Yep - go Royal Mail. What could be worse than losing my passport and birth certificate days before you have to move abroad to start your new job? Well I`ll tell you, its when the Royal Mail delivers your passport and birth certificate eight weeks and 150 quid too late.

Yep - thats right. they arrived at my flat in Edinburgh yesterday.

Eight weeks late and after I had spent 150 pounds getting replacements.

That is actually worse than losing them.

Go Royal Mail - really hope those pay rise talks go well for you all - you really deserve it.

I`ve had a great time over here in the OC California, but today I found out that I have to leave and move back to my old job in Edinburgh.

A man who resembles Buffalo Bill and quite possibly has the lowest IQ ever recorded has taken a liking to me.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the gym - ripping it up and showing all the weak and worthless folk how its done - and I notice ole Bill staring at me across the way. Thinking nothing of it I get on with what I`m doing and head on down to the spa.

He follows me…. right into the spa….. and just stands there staring at me.

OK - time to run. So I bolt out and into the locker room.

Safe.

So its all good and I start chatting to a mate and we decide to head off to get a beer. “yeah, lets make like a tree” says Dave…..

“Make like a tree ……. thats a good question”

Bill is watching us in the locker room…… and is clearly confused.

Time to run.

I`ve not seen Bill since then… until Sunday afternoon.

I was leaving the supermarket and about to head off back home. Then who comes running across the car park?

Oh yeah — wild Bill.

“Hey buddy!!! Where’ve you been…. not seen you around in a while” -

OMG - here he is chatting away as though we were best mates - and now he is stalking me.
“er ……. er …… yeah well …….. I`ve been in the gym” I manage to mumble at the freak.

“Well I’ve NOT SEEN YOU!!!”

No kiddin’.

So I did the only thing I could.

Run away screaming.

I ran about 2 miles.

With 4 bags of shopping.

Big gym workouts paying off you see.

And that is why, my friends I have to move back to the UK.

Either that or hide out in the bunker of dreams for a while

Well the last couple of weeks have been pretty busy. Fi went back to Edinburgh yesterday and I`ve not really had a chance to get on here and tell you all what has been going on. See here we go. The past two weeks ….. part 1.
Last weekend we caught a train to San Diego. Its about 2 hours south of here by train and definitely worth the 20 pound return ticket.

We stayed right in the middle of the Gaslamp area of the town which is just crammed full of bars, restaurants and cinemas – a great nightlife. I found a place there that had 219 beers on tap and they were served to you in a half yard glass. Pretty good night there I can tell you …. I think.

Saturday was the highlight though. We spent the entire day at the world famous San Diego Zoo. Tell you what … it beats Edinburgh zoo hands down.

Firstly, I got to feed the giraffe.

Then on to the polar bears.

This was moments before he mistook me to be a seal and tried to kill me. That was fun.

The giant panda were pretty cool too,

and I even managed (despite my intense fear of snakes) to get up close to some pretty nasty snakes…

The green mamba. They even had a King Cobra there too – the largest venomous snake in the world.

We walked around the zoo for about 8 hours. Luckily they have escalators (sponsored by McDonalds) to take you up those tricky 20 degree hills.

No need to burn off those burgers here you know … you`re in America

Today some of the local California boys were moaning about how much things cost these days in the land of the free and so on until the conversation turned to different currencies. Mainly about the cost of the dollar to the pound or the ozzie dollar to the pound. Then me and a British colleague of mine came to the conclusion that it would all be a whole lot better if the entire world just used the Queen’s currency – the British pound.

We think it would be such a good idea that it might be worth old blighty invading some countries and claiming back the empire. We reckon we could do it in a few easy steps.

1 – Take Iceland – Always go for the lowest hanging fruit first.
2 – Then move on and take Holland – they wont put up much of a fight being stoned most of the time anyhow.
3 – From Holland you may as well go on and claim Belgium.
4 – Then conquer the Nordic Region.
5 – Wait until its between midday and the middle of the afternoon when everyone is alseep and seize Spain.
6 – I reckon that all you would have to say to Russia is – “oh go on - once we claim you we`ll have a go at America” – they’d be well up for it.

And so on from there, we would have the pink map back.

California beer is generally crap.

Sat down in the hot tub tonight drinking a can of fizzy pi*s - or Bud Light as the advertisers would have us call it, I started chatting to some random dude about the beer here in the OC. Allegedly all beer is restricted to 3.5 percent alcohol, and yes you can tell. Plus the fact that in the downtown bars you can easily be charged up to 10 dollars for a pint - shocking.

Luckily I`ve found the cheapest place around - Brians Bar and Billiards. It can be a bit rough, but its a fair price to pay to be able to get 4 pints of so called beer for 8 dollars. Sweet.

Luckily there are quite a few micro breweries around which don’t seem to have to abide by the 3.5 percent rule. Which can catch you out on a long night on the ale. Its caught me a few times already.

There are some amongst you who still believe that I am in living in Belfast rather than living it up in Orange County California.

Some proof needed me thinks.

Well, yesterday I spent the day hanging around Hollywood, and I took a couple of photos.

Well, does that look like Belfast?

Guess they`ve got one of these there too?

Ah well, yesterday was quite a busy day so I just spent the day chilling out by the pool in the nice California sun.

In fact I`ve just come back up from the hot tub just 10 minutes ago.

Nice

Yesterday was a colleagues birthday. Being complete and utter professionals we decided against going out to Hollywood and ripping it up – we are saving that for the weekend.

Instead we took Chris (at his own request btw) to Hooters for his lunch.

As it was his birthday, the lovely ladies gave him a special bthday gift (video)

Sweeeeet

I would say that he did not know where to look - but that would be doing him a dis-service. The lad knew exactly where to look