April Fools Day is here again, and that means only 2 weeks to tax filing deadline. As a result, I spent yesterday updating Quicken with my last year’s financial transactions ready for the second phase: a day with TurboTax.

Today though I thought I’d upload a couple of photos taken during my day of site-seeing with Mark (West):

1) Another shot of the Cupid’s bow & arrow sculpture on the Embarcadero in downtown SF:

2) The Golden Gate Bridge, from the SF side. Not the clearest day I’ve been there, but still pretty good.

I did take some shots from the top of Twin Peaks too, but with the digital camera you can’t really make out much as the city is so far away. One day I’ll try to get up there and take a panoramic sequence, then stitch them together into a QuickTime VR.

Well, I finally got around to writing some software for my Palm OS device. It was actually trying to follow directions transcribed from Yahoo! Maps Driving Directions onto a post-it note at the weekend that prompted this idea.

Now I have a simple little application that, when combined with a PHP script running on blueDonkey.org is able to display the directions, one step at a time, on my PDA screen. Here’s an example of the screen layout:

Download your copy today, and let me know what else you’d like to see in it by going to the new TWiki web I’ve set up for it at, and any other Palm OS applications I end up writing.

Another of my friends from back in the Racal days, Mark West, was here in sunny San Francisco last week for IETF meetings, and stayed on for a short vacation afterwards. I picked him up at his hotel just off Union Square on Sunday afternoon and we spent a very enjoyable afternoon on a driving tour of the city, with stops to enjoy the scenery and snap some photos of course.

I have some photos from various locations, but they’re still in the camera – not as good an excuse now the camera is digital, but it’s the best I’ve got.

We stopped off at Ghirardelli Square for an ice cream sundae, then had dinner at the Gordon Biersch brew pub just under the bay bridge.

Hot and sunny here in Alameda as I am trying to get my head around the task of writing some DTDs for a little project I’m working on. With my laptop’s hinge broken, this pretty much rules out taking the laptop anywhere to work on this in a more pleasant, out-door type environment, so I’m stuck in here where it is just plain hot – even with all the windows open.

Seriously tempted to buy a nice new 15″ Apple PowerBook, but they’re really just too expensive 🙁

Maybe I could write it off as a business expense though 😉

Saturday night found Kitty and I up in Berkeley at the house Greg and Robin have recently bought. From Greg’s descriptions we were expecting it to be in need of a lot of work, but I think he exaggerates – the house is amazing.

Built around the turn of the last century, it has genuine and original wood floors throughout, wood panelling and plenty of wood features (such as full height columns in the entry way to what they have made their dining room). Original wood fixings and even Victorian style picture rails are present in every room. The bathroom has an original bath tub. A real wood burning fireplace kept the living room nice and warm even as it started to cool down outside.

Outside at the back is a large split level deck area complete with built in hot tub, and a relatively large garden area full of fruit trees.

Amazing house guys, and a great party – thanks for inviting us!

My long time friend Mark Collier dropped by to stay Friday night just before heading home to Cambridge (UK). He’d been over for a business trip last week, and took an extra week here as vacation to see a few friends and relatives on the west coast. I’ve known Mark since starting work in Crawley in 1993; oddly, I’ve known his father a little longer as he was the Dean of my faculty at university!

Kitty joined us for dinner at Basil Thai in San Francisco Friday night, followed by a cocktail in Equinox – San Francisco’s revolving restaurant atop the Hyatt hotel at the Embarcadero Center.

It was great seeing you again Mark… hope you had a good flight back, even without the $75 “upgrade” to exit row seating (yes, Virgin actually tried to sell an exit row seat as an upgrade when he asked if any were open!).

Bit late posting these…here are some photos taken up in Reno last weekend. As always, click on the photo to see a larger version in a popup window.

Kitty coming off the slopes for lunch:

Reno at night:

The Pringles^TM Can Dispenser:

The Pringles^TM can dispenser was at the Vacaville Outlet mall; now I understand why they have the silly little cans of Pringles^TM that can’t contain more than a mouthful or two.

It’s been a long day so far, but fun. Spent most of the day with Kitty and her nieces and nephew (the eldest celebrated her 5^th birthday yesterday, so part of the reason for going there today was to take her shopping for a birthday present).

Home tonight and it is time for laundry. The first load came out covered in foam (one of the joys of sharing a laundry facility is that you never know quite what kind of idiot was using it before you, nor what they poured into the machine). The second load is waiting here for the other machine – I can only hope that they haven’t managed to get both machines filled with whatever it is that is generating the foam.

A couple of photos taken from the ferry home (click the thumbnail for a popup window with a larger image in it):

Cupid’s Bow and Arrow Sculpture on the Embarcadero:

The Ferry Building Clock Tower:

Here I am on the 11th floor of the Embarcadero Center looking out over the ferry building clock tower and the bay bridge, flags flapping gently in the breeze coming off the bay. The sky is mostly blue, and the sun is shining brightly out there.

I’m here for a meeting with a campaign coach at Right Management – the last session I have with them, so just a wrap up. Here a little early, so I thought I’d add a quick comment to the weblog to let you know how amazing the view is from up here.

Since the ferry home is not until after 4pm, I don’t suppose I’ll get much done this afternoon other than this meeting. Still, there’s a good book store not far from here, so I might kill some time in there.