Not to worry people! I’ve been away on break/holiday/can’t stand Ben anymore/vacation for 3weeks. Catch up with me below…

Play: A week of singing!
Those who know me, also now how much of my life outside of Thought Den I dedicate to singing the best I can, and my chorus had the opportunity to compete Internationally in California. Luckily it wasn’t like the US, ‘world series’ which comprises of teams picked only from the states… It included the Swedish (Zero 8), New Zealanders and the Deutsch.

In the competition, the Great Western Chorus sang really well and we came a respectable 23rd. Not as high as we’d hope, yet, but still that does mean it’s 23rd in the world. Effectively, I’m now much better than all of you lot at singing… Barbershop style… jealous right… I can hear the sighs of, ‘I still couldn’t care less Dan’ and the click of your mouse navigating you to, no doubt, a better-written Blog post by Ben.

After singing ourselves broken that week, forming a new Bristol quartet and managing to finish a stonkingly good book called, America un-chained by Dave Gorman. We said our goodbyes and headed up to a new city. Somewhere that can only be described as, ‘a warmer Bristol’.

Rest: San Francisco baby!

That city is nearly amazing. We never stopped meeting really cool people offering us tickets, invites and cheescake. However, the term “nearly” is important, because the city’s grid system has the same confusing nature of a mini-Milton Keynes, only without any roundabouts. “Have I seen this building before?”, “I think we need a cab… oh it’s just around the corner?!” and it’s cold!

That week, we spent time rocking out at Baseball matches, drinking Bud with Welsh people and sleeping through checkout time. Smoooooth.

Work: What about Thought Den then, you lazy monkey?

Don’t panic! This week may have been a time of checking in and out of various hostels and enjoying some sun, but I got to meeting some cool Silicon Valley people, like

- The Entrepreneur, creating a New Networking site purely for traveling. Silicon Valley people talking to hostelers (haven’t we all seen this stuff before, Dopplr?)
- Google Chrome OS, met the Google man who’s excited and wanted to tell me lots of NDA stuff… but couldn’t obviously! Thanks god speak-easys later that night =)

- New PM Studio being set-up in Palo Alto, missed meeting Gene, but I’m sure it’d been fun!

Now, this week. Mostly I’ve been checking out the new iPhone OS 3.0 and playing with a silly tutorial button designed only to frustrate you. Reading up on Chrome OS, realising Twitter is just the same as any other business and how to use Flys for social networking!

The important thing is though, it’s time to set-up a satellite office.

Next: … I skipped all the above rubbish, are you coming home? ‘Cos we don’t miss you

So, that’s me nearly done. I’m heading back in on Wednesday the 22nd July, then ready for Thought Den towers on Thurs. It’ll be sad to leave obviously but I can’t wait to talk to you lovely people again over a jet-lagged cup o’ char.

Loves from the US of A.

Meanwhile back in Bristol the good ship sails on – an exciting new enterprise with the BBC is soon to be announced, while ongoing updates to The JD Set site, including some fantastic new videos and music, mean it’s as popular as ever. Bournemouth’s Virtual Tour has undergone a little refresh, aMap is storming it’s way round the digital discolines and a very special project is currently undergoing a trial period with an extremely large TV production company…