Travel Journal
Before October 2007, I usually found myself needing to travel to
various parts of the World for business on a fairly regular basis.
My goal for this part of the web site remains to try and document in
words and pictures my visits to various places during each year.
Some years are busier than others. Most of the years prior to my
cancer diagnosis in 2007 were very busy travel years. So far I only
have photos from 2004 onwards here (as I purchased my first digital
camera in mid 2003). Over time, I hope to add coverage of earlier
years as well. I just need to make some time to scan some of my
negatives and prints so that I can post them in digital form. As
part of a major site redesign I am planning I intend to really
improve this section in terms of both content and layout. Please
keep checking back.
2014 Travel
In January I returned to Orlando to attend the IBM Connect 2014
conference. This year I went as a speaker and had a very
productive few days despite the weather being just awful. It
rained most of the time and the temperature was mostly in the
forties Fahrenheit. This was a very low travel year. A sign of
the times, with more and more meetings being held remotely. I
don't miss the travel load I used to have a few years ago but I
certainly want to start travelling a bit more in future years.
|
|
Santa Fe, NM
|
Lake George, CO
|
|
|
|
|
2013 Travel
I reached five years in remission from cancer (the clock starts
on the day of surgery) in October 2012 and while I still have
medical issues, I finally feel confident enough to start making
some business trips again. I have a couple of domestic ones
planned for January and if those go well I will hopefully feel
up to making more throughout the year. I have really missed
seeing my colleagues and friends around the World on a somewhat
regular basis.That said, a lot of time at home with the kids has
also been very nice. I began the year, by flying to Raleigh, my
first time on a plane since 2009, and had a great week catching
up with a large number of work colleagues. Two weeks later I
travelled to Orlando to attend the IBM Connect 2013 event.
Neither are long flights but that is just what I needed to see
if my body was up to travelling again. Feeling better about my
ability to travel, in the early Summer I went to a standards
meeting in San Francisco and also a Boy Scout camp with my son
in Colorado. In late August, I went to the UK for the first time
in over six years. This was for my cousin's wedding and it was a
very special trip for me as it was the first time I had been
"home" since before my cancer diagnosis in 2007. It was so nice
to meet up with so many friends and family members I had not
seen if far too long.
2012 Travel
My travel pattern in 2012 remained mostly the same as in the
prior years but I am hoping to be able to start travelling for
work again in 2013. I finally feel more up to the challenge.
Surgery and Chemo took a lot out of me and almost five years
down the road I still prefer to be close to home more than I
ever did before cancer struck. It's particularly odd for me to
have not been able to go back to the UK since 2006 and I'm
starting to really get the itch to go for a week or two soon. On
an impulse, in December, I booked a cruise trip on Carnival that
turned Christmas into a really fun time. It was a very different
spending Christmas in the western Caribbean, especially for the
kids, than the more traditional "stay at home" Christmas.
|
|
- Georgetown (Grand Cayman)
|
|
|
|
|
|
2011 Travel
For various reasons related to my medical issues, other
things going on at home and to a lesser extent, the
economy, I did not make any personal or business trips in
2011. In fact the last time I was on a plane at all, for
business or pleasure, was back in 2009.
2010 Travel
I made a few personal trips but they have all been by car unless
you count a very pleasant week on a cruise liner in 2010. I need
to post a few photos from that one and at least that got me out
of the country for a few days for the first time since my cancer
diagnosis!
2009 Travel
Still finding myself nervous to travel too much post chemo (and
the long running side effects of my surgery) I only made one
business trip in 2009 and that was to New York. The SHARE
conference in March was in Austin so I only had to drive down
the street to that one! It's been great being home for an
extended period. This is probably the longest I have been home
without going anywhere in a long time.
2008 Travel
Given I was undergoing chemotherapy which did not end until May,
I did not travel on business at all during the first five months
of the year. We did take a week off in March between chemo
appointments (during Spring Break) and went to San Antonio. We
stayed on the River Walk. The weather was excellent and the
highlight of the trip was seeing Cirque du Soleil. After chemo
ended in early June we drove to Orlando. I attended the Tech Ed
conference while the family played in the parks. This was a nice
way to celebrate chemo being over and after all I had been
through just making this trip was a pretty big undertaking.
Right after we got back from Orlando we drove up to Dallas for a
few days vacation at the new Great Wolf Lodge (a combined hotel
and indoor/outdoor water park). We had a super time there and
are planning to go back again in 2009. In August I flew out to
San Jose to attend the SHARE conference. This was the first time
I had been on a plane since before my diagnosis in October 2007.
Soon after that I flew up to Boston for some meetings. This was
the first time I was able to take advantage of the new Jet Blue
non stop service between Austin and Boston. I love Jet Blue.
They make me feel like a valued customer and they provide a
really nice product (new planes, seat back video, leg room,
snacks etc.). I am a multi million miler on American but for
domestic flights I prefer Jet Blue, even though I often get
upgraded seats on AA. The AA planes are aging badly and the
product is not what it used to be on the domestic routes that I
fly. Finally in October I flew up to Denver and then drove up
into the mountains to attend the Colorado Software Summit. It
was great to be back with everyone again and to thank people for
all the support that they continue to show me as I deal with all
of my health issues. So 2008 was another year of US domestic
travel only.
2007 Travel
Partially due to all of the health issues that came up during the
year and also due to my current work projects not requiring as much
travel, 2007 was a very quiet year on the travel front.. Below is a
summary of the few places I did visit. I didn't even get to leave
the US this year.. Less travel means more time at home with
the family which is great and was a pleasant change from most of the
previous few years.
2006 Travel
Continuing the pleasant trend from 2005, I had another quiet start
to the year as far as travel goes. However things got a lot busier
as the year progressed. Below is a list of all the places that I
ended up visiting during 2006.
- Baltimore
- Boca Raton
- Las Vegas
- London (twice)
|
- New York
- Orlando
- Prague
- Raleigh
|
- Seattle
- San Jose (twice)
- Vienna
- Vancouver
|
|
I am still trying to get the web site fully caught up and will
post some more photos and other details here as soon as I can. As
a temporary measure, I have posted quite a few photos from the
trip to Prague to my
Yahoo! photo album.
London, England - April 2006
In April I made a very brief two day trip to London to attend some
meetings. It was great to get back to the UK again but hard to only
be able to stay there such a short time. This was the first time I
had made it back to the UK since the Summer of 2003. I really miss
England when I am away from it for long periods. While I am indeed
happily settled in the USA these days, England will always be my
other home. Despite the short amount of time I was there, I was able
to make time between meetings to take a few walks along the Thames
and to meet some of my family members and a good friend from
university. I got up early the second day I was there to find clear
blue skies over London. The Sun comes up fairly early during the
Spring. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity, I took my camera
out for a walk and got some nice pictures. The hotel I was staying
in is right by Tower Bridge which is a perfect place to be if you
like walking around and enjoying the scenery. A couple of the photos
taken on that early morning walk are below. The photo of Tower
Bridge was actually taken from my hotel bedroom window - better than
most views I seem to normally find outside my window in hotels these
days.
Tower Bridge
I had not seen the Swiss Re Tower building before. It somewhat
dominates the skyline no matter which direction you look towards
it from. Affectionately known as the "Gherkin" the building has
received architectural awards and employs many interesting and
environmentally friendly techniques to air condition the building.
You can read more about the Swiss Re Tower on the BBC
Web site.
Old meets new - The Tower of London and the "Gherkin"
Las Vegas, Nevada - January 2006
In January I travelled to Las Vegas for a series of kickoff
meetings. I had not been to Las Vegas for many years (since August
2000) and this was the first time that I had been there during the
Winter months. It was a lot cooler than the last time I was there
when the temparatures had been in excess of 110 degrees Farenheit.
This time the temparatures were in the mid 50's Farenheit and it
even rained a couple of times. Not much seems to have changed since
I was last there. The only Casino I did not recognize was the new
Wynn Hotel and Casino. The best part of this trip was the amount of
unexpected walking exercise I was able to get. I was staying at the
MGM Grand hotel which is almost 2 miles from the Venetian hotel
where most of my meetings were. I made the walk (each way) at least
once every day I was there and sometimes more than once. I estimated
that by the end of the visit I had walked well over 30 miles.
Some of the familar sights along the "Strip"
The worst part of visiting Las Vegas in my opionion (at least if
travelling by air) is trying to leave the city! The McCarran
Airport definitely makes it onto my unofficial list of the "top 10
airports I least like to fly through"! Arriving is not too bad but
departing is a different story. I arrived at the airport at around
5am (maybe even a little before that) for a 7am flight. I guess to
an extent I was a bit naiive and expected the airport to be
somewhat quiet at this early hour (I guess I have become spoiled
getting used to calm early departures out of Austin). Far from
being quiet, the place reminded me of LAX at four in the afternoon
(LAX would also make my list). The teminal was mobbed. Long lines
were everywhere, at check in, security, even for the train to the
gates. In fact, even the automatic ticket kisok machines had long
lines in front of them. Mental note to self, Las Vegas never
sleeps and this includes the airport! The one saving grace
was that there is a separate frequent flyer line for the security
checkpoint. It appeared that 90% of the people leaving Vegas at
that morning either were not frequent flyers or did not realize
that there was such a line available. I estimate that this saved
me more than 30 minutes if not more. The other saving grace was
that after finally navigating all of the lines, squeezing into the
train and walking through the "last chance to win" gauntlet of
slot machines that I found myself right in front of a Starbucks!
2005 Travel
Compared to recent years, 2005 was unusually quiet on the travel
front. I only needed to travel nine times, all within the United
States. Once to Raleigh North Carolina, four times to California (to
Anaheim, Los Angeles[2] and San Jose), once to Boston, once to
Chicago, once to Keystone (Colorado) and once to Seattle. As usual I
took my camera with me on each trip. I haven't uploaded many
pictures so far but I will try and get some more posted some time.
In June 2005 we took a long driving vacation to California and
back. I need to try and get some of those pictures up here also.
Some of the photos from that trip are posted to the Photo Album.
Keystone, Colorado - October 2005
As I have done in many prior years I spent a week in Keystone
(Colorado) at the Colorado
Software Summit. I posted quite a few photographs last year so
I am not posting so many this year. However, the weather was so
clear and mild that I did manage to shoot a few really nice
landscapes. For those interested, I put some technical details about
the trip into the dW
Blog and I also added a few details to the Conferences section.
The mountains rise in the distance above Keystone Village
Due to some medical problems, I had trouble sleeping during the
week. The plus side of this, is that I was up early one morning
and able to capture several photos of a fabulous orange sunrise.
The one below was taken at 6:20am on Friday, October 28th 2005.
Sunrise over Keystone Lake seen from my hotel room at 6:20am
Boston, Mass. (USA) - August 2005
| I spent the week of August 21st in Boston to
speak at the SHARE conference. The week was a very busy one
work wise and there was (sadly) not much time to explore the
city. I did however manage to find time to take the 90
minute sunset cruise around the Boston Harbor on the night
before I flew home. We were fortunate in that it was a very
nice evening with almost no cloud around, perfect for
sightseeing. The photo to the right shows the USS
Constitution right before sunset. The Constitution, is also
known as "Old Ironsides" (a reference to its apparent
ability to repel English canon fire as if it were made of
iron). At sunset, they fired off one of the canons and even
though I knew it was coming the blast was so loud that I
jumped and my photo of that is very blurred! The consitution
is still an active vessel of the United States Navy. In fact
they were getting ready to take it out into the Harbor the
following day. If you are interested you can read more about
the ship here.
The tour of the Harbor was very pleasant. The temparatures
during the week were in the 80's Farenheit by day and
cooling into the 50's overnight. Those of you that know
Boston will be familiar with the runways at the Logan
airport. For those not familiar, suffice to say that the
runways extend into the Harbor. Towards the end of our
cruise, the captain parked the boat right at the end of one
of the active runways so that we could enjoy the planes
landing right over our heads. As much as I fly and as much
as I understand how safe it is, I was still sure hoping that
the ILS system was well calibrated that night! |
USS Constitution, August 25th 2005
|
As the sun began to set I was also able to get a few nice shots
of the city skyline from the water. I have included one of those
below. This is a shot looking back towards the city and the Long
Wharf. You can start to see the lights in the buildings and in one
case reflecting nicely off the water. I took lots of other photos
including the spot where the "Boston Tea Party" is said to have
started. I have placed 50 of the Boston photos into the one of my Yahoo! photo
albums.
The Boston skyline from the Harbor as the sun sets.
2004 Travel
In 2004 I went to several places that made it very easy to fill up
my 1GB flash card with photos, including Helsinki, Tokyo, Keystone
(Colorado) and Brisbane. Feel free to browse the entire journal or
you can use the links below to jump I also hope to find time to get
some more of the photos from 2004 (and perhaps some prior years) up
here over time. to a particular entry.
Brisbane, Australia - December 2004
Right before Christmas 2004, I made the long journey to Brisbane to
speak at the Evolve conference. The journey was a little easier than
I had anticipated as QANTAS now have a non stop flight from Los
Angeles to Brisbane on certain days of the week. Previously it was
necessary to go via New Zealand or Sydney to get to Brisbane from
here. Even so it's still a long journey but a very worthwhile one. I
really enjoy visiting Australia and the people I go there to meet
with have always made me feel extremely welcome and gone out of
their way to make sure I have an enjoyable stay. I have been lucky
enough to visit Australia on many different occasions but this was
my first time back in Queensland since 1994. I made the journey
primarily to speak at the Evolve conference. You can find a few
details in the Conferences
section of this site.
I left the USA on Friday night (December 3rd) and with the
crossing of the International Date Line, did not arrive in
Australia until early Sunday morning (December 5th). It was partly
cloudy when I landed and not as warm as I had expected but
pleasant enough. There were several people from outside of
Australia arriving to speak at the conference. The folks from DSTC
were nice enough to collect several of us from the airport and
then take us on a bit of a sightseeing tour before the jet lag
kicked in. We had to cut our travels short when the heavens opened
up in mid afternoon. This was a clue as to what was to follow for
much of the week weather wise.
Part of the city center seen from Streets Beach.
As was so often the case for me while travelling in 2004, the
weather was less than perfect. We had some nice weather towards
the very end of my visit but we had several days where it rained
for at least part of the day if not for all of it. Monday through
Thursday were predominantly filled up with work related activities
but I did manage to find a few minutes here and there to go for a
walk to two. Brisbane is not far from the coast but is not
actually on the coast. However, much of the city sits alongside
the Brisbane river. I managed (more by accident than design) to
walk a large loop from my hotel into the city center, across the
river to the South Bank, along the south bank to the museum, back
over the foot bridge and through the Botanical Gardens back to the
hotel again.
A rainy day at the Gabba - the covers never came off.
Before returning home I had two days (Friday December 10th and
Saturday December 11th) to see a few sights. Sadly one of the non
work related highlights of the trip for me, Friday at the one day
Cricket international between Australia and New Zealand at the
Gabba (the Brisbane cricket ground), was completely washed out
without a ball being bowled. Growing up as a kid in England I had
always wanted to see cricket in Australia. This was to be the
realization of that dream - oh well at least I got to spend all
day with some good friends even if the cricket wasn't going to
happen this time around. I had a very nice day anyway.
The crococdile show at the Australia Zoo "Crocoseum".
On Saturday we went on a driving tour that got us out into the
countryside for a while and included at stop at Australia Zoo
("the home of the Crocodile Hunter") and a visit to the nearby
beaches as well as a beautiful drive over the hills on the way
back into Brisbane.
Part of the beautiful beach and coastline at Noosa Heads
The hills outside Brisbane less than an hour before sunset
I took a lot of photos on this trip. I'll upload some more here
as soon as I can.
Keystone, Colorado (USA) - October 2004
The last week of October I again headed off to Keystone Colorado to
attend the Colorado Software Summit. You'll find some information on
the conference itself in
the conferences section of this
site. Since moving to Texas, I have always wanted to drive to
Keystone one year rather than fly to see some of the scenery in West
Texas, New Mexico and South Eastern Colorado. My wife and I decided
this would be the year - so we loaded the car up with DVDs for the
kids and headed off. I'm really glad we did the drive. We had very
good weather (both ways) and we got to see some really beautiful
scenery. On the minus side I think I now have the soundtrack for the
movie "Home on the range" etched permanently into my brain. We drove
from Round Rock to Amarillo the first day and spent the night there.
To be honest, while there were some interesting things along the
way, it was not until we left Amarillo and got out into the more
northerly parts of Texas and then into New Mexico that the scenery
really became stunning.
Some of the fascinating scenery in New Mexico
The second day we drove all the way to Denver and stayed with
family there. We then headed up to Keystone which is only about 90
minutes from Denver but by the time you get there you have gained
about another 3000ft in altitude. Keystone is a beautiful little
ski resort tucked away in the mountains of Summit County. It is
one of a number of ski areas nearby which include Loveland,
Arapaho Basin, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Vail. If you like
mountains, this place is for you.
Early morning in Keystone Village as the sun comes up
Notice how still the lake water is early in the day. By mid
morning it had got quite a bit windier as you can see from the
water in the second picture of the village. When Winter really
sets in, the lake freezes and becomes a huge ice skaing rink. It's
particularly beautiful if you ever get to see it at Christmas time
as they have a large Christmas tree out in the middle of the lake.
Later in the day
On the Friday we awoke to find snow falling which delayed our
departure somewhat. Not so much because we were worried about the
road conditions but rather so that the kids (who don't see snow
very often living in Central Texas) could throw a few snowballs
and generally go crazy in the snow!. In the photo below you can
see what we saw from our bedroom window when we woke up. The large
building in the background is the Keystone Convention Center where
the conference was held.
Sun one day snow the next!
We finally departed Keystone mid-morning. It was a lot colder
today! We repeated the drive in reverse except that we drove
directly to Amarillo from Keystone on the way back. As so often
happens, soon after we went through the Eisenhower tunnel and got
down the mountain a bit towards Denver, the snow was completely
gone - in fact it was quite warm down in Denver!
Tokyo, Japan - October 2004
In October, the W3C XML Binary Characterization Working Group met
again, this time in Tokyo. The W3C tries to hold meetings in
different parts of the World. Given that we had had prior meetings
in Europe and the United States, it was felt that a meeting in Asia
was appropriate. With the excellent help of my colleagues in Japan I
offered to host the meeting at one of the IBM facilities there. We
had a very good meeting and also managed to see some of the local
sights. The Weather was far more mixed than in Finland where we had
our share of rain but nothing had prepared me for what Mother Nature
had in store for us this week. My plane landed on Saturday (Oct.
2nd) at Narita in driving rain (which should have been a clue as to
what was to come!) and it rained most of the first two days.
Welcome to Japan! - Landing at Narita
Tuesday, we finally awoke to clear skies and the weather was
beautiful. Daylight comes very early in Japan. As luck would have
it, my colleague who was at the meetings with me and I had decided
to get up at 6am that day and go for a several mile walk around
Tokyo. It was great to be on the streets as the city slowly came
to life. Thankfully the day we picked to do this was one of the
few really clear days we had that week. The photo below of the
Tokyo Tower was taken that day. As you can see, clear skies and
few people up and about yet.
Tokyo Tower seen from the grounds of the Imperial Palace early one
morning.
However, the following night (Wednesday Oct. 6th) we were all shaken
out of bed at approximately 11:40pm local time when a reasonably
strong (magnitude 5.8) earthquake hit to the north of Tokyo. It took
me a few minutes to realize that the creaking noise I was hearing
was in fact the hotel moving from side to side. I was staying at the
Royal Park hotel in Nihonbashi and my room was on the 11th floor
which was high enough to get a good sense of motion. People on
higher floors apparently experienced quite a bit more motion than I
did. A much more significant quake hit near the end of October,
about two weeks after I returned home which did a lot of damage and
derailed a Bullet Train for the first time ever.
On the Thursday night (October 9th) we did some after dark
sightseeing with some of our colleagues from Japan. They gave us
an excellent tour of the city by night. You really need to see
Tokyo by day and by night as the changes are dramatic once the
neon signs start to show through as the sun sets. We toured
various areas including Ginza where many boutiques and restaurants
can be found. More importantly, it's where one of the major toy
stores is so I could load up before heading home to the kids.
After dinner we were taken to Shibuya which is a popular student
hang out. It's hard to describe Shibuya, but if you think Times
Square meets Picadilly Circus meets Hong Kong you'll get a rough
idea.
Shibuya at night - or have I wandered onto the set of Blade
Runner?
Before returning home, and after things had stopped shaking, but
before the final surprise the weather had in store I had one free
day (Friday Oct 8th). I booked myself on a day trip
by bus to Mount Fuji, which included driving up to stage 5 of the
mountain, riding the Ropeway (cable car) at Hakone and also a ride
on one of the the "pirate galleons" on the nearby lake. I never
did quite figure out how these pirate galleon replicas that would
look more at home in the waters of the Carribbean came to be here
or why...but it was a bit of (albeit tacky) fun at the end of a
busy week.
One of the pirate galleons near Hakone (on a clear day you can see
Mt. Fuji)
If the weather had been better the views would have been superb.
From the Ropeway you can see Mt. Fuji and during the ride you go
over a deep valley suspended from two cables. Sadly, we spent most
of the journey in the clouds listening to the rain beating against
the sides of the cable car cabin. The day ended with a ride back
to Tokyo by bullet train. The bullet train ride was my favorite
part of the day - which in part was due to the weather. We got
soaked! It rained almost all day. We knew we were on Mt. Fuji but
we could not see anything for the low clouds and rain. It turned
out this was the storm before the bigger storm. I'd like to go
back and do the same tour again on a nice day. They packed a lot
in, and if the weather was clear the views would have been
breathtaking for sure. You can find the homepage of the tour
company I used here.
The next day (Saturday Oct. 9th), the day I was due to fly home,
Super
Typhoon
Ma-On came on shore near Tokyo [Reuters
coverage]. To cut a long story short, I ended up sleeping on
the floor of Admirals Club in the airport along with a lot of
other passengers who were also stranded. There were many tales of
really rough flights and aborted landings that afternoon/evening
so I am glad that the captain of our plane decided not to try and
get out. We finally left around 11am the next morning. At least I
should be grateful that Mt. Fuji did not decide to errupt the week
I was there! In spite of all this, and some much bigger
earthquakes in Japan that hev been in the news since my visit I
can't wait for my next chance to go there.
Helsinki, Finland - August 2004
I attended a meeting of the W3C XML Binary Characterization Working
Group in Helsinki during August of 2004. I had never been to Finland
before so this was a trip that I had been really looking forward to
and I was not disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in Helsinki
and I hope that I get the chance to go there again one day soon. The
people were friendly and our hosts took us to some nice places to
eat. The architecture of the buildings, a mix of old and new, is
very interesting and even though the weather was very mixed it was
great to just walk around and take in the sights after work each
day. It really helped that it did not get dark until quite late
given the time of year and the temparature was mild. I took a lot of
photos that week!
The Lutheran Cathederal seen from Senate Square