Aaagghhh! Why?

Same as the other times I missed it...work... I'm at work from July 4 to August 10th. I'm starting to get used to missing stuff I'd like to go to. Been invited to three weddings, missed all three, including my sister's wedding...

Stig

Geez... what do you do that's so important that they won't even let you go to your sister's wedding?

IMHO, that's not something I ask to take off -- it's something I tell them I'm taking off. If you let them walk all over you, then they will.

I work on a seismic vessel on a five week rotation. It's a bit difficult to take the weekend off... I can ask for one trip off every year, but that would mean one trip that I don't get paid for, so it would have been a very expensive wedding... One trip's salary is about 15k USD atm (Edit:before tax), so a very expensive wedding (or Empeg meet)...

Stig

Do you mean you missed your sister's wedding for mere money? Heathen!

You should have billed her

pca

No problem here!

This is looking promising, Rob - I am much more likely to get out of the house for a few days with a month old baby than with a week old

A date would be great as soon as possible. Air France is posting some awesome fares. I got a round trip quote of $360 for the last week of July.

A cursory glance at Air France quoted me $1000 round trip with stopovers going out and coming back. There must be a trick to getting low fares by choosing optimal depart and return days and times. ie: Is it cheaper to leave weekdays instead of weekends, cheaper to leave late night instead of morning? Finding optimal rates for very flexible depart/return dates by trial an error is tough.

Any idea what's happening on this? A weekend needs to be picked soon - the last weekend in July seems as good as any if we're picking arbitrary weekends!

Venue: Sigmatel towers has a large amount of car parking, 20-or-so places of which are ours. Should be no problem for more cars there too at the weekend as nobody will be in any of the other offices. Should be fine for the competitions, and also the office is right there which means toilets, kitchen, etc are available too. Enough open space for Patrick to vapourise things.

Hotel: Travelodge central cambridge. Fairly soulless, but new & clean & £56/night at the moment (friday & saturday night) is pretty good going for a hotel actually in cambridge. They even deal with group bookings (...but no discount...) on their website. Less than 5 minutes walk from the venue. Parking is pay-for, I think, but you could just park at the venue.

Food: Could book out pretty much the whole of Al Casbah on mill road. Algerian cuisine, which means a huge charcoal grill and lots of meat (in the true ribs tradition). Starters, main & wine is around 20 quid per person. 15 minutes walk from the hotel, with lots of pubs on the way.

Morning after food: hotel or BLD's on mill road

Possibility of a big barbie in my garden, weather permitting...

Non-pub-related activities: punting!

Other sights: lots of Cambridge to see, all walking distance from the hotel.

Comments?

Hugo

Sounds good to me!

Will be there with the Pinkie.

I'm up for it, I'll have to take a weekend off from track laying, but my weary bones will welcome that!

I think I (we?) can make it. Sounds Good!

Where has Rob got to?

Cheers

Cris.

Got my 3 weeks of official holidays then
I'll be there, not sure if i'll come by car or motorbike (would have to install empeg on bike then)
Might even stay a week or so traveling around brittain then. (but i'm not going to help boxer)

Hugo

Would be nice if it wasn't at Sigmatel in some ways, but the car park is the biz and CBS could do installs across the street while you wait

Rob had some kind of plan, but I'm not sure if it was coming together. I had suggested Chilford Hall, which has some very large function rooms, lots of places to park cars, catering, a bar, and tolerance of noise. Downside - might be pricey, plus its in the middle of nowhere.

If we BBQ at yours, I'm doing the lighting, right?

Rob

Dern - last week in July I did have an issue - Porsche 911 race day, or my 7th wedding anniversary and looking after new baby could clash with Empeg meet.

However my firm has solved the problem by deciding to send me to Las Vegas for Blackhat/Defcon. So now I can miss out on empeg, 911 racing and annoy Claire.

But I do get to play in Vegas for a week! As long as I bring back goodies, I'm forgiven, apparently.

I think SWMBO & I can do September, but not July/August.

Cheers, all!

Sounds good.... where do I sign?

Cris, I'm sure if Nicola is willing to attend then I can probably convince Amy to tag along as well.

Sigmatel as a "base" just seems to make sense - it's free (and flexible, as many of us are still there, so we don't need to be tied down to meeting rooms/times/etc), the nearest hotel is good value (though there are plenty of others walkable if people want to get something more upmarket), and it's close to pubs & food places.

Also, I can see Chilford hall getting upset if Patrick starts blowing bits of it up

Hugo
ps Will your lighting rig even *fit* in my garden?

Picnic sounds excellent (fingers crossed for the weather)... in pub-based discussions as to how to get a large volume of beer up to Granchester in the easiest way (ie, from the back of a car), Dave English volunteered to his kayaking skills to move large volumes of alcohol on the river, probably from sheeps fen.

All we need is for Patrick to rig up some sort of pontoon

Hugo

Sounds like a great plan! I'll be there (and if work tries to stop me, all the Saturdays I've put in recently should work in my favor).

.....to which I should have added, being probably the only retired person with time on my hands in the U.K. (and with a free bus pass, not that that gets me to Cambridge), let me know if I can do anything to help with the organisation.

It does have a bar, yes, though I guess there's not a huge range of drinks. Less than 60 seconds walk away is a trendy bar with late opening & everything, but it is one of these "trendy" bars. Still, nowadays there are plenty of good pubs that also open late(r) than they did previously.

Cambridge centre is really not an easy place to find a decent budget hotel with parking! All the ones that might be more amenable are either totally out of town (post house) or far enough out to make walking ot bars a pain (the new holiday inn express).

Though it does pain me to say it, the Travelodge is a pretty good bet, and the price is actually pretty reasonable for a town hotel.

Hugo