In amongst a lot of postings covering the recent Mix 07 event, Craig Murphy has posted a great little three minute video introducing the UK Microsoft Developer Community.
If you’re wondering what sort of stuff goes on for developers in the UK – it is a great way to get an overview.
The office across the road from us has been empty for the past couple of months – even when it was occupied they never used the delivery entrance I can see from the window. I’ve just watched a DHL driver come around to the back, stop in the middle of the road, ring the bell and then scan, sign for and leave propped up against the back door a parcel, before driving off.
Float planes really don’t like calm water.
One of the things I’ve always wanted to do was fly in a float plane. I guess it’s having watched series like Tales of the Gold Monkey which included a Grumman Goose flying boat. But anyway, since on this holiday Beth was going up the CN Tower and seeing Niagara Falls – things that I’d done but she hadn’t, and from where we were staying in Parry Sound Georgian Bay Airways were running Fly and Dine trips to Henry’s Fish Restaurant, a place only accessible by water, how could we resist!
Heading out wasn’t a problem – we were introduced to our pilot, signed the relevant pieces of paper and filled out emergency contact details, and clambered into the little float equipped Cessna 180. The take off was a little bumpy, thanks to the little waves on the water, but we had a beautiful clear run out to Henry’s Place.
The meal was fantastic too – fish and chips, but with all the fish freshly caught of course. Having finished eating we then sat and watched the world go by waiting for our lift to come back. It was a lovely evening – pretty sunset, and absolutely no wind at all – which proved to be a bit of a problem.
Our plane appeared right on time – but had to abort his first attempt at a landing thanks to a boat crossing it’s runway area. When he eventually came alongside we had a trainee pilot too – not too much of a problem.
We got in, and the pilot manoeuvred the plane out to the take-off area, opened up the throttle and tried to take off. Unfortunately the plane just didn’t lift. After a bit of a discussion they went round again, and again it wouldn’t take off.
At this point out in the middle of the lake we did a seat swap, and put the more experienced pilot into the pilots seat and swapped me with the trainee pilot to put him in the back, and tried again. Even at the fourth attempt we didn’t take off, so at this point we headed back to Henry’s place and left the trainee pilot behind, the pilot phoning back to base to get another plane to pick him up.
He then tried again – still no joy.
Finally, having watched the other plane come in, he tried taking off on the much longer landing runway and succeeded – at attempt number six.
Needless to say, the pilot was incredibly apologetic, as in all the problems we’d missed the sunset flight over the islands – we’d just had to head back to base. He said that the problem was caused by ‘glassy water’ – essentially the lack of wind and the millpond smooth surface of the lake made it significantly harder for the plane to lift. He even offered to buy us an ice cream, and said that he felt it was entirely his fault, but having read up on float plane dynamics it really wasn’t his fault, nor was it because, as Beth thought we as passengers were unusually heavy – bear in mind that even with the second pilot off the plane it still wouldn’t lift.
To some extent, the fact that absolutely still water makes it harder for a float plane to take off seems a bit counter-intuitive, but if you read this Plane and Pilot introduction to Flying with Floats, taking off from glassy water is described as being harder than a rough water take off. To understand why you have to remember back to your school Physics lessons, in particular surface tension and the capillary action on the plane. If the surface of the water is flat as a mill pond, all the surface tension on the water is acting to hold the plane down, hence the force needed to get it into the air is significantly more. With the water being a little bit choppy, the effect of the surface tension is lessened, and the plane is better able to move.
So lesson number two from the holiday – you may think that smooth water would make life easier for a float plane – but it doesn’t. Having said that, if you’ve never experienced a float plane, it is a great experience and certainly one to try if you have a chance – and you now don’t even have to leave the UK to try it out.
To a Brazilian waiter, green means ‘go’, and red is a challenge!
In Niagara Falls we were being shown around by our friend Melissa. I think like most people who live close to major tourist areas she tends to avoid the downtown area, but came in to take us out to dinner when we first arrived. A friend of hers had recommended a new restaurant that had opened on Fallsview Boulevard called Copacabana. Although at this point half of you are probably humming a certain Barry Manilow song, being a Brazilian Steak House it’s actually named after the area of Rio de Janerio.
The way things work in the restaurant is somewhat different from usual. When you arrive the waitress takes your drinks order, and then gives you an empty plate and a selection of cutlery – included with that is a pair of tongs – and finally a card which is about the size of a beer mat that is red on one side and green on the other.
There is a large and well stocked salad bar from which you are sent to fill up your plate, and then the waiters start to appear carrying skewers loaded with a wide variety of meats. If the card is green they will serve up whatever meat they are currently carrying – the tongs being to take the meat as it is sliced off the skewer. The theory is that if the card is red they won’t serve you, in practice if you’ve got a plate they’ll come and try to tempt you anyway!
The barbecuing doesn’t end at the main course either. The pudding (and it’s worth leaving a bit of space for this) is barbecued pineapple, and delicious.
The final nice thing about the restaurant is that if you stick to drinking water you will know exactly what it is going to cost as the price of the meal is a flat rate however much you’ve eaten.
I’m not sure if it’s part of a chain, but if you’re in Niagara Falls we can certainly recommend a trip to the Copa, Copacabana… (Sorry, back to Barry Manilow again – and it has to be said the restaurant plays up the association – the live band played the song a couple of times during the night. 🙂 )
Copacabana Restaurant originally uploaded by Tahbepet.
The theory…
Between 7:30am and 1pm today, our new fridge freezer would be delivered and installed by Indesit/Hotpoint. This in actual fact requires a bit of co-operation between the delivery guys based at Andover, and the Reading based engineer, so the works order consists of three jobs and reads as follows:
1. Call FSE (Field Service Engineer) one hour before on 7288
2. Removal of Old Appliance
3. Deliver HMB313I (our new Fridge Freezer)
Seems fairly straightforward, but in practice it didn’t work out like that. Just before 9am, this is a view of our kitchen.
The delivery driver turned up, and I expressed some surprise that he was on his own. His response was that they only needed one person to do the job now thanks to hydraulic lifts and trolley. However, having brought the new fridge/freezer into the kitchen announced that it needed an engineer to remove the old one so he couldn’t do it (perhaps why his job sheet said he was supposed to have phoned 7288 before he arrived?). He said to give the call centre a call when the engineer was done and somebody would be back to collect the old appliance.
The engineer arrived at about 11:30am, totally in the dark about what he was actually here to do since he hadn’t received any calls – it seems they give the delivery driver the number to call the service engineer, but not the other way around. Of course the other reason why they arrange for both the delivery driver and the engineer to turn up together is that installing a built-in fridge freezer is a difficult job as the whole thing has to be lifted into place – since the delivery driver has hydraulic lifts and trolleys it makes life easier – unfortunately the engineer has a van with tools – no lifts or trolleys. Anyway, my thought was that since he was on his own, he could perhaps refuse to do the job. Thankfully he was really helpful, and with a bit of help from me and a bit of cardboard to slide it we got the old fridge outside, and the new one in place, and by about 1pm it was all installed and running.
However, that just left the matter of the old fridge – sat on the kerbside at the front of our house. Giving the call centre a ring as instructed, after a lot of waiting on hold they eventually said that they will be by to collect either tomorrow or Thursday!
Bear in mind at this point that on Monday morning the Indesit/Hotpoint call centre left us a message reminding us of the appointment, and saying that they would charge us £34 if nobody was available and they were unable to deliver – since they’ve failed to complete the job properly between 7:30am and 1pm as arranged, I wonder when the cheque will be arriving for me? The call centre maintains that as we were the first delivery it would have been a bit early to call the engineer – so perhaps better scheduling is called for?
According to their corporate values they are respectful and ambitious to improve – so perhaps I’ll write them a letter detailing my experience…