graham’s blog

It works!

I posted about my new mobile phone last week and between then and now I’ve been installing software and getting used to the changes between Nokia and Sony Eriksson (I’ve had two previous phones the W800i and my last a K800i).

The N95 has a 5mp Camera and a GPS so of course I want to geo-localise my pics. The functionality doesn’t work out of the box but only requires an app in beta from Nokia to function. Lo and behold it works! This pic was taken on the Ikea car park in Canton Vaud and that is what it says in the Exif file on Flickr. Cool.

Looking forward to going home

I’m glad that this evening will be a quiet night at home.

Yesterday was the Opera and the day before we ate out at a really nice restaurant.

After the starter (a Tuna Sashimi), we had a whole Zander (I had to look it up in Wikipedia as although it is hard to find here, it was fished from the lake). The waiter prepared it at the table and we all had some (We were a party of three) Eaten with three dainty sized vegetables portions and “pommes frites allumettes” it was delicious.

So this evening we will eat a lot more modestly, but after I will have the time to relax and enjoy an evening with my Valentine. She is the most amazing woman in the world and I love her passionately.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all wherever you are and with whoever you are with.

Love rules!

I was looking for a recent photo of the two us but as I am the photographer, they are hard to come by and I’m posting this away from home.

I started looking for photos of hearts and came across this very interesting photo through Google Image search.

As I don’t take without permission I read the blog that this illustration came from and it is a really nice blog in the inspirational vein.

I think it only fair to link back so here it is.

The wedding

Here is a pic of Trevor and Violet just after their wedding on Saturday. It was a wonderful day and their hospitality was terrific. I had a great time and also learnt that Elizabeth, my ex-wife, also got married to someone she met before meeting me over thirty years ago so congratulations to Elizabeth and to Roy. In just a few days my family name has faded away which for the longtime happiness of all involved is a good thing.

Once again, congratulations to Trevor and Violet Roe and to Roy and Elizabeth Hammersley!

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Tags: marriage, wedding, family, england, derbyshire

Pownce invites

Everybody seems to be requesting Pownce invites so I climbed onboard and requested one too. It took less than a day to get one but now you can get your own invite as I have six on offer. Just leave a comment with your email and I’ll send it to you.

Be nice and add me as a friend afterwards on my account. That will be my bonus.

On a completely different note I’ll be flying to the UK for my eldest daughter’s wedding this coming weekend. Violet will be marrying Trevor on Saturday on the magic date (07.07.07). At the same time, here in Switzerland, my Goddaughter Vanessa will be marrying Mark and that is where my wife and children will be attending. It’s a weekend of weddings. I’m sure you know people that are celebrating on that day too!

Absent friends

As you know, or if you didn’t, I was born in Chippenham, Wilts in the UK. Last year I came across a great blog published by someone who lives there and she does a great job of taking photos and talking about life in Chippenham and in general.

I hope she’s ok because it’s almost two months since she posted something. It’s probably because real life has sucked her in (which would be nice if it’s just the rosy bits).

Here’s hoping she posts soon so I can catch up with her news.

Two anecdotes

Two relatively trivial events stick in my mind this morning, probably as some form of relief from yesterdays post.

Firstly I use Pandora when I can’t decide what music to play or when I am looking for something new. It’s a great service and in it’s simplest form you give it the name of an artist you like listening to and it makes a play list of similar music that you approve or disapprove and the software learns from that. That in itself is cool and I heartily recommend that you try it out.

So the other day I keyed in Deva Premal, a wonderfully inspiring, soothing and relaxing artist and Pandora did it’s magic. I discovered two artists that I had never heard, Moya (Maire) Brennan and Laura Powers. Between my eMusic (non DRM) and iTunes (definately DRM) accounts I was able to purchase a few CDs worth of music and added them to my iPod.

Stick with me here as I’m almost finished and it gets even more interesting.

I am also a member of Last.fm which acquired scrobbler some time back. Whenever I play music on my PC my account on Last.fm is updated in real time and this gives an idea of what artists and songs I am listening to with some really cool statistics. Basically anybody can see what I am listening to.

A few days ago I got an email from Laura Powers thanking me for listening to her music, she had noticed from aggregation of listeners to her music that I was listening, hence the email. Now I am sometimes thankfully a little naive so this might well have been an automated response of some kind but it was, all the same, a nicer than usual email.

The other event was an email I got through YouTube yesterday. I put up a videoclip I had edited of a visit to my hometown 15 odd years ago and a guy wrote to me to compliment me on the video but also to ask me when it was shot as he found one of the children accidentally filmed in the video looked a lot like him and he lived in the neighbourhood around that time. I paraphrase his own word here “scary”. Scary indeed. Talk about global village!

Swiss Chocolate

From memory, Swiss chocolate Easter Eggs are differently packaged from those available in the UK although with globalisation this might well have changed a lot since I left! I did promise to show some pics and here is some photographic evidence of what we are finding in the shops now.

Strange structure in our local Shopping Mall

Judge for yourself! Unfortunately I can only link to an article in french. The “sculpture” is called Lieux mécanisés (Mechanical places) and is a somewhat large exposition in our local Shopping Mall (Balexert).

By the way, it is in constant movement and is somewhat reminiscent of the works of Tinguely although less excentric.

The artist is Bernard Lagneau. The sculpture can be seen until the 31st of March.

View from my Office Window

Title says it all really. In a recent comment Michelle was wondering what it looked like and you know me, I can’t resist a request or an idea for a post.

My office is on the 9th floor so the view is agreable (if a little Mary Poppinish if you see what I mean - you can burst into song if you wish!)

This pic was taken early this morning about 7.15 am which reminds me that we are going towards Summer Time soon and I hate that. I would much prefer staying at the same time all year and the prospect of an hour less in bed is painful even though I know I will recover it in late September.

Removal van on the horizon

I think I mentioned it a while back but I’ve been reorganized and from an Organizational and Quality role I am integrating a Systems Information division and while pursuing my explorations in ECM/CMS Wiki and EDM will be providing more support for our Intranet and Extranet.

In a meeting today my new boss informed me that I will be changing Offices next week (probably Wednesday) and I can start packing.

So that is what I’m going to do tomorrow. It will give me a further opportunity to discard unneeded and unnecessary clutter. As my time in my organizatiion increases the moves seem to be increasing in frequency. Last move was only just over a year ago.

I have been informed that this might only be for six months as my division will probably be changing floors once building work has terminated …