Mark Dalton

Well somewhat of a different start to the holiday season this year when I decided last minute to join a bunch of online friends in Liverpool for what is affectionally known as a TweetUp. I have been chatting to most of these people for a while now and when the chance came up to meet them face to face I thought it was a great idea and a brilliant way to start of the festive season.

I worked from home on the Friday as I didn””t fancy doing the commute in and out of London to then drive up to Liverpool and it was a good job I did as I woke Friday morning to a dusting of snow. I set off late afternoon and made good time only stopping a couple of quick comfort break””s and was checked in, unpacked, and in the bar by 19:30.

The weekend was spent chatting over beer, food, and the odd cup of coffee, about a variety of subjects from emerging technologies to Christmas plans. We did manage to get out and about a little bit and see a few of Liverpool””s landmarks but it was very cold and we did tend to break the touring up with beer breaks on a regular basis, so didn””t cover quite as much as we could of, but we did make it to the Apple store.

I also managed to meet up with Don McAllister the host of ScreenCastsOnline and The Mac ScreenCast Guy. Don was just as nice in the flesh as he is online and had some great insights and views on upcoming technologies. I also manage to meet up with three of my oversea””s contacts, Jane from Australia who was visiting family in the UK for Christmas, Paul Shadwell who flew in especially from Zurich who is very knowledgeable on Virtualisation and hosted services, and David Allen who also flew in especially from Barcelona, who run””s amongst other things the Mac 20 Questions website.

A great time was had by all and I think its fair to say that some good friendships were cemented in the process. Not to mention we all got a ScreenCastsOnline cap Most people left Sunday morning but I had arranged to stay another night, which in hindsight wasn””t such a good idea, although it did allow me to do a little extra Christmas shopping and see a little more of the city.

Monday morning I checked out and headed for home and made good time until I hit Newbury where it had been snowing and snowing pretty hard. As I came down the A339 it was bumper to bumper traffic and nothing was moving. It took me 7.5 hours to get from Newbury to my home in Basingstoke, 5.5 hours of that was spent crossing Basingstoke itself. I have personally never seen anything like it, and Basingstoke made the national news with 2000-3000 people affected. It took 3-4 to clear completely but luckily I didn””t have to go further than my parents around the corner, which was safer to reach on foot. I was lucky however as poor Paul Shadwell got to Manchester airport on Sunday to find it shut down, and finally made it back to Zurich on Wednesday after travelling down to London””s Heathrow airport.

So Eleanor reached the grand old age of two on the 25th November, but as this fell mid week we decided to have the get together over the weekend. We also had Ebony, my cousin, visiting from Australia so we decided to roll both events into one. It was a great day and Eleanor was on top form despite frowning for this photo.T he rest of the photo’s I took can be found here or here.

Well I decided not to risk running into any vampires or werewolves last night, instead opting for a scary movie and a bottle of wine. My niece and nephew however were a little braver than I and had been collecting spiders and other paraphernalia for weeks in anticipation of there big Halloween party.

Unfortunately for me it is the last day of my holiday and tomorrow it is back to reality. At least I am returning knowing that I have achieved something, and feeling that I am once again on top of things. It’s is also nice to know that it’s only 6 weeks until I break for Christmas.

November 2, 2009 @ 8:24 PM – Suddenly just realised it’s just 6 weeks until Christmas. How the red winged albatross did that happen?

So after the normal busy and non desrcript week at work I was looking forward to the weekend. The week showed promise with the sun poking its head out enough to stop wearing a jumper and brave a short sleeve shirt, although I still took a coat as the mornings were chilly. Hey comfort over fashion these days! That”s just the way I roll

The weekend didn”t fail to disappoint! Saturday was wonderful and I sacrificed getting completely hammered Friday night (called it a day after three glasses of wine) on the promise of sunshine. The boy did good! I didn”t rush up, but awoke leisurely at 09:00 ish, burbled around, and then headed out. I had most of my to-do list done by 11:00 and then took the car for a run. I do like a drive to nowhere session when it”s sunny and you can turn the music up and wind the window”s down. I popped by Mum and Dad”s to say hello and even jet washed the car (Not doing it again — that”s a rant). I am not quite sure where the rest of the day went but all I know is I didn”t stop until about 19:00. Saturday night I decided to chill in front of the TV but a million sky channels (another rant) and I still couldn”t sit still or find anything worth watching. So even though I said to myself I wouldn”t I ended up in front of the computer. I decided I still need to do *something* useful so I set about scanning more of the old family photos. I decided to concentrate on some of the ones that Mum had shown me, and as “Mothers Day” was on the horizon I couldn”t say no. It was actually quite cool as these were old black and white photo”s of my Nan and Grandads family, so as well as being interesting they gave me a chance to play as most of them were very faded and some were damaged.

Sunday morning I was awake with the birds, I did the few job”s that I had and then headed to Mum & Dad”s. I hadn”t been their long and Lisa and Andy turned up, closely followed by Katrina, Rob, and the kids. Coffee was the first order of the day and a good catchup. It wasn”t long and we started on the vino and hops. We sat around, chatted, and generally caught up. It was a very pleasant day but a little chilly and we moved between the garden and the lounge. We all enjoyed a fantastic roast beef dinner, cooked by Mum (Guilt) and sat around chewing the fat, before finally conceding to the real world and heading home to ready ourselves for work on Monday morning. Dam these weekends get shorter!

You can find the Photo”s here.

Happy New Year everybody!

Well, doesn’t time fly I mean 2009 already. Looking back 2008 was a busy year for me, but generally good. What 2009 has in store I have no idea but I have quite a few plans and goals, so no doubt it will be just as busy.

This year I spent New Year’s Eve with my family at my sisters house. It was pretty quite, but good fun. It was also nice to spend more time with my Niece and Nephew. We all had a really nice dinner and then got into the drinking. We all got up New Year’s Day a little misty and tired, but a good old fashioned cooked breakfast sorted out everything but the tiredness.

The last few day’s have been spend catching up with stuff at home and generally resting before going back to work tomorrow. I’m kind of used to laying in until 10:00 now and getting up and 06:00 doesn’t appeal to me in anyway, shape, or form. Add to that the fact that it’s so cold at the moment there is a permanent covering of ice on the car, and it just becomes depressing.