Warriorbern on the Move

I am currently cooling my heels at home, battling to deal with being couped up in my office. Next trip should be around 1 November to Mauritius for some training on the software programme used on board the research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen. I'm looking forward to this trip since I have never been to Mauritius and it should be interesting. Just hope that we get some time off to explore. Watch this space!

Yesterday and today have been really tough emotionally but I am here in Cape Town at someone else's expense and the show must go on. Yesterday we worked through all the FINSS modules to get a feel for how they work and whether we would be able to cope with the program on our own. The front end has really been set up as simply as possible so data capture of all the facets of fisheries is straight forward. The trick comes in when you want to get the data out. The programmer, Marco Garcia (who was in attendance) reckons that anyone can figure out SQL so most queries need to be written from scratch. At least these queries can be setup at installation though and never thought about again, unless of course you want something else out. The photo is of Shaheen Moolla explaining the finer details of the database. Today we were given presentations by the participants from Mozambique and Seychelles where the software has already been installed and is in use. They seem quite happy with it. It ...

Tonight this little bit of space is dedicated to the memory of a long-time friend who senselessly lost his life in a motor car accident last night. Thanks for all the good times Jason. Go well.

My head feels like it has been steam-rolled! The program has so many aspects and trying to remember how everything works is tricky. We started with a general introduction to FINSS had a tea break and then got down to installing the software on each of our laptops. This took TWO hours! Obviously installation proceeded at the pace of the slowest user and in some cases this was really, really slow. So we would be told one aspect and then had to wait for everyone to get to that point - very frustrating. Thankfully though everyone had a working copy and we went for lunch. The afternoon sessions were very technical introductions to some of the modules and included numerous references to programming language which were so far over my head. I think though that once we start getting our hands on the modules and using them, things will fall into place but for now I can't grasp exactly how useful the programme will be. On a different note, I am so glad that I didn't have to fly through Jo...

I know that I should have written this last night but I was so tired that I just collapsed into bed and went to sleep. For the next week I am in Cape Town courtesy of the African Union. They invited a group of us to attend a training session on some software called Fisheries Information and Statistical Systems or FINSS for short. There has been quite a bit of discussion around this program so it will be interesting to actually see it in operation. I arrived in Cape Town yesterday afternoon on a fairly uneventful flight. I had been concerned about flying as the weather conditions in Durban yesterday morning were not great – a gusting strong wind and pouring rain. Fortunately by the time my flight left though, the weather had settled and all was good. In Cape Town the wind was blowing at a hefty 20 knots but then that is Cape Town. Transfers had been arranged from the airport to the hotel but there was no one to meet me. I phoned the hotel to find out what was going on and was told that ...

It was time to start my journey home - a two day affair. This morning I was taken to the airport at 9am for an 11h5o flight. I'm not sure why the airport transfers are done so early but it is most likely as a safe guard against the traffic. This morning though the traffic was not bad and I was at Moi International by 9h30. After getting through security, which is always tight at that airport, I went to check in and asked to be given a window seat. The attendant decided that I should take the next flight out at 10h15 and gave me my boarding pass. Now everyone who knows me also knows that I pretty much do anything to get a window seat but my boarding pass said I was in seat D. In the small Embraer aircraft (that usually fly this route) this would mean being next to the person sitting at the window and that would be fine. It turned out though that the aircraft was a Boeing 767-300 and seat D is right in the middle of the plane with three seats and an isle on either side. It was also f...

Last night I made my excuses and gave dinner a skip. I was exhausted and the thought of making polite conversation just did not appeal. This morning when I found out who all had gone I was really happy that I did not. There has been some conflict between some of the SA participants because of payment (or rather non-payment) of monies and to have to sit through a whole evening of the tension would have really irritated me. So I made my excuses and went to sleep early. This morning I received the news that the project (whose meeting I am at) decided that the project that I coordinate is so important to the region that they increased the funding that they will be giving us. Of course it comes with additional work but this is work that was always on the cards but that we were unable to undertake due to financial constraints. So look out Mauritius, Madagascar and Comoros - I am on my way to visit! To get to today, it has been endless! We started off by reading through the meeting report par...