Fun Weekend at Carney Hall

So this weekend involved travelling down to London to see Anna and Mark. Anna was take pictures of Sam, so beasically I was spending my time reading up on a paper ready for my trip to Germany on Wednesday, and generally geeking out with Mark. They also took us to a great Turkish restaurant, which also had awesome cocktails. It is going to sad knowing that we will have to fly in future to meet up with them, but then they will have a good excuse to come over to Europe in the future.

 

Oh yeah, Spartacus: Blood and sand is hilarious. Just how many times do they have to say cunt?

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London, Phantom, Photos, Work, Freshers

So once more it has bee a few weeks since my last update. Where to begin.

Well London for Sam's birthday was great fun after the disappointing weekend before. We trekked down to London ad made our way to our hotel for the next two nights and got ready to go see phantom of the opera. Of course the performance was amazing, and as my first time it was well worth it. The film is one thing but to see it live was epic and I was really glad to have a chance to see it. In particular the tricks used to make use of the space were impressive. Sam has a better summary here.

On wednesday we moved to other end of London to stay with our friend Rachel who we met two years back in Venice. We had the joy of meetig her and her then boyfriend at the masked ball we attended, and so it was good to catch up with her two years on now that Sam and myself are married. I then spent the next few days writing while Sam attended her classes. I was starting to put together the story that I woud be running for freshers week roleplay society.

We also made time to meet up with Dan, and headed to Brick Lane and ended up at a nice little bar that served the best cocktails. Of course Dan and myself descended into gentlemanly banter and discussion. Brick Lane by the way is hipster central save for the bar we ended up in.

I returned back on the Sunday ready for work, and over the last few weeks have finished of my literature review and it should be submitted soon. Otherwise work has been good, slow, but gettig there, and I think the end is in sight for my next paper. Just have a few more simulations to do and then that should wrap up the first one and setup the next paper (same thing alterative method).

Otherwise the roleplay group has seen the sad loss of our good friend James, as he moves back home with the end of his contract to his job here, and the group gaining two new players, James and Izzy. So far the Vampire chronicle has been progressing well, and I think I have already surpassed my last efforts in running it.

Also on the rp front I have had the joy of running a new World of Darkness mortals game for freshers week, which I hope to submit to white wolf as a example of my writing. Also I have a chance of getting a credit in a new rp as I made someuseful ideas and contributions to the game!

Plans for the future. Well halloween will be spent in London with my old PhD collegue Mike, and Sam will have her last two modules and we will go to Club Antichrist. Otherwise we should be up in Manchester closer to Xmas, and we have a gift voucher for use on gig tickets... maybe go to Alec Empire supported by Mechanical Cabaret?

London and stuff!

So as you may or may not be aware myself and Sam took a trip down to London to see Alec Empire and Modulate on the Friday. Arriving in the afternoon we made our way to Dan's work in the BBC offices near Euston and dopped off our bags before going for a walk about London. Later we then headed up to Camden and found Stacey and made our way to the venue, Underworld. As we lurked about there we met some of Stacey's friends from the big electronic pooch (Cyberdog) and soon enough were joined by Geoff and Rhys after their own journey down from the 'norf'.

The gig was really great, with this being the first I had seen Modulate live since Geoff played in TV21 about 2 years ago. I wasn't too bothered by the band up first, but Modulate really did get the night going, or course 'Skullfuck' being the song that just energised the crowd. Following them, Alec Empire was as expected and still excellent live, playing a large amount of new material, adding a new twist to 'On Fire' to make it very funky, and ending the night with some old ATR since it was the 1st of May. Of course myself and Sam are not really built for being amongst the pile of punks there flipping out to the ATR tracks. However, it was great to hear it live since I never had the chance to see ATR live and had been a fan since 1998.

After the gig, and with Dan now with us, we went for a walk about Soho, and ended up in Leicester square at the Hagan Daas ice cream palor (epic!)

The next day. after a good nights sleep at Dan's place we went looking for food and got shown Muswell Hill. I have to say it seemed like a great area to live in. We had a vey nice brunch and then headed into the city centre, ending up in Covent Garden after a good walk up and down fleet street and a walk round a few shops, and trading in Sam's empty makeup for some listicks, visiting Coco de Mer, and then goign for cake with Dan and Stacey.

The rest of the afternoon was something more of stroll about the centre of London and ending up in Hamley's (the giant toy store of doom!!!).

The afternoon turned to evening and we then headed in the direction of Shoreditch where we had dinner, wine and sat outside under some heaters in the evening air. The food was quite great, including chicken wings and roasted sweet potatoes. THe next stop on the list was The Last Days of Decadence, a great cocktail bar themed around the days of prohibition. A good time was had here as we order drinks that either took ages to make or the bar staff didn't remember how to make.

This weekened was a rather quieter affair with myself and Sam meeting up for drinks with James and his friends and then going out for a meal at Prezzo on Saturday and playing Zertz some more (I am just about getting my eye in with this game).

Conference Days 3,4,5 and 6

Well after the fun of Saturday i took the time to meet up with

cyberai_dan

and have a good chat and feast on some of the best pizza I've had. Plus I now have the zombie DVD.

HUZZAH!!!!

Day 4, Sunday, was the Windsor trip. Many a picture was taken, wishing I had a castle, lots of reading and walking and listening to the guides and of course looking at all the excellent weaponary, art, armour (henry VIII was a fatboy) and chatting to science guys. Much fun.

Yesterday was long and caught two great presentations that were really close to the work going in my group so I was happy to be not falling asleep during the talks for once.

Then today I made it in for a talk by Walter Kohn and his talk on density functional theory. Again much coffee and food has been consumed.

Leaving the talks early today as the relevance was low. Just another half day to go now and then a nice walk around Camden in the afternoon I thinks.

Conference Days 2 + 3

Well the poster presentation went well, quite well received and happy that I accepted where our methods have failings (though of course all the methods for what i presented have failings because for the study there is no definite way of defining the measurements, quite the problem). They also liked where we were going with the neural networks and how it treated electrostatics, polarisation and charge transfer in the force field on the same footing.

Today I skipped a few of the first presentations, simply because getting up at 5 and leaving at 9 yesterday took it out of me. However I did catch two great presentations and even asked a few questions!

Right now I'm off back to London and hopefully have a pint some where.


Laters

London Conference: Days 1 + 2

So arriving in Euston it was then trekking off to my accomodation in Highgate to dump my gear before heading to the Royal Holloway College. So onto the tube it was and then the train. Not much of a hassle other than getting from Egham to the college. It's a bit of a trek so taxis it has been the yesterday. Today I just walked it.

Needless to say the college looks great.  The Royal Holloway looks great. However the building does look older than it is. In fact the building is younger than UMIST. So after the initial reception (where I'm obviously the youngest, though I guess the white hair helps with fitting in :P ), it was some free wine and then back to Highgate.

I was not impressed waiting around for my keys and room as I really needed a shower. :(

Oh and I really wish I knew I didn't need to bring a sleeping bag. Would have saved me the effort. Oh well.

So today was a 5am start, arriving just in time for breakfast. Oh yeah they actually do proper food unlike the shite I've had at previous conferences.

The presentations so far are very heavy on the quantum mechanics, most way beyond my comprehension. Most dabble in modifying the programs that I simply use. However it's nice to see where the state of art is at so that it may in the future be useful to my sort of work.

The rest of the evening is dinner and then the poster presentation, which I'll have to leave early if I want to get back to my halls to get some sleep.

Caffine has been my friend. Good old Guarana!!!

Pictures are taken and so will be uploaded when I get back. Also Windsor Castle on Sunday which should be fun.

Maybe I will have some comments on some of the presentations where the presentor is a) not crap b) doing work more related to my field.

Off to London

Heading off to London this morning for my conference.

I'll see you all again after Thursday unless you happened to be in London, in which case I'll have some time Wednesday afternoon.

Until then...