R.E.M. and Reynold's Park pics

Hi there,

Finally able to post and fix up the pictures from R.E.M. and Reynold's Park from last weekend. So here they are. Really had a nice time and have to say that these big concerts seem to be more fun and laid back than in NY. Here's the whole set, with one special one of Michael Stipe doing his dance:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AZMnLlm1atGMa&notag=1



In new news, my friend Emily Marron is coming to visit next weekend and we are hopping down to Slovenia and Croatia! Yeah! Right now the plan is to fly into the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana and then take the train down to Pula, Croatia. The really famously beautiful places in Croatia are in the south (Split and Dubrovnik), but it's too far for us to do in a long weekend. Pula is supposed to be great anyway, it has an original Roman amphitheater sorta like the Colosseum in Rome. If anyone has been there, I'd love to hear suggestions.

Cheers!
Dan

Airline Pitch (Leg Room) Guide

Just bought tickets to fly back to NY for my friend Jess' wedding. I'll be around NY/CT from Oct. 19-26. You can email me if you want to book time - but I'll be at the wedding over the weekend.

Anyway, this is for you tall ones....

http://www.airlinequality.com/Product/seats_americas.htm

Cheers,
Dan

London Slang (it's back baby)

pants
n. s. or pl.

1. Underwear.

2. Something really bad. "This food is absolute pants."

3. Something you get rid of or is out of style. "Say pants to poverty."

Editor's Note: Perhaps we should say pants to the word pants?

Bombers Identified

Seems they were young, British-born men of Pakistani origin. Amazing. They were really sloppy too because investigators found all sorts of ID around the bomb sites. Or perhaps that was on purpose. But makes you realize we aren't just dealing with extremists shipped in from Afghanistan and Pakistan, they are members of society and willing to die. Seems a bit too Israel/Palestine for my liking. But I'm guessing the parents of the typical suicide bomber don't usually file a missing person's report......

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=355617&in_page_id=1770

Quite a week

Hi all,

Sorry for the lack of posts lately other than about the bombing. Obviously that was a big deal, but things are starting to get back to normal now. Been taking the tube this week and so far all seems pretty much fine.

I've had quite a time in the past week or so. Went like this:

Live 8 (Sat, July 2)
http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMmTlyzatWjF5A
This was such a cool event! I was in the free part in the south of Hyde Park, so we weren't by the stage, but there were 10,000 people there and it really felt like you were part of the concert. I got there at 1pm and left at around midnight. Makes for a long day, but the music was so great and we really had a blast. I really feel this event helped raise awareness about what we should be doing for Africa.

Anyway, here's my American friend Stephen ruining a really nice picture

Independence Day (Mon, July 4...duh)
http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMmTlyzatWjFxg

Went to an American place called Bodean's BBQ for Fourth of July. I think there was only one other American there actually....the owner of the bar. He bought us a round. People there didn't even seem to know what day it was! Well, I suppose it's understandable.

Here's me and my roommate Natalie at the bar

Bombing (Thurs, July 7)

Pretty much said everything there is to say about this. But clearly it was a scary and difficult time. I took this picture that morning before I really knew what was going on. But it's got a bus like the one that had the bomb on it and Big Ben in the background. Makes you think about how much worse it could have been. So this weekend pretty much just chilled out and stayed away from the city. My Irish friend Susie came to visit and the weather turned nice on Sunday so we headed to the park and had a really nice time. Hoping to make it there again soon and jump into a frisbee game, we'll see!

Bright Eyes and The Faint concert, last night (Mon, July 11)
http://share.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=EeAMmTlyzatWjFoA

The Faint is a sort of 80s rock, dance, punk band. Really cool. Bright Eyes is Conor Oberst and whatever group of people he's decided to play with this week. Conor is amazing. And the venue was incredible. Don't have places like that in the states for sure. Here's me and my friend Tim at the concert.

Thanks again for all the prayers and kind words. They have really helped during this difficult time.

12 hours later

Well it's been a long day. After my last post, I've been home all day and basically spend the day watching the TV, texting my family, and trying to respond to the many, many people who have inquired about my safety. Thanks everyone for the well wishes and prayers. Definitely makes me feel loved and safe today to have so many people caring for me - even if it is from 3 or 4 thousand miles away.

So it seems there were four bombs in London today and they are saying that 50 people have been killed. A few points from my perspective:

• All of my friends and coworkers seem to be fine. Closest I've got to a personal story is my roommate's friend's cousin was stuck in the tube for about an hour, but got out fine.
• A bit strange that my DSL modem was finally delivered to my flat today. Obviously I really wanted it today, because with it I can email everyone and also work from home tomorrow. Good sometimes to work for a big company - remote access is nearly mandatory.
• One of the bombs was between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street and near the Moorgate tube station. That is the station where I get out when I work at JP Morgan's London Wall office. I go there about once a week because the traders are there. No one in that office was injured, but I'm glad I wasn't working there today. Here's a map of the two offices I work in (pink) and where I was on the train and on foot today (blue). My apartment in Balham is about 6 miles South of my offices:

• The Northern tube line seemed to have a problem before the attacks because my friend got to the tube and said there were delays but a train came. Not shocking because there are often problems on the tubes. He made it 1 stop up to Clapham South and they stopped the line and told everyone to get out saying there was a power failure. He then walked back down to Balham and waited to get the overland train that I took. I called him after getting into the city and told him the whole tube line wasn't running, but bus and overland train lines were still running then. He decided to just forget coming into work and work from home.
• I have tickets for this Saturday to see R.E.M. at Hyde Park where Live 8 was. I was really hoping that they would delay it with all that's going on, and they agreed with me. Pushed off till next weekend. Good work Michael Stipe. Should be interesting to see how people act at that big show here only a week after the bombings.
• News reports are MUCH less dramatic here than in the states. There are no massive headlines announcing Terror In The Streets or anything like that, except on Fox News, of course.
• Rudy Giuliani is in London today, not sure why, but I saw him on the BBC and thought it was interesting.

So, I have to say I got quite emotional after being home for about an hour and texting with my family for a while and then Tony Blair came on TV. He seemed visibly upset and it was very moving to see. You could tell he was shocked to be trying so hard to help a whole continent of desperate people that aren't his people, and then his people are attacked in the middle of these talks. It's almost as if the terrorists are saying that the world shouldn't help each other. And perhaps they are. But, fortunately, I know the good people who are working on building health and positive attitudes in the world will continue their work.

Thank you everyone again for your messages and just for caring so much. I am feeling OK now, just quite tired from such an emotional day. Glad I don't have to head into the city tomorrow, but will still be working as I think everyone should try to.

Hope this finds you, your friends, and your family all well and safe.

Love,
Dan

London today

A few explosions in London today. I'm fine. Scared still though. Left for work this morning at about 8:45am and the tube was closed. This happens sometimes, so didn't think anything of it and caught the train (also goes from Balham) into Victoria Station. Tried to get the District line tube from there but found out that all tubes were closed in London due to a "massive power failure". Hmmm. So started walking towards work and realized that I had a radio on my mp3 player (thanks Rob). After listening for 5 minutes I hear about exploding buses and tubes and people going nuts and decided that central London wasn't the place I wanted to be today. So headed back to Victoria and grabbed another train to Balham and now I'm in an Internet cafe and it's 11:15am. Feels a bit better to be 30 minutes away. So far everyone that I know that I've spoken to is fine. I'll let you know.

Strange thing is that through all the troubles that have occurred between NY and London, this is the first one I'm actually here for. 9/11 I was at Cornell. The NY blackout I was in Rio. The recent UK consulate bombing in NY I was on a plane to London from NY. I have to say I'm surprised at how long it took me to realize how serious this is. Where I was there was no panic and no smoke or anything. In fact, I walked by Big Ben and Westminster and there were still Japanese tourists taking pictures like on any other day.

I hope all your friends and family are well and I wish London the best of luck getting through this. Quite a contrast from yesterdays celebrations of getting the Olympics.

Happy Independence Day!

Just a quick note to wish everyone a happy 4th of July. I'm hoping you all get very drunk on cheap American beer and eat lots of burgers. Tonight I'll be heading to an American bar in Clapham called Bodean's to eat lots of bbq. But today is without question the day that I am missing being back in the States the most. So many great memories from the McCallum's and at Kull's beach house.

Anyway, had a fantastic time at Live 8. What an amazing event. I'll post stories and pics this week when I have a few more minutes.

ok bye!
dAn

What the Blog?

So I've been thinking about this blog a bit. I originally started it as an easy way to not have to tell the same stories over and over. It's worked quite well at that. And so far the people that I've spoken to seem to appreciate being able to keep tabs on me. I've also learned the value of the shout-out.

*hi Mom*

At first I intended for it to be only for close friends and family, and I hear word has spread a bit. Did you see my spot on ABC News last week? Just kidding. I would like to keep the audience sort of minimal so that I can be fairly free about what I write. You know what I mean? So far I've been happy with the people who I've heard are reading this, but if George Bush starts using it as a way to "understand" Europeans.....then I'll be a little upset. I know that this is on the internet and all so that makes it public, but you get the idea.

Anyway, more important than what I want, is what you want! So I'm hoping to get a little feedback on how this is going so far. Building web sites is sorta my job (not this site), and I've found recently that a little feedback can go a long way. Not sure why it's taken me so long to learn that.

Soooo should I.....

• post less (or more) frequently?
• ramble on less? or more? I doubt it's more
• be posting more (or less) pictures?
• put pictures in the blog, or do you mind going to Shutterfly every time?
• provide more interesting tidbits about London? Culture? History? Food? Places to visit in Europe?
• keep the weekly London Slang?
• add more weekly things? any suggestions?
• have a less boring life?
• not be asking for feedback like this?

If you don't mind your comments being public, feel free to click on the Comments link below and add a comment. You will have to sign up if you don't have an account yet, but fear not, this site is run by Google and I haven't received any spam from them yet. Otherwise just email me.

I also think it would be fun if people wanted to comment on some of my posts (i.e. give advice / related stories / just say something interesting).

Ok, I won't post these admin styley things much because they are lame. But I am really interested in what people think. And since I haven't been so great about getting in touch with all my friends (sorry!), I'm hoping this makes up for it a bit.

Thanks and cheers!
dAn

P.S. I'm going to Live 8 this weekend! Look for me on TV....well, I'll be in the main part of Hyde Park and not in the stage part, but we'll be able to watch it on the big screens. Should be fun. And look for Liz in Philly!