Spain again

It’s always the way. I have been planning a holiday trip to Valencia, and flying directly there, without using Easyjet is not easy. I don’t want to use EasyJet because watching “Airline” has put me off for life. I don’t want to use Ryan Air because their UK airports are too far from where I live. They’re both owned and run by greedy entreprenuers with a zero customer service ethic. And beyond all these principled factors, I have never found a £10 ticket offer. Unsurprisingly, they’re not that much more inexpensive.

I looked at traveling via Alicante or Barcelona. Again, not easy synching with trains etc, almost worked out how to do it via Alicante, but the flights out were at appalling times. So I had just booked a return trip to Barcelona when I had the Fly Be site pointed out to me. Doh! I had checked that there were no flights to Valencia from Southampton and Bournmouth, but forgot to go around again when I changed my plans. …

Barcelona

I travelled to Barcelona with Mrs L. and on my return went up to London and travelled by Tube to deliver a presentation to Kable’s “Open Source in the Public Sector”, which reminded me of the weekend in Barcelona, both the prices and experience were better in Spain, although I didn’t travel on the Metro during a rush hour. As I landed, the day before, I received a message that Oracle had bid for Sun Microsystems, I also reflect on the helpful people at Heathrow. This post includes a slide show of my Barcelona pictures. …

Sailing in the Ionian

Sailing in the Ionian

I went on a flotilla sailing holiday in the Ionian Sea, and recorded some of what happened on my sun/oracle blog. This version of the article which is an aggregation of the originals was posted on this blog in July 2016.This holiday had been a long time ambition of mine in order to see Ithaca, the legendary home of Odysseus from the sea. Actually I wanted to land there and explore, but for various reasons, this didn’t happen, and at least I have an excuse to return.  …

Hong Kong …

I have never been to Hong Kong before but have just returned from a trip there to meet up with my new colleagues, the Chief Technologist for the Asia-Pacific region, his country Chief Technologists and their management peers and bosses. It was great to meet such a diverse yet energetic team together with the conversations and social events. I visited one of the restaurants on the peak for the evening and had one of the largest meals I have ever eaten, or at least one with the most courses …