YMCC Junior Team Challenge Cup
The morning of Saturday 12th December had arrived! I drove to the track half excited and half anxious about what lay ahead, as I am sure you did too.
It was a dry start and the YMCC team arrived promptly and without orchestration got to work on the preparation. Just before 10am it started to rain (only lightly I might add) but luckily we had just finished putting up the 2nd gazebo. Guests started arriving in unison with the rain but the team re-assured them we would continue with the day unless it became a down-pour. Everybody was happy with this decision. Luckily it soon stopped raining and those small showers we had later were not even noticed, as everybody (including the Mums and Dads) was having far too much fun.
So onto the day itself. Following an introduction to the club, brief history and general welcome Ian Finch, the club chairman handed over to me to kick the days proceedings off. The new Tamiya Mini’s were then brought out and lined up on the pit tables, transponders were installed and a race number placed on the windscreen – They looked awesome with their vibrantly coloured bodies. We started with a track walk for all the Junior Racers where I talked them through the basics of RC Racing and gave some hints and tips about the tracks more difficult off-camber corners. We finished up walking the best line, hitting the ‘apex’ on every corner. While this was going on the YMMC team made final tweaks and prepped the cars ready for their first outings. Meanwhile Race control was frantically busy with the computer being set-up to accommodate this unique event and a battery station created whereby all the stick packs would be charged. Everybody was now ready! … more
BeInspired 09
Yesterday, I attended the Business Link event BeInspired 09. I’d not been to an event of this type before, so I was prepared for it to be an eye-opener. I was joined by Ben Andrews a good friend of mine who’s in a similar situation to me (essentially a newbie to this business networking malarkey).
We rocked up at registration to collect our name badges and took a wander around the venue to get an understanding of where the workshops were being held, the location of the coffee and the theatre. We grabbed ourselves a seat in preparation for Richard Farleigh to take the keynote. His talk was great, far more down to earth than I was expecting. Starting out with his back-story and his childhood, realising that he could hustle people playing chess at the age of 14! Including his list of failures and … more
10th scale RC racing at Newbury
Tonight was a top night out for me! I took my new 10th scale radio control touring car to Newbury to see how it goes on the carpet. After a rather shaky start with the back end sliding out all-over-the-place I was cooking on gas! For my first time out it was from the top draw.
Finishing 1st in the first qualifier after some frantic setup changes to help rectify my tail happy TC, which was as much of a shock to me as it was to the others … more
Book Review – Magento Beginners Guide
First impressions
Upon receiving my copy of the Magento Beginners Guide I took a moment after dinner whilst my girlfriend watched some ‘Celebrity Increase My Profile’ program to absorb the first chapter. I was presented with a nice introduction explaining the scope of the book and the conventions that are used throughout. A nice and easy ‘in’ perfectly suited to reading on the couch. … more
Future Of Web Design 2009 – FOWD
As I was gutted to miss FOWD in 2008, I decided to make a point of not missing it this year. So I put my name down on the ‘early bird’ list along with @robking too as I was sure he’d be up for it.
Really looking forward to Brett Welch talk about marketing for start-ups and Mark Boulton on design and frontend goodness. I’ve seen Drew McLellan and Elliot Jay Stocks before at Oxford Geek Nights and thought … more
