3/01/2016
Flight back from
Barcelona was unfortunately not as fun. It's not very fun having a
seat in row 27 when the plane itself has only 26 rows. That got me
moved up closer to the front the plane, but as it's easyJet it
doesn't have quite the cachet as getting reseated on other flights.
I had a good weekend
in Barcelona with Egle. All together, we enjoyed a tiny bit of
sunshine on the Thursday when I arrived, sitting on the terrace and
having great views of Sagrada Familia. On Friday we caught a taxi up
to the top of the Montjuic mountain on the south side of the city,
where we visited the castle overlooking both Barcelona city and the
port, and then walked down towards the seaside where we caught a
cable car across to the beach area. February isn't exactly beach
weather even in Barcelona, but the weather was mild and we still we
are to enjoy the relatively pleasant weather.
On Friday night we
dined at Caelis, a Michelin-starred restaurant. The food was amazing
and experience extremely enjoyable. Other restaurants have nice food
and good service, but I can see now how the attentiveness and focus
on the customer is completely different at a restaurant like this one
compared to a 'normal' restaurant with good food and service.
Saturday the weather
was a bit poorer, meaning we didn't get the chance to spend quite as
much outside as we had wanted. We did, however, do a bit of shopping
after dropping bags off at a Barcelona luggage storage place (we had
to relocate from the furnished flat provided for MWC into an AirBnB).
After that we headed to the Picasso Museum, which had works from him
from his formative and earlier years. The works were therefore a bit
different from what you think of Picasso, being decidely
non-cubistic, but nonetheless was a great experience and probably the
largest number of works from any significant artist I'll ever see in
one go.
For dinner we tried
to hit up La Flauta, a very popular tapas place in central Barcelona,
but unfortunately even rain didn't keep the crowds away. We settled
for another nearby highly-rated tapas place, this one with a large
selection of craft beers including a local ale spiced with jalapeños.
For our final day in
Barcelona a visit to and tour of Sagrada Familia was in order. I
hadn't been the hugest fan of the church based on the outside, but
inside is a completely different world with rainbow colours coming in
from the stained glass windows. It was a completely different
experience and I am very pleased with our decision to visit, as I
think up until we saw the inside I really didn't see what the fuss
was about this church.
After the church, we
had a bit more of a wander through the city, but being a Sunday many
things were closed that are otherwise open during the week. We had
another tapas meal (I've had my fill of rich shredded meats) and then
it was back to the flat to grab our bags, then jump on a bus to the
airport. Those things went smoothly, and other than the fact we had
a smaller plane than had been planned for BCN-LGW, things have been
ok.
It's back to London
at hopefully-not-too-late a time, and then unfortunately back to work
tomorrow. Things should start winding down heavily in the next few
weeks, but my main client will be ramping up as we enter the final
month to year end. Fun times.
2/25/2016
I'm currently somewhere above France, heading towards Barcelona, Spain, for the weekend. Got to say things are going pretty well.
For one, I'm flying with BA and sprung for the Club Europe upgrade, which got me lounge access in Gatwick as well as a seat towards the front of the plane. I've just finished off a nice little brunch which should hold me until mid-afternoon in Spain, and to be honest it's probably the healthiest meal I've had in a number of weeks.
I had also gotten to polish off a bacon roll in the Gatwick lounge, which was a nice start to the morning as well. I don't normally like to get up in the morning, but today I was where I was supposed to be having a flick through the FT on my phone and checking emails at 8:45 in the morning.
I'm also typing this message on my latest electronic acquisition, a Surface 3 tablet/computer. It's a tablet that's a computer, basically, especially once you pair it with the Type Cover, which is like the iPad smart cover except it has a pretty amazing keyboard that attaches to the tablet. It even has a small but very functional touchpad, which I'll maybe try out in some games later in the flight.
The Surface also has a full-sized USB port, which explains why there's an XBox Controller sitting next to me. I played a couple missions on Jet Set Radio, which Sega released for free on Steam a few weeks ago and I snapped up, and it worked perfectly – considering I've never played the game before (didn't have a Dreamcast), releasing games like that allows me to grab them and catch up on some missed titles in a portable and convenient format (tablet computer).
The steward has just brought me my second mini-bottle of champagne so I'm off to enjoy that now.
For one, I'm flying with BA and sprung for the Club Europe upgrade, which got me lounge access in Gatwick as well as a seat towards the front of the plane. I've just finished off a nice little brunch which should hold me until mid-afternoon in Spain, and to be honest it's probably the healthiest meal I've had in a number of weeks.
I had also gotten to polish off a bacon roll in the Gatwick lounge, which was a nice start to the morning as well. I don't normally like to get up in the morning, but today I was where I was supposed to be having a flick through the FT on my phone and checking emails at 8:45 in the morning.
I'm also typing this message on my latest electronic acquisition, a Surface 3 tablet/computer. It's a tablet that's a computer, basically, especially once you pair it with the Type Cover, which is like the iPad smart cover except it has a pretty amazing keyboard that attaches to the tablet. It even has a small but very functional touchpad, which I'll maybe try out in some games later in the flight.
The Surface also has a full-sized USB port, which explains why there's an XBox Controller sitting next to me. I played a couple missions on Jet Set Radio, which Sega released for free on Steam a few weeks ago and I snapped up, and it worked perfectly – considering I've never played the game before (didn't have a Dreamcast), releasing games like that allows me to grab them and catch up on some missed titles in a portable and convenient format (tablet computer).
The steward has just brought me my second mini-bottle of champagne so I'm off to enjoy that now.
4/09/2015
What’s the latest update?
So for one, my home-built computer will be turning 2
soon. It’s really hard to believe that a
computer I built myself, with reasonably-current parts, was put together nearly
2 years ago. It still runs games great,
and this weekend I’ll be updating the video card to a current-generation card
(basically one step below top of the line) and potentially the processor following
(equivalent of one below the top of the line Intel processor, too). Crazy to think that something I did on a
budget 2 years ago is still able to more than satisfy my needs at present, and
on top of that is upgradeable to basically top end, at least within a
reasonable price range. The only bottleneck
really is storage space, and that’s just because I don’t want to delete old
games before installing new ones.
Also, that Air France refund (for delays) that I had
originally used to partially fund the computer, that finally came through in
the last two months, ha. Fortunately I
had the long duration zero interest credit card to pay for the PC at the time –
paid that off too, and finally became a member of the ICAEW after ages of time
getting paperwork sorted and all. I can
now use the ACA title.
Not much else new. Living in South London, life is good and
parents are visiting in a month. Before
they arrive, though, I’ll be taking a trip to Dublin for my birthday (awesome
weekend in store) and Rome for a work learning event. Can’t really complain about all of that.
1/07/2015
New keyboard
Posting here for the first in a little while.
Tonight I'm trying out a new keyboard, decided to make the jump to a mechanical keyboard instead of the (fun) £4 keyboard I had been using for around the last year.
I've gotten a Cooler Master Quickfire TK keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches. The Cherry Red switches interesting, as well as the way they've done the arrow keys as part of the moved-over bottom part of the 'ten key' keypad. It's clever, but it'll probably take me a little bit of time to get used to it.
It's also clearly noiser than the old keyboard, but the old keyboard hardly had any move and was one of the old membrane keyboards. This keyboard should last a lot longer, and hopefully I've picked good switches which I'll get used to and which will be good for both a mixture of typing and gaming.
The one thing I hadn't realised is how dependent I had become on the Nostromo N52 keypad I've got for gaming. It's got five buttons for my thumb, instead of obviously the one normal one (spacebar) that you have a keyboard. As a result, in at least Battlefield 3, I noticed I couldn't switch weapons as quickly as I normally use the arrow D-pad with my thumb for that, which obviously is not available on the keyboard.
Anyway, good fun playing with new toys and getting used to more stuff which should make life a little easier and a little more fun!
Tonight I'm trying out a new keyboard, decided to make the jump to a mechanical keyboard instead of the (fun) £4 keyboard I had been using for around the last year.
I've gotten a Cooler Master Quickfire TK keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches. The Cherry Red switches interesting, as well as the way they've done the arrow keys as part of the moved-over bottom part of the 'ten key' keypad. It's clever, but it'll probably take me a little bit of time to get used to it.
It's also clearly noiser than the old keyboard, but the old keyboard hardly had any move and was one of the old membrane keyboards. This keyboard should last a lot longer, and hopefully I've picked good switches which I'll get used to and which will be good for both a mixture of typing and gaming.
The one thing I hadn't realised is how dependent I had become on the Nostromo N52 keypad I've got for gaming. It's got five buttons for my thumb, instead of obviously the one normal one (spacebar) that you have a keyboard. As a result, in at least Battlefield 3, I noticed I couldn't switch weapons as quickly as I normally use the arrow D-pad with my thumb for that, which obviously is not available on the keyboard.
Anyway, good fun playing with new toys and getting used to more stuff which should make life a little easier and a little more fun!
12/01/2014
Pancake
Got a pancake (lens) for my camera. Very impressed with it. Got some great pics on a recent trip to Dublin, and it's only making me want more and more to take pictures and get more lenses. Photography could be an expensive hobby to take up.
Will post some pics on here one day. My Lumia 1020 seems to have developed a fault, so no pictures from that for now. Will be fun trying to repair it.
Right, it's 1AM and I have a load of work this week. Time for bed.
7/24/2014
Dublin
7/20/2014
Ireland
AraIn Ireland with guys from the US and having a great time. Ireland is awesome.
Currently in Limerick, was in Galway from Friday and next up Killarney, Cork and Dublin from Wed. Holidays are awesome.
Aran Islands cliff.
Wormhole
Galway Saturday night
