Journal tags: florida

I’ve been on a sabbatical from work for the past six weeks.

At Clearleft, you’re eligible for a sabbatical after five years. For some reason I haven’t taken one until now, 19 years into my tenure at the agency. I am an idiot.

My six-week sabbatical has been lovely, alternating between travel and homebodying.

Belfast

The first week was spent in Belfast at the excellent Belfast Trad Fest. There were workshops in the morning, sessions in the afternoon, and concerts in the evening. Non-stop music!

This year’s event was a little bit special for me. The festival runs an excellent bursary sponsorship programme for young people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend:

The bursary secures a place for a young musician to attend and experience a week-long intensive and immersive summertime learning course of traditional music, song and dance and can be transformative.

Back in April, I did a month-long funding drive on The Session:

Starting from today, and for the whole month of April, any donations made to The Session, which normally go towards covering the costs of running the site, will instead go towards sponsoring bursary places for this year’s Belfast Summer school.

I was really hoping to hit £1000, which would cover bursary sponsorship for eight students. In the end though, the members of The Session contributed a whopping £3000!

Needless to say, I was thrilled! The Trad Fest team were very happy too—they very kindly gave me a media pass for the duration of the event, which meant I could go to any of the concerts for free. I made full use of this.

That said, one of the absolute highlights of the week wasn’t a concert, but a session. Piper Mick O’Connor and fiddler Sean Smyth led a session out at the American Bar one evening that was absolutely sublime. There was a deep respect for the music combined with a lovely laidback vibe.

Brighton

There were no shortage of sessions once Jessica returned from Belfast to Brighton. In fact, when we got the train back from Gatwick we hopped in a cab straight to a session instead of going home first. Can’t stop, won’t stop.

The weather hadn’t been great in Belfast, which was fine because we were mostly indoors. But once we got back to Brighton we were treated to a week of glorious sunshine.

Needless to say, Jessica did plenty of swimming. I even went in the ocean myself on one of the hottest days.

I also went into the air. Andy took me up in a light aircraft for a jolly jaunt over the south of England. We flew from Goodwood over the New Forest, and around the Isle of Wight where we landed for lunch. Literally a flying visit.

I can attest that Andy is an excellent pilot. No bumpy landings.

Cork

Our next sojourn took us back to the island of Ireland, but this time we were visiting the Republic. We spent a week in the mightiest of all the Irish counties, Cork.

Our friends Dan and Sue came over from the States and a whole bunch of us went on a road trip down to west Cork, a beautiful part of the country that I shamefully hadn’t visited before. Sue did a magnificent job navigating the sometimes tiny roads in a rental car, despite Dan being a nervous Nellie in the passenger seat.

We had a lovely couple of days in Glengarriff, even though the weather wasn’t great. On the way back to Cork city, we just had to stop off in Baltimore—Dan and Sue live in the other Baltimore. I wasn’t prepared for the magnificent and rugged coastline (quite different to its Maryland counterpart).

Boston

We were back in Brighton for just one day before it was time for us to head to our next destination. We flew to Boston and spent a few days hanging around in Cambridge with our dear friends Ethan and Liz. It was a real treat to just pass the time with good people. It had been far too long.

I did manage to squeeze in an Irish music session in the legendary Druid pub. ’Twas a good night.

Pittsburgh

From Boston we went on to Pittsburgh for Frostapalooza. I’ve already told you all about how great that was:

It was joyous!

Saint Augustine

After all the excitement of Frostapalooza, Jessica and I went on to spend a week decompressing in Saint Augustine, Florida.

We went down to the beach every day. We went in the water most days. Sometimes the water was a bit too choppy for a proper swim, but it was still lovely and warm. And there was one day when the water was just perfectly calm.

When we weren’t on the beach, we were probably eating shrimp.

It was all very relaxing.

Brighton

I’ve spent the sixth and final week of my sabbatical back in Brighton. The weather has remained good so there’s been plenty of outdoor activities, including a kayaking trip down the river Medway in Kent. I may have done some involuntary wild swimming at one point.

I have very much enjoyed these past six weeks. Music. Travel. Friends. It’s all been quite lovely.

He drew a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m back,’ he said.

I know how you feel, Samwise Gamgee.

I have returned from my travels—a week aboard the Queen Mary 2 crossing the Atlantic, followed by a weekend in New York, finishing with a week in Saint Augustine, Florida.

The Atlantic crossing was just as much fun as last time. In fact it was better because this time Jessica and I got to share the experience with our dear friends Dan and Sue.

There was dressing up! There was precarious ballet! There were waves! There were even some dolphins!

The truth is that this kind of Atlantic crossing is a bit like cosplaying a former age of travel. You get out of it what you put it into it. If you’re into LARPing as an Edwardian-era traveller, you’re going to have a good time.

We got very into it. Dressing up for dinner. Putting on a tux for the gala night. Donning masks for the masquerade evening.

It’s actually quite a practical way of travelling if you don’t mind being cut off from all digital communication for a week (this is a feature, not a bug). You adjust your clock by one hour most nights so that by the time you show up in New York, you’re on the right timezone with zero jetlag.

That was just as well because we had a packed weekend of activities in New York. By pure coincidence, two separate groups of friends were also in town from far away. We all met up and had a grand old time. Brunch in Tribeca; a John Cale concert in Prospect Park; the farmer’s market in Union Square; walking the high line …good times with good friends.

New York was hot, but not as hot as what followed in Florida. A week lazing about on Saint Augustine beach. I ate shrimp every single day. I regret nothing.

We timed our exit just right. We flew out of Florida before the tropical storm hit. Then we landed in Gatwick right before the air-traffic control chaos erupted.

I had one day of rest before going back to work.

Well, I say “work”, but the first item in my calendar was speaking at Web Summer Camp in Croatia. Back to the airport.

The talk went well, and I got to attend a performance workshop by Harry. But best of all was the location. Opatija is an idyllic paradise. Imagine crossing a web conference with White Lotus, but in a good way. It felt like a continuation of Florida, but with more placid clear waters.

But now I’m really back. And fortunately the English weather is playing along by being unseasonably warm . It’s as if the warm temperatures are following me around. I like it.

Two weeks ago I was on stage for two days hosting Leading Design in London.

Last week I was on stage for two days hosting Clarity in New Orleans.

It was an honour and a pleasure to MC at both events. Hard work, but very, very rewarding. And people seemed to like the cut of my jib, so that’s good.

With my obligations fulfilled, I’m now taking some time off before diving back into some exciting events-related work (he said, teasingly).

Jessica and I left New Orleans for Florida on the weekend. We’re spending a week at the beach house in Saint Augustine, doing all the usual Floridian activities: getting in the ocean, eating shrimp, sitting around doing nothing, that kind of thing.

But last night we got to experience something very unusual indeed.

We stayed up late, fighting off tiredness until strolling down to the beach sometime after 1am.

It was a mild night. I was in shorts and short sleeves, standing on the sand with the waves crashing, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

We were looking to the south. That’s where Cape Canaveral is, about a hundred miles away.

A hundred miles is quite a distance, and it was a cloudy night, so I wasn’t sure whether we’d be able to see anything. But when the time came, shortly before 2am, there was no mistaking it.

An orange glow appeared on the ocean, just over the horizon. Then an intense bright orange-red flame burst upwards. Even at this considerable distance, it was remarkably piercing.

It quickly travelled upwards, in an almost shaky trajectory, until entering the clouds.

And that was it. Brief, but unforgettable. We had seen the launch of Artemis 1 on the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket ever launched.

I’ve been back in Brighton for just a couple of days and now I’m about to embark on a fairly lengthy trip away to the States.

Tomorrow I’m flying to a somewhat chilly Chicago. I’ve only been there once before, but I absolutely loved it. The architecture! The hot dogs! Cheeseborger! Cheeseborger! Cheeseborger!

I’m going there for Drupalcon. I’ll be leading an HTML5 workshop on Monday. I’d love to try to Abe Froman my way into the Web Science Workshop the day before, but I’ll probably be too busy finding somewhere to print off workshop materials (a service the conference organisers are unwilling to provide …it’s like the opposite of how Sophie runs UX London).

Right about the time that Drupalcon is wrapping up, I’ll head down to Austin for the annual geek pilgrimage to South By Southwest Interactive. I should really pay close attention Tantek’s SXSW packing and check list.

This year, I’m not giving a presentation or speaking on a panel so I can relax and enjoy myself. If you’re heading to Southby, I look forward to sharing a Shiner Bock or three—one of the reasons I like going is not just to see people I haven’t seen in ages, but also to meet new people who equally geeky about the web.

After the craziness of Austin, I’m going to unwind for a while with the in-laws down in Saint Augustine, Florida, which should be nice and relaxing.

After that, I’m off to Portland, Oregon; a place to which I’ve never been but about which I’ve heard plenty of good things. There’s geek meet up planned for March 24th. Come along for a beer and a chat.

Finally, I’ll finish up in Seattle for the first Event Apart of the year. I have no doubt that the conference will be excellent, as usual. I just hope that the presentation I’ve got planned can meet the high standards set by the other speakers.

If you’re going to be in any of those places—Chicago, Austin, Saint Augustine, Portland, or Seattle—I look forward to seeing you there.

I’ve always been a space geek. Therefore, I’ve always wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center. There’s a museum there and a bus tour you can go on. The tour stops five miles away from the launch area and while you can’t go into any buildings, the activities within are explained to you.

I fulfilled a fantasy this week. Not only did I go to Cape Canerval but I managed to get an “access all areas” look around the place.

It’s all thanks to an engineer called Benny who listens to Paul Boag’s podcast. In a startling revelation, it turns out that Paul’s listeners are in fact rocket scientists. The NASA “friends and family” day just happened to fall right at the end of Refresh Orlando. Benny invited Paul along. Andy and myself invited ourselves along.

As it turned out, there hadn’t been one of these open days since 2001. We were very, very fortunate and privileged to be allowed behind the scenes at NASA.

In contrast to the regular tour, we drove right up to the launch pads, including launch pad B, which had Discovery rolled out and ready for launch on December 7th. We also got to go inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, something that is normally not allowed. It’s incredibly huge. I mean this is seriously big. Imagine a really big building and then imagine it being bigger.

Best of all, we went inside the orbiter hanger. Endeavour was inside. A space shuttle… a freakin’ space shuttle! That was just so incredibly cool, I can’t even begin to describe it.

I hope I’m not coming across as gloating here: I really just want to share my excitement. It was quite an experience to get so close to the ultimate geek toys. The only way it could have been any better was if Jessica could have been there. Soulmate that she is, I think she might be an even bigger space geek than me.

Clearly, my descriptive powers aren’t up to the task of cataloguing the day’s sights, so I’ll just point you to this photoset on Flickr.

Thanks, Benny!

Whereas the first day of Refresh Orlando had a lot of good inspirational talks, day two had a lot of good hands-on practical advice. The mobile Web, accessibility, JavaScript, and UI design were all covered thanks to Brian Fling, Jared Smith, Nate Koechley, and Cameron Moll. Excellent stuff all ‘round.

The conference has now drawn to a close. It’s been a funny little event. It started off looking like it might be your typical formal, somewhat stiff hotel-based mini-conference. But then it also had an ad-hoc grassroots feeling to it, too. On the one hand, there were good facilities provided (Wifi, power sockets, etc.), but on the other hand, it felt like it was kind of self-organising. The organisers took a very hands-off approach, which generally worked fine although there were times when a little more guidance would have been good.

This was the first Refresh Orlando conference so I guess it’s still finding its feet. I suspect any future events will be more clearly geared towards being either more structured and slick, or go the other direction and become more like a Barcamp.

The nice thing about this conference was its intimacy. Like Barcamp, there was a limited number of people (between fifty and sixty) gathered together in the same place for a couple of days. The crowd was smart, eager, and relatively diverse (for a Web conference). As always, it was the conversations that were had after the presentations were done that really made the trip worthwhile. That’s where I usually find most of my inspiration and this time was no exception. Impromptu geek lunches and dinners were the order of the day.

Now it’s time for me to leave the sunshine state. I’ll be catching a flight back to Gatwick later today. I’ve met some great people — some for the first time, some with the pleasure of reunion — and I’ve topped up my creative juices nicely. Time to get back to work.

The Refresh ‘06 conference is underway here in Orlando, Florida.

I flew in with Andy, Paul on Monday (and boy are my arms.., etc.). The next day, we went on a pilgrimage to the Universal Studios theme parks. Seeing as we’re a bunch of big girl’s blouses, we steered clear of the scary rides like The Hulk but we did enjoy the cool simulations, especially the immersive three-dimensional Spiderman experience. This must be a pretty good time of year to visit. There weren’t any big crowds and we never had to wait too long for a ride.

With the fun out of the way, the business begins. Yesterday was workshop day. Andy did a half-day on CSS, which was really informative. I followed up with a half-day on Ajax. I felt a bit bad about jumping right over the JavaScript and DOM stuff and diving straight in with XMLHttpRequest, but time was of the essence.

With that out of the way, the socialising could begin earnest. The geeks began to arrive from all corners of the country. Now those geeks are gathered together in a room listening to words of wisdom from the speakers.

The WiFi is kind of flaky so I may not be able to upload any pictures to Flickr just yet, but there are plenty of power strips which is always a good sign.

I’m in Edinburgh. Jessica is here for a translator’s conference and I thought it would be fun to tag along for the ride, seeing as I’ve never been here except for an in in-utero visit which doesn’t really count.

My, what a place! The architecture here is extraordinary. Wherever you look, there’s invariably a building or ten steeped in history.

I’m staying in a hotel in the new part of town. New is relative. This is the Georgian part of town. Just about every house is built in that classical Georgian style that Dublin likes to pride itself on (sorry Dublin, you’ve got nothing on Edinburgh). The cumulative effect is like stepping back in time.

Then there’s the old part of town. Here, the feeling is medieval. Stone buildings, narrow alleyways, winding steps, and of course a great big huge castle overlooking everything.

After meeting up with Alan White for a chat yesterday, I went for a wander around the old part of town. There’s a real pleasure of discovery in coming across the house where Boswell met Johnson, or going into the Writers’ Museum in a narrow 17th building.

I haven’t been able to capture much of this city’s splendour in pictorial form because the weather has been fairly drab and rainy. It all adds to the atmosphere, I suppose.

Actually, I’m kind of glad that the weather has driven me back to my hotel room to take refuge. I can stop procrastinating and get on with last minute preparations for the Refresh Web Standards Conference in Orlando, Florida next week. I’ll be giving a half-day workshop on Ajax and a presentation on microformats. If you want to come along, there are still tickets available for a mere $395 — and that includes an open bar at the end of each day!

So tomorrow I fly back from Edinburgh down to Gatwick. Then, the next day, I’ll be back in Gatwick to get on a transatlantic flight to the sunshine state.

Right now I’ve got old buildings and bad weather. In another two days I’ll have new buildings and good weather. It seems that never the twain shall meet.