February 2011
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 13th February 2011
Geoff 13 Feb 2011 | : Beach, Work
Geoff writes: we finally closed the conference at 8.30am this morning. A great four days – something over 2,000 posts in the 16 sessions. Brilliant feedback as usual, and everyone saying how much they look forward to next year. People increasingly prefer this type of conference to the face to face workshops they attend – the level of interaction is a lot greater, the level of debate is a lot higher (this is NOT Twitter!), more people get actively involved, they’re cheaper, and, of course, they can attend from home.
In the afternoon, we were hoping to go flying, but as expected the weather is getting worse now. So whilst it was still sunny, it was much too windy to fly, so we went to the beach, having a look at a place we’ve never been to before, Platja d’Aro, and the town nearby, Castell d’Aro. They were OK, but like most resorts, they use the winter to do repairs, so it had a sort of unfinished look. In summer, I guess it will be extremely busy. And it has some high rises on the front, which we really hate. There are nicer places, but good to get out of the house.
Saturday, 12th February 2011
Geoff writes: the final full day of the conference. Nice flying day of course, though not quite as good as expected, we heard afterwards. In the evening, we went out for our traditional end of conference meal at the restuarant up the road. We splashed out at 13.50 euros each.
Friday, 11th February 2011
Geoff writes: another day of the conference, so working all day. Also, another day of cloud and fog at the coast, but sunny inland.
We are free again from Sunday, but the weather turns distinctly worse then.
Thursday, 10th February 2011
Geoff writes: not a lot to say, second day of the conference, so stuck in all day…. except for a short time when we managed to pop out for a sandwich in the sun at the cafe opposite our cliff, where all the tourists go to take photos.
Wednesday, 9th February 2011
Geoff writes: the first day of our Supporting Deaf People conference. Over 280 participants, 17 countries, 24 hours a day, around 500 posts so far. Like all our online conferences, it is going to be very busy. Judith leads on this one, so she is permanently glued to the computer, getting RSI, eye strain, etc. So it’s just a day of work for us.
But we did look at the web cams occasionally. Another sunny forecast, but the cloud/fog from the coast crept in this far, and it was cloudy all day, though just a couple of km further inland, it was clear. Would have been a good skiing day.
Tuesday, 8th February 2011
Geoff writes: last day before the conference opens tomorrow, at which point we will be glued to the computers for the next four days. So we took a few hours off to go skiing with Debi. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the snow was excellent, at least in the morning, until the sun got quite hot. Having tried to persuade Judith to ski carefully – a broken leg the day before the conference would be a bad thing – I got a bit carried away, and skied faster than I usually do. At one point I was passing a group of beginners who were taking up most of the piste, and I decided to go behind the snow cannon to avoid them. This was a mistake, since there was a shelf of snow behind it, meaning I did a very unexpected jump. I almost made it, landing back on both skis, but then lost it, and had a spectacular fall, losing both skis, but fortunately not hurting myself (or the skis).
Later on, we took a less well used piste, and there I did manage to damage my skis, going over some stones, and putting some deep gashes in them. I could still ski on them, but they didn’t turn as easily, so we’ve had to leave them to be fixed – something I hate doing, they always seem to come back worse.
As we were having sandwiches in the car park, we could see people thermalling up at Targasonne on the other side of the valley. Any other day, we would have been able to go over and fly too, but today we had to get back for the conference (and to do some publicity for the latest podcast on wave flying).
Podcast: Flying in wave
Geoff 08 Feb 2011 | : Podcasts
Flying in wave with Steve Hudson of the Derbyshire Flying Centre. Wave is a fairly common weather condition in the UK and can provide excellent and exhilarating flying, but it can also be scary if you don’t know how it works. While hang gliders have a lot of knowledge and experience of it, many paraglider pilots are unsure of flying in wave. In this podcast, Steve aims to explain how to assess conditions, get down, fly safe and have fun! 52 minutes. (February 2011)
Download the podcast: http://www.judithmole.net/podcasts/flying_in_wave.mp3
Subscribe to future podcasts: see the links on the right.
Please note: this, and all previous podcasts, are also available from the podcast page.