Manfrotto 785B

Finally got a tripod for my camera - a nice black Manfrotto 785B (aquired after a good review in digital photography magazine). Seems very good - nice and stable and a gread ball-head.

Merry Xmas!

Got around to looking at my webcam log today and found this little xmas present from R nextdoor! Took me 5 mins to get back up from the floor and stop laughing....

Ouch my head.....

It was R's birthday yesterday - need I say more? The evening for me started around midnight and went on until....well, I'm not entirely sure.... ughhh....

Xmas tree is up!

We put our tree up today and decorated the rest of the house. I took the chance to try a long exposure using my new tripod - this shot was over 30s using an aperture of 3.5 and ISO 100. Bit overexposed, but I like it!

St. Lucia

K and I went to celebrate St. Lucia at Westminster Cathedral on Friday - hosted by the Swedish Church. The Swedish choir was unbelievable, the acoustics in the cathedral are just amazing. The whole thing lasted for nearly 2 hours by which point I was nearly frozen - should have worn my warm coat instead of my trendy one!

Mom's

Went to Mom's today for an early birthday for her and an even earlier xmas for my Brother (only time we'll see him over xmas). Had a great time and even got Mom's computer working :)

Xmas tree

K and I went to get our xmas tree today - found a nice Spruce, about 8 foot high (which we managed to fit in the MINI!!). It is currently outside 'spreading'...will come in and get decorated tomorrow...

New South Park Rich

A friend asked for the 'South Park Character' link last night which got me thinking - http://www.sp-studio.de/. My old South Park Me no longer looks like me (I am now sans beard) and as such I think it is time for a new one???? Voila!

The end in sight...

A dynamic start to my last working week of the year before I holiday for xmas. Monday was a dash to Hull and back and today was a similar dash to Grimsby and back - that's more than 800 miles in 2 days. With the torrential rain and dark evenings I have spent around 14 hours in the car in 2 days - OUCH! Add that to my 130 mile round trip to the office in a few days and I'll have done ~1,000 miles this week bringing the MINI to over 32,000 miles in a year and a quater! A such I am looking forward to two things - a lie in tomorrow morning and Fri evening when xmas starts for me :) :) :)

Weird photos...

A and F came to stay last night - had a great time and ended up at the Brocket, a fantastic 14th Centuary pub. Took these photos on the way home - weird!

Xmas presents....I'm done!

Ah - fantastic. I went out at lunchtime today and got he last of my xmas presents. I am waiting for one more to come through the post and then I am all ready for xmas. I even wrapped them all up allready :)

Denzil's retirement

Had a great night in London on Tuesday congratulating one of my very first bosses on his retirement. We spent several years at Unisys together and he did a truely wonderful job of guiding an inexperienced kid in his first few years of his career. It was great to see Tom, Matt, Hazel and USA-Chris too - almost like the old team was back together again :) So - congratulations Denzil - I hope we can all meet up once in a while for a beer and a catch-up.

Xmas time

K loves xmas - I mean REALLY loves xmas. She has spent all day making gingerbread and putting up advent stuff. Our house looks like Santa's workshop ;)

New T-shirt

Blogger's image upload has been out of action for the last few days - but now it is up again so I can show you my funky birthday present from my brother :)

Flikr account

I finally opened a flikr account - have a look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rakh1