Work
Archived posts from this Category
Thursday, 4th February 2010
Posted by Geoff on 04 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Work
Geoff writes: we woke up this morning to see there’d been loads of activity in the conference overnight, with a couple of hundred new postings. Today is the second day, which is usually a bit quieter, whilst people catch up on reading the content from the first day – which is normally the busiest of the four. Judith spent 8 hours summarising the 67,250 words in the seven workshop discussions to make the content more accessible to people.
Fortunately (for us) today was dull and wet. Makes us feel much better when we are stuck inside. But dry and sunny from tomorrow.
Wednesday, 3rd February 2010
Posted by Geoff on 03 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Work
Geoff writes: today was a beautiful blue sky, flyable and skiable – but also the first day of our Supporting Deaf People (SDP) conference. Judith leads on this one, since it’s her field, whereas I lead on the e-learning conferences. This is the biggest SDP conference we have ever had, in terms of delegates – and the biggest conference of all types we have had in terms of postings, with the keynote session, about interpreting swearing and profanity, attracting a massive number of postings, around 275 so far. That’s a lot of words (and includes quite a few swear words too!). And it’s only 12 hours into a 48 hour theme.
Online conferencing is our main work (really, our only work now) – and in terms of online conferences where people pay a fee to attend (as opposed to free to register) we are probably the biggest in Europe and the US, certainly in the field of education. They are really interesting to do, but also very complex events to put together, and whilst the conferences themselves typically are only open for posting for four days, the event planning (and work) around that takes months. The big benefit for us is that the preparation work can, except in very rare cases where we have a meeting, be done at any time of day or night, and so leaves us free to do other things like fly, walk or ski if the weather is good.
The one thing we never seem to have enough time for is housework.
Monday, 1st February 2010
Posted by Geoff on 01 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Skiing, Work
Geoff writes: our Supporting Deaf People conference opens Wednesday, the biggest ever. But most of the preparation work is done, so we decided to go skiing, though to finish early. We woke up, and it had snowed, there was a light covering here, so we checked the roads, but they were all open. In fact, it hadn’t snowed at Masella at all last night, so the roads were fine. It was a beautiful day, even less crowded than usual – Monday is always quiet – and great snow. It was very cold though – I know it’s supposed to be cold in ski resorts, but in fact if it’s sunny, it’s usually quite warm, especially sitting in the cafe having a break. But not today. Judith ended up with three layers of gloves – her free plastic petrol station diesel gloves on the inside, then some normal inner gloves, then her highly expensive ski gloves. She was just about warm enough with all those. It’s the diesel gloves which make the difference.
They flew in Santa Brigida again, and, I think, had a good day. The sky certainly looked good at Masella, with some nice cumulus.
And home to an evening of work.
Sunday, 31st January 2010
Posted by Geoff on 01 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
Geoff writes: we woke up and it was sunny, though the forecast was poor. In the end, we decided to give it a go, but got part way to Santa Brigida, and the clouds were getting bigger, and darker, and it started spitting/hailing, so we turned back. After we got home it started snowing, so it was a good decision really – though having said that, I think some people did fly earlier on, amazingly enough. But we’re not that desperate to fly in snow! And at least we got a lot of work done.
Thursday, 28th January 2010
Posted by Geoff on 28 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Flying, Work
Geoff writes: Another excellent day at Santa Brigida. We were a little late out, working this morning, and arriving about 2pm. Nani, Enric, Marc, Joan and Sergi were already there, and just about to launch for the first time – it had been off, but now the wind was on. At first it was a little scratchy, because the sun was hidden by cirrus. But as the sun came out, it got better, and was easy to stay up, and push out into the valley. There was also some ridge lift as the wind got a little stronger. Marc had the best height, probably around 1200 feet ATO. It also got a lot warmer, it had been quite cold when we arrived.
It was easily flyable for a couple of hours. The views were stunning, with some big wave clouds towards the mountains. People top landed, and Marc and I were the only ones in the air. The wind switched abruptly to west, we got below ridge height, and finally, after a struggle, bottom landed. Judith came down for us, and the others on top packed up too. After LZ beers and chat we drove home. However, as we left, it was probably flyable again, the flag at the hermitage was back on. A nice drive in the sun back home, with the wave gone, and just blue sky.
Wednesday, 27th February 2010
Posted by Geoff on 27 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
Geoff writes: a lovely sunny day. Would have been great for skiing, especially since it snowed last night in the mountains, but we opened our conference for the reading week today – 12 countries, 260 participants and counting … this is our largest Supporting Deaf People conference yet. Reading week isn’t that busy, but certainly today we couldn’t go out all day, we need to make sure no-one has any problems. Later on we took a quick drive to Santa Brigida, but it was too much north – in spite of being quite light – so we didn’t bother waiting around, but decided to have a walk round St Feliu de Pallerols instead. It’s a nice old village with a stream running through it. We actually discovered a few parts of it we’ve not been to before.
Monday, 25th January 2010
Posted by Geoff on 25 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: Work
Geoff writes: another work day, mostly, partly because of a poor forecast, but also because we have a lot to do. We expected rain much of the day, but in the end it was just cloudy here, and sunny on the coast at the NE tip of Catalunya. We went to Rupit to do some house-sitting duties whilst Judith’s parents are away, and had a brief walk around.
From tomorrow, the forecast for the next eight days is getting warmer, sunny, no rain. Of course, that might well change – and probably will – but for the moment, it’s looking good.