Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Run Done, and other news

Well, it's done. Finally the running season's finished for me after completing the Rainforest Foundation's 10km run.

My target for the year was to beat 55 minutes, and I managed it twice. Sunday's run was finished in 54:01, but I managed to beat that 3 weeks ago in the Nike Run London event... 53:23. So say I'm pleased is an understatement!

Happy Bob

Aside: To those people protesting against Nike at the event: You have my sympathies, you really do, but it was a Nike 10km 2 years ago that go me running. I'd not long before given up smoking and the Nike run gave me a real incentive to get myself fit again (I say again, but really I'm not sure I've ever been that fit).

Now that doesn't mean that Nike is a great company that gave me my health, or anything like that. But it does illustrate a point... the vast majority of the people at the event were runners, and Nike took the time to organise a great run, probably not an audience that's going to be swayed by your argument. As I said to the protesters on the day, and I really mean this: You organise a 10km run, and I'll run it. An anti-globalisation 10km run in the middle of the most multi-cultural city in the world...

Anyway, next year I'll be stepping it up a touch more and the aim is to get under 50 minutes. The first run's booked already.

And the other news? Well, over the last few weeks I've been trying to get some coding done on a small open source project. It's a PHP library that will generate documentation on arbitrary relational databases. It's in its early stages right now, but I thought it was time to mention it and see if there's any interest out there.

It'll produce bog standard HTML documentation as well as dotty files that you can use to generate diagrams like this:

ExamplePddDiagram

It'll be available soon...

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Doing things I'm not very good at

Well, last night was my last training run before my next 10Km run. And this time I've got a target...

When it's come to official timing, I've managed a 10Km in just over 58 minutes. This time I want to get it to under 55. But what's the point in me doing a run if that's the kind of time I'm going to manage? Odds on bet the winner will do it in something like 35 minutes; I'm not unfit, it's just that I'm not a very good runner; I eat fairly well and am generally pretty healthy, so I don't need to do this in order to keep fit.

I do it because I'm not very good at it. Because running reminds me that I'm not the best at things that I do. It's blindingly obvious that there are people out there that are vastly superior to me on the track. In fact, there are 60 year olds out there that are faster than me. When I did my one and only half marathon I was beaten by a veteran speed walker.

But I'm getting better. I'm learning more about running and training, and I will get faster. One day I may manage under 45 minutes... and then I'll have to pick something else.

The last run of the year will be the Rainforest Foundation 10Km, and if you know me (and want to), you can sponsor me.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Countries I've visited

A friend pointed me in the direction of this little beauty: A site that generates a map of the world showing the countries you've visited.

I've got to admit that the comments on the site are more actual fun than the map, but still...

So here's mine:
Countries I've visited

Not that impressive.

Fingers crossed, if all goes to plan, in 18 months it'll look more like this:
Countries I plan to have visited


Though still, it'll look nothing like as impressive as Tom Kyte's "countries I've in which I've given presentations" ;-)

Friday, September 15, 2006

Make your own mind up

Earlier today Bob Binder made a comment on my test conference entry that included a (not too complimentary) summary of his talk. In response to his comment I made a statement that I want to make absolutely clear to everyone else...

I thought that every single one of the talks at the conference was worth attending.
Every one had value, and I think you should watch every one on Google video.

If any comment on an individual talk makes it sound uninviting it doesn't mean it wasn't a good talk. The conference quality was far above the norm, and every talk is worth seeing. And you can, they're on Google Video

Other than that, I invite comments from the speakers, other attendees and anyone that might disagree with me. Just because I have an opinion, doesn't mean that I don't want to hear yours! But don't expect me to agree with you ;-)

The Google Test Automation Videos are here...

Well, not here, but here

I'll update the earlier posts with each relevant video link when I can...