France to go

Well, it’s been a busy week to say the least. I started an internship at Hachette Filipacci, wrote a new Entrepreneur.com article (you’ll see it soon) and still managed to write Londonist posts four out of five days.

I also managed to make it to the Museum of London for a pub quiz last night with the Londonist crew. I was pretty useless at answering questions since they were all about London (I think I knew 2), but I did excel in the arts and crafts bonus round, helping create an interactive, turning version of the London Eye, which we’d like to fondly call the Londonist Eye, out of paper straws and pipe cleaners. (In the photo, it’s nearly finished). Lindsey wrote a good post about it this morning, which really describes the evening well.

Today I went to Social Media Cafe at the Coach and Horses to catch up with my Friday morning friends, and went to lunch with the much more daunting sounding Social Media Mafia, which is actually a lovely group of people. We had curry on Brick Lane — my first time there — which ended up being a long and leisurely lunchtime feast. I’m still recovering.

The weekly reading list:

• Squished Up Worship
• VR Tube Ride Still a Harrowing Experience
• BA Lost Your Luggage? It May Be Going to Italy
• Will a Bullet-Proof Hoodie Ruin Your Street Cred?

Well, coming back from Barcelona on Tuesday, it was a short week, though one full of work. The Londonist posts for the week:

• Starling Numbers Still Slipping: Lots of Londoners participate in a garden bird survey, and the numbers show even fewer Starlings than ever before, though they’re still London’s most populous garden bird.

• Pigeon Promotion Takes Over Leicester Square: 5,000 paper pigeons released for a promotion for an art exhibit.

• Madge Mouths Off About London Traffic: Madonna wants to make some changes to the congestion charge.

Happy Friday, everyone. And even happier in London where everyone has Good Friday off, which also means a four-day weekend, since Monday is a holiday, too. Because of my traveling last weekend and today off, I only have three Londonist posts to share, though I did have a Hitched article from earlier in the week, if you’d like to check that out, too.

• Cannabis Cop Faces Charges: This story is exactly what you think it is — a cop stealing pot from the evidence locker.
• Posh Handbag Pincher Brought to Justice: A moped gang (yes, apparently moped gangs exist in England) have been smashing windows and stealing designer purses.
• Cling Film Arsonists Get Off With Drunk Defence : These two twentysomethings are thanking their lucky stars that they got off with only a light fine and community service after wrapping 5 cars in cling film then lighting them on fire when they were drunk. Their defense? They were too drunk to remember. (Oh, and for my American readers concerned with spelling, defense is spelled defence here.)

Later today, I’m off to Barcelona for the weekend. See you Tuesday!

As you read this (well, if you’re reading this when I posted it) I’m on my way to New York. I’ll likely be offline for the weekend, but I’ll be back in London Monday and I’m sure I’ll have plenty to report.

But as is current Friday custom around here, check out my Londonist posts for this week:

• Bactrian Burglars in Bishopsgate: Have you seen Brian the camel?
• Richmond Park Cull: No Other Option? A new cause for London’s animal lovers — save the deer!
• Lewisham is Seeing Spots: Measles outbreak due to low vaccination rates.
• Grape Case Quashed: A man pulls a silly suit on Marks & Spencer and loses.
• Lessons Learned: Melt Chocolate Master Class: More on the chocolate class from Wednesday, plus the recipe for the chocolate martini. (This link may not work as I couldn’t check it, since it hadn’t been posted when I wrote this post. It should work, but if it doesn’t, you may have to scroll through Londonist.com or just wait for me to post the right link later. Sorry if it causes any trouble.)

Photo of a Bactrian camel from the Budapest Zoo, July 2007. Brian looks substantially different, but it’s the closest thing I have.

Plenty of more articles and posts published this week. First, there’s my latest Entrepreneur.com article, “Secrets of Superstar Employers.” I interviewed 6 awesome entrepreneurs about how they keep their employees around for long stretches of time. Perks ranged from “microbrew Fridays” to kayaks at the office to offering personal loans to employees who’ve had trouble with the sub-prime meltdown.

And for my Londonist posts this week:

• Bad Week for Nightclub Violence
• Hammer-Wielding Burglars Threaten Baby
• Flasher Foiled by Gust of Wind
• Moorfields Eye Hospital Develop New Glaucoma Test

The first two are depressing. The third is quite funny. The last is interesting if you’re into eyeball stuff.

I’m very excited about my new Hitched article, just published today, called “The Family Blog.” It’s all about how personal blogging can help you stay connected with family and friends and create an evolving keepsake for your family.

Though it focuses more on the technical, how-to aspects of setting up a blog, I wish I could have injected more of my own experience into the story — things like how my parents and grandparents read the blog whenever I post (hi guys!), or how even though a lot of you reading (most of you reading, really) won’t leave comments, you will tell me that you’ve been keeping up with my adventures through other means.

I must say, though: Leave comments. Say hello. I want to hear what you’ve been up to as well. And I like to know you’ve come to visit my little sliver of the web.

While it’s fun to keep this blog as a bit of a travelogue for myself — and it is handy for remembering what I’ve been up to and when — I write for you, to let you in to what I’m doing. I never would have even started this blog project if it weren’t for everyone asking if I would be keeping a blog while I was traveling.

Also, if you’re interested in blogging, let me know if I can help you set something up. I’m happy to do it.

Well, I haven’t been posting here much this week, but I have been writing on Londonist. Check out my latest blogs:

• 68-Year-Old Love Letter Returned to Writer
• Tube Censors Pink-Boxered Christ
• Met Recruitment Unwittingly Headed by Monster
• Dog Bites Double
• Congestion Charge a Health Benefit?
• Trippier than Towing

My parents are leaving tomorrow, so I’m off for one last afternoon of sightseeing and one more dinner. Then blogging should be back to normal, with lots of pictures, drawings and my usual inane commentary.

Lots of stories posting this week!

One that I would recommend reading is “Slashing Student Costs” about BookRenter.com, an exciting new company with a 26-year-old CEO that rents college textbooks (though you don’t have to be in college to rent and the company does stock some normal books). I originally found Colin, the CEO, when I was doing some research for the article I did on former Google employees who started businesses, though I didn’t write about him then. I was happy to reconnect, though, and we had a long conversation about college, textbooks, entrepreneurship and more. This is one of those companies that has an incredibly simple base idea, makes a lot of sense — the first thing I said when I learned about it was, “I wish this was around when I was in college” — and should go far.

Plus, some new Londonist posts: “Harrow Council Knows When You’re Lying” and “New Chair to Curb Classroom Dangers/Class Clowns.”

Good morning friends. Why so chipper on a Monday morning, you ask? I have no idea. But I do have some new reading for you if you’re interested.

First is my latest Hitched article, “Scheduling Conflict,” about working an opposite schedule from your spouse. I interviewed three couples about how they cope being on essentially night-and-day schedules. Sounds pretty lonely to me, but they’re making it work. And some even choose that sort of schedule for child-care reasons.

And I’m continuing my little Londonist streak — I’m going to try to do a post a day. Today’s little post is about a fire in a fire station, and it’s called “No Pole to Slide Down to Get to This Fire.”

I’ve also been testing out writing some reviews on some review sites here. I still miss Yelp, though I have found some good, though newish, alternatives.

Hope everyone’s week starts off well. I get to end mine off with a visit from my parents — they’re coming on Saturday, and I’m very excited to show them around London.

I’ve done two more posts for Londonist, which has been lots of fun so far. I’m working on sounding more British and trying to remember my extraneous U’s and such. It’s a work in progress.

The two posts are both about the tube, though quite different. Today I wrote about a man who scammed the London Underground out of £5,000 in “Tube Scammer Complains His Way To Conviction.” I also learned that you can get a refund if you’re delayed more than 15 minutes on your journey, which is always good to know. And yesterday, I wrote about underground improvement works in “Sick of Taking the Stairs?” Apparently more stations will be getting stair-free access. That would have been amazing on my first two days here where I lugged my 70-pound bag up and down way too many flights of stairs. At least people pitied me and helped out on occasion.

I had the good fortune of meeting some of the Londonist crew at the Blogger Meetup at the end of January, and I’ll be doing some posts on there while I’m in town. Today, I wrote my first item: “Fuzzy Friday News: Pups Are Musical Snobs.” I’m planning on doing some food writing too, as it’s become a near-obsession on this blog. Thanks Chris, Lindsey, Hazel and everyone else I met at the Meetup.

Image courtesy of It’s Greg’s Flickrstream.

Two more articles up this week: One on Entrepreneur.com about new billing/payment trends, which ended up being much more interesting than it sounds. Well, at least the interviews were. I got to talk to people at four different alternative billing companies — Bill Me Later, eBillme, Revolution Money and BSG Clearing Solutions — and hear about the new ways they’re letting customers pay retailers. It was a great education in shopping carts and alternative credit systems that I never expected to get. I wish I could have written more about each of the companies. If you’re interested, check out “New Ways to Pay.”

The Hitched article is one Valentine’s Day — what happens when one partner is more into the holiday than the other. I interviewed NYC-based psychologist Diana Kirschner, and was helped out by a connection from the Entrepreneur.com payment article — Bill Me Later had just done a survey on Valentine’s day spending and disputes. If you’re interested in this one, check out “Valentine’s Day Dispute.”

What an appropriate subject for me to cover — dealing with winter colds and flus. Seems like everyone’s been getting something lately, though I guess that always happens this time of year.

Flu Season Fixes
When your spouse is suffering from a cold or flu, help them heal while avoiding getting sick yourself.

Itchy throats, stuffy noses, aches and pains: yup, it’s flu season. And when your partner gets a nasty virus, finding ways to make them feel better—and ways for you to not get the bug—are top priority. So what can you do?

… read the full article at Hitched

Check out my latest Entrepreneur.com article. This one was a blast to write because all the people I got to interview were great. Thanks, Dan E., Dan D. and Charlie — especially for being so flexible with scheduling interviews around the holidays. This was also the first time that I used LinkedIn to find some sources for my article. It has some sort of annoying search functions, but it was a great way to find people with the experience I needed quickly.

Funded by Google

Ex-Google employees cash in on their company stock to start businesses.

Free gourmet meals, on-site medical care, laundry facilities in the office, and a cool company culture complete with lava lamps, pets and ping pong tables, have made Google an attractive employer. But as it’s grown from a small, entrepreneurial operation to a corporate entity, buying out smaller tech companies and expanding around the globe, some of its more independent-minded employees have struck out on their own.

…Read the rest of the article at Entrepreneur.com

This one is short and sweet.

Gifts for the Whole Family
Want to find something that everyone can enjoy together this holiday season? Look no further.

If spending more time as a family is going to be one of your New Year’s resolutions, why not help yourself out with a holiday present that everyone can enjoy together? In this last-minute push at the end of December, we’ve got five picks that can work for your family, whether you have children or not.

…Read the whole article on Hitched