For those of you who have been wondering why I've been out of the office for the past week and a half, it's because the wife and I finally took a trip we've been talking about for years. For me, it's been decades. Really since I was a kid. We finally went to the UK.

Two big reasons. First, I finally got to meet Alex in person. He's been my right-hand man here on the site for over 15 years, and we've talked about getting together forever. Second, I've always wanted to see castles. Growing up with Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy, Lord of the Rings, and all that stuff, I've had castles on my bucket list forever. We don't have those in the States.

We started in London. One of my bucket-list items was to have a proper pint in a proper English pub. I did that, but quickly learned that the pubs around Westminster and Buckingham Palace are all cookie-cutter chains. From the outside they look different because they kept the old names, but once you walk in, they're all identical. Same beer taps, same menus (literally printed in the same font, same colors), same food. The first one I tried, I ordered fish and chips. It was bland, and the mushy peas were awful. Later on in Scotland I found some good fish and chips, but London tourist pub fish and chips? Not recommended. So if you go to London, skip the tourist pubs. Once I did some research (and asked ChatGPT), I found a couple of mom-and-pop pubs off the beaten path, and those were way better.

Besides the pubs, I hit the tourist checklist: Buckingham Palace, the horse guards and their drills, the marching band, Westminster Abbey. The Abbey is full of tombs of famous people. Isaac Newton is buried there (the GOAT), as well as Stephen Hawking. I kept telling the attendants, in my best Monty Python voice, "I seek the Holy Grail," but they just gave me dry smiles. My tour guide laughed though. I also saw Big Ben and Parliament (insert European Vacation jokes here, "Look kids..."). I really wanted to get over to the Tower of London, with all its history and famous executions, but we just didn't have the time.

From London, we trained up to Newcastle. That's where I finally got to meet Alex. We had drinks, dinner, and a good time catching up after 15 years of talking about it. Newcastle's a nice little city. From there, we trained further north to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Now this was the castle moment I was waiting for. Edinburgh Castle is incredible. The geography itself is fascinating. The castle sits on a volcanic plug, basically basalt left behind after a volcano, while the softer sedimentary rock around it was worn away in the last Ice Age. On one side, the rock protected the ground below and formed a slope, which is now the main walkway up. The other sides are sheer cliffs. It's a natural fortress. Standing at the top and looking out, I couldn't imagine being an army back in the day trying to siege it. Impossible. I loved the guided tour, learning about the geology and the history, wandering the ruins. My wife, not so much. She would have preferred to sit with a glass of wine, but I soaked up every minute. Stirling Castle was on my list too (parts of Highlander were filmed there), but we just didn't have the time. They also kept making Harry Potter references on the tour since J.K. Rowling is from Edinburgh, but that's not really my thing. I like more mature fantasy. Harry Potter always felt too childish for me.

One of the lessons from this trip: don't try to do too much in too little time. We were gone 11 days, but with flights, 4-hour train rides here and there, checking into hotels, grabbing dinner, half the time was just travel. Stirling, Stonehenge, Windsor Castle - all would have been great, but they were too far out for this trip. Next time I'll just pick one city, stay there, and really see it instead of bouncing all over.

And of course, no trip is complete without drunk people. On the train ride back from Edinburgh, we had a pack of rowdy hooligans camped out in the connector between cars, pounding beers and singing. They cracked me up, but my wife wasn't amused. Then on the flight home, we had drunk girls across the aisle. Apparently, drunk people are a recurring theme in our travels. Thankfully, it's not us.

Our last night was back in London. We had dinner at Aquashard at the top of the Shard. The view was spectacular, but the food was overpriced and the service was meh. Basically you're paying for the view. Once was enough.

On our final day, I did find one of those iconic red phone booths. Some still even have phones in them, though I doubt they work. I kept looking for a blue police box to climb into, but had no luck. Probably for the best. I didn't want to bump into Daleks.

So that's why I was gone. If you saw my silly out-of-office notes, now you know. I usually don't announce when I'm away that long. Since I work from home, I don't like advertising an empty house. I've got great neighbors and a really good security system, but I'd rather not test it. Years ago, when I was still selling CDs, a guy once just showed up at my door asking if he could pick up his order. That was the last time I made my address public.

It was a fun but exhausting trip. Honestly, I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. I've got a ton of customer service stuff piled up. I'll be digging through it in the next day or two. While I can read through messages on the website, replying properly requires my Access database, and that means setting up the laptop and remoting into my system at home. I can do some of that remotely, but not as much as I'd like. One of my near-term goals is to move more of my Access customer service database online. I've taught plenty of seminars on how to do it, but I haven't needed it myself since I rarely travel for more than a couple days. Now I've got the motivation to build it out and make some videos showing you how to integrate Access more with SQL Server and run it from the web.

The wife's next wish is Italy. Maybe next summer. I got to pick this year's trip. It's her turn next year. (I've always wanted to see Rome, too, but I play it down so she think's she's getting one up on me. LOL). We both have ancestry there we'd like to look up, and of course, we'd like to spend some time in Rome. But next time it'll be fly into Rome, set up camp in a hotel, and just explore what's nearby. No more city-hopping. Plus, we've got the puppies, and we can't leave them too long. They stay at the vet when we travel, but we hate knowing they're just stuck in a kennel all day. So travel will be limited.

That was the UK trip. Castles, pubs, rowdy drunks, and finally meeting Alex in person. Hectic, fun, and definitely memorable. It was a good trip, but I'm happy to be home. You know... in my tropical paradise of SW Florida. Whenever we travel, as soon as the plane doors open my wife and I always look at each other and say, "ahh! There's that humidity." Some people hate it. We love it.

OK... back to work. :)

LLAP
RR

P.S. Pictures will follow in the comments below.