Wow, it has been over a month since my last entry but at least I have something to blog about. Well that’s not quite true, I actually have a lot to blog about! Now the hard bit is deciding where to start.

So in my last post I was Duty Manager and trapped in my apartment in India planning my trip to Thailand, so let’s start there. Well on the Monday Chris Gothard, a collegue from the UK arrived in order to meet the team and discuss a few organisation changes. It was a great week and Chris enjoyed putting names to faces and catching up with people that he had only spoken to previously via the phone and email. It was a busy week with a lot of stuff to cover but we got through everything and even resolved some long outstanding issues. Sometimes its just so much easier when you can sit down and discuss things. Friday was Chris and Sandra’s last day in India before they flew back to the UK so there was a big party to see them off. I think most people from the team in India made it along at some point and judging by the fact you couldn’t get on the dance floor I think everybody had a great time.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling a lot better than I expected to given the amount I had poured down my neck. I love a free bar! Karan was prompt as usual and after manhandeling my suit case into the car we headed for Delhi’s IGI Airport. I arrived with plenty of time to spare but I was in holiday mode and didn’t care as I sat there listening to my iPod watching the world go by. We boarded the plane, and my backside struggled to get use to the economy seats. Thankfully it was only a three hour flight and after few beers to top up Friday nights quota I was soon asleep.

We touched down at Bangkok’s International Airport about 20 minutes late and disembarked straight away. I sailed through passport control and my bag was on the belt waiting for me. Perfect! I headed out and grabbed the first taxi I could find and gave him the address of the Hotel and we set off. As we drove the 40 minutes to the hotel I answered the normal question on where I was from, how I was here on holiday, and yes I liked beautiful women. I looked out of the window at the high rise skyscrappers and felt very much at home even though there was palm trees everywhere. We arrived at the hotel and I checked in, grabbed a shower, and changed my clothes. Unpacking would have to wait as I had spotted a McDonalds across from the hotel as we arrived. As I walked in through the big glass doors I am sure I looked insane with the smile I was wearing, as I ordered I must have looked like a raving lunatic. As I approached the counter thoughts raced through my mind, how many Big Mac’s did they have in stock? Would I be allowed to order them all? Would they deliver to India? I approached with caution and ordered a large Big Mac meal. I don’t remember the next 3.6 minutes as I was in a “Happy Place”. As I liked my fingers and drained my full fat coke I could only think of one thing. A Cheese Burger Meal! So back at the counter and then back to my table and the “Happy Place”. After eating I just felt really tired, but knew if I went to bed to early I would be awake early hours so I went for a wander. It didn’t take me to long to find a bar and as I walked in I was welcomed by 3 or 4 very beautiful girls. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer and two of the girls sat down with me. They asked me the same questions the cab driver had asked me and made general chit chat. By the time I finished my beer one of the girls was sat on my lap and the other one rubbing my shoulders. I made my excuses, well they weren’t really excuses as I was totally knackered, and headed back to the hotel alone. I grabbed a quick drink in the bar and then headed to bed.

Over the next few days I enjoyed laying in, usually until 10:00 before venturing out to for breakfast. After breakfast I would do a little shopping and generally look around before heading in search of Lunch. Lunch usually focused around beef in one form or another. After lunch I would head back to the hotel to drop my bags off and would then spend a few hours by the pool. Around 15:00 I would generally doze off and wake a couple of hours later ready to eat. I would grab a shower and change, not that it was really worth it as I within 30 seconds of leaving the hotel I would be sweating profoundly. I would then enjoy a few drinks and make small talk with the girls. They tried to teach me Thai and laughed at my mispronunciation.

Tuesday night I caught the night train from Bangkok to Champon. It was very similar to the train I caught from Mumbia to Goa although there were less bunks per carriage and a lot more space. I arrived in Chanpon about 04:30 Wednesday morning and was meet at the train station by the company that runs one of the ferries between Champon and Koh Tao. It was about a 20 minute drive from the train station to the ferry terminal and then we had an hours wait until the ferry left. Luckily there was a cafe which sold coffee and snacks.

The ferry took about 3 hours and I got talking to one of the deck hands who spoke very good English which passed the time. We reached the island of Koh Tao about 11:00 and it was a short walk along the beach to the dive school. Once at the school I filled in the paperwork and checked into my room. The room was quite basic, bathroom, double bed, TV, but it would do. I grabbed a shower and then headed off in search of some lunch. It wasn’t hard as there were only two main streets and every other building was a resturant which sold good old English food. It was fantastic sat in shorts and t-shirts looking out at the beach eating Sausage and Mash. After lunch I headed back to my room and grabbed a few hours sleep. I woke up and headed to the bar grabbed a drink and got chatting to the other people that would be on my course. We all had a few beers and then headed off for dinner.

The second day we all met up at 09:00 and headed for the class room and a morning of video’s and tests. We finished about 14:00 by which time I was starving so headed in search of lunch. The afternoon was spent in the swimming pool running through some of the basic skills. Over the next few days we headed out to sea a practices our skills before diving the various reefs and huntng down different fish, stingyrays, and turtles. The last dive of the PADI Open Water exam was a night dive, which was in my view one of the best. We headed out about 18:00 and arrived at the dive site just as the sun was setting. We entered the water, turned on our torches and desended. It was amazing as there seems to be a lot more around. As we surfaced we all looked up and the stars seemed so bright. We bobbed around for about 10 minutes just staring at the sky before returning to the boat.

The next day we started our advanced course, and more book work. Luckily it was just the morning and in the afternoon we headed out to do our first two dives. The first was fish ID, which as it says was all about identifying underwater sea life, whilst the second was navigation, and I think my sailing helped a little as I was familiar with a compass and found the tasks no problem at all. When we got back I elected to do another course, NITROX, which allows you to dive on a mixture of Oxygen and Nitrogen rather than air. The benefit of this is that you can stay under for longer periods. There was another exam but it was basically algothrims so was pretty easy.

The folowing day was the last two dives of the advanced course and probably the most fun after the night dive. The first was the deep dive, which basically sees how you are affected by Narcoisis. We reached just over 30 metres and nobody showed any signs. Quite disappointing really. The last dive I did with a Dive Propelled Vehicle. This allowed us to cover an awful lot more ground and use a lot less air as we weren’t expending as much energy. As I had completed the NITROX course we completed the last two dives on Nitrox we were down for about 40 minutes on each dive and still came up with enough for another 20 minutes, but had to surface as others were low on air. That afternoon we completed all our paperwork and recieved our tempory certificates.

The following day was my birthday so I decided on a different type of sporting activity, namely drinking until I fell down. I was accompanied by a number of the Dive Master and Instructors and got to bed about 01:00 the following morning after basically crawling my way around pubs all day. I was surprised when I woke up at 10:00 the following morning with only a mild headache, which was quickly resolved after a visit to the NITROX tank building. That afternoon I signed up for two last fun dives. We went back to places I had seen before but it was a lot more fun as we didn’t have to practice all the skills and I was put with an experienced diver. We were on air for both of these dives but were down for over 50 minutes each time. When we surfaced I still had enough for another 15-20 minutes. That evening I went for drinks with some of the Dive Masters and long term visitors who just couldn’t bring themselves to leave.

The following morning I packed, ate some lunch and then headed for the ferry port as my time on Koh Tao was over. As I sat there watching the ferry pull in I checked my BlackBerry and saw an email saying that I was needed in the UK as soon as possible. I made a couple of calls to find out what was going on, and then returned to my holiday. The ferry ride took about two hours and when I arrived at the ferry port in Koh Sumai I was greated by GIANT. No kidding you this guy was about 40” Tall and like 18 tons. Okay maybe not quite but you get the picture. I swallowed hard when he held up a card with the name of my hotel on it. I wanded over and said “Hi!” He introduced himself as Vince and lifed my suitcase, which by now did weight at least a ton, cleanly onto his shoulder. I followed him to the minibus, where he loaded my case into the back and then waved goodbye. It was about a 30 minute ride to the hotel and I was pretty knackered. Koh Sumia according to everyone is very touristy, and that’s the impression I got as we drove through what looked like little spain. We arrived at the hotel, which was right on the beach and I checked before grabbing a shower and change of clothes. I went for a short walk, but there wasn’t much about, apart from the normal gift shops. I headed to the hotel bar and order a drink and something to eat but struggled to finish them both, so called it quits and headed to bed.

The following morning I woke up about 10:00 felling a lot better but didn’t really have time to do anything as my flight was at 15:00. It was only 15 Minutes to the airport so I opted for a morning by the pool. I arrived at the airport on time, and enjoyed the whole experieince. Seriously I have never seen an airport like it. You felt as if you were on the beech. They even had free fruit juice, fruit, and pasteries.

We departed on time and 2 hours later landed back in Bangkok where I repeated the actions of my first day and grabbed a cab to the hotel. I had a 18:00 flight the following day but a 14:00 checkout and 3 hour airport checkin, so I grabbed something to eat and then hit the bars for one last night in Thailand, and the last steak for a while. I got to bed about 02:00 and woke about 11:00 the next day. After showing and packing I had a quick brunch and then checked out and headed back to the airport.

I arrived back in New Delhi at 21:00 Sunday night and was met by a very happy Karan. He couldn’t wait to tell me the good news about he and his wife having a baby son. I got back to the apartment about 22:00 and unpacked. Well I think most of the clothes walked to the laundry basket themselves. Then headed to bed.

See the Thailand Photos.

Tags: Beer, Birthdays, Family, Food, Friends, Fun, Holiday, Party, Photography, Shopping, Travel

After feeling rough mid-week I decided I needed to take it easy and stick to a plain (English) diet. Thursday I was feeling better (In as much as I could function) but by Friday I felt normal again, but decided not to have an easy weekend.

It was Mik Bedson's (Operations Director) last day Friday, before he fly's back to the UK to take up his new role, and as always it called for a party. The band he played with here in India gave a very good performance and Mik, his normal fun loving self, was soon there guitar in hand to join in the fun. Friday night there were drinks and joint dinner party for Mik and Nick De Vansey, who is also leaving shortly, at the DLF Golf and Country club where we all got to say goodbye, or see you in a few months for those of us following in his foot steps.

It was a lovely evening and a lovely venue and I got to catch up with a lot of people I only usually speak to across a meeting room. It was a nice and relaxed evening and I was home and tucked up in bed by 23:30. Click here for pictures.

Friday Chris, Sandra, and myself had made tentative plans to get out and do something on Saturday. So after a nice lay in Saturday morning Karan picked us up and we headed towards Delhi. We first of all headed to a dear park which we spent about an hour and a half walking around before stopping at a restaurant for lunch. After lunch we had about an hours walk around the rose garden before heading to Buddha Jayanti Park. This was an extremely large park that has been created along what is known as Delhi Ridge, which according to the guide book is the last outcrop of the Aravalli Hills extending northwards from Rajasthan.

After about 5 hours walking we were all pretty tired and had trouble keeping our eyes open during the drive back to Gurgaon. Once in Gurgaon we headed to Harriez for something to eat and lots of water as we were all feeling pretty dehydrated after all the walking. Click here for pictures.

Today I woke up about 09:00 and did the normal washing and called upon the services of the Ironing man (really need to find out his name before I leave). Now I am sitting down with a cheese and onion sandwich sorting out my trip to Thailand, oh and another trip I am looking at doing 1st-5th May to Khajuraho and a tiger reserve. More on that later!

Tags: Beer, Food, Friends, Fun, Party, People, Photography, Relaxing, Sickness, Sightseeing, Travel

Okay so feeling better today, but still not 100% confident. One thing that keeps me going is when you look out the window in a traffic jam and see things like this!


Funny nobody cut the Elephant up!

Tags: Photography

Well it has been two weeks since I flew back to the UK for a short break and time has really flown by. I have spent most of my time catching up with friends and family, eating, drinking and generally relaxing. I did manage to get down to Boscombe Beech and took a few pictures, and I also managed to get into the office one day and meet up with a few people, although I didn't take any pictures there as most of them would of just been people drinking.

Well now it's time to do some last minute shopping and pack my case before I fly out on Sunday. Its been nice being back, but I have missed the sunshine. It's a little over four months until I return to the UK permanently and have quite a bit of work and travel to do before I eventually return.

Tags: Beer, Family, Food, Friends, Photography, Relaxing, Shopping

Okay you can now see the edited highlights of the Mumbia & Goa visit in the Movie Gallery.

For those involved the unedited DVD will be on sale for £1999.99 Excluding VAT (Victims Additional Tax).

Tags: Beer, Friends, Photography, Sightseeing, Travel

So what's been going on. Well I thought about writing about my Christmas shopping and how I haven't had the time to do all the things that I wanted to do while I was home, but it just seems so irrelevant now!

Why? Well today Katrina came home with Eleanor and it just makes everything else seem so unimportant. First things first Katrina is looking a lot brighter, but is still in pain (Not surprising really). Katrina has been told that she can't drive for a while, which given her independent nature doesn't sit well, but she is taking it all in her stride (she really is a great Mum). She is tired, but being home helps.

Rob is absolutely knackered with all the running backwards and forwards but is very upbeat and like everybody just glad to have his family back home safe and sound. William has a cold and isn't feeling great (He's off his food, which with William means he isn't right) not that he complains, but is very caring and attentive to both his sister and his Mum. He is constantly stroking Eleanor's head and kisses her whenever he can.

Eleanor is just beautiful (I admit I am biased), but she is so small holding her is kind of scary. She is very delicate but is a happy baby: but then she does sleep for 23.5 hours a day, It really is going to be hard going back to India. I was there for William and watched him develop and I think that's why we are so close. Needs must however and Mum and Katrina have promised to send me photo's on a regular basis, but it's going to be hard.

I have uploaded some more photo's to the Photo Gallery and have shot some more footage with the Handycam which you can find in the Movie Gallery.

Tomorrow I am off to London to catch up with some of the people I work with for a few drinks so will probably post some more pictures on Thursday, but thank you to everybody who has contacted me via the contact form with well wishes. I will pass them on to Katrina and Rob.

Tags: Family, Photography

Well it's only now I feel that I have truly settled into the pace of things here in India. The reason I say this is that I have been sat here for 10 minutes trying to think what I have done, both at work and outside of work.

On the work front all I can say is I did stuff for about 9 hours a day, and lost a day in the process. The new Bangalore site and interviewing has taken up the cast majority of it, but the rest I can only describe as "doing stuff". At the time they are most important issues known to man, but when you look back and try to identify them they mainly translate to removing barriers, making decisions that nobody else wants to make, and sorting out personnel issues. It would be unfair to say that the individuals are harder work than anywhere else, it's just they have different priorities and values than I am used to. It really is a question of me adjusting some of my views than simply imposing my will. It's interesting however, and I am constantly learning as are my team and those individuals in other teams I interact with. On more than one occasion now somebody has said to me they hadn't thought it about it in the way I presented it and that it was a better idea.

On the personal front I went out on Wednesday night with Laurence's CMS (COLT Managed Services) team. All part of breaking down some of the cross team barriers and to explore some of the opportunities that they may have for my team, in terms of career progression. We kept it rather high level, but it was very positive. It wasn't all work however. Laurence's Mum Marie is over and it was the first time I had met her. A very nice lady, like Laurence, she slipped straight into the spirit of things and I think enjoyed the evening.

Today I had a well earned lay-in, getting up at 10:00. Then it was time to catch up on some washing (very exciting) and then a few hours work. 16:00 Karen picked me up and took me to the Gym where Amit (My Trainer) once again did his best to make me sweat (which he did) but he did say that he wouldn't try killing me until tomorrow.

Tonight I am meeting up with some of the guys that are over from the UK working on setting up and transitioning a new system.

Other than that I will take my leave, but I will just point you to a new gallery. My friend Christine completed a sky dive for the Welsh Air Ambulance service, a very worth while cause for anyone that is familiar with some of the terrain in Wales.

Tags: Beer, Relaxing, Photography

A few years ago you could guarantee that if you asked the vast majority of home users if they backed up their computer most of them would say no! These days however people are a lot wiser mainly as most of them has at least once lost the family photo's or that important presentation.

However the question I find myself asking now is "Have you tested your backup?"

Yes, while most people do backup the family computer in some way, shape, or form, most never test the backup / restore before they really need it.

So today I set about testing my own backup and restore procedure. The first thing I did was to take a new Full System backup using the existing backup plan (I do a weekly full backup of my Home directory to an external USB drive). I then wiped my machine (Not an easy thing to do).

Now I was where I hoped I would never be, unplanned, again. I then went about restoring my system.

1) I reinstalled Mac OS X
2) I connected the external USB hard drive which as well as holding the backups in a directory called backups has a directory called emergency in which I keep two text files. The first contains a copy of my WEP key, the second a list of the applications I have installed.
3) I now connect to my Wireless network and run a software update.
4) Once the software update has completed and I have rebooted and rerun the software update to ensure that everything is the latest version I kick off a restore.
5) Once the restore has completed I re-install the applications I have listed in my second text file. This is a good test to make sure I have the source for all the applications I have paid for, which I normally keep in a folder in my home directory. It also ensures that I have all of the serial keys.
6) The last step is to make sure everything works, making sure applications run as expected (all the preferences should be as before as they are store in plist files that are stored in my /home/library/ blah directory).

For me it all when fine with a couple of groans like Parallels requires me to re-enter two serial numbers (the original and the version 3 upgrade one) and for some reason some of my email is showing up as not having been downloaded from the server (all very old archives so not major). One major issue is that the restore of my Photo's and iPhoto didn't happen. It would appear that the pictures were not being backed up. Now normally at this point I would be throwing the laptop around the room and opening a large bottle of whisky but I know I copied off my entire collection to my parents machine two weekends ago, so I will pop round there tomorrow and copy them back. However it is something I need to investigate, but that was the purpose of the test. Imagine if this had happended a year down the line?

Tags: Technology, Photography