Back In Time

I spent some time at BT's R&D centre Adastral Park last week, what an amazing place, from the outside it looks really modern and amazing, and in parts it actually is, the new IP centre looks like mission control! But other areas are like going back to the 1960's, complete with funny notices! I wish I could have taken more pictures but they get a bit funny about all that!
I was there to do some stuff on BT's vision platform, which has a small team on it now that its in production. after a while i noticed that all the bread and butter engineers seemed to be Indian, after talking to Mark the senior developer it seems that Adastral Park has over a thousand Indian contractors working there for 4-5 months at a time! what a commute to work!
Apparently some of the residents of Ipswich are not the most accepting of people, and have huge problems with the local influx of foreign labour. I can tell you the two guys I worked with really knew their beans and where a pleasure to deal with.

Im Still here!

Its been a long time since I've blogged anything, My life has kind of settled down, so I'm gonna try and start blogging again!

Where am I?

I'm currently working for a US company called Anystream inc They are a new media software company with some really cool products (check out the website) I married my gorgeous girl Jude 6 months ago (I can't believe its so long ago!) and am settling it to married life very happily.

I'm really enjoying my new job, lots of traveling around Europe and America has been really cool, It's quite a bit of a challenge but that's what I wanted, I'd kinda gotten into a bit of a rut in my career, but now Ive found myself having to learn a lot in a short space of time, its really taken me out of my comfort zone, which is good, I work from home and am my own boss, which means I really need to keep myself motivated.

The Americas Cup seems so long ago! at least the law suite between Alingi and Oracle is now settled, so planning for the 2009 cup can start! I can't really see myself being a part of it at the moment, but you never know!

That's it for now, I will try and post some more in the week, but December looks to be one of my busiest months!

Salut! Ben

Me on the phone to my wife while on business in the states

The most pointless label ever?

2+2 = 5

Sorry no post recently, I received a polite email reminding me about my duty to portray this event in a good light, and that the management do not like "unofficial" news and views from current staff on the Internet!

So here's a picture of an otter

Swedish Party at Victory Challange

Stuart does some bean bag surfing, I don't know if they will invite the brits back! was a great night but don't think I an EVER going to drink vodka red bull again!

Where has all the good wind gone?

OK so 7 days of competition and only one day of racing, today's not looking too healthy either, we've just been given a modified schedule which has reclaimed our next two days off, and has pushed into the week off that was scheduled for May, luckily I'm OK as I'm paid to be here all the time anyway (I don't get days off) and I'm sodding off for three weeks in May WHATEVER HAPPENS! There are mutinous rumbles in the TV compound though, with lots of people unhappy about the fact that we are hearing about all this from press conferences that we are covering! you could actually hear the crew groan during it this morning!

I'm also being made to feel very guilty for asking the runner to go 8 miles away to Starbucks for me..... It was nice to have some weak milky coffee again rather than the Spanish thimble full that makes your spoon stand up while you are stirring it! Funnily enough all the organisers where bothered about was the fact that t he cup had Starbucks written on it as one of our sponsors is a famous European coffee company, the picture above was taken just before they made me cover the logos with gaffer tape! you couldn't make it up!!

Spanish work ethic

mañana