Kelly and I ran the Cursa de la Merce this morning – a great race. Real big! Lots of fun. Then, despite our being totally wasted by the race, we decided to go up to Parc Güell, the Gaudi-designed park northwest of town. My god, it was so hilly! Insane, but wonderfully wild and beautiful. Delicious dinner tonight at Ciutat Comtal, topped off with some xocolat at Valor!

Correfoc video up on YouTube!

More photos on the way. Tomorrow – I don’t know! Coffee and the Boqueria again, I’m sure. I’d also like to go out to FC Barcelona’s stadium, Camp Nou! Maybe get tickets for Wednesday’s match?!

Update: Parc Güell photos and more up in the Barcelona gallery!

Correfoc team giving one last big blast at their end of the street!

Update 6:44PM EST – Correfoc (fire run) photos uploaded in the Barcelona gallery! I also took a bunch of video I’ll have to edit later. That was totally insane! Team after team of fire-hurling devils and drum corps just going nuts! Dancing, fire, drumming… wow. Kelly and I have our run in the AM so we’re turning in!

Hola! Kelly and I have had a long couple of days here in Barcelona – jet lag an issue upon arrival, but that’s all behind us now. We’ve embarked on a couple of rambling, unguided walking tours in the last few days that have left us very tired but filled with the sights and sounds (and tastes!) of Barcelona.

We’ve visited the Sagrada Familia, strolled Las Ramblas on numerous occassions, bought our breakfast at La Boqueria market, dipped our feet in the Mediterranean and wound our way through the narrow streets of Barcelona’s old town.

The “fire run” I spoke of (el correfoc) is tonight and our run (La Cursa de la Merce) is tomorrow morning! More info on the correfoc and the Festival de la Merce here: Barcelona La Merce Festival @ Barcelona Tourist Guide.

The first batch of photos (from today) are up in the Barcelona Gallery!

Kelly and I are off to Barcelona, Spain today! SDF->ATL->BCN. We’ll arrive 11AM local time tomorrow. Barcelona is the cultural capital of Spain – imagine the Montreal of Spain – as the predominant language of Barcelona isn’t Spanish, it’s Catalan. It’s a fairly old city with a Barri Gotic (Gothic Neighborhood) that dates back to the Roman era. Winding streets and open-air markets galore.

Gaudi’s magnum opus, The Sagrada Familia

Barcelona at it’s center is an old town with great ancient architecture, and (as seen above) great modern architecture. It’s a cultural wonderland with plenty of delicious food and sights to see. We will also be present for the Festival of the Mercè – Barcelona’s annual fall kick-off. Kelly has also arranged that we will run the Cursa de la Mercè, a 10k (6 mile) road race through the center of town. Other runs of note include the correfoc (fire run) which appears during the Festival de la Mercè and is a parade of incendiary insanity. Devils and dragons parade through the streets shoot fire over the parade participants. Yeah – that’s awesome.

Tapas at Cal Pep

Did I mention the food??? Tapas are a big draw in Barcelona, and Cal Pep is the place to go (see above). Also, there are a number of delicious chocolate bars and being right next to the Mediterranean, the seafood is ridiculously fresh.

We’ll be walking quite a bit, likely biking and maybe taking a train or two! So, expect photos and daily travelogues – Wifi is pretty all-round there in the city center of Barca. We’ve been putting together a Google Spreadsheet of Things to Do Around Barca. Plenty of links and such in there if you want to dive in.

It’s just model planes, it’s just model planes… That refrain is constantly bouncing around my head a lot of the time. Isn’t there something bigger and better I should be doing? I’m no doctor, so that’s out. I’m not equipped to be a philanthropist, so that’s a scratch. Failing medicine and philanthropy, I’ve got a drive to help people it would seem. It’s not something I necessarily decided upon, but it’s certainly there. What is truly strange is that I can really, really stress myself out after I’ve committed to something – but it’s like a hardening process. I end up a better person for it in the end, but there are times when that refrain of “it’s just insert inconsequential thing here” comes in.

That, in a nutshell is what the run-up to the Soaring NATS (for which I covered the Soaring events in the NATSNews publication (July 22-30)) was like. Why put myself under such pressure to write about the events and compete at the same time!? You might not consider it a tough job, but the NATS is serious business. 130 pilots from around the country and I did it for-pay for the largest aeromodelling organization in the world. Not to mention that the Soaring crowd (like an hobby) is filled to the brim with opinionated (you could say cranky) dudes who are as passionate about the multi-faceted hobby as I am. I’ve got to take all that into account.

After I got the first article out, it relieved a fair bit of the pressure I was under. I had most of it pre-written and by that time I was already encamped in Muncie, IN (where the AMA HQ is and where the NATS are held), which is absolutely gorgeous and completely stuns me with silence at night. I got up every morning at 6:30 and went to sleep every night at midnight. I never have more energy, I never eat less and I never more focused than I am at the NATS. It’s like being fired out of a cannon through a week of soaring, and it never fails to inspire me to delve deeper into this hobby.

Despite my focus being elsewhere, I actually managed to do pretty well in the competition at the NATS. I got 5th out of 19 in the handlaunch soaring event, and I placed 6th out of 58(!) in the Rudder/Elevator/Spoiler contest with my EZ Bubble Dancer. RES is one of my favorite events (aside from handlaunch). I got middle-of-the-pack in the Unlimited contest as well, thanks largely in part to a pop-off launch (in which you don’t stay on the towline for very long, leaving you with maybe 75 feet of altitude, as compared to 600-800′, and you don’t get a re-launch!) in the fourth round.

Those successes were good for me, but I count as my greatest success the NATSNews coverage, for which I received universal acclaim. Never was heard a discouraging word from any of the some two dozen guys that came up to me over the week. That’s awesome.

I tried to take a bit of a different tack on the coverage for the NATS, so it was encouraging to hear that so many guys enjoyed my coverage. Soaring has a very committed following, but thanks in large part to the crazy advances in technology, it has become a bit elitist in it’s design. Competition has always been in soaring’s blood, even from the very first years – but now when a competition-level sailplane and gear can set you back $2000-$3000, that raises the barriers to entry considerably for most guys. The NATS is larger than just competition, though, so I thought it crucially important to focus on the “new guys” and let those staying at home for the NATS know that it’s not all about the competition. Doug Pike, a Canadian soaring enthusiast, likened it to “summer camp for sailplanes,” which I think hits the nail right on the head. You’ll never learn more, have more fun or meet more soaring pilots than the NATS. NEVER. If my coverage gets just one more “new guy” to the NATS or interested in soaring, then I’ve done my part.

NATSNews @ ModelAircraft.org

The Road to the 2007 NATS @ RCGroups

Gallery of Photos @ LouisvilleSoaring.org

I’ll be leaving for the Polecat Challenge (a handlaunch soaring contest) bright’n'early tomorrow morning. It’s one of the two biggest handlaunch soaring contests in the United States, pulling in 60+ pilots! And I’ve had the pleasure of helping Denny (the purveyor of Polecat Aeroplane Works) put the contest together with the help of the Internets, and I even designed the Polecat Challenge T-Shirt – so I’m really excited to get there and do that.

Also, this will be a trial-run of my soaring journalism skills, in that I’ll be doing LIVE updates from the contest with photos, scores, maybe video and reports through the 4 days we’ll be there. The updates will come down here: 2007 Polecat Challenge Live Feed!

Hey all! Just thought I’d give you a postcard from the road! Kelly and I let out of Louisville on Thursday night. We made good time (even stopping by an outlet mall where Kelly exercised amazing discipline both in purchase and in efficiency) and got to the Academy of Model Aeronautics site with enough time to set up the tent in the light. We were, however, surprised, to find a troop of Boy Scouts in the camping area when we arrived. No problems, though — it actually made me reminiscent of my scouting days.

Friday was Handlaunch day at the NATS, and the weather was crap – which means it was great for a contest! Windy and overcast, it had rained the first night a bit, and it threatened to do so the whole day. Thermal activity was boiling in the morning, but it quickly dissapated into what I think was some sort of low-level temperature inversion (think of it as a “cap” on the field) and thermalling was rough. Ed Franz, the contest director, loves to punish the handlaunch competitors, and the tasks were *real* long. One wrong move or one missed thermal and *pow* you were out of there! I flew pretty well during the middle of the day, but I really fell apart at the end of the day, and ended up in 9th out of 19. My buddy Bruce Davidson flew to 2nd place and fellow LASS-mate Ken Marks ended up in 15th. I’ll do better in Unlimited on Wednesday/Thursday and then in RES on Friday, right?

Friday night was rain, rain, rain and our tent has some leakage issues, so we were a little damp. Despite that, Saturday was beautiful and I hung around with “Team Polecat” as they bucked the trends and flew a 60″ ship in an event that usually calls for planes that are 160″ in wingspan. Kelly and I split around 2PM for Detroit, making a stop in Fort Wayne at their H&M store.

Today we went to a Detroit Tigers game, and had a blast! The weather has been very mild (low 80′s ) and a nice breeze was occassionally around. Kelly got to see her beloved “Pudge” Rodriguez, and we both enjoyed a day at the ballpark.

This evening, we headed out to another H&M store in Ann Arbor, and then drove north up State street to the University of Michigan area. What a cool little town up there! We walked around for a few hours and ate sushi and ice cream.

Tomorrow, the Henry Ford! Right now, there are photos here: 2006.07.23 – Detroit. Soaring related photos are here: 2006.07.21 – NATS Handlaunch and 2006.07.22 – NATS Cross-country.

This Thursday, Kelly and I are headed for vacation, bookended by me competing at the Academy of Model Aeronautics Soaring Nationals in Muncie, Indian, better known by it’s competitors as just the NATS. You may remember that last year I went to my first NATS and I managed to do pretty well. Hopefully, I can repeat that performance this year, but in all reality I’m just there to have fun.

The Soaring NATS is actually a number of different events packed into a week-long span. This year, I’m flying handlaunch, Unlimited and RES. Handlaunch being planes under 60″ launched by hand, Unlimited being winch-launched planes of any size, and RES being rudder/elevator/spoiler only planes. Handlaunch competition is on Friday, July 21st, and my next event, Unlimited, doesn’t start until the 26th, so Kelly and I have plans to go up to Detroit and kick around there for a little while. We are going to hit a Detroit Tigers game and go to the Henry Ford Museum as well. Not to mention that Kelly is most excited about going to H&M, the “hip Target”.

Photo courtesy of Charles Frey. That is a RES plane I’m throwing there, by the way. Handlaunch planes are under 60″ in wingspan.

Back at work today, which I’ll admit is a bit of a relief. Travelling does have it’s own stresses to be sure. Thinking about all that work you’ll have to come back to, not to mention things you’ve got to put off at home. Been thinking about php|tek 2006 over the weekend, and I’ve come up with a few final thoughts.

First, I’ll say that I did learn quite a bit at php|tek, but nothing that I was expecting to learn. My expectations for this PHP-centric conference were fairly broad. I had expected there to be a few very narrow, technical sessions with the majority being broader, more “this is where we are headed” type conversations. I did not expect many non-PHP-specific sessions to do me much of any good. What I encountered could be construed as completely the opposite.

The majority of the speakers at this conference were those either directly or almost directly related with the day-to-day development of PHP as a programming language. Many of the speakers were the originators of the stuff they spoke about, or at least had a hand in it. While this is truly a unique opportunity rarely granted in the IT world — to get to interact with the person who writes the language which you use each day — I don’t know if it is beneficial to most people who come to these conferences.

I wore my “Microsoft Freedom to Innovate” t-shirt today. I consider it the most ironic $10 I’ve ever spent, and I guess most folks get the joke. I did get my picture taken with someone with a “NO SOFTWARE PATENTS” shirt a lunch, so I consider that a small victory. His shirt was black, and mine was white. Nested ironies, I think. While I’m on the subject of attire, I’ll say that it’s been shorts and t-shirts for most everyone here, including the presenters. The “Schroedinger’s Cat is Dead” t-shirt I spied on a certain lass made me chuckle. The real “thinking outside the nerd attire box” award has got to go to Marcus Baker. I sat in on two of his sessions on two separate days, “Is Agile Development Right for You?” and “Breaking the OO Sound Barrier”. Both days he was wearing the same pair of pants. Big deal, right? I often wear the same pair of khakis a few days in a row at work. But Marcus doesn’t prefer the inconspicuousness of khaki – he prefers leather. Leather pants. Marcus, you have won the con. Congrats.

All kidding aside, I will say that Marcus’ sessions have been the most enlightening of all that I have attended. He is a natural and fluid speaker who doesn’t bombard the audience with a lot of code or pedantic knowledge. Granted, his topics haven’t been “Migrating from version X to version Y” or “The New Features of Some Code Gadget”, but instead have focused on analysis and design topics that lead to programming strategies. He does a very good job of it and and while their topics may differ, I think most of the folks I sat in with here at php|tek could take a cue from Marcus.

A certain level of knowledge about PHP is assumed if you are coming to this conference, yes, but I think that level should be fairly low. Many of the speakers here are actual developers *for* PHP. This obviously grants them wonderful insight on the depths of the language, but I would rather see more general and real-world applications of PHP. This is something that Rasmus Lerdorf did very well in his keynote. Oh – and before I forget the one session I sat in with Christian Wenz was also very good.

Dan and I took the free Zend Certification Exam this afternoon. I don’t know how well I did, and honestly I’m not that concerned having taken it. Many of the questions dealt with detailed specifics of the language and it’s constructs, which is something that I normally let the webserver worry about. I have bigger things to consider and remember when I use PHP. A certification is only a nice thing to put on your wall, I think. Programming’s name belies it’s complexity – a complexity that supercedes the language itself.

“PHP Pool Party” later tonight with an open bar! More later?

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Some say that the second Internet bubble is upon us. I think they might just be right, based on the amount and complexity of work that has been coming in to us at work. This time, however, it’s considerably more
robust and “pop-proof” (or at least we all hope so). The ideas that inflated the first bubble seem to have
risen from the ashes of that first wave. The idea of the Internet as Desktop and Desktop as Internet.
The dreamy “thin client” that was going to be everywhere, cheaply and clawing its way onto your TV, into your
car and on the front of your refrigerator. Rockets on your shoes and teleporters and the whole thing, too.

So maybe it’s apt that I’m here in Orlando, so close to Kennedy Space Center where, back in the 1960s, we
actually did make the impossible possible without an implosion. Lives aren’t on the line in the Internet,
and so such irrational exuberance can lead to such things. The hype was believed back then, but now the
people behind the scenes are wiser for the experience. There were so many great, grand ideas in the late
90′s, but so little consideration and so much money doesn’t fly in the world of the Internet.

In the meantime, things have settled down on the Internet. The browser wars have gone from hot to cold, and
the medium that is the Internet is a little more predictable with fewer outliers. This has allowed companies
like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft (and a thousand smaller joints) to create applications for all people, all
browsers, all platforms that *work* and bring a little of the promise of the grand ideas of the late 90′s.

Gmail, Google Maps, Flickr, digg.com, etc. all make use of these grand ideas, like /your data on the web/ and
/the web as read/write/ and the web as a moving, usable and up-to-date desktop application. The technologies
behind these are various and sundry (mostly sundry), but focus primarily on the easy exchange of easily
readable data. Things like map info, stock information, search results, whatever. Make that information easily
available and portable and great things happen.

The reason why I am here at php|tek 2006 is specifically for PHP, but a lot of the content so far has centered
around that overarching idea of what I was just musing about. The “Web 2.0″, the “next generation”, whatever
you’d like to call it. How does PHP fit in there? How is it changing to fit in? Knowing just where the
tech on the web is heading is truly the only way to know what is going on in PHP.

PHP is one of the most widely-used, profilic and advanced technologies used on the web. Rasmus Lerdorf started
PHP back in 1995 and has been instrumental in it’s development ever since. He now works for Yahoo!, and seems to
be focused on these emerging Internet technologies. Suffice it to say, he remains very much a “blue-collar” guy
who created and directs the development of a technology that has affected so much of the “white-collar” world.

Rasmus’ keynote speech earlier this morning was considerably less “high-level” than I had expected. This is what I have come to expect from the open-source world. The people who are making the changes and pushing things forward still have their hands dirty in the real world. However, those people who are truly successful are the odd ones who can do so and still keep a grip on the big picture. I get the feeling the Rasmus is one of those
people. He, in his hour-long keynote presentation (I wouldn’t call it a speech), explained by example and in code the pitfalls of the new-school web apps, and how to mitigate those pitfalls. He also showcased how PHP can simply and easily be integrated into these “Web 2.0″ apps. An interesting blend of real-world considerations, code and examples that underscored how important is the inter-relation between technologies.

An unusual keynote, for sure. Part of me was hoping for more of a “state of PHP” sort of address, but much like any good programmer, you leave that stuff for the brass, and get down to nitty-gritty with the troops. I’m sitting here in shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, so what else should I expect? More later!

You can check out Rasmus’ presentation in it’s entirety here: talks.php.net/show/tek06

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