International Man of Mystery: Correspondence School

On Monday afternoon I sent away for another passport.

Not a renewed passport. Another passport.

’cause Monday morning I said the right words, sang the wrong words to America the Beautiful, and added “British” as the second in my “list” of nationalities.

When we lived in Luxembourg I kept a bag of “US essentials” – and I had a ritual, while sitting on flights back to the US, of swapping European cards for US cards in my wallet, Euros for Dollars in my money clip, and the SIM in my phone. I would joke that all I was missing was a passport.

So it’s kinda neat, in a slightly childish sort of way.

But putting your passport in the mail is a uniquely uncomfortable act. Special Delivery, signed, tracked, doesn’t matter. If that thing doesn’t get to its destination, or ultimately doesn’t get back to you, things are … a bit complicated.

I felt a bit better once it had been signed for at the UK Passport office, and I’ll feel even better once it gets back in my hands, hopefully in a couple weeks.

Until then I can’t leave the UK, ‘cause I don’t have a passport. And even if I had my US Passport, I wouldn’t be able to get back into the UK. Like the US, the UK requires its citizens use its passport to enter, so the moment I became a citizen my Indefinite Leave to Remain and all previously issued immigration Visas became invalid. Passport or GTFO.

Hence the passport-in-the-mail maneuver.

So yeah… in other news, I’m now a British-American citizen. (American-British reads wrong, I’m not sure why. I suspect it’s just one of those rules we follow without necessarily understanding.)

And I’ve registered to vote, so I guess I don’t get to say “not my circus, not my monkeys” anymore – I’m a monkey in two circuses now.

A Good Bag Is (Surprisingly) Hard To Find

I really like bags. I used to swear by messenger bags, and have a couple Timbuk2’s and a Chrome, but my back stopped loving asymmetric loading some years back. So I switched to backpacks – and ever since that switch I’ve been looking for “the right one.”

And it turns out that “the right one” really means “the right ones.” Much of the time I just need a bag to carry my computer and other “bits and bobs” – what the kids these days call an “everyday carry” bag. Sometimes I want to bring my camera along with a computer and those “bits and bobs.” For a while, when I was flying between Seattle and Palo Alto regularly, I wanted a bag to carry my computer and pack for a couple days. And occasionally I don’t want to carry any of that, and just need a bag to carry “stuff.”

So I’ve ended up with a collection of bags. I have a Tortuga that was great for for those short work SEA-SJC work trips, and a Timbuk2 that I really like, but the bag I grab the most these days is one I Kickstart’ed from a local design firm here in London called Wingback. When I don’t need to carry a computer, like when I’m running out to restock on coffee beans (from Monmouth) or bagels (from B Bagel), I grab a basic backpack I bought from Stubble & Co. (I had hoped that bag would be my “daily carry,” but it turned out not to be great for that.)

The most problematic is when I want to bring work stuff and my camera. Years ago, basically by dumb luck, I found a bag from a now-defunct company called Kata. It was on sale at a camera store in a mall, and seemed better than the Case Logic bag I had, mostly by virtue of having room for both camera gear and “other stuff” and a dedicated laptop slot. I used it for years, and it’s actually still in pretty good shape.

The thing I didn’t like about it was the need to take the bag off to get the camera out safely. I knew a bunch of bags had started adding side access, so I looked around. After reading a bunch of reviews I decided to buy the bag that everyone seemed to rate at the top. The Peak Design Everyday Backpack (v2). I got the 20L version, ’cause bigger would just mean I’d pack more stuff, and more stuff means my back gets grumpy faster.

Sadly, after a few trips to our Vietnam office – where I needed work stuff and camera – and a couple trips other places, I realized the bag just isn’t as good as I want it to be.

It’s both too big – camera gear rattles around in it because of the specifics of their divider system – and too small – fitting my work computer, personal ipad, e-ink tablet and Kindle is hard. The accesses are awkward and stiff, making it hard to get things in an out. And it’s got pockets that “share” space with other pockets, so you can’t really use all the organization it offers.

So I started looking for something better.

After asking friends and my brother for suggestions, reading a ton of reviews, looking at a bunch of bags on-line, and auditioning a half-dozen in person [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] (mostly from Amazon – let’s hear it for free returns), I’ve come to the conclusion that the Peak Design sorta sucks, but it seems to suck less than everything else I’ve tried.

Turns out, I’m picky (I know, you’re shocked). I wanted something around 20-25L, with roughly a 50/50 split between camera and other stuff, and that rules out a bunch of camera bags right there, which are often bigger and lean 80/20 or more into the “camera” part. Side access was the reason I was on this quest, so it was clearly a must. And I’m right handed, but I want the side access hatch be on my right side, which ended up ruling out a bunch of otherwise promising bags, too. (I tried a couple with the hatch on my left, and it fights my muscle memory. Worse, it’s opposite to my everyday bag, so I’d never “learn to switch,” it’d be frustrating every time.)

I also don’t like roll-top bags, which are all the rage right now (in particular a really well regarded one from a bag company that can’t spell) – I find them a hassle to get in and out of. I also don’t love “tactical” looking bags – I’m more “city professional,” than “special forces.” If Barbour made a camera bag, I’d probably try it. And my work computer is a 16″ MacBook Pro, which rules out a bunch of bags that only go up to a 14″ machine. Finally, when I travel for work I have a couple other electronic gadgets that need to fit so a “just big enough” laptop compartment probably isn’t just big enough.

After all that, the nearest miss was the Nomatic (Gomatic in Europe) Luma 18L. It was so close, but at 18L it was just a little too small. Another inch or two in each dimension and it’d have been a winner. Design was great, materials felt high spec, and based on our experiences with the Kickstart’ed Nomatic travel bags we have, I’d have given them the benefit of the doubt.

The Gomatic Peter McKinnon 25L was pretty close too, despite the high price tag. I’m willing to spend money on a good bag, but as the price goes up, my expectations go up to match. When I discovered that, for some reason, they didn’t put side access on the 25L version, adding it back on the larger 35L, that one went back too.

So after all that I made one more attempt at organizing the Peak Design, and I came up with something that seems better than my last few attempts. We’ll see how it does on the next trip.

Until then, if you’ve got suggestions for a bag I haven’t tried but should, drop me a line.

Like the Deserts Miss the Rain

I’ve been lucky enough to collaborate professionally with a bunch of incredible people in my career. And I’ve been even more fortunate to count some of those collaborators as friends, long after our professional paths diverged.

Over time we’ve become scattered far and wide. Northern & Southern California, Boston, Chicago, New York, Canada, North & South Germany, London, New Zealand, Seattle.

So, as you might imagine, I don’t see nearly as many of those friends nearly as often as I’d like.

I’m in Seattle for work as I write this. And because there weren’t enough days last week to do everything I came to do, the trip spanned the weekend.

I got to visit my sister, brother in law and nieces, and to see my parents. And that’s (always) fantastic, and (always) goes in the jar first.

I also reached out to some Seattle-area friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

Sometimes a long while.

I was honored and grateful at their willingness to make time to reconnect. Meeting on short notice for coffee. Making the trek into the city for dinner. Getting off a cross country flight and coming to meet me for a drink.

Each meeting was a chance to exchange updates about life, to laugh, to commiserate. And each, for me, was a welcome change from the business of the trip.

And each parting was a sharp reminder of just how much I miss these good people.

If you’re reading this, and recognize yourself in this missive, thank you.

For the time. For the comradeship. For including me in your journey.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to attend to friendships suffering from unintended neglect.

And if you’re reading this and we haven’t managed to be in the same place for a while, I’m sorry for that, and hope to see you soon.

Trapped in a Box

I got a message from Dawnise last night, about twenty minutes after she left for an engagement, that she was on the Tube but the train was delayed – stopped between stations. She wasn’t confident she’d make it to Trafalgar Square, nominally a thirty minute journey, on time.

The Tube has been part of London life for 160 (one hundred and sixty) years and as we viscerally discovered the first time we were in London on Christmas proper, a day when mass transit is shuttered, it’s the vascular system that makes the city work.

As I was texting with Dawnise (fortunately there was cel coverage where her train was stopped between two stations) my thoughts turned to the occasional news story about people stuck on trains for hours at a time.

And then those thoughts went straight to the first episode of Connections, the late 70’s series written and presented by James Burke. If you haven’t seen it, you should stop reading this and go watch the first ten minutes of the first episode. If those ten minutes don’t make you watch the next ten, and the ten after that well, I dunno what to tell you.

I could almost hear Burke’s narration in my head as Dawnise sat on a train, stuck between two stations because of what Transport for London (TfL) described as a “signaling fault at Camden town.”

In the first Connections episode, The Trigger Effect, Burke describes the Northeast blackout of 1965, using it as a case study in how we’ve become dependent on complex webs of technology that had already become, in the 1970’s, so highly specialized that only the people who made them understood them.

Because the blackout affected the northeast, it affected New York. And because the story involved New York, it involved the New York subway. The 120 year old New York Subway system is to New York what The Tube is to London.

Both are relied on by millions of people every day, who ride it with rarely a second thought about the incredibly complex systems that make the whole thing work.

Millions of people every day, who willingly and confidently walk into what Burke calls a “technology trap.”

And when the trap springs, many of them sit pat for a surprisingly long time before they think to try to escape…

Then I got a message from Dawnise that her train was moving again, and I stopped thinking about technology traps and started thinking about what I could make for dinner.

In the end, Dawnise spent about an hour and a half on The Tube, only getting as far as Camden Town, a couple stops from home.

When her train finally arrived at the station platform, she got off, walked across to the northbound platform, and boarded a train home.

The Road Rushing Under My Wheels

Brits, generally speaking, plan further ahead than I do. It’s August, and we just got an email offering us a discount on this year’s Christmas Tree.

No joke.

As a result, despite having gone through the effort of getting my driving license a couple years back, we nearly never hire a car. We’ll wake up, think “it might be a nice day to go somewhere,” and discover that there are no available rental cars unless we want to start the journey by trekking to the other side of London.

I’d been trying to solve this for a while without success, and finally decided to give in and buy a car. Turns out there aren’t too many car dealers in central London, and that means the time honored American tradition of wandering between a bunch of dealerships to look at and test-drive cars isn’t really done here.

Buying a car involves (you’re probably way ahead of me) some planning.

One Saturday afternoon, a couple weeks ago, we wandered over to the BMW/Mini dealer at the edge of Hyde Park, thinking we’d have a look at a couple possibilities. We discovered that (a) they expect you to have an appointment and (b) they don’t keep any used inventory on-site. One of the sales staff was between appointments and free to chat with us briefly, so we talked about what they had in used inventory, looked at new versions of a few of those things, but it was not – all in all – a terribly useful visit.

Oh, and it turns out most car dealers are closed on Sundays. Maybe there was a rule that forbade buying horses on a Sunday, or maybe they just like the day of rest more than they like money.

At any rate, I spent some time on-line and found a few interesting cars in different parts of the country, but I wasn’t willing to travel several hours to probably not buy something. I eventually found a couple candidates relatively close by – “only” a little over an hour away in East London. I emailed the dealerships to arrange to come out the next weekend, but by the time the weekend had arrived both cars I was interested in had been sold.

Back to the proverbial drawing board…

When I found another candidate, I wasted no time. It turns out that if you give the dealer a couple hundred pounds, they’d hold a car for you for a few days. And if you decide it isn’t the right car, they’ll happily give those pounds back. So I handed them some money and blocked out time to go see the car in a couple days.

I was after something with a sunroof, since I couldn’t justify buying a convertible without having a garage, and had found a late model VW Golf that looked good on paper. We had a look, took a test drive, and talked to the dealer about the particulars, ultimately deciding it fit the bill nicely. We signed the paperwork and planned to take delivery on the coming Saturday, after a final inspection and detailing.

Saturday morning we took the train to the dealership in West Hampstead, did the last bits of paperwork, and drove away in our “new” car.

Since we were already most of the way there, our first stop was IKEA, and then Costco where, for the first time since moving here, we could buy heavy things (like wine) without needing to carry our purchases home on the Tube in a backpack.

The next morning we took a drive through and out of London to the south east, meeting up with friends at Bateman’s – the former home of Rudyard Kipling. After a visit to the house and gardens, and a bite of lunch, they went home and Dawnise and I made a stop at Scotney Castle en route back to London.

Along with the actual purchase I had to sort out insurance – more expensive as I’ve only been licensed for 3 years, and have no prior UK insurance. Oh, and get a resident parking permit. And pay the “road tax” (registration). And register for congestion charging – just in case we have cause to drive into the congestion zone.

So now we have a car, and I expect we’ll find places to wander that were formerly inaccessible, or inconvenient, by train. Being accustomed to mass transit basically always being slower and less convenient than a car I have to remember to check, and not assume.

I look forward to the day when we think “maybe we should sell the car, we don’t drive it very often.” Until then, I look forward to having spontaneous access to more places outside London.

The General Hostility and Unfairness of the Universe

I learned on a flight that my aunt lost her second husband.

That sentence is true, but doesn’t fully convey my meaning.

My aunt’s husband has died.

This is the second husband she’s outlived.

So right now, even more than usual, I take small solace in the unfairness of the universe.

In knowing that we don’t get everything we deserve. And that we don’t deserve everything we get.

My aunt’s first husband – my uncle – didn’t deserve to die. My aunt’s second husband didn’t, either.

And my aunt didn’t deserve to go thought the loss of a partner.

Twice.

My uncle was my mom’s baby brother. Much younger than her – the youngest of 8 siblings.

He and my aunt were the only extended family that lived close to us, were the only extended family I saw with any regularity, were the only extended family I was close to.

They had a huge positive impact on my life, and on my younger brother and sister.

And on my wife and I, who moved a few blocks away from them when we first started out together. They were a safety net. Role models. Dinner companions. Friends.

Their kids were the only cousins I really knew, though I had (have) many.

Despite years of closeness, we’ve drifted apart.

We moved – out of the area, out of the country. If I’m honest we – I – didn’t know how to “go back to normal” after my uncle died.

Now my Aunt, and my cousins and I are miles and years apart. And the gap seems… vast.

He wasn’t the first loss I’d experienced, but there’s no doubt it was the deepest cut I’d felt.

I remember – like it just happened – driving through the night, tears streaming down my face, feeling for the first time utterly and completely broken.

Lost, despite my partner and constant navigator sitting next to me.

And I was just his nephew.

Not his sons. Not his daughter-in-law.

Not his wife.

When I heard the news, I did the only thing I could, though the gesture felt empty even as I made it.

I reached out to say I’m sorry.

Tools and Rituals

I realize I don’t clearly remember the first time I met Stewart. Maybe because from the first time I felt like I’d known him for ages. I think we were introduced by a mutual friend and colleague, and I think we met in the commissary, in the London office building he worked in and I was visiting. Then again, we might have met over a pint at a local.

Unusually, I’m pretty sure we didn’t meet for coffee. Stewart, as he said once, didn’t care at all about coffee – he’d happily drink the worst instant – but he had “tools and rituals” for making tea.

His turn of phrase kept coming to mind as I sat in the chapel participating a different kind of ritual – the kind that involves an officiant describing Stewart’s life in the past tense. His wife widow and three sons in the front row, his father next to them, silent and still, a shallow occasional nod in agreement with some spoken sentiment.

It had been clear from the processional that this wouldn’t be an “ordinary” funeral. The music was straight from Stewart’s playlist – Foo Fighters, My Chemical Romance, and bands that, frankly, I’m not cool enough to recognize – which was him to a T. And the funeral announcement had made his preferred dress code clear:

Stewart hated a shirt and tie and only wore them if he was made to so please, if a dinosaur t-shirt makes you smile, jeans and a hoodie is your thing or running gear is your happy place, please do.

There would be no singing “because Stewart would always mutter it was like school assembly, and it’ll be short because he’d much rather everyone had a drink and a giggle.” And there would be an after party.

His passing wasn’t sudden – not that that made it any better. He’d been unwell for years, the initial diagnosis imminently terminal. Once his hair regrew after initial rounds of chemo there were stretches when, unless you knew, you’d have been hard pressed to guess he was ill. (We learned at his memorial that his oncologists were cross with him for taking long runs during treatment, but apparently the doctors had never thought to tell him not to, as “you weren’t supposed to be up to it.”)

Once the pandemic allowed, a small group of us got to occasionally experience what had been his (utterly ridiculous) daily commute going to him to visit. We’d sit at his local and talk over beer, and when he wasn’t up for that anymore we’d sit in his living room and talk. And when he struggled to talk, we’d still sit and talk.

As his condition worsened he and his family ultimately decided that the treatment had more downside than up, and that enough was enough.

From then on it was impossible to even pretend that there was an outcome other than this.

Sitting in a chapel.

Equal parts devastated and angry at the loss of a friend, dead too soon from a disease we must understand and eliminate.

And being utterly, utterly in awe of his partner, who’d navigated his long illness with incredible strength and grace. And struggling to comprehend the impact on his sons, who would navigate the rest of their lives without their father.

Rest in peace, my friend. You are missed.

How is a Wardrobe Like a Software Project?

With apologies to Lewis Carrol.

Our made-to-measure wardrobe project got rolling last week. The materials were delivered on Monday, in terrible weather, by two guys who did an admirable job moving a bunch of big heavy stuff into the two target rooms.

On Tuesday – a day before he was expected – the installer (“fitter”) arrived to start what Sharps insisted (over my questioning and skepticism) would be a three day job. Aside from him arriving 20 minutes before I was supposed to be in a meeting, I didn’t mind him starting early. The sooner you start, as they say, the sooner you can fall behind.

I showed him the rooms and materials and it didn’t take long before I heard the words you never want to hear during any sort of construction project. “So… we have a problem.”

Before we get to that, let’s back up for a moment… We started this project months ago, meeting wardrobe design firms the weekend we got keys to the house. We iterated on the most promising proposal several times, and placed the order once we had drawings we were happy with. There was a 2-ish month lead time (pretty much across the board), so every day we didn’t act was a “day for day slip.”

Once we had signed off on the design, the firm had a surveyor come out and double check everything. He had the designers drawings, and spent a couple hours in the space, measuring everything, checking the drawings, and doing… whatever it is a surveyor does.

He made a couple tweaks – clearing them with us – and placed the materials order.

So when the fitter arrived, he was the third person to have been in the space and seen the plans. But as the one who actually does the work, Riccardo noticed things the designer and surveyor hadn’t.

He saw, for example, that some of the cuts required in the loft were impossible. Not just hard, or tricky, but impossible. The plan called for him to scribe (trace and follow the contours of an existing shape) two adjoining edges of a board. But you can’t, he explained, because no matter which edge you start with, when you scribe and cut the other edge, the first edge won’t sit where it needs to.

Those impossible cuts were in the corner where the build needed to start, so he needed a solution. He spent the day talking to the firm, and by the evening had a proposal that the firm was reviewing. He left after setting up to start the easier room, and we planned to go over the proposed revision the next morning.

He arrived, and Dawnise and I spent several hours with him reviewing his suggestion – which essentially involved completely boxing in the wardrobes and shelves that had been designed to use the existing wall and ceiling as their back and top. That would involve anchoring several additional heavy panels – not accounted for in the initial design – to the wall and ceiling. I was … skeptical.

The wardrobes in the loft were to sit against the wall separating the space from its en-suite shower room. And that wall is thin – thinner than a standard timber and plasterboard wall. And it has water pipes (for the shower) and it has a Venetian (polished) plaster finish on the shower side. The fitter wasn’t sure, and neither was I, that he could safely anchor the much heavier proposed installation to that wall.

So we asked the builder.

Turns out the builder who did this house picked up another job on the street – someone saw this renovation and liked it so much they said “do that for me.” So Tony and his team are working literally across the street most days. I asked if he could pop over and consult for a moment.

Tony listed to the fitters proposal and questions and basically said “this wall isn’t load bearing – you might manage it, supporting some of the weight on the ceiling, but if that pipe moves and there’s any plaster damage, you’ll need to re-plaster the whole wall. I wouldn’t do it.” Oh, and a quick measure showed that the shower tap was smack dab in the middle of where the build would need to be anchored to the wall.

Ruh-Roh.

So I called the firm and said those dreaded words … “we have a problem.” The fitter had also briefed them, and we agreed that he should get started on the other room – that aside from a couple tricky cuts seemed fairly straight forward – while we sorted out the situation.

I had a conversation with a regional installation manager, who was on the road and couldn’t get to London for a couple days, via WhatsApp. I showed her the space, reiterated Riccardo’s description of the issues, and my builder’s concerns. She arranged for a colleague, who was in the area, to pop in to have a look in person. Jim, who’d been with the firm “a fair while” looked, and listened, and ultimately said “The surveyor should have caught this. I’m going to recommend we not continue.”

By this time that seemed like the only sensible option from our perspective, too.

I told him that even if the firm guaranteed in writing that they would take responsibility for any damage to the space and adjoining spaces, I’d be foolish to proceed against the advice of the team that literally built the house. If anything went wrong, even if they worked to fix it, we could be living in a building site for months.

He wrote up his findings and the report was being reviewed and discussed internally on Friday. On Monday morning (tomorrow, as of this writing) I expect a call telling me when they’ll come and collect the load of materials currently occupying a good chunk of the loft. Fortunately nothing has yet been done that can’t be undone, and that’s down to the fitter thinking the project through before he started making holes in things

At several points this adventure has echoed the sorts of planning-to-execution failures all too common in software. And the root cause feels the same, too. The design, and the estimation, were done by someone who “used to actually do the work,” but when the actual hands-on practitioner got involved they spotted a new set of “obvious to them” issues with the plans and estimates.

In construction, and in software, when you find yourself problem solving and designing “in the room” it’s a clear sign that something’s gone wrong, and that the project risk has increased, probably significantly. (For a very readable and highly recommended deeper examination of what goes wrong on projects and how to improve your chances of success, see How Big Things Get Done, by Flyvbjerg.)

The main bedroom, I’m happy to say, has been making good progress. Riccardo expects to complete the job Monday – three days after starting it. (So that the one room will have taken him all three days that the firm had estimated for both rooms. And I can say, having been following his progress, that this isn’t because he’s been slow, it’s because their estimate was … overly optimistic – another failure commonly encountered in software. Also like in software, it would have been easy to demand that the builder stick to the original estimate, not taking into account what had been learned since that estimate was made.)

Fingers crossed that on Monday we’re hanging our “everyday” clothes in the finished wardrobes and are able to stop rotating through the small collection of things we held aside at the start of the move.

We had chosen to do built-ins to maximize storage in the irregular spaces, but in the loft we’ll have to figure out a freestanding option. We won’t get as much storage as we would have with the built-ins, but “needs must,” as they’re fond of saying ’round here.

That Was Never Five Months Just Now!

I just looked back and realized that I hadn’t posted anything since Dawnise broke her wrist in February.

Sheesh.

Kamran, the cat we adopted the same day Dawnise had her “uncontrolled descent,” has integrated and generally made himself at home. He and Ivan have largely reached détente – the last few mornings I’ve come downstairs to find them both sleeping at the top of the cat tree. He really likes sitting in laps – and doesn’t really care if you’re ready for him or not.

Mixed in with the home-find and home-buying shenanigans, Dawnise accompanied me on a work trip back to Seattle in June. Her first trip stateside since January 2022. We got to spend time with my brother, sister and brother-in-law and our nieces, and my parents. My parents had relocated from Florida to the Pacific North West in March, and we got to drive up to see their new place – about an hour north of Seattle. Dawnise and my mom spent a day driving all over WA visiting quilt and sewing stores. It was the most time in a car since our trip to New Zealand (which I refuse to believe was nearly a year ago).

Around work and family visits Dawnise and I reconnected with friends over brunches, dinners and pub trivia (there’s something deeply ironic about traveling thousands of miles from London to participate in a “British style pub quiz”) and got a proper donut. Okay, maybe more than a donut. Maybe a couple donuts. I regret nothing.

Eurovision was “nearly in our back yard” in May, but we hadn’t tried for tickets. and had our traditional viewing with friends at the flat. Thanks to some “totally coincidental, really” train strikes, a bunch of people who had gotten tickets also ended up watching on TV, which I’m sure they were thrilled about.

Also in May the UK participated in one of its utterly archaic institutions and crowned a new King. I was in Seattle for work – Dawnise watched much of the days pomp and circumstance with some friends.

I’m sure there’s other interesting stuff in there, but from the haze of the move it seems like the time just flew past. Somewhere in there I made several work trips back to Seattle, and have another coming in a few weeks.

I just really like Virgin Atlantic’s food, what can I say.

In any event, I’ll endeavour to post on a more regular cadence.