All posts by Richard S. Crawford

Coming Home

Current location: Home

In Amsterdam, the lines were long and the airport was crowded, and there was advertisements for a particular major software company on just about every pillar. Foolish me, I thought that with a 2.5 hour layover, I might even have a chance to step outside of the airport and at least breathe in some Dutch air. No such luck. The number of times that my passport needed to be examined was five, at least. And after my passport had been checked the second time and my security interview completed and all my belongings retrieved (my backpack was too heavy for carry on luggage on the plane from London to Amsterdam), I was faced with a tough choice: stand in the huge queue of over five hundred people all waiting for their passports to be checked so they could get to the gate, or take a mile-long walk around the airport to get to my gate without having to stand in that line. I opted for the walk.

The flight from Amsterdam to Washington, D.C. was pleasant; each of the seats had a nice little television monitor built in to the back, so every passenger had their own screen to watch the movie on. This more than made up for the fact that I had to ride in coach (for some reason, United Airlines wouldn’t let me upgrade my flight to Business Class). I sat next to a Dutch fellow who was going to Santa Barbara, California, to visit a college friend of his, and we had a good conversation.

I was worried landing in Washington because there was only a half-hour between the landing of the plane from Amsterdam and the boarding of the plane to San Francisco. And sitting as I was at the back of the plane, I knew that I would have to grab my backpack and fight my way off the plane, through customs and security, and everything else before I could get to the other gate where my other plane was waiting. Again my passport had to be checked, and because I’d purchased several boxes of chocolate for various mothers and fiancees, I had to declare that I had food with me and stand in the USDA inspection line as well as the standard Customs line. "Keep Hoof and Mouth Out of America", the signs read in large intimidating letters. Chocolate, though, isn’t a very ready carrier of Hoof and Mouth disease, so the USDA waved me through with nary a glance at my bag. And the fact that I was bringing in my prescription medications without the original prescriptions from my doctor didn’t raise a single eyebrow.

The flight from Washington to San Francisco was less pleasant than the flight from Amsterdam. Again, I was seated in coach, but there were no comfortable private movie screens this time. This time if I wanted to watch the movie I had to strain my neck to see around the heads of the people in front of me and simply accept that people would continually walk up and down the aisle, periodically blocking my view. I sat next to a woman who will shortly be traveling to Ireland herself, and had a good conversation with her about travel and books. Most of the time, she was asleep and I was reading my book (Life, by Richard Fortey, a good general account of the evolution of life on Earth over the past four billion years).

I had awakened at 5:00 a.m., London time, after a night of fitful and uneasy rest, in order to catch my first plane. By the time I landed in San Francisco, I had been awake for nearly twenty-two hours, seventeen of them on airplanes. I was feeling cramped for lack of movement on the plane and tired from lack of sleep in London, and just a bit grungy. I had stowed my backpack in an overhead compartment four rows behind where I was sitting, so I had to fight against the current of people to get to it before I could get off the plane, so I was feeling jostled and crowded as well.

I stepped off the plane and onto the gangway, sad that my trip was over, and focused on my aching back and my sore legs.

The gangway from the airport to the gate was mercifully short.

And waiting for me at the gate, looking more beautiful than I have ever seen her before, was Jennifer. Instantly my back stopped hurting, my legs stopped aching, my tiredness was forgotten when I saw her standing there, with that smile of hers that lights up her entire face and the welcoming look in her eyes.

That’s when it finally came to me: that’s when I realized that I was really home.

Some day, I will go back. One month is not enough time to explore Ireland alone, let alone Ireland and the entire United Kingdom. Some day I’ll be able to spend more time in London, and some day I will go to Wales and explore the Snowdonias and meet the people there as well. Some day I’ll travel further, and finally see continental Europe; and beyond that, I’ll visit Asia and Australia and perhaps even parts of Africa.

But if home really is where the heart is, then wherever Jennifer is will be home for me. And when I travel further abroad, Jennifer will be by my side; and with her there, I will always be at home.

Today is the Day (II)

Current Location: Coming Home

Anticipation
Planning for my trip, buying travel equipment, making plane reservations, saving money.
Sadness
Sitting in the airport in San Francisco with Jennifer next to me, my arm around her shoulders, knowing I wouldn’t be seeing her again for another month.
Excitement
Looking out the window of the airplane and seeing Dublin for the very first time.
Stepping through the portcullis into Edinburgh Castle.
Exploring the Natural History Museum in London.
Happiness
Sitting in a pub in Westport, Ireland, listening to traditional Irish music with a good friend and a famous Celtic flautist.
Wandering the streets of Tain and enjoying the quiet and the scenery.
Sitting in the theater and watching Hamlet performed by some of the finest actors in the world.
Loneliness
Watching A– pack up her belongings, and knowing I’d be spending the rest of my trip, nearly three full weeks, on my own.
That night, taking out the lock of Jennifer’s hair that she’d given me before I left and re-reading the notes that she’d left in my bag, and knowing that it would be three more weeks before I could hold her again, and wondering if I could arrange my flight to come home early.
Frustration.
Wandering Glasgow, looking for a bank that would let me do a cash advance so that I could afford the train ticket out of that town, and knowing that I’d be stuck at least one more day there.
Awe.
Exploring Inismor off the west coast of Ireland and looking at geological formations and tide pools.
Visiting the Holy Trinity Church in England and realizing that the church where William Shakespeare is buried is still, after 750 years, an active parish and that people have been worshiping there for longer than the United States has been around.
Annoyance.
Dealing with a cold while trying to explore the Tower of London and the Natural History Museum.
Sadness.
Knowing that I’m going home now and will be leaving this wonderful place behind.
Happiness.
Knowing that I’m going home now and will be seeing Jennifer again for the first time in almost a month.

Cramming

Current Location: London, England

I arrived in London yesterday evening and, immediately after unloading my stuff at the hotel I’d reserved, started wandering around to see what I could see. My top priority, of course, was locating an Internet café so that I could communicate with Jennifer and post these final journal entries. Then I wandered the streets for awhile to see what I could see until I got myself lost and flagged down a cab to take me back to the hotel.

One day is not enough to experience London, just as a month is not enough time to experience the British Isles. There’s far too much to do: Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the House of Parliament, Buckinham Palace, the Natural History Museum… and that’s just in the city proper, not to mention Windsor Castle, the Cotswolds, and more.

And those are just the attractions to see during the day. There is also the dining, the theater, the night life, the art galleries, and, above all, the people.

Since I’ll be getting up very early tomorrow to meet the taxi that is taking me to Heathrow Airport, and because I’ve been fighting a cold for the past couple of days, I should probably just turn in early tonight and leave the night life of London for another trip in the future.

For today, I had to content myself with seeing parts of the two attractions that I’ve wanted to see in London for many years: the Tower of London, and the Natural History Museum. I’ve wanted to see the Tower of London ever since I was a kid and heard a ghost story about the "Bloody Tower" on the radio. Okay, yeah, there is a lot of history at the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels are there, too, but I was mostly intrigued with the idea of visiting one of the most haunted spots in England.

I saw no ghosts at the Tower of London, but I did see the famous ravens, and I saw the Crown Jewels, and the Armoury. I saw suits of armor that had been worn by King Henry VIII and the sword that he used in battle. My years of playing Dungeons and Dragons and working for the Renaissance Faire and hanging out with people who participate in the Society for Creative Anachronisms (and a life-long attraction to things medieval) have filled me with a desire to explore castles, marvel at weapons and armor of genuine antiquity, and walk streets that have been walked for thousands of years. And London, of all the places in the world, is just ripe for that sort of thing.

I also saw the crown that Elizabeth II wore at her coronation in 1952. Part of the Crown Jewels exhibit included a videotape of Elizabeth II’s coronation, and I have to say that it was an impressive, even moving ceremony. A presidential inauguration just doesn’t carry the kind of resonance that a royal inauguration does, even if the monarch in question has no real power anymore.

The other attraction I saw, the Museum of Natural History, has been on my wish list since biology classes I took in high school, when I heard about their impressive fossil collections and zoological displays. Again, I had to content myself with seeing only about half of the Museum; when wandering museums or tourist attractions, I have an incurable tendency to examine every item on display and read every explanatory plaque and track down related exhibits. I spent over nearly two hours in Hall’s Croft, the 17th century home owned by William Shakespeare’s son-in-law, fascinated by the accounts of 17th century middle class life and Renaissance medicine (John Hall was a physician), while other tourists wandered in, took a glance or two, and wandered out again. So in the Natural History Museum of London, I spent four hours exploring their fossils, their rocks, their dioramas, their insect collection. And I think I only hit about 75% of the museum.

I can’t believe I’m leaving for home tomorrow. I need more time to explore London. If I didn’t have a fiancee waiting for me at home that I love more than anything else and whom I need to see after a month of separation, I might just say screw my job and rearrange my flight for one week later…

That Big City

Current Location: London, England

Two days left. Less, really, since my flight to Amsterdam is in about 36 hours. I’m coming into the home stretch.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve been traveling for four weeks. I look back and there’s a lot that I’ve done: wandering Dublin, looking for the hostel; climbing rocks on the Aran Islands; listening to music in Westport; climbing Croagh Patrick in Ireland; exploring Edinburgh Castle; hunting for the Loch Ness Monster; watching "Hamlet" performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company; and more. I’ve written nearly 150 pages in my leatherbound journal, close to twenty entries in my on-line journal, and I’ve met many, many people. Just today I met a blacksmith in Stratford-Upon-Avon who showed me how to make a decorative piece for a fence post. He wouldn’t let me operate the forge, but he explained the anvil and everything else to me. It was fascinating.

Around about 1:00 or so, though, I realized that I needed to stop talking to the locals and meeting interesting people like actors and blacksmiths and former members of the Royal Guard, and get on the train to London.

The train from Stratford-Upon-Avon to Paddington Station was an odd one for England. First of all, I was able to find a seat without having to hope that the seat I was taking wasn’t already reserved. And the seat I found so quickly was in a non-smoking coach. And there was room for my luggage.

The train was a minute or two late arriving into Stratford-Upon-Avon, but that’s normal. In fact, while waiting for the much delayed train to arrive in York to take me to Stratford-Upon-Avon, I turned to the woman sitting next to me and asked, "Are the trains always like this?"

"Like what?" she asked.

"Late," I said. "All the trains in England that I’ve taken have been at least twenty minutes late."

"Oh," she said, and looked thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose we just don’t notice it anymore."

That is exactly what she said; I’m not lying to you.

For me, I discovered that the best way to arrive in a station in time for your connecting train is to leave the previous station on a train scheduled for at least an hour earlier. For example, if you’re traveling from York to Birmingham and you need to catch a 3:35 connection in Birmingham and your train from York is scheduled to arrive into Birmingham at 3:03, then the best thing to do is to take the train from York which is scheduled to arrive in Birmingham at 1:15. That way, you’ll wind up in Birmingham with minutes to spare to catch your 3:35 connection (which will be delayed until at least 4:15 anyway).

On the whole, though, my experience in England has been overwhelmingly positive, and even the trains have their good side. The train is always my preferred method of travel (and I wish I could just take the train from London to San Francisco, but that might prove impractical); on the train, I can relax, read a book, write, meet other people, or just gaze out the window at the scenery at ground level. Airplanes are not meant for scenery gazing, nor are they particularly geared for a meeting other people. So it was from the train windows that I got to experience the best of the Eglish country side, and it is staggering in places. Of course, other parts of England are truly ugly; but England is just another country, when you get down to it, and subject to the same sort of growth and industrialization that other countries are subject to.

In fact, many of the people I’ve spoken to in England are puzzled by American tourists. "What do you want to come to York for?" one woman asked me. When I explained I was interested in the history and the look of the place and the people there, she was honestly puzzled. "I don’t get it," she said. But when she explained that she really wanted to visit San Francisco one day, I ended up asking her why. I suppose when you live in the middle of something, or even near it, you forget that it can be special.

And in just two days I fly back home. That’s hard to believe. Where did the time go?

Shakespeare Country

Current Location: Stratford-Upon-Avon, Enland

The first thing I have to do is wish Jennifer a happy birthday!

There is a part of me which is continually surprised to find myself here in England. I’ve been exposed to England throughout my life — mostly in the form of television shows which have been imported by PBS, or Shakespearean plays performed by a college or other theater group, or through history classes in high school or college. Like the rest of this trip, it’s hardly seemed real for me to be here.

So yesterday I arrived in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the place where William Shakespeare was born and where he retired and died (most of his professional life was actually spent in London). When I got here I discovered that there is actually a Shakespeare festival going on — the summer theater festival, in fact — being put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Usually when I read about such festivals and check out the schedules, I find that the plays are usually the most obscure plays — Titus Andronicus, for example, or one of the less interesting history plays. This time I discovered that the very night I arrived, the Royal Shakespeare Company would be performing Hamlet, which I’m pretentious enough to say is my favorite Shakespearean play. Needless to say, I bought my ticket and sat spellbound while the play was performed. It was, in many ways, a very traditionally performed Elizabethan play; the scenery was spartan and the costumes were slight, just like in the days of the Kings Players, when Shakespeare and his company relied on dialogue to convey location and where scenery was meant to be suggestive of the location. Very elaborate scenery intended to look exactly like the location of the play and expensive costumes are a more modern invention.

And tonight I went and saw King John, one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known history plays. King John tells the story of the conflict over the throne of England after the death of Richard I and before the accession of Henry III (I think; I may have gotten the succession wrong). King John, brother of King Richard, supported by his mother, struggles to hold on to the throne while young Arthur, illegitimate son of Richard I, is also put forth as the true heir to the throne (supported by his own mother and by the king of France). The two opposing forces meet outside the small city of Algiers to try to win that city’s support; Algiers promises to support the true King of England, as soon as they know who that is, and requires both sides to prove the legitimacy of their claim. As the play progresses, England and France unite, young Arthur is killed while trying to escape the prison that King John has put him in, battles ensue, the duke of Austria is killed and so on. At the end of a sequence of treachery on the part of King John’s sometimes supporters and manipulations by the Catholic church, neither party wins; King John dies in an abbey, and the forces of the French retreat from a near invasion of England, and Henry, son of King John, is proclaimed King.

King John is an unusual play for Shakespeare, and is rarely performed. Some critics think that its structure is odd (which it is), but most people dislike the qualities of ambiguity and amorality which infuse the play. In most of Shakepseare’s history plays, such as Henry V or Richard III, it’s very clear who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and there is a clear progression of the meta-plot which more or less echoes the succession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth I. King John reflects a much darker period of that history where kingly succession is marked not by heroism or purity of character but by political ambition, ambiguity of character, amorality, and political "spin". In that sense, it is more truly about politics and history than the canonical history plays. As I sat enraptured in the Swan Theater, I couldn’t help but think that the efforts of both forces to win the support of the people of Algiers too closely reflected the last presidential election in the United States; and when I explained my thinking to the woman who runs a bookshop near the birthplace of Shakespeare, she laughed and told me that the comparison had been made before but that people think it better reflects the current election campaign in the United Kingdom. Since I’m not really familiar with this campaign (having watched only enough news on television to catch the famous "Prescott Punch" in Wales), I couldn’t answer to that. But we were both enjoying comparing King John to George Bush, Prince Arthur to Al Gore, and the city of Algiers to Florida. I couldn’t think of a suitable party that the Papal legate would have represented but I’m sure I can come up with one if I put my mind to it.

Obviously, there is more to do in Stratford-Upon-Avon than watch plays; there are several tourist attractions in the area as well, including the house that Shakespeare himself was born in, and the house that his wife, Ann Hathaway, lived in prior to their marriage. Yesterday I visited the Hathaway House and learned, to my surprise, that the Hathaway Family had lived in that very same house from the 1400’s to the early 1900’s. The way that the people of Ireland and the UK live and breathe the history that surrounds them surprises me enough; to realize that there are homes in the world where the same family has lived for nearly five hundred years came as an even bigger surprise. My own home that I share with Jennifer has existed for less than three months, and while the home that my parents live in has been around for longer than that, their occupancy of it doesn’t even go back two decades, let alone generations. Can you imagine looking at a house, knowing that you were born in that house, and your mother or father before you and their mother or father before them? It honestly staggers the imagination.

Tomorrow I leave Stratford-Upon-Avon to head for London; I’ll have less than two days in London before I fly out to Amsterdam to catch my flight to San Francisco. And there are less than three days of my trip. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been traveling for nearly a month now; where has the time gone?

Sixteen Thousand Tons of History

Sixteen Thousand Tons of History

Current Location: York, England

Like everyplace else that I’ve visited, York is steeped in history; history informs everything here and gives it shape; it’s almost a palpable force that you can smell. Even though most of the even oldest buildings throughout Ireland and the UK are of 18th century origin or later, there are still places and buildings which date back several centuries or even a millenia or two. In York, the huge cathedral York Minster has parts which date back to the 4th century, when the city was a Roman city; other parts go back to the 12th and 13th centuries; and the most modern major portions of the Minster are still several hundred years old. The central tower of the Minster, measuring nearly 80m high, has been estimated to weigh in at over sixteen thousand tons. From the center of the cathedral, where the nave and choir and two transepts meet, you can look up and feel overwhelmed by the height of the building, and feel yourself getting dizzy in sympathy for the workers who had to install the stained glass windows and bosses which decorate the interior of the tower.

Surrounding the cathedral is the city of York itself. In an area of the city known as "The Shambles", the streets are so narrow that there is not room for a single automobile to drive through, and many areas in the city center are closed to automobile traffic. The Shambles itself was once the butchers’ lane in York, and it was here that butchers would slaughter their animals and sell their meat. The streets are still there, but the butcher stalls are now small shops and pubs and cafés. This Internet café is not in one of the tiny streets of the Shambles, but it is in one of the older, narrow parts of the city that are closed off to automobiles.

And today, of course, I toured the castle. The ruins of the castle of York, Clifford’s Tower (the reason why the name of the Tower itself was changed from York Tower to Clifford Tower is unknown), is a small building, shaped something like a cloverleaf, and hollow. Ages ago, it was a two story building with stone walls criss-crossing the interior, but a mason of the 19th century had taken stones from the castle and was reselling them for personal money. He was not caught until two years later.

I’m beginning to realize that, fiercely proud as they are of their history and heritage, the British and Irish fondness of their own history is, after all, a relatively recent phenomenon. Castles and cathedrals and old churches still stand and speckle the landscape, but more frequent are the buildings that were build from pieces of centuries-old buildings which have fallen over or which were simply salvaged for their building materials. Pieces of standing stones throughout the British Isles were important for many years not because of their archaeological value but because they were rich sources of valuable stone. History here is generally well recorded, but there are still plaques which read, "believed to have been built in 1901", and so on. War memorials feature prominently in the center of just about every city I’ve been in, including Tain, commemorating those who died in the First World War (usually referred to as the Great War), but to the English Civil War.

It’s as if, in some way, awareness of history and heritage didn’t really spread throughout the country until the middle of the last century, slowly building up until today, when the desire to preserve the past frequently conflicts with the desire for progress. This conflict is often seen in campaigns featuring slogans such as, "Preserve Our Heritage!" and "Stop the Rebuilders!"

It’s easy for me to imagine the people of the British Isles overwhelmed at the sense of history that hangs over them, burdened with it, as if they were always feeling the weight of sixteen thousand tons just over their heads.

On a different note, I should observe that England is very different from both Scotland and Ireland in character and appearance. While the people of Ireland and Scotland were very outgoing and friendly and ready to share a smile and a joke, the people of England are far more reserved and their humor is much more understated (one Englishman I spoke to, demonstrating perfectly the English pompousness and the self-effacing nature of English humor, explained to me that all English boys have their imaginations surgically removed five days after their birth). While A– told me that she was disgusted with English pompousness, I explained that being angry with the English for being pompous would be like being angry with the Irish for being friendly; it’s a cultural characteristic, the same sort of thing which makes Americans overbearing and noisy (while, at the same time, enthusiastically friendly).

Personally, I think that the English reservation and pompousness is paper thin. Scratch the surface of it just a bit, and you’ll find that the English are just as friendly as the Scots and the Irish, and while the sense of superiority remains it is made tolerable by the fact that the English know their reputation and rarely miss an opportunity to make a joke of it.

My next stop of Stratford-upon-Avon; after two days there I head over to London, and from there I head home (via Amsterdam).

The Paradox of the English Breakfast

Current Location: York, England

Waverly Station in Edinburgh was a confusion of people and trains and baggage. I hopped off the train that had brought me here from Inverness exactly on time, and wandered around the station, looking for Platform 11, which held the train that would take me to York. I found that train, discovered that it was just about to leave, and hopped on quickly just as it was pulling away from the platform.

"I thought I had until 3:00," I told the conductor.

"You do," the conductor replied. "This is the delayed 2:00 train. This route runs every hour, but this particular train is delayed. May I see your ticket?"

I dutifully handed it over. He looked at it and told me, "This is the first class car. Standard accommodations are towards the back of the train. You could upgrade for only ten pounds, or make your way three cars back."

"Thanks," I told him, "but I’ll take my chances in Standard."

With my huge backpack straining at my shoulders (I hadn’t managed to pack very well), I made my way back until I got to the first of the standard accommodation cars. Right away I was hit with a wall of cigarrette smoke and a crowd of people with similarly straining backpacks and strained tempers. Because I was developing a migraine and wasn’t interested in dealing with the smoke and the crowd, I decided to spend the extra ten pounds and sit in first class.

The train had been delayed in Waverly station because of a tardy crew member. As soon as the train reached Dunbar, it became clear that the train was going to be delayed again because of a problem with the doors in one of the cars. By the time the train left Dunbar Station, it was nearly a full hour late. This was my first experience with trains run by Britain; the trains run by Scotland, Scotrail, were brutally punctual, leaving on the minute from each station and arriving at each destination exactly at the time advertised on each timetable; needless to say, this was a blow to my stereotyped perception of the English as brutally and coldly efficient creatures of punctuality.

But I arrived in York with enough time to check in to my Bed and Breakfast. This is a lovely one, very Victorian in many ways, and quite attractive, and well within walking distance of city center, which is a good thing, since York is a beautiful city (though you wouldn’t know it to look at the scenery as you ride into the train station). It is in this Bed and Breakfast that this morning I discovered the Paradox of the English Breakfast: namely, that you won’t be allowed to order your meal until you have already begun eating. I found this passing strange, since I do have a degree in Philosophy and haven’t encountered this logical conundrum before. I sat in the dining room and waited for the hostess to come by and ask me what I want for a good fifteen minutes. Finally, I went to the sideboard and fixed myself a bowl of corn flakes and orange juice, and sat down and began to eat. It was then that I finally got to order my kipper. I watched the other guests in the dining room and noticed that things were just the same for them as well.

After eating my logically ambiguous breakfast, I headed out of the B&B and started to walk the streets of York. Naturally, the first thing I did was seek out an Internet café, which is where I am right now (it is, in fact, a branch of the same chain of internet cafés which I used in Glasgow, Scotland). York is a beautiful city with a castle and a cathedral and more museums than you can possibly hope to see in a single day; the streets are tiny, prohibitive to automobiles (in fact, cars are banned in the denser parts of the city near the cathedral); and street actors wander the snickerways (that’s the actual word), performing and pandering for money. I fully intend to explore this city as much as I can.

I have less than a week left on my trip. I have given up entirely on trying to get to the continent, and booked a flight from London to Amsterdam so that I can catch my flight home from there (booking that flight was far cheaper than trying to change my flight home to leave London instead of Amsterdam). One month is not nearly enough time to appreciate Ireland, let alone Ireland and the United Kingdom. As it is, I will see very little of England (Stratford-upon-Avon is my next stop after York), and I won’t get to see Wales at all. Trying to see France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands on top of this would have been insane, and I know I would not have enjoyed that. I am very glad that I let my gut decide where to go. My only regret is that my flight home leaves Amsterdam; the flight from London to there will cost me $200, which I could have used to buy an even more extravagant birthday gift for Jennifer.

The Falling Axe

Current Location: York, England

I couldn’t help myself.

In spite of my best efforts to not think about work or career while on this trip, I went ahead and did it any way. I brought up AOL Instant Messenger and contacted a couple of co-workers, and found out that while I’ve been gone, sixteen people have been laid off from the parent company, including the one developer who, with me, constituted the entire PHP knowledge base in our company. Casualties also included one QA engineer and a host of marketing people, demonstrating beyond doubt that our emphasis is neither on keeping our product functioning nor on etting new people to use it.

Am I surprised by this news? Hardly. Remember, the entire purpose of our company is to act as a draining mechanism for spare funding from the companies that feed us. I think we operate on the assumption that these major corporations that support us have too much money than is healthy and they need somewhere to spend it; it’s the same principle that caused medieval and Renaissance physicians to prescribe leeches to remove excess blood from sick patients. Our customer base is minimal, and is the joke of the development staff. Even the head of development, a man with whom I agree very rarely when it comes to management style, has expressed dismay at the small number of users we have.

Now, do I fear that there will be no job waiting for me when I get back? No. The branch of the company that I work for is the only branch of the company which is actually showing a profit. In January, this fact led to the CEO of the company creating a new structure which allowed the rest of the company to share profits from all branches, completely dismantling the structure which had all separate branches functioning as essentially separate companies. Since we only have two developers working for this branch, there is no fear that we will suffer the falling axe, even though there are hints that some of the Member Services team in our branch might get hit.

What I am worried about, though, is that with the loss of 13% of our work force, and a freeze on new hiring (especially in development, though there is always, apparently, room for new managers), the amount of work for our staff will increase rapidly. And with the focus on new projects and a corporate environment which puts an emphasis on ignoring old products once they’re finished, regardless of whether they work, I’m afraid that this will essentially mean that my own role will become even more so that of the straight HTML developer. Not that HTML is a bad thing, of course; but it’s much more interesting and fun to build the back end of websites and the middleware, not the front end. I’ve done everything I have wanted to do with HTML, and I don’t believe that there is any room for my HTML skills to grow; it no longer challenges or interests me. This is why my personal webpage is written in PHP now instead of HTML — it’s easier to maintain this way, so I can spend time developing content and let the PHP take care of the presentation.

It’s hard to feel enthusiastic about this job, I’m not proud of this job, and I don’t especially enjoy talking about this job unless I absolutely have to — like now, when my sense of frustration mixed with a sense of vindication (I’d been expecting these layoffs for months, and no one within the company believed me when I told them that they were coming) interferes with my enjoyment of this vacation. As I’ve written before, this job feels like a fake job, and not one that I feel is very useful to the world at large. After all, you could spend millions of dollars trying to convince monkeys to eat apples, but the truth is that monkeys will pretty much eat bananas, even if the apples are free — and our product is designed to be a portal to on-line services for a clientele which our own focus groups and studies show don’t trust technology anyway; it’s like spending the money trying to get monkeys to eat apples even when you’ve done study after study proving that monkeys only like to eat bananas.

This job’s primary advantage has been that it helped pay the bills while I spent my spare time learning Java and other skills that might one day land me in a career that I not only enjoyed, but which I felt I could take some pride in. And so now my fear is that I will no longer be able to take that one single advantage. My fear is that now this job will not only feel like a fake job to me, it will now be a fake job which does nothing to interest or challenge me, or offer room for growth.

Family Business

Family Business

Current Location: Tain, Scotland

First of all, to my sister, who is currently in Washington, D.C. attending a conference at the Library of Congress: Happy Birthday! Her age won’t be revealed, suffice to say that she is younger than I am.

In general, I’ve been following my gut when it’s told me that it’s time to leave a place and explore someplace new. Well, actually, I’ve been about a day behind my gut; I stayed in Glasgow a day longer than I meant to (and just about everyone I’ve spoken to agrees with my perception of Glasgow as a bit of a dump; in fact, the only person I’ve met who really liked Glasgow at all was the little old lady who worked the souvenier stand in Glasgow Cathedral — and I think she was paid to say that Glasgow is a nice place), and I stayed in Edinburgh probably a day too long. I couldn’t help it, though; Edinburgh is such a beautiful city with so many different things to do that I had a hard time getting away.

But get away I did. I took the train yesterday to Inverness, a much smaller city than Edinburgh, and one of the newest cities in Scotland (the town itself has been around for hundreds of years, but it was only incorporated as a city about ten years ago or so). I had been led to believe that Inverness would be a boring industrial city, so I wasn’t really looking forward to going there; but instead I found that Inverness was a pleasant enough town with a friendly character all its own. The Bed and Breakfast I am staying at is a charming little place, in a private home, and the owner is very friendly. She gets a certain sort of maniacal joy out of seating perfect strangers next to each other and encouraging people to talk. "First of all," she told me as soon as I showed up, "breakfast is at 8:30, no exceptions. You’re sitting over there next to the American couple from New York and the single gentleman from Sweden. You’ll have a lovely time." In the morning she introduced me as "Mr. Crawford from California, who will be married in July, isn’t that lovely?"

I wanted some time to explore Inverness, but I had an errand to run. My stepfather has recently received his certificate of legitimacy from the highland clan that he is descended from, and I thought it would be interesting to go up to the city of Tain, the seat of his clan, and have a look around, perhaps visit the castle that serves as the clan seat, and maybe even meet the clan chief. So that first morning in Inverness, I left the B&B and went to the train station to take the train up to the city of Tain.

Local legend has it that the town of Tain (variably spelled Tayne) has been in existence in the same spot since the year 1066. Some of the locals that I spoke with believe that legend, but the people in the museum and the historical society don’t; according to them, the city is not that old. The oldest reference to Tain comes from a piece of parchment dating from 1479 referring to a meeting between two nobles in the town in 1463. This means that Tain, a community of less than ten thousand people (including the surrounding hamlets and villages) has been around longer than the United States. This is more of that continuous ongoing history that the British, Scots, and Irish live and breathe every single day and which seems alien to a Californian such as myself. Indeed, throughout the British Isles, I’ve found that history fairly seeps from the land itself, a palpable substance that informs everything that happens here. And the Brits, Scots, and Irish are all fiercely proud of their history and their heritage. The people of Tain are no exception.

Seeing the castle which is the seat of Clan Ross is, unfortunately, impossible; it is currently owned by Mohammed Al’Fayid, an Egyptian fellow who has been trying unsuccessfully to obtain British citizenship for years. And the chief of Clan Ross currently lives in Aberdeenshire, which is too far out of my way to consider visiting. What I could do in the city was explore a bit, take the walking tour, visit the Tain through Time exhibition at the local museum, and meet some of the people here. As are all of the people in the British Isles, the people of Tain are without exception friendly, engaging, and outgoing. Their grasp of technology is a bit behind mine, of course; when I asked one fellow if there was an internet connection anywhere within the city, he gave me a strange look. "What’s an internet?" he asked me in all sincerity. When talking with the curator of the Tain museum, I found that the further north in Scotland you go, the more traditional people become. People in the most remote parts of northern Scotland, such as in the Orkney Isles, may not even have televisions and cars; a lifestyle unthinkable to modern Americans, I think, but I’ve encountered such a lifestyle before, on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland (and such a lifestyle certainly has its advantages — the people of the Aran Islands live, on average, about two years longer than their more stressed out neighbors in Ireland and the UK; and the same is apparently true for the people of the Ornkey Islands as well).

Tain is a beautiful, beautiful town. I can’t see myself enjoying it for very long (I’d want to take the 50 mile journey to Inverness every weekend for something to do) but I can see my parents loving it. Most of the buildings are of 18th or 19th century construction though there are some buildings (notably St. Duthac’s Chapel and Church) which have stood for much longer. Tain itself was a popular spot for Christian pilgrimages because its church held the sacred head of St. Duthac, until the Reformation (when pilgrimages were banned and the head of St. Duthac — and his breastbone and one other relic, which escapes me for now) were presented to the Earl of Ross in Balnagowan Castle).

Visiting Tain was almost a pilgrimage for me. While I told myself that visiting the city was a favor for my stepfather, I’ve come to realize that it was more for myself than for him.

For the spiritually inclined of ages past, going on a pilgrimage meant going to a holy shrine to view the relics of a saint or other holy personage. For me, coming here meant setting myself a goal, figuring out how to achieve it, and making it happen. I’ve never been very good at setting goals and making them happen, so this was a big achievement for me.

I spent the afternoon in Tain, exploring, meeting people, taking pictures, taking in the scenery and the quiet atmosphere (the only sound was the din of hundreds of birds in the trees). I could have found accommodations in Tain instead of Inverness, but, in a way, I’m glad I didn’t.

My next stop after Inverness is York in England. It will be sad to leave Scotland, but it’s time to move on.

On another note, this is the 100th entry in my on-line journal. Well, okay, I find that cool!

Next Stop

Current Location: Edinburgh, Scotland

I don’t know what it is this morning. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten comfortable here in Edinburgh and I’m nervous about leaving today. Maybe it’s because I have seen Jennifer in nearly a month and I’m getting homesick. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really had a friend or someone to talk to for more than an hour at a time since A– and I went our separate ways last week. Maybe it’s because I only have ten days left on this trip, at least four of those will probably be spent on the train, and I still have quite a bit that I want to see and do. Maybe it’s because one of my co-workers has informed me (through Jennifer) that sixteen people have been laid off from the company I work for (my own job, apparently, is quite secure), and I’m just not looking forward to going back to work in that place and dealing with the atmosphere there and all of the extra work that will be assigned to me in the absence of recently laid off developers. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling overwhelmed by the impending workload, both professional and personal, that’s awaiting me, ready to descend upon me when I return.

There’s so much left to do. In the next ten days I need to work out how to get up to the city of Tain, then to York in England, then to London, and then to Amsterdam. With a stop in Belgium to pick up the chocolate that I’ve promised quite a few people. I’m told over and over again by people around here that it won’t be a problem to make all of this work, but at the same time I can’t help but be nervous. It’s in my nature.

And, of course, with the wedding less than two months away, there is a lot that needs to be done for that as well. Jennifer tells me, "Don’t expect to get to relax when you come back home; there’s a lot that we have to accomplish before the wedding."

Whatever the reason (it might be as simple as me being tired), I’m feeling homesick, sad, and lonely this morning. I’ve got a five-hour train ride this afternoon to another strange city where I won’t know anyone and where I’m not sure I have a place to stay. Then again, I was not sure of accommodations when I arrived in Edinburgh either.

Ten more days to go (not including June 3, which is reserved entirely for the flight back home). I’m finding myself feeling both sad and happy about that.