The San Diego ComicCon is right after Celebration Japan.  I have made arrangements so that I will fly from Japan right to the convention in San Diego.  I figured that after working in Japan I would just be a participant at the SDCC but it looks like that might change a bit.

My cartoon is a finalist in the Atom Fan Movie Challenge.  Friday of the ComicCon  is Star Wars day, and as such, Atom has invited me to spend a few hours in thier booth meeting fans and selling items.  I’ll get some more information about the booth location and the times I’ll be there and pass that on.

Island Barbie Princess had just come out while I was in India, and the girls wanted some jewelry just like she had!

Spencer got a boomerang. We’ve got a good sized backyard so I thought that I’d try it out. I threw it into the neighbor’s yard on my first try.

Yes! I’m home. I fell off the whole blogging wagon. I’m going to work to make sure that I keep a bit more updated now that I’m back into a somewhat normal schedule.

The kids made these signs for me.

Jackson wasn’t going to let me leave without him!

I think that the map just about says it all.

Phoenix to London = 10 hrs________Destination
London to Chennai = 11 hrs________7.5 hour layover
Chennai to Coimbatore = 1 hr_______Destination
Coimbatore to Chennai = 1 hr_______9 hr layover
Chennai to Kuala Lumpur = 3.5 hrs___3.5 hr layover
Kuala Lumpur to Perth = 6 hrs______Destination
Perth to Singapore = 6 hrs_________3 hr layover
Singapore to London = 5.3 hrs______7 hr layover
London to Phoenix = 10 hrs________DESTINATION

I was able to snap some photos of Greenland on the way home.

After walking around a bit I finally found the shopping district at Piccadilly Circus. I don’t know, I guess with the word “Circus” in the name I expected something a bit more entertaining. I did see a lot of people holding signs pointing me to buy cheap theater tickets.

The saddest part is that I went in to look at the tickets and a Star Wars poster caught my eye. Then I remembered that there’s a Star Wars exhibition going on right now! It opens at 10:00 AM, but I needed to get all the way back to the airport by 12:00. I found out that I was 20 mins. away from the exhibition. With travel time to the airport and the exhibition I would have about 15 mins. to see the whole thing. So, I missed it.

I think that I ended up walking away from Piccadilly Circus and found this little place to eat breakfast. I thought, “That was a nice little place. I’ll have to take a photo when I leave.” Well I forgot to take the picture, but I was in no rush so I walked back and took it!

LOOK OUT!!! There’s an Australian impostor on the street!

On a side note. When I was leaving Australia they said that my carry-on bag was too heavy. I ended up taking my laptop out of the backpack, and the redistributing the backpack contents into my other bag so that I could stuff it into my checked luggage. I traveled all the way home with the camera case dragging behind me and the laptop under my arm.

I laughed at this sign, took a picture of it and then walked right past it. I saw a little open air marked that was just setting up off to the left and thought I would go through this little gate, into the alley and have a look. Then I thought of the sign! I backed up and kept on walking.

So I’m off and running. I’ve got about 6 hours in London so I decided to get out. I took the Heathrow Express to Paddington. On the train I talked to someone who was coming home from a trip to San Francisco. She suggested that I take the Bakerloo line to Piccadilly Circus and have a look around.

The escalator in the underground was so steep that I nearly fell!

I just started walking around and I came down a small alley where they were setting up some fruit stands etc. I thought that this was a cool looking building.

Well, it’s hard to say goodbye, but I’ve been away from my family for 2 weeks. I’m getting pretty excited to just get home. This is a shot down by the Harbor at Fremantle.

I was standing at the airport and decided to do a panorama shot. I got to the end and this girl was standing there and just made for a wonderful reflection shot!

In parting, I forgot to mention that everything in Australia was pretty familiar. I was a bit confused by “Hungry Jack’s”. I forgot to take a photo so I got this one off the internet. It turns out that someone already owned the name “Burger King” and wasn’t willing to part with it. As a result, we have Hungry Jack’s.

One of the guys that we met in Australia was Iain Murray. He works in Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Research at the Curtin University of Technology. He told us that when he first learned about the Networking Academy Program that he thought it would be perfect for the Blind. He said that it required the network engineer to be able to visualize the network as much as being able to actually build one.

Below is Iain, Aubrey, Dr. Helen from the University, (Helen Parke is blocked from view) and then Lou.

This is a peak into the secret lab…well not so secret. Iain is working on new technology to assist the blind. I think that he said this project was a PDA.

The Cisco Networking Academy text book in braille.

I though this poster was great!

In my final stroll around downtown Fremantle, I was sure to take a shot of the local University.

These are the train tracks at the far end of the park.

We stayed in the building in the center back with the red dome. It is the Esplanade Hotel.

I don’t know what it means.