The afternoon of the first day was my turn to volunteer. There was no pressure to volunteer but no good reason no to. There were two perks of volunteering, the first was an orange cap with the Birmingham convention badge upon it (Believe me, it's a perk, one American asked wher eto buy them from) and the second was meeting Rotarians from all over the world as I gave out the goody bags.
One of the noticable traights of Rotarians is their age, most Rotarians are over 60, many over 50. Being the only male volunteer that looked youthful (now I'm the grand old age of 33). Immediately I was given the job of moving boxes full of goody bags from the back store into the distribution area. Having moved all those in fairly quick time, I had to get bags from the 'container'. No problem I thought, these boxes are easy to move and they told me there was a pallet truck - just like being at work really. Well, not quite. All the bags that were boxed had already been moved in, all the remaining were loose. Some small attempt at bundling them had been made, strapping them in groups of 20, but most of these fell apart if not when carried when the whole pile would collapse. Still, there was no point moaning about it and another Rotarian, Colin, who came from Scotland was helping too, so we had a good chat about the differences in our clubs and the projects we're involved in.
Giving out the bags, we had one returned from an Australian lady who (rather appropriately as she said herself) had been given an incorrectly printed bag. All the text and logos were printed upside down! So, I gave her another and suggested she tell all the local media back home how we Brits had made merry fun with her by giving her the misprinted bag, and that they can use it as an excuse to recruit more people into the great environment Rotary is. She went away happy. Rotary really is as much about fun and fellowship as "Doing Good Things".
The next post will be about the Opening Ceremony that was held this morning but that will have to wait until later. Shortly we leave for the Medieval Spectacular at Warwick Castle.
Here I am, hooray! blogging from the NEC for free, at a net cafe at the Rotary Interational Convention in Birmingham.
In another 15 minutes I'll be off to be a "HOC Ambassador", HOC means "Host Organising Committee", and ambassador means I volunteered to help. In my case, I'm told I'll be handing out goody bags.
We (Rhonda and I) arrived early this morning from the Peak District where we'd been camping and walking (more on that later, with photos of the wonderful midsumer English weather - gale force winds, rain, thunder, lightning.... guess the weather God forgot what summer means). Getting our pass was a breeze - we were booking number 51 thousand and something and they found our envelope within a minute. A quick wander around the "House of Friendship", get our goody bag, then off to find our hotel in Birmingham.
The "House of Friendship" has lots of stands, many representing charities, many representing fellowship (like the Fellowship of Flying Rotarians (if I remember that correctly) - may be I'll get back to flying one day). One thing I found funny, a stand taking 4 spaces, selling just handbags - larger than many of the other good causes and larger than some of the Rotary parephenalia stalls. Speaking of which, Rhonda said she'd make me a Bow Tie in special colours... guess I should learn how to tie a bow tie then.
Of to volunteer now. If there's no image with this post, it means the internet connection is so slow here I couldn't get one in time. Although I have logged into my MovableType admin page OK, my home page still isn't up, and even the RI home page isn't loading.
Sad news.
My mother in law, Alicia, died on Tuesday morning at 4am from Cancer. She was 53.
The whole family were with her, we'd all travelled to the hospital in London to be there.
For many, many years (well, since 2004 which is a long time for internet things) my web server has been at Rackspace. Well, I say 'my' web server but in reality it's their web server, dedicated to just my use and fully managed by them.
They've been great. Small amounts of downtime, answering the phone at 2am to help me fix things I've broken, swapping out faulty hard disks, power supplies (twice). They are however very expensive and as my server needs haven't grown as fast as computing power, I can now save some money moving onto a virtual server. The theory is that the hardware down time wont happen on the Virtual Server. My rackspace server has a single disk, single power supply. Multiple disks and power supplies cost a lot of money so the chance of failure was worth taking. Now though, servers are powerful enough for the resources to be shared across multiple users so we all benefit from RAID 60, multiple power supplies. If my needs change (EG a lot more visitors than currently stop by) then the Virtual Server can be moved to another physical server without any noticeable down time, where it can have more resources (bandwith/processor/disk space etc).
So, this week I've signed up for 8 shares on a server with 'gandi.net'. They're a web host based in France so close enough to the UK to retain network speed (all the other good virtual hosts seem to be in America). I was a little concerned about not having my trusty 24hour phone number but I've just had my first email support call answered very quickly. I couldn't get a piece of software to install (IP tables) and it appeared to be an issue with the Xen Vitual host setup. I emailed and the resolution came back within 2 hours. I decided to install the latest Ubuntu 9 server which they only released last week, so I was no doubt the first to come across the problem. After emailing me, they posted the solution in their forum and wiki. Great!
I might write some more on the move later but as you might be able to tell from the lack of posting lately, I'm really busy with other things. At the moment at least, Gandi looks great.
For some time I've had trouble installing Ubuntu Server to test things. Affecting 7.10 & 8.04, but only at work and not at home. Strange. Now though, I've just figured out what the problem was, at least, I thought I had.
At work, we have a gateway/DHCP box (say: 192.168.55.254). When handing out IP addresses, it gives a nameserver IP of 192.168.55.225 first, and should that not be working 208.67.222.222 second (www.opendns.com)
When booting, the Ubuntu box created it's /etc/resolve.conf with:
nameserver 192.168.55.225
nameserver 208.67.222.222
I edited and saved that file to read:
nameserver 192.168.55.254
nameserver 192.168.55.225
nameserver 208.67.222.222
so adding the gateway as the namesever (our gateway can be the name server but I had a particular reason for not having it that way).
Rebooted, tried my 'sudo apt-get install ...' again, everything resolved and the essential updates happened. However, when looking to write this post for when I next have the same problem, I've noticed the /etc/resolve.conf file has returned to it's earlier two entries.
I'd assumed that the Ubuntu server install expects the gateway to be at the same IP as the nameserver. This is true for my home (which is why it worked at home without trouble but at work it didn't). I'm not so sure now, maybe it was just rebooting a second time after the install that fixed it. At least it works.
Time flys when you're having fun and this 4 days have certainly flown past. Several players are already packed and left (having 14 or even 20 hours to spend driving home). Others are still sleeping, several have had breakfast, there are only a hundful of us in the con room at this hour (09:30 local time).
As I start to pack things back into the car I thought I'd mention some other observations of the con. To begin with, the way google assumes I speak Dutch. The way there are two network switches, one at each end of the room, along with lots and lots of power cables. The background music that always seems to fit the atmosphere. The humour (Ninja, at the beggining of his duel, jumping up and waving a broomstick with a white T-Shirt tied to it shouting 'I surrender'). The differing types of setup that people have to play the same game (from one player with full flight control system, rudder pedals, joystick mounted in front of the chair between your legs just like you'd have it in an original fighter - to some playing with basic old joysticks on laptops that struggle to maintain the frame rate at the lowest of all graphic detail settings). The way so many different languages are spoken around the table and watching English be used as a middle language between Dutch, Polish, German, Spanish and French players.
It's been great fun, I'm going to enjoy the last few hours so this is my last blog post from the con.
Last year, the duel became an epic. Myself and Unguis faught until our fuel ran out - twice!
The duel is played as a pair of players and this year I flew with Zonix. You fly towards the enemy at the same altitude, once you have 'merged' (passed each other head on), the fight is on. You can do anything you like, but the goal is that you must kill both your opponents. The rules were changed this year, so that if you run out of fuel the first to crash, lose.
Our second game was against Tomkin and Unguis, just like last year. Just like last year, Tomkin was damaged quickly and was out of the fight and my partner (Zonix this year, Dhyran last year) was shot down, leaving just Unguis and me to battle it out. In an almost exact replay of last year, I ran out of fuel seconds before unguis.
Oh well, maybe next year.
Every year the Eurocon organisers find an interesting place to visit for guided tour. Last year it was the Wings To Liberation museum, this year "Fort Eben-Emael" in nearby Belgium. Built just before the second world war, the Germans captured it in just 37 hours. 
The fort was designed to withstand a frontal attack and had huge cannons to defend it ant he surrounding area. To capture it, the germans landed gliders on the top of the fort (The fort is built into a limestone hill) and attacked it with infantry from above, a clever and effective tactic.
Earlier I wrote how my journey to the Eurocon had taken quite a long time. Having arrived in France so early I drove for a few hours throught he night until I felt tired then stopped to sleep for a few hours in the car. I arrived in Liege at about 9am so went looking for a swimming pool partly for the chance to swim but mostly for the chance to have a shower and freshen up before the Rotary meeting. After the swim I followed the SatNav directions to a nearby tourist attraction, listed as a Fort. Fort's are good destinations for tourists - they normally have good views over the area and this one did too.
Just outside was a memorial to soldiers who died during the first world war. This fort, at Chaudfontaine, was also used during the second world war along with the new, larger fort at Eben-Emael
Already it is Saturday morning. It's been lots of fun. Shortly, we'll be off to see a nearby Fort. That is, those of us that awoke this morning. For some, the liquid experience of last night may mean they'll need a few more hours to sleep it off.
I've taken some of my photos of the camera now. If you remember reading last years postings you might recall about a player from Monaco that reduces his PC to only the essential items in order to save weight. Carrying a PC case on a plane is very expensive. It is almost a regular feature of Eurocon - Ninja and his naked PC.
Another regular feature is late nights and lots of conversation. It was 3am local time when the last 10 of us left the con room for the night. We must be getting old, last year we were up to 4am!
I delivered Dhyran's amplifier as promissed. and every so often he and others have been putting out a little tune. One of the things I'd forgotten about Eurocon from last year is the atmosphere created by music. Not dhyran playing, but the ongoing selection of songs played over the PA system. I can't recall hearing a bad track.
Speaking of music, the indoor ski slope had a sound system too. Listening to the latest pop music while going up the chair lift was very pleasant. Going down the noise of the skis was too loud to hear the music.
This year I also brought a little present for my euro friends. Being that beer is a popular beverage at the con, I brought some from the local Faversham brewery appropriately called "Spitfire". One of the players, Sweepy, has always created pictures of the event and put humour speach bubbles on them. I thought his take on the Spitfire drinking was hilarious so I've put the picture here too. Maybe it's an aquired humour though. Click on the picture to see the full size version so you can read the text.
You might imagine that the Eurocon is a group of 40 grown ups playing computer games and drinking beer. Well, that's only part of what's going on. This morning 4 of us went to the local indoor snow ski slope. At about 500m long and kept at a steady minus 7 degrees, it made a nice change from the heat of all the computers in the con room. It appears that after 8 years of no skiing, I still remember enough to be comfortable zipping down the slope.
I'd write more, but I'm quite tired now. Before you ask, I didn't stay up until 3am unlike many others. I was too exahusted from the journey so went to be around 11pm. Maybe I'll add to this when I get the photo's off the camera.
On the way to Eurocon I decided it would be good to visit a foreign Rotary Club. One of the objects of Rotary deals specifically with encouraging international friendship so Rotarians all over the world are welcome at clubs wherever they happen to be visiting.
Having decided, the next problem was finding a suitable club. The criteria were quite specific:
- Along the route from Calais to my destination (Simpleveld, Netherlands)
- Ideally less than 1 hour away from my destination
- Meeting on Thursday Lunchtime
- Meeting conducted in French
After a lot of reserach on the internet (it took longer as I didn't know the town names. For example, if a Visitor was going to Canterbury on holiday, how would they know Faversham is along their route?) Eventually, I choose to visit the Rotary Club of Liège Rive-Droite. There were a couple of options (Thursday being a lucky day for passing through the area) but Liege Rive-Droite was chosen because their web site had more information about them than the other clubs. They seemed active and approachable, so I sent an email. I wrote it in French first, then English in case I made no sense. The reply (you're welcome to join us) came back in English. A good sign, if my French wasn't up to scratch there'd be someone to help out.
After an unexpected long journey to meet them, I'm glad I went there. Asside from being very friendly, the food was definately the best I've had at any Rotary event.
Learnings:
- Vousing and Tuing - All Rotary friends are Tu, and also "Chez ami" (Dear Friend) even when you've just met them [note 1]
- When I speak in French to a group (when I present our club banner), I really must prepare a bullet list. speaking in english I can remember the 3 things I would like to emphasise, whereas speaking in French I forgot the messages I wanted to put accross as I had to think long and hard to find the right words - along with ensure the best pronounciation I possibly could.
- To raise funds for charitable purposes, they organise an annual, 8 hour long go kart race of around 30-40 go-karts. It raises (from memory) around €20,000. Useful to know as our develops into its second year
[note 1] At a recent meeting, when Lucy gave her presentation on herself, one of the questions was when should you use 'vous' and when should you use 'tu' when speaking to a French person.
I've not been bloging as much lately because I've been very busy. Busy organising an 'outdoor skills day' (I'll write about it later), busy with work and busy with life in general. Life has been good. You're about to see a torrent of postings, not on things that are still in the 'waiting to be written queue', these will all be up to the minute current events as close to real time as I can make them happen. For the next 4 and a half days, I'm on holiday. I'm going to Eurocon!
Last year, my journey to Eurocon was at rather short notice. Just 24 hours before the start my friend and online gamer from Germany known as 'Flubby' posted in our forum that he was too ill to go and his already paid for place was free to anyone who could cross Europe at such short notice. Rhonda said I could go and thus began a dash to the port and 4 days of fun.
This year, it's a little better planned. I booked my place months ago, I booked the ferry months ago and I sit here at my laptop writing not from a ferry this time, but from the terminal waiting area.
I was booked on the 04:30 am ferry to leave tomorrow morning 15th April, but I'm in the terminal at 9pm on the 14th. Why arrive 8 hours early for a ferry? “Blockade!” The French fisherman have been blockading French ports again, lorries are parked all along the motorways of Kent waiting for crossings. Disruption galore to channel crossings, my journey could be over before I've even left blighty.
All is not lost, last night a few ferries left overnight and on the phone to P&O they said I could arrive early if I wanted but they couldn't guarantee a crossing. Fair enough, I arrived very early and they think they're going to get a ferry out at 11pm. They've given me a ticket, now I just have to hope it leaves.
On the plus side a group of German students are singing songs around a guitar here in the terminal building so it's actually quite a happy pleasant place to be. Just like going away with the youth club all those years ago. Except for the language of course – the only work I remember from German is “Hangover” that I learnt last year. Oh, and something like “Ich haben deinen medicine!” when I delivered a special bottle of Spitfire Ale to Flubby at home in Achen at the end of the Eurocon (it being only a few hours drive away).
Anyway, time to go post this, set up the sat nav, stick on the head lamp adapters and try and remember what I've forgotten to pack (well, there's always something!).
I often think I'm lucky. Well luck isn't just mine, Rhonda won two tickets to see a special screening of a new film not out until March, from the local radio station Invicta FM. Things got better, Uncle Dave agreed to baby sit and said he really liked the book. Marley and Me* was set to be the first grown up film we'd been to together for years. Children affect life in many ways, Wall-E, Toy Story and other similar films become the only cinema experience you remember after a while.
Marley and Me is based on a nonfiction book, which is based on 15 years or so of a news paper reporters life. Starting just before he and his new wife get a dog after a friends suggestion that will delay her needs for a baby for a little while. It ends.... hmm, I'm trying not to give too much away, but it ends when the dog dies.
I liked and enjoyed the film. It follows the real life trials and tribulations that happen to us all and that I think gives something that almost everyone can relate to. It's a true life story that hangs around the presence of a pet dog but could just as easily hang around a much beloved family car or home. That said, Marley added his own life to the situation as only an animal can. Time flew by, the film was 2 hours long and there were good times and bad, happy times and sad, making the whole audiance move from laughter to tears then back again.
I always find it hard to know whether a film is worth watching before hand and I'm often disappointed by the ends. In all honesty I'd often choose not to go the cinema and just have a couple of hours time with one of the many books I have waiting to be read. This film though was well worth watching. If you're not lucky enough to win the tickets as we were, I'd recommend it as worth paying for.
Rootie Ratings are normally a book thing, but I'd give this a four out of five. If only it could be found in the second hand bookshop along with all my other favourites.
*The little animated dog also came from the films web site http://www.marleyandmemovie.co.uk/ where you can also dowload desktop wall papers and other parephenalia. The animated gif was suggested as an 'e-signature' that you can use within your email. I wont be, but it makes a nice little place holder graphic for the review.
It's true to say my rate of posting to my blog has diminished of late, but that's simply due to being so busy with other things. While it's fresh in my mind I must just post about this mornings visit to the Rotary Club of Chestfield.. The last time I visited was a special evening meal and presentation though I'd decided to go during that same day. This time, I decided to go less that 24 hours before hand too, partly to spread the word about our club 'Outdoor Skills Day' (more another time on that).
Although it's been a while since I've visited another club (having been so busy), once again it was time well spent. They had an excellent speaker talking about how to implement successful, sustainable water projects in the developing world. The speaker (who spends 3 months in America and 3 months in the UK for her work in this field.. or perhaps lake seeing as we're talking about water) clearly understood the issues involved in not only delivering an aid project, but making it sustainable. She's also worked with Rotary in the past, including at the Rotary International level and explained some of the RI logic in allocating the international charitable funds. For example, RI wont support a project to put a well into a village unless there is a justification this is the best of all systems for that village. She had a photo of an RI person at a well in a village that was very overgrown. The well worked fine but the locals didn't use it, they were happy to drink the water from the river not aware that it caused disease. For that particular village, a different solution would have been a more effective investment of resources.
Summary of things learnt at this meeting:
- Rotary International is careful about how it spends funds collected for the international projects
- Even a single Rotary Club can call upon the skills of experts working internationally
- All daffodils are Narcissus*
*Thanks go to President Andrew for that fact, they were selling flowers, I think to raise club funds.
My French prof runs an email list of... well, a mixture of humour, observations and such, the sort that many people forward to your email. The good thing for me is that a lot of it is in French and try as I might, I often have to really work at reading it.
If I don't understand a word, I'll open google and translate it. If I still don't understand it, I'll translate a sentence. One word in the last email was "entuber". Google didn't know the english translation so I search the web. Entuber = to con, apparently commonly used though colloquial. The web site I found the answer on had an advert to "Learn French in 10 days". Well, clearly I've not been trying hard enough. I followed the link to find out more (always looking to improve, to think I've spent years trying, on an off, to `parler en plus francais` [Sic]*) so I had to find out more.
The course contains a very comprehensive 'More than 200 hours learning'.... Well, I've learn't enough maths to know that 200 hours / 10 days = 20 hours per day of learning. Clearly I've been limiting myself by requiring more than 4 hours per day for sleep, eating, washing and such.
*[sic] because I know the grammar is wrong, the spelling is wrong, but that's how I'd say it. Full marks for effort, 'nil point' for grace :-)
