Greg N Baker » General

Change of Tack

Greg — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:51:45 +0000

I’ve decided to make some changes to this site, mainly because I have found I am just not writing here very much (as you can see from the previous posting date). Over the next few weeks I’ll we working on pulling in all my internet content (delicious, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter etc) onto one page. Why? Because I spend time creating and responding and recording content all over the web and I’d like one place to preserve it all. I believe the agreed term is a ‘lifestream’.
As a test, I’ve created a Lifestream page above using David Cramer’s WP plugin. It’s a little TOO delicious at the moment, but hopefully it will start looking a little more varied over the next few days as I add further feeds to it. See my delicious links for where my inspiration came from.
Be warned also that the theme may change, but in the meantime, check out the funky Flickr gallery above.

The Grand Tour

Greg — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:14:05 +0000

I decided a long time ago that when I finally finished studying, I’d take a trip around Europe to make the most of the free time I have before I start working.
I start my training contract at the law firm on 6th August and so have around a month to travel. Too little time to have a decent holiday in Asia or the USA, long enough for Europe…so I designed my own ‘Grand Tour’.
I will be Interrailing around Europe from Wednesday 2nd July for 27 days and this is my route plus a fairly random collection of thoughts:

Geneva, CH
Bellinzona, CH
Venice, IT
Vienna, AT
Bratislava, SK,
Prague, CZ
Berlin, DE
Amsterdam, NL

The only non-train journey will be my flight home to London from Amsterdam with Easyjet.
I’ll use Eurostar to Paris and then the TGV onwards to Geneva.
I have booked a sleeper train between Venice and Vienna.
I will be seeing friends in Geneva, Venice, Vienna and Bratislava, but otherwise travelling on my own.

Accommodation is entirely in youth hostels, which are cheap and easy to book online.

I’m taking one large Berghaus rucksack with a smaller Deuter daysack stowed inside. Clothing has been easy and I’ve made numerous purchases from the Craghoppers range, as they are light, easy to wash, quick drying and many have inbuilt SPF ratings!

My final issue is a technological one. I will be taking my Blackberry Curve/8300 with me and have paid for a European unlimited data plan for the month (~£23.00). I’ll carry around a small 8mp Olympus digital camera and have 2 2Gb xD cards for it. I’m hoping to drop into internet cafes and/or friends houses to upload my photos directly to Flickr, but am also taking a sturdy OCZ Rally 8Gb USB memory stick for simple offline transfers if I fill up my xD cards.

I’ve tried numerous mapping sites, many “Web 2.0″ style travel planning tools and none have been entirely satisfactory. Unfortunately my Blackberry does NOT have GPS built in (unlike the latest models) so my desire to geotag my photos has hit a stumbling block. I’m debating splashing out £25 on a GPS receiver so I can make notes of locations in the Google Maps for Blackberry application but this is a less than ideal solution. Any suggestions are most welcome!

Another problem with international travel, especially backpacking, is financial arrangements. UK banks, and especially the major high street banks (excluding Nationwide) are terrible at adding on extra/inflated charges to overseas transactions. Therefore, I have opened an offshore Euro-denominated account with debit card, so the majority of my transactions will now attract no charge at all….much preferable to carrying around large amounts of cash or traveller cheques.

Finally, here is the link to a rough route plan in Google Maps: Grand Tour Map

It’s been a while

Greg — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:28:19 +0000

I last wrote in January which is, quite frankly, appalling. My apologies, if anyone is actually reading this.
A quick rundown of what has been happening since then:
February saw me sit the first set of LPC exams, those relating to my compulsory subjects. I had a week in which to sit exams in Criminal Litigation, Civil Litigation, Property and Banking. It’s fair to say they were tough; open book exams are far more difficult that you’d imagine. Anyway, I feel I did pretty well in them and am actually looking forward to getting my results.
I then had a week away in Barcelona with about 50 other LPC students. All I can say his I had a much needed break and it was rather messy…ahem.
Following Barcelona, it’s been rather quiet. I have started my electives and am studying Public Companies & Equity Finance, Acquisitions and Banking & Debt Finance. Following my year in an investment bank, I have a slight headstart on most people but in any case, the electives are enjoyable and see me in college 3 or 4 days a week, which is nice.
I’ve had a couple of trips up to Durham to visit old friends and am off up North again this weekend at the start of my (strangely late) Easter holiday.
All in all, not much to report but just thought I’d check in!

2007 In Review

Greg — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 17:47:19 +0000

Predictable this is very late, but my excuse is an unbelievable workload in the run up to final exams in February. Anyway, here goes:

2007 was a year in which I spent a lot of time out of the country, I returned to study, I became single rather suddenly, I have grown even fonder of London and my future plans all fell nicely into place. I’ll recap with some main events from the year 2007.

I saw the New Year in at The Weir with girlfriend and friends and it was a perfect NYE. It’s not often anyone can say that!

February saw me in Jersey for almost a week, celebrating my ex-gf’s father’s birthday, and a good time was had by all

The major event of the year was my success in March in gaining a Training Contract at a major US law firm here in London. I’d finally achieved my dream of training at a top law firm in London and had done so before starting my final year of study.

Skipping forward to July and into my newly single status, I was coming to the end of a year working in the bank here in London. I finally got to see Muse live when I flew over to Geneva for the Paleo festival. they were just as awesome as I expected.

After the end of my 11 months working in banking, I spent a very relaxing week back in Switzerland. A perfect end to the summer and all it entailed.

College started in August and proved to be interesting, challenging and a very different experience to the GDL.

I managed to fit in some more sunshine before winter set in by jetting off to Turkey for a week’s sailing with a friend and his family. Turkey was lovely, almost preferable to Greece and it was a much needed break from a tough first term at college.

In the run-up to Christmas, there were the obligatory Christmas parties, afternoon drinking sessions and of course, work to be done. However, there was one thing keeping me going, the much anticipated trip to New Zealand!

New Zealand was just…incredible. Photos are going up on Flickr once they’ve been sorted but suffice it to say there will be records of (a lot of) wine tasting in Marlborough, sailing in the Marlborough Sound, swimming with dolphins, whale watching, a trip to an active volcano, beautiful scenery and lovely weather. A brief stop-over in Los Angeles for some shopping and tourist sights rounded off a wonderful trip.

Finally, some numbers:
8 gigs
7 weeks out of the country
7 foreign countries
1 job acquired
1 girl leaving
0 girls arriving
1 successful year to be honest!

Here’s to 2008.

What’s Greg watching these days?

Greg — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:56:19 +0000

Shamelessly stealing Rob’s post, here’s a rundown of what I’m watching at the moment, apart from the few breaks I take to study

Heroes - I loved the first season, I haven’t yet watched the first episode of the second.

Battlestar Galactica - As Rob says, what a cliffhanger at the end of the third season! Looking forward to Razor.

Californication - A very amusing David Duchovny plays a heavy drinking, heavy smoking writer who sleeps around a lot and wrestles with an uneasy relationship with his ex-wife, his daughter and is various other friends. Very funny, worth checking it out.

Studio 60 - This comes from the genius behind West Wing, Aaron Sorkin. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after the first season, but it’s well worth a watch.

Grey’s Anatomy - Lost touch with this at the end of season 3, so I’m going to need to recap before starting on the next.

House - The hilarious Hugh Laurie just gets better and better in this, currently watching season 3.

Prison Break - The first season was incredible, the second season mixed, the opening episode of the third season has neatly extended the plot line sufficiently. I’ll reserve judgement on the new direction!

Apart from these regulars, I’m looking forward to checking out Jericho and Criminal Minds. I also am sorely missing Veronica Mars so might check out ‘Chuck’ as Rob suggests.

A general update

Greg — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:12:08 +0000

Now I’ve started this little repositary for all things ‘me’, I thought I’d post a little update.

Since finishing work at BNP Paribas a few weeks ago, here’s what I’ve been up to:

Paleo music festival in Geneva: I flew in for only one evening whereas the family spent the whole week there. However, I saw the one band that was most important, Muse. My first Muse concert was extraordinary, amazing…every adjective you can think of. Some photos here give you an idea of how awesome the show was. Before Muse I saw Arctic Monkeys, who were also very good (looking very nervous) but enjoyable none the less.

I’ve also spent a lot of time catching up with people in London, which was been generally awesome. I’ve just got back from a week in good ol’ Durham, staying with Al and Ben, which was very relaxing, very chilled and well worth the trip. I went out on the Monday evening to try and catch some photos of the meteor shower. While I wasn’t lucky enough to catch any, I did get some quite good ’starry night’ shots, here. Also, some obligatory shots of Durham City and Cathedral here….I do love it there.

In between I’ve been out and about in London taking photos, again here and am trying to get back into my photography.

I’ve also been spending silly amounts of time on Facebook and in late-night MSN sessions…all very good fun.

In other news, I’m off to Switzerland next Friday for a few days, staying in a place called Rosswald, perched up in the mountains in the Valais. Then, College of Law starts on the 30th August, which I’m looking forward to. A few months of that and something to look forward to is a week sailing in Turkey in October and 3 weeks in New Zealand at Christmas…the future’s bright, but thankfully not too orange.

Last.fm goodness

Greg — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:08:07 +0000

I’m a huge fan of Last.fm, with all the music I play being scrobbled through the site. Down in the bottom right, you can see an ‘album quilt’ and a list of what I’ve recently been listening to. You can even go and view my profile and listen to my own radio station here.
I can 100% recommend signing up and having an explore of the site; I’ve discovered many a wonderful song through the site. I’ll leave you with yet another version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah:

Treadmill…

Greg — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:30:31 +0000

I’m currently enjoying a 5 week break from work and study, as I will be starting the LPC in September. My days mainly consist of XBox, music, catching up on TV episodes and the evenings spent catching up with friends.
I’m a bit slow with this, but the video sums up my mood perfectly, OK Go - Here It Goes Again:

Design suggestions

Greg — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:55:47 +0000

Just a quick request for design help. I’ve been playing about with many different themes here, and have settled (for the moment) on the one you can see now…~~it’s basic, looks a little rough round the edges but hopefully you can see what I’m trying to do~~. I’d like to have my Last.fm profile, delicious account, Corkd cellar, ClaimID widget and all my other web ‘properties’ included in one or two sidebars. I’d like to use a good 4 column theme if possible, as this blog is going to be 50% news and 50% aggregating my online activities.
Anyway, I’d appreciate any theme/design suggestions. The next job is to properly integrate Twitter and Flickr.

Update

Greg — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:30:40 +0000

Now this site is well and truly search-engine ready (I think) and has links to my various professional profiles around the web, I will probably start posting up personal news, stories and so on when I see fit (or have the time)! I will also flesh out the ‘About Page‘ with some pertinent information. In the future, I imagine this will become my permanent ‘home’ on the web.