Entries Tagged 'Life' ↓

Just coming to the end of my first day in the Cambridge office. Totally gobsmacked by the views of Boston. It is great meeting the people I have been working with in person. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming.

Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been great. I was caught in a heavy thunderstorm last night. The rain hammered down for three hours with no let up. I found shelter in a nearby Abercrombie and Fitch store which became a living hell after an hour. Ended up having a Clam Chowder Bread Bowl then onto a great little bar where a pint of Bud was $1.50 so it wasn’t all bad.

I will be going to my first baseball game tomorrow night to see World Champions Boston Redsox take on the Texas Rangers. Its a hard job but somebody has got to do it

I recently bought a book (Exposure Photo Workshop) in a local Waterstones shop at the reasonable price of £15.99. In the back of my mind I knew I was probably paying more than I would online at Amazon or Play.com. Having just checked, Amazon.co.uk have a massive 35% discount on the book. Ouch!

I thoroughly enjoy rummaging around bookshops when I am in town. I much prefer sitting down and leafing through a book than using dodgy Look Inside features or the Comment minefield. The problem is, when I see a book I am interested in a little voice whispers in my ear “Its probably cheaper on Amazon”. So I usually set the book back planning to look it up online, which I usually forget to to anyway. Is the “in store” experience and convenience worth the extra markup? How many times do you buy a book online only to realise its not quite what you were expecting? It is definitely worth more but maybe not 35% more! I think bookstores should take a leaf from the likes of Tesco and declare the difference in price compared to the major etailers. At least that way, I could make an informed decision on the spot, and unless there is a massive markup, I’d probably buy it there and then.

The sad thing for me is how good IT books are a dying breed in bookstores, being replaced with smaller collections of terrible “Dummys Guide to …” and crud like “How to use Excel” and “Ebay hacks”. No doubt this is due to Internet savvy IT pros buying their books online or increasingly reading ebooks. I guess we have only ourselves to blame.

Well I have decided that I should start to do my bit to save the planet. Yes thats right, I have decided to start using public transport once more, Northern Irish Rail (NIR) to be exact. OK, maybe it has more to do with the fact that I am now working in Belfast City centre and can no longer avail of free car parking. The fact that it now costs more than £60 to fill my car’s tank is a pretty persuasive argument too. And then theres those cursed motorway roadworks (Grrr!) to contend with.

So how do I feel about my loss of freedom? Brilliant! No longer do I have to trudge up and down the motorway, stuck in traffic jam hell, listening to the same old crap on the radio, bored old of my skull and going slightly insane every day.

This morning I was able to relax on the train, reading my latest Digital Photography magazine while listening to my iPod. There was no traffic, no hassle and best of all - NO STRESS! I also find that living to the train timetable gives you something to get up for in the morning. I have to leave the house at 07:30 or I miss my train whereas my car was always just sitting in my driveway, waiting for me to turn up, whenever that may be.

Now, I have used public transport long enough to know that its far from perfect. I know there will be days when the train is late, breaks down, I don’t get a seat or get stuck beside some smelly teenagers listening to crap music too loudly. But I don’t care. The car is dead. Long live public transport!