Yes, after 5 years with my old host, phpwebhosting, I have decided to pack up my bits and move my home on the web to a new server, dreamhost.  The old guys were decent hosts, and their support was pretty good, so the choice to move wasn't an easy one.  But I found a host that provides a more user-friendly back-end to my site, and is also cheaper than the current guys, and should provide more graduated levels of security that I need. 

There will most likely be some moving pains in the next few weeks as I sort everything out on the new server.  Think of it like moving house.  The front-end of the site (what you are looking at now) shouldn't change that much, if at all.  It's kind of like furniture.  The back-end is like the house, and it takes a while to fit 5 years of stuff into a new arrangement!  One change that may affect you, however, is that email announce lists will be reconfigured because dreamhost has some strict anti-spam requirements.  You may have to resubscribe to the lists, but if that's the case, I'll send you an email.

 I've been looking forward to this move for a long time, and it's all thanks to a Christmas present from my sister Emily!  She's just bought the site for two years, so you'll see her advertising around.  Like here! This website provided by the generous endowment of Emily.  Thanks Ems! 

If you notice parts of my site that have gone down, please let me know so I can fix them as quickly as possible.

[Update: I've moved!  let me know (by commeting on this post) if there's a broken link.  I'm surprised how easy it was!]

Between Christmas and New Year's, I decided to take a few days off of my research and visit a friend in Cornwall.

Cornwall, located in the 'foot' of England, is a place of many castles and much coastline.  I wish that I could have spent a week or more here, just walking the coastline and seeing lots of ruins.  I did enjoy the time I had though.  I got to see the main town, Truro, and had a day trip to Tintagel, the legendary (though totally unsubstantiated) home of King Arthur, and Boscastle, which is famous for the flash floods of 2004 that poured mud throughout the whole town but killed no one.

Enjoy the pictures!  Now it's time to get back to work… 

For Christmas this year, as for many years now, My present to my Aunt Sally and Uncle Brian is my Year in Review.  This year, I decided to write it in the form of a dinner party.  Care to stop by for dinner?

As you know, I had a webcam going during Thanksgiving this year.  In addition to it updating every 5 seconds on the web, it was also saving the images to a movie.  I've stiched them together (and removed a few), and created a little, and quite entertaining, movie of the day.

You can see it here. 

While it’s standard English weather outside (i.e. raining), in this little kitchen today, it’s becoming very American. Each year I put on a Thanksgiving meal for my housemates and friends in Oxford, and this year proves to be quite the event, with 18 people coming. As you can see on the right, I have set up a webcam for the kitchen so that you can enjoy the preparations, and I’ll be posting pictures to to my 2D-Manifestations area all day (and commenting on this post), so stay tuned!

A larger version of the webcam is available here. The pictures for the day can be found in my Thanksgiving album.

[13.30] the turkey is finally in the oven(!)

I have to say, though that the mince pies seem to have turned out well, if a little puffy

Here’s a movie from the day:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Ever since I came to Oxford, I have wanted to take some time to capture the Autumn in this city.  The colours were vivid this morning, though not quite as bright as yesterday.  It's amazing the difference a day makes in Autumn! I have put up all the ones I took this morning on my digital.  I'll get the SLR pictures scanned in and post the best of those soon too.

I also put up some pictures I took since the beginning of term.  Not very many, but at least it gives you a taste.  Head on over to 2D-Manifestations and have a look.

Ok, I've been. . . a little delinquent about putting up pictures. Rummaging through my photos today, I noticed just how many still weren't up.  Well they are now!  Have a look at the new albums.  Stories from this summer will also soon be up in my next Journal entry.

First we go back quite a ways.

All the way to last summer!

I finally had my film put onto CDs, and so I can now show the world more pictures from Austria, and also my run-in with royalty in Liechtenstein!

Next we head to the end of Michaelmas, where New College graduates get together for a night of revelry and enjoyment in black time at the annual Christmas Dinner.   

I have to say that we were really in true form that night.

Also, there's a few shots of the Catz party that I crashed.  Catz always has great parties.

Next we have the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization's first World Forum, which took place in March (yes, I do realise it's now nearly October).

This series of pictures takes you (a little bit) behind the scenes of those four days of events.

If you haven't seen much on the Forum yet, which discussed technologies for life extension and enhancement (and their social aspects), I encourage to visit the Institute's Forum webpage.

I put up a few pictures from Trinity already (Brussels and Easter),  but I've really filled it out now. 

There are shots from the Races at Newbury, More rowing pictures, birthdays, Vivas, dinners, and the Queen!

It was actually quite a term, when I think back on it.  Including the initiation of the Culinary Expedition Club.

And then we get to this summer! 

You've seen the pictures from the cabin, but now I've put up some pics from the Renaissance Festival and Minnesota State Fair as well (unfortunately no pics from my trip to Houston).

 I didn't get any pictures of swing dancing, but I did snag one from New York!

And finally there's the invitation I got from Cindy to visit the National Air and Space Museum archives, at 3 hour tour through some of the 30+ hangers that house all of the artifacts that didn't make it into the Museum or its new addition. In particular, I found Neil Armstrong's lunar suit made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle.

And that, my dear friends, brings us just about up to date.  On pictures, at least.  Now for the stories! 

I had a fantastic week with a bunch of friends from St. Olaf at Sarah's lake cabin.  I've put up a bunch of pictures, hardly any of which I took, but Mom will be please to see that I'm actually in some of them! 

The cabin really was a treat for me.  These people are the quintessential friends - always there when you need them, easy to be around but always pushing you to be a little more.  The chance to relax with them all for a week with no phones and no internet was bliss.  Swimming, games, sailing, and LOTS of cooking and croquet.  I can't wait until we do it again.

It's been a long while since I spent any significant amount of time in the US.  As I settle in for three months at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies , I wrote down my thoughts on returning to American culture.  Care for a read?

I have now returned from my second trip to Brussels.  The first was with the Oxford University Strategic Studies Group and the second was for my own research as well as establishing some ties between the James Martin Institute and the European Commission.  

The second trip I went by myself, stayed in a shady part of town, and generally tried not to be a tourist.  Instead, I spent two days 'living' in the city: going to the store, eating lunch in a park, drinking coffee at the corner cafe, and generally just standing around - that's what the Belgians seem to be best at (at least outside the EU district). 

Check out my pictures from the trips. Also, I encourage you to have a look at the website for the Atomium, a representation of a crystal molecule enlarged 165 billion times.  It has a museum and lots of other stuff inside of it!