Quiet summer days? I think not!

I was amused at the co-incidence ... to see that one of our most downloaded images in the last 24 hours has been this one, taken st least three years ago at the rear of "404". It's a co-incidence because - just yesterday - I brought that BBQ out of storage in 'The Tack Room' at The Manor, degreased it, set it up in just the same place, and we had our first garden-cooked food at home since 2006! I was less amuse when I investigated just why this picture is so popular - it appears to have been hotlinked from an 'adult' web site which, I surmise, is using random links to increase its street-cred. You can see our current most viewed pictures here, and the most common ones called from places that our not our main sites (usually stolen) here. The listing is constantly updated - and if you want to know how to do it, come on the PHP Techniques Workshop or have a look at the source code

This last week, "The Horse" has been very technical ... and that's because I have been at it, non-stop it seems, since last Sunday morning. August is supposed to be the quiet 'holiday' season in the training business, but you shouldn't entirely believe that. A quiet time at XYZ Engineering is also a good time for the staff to go our and get trained, and it's also an excellent time to consider and plan for work-team wide training for the autumn. So as well as a three day public Python course and a two day Apache HTTP Server and Apache Tomcat Course, I have had very welcome enquiries to be following up; every customer is an individual, training is always an important part of each individual's development need, and so we all make sure we go to great lengths to come up with the very best solution we can offer in each case. It takes time, but it's a good investment for everyone!

Yet the busyness has gone beyond just a typical busy training week. Struck by a significant but quite small minority of delelages who want to learn languages such as Python, PHP and Lua but who have never programmed before, we now add an extra day on the front of the more typical courses (for those who HAVE programmed before) to give the novices a good start and foothold. We expect those extra days to be run on demand, and only prior to a small proportion of course dates. And they WILL run for just one person - it makes huge sense, as that's then another place sold for the rest of the course, and a delegate who's then well able to stay with the course. But anyway - long story - there was an extra Python day at the start of this week - yes, Sunday - with two delegates who were both delighted with the extra, and the quiet learning opportunity provided at Well House Manor.

(Links - Ruby, C anc C++, Perl and Python - more comments about "learning to program" in the particular languages)

Oh - and August is the busy weekend / leisure hotel season too. We welcome such guests to Melksham in Wiltshire, but we're very much aware that they're not people who are travelling frequently - they need / desire extra attention, and whether it's a guest who's scheduled a 3 p.m. arrival and then not shown up till 9, has arrived as 10 a.m. with "can I chackin a bit early?", or phones at 23:30 to check that his reservation is on order, it does add to the welcomed load.

So, dear reader, that is why you've seen little but technical notes in the last week ... but with a hope that we'll be back to a more 50 / 50 balance in the future.
(written 2009-08-22, updated 2009-08-23) 2a7b

Associated topics are indexed under

Z100 - Daily life
  [3743] Sunday - no longer a day of rest - (2012-05-28)
  [3553] Changes to morning routines - (2011-12-16)
  [3463] Busy weekend of contrasts. - (2011-10-03)
  [3319] Moving on - a task for the hotel staff! - (2011-06-08)
  [3316] Twitter Phishing Trips ... and a great new alert service - (2011-06-04)
  [3125] The family is defunct. Long live the family. - (2011-01-09)
  [2868] A move towards the family - (2010-07-12)
  [2580] C course inspires new teaching examples - (2010-01-16)
  [2450] Family Gathering at 404, The Spa - (2009-10-11)
  [2401] Back Tomorrow - (2009-09-10)
  [2264] Learning about others private lives - (2009-06-30)
  [2217] Enjoying the summer weather - (2009-06-04)
  [2164] Updating my public profile - Graham Ellis - (2009-05-09)
  [2159] A long day to guess where - (2009-05-06)
  [2141] Town Crier competiton - (2009-04-25)
  [2121] Out in the Vale of Pewsey - (2009-04-07)
  [2118] Spring Sprung - (2009-04-05)
  [2106] Learning to Twitter / what is Twitter? - (2009-03-28)
  [2105] Hire Car, from Atlanta Airport - (2009-03-27)
  [2090] Melksham to Georgia - (2009-03-19)
  [2068] Playing Catchup - (2009-03-06)
  [2064] East of Melksham Countryside - (2009-03-02)
  [2034] Through Snow and Flood to Linux and Tomcat - (2009-02-10)
  [2030] The final step to being British - (2009-02-07)
  [2027] Who sticks by you in the snow? - (2009-02-05)
  [2024] Carry on Training - in spite of the weather - (2009-02-03)
  [2008] The Month Ahead - What is happening in Melksham - (2009-01-25)
  [2000] 2000th article - Remember the background and basics - (2009-01-18)
  [1979] Looking forward, in Melksham, in 2009 - (2009-01-05)
  [1953] End of Training, 2008 - (2008-12-20)
  [1810] Middle aged subsidise young and old - (2008-09-26)
  [1643] A lack of technical content - (2008-05-16)
  [1429] Remembrance day - inside a church and inside the day - (2007-11-11)
  [1303] Heading Upstate New York - (2007-08-14)
  [1272] Behind closed doors? - (2007-07-22)
  [1189] Meet, greet and welcome - (2007-05-16)
  [1178] Ducking stool for Melksham? - (2007-05-06)
  [1151] Gordon Dodge, R.I.P. - (2007-04-16)
  [1138] The Holiday - unlikely romantic comedy? - (2007-04-08)
  [1100] Wondering where I have been - (2007-03-06)
  [1061] Take vehicles off the road - put all the passengers into one - (2007-02-01)
  [1057] Selling by phone and Skype - our policy - (2007-01-30)
  [1056] Another frantic posting! - (2007-01-30)
  [992] Enthusiastic, but .... - (2006-12-16)
  [978] Wellhouse Manor, Hotel, Melksham - (2006-12-10)
  [921] French Exchange - (2006-11-11)
  [911] Letter Home - (2006-11-01)
  [908] And so to Inverness - (2006-10-29)
  [897] Too much for the National Trust - (2006-10-18)
  [882] Rocks, hard places, trains and funerals. - (2006-09-30)
  [843] To join an organisation? - (2006-08-23)
  [817] Working on Weekend in Wiltshire and others - (2006-07-29)
  [777] On Crosby sands - (2006-06-25)
  [752] Over zealous police activity? - (2006-06-09)
  [724] Helping mental health through diet, exercise and other lifestyle matters - (2006-05-18)
  [706] May day away - (2006-05-01)
  [698] Catch up weekend - (2006-04-24)
  [692] Healthier eating - (2006-04-20)
  [655] Can some food be TOO different? - (2006-03-23)
  [654] Making use of disabled facilities - (2006-03-22)
  [645] Lost Camel - (2006-03-14)
  [635] Odd one out. - (2006-03-06)
  [623] Behind every face is a person and a story - (2006-02-25)
  [613] Greetings from Dublin - (2006-02-20)
  [612] Coming or going? - (2006-02-18)
  [605] Design your day with a walk - (2006-02-13)
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  [580] What to do with milk - (2006-01-28)
  [516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
  [474] Vintage Bus Day - (2005-10-23)
  [473] Looking different in town - (2005-10-22)
  [455] A Stengthening day - (2005-10-04)
  [446] Up early - (2005-09-16)
  [363] Greetings from Edinburgh - (2005-06-29)
  [330] An O level comes in handy - (2005-05-30)
  [307] Farming yesterday - (2005-05-10)
  [283] Natural or man-made? - (2005-04-18)
  [271] Different course every day - (2005-04-07)
  [238] Difficulties with a trolley - (2005-03-07)
  [232] Diverse activities - (2005-03-01)
  [228] Beard Justification - (2005-02-26)
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  [149] Fish stocks - (2004-12-12)
  [110] Friday, busy week! - (2004-11-05)
  [26] Matching Cat - (2004-08-24)
  [20] Not two the same - (2004-08-20)
  [19] interesting products and subjects - (2004-08-19)

3ba9

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Some other Articles

Designing your data structures for a robust Perl application
Lead characters on Perl variable names
Translation from Ghanaian to English
Public Transport from (and to) Melksham on Sundays
Quiet summer days? I think not!
C++, Python, and other training - do we use an IDE
Using a cache for efficiency. Python and PHP examples
Python - fresh examples of all the fundamentals
Learning to program - how to jump the first hurdles
At the end of the course