A good week in Manchester

I spent last week in Manchester, at the joint meeting of the Open Grid Forum and the EGEE User Forum, which I've been helping to organise over the last year. It was my idea to bring the meeting to the UK and to run a two-day programme of sessions aimed at industry (which we called Grids Mean Business because we couldn't think of a better title).  The organisation was a lot of effort and I'm very pleased that everything went well.  We had the largest attendance of any of the OGF meetings so far, with over 920 people visiting at some point during the week.  Now I'm glad that it's over and I'm also absolutely exhausted.

This is part of my plan to add some concrete achievements to my CV for my current job.  The various people I work for have all been happy with my work over past few years but I don't have enough to show for it on my CV, so one of my aims for the year is to correct this.

I'm afraid I didn't attempt to meet up with friends or family while in Manchester.  On some nights I was too busy while on others I just needed some time alone to recharge my batteries.  I can say that you get a good view from the bar on the 23rd floor of the new Hilton, where we had a bottle of champagne to celebrate - you can see the rain for miles!