Icelandic adventures

July 8th, 2006

117Iceland wouldn’t have been our first choice for a holiday destination but Christine’s attendance at the EURO 2006 conference gave us (and it seemed, most of the rest of the operational research world) a good excuse to make the trip.

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Camera purchase

June 25th, 2006

After months of indecision I finally purchased a Canon EOS 350D digital SLR today. Originally I had been toying with the idea of something like the Fuji S9500 but in the end decided that I’d like to have the extra flexibility that a digital SLR would provide. The next choice was between the Nikon D50 and the Canon. In the end I don’t think the decision was entirely rational.
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Sunny champs

June 25th, 2006

We can now breathe a collective sigh of relieve as the Junior Inter-Regional Champs came and went this weekend. Things didn’t get off to a great start when we returned from control hanging to discover that start times had been put back an hour due to transport problems (two squads missing minibuses and a third stuck in traffic). Fortunately the extra wait didn’t result in any controls wandering away and, indeed, we didn’t suffer any vandalism all day.
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Widgets, links and spam

June 21st, 2006

If there is anyone that actually visits this site then they have noticed that the right-hand column has changed a bit recently. This is as I’ve added WordPress Widgets to my template. The presence of a del.icio.us widget has encouraged me to sign up for an account there to store my links. I should probably also mention another Automattic project – Akismet – without which this site would have rapidly disappeared under the weight of spam comments. This saved me from the dilemma of whether or not to add captcha support to the blog with the associated accessibility issues.

Jukola post-race analysis

June 20th, 2006

Went to the TracTrac site to relive the excitement of the last leg of Jukola over again. Then, for the reader’s amusement, added my own route to the RouteGadget map.

SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus

June 20th, 2006

I’ve bought a SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus for my compact camera. This memory card has a neat little trick up its sleeve in that, when folded in half, it reveals a USB adapter. This will firstly mean that I have to carry one less cable when travelling but also, unlike the camera, doesn’t require any special drivers making it easier to upload photos from an internet cafe. Only minor issue is likely to be PCs that have USB ports buried behind a plastic fascia as the the folded part of the card needs to sit flush with the machine. Download speeds seems pretty fast and there’s a nice blue light that emanates from the end of the card when plugged in to the USB port!

JOK triumphs at Jukola

June 19th, 2006

105The pressure was on this weekend as JOK had laid down the gauntlet to other British clubs at Jukola, the seven man night relay held in Finland each year. In addition to some familiar faces in the LOK team (mostly from Happy Herts), this had encouraged a team of fresh-faced youngsters from Nottingham to enter. To increase our chances, Jon Cross had done a fantastic job in pulling together three JOK teams plus four women for Venla, the women’s race.

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SCOA sprint

June 16th, 2006

At the cost of having to listen to the two England goals on the radio, we went to the SCOA AGM this evening. Normally this is an event that I’d be happy to give a miss but Christine is currently JOK President and consequently obliged to attend. On top of this, Allan Farrington (the SCOA Chairman) was promising a sprint event. This turned out to just consist of a run round the permanent course contained within the grounds of the Worthy Down army camp but it was still good fun. Controls could be taken in any order and I think my route choice was less than optimum. My time of just over 20 minutes also wasn’t helped by overshooting three controls and taking some time to relocate in amongst all the buildings. This was three minutes slower than the course record held by Richard Barrett of BAOC (albeit with a different starting point).