Tonight / tomorrow morning will present the best opportunity for those in the Northern Hemisphere to see the Perseids Meteor storm. I won’t bother writing all about it here as you can find out loads on the amsmeteors.org website. All that does need saying is get yourself out into the country side for the best views. Even with the heavy moonlight that will be present tonight you should see on average one meteor a minute… It should be an excellent opportunity to get some good photos! Doubt I get anything as good as the Astronomy Picture of the Day though!

Just spotted the following on the mongol rally text updates: “the 2nd mini in mongolia ever, come on!” Mini Adventure (The A Team) With any luck, if they reach Ulaan Baatar, they’ll be greeted by Christie and a large banner of Christie splashing through a river. You see, I got this in a mail from Tom today: “You might be interested to know that your oh so famous mini is now being sported in 7 x 3 meter banner at Dave’s Place overlooking the square. It blew down the first time it was erected but she is back and shinning…

Tiredness, frustration, anger, elation… And people think that computer programming is dull. I’ve just finished spending far too long making improvments to the Mongol Rally’s mapping tools and I must say I’m more than happy with the results. Check it out for yourself.  Where Are They?” Not easy, as I’m new to the Google maps API and on top of that I’m using sql to get info from the db into my php code which then dynamically generates the javascript code for the maps… Not at all easy to debug! As a result I’m really starting to get to grips…

I’ve been working with the Mongol Rally organisers in sorting out the car tracking systems for the official Mongol Rally web page, while at the same time following the progress of the teams. I must admit, the rally seems to be doing it’s job. Breakdowns, long border crossing and corrupt police… The text updates are a great source of entertainment. Some of my favorites so far: “Pulled over next to a concrete tank-statue by the rozzers. Couldn’t pay £75 fine for not understanding them. They settled for a Monty Python DVD instead.” “Turkish visas 30 euros, turkish insurance 38 euros,…

Final night in Krakow My last night in Krakow was, as ever, fantastic albeit a little sad. I met up with Gareth for a good steak in the Grill bar followed by yet another Tyskie on one of the many terraces on the main square before Gareth had to dash off to catch his train. If your reading this mate, I’d like to see your photos from that night. After that I wandered off to meet Marcin, Jakob, Volcheck and Kamil in a large courtyard bar which was playing some fantastic music… typically, I was shown this place on my…