To the Left, To the Left

I have to report the exciting news that I have successfully driven in England! Twice!

After I figured out that I needed to push the stick-shift away from me to move into 2nd gear -- thus not continuing to move from 1st directly to 4th and stalling -- it went fairly well. We were on some slow, fairly crowded roads, which I thought would have been scary but in fact made things easier. I just had to focus on the car in front of me and hope that he also wasn't driving on the left for the first time. That, and focus on not sideswiping cars parked to my left. Objects on the left are closer than they may seem, what with all the extra width of the car in that direction!

It was also helpful to have a local "navigator" so I didn't have to figure out where I needed to go at the same time as concentrating hard on staying in my lane. However, I think the wet-behind-the-ears salesman at the VW dealership did a poor job at hiding his slight nervousness at the realization that he was a passenger to a wet-behind-the-ears left-side driver. But, he was a good sport and we all made it back in one piece.

No car yet, though we know it will be a late model Golf of some type (casting the net narrow to make life a little easier). More to report when we start studying for our written and road tests!

Christmas Eve '08 with the LeMays

Hello LeMays (and fans of LeMays*)!

Please take a look at the pictures of our family gathering on Christmas Eve.

By my recollection, top 5 moments were:

- Danielle + Jason modeling the hoochie Celtics uniform
- Grammie shouting "Oooh! I got a vibrator!"
- Enjoying Garrett's bacon wrapped asparagus + gorgonzola
- AJ's pride in his delivery of presents
- The general warm, fuzzy feeling I get at family gatherings (or was that the vodka Danielle kept putting in my eggnog?)

Enjoy the pictures!

(Here's proof that I'm not the only one with a warm, fuzzy feeling):

*Fans of Jason please be sure to see this picture. I think it captures his holiday merriment perfectly.

Unilever Gone Wild

So, waaaaaay back on Dec 18, the night before we left to go back to the States, Unilever Leatherhead had its Christmas, no, sorry, Xmas, Party. It's best told pictorially, but a few of the key points I'd like to note are:

• In the UK, "Xmas" is not taboo. They haven't caught up to us in they ways of political correctness (which in this case (and many others) is misplaced oversensitivity). Additionally, they are okay with saying Xmas OR Christmas, and make fun of our "holidays".
• Our Xmas party was a "fancy dress party". So what, you say? Well, in the UK, "fancy dress party" = "costume party".Taking a bit of the costume party stress away, there was a theme. The theme was "Posh & Becks' Xmas Party". Also taking away some of the stress was the convention of teams dressing up together.
• This wasn't your average sit-down dinner. We had a trio of sopranos to entertain before + during the meal, a Robbie Williams cover band, and finally a DJ as musical entertainment. There were Bumper Cars (oh, sorry, "Dodge-ems"), which are lots of fun after a few drinks. There was a virtual reality soccer goal, casino games, and, of course, an endless flow of alcohol. It was over the top.
• Finally, there was a "Price is Right" game where you had to guess the value of a whole table of luxury items ("posh" purses, shoes, champagne, etc.). I WON! The real value was £3,380, and for my guess of £3,367 I have won a £250 gift card to a place of my choosing.

As I said, best to check out the pictures, which I have pared down from about 330! I'll leave with a great picture of "Team Becel" in our Fancy Dress:

Jet Lag

Slept 8 of the 10 hours from LAX-LHR. Paid the price last night sleeping about 3.5 of the 8 hours I was in bed. Lying awake I tried counting and then contemplated sheep:

- Why do we count sheep jumping over fences? This makes zero sense. Sheep don't jump. (Jason & I discussed this one around 3am.)

- If sheep could jump, they couldn't be fenced in!

- An electric fence for sheep is really funny to think about.

- The Serta sheep advertising campaign is really brilliant in its clever yet obvious use of sheep.

I also had some thoughts on how bizarre it is that Whitney Houston turned into a crack addict, but that is another stream of thought entirely.

Wish us luck for a better night's sleep tonight!