Work
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Friday, 19th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 19 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Work
Fewer live sessions at the conference today, so we were hopeful that we could sneak out for a flight this afternoon. It wasn’t to be. The ok forecast of yesterday deteriorated and then it clouded over mid-morning. The 11.30am update confirmed that it would be cold, cloudy and generally a bit pants. We still needed to get away from our screens for a few hours though, and it wasn’t nice walking or cycling weather, so we went for lunch. It’s the main meal of the day here and nearly every restaurant serves a ‘menu del dia’ or menu of the day, which usually consists of three or four courses, wine and water, and costs between 9 – 18 euros. We dined royally at the Cafe Europa in the Plaza Mayor in Olot for 10 euros each and then went home for a siesta. It’s good to fit in with the locals once in a while.
When I woke up we had an extra 13 delegates, so we’re now 452 participants in total. This is going to be the biggest conference we have ever run. And the other good news is that Masella, where we have our season tickets, has decided to be the first ski resort in the Pyrenees to open. The big season opening party is tomorrow. I think we’ll give it a miss though… with only a few kilometers open, it hardly seems worth the drive. Still, roll on December and hopefully when we get back from Lanzarote, we can dust off the skis.
Thursday, 18th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 18 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Work
A stunning day. Shame we had to work. I was giving my presentation on ‘Making the most of the online conference’ with James Clay this morning. It went well, except for making a technical boo-boo, when I tried to do a web tour through the live webcasting environment, and everyone got stuck, while I was happily describing stuff that nobody else could see. Oops.
Straight after, I had to rush off to Girona airport to collect my parents and nearly wept at the cloud streets. We later found out that Sant Pere de Rodes had been fantastic, like a spring day. Once back home, it was non-stop work again. We ran six live sessions today, both in virtual worlds and using live web casting.
LMSC committee meeting tonight. Another technical marvel… people physically in Shrewsbury, people on skype from Spain, Birmingham, Herefordshire, and on the phone from Bewdley. Amazing what you can do these days.
Wednesday, 17th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 17 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Work
Another great working day. Started off nice, but soon deteriorated. It’s no hardship. So much to do…
Tuesday, 16th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 16 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Trying, but failing, to fly, Work
We opened the conference this morning and were busy until late lunch time. However, we had to collect our car from the garage at some point and the weather was so nice, it seemed only fair that we could take an extended lunch break and go for a quick fly. It was a startlingly blue sky, but very windy in and around Castellfollit. There was some evidence of north/west wind on the way, although it was getting weaker so we carried on driving. We met Marc at Santa Brigida and the wind was on the hill enough for us to drive up to try it out.
It was one of those days when it was different in the valley than it was on the hill, and that concerned us. Not only did the direction in the valley change at times by 180 degrees, but the wind strength was much higher at the bottom than at the top – so the reverse to what it should really be. All this served as a warning signal to us, but Marc decided to try it, but he sunk out quickly and just did an extended top to bottom in the end. We didn’t bother, but rushed home to carry on working.
Monday, 15th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 15 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Work
A crap weather day, with rain, low cloud and later thunder and lightning. The perfect working day. Good job too, as this is the final day of preparation before we let the 408 participants (so far) to the JISC conference into the environment. So last minute tweaks, checking everything and a team meeting was on the programme today. We register everyone on the system tonight and then send out the passwords tomorrow. It’s always stressful when we get to this point, as it’s all live from tomorrow and no further changes can be made…
Friday, 12th November 2010
Posted by Judith on 12 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Flying, Work
It’s all getting a bit hectic with us. We’re trying to get things scheduled for the few slots we have available in the next two weeks or things will be pushed past Christmas. We had to make my traumatologist appointment in person, and the only time my mum (Catalan – English interpreter/moral support) and I are here at the same time in the foreseeable future is the 19th November, so Geoff and I went off to make the appointment today. To make a long story short, I can’t be seen in a public hospital other than in an emergency, which makes sense… if I could, on an EHIC card, then health tourism would be the #1 reason for coming here. Other than the near non-stop sun, fantastic food, great flying, wild fiestas and lovely people, that is.
As we were already driving past Bellmunt, it made sense to go there to fly, although others had gone to Santa Brigida and Sant Pere de Rodes. It looked great. Vultures were thermalling and it was hot, with the forecast temperatures being 23C. Since we were on our own, I offered to drive for Geoff. I’m not sure what happened, maybe he launched in a bad cycle, but he sunk out quickly, and although he hit a good thermal in the valley, was down before I managed to drive down. We couldn’t decided wether it was best to drive back up for me to fly, or if we should go to Santa Brigida, where both of us could fly. A call to Oriol confirmed that we should go to Santa Brigida. We got there to see Sergi and Oriol high and rushed up, but by the time we got ready and off, it was a short flight. I top landed to have a chat with Sergi and Geoff flew until it got scratchy a little while later and he went down. It was probably ok again later, but we still had a lot of stuff to do, so headed back home via a few errands in Olot. And now more work… I have processed more than 90 bookings for our conferences since Tuesday, and they keep coming!
Thursday, 11th November 2010
Posted by Geoff on 11 Nov 2010 | Tagged as: Flying, Work
Geoff writes: a warm, sunny day, with light southerly winds. A good day for flying, but unfortunately Judith had to take her parents to the airport, and I had an online meeting I couldn’t miss (it’s getting increasingly difficult to fit in non-work stuff). The meeting went on for some time, so in the end we decided to meet up at our closest site, El Mont. As Judith arrived at the bottom, she saw a paraglider flying there, so it seemed like the right place to be. We’ve actually flown there loads of times, on hang gliders, but I’ve never flown a paraglider there before, though Judith has many times. The launch is a small ramp – very easy on a hang glider, and very hard on a paraglider. Judith got off perfectly, first time, but it took me two goes – light winds, pull up and then run like f….
It was quite thermic, and rough in places, and I had at least one large collapse, which was a bit surprising. There was wave about, though I don’t think that was the problem. The thermals were just strong and rough. We both flew out into the valley during our flights, and each picked up some less rough stuff, which kept us up for a while, before we went and landed near the village (and her parents’ car, which was our way to get back up the mountain).
Back on top, we had our apres vol beer looking at an amazing sky, and the sunset was pretty special too.
So an interesting day, if not quite epic!