Darkly Colored Felines of Fury » life-in-the-uk

Whirlwind Europe trip with Ralph

Patrick Audley — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 17:47:30 +0000

I had just finished an investor relations trip in Europe for Cogneto. It was fun but extremely busy - one of those non-stop business trips where days are filled with meetings and evenings with... more meetings. We stayed at an amazing hotel (especially by London's standards) near Shepherd's Market in Mayfair. It was a short walk to our UK office off Berkeley Square and generally close to most other fun bits of London. We walked all over, paid homage to the Apple Store, ate in Soho, rode the tube. All very British and fun. Managed to have some great meals too! That was a shock - last time I was in the UK, good food was a scare commodity. I had my first Steak and Kidney pie which was amazing. We spent quite a bit of time hanging out at Adrian's private club Morton's. Very nice place to sit back for a few drinks after at day full of work. We managed to spend a day in Paris though all I saw of the city was from the cab windows between venues. Much traveling later saw us in Dresden for the weekend. Dresden was a surprise in many ways with it's juxtaposition of beautiful Saxon architecture and blocky communist buildings. There were tourists everywhere in the Old City but after we moved away from the main areas we found quite a few gems including "Al Capone's" Italian restaurant on Aleunstrabe. Overall a very nice city to hang out in, certainly one of the cheapest parts of Europe I've been in for good food, excellent beer, and swish accommodation.

Comments

October 30, 2006, Bruce Audley aka Dad writes: Yikes! Could it be? Your dad's favorite all time food is steak and kidney pie and you are now just discovering it? Could it be that all those years you were hiding in your room staring at a computer screen with those cursed bats flying around your shoulders, that you were missing the culinary feasts brewing in the upstairs kitchen? Say it ain't so! Okay, maybe the pies were store bought and dragged home from "Safeway" but, they were still epicurian fare for a couple of "Highlands" ruffians.

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Mom’s 2003 Visit to the UK

Patrick Audley — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 04:19:43 +0000

As is now our custom, Patrick, Elizabeth and I spent our weekend "away" this year at the Peat Inn in Cupar. The Inn is mentioned as one of the top places to stay in Scotland and one of the top 100 places to eat. The outside is relatively plain but the furnishings inside are amazing! Each suite is a split level with all lovely fabric and antiques flowing throughout. Italian marble and gold plated faucets, lovely old dark wood, fruit and cheese trays........ Each suite is completely different and very beautiful and all look into a lovely country garden. We dressed for a wonderful dinner. Upon entering the separate dining house, we were served a tiny slice of onion quiche and a cocktail of our choice. Our dinner and dessert orders were taken and we were guided into a truly lovely dining room (one of many) which looked over the garden. Each course was served and presented exquisitely. Patrick ordered the most tasty wine and desserts were a marvel. Everything was perfect. It was a gracious and happy time for all. Back now to Dundee. It has been a relaxing and fun filled holiday for me. Elizabeth is a marvelous cook and most evenings we have spent dining at CASA Audley/Farrell. My favorite, both this year and last, is Mexican Friday - Patrick makes margaritas and nachos. Most evenings, we watch a short DVD while eating dinner. The Family Guy is my favorite this year - off the wall but funny. I found a really interesting treasure shop called "David Bottoms Ironworks" hidden down a winding lane. We have bought lovely things for the kitchen here and it also has colored duct tape in the hardware section. Unusual to find such quality items in a hardware store! Patrick and I have walked many miles as per usual and I always enjoy shopping with him. Only the best will do - my kind of shopping! Patrick and Elizabeth have a very large new apartment which overlooks the Tay River. It is wonderful for them to have so much room. We have ventured out for lunch a few times and have found a new restaurant called "the Basement." The food is exceptional and the atmosphere is pleasant. I made a trip to the Wellcome Building and visited both Elizabeth and Patrick. I am very proud of both of them - they are so intelligent. This year, I took the plunge and had my hair "foiled" in 4 shades of blonde and cut in a new style called "chunks." It is beautiful but of course, it will never look the same when I do it myself! Patrick and Elizabeth are wonderful hosts but I am glad that I am the last of company for awhile. I am very pleased that they are so happy but I sure would like them to move closer to us all. I wonder where we will go for our weekend next year when I visit...

Bioinformatics Feb. 2003

Patrick Audley — Sun, 16 Feb 2003 01:56:29 +0000

It's been a fun month at work! Below is a picture of my new Cisco 6509. It's been a blast to play with and poke around. It's nice to have good hardware to use and network planning is always. On the software side I've been writing two software packages that shall be appearing in my code gallery soon. Submit_All is a package that allows biologists to submit a protein or DNA sequence and have it analysed by many programs at once on our cluster. The results are presented on a unified page and are cross-referenced. The second thing that I've been working on lately is a program to display sequences aligned with graphs and annotations. Good looking sequence displays are very lacking at the moment so I wanted to made something that will look pretty (hence the name Pretty_Seq *grin*). You can have a look below at the image of Pretty_Seq and the archive of Submit_All and see how I'm doing. [CALLAN,Chris Allan] who I worked with at [GT003,Group Telecom] has come out to join the University working as a guru in the Light Microscopy lab. It's cool to have someone from home to go out with. He's been staying with Elizabeth and I for the last few weeks until he gets a place. Canadian world domination proceeds a pace... This month promises to be fun at work!

Flat on Dock St.

Patrick Audley — Fri, 04 Oct 2002 00:00:00 +0000

(still unpacking boxes, so many boxes...)

Dundee, Scotland

Patrick Audley — Sat, 17 Aug 2002 06:43:39 +0000

A small city in Southern Scotland just north of L[Edinburgh]. These panoramic pictures were taken by my co-worker L[David Martin] from the really high hill in the middle of the town (W[Law, Dundee|The Law]). I can't offer much on the history or general information that's not already in the amazingly extensive W[Dundee|WikiPedia entry on Dundee]. Living in Dundee was a vast change from my years growing up in the heart of L[Vancouver] and the sedate lifestyle provided a much needed haven. Though Dundee has it's faults, I honestly enjoyed my years living there.

Comments

October 9, 2007, Brenda May writes: In July, I visited Patrick and Elizabeth at their home in Dundee. It was Patrick’s 25th birthday and my 52nd birthday. We were born 2 minutes and 27 years apart! I was very pleased to see how Patrick was adjusting to being married and to living in Scotland. The only drwaback there was the extremely small washer/dryer they have in their apartment. Wow! It is so small............ We worked out at their gym, walked, had wonderful dinners together and very much enjoyed each other’s company. That’s my story anyway:) On the weekend of our birthdays, we drove into England to the beautiful "Lumley Castle." I have always dreamed of sleeping in a real castle and this one was magnificient! The rooms were very beautiful and charming and just what a little girl dreams of (every woman has some "little girl" left in their heart). We had a traditional "eat with your hands" feast in the dungeon. It was a really great weekend and one that I will always remember. On the way back to Dundee, we had tea in the little village of Carlisle. I took a wonderful photograph that I am having framed for the dining room. We also visited some ancient Roman sites and were enthralled with the extend of the digs there. By the way, the views are very special from Patrick and Elizabeth’s dining room window. I am very pleased that Patrick and Elizabeth are such a happy couple.

Teashop in a small English town

Patrick Audley — Sun, 30 Jun 2002 00:00:00 +0000

This is an amazing photograph of that little street in Carlisle with the quaint teahouse you, Elizabeth and I visited last year. I had it blown up to 36 x 24 inches and framed with a wonderful green textured wood. The perspective is such that it looks like the wall extends into the street from the bricks by our fireplace. I have had many comments on this photo - it is truly lovely.

Shiva the Destroyer

Patrick Audley — Thu, 04 Apr 2002 04:48:12 +0000

For weeks in July 2002 we debated getting a kitten for Oliver. Would he get along with it? Would he feel threatened? In the end we decided to get a female kitten for Oliver as a playmate. On August the 3rd we picked up Shiva from an excellent cat shelter near Dundee (after a bad experience with the local cat shelters...). Shiva is aptly named and more of her exploits will follow.

Altar of Appliances

Patrick Audley — Tue, 01 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Appliances are supposed to be conveniences. Minor items that make our life easier. We hardly notice them. We just expect them to be there and to work well.

The [lifelinelink: OLDWORLD, Old World] has a very different view of appliances that influences their design and makes them very different from the standard [lifelinelink: NEWWORLD, New World] models. Efficiency in the NW means: "How well does it clean my clothes? How quickly? How much can I do at once?". OW appliance makers seems to market for: "How little power will this use? How little water? How small can we make it?" This leads to a great many designs that take much longer to do a very poor job with a small amount of laundry... but it doesn't cost much.

Enter the Germans They seems to share bits of both views and design appliances that are both functional (clean clothes well, reasonably throughput) and energy efficient. Our new washer and dryer, both are made by Miele who makes appliances for nuclear submarines, came with the standard European settings -- use as little water and power as possible but perform badly. While reading the manuals I came across this little gem:

All systems come from the factory with Sensitive Systems enabled to converse energy. Disabling this option will use more water and power but will clean more efficiently.

A few minutes reprogramming and viola! The washer fills with water instead of just trickling it over the clothes and the dryer moves faster and uses more air. Perfect.

A good altar of appliances really is bliss.

Darkly Colored Felines of Fury » life-in-the-uk

Whirlwind Europe trip with Ralph

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