So work has me travelling off to NYC again - but this time for 5+ weeks. I guess this means I won’t be going back and forth so much but it’s sure a long stay. I think I will overpack for this trip :) I’ll be staying in a corporate appartment downtown. If you’re in the neighbourhood, look me up!

Too exhausted to do anything now but shower and sleep. But got some great pictures and stories to share. Here’s a teaser before I upload the rest, from our best and last night at the festival:

One comment: Leonard Cohen on the Pyramid stage with the setting sun behind him, singing Tower of Song, Suzanne and then Hallelujah, was the one of the most amazing things I ever experienced. Unforgettable.

Edit:Rest of the pics are up now: Glastonbury 2008.

Edit: So here is my glasto 2008 music schedule:

Friday

• Vampire Weekend - great set, started raining halfway through but noone cared
• The Feeling - one of my highlights.
• The Ting Tings - were on the John Peel stage (which is small) and it was packed - fun stuff
• Sinead O’Connor - was great. Hard to get into her newer stuff because the noise of the crowd took away a little from the acoustic atmosphere, but she was on fine form and once we found a good spot it was ace
• Kings of Leon - rocked.

Saturday

• Crowded House - so good. Better than I expected - when the sun came out, and they did Weather with You… Oh man.
• The Raconteurs - utter genius, and an amazing set. One of my highlights.
• Manu Chao - unexpectedly amazing - I had never heard of them but Steph talked us into hanging around for it and wow. High tempo Mexican/Cuban/Reggae mix and the way they maintained the energy of the crowd for an hour at that pace… Wicked.
• Amy Winehouse - as expected, she was a mess. I think Steph coined the term “hot mess” and it suits. Very wobbly, ended in a fight with the crowd but somehow her voice was still perfect throughout. Worth seeing
• Jay-z - he rocked the place, and was a good headliner. Loved the opening (playing video of Gallagher moaning about him then opening to Wonderwall), and 99 Problems was brilliant.

Sunday

• Neil Diamond - good. Not great, but good.
• Goldfrapp - aw yeah. Started with some of her newer, more flowery stuff, which I enjoyed a lot, then finished in style with Oh La la and others. Great vibe during this gig to match the great weather.
• Leonard Cohen. See above. A religious experience for me. Worth the ticket price alone.
• The Verve - great Sunday night choice, lots of crowd pleasing stuff. However it couldn’t top Leonard and I could have done with him staying on another hour instead.

On Sunday we stayed out all night in Trash City and Shangri-la then watched the Sun come up from the Stone Circle. Sunday really was the most amazing day. Then on Monday on the way home we saw the sun going down over Stone Henge. What a weekend :)

Magic Moments

• Thursday night in a bar in Shangri-La (”the first class lounge”), James asking “when do you close?” and the bartender shrugging and replying “Monday”.
• Sitting in the tent playing hold’em and drinking while it rained.
• When The Feeling covered Video Killed the Radio Star.
• Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. And the rest of the set.
• Stumbling into the Cuban Brothers in Dance West, wow they were awesome and crazy funny :)
• The cider!
• Watching the sun come up from the stone circle.

Some more highlights from my flickr stream:

You’d think all the time I spend bored in airport lounges lately, I would remember to update my blog…

I just got back from San Francisco - I was attending TUCON and this time managed to spend a full week there. I love that place so much. Conference was good, and had lots of fun in the evenings too. Places we ate (mostly paid by vendors yay): Aqua, Tadich Grill, North Beach Restaurant, One Market and The Cheesecake Factory (the one overlooking Union Square) :-). Also got a chance to explore the city a little bit this time.

So I am back for a couple of weeks but then I am off again on my travels. First Singapore for a week, then a few days in Germany, then New York for a week. Basically I am all over the place at the moment.

I think I will just close my eyes, and think of the airmiles…

…but only just! They closed the airport on approach due to snow storms, and we circled for quite some time before being allowed to land. But this is great, we didn’t get any proper snow in London this year so it’s cool to be here in Boston where there are currently 3-4 inches of snow on the ground :)

So I’m back in New York again - but not for long. I do love this town though, and this time I brought my camera!

Oh and last week I was in San Fransisco (yay) but only for 20 hours (what?!) :-)

From me to all of you, merry christmas and a happy new year :-)

See the full xmas photo album on my flickr profile.

Finally got a project done. Unbelievably, the kitchen is still not finished, but that’s another story. All the fencing around our garden (especially the extended area out the back) was perished and needed replacing, plus we had an asbestos-filled crumbling garage back there which needed tearing down. It’s all done, and the fence is replaced with a nice looking and solid border. Check out the pics!

At last, we finished something :) In case you were wondering, it used to look like this:

Wow, I am behind. I still owe you all updates on a load of topics. Vegas, work, life, the house, and so forth. So much to do. Work is going well lately but is incredibly demanding, to the point that although I am on top of everything in the office (by working 6 days a week), I am probably running about 2 years behind right now on real life. Maybe more.

I’ll furnish with more details as I find the time - right now I’m putting some time management skills into practise to try to free up time to do silly things like… update this page.

I don’t have a PA a the office yet (one day!), but in the meantime I have set myself up with a fake one courtesy of iwantsandy.com, which is a really cute idea. It’s very reminiscent of the “remind me” plugin I wrote for rbot back in the day (see the bottom of this example session), but email based and much more functional. I approve! Maybe it will help me a little bit to manage my time and get personal stuff done occasionally.

Whoops, long time no post. Since the last post I’ve been continuing to cycle lots, and my stamina and overall fitness is improving lots. I’ve spent some time with family (not enough but some). I also spent 2 weeks in New York working in the Wall Stree office.

While I was in New York the exchange rate was at an all time high (2.06 or so) and so I took the opportunity to do some shopping! One of the items I picked up was a pair of specialist Mountain Bike shoes, with built-in cleats that clip onto special pedals. They’re brilliant - they really increase the power and control you have riding - they’re especially helpful uphill.

I also took up running while I was there, mainly because I couldn’t take my bike with me but I still wanted to get some exercise. Unfortunately, as usual for me I overdid it. I’m not very patient with slowly building up to things so I pushed myself as hard as I could and did myself a knee injury :P So apart from a touch of joggers knee (which is killing me right now) I am slightly fitter than when I last posted, but by the time my knee is better I might be back to square one ;)

Work is still getting the better of me, has been all year, but I will soon have a holiday at last - I have booked 2 weeks in September and I’ll be going to Vegas with some of the guys from work. It’s going to be great :) We’ll be spending 8 nights in Vegas, one night in the Grand Canyon, camping and a couple of days in LA on either side.

I find myself collecting hobbies lately - not only am I cycling and jogging but I just started playing golf at the weekend (purely at a very very amateur level) and after playing with Matt’s the other weekend I picked up a digital SLR camera and decided to learn to take proper photographs :)

Sometimes my flickr stream is more up to date on my daily activities that this website so here are a few samples from it:

Did a couple of rides this weekend, trying to build up my fitness. Yesterday I rode 10 miles and today I managed 18. My favourite new GPS gadget (a garmin edge 305) faithfully recorded my travels - here’s the map for yesterday, and here’s the map for today. Today was a nice route, I ended up cycling along the Thames path, around the Millennium Dome and out to the Thames Barrier. Very scenic.

By the way, I recently succumbed to peer pressure and created a Facebook profile - so if you’re on there, feel free to reach out.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, time to catch up. Week before last I got to meet my new nephew, Rufus! Check out the picture, he’s a little sweetie. Very quiet and cuddly!

Last weekend we took my little brothers to Legoland as a treat, and I think they enjoyed it. Legoland is pretty cool - I enjoyed the rendition of central London in Lego especially, although the boys were more interested in the driving school and the roller coasters :) Photo gallery below.

I got my new bike, and have been riding it. It’s been 10 years since I owned a bicycle - I had forgotten how much energy it takes and I am definitely out of shape :) So far I’ve been managing at least 30 minutes each day, except for last week when I was traveling. Last week was full of travel - I was in Frankfurt on Monday/Tuesday and Milan Wednesday/Thursday, both for work. It was my first ever trip to Italy, but unfortunately I didn’t get to explore it much as it was such a short and busy business trip. It was very hot while I was there - 32C - definitely more than I am used to :P Anyway, having arrived at 8pm I had just enough time to leg it down to the center to take a couple of pictures of the Duomo, as you can see below :)

My sister Laura just had her baby, late Saturday evening! It was a boy, and his name’s Rufus :-) I get to meet him this week. Well done sis!

I’m sure I used to be bulletproof, but apparently I’m not any more. I finally went to see a doctor recently having had neck/shoulder/elbow pain for several weeks (mainly because it escalated from pain to numbness) and it turns out I’ve slipped a disk in my neck :o Apparently it’s compressing a nerve, which does not feel great :)

I have absolutely no idea how I managed it, funnily enough. Anyway now I have to do physio, which should hopefully sort it out. I’d just decided to get a bike and take up cycling again in an effort to get fit but I guess now I have an excuse to put that off :D

Edit: I had an MRI to confirm the diagnosis. It was quite an ordeal, 20 minutes in a very confined and featureless but very noisy tube started to give me the willies after a short while. But - the doctor gave me my scan results to keep! How cool is that? :)

I’ve been under the weather this week with a nasty cold, haven’t quite shaken it yet so I’m spending the weekend in bed. Anyway the other week we moved offices, and I wanted to share the view from the 23rd floor, which is quite nice!

I’m getting ready to go to Berlin for a week to attend a course at the European School of Management and Technology, which I’m really looking forward to. Also, next week I’m doing some filming for the Open University, who are going to interview me about SOA in the Financial Services industry for a courseware DVD.