Hello from .... home

Yep its true. After my San Francisco trip being on and off for weeks, it was finally cancelled on Thursday (just in time time to cancel everything at no cost). What nobody calculated was how much of my time was wasted  on line with the travel agents. Oh well C'est la vie.

Lots of Birthdays at the moment. On Friday we were celebrating the birthday of Christine, a very good friend of ours (who's age escapes me :-)  and she had chosen a restaurant that had an interesting Starter and Dessert strategy with their menu kind of in line with a Tapas style consisting of as many little starters and deserts as you want to eat. I can't think why they bother with the main course. Good pigging out recommendation, but somewhat expensive for the quality of the food. Anyway, at sometime during the evening we got to talking about my health and I said I was fine and had no seizures for over 4 weeks... guess what happened on Saturday. 

Still suffering slightly today after taking the grandchildren to one of these indoor soft adventure playgrounds. You'd be amazed at how many new muscles you can still find at 50. I have to say I think their dad had more fun than the kids, but not me, oh no.

Next Birthday, Leon, grandchild no 1 on Sunday.

Happy Birthday Tasija

My grandaugter Tasija was one year old last Friday.  Here she is working on the Crisp pipeline. It seems incredible how quickly the last year has gone by.

Weather has been awful the past week or so so I have been spending a bit of time tidying up my Music collection. I've been putting on missing album art and fixing the other tags, I have also been making sure the MP3 (for the i-pods) & FLAC (for the Hifi, SONOS) collections match etc. When the weather has been OK Carol and I have been doing the autumn shutdown of the garden. I've been putting the pool down (will it ever go up again?) and have been high pressure cleaning the Drive, there is some highly satisfying seeing the clean stripes following the nozzle even though it takes so much time (2 afternoons so far).

I have had a trip to San Francisco (Open World) planned and cancelled several time over the past few weeks. Today it is on and assuming it continues that way I'll be flying out on Saturday.

I'm presenting a seminar at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Bern for the IET (Institute of Engineering and Technology) on Thursday called "Using capability and service oriented architectures to directly align business and IT goals"  Nice short and to the point don't you think. If that kind of thing excites you I and the IET would love to see you there.

Amber goes west

Been a while since the last entry, so I still haven't disciplined myself for more regular updates. I think I'll have to set up to-do items in my work Calendar as they get done (mostly).

Amber has been busy this week. She had already her University Bridge studies and got the results on Tuesday....she naturally passed. She had already got provisional offers from Basle and ETH (Zurich),  so she is now running around trying to find rooms in Basle where she has chosen to study Biology.  Basle is the home  of dozens of Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences companies including Novartis & La Roche so Biology and Chemistry is a real strength there. Carol and I are so proud of her, we know she will enjoy the next few years of "study", but we will miss having her around.

Been a busy for me week too; lots of work putting together a architecture report for some of our Russian friends. 

The Builders were finally out as of Thursday. So remember this equates 3 builder days as 5 elapsed weeks in normal human terms. Anyway we can now put the finishing touches to the Kitchen that we decided to do ourselves, this is mainly paintwork, electrifying the breakfast bar and various oddments to go in cupboards and drawers. We also scoured most of North West Switzerland for Bar Stools for our breakfast bar only to buy one of the first we saw. 

It is wierd having the Chemo out of my routine, I have so much more time available now, Unfortunately I am not feeling the health benefits yet as Carol and I have both caught colds

A Break from Chemo

More news from Tumourville.

I got the results from the latest MRI scans yesterday and although there is no more shrinkage what is left is showing a lot less contrast. This is caused by less contrast agent being taken up by the tumour area and indicates less activity in the tumour. The bad news is that the current chemo treatment may have reached its limits for now.

Anyway the hospital tumour board has decided it is time for me to take a three month rest from Chemo. This should allow my body to regain some of its old strength and hopefully build me up for the next phase of the fight.

I'm obviously in two minds about this but I'm very thankful for the break.
Getting the results from the next scan (in November) is going to be pretty scary, but until then time to enjoy at bit more life.

Goodbye Olga

Moscow: On the surface it appears like any other major city in the world (too much traffic too many MacDonalds), and to the tourist that is how it would always seem but when you spend time with real Russians for a few days you start to get a peek at the the capital of a vast country that has been oppressed for so long it is having trouble growing up.

As usual with nearly all business trips you spend so much time in meetings that all you get to learn about your host country is through the corporate procedure and politics, through the food you get to eat and through the usually candid discussions you have with your colleagues.

So what did I learn about this little, but important, bit of Russia

• That it really is a tiny piece of a vast country spanning 11 time zones!
• Borsch (beetroot soup), Pelmeny (meat dumplings) & Blinis (russian pancakes) are good. In fact the food is great, except they use Dill everywhere except on fish.
• Vodka is drunk at the beginning of a meal.... and often in the middle and end too.
• Vodka is taken in one swig, and is proof of your ability to become a Russian (thanks)
• Corporate politics is worn on the sleeve
• You always know who the boss is, he/she sits at the big raised desk forming a T with the table at which the plebs sit.
• IT is about 10 years behind western Europe
• Red Square isn't
• There are lots of Redheads and Blondes in Moscow
• The Redheads are real
• There is more to the problems in Georgia than our press are telling us (hint: BP)
• Police corruption is so rife the citzens of Moscow have unnoficial fines lists so they know what the current rates are (10'000 roubles for a drink driving offence, cash of course)
• There are more billionaires in Moscow than any other city in the world
• That Moscovites don't know where their river (the Moskva) starts and ends
  (just teasing guys)
• I can't understand one word of written or spoken russian

прощание для теперь москва

Moscow

I'm quite excited today as I paying my first visit to Moscow tomorrow and the next four days. I hope I can take at least a little time off of from meetings to at least a little look at the city.

Goodbye Leroy

Since last September I have been closely following the Blog of another cancer patient Leroy Sievers. Last Friday night Leroy finally gave up the fight against cancer and passed away.

Leroy was a War correspondent who went on to become Executive Producer of ABC Nightline. Leroy had Colon cancer six years ago that was sent into regression only to reappear two years ago as a Brain tumour (then Lung and Spine). Those of us that read his blog knew that that his illness was terminal and that he was losing the fight over the last couple of months but it was still a shock to read the announcement. I feel like I've lost a friend even though we never exchanged a word in the time I subscribed to his blog and I'm sure that goes for all of the people who logged on daily to find out what was happening in the world of Leroy Sievers.

I wish you eternal peace Leroy, you and your blog will be sorely missed.