Sent Packing

Packing again for a trip away. Put the clothes in a tiny bag. Put the mains leads, power supplies, cables, gadgets ect. in a slightly larger bag.

Meeting Alfred Thompson

Alfred and I, conveniently name tagged for your convenience. No idea who the bloke in the background is though…

One of the really nice things about going to the Imagine Cup was that I got to meet up with some friends I’d never met. One of them was Alfred Thompson. I’ve known Alfred since the days of “the Spoke”, an early network community where we used to via for visits to our respective pages. This was way back in 2003, when the idea of community sites and stuff was just taking off. I was very proud of the fact that I’d had more visitors to my page, right up to the point where Alfred overtook me and headed off into the distance.

Alfred works hard to promote Computer Science as a “good thing” and it was nice to finally meet up and swap some stories.

Back Home

Got home today after an overnight flight which managed to steal five hours of my birthday. Oh well. Nice to be back though. Hull is looking good in the sunshine.

Heading Home

These are some of the tickets, brochures and badges that we have used over the last couple of weeks. Some great memories here.

And now we have to fly back.

MIT Museum

This one’s for you, Dr Brayshaw….

We went to the MIT Museum today. One of the highlights of the trip. They take all the things they’ve done and put them on display. Great idea, and some really interesting stuff.

Robot close-up. I know what a few of these chips actually do..

They had this robots idea wall. I had to add an idea of my own. I’ll be back next year to see how they’ve got on.

Franklin Park Zoo

Boston has a really nice zoo, located a way out of town – the journey itself was a bit of an adventure, particularly as we missed the stop to get off the bus.

They have some butterflies.

..at least one peacock..

..and a gorilla.

At the moment things are very, very hot. We had to keep ducking back into the gift shop to cool down.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Boston Museum of Fine Arts is huge. All the attendants were suits. Very posh and with art to match. I could happily have spent the entire week here, the art is fantastic.

This glass is by Chihuly. Get to see it if you can.

Boat Trip

This is our third day on the water. Today it is a boat trip around the harbour.

This is how you get to the Aquarium stop. The final stop for this train is “Wonderland. I’d love to go there.

This is the USS Constitution, or “Old Ironsides” as she is known. Apparently in the seventies she went around in a wheelchair solving murders..

Boston harbour looking really nice.

Harvard Natural History Museum

After the whale watching we went off to Harvard to look at their museum.

This is “Harvard Yard”. Like Hull University campus, but not quite as nice looking.

These flowers are made of glass. Amazing.

Whale Watching

If you go to Boston you really should go whale watching. They don’t guarantee that you will see a whale, but they will give you another trip if you don’t. You sail out of Boston for an hour or so and then spend some time searching for tell-tale spouts on the horizon. Then the boat accelerates like mad towards them, until the whales go back down again. This was great fun, and we were really lucky to see several whales while we were out there.

Watching for whales.

A humpback comes up for air.

…and then goes down again.

Aquariums and Patriots

Boston Aquarium today. Very nice, but very hot. this is a dragon fish.

In the afternoon we went on a cruise on a “Liberty Clipper”, which was great.

Under sail

During the cruise we had a “Boston Tea Party Re-enactment” which was great fun. At the end we threw some tea in the river, and then had to get it back. We also fired the ship’s gun, along with a pistol..

Boston Science Museum

Not a lot of narrative for the next few days, but a few choice pictures from our holidays. Today we went to Boston Science Museum.

They have this amazing clock in the lobby

They also have a really impressive lightning display, including sparks to music.

I’m not sure they should call it a Science Museum, in that science is not something that exists in the past, but it sure is a great place to visit.

Boston Wandering

Boston has a very nice waterfront.

We went for a wader round Boston today. Very nice. Went down to the waterfront and had a hot dog.

This is what the waterfront looks like when it gets a bit darker.

In the evening we went to see an open air movie, “Megamind”, which was a good piece of CGI with a nice plot and a happy ending.

Movie Crowd.

Science Museum tomorrow…

Heading to Boston

After the excitement of the Imagine Cup we are today heading of for a few days in Boston. Heard nice things about the place, so it should be fun.

Packing for New York

Stretching a bus with a Panoramic Camera in Hull. Going to try this in NYC

I’m packing for New York at the moment. I’m taking a bunch of cameras, computers and loads of power supplies. Mustn't forget the adapter plug too.

Radio Cube

The scene, a boardroom in Tokyo. The chairman surveys the ranks of executives ranged down each side of the long walnut desk and speaks.

Chairman: “So, we have nearly concluded the business for today. We have decided to build a new factory in Osaka to make a new electric sports car, agreed to an investment of 3 Trillion Yen in battery technology, and to sponsor the 2012 Olympics. Just one vital item remains for discussion.”

An expectant hush fills the room.

Chairman: “Can Rob have a replacement radio for his Nissan Cube?”

First Executive: “Sounds fair enough to me. After all, it is not his fault that it broke, and the car is under warranty”

Second Executive: “I agree. I’ve always enjoyed reading his blog”

Chairman (picking up a quill pen and signing a scroll): “Then it shall be so.”

Actually, I’m not convinced that this is how it turned out, but I’m jolly pleased that Nissan did agree to a replacement. Driving home without Radio 4 has been a bit lonely, although I have figured out that I can use the TuneIn Radio on the Windows Phone via Bluetooth to get reasonable coverage.

Special shout out to Trenton Nissan in Hull who negotiated with Nissan on my behalf and did the job very quickly and efficiently. They gave me a courtesy car while they diagnosed the problem and insisted on washing mine before they gave it back to me. And the hadn’t even sold me the Cube, they were providing warranty support on behalf of another dealer.

Cottingham Day

Cottingham Church was open too

Today is Cottingham Day. I normally miss this because I’m out of the country at the Imagine Cup World Finals, but this year they are a week later and so I’ve had a chance to take a look. On Cottingham Day they close the main street and set up stalls and stuff for folk to take a look around. They also have some classic cars parked up, so it was out with the big camera and off for a look.

Cottingham churchyard

I used to have a Mini, but not as nice as this one…

Cool Rover

Proper motoring

The whole thing was great and had a super atmosphere. If you are around next year, well worth a trip.

Another year of MVP-ness

Just got the email from Microsoft telling me that I’ve been reappointed as a Windows Phone MVP for another year. Very pleased. It seems that rumours of the death of the Windows Phone MVP programme are somewhat exaggerated. Or something.

I’ve been an MVP since 2003. I’m never quite sure what I’ve done to deserve it, but I hope that as long as I keep doing stuff, they’ll look kindly on me each year.

Things that go Beep in the Night

Think I might have overdone the perspective correction on this picture….

The burglar alarm went off at 5:00 am this morning. And I don’t mean went off in a “I’ve seen a burglar” kind of way. I mean went off in a “bottle of milk” kind of way. It started emitting clicks and beeps that indicated that all was not well inside. Since I knew that opening the box would probably set it off properly we just endured the unhappy beeps for a few hours.

When I took a look I discovered that the system seemed to have forgotten all its settings and was having difficultly remembering new ones. I think one of the memory chips has gone a bit soft. Since I hate being without intruder detection it was therefore time to fit another.

Turns out that I happened to have a replacement device lying around. I bought it a while back when I needed to find out about burglar alarms for a .NET Micro Framework project I was involved with. It has been sitting, unfitted, in the bedroom because the old alarm was working fine. Until now.

So it was out with the new kit and off I went. The new device actually has an alarm in the keyboard unit. I didn’t know this until I set the thing off by mistake. The resulting 100db of noise made me levitate from my chair around 2 feet and I spent 30 seconds or so trying to find out in the manual how to turn the darned thing off and cover my ears at the same time.

Anyhoo, I’ve configured and tested everything and it seems to work fine. I’ve had to say goodbye to the old one, which is a bit sad, it had served us well for a very long time.

Synchronicity

Ian came over today. He is the kind of chap who will turn up and help you carry a sofa upstairs. Which is just as well, as far as I’m concerned.

Anyhoo, we got to talking and he told me that earlier that day the mirror in his lounge had fallen off the wall, all by itself. This happened at pretty much the same time that a noticeboard fell off the wall in our house. Scary.