The summer, and really the start to the fall has been crazy, which has resulted in quite a few posts to this little site of mine. The past couple of weeks have been pretty quiet, as I have been at home in London, the weather has been unpleasant, and I just needed some downtime. So I have been, for the most part, just hanging out at home, working and not really doing a lot. Which explains he lack of posts. Sorry about that. :-)
The only real excitement I’ve had in the last couple of weeks was last night, when I went out to see my friends Mark and Rachel and watch the fireworks celebrating Guy Fawkes Night. To steal from wikipedia, Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night) is an annual celebration on the evening of the 5th of November. It celebrates the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot of the 5th of November, 1605 in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, were alleged to be attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London, England. As November 5th was mid-week this year, fireworks were held all over the city on the two weekends that bookended the 5th.
Mark and Rachel live near Blackheath, which has a huge common, and they did the fireworks display on the heath. It was a cold, blustery night, but that didn’t dissuade our little group from having a good time. We started the evening at one of the local pubs before moving onto the heath around 8 p.m. when the fireworks started. It was a very impressive display - lasted much longer than I expected, and wrapped up with an impressive finale. It was staring to rain at that point, so we all went back to Mark and Rachel’s where the festivities continued. It was a fun night.
Other than that, it’s been a week or two of just everyday life stuff. I’m off to Atlanta next week for a few days at the head office - have to convince them that we want to keep funding my products. Then I’m off to Las Vegas for a couple of days of fun and excitement in Sin City. After all the trips last year, I have been going through a bit of Vegas withdrawal. I’m staying at the Mirage, which will be a first for me. It’s not the Bellagio, but I also am paying for it myself this time!
I picked up a new plug-in for Aperture, my photo management/editing software, that does some very cool things for creating black and whit images. This is a version of one of my Macau pictures of the facade of St. Paul’s, cropped and converted to a high contrast black and white image. I really like how it turned out.