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Since the attack on my blog back in August I've not done anything to resolve the issues it caused. However, today I finally sorted it out. I've ugraded to BlogSphere 3.0.1 to prevent that happening again. Perhaps I'll even start posting some content again! I'll sort the final layout out in the coming days.

Posted by Roy Holder At 12:07 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Following a server hardware upgrade (thanks Prominic) I'm now running on a brand new system that is WAY higher spec than the last one.

Sorry to anyone who reads or has RSS Readers of my blog. I couldn't pass up the chance to get the server hardware upgraded.

Sorry to all the Seahawks fans - we had our chances and didn't take them

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:29 AM Location Home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Some see the glass as half full.

Some see the glass as half empty.

I see the glass as being the wrong size!

Posted by Roy Holder At 2:27 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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This morning I flew out of London Heathrow airport for the first time since the escalation in security measures. In that time, I've flown numerous times in and out of London Gatwick. Here's my impressions.

Baggage Check: Gatwick seems much less effected by the heightened security measures than Heathrow. Speaking to a BA bot as I waited for the "fast drop" baggage check, he said that at Terminal 4, they'd been changing the arrangements almost daily. Sometimes there were loads of desks open for this, other days there were very few. Even the number of self-service check-in machines apparently changes from day to day. Today, I only had to wait about 5 minutes to drop my bag off.

Central Security: The line for boarding pass and security check was almost endless. Even when I entered the terminal, the way pas was blocked by the queuing masses. It was probably 100 yards past the end of the zig-zag formation. The boarding pass check wasn't holding things up. It was the carry-on and personal checks that were taking the time.

At Heathrow, they're trying out a full body scan machine - aiming to reducing we hope, the need for physical body searches. My thought is that for a long time, until the technology is perfected, the number of people requiring to have even a cursory manual body search will increase. This is as yet to be seen.

Thankfully, the line I was ushered into did not require shoes to be removed. However, just in front of me, a family of 6 (including a very small child still in a push-chair and "grandad" in a wheel chair) basically dumped their bags and coats - I think I counted 11 bags of varying descriptions - into the roller track and went through the security check. Thankfully - only cos I'm a miserable old git - they were told to go back and put the bags and coats through the x-ray machine themselves. This also revealed that one of the bags had a laptop computer in it (which is required to be removed from the bag and placed through the x-ray machine separately now - only ever saw this in the US before, and what good is it) but, this just added to my delay and my amusement quotient.

Oh, and having asked the 4 girls in front of me in the line, without looking up and seeing my ugly mug sans beard, proceeded to ask if I have any make-up in my bag. When I replied that "no, I've left it all for the wife to use" she looked up and blushed.

Thankfully, having anticipated such extended delays by reading about the experiences from others, I had left loads of time to get the flight. As it turned out, once I'd walked to gate 19 at T4 (it's now where gate 15 used to be some 5 years ago) I only had 10 minutes before they started boarding the plane.

The rest of the journey was all very uneventful. The train from Zurich airport to Baden left at exactly 15:04 (the scheduled time) although the train on the next platform was running 10 minutes late. Probably because a cow had wondered onto the branch line tracks.

2 days of workshop on application migration to come. With all the migrations I've done over the past 3 or 4 years I should have a lot to talk about! But, there again, when don't I?

Posted by Roy Holder At 7:29 PM Location Baden, Switzerland | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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I wrote on Sunday night/Monday morning about the tragedy of a good friends Mother passing away. When I published that item, I wasn't aware that a *VERY* good friend of my wife had also lost her battle against long-term illness.

She had been suffering for a number of years from Crohnes Disease as well as being diagnosed with bowel cancer in August/September last year.

Jo - and her friends - knew that there wasn't a whole load of time left after the cancer was discovered, but no-one realised that she would succumb so quickly.

My thoughts and prayers are with Terry, Jasmine and the boys.

Tracy - my wife - had planned to visit Jo last Thursday evening but, during the day, she received a text message from Jo saying she wasn't feeling to good. Could she put the visit off for a couple of days. There was no argument at that time. Jo wasn't "up to it". They could make the visit another day! What hadn't been factored in was Jo's rapid decline. Tracy didn't get the chance to say "good bye". It just adds to the anguish and pain.

For the second time in less than 4 days, I'm writing about bereavement. I'm not generally a morbid person. It just seems to be coming more of a "way-of-life" as I get older. All the good ones are taken early. It doesn't make sense to me.

Why?

Thankfully, your suffering is over. We'll miss your smile, but we'll celebrate your life.

Rest in peace.

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Pittsburgh, PA.  A seven year old boy was at the center of a Pittsburgh courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him.

The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with the child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible.

The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the Judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him.

After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who the boy firmly believes are not capable of beating anyone.

Posted by Roy Holder At 1:51 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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A couple of weeks ago a *VERY* good friend of mine told me his mother was seriously ill. She probably only had a few months to live, such was the severity of her illness!

Today (Sunday 9th July 2006), just after lunch-time, I got the dreaded call to say she'd passed away.

When he first told me, he said he didn't want any sympathy and he didn't want the world to know. So, I only passed the news onto the people that really needed to know. Hence the reason that I mention no names here.

Despite that, I'm moved to write a few words in the hope that they will give him, his brother, his sister, his father, his wife and daughter and all their extended family and friend, some kind of comfort. How? I don't really know. Why? I don't know either. But, you come across these moments in your life where you just feel compelled - for whatever reason - to say something. As I write this, I'm trying to find the words I want to say but they just don't seem to come out right.

Her rapid decline and sudden death was a shock to me so heaven only knows how it hit him. Thankfully, the speed of her passing means her suffering was minimised. If there's anything that can be seen as positive in the event of the past few days it is this. I hope this thought helps him.

My parents raised me as a Christian, and if there's anything I retain from that part of my life, it's the belief that, whilst we should be saddened by the passing of loved ones, we should be happy that they are now in a better place and should rejoice in their life, not be saddened by their death.


Rest in peace.

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This weekend is the 12th anniversary of what must be the blackest race meeting in F1 history. At the San Marino Grand Prix held at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit in Italy, 2 drivers lost their lives with a 3rd, very lucky to escape with his.

Everyone remembers the death of the great Ayrton Senna during the Grand Prix on 1st May 1994 and I'd like to pass on my personal condolences to is family and friends. He was probably the greatest driving talent ever to grace the field of Formula 1. So tragic that his life was cut short.

The driver to escape with his life was Rubens Barichello driving a Jordan, who crashed heavily and was flipped into the catch fencing coming through the final chicane before the pit entrance during Friday qualifying. His car ended upside-down on the track. Barichello was unconscious and swallowing his tongue, but thankfully, quick intervention by the medial teams saved him.

Unfortunately, because of the death of Senna, the incidents of qualifying on Saturday 30th April 1994 have faded over time. Especially so because that was the tragic day that Roland Ratzenberger was killed. He crashed into a wall at high speed at the Villeneuve Corner (ironically named after Gilles Villeneuve who was killed at Zolder on 8th May, 1982). His car was launched into the air after a section of the front wing of his Simtek came off at around 200mph approaching the corner. With little to slow him, he hit the wall at around 180mph and was killed instantly when his neck was broken in the impact.

To Roland's family and friends, I'd also like to pass on my heart-felt sympathies but, rather than remembering him from those TV pictures that day, I'll see him, climbing out of his car at the end of qualifying for a round of the British F3000 Championship at Thruxton, having just set the fastest ever lap of Thruxton.

Rest in peace Roland and Ayrton.

Posted by Roy Holder At 12:28 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Well, the promised article hasn't materialised as yet - as you can see. There's just SO much to get done before Friday morning when I fly to Orlando for LotusSphere '06. Perhaps whilst I'm there I'll get some time to get them done - but there again, probably not.

Just as a post script, it's even more difficult to get stuff typed as I've lost the use of my left index finger - at least it's only for a few day or weeks - after it got sliced ti sheds on the back of the new dish washer I was fitting at the weekend

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Posted by Roy Holder At 1:51 AM Location My office at home | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)