Where's Ric? And I missed homecoming...

Not a whole lot to update since Ric's out of town and I've been hanging out on my own for the past few days. I did participate in a "Silly Games in the Park" event on Saturday put on by my very distant cousin, whom I met for the first time in London a couple weeks ago. Something called "Klub" was played, but I opted to lay in the sun instead. Also went to dinner with some Americans, one of whom went to Wake with me (Evan Remmes, for you Deamon Deacons out there) and I have to admit that it was nice to spend some time with a few fellow Southerners. They were all from NC/VA except for the one guy who was born and raised in San Francisco. How perfect!

It did mean that I missed my five year college reunion (not "anniversary" as I had been calling it all weekend)... But I guess that's part of living across the water.

So Ric's probably mid-seminar right now. Everyone send him good juju. If I had to guess, he's answering questions about the "credit crunch" and how it's going to impact the housing market and, tangentially, overseas investments in foreign oil.

In other news, here in the UK the fifth largest mortgage lender (Northern Rock) had to call in the Bank of England because of fears that it couldn't remain financially solvent. Kind of crazy because people over are lined up for blocks and blocks to take out their life savings... 2 billion pounds in the past couple days have been withdrawn. They're afraid that the company won't be around for much longer and they'll lose all of the money they've saved. I went to lunch this afternoon and thought people were waiting for a theater show, maybe a store opening or some celebrity book signing. Or maybe (hopefully) the iPhone was being released and they were all "queuing" for blocks to get the first one... which happens to be something the British people do very well...queue. However, once I noticed the median age of the group, I knew that couldn't be the case. Hundreds of people worried that they were going to lose their life savings and waiting for hours and hours in line to get it back (and put it "under the matress" as one woman was quoted as saying). Industry experts are saying that nothing like this has happened here since the 1930s. Obviously it's the UK media, so things are exaggerated, but it's still a pretty big deal.

Watching the Emmy's right now (one day late) and the guy from Lost won best supporting actor. What in the world is he wearing??!! A fluorescent pink shirt and black sequined tie?? Really? I don't think that have that store on the island...