Up early again and packed bags.
Went to breakfast to say goodbye to the people travelling on earlier flights (we dont travel until the afternoon back to Luton).
They were a nice group of people to spend time with and I hope we all do keep in touch however it is a sad reality that friendships made in these situations don’t always last because of geography etc. I think there are a few guys who will keep in toucha and I have offered the messageboard to everyone at the bootcamp so you never know.

Nice airport was nice and efficient. Easyjet was as good as a cut budget airline can be. Had a whole row at the back of the plane, which was nice.
Landing with a bump (literally) at Luton was a real shocker, the rain and cold was insult enough (after a week of blistering sunshine), but passport control was packed. They had not put on enough staff to cope with the number of flights coming in, ans so there was a huge queue. I became seperated from the others on my flight and rejoined the queue behind some stressed out businessman coming back from Rome. He had a posh but winey irritating voice and was moaning terribly about the queues while using his nokia comminicator (Phones are not allowed in that area) and kicking his laptop bag along the line. At one point he left the bag in the middle of the line as he turned a corner and a lady reported it as a left bag. When the officer asked if it was anyone’s bag he was, of course, on the phone and didn’t hear her. She have him such a hard time when he picked it up.
At the end of the queue I was so busy waching him moan to the passport officer I didn’t see it was my turn which amused the ones waiting for me. Conspiritorially they asked me about him and laughed when I told them he had (like me) only been in the queue for 30 minutes.
Wifey and little bud travelled up to get me for the airport. It was rainy and there was loads of traffic on the M1 roadworks so it took them ages but was much appreciated by me.
Home and a nice stodgy English dinner (toad in the hole). I felt absolutly knackered so I went for a “little lay down” and (apart from nudges because of snoring) didn’t wake until 6am.

Up early and no breakfast – directly to class for finish up and Q&A before the exam.
I am still less than confident as I take the online test. Issues with the internet again cause a faltered start and interruptions during the test.
Well to alleviate stress in you the readers, I may as well tell you I passed with 86%, not bad really. One chap really surprised himself and scored in the 90′s. We all passed in fact and with style (a good teacher perhaps?)

As way of celebration, after lunch we treated ourselves to a trip to Cannes on the train.
It is a mix of old London or Paris with the most fantastic beach and weather. Very expensive (the other guys had 4 beers and a short in a bar and it came to nearly 50€

Four of us decided we didn’t want to sit in a bar, but wanted to see something of Cannes so we went for a walk. Apart from the beach area and about two or three blocks back there’s not a huge amount to see. I am sure if you are super wealthy you can get anything there but alas we aren’t.

Back for dinner, Shellfish salad starter, lamb on a bed of onions and a pistachio flavoured desert. Then drinks and talk into the night. Think I may have reacted to something and am getting a cold.

It is now 2:30 am as I write this up.
Breakfast at 8am tomorrow to say goodbye to our classmates so I need to get some sleep otherwise I will not function.

Getting serious now. The command line course is pretty heavy going and I didn’t had the time to look at it before flying out so I was really unprepared.

Usual routine, up early and finish late but a good break in-between. I don’t think any of us did activities today. I am sure that like me, they all had their noses in the books after lunch.

With the Kismet WiFi utility (the French pronounce it “Wiffy”), I discovered why the net is so flakey here, all the access points in the hotel are configured for ch1 and there are about six of them all within range of one and other. No wonder they are intermittent.

Finished class, dined and then back to the room to revise. Bed about 2:30am. Have made copious notes but still feel unprepared for tomorrow’s exam.

Getting up is becoming more difficult. The hotel beds are firm but comfortable and suit my back, perhaps a little too well. The number of alarms I have set to rouse me is perhaps a little excessive, but they are doing their job and I was out of bed by 7:45 for SST

New trainer today, Peter. Nice chap – a freelancer that I think also works for ExplorIT.

We looked at the requirements for servers like HVAC and power, Disks connectors etc.
Learnt about the commands for remotely accessing a file server booted from DVD and using diskutil to partition the drive from the CLI. All useful stuff.

Break for lunch and fish (again – not sure what type!).

Order of business every day goes like this:
7:30 Breakfast (Actually it is more 8:30)
9:15 Meet up
9:45 Morning training session
11:30 Coffee
11:40 Continue training
13:05 Lunch (Déjeuner)
14:15 Activities
16:30 Afternoon training
18:00 Coffee
18:05 Continue training
19:50 Finish
20:00 Dinner
21:30 Bar/Etc.

Repeat

Long days. I am getting a little tired now, what with all the food (it is so rich, but really nice) and the heat, I just want to sleep, (I can’t believe I am moaning – what an ungrateful sod!).
How the training company Agnosis break even on the event is beyond me, I was speaking to the head of the company the other night and he said they make a little out of it but mostly do it for fun and the goodwill.

I fell asleep after lunch and was called to go down for the afternoon session. A round of applause for turning up and all was forgiven. I wasn’t the last to class anyway.

Headless server builds via the cli were the order of business in the afternoon and the use of diskutility via the cli to prep the disk. creation and restoration of dmg’s images and a better understanding of the boot process. Interesting stuff, but challenging at times.

Dinner tonight was a quarter of a rabbit (yes, I ate Thumper – I have no heart – that was in someone elses quarter I think)
There was barely enough meat on the scrawney thing to be worth cooking. I am sure it would have made a good soup. One of the other guys wisely plumpped for burger and chips.

I am wondering what they will serve us next, perhaps Whale or Panda or something (sic.).

I hear horse is nice and a local dish (Cheval).

Classmembers
Despite our backgrounds, we have become quite a tight knit group on the course (something that happens when you spend so much time with people I guess). However what has impressed me, is the support and respect we have given each other. Some of the other classes, especially ones populated by people of predominantly one country (UK) are a bit boisterous, there is none of that in our group, just politeness and patience, I think it is because of the different nationalities and everyone speaking English, we are all being careful to follow the rules of engagement and try to be understanding of the non english speakers needs.

My training class-mates:

Richard, Originally from UK
Edu. UK. Richard worked at a Saudi school for 20yrs but has given it all up and going to oz and find a position in IT.

Maciek, (Pron. Machec – Polish) based in the UK
Edu. Admin
Plays guitar with a band and writes music professionally. Looks after and teaches in the music/rich media department at a University near London Docklands’ city airport.

Tom, from the UK.
Comm. A contracter working for an education supplier. Has a degree in Cryptography and is studing oceanography

Hilton, from Portugal (not Paris)

Christian, from Germany
A businessman/IT consultand from Frankfurt

Dennis, from Stockholm
Edu. – University
300+ Macs. Has a secret room in the University with loads of old mac in it.

Evald, from Denmark
Comm. Director of a computer company. A self confessed Windows person, we are working on him to see the light.

Our trainers:

Richard.
com. Trainer for the DS course – Left for England today and back to Kenley and the rain.

Peter.
com. Trainer for the CL course

I hope we can all keep in touch after the boot camp and with this in mind I have given them the ideasplace forum address.

Has it really been five days already?
Today we covered more about AD/OD, Kerb and foreign directories and of course today is exam day. A little apprehensive of course, but I will do my best and that is all I can do.
–
Well I passed: 89.23% (58 earned out of 65 possible) Not up to Ian’s standard but not the lowest in the group and more than good enough to get my four points.
I actually miss read the score when I finished the exam and told everyone (including Ian and Julie) that I got 86%. I wont bother saying anything here as I look foolish enough with the various things I have done this week.

I was left feeling rather un-educated today. I left school with a hand full of CSEs and not particularly good ones either, This evening I sat in the middle of a conversation where everyone had degrees of some sort, had travelled the world and seemed far more interesting that me. I kept quiet for a while but then made seme comment about the CSE’s. One of the other trainees kindy (I think?) described me as an uber geek, I chose to take it as a complement.
One of my all time favourite quotes is “it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt”. Abraham Lincoln said it originally, however I was introduced to it by Lisa Simpson (highbrow hey?).

This evening as way of a treat for our exam results, we travelled down the hill to the MarineWorld aquarium where we had dinner and then watched dolphin and orca shows. The animals were lovely but of course their pens were far too small and I felt very sorry for them.
I watched the Dolphins and then as everyone filed over to the Orcas to watch their show, I took a detour via the shark tunnel and Turtles then walked to the top of the auditorium and watched the four orcas do their tricks. I have to admit I was willing them to “play” with their human trainers in the same way as they “play” with seals in the wild. Alas their were good orcas and just got on with pleasing the audience. I left the orca show early to avoid the crush and walked back to the other areas to look at the seals or penguins. As I was passing the Dolphin show I saw that all the lights were on and there were no barriers. I walked in and the place was absolutely empty of people. There, in the lake, were four dolphins. I stood by one of the barriers expecting a voice shout Monsieur! any second but none came.
The dolphins were talking to two of their kind in an adjacent small pool and were ignoring me.
I walked around to the other side of the lake where the dolphins were and just stood still, watching.
These beautiful intelligent creatures looked so sad in the enclosure, one in particular just floated listlessly with its nose touching the side of the lake. The other three swam around and often went to see the others in the small pool.
I stood quietly still and after 10 minutes or so, they seemed to notice me. Naturally inquisitive, they lifted their eyes a foot or so out of the water to give me a good looking over. I smiled and softly spoke to them and tried to think nice thoughts, at the same time this was both easy (because dolphins make you feel wonderful when you are with them) and hard because of their plight and the helplessness of their circumstance.
After a magical 15 minutes, I heard the orca show winding up and said good-bye to my new friends. I could not resist taking a picture however and they seemed to know that I was just a tourist after all and swam off, I guess they know tourists don’t throw fish.
Buzzing with excitement, I called Julie and told her what happened. I wish she had been there to experience it too. She loves sea mammals, especially dolphins and would have found it as magical as I did.

The traffic on the Nice road caused the mini bus back to the hotel to be delayed, so we walked back up the hill. One of the guys found a short cut (the canny Dane ) and we were back before the bus. So I’m back in the hotel for water, Air Con and to write up the days events.

Bed time I think, as training anew starts tomorrow and it sounds a bit of a git.

Training training, training. We are working from 9am till 8pm with a good break in the middle every day. The break in the middle is nice, Somehow I can’t see it taking off at NI however.

Kerberos, AD Integration today. Kerb is heavy going but AD/OD was a breeze because it is covered ground.
Food was fish for lunch and spaghetti Bolognese for tea. The food is really good here, consistantly good.

I am sitting on the restaurant terrace writing this on my MacBook Pro, it’s 11:30pm and the lights have just been switched off. I am alone with my machine in the dark. The night is a balmy 25 degrees C with a clear night sky. Back to my room.
Sitting now on the veranda looking at the moon, it is going to be tough leaving next week but I am missing my family, the international telephone calls are mounting up and the conversations with Julie becoming slushier every time I call.
We start early tomorrow (8:15) as we are a little behind on the course, so I think I’ll go to sleep now. It is difficult enough to think about the complexities of Kerberos ticketing without being tired as hell at the same time. Of course, the wine doesn’t help either, it to, is really very good.

Woke at 6:30 with phone alarms blazing. Snooze button used to excess this morning but raised from pit at 6:50 when the second phone started and my watch joined the musical cacophony.
SST and then write up the evenings events. Its quite therapeutic. Also enjoying iTunes running off my pod. MacBook Pro – the most expensive iPod speakers money can buy. Hmmm, I don’t think I’ll suggest that marketing campaign to the Apple guys downstairs at the moment.

Almost 7:30 so better go to breakfast and start the day. Weather is not blistering today so it may be a good one to go exploring at siesta time for the “mini casino” which one of the guys assures me is a mini-mart and not far away.

Well clouds abated and Siesta time turned into JetSkiing on the Med and almost drowning, I had problems getting on the Jetski and winded myself, then after taking a big dunking inhaling half the Med, I was rescued and towed back to the shore like a stranded whale, mid panic attack and then recovered enough to get back on the craft and do 45km/h across waves that left my nether regions wishing I had’nt. The accelleration of the thing was incredible and sometimes I could barely hold on.
I have since found out that they were about the most powerful JetSki’s money can buy. Incredible things that I am glad I can say I have tried but probably won’t do again – unless I get a lot fitter.

Evening meal spent a while speaking to Apple’s European Training Director – Rhina Dichman, seems quite nice but everyone here is relaxed and having a good time so we are all getting on well. Apparently Agnosis and Amsys make next to nothing on the Boot Camp and it is more of a PR exercise – hey, its worked. Its the best training experience I have ever had by far.

Woke early to the Alarms. Went downstairs and no-one there (a little eager perhaps?). Backup to the room for 30 minutes and then down where the crew rolled in. Seem a nice enough bunch of blokes (all male contingent). Have befriended an industry veteran called Phil Collins who was on my flight.
Light breakfast and up to room to write diary. Training starts at 9:15!

Working on this Mac Book Pro is all very well but it is too big, I am missing LittleAl my 12″ PowerBook which was slow but still a fine machine. LittleAl met a terrible fate days before I left for France. Some of my daughters friends accidently squashed it with a sofa, smashing the screen!

Alas poor LittleAl, I knew him horatio.

15:00 Training OK, as with all apple training you have to build your own machine so it is a little slow to start but we are now getting into dscl and netinfo which is quite cool.

Lunch was a departure for me. I am not huge on fish and was not looking forward to the meal when I saw fish knives and forks.
First up was muscles in cream and tarragon sauce. I have never eaten muscles before and they are not that bad. They taste kind of like the sea really, in a nice way. Really nothing to look at and the texture is kind of squishy but I did enjoy them. It was a set menu and it was something of a team experience.

Weather here is amazing but too hot to expose my VDU tanned body to the direct Mediterranean sun without me burning to a crisp. The guys at lunch were very kind to the two of us at the sunny end of the table and we all moved the table twice to afford the two of us some shade. I think that I am already in danger of burning on the backs of my upper arms and neck. I shall have to find some sunscreen and pronto if I want to spend any time in outdoors.
Laughably I brought my green fleece incase of inclement weather. I don’t think I will be needing it just yet. It will be good to have when I return to the UK!

Training until 8pm – DSCL, lookupd search etc, and then dinner (chicken). Apple gave a MacOS X Leopard presentation with some new screenshots of the admin side (server admin has changed a little with the servers now at the top of the window instead of the LH side). Finish at 11pm. Back to the room and call Julie and Ian. Still unable to use the Internet. Tried checking email downstairs but their PC was awful.
Failed to get my work mobile working instead, GPRS is not enabled.
Sleep at 1am