Tarifa, third day

The day of wind change, from poniente to levante.

For most of the day only the slightest breeze would be felt. The wind was taking it's time to inflate the huge lungs that would then blow the strong levante of the nest day.

Without wind, and without one of our companions, has she had to take a trip to Faro to get a friend, we sat in the beach doing mostly nothing, looking at the nice scenery and building sand dikes...

Let me explain the motivation: two Dutch guys seeing the ocean tide rising to their spot on the beach. Moving is out of the question. A Dutch would not be a proper Dutch if we would not build a dike in such a situation. So a wall of sand must be built, thick enough to keep the tsunami waves out.

Well, the valiant efforts were not enough against the rise of the tide. It's was as if the biblical story of the great flooding was taking place. The pictures well attest the horror of the situation...

In the end of the afternoon the wind started to gather some strength. It was almost possible to go out and sail. Alas, it was but the wind gods breathing. The wind would blow for half and our to then stop for another half. It's something the for our kite surfers was a PITA. As the wind blew they would be happily riding out. Then, as the wind was all but gone, they would have to drag themselves and gear (kite, bar, board) to the beach, landing quite far from the departing place, looking forward for a big walk in the beach.

It wasn't a great day for sailing. But it was a great day to get the batteries all charged up and ready to go. Just look at the next picture! Don't you thing being in such a place is a bliss?

Tarifa, second day

The best day. The best wind, the best weather, the best feeling. If only all days were just like this one...

The wind was blowing from west, what the locals call "Poniente". It's was a nice wind, not gusty and not too hot. It's not that it was particularly strong, it wasn't, but it was rather constant. I used my 6.9m² sail and was comfortable sailing with it, so I would say the wind was something like 25 knots (around 46 km/h, or 13 m/s).

Now the great thing of such constant wind is that it provides you with enough energy to just get on the board, pump the sail twice and plane on!

There aren't many pictures of this days: everyone was in the water having a good time...

and you can see it in my big smile. A great good day it was.

Trip to Tarifa (the way south)

For the third time this year I find myself driving south on the way to Tarifa and what a good feeling it is.

The trip starts early in the morning (as I usually do) and takes about 8 to 9 hours of easy driving. The most demanding part of the trip is when driving on the mountain roads of Lousã, Melriça, Marvão and others. None the less the view is sometimes spectacular and as the sun rises over the mountains you feel yourself powering up for a great day.

The worst part of the driving, not because of any driving skill being necessary, but because the highway and the landscape makes it utterly boring, is the long way south from Cárceres, passing Sevilla and arriving to Cadiz. The landscape doesn't change much, the road is mostly a straight line and apart from a tunnel (Tunel La Media Fanega north of Sevilla and the city parts of the way (both in Sevilla and in Candiz) are a test to boredom survival.

At last, at around 16:00 local time, I arrived to Tarifa and met with the rest of the wind team. They were already enjoying the good life of Tarifa, kitesurfing and enjoying the sun and the good weather.

I enjoyed staying around the beach but eventually it was time to set my camping. We all stayed at Camping Tarifa a nice and comfortable place to stay - lots of shadow, not crowded and quiet (not that many kids around as classes already started for them).

Tomorrow I'll continue with the story of some great days.

Lots of work and back to school.

Is has been a long time without any blog posting but time has been well spent.

At work I had two "quick paced" projects keeping me at work for 14 hours a day. I like this (some times) as it's a escape from routine. One of the projects was related to performance (I'm a freak for speed) the other was related to a user interface (via web). Some three weeks went really fast.

In the real life (out side work) I managed to travel a bit and practice my windsurfing. But I'll post those adventures in their own posts.

In another part of life (the surreal part?) I went back to University. I did my degree in 5 years, before the Bologna Treaty was sign and the my the degrees become 3 years and the master became 2 years. For me to get the equivalence to the master I need only to do two classes (actually one and a half, according to the amount of ECTS that are required). One, a mandatory one, is about management, the other (chosen by me) is on system integration (looks more interesting).

The real good part on this two classes is that I don't even need to go to the classes, as long as I keep up with the assignments and study. Very good for me.

Wind! At last

At last some wind!

Yesterday was a great day! North wind blew in the Ria de Aveiro again and I could go and play with my board and my 5.4 m² sail. I was a bit overpowered at the beginning but as the wind dropped to the evening I think it was just fine.

Let's hope today the wind will come again.

Sorry for the lack of any photographic evidence. Everyone was inside the water enjoying, no one wanted to stay in dry land to take pictures.

Nonsense!

Today someone at work strongly suggested that SQL interfaces to a database are hard to keep and we should only use XML interfaces... (It doesn't even make any sense!)

SQL is a language for querying (as the name implies) information and XML is defined for structuring information. SQL interfaces are the norm for RDBMS. All other interfaces always (as far as I can tell) use the SQL interface to query and retrieve data from the database. Using XML would simple add another layer of complexity, another layer of latency, another nail in the performance's coffin.

Reminded me of when Dilbert asked the Pointy Hair Boss what colour the proposed database should be. Or the story of a "software architect" insisting that using Corba would be faster than TCP for data transfer...

...save us from such knowledge people,

BEST-UC Summer Course Weekend

Part of the events organized for the BEST Coimbra LBG Summer Course was a weekend at Foz do Arelho with accommodation at the Volunteer Firemen gymnasium at Caldas da Raínha.

As you can see by the photo above the weather was not that great at the seaside. The sun was blocked by low clouds. It tricked lots of people into just falling asleep without any sun protection, waking up some hours after with patches of burned, red skin.

Dinner was a nice barbecue, with lots of food for everyone, some beer and juice. Rather calm as you can see.

It was the birthday of one of the participants, Martin, so we sang him a "Happy Birthday" song and gave him a cake to kiss. The next photo shows that it was a passionate kiss...

Some girls we making really weird faces when on camera but still manage to look good.

The place were everyone was staying was really a nice place. The Firemen were friendly and fun, the gymnasium had stuff for us to play and huge mattresses were people could lay down for sleep, and even a football table.