Personal
-
This mini-series of posts relates to my trip over the weekend to Venice for the opening of the 2025 Biennale. I took so many photos that I've decided to split it into three parts. The first being about my trip across to Venice with the second two focusing on the Biennale itself. My main purpose for visiting Venice was to attend the last in-person session of the Neuroscience and Design class I've been attending. On Thursday afternoon of last week I took the train to Zurich, while doing my best to participate in the course's last virtual session. I dropped…
-
After posting about our time in Boston and Los Angeles, it's now time to talk about San Francisco. Before finally (in the next post) getting around to the whole point of the trip. Let's hope it's not too much of an anti-climax. On Monday of last week, Dagmara and I arrived in San Francisco after a short hop from LA. Seeing the Marin Airporter brought back lots of memories from when I lived in San Rafael from 2000 to 2003, back before Uber and Lyft made airport drop-offs a breeze. I can't count the number of times I took the…
-
In the last post I talked about arriving in Boston. I've deliberately skipped the reason we were in Boston - and in San Francisco afterwards, too - as I'll cover those in an upcoming post. I do want to spend some time talking about what we did between Boston and SF, though. When I originally looked at the options for this trip, I first thought about spending the weekend in Baltimore with my son: it turns out he's in full-on exam period, though, so it wouldn't have been the best time to visit, to say the least. Besides that he'll…
-
After a relaxing long Easter weekend, on Wednesday I was back on the train to Zurich airport. This trip is primarily for events we're holding in Boston and San Francisco, but we decided to insert a stop in Los Angeles between the two, to catch up with a number of people there and and to visit venues for the LA28 Olympic Games. But first, I had to get to the E gates at Zurich airport. Not that this was particularly arduous, I just happened to snap a photo on the train that goes there. I've recently been granted frequent flyer…
-
It's been a sobering few weeks at the 'desk, as it seems everyone on the planet now knows. Seeing close friends being laid off - some of whom I've known for more than 20 years - is painful. I've so far avoided posting anything publicly - beyond the odd comment on others' posts - because I'm one of the lucky ones to have kept my job and even posting messages of support has a LinkedIn-esque performative feel to it. That doesn't mean I'm not here for anyone who needs help, of course, I just feel that posting about it when…
-
Since missing out on all the great snow over Christmas and New Year, I've been doing my best to catch up. This weekend left me feeling quite a bit better. The skies were clear, and while it hadn't snowed much before the weekend... ... it did snow overnight on Saturday. I was on the first lift up on Sunday and so got to make the most of the fresh snow accumulated on the pistes. Sheer joy.My flight on Sunday evening was at 6pm from Zurich, so I had to leave the slopes around noon to leave me enough time to…
-
In the last post I shared some experiences from the first half of our two-week trip to the United States. Now we'll look at the second half. After leaving Bethany Beach we headed northwards along the coast, stopping at a few outlets along the way. Shopping in Delaware is presumably a thing because of the lack of sales tax. I will say that from this trip - and my son's stay in US generally - it's obvious that prices have gone up a huge amount over the last few years. Switzerland used to feel really expensive when compared with the…
-
We're back from a wonderful two week break in the United States. In this post and the next I'll share some pictures and talk a little about the experiences we had. Since much earlier in the year we'd planned on spending the holidays in the US with our son who's studying for an exchange year in Baltimore. This was well before it became clear that the Alps would be getting the most snow over the holiday period than we've seen in the last decade or so. A bit of a shame - we typically enjoy the Swiss slopes at this…
-
Here we are again, at the end of another year. This time last year I posted a compilation of Autodesk's holiday greeting messages, and I thought I should do the same for 2024. This year's are very nice: I've been using the one with fairy lights for my Zoom backdrop for the last week or two, and it's been going down a (winter?) storm. Last year I reflected on my personal year ahead a little bit - and how our son would be studying in Baltimore for the academic year between 2024 and 2025. As it happens we're heading across…
-
What seemed like a few short weeks after Autodesk University 2024 in San Diego, last week I was back in the San Francisco Bay Area for internal Autodesk Research meetings. On the Saturday I hopped on a flight from Zurich to San Francisco. The flight itself was comfortable enough - at least it was direct. I love arriving at SFO. It brings back all kinds of memories of when we lived in the Bay Area back in 2000-2003. The sun was setting as I took a Lyft into downtown SF. I stayed one night at Hotel G, which was on…