Recently in photos + text from the road Category

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView.

Tues 05.21.13 - My Grandpa has been in the hospital for the last 5 days and the way my Mom and I have been dealing with it is to go to Dog Beach after visiting the hospital.

The best thing we saw was a small pod of dolphins surfing the waves and the adults were teaching a young dolphin to surf in the wave. It was lovely. Unfortunately, due to sun glint on the waves from my angle (see Belle photo above), I was not able to get a photo with the dolphins in the waves.

It was a lovely late afternoon, dolphin photos or no.

Sat 10.13.12 - Early this evening, I had a delightful dinner with Steve Marshall and Hannah Donnovan at Yauatcha in Soho.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView.

Tues 10.09.12 - Nip in the air, wearing a fuzzy fleece jacket to do my evening walk around the park - London in the autumn is glorious. Much much better than the late summer/early fire season that passes as fall/autumn in L.A.

Sat 10.06.12 - Photo of the Albert Memorial on the edge of Kensington Gardens taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 Pureview on a really bright late morning after a big rainstorm the night before (aka last night).

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView cameraphone.

Wed 09.26.12 - I attended a Social Media Week London session "Inside the Firewall: The Social Workplace Revisited" at the Hub Westminster in the late morning and then after a few errands went back to my hotel to see if my missing suitcase had arrived or at least had been located. No updates on American's website bag status area more than 24 hours after the bag had been known to be missing, so I called the number I had for the Heathrow lost luggage area and a nice man said he would research it and call me back.

He called back within 10 minutes, said a bag matching mine's description had been found in Chicago with all the tags off of it. He had me identify a few items and yes, it was my bag. Yay! Yay! Yay!

After this call, I decided that it was time to go on a late afternoon walk around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park since the rain had stopped and I needed to go on a long walk and take photos as the light at this time of year is lovely.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView.

Tues 09.25.12 - American Airlines and their pilots seem to be in a pre-strike contract negotiation show down with passive aggressive behaviors on both sides that directly affect passengers. Thus, my trip from LAX to London via Chicago did not go smoothly. I was pretty laid back through all of the shenanigans of delayed flights, missing pilots, crew changes, etc, as I was just danged happy to be escaping the late summer / early fall blast furnace known as Los Angeles and on my way to London where cooler temps prevail.

But when I arrived in London and found that my big bag with all of my clothes, most of my toiletries, my shoes, several programming books, rain coat and umbrella did not follow me but had been last scanned in LA and never scanned in Chicago, I was a bit upset. Luckily the lost luggage agent for American in London was very kind and helpful.

As of this writing, 12 hours since leaving Heathrow, my bag still has not been found or even seen in LA or Chicago. Bugger.

Still danged happy to be visiting London, even if I only have one change of clothes...

;o)

Mon 07.23.12 - Photo taken of Scruffy and Belle at Dog Beach this morning taken with my Nokia 808 PureView.

Sat 07.21.12 - Happy Birthday to my sister, Allison!

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 Pureview Camera phone.

Sun 06.24.12 - In November of 2009, in a flurry of dreaming about traveling, I made a Life List that was mostly crazy, off the beaten path travel to-dos. This last week and weekend I checked off #16: Spend a week in a cabin / summer house on a lake in Finland.

When I originally wrote my Life List, I had hoped to be able to spend a week in a Finnish summer cottage on or by a lake, but when it came time to book, in early May, such an event for the last two weeks of June, I was unable to find a rental cottage that was not HUGE in my rental price range. By HUGE, I mean for 18-24 people - overkill.

Carol Chen came to the rescue when she found out that I was planning on attending Devaamo 2012 in Tampere, Finland, by offering to let me stay in her extra room at her apartment in the wooded & lake'd Tampere suburb of Hervanta.

For one week, I had the opportunity to get to attend Devaamo, hang out with amazing geeks, wander around Tampere & Hervanta, and walk around local lakes. Not quite the summer cottage by a lake, but close enough for rock'n'roll without the mosquito bites!

This weekend, Carol and I went to Turku on the far southwestern coast of Finland, which is the jump off area to visit the Finnish Archipelago - Saaristomeri. We left Tampere via the Inter-City train mid-day on Friday, which was Midsummer's Eve and arrived in a very shut down all closed Turku on 2 hours later.

Luckily for us a few of the tourist options were open, like the Turku Cathedral and a few riverfront bars and restaurants. We had dinner at a nice jazz bar with a swing/ragtime live band, as well as bought tickets to tour a bit of the inner islands on the S/S Ukkopekka for the next day.

Yesterday, Midsummer, we went on two island cruise trips on the S/S Ukkopekka, the first one a day tour to Naantali that included four hours of wandering around old town Naantali and the Moomin island, and the second was an evening dinner cruise to Loistokari Island. Due to rain in the evening, dancing on the island was cancelled, but dinner on the boat with a sing-a-long band was still a lot of fun.

Today I returned to Helsinki with much of life still shut down for the national holiday weekend. I am very fortunate to be able to visit Finland in the summer, particularly over one of their biggest holiday weekends of the year.

People, do not allow any Finn to convince you otherwise, but the big secret they like to keep is how amazingly beautiful Finland is in the summer, even if a bit cloudy and rainy at times. Finland is a truly lovely country.

Fri 06.22.12 - Happy Midsummer's Eve to you and yours! While the astronomical / solar summer solstice was on June 20, 2012 at 23:09 UT*, Midsummer is celebrated in Finland on the first Saturday after the 19th of June.

I am fulfilling a life list point by spending Midsummer in Finland. I had hoped to go to a summer cottage on a lake, but that didn't work out, so my friend Carol and I are in Turku down at the start of the Finnish island archipelago. So there is water and a midnight sun.

Tomorrow for Midsummer, we are going on a cruise to an island about an hour from Turku, as well as visiting Naantali.

Finland is very beautiful in the summer, green everywhere, wildflowers blooming, and well worth the visit.

* 6:09pm on June 20th in the Pacific Daylight Time Zone and 2:09am on June 21st here in Finland.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 this afternoon.

Fri 06.08.12 - End of the last full week that I am in London, here is a photo from my window taken this afternoon when the storm clouds were dark and peeps of sun were shining through.

I leave on Tuesday for two weeks in Finland - both Helsinki & Tampere with a side trip to Turku, then home to SoCal.

I continue to work on my mobile apps, but I know that I owe you all photos and some updates, which will hopefully come over this weekend.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mon 05.07.12 - My first full day in London coincided with May Bank Holiday which meant that streets and Park were fairly quiet, so a good long walk in Kensington Gardens was a lovely way to start my AppRetreat. A good long walk after catching up on my sleep and battling jetlap induced nap attacks.

After a rather dry winter, London and the UK have had the rainiest April ever and now the beginning of May is a lovely soft green with flowers unfolding everywhere.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sun 05.06.12 - I arrived at London Heathrow to start my two month #AppRetreat this afternoon around 1:30pm or so. The airplane journey from LAX to LHR was fairly uneventful and so was passing through passport control and customs at Heathrow.

Upon arriving at my fave studio hotel and getting settled in, I checked twitter, only to see that Dhruv Bhutani was tweeting about sightseeing London. After a few back and forths, I found myself taking the Tube down to Oxford Circus and meeting up with Dhruv, Nirave, and Dani at the Slug and Lettuce next to the Apple Store on Regent's Street.

[Insert jokes here about mobile geeks meeting up next to the Temple of the Oh Holy Jobs..../]

I last saw Dhruv and Nirave at MWC in February and Dani last year in Berlin and did not expect to see any of the three on my first evening it in London, so it was a delightful surprise to find Dhruv in London for a few days for the Galaxy S III launch.

From our meet up point at the Slug and Lettuce, we walked over to Busaba eathai on Wardour Street in Soho for a very tasty dinner of chicken, chicken, chicken, and aubergine, as well as a lot of mobile device and app programming talk.

Thanks to Dani, Nirave, and Dhruv for making my first night in London a great one!

Sat 05.05.12 - And she is off!!! #AppRetreat

Photos taken in Barcelona by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sat 02.25.12 - Here I am in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012.

As I wrote here, I decided to go to Barcelona for MWC this year rather than Austin for SXSW Interactive. Now that I am here, even though MWC doesn't start until Monday, I am so glad that I decided for MWC as Barcelona is fabulous and quite a bit cheaper than Austin.

I left LAX on Thursday the 23rd and arrived here at 7am yesterday morning. Even though I sort of slept on the plane, once I made it to my rented studio apartment I had a nap attack that lasted too long. In the afternoon, I wandered around my neighborhood and went grocery shopping.

In the evening, I met up with Dhruv Bhutani who is also in town covering MWC for Fone Arena, and we went to have drinks and tapas at Cerveseria Catalunya.

Barcelona is really lovely and I am glad that I am here.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mon 02.20.12 - Tonight I met Erika in Gardena to try out an Izakaya style Japanese place called Azumi Restaurant. It was very good and the people watching was also good.

Today was an interesting day in the neighborhood and I had a data meltdown of which the most important bits were not recoverable, so reading this article in the New York Times on "Dead for 32,000 Years, an Arctic Plant Is Revived" was a bit of a balm.

I would like to hope that I can revive my lost files sometime before the next ice age... ;o)

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Wed 02.15.12 - I am continuing to attempt to find a balance between getting work done before I leave for Mobile World Congress next week and blogging/adding photos from the last 6 weeks. Yes, I am that behind, but I won't declare blogging bankruptcy.

The amusing part of this photo of taking my car to the car wash is that about an hour later clouds trotted in and then there was a deluge. At least my car was clean before the rain came down...

;o)

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mon 02.13.12 - Early this evening when Scruffy and I went out for our walk it was about 57F and a good wind was blowing off the ocean, as we rounded the corner towards the Seal Beach Pier, I could see sand blowing across the road and palm trees bending in the wind.

We had to turn around about 2/3rds of the way through our normal walk as the blowing sand was irritating our eyes and making me cough. It looked lovely though, in a strange dry misty way.

Sat 01.21.12 - Today Erika, Scruffy, and I drove my brother's truck from the Los Angeles area up to Pleasanton, California, to Vicky and Ed Wilson's for a short visit and to pick up some furniture. It was a short trip, enlivened greatly by Erika using my mobile to check into the most fun and/or bizarre venues on Foursquare.

The above photo was my favorite from the weekend, taken with walking Scruffy in Buttonwillow with my Nokia N8.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sun 01.0812 - Big thanks to Stephanie and Bryan Rieger for hosting me for the weekend in Edinburgh. The Rieger's gave me a proper introduction to what a great city Edinburgh is.

Photos by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mon 01.02.12 - It must be a warm winter as a camellia bush in Bayswater is already in full bloom.

Today I had the opportunity to go with Alison Austin and Andy Budd to the Grayson Perry 'The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman' exhibition at the British Museum and then to the Teddy Bear Tea afterwards in the 3rd story cafe.

The exhibition was wonderful, humorous, thoughtful, and many layered; go see it. I have a new favorite artist thanks to Alison!

Best part of writing this blog post is discovering that Grayson Perry's teddy bear, Alan Measles, has a blog.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sun 01.01.12 - New Year's Day 2012 was a day of bringing in the social new year with several lovely friends: I had dim sum lunch at the Imperial China in SoHo with FJ van Wingerde, then FJ took me to Maison Bertaux for tea and cake where Helen Keegan met up with us for a good conversation and more tea, then I took a bit of a convoluted train trip (due to signal problems) to Blackheath to have dinner with the newlyweds Cami and Alan. It was a truly lovely day.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sat 12.31.11 - The last day of 2011 was spent with a nice big walk through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park before returning to my hotel to get ready for Mecca's New Year's Eve Party in Kew just outside of London Central. The party was a good deal of fun and I met some very lovely folk, it was a relaxed way to spend New Year's Eve.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 12.30.11 - This afternoon, I had the marvelous opportunity to join Mecca and Michal for lunch at The Gilbert Scott in the St. Pancras Renaissance hotel. The food was lovely, the architecture amazing, and the conversation was good.

It was a lovely way to ring out the old year on the Eve of New Year's Eve.

Mecca's photos from lunch are on the Great British Chef's Flickr.

Thurs 12.29.11 - I arrived mid-day, with a couple hundred other folk on a Boeing 777 from LAX to LHR, in London today for a two week Christmas present to myself. After cleaning up, I decided to step out in the late afternoon darkness to buy 120 film for the ADOX at Jessops, check out the sales at the various Clark's in and around Oxford Circus, and get wet as I forgot my umbrella at the hotel.

Very glad to be in London.

Wed 12.28.11 - This morning I had a breakfast and a nice long walk with my mom before going back to my apartment to pack for my trip.

Sat 12.17.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8

Thurs 12.08.11 - Photo of the peacocks in the ponies' riding area taken at Irvine Regional Park by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 12.02.11 - After a lovely three days at the Qt Dev Days 2011, a visit with family Kim-Hoffman and the newest family member Ms. Isabelle, dinner at In-n-Out with Jason and Ernie, and then lunch today in San Francisco with Faruk Ateş, it is now time to return home to SoCal.

Fare the well, San Francisco, I'm driving home.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Thurs 12.01.11 - A big congratulations to Min Jun Kim and Jason Hoffman on the birth of the lovely Ms. Isabelle on Monday Nov 28th. I had the opportunity to go meet Ms. I on her first night at home from the hospital along with Annie Lin, Ernie Hsiung and Jason Schupp. It was like Camp Camp had moved to San Francisco.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Thurs 12.01.11 - As the Qt Dev Days 2011 wrap up and are over, I present to you a summary of the photos I took over the course of the three days of the training and conference.

I really enjoyed and learned a good deal over the course of the Qt Dev Days. One of the best parts is the high ratio of nice and smart folks I met and the conversations were good. I attend at least 3-4 conferences a year and this one rates up there with Mobilism for my fave conference of the last 2 or so years in terms of content and inspirational conversation with other attendees.

Big thanks to Qt, Nokia, Digia, Futurice and all the other sponsors for putting on a great conference.

Even bigger thanks to all the lovely folk I met, the good conversations on mobile & development that were had, and letting me take your photos. Y'all rock.

See everyone next year, if not sooner.

******
My Qt Dev Days conference notes:

Qt Dev Days 2011, Day 1: Training
Qt Dev Days 2011, Day 2: Conference Sessions
Qt Dev Days 2011, Day 3: The Last Day

Mon 11.28.11 - Tule fog photo taken while descending the Grapevine looking out into the Central Valley of California while driving up to the San Francisco Bay area for Qt Dev Days. By the time I started driving up Hwy 152 to Gilroy and finally saw stars and a clear sky, my eyes were rotating like the Mac beach ball during an app crash.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Thurs 11.24.11 - Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. The dogs and I went out to cousin Lynn's house in Palm Desert where various members of the extended family had gathered for a lovely Thanksgiving feast.

Sun 11.06.11 - All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 even though she felt like she was running late all danged day long. Shakes fist at time change.

Thurs 11.03.11 - Photo of Nancy Gieschen taken by Ms. Jen outside of Elite Restaurant in Monterey Park, CA, with her Nokia N8.

Thurs 10.27.11 - Yesterday and today, Erika and I made a whirlwind roadtrip from LA to Bishop to see the fall colors, get out of the big city, visit Rachel & Glenn's new baby, and see my Mom at her house. It was a good fun adventure, the baby is extra cute, the fall colors lovely, and as usual the Sierra Nevada mtns were majestic.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sun 10.09.11 - Photo of Belle and another dog at Huntington Beach's Dog Beach taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 10.07.11 - Erika and I went to the Getty Center to see the Pacific Standard Time exhibit and we walked out to the Gardens to see the sculpture. I video'd George Rickey's "Three Squares Gyratory" as it looks unwieldy but the squares moved surprisingly well in little wind. It was lovely and peaceful.

Video taken by Jenifer Hanen with her Nokia N8.

Sat 10.01.11 - With Clinton Jeff visiting for the weekend between Intel's App up and AdobeMax, we decided to take Scruffy and Belle to Dog Beach. Belle had a bit too much fun.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Thurs 09.15.11 - Happy 9th wedding anniversary to Ryan and Tammy!

Wed 09.14.11 - I love the colors, art, and creative vintage stations at Salon Pop in Long Beach.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N950.

Sun 09.11.11 - The best of the photos from Allison and I's road trip to Buttonwillow today. We left Huntington Beach at 11am, drove north on the 405 to the Interstate 5 take photos and Qik videos along the way, until we arrived in Buttonwillow, Calif., at 1:24pm to go have lunch at Tita's Pupuseria. This was a zany, dada-esque road trip to make Buttonwillow the road trip destination rather than the road stop.

After lunch we drove to the Tule Elk Reserve, then southbound along Elk Hills, eastbound along the 119 to Old River, southbound on Old River Rd to Copas Road to Murray Family Farms farmstand for some fresh fruit, back on the southbound I-5, to Fort Tejon, and last but not least, we stopped at the Vista de Lago Vistor's center at Pyramid Lake before finishing the afternoon with a drive-by of downtown Los Angeles.

After a bit of disappointment in the past, I gave Qik video a try again today taking about 15 or so videos that were streamed to Qik's servers. As per my past Qik experiences, I returned from my adventures frustrated that Qik would not play the videos and that there are no saved video files on my phone. Next time I will video with the phone, come home, stitch the videos together and upload to Vimeo. Qik is too unreliable and I now have no access to my videos of the day.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Thurs 09.08.11 - The contrasts in saturated color caused me to stop, pull out the camera phone, and shoot the dusk framed by Target red. Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia n8.

Fri 09.02.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 08.12.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 while driving northbound on the Pacific Coast Highway over the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 in and around Seal Beach, California from Tues 08.09.11 to Thurs 08.11.11.

Regarding the first photo, the local magnolia tree that was completely caught under the tank of a runaway Volvo, has not just rebounded a bit, but is now thriving nearly 18 months after the accident. Go, little tree, go!

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sat 08.06.11 - I also worked on my mobile app Qt Quick/QML app and worked on client sites. I really really really really really need to get back to my daily blogging practice. Please forgive me. Gah.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Friday 07.15.11 to Sunday 07.17.11 was CampCamp 8.0 in Truckee, Calif. The above photos were taken as I drove up from the LA area to the Tahoe area, while at CampCamp, and then on the drive back home.

I truly enjoyed CampCamp 8.0, not only for the lovely location, but for the great hangout time with friends old and new. Jason S brought lots of games, others brought musical instruments, Jackson, Courtney, Robert, & Jonathan cooked wonderful meals, photowalks with Jason S, Sergio, Winnie & Jenny, Hoff slept off jetlag, Annie knitted marvelous bits for the new baby & Amelia, and Amelia and Scruffy provided lots of entertainment - over all an excellent weekend in the mountains! Big thanks to MJ for organizing us!

And one day, I will beat Sergio at Settlers of Catan. One day...

Fri 07.15.11 - Driving northwards on Highway 395, somewhere between Independence and Big Pine, on the eastside of the Sierra Nevada mountains on my way to Truckee/Tahoe for CampCamp 8.0.

Sat. 07.03.11 - Photo of Belle taken at Dog Beach with Ms. Jen's Nokia N8.

Tues. 06.14.11 - More photos to be added.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Thurs. 06.09.11 - Today we got up nice bright and early to get to the Hyderabad airport in time for a morning flight back to Chennai. Once in Chennai, we had lunch at Abhi's family's house before going back to the lovely Madras club for a good rest and then to dinner at Kryptos, a Greek restaurant. A lovely bridge day.

All wedding photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Wed. 06.08.11 - The wedding ceremonies, both in the Hyderbad and Tamil traditions, were conducted in the morning from 8am to about noon, with the Hyderbad brahmin ceremony being first and then the Tamil ceremony, followed by the wedding lunch afterwards.

The best part about the Hyderbad and Tamil Hindu wedding ceremonies is that almost all the families and close friends are involved and on the stage or involved in the pujas and rituals. It was really lovely to be able to be right there and be apart of the ceremonies.

It was a true treat to be invited to attend Abhi and Sudha's wedding, big thanks to both the Natarajan and Bahumanyam families for their gracious hospitality.

Big, gigantic congratulations to Abhi and Sudha, may their marriage be filled with love, laughter, and much joy.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Tues. 06.07.11 - Written description upcoming

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Mon 06.06.11 - Chennai to Hyderabad for the wedding. Write up coming next.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 cameraphone.

Sun 06.05.11 - These are all photos from my first day in Chennai for Abhi & Sudha's wedding. This was pre-wedding festivities 'down' day. Fellow(ess) wedding guest, Diana Morales, and I arrived about the same time in the early early morning to the Chennai airport and after a wee bit of delay due to slow baggage, we plus Abhi, who picked us up, were off the Madras Club to check in. A small sleep was procured and after Abhi had a groom ceremony, we met up with Chandrachoodan Gopalakrishnan (aka Chandru) for lunch at a famed Chennai dosa/idli place. It was tasty.

After lunch, Chandru and I went off to meet up with Sharanya Manivannan, and they guided me in shopping for some appropriate Indian attire to wear to the wedding. Chandru and Sharanya were very helpful, as my own taste veres towards minimalism and South Indian weddings are to be bright & sparkly. I am good at sparkly personality, but not sparkly clothes.

In the evening I met back up with Abhi and Diana, as well as met Kelvin another wedding guest who had just arrived and we went to dinner at Ente Keralam, which was very tasty, before turning in to get a good night's sleep.

Sat 06.04.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 when enroute to India, somewhere over Iran or the Caspian Sea.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 on Fri. 06.03.11.

Tue 05.31.11 - Driving northbound on the 5 fwy.

Sat 05.21.11 - All photos of various family and friends at Grandma Grace's memorial service & dinner taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8. Photo slideshow of Grace's life coming soon, I will email the link to interested parties.

Sun 05.15.11 - Mobilism 2011 was a great conference, not only were all the sessions quality, but all the folks I met were smart and thinking about as well as doing some cool things in the web and mobile web space. Big thanks to PPK, Krijn Hoetmer, and Stephen Hay for all of their vision & organizational abilities!

It was also great to be back in Amsterdam after 18 years away, even if for only 4 days, as the city has changed for the better and it was lovely to see a small slice of it. I will definitely come back.

Sat 05.14.11 - Here are a few of the photos taken during and after the sessions of Mobilism 2011, as well as on Saturday. Both Thursday and Friday, I had the opportunity go out for delicious dinners with other speakers and friends. On Thursday, we went to Kantjil & de Tijger, a dutch-indonesian fustion place on Spuistraat, and on Friday a super delicious Italian slow food restaurant, Pianeta Terra on Beulingstraat. After dinner on Friday, we went over to Cafe Hoppe (Anno 1670) for drinks and talk.

On Saturday, after all of Mobilism was over, I rented a bike from the hotel, took the ferry to the NDSM werf and met up with Martin & Abi Sutherland and their family for a late lunch at the fun & funky Cafe Noorderlicht and then a lovely bike ride up to Het Twiske, as well as a tour of the book cases. As a proud reader & book addict, I too, one day endeavor to have a two wall living room / book case showroom. Even more important, Abi gave me a few good book recommendations.

On Saturday evening, after a bike sprint back to Amsterdam and a walking sprint to the Ouid-Zuid, I met up with Brian LeRoux, Joni Rustulka, and her brother Jay. We had dinner at an Eritrean/Ethiopian restaurant that had the best tasting Ethiopian food I have ever eaten (not usually a fan) and a lot of laughs. All was well, until 2am, when the food decided it didn't like me. Oops.

All photos at Mobilism or afterwards taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Web 05.11.11 - Photos in Amsterdam by Ms. Jen taken with her Nokia N8. I arrived in Amsterdam at 9:30am after not sleeping on the plane at all, so the first day before Mobilism was spent in a fun jet lag / sleep deprivation haze. After a small nap at the hotel, I took myself off to Brasserie Luden for lunch, then I walked down the canals through the western canal district of Amsterdam. Around 4pm, I found Brian Rieger and joined him, Stephen Hay, Stephanie Rieger, Lyza Gardener, and Peter-Paul Koch (PPK) at the cafe of Felix Meritis.

The evening was a fun speaker dinner boat cruise of the canals of Amsterdam as well as the Ij and Amstel rivers. It was lovely to see Amsterdam from the water and to be able to socialize leisurely with other mobile folk. The best part is we went by the big cruise ship docks to pick up Steve Souder and Andrea Trasatti half way through the cruise. While others went off after 11pm to get a drink and talk some more, the wall of NO SLEEP hit me hard and I went off to bed.

Great first day of Pre-Mobilism in Amsterdam.

Sat 05.07.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 at the Huntington Beach Dog Beach.

Tue 04.26.11 - I am at Heathrow nice, bright and early for my flight back to LAX, so here is a set of photos taken with my Nokia N8 in the last 24 hours. I have more photos from UX London, this weekend in Oxford, and yesterday's golden light hour toddle around Kensington Gardens to post for you all when I get home.

While I love all of you, next time I am not coming to London during school Spring/Easter break. For as much as staying for the Royal Wedding might be a great spectacle, in the bread & circuses sort of fashion, I am escaping... ((O.o))

I want to say an EXTRA BIG Thank You to Family Hicks for a lovely weekend, to the nice folk at Clearleft (esp. Sophie & Andy) for UXLondon, and all the friends and colleagues I met up with while I was in London. You all made this trip. Thank you.

;o)

Photos taken on Sat 04.23.11 and Sun 04.24.11 by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 while visiting Family Hicks in Witney, Oxfordshire.

Saturday the 23rd was Leigh's birthday, celebrated with a lovely lunch and friends over in the evening. Sunday the 24th was my birthday, celebrated with Steve Marshal, Ian & Manda Lloyd, as well as Alun & Mego & Alex Rowe coming over for Easter lunch and hang out time.

The weekend in Witney was good fun, relaxing, and very nice to be in the countryside. Big thanks to Jon and Leigh Hicks for their hospitality over the weekend.

All photos from Week 2 of my stay in London have been taken with my Nokia N8 from Mon 04.18.11 to Fri 04.22.11.

This week was a mix up of meetings, meet ups, work, and resetting my self with walks in the various parks. This week was overly warm by my standards but my London friends were excited that California weather had reached them in April - shorts & t-shirt weather. By mid-week, I started to regret being here during the British and European school Easter/Spring breaks, as it was somehow even more crowded than high tourist season, so I did my best to avoid the tourist spots.

I don't know if it was the heat, or the students on break, or what, but London felt like it was going to erupt in riots all week - a very jangly feeling. Today the tide changed, as the students mostly seem to be gone and have been replaced with adult couples on a long weekend break - much more laughter tonight.

Tomorrow, I go off to Oxfordshire to spend the combined birthday weekend / Easter with Family Hicks. Then back home to California early next week.

Last Sunday, April 17th, I met up with the lovely Hywel Reed for lunch and a wander around Chelsea. I have not spent much time in Chelsea, other than having to once get on the Tube at Sloane Square, so it was good to wander in and amongst the lanes, take a stroll on King's Road, and go to the Saatchi Gallery, as well as sit in the garden of the pub that has the supposed largest pub garden in London. As you can see, Chelsea was awash in spring flowers.

Big thanks to Hywel for lunch, the tour of his neighborhood, and for the lovely afternoon. All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8

Photos from my first week in London taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 from Tues. 04.12.11 to Sat. 04.16.11. Photos from UXLondon and the day in Chelsea with Hywel coming up next.

Mon 04.11.11 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen on Westbourne Grove, Bayswater, London, with her Nokia N8.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 03.18.11 - Month seven of the storm drain infrastructure improvements. Cracks on the edge of the road construction on Electric Avenue. Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.