Whats the first thing to do in New York. Thats right a trip to the B&H Super Store on 9th Avenue to buy some bits and pieces for my EOS 400D. The initial shopping list was short, just one lens and a flash but with the fact that things are much cheaper in the states plus the extra bonus from the strong euro the list started to grow just a tad. As part of my tidying things up in work before the trip I submitted the expenses claim of doom. From the beginning of September last until the end of June. It was a hunk of change and was my budget for camera shopping while in New York.

Yes that man does have a screwdriver in his face.

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So the flight over was ok but really Aer Lingus what were you thinking, “Showbands 2″ is not an acceptable thing to show to mass murderers let alone tourists who we want to actually remember Ireland fondly. Besides the poor entertainment options the flight was uneventful, just long. It seems I am not cut out for long haul.

Thursday was a bit hectic with trying to make sure I had most of my work stuff handed over to other people and doing things like learning how to setup my voicemail, “Hi this is colin, …”, along with one of those silly out of the office messages on my email. I have not yet gotten used to being without my phone.

So Boston is pretty snazzy and warm, so very very warm. It is Harborfest this week so lots of Tea Party recreation and similar going on. The Chowderfest tomorrow should be most enjoyable. Anyway it is nearly time to meet one of the Ladyfriend’s scary internet friends so until next time.

So yesterday I gave the first airing of a talk I have wanted to give for a while called The Realities of LLU in Ireland at UKNOF7. The Title is a bit silly but such is life.
I am planning to give this talk or a version of it at BarCamp Dublin in a few weeks but I have some doubts over how suitable it is for the event.

The talk covers a number of areas including brief history of irish telecoms that impacts on LLU, How an operator goes about unbundling an exchange, how do we unbundle customers to deliver services and finally what are the coming changes that will impact on LLU. The slides form a lose structure in which I talked about the nature of the ISP market in Ireland and anything else that seemed related.

John having recently joined the UKNOF Programme Committee ment that Colm from Joost and Donal from HEAnet were also giving talks which were really informative and in the case of Donal’s talk on NOC tools it gave me some interesting ideas for tools to use within Magnet.

Flights are now booked for the LadyFriend and I great North American adventure of 2007. Going to Boston on the 29th of June and returning from Seattle on the 30th of July. In between there will be much adventure. One of the highlights will be travelling from Toronto to Vancouver via train.

It turned out to be cheaper to book two one way trips than a single multiway trip. Very odd.

Back from Warpcon in UCC with the LadyFriend where I came across the scene above. Garnish house rocked once more. Good times were had and I had a lot of fun with the camera. I uploaded 95 new photos to usual place. You should check them out. Those without access should drop me an email and access can be arranged.

People should also be warned that I have started a new project to get good portrait shots of people I know and above is a good example but I have no idea who the young lady is.

For good measure a boat as well. Got home this afternoon after being caught up in the fun in heathrow last night. Full story to follow.

Siting in Leiden watching Jurassic Park with Colmmacc and expressing the opinion that along with Richard Attenbourgh, James Earl Jones would be the other person that should doing the voice over to my life. Imagine my joy to discover Mr Jones was presenting one of the special features on the DVD.

Things are all good.

It is snowing. Woot. We had been warned not to expect any snow.

A good event which all the scouts enjoyed. The weather coperated with just enough rain to make things interesting.
We had a fire on the beach beside high camp on the Saturday night with some very humerous performances from both staff and scouts.
The photo below is the view I woke up to on Sunday morning.

Off to Helsinki in the morning. Looking forward to the week off lots.

So LAMM is with us once again and this year we are off to the far north of Scotland. Inchnadamph in Assynt to be particular. Should be lots of fun. Our team number is 515 if you want to keep an eye on our progress over the weekend.