It is reknowned as being a very British thing to talk about the weather all the time, but this year the habit has really taken off in Catalunya. Over the last two months, we were subjected to daily press updates on the state of the reservoirs in the main river systems that supply Barcelona with its water. Conversations would inevitably mention how *good* the weather was, feverishly recounting the latest levels (67.2% and rising - up from 22%). By the second month, however, the smiles had become a little bit fixed: "Yes, all the rain is very good, but surely we can start the summer now?"
Fortunately, normal service has been resumed, and summer has hit with a bang. High pressure, sunshine, and temperatures in the low 30s across the whole Iberian peninsula have caused the beaches to become as overflowing as the reservoirs. To escape the heat and crowds, Djanira and I travelled up to the Pyrannees for a weekend in the hills.
Catalunya is looking absolutely spectacular at the moment, the excess of water means that everything is green and the rivers and lakes are overflowing. Above and below are pictures of the Estany ("lake") Sant Maurici, and the two peaks in the background below are called Els Encantats. The lake and peaks are two of the most famous sights in the Pyrannees. DJ and I took a leisurely stroll around the lake on the first day; the combination of hot weather, crystal clear water and lack of people motivated me to strip of for a quick skinny-dip (very quick, the water at 1700m was freezing!); fortunately for everybody, Djanira wasn't quick enough with the camera!
The second day we went for a 20km walk with a whole 1000m of ascent/descent. It was hard work but we were rewarded but more spectacular views - and a cold beer at the campsite bar at the end of the day! We didn't manage to bag any peaks, content as we were just to hike around the valleys. Next time though we'll see if we can bag a summit or two!
The weekend was rounded off by an extra couple of days off (for me, poor DJ had to work). Tuesday was a bank holiday so I, along with most of Spain, took Monday off too. We headed up the coast to a small town called Sant Pol de Mar, where the water is fantastically clear, you can go snorkelling around some handy rocky reefs, and there is a fantastic paella restaurant right on the clean, sandy beach. It's good that summer has arrived at last!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
European travels

Anyway, despite all the work I had time for a bit of fun. My work mate Marco and I were in Germany on the evening of their first Euro 2008 game, which they won. It's always fun to be in the same country as a winning team in any sport, and Marco really got into the spirit!
Then we were in London where after a different sort of work meeting (different in that it was held in a pub in Soho - that's what I'm talking about!) I played the 'London Guide' to Marco and Sònia, showing them round the main sights.
So, anyway. Now I'm back in Barcelona and I'm very happy to say that the summer has finally arrived. With a big high-pressure settled over the Iberian peninsula, temperatures in the high 20s and clear blue skies are predicted for the next week and indeed for the reasonably forecastable future. What with all the recent rain the Catalun countryside is looking absolutely stunning. This weekend Djanira has a weekend off (whoo-hoo!) and so we are headed off up to Pyrannees, to the Parc nacional Aiguestortes i Estany Sant Maurici. Its supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas of the Pyrannees, and only a 3-4 hour drive from Barcelona, so we're looking forward to checking it out, and maybe get a little suntan while we're there!
PS Firefox 3 is out. Go get it.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Dave and Laura visit
Dave and Laura have been in Catalunya for a fortnight, walking and climbing. They had originally planned to hang around the pyrannees, but the sight of classic rock climbs still in full winter condition (in June!) sent them scurrying southwards to the gorges around Vilanova de Meia. There they found good weather and several good days climbing, but also found evidence of the abundance of water, the picture below is of the overflow chute of one of the reservoirs!

Anyway now they're off back to Blighty and so will I be shortly: I am going to Germany for a work meeting, and then to London for another. And then I am going to Luxembourg the week after. International man of mystery and all that, but I'm not sure all this flying is good for green credentials. Good job I ride my bike to work!
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Alun's timeline

edit: it would seem the popularity of my new timeline has caused Dipity.com to crash! So the link above doesn't show anything at the moment, it doesn't remember my login and the registration process has broken. Let's wait to see if it comes back up...
edit2: it appears to be working again now
Monday, May 26, 2008
Barcelona surfing pictures
Following on from my last post, on my way home from work I took some pics of the waves, which were still pumping. Sorry for the low res, it was only my camera phone. (Clicky make biggy, so you can actually see some surfers...)
There is also a quick video, but I'm afraid the resolution is even worse. Gives you some idea though!
There is also a quick video, but I'm afraid the resolution is even worse. Gives you some idea though!
Barcelona surfing

So you can imagine how excited I was on the ride to work this morning, when my eyes alighted on perfect 3-4 ft groundswell and a very very light offshore wind. Result! Lunchtime couldn't come round quickly enough and, come 1.30, I was sprinting off back home on my bike, jumping into my wetsuit and paddling out by 1.50. Check out the photo above, grabbed from the coastal monitoring station webcam here in Barcelona. The second beach up from the bottom is where it's at - you can even see a nice wave peeling from the groyne.
I haven't really talked much about my local wave on this blog, so I might as well give you a quick description. Obviously, Mediterranean waves are not worth travelling from afar to surf, but they do exist, along with a healthy local surf scene. My local break is Bogatell beach, a five minute walk from my flat in Barcelona city, and on days like today...well, quite frankly it's a little bit gnarly. Context is everything of course, I'm sure Kelly Slater's description would be something along the lines of "a disappointingly short, yet reasonably fast wave which closes out too often*". Needless to say, Kelly Slater I am not, and so I think of it more as vertical drop from hell straight onto a churning sandbar in inch deep water. Basically the waves come from deep water and dump straight onto a shallow sandbar (or series of sandbars) which lie about 30-40 metres offshore. Slow, fat waves hit the sandbar and suddenly jack up to three times their height, sucking up vast quantities of water before chomping their jaws shut.
From a surfing persective it makes it all rather unnerving (for me) once it reaches 3 feet or so. Basically you have to paddle like crazy man to try and pick some speed from the slow approach of the wave, then time your pop** to split second perfection. Too early and the wave won't take you, too late and the jaw will open wide with you right at its very top, and your board pointing vertically downwards. Ouch. Get it right however, and you'll be up and riding in the split second before the jaws open - enough time to angle the board down the wave, pump a bit for speed if necessary, and then when the jaws open, slash down the face at a million miles an hour, heart beating at 10000bpm, and occasionally releasing an involuntary shriek of terror/joy. Within a couple of seconds though it's all over, the wave passes the sandbar into deeper water and either closes out or backs off again. If you're lucky you get something inbetween the two which is my cue to try and pull off a couple of turns. Most times I fail after one off-balance attempt - I'd like to say I'm a good surfer but the reality is that I am still a little bit shit (and probably always will be!).
Anyway today was typical good conditions at Bogatell, in an hour I had four good rides and about three ohmygodimgoingtodie wipeouts. The last one of which saw me stuck on the sandbar while a set of four of five big waves broke straight over my head, one after another. Enough is enough, I thought, after being tumbled for the umpteenth time. Homeward bound. And back to work to finish off my paper for SIGGRAPH. I will be back though!
* non-surfer's note 1: when a wave 'closes-out' it means that the whole length of the wave breaks at the same time. This is not so good for surfing, as it turns the whole wave into white water mush, and leaves no nice clean faces for turning on.
** non-surfer's note 2: the 'pop' is the bit where you push from a lying/paddling position and up into a standing position.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
BMC International Meet

North Wales is a pretty unique climbing venue. While it lacks any truly big walls, it makes up for it in the sheer variation of climbing available. Within a 45 minute-drive radius from Llanberis you can climb on several different rock types, ranging from various volcanic rhyolites and tuffs, to dolerite, quartzite, limestone, gabbro, slate and (if you're a bit crazy) mudstone and shale. Each different rock type requires a different style of climbing, from steep overhanging limestone that is well-endowed with pockets and holds, to featureless slate slabs that require pulling and balancing on razor thin edges. Very few other places in the world have such a variation in such a small area.
The meets traditionally always luck out with the weather, and this one was no exception. Snowdonia was basking in 25 degree sunshine for almost the whole week, which essentially guaranteed the success of the event. There were 44 guests from 24 countries, and an equal number of British climbers to show them around. I climbed with a Belgian, a Pole, a Portuguese guy and Ferran (who I met at the last meet, and who I climb with a lot over hear in Catalunya). They were all great people and good fun to climb with. I was also particularly chuffed to onsight my first E5, Flashdance (see snap above), but a bit miffed to fall off the last move of the classic E4, Resurrection; though I'm glad I gave it a go, and managed to get to the top after giving my tired forearms a bit of a rest.
All in all it was a superb week and I am already looking forward to the next one in two years time...!
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A year in Barcelona!
The opening of the bbq season has double significance as it marks the first year 'anniversary' of when we moved here - our first Saturday evening as Barcelona residents was spent on the very same terrace you see in the photo above, having a barbie and half-watching old 80s movies on a big wall-projector. Djanira and I were discussing that very evening with Kate (Dan's missus) last night - it's odd looking back and remember who we met, who we became good friends with, which people have stayed in Barcelona, which have left etc. I even mentioned it on this blog, in a post written a couple of days after we arrived. I'm glad I've been writing it, even if it's just for my benefit in reminiscing.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing about it now is that I won't actually be in Barcelona to celebrate the exact date that marks the end of our first year here, as I will be in Wales. Two years ago, I attended the BMC International Meet in North Wales, and had such a good time that I vowed I would go to the next one. Well, that time has now come and I'm taking a week off work to go climbing in the motherland and make new friends. I can't wait!
Friday, April 25, 2008
More biometric bollocks from the British government
So now Britain is introducing a pilot scheme at British airports, where a facial recognition system attempts to automatically confirm that you have the same face as the one that is stored as biometric data in your new passport.
Aside from the the obvious big reason why biometric ID is a bad idea, there is another problem with this new scheme. You see, the last time I checked with somebody who knows a bit about facial recognition technology and has done some work in the field (viz. me) I found out that the current state of the art in the field is, to put it bluntly, shit.
But what about this pearler - "The technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives". I'll bet it bloody will - but I'll also bet that their definition of a 'small number' is different to mine!
Aside from the the obvious big reason why biometric ID is a bad idea, there is another problem with this new scheme. You see, the last time I checked with somebody who knows a bit about facial recognition technology and has done some work in the field (viz. me) I found out that the current state of the art in the field is, to put it bluntly, shit.
But what about this pearler - "The technology will err on the side of caution and is likely to generate a small number of "false negatives". I'll bet it bloody will - but I'll also bet that their definition of a 'small number' is different to mine!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Ian Lau visit
Lau came over to visit us this weekend for some climbing and some r&r after a busy few months involving lots of work and breaking his leg. Ouch. Still he is recovering well, and we had a couple of good days of sport climbing. Unfortunately we the weather was a bit ropey and we couldn't do the 12 pitch E1 we wanted to get on at Montserrat, but we spent an interesting day at Pas de la Mala Dona, a rather unconventional crag, in that the 'ground' is actually the top of a large concrete 'tunnel' built to protect the train track below! To make it even more bizarre, it is a sea cliff, and so this 'ground' area extends 5m from the base of the cliff, before dropping abruptly into the sea! The climbing is actually very good, mostly in the 6s, apart from the 'sector cueva' which has a handful of 7s and 8s.
I'm getting into the whole taking-a-video-on-the-mobile-thing now, so here's one I took of the place. If you look carefully, you might just see a certain Ian Lau allowing himself to be on camera. Shock!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Cavall Bernat Montserrat

Last weekend Jo Bertalot came to visit and we went out on Saturday to climb one of Catalunya’s famous peaks, the Cavall Bernat of Montserrat. It’s the obvious, err, finger, in the photo above. There are several routes to its summit, including an amenable 3 pitch grade 5 on the south face, but we plumped for the longest of the lot: a 300m, 8 pitch expedition up the north face. It is basically shaped like a giant scoop, with the first pitches being little more than scrambling, but then they get gradually steeper and harder as you reach the top! It was a great day out, though we did get royally whipped on the penultimate pitch, which was very stiff indeed for 6c+. Post-route discussion with Ferran suggests that there are some hidden holds further to the left – now he tells us!!
Here’s a video of your two heroes on top of the world, and with a funny steel statue to prove it:
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Guest post: Dr Jonny K

Well this is Dr Jonny signing off, toodle pip and tinkety tonk! XXX

Thursday, March 20, 2008
I love Barcelona so much, I've been Barcelonafied!

More specifically, I have an eye to write less about the city itself, and more about what's to do outside it. It should be good as Adam and Raoul's posts will probably focus more on the city and Catalan culture, so if you're interested then add it too your bookmarks or RSS feeds.
As you might have seen by now, my first post was about skiing, but these last two weeks have really reminded me how much of a cool place Barcelona is if you like outdoor sports. Apart from our skiing trip, I am back out on the rock again and climbing every Friday evening after work with Ferran. Here are a couple of pics from Gelida (a sports crag near me) and Montserrat:
I've also been out on Junior again recently. In my lunch break I can get up to the top to Tibidabo (the main hill overlooking the city), down the other side, back up again and all the way back down into the city and back to work. It's a good work out, and I've discovered a couple of excellent new trails. Unfortunately they're on the 'other side' of the mountain i.e. the side that faces away from the city, and the side that doesn't have funicular running up it! So it's saddle up and pedalling time. Ah well, good for my fitness. In a couple of weeks time Jonny K and Graham are coming out here to do some riding, and I'll need to keep up with them!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Spring sunset
I don' t usually 'do' neither photos of sunsets, nor stitched panaromas, but the view from our balcony tonight was one to break the rules...

a bigger version is here.

a bigger version is here.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Politics times two, this time local:
Despite saying I don't usually like talking politics on the blog, I thought I'd give you an update on the general election which occurred yesterday. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Worker Party) was re-elected yesterday with an increased majority over Mariano Rajoy's PP (Partido Popular - People's Party, conservative), but not enough to form a majority government. He will probably form an informal coalition government with Catalan nationalist party Convergencia i Unío. The latter were the only minority party to come out unscathed, all the rest lost seats to the two main parties.
The election campaign was one of the most bitter and divisive in recent history, with Rajoy having consistently claimed Zapatero's last election victory in 2004 to be 'invalid' (the PSOE won a surprise victory, due to public backlash against the PP trying to pin the blame for the 2004 Madrid bombings on Basque separatists, when it was actually the work of Muslim extremists). The two television debates pitting the two main candidates against each other were seethingly tense affairs, with the more relaxed Zapatero winning one but the other resulting in a score-draw as Rajoy challenged hard on the economy and immigration. Tensions were further increased after the Basque terrorist organisation, ETA, murdered an ex-councillor of the PSOE just days before the election.
Yet Zapatero has prevailed with a fairly convincing victory. Undoubtedly the result is a good one for Catalunya, Zapatero is quite Catalan-friendly and the main Catalan nationalist party (which actually leans more to the right) will probably be part of his conglomerate government. It's also a good result for Spain as a whole, Rajoy is quite hard-line and several of his policies struck me as very regressive and poorly thought through, especially those on immigration (which would affect me, of course!), the devolution of power and his approach on how to deal with the problem of ETA.
Another very good bit of news was the turn-out statistic, a more-than-respectable 75%, equalling that of four years ago. Britain can only dream of such a high election turn-out, though I wonder whether it has anything to do with the fact that full democratic elections are still relatively new in Spain - only 30 years ago Franco was still ruling the country with an iron fist and a policy to shoot anybody who disagreed with him (not an exaggeration, unfortunately).
The only real shame of the result was that it has confirmed the bipartite nature of Spanish politics, though there are advantages and disadvantages to that. The big challenge now will be to see if Zapatero can steer Spain through the economic difficulty that lies ahead - despite low unemployment Spain is at the end of a boom, and without careful management and fair bit of luck the economy risks being bought back down to earth with a bump. Interesting times ahead...
The election campaign was one of the most bitter and divisive in recent history, with Rajoy having consistently claimed Zapatero's last election victory in 2004 to be 'invalid' (the PSOE won a surprise victory, due to public backlash against the PP trying to pin the blame for the 2004 Madrid bombings on Basque separatists, when it was actually the work of Muslim extremists). The two television debates pitting the two main candidates against each other were seethingly tense affairs, with the more relaxed Zapatero winning one but the other resulting in a score-draw as Rajoy challenged hard on the economy and immigration. Tensions were further increased after the Basque terrorist organisation, ETA, murdered an ex-councillor of the PSOE just days before the election.
Yet Zapatero has prevailed with a fairly convincing victory. Undoubtedly the result is a good one for Catalunya, Zapatero is quite Catalan-friendly and the main Catalan nationalist party (which actually leans more to the right) will probably be part of his conglomerate government. It's also a good result for Spain as a whole, Rajoy is quite hard-line and several of his policies struck me as very regressive and poorly thought through, especially those on immigration (which would affect me, of course!), the devolution of power and his approach on how to deal with the problem of ETA.
Another very good bit of news was the turn-out statistic, a more-than-respectable 75%, equalling that of four years ago. Britain can only dream of such a high election turn-out, though I wonder whether it has anything to do with the fact that full democratic elections are still relatively new in Spain - only 30 years ago Franco was still ruling the country with an iron fist and a policy to shoot anybody who disagreed with him (not an exaggeration, unfortunately).
The only real shame of the result was that it has confirmed the bipartite nature of Spanish politics, though there are advantages and disadvantages to that. The big challenge now will be to see if Zapatero can steer Spain through the economic difficulty that lies ahead - despite low unemployment Spain is at the end of a boom, and without careful management and fair bit of luck the economy risks being bought back down to earth with a bump. Interesting times ahead...
Friday, March 07, 2008
Boris' buses
I rarely talk about politics on this blog, but Boris Johnson's claims of political bias in Transport for London has got me interested. It's quite an easy one to imagine, that a strongly unionised employer would support the left wing candidate for the election of over the right-wing candidate.
The row is over Boris's plans to bring back conductors and routemaster buses back to London's streets, replacing the bendy buses. It's a romantic idea, and quite a popular one I should imagine, becuase nobody really likes those bendy buses.
Boris is claiming that it would only cost 8 million pounds to hire the extra conductors, based on the fact that there are 337 bendy buses, thus 337 * 24,500 (salary of a conductor) = just over 8 million. Fine.
TFL has released it's figures about this. There are actually 390 bendy buses, and 350 on the road at any one time. Each bus works a twenty hour day, and is staffed by a rotation of three drivers. So actually you'd have to hire 350 * 3 = 1050 extra conductors.
But hang on, the capacity of bendy bus is 150 people. The capacity of a routemaster is 69 i.e. half. So you would actually have to have twice as many buses to maintain capacity, thus hire twice as many conductors. 2 * 1050 = 2100.
But hang on a little longer, becuase if you're doubling the buses, you'd need to double the drivers as well. So that's an extra 1050 drivers, each earning 35,000 a year.
So the total increased staffing cost for replacing the bendy buses with routemasters is:
2100 * 24,000 + 1050 * 35,000 = 87,150,000
More than ten times Boris' headline figure, and that's excluding the cost of hiring and training the extra staff, and replacing the actual buses themselves!!
I don't like Red Ken that much, there is undoubtedly some truth in the cronyism stories and so on. And it's very easy to like Boris, he's such an affable chap. The fact that TFL's figure disagree with his has got him crying of bias. But figures are figures, and Boris' just don't add up. If he can't do the simple maths for buses, he's in no way capable of running one of the world's greatest cities.
The row is over Boris's plans to bring back conductors and routemaster buses back to London's streets, replacing the bendy buses. It's a romantic idea, and quite a popular one I should imagine, becuase nobody really likes those bendy buses.
Boris is claiming that it would only cost 8 million pounds to hire the extra conductors, based on the fact that there are 337 bendy buses, thus 337 * 24,500 (salary of a conductor) = just over 8 million. Fine.
TFL has released it's figures about this. There are actually 390 bendy buses, and 350 on the road at any one time. Each bus works a twenty hour day, and is staffed by a rotation of three drivers. So actually you'd have to hire 350 * 3 = 1050 extra conductors.
But hang on, the capacity of bendy bus is 150 people. The capacity of a routemaster is 69 i.e. half. So you would actually have to have twice as many buses to maintain capacity, thus hire twice as many conductors. 2 * 1050 = 2100.
But hang on a little longer, becuase if you're doubling the buses, you'd need to double the drivers as well. So that's an extra 1050 drivers, each earning 35,000 a year.
So the total increased staffing cost for replacing the bendy buses with routemasters is:
2100 * 24,000 + 1050 * 35,000 = 87,150,000
More than ten times Boris' headline figure, and that's excluding the cost of hiring and training the extra staff, and replacing the actual buses themselves!!
I don't like Red Ken that much, there is undoubtedly some truth in the cronyism stories and so on. And it's very easy to like Boris, he's such an affable chap. The fact that TFL's figure disagree with his has got him crying of bias. But figures are figures, and Boris' just don't add up. If he can't do the simple maths for buses, he's in no way capable of running one of the world's greatest cities.
Monday, March 03, 2008
February update
Busy busy busy. That's what we are at the moment. Djanira is starting her new job today, as general manager of the Barcelona branch of GoCar, a tourism company just starting in Europe. Very exciting. My work is sort-of-busy, in that I am working on a European proposal and coordinating the work of several different universities and companies across Europe, which is time consuming without being busy, per se. I've also been back in blighty recently for Duples' stag do, and then of course there is our wedding to organise too!
Fortunately spring arrived right on time this weekend (a ga i ddymuno Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus i bawb!) in Barcelona with beautiful blue skies and 20 degree temperatures. On saturday DJ and I went for a walk around Collserola, which is the national park just outside Barcelona, quite literally on the other side of Tibidabo (the hill that forms the backbone of the city). It is very strange to think that, as you stroll through peaceful forest, one of the largest cities in Europe is just over the hill, beyong Tibidado cathedral.

The fine weather continued for Sunday and so we headed out climbing. We'd been planning to go to la font de l'ametllò for some time, as it has a nice broad spread of grades. Unfortunately the rest of Catalunya seems to know this, and as we turned up at midday on Sunday it was as if we had arrived at Stanage on a nice spring day (only plus the bolts and the sunburn!). Towards the end of the day the crowd thinned out though, and we still had a very pleasant afternoon.

Earlier this month I was back in the homeland for Duples' stag do, which involved an 'adventure' thingy on some converted farm in north Wales. We had an afternoon go-carting and quad biking before going and watching Wales put one over Italy in the rugby, then onwards for a curry and a lot of beer. Shurely days don't get much better?!

and last but not least I should report briefly on wedding plans, we have chosen our venue now, a beautiful old Masía (sort of country house thingie) about 20 mins drive from Barcelona. Here's a shot of the dining room for now, I'll see if I can find where DJ stored all the others she took of the outside:

Okay that's it for now, you never know I might even post again before the end of March...
Fortunately spring arrived right on time this weekend (a ga i ddymuno Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus i bawb!) in Barcelona with beautiful blue skies and 20 degree temperatures. On saturday DJ and I went for a walk around Collserola, which is the national park just outside Barcelona, quite literally on the other side of Tibidabo (the hill that forms the backbone of the city). It is very strange to think that, as you stroll through peaceful forest, one of the largest cities in Europe is just over the hill, beyong Tibidado cathedral.
The fine weather continued for Sunday and so we headed out climbing. We'd been planning to go to la font de l'ametllò for some time, as it has a nice broad spread of grades. Unfortunately the rest of Catalunya seems to know this, and as we turned up at midday on Sunday it was as if we had arrived at Stanage on a nice spring day (only plus the bolts and the sunburn!). Towards the end of the day the crowd thinned out though, and we still had a very pleasant afternoon.
Earlier this month I was back in the homeland for Duples' stag do, which involved an 'adventure' thingy on some converted farm in north Wales. We had an afternoon go-carting and quad biking before going and watching Wales put one over Italy in the rugby, then onwards for a curry and a lot of beer. Shurely days don't get much better?!

and last but not least I should report briefly on wedding plans, we have chosen our venue now, a beautiful old Masía (sort of country house thingie) about 20 mins drive from Barcelona. Here's a shot of the dining room for now, I'll see if I can find where DJ stored all the others she took of the outside:
Okay that's it for now, you never know I might even post again before the end of March...
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Some January photos
Happy new year and all that. Here are some pics from January's activities.
Erik the Canadian visited Barcelona at the end of this two month Spanish climbing tour. We took him to Montserrat, an experience very different from the rest of Spanish limestone!


Yes , it really is this lovely in Catalunya in January. The next weekend Duples and Laura came out for a visit:

which was lovely, and I am seeing him again next month for his stag do, and again the month after for his wedding!
Every couple of weeks the crew out here (the male members of which, at least) get together with an Xbox or two and some wall projectors for some multiplayer computer game madness. Good fun indeed:

And most recently my old mate Richie Astbury was out here last weekend and we headed up to the pyrannees for some snowboarding action...

...and I invented a new move...the ass-grind:
And last but not least, I got engaged :D
Erik the Canadian visited Barcelona at the end of this two month Spanish climbing tour. We took him to Montserrat, an experience very different from the rest of Spanish limestone!

Yes , it really is this lovely in Catalunya in January. The next weekend Duples and Laura came out for a visit:
which was lovely, and I am seeing him again next month for his stag do, and again the month after for his wedding!
Every couple of weeks the crew out here (the male members of which, at least) get together with an Xbox or two and some wall projectors for some multiplayer computer game madness. Good fun indeed:

And most recently my old mate Richie Astbury was out here last weekend and we headed up to the pyrannees for some snowboarding action...
...and I invented a new move...the ass-grind:
And last but not least, I got engaged :D
Friday, December 21, 2007
Some early results
As you will recall, I am now working for Fundació Barcelona Media, and the main focus of my work at the moment is on a pan-european project called SALERO, which "aims at making cross media-production for games, movies and broadcast faster, better and cheaper by combining computer graphics, language technology, semantic web technologies as well as content based search and retrieval".
Specifically I am working on facial animation, and recently I was invited to upload a short video to the project's youtube channel. The official blurb to go with the video goes a bit like:
Specifically I am working on facial animation, and recently I was invited to upload a short video to the project's youtube channel. The official blurb to go with the video goes a bit like:
The purpose of this video is to demonstrate the concept of being able to transfer pre-exising facial animation from a low-resolution mask to any high resolution face. The 'Maskle' is placed over the face, allowing the bone structure to be automatically created, and the animation skin weights to be transferred. Current work is focussing on movement of the maskle to enable its automatic fitting to a variety of face shapes.and the video itself looks like:
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