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lotusphere is in less than three
weeks now and the wednesday night party venue has been announced. this year it
is at universal
studios. this will be quite strange as we were there only last friday (and
a few days before that as well) so the rides will all be fresh in my mind.
maybe rather than doing them all again i will content myself with the beer and

turkey legs!

the eds meeting was pretty uneventiful in the end yesterday. our
contracts are being tranferred next monday but nothing else is changing in the
short term. and i have found that it is best not to assume anything beyond the
next renewal anyway so i will just forget about it until the end of february
now.

more interestingly (for those of a geeky nature) i have been asked to go along
to an audit meeting today to explain why one of our systems (a relatively
insecure crm application) does not use dual-factor
authentication. it should be pretty fun as my natural inclination is to
only add security where it is necessary, while audit and compliance will always
work from the position that all data should be ultimately secure unless there
is a reason to open it up. normally we meet somewhere in the middle but for
some reason (i am guessing political) that i am not aware of this round is
being more torturous than usual. 

things are well and truly back to normal. work is already at a manic level and
it looks set to continue at the same level for the next few months. this is not
a bad thing as things had been due to slow down in march this year at which
point i would have been looking elsewhere for a contract.

as things stand our contracts are finally being moved across to eds as part of an outsourcing project by the
bank. they have been aiming to do this for around a year but it kept on being
put off but we finally have the meeting this afternoon. i only have a couple of
concerns… one is petty, apparently eds are not keen on wearing casual clothes
to the office and i haven’t worn a suit regularly for almost 4 years now. the
other is that at our next renewal they eds are almost certainly going to want
to cut my rate which is obviously not desirable. more to follow if anything
interesting happens this afternoon.

the journey back from new york to london was pretty uneventful. security at jfk
was completely over the top but not sure if that was just for ba or if all of
the terminals were that bad.

i decided to get into the office early this morning so that i can get home
early this evening. rather surprisingly there have been no disasters over the
christmas break. there were the usual political manouverings and our high
turnover of people continues but everything in my little world seems to have
been ticking over nicely.

i definitely recommend the daytime flight from new york to london. i don’t seem
to be suffering from jet lag at all. although i suppose i should wait for
tomorrow before counting my chickens.

the good thing now is that there is lotusphere to look forward to at the end of
the month so i won’t be getting the post holiday blues until february.

we flew up from orlando to la guardia this morning. a very early start but all
went very smoothly. i am staying in the hilton on 42nd street tonight before
doing a daytime flight back across the atlantic for the first time tomorrow. in
theory it is meant to cancel out a lot of the jet lag which would be greta as i
am straight into work on monday morning.

the others have headed off to get their plane this evening to land at heathrow
early tomorrow morning.

i have a feeling it will take a few days to adjust back to the normal speed of
life. we have had the most relaxing christmas break ever over here. and we are
all suitably tanned! the picture is of the view from my hotel room. rather good
for a freebie (i am using up some of my “hotel miles” to pay for tonight).

as is traditional on new years eve, we met elvis (as the picture testifies) who
was begging us to come along to his show. we couldn’t oblige unfortunately as
there was the pressing matter of getting home and finishing off all the
booze.

it was by far the hottest day of the trip so far so we mainly lounged around
the pool but we did manage to find time to visit celebration. it is a town
which was designed, built and run by disney. a slightly sinister feeling place
but interesting to visit.

a happy new year to one and all. apologies that the coverage has not been as
frequent as usual for this trip. mum and dad are off at the crack of sparrows
tomorrow morning and we follow on saturday.

a fairly mad visit to the magic kingdumb today. at a guess there must have been
around 100,000 people in the park, it was absolutely heaving. still the weather
is good, we saw mickey and minnie which was the main thing obviously and have
spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the pool.

it’s been another busy couple of days in which we have done islands of
adventure which has been reconfirmed (imho) as the best park in orlando. we got
absolutely soaked on the three water rides but as it’s so hot could dry off
fairly quickly.

the rest of the week is going to be spent in rather more relaxed manner. i am
ploughing my way through war and peace and the others are equally happy just
laying round the pool.

as a departure from the normal boxing day routine (village walk and then pub)
we headed off to kennedy space center yesterday. the weather is as cracking as
ever and the tour is really interesting.

it was a chinese take-out in the evening with a few glasses of wine and just
general relaxation. honestly, the days are flying by and yet we are doing very
little. i am going to be so relaxed when i get home that i’ll be horizontal!

wishing everyone a very happy christmas. we have just opened the first bottle
of champagne and plan a christmas day bbq around the pool!

i had meant to do my usual and post every day while we are away but we have been so busy do nothing that i haven’t had the chance! we went to universal studios today (as the picture proves) and did all the usual rides. it’s still very difficult to get used to the whole sun and warmth in december thing. last night we sat outside having a barbeque around the pool and several of us had jacuzzis in the dark. honestly, we are just having a terrible time and want to come home as soon as possible.

as ed asked yesterday, i am due back here in around 3 weeks time for lotusphere. this is the first time i have been here other than lotusphere and it is a very different experience. i suppose i shouldn’t be surprised but there are far more people here now than at the end of january. and wandering around the ‘sphere hotels without the lotus branding everywhere is a very odd experience. i keep expecting to bump into people i have met over the years but, of course, none of those people will be around for a few weeks more.

the plans are fluid to say the least over the next few days. we had promised ourselves to barbeque on christmas day and luckily dad has managed to find brussel sprouts so that is one minor potential disaster avoided! i really must do my christmas shopping tomorrow so it’s off to the wilds of international drive for some uber-tacky gifts.

the first sets of pictures have been uploaded and more will be put up over the next few days.