And then there were three....

Tory and I were joined at the Head of the River pub by MBA friends Adam, Richard, Jaesan and Chris.

Relaxing outside at the Head of the River pub. The best place in Oxford on a hot Sunday afternoon.

Accidental portrait. Tory took this while I was riding my bike..

I demontrated my cycling technique

Tory reckoned the seat on my bike was too high

Catching rays by the river in Christchurch Meadow, Oxford.

Summer is not over here in the UK....hooray!

Tory at 'Fruitstock' with my best mate from the MBA programme, Josh and his girlfriend Olga.

Tory and I at the 'Fruitstock' food festival in Regents Park London.

After the presentation Tim and I went to the beach. The seven star Burj-Al-Arab hotel is in the distant background.

View of the beach. The white sand in the distance is vacant reclaimed land shaped like a palm frond.

The team relaxing in the hotel after the presentation.

The presentation generated considerable discussion

Opening the presentation

Final touches before the presentation

Ankur and Tim from hitting the floor dinner

Team member Bing Ji getting into the groove in Dubai after skiing and dinner

The team with Nokia hosts ready to take on Ski Dubai

Indoor chairlift in Ski Dubai.

Dubai and Back to Oxford

After pulling the Nokia presentation together in Dubai last Sunday 30 July, the team has returned to Oxford to complete the academic requirements of project. Two senior reps of Nokia also visited us in Oxford last Thursday and advised we would need to do further research before presenting our findings to very senior level management in Finland at the end of the August.

This project was described by one of my class mates as 'the sleeper' because nobody realised how good it would be until after team had been selected. I do feel very fortunate to have benefitted from the money and time Nokia has invested in our work.

In Dubai Nokia treated us to an evening out on the town preceded by indoor skiing at Ski Dubai, the latest local attraction. -1 degree is a welcome attraction considering the temperature was in the high 3o degrees celcius during my stay. Inspite of the heat, Dubai is a very intriguing place growing at a mindblowing rate and very international in flavour. Of the three cities I visited during the project, Dubai is the one that I could happliy work in on an ongoing basis.

On arriving back to Oxford the team took a few days to break to recover and Tory visited me this weekend. We spent a night in London before heading to Oxford. She has handled the move to Dublin very well but it is still quite tough to be much closer to each other but still separated by distance. A relaxing weekend without the pressure of study commitments was just what I needed so I can throw myself into the final push to the September 9 graduation.

That is it for now.

Cheers,
Doug.