November 2010
Monthly Archive
Friday, 19th November 2010
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
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
Another great working day. Started off nice, but soon deteriorated. It’s no hardship. So much to do…
Tuesday, 16th November 2010
Judith 16 Nov 2010 | : 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
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…
Sunday, 14th November 2010
Judith 14 Nov 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities
The craziness of the conference starts in earnest tomorrow and we were hoping that we would get a final flyable day. First though, we were driven out of bed by a loud buzzing overhead. It’s the annual local paramotor festival in Beuda, and they always come over and buzz the cliff. After Geoff’s experience yesterday, we wanted to check out the wind before committing to potentially wasting the day trying, but failing, to fly. By 11.30am it was clear it would be too breezy and we then spotted the mother of all wave bars forming behind El Mont. That sealed it.
A few hours of work later, we decided to make something of the hot weather and went to Banyoles to have late lunch and a walk round the lake. We tried the first restaurant, but after waiting to order for 20 minutes, we walked out and tried the next one. To make a long story short… it took us an hour and a half to have a plate to eat and the walk was therefore a lot shorter than anticipated. You have to be chilled here… there’s no such thing as fast food on a Sunday.
Saturday, 13th November 2010
Judith 14 Nov 2010 | : Holiday, Trying, but failing, to fly
My friends Angie and Royston are on holiday in Barcelona at the moment and contacted me to see if we could meet up, so I got the coach early this morning and headed to the big city. After coffee we walked up to Sagrada Familia, the crazy Gaudi church, but the queues were so long, we decided just to look at it from the outside. Next we thought it would be nice to get away from the crowds and I thought Parc Güell would be far enough off the beaten track for most tourists. I suggested that we take the metro there and then walk back through Gràcia. As we go onto the train I was telling them what a safe city Barcelona is – very little violence, but it’s full of pick pockets and con artists. Right enough, as we got off the train, Royston noticed his wallet had gone out of his front trouser pocket. He jumped straight back on an grabbed the person who had brushed past him. He spotted him throwing the wallet to his partner and raced over to him. Angie ran and held on to the pick pocket. I was so surprised and slow witted that I didn’t do anything for a minute, but then went over to help pick up the money they had thrown down in an attempt to distract Royston and Angie and make a run for it. They did get away in the end – we couldn’t call the cops without a signal underground and we would have struggled to keep hold of them until the police came anyway, but on counting all the money, it seems they got away empty handed. So well done to Angie and Royston for thwarting the scumbags.
That adventure over, we did get to the park, saw the great views of Barcelona, the Gaudi sculptures and houses and chilled out in the sunshine. Far from being away from the tourists, it was pretty busy. Late lunch and a few beers later, it was time to catch my bus back home. It was so nice to spend the day with them!
Geoff writes: a frustrating day for me. It was warm and sunny, but with strongish southerly winds forecast. Checking round in the morning, there was no sign of wind, and I phoned Peter to see if there was any at the coast, but nothing significant there either. So we decided to meet up at Sant Pere de Rodes. Arriving there, though, the balise (wind machine) on top was giving strong northerlies, and the wind in the landing field was from the west, rather than the sea, where it should come from. Although there is a north launch at Sant Pere de Rodes, it was probably too strong, so rather than go up, we phoned Marc to see if Santa Brigida was on – but no, it was too west there, but they were going to El Mont. So, off we went. We arrived there, and there was almost no wind. We were going to drive up, but I thought I’d show Peter the landing fields. In the hang glider field, some friends had just landed, and reported that it was very strong on top, way too strong for PGs, and they had needed people on the wires to launch. So that was that – back home to do some work.