Pupdate

The bad/sad news at the start of the month is that Milo’s back on chemotherapy; though it seems to be going well, and we’re already almost at the end of the first cycle.

Apart from that the boys enjoyed some long walks before the weather turned.

Navy Reunion

It’s been 35 years since a bunch of us walked through the gates of Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) in Dartmouth. This is also likely to be the last time that some of us are still serving – those who’ve done well are now Admirals, and everybody’s on the cusp of hitting retirement age.

We were able to do things in a certain amount of style in the historic dockyard at Portsmouth – I guess those Admirals have some pull when they ask for things, and the weather was kind, allowing for a BBQ.

It was fantastic to catch up with old friends, some of whom I’ve stayed in touch with over the years, and others who I haven’t seen since our passing out ball at Dartmouth.

Vienna

I’ve been doing a lot of stuff with projects run by the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) over the past couple of years (e.g. Supply Chain Security Trifecta[1]), so when their SOSS Community Day Europe was announced it seemed like a good opportunity to meet folk in person who I’ve been collaborating with online. Sadly the industry wide turbulence of layoffs put a dent in that plan, but I went anyway and got to meet a bunch of interesting folk (and do a lightning talk on ‘Rules of Engagement for Forking a Dependency‘)

I’ve been to Vienna a couple of time in my time at DXC, which took me into the centre of the city for customer meetings, and the industrial park where the DXC offices are; so this trip took me to a new bit I’d not seen before, and the trains were thankfully very quick and efficient in getting me there and back.

Dillions

One of the treats I had planned for Rachel’s 50th last month was a trip to Dillions, a local vineyard that we first came across when their Bacchus appeared at one of our favourite restaurants. We also ended up getting their ’22 Bacchus as the white wine choice for our party last month (which went down very well). Sadly the tour had to be cancelled so that the vines could be sprayed, but thankfully they were able to re-arrange it for what turned out to be a beautiful day in the middle of the month.

David the owner was a wonderful host, though ’24 hasn’t been a good year for growing grapes; so our tour of the vines was something of a tale of woe – mildew, ‘hens and chicks‘ and just generally poor yield. After the vines we got to the fun bit – tasting (almost) all the wines he’s released commercially. We came away with a case of the ’22 Rosé, as it’s lovely (even though I’m not usually a Rosé fan).

If you want to hear about winemaking from a passionate expert (who’s making some of the best wine in the country) I can highly recommend a tour once they restart next year.

The Langham Eastbourne

We’d have very happily returned to Horsted Place after such a nice anniversary trip last year, but they were booked solid :( So… The Langham was what eventually got pulled out of the sorting hat, partly because of their dinner inclusive rate, but mostly because of so many positive reviews.

I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it managed to exceed in many ways. The room was lovely, with a nice sea view. Dinner was delightful, and right up there quality wise with some of the top restaurants we’ve visited. The Sussex cheese selection was one highlight, but the star of the show was the royale cut smoked salmon in Rachel’s starter – I almost regretted my choice of beef tartare. Breakfast was delicious, and it was nice to sit in the seaside conservatory in daylight. Yes, it’s Eastbourne, so we were the youngest guests by about two decades; but that didn’t make any difference.

I was particularly impressed by their online check-in/check-out process, which meant we were swiftly on our way after breakfast for a meandering drive home along the coast.

Computer Sheds

The Retro Computer Meetup had a jaunt to York to visit Jim Austin’s Computer Collection aka ‘The Computer Sheds‘. Jim and his merry band of volunteers have amassed an impressive hoard of kit and ephemera in the former pig farm ‘sheds’. They’re open for pre booked tours every other Saturday, with Jim providing an intro, and volunteers on hand to give guided tours. We were shown around by Pete, who’d worked with Jim at the University of York. It was particularly poignant for me to see examples of Silicon Graphics Indigo machines (and Cobalt ‘servers’) that I’d been telling a colleague about just days earlier. It’s possible that some of the machines in the sheds are the ones I actually used during my time at York.

One of the most memorable exhibits is thought to be the first prototype of the Sun 1 Workstation:

I chatted a little to Jim about Transputer stuff, whilst my meetup friends explored various artifacts connected to their earlier days of computing. It was a lot of time on trains to get there and back, but totally worth it.

HP Laptop Repairs

I got my son a Victus gaming laptop back in June, and he’s generally been very happy with it. Until the day it suddenly powered down.

Since I’d had a snag with the keyboard on my HP Omen laptop I knew the drill for getting it returned for repair, and it was soon on its way.

A few days later it was back, with a new motherboard (and trackpad). It lasted 7h before failing again.

Another repair, another new motherboard, and this time it lasted 45m. At this stage I’m pretty dubious about their testing, as it booted up into a CMOS parity error :/

Organising the next return was more of a palaver, and took three calls, which just seemed to be delaying the inevitable. We’re still waiting for it to get back, but neither of us is particularly optimistic.

Solar Diary

There were some nice days in the middle of the month, but generation was well down on last year.

Note

[1] Of you’re interested in more on this I’m doing a talk at AllDayDevOps.