The longest day of my life...

Do I need to qualify this with a qualifying statement about not having proofed any of the comments below? Or can we have an understanding from the beginning that I am, nor have ever claimed to be a writer...

If you've been keeping up you already know that we got off to a late start that resulted in Glenn and I running through the Cinci airport to just barely (5 min to spare) catch our flight to Gatwick. The Flight over was not very crowded and I was able to commandeer my own row of three seats, three pillows, and three blankets for my trip over the pond. Everything was looking up, but about an hour into the flight I was beginning to get concerned that my 4 year old was in the seat behind me. The person in the seat(s) behind me was not my 4 year old but a was, in fact, a middle aged woman. A middle aged woman, may I add, who seemed entirely unable to make even the slightest of changes to how she was sitting without yanking back on my chair. Seriously, it was just like being on one of my drives back home to Wisconsin... with my 4 year old trying out for the Olympic Soccer team by dribbling the back of my seat all the way from Cinci to jolly old England, the difference being, of course, that this was not a 4 year old that I could beat into submission but instead was a grown woman who I was unable to share my compounding frustrations with. To make matters worse, her equally fidgety 14ish year old son joined into the act making it a family event. Oy-vey.

Other interesting plane stories: Glenn spilling his drink all over the floor.

Landing in London we were herded through a mile long customs line ending in an awkward interview with the least happy person I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I say it was awkward because this poor despondent soul, sitting under the depressing glow and hiss of the flourescent lights, asked me a series of what should have been easy questions that I was at a loss to find answers for.

"Why are you in London?"

"uh... huh? oh, um', I'm going to an air show in Farnborough."

"Why?"

"uh......."

Can't even remember how I answered, but what ever it was that I said, it was good enough to get me into the U.K.

Then it was on to the hotel, where, unbelievably, everything went smashing.

We showered up and headed out to catch the airshow and see our work.



Here's Glenn on the train. He was crazy grumpy today. I do believe he is flipping me off in this picture. He's a peach!

We rode a double decker to the show. Crazy. How they get them down these tiny streets without killing tens of dozens of pedestrians is beyond me.

The Farnborough Air Show was incredible. (As we arrivede were able to see a few different fighter jets screaming around. It was awesome!) As we walked in the new Airbus Gigantus was backing it's monsterous self into it's place on the flight line.



After standing behind this behemoth and sucking in as much CO2 as humanly possible we made our down the flight line to the L-3 chalet.




After trying, unsuccessfully, to gain admittance to said chalet we headed in to see the booths. The first thing we saw as we walked in were the GE light boxes. They were massive. I was a little overwhelmed by their size. (You have to understand, they were much smaller on my screen.)





Like Glenn said, the whole booth was awesome. Great job everyone.

After walking through the GE booth we headed over to the L-3 booth. It looks great. Again, everything is way bigger than I thought it would be. The L-3 booth is the cleanest, most modern booth at the show. Hands down. It really stands out. Joel-the animation looks great...none of the other animations I saw today even came close to it. Nice job dude.





Big thanks to all that helped pull this booth together. GE Aviation and L-3 are easily among the best booths at this show. They both really stand out from those around them. I came over thinking we wouldn't stack up well with everyone else, but we have pretty much blown them out of the water. Nice job everyone.

After the show we ventured out for our evening meal we became a bit confused as to where food might be had. As we were stumbling around wondering what we should do and where we should go a very helpful bloke rolled up on his bike and gave us an excellent recommendation for a good olde fashion British pub called "Ye Grapes." Once we arrived at the pub we waited around for 20 minutes before we got service (Glenn getting grumpier) but it was well worth it. Bangers and Mash is now my favorite dinner ever. Thanks random biker man. (side note: I know that I have already mentioned this, but Glenn was incredibly tired grumpy all day. By dinner time he was in rare form. He'll never admit it, but I was there. I saw it. He is a Cranky Charlie when he's over tired.)

Other things to note about our travels so far...

1. Glenn gets to be a quite crabby when he has had little/no sleep and no access to his cell phone.

2. Money. I keep using cash to pay for things but no matter what bill I try and pay with I end up getting only coins back. My pocket is full of coins right now. I'm not sure how this works and I can't get used to the money system here. I've come to this conclusion: My pocket currently has approx. 5 lbs of various British coinage in it therefore I now believe this to be how and why the local currency came to be known as "pounds." No matter where you go, what you do, or how you pay, you will end up with pounds and pounds of coins in your pocket.

3. Crossing the street is a good way to die. Cars drive on the opposite side of the road over here, ergo, when looking both ways before crossing the street you must look first to your right. Completely opposite and unnatural from what my education tells me I must do. This mistake has almost cost us our lives a dozen times over.

4. Glenn falls down a lot when he wears slippery socks.

Off to bed. More tomorrow. If you made it through this whole post I owe you a beer.