Amish Bicycle

It's funny the things you take for granted. Or, conversely, it's funny how much more observant you become when you've reached a point where you won't be observing the things you're observing for much longer. Allow me to explain.

Michele and the kids were away this weekend, so I thought I'd take a drive out to Lancaster to blow that Banana Republic gift certificate that's been burning a hole in my pocket since Christmas. The shopping was a bust - they simply don't have jeans in my size in the outlet, though if I were 4'6" and 350 lbs, I'd have had no problem. Oddly, many of the people shopping at the outlet fit this description, so you'd think the stock of 46x28's would have been more depleted than it was.

Despite the fact that I still haven't spent the GC, the trip wasn't entirely a waste, because I DID get to sample some of the finest diner cuisine this side of the Mississippi. On the way, I got a little hungry, so I stopped at Jennie's Diner, on the Lincoln Highway just outside of Lancaster. No yuppified remake here - this place is an authentic 1950's chrome and coral gem, serving genuine artery-clogging diner grub and staffed by appropriately gruff waitresses in grease-spattered aprons. They have a real jukebox, red vinyl stools at the counter, and a 'We do not have a non smoking section!' sign on the door. They don't take credit cards, they don't give you a straw unless you ask, and God help you if you try to order something in any way other than how it's printed on the menu.

I took a seat at the silver speckled Formica counter between a rotund prematurely grey man with porcine eyes, a vanilla milkshake and a thick German accent, and a biker with a voice like sandpaper who claimed not to have slept in 26 hours because he "had some business to take care of." I tried to imagine what sort of business might require someone to stay awake for more than a day, concluding that it involved either transportation of a large quantity of crystal meth or a hasty burial, or possibly both.

My grilled cheese with tomato and bacon was gorgeous - toasty brown with a generous helping of smoky bacon and a side of crispy golden fries. It was refreshing in that it came without apologies for its unheathy-ness, and didn't try to hide its true nature behind a facade of faux-healthy 37 grain bread.

In short, it was the sort of gustatorial experience one can only have in a real diner, on a real old highway, in a real part of the country. I loved every minute of it, even as the biker chain smoked Newports and complained to no one in particular about Yuppies who ride on the weekends. As I was wearing a pink shirt, I was fairly certain he didn't think I fell into that category. This was a slice of Americana I certainly wouldn't get anywhere but here.

On the way home, I saw an Amish girl riding what can only be described as a cross between an old bicycle and a Razr scooter. It's basically a bike with a low platform instead of a seat, that's powered by the rider pushing the ground with her leg. It not only looked uncomfortable and difficult to ride, it also looked like a lot more work than it was worth, since I would think that it would take more effort to push the thing uphill than just walking.

Point is, I probably wouldn't have noticed any of these things - the food, the people, the Amish bicycle - but for the fact that I know I'll be leaving them all behind soon. We seem to develop heightened powers of observation when we know in advance that something is about to end. I can still remember, for example, how the air felt during my last days at college, and I'm sure I'll remember how the air feels, or the tree frogs sound as I write this by the open window.

Unprompted, Caroline told me tonight that she's scared about moving to London. I thought it was really courageous of her to come right out and tell me. Well, maybe not courageous, but certainly self-aware; much more so than I was at that age. Hell, more so than I am now. She's afraid because she's going to miss her friends, she says. I tried to reassure her by telling her that she'll be able to stay in touch with her current friends and that she'll get to make new ones, too. I told her that I'm scared too, because I am. And that I'll miss my friends, and that Mommy will miss hers, too. I told her that the thing that helps me do it even though I'm scared is knowing that she and Michael and Mommy will be there with me. I don't know if any of this helped her, though I hope it did. But I really hope that what she remembers with her own heightened powers of observation is that her Daddy was always there when she needed someone to listen to her.

Why?

Lots of people have asked us why. Why London? Why now? Why move? These are all good and valid questions, and the answer, as with most of the answers to the really good questions, is complex, multidimensional and deeply subjective. In short, I think it comes down to this: because we want to. I know that seems facile - after all, why would we do something so drastic if we didn't want to - but it actually sums up our sentiment pretty nicely.

Michele and I first talked about this move after our first visit to London in 1999. Ah, the good old days, before we had a house full of stuff, and a mortgage and children. Things were simpler then, and it would have been a lot easier to do this move at that time. And we were ready to, too, but then the market tanked in 2000 and my company stopped all relocation. We've talked about it off and on in the years since, but it never seemed to be the right time.

After my last visit there in January of 2006, we talked about it again and decided that if we're going to do it, we should stop talking about it and just get on with it. It doesn't get any easier as we get older and more set in our ways, nor does it get easier as the kids become more entrenched in school, their social lives and other activities. So I guess that's the answer to the 'why now' question.

It's funny how many people on learning of our plans have said something like "I'd love to do something like that, but..." My advice is this - if you want to do something like this, then do it. We dithered for 6 years after the first plans fell through. That means that we could have been 6 years further along and the move 6 years less complicated. Not that I have any regrets, the past is what it is. My point is that there's never a good time to do something like this. You just have to set your teeth and do it.

But then, we haven't actually moved yet. Talk to me in a month and I may feel differently.

Telephones, Technology and Toothpaste

In general, I think we have too many choices. "Paper" or "Plastic"? "Regular" or "Extra Strength"? "Whitening" or "Minty Fresh"? Don't get me wrong. It's not that I'm not in favor of choices. I like choices. Choices like "Gin" or "Vodka"? But in truth, most of these choices that we're presented with on a daily basis are inconsequential and making the decision is, in my opinion, an unnecessary expenditure of energy. Plastic doesn't cost me any more than paper, and they both seem equally bad for the environment (I'm sure someone will correct me on this. Amy?). I get both yellow teeth AND bad breath from drinking coffee, so it really doesn't matter which toothpaste I choose. And why anyone would choose something called "Regular" over "Extra Strength" is beyond me.

But there are also those choices which are important, or at least there are those to which I am required to give more consideration than whether I prefer "Glossy" or "Matte". And it's about these that there seems to be the least amount of useful guidance. I'm talking specifically about the choice of landline, mobile, broadband and TV providers in the UK.

Interestingly, one of my friends in the UK predicted that I'd be disappointed by the lack of choice I'll have for these services in the UK compared to what he presumed to be the variety that I have in the US. In fact, I'm more addled than disappointed. In the US, I can choose from exactly one cable provider (Comcast - they're the only one left anyway). I can also choose from exactly one broadband provider, also Comcast, since no one else could be bothered to run wires to my part of the planet. I can choose among several landline providers, but the difference in price is minimal as compared to the difference in service (ironically, the term "dial tone" seems to have little meaning to some of them), so it's Verizon for that. And for mobile phone service, the only one that actually seems to work in my area is Verizon, so it was an easy decision.
In the UK, though, I can choose among a landline phone company and a satellite TV provider that also both provide broadband and internet phone service, a mobile provider that offers broadband, and a cable company that can give me broadband and mobile (and, interestingly, CDs and airplane tickets and probably a credit card). I've probably missed some, but you get the gist.

Having these choices is a good thing. It's the complexity of making the choice that's a problem, because there are so many factors to consider. I just want some meaningful way of comparing them. Is one provider's lower monthly fee offset by that provider's higher charges for international calls? Does another's inexpensive mobile+broadband service mean that Michele will also pay more to call me? And, since I have to pay the landline company for the rental of a phone line anyway, would it be cheaper or easier to also get broadband from the landline provider?

It's not like I don't have the tools or the mental acuity to figure it out. My point is that I shouldn't have to figure it out. Because not only do I have to figure it out, but so does everyone else faced with a similar decision. The technology exists to enable such companies to provide their rates and other useful information in a standard format to enable people like me to compare prices and plans and make an informed decision that's right for me (or better yet, to enable someone else to do so from whom I can then simply buy the analysis). So why don't these providers, who certainly have the technical resources to do so, probably in about the time it took me to write this, take advantage of these technologies? I've got to think it's because doing so would be all downside for most providers. Purveyors of commodity services like telephone have a vested interest in making us believe that there's a substantive difference between them. The best way they can do this is to lure us to their flashy websites where they can dazzle is with bullshit marketing while obfuscating their pricing structures. Putting their pricing front and center is exactly what these guys don't want, because then they'll be forced to compete on the one metric that actually distinguishes them.

Nor is this a UK-specific complaint. It just happens to be that I'm having to make numerous decisions like this in an unusually short period of time, so I'm a slightly chafed from the experience.

In the end, I'll probably just choose the vendor that requires me to do the least amount of work: the landline provider. Since I already have to call them to hook up the phone, it should be an easy transaction to add broadband.

OK, now I'm going to go brush my teeth.

House For Sale, Cheap!

http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1078399107?lnksrc=00045

As a technologist, most of the challenges I encounter can be met given sufficient thought. Selling a house is not one of them. Regardless of the number of calories we burn thinking about how to sell our house, no results are produced. OK, so it's only been on the market for a week, but this is a big item that we'd really like to have behind us.

We've had a few people come to look at it. One couple loved the downstairs, but thought the upstairs needed too much cosmetic work, partly because of the stickers on Caroline's bedroom door. They said that the house should be "perfect". Perhaps they should be looking at new construction. The house is 16 years old. It's not perfect.

In a way, our house is representative of our neighborhood. Yes, the floorplan is almost identical to everyone else's (which sounds boring, but believe me, when you're drunk at a neighbor's party, it's great knowing that no matter whose house you're in you can always find the bathroom), but that's not what I mean. I mean that it's imperfect, and because of that imperfection, lovable.

No one in the neighborhood is perfect, but then, no one claims to be. That's what I like most about where we live - we're all just doing the best we can to make a nice environment for our families. And generally, we succeed.

I look at some of the new developments popping up around us like dandelions, and they seem soulless. I suppose some of that could be sour grapes - after all, I won't be able to afford an $800K house any time soon. But largely, I think my negative feelings about them is that they're too perfect. The manicured lawns, the expansive facades, the 7 series BMWs in the driveways. Maybe if I knew some of these people, I'd feel differently, but the houses in these Toll Brothers developments simply don't invite neighborly conversation. I'll take my own neighborhood, thank you very much, weeds and all. Oh wait, that's just my lawn. Damn.

I'll miss our neighborhood. And, while I never thought I'd say this when we first moved in to the house and there was soooo much to do, I'll miss our house. Warts and all.

Want to buy it?