As I’ve said many times, I love working in technology, and wouldn’t do anything else. On the downside though, its a life outside the limelight, unless you happen to be Steve Jobs.

Unitron, who need no introduction, invited me to join them at a client event (I would be supporting a practice management system called Blueprint, along with the president of Blueprint, Henrik Nielson).

It was a 2 day event, so I was planning a trip to Oxford at some point, to visit all the pubs featured in Inspector Morse. First reality check, Gareth (previously “mithering” Gareth) point out that there wouldn’t be any free time. “Were up really early, go to bed really late, and don’t have a minute free in between”

No matter, I’ve never been frightened of hard work, so we jump in the van and head south. Once we arrive, I’m delighted to find how nice the hotel is.

First job is to put up the stand. Believe it or not, everything that you can see behind me, fitted into the 2 plinths on either side. I was so proud of the construction, that I asked to be photographed in front of it.

Shortly afterwards, we all headed into town to a steak house for dinner. I got to meet Henrik from Blueprint software and Gary a marketing expert. Late to bed, I really liked my room (and did the typically British thing of raiding the shampoo, tea and tea/coffee).

Up early the following day, the event started in earnest. There were a number of keynote session, we had staff to man the stand and I worked in a room with Henrik, where he gave several sessions on the software’s functionality.

After a stressful day, we had a debrief from Chris. Since it was Chris’s birthday, there was a special Unitron cake .

Later in the evening there was an official dinner. I mingled around the bar, and met some of the customers.

At dinner I get to wear my dinner jacket and enjoy the awards. To be honest, the meal wasn’t as good as the previous evenings, but I enjoyed the formality off it.

I spent the evening with Gemma, Chris and Gareth from Unitron. The surprise of the night, when David Thornton won an award for best Regional Sales Manager.

The party carried on into the early hours, and a good time was had by all.

So, am I quitting IT, to move into sales and marketing for a life of hotels, buffets and dinner jackets.

No way. I had a brilliant time, really enjoyed it and want to do it again, but its no way as interesting as pure technology, and its exhausting. Thanks to Chris & Mel from Unitron, for inviting me.

You can follow Unitron on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UnitronUK

My excellent friend Gareth got married a few months ago to his childhood sweetheart Katie, in Cuba.

Obviously, not everyone could make it there, so they arranged a small celebration at the Paddington Hotel in Warrington.

I couldn’t really afford to go, but they are such good friends, that saved a bit of money here and there, and went along. The hotel was simple and unassuming, but the bed was really comfortable, shower was piping hot, and they served me 3 times at the catered buffet 🙂

They had excellent broadband. Early evening, when I was in the bar, Gareth’s son was in some distress. I was told that Peppa Pig would resolve the problem. I watched 4 episodes of this rubbish. Time taken out of my life, I can never get back, but at Freddie was euphoric !

In the evening, there were loads of family members, including Gareths Dad and Brother (both electricians) who I’ve worked with previously. Once the Unitron crew arrived, I made sure everyone had a drink, and sorted out the chairs so they could all sit together.

I had been at work during the day, so headed to bed a bit sooner than I would have liked. A fantastic evening all the same. I’d like to thank Gareth and Katie for inviting me to their event and Lyndsay for giving me a lift home the next morning after breakfast (I didn’t know Chester had a Hocky club, apparently its got 2 !).

I saw this sign, and couldn’t resist putting it up ! (for the record, I do use twitter for real-time blogging, on my website, but I don’t do the whole followers thing.

Something else I’ve been looking at recently, is a thing called way back machine. It shows snap shots of websites over time. I’ve been looking at johnsunter.com from 2004 onwards and it was pretty nostalgic.

A cool app for IPhone called runpee actually tells you when the boring parts of films will happen, and when its safe to go to the toilet and not miss anything important in the film.

I’m busy drawing up a 2nd Bluelist, if anyone has any suggestions, give me a shout.

I’ve recently been video conferencing with Frank. Its amazing to be able to “sit-across-the-table” from someone who is on the other side of the world.

Passed by Lush the other day, and they were giving away old tables. I got smart one for the kitchen, I’m really impressed.

TV wise, boardwalk empire is back along with Fringe, and a new series I’ve started watching called Revenge. Dr Who finished the Saturday just gone. It could have been better, but finished off a story ark going back 3 years.

I watched a film called Debt. An old school thriller, I really enjoyed it.

Well, that’s all for now, but near and far, the search for adventure continues…

Just a day (and a heavy hangover) after my talk at the Chester Globetrotters, I was off to see Lisbon.

I added Lisbon to the 2nd bluelist after watching an interview with Simon Calder. In it he said it had some fascinating things to see, but still remained quiet, as most adventure travellers didn’t go there. He also said it was the cheapest capital in Europe to visit.

I travelled by Easyjet from Liverpool with Dan and Glenn. We found a nice hotel, with private rooms for only £29. Problem was, it was quite a few miles away from the main attractions.

The weather was superb throughout. I especially liked Belam, and the Maritime museum (Vasco De Gamma has always been one of my heroes, and the museum is based in a former chapel where he was blessed before embarking on journeys).

It was still a johnsunter.com adventure, so there were plenty of laughs, beers and good food.

Ill be doing a write up in the next couple of days, stay tuned.

Next on the bluelist, Israel.

 

I gave my talk for the Chester Globetrotters on Saturday the 17th of September.

Although I had been looking forward to it, I was very nervous (I hadn’t slept for the 3 nights before). Thing is, you cant have it both ways. You cant turn up and expect an interesting talk each time, and the refuse to have a go yourself.

In the end, it went down very well, I talked about the blue list, how it started and stuff like that. Because it was a travel talk, I used the middle to talk about a trip to Borneo and finished off, with a few random anecdotes and completing the bluelist on table mountain.

Thanks to everyone who attended, especially my friends Tony, Ralph and Aud.

Cooking Mexican.

My cooking continues to get better. You can laugh if you want, but my goal has always been to cook well enough, to work in a pub kitchen.

My career in IT is well established once again (I’m the UK head of IT for the Global market leader in hearing aids after all) but having spent the previous year in unemployment, I’ve decided that you can’t be too careful.

Steve and Glenn continue to come around to my house to try out my food. The other evening was a significant milestone. I made shredded beef taco’s. It took ages to prepare, but I was delighted with the end product.

After finishing it, Glenn commented, that he would have paid money to eat it. A few more meals from my list, and then my next milestone, is a fusion mix dinner party !.

Facing fear and embracing adventure.

Its ridiculous.

I live in one of the smallest City’s in the world (the diameter across the Chester wall, is a 3rd of a mile) yet I keep losing touch with friends (What must it be like for people who live in Beijing or New York 🙂

A lad I know called Mark got in touch recently. We haven’t seen each other in ages, but it was great to hear from him again. He mentioned he had set-up a blog and I was enthusiastic to read it.

Having done so, I heartily recommend it to everyone reading this. There is one particular section about overcoming fear and taking a leap (I wont say any more, as I don’t want to spoil it).

It is frankly superb, and pretty much summarizes my own thoughts on the subject, completely (although they are explained far more eloquently than I could have done).

http://letsgoliving.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html

Fantastic blog Mark and hope to hear from you again soon.

My adventure talk at Chester Globetrotters.


Well, only a week until I give my talk at the Chester Globetrotters (I have to say, that I’m a bit nervous).

How could “chatterbox” John possibly be nervous you might be wondering ?.

Well, these are people with extensive travel experience, and Its not like coming back from Borneo and impressing the office junior, who normally holidays in Ibiza !.

A few of your have emailed me and apologised for not being able to attend. Its no problem, and I would just like to thank you all. Its 2 years in November since I completed the Bluelist, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the help from various people who contributed inspiration, training, information, equipment (and sometimes cash !).

The 2 years since have been a bit quiet on the adventure front, but I’ve done as much as I possibly could, chasing adventure at home, and I still managed to visit Budapest last year and I’ll be visiting Lisbon the day after the talk.
Next year I’ll begin the 2nd Bluelist !, so from the 1st of January, ill be recruiting for trips.

Chester and District Walking group.

If you’ve see me recently around town or at work, I continue to hobble around like Dr House (if you dont watch the series, Hugh Laurie has a limp).

I have Plantar Fasciitis, an inflammation of the arch in my right foot. I didn’t realise it, but once you have worn a pair of trainers or shoes for 500 miles (effectively 1 years worth of regular use) the internal structure, will probably be ruined, and the footwear will provide no support, nor protection from jarring.

This would have been very useful information in advance of my injury, but as so often in life, you find out what you needed to know after the fact. I have arch supports in my work shoes, and I have bought a brand new pair of Merril Moab ventilator (my 4th pair, like an old friend).

Alas, it will take at least month to repair the damage, and I can’t walk more than a mile or 2 (I am 10 days into the month though).

Its a bit of a nuisance, as walking is the thing I most like to do, its one of the few things that’s still free, and its pretty difficult to see the outdoors without walking.

Lucky then, that before my injury I got involved with the Chester and District walking group. An brilliant outfit, that organise weekly weekend walks (and one evening a week during the summer). The picture above, is a walk around Tarporley I did, showing the view back towards Manchester.

I also attended their monthly social with Glenn, where we walked around the Chester walls, and visited a few pubs (it was really good, as many of the Pubs I don’t usually visit). Finally, I did a walk that took us through Sefton park, lunch at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral and then finished off in the City Centre during the Mathews Street Festival.

One of the things I like most, is the organisation and planning of the trips. Im a bit of a contradiction as a person (and Its my experience that a lot of people are).

I like the freedom and the “do what you like” of walking, but I also like structure (what time are we leaving, how are we getting there, what are the plans for lunch). The trip to Liverpool, organise by a smart chap called Brian, was researched and planned like a military operation.

It was great to be able to to turn up and walk, knowing someone had taken care of all the details.

On the subject of adventures at home, my friend Jo (my only truly virtual friend as we have never spoken or met, and communicate solely by email and fb) has set-up this google map list, with days out for nurds.

Artificial Intelignce.

I absolutely love science fiction. Not because I’m weird, and wear Star Trek uniform Pyjamas. No, I love Sci Fi because it illustrates to me, what life and humanity could be.

I suppose the other reason I like it, is that I already lead a relatively normal life. Let me explain that. I lead a normal life, and want to watch TV, about things that are presently impossible like time travel, or traversing the galaxy meeting aliens.

Watching things like coronation street, feels like a duplication to me. I lead a normal life, why would I want to watch a program about people who also lead a normal life (albeit with a bit more scandal).

One of my favourite series, is Battlestar Galactica. I like is so much, that on the evening of the last ever episode, I tried to talk Tony (then Landlord of the Frog & Nightingale) into hosting a them night, with staff wearing uniforms and serving customers saying “so say we all !”.

Unfortunately, football was on the same evening and a threatened walk out of the staff if they had to “dress up silly” put paid the idea.

Anyway, the basic story is that humans create robots to do menial jobs. Over time, the intelligence/learning capability of the robots is increased so they can perform these duties more quickly.

You can guess what happens next. As machines become intelligent, they become sentient. I once heard a joke from a Sales director at Microsoft. He said how can you tell the difference between intelligence and artificial intelligence.

A few of us replied with the classic Turing test he replied it was much simpler. An AI machine would say where do you want to go today (the Microsoft Logo at the time) and the intelligent computer would say “what am I doing on this table. I want to go for a walk 🙂

In Bat Gal, the machines decide they want their own lives, there’s a war…

I saw an article on the BBC recently. It showed a chat bot robot. Basically it sits on-line, and you talk to it and it’s said to learn intelligence this way.

Just for fun, they placed 2 chat bot’s in close proximity. They started arguing almost immediately 🙂

You can watch it here.

New York and the World Trade centre site.

Loads has been said about the September the 11th, 10th anniversary.

Some people say America brought it on themselves due to foreign policy. Others say the war on terror needed to start 15 years earlier. For me, its one of those situations, where the more information I get, they less I understand.

My own view ?. The death of 3000 penguins would be a tragedy. I feel for the family’s of people who lost loved ones and in between invasions and threatening youtube video’s, hope that something has been learned from this, so the chance of it’s recurrence is reduced, if not avoided completely.

Made me think though, about my visit to New York.

A lot of people think that New Yorkers are aggressive people. I don’t think so. Life there moves at such a pace, that they don’t always have time for pleasantries. When we went to a convenience store, to buy some wine, the owner was amused by our inability to organise the currency (all the bills are the same size).

He reduced our bill as payment (according to him) for brightening up his evening 🙂

You can read about my trip here, here and here, but I saw this fascinating interactive thing on BBC News which showed details of the new World Trade Centre site (its shouldn’t be called ground zero any-more, its time to move on).

I was invited to a corporate event at Speedkarting in Warrington.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to take part as I had injured my ankle, but I’ve been to Speedkarting on several occasions and driven on their smaller circuit, so I really wanted to see the full size one.

At one time, Speedkarting’s main circuit was the biggest in Europe.  It had loads of twists and turns and had elevated sections and chicanes.

It was run by Unitron (you may remember I went to their Christmas party last year and attended there Era launch with Concorde).

Everyone assembles outside the cafe for a group photo (although I wasn’t able to race, I got involved as much as possible).

The Karts were of the usual superb quality. Because of the relatively small number of participants, most people took part in 8 or 9 races.

It was invigorating to see the Karts fly around the course.

In the end, it was Chris Auty, Unitron’s UK managing director who came first in the race. My assistant Dan, actually came third, which brought much pride to the IT department.

Brilliant time had by all. Just want to say a quick thanks for Mel and everyone at Unitron for another brill event.

Phonak wins war of the workplace.

Each day on Wire FM, they have a general knowledge quiz, where teams from 2 company’s compete. Its run over a week, and the team that wins, stays on to the next week.

Amazingly, our team won 8 consecutive weeks. Finally a previous team, who retired undefeated (Arnold Clark) were brought back to play us. In the end, Phonak were victorious, and retire as the most successful team, ever to take part.

 Walking the Baker way.

Tony had been talking to a friend called Gosia, who was interested in joining us for a weekend walk and they’d asked me to pick one. It was a no brainer really, I instantly chose the Baker Way.

The Baker Way is probably my favourite Cheshire walk.

It runs from Chester Railway station, to Delamere Forest railway station. Its a brilliant walk, because it has a long section along the Canal, where you can stop at the Cheshire cat for refreshments.

Once you’ve arrived at Delamere forest, you can explore, have something to eat at the visitor centre and then get the train straight home again.

Gosia is a friend of Kasia Pirog, that Laura Croft of the Manchester Social circles group. I had originally met Gosia, when we did the Yorkshire 3 peaks (as a scientist, she was the person who explained why the replicators in Star Trek, could never work !).

Overall, a brilliant day. Unfortunately, I lost my way, when we were an hour from Delamere, and added an hour to our journey.

If you’re interested in walking the Baker way, there are details here.

Back to cooking.

I’ve started to cook again.

One thing that I really enjoy is making soup. Steve furnishes me with vegetables from the allotment, and then I cook them up. So far I’ve made 5 different kinds of soup (some of them conventional, some my own “creation”).

I’ve also started using my steamer. Its really quite smart. I get home from work, fill it up with water, put some vegetables, a salmon fillet and some baby new potatoes into it. Then I get organised for the evening, change my clothes, read my post, make some phone-calls. By the time I’ve finished there is a healthy and delicious meal waiting for me (one is cooking right now, as I type this).

The other thing I’ve started doing, is working my way through the cooker list.

I’ve mentioned before that its to easy to buy a cookery book. Read through it, and then put it on a shelf, never to be opened again. I go through my cookery books, make a list of the things I’m going to cook, with the name of the actual book, and the page number).

I then laminate these, and cross them out, as I cook them. Acapulco chicken, is a Ainsley Herriot meal, I haven’t cooked in years (Frank was still living in the UK, the last time I cooked it). I had Steve around the other evening and cooked it again.

It was just as nice as I remembered it. Over the weekend, I made French toast and pancakes, so there’s 2 more I can cross off the list. Later this week, Glenn is coming over to try my first foray into Mexican cookery, when I’ll make Tacos with shredded beef.

Evening at Carluccios.

 I’ve always wanted to visit Carluccios on Bridge Street in Chester.

With the exception of a curry, I feel a bit daft going out for dinner with a male friend, and usually struggle to find one of my mates up for fine dining anyway.

Enter Julie, my old friend and new-found dinner companion.

Carluccios had an amazing menu, which was really inexpensive. While reading there menu, I saw that they also do a picnic, which you can take away and costs £45. We both had mushroom pasta, which seemed to go down well.

The thing I was really looking forward to was the Realda wine. Only 7000 bottles of it are made each year (you can read about it here ) and 5000 are purchased and sold through Carluccios restaurants. at £8.50 per glass, it was the most expensive wine I’ve ever drunk. I normally prefer Merlo, but it was the nicest Cabernet I’ve ever tasted.

The shop even features a Deli, and we had a look around.

Problems at work, and learning about new technologies.

The best way to connect a network between buildings in a campus scenario, is usualy to use optic fibre cable, underground trough duct’s. If the building is across a public road, this can present problems (not technical problems usually, just loads of legal and administrative problems from people like the Local council).

Another option, is a Laser link unit (what used to be called a line-of-site laser). Its possible now to get them to upto 10gig capacity, the one we use at work, is rated at 1 gig.

The other day, our laser link stopped working. We have triangulated redundancy (both the buildings are connected over comm’s lines to our head office, so we can route data via there, if there’s a problem), so everyone was back working again quickly, but the question was, what was actually wrong with it.

Old documentation told me that each laser “head” had an ip address. Pinging one of them worked but not the other. More confusing, each laser head, seemed to have 2 Ethernet leads connecting it, which confused me (why not 1 ?).

Later, we couldn’t ping either unit, so what was happening ?. At times like this, it doesn’t make sense to spend hours and hours theorising, when your out of your depth. I contacted Open Network Solutions, who sent down 2 lads, Mike and John to assist.

On closer inspection, one of the laser heads wasn’t balanced, and was sending too much light to its partner. The partner, much like human retina will close down when this happens. Ironically, the head that stops responding is usually the one that’s working perfectly.

The other thing, is the 2 Ethernet leads. The laser heads, only use ip for management. One of the leads provides power over Ethernet to the head, and on this lead, you can connect to it over a browser and see what its doing etc. The 2nd lead (the one that actually carries the data) operates at layer 2, so has nothing to do with ip numbers.

On closer investigate, both units had lost power and reverted to factory ip numbers. This explained the problem pinging them, even when they were back working. We unlocked the laser heads and re-set the ip numbers. We can now quickly identify the exact problem, should this happen again.

Like so many times in IT, the trick isn’t to find out how something works, so much how its supposed to work. If you don’t know, you’ll try to send data down the management line, and never understand why you don’t get the outcome you want !.

A quick thanks to Mike and John for all their help.

Lyndsay is back from Peru

Congrats to Lyndsay at work, who has returned from the Inca Trail. A fantastic experience, she also spent time in the Amazon, which I’ve never done. I’m glad I was able to help out with organising and equipment. If anyone is reading this and needs some help with a trip, give me a shout (don’t forget, Ill be giving a talk on Adventure Travel at Chester Museum on Saturday the 17th of September).

Happy Birthday to Dan and Louise from work.

Finally, thanks to Steve, for his comments relating to my thriving Japanese Garden:

“Having read your website recently, I noticed that your friend Lisa just thought it was a collection of pots! All I would say to Lisa is that you have to take the same view as ‘Capability’ Brown. He was a famous eighteenth century landscape gardener, who took the attitude, ‘You have to see the plants as they will be, rather than what they are now’. Lisa sounds to me as if she just expects ‘everything right here, right now’. That is never going to happen with gardening, especially on a budget!

 The Bamboo, False Castor Oil plant and the pine tree will grow into quit substantial plants given time and a bit of re-potting.  Then it will look a bit more Japanese. Thank Glen for his description of ‘Little Tokyo’.”

Some good things about the recession.

A pub in Chester closed down because of the recession (I wont say which one). It re-opened, and they had an open mike night. I hated the previous incarnation, but the new one, was packed. I had a great evening.

I’ve always felt that some pubs in Chester trade on their name, when there not actually very good pubs. This proves that if you don’t give the customer what he actually wants (descent beer, friendly atmosphere, good music) he will vote with his feet.

Determined to get back to full fitness, I headed for Warrington to meet Tony for a days walking.

I had originally planned to cross the river, follow the path of the Weaver canal, pass through Runcorn and finish of in Frodsham.

I wasn’t concentrating too hard on navigation (and why would I, we were meant to be relaxing). Next thing, we were wandering along the Trans Penine Way heading east.

It was pretty fun, as we’d never walked it before, and seemed to be a long straight route.

As we walked further along the way, we came to this board-walk area around the wetlands.

Although the river that runs through Warrington is quite thin, its gets much wider as it heads towards Runcorn.We passed a pub next to a boat yard, and I hinted to Tony that we should get a pint. It fell on deaf ears, so we soldiered on.

We wandered through Spike Island, and then to the Runcorn Bridge.

 Although I’ve driven across it, I’ve never walked across it.

As we reached the foot of the bridge, some drunks offered us directions to Birkenhead.

I couldn’t decide if Tony was determined or just unhappy in this picture.

 I’ve never considered climbing the bridge, but I’d be more worried about Tetinus than falling off.

Carried on walking through Runcorn. Some parts of it were a bit rundown. Got lost just towards the end (seem to keep doing that lately).

Dropped down into Frodsham, a respectable 21 miles.

Popped into the Helter Skelter. We normally have a drink here, before getting the train home. On this occasion, the customers and staff weren’t welcoming or friendly at all, and I wont be going there again.

Another brilliant day out, that cost £2.