Rebekah's Insights

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In the interest of organization, cleanliness, and such, "Deep thoughts by Will" is moving from "Rebekah's Insights" to "Will's blog". Old content will stay on "Rebekah's Insights", cuz I can't figure out how to move them.

Growing up in the snowy north of the US, you learn how to navigate through snow, sleet, and inclement weather. I remember my father teaching me how to get almost every manner of motor vehicle out of snow. He showed me a plethora of techniques to get cars, trucks, ATVs, and tractors out of snow. It was not often we were not able to navigate or unstick something.

Now, take the boy out of his surroundings and throw new challenges at him. He will try to apply all of that gathered knowledge to the new problem, sometimes learning the differences in the circumstances.

This is what I have recently done in the floods around the area. We live on a reservoir and are currently in a rainy season here in the UK. The roads tend to flood if the rain continues for a day or more. This was never more true than a few days ago taking the in-laws to the airport. The exit road out is in a flood plane with dikes to alleviate overflowing water. (This is really just the worst spot.) The water fills the field and the road for approximately 100 yards. Worry not, because it can not grow much more than 100 yards due to geographic restrictions. It just starts getting deep.

Now enter our hero, on a perilless mission to nobly deliver his entrusted mates to safe harbor. (Well, more like safe airport.) Our hero sends a trusty scout through to test the waters (i.e. my SUV driving landlord). The scout gives the "thumbs up" and our hero pushes on. The hero moves his chariot across the 18" deep water. He realizes that when he hits the thick of it that he should ease up, like he would on the snowy impasses of his homeland, and maintains control of the chariot.

Now what happens with momentum on his side? The car chokes out from lack of good air flow through the engine, via the tailpipe. Thankfully the car coasts far enough along to carry the vehicle mostly out of the water.

Lesson from this event? Keep up the back pressure. Water may be another form of snow, but navigation is different.

You know that you are getting older when "Christmas with the family" means that you stay at your own house to open presents with the kids. First you leave your 20s and then you spend Christmas day putting someone else's presents together. Good thing that children are just an excuse for playing with toys again:) (Especially for those toys that you never had, but always wanted.) How else would Liam get all of the train stuff that I never had? Aine received a play kitchen for Christmas, just like her mommy always wanted.

Makes me wonder what childhood toys the children will want and never get...

There are so many new customs, ideas, and things in England that you would never really pick up on if you were only a tourist, just check out the vast language differences. For example, Christmas parties and get togethers are a lot more prevalent here than in the states. (Probably due to the lack of Thanksgiving. Everyone needs to have a barrage of holidays at once:)) A fun and different tradition here are
Crackers. Now, before you go looking for the number of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, Crackers are little Christmas presents that contain surprises inside.

Now again, there are some differences that end up costing you. In moving to the UK it seemed that everyone was trying to temper your expectations, from shopping to environmental factors. A big item spoke of was that people in Brittan like to keep there house cooler and have a different tolerance for environment comforts. In fact, our land lords only recently had "central heating" put into their house. Before that there were two solid burning stoves to warm up the house for a bit.

Since we moved in, our house has always been around the upper 60's, but lacking decently hot water. I have been playing with the heating system for months trying to figure out the right combination of variables in order to give us hot water AND decent heat. There are 5 different thermostats and timers that need to be set in order to heat one room. Its an engineering pain in the toe for debugging.

After all of my trying I found out the cold hard truth of my labor. No really, it was fridged cold in here:) I could not get the house above 62F. I came to find out that our boiler had not worked since we moved in. How where we getting heat at all you ask? We have an immersion heater that warms the water enough to heat some, but not enough do the job completely. It was enough to cause really high electric bills (again, we were told the bills would be higher here), but not too high to cause a great deal of alarm.

At the end of the day, some differences are really cool to discover and others just cost you a lot of cold hard cash.

Cheers!

The forecast is rain with a heavy helping of wind. Be on the look out for flying sheep!

We were warned England was windy, rainy, and dreary. Until a few weeks ago, its been nice. A little cooler than the states, but hey, we are at the same latitude as Sweden. Now it is daily rain with wind. The UK may not get many hurricanes, but there is a good dose of gale force winds. If I was not already bald, I would swear that the wind would blow the hair off of my head. I see why the locals warn against using umbrellas.

See you blowing by...

Some people start hitting the coffee at a young age with other vices. Some hit coffee once they reach college. Others never touch the stuff. I thought that I was always in the latter category. I can count the number of cups of coffee I had, before 30, on one hand, much to the dismay to Mom2 when she was jones'ing for some in my apartment.

Now that I am 30, I gave it one more try when I took my wife out for a nice date. (I was just trying to cozy up to her emotions.) England serves Demerara with coffee at nice establishments. This sugar variant actually takes the nasty bitter after taste away, much to my pleasure. Funny how new cultures introduce the little things into your life. Makes me think of how the British explorers felt when they discovered new things around the world and brought them back home.

Well, getting old is rough, but atleast now I will be awake to see it...

Imagine that Usama Bin Laden is finally captured. In order to send a clear message to terrorists again, a public trial and execution are held. Then, in remembrance, people celebrate his conspiracies and execution, traditionally by burning effigies.

Sound like something that would not happen in America? Well, it happens in Britain, whom doesn't have the death penalty. Guy Fawkes day is pretty big here in the UK, especially in Yorkshire. The short of the story is that in 1605, Guy and his fellow conspirators planned to blow up England's parliament building while King James I of England was in it.

Now children run around asking,"A penny for the Guy" to help buy fireworks. It ends up being a lot like the 4th of July, except it is all throughout the countryside with great personal fireworks. (Availability of fireworks here are definitely better than a lot of US states.)

I thought that the idea was a little morbid, but it is a fun get together. Most people don't have burning effigies. They just have fireworks, bon fires, and fun. There is also a lot of things about Guy Fawkes in pop culture. The biggest of which is "V for Vendetta", which is a decent movie to watch.

I still have more questions about the "holiday" and look forward toward more Guy Fawkes days. "Remember, Remember the 5th of November..."

Being the youngest child, grandchild (for my wave), and slightly immature, its funny to raise the children and try out different techniques, than were used on you or were use to, and see how the children change through time. Liam has gone from never wanting me to do anything, to actually smiling and wanting me to help. Aine, in little over a year, has gone from only a "Daddy's girl" to wanting mummy sometimes. Through the grace of my wife, I have gone from getting annoyed and mad at the children when the do irritating things to explaining things to them. It really seems to make the difference, but just getting mad is always easier. To terrify is easy, but to embrace in love and understanding is a trial.

I was always better at being the executioner than the impartial judge.