Category Archives: Personal

5th Visit to The Kennedy Space Center

I first visited the Kennedy Space Center in 2007 and found it so inspiring that I’ve taken every opportunity to return since.

These last sixteen years have seen many twists and turns in human spaceflight.

When I visited KSC in 2011, the space shuttle programme had just finished – with the final mission landing the week before.

The tour bus guides were noticeably upset about the demise of the shuttle and the whole place had a bit of a downbeat feel to it.

It was therefore a joy to return again in 2013 and visit the recently opened Atlantis exhibition – a fantastic celebration of an extraordinary machine that made 33 journeys into space and back over a 26 year period.

Given I am currently on a 7 day road trip around Florida I could not pass up the opportunity to visit KSC again 10 years on.

Wow – what a decade it has been for the evolution of human spaceflight, with the commercial sector rising to NASA’s challenges to provide more cost-effective ways to get beyond Earth’s atmosphere – and back too when required.

It seemed a poignant time to revisit the Saturn V rocket exhibit that is the centrepiece of a building devoted to the Apollo moon missions.

Artemis I completed its second orbit of the moon on the day I headed over to the US and I watched the splashdown live on TV 6 days later on December 11th.

I was also keen to see Atlantis again and it was every bit as good as the first time.

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48 Hours in AMU, then put on 'E'Bay for 4 days – Why I 'still' love the NHS

ct_pulmonary2If you watch programmes like 24 Hours in A&E then no doubt you’ve found yourself thinking what you would do if placed into similar scenarios, particularly if it was a close family member in a life threatening situation.

So it came as somewhat of a shock to find my own life threatened just over a month into 2015 and a couple of years before I’ve managed to reach at least my fiftieth birthday.

Obviously it’s only with the benefit of  hindsight that you come to understand the level of threat involved and I am sitting here now a week on from the original incident feeling very grateful I live at this time and place and for a succession of lovely people who did their respective jobs efficiently and effectively.

Anyway, in retrospect there were some warning signs during the previous few days before the fateful morning – an abnormal shortness of breath, particularly when going up stairs but put down to a cold bug that’s been going around the family.

On this morning it was a lot worse prompting me to call the local surgery in hope of a quick appointment. As luck would have it there was a virtually immediate slot available but I needed to get there within 15 minutes. It was during those frantic few minutes of getting ready to go out that I was a few short breaths away from asking my wife to call for a paramedic and it was also very clear that what I was experiencing was far from normal and that I was very much in unknown territory.

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Makes me proud to be British

Continuing the unprecedented run of warm and fuzzy feelgood posts on my blog over the last six months or so I’m finishing my 2013 commentary with three experiences in the last week that have made me particularly proud (and lucky) to be British …

TimBL takes a stand on web freedom hypocrisy

ingsoc-prop1As a regular nominee and occasional winner on the various ‘Greatest Briton’ lists, inventor of the World Wide Web and all round good local bloke – when Tim Berners-Lee speaks, I listen and when he worries, I worry too.

This week he was the figurehead of a collaboration of free speech advocates and leading activists who have written an open letter highlighting the hypocrisy of member nations of the Open Government Partnership.

I am less proud of the fact the UK is one of those hypocritical member nations but in 100% agreement with the simple point that the western world doesn’t have a leg to stand on in protesting about lack of web freedoms elsewhere in the world when its leading members are complicit in running one of the largest surveillance networks the world has ever seen.

Commenting on the exposure of what organisations like the US National Security Agency have been up to in secret it says …

“These practices erode the checks and balances on which accountability depends, and have a deeply chilling effect on freedom of expression, information and association, without which the ideals of open government have no meaning.”

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2013 – A vintage year in summary

Grape_crop2012-13Towards the end of 2012 I was bemoaning how bad my grape crop was and fearing for the future of the UK’s wine producers as vineyards on the south coast announced they had abandoned the year’s harvest.

What a difference a year can make!

Following a succession of average and bad summers, the 2013 UK summer is the best I can remember. I have vague recollections of the summer of 1976 being a long, hot one and also being stuck in an airless office for much of the hot spell in 2003 – but this year has been absolutely glorious.

A recent article on the BBC website asked “Is the British weather unique in the world?” and concluded that up to six air masses battle it out for dominance above our island nation making for rapidly changeable and unpredictable conditions that are rarely experienced to such a degree elsewhere.

Added to this is the coriolis effect, a meandering  jet stream and the increasing intensity of weather events driven by global climate change.

The net result is that we can experience some of the hottest and driest weather on record to the wettest and coldest within the space of few weeks.

In recent years, my grape crop has been a very visible and tangible barometer of these volatile weather changes. You can literally ‘taste’ how good or bad the weather has been – and 2013 has undoubtedly been a vintage year. My vine produced around 10lbs of ripe grapes that I turned into 4 litres of delicious grape juice. The next time I get a bumper crop I will try turning it into wine.

Here are some of my other personal highlights from 2013, arguably – ‘the best year of my life’ …

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Out on the highway – Street Gliding the Everglades Headwaters

After 10 days of ferrying the family around theme parks and shopping malls ‘Dad’ was given his day in the Florida sun to use as he wished 🙂

Now that my eldest is increasingly making her own way in the world, I doubt that we will head state-side on a family holiday for quite a while now so I thought I’d go for a full-on American experience and decided to hire a Harley Davidson for a day, head down south for some alligator spotting in the swamps and then have a go at firing some weapons at a gun range.

Street-Glide-2014I’ve never ridden a Harley before and as I’m fast approaching 50 and the age at which my family seem happier for me to own another bike then it was a good opportunity to experience what this style of ‘laid back’ classic motorcycling has to offer.

The bike I chose was the 2014 Street Glide model which is the latest output from Harley Davidson’s ‘Project Rushmore’ – an initiative from the iconic company to incorporate over 100 renovations into their 2014 product range that are based on close collaboration with customers.

The guys at Harley Davidson in South Orlando were very helpful to this HOG world newbie, giving me the full run down on this new machine and some of its ‘awesome’ features, such as the on-board infotainment system that includes bluetooth connectivity.

A few circuits of an adjacent car park to familiarise myself with the basic controls and handling and I was ready to get out on the highway.

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