(Damnit, lost draft #1 of this)

So this morning I went to the bi-weekly Legislative breakfast at the Capital Area Michigan Works! in Lansing.  This is an event where “businesses, educators, economic developers and community leaders” discuss various topics.  This weeks topic was “Attracting and Retaining Talent.”  From what I understood, there was supposed to be discussion about how the Lansing area can better keep graduates around and draw in talent from elsewhere.

It turned out much much worse than that.  The first thirty minutes consisted of the 5-6 legislators introducing themselves and usually going on about something or other they’re working on that doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic at hand (some lady started talking about water conservation, wtf!?).  Being that they were all basically politicing and trying to show off how they aren’t useless, a good HALF of the whole meeting was wasted with no real value.  The remaining half hour was taking up by three (3!) questions, one of which was asked with 5 min remaining.  One question about promoting local internships, one asking for businesses to come to MSU and help them develop more connections to place people, and the 3rd about developing biotech and green indutries.  These mediocre questions were met with more posturing about what the legislators were working on currently.  Oh boy!

From the introductions and responses to questions, I gathered that most of the legislators thought that the answer lies in education.  If we can only improve our education system we’ll have more talent to attract more businesses.  WRONG.  That just means we’re generating more talent to ship elsewhere in the country.  I went to school with quite a lot of talented kids, most of which headed out of state because there really aren’t any tech jobs here.

Two of the legislators seemed to be especially off target on the education thing.  They were working to make it so that Algebra II was no longer a requirement to graduate high school.  Yes, Algebra II.  Stuff like:

Solve 3x2 + x - 2 = 0 for x.

Not even integrals and derivatives.  Stuff that is at least a bit practical and provides more of a base for skills in the future.

In lieu of Algebra II, they wanted other paths that would appeal to other types of students, ie trade skill training.  Way to think outside the box guys and try to progress Michigan’s economy past the manufacturing infrastructure that is collapsing.  Trade skills are something that most people can learn in their free time as a hobby.  They don’t grant a person skills that might actually be applicable to other areas as well.  Shift towards teaching trade skills will only doom Michigan to remain in the manufacturing rut that has led to to trailing the economic pack of all the other states.

On top of all that, breakfast was only bagels and fruit.  Not even real food.  At least now I get to leave work a bit early though.

Day 5

1:50 pm GMT

Today when I met courtney I found out that her wallet had disappeared at some point between yesterday afternoon and today.  She doesn’t recall using it since 2 and her bag has been pretty secure the whole time.  Luckily she had mostly traveller’s checks, so it’s not a complete disaster.

After dealing with contacting amex about replacement checks, we headed over to the London Aquarium.  It was nice, though much smaller than expected.  The exhibits they had were pretty cool though. They had two gigantic tanks representing life in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Those were pretty badass.  Easily over a million gallons, though I’m terrible at estimating volume

Currently we are finishing up lunch at a place called Pizza Express by the waterloo bridge.  Its a nice place with really good pizza and they seem to havea  large selection of wine.  I think i’ve seen these elsewhere, so it looks like a decent chain restaurant.  After this we’re off to the imperial war museum.  I’ve heard good things.

5:15pm GMT

The sky looks like rain, but I don’t think it’s going to.  This is the first sign of weather we’ve had so far during the trip.  I just felt a single drop of rain and I think that’s basically all we’ll get out of these menacing clouds;  A drop here and there just to keep up wondering.

The Imperial War Museum was pretty awesome.  It mostly consisted of WWI and II exhibits and a large exhibit about D-Day.  (There was also a holocaust exhibit, but we skipped it)  There were tons of old uniforms from both sides of the war, as well as equipment and weapons.  It was all set up in time periods, so it was neat to progress through the years as things developed and see what changed.  There were also two large cannons from a battleship mounted in the front lawn.  neat.

Not sure what the plan is now, probably dinner soon, then some sort of beer.  Maybe more wandering around London tnight in a different area of town than last night.  Being that neither of us knows the city, planning is hard.

6:35 pm GMT

Another meal of store-bought sandwiches.  These seem to actually be the best option after a day of walking all over the city.  Filling, cheap, and easy on the stomach.  A nap would be nice before hitting the town and drinking.

I think the feelings of homesickness have really been feelings of being lost and alone without control.  The things that have happened so far to make the trip less awesome (stolen ipod/wallet etc.) have been glaring examples of how not in control we are here.  Back home I basically have everything in my life under control.  My car lets me go where-ever, I know where things are.  Here though, I have control over what i’m carrying and that is it. This has had a bit of negative impact on attempting a little social sky-diving here.  I’ve tended much more to remain introverted because my brain has been a bit frazzled.

9:00pm GMT

Drinking at Vic Naylor’s now, the pub that played a large roll in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  For the future, I need to do more research about cult stuff like that that might have happened where ever I’m going.  A movie tour would be awesome with friends.

Day 4

Started off the day with toast/peanut butter from a cafe along the street.  Found a random park to sit and eat it in along the way to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal Society of Surgeons.  The museum is dedicated to showing the anatomical collection of John Hunter.  There was a hell of a lot of weird specimens in there at at times it seemed like i was in  a Ripley’s Believe it or not museum.  A neat part about it for the computer scientist in me was that they had the left half of Charles Babbage’s brain there.

After that, we headed over to trefalgar square.  Once there we noticed it’s right in front of the national gallery, so we stopped in to see it first.  Wasn’t incredibly exciting, but it was pretty neat to see all the paintings from those big name artists.

Once we got bored of the gallery, we headed out to the square to sit by the fountains and just chill out.  (There was a lot of sitting and chillin in parks etc. on this trip.  tons of places to do it in London also, all really nice)  The sun has been playing hide & seek while out here, so it hasn’t been a consistent temperature, which is getting annoying.

Something just happened to me which hasn’t happened in a long time (probably because im no longer walking amongst hundreds of students back and forth to class anymore).  A guy came up and asked if I would go to heaven if i died. I said ‘no,’ he asked if i’d like to.  Another ‘no.’  Then he just moved on to the next group and started his schpiel over again. Too bad, I would have liked a good discussion.

(Not included in my journal:  After Trefalgar square, we headed over to see Buckingham Palace.  We couldn’t find any guards with funny hats to dance in front of though.  Oh well.  Probably just too late in the day.

After that we went out to try to find dinner, and I started seeing a pattern with all the Pubs in the city starting at around 4:30.  They would fill up and start overflowing into the streets.  People in this town really take drinking seriously and start it as soon as possible after work.  Probably because all the pubs close at 11 and the liquor stores stop selling alcohol then too.

That night for entertainment, we decided to take advantage of the lax drinking laws and grab a couple 22’s and wander the streets of London.  We ended up in a park right near Tower Bridge (pictured above).  There were quite a lot of other groups of people there doing the same.  It was one of the highlights of the trip.)

I’ve neglected my blog the past week.  I’ve fallen into this funk of just wanting to sit around and play video games and not do anything productive.  Laundry is piling up.  Thoughts are going unblogged. Kitchen is running out of food.    Over the next couple of days I will try to get out of this rut and hopefully will start posting with more frequency.   This post is just to get the ball rolling again.  It seems like I let settling back in after my trip to Europe go a bit too far.

Day 3

5:30 pm GMT

Felt like shit this morning. Got out of bed around 5 am to get some water and check the time on my ipod. Apparently I must have not concealed my bag enough, cause a few hours later I woke back up and it was stolen. Son of a bitch. ( I’m pretty sure it was stolen by this french douchebag that was loud and drunk the night before) The annoying part is that travelling, i.e. waiting for planes, trains, and ferries, will be boring as hell. I could care less about the price tag.

Around 11:30 core and I headed out to Camden Town. Tons of shops lined along the sidewalk. Various side streets also filled with shops. (Mostly tattoo/piercing places and touristy places). There was a huge clothing market with tons of clothes i would never wear. Giant tourist clusterfuck.

After that we got some obligatory Fish & Chips. It’s pretty overrated. Checked that off my list of things to do.

After food we hoofed it over to the London Zoo. It’s a pretty big zoo with tons to see. We missed half of it because we got there at 3 and it closed at 5:30. (yea, 2.5 hours and we still didnt get all of it). I’m not too disappointed though because my legs and feet are hating me.

Now we’re resting in Reagent’s Park. This place is HUGE. We’re up in one corner of it and I can’t see the other end.

No Idea about plans for tonight. Probably more drinking somewhere. This time more food/water beforehand though.

Reflection:

That day I felt pretty violated in the morning. It was the first time i’ve ever had anything stolen that was worth much. I managed to shrug it off for the most part, luckily. It did add a bit off an off feeling to the day though and I didn’t have as much fun exploring as I should have. This was only the first encounter we would have with theivery though. The trip wouldnt have been the learning experience it was without this though. I’ll be much much more prepared when travelling in the future.