So on Thursday Daniel decided to go to London England in the wee hours of morning for a spur of the moment vacation. And upon hearing this later in the day as he needed a ride to the airport, I decided to go too. What is remarkable is that I could buy a ticket at 1.10pm and take off in a plance at 3.45pm, I didn’t know the airlines allowed you to do that. Props to Air Canada! I had to come back Tuesday so it was a very short trip with little sleep and tons of fun. Big thanks to Tom for putting us up (and putting up with my crazy American views on how to go about providing equality for less advantaged citizens)!

I’ve been to London twice, but this was the first time I got to actually see the city. The last two times I just saw ultimate frisbee fields my brother was playing on before heading back to Essex, and the previous time I had to leave London the day after I got there due to a misunderstanding with Tony with the gold teeth and Scotland Yard. This trip was great and Tom showed us all over the city, rode the Eye (big ferris wheel), went to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral and so on. Next time hopefully I can find time to do more museums too. I also saw a lot of Pubs and ate some spectacular food. Plus got to meet our CTO which was great! My camera batteries died and forgot a power adapter so only a few photos. Hopefully Daniel has a lot more.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to Phibbers, my favorite pub in all of London Zone 2. With a name like that how can you go wrong? Phibbers…

I would like to take this time to honor my backpack, my mom gave it to me in high school and it has been with me ever since.

My backpack has been with me for every trip I’ve ever taken both foreign and domestic. It was with me on my first trip abroad to Germany, it was with me when I spent a month in Turkey over Christmas, it has been to every ultimate practice, every ultimate tournament, and every trip between class or work. It has not complained once. After all these years it has no defects and only the brand tag has fallen off. It has been severely over stuff many times and held more than its fair share.

Cheers backpack! Here’s to 10 more years!

I love to read and I feel the Kindle is one of the most amazing products of the last century. You have a device the size of one book that you can store your entire library on. And if that is not amazing enough you can buy books from anywhere in the world with an internet connection and save a few trees while you are doing so. Right now it costs $360 dollars but the books are all cheaper so you are slowly getting that money back as you buy books.

One of the hardest parts about being outside the United States is that books are incredibly expensive and Amazon.com is out of reach. The Kindle solves this problem as you can download books to an internet cafe computer and then transfer them to the Kindle. Plus my pack is that much lighter now that I only carry one book around. I had an ebook reader before this but the battery life was not great and the book selection wasn’t there. The amount of books Amazon has available for the Kindle is one of the most amazing parts and they have used their leverage to really push this format. Plus the books are cheaper as they are all digital. It makes sense as you are taking all the costs and risk out of the publishing system. If all book publishers had to do was to help find and develop good authors, or if all authors had to do was upload their book to Amazon and do marketing we are going to have some really amazing reading opportunities over the next decade.

I give the Kindle a 100% recommendation and I’ve already saved enough money on books to pay for the initial cost of the Kindle. There is a rumor a textbook version is coming which would be great for students!