left over original steam engine that luckily didn't get scrapped like most others
left over original steam engine that luckily didn't get scrapped like most others
our fearless team was honest about how they do the work every year :)
Bunnie Huang was one of the attendees
FPGAs are definitely 'interesting', you can use some of the gates to emulate a CPU, and others to run bare metal code
too many people going to the beach that day and clogging up everything while interrupting our class
we started by looking at surf boards to get a feel for what exists
too many times, I ended up like this :)
Sydney grammar school, that's a fancy building to learn grammar :)
circular quay can host huge cruise ships
it was quite interested with my ear and nibbled it gently :)
and some new customers I hadn't seen before
Korea is the top country for video gaming tournaments
weird thing I learned about, they have robot virtual supporters in baseball games
pretty but this got our bus very late
in turn, our bus had a hard time driving down with stuck trucks on the way blocking the road
finally made it to Lausanne, not the best lake view ever :)
I got lucky during my quick walk
nice view from the clock tower
France did break and still holds the world speed record for wheeled trains
lots of ice blocks and seracs that could detach and fall on us, our uide had to keep track of them
pretty, but more stuff that could fall on us :)
sadly a bigger group had one person who strayed a bit, feel into a crevice and had to be pulled out and rescued
some people walked up the glacier in snow shoes
eventually we got to the end of a small ski resort, back to the road
by then, it started getting tracked
Grand Enver was more pristine though since it's harder for skiiers
a piece of that fell earlier that day, and gave us an ice field to cross (kind of hard)
we finally got to the bottom, another track from the one earlier that day
then time to climb up the stairs back to the train
yeah, nice to have a sea of green lights for open lifts, all the way to the top
last cable car to the very top
I sent Arturo first to see how far down he'd slide uncontrollably, but the snow was great, so he didn't :)
we rode the cable car to Mt Fort a few times too
the road down went by swiss chalets
riding down to the road where a bus would pick us up
barely made it to the hourly bus with 30 seconds to spare
we got dropped off another entrance to the resort
found more powder to be had :)
getting back to Verbier was more time consuming, long-ish lines
I then took an interesting off resort road carved in the mountain, col des mines
back on the traverse path, waiting for snowboarders without poles :)
it was fun to ride across the switchbacks between Swiss Chalets, James Bond style
and back to the road, waiting for the bus
one of the bases has view of the local small airport
I then took Arturo to the other side country exit to another base of the resort
our side of the resort was the only bit that had lifts open higher up despite the wind
nice weather when we arrived, although it was quite windy
but half of Tignes had pretty icy snow that was no fun to run.
you can see the fierce wind blowing off that mountain peak
direct to the top, no problems
still lots of wind, but the resort didn't shut off for it
the road was not cleared or ready for cars or busses yet, it was a mess
the lift we were hoping for, that we waited hours for...
quite late, they started moving snow around to clear the roads
they were actually trucking the snow away
by 14:00-ish, after refusing to sell us tickets when there was no line, a single person spent 1h+ dealing inefficiently with a long line
as we were leaving by 15:00 in the first (and maybe only) bus of the day that was going to take us home, we saw a lower lift that had just opened, Sigh...
what a shame given that quite a bit of snow did fall, even at town level (although it was wet with rain on top)
ultimately it's an old badly designed mountain setup that doesn't account for bad weather, and segments itself as soon as wind arrives
a little bit of very wet powder
one of the few bottom lifts (below freezing level)
more wet powder, not great but better than nothing
cable car to La Plagne, the other side of the resort we never reached due to winds
early morning, things were looking open, but it didn't last
we made a beeline for the cable car to the other valley
we made it across to where it was nicely raining, and came back to our side so as not to get stuck
back to Arc 1600, the boring part of the resort, but what was open
Arturo seems always happy, no matter what :)
I got more on the pissed off side, called it a day and went back home
what a shame everything was closed, the views were otherwise nice
The TGV trip was nice, too bad that train couldn't take me all the way to the destination
and the snow version of it after bridging disabled tracks by road