Sunday Games

Spent some of today playing games with no computer involved at all. Great stuff. Although I managed to destroy my car just before the final corner. Oh well.

Back in the Rain

Flowers for sale in Pike Place Market. From slightly warmer times.

Got back today. Actually managed to sleep on the plane. When we got back the cloud reached almost all the way to the ground. By gum it was raining. Splashed home just in time for fish and chips. And sleep.

Climbing Needles

I’d convinced myself that there was no point in going to Seattle. I’ve been before, it is a half hour bus ride and I had work to do. Then I saw the weather outside, and I went anyway. Monorail – Space Needle – Pike Place Market – wonderful.

This is the tower reflected in the building nearby. Amazing stuff.

Another view from the top of the needle.

I took a bunch of pictures that will no doubt appear on these pages over the years. Then it was time to board the return bus and head back to pick up my luggage and catch the flight home. I’ve been using this rather cunning (I think) trick of getting up around 3:00 am while I’m out here to try and trick the body into not adjusting to the Seattle time zone. In a couple of days I’ll find out if it works…

It’s been a great trip. Very intense, but very rewarding. Great questions and interaction with the audience. Thanks folks.

Welcome to Hull

If you’ve got your results and you’re coming to Hull to study then welcome. The campus was looking lovely in the early morning sunshine so I took a few pictures on the walk to my office. There are a few more on my Flickr pages.

This is our front door. Please don’t pull on the blue rope. We are on the third floor of the Robert Blackburn building. See you an a few weeks.

A Job With Rob

One of the great things that the university does is Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. These are set up to do two things. Get students into good jobs and spread expertise into business. We are presently setting one up and I’m one of the academics at Hull University who is involved with managing the work. It is a very interesting project in a nice part of the world (not Hull actually) with good pay. If you are a recent graduate who wants to get started in the business you could do a lot worse than apply. Even though you might end up in meetings with me….

There are lots of KTPs out there. The one I’m talking about is here. You can find lots more, including some others from the university here.

A Floor in the Plan

Spent some of today looking at kitchens and tiles. Great fun. No, really. Very useful to have a phone with a good camera. Whenever we saw something we wanted to remember we just took a picture. No messing around writing down names and numbers, just a quick click and there you are. These pictures are then dutifully uploaded by the phone to SkyDrive where they will probably stay for ever…

Bristol M Shed

Outside M Shed they have this rather nice boat

M Shed is a really good industrial museum in Bristol. You should go. It’s free and the whole setup tells the tale of commerce and trade in Bristol through the ages. The cafe is nice too, and they have a rooftop terrace with some really nice views that will find their way onto these pages once I’ve tidied them up a bit.

Inside they have some very interesting exhibits with roots in the area, including this Raleigh moped.

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…