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Shiny Thing

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:28:59 +0000

Nothing particularly exciting this time, except the addition of the photo of my new car. The A3 was getting a bit old and had done 46k miles, so I thought I'd buy a nice shiny A4. I eventually found one with the exact spec I'd been after (quattro, S-Line etc.), and am therefore extremely happy with it :) That is all.

New York, New York

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:42:09 +0100

As if flying a light aircraft wasn't enough excitement for me, Amy and I have also just been on our summer holiday! This year we opted for a week away in New York, and what a fantastic week it was! I've visited a number different places in the US in the past, but New York is something quite different - and in a really good way. It's pretty difficult not to 'do' all the tourist things whilst there, so we visited the Empire State Building, Top of the Rock at night (the top of the tallest building in the Rockefeller plaza), the Statue of Liberty and all the other 'must sees' which were excellent without exception! Even the hotel we picked was really good.

The highlight of the holiday for me was a helicopter sightseeing tour over the city. We took off from a pier next to the Brooklyn Bridge, flew out over the harbour and all the way up the western side of Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge, seeing the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Central Park and loads more from the air. We flew back to Liberty Island and got a close up view of the Statue of Liberty before returning over Governors Island to the heliport - just awesome :) I could go on for hours, but you've probably stopped reading anyway so I'll leave it there...

It's a plane!

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:33:01 +0100

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Actually yes, it is a plane - with me in it! For my birthday, as I mentioned before, I was given a trial flying lesson which we had booked for the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday. Despite the 'interesting' weather we've had recently, Saturday turned out to be an absolutely perfect day with lots of sunshine and a reassuring lack of wind. We took off from Redhill Aerodrome, after which I flew us all the way to Reading and back - and I didn't hit anything which was an unexpected bonus! We returned after a good hour in the air with a landing so soft I only knew we were back on the ground by the fact I could see one of the wheels out of the window. Landing on grass is definitely more comfortable than landing on concrete! Just as expected, the experience was awesome and left me grinning like a madman and wondering how much it costs to get your PPL. Yet another thing to add to the TODO list...

A huge thanks to the people who contributed to a superb birthday present!

It's been a while

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 20:54:22 +0100

This year's ski trip (which admittedly now happened some time ago) was excellent yet again, and photos are unsurprisingly available on the gallery. In line with my policy of not breaking any bones or otherwise seriously injuring myself whilst on holiday, I returned largely unharmed and am already looking forward to next year!

Quite a lot has happened since and I'm going to use that as my excuse for, once again, failing to write a new blog until now - many would say this is a blessing...

Over Easter Amy and I went to see The Mousetrap in London which I thoroughly enjoyed, although it wasn't quite as good as the excellent Woman in Black which we saw last year at the Fortune Theatre.

A group of us have also recently been wine tasting at Vinopolis which was excellent fun - and amongst other things I tried my first Israeli wine! Now that the weather is improving I should also think about booking my Birthday present - a fantastic flying experience, something I've wanted to do for years! Unfortunately this does have a significant disadvantage though, which is that if I enjoy it as much as I think I will, I could end up with a very expensive new hobby...

Hello 2007

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 09:18:17 +0000

Whilst I know it's been 2007 for over a month now, it still feels like it was yesterday. Somehow I can see this year going as quickly as the last one... Last week was mostly taken up with some work in Dublin where I continued the Guinness theme of the previous trip by sampling their latest brew, North Star. This turns out to be almost exactly like Guinness, but not quite as bitter - very much drinkable! I really must find the time to return to Dublin when not on business as it's a small but interesting city which I haven't really had time to see properly.

Last night was my (first) birthday party, and people are still asleep in various places around the house - why can't I lie in when I have a hangover?? The evening was, however, very good fun :)

On Tuesday I'm officially 25, which let's face it is pretty old. It's my quarter century - it's almost three years since I left Uni, seven since I left 6th form, and over 14 since I was standing at the entrance to Therfield School wearing my slightly-too-large green blazer wondering what I'd let myself in for - it feels like yesterday. Still, ignoring the ever-present possibility of a rogue bus or some H5N1, I'm hoping I still have a while longer yet...

This year's ski trip planning evening has come and gone, and I'm incredibly pleased that the outcome was that a day later we had a ski holiday booked! We've managed to get a group of 12 of us together (the biggest yet!) and as a result got a fantastic deal on a catered chalet in Les Arcs, near Bourg-Saint-Maurice. A fair amount of snow has fallen in Les Arcs in the last few weeks, and I'm hoping this will continue until March when we go! I've just purchased myself a Nitro Revolt 158 (which apparently means I'm officially "revolting" - sigh...), so if anybody wants an '04 Salomon Mandate 155 (twin tipped) then please make me an offer!

FOSDEM is now under four weeks away so I'm looking forward to enjoying a variety of fine Belgian beer, catching up with people, and of course watching a few talks!

Is Guinness Drinkable?

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:07:13 +0000

I think I'm getting close to breaking a record with time between blogs at the moment, and am especially ashamed now that Richard has returned to the world of blogging and has managed two entries in three days! Good effort...

Well having now had three months to settle in, I think you can safely say I've landed on my feet with the new job - I've been thoroughly enjoying all the things I've been doing and have a real enthusiasm for the work. Last week we attended the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo at Olympia and had a very pleasing amount of interest at our stand. It was also great to see a lot of people I've not had time to meet up with recently, and hopefully at the latest we'll all meet up again at next year's FOSDEM. Also in work related items, it sounds like I'm off to Dublin for a week at the end of this month or the beginning of December which should be cool. I suspect I might shove my new camera in my bag too just in case! I also need to see if Guinness really is drinkable over there...

Work aside, the house is coming along well although now that most of the 'vital' changes have been made (getting rid of the terrible previous kitchen - see Amy's blog) it's easy to find other things to do and DIY gets put off a little too much sometimes...! Still, just a few more things to finish off in the kitchen (mainly some missing wall cupboards) and I'll be able to think about the next room to work on!

A lot of things have happened over the last couple of months, but a few particular highlights include a trip down the Thames in Simon's RIB (that's not a euphemism) to catch a late lunch at Canary Wharf followed by some fireworks at Battersea Park. A cold evening but once again a very enjoyable one, thanks Simon! Go Ape organised by Turners Tours was a fantastic day and gave a new meaning to 'hanging out' with your friends - I might've been covered in wood chip by the end of it but how cool!

I was lucky enough to attend Reading Festival this year, including a half-arranged meet up with Mat who has now become Dr. Grove (massive congratulations!). Seeing Placebo was definitely the highlight of the day - they were just brilliant!

All this, and so much more...

DIY

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 17:50:09 +0100

Once again it's been a while since the last blog, but this time I have an excuse. No, really. We've nearly finished decorating the third bedroom of the house which has been turned into an office/study (no doubt photos will follow soon) as I'll shortly be working from home a fair amount of the time. More on that in a moment.

We've also had quite a few visitors to the new house so far who have all been great at helping out with the huge amount of work that seems to required, in exchange for provision of a barbecue and an evening or two drinking. Even though there's plenty more yet to do, I'd never have got as much done as I have so far without everybody's help - a huge thanks to everybody who's been helping out!

Another recent development is that I also have been offered a new job which I start in a fortnight's time. I've not been at Global Freight Exchange for as long as I expected, but I couldn't pass up a fantastic new opportunity working as a 'Senior Consultant' for a company called Altinity. I'll be sorry to leave GF-X behind as I've been very happy working there, and hope to keep in touch with a lot of the people I've worked with. In particular with the new job I'm looking forward to the opportunity of working more directly with Open Source software - something I've long been keen to do.

Now, back to the DIY...

New House

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:15:21 +0100

We've moved! On Monday 17th of July I became the (disturbingly) proud owner of my new house in Calcot! It's been an incredibly busy week with so much work to do in order to get the house in a decent state to live in, and all my stuff unpacked, but how much fun is this! I think we've finally just about bought everything we need, and today the kitchen units and appliances were ordered so we can look forward to fitting those and the rest of the new kitchen in a month or so's time!

Our long weekend in Paris was just fantastic, especially as we picked the weekend which included the French holiday 'Bastille Day'. After an excellent day spent in the city we went to join the tens of thousands of people who lined the streets and fields around the Eiffel Tower which was lit up with fireworks to mark the end of the day in style. No doubt I'll put a lot of the photos from the weekend onto my gallery when our broadband is enabled!

Almost a House

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 10:31:41 +0100

Well it's already a house, but soon it'll be mine! Yesterday we exchanged contracts with the vendors and I became almost-owner of my new house in Calcot - hooray!! Buying a house has been great fun so far although there's a fair amount to think about and get done - Amy has fortunately been incredibly patient with it all too, including helping me pack most of my life (as if I had one) into boxes last weekend. Hopefully our long weekend in Paris which is now just two days away, will be a great break before all the moving-in excitement starts first thing on Monday morning!

Heat Wave!

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:39:01 +0100

How long it's going to last I don't know, but at the moment I think it's fairly safe to say that summer has arrived! Last weekend brought some spectacular sailing conditions with loads of wind and sun, making spending several days down on the Solent great fun! I've decided it's offically Pimms weather, too.

I continue to reach new heights of sadness by being really excited that I'm now the proud owner of my very own vacuum cleaner as well as a growing number of cool household items - with a bit of luck I'll soon have a household to actually put them in too. Things so far seem to have sorted themselves out quite well and the first stage of the house buying process was both quick and easy. I'm now just waiting for the vendors to sort out a few queries with their related purchase before we're ready to exchange. With a bit of luck by around this time next month I'll be blogging from my own house :) Fingers crossed.

Also a big thank you to those who kindly sponsored me for the It's a Knockout charity event which raised over £9500 for the worthy John Grooms charity. It was a fantastic day for it and it was certainly an entertaining way of raising money!