Weekend in Canterbury

Finally, finally, finally!
Last Sunday we finally made it to Canterbury, the capital of south east UK. Every time (3 times) I tried to buy tickets there, I had to cancel it.
So what can I say about the city of my dreams?
It is an amazing and ancient city (check out the photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/20061217Canterbury).
We went to Canterbury cathedral, one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. After couple of hours there, we went to West Gate Gardens which we really beautiful and finished our short visit in local restaurant (Waivers).

Christmas Diner with "YourMove" James Muir

Today we have been invited to Christmas dinner with Alyona's colleagues from "YourMove" James Muir (estate agency where she is working).
We went to Greek restaurant called "Kolossi" in the centre of London (56-60 Rosebery Avenue, London). The food and the company were EXCELLENT! Personally, it was one of the best restaurants I have been in London. It was small, cosy restaurant with home style kitchen and VERY Greek service (which is open and friendly).
We stayed there for almost 4 hours, eating and chatting away. During that time, there was never an empty table, so if any of you are planning to come over to eat make sure you book a table before.

PipeX Project 0.3

Today, I made totaly new release to PipeX.
This release includes 2 new categories of pipes:

• Manipulation: allows to manipulate data of fly (to upper case, to lower case, etc.) without storing it in temporary variables/buffers.
• Security: filter out or replace malicious input.

Binary, Is it really this hard?

Today, I showed my wife this:
0 0000 0
1 0001 1
2 0010 2
3 0011 3
4 0100 4
5 0101 5
6 0110 6
7 0111 7
8 1000 8
9 1001 9
A 1010 10
B 1011 11
C 1100 12
D 1101 13
E 1110 14
F 1111 15
Is it really this hard to understand?

Yoga

Yesterday I went to Yoga for the first time in my life. It was quite different from what I expected. Let's start by saying that I was the only male in the class (except teacher, who had pines but I'm not sure that he is male). So we started by stretching muscles I didn't know exist to the point it hurts, then changed position (asana) and started over. The teacher always corrected me and I'm not so sure why... :) But, the best thing was 'relaxation': to lay on the mat in darkness and try not to sleep! Loved it!
In anyway, I do feel some improvement in my posture. I stand more straight with straight shoulders.

Long Way Home...

What a long way home,
OK, so after we returned from Bahamas we spend another 3-4 days in Miami. Over there, we have celebrated Thanksgiving at Hilel's (http://picasaweb.google.com/bronsteinfla/Thanksgiving) and then headed to NY. In NY we met again with Xusha and Daniel (http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/23112006NewYork), made some shopping (ohhh, I hate it so much) and finally took a taxi to JFK.
And now, to the interesting part of the story.
When we finished boarding and the airplane was on a runway to take off, one of the his engines went MIA (Missed In Action). On a runway, just a seconds before airplane was in the air! I think I have to say thanks to the pilot for breaking before end of the runway. So, we spend additional 'extra' day hours in New York, met with Daniel and Xusha again and finally, after 18 hours delay, we flew to London. Needless to say, that when alarm (smoke detector) sounded during the flight, it was pretty scary...
But, after all 'bad' things I wrote, I have to say that Virgin Atlantic were more that OK. They have placed everyone (who wanted) in nearby hotel, paid for meal and provided transportation. We didn't had to 'fight' for it. They have also compensated us with 50% discount for all future flights with them for the next 18 months.

South of USA

Are we in Miami yet?
Yes we are! We spend first day in Florida in Aventura at my mom's place and the day after we drove to Orlando. In there, we visited 2 parks: Universal Studios and The Island of Adventure (http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/15112006UniversalParks)
So, here we are. A week after we have landed in US we went on a cruise to Bahamas (http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/17112006BahamasAndNassauIsland). We were suppose to have 2 stops: Coca Island and Nassau, but because of bad weather conditions we didn't stop on Coca Island. On Nassau we spend a day on a beach and hired jet ski. The guy who rented the jet ski called my mom "Boss Lady"! After a day on a beach, my skin hurts sooo much! I'm as red as lobster in beer...

Now, my planes are to relax and just to lay down by the pool and read some book.

No more activities!

Pink Floyd Still Rocks!

Hola my dear readers!

So much time passed since last time I wrote here and now I feel obligated to write a short update.

The project I've been involved in UK is (finally) over, so I have spend 2 weeks in Israel working on another projects.

But the real news are that I'm on vacation in US. A week ago, We landed in New York to celebrate my uncle's 50Th birthday. All family from all over the world was there (http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/11112006BorisBirthdayParty). Also, we have meet some friends there and had a really nice time in New York's sights (http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/11112006NewYork).

After 3 days in NY, we flew to Miami. Here we went to Australian Pink Floyd show. It was AWESOME! This music is still rock! These guys made an exact replica of "Eclipse" (I think) show and I couldn't tell the difference. There was so much energy in the music that the crowd went crazy (me too)! This was definitely worth 3 hours of time and 40 dollars!

Today, we are leaving on a cruise to Bahamas for 3 days, so I will keep you updated later on.

PipeX Project

Finally, I did what I always wanted to do: to open my own open source project. It is called "PipeX" and it will allow developers to create pipes (yeah, like water pipes) to direct data flow in their application. Each pipe will perform different actions on the data inside (like encrypting, compressing and etc.). You can access it on SourceForge.net website at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pipex/.
I made a first release of pipeX library today. It includes only BWT ( Burrows-Wheeler Transformation / Block Sorting) algorithm, but that is a good start.
Next pipe I'm planing to release will be implementation of LZW compression algorithm.

WE ARE LONDONERS

IELTS

Long time no see, my dear readers (am I the only one?)...

No much to write here. Everything is more or less the same : home-work-pub*-home. So, apart from working, what else can I write about last couple of weeks :

• I'm studying for IELTS every (free**) moment I have. The exam will be somewhere in October (probably end of the month) and I need to get score higher that 6.5 to be admitted into UK university.
• I was sick in the last 4 days. There is some virus going on in UK right now and I was the “lucky” one... But, don't worry, I'm well now!

Enjoy,

John.

* Only once a week

** Define “free”...

Kramer performance at Brodie's

Kramer is a progressive Rock band from Amsterdam. If you haven't hear about it don't worry, me nether before I started to work with Rob (apart from been musician, he is also identity management consultant). You can check out band's website at http://www.kramer-music.nl/.

Yesterday we went to Brodie's bar to hear Rob and Mark play acoustic set. They were excellent!

They are going to play two more gigs in UK, one in Plymouth and one in Cambridge. If you have a chance, worth your time(and money if you want to buy a CD).

Preston

This weekend we were in Preston. It is about 3 hours on a fast train to the north, so were where there in no time.

To tell the truth, it was not one of our famous “UK Explore” trips, but to visit Ira (Alyona's sister).

So, what can be said about Preston ?There is nothing special about the city and most of the time we were shopping. Actually, it was my wife who was shopping when myself and Ira were trying to drag her out of shops.

The only thing we managed to see expect the shopping malls (and Preston High Street) is Preston park. It is huge and beautiful, with amazing virgin nature.

Enjoy!

Brussels (and Amsterdam)

What a wonderful weekend...

This time, we went to Brussels and to Amsterdam, to celebrate my birthday. I think this one is the best I had...

We took Eurostar from “Waterloo International“ to Brussels-MIDI. It takes 2 and a half hours to get there and it is much faster that do it by air.

Brussels is amazing city : very beautiful, majestic and ancient. We spend the whole day roaming the city and in the evening we met with Arkady and Noga. Together, we saw more of city sights and had couple of drinks. They showed us a female version of “The Mannekin Pis”, “Jeanneken Pis” (peeing girl). That was a pervert sight, but I guess that peeing boy need to have a countepart. Just before the trip, I asked some people about what to do in Brussels. Most of them told me that 2 days in Brussels is too much and that there is nothing to do. That is so untrue! The only problem we had was with 2 French guys whom send us in wrong direction when we asked for a directions to the hotel.

Two days after, we took a Thylis train to “Amsterdam Central”. Another 2 and a half hours on the train the we were there. That weekend, there was a music festival in Amsterdam. There we met Mark and Natasha (A.K.A. Comrade Bonita) and also stayed in their place. The guys are great, so funny and a live! They gave me a very special birthday present: “Venus Trap” flower.

Enjoy the photos : http://picasaweb.google.com/john.markh/BrusselsAmsterdam

Rochester

Another week, another city...

This time we were in Rochester. It is about 45-55 minutes from London by train in south east direction.

Rochester is a beautiful city. Not too large like London but large enough to be interesting. The older parts of the city are built around Rochester castle and cathedral. It is a really old castle of around 1300. If you go there, this is a must place to visit. After paying 7 quid (for both of us), we spend 2-3 hours exploring the old norman castle. When you go to the top there is a really magnificent view over the city.

From the top we noticed a gorgeous leafy park where we spent some time afterwards. The parks there are very different from London “generic” parks, where you see flowers and lakes. Here they are full of trees and shady benches to sit and relax on.

After historical places we went to Rochester high street to do some shopping and relax in an Italian restaurant.

Brighton

Brighton

Ohh.. that was a long week and short weekend.

We took a direct train from London to Brighton and in 50 minutes we were there : sun and beaches. The city is nice and sunny, and the each is cold and stony. Well, not exactly stony, but it is full of pebbles and small stones.

So, first of all, we went to a Saturday market near the train station. It is located in small and very colourful alleys where you can buy everything : from old typing machines to Shakespeare in welsh.

From there, we went to some old church and had a breakfast in front of it. While we were chewing our sandwiches some guy tried to sell us some weed. We were so shocked which guy interpreted as our stupidity and tried to explain to us that it is just “ganja”, “marijuana”.

We have also visited The Royal Pavilion.It is a former Royal palace built as the home for the Prince Regent during the early 1800s. It is notable for its Indian architecture and Oriental interior design.

After that, we went to get some sun tan on beach. We spend more or less 2 hours on the beach (I event managed to sleep for couple of minutes.... undetected by my wife) after which I was red as lobster in beer. Alyona also took a deep in the ocean which was too cold for me (yeah.. it is not fare, she is from Baltic country!).

Ohh... sh*t! I have almost forgot to mention that there was a “love parade” (which means “Gay-People-Walking-Free-On-The-Streets-Wearing-Almost-Nothing-And-Touching-Each-Other”). They also refer to Brighton as “The gay capital of Britain”.

OK, done with the gays...

After 2 hours on the beach, we went to hang around the city, do some (small) shopping and finally got to very nice Italian restaurant (ASK). I have to say, the prices were not sky high but not too cheap either.

To summarize the tripe it 2 words : Good (yeah.. only one...).