Marty was speaking in the afternoon at the same time as Dave. This seemed a bit strange to me as they both seemed to be speaking on quite similar topics. Dave’s talk was entitled “Idiomatic Perl” and Marty’s “Writing Better Perl”. Looking into this is seems that Marty’s was a more general talk than Dave’s but it would probably have worked better if Dave’s had been after Marty’s.

I spent most of the day looking at my law books. I found it quite difficult to concentrate on the ship. There wasn’t anywhere to work, apart from my room, that wasn’t noisy. They even piped cheesy music into the library! The problem with working in my room is that it had a large bed. I believe Marty returned to the room at one point to find me fast asleep amidst my books.

As Tuesday was a formal evening I spent far too much time getting ready for dinner. I always get quite stressed when I have to make a special effort with clothes and makeup. It’s also really strange playing cards in an evening dress (still possible to win though).

I was attending the Perl Whirl with Marty. I hadn’t registered for the conference as I heard quite a few of the speakers before – and don’t really spend very much time working with Perl. The structure of the conference was strange as the talks had to be fitted in around the times the ship was docking. On Monday the ship docked at Bari at around 11am, the first session of the conference running between 8.30 and 11. Marty wasn’t speaking on the Monday so we both went out and had a quick look at Bari. A very quick look at it seemed that this was really only a technical stop to let on more passengers and that there wasn’t anything exciting to see within easy walking distance of the boat.

In the afternoon I went to look at the rooms that the speakers had to speak in. I was really surprised to see that two of the talks, Casey’s and Robert’s, were taking place in the same room – just at opposite sides. Casey had wanted to get set up early but he had to wait until Neil arrived with the sheet that they were going to hang in place of a screen. Some of the rooms on the ship didn’t really seem very suited to the needs of the speakers. It turns out that a poker tournament had gotten the better rooms. However, speaking to Casey and Robert afterwards it seems that their talks went well.

We developed a pattern for our evenings that involved meeting the bar before dinner and hoping that 21:30 would come around sooner as everyone was hungry. Barbie had brought Fluxx with him – which we spent quite a bit of time playing. I really like the card that lets you set the hand limit to 0.

Well after spending hours last week on the Perl Whirl studying for my law exam I got a migraine last night and was unable to make the exam. First time I have ever had to go to the doctors to ask for a note for my teacher…

Marty and I arrived in Venice on the evening before the conference started. Venice is a truly beautiful city but the beauty was masked by the fact that we couldn’t find our hotel. It was hot and humid and there were hundreds of people walking around the area we were trying to drag our suitcases through. Thankfully Marty was able to get in touch with Barbie, who had picked the hotel, to help give us some indication of where to find it. The hotel was beautiful.

Before going to the ship on Sunday morning, Marty, Barbie and I had breakfast overlooking the Grand Canal. We got to drink hot chocolate, watch people go by on gondalas and see Venice appear from the mist. Getting to the cruise ship wasn’t as relaxing. The first leg of the trip involved getting a water bus to Piazzale Roma where we spent some time trying to find out how to get to the cruise ship. Once we arrived at the terminal we met up with some old friends and Marty played “spot the geek” – which really isn’t too hard in a terminal full of cruise going travellers.

The Perl Whirl started with a cocktail party. We must have arrived late for this as we seemed to miss the registration bit at the start. At some point I snuck off with Casey to have a look at his room as he and Robert had quite a large balcony.

We found out that dinner would be served each night at 21:30! When we left the dining room it was nearly midnight. On this cruise we seemed to have been seated by nationality. Maybe Neil figured that this was the only way we would be able to understand each other so late in the evening.

Yesterday I decided to use my online banking facility to pay my credit card bill. This all seemed to go smoothly. I went to the payment page, selected my account from a drop down list and made the payment. Later on whilst browsing through the various account screens I came across this message printed in red:

“Due to essential maintenance, if you use the Online Payment option you can only make payments by Worldpay. The drop down list should not be used.”

So which bright spark at the Halifax thought it would be a good idea to print a warning message instead of disabling the function on the web-site? Or if they could really only print a message why couldn’t they put this on the payment page? I really can’t believe that anybody is going to think that printing the words “the drop-down list should not be used” on the summary page is really going to stop people using the drop-down list on the payments page!

I now have no idea whether or not my payment went through. I tried ringing the Halifax about this but did not manage to get through to someone who had any idea what I was talking about. In the end I hung up. I tried sending an email through their online help system. Maybe they received this – but I really don’t know. I didn’t receive a confirmation message at the time and haven’t received a response. The question now is why am I not with First Direct?

Marty and I decided a while back that we should both try to eat more healthily. We are trying really hard but tonight we both have carbohydrate cravings. Marty because he decided to go on the Atkins diet and me because, well I’m female, and I always want to eat chocolate. So I’ve spent all evening working on the conference and trying not to think about chocolate. But since I’m writing this post I have obviously failed!

I felt so stressed today. Who would have thought that one little conference could be my wafer thin mint? I’ve spent all day working on various conference related issues. By the middle of the afternoon I was thinking why did we ever want to have a conference in Belfast? But I’ve got over it. There are some problems but we do have a great venue, lots of interesting talks and speakers, an excellent group of sponsors and new attendees registering every day.

My sister and her three children have invaded my house. To add to the fun this morning two of Marty’s friends came to visit. They all left about ten minutes ago but my ears are still ringing with the after effects of the noise that I’ve had to endure. I don’t have one of those really tidy houses. It can be quite normal to have to climb through piles of books to move about. But now my books have all been pushed to the side to make room for toy cars, footballs, barbies, games machines, and other toys that I can’t identify as I am completely out of touch with whatever is hip these days in childrens’ toys. I don’t have children and hadn’t realised how different the mess they create is. There seems to be a pink haired mermaid barbie stuffed between the cushions on the sofa, there is chewing gum sticking to my favourite tray, there are biscuit wrappers and pieces of lunch walked into the carpet. I don’t know what the collective noun for toy cars is but I seem to have a wreckage of them strewn around the floor. There’s an extra TV lying one corner of the room beside parts of a sound system which I assume belongs to one of the children. I know that my law books are in here somewhere but I’m fearful of what I will find if I go looking for them.

Marty went and picked up a server rack this morning that was being ditched from Andrew’s office. This seven foot monstrosity seems to have taken residence in my dining room which on top of all the furniture that was moved out of the office will ensure that no-one will be able to dine in the dining room.

I think I need to go and lie down.

Birds flying high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Reeds driftin’ on by you know how I feel

It’s beautiful outside today.

Tonight I’m really tired and yet again I find myself sitting with my computer hoping that maybe I’ll manage to write something that’s worth reading. Back when I started this blog I set myself a target to write something every day. Having this target makes me feel guilty when I don’t write. It also means that some evenings I sit gazing at my computer trying to think of something to write. I tried this last night and my mind went completely blank. I didn’t seem to have a single interesting thing to say. I thought that I could write something about Marty speaking in Portugal yesterday, or maybe about the damage to the office, or even about the work I’ve been doing towards YAPC::Europe but I was unable to write more than a sentence.