Posted November 21st, 2008
by Barry
Woot!
Applications for the Dumball 09 - Highway to Hel(sinki) are now closed, and I’m pleased to announce that I received a congratulatory email from the organisers saying that our team is in this year!
Proto and I will definately be going along together, along with a mystery third member (only a mystery because we haven’t finalised who it will be yet :P)
I’ve already decided what our theme will be this year, so if anyone knows of a *cheap* Mazda 323 5-door going, feel free to email me.
I’ll be putting up the obligatory Justgiving link soon, so get ready to stick your hand in your pocket and donate to a good cause! This year the Dumball are supporting the Teenage Cancer Trust.
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted September 22nd, 2008
by Barry
So, I just finished helping my sister redesign her company website. Anyone who knows me knows that I hate doing websites so I decided to switch her to a CMS. For no particular reason I chose to use www.cmsmadesimple.org and it’s great
Still got to flesh it out a bit, but it’s up in nearly-finished mode at http://www.nifty-group.co.uk
DNS will update properly eventually - for the moment it’s doing a nasty redirect to my personal website.
Still waiting to hear whether our team is in the Dumball this year, although I’m quietly confident. Should hear over the next few days, fingers crossed.
I’m looking at suitable geekery to take with me on the Dumball in ‘09. I’m planning some major upgrades to the tracking software I used last time. Chris Moos, the guy who wrote it originally has open sourced the server and client, so that will make it much easier for me to add the modifications that I’d like to do. The Open LBS Server can be seen at http://openlbs.tech9computers.com.
Posted in Personal
Posted August 29th, 2008
by Barry
So, it’s Dumball application time again. The doors have opened and applications are being submitted. We put ours in a week or so ago detailing our plan, our car and our fancy dress.
It’s all hush-hush at the moment, but Nathan from NG Autos in Yeovil may have already found us the perfect car. More will be revealed soon!
So, I’ve rallied up Proto and told him he’s going next year (Proto is a bit snowed under with finishing his PhD thesis and finding a job at the moment, so I decided to take the option of refusing away from him and make the decision for him). I’m trying to decide on our third member - if I can get Owen to actually commit to a week away then that would be awesome. Maybe Ric will be available - who can tell? 
Anyway, fingers crossed that we’ll be Dumballers in ‘09.
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted June 9th, 2008
by Barry
Well, the tracker was fairly successful in my opinion.
We had problems with GPRS signal in Bosnia, Albania and Macedonia. Unfortunately this meant that the updaes weren’t sent to the server and thus we lost all tracking ability while in those countries. I’ll probably figure out a way to cache GPS locations in the future so that they can be transmitted when a GPRS signal becomes available.
For those of you who are interested, you can download the Google Earth .KML file here.
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted June 6th, 2008
by Proto
We have arrived back in the UK, slept are are awaiting breakfast which is being given its second coat of oil now. Its been a long journey filled with stories that i expect to come back to me in flashbacks. The prospect of driving all the way from Yeovil to Manchester today seems much less daunting in the light of 2500 miles of what europe describes as “roads”. One small danger with today is that Ric will be navigating so it could be another 13h drive.
Posted in Dumball
Posted May 28th, 2008
by Barry
So, it’s been a couple of days since my last update. Bosnia had no GPRS signal or internet access, so we were a bit stumped.
Sarajevo is an awesome city with high-rises peppered with bullet holes, and brand new building mingled together. We had a great time in “The Club” getting rat arsed.
The drive to Dubrovnik was only 160 miles but it took us most of yesterday. We stopped off for a swim or two, and when we got to the hotel, the whole of White Squadron went out for dinner together.
Today, our plan is to hit Albania, get through the border (fingers crossed!) and end up in Shkoder. No idea what the likelihood of problems is, but no doubt we’ll find out.
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted May 25th, 2008
by Barry
Well bloody hell, it’s been a long day.
We started this morning in France. Since then we’ve been in Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Austria, Italy, back into Austria and now into Slovenia. We’re 120 miles from Zagreb in Croatia. Once we get there, we’ll have visited 7 countries in one day and travelled over 600 miles.
We had some drama earlier when Easy Funerals managed to dump their gearbox oil in the middle of the car park. At the moment they’re doing ok but their car may seize up at any second.
The scenery today has been breathtaking. This day really has summed up the trip and it’s only the second official day! We’re chasing the tail of Dumball One who are about 20 minutes ahead of us.
Luckilly tomorrow will be a much shorter drive, but we’ve certainly broken the back of it.
I mentioned earlier about the police in Zurich. They made us remove the fins from our car. However, they have been stowed and are awaiting re-fitting when we hit Zagreb.
Current eta there is between 9 and 10
Love to everyone reading. You do all realise I’ll be doing this next year, right?
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted May 25th, 2008
by Barry
So, we were pulled by the police in switzerland because of the fins.
Seems they wanted them for their car!
Photos later when we’re near wifi but they gave us an escort back onto the motorway.
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted May 24th, 2008
by Barry
Today was a day of improvising wildly. We found out at the start that Germany would refuse us entry at the border. Some quick planning later we figured we could skirt Germany and go via France, Switzerland and Lichtenstein.
Ric, the Dumball organiser has spent all day on the phone sorting out accommodation for 100 people for this evening. Some miracle meant that he managed to get us all into a couple of hotels in Mulhouse on the French/Swiss border.
Unfortunately, we only did around 350 miles today. To get to our hotel in Zagreb tomorrow means that we have to now travel 575 miles. This means that we’ll have around 12 hours in the car tomorrow, but spirits are high and we’re determined that those Germans aren’t going to get us down.
The drive today has been awesome. Our squadron soon settled down into convoy life and many antics were performed. So, we may have gone around the ring road of some French town a couple of times, but Mat spent the whole day navigating and did a sterling job. I drove all day so I’m pretty tired. Tomorrow we’ll be splitting the driving as we’ll be ascending the alps and it will be quite tiring.
Anyway, beer calls and we need to get something to eat. Shout out to everyone reading - wish you could all be here. I’ll make sure Ric uploads some of the vids we’ve recorded today!!
B.
Posted in Dumball
Posted May 23rd, 2008
by Barry
We made it to Brussels!!
We’ve booked into the hotel and we’ve been invited into the centre of Brussels to a jazz festival so we’re gonna grab some food and see what happens.
We had a great time with the Coffin Dodgers and Dumball One. We managed an arrowhead on the motorway and some other choice driving manoevers, much to the chagrin of the locals. Some of it was caught on video so hopefully 3ic will be able to stitch some together so you can see what’s been happening.
Anyhow, off to freshen up - I’ll try to update you all later!
B.
Posted in Dumball