I'm updating pages which show images at the moment, any errors will be gone by tomorrow :-)

The day after the last entry we went to the Houston Space Centre. All of those things that you see in the movies were there... Mission Control, the Centrifuge building, that Saturn V launcher out on the grass... it was incredible :-) The whole day was filled with the stuff of dream from my childhood... I got to touch a moon rock, look into one of the Apollo command modules, look in the building where they train astronauts... it rocked, it really rocked. We flew home the next day and arrived this morning (Friday). Florida looks cool from the air - the swamps have a texture like the moon. Its very strange - this huge area of swampland which is occasionally split by these completely straight roads and canals, looks great. Back here, Anna has just gotten the documentation for her new course; "Understanding Western Art". Its a correspondence course which she's really looking forward to doing. I can't type anymore... I'm fucked tired. My body thinks its still Thursday.

Its 22:something, Central US Standard time thingy whatever they call it, and it feels like 3 am. Houston is warm and moist, and pretty uninspiring so far. We aren't in the city though, but outside it somewhere, where Compaq have their headquarters. Man, there are 30,000 people working on campus here, its fucking HUGE. The conference I came to attend is pretty good, but will entail a lot of work for us. Surprise surprise ;-) Christ, I can't type anymore. I've been writing emails for the last couple of hours and my head is completely fucked. Have to get some sleep. Have you noticed how a large proportion of these entries have that very same theme? "Fuck I'm tired", or "I need sleep" etc etc... how completely insanely fucking monotonous is that??? Why are you reading it? Go here now.

Went shopping yesterday, encountered the "Sainsburys effect"... namely, we seem to be in capable of going into that shop without spending at least a hundred pounds. It isn't as if we were being completely extravagant either. Did anyone know (or care) that The Breakfast Club was on TV yesdarday? We watched it, and it was disappointing. God I can remember when that movie was the coolest thing around, and it seems like only a few years ago. In fact is was 1984. Time flies.

Last weekend we went to New York. Its very big there, though I didn't see many apples, so I don't know where the name came from. There was a lot of everything else though, buildings people, and food. I remember being amazed at the sizes of food that are served in Washington. I was again surprised - we ordered something in some place; something like steak & chips with a side order of salad and onion rings. The onion rings turned out to be several of the biggest onions I've ever seen... in their entirety, sliced and in batter ;-) The salad was just huge. We did the touristy things of course, and I have to say, the view from the Empire State Building is incredible at night. You know what you expect to see from most parts of a New York skyline - you've seen them a thousand times on TV and the movies. Well, the real thing is more spectacular. Its a living, breathing city with views to die for. I'm going to scan some of the photos and stick them here in a few weeks. Oh, and if the Empire State Building is spectatular... the hundred and seventh floor of the World Trace Centre is awe inspiring. Do you get the impression that we liked it? We saw all the other stuff too - Macys, the inside of a HUGE shopping mall called Jersey Gardens (from all angles, and with our credit cards ready ), Central Park, 5th Avenue, Grand Central Station, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island... blah blah blah. It was great :-) We also got to fly Upper Class, which was cool. I'd never been on one of Virgin's A340s before, and Anna hadn't been in Upper Class. She liked it ;-) Wednesday, she ordered a pizza from Basilico - a company we've trusted to make very nice (albeit expensive) pizza for quite some time now. Whatever they did with it, she spent about seven hours vomiting that day, and the next two days in bed; weak and queasy. I've never seen food poisoning so bad before - I thought several times about getting her into a hospital :-( No more pizza for us then. She's getting better now though, the nausea is over and the cramps are almost gone :-) I have to go back to the US next week, to Houston Texas, for a conference with Compaq about Windows XP (nextgen Windows).

Its been a long week. Went to Washington on Monday morning, popped into the office for a couple of hours, went into D.C. and stayed in the Hilton. It turned out to be one of the shabbiest Hiltons I've seen yet... in my vast exposure to Hilton Hotels ;-) Washington is pretty cool though, now that I've finally gotten to see some of it. The older and major govornment buildings are all very imposing, and done in a style reminiscent of something you might see in London or Paris. The White House is a lot smaller than you would think it should be, and we found something interesting there... at the bottom of the White House garden there's a set of little metal boxes jutting out of the grass behind the railings. They buzz. I have no idea what they do, they could be speakers for a PA, or they could be death rays. Speaking of buzz... I was asleep on the plane on the way back and Scally woke me up to tell me that "Buzz" Aldrin was sitting in seat 7a. We were tempted to ask one of the trolly dollies to get us hi autograph, but ultimately didn't. Incredible... this old guy, who was having problems lugging his huge suitcases around, walked on the moon. He was about 4 metres away when Neil Armstrong did the "Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" speech. Went to the fucking MOON!!! How many frequent flier miles do you get for that? Back to Washington... something we ate made us all feel sick for the duration of our stay, but it wasn't that bad. We didn't get any good shopping done, though we did try. For some reason there just wasn't anything that caught my eye and said "Buy Me", after I had been in the seven thousandth factory outlet. ::sigh:: Next weekend when we go to New York, we'll do some real shopping ;-) Back here, Anna has all of the results of her exams back except one... and she has passed all of them so far :-) I was thinking of taking her with me to Washington next month, when I go over. Should have enough airmiles for that :-) Its Saturday now, and we went to see "What Women Want" earlier. Its a blast... funnier and more insightful than I was expecting. And the scene where Mel Gibson dances Cabaret-style was very unexpected :-))