The short version of this post is: congratulation to the happy couple! Enjoy your honeymoon and see you when you get back. The longer version follows…

A month ago I drove up to the midlands for a wedding where I had been asked to be the photographer. It’s not the first time that this has happened but it is the first time that I’ve been the “official” photographer and it’s also the first time where the wedding has been in a church, white dress, limo and all.

A few people asked me what I wanted for Christmas. As ever I couldn’t think of anything and facetiously suggested a Ferrari. Apparently even toy models are more expensive than you’d think but a red Lego car is within range for a joke gift, and that’s absolutely fine by me! I loved Lego as a kid, and I still do!

But if one toy is good then two are better. So I had to play with my new Lego and my new flash together.

I first saw this on Seth Godin’s blog and thought it was a good idea in principle:

This might be a useful exercise. Doesn’t matter whether it was a hit or not, it just matters that you shipped it. Shipping something that scares you (and a lot of what follows did) is the entire point.

It is, however, quite hard for people who don’t live life in public in the same way that Seth does. I’ve spent a lot of the year doing pre-sales work either with clients that don’t like being named or for deals that we lost (and therefore not something a lot of people would want publicised). And now, in my new job, one reading of my contract means that I can’t even send out press releases.

Given the sub-zero temperatures that we’re experiencing in the UK, this weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Chill,” is very appropriate. I can’t, however, really use one of the pictures I took earlier this week¹ so instead this one was taken in January this year in our first snows of 2010.

I didn’t post an entry to last weeks challenge so there’s no need to feel bad for not voting for me(!).

• It’s not an arsenic-based life form – Apparently ET is not visiting any time soon but it’s still pretty cool.
• Julian Assange, defending our democracies (despite their owners’ wishes) – Nice piece about WikiLeaks and why, despite what some politicians will tell you, it’s a good thing.

It seems that the weather is not without a sense of irony¹. In the year that is the hottest on record, in the UK we’re having a very early cold snap, complete with snow.

I did think that it was all archive footage, since the papers were full of coverage yet there was no snow at all in London. And then this morning the pavements were covered. When I went out for a bite to eat at lunchtime I took my camera with me…

Again, I’m not quite happy with this image. It’s close to the theme “Liquid,” which is this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, but, to me, isn’t exactly right. As you can see, it’s a bottle of white wine that I took a couple of years ago.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Dark.” I’m entry number 136.

• Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity draws marchers from across America – Good to see that there is some sense in American politics!
• Some physics to live by… – “Whether we like it or not, human life is subject to the universal laws of physics.”

It’s nearly four years old now, so I do expect the odd beach ball occasionally. When my MacBook is doing something hard or complex or just opening iTunes, it often shows its “I’m too busy to respond to you right now” indicator. But this time it was different. The beachball appeared and didn’t really go away again. Sure, it occasionally hid but as soon as I instructed the machine to do anything it would return.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Sky-High.” My first thought was a picture from a plane but then I thought it was likely to be a bit of a cliché. Bizarrely I didn’t see many other entrants with the same idea so I went with the above image, taken on my iPhone landing back in London.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Summer Fun.” I’m entry number 279.