Hans and Riki's wedding, Santa Barbara, 21st Jan '06

Hans and Riki's wedding, Santa Barbara, 21st Jan '06
Originally uploaded by dwfletch.

This weekend I was privileged to attend the wedding of my great friends Hans and Erika in their beautiful hometown of Santa Barbara, California.
Hans and I have been friends since we met while working for NASA's ill-fated C*TS*T mission, in the summer of 1997. We've stayed in touch by email and trans-atlantic flights and even been on holiday together
two or three times. Hans met Erika (Riki) through a pub-quiz team at their company and they started dating shortly thereafter (with a trip to see The Taming Of The Shrew!). I was honoured to be invited to share this great day in their lives and I was also really happy to see Hans with such a charming, funny, smart woman. They have a great future ahead. More photos here.

Another great thing about weddings, of course, is the opportunity to meet up with people. Hans' sister Melissa was there and it's always a pleasure to spend time with her (thanks for your steady arm on Saturday night, Melissa!). Another C*TS*T survivor, Joel, was at the wedding, too, and we spent a pleasant Sunday nursing our hangovers in the Santa Barbara sunshine. Santa Barbara, by the way, is one of the nicest places on Earth. The mountains, the beach, the sea, the pretty downtown area and, of course, the climate conspire to create a place with many and varied opportunities to have fun (paragliding, hiking, sailing, shopping...). It's no wonder that DNA chose to go and live there.

Babyfoot

Babyfoot
Originally uploaded by dwfletch.

The place where I work is pretty cool and I love it there. We have a good crowd (both friendly and very smart) and a good atmosphere (both motivated and playful). Recently the management installed a games room and we had our inaugural Foosball tournament this week (with the company providing beer, pizza and prizes). My partner and I were knocked out pretty fast, but it was a fun time anyway. Why on earth would anybody think that Universities are the place to be?

Well, I had a pretty busy festive season, this year. After a bunch of celebrations in December, I made for blighty for the main event. I could have cried at Heathrow when the immigration inspector said, in an East London accent, "babye, luv" - it was wonderful to hear British accents again.
It was great to see my family (parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts & cousins) after ten months away. I also got to see my great friends Andy, John, Chris and Samir. Not too bad, for a 4 day visit. I didn't get to see Alex, though, as he has yet to read the manual for his alarm clock!
I returned to Boston and had to go straight back to work (american vacation allowances, you know). However, I managed to wangle a day off when Jane and Rory came to Boston for a few days (more here). It was utterly fab to see them face-to-face and show them something of my new home town.
Over the next two months I'll be pretty busy with a big (exciting) project at work and also with efforts to burn off excess xmas fat. Jan 21st I'm off to Hans and Riki's wedding in Santa Barbara. Mid March will find me taking my annual vacation (Central America with Alex & Una). My pals Jason & Helen may be visiting towards the end of March, too. Then it'll be time to get Emily ready for a summer of fast, topless fun!