My Life

My flat isn’t really big enough to have a seperate office, so I am going to be spending a lot of time working at my dining table. So I decided to upgrade the kit that I am using around the laptop, last night my new wireless keyboard and laptop stand arrived which have already made a big difference. And then tomorrow my new office chair should be turning up. These sorts of things always seem to cost a fortune but for the sake of comfort while sitting down for ten hours a day I think it’s a price worth paying.

So this is now the view out of my “office” window…

It’s strange what you see going past your window on a Tuesday afternoon…

The journey home was harder work that the trip out as there was a huge delay due to “fuel supply problems”. Earlier in the day on Friday there were stories in the news about SilverJet runing out of money. The working theory in the lounge was that the fuel company wouldn’t supply without cash up front, but luckily it must have been sorted pretty quickly as we were only delayed by three hours in the end. Again I can’t praise the actual experience highly enough, so if they are still in business and you need to get to New York, check them out.

The week itself was brilliant, a real battery recharge with good food, lots of wandering around just enjoying the city and very little else. Much needed before the next couple of weeks of ILUG. Talking of which Bruce, Julian, Paul and I did a quick podcast today which can be downloaded here.

The journey over yesterday was incredibly easy. I can highly recommend Silver Jet. Their terminal at Luton Airport is the way flying should work. Turn up, as you walk in someone takes your bags, asks you to sit down in a comfy chair, have some breakfast. Then while you’re waking up, an agent comes and takes your passport, goes and checks you in and brings you back all the paperwork. You only go through security as you’re boarding the plane. The plane itself is a 767 with a good compromise solution, not quite flat beds bet pretty comfortable, decent video screens are handed out and then you’re pretty much left alone. And then Newark airport is a lot better than I remember from the last time I arrived there, I was on the road 20 minutes after touching down.

My hotel on 43rd Street is excellent so far, with a Shula’s restaurant like the one in the Dolphin so after a wander yesterday afternoon I went there for some dinner. And then I stupidly thought I’d go upstairs and watch some TV, next thing I know it’s 3am and I’m wide awake. Oh well there are worse ways of spending a Sunday morning I guess.

The plan for this week is to have no plan, I’ll catch a few movies, check out the Apple store(s), just be a general tourist and relax. I haven’t actually had a proper holiday since last May, so I am really planning to do very little.

Well it’s my last day at the contract I’ve been in for two years now. It’s been a really good time, great people and interesting work, but with IdeaJam taking off, LinkJam coming and the offer of some other consulting work it seems like a good time to try life out in the big wide world. So if you think I can help with any projects you have on the go then please feel free to contact me to have a chat!

I had tried to avoid any big leaving presentations but much as everyone promised not to do anything there was just a massive contingent of people around my desk with two great pressies and some very kind words. I always get terribly tongue tied in those sorts of situations, but I hope that everyone knows how appreciative I am of having worked with them and their generosity.

So tomorrow morning I’m flying off to New York for a few days break before the ramp up to ILUG begins. Overall, life is good, very good.

The contract I’ve been working on for the last two years is ending on Friday, the project I’ve been working on is live now so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to move on. Two years is about the right time in a single company I find.

So, on Saturday morning, I’m heading over to New York for a few days holiday. Then it’s back to the England for a week before heading of to Dublin for ILUG. It’s looking like a ton of work but I’m really looking forward to catching up with everyone and hopefully a really good conference.

The plan when I get back is to continue without a contract for as long as possible, with a few projects for different companies and also really spend some quality time on IdeaJam and LinkJam development.

In the short term, there are a few of us meeting up tomorrow evening in the City for some pre-ILUG beers, then there’ll no doubt be a few leaving drinks night for my current contract. All round it’s going to be a fun month or so.

Well it’s been an absolutely brilliant long weekend.

On Friday I went along with a load of old friends to our friends Alan and Ruth’s wedding at Leez Priory in Essex. The venue was absolutely stunning, the company was excellent and the wedding itself was really lovely. Of course there was the inevitable sore head yesterday morning but the drive home was OK. And the laziness continued as I just caught up on some reading and much needed relxation.

I did get up early this morning as I had a ton of work to catch up with. It’s always good when the unread email reaches well over a hundred and the unread RSS feeds are over a thousand :-o. The other thing happening today is the London Marathon which runs past my flat at about the 7 mile mark. So I went down to cheer along the runners for a while. All very inspiring stuff with hundreds of people watching along the side of the road.

If I have time on a Sunday then I like to go for a long walk somewhere in London to relax, think about what’s going on in life and just stretch out from my otherwise sedentary lifestyle.

It was snowing and settling which is pretty rare in London, especially in April so I headed over to the West End with the aim of getting to Green Park. I hadn’t really thought about the Olympic torch procession going through the city today. When I got to Marble Arch there were lots of police around. I mean huge numbers for a crawd of probably five or six hundred people, there must have been a policeman for every five people. So congratulations China on taking what’s meant to be a good sporting event and turning it into a political nightmare for all concerned. In my photo you can just see the flame on the top of the bus that has the cordon of police around it! Really bringing the world together there 😉

Anyway it was a good walk, nice and quiet because of the rubbish weather, but lots of interesting things to look at. Now back to work!

My it’s quiet round here isn’t it.

Well actually there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on around the Lotus community (if you set aside all the toys being thrown out of prams by various people who shall remain nameless).

You may well have heard of Twitter which is a service that in the words of their FAQ page is “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!”

Well the latest news for the Notes 8 client is that Mikkel has created a sidebar plugin, and it really is very cool. If you are lucky enough to be using Notes 8 in anger then it’s a must install to keep up with the latest community happenings.

In the user group world, ILUG planning continues apace and now Warren is asking for UKLUG Sponsors. If you’re interested, head over to his blog and drop him a line, it promises to be a very good two day conference in September.

Of course through all of this IdeaJam development and sales continue. If you haven’t yet registered your interest then now may just be the right time.

After such a great week in Florida it would have been nice to ease back into the real world gently, but of course that was never going to happen.

At the moment I have Idea Jam plus two other large projects to work on, ILUG 2008 planning is well underway which will also generate it’s own work and I really need to update Defectr to use Dojo 1.x rather than 0.4 as it currently is.

Pah, who needs sleep anyway?