Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Brexit: On To Exeter



Debbie flew back this morning and I headed to Paddington Station to take the train to Exeter. I know that I'm in England and we all speak the same language but I swear that every other person who talks to me sounds like they are speaking in tongues.
I thought the US was a melting pot. Well ... London must be the giant kettle.

Anyway here are some scenes I didn't post from London.





TTFN!

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Brexit Tour Continued

Last night, we took a cruise down the Thames with 200 of our closest friends (actually it was a group of students and faculty from USF).  We also spotted our old friend, sunken ship hunter and author David Mearns who lives in London. He is an alum of the College of Marine Sciences and a wealth of information about ... Everything!

Here are some pictures:


The real London Bridge. 
The Tower Bridge ... Which everyone mistakes for the London Bridge. 
The tallest building in Europe known as The Shard

The Walkie Talkie ...They name buildings differently here.


















 City Hall
A museum that now houses the aquarium. 


An old clock that breaks a lot. 



















That's our tour of London so far. We wound up in a pub watching Iceland beat England in soccer. Iceland? There are only 4 people in Iceland. 

It's been a bad week for England!

Monday, June 27, 2016

Brexit Stage Left!

Flew to London today.

We heard there was some kind of a brisket or a breakfast or a Brexit or something like that ... So I figured if it's food I want to get a taste. Turns out it's a governmental thing. You probably knew that. 

Oh well ... The other reason I scheduled this trip was because I was asked to speak to the leadership at the University of Exeter about fundraising. They are just about to start their very first campaign and wanted to get some pointers.

Deb came with me for a couple of extra days before I travel to Exeter on Wednesday. 

Our flight on British Airways left at 6:00 PM Tampa time and landed at 8:00 AM London time. Four movies, a large English woman laying on my left arm, Debbie sitting across the aisle before having a few small disagreements about landing documents and POOF we were there in a flash. 

Oh did I say I stiffed the limo driver by mistake?

I thought sure that Debbie had said it was prepaid (another slight disagreement) so I gave him a tip and winked. He looked at me funny and left. Later I called him, asked him to come back so I could actually pay him and apologized. I'm sure he felt like I was the ugly American stiffing him on the exchange rate after the British break up. 

Deb needed a large cup of coffee. I did too but settled for water.

We fell asleep at noon.

(More tomorrow)

Saturday, June 18, 2016

When Jews Were Funny

Just watched this documentary today.

The news has been so terrible lately ... terrorism everywhere, thoughtless murder and hate crimes. I just wanted to find something that made me laugh. And nothing makes me laugh more than watching old jews tell jokes or talk about their relatives.

Like the name implies, The filmmaker was trying find out why jews were so funny years ago. He really found out that they still are ... they (we) find humor in just about anything and always have. It's a survival thing I guess.

Here are some old Jewish stories:

Moishe is in a train with his head back moaning loudly. "Oy, am I thoisty!"
His friend Izzy looks over at him and he again says, "Oy, am I thoisty!"
This continues for about ten minutes. Every few minutes Moishe puts his head back and moans :       "Oy, am I thoisty!"

Finally, Izzy gets up, thinking that he can't listen to this for another two hours and gets a cup of water and hands it to Moishe. He drinks it down and smiles broadly at Izzy.

Two minutes later he puts his head back and says ... "Oy WAS I thoisty!"


Here.s another:

A little old grandmother (Bubbie) was sitting at the beach with her grandson as he was happily playing at the edge of the water when all of a sudden the tide shifts and swallows him up and drags him out to sea. "Oh my God ... why have you taken my little boy ... my grandson ... in the prime of his young life? God please let him live ... please bring him back!"

Suddenly the clouds open and the seas shift and the little boy is carried back to the shore by a big wave. Bubble scoops the little boy back into her arms, looks at him and then looks upward toward the heavens.

"He had a hat!"

One more:

A rabbi was stranded on a desert island for 20 years. He kept busy by using some of the shells and natural materials he found building shelter. Then one day a ship came to his rescue. The captain came ashore and looked at what the rabbi had built ... not one but two synagogues.

"Rabbi", the captain asked, "Why two synagogues?"

The rabbi pointed to the one on the left. "Because this one I go to and that one I WOULDN'T STEP FOOT IN."


I miss Sammy ... and Thank God ... Curb Your Enthusiasm is coming back on the air!

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Oh My Gawd!

Sister Keli shared an interesting tale the other night:

"Oh my God ... You know how bad it was storming last week? Well my cell phone died and I had to make a call. So ... I jumped in my car and plugged it into the adapter and turned on the ignition. "

"Where was the car?"

"In the garage."

"Was the garage door down?"

"Yes ... But the windows were up."

"Keli ... Have you ever heard of carbon monoxide poisoning?"

"Of course silly. That's why I kept the air conditioning on."

Ballad of the Big Prostate

Here’s a little country tune I wrote just yesterday to commemorate a dark day in my history. I don’t have a tune but realized you can use an...