Paul Hammond's Blog

Last week, through a friends blog, I stumbled across a Flickr group called 365 Days.  Since writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month last November, I have been looking for something new and creative to challenge me.  I don't feel that I have been spending enough time with my camera of late, so this particular challenge appealed to me.

Very simply, to quote the 365 Days rules page: "the 365 Days group is a project in which members submit one self portrait each day for a year".  There is further clarification on the site on what counts etc., but that is pretty much the essence of the project.  Again, I quote, "the main thing is that you are both the photographer and the subject. For the purposes of this group, any photo which you took that contains any part of your body counts".

If you'd like to follow my progress, here is my 365 Days Flickr photo set.  Alternatively you can follow in your feed reader, via the RSS feed here.

For day 1, I couldn't decide on a specific photo, so I ended up creating a collage.  It looks a bit like this:

As the year goes on, it'd be great to hear your feedback.  You can comment on the photos over at the Flickr photo set.

I bought my son a new Lego set on my recent trip to Seattle; gifts are a mandatory bribe for the whole family when I go away for twelve days!  This time I chose a Technic Dune Buggy (item 8296 for those who follow that kind of thing), which is a smaller version of a set I have had since I was about his age.

Saturday afternoon, we set about building the set together.  For a long while, Lego kits would involve Dylan impatiently watching me build, because for him it was mostly about playing with the finished article.  More recently though, I have enjoyed getting Lego for him a lot more than I used to.  This is because he now has both the dexterity and patience to work through the instructions by himself, with occasional guidance by me as necessary.

He got about half way through construction, and was putting together the assembly that would make the rack and pinion steering.  We both searched for a while in the remaining unused pieces for two funky looking Lego bricks that were to hold the wheels in place.  Nothing.  After 5 minutes, Dylan got bored of looking so I sorted through the remaining pieces one by one to make sure we weren't being silly.  Still nothing.

This surprised me - I don't think I have ever had a Lego kit that was missing pieces before.  I headed over to the Lego website to see if they had a customer service phone number.  I found that they actually had something much better than that, a simple online service!  You simply select "I have missing pieces in a new kit" from the options, enter the code number of the set you purchased, and it gives you a list of the pieces that should be in the box including pictures of the pieces.  You select how many of each item you need, enter your mailing address and sit back and wait.  Genius.

I received a confirmation mail not long after ordering that said "We are sorry to hear that your new LEGO set was incomplete. Our production checks are rigorous. We even weigh the boxes electronically before they're shipped to check that there's nothing missing. However, from time to time one or two pieces can be missing from a set, and of course we're happy to replace them immediately".

I love it when a company makes it ridiculously simple to deal with simple enquiries.  Good stuff Lego.

A couple of weeks ago, Laura and I took a trip to Las Vegas.  Neither of us had been there before, so we weren't totally sure what to expect.  Turns out, Vegas is a fun city, and I'd definitely like to go back there soon.

We left the kids at home early on a Tuesday morning (thanks to my Dad and Martie for kid/puppy-sitting!), and headed to Heathrow.  I'd cashed in a bunch of air miles, and we were lucky enough to be flying British Airways First Class to Los Angeles where we were going to pick up a car and drive the 280-odd miles across the Mojave desert to Las Vegas.

First Class was a fun experience.  I am fortunate enough to be able to travel Business Class on some of my work trips, so I am a used to the larger seats and better food.  For me, First didn't seem to warrant the large difference in price you would pay over traveling Business.  For Laura, who doesn't regularly travel, I think the experience was a lot more exciting.  Or perhaps that was just the champagne they *insisted* on making her drink, over and over again! 

Our car ended up being a Ford Mustang convertible.  Fun car.  It was the cheapest deal they had for something that wasn't a 2-door compact, would you believe!  The drive from LA to LV took a while - about 6 hours in all I think, with a stop at In and Out Burger and a car refueling break on the way.  It was dark by the time we got out of Los Angeles, so there wasn't a lot to see along the way.

We stayed at the Wynn Hotel.  I was surprised at how cheap the rooms were for a luxury hotel.  I guess they make their money elsewhere - the shopping and gambling were both extravagant and ubiquitous.  The opulent stage was set on first arrival with the Ferrari / Maserati garage at the hotel entrance and the shopping parade that included Dior, Vuitton and Rolex among its tenants.  We had a "regular" room, which measured 640 square feet - that's huge for a hotel room in my experience - for a little over $200 a night.  Having walked through many of the other hotels whilst we were there, I really came to like the vibe of the Wynn - it isn't really themed as such, and just has a mellow, luxurious quality to it.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is thinking of visiting.

We took a helicopter tour to the Grand Canyon which was fantastic.  We used a very professional company called Maverick Helicopters, which again, I recommend highly.  Taking off from the airport, we headed east over suburban Las Vegas, over Lake Mead, a quick view of the Hoover dam, then over to the Canyon.  We landed deep in the Canyon at a spot perhaps 300ft above the Colorado river.  It was a perfect day, visibility over 100 miles.  It is hard to describe (or even capture with a photograph) how awe inspiring the views were.  Wow.

Something else we'd never done before was to visit a shooting range.  We both took turns using a 9mm pistol to shoot holes in paper targets.  You see hand guns used in TV shows all the time, read about them in books.  You can't get a feel for what it is really like until you've actually picked one up and pulled the trigger.  Everyone should try it at least once.  The place we went to was appropriately called The Gun Store.  If you're feeling more adventurous, they offer machine gun rentals too...

Of course we spent time touring the Strip, checking out the various fun things each hotel had to offer.  We rode rides (kudos to Laura for riding all three at the top of the Stratosphere - I only managed one of them), ate great food, watched shows, shopped.  We really liked the steak restaurant Gallagher's at New York New York; the steaks are all dry aged on display in the window of the restaurant.  The Bellagio fountains are very impressive even if their choice of accompanying music is sometimes a little on the lame side.  The LE RÊVE show at the Wynn was incredible; the logistics of presenting a show that is predominantly in or under water fascinate me.

I'd foolishly decided up front that a 6 day trip to Vegas where the flights were virtually "free" would be a cheap holiday.  Forget that.  The food is fabulous, the shopping is great (especially with the £/$ conversion) and the gambling is a little too much fun.  If you're going to go to Vegas, pack an extra wallet, and make sure it is full of cash.

All in all, a great time in a great city.  I feel like we only scratched the surface of what it has to offer.  What would you recommend we see next time we go?

I went skiing yesterday with my colleagues Elliot and Arran up at Crystal Mountain here in Washington state.  Crystal Mountain is the largest ski area in Washington, and is located about 70 miles south east of Seattle.  It has the base at 4,400ft and a summit at 7,012ft.  In contrast, for those who know the area a little, Mount Rainier's summit is at 14,411ft.

Prior to yesterday, I had only skied once before (for 3 days in the run up to my sister's wedding on top of the mountain at Courchevel in France).  I have also never had any lessons which meant I was relying on the few technique tips I could remember that my sister's husband had given me back in April 2006.  As a result, I was finding the green runs at Crystal pretty hard going at first.  With my fitness at its current low state, my legs were soon screaming at me for the punishment I was giving them!

But perseverance is key I always find, and before too long I was snow ploughing less, getting up some decent speed and cornering more smoothly.  I was still finding the steeper sections hard, and the longer I skied the less power I had in my legs to correct myself when things started to go awry.  I definitely fell over more in the later part of the day as a result.

After a total of 4 days skiing in my life, I have decided that I must take lessons the next time I visit a ski slope - I don't want to end up with bad habits that are too ingrained to change.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the muscle pain from the exertion, and the dull throbbing of the various bruises I gained from wiping out, knowing that I'm marginally better at skiing today than I was on Saturday.

I've been a fan of the Moleskine notebook for a while now.  Used in days gone past by the likes of Hemingway and Picasso, they are described as "notebooks covered in hard-wearing oilcloth-covered cardboard (Moleskine)".  I am not convinced about the hard-wearing bit.

I use a large lined notebook.  It is about A5 sized, and has 240 pages all ready for note taking goodness.  However, I have never made it to the end of a notebook without the cover cracking or splitting in some way.  My latest notebook didn't even last until the middle, as you can see in the first picture below where the black elastic marks my "current page".  The second picture is a close-up of the split along the edge of the spine, and the third is a larger image showing where I crudely patched up the initial cracking with tape.

Yesterday, I finally had to buy a roll of gaffa tape and replace the shoddy tape with a decent "top to bottom" taped up spine.  It has given the notebook back a spine, but boy does it look ugly!

When I see other people's notebooks, they always look pristine.  Is it just me?  Am I particularly hard on my Moleskines?  I don't feel like I am; I'm not deliberately mistreating them in cruel ways.  I bet Hemingway and Picasso didn't have to gaffa tape THEIR notebooks!

Oh well.  The paper is still great quality and the notebooks sit nice and flat when you open them due to the way they are stitched, so I guess I'll just have to make do with my custom repair work to keep the outsides as good as the insides.