Midsummer – June 24 2006

Midsummer has finally arrived: YEAH!! now if the weather just holds up it will even be better. Hanna is getting quite big now and she is now showing the size that she wanted in the first place, looks like she swallowed a beach ball. She has never looked at good as she does now. It’s time to relax, rejoice, and recharge during the summer months ahead so we all have enough energy when the baby comes into our lives and also for work stuff too. =)

Work Trip – London Week 24 / 25

This week I left Hanna and the little man for work related matters in Cambridgeshire (Huntingdon) in the UK. We have a nice get together of many team members joining us all from Atlanta, GA, – Mexico City, Mexico, – Prague, Czech Republic, – Delhi, India, – Helsinki, Finland. Its really a nice feeling to have different nationality’s and learning different cultures while you are all joining together getting project related matters solved.
Sunday night was when i left for uk and the flight was ok and the drive to the Belfry Hotel in Cambourne was ok considering i was cramped in the front seat because of the 7 foot tall Finnish Nokian in the back seat. Lets just say it was nice to get to the hotel.
The Hotel Belfry – Cambourne: Wow was the first thing I said about this hotel, and just the look of it was enough to think that this hotel was going to be a nice stay. But as they saying goes, “never judge a book by it’s cover”. The staff sucked, food was even more terrible, if you can get the staff serving the food to actual get your order right, then trying to find clean plates, utensils, and glasses. Horrible, just horrible. They offered internet acces, in which it states that at the time of purchase till check out time the next day for just £9.95. it only lasted from 12:30 in the afternoon till 10:30pm. so I complained stating that if it says till 11am check out time the next day, it should be that, and refused to pay for the amount of time i was connected to the internet. I was also ready to check out if they insisted on me paying for the full charge, as I had made arrangements to check into the Hotel Marriott nearer the office. They ended up taking the internet charge off my final bill.
Punting in Cambridgeshire: Richard, an external coworker of our project showed all of us, Kim, Naveen, Kasper, Pavel, Jukka, Jackie, and myself the are of Punting: pushing a flat bed boat using a long wooden poll to go along a water way. It was quite fun except for the horse fly’s that kept biting at my legs, but oh well, at least i know now how to do this punting.

Winter Holiday – RENO, NV

It has been great going on a mini vacation back to the US to visit family and friends! Got some work done around the house in Reno where my parents and brother live..at least we now have some lawn there.. keeping my fingers crossed that it stays alive now.. It was great to see Cris and Mary and as well as Rehana too.. It will be exciting when the baby’s are born for Mary and my wife.. Cris and I will be for sure proud dad’s for sure!!