So. We now have a travel journal at http://onourtravels.livejournal.com/ (complete with silly pictures). Any emails sent out may well end up telling you to go there ;-) Photos will be linked to from there too.
In other news.... *aghhhhh* at the work still going on. I now have a meeting at MS on Thursday, and a meeting at another client on Friday. That had better be it after that :| |
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Feb. 16th, 2006 @ 05:28 pm
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I passed my driving test! *breathes sigh of relief* |
It's all smokey outside! Apparently it's supposed to have reached Southampton by tonight...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4518500.stm |
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Update
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Dec. 3rd, 2005 @ 10:38 pm
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Soooo... life's been plodding along as usual. Disappeared off to Ireland last weekend for a cousins weddings. Sarah flew in from Bristol too, but her flight managed to get delayed 6 hours due to this strange thing called snow - it seems Cardiff airport didn't quite know what to do with it! Anyway, I hadn't been to a wedding since the one in Japan, so it was really nice. Typical irish catholic service (anyone would think it was a race to see how quickly you could get through the service and get down to the bar... hehe), with everyone looking particularly nice! Most notably, these lot:
Yes, that's my brother. Wearing my mum's hat. And pulling it off amazingly well. Anyway... The party continued till basically the next evening (I'm pretty sure some never made it to bed at all). Spent the next few days down at our second home along with our gran, I suppose, and did the typical ireland things of visiting people (our gran is almost like visiting royalty when she comes to Ireland, with my dad as the chauffeur!). Headed back home on the Tuesday, via my uncles again in Cork... and managed to reach the check-in desk with literally seconds left before they closed it. Whoops.
Still doing bits of work. Missed the Christmas-dinner-alternative due to some bug exported from Ireland that the entire famiy went down with... and that's about it. Just need to see you guys soon! And maybe sort out some travelling details... hmmm... |
Okay, time for an update today, I think... mainly for myself than any of you lot.
Going back a while... I flew into Vancouver on the Sunday, arriving two hours after I left. Time zones, heh? Zoom seems pretty decent considering; the planes aren't exactly brand sparkling new, but it was cheap and cheerful... plus it was half empty, so we could lie down in the middle 3 seats! It took over an hour to get through customs, and then ages on the "airporter" to get to the hostel (when I finally got off where I was instructed, I realised it had stopped about a block away 30 mins earlier). Just kinda crashed that evening, and then spent the next day wandering around to get my bearings before catching the one-a-day train down to Seattle in the evening. I ended up being the last to board the train because of all the paperwork they made me fill out, but I made it! The train pretty much runs alongside the coast all the way down (to San Fran, as it happens... though that would take about 24 hours), so the scenery was stunning as the sun went down.
I was bribed with the offer of an upgrade to first-class, as the train was. until we got there and realised there wasn't any space... so I ended up with a spell in the restaurant car instead for the next few stops, while the waiters looked at me suspiciously :D
Crashed in the hostel that night, then was up bright and early to go on a coach tour to Mt Rainier. The weather looked terrible, and there were only 5 or so other people on the coach - but the skies literally cleared as we entered the national park. Just the sheer scale of the scenery here amazed me... it was great! I'm starting to realise that although cities have their own character, and interesting things to see, I really *really* like getting outside of them a lot more!
That evening I checked into the $200/night hotel that Microsoft had organised, and began the 4/5 days of conference. The Microsoft campus is just amazing - you've got something like 25,000 people working there, so it really is a town in its own right. I was somewhat dazed by the number of faces that I met while I was there - but it was good fun, and great to finally meet some of the "names" I'd known for ages. I had a meeting in the same building as Bill Gate's office - that's about as close as I got to him ;-) There was stuff basically going on every night during the conference, which was knackering, but generally good. I also had the interesting experience of squeezing in the back of someone's convertible sports car and us driving out of the car park with the roof down in the pouring rain. I've no idea what it was, except you didn't seem to have to worry about 2nd gear until about 60mph...
To be continued. |
| » Back from holiday |
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So. I'm back! Had a great time. Can't be bothered to write anything here at the moment. But you can see some photos here for anyone who cares.
Oh, and I should be up in Ox next weekend (Sat evening till mon/tues hopefully)
Oct. 16th, 2005 @ 11:02 am
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| » Sunny vancouver |
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had a lovely time in seattle and met some great people! caught the train up to vancouver today... and will be back in london horribly early next friday. and if you're lucky you might get a postcard!
ttfn :)
Oct. 7th, 2005 @ 07:17 pm
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| » Off on holiday! |
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I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow, and then down to Seattle by train for a few days at Microsoft... and then two weeks of lazing around doing touristy stuff in both. Should be good. Though still a bit scary; not quite the same as going abroad with a bunch of friends - but at least they all speak english!
Haven't really been up to a great deal recently. Had a lovely weekend at Tom's, watched the cricket, ate yummy food, played squash (was still aching two days later), and met up with Manisha too! Then did bugger all for a while again, and then in one day passed my driving theory test (i wouldn't have told anyone if i'd failed), went to a meeting in London to discuss some work I'm doing, and met up with Sheep at Starbucks (24 hours travelling and she was still more awake than me). Met up again for her birthday thing at the weekend, with Charles, John and Manisha, and then again the following week for her "real" birthday. And that's about it, I think!
I'm back on the 14th Oct, after which I shall come up to Oxford at some point to see some of you lovely people.
Sep. 24th, 2005 @ 11:06 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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Oh, yesterday I also met a guy who was at Oxford Brookes a few years ago (before we were there), used to run Mood, and knows the guy who has opened Escape. Quite random!
Sep. 1st, 2005 @ 09:13 pm
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| » Presentations... woo |
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I did my first ever "proper" presentation yesterday - what ended up being 50 minutes of slides and code talking to a bunch of around 40 developers. It went much better than I'd thought it would - and everyone seemed impressed that I was writing code and talking people through it, rather than just pasting it all in. Anyway... yay! With any luck I'll be doing a similar thing again in October, which, dare I say it, I might actually be looking forward to.
In other news... I have my first driving lesson on Monday! That's about it.
Sep. 1st, 2005 @ 11:00 am
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| » Dolpins! |
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My parents and bro saw tonnes of dolphins on the way back on the Ferry from Ireland on Monday... Apparently there were over 2,000 of them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4150502.stm
Very cool - but you've gotta wonder what they're moving en mass for... maybe they know something we don't?!?!
Aug. 16th, 2005 @ 10:47 pm
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| » Holiday in Ireland |
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Had a nice few days over in Ireland (more photos). The crossing was very smooth (unlike the last time Mum & Dad went over and their heads were hitting one end of the bed one minute, and their feet hitting the other end the next), but it took us something like 5/6 hours to get down to Swansea... apparently a lorry cab ended up in a tree on the M4 outside Reading, and we hit the aftermath!
Anyway, it was the first time I'd seen our new bungalow over there... the place is in need of some decorating, and some hedge cutting (ones at least 12 ft or something) - but it's bigger than home, and has the potential to be very nice!
On wednesday I went out sea kayaking at around sunset (though we didn't actually go out to sea, as the weather was a bit dodgy), and got to see some absolutely amazing phosphorescence. You could glide along in total silence by the river bank and just watch the bottom sparkle... the kayaks left kinda silver trails as they cut through the water, and if you stirred up the algae with the oars you saw tonnes of the stuff - almost like fireworks going off - it's amazing to think its all caused by these little microscopic organisms. Anyway, it was very cool. Oh, and the sea-water lake we were in was like 18 degrees warm... almost a swimming pool!
Other than that, we did the usual Ireland-y stuff, with plenty of walking and a trip on a boat down to Cape Clear (basically as far south west as you can possibly get), managing to narrowly avoid getting sunburnt (stupid Ireland and its wind makes you forget), plus spent a day staring out the window with visibility reduced to the end of the garden. Typical Ireland :D
Headed back home again with Sarah, so now I'm back to twiddling my thumbs... though I'll probably head up to Oxford this week, and then Charls birthday at the weekend!
Aug. 7th, 2005 @ 11:00 pm
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| » NTL |
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NTL suck. NTL suck. NTL suck. la la la la la la la.
I mean. How *$!!"£$% difficult is it to understand a simple instruction? I WANT TO CANCEL MY ACCOUNT.
*takes a deep breath*
Jul. 30th, 2005 @ 08:53 am
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| » Birthdays! |
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Home has returned to its usual fluctuations between flurries of activity to bordem.
Had a lovely extended weekend up in Cambridge for Sarah's 22nd birthday, consisting of muchos food, making party hats, lazing around in the sun, and playing games such as pass the parcel. Sarah's look of disbelief when we rigged passing the parcel so that she ended up opening her birthday present - considering she'd wrapped the parcel up with me earlier in the day - was classic (go Charl!).
Headed into London on the Wednesday and met up with Ian Caddy, and had a poke around the Royal Acadamy... colour inkjet-printed photo for £15K, anyone? Was good to see him, though Ian - you really ought to sit down and get some proper work done before you go back to college ;-)
Next up - birthday BBQ at the weekend, narrowly escaping the pouring rain for the crucial burning of meat portion. I had a great weekend - thanks to everyone who came, and those that didn't... if you're abroad, then.. I miss you!!! and if you're in the country, then you should have been there :P
Off to Ireland on Monday for a few days with the family, which should be good. And then... who knows. Oh, also got some photos up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/james_crowley/ thought they'll remain fairly unsorted until (a) I actually pay for an account, and (b) they allow nested photo galleries.
In other news... houses in New Southgate, Finchley, and Enfield have all been raided. Talk about close to home.
Sarah - have a great time in Korea - you'll be sorely missed!
Jul. 27th, 2005 @ 09:08 pm
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| » Results breakdown |
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Woo! I finally have my results breakdown.
Complexity - 78
Databases - 73
Intelligent Systems I - 70
Intelligent Systems II - 90
Object Oriented Design - 86
Security - 78
Project - 93
Average (including last year): 79
Looks like I shouldn't have worked as hard last year! The marks bear absolutely no relation to how I thought I'd done - so much for IS II being my weakest module.... I suppose that's what happens when its up to the examiners to "determine what a first class performance is" in each of the papers - you don't know how you've done until everyone else has sat the papers!
Jul. 11th, 2005 @ 10:58 am
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| » Mega Update time |
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It's been a busy few weeks since finishing uni!
The last Winchester Rd party rocked. Thanks to everyone who signed my yearbook - there's some really lovely messages in there :)
On Sunday I headed off home as usual (it still hasn't sunk in that it was for the last time) - and stayed there for a grand total of one hour, before dad drove me up to Cambridge (stupid weekend engineering works on the trains). This was the last "Microsoft Student Partner" meeting of the year, and consisted of the usual going out for a meal the night before, and then a day of presentations from various people at Microsoft the day after. There was actually some pretty interesting stuff talked about - helped by the fact that Cambridge is one of Microsoft's research labs - particularly about new stuff coming in to the next version of Windows (when it's finally actually released...). I was given a bottle of Champagne at the end of the day on Monday as a "thank you", which is always nice!
Once that was over, I popped into Sarah's, performed some highly skilled vegetable chopping for dinner, generally lounged around, and finally watched the princess bride (it so totally is a John film!). We headed into london the next day, meeting up with Manisha and Sheep and mooched around the Natural history museum for a while (free entry rocks). I swear the T-rex was a lot bigger the last time I was there! After some lunch, and watching crazy kids race around big metal pillar things sticking out of groud, said our goodbyes to Sheep (who was just a *tiny* bit stressed after getting a visa that was one day too short), and then we hopped on a river boat from Westminster down to St Katherine's Dock (I really like that place), and eventually headed off home.
Next up... was a two day speaker training course that Microsoft organised in Reading. There were 6 other people attending (all non-MS), most of whom I knew, which was good - the two days were pretty intense, doing lots of 90 second presentations (all video-taped) and giving feedback on the rest of the group. We were covering everything from how to stand, to the structure of the slides, to dealing with Q & A, and dealing audience members who are just out to cause trouble! I felt much more confident by the end of the two days, but I am going to have to try it out at some point...
The next week or so was spent lazing around, seeing friends from home and buying new shoes (shock horror)... and then I headed off to Amsterdam on Monday for a conference that Microsoft runs called TechEd. The scale of it was absolutely amazing - there were 6500 developers from all around Europe. For the two key notes, all these people were in one room - and then for the rest of the week, there were about 20 or so different sessions to choose from for each time slot (in rooms varying in capacity from around 30 to 1000 or so). Lunch was the most incredible sight (I really wish I had a pic of it) - it literally felt like an aircraft hanger, with table after table after table - but somehow they managed to feed everyone, at the same time, with barely any queues! I wouldn't have liked to go to the event without knowing anyone - but fortunately I did, so it was lots of fun! On Wednesday evening we went out on the "UK Country drinks", held at the "heineken experience"... at which someone managed to pick up my cloakroom ticket and run off with my jacket, which was nice.
Thursday was just strange. By chance the guy I was sharing a twin room with in the hotel had flicked on the news before we went off to the Conference, but at that stage they were saying that there had been a power surge. Headed into the conference, went into a session, flicked on the news again and realised quite how serious it was - at which point we lost all inclination to actually do anything useful, and just went and watched the news stream from the website. At points I just felt like just bursting into tears! Tried to get hold of my dad, who thank god had gotten into work safely (he'd been in Liverpool Street at around 8.45) - and walked about 8 miles with two other friends from Enfield to get home that evening! Eventually the Microsoft event staff managed to organise two TV's (there were around 1000 people & staff from the UK) - it was slightly surreal standing in this room with a crowd of people just watching the news in absolute silence. There was a party organised for the conference that evening that I think most UK people skipped entirely - kinda put a dampener on the event.
Flying home on Friday involved waiting for 40 minutes just to get through immigration to *leave* Amsterdam, and then as our flight was just about to pull away from the stand, as the pilot informed us that it would take 35 mins to fly to Stansted, a guy got up and ran to the front saying he was going to Luton! Queue startled looks on EasyJet staff faces, and much two-ing and fro-ing. Eventually got him off, and establishing we weren't actually therefore missing another passenger), we got underway - and were only 10 minutes late arriving in the end. Got stopped by customs for the first time ever (20 year old coming back from Amsterdam... what on earth were they thinking I could have been doing?) - but I think it became fairly cursory after I told him I'd been on a Microsoft conference! Police did a sweep of the train before it left Stansted, but other than that, everything seemed pretty normal. I'm just glad to be home! Though it's a shame the REM concert for today in yde Park has (unsurprisingly) been put back, clashing with Sarah's birthday stuff - doh.
Jul. 9th, 2005 @ 01:15 pm
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| » (No Subject) |
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I got a first.
*does a little dance*
No idea as to the actual break down of marks... 'cause my tutor is generally slow at these things (I had to email the nice admin lady in the department to get my results at all)
I. Have. A. Degree. What's that about?
Jun. 29th, 2005 @ 10:40 am
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| » Update time |
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Okay, so I haven't updated this in like... forever. Today's exam went better than expected... only an hour and a half exams left, and then it's all over! :D (Sat, 4pm exam schools - be there or be square - even my sister's coming!).
I can't wait... got lots of stuff coming up - 8th week will be general chilling (and will go far far *far* too quickly), then I've got 2 days at an MS student thing in Cambridge... and a few days later, 2 days at MS in Reading on a speaker training course thing, then Amsterdam at the start of July, then the REM concert (plus feeder, zutons and idlewild), plus various meetings with lovely people about my website. I suppose results at some point too. Woo yay!
Oh - can someone get me a red carnation for Saturday? :D
Jun. 9th, 2005 @ 07:43 pm
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| » Exam dates... finally |
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Unofficially, I finally now know my exams start on 4th June (Saturday of 6th) and finish on 11 June (Saturday of 7th). A week later than I'd hoped, but at least I still get a week off. Woo yay.
Apr. 27th, 2005 @ 04:13 pm
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| » Conservative policy |
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Just for the record...
The explicitly stated Conservative policy is to put a quota on *asylum seekers*.
(with thanks to Dave for providing the Conservative propaganda)
Apr. 26th, 2005 @ 05:05 pm
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