I just got back from my Rugby World Cup trip to the UK. It was one of the most awesome trips I have had <8-)

 

My brother Rob, good friend Tim and I have been planning this for a very long time.

 

Tim flew in from Dusseldorf and he and I arrived at Heathrow just before lunch on Thu 13th Sep. We got a car out to Guildford where my borther Rob and his family are in temporay accommodation. They are in the process of moving to Johannesburg. Tim and I spent the afternoon exploring the Guildford High Street. Guildford is a very old town and was the mid point stop between Portsmouth and London. There is a bunch of rich history here.

 

Rob had the day off work on Friday so the three of us took the train into London. This was my first time in the UK, so Rob and Tim did a great job showing me around. We arrived at Waterloo station and walked down to the Eye. This was a great way to get introduced to London. We then walked around to the Houses of Parliament, past Westminster Abbey, down St James to Buckingham Palace. We then walked back to Westminster and walked down Whitehall, passing Downing Street, and the Horse Guards. We stopped at the Clarence Pub for lunch and then walked on to Trafalgar Square.

 

We then caught a cab and down to the Tower of London and did a quick tour there. We met the first female Beefeater and saw the Crown Jewels. Awesome!!!!! We then took a cab to Covent Garden. We needed to get Tim a Wallabies jersey for the game the next day and there was an Australian shop there. We were successful in getting the jersey and then caught the Tube back to Waterloo. We partied at Rob and Shell's place that night with another Aussie couple - Hi Mark and Sue <8-), after watching England get spanked by South Africa.

 

We got up on Saturday and got started a bit later than we had planned. We needed to drive up to Cardiff for the game which started at 2:00. There was way more traffic than we expected and we really thought at one point we weren't going to get there for kickoff. We arrived at the Backpacker's across from Millenium Stadium where we were staying. We were expecting parking, but there wasn't any. Rob had parked the car outside the hostel, we had 20 mins to get to the stadium. We asked worst case for leaving the car where it was. Worst case was, the car would not be towed and we would get a 25 quid fine. We left the car there and headed to the stadium. We didn't get fined <8-)

 

We walked into the game just as the teams were running onto the pitch. The buzz in the stadium was electric. The singing f the national anthems was a real highlight. There were many more Aussies there than we expected and we got a great rendition of "Advance Australia Fair" going. The Welsh, famous for their singing, especially at the Rugby, did not disappoint with the singing of their anthem, "land of my Fathers". It was awesome. Thanks to Tim we had amazing seats, right on half way, 17 rows back.

 

The first half of the game was a cracker. Australia were well in control at half-time. We thought we had it won at half-time and Wales came out with a different attitude in the second half. It wasn't until a bit of magic from Latho that the game was put away and we came away victors. Attendance 71, 022.

 

Cardiff itself was alive after the game. We went to the Prince of Wales pub for many drinks afterwards. Then it was on to a great estaurant, La Fossa? for dinner after that. Gareth was a Welsh friend of Rob's who joined us for the game and afterwards and he was a great host for the evening.

 

Sunday was the Fiji Vs Canada game at 1:00. I had got up reasonably early and went for a walk to take some photos. Then the three of us went down to Cardiff Harbor for breakfast. I was expecially keen to go down there as this is where some scenes from Doctor Who and Torchwood had been shot. Great shows if you aren't already watcing them. We then went back to Cardiff itself (not far away at all) and did some shopping in a Rugby shop. We also went to Cardiff Castle. In the end we didn't have time to go in but it was great to see from the outside.

 

The Fiji vs Canada game was a great match and Canada were extremely unlucky not to win. We had great tickets to this game too. The crowd was much smaller so we were able to move right down to the front. It was a great experience. That afternoon we drove back to Guildford - the end of an amazing Rugby weekend.

 

Rob was back at work Monday, and Tim was heading back to Dusseldorf. Tim and I headed into London again. We caught the train and went to the Churchill Museum. This was great. After this Tim headed off to the airport and I wasleft to my own devices.

 

I walked back up to Trafalgar Square, from there to Picadilly and from there to Liecester Square. I continued walking down Picadilly, through Mayfair to Wellington's Arch. I then walked around Knightsbridge and stopped off at Harrod's to get a present for Di from Tiffany's <8-) I then caught the tube back to Westminster and toured the Abbey. So much history. I loved it. IT did nothing but wet my appetite for another trip back. I then caught the tube back to Waterloo station and back to Guildford.

 

One of my Rob's friends, Mike Davis, I also went to Uni with him was also now staying with Rob and Shell too. We had a good time catching up and had a great dinner that night.

 

On Tuesday I headed down to Portsmouth for the day. I was interested in seeing the Historic Docks there and I was not disappointed. The HMS Warrior, HMS Victory and Henry VIII's favourite ship the Mary Rose were all there. A harbour cruise was included too which was great. Saw a lot of Royal Navy kit and Falkland Island campaign ships. I then went up Spinnaker Tower for a brief tour before haeding back to Guildford. Rob and Mike picked me up from the station and we went to Woking to have a session in the cricket nets there with some friends of Rob's from work. We had a great time, and then went to a pub in Guildford for a while afterwards.

 

Wed was time to leave. Rob and Shell took me to Heathrow and it was back off home.

 

It really was one of the best trips I have ever had.

So its been a while since I made a post. Nearly 6 months at Y! now and things are going really well. Family is settling in to life in Gilroy well. I have been asked by many for some pics of the new house. I have added a new album with some piccies.

 

cheers,

 

greg <8-)

Happy 15th Anniversary Di!!!!

 

I am on my weekly sojourn to Burbank today but we are having dinner this evening. We are going to Germany over Thanksgiving to visit the McGrath's and we hope to do a delayed something special there.

 

4 months at Y!  last week too.

 

cheers,

 

greg <8-)

Di hit the big 4-0 today. While I have done things to make life as interesting as possible over the last few months for her, like moving us to a new state, new job etc. Di has been wonderful supportive of it all. And I know she missed not having her firends here to help her celebrate her big day.

 

She got a new digitial camcorder as well as a new digital camera. She seemed pretty happy with it all <8-)

 

We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner tonight and had a great time.

 

Time here is just flying. 5 weeks into the new job already.

We had some sad news yesterday. We took our 18 yo cat Mongo to the Vet yesterday becasue she was doing poorly. She didn't come back with us <8-(

 

Di adopted her the year we got married. She was a stray in the aera we were living in. She has been with us ever since. Moved with us in Canberra and the took a drive to Syndey with us. Took the long journey across the Pacific to Seattle with us, and most recently drove down to San Jose with us.

 

She definately had a good life and we will miss her a lot.

Sammie turned 8 yesterday. I am pretty sure she had a reat day, despite the fact we are in a completely different city from her friends, and the place she has pretty much always known as home. We have now been in temporary accommodation in Sunnyvale for two weeks.

 

We started yesterday (only the second wet day we have had since being here) with Sammie getting up to unwrap her presents. We had a great home cooked breakfast courtesy of Di and then the kids watched Viva Pinata. They are having withdrawal symptoms from the game as th 360 i spacked up with the rest of our stuff.

 

They we packed ourselves up and headed to Monterey. We were pretty sure Sammie would get a kick out of the aquarium there. So in torrential rain, we headed down the 101 through Gilroy, which will soon be our new home town, on down to Monterey. The aquarium was truly awesome, even though it was packed.  We had a great lunch there and then did a work along Cannery Row. By this time the sun had come out and it had stopped raining and although a ot cool it was a great afternoon topped off with some Dippin Dots - the ice cream of the future - as Harry loves to remind us.

 

We then headed back to San Jose and stopped off at the house in Gilroy we know we have a contract on for a quick look. We can't wait to get settled in there, but it will still be a few weeks before that happens. Then it was back to Sunnyvale. Sammie loves Kookaburra Wings from the Outback Steakhouse so her birthday dinner request was for those. We found the closest Outback Steakhouse and headed off for dinner. Turns out we ended up in Cupertino, right opposite Infinite Loop and the Apple HQ.

 

All in all a great day was had by all <8-)

Today was my last day at Microsoft after 9.5 years.

 

I am leaving to pursue an awesome job opportunity down in Silicon Valley with another company. The family and I are in the process of packing up the house so we can move down next week. I can't wait to start and everyone is looking forward to the sunny weather <8-)

 

It was very sad saying goodbye to all my friends and colleagues but I know that I wlll stay in touch with the majority of them.

 

Onward to the next adventure <8-)

Harry turns six today <8-)

 

He got some kewl presents from the family this morning. Lots of his favorite things <8-) He was a very happy boy.

Brought to you by the new embedded video feature <8-)

 

I love our national anthem (and I know the words and can belt it out <;-) ) but this was pretty funny nevertheless.

 

 

 

Yeah so its been a while since I posted here. I promise I will get a full update done in the next few days. Things have been pretty busy though.

 

We released a new update to Spaces yesterday and you can read all the details on The Spacecraft.

 

One of the things that has changed for me is that I am going to be working on the Spaces gadget platform moving forward. So I am super excited about the new support for get/set preferences we released. You can see my post about this on the Spaces Developer Platform space.

 

cheers,

 

greg <8-)

 

Spaces has grown very quickly into one of the Web’s mega services. So quickly in fact that we just passed the 100MM user mark and have had to do some architectural changes to ensure that Spaces can be deployed in multiple data centers. We needed to deliver a system that allows for Spaces to be distributed across multiple data centers without requiring a URL that included the data center name. How unkewl would that be? Can you imagine telling your friends and family that the URL to your space was http://cluster25.dc1.spaces.msn.com/gphipps?

Harry graduated from pre-school today!!!!!!!

 

It was a great event this morning. Lots of fun was had by all thegraduates singing their songs and receiving their diplomas.

 

On to Kindergarten <8-)

For yesterday <8-)

 

I am pretty sure she had a great day. She loved the VIP tickets to Cirque De Soleil I got her.

Went to the game last night. I had completely written the M's off when they started the bottom of the 8th down 6 - 2. I was glad I stayed to the end. One of the most exciting games I have been too. While the crowd was small, it was electric as we got up to support our heros.

 

Just before the game we got to see Jamie Moyer warming up in the bullpen throwing to Kenji-san. It is awesome to be able to stand within a few feet of these guys as they do there stuff.

 

Go M's

I can't believe my little girl is seven years old already <8-)

 

As expected she was very twiterpated going to bed last night. We are reading the sequel to "Wee Free Men" right now "A Hat Full of Sky". Sammie was very restless all through the reading <8-)

 

This morning she woke up to lots of presents including a charm bracelet from Mum and Dad, some books and a CD as well. I broke down and got her the illustrated version of "The Hobbit" for me to read to her <8-). Her brother got her some Playmobile things she wanted including a beaver dam set. Gra and Poppy sent over a fabulous watch that is so Sammie. And Nanna got her an Aerial swimming outfit with goggles, mask and flippers.

 

She is doing some stuff with some friends after school and then we are doing the traditional family dinner.

 

Fun, fun, fun <8-)

Went to the first M's game of the year last night. Excitement was high. Who would believe the M's are 3-1 after 4 games. And Felix pitching. His last outing as a teenager. Unfortunately Felix came off second best in the pitching duel and Julio didn't do a great job supporting and we lost 5-0 to the A's.

 

I hope Jamie does a better job today.

 

I am going to be happy if the M's can end the year above .500.

Things have been really, really busy <8-) 

Here is a stream of consciousness on all the things that have been going on….

• The night before Harry’s birthday, Samantha lost her other front tooth. She is of course looking very cute with 3 missing teeth – her two front ones and one of her bottom side ones.
• March 8^th – My niece Briana’s first birthday back in Australia. Yes I rang <8-)
• This also means it has been a year since we were back in Australia last. The time really flies.
• I took Harry to see the movie Curious George. It was a great movie and Harry and I both enjoyed it. Harry is so funny when he just belly laughs in the middle of a movie. Really slap stick humor seems to trigger him the most <8-)
• I took Sammie to see Eight Below. We both really enjoyed this one too. One scary bit which I won’t spoil. I am not sure who jumped higher, Sammie or me <8-)
• I finally got to see The Life Aquatic. WOW! This was great. Not quite what I expected but a really quirky black comedy.
• Lots of happenings with the Seahawks. I find the best place for Seahawk’s info these days is Mike Sando’s blog. Thanks to Bill for putting me on to this.
• I think we have been up to Steven’s Pass 3 times in March. The kids have both come along nicely and Di and I have really enjoyed seeing them develop. Personally my skiing seems to have come along in leaps and bounds this season too. I think it is a combination of parabolic skis, loosing 40 pounds since I skied last and being a tad fitter <;-) I am feeling super comfortable charging down blues these days and it feels great!
• Work is super busy but lots of fun. I will have to start making some posts specifically on work soon. There are a bunch of things we are doing that I want to start giving Spaces users a heads up on
• Our coed Volleyball team finished up our season. I think we had the best season we have had – we still didn’t win any matches though <8-) Lots of games drawn at 2 games all though
• It was my Mother In Law’s birthday too – Happy Birthday Margaret <8-)
• Our friends the McGrath’s are moving to Germany!!!!! Can you believe that? We still can’t. Tim is staying with Microsoft but is having his first team move on nearly 13 years. With my bother and his family in London now and the McGrath’s in Germany I can predict a trip to Europe for the Phipps’s soon.
• Happy Birthday Megan!!!!!!!!
• I have been rereading the George RR Martin “A Song of Fire and Ice” series (see my fave book list). I think I am enjoying this even more the second time and I can’t wait to read book 4. I am about 3/8^th’s of the way through book 3 again. I can’t say enough good things about this series. It is so good I have put off finishing the Robin Hobb’s, The Tawny Man series. I read Book 1 and loved it. Then I started on the Martin series thinking I would intersperse the series as I read them but I couldn’t not keep going with Martin.
• Di and I stumbled across Huff on Shotime. WOW! We are addicted and just in time for the start of Series 2.
• The new episodes of West Wing have been great but it is disappointing to know the series is coming to an end <8-(
• I finally caught Sin City – WOW. I loved it. They really succeeded in bringing the feel of a graphic novel to the screen
• I cancelled my subscription to WOW. The post 60 end game just requires too much time that I don’t have. <8-(
• As you can see from my Xbox modules I have been playing some 360. I LOVE PGR3. It does suffer from issues with having been obviously rushed to market, however it is still a great game. I am working on all plats now. Kameo has been a surprise to me too.  I need to actually play some PGR3 competitively
• The kids had Spring Break last week. Sammie was at a horse riding camp and she had a ball. She loves horses. Harry (dare I say mini-me) was booked in for a science camp but it was cancelled at the last moment due to lack of sign ups. Di, great mum that she is, bought some science kits to do with Harry instead.  One of them was a Sea Monkeys kit. I always remember seeing these ads for these in old comic books as I was growing up. I can’t wait to see what they are like. He also got an Ant Farm.
• I must be getting old… I really like James Blunt’s song “You’re Beautiful”
• I am writing this while listening to my all time fave radio station TripleJ (yes its Australian – do yourself a favor and listen to the live stream for a bit) after spending a day coding for the Messenger Download site

What a month!!!! What’s scary is I am sure I have missed some stuff <8-)

Harry turns 5 today! He had lots of fun opening presents this morning. He got a set of flippers and goggles from his sister. Some Star Wars Tactix and a Matchbox Mummy set from Mum and Dad. A Robotic Hornet book from Nana and some Lego from his Gra and Poppy. A package from Australia turned up yesterday. Great timing guys <8-)

 

He had tons of trouble getting to sleep last night with all the excitement. But he had a blast this morning. He had a bunch fo Star Wars cup cakes for his firends at school. And we are heading out for dinner this evening to celebrate.

 

Happy Birthday Harry!!!!!

WOOT!

 

Thanks to MC! MC had a pre order finally come in. He also had been able to acquire one outside the pre order so he offered it up to Bill and I.  Bill decided I could have it and there you go.

 

I picked it up last Tuesday and went home via the company store to pickup another controller, wireless connector, PGR3, Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero.

 

I have played both PGR (all golds) and PGR2 (all plats) and couldn't wait to get my hands on 3. Rather than spend the time on Monday night to hook the new system up to the home theatre system I went the route of instant gratification and hooked it up to the 27" CRT we have in the toy room. Unfortunately on Tuesday night I could not connect to the network for some reason so I just played PGR3 offline. Twas a lot of fun. On Wednesday night I was able to get connect to the network and setup my gamer card etc.

 

On Friday night I was able to get the system hooked up into the home theatre system. WOW! A 50" plasma and dolby 5.1 makes all the difference <;-). I spent the weekend getting to Rank 5 on PGR3 in solo mode and becoming a member of the Ferrari Owners Club. I also spent some time with Kameo. This game actually looks interesting so I will spend some more time with it. Of course Hexic is a hit, with the kids too and as a Bejeweled junkie I had to get that too. Live Arcade is awesome. They truly did a great job with this.

 

So watch my gamer card grow over the next few weeks. You know where I will be spending a bunch of my free time <8-)

 

I have mostly been concentrating on getting golds in PGR3. I still have a couple of silvers from some cone challenges I couldn't be bothered spending time on yet, and I Have quite a few plats too. First goal is to get all golds, then go back and do plats. Of course I need to do some online racing too <;-)