thebaldgeek

Was in with the training class all day today. Tom took it and he covered the rest of OptoControl (the programming side) and started on OptoDisplay (the graphical user interface side). It was really good seeing the guys light up when they understood what was going on. A few times Tom had to leave the class, thankfully for only about 5 minutes max, I would just step in and take over where he left off. I have never done it before, so I could only go so far…… I would end the short section where he was and then give a ‘real world example’ about what stage we were up to….it was a lot of fun, but I think it will be a while before I can take a class. I dont know how the instructors manage on their own, its a lot of working keeping 9-10 people progressing at at the same pace. A lot of the time I would be working one on one with some of the guys, catching them up on any bits they missed. Its pretty mentally tiring keeping track of where Tom is at and catching up as needed! During the short breaks some of the guys would come up and want input on their applications at their work places, its neat working out the best way for the Opto gear to make life better for them.
For lunch we are in the board room three times and we go out once. Each time in the board room we have someone from Opto22 come in and talk to the group about some aspect of Opto. Yesterday it was me, I spoke about the importance of having small delays in your chart to keep the system throughput at its best. Today, it was John. He is the illustrator for Opto22 and hes done a great OptoDisplay demo (you can down load it from the web site…..plug plug He went though that today, the timing was perfect as we started OptoDisplay after lunch.
Since I have never done this before, I look forward to seeing what we  cover tomorrow, I think Kelly, Alexi and Tom are all there tomorrow for some of it, so it will be a full house!

Here is a link to my Google Map page.
As we trip around the place I will add markers in. Relax, you don’t need to keep checking it like this blog page….. I will probably post here when we do travel and will let you know that the map has a new marker on it.
It only has a  few in it at the moment, but a few people (ok, only Gary, but it sounds like a lot of people care when I word it like that!) have asked where these places are….. Enjoy! I am looking forward to getting better the whole maps thing, I think I can attach photos to the markers, that would be fun (if I ever figure it out!).

Apart from that things are going fairly well.
We can not get the kids started in school until they have been tested for tuberculosis. So there will be a few days delay while Freddy gets that done. They also need proof that they have had chicken pox. Generally Auzi parents don’t go to the doctors for that, so we have no proof at all that both of ours have had it. It was before the days of me having a digital camera too, so I don’t think there are any photos of it either. Not sure what we will do about that one. I think Freddy is planing on getting the TB done and trying to bluff them on the pox.

Returned the rental car yesterday. I walked to work this morning. It took exactly half an hour. Not too bad in the spring, but would be pretty tough in the summer. I am thinking one of those over sized electric skateboards would be the bomb, the price will put me off for a long time, but I think it would be better in some ways than the bike. It is a little too fast for the footpath (sidewalk in America btw), and I’m not sure I want to mix it in the traffic on the push bike. The skateboard on the footpath would be about the right mix…..
Anyway, its cheaper than a car, and less time and sweat than walking. We will see.