appreciate an economy that provide universal health care, and I'm the last person (perhaps literally) to complain about the Tube services, and I love the country-wide train services (London to Edinburgh every 30-60 minutes!), but once in a while...
We returned from a fun weekend in London with the Vellas (more about that in tomorrow's posting) with the expectation of problems with phone, internet, etc. Lynn had commented that the internet wasn't working when she left on Friday, and her phone stopped working around the same time. In the meantime, we'd gotten strange emails from Paypal about troubles with our bank accounts, and my NatWest card gets rejected about 50% of the time.
Here appears to be the strange confluence of problems:
1) My NatWest card expires this month. According to NatWest, it expires at the END of the month, and is valid through the month. They claim a new card will be sent "2 weeks" prior to that. In the meantime, my card is getting rejected roughly 50% of the time. At the hotel on Friday, some restaurants (but not others), and so on. I can get money out, and when I went to the branch at Imperial on Thursday I was assured the account was active and the card working. It is what it is-- in other words, it's only working part of the time. Prediction: no new card arrives, the account becomes inactive at the end of the month. Near-term fix: move all the funds out of the account to our Bank of Scotland accounts, although...
2) Bank of Scotland, which has generally batted above .400 (which is VERY good for a UK bank) with us, transferred the direct debits from Natwest to them. After all, we were dropping NatWest anyway, since they are almost totally unhelpful and, in effect, leaving Scotland (something their London compadres are in fact, unaware of). The process appears to have batted about .400, which I suppose makes sense. The biggest problem appears to have been with 3 (our mobile provider). Lynn lost mobile service on Saturday, with a text message that direct debit hadn't gone through and therefore our payment was late. We've restored it today by paying the bill by phone (rather than online, see #3 below), but the explanation from the 3 customer representative was that they received the information to debit the new bank account but when they tried to do so it was rejected by the bank because (and I quote) "the bank had received no instructions." So, apparently, when BoS offered to transfer our direct debits and, by extension, pay our bills out of that account, they didn't actually mean they would, in fact, PAY OUR BILLS. What sort of instructions did they need? Something like "Since you said you'd pay the bill, PAY THE F'ing BILL!" ? Who knows which of the other direct debits have been similarly f-ed up? I guess we'll just wait and see which services stop working.... which brings us to #3...
3) Our internet is down. So our first theory was that VirginMedia ran into the same problem as 3, so (once we'd re-established phone service) we contacted them. But it turned out that there is some sort of network fault covering our entire neighborhood, reported initially on 3-Nov, and they hope to have service re-established on 10-Nov (yes, that's Wednesday). In the meantime, we're stealing bandwidth from some kind soul in the neighborhood running a non-password encrypted wi-fi network, and aside from that Lynn's iPhone runs faster on 3G than this does. We can't, in a bit of irony, perhaps, actually LOAD OUR VIRGINMEDIA account on this borrowed bandwidth, because it's too f'ing bandwidth intensive (attempting to get us interested in current culture, I suppose).
Oh for the simplicity of American industries driven by the flawed but pure intent to make as much money as possible! My comment to Lynn was that while such mechanisms might not be appropriate for health care, they damn well appear to make sense for financial systems and telecommunications. They may be evil, but they get the job done.
Cheers from chilly and dark Edinburgh!
Thursday 4 November 2010
Cheers from London
A few days in London on my own, doing academic sorts of things. Meetings with research colleagues about research and publications. Providing a lecture to entrepreneurs about business planning. Mentoring early stage ventures on pitching for funds. Lots of walking, as usual.
I've got a photo of my tiny hotel room, but this laptop doesn't have bluetooth so uploading will have to wait until early next week.
Tomorrow Lynn and the kids train down and we're spending the weekend with American friends living here full time. Science museum tomorrow afternoon, Kew gardens on Saturday, and hopefully Hyde park on Sunday before catching the train to return. Too many logistics (especially with Tube engineering work disrupting easy transit on Sunday), but presumably it will be rewarding for them to see parts of the big city.
There was a tube strike on Weds when I arrived, but other than an overcrowded ride from KingsX to Victoria I wasn't significantly inconvenienced.
It was strange to feel how much lighter and warmer London is than Edinburgh-- I could more appreciate the sense of Scotland being a land of eternal winter to the Southerners...
I've got a photo of my tiny hotel room, but this laptop doesn't have bluetooth so uploading will have to wait until early next week.
Tomorrow Lynn and the kids train down and we're spending the weekend with American friends living here full time. Science museum tomorrow afternoon, Kew gardens on Saturday, and hopefully Hyde park on Sunday before catching the train to return. Too many logistics (especially with Tube engineering work disrupting easy transit on Sunday), but presumably it will be rewarding for them to see parts of the big city.
There was a tube strike on Weds when I arrived, but other than an overcrowded ride from KingsX to Victoria I wasn't significantly inconvenienced.
It was strange to feel how much lighter and warmer London is than Edinburgh-- I could more appreciate the sense of Scotland being a land of eternal winter to the Southerners...
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Recovered, I think
Well, it's been a long 2 weeks since the viva-- most of it spent mostly sick, dealing with sick kids. We all seemed to have some kind of sinusitis, but antibiotics save the day once again.
Lynn's been in Gairloch for 2 days visiting a long-lost Hoofer, and I've given the ol' college try to taking care of the kids for a couple days, with mixed results, I think. They were miserable yesterday, better today, but I'm sure will be quite pleased to have their mom back.
I go to London tomorrow for some venture mentoring. Lynn and the kids will follow on Friday and we'll spend the weekend with the Vellas, hopefully seeing Kew Gardens and some of the sights in South Kensington. It is their first ever visit to London :)
Lynn's been in Gairloch for 2 days visiting a long-lost Hoofer, and I've given the ol' college try to taking care of the kids for a couple days, with mixed results, I think. They were miserable yesterday, better today, but I'm sure will be quite pleased to have their mom back.
I go to London tomorrow for some venture mentoring. Lynn and the kids will follow on Friday and we'll spend the weekend with the Vellas, hopefully seeing Kew Gardens and some of the sights in South Kensington. It is their first ever visit to London :)
Thursday 28 October 2010
darkness and traveling
I had expected to post a photo or two from the Halloween party at Stockbridge school, but I can't find the SDHC card USB adapter at the moment. Taran was dressed as Optimus Prime, which is a good costume for him, with the drawback that you can't see his face-- a bit of an off-putting sort of thing at a party mostly in the dark. Kenna was dressed as a fairy, and a good one, but was devastated when she didn't win a costume prize.
"The problem is, Daddy," (sob) "that I didn't win a prize."
"That happens, Kenna."
"But I'm really, really sad."
Instead I'm just going to chat for a moment about time challenges. I have a paper resubmission due in a week and a half, and while I will be (and often am) the first to admit that the paper needed an extraordinary amount of work to be publishable, I now think it is publishable, and the only reason it wouldn't publish (aside from the always possible noise associated with editor preferences or politics or whatever) is simply because I won't get enough of it rewritten in time to get to my co-authors for review and then final proofing. In other words, though it has warts, like most management research, it's actually good enough research (data, theory, analysis) to publish, but may not do so simply because I don't have time.
Part of that is my own fault-- I've not been efficient in my time management leading up to the viva voce last week, and then, as predicted, I immediately fell ill and haven't recovered yet. Yes, it's over a week later, and I'm still, by most standards, simply sick. I can't work as effectively or as long, and walking to the Business School is exhausting. Lynn's taking a couple day holiday starting on Sunday, which is well-deserved, and the bottom line is that I'm out of time.
Well, enough whining-- after all, self-pity hour doesn't start until 2am (that's for you, Stu).
Time for sleep, and tomorrow is another day.
"The problem is, Daddy," (sob) "that I didn't win a prize."
"That happens, Kenna."
"But I'm really, really sad."
Instead I'm just going to chat for a moment about time challenges. I have a paper resubmission due in a week and a half, and while I will be (and often am) the first to admit that the paper needed an extraordinary amount of work to be publishable, I now think it is publishable, and the only reason it wouldn't publish (aside from the always possible noise associated with editor preferences or politics or whatever) is simply because I won't get enough of it rewritten in time to get to my co-authors for review and then final proofing. In other words, though it has warts, like most management research, it's actually good enough research (data, theory, analysis) to publish, but may not do so simply because I don't have time.
Part of that is my own fault-- I've not been efficient in my time management leading up to the viva voce last week, and then, as predicted, I immediately fell ill and haven't recovered yet. Yes, it's over a week later, and I'm still, by most standards, simply sick. I can't work as effectively or as long, and walking to the Business School is exhausting. Lynn's taking a couple day holiday starting on Sunday, which is well-deserved, and the bottom line is that I'm out of time.
Well, enough whining-- after all, self-pity hour doesn't start until 2am (that's for you, Stu).
Time for sleep, and tomorrow is another day.
Becoming Scottish
Lynn here...I just needed to add a comment to this page about becoming Scottish. This past week I was introduced to the joys of scones with clotted cream and jam. I have now eaten a scone with clotted cream and jam each day this week since my introduction on Monday. I drank tea with this. I am now becoming Scottish. ;p Hopefully this will not include having a heart attack at 55 because of all the fatty, butter filled scones with clotted cream I am eating.
Wednesday 27 October 2010
what passes for journalism...
Sometimes, what passes for journalism here is fascinating... There are so many problems with this particular bit of reporting that one hardly knows where to start. It is a wonderful case of narrative coherence in action:
The "facts:"
- a man taken to hospital with "damage" to his nose and fingertips
- he had been found lying unconscious in a cemetary
- a local councillor (not an doctor or zoologist) comments that the only kind of animal that could do that kind of damage (it is not clear he SAW the injuries) would be a fox
- a fox attacked two sleeping children earlier this year in London, 400 miles away
The narrative conclusion:
- The man was attacked by a fox
The only apparently remaining mystery: how he ended up unconscious?
When I say this story is "fantastic," I mean it in the most truly Roald Dahl sense possible.
---
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Fox-bites-off-man39s-nose.6600939.jp
Fox bites off man's nose and fingers in cemetery
Published Date:
27 October 2010
27 October 2010
A MAN who blacked out in a village cemetery had his nose and fingers bitten off in a suspected fox attack.
The 37-year-old is recovering from his injuries at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after the incident in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The wounded man was discovered by police at St Michael's Parish Church Cemetery, Inveresk.
A source said: "He was attacked by a fox in a cemetery near Musselburgh as he was lying unconscious. His nose was chewed and two-and-a-half fingers were bitten off. He was taken away to hospital unconscious but breathing."
It is not clear how the man, who has not been named, came to be unconscious in the cemetery.
A police spokesman said: "Lothian and Borders Police can confirm it is carrying out inquiries after a 37-year-old man was found in the Inveresk area in the early hours of Sunday, October 24, with injuries to his face and hand.
"These injuries may have been caused by animals. He is being treated for his non-life-threatening injuries at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary."
A spokesman for the ambulance service confirmed an unconscious man with facial injuries was taken to hospital from the Inveresk cemetery.
Village resident Jack Fraser said the grisly incident had shocked the community.
"People are certainly talking about it - that he had been found in the cemetery and looked like he had been punched in the face a few times. I also heard there were a few tops of his fingers missing.
"No-one I've spoken to has any idea what happened to him but when people start talking they often get the wrong idea. I just hope he recovers all right."
John Caldwell, councillor for Musselburgh and Carberry said: "I stay not far from that area and the only animals around capable of doing such a thing are the foxes."
One nearby resident, who asked not to be named, said she saw police at the scene late on Saturday night. She said: "I was walking my dog at about midnight and saw two police cars and thought they must be looking for someone."
East Lothian Council, whose landscape and countryside division tends to the cemetery, said none of its staff had knowledge of the incident and Reverend Andrew Dick, minister at the kirk where the man was found, said he had nothing to add to the facts already known.
Earlier this year a fox attacked twin baby girls while they slept in their cot at home in London. At the time, John Bryant, a pest control consultant who specialises in foxes, said such attacks were not typical fox behaviour.
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