Nice Looking Hull

This is the middle of Hull. No, really.

Lovely Day at Hull University

If I have to work somewhere, I reckon this will do nicely.

I took these on the way to try and teach the first years about threading in C#.

Count the Chicks

We went down to Slimbridge today. We like going there. If you are going to bird watch I reckon it is best to go to a place where they keep loads of birds.

Apparently these chicks are all part of a record breaking brood. But how many can you find in the picture?

Whitby at Easter

The weather forecast wasn’t wonderful. But that hasn’t stopped us from going to Whitby before, and it wouldn’t this time. And the Big Camera went too.

Beach Huts

The Harbour

We did get rained on. But we did manage to get into “The Magpie” for lunch. This is quite famous for serving really good fish and chips. And it was really good.

Round Thing with No Purpose I can Understand

Blossom

I took this on the walk from the car park to the office. I like working here.

Big Crane

I don’t know who David Millington is. But I would love a go with his crane.

Mad March Bash

Today was the day of the Mad March Bash. This follows on from the Christmas bash we had at, er, Christmas, and has pretty much the same format. With a treasure Hunt too.

We had to use a different lab for the FragFest, but this did mean that we could have more systems, with 32 players taking part in mammoth Counterstrike action.

Network Gaming Action – but the only things moving are mice and keyboards

We tried using the Buzz quiz, and that was a great success. At Counterstike I got shot every time, but with Buzz I actually managed to win one contest. Go me.

Getting the Buzz

The food was the usual Pizza, fizzy drinks and afters. Including  (of course) Easter eggs.

Meat Feast was still the most popular…

We actually had a winner of the Treasure Hunt. The team “The Nuzzling Badgers” managed to find every single cunningly hidden tag. Even the very high one.

Now, that’s a prize worth winning.

The Dance Mats were popular as ever.

..as was Rock Band.

Thanks to everyone who came along, I think a good time was had. Now we start preparing for the Grand Finale Midsummer Bash.

There are some more pictures on Flickr. I’ve tagged them with hull2009madmarchbash.

Saturday Open Day

We had our biggest open day of the year today. Perhaps the biggest we have ever had. Thanks to everyone who came along, it was great to see you all. As usual I took a snap of the assembled multitude:

Funny how people always sit at the back in lecture theatres…

I gave my talk as usual, and I must apologise for the jokes. But, of course, I will be using them again…

We gave away a PSP to one lucky winner, ticket number 65 as I remember.

Warren, using his specially big hand to give the prize away. Note cunning product placement of C# Yellow Book (you can get yours at http://www.csharpcourse.com/)

I went outside with the big camera and ran straight into a rather nice photo-op.

I just love skies like these.

Anyway, thanks very much for coming and I hope you all have a good journey home.

Red Nose Day

Well, I did my lecture. Thanks to everyone who came along, it was fun. I’ll post the video tonight, once I’ve got it off my little camera. If you have any pictures or video of the fun and games, please get in touch and I’ll set up a group somewhere to share the magic…

We did rather well on the day:

..what it is all about. I’ll take it down to the bank later today. If you want to add to the pile, just drop by my office or sponsor me at:

http://www.myrednoseday.com/LectureInRhymeWithRob

I hit my target, and so I’ve moved it up a bit.

Update

on 2009-03-13 20:51 by Rob

We've counted all the money, and it turns out that the bucket had two hundred and fifty eight pounds 11 pence in it. All through the afternoon people were dropping by who couldn't make it to the lecture and they were dropping more cash in. Thanks to all the staff and students who were so generous. We are going to take the cash down to the bank tomorrow and this should bring the total earnings to well over 500 quid, which is ace!

I've put the lecture slides up here.

Leaving Seattle

Our flight left early afternoon, which meant there was time for one final Seattle breakfast. It was as if the city was putting on its best show ever in an attempt to get us to stick around. The weather was the best I’ve ever seen in the place, which exposed some superb views.

Market sign

Ferry and mountains

Ferry arriving (as seen in “Grey’s Anatomy”)

To be honest, it won’t take much to persuade me to come back. Then it was off to the airport.

Plane spotting at the airport.

It has been a great summit, here’s to next time…

Seattle Air Museum

Today was our day off. We planned to go to the Seattle Museum of Flight. Being an economical traveller I was going by bus. I had written careful notes describing which bus to take and where to get off. Being an idiot, I of course left these in the hotel room, but remembered enough to get us onto route 174 from tunnel C.

Seattle has this wonderful underground level, in fact the city is built up on previous implementations. You catch the bus in something that looks just like a subway station, except that there are busses instead of trains.  The bus took us through some of the industrial heartland of Seattle, which is pretty heavy engineering, and finally deposited us outside the museum.

We were a bit worried about finding the right stop, but they had parked a handy marker for us.

The museum is amazing, which loads of planes, many of them hanging from their enormous exhibit halls.

We had really come to see Concorde though. We have a familial link with the plane, knowing the one based in Bristol quite well. We thought we’d check out the one in Seattle as well.

Truth is, the one in Bristol is much more of an experience. At Seattle the plane looks rather forlorn, tucked away in one corner of a collection. In Bristol there is much more room to move around the plane and you actually get to sit in the seats as you make your way around it. Here in the souvenir hunter conscious Seattle everything, including seats inside the plane, are hidden under layers of plastic.

Concorde Flight Deck

After a wait for the returning bus we got back to Seattle just in time to go up the Columbia tower. This is the tallest building in downtown area and has an observation deck which gives some of the best views of the city.

You can see the Space Needle in the middle of the picture.

If you ever go to Seattle you should go up this tower. Oh yes. Cheaper than the Space Needle (although that is a great experience) and you can see a lot further.

Then it was out for tea (chicken and chocolate anyone?) and then back to the hotel.

Last day at the MVP Summit

Steve B makes a point.

Say what you like about Steve Balmer (and lots of people do) the guy can work an audience. I’ve seen him speak a few times and he’s not failed to deliver yet. His talk (and the question and answer session at the end) was one of the highlights of the keynotes that we had today. Although the session about Windows 7 from Mike Nash was also very good. I think I’m allowed to say that Windows 7 is looking very promising. For me the only thing bad about it is that you can’t buy it in the shops yet.

Once the keynotes were over that was just about the end of formal proceedings for the summit. It was great to see everyone again, and put some faces to names that I’ve only ever seen on mailing lists in the past. We went out for a wander around Seattle.

In the Seattle Art Gallery they have these cars hanging from the ceiling with lights coming out of them. Not sure why, but it sure looks nice.

Pioneer Square

More Meetings and Science Fiction Frenzy

Today was the second and final time at the Microsoft campus.  More presentations and more good stuff. I took a trip over the the legendary Microsoft Company store which was wonderful. Halo Wars on day of release at 25 dollars? I should think so. Of course I had resolved not to spend much money. Of course I failed.

In the evening it was time for the summit party, which was held at the “Experience Music Project” at the base of the Space Needle. They had Rock Band, karaoke with a live backing group and huge amounts of food and drink.

It was a bit like our Christmas Bash, only slightly bigger.

The venue is also host to a great science fiction museum, with books, props, sets and robots to look at. Great stuff.

This guy was working the lights on the video wall behind the stage. What a cool job.

Meeting the Mobile Team

Today we got all got on busses bright and early and headed off to the Microsoft campus at Redmond. It was quite a nice morning, and on the way we saw a rainbow which seemed to have its roots in the middle of Microsoft, which I thought was interesting. Unfortunately by the time I got my camera out we had driven past it.

The rainbow is about 20 feet to the right of this picture.

We had a bunch of presentations from product team members. I hope they found our comments useful. After that it was time for more mingling, and then a bus back to the hotel.

I remembered my camera this time.

And So to Seattle

The MVP Summit is next week in Seattle, and lucky old me is going, which is nice. Set off today from Humberside, my favourite airport.

We had a very smooth journey, and I took a few quick pictures on the way.

Obligatory Taxi Shot

Night Traffic. (I just wish the hotel windows were a bit cleaner)

Doncaster Meeting and Programming Puzzle

Went to Doncaster for an exam board today.

The meeting room had this very impressive chandelier, which lent a lot to the proceedings.

Spent some time chatting with Colin, the external examiner, about programming matters. We were talking about good practices, properties and get/set methods and the like, and a question occurred.

“Why do some types in C# have a Length property (for example String and Array) whereas others have a Count method (for example List)? Both of them do the same thing, so it seems to be silly to have different names for them.”

Colin and I think we know the answer. But do you?

Open Day

We had our first Saturday Open Day of the season today. Had a great bunch of people to see us (I always say they are great if they laugh at one of my jokes).

Here they are, looking quite happy – although I hadn’t told the joke yet…

As usual, we gave away a PSP to one lucky winner.

Mike did the honours this time.

Having Fun By Degrees

Did my one and only degree warmup of this round of ceremonies today. It was for the students from our faculty, which meant that there were people in the audience who I had actually taught something. Perhaps. Everyone played their parts very well and it was a terrific ceremony. I took the camera along, of course.

Artistic shot of one of the maces

Hon. Grad Sir Andrew Clark, Master of the Rolls, giving his speech (very good one by the way).

Looking Left

Looking Right

I took the pictures at the end of the ceremony when everyone is relaxed, including me. My little camera did quite a good job with the shots.If you want to see a much bigger versions (where you can pretty much recognise everyone) click on the images above and follow the links to the versions on my Flickr account. Then click on the (+ All Sizes) button at the top so you can play “Where’s Wally (or Waldo)” properly.

Pictures from Portugal

I’ve noticed that one way to get really good photographs is to go to nice places and take pictures of them. I’ve lost count of the number of lovely shots I’ve seen in photo books with captions like “The Rice Fields on the mountains of Jokarta look lovely just after dawn”. In this respect, Portugal is a definite win. It has this fantastic light.

Cranes on the skyline

The way into the hotel. Pity the fountains were turned off, but you can’t have everything.

The venue this year was the Instituto Superior Tecnico at Taguspark, right opposite the Microsoft Portugal offices.  I like doing sessions in Portugal. I always get a great audience. The session was all about the .NET Micro Framework, and how you can take over the world using it.

I said I’d put a picture of you all up after the session. Here you all are.

Playing with the toys afterwards…

Now, that’s some kind of font…

Outside the building.

I got back last night and staggered into bed. I’d been away just about 24 hours or so and spent 8 of those in the air. But it was all great fun. Thanks to Microsoft Portugal for setting it up.

I’ll be putting the sample code and the presentation up on my blog tonight.

First Open Day

We had our first Open Day of the season today. We had a good turnout and I managed to get through my part of the proceedings without actually falling over, which is always good. And of course we gave away a prize.

Head of department Warren (on the right) hands out the PSP 300 to Francis.

If you came along to see us, thank you, I hope you found the visit worthwhile.