grahambinns.com

A cliché of a title, I know, but it's late and I'm past being able to think about it.

Yes, dear readers, I'm off on my travels again. Tomorrow I'm off to London (rather stupidly I've got to fly from Manchester to Gatwick because there's no train journey that would get me to London from Lancaster in less than six hours and with less then 5 changes). I'll be there for two weeks (I would come back in the middle weekend but for the aforementioned train nonsense) for a Launchpad sprint / conference / summit / thing. After that I'm back home for a week and then I'm going to Lexington, MA, for more work-related things (though as yet I'm kind of fuzzy on what exactly I'll be doing there).

This is one of the things that I both hate and love about my job. On the one hand I'm going to be away from my home (my new home, incidentally, into which we moved only a week ago) for three weeks out of the next four. There's so much to do in terms of unpacking and arranging and getting used to the place and I'm just going to end up leaving my fiancé to do all the hard work. On top of that we're in the midst of arranging our wedding - there will be a trying-on of wedding dresses whilst I'm away - and though I know it's traditional for the bloke to not be involved (flaming stupid tradition if you ask me) I've really enjoyed being involved so far; I'm going to miss whatever gets done while I'm away.

On the other hand I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks in the company of an amazingly smart and talented bunch of people with whom I get on extremely well. We'll be concentrating on how to make Launchpad even cooler and easier to work with and I'm sure we'll have a great time. I'm sure I'll enjoy it, I just wish I didn't have to go through this period of not enjoying the idea of it first.

There are some highlights to the next couple of weeks, though:

• I'm going to the ORG event Piracy v Obscurity - an evening with Neil Gaiman on Friday.
• I'll be at the London Intrepid Ibex release party Thursday week.
• On Friday week I'll be attending a signing by Neil Gaiman of his new book, The Graveyard Book (yes, I'm aware that this may make me look like a fanboy).
• On Saturday I'll be doing a photo walk around London with some friends from Canonical. I love photographing London; it's full of interesting people and places and atmosphere, and it's going to be even more fun going round it with a bunch of like-minded people.

So when you think about it, working for Canonical's not all bad.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 176

Taken, as you might be able to tell, next to the London Eye at night.

A lucky shot, really; I didn't have the lens for this to work the way I would have liked, but it's not bad.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 38

Taken as Big Ben was striking midnight to ring in the 8th of February. Of course, the bastards turned off the floodlights just as the chimes began, leading to this image being a damn sight darker than I would have liked. I just like the way the leftmost clock face stands out of the darkness.

This was taken from the far side of Westminster bridge with a 200mm lens and steady hands.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 37

There are so many reasons that I should dislike this shot: It's blurred due to camera shake, it's noisy due to a high ISO setting, etc., and yet I somehow can't bring myself to.

I took this standing on the south bank of the Thames, a few yards away from the London Eye. These two were completely wrapped up in each other and nothing around them distracted them. It was really rather sweet. I only took the one shot of them though; doing so made me feel rather guilty.

Graham Binns posted a photo:

Three hundred and sixty-odd days of 2008, day 36

Taken during the morning rush hour as the sun was catching the buildings on the east bank of the Thames at Vauxhall Bridge.

I need to get a Waterloo Sunset to go with this, of course...