Florence Day 3 - part 2!

So after hitting the sheets for a nice sleep from 08:30 to 10 am and a nice refreshing shave and shower I was back out. I decided upon a trip to Il Duomo the biggest most famous church in the city. After walking through the main body of the church I decided to hit the 463 steps to take me to the top of the tower, the highest point in Florence. The fact that weather is pretty rubbish actually worked well with the misty scenes. Again all pictures shown here taken on the iphone5 (but I took duplicates on the proper camera for later comparison!).

After this it was shopping, including some lovely Italian leather for my gorgeous gf and then a change of shoes and socks as I was soaked again!!!!!!

A quick lunch on the way to the conference centre and into a great afternoon session on preclinical drugs to treat Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Great day (so far!)!

Florence Day 3

Ok, so it's still rather early, 08:18 to be precise but the alarm woke me over fours ago. Yes, up at 4 am and quickly ready before a 45 minute walk across town to get to this spot, which a friend and colleague had told me about. Amazingly, it was n't raining when I set out, nor cold which was good because having arrived at my destination I had some time to wait before the sun came up. Well, as expected it never did but I think I got some decent snaps anyway. All of these shots were taken with the stunningly good camera in my iphone5, can't wait to get home and do some comparison big prints versus the Panasonic micro four thirds camera to compare!!! The last two pictures (which were of course taken first) were in the virtual dark and I could not take them with my camera!!! It did start to rain again as I headed back to the Hotel San Maria Novella where I am staying but that was ok. After a hearty breakfast, I'm ready for a nap I think ;-)

Snapseed

There are quite a lot of apps available for iPhone photography and post production. In a rather boring lecture this morning I tweaked what I took last night using an app called Snapseed.

Below is the before and after......

What do you think?

Bloody weather!!!!!

Is it too much too ask for a bit of sunshine? Here I am in Florence and the forecast is for it to rain for the full six days I'm here :-(

Apparently, the sun is shining in Warboys!!!!

Florence

This place is amazing! Better than Verona? Certainly! Better than Rome, not sure, indeed more time to explore!!!!

First full day and after 8 hours in the lecture theatre I walk out into ...... rain and dusk. Bummer :-(

Oh well, so I wander downtown to hit the markets and the shops and decide to try out the HDR function. If you're not aware this takes three photos at different exposures and combines them so that everything is no too dark or bleached out. The shots look amazing considering the lighting conditions and the fact that it's a camera phone!!!!!

More to follow ........

Technology

So a few days ago I finally upgraded my phone. I've had an iPhone 3GS for three and a half years now and I've loved it. The things that it can do are amazing, beyond the phone and texting, even with pictures, I've used mine as a camera, for music and videos, a GPS for getting places and geocaching, a compass, a torch and for great web access. Anybody who says their non-smart phone is fine because it just does what it says on the tin is naive about what a smartphone can do and quite frankly is missing out on life!!

My good old 3GS was showing it's age though. For some time, as the battery got lower it would just shut down until I could plug it into a wall socket. Unfortunately, the % battery remaining was no longer 30 or 40 when this would happen but more recently had moved to 60 or 80.

So the new iphone 5 in black arrived at the weekend (Kate and I got new ones together). It was expensive and the monthly contract has gone back up but boy was it worth it!! As well as working at what seems lightening fast pace the screen (which is a critical part of course) is just wonderful. I'm liking the voice control with Siri too (now if only I could work out how to convert him into Kylie!!!).

What is actually quite scary though is the camera. It's early days and I've only taken a couple of shots and viewed them only on this wonderful screen but could it be that they are actually better than those taken on my £1000+ worth of Panasonic / Olympus micro 4/3 camera gear?????

Pictures from Florence to follow..... and that's another story :-)

P.s. How appropriate, I've just realised this is my first post from a phone

Water

Pictures to follow!!

I’ve met a few people over the years who sat they are drawn to water. Many of us say we don’t drink enough water, many of us are drawn to lakes, rivers or the seaside to enjoy leisure time. The other day when it was cold and bright I spent an enjoyable lunchtime walking down by the river in Cambridge. When I moved down from Scotland in 2002, it literally took me years to get over not being close to the mountains. My house was 40 minutes drive away from Loch Lomond. I walked nearly 50 of the Munro’s (and a pretty select 50 too!!) and then seriously got into landscape photography and the lochs played a big part in my foreground interest.

 

But over the last few years I have come to realise that Cambridgeshire is a rather wonderful place to live. From the city itself through to St Ives, Wimpole Hall, Ely, Fen Drayton Nature reserve, St Neots, Paxton pits and even up to the coast at Hunstanton. There is lots to enjoy and little to complain about, and I don’t ……………….. anymore!

These pictures were taken on a lovely lunchtime walk along the River Cam. Even urban cityscapes can come to life with a bit of the wet blue stuff!

Where I work

Pictures to follow................

 

I’m really lucky in many aspects of my life; in fact, let’s face it, pretty much all aspects of my life.

One of them is where I work, what I do and whom I work for. My company are pretty awesome really. On the back of my PhD and previous experience in pharmaceutical research I now have an exciting and stimulating job, working with a group of great people, allows a little travel and pays well.

But beyond the “walls” of work the surrounding area is quite nice too. I have a nice safe place to run where the floor is very level and there is limited traffic, allowing me to zone out if I want. And whilst I used to take time to walk around the park as part of my lunch break the running has taken over so I rarely do that now. But in an attempt to take a few more pictures I threw my camera bag into the car the one day a few weeks ago when it was very bright and cold and managed to capture some decent images of the surrounding area. In years or decades to come these will act as a good reminder!!

The Faceless by Simon Bestwick

Interesting this one, and I’m not quite sure how much I liked it even 24 hours after finishing it!!!

The story is essentially of an evil family who brought mutilated war hero’s back to a local sanitarium after the first world war but used their suffering for their occult purposes. After all this had dies out a pedo ring with occult tendencies rediscovered what was going on and managed to harness the powers of the previous horrors for their own uses. The story centers on one individual who is a tv psychic. His show is made up but he does have the sight and is eventually tricked back to the home town as the final part of the jigsaw to allow all of the “spindly men” (the dead and deformed soldiers who usually have to wear masks as they suffered facial damage) back onto this plane. In the end all hell breaks loose and the goodies fail to stop the oncoming onslaught (this makes a refreshing change!) and everybody bails out of the country as it is consumed with evil only for the one remaining heroin to take flight to Europe with her unborn child. However, she may hold the ability to reverse things!! Set up for a sequel?

Good, but at times frustrating, especially towards the end. However, after a little while and the dust settles I’m now thinking that was actually better than I thought whilst reading it.

Lee Childs - Jack Reacher - The Killing Floor

Thought it was about time I gave Jack Reacher a try. There’s a bit of hype about the film coming out this year, although why you would get someone as short as Tom Cruise to play somebody who is supposed to be 6 ft 2 I’ll never know!! Kate (and her Dad!) seem to have read them all up to the most current as well so I felt like I was missing out a little. Apparently, the early ones are the best and towards the end of the series the quality drops off as it seems the author is just on a mission to get a novel out every year. I had recently read The Innocent by David Baldacci, in which he introduces John Pullman, a hard man services investigator, arguably a bit of a copy of Reacher, and I liked Pullman quite a lot. So, this novel starts out with an unbelievable coincidence. Reacher just happens to get off a Greyhound bus and walks for miles through the rain to a town where unbeknown to him, his brother was murdered a few days ago. As he eats his breakfast in the diner he is arrested and taken to the nearby prison for the weekend along with the softy banker who seems to be linked somehow. The banker is in fact a central figure in a counterfeiting scheme based on the town and after lots of people are brutally murdered whilst Reacher figures things out he eventually gets to kill all the bad guys, including he who blew away his brov. A decent novel it rolled along quite nicely without ever having me racing back to my Kindle. I liked the writing style and found it all quite enjoyable really, but it would n’t make my top ten. I think I prefer John Pullman to Jack Reacher but I'll read more of both.

Florence

I'm a lucky boy, more work travel on the horizon. This time, a week in Florence :-) I'll be there for a conference from the Wednesday to Sunday, well actually I'll miss the last day to travel back to avoid missing another night with my kids but I'll also be there on the Tuesday for a one day seminar on medical imaging. It will be March by then so I should see some sun. I've just been on Tripadvisor and booked the second most popular hotel in city (the most popular was a 40 minute walk from the conference centre!). So, now I just need to find a way to upgrade my three year old Panasonic GF1 camera before then ........ if only I could decide what exactly I want!!!!

First and Only by Peter Flannagan

This has to become my favorite book. A great and novel story, wonderfully written with oodles of depth, characterization and splashes of the kind of smarmy humor that I like. It’s the story of a psychic who has seen that he will be murdered at the hands of a serial killer in five days time. Some years ago, as an adolescent, Psimon (yep, corny, I know) witnessed the serial killers first murder, that of a priest in a confessional box. Psimon himself was only spared by the approach of two work men. Now able to hone his psychic skills in many ways he has seen the meeting of the killer and himself and so has enlisted the help of a desperate ex-SAS man to help. One of the nice touches in the depth of the plot comes from the background of small actions that Psimon carried out that are described clearly but their purposes are left unanswered until the very end. It comes together quite nicely (a better ending than Cottam’s “The Colony”) which was a near miss but First and Only has a finale worthy of note. Favorite lines of the text….. “So what happens if we don’t do as you say?” “We sink your f*****g boats!!” Moved over Angel and Demons, there is a new king!!!!!

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson

I used to read quite a lot of personal development books and I believe I am where I am now (doing ok in the pharma industry) in part because of the lessons I’ve learned from them. Books like “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “How to Make Friends and Influence People” all contain reminders of how we should act and might have forgotten or not place enough importance on such behaviors or, occasionally, teach us new behaviors. Like many other “Don’t Sweat………”takes the format of very short chapters (a couple of pages) or one could almost call them lessons. There are many useful things in there to remind how we should act when faced with irritation or adversity (what is this person / event trying to teach me?) and I do think that is one of the keys of a contented life. I think in Buddhist teaching it is known as “mindfulness” where you are not upset by each issue that crops up every day and that you can put it into perspective of the big wide world and your whole life. It may seem like a raw deal today but ask yourself ……………… in a year’s time ……………… how much will it really matter? Now to practice living that philosophy even more than I already did and truly master it. I think life will be even better and I’ll be even more fun to share it with 

He’s a boy-superstar……

Three years ago when my eldest son Tom did his GCSE’s he did pretty well, coming away with a eight of them including five at grade B. That was pretty amazing. This summer it was Robin’s turn and although I had a very busy August so did n’t write, last night I went to his awards ceremony at Swavesey Village College which has inspired me to put finger to keyboard.

I always knew he was a bright lad, but the problem is that he is not overly interested. Don’t get me wrong, I get the impression that he is quite interested and tries somewhat but he’s just not dedicated, in the way that he is to playing games on his laptop. This last point I thought would be his undoing. Apparently not though, he rocked up with GCSE grade A results in maths, English literature, English language, chemistry, biology, physics, geography and history with B’s in Spanish and RE to boot!!!!!!!!!

As he was on a performance bonus system it turned out to be an expensive summer for me ;-)

The Colony by F G Cottam This was a stunning novel– right up until the last few pages it could have been my best read ever but tn very sadly it fizzled out without any real climax. So I’ve read Cottam before; The Waiting Room must have been one of the last real books I read before the arrival of my Kindle last Xmas. That was a very solid and interesting ghost story. I’d marked the author down to revisit later and having recalled my intention I had a look on the Amazon reviews to see what else he had out. This seemed quite interesting and had good reviews. Based on the tale of a Scottish Hebridean island where all of the inhabitants went missing at the turn of the century. Recently, a wealthy newspaper owner was to solve the mystery and it looks like it’s to boost the sales of his flagging newspaper but the reality is that he is a UFO-ologist, determined to prove that the islands inhabitants were taken by visitors from another planet. He enlists the help of various experts such as geologists, phsychics, medics etc to go up there, and at the last though a cleric, in order to ensure that all angels are covered. However, even before our intrepid party lands the security team sent ahead suffer a fatality and then discover the empty craft of a rival news team. The horrors of this story are n’t spawned out of alien beings but in fact voodoo, the curse of a vodoo priest brutalized and murdered by a sea captain coming back to haunt the living. I have to say it was a very powerful and unusually for me had shivers running down my spine on a number of occasions. There are two entities to deal with (although one gets sort of forgotten at the end), there is the daughter of the sea captain who flies around (quite literally) with wholey black eyes and then the black demon. The final confrontation with the demon though is over in what can’t be much more than a page or two (remember, I’m on my Kindle!), there is no build up of intensity to the story it’s like a balloon that somebody lets go of before they’ve tied it. On saying that, I will read this author again because overall it was an excellent novel, just work on your endings man ;-) Now, finally I guess, I have a date with a girl with a dragon tattoo!!!

Getting together :-)

Huge, huge couple of days since I got back from Japan on Friday. The trip to the land of the rising sun was a rollercoaster ride and probably deserves an entry of its own but too much of it would be company secret. Anyway, what has happened since has dwarved it by miles. So, last night I told Robin and Chloe that Kate, Ava and John would be moving in with us in the next six months. Chloe punched the air and was delighted. Robin was content too. Last night I also told my mum who was very happy for us. Tonight I told Tom on the phone and Kate told John and Ava. John had a similar reaction to Chloe but Ava needs a little time to get used to what will be a massive change in her life. I am so unbelievably thrilled that things are going to start really moving forward now and hopefully by the springtime, we will all be living under the same roof. In the meantime Kate's Mum and Dad will be visiting this weekend and everybody will be staying here! I'm a very happy bunny!!!

David Baldacci - Zero Day

First Baldacci that I've read. I actually spotted this on the Amazon Daily Deal and thought it was something Kate might enjoy. We read it at about the same, although she started first I managed to just beat her to the line, moohahah!!!!

And a good read it was, we both enjoyed it, in her case some much so that has moved directly onto another story by the same author, and whilst I'll certainly read more of his I prefer to mix things up a little more!

John Puller is a bit of an ex-army James Bond - Lee Childs kinda guy who is sent to investigate the murder of an army intelligence officer and his whole family. One of things I liked about this book was it was n't at all obvious who had done it until right at the end, in fact, I did n't even know who to suspect the author kept his cards so close to his chest.

However, it was well written. Puller is an engaging and believable character. The plot roled along nicely and continually with barely a boring moment and the ending was well executed.

At £0.79, it sat nicely with my northen beliefs of value ;-) 

A Clash of Kings by George R R Martin

Another huge tome by the bearded one that I read on my kindle. On the whole it was quite good, although I felt that after the battle was done on about 90%, it just needed some kind of sting in the tale as in volume 1. In this book, the second of the series, magic comes into play and takes a very sinister and destructive role.

In the main this is the story of the final fued of the Barotheon brothers and how the victor, Stannis, goes on to loose his battle against the Lannisters. Whilst in east, Daenerys is wandering round a bit lost looking for supporters and an army to take back to the mainland to persue her claim to the throne. Those bloody baby dragons are taking forever to grow up - I wish they would get a move on and do something useful!!!

Up North, the bastard Jon Snow goes with other warriors beyond the wall to learn that the Wildlings are amasing to march on the south. He decides to become a turncoat.

As I said, all-in-all a decent story but nothing spectacular and I'm not sure it was as good as the first book (although at 800 pages I think it was longer). Sadly, the next three boooks don't get any shorter but their customer reviews do get worse. I'll take a break, but I think I'm compelled to move on with them!!!

October - and the temperature has dropped!!!

Ok, so it's been a while, I know, I know ;-) I've been busy!!! I've read a couple of books that I'll need to catch up on, actually, I can think of two but I suspect there might be at least one more! So, it's Saturday morning and I've been up since 06:45 waitnig for a delivery van. The new 3 piecve suite is coming this mornnig and I'm super-excited. I left the family home with just the horrible sofa bed and as I suspected I was going to moving form rented house to rented house for a few years (and I was strapped for cash) I did not buy a suite. Well, now I have my own palace and I not supporting my ex-wife so heavily I finally made the purchase and now i'm sat here like an expectant father. The other sensible thing I did in the last couple of weeks was take out some redundancy insurance. As the pharmaceutical industry in this country contracts rapidly I doubt I'd be able to find another job quite so well paid (actually, anything like so well paid) but if I can make it through to Xmas past the deferall period then I would qualify for a high enough monthly return to be able to get buy for a year. Actually the thought of a year off is rather nice!!! Hopefully things will be fine though. Our new global head of R&D came to visit us this summer and seemed very impressed. He likes the idea of doing research in the UK and has actually asked to submit a (small) expansion plan. On top of that we have just had one chmeist hand in her notice and we were immediately granted permission to rpelace her. Beyond that it's travelling time again. Tomorrow evening I'm back on a plane to Tokyo for a week of fun!!!! Hopefully there won't be a problem.

An Early start at Houghton Mill

Years ago when I used to live in Scotland and take my photography very seriously I'd think nothing about getting up hours before dawn to be at a wonderful viewpoint in anticipation of the perfect light. These days, that essentially never happens ... until Wednesday morning of this week!! Being on my tod this week I decided to set the alarm for 5 am and headed down to the east facing Houghton Mill near Huntingdon.