Posts

flying visit

Last night, I flew to Stockholm airport. I stayed overnight in a hotel at the airport.

Today I went to a meeting in a conference centre at Stockholm airport. I talked, listened, answered a few questions and asked a few questions.

Then I flew home from Stockholm airport.

18 hours in Stockholm and I never left the airport complex. Weird.

annual review

This may be contrary to corporate blogging guidelines but still…

Just had the formal feedback from my annual review and it is excellent news.

Seeboard - monthly bill down to £38 (down from £60) per month.

The Killers on the move

The Killers (Glastonbury 2005) has successfully been converted from DVD to WAV format and to ATRAC format on a CD.

Thanks to two excellent software tools: MediaCoder (DVD to MP3 converter) and Audacity.

free as in FreePhone

‘Yes. It is an 0800 number which is free. However, there is a charge of 10p per minute’

Newcastle Hilton Hotel.

VMware beware

Microsoft announce Virtual Server 2005 is now freely available.

Whatever you can do, we can do (but a bit later).

axe murderer

A couple of years ago, I was working in Amsterdam (near Holland) chasing world records for loading lots of data into a Siebel database.

It wasn’t working very well. The client was unhappy so long hours were called for.

The Unix team said the expensive SAN was performing optimally.

The DBA team said Oracle was performing optimally.

The Siebel team said Siebel was performing optimally.

Alex Ferguson unexpectedly joined a conference call and said the Manchester United team were performing optimally.

rude awakening

I was at my desk at 09.05 this Monday morning. Nothing extraordinary there but considering I live in South West London and this particular desk was in Newcastle, this represented quite an achievement.

And this prompt start was only possible due to a considerate, thoughtful taxi driver.

I ordered a taxi at 05.45 on Monday morning. I slept downstairs on the sofa bed to avoid disturbing the household at that unearthly hour.

David Beckham and I

…have a lot in common.

I was interested to read that David Beckham suffers from OCD and simply can not abide an odd number of lines cans of coke in his fridge

I have a similar obsession about cans of Grolsch in my fridge. 0, 2, 4, 8 but never 1, 3, 5, 6 or 7. If we ever get an odd number, I simply drink ’em scold the offenders soundly and banish them to the cupboard (where odd numbers only are allowed).

blankety blank competition

Lee Trundle’s smile after Swansea’s victory (in the Sunday Pub League Final played at, of all places, Cardiff) couldn’t be any wider without fracturing his jaw. But what I love about this story most is the following statement by Swansea FC’s chairman, Huw Jenkins:

‘Maybe it was a heat-of-the-moment thing’

Possibly, but given Lee Trundle had gone to the trouble of getting a T-shirt printed with a cartoon depicting a person urinating over a Cardiff shirt, that seems a little unlikely.

the innocence of youth

On the return flight from Newcastle to Heathrow, I was sitting behind a family who were lucky enough to be going to Sydney, Australia for a holiday. I was immediately behind two young lads (8 and 6). Obviously both were very excited at flying for the first time.

They were excited when we pushed back, they were nervous when we accelerated down the runway and they were delirious when we left the ground.