Founder of Agile web agency Yoomee that makes cool social web platforms for social change. Geek, father, husband, Lotus fan and keen fencer - touché!
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Ruby on Rails Conference in Vegas
Just got back from an awesome week at the Las Vegas Hilton. I spent three days at the conference and then took two days off to relax. The conference was a great opportunity to learn more about web development and the art of programming - it was very inspiring to be with 1,000s of other programmers from around the world. In my two days off, I managed to enjoy the hotel pool in temperatures reaching 30C, skydive from a plane at 15,000ft and shoot a variety of automatic weapons! A week after the skydive, and still the adrenaline is pumping through my body - no kidding! One minute of free-fall dropping 10,000ft at 120mph is not something I will forget anytime soon. The relief of the parachute eventually opening and the subsequent glide to earth was sheer bliss. Perhaps the scariest part was signing the disclaimer, and the realiasation that my family would get £0 in the event of... you know what. I am expecting the video of the skydive to arrive in the post in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can watch a video of me playing with guns by clicking here.
Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2009
Appologies for the lack of posts since Feb - this is due to our business which has flourished immensely in 2008 - and thus dominated much of it too. Despite the credit-crunch, we’ve grown to five full time employees, a placement student and a couple of part timers including a finance director. After four years hard work, it seems that Andy’s goal of creating software company that he would love to work for has been achieved. At the end of November our company won an award from UK Business Incubatiion for 'Business of the Year' - presented by Evan Davies (of BBC and Dragon Den's fame). As a result I was invited to a function at 11 Downing Street and early in the New Year to celebrate the role of start-up businesses in the economy. In early March we'll move offices again. This time out of our current building and into the new Sheffield Digitial Campus. It boasts a slide from the third floor to reception (guess who reserved the office nearest the slide!) and a big screen wii in reception. Needless-to-say, we've had a hugely positive reception from our employees and clients alike to the move.
Night terrors
With two small children Nicola is used to so-called night terrors where the child wakes up terrified for some inexplicable reason... Anyway, last night it was my turn. I woke up at 1am with a start, convinced that the bed had been shaking as if in an earth quake. I was terrified, and felt inexplicably like a massive fear had washed over me - with the power of a thousand atomic bombs. "Don't be silly", said Nicola, annoyed that I had woken her up. "It was probably just a lorry passing". The next morning the news headline was "The biggest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years has shaken homes across large parts of the country just before 0100 GMT - 5.2 on the richter scale." Apparently that's the equivalent of a 32 kiloton bomb, similar to that which was dropped on Nagasaki. Wow, that's some lorry :-)
Happy new year!
We had a great family Christmas and New Year in Sheffiield - mostly spent chilling out at home playing with new toys. Converse boots for Anna, and Lego Mindstorms for Joel.
As you can see from the video above, Lego Mindstorms is a very cool toy! It's basically a system for building programmable robots from Lego Technics, combining servo motors, ultrasonic sensors and an intelligent brain that can be programmed from your laptop using Bluetooth. They are expensive, but the hope is that Joel will enjoying learning whilst he plays. Already we have had loads of fun. I wish I was a kid again!
All systems go...
Sorry for the lack of updates. Right now I am sat in the office at 6pm waiting for a courier to deliver four Herman Miller chairs for our new office that we are moving into on Monday. Since returning from Berlin work has really exploded. We've won a significant R&D grant from Melt for a mobile social networking application. We 've also won work from Canada, and other numerous projects. This week a new guy joined our team as a designer, and I am looking to hire another developer - bringing our full-time team to five.
Greetings from Berlin
I'm currently at RailsConf 2007 Europe which is a conference for Ruby on Rails programmers run by O'Reilly. It's the final day tomorrow, and I must say it's been amazing. David Black opened the conference with a keynote speech worthy of Steve Jobs. He challenged software developers not to think of themselves as engineers, but instead as artists, creating something wonderful that changes the world.
Even though it's a hectic programme of seminars and events, Si and I managed to get out to see the Brandenburger Tor and the Check Point Charlie Museum. As I walked the wide streets, gazing upon the grand historic architecture and pondering our family history, I found it quite moving... (Click here to see some quick snaps on Facebook).
Back from summer hols
Back in Sheffield now after a fantastic two weeks in Cornwall. The weather was beautiful with blue skies and the fish was fresh and plentiful. The kids really enjoyed the family time. Highlights were seafood BBQs, scallops with black pudding, sandy beaches, rock pooling, high speed sea safari, pottery lessons, long bike rides, cornish beer and some amazing cheese...
Click here for a quick photo slideshow
We're all going on a summer holiday...
Just a quick post to let you know that we are away on our summer holidays, and will be back later in the month. I've just bought a new Mac Book Pro because my other was full to the brim with gorgeous family photos and video clips... so expect to see more multimedia blog posts in the near future.

Sheffield Disaster Zone
Yesterday saw Sheffield get the most rain since records began. I left work early, but the traffic soon became gridlocked so I walked home in the soaking rain. Fortunately we live on a hill and Joel's school is nearby, and so we were soon safe and dry in our second floor flat. Others were not so lucky; one of our friends had to wade home through waist high water. Our neighbour phoned at 7pm to say she had been rescued from her car by police and was taking refuge in Hallam Arena. People were starting to get airlifted by the RAF. The main area hit is Brightside across from town, with many friends affected. We are getting most of the information from BBC News 24 live coverage. Cars are floating down the roads. So far two people have died. This morning about 900 people are using emergency shelters in Sheffield, including the Winter Gardens near our office. Today hundreds have fled their homes in villages near Rotherham amid fears a nearby dam could collapse. Crazy!
Fencing tournament
Quote from the Sheffield Institute of Sport website, about an event I am entering tomorrow:
South Yorkshire’s finest fencers will battle it out against competitors from across the UK at a prestigious tournament taking place in Sheffield. More than 200 fencers are set to take part in the Sheffield Open Fencing Tournament, which is being held at the English Institute of Sport – Sheffield (EISS) from May 19-20.
Tonight I am nervous and will probably not sleep well. I will post results, photos etc tomorrow, depending on the outcome. Yikes...

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