Dickin Hox?

So it's our last day at work before a full fortnight off, during which we were looking forward to a nice trip over to Ireland for Xmas, followed by other fun back in the UK when what happens? The Youngling gets sent home from nursery with chickenpox.

While this isn't the worst thing that could happen, it means we're due some extra grumpiness in the lead up to her 2nd birthday, and also that we are unlikely to be travelling anywhere. All of a sudden we are looking at having to get in provisions, etc, that we weren't expecting to do, and the whole shape of the holiday changing completely. Hopefully we'll get to see at least some family over the holiday.

Oh well. All we can do is hope that the Youngling doesn't suffer too much.

The Strangest Plum Puddings That Ever Have Been

Last night I played harmonica solo for a morris dance for the first time ever. OK, so it was during a practice session, but a first is a first. This was the Black Joke from Adderbury, a tune I know pretty well and have played plenty of times at home, or in sessions, and even tootling alongside other musicians for dancing, but solo was a whole new experience.

I had to learn to start properly: for many dances you can just play the tune through a few times and the dancers will come in when they are ready, but as is the case with most Adderbury dances, this music starts with a big chord and then we're straight in with a swagger round. After some advice from the other musicians (who were all dancing) I finally got it right and, apart from a bit of a stumble (which the guys gamely danced through) I think things went OK. We got through the dance, anyway.

Our new squire is keen to add some variety into the side, so I suspect now I've been blooded I'll be asked to play more often. We'll see how things go.

The first rule of Symposium is... Stuff that, pass more mead!

Last weekend was the annual Pembrokeshire banquet and for the first time we went down as a family. The theme was time travelling, so I got kitted out in pirate kit (with many thanks to <3 for providing a great costume), <3 in her Victorian ball gown, and the Youngling dressed up as a little girl who didn't want to wear any of the lovely costume options we had taken along. Oh well.

The Youngling lasted for a good half of the evening before being deposited back at the B&B under the watchful ear of a babysitter, and was remarkably good natured given how far past her bedtime it had got by this stage. An abiding memory for me is during our first spot of entertainment (for some reason, the organisers regularly allow <3 and I to make fools of ourselves in front of everyone) while I played some tunes and <3 danced and sang, the Youngling joined in with the dancing and looked very cute and extremely pleased with herself.

The banquet itself was, as always, fantastic, with a spread ranging from "hunter-gatherer" style hors d'oeuvres (pigeon bites, smoked sprats, mussels, etc.) through the now traditional carni-pleaser "beef cooked like bear" to the superbly decadent Edwardian blancmange. And lots of ale and mead, of course.

No idea what next year's theme will be, but I'm looking forward to it already.

Oh, and thanks to Fi for the Photo.

Sing Like an Angel

So on Friday we tried out Didcot's new and shiney Cornerstone arts centre, with its oh-so-interesting orange and grey boxy architecture (it's tempting to refer to it as EasyArts). It's actually quite a nice venue and really ups Didcot as a place to go, particularly given that they have booked some great acts for their first season, several of which we would like to get to. In the end the one act we were able to go to was Mitch Benn star of... well, mostly star of assorted radio shows.

We saw Mitch a few years ago, so knew pretty much what to expect and were not disappointed as he and his band gave us a great evening of music and laughs (and taking the in-laws along, we have a couple of new converts too). It was especially interesting to find that our previous Mitch Benn gig was referred to on several occasions, leaving us to mutter "We were there!" to each other. Clearly it was a seminal evening!

Cafe Culture

I've had something stewing in my head for months about taking a small child to cafes and restaurants for food or snacks. This happens quite regularly for both myself and <3 so we seem to be building up a fair bit of experience.

Very often we grab a snack or a meal at a supermarket cafe, generally being convenient, decent value, and having the "right" facilities (primarily good baby changing spaces). Our experience is mostly with Tesco and Sainsbury's, and some thoughts come to mind...

• In one of the Sainsbury's stores we go to, the till service is usually slow due to a poorly thought out workflow (one person takes money and makes coffee, making for huge queues at busy times).
• Our other usual Sainsbury's has self-service drinks, which speeds things up, but usually has a very limited selection of "kiddie meals" available, even though the full range is still displayed on the menu boards. This can lead to frustration, but at least the Youngling isn't old enough to choose her own meals.
• Most Tesco cafes used to have a fantastic system where most adult meals were available in mini-portions, so we weren't limited to the usual fish fingers or chicken nugget child options. Unfortunately, over the last year or so, Tesco have been replacing their in-house cafes with Costa Coffee franchises, which means nice but pricey coffee and far less child-friendly.

It must be said that most motorway service stations are pretty darn good for dealing with kids (even if they are not that good for adults!) but that's no good when out shopping. We're also impressed with Ikea (though the nearest is over an hour away), but there is little they do that isn't well thought out from a family point of view. Then, of course, there are the independent cafes and smaller chains, but I could probably write a book on them, so I won't bother.

No real point to this, just some musings.

Ideas Worth Spreading

Thanks to my father-in-law, who has mentioned this several times over the last year or two, I have become somewhat addicted to TED talks. Basically TED is an annual conference (plus spin-offs) full of very clever and interesting people speaking (or performing) on pretty much anything they want.

Browse through the archives and you will find Al Gore telling us how to combat climate change, geeks demonstrating spectacular user interfaces, a neuroscientist talking about what it is like to have a stroke, a presentation of images from the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and my new hero, Clifford Stoll, talking about... well... pretty much everything and anything.

Inspiring stuff, this, and I've barely scraped the surface so far.

The Definite Particle

Well, we have a beam going all the way around, yay! Looking at the grid monitoring systems our site is still up and running. All good.

Actually, not much work is being done here at RAL — there is a big area in one of the other buildings with a couple of screens showing News24, and this is full of people drinking coffee and eating cake. Elsewhere on site, many of the people not down there have live news coming out of radios and PCs in their offices.

This really is a big deal. While we are some way off actually having any serious results coming out of the LHC (they need to get a beam circulating in the other direction, then get collisions happening, and then ramp the energy levels up to the point where the exciting stuff can actually happen), the media coverage has been phenomenal and despite the rubbish being spouted about the end of the world, we are actually seeing some good mainstream science coverage. It's really difficult to explain just how cool this is, but I think this will probably have the significance of (or exceeding) the moon landings. Only time will tell.

I'm just chuffed (and humbled) to actually be a very tiny part of this experiment. I wish I understood it better, but it's a good incentive to do some more studying.

Post-Hectic

Things are finally settling down after a rather hectic few weeks. First <3 went off to a conference in the USA, then we all piled into the car for the long trip to Cornwall for a cousin's wedding, then I was in London for a week for a course, then we had the bank holiday weekend, which seemed full of things to do (and by this time the Youngling didn't know if she was coming or going). We have now had a few days of something approaching a normal routine reasserting itself and life is feeling a little calmer again. Apart from anything else, it's nice to have all three of us in the same place and not having to drive anywhere (other than between work and home).

On the plus side, my course was a good one and has resulted in me qualifying as a Red Hat Certified Technician, which is only really an entry level system administration certification, but as I am only a novice sysadmin, it is a nice extra certificate to have.

September is looking like it will be a little easier going. Still lots to do, but no big trips planned so far. Let's hope it stays that way.

Enter the Babbit

Yesterday a couple of friends threw a party in honour of the fact that they are about to naff off around the world for a year, partly travelling, site-seeing and visiting overseas friends, and partly to put in a few months of volunteer work around the place. So the Youngling and I went along (<3 is away at the moment) and had a great time for a couple of hours, mostly due to the fact that the Youngling was fascinated by our friends' three chickens.

Part of the deal of the party was that everyone had to take away some of the "free stuff" that our friends were trying to unload before they left. The Youngling had a root about and chose an orange plastic bowl (clearly the most exciting thing there judging by her reaction: "Bowl! Bowl!"), a set of rubber stamps with Xmas designs (they came in a nice case with a nice little handle, which is a bonus) and a small, blue, cuddly rabbit, quickly dubbed "Babbit" for fairly obvious reasons.

Anyway, fast forward a few hours until we have had tea, Youngling has had a bath and I am off in the kitchen fixing a cup of milk for her bedtime. Then I notice things have gone rather quiet. I look into the living room and there is the Youngling spoonfeeding her leftover dinner (which I had neglected to clear away/out of reach) to a now red-with-gloop Babbit.

I took the food and rabbit away and ran the latter under the tap but failed to get him clean, so figured I should stick him in the wash. By this point the Youngling was calling a plaintive "Babbit?... Babbit?..." which looked like it would develop into a tantrum if things didn't go just right.

So in one of my clearer thinking moments, I got Youngling to put the slightly wet Babbit to bed a cardboard box and say "night night" to him. Bizarrely this worked fabulously and after I'd got Youngling to bed, Babbit was put into the washing machine with a load of other stuff and was clean and dry by the morning. Win!

Morris In

I am so annoyed at myself for not taking my camera with me last night. We (in the morris sense) were dancing out at a couple of pubs in the market town on Faringdon. I was in two minds as to whether to go or not because of the combination of distance (not that great, but a bit of a drive) and inclement weather (it had been persisting down all day). But turn out I did, and met up with a bunch more of the team at The Bell, a nice old coaching inn on the market square.

The rain didn't stop much, so we danced for a while underneath the quaint C17th town hall, which was a challenge in itself, trying to avoid the pillars and steps around the edge of the rather restricted space. We had an audience of a few passing teenagers huddled under umbrellas and some smokers (and a big black dog) outside the various nearby pubs, but who cares about audiences?

After a good few dances and a quick "bagging" (administrative) session, we made the short walk up the gentle hill to the next pub, The Folly, under the power of melodeon, harmonica and bells, to be greeted by a shout of "You're late, sod off!" from the landlord, who then went on to say it was good to see us and that the drinks were on the house.

The rain had stopped by this point, so we set up in the street and performed one dance which did a great job of summoning the rain back again, so we gave up and went indoors.

Of course, we didn't want to abuse the landlord's hospitality without putting on a show, so someone had the idea of performing the Upton On Severn Cocktail Stirrer Dance (more often performed with sticks than cocktail stirrers, but sometimes you have to improvise). So there were six of us laying into each other with short lengths of coloured plastic in the corner of a small bar, just in front of the darts board, which made our previous dancing venue seem positively spacious.

Over the following hour we performed a whole heap more dances in ludicrously cramped conditions, which was a lot of fun for us (though very hot and sweaty) and I think the locals enjoyed themselves. Then it was the rest of the evening spend singing songs and playing tunes. I bailed out far too early, but it was a trip home and I needed to be up for work in the morning.

Cracking evening, and very silly indeed.

Babies

For some reason this has some resonance...

Asylum Seekers

This one is particularly aimed at my father-in-law. Radio 4 has a weekly program for kids, Go4It, which often tackles some pretty serious issues in a way that does its best to really engage with its audience in a productive way. This week they had a big feature on asylum seekers, which involved quite a challenging bit of roleplay where the kids had to take on the roles of a family being forced to flee their home and had some very tough decisions to make which would affect what happened to them later. We had to stop what we were doing and listen to this compelling radio. It's available to listen again until Sunday. (Hopefully it can be listened to in the RoI.)

Wimbledon, here we come...

I got myself a new camera the other day, the excuse being so that I can send pictures of the Youngling to <3 while she is away (as now). It's only a bog standard snappy camera, but it's nice and easy to use. I'm really pleased with this pic of the Youngling getting in preparation to compete for a Wimbledon singles title some time around 2022 or so.

The Bells, The Bells...

I reckon it's now official: I am a morris man! Saturday saw my first real dance out, first at a local museum and afterwards at a pub in one of the nearby villages.

Somewhere on this page you should see photographic proof of this, as you see part of the set that was dancing the Ring o' Bells from Litchfield. I'm the one on the right with the serious face as I realise that with not one but two sticks, a cock-up here could be quite spectacular. Next to me you see the face of the guy who faced me in the sticking routines and has his eyes shut as he tries to shut out the terror of trying to avoid having his knuckles smashed by the novice opposite him.

You'll be pleased to know that we both survived and later on I actually started to relax and enjoy myself a bit.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Hadron

I finally got home from Geneva at about midnight on Friday, after an OK trip — once again BA didn't lose my luggage at T5, although for a while it looks like it had. Just as I was about to go to the enquiries desk, there appeared my little case packed with dirty clothes.

The week was interesting, though a lot of the content of the meetings went over my head. Probably the most useful aspect was getting to meet and chat with a load of the UK grid people (including several who work at the same site as me) who I will be working with over the coming months and years.

We ate well too, including a stonking steak at Cafe de l'Aviation, a veal saute thingie at a great little bistro in a back street, a proper Italian-style pizza laden with fish, and my first ever steak tartare, which was really very nice. Unfortunately no fondue this time though.

As pretty much expected I didn't get to have a proper look around CERN. It would have been great to look into one of the experiment caverns, but them's the breaks. They've already started to cool the ring down (it'll get below 2K over the next few weeks, so darn cold!) and are planning to fireup the first beams later in the summer, so I think the chances of getting a real look are diminishing now. It's all very exciting stuff though. I expect we'll be seeing a lot of press coverage later in the year, though it'll be some time before the LHC is running at full power.

Terminals and Hostels

So, here am I, sitting in a pleasant enough little room in one of the on-site hostels at CERN, the partical physics lab on the edge of Geneva. I've got a week of meetings, seminars and workshops on the grid computing system that is being built to support the Large Hadron Collider when it is turned on later this year. It's quite a big event this, with over 200 of the great and the good from the grid community from around the world. I feel like a very small fish.

I've not seen much of CERN yet (and may not get the chance to, really) but what I can report on is that the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow is actually pretty good. It may be partly because people are steering clear for the moment given recent hassles (and they aren't running long haul flights from there yet as far as I know), but it was all very smooth and one of the easiest trips through an airport that I have experienced. Our baggage even arrived correctly! (I had taken the precaution of keeping enough kit to keep me going in my hand luggage, but I'm glad to have all my things here anyway.)

Caecilius in horto sedet

This week's Doctor Who was enjoyable for many reasons, not least of which the fact that I actually got a fairly obscure in-joke. At least I assume it was an in-joke as otherwise it would be too much of a coincidence. You see, when I was about 12 or 13 I had some classics lessons at school, which comprised some very basic Latin lessons and a load of "how the Romans lived" stuff, all through the medium of a series of booklets following the exploits of a Pompeiian merchant named Caecilius and his family, which included a wife named Metella and a son named Quintus. I am pleased to have predicted the character names in advance. I expect that is the last such flash of insight I will have this year.

Anglos and Ales

Fun over the last few days...

On Saturday I had my first trip out with the morris side to the Icknield Ale. Basically, an ale is a get-together for morris dancers, where there is much dancing, eating, singing and, of course, drinking of ale. Many morris teams host one, generally during the "off-season" and this was the one we hosted. There were nearly 100 men from something over a dozen teams and it was a cracking night. I even ended up dancing sets from a tradition I had not even heard of before, let alone danced. I'm still recovering.

Then on Monday, the Youngling and I went to Oxford and I bought myself a new toy: a Rochelle 30-key, C/G Anglo concertina. So far I haven't had much time playing it, but I'm managing to get a few hesitant tunes out of it. I've been eyeing up this type of concertina for some time (it is widely reckoned to be the best beginner Anglo available, and probably would be at double the price), but finally took the plunge and made the purchase after receiving some money courtesy of my recently departed (and much missed) grandfather, along with the instructions to spend some of it frivolously. I'm not sure that buying a musical instrument is the most frivolous thing I could have done, but from now on the instrument will always be a reminder of Gramp, and should give years of enjoyment, which I think is in the appropriate spirit.

Virtually Starting

So, I have been in my new job (as a Linux system administrator) for almost a month now, but due to holidays, sickness, and continuing to do my previous job part time, I am only slowly getting up to speed. So far so good, though, and as of next week almost all of my time will be dedicated to the new job.

It is looking like one of my new specialities is going to be virtualisation, which is one of those buzzwords that gets spouted by management types who don't really know what it is all about other than leveraging core competancies in order to effectively monetarise creativity and increase shareholder value. Or something. Anyway, I don't know much about it either yet, but I do have a laptop running Windows with Ubuntu Linux sitting very happily inside a virtual machine, and I also have a test server which, as of today, has an operating system configured to allow me to run virtual machines on it, which will be a task for next week. Still early days but it is looking like fun.

The Jon Show

One of those rare postings: just a link to something that made me laugh this week. What do you get when you take a well known strip cartoon and take out the title character? Well, it's possible you'll get a load of crud, but in the case of Garfield Minus Garfield you get something very strange and very funny indeed.

Putting "Grid" Onto My CV

Big changes are afoot. As of next week I will be working for another part of the organisation and in a higher pay band. The new job is as a Linux system administrator, helping to run the local LCG tier 2 centre. [LCG = LHC Computing Grid. LHC = Large Hadron Collider, the new super particle basher at CERN.] Should be fun and provide me with a lot to learn. The thing is that I am not fully leaving my current job for another month, as I will be continuing to help with transition to new staff with a part of my time, but that'll only be a headache for a short while.

Looking forward to it...

Chilli Child

So there we were at the noodle bar, the Youngling in her highchair and munching through spring rolls, noodles and prawn crackers, when she noticed that <3 and I were dipping prawn crackers into a dish of chilli sauce. Next thing I have a cracker thrust at me with some waving and looks that left me in no doubt that the Youngling wanted it dipped too. Okay, I thought, so I dipped for her and handed it back. She sucked the sauce off and gave me the cracker again.

After a couple of iterations, we let the Youngling dip for herself, which she did in a very ladylike manner and continued to do so until eventually she stopped, pulled a face looking like she was chewing a wasp (or, perhaps a heap of chilli sauce) and expressed displeasure quite loudly.

A drink of water and some rice later and all was well again, though I don't think she trusts prawn crackers any more.

I get the feeling we are bad parents...

Not so new any more, but...

So, before January is out, a brief review of 2007...

The year was, unsurprisingly, mostly about learning to be a parent. It isn't easy sometimes, but I think we haven't had it badly overall and the youngling is a complete star. Latest cute story: having fed the littlun, I left her playing while I sat next to her having my own lunch (which wasn't ready early enough). Next thing I know, she had rummaged through the bib bag (kept hanging on the back of her highchair), and was standing next to me proffering a bib and indicating that she expected to have it put onto her and then be put into the highchair. What could I do but oblige and give her some of my lunch? That's me told!

Next most important was finally completing my degree. That's 7 years of study all paying off. I'm now booked in for a graduation ceremony in May, which should be a laugh. Incidentally, last week I actually received a sales call from the OU, who had noticed that I wasn't signed up for a course and wondered if I had continued my options for further study. I said that I was taking some time off from study.

Musically, I have kept playing harmonica with slowly increasing confidence and repertoire. And furthermore, I have spent some time with my ukulele, learning a few basic chords, so at least I can accompany a few songs. The youngling likes musical instruments too, and apart from shaking her maracas, she can also make good noises by twanging uke strings and by banging on our electronic keyboard (it's amazing what functions and effects she can set off sometimes).

The other big thing which I haven't written about yet is that I have started learning morris dancing. This is turning out to be a great way to get some exercise, get out of the house, meet some other people, and an excellent excuse to drink beer. :o) I don't have any of the outfit yet, but will have soon...

So, all in all, apart from some rocky patches 2007 wasn't a bad year, and it ended with a great new year's eve bash with some very good friends in South Wales.

2008? Well, more of the same, I guess. We'll see how the morris and the music goes, but the top priority remains the youngling, who is already developing into a real little person who is a lot of fun to be with. It's all good...

I SAID I BET THAT YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR

There is a fairly interesting article in Rolling Stone, The Death of High Fidelity, which is full of plenty of "well, duh, we knew that" stuff, but includes some good examples of differences in dynamics between recordings.

Coming soon, something to mark the new year, with some thoughts on 2007 and 2008, but probably not today.