Last week I unexpectedly received, from VMware, an invitation to sit the beta VCAP4 Datacentre Design exam. It comes at a discount rate, but with an obligation to provide feedback on the exam itself.
From the wording of the email it seems anyone with a VCP4 is eligible to sit the beta exam, so I'm not sure if I won a lottery for this or if everyone's had an invitation.
Whatever the cause, I've booked myself in for the 11th of November, and will be spending most nights between now and then with a copy of the exam blueprint and a stern resolve.
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Friday 22 October 2010
New Stuff
I've made a few acquisitions in the last month.
Tomorrow morning I'm off to the post office to pick up a pack of assorted Fuizion freeze dried food sachets, which everyone seems to have been raving about.
I've ordered a Glo-Toob FX for small, lightweight in-tent lighting. I've heard good things about them and as it's always a pain to create ambient light with a head torch, which are usually very directional by design, I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs. Whether it's bright enough to read by remains to be seen, but I live in hope.
On a similar note, I've added a Petzl Tikka2 XP to my collection as well. I actually quite like my dirt cheap Energizer LED torch that I got for £5 at a Millets in Oban and have never seen sold anywhere since. But I've started cycling in to work now and the throw wouldn't be long enough to see where I was going on a dark winter's evening. I'm delighted with the effectiveness of the Petzl's diffuser, but slightly irritated by the noticeable flickering of the LEDs in economy mode.
I wish I could afford a decent insulated jacket so I can get out in the dead of winter. I'm looking at you, PHD Minimus jacket. And by decent I of course mean top of the line. Ahem.
Tomorrow morning I'm off to the post office to pick up a pack of assorted Fuizion freeze dried food sachets, which everyone seems to have been raving about.
I've ordered a Glo-Toob FX for small, lightweight in-tent lighting. I've heard good things about them and as it's always a pain to create ambient light with a head torch, which are usually very directional by design, I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs. Whether it's bright enough to read by remains to be seen, but I live in hope.
On a similar note, I've added a Petzl Tikka2 XP to my collection as well. I actually quite like my dirt cheap Energizer LED torch that I got for £5 at a Millets in Oban and have never seen sold anywhere since. But I've started cycling in to work now and the throw wouldn't be long enough to see where I was going on a dark winter's evening. I'm delighted with the effectiveness of the Petzl's diffuser, but slightly irritated by the noticeable flickering of the LEDs in economy mode.
I wish I could afford a decent insulated jacket so I can get out in the dead of winter. I'm looking at you, PHD Minimus jacket. And by decent I of course mean top of the line. Ahem.
Friday 1 October 2010
TarpTent Scarp 1: First impressions
I got my Scarp 1 yesterday, merely a week after ordering it from the US. I emailed Henry the day after I ordered it politely inquiring if I'd be lucky enough to receive a tent out of the fresh batch of Scarps that had just arrived. Henry replied the same day - he'd already shipped it!
I spent the best part of the week refreshing the USPS parcel tracking page.
Anyway, on to the unboxing. My first impressions of the tent in the bag but out of the box was that it seemed heavier, and larger than I was hoping for. It turns out this was an illusion. In a straight hand-holding test it's practically the same weight as my Eureka Spitfire 1 tent, maybe lighter. I havent put it on the scales.
The reason the size threw me is that for the last few months I've been stuffing my Spitfire into a compression sack and compressing the hell out of it until it's the size of a large grapefruit, and packing the poles and pegs separately. So last night, for comparisson's sake I repacked my Spitfire in its original bag to find it's about 20% fatter than the Scarp 1, if the same length. That's nice.
I won't be able to pack the Scarp 1 down the way I did the Spitfire because of the carbon rods at the ends that give the tent its corner structure, much like you can see in the Akto and Laser tents. You can take the rods out of course (to replace them if they break I guess) but there are 10 of them and that's a massive faff. It just means I need to think differently the next time I pack.
I had just enough space in my bedroom to set the tent up in its free-standing mode! Setup in this fashion is a breeze, and very intuitive. I'm sure the more common staking mode is just as easy. Henry provides a simple set of printed instructions and once you unfurl the tent it's easy to see how the corner and end support structures work.
This is a well thought-out tent. There are lots of venting options; one at each end, and the top vents, and the side of the fly slides up the main arch pole as well, and while I was initially put out by the lack of a double-zip on the fly doors I think it's compensated for by the presence of the clip and velcro patch at the base of the door so you can have the door unzipped the whole way but kept mostly closed by these fixing points.
The inner is suspended from the fly at a number of hanging points, but the base of the inner is floating in that it has no ground attachments of its own. It's a bit tricky (almost impossible?) to get to the end vents from inside the tent without detatching the inner first, but that's not hard.
The vestibules are quite narrow, but there are two of them, so I'm thinking that one of them can basically stay empty for cooking and whatnot, with kit stashed in the other. Also, the floating inner means it can be pegged back easily to make more room as others have already done.
I'd read about the huge amount of space inside before buying so I was expecting big things. But it's not that big. It's bigger than the Spitfire of course, and with the straight walls, more of it is usable. I guess that never having owned a Laser Comp I don't have the same perspective. Don't get me wrong, there's room, but once you start bringing clothes and gear inside your sleeping mat is going to start getting cozy with it all. But with all that vertical space it won't feel crowded.
All I need now is some silicone and a spare couple of hours to seal the seams and I can get out and use it.
So far I'm still excited about the tent, and I'm looking forward to finishing it up and getting outside with it for the first time.
I spent the best part of the week refreshing the USPS parcel tracking page.
Anyway, on to the unboxing. My first impressions of the tent in the bag but out of the box was that it seemed heavier, and larger than I was hoping for. It turns out this was an illusion. In a straight hand-holding test it's practically the same weight as my Eureka Spitfire 1 tent, maybe lighter. I havent put it on the scales.
The reason the size threw me is that for the last few months I've been stuffing my Spitfire into a compression sack and compressing the hell out of it until it's the size of a large grapefruit, and packing the poles and pegs separately. So last night, for comparisson's sake I repacked my Spitfire in its original bag to find it's about 20% fatter than the Scarp 1, if the same length. That's nice.
I won't be able to pack the Scarp 1 down the way I did the Spitfire because of the carbon rods at the ends that give the tent its corner structure, much like you can see in the Akto and Laser tents. You can take the rods out of course (to replace them if they break I guess) but there are 10 of them and that's a massive faff. It just means I need to think differently the next time I pack.
I had just enough space in my bedroom to set the tent up in its free-standing mode! Setup in this fashion is a breeze, and very intuitive. I'm sure the more common staking mode is just as easy. Henry provides a simple set of printed instructions and once you unfurl the tent it's easy to see how the corner and end support structures work.
This is a well thought-out tent. There are lots of venting options; one at each end, and the top vents, and the side of the fly slides up the main arch pole as well, and while I was initially put out by the lack of a double-zip on the fly doors I think it's compensated for by the presence of the clip and velcro patch at the base of the door so you can have the door unzipped the whole way but kept mostly closed by these fixing points.
The inner is suspended from the fly at a number of hanging points, but the base of the inner is floating in that it has no ground attachments of its own. It's a bit tricky (almost impossible?) to get to the end vents from inside the tent without detatching the inner first, but that's not hard.
The vestibules are quite narrow, but there are two of them, so I'm thinking that one of them can basically stay empty for cooking and whatnot, with kit stashed in the other. Also, the floating inner means it can be pegged back easily to make more room as others have already done.
I'd read about the huge amount of space inside before buying so I was expecting big things. But it's not that big. It's bigger than the Spitfire of course, and with the straight walls, more of it is usable. I guess that never having owned a Laser Comp I don't have the same perspective. Don't get me wrong, there's room, but once you start bringing clothes and gear inside your sleeping mat is going to start getting cozy with it all. But with all that vertical space it won't feel crowded.
All I need now is some silicone and a spare couple of hours to seal the seams and I can get out and use it.
So far I'm still excited about the tent, and I'm looking forward to finishing it up and getting outside with it for the first time.
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