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Sunday, May 31st, 2009
759We headed over to the Isle of Wight today for the Needles Cross-Country Marathon (although I was only running the half). Our gamble of getting the 8:45 ferry seemed to pay off and we arrived in reasonable time for the 10:00 start from the West Wight Sports Centre. There was a good turnout (around 300 for both events) with a fair sprinkling of Tuesday night runners present (myself, Neil, Darren, Roderick, Sue and Jane).
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Posted in Family, Friends, Running | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
756It seems hard to believe but Emma is two today. She usually goes in to nursery on a Tuesday and as they do a good birthday celebration we thought it would be a shame if she didn’t go in. (She also came home with a good haul of presents from the nursery!) Christine had made two cakes – one for home and another for nursery which is probably just as well as it meant I could practice my decorating skills on ours before doing the one for nursery. Present opening had to wait until I got home from work (as we feared we’d never get Emma off to nursery if we started on them in the morning). Emma has certainly got the hang of tearing off the paper but there were really too many new things for her to concentrate on one for very long. More photos on Flickr.
Posted in Family | Comments Off on Two Today
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
753Today’s trip out was to the New Forest. After fighting our way through the hoards heading towards the beach we parked at the Reptile Centre and then walked to the New Forest Inn at Emery Down where we had lunch. Here we came across a group of Morris Dancers who thankfully seemed more interested in eating and drinking than dancing. We didn’t miss out entirely though as the merriment began just before we made our move to leave. We therefore headed off in the direction of the Portugese Fireplace to the strains of the recorder. From there we crossed to Knightwood Oak and then back to the Reptile Centre. Perhaps as a result of the additional sunshine I was able to improve on my Tuesday night count by spotting two adders, some natterjack toads and a green frog. Perhaps more interesting though was the webcam of the goshawk nest.
Posted in Family, Food | Comments Off on Dancers and adders
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
750Christine’s parents and my brother are down for the weekend and yesterday we decided to head out to Hillier Gardens. We enjoyed a picnic lunch outside in the sun before heading in to the gardens, making the use of some of the 6 free guest passes that come with our joint membership. We’d managed to time our visit for another first: the first day of this year’s Art in the Garden season (the 10th year it has run). This provided additional entertainment for children and photographers alike! Sadly, when Michael and I popped over the road to look at the rhodies (whilst the others checked out the tree house again), we discovered that most were already past their best. Anyway, a selection of my photos are on Flickr.
Posted in Arts, Family, Photography | Comments Off on Sculpture season starts
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Two weeks ago I managed to completely forget that it was an RR10 – this time I remembered the race but forgot my shoes! Thankfully I was wearing an old pair of trainers to drive there and, other than a slight lack of grip, I wasn’t particularly disadvantaged. The venue was a delightfully sunny Wilverley Plain. Apparently the course was the same as last year but it was new to me. I quite enjoyed it with a good selection of undulations followed by a nice flat finish. I fell in behind a couple of Southampton runners for the first half of the course and then edged ahead of them on a downhill. I was still ahead when we reached the Plain but just didn’t have any kick at the end so they both overtook me on the run in. I was, however, happy not to feel too badly the effects of either the previous evening’s run or the half of my dinner that I had eaten before going out! I was even happy to discover that I’d made it in to the top 20.
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Posted in Running | Comments Off on Top Twenty
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
The weather was fantastic for running on Tuesday night: bright sunshine filtering through the trees and a nice breeze to keep the midges away whilst we waited to start. We headed down to the Repitiliary this week and, yet again, I failed to see any reptiles (the closest we got was a snake skin). Heading back north we veered a bit close to the road but this did have the advantage that we didn’t hit the gravel track until we were fairly near to home. This will have been my last run from the Canadian War Memorial as it’s Emma’s birthday next Tuesday.
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Posted in Running | Comments Off on Slippery customers
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
There have been a couple of questions recently on an internal forum asking how best to parameterise a module. For mediation modules the seemingly obvious answer is via promoted properties. However, in these scenarios the parameterisation was required to handle the deployment of a module in to different environments and the originators felt that promoted properties were more about making administrative changes to properties post-deployment. I pointed out that, in the admin console, if you use the J2EE application installation process (rather than the install button on the SCA modules panel) and select the “Show me all installation options and parameters” radio button then you will find a panel entitled “Edit module properties” that allows you to modify promoted properties on installation.
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Posted in WebSphere ESB | Comments Off on Setting promoted properties on install
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
747It was pay back time this weekend as we spent both days helping out at various events. On Saturday we went along to the SOC event at Hut Wood. We walked there and got soaked as a result when the heavens opened. Thankfully the sun came out as we arrived and the rain didn’t return until later in the day. The downpour didn’t seem to have discouraged attendees either with over 60 participants. I went round with a group of juniors from nearby Halterworth Harriers running club. Not wishing to be stereotypical but the two lads did all of the work whilst the older girls discussed boys, films, TV etc. I’d originally only planned to shadow them for the first few controls but when they started heading off in the wrong direction to number three then I thought I’d best stick with them. Who knows – perhaps they’d have paid more attention if I hadn’t been there as the safety net? I think even Emma on the yellow course with Christine may have averaged faster minutes per km…
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Posted in Family, Friends, Orienteering, Running | Comments Off on Weekend Helping
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