We're cycling to Paris tomorrow!

Have to keep this one short as we're up tomorrow morning at 5:00 am to start our four day, 280 mile, cycle to Paris!

If we haven't told you about it yet in one way or another, we're doing it with a group of Penny's colleagues and we're raising money for the Children with Leukaemia charity.

We've done a bit of training - but probably not as much as we would have liked! Oh well, we'll do fine :).

At any rate feel free to sponsor us! Also, I've started a Mobile blog that I'll update from my phone along the way.

Wish us luck :)!!!

Links
Sponsor Penny & Jeff:https://www.bmycharity.com/V2/PWCTeam
Our Moblog: http://moblog.co.uk/blogs.php?show=16264
The Route (roughly):
http://maps.live.com/?v=2&cid=685EC4BA2B1CF85D!151&encType=1

Learning how to play rugby

Well, we've been up to lots over the past few months, but let's not dwell on the past, shall we :)?

The topic near and dear to me at the moment is my budding career as a rugby star. Well...that may be a bit of an overstatement.

Penny and I signed up to play touch rugby with the Aussie/Kiwi contingent this spring, so I'm learning the ropes...slowly but surely. They started me off throwing the ball around for fun over the Easter weekend and going through some of the basics - "right, yes, no forward passing...got it (wussies)." Then we started the season a few weeks ago and I've been picking it up bit by bit since then...although the first game was total confusion for me.

The biggest challenge for me is dropping some of the habits of playing American football. Not that I was ever a big football player, but apparently I played enough to do some things automatically. Most of which are not allowed in touch rugby.

Now, I've watched enough rugby over the past few years in Londnon to generally know the rules, but there's a big difference between an armchair understanding of the game and knowing what's going on on the field.

So - the first game, I got an understanding of the feel of the game. The second game, I learned that you can't block for your teammates when they have the ball (still having troubles with that one), and that running out of bounds doesn't just stop play and take you to the next down, but it actually results in a turnover (thought I was being clever by trying to gain a few extra feet).

In tonight's game, after thinking I scored my first "try" (touchdown in American terms), I remembered that, unlike American football, you actually have to put the ball down when you cross the goal line. D'oh. Unfortunately I realised this far too late, after I had already gone out of the endzone (thankfully, I resisted the urge to spike the ball). Apparently my teammates were shouting instructions at me - but in my mind I was already gearing up for the glory of the post-score celebration.

Ah well - one more thing to the new experiences list. I started to get a good feel for the game tonight and it flowed much more easily, I even made up for my missed goal with an assist. And hey - we won our first match, so it certainly wasn't all bad.

It's good fun and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season - might be my kind of game. Although - I still find myself longing for someone to throw me a nice tight spiral ;-). At any rate, you can keep up with the highs and lows of the Southern Comforts on the league website through the season if you're interested.

In other news- you can see some of our pics of our trip to Barcelona a few weeks ago with our friends Shawn & Nikki and our annual Cinco de mayo party; I saw G. Love & Special Sauce in concert last night and it was fantastic; and we're off to go camping in Cornwall this weekend.

We've got snow!

We had a bit of excitment today with some snow in London! Finally! I blame the movies, but when we moved to London a few years ago, I had Dickensian visions of strolling down snow lined streets past red telephone boxes and gas powered street lights.

Our street with snow!

Ok, so I knew the gas lights wouldn't be around anymore, and I certainly didn't have a top hat and a cane, but I did think we would have a bit more snow over time. Much to my suprise - it tends to snow more in Seattle than in London (at least in my experience).

Anyhoo - we had some snow, and much like most other cities, London tends to have a bit of a breakdown at the smallest amount of snow and today was no different as Trains, the Tube, and Flights were all disrupted pretty heavily.

Thankfully I'm only reliant on my trusty two-wheeled steed for my commute, and although I was soaked by the time I got to work, it was good fun to ride around London in the snow.

Other excitements today included seeing sir Richard Branson in Covent Garden for the launch of Virgin Media's new cable/broadband offering in the UK. I think that's the only celebrity I've seen up close since I've been in London! Obviously I don't hang out in the right places.

London, 4 Febuary 2007 - Jeff Sharpe declared best crappy blogger of the year

Well - in an effort to maintain my role as an occasional blogger, I swore to myself that I would update the good old blog before a year had passed since my last post (my, how my standards have dropped!). And as its' superbowl sunday (scroll down, to see my last post from last years' superbowl sunday), I figured I had better get busy and post something...anything...even though my blogging has eroded to the point where my occasionally faithful readers have long given up hope.

So, here it is :). We're alive, we're still living in the same flat in London, work's gone well for us both in the past year and we're happy and having fun! Also - in the past year, we've done a bit more exploring and have visited:

• Chamonix, France
• Dijon, France
• Paris, France (apparently we like France)
• Istanbul, Turkey
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Rome, Italy
• Brugges, Brussels
• The Greek Islands (Mykonos, Santorini, Paros, Naxos)
• and Scotland (Edinburgh and Oban)

We haven't nearly crossed all of the places off our list (which grows by the day) - but we're getting there. Anyone want to come visit to help us cross off some more?

Well, that's the update for now! Hope everyone is well and that you've had a good start to your year. Feel free to come visit us anytime!

Best,
Jeff & Penny

Not'cho business, or, Super Bowl Sunday

Ahh - there's nothing like watching the superbowl in a foreign land at 1:30 in the morning on a school night :). That early morning start tomorrow will be a bit rough...

In the spirit of Super Bowl Sunday, Penny and I decided to whip up an extra large batch of Nachos for dinner this evening, and boy was it good. For some reason, the Brits just do not know how to make good Nachos and it's been a while since I've had a good batch (June of 2004, to be exact). I won't go into the full technical specs of our creation, but I assure all of my fellow Nacho fans that I ensured even layering of toppings, equal chip distribution, and high quality ingridients. Nachos: art, or science - I'll leave it up to you to decide:



ps - my good friend Kjersti was the one who came up with the name 'Not'cho business' for an idea for a Nacho restaurant, so I had to give credit where it was due. KG - I still maintain that my Nacho business would take yours down, but I'm happy to form a strategic alliance.

I'm currently watching the game - and felt I should note a couple of things:

• For those of you who don't follow American football, the Seattle Seahawks have made it to the Superbowl for the first time in team history. Pretty big deal for Seattle-ites the world 'round. They're playing the Pittsburgh Steelers.


• GO HAWKS


• ohh...Steelers just scored, again. Maybe I should call off that friendly wager in the office? Nah, GO HAWKS!


• Not that football presenters have ever really been known for their intelligence, but the ones that they put on the international broadcasts are just horrid. For example - I just heard this come out of one of their mouths:



"That looked a bit like a scrum...something that our European viewers might be familiar with...like with European football...err, rugby"



• Also - they have someone from the England rugby team commenting. He's not doing too terribly, but really - are there no other qualified football presenters, anywhere?


• I miss John Madden and his pen


• I do like football, and it is entertaining to watch on its' own merit - but we don't get all of the ads outside of the US, and the superbowl is just not quite the same without them :( (I wish AdCritic was still free - yes, I'm a marketing geek)


• They've been plugging NFL Europe a lot during the game. I had no idea it even existed, so I checked into it and oddly enough, there are about 5 teams...four of which are in Germany (the other is in Amsterdam). Why so many in Germany, I have no idea. Will have to check with my German colleagues tomorrow.

Well, it's getting late, and the game's getting close (10 mins left, 14-10, Steelers), so I had better run. Happy Super Bowl Sunday to all!

Best,
Jeff (Penny would say hi too, but she's sensible and went to sleep ;-))

Happy New Year (belated)

Greetings all, and Happy New Year - best wishes for 2006!

As you can probably imagine, one of my resolutions for this year was to post more often, so we'll see how long I can stick with it. To give me some incentive, I spent some time this past weekend redesigning the site to make it a bit fresher, and add some features that might enourage me post more.

Specifically - I've enabled comments, so you all can now comment on our blog, and tell us EXACTLY how lame I am for not getting around to posting enough :). Remember, this is a family site - no cussing... that means you, Bregel!. And, for those of you that are tech savvy enough, I've also set up an RSS feed so that you can subscribe to the site. For those of you who don't know what in the heck I'm talking about, read this, and you can get a good free RSS reader here. I'm happy to provide some limited tech support :).

So - we'll see how this resolution goes. Keep me honest!

In other news, we're doing pretty well. We both came back from our trip to Australia for Christmas tanned and relaxed (I'd tell you all about it, but the photos probably do it more justice - we had a great time). However, the London winter got rid of the tan in about a week...and I think we're almost losing grip on that that last shred of relaxation (both pretty busy at work, no suprises there).

Thankfully, we've already got a couple of trips that we're looking forward to (skiing in Chamonix again), and we're dreaming about where else we want to go in the coming year. Wanna help us decide? Book a trip to visit and tell us where you want to go ;-).

The new flat is going really well and we're settling in nicely. A few more decorations and pieces of furnature, and we may even post some pictures of the inside of the flat. Our new local pub is pretty nice as well :).

Going to keep this one short. Hope you like what we've done with the site, and hope you've all had a good start to your year. Happy Australia day to everyone in Oz!

Best,
Jeff & Penny

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

Going to be a quick one, but I wanted to post to let you all know about two moves!

Firstly - we've moved flats!! Our new address is:

13 Willow Bridge Road
Lower Ground Floor
London, UK
N1 2LB

It's nicer, more spacious, and we're loving it already :) (see below for link to some photos)!

Secondly - I've decided to abandon the good people over at Kodak, and set up a photo sharing account at flickr. As far as I can tell, it's a much better offering - for me, and for you all as viewers.

Anyhoo - you can view all of our photos from now on at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffsharpe/. I've only gotten a few uploaded so far, but more to come.

Right - I'll make sure to post again before Christmas, time for bed. Hope you're all having a fantastic holiday season so far!!

Best,
Jeff & Penny