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Long Lepe
Saturday, November 7th, 2009Firework Flop
Friday, November 6th, 2009Yesterday night we headed along to the firework display at our local school (Hiltingbury). The buggy board we had ordered also arrived earlier in the day. Emma was so excited – she rode on the buggy board the whole way there shouting “We’re going to the fireworks” to anyone who would listen. Christine and I were in a slightly less ecstatic mood having failed to find Christine’s wallet, hoping that she had left it in the post office earlier in the day. We had a bit of a wait before the action started and Emma amused herself with a glo-stick. Emma was up on my shoulders when the fireworks started and the reaction was immediate: sheer terror. She started screaming that she wanted to go home and had to be carried away from the school. Last year, having seen a few fireworks out the bathroom window, Emma kept asking about them for weeks afterwards but it would seem that she’s just not ready for the loud bangs.
Back to the Roads
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Yesterday evening I headed down to Southampton University, not for the IBM Hursley Lecture (more shame me), but for the first of the winter road runs from the University. Thankfully the “mini tornado” that passed through work earlier in the day was long gone but it left a clear sky and a nip in the air. This accounts for the fact that my GPS trace doesn’t start at the beginning of the run – I was too busy sheltering in the warmth of the Murray Building to get a satellite fix before we started!
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Classic New Forest
Monday, November 2nd, 2009Yesterday was SOC’s annual November Classic orienteering event. This year the venue was Eyeworth and Bentley (around Fritham). I probably made a mistake in asking for my start time to be moved forward to something closer to my brother’s (rather than vice-versa) as we got soaked running to the start. The rain had pretty much ceased by the time my course made it out in to the open though and when I finished the sun was actually shining.
Wet Windy Wales
Monday, October 26th, 2009This weekend was my third OMM partnering with Neil Broderick on the B course, with the Elan Valley as the setting for this attempt. We weren’t due to start until nearly midday on Saturday and, with Christine’s parents our base just over an hour away from the event, it was set to be a very civilised start on the Saturday morning. Unfortunately, Neil was suffering from a stomach bug and on Friday night we weren’t even sure we were going to start at all.
Version 7 announcement
Monday, October 19th, 2009Two weeks ago I was a little pre-occupied with my own announcement and consequently failed to highlight the announcement for the next version of WebSphere ESB, Process Server and Integration Developer.
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First orienteering for Duncan
Saturday, October 17th, 2009At two weeks old we thought it was about time Duncan experienced some orienteering so we all headed along to SOC’s local event at Avon Tyrrell today. “Local” is a relative term as, being on the far side of the New Forest, it’s nearly 30 miles each way for us to get there. Christine took Duncan and Emma round the white course whilst I did the score event. Simon Whipple had planned an imaginative course to make the most of a small area. There were two sets of master maps, one at each end of the area with half the controls on each. My brain wasn’t entirely switched on having spent an hour or so up with Duncan in the middle of the night and hence trying to track which of 34 controls I had been to proved taxing. Also, despite having been told that one control had the wrong code on it I still ran around like a headless chicken for a couple of minutes when I came to it. It would also have been helpful if there had actually been a feature on the map in the middle of each control circle!
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