Newcastle - Monday 19th May

Hello again!

Well, that's the first one down, and no disasters :) The day itself (certainly from our point of view) went better than it had on the first of the round for many a year, so I hope those of you who attended found the same. A few little mishaps behind the scenes, but we're pretty practiced at hiding those and doing the 'swan impression' Mike talked about in his guest post the other week. Certainly it was an interesting experience having some very posh portaloos out the back of the hotel as they were having work done on the regular ones, but the floor lighting up the steps to them certainly won me over. (Then again, I'm easily impressed by these kinds of things).

The photo at the top of this entry shows everyone in the main room at the end of the day - hopefully you'll be able to spot yourself in it, and be able to put up with Tebs waving his arms around at the back - I suppose we should be relieved he didn't do 'bunny ears' behind someone's head... If nothing else, we're warming up well for our attempt on the "Most people saying 'Cheese' at the same time" world record *grin*

"Tip of the day"

We all had some interesting chats with those attending, and we had a nice tip passed on in the Network Ninja session for an additional useful tool to make the work of running a network a little easier. If you go and have a nose over at http://www.spiceworks.com/, you can get a free download of their software which performs extremely useful tasks like software inventory, asset management and a help desk. None of us have had a chance to try it out, but it comes well recommended. Thank you very much to Richard Easton for the tip!

We're keen to hear any of your tips, tricks and other Ninja-like skills, so let us know when you are at your local seminar, and we'll put all the best ones up here.

Right, I'd better go - it's getting late (we've just finished setting up at Runcorn ready for tomorrow) and I need my beauty sleep more than most...

On the road again...

I'm writing this in the car on the A1 heading up to Newcastle for our first seminar of the round, and for once the weather looks like it's going to hold, so hopefully no unloading the lorry in the rain this time. Time for a bit of a catch-up...

This last week we've been putting the finishing touches to kit and sessions, with rehearsals opened up to the whole company, so we've got some good feedback from all over, along with an opportunity for those unable to attend for real to see the content of the sessions. All this should mean that by the time you see us, we're properly practiced and ready to go.

Friday saw the start of the physical aspects of the round, with Shaun turning up with our great big lorry and trips all over the business park to pick up equipment, stands and flightcases and load them up in the twice-yearly game of 3D Tetris. This time we managed to complete it without damaging or destroying any kit or ourselves, which is something of an improvement on the normal state of affairs! This is either a very good sign or merely to lull us into a false sense of security in advance of some more serious injury later in the round.

I managed to grab a couple of photos during Friday:

This is Shaun and his lorry, freshly cleaned and primed for being filled with stuff. Shaun's doing a pretty good job of hiding his continued disappointment at having to put up with us lot, and of course dealing with Liverpool's anticlimactic end to the season.

Somewhere in this stack of containers is the Secret Storage Facility where a lot of our kit hides between rounds. It's a case of security through obscurity, since there's a sea of containers in all directions - kind of like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with less whip action.

Here we mid-load, with the caterpillar of flightcase being trundled out ready for the exciting journey up on the tail lift (something we never tire of riding on, to be honest).

Now we're out on the road, we'll be attempting to have a blog entry for every venue we do, with interesting stories, photos and other bits and bobs from during the day. We've just invested in one of those clever little mobile phone internet dongle thingies that you plug into your laptop to give internet access on the move, so we may even manage to type and post en route. Technology, eh?

Right, we're just passing Durham so I'd better go and start my stretching regime in a vain attempt to keep my ageing bones in one piece. Ah - right on cue, it's just started raining. Marvelous.

"Here is the Newbs"

Right, as promised, we've got a guest blog entry this time round, with Mike 'n00b' Oakes sharing a little of what it's like to join the team, so no more rubbish from me this time... Over to you Mr Oakes:



Chris is distracted with his new funk CD so is no longer clipping me around then ear telling me I don't know I'm born.

James has gone for a meeting, so I'm no longer subjected to having back of my chair kicked and being wedgied.

I just gave Bill the CC4 VMWare image so he won't keep staring at me like I've just broken his Xbox and made a joke about it.

So while they are otherwise engaged I thought I'd tap out a quick blog entry on my experiences as newbie in the team. Having come from a support background where everything is quite regimented it's been quite a shock. Equally, the pressure to get things right is immense. It's easy to underestimate just how much thought goes into the writing for a start. For instance, my session content changed entirely three times. You have moments where all of a sudden you lose all heart with what you're doing and need to change it. Stress levels up and down throughout.

As mentioned in Chris' earlier post I have been resonably calm, as I have been kindly given one session rather than two or three (they aren't so bad to me after all). However, the foggy calm is starting to lift and the jittery nerves are starting to pop up and jab me in the ribs. Things happen very quickly with this team in comparison to other places I've worked: don't pay attention for a day and you're well behind the news.

Something that struck me most was how hard working this team is. Like swans paddling upstream, as serene as we look, underneath the paddling is frantic and fast paced.

Right, the funk has finished, I know James is going to come back needing someone to pick on any minute and Bill wanted to listen to something that I don't think is the reggae I put on, so it's best I duck out now...