Weekend with the SCUK in the summer bash. great bash, good weather when we got there on friday. Thanks for Gav for the lift :-) Great party, barbe, dj, fire pics, drinking till light et. Soggy on saturday thought. Thanks for the gas barbecue to save us for breakfast. Followed by rained over skating session which was then deferred to pub. The boarding session was good, 3 hours on Tamworth, with the SCUK discount is a no brainer. Found the piste a bit icy and kickers a bit too high to try but the quarter pipe was good enough for my age :-P
After finishing at 1:30 and back in the campsite I had to go to bed because I was no longer handling it. Woke up at 8 to find out everyone was up at 6 due to gales! Back home at 11! Did not get much that sunday as I had to recover :-)
Some pictures!

I bought that slightly before the iMac but using with it now.
It is a great "toy" for a good price, it works great with Google Earth and Google Sketch Up.
It does take a few hours to get used to and once you do it is second nature. It is the same idea as its predecessor, the SpaceBall, but it is a lot more ergonomic and therefore easier to operate.
On OSX it shows up as a joystick controller so you can use on games such as FlightGear.
I got the Space Navigator PE, which i cheaper than the Space Navigator SE. The only difference is the licensing, there is nothing to separate between them other than the sticker in the box. The SE has licence for commercial use and the PE desn't.

After so many years I upgraded my mac. My previous G4 machines where no longer coping with the processing needs of my RAW photography, specially as I needed to run Aperture.
The new iMacs where launched o monday and I checked when my local Apple store would open late, and they only did wednesday so I ran there after work on wednesday. They said they just packed the brand new iMacs that morning! Ah the advantages of having a local Apple store, no longer the month long wait for new models. The store only just opened few weeks earlier, on last week of march with the opening of the Cambridge Grand Arcade, latest and shiniest shopping mall extension here.
I got the second model up, the 2.6 GHz with the wireless keyboard and mouse option, which to my surprise came as a boxed standard model. I opted for the slightly better model because of increased 2Gb RAM and better graphics card required for Aperture. I also got Aperture, iWork, Final Cut Express and later Photoshop Elements 6 and Quake Wars.
I am impressed by the machine, the built in 20" cinema display in glass is the best monitor i have ever seen, shows every flaw in the photos without needing to zoom. Only problem is that watching TV via eyeTV is dreadful because you can see every macroblock! The speed is amazing, does any apps for breakfast! Does quake wars with all the settings up with no hitch! The fast HD is also great factor, real change compared to to my PowerBook 12" G4.
Aperture itself is amazing, several editing modes, I particularly like editing photos in browse mode, the white balance is amazing and batch editing is great and what I missed in iPhoto. On the iMac it also runs like a dream, can edit everything in realtime, no longer 10 minutes per photo like in iPhoto.
One note to Quake wars, I got found of it, its like a RTS where u play a single character like FPS and has all the modern games goodies like friends list, online ranking etc.

On the latest update, 7.3.1, finally the USB printer standby has been supported!
Also noticed that they have NAT Port Mapping Protocol that arrived on a previous update, meaning that applications like Realplayer work properly now:-)
Overall I am finally happy with it. It only has a issue now that the USB hard drives tend to go on standby after being left alone or some, maybe is a issue with the LACIE Porche USB hard drives I got.

It was the best snowboarding trip I have done!
Great mountain, great snow, party, competitions etc.!
Felt like half of the SCUK was there! There wehere more people than in the bash!
Was great to watch the competition, even entered the boarder cross and qualified, the idea was to enter everybody in the club there but they all chickened out :-P To compensate we all the the Red Bull Home Run on the last day and that was great fun :-) Watching the snowboard big air was fun, but missed half of it because we where doing a snowball fight :-)
We had descent snow there to begin with and the weather was mild for the first 2 days, then started snowing heavily there after, the first couple days of snow visibility was an issue, made wipe out as I could not see the ground at all to find which edge I should be using! It made me get some snow in between my lenses and foggy goggle for a couple of days. I had to disassemble them to dry.
On the big, enfasize big, plus side was that we got tons of fresh powder! Real freshly fallen powder that hardly any snowboard could float on. I almost ended up on a lake one day as was riding on powder on complete white out. Some people fell off cliffs but did not get hurt because they landed on fresh powder. I must say I was addicted to powder there after and was trying to find every bit.
On the last day riding on powder as there was a dip I did not see in advance and the nose of my board dug in and I wiped out, this time I sprained my knee. I thought I did some real damage but I manage to ride down to the gondola and have lunch in the restaurant, did not feel so bad and I rode back on the black run of the Red Bull Race. Missed a days work to check it out on A&E and they told me it was just a sprain and nothing serious :-)
Some pictures here.

Ever since Virgin Media upgraded my cable internet to 2Mbps in November I have been having a problem where when I initiate multiple downloads the line drops out every 5 minutes. I had to call them on their premium line for cable modem support and they admitted there was a problem with the modem, and they refunded my call! They do refund the call if they admit is their problem. They sent me an installer to repair the modem and when he arrived he told me that the cable modem I had, Terayton, is not compatible with their service any more and he replaced the modem with a really minuscule one. Now the line seems working again :-)
So if you have a Terayton cable modem with your virgin media service its worth asking them to have a look.

This time was only 41 on the bash! We all got chalet upgrades with sauna and swiming pool!
The weather was sunny most days and the snow was usual, bit icy in places and some soft snow on top. The glacier on the top run was galling on the first 2 days and even ferst worse than boarding in Scotland! Graham's opinion! The park had good options for both beginners and pros, I liked the boarder cross ;-)The snow lacked powder, all the off piste was hard crusty. The slopes where somehow steep in places with a lot flat bits and uphills so building speed was essential.There where lower easier runs for circuit training on the other side of the village with off piste options. Overall felt like the number of runs where limited compared to other big resorts we been before.
The resort felt like designed for foreigners as there where not many french there. Mostly brits, germans and dutch.
We also managed to behave a bit better this time, no more infamous michelin men quiz incidents :-P Guess with fewer people and grouped together in chales we had more of a community feel :-) We also seemed void of casualties, better than 1/8 in the previous trips!
We got powder on the last day! Snowed all night but I got a wreched cold so I could not go up hill!
Some photos here.

This time was a bit of organizational nightmare because I ended up without a lift but eventually managed to get a bus up to Bridge of Orchy where the driver stopped by the entrance of the Achallader farm road. It was galling and just got dark, guess the driver thought I was going to die :-P Walked up for 15 min and managed to meet Helen in the car part and we walked up with her friend's and her friend's 2 kids up to the railway cottage in middle of a gale and in the dark, took us some 20 min which felt more like an hour. The cottage was something in between a basic cottage and a bothy. No electricity piped gas lantern illumination, water from stream from stream and a fireplace with oven and boiler. There was a lengthy instruction which I was glad that Helen followed to switch the water on. Was only one floor, with a kitchen, bathroom without bath, 2 rooms, living room and porch and next to the railway just on the side of the bridge on other side of the rails.
Others came in later and the weather broke to a starlit windless sky. Think most people I knew from the mountaineering club at uni where there :-)
We partied till 4 and next morning (midday) we walked to Stob Curiour, going mast the GUM club hut on Crashgour. Took us 5 hours instead of 2! Well, we walked up from the back and from the car park.
Managed to get a lift back with Neil this time :-) Ah we saw some kyakists setting off on Bridge of Orchy!
Some photos here.

This time I had to fly using BA and TAM. Got a midday flight from Heathrow to Guarulhos with BA and as usual it was delayed for 2 hours on the runaway (11:30 to 13:30)! Arrives in Guarulhos around 11:30. My flight to porto alegre was around 7am and the travel agent said BA would organise a hotel but when I got top the BA office (small office behind the international check-in) they said it was not organised so I got back to the TAM desk and after an hour managed to changed my flight to 4:30 am and got to Porto Alegre around 6am and home by 7am!
This time I spent 1 week in Santo Amaro, SC, doing a paragliding course. Did not mange to finish the course because of win conditions, had 2 days of bad weather where I could not fly! Well, will finish it off at home!
The rest of the time I spent at home. Managed to go and see the beaches, from Osório, Tramandaí, Cidreirara to Torres and end up in Passo Fundo on a day long drive with my friend Leandro.
The flight back was more eventful. The flight with TAM at 8pm was delayed till 23:30! I got there 3 hours before just in case! There where 3 of us from that flight that would get the BA flight to Heathrow. When we got to Guarulhos the BA desk just closed so we waited till 6am until they opened and the local manager, the first to get in, was very helpful and booked us in the next flight in the evening as there was no flight in the morning on that day. We also got a hotel arranged back in the TAM check in desk then we finally managed to get a bit of sleep. We arrived in the morning with no problems and home around 3pm finally a day later!