That Was The Week That Was — 12th May 2019

After the bank holiday on the Monday I travelled up to Edinburgh to apply for my Russian Visa so I could make my trip to OFFF Moscow the following week. The Edinburgh Visa Centre has a special next day service, hence why I had to come up to Scotland. After submitting my application I then spent a few hours waiting for my train home at the beautiful Balmoral hotel next to the station. So much better than wasting time in some awful coffee chain.

The next day saw me travel again to Scotland, hopefully to pick-up my approved Visa. It had to be today as they were then closed for three days. When I arrived at the centre the place was packed — in total contrast to the day before when I had been the only one there. I asked a stranger if he knew what was going on. He told me somebody would arrive with a big box of passports and then they would give them out. About an hour later the doors flung open and the man with the box appeared and a few moments later I had my passport back complete with a Russian Visa. Moscow was happening.

The next few days was completing the title sequence for Beyond Tellerrand, which Lisa and myself were travelling to on the Sunday. I tried a few colour variations within Houdini but I kept coming back to keep it simple with a muted colour palette. On the Friday it all got exported, as well as triple checking the names on the titles with good old pen and paper, making sure I hadn't left anybody out.

I got an email from a friend asking if I would be up for working with them on some prototypes on something that could potentially be used by millions of people. Of course I said yes and look forward to starting that in June.

Had a call with a client about the upcoming talk I'm giving at their tech day in Germany, and also to discuss the image I'll be creating for them from attendee data. My plan is to start and finish that in the week I get back from Moscow so they have time to print it before the event at the start of June.

After arriving in Dusseldorf on the Sunday, we headed over to the venue, where we got a sneak-peek of the titles on the big screen as well as seeing the posters for the first time. I was really pleased with the results and how everything seemed to come together from a visual point of view.

That night we went to the speaker dinner — even though I wasn't speaking — all hosted by Sipgate in their very nice offices with their private chef. The food and the company was lovely and it was great to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a while. Marc Thiele is such a generous and warm host, making sure everyone has a great time. Grabbing an Uber on the way home we got stuck in some kind of Uber glitch loop, with the driver being told by the app to pick us up, even though we were in the car and refusing to map the route to our hotel. In the end we had to pay him cash — like you used to do in the old days.