Quick one week trip to north of Brasil, thanks to TAP for opening direct route from London via Lisbon to most of the capitals in the north east of Brasil. Flew to Recife and saw the historic center, then Olinda, stayed a few days in João Pessoa where I saw the Niemayer Museum and the east most point in the americas amd ended with a few days in Pipa, one of the best beaches I have seen with a local nature reserve included.

The Pics are here.

Open House weekend again with some pics of the Banqueting House, City of London Guild Hall displaying the London Magna Carta, Apothecaries's Hall, Westminister Hall and the former Commonwealth Institute/New Design Museum.

The Pics are here.

Long weekend to Florence again. This time had to go to see what I did not manage lat time.

When you fly to Italy you expect when you step oiut of the plane to feel like stepping into a sauna but this time was cloudy and rainy but at least the next day was sunny and 33˚C :)

Did not go to the Ufizzi this time but saw the Domo insode, The Domo Batisteria, Palacio Vecchio, and David's bronze which had a nice view of the city.

The next day saw the Pitti palace with impressive state rooms, painings, specially by Tician and Raphael, and frescos by Raphael. Few other galleries inside and the gardens with nice view of the city and surrounding country side etc.

Next last day saw the Gallileu Museum which is basically Florence's science museum and after the Bargello with its impressive sculptures by Michelangelo, Donatello etc.

The Pics are here.

Less eventful trip, used up the bank holidays to expend time there instead of Christmas. Expent most of the time doing physio to recover from Tignes and meeting long lost classmates from school.

Took a lot of pictures from my home town including Parque dos Açorianos, Parque Marinha, Viaduto da Borges, Catedral de Porto Alegre, Praça da Matriz, Parque Farroupilha, Auditório Araújo Viana and further afield to Gramado. Note that did not take my camera and took the pics with a Canon S95 I bought for my mum :)

The Pics are here.

Some Pics here.

I had a pair of ThirtyTwo Lashed boots for 5 years and they were one the hardest boots to get in and out. Got them size 7 same as my show size and they actually felt one size too small, so much so I could not wear thick socks.

This time I got the Focus Boa one size bigger for comfort. In the shop I got shocked how light they where, even compared to my old Lashed!

They are easy to put on, ThirtyTwo changed the system of the inners, gone is the velcro leash with integrated velcro on the tongue and a new inner leash locking mechanism. The dual Boa discs control the ankle and the foot tightens separately. Its quite easy to over-tighten them so takes a few tries to get them used to doing them right. Overall they are really comfy. Note that I had them heat molded in the local twoseasons shop.

Used the first for a week in the SCUK Winter Bash. It was a bit uncomfortable on the first day, also because they where over-tightened until they got broken in. Next few days got used to them and felt really comfortable. It is a stiffer carving boot so all the pressure goes to the ankles and releases the pressure on the feet.

After I am used to them it is really easy to get in and out and feels really good to release the boas when stopping for lunch and are very comfortable overall.

Been playing with it for a week and I can say its Awesome!

It's a well built pico projector, a 7 cm square with brushed black finish, touch sensitive buttons on the top that light op on touch. From my research is the highest specced pico projector but not the most expensive, it has a 30 lumen LED bulb (LEDS can't burn out!) and about twice as bright as next brightest pico projector. Resolution of widescreen WVGA 834x480 coming from a DLP, its good enough to replace the TV to watch DVDs. It comes with a bottom mounting battery which has the tripod connector and lasts 2 hours but I have no use for it at home and a small radio lead ac adapter which I wished was built in. It has a micro SD card reader, micro SD connector which can connect to PC to expose its 1GB internal flash or external USB drive with the adapter supplied. It has proprietary VGA connector with adapter for normal VGA socket, jack AV socket with adapter for phono sockets but can display video with just a normal phono to jack mono adapter.

It had a professional finish and the interface is what you expect from a high end Samsung LCD TV with build in media player. I tried MP4 files up to 720p resolution and it copes quite well. It also plays images, mp3s and even office documents like powerpoint. Projecting above the plane of the projector with an easy to adjust focus slider, the image is quite bright and big. You can see an image on a wall on a cloudy day or with artificial light. Of course a dark room is much better. A 2 m wide image is quite bright on a dimmed room.

So my hats off for Samsung for finish price and functionality. I must say that it's tempting to replace my aging JVC 28" widescreen TV with it.