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Week at home – First Autumn 2008

This week has been a week with no travel. Time to consolidate work tasks at home. Still working of course but I have had a routine which has included a morning walk with Hollie – the dog! I generally walk along the River Don and then back through the village – this usually at about 8am. This week in Kemnay saw the first signs of Autumn. See the photo below – this would one of the first trees in Kemnay to change colour and then to drop its leaves.
I really do like this time of year when the trees change colour and look quite stunning. Of course this also means that winter is just around the corner and we will be back to wind, rain and show…
I should not forget my morning walking companion – Hollie see below 😉 In this photo she is looking rather pensive – this was one of the few moment when she chose to stand still! A walk with Hollie is as close to perpetual motion as I have been 😉

Gillian and Tam’s Barbie


So the day after the wedding we were invited to Kemnay manse to attend an informal Barbie which had a Mexican theme. The newly weds are heading to Mexico for their honeymoon so this was to get them in the mood. We had a very enjoyable afternoon and as usual I took the camera along and used it a few times. If you want to see some photos click here.

Balloon Flight – Update

Well I was all booked up to do my hot air balloon flight tomorrow morning – but alas it has been cancelled again due to a forcast for both low cloud and poor visibility!!!! So I will have to book again tomorrow morning! As it happens we will be attending a wedding tomorrow afternoon so that might be sufficient excitement for one day!!!! A little disappointed tho ;-(

San Francisco – last post


Today I am heading back home to good old bonnies Scotland. This has been a relatively long trip so I am thinking long to get home again ( thinking about a song which reminds me of home – The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen…….. lyrics availble click here).

Yesterday, I travelled from San Francisco to San Jose to participate in an Executive Briefing event. This is where some key decision makers from a company or organisation travel to Cisco’s Exective Briefing Center in San Jose to listen to some presentations about new technology developments.

I was one of four presenters and this is the first time I have done an event like this at Cisco’s main Headquarters. Cisco occupies a number of buildings which are spread along Tasmin Drive. We travelled there to arrive in time for breakfast and also to transport our customers so it was a relatively early start ( we needed to be in San Jose for 7.30am to have breakfast).

The photo above shows the sun rising just as we left San Francisco having passed under the Bay Bridge.

This has been a long but enjoyable trip – I will look forward my next trip when I hope to manage my time to make it possible to do two things which were not possible between business commitments this time around – ride on a San Francisco Tram and also visit Alcatraz. The later was my objective this time – but it seems that you need to book that a few days in advance which made it impossible this time around.

At the moment I am spending some time at San Francisco International airport waiting for my flight departure time. Oh the joys of international travel 😉