The light at the end of the tunnel

It is the last day at UBS for 3 guys in CDR today: Martin Radcliffe, Bright Paramveer, and Manjun Rao. We have a lunch for Bright and Manjun at Mitchell's Fish Market, but Martin of course is a bit far away to come so all the guys and gals in London are giving him a good farewell there. He deserves it, after being in UBS for over 29 years!

We will all miss their smiles and optimism, their beer drinking abilities, their witty comments, and their help and cooperation in all the projects they worked on with us.

Have a great life guys, and all the best wherever you go.

michael, victoria, sruthi, albert, leo, manjun, alok, bright, and nabil

Bad, bad, bad

Some days words are not enough to express it. Take a look at this:



And that's just the top layer. There is lots underneath. This is all the food that we found while looking through Jake and Charlotte's rooms today looking for her wallet that she can't find. Instead we find they have been stealing food and taking it upstairs to their rooms, smug and self-satisfied that mum and dad didn't know what they were doing.

Grounded for two weeks, no after school clubs, early bed-time. But its not enough. How do we get them to understand this is a bad idea...

Scary Horse Hair

Give everyone in the family their own personalized name anagrams for New Years, something weird and wacky:

Jake Wesley Richards: jeweler has scary kid

Charlotte Richards: horse cart child art

Sigrid Andrea Richards: desiring rad hair cards

Enchanted

Kids drag us off to see another Disney movie. Is a bit too sugary for my taste. Lots of singing and dancing and big scenes with hundreds of people. And stereotypical fair maidens and evil witches and dashing princes.

And of course happily-ever-afters.

The kids love it naturally.

UBS Christmas Party

Drinks: 3 stars
Food: 2 stars
Desert: 5 stars
Atmosphere: 2 stars
Company: it isn't so much the people that are there, it is the people that aren't - none of the contractors are allowed to come, which is most of our team :(

No live band doesn't help either.

At least those raspberries and cream and Tiramisu taste delicious :)

Novelty Factor

The exercise bike we ordered online arrives in a big box today, all 124 lbs of it. Struggle to get it downstairs, then spend the next 3 hours assembling it. Everyone has a ride on it the first day, and the kids are very enthusiastic (think "shiny new toy").

Will be interesting to see how much use it gets after a month or a year.



Update: the kids hardly ever use it now, six months later, but Sigrid is still going strong, more miles on it every month!