Alex's Adventures on the Infobahn - holiday

Mysterious Islands in the Sea

2010-09-10T15:39:00+01:00

We have arrived on a tropical island paradise. It's only slightly disconcerting that the GPS on my phone still hasn't figured out where we are. Although so far smoke monsters and polar bears have not been in evidence. The flights weren't too hard to deal with (6 and 4 hours) but we nevertheless fell to sleep quite readily after dinner and watching the stars come out.

Today has mostly been taking it easy, we figured we should allow whatever jet-lag type effects to pass before plunging into full activity mode. We have been swimming in the sea as well as taking advantage of the horizon pool near the bar. We've also had "medicals" for the diving course were starting on in a few days.

Being in the Indian ocean we're actually fairly off the beaten track for western Europeans. So far we've chatted to some South Africans, played backgammon with some Lebanese and played pool pig in the middle with some Japanese. It's very much a Pacific Rim melting pot here.

Current Reading: The Skinner, Neal Asher and On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

Code Insomnia

2010-08-27T06:14:00+01:00

It's very rare programs are ever complete, let alone perfect. I pulled a fairly late session night to push a release out at work. Hopefully testing have a chance to raise any major clangers before I go on holiday for the next month. However the combination of late night coding plus fretting meant I didn't really sleep well. While I may have technically entered REM sleep dreaming about code and architectural deficiencies in your code isn't the most refreshing way to let your brain unwind. I eventually gave up and got up. It's been a while since I heard Farming Today.

Tenuous Grip

2010-02-22T21:25:00+00:00

We have just returned from a weekend in the Peak District, ostensibly for walking although we stayed on for extra loafing and a Goose dinner on Sunday. The event is a regular birthday celebration/mass catering event held in various youth hostels near various peaks over the years. This was my second time attending and it was most agreeable.

The walking element of the weekend included climbing a snow covered Kinder Scout. Unlike previous years I wasn't failed by poor fitting shoes or a particularly steep ascent so enjoyed the fresh air all the more. I can't help feeling the large amount of walking I do around Cambridge is essentially useless as a preparation for anything with slopes. Snowden is currently the next beast to conqueror although schedules are starting to fill up.

The journey home did start with a mini-Volkswagen adventure. The road we had followed on the way looked clear the way back. Indeed most of the rolling hills were carefully navigated by following the clear black tire tracks. Unfortunately the final climb up the highest local hillock had a few un-thawed regions which led to a lose of grip before cresting the hill. A vaguely concerning controlled skid backwards as gravity re-asserted itself over momentum eventually rested the car across the whole road. Luckily the road was used by locals with slightly more appropriate 4x4s. In the end we were unable to tow the car up the hill so I tenderly reversed it to the bottom of the hill before a final 3 point turn to take us back the way we came. The locals where very nice about helping but I'm not sure if they were exchanging looks with each other judging the silly southerner in his impractical car. There are signs in the Peaks that instruct you to follow the damn diversion signs and ignore what the Sat-Nav tells you to do, I suspect I fell into the same admonished category.