Work – Page 6 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

Gate 21

You may have read my posts about the quiet lounge at Luton Airport that is near the gates used by EasyJet. Well today it all went wrong. I was in the lounge waiting for the 7sm flight to Belfast City (George Best) airport never been there before) when the flight was called at gate 21.

Gate 21 is all the way back to the main area and turn right not left. So I had to get a shift on to stand any chance of getting near the front of the queue. A fellow traveller had also made the same mistake and for a while was a head of me, but my stamina got the better of his quick off the mark speed. I managed to beat him to the gate, you have to make your own fun when you are travelling on your own. Anyway things did not turn out too bad, I was 6 in the queue at the exit, so should guarantee a place on the front row.

Update got my usual seat in the end, window seat next to left front door, for a quick get away at the other end. Apologies for the picture.

Has the airport shutdown

You don’t see this very often. As it happens my flight was the next to be called.

Where is the ark?

Thought I would give you all an update on my walk to work routine. Things are going well I have not missed a day yet, in the three weeks I have been walking.

I am getting to know the wildlife that is about on the route, and this morning I thought may be there was an ark nearby, as all the birds seem to come in two’s. First I saw a Grey Heron fly along the canal, and later another one fly the other direction. In a regular spot I saw two Bull Finches (male and female), they seem to always been in the same short section of the canal, and I suspect that are always there unless someone has passed before me and scared them off. Then I saw a Kingfisher fly past twice, it was a bright iridescent blue because it was flying away with the sun behind it. It may have been the same bird twice, but I am claiming it as two different birds!

Other stuff that is often out there are Hares in the fields adjacent to the Buckland Road, as well as an elusive warblerish bird that I have yet to get in the binoculars.

Walk home times

Thought I would time my walk home and get some timings for a few landmarks on the way. My previous times have been arounf 35 minutes.

Work             0:00    28:50
Canal bridge 1   4:30    24:20
Canal bridge 2  11:00    17:50
A41 bridge 30   16:30    12:20
Queens Mead     21:37     7:13
Village Hall    24:14     4:36
Home            28:50     0:00

Ribble Valley

Had to go to Ribble Valley County Council again on Monday. A long way to go especially when the meeting was scheduled for 15:00, about midday would have been ideal. Anyway I left home at 09:30 and took my time driving north. I stopped a few times to check my emails, and decided to take a look at Pendle Hill as there was a possibility of seeing Dotterel at this time of year, according to the book Where to watch birds in Britain.

I found a village called Barley and headed out towards the hill and it became obvious that I would get nowhere near enough to get to the top of the hill in the time I had available to me. So I took some pictures and headed down to Clitheroe where the meeting would be.

I had an opportunity to take a walk round the town, which seemed to the thriving properties prices were high and the shops seemed to independent. I chanced upon a gallery at the station I liked the art branded “Particle article” the objects were little creatures made of wire and things found in nature ones and pine cones and old leaves. Each figure had a great name and a story, for example see the link to Note Nibbler.

Fire at work!

At 5 to 5 the fire alrams went off, it was was of those situations where it crosses your mind should I shutdown my PC before I go or get the hell out quick. One look out the window said quick, there was smoke!

When we got outside it did not look serious a box attached to a building was smoking. Even so I don’t think that it set a very good example when two people decided to go and have a look at the fire rather than congregating for the roll call as specified by the fire instructions, and the obvious danger of approaching a fire without the correct gear and training. Both the individuals should have known better.

Anyway the fire brigade turned up and put it out, luckily for me I got away in time to get to a game of squash I had arranged.

Barn Owl from the office window

Some of you may know that I keep a list of the birds I see from my office window. Well this morning a Barn Owl flew past along the hedgerow. Unusual to see one so late in the morning (09:00) perhaps it has young so is having to hunt into the day. It also gets added to the 2009 year list, which I need to tally up before we go to Salthouse on holiday.

What a life!

My colleague who works in sales, has an easy life. He sits in his office shed all day bird watching.

See picture he sent me of a pair of Bullfinches, shame he did not clean the window before taking it.

Belfast again

Needed to catch the 8:35 left the house at 6:40. Had plenty of time to make my way through the airport and down to the quiet lounge and get an espresso without rushing. The was very little queue at the security hall so fast track security was not necessary, but it is useful to know it is there if needed.

Weather really nice here but forecast is for rain in Belfast! Should I have bought a coat or umbrella with me? In the new Oracle have bought Sun, this could be really good for mySQL, and gives Oracle an operating system, Solaris is well respected.

Someone laid me down a challenge to get my http://neilbaldwin.net/rssblog/ up the ranking in Google searches. I think that may be getting it noticed by aggregators my do the trick? Need to get the Google Hacks book out again. I will keep you posted with any progress I manage to make. Perhaps I should try to promote books by adding a feed for Neil Baldwin news?

No photo yet but I do have the Ricoh with me perhaps a picture from the window?

Priority security queue Luton

Luton have introduced a priority queue for security. You have to pay £3 at a kiosk which issues you with a ticket. This morning the queues were snaking all round the hall so I thought stuff this and splashed out. The kiosks could be a bit more user friendly as it was not obvious what to do. There did seem to be a window for reading bar codes, but I was not asked to scan my boarding card, perhaps this is for future developments. Ticket in hand I joined a queue of 1 (is that a queue?) and walked straight through to a screening machine, a man tried to herd me to push in to the handful of people queuing there (overspill from the big queue) the Englishman in me felt this was a step too far! All things considered well worth the £3, next time I will take a glance at the queue and make a decision at that point I see no merit in booking on line.